The Bill Simmons Podcast - The 1,000th BS Episode With Joe House, Bill Hader, Bryan Curtis, and Nora Princiotti

Episode Date: June 15, 2022

It's the 1,000th episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast! The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the NBA Finals, the Celtics facing a looming elimination game in Boston, and Game 6 predictions (7:34), before discussing the U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, the controversial LIV Golf tournament, U.S. Open bets, and more (26:13). Then, Bill talks with Bryan Curtis and Nora Princiotti about the Deshaun Watson allegations, the Cleveland Browns, how the media should cover it all, and more (52:07). Then, Bill talks with Bill Hader about Season 3 of HBO's 'Barry,' Hader's inspiration from the Coen brothers, the shocking season finale [SPOILERS], loving 'Top Gun: Maverick,' and more (1:24:41). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Joe House, Bryan Curtis, Nora Princiotti, and Bill Hader Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, it's my 1,000th episode of the Bill Simmons podcast. So, of course, we got to do it the right way. We got to have a buddy of mine. We have to have a couple of ringer people. We have to have a celebrity. Well, check, check, and check. It's all next. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite.

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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

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We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where we put up a new Rewatchables on Tuesday night. We did Hard to Kill. It is a comedy starring Steven Seagal. It didn't used to be a comedy. It used to be an action movie. Kyle Brandt and I had an absolute blast breaking it down. It was one of the hardest I've ever laughed on a rewatchable.

Especially on Zoom. It's really hard to totally 100% crack the other person up on Zoom. But I think we did. That movie is so ridiculous. And Seagal was so ridiculous that we had a blast talking about it. So go check that one out. And coming up on this podcast, Joe House popping on, talking NBA finals and US Open. He is here for the US Open, which starts tomorrow in Brookline, Massachusetts in Chestnut Hill

on a street that I used to live on when I was a little kid. I'll have stories about that when I'm on fairway rolling this week. And then Brian Curtis Prenciotti, they came on to talk about the NFL, specifically the DeSean Watson situation, saga, whatever word you want to use, but it is just getting worse and worse by the week, and we're trying to figure out how the media should cover it,

how people should feel about it, how it's going to affect the season, and a whole bunch of other things related to that. Really good discussion there. And then last but not least, Bill Hader, who was on the 500th episode, and now he's on the 1,000th episode. I think every 500, I'll just have him on. But season three of Barry just finished, and he's going to tell us about that and what it's like to write a show during the pandemic. Weird culture stuff that he's following. He always has the most eclectic culture tastes of pretty much anyone I know.

So that is the lineup for today. I wanted to thank everybody for spreading the word for this podcast, for listening, for saying nice things. You know, it's doing a thousand of these. I remember the first one, we put up two on the same day, I think on October 1st.

It was right when my ESPN contract ended. And we were hoping that, you know, had four years at Grantland and really eight years at ESPN doing the BS report. Really felt like this could be the foundation of a podcast network and a digital company. And just kept grinding away. A thousand seems like a lot. It seems like when the baseball players have like the 3,000 hits or 500 home runs or whatever,

you just kind of go, wow, that's a lot. That's a lot of day after day. I think like going back to ESPN at eight years, I probably did another, I don't know, I'm going to say five or 600, maybe more at ESPN.

Plus we've done almost 250 rewatchables. So I have definitely put in my 10,000 hours with podcasting. It's still really fun for me. I think the biggest way this podcast has changed is just it's a little more reactive than it used to be. Sal and I, when we were at ESPN, we used to tape Guest Alliance 07 through 2015. We used to tape it Monday. You know, sometimes we wouldn't be able to tape it. Sal would be doing Jimmy Kimmel show.

We wouldn't be able to tape it to like three o'clock and we just put it up and we would talk about yesterday's games and the lines. And it was okay because the news cycle is a lot slower. I think now what's changing is there's so many podcasts now and just in general, the sports talk cycle, which we didn't always do, but that's just how you have to do it. The game's in, Sunday night football ends, you want to go. I think that the biggest thing for us is just with the pandemic, we learned how to do stuff remotely a little bit better. So that was a bonus, but it's still way more fun to do it in person. I think going forward, definitely have toned down the guests the last couple of years, which is mostly pandemic related just because I really want to be in person

with the guests for the most part. I think that's going to come back as we improved our office space, our office situation. We're going to have this nice little downtown complex. I have the ability to go out and like I went to Adam Sandler's office two weeks ago and plopped down a Zoom recorder with

two mics and we taped a podcast. I didn't have a producer there. So I think there's going to be some opportunities to think outside the box a little bit with the podcast. But ultimately, it's a place for me that I just get to come here and talk about sports with smart people and people in my life and people from The Ringer and special guests and celebrities. And it is still an absolute blast to do. So I appreciate everybody who spreads the word for us, everybody who's reached out to say they like the pod. And it's not going anywhere, at least for a little while.

I don't know how many years I have left. I know I keep saying that, but it is going to be one of those things. I'm going to be gone one day where I'm just going to be gone. And you'll be like, wait, where did he go? And I'm like, I'm out. I'll see you guys later. Thanks for everything.

So just be prepared. It's not happening anytime soon, but it will happen. It's like on a TV show. I remember ER when people were just like, wait, Clooney's leaving ER? What happened? Wait, Anthony Edwards is leaving too? That's going to be me down the road. I don't know when, but it'll happen. But for now, I love doing it. Tate Frazier was the first producer

and it's been fun to watch him to go on even bigger and better things. He's now an on-air person, but he was a huge part of the early days and was coming over to my house and basically became like a third child where he would just walk in and do whatever and eat with us. Then eventually nephew Kyle, Kyle Creighton, he took over I think in 2018 and he's been with us ever since. It's been fantastic to work with somebody

who I knew since he was 10 years old, 11 years old, nine years old, I remember. But we have a really good thing going. And then a bunch of good people behind the scenes, including lately Dylan Berkey and Steve Cerruti have been popping on as well to help us with some of the video stuff. But the whole Ringer infrastructure we have,

we're just, I gave a couple interviews this week. We're in a really good place right now at the Ringer. And it's been an absolute blast to get to the point, especially the pandemic. You never know what's going to happen to content, where are things going? How are we going to be able to do how we do stuff? And are we going to be able to hire people the same way? And I just feel like I'm so proud of everything we've accomplished. It was six year anniversary, I think two weeks ago. But the amount of talent we have both on camera and people writing and people behind the scenes

and everybody at Ringer Films, we have so many good things coming up there. So just in general, it's a really nice time and it's been really rewarding professionally. And this podcast has been a big piece of it. So thank you for listening. And thanks to these guys, our friends from Proje. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is almost 6 o'clock Eastern time. I'm in Boston, Massachusetts.

My buddy Joe House is here. House has a rule. Anytime the U.S. Open is in the same location as a potential deciding NBA Finals game. He's going to try to go to both things in the same day. So that's going to happen. The US Open is at Brookline, Massachusetts. The NBA Finals is tomorrow night.

The Celtics, since we've known each other, have only been in the Finals three times. This is the 19th Finals game that they've had. The US Open was here in 1989. I went to it with my dad. It was 130 degrees. The only thing I remember is just being so hot, just wondering if one of us was going to die. The dad. It was 130 degrees. That's the only thing I remember is just being so hot, just wondering if one of us is going to die. The Ryder Cup was here in 1999.

The odds of two major events like this at the same, it's incalculable. But anyway, we're here. In Boston, that's the part of it, like the site of our friendship nearly. I mean, we were in Worcester. Lots and lots of in Worcester. 45 minutes. Lots and lots of very good times between us in Boston. Like, it was the lock of the century that I was going to invite myself up to this. I hope, you know, we were making the plans.

It wasn't clear how the series was going to play out. I hope that I'm not here for emotional support tomorrow night. Well, there was, when we were up 2-1, I say we like I'm on the team. We were up 2-1, and it was like, wow, we might not even get to a game six.

I'd be able to close this out in five. We're bigger and we're faster and we're stronger and we have better players. And then all of a sudden it flipped. Well, I mean, halfway through the fourth quarter of game four, I was like, oh, I might just be staying home. It'll be a lovely home weekend with my family for Father's Day, which is great. But here we are. So the NBA Finals, I did a podcast right afterwards. I went to game five and I've been trying to be more positive heading into game six. There's a couple of things that are alarming to me.

We covered in the pod, but I don't know if I did quite a good enough job on Monday night because I was so butthurt about the Celtics losing. Just how good the Warriors have been defensively. We talked about a little about how the Warriors seem to have solved the stuff Boston was doing offensively. And it's like Groundhog Day with some of these bad possessions. And then Wiggins and Clay just getting better as the series went along. To me, it's just those two things in a nutshell. And if the Celtics are just going to keep turning it over, this is going to be a wrap. The thing that bums me out is it always sucks. And I know this has happened to you in your life.

To root for the team that's probably more talented, but isn't as savvy. And you just leave it on the table and you think back 20 years from now, you'd be like, oh my god, if that hadn't happened and I'm worried that it's becoming one of those series. But that was the conundrum in trying to handicap how this thing was going to go down from the jump, from the outset, which is

the nearly unprecedented transformation of the Celtics team between the first half of the season and the second half of the season. The unprecedented run that they went on, all of it keyed by a transcendental defense.

And then you were saying, we're going to put that defense up against a historically unmatched offensive juggernaut just in terms of the identity. I know that this version of Golden State is not the same as some of the others but that's they're still really consistent they're still like 105 to 110 points per possession every game and if you're trying to split hairs between

choosing a side the idea is basically like can you talk yourself into this celtics defense shutting down the experience all all of the playoff legs that Golden State has and those three key guys. And that's the difference to me right now. It's just honestly experience. Really nothing else as far as I'm concerned. And Curry was incredible in game four

when they needed it the most. And I don't want to say they stole the game because Curry just took it. But that's a game I think when you look back on, they needed it. I think if the Warriors being down 3-1, I just don't believe in them quite enough to think they could have run the table.

But now it feels like it's flipped. Now the Celtics are in a position. We'll find out who the refs are tomorrow. I'm down in the position where it's like, can we please have Scott Foster? You want the extender. We need the extender. I need the extender tomorrow.

Everybody wants the extender because that means then, well, think about the epic Sunday night of Father's Day. You will have the U.S. Open will conclude around 7.30 or so, 8 o'clock, they'll give out the trophy and then have a game seven in the NBA finals.

How sweet would that be? It would be sweet, except for the part we could lose. Well, I mean, you know, objectively, you probably will. I was watching, I was facing their bench, and they just seem really confident. It seems like they are convinced now that they're going to win the series. That was my takeaway, which means we need some sort of act to then flip it back. Like in game four,

the act was Curry was just surreal. And that flipped the series. The Celtics now have to figure out a way to flip it back. And we've seen this happen before, like, you know, 2008 game four, I think the Celtics were better than the Lakers that year,

but you still needed the 25 point comeback and. And you still needed just that momentum. And then it was like, okay, now we got this. And my fear, I guess, is the Curry piece and the Celtics bench just being done, which we talked about on Monday night, that they're just complete non-factors. That was the bench that won them the Milwaukee game seven. And it just to... It's still the bench that could win tomorrow night

game six there's no reason that Marcus Smart and Peyton Pritchard and Derek White can't all go off we've seen it they've demonstrated the ability to do it they're definitely buoyed by the home crowd they're definitely buoyed by the vibes I mean why can't they do that again

they could the league wants it to happen what are you saying on Tatum is this it is I mean, why can't they do that again? They could. The league wants it to happen. What are you saying on Tatum these days? It is, he's 24 years old. So it's a great conversation to have. And then historically, I'm sure you, I know you've been doing this when you look at other 24 year olds who are sort of at this stage.

