The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Clippers Are Dumb, Plus the NFL Trade Deadline, Sleeper Teams, and 'The Godfather' With Michael Lombardi

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons shares his thoughts on the 76ers trading James Harden to the Clippers (1:55) before he is joined by Michael Lombardi to discuss the NFL trade deadline, cross-off teams, and risers and fallers (24:09). Then, they talk 'The Godfather Part III,' mob TV shows, and more (1:13:46). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Michael Lombardi Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, the Clippers trade for Harden. Lots of football talk and some Italian movies. Oh yeah, next. It's the Bill Simmons podcast presented by FanDuel. Football is in full action. FanDuel's highest rated sports book is the best place to bet it all. We've been doing pretty well on million dollar picks this year.

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beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lights today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did the Omen. We did the OG Omen. We did the 1976 one. One of the creepiest movies ever made with some of the scariest scenes that have ever been in any of these movies. Me and Chris Ryan broke all of it down for you. What else happened in the Ringer universe? Oh, the Ringerverse crew. Everybody got together for the first time and they did a live show in LA on Monday night and even dressed

up for Halloween, a couple of them. It was great. Great to see everybody all together. Check out all of our basketball stuff on Ringer NBA, Mismatch, Rosillo's Pod, Ringer Gambling. Austin Rivers has his new podcast, Off Guard, and then obviously all our football stuff, all our culture stuff as well. And we're going to have a big announcement on this podcast on Thursday about an upcoming show you might not be expecting. Coming up on this pod, I'm going to talk about the Clippers trading for James Harden at the top and why I thought it was a huge mistake.

And then, our old friend Mike Lombardi, we're going to talk about the trade deadline in the NFL as well as what team that seemingly looks like their season's

almost over might actually jump in the second half of the year. And then, last but not least, we're going to talk Italian movies and Italian TV shows

because why not? This is a fun podcast. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, I'm taping this on Tuesday before the Clippers game on Tuesday night. The Clippers traded for James Harden late night. They tried to do this as late as possible at night when the most possible people were asleep because they were embarrassed by this trade. And they should be because they're the Clippers.

They haven't made the finals ever in the history of the franchise, dating back to Buffalo in 1970, talking five and a half decades of bad luck, terrible injuries, mismanagement. We had the Donald Sterling piece of it. We had load management the last couple of years. They've had some of the worst playoff losses

of the 21st century. And now they're trading for a guy who's quit on his last three teams. So they decided, you know what? We'll do this in the middle of the night on the East Coast at least. So we'll take the least amount of slack. They were bidding against nobody. There's 30 teams in the league. One of them had James Harden. 28 other teams were like, we're good. And the Clippers said, you know what? We need this guy. We'll still be not nearly as good as Denver, but if we do this, maybe we could lose in either round two or round three, maybe.

I just feel like they don't have any draft picks left for the rest of the decade. So they basically traded three picks for James Harden. The worst one was a 2028 unprotected first. Why do this now? Why do this for a team with no other offers? Why bid against yourself? And why not just wait? If you know you're trading basically two and a half picks plus all these expirings they had, why not wait? The league, I don't know if you've watched it the first week, the league is more talented and more loaded than it's ever been probably in 30 years.

And there's a really, really, really good chance that a couple of teams that thought they were going to be good are not going to be good. Like for instance, Memphis is 0-4. Is Memphis going to go 25 and 57? Probably not. But there's going to be a couple of teams that are just way worse than they expected. And guess what happens after Thanksgiving and in December and in January?

Those teams panic. Guys become available. Like, what if Toronto is bad? What if they're like, you know what, Pascal Siakam, this just isn't working for us. What if Chicago, who's already had two team meetings, I think, in three games, what if they decide to put Zach Levine on the table?

Like, you just don't know. What you do know now is that there was only one team bidding for James Harden and the Clippers ended up with them anyway. The other thing, if you're giving up this much for one guy, I better know that I have a chance to actually win the title. And I just don't feel like they do. I went to the game Sunday night. Kawhi, he looks fine. He looks fine. Does he look like the Kawhi from the mid-2010s? No. Does he look like the guy from 2019 Toronto? He does not.

He looks like an older, playing himself back in the shape version of Kawhi. And if that's your best player, that's just not going to be enough this year. The Celtics are too good. Denver is too good. Milwaukee has Giannis and Dame. Phoenix has a ton of scoring. Golden State's going to be really good. They're still not in the mix. So that was my first issue. The second one, who are you getting? Who are you getting in this trade?

We're getting guys put on three teams. You're getting the most disappointing playoff star this century. literally this century. And there's no other person you can put in there. There's nobody who has even half of the qualifications from a playoff disappointment standpoint that this guy does. Zach Lowe came on the book of basketball podcast. I think in 2019, we did a James Harden podcast. And in that podcast, which was four years ago, called him the Carl Malone of guards. And I was immediately the most jealous I've ever been of a comparison. Since then, he had the 2020 bubble flame out. Then they had in 2022, the Miami series,

which he sucked in. And then in 2023, the Celtics series, this guy, it's an all-time resume. And the Clippers who are just playoff futility through and through for the entire franchise history were like, that's the guy. That's the guy that can take the lovable loser Clippers over the top, James Harden. He slows you down. He needs the ball all the time. The Clippers now have Paul George, who succeeds the most when he has the ball. Kawhi Leonard, who has perennially succeeded the most when he has the ball. Russell Westbrook, who loves to either have the ball

or crash the boards. And now Harden, who needs the ball. See, four guys who need the ball. Then Norm Powell comes in, he needs the ball. Bones Highland comes in, he needs the ball. Are we playing with three balls now? No, we're gonna still play with one. James Harden can't guard anybody. That seems relevant. He hasn't played defense in four years. There was an interesting, I've done two podcasts with Doc Rivers this year. One was right

after the NBA finals. And we talked about what happened with Harden and Philly. And Doc made this point that I thought was really interesting. I actually thought it would be a bigger deal. He said, when Harden didn't make the all-star team, he kind of changed how he played and started going for his stats a little bit more was the implication. He was really unselfish up until the all-star break

that he didn't make the team. And then it just got a little rocky after that. The Sixers for the last three-fourths of the season, I think were 46 and 19. So it's not like they were bad, but it was always a little tug of war with him after that. Because you want unselfish James Harden on a really good team. You want him just being like, I'll set everybody up. I'll actually play a little bit harder on defense. But we've only seen that guy intermittently. That's the guy he has to be on this Cooper's team at this age, age 34 going into a contract extension or

whatever the hell is going to happen this summer. You know Ballmer's going to extend him. He won't be able to help himself. I'm just dubious that he's going to be like I'm just here to help us win. We've only seen him do that for little spurts. Probably the most heroic version of that was 2021 with the

Nets when they had those injuries and he was playing hurt. But I actually really liked the way he played that year. For the most part, it is James Harden. The results are always disappointing with him and he's getting older. So congratulations on getting that. Third question for me, or third point, can you beat Denver or Boston with this team you have? I don't know if you watched Denver this year. They look amazing. This is the classic, won a championship, kept the nucleus together. They're better than ever. They have the best part in the world. It's not even close. He's just awesome night after night. Everything he does permeates with this team in all the best possible ways. And you just can't tell me that Kawhi, Paul George, James Harden,

PJ Tucker, Zubach, they're not beating Denver. It's not happening. So if you're not beating Denver with the team you have, why are you making the trade in the first place? So they have Kawhi, Paul George, Harden, Terrence Mann, Norm Powell, Russ, Zubats, Plumlee, and Tucker, I guess would be their nine. I really liked how Westbrook was playing for them. Now, again, you're not going to win the title if he's prominently involved with your team, but now you basically, you're bringing Harden in,

you kill Westbrook now. He's coming off the bench. He's just not going to be the same. Now he's worried about how many minutes he's getting. He's going to want the ball. You've killed that piece of it. So you've added Harden, but you've also probably killed the Westbrook part of your season. You're also not durable even before you got James Harden, who God only knows if he's going to be able to stay healthy. Paul George's last four years, he missed 24 games, 18 games, 51 games, 26 games. Kawhi's last six years, 73, 22, 15, 20, 82, and 30 games missed. You have four older stars past their primes. Paul George, 33. Kawhi, 32. Harden, 34. Russell Westbrook, 35. Norm Powell, young legs at 30. All right, let's say this works. Let's say they actually all play really well together.

What is in the history of the NBA? Have we seen a team with an older nucleus like this? And it is an old nucleus. Have we seen an older nucleus team actually win the title, which I guess would be the point of this trade and all the other trades because they've traded all of their firsts for an entire decade. Best comparison you might go to is the 2011 Mavs. Dirk was 32. Marion was 32. Jason Terry was 33.

Jason Kidd was 37. And Tyson Chandler was 28. I don't see Dirk Nowitzki on this team, just for the record. I don't see 2011 Dirk Nowitzki. I think Kawhi, maybe a couple surgeries ago, but not this version of Kawhi

who's been under the knife a few times. But that would be your best case scenario. That team also won with defense and they had one great score. This team is trying to win with offense and really no defense whatsoever. Good luck. Other teams, possibly, like the 1978 Washington team,

they had Elvin Hayes, 32, Wes Unseld, 31, and Bobby Dangers, 30. But that was in the 70s when those ages were old. They won the title. It was 45 years ago. The 95 Houston team had Hakeem and Clyde at almost beat Miami, but when push came to shove, Miami just had players that were at better points of their careers. 2000s Utah, right after they made the finals two years in a row, and then that 99, 2000,

2001, kind of the end of Malone and Stockton. They were in the mix, but they were just older. They weren't the same team. 2010 Phoenix, I think, is a really good cop for this. Nash, the last really great Nash season. The second to last really good Amari season. They're just kind of at the tail end of the rope. In general, you don't want to be from an age range where this team is, where you don't have that one guy who you know we can count on for four straight playoff series. Maybe it's Paul George. He's also somebody who's had a lot of injuries. By the way, I don't know when he's going to have the ball on this team. Paul George is probably my favorite all-around player on this team and might have the fourth

usage rate per minute of all of these dudes. Anyway. All right. Fourth point I wanted to make. The Clippers, owned by Steve Ballmer, nice guy, been on this podcast and spends money and assets like he's playing 2K. That's how he's treated this team, really, from the beginning. So Ballmer's basically

traded all of their picks in the 2020s. It's, I think, five unprotected firsts, three swaps, and then there's one where they get the lower version of something. They just don't have their own good pick except for 2030, which is seven years from now. They traded Shade Gilgis Alexander. Kind of a big deal. He's one of the 10 best guys in the league now. He was in the Kawhi trade. They didn't know he'd become

this, but when you say they went all in, they went all in in ways that I don't know if any NBA team in the history of the league has gone all in. All the picks they gave up, trading SGA, trading Gallinari when he actually had value. From a luxury tax standpoint, they paid $89 million combined in 2022 and 2021.

