The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Future of Sports With Barack Obama and Bakari Sellers. Plus, Million Dollar Picks Week 15.

Episode Date: December 17, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Bakari Sellers and 44th president of the United States Barack Obama to discuss conferring with NBA players in the Orlando bubble during the wildcat strike, athletes pushing for social change, how different leagues, including the NBA, WNBA, MLB, NFL, and NCAA, responded to the coronavirus pandemic, whether college athletes should be paid, the Mount Rushmore of sports, being a dad in quarantine, his new book, ‘A Promised Land,’ the tumultuous first few months of his presidency, and more (3:30). Later, Bill gives out his Million Dollar Picks for NFL Week 15 (1:11:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, I'm going to break down week 15 gambling in the NFL with million dollar picks. And what else do we have? I had some other guests. Oh, Barack Obama. 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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Here's what you have to do. Visit fanduel.com slash BS to download America's number one sports book. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of the episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big

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Time. Miller Lite is the light beer with all the great beer tastes we like. 90 calories per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lites today? Your game time tastes like Miller Time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find my book of basketball. The six podcasts we put up for season three went up this week. Chris Weber, Joe House, and I tackled it. Joe House was a then Bullets season ticket holder. And we both, we loved watching Chris Weber play. We're disappointed by how his career career turned out and it's weird. We're both defending him and still mad about certain things.

So you can listen to that in the Book of Basketball feed. Also did a new Rewatchables this week, Country Strong. And Dave Jacoby and I broke down episode two of The Challenge on the Ringer Dish podcast. We're doing that every Wednesday night. 25 minutes an episode is the max. It's the ceiling. And, uh, we just wanted to hang out together once a week.

That's really it. There's no rational reason that Dave Jacoby and I, two guys with real full-time jobs decided to do a challenge recap pod every week. I have no explanation for you, but it's happening. I'm just telling you that coming up, I'm going to talk to Barack Obama, who was once the president of the United States of America, and Bakari Sellers, who hosts the Bakari Sellers podcast. We taped this last week of November just for context. I don't think anything is dated from it, but just wanted to give you that context

because I remember at some point in here, we were talking about the Raven-Steelers game and some of the COVID stuff. But this was really fun. I think Obama should come on twice a year. I enjoy talking sports and other stuff for them. One note, I actually forgot to record for my end for the first like seven minutes of this podcast. There's two reasons for that. One, I'm an idiot. And two, I'm an idiot. Obama popped on the Zoom. I thought I was recording and, you know, there it goes. So anyway, my audio isn't perfect for the first, I don't know, six minutes of this pod, but then it's fine after that. So I apologize. Don't ever forget. I'm an idiot.

And now our friends from Pearl Jam. All right. I'm here with former president Barack Obama, the car sellers. We have him for an hour. We're going to get right into it. We're going to talk sports. We're going to do a little speed round, then we're going to talk about your book. Sports first. You got involved with saving the NBA season, which you've talked about, how they called you, LeBron and Chris and those guys. The thing that fascinated me, you've turned into a big brother slash conciliary for all the superstar athletes. When did this happen? Was, were you in office when this happened or was it

after? You know, actually, uh, while I was president, I got to know a bunch of these guys, you know, they'd come by the white house. Uh, a lot of them knew I was fans, uh, of their work. Um, they supported a lot of our, uh, outreach efforts, you know, Michelle's Let's Move initiative, or if we were trying to, you know, get people signed up for the Affordable Care Act, and so became friends with a bunch of them. And when stuff came up, They'd sometimes call or reach out. And the fact that you see this generation of athletes actually paying attention and being interested in social issues was something that we encouraged because they've got a whole bunch of influence. You have two daughters. I have two daughters. Bill is raising a young lady as well. And one of the things in the activism that we saw in the WNBA is something that was so heartening. The women in the WNBA from Maya Moore to Asia Wilson, et cetera, kind of led that charge. Are you excited to see the growth and the kind of emergence of this league and how it's finally flourishing and they are the leaders on the forefront of the social justice movement?

Well, listen, I think let's stipulate that women generally are superior to men. I second that. And women athletes are no different. It was interesting. There was such a contrast when you had the men's teams, championship teams come, and then the women's teams come. And, you know, the guys were all nice, but a lot of them would just kind of mumble. And, you know, the same way that all of us probably did if we were 21 or 22 and showed up at the White House. And the women, you know, they would be articulate and engaged and, you know, ask these policy questions. And, you know, so I wasn't surprised. But, you know, you look at somebody like Maya Moore, who I've known for quite some time, because my first year she came as a Connecticut champion.

And her investment to the degree where she actually left basketball because she cared so deeply about it. It was impressive and not surprising. And it's a hallmark of an example of where a law really did make a difference. I mean, Title IX really changed the landscape for sports. And those of us who have daughters and see how valuable it is to have women have the same opportunities to compete and excel on the field or on the court. And the confidence it gives them and, you know, their ability then to translate that success later in life. You know, it was a really big deal that at the time, you know, because I'm old enough, you aren't, Bakari, but I'm old enough to kind of remember where just Billie Jean King versus Bobby Riggs was a huge event. The idea that an obviously superior female athlete would beat an old guy was somehow shocking to people.

Yeah, to see that change that's happened is all for the better. You know, as you mentioned, Bakari is way younger than us. He is. I am. He is. We grew up with that. Sorry, Bill, to interrupt, but I do have to publicly give props. Bakari was one of my earliest supporters in my unlikely race to run for the presidency. He was a young state legislator and clearly had nothing to lose. And as a consequence, endorsed my race very early on when people still couldn't pronounce my name.

I was still looking for my name in the book. I read the whole thing twice. Maybe in volume two. Maybe in volume two. I was looking in the index, but that's okay. You're going to get a whole chapter. But we were growing up in Muhammad Ali, John Carlos, Tommy Smith, the big summit with Kareem and Ali, Jim Brown, all those guys. And then you had, even when you had Russell in the White House and you gave him the Medal of Honor and, and all the, Jim Brown, all those guys. And, and then you had, even when you had Russell in the white house and you gave him the medal of honor and, you know, Russell was a guy in the sixties who would give speeches about, you know, he'd go to college campuses and talk about, I want everybody out here to think that someday, you know, there's no ceiling for them, that someday they could be the president of the United States. Then he comes to the white house

and visits you. It felt like this year revived some of that stuff. And reading some of the quotes that you had about it, you just seemed completely energized and jazzed that this torch had been passed, right? Yeah, you know, you're right. I do think it's generational. You and I, I'm older than you, but we caught the tail end of the 60s. Yeah. And there was still that memory and that legacy. You know, Muhammad Ali was still active. I have vivid memories of him speaking. And, you know, even a figure like Arthur Ashe, who obviously had a very different style, but, you know, who was very early on talking about South

Africa and anti-apartheid and AIDS. And to see this generation pick that back up, I think has been all for the good. Part of it is obviously that the culture itself has changed, right? You know, sports culture is always a little bit youth culture. And young people got activated. And these guys are all part of that generation. And I think, you know, obviously you saw a high watermark of that kind of activism this summer after the George Floyd murder. But fairly consistently, they have the same kind of attitude that I actually see with my daughters. And I write a little bit about this in the book.