Yeah, yeah. But he isn't wearing the weight of the pressure of the situation very well. It doesn't look like he's comfortable. Now, I tweeted on Monday, can he get to Germany between Monday and Thursday?

Because it does look like there is something physically wrong with him. Those air balls, the balls that barely graze the front of the rim. See, I think that was just exhaustion. Okay. Because Zudoka, he rolled the dice, and he just didn't take those guys out in the second half.

He treated it like it was game seven. But I thought Brown and Tatum were just... The amount of energy they have to expend on the perimeter, just chasing Curry around and being wary of him, combined with the offensive load. I think that was a huge mistake. I don't think he trusted the bench. But at the same time, you're not going to steal the game if those guys are playing the whole second half in Golden State.

And especially the way Wiggins was playing. They won the third quarter by such a margin that it was a contested game. They won the first 10 minutes of the third quarter. Yeah, but it was a possession or two game until they went one for eight to start the fourth quarter. Which was brutal. And then it was over. And then they had no outs because the bench was at... They brought White in for a second and he stunk.

I ran into somebody with the Celtics after the game, after I taped the pod. They know what to do against this team. They're just not doing it, which is a really frustrating position to be in. They're showing them and telling them, Hey, play with pace, move the ball. Don't do the one-on-one stuff. And then these moments happen in these games and it just breaks down. You're describing the schizophrenia of youth. You're just talking about young players who

haven't been there before going up against a team. It was like your team, the 08, 18, your one John Wall, Bradley Beal run that I went to, the Kelly Olenek game. Game seven of the Eastern Conference semifinals,

the high watermark of the Wizards for the last 10 years. But you were in that game and what happened? We got exhausted. The fourth quarter, they both ran out of gas

in the fourth quarter. You played your top two guys too much. They had to. John Wall did not make the kind of savvy second half decisions. He was tired. He was blown

out. But he was taking deep shots. Please take your threes, John Wall. They're not going in. Why do we have to bring the Wizards into this? I don't know. I was trying to include you. I'm still gambling on these basketball games. Well, the Celts are minus four tomorrow, but they're like, what are they?

Plus 350 for the series now? Yes. And I think people rightly believe it would be really far-fetched for them to win two in a row. I'm one of those people. The case for them would be

they won in Milwaukee game six and they won a game seven in Miami. So they have backs to the wall, come through twice, and now the backs are officially to the wall.

The case against them is that I thought the biggest advantage they had was I thought they had either three of the best four players in the series or four of the best five, depending on how you feel about, I don't know, Horford versus Draymond or whoever. Wiggins, I mean, he's been probably the, he was the best player in game five. He was one of the best players in game four. And he's basically been able to match Jalen, at least from that. And then it's Curry versus Tatum.

Curry's going to win that. So now some of that advantage is gone. And then Klay, who looked washed at various points of these playoffs, now looks reliable. But what's surprising about that Klay development? Do you feel like it's a surprise? It is to me. Okay. I thought seeing him in person,

games one and game two, he just didn't move the same to me. But game four, game five, and especially game five, which I was able to watch a little more closely. Man, he looked... He's moving. He's moving side to side again. It's amazing.

Defensively on Jalen. He was excellent. He's got the lateral movement. Now they have the... If he can do that and he played like 41 minutes in that game, now they have the two guys to throw against him. And what they're doing is putting as much of the game as possible in the smarts' hands.

And smarts' decision making depending on the game. It's those loud passes that just go right to the other team and he's trying to split air he's taking the three and this is where it's like is smart a point guard yes he's we were able to make you know game six of the nba finals with him as our point guard he's a point guard but now it's like this whole extra level i just don't understand why they're not forcing warriors turnovers anymore we're said six turnovers in that game what happened this was the slot they were sloppier than we were they they they toned it down you don't see the ball flying all over the place i don't honestly i don't see as many passes out of them i'm not sure

what spec second spectrum is revealing you know in terms of ball movement and so forth. I'm sure there's stuff in there that KOC is deep in the numbers. Maybe we need more pressure. I'm saying we again. I'm sorry. I'm just, I've lost my mind. No. The series, nine weeks of this, I just.

Pressure on who? This is the thing. I'm saying ball pressure, like maybe make them work a little bit more to get in their offense. The idea of trying to take the ball out of Steph Curry's hands has been sort of floated out there. Boston's made a strategic decision to not go that route. Trying to think of a best case scenario for tomorrow night that doesn't just involve Scott Foster. Well, what do you mean? It's exactly the script that we've seen already in this series.

It's Smart gets going, Pritchard gets going, Horford knocks down two threes. I think it's the bench, guys. It is, of course. I can't believe we're at the point in the season where, because we watched PTI before and they were both saying it's got to be Tatum, this has to be Tatum night. I feel the opposite. To me, this is a Pritchard.

Yeah. White. White. White floaters. White making the three in the first quarter. And Grant Williams, who's been MIA for two rounds now.

Those three guys have to really give them something because if they're going to beat the Warriors, it has to be the depth. And they have to figure out a way to only have Tatum and Brown playing 36, 38 minutes a game. And by the way, if these guys disappeared in the Milwaukee series like they did in this series, they wouldn't have beat Milwaukee.

You would have lost to Milwaukee. That's true. The Celtics would have lost to Milwaukee. That's right. You know, White was so huge in the Miami series. That was one of the biggest reasons they beat Miami. But Milwaukee, I'll ask you. You're an impartial observer.

Even though you and everybody in the ring are gambling, so I like to give me shit about Boston and being beholden to Boston. I don't know why JJ's like, I don't want to be indebted to the podfather, bro. But I don't know why. Is that your JJ? Yeah, it's my JJ. It's pretty good.

Listen, bro, I don't like giving the podfather any props. Love JJ. You're impartial. Yes. If Middleton hadn't gotten hurt, is Milwaukee the champion this year? Oh, I don't know that I would have picked Milwaukee over Golden State. I don't know.

It would have been fantastic. I definitely would have thought that they would have beat Boston. I do think that. Boston's a, you know, this is the growing pain season. It's magnificent. Think of how glass half full the future is. It's amazing. What happened over the

last 35 games of the regular season and what they showed over the course of the playoffs, a brand new rookie coach and all these young guys, and the Celtics didn't add a super-duper star to this mix. They added Derek White. And he was a really important cog to this machine,

especially with the defensive emphasis. But we were having these conversations in December. Is this the time for the Celtics to break up Brown and Tate? What did I say? Bro, that was not even six months ago. What did I say? You said, fuck no. I did have one weak moment where I wondered about Carl Anthony Towns,

like a who says no type of moment. All right. That's it. But other than that, I was like, no, no, not breaking these dudes up

because I want to see him play with a real point guard. I think you're right. I should be more optimistic and happier about it. This is going. The problem is when you're this close

to a title and you just, you might never be back and you start going to some dark places and um it's just hard for me to fathom that it's going to be clay having not played for 900 plus days and andrew fucking wiggins and that's going to be like why didn't you win the 2022 title it's like well there's i have 17 different ways to answer this question but ultimately andrew Wiggins was awesome. No.

Ultimately. And Curry in game four. The way that the Golden State Warriors have built themselves and established an identity and have a winning culture, it's Steph effing Curry. You lost the finals because of Steph Curry, and that's it.

And the greatest player in the series almost always wins the finals. And if he loses the finals, it's because the second greatest player in the series is usually like a hair below him, like Durant in 2017-18 and Curry. Yeah. And then that made,

well, LeBron didn't win those years, but these guys were in the series. That's right. In this case, the Curry piece. And you know, Curry sucked in game four for him, even though I still feel like the stuff he creates is just incredible. Game five.

Sorry, game five. Yeah, yeah. He sucked for him in game five, which makes me think, is he going to suck twice? No, I don't think so. But you know what? Boston didn't lose game four

because of Curry's 43. They self, this is the problem. This is why you're frustrated, and I understand it. It's self-inflicted wounds. It's the stupid turnovers. It's losing the points in the paint battle. You can't keep losing the effing points in the paint battle. Jalen, I mean, Tatum shot four for 15 from two points.

That's how you lose basketball games. You can't have it. I think when you get older, you remember all the ones that got away. I can still see Bill Lambert backpedaling in Game 5 Boston Pistons in 1991 and coming out of the timeout, they're inbounding under the basket, and I'm watching them. I'm like, they're going to fucking lob it to him, and he's going to shoot. Does my team realize this?

And then watching him in person, backpedal, shot. And I still see it. It's 31 years later. We were in college when it happened. And I wonder some of this stuff from this series, I feel like, is going to be pretty haunting to be this close. I hope, look, maybe Tatum, maybe this will be it. Maybe this is some sort of dramatic whatever.

Maybe Al Horford gives the greatest speech of all time before the game. I'm 36 years old. I've been dying here to get an old life. Let's leave it all on the table. Maybe Robert Williams goes fucking ape shit. So who knows? As long as they don't get Phil Mickelson into the locker room to give a motivational speech I think you'll be okay

so you like the Celtics tomorrow or you don't? I do yeah they're part of the of course we gave out a preposterous four leg same game parlay as we do on the Ring of Gambling show but we like the Celtics minus four because if you like the team you just lay the points every single game's been

at least ten points might as well play the adjusted line as well. Raheem Palmer. They're very close games. Raheem Palmer joined us on the Gambly show. He was all in on the unders. Yes. And he's right. Everything slows down.

Guys get tired. The games get uglier as the finals go along. That under crushed, I think, both games, right? Game four and game five. For sure, yes. In game six, I would take the under two.

We're going to have there's going to be a lot of celebrities at this game tomorrow. Oh, yeah. Very hard ticket. I think some of the golfers might be there. Why wouldn't they?

Especially if the golfers have later tee times on Friday. Yeah. So we'll have that. Come enjoy the hoops game. Blow off a little steam. It's a game six. We're going to have people anyway.

You have your Golden State. People will come out from San Fran san fran right well and you also have the drunk boston crowd because that's like i can't wait i actually think it's why i invited myself i think it's been a detriment because the game starts so late the crowd 907 to 11 they're peaking they've been out for three four hours but then by 11 you get like when it's like Rocky House, when you're like, hey, does anyone have some coffee? I don't know what you're going to be like, because you're going to the U.S. Open first. You're going to be outdoors. I'm going to be outside all day tomorrow.

And then we'll recharge up. We'll get a quick couple Bloody Marys to get ready for the game. We'll take a break, and then we're going to talk U.S. Open, and House is going to tell us who to bet on. 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

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Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. All right, so the US Open starts in Brookline, Massachusetts. The country club. The country club. Have you played it? Never played it. I lived across the street.

You didn't even sneak on? I did, but you know what? I was looking at Google Earth trying to fit, because I remember the hole that we used to sneak on. Yes. And there's the public course that's part of it. I think we used to sneak on the public course. I thought we snuck on Brooklyn Country Club,

but it's not on Hammond Street. It's not like the green that I was thinking was. But anyway, it's amazing that it's there. I think it's going to be absolutely impossible to get in and out of there. I don't know how they're going to figure that out. Poor Nathan Hubbard and I tomorrow. The fairway rolling crew. We'll see.

And then we're all going on Friday. Yeah. That's going to be awesome. I'll either be completely crestfallen or I'll have a hop on my step depending on how game six goes. I didn't even think about the possibility of mopey Bill Simmons walking around. But there will absolutely be mopey, angry Bill Simmons. We're going to find, I have some good angles. I've already laid the groundwork to find a place with good bloody Marys.

