The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Lamar Sweepstakes With Mallory Rubin. Plus, Half-Baked Ideas With Kevin Wildes.

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Mallory Rubin to discuss the relationship between the Ravens and Lamar Jackson seemingly hitting rock bottom, the four likeliest contenders to trade for Lamar, whether the Ravens will push for a trade before the NFL draft, where Lamar ranks among the current top QBs, and more (2:53). Then, Bill talks with Kevin Wildes of Fox Sports about rumors of the Patriots being interested in trading for Lamar, the relationship between Bill Belichick and Patriots ownership, and the Warriors' ideal playoff opponent (42:47) before they fire up one of America's favorite segments, Half-Baked Ideas (1:13:26)! Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Mallory Rubin and Kevin Wildes Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, I got Lamar Jackson and half-baked ideas. That's next. This episode is brought to you by Prime Video. You know me, I can't go a day without sports. I really can't. And now Monday nights are all about hockey. That's right. There's a new exclusive home

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Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. Me and Sean Fennessey and Chris Ryan did Cape Fear, the seventh Scorsese-De Niro collaboration. A really remarkable movie to rewatch, a movie that did really well at the time in 1991 and was very fun to talk about. So there you go. I'm going to be putting up another same game parlay on my Twitter feed on Wednesday from FanDuel Sportsbook. We hit last week, eight to one. I might be on a little

streak. We'll see. I waited until later in the day. It's so hard with basketball, trying to figure out who's even playing in these games. You saw it with the Embiid Joker thing on Monday night, which was the biggest bummer of the year in the regular season. That was the best game of the year. And then Embiid had some sort of calf issue. I have Philly fans in my life who are claiming that they're tanking now. Who knows?

Who knows how hurt everybody is? But it kind of fit the season that we're having, that one most awesome game at the last minute, the rug got pulled out from under us. But now it feels like we're heading into a really fun stretch of everybody kind of has to play.

There's real playoff positioning at stake. The bottom seven teams now are tanking the shit out of this. Portland just shut down Dame Lillard. I'll be really interested to see what Orlando does going down the stretch here because they're in a little death match with Portland for the five spot.

You got Washington, Indiana lingering. So we have the tanking stuff on the one side, but then on the other side, a lot of playoff jockeying, a lot of one, two, three seed stuff. Our team's going to start avoiding each other. So it feels like we're hitting a really, really fun stretch of the NBA. I've not

decided on my MVP pick. I've not decided on really most of my all NBA stuff. So all of that is going to come down to the stretch here. You know what else has come down the stretch? The Lamar Jackson, I think we can call this a sweepstakes because if you get this guy, wow, Mallory Rubin came on and she's a long time Ravens fan. I've been working with her since 2013 and she's devastated by this whole thing. We're going to try to figure out why is Lamar leaving? How can they let this happen? And is he actually leaving? That's first. And then after that, Kevin Wilds, my old friend, the king of half-baked ideas. We're going to talk Lamar and the Warriors, plus throw a whole bunch of half-baked ideas

at each other. This is a very, very, very fun podcast. Let's start off with some Pearl Jam. All right, we're taping this part of the podcast. It is Tuesday afternoon, Pacific time. The mother of dragons is here, Mallory Rubin, diehard Baltimore Ravens fan. Thought Lamar was going to be in her life for 20 years. Lamar, I guess you could call it

official trade demand yesterday. I don't know if it was a leverage thing or what. This has been the weirdest story in the NFL. I am personally invested in it because who knows, the Patriots might get a little wacky and try to trade for him. I think there's 20 teams in the league

that are like, hey, could we trade for Lamar? Did you ever expect it to get this bad to hit rock bottom like this? Never. Not once. Not even as I was reading the tweets on Monday. That's how firmly embedded in the camp of denial I have been. And I still have a little part of me that's in the, you know,

John Harbaugh answering questions at league meetings on Monday saying, yeah, Lamar's our guy. Lamar's going to suit up in week one. This will all work out. But that part of me is rapidly losing, losing the will and losing the steam and losing the confidence. It's hard to see a future here, Bill.

It's hard. This is devastating. Well, let's go confidence. It's hard to see a future here, Bill. It's hard. This is devastating. Well, let's go backwards. It felt really ominous and terrible during the stretch last season when it seems like there's a chance he could have played. He wasn't at one of the games. And it

just, the way the Ravens were talking about it, I had a bunch of red flags going. I was talking about it on the podcast at a time. I was like, this doesn't, none of this smells right. And this stems, talked about it with Mina and Danny last week. It all goes back to the Browns giving Watson that contract, which just inflames the whole situation. And it doesn't seem, feel like it's ever recovered.

The Browns are like your ugly stepchild. You're just, you know, I don't know how many times you've beaten them over the last 20 years, but it's been a lot. How annoying is it that the Browns were the ones that caused this? The entire situation

is utterly dismaying and just one of the great sports tragedies of my lifetime unfolding right here. I think that most Baltimore sports fans would probably feel that way about

it, but you compound it with the fact that the request for a guaranteed contract connects to the Cleveland Browns. And then you compound it with the fact that the new England Patriots, your team seemed to be firmly in the handful of legit potential landing spots. And you take a nightmare situation and make it almost unthinkable. I can't believe this is real life. There's so many teams in this that I don't...

I made a list of teams that seem realistic. And there's some Fando odds for this, too, that apparently you can only bet in a couple states. But it feels like the big four are the Colts and the Falcons and Washington and the Patriots. So just going in order, the Colts, they have, I think they have the cap space.

They don't care about the draft picks because they'd be getting a quarterback. They'd be indoors, which is great for him. The Falcons made the most sense to me, just logically, because it's an NFC team. The NFC quarterback pool is completely depleted. Why wouldn't they do it? But they don't even seem like they're involved.

The Patriots we can talk about later. And then the one that everybody keeps throwing around is Washington. Now, the Baltimore-Washington thing, I find it hard to believe Baltimore would be like, cool, take our 26-year-old franchise QB and we'll trade him to a team that is 45 miles from us. Why would they do that? That seems too risky to me. Well, I think there's a why would they do that question hanging over all of this.

And the only real answer is if things have truly, genuinely reached the point where there is no tenable path forward. And this is the first week where as grim and grave as things have been, it feels like that might actually be true. So then at that point, it's the obligation of the franchise to find the best match. And you don't always have the luxury of heeding some of those more intangible aspects.

Of course, from my perspective as a fan, and I would assume the team's perspective you'd prefer to come to an arrangement with an nfc team over an afc team of course you would prefer that nfc team be the lions or the falcons as opposed to washington the team right down the beltway so that you have to confront the fact in your own fucking backyard that Lamar Jackson is perhaps leading the Washington Commanders to the playoffs and postseason success in the ensuing years where you're working with, I don't know, Goff, Tannehill? The potential outcomes here are not the most exciting unless they can negotiate a trade in the run-up to the drafts. And I think that's the other thing that feels like it has just been so strange about this

when you're assessing the suitors. Like you mentioned, the Falcons is one of the top logical spots. They're among the many, many teams who have gone out of their way to say some version of, we're not interested. We're not pursuing Lamar Jackson. We're content with our current setup. We have a plan. They do? I watched Esmere last year. You don't have a plan. You just don't. Yeah. I mean,

obviously, you've chatted about this on your pod. Our beloved Ringer NFL colleagues have chatted about this at length on the Ringer NFL show, etc. This idea of collusion and the league wide ownership insistence to avoid setting the precedent of a massive guarantee is inextricable from the news cycle. There's just no way to read it in any other way and come to any other conclusion. Right. But wait a second. That would assume that the NFL has acted nefariously over the last 50 years and there's just not enough evidence. Oh wait, there's unbelievable about evidence that they do shit like that. Yeah.

Um, so I look at it two ways. One, it's crazy to me. Nobody has, has just been like, oh my God, there's only eight quarterbacks that matter. And you're trying to potentially trade one of them. We'll take them. But then on the flip side, why do anything before the draft? If you're Atlanta, you have to give up the two first round picks, right? That's part of the deal. You could just wait till after the draft, you take your pick. Now that picks off the table, any team that has a top 10 pick, I'm not doing it now. I'm doing it in May. And it doesn't seem like he's going anywhere until May, which is why a team like the Patriots or a team like San Francisco, if they're going to get aggressive for it,

it should be right now over the next four weeks before the draft. Right. This is where a team like, I think, the Colts are particularly interesting because they, of course, have the fourth overall pick in the upcoming draft. So if they decided to go all out and try

to beat the post-draft rush and that does seem to be the budding consensus that if a deal is to be is to be struck that it would come in the wake of the draft when more teams knew whether they had gotten the prospect they wanted what other trades and and arrangements occur where in his darkness treat is a Rodgers at that point, etc. Who could say, right? We have a lot of news cycles ahead of us. It's been a relentless nonstop offseason. If I'm the Ravens, of course, I want to do everything still in my power to make this work.

I think there is an obligation and a necessity if you are an NFL franchise to not fuck up having drafted a quarterback who won a unanimous MVP in his second year of the league. I don't think we will ever be able to stop talking about this if this is what happens. If Lamar Jackson is not a Baltimore Raven moving forward and they fail to build a Super Bowl winner. Now, they had a contender, but a winner around him on a rookie contract and then failed to come to a long-term arrangement with him. They will have squandered irrefutably, and I

say this with a lot of love for the team that I've followed since they came to Baltimore, irrefutably squandered one of the best opportunities in the history of the league. You never made a Final Four. That's the craziest thing. You never made one of the four remaining teams was... That's the craziest thing. You never made... You're never one of the four remaining teams

in a playoffs with them. Have to get more receiving talent. That's the other thing about this offseason that is so agonizing to finally have moved on from Greg Roman to bring in Munkin,

which I think was a kind of savvy offensive coordinator hedge. If things work out with Lamar, then he's in position to build effectively around a pass game run game tandem RPO approach if they can't figure things out with Lamar then they have an offensive coordinator in place who's coming off a couple seasons with Stetson Bennett at Georgia had been with Jameis in Tampa had been with Baker in Cleveland and can

work with whatever comes into place. But like, that's not, again, where you want to end up coming off of Lamar Jackson's rookie contract. It just isn't. There's no way to position that as anything other than like a tragic sports outcome. But if that's where it's heading

and if that is the outcome and there is no way to salvage it, they have until mid-July to negotiate a long-term deal with him right because of the non-ex the terms of the non-exclusive franchise tag if they genuinely believe that there is no way forward then they have to try to make the deal before the draft and get the capital this year because they only have five picks this year they don't have draft capital this year they don't have they're at the 22nd spot in the first round

and they don't have the capital to move up in this draft. So if there's no way forward, and I still hope there is, do everything you can right now to make a deal with the Colts and get that fourth pick this year. And then do what you can when you have capital inside of the top of the first round to make a move and try to get Richardson or Stroud or Bryce or whomever you believe you can build around? How is that not the better play than ending up with Jared Goff at the end of this? Can that be the outcome here? I refuse to accept that Mac Jones, Baltimore Raven is a potential outcome here. My dad and I had some text today.

Same, Bill. My dad and I had some text today. My dad likes Mac Jones, but also offered him a ride to the airport if Lamar Jackson is involved. I think if I'm the Ravens, if I'm playing this certain way and I really feel like the ship has sailed, which I'm not 100% convinced, but I'm like 95% convinced. Okay. I'm trying to get that Colts package and pick. I want the number four pick.

My backup plan would be the Lions who have six and 18. And I'd want the six pick from them, not the 18th. If you want to throw me Goff for a year, whatever. He's an expiring contract. It's whatever. He's fine. But if I can get a top six pick and leverage the Colts that, hey, if you don't trade us this, we're going to do this. And just try to not trick them but pressure them

that would be my first option after that you're just taking it into the into May and at that point 20 teams are on the table but don't you think

that the issue is that they've lost the ability to pressure any of these teams into that time frame in a pre-draft window because of the number of teams who have gone out of their way to say, we're not interested.

That's true. Not the Colts. The Colts have had a whole unbelievable manning run. They had a really nice luck run. And then they had this QB roulette thing going for five years. Very few teams probably appreciate what it's like to be in first

class in the airplane with a QB and then to be in the middle seat and row 36. And if they're looking at all the QBs that are sitting there in four and they're like, we don't really totally believe in any of these guys. Um, the only other one, the wildcard one I was looking at was Chicago. Yeah.

Because, um, you know, then fields gets thrown back to the Ravens. Yep. They get Lamar. They get the ninth pick. They get a future pick.

And if you're the Bears combined with all the other stuff you did, if you're not 100% attached to Fields, and people seem pretty split on him. I just didn't think as a passer, he showed enough last season to make me think he's ever going to be a top eight QB. If I'm Chicago, I'm like, wow, we get Lamar in here. I guess one of the things I'd be thinking about, one of the reasons I thought Indianapolis was so attractive,

is it crazy to think maybe a dome team or a warm weather city is a better spot for him than just putting him in another shitty weather situation where December, late November, December, January, he's running 12 times a game and it's 20 degrees outside. Do you think that matters?

Not really, personally. If you have Lamar Jackson as your quarterback, you're going to want to deploy him to the fullest extent possible inside of your offense, regardless of whether the roof of your offense, regardless of whether the roof of your stadium, who you're facing, like what, what scenario is he not running 12 times a game, no matter what, I don't know, is there more of a bone bruise risk if it's cold? Maybe. I mean,

he's, this is, he's, he's Lamar Jackson. Like he can succeed and win no matter what, obviously, like coming off of, to your point, consecutive seasons where he missed the end of the regular season both years because of the injuries. The ankle injury two years ago, the knee injury, the PCL, this most recent season. I'm sure that that's on teams' minds, but the upside is just, this is like,

this is part of why the only thing you can point to is the collective ownership refusal to go to that high of a number for a guarantee, right? Because, like, at the end of the day, the team has won an astonishing amount of games with Lamar and has legitimately struggled to score points without him. It's that simple. Like, to see the value when he's out on the field and what he can do for your offense. And again, that's an offense that did not fully optimize around him, either with the Roman scheme or

with the personnel. I'm really excited about Bateman still, and obviously he was hurt last year. But there's no way to look at the depth at the skill positions for pass catchers in particular the last couple years and said he had what he needed. But don't you think that's another interesting thing with the potential

trade partners? Because one of the things, and the Ravens need a lot of things, obviously chief among them would be a quarterback, Bill, if it goes this way. They need pass catchers. They need receiving depth. One of these teams that's acquiring Lamar is not going to be incentivized to provide a receiver in the trade because then you're weakening your own skill position group that you'd be bringing Lamar into. So they're not going to get, I wouldn't expect them to get that in a trade. So they just need the capital. They need the draft capital. They need a path to a quarterback. Maybe they get some pass rushers. Maybe they get someone for the defensive backfield.

But there's no... Obviously, Miami has kind of fallen out of this for various reasons that remain utterly confounding to me. But there was no scenario where Miami was going to include one of its great receivers in a trade for Lamar because the whole point is to put Lamar with those receivers. So there's an interesting kind of catch-22 at play with the matchmaking here.

I don't understand Miami at all. At all. At all. At all. Are they number one for you on the list of surprises that they're not a more active frontrunner here? Yeah, because some people

were throwing San Francisco out. San Francisco has a lot of high-priced dudes. At some point, you can only have so many of those, right? So, you know, even though on paper

maybe they make sense, I still feel like with the amount of marquee guys they have, I don't, you can only have so many of those, right? So, you know, even though on paper, maybe they make sense, I still feel like with the amount of marquee guys they have, I don't think you can just slide Lamar into that. He's going to be $35, $40 million a year on the cap to start, not to mention the giant commitment. And, you know, you're going to hurt other stuff. That's why I was thinking more like, it's so tough now with these quarterback salaries

with how you build a team. And we saw the Chiefs basically strike oil last year because they hit their draft. But like there's only eight quarterbacks I'd want to pay. I made a list for you. Let's hear it. Mahomes, Burrow,

Herbert, Allen, Trevor Lawrence, Aaron Rodgers for a year. Yeah. Jalen Hurts. I think he's earned at least maybe he's not a max max guy but he's a max guy

and then Lamar and once I go through those eight guys now I am in the Dak Prescott Kirk Cousins level of QB that if I have the right team around him maybe I can compete but I'm also paying the guy at 35 like Danny Jones

I just don't know how I'm winning a Super Bowl if I'm paying a guy who's not a difference maker in a real way at QB. When I'm paying somebody 35 million, everything else in the roster is going to suffer. That's the beauty of Lamar. It's like he's a one-man offense. And if you can strike oil with a couple smart receiver signings, a couple running backs, you can in sports as a quarterback on an inexpensive deal, right? Because of what it allows you, what it affords you for your roster building and your cap management and the flexibility overall with building out your team. That, again, is part of why this is such a truly heartbreaking outcome yeah the Ravens if it does in fact become the outcome but and so to your point from earlier like I think that is why teams like the Falcons and the Colts and the Lions are such logical partners for a potential deal because

they do have the cap space to make a deal like this work. However, I think the other thing that can be true at once is that there's just frankly not a team in the NFL that can't figure out how to make this work, whether it's with draft capital or cap space, if they really are incentivized, despite all of the bullshit posturing from dozens of GMs and coaches and owners about how they're content with their current setup or they're building toward a different future. There's not a team, including the Niners, who couldn't figure out a creative way to make this work if they wanted to. It reminds me of the end of succession this week. Where's Logan Roy to just come in and say to somebody, and I'm paraphrasing, off the dome, congrats on saying the biggest number,

you fucking morons. Like someone just needs to say the biggest number and then get the congratulations from the begrudging person on the other end. Like I would love to be able to say to the Ravens, congrats on saying the biggest number, you fucking morons. I would love nothing more

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Must be legal drinking age. So I actually did some research. I looked, so football changes that Willis McGahee Raven Steelers game when like five guys got knocked out, right? That was the next year. The sport felt a little different. It became more QB friendly. They really took away the stuff over the middle. So I'm going from basically the 2010 playoffs on, which is 14 postseasons. So we have 28 conference finals in those 14 playoff seasons. And I was trying to figure how much at the one-off we got lucky with the Jared Goff here, how many times did that happen versus real sustainability? Brady made nine final fours

since 2010. And Mahomes has made five straight, right? So you put those guys over there. Peyton Manning made three, but the last one was that Denver one when he had the noodle arm. Burrow, Breeze, Russell Wilson, Roethlisberger, your guy Flacco, Matt Ryan, and Kaepernick all made two. And then we just have a bunch of one-off dudes. We have Eli, Josh Allen, Old Favre, Goff, Stafford, Hertz, Purdy, Tannehill, Palmer, Cam Newton, Jay Cutler, Andrew Luck.

So basically, here's what I'm trying to say. You can get lucky once with the one-off guy, right? You can strike oil the one time with the guy who's not an elite quarterback and you can have the one season with him, whether he's on the rookie deal or you just, you find somebody at the right year of their career or whatever.

But to do it multiple times, you need somebody who's a real guy. And on that list I just read you, the only one who's a little dubious was Flacco. But Flacco was still, for a few years there, as you know, a really good big game quarterback for whatever reason. He threw a great deep ball.

He was sturdy. The team trusted him and he was the right guy for them. And then as soon as he had the different contract, he was on the shorter contract. Kaepernick is the other kind of outlier, but Kaepernick was a real weapon there early in his career and was unlike really a lot of guys and stood out and they knew how to use him and he was a real asset. This is my point with Lamar.

Lamar hasn't made it yet, but Lamar has the talent to be a multi-timer. This is what you're looking at. You need to think like, it's not just about making it once. It's about over the course of seven years, can we make it three times? And that's what you're looking at with Lamar. There's only eight of these guys. And let me tell you, Mahomes, Burrow, Herbert, Allen, and Hertz, and Lawrence, there's six of them and they're not going anywhere. And Rogers is 40. This is the only other one available. But now I'm getting really depressed because obviously I agree with you and you're correct. How did this happen? How can you botch having one of those guys? A true generational differentiator at the most

important position in sports. The teams you're listing, the players that you're listing, they're with those teams moving forward, or they will be in short order. Obviously, there has been a, even in a sport where impasses are fairly

routine, a uniquely entrenched impasse on both sides. And I think also because of Lamar's agent situation, he represents himself, there has been a little bit less clarity on what is happening in these conversations and negotiations than there would be if agents were whispering things into various reporters ears right so it's been this and that i think compounds what you were saying at the beginning of our chat about just the really supremely like odd and protracted nature of this dating back to last off season and that's that's the thing you know our colleague stephen ruiz has been saying this Ringer Pods for a long stretch of time now because that's how long it's been a relevant point. It's almost less how have they failed to solve solution in place sooner why are we in a situation where

the watson guarantee that 230 million dollar guarantee is a relevant data point why was there not a long-term extension in place before that like i i just i will never i swear you bill i will carry this my fucking grave i don't know how this happened you know as you're laying it out it makes me think of as somebody who went through a professional divorce, right? With ESPN. And it was a long road to get there. And I mean, there was one major thing, but it was a lot of little things and they just add up and they hit a point where both sides become pretty entrenched with, nah, fuck you. And then the other side's going, fuck you. I don't feel like the Ravens are at the 100% fuck you point.

No. But they do seem pretty confused by some of this stuff. Like the fact that he doesn't have an agent, I think is a real detriment to this process because a lot of times you need a middleman. I remember in 2008, when I felt like I was like going to get fired from them and I was having all these behind the scenes issues.

And then it ultimately led to me just going to meet Skipper and Walsh and just talking to them. And in five minutes, we figured it out. And I was like, oh shit, now I know if I have issues, we should just all talk about this. It was like, oh, big revelation. But at the time, it kind of was. I was like, oh, I should just talk to these guys.

And part of me watching this from afar wonders if like, just nobody's had a conversation and how much are they lobbying him behind the scenes? How much are they talking to him? Is he, is he keeping them at bay? Does he have a good relationship with one person on the Ravens that is like a confidant guy? Or is this just two people on there in the trenches on their different sides? And there's going to be no momentum to even have a bond. That's what it feels like from reading all this stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.

Obviously, I don't think any of us can know the answer. Maybe one day we'll have more clarity into how this devolved so catastrophically. I think that the Ravens' position, and clearly the bet that they were making when they chose to go the non-exclusive franchise tag route and say, we'll let the league set the market value and we will respond accordingly. You know, they'll have that if if if Lamar does sign an offer sheet with a team, the Ravens will have five days to match. Will another team put a poison pill in there to fuck them on cap position, etc.? That was one of the risks, among others, of doing this. They're not going to go

clearly to the level of the guarantee that he is waiting for from Lamar Jackson's position. And I think it's fair to say from the position of many, many, many players across the league and many fans, he is holding out for what he thinks he deserves. And he has absolutely the right to do that. So and is entitled to that to that money that he is looking for. So then that gets back to what you're identifying as like, how does the conversation unfold that can bridge that gap? Is there a way to actually bridge the gap in terms of just the position that each camp is holding? And then what is the path to doing that, to laying that new foundation? The example that you're giving about your own life and career is almost in some ways,

the opposite of what's happening here, which is because the central stakeholders are in the room, they need, and you were talking about this with Mina and DK last week, right? They need an intermediary and like a mediator to, no player wants to hear from ownership, this is exactly what our concern is with you and your future and investing in you. Like, who would want to hear that? Right. Of course, right?

Hear all the things that are wrong with you and the things we're frustrated by. Yeah. So yeah, that's like the Aaron Rodgers thing. It seems like it's being handled by a third party. And a lot of times when this happens in different sports, like in the NBA, this happens constantly, right? There's always an agent that's masterminding the whole thing between the two teams. This is just such an unusual situation where you have an unhappy player. The stuff last week with the business manager that happened after we recorded our pod, that was out.

He just operates differently than what the league is used to, which isn't a good thing. It's not a bad thing. It just is what it is. So on top of it, if this was Mahomes and the price was two first, 20 teams would have jumped at it already. So there must be some fear around the league with him. And that's another part I don't totally get. Is it because they think the Ravens are such a smart organization that if they're kind of cooling off on him, that's a red flag to them? How is there not one team who would be like, wait, what's going on? This is one of the only QBs that matter. Let's go get them now. That's an interesting question. I mean, hearing

you say that reminds me a little bit like back in the day when I used to edit college football eons ago now. I remember when we would cover recruiting cycles, some of our editors and writers would talk about, perhaps incorrectly, this might have been apocryphal, but what often felt like the validation of a prospect's star status because a team like Alabama or at the time USC was looking at them, like, what's the chicken and what's the egg? Are those teams looking at you

because you're a five-star or do you become a five-star when those teams are looking at you, right? And how a franchise that has a certain stature in the league or a program that has a certain stature in college football can kind of set the landscape's understanding of a situation so

maybe but this is where i come back to just the absolute refusal heels dug in on the guarantee i genuinely don't see another explanation i do not think the injury concerns or anything else rises to the level of saying it is not worth investing in Lamar Jackson. Two first round picks, that's nothing for a player of Lamar's caliber. Right. If he was 30, I can see blinking, but he's 26. And all you have to do is just go look at his 2019 stats on Pro Football Reference. They're unbelievable. He threw for 3,127 yards, 36 touchdowns and six picks. And he ran for 1,206 yards and 70 days and seven yards to carry. And this is four years ago. We had a pandemic, hit a couple injuries.

The team was weird. None of us were happy with how the team was run from an offensive standpoint. If we were going to do a draft of their top 10 weapons during the last four years, the fucking tight end would go first, which is usually a bad sign when it's not Travis Kelsey. Shout out Mark Andrews. Yeah, he's fine.

He's great. He's a very good tight end. He's not Travis Kelsey. But I think if I'm another team, I keep coming back to only AQBs matter. And this guy is available for unusual reasons, which is another thing, right?

This is a professional divorce. Yeah. We don't know all the reasons yet. I'm sure there'll be a, now they tell us as Brian Curtis would say that now they tell a story after the fact. Sure. There's seven things we don't know,

but he's becoming available for unusual reasons. And I can't believe nobody said, fuck it. There's 32 NFL teams. 24 of them can't be fired up about their quarterback. I have to assume that almost every team in the league, other than the other teams, basically other than the other teams on the list that have those quarterbacks you already mentioned,

is sincerely, earn earnestly and enthusiastically interested in inquire and acquiring lamar jackson and that the sticking point is simply will they go to the guarantee who which which team is going to be the one to make in the eyes of the rest of the league i'm not saying this is how i feel about it that mistake because then it becomes a pattern then it becomes the expectation for burrow and whoever is next after that. But I suppose it could just be as simple as nobody's saying that they're chatting. Though that is where I think the Lamar tweet this week comes back into play as a very relevant data point. compelled to make public that weeks ago he had asked for the trade the beginning of this month this wasn't hey this is a painful thing for me i've come to the decision today that i need to ask the ravens for a trade it's hey i asked the ravens for a trade weeks ago the unsaid part but the very amusing timing is john harbaugh's about to get on mike at the league meetings and just

like kind of iconic timing in that respect. But, you know, he said in his tweet that he asked for a trade on March 2nd. So the fact that he felt compelled weeks down the road to voice that does, I think, point to a genuine lack of conversation and activity that he is trying to spark and incite, right? Hey, I am really looking to move on. If you're worried that I'm just going to sign with the Ravens after you make an offer and it will all have been for naught and you will have alienated your current quarterback or your roster and left them feeling less confident about the future that you think you see with your roster. Don't worry about it. If you come after me, I'm yours. Let's do this.

Why haven't the teams actually done that? Maybe they're just waiting till after the draft. It's possible. But maybe they think he's that dug in on the guarantee and there's not a way forward then. Or maybe they don't fully understand what the reasons that he's this dug in and unhappy are and there's a disconnect there.

I was talking to somebody connected to the Celtics about Jalen Brown, who definitely seems a little unhappy and there's some real reasons for it. Like they you know they didn't shut down the KD trade rumors last year

and a couple other things. But it's also he got drafted by the Celtics when he was 19. It's the only city he's ever played for. It's the only team

he's ever worked for. And sometimes when it's the first place you've worked for you you don't know anything else, right? So all these things he might think about the Ravens, and then you go to another franchise and it's like, oh, guess what? Hmm. Not great over here either. Oh, I'm in the NFL. Maybe there is no good franchise. So it might be some of that pent up stuff too.

Just in general, I think it's one of the weirder stories. It's not weird to me that he became disenchanted because we've seen professional divorces in all places. The weird part is nobody going after him. That's the part I can't wrap my head around. So there you go.

1 to 30 seconds on pitch clocks. Have you watched the spring training game? I just am thrilled. I want to say seconds on pitch clocks you're not gonna you're training game i i just am thrilled i want to say i'm thrilled that we're switching before you did a full hour on the future with the pats but i do just have to say to you that years of you doubting lamar and then coming in and saying i would trade for lamar in 1.29 seconds which i believe is what you put out into the world today. Shameful. Shameful, Bill. What is doubting? How dare you?

I just, he was one in three in the playoffs. And I was just pointing out, I just kind of wanted to, can he make a final four? Was my only question. Okay, sure. Just make the final four once. Baseball. But yeah, I would grab him. My quarterback's Mac Jones.

I'm not going to grab Lamar Jackson. If he's a Patriot I don't know what I'll do I mean the only worst outcome I think genuinely as a Ravens fan would be the Steelers that would be like you have to stop watching football but Patriots would be close if they traded into the Steelers that's an actual personal attack on their

fans it would just never that would yeah that's like an act of war they would never do that I can't imagine I can't imagine the Patriots would happen but who knows pitch clock all right baseball the youngos the young birds it's Second act of war. They would never do that. I can't imagine the Patriots would happen, but who knows? Pitch clock. All right. Baseball. The young O's, the young birds. It's all bright possibility and hope in Baltimore.

What a great time to be a Baltimore sports fan. Adley Rutschman, MVP. Can it happen this year? Oh, wow. You're going Orioles, not even pitch clock. I'm so glad they got rid of the shift. I was preparing for the fantasy draft we're in, reading these stories about all the players

who had the most outs heading into the shift. Like Corey Seager lost 92 outs into the shift. And I was like, how much do I have to research this? Is this going to matter? Is Corey Seager going to have 50 home runs this year because they have to worry about the shift anymore? Unbelievable. The pitch clock is, I I think a really fun and cool thing I do find the the MLB PR campaign around the changes yeah to be one of the funniest things that we've ever

collectively witnessed as part of the sports viewing public have you seen the Bryan Cranston ad that they've done for the changes? I've seen all of it. It's like watching a 70-year-old guy dye his hair and get a convertible and try to be hip and then tell you how hip he is. Exactly.

But instead of just telling you how hip he is, he started by saying, I know you thought I was really lame for a really long time. But hold on. And that you were worried about the integrity of my hip and my calcium levels

and whether I was getting enough protein and fiber in my diet. But guess what? To put out a whole campaign that basically says baseball is boring and we know you hate it. And I know I was divorced five times, but this sixth time is going to work. I love it. I love it. Will it work? Will they attract

a younger audience with the pitch clock? The game's going fast. It's just going to make it so much easier to follow everything. And I was talking to my friend Hershey, who's a big Dodger fan, but he's on the East Coast. And he would stay up for these Dodger games that were ending at like 2.30 in the morning, East Coast time. And now those games, even the West Coast games, if you're on the East Coast,

are going to be done by one o'clock, hopefully. Right. So, or maybe even 1230. So just in general, it's going to fly by. It's going to be much more fun

to zoom around on League Pass or whatever you're watching different games on. Yeah. And for our purposes on the West Coast, these East Coast games

are going to be done at 630, which is amazing. Not dragging through dinner, potentially the 815 at night. And then there's going to be a whole new way to actually go to the game where it's like, all right, if I go get food right now,

I might miss two innings. Right? Yeah. I might come back. It might be the sixth inning. So when do I go? What's the right inning? So I'm just,

talk about a league that needed to mix it up. I'm really happy for them. All right. We can hear you on the Prestige TV podcast. Yes. Taking down Yellow Jackets all season.

And then on the Ringerverse as well with Joanna Robinson, one of our favorite people. Good to see you, Mal. Mandalorian time over on the Ringerverse. Come check it out. Mando.

All right. Good to see you. Thank you. Great to see you, Bill. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Superbowl ring, he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this

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Give what up? Really? Really, really. This message is brought to you by Metrolinks. All right, my old friend Kevin Wilds is here. He hasn't been on in a while. He's got just a lot of half-baked ideas brewing. You can see him on FS1's First Things First,

which is no longer first. It moved. Well, that's true. But you know what? The title remains the same. There's more than 30, 30 for 30, still called 30 for 30, about 120 of them. Yeah. Well, 30 for 30 was supposed to end in 2015. I don't know why it's still out. Keep it rolling. Strong brand. We talked about Lamar with Mally Rubin. I know you're obsessed with this topic from a Patriot fan angle, from a Lamar angle. I saved all the Patriots elements of this.

Thank you. For you, one of the things that's interesting to me, we were talking right before we came on about Bob Kraft and Belichick. I feel like we're at the point with Bob Kraft where he might take Meek Mill's input as seriously as he takes Bill Meek Mill's input as seriously

as he takes Bill Belichick's input. It might be dead even, and that part scares me the most. Totally fair. The question I had about the Meek Mill texted me exchange, why do you think Kraft is volunteering that info? Just to be honest, to put pressure on Bill, because he volunteered the info, and then he said, you know what, it's Bill's decision. So does he want Lamar Jackson?

It seems like it, because if he didn't, he wouldn't say anything. He would just not answer the question. He doesn't have to reveal his text messages, especially with Meek Mill. It goes back to the last couple years of Belichick and Kraft post-Super Bowl titles

and how, I don't think he was happy with the coaching staff. There was a lot of him whispering to people, I don't know why we don't give Zappy a chance. And there's been some second guessing that we have not seen from the Kraft era, both publicly and privately. The Brady departure,

even going back to that. Um, and I just, I wonder if this a year by year thing now, and if I'm craft and I'm old and Lamar is only one of the eight quarterbacks that matter and we have a chance to get them. It's like, let's go fucking get them. I'm 80.

Can we go get Lamar Jackson? Well, Bill Belichick, 70. What's our plan to somehow get into the playoffs and hope that a few calls break our way? We're not going to roll roughshod through the season like the Chiefs. Patrick Mahomes is not going anywhere. Joe Burrow is not going anywhere. What's our plan? And I love Mac Jones. But the fact that Lamar is on the record via text from Meek Mill,

granted, I don't think that's a legally binding record, but still, if he wants to come to New England, make it happen. It behooves me why we're not just making this move immediately. Yeah, somebody asked me, a friend of mine was like, It behooves me why we're not just making this move immediately. Yeah. Somebody asked me, a friend of mine was like, would you care about the Pats getting Lamar as much if you weren't in the same conference as Burrow and Mahomes and Herbert and Trevor Lawrence and Josh Allen?

Yeah. And I was like, no, I wouldn't. But guess what? I'm in the conference with the five quarterbacks under 28 who are going to be just lingering around the final four every year. I read Mallory, these stats that I was looking through all the final four since 2010. And you can get lucky with a QB once you can have the Jared Goff thing once, but not three times over seven years. The ones you need are like the

freaking blue chippers. And he's one of the only blue chippers. So from a Pat standpoint, I tweeted this today, the trading Lamar and getting two first back in Mac Jones is the kind of trade Belichick would have made for like 20 years. He would have been like, Nope, this is the smarter move. Got to do it this way. I just think the league is different now. And the quarterbacks have this outsized importance and to not value that this once in a generation chance to get this dude who's available for all these dumb reasons. Why not? One of the narratives like, well, you know, Belichick can win with any quarterback really. The system can win. It's like Fairpoint helps that you have the greatest quarterback of all time for two decades and it hasn't worked out too much

since we lost him. I think that he could get... Can we go 4 and 13 with me at quarterback and you at left guard? Probably. But can we go 11 and 6? Have you seen our schedule? Probably. But can we go 11-6 with this schedule?

Have you seen our schedule? Yeah. It's not. Here's obviously Bill's Dolphins Jets. These are the home games. Colts, Chiefs, Chargers, Saints, Eagles, Commanders. Two teams that were in the Super Bowl. The Chargers I'm terrified of.

Colts probably will get better. Commanders, probably a win. Commanders might have Lamar. Oh, jeez. If that would be... And then away, Cowboys, Broncos, Raiders, Giants, Steelers. Okay, we're going to win the... What game?

What game is a gimme that you feel 100% confident that we win an away game there? So you're thinking Pat's under unless they make a Lamar trade? I mean, I saw that we had our worst Super Bowl chances in Belichick's tenure. And I get that you can't win the offseason, you don't hang a banner in the offseason, but maybe you can lose the season in the offseason. We're not doing anything. It also feels like the Patriots' cap is 75% of everybody else's cap. Oh, well, you know, take it easy.

It's $3 million here, $2 million there. And all of a sudden, every other team has enough money to give people $40 million, and we don't. I'm just, I don't understand why. Yeah, I just, I feel like I'm just, I don't understand why. Yeah, I just, I feel like I'm a smart guy

and I feel like I understand sports as well as anybody else. And the football salary cap continues to completely confound me when these teams are like, hey, we, like the Niners,

they're like, hey, we just got this new defensive tackle for $80 million. We squeezed him in even though we have Debo Samuel and Bosa and all these other guys. But we just added another guy.

And the Pats are going, hey, remember that special teams guy who looked really good for six games? We locked him up for one year, $2 million. That was our signing. Where's our $20 million guy? Do we just not have him? It's just like, I don't know. They just don't want to put anything on the credit card.

I feel like Belichick is a little too prudent. At the same time, too prudent for his own good, slash is willing to put a defensive coordinator as the head of your offense last year, which it's still talked about too much. We're still talking about it. And at the same time, not enough. It's just continues.

You mean how bad the coaching staff, how bizarre and bad the coaching staff was last year that they basically threw away this thing that every other smart team seemed to value? Devin McCourty is trying to be, he's on like a miniature media tour post-retirement and he's trying to, it feels like he's trying to be very complimentary, but at the same time, honest on what was happening. And he said, oh, this is some form of this.

It's like, you know, it was even worse in practice so shout out to uh matt patricia for trying something that he really had never done before you know it's good for him he's a smart guy like i guess so it's like me flying a plane like you know rough ride but he landed like good for a while that's not where we're at. Good for Lashley. He was an offensive coordinator for all 17 games. Goodness gracious. That was pretty cool. It's just, and Kraft wasn't into it either. It's like changes need to be made.

And did you see Belichick also saying, he kind of got a little flippant with the reporter about why, what was your take on that the last 25 years? Well, I hate when Clay Thompson does it. Yeah. Every time Clay Thompson points to the rings, does the four rings thing.

I just feel like it's the lowest form of you're a champ. We know you won. You won multiple titles. You don't need to to show us your resume. I don't know. It's like the old Sopranos thing of remember when is the lowest form of conversation. It's remember when stuff.

Nobody cares. It's the 2022-23 season and nobody cares what happens. So when Belichick does the backwards thing, that's fine. But this team hasn't been good in five years. Right? They really haven't.

25 and 25 in the last three years. Does that math work out? Yeah. Yeah. So it's just... Listen, it sounds like we're complaining or we're not because it was an amazing ride for two decades. But it is an interesting inflection point.

Yeah. It's just an inflection point. It's like we can't do the whole Belichick smarter than everyone else thing anymore because it's been a half decade where that has not been true. So,

this is what it is. And, FYI, it happened to Red Auerbach. They took the car keys away from Red Auerbach near the end. And, a couple other people moved in.

And, it happens to everybody. It happened to Tom Landry. Happened to Chuck Knoll. It happened to Bill Walsh. It happened to Joe Gibbs. I saw it happen to people it happened to tom landry happened to chuck noel it happened to bill walsh it happened to joe gibbs i saw you know like joe tory was like the most recent one that i remember like man joe tory like kind of like helms that dynasty like all right tory that's enough but you think this is it you need a playoff win or just a playoff appearance i think this is probably the last this is a make or break season for Belichick

and Kraft one way or the other. I don't think another season like last year will happen again on Kraft's watch because ultimately he's a cold-blooded billionaire for a reason. As great of a guy as he's been, he's saved football in Massachusetts. He does a lot of charity stuff.

He's still a billionaire for a reason. And all these guys ultimately go back to, I own this team. I own this franchise. I took every possible thing I could take out of this guy. He doesn't have it anymore, in my opinion. And I'm going to move on and do something else. He's not going to be loyal to him.

I feel like he's already been loyal to him by keeping him this year. Whoa. Do you feel, would you feel, sad is not the wrong word, disappointed if Belichick breaks Shuler's record, let's say with the Dolphins, let's say Mike McDaniel takes a different job,

even though I think he's great. Yeah, that would kind of suck. The team was poorly coached last year. It just was. Right? And that's his job, is to either coach the team really well, well, mediocre, bad, or horribly. You're going to be one of those

five things. And the team was poorly coached and super sloppy and probably cost themselves three wins. And that's just the reality of last season. It doesn't change everything that happened from 01 all the way through the 2010s, but you can only judge it from last year. And football isn't a remember one sport.

That's what I like. I remember you had a tweet that I was happy that you tweeted. It's like the announcers on the game, like, ah, Patriots rarely penalize. Like, not true. That was an old stat. We're quite often penalized. Ah, Patriots, that's very un-Belichickian.

Like, not really. It's been happening all year. Yeah, the stuff that they were great at was don't beat yourselves, don't make a ton of mistakes, don't have dumb penalties, and then own the end of the half and the end of the game.

Like all the crunch time stuff, all the clock management stuff. That was the stuff they were great at. Last year, they lost a game because they threw a lateral backwards that got picked off and it hurt that shot. It never would have happened. Really, the Gronk defending the fumble Ruski play

four years ago was kind of the first sign of, uh-oh, where's this going? Yeah, but that was like a Belichick decision to put Gronk in the game. No, I know, but that was... That was too smart for your own good. Yeah, that was one of the first times where I remember going, hmm, that wasn't great.

That didn't usually happen. Can I just defend the fumble? Nobody's supposed to coach football in their 70s. It's the hardest sport to coach in your 60s. Granted, this is a long time ago, but it still puts a burr in my saddle. Do you think

Bill Belichick has to tell the entire team, like, hey guys, remember, no laterals. Hey, Jacoby Myers, remember, do not try to throw the ball 20 yards backwards to Mack Jones. Even if he catches it, he probably can't run because he has a bum ankle.

But that wasn't the point of that play. The point of that play was there was no upside for doing what they were doing. It was going overtime anyway. Take a fucking knee. The whole reason you take a knee is so that you don't open the door for some dumb shit to happen. They could have drafted Lamar as

Nephi Kyle mentioned before we hopped on. We were watching that draft together. Lamar was falling to the pats. We were getting more and more excited. They didn't take him. I think there were real reasons they didn't take him. They had nothing to do with Lamar. I don't think they wanted to bring... The Brady situation was already going to be weird enough.

They didn't want to bring... Here here's, here's your next successor. And these guys, these quarterbacks are so confident in themselves and such egomaniacs that we've seen over and over again, they just get threatened by the new guy. You know, we saw Brady Rogers, we saw Brady Garoppolo. It's just, it's the way it goes. Indianapolis didn't even want to mess with it with Manning and Luck. They just traded, they, you know,

got rid of Manning and built around Luck. So I get it, but it is ironic that they just could have had him in the first place. Do you think that this is going to hurt Mac Jones' feelings? I'm going the opposite way. To me, this is chip on the shoulder time for Mac. Ooh. I like that. I like that a lot.

Did we talk internally about a Lamar Jackson trade? We did. Is the quarterback position open right now? It is. Is Zappy versus Mac? Is that a thing? It sure is. Are we happy with our quarterback situation? Not totally.

I like it. A little tough love here. I like it. Sure. tough love here. I like it. Yeah. Sure. All right. I'm sorry we gave you a shitty offensive coordinator last year, but now we have a good one.

So let's go. What do you got, Mac Jones? I'm a Mac Jones. I'm probably a higher believer than most, but he was pretty bad last year. Well, that's unfair. This was like... I am not...

What part's unfair? He wasn't one of the top 20 quarterbacks in the league last year well if i was the waiter and i was working at a restaurant and the meal consistently comes out poorly it's like and i'm getting yelled at like you know who the our head chef is a mechanic like he's great at other stuff but but head chef is not his main gig. And I'm bearing the brunt of it. I got to go back there like, hey, Chef Patricia, again, no spark plugs in the pasta primavera.

I'm like, well, at my old job it worked. I'm like, I know, dude. But table 14 is lighting me up. Back Jones did deliver the plate. He did deliver the dishes sometimes and forgot to tell the customers they were red hot. He kept forgetting to tell them not to deliver the plate. He did deliver the dishes sometimes and forgot to tell the customers they were red hot. He kept forgetting to tell them not to touch the plate. I have a problem with Mac Jones' body language.

Why? Because he's upset that it's the 15th consecutive run play on third and 12th? What do you want him to do? Oh, keep handing it off? I like that little bit of passion. I'd also like... It was tough to continually be able to guess the plays

from my sofa in California. I follow this... There's this Instagram feed. It's Coach Don Casey. He just runs... It's just clips of plays that he likes. Yeah. And you realize how many awesome plays there are.

And if your job was an offensive coordinator and the only thing you had to do all day was think about how to scheme against other teams and come up with awesome plays it feels like i feel like you and i would be able to do at least come up with cool plays yeah just because like he had he had the he had these two arkansas fake field goals plays that he ran and one was like a sweep handoff and it was just blocked perfectly. And then the next one was pretending they were going to run the sweep handoff off the fake field goal. But it was actually a jump pass to a tight end that snuck out. And I was like, I would just have 40 of these every NFL season. I would just be going on

Coach Don's Instagram, grabbing weird plays. Yeah. You know what that's called? The Chiefs. The Chiefs are so good and have mastered football to the extent that I think Mahomes said they invented that ring around the rosy snow globe play. That's how the Patriots practices, they were trying to install an offense from Matt Patricia

that was half as big as Josh McDaniels. And the Chiefs at the same time could have theoretically just been inventing silly, effective plays. So we're not at the same level. The Chiefs in the Super Bowl were going, motion. They're not going to be ready for this. That works. You know what? By the way, it works in high school football, it works in college, but they were just getting wide open touchdowns. So yeah, not a lot of innovation with the Pats last year. No, it's not great. What else do we want to talk about

before we get to half-baked? Well, I got- Oh, by the way, just to put a bow on that, you're all in on going for Lamar? Two first rounders and Mack, you would pay that? Yeah, so it's either, I would like to keep Mack because I think it's a buffer against,

well, what if he gets hurt? Like, all right, if he gets hurt, you've got Mack Jones on a rookie deal. So if Mac Jones has to go, you know, it hurts my feelings. But I think Mac Jones would understand. If you booted me off this podcast for Bradley Cooper, I'd be like, yeah, makes sense. That's a good call about you. So I don't think I would take you over Bradley Cooper. You think Bradley Cooper doesn't have half-baked ideas? That's a good call about you. So I don't think I- Bradley Cooper. I would take you over Bradley Cooper. You think Bradley Cooper doesn't have half-baked ideas?

That's a good point. Take that, Bradley Cooper. You and your gorgeous hair. Who do you have? Made Stars Born and used Jason Isbell's songs. Smoking mirrors, Bradley Cooper. I haven't seen him lately. I'd rather have Kevin Wilds.

Thanks. I appreciate it. Now I feel bad for not supporting Mac Jones. I thought that was going to be a no-brainer. What do you have for the Warriors? You want to talk Warriors really quick. Okay. So Draymond did a podcast today.

We're taping this on Tuesday. Yeah. Did you see this? Who he wants to face? Like his ideal opponent. Do you know who it is? Who was it? I don't know who it is.

Sacramento. Now you might be thinking, ah, is it because Sacramento doesn't play any defense and doesn't have a lot of playoff experience? Nope. Draymond says, because the travel is so much easier. Okay. So my theory on the Warriors,

and there's a lot of narratives about the Warriors, how the punch has undercut Draymond's authority, how you're missing Andrew Wiggins, you know, Gary, but like old, like I'm old, like, ah, I'd rather not go out. I'd rather stay home. And that's why, that's why they're 30 and eight at home and nine and 29 on the road. But come playoff time, they'll be able to turn it on. If you're like, Hey, wilds, I'm coming to the city. Let's go out. I'm like, all right. Yeah, let's go. It's good. You don't come into town that often. I'll do that on Thursday night. That's playoff time.

But if it's just a regular night out with my wife, like, hey, we're going to go an hour away to dinner. Oh, my God. You're not getting my best. I'll be there, but you're not getting my best. You're not getting it. So the Warriors are in the stage where they have an offer to go to a dinner, but they'd rather just stay

home, make popcorn, and watch the Night Agent on Netflix. Oh, yeah. They're dying for it to be canceled. They're constantly looking, like, any issues with the plane? Like, oh, nope, still on. I heard the pandemic's getting worse again. Shoot. I thought the Mavs were going to cancel.

Oh, total. Like, all right, we'll go. Because they're so good at home. They're 30 and 8. They're just an old guy who likes to be home. Dinner party? Sure. Come to my house. I'm here. No commute. Feeling great. Got all the comforts of home. Love it. But I don't want to go out on the road too much. In ages, Steph's 35, Draymond's 33, Clay's 33. And you put the basketball edition, so that's around 40 in real world. Basketball, 33. You're right there.

You don't want to go out. Done going out. You want to stay home. I have my half-baked idea slash prediction for Draymond's next season. Let's hear it. I think he ends up in Dallas. Huh.

With Kyrie and with Luca. And then LeBron tries to figure out a way to get there eventually. Wow. Yeah, that's my prediction. Kyle, put this in my file of predictions to be unleashed like 18 months from now yeah I don't know just feeling a Dallas

scent I think there's some Dallas stuff that I just feel scented to me hmm you'd be good with Luka he'd be great give him a little bit of an attitude yeah he's kind of what they need. Somebody who cares about defense, doesn't

care about shooting. I also think Bronny hasn't picked a college yet, and I think that's going to factor into the LeBron possibilities too. Because if he goes to USC, you go, oh yeah, he'll be a Laker next year. He'll want to go to the USC games. But if it's somewhere

outside LA, that's going to make me think, hmm, I wonder if he maybe will... Because LeBron's going to want a ring chase at some point soon, right? He's not going to end at four. He knows he needs at least five. Of course, of course.

And if he feels like this Lakers thing isn't going to work, he's going to start ring chasing. If you're ring chasing, you're making a list of the best five guys in the league and you're glomming onto one of those five. And Luca seems kind of the most ripe to be glommed onto. I liked Bronny at Ohio State. I saw the pictures when he went on that recruiting visit. I was like, oh, this looks awesome and kind of storybook. I like that. That puts LeBron back in. Yeah, that puts him back go back to the Cavs? No. Yeah, that puts him back in Cleveland,

which is like the guy coming home from his sophomore year in college showing up at the high school party. And it's cool, and they really respected him, and they love, but it's just got a weird vibe. Like, why are you here? No, it's like, no, he's like the, it's like an alumni weekend. It's like when my wife goes back to Wisconsin. Like, hey, I'm here, everybody. Oh, I remember that.

Yeah. Oh, that was great. That was great. You were great when you were here. 15 years ago. But I'm just elder statesman now. Can we talk, Mallory and I talked, before we do Half-Baked,

Mallory and I talked really quickly about the baseball rules, how they changed. And it did get my brain going for part of the things we do. And social media is a part of this. The internet's a part of this. And talk radio. We just love complaining about stuff with sports, right? We're never happy.

Well, you're complaining about the complaints. Here we go. I'm one of the ones who complains. But in baseball, they changed all these things that we've been complaining about and it's worked wonderfully so far. Everybody's so excited about it.

It made me wonder, are there other sports now looking at this going, wait, look at how some of this stuff that worked for baseball, like, could Adam Silver look at this

and go, you know what, everybody's been complaining about in some replay for 10 years. Maybe we'll just make it so that there's no slow motion replay anymore. And it's like, oh, challenge. Put somebody over.

They have 45 seconds to just look at the play in real speed from three camera angles. We make a decision. We move on. And it's not a seven minute ordeal. And then it'll happen and everybody will go,

wow, this is way better. I'm glad they did this. Yeah. I mean, the baseball pace of play stuff seems to have worked. deal and then it'll happen and everybody go wow this is way better i'm glad they did this yeah so i i mean the baseball pace of play stuff seems to have worked where if they're shaving off a half hour of um half hour it's like an hour and a half that's pretty good do you buy that um some people were saying like trout ot World Baseball Classic, that that moment would have been, needs to be milked a little bit. Like third inning of a regular season game

in July, I don't need, but pivotal moment, I wouldn't want Otani rushing back to the mound or Trout risking a called strike because he wasn't ready. I like that drama. I don't agree with that. I have a lot of Otani, Trout, WBC thoughts.

Would you like to hear them? Sure, I'll hear how many they have. Because I thought it was a cool moment. Definitely. I think people were so desperate to be excited about a cool baseball moment that they overreacted to it. Here's my thing with the WBC. If nobody I know can name the last three champions of something,

it couldn't have been that important. Just go ask 20 people in your life, who won the WBC in 2021? They're not going to know. It was cool to see a guy pitch against his teammate. It was cool to see a guy pitch against his teammate. Yes. It was, it was cool to see a guy pitch against his teammate.

It was really cool to see the Otani thing. And the thing that was to me, the really cool part was we got to see Otani in a big game. Yeah. And this is why, well, maybe the, maybe we saw why trout never gets to be in a big game.

Otani, um, is the most important player, not only in the league, but is in the running for most important player in sports. And we never get to see him in the playoffs. And if I'm watching that and I'm running the league, I know they can't tell guys to trade their best players,

but he just has to go on one of the teams that's in the playoffs every year. Like I'm not even saying big market, like Dodgers, Yankees. Just put him on a good team. Even if it's the Astros. He needs to be in October. It's good for the sport. He's like fucking Michael Jordan for baseball. He's this amazing

once-in-a-lifetime player and we don't get to see him in the playoffs. So it's going to be the Yankees, don't you think? Or the Dodgers. I think it should be the Dodgers. That'd be great. be the Yankees, don't you think? Or the Dodgers. I think it should be the Dodgers. Dodgers. That'd be great. I know, because you live in LA, but the Dodgers are on.

Yankees is fine too, but Dodgers. Dodgers has too many good players. I just, it's just, I know I'm saying the Yankees. I just, we're just both rooting for our- That's a tough beat for the Angels though. I don't think the Dodgers is as realistic because the Angels would be going, it's like Lamar getting traded to Washington.

It's like, we couldn't make it work with him, so let's give him to the team that's 40 miles away from us. I don't see that happening. The Yankees would be awesome. The Yankees would be amazing. As a Red Sox fan, I would hate that, but you're right. You know what? I've become more of a baseball fan.

I've got a lot, you know, that's got a whole other podcast. I've become more of a baseball fan. I got a lot, you know, that's got a whole nother podcast. I've slowly been co-opted. Well, you're aged into the demo because you're old now. Well, I'm just like, my Red Sox fandom is going, I don't necessarily hate the Yankees.

Let's just leave it at that. Growing up a Red Sox fan, I just, fun to root for. On the TV a lot. Aaron judge, cool uniforms. Are you sports big amisting me?

Look, what's going on right now? There was a point this guy, you've lived in New York too long. It's what I never told you this story. I went to it that I went to a red Sox Yankees game. Oh my goodness. This was like a scene out of, out of a movie a Red Sox-Yankees game? Oh my goodness. This was like a scene out of

a movie. Red Sox-Yankees, I don't wear a bunch of Red Sox stuff. A, I don't own a bunch of Red Sox stuff. B, I'm just not big on being the visitor in the... I'm not going to be the loud visitor. That's not me. I go normal clothes, almost undercover agent style. But I'm rooting for the Red Sox. I'm in the middle row. I'm in the middle of the row. And when you're in the middle row, you got to get beer. You got to go to the bathroom.

You have to develop a good relationship with the guys to the side of you. So I'm, hey, how are this? We're chatting. Again, I don't have any red suck stuff on. He doesn't know. Yankees go on a, on a, uh, bases loaded. I think Aaron judge hits a home. I don't know. In my mind, it's a grand slam. Proud erupts. Now I got to stand just to see what's going on, but now I'm up to everybody's up. The guy that I've been friendly with, he's been letting me go to the bathroom and buy pretzels all game, turns to me, offers me the high five. Now, what am I supposed to do here?

It's the team that I grew up rooting for, just had a grand slam hit against them. The guy that I've become buddies with is offering me an open high five. Oh, sorry. No, sorry. My mom lived in Massachusetts and I grew up a Wade Boggs fan. No don't want to. No, you know what I did? Flamo. Right there, buddy. Bingo. Let's go, Yankees. It wasn't a great moment for my family in Massachusetts, but it is what it is.

Wow. Me and that guy. It was net positive joy for the world. Just was. I don't want to be Mr. Downer. No, no. Sorry, I loved Roger Clements and Dwight Evans. I don't want to be Mr. Downer. No, no. Sorry, I loved Roger Clements and Dwight Evans.

I just gave him a high five. Sorry. So basically you're telling me you might get married multiple times too. No, no. If I lived with another woman for 20 years away from my current life,

yeah, I don't think it'd be off the board. Like, wow, why? I've been here for 20 years away from my current life? Yeah, I don't think it'd be off the board. Like, wow, why? I've been here for 20 years. What are you expecting? I've been to Yankee Stadium more than 10 times, 10x more times than Fenway in the last 20 years.

Want to go to Yankees game? Yeah. No, I want to take a six-hour cello. Oh, sure. We need to take a break No, I want to take a six hour cello. Oh, sure. I need to, we need to take a break and I need to get a glass of water. It's just honest. What does possible sound like for your business? It's the ability to reach further

with access to over 1400 lounges worldwide. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit mx.ca slash businessplatinum. All right, come back. It's half-baked ideas time. So dating back to the old Grantland days,

you used to come on my podcast and you do half-baked ideas. We've done this many times. We've done it on this podcast as well. These are ideas that you threw in the oven. They needed to cook for 40 to 50 minutes. Pulled them out early. You pulled them out after like 17.

The meat's raw in the middle. It's not really cooked. No. But there's kind of something there. Sometimes it's like cookie dough. Like, wow, this is actually better than if you left it in the whole way. Okay. First one, and this is right on the heels of the Yankees conversation.

Sometimes you want to go to a rowdy event. Let's say you want to go to an Eagles game as a visitor, but you want to wear all your stuff. I don't because I don't want confrontation. So you have a few options here. One, years of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Again, not super time effective if you want to sort of be prepared for a rowdy environment. Two, you go meekly, which is what I do.

I hold very quietly. Rooting for the patriots, but no one talked to me. Or three, you don't go. Here's a new idea. I'm not a tough guy., but no one talked to me. That's why you, or three, you don't go. Here's a new idea. I'm not a tough guy. I just want to avoid confrontation. Detachable cauliflower ear. You can get one, $29.99, two for 50 bucks.

Before you go to an Eagles game as a visitor, rowdy motorcycle bar, maybe a concert that year, might be some mosh pitting you don't want to get messed with you take this cauliflower you put it on it's got really bulbous and there's different degrees of bulbousness on the amount of uh depending on the routing set one or two and if anyone ever messes with you straight on it was like oh i'm sorry what'd you say couldn't hear from my cauliflower ear from years of wrestling or other mishaps. That's what cauliflower ear,

half-baked idea number one. That's a winner. So the cauliflower ear is telling people not only do I have an MMA slash wrestling background, I did it enough that my ear is actually mangled. That's how long and how frequently I did it. So, I don't know. Are we having an issue?

Yeah. I would fight a guy with a long face tattoo before I even spoke to a guy with a cauliflower ear. I wouldn't even be nice to people with cauliflower ear just in case something I said was taken the wrong way. And next thing you know, I'm tied up in a knot on the ground of a convenience store. Scared of cauliflower. Great one.

Good start. I like that one. Yeah. Number two. Again, this is another Philly centric one. Do you remember in the NFC championship game, Devante Smith caught a long pass. It It was down the left side of the field.

It wasn't a catch. He got up and he started doing the signal, get to the line, get to the line, get to the line. Kyle Shanahan is sitting there not challenging it. Everyone is like, wow, we should challenge it, challenge challenges, he doesn't challenge it. So this is a strategy. It's called challenge bait. Anytime the opposite of that happens, you're a wide receiver, you make an amazing catch. You pop up immediately and start doing the,

but you're 100% sure you caught it. You start doing the quickly, quickly, get to the line, get to the line. Even start mouthing. But you have a different signal for it. So they know sure you caught it. You start doing the quickly, quickly, get to the line, get to the line. Even start mouthing. But you have a different signal for it. So they know you actually caught it. Yeah, you're like, I didn't. You can just like, I did not catch it. You start now, hurry up.

I did not catch it. The opposing coach will look like a fool if they don't throw their challenge flag. So they quickly, quickly, quickly. I dropped it. And then, boom, challenge flag out, but you 100% knew that you caught it. That's another winner.

I'm sorry. That's a home run. That's a great one. Well, that should just be part of football. Somebody's going to figure that out. I don't even know if that's a half-baked idea. That's fully baked. Because when Devontae Smith did that, I was 100% sure he didn't catch it.

Yeah, everybody. And I'm just on my couch. Yeah. But if he did, like think about like the Edelman catch in the Super Bowl. One that really looks like you dropped it. Edelman popped up and was like, I caught it.

Why? You're saying that you caught it. Wasn't, well, I think that was called a non-catch that's a bad example, I don't remember how it played out whatever, pop up and say you didn't catch it if you caught it it's a lesson to all wide receivers out there only on the pro level, don't do it in high school

unless you have an incident you play at one of those high end high schools challenging can I throw one in as a sorbet so we always read these stories every year about network tv okay how the ratings are dropping for prime time every year they're worse oh my god if you look at um jimmy kimmel lives ratings in 2003 it would be like the 10th highest rated primetime show right now yeah all

that stuff how do we fix it should there even be primetime the networks might just move news to 10 o'clock it struck me it struck me that these networks hold on to this old model of what worked right so then they'll do these stories of like sports, 94 of the top hundred shows this year was football. It's like sports. Sports is the one thing that it's the only certain thing we have. All right. Well, why, why is the network TV work? It's because the shows that are actually successful, if you look at the ratings are shows geared toward my dad, right? It's blue bloods. It's CSI, whatever. It's all of these older shows for like the 16 up demo. They're not programming. Yeah. They're not programming our show shows for our kids. Right. But then occasionally there'll be these shows

like the America's funniest home videos and they'll be on at seven o'clock and they'll get a huge rating and your kids might watch it with you. But yet on Instagram, the things that work on Instagram and the things that get these big followers, whatever, are the stuff where it's just like, oh, I'll keep watching that. And one of the things are those,

the car accident sites that they film with the dash cams here we go where the people get rear-ended i was we were just going on like an interesting like like journey through network television then we got to like and they you've seen these car crash cams okay i'm not saying like the super dangerous ones but the ones where it's like somebody got rear-ended somebody cut off somebody a guy got out and started yelling at somebody else, and you start watching these, and it's like, oh, I'll watch one more, and you watch it for a half hour. I just think that network TV should just program stuff like that. It should be like, this week at 8.30, benevolent car accidents.

Nobody's seriously injured, but you just get to watch cars crashing into each other for a half hour. You're basically asking for just America's Funniest Home Videos Cars Edition. Like darker. Like coming up at 9 o'clock. Coming up at 9 o'clock, bouncers kicking guys out of bars. That's another website, right? You know what? There's a lot of videos of bouncers just either punching a guy in a line or throwing somebody out of a bar.

That's 9 o'clock. So I would say just emulate instagram whatever works on instagram just make that your eight to ten o'clock primetime lineup and see if it works so can you just can i meet you halfway like if you're gonna pitch this to a studio executive or taylor sheridan let's say hey, man, it's like Yellowstone, but set in the world of bouncers. And then, but all, you know, and all of your, like, you know, nice horse shots are just, like, guys getting,

you know, their heads, you know, jollily, like, bashed into an empty trash can or thrown, you know, thrown out as, like, Jazzy Jeff style. Maybe we've moved away from, we've moved away from America's Funniest Home Videos, and we've moved away from we've moved away from america's funniest home videos and we've moved toward i can't believe he did that or oh my god i can't believe that guy did

that guy tried to jump off the roof on skis i know but that's maybe that's just what they should do why does instagram get this that's only that's that but there's a show that's just america's funniest home videos look it's it's half-baked. But they're not that funny. I shouldn't be critiquing a half-baked idea. Yeah, I like how you're picking my half-baked apart. I'm just saying, hey, networks, maybe steal from Instagram. Maybe look at what works, and maybe that's what you should be putting on

instead of your 9,500th Friends ripoff of five people sitting around a Starbucks cracking jokes, and then that gets canceled in a year. More Yellowstone. 9,500 friends ripoff of five people sitting around a Starbucks cracking jokes and then that gets canceled in a year. More Yellowstone. I'm taking just another Yellowstone. Yellowstone, just people falling off horses. That's at 9.30.

Hey, it's Aspie. Guys climbing up on a horse. I fell off. Coming up next, more guys fall off a horse. All right, what do you got next half-baked? You know what's a big deterrent for burglaries? Fear. Fear is the big one.

You got your security system. You're afraid of getting arrested and caught, really. You got a dog, you're afraid of getting bitten or harmed. A firearm, you don't want to get hurt if there's a firearm in the house. Or cameras from SimpliSafe has great HD cameras. Maybe those are hanging right over the front door

to turn the burglary. Yeah, SimpliSafe, you know what? It's a great product. SimpliSafe with two S. Yeah, I know. Put in BS Report 10% off your personal service. No, BS. Just BS.

BS, I'm sorry. BS Report sends you to a different... Yeah, the old dead account. That link is dead. Okay. For Halloween, my wife went out and got the 15 foot werewolf from Home Depot and we had him positioned,

believe it or not, inconspicuously in the yard near a tall tree. And he had a little motion detector on him. And people go by, and we're scared. The problem with the 15-foot werewolf is, as soon as Halloween is over, you should take down your stuff. But the 15-foot werewolf you got to really dedicate 90 minutes to get the guy down it's cold you don't really want to do it so i left the werewolf up for probably a little bit too long and people are still you know walking down the street walking

their dogs and like that's right and they get really scared you thought you were scared october 31st you're really scared you know november 14th. So eventually I took him down like, man, people got so scared in this. This should be, I should put this guy inside the house, but he's too big, obviously. So what about this? You can ask your friends at Simply Safe this. It's a small, like floating ghost, like lock your doors at night. And then you just have maybe a ghost attached to like a Roomba. And you basically have a haunted house. And at any time, there's a, you know, a disturbance in a window or a door, the ghost, it's like a little girl, like a nine year old girl, like, I've been waiting for you. The Shining Twins. Yeah. Oh, are you here to play? barking, deterring.

SimpliSafe needs to work that into the deterrent stuff where if somebody comes near, there's just a dog starts barking, but you don't actually have to have the dog. No. It's just the noise of two angry dogs barking. Angry war outliers. But I would even, look, we've seen this a million times. If you're going to burglarize a house, you got to have two filets. Not even. You got to add just some New York strip. And you just throw them there and bum, bum, bum.

The Dobermans eat the steak. And next thing you know, you're walking out with a nice flat screen television. But if there's a ghost, a ghost is not into it. Ghost doesn't care about steak. Ghost is not into that at all. My ghost wants to hang out. They're lonely. They've been in the house for 300 years.

They're looking to hang out. So the ghost... That's the problem with guard dogs is they can always be bribed by something delicious no matter how angry they are. They're always going to pick the food over protecting their master. Yeah. I mean, just always always have that was a good one i liked the the ghost ramba that would be fun to work into a simply

safe raid hey hold on for 20 off the ghost ramba oh modeled after the shining twins hello uh this is called this is similar to one that i did before this is called goalposts to go i may have done something like this anyways tennessee beat alabama they ripped down the goalposts and threw it into the river and next thing you know tennessee was asking you know alumni or students to chip in to get new goalposts. And then for other upsets, because Alabama wasn't that good this year, they would start putting their state troopers around the goalposts like, fellas, just lean into it. The kids want to celebrate, they want to tear down your goalposts. So invest in goalposts to go. I think a goalpost costs like 30 grand by the time you get it, paint it, put it up.

Have a goalpost to go right there. Is upset brewing? Oh, surprise, surprise. Here's goalpost to go. It's outside already. It's outside. You can lift it. You can carry it through the street.

It floats. Throw it into the river. We go and retrieve it and bring it to the next SEC school that's expecting an upset. You can carry it all around. We have several. We also have smaller ones if the student body is not that strong. How many people take

care of goalposts? 75? Suppose you're at a small school basketball upset. I don't know why you'd carry a goalpost. Maybe you'd carry a small stanchion. Anyway, it's just stuff that we've got ready to go. It's a great name. I think from a half-baked standpoint, like fantastic name. Goalpost to go. I can see the website. Thank you. I'm going to give you a quick one. I'm doing another sorbet. Go. So repeatedly on this podcast over the last few weeks, I have been mentioning how Miami can't fall lower than the sixth seed in the East

because no division champ can be in the playing game. Mike Vaccaro texted me today from New York Post that I'm actually wrong. He wasn't like accusatory. He was just like, I thought this too, and I asked around. Apparently, the division champion in basketball for the six divisions they have

offers nothing at all other than a tiebreaker if you're going against somebody else for a playoff spot. You get nothing out of it. You don't even get locked into the top six anymore. There's really no reason to have division champs that I can figure out other than this weird tiebreaker that might come into play every five years. So Miami could conceivably win their division and finish with the 10th seed if the other teams in their division were below them. And that makes me think,

all right, if that's how we're going to do it, and I get it because you don't want to reward somebody for having, it's kind of the same stuff we put in the NFL. But I still feel like you should win something for the Atlantic Division. And that's where I get half-baked. Go ahead, let's hear it.

Well, should it be like salary cap money? Should the team get an extra million dollars for the salary cap next year? Should everybody on the team get a free 100-inch Samsung TV? I just want stakes for the salary cap next year? Should everybody on the team get a free 100-inch Samsung TV?

I just want stakes for the division champ. Miami literally has no incentive to win the division. It doesn't matter. They're seated wherever it is. Should they get a night out in the local club? A champagne room night?

When I go to ESPN.com, I don't The local club, a night, a champagne room night? No. I don't even, when I go to ESPN.com, I don't even click on division. All I click on is conference. So I'm like, oh, I haven't clicked on this all year just because I'm like, oh, Miami, 40 and 35. Like, I guess. Yeah, they're the 17. But if we're throwing away divisions, why have divisions?

Why not just have two conferences? If we're going to have a division, and the divisions are the Atlantic, the Central, and then Miami's in the Southeast. All right, what do I get for winning the Southeast division? Do I get a night? Like, you know, our kids play sports, right? And it's like,

oh, end of the year, we had a party at Joey's dad's house to celebrate the year. Yeah, could there be a party for the division champ that the league pays for? I guess so. Like a pizza party? A small party at Jimmy Butler's house

for going 40 and 30. Well, they wouldn't end 40 and 35. Really? You just get the banner. So Miami could be like, we're the 2023- Southeast champions? Yeah. Banner? What'd you guys win? you just get the banner. So Miami could be like, we're the 2023 Southeast champions? Yeah.

Banner? What'd you guys win? Well, we beat the other four teams in our division, and we would have won a tiebreaker if anyone had tied us. And those were the two things we won as the Southeast Division champs. Like, why even have these divisions? What's the point? Every team in Atlantic is in.

Celtics, Sixers, Knicks, Nets. Raptors are at nine right now. In Toronto. Everybody gets in. This is a good example of what we were talking about earlier with baseball. Just fix stuff like this. See, I like that. Nobody even understands

the rules. A at least. I like that. Here, I just like east and west. I'm never like, ah, the race for, I like that. But here, I just like East and West. I'm never like, ah, the race for... Maybe you get... I mean, unless... I don't know. You get home court automatically? You want to do that?

It'd be like football. But then what if the five worst teams are in the Southeast? Yeah, I don't know. That's why it's half-back. All right, what's your next one? You want a short one or a long one? Sure. It's a short one. This is stupid, but it's something. Bart Bartist. I wrote Bartist.

You know what that is? Barbara dentist. Like, look, I probably, my, my dentist like gives me a hard time. I'm like, man, I'm in here once every six months. What do you, you don't expect some plaque buildup? It's twice a year, max. Meanwhile, my barber, good guy, haircut takes 45 minutes. Let's be honest, like I should pull him aside.

Like Bob, I'm going to pay you either way. We both know this doesn't take 45 minutes you could bang this out in 12 minutes and they're he's looking for something to fill the time he's like i want to shave you want you know a eucalyptus towel on my face so like when they stop they'll they'll stop for like two minutes mid-combo yeah you're like i'm like are we done like oh you keep rolling uh holding the scissors to the side yeah so the idea is just get that proprietary uh you know spinning dentist thing do a little teeth polish just say it's not out of the rough he wouldn't couldn't do the real stuff no extractions but like hey quick haircut quick uh quick shave, quick polish.

This is interesting. So you're getting the shampoo after the cut before they go back to see if they need to finish that and as you're getting the shampoo, they do a quick plaque clean. Your head's already back. You're already in the position. Yeah, your head's back.

So they're rubbing your head. They're putting stuff in. Hey, let me just do a quick... It's just that one that you go it's just the pot. That one. Just an idea. Can I do a quick half-baked? I like that one. A quick half-baked off your half-baked.

Sure. I just wish they were like head massage shops. I think they're head massage feels great. There's this nail salon that my wife goes to, and one of the reasons she loves them is because they do these great back-of-the-head massages as they're doing the nail thing. And I would just say, I don't know why somebody hasn't just turned this

into a business. It's like, where are you going at 1.30? Well, I have my head massage at 1.30, and then 2 o'clock, I'm heading over to the office. Oh, it's a short 25 minutes? It's just a half hour of somebody just rubbing your head. Have you ever used that thing? It looks like a claw.

It looks like something an alien would use to torture you, but it's actually very nice. We make these. We make instruments. That thing that goes like this? Yeah. That thing is amazing, but you don't realize you missed it. Once you start using it, you feel like, wow, should I dedicate my life to this thing?

This thing feels so good. I don't think it's something you should get started on. It's like heroin. Next thing you know, you're gone. Well, I told you. It feels magical. My wife gave me a massage chair for my birthday once, and it was by far the greatest gift I've ever gotten from anybody.

That's in your home? It's in the back house where I watch all the football. We have this chair. Don't think nephew Kyle hasn't sat in it a few times. It's incredible. It's by far the best gift I've gotten. Pound for pound usage, the whole thing. And it just,

I don't know. I just feel like the massage, the massage vertical still feels underrated to me. Because now, now we're seeing this whole, are you in on the whole brown noise, pink noise, like the noise at night phenomenon,

like these different apps? Oh, what's, no, what, what is pink noise? There's different apps. Spotify has a bunch of them or they have like there's that calm app there's i use the rain rain app you just make a noise and

then it's just a static noise that just plays and then so if like your dogs start moving around in the office i'll play it for you right now. I'm going to fall asleep. Oh, that sounded like... It's just that noise. F14's taking off. Yeah, but it blocks out all the other noise. So like if, I don't know, you hear a dog barking outside or like somebody beeping a horn

or a car alarm coming off or even like your dog decides to move from one room to the other, you don't wake up because that static noise is just going. That's a whole industry now. Head massages are still, I feel like, not there yet. I mean, they had those with bait.

I mean, that's like something, we had a noise machine for the baby. Yeah, remember those? Yeah, I guess we got rid of them. It's like, all right, they're 10 years old. I guess we don't need this. I guess I should just bring this back. Put it on my phone.

Kills your battery, though, doesn't it? You keep it on all night. You got to plug it in. What's your long half-baked? I had a big rant about how... I'm just not... I'm going to get a different format. Champagne is terrible, and everybody knows it.

So it's just a way to... Let's get champagne out of the sports celebration business. It's just a way to, like, let's get champagne out of the sports celebration business. It's terrible. Everyone's just like, let's just be honest. It's terrible. So I gave you some different ideas for things to celebrate with. Number one, milkshakes. You just go back there.

There's just like tons of milkshakes. It's disgusting. But wouldn't everyone be happier? Dairy Queen blizzards. Everyone loves those. Maybe you have several employees mixing them up. Dairy Queen blizzards. Reese's peanut butter cups.

Just tons of them now. Almost like a ball pit. People just dumping Reese's peanut butter cups on top of each other after they win a title? I don't know. What's the... Oh, we't know. Do you want to celebrate or do you want to have a water balloon fight? We'll have a bunch of water balloons so we can throw stuff at each other. Everybody can get soaking wet. When it comes time to have something, I just put pasta. I don't know why I put pasta.

This is not necessarily for football. This is for athletes that are really watching their waistline. They haven't been able to eat pasta all year. So now they won the championship. Like, oh. It's gluten-free pasta, though. It's a little bit healthier. That's it.

I mean, those are extra stupid. That was really, that was probably a quarter big. I have one. My son's playing lacrosse. I saw the highlights. And I've been fascinated by lacrosse, a sport that I've admittedly put zero thought in my entire life.

I hadn't been to a game since high school and I just never thought about it. Doesn't really work as a TV sport, but it's awesome in person. Because it's too, what, because the field is too big? Yeah,

it's like, they have to go too wide and to kind of film everything. It's kind of hard to see the ball. When they shoot the ball, it's too fast. Yeah. It just,

it's not the same. So I was thinking about, why isn't it the same? It's because the cameras are too far away. They can't, you'd really need like XFL camera work, but it would be really tough to have like the cameraman on the field. And even if you put like a camera on the goal and you had the referees had camera things on, it still wouldn't totally work. So here's my half bait. You put a ceiling for, this is for pro, it could only work in pro. It's a ceiling. It's a short roof over the game and the roof's loaded with cameras.

And so basically, cause really there's only a couple of times a game in lacrosse when somebody throws the ball high, like a, like a kind of a lob pass. It's usually the goalie. So if we had the short roof over the thing, the pass would basically hit the roof, but it would be live. It would be like when there's a foul pop in Tampa Bay. But then we would be able to put these cameras on the roof.

We'd have like a roof dome. And then we would be able to capture the lacrosse better and people would be able to enjoy the sport more versus like the wide shot. Is it like the NBA, is it like the NBA cam where then the cameras are compositing an image to see it sideways

or I'm just looking at it like an all 22? It's cameras all over the place. The other thing I was thinking was drones. Do we just have drones in lacrosse? And the drones are flying around capturing everything. And if a lacrosse ball hits one of the drones, so be it. I'm just trying to figure out how do we capture the action better? This is why it's half-baked. How do we make lacrosse a better televised sport? If television is the king, I know. How do we make lacrosse a better televised sport? Okay. Here's what I would say.

If television is the king, then let's just start there. Like, you know what? Here's where the cameras need to be. Play around them. And they're in, like, that's what it is.

This is the sport. you put them like as posts. Yeah, they're there. Then people could crash into them. Well, they're padded, but it is what it is. It's like referees. Like, well, you can't have referees out there. Oh, then people could crash into them. Well, they're padded, but it is what it is.

It's like referees. Like, well, you can't have referees out there. They'll get bumped into. Like, they're out there. Deal with it. They're a necessary part of the game. If you really want, like, boom, right there, center stage, there is the camera. That's a good

one. And I guess you could put them on the refs. 20 seconds. No, those things make you want to vomit because like i'm moving around the xfl did some stuff that when they created it it seemed insane yeah we're like wait the cameraman's gonna run out on the field before a play and we're going to have cameras behind, you know, right. And, and all of it worked.

And then the NFL stole all the ideas that work. Now they have that camera that comes down, which is coming to play. It feels like a couple of times. That's awesome. Well, remember we tried, maybe it's the fly cam that works for lacrosse.

Mac Jones threw a pass so bad. Remember we were trying to blame it on the fly cam. No, nice try. Like, darn it. Like the flag. fly cam knocked it down yeah there's something

this is why it's half baked but I do feel like lacrosse should be a better TV sport because it's cool in person I like it there you go alright what's the biggest argument you've had this year on your show great question is it Yoka Jambid is the biggest argument you've had this year on your show? Great question.

Is it Jokic Embiid is the biggest sports argument this year? Yeah. I mean, I guess Nick is really not into the historical aspect of giving Joker three MVPs in a row and where that puts him all time. The biggest argument we've had, I don't know, it's probably me. By the way, that's a funny argument because we don't do this with the Oscars where people are like, Amy Adams deserves it, but there's no way she should have seven Oscar nominations. That's crazy. That would put her as one of the five best actresses of the last 40 years. We can't give it

to her like only in sports do we do this where we we have to like have some straw man argument with number of titles i go the other way i go like i don't know who's the best player yannis he probably deserves it who's which team is in first place like i go the more data there is i'll just go the opposite way like hey which team's in first the box whoucs? Who's the best player in the league? Giannis? I don't know. Call me crazy. Seems like he should be the MVP, right guys? Oh, what is it? Raptor? What's his Raptor? I don't know. I look at first place. And best player. Who's going to win the finals? Oh, Giannis? Finals MVP again? Okay, yeah. Giannis guy. Best argument, probably the biggest argument we had was me trying to deny the Chiefs. I guess, I mean, they're a dynasty now, mini dynasty. We were always like trying to, every turn, trying to deny them. And then eventually, like, they rolled. And we went to the parade, and all of a sudden, I was like totally indoctrinated.

Like, yeah, you guys are awesome. Barbecue's awesome. Everybody's friendly. It's pretty great. Terrible casino. I didn't go to the casino. Yeah, really rough casino. Not as bad as the Cleveland Casino, but up there.

Now, there should be... We fucked up with the word dynasty where... I think I wrote a column about this once, like 15 years ago where I called it, like I created the word dynasty tender, like a dynasty contender. I didn't take a team that's just relevant over and over again.

They're not actually a dynasty, but they're just in the mix. So that's no Ewing. That's no Ewing theory. No, it's not. I didn't really work. Um,

yeah. Dynasty tender, not really in the common lexicon here in 2023, but there is some sort of middle ground where you're not a dynasty, but something definitely special happened. Because I think the Warriors are in the same spot. The Warriors won four, but they also had two years where they didn't make the playoffs.

So it's hard to say dynasty dynasty because dynasty is repeated dominance. The Chiefs have been pretty dominant for five years. I mean, they didn't make the playoffs. Patriots went 10 years without a Super Bowl. We still just kind of erased those years. I'm like, ah, it's just the 20-year dynasty. I call the Chiefs a travel-sized dynasty. They can get a bigger one,

but that dynasty we can get through TSA. Like, oh oh that's fine i think travel size dynasty is good travel size dynasty looks just like a dynasty it's just smaller and you know if you're on a road trip maybe next you don't have to bring it but you're flying you need to travel size so like a tsa approved dynasty yeah it's just small it's just there you go no one they don't have any issue with it so but they're on the verge like just i've already penciled in the loss for the patriot so when you start penciling in losses already yeah it's tough it's unasked well not as tough as you inexplicably becoming a semi yankee fan which was the big revelation of this podcast sorry i should have prepped you with that.

We haven't hung out. I don't remember the last time I've seen you. I feel like that's part of this. I don't think I've seen you in person in like four years. Honestly, I felt like when I listened to the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck podcast, and when they're like, hey, we should hang out with your friends.

I'm like, I wonder if that's why Bill texted me. I wonder if that touched his heart. That's before I found out you're a Yankee fan. Oh, sorry. It goes the other way. Yeah, those guys don't want to hang out with you now. All right, Kevin Wilds, you can hear him on First Things First, which is no longer the first thing first.

It is at three o'clock, though. It's like seventh things seventh. Did you think about changing it to that? We thought about it. First things seventh? First things seventh, yeah, it's a little bit who's on third-ish. So we just decided to stick with first things first. Did you ever think about just getting what Speak for Yourself did,

just getting rid of two of the three words and just being called first? Not bad. It feels like an internet comment, but with an exclamation point maybe. First. Next. Coming up. Every show is just one name. Maybe that's where we're heading

just with all this stuff. Just one name shows. I think that's because it's just, that's the way it's talked about. Simmons. Oh, it's Simmons. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Ask your kids if they would watch the benevolent car crash show at 830 The benevolent part is nice Yeah, nobody's really seriously hurt, but cars are just crashing into each other for half an hour You also just want three stooges It's better than

the 94th Friends ripoff, I'm just telling you Guess what's not going to work the 94th Friends ripoff Guess what is going to work? Yeah, they're not in New York. They're in Denver. Taylor Sheridan. That might work. Alright, good to see you, Wilds. See ya.

Alright, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Wilds and Mallory and Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti. Don't forget, Rewatchables is up, Cape Fear, if you missed it, and I will see you on this feed on Thursday. We'll see you next time.