The Bill Simmons Podcast - The "Invincible" Rams, NFL Pressure Guys, and L.A.’s Crazy NBA Month With Tom Pelissero and Sam Koppelman

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

Bill Simmons welcomes Tom Pelissero to The Ringer to go through their Pressure Rankings of the NFL ahead of the new season. Then, Sam Koppelman joins the pod to take a deep dive into the financial side of the Lakers sale, Mat Ishbia’s Suns, and much more. (0:00) Intro (3:07) NFL preview (38:51) NFL Pressure Rankings (01:22:36) NBA team ownership with Sam Koppelman Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Tom Pelissero and Sam Koppelman Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo NBA 2K27 | Ball Over Everything The Dog Stars only in theaters and IMAX August 28. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Get your tickets now for the dog stars. It's no surprise how fast civilization can disappear. Go! Out there, it's kill or be killed. Jacob Alluredi. There are people out there? They need our help. Josh Bruland.

Shoot first and inquire afterwards. Margaret Qualley. Okay, tough guy. And Guy Pearce. Arm up! The Dog Stars, directed by Ridley Scott. In theaters, August 28th. Get tickets now.

The Bill Simmons podcast, brought to by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We redid Speed. Me, Sean Fantasy, Chris Ryan. An epic, epic episode. I think I laughed so hard at one point that we had to go to break. So that happened. Anyway, what a fun movie, one of the great action movies of all time.

And we broke all of it down, including a ton of nitpicks. Speed, a movie that I love and I've seen a million times. Also, very fun of nitpick. So we talked about everything. Coming up on this podcast, Tom Palisero, who we announced yesterday, he's joining the ringer. He's going to be Netflix sideline reporter as well. He's going to come on to talk about a bunch of football stuff,

including what's it like to be an info insider? What's going on with the Rams? Who has the most pressure of them this year? What's going on in Minnesota with J.J. McCarthy, Kyle Lerner. We covered all of it. Great to have him aboard. And we're going to talk about his new gig with us.

And then after that, Sammy Coppulman, who I've known since he was maybe even younger than a teenager, he is going to come on to talk about the Lakers, the Clippers, the Sons, how money has shifted into the NBA and screwed it up in all of these different ways. Yesterday was one of the craziest L.A. basketball days, I think, ever, where you had the Quippers battling with the NBA through an ESPN article. You had the bus family, and that's that they're going to start suing each other. The current Lakers Dodgers owner might be going to jail.

he's going to explain all of it to us. So this is quite a podcast. Football and finance. It's all next. We're going to take a break. And then Pearl Gym. This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K 27. We just had one of the craziest off seasons we've had in the NBA,

which is perfect for 2K because every 2K season could be one of the craziest off seasons. The whole league shifted in real life. It could shift to an NBA 2K 27. The best place to compete. with these new look rosters and also try to figure out who's on what roster. You can see how new teams and new dynamic duos match up. You can play Philly, feel what it's like to have all their new guys with the old guys. And you can also take a struggling franchise to the NBA finals if you want because it'll

never happen in real life for a couple of the struggling franchises. You know how I'm talking about. Anyway, NBA 2K lets you experience every transaction and storyline right from your home. pick up your copy of NBA 2K27 right now. All right, announced yesterday, new Netflix sideline reporter for all their NFL games, one of the hosts of the Ring and NFL show.

He's going to be on my podcast every Thursday. There's going to be some writing stuff that we'll talk about when we get there at Tom Palsero. Great to have you aboard. What a pleasure. It is great to be here. A bit of an unusual past month for me. 23 years of, you know, being in training camps and covering the league, I had a little bit of

extra time on my hands, but, you know, you were one of the first people to reach out for, reach out to me once I became available. And I'm just totally thrilled and pumped up to, to be a part of this thing. The story was even better than that. We saw you the same day when you found out that you were no longer needed at ESPN and you were randomly in LA. Me and Mallory met you that day because we had heard so many good things about you. But, In your head, I really admired how even killed you were with it. Because I remember when I was in a semi-similar situation, everybody in your life is reaching out.

Are you okay? What's going on? And your head's just doing 360s. But you were like, yeah, it'll be fine. I'll find something. I remember you said to me too. You're like, I can't believe how well you're taking this. And I think that that was partly a product of, you know,

I find out when I'm standing in the Sky Club about to board a flight to L.A. And I'm like, what do I do? And I'm like, oh, I checked a bag. Well, I guess I should just get on the plane and get the bag. And yeah, I lived my own funeral for like four hours. It was probably good to like every call I sent to voicemail. Like, I'm on a plane. I'm not available.

And yeah, by the time I landed, dropped myself at the hotel, popped over to your studio there and got the tour. I mean, it was cool that it all came together. There were a lot of things we had to work. through on this entire deal. But I mean, the ringer and Netflix and the synergy between those two, like I could not possibly have asked for a better spot to be here. Yeah, and we had never, even dated back to Grant Land, we never had really been on the information side as much because we were always built like we react to the information. And I was thought if we ever had somebody who was in that world, it would also have to be somebody who could kind of do the stuff that

we do and the back and forth. And you're always a hybrid of those two worlds. When did you move more toward like, holy shit, I'm getting all this information. I'm getting scoops left and right. Like, this might be part of my life here. I think it took place over time. Like, there's no way. That's what, you know, young people who like reach out to me and my DMs and whatnot are always asking.

Like, how do you build source and stuff like that? I don't know, do it for 23 years and you just kind of amass that. You know, you start out cold calling people and hoping that you get some calls back. And, you know, it just kind of evolves. I think when I went back to Minnesota in like 2010 and we were launching an ESPN radio affiliate there and I was covering the Vikings and also radio shows six days a week. I had a pretty good run of getting stuff there, which put me on the radar of USA Today. And then, you know, to NFL network.

And then obviously the brief Disney stop there over the past several months. It's it was funny though, like during the downtime because like, you know, not to get into the whole thing, but like legally I couldn't do anything. Like I couldn't tweet, couldn't really just, I couldn't do anything that loosely resembled my job. And so, like, I'm finding stuff to do, man. Like, you know, people are calling me within the league and I'm talking, but like, I'm not doing it the same way, right? Because it's like, what am I going to do? Work to get a scoop and then I can't put it out.

So, you know, by last week and at this point, everything was in motion, but there were still some things we had to get through. And like, I went to Spider-Man 3D in the theater with my 12-year-old daughter and literally like we're five minutes into the movie and shit's blowing up. and like I get the text or the tweet alert, like, you know, Kyler Murray's been named starting court in the back of the Vikings. So I'm like, no, nothing I could have done about that, you know, in whatever world. I would love to think I would be the one break in that. But I'm like, what am I going to do?

I'm going to sit back. I'm going to eat some more popcorn. I'm going to enjoy this movie. And like, I'll be back soon enough. And so we're just now kind of getting into this thing. And, you know, the best part, Bill, about the news coming out yesterday, besides the fact that, you know, it's always awesome just seeing, you know, the feedback and all the messages you get and stuff.

But it's that I'm finally not getting. getting the so sorry for you, how are you doing, praying for you calls. Now it's like the, oh, so you're good? All right, fantastic. Now we get back to doing what we're doing. Oh, that's great. Glad to be back. What was the, what's the biggest scoop you ever had?

Did you ever have one that was like, it was almost steam coming off it? You couldn't believe, like, is this true? Like, did you have your version of, like, Lucas about to get traded to the Lakers? There's a bunch of those over time that, you know, stick out just in terms of like trades to come from like, you know, a lot of the best scoops. The ones that are the most fun, honestly, are the ones like you're not working on and holding for a month because that's unbelievably stressful.

It's when someone will be like, you know, like, you know, hey, do you're talking about Darren Waller being trained to the Giants? It's like, what? No. And then you make two calls. Like, oh, this happened. Okay, cool. Right.

I'd say that, like, the number one example of that was John Gruden resigning. Because that took place during Monday night football. And I had heard, you know, rumblings. I knew that there was, I knew that it was at a much, higher fever pitch over the previous like 48 to 72 hours in terms of, you know, how the league was feeling about it, you know, where the Raiders were at, the fact that there were multiple, if you remember, multiple stages of these email leaks and it was getting worse. But still, I don't think it was on anybody's radar that he was actually going to step down.

And so I got, you know, one call saying, hey, you know, I heard Gruden stepping down. Just like wait because, you know, he's got to talk to everybody. Just just hang on and let you know. And then I get a text from somebody who was there going, yeah, Gurden just told all of us he, he's quitting. He's resigning. And I was just like, oh, my gosh, I'm calling the first person back being like, I got to go. I got to go. Meanwhile, you know, again, Monday night football is on.

The whole world's trained on this game. And I think it was right at halftime or right after halftime. And I hit blast on that tweet. And it was just like, it was this explosion because that that was at that time, Bill, like, now it wasn't about football. It was about like social issues. and everything around the game and in society. And, you know, it was a really bizarre situation. But that was one like, there's very few times I'm saying like finger over the button kind of shaking.

That was one that I'm like, I'm going to have to go. I got to go and finally went and that it went into the universe and then, you know, had to get myself suited up and go on TV all night because I mean, that was one of the crazier things I think that's happened in recent NFL history. What is the NFL version of the Luca trade? I guess it's probably nothing. I mean, the fact that it stayed so quiet until you get, you know, a tweet out of nowhere that it's happening. I mean, that made it, you know, interesting.

I mean, Miles Garrett, I think probably fits in that category. You'd had rumblings and stuff talked about. Yeah, I'd say it wasn't, I guess there's no version of it because Miles Garrett was like, holy shit, but I wasn't shocked because it was like. Russell Wilson maybe. I mean, Russell Wilson was a pretty surprising trade. Like there had been little rumblings here and there about stuff. that was one that was murder for me because like I knew with the combine it was happening at all that the sea dogs and broncos were doing for weeks was just horse trading on how many picks and

if you remember it was multiple first round picks and it was players and then it was all right the players haven't been told them like I know the players and so then you're calling and people be like find out if he's been called yet you know that that was a wow but the cool thing like in terms of how long I've covered the NFL is we've gone bill from like the NFL there were no trades. There were no trains at all. Like there was no like the trade deadline was a non-effect. And I'm not talking like, you know, 50 years ago. I'm talking like 10 to 15 years ago. Like it'd be, yeah, the trade deadline's coming up in late October, but like nothing's going to happen. You might get one here or there. Now, both, you know, there's several waves of it. There's the wave of, you know,

February and March, sometimes even in January, if you think about the Alex Smith trade, you get 10, 12, 15 trades that play out from the end of the regular season. all the way through, you know, the start of the league year when they could become official, you get another wave around the draft. Now maybe you start to see a wave more in these post-June-1 things because that's why the A.J. Brown trade happened when it did. That's a factor. It's not the main factor, but it was a factor in why the Miles Garrett trade got done when it did.

And then you've got this whole other wave that over these next 10 days, we'll see because so many things happened this summer that I think a lot of those big ticket items are off the table. We'll get some trades. There's no doubt about it over the next, whatever it is. 12 days until... Especially if there's tanking teams, because we don't usually have tanking in the NFL, but we might this year. And there's a couple suspects already.

We already have, I think, a pretty good idea. Like, I was looking at the win over unders before I came on here. And it's like, I'd say on that one, Vegas is probably pretty much right. I mean, you can see the teams. Now I'll call it tanking because, you know, there's no like NFL equivalent of Mark Madsen jacking up 12. three. It's like there's just, there's no way to do it. You can't like put a defensive line in a quarterback, but you can't organizationally put yourself in a position where it's apparent like

you're not playing for right now. The dolphins are the perfect example of that. And I've had dolphins fans ask me, you know, just here and there, people I run into a ball. I'm just like, just like buckle up. Try to enjoy the ride. But like 2028 is what you're looking at here. Yes. Like I went out and they got Malik Willis because he's a great young man who's like he's got some ability and he's got to be developed. With Bobby Sloak now calling the offense there, there's a lot of similarities of what he was doing in Green Bay

when he had some success. But like, you know, and they've got Devon A-Chann who's a good player, but like you trade Jalen Waddle to get a first round pick. You don't bring back some of your other guys. You know, you trade away to Fitzpatrick. Although Bradley Chubb's another one that you move on from.

And they didn't like go out and spend a bunch of money in free agency. They're very much a team that is looking at this, is like, all right, we're going to build this to the Green Bayway. We got Jeff Haffley and John Eric Sullivan. they're two very intelligent guys and they know like there's no quick fix especially in the division where you got Buffalo and New England where like are we really

catching these teams in the near term? No. Like it's going to take a couple of years. Maybe Malik's the guy. If he's not, you're not over leveraged. I think he's guaranteed like $50 million over two years. They're going to be in the running, I would think again and this is taking nothing away from anybody involved. But realistically, they're going to be

in the running for the number one pick. Well, you look at their wide receiver room and it's like, oh, I see what you guys are up to. Galen Tolbert's listed as a starter on the depth chart right now. Malik Washington, all those. I like Jaylen, but like, I mean, yeah, they've got, they've got some significant issues, which also, by the way, complicates the evaluation of Malik Willis.

Like, Malik comes, he's like, all right, at least I got Jalen Waddle. It's like a week later, it's like, well, we train in Jalen Waddle. Yeah. You're going to be throwing to, you know, the other guys who are still around. Miami, Arizona.

Arizona's another obvious one. A lot of pulsating flags with them. Cleveland has a lot of talent, except the quarterback situations, and F-minus-minus-minus. So I don't know what happens. And what you're doing this year is you're trying to figure out, can either of these guys do it?

I know this. I mean, the coaching staff came away encouraged from the spring. They felt like they got two guys they can at least function with and try to be competitive with and Deshaun Watson and Shador Sanders. But like, if you're asking me, like, what's my guess of who's the quarterback for the Browns week one in 2027? I'd say neither. I'd say it's somebody who's probably in college right now.

You know, I don't see them bringing back Baker Mayfield. It could be somebody else who's available via trade. But I think the Browns with two first-round picks, because they got the Rams picked now from the Miles Carat trade. And then the Jets, you know, as much as this year, like, you don't bring in Demario Davis and David on Yamada and Nick of Fitzpatrick, if you're thinking, like, we're going two and 15. You're thinking, we need to win some games,

or there's going to be even more wholesale changes than there were a year ago. When remember, they close out the season, Aaron Glenn takes a few weeks. There's a lot of conversation. He basically fires his whole staff. He fires his offensive and defensive coordinators. He makes a bunch of other changes here. They know they've got to take a step forward.