They paid $140 million in luxury tax last year. This is on top of their salary cap. This year, they're on pace for at least $128 million. Just the last two years, they're close to 270 million for luxury tax last year and this year. This is a team that might not make it out of round one, for the record. Then you have the playoff resume of last year, they lost in round one. 2022, they missed the playoffs. 2021, they had a chance to make the finals and Kawhi gets hurt again and they lose in the Western Conference finals. And then 2020, they lost in round two.

They were healthy and they choked against Denver. They choked away a 3-1 lead. Everyone, including me, has been saying, well, they got to do something. They got the new arena coming. I don't know if this was the something. I think they feel like they need to do something because they have this new arena coming. I don't know if this was the something. I think they feel like they need to do something because they have this new arena coming. But the problem is no one cares about the Clippers in Los Angeles. They haven't forever. Forever. It's a Lakers town. It's a

Dodgers town. It's a USC versus UCLA town. It's like a whiff of Kings. There's a whiff of Rams. They're kind of in that Kings-Rams. But even then, they probably don't have the same kind of diehard fans. So if you start with the COVID year, 2019-20, the year they got Kawhi and Paul George, they've had this kind of self-imposed pressure to stand out against the Lakers, which is fool's gold because they're the Lakers. They're always going to win in LA. It's the same thing the Nets did this in New York with competing against the Knicks. And even when they had Durant and Kyrie and they got Harden and Brooklyn seemed like a thing, people still cared more about the Knicks.

You're just never going to win this. You can't beat 60, 70, 80 years of history. You can't be generations of families that have had the ticket. You're just not winning that one. Now the Clippers feel like, well, we're going to have this new awesome basketball arena. Maybe that'll work. Trying to remember when an arena

became the number one drawing point for a team. Maybe the Cowboys, but the Cowboys were also the Cowboys, the most famous football team we have. You could argue they were better off instead of trading the rest of their assets for Harden. You could argue that they were better off maybe shopping Kawhi and Paul George and packing in and trying to get into the luxury tax and do the whole thing. But they couldn't do that because

Ballmer doesn't want to because he's got incredible amounts of money. And he's convinced himself that if he can put these four guys, all of whom are past their prime, on a team together, maybe they'll win the title. Well, spoiler alert, it's not going to happen. Last thing, Clippers with Harden is really peak Clipper. And as I've talked about many times, I've had season tickets as my 20th year. I wrote a piece for Page Two in 2009 called The Curse of the Clippers.

And the point of that piece was Blake Griffin was talking about, this is a new era. I don't care what happened in the past. And basically like poo-pooed any sort of bad karma with the Clippers. And what happened? Blake Griffin hurt his knee that summer and didn't play his rookie year. And this was after I wrote the piece about, oh, Blake, you got to be careful. You don't know what you're walking into here. This team has had a black cloud around it for the entire time it's existed. We thought it was Donald Sterling was the black cloud. And yet, when they finally got rid of him

the next year, they had their worst playoff loss, not only in Clippers history, but it was probably the second worst playoff loss of this entire century behind the Spurs-Heat game. It weirdly comes back to Harden because the worst of all those losses was game six, 2015 against Houston. Harden stinks in a must-win game. I mean, go figure.

Goes to the bench. I'm at the game. He puts a towel over his head. The game's done. Clippers are up by 20 heading into the end of the third quarter. And Josh Smith, Corey Brewer, Trevor Ariza, they're basically just jacking up threes to keep Houston in it. And what happens? They start coming back. The crowd gets tight. Josh Smith makes a three. Corey Brewer makes a three. All of a sudden they have energy. Now the towel is off Harden's head. They have the best comeback

or one of the best comebacks in Rockets history and the worst comeback loss in Clippers history with Harden mostly watching from the bench. So he is this bystander to this horrible, horrible event for the Clippers. And now they just traded for him. Now he's on their team. I don't agree with the trade. I don't think it will work. And I think James Harden has been telling us for the last 10 to 12 years who he is. I think Paul George and Kawhi Leonard physically have been telling us where their bodies are, and I don't see any chance that they beat Denver in a playoff series. You would have to have injuries in the Denver side for it to become realistic. So needless to say, thumbs down from me on the James Harden trade from a Clippers perspective. Quickly from a Philly perspective, they hit the reset button. They did the Ben Simmons. We got to get something for them.

There were better deals on the table, in my opinion, I said at the time. Daryl had this relationship. Daryl Moore, the Sixers GM, had this relationship with Harden. Harden becomes Moore's kryptonite in a lot of ways. Moore comes into the job and rises to prominence because he uses analytics so well. And he's so shrewd with how to merge analytics with, um, the eye test stuff,

but he's better at the analytics stuff. And then eventually as he has the job longer and longer and he starts ignoring, you know, some red flags because he starts thinking, I know James Harden. That guy came through for me a bunch of times. I believe in James Harden. He ignores some quitting flags, brings them in,

even though he's quit on two teams. What does James Harden do in Philly? Quits on a third team. Now he has Embiid and Maxi and $100 million of expirings and a few tradable picks. He can zig or zag, which I like. They have real flexibility now. And they said they were and $100 million of expirings, and a few tradable picks, he can zig or zag, which I like. They have real flexibility now. And they said they were getting a star for Harden. Well, eventually they probably will, because as I mentioned earlier, there's going to be a lot of unhappy teams

in December and January. And what's going to happen is he's going to take half of these expirings, maybe even more. They got rid of the P.J. Tucker contract too in that trade, which was huge for the Clippers. But they'll be able to, whoever it's going to be, could be Pascal Siakam. Could they go a little lower

and try to get somebody like Jeremy Grant? We'll see. Could it be Zach Levine? I don't know how he fits with Tyrese Maxey, but they're going to roll the dice with Embiid and Maxey and these expirings and the new coach, Nick Nurse, and then see what do we add in December, January. I kind of like it, but this is still a bad run for Darrell. And it starts with the Russ CP trade in Houston,

where they gave up the picks. He leaves. The Ben Simmons thing, he rolls the dice with Harden. That doesn't really work. Whatever happened last summer where Harden ends up opting in and then throwing a tantrum. And now he's basically stuck Embiid with Maxie, some role players, and a bunch of expiring contracts and picks. And it's a work in progress. The thing is, they can't mess around with Embiid because he's about to hit his 30s and you got the Knicks batting their eyelashes at him. It's not great. It's a better solution than where they were.

And it's amazing that they convinced the Clippers to trade anything for Hardit when they were the only suitor. But that's where we are with them. But I think big picture, this trade to me is more about the Clippers just continuing to chase their own tail and continuing to see the upside of something versus the considerable downside. Because you have major injury potential with three of these guys. You have a potential chemistry situation with Westbrook, who, by the way, played with James Harden in Houston

and they finished one season together. We're like, we should both get out of here and get away from each other. So now they're back together. And I just don't see a world where we look back, let's say it's like in June and I'm doing a podcast and I'm like, you know what I was dead wrong at? I'll admit to feed on.

The Clippers getting James Harden. I just never imagined it would work out this well and that they'd be in the finals. I just can't believe it. Boy, was I wrong. I won't be saying that because I won't be wrong. All right, we're going to take a break. Come back with Mike Lombardi.

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I am going to have some sort of parlay or same game parlay because we start the in-season tournament on Friday in the NBA. So I'm going to have at least one game on that. There's a couple of futures I like for this though. For the in-season tournament winner, you can bet the Celtics at plus 950 or you can bet Denver at 12 to 1. I think those are the two bets. I would bet them both because if you look at how they structure this, you basically have to win. There's six groups and you have to win your group and move on. And the Celtics and Denver, I just like their groups. They're the two best teams in the league. This starts right now. So you're catching them when everybody's healthy. And I just think that I would just bet those two as futures, and you'll

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Local blackout restrictions apply. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too.

You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right. Our friend Mike Lombardi is here. What a day to catch him. In the middle of the night, as you're asleep last night, the Sixers traded James Harden. We'll talk about that at the end. I want to talk football first because we

have the trade deadline. The big thing for me is that the Niners get Chase Young and Seattle gets Leonard Williams. And it feels like those teams kind of beefed up and feel like they have a real chance to win the NFC. That's how I interpreted those trades. What'd you think? Well, I think this. I believe in the concept of strength builds strength. And the Niners' answer to every one of their problems is always out of defensive alignment, which I agree completely to. All these teams get caught up in,

well, we got to add this, we got to add that. No, no, no. If you build strength on strength, you become stronger. And Chase Young, with their D-line coach in San Francisco, will be a different player. I mean, he has not been a good player, but there's just situations that make guys better. It happens in basketball all the time. A guy goes from one team to another team, and he's no longer the guy. He becomes the alternate player, and now he's a star, right?

I think that's going to happen at Chase Young. Here's what I know about football. It goes back to when we played in the backyard. If you count the five Mississippi, everybody gets open. If you count the three Mississippi, nobody does. And when you have five good rushers like San Francisco has, that means everybody's one-on-one. Somebody's going to win quick.