They believe in the stuff that their parents and their teachers taught them, even if sometimes the parents and the teachers didn't completely believe it themselves. I mean, they genuinely believe in equality. They genuinely don't understand how somebody could be, you know, discriminated against because of race or because of sexual orientation or what have you. And they're almost surprised and disappointed in a way that, you know, is not naive, but is instead, I think, reflective of their values and their willingness to fight for their values. And I think that's a positive thing. The challenge, I think, for them, and this was true for Ali and Russell and Brown, is always how do you translate that activism then into concrete measures? And that's a lot of times when I'm talking to these guys, what really the conversation is about is, okay, we know we want to do something.

We're willing to put ourselves out there. But how do we translate our impulse towards social justice into something concrete that will actually do some good and make a difference? business side, they now are eager to get a strategy and figure out, all right, how can I leverage my platform, but also how can I leverage my relationship with my owner, or how can I deal with my shoe sponsors or what have you? And that, I think, is the next evolution, is them translating this, not just from protests, but then also understanding how they can use their power, which is significant, formidable, more than it was probably 20 or 30 years ago. I think one of the major differences we see is now instead of it just being the star athlete on a particular team, it's one through 15 all using their platform. It's not just, you know, LeBron James, but it's also, you know, Jared Dudley or whoever doesn't take off their warm up.

But my question is, you know, these players, they utilize their capital. And in Milwaukee, you had the arena open in Atlanta. State Farm Arena was open. So what do these players do next? And how does a vice president-elect, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, how do they leverage these individuals to utilize their platform to do what's next, which is kind of create that tangible change? Well, look, you know, there are going to be specific instances. Let's say you've got a Georgia senatorial race coming up, and obviously voting is still relevant. In each of their markets, one of the things that I have

suggested is that something like the criminal justice system is actually pretty local, right? Decisions really aren't made at the presidential level. They're made, the mayor appoints the police chief, or there's a police board, or, you know, there are contract negotiations about, you know, how police are, you know, held accountable if something goes wrong. And the district attorneys and the state's attorneys are making all those decisions. So for a lot of them, I think getting involved locally on the issues they care most about can actually have a huge impact and make a big difference. And obviously, you don't have to be a LeBron to have influence if you are a star or even just a player in that city. The other thing, though, that I've talked to them about is creating a structure that

can sustain itself. I mean, I joke, I don't necessarily, I didn't save the NBA season, but these guys had a question about whether they should go back to play after Milwaukee, after the Milwaukee Bucks decided not to play. And all the NBA players in the bubble were trying to figure out what to do. One thing I said to them is, look, the reason you guys are calling me at midnight is because you don't have an organization that is staffed, that can strategize, keep up with stuff, you know, pay attention to the details. Because all these guys are still young men who have a profession and a craft that they've

got to focus on. It's too much to expect to them, for them to be experts in every one of these areas. But if they pooled the resources and they had a couple of staff attorneys, they had communications and an organizational network that was giving them all information about how they could have an impact on any given issue that they care about. That, I think, could be really powerful. You know, you write in your book about lessons you learned from previous generations, right? And older politicians, stuff like that. I'm so fascinated by this generation of athletes and really starting with the LeBron era, learning from the mistakes of the people before them, right? You think about the guys, the Jordan era, everybody's kind of out for themselves and everyone's making a lot of money,

but they don't care about public perception and that stuff. They're just, they care about succeeding and that's it. And that gradually evolves during LeBron era. And now you see these young guys coming in and they're like finished, polished products at age 21, 22, 23. I don't fully understand it, but they've also, the guys that are emulating now are LeBron off the court as well as on. And I'm sure you've talked to some of those guys. Are you, are you like blown away when you have conversations with these dudes? They're 25 and they're, they have this wherewithal of everything already? I mean, I think that they and their parents

have learned from some of the mistakes of the past, both in terms of how to handle their finances. Yep. It is unlikely that you're going to see a repeat of somebody getting a $100 million contract and ending up broke, right? Yeah. The Vin Baker story. Right.

Yeah. And these guys have a clear sense of how to negotiate with agents, how they think about their contracts, how they think about their endorsements. You know, what's interesting, listening to them, by the way, it's not just that they're learning from the mistakes of some of their predecessors. They're also a hip hop generation and they've learned from the examples of guys like Jay-Z and Diddy and others who became entrepreneurs and owners of their content and sort of liberated themselves from the old studio models and the record deals where some great Motown artist

or others end up not having as much as you would think, given their popularity. And so that sort of cross-pollination between hip hop and athletes, particularly in the NBA, I think has been interesting because they all see themselves as not just employees of a team, but they see themselves as an enterprise. Now, there are some downsides to this. Now, you know, there are some downsides to this. You know, Bill, you've talked about this on your show. It diminishes to some degree team loyalty, right? So the kind of experience as a fan that you have of loving a team, even if it's a loser. Yeah, you think about the Chicago Cubs, right? And somebody like an Ernie Banks, right? Who is beloved, even though the Cubs never

won, right? But he was their guy. And, you know, you lose some of that. And, you know, I think that there's some downsides to how players are getting developed now. Because they think of themselves as an enterprise, the whole interaction with AAU and how they think about their own development, I think in some cases leads to guys entering the league very sophisticated on the business side, but maybe don't have the same skill sets and coaching that, let's say, Michael Jordan a LeBron or, you know, some of these other guys, it doesn't matter. But for folks who may not be transcendent talents, you know, it may mean that their careers on the basketball court or in other arenas may not be quite as polished when they come into the league. What do you, I mean, we, one of the things that we've seen in sports is a lack of diversity in the ownership ranks and, and, and throughout coaching. I mean, me and Bill were talking prior to, I mean, we'll, we'll, we'll

chip in. I think I have about a thousand bills going to do it a little bit more. If you want to buy the bulls, we can be a part of your team. Yeah. What are you doing? How have you not bought a team yet? It's been four years. I still what are you doing i still got to pay student loans so let me tell you something the uh the thing i wouldn't do is uh you know like like jay-z was was quote unquote part owner of the nets right it's one percent means you get 0.1 yeah courtside seats and i don't know what else. Free popcorn. Free popcorn. you know, creating the kind of organization that, you know, like the Patriots or the Spurs where you have sustained excellence. And, you know, I don't have that kind of money. No matter how many books I sell.

You know, I thought I thought we needed the Spotify deal in the book sale book deal. I thought I was like, oh, he's making his move. He's putting it together. That's it. That's what he wanted to do. The Bulls. He's talking to Reinsdorf. No, you know, I know Jerry and I don't think Jerry's going to be selling anytime soon.

No, none of those guys want to get out of there. 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.

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I miss being able to go to the stadium, is this COVID-19 and its effect on sports. How do you think? I mean, you've run a country, you're a leader of the free world. How do you think these sports franchises and leagues, from the Wubble to the Bubble to the NFL not really caring, what happens? They're going to play football regardless. How do you think these leagues are handling this COVID outbreak? Yeah, and on top of that, the strategy is the NFL is just like we're plowing ahead.

We're just playing the games. The NBA is putting more thought into it. What would you do? Listen, I would say that, number one, it's hard for any of these sports leagues to do a good job if the White House is not doing a good job. If at the top folks are shambolic and dismissive and full of misinformation and politicizing stuff, then it leaves everybody else on their own to have to make these ad hoc decisions.

