The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Jason Witten Error, Bryce's Big Deal and the Trump Zone With Bryan Curtis and Bill's Buddy JackO | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: February 28, 2019

HBO and The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Bryan Curtis to discuss Jason Witten's return to the NFL from the ESPN 'Monday Night Football' booth (6:20). Then Bill calls up his buddy JackO to talk Bryce Harper's mega-millions deal with the Phillies, Manny Machado to the Padres, the 2020 presidential race, Robert Kraft, and more (39:35). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Bill Simmons podcast live from Boston on the Ringer podcast network is brought to you as always by ZipRecruiter. No one knows the importance of talent more than ZipRecruiter. The best teams, they start with great talent. Well, unless they're the 2019 Celtics, then you have great talent, but you don't have a great team. I will wrap my head around this for the rest of my life and not understand what's happening this season. Normally, though, the best teams start with great talent. No one knows the importance of talent more than ZipRecruiter. They deliver qualified candidates fast. They're powerful technology.

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We're also brought to you by theringer.com, where we have some incredible stuff this week, including John Gonzalez went to Greece and did a whole long, awesome feature about Rick Pitino, who's kind of an exile over there, but not 100%. He's coaching one of the best teams over there, but it is a crazy story. He did a great job with it. Check that out. Check out all our basketball and all of our NFL combine stuff. We have NFL draft stuff with NBA draft stuff. We have a whole lot of TV stuff,

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I might even pop on there as the season goes along. I'm running out of podcasts on the ringer podcast network to complain about the Celtics. So I have to find other ones. The rewatchables reality bites went up yesterday, 25th anniversary. And next week we are forgetting Sarah Marshall. So you have a few weeks to watch that or a few days to watch that one.

All right, coming up, we're going to talk to Brian Curtis about this crazy Jason Witten story. Does Monday Night Football for a year. And now he's going back to the Cowboys. This story has a lot of onion layers to peel, and we're going to peel all of them with Brian Curtis. And then we're going to call my buddy Jacko to talk about this Cohen Trump stuff to talk about. We're going to have to talk a little Bob craft, unfortunately.

And we're going to talk about spring training because spring training is happening right now. That's all coming up. I am in Boston right now. I went to the Celtic game last night. I saw them lose to Portland and it just looks like a five players, five cabs kind of team. I don't know what's going on.

I think they need to go to like, Kyle, where do the people go? The Joshua Tree? Where do you go and do mushrooms and have a communal experience? Definitely Joshua Tree. Anywhere there's open fields. But yeah, Joshua Tree is a good one.

Burning Man. Burning Man. I don't know what the East Coast version of that. I think maybe they need to drive to New Hampshire and just bring a lot of hallucinogenic mushrooms and some killer tectonic pot and just all get high together. That would be my suggestion for the Celtics. Go get high together for 12 hours and then sleep outdoors and see if it brings anyone closer.

If not, we'll make some trades in June. But it's just a cold team. That was my big takeaway. Not a lot of like no arms around the shoulders, not a lot of high-fiving, not a lot of interacting during timeouts. My sense is that it's a team that doesn't really seem to like each other that much.

I don't think they dislike each other. They just haven't really clicked. And I think the weird thing about basketball sometimes, and the thing that transcends stats is when, you know, you throw five guys out there and they just might not click. You might, you need the glue guy. You need the guy who doesn't care if he shoots. You need kind of the alpha dog guy. You need the guy who could be the heat check guy. You need the guy who could be the best defender against, you know, some overwhelming low post guy. Everybody's just got to click.

And the last couple of years, they always managed to click with these bizarre teams with Jay Crowder and Jonas Jurebko and all these weird dudes they had. And this year they just can't get it to click and they have the most talent they've had this whole decade. Very strange. There's a feeling within the Celtics organization. I think that there's a chance that they could flip the on off switch like they did in 2010 and 2012, where you just have so much talent. Eventually everybody just figures out how to make it work

for three months. But the lack of resiliency and the lack of chemistry, which is just painfully obvious at this point, I don't know. I'm nervous. I'll tell you one thing. I don't think they're going to win 67 games. They would have to go 30-0 in their last 21 games to do it. Kyle, I don't think they can do that.

That's your bet, right? You bet the over? Yeah, but I also predicted they'd win 67. So I looked it up. They'd have to go 30-0 in their last 21 games. So some of those wins would have to count twice. I don't know. The league would have to figure out how that works.

I don't think it's going to happen. All right, let's call Brian Curtis. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. Alright, on the line right now for the ringer, the Michael Jordan of sports media writing. You're more than a sports media writer, but you tend to pick subjects that are in the sports media landscape. Brian Curtis is here.

He hosts the Press Box on Channel 33, which I think is a phenomenal podcast. This is shocking news today. Jason Witten going back to the Dallas Cowboys. It seems like the criticism of his Monday night football performance on Twitter actually drove him back to football. What do you think happened here? Brian Curtis. Here's the amazing thing.

I think about Jason Witten that you got to remember. He's never gotten bad press in his life. Yeah. With the Dallas Cowboys, right? He arrives the rookie. He's pretty good. And then by year two, everybody watches him. It's like, oh, that guy's going to be great.

That guy could even be a hall of famer, right? Next great pantheon level Dallas Cowboy comes to Monday night football and he gets his ass kicked every week, every single week on Twitter. And I sat down with him for a little while at the Superbowl this year, talked to him and, you know, asked him about that. And he's like, and it was just a totally shocking experience for him because he had just never been in a position where it's like, oh, wow. A lot of people really don't like me.

Some of them really hate me. I mean, this is a guy in Dallas who has like a zoo, a giraffe named after him at the zoo. Right. She's sort of beyond tight end. You know, he's like a, he's like a civic leader almost. And now he's getting his ass kicked. It was wild. There's so many things to unpack here. I guess we can start here. It didn't make sense to me that he just didn't get better as this went along. The first couple of weeks, he could sign it up to nerves, unsure, tiptoeing, maybe not letting it fly like he did in the auditions.

Because by all accounts, all the ESPN people who were just convinced that he was going to be awesome said that, you know, Oh, you should see him in these meetings. He's unbelievable. And then something was not clicking during the games. And instead of it getting better as it went along, I actually feel like he got worse. What did you think?

Yeah. So first on the first thing about being impressed by him, I hadn't spent a ton of time with him before Atlanta. And he sits down. First of all, he's this huge dude. I mean, just enormous, like not only tall, but broad shoulder. Um, you know, he's, he's a handsome guy. We're in a half zip and he sits down and talks to you and all the words just tumble out of his mouth. So naturally you're sort of like, I would, I want to like give this guy the Monday night job. I would consider this guy for like

secretary of defense or whatever cabinet job Trump hasn't filled yet because he is that impressive. It's incredible. And I kind of doubted when he has been. People told me that. And then when I saw it, I was like, oh, now I get it. I actually did think he got better. I thought he was pretty, pretty good during the Casey Rams game. He had one verbal miscue during that game, but I thought he was pretty good. I also thought he was pretty good during their Casey Rams game. He had one verbal miscue during that game,

but I thought he was pretty good. And I also thought he was pretty good during their playoff game. I think, I think he probably got better over the course of the season. I think they thought he was getting better over the course of the season. I thought it was a little weird. They never gave him anything to do, you know,

like, like why didn't we have like a first quarter thing where it's like, Hey, here's Jason Witten's segment, right? He's going to do something. I don't care what it is. Is it a tight end play? Is it Jason Witten's tough guys?

You know, like there wasn't like, it didn't feel like there was like a vehicle for him. Like they were really selling him. You know, here's the guy who was their number one draft pick, right? They could have picked anybody for that job. And it just didn't feel like they had something where they were really showing him off. I felt like he got worse for this job. And it just didn't feel like they had something where they're really showing him off. I felt like he got worse for this reason. They were trying to double and triple down, you know, when something's not working, you double and triple down on things that you at least know that this person knows about. So as the season went on, it was just like a lot

of talk about tight ends, you know, watch with it. And, and him concentrating on things that really weren't the most important parts of the game. Like he, there was a big picture sense that he just didn't have. There was a sense of humor that he just was, was just missing. I don't know if he has it in real life, but it definitely wasn't there in the broadcast and then pretty generic, but then a lot of, a lot of screw ups, like a lot of kind of basic mixing up somebody's name with somebody's name, forgetting the situation, telling us that somebody was having a great game when they actually weren't like really basic things that were red flags. And in the Twitter area, you just, you can't have that. It's impossible. I think.