So I think what they did was great. Wait, do you think they saw something in that Cincy game that made them go, we need another guy here? Yeah, I think that's exactly how they look at everything. I think they see themselves as we have to win with our defensive line. They know they're not good enough in the secondary. If you can throw the ball on them, the problem is you can't stay in there very long.

You're going to get hit. And they don't really want to blitz, right? They want to rush five. They don't want to rush six, seven. They don't want to do that. They don't want to play zero coverage like they did against Minnesota. So they got to create a way to get their one best rushers one-on-one. And this kid gives them another guy to go along with, you know,

all these first-round picks. They got Kinlaw. They got Hargrave, who they signed to a huge deal. So they'll be – like Seattle will have a hard time blocking them. The Rams will have a hard time blocking them. So for me, this I love. Seattle, you know, they got Jones, Dramont Jones from Denver, which was huge for them.

It's the first time they really had a three technique. Now they get Leonard Williams, who's not a great rusher. He's kind of was kind of, he's gotten paid so much money that I'm not sure he was the same guy at one time. But on this team with Pete Carroll, I think you'll get the best version of Leonard Williams that you can get. And they need it. That's where they're going to,

they wouldn't get that. Look, they won a Superbowl in 13. They had a chance in 14. And that was because of their defensive front. Yeah. Well, do you think they made that trade?

If Cleveland doesn't completely blow that Seattle game on Sunday, I'm still really from it. I'll never get over PJ Walker throwing on third and three. I know it'll be 10 years from now. I'll finally come. How do you get, and three. It'll be 10 years from now. I'll finally come to grips with it. I mean, there's so many of those games. Like I had, you know, I do Russo every Friday and I got the Giants and I'm already counting it as a win.

I'm counting it as a win in the contest. You know, I don't bet, but I take a lot of pride in that one. And they go and blow that lead. I mean, there's so many ways they could have gone with the ball there, but Seattle was the same thing. What don't you want to do? See, here's what's interesting, Bill. What don't you want to do in that situation?

The Browns say, we don't want to turn the ball over. They throw it. The Giants don't want to turn the ball over, but you did when you missed a field goal. Yeah, in the rain. In the rain. The kid was not healthy, and he missed a field goal similar to that. I would have lined up like a punt.

I know that sounds crazy. I would have lined up like a punt and told my quarterback or the punter to just throw the ball to the back pylon out of bounds, as high in the air as you can. Remember we played Baltimore in the conference game, the divisional round? And there was a little bit of time left in the game. And we, instead of punting, we threw the ball straight up in the air and I think it got left.

They had one play left for a Hail Mary, which they didn't get. But when you throw the ball high up in the air, that eats clock. The Giants only ate four seconds on the field goal. You could have eaten eight seconds on a high throw. And the ball would have been moved seven yards to where it was. Or just try to get it on fourth down. You've been running the ball well anyway.

The one thing, I wouldn't have tried the field goal because we'd already seen him miss one. And the P.J. Walker thing, I'm punting, make Geno Smith, who hadn't done anything for two hours, make him go 60 yards to try to get a field goal on me. My defense has been amazing. Instead, you get the goofy turnover. Anyway, I wonder, like Seattle, who I like.

I don't have them as a first-tier team, but I do think they're the 9th, 10th, 11th. They're somewhere in that range. To me, the offensive line is the big thing that concerns me when I watch them. It doesn't seem like they can block the great defenses and they didn't solve that this week well they're the only way they're going to solve that is they get cross and and their other tackle back they got to get

them healthy you know when you're signing Jason Peters you know you're in trouble at 41 years old you know you know you're in trouble so if they get those two guys back, that'll help. And if they get Walker healthy, Walker's a big-time runner. But the one thing is, when you go through Geno's numbers, he's not as accurate as he was last year. He's not anywhere near the year he had last year. They got to get him to

another level. So Washington bails on Chase Young and they bail on Sweat. And it's a team that when you watch them, they're poorly coached, but you got Riverboat Ron, what are you going to expect? But they did have some talent. I did feel like they had something in my identity, right? Like BNM is a lunatic. He throws the ball way more often than he should, but they're big and physical and they're just kind of a weird team to play. And I think

with Cousins out, could they have snuck into a weird team to play. And I think, you know, with Cousins out, could they have snuck into a seven seed? Like maybe. And instead they're sellers. You went through this because Josh Harris owned the Sixers. I'm wondering, is process 2.0 now unfolding here? I think it is. I mean, what a busy day for Josh Harris.

He got the hardened trade, then he makes these two deals. Here's what I think, knowing the way, and I've studied Harris, so I've lived this nightmare for years. When you say you studied him, are you saying how Jim Garrison studied the JFK assassination? Not to that level, but I followed every 76er trade to nauseam. And I think I know how they think. They think in a very analytical base. So last year, they were the third best defense in terms of yards allowed. They were very good against the pass. They gave up the least amount of first downs in the league last year. They were the best third down defense in football, and they were the eighth best red zone. So situationally, they were really good. Okay. So you can't, you say, okay, they got a chance. So this year under Riverboat and under Jack Del Rio, they, they are nowhere near any of those. They are in the bottom third of every category. So they went from being really good to being really shitty. So I'm sure

the conversation was, what do we care if we trade sweat? What do we care if we trade young? We suck anyway with them. Like they're not making us any good, so why are we hanging on to them? I actually can't argue with the logic. It makes sense. When somebody's stupid enough, and I can underscore the word stupid here, to give you a high second round pick for a player that is not under contract for the don't, don't stop and think about it. Just say yes. Second round picks are like gold. They're four-year contracts

at very economic value. So the player you pick at 17, 18, or 19, all the way through 32, okay, might be the same player you get at 33. Like, had the Patriots not gotten Gonzalez at 16, they would have picked Kenyon White at 16. They'd end up getting him in the second, right? So they got a first-round player in the second round, but their first round was ending in there. So when you trade away a two, you're trading away one of the best values in the world you could have. And to give it up for a guy that you don't have an extra year of a contract for,

or you have to franchise and the agent has every right. I mean, you can't return that trade down if you're Washington. Well, that sounds like one of our favorite things when GMs go into job protection mode. So he does that Claypool trade last year, which is a disaster. And a trade that nobody really liked when it was happening. And then this time, what does he care?

Like if they clean house at the end of the year, what does he care about the second round pick? He's not gonna be able to make it anyway. But if sweat can come in and maybe they can show signs of progress as the season goes along, you know, they've looked better

the last couple of weeks than they did for the first month. So you could say, all right. Okay. So like I tweeted today, okay, great. He gets a sack in week 17. They win the game, everybody celebrates. And now they've had their fifth win. Instead of having the fourth pick in the draft, they'll have the eighth pick in the draft. Now I know they have Carolina's pick, so that still counts. But seriously, is that what you really, you did that together? No. We hate when this happens. When it's better for the executive than the franchise, it's never a good place to be if you're the fan.

If you're a Chicago fan, you got to be like, what are we doing? So now we can go 6-11 and not have a top five pick? I mean, it made no sense to me whatsoever. Like, how would you get him do it again? Like one of the things you have to do is you have this, this is kind of like a chart. You have a, what we call, it's called the safety margin in any trade you make. Right. So when you, when you say to yourself, okay, if I trade Harden for this, or if I trade the Sean Watson and the safety margin is if he sucks, what happens? Okay. We're screwed. If we trade for Deshaun Watson and guarantee his contract and he's half good, we're screwed.

If we trade for Deshaun Watson and he gets hurt, we're screwed. If we trade for Deshaun Watson and he's great, we're good. So now you're looking at one in four scenario in the safety margin of the trade. You can't make that trade. There's no backdoor to get out of the deal. I wish you had said this to Steve Ballmer. Hey, Steve, all of your guys are in their 30s or mid-30s. Two of them can't stay on the court and the other guy just quit on his last three teams. So here's the percentage pie of this working out. I'd say it's about 12%. Right, and then where's our backdoor?

How do we get out of this? Like, how do we escape it, right? And that's the question. So like, if you're the Bears, like, okay, if we trade for sweat and we don't sign them, we got to franchise them. We're screwed there. If we trade for sweat and give up a high two, we lose a really good value for an expensive player. That's not a smart trade.

If you go through every safety margin of the deal, you say, okay, now if you're San Francisco and you've got a third round pick because Rand Carthon, who is an African-American, got hired by Tennessee and the league is giving third round, giving away compensatory picks. You're saying, okay, I got a pick to play with. And if he goes and signs to a lucrative deal, I'll get a compensatory pick back anyway.

So the safety margin for that deals is, is net effect. You go ahead. And then Capra too, to spend this year because Purdy's on it. And they got another year to spend. They could actually franchise them next year and still get away with it. So like these deals that like no one looks at the deal.

Everybody looks at the deal from, if we don't make this deal, we're going to lose our jobs or we're going to get fired or, you know, but somebody's got to protect the franchise. We know that's not how it goes. I mean, think of all the basketball teams where it's like, who's protecting the fans in this one?

One move I really liked today. And, you know, I had fantasies the last 24 hours that Minnesota might not watch any Mac Jones tape and just decide to trade for him without actually watching any of the film from 2023. If you're going to do your QB rank, your QB tiers, he's probably a rich man's PJ Walker. He can at least move around and he seems pretty smart. He can pick up offenses right away. He was famously a 4.0 guy. He at least keeps you around. I don't think he's bad. I don't think he's decent, I don't think he's decent, but he's probably closer to decent than bad.

And you have these two awesome receivers, and you have Hawkinson. Who's the seventh seed in the NFC? We're going to talk about that later. It's still wide open. I feel like Dobbs at least kind of keeps them hanging around. When Dobbs had Connor, he was a better player. When they lost James Connor, Dobbs had too kind of keeps them hanging around, right? When Dobbs had Connor, he was a better player. Yeah.