That's where I just make a ton of bets on Friday. If the Celtics are out. Golf bets. NBA draft bets and golf bets. I'll be trying to parlay Chet Holmgren and Will Salvatore. Yeah, Willie Z and Chet. Willie Z. Fan duel zone, Willie Z.

He's like, we're basically teammates with him now. Is that true? He just did like a fan duel thing. Oh, that's fantastic. He loved him anyway. Yeah, we already loved him. I love him. He's all over this card I'm looking at right now.

So we'll go in order. Biggest questions. First one, there's been a lot of how is Phil going to be treated because of the live tour. Yeah. And it's interesting. I was in the mode of,

I feel like there's going to be a mass whole element in a good way, like just kind of riding and giving him shit. But he was treated apparently really well today

in the practice stuff. And there's still a lot of people who really like Phil Mickelson. I feel like he's become Darth Vader in a lot of ways, but there's still a lot of people who really like Phil Mickelson. I feel like he's become Darth Vader in a lot of ways, but there's still some people out there who just don't agree. The thing that I'll ask you,

and we know that Boston is a pretty sophisticated, I'm not here to blow Boston, but since I'm here, pretty sophisticated sports fans. Yeah. I think it's still the case that a lot of the American sporting public doesn't quite have their head

around what's happening in professional golf. Right. They know about it. Yes. But they don't really fully understand that this has been

throwing a chainsaw in a hot tub. Yeah, that's exactly right. So I don't know what do you anticipate in terms of the crowds that will show up at Brookline

at the country club? You know, are they just regular fans, sports fans are like the U.S. Opens here. That's cool. Let's go see it. Or do you think they're golf nerds? We know who goes to golf tournaments. It's a mix. I mean, it's a gigantic golf tournament.

It's not just a regular golf tournament. But you have that kind of, you have the rich zip up. Yeah. Sweater guys. Quarter zip bros. that kind of, you have the rich zip up sweater guys. You have the people who, I mean, it's actually how they do it where everybody who belongs to the country club, I think they get two or four tickets. So you have all those people, people calling in favors, but you asked me before, what the buzz is for the tournament. And I just feel like the Celtics has overwhelmed it in all these different ways. If this was even a week later, the fill and the whole, the lift tour, I think would be such a bigger story locally.

Right now, it's like Celtics, Celtics, Celtics, Celtics, and that's it. Well, I honestly think that he's going to get a pretty favorable reaction unless somebody shows up who's really been following all of the twists and turns with the Saudis and has a point of view, wants to do something, make a point about the 9-11 families or the journalist from the Washington Post that was killed. Or evil Greg Norman just looming behind Shipnuck, our guy on Shipnuck, that weird photo of him being escorted out. As Shipnuck was getting kicked out of the press conference. Norman just looming behind him. It almost looked like a cardboard cutout of Norman. Yeah, I mean, that whole thing has such bad vibes every which way. But to answer

the original question, I think the crowd will be mostly favorable, but I do think there's going to be a couple people. It only takes one or two, and the mics will be up close and everything, and who knows what kind of reaction he'll have if any. He's been a very, this is the weirdest version of

Phil Mickelson any of us have encountered through his entire professional career. He's got the Elon Musk face now. We were talking about this for the pod. That super tight eyeball face where you're just, you look like you've just been electrocuted up your asshole. I mean, what drugs do that?

Is that Ritalin? I don't know. If you start Ritalin if you're 51 years old, is that what happens? If I ever had that look on my face, if my face ever looks like that, you have to tell me. Like 10 years from now, it's like, oh my God, he's got Elon Musk face. Just assume something horrible would happen. But I don't, Phil's dressing dark. You were telling me that people are joking about how he,

he looks like Hulk Hogan in the NWO. Cause he's showing up at these press conferences and like all black or nearly all black. His hair is greasy and slick. Black is slick back. He's got facial hair. He's never had facial hair before. It's clearly intentional.

Here's my hot take about the live tour. It's been good for content. I think it's really interesting. I think it's horrible. I think it's reprehensible. But I also think it's been a really fascinating wrinkle for professional golf, where watching these guys decide

if they're going to take the money or not, watching somebody like Dustin Johnson, who I think we felt like was, if he wasn't the most talented golfer, is in the top three or four. And for him to do that, to watch Mickelson be like, you know, I'm fine. Just throwing away at least a piece of my legacy, maybe more than that. And just the individual decision, then to see how Rory kind of stepped up as, you know,

kind of the defender of this stuff. I think all of it's been really interesting as a fan. I wish we weren't having it, but it's not like it hasn't been interesting. No, and there really isn't anything to compare it to in our lifetime. I guess if we looked back to the USFL and its efforts to try to make some incursion

against the NFL. If the USFL is backed by Saudis? Well, that's the element of it that makes this, you know, really hard to tolerate, really hard to stomach. And the sports, I don't know if anybody will,

you know, if this is something where we'll be able to get any kind of agreement amongst the American sporting public, because lots of folks are like, what's wrong with that? Doesn't the US government do business with the Saudis?

Yeah. How about this? The WWE had multiple events over, over there. And they were dealing with the sports washing stuff for the last few years. And guess what? WWE's business is fine. So I think people are a little more forgiving than maybe it might seem on

Twitter. Yeah. I mean, I readily acknowledged, you know, I live inside of a golf bubble. And Nathan and I have been talking on Fairway Rolling about this for months in the run-up, even since last year. But there's a bigger piece of it that I think is even more fascinating than who's going to play and not play. It's just how vulnerable the PGA Tour seems for an insurrection. And we've talked about this with, you know, like they're in one of the lockouts when we always talked about what would happen if there was a rival NBA?

What would that look like? Would this, would they ever do this? I'm watching this golf thing and thinking like, could this work for other sports? Like how many, like this seems like the kind of thing Kyrie Irving would try to do where he's like, I'll get 10 other guys and here's our rival league. We'll play at the same time, only basketball. And, and I think the reason that, that, that those are comparable is because this is something where the individual personalities are so big. It's very similar, right? Golf has, what, 25 real stars or maybe less? NBA has probably less, like 15?

Yeah. Probably 15 people who could have the sway to at least get, oh, that's a real thing. For golf, it was Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson. And then there'll be some names to come. Right. But having those two initially? Do you think Brooks is coming?

I do. Yeah. Really? His brother, um, signed up. His brother played in the first event and he was defiant and gave a whole weird pitch in the press conference about,

I'm not here to talk about that live thing. Why are you guys casting a dark cloud on this? He tried to take, be offensive about it. Like the CBS piece of this, where they paid all this money in NBC. They paid this big right stuff for the different majors. And now they're...

Well, the majors are different. The majors will be fine. The majors are always... That's really where the sustainability and viability... Yes. But what if the PGA is like, hey, these guys can't be in. If they're in this tour, they can't play the majors.

The majors have their own governing bodies and their own rules. They're not beholden to the PGA tour. The PGA tour has no sway. When are they going to get the same pressure from the outside world that, you know? What do you mean? Like what happens with, I don't know, the US Open next year if people are like, this is wrong. These guys shouldn't be in there. How do they explain that to the public?

I don't have an answer to that. I mean, they are like, this is wrong, these guys shouldn't be in there? How do they explain that to the public? I don't have an answer to that. They are capable, though. They have the ability to set their own standards and rules and eligibility criteria. They're like the Soho House. We've changed our rules. The two developments

yet to come are what happens with the official World Golf rankings, because that's how guys get eligible to play in the majors. And then what do the governing bodies or the majors themselves do? The Masters is a purely invitational tournament. They can invite Bill Simmons to go compete

in the Masters tournament if they were so inclined. That would be a mistake because I'd probably be like when John Rahm hit Sage Steel with the golf ball. I'd have like 10 of those. People would have to wear helmets when I was teeing off. Helmets on every hole. They'd have to get out

helmets. The Masters, like the Machiavellian play for them would be anybody who... We want the best players so we're just going to have the best players and they'll get gigantic rating, whatever. Potentially. There's so many... I'm sure the Masters will do the best players. So we're just going to have the best players and they'll get gigantic rating, you know, whatever, but potentially there's so much,

a lot of this, I'm sure the masters are yet to be written. One of the things that's going to happen is that folks aren't wrapping their heads around right now. There's only three live events that go up against the tour until the tour has its little championship. It's like FedEx cup, blah,

blah, blah thing. Yeah. After that, five live events all here. Oh, a vulnerable time for the PGA. Trump. Two of those events are at Trump courses. And you were going to see the Trump universe descend onto those things.

Donald Trump will be at Trump Bedminster. The last event of that season, their championship event is at Doral, which Trump owns. So I'm just telling you, put a pin in it. Wait and see what happens when that universe descends and has the impact that it's going to have. Descends? Is that the word we're going to...

They're up above right now. They're just watching quietly. That's the time of the golf season when it's suddenly not interesting anymore. That's right. It's college football. I bet there'll be some headlines. I bet they grab a couple headlines.

The tournaments go from Thursday to Saturday. Can we talk about what a terrible name the Live Tour is? It would have been my 190th choice i honestly think that they um had a line on all of the uh super bowl 54 merch from miami and they just grabbed all that shit somebody somebody had like a oh that's interesting what's his face who's the guy who operates in the second mike uh yeah the co the co-owner of the Sixers. Ruben. Ruben's got, you know,

in a Ruben kind of way, somebody's got this cachet of all that stuff from Miami. All that Super Bowl garb. Boom. There we go. I bought the whole inventory of it. They should have called it the oil tour. It's a little too

on the nose. Alright, so who were you betting on? US Open. The oil tour. It's a little too on the nose. All right. So who are we betting on? So this is a- US Open. US Open. Brooklyn, Massachusetts. Yeah.

It's a giant big boy golf course. You know who used to live near the country club, by the way? Who that? The legend. When he moved here. As a rookie. Oh. He lived probably because he lived near where we live, but he lived probably like a three minute start off playing golf.

Like, you know, I'm just saying this is sacred ground. Okay. All right. A young, a young Billy Simmons, the legendary bird. There's been a lot of greatness. Curtis Strange. Okay. I mean, it's all around.

All right. The U.S. opened the character of it over this last seven or eight years, you have to be able to hit the ball really far. You have to be a strong person if you look at both the physical body type and the golf acumen of the guys that have won the U.S. Open over the last six, seven years. I'm going to give those guys to you. Yeah.

Going backwards. Rahm. Beefy Bryson. 2020 empty. Oh, because we had two in 2021. My bad. Yeah. Gary Woodland.

Brooks Kepwith twice. DJ. Spieth. Martin Kamer. So Spieth. Jay Rose. Spieth won at Chambers Bay in Seattle. Kamer at Pinehurst.

I'm really only going back like a half decade, I would say, of the traditional big brawny golf courses where you're required to get the ball as far down as you can and then have the power, the strength to hit the ball because you're not going to be in the fairway.