You go out and get Gino Smith too. You're just hoping that you can function. Aaron Glenn's going to call the plays on the defense. You know, they're not going to the playoffs this year. I mean, that would shock me. Anything can happen. It's the NFL. They've got to get the six, seven wins show they're headed to the right direction.

If not, with all that ammo, even if they are a six-seven win team, you got two extra first round picks where you can bundle those together. And so that's the big picture story. Yeah, we'll talk about all the contenders and the teams that we think are going to be in the Super Bowl. But to me, one of the fascinating things here is, and yes, this gets said from time to time. But the people I've talked to within the league, the scouts and the evaluators, I respect, they all say if things trend positively, there's always a couple of these college guys with their last year, they fall off and a guy we're talking about being a first rounder, like doesn't get drafted.

They're a day three pick, the Garrett Nussmeyers of the world. but like if this this group holds up the way that these guys think between archmanning Dante Moore is going to be in that category Julian Sayan has fans C.J. Carr has fans. What if Lenore Sellers revives himself? What about Mensa at Miami? Like there's there's all these guys and you've got like these clear and obvious teams that are all going to be drafted probably somewhere in the top 12 picks and a couple of extra picks. Those are the teams that I'm looking at that when we're talking about, you know,

the tank for arch stuff or whatever the way that doesn't rhyme but they'll come up with some rhyme for it right for something with that those will be the team starch for arch starch no i don't know starch keeps you up right you need the opposite you need to lay flat to get arch i got to think about that one

we're going to do pressure rankings but i want to talk about minnesota first just because you're there yeah and you have a good viking feel and that is somehow not one of the two most tortured franchises in the league even though i think they would argue that they are.

I live here. People here are sufficiently... They think they're number one. Yeah. Without, you know, my dad grew up a Vikings fan in the Upper Peninsula, so he's like 65 seasons

into this thing. Yeah, all my friends, everybody else, they would all tell you that this is, it's not, it's not an easy road. It's tough

because the bills with all the Super Bowl losses and then this whole Josh Allen ride, who's now, I think, 30 years old, 29 years old,

somewhere in there. The lows of their losses almost feel like the worst. Minnesota has been steadily just getting kicked in the balls decade after decade forever. But the Lions, like nothing has happened for them forever until this decade. And they always get left out of the tortured combo. Then you have the Browns where nothing good has happened with them since 1964. I don't know, I don't know what the rankings are,

but Minnesota thinks they're first. It depends, like if your definition of the tortured fan, is the one that keeps getting close and can't get over the hump. The Red Sox. This was Red Sox pre 2004. Every year you think it's the year and then you get kicked in the teeth. Right. Then all of a sudden, you know, you rally against the Yankees and everybody can't believe

that this is what's happening. Right. Like, you know, the Vikings and the bills, they're very similar trajectories. Both have lost four Super Bowls. If you look at, I think that the, in terms of winning percentage since in the Super Bowl era, the Vikings are like number six. And every team above and below them has one or more. Lamberties.

It's crazy. And they have none. And they're, because they're there all the time, you know, the bills in recent years. Yeah, they've, they've been there too.

But they went through a stretch from, what was it, like, 1999 to 2017 without going to the playoffs. So they had a long drought. Vikings have never had that long of a drought. They never, you know, under this ownership group,

the Will spent a ton of money. They always want to be good. They always want to go for it every year. They never go all the way to the bottom, you know, but then, you know, you're constantly getting close. And then you're in a bit of a high wire act

from a, you know, a cap perspective and whatnot to be able to keep it healthy and and figure it out. But, you know, they've never had a quarterback. They haven't found their Josh Allen, probably going back to, you know, Dante Colpepper had a pretty good run in like 0304 before he blew out his knee.

Since then, it's just been a, you know, two years of Fav, and you had, you know, Teddy had his moment. You know, they obviously. Farm was good that first year. And then absolutely got destroyed in that Saints game and probably was concussed 17 times over the course of three. I mean, that was one of the bad games, right?

Yeah, he threw one of the worst interceptions ever. Cross his body, and then they beg him to come back in 2010 and 2010. I was on the Vikings beat at that point, and that was one of the biggest disaster seasons. I think that's ever existed in NFL history. It's not just, yeah, far of the most durable quarterback ever got knocked out of, like, his last three or four games consecutively. Corey Wooten hits him on a frozen field, a TCF Bank Stadium, and he goes down like a chalkout line like the police would get like this.

And he's just out. Still does his press conference, which the rules changed after that about what you're allowed to do. But that's the year the Metroome roof collapsed. The Vikings ended up play a home game in Detroit. They played the Eagles on a Tuesday night in Philadelphia because of a snowstorm that never came. Percy Harvin left the field in an ambulance that year.

I mean, it was an unbelievable calamity. But that's what the Vikings fans go through is every time you have a really good season, it's somehow followed by the season from hell. That's their own unique torture in this entire thing. Conspiracy Bill had a lot of thoughts on that Tuesday night game. I always felt like that was the NFL kind of knowing that it wasn't going to be that bad on the Monday, but pushing it to Tuesday just because they were interested to see what the ratings and everything else was going to be. I will always believe that.

I drove by at the stadium. We switched from on the advice of somebody on the beat who was an idiot suggested, like, We got to get out of the city. The city's going to be shut down. So we moved from like the Vikings Hotel, which was the Rich Carlton downtown, to like some really sketchy hotel out by the airport. So on the drive there on Sunday afternoon, we're looking. It was supposed to be, you know, the storm of the century.

And I'm telling you, there was about this much, like, kind of muddied. I don't even know if it was snow. It was just crap on the side. There was nothing. It barely snowed. The mayor nutter, I think, was his name. It called everything off until the city's shutting down. There was no snow at all.

And the Vikings played, I think that was a general. Joe Webb game. If I'm not mistaken. I mean, you want to talk about just like the weirdness of that year. Fun gambling. Starting a Tuesday game in Philly was, and then you make the top 10 of that season. Give us the mood in Minnesota on the JJ McCarthy era.

I mean, you know, I've gotten to know JJ a little bit. You're rounding for five minutes and you get it. You get why this guy's been a winner and why people like him. Like the locker room really liked him. It's not like, you know, he was this guy and he was a joke from day one walking in. but, you know, he's in that category of people who, especially at the quarterback position, they have so much going on for their first couple of years that it's just impossible to know what they could be.

And now we're going into year three. We don't even know if he's going to be the number two quarterback. If Carson Wentz outplace the rest of the preseason. Right. If, you know, well, I mean, you could potentially trade him. But if you're talking about a, you know, a third string quarterback, like I wouldn't, if I'm him, I don't want to get traded. To me, if I'm a young quarterback, I don't want.

in late August to get traded to a team that might be running a completely different system with players, I don't know, zero reps, zero time on task to build the rhythm and timing and template and even an NFL passing offense, then God forbid the starter gets hurt. And everyone's like, well, see, JJ, and you get thrown out there. Like, that's the way to end your career, or at least, you know, to go along a path of some of the, you know, the Baker Mayfields and the Sam Darnels who needed several different spots because everyone was done with them. And then he got stability or, you know, whatever, the closest thing to stability

for Baker who has a different OC every year, but you get in the right spot, and all of a sudden your career becomes, you know, kind of looking like what it might be in it. And that could be, James. I was thinking it would be the Chargers

in Harbaugh potentially, being like, we'll take him. Third round pick. He's our backup. We'll try to rehab him, rehabilitate him, and then maybe we can flip him. Other than that every

Jim Harbaugh press conference is basically a love letter to Justin Herbert. It's true. How many different ways. He can say how much he loves this guy. We bring him in, though, was the backup. Like, sure, I could see that, but like, what's the team going to give up for a

backup at the deadline? Like, if you get a real pick, I don't think that there's an upside to, hey, let's just dump this guy for a seventh rounder or something. Like, there's still, I mean, there's people that like him in Minnesota, but, you know, I remember what I was like at that age, you know, like, I couldn't, I didn't have my life together, you know, like JJ, his first year and he, you know, suffers that meniscus injury, he has the surgery. We all saw him on the sideline, you know, he loses a ton of weight. And it's a hard year because he's never, he's never really had that type of adversity. I mean, he played and he won almost every game he was in,

going all the way back to, you know, prep school. So, you know, he has that year off. And then last year, like, you know, you saw signs of it. I was in a Timberwolves game. Him and Justin Jefferson was sitting front row. Justin was really encouraging to him. They spent a ton of time together. You saw flashes of it.

And then, you know, he comes out second half of that week one game against the bears. And you're like, oh, okay, he's making place with his legs. He didn't throw the ball a lot in that game. You're like, okay, I see it. Like they really like the athlete. athletic quarterback. He can move. And then, oh, he suffered a high ankle sprained in that game. He's now out or whatever was the following week. He's out for six weeks. And all of a sudden, he's not there. By the way, after the week one game, his fiance also has a kid. So now you're a

22-year-old guy, whatever he is, 23, who's probably not getting a lot of sleep. Well, you're really selling me on him. This is an incredible job by you. It's a, I'm starting to buy JJ stock. You're laying it all out. Think about that, like, all the different things you're dealing with lifewise. Then you come back and then he gets a concussion. And then he's got a finger thing or whatever it was, wrist. I remember the exact nature of the injury, something on his throwing hands. So the guy's never healthy. You know, guys like that or Anthony Richardson, Trey Lance, JJ played a lot more football and was much more productive than those guys in college. But he didn't throw the ball a whole lot more. I just know this,

Bill. I was at the Detroit game. You know, the nine meme, you know, the thing where he's making the funny face and everybody posts the JJ's stuff all over and over again. Like that's from the locker room in Detroit where I was at that game. He was lights out. Again, he didn't have to throw the ball a ton to like red zone timing. He made a couple of tough throws, you know, had a touchdown pass. Like I was like, watch it going, oh, I get it. So you have seen flashes.

If you watch enough of the Vikings, there's flashes there. But I think at this point, everyone's just, you know, kind of like, all right, we've seen it. We've also had a lot of success through the years, whether it's, you know, Fav or Case Keenham or Randall Cunningham. with the veteran who's got ability and he comes in in the right time. Maybe that's Kyler Murray who's being coached up differently. They split the reps all through the, you know, through the spring. They tried to make it as 50-50 as they could.

But, you know, I was also hearing back in the spring, like, you can tell already who's the baller. Like, Kyler's got that. Let's see with a revamped running game and a really good receiver, Arsenal and an offensive line that Christian Derrissau is finally healthy. Like, let's see what that ends up looking like in 2026. It's the most polarizing NFC team from a predicament. standpoint. I've seen people really like them. I've seen other people think they're clearly

fourth place. I'm still deciding on it. I can see both cases. But it seems like though you could potentially see them win 11, 12 games of Kyler's good. You could also see them be kind of a train wreck. And this could be the final year for KOC, like that kind of scenario too. They're betting a lot on Kyler Murray, a guy that Arizona was paying. And they were like, we're good. Please There's layers. I get it. But Arizona's like, we're good. And now you're betting on this career resurgence.

I don't personally see it. I've never been a huge fan. I just think he's like a 500 quarterback who'll put up stats. But I think any good defense, you can't throw over the middle. I don't trust his decision making. I just don't see it. But some people like him. I think that Kyler probably, you know, if he holds one NFL record,

it's most millions of dollars paid by a team who hates you. Like the Cardinals from the day. they did that contract and the homework clause. And it's not like that was a secret. Like everybody knew and everybody knew about Kyler coming out of college. Like he's not a leader, right? He doesn't hang with the guys. Like he's kind of to himself.

He plays video games and all this stuff. You know, they did have some success early with Cliff. I mean, they went to the playoffs one year. But then, you know, Kyle got killed. Everybody there said like he did grow up over time.

The last staff, the Jonathan Gannon staff really did like him. It just, you know, he gets hurt again last year. He's had a bunch of injuries. Like it just didn't work out. With him coming to Minnesota now, they like it for a couple of reasons. One, they don't think they need him to be a leader.

Like, K.O. is going into his fifth year. Like, they've kind of got a locker room that can handle a lot. And, yeah, Justin Jefferson, guys like that, Aaron Jones is on the team. You know, defensively, you do have some veterans that you can lean on. Like, Kyler can just come in and be, you know, a functional quarterback. He is being coached differently. They revamped the running game, which that'll be, you know, from a fantasy football perspective, particularly built, would be really interesting because it's going to be Aaron Jones and Jordan Mason

kind of splitting it. And then the rookie DeMond Claiborne, who they really like. There were a lot of questions about him coming out, but he is explosive as shit. It's like how that plays out, that could all take some heat off them. They brought in Frank Smith, who was Miami's offensive coordinator, Keith Carter's the old line coach, them with K.O. or kind of putting together the run game. They may not have to be stuck in that throw the ball 45 times a game thing. And by the way, even when at times they were stuck with that last year, they still, They might have the worst quarterback situation in the league last year.

You have JJ coming out, in and out of the lineup three times. You have Carson Wentz who played pretty well out of the gate and then bangs up his shoulder. And by the time late in that second half of that Rams game, it's, you know, every time he's throwing it. It's like, do you remember rookie of the year and the old picture? Broken shoulder. It's like, ah, every throw was like this is the end. His arm is going to fall off. Then you're rolling Max Brosemer out there who was, that was supposed to be a red shirt.

ear, you know? Like, it was a project that you were going to have there. They won a game on Christmas, you know, with, with bros who were thrown for like 50 yards. You know, like, they're so, that they went nine and eight. They went nine and eight. They missed the playoffs by a half game. That's where, like, if they can get functional quarterback play, Keog said it from the moment the season ended, like, we need more talent in the room. We need better competition in the room. And that's why they bring back Carson Wentz. It wasn't because they were thinking he was giving you the number two over JJ. It's because they're like, we played, we've played three or more quarterbacks two out of Kevin's four years.

If we can just have quarterbacks who play to a certain level, like everything else, they won 13 and 14 games those other two years. I think I'm not going to give you a gambling advice on the over-unders here, but like an eight and a half win total? Like, I don't know, history would suggest unless all the

quarterbacks, like a nuclear bomb drops on that room, the Vikings are going to find a way to scrap and be in the playoff fund. The Cleveland fans and the Vegas fans can't believe you said they had the worst quarterback room in the league last year. They need oxygen. They need water. Cleveland's like, what else did we have to do to have the worst quarterback situation? But you're right. It was so bleak in that second half of the

season for the Vikings. They were at least on that level. I mean, we had some, some of the worst quarterback situations we've had since I was like growing up last year. Now we have Atlanta this year is the worst one, I think. I mean, Atlanta's got, you know, everybody was waiting for the competition, but it's like Michael Pennix is on his third torn ACL. It's even going to be. It's a able to play. It's August 18. I mean, I can't name off the top of my head another quarterback who was in a quote unquote competition and didn't practice an 11 out of 11.