When they lost James Connor, Dobbs had too much pressure on him. And I think that's Minnesota's challenge. Minnesota's 31st in almost every statistical category on running. So they're going to have to. I agree. I was surprised they let Dobbs go. Because I thought he managed the game kind of half decently. For the first couple of weeks, he didn't turn the ball over again he had he had he had james connor to run the ball and

kind of bail him out and i think kevin o'connor will do a good job with them i mean look he's played better than mac i mean let's be fair he's no there's no question he's played better than garoppolo let's be fair he's played better than Zach Wilson. Let's be like let's keep going. He's played better than Daniel Jones. Now I know Daniel Jones in that last game when Daniel Jones played against the bad Arizona defense. He was good, but look

he's kind of near where like Minshew is right? Like he can actually make some plays and have some drives. He'll have a bad throw every once in a while. He'll do a dumb thing every once in a while, but at least you can score points with him, unlike some of these other guys. I think they were 18th in the league in third-down conversions.

16th in the league in third-down conversions, the Cardinals, which tells you he's making plays. That's at least under pressure, whereas some of these teams, they can't... What? The Patriots were one for nine against Miami last week. The Raiders were one for nine against Miami last week. The Raiders were one for nine against Detroit. I mean, that's a true tell sign of your quarterback.

Can he make plays when there's pressure on him? Well, I know it's hard for you to talk about the Raiders because you have some family working for the team. It's hard. Garoppolo, last year they had Carr who looked like a shot fighter. And you were talking about how, when that eye line goes down, it's over for any of these guys. And ever since the first time I heard you say that like 10 years ago, I always look for that. Like how fast are they getting

rid of the ball? How little do they want to get hit? And just see my car kind of revealed who he was last year. Now this year, same thing. If he's going against like a crappy defense, he'll look fine. But if you start hitting them, it's done. Jimmy looks like Jimmy's had a lot of injuries. He's had some surgeries. He's got some miles on him for somebody who hasn't started a lot of games. And he just doesn't look right. I thought he looked so much better four years ago than he did now. He's not that old, but I don't know. How do you fix this one? I don't know how you do it either. He rushed last.

I mean, he didn't play well. He admitted it. So I'm not talking bad about the kid. I think to me, he's been hit too much. It's like when they get hit too much, it's not that they're scared to get hit. They react to the potential of getting hit. So it's like a boxer.

I think he's tough, but he had two high school throws last night that he didn't make their high school throws. Right. And everybody's complaining about Devante Adams, not getting the ball. Well, he had to, he was wide open for a bomb and he overthrew him. Two bombs, two bombs. He was open for two bombs. So, you know, and, and, and he's reacting.

This happened to Kurt Warner in his career. When Kurt Warner left the Rams, he went to the Giants. Remember him at the Giants? He was a disaster. Mid-2000s Kurt Warner. Yeah, he was the shot fighter. I don't know how. He must have prayed and got it back.

I don't know how he did it. I don't know how he did it either because when he went to the Giants, he was terrible. But he went to the Cardinals. He was a backup. And then he became a starter and he didn't have it anymore. I think that's where Jimmy is right now. He's reacting to things. Then they hold the ball. They don't even get rid of it.

Remember what happened to our guy Jake DeLome? All of a sudden, he was shot fighter and it was just turnovers and that was it. It was done. When quarterbacks get... Sometimes they get washed up like Matt Ryan last year, where he's just old, your reflexes start to go, stuff like that.

But then there's the other scenarios where the guy just gets the shit kicked out of him for too many seasons. I mean, and look, that interception he throws in the first quarter? I mean, there's no reason to make that throw. But again, that's what happens to bad teams, right? You don't have... Like all these teams we're talking about like they don't have a quarterback i mean that's really what's hard to overcome and if you don't have one like you know what cracks me up is the jets they act like they were happy they won that game and we're going to talk about these three and five

teams but like yeah was that really a good thing for the jets to win that game? You mean the four and three jets? Yeah. Like, is that really a good thing? Like every jet fans texted, tweeting to me, like you idiot or good. You gave up 200 yards to a team that refused to pass.

I mean, right. Tommy DeVito is a shoeshine boy. He would have been a, you know, like get your shine box, Tommy. Like,

seriously, there's no way. Like they wouldn't even know. His name was tommy devito we salad i talked about this on sunday it's incredible his name's literally the pesci character good fellas get your shine box i mean like seriously like i was i've been watching that goddy tapes or whatever the hell it is and i'm thinking like how dumb are these guys they know they're getting taped and they're talking too. But anyway, you know, so they've gained 20 yards against them running. Like, where are you going with that? I said to Sal, the Jets have four wins and three of them are wins where the other team

for the rest of the week goes, I can't believe we fucking lost that game for the next like five days. Those are three of their four wins where the team shows up for the team meeting the next day and they're like, what happened? They just might go 10-7 and have eight of those. Yeah, and then they're going to lose in the first round. I mean, Zach was like, oh, our defense is elite. We got this.

It just blows my mind. I mean, literally, you have a team that wouldn't stop the run. They didn't even try a nine route. They didn't even let the kid throw a nine route into the game. So, I mean, I don't understand it. But that's what happens when you don't have a quarterback. You protect yourself. And you don't want to show them out there.

And there's so many teams that don't have it. That's why we go back to Josh Dobbs. At least he was functional. He really was early in the season. I thought they might trade for another running back too because I think Addison has been a borderline revelation this season.

Really fun to watch. He jumps off the TV. They're going to get Jefferson back soon. Especially on turf, they're just going to be fast. I was wondering, there's like 100 running backs in the league. When you watch these games and these guys come in, you're like, oh, that guy's good. Like Charbonnet and the Seahawks, who probably gets eight to 10 carries a game. It's like, that guy's good.

Jalen Warren, who's barely plays for the Steelers. And, you know, whenever they run a play for him, it's Matt Canada just like signaling, hey, here's what we're going to do. He's going to get the ball and run this way. But he's good. But all around the league, I always feel like,

I felt like they needed another one. Let's take a quick break. I want to talk about a couple teams that didn't do anything and then we'll talk about the possible climbers.

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All right, coming back. So a couple of teams that didn't do anything. We talked about the Raiders earlier. Why not trade Devontae Adams? I don't understand that where you could have gotten at least your first back. There's some teams that

I think would have... Honestly, the Niners would have been an interesting team for him with all the cap room they have where you talk about adding to your strength. How about this? McCaffrey, Adams, Ayuk, Debo, who seems to play eight games a year,

and Kittle. But there's five or six teams. Dallas could have used them maybe, but why do you think they kept them? Well, I think this. I think most people in that situation don't think their team is as bad as the public thinks they are.

If you put Josh Allen on the Raiders, what would they look like? If you put, you know, Al Davis used to say this all the time, no, just put him on our team. Like if you took an average quarterback and put them on the Raiders team, what would they look like? You know, are they that bad? You know, are they that horrible? They're not an expansion team. I mean, they've won three games. They've got good receivers. They just can't get production from the quarterback. So I think their belief probably is, whether they keep McDaniels and fire him

or whatever they do, is like, if we get somebody in here, we get a quarterback in here, we're liable to be pretty good. And so why would we trade somebody who we need to be pretty good with and for pennies on the dollar? And look, everybody at this time of the year, they're

shopping at Feline's Basement. I mean, everybody's trying to get them for cheap. The only team overpaying are the Bears. And Ryan Poles can only answer one call at a time. But they're the only team overpaying two years in a row. So everybody's trying to buy cheap. I mean, Howie made two trades always on the cheap. He gets them on the cheap. He gets a team that's desperate. And it goes back to, it goes back to, really, it's like investing. You know, Buffett never wanted to be in a position where he was forced to do something.

And I think if you take that long view in building teams, you're probably better off. And for the fans, they're frustrated because we could use another player. But the fans don't realize if we had put this guy on our team at quarterback, we actually would be a good team. Yeah. I'm not saying we're going to be a great team, but we would be a better team. We'd have a future. See, the problem with the Raiders is, while there's so much heat on the Raiders,

it's because nobody can see the future. There's no future there. There's no player, whereas Carolina is a disaster, but they think they can see the future. I like Bryce Young. C.J. Stroud, I can see the future. Even with Anthony Richards, I could see the future. Whereas with the Raiders, there's no future. There's just this pick out there that they hope is going to get to be a quarterback. So then everybody's team gets marked down. Like I think one of the most overvaluated overvalued teams in the league or

Buffalo. I don't think Buffalo is a great team, but they have a great quarterback. Like if you may, if Matt Barkley was playing for Buffalo, what do you think their record's going to be? They'd be the Patriots. They'd be the Patriots.

Same thing with everybody thinks the Patriots have no talent whatsoever. I think it's, I think the Patriots need additions, don't get me wrong, but you put a quarterback on the Patriots, it's a different game. I had a friend of mine heard my Sunday podcast where I was saying how the Pats were right in that Miami game for

three quarters and Mack just murdered them. He just single-handedly murdered them. I was like, our defense played well in that game. Did you watch it? And he's like, no. I'm like, well, the Dolphins basically have five yards of play. They got bailed out by a PI in the second quarter that kept their drive alive.

I don't know. Belichick was going nuts for like a half hour. But once the Dolphins hit Mac a couple times, he just fell apart. And he was missing throws. And he was holding the ball too long. And then he had one of the worst picks of all time. But I thought the Pats hung around, hung around, hung around. He's been so bad this year that I was hoping they would trade him or even, even like just release him just to start over. But it seems like they're kind of stuck with him., I don't, I don't understand why they haven't done anything. I mean, other than, I don't know who's defending. I mean, the tape doesn't lie. Right. I mean, and, and what happened with Vic Fangio did is they brought that a gap pressure into his face where it just now it's coming directly to him.

And even though it might be blocked, he's still reacting to it. And so, you know, like the interception he throws, I mean, he's one for nine on third down. He can't make a play unless it's there, unless it's on time. Well, how about the fact that if Pop Douglas doesn't make that crazy tackle, which was like a really nice play, that would have been Mac's fourth pick six of the season. Yeah. Like, what's the record?