And so with that caveat, I would say the NBA and Adam Silver handled it as well as it could have been handled. And just generally, the partnership between the players, the owners, the commissioner, at least the dialogue, I don't want to over-romanticize it, but you do get a sense that everybody there figured out, look, we're all in this together. If we're going to do it right, this is what we have to do. It's going to require everybody to sacrifice. And, you know, the fact that they came through that process and the playoffs ended up being really exciting, really well played, you know, kudos to them. That was impressive. Baseball, I thought, did a reasonably good job. Look, the NFL right now, as we speak, I guess there's a game coming up. Yeah.

You know, with what, the Baltimore Ravens having like half their players not playing. It does feel maybe because it's a 53-man roster that everybody feels more expendable, and the notion is, look, we just put something up there. I don't feel that they have been as cautious in terms of their design. Yeah. But but I'll be honest with you, probably the area where I'm most frustrated is college. Right. Because whatever happens at the professional level, at least these are these are adults who are getting paid, and they're making a series of decisions that may be suboptimal for the players, but for the most part, you're not putting other people at risk. right now. We'll see how basketball develops. There is this sense of the economics driving

a series of decisions in which a bunch of very young people are being put at risk in ways that are unnecessary. But that gets me into a whole set of questions about the NCAA that could take up too much time on this program.

Should athletes get paid? NCAA athletes get paid? Yes. I think that the amount of money that is being made at the college level, the risks that, let's say, college football players are being subjected to, The fact that for many of these colleges, what these young people are doing are subsidizing athletic director salaries and coach salaries. All of that argues for a better economic arrangement for them. And I think there is a way of doing that that doesn't completely eliminate the traditions and the love we all have for college sports. It just means that if Zion Williamson or Trevor Lawrence or somebody is participating in those sports, and the local car dealer or what have you, who as it is, is already probably a booster and doing a whole bunch for that university wants to also help that student, you know, with their parents or, you know, facilitate them, you know, being able to get

a better training situation for their next stage that penalizing those kids when everybody else is benefiting does not make sense to me. And when you look at the history of the NCAA and how it developed, it developed specifically to insulate these institutions from claims made by these students. You know, the whole myth of student-athletes really evolved in part because early on, football players, you know, who were being brought in, you know, as ringers on these teams were getting hurt and then suing for workers' comp. And suddenly, the colleges figured out, you know, if we form this association and create this whole ideal of student athletes that, uh, you know, uh, we'll protect our pocketbooks. Um, so yes,

we should, we should, we should make some changes there. First time I met you 2012, I gave you the solution. You didn't listen to me. You're in, you were president for four more years. I told you to create a sports star position. You could have fixed this. You did suggest that. You didn't listen to me. You just ignored it. You swatted me away like Mutombo.

I do take some credit for the college playoff, which as president, I promoted. That is fair. And has worked out pretty well. So come on, man. There you go. As is a major theme in the book i didn't get everything done but i got a lot done i do think the sports bar the sports are thing in 2020

was proved more than ever that we might have needed one right it was just complete lawlessness depending on the sport and a lot of a lot of countries have it and And, you know, I have some things, some ideas that if I were a sports czar, I'd probably, you know, promote. In your spare time, you could do it. It's like an hour a day. Yeah. Over breakfast. NFL overtime rule. Yeah.

Change that. I don't understand how one team, if it scores a touchdown, the other team doesn't get the ball back. Doesn't make sense to me. Fair. Maybe move the three-point line back a little bit. Why? So only Dame Lillard

and Steph can shoot? Yeah. It should be a little tougher. When I start seeing seven-footers launching threes, that tells me it's gotten too easy. That's a solid point. Let know, when I start seeing seven-footers launching threes, that tells me it's gotten too easy. That's a solid point. When Brook Lopez is making them, it's gone too far. Let me ask one of these generational questions for you older guys. Is Steph the greatest shooter of all time?

I think he is. That's not even a question. Absolutely. I think he has the best hand-eye coordination of just about anyone I've ever seen. I have not seen anybody who can shoot that way in as many ways, in as unlikely ways, as consistently as Steph Curry. And you know, I mean, you know, is just it's precise and neat and tight. You know, one of the things I described and you really saw this as present because all these athletes would come in. Olympic folks would come in.

And, you know, these world class athletes, they're like X-Men or, you know, like some of them you can tell are like the Hulk, right? You know, you're standing next to LeBron, you know, he's a freak. Yeah. You stand next to self Steph and, you know, he's like one of those guys who he has some superpower with, you know, he takes off his glasses and you can't see right away, but is just as much of a freak. It's just, it's not as obvious. Or you take even somebody like a Rondo. I remember the first time I shook hands with him and he's shorter than me, but his arms

like reach down to his ankles and his hands are, you know, just buried mine. And you realize there's a reason this guy's a professional. Just because he looks normal he is not. But, Kari, you know what? He really just told us that he's down with Steph Curry in golf.

Steph Curry is higher than him in the head-to-head career earnings. With all due respect to my president, Steph beats my president, Barack Obama, in golf every day of the week. Steph is a really good golfer. I mean, he's, you know, Steph Curry, Ray Allen.

You know what's interesting? The two best NBA golfers may also be the two best shooters of all time. Yeah, because it's hand-eye. Hand-eye, muscle memory, just being able to repeat a motion over and over again. What does that say about...

Charles Barkley got to be number three, so what does that say about his... Charles Barkley's definitely not number three. This gives us a good entry into speed round. We're going to do this fast because we want to talk about your book. First one. We'll go...

Bakari and I will alternate here. So golf, they have these televised celebrity skins golf matches. A. Would you ever do it? And B. Who's your partner? I would never do it because look, the first time I chili dipped a

shot or took three to get out of the bunker and now suddenly that's a gift, right? It's just playing over and over again on the internet. So not worth it. Who's your partner if you did do it? Alternate universe, you're doing it. Well, you know, I guess I, Tiger?

Why wouldn't I? Good answer. The best girl of all time. You're Mount Rushmore sports. Four. Across all sports. Ali. Jordan.

Willie Mays. Maybe Serena perfect I bet you weren't going to say Serena Bakari said you weren't going to say Serena I tell you you look at her dominance she might be the greatest I mean

in terms of our lifetime you know you've Brady, you've got Jordan, you've got Phelps, Federer, Bolt, and Serena, right? I mean, you've got maybe those are the ones who – maybe Mike Trout, when his career is over, you might say the same thing, but those folks were folks and Tiger, they were that much better than everybody else. In their primes, they exceeded everyone else in a way that nobody else did. Maybe LeBron, by the time he's done as well.

Next 12 years, you're trying to win NBA titles. Giannis, Luka, or Zion? I want to see if Giannis gets a mid-range this year. Okay. You know, everybody's worrying about Giannis getting a three-point shot. Giannis needs a 12-footer or a 15-footer. That's what matters, right? If he does, then I think he's unstoppable.

If he has the same shot as a Carl Malone or even a Kawhi, right, where in crunch time he can just pull up, who's going to block that shot? So if he doesn't develop it, then probably Luka just because more skill set. Although Zion's just more fun to watch. He's a monster. I got Luka.

Yeah, I know you do, Bill. That's my guy. You're fantasizing once. This is like the whole Larry Bird, you know, fantasy coming back up in your head. He's the best 21-year-old player ever. He is remarkable. He's legit.