We haven't seen him yet. In late August, he hasn't even been out there. And Tua just shouldn't be in the NFL anymore. I mean, he's just, I don't understand how, first of all, how he's a starter. And second, why he even wants to play, he looks terrified to get hit. Even you watch the preseason and he's doing like, it's over. So I don't know who the third stringer is, but we're probably going to see him. This is part of why I think Mike McDaniel, you know, as much as he, you know, became a meme at times,

especially, you know, just because like of who he is, like his personality, the way he dresses and all that stuff. But like, do anybody have more of a tough role over the last couple of years than a guy who every game plan had to start with, the quarterback can't get hit, not sacked. Right. The quarterback can't get hit. We can't let him get hit. And I know he does, you know, the jihitsu.

and he's learned all these different things. But like that's a, that's an uphill climb. But, you know, for Atlanta, it was a, you know, a role of our, we're going with, we're getting them for the minimum. Miami's still playing to like whatever it is, $50 million or something this season. You know, we're bringing them in. It's another lefty. We're building out the protections a certain way.

We need to evaluate both these guys. But they're another team that realistically, if I'm guessing who's the quarterback in 2027, I'd say neither of those guys. You can say that for teams. right now. Okay, we haven't even started this season. The teams that I would say they're starting quarterback in 2027, probably not even on the 2026 roster. I would say Atlanta. I would say Cleveland. Jets. I would say the Jets. And I would say maybe Arizona, although Carson Beck is really

fascinated to me, not just because of, you know, what we saw in the Hall of Fame game. Yeah. But, you know, going back to the pre-draft process, like this dude was, the question was not in talking to all the scouts and coaches, and I write this lengthy quarterback thing, which will be now part of the ringer going in the draft next year, but like getting the real opinions from people within the league. Like Carson Beck, he helped himself in the process because all the reports from the Scouts were about what had happened at Georgia and like the social media and I don't love football and hanging out with the Cavender twin and like just, you know, driving the

Lamborghini buying a house in the wrong part of Miami and gets robbed like immediately upon moving there, like all this other stuff. But if you talk to people at Miami, they're like, the guy was done. dialed, like whether it was, you know, real or he was just playing the part. Like, he did take the cue. He did learn from it. And they succeeded with them. And he took two teams to the college football playoff. You know, he's a big, strong guy. He looks the part. The old Parcell's rules where it's like, you know, a certain number of starts and you've got to be a college graduate and you got to be a senior and you have to win, you know, win a certain percentage of your games, completely a certain

percentage of your passes. Like, he's the only guy who checked all those boxes. Like, I'll be really interesting to see because if I'm Arizona, I definitely want to see Carson's. back at some point. You're not going to the playoffs with Jacoby Bressett. You may play with them for a good chunk of the season, but I would guess we see Carson Beck starts some games because you're going to want to go in with all the information you can on, okay, before we draft another guy, hi, did we find one in the third round and we can pay this guy the minimum for the next two years and use a really high first round pick next year on somebody else or turn that into multiple first round picks? Moni Austin, fourth, the GM's done that before. He made the trade with Houston, you know,

in the Will Anderson Jr. trade. So that's the best case scenario for all these teams is take your shots day two and day three in the draft. Find a quarterback that you like. Cleveland's doing the same thing right now with Shadour and they were doing it. I guess still are with Dylan Gabriel too. It's like, you know, take a flyer on him. And realistically, 2027 is the year that we're going to use that pick.

25 to 1 on Fanduel for rookie of the year, Carson Beck. Another team that will not have the same quarterback next year is the Pittsburgh Steelers. we want to mention that as well. Right. That's a, although they've got, they've got two guys, though. It's another one, too, right? They fit in that same bucket. If they hit with Alar, yeah.

Yeah, you drafted Aller this year and you drafted Will Howard last year. But it won't be Rogers next year. Right, no Rogers, right. But like in terms of even being on the roster, they've at least got two guys they think are developmental. Will Howard, Mike McCarthy was out of the league last year, but like Will Howard is one of the quarterbacks. He loved in the draft process. So those two young guys, and Aaron, from what I've heard, is kind of taking them under

his wing, which you can read that multiple ways. But he's been very supportive and he's got a good relationship with the young guys. Again, maybe you find it, the Steelers aren't, I mean, the Steelers aren't going to have a top five pick based on record. I would certainly tell you that. Like, they're going to be a competent team. They're going to be a way better offense than they've been in years. Like, they've had a bottom, I think they've ranked 24th or worse in offense eight years

in a row. Right. Like, that's mediocrity. Like, that's how you don't, you know, every year you're nine and eight and you go in the first round, everybody jokes about it. It's like, it's not because the defense fell off the cliff. It's because your offense has been terrible under several different coordinators. Yeah, let's see.

Not sure it's going to be better this year. I think the fact of it. I would say they will be a top 10 offense this year. That would be my prediction. Mike McCarthy, I want to say 13 of his 18th season as a head coach has had a top 10 offense. He was immediately had a number one offense in Dallas on a team that I don't think anybody was sitting there going, this is the most talented offense in the league.

Dak played his best football under him. Aaron's played his best football under him. Now, Aaron's not quite the same. Like, the legs aren't there anymore. Like, all those plays, like the spectacular Aaron Rogers stuff where it's getting outside the pocket and throwing, you know, off balance one foot, your back penalty to cross his body and throw 50 yards down the field. Like, I've seen him try to do that in the past couple years.

He can't do that anymore. But if you can play like, you know, probably the closest example, if you want to buy the upside on it is, you know, when Peyton Manning was at the end of his career in Denver, and they won a Super Bowl with him throwing passes like it was out of a T-shirt Ketler. Nudle-arm Peyton. One of my favorites.

Slowly came down. Yeah. But it was because he was so mentally fast. They won a Super Bowl with Peyton playing like that. I'm not going to sit here and predict that the Steelers, you know, win the Super Bowl, but like they've got a talented defense. They've added on offense trading for Michael Pittman. They brought in, you know, one of Mike's favorite running backs,

and Rico Dowdell. Like I think that they will be a better office. Yeah. They're going to be a better offense. would be my prediction and whatever they're being projected. Problem is it doesn't seem like Aaron Rogers wants to get hurt anymore. And I still feel like that's part of the quarterback job. You shouldn't want to get hit.

I want to get rid of the ball as fast as possible. Please don't hit me. We're taking a break. We're going to come back and do the pressure rankings really fast. This episode is brought to you by 20th Century Studios, the Dog Stars. Only in theaters on August 28th. Visionary filmmaker, Ridley Scott, returning to IMAX with the Dog Stars in a world.

Shattered by catastrophe, a lone pilot's isolated existence is transformed when a mysterious radio transmission crackles through the silence. Uh-oh. Sitting out in the unknown. Higg embarks on a dangerous journey in search of something more powerful than survival. Hope. Kind of like the hope I have for the Patriots right now. From the legendary director of Gladiator the Martian and Blackhawk Down comes the ribbiting post-apocalyptic thriller, The Dog Stars, starring Jacob Belordy, Josh Burlin, Margaret Quali, Guy Pearce. I like all those people.

Based on Peter Heller's acclaimed novel and adapted for the screen by Mark L. Smith, the Dog Stars delivers breathtaking visuals, an extraordinary ensemble cast. A deeply human story about resilience, connection, and the choices that define us. The Dog Stars, only in theaters

and IMAX on August 28th. Get your tickets now. All right, pressure rankings. I only want to do individual. but we have to mention the Rams at the top, who I think now have the most pressure in the league because they're prohibitive favorites. They're five to one to win the Super Bowl on Fandall.

Nobody else is better than 10 to 1. They're over under is 11.5. I saw a segment last week on ESPN, your brief employer that was talking about, could this be the greatest defense of all time? We've lost our minds with this Aaron Donald thing. He's 35 years old. He hasn't played in.

three years. I'm sure he's going to be awesome, but he's only going to play 35 plays a game when he comes back. They're really top heavy. They have a quarterback that all in the summer last year, we were terrified he was going to get hurt. And it was like his back, is he going to make it? And he made it. Now we're not worried about him anymore. He's 38. I think there's 10 guys ever who have had really awesome seasons at age 38 or later. Not to mention the Pukukukukua stuff, which continues to not seem like it's stabilized. I just have a lot of questions, and there's a lot of pressure now

that people think they're the favorites. So what are you seeing as you watch from afar here? Well, you have to start with what the Rams have been since they got to L.A. Like, they have fully embraced, like, this is Hollywood. We're always going to be a story. We're always going to be the team

that people are talking about. And they've done that in different ways. Everybody wants to go, it's always bleep, you know, bleep those picks. But like, they're cyclical. They push. it. Every team is cyclical from a spending standpoint, right? Because you have, every dollar you spend hits the cap eventually. It's a real cap. There's ways you can manipulate it, but like it does come home

eventually here. And so the Rams went through that phase of like drafted a bunch of guys, the Todd Gurley's and Jerrughey, they pay those guys. Then that gave way to, all right, now we're going to trade for Jalen Ramsey. You know, we're going to trade for Brandon Cooks. They get to a Super Bowl. They don't quite get there. Okay, now we're going to reboot it a couple of years later. Now we're trading for Stafford, and we're going for it there. Well, then they got to a certain point after they won the Super Bowl in the 21 season where all the cap stuff, all the older players, they had to, all right, we need to start this thing over.

So now we're trained away with Jaylen Rampton. They had the most rookies on their team. I think it was in 2023. Yeah. Of any team in the NFL. And you saw the growing pains. It's the one season they've had that just didn't live up to, you know, what Sean McVeigh has built. Yeah.

But when you have 30 plus rookies on your team, now you're paying. some of those guys. Now you're getting to this point. They've obviously were really good. You're toward the end with Matthew Stafford. Now we're back. We're cycling the other way. It's a re-re reboot. Right. And they just keep going. They keep going with this. But like it's not like they're just on the gas all the time. That's hard to sustain because at some point, like your draft picks are your young cheap workforce. They allow you to balance out the money you're spending on these really high-price players. At some point, you have to have a recalibration with it. But the way that they've done at this offseason bill for all the wild stuff that they have done.

And I know that, you know, Sean McVay and Les Sneed and Kevin Nevaugh and all those guys, like they love the fact that they're constantly that team that everybody is talking about. But I don't know that they've ever had one that approaches what happened this offseason. Like, let's just take a second here to enjoy the past six months, okay, for the Rams. They make the commitment. Matthew Stafford announced it starts at NFL honors. Matthew Stafford in his acceptance speech with his daughter. on the stage says like, I'm going to be back next year.

And I'm in the theater and like the whole RAM section, they all jump up and are like going wild clapping because they didn't know. He hadn't actually told them. Wow. So the rating NFL NFL MVP gets the trophy and goes like, hey, I'm coming back for another year. So like they're over the move, right? So then over the next several months, they're working on a contract with Stafford. They're not quite getting there.

They draft his eventual successor. Ty Simpson in the first round at number 13 overall, no less, which was something that had been in the motion for months, going all the way back to when Alabama's in the Rose Bowl, and Les Sneed has Ty's parents over to the facility to essentially talk them into your son should come out. Mom asks why, and it goes because I'm going to draft him at number 13. So that all comes to roost.

I'm just talking, this is strictly the quarterbacks without getting to everything else. Then they eventually get the Stafford deal done. So now you have on a team that's going for it. Your number one pick is a guy who if all goes well, we don't see for a year, maybe two. And by the way, there were a couple good guys at 13 that would have helped this year's team specifically. So you're trying to balance this because in the Rams minds, they're going, we're winning the Super Bowl this year.

So I have the number 32 pick in a draft next year where all these guys are going to go above us. We're not going to get one then. We're not going to get one as long as Stafford is here. So let's take one now. Well, we can catch the rest of the league off guard. And I don't know who else if anyone takes tie in the first round. But in the Rams minds, they're going, we've got a guy who fits perfectly into the system who is trained in that style of offense, more under center snaps than anybody in the NFL. Let's just get them now and we'll figure it out.

So then they eventually get the deal done with Stafford that's painted as this, you know, extension and everything. If you look at it on paper, all it does is it buys them more time because of when his contract would avoid it. It's still unclear what's going to happen with Matthew Stafford in 27. He'll have a decision to make. Rams will have a decision to make. And by the way, and physically we don't know what's going to happen to him. And physically, he might be right on the cusp. He's played through so much and he's been beat up throughout the course of his career.

Like, do we see Ty Simpson? Do we see Stetson Bennett at some point? Like, we don't know how the season is going to play out. Wide receiver, meanwhile, because all that stuff's happening. Wide receiver, they work on at one point a trade of Devante Adams to the point that they tell Devante Adams, we're probably going to trade you. or we might trade you because they're working on a trade for AJ Brown. They eventually back away from the AJ Brown trade.

There's medical stuff. He's had a long-running knee thing that everybody knows about going back to Tennessee, which is why they trade away years ago. What the hell? You're just dropping that on me? They're trying to trade for A.J. Brown. They're trying to trade for A.J. Brown. So they tell Devante Adams, we may move on from you.

Then the AJ thing goes away. Now, Devante, okay, you're back. By the way, Puka is in rehab dealing with some serious personal stuff that he's got to work. through. He hasn't been extended yet. So that also is an undercurrent of all this. Defensively, you completely overhaul your secondary. You bring in the two corners from the chiefs. You trade your other one for Trent McDuffie and give him a record contract. Yeah. He signed Jalen Watson to play on the other side. And then, oh yeah, you trade for Miles Garrett. You trade your first, second and third round picks, plus Jared Verst, who's like 24 years old,

one of the core guys. Like I thought the value was really good for the Browns. I get why the Rams did it. I thought the Browns extracted really good value out of that situation. So you basically change everything about how you're playing up front. And we haven't even talked about the Aaron Donald saga, which is a guy who hasn't played in several years. I know everybody keeps saying, I keep seeing like headlines and people saying, like,

he's not coming back unless he's Aaron Donald. He's not going to be Aaron Donald. Aaron Donald. He might be something approaching Aaron Donald. but it's going to be on a limited snap type of a basis. I mean, if you go back through a modern NFL history, and I had my former employee's research team look this up at one point, the only player in the suit,

basically the only player in the post-World War II era, who's in the Hall of Fame, who sat out multiple seasons and came back and played was Dia. And Dion came back as like a part-time player in Baltimore for a couple of years because Ray Lewis got him to come back. He still made plays. He's Dion Sanders. but he wasn't playing a ton.