Has anyone ever had like seven? Like, why did he throw it? He saw the corner sitting out there. They don't momentum. They're driving the ball. It's like, at least get a field goal, 14,

10 halftime. Our defense is playing really well, but I, they're two and six and he's killed them. Their defense play. The people would think they played better in the first game than they did. They played better in the second game. They couldn't run the ball.

They had 76 yards rushing. I mean, they give up the touchdown to Hill. They blow the – I mean, what's his face? They blew on coverage, yeah. Jackson, you know, horrible way he played that. But they – I mean, I agree with you. Look, I know we're Patriot homers, but they're not a bad team. You put a good quarterback on that team.

You put Dak Prescott on the Patriots what do you think they look like? Well that leads us to our next segment we're heading into week 9

which is a wonderful time for the NFL because it you know we used to have the 16 game season so this was a direct split

and it was always second half of the season somebody would go 6-2 or 7-1 last year was the Lions and the Steelers made late runs game season. So this was a direct split and it was always second half of the season. Somebody would go six and two or seven and one. Last year was the Lions and the Steelers made late runs. It always happens. It's usually one team from each conference. We're cheating a little because there's nine games left, but I think we're in the zone of not only climbers, but a couple of droppers. You mentioned Buffalo. Buffalo's five and three.

I think everybody thinks, oh, they're definitely in the playoffs. Well, Buffalo's scheduled the rest of the way at Cincinnati, home Denver, who's been pretty frisky, home for the Jets, who already beat them, on the road Philly, on the road KC, home Dallas, at the Chargers, home New England, at Miami. I mean, you could get to eight losses pretty quickly with that schedule, especially if they

had one or two injuries. They traded for Rasul Douglas today to get cornerback help. But I think the droppers we can talk about later, the climbers, I asked you, look at all the three-win teams, two-win teams, and one-win teams. Is there a team that jumps out to you as a possible 2022 Detroit? The only one could be is the Chargers. And Herbert's second halves have been a disaster, and their defense has been a disaster. Tennessee, the last three weeks have run the football effectively. And Levis gave them some, how do I want to, I don't want to kill Levis here, but I want to be put a bit in perspective. I mean, he made some plays. Threw a couple nice deep balls.

That's right. And so the way they play, they haven't scored over 30 points, I think, in like 25 games or something. They scored 28 in his first start. So I would say the sleeper team, there's two sleeper teams for me, and they're both all three and four. Houston's a sleeper team. Oh. Because. I thought we were off their scent after that Carolina game.

All right, make the case. Well, I think to me, this will be the key game. And this is the game that I think is the team that they're playing. They're playing Baker, right? And this is going to be the game where we're going to see what direction Stroud goes in. Because there's always that initial start by a rookie, and then there's the reaction to the defense, and then there's the adjustment. And so I think we saw that last week.

He threw for 140 yards against Carolina, who's not a great defense. So this week at home against Tampa with Todd Bowles, I think is going to be the interesting one. I think one of these two teams, I don't trust Tampa at all with Baker. Like I don't trust them at all. So you can't count them. Neither do I. I'll give you the schedule for the listeners.

So they got Tampa home at Cincy. Probably need to split those, worst case scenario. But then they're home for three. Arizona, Jacksonville, Denver, all at home. Yeah. At the Jets, at Tennessee, home Cleveland, home Tennessee, and then at Indy to finish the season. Yeah, I could see.

Ten wins is not unreasonable. No, they play hard on defense. They're really good in the kicking game. You can on defense. They're really good in the kicking game. You can't minimize them. They're good in the kicking game. And they give up yards on defense, but they turn the ball over. They have a chance.

Tennessee has a chance, but I don't trust Levis. I haven't seen enough of him. The team that you have to almost back in that case are the Chargers. But do you trust Staley? No. How about Capital N-O?

No. I don't trust him in the least. I think they could lose this week to the Jets. They could easily lose to the Jets, right. They could lose to the Jets. I mean, Herbert could get hurt again. I mean, then we'll be that Evan Stick and we'll see how that goes, right?

Right. So, I mean, and then for the three, you know, Denver has held Kansas City to 24 points in two games, which is for a team that gave up 70. That's impressive. You know, I don't, the Raiders quarterbacking, you can't count on that. Indianapolis, they gave up 511 yards last week

to Derek Carr and the Saints who want to check it down. Washington, to me, just put themselves on toast. The Rams, the Rams, you can't trust the Rams because once what's happened to the Rams, they're like the boxer that has to win the fight in the first three rounds. If they don't, it's going to keep going the wrong direction. Stafford's hurt. He's going to continue to get hurt. Believe it or not, I actually think Denver, the way they've gotten better as the year's gone on. Now they're three and five.

I don't know if they can win five games the next spring. But if they play as well as they played the last couple weeks, they beat Green Bay and now they ran the ball 40 times against Kansas City, which is remarkable, right? And so they – because Russell was – even though he threw three touchdown passes, he wasn't great in that game. He turned the ball over. He didn't make any plays.

They're playing better defensively, which gives them some hope. They got the rate of play, the Raiders again, they got the chargers. I mean, they could get some wins going. So I had Denver circled as a possible that I'm glad you brought them up.

Cause was looking at, uh, you know, where I got killed on them last week with the tees. I had the Chiefs and I was just like, oh, Denver, like whatever. I kind of overrated the 70-20 game, which really is kind of an outlier when you look at it

because they've gotten, if you separate it into the first four games versus the second four games, they played pretty well since that since that 70-20 game. Yeah. And I thought, you know, I don't know how much to credit them because Casey turned the ball over five times.

Their punt returners just dropping the ball on his own 10-yard line, shit like that. But it did seem like they had the Chiefs receivers covered. And they were like, NFL Live did a good kind of like one of those montages of all the times Mahomes was back

and just kind of looking around and moving and checking down to like his fifth guy and there's just nobody open. So, when you think about

the 70-20 game, like they've at least fixed that. I know you're a huge Sean Payton guy. He wanted to run the ball. They signed all these O-line guys. He's kind of turned Russ into at least a game manager.

Please don't kill us, Russ. Just kind of keep the chains moving. I don't know. It's not unrealistic to me that they could go 7-2 down the stretch. No, I think if they can win some of the... I mean, look, they should be better off. They should have beaten Washington. They had a chance to beat the Raiders.

They missed the field goal in the Raider game. I mean, they shouldn't be really where they are. They should be a little bit better. But let's talk about Mahomes for a second here. Yeah, please. The Mahomes thing is interesting because when you break him down, he's in seven categories. He's at the lowest part of his career.

Touchdown percentage, interception percentage, success rate offensively, yards per completion, the lowest in his career, lowest in adjusted air yards, lowest yards passing per game, and his lowest QBR. So those are like the staggering numbers, right? But then when you look at some of the other ones and you peel back the numbers, he's had his best on-target percentage of his career, 82.3. He's had his best bad throw percentage at 10.6. That's really good, 10.6. Most quarterbacks are in 14. So you're saying this could even be worse if Mahomes wasn't as great as he is.

His highest drop rate is 78. He's been hit 35 times in eight games. Last year, he was only hit 56. And now what's happening is teams are pressuring him at a higher rate than they've ever pressured him before because they're not scared. They're not scared of who's going to beat him. Kelsey's not going to beat you vertically. He's going to beat you with all his moves. So it's interesting. he started 88 games in his career bill and in those 88 games he has he has three of his worst games this season 87th ranked against number that's his 87th worst that the jets game was his 84th and the detroit game was the 77th. Here's what's staggering about it.

They've averaged, if you take out the one game against the Bears where they scored 40, they averaged 23. Last year, they averaged 29. They're down to averaging 20 points a game. They're not the same team that they were. I think a lot of it, I'm surprised they didn't make a move at receiver, but their receivers

don't scare anybody. And I think it puts a lot, and their offensive line isn't as good as it was last year. I got a lot of things wrong before this season, but one of the things I, looks like I might not have gotten wrong is this team reminded me of that 06 Pats team that Brady had. There was Shea Caldwell, Jabbar Gaffney season where you can just pass the point and no return with your receivers. Now, he didn't have Kelsey that season and still threw like for 4000 yards. They still made the playoffs. But at some point, you got to have somebody who you who can get open on a third and eight other than Kelsey. And it just doesn't seem like when they beat the Broncos 19 to eight,

and then they lose to the Broncos 24, nine, they scored 28 points against the Broncos in two games. I think this Dolphins chiefs game. And so unfortunately in Germany and you know, I tried Sal and I was talking about this. I try not to bet the Germany or London games. I just think you just don't know. You so unfortunately in Germany, and you know, I tried, Sal and I was talking about this. I try not to bet the Germany or London games. I just think, you just don't know. You don't know who, when they show up, the jet lag, it's too hard to figure out. But I think the

Dolphins defense can pressure the Chiefs. And this is a great, if you're ever going to play the Chiefs, this would be the week. You're in another country. They're coming off a terrible loss. They didn't do anything trade wise. And I think the Dolphins can beat the Chiefs, this would be the week. You're in another country. They're coming off a terrible loss. They didn't do anything trade wise. And I think the Dolphins can beat the Chiefs this week. You've got Jalen Ramsey back. You'll probably get Xavier Howard back. You went to Germany early. They left Monday. They're in Germany

now. The Chiefs are leaving Thursday to go over there to catch up. Both teams really spent a lot of time planning on this. I think to me, the Miami defense is getting better. Their front's pretty good. Christian Wilkins and those Jalen Phillips is playing. Chubb's playing better.

They're going to cause some problems to the Chiefs. And Vic's a really good coach. Vic will be able to take Kelsey. They're going to have to have somebody else beat them. And the question is, can they protect? The miami offensive line before you bet the game the miami offensive line is a mess right now they lost a bunch of they lost two linemen in the patriots game it's and they and they don't really have everybody back and against this chief defense which deservingly gets a ton of credit but when you look at them compared to last year they're very similar last year they

gave up 10.2 yards per pass. This year, it's 10-1. They're better this year. They rush the passer better. But I think a lot of it has to do with, look, they played Fields. They played Zach Wilson. They played Russell Wilson twice. They played Herbert in a game where Herbert was good until the second half.