You better get on the bandwagon. I don't like the disrespect to Zion Williamson, my South Carolina boy right now. I'm taking Zion every day of the week. So, 90s Bulls or last decade Warriors? I'm always, the Bulls will always be my team. Because, you know, about hometown. But those two teams are the two teams in the NBA, I guess, along with Showtime Lakers, there are certain teams that transcend the sport

and you have so much fun watching them. It doesn't mean that you don't respect the other champions, but those were teams that entertained as well as they played. And in that sense, they're comparable, right? 2016 Warriors was as much fun as basketball gets. Yeah, the regular, that 25-game streak they had was fantastic. Your most fun moment as a dad during the quarantine because underrated quarantine, Bakari's kids aren't old enough yet

underrated quarantine when you have teenage girls that are older they're stuck with you, they can't go anywhere you get all this extra quality time you didn't expect so what was your best moment it's a blessing because all the teenage stuff is kind of gone now.

And they're just back and they love you again. And they want to spend time with you. And, you know, they're funny. And so, like I think a lot of families, we went through that first month where we were playing games every night and doing a little arts and crafts projects. Right. And then slowly, you know, they started getting a little bored with us. Maybe teaching Malia and Sasha and Malia's boyfriend, who was with us for a while, spades. And then having some spades games.

That's contentious. Yeah, and teaching them how to properly trash talk and slap the cards down. You might be getting out of Bill's wheelhouse right now. How dare you? Like I haven't played Spades. I'm more stunned that Malia's boyfriend was quarantined with you. This is the biggest revelation of the podcast. He's British, wonderful young man. I'm more stunned that Malia's boyfriend was quarantined with you. This is the biggest revelation of the podcast.

He's British. Wonderful young man. And he was sort of stuck because there was a whole visa thing and he had a job set up. And so we took him in and I didn't want to like him. Yeah. But he's a good kid. So the only thing you discover, this is not a surprise to you, Bill, because you've got a son.

Young men eat like it's weird to watch them consume food and uh my grocery bill went up about 30 picard this sounds like an nbc sitcom pitch it does moves into former president's house during quarantine with his daughter only if we can produce gonna buy this do you do you know anybody at netflix i mean there we go i'll make some calls uh you want to buy this. Do you know anybody at Netflix? I mean, there we go. I'll make some calls. You want to go into the book or you want to do a couple more of these? No, do one more question. One more each. Okay. I got two questions, though, so I'm going to just run them off. Ali Tyson in their prom. Who wins? Seriously?

Ali. I got Ali too. Look, Tyson, I'd be more scared of Tyson in a barroom brawl. But Ali, the man went to prison or at least was stripped of his title and was at risk of going to jail in his prime, comes back. He beat Foreman, who was more imposing

than Tyson in his prime. He was so slow. George Foreman was so slow. He was so slow. Mike Tyson was fast and strong. George Foreman, you can see him coming. Go back. Just go back and watch the tapes. Go watch the Frazier fight. I am not one of those guys

who is always, oh, the older guys, it used to be better. In basketball, for example, I'm not one of those guys who is always, oh, the older guys, it used to be better. In basketball, for example, I'm not a believer that, you know, sometimes I get in arguments with Jordan about like, oh, you know, there's no hand checking now and this and that. These guys are soft. I actually think basketball is better now that they're better athletes. They're more skilled. Me too. And I think that's true about just about every sport.

It's interesting with football that when I was president, the 72 Dolphins came by because they never got their White House visit because— Nixon. Yeah, there was a few problems going on with Mr. Nixon. So we had them in. And, like, those guys compared to the guys now are tiny. You know, Nick Bonacani, who's like their middle linebacker, is like the size of a cornerback now.

Yeah. You know, there's just no comparison. But having said that, I got you. There are times where you look at somebody like Muhammad Ali, that guy. Timeless. He was timeless. My last speed round question.

Would you ever play Trump in golf in a loser absolutely has to leave the country pay-per-view match? That's it. One of you has to go. Who's keeping score? Who's counting strokes? Third parties. Third parties matter. That'd be my caveat. I'd want somebody following to make sure that, you know, we were tracking every stroke. Good answer. Prime Big Deal Days is

coming October 8th and 9th with exclusive savings just for Prime members, involuntary deal squeals can happen, like the deal on new running shoes squeal, the deal on a new blender squeal, or the infamous deal on a new massager squeal. Save big on electronics, fashion, and more this Prime big deal days october 8th and 9th all right let's talk to the book first of all your main goal i know was to write a book that was longer than mine um and i did it you did it by like 50 pages but it's only part one right part two's coming um this is a super nerdy writer question. So I was struck by a, how many details you remembered from basically the 10 years, the two year campaign. And then, um, I guess six years, cause you, you haven't done the four yet, but I'm sure it's the same thing. All the details you remembered. And then also the way you were able to color in descriptions of the people who

passed through your life, right? The people in your cabinet, the people who helped with the campaign, even like world leaders and stuff like that. And it reminded me almost of if a reporter had been embedded with you during this stretch, this is kind of how they would have written it, but you were the reporter and I can't figure out how you did it when you're writing everything longhand, which is the craziest thing I've ever read in my life. But car, he didn't type in a computer. He was writing it out on paper. I know. I, when I, when I read that, when I read that in the, in the intro, cause I, you know, authors here, we just had, I just had a book come out too. I was like, this is a kind of crazy. Yeah. What's happening. So I don't, how did you remember all this stuff for you? Like one of those memory freaks who remembers every single thing?

You know, it's interesting. I remember scenes. Even as they happen, they come to me as scenes, right? So there are times where we'd be in the Oval Office and somebody would say something. And it would be funny or scary in the case of, for example, our first meeting about the economy as I'm coming in, where I think that was a good line. You know, and that will know, that will work. That would work as a scene. It's almost how I understand and process what's happening to me at that time.

And it sticks with me. So, you know, I didn't keep daily journals. I guess Reagan and Carter would write everything down at the end of the day. I found that I was just spent by the end of the day, just had too much work. But I'd jot down if there was a memorable scene. I'd sort of just scribble something down and kind of put it in a drawer so that it would trigger a memory. But look, the other thing, it is true that I write out longhand initially the first draft and then I type it in the computer and that's kind of my first edit. On the other hand, I use the heck out of a computer in terms of research. And there's no way that I would have been able to write this book

without 10 researchers if I had been writing it 20, 30 years ago. Now you've got an iPad, and I could literally pull up every press conference I had had, contemporaneous accounts of every single event that had happened. You know, you just type in the date. Oh, and it's triggering memories too, right? And so as you're reading it, you're, oh, man, you know, and so sorting out, for example, my memory about sequence was not always spot on. You know, sometimes I think something happened a little bit earlier, happened a little bit later. One of the, probably the most striking things for me about writing the book

was realizing how much went down just in the first three months of my presidency, right? Things that in my mind I knew happened the first year, but then it turns out, oh, no, actually, you know, I passed the Recovery Act to save the economy in the first month. And the auto bailout was a month later. And, you know, had not remembered the fact that. When we when I order the raid against bin Laden, I had remembered that it was at the same time as Trump and birtherism. Yeah. But I had forgotten that it was only a month after we had launched missiles into Libya to try to prevent Muammar Gaddafi from carrying out a genocide there. It was only a month before we had a debt ceiling crisis that almost spun the economy out of control again. So that's where computers came in handy.

