The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Antonio Brown/Patriots WTF Emergency Pod With Bill's Dad | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: September 7, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons calls up his dad to discuss Antonio Brown signing a one-year deal with the New England Patriots. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill Simmons podcast on the ringer podcast network is brought to you by nobody. Cause we didn't know we were doing a podcast right now, but let's give a shout out to zipper cooter. Don't forget to try that out at zipper.com slash BS. Don't forget about the ringer podcast network as well as the ringer.com and, uh, and the rewatchables and the rewatchables 1999, which I was on those pods last week. All right, let's get going. My dad's on the line. Dad, are you there? there i'm here it is saturday it's three o'clock this the news broke an hour ago i was taping an interview randomly in the studio with an

a-list celebrity that i'm excited to run that podcast i'll tell you who it was after dad um and then all of a sudden the patriots sign antonio brown i'm pretty sure I have texts from you saying I wouldn't want this guy. So I know you've done a 180, right? I have done a cautious 180. Cautious 180. Okay. What's the problem? Well, the problem is his behavior in the last year and a half, I guess.

But, you know, we've seen this before. We've seen guys, Bill Belichick, bring guys in. And, you know, it's only for a year. I would think he wants to get his reputation back and then sign a big contract with somebody else. In a way, we have nothing to lose, I guess, because that clubhouse has so many strong leaders in it. And the fact that he's coming here is just shocking.

I thought he was going to go to Seattle, actually. They could really use that wide receiver, but I'm shocked. And yet I'm not shocked because we've, you know, Randy Moss certainly was a character. I don't think he was a character in the same vein as this guy, but it's just really funny, you know. I don't know if you saw that the odds in Las Vegas for the Patriots went from 6-1 to 4-1 for us to win the Super Bowl.

Oh, wow. We now jumped ahead of Kansas City. Well, I did a podcast with Mallory that we taped on Thursday. I listened to it, yeah. And we were wondering if there was something wrong with him because his behavior was so strange that it seemed like he was either A, unraveling, or B, just might have passed the point of just being too much of a malcontent to ever be happy on a team.

Now we're starting to learn that it seems like there was path C, which was, at some point over the last three months, he must have decided he wanted to play for a contender and not play for the Raiders. Well, that's kind of the rumor out there on Twitter, actually, that the motivation to play for Oakland, which is not going to be a good team, would not have been a good team even with him after coming from a team that was a contender every year. You wonder how much he orchestrated all of this. And again...

Well, wait, hold that thought. Hold that thought. Okay. Because that's the glass half full, if you're a Patriots fan, of this whole thing. Yeah. Is that he's crazy like a fox, and he orchestrated this whole thing,

and that the only way he was going to get out of Pittsburgh with all the dead money they would have had, they have to pay $21 million and not even have them on their team, was if they had traded him somewhere else. So the options were Buffalo and Oakland. He goes to Oakland. Now, if we're doing the crazy like the fox path, he goes to Oakland, realizes quickly has no chance

to win there isn't impressed by the quarterback isn't impressed by anything and then just starts planning his exit from that point on which would explain all the weird things he's done now does that make me want to root for him on the patriots i'm uh i'm not sure well Well, in week two, it probably makes you want to root for him, yeah. But it does seem suspicious in terms of the helmet and then all the other stuff that went on. And then how quickly he signed with the Patriots, by the way. I mean, he was only eligible at 4 o'clock. And the news went out at 4 or 1.

Well, so there's a lot of side effects to this. We'll go in no random order here. Number one is the Patriots, if he can just stay normal for four months, they're undoubtedly better. This guy's one of the best four wide receivers of all time. And he's not that old. Would you say that he might be the best wide receiver in the league? No, I think he's in the top four or five, though. But the baggage that he brings knocks him out of the top four.

I mean, he brings the most problems of anybody. Yeah, he does. But he's never been a... You know how Josh Gordon we have such high hopes for, but we have such a risk in terms of the background. But I don't recall Antonio Brown

ever having that kind of a history. No, but I mean, he did not play... He has crazy behavior. He didn't play in a Week 17 must-win Steelers game last December. He's definitely a in a Week 17 must-win Steelers game last December. He's definitely a little nutty. Yeah, I'm sure he must win.

Well, they had a chance to make the playoffs. Their season wasn't over. Yeah, I understand. You know, in a way, if you'd called me two hours ago and said, what do you think? I would have said, no, I don't think we need him. I'm not sure what he'll do in the locker room. I'm not sure how much Bill Belichick will put up with anyway.

But now that he's on the team, you try to talk yourself into it. That's what we do. Yeah, that's what we do. We do it all the time. So you have Brady, who in my fantasy auction on Tuesday, was one of the last names called, went for a dollar, and nobody went for two. You had a receiving core where they pick Harry in the first round.