Well, wouldn't the comparison be how the Pats used Diggs last year, where Diggs was impactful, but he was only playing 40% of the snaps, 45% of the snaps. I mean, there's probably some of that. And with Donald, it would be the same thing. Like, they're going to use him strategically, but he's not going to be out there all the time. That part of it's definitely true. Like, I think that what you will see, if Aaron Donald decides he wants to play, which I don't think that's coming in the next few days.

You know, listen, this is August 18th. It's a bit of a movie. They got joint practice with the Saints. I think on Thursday, Aaron Donald made showing up for a joint practice with the Saints. So it would be sometime thereafter if he's going to come back. But the idea of the vision would be third downs, two minute, late in games, pass rush situations where we're going to roll out Aaron Donald, whatever he is now, plus Miles Garrett, plus Byron Young, plus Kobe Turner, basically they'll like figure out who you're going to double.

Like just go ahead and, you know, try us here. That would be the idea of it with Aaron. Donald, but it would add even more of that. Like, it's honestly, it would be like the equivalent of LeBron at this point where LeBron coming to Philly if he played 22 minutes a game. It's exactly that same thought, which what are you getting out of

LeBron? Well, he can facilitate. He can make the other people around him better even if he himself is not what he was, but also it's like, LeBron chose Philly. Oh shit, like we're going to be in the mix to win this thing right now. It makes everybody every day come in, you would hope, and I know that's kind of how the Rams are thinking about this.

Like, everybody's going to be like, man, if he decided to come back from retirement because he thinks this team has shot to win it, that means every day I got to show up with the same intensity and vision that he's got. And you have, you can, if you think you're going to make the playoffs, which I think they're going to make the playoffs and barring like a bunch of crazy shit happening, you can kind of steer it toward, hey, what if we get, if we can get the one seed, we only have to play three playoff games, we steer Donald toward, can you give us like two awesome weeks in a row, by week, then Super Bowl, can you play like 70% of the plays just for those three weeks?

If we're rating which things make me the most dubious, Pooka's number one. I want to talk about them in a second. Stafford just holding up at age 38, how much Donald will be able to actually play, all the pressure and hype, which the moment anything goes wrong, it's, oh, my God, the Rams are one and two, and it just becomes the talking point. And by the way, the whole country, watching week one, the first game in Australia, all be on the sideline. Right.

The whole country is going to watch it. Everybody overreacts to week one. They're playing a tough 49ers team. And they're going to cross the world. I had a call with the Melbourne folks yesterday, like the local, the visitor bureau or whatever they are people, the presentation for us. And they were, I asked him, like, is there a team that people root for there? And they said, well, no, like the people in Melbourne don't really have a team.

But the fortinaires are reviving earlier. They're going to be in the community. So we think the crowd will be for the 49ers. Oh, my God. they're going to be in, at least a slightly, you know, environment where they're, they're challenged. And yeah, it's going to be a weird game. You know, these guys, McVeigh and Kyle know each other so well. Like, there's no surprises.

Rahim Morris, who's the former Rams coordinator now in San Francisco. Like, there's tons of familiarity. But that game, like weird stuff always happens in week one. And if they come back from that on a long flight back and they're 0 and 1 and they were the team that everybody said is going to win the Super Bowl. And now it's 10 days of hearing like that they, you know, they might not be the team that we thought. Like that does have some weight on people, even if it's just one of 17 games. Puka, who was the best receiver in the league last year, in my opinion, even though I think JSN, he had all the accolades, but Pooka just game to game was just ridiculous.

The blocking, he was catches in traffic was just dominant. I don't know what to expect from him. And it was like, no, no, he's getting his life back together. And then the story comes out that he ran through a glass door at Michael Rubin's house and July 4th, and it's like, are we sure he's doing great? What about all the legal troubles? And is there something really going on with this guy? So what have you heard on that?

Well, I would start by saying, you know, from all accounts, from everyone I've talked to, since he got back in the building, which he was back, you know, OTAs in the spring, like he's been good around the facility, which is like he's in a good spot. And you also can surmise based on the timing of everything. Like, he probably didn't have his life together last season when he was the most dominant receiver or one of the most dominant receivers in the NFL. So you would like to think if whatever he's dealing with, he can be in a better spot with that now.

Maybe the guy can be even better here. His contract was never going to get done early in the offseason. I think this one was always going to take a little bit, but certainly he's going to have a spotlight on him for a variety of different reasons. He's still somehow appearing on podcasts and seeing crazy stuff. Like, yeah, I walk through a plate glass window and cut up my face. like, I don't know. I guess I've never gone to a white party.

Maybe everyone wearing whites disorienting, but it's one of my friends or one of your friends, it would be a red flag. I mean, what happened? You walked through a play class window? Like, how drunk were you? What happened? I mean, that is some speed. You know, it's not, not Charles Barkley throwing you through a play class window.

Like, if you just walked and broke it, I know you're a strong dude, but that's, yeah, that's a lot. Like, listen, I mean, yeah, there's, it'll be something worth monitoring. doubt about it, but like in terms of on the field and football, like everything sounds like it's gone well so far. It's just, it's one of the many things I'll have to be keeping tabs on here through the season. Well, in the last 30 years, only one team has been a giant favorite heading into the season and actually won the Super Bowl. And that was the 2018 Patriots who beat the Rams. So there you go. Pressure rankings really quick. Individuals. These are my rankings. I don't think they're the correct

rankings. I did not send them to you. The number one person with the most pressure on him this year, in my opinion, is going to be C.J. Strav because I think the Texans are really, really, really good and could absolutely make the Super Bowl and maybe should have made the Super Bowl last year, except he let them down in New England and was awful. Run game is better. Offensive line is supposedly a little better. Receiver room is better. The defense is. the same and probably better, but they brought everybody back. It's all lined up for him. Just give us a C plus and we're going to win 13 games. Can you be a C. Are you giving him a nickname? C plus Stroud?

C plus Stroud. That sounds great. I'll start it right now. Just a C plus. We'll go 12 and five. I think he has the most pressure on him. It's just crazy to think about the arc for C.J. Stroud, you know, as the number two picked and the entire world decided, you know, about three games into that rookie year that he was, you know, clearly should have been the number one pick. He's played well enough. He's gone to the playoffs every year. He wins a playoff game every year. But then has had bumps.

Like last year, last year was a roller coaster, man, like out of the gate, they were bad. I mean, they were 0 and three. The offense was really struggling. They were changing schemes because they'd fire Bobby Sloick. They had Nick Cayley coming in. It's a different style of offense that he was running. But then in the middle of the season, like they did get better. defensively, Matt Burke taking over the play,

calling was huge for the defense. And then offensively, like, you saw them kind of figure some things out, even though, yeah, the running back situation with mixing out and you got a late career, Nick Chubb. It was brilliant. They had the worst running backs than the league. Yeah, so trading for David Montgomery makes a lot of sense.

Like Montgomery's still got, you know, with lack of wear and tear over the last couple of years, like he's still got some juice left in his legs. I think that that was a smart move and pairing him with a young back, like makes a ton of sense. Take Dell is C.J. Stroud's favorite receiver. He's back. He didn't play last year. He's back now because he had a horrific injury in 2024.

He's been back out there. I know he hasn't practiced last few days, but it seems like he'll be ready to roll. So, like, that's another addition here. There have been contract talks between C.J. Stroud, his agent, and the Texans. So there's at least a chance, but it's really hard to get a quarterback contract done right now because every agent is looking at this and going next year, the quarterback class of 2023 will all be extension eligible. So that is, you know, Drake May and Jaden Daniels and Caleb Williams and Bo Nix. Baker Mayfield potentially as a free agent. That could be another one.

Lamar Jackson is going to be due for a new contract that the Ravens have been working on for like two years now. So there's a number where that deal could get done. But if not, I know this, C.J. Charles is totally comfortable going out and playing it out. So is there pressure? Yeah. And the way that things ended last year with like the week. Chuck Knoblock style yips where he couldn't take a snap,

like he couldn't handle the football. That was just weird and out of character. You'd like to think that it's not going to look like that. But no doubt if he doesn't have a contract, any quarterback fourth year or your rookie deal, there's a level of pressure, especially on a really good team. So you have the contract,

you have the history from last season where he probably single-hand that cost them a playoff run. There's another thing, and it doesn't happen that often in the NFL, but when you have a team that's kind of ready to potentially make a team, Super Bowl and you have a unit that's the other side of the ball that's fucking awesome.

And it's like the defense, if we can just get good enough offense, this defense can carry us and you're letting them down. That's where football becomes like unlike any other sport, where it's like the two units working together. But if this unit's letting down this unit and it just compounds itself and you could feel it in that playoff game. And to me, it's like a fork in the road for him. Like, he could be, he could salvage whatever, get a big contract out of this, make, win a couple playoff games, or I can see him not being the quarterback next year. Like, it's like a clear fork in the road. I don't know how it's going to play out. Yeah. And then, listen, anytime you're making those commitments, we've seen teams. We talked about

some of the teams that have made these big commitments to quarterbacks. And you very quickly, like, it's even second guessing. It's like first guessing. It's like, right? You re-signed Kyler when you just don't like him at all as a person. To a. gave him $46 million a year, Tula, with the concussion history. I mean, I remember when that deal got done. And like, I understand, like, you know, if you're Chris Greer and that staff, like, you drafted him, Mike McDaniel, like, part of his pitch to get the job was like, I can win with Tua.

Every other coach said, you got to get rid of Tua. Mike McDaniel walked in and said, I can win with him. When you do that and you tie yourself to somebody, you're like, all right, well, we're going to pay him. And we want to send a message by paying him. But I had other GMs as soon as that contract going down being like, why in the world, didn't they just let that play out and then franchise tag him like,

what are you doing? Like, why would you pay him now with the history? And obviously it played out that way. So I think that the combination of the fact that, you know, listen, Bill, in like 2013 or 14, certainly in 13, I think still in 14, the highest paid quarterback in the NFL was Aaron Rogers at $22 million a year.

22 million. He was the highest paid quarterback for like two years then. Are you counting off the table, Brady money to from TB? I'm not counting that house in the book line. I'm just saying the money that we know of. Money of the enough. Okay. That market is now triple, essentially. By the time that we get a Lamar deal or whatever Caleb and Jaden and Drake and Bo,

we'll see who else is in there. Like, it's going to be, you know, the $60 million quarterback. Forget that. It's going to be the 70 million quarterback. And depending on how you look at the way that like Josh Allen's deal got redone, that was basically a two year, $200 million extension. Like the numbers are astronomical. The agents have no reason to say like, what will just take a $45 million year deal. Daniel Jones coming off a torn Achilles signed a two-year $100 million contract. That's just where we are. So if you're committing that much cash and cap dollars to a player, I don't blame the people who are like, let's get all the information we can first. It's why Bryce Young won't have an extension right now. They had some very preliminary talks

from my understanding, but it was kind of everybody was under the understanding like, you're not going to pay what the market is. We're not going to take it. So let's just play it out. You guys get more information. So do we. And let's see where the market is next year. It just creates, you know, ripple effects in this. And maybe we see some of these quarterbacks when the past didn't get out there. And now they do. And maybe quarterbacks toward the tail end of their rookie contracts begin getting traded. There's a lot of different macro things that could happen because you've got guys like, I mean, CJ's strong on paper. Three years, three playoff appearances, three playoff wins. Like, you take that for a young quarterback. But it's like,

I peel back the layers of why haven't they taken those additional steps what it looked like at the end of last season. He's going to take it into his own hands, barring a contract getting done before this season. And he's going to be a really interesting, you know, guy available if, in fact, they aren't able to get something done. He has built in excuses for last year with the line, though no running game at all, the wide receiver injury is like you could go down the line, but he also wasn't very good.

Number two on my pressure Rankins is Josh Allen. We have the whole season to talk about him. We don't need to do that here, but I don't need to lay that one out. 3, 4, 5. I have Herbert, Lamar, and Burrow tentatively in that order. So if I offered you Justin Herbert, Jackson, and Burrow, who do you think, who would you put with the most pressure of those three guys? Because I think it's Herbert because he's getting the MVP buzz.

He's 10 to 1. It's got the fourth best odds. we're hearing all this, oh, Mike McDaniel, oh, Harbaugh's blowing smoke left and right about him. He's got the offensive lineback. They're a little sleepery, but we've never seen him play well in a playoff game ever. I would say least pressure on Lamar,

because I think that we all need to, of the three, I'll go backwards here. Lease pressure on Lamar, because I think we all have to be aware of the challenge that he is taking on here. Declan Doyle, who's the new OC, he's 30 years old. He's basically the same age as Lamar.

He trained under Sean Payton and Ben Johnson, two of the most detail-oriented, brilliant offensive minds that we've seen in the NFL. And from what they did in Chicago, which there's going to be a lot of correlaries to what they're doing in Baltimore with Lamar, like, if you go back to Caleb in the first two months last season, like it was bumpy.

Because you're trying to take this dude who can be Superman every play and just going, no, we need Clark Kent like 90% of the time. Just execute and be, in rhythm and let your feet, you know, do the work. Connect your feet and your eyes. Had the ball come out on time. We'll worry about getting your receivers to hit the landmark. So the ball comes out on time. They're where they're supposed to be. You've got to do your part.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if we have some bumps early on for Lamar. I think, if I'm not mistaken, I think Baltimore plays Tennessee in week one. You know, Robert Sala will have some things cooked up to try to, you know, make things complicated for him. But Lamar, I think that the fact that you've got a first-time head coach, first-time offensive coordinator. Yes, it's Lamar, two-time NFL MVP. There's always pressure on that team and Lamar himself. But I think there needs to be, from our perspective, more of a grace period with Lamar, just because there's so much new.