I think, to me, don't move the ball if they can protect. I'm only nervous about Miami's offensive line. That's what keeps me from saying, take Miami. If this gets to three, take Miami. I think it's two and a half now. I'm not betting foreign soil games. The Chiefs look sloppy to me. Special teams was always a place that they had good kicker, good punter.

They always made shit happen. And this year, it's been pretty sloppy for them. The salary cap takes a little bit of that into account, right? Yeah. Everybody cheats the salary cap on special teams. Look, let's be honest here. How did Kansas City win a Super Bowl last year? With special teams.

The return by Sky Moore and the return by Kadarius Toney in the Super Bowl. Toney and Moore in the championship game. A couple more possible climbers. I don't even feel good about these. The Giants are 2-6 and should be

4-4. They should be 4-4. They should have beaten the Jets. They should have beaten the Jets. I feel like they should have beaten Buffalo. They're two and six, but really should be four and four. They're playing Vegas, Dallas, and Washington on the road. New England at home

bi-week. Green Bay at home. New Orleans, Philly. Rams and then Philly again. The catch would be, well, they're playing Philly twice still and they can't go past eight wins. All right, so we'll cross them off. I agree with you. I just wanted to talk it out.

I mean, I have them in my category. They should play for a draft pick. They're not going to do it, but they should play for a draft. To me, I have them as... When I rank them, I think, look, they got to play. Now, they're not going to draft a quarterback because they believe in, they still believe in Daniel Jones, but they, they should play for, they should play for a draft pick because look, you know,

they're not going to beat Philly. They're not going to beat Dallas. And so if you're, to me, if you're the seventh seed, it's almost like if I were the seventh seed in the NFC, I might want to decline it. Right Like, send somebody else. It would be funny if they gave the teams the choice. You could either have the 10th pick in the draft or the seventh seed. See what they take. It's like all these people will say,

the Raiders, they inherited a playoff team. They won three games down the stretch. The Raiders haven't been to a conference championship game since 2002. They haven't had a history. So when you take over a team that's won, that's not really winning. The Giants were in it last year, but that really wasn't. I mean, they got blown out by every good team they played.

They're not going to beat anybody good. I think the Giants are – actually, if they played the Rams, if they played the Rams in the Meadowlands, what do you think the line would be? Rams by three. That's what I would think too, right? Yeah. And yet, we're sitting here talking about the Giants can make the playoffs. I'm so proud of you. I remember the days when you didn't even understand what a line was

and how to factor it. What does that mean? What is a tease? Now you're just rattling off picks. Now I make my own lines. Now I make my own lines. Yeah. Now you got your Lombardi line. Green Bay 2-6, who traded their cornerback today, and Jordan Love looks like he's... No chance. Maybe doesn't have it.

Yeah, we're crossing them off. Bears 2-6. Schedule's pretty easy, but I just can't imagine Fields getting to eight wins. So they're a cross-off. Carolina 1-6? They've been pretty good at home. Just can't imagine fields getting to like eight wins. So they're a cross off. Carolina one and six. They've been pretty good at home, but I'm like,

I liked them this week. I gave, I took them on Russo. Cause they, they were good at home. I mean, that's the key, but that was an ugly game.

And Frank, right. Every decision he makes is the wrong one. Yeah. Um, and then new England at 2-6 would be the only other one I would mention. I think all those teams should play for the pick.

If New England can get a quarterback with their team, they could turn the corner fairly quickly. I mean, they've seen... I mean, I gotta believe there's enough tape on Mac in the last two years you say, wait a minute, this isn't getting any better. Can Malik Cunningham be worse

than Mac? At least he can run around. Yeah, well, I... No? Could he do like a... I don't know. Well, anyway, with the Pats, they're playing Washington this week at home. Washington just said, we don't care about the season anymore. They're playing Indy and Germany the next week, where the Pats

are like the Elvis of Germany. They're by far the most popular team. They could be four and six in two weeks to get a bye week. They're at the Giants. Home Chargers. And then Pittsburgh, KC, Denver, Buffalo, and the Jets are the last five.

They'd have to go... The schedule's great. So they'd have to go basically seven and two down the stretch this is the big game they got to beat washington look indy will be a hard get for them because indy you know is can move the but minshu i mean look minshu turns the ball over like that was another game that if you just studied what dennis allen did against minshu and philly when they played against each other last year minshu was that was the game philly lost remember Minshew in Philly when they played against each other last year.

Minshew, that was the game Philly lost. Remember, that was in Philly. Murray, Lattimore had that pick six. You see that. Those games carry over. Where I missed up this week was I thought, remember when last year Carolina went to Cincinnati? They got their doors blown off.

They got killed. And I thought Steve Wilks would have been able to figure out, okay, here's what they did to my defense, but this reverse happened. He didn't figure it out. So I misjudged that one. But to me, I think you've got to always check those games where the coordinators played against the game before

and Steichen's played against Bill before, so they kind of have a sense of it. Well, your best one with that was the Schwartz-Shanahan thing. Yeah. Which, there's just something about that matchup that's good for Schwartz, and it doesn't matter what team he has. It doesn't matter. Can I give you a, I know I'm cheating here,

because they're 4-4, but Atlanta as a possible climber would be my only other one. I think Desmond Ritter's got... Now, look, he can't hold on to the ball. It's ridiculous. But he's actually thrown the ball really well. You know what sucks for them is their offensive line. Yeah.

They got this shit kicked out of them. Which was supposed to be good. Which is they paid every guy like a million. They paid every guy. They haven't been very good. He gets way... Like, I was critical of him before the season. He's made some good throws.

He just turns the ball over. Like. He's made some good throws. He just turns the ball over. Like, it's not all his fault. You know, everybody in football thinks the answer is real. I'm sure it's in every sport. But everybody thinks the answer to what's wrong with your team is one answer. When it's more than one answer, right? It's always more.

Like, New England, yeah, it's Mack, but there's other problems. The line's got to get. There's other issues. So, Atlanta, now they lose Grady Jarrett. That worried you because he's one of their better defensive linemen. And so they lose him to an ACL. But, look, I think Atlanta, if they would stop using Algier – like I don't understand it. Two weeks ago before the Tampa game, Algier had 75 carries, averaged 3.2 a carry.

Robinson had 80 carries. averaged 3.2 a carry. Robinson had 80 carries. He averages 5-1. My six-year-old grandson could figure out, give the ball to Robinson. Give it to him. Well, one thing we should mention, I think New England would have been a possible climber, but they did lose Gonzalez and Judon and Kendrick Bourne, who I would say were three top starters. And they're a little Trent Browns playing on a bad knee. Yeah, so they're a cross-up too.

They're kind of a beat-up team. So basically we've settled on Denver or the Chargers, one of those two, which is interesting because they still play each other twice. And maybe that's how it'll play out if one of those two can sneak in there. Because I'm finally going to wave the white towel with Pittsburgh. each other twice and maybe that's how it'll play out if one of those two can sneak in there because i i'm finally going to wave the white towel with pittsburgh i just the the combination of the play

calling and the limitations at the qb position and i was thinking there was some tomlin voodoo stuff going on i think their defense is legitimately good and i just i can't you just can't play like shit for two hours on offense every single week without it having to mean something after two months. So I think I'm, so if you take out, first of all, they give up over 4.6 yards to carry, which is very uncharacteristic of Pittsburgh, you know, and that's not, and they give up, excuse me, 4.5, and they give up 7.6 yards per pass play. And they're 42% on third down allowance. That's typically not good.

Where they're really good is they force 16 fumbles. They've gotten eight. But here's the interesting stat. If you take away the 71-yard touchdown pass to the Raiders and the 72 to the Browns, right, you take those two plays out of their passing stats. Instead of averaging 10.3 yards per catch, they go down to under 10 per catch.

They can't throw the football. Don't they have 102 first downs too? Yeah, they can't throw the ball. They start the game against Jacksonville, punt, punt, punt, punt. And they plan from behind. Here's what's fascinating. Here's what I think we don't spend enough time studying

is these teams that play from behind. You know, they're behind 43 to 14 in the first quarter. And then they're minus 11 in the second quarter. So how do you get it back in the game when you're constantly behind? It's New England.

New England has won two games this year they played from the front. Right? And so they could run the ball and do with that. Denver's probably like that too. Yeah. There's a bunch of, if we have the lead, we're looking pretty good. So if we said AFC playoff teams and I gave you Casey, Baltimore, Cincy, Jacksonville, Miami, and then the playoff odds would say probably Buffalo. And then you get into that Cleveland Chargers, Denver, Jets, Houston. Cleveland would have traded for Joshua Dobbs.

I think they would have been better off. They had him. I know. They could have traded him back to him. I mean, why wouldn't they take him back? He's better than... They can't go with PJ Walker another week I still like Cleveland even though PJ

Walker is just a roller coaster ride for three hours plus the Stefanski piece too where he just can't help himself twice a year he's just going to be like you know what I'm going to blow the game for us I haven't blown a game in a while I mean look it's their defense I know they get a lot. I mean,

they started the game slow against Seattle, but they finished it and they couldn't finish it off. The Cincinnati team, I was wrong on. I mean, they looked really good against San Francisco and Burrow. When he plays like that, when he tilts the field and you can't go against that. I still think Baltimore's the best bet in the AFC. I think Lamar, when he tilts the field. You can't go against that. I still think Baltimore's the best bet in the AFC. I think Lamar, when he's on tune, he does unique things.

They're really good. I know they struggled. That was a misleading game. They didn't cover, but they should have covered that game. I'm with you. I think the Super Bowl team comes out of the AFC North. I would say Baltimore or Cincy. And I thought Cincy had the look last week, as you would say.

