The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Mahomes-Brady Bowl, Conflicted Pats Fans, and Playoff Rodgers With Cousin Sal

Episode Date: January 25, 2021

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Buccaneers' win over the Packers in Lambeau Field, sending Tom Brady to his 10th Super Bowl; as well as the Chiefs' victory over the Bills, which secured their second-straight Super Bowl appearance. They Guess the Line for Super Bowl LV and discuss their playoff bets and Sal’s book releasing on Tuesday, followed by Parent Corner (2:00). Then in an excerpt from the Ringer NBA Show’s ‘The Answer,’ Bill and Chris Ryan discuss early-season things that they are obsessed with, including Collin Sexton, chippy Kevin Durant, and more (1:13:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Coming up, Cousin Sal and I are going to talk about our next Super Bowl because we know what it is. And we're even going to guess the line for it. We're going to talk about Sunday's games and a whole bunch of other stuff. Coming up. This episode is brought to you by my old friend, Miller Lite. I've been a big fan of Miller Lite, man, since college days when I was allowed to have beer. I think nephew Kyle is a fan too. Miller Lite keeps it simple for us. Undebatable quality, great taste. Picture this, it's game day, all the gang's here,

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You must be 21 plus and present in select states. Gambling problem called Win 100 Gambler or visit rg-help.com. We're also brought to you by TheRinger.com and The Ringer Podcast Network. I have new rewatchables coming on Monday night. It's Terminator 2. We did Terminator 1 and First Blood last week.

Did a little action movie frenzy. So there you go. Sal's coming in in one second. We're going to talk about today's games, one bizarre, one predictable, and then the Super Bowl, a whole bunch more. And then near the end, I'm going to run something. Chris Ryan and I did Ringer NBA show. I did a segment on his show, The Answer, and we talked about our obsessions so far in this NBA season. And just wanted to put it on the end of this podcast in case you're not listening to the ringer NBA show.

You should be, but a little NBA talk at the end. That's all next first Pearl jam. All right, we're taping this. It is about 7.30 on Sunday night Pacific time. Cousin Sal is here. It's a big week for him. He has a new book coming out on Tuesday. You can order it right now on Amazon

and get it in time to show up on your door on Tuesday with the rest of America. It's called You Can't Lose Them All. I read I'm two-thirds in. What do you think? I'm going to finish it tonight. You're quitting on it. You just quit on it. It's fine.

Two-thirds is good. You and Kimmel gave it a lot of love the other night. You can't do any more. That's fine. No, it's really good. And we're going to talk about it later after we get through the Superbowl and we get through these two games, I'm going to do a different sequencing for us today. I'm going to start with the Superbowl pick and with, uh, and with chiefs bucks. And then we can talk about the games after we have a Mahomes Brady

Superbowl coincidentally. So you might remember this. This was the last great win of the Belichick-Brady dynasty. They beat the Rams two weeks later to win the Super Bowl. There's been like 10 truly great Belichick-Brady games. And the last one was Arrowhead. The Pats fans call it the D-Ford game because if he

doesn't jump off sides, we might lose. Just a finger. Not you might lose. Everyone was celebrating. A fingernail off sides, we might lose. Just a fingernail. Not you might lose. Everyone was celebrating a fingernail off sides, and they called it back. You got an extra play. No, he's like two feet off sides. But Pats went 37-31. It's the last great moment, and now these two are colliding.

Only Brady is on the Bucs. Yeah. Coming off three interceptions in the second half. What are your thoughts just about this game? I don't know what to think. I think it's great. I think I had the second out of the four possibilities. Um, you know, one to four, I wanted Packers chiefs, but, uh, Brady getting there, you can't beat that. And you know, we're going to hear

about it over and over how no team has been home for the super bowl. I think we give it three days. You have three days to educate us on that. Kind of like the Bernie memes. I don't want to hear about this after Wednesday that that Brady's home, and this is the first time, right? But it looks like it could make a difference because the other team, which is the Chiefs, can't fly in until the Friday before the Super Bowl. Very different because of COVID restrictions. I'm very excited for this.

I'm really pumped up, and we'll discuss this, but a lot of people are just checking the Chiefs off here. I say not so fast. I couldn't agree more. Let's cross off a couple of storylines that, so what are we giving this 72 hours? And by, by Wednesday night,

they have to be scratched. Nobody can talk about them again. Brady's 43 is the oldest quarterback ever to Superbowl. We know we get it. Cross it off. Done. Tampa's home. This has never happened before.

Again, we get it. We know. We're well aware. What else do we have? I'm trying to think. Those were the two that jumped out at me, those two. Well, this was one of the reasons I ended up liking Tampa in today's game. Because I thought if they had to rig the game one way or the other,

it made more sense to rig it for the Bucs because then they saved on all this travel and all these headaches with teams coming in and COVID and all this stuff. At least one of the teams is there. That's a bonus. Right. That's true. Yeah, I don't know that it was rigged. Well, are we going to guess the line first

or are we going to go into the games? Yeah, let's guess the line and then we'll do it. I sent you, my guess was Kansas City by three and a half. This was before, I sent that to you before Casey's left tackle. Looks like he blew out his Achilles. I don't know if that will affect the line, but I'm sticking with three and a half. I went three. You're going to think I cheated, but I went three and it is three.