It's just kind of getting the calendar of when all this stuff happened. But once I'm in the scene, I was able to recall it pretty well. One of the, except recalling Bakari Sellers in the book, but that's okay. That was a miss. that was a miss but you know it's four four and three four stars because of that omission um you know one of the things like one of your best one of your best pieces of oratory came in trying to convince michelle and everyone else to when you were you know going off before you went to thanksgiving i believe, to Hawaii to talk about running for president. And you had this quote, and you were talking about the reason why,

why you, why me. And you say, I know that kids all around this country, Black kids, Hispanic kids, kids who don't fit in, they'll see themselves differently too. Their horizons lifted, their possibilities expanded. One of the characters in this book that I love, that is one of my favorite characters of your White House, is Pete Souza. He was somebody who, the photographer, I don't even know what this man looks like, Bill. If he walked in here, I would have no idea what he looks like. But he captured all of these images. And not, I always tell people that probably the best image is the image of the Bin Laden raid. But the second best image is the picture of you and Jacob Philadelphia together. Do you recall that image where the young

man asked you, what does my hair feel like? And we laughed and joked about the successes that you may or may not have had. But one of the successes that you realized that promise. Talk about that moment where that kid was able to reach up and touch your hair and talk about how you encompassed meaning so much to black and brown kids around the world, showing them that they could be leader of the free world, too. Yeah, you know, that is one of my favorite photographs. And it's one of Pete Souza, who was the White House photographer, not just for me, but for part of Ronald Reagan's term. And it just became a close friend. One of his favorite images, you know, one of the things you do as president mixed in with going to the situation room or, you know, meeting with your cabinet is you just have

to take a lot of pictures, right? People are coming through, visiting. There's staff turnover. And so this African-American couple, the gentleman had worked for one of the agencies. They come in with their two kids. One of them's eight. I think the other one's five. And the little boy, he's got his little tie on and his little shirt. And you can tell, you know, his mom and dad are just barely, you know, keeping him neat for this photo. And he just raises his hand. He says, I got a question. Does your hair, is your hair the same as mine?

Does your hair feel like mine? And I say, well, you know, why don't you check it out? And I lean down and he touches the top of my head and Pete captured the picture. And it became probably one of the favorite pictures. Pete would take these pictures and hang them up in the White House in the hallways. And then he'd rotate them out usually, but that one stayed there for four years just because everybody loved that photo. Look, I tried never to overstate the power of the symbolism of our write in the book that when I'm visiting a generation, it became normal and routine. It did not seem unattainable. How that ends up affecting a generation of black kids, brown kids, but also white kids. Because what was interesting was I can't tell you how many parents would come up to me and say, you know, our kids think that, you know, it is a given that there'd be somebody who is darker than them who could, is also the president.

You know, and how that ends up changing attitudes for that generation coming up, you know, you don't know, but I'd like to think that it opened up some minds and hearts for, particularly for,, particularly for younger people. So the tail end of your book is the Bin Laden raid and a little bit of the Trump birtherism stuff. And you also kind of go backwards, going to the tea party and kind of the seeds of everything that happened in the last four years. I thought it was interesting. And maybe you're going to do this in the next volume. Um, you didn't really attribute a lot of where we are now to the internet and the ability of the internet to polarize things, to have misinformation, stuff like that. I don't even remember the last time you and I talked, I don't even think we

talked about that, that piece of it. Do you look back now and think like, man, maybe we should have regulated some of this internet stuff differently? What could I have done? Should I have put more power into trying to fix this before it became an issue? Like, how do you think of it now? Yeah. I hint at it because we were early adapters of social media in the 2008 campaign. For a positive, in a positive way. It was great for us, right? It was MySpace and Meetup. And it's part of the reason we were able to mobilize all these young volunteers who actually knew how to work this stuff.

I didn't. But we had a bunch of 25-year-olds who were all like, no, really, Mr. President, there's a group in Idaho, Idahoans for Obama, and they're going to get organized through meetup. And I was all like, okay, fine. And the next thing you know, you've got 16,000 people in a basketball stadium in red Idaho, and we end up winning that state because of the power of that social connection. So my view was shaped by that. And I thought, this is democracy. This is going to empower citizens. People's voices are going to be heard. People are going to be able to learn about each other and understand each other. And even as late as the Arab Spring, which is now, you know, so we're fast forwarding to 2010, 2011, 2012, you're still thinking that all those kids in Tahrir Square who are expressing

their desire for freedom and expressing themselves and organizing these impromptu rallies that help result in overthrowing a longtime authoritarian leader, Mubarak. And you're thinking, all right, this is still a positive, you know, force. And it wasn't, I think, until, as you note, Volume 2, where you start realizing, well, actually, ISIS can also mobilize through social media. And, you know, neo-N think that it is a, it's a fair characterization that, um, the optimism I had about it in the first couple of years, uh, you know, uh, was shared by a lot of the folks on my staff because of where we had come from.

And it wasn't until later that we started saying, okay, there's a downside here. Now, what that means, you are absolutely right, Bill, and I've talked about this in some interviews. If you ask me, what is the thing I worry about most about our democracy? Trump did not create the kind of deep polarization that we're seeing right now where folks just occupy two entirely different realities. He was an accelerant to it, but he didn't create it. And social media is helping to drive that, the question now I think becomes, is there a combination of regulation, but also the companies themselves adopting just smarter practices in order to curb some of that? We're not going to get back to the time where you got Walter Cronkite and everybody's just watching

three networks and everybody's completely on the same page. But we can do a better job. And I've had conversations with the leaders of some of these platforms and reminded them, look, you can pretend like you're a utility, like the electric company, but you guys are media companies and you're packaging information and your algorithms are making determinations. And you have some responsibility, not just to increase your market share, no matter what's out there, but in fact, you have a responsibility to make sure that we're not tearing ourselves apart in this country. And it is a powerful force. I write about the fact that when I ran for the U.S. Senate,

and as late as 2008 when I'm running in Iowa, I could go into rural communities, very conservative, almost entirely white, that might not be obvious sources of votes for me, but because I could go into the local newspaper and have a conversation with the editorial board, or I could show up at a VFW hall and just talk to people face to face, you know, they'd give me the benefit of the doubt. I could have a conversation. They might not agree with me on everything, but they'd get a sense of who I actually was. If I went to some of those same communities now and all they're seeing is either Fox News or Newsmax or some Facebook page in which, you know, I'm some wild-eyed socialist, you know, who, you know, vampire.

You know, you can't have a conversation. The filter's too thick. Yeah. And it goes both ways, right? Although there's not a complete equivalence. One thing I always, and sometimes folks who are non-political, you know, who mainly cover sports,

sometimes there's like, ah, both parties, you know, it's so polarized, et cetera. There is an asymmetry going on right now. Generally speaking, it's not that there aren't some folks who have wacky ideas and are extreme ideas inside the Democratic Party,

but the mainstream of the Democratic Party is still rooted in facts and generally abides by. Except for Bakari. But the whole idea of, yeah, let's like have two, you know, sources for a story. And, you know, let's listen to scientists like Fauci when he says that, uh, COVID's bad. Uh, yeah, we generally are still abiding by that a little bit more. Climate change, things are getting hotter. You know, we can have a debate about whether, uh, what we should do about it, but you know, uh, those wildfires in California, uh, are coming more frequently for a reason. Yeah.