Can I give you the first five for Lamar? Yeah, please. It's at Indy. Indy, sorry. Where Luana Rumo is another one who historically, you're going back, there have been some ups and downs with Lewis and Cincinnati, but he's played them a lot of times. Home for Saints. at Cowboys in Brazil

Home Titans there's your Sala there was at Falcons at Browns is the first six and the Falcons is Sunday night football so the Falcons Browns will be the easier stretch of that

because I think both those teams will not be good storyline out of the gate to me is going to be the Ravens are probably going to win a majority of those games so that's what they look like they're going to be five and one

good enough yet that'll be the story they're five and one why don't we feel good about that and the offense isn't doing like what we seen in the past. It's not going to. Listen, Declan, the problem

the Ravens are going to have is if their offense is good and if they go this direction, which is the plan, like Declan Doyle's going to be a head coach next year. Like, he's going to be in that, in that type of category just because the way that he's trained from a very young age. Strong name. I like his name. Declan Doyle sounds like, yeah,

could be like a detective. Yeah, it's a good one. So you have Lamar five, you have Burrow four? I would say Burrow probably next because, you know, Joe's just had injuries. That's the biggest thing. Like, yeah, he's got pressure on himself to not get hurt. And the Bengals have pressure on them to not get him hurt. So in the first preseason game, where Orlando Brown Jr., who I love, he's a great dude. And, you know, but like he probably

got one on tape that he's going to be like, ah, I should have had that one. And Burrow gets smoked. And every Bengals fan goes, oh, my God, it's more the same. But like, they are trying to put, you know, the pieces around him. The investment in the defense, like, that's the biggest thing with Joe. Yes, you can say, all right, we just want the defense to be better. And you go out you trade the number 10 pick for Dexter Lawrence. You sign Brian Cook for a bunch of money. You give money to Boy A. Mafet, the Seattle pass rusher. But you're doing those things also because if we're not having to throw the ball 50 times,

if we're not perpetually in a shootout, guess what happens? Like, Joe doesn't have to be dropping back. We can actually have a balanced offense. Yeah. We can, you know, we can protect him more because we don't have to get five guys on the row because you're trying to come back. That's the idea is the big picture. It's not just, hey, we got to block better.

It's like we got to play a better game. There's pressure on Joe. only because he hasn't been able to stay on the field. Those things aren't always necessarily his fault. You know, the one last year holds the ball for a long time in the pocket. He suffers a severe turf toe injury. Like that, you got to be able to get the football out. So, yeah, I think that there's some level of him, but it's also it's everybody else.

Joe's a big backer, Zach Taylor. They've gone to the Super Bowl together. Zach's in year eight. Like, there's pressure on the entire operation here, which is why they did unbengals things and were aggressive going out and trading a high draft pick. for a veteran player. And then with Justin Herbert, I think that there's less pressure,

and I've said this before on Justin Herbert than there is on Jim Harbaugh. But another situation... So you have Harbao over... Harbaugh over Herbert for pressure? Absolutely. And I would say because Justin Herbert is still a young quarterback. He also has a new offensive coordinator,

of course, with Mike McDaniel, and everybody's got high hopes about what that is going to look like here. But think about this. Jim Harbaugh coming off a national championship at Michigan. and of course there were a lot of other things that happened before during and after that that we won't get into here. But a highly regarded coach who'd won at every stop.

He won at UC San Diego. He wanted Stanford. He won with the 49ers. He won at Michigan over the course of time, although it took him a while to get there. In San Francisco, his first two years were NFC championship Super Bowl. His third year was another FC championship. It was instantaneous success. When the Chargers brought him from Michigan, the Falcons also interviewed him in that cycle,

they ultimately hired Rahim Morris. He wanted to go to L.A. That's where, you know, from September, like I was hearing that he was telling people in the building, like, I'm going to be the Chargers head coach next year. Like, he had eyes on that job all along. Justin Herbert was a big part of it. But if you told me, Jim Harbaugh, as one of the highest paid coaches in the NFL, was going to have, he's already had two to have three seasons without a playoff win,

you'd say that that is a failure for him coming in. So the pressure is on everybody there to be. able to take that next step. With Herbert, he's had to overcome a lot. You want to talk about, I mean, CJ Straub did have a lot of issues on the offensive line. Nothing like Herbert. Yeah. Joe Alt and Rishon Slayer didn't get out of camp last year. I mean, it was a constant revolving door and they made changes at the O.C. position. They made changes at the offensive line coach. So now you got Butch Berry there, who's a very veteran guy along Mike McDaniel. You know, let's see what the whole thing, you know, ends up looking like here. Herbert's had a lot of

injuries. He plays through as much as anybody. I mean, that high. ankle spraying. I can remember if that was last year or two years ago, but like he had that thing taped. Like, you know, it was like 1980s football. Like he had the full stack. Like his foot was three times the size. Like, yeah, he plays through stuff, but he's got to be able to, you know, and organizationally, they've got to be able to win. So I'd say Herbert just because we've seen Lamar, yeah, he hasn't gotten to a Super Bowl. Joe hasn't won a Super Bowl. Herbert doesn't want a Super Bowl. Herbert doesn't want a playoff game. He was there and had a massive lead on the Jaguars once. That's the closest that they came. But, you know, everybody there involved. Again, I still put more pressure on Jim Harbaugh than

Justin Herbert, but everybody there has pressure on them in LA just because these are two guys making big time money in a big time city where you're competing for attention with the team that owns the stadium. And this is the year where now you've got to be able to take a step forward. You start wondering, all right, how many coaches go into year four without a playoff win and you're not talking about really needing to make major changes? It would just would, It would raise a lot of questions as much space as they have in those guys about exactly what the path forward is. Yeah, Herbert, you could do the Stroud thing where there are excuses for what happened last year because of the injuries to the tackles. But there doesn't seem a lot of excuses this year.

All right. So I have the Rams, C.J. Stroud, Josh Allen, Harbaugh, Herbert, together. Joe Burrow Lamar is the next two. I'm just going to give you, because we got to go soon. I'm going to give you seven names and tell me. of any of them have more pressure on them than Joe Burrow or Lamar Jackson. Jalen Hertz, Mike Frable, Dak Prescott, Miles Garrett,

Kyler Murray, Jaden Daniels, and Jordan Love. All right, let's go one by one. Well, just which one jumped out? I'll give you show. I mean, Jalen Hertz is the one that jumps out immediately. New offense that on paper isn't really geared to his skill set. Sean Mannion's coming in as another young offensive coordinator. is never called plays at any level.

And it's going to be running, you know, he played under Lafleur in Green Bay. He played under Sean McVeigh or didn't play a whole lot. He was the backup quarterback under those guys. Like, that's never been Jalen Hertz game. It's a precision style dropback under center offense. Jalen Hertz has a lot of pressure just because if they're committed to this style of play and it doesn't click immediately,

you're going to be talking about, okay, where potentially would Jalen Hertz be the quarterback in 2027? We're not there yet. They want to see it. But when you don't have the evidence that he can succeed and play at a really high level in that system, I think inevitably there's a ton of pressure that goes into that, especially because he's getting to appoint this contract too,

where if everything was going swimming in Philadelphia, we'd be talking about Jalen Hertz being up for a new contract as well. It's an interesting topic with Eagles fans. And I know, unfortunately, for me, I know a bunch of them, because they still rub the Patriots Super Bowl in my face. respect hurts because he won them the Super Bowl, right? Big sturdy guy.

They're like clearly like they feel indebted to him because they did have success of them. But none of them are sure if he's that good. And you can hear when you talk to you, they were always like, they just seem wishy-washy-y-dye-d He was. He was.

He had a great run. He had an unstoppable play in the tush-push. But he also, he threw the ball. If you go back to that Super Bowl, the deep shot to Devante Smith, that was basically the dagger, You know, he was executing at a high level. It's just, you know, listen,

Jaylton's another guy who is just, he's more to himself. He's, you know, he's an extremely hard worker. He's unbelievably driven. But he's not, you know, the guy who's going to be the, you know, the centerpiece of the locker. And that's just not his personality. And everybody knew, you know, coming out of Alabama and Oklahoma, that wasn't really him.

But that's not necessarily a character flaw. I mean, they won a Super Bowl with them. I think we sometimes overlook this. And if he became available, if he became available, there would be, you know, a huge price. for him. But the pressure comes from the Eagles, again, on paper, have made a move to like, hey, we're going to run this other style of offense. Yeah. That isn't naturally a fit for you. It would be like if the Patriots, when Tom Brady were there, hired Sean Mannion, I guess,

I mean, it would have been like in his 20s, but like, you hire some guy who's going to run the Lafleur offense. And Tom would have been like, we're doing what now? We've been running one offense and we've had a ton of success. We won a Super Bowl. Like, we're going to do something that's completely different from what I do. That, to me, creates pressure. I mean, some of the other ones, Dak, you know, that's been a highly productive quarterback. He's at that point where, you know, the Cowboys have to be thinking about the future,

but he's still in his prime. They've got a ton of firepower. I don't think that there's necessarily pressure that goes beyond just... I totally disagree. I feel like there's... I feel like there's a lot of stuff. Watch out for Dallas and the NFC.

They can make the Super Bowl. This is the best team he's had. But don't we do that a lot? Don't be always overvalued Dallas? He's in Year 11. Like, yeah, I don't think he's... made a conference championship game yet. And by the way, they're America's team.

Everybody talks about them the most. Even they're talking about the more than the rent. In three decades. Yeah. He's got the most valuable franchise. Everything for business. When is it going to happen? I mean, you could argue the Parsons trade worked out for them,

especially because they turned some of the picks into Williams. And like, I think you look at that holistically, it actually like was smart how they played it. That, but the weird thing about what Dallas did last year was like, they're the first team that I can remember that. basically decided to start building their defense in August and continued through November. Like you say what you will about Matt Eberflus. Like he found out a week before, two before the season, we're trading your best player,

Micah Parsons. Like up until that point, it was not totally clear that this was actually going to happen. So you trade Micah, and now it's like, well, we have no pass rushers. Then like, well, we got Kenny Clark. It's like, okay, that's great because we need a, we need a defensive tackle. but like Kenny's more of a nose. He's not a three tech. We don't have a three tech.

And then get to November, they're like, hey, we got to three tech. Quinn Williams is like, okay, cool. We could have used him the past two months. They traded for the linebacker Logan Wilson. He's like, hey, middle lineback. Like the most important positions in that scheme are three tech. They're doing it on the flyer in this season.

And you're just making it up in the middle of it. But the best thing they did, you know, if they were going to fire flus, like going to getting Christian Parker, just getting a young, hungry dude, like another one who, if they're good, we're going to talk about Christian Parker's a head coaching candidate this year. I'm really fascinated to see. He comes from the Vic Fangio School. He's an unbelievably bright young guy.

He's going to have a plan. They're finally, they're steady in terms of their personnel. And obviously, you know, they drafted defense of Malachi Lawrence in the first round, which that's going to be an interesting one because that's a project. You know,

they had two first round picks. Use both them on defense. Like that's, that's what you want to see. But how quickly does it all come together? That, to me, I think they're going to be good on offense. I don't think there's a whole lot of,

doubt about that harm injuries. But yeah, I think defensively it boils down to. I got DAC in there. All right. Jordan Love pressure because I anointed him a couple weeks ago with Mina, the new nerd king at quarterback. The nerds are,

they've moved their attention away from Justin Herbert. Now are there over on Jordan Love touting the virtues of Jordan Love and how much better he is than people realize. And so he's got the pressure of the nerds. He's got to carry the way for that. Top 10, top seven, like every statistical.

Yeah. EPA, name anything, he's really good at it. Yeah. I mean, you think, I don't know,

like, if the Packers ever gone, like, three straight weeks over these, in the Jordan Love era where, like, they have the same

group of receivers. Like, every week, it's Christian Watson's, by the way, it won't be this season either. Well, I mean, Tucker Kraft, the fact that he's come back, that's the number one thing

that happened to them last year. Look at them playing before the Tucker Kraft injury and after. Everybody was losing their minds. I think the week after that, like they lost to Carolina, they had a close game

against Carolina, and they didn't play great the following week. It was like, what's going on? It's like, they lost a guy who like, Tucker Kraft is young Travis Kelsey. Right. He can be that good. It seems like he's on track to play early in the season. I don't know how much.

But Jordan Love is, I'll tell you this, like the coaches there love him. Matt LaFleur loves him, you know, the leader, the guy, the player. They just got to get some, you know, some better consistency. Josh Jacobs was banged up most of last year, too. That was a really big deal for him. So, yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I don't think that there's as much pressure. other than again, you're the quarterback

at the Green Bay Packers and you might be in the toughest division in the entire league. Yeah, I think almost 99% done with my research, it's clear that that's the best division, I think. I think NFC North,

top to bottom is probably the best one. I think who you'd even argue. I mean, the NFC West minus Arizona, but there's no minus in the NFC North. Before we go, give me, every year there's a team that comes out of nowhere and makes the playoffs

and everybody's shocked. And we're getting better at the Vegas odds with this. Like the Patriots were a huge shock last year, but actually not to people who were studying the schedule and the coaching change. Is there anybody in that bottom 10

that you feel like could make a leap that we're not seeing? I'm talking like the Cleveland's, like those kind of teams, the Giants, Arizona. Is there a shitty team that's not going to be shitty? Well, the thing is,

how many shitty teams are there? Like going into the year, we talked about the four. I think that after that, Like, there's not a lot of teams you think are just going to be bad. I mean, you can say everyone in the NFC South might be shitty. You can say Arizona. You can say that for five straight years.

You can say the Giants and Washington are both going to be shitty. Jets, Miami, Cleveland. Did you mention John Harbaugh on your pressure list? Yeah, it's year one. I think you got a grace period for year one. John Harbaugh went to the AAC championship game in his first year in Baltimore. Like, he's coming with more fanfare, one of the highest paid coaches. Like, there's instant expectations.

Now, I mean, people are going to feel different ways about Jackson Dart and Cam Scataboo. Our guy Schroger picked them to win 11 and 12 games. Did you see that? I got a, I don't know. I don't know if he was drinking when did that. It's like a Pooka Nakua moment for Shrig. Until Shreger takes off the jacket and has a Scataboo jersey underneath and makes a Super Bowl pick. I'm not going to put too much stocking into it.

I have my, some of the board that I have a white board with a bunch of different stuff. But one of them is I have the ranking of the hot seat going into the year, which is like ranked on who's most likely to get fired one through 32. So I'm like looking at the teams up at the top of like who's going to. His balls at the top? I would say this. Like Tampa, I mean, the fact that we were talking about it for a week after the season last year and there wasn't a clear answer.

And he cleaned out most of his two-thirds of his coaching staff. Like, yeah, there's pressure on top of this. There's pressure on a lot of different coaches going into, you know, this year. Again, they just, they haven't had stability at offensive coordinator. You know, that's just happened over and over. I mean, I think the one team, and I might be, listen, I might be dead wrong on this, but like, I could see Washington being good. I think Washington, what is there over under for wins?