He's on the IR. Josh Gordon, who knows how many games he's going to play. Kyle has the jersey and is in his corner for life, but we don't know if we're going to get four months out of him. I hope we do. They have no tight ends who I would even say are average. I would say it's all below average tight ends. The running backs are good. It looks like Jacoby Myers is going to play. Dorsett, we've already had. Edelman looks like he has some sort of thumb issue, and I'm wondering if the Brown thing is part of that, because, Edelman looks like he has some sort of thumb issue. And I'm wondering if the Brown thing is part of that, because if Edelman's not a hundred

percent healthy, they're probably worried about that. They have said there's no thumb issue, but I don't know. I'm, I'd never, I never trust them when they say, no, no, he's fine. Um, the Browns. Demetrius Thomas, who has, he's on the injury report right now. Um, you know, he, he has a, does he have a, uh. Demetrius Thomas, who is on the injury report right now. Right. He has a hamstring.

It's a quad. They could put him on injury reserve. Yeah, they could put him on injury reserve for four games. But if they can get Brown's head straight and you're putting him on one side with Edelman and with Gordon. Oh, my gosh. Oh, Kyle's just cackling over there. All right.

So, you know, but don't you, you know, there's a, there's a crazy thing on Twitter of him finding out that Oakland released him and he runs around in his backyard and he jumps in the pool or something. There is something off about the guy. Yeah.

But you know, I think he and Brady are friends. Well, I'll tell you this. So he came and talked to us. He came, I hung out with him in my office for like an hour in February. I remember that. That's right. I forgot that. Right.

Yeah. He did say. You didn't do a pod with him. You just chatted with him? Yeah, we were going to do a pod. And then he ended up, he left LA, and it just never happened. But it was interesting. I wasn't saying, we were talking about what teams would you want to go to,

and, you know, he's being a little coy because I didn't know him that well, but then we started talking about what offenses would be the best offense for you, and he said Pats and Chiefs. Really? best offense for you. And he said, Pats and chiefs. And so as this Raiders thing was, he was like, you know, playing with Tom Brady, being that the way they use,

you know, smaller guys around the field, like I, I would be like, that would be the greatest. And then the same thing for the chiefs. So when this Raiders thing really started falling apart, I didn't think we'd go near him,

and I was really worried about the Chiefs. Yeah. Because it's the Andy Reid kind of move. Would you want him going to another team like the Chiefs? No. No. Okay. So in a way, we blocked him going to make another team better.

I guess that's one way of looking at it. Unless this is something he has wanted to do for a while, because if you look at the stuff he's done, other team better. I guess that's one way of looking at it. Unless he, unless this is something he has wanted to do for a while, because if you look at the stuff he's done, he's repeat, he repeatedly escalated the Raiders thing. And every time it calmed down, he did something else.

And even at calm down, you know, over the last 36 hours or 24 hours. And then all of a sudden he puts just the YouTube clip of the, what might've been a Gruden interview. And like he, he was just throwing gasoline on the fire every chance he could get. So whether the,

now this leads me to my second big thing. I don't know if you know this, but everybody hates the Patriots. Oh, I realized that anytime I've left Boston. Yes. And I don't know if you realize this, but,

but there's some people out there that seem to think maybe they don't do things on the up and up sometimes, that maybe there's some nefariousness and some trickery and the conspiracy theories of Belichick. You're not suggesting that somebody from the Patriots might have had some discussion with Brown about, if you act crazy enough, they're going to release you and you can come to our team. Yeah, but here's the thing.

This has been happening in the NBA for the last five, six years, right? Like, it doesn't have to be Belichick or Bob Kraft or Jonathan Kraft or anybody. It could be somebody in the team that he's friends with being like, yo, man, yo, I talked to Belichick. He said he wants you if you get out of there. Well, you're right. It's the Paul George. It's the Davis from New Orleans kind of scenario in the NFL.

And it doesn't usually happen, though, in the NFL. Well, I'm in the position of just being a huge hypocrite because I hate player movement. I hate the recruiting and the stacking on and all that stuff of good teams and guys jumping around and just all of, all of where sports has gone. And yet now it helps the Patriots. So I'm torn. Kyle, help me. Well, you know, there's a lot of other funny little ramifications, you know, we're not going to, he's only going to be here a year if he's here a year.

We're certainly not going to pay him the kind of money he's going to demand next year. Right. We'll get a third round compensatory draft pick. His agent is Rosenhaus. I'm sure you know that.

Yeah. Who's also Gronk's agent. And do you think Gronk is sitting there looking at this receiving core thinking, eh, week nine, week 10, week 11. Oh, my God. Hold on.