You're going to be in the rough. Can you hit it out of the rough? That beefy Bryson kind of paradigm. And that's true of Gary Woodland. That's true of DJ. That's true of John Rahm. So I think this venue, this setup, the way that it's shaping up puts a premium on that caliber of player, that kind of player who can hit it a mile. So you have to have Jon Rahm

and you have to have Roy McIlroy. Exposure across the board. Rory's been, you know, has found something. It seems like... Here, Sap. Well, it seems like the role that he is taking on as a spokesperson for the tour, for the legacy, for the history,

has lit a fire under his ass. This is like all the people that bet on Edmonton because it's like, Connor McDavid, it's his time. He shot a 62 on Sunday in Canada. He's not winning. Well, I don't disagree, but you have to have some exposure to him. You have to have some top five, some top ten

exposure to him. I'd like to apologize to Martin Keimer for reading the list and saying Keimer. Who hasn't won the U.S. Open? What do you mean, who hasn't? What guy, who hasn't put that notch on their belt yet out of the main guys? I mean, Xander. There's nobody... I'd say Xander's not winning it. Well, he has the best consecutive

streak of top 10 finishes at the US Open. Xander's going to put his major lingerie on like he always does and tempt us and tease us. Oh no. And then right when we were stuck to our bed with the handcuffs on, he's just going to leave like he always does. I think

he's sort of in the category. He and Patrick Cantlay are the two players that coach. Oh, another tease. But I was just saying. You just mentioned the two biggest teases. Those are the two best to have never won. No way. Tony Finau is up there. Tony Finau, actually, I love him this week. I have him in a lot of my fan dual parlays. That feels like he's up to

heading into round four and then shoots a 77. The formula for Finau is a weekend, like what he just did in Canada, which is shoot 62 on Saturday and 64 on Sunday and finish in solo second behind Rory because Rory was unstoppable. I like this version

of Finau. He still hits the ball a mile, but there's other elements of his game that have come in and he's really feeling confident right now. So I like Tony Finau. He for sure fits what we talked about in terms of big guys who are capable of getting the ball down the, down the pike.

So does that rule out the Z spot? No, the Z spot is 10th in average driving distance. Great on tour. Yes. I mean, he's not a giantth in average driving distance. Great. On tour. Yes. I mean, he's not a giant guy. He is not. He's an efficient guy.

And, you know, from the happy Gilmore days, he's channeled. I trust the Z spot in majors. As do I. With good reason. He's played in seven majors since 2020. Lingers. Five top tens. Yeah.

That's the reason why you trust him in the majors. That was one of our big master's bets, right? We had some nice action with him tied to a couple yeah for sure so phenol the z spot i really like shane lowry um for this you know i saw that that was one of your guys and i thought that was a good one because that was a little bit off the path big fat irishman yeah beloved will be beloved. Get a ton of support. He's been playing the best, most consistent golf of his career. Tied for third at the Masters. I like that one. I like the Shane Lowry call.

Okay. So what was the big Fando bet? We have a couple of them. The two that we really put a little bit of leverage into was Shane Lowry, Rory McIlroy, and the Z Spot. All to finish inside the top 20. That one pays out at better than plus 485. That's nearly five to one odds on that. All three of those guys to finish top 20

feels very possible, credible, and you're getting decent return on that. And then the big one that we put out today was- So they boosted that to plus 443, it looks like? Oh, well, the odds are moving a little bit. They were in their 480s, so I'm not surprised. So it's been some action. Yeah.

The one we published today was Tony Finau, the Z-Spot, Will Zaltors, and Rory, just to make the cut. And if you look at the make-the-cut odds individually, it's like you have to pay minus 900 or something crazy for Rory. But when you put those three together in a make the cut parlay, and I love the make the cut parlays because you cash Friday night. You have something good to go into the weekend. Right. You get a little momentum. You're happy on Friday night. And look, you might be in the market for some happiness. So this would be a reason. This could be an emotional hedge for you. You just go ahead and put this in and then you have your guys to root for

when we walk around on Friday. That one was minus 125 if you just played it normally. FanDuel boosted it up to plus 110 for us. So plus odds on those three guys. All they got to do is make the cut. So those are our two big ones. Honestly, the biggest bet of all,

and I have to ask you for a favor. I don't do this very often. I'd like to borrow, if I could, $3.1 million from you before midnight tonight so I can get a bet in. Phil Mickelson to miss the cut is minus 310. So if you lend me $3.1 million, I could win a million dollars on Phil Mickelson to miss the cut. The implied probability at minus 310 is around 76% to miss the cut. The implied probability at minus 310

is around 76% to miss the cut. You want me to wire it to you? I think a wire would be great. I mean, we could go to the bank. We're in Boston. I bet you have a bank account here. But I think the implied probability of him to miss the cut is closer to 95%.

I can't come up with a scenario. He hasn't played any competitive golf. He was 10 over par at the fake event that he just played outside of London. Here's the counter. Go ahead. It's already so much fun to root against him in this tournament. Why do I need money on it? Why not cash in on it? You're my best degenerate buddy. Why put money on it? What are you talking about? All we do is put money on stuff. We're not betting on that. I am betting on that.

Can I give you some winner odds that I was confused by and you can explain why they are confusing? I'll do the best I can. Morikawa is 32 to 1, which seems high. What's going on with him? He has hit a little bit of a slump. He's had some performance stuff. He confesses that he's a little bit off.

Does he talk to Frank Thomas? I don't think. I don't know. And she'll like it too. Will she like it too? She might like it too. I don't think that's the issue. There's something going on with the swing.

His ball striking hasn't been up to those standards. I actually am not prepared to cross him off. Anytime you can get Colin Moore Cowher at that price. That seems too high. You need to go ahead and buy a little just to protect yourself. So it's schmuck insurance. Anytime you get Morikawa above 30, you got to go ahead and buy in a little bit, even though he's still trying to find something. And Koepka has reached the 55 to 1 to win the U.S. Open stage of his career already.

Man, it's insane. Only four dudes in the last five years have beat Brooks Koepka in the US Open. Only four guys over this period because he's coming in second or whatever. And yet the problem is we have no idea what's going on with him. Is there a health issue?

Is there a life issue? Is he about to jump over to the live tour? He showed up to the press conference feisty. He missed the cut at the Masters. We had him because he was at a reasonable price in the Masters. By four putting on the 12th green

on Friday. He was well inside the cut line and all we wanted him to do was show up on Saturday and go do some stuff, do some Brooks Koepka stuff. And he's been terrible, really, since Phoenix. He hasn't been good. You cannot convince me

to cross Dustin Johnson off at 44-1 unless he has an injury I don't know about. No, I already bet him. I bet. 44-1 for him is ridiculous, especially what you laid out with the golf course.

So he, that's right. And he just hasn't done it. You know, he did finish inside the top 10 at the masters. Yeah. And some of that is like muscle memory for him, for sure. His driver has,

has let him down a little bit. He doesn't have the same consistency that he used to have. He hasn't had any kind of sustained run since winning the masters in the fall of 2020. But he's still Dustin Johnson. He still has all that stuff. So at that price, you go ahead and speculate a little bit. I think out of everything you just laid out, I think I'm going to do

Shane Lowry at 30-1. Okay. That's great. I like the fact that he's playing well. I like the Irish thing. I'm just trying to picture the headlines on Sunday. And it's like adopted Irish son Shane Lowry wins the Masters. Can you imagine?

What pub is he going to? I mean, it's the US Open, right? Where's he taking that trophy? He's just so Boston. Right. He's the most Boston probably of any golfer we have in this. Lots of reasons to like him. He finished second at Oakmont,

which is arguably the hardest, the most difficult U.S. Open. He's good in challenging U.S. Opens. He's made the cut in six out of the last seven U.S. Opens. He's got all of his game. He plays

well at hard venues. He almost won at PGA National earlier this year down in Florida. A rainstorm came out of nowhere, and he ended up not winning it. But he went from finishing tied for third at the Masters to almost winning the very next week up at Harbortown. He can play a lot of different golf courses, and the length of it is not going to be a challenge. He plays hard golf courses and the length of it is not going to be a challenge. He plays hard golf courses well.

Shane Lowry and the Boston Celtics. Oh! To win on Sunday. All right! Win on Sunday? What about win on Thursday? No, I'm saying

the Celtics to win the championship right after Shane Lowry wins the championship on FanDuel is... Oh, you bet $100, you could win $12,610. Yes, that's what that means. Shane Lowry, Boston Celtics.

That's not like inconceivable. That's the series price for the Celtics? Yeah. The Celtics series price. The Celtics are, yeah, they're plus 310. 310. And Lowry's 30 to 1.

There we go. Bang. The all Boston Father's Day weekend here in Wicked Pissable. Shane Lowry fucking won the US Open. Let's go Celtics. Let's go Celtics. Wow. That would be one.

I could see the Shane Lowry thing. I think DJ at 44 to 1 is offensive. A lot of people could see the Shane Lowry thing. DJ at 44 to 1 is offensive. Okay. Unless he's hurt. Put a couple bucks on it, then. Give me one more.

I'm looking at my list. Howard Varner at 65 to 1? No, that's a no. That's a strong no for me. We've hit all the guys I like. Well, Rory's 10 to 1, which is obscene. I said good things about Xander already. I like Willie Z.

Rory, you can't get any value on Rory's 10-1, which is obscene. I said good things about Xander already. I like Willie Z. Rory, you can't get any value on Rory. We went through... How about Handsome Tommy at 55-1? Not a terrible bet. He snuck into the top five at the PGA Championship. And there is... I thought that PGA Championship played like a U.S. Open style golf course. You know, the winning score was just a few under par.

It was a guy with a major. We've seen this on fairway rolling all week. A major brain. It was Justin Thomas who'd already won a major. Tommy's been in these U.S. Opens. I mean, he damn near won the one in Shinnecock. It required Brooks, you know, birdying. I think it was.

I don't remember. I'm not going to recall the exact script, but Koepka had to fight off Fleetwood to keep him from winning it. So Fleetwood's got U.S. Open chops. All right, that's it. Tomorrow, one of the great sports days of your life. For sure. I mean, Jesus Christ.

U.S. Open and Game 6 NBA Finals. Pretty good. It could either be a great or a bad day for me. Could be a good 24 hour stretch. And now we're going to go to, we're going to go to a break and I'm going to go feed house. I'm hungry. And throw some drinks in them and we'll be back on the 1000th episode of the Bill Simmons podcast right after this. When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe.

Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all. Trains move quietly, so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming.

See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up? Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. Okay, Brian Curtis is here from The Ringer.

Nora Princiati is here from The Ringer. Just came off covering a year at the Jets camp. I can't imagine a better way to spend a day in late June than Jets camp, Nora. Yeah, it was. It was a good time. Good times out there in Florham Park, New Jersey. And does it just feel like there's some momentum, some good spirit at the Jets?

What's going on? So I went in there feeling my way, and then Robert Sala got up there at his press conference and promptly said, Zach Wilson shouldn't have to be Tom Brady, was his opening statement of the day. Interesting. Which I guess is true and probably helpful,

but it was a little bit of a, oh boy, here we go again. But they had a nice time. How are you feeling about Curtis' Cowboys? A little weird. Just a weird vibe to the Cowboys. They feel like they should still be probably the best team in that division, but it also seems like every other team is going forward and there, if anything, worse.

You agree with that, Brian? Yeah, I i'm not sure weird vibe with the cowboys will even get the aggregators going we just cowboy nation kind of assumes weird vibe every year we go i just walked by when i was walking back to my apartment from the subway i walked past like a sports center or whatever segment about, will the Cowboys get Dak on the move more in 2022 or whatever year it is? So it doesn't take a lot. Well, as Brian knows, every ESPN segment I would do if I ran first take is, what is the difference between Dak and Kirk Cousins? Just tell me what it is.

Same stats, same record, same everything, same clutch. Like, what is the difference? Except one has the Cowboys. I'm pretty sure they run that segment every day. God, same clutch. Same person. Speaking of the Cowboys,

so the Herschel Walker trade, once upon a time, is widely considered the worst football trade of all time, right? It's the go-to. It's a little weird because I actually think the Ricky Williams trade was worse. If you actually really look at a team trading its entire draft and then a first and third in the next draft to take a running back, basically, which we would just never do that now. We don't value running backs the same way. It was crazy when it happened. Mike Ditka was making personnel decisions for the Saints.