It's like six and a half or something, I think. It's around seven. I think everybody's looking at that team. And listen, Jaden Daniels, I know he was in your pressure rankings. He probably wouldn't have been there up until the whole lawsuit. It's about seven. People think seven wins is between six and a half and seven out. And listen, they could be bad again.

But like Washington fell, to frankly a familiar trap coming off of the 2024 season. We're like, I mean, James Daniels was, was lights out that season. They go to the, all the way of the energy championship game. Everybody's, you know, gassing them up. But what did they do? They doubled down on, well, let's bring in a bunch of veterans and trying to put it over the top. So that's where you sign Vaughn Miller toward the end of his career.

You bring back, you know, the Zach Ertz's of the world, you know, I'm forgetting some others. But they had a bunch of like, they had one of the oldest rosters. They had like 15 guys who were age 30 and older. And like, I remember going through there in camp last year for a practice and just being like, they feel slow. Debo was another one that they brought in. Like this team just doesn't have a lot of juice. At the time, I chalked it up to Terry McLaurin was holding in.

And some other guys weren't out there. But like, you just got that sense. And I've seen it many times in the past where like that doesn't work. So what they did this year and they go out and they draft a couple of, you know, wide receivers who they think they're going to be able to help them in the near term here. They bring in Diggs. Like Diggs is an older player, but nobody in the league practices harder than Diggs. He showed last year in, what, 51% of the snaps or whatever?

He still has a thousand-yard receiver. And he's a guy who you can play a lot in slot. You know, he can kind of offset some of the things that people try to do to you. Healthy McCloren. McClorn came in. He was battling injuries because he held out or held in whatever he did. Another, you know, older player. Like, they do still have some of those older players on the team.

And they lost Larry Ritonsel. I mean, that's the biggest deal. People aren't, you know, everyone's like, trade for a left tackle. Like from who? What left tackle is magically available in August? Like that's my biggest concern with them. But like, Jane was, he didn't have the guys last year. Like all the injuries around him and the holdout with McLaren, like,

they never had, Austin Echler and other later stage player who got hurt. They never had their actual guys out there. Now you give them digs to go along with McLaur and to go along with all these young receivers. Like if you look at their depth chart, like their entire three deep at all three receiver spots is names you know. They got like Diami Brown back. there and like a bunch of players you're like, I can see all these guys competing. They've gotten younger. They've gotten faster.

They invested into the defense. They moved on from a lot of those older players. And they moved on, you know, in terms of their offensive coordinator. Again, this is another theme of the season. Like David Blow, another one 30 years old. I feel like it was yesterday. We were watching him fill in starting for the Lions on Thanksgiving with a, the wristband where the flap was broken.

So the entire game, his play sheet was flapping like this. It was like four years ago. and now he's an offensive coordinator. Like we'll see exactly what that ends up looking like. Like Detroit wanted him to come back there and be the offensive coordinator. Like they were really interested in David Blow. If they can find some rhythm, because I don't know that Jaden Daniels was real fired up about the idea of playing a different style of offense.

If Jaden's healthy, the pieces around him are healthy, I think that they've got a real opportunity here in a division that I just don't know that there's a single dominant team going into the season. The Eagles are always there. The Cowboys, everyone's expecting a lot from the Giants. We'll see. I can see them making noise if Jaden is Jaden again in a year where if he plays like he did as a rookie. There's your $60 to $70 million quarterback right there.

They went 5 and 12 last year. They lost tons already. They play the AFC South and the NFC West. So that's basically two easy games and potentially five or six really hard ones. they start out at Eagles, at Dallas, home Seahawks. And if they can somehow get through that one and two or two and one, I mean, they'll be heavy underdogs in each game. Yeah, that would help.

One of those. But if they start out O and three, then not great. All right, Tom. You're going to be on the Ring NFL show. I don't know when it starts, but it's started pretty soon. And you're going to be on there. You're going to be on here on Thursdays. We're going to do a little info segment because I'm going to change around my Thursday show

a little bit, but we're going to have a fun thing for that. And then some writing stuff is coming, too. But you're back. You're part of the universe. Great to have you. I'm glad we were able to shoot all this stuff. Say, I had everybody in Minnesota. Apologized to them that I didn't have them in the top two tortured rankings.

I've got to rethink that. You know what? I'm not going to rank anyone. There's like a four and nobody can be ranked against each other. I apologize. Everybody thinks they're grieved. Eagles fans think they're aggrieved. Everybody has a grudge.

All right. Good to see you. Thank you, my friend. Thanks, Bill. Well, this is a first for BS podcast history. Sammy Coppulman is here. His father is Brian Coppulman. This is the first ever father-son podcast thing on my pod.

And honestly, people are going to compare it to LeBron and Brony James. We can't. It's two separate worlds. I'm not going to do that. We need to be going for Rick Brunson, Jayman Brunsson. That sounds great. Yeah. If I fail, we're looking at Brony and LeBron.

If this is a success, I'm the Jalen. He's the Rick. All right. So you're into the whole financial world. You're the publisher of Hunter Brook. And you've been following all of these billionaire shenanigans. And we have a ton of them right now. Monday, a quiet sports day allegedly at mid-August.

And then Lakers and Clippers both blew up in all these different ways. And I tweeted that I thought the Lakers situation was a thousand times more interested in the Clippers situation because it has all the, these other ramifications outside of basketball. I was probably doing a little hyperbole with a thousand times. But I need you to explain this Mark Walter situation to my audience because it's starting to seem like he's an actual crook. It's starting to seem like he might actually go to jail. He's already shed himself of the Lakers. He's selling his Chelsea steak, reportedly right now, which was like 12 and a half percent. And my guess is the Dodgers are going to be

next. So what is this? Is this? Is this? Is this like, are we moving toward like a Bernie Madoff, Ivan Boski type of situation? What is this? I wouldn't quite say we're at Madoff. And I do have to say, I've worked with Pablo, your buddy, on a couple of those stories having to do with the Clippers. And what's most interesting about that story and this story is it's kind of the same story.

Okay. It's about billionaires who believe that certain rules don't apply to them and hate to have to operate within a system. where they're suddenly constricted. And so when you look at Walter, what basically happened here is, as you know, in 2012, he buys the Dodgers. And at the time, people are kind of confused.

They're like, how's this guy who runs Guggenheim, which is a successful operation, but he's not known as some giant titan of industry. How is he buying the Dodgers for this amount of money? And what was it like $2.25 billion, something like that? And then the other bidders were upset. They didn't understand. They had questions about where he got the money and all that stuff.

Yeah, I was looking at this last night. It seems like Mark Cuban was involved. It seems like the next bid was almost a billion dollars shy of Walter's bid. So people were confused. They were like, where is he getting this money? And at the time, people started looking into the question, was he using insurance money? Money people had been putting away for their insurance because he owns a couple of insurance companies.

So the question was, was he using that money to buy the team? which echoes the current scandal and what he's being investigated for by the DOJ, which just to explain it in basic terms, the way this works is if you have a life insurance policy, you're putting money away so that one day when you die, your loved ones have something or you get paid an annuity when you're old. So our dads get an insurance policy. Basically, when they die, we get money and they took care of us a little bit.

Exactly. Like if my dad hadn't started lifting like a crazy person, and he died from the opc city. He would suffer it from. If your dad wasn't continuing to sell shows, if he had to actually file stuff with anyway. Yeah, exactly. And so people do that and they take out these life insurance policies.

And in the meantime, being insurers pretty good because you get to invest that money in what you want to invest it in. And the way it works is usually they're going to go invest that money in safe bonds or in a diversified index of stocks so that your money is safe overall. And they're collecting a Vig. that's no secret. That's why it's a business. But just like when you're sports betting and the betting platforms collecting a big, that's sort of just like the way it works. What Walter figured out and what a bunch of people have started doing is, well, what if you just start investing that in like

better assets, assets that are riskier, but you might be able to juice the returns? And one big asset class, Walter's obsessed with is sports. And it's not just the Dodgers and then the Lakers. He has invested in foreign. Formula One, we found in one of our investigations that he was invested in American rodeo, a bullfighting team. He clearly thinks that sports is this incredible asset class. And it's actually, in theory, okay to use insurance money, to invest in assets like sports teams, if you disclose to people what you're doing. The problem here with Mark Walter is that you're supposed to specifically,

disclosed something called a related party transaction, which sounds boring. But basically what this means is you can't pay yourself. Like if he took his insurance money and he used it to buy himself a restaurant he wanted to run, that was going to go out of business otherwise, that wouldn't be allowed. And so you have to disclose, all right, yes, I invested in the sports team, which I also own, but I think it's a good investment for X, Y, and Z reasons. And what Walter did, according to all of these reports. The reason that FBI agents boarded his private jet and stole his phone and stole his computer, which doesn't happen every day for billionaires like this, that's a serious, serious thing is he wasn't disclosing that he was investing in related parties.

And one of the insurers he owns had said 3% of its investments were going to related parties. They then corrected their filings to say it was 40. And so that raises the question, what's he been doing with these billions and billions of dollars, Americans have been putting away for their insurance policies. And it seems like he's been using that money to buy sports teams left and right. So people like our parents and grandparents are buying insurance and assuming that it's going to be invested in the safest possible stuff. Right.

Correct. And he's not the only one who did this because it's like a trillion dollar industry now. But he was like, well, what if I take that money? I'm going to steer it toward some higher risk stuff. And they trust me because I'm successful. But then the problem is he was investing it in his own shit. And reporting it as, oh, it's only, what did he say? It was like $3 billion.

Yeah. It's only $3 billion of that. But it turned out, I've heard reports 16, 20, you're saying 40. Like, this is the question of, the big question is, did he just fail to disclose this? Or is this fraud? And the other big question is where is all of the money? We know some of it went to these sports teams, but the kind of person who wouldn't disclose that, it raises questions about his firm Guggenheim.

And just give you some color on Mark Walter because it's kind of fun. Like, you know, it's called Guggenheim. So you probably think it's like the Guggenheim family, like the Guggenheim Museum. Yeah. From Black. Okay. So here's like how Mark Walter made this fund called Guggenheim. There was a guy named Meyer Guggenheim.

He died in 1905. His son was a guy named Solomon Guggenheim. Then that person had a daughter named Barbara Guggenheim. Their son was a guy named Peter Lawson Johnston, Sr., whose son was Peter Lawson Johnston the second. Walter had that guy as a co-founder of his company so he could legally use the name Guggenheim. Wow.

And then they got rid of that guy. But it has this air of legitimacy. It has this patina of institutionalism. And that's what Walter's been doing his whole life, is he's a genius at accruing assets, figuring out how to invest in them, levering them, and then getting what he wants from the world. And you kind of have to give him credit. It's pretty amazing. I mean, this guy owns some of the premier assets in the entire world.

And the other key point of all this, the other way he does it, is that insurance money super valuable because historically it was invested in safe stuff, which means from a regulation standpoint, unlike some other stuff that was regulated after 2008, you're allowed to leverage it. So like you put away, your dad puts away some money in a life insurance policy. And that's a dollar. And Walter can go invest like $50, $20, $15 for every dollar that was put away. Yeah. And so there ends up being this leverage in the system that compounds.

And so you have billions in insurance money. You can buy tens of billions of dollars worth of assets. And that's how this kind of random guy who everyone was surprised about the Dodgers in 2012 ends up owning a piece of Chelsea and the Dodgers and the Lakers and all these other premier signature assets of America. Well, I went back, I looked back at my notes from last summer because I almost did a thing after he bought the Lakers because I couldn't figure out where he got all the money because it was a lot of money. What tips you off to it being weird? I mean, I followed that you've kind of... I went back and looked at all my notes

and I sketched out this whole thing and I chickened out and I didn't do it because he went to, what's it called? Mubedala, he got like a huge investment from them. Yeah, Abu Dhabi. And people started, there was some whispers about like, basically the Saudi money has bought the Lakers here and they're trying to pretend that that's not what happened,

but it actually is what happened. And then you go back and you read, he got all this money, but then he also invested in them. And it just seemed like this circle of money going around. It's like, you give me the money, and then I'll give it back and we've invested because the NBA has this rule. You can only invest, you can only take 20% from private equity, and that's it. That's the cap.

So if I buy a team for $10 billion, I can only get $2 billion in private equity. So it seemed like he had found some end around. And I went, I did it, and I was going to do a whole thing about it. and I just, I was too nervous about it. It's not my expertise. And ironically, I was, I was texting with Pablo about it. You and cousin Sal could have been like Woodward and Burnsston of the end of the day. No, but you know who I texted?

Our friend Pablo. And I, because Pablo's like, you got to come on the pot. And I was like, I want to do Mark Walter. And we texted about it and we had never done it. But it never added up to me. I never understood how the money circled back to the people he was getting the investment from. And the league just is so desperate to make as much money as possible on every franchise. They kind of like, we don't want to know, which has been part of the problem with the Quipper's situation too.

But the leagues, I was like, don't tell us. Like, we don't, nothing to see here. This was crazy. They'd much rather stay in the dark. Pablo and I are working on a story having to do with Mark Walter. I'm not going to get into the specifics. But I'll just say high level, it's pretty interesting that after he bought the Dodgers in 2012, a couple years later, Magic Johnson ended up being the owner of a life insurance company that he bought from

Guggenheim, Walter's firm. I have no evidence that anything went wrong there yet, but it's the exact same structure we're talking about here. And insurance companies are mostly owned by these great institutions. And in this case, they're owned by Mark Walter. And then there's one random insurance company owned by Magic Johnson, of all people. It's strange. I think the big problem here, you mentioned the private equity.

sort of max. Teams have just become too expensive. Like it used to be that the rich guy in your town could buy your sports team. And that worked because they were a fan of the team and they'd go to every game and they'd want their kids to run the team. But now these teams are worth like $10 billion. And so there's not that many people who actually can come up with that kind of money. And you know, Pablo and I and Hunterbrook, we investigated Matt Ishbia as our first big story.

I want to talk about him in a second. Yeah. And that's another example of, all right, someone had to pay billions and billions of dollars. And the NBA had to put that team up for sale in a pretty distressed situation. And it ends up being Ishbia who on paper has billions of dollars. And on paper seems like exactly the person you'd want owning a sports team. He was a walk-on at Michigan State. He really cares about basketball.

He literally has Isaiah Thomas on the board of his company. Like, this is a true basketball guy. but the problem is the people buying these teams now, they can't really afford the teams on their own. And so that ends up leaving the NBA in pretty tricky situations. Yeah, when like one third of the league was basically for sale at the end of the 2000s

before they had the lockout, the guy who bought Memphis, Michael Para, bought it with, he had this company that was doing well, but then as he was buying it, the company was not doing well. Robert Parra.