Go ahead, Bakari. So in your book a lot, you talk about leading up, you talk about the differences between your presidency or your campaign and some of the campaigns that came before you, like Jesse Jackson, like Shirley Chisholm, et cetera. And what I want to you talk about race a lot and talking to Axelrod, he was somebody who would always say we didn't have to talk about him being the black man in the White House. You could actually see that. Something that you talk about is kind of a theme throughout the book. My question is, after George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, reading this book, how should we as a country, not just Democrats, navigate this tinderbox of race in the country, not just Democrats, navigate this tinderbox race in the country. And you have these new emerging young black and brown voters who want tangible action items from their elected representatives, whether or not it's reparations, which is a whole other episode, or whether or not it's direct infusion of capital into their communities. What should we do? How, as leader of the free world or

as just a regular citizen like myself and Bill, how do we navigate this tinderbox of race? Well, I feel more optimistic about our prospects of dealing with some of these issues as a result of what happened this summer. Not only because you saw this wave of activism among young people, not only because the demographic of those who marched was not always what you would expect, right? You'd have Black Lives Matters marches in small, all-white towns in Oregon or Utah. And that was indicative of what I told you earlier, which is young people, they believe what they've been taught about people being equal and needing to be treated fairly and are disappointed when they see those ideals breached. So I have huge faith in the previous generation, but also those young people were also helping to saw the kind of recognition that there's a genuine problem with racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. In polling, a majority, not just of blacks,

but also whites, acknowledge that. And that's a huge change from just 10 years ago. When you look at attitudes during Ferguson, let's say, and attitudes now, the broader population is more clear-eyed in recognizing there is a problem. And that, I think, is promising and hopeful. Now, the issue always becomes what do we do with that? And I think the thing that I am constantly urging when I'm in conversations with some of these young activists. And look, even back when I was president, I had some of the Black Lives Matter activists come in to the Oval Office and sat down and met with them. And I stay in touch with many of them. And my argument is always, how do you translate your impulses into action? How do you change laws? How do you change institutions? How do you change practices? And to do that, you have to be specific in terms of, for example, let's examine

how police are trained, or let's examine how district attorneys are able or not able to charge police if you have a case of excessive force. But you also, in order to then get those laws passed or those institutional practices changed, you have to have allies. And the one thing that I insist on, probably partly because, you know, I have a white mother and white grandparents. And so I, the love and regard that they felt for their black grandson, even if their attitudes weren't always perfectly politically correct. I know that folks can be reached. I have to insist on the fact that we have to reach out beyond our own group in order to get anything done. And that's true of all groups in America. And will be increasingly true because we are going to increasingly live in an even more multiracial, even more multicultural, multi-religious society.

And so if we can't translate our aspirations in a way that white folks can relate to or Hispanics can relate to, we won't get anything done. And that means, for example, if we want police reform and we know that defund the police as a phrase triggers a certain pushback from folks who are going to need to get something done, then is there a way for us to describe this as very concretely, you know, let's change how policing is done. Let's reallocate some resources so that there's more money in prevention or mental health. A description that doesn't trigger that same kind of pushback. I guess the bottom line is that I think speaking truth to power about race is necessary, valuable, important. Calling it out when we see something wrong is critical. But at the end of the day, in order to actually right wrongs and bring about change, you've got to invite people in to help.

You've got to be willing to say to the broader white population, we believe that you can do the right thing and want to do the right thing. As opposed to suggesting, you know, you can't understand us and this is your problem, right? And that's just human nature. Yeah. And it is the nature of putting together political coalitions, which, you know, is the essence of democracy, right? It's how do you get enough votes to actually make something happen

as opposed to just feeling righteous about your own position? Well, hopefully over the next four years, we'll see that happen. This is the book. It's right there. It's a nice cover. I got to take my 20% off.

Hey, yeah. Bakari, I expect you to pay full price, man. Come on. I got twins. They're 22 months old. I did the best I could do. Fair enough, fair enough. I did the best I could do.

Mr. President, great to see you. We threw you a saw by not talking about your cigarette smoking revelations in the White House. Maybe on the next podcast, we'll talk about that. But it was awesome to see you. Great book. thank you i really enjoyed it and just to make sure since you brought it up the record is clear it's been 10 years since i had it i was proud of you yeah it was good yeah proud of you chewing the heck out of this nicorette though get myself off that stuff all right good to see you thank you see you guys you too myself off that stuff. All right. Good to see you. Thank you. See you guys. Have a great holiday.

Thank you. You too. All right. It's time for million dollar picks. Always like to follow a former president of the United States with gambling and the NFL. Why not? Let's do it. So I am taping this early today. I'm taping this. It is Thursday morning, my time. So we actually have time to incorporate the Thursday night Raiders Chargers game, which I'm going to cover in one second. Taping the picks early in the morning on Thursday, a full three days before the games actually start for the most part. Although we do have a Thursday and two Saturday games this week, but, um, you know, there's a lot of harrowing stuff here with injuries, COVID, uh, guys getting scratched last minute, just kind of crossing your fingers here. There's other people out there that do gambling, you know, picks podcast stuff that wait till Sunday or say, check my Twitter on Sunday. I'll give you my picks. Look, I am up this year and I am putting the picks out on Thursday

I'm up 199,000 I lost 200k last week Mostly because I didn't put enough on the bills And I really regret it But I'm still up 199k for the year And I think doing that on Thursday I'm really proud of myself, I gotta say So here was my mindset going into week 15

I think this is the weekend when the good teams are like, we're not fucking around anymore. The teams that have a chance to be a one seed or a two seed or a three seed, you're just not catching them by surprise. And conversely, the teams that are pretty much out of it or are out of it, this is around the time when they rolled over. So I actually went through the scoreboard on ESPN because you can check out the games by the years. So I looked at

the 10 win teams in week 15 over the last six years. And here's what I found. They were 33 and four just to win the game outright. Over the last three years, they were 18-1. Going by year, 2019, a team that had at least 10 wins playing a team that had less than 10 wins was 9-0. 2018, 3-1. The 7-7 Eagles beat the 10-4 Rams that year. 2017, 6-0.

2016, 4-1. You had the 8-6 Titans beating the 10-4 Chiefs that year. 2015, 4-1. The 9-5 Steelers beat the 10 and four Broncos that year. And 2014, seven and one, the eight and six Bills beat the 10 and four Packers that year. So 33 and four over the last six years, 18 and one over the last three. And if you look at the four losses, the teams were seven and seven, eight and6, 9-5, and 8-6. So in the last six years, a team with a losing record has not beaten a team with 10 wins or more in week 15. That makes me feel pretty safe about some of the tease options, which is where I'm gravitating this week.

Here's the first one I'm looking at. It'd be a three-teamer. The Steelers are getting, giving minus 12 and a half points to Cincinnati. Cincinnati is really abominable the last five weeks. I'm not sure if you know about the numbers, but they have scored 50 points total over the last five weeks. And that includes a couple of borough games. They lost all of those games. They're 31st in DVOA. Pittsburgh's fourth. Pittsburgh needs a win. Pittsburgh's coming off that brutal three games in 12 days stretch. They need to just, they need to eat. They need to sit down at the

breakfast table and eat. They're not losing that game. So we can tease them down to two and a half. Wonderful. Second one is Ravens minus 12 and a half over the Jags. You know, the Ravens defense has fallen apart over the last couple of weeks. I'm not even sure you can start them in a fantasy league, even this week against the Jaguars because they've had too many injuries and it's just too easy to move the ball on them. The Jaguars don't want to win any more games. They're still keeping their fingers crossed that maybe the Jets can win a game and maybe they have a chance to get Trevor Lawrence.