Yeah. I mean, and, and also I would say Monday night booth was the only new thing this year, right? So everybody's attention, you know, Romo was at this point was a year old. We should talk about him in a second. Cause his shadow hangs over this whole thing. Yes. But you know, the Monday night booth was the only new thing. And yeah, you're right. And it's funny because when I was talking to him, that was the thing he was amazed at because his Jason Witten thing was, I know football. I can sit here and talk to you about this stuff. But somehow I haven't yet figured out when I'm sitting on TV how to get that Jason Witten out of me, right?

Which is the whole key to broadcasting. I think if we put Tony Romo's interviews after games as a cowboy next to Jason Wittens, I don't know that either one would be that much more enlightening or funny or anything. Right. But certain guys just have the ability to pull it out of themselves. Yeah. And it's not easy. It's there's some foreign aspects to doing television and I've done just about every version of it at this point. And, you know, the real, the first time I had ever really talked with somebody's, uh, voice in my ear, I think was when I did PTI for four days and it's weird. It's a foreign experience. It's weird to be talking and making a point. And then somebody's in your going, Brian, you got, you

got to wrap this up in 10 seconds. We're going to break. And you're just kind of navigating it. And it takes a while and it takes a while to be completely comfortable. And it's, it's a little bit, I would imagine like playing quarterback or playing point guard or something like that, where you're juggling these five different things and just trying to concentrate on your task, but you're also aware of the other things. And maybe that was a big issue for him. But the thing that I keep coming back to, I get it that he is this charming guy in person. And I'm sure, I'm sure that led to the mistake of putting him in this spot, but ultimately he wasn't that great of an interview when he played. I don't remember, you know,

like Romo, I would have bet my life was going to be good on TV. Charles Barkley, same thing. There's certain guys that you're just like, oh, that guy's going to be good in TV. I don't ever remember even thinking that with Jason Wynn. You're a huge Cowboys fan. Did you think that at any point during his career?

No, I mean, and I couldn't believe it when, when they hired him, you know, I was just really, really surprised because he just seemed to me like to be the ultimate, I don't want to say anything wrong guy as a player, you know, we had a great effort out there today, you know, never criticize his teammates, but yeah, I mean, you know, I think one, one funny sort of aspect of that is I think sometimes these guys don't pop in that interview setting, but then, I mean, if I remember correctly, right, you were convinced Romo was going to be great when you were had like dinner or whatever it was with Romo, right? You could sort of see him outside of, Oh, the reporters are going to jump on everything I say. And you know, what's funny about Witten is

Fox is really interested in Witten. I heard NBC was really interested in Witten. You know, it was, I mean, it's kind of like Greg Olson is now, you know, he's getting attention from all Fox is really interested in Witten. I heard NBC was really interested in Witten. It's kind of like Greg Olson is now. He's getting attention from all these networks and they're trying to get him to retire and come do something else. By the way, he may be a guy who's in the mix for this Monday night job. Witten was really wanted. This was not ESPN going out on a crazy limb. He was a guy that was wanted. Obviously, a lot of those people thought he was going to be great right away.

I think the biggest problem with all, and we'll talk about Romo shadow in one second here. The problem is that every once in a while you have Romo and you have, and you have Charles Barkley and you have these guys that come in and they're just immediately good. And it makes it seem conceivable that this is something that should happen over and over again. And the reality is you have a one in 10 chance with these hirings. Just look at all the dudes that get hired for studio shows, that get hired to be game analysts.

Most of the time, they don't work out. All right, so why don't they work out? Because they get thrown into these high profile positions without getting any of the reps yet. You know, and I look at somebody like Nate Burleson, who I think is, has a chance to be the best football guy other than Romo. He's really good. He's been getting reps for the last couple years on this NFL network morning show that for the first year, nobody was watching and he's on TV for three hours a day, just talking and, and getting reps over and over and over again. And this is honestly a big thing that we try to do at the ringer as we try to put people, you know, get them involved

more and more in podcasts and things like that. We want them to get reps. We don't just hand somebody a podcast. Like we want them to get comfortable and make their mistakes and learn what they're doing. And the networks where they're paying the most money and they have the most at stake over and over again, are throwing these people into the fire with no reps. I don't understand it. Maybe the Witten thing will be when this finally changes.

What do you think? Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think it's, I think Romo was such an exception to that rule. And I think you're right. It kind of reminds me of what we used to think about NFL quarterbacks, you know, how we go

back and forth on this. Sometimes we say, oh, you can play in their rookie year and they'll be fine. And then some, but most of the time we see, you know, they need kind of a apprenticeship, right? Or they need like eight games or maybe a full year because you look at the other guys, you know, like Troy Aikman was doing the NFL Europe and, you know, and then kind of doing the number two team on Fox and Chris, Chris Collinsworth has been on network television since like 1990, literally since 1990, you know, and those dudes had long time to sort

of figure out, figure themselves out again. Nobody is, nobody is focusing that much attention on the number two network game on Sunday, right? Nobody cares. Nobody, nobody, you know, no, no, no. Twitter is not lighting up your mistakes. So I think the path forward for like 99% of these guys is going to be do a job like that before they do the big job. Yeah. But here's the problem. The agents, Jason Witten's a hot name. These guys want to get them. And the agents are just going to go for the money. They're not going to, they're not going to think about the 10 year plan for Jason Witten. You know, they're going to

be like, let's get this dude. Yeah. Another really good example. Shaq, when he retired, there was a bidding war between TNT and ESPN and both of them offered him a ton of money to come in and do TV. And, and everyone was like, Shaq's going to be great at TV. Cause Shaq actually was a good interview. I was dubious. Cause I'm not, I wasn't sure how much he had to say. And I think he's better now than he was when he started, but that first year he was an abomination and he, they put him from, they took him from the locker room and they put him right on television as I'm the most iconic studio show that we've ever had. And a show that none of us wanted to change in any respect. And he gets thrown into that and he wasn't good.

Like, what are the odds? Of course he wasn't good. And everybody was mad about it. And to TNT's credit, they stuck with him. They stuck with him. They figured out how to turn him into a character. And now he's better than he was. I still don't into a character. And now he's better than he was. I still don't think he's great, but he's better than he was.

And it goes back to what you said about Witten. Even during this season, they never figured out how to kind of make him a character, how to give him his little things, his little ownership spots. Even like Randy Moss on that stupid countdown show, they have what is it, like Mossed Up? The segment he has where he got Mossed Up! Whoa, we got Mossed! Rolling Stone

gathers no moss. Yeah. All kinds of gimmicks we could come up with. No, they have a gimmick. It's basically like the Come On Man for Randy Moss, where he just yells at dumb things people did. That's kind of what they do with a lot of these guys is we'll just basically cut together bloopers and you scream and react to them. And then that'll be your segment. Um, but I think this Witten thing, I think the big lesson for me is we just have to stop doing this

unless it's Romo, unless it's like a comment and it's so clear that he's going to be awesome. Um, give these guys some time to breathe. Yeah. Well, let me add one other thing that makes Witten and Romo unique in this thing. And now Greg Olson is, you're not just getting them straight off the field. You are pulling them off the field to be an announcer, right? You are saying you could go play for the Dallas fricking Cowboys next year, or you could be in our booth. So the thing about that is Jason Witten, something like Jason Witten is probably not going to leave the Dallas Cowboys to go beat Charles Davis's job on Fox. Right.

That doesn't sound that glamorous, but so you almost have to say, Hey, we're giving you the number one job on CBS. We're giving you the number one job on Monday night football. Like that. And of course the networks are getting the glory, right? Because it's a big deal when Jason went and walks away from football to come do your TV show, right? Right. Get a little extra something out of that, but that's a totally different thing because this is not Joe Montana retiring.

And then we throw him on NFL live and he's terrible. This is, you're literally, you're literally taking these dudes away from their football team. And I think that's interesting. And by the way, can I break up another longtime Simmons obsession? Because it really speaks to this.

The three-man booth. A quick break to talk about Belvedere, produced in one of the world's longest-running distilleries, Belvedere Vodka is the world's finest all-natural vodka, part of a 600-year Polish vodka-making tradition. Belvedere made with non-GMO Polish rye. Pure water. No additives.