I need to hose down Kyle. Hold on. I'm out of water. Hold on, Kyle. You knew we had the same agent, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm Gronk, and I'm sitting there, and I'm looking at Edelman and Brown and Demetrius Thomas and Jordan, Gordon, excuse me, and the rest of the team, which looks pretty deep.

And I'm thinking, yeah, I can come back. But I don't know the whole thing. Again, two hours ago, I would have said, I hope we don't go near this guy. That's why we're on board. This is our job to talk ourselves into our teams. What else are we supposed to do? I've talked myself into it. He's going to be a perfect citizen because he knows Belichick doesn't put up with any shit. He likes Brady.

He'll fit in well to our offense. Well, they, yeah, We have a veteran locker room. There's three things really working in his favor. One is that I would say Brady is one of the most popular teammates in any sport. It's just everybody who passes through the Brady orbit, they just can't say enough great things about him after. There's never any sniping about him after the fact.

Everybody just loves playing with that guy. All he wants to do is win. So putting Brown with him over what seemed to be a rocky relationship with Roethlisberger, that's a win right there. We have seen receivers over and over again with his kind of skill set really thrive in the last two decades with the Patriots,

going back to Troy Brown in 2001. He has to be double teamed. Yeah. I mean, we don't need a tight end at the moment. And then the other thing, they've over and over again have rolled the dice with, you know, the shaky guys. And I mean, shaky for... Corey Dillon. Yeah, shaky for Dylan,

shaky for different reasons, but you know, it really, the only time it didn't work out was, um, I don't mean to make light of this, but I would say the Aaron Hernandez thing ultimately didn't work out, but they,

they have rolled the dice with different types of personalities. And when it doesn't work, they just get rid of them. Like Chad Ochocinco, it didn't work. They didn't bring him back. Albert Hainsworth was on the team for four or five weeks. Didn't work. They got rid of him. Yeah, I think there's a difference, though.

Those guys were at the end of their careers. True. Ochocinco, you know, he was done. Oh, he had a fork in his back. Yeah. Antonio Brown is not at the end of his career. I mean, he has three or four more good years if he can get his act together. This is a different kind of signing.

It's a lot like Randy Moss bringing him in at a certain point in his career. The difference is he is somebody, and I don't think Moss was ever like this. Moss could be unhappy and maybe not go a hundred percent. And it was almost like wasting a car in the garage that you couldn't drive on the highway. If he was on your team and you have the right quarterback, all that stuff, this Brown is somebody who really could try to make it about him and not the

team and try to submarine what's going on. And I don't, I don't really remember the Pats having a guy who's as much of a narcissist as he is. If that happens though, do you, do you see him staying around? No,

I think they would cut him during the season. I think this is, I think this is a week by week thing with him. And if he jeopardizes or threatens anything that's going on, that this team was a favorite to make the Super Bowl before this happened. So if he's going to jeopardize it, they'll just get rid of him. And that's why it's like it reminds me, Rivas was a really good guy, and I think people love playing with him.

But it reminds me of the Rivas thing. It's a one-year deal, and you're getting somebody at a discount who, if you can just get four good months out of him, is one of the best guys at his position, and it's a no-brainer. As soon as the risk was removed and Belichick didn't have to give up anything for him, that was when he made the move.

I agree. As you said, it's a one-year deal. It's actually a five-month deal, not even one year. He didn't have to go through training camp and off-season training and all that garbage. He can't play in week one. You're talking about playing 15

regular season games with a quarterback he likes and respects, which, as you indicated, there's something going on with Roethlisberger and Pittsburgh. There are ironies here. Here you have Pittsburgh still paying part of his salary.

I know. $21 million. Yeah, millions. You have Oakland who traded two drafts, third and a fifth draft picks for him. And I'm surprised we're able to fit him under our salary cap. I mean, there must have been some maneuvering there. I saw that it's really a $1 million salary bonus money, which maybe they're spreading over a couple of years, and then incentives. Well, they usually save a nest egg,

and half the time we get frustrated at the end of the season because they didn't actually spend the money. Yes, you're right. So this year they actually spent it. Yeah, I've they actually spent it. Yeah. Yeah. I've talked myself into it. I want,

it really sounds like, I think Kyle should go out and get an Antonio Brown Patriots. Kyle can switch. He can, he can switch off with the Gordon shirt one week and Antonio Brown the next week. Let me give you the exact time of the day when Kyle talked himself into the trade. Literally the second

it was on his phone and he started dancing around going, yeah, yeah. I do have one prediction when they're on the road. Yeah. That they're not going to room Antonio Brown with Josh Gordon.