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We're going to talk about Harden in a second. Where do you stand on Godfather 3? Is it rewatchable for you? Do you get sucked in? What's your relationship with it? I think it's all about the casting. I think the casting was hard. And I don't mean it towards Cop think it's all about the casting. I think the casting was horrible. And I don't mean it towards Coppola's daughter. I think everybody

bitches about her. I don't think that's... Eli Wallach, I thought, was a disaster. He's bad. George Hamilton is the conciliar. George Hamilton, his tan doesn't belong in the movie. I think the casting was horrible. And I didn't think that they gave enough... They didn't have somebody they gave enough you know they didn't

have somebody that you endeared yourself to like clemenza or tessio or you know they didn't have any of those auxiliary characters that you liked i didn't even like i didn't like uh sunny's son you know like his illegitimate son i didn't even like him like you know to me it's i thought the casting and the portrayal of the illegitimate son were bad. If I were to rewrite it again, the casting has to change. You can't have George Hamilton in a Dago movie, which is interesting, too. If you read anything on The Godfather, they wanted Italian actors playing Italian parts. That was the main thing they wanted.

Somehow James Caan ended up in there. Yeah. And they get Eli Wallach who played Mr. Freeze on Batman and they get goddamn George Hamilton. Like where'd they come up with that? So we did a rewatchables on it a few years ago and I'm going to do the Sophia Coppola thing. I don't, I mean, she's a disaster in that movie, but she was kind of a late add. She was kind of the Josh Dobbs of the movie. She gets pulled in because Winona Ryder had to bow out at the last minute because of exhaustion. But we were saying recently that Marissa Tomei was right there. She's like two years before my cousin Vinny and just a rare miss from Coppola. I'm with you on some of the other stuff, but I think Pacino is so good in the movie,

it's kind of growing on me. You're watching it. It's just like he's on like a 5-12 NFL team, but he's just like carrying them scene after scene. Yeah, it's Josh Allen. He's the deodorant of Godfather III. He's just making everything smell better. You know what I thought he was great in?

I thought he was great in The Irishman, Pacino. I think his portrayal of Hoffa was brilliant. I think his scenes with, like down in Florida when he's late, and I think the scene when he's eating ice cream and he gets in a fight with Tony Pro, I think those are rewatchable. Have you done a rewatchable on The Irishman yet?

We're due for it. We've done all three godfathers. You know, I mean, really like there's there, we should be doing more soprano stuff because it just doesn't, I mean, I don't need to tell you this.

Did you see they had, they had a, they had a Halloween party at the soprano house the other day. They did? They had a whole, Kevin, he's on Twitter. He had a whole,

uh, they get, he read, they read at the house for the people that own it now. And they had this whole, Kevin, he's on Twitter. He had a whole, they rented the house for the people that own it now. And they had this whole party and a lot of the cast members came over. It was like incredible. I couldn't go up there.

It was a Sunday, I had to work. But yeah, no, you should, the rewatchable. I mean, if you just took The Sopranos by season and rewatched it. Yeah, or did like the three signature episodes. We did, so we did Bronx Tale in September, and I was making the case like in the Italian Pop Culture Hall of Fame. I think it's there, and I don't think everybody realizes that it's there. But for me, it's there. For my family, it was there. That's what makes the soprano good is because it combines every element of growing up Italian. The curse words. I feel like it, I don't want to say a crib from Bronx Tale, but it definitely like, you know, there's some Venn diagram stuff with it.

Yeah. You got the element of stay away from those bad guys, but you can't, you know, it's that Springsteen line that he wrote about. He says, if Paul's eyes were a window in a world so deadly and true, you couldn't stop me from looking, but you kept me from crawling through. That's what I think of when I think of the Bronx Tale. I don't like where we are now with new Italian pop culture.

It's the three godfathers. It's Sopranos. It's Bronx Tale. It's Goodfathers it's sopranos it's bronx tale it's goodfellas casino i mean i would throw the irishman in there even though it's not the irishman that's fair i think it's i like i can re-watch the irishman anytime i know it's not true i know that's not how it came down but i know that that guy wants to take the credit for but like watching pesci in prison drinking grape juice and playing bocce ball, it's one of the great scenes of all time.

I could watch that all the time. Now, I'm not watching The Many Saints of Newark ever. I will never go back. You were upset about that one. Very upset about that. He let me down on that. I liked it when I saw it, and then as the days passed, I started picking it apart in my brain and then I was out,

but I was just kind of so happy to be in the David Chase world again. I really wanted it to be good. It was like, I saw Godfather through my stepdad. And even when we left, he was like, no, it was good.

Like he was trying to talk himself into it. And then we realized it wasn't good. It's a high school reunion. You want to like everybody that you liked in high school. And then after you get home and you sit around and you think about, you know, I never really liked that guy. He was an asshole. Like, I didn't like that. You know, that's what it was. Like, to me, the many saints in Newark were like a high school reunion. It was a bad one. I mean, we made 600 TV shows last year. There were 600 scripted shows last year. How is nobody making a run at this Sopranos kind of corner? I don't know. Why don't we haveranos kind of corner? I don't know. Why don't we have another mob show?

What are we doing wrong? I don't understand why. I keep thinking, why isn't there a show? I have a thing called Written Parlay. Why isn't there a show where you combine the Sopranos and Entourage together and do gambling? Oh, interesting. And the three elements of it, because if you talk to... The one thing I've learned doing this...

So a young up-and-coming bookie crew that's Italian and their entourage are rising up. The cops are chasing. The cops are chasing. And what really gets interesting, if you listen to any of these guys, because when I go over to Borgata and do shows, these guys, they won't place their bets. They need runners because they move the number from the book. So they have like if you read Billy Walter's book, he's got guys running for him all the time, trying to move lines this way to get the number back the other way. So I think that to me and people are fascinated. I don't understand why there's not that show. I was watching The Godfather the other day because Pluto,

meanwhile, I own The Godfather and I own it on digital. I own the DVDs. I have all these different ways to watch that. But Pluto has a Godfather channel right now. It's just Godfather all day. So you can go at any point. That's how I got sucked into Godfather 3. You just go and it's like, oh, Clemens is going to teach Michael how to make meatballs. Like, okay. I'll just stay here for 20 minutes. I confess, I go to YouTube and watch the deleted scenes.

Oh, there's some really good deleted scenes. Oh, there's some great... Pluto just has commercials, but you just, anytime, you just put it on, it's like, oh, we're here. Oh, Godfather 2. But I was, I was thinking like, so my wife said, like, you know, we've been together 25 years and she's like, the entire time I've known you, the Godfather would just go on.

And I just like, how many times do you need to watch it? And I was like, that's not the question. The question is, how many times can you watch it? And all the things you pull out each time, it's like, you can watch the 99th time and be like, oh, I didn't realize that Pacino was doing this and this one. Or he'd be like, oh, in the Louis restaurant. I didn't realize that when he frisked him, he grabbed his dick. I didn't see that that time. And I never get tired of watching. I just don't. You know, when Ivan Reitman came to do the draft day in Cleveland when I was in Cleveland,

and I first met him, I said to him, he was telling me about everything he made from Animal House and all. I said, Ivan, the distinction you hold is you've made movies that you can't change the channel from. That's a that's a category unto itself, right? You're never changing, you know, stripes. I'm not, I'm not changing stripes. Like I'm not changing animal. If it's on and I'm flipping, I'm watching. Like you're not changing some of this stuff that he makes.

Like that's to me is like, you're not changing the, like you're not changing the Godfather. How many times you've watched Shawshank? Are you changing that? Of course you're not changing that, right? I think Sopranos is like that too because sometimes I still have cable and it's like, oh, they're just randomly doing

a Sopranos marathon. I'm like, all right, well, this is going to affect my weekend now because I have to... Oh, they're doing season two? Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'll just watch season three over because I think now we're getting close to Thanksgiving

and that just puts me in season three mood where I want to watch season three over. Like, cause I think like now we're getting close to Thanksgiving and that just puts me in season three mood, you know, where I want to watch season three and I want to see Gloria come into fold and then she goes away. And then Gloria was incredible. The best. I mean, I don't know how she,

she, how she didn't win more awards for that role. I have no idea. Well, you also get a lot of wisdom from the Sopranos. Yeah. But you do more life lessons out of Bruce Springsteen and the Sopranos. Yeah. But you've put more life lessons out of Bruce Springsteen than the Sopranos than anybody.

Well, if you listen to, I would listen to this podcast called The Founders. And this guy, just all he does is read biographies. And he ends up talking to the people that he writes, that he does the podcast on the biographies. It's incredible. And, you know, and like, he feels like, like he's watched,

like I've never watched King Game of Thrones, but like he's sitting there saying like, there's a thousand've never watched Game of Thrones, but he's sitting there saying there's a thousand life lessons in Game of Thrones, and he's got a full notebook full of them. I've never watched it. I think I've got to go back and try to watch it. It's pretty good. I think for your purposes, it's definitely, I think it's one

of the five best TV shows ever. I never watched it, so I've got to get into it. All right. Here's the big question. What Sopranos character was James Harden? Oh, let's see. James Harden was, you know, quick and out. Quick and out.