Robert Parra. I'm sorry. I confused it with Michael Sarah, Robert Pera. Very different guys, by the way. Totally different guys. I don't think Robert Pera would have been very good in Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. No, or this is the end. But people were worried at the time, oh my God, he's not going to be able to cover the thing. But at that time, it was 220 million, whatever he paid for the Grizzlies.

Now we're talking about, it should be paid over $4 billion for the Sons. and if it doesn't work out for them, now you have, like if he, if, and he just disclosed all, they, they, what did he report like 450 million in losses for the second quarter of his company? Yeah. You have to. You have to give HBIA credit as a sports team owner. This guy, in my view, basically bankrupted his company, which was the biggest mortgage lender in the country in order to pay.

In order to buy the Sons, right. And to continue running the Sons. I mean, this guy was paying Bradley Biel $50 million a year. When he was owning a mortgage company as rates were going up and they stopped making money. And what happened with Ishbya is truly he was taking $600 million a year out of the company in this dividend the company couldn't afford. And then to buy the team, he took out what's called a margin loan against his shares in the team, against his shares in UWM.

And so what that meant was he basically gave the bank billions of dollars worth of his UWM stake. And so when the shares fell in value, the bank's able to tighten the screws and say, all right, you've got to sell shares. You've got to put up more money. And he was willing to take essentially every dollar he could out of that company in order to keep running the Sons. And that's kind of what happens. Like he came in to run the Sons. He said he was going to sell super cheap concessions. He said he was going to make it more affordable to watch the games on TV.

He was trying to be, I think, like a consummate really good owner. probably trusted Isaiah Thomas too much, which led to all kinds of problems in my own childhood as a Knicks fan. I could have told not to do that. The Eddie Curry trade is reason enough not to put Isaiah Thomas on the board of your public company. But ultimately what happened is two weeks ago, he had to get rescue financing for his company. They had no more money left. They had to dilute all their shareholders. And the stock went from whatever it was down to a dollar or something. Well, you understand this stuff better than I do. But from how I read it, understood it, he had made a big bet with a big chunk of his company that interest rates were going to go down

by a certain time, right? And that and that, so he leveraged it in a way like, it'll be fine when the interest rates go down. Only they never did. And it was funny to like reading about it, it was very similar to the Kevin Durant trade where he's like, I'm Kevin Durant, we got to get him. We're putting all the stuff in and this is going to be. And it was like this massive swing. He's like, I'm a big swing taker.

and it didn't work out, and it didn't seem like this swing worked out either. No, and it's funny. You can actually look at how his company was doing and sort of when he was making these big bets in his company and when he was making big bets on the team. And you'll notice that the sons went from a taxpaying team to a not tax paying team after they then traded Durant away. That was the same period of time when he really needed money at the company. And they bought out Bradley Beale and stretched it out so it could get him under the luxury

tax threshold. And now they're not a big spender like they were. Exactly. My big question reporting on Ischbio over the last bunch of months was which is he going to pick, his company or the team. Because there were all kinds of ways he could have shorted up the company's balance sheet. He could have just stopped paying the $600 million a year dividend. And it would have probably been fine. But he wanted to sign some players. He wanted to fund this team.

And he's competitive. And all these guys are competitive and they're competing against all the other rich guys. Totally. I guess I'm curious, do you think the NBA seeing this now where there's some owners who it seems like couldn't really. of four teams with their own money, like Walter and like Ishbia. And then the owners who are really rich, like Balmer, become almost impossible to punish or to contain. Right.

Because the NBA is not going to punish Balmer, the richest owner in American sports. So do you think at this point, they actually end up just saying, all right, whatever, private equity money is fine, Middle Eastern money is fine. We don't really care who is paying. I think they're so desperate and focused on driving the value of these franchises. Like Vegas, one of the reasons, I got a lot of intel about why Iger and Kushner bought the Lakers. The Vegas thing, unquestionably, is over $9 billion now, like for the fees, right? And Iger and Kushner were trying to get it.

They didn't have the highest bid. They didn't really feel like a Vegas team that we probably need to build a new arena and who the hell knows in Vegas is worth that much. And at some point, Kushner got the idea he'd been reading about the Walter stuff. And I thought Adam Silver kind of nudged him there, but I don't think that's what happened. I think he went to Walter directly and was like, yo. So anyway, the point is, these things are going so high. I think that's what the league wants. And when you have somebody like Ishpia who buys the sons and basically buys the team himself,

he still has outs with the team. Like he could still sell 35% of the sons to somebody and be like, and if in four years if I sell, you get first, dibs on buying the whole team, which is what Mark Walthar with the bus family, there's this guy, I think Lucas Walton bought a piece of the bulls. And now if the bulls sell over the next few years, he's the first one that can buy in. So Ishbia still has ways to make money. And I think that's the way these rich guys look at these teams where it's like, once I have the asset, I can skin it any different way I want. But I just got to go all in and get it and then I'll figure it out.

But the problem is, as you said, these things are too expensive, though. Totally. And it's actually funny. One thing Isfia did along these lines is he wanted to buy out his other co-owners. He actually didn't want to have a bunch of minority owners. And so he bought out a couple of his co-owners with shares in his company. Wow. Right before it taxed. And so they ended up owning it. And then there were other co-owners of the team who then ended up suing Ishbia because he was trying to basically aggressively force them out. And I agree that given that the assets just keep going up in value, it's actually a lot of room to navigate for the people who own them. And so, yeah, I mean, we saw Dan Gilbert, it seems like, is going to sell a piece of the calves.

It seems like Ishbia could sell a piece of the sons. And then you do get a couple billion of liquidity. Right. But it's also interesting to think what happens if the direction of these team values ever flips? I mean, I have no reason to think that they will, as you said in one of your recent episodes. It's never been a mistake to buy a sports team. They're all valued higher than they've ever. been, but there's been moments when the teams have gone down in value and people have had to sell.

And that's going to end really badly for the people who had to take on leverage, who had to use insurance money, who had to buy these teams when they couldn't really afford them. And I think what's really interesting about Kushner buying this team is he's doing it through this entity, Thrive Eternal. Right. His other fund. The idea is, okay, he's this big investor in AI, Open AI and SpaceX. And he's like, on the one hand, everything's going to be a computer.

You know, it's all going to be AI. But then in that world, what are people going to do? What's going to matter? And like sports is one of the only things that people think is going to persist through an AI future. And so you can imagine that all these AI guys with the crazy wealth being created from the SpaceX IPO, but then also it's going to be open AI and anthropic, there's going to be a bunch of new money that's looking to buy the kinds of assets that

never go away. And so my guess is that this particular bubble, if it's a bubble, or this particular asset class does keep going up, at which point, you know, maybe every team ends up being owned by Abu Dhabi. Well, the fear is you go back and you look at the early 2000s, the last time this happened when we had the internet boom, what happened? We had a crash after the boom and then it kind of readjusted and went. We haven't had the crash with any of this stuff yet. So that's one thing. And then you look at when we talk about the amount of money, these guys can be like,

like Josh Kushner's rich, he's still not writing a $12 billion check for the Lakers. And what happened yesterday with the bus family basically reenacting season four succession and all of the siblings that Jeannie had basically shanked over the years and kept control and kept her governor's seat for five years and they finally got their revenge on her. But they got,

they wanted to get dragged in the deal, which is what happened with the Sulf. too. It's like, oh, that's the price. I'd like to sell mine as well. The Celtics paid over seven billion, or Chisholm, those guys paid over $7 billion because these guys got dragged in. The Laker people got dragged, the buses want to get dragged in. So Custer's got to write, basically he's got to find $12 billion somehow. Even if he's putting in two and a half, three, whatever, Agar's putting in $500, they still have to scramble now to find $8 billion more in people to invest. So where do you go? Probably the Middle East, right?

You know what's funny, though? This comes at the same moment when these live tour golfers are not being paid. Yeah, they're pulling back. But the Saudis are canceling live. It's a weird moment for all of this with the Iran war and huge tourism decline in the Middle East and the Middle East tightening its coffers. It's a funny moment to have to come up with. And not wanting a sports wash anymore.

Like a couple years ago, they were throwing money at all the American sports and the Premier League, wherever because they were trying to change the narrative. Sports watching is a luxury. Like, that's something you do when you've got a ton of money and you want to have the World Cup in Qatar and you want to have live golf and you want to pay Phil Nicholson enough money that he's going to leave the PGA tour. But suddenly if money gets tight in the Middle East, you're not exactly dying to buy assets that, you know, you could buy again in future years when you have more liquidity. But there is a lot of money sloshing around the system. And I think what Walter shows is that there's pockets of money people don't even realize are entering these

sports leagues because surely this is not the only example of insurance money being used to fund sports teams. A lot of owners across a lot of leagues are tied to all these industries, private credit and private equity and insurance. And they're very, very sophisticated at figuring out how to take out loans against their assets. So even if in some of these cases, it's not insurance money directly being invested, it's some person taking out money against their insurance company. And so ultimately, there's a lot of risk in the system. And I think what Mark Walter will show is the first couple cracks. And once those first couple cracks are revealed, I think there's going to be a bunch of others across all these leagues. Well, and you can see with the NBA, like the Blazers,

they went for four, right? And that was the highest bid. But then a couple years before that, the Timberwolves were one and a half. Utah was like 1.6. You know, so we've, we've seen just the smaller market teams are all probably worth five. The Celtics, they ended up paying over seven when you, when you include the people that got dragged in.

They're probably worth, allegedly, nine now. They probably all feel like they made money because this Lakers sets this new figure. And yet- Were you a little insulted by the Delta between the Lakers price and the Celtics price? It hurt. It was a wake-up call for us.

No, but I think the Lakers and the next are the two premier teams you'd want to buy in the NBA. I think even the Celtic fans would admit that. The difference. The most mind-bending, nauseating part of all of this is that suddenly Jim Dolan looks like a genius, exactly who you'd want to have on your sports team. Unbelievable. I spent my entire life resenting Jim Dolan, thinking through ways I could convince people to go buy the Knicks from him.

Wanted to stake out Gracie Mansion and get Mike Bloomberg to do it when I was a kid. I wanted to just knock on the door. He'd be like, please save New York. Everyone will love you if you buy the team. And suddenly, like, everyone's going to the sphere. It stocks through the roof. The Knicks won the championship. He really let guys, you know, run the team independently.

And he's not one of these owners who's using borrowed money. It's a family asset, which historically, it's always been a bit of an eye roll. Like, yeah, I mean, this guy inherited the name. Knicks. What a joke. But actually, there's some continuity that makes that stronger, a stronger foundation than these teams that are being bought with new money or fake money or borrowed money or insurance money or whatever else. As a Knicks fan, I feel pretty good today. This might be the top for the Knicks. I might be jenxing the whole thing. But I feel pretty with Jim Dolan as the owner of the Knicks. I've known you since you were a little kid and you were just tortured

Knicks fan who was just in basketball hell. And now you're married. You have a Knicks championship. ship, you know, that you can hang your hat on and your dad's one of the premier power lifters in America over age 60. So you have a lot going on right now. Totally. It's a big moment. This is it. This is the peak. Dolan is a great point. He's probably in the best situation. Like his whole empire added all together is worth at least $15 billion. He would never sell because he loves it. He lives the juice. Maybe this is what we do. Maybe you agree to juice the Spotify algorithm so that his band gets some listens. And if his band gets some listens,

maybe he'll feel fulfilled enough that he'll sell the team to someone else. I'll talk to them about that. Dolan's a big winner from this whole thing. And the Knicks are huge winners from this whole thing. Bus family. Bus family losers. The bus family are good.

They're going to be suing each other for the next five years. I was going to say, I'm not sure that they actually sell. I think that was a pretty weird coup attempt yesterday. But we all know which bus actually runs the show. I don't think the siblings can get out. I know, but explain this to me. It's a controlling trust, and she, quote unquote, runs it,

but they can all vote on what to do. And if they basically have a two-thirds majority, they have to do what the majority is, right? And I guess her vote, the way I understand it is if it was a tie, she would have the deciding vote. But it's not an deciding boat. It sounds like it was five to one,

and they all want to sell because a couple of the kids want to use, use the money to buy an NBA Europe team. So the problem for Walter is if this gets tied up in court and it keeps going, it could do away the sale. And it sounds like he needs money like ASAP. It needs the cash staff. Like right now.

What's your, what's your guess? What happens to Balmer? What happens to Walter? What happens to Ishpia? Well, I was going to ask you, I think Ishpia will be fine because he'll sell a chunk of the team if he has to. Will the words Mark Walter today pled guilty? dot, dot, dot. Will that sentence be said in the next two years?

Will the words Mark Walter pled guilty? I think it's really possible. I also think the Trump administration has not put away very many billionaires. And so I'm sure they work something out. But I don't think there's a single safe asset in the entire Mark Walter's cinematic universe. Like I think it's potentially all for sale. And I do think that the Dodgers being sold, a piece of the sun is being sold. I think all of this is on the table. But that's why this is such a bigger story than just the Lakers.

If he has to sell the Dodgers who spent so much money over the last seven years that they're going to single-handly create the baseball lockout next year, they also won two titles. And I think one of the many differences between the Quipper situation and the Mark Walter situation, he's had all this extra money to buy the last two World Series titles. The Dodgers are back-to-back champions. partly because of all the fucking money this guy spent,

the clippers have had no success at all. They won basically two playoff series in seven years with Kauai Leonard. They did all this stuff, whatever they did or didn't do, who knows? But none of it paid off. And they built the Oklahoma City Thunder. Like it was a disaster in every way. It was the opposite for the Dodgers. Yeah, totally.

Say what you will about Walter. He never traded a pick that became SGA. Right. He was a great owner of the Dodgers. And he's been a decent owner of, the Lakers, he pulled off one of the great trades of all time under his ownership.

I don't think he, does he get credit for that? It was in the bridge period. Yeah, it was right in there. It predated him. He was a good owner. And look, it's pretty easy to be a good owner if you're spending other people's mind. Right. Okay. So Clippers,

this is a harder one because this is now being investigated for a year. Pablo started everything. It's going and going and going and going. and it doesn't seem like there's a smoking gun in what we learned yesterday. ESPN had this report.

They basically said we didn't find any real hardcore evidence. The NBA hasn't found any hardcore evidence or the investigator. And now they have to figure out this weird, how are we going to penalize you? And the clippers are like we didn't do anything. And it feels like the clippers in the NBA are going to go to war.