There's also one other awesome quarterback in the draft this year. And if you give me like 20 seconds, I'm going to remember his name. I can't remember his name, but there's two. There's two really good ones. So they don't want to fall out of the top two. I don't think the Jags win again. They also don't have the talent to win again. They got murdered last week.

So bringing the Ravens down to two and a half, I feel pretty safe there. Then my third one, the Bills are playing Denver. It's in Denver. There are some red flags here, and I'm going to go through them really quickly. Denver looked really good the last two weeks. They played the Chiefs tough, and then they did a nice job against Carolina. It's weird. Cause on DVO way, their offense is terrible. They're like a bottom five DVO a offense 28.

But if you watched them the last two weeks, I like some of their skill guys. I liked Jerry Judy. I really liked Tim Patrick. My buddy Gus, who's a lifelong Broncos fan is like, we finally recreated Rod Smith. I like Jerry Judy. I really like Tim Patrick. My buddy Gus, who's a lifelong Broncos fan is like, we finally recreated Rod Smith. I agree. I think Tim Patrick's really good. And then Hamler had broke two big plays last week and they can run the ball a little bit with

Gordon and Lindsey. Defensively, you know, they lost some dudes over the course of the year, but they're not awful. You know, they can get a stop. They can get a pass rush every once in a while. So I'm not saying this is going to be an easy game for Buffalo. They're favored by five and a half. Everybody's feeling awesome about them. People are feeling like they are a legitimate Super Bowl sleeper. I think they're plus 650 on FanDuel to win the AFC right now. And it's a Saturday game, which means a lot of people will be betting on it, which means a lot of people will be teasing the Bills or throwing them in a parlay. I know all of these things. Here's the thing with the Bills. Right now, they're seventh at DVOA, Denver's 28th. Buffalo's offense, 313 first downs, top three. 49.3% on third down, top three.

They're five out of six on fourth down. So their percentage, top three, 49.3% on third down top three. They're five out of six on fourth down. So their percentage top three, their, their third and passing yards, they have emerged as I think an incredible offense. I think they're really, really, really good offensively. And honestly, they're probably 95% as good as the chiefs right now. The chiefs still have the Mahomes factor. They still have the Tyreek Hill can have the 80 yard touchdown on any play factor, but numbers wise, they're pretty much as explosive. They can move the ball in whatever way they want to move it.

And when you throw out a couple of the weirder games they had earlier in the year where they had that one game, terrible weather against Casey, they had another game where the COVID thing kept pushing it around. They had another weird Jets game. But if you just took their best like six offensive games this year and rank them against

the other team's best six, they'd probably be the best offense in the league. And it feels like they're peaking at the right time. We can tease them with a 10 point tease to plus four and a half in Denver, which I really

like because even let's say the worst case scenario, Denver gets a kick return touchdown like they did last week. Allen throws a pick six, whatever scenario you want to do. Even if the bills are down 10 in the final three minutes, they're coming down and getting a garbage time touchdown. And Denver's not good enough to blow out Buffalo. I personally think Buffalo is going to run the slate, finish 13 and three and put a ton of pressure on Pittsburgh to close out and not get that third loss. Because if they do, then the Bills will be the two seed. So that three team tease would be Steelers down to two and a half, Bills up to plus four and a half, and then the Ravens down to two and a half. And then the Ravens down to two and a half. Mark that down. I have another tease for you. The second bet I'm looking at, I mentioned we use two of the 10 win teams in that three team

tease. We use Pittsburgh and we use Buffalo. Buffalo going against the five and eight Broncos and the Steelers going against the two 10 and one Bengals. Over the last six years, there is no track record even once of a team with that record disparity beating a 10-win team in Week 15. So we're going to put those two, I think, in the three-team. The other team is the 10-3 Packers playing the four-and-nine Panthers.

I think the Packers are running the slate. Rodgers can smell it. They have Carolina, Tennessee, and Chicago left to get the one seed. And that's assuming that even New Orleans could potentially run the slate. New Orleans has KC this week. I think KC is going to beat New Orleans. We're going to cover that in a second. Green Bay is not fucking around anymore. They want the one seed. Rodgers is 37. He gets it.

You skip round one, round two is in Lambeau, round threerees in Lambeau. That is the easiest path they could possibly ask for in a conference that's pretty weak. That's really not the opposite of top heavy. So I feel like they're in must-win mode every game. Your fear would be, oh, Carolina. They had a couple years ago, they played Green Bay really tight at home, that McCaffrey play.

But I think Green Bay's in the we're not fucking around anymore stage. They're close. They're not going to fall asleep on this game. So I love the thought of teasing them. They're at seven and a half over Carolina. Tease them down to one and a half with the Colts. The Colts are going against Indy.

Colts are eighth in weighted DVOA, which weighs like the last basically eight, nine weeks of the season. Houston's 25th in weighted DVOA. Houston's decimated. They lost Will Fuller and they lost Roby to the suspensions a couple weeks ago. They lost Justin Reed, who's their best safety last week.

They lost starting defensive tackle, Brandon Dunn. They're a mess. And they're playing out the air. Cornell's not going to be the coach long-term. They also kind of shot their wad almost beating the Colts two weeks ago. If you remember, Watson had that fumble. And I just think the Colts,

last week, the biggest things that happened with them, Jonathan Taylor, the rookie running back, really emerged as a workhorse last week. And they also got T.Y. Hilton going. And now, with T.Y. Hilton and Pittman and Taylor being able to run the ball and Hines coming in, also got T.Y. Hilton going. And now with T.Y. Hilton and Pittman and Taylor being able to run the ball and Hines coming in, they can move the ball

a lot better than they did two and a half months ago. I don't know what took Hilton so long to get going, but I love the idea of teasing them down to one. So mark that one down. Two team tees. Indy down to one. Green Bay down to one and a half. A couple more games that I'll probably put a little less on.

First one is the Raiders tonight against the Chargers. Chargers, Mike Williams is out. Keenan Allen's almost definitely out. And if he plays, he's going to be limited. They got really banged up in Sunday's game. Eckler is like game time decision. Even if he plays, he's going to be relatively compromised. They had their feel

good win last week. And then on the flip side, the Raiders who got crushed offensively, but I'm not sure it's going to matter if, if none of the important charges skill guys, um, are playing this week. It's an all time must. This is a kitchen sink must win game. The Raiders, they fired their defensive coordinator last week. They have Josh Jacobs back. And I laid out on the pot a week ago, when he rushes for 75 yards, they're 5-0. They're going to run the ball with him this game.

The line is 3.5. I'm lowering it to 2.5, which I have to pay odds on. But I'm going to parlay them with the Steelers and the Rams. Raiders 2.5. Steel Steelers, Rams just to win is minus 108. And I'm doing that. So mark that one down. Next one is Washington plus five and a half against Seattle.

This is just a classic case of this line should be three. And I'm getting two and a half extra points with Washington, which has the last four weeks, their defense has been a top three or four defense. They can really, really pressure with a bunch of different dudes. And they have an

identity. The big thing here is Gibson's got turf toe. Is he going to play? Is he going to be the starting running back? They were able to patch together a running game last week anyway with some of the backups. And then from a quarterback standpoint, seems like Alex Smith's going to play. But they know who they are.