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Yeah. I mean, you know, how many have these have been tried in our lifetime and how many of them have actually been good? It's it. There's been like five good ones ever. And I wouldn't even put being Gundy and Jackson and Breen together at this

point anymore. Cause I think Breen and Van Gundy and Jackson and Breen together at this point anymore. Cause I think Breen and Van Gundy is just a better telecast, but yeah, it all started with Bill, Billy Packer, Al McGuire and Dick Enberg. This is 40 years ago. They did college basketball and they were awesome and people loved it. And they had perfectly complimented each other. For the most part, this doesn't work. In football, you have a little more time between plays and stuff. I think in basketball,

I've done it. Jalen and I did a three-man booth with Mike Tirico, I think maybe twice. And it just flies by. And all of a sudden, you're in commercial again. And the pace of it is just, I think, too fast for three guys. But you mentioned Joe Montana. This is something I've been obsessed by really ever since I've had a column is just over and over again, us just throwing people on TV right after they retire. And each time the executives acting like they just, you know, they just killed the deer and they're displaying the deer head proudly with their buddies. Like, we got this guy. Here we are. Here he is. And again, nine out of 10

times, the guy's not good. And it goes back like basketball is the best version of this because we've had, you talk about the greatest players ever. We've had Oscar Robertson. We've had magic Johnson. We've had Isaiah Thomas. Uh, we've had Shaq going down the line. Yeah. Will Chamberlain, all of these guys have been thrown on television and really all of them flamed out early magic. They kept on for a while and eventually he became decent. But, um, but for the most part, this mentality of this guy was good. Let's throw them out there. Um, we're about to see it again. It's going to happen with Dwayne Wade. I actually think Dwayne Wade might be good, but if they really want him to be good, they should be sending him to, you know, the, the Charlotte, New Orleans game on a Tuesday

night as the NBA TV game and stuff like that. Like, don't put him, don't put him in the booth with Van Gundy when he doesn't know what he's doing. This Vince Carter, I think is a really good, I think Vince Carter is going to be good. And one of the reasons I think he's going to be good is because we're doing a podcast with him and he really takes it seriously. And one of the reasons he wanted to do the podcast is because he knows he needs the reps and he knows he needs to improve his interviewing skills and just how to be comfortable and how to think like a talking head. And that's what he wants to do when he retires. Same thing for JJ Redick. I feel like you almost have to start doing it when you're playing.

And maybe this, that's something that is going to evolve over these next 15 years. Cause there's so many formats. See, am I crazy with that? Or could that actually happen? No, I think it's right. But I think it also, I think that's right. You get, you get now more reps just in social media and stuff like that. If that's the word for it. I don't think it goes back to the hackiest thing of sports media writing, which is the star player is often the worst announcer, right? And the guy who's the marginal player sees their chance. This is my chance to be a star, right? Yeah.

I mean, there's a certain amount, you know, but that works against the way the networks hire, right? Because it looks a lot better in your trophy case to get Joe Montana and Dan Marino. Even if Chris Collinsworth turns out to be the better announcer. Or Nate Burleson right now. Right. That's the

Romo thing to me, right? Here's a guy who was never called the best quarterback in the NFL, or not for very long anyway, when he was playing. And now it's his chance to be the best at something. And you know, that is that, that has got to drive him in a way that it doesn't drive, you know, some of these guys you mentioned who come in with like a,

having a great hall of fame career. Yeah. I mean, think about, I think Steve Kerr is the best color guy ever for basketball. I don't think he ever made an all-star team. Never made an all-star team. I think Nate Burleson is the second best guy right now. I don't know if he ever made an all-pro team. I think the star power is overrated.

People just want to hear good analysis and good points. And, you know, going back to the Witten-Romo thing for a second, because this does seem like this was part of it. Witten's just dying in his first year. And then there's Romo who's, you know, be, who becomes like really a national story for this guy's now a broadcasting phenomenon. And these guys were teammates forever. Do you think that played a factor in Witten wanting to get out of this? Well, here's the ultimate irony, Bill.

And I say, this is the Dallas Cowboys guy, right? Tony Romo was the fatally flawed quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys, right? And Jason Witten was the perfect tight end. Then they go to television and Jason Witten is the flawed Monday night announcer and Tony Romo suddenly becomes Mr. Perfect, right? They switch places. You know, Jason Witten, his whole career watched Romo get killed by the press over and over again, sometimes unfairly. And now they switch and he's watching Romo being called the next man. I mean, first of all, just the psychology of that is fascinating to me. But yeah, no, I think, I think that is part of it. The Romo thing just is hanging over

everyone right now. And it's kind of two, two parts. One is that think that is part of it. The Romo thing just is hanging over everyone right now. And it's kind of two parts. One is that Romo is actually really good. And the other one is that these people are all just tired of hearing about Tony Romo. You know? And they think, you know, I think a lot of them, and I've heard some of them complain. It's like, look, you know, everything, he's just beyond criticism right now. So if he ever has a bad game or he screws something up, you never hear about it.

But when we screw something up, you hear about it. Like he's just in that he's in the untouchable zone right now and everybody else is touchable, you know? So, yeah, you know, I, I think with, you know, in talking to Witten there was a little bit, he was, we didn't get too deeply into that, but he was definitely aware of it, you know? And I think, you know, there's a lot of things like, well, maybe I could predict plays, you know, but if I do that, then am I copying his shtick?

Right. Am I ripping him off? And I just think Romo, Romo not only has been good, but he's sort of taken up categories, right? He's, he's the excited guy, right? He's the happy to be here guy. He's the play predictor guy, you know, he's the golf guy. I don't know. You know, he's like, I feel he's just taking all these categories and sort of taking them off the table because it's so good.

And then you got all these other announcers are kind of looking around going, what's my thing going to be right. What's my lane here. And I just think it just has a really, a totally different impact on the broadcasting industry than I think than anything has really had in a really long time, probably since Madden in that respect. So do you think ESPN tried to talk him out of it or they were like, Oh, okay. Oh, well, good luck.

So this is pretty fresh to me, but if I enlist about three different people were lying to me, Jason Whitten was going to come back to Monday night football as soon as recently as a couple of days ago. Now, but I don't think tears were shed though. Yeah. I mean, you know, and look, if it could be one of those things where he says, guys, you know, I got to go play for the Dallas Cowboys and everybody kind of looks at each other and says, look, we were going to, we were going to, we wanted to do this and we, we were committed

to doing this in year two, but okay. Right. And now here's our chance to hit the reset button and everybody's happy, right? Whitten's happy because he gets to go back to the Cowboys. Jerry Jones is happy. And you know, the guys who run Monday night are happy because now they get to go back to that list of 12 guys that they talked to last time. I could totally see that. But again, unless everybody was telling me a story as recently as a couple of days ago, Jason, when was coming back to Monday Night Football, and that was absolutely the plan. So here's my big picture question for ESPN.

Because this Witten thing, this was one of the first big moves of the Pataro-Connor regime. Connor's my guy. But this was a big hire for them, and it didn't work, and they had a year. Now, you have Romo as a free agent in a year. You have, I think Nate Burleson is also, I hate to keep, I'm not Nate Burleson's agent. I just think I was really impressed by the game he did.

Are you better off just kind of patching it together for a year over tying yourself up with, with some new team and making it, this is our team. And then you look like hypocrites in a year when you're chasing Tony Romo for $50 million. It seems like it would make more sense to me to just have Tessa tour and Booger McFarlane and a rotating cast of, of third people. And you could put, bring celebrities in there, bring Peyton Manning. The other move is just, this is when you go back to Peyton Manning and you'd be like, just how much, how much a hundred million, what do you want? That's actually what I was going to say. That's actually what I was going to say. Cause he was the guy they really chased. Right. And the last time around. And when he, when he sort of said,

finally said no, it's when they went to plan B But, I mean, to me, the easiest solution, and one where, by the way, you are now playing in that stratosphere of, you know, the biggest names. And, by the way, I would put Peyton in the category of great player who might actually be really good at television. You know, that's my category.

I don't know, but he certainly seems like it. And you know he would work hard at it, right? Like, he's not going to just roll in there and, you know, rub his eyes and do the game. Like, he's really going to do it. But, yeah, I mean, to me, Peyton makes the most sense. And also, by the way, we've heard this little back-channel thing coming out that, you know, look, all the TV rights are coming up. And maybe Monday Night Football's future is on ABC, right? Instead of ESPN.

You know, maybe Disney is like, we want to make ABC Sports a thing again. Not labeled as such, but we want to make ABC. We want to use the, we have a network. Why are we throwing all this stuff on cable, right? And, you know, if that happens, right? Peyton Manning is the kind of guy you want on that broadcast. Absolutely. I'm not 100% sure. Oh, I was going to say, I'm not a hundred percent sure he'd be

good, but I'm like 90% sure he passes all the check marks you'd want when he played his good interview. He's got a good sense of humor. He's been in a lot of situations, hosted the SBs. It's, it's not like he's just this dude who played and then he was living in a club in you know his basement not interacting with people this guy's been out there and he's has a personality he's really famous and the games would feel bigger um anyway interrupted what were you going to say next no well and there are so already in business with him right you know essentially like the kobe thing yeah and so i think that's like an idea too that you already have a relationship

with them and you know what if peyton went and did the john gruden qb camp like gruden did i mean wouldn't he be even cooler version of that potentially i just think the thing to watch monday night generally and this is probably to say could say that ESPN is, you know, Lee Fitting, who is kind of the mastermind behind College Game Day, is now a much more powerful person at ESPN than he's ever been, right? And I just feel the whole college vibe, there's a sense that maybe ESPN does college football better than they do pro football. And, you know, this whole idea of how can we make Monday night and our NFL studio coach and everything more like our college coverage, right? Because everybody likes game day.

Everybody likes that Herb street Fowler game on Saturday nights. Everybody liked Joe Tess's big college game when he was doing it. So you got Tessa Torres, a play by play guy. You've got fitting, you've got, you know, how can we just bring that sort of organic excitement to, and you know, look, that could be with a Peyton Manning. It's just, it's just a matter of bringing that in. But I think that's going to be a big factor in this going forward too. Last question. I can't wait to ask it. Um, you are, you are the captain, you are the Marlo from the wire of this corner.

This is your corner. Other people come on and they just get shot. Ratings don't change your life. You say this over and over again. Tomorrow's rating won't change your life. By that same token, these ratings are the same who's ever announcing. I don't feel like an announcer budges any game by even like one third of a point. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe Madden back in the day, maybe a couple more people watch the game because he was announcing it. But for the most part, I think people just

want to watch the game and they don't really care who's announcing. They'll like the announcers. They'll be annoyed by the announcers. My case for this is the players only broadcast, which I just think is, is just a flat out abomination. I hate it. I really genuinely hate it. I know I'm not alone. I did a Twitter poll one day and it was 80% of the people on Twitter, uh, just didn't like players only. Um, I just like having a play by play guy. I don't think this is rocket science. Give me a play by play guy who can make the game more exciting. Tell me what's going on and give it a certain flow. And if you want to do players only great, just do it on a different channel. Don't do it on the only choice I have to watch a basketball game.

Um, but guess what? People still watch the games. So you, let's say Twitter was a little off, maybe 60% of the people don't like players only or 70%, whatever. They're still going to watch the ratings. Aren't like cratering for those Tuesday night games. So my point is maybe we spent too much time talking about it answers. I don't know. I still have a good time doing it, but ultimately I'm going to watch whoever the announcer is. I still watch Jason Witten and Booger McFarlane. I knew they weren't good. I still watch the games. I thought

you were going to say we spent too much time talking about ratings. You caved my corner and murdered me. You say we spent too much time talking about announcers. No, I'm lying there bleeding out on the corner. You're talking too much about announcers. I love talking about announcers. I'm just saying,

I'm saying ultimately they can have you and me as the announcers next year. And I'm not sure the rating is changing. It's going to be the same rating for the same games, no matter who's in that booth. I really believe that. I agree. I agree with just about everything you said. Here's,

here's the, here's the, like the tweak, right? The biggest thing for Monday night is the schedule, right? It's not rating. It's notcers it's not all that shit it's the schedule right that's it and they had they had they had to schmooze with the nfl which they did this year and they got a better schedule i don't think anybody inside espn thinks that they had a

great schedule this year they got a lot of luck if you remember like they got like the last drop of fitz magic in week four or five and before, right before he fell off the, you know, the, the, into the deep end of, uh, of, uh, football against the Steelers. They got, they got obviously incredibly fortunate to have that Rams Casey game. And, you know, it's funny cause I actually talked to Whit about that. And it's like the biggest thing we can do next year is go to the NFL and work the NFL and get this schedule better. Right. Yeah. Because Monday night always felt like not only do we not have the big teams and big games, we often have a random game.

Like, and I'm, I can't remember some work. I remember like Jacksonville, Atlanta. Like what is the storyline of that game? Right. These teams have nothing in common. They're not rivals at all. Like there's just not, there's no way to hype this game outside of like a couple of players. And so I think their strategy is always, how do we figure out how to continue to improve that schedule? And that is the thing that will make the ratings better, right? Not necessarily the announcers, but if you have good games, more people will watch them. And I think it's the optics too. I, you just want everything going smoothly. You don't want people writing every week about your broadcast team

because then you're having meetings about it. Your boss is asking you about it. What's going on with that Monday Night Football team? What are we going to do? And you're just dreading the next hit piece and all the Twitter reactions and all that stuff. And when you have, you know, you're paying $20 million a year for Peyton Manning or

whatever the F you're going to pay him. Now, now, now that's off your plate. We got Peyton Manning. We have this really famous guy who could show up on location. The game feels bigger. He can do a little extra things for us. We don't care that we're chartering a jet to fly him in each game. Doesn't matter. Um, that headache is now removed. So the question next year is if they just decide to run it back with Booger McFarlane and Randy Moss or whatever they do, it's still going to be the same articles week after week. What are they going to do? Should this be bigger? Should they get Peyton Manning? Roma's a free agent and it's going to be a circus again. And as we found out, and as you've written about many times with ESPN this last year, they don't want any of this stuff anymore. They don't want people writing about them and talking about them and they don't want

controversy. They just want to show games and studio shows and stay out of our way. And that's their motto heading into this next decade. We do not want to offend you, upset you, or antagonize you in any way. Please just watch our games. We're ESPN, the worldwide leader. And we especially don't want to antagonize the NFL, right? We want to broadcast the NFL looks bad and goes, yep, that's great.

Not offensive at all. Thanks. Thank you very much. Right. We like the announcers. We're friends with the announcers, all that stuff. Peyton Manning,

name your price. You can save this. Brian Curtis. I look forward to reading your piece about this on the ringer.com. And also you had a piece today that I really enjoyed. And I'm blanking on what it was about, even though I read it and I tweeted it. Tyler Murray is the ultimate content machine. Yeah, yeah.

Tyler Murray, the content machine. Yeah, I'm old. I'm turning 50 this year, Curtis. All right. I'm going to go back to ratings corner, Bill. I'm going to retire. I'm going to go back to my territory. Bye, Brian Curtis. Let's take a break and talk about Squarespace. Turn your dream into a reality with Squarespace to make it easier than ever to launch your passion project.

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gyms. They turn great ideas into something real. Go to squarespace.com slash BS for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use the offer code BS to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. It also helps the Ringer Podcast Network. Go to squarespace.com slash BS offer code BS. All right, on the line right now, it is spring training. Crazy political stuff is happening.

A Boston owner did something crazy. It's all stuff that is in Jacko's wheelhouse. We might as well start here with Bryce Harper. 13 years, $330 million to the third down if you feel is. 13 years? 13 years. Good Lord. His contract could go through puberty. That's how long it is. 13 years. 13 years. Good Lord. His contract could go through puberty. That's how long it is. 13 years.

Wow. So he's a Philly for the rest of his career. That's crazy. So here's my first reaction. Oh my God. This is going to be an absolute catastrophe for the Mookie Betts negotiations. I just, I'm selfish. I'm an only child that my first reaction was, Oh no, this is terrible for Mookie Betts. Um, this was way more money that I'm first of all, who were they bidding against? Like the Yankees were, we don't think they were in this, right? Where the Yankees in this? No, God, no. I, I, it looks like the John, I thought that he was going to be a giant because the news of the past two days were that the giants were making a push for him and he was, you know, meeting with their ownership and their brass and they had really given him a sales

pitch. You know, nobody knows what numbers were offered, but maybe the Phillies, I mean, everybody assumed that both the, both he and Machado were going to get 10 year contracts. So maybe the Phillies felt the need that the Giants were threatening and they had to add three more years. But 13 years, that's a commitment. Seems like a lot. What happens when Trout is eligible for free agency? Does Artie Moreno just say, here, you want

half the franchise? Like you, you're now 50 or 50, 50 owner of the angels. Like what does it, what does trout get? If he gets there, if Harper gets 13,

third, three 30. Well, I have something even crazier to tell you. Bryce Harper's deal has a no trade clause. Really? Oh my God. He really wanted to be a Philly.

He wanted to stay for 13 years. That is nuts. 13 year contract. What world are we living in? I thought baseball was getting less. I thought baseball was getting more responsible. I know the whole talk of the off season was we're going to have a strike because these owners aren't going to go for long-term contracts and not big money. And Bryce Harper says a 13 year contract. Is there a bit of longer contract in any, any sport?

I think hockey does some like 26 year contracts. Hockey just has no rules with really anything. Um, if the Yankees had signed Bryce Harper for 13 years, 330 million, would you have been happy, sad, or, or distraught mortified? No, I, I don't like to make a 13 year commitment on anything except my marriage, honey, if you're listening, absolutely. And then some, but for, for baseball players, my God, no 13 years. Good Lord. That's insanity. My, uh, that's like the thing where the Mets are paying him for the rest of his life. You know, they, they couldn't wait to get out from underneath

that contract and they still pay him every year on July 1st or whatever, but 13 years. Good night. I, uh, I'm relieved that the Yankees didn't sign him is my other thing because I actually would have been scared of him in that it just felt like him in the pinstripes, the lefty that you needed with the shorter porch, just all of it

frightened me, even though on the other side, we have Joe House, our buddy, Washington Nationals fan, has been there for every step of Bryce Harper's career and didn't care that he left, which I thought was a terrible sign considering the guy's 26 and was the face of the franchise and just felt like maybe it was time for him to go. I don't think that's a good sign, Johnny. Not at all.

And you know what? The other thing is, I wanted him to be a Yankee and his father's a big Mickey Mantle fan. And there was Instagram pictures of him salivating at Mickey Mantle's retired number and all that you think about him with the short porch and being left-handed and he could put up massive numbers but then I was listening to the Mad Dog show a week or two ago and somebody called in and said you know if you look at his like with Mad Dog terms hall of fame years if you look at the years you know if you look at his career, the numbers are not really phenomenal. He's had basically like one huge year and he's been, you know,

he was in sports illustrator when he was 16 and he's been hyped up. And I think it's a lot of hype, but if you look at his numbers, they're not stupendous. Like when A-Rod signed his contract with Texas and that, which was the record at the time, and you looked at his numbers, and I know it was not borne out, and obviously everything else that goes with A-Rod,

but it was justified by the numbers, 50 home runs and his average and RBIs and playing shortstop. You look at Bryce Harper's numbers, not phenomenal. Not really like, doesn't blow you out of the water. Am I wrong on that? No, I'm with you. And I guess the 330 is causing me to pause, but I guess with inflation, you could argue,

would an A-Rod sign that deal in like 2000 or 2001? Yeah. So if he signed for like 250, this is 330. This is probably actually worth less for the most part. Yeah. Harper. Yankees Twitter this offseason has been all aflame incorrectly about the Yankees payroll. And if you look at what their payroll

is as a percentage of revenue and you look at where revenue is in baseball, when A-Rod's baseball, I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, so I'm picking them out of thin air, but let's say baseball revenues were $10 billion or something when A-Rod signed his $250, and now they're like $20 billion. So theoretically, the highest contract should be like double what A-Rod's is. I'm not saying they doubled revenue, but whatever the numbers

were, the highest contract should be exponentially higher than $330 million if you're in line with the revenues of the sport. So 2015 MVP, 330, 460 on base, 42 homers. Awesome year, right? Then the next three years, if you add them up, 267 over a three-year stretch, 16 to 18. 390 on base, 500 slugging. 87 homers, basically. You're right. He's never hit 40 home runs except for that one year, right? Well, here's the one thing.

I mean, he has been awesome in the postseason. Four years, he's hitting 211, 315 on base, 47 slugging, five homers, and played 19 games and has lost every series he's been or his team has lost. So I think that's why House is ready to drive

to the airport. That's what they said about, if you look at Machado's numbers too, and I mean he's doing it from shortstop. He's a phenomenal defensive player. Both of them are only 26, so I suppose that's what they said about, if you look at Machado's numbers too, and I mean, he's doing it from shortstop, he's a phenomenal defensive player. You know, they're both of them are only 26. So I suppose there's room for growth, but like,

I don't think Machado has ever hit 40 home runs. Right. I'm not sure he's ever hit 300 and he's got $300 million. So. Yeah. I want to talk about Machado in a second. I, all right.

So I've, I've had time to flesh this out off the top of my head, and I still have a big grudge against the Philly fans because I didn't really like their Tom Brady jokes that much after the Eagles-Patriots Super Bowl. I didn't like some of their behavior. So I hope this contract goes down in flames for them. I really hope that they're booing him.

Yeah, I mean... I can't believe somebody would go to Philadelphia and want a no-trade clause. I think I would demand booing him. Yeah, I mean. I can't believe somebody would go to Philadelphia and want a no trade clause. I think I would demand a trade clause. Yeah. Well, he can control the trade clause, right? Get me out of here. What's that?

He can control the trade clause. I suppose, yeah. He just can't be traded against his will. He can always demand one, I suppose. Yeah. So I'm giving you two choices. This contract is an abject disaster, or this contract is remembered as one of the five or six great free agent signings we've ever had. Which side would you pick? I would bet my house and everything I own on it's going to be an abject disaster.

All right, so there you go. 13 years, come on. Let's move to the rest of the spring trading. So quickly Machado goes to the Padres. That must've hurt. That must've hurt your feelings a little bit, just a little, just tiny bit. I'll tell you, I've been all over. I was like a rollercoaster ride on this whole Machado thing because after the world series ended,

I wanted no part of Machado because of the non hustling thing and that he wasn't that great. And he's going to want all this money. And the guy I I wanted no part of Machado because of the non-hustling thing and that he wasn't that great and he's going to want all this money. And the guy I always wanted was Harper. I thought the thing with Machado is I like Andahar a lot. I know his defense is shaky, but he's a rookie and his offense was phenomenal. I love Didi Gregorius. So I'm like, if you go out and get Machado and Machado is playing short, and then what happens with Didi, who is cheaper and already is a known quantity in New York.

I didn't really want to run Didi out of town. So unless somebody has another position, that never really made any sense to me. And then as the offseason went on, and I'm like, you know, they're the Yankees. I'd like them to make a splash. I kind of talked myself into Machado. So I was all over the map. And then when the rumor was that the White Sox had lowballed them for like $175 million or something, I'm like, the Yankees have to get involved for that.

And Hal Steinbrenner's repeated crying poverty interviews have done nothing but drive me to the brink of insanity because it's so ridiculous. And the Yankees is like penny pinchers now is an outrage to me. And they spent three years trying to get under the luxury tax, and every Yankee fan assumed it was to go get either Harper or Machado. So I kind of wanted them to get it. But then at the end of the day, I'm not, I'm not really brokenhearted that they didn't get him. Yeah. I mean, it's odd to see him go to a team like the pod. What do you think? Like, well, the Yankees are like, we can't spend those kind of money, but then the Padres do.

So it's like, well, it's a crazy world we're living in. I feel the same way about $300 million free agents that I do about getting married to somebody. If you have to talk yourself into it, it's probably a bad idea. Absolutely. If you're like, I probably should marry her. And these big contracts we've seen over and over and over again. It's not the money, but it's the years and getting locked into somebody for that amount of time and that amount of money. It's always a disaster. So I understand why owners have now finally at long last learned the lesson.

The first A-Rod contract was a good, solid one. The second one was a horror show. The Pujols one is a horror show. You know, Zito was terrible. You can go right on down the line. I can't think of any others that were wonderful contracts for anybody. The Yankees with Ellsbury, which never made sense from day one, and now they would like to sell it for five cents on the dollar if they could. So I understand being reticent. The difference, of course, the argument, I suppose, raised by their agents is these guys are 26.

So it's not like you're going to be paying them when they're 40. And Machado's a shortstop, which if you can get the production that he gives at that position, you can't put a price on that. And you know that he's not going to potentially crater because he's 26 and ostensibly his best years are ahead of him. Right. Knock on wood, he's never really been injury prone.

So, you know, he's going to be out there playing. And I mean, they're going to hate, they're going to come to regret that contract because I don't think they have the type of money that where they can have a guy making 30 million and they can go pick up other pieces if they have to add money. And he's going to be never heard from again because the Padres get no national coverage and they're, you know, it's out on the West coast and it's not a marquee team. So, um, that's what I was power to remember 300 million bucks. I was texting you about the Padres when I read that piece a few months ago about, uh, the most famous call in Padres history in that Yankee

game when it was like, it was like, they called a ball on what would have been a third strike. And then it was a Tino Martinez. Yeah. Yeah. He had a grand slam. Yeah. And they ran this piece of the San Diego union tribune. It was the 20 year anniversary of the call.

And I was like, this is a thing. I literally know no Padres. I never knew this was a moment ever. And apparently it's this huge moment with the Padres fans. And I'm thinking like, man, on the one hand, yeah, you're right. Maybe nobody hears from Manny Machado again. On the other hand, he's kind of used to this.

He was playing in Baltimore, which is like being in the witness protection program. So maybe he likes this more. It's not like he came up huge in the playoffs. Right. And he can disappear if he doesn't hustle. They're not going to hassle him. My aunt lives in San Diego. I went out there five years ago. It's beautiful. I was like, why doesn't everybody live in San Diego? It's phenomenal. I went to a game at their stadium. It's a beautiful stadium. It's like 75 and sunny every single day of the year. The stadium is in a great area with a lot of like bars and restaurants all around it.

I think they called the gaslight district. I was like, this is fantastic. I paid like 60 bucks for tickets and I was like 10 rows behind home plate face value at Yankee or Fenway. That was what it cost me like a thousand dollars. So I was like, boy,

the San Diego is all right. You know, so San Diego, it's a good place to be. San Diego is like, boy, the San Diego is all right. You know, so San Diego, it's a good place to be. San Diego is like fight club. Nobody talks about it. Everyone who lives there, they fucking love it there. It's the best. It's 75 every day. Everybody's super happy. There's no conflict and they don't tell anybody else about how great it is. And then the only reason I know is because yeah, my daughter's had different soccer tournaments and stuff there and we've had to spend weekends there and you, you kind of drive around and you're like, what the fuck is this? You go to like La Jolla or Del Mar and you're like, what is

this? How is this in America? They don't talk about it at all. But then what's weird is downtown San Diego. You know, I sound, I talked about it the other day. We've been here 16 years together and we've never driven down to go to Pecco. It's two hours away. It's just like, it's not that much fun to kind of go to downtown San Diego, but I think maybe if you live there, there's nothing going on really down there. Um, but yeah, beautiful stadium though. My guess is we've always talked about this with the Yankees and Red Sox because we hate when they

splurge just for the sake of splurging. We might as well pick this guy. We've learned from baseball this decade especially that in June and July, you can always go out and get somebody. Frequently, you're getting somebody on a shorter contract. You're not giving up nearly as much and you can kind of rent whoever,

or maybe get in on somebody with three years left in their deal or whatever. I'm sure Machado eventually will end up on one of the big market teams with this contract. Oh, there's no question. Right. If, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if, if he has a, if he slumps, if it was like a fluke as a rookie or he's not good defensively, you know, in three years, San Diego will be looking to get out from under that contract

that the Yankees will happily take it for 75 cents on the dollar and pay for his years, you know, 30 to 36 year age, age contract. So do you think that this, will this Machado signing and slash era be the highlight of the decade for the Padres? Or is it still the fact that pitch went 13 episodes on Fox? This is definitely, I mean, he's going to be the new face of the franchise. He's a new Tony Gwynn. So he's, he's going to be Mr. Padre. If he, if he chooses to accept that. So it's quite, it's quite a face,

quite a face. The Dodger fans, the Dodger fans were ready to help pack his suitcases by the end of the world series. Good luck. Good luck with that. Yeah. I'm excited for the Red Sox season by the way I don't care that we don't have a closer yet I don't care that our Dakota is only 89 I'm feeling really good I like our lineup always easy to

trade for a closer in June and I'm not worried Johnny in case you're wondering it shouldn't be 108 games in the world you've stomped through the world series how much of a downturn are you going to take you know David Price has learned, David Price has learned the wonders of pine tar on his Jersey and what that can do for his pitches.

So I'm sure he'll carry that over. That is horrible. I'm sure he learned that and learn the red Sox ways. And it'll be all good. Did you read the Trevor Bauer story in sports illustrated? Which one? There was a feature about Trevor story. No. Oh, I I'll text it to you. It's a tour de force. story in Sports Illustrated? Which one? I did not read the Sports Illustrated story, no.

I'll text it to you. It's a tour de force. He's an interesting character to say the least. It's almost like he doesn't realize that people are recording his words. Yes. But he's also really devoted to his craft. He's probably going to win the Cy Young this year

and he can give a shit that nobody likes him. I think it's going to be a really fun American League. I think the Astros are going to be awesome again. They're always under the radar. Indians are still going to be good. The Red Sox and Yankees will be fun. The White Sox will be really weird.

It has all the makings of a fun season. That's my favorite part. They went out and hired Manny Machado's third cousin and his nephew's butcher. They hired him with the White Sox to try to lure him there. Then Manny was like, hey, good luck. I'm going to San Diego. Now they're stuck with the rest of his friends and family.

He spent the free agent time trying to get his friends jobs. Yeah, yeah, I might go there. You should hire my guy. I was kicking myself because I'm like, shit, Simmons was a free agent a couple years ago. I should have a show on Showtime or something now. They should have hired me to try to lure you. I was like, fricking Simmons, man. He didn't do

anything for me. You should have been on ESPN2. That's right. I should have a show on Fox News right now. It's the Jacko hour or something, the Jacko report. And I didn't get that because I just didn't play it. We didn't play our cards. Right. So, well, to be fair, I've been trying to get, trying to get you to do a political podcast for like two years. If you want Jacko to have a political podcast, American to go tweet in his replies. I think you're ready for it. I think America needs a sane voice.

All right. They need a sane Republican storm that. All right. Sounds good. You can do it. Kids, people will yell at you at your daughter's soccer, basketball games.

Cause the disagree. It'd be great. You can go right into the firestorm. Well, actually let's, let's talk about Yahoo really fast. All right. Spring training is here. Michael Chavez. Jesus.

Hit bombs. Embarrassment of riches, this Red Sox offense. I'm ready to move to baseball. The Yahoo Fantasy app, the number one mobile app in fantasy baseball. The official fantasy game in the MLB. Check out the Yahoo pro leagues, public leagues. We play for cash. The best part Yahoo handles all the money for you. No commissioner buy in for as little as $20 or as much as a thousand build your Yahoo team around these Pantheon level superstars or stash prospects for the next 10 seasons. You

know, you want to, the major leagues are blown up this year. The stars are bigger, smarter, and stronger, which means the records will fall even faster. Download the Yahoo Fantasy app or sign up right now at yahoo.com slash fantasybaseball. Since we're here, I want to talk about two basketball podcasts. We have the JJ Reddit podcast, a staple on the Ringer Podcast Network. If you love basketball conversations

with a guy in one of the best basketball teams in the NBA, who's having one of his best seasons, actually check that out and check out winging it. Vince Carter, Kent Baysmore, Andy Finberg. They've had some awesome guests.

They are cranking them out on an Atlanta Hawks team. That's actually been pretty fun over these last few weeks. So those are our two NBA player podcasts. I think they're the two best ones on the, on the podcast sphere. Check them out. Please subscribe. Send us feedback.

They're both on the ringer podcast network. All right. It is almost the end of February. All hell is breaking loose politically. There's a Boston sports team that's falling apart. And an owner of another Boston sports team was in a massage parlor scandal. It's your Mount Rushmore of stories you're interested in. Absolutely.

First of all, are you sad for the Boston fans that we're finally experiencing so much heartbreak after... Yeah, it's been almost four weeks since we've won a title. I know it's tough to see you guys not be able to catch a break. The part that really entertains me is really, this is your favorite Boston sports team. I mean, you love all Boston sports teams, but really the Celtics are your lifeblood. I mean, that's really like where your heart and soul is. So I know this is causing you extra amounts of pain. I don't think that's true. It's like saying I have a favorite kid. I love all my kids.

I'm sure you do. But in this case, you have a kid that is your favorite and it's the Boston Celtics. There's no two ways about it. That's not true. That's not true. I love the Patriots. You were like three years old or something.

So come on. Well, I do have a little more of a connection from all the games I've been to, but I love the Patriots you were like three years old or something so come on well I do have a little more of a connection from all the games I've been to but I love all my teams I don't like

if the Bruins were suffering this meltdown you wouldn't really be as hurt as you are about the Celtics you and your father

are season tickets you've written books on basketball you know basketball is your thing this one hurts you can try to be brave for the fans and shrug it off. Like you love all the teams, but this one hurts. The Brad Stevens for president

2020 campaign has taken this hit, hit the rocks here on the, on some, uh, this past week, I think. Yeah. Who has a better chance him or Bernie Sanders? Probably Bernie Sanders. I think he's actually a declared candidate so why is let's start with politics and then we could go to the other stuff later have you been following all these democratic candidates and all these people throwing their hat in the ring and it's just this is the one time i think in the history of the party where they all really needed to band together and be like, look, we got to figure this one out. And instead, it's all over the place and it's going to be a complete shit show.

And do you feel any comfort at all that there's going to be a good candidate? Not that you even care because you're a Republican, but do you feel any, any security at all in the fact that somebody good might come out of this mess that we've seen so far? Oh my God. No, no, there's no chance it's going to be, I mean, it's going to be a bloodbath. I mean, in 2016, well, leading up to that, really starting in 2015 with all the Republican candidates, you just had way too many candidates to the point of where CNN would have like a debate at 5 o'clock and then like the primetime one at 7 o'clock based on your poll numbers. So it was just a ridiculous amount of candidates.

You have too many candidates. So this is how we end up with Donald Trump as the nominee and ultimately the president. And the Democrats have decided to go even farther than that and say like we're going to up the game even more and have everybody on the planet run for president. I mean, you know, it's bound to shake itself out where after, you know, people have these committees and they're off and running now, but they're not going to be able to raise money and they're not going to have support. And it's, you know, their poll numbers will be pathetic and they're going to drop out. But when you have too many candidates like this, it's just, you know, they end up tearing each other apart. It's a bloodbath. And

you end up with some wildcard candidate. I mean, you know, they end up tearing each other apart. It's a bloodbath. And you end up with some wildcard candidate. I mean, you know, it used to be in the old days that they had the smoke-filled rooms where political leaders got in the back room and hashed out who was the most electable candidate and the best candidate. And they were like, this person's the guy. It's the guy because it was all guys. This is the guy. And then in the early 70s in the primary system, it was theoretically to make it more democratic and open it up to the people and you open it up to the people and then you get Donald Trump. So I've always been much more in favor of the wise guys getting in the back room and smoking cigars and figuring out, you know, logically who's the best candidate.

The, uh, the Republicans, do you see anybody potentially, uh, taking a run at Mr. Trump here? No, my God, no. God, no, it's his party now. He's taken it over and hollowed it out, and it's a Trump cult now. I mean, if you believe the polls, he's got like a 93% approval rating in the Republican Party. I mean, Ronald Reagan didn't have a 93% approval rating in the Republican party. So that the extent to which the Republican party is, you know, lockstep with Trump and that just the Trump

cult is just, it's, it's incredulous, but that's what it is. So that you'd be, it'd be suicidal to run against him, maybe almost literally, but it would be, it would be career suicide anyway. How did we get here? How did, how does he have such a hold over you're a lifelong Republican? And I would argue that the two plus years have not gone that well, just my ex, my non-expert opinion. How has he gained this kind of stronghold over this party when it has not gone well? Well, I think that the, the blame or the credit i guess depending on your viewpoint can be laid squarely at the feet of fox news that fox news when it arose 20 plus years ago was an alternative to the you know liberal media which even media members will admit it has the media has a tendency

to have a left-wing bias shall we say and i know we're i'm going to get tweets about well it's not fully left-wing it's corporate but they tend to favor Democrat candidates. They tend to favor big government in terms of like guns and abortion. They all have a viewpoint, all the major news organizations, but that can't be denied. So when Fox News arose as an alternative to that, and it was a voice on the right, unquestionably, they had an amazing amount of influence on Republican-leaning voters that would watch Fox News because they didn't want to watch the Clinton News Network, as it was affectionately known in my house of CNN. So Fox News, I think, and for whatever reason, I don't know if it's because it's in New York

or it's because of the talk radio audience they speak to. But Trump had some appeal to be it Roger Ailes or Rupert Murdoch or whoever was making the editorial decisions at Fox News, and they just have beaten the drum for him. And now it's outright state media. I haven't watched it in years because they just became too Trump, and I couldn't watch it anymore, but too pro-Trump. I couldn't watch it anymore. But as long as they remain in his corner

and bang the drum for him and the minions that watch, they're in the tank for him and they just love him. I mean, it's so dispiriting to me, I can't even put into words to, you know, basically have served in the, toiled in the Republican vineyards on a local level all of my life to see the end result be that this is a party that is in love with Donald Trump. I mean, you know, they had this Cohen hearing yesterday, and I kept thinking to myself, what could he possibly say or do that would make Republicans abandon him? And I literally, you know, it used to be that his thing about, well, I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and they wouldn't leave me. I honestly don't know what he could do.

I mean, if he came out for full socialism tomorrow, 95% of Republicans would be like, yes, socialism, absolutely, comrade. Where do I get my chairman mouse suit? Like, it's not even a question anymore. It's really dispiriting to say, like, the end result of, you know, the conservative movement was to end up with Donald J. Trump as our standard bearer. It's depressing beyond all belief. So Cohen could have held up his iPad yesterday and shown a video of Trump walking down Fifth Avenue and turning to say, watch this.

I'm going to murder a homeless guy. And then just the video of the murder. And he could have gotten away with that it feels like at this point yeah i mean i just can't wrap my head around what would make people like turn from him i mean if he i think if he could set fire to an american flag while kim jong-un laughed and like held his coat and i don't think they would turn i don't think they would turn away from they'd be like well he must have a good reason that's that's our president he's wonderful so it's really you know the republican party for since the end of world war ii anyway certainly and before that has been an anti-communist party and now i what his

cheerleaders are like oh it's so wonderful of him to sit down with this brutal dictator in north korea and like you know shuck and jive with them like they're old pals. It's just, it's unbelievable. Anything he does, I just, I do not understand it. I have, as I've said, you know, infinite numbers of times on this podcast, I've never understood his appeal. I never understood his appeal 30 years ago when he was doing board games and, you know, fake writing books and doing The Apprentice and all that. I have never understood his appeal in any regard. So now to have his appeal as a politician is completely lost on me. Yeah.

So, you know, whoever the Democrats nominate who, you know, the party is moving further and further to the left, and, you know, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is this, you know, great new wave of the future, full on socialism. And the candidates say that, you know, she's the flavor of the month anyway, and they seem to be moving in her direction. So you're going to have a choice between Trump and, you know, an out and out socialist cheerleader. It's not a great choice for me. What do you think JFK, if you just put him in a time machine and put him into 2019, I wonder,

I wonder what he would stand for. And I also wonder how many weeks it would have taken before TMZ would have been on the case with him. Well, I mean, not only could he, not only could he not get the democratic nomination today, but you don't even have to go back that far.

Bill Clinton couldn't get the nomination today running on the exact same platform. He ran in 1992. He could not't get the nomination today. Running on the exact same platform he ran in 1992, he could not get the Democratic nomination today. It wouldn't even be close. Where do you stand on the Howard Schultz run? The guy who killed the Sonics who's now running for president? I mean, I just think it's like a vanity project. There was a lot of scorn that came for him because Democrats are worried that if their candidate is perceived as being too far to the left, that he's a safe haven for people to go to. And that splits the anti-Trump vote. I just don't see how he has a path to how he can look at the map and where he gets 270 electoral votes.

The hardest thing to do is get on the ballot in every state. Now, he's got the money to do that. So if he just wants to set a bunch of money on fire to get his name on the ballot, as I say, it's a vanity project. But I don't see where he thinks he's going to win because the parties are so entrenched now where people are loyal Democrats and loyal Republicans. So I guess he's fighting over the middle and people that are not loyal party, party loyalists, I should say. But I just don't see like where his appeal is. The Michael Cohen stuff yesterday. It was the first time and I was flying too.

So I had a lot of time to kill on the plane and I just didn't want to like go into it. Cause I knew it wasn't going to matter, whatever, whatever came out of that testimony testimony it was going to be it was going to be just kind of in one ear out the other for so many people so why even get agitated about it it's like right and he's a scumbag you know he's a scumbag and and so everybody knows everybody on both sides thinks he's a scumbag so republicans are like you're like a lying scumbag yeah but he's a lying scumbag who the president that you love has had as his right hand man for 30 years. So like, if he's a scumbag, what does that say? The Democrats are like, well, he's a, you know, he's now he's a brave truth teller, but they know he's a scumbag too. And you know, he's like a mob

rat. You never know who to trust. Well, it's like, so, and you know, whatever he said, I'm sure it's interesting. I'm sure most of it is probably true. Like I said on Twitter, I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe somebody's going to go and testify that Donald Trump is a scumbag. Like I can't believe it. Like, of course he is. Everybody associates with is like, well, everybody knows this. It doesn't make any damn difference. Well, it's like, I just finished the Sopranos where you have like the guys who they get caught for selling cocaine or something and they end up turning and testifying to the fbi and it's like the scumbag ratting out the other scumbag right and that that was this whole michael cohen thing he was basically like uh i don't know johnny sack being offered a deal to uh to throw tony soprano under the bus it's like well you're still johnny sack you did some

terrible things and he and his team you know he and his team tried to put forth the narrative, well, he's like seeing the light and he wants to reform. So he turned around. He wants to do that because he got arrested. He's going to jail. Yeah. And if Trump had said, gave him an inclination that he was going to give him a pardon or do something to help him out, he wouldn't have said a peep.

He would have kept his mouth shut. So everybody knows what his motivations are. Not to say that what he's saying isn't true, but he's not doing it out of the purity of his heart. Do you think there's any chance he gets impeached before this next election? No, none. I don't either. I mean, the House might try to do that, but I think Nancy Pelosi is swift enough to say that there's no point in doing this futile gesture because it's just going to anger the voters. Because you can be impeached in the house and which is like being indicted, but you have to be convicted in the

Senate. There's 53 Republicans in the Senate. There's no way any of them are going to vote to impeach him. So it's like, what's the point? And you gotta have, you gotta have two thirds majority. There's no way it's going to get there. So what's the point? It's just amazing. Um, want to talk about Bob craft really quick sure what was your uh what was your take as a longtime patriot hater who also had an axe to ground against craft because um he dangled the patriots over the city of harford and used you and then just built his own stadium so you you have real antipathy toward him anyway. I do. And, you know, the initial headlines were that, you know, it said, like, Bob Kraft tied the trafficking ring. And you're like, oh, my God, this might finally really, like, bring him down.

And those are serious charges. But it's like he wasn't involved in trafficking. And as seedy and dirty and embarrassing as it is for him, it's certainly not like the crime of the century. So the overblown initial reports were, were something else. And it was really just, it's just surprising because, you know, if you're Bob craft and you need an outlet,

let's say, I would think, I would think there's other avenues available to you, you know, then being dropped off at a limo at a strip ball, allegedly, and then allegedly going back. I like it.

It was a day of the AFC Championship game, though. I got to respect that because, you know, everybody gets tense before a big game. He's nervous. You know, good for him. He took the edge off. And then the best has been driving home and listening to Mike Francesa's take on this

over the past couple of days. Because apparently he was on vacation last week. Usually I listen to Mad Dog on Sirius and I was listening to Francesa, his take on it, people calling up and these idiot callers calling up and them having a discussion about this was just priceless, priceless.

I saw the one, there was the one clip of somebody called and was like, Mike, have you ever been to a place like that? And Mike said, no, that's terrible. That call even got through. But no, the answer is no. But you shouldn't have asked that. Well, that's terrible. That, that call even got through, but no, the answer is no, but they, you shouldn't have asked that. Well, it was,

it was from Francesca that I learned that the women that Kraft had, uh, had engaged with as it were one was 58, I think. And the other one was 49. Closer to the, uh, closer to the age range. It does. Now when he was 77, that's still robbing the cradle. But I mean, 58, 49. I mean, that's what I was expecting. There was a really good piece in Sports Illustrated yesterday about whether the people in Jupiter have completely blown some of this out of proportion and used some attention-grabbing

headlines, like the trafficking, things like that. And there might not be a substance behind it. And it was one of those, you know, it's a really good example of when a story goes out that has attention grabbing, whatever, and people run with that version of the story, but the actual version of the story, when we actually get the details and all this stuff might be a little bit different. So we'll see, wait and see.

I kept waiting for the Adam Schefter other shoe to drop where they said that craft wasn't the biggest name involved. Yeah. Who's a bigger name and that never dropped. So that was like, uh, this whole thing turned out to be a big dud. It is embarrassing for him though.

So, and it went to a million jokes and, you know, I think it was like my most liked thing on Twitter ever. Cause I said, it said pop craft, like the prostitution ring. And I said his seventh ring,

that was really well-liked. I didn't think it was all that funny, but you know, I got to give the public what they want, I guess. So, yeah, I mean, I think there's, I think there's a few of these places around the country and, um, I'm just really interested to see the actual facts that come out here because it did seem like Jupiter was really, really excited to make this a massive story. And you know, they, they put some of it out Friday and then on Monday they had the next version,

right. To start the five day news cycle. And I'll be interested to see what the actual story is when all the facts come out. But if it is true, there was an exclusive in the New York Post today, actually, I was reading online, and it said legal experts say, like, if you really take a look at the case and reading what they say, it does seem accurate.

Like, he could actually have a case to fight it because, like, even, like, the way he was arrested, they did a traffic stop on his car, but he wasn't the driver. Yeah. And the whole purpose of the traffic stop was to get him, and he was in the backseat. It's like you don't really have probable cause to arrest him under those circumstances without a warrant, et cetera. So if he really wanted to, I mean, I think it's a nickel and

dime fine for him. It's literally a nickel and a dime fine. So it'd probably easier for him just to pay the fine and make it go away. And then rather than fight it in court, but if he was chose to fight it, he probably could be exonerated. My guess is maybe not on the merits, but on the, on the, on the law. Yeah. My guess is this goes away,

but we'll always remember it. And I'm sure like, I'm sure the, the facts of him going there two days in a row, I'm sure that's probably true. Right. That's too weird to make up and put in a police thing. And like the,

I had the actual times when he was there and him going there the day of the AFC title game is one of the weirdest moments in Patriots history. He was there for 14 minutes. He didn't even wait the full half hour and pretend he got a massage. He just goes in and out. Like he's buying a roast beef sandwich and then hops on, then hops on a plane to go to and massage. He just goes in and out like he's buying a roast beef sandwich. And then hops on a plane to go to the game. That's insane behavior.

Who does that? He's 78 years old. I think we always put stories like this in the context of, well, if that was one of my parents, how would I feel? I can't even imagine how I'd feel if this was my dad six years from now. That's actually what I thought of, too. I thought

of Jonathan Kraft. He's just got to be like, what's going on here? This is just mortifying. But then I saw online during the Oscars that said Kraft was out partying it up before the Oscars. So he was just like, no shame. Just keep

going. I like that. I don't like it. How do you go to the Oscars? How do you go to all the Oscars parties after this happens? How do you not lay low for 72 hours? Because we live in a time where there are people do not have it. There's no shame anymore. That's the problem. Like Donald Trump did, has done 50,000 things while running for president that would have, would have ruined any other person running for president. And he just soldiers on and shrugs your shoulders, essentially. You know, the governor of Virginia gets caught in this yearbook scandal and threatens to basically

to moonwalk at the press conference until his wife stopped him. So it's like, if you just like brazen things out nowadays, you know, the news cycle is so fast that things we would have harped on for like, remember the OJ, how long did it was OJ in the news. And now that would be like a 24 hour news story. Oh, OJ Simpson killed two people. What's what else? What did Trump do today? You know, it's crazy how time moves now. Uh, Jacko, a pleasure as always. Um, good times, my friend. I will talk to you soon. All right, take it easy. All right, thanks to Brian Curtis. Thanks to Jacko.

Thanks to ZipRecruiter. Don't forget to go to ziprecruiter.com slash BS. Tomorrow, I'm at the Sloan Conference interviewing the NBA commissioner, Adam Silver. I don't think we're running that as a podcast, though. It seems like it's going to be a little off-the-record conversation, but if there are any highlights, I'll talk about them on the podcast next week. If we start screaming at each other, if there's fisticuffs, I don't think there will be, but looking forward to that. Always great to be back in Boston. I wish the Celtics were playing better and enjoy the weekend. We will return, I guess, either Sunday night or Monday morning on the,

on the BS podcast until then. On the wayside On the first side of the river I said I don't have To ever forget