Everything about it was nuts. The Vikings-Cowboys trade is a little more defensible because Herschel was so good at the time and he was just one of the greatest college football players ever. If you go back and read about the trade, there were some caveats with it. Like they had these four players, but there was languages in there. If we cut the players, we get these extra picks and the Vikings kind of got snickered into that. So anyway, it became the worst trade ever. I've been watching this Deshaun Watson thing like everybody else for the last few months. And then the Browns, they trade all these picks for him. They guarantee his deal. And then Jenny Vrentis writes this excellent piece for New York Times. Even more stuff comes out. I didn't feel good about the trade to begin with from Cleveland. I was amazed that people were

fighting for each other to trade for him. Brian, this has to be the worst NFL trade anyone's ever made, right? I just can't imagine a bigger mistake ever made by a franchise. Yeah, and I would just say it's in a completely different category than any other quote-unquote bad trade. We're not talking football terms here. We're talking moral terms here. And yeah, like I said, I just think of it in a completely different category. Because it's not just

that they guaranteed money to somebody that we're not even sure if he can play this year or what he did, stuff's still coming out, and all the picks that they gave up. But their fan base is absolutely repulsed.

It seems like, Nora, you've been following this. It's not just that this might have been a terrible football trade where they don't have this guy for a year and they got in bed with somebody who has all this baggage, but the fans are disgusted by this. And it's weird to me they didn't see that side of it either. What's your read watching this from afar? Yeah. In a weird way, I'm encouraged that it does seem like the fan base is upset by this. I am a little bit I really try not to be cynical. I'm a little bit bracing I almost want to assess it in the same way where it's like, yes, we acknowledge we should absolutely acknowledge and spend time talking about how sort of like morally repulsive it is. I also want us to acknowledge how just recklessly stupid it was

and seems like it may turn out to be. The cap numbers would be so crippling. Just the sort of lost in the wilderness place that that franchise would be in if the culmination of all their attempts to build went wrong in this way. And it was so irresponsible the way that they didn't investigate it at all, didn't talk to anyone other than Deshaun Watson and his people that I'm kind of like this should be sort of indicted on both levels because it really, really, really was like unprecedented in how just reckless the actions taken by what we tend to consider to be a really smart, thoughtful front office.

If you cannot tell, it still boggles my mind that this is happening. Yeah, the word would almost be impetuous. It seems like he went to them and said, I'm going to do this Atlanta thing unless you guys make it worth my while. And within a day, they guaranteed the entire contract. They gave up the three first rounders. I still can't believe Houston had any leverage at all with this, but Brian, the craziest piece of this. Now, Jenny Brentes, who uncovers all this other stuff, and the question is,

how does an excellent New York Times reporter find all this new information about this case when the NFL, who's had, I don't know, seven, eight months to investigate this, the Browns, the Falcons, the other teams are trying to trade for them. These are multi-billion dollar companies that can spend whatever they want to really find out, all right, what else is there? Let's really, really dive into this. Let's spend millions of dollars trying to figure out how much of this is real. Is there more stuff? And yet, Jenny Vrentis was the one who found all this stuff. On one hand, I would think, all right, they're just incompetent. There's a cynical side to me that wonders, did the Browns just not want to find out anything? What do you think? Which one would you say? I think the latter is exactly what it is. Jenny wanted to find out the information and is skilled enough to find out the information. And the Browns wanted all of this

to go away and still want all of it to go away. That's their only plan here is for people to forget and for it to go away in some way that is yet undetermined. And she obviously has very, very different goals and motives. Do you think they make the trade if they know this stuff is coming out, Nora? Honestly, I kind of do. It's really hard for me to see why 22 is not too many, but 24 is. And I think to Brian's point, they didn't try. It wasn't even like they sort of willfully fuddled their way around and didn't figure it out. They did not try to find out what the perspectives were of the massage therapist that Deshaun Watson went to. They did not ask. They did not try to find out what the perspectives were of the massage therapist that Deshaun Watson went to work. They did not ask. They did not talk to a single one of them.

It's not even sort of willfully blind. It's just they didn't make an attempt. And if that's not actively not wanting to find out... One of the pieces of information that Jenny reported was that he got an NDA slipped into his locker when he was with the Texans by a security guy who worked for Houston who'd been in the Secret Service before he had that job. These teams have the resources to figure this stuff out. Jenny is an incredible reporter and did incredible work, but a lot of that stuff was just getting documents and just making the effort to do it. This isn't like Watergate. Nobody slipped her a piece of paper that was super

secret and nobody else was going to get it. She just tried. So from a media standpoint, Brian, this has been such a hard story to talk about. In the universe we have, the content universe, and we look at stuff like, all right, this story, you're going to have takes one way or the other, or you're going to bring some sort of analysis or expert opinion to it or try to make light of something. And then you have this story that nobody seems to have a real handle on all the facts. Some of the stuff is still coming out. Watson didn't play all last year. He's maintaining his innocence, so you have to factor that part in. Maintaining the innocence piece seems a lot flimsier, I think, than it did before.

But then we have this day-to-day sports talk cycle, right? And this is the Cleveland Browns. This is a team that came within one game of the Super Bowl two years ago that made one of the biggest trades just from what they gave up at anything. He's in the AFC with all these things. This is your specialty. How have you noticed it being covered from a day-to-day sense and what do you think has been missing? Well, I think that press conference that Watson gave this week was a pretty good example because there was some real doozies asked to him. Maybe the biggest was how are you holding up emotionally? How is Deshaun Watson holding up emotionally? There were other questions about how do you regain the trust of your teammates? What's different about Deshaun Watson today than was months or years ago? And what was so striking about that press conference to me is a lot of the hard work here.

You're right. This story is unresolved in almost every possible way. But a lot of the hard work had been done by Vrentis and the New York Times. There had been a real sports segment. And what I would have loved to have seen out of that is reporters taking the very specific facts reported in those two stories and saying, here they are, Deshaun Watson, what is your response to this? We got a little bit of that, but the question of the NDAs that Nora mentioned, not brought up in that press conference to my ears. Any of the specific things said in the real sports segment,

not brought up to him. And instead, there were a lot of generalities and a lot of people that felt very unsure. And I don't want to, again, I don't want to indict the whole media, quote unquote, because Nora's been in a lot more of those than I have. And it's often one or two people who are not doing a great job and a lot

of people doing a really great job and doing their best. But I would have liked to have heard a lot more in terms of specifics. There was a tough Adam Schefter moment too, when he had that tweet. And you realize like with stories like this, it's really hard to be in the 24 seven. I'm just going to, here's my 250 character take on this, which I think has been, especially after he got rightfully torched for tweeting that in the first place, I think that has led to some hesitation as well. What else have you seen, Nora, from a media standpoint? Well, I think it is hard when people are tweeting and condensing information to reflect that there is, and Deshaun Watson has continued to proclaim his innocence and say that nothing happened, but there's this real imbalance

in specifics. So one side, there's all these women who are all offering consistent stories that have details that line up across all of these cases. And that, as we're starting to see some reporting of what's been covered in various depositions that'll be part of the case and part of the trial, that is something that is being focused on a lot. All of these instances, he used this very small towel and said that that was important to him. And things that line up in patterns end up being very important to lawyers and when this is on trial. On his side of things, his lawyers are saying things to the New York Times like, when the truth comes out, when everything we know comes to light, you're going to feel differently and not offering what

it is. And I think part of that is because in instances like when Deshaun's giving a press conference in Cleveland, nobody is pressing him. And another part of it is just that everything gets sort of diluted via Twitter. And once it's going sort of, you know, going up the food chain of, okay, local reporter tweets something, and then maybe ESPN aggregates, and it all just gets generalized in a way that's pretty unhelpful, because then you do end up reflecting something that something is sort of he said, she said, when it's he said something very vague, and then a couple dozen people said something fairly specific, which in court is a different, those are different things, right? That's going to be taken very seriously. And if he doesn't want that to be the case, and his lawyers

don't want that to be the case, they sort of have yet to offer the thing that would counterbalance that. But I think that gets washed out of a lot of the coverage when questions like, well, how do you feel about all of this end up being asked? Well, this goes back to the worst trade topic. I just can't believe Cleveland willingly signed up for this. Because let's say,

let's say Jenny doesn't even write the piece. This is still like the biggest story of the year and it's still, let's say Jenny doesn't even write the piece. This is still like the biggest story of the year. And it's still, you know, it's pretty overwhelming amount of evidence against him in some form. And now it's even worse. And it's one thing if somebody's on your team and they're an employee and you're trying to figure out, all right, how do we handle this? We have this guy, what do we do? But to then not only go, let's try to get this guy, but then guarantee all his money so that no matter how this plays out, you still have to pay him. I think it's one of the most dumbfounding things I've ever seen in professional sports. I don't understand it. I think it's insane. And then on top of it,

I mean, maybe, I don't know if it's going to be half of their fan base that bolts this team or says, screw this, but people don't need sports the way they do. They used to. There's a lot of different ways to spend your time. And this is the kind of thing where they're going to lose fans and antagonize their fan base over this in a way that I don't remember seeing in sports before, Brian. I thought one of the interesting moments in that press conference was Deshaun Watson going out of his way to say several times how he had ventured into the community of Cleveland and had positive interactions with fans, almost like it was, you know, I mean, think about this.

The quarterback of the football team is having to assure the press that he has gone out and found supportive fans in the community. Normally, that would be every quarterback in the NFL, at least every good quarterback. And he actually used the phrase, excuse me, show my face in the community, which was an interesting one for me. But he said, I went to the movies. I went to restaurants like that. And to me, again, he was obviously very, very coached before he went out and made all these statements, but, but I picked up on that and thought that was interesting. This is Nora. This is the culture of football, right? Like it's 53 man rosters and there's

going to be a couple of guys every season where you, where you look at something that happened with them and you go, that's not great. And the sport has always been able to kind of move forward with whatever happened with the person. This seems like as much as we push the line. Yeah, especially because it could cut both ways, right? Like, this is some pretty disturbing stuff. Plus, the football implications of a big suspension would really, really hurt the team. And so it cuts both ways, right? Like, there's good guys on the roster

who would feel uncomfortable working with someone who they believed had done these things. There's also a lot of guys on the roster who would feel uncomfortable working with someone who they believed had done these things. There's also a lot of guys on the roster who wouldn't enjoy having gone to a team or been thought they were part of a team that had really high hopes and big expectations. And then was suddenly just like totally in wilderness. And both of those things, I think have pretty tough impacts on just how they work together

how they work with him if they end up doing that at some point whether it's years to come or not but it it they have these guys continuously surprise me by how much they can kind of just like put their heads down and do stuff but I this just seems like it has to be a little different well and then you have the whole the history of Goodell and the NFL and how they've handled put their heads down and do stuff. But this just seems like it has to be a little different. Well, and then you have the whole, the history of Goodell and the NFL and how they've handled a lot of the stuff, you know, veering into the domestic range. Ray Rice, most famously, how much that was botched

and what a disaster that was. I still don't feel like they've gotten enough shit for that whole year and how bad that was. Now, it was eight years ago. But in this case, Goodell, he's still the commissioner. He still has the baggage of all these different ways he's botched situations like this. So my assumption would be that he's going to get suspended for the year. But who knows? You could tell me it's going to be a four-game suspension. With the NFL, everything's on the table, right? I don't think anybody can predict how they're going to handle

something like this because they've been all over the map. Can't predict it and don't really understand how you even translate allegations of really disgusting, gross behavior into game suspended in this case. It's always, it's always, but I don't even know where to start with that. I don't, I don't, I don't know what you would look at and be like, well, that's the right suspension. That's the right, that's the right answer to this question. I have absolutely no idea. So how do, how does the story get covered going forward?