The thing with Washington, the game's going to be 16-13, 17-14, 13-12, whatever. They're not going to make mistakes offensively. And they're going to try to win games with defense and special teams to a lesser degree. This is the exact type of recipe the Giants threw at Seattle two weeks ago. Seattle couldn't block the Giants.

They got in a lot of trouble in that game. And they got beat. And I just am not sure Washington isn't better than Seattle, or at least even with them. So getting five and a half is wonderful. I think it's a three-point game. I don't know who wins.

I think it's going to come down in the last five minutes. And I think Washington's defense can really frustrate Seattle, a team that doesn't seem like they can block well for Russell Wilson, doesn't have a good running game anymore. And I don't know. I like the matchup. Plus, it's in Washington. And there's a scenario where Washington, this would really give them some leeway in the NFC

East if they pulled this one off. So mark that one down. Last one, Chiefs Saints. Chiefs are still favored by minus three as we're doing this. I think it goes to three and a half and maybe even four by Sunday. They're talking about Breeze possibly playing. He broke 11 ribs. That seems like a lot. Either way, recovering a little bit gun-shy Breeze or Taysom Hill, who I think got really exposed last week.

And in general, I don't love the body language on that Saints team. I talked about that with Sal on Sunday. Something doesn't smell right with that team. It has the makings of a team that loses in round one, gets upset, and then three days later, the beat reporter for them, for The Athletic or the New Orleans Times, McCain, wherever that newspaper is, writes an empty-the-notebook piece

about all the terrible things that happened during the season. It feels like that's simmering. For the Chiefs, it's like, look, you're the best team in the league. You fucked around against Miami last week. You let Miami hang around, hang around, and they almost came back and made that game

interesting in the fourth quarter. Made some dumb mistakes. Mahomes still hasn't totally clinched the MVP yet, even though we feel like he's going to win it. Rodgers is at least lingering. And this is the kind of game, if you're going to win the Super Bowl and go back-to-back, you win this game. They're better than the Saints.

I haven't really seen a defense stop them. It's usually the Chiefs doing dumb stuff, stopping themselves. They're healthy offensively, which I like. And I think the line should be higher. I think they're better than three points against the Saints. I don't care where the game is. I like the Chiefs. Especially if they're playing this in the Superdome, great. Because guess what? The Chiefs have the fastest team in the league. I love the fact that it's in the Superdome. Awesome. Great. The Chiefs have the fastest team in the league. I love the fact that it's in the Super

Dome. Awesome. Great. The Chiefs are going to be, it's going to be like a racetrack for them. So I'm down with the Chiefs. And then long shot parlay of the week. I don't love this. We're just going to dabble on it. But the Eagles are plus 225 against Arizona. The case for Arizona would be Kyla Murray finally looked like Kyla Murray again last week. The case against the Cards is they were playing the Giants and Danny Dimes, who was awful. And they couldn't get anything offensively.

And once they fell from behind, it changed the game. And it was one of those games you knew in the first quarter who was going to win. The Eagles, I'm not a fan of. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if they got eliminated. I think they have to be respected at plus 225 because of what Jalen Hurts gave them last week and the energy they had on both sides of the ball.

You know, and you think about like, I'm not sure there's a difference between the Cardinals and the Eagles beyond maybe three points. And I'm getting six and a half in this. From a long shot parlay standpoint, the Eagles are plus 225. Is it realistic that the Eagles could beat the cards? Yeah. And the other thing, you have all these elimination pools. My friend Brad Mulcahy was on Cousin Sal, our buddy from Sunday nights, but he also has the Against All Odds podcast on his Extra Points Network.

Brad is in this high-stakes elimination pool, eliminator pool, and is kind of running out of teams. And one of the teams they were looking at is Arizona, minus six and a half, which I'm sure is on the board for a lot of the people left these eliminator pools. And there's like this weird hesitation with it because of Philly. Because Philly has this tendency, especially as we get

toward the end of the year, of kind of not dying. They're like Michael Myers. And who knows with the Hurts thing. They figured out how to unleash Miles Sanders a little bit. The coaching is still atrocious. Like some of the fourth down calls they do is just bizarre. I think they're like 33% on fourth down this year.

But do I think they could beat the Cardinals? Yeah. So we're marking that one down. Plus 225. Maybe with the Bears, who are playing against the Vikings. They're three and a half point underdogs in Minnesota. The Vikings have just one of the craziest special team situations I've ever seen. I don't

think there's any difference with these two teams. They're both really mediocre. And either team could win. So bears plus 160, whatever. Eagles bears together is plus 713. So that is the law. I don't love it, but that's the long shot parlay I'm looking at for this week. So here's what we're going to do for, um, Oh, what two more games I wanted to mention before, before we get to the picks, I looked long and hard at that giants Browns game because Jason Garrett, the offensive coordinator for the giants has COVID and Freddie kitchens is going to be calling the place for the giants. And I was trying to figure out what would be a funnier scenario.

The giants completely shit in the bed and Freddie Kitchens finally giving the Browns one last gift or Freddie Kitchens zinging the Browns and picking them apart and whatever. The problem is, it's Colt McCoy. I don't think the Giants

can move the ball. I don't think it's conceivable for them to score more than 17 points in a football game with the current roster they have. And I really like this Browns team. So the Browns are minus five. It just, I'm going to end up staying away. So that was one. The other one was the Pats who are getting one and a half in Miami.

And Miami has really passed a tipping point with injuries on their offense. You know, they're down to to their 17th string running back, and they have no receivers that finish that game that you would ever start a million years in your fantasy team. And Belichick has this history of beating teams that are either shorthanded or can only do one thing or are crippled in some way offensively.

But I just can't bet on Cam Newton from what I've seen. So I'm going to stay away from that. All right, it's time. Let's do the million dollar picks for week 15. Once again, I am up $199,000 for the season. Couldn't be prouder of myself doing these picks on Thursday. It's like having a torn ACL and trying to run a 40 yard dash anyway.

I'm not afraid of picking these games on Thursday. First pick, a three-team tease. We're putting 480,000 to win 400,000, minus 120 odds on this bet. Steelers minus 12.5 over Cincy. Bills minus 5.5 over Denver. Ravens minus 12.5 over the Jags. Steelers go down to 2.5, so do the Ravens, and the bills go to plus four and a half in Denver, 480,000 to win 400 on that. Then we're doing a two team tees Indy minus seven over Houston, Green Bay minus seven and a half over Carolina. We are putting 300,000 down on that. $330,000 to win $300,000. And then we're going to do some sprinkling. We're going to put $200,000 on a parlay of Raiders minus 2.5,

moving that line down. Steelers to win, Rams to win. It's minus 108. So $216,000 to win $200's minus 108. So 216K to win 200 on that. 216K to win 200 on Washington plus five and a half over Seattle. I think that ends up being a three-point game. And then 200K on the Chiefs minus three against the Saints. And then for the hell of it, long shot parlay of the week. 33K at plus 713. On Eagles, plus 225. And Bears, plus 160.

Both of them have to win. Those are the million dollar picks for week 15. If you missed the Book of Basketball podcast I did on Chris Weber with Joe House, that is on the Book of Basketball feed. New rewatchables coming up on Monday. We are doing the first Bourne movie. So you have four days to watch it. And then the Cousin and I will be there on Sunday night.

Thanks for listening. Enjoy the weekend. Stay safe.