I would say he would be. Less than a season? Yeah. I mean, he's pussy. He turned on us. He's big pussy. Oh pussy oh interesting but he was still on the yacht saying we can work this out yeah we show up training camp in cape he's pussy i mean like like seriously like you know we trusted him he wanted to be with us you know he's supposed to

be one of our guys then he pretended he had a back surgery he didn't want to do this and then he went to puerto rico where did he go he's's in Houston at a strip club. Yeah, he likes strip clubs. So to me, he's pussy. He had to go. We'll just kill him on the boat. I love pussy, but he's got to go. And he leveraged Tony's all the years they spent together and all

the games they had won together, basically, like Harden and Daryl Morey. And then he ran away from the fucking police when they raided the building. We don't run. Harden doesn'taryl Morey. Yeah. And then he ran away. He ran away from the fucking police when they raided the building, you know, like we don't run, you know, I mean,

Harden doesn't run. So like, why would you do like, like to me, he's supposed to. And, and the thing that makes it so hard on is the fact that you knew he was a rat,

but you didn't want to believe it. Like pussy. Like when, when, when, when Vin came at where they were right in front of the Raritan, Raritan boat club. And they have that scene there where Tony's pissed off at,

at, at he's pissed off at Vin because he dragged him away from his kids. They were going fishing that day, you know, and he tells them pussies a rat. And he's like, you know, and this,

and let's just say Maury's Tony. Cause then when he tells them that's a rat, you know, you know, Tony says, no, I fucking love them. Well, that's the problem more

you loved harden that was the biggest problem right he didn't trust his shit detector because the love took over the shit detector exactly that's why i remember remember in game six when big pussy disappeared for the entire oh no that was james harding i'm getting confused i can't yeah no i mean like you know what bothers me the most about it all is when you do a trade, you're supposed to be objective. I don't know who they turned down

for Simmons, but they could have got something cheaper and got... Well, we know they could have gotten Halliburton. Halliburton. Yeah, they could have gotten Halliburton and healed because Indiana offered them Sabonis for Simmons. They could have gotten Halliburton and Heald because Indiana offered them Sabonis for Simmons. They didn't want Sabonis because they're at Embiid, but then they traded Sabonis for Halliburton and Heald, which makes me think it's pretty easy to surmise

they could have just done a three-way and ended up with Halliburton and Heald. And now they're probably trying to trade one of those picks that they just got for heel so that so either you try to get lucky and you hope that some unhappy team in december just like fuck this we don't want pascal siakam and now all of a sudden you're trying to grab somebody like that or you're on the fringes with like jeremy grant buddy healed people like that but they're wasting another season because they're not they're just not going to be as good as Boston or Denver from a talent standpoint. Their window was last

year when Tatum's in a funk in Game 6. And they were four minutes away from getting to a Miami series that they would have matched up pretty well with them. Their window to me was when they traded for Butler.

And then they traded. That was their window. And then they went ahead and went double down on Tobias, which was the biggest mistake they made. From the Tobias decision forward, they haven't made a good one since. It's so funny that you got stuck with this Philly team that didn't believe in basically any of the things you believe in about team building, culture, all that stuff. And then Butler goes to Miami, who does all the things that you believe in more than anything. And they all hated Butler and Philly. All my buddies who worked for the team, they're not there anymore. They said, oh, Butler's a jerk. Well, let's forget he's a jerk because we have jerks on the team. He

doesn't believe in these guys. I mean, when you were texting me the other night, when he was running at the Milwaukee game, when he, I mean, that sequence of, I mean, actually somebody put it online, like that sequence of him.

Oh my God. No defensive effort whatsoever. We never, they're never going to win. Well, I wonder, did you guys, the trade,

did you think it was a good deal? I, I don't know who the Clippers were bidding against. I thought it was amazing that they gave up as much as they did when they're the only suitor for the person. And now you have at least enough assets. You have all these expirings that you can at least be in the mix two months from now. Because you can package all those salaries together,

I think on New Year's Eve. And you have the extra picks and you can try to get the third star. Because the big thing is Maxie's gone to another level now and they've unleashed him. And there were signs of that

last year. But I believe in Maxie. I think he's really talented. I do too. So you get that third guy and somehow manage to keep Harris and Harris is your fourth guy. It becomes more interesting.

Harris comes off the books. To me, Maxie is the living proof of what Parcells used to say all the time is we have progress stoppers. I know you've had Doc on and I've listened to Doc, but Doc only played Maxie because he had to. It was just

almost forced. And sometimes being forced to play a guy is the only way to really get the guy. Because the coaches are so involved in trying to win the next game, they don't care about player development. They want to win. And yet, you know, like if you're a coach of a young team

or even an older team, like say, you know, there's two players on your roster that you have to get ready to help you in april and if you don't it's like springer from tennessee that kid they drafted like if i were the gm of the sixers like i would be all over like nurse we either you're either by september by by end of february he's either a good player or we blew the pick. We got to get him ready to play. He shows too many good things to not get him ready. He can't sit on the bench and he can't be down with the 86ers. He's got to play.

I think it's been such a fascinating NBA season from a roster building standpoint because there's so much talent now that sometimes the addition by subtraction trades become the biggest trades. The Celtics, they traded smart and people are like, oh my God. Like the real people that watch Celtic games were like, he's definitely slipped last year. There's no question. But more importantly, if he's gone, then Derek White gets to step up, right?

Because I think all of us were like, Derek White's better, but the smart, the shadow of smart and White not playing crunch time. And now, you know, now they flip it into a situation where they have White and Holiday. And White's emboldened. He was awesome in the Miami game on Friday. But they almost had to trade Marcus Smart to pave the way for that to happen. I look at the Lakers now, because I really like that Lakers team. But they kind of have too many guys, right? So now the Laker fans are So now Reeves isn't,

now the Laker fans are mad at Reeves because he hasn't started out. Well, Russell's playing a lot. They have trouble playing Russell and Gabe Vincent together. They have Christian wood and Jackson Hayes. Both of those guys want to play. Rui needs minutes and there's just not enough minutes. So they're going to have to clearly do something,

but it's, it's just an interesting time for the league where I think a lot of GMs and owners like their rosters, but they almost have too much and too many assets. In any business, if you allocate a half hour to a meeting, you end up getting less done. If you allocate 10 minutes to a meeting, you get way more done. And I think a lot of that is in team building too. If you have too many guys, you can't develop everybody. And so like, if you can cut you, like, you've got to say, okay, that this is the job of the head coach and the GM, not the assistants, because the assistants can only see the next day. You got to say, okay, these are the two players we got to get ready.

Everybody else, you know, you do whatever you want. It's, I learned this from Joe Gibbs, right? Joe Gibbs, when he was coaching with Washington, you know, we had this want it's i learned this from joe gibbs right joe gibbs when he was coaching with washington you know we had the stupid ir rules and so what he would do is he would take guys that he knew were a year away and he put them on ir and he would sign a veteran to replace that guy because he was on ir but once that guy from ir was ready to go the next year they didn't have the veteran so there was always this constant building of the team and i think that's what happens in basketball that's why teams don't develop players because they don't know who to develop they don't evaluate them correctly and then they don't spend

enough time on the development they want the guy to be a star like tomorrow like maxi like his when you watched him play it's revisionist now, but they weren't giving him any minutes. It was hard to give him minutes. And then when they had to play him in the playoff game, it was like, holy shit, this guy's really good. Right. Steve Kerr, I've talked to him about this. Part of the problem with developing the young players and why I think some of the smarter teams now are drafting these older guys out of college because the guys are more ready. They don't have to develop them as much. He was just like, the schedule's too long and they don't have time to practice ever. So if you have somebody like Kaminga or James Wiseman, once the season starts,

you're just trying to go from game to game. You're trying to manage your team and you're just basically trying to survive the 82 games and all the load management stuff we have now, all these different kind of obstacles just to get to the playoffs, you don't have time to develop James Wiseman, you know? So you got to develop them within the framework of your team. That's the hard part. But if he doesn't fit your team, what do you do? Like Wiseman, they missed the pick.

And then it's like, well, we could spend a million hours on this and it's not going to change the fact that he doesn't move in a basketball IQ sense like the other guys we have. Right. So you got to get rid of them. That's the problem. When I worked for the Raiders, we would always constantly, we wouldn't give up on a player. The coaches were practicing coaching.

And the good leaders like Belichick, like Parcells, those guys, they say, okay, I figured that guy out. He's a backup. We're getting rid of him. That guy has a chance to be a starter. We're going to keep him. I think that's the hard part. You got to make that decision because you don't want to's a backup. We're getting rid of him. That guy has a chance to be a starter. We're going to keep him. I think that's the hard part. You've got to make that decision because you don't want to develop a backup. We're not developing a guy to be a journeyman. We're developing a guy to be a star. The hard part is to figure out who's good and who's great. They all look good, but who could be great? A lot of that's the character that goes into it. And I think that's really where you got to be.

Walsh used to say this all the time. We got to play guys in September. We might lose, but they'll be ready to play in December. Right. And in the NBA with 82, you should be able to play. Like, Springer should be playing 20 minutes in November. Like, he's not, you know, like, what is he? Well, Doc went through this with Paul Reed, right? Where it's like, just play Paul Reed 20 minutes a game.

You're going to need him. He refused to play him. Because Doc wanted to win regular season games. But that's the problem with coaching is the agendas are different. The personnel guys want to develop the player. The coach wants to win the game. Somehow you got to bring it together. OKC's figured out at least

how to rebuild, add, put young guys in positions to succeed. Then Denver has done the best at anybody where Denver, not only did they win the title, they had all these young guys they like and they just put them right in. Their young guys are basically their bench and they're like, we trust you guys. We need you guys for two seven-minute spurts a half and you're playing. We're not yanking you guys around. These

are your minutes. This is how it's going to go. I think that seems the most... The Celtics are trying that now with their bench. Their bench hasn't been good, but at least those guys know they're going to play. But they're going to get better. If the mantra is we're going to get better, they'll be better. They will only be better in February. They're not going to be any worse.

If the guy doesn't give a shit, you get rid of him, right? If he's not beating you halfway, you got to get rid of him. But they're going to get better and if you coach them hard and they want to get better, they're going to get better.

Like the Patriots have all those young offensive linemen. You know, when you watch them against Philly, they sucked. When you watch them against Miami, they're actually getting better now.

Like they're getting better. Now next year, they'll be really good. They're too young to play now. They shouldn't be playing, but they have no choice but to play because of the injuries. But that's how you develop players. The hard part is to get the owner to let you develop the players and not get you fired.

Mike Lombardi, a pleasure as always. Thank you. The podcast is called The GM Shuffle, if you want to hear Mike. Hear me bitch about the Sixers. Yeah, go ahead. I'll see you in a few weeks. Thank you. I appreciate it, Bill.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mike Lombardi. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti as well. And I will see you on this feed on Thursday. Yes, we can. On the wayside. I'm a Bruce O'Leary. I don't have to be. Must be 21 plus in president select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC.

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