Al Davis versus the NFL style feels like the outcome here. I think maybe. But if I were bomber, I don't think I'd actually want to be an arbitrar I don't think there's going to be a friendlier judge for this particular matter than Adam Silver. And that story yesterday, I think, was a huge mistake. Clearly, the sources who leaked that were the Clippers. I mean, there was a statement the Clippers released when the story came out on like a beautiful template background where they had a PR ready to go. And the NDA, I don't know if you've ever

reached out to the NBA for comment, they're like usually, you know, pretty tough to get to comment. and they almost never say anything publicly. And after the story came out, the NBA released this statement saying the story had numerous inaccuracies. I think what that was was a leak from Bombers camp. Like when Samuel Alito leaked the Dobbs decision revealing Roe v. Wade,

where he was like, I want it on the record right now that you guys don't have any findings that could put me away. And to me, it's actually not a close call. It's pretty obvious that Kauai had sponsorship deals with companies like Dactronics, the Jumbotron maker. and he never did anything for them. You can't see it.

When we worked on that story, we called Daktronics. We're like, can you show me one clip of Kauai? Even just saying like, I love Daktronics. Hell of a jumbo board, that halo board for the Clippers arena.

I didn't know that. I didn't know what Dactronics was. And I go to Clipper games. I didn't even know that was the name of the company. And you certainly hadn't heard Kauai advertising it. Because by the way, there's not a lot of consumers who were like looking to buy jumbotrons that are going to be persuaded by Kauai.

Like on its face, it's ridiculous that nothing happened here. But I think, and this goes to the overall point of all of this, the NBA doesn't have much latitude to punish Steve Balmer. Because these owners don't work for Adam Silver. Adam Silver works for these owners. And there's fewer and fewer owners who can actually pay for these teams these days. And the assets are getting more and more expensive. And I think having a blue chip guy like Steve Balmer who built one of the great American businesses is the kind of thing the NBA is not going to get rid of.

So my guess on the Clippers is that Bomber walks away with some kind of punishment and they just make Uncle Dennis the fall guy. I think they're going to say, Kauai maybe never even got this money. That's what I think they're going to try to argue, that Dennis was negotiating side deals. And yes, that might have been cap circumvention. But how much of that money was getting back to Kauai? I think that's where the NBA could land where they can slap the clippers on the wrist. They can punish Kauai, but they can blame. some guy who, like, you know, in every mob movie ever,

it ends up having to fall on the sword. So here's what hasn't happened with the Clippers. If you look at the, even the recent Mark Walter stuff, everything started because there was a whistleblower at Guggenheim who was like, hey, this, in the Wall Street Journal wrote about this yesterday, but basically Mubdala, there was a whistleblower with the funds with that. And once that happened, in Guggenheim, even, they, they had a spokesman in that Wall Street Journal piece saying,

yes, the firm received a whistleblower report in spring 2025. With the clippers, there's been no whistleblower on the quipper side, at least not yet. There's been all the people Pablo has found who were, you know, had surface ties. But it wasn't like somebody with direct knowledge of all this Kauai stuff blew the whistle to the NBA or any of it. And I think that's, the quippers are adamant. They didn't do anything.

And it's going to, they've really dug in. They, they are adamant. Nothing happened. And yeah, I mean, I don't know what to believe anywhere. In this, in this case, you have the whistleblowers from those companies who have basically come forward and been like, yeah, I worked at aspiration and I had to deal with the billings here. And I was like, why are we paying Kauai Leonard?

And everyone told me it was caps her convention. So you do have people on the other side. But I've been impressed, bombers closed ranks. He's gotten those clippers people right in line. It's impressive, but I do think he might have flown a little too close to the sun by leaking that story, if that's what happened. Because Adam Silver definitely didn't sound happy that belief. If you look at the NBA statement, and I think that, you know, it's a live ball. And ultimately, this isn't some court of law with some specific standards that need to be followed.

The guy who decides the sentence is Adam Silver. And if I were bomber, I'd be pretty careful about upsetting him. Well, I have three, the three actions. things that still make me go, huh, with the Kauai thing. We are now a year into this. He never actually did the work for aspiration but got paid. I've never, I've just never heard an adequate explanation for that. I don't understand why the Dachronix one too.

Yeah, why are you paying somebody to not do anything? Like, not even like one Instagram tweet, nothing. That's weird. Uncle Dennis, by multiple accounts, just asking everybody for under the table shit in the summer in 2019 and multiple teams going on the record saying, oh yeah, that guy was fucking asking for ownership stakes. That was weird. And then the third one was the Quippers trading Kauai to Toronto. If you're like, put this way, conspiracy bill definitely like put a hat on and studied that one because it was like, all right, Toronto is the one team with a real,

real, real reason to be aggrieved, right? They just won the title. They could have potentially brought, he didn't want to play for the Lakers as it comes out. They could have brought this guy back. They were really good in 2020. They probably would have represented the East and played the Lakers in the finals. And all that got pulled away. And they have the biggest reason to be pissed. And instead, they trade them there. And now it's like, all right, I guess we have Kauai now. It's fine. Those are the three things that caught my eye. I've definitely never seen a sponsorship deal in history. And in this case, there's at least two where you pay someone to be your sponsor

and they don't have to do anything in return. I would love one of those deals, by the way. If anyone wants to make... I ask for it every year from Spotify. Yeah, just... Can people give our podcast money and I don't have to do anything for it? Yeah, I mean, it's deeply, deeply suspicious,

but I think the good news is the Walter case is actually going to have real evidence. They've got the phones, they've got the computers. To me, it's completely unclear whether the bomber situation has had any sort of like subpoena power equivalent in the investigation. Like to the extent they might not have found a smoking gun inside the clippers, my guess is that when Wachtell, the law firm investigating is asked for information from the clippers. The clipper was, we're like, no.

And the information we've gotten as part of our reporting, and we included this in one of the recent stories with Pablo, his emails with Dactronics and the Clippers, where Dactronics is like, hey, guys, we spoke to Uncle D'Dill. Dennis, and I love that they refer to him as Uncle Dennis, like everybody. He's like, because of itself. With the fake seeming partnership, the person was Uncle Dennis. Like, hey, can we get quite a like sign an autograph? Can we get him to do something?

And those emails have all come out to us and all the sourcings come out to us from essentially other parties. The clippers have been tight, man. It's been impressive to see. Yeah, because the difference when this happened with Joe Smith in the early 2000s, when Minnesota got nailed for doing the wink, wink deal with them. him is they actually had a contract for the wink-wink deal for like two years from now, Joe will get this and here it is. And I forget if the whistleblower was on the agency side or

the Timberwolf side. I think it was on the agency side. The agent, the situation blew up and the guy had the thing and it was just clear evidence that they circumvented this, that they did the most illegal thing you can do was promise somebody to contract two years from now. And Stern flipped out and was like, fuck this. We're not doing this. And basically, ruined the KG era in Minnesota. I mean, KG's there for another seven years and it got decimated. With the clippers, you could argue Kauai already ruined the clippers in the 2020s. And I wonder if that factors in it all with the punishment where it's like, well, these guys are already screwed.

They're punished enough. They got nothing. They built a potential dynasty in OKC. Now I'm going to take five more lottery picks away from them. I don't know how it plays out, but I really do feel like it's going to end up with everybody suing each other. I think this is going to be the outcome. Agreed that this is not going to be some simple outcome.

Yeah, the Clippers learned the Stringer Bell lesson from the T-Wels. Is you taking notes on a criminal fucking conspiracy? It's the famous wire quote. And I think that Bomber took fewer notes than some of his predecessors on what he was working out with Kauai. And so I think bomber lives to fight another day. Walter, I feel less good about it. When you're like studying and reporting on all these super rich people, Like one of the things with Balmer and the Clippers

that I was always suspicious of it never added up was this was so blatant if he did this, right? If the Clippers did this, it was so blatantly stupid and transparent and easily to get caught. Like what's, how is that worth it? Like the Clippers were in an okay situation in 2019.

How is it worth risking your professional reputation being Joe Smith 2.0? Like, why? Like, Balmer is supposedly a relatively, you know, one of the smarter billionaires, like, why would he risk this? And look, Pablo's done much more of the reporting on this story. So I'll share my personal perspective on this. Yeah.

My view is, what Bomber keeps saying is, I got conned and scammed by this company aspiration. And I think that is absolutely true. Because if aspiration were a real successful company, none of this would have ever been revealed. It was actually a pretty sophisticated plan. the plan was they're going to sponsor our jerseys and we're going to pay they're going to pay kawai and we're going to pay them and it's all going to work out and they planned to go public as a company they planned to spack with oak tree actually which is the same firm that just bailed out ishbia right and they were going to go public and if that had happened if they'd have managed to go public

if the company hadn't been a fraud bomber would have been hands clean he'd have been totally fine because they would have gone public and no one would have ever had to find out and it would have seemed like a reasonable investment for bomber to have made. The problem is after aspiration starts going down, that's when bomber starts looking desperate. That's where the cover up is worse than the proverbial crime, where in this case, they start going down and bomber realizes because he's smart, if these guys go down and there's a bankruptcy, it's going to become clear that they were paying Kauai with money they didn't have, and it would look really strange. That's your theory. You're not, you don't know that for sure, but that's your theory. What we know is

after that period of time, when it became clear the business was failing. Balmer invested again, and then Dennis Wong invested again. His minority owner. It seemed like a failing entity. Yeah. The exact amounts of money that would cover the payments to Kauai. And that to me seemed like, and this is my opinion, okay, once you realize that this company is going down, you realize that the big scheme is not going to actually work out.

And so you get desperate and you start getting stupid. That's what ends up happening when the wall start closing in Henry Hill style every time. But on this one, I think that Bomber was at least trying to do something sophisticated. And when you look at the Dactronics example, which is this other payment, you look at their SEC filings, there's no obvious payment. Here's our payment to Kauai for marketing that we could see. It was done in a very sophisticated buttoned up way. And the problem is that he bet on the wrong guys to be partners in a scheme. with when aspiration went under and blew up.

Yeah, I guess the counter would be aspiration was just spending money like crazy. Sure. With no rhyme or reason to what they were doing. Bomber belatedly found out, oh shit, these guys might go down. They paid Kauai $28 million. Oh my God, people are going to think I did this. We got to help the company. I guess that would be the defense.

I don't know what the fuck happened. But I do know this. And I'm not a quipper fan. I've talked about it. I've had the quipper tickets. I go to eight to ten games a year. I always hope that they do well so I can go to playoff games. I don't really care.

I'm a Celtic fan. This franchise of all the teams this could have happened to, where nothing good ever happens to the clippers, ever. Even when they have good things, it falls apart. Like the 2014 was their best chance to win the title and the Donald Sterling thing happened. Like over and over again, this is how it goes. They have Kauai and Paul George together.

Kauai gets hurt in 2021 when they have the best chance to win the title. Like, this is just how it goes for them. And they're like, even with this, even with this Iger thing. Like Iger was a Clippers fan. He could have totally bought the Clippers. It's a great point. He was friends with Chris Paul. And by all accounts,

Iger is the exact kind of guy you'd want owning your team. And instead they end up with Bomber who definitely, you know, was willing to spend profligately on this team. he's not like a cheap owner. Right. But he's created this total mess for them. And I think, in my view, it'll be clear when you look at Josh Kushner, who's like a killer. Like by all it counts.

Like he's, you know, obviously related to Jared and who knows what's going on in that whole orbit. But he's like a serious guy who's going to run the team seriously with Iger, who's a serious guy who's going to run the team seriously. You're going to have that right next door to this complete cluster fuck. Right. And I think the salt and the wound is going to hurt even more. Yeah. Kushner is really well respected for being a smart-ass dude. And he's-

It's pretty amazing that he's laid low amid the Jared stuff, amid everything else, and has built this reputation as just like this great investor. I mean, who knows? I haven't done an investigation into Kushner. Right. Anything happened. But I do think if you were looking for a sports team owner,

there's way worse people than Jared Kushner. I'm sorry, Josh Kushner. Jared would be tough. Josh Kushner and Iger, that's a serious, serious ownership group. And, you know, I think the Lakers are going to be in decent hands. Well, here's the thing. It works out for the Lakers. Josh isn't going to run the day to day at all.

Iger's doing all of it. And Iger 75 could probably put six, seven really good years in here. And this is all he's going to do. and this guy just ran a giant company. It's a completely different job. Like, I was joking with Matt Bellany. Now, you know, somebody sitting courtside is mad that the chicken fingers aren't warm enough. Iger's like the matriety of this Lakers restaurant, right?

He's taking all the calls from everybody. He's at Disney. He's talking to seven people. Iger's going to be good at dealing with like the drama of Luca. Like he dealt with actors and actresses. Like Bob Iger's dealt with entertainment people. Luca is going to be easy. Pull up Luca on GLPs within two weeks.

Well, as long as it's not freedom of speech on a late-night TV show. That is a huge problem, for sure. Sammy, this was great. I know it delighted your dad to no end. We didn't even tell them we were doing this. This is so fun. Do you think this was in the Brony-Lebron category? You were so far ahead of Brony's best game on the Lakers.

This is like, this was almost like you put up. I'm like Brunson. You know, it's like Brunson first year at Lenovo, a little nervous, but there's, there's some sparks you think. You think, you think, you think this could be something? You hit like five or six threes. I thought I was impressed with your two-way play. When's your next podcast with episode with Pablo coming? We'll see. We've got to answer these Walter questions, but, you know, hopefully in the next month. And yeah, I'll shamelessly plug. Subscribe to Hunterbrook. We do incredible financial journalism. No one does that anymore.

You can follow us on all social media. And we will continue to report on all of these team owners, which I think is one of the great subplots of sports right now. Becoming more and more interesting. Crazy characters who are trying to find money wherever they can under every couch cushion and they're doing their best. But, you know, there end up being some problems. So thank you so much for having me. This has been awesome.

Great to see you, Sammy. I'll see you in Boston. Sounds good. See you soon. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Tom and Sammy. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.

I think I'm coming back on Thursday with another podcast this week. So stay tuned for that. forget about rewatchables. The re-speed. It's up. Go check it out. I'll see you later in the week. Must be 21 plus in president in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in president in D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game in a problem called 100 Gambor or 1-800-G700 by reset. Call 88879-7777 or visit ccg.g.gat and org in Connecticut or MD gambling help.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling help line. ma.org or call 800

32750 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 878 Hope NY or text Hope NY in New York for Louisiana call 8777-770 7867.