No, I think that's like the odd couple. I think they should room them together. That'd be great. It's like a TV show. I, I think that's like the odd couple. I think they should room them together. That'd be great. It's like a TV show. I don't like that. I wouldn't Tony Brown rooming with Brady or somebody like that. Or like the left guard.

You know, the best part about all this is that it takes a tremendous amount of pressure off of Flash, and that's really what we need to be worried about right now. Kyle's looking at this all from how this affects Josh Gordon, and this is a good thing for Josh Gordon ultimately. So who are we going to release? I mean, it's a pretty tight lineup. They'll probably trade Thomas or waive him, I would guess.

I hope they don't. I like him. Because he's injured, I'd put him on that six-week IR. Right, they could do that too. And kill Harry. And then you have these two receivers sitting there, and they have the other guy, Cam Meredith, who I don't know much about. But, you know, who knows what's going to happen.

But our depth is certainly terrific. We didn't talk about one other thing that I love from this, and then we can wrap it up. You know, Pittsburgh has a huge inferiority complex with the Pats. Right. They were the city of champions. Then New England just took that title from them.

They can never beat Brady when it's mattered. I don't even think they've beaten Brady in Foxborough. They have a decade that started out. They lost the Super Bowl. The year after. They were 6 against Brady in Foxborough. They lost a playoff started out. They lost the Super Bowl the year after. They were 0-6 against Brady and Pucks, bro. Right. They lost a playoff game to Tim Tebow.

All these things. It was a bad Steelers decade. Disappointing. And then this Antonio Brown thing happened. And it's like, well, at least he didn't go to the Patriots. And now he's actually on the Patriots. And it actually seems like there might have been some conspiracy stuff going on. My thing is, like, everybody hates the Patriots already.

We might as well be like a good wrestling heel. This is like a good wrestling heel move. You know, I know he can't play tomorrow night, but I hope he's on the sideline in uniform. Yeah. And pointing across the field at his old teammates. Well, so, all right, so we think 50% chance. By the way, we just talked ourselves into loving this

signing didn't we well because they can cut him yeah it really doesn't it's it's they didn't trade anything for him and they can just dump him if he's a distraction but i think it's a 50 chance that he's just off his rocker and And there's a 50% chance he decided that this was how this was going to play out from June on. But you know, the Rosenhaus, the agent, has had a wonderful relationship with the Patriots. Oh, that's not helping, Dad. Well, don't you think he sat down with this guy

and said, you know, this might be your last chance to act normal and behave yourself for four or five months and go to a winning team and get that big contract when the season is over. So you think he told him, so now that you're in the Patriots, don't burn your feet in a cryogenic chamber and don't flip out because you can't use your old helmet and don't almost get into an altercation with your GM, like try not to do that stuff. I think he was doing that while he had his cell phone in his ear

and he was calling Gronk up and telling Gronk about what had just happened and stay in shape for week 10. Yep, I think so. If Gronk comes back in week 10 and catches a touchdown and is greeted in the end zone by Antonio Brown and Flash Gordon, I'm going to have to scrape Kyle off the couch. That'll be it. He'll just be dead.

Would that kill you, Kyle? I'd come back. I'd find a way to come back. Oh, man. Everybody hates the Patriots. We don't care. You know, they hate us more than they did two hours ago. Oh, man. Here's the thing, man. Everybody hates the Patriots. We don't care. You know, they hate us more than they did two hours ago. Oh, man.

Here's the thing, though. This happens in the NBA all the time. This is exactly what Jimmy Butler did. What's different about it? Maybe Jimmy Butler didn't think about the cryogenic chamber, and it never occurred to him to try to pull the helmet rule thing, but he did all this other stuff in Minnesota. Rachel Nichols traipsing down there to interview him and gets traded to Philly.

And it's like, oh, man, he's choosing his destiny. And then Antonio Brown does it. A slight exception. He went to Miami, which is not. No, I'm saying when he did the Philly trade. Oh, the Philly trade. He basically bullied them into trading him to Philly by doing all the same stuff Antonio Brown did, but it was okay.

Davis bullied himself to get to the Lakers, and George bullied himself. See, this is great. Now we're defending Antonio Brown. This has come full circle. Oh, my God. I have 20 people in my life who are going to be so mad. I forgot that you had chatted with him, and

I'm sure that you thought he was a really nice man who just needed to be on the right team. Right. I just think he wants to be happy. And if we've learned anything in 2019, it's that we should just want our professional athletes to be happy. I'm going to text him right now and welcome him. You can tell him he's listening. Welcome to New England Antonio Brown. This has been a very special episode of the BS Podcast.

We're coming back tomorrow night with Cousin Sal, wrapping up Sunday night as well as Guest of the Lines. Dad, thanks for coming on. All right. Take care. Woo! I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them. I want to see them on the way so I never say I don't have feelings with them.