Because I think what we've seen in the past was stuff that's really ugly. People look at sports for an escape. They look at it as, you know, they just want to watch games and root for their teams. And they realize that with stories like this, that's part of the price of this, but they don't want it to like dominate how they follow sports, right?

But in this case, this is a really important story. And I think there's is a really important story. And I think there's a give and take. How much do you cover it? How much do you talk about it? Are there angles to even talk about it? I think it's been just really awkward the last couple months. And it feels like as we get closer to the season, Nora, it's going to continue to be awkward. It's going to be the elephant in the room personified for this whole season until at least some suspension happened. But what would you like to see going forward with this story? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I think there are judgments that individual reporters can make for themselves because in a lot of ways, the Browns roster is interesting. There's a lot going

on there. That team has been one that we've talked about a lot over the last few years. I will be blunt. They are completely not interesting to me from a football perspective. I cannot get over it. I cannot think about anything else. I don't think that watching their games does not seem pleasant to me in any way. I would much rather... I'd watch Texans-Jets before I watched a Browns game right now, just from a pure enjoyment perspective. It just seems like it overrides everything. Now, if somebody didn't feel that way and felt like, OK, there's there's cool stuff going on with the other people on the roster and I'm into that, I would think that was totally justifiable. I just embraced a little bit for the degree to which in one moment we can feel like, oh, this is a huge story and we're never going to get over it. And stuff changes really fast. And being really good at football and winning football games can

help it change very fast. I really, really try not to be cynical about this stuff, but I'm a little bit like... I did not think that he would be signed and he signed for an unprecedented amount of guaranteed money. So I just would take it with a grain of salt. Well, now the season's 10 weeks, it's like 10 or 11 weeks away and basketball's about to end.

We're going to have the draft and free agency and then we hit that dead spot where it's just like, all right, football, what do we got? What are the angles? And this thing is just going to hang over everything. Brian, before we put a bow on this,

anything you want to see from the coverage going forward? Well, I think Nora's cynicism is extremely justified. It's been justified at every single part of this story. I think one thing we can do uh if i can speak for the whole sports media here is keep in our minds that we don't know everything you know reading jenny's article the biggest takeaway for me was that boy there's a lot more out here that is yet to be discovered about this story a lot more out here the other thing i'd say is you know i love the world we live in

where football is consumed through fantasy and gambling and things like that but i think those things often have a way of flattening out stories like this and making you forget what's really at stake here so i'm okay not doing browns over under win totals for a while uh i'm okay without doing backup plan at quarterback on my fantasy team if Deshaun Watson and if and when he gets suspended. I'm sure that will take place somewhere in the universe, but I think with a story that's this serious

and this complicated, that often makes us just forget what it's all about. All right. Before we go, can we end on a semi happier note just for my sanity? Let's do it. I mean, Skinny Mac Jones, Nora, I know you've seen it.

Such a more pronounced jawline now. Just supposedly there's a hint of a six-pack saying all the right things. All the quotes, more of a leader this year. That's a positive story. Skinny Mac Jones quotes, more of a leader this year. That's a positive story. Skinny Mack Jones. A hint of a six pack, a whisper of tone and definition. A whisper. Yeah. It's very exciting, Bill. It's very, very exciting. I'm sure great things are to come for young Mack. He's growing up before our eyes. So we got Skinny Mack Jones, Brian. We have, I would assume Trevor Lawrence will be more fun to watch this year than he was last year with the sociopath as his head coach. That'll be fun. What else are you looking forward to? Tyreek on Miami? I guess we're going to find out once and for all whether two is good was that wasn't mac jones just always poorly served by his shoulder pads at least at

alabama didn't he have that's what it was the 70s shoulder pads wasn't that part of this so much love to to mac and with all due respect the answer to that question is no that is not the only reason i didn't say only reason i just said somewhere there's some big shoulder pads in there that make me feel like John Facinda should be narrating his footage. I don't know. That's fair. I do think they were ill-fitted shoulder pads. I agree with Brian.

Then from Brian's standpoint, nothing more fun than just networks talking about how much they spent on people. Oh, we spent this. Joe Buck and Drakeachman 35 million combined Amazon's like watch this our announcer's really worth it

my column studio show is this the one that's gonna crack the code got that whole thing the Thursday night studio show

has there been a good NFL studio show since Brent and Phyllis and Irv we had one Fox NFL Sunday early years

going there going there with me. So like mid-90s Fox? No, I'm not tuning into a lot of it. No. NBC's like, we give up. Drew Brees has sucked the life out of us. Jason Garrett. We replaced him with Jason Garrett.

Jason Garrett is our guy. We give up. Never thought I'd see the day. If you showed me that, here's a headline from the future. Jason Garrett on Football Night in America. No, no way. We've hired Chris Collinsworth's son and Jason Garrett. We have given up. And then Amazon, Richard Sherman's one of the people they get. And then he's like, but I haven't retired yet.

So wait, how's that going to work? So you're going to be on the Thursday night show but you haven't retired yet okay but I actually they got Carissa who was the one not Tony Gonzalez

who was the other one they got oh Fitzpatrick I think he's going to be good I do too I'm buying Fitzpatrick stock you've interviewed him right Nora

yeah he's just fun yeah he passes the interview kind of charisma test which I think you kind of have to have if you're going to do that job. But it's funny. It seems like in basketball, we're just churning out new guys, two, three new guys every season now. And in football, we have not had the same success, but maybe Fitzpatrick would be it. Why is that, Brian?

Yeah, we just need new faces. I mean, really, the whole announcer free agency thing was largely just moving people around. So I'm all for new faces everywhere. I think it's fun that Joe Buck has finally gotten... I think that everybody has just arrived that, I like Joe Buck. Even he signs that big contract, nobody was mad at it. Nobody was like, oh, fuck Joe Buck.

This is ridiculous. People are like, yeah, it's more fun when Joe Buck announces a game. I remember what I wrote about him on the first day of the ringer, which was a while back. I felt like I was kind of walking out on the ledge,

you know? Right? You were like in Take Land. It was summer 2016. Like, you wrote about Joe Buck. You write about Joe Buck? Yeah. Did you see him and Troy,

you guys in the yellow old school Monday night football blazers? Those are totally coming out this season. They're leaning in. The move, like Mike Breen, who didn't play it intentionally, but he got COVID and he gets replaced by Mark Jones. You almost need something like that when you're the reliable play-by-play guy to be replaced by somebody else. People are like, where's Mike Breen? That was a great game. I wish Mike Breen had been there for that.

So I feel like Buck has hit that. I do like Kevin Burkhardt, though. I think he's going to be good. I think for Fox, I think they'll be fine. I still did not have the famous lead person. It's a little weird, even though I like Greg Olson. There's something about having that famous quarterback or the famous whoever standing next to the play-by-play guys. Don't feel like it matters. I had Breen on the podcast this week,

plug. And we were talking about 2006 when he called his first NBA finals. You remember this replaced Al Michaels. And there was a real, who is Mike Breen vibe in America so much that he was mistaken for Brit Hume at a restaurant here in Los Angeles. He also told me he'd been mistaken more recently for Mike Pence. So I think that's what Fox is in, right? There is a kind of,

wait, who are these guys again? You know, who's Kevin Burkhardt again? And who's Greg Olson? But then people will watch and be like, oh, yeah, I like these guys. I like these, just like they did. You get a year. Yeah, you get a year to milk that. Before be like, oh, yeah, I like these guys. I like these, just like they did with the Rangers.

Yeah, you get a year to milk that. Before we go, Nora, you moved to New York. Any New York sports takes early on? Well, so I've fallen in love with the New York Rangers, who sort of by process of elimination,

I decided I really wanted to become a fan of a New York sports team. And certain ones were just sort of by process of elimination, I decided I really wanted to become a fan of a New York sports team. And certain ones were just sort of out of the question. But the Rangers, my best friend's family is chock full of huge Rangers fans and gone to a bunch of games with her. The games are fun to go to. A lot of what's motivating this is if I do indeed settle here permanently, I would like a team that I could root for with my future children who are not at all imminent. I want to be very clear.

And, uh, they go on this very, like, you know, sometimes my mom listens and it's just like a whole thing. Um, but someday in the very far off future, the New York

Rangers seemed like the best bet for that. And you know, this is the first season that I've lived here and they go on this like quasi magical fun run. It's a super young team that has been rebuilding and it kind

of felt like this is a great season if they make it out of the first round. And they ended up getting within spitting distance of the Stanley Cup finals. But I was at game five and a fight broke out in the section next to me. And I turned away for like one second and they gave up what ended up being the decisive goal. And I was watching some dude get punched in the face and thrown out by security. Hockey. Hockey.

Gotta love it. It was I told like all my friends about, oh, there was this huge fight. And then it turned out that there had been like four or five different huge fights. And there were all of these different like, no, it wasn't that one. Nope. Still wasn't that fight. Still wasn't that fight still wasn't that fight but you know we'll get them next year brian i think i like that choice of the rangers for her yankees obviously you can't do that i mean you just can't mets mets you don't want you don't want your kids to just grow up hating you and themselves which I think is how that plays out. Same thing for the Knicks.

Brooklyn, come on. No chance. I like being reminded about New York Rangers fandom. You know, these fan bases that just, you're like, oh, those guys. Right. Because they're on a run this year and all of a sudden Twitter. Here we go. Rangers.

Yeah. And I'm like, all right. Yeah, there you Rangers. Yeah. And I'm like, all right. Yeah. There you are. Yeah. I was thinking if the NBA ran the NHL, we absolutely would have had Rangers versus Edmonton. So they could have had the Rangers versus McDavid. Scott Foster's refereeing at least two of the last three games of the Rangers Tampa series to try to make it happen. But yeah, this is what always seems to happen with the NHL. Whatever the ideal series is, it never happens. And now they have Tampa going for a three-peat, which literally nobody cares about. And Colorado over Connor McDavid, who's the guy that they need

to get behind. Then you look at the NBA who has Steph Curry back in the limelight and this fun gold state Warriors team against Boston with all these young guys that they can now establish. And now the hockey fans are going to be like, well, you don't understand Stamkos. Stamkos, one of the clutch guys of his generation. I just hate Tampa Bay.

I mean, they wax the Bruins, but yeah, not one of my favorites. All right. This was fun. Curtis, Nora, great This was fun. Curtis, Nora, great to see you. Nora,

we'll see you at the Jets practices. Oh yeah. Who's the Jets backup this year? Matt, Mike White, Mike White. Oh, our guy Mike White.

It's the famous four touchdown Mike White. Mike White. Sean Fennessey has a famous text that I screenshotted about saying he might think Mike White might be better than Zach Wilson. There was like that one week, remember? It's like, are we sure he's not better? But I think we're sure. Anyway. All right. Thanks for being part of the thousandth episode of the BS Podcast, by the way.

Yeah. Wow. Very exciting. Very low fanfare. You know, we're not like a big pat ourselves in the back. But yeah, thousandth episode. Good to see you guys. Okay, Bill Hader is here. He was on the 500th episode. This is the thousandth episode.

He's also not just the star of Barry and the creator directs it and all that stuff, but more importantly was on the Prestige TV podcast, Breaking Down. Each episode, director's commentary. This is your dream. It's so funny. You loved No Country for Old Men. You did the rewatchables with us on that. We talked about the tone. And even when you're doing season one of Barry and you're like the Coen brothers, big influence in that movie. And this season three i i know this probably wasn't your number one thing that you wanted out of it but it's how it played out this felt like it felt like it was in that vein it felt like a colin brothers type of season right yeah yeah i'm sure the colin brothers i mean it's like anybody that has a massive influence on you

when you're young that it just is in there. It's like even, you know, it, you know, it's like when I was at SNL and people go, you're like Phil Hartman or whatever. It's like,

Oh, I just grew up watching Phil Hartman. Yeah. You know, you know, it's just in there, you know, you don't even realize you're,

you're maybe doing it. And so it was just so influential. It's been ingined in you, but, uh, and like certain movies are that way and stuff. So for sure. Um,

I, the actually funny was it wasn't so much no kind of real men, but the thing we did watch beforehand was burn after reading some of the, uh, uh, coverage that they did in burn after reading where you're watching a scene and then you don't realize, the camera hasn't,

they haven't cut yet. This has all been one shot, but it's one kind of stationary shot where actors are kind of taking each other's marks and stuff like that. And it was really interesting. But Carl Hersey, the DP,

he's a big Coen Brothers fan too. So I'm sure we both were. I mean, we were shooting on a 27 millimeter lens, which then Carl knew was like, that's their lens for close-ups. I was like, oh, I didn't know that. I was like, well, now we're really being lame.

Yeah, I feel like if I saw one of them, I would have to write him a check. No, but that's the thing. It's the generations. The next one comes and they're influenced like the previous one. Like writers are like that. The comedians are obviously like that.

And yeah, you, you kind of become an amalgam of eight to nine people that you loved when you were trying to figure out how to do something. I, what's interesting about this season, the whole comedy drama thing was always a stupid debate with Barry because people always like to put something in a box and to be like,

well, this is what this is. And then we have the awards piece that has it. I was feeling like it was just a show. And I guess it has to, when you do award stuff, it has to get thrown into a bucket. Cause that's how we do this stuff this year.

Like, I don't, I don't even know how it gets submitted to a comedy thing because that wasn't the intention of the show. Like, I know you don't care about that, but it's almost like we need this third category of just like, this is just a show. We're not comedy, we're always just from the get-go it's always just been a story you know it's never there's funny aspects of it and then there's aspects of it that are not very funny and more dramatic but we never think of it in those terms while writing it it just kind of presents itself we're and sometimes you have a scene that's dramatic and then as we're rehearsing it or talking about it, it turns into a funny scene, you know?

And then vice versa, we'll have something really funny, and we go, God, this is really undercutting the whole scene. Let's just take... And that happened a lot in the finale, where we tried to have some jokes at the top, and that episode, it was just spit it out. It just did not want it. It just undercut the whole thing. So we just

took it all out. I think the 30-minute thing is a good point because one of the reasons I like Barry is it's not a typical show, right? And as we have more and more shows, I think people are trying to figure out how to swim against the stream of what

people expect in a lot of ways, right? If this was an hour long show, people would clearly not see it as a comedy and they would almost process it differently. The half hour just makes people think, especially because it's you, you're from SNL. But I think this was the year people realized, oh, this is whatever, whatever I thought, throw that out the window. I also feel like, I don't know, the show was always headed to go to a much darker place. I don't know how much the pandemic played into that. I know you were writing at least a little bit during the pandemic, right?

Yeah, I mean, and not just during the pandemic, but just so much stuff happening during the pandemic that was not just intense for me, but our writers. I mean, it was a weird thing when the pandemic that was, you know, not just intense for me, but our writers. I mean, you know, it was a weird thing when the pandemic happened, all this stuff rose to the top for people, you know, and I feel like that, you know, that's why you heard like relationships were falling apart and, you know, people were having it out with their parents in ways they never had before.

It was like, everybody had to stop, you know, and all this shit came up. And so sometimes those writers room things would turn into like little therapy sessions, you know, and I'm sure by osmosis, it's not like a specific thing was said, but kind of by osmosis, it just ended up in there. It didn't really hit me until we were showing the episodes of people and people that had a couple of people be like, I feel like this is kind of about the pandemic, you know, or kind of about the way the world was or is, you know, our country and things like that.

And I go, oh, I've never approached stories with like an agenda, but my favorite kind of stories are about that stuff seeps in. You talk about No Country for Old Men, it's in that for sure. Now we're going to do spoilers because it's been three days. I'm putting this last in the podcast

so that if people haven't seen it yet, they can just stop and come back. Did you always know this ended with him getting arrested? I know you talked about it with Sean, but let's talk about it here just for my audience. Yeah, yeah. That was the first day of writing. We said, you know, first episode is him throwing Kuzno in a trunk and Kuzno, you know, confronting him. Like, I know you killed Janice and I'm going to take you to jail.

And then the gun falls apart. And then at the end of the season, he's able to fulfill that promise. So it was always bookended with that. And that was the first day of writing. We knew that. Is it easier to do a show when you know how the season's going to end? I would assume then at that point,

every decision you make is probably a little easier because now at least you know where you're heading. Yeah, well, yeah, you know that. But at the same time, you're also kind of going um meaning oh it doesn't matter that people are starting to figure out who barry is you know it allowed us to have that opening episode where now kusuno knows you know i i know so many people i talk to and i go i know what's going to happen in season three it's going to be this big cat mouse thing with you and kusuno and you got you're going to be in his class and he's going to try to trick you and stuff like that. And, and I just was like, Oh no, that, that's so boring.

I just, I just, it's filler. It's like, let's just get to it. You know, you know, he's in the trunk of a car, he's fucked, you know, like let's get this show on the road. But knowing that where it was headed helped, but we also always have the, the ability to, to say, Hey,

if we get to episode eight and it just doesn't feel right, then, you know, pull back, you know, right. Or do it later. Maybe we don't do it at the end of the season.

Yeah. I mean that we're writing season four now and that's happened three times now where we're like, Oh, we're writing towards this. And then we kind of start to get there and that's happened three times now where we're like, Oh, we're writing towards this. And then we kind of start to get there and it's like, actually,

you know what? You don't really need that right now. It could go here, you know, or it's actually not that it's this, you know? And it's interesting. The most upsetting thing to me is I feel like there's no going back.

Now. My dream for Barry was always that he was going to get in a sketch comedy and eventually end on Saturday Night Live. And then it was all Lorne or the Lorne character was going to become, basically replace Henry Winkler as the cat and mouse guy. Yeah. Barry's becoming a sensation, but he's got this whole hit and pass.

I don't know. I felt like you could have done a lot of twisting around your SNL experience, but now that's out the window. That's not happening. No, yeah. I think he's, yeah, there's too much trauma with that guy.

And, you know, this season was always about consequences. And, you know, what I like is that, and and uh you know this this season was always about consequences and you know you what i like is that and we you know we said this from the beginning is that janice moss gets killed at the end of season one and it and so many people were giving us notes going why are you guys still talking about janice moss in season two like that's done with and it's like no no when someone dies it affects people a ton of people forever yeah and so it was just trying to to show that that even by the end of season three you still were you know the last shot is about that loss you know and and my hope with Barry was

always that you could sit back and view it, you know, as one big story. You know, my dream was always thinking of like, some, you know, somebody who's into, you know, wanting to learn about storytelling and filmmaking, like the stuff I was into growing up, you know, to learn about storytelling and filmmaking like the stuff i was into growing up you know someplace could sit down put on episode one of barry until whenever we finish it and it just feels like a big story without um oh the season where this happened or this happened or you know what i mean it just was it was more kind of like the books I grew up reading, you know, where, and, um, or, or, you know, those kind of classic kind of like, you know, Dickens or, I remember my third daughter was born. I read Anna Karenina and that was right when we were kind of starting the pilot. And I was like, this is really good, but it all feels like one big story. And it's pretty great. And I was reading it because Maggie, my wife at the time, was reading it.

And I was like, all right, I'll read Anna Karenina with you. And I was like, this is amazing. I was like, this is phenomenal. And I loved it. And it had a weird influence on Barry, I think, in terms of like, oh, it'd be amazing to do a whole series that feels like this, where it feels like a really contained story, but that's epic, you know?

The last shot is pretty haunting too. I thought the cool thing about the last episode, it really landed the plane because there was like about midway through season three, I'm like, all right, they're trying to do a lot here. How is this... How are they going to resolve this? And then by the end, I was so satisfied with all of it.

And then you have the great twist, which we're going to spoil for the people who haven't seen it yet. But, you know, it's like, oh my God, they caught Barry? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's happening? You hear the voice and you're like, wait, what? And then all of a sudden you see the SWAT guys coming out.

It was so good. It was such a, oh my God, moment. And I'm sure you're making the show, the impact of that as you're just in the process of it, you probably lose what the impact's going to be like on the average viewer, but holy shit. I mean, that was so well done. Oh, so much of that too.

You learn about like point of view. And I think what helped in that sequence and thinking about it, it was, oh, let's make it very subjective to Barry's point of view, you know? So that's why these really tight close-ups and then him looking, you know, you're following his gaze.

You're getting the information as he's getting the information, you know, what it was like. It was like Halloween when they would, they would have the camera with Michael Myers and you could kind of see him scouting at the babysitter. Yeah. It was interesting not to go, you know, try to go objective with it. You had to kind of stay with him and um

and uh and then just little accidents happen like that shot of the SWAT guys coming out of darkness initially that backyard was lit and they brought those SWAT guys out and they went oh my gosh their uniforms are so dark and I heard someone go oh the uniforms are so dark they're gonna blend in and I went that's not bad that's good like good. Like, cut the lights. Everybody cut the lights. And Carl Hersey and I, we cut all the lights and then had them come out and we all went, oh, that looks great. You know, it's, you know, so it's one of those things where you're constantly, you know, on the hunt for what'll enhance this moment, you know.

What, so the show goes up. What's it like for people in your life? Are people just texting you like, oh my God, or like, what's it like to create a show like this and then you throw it out in the world and then people finally see it? What's your life like for that next 12 hours?

Yeah, I mean, you get texts from people, you know, I'm not on social media or anything like that. So it's like, it kind of trickles in from friends, you know, like, Oh, people like it, you know? And, and that's always. What about friends in your life though? They must be hitting you up, right? Oh yeah. You know, you'll just get like, Oh, it was great. Or like, you know, holy shit. You're like, tell me more.

Could you send me a 500 word text about how great that great it was? Usually you get, yeah, just holy shit. Or like, what the fuck? I think that's what I texted you. I was like, that was great. Yeah. It was just all exclamation points or like, you know, someone I'll wake up and there was just a cup but not it's not like my phone goes crazy you know i was sitting there watching a movie while it was airing i was i was at home watching a movie and then it was kind of by myself and then it was just like and i was like oh yeah it's it's 7 30 so that means on the east coast it's 10 30

so i guess it's it's airing you know it just means on the East Coast, it's 10.30. So I guess it's airing. You know, it just aired. And my dad and my sister sent really nice texts. And then, yeah, every once in a while, it was like, fuck, what the fuck? Oh, my God. Dude. Or like, you know, you wrote yourself into a corner with this one, bro. And I'm just, you know,

watched a really good movie called The Devil's at the Doorstep. I think it was called. It was great. But, but yeah, so I was, yeah,

that's what I was. But, but, you know, my, my thing has always been just, you know, we're in season four.

That's awesome. Now let's focus on season four, try to make sense out of it. Your phone's probably like what my phone is like after the Celtics win a game seven. Dude! Whoa! Oh my

God! Fire emoji! Whoa! Who knew? Oh my God! That took a year. Well, you don't have to confirm Jesus oh my god they took a year well you don't have to confirm or deny in fact don't

because you don't want to spoil season 4 in any way but I'll just tell you where my head's at if we go if season 4 is just a prison prison drama if it's basically Oz season 4 with Barry I'm all in so I don't know if you're still putting Barry in a penit Barry, I'm all in. So I don't know if you're still skeptical.

Putting Barry in a penitentiary, I'm all in. You always have that in your back pocket. Yeah, I mean, you know, the way we've always written it is you just have to go like scene by scene going like, what would happen and what's interesting. And yeah, so. You have a lot of options. Yeah, we have some options, and yeah, so... You have a lot of options. Yeah, we have some options,

but it's just interesting to see how people have changed since that finale because that finale changed a lot of the characters. So it was almost, I can say, writing season four at times feels like writing a different show because it's like, wow, these characters are very different. So that's been exciting. Well, you at least get to be in person with people as you're writing

this now right because you during the pandemic you were little the zoo writing's not as much yeah yeah we were in person a little bit but we didn't get a lot of writing done because we're trying to write season four and then we're gonna do all these reshoots for season three and i had this writer's room and i just was like uh okay everybody go home i'll let you know when i'm ready and it was like we never met and so we didn't really start writing season four well then we reread season four what we had so far i would say when the show premiered so in april and then i realized oh this doesn't work. So we scrapped it. And so I've been just basically the way I tend to, I think writer's rooms work differently. The way we're comparing,

the way it's kind of slowly happened is it's usually me talking to people, you know, ad nauseum, talking to one writer and then talking to another writer. And then I'll get those two writers on a facetime or zoom and then we sit and talk and it's it's and then i'll call a third writer and go well here's what we were talking about what do you think of this and then i kind of like wrap my head around it and then i write something and then i just send it to people and go what is this how does this feel you know and they'll go that go, that was good. That was good. Not into this. I'm confused, you know?

And then I go back to the drawing board. And that's kind of my process on season four so far. I hope you've had enough time to watch NBA, though. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's kind of the respite. Gavin Klein stopped the first AD. Duffy Boudreau, my best friend and producer co-writer of the shit show. You know, we just

that's like our playoffs. You know, we could just sit back and watch basketball. But yeah, man, I'm sorry. I mean, you know, I don't know what's going to happen for you guys. I'm starting to get after nine straight

weeks of playoff games, which every round has been tense. I'm starting to get after nine straight weeks of playoff games, which every round has been tense, I'm starting to get the Barry look on my face. Yeah. You know what? I'm still kind of slow with it, too. I'm still kind of my head's still like, I can't believe Phoenix and I just I was ready for Phoenix

Golden State. I was just like, well, this is going to be, I'm interested to see how this goes because they have the same kind of swagger, you know? And then it was like, you know, that totally surprised me. And then, yeah, man, it's just... I don't know, Golden State's deep, dude. Yeah. The problem for us is they're getting better as the series gets along.

And the Celtics are getting worse, which is never good. That's why I would be nervous because Seth had a bad game and they were still like Wiggins showed up, like all these people started showing up and then you're like, fuck dude, they're just... But those are the guys that I'm texting with and then I'll put it down and I'll

be working or I'll, you know, be with one of my kids or something and then I'll be just the text going like Wiggins! That's the question point. I'm like, I don't know. Bill Simmons is bombed. We were looking so good up to one.

I'm getting a lot of like Tatum. I'm getting more. Barton. Sorry to tell you. Are there, have there been any good impressions sitting there for you that you wish you had had an outlet to do as you're watching all this sports and culture stuff?

Is there anybody that you're like, oh man, I would have loved to have done that one? John Mulaney and I were doing the, we were watching that Johnny Depp trial a little bit and we were doing Johnny Depp. We were laughing about that. He had a funny idea, which made me laugh, which was a game show where you had to guess,

the contestants had to guess what the next word Johnny Depp was going to say. Everything's at the table. Well, he's very, what I saw was very horrid despicable unimaginable

you know it's like um you know scary you know frightening ah scary you know frightening ah

well we were doing that on the phone a lot and calling each other and being like I had no idea but John

John of course is one of the funniest guys on the planet so he was making me laugh through that whole he was like hey it's day three of the trial

Johnny Depp's got sunglasses on he knows he's doing good. It's trial correspondent. Trial correspondent. But we were just, yeah, his cadence, Mulaney and I have been doing a lot of just going, boom, boom, boom, like just that thing.

That rhythm was, you know, it's loud. It's funny when you think of like the weirdest A-list celebrities we've churned out the last 40 years, it seemed like Cruise had it locked down there for a little while and then just other people made runs. And now it's become the 80s

with Bird and Magic and MJ. He thought Cruise had it locked up. Now Cruise seems pretty normal now. He released Top Gun and Cruise has got it back. Yeah, I gotta tell you, now. He released Top Gun and Cruz just got it back. Yeah, I got to tell you, man. He's a genius because I took my kids... We saw the Top Gun Maverick movie. They freaking loved it.

And now, when they're at my house, all we're doing is watching Tom Cruise movies. I've watched every single Mission Impossible with them. I even watched Oblivion with my oldest daughter. They just want to watch Tom Cruise movies. And I'm like, dude, that guy's... And I enjoy all of them. I'm having a blast watching him.

He's really good. He is a 40-year library now, if you go back to Risky Business. He's very, very shrewd and really smart. And we sit afterwards and watch the youtube videos of like the stunts he's actually doing and that's now led to me going like oh you guys like that well here's jackie chan you know and like so and then they're like dad do you do that i'm like hell no that's like barry always. A helmet or a mask on.

I'm not even going to try. People go, oh, that motorcycle chase was awesome. I was like, I was never on a motorcycle. My 88-year-old grandmother, I talked to her and she goes, I watched that episode. And I said, I saw that. I said, there's no way in hell Billy got on that motorcycle. Yeah, they have to. Plus, you're a tough person to find a stunt match for. hell Billy got on that motorcycle. Yeah, they have to. Plus, you're a tough person to find a stunt match for.

Right? Yeah. It's got to be tall, skinny, got to have long arms. During season three, I had the COVID weight on and I just kind of owned it. So I had kind of a fraud body. It was like big big gut skinny arms and legs you know but uh now the guy they i mean they got was amazing

and a really sweet guy so i mean yeah that whole sequence made me sick to my stomach because they were actually splitting lanes and stuff and i was like all those are pretty much one take because we would do it. And I was like, all right, we're good. We don't have to do that again. Like, Oh,

we want to do it again. No, no, no, no, no more. What, um,

what's your favorite piece of content this year so far? What do you mean? Uh, movies, TV, anything. Oh, comedy,

comedy special. I'm always interested in what, what you become obsessed with oh um other than top gun maverick other than top gun maverick uh what am i watching um i watched a really good movie that i enjoyed uh called you are not my mother which is a horror movie from Ireland. I like that one a lot. And comedy-wise, I mean, I think you should leave. I thought it was hysterical. I think anything

Nathan Fielder does is hysterical. But mostly, dude, I'm like... You watch a lot of movies with your kids, aren't you? I watch a lot with my kids, but I watch a lot of old stuff. I just watch a lot of movies with your kids, aren't you? I watch a lot of movies with my kids, but I watch a lot of old stuff. I just watch a lot of old movies. I read this Sam Fuller book, his autobiography, so I went back and watched a lot of those.

I love this movie. There's one movie that actually had a big influence on Barry. It's this Italian movie called mafioso um it's on the criterion channel if people are interested in seeing it but it that that's a movie i think i've watched a couple of times and i've watched them uh salvador giuliano i hope i'm saying that right i've watched that a couple of times. That's a beautiful movie. And then, um, a movie called the fireman's ball of Milos Forman movie. Um, those are like ones I kind of have gone back to a couple of times. Um, so yeah, I mean, my head's always in that stuff.

That's why I'm like impossible for my friends. Cause I'm just the movie snob. So they're like, Oh, did you see this thing that the culture is talking about? And I was like, is that a nine hour Russian movie from 1923? And they're like, no. I'm like,

Oh, that's what I was watching. Like, well, aren't you cool? So no, I'm just a nerd. So I liked the Dennis Johnson book.

Seek. I thought it was really good. And then Tobias Wolfe. I love reading his books. These are all great choices that we don't normally get on this podcast. You might have inspired somebody with one of them. Flannery O'Connor's short stories.

I always go back to those. We actually quoted one in one of the episodes. Yeah. My answer is a lot less smart and intelligent. I've been watching a lot of the comedies from the 2000s. Oh.

Because we did knocked up recently for rewatchables, but just in general, just that era from 04 to 11 before things tilted a little bit, but also like all these young comedians are coming up. You were one of them, obviously. And the Apatow influence

and the Adam McKay Farrell and just, it's this eight year run of just amazing movies. And they're really fun to go back and read now and watch now. It's so crazy to me to talk to people who are now in comedy and they're super young and comedy going, oh man, I saw super bad and it got me into comedy. Right. It's 15 years ago.

I can't believe it's been that long and it feels like we just made it. You know, the biggest difference to me is I was smoking then, you know? That's about it. You know, so it's so weird to me to feel like, oh God, that was 15 years ago.

And, it's always really, it's really exciting. I'm glad they exist and I could see it with some of the younger people. I know my son, like watching him just plow through.

Oh yeah. All of them. It's weird watching Pat, you know, my oldest is in middle school now and seeing kids walking around with like, I was picking her up from school and a kid had the McLovin t-shirt of the McLovin driver's license, you know? And, and my daughter was like, oh, this is my dad. And he was like, oh, hey, what's going on?

Did not recognize, no, nothing. And I was like, do I say, hey, I'm in that movie? No, it's kind of lame. I'm not going to say, yeah, nice to meet you. Oh, you know, whatever. And then I, you know, and then I'm like, tell her. Forget it. But they probably would never,

it would never occur to them that the person that's right in front of them was in this movie they liked. Right. Even if you looked like the person. Yeah, maybe you're still somebody's dad. Like they're not thinking you have like a career dad. That's like annoying.

Um, like weird, weird dad guy. But yeah, I mean, I don't know. Um, I'm,

uh, yeah, that, and then the other one was one of my kids was at a sleepover and they put on it it wanted it too and that was that was weird she was like i don't know it was like i really liked the first movie and then they started the second movie and i was like wait oh right you're in this and i was like you visited the set because now I started coming back to me I'm like oh yeah we visited the set once and then but she was like I just want you to be my dad

well you made the key point when you become weird dad guy it's the biggest ego blow you can have I don't know when it happens it's kind of great though you need it you have to I love it that I'm I don't know when it happens. It's kind of great, though. You need it. I love it that I'm... I hit 44. And yeah, I am...

The dishwasher has more... say in my house. I just... People go, Oh my God, Barry Boba. I'm like, if you just hung out at my house, just it's like people go oh my god barry boba and i'm like if you just hung out my house you see i am just uh you know or yeah i'm just not in control of anything i have three daughters nobody's nobody's less impressive than dad it's like nine like nobody in there no i'm you know i mean that's why it's oh, the show's premiering. Are you out? Are you doing stuff?

And it's like, oh, I have the house to myself. I'm watching a movie. I'm like, you know, the basketball game's not on. I'm going to watch a movie or, you know, I know who won or whatever, you know what I mean? So it's like, you know, you just kind of do your thing. But I think it's healthy. All right. I'm letting you healthy. All right. I'm letting you go.

All right. Happy, happy thousandth, 500th anniversary to us. Yeah. Every 500, every 500 we get together. Yeah,

let's do it. More importantly, congrats on season three. I thought it was, I thought it was fantastic. Good job. It means a lot. It means a lot, pal.

Thanks. All right. Good to see you. All right. Thanks again to Kyle Creighton for producing. Thanks to Dylan Berkey and Steve Cerruti as well. I will be back after game six tomorrow night at some point with a reaction pod. Thanks for listening to the Tossin podcast. Thanks for everything. On the wayside I don't have

Fear On the wayside I don't have