You win on the year, 10 weeks to nine weeks to two that were tied. The line is three. Exactly. I think this is more a statement of not even Tampa Bay. You're making a face, but Tampa being the lens, I'm surprised. I thought it was either going to be three and a half or four. I'm talking to Chiefs fans like this is terrible. This should be six. I have buddies are like, oh, this is going to go up to five or five and a half. I think a lot of it has to do with Vandal. All the big books got slaughtered this morning. There were a dozen half million dollar bets all on Tampa plus three and a half,

you know, got it down to three and you just, you know, you're going to get your casual better and just going to take, Oh, I don't know who's pro. All right. Chiefs are great. I hear, but I'm not betting against Tom Brady. Give me Tom Brady plus three, but I just think that's what it's going to be like, right? Like when people put a lot of money on, on Connor over Floyd Mayweather, it didn't really make sense, but you didn't think it through. And you took the odds with the greatest Superbowl quarterback of all time. I was texting you in house all week. You guys both really liked the Packers and I couldn't find anybody who liked the bucks. And I was leaning back and forth on Thursday and on red hot, smoking hot million dollar picks.

Ended up taking the Bucs plus three for a variety of reasons, but mainly because I just felt like either team could win the game. As the next couple of days go, it's Packers, Packers, Packers, Packers. And then when I texted you this morning, you told me all these big bets had come in. So the Sharks were waiting until Sunday, it seems like. Right. Yeah yeah for sure they just loaded up on uh tampa bay and then tampa just went down the field and scored like oh yeah

this is the kind of game it's gonna be and uh it actually looked like it could be a blowout wasn't it like third and long kind of green bay rogers is in his own end zone rolling right i think it was like third and 12 and he nailed right he doesn't get that yeah that could have been it well it could have been it it was it anyway they lost but And he nailed Lazard. He doesn't get that. Yeah, that could have been it. Well, it could have been it. It was it anyway. They lost. But 30-yard pass for first down and kept it going. Well, wait a second.

Go back to Chiefs-Bucks for a second. Do we feel like these are the two best teams? Because I would say Chiefs-Bills 2 2A, Bucks, 2B. I think if the Bucks and Bills played for the Super Bowl, I think it would be a choppy, really weird game with some turnovers. It would shift momentum seven times, and I'm not sure who wins. But I think the Chiefs are the best team. And I think the Bucks were the best NFC team.

I felt that way. I thought they had the most talent. And they had kind of the most ways to put points on the board, create a play on defense. They could just do the most things. It didn't always look good. It was choppy. It was weird. They would shoot themselves in the foot, but I just thought they had the most talent in the conference. What'd you think? I thought the Packers had the most talent and I was leaning on their defense. I was like, this is an underrated unit. Now I now I get laughed at for praising Matt,

uh, Mike Patton and that defense, but they all like came to play. I thought I'm like, if they pressure Brady, like the saints did last week, they're going to be in decent shape. And they didn't,

it was the other way around. It really was. It was like, um, how many times did, uh, Rogers get sacked? Like,

uh, at least four, four, he had four sack. Shaq Barrett had three sacks. He got, uh, sacked? Like at least four, four, he had four sack. Shaq Barrett had three sacks. He got sacked four times. I think Tompa only got roughed up once, but,

but the big thing, I think you agree like that first, that first of all, first half, it was looking like a classic, right? These quarterbacks putting up great numbers. Second half.

They did not. I think Rogers was like five for 12 in the second half. We saw Brady was awful in the second half, but even the first half, it was man coverage think rogers was like 5 for 12 in the second half we saw brady was awful in the second half but even the first half it was man coverage and brady was like lofting it up with these 50 50 balls and he connected three times and that was in it and uh i don't know how far we want to jump ahead but right before the half they really got out coached both times right before each half ended the first half and the second half. It was disgraceful. People are going to point to not going for it in the fourth quarter there for the Packers.

But I thought the way that first half ended was worse than anything. It was really bad. I, I felt like the bucks were going to win after Godwin caught that 50 yarder. That was just a heave downfield. He barely even knew it was coming. It was right after he had dropped the pass and you, you start making plays like that.

And, and you just go, all right, this, this team's meant to be, but, um, that first half,

I agree with you. Bucks look great. Brady hit a couple of big, big throws. Um, the last two minutes, which are supposed to be Roger's time. They were completely discombobulated.

They weren't calling a timeout. I didn't, they were going super slow. Then they ended up getting rid of the ball. The Bucs got it. All of a sudden, the Bucs were going to punt on fourth and three on the 45. And then they call a timeout. Both teams were kind of butchering it.

And then Brady made the play of the game. And you think about it, that really decided the game, that Scottie Miller touchdown. Because other than that, the teams were pretty even. The Packers were slightly better. You know what's funny about this? You were texting on our text chain. You're like, this feels like first team to turn it over

loses kind of game. And then with like 40 seconds left, now they should have called the timeout, right? Probably the Packers, they had two. They had a timeout they didn't call twice that really screwed them. They took one in the locker room. Right.

But so when Rodgers throws the interception, I was like, I don't know if you're right. Simmons, it seems like a, a harmless interception. And then especially when they bring the punter out on fourth and three on the other side of the field, which you should never do anyway, right? At least try to draw them off sides. I hate that. And then they throw a defense out there that Greg Williams got fired for such

that it's one-on-one with Scotty Miller and it's a touchdown. All of a sudden it's what? 21-10 at half? That I agree. That was the killer right there. I mean, they came back, they made it a game, but that was rough to come back from. It was unusual for Rodgers because I feel like all year that team was great in the red zone.

That great, that team was great at not beating itself, not having a dumb turnover, always like reading the clock, always like stealing points whenever they could. And they kind of choked in the last two minutes of that half. I felt like they Rogers was going so slow. I don't, I almost was, I was watching it going,

are they trying to keep the bucks from getting the ball back? What's going on? And then they got the first down and then they took another 40 seconds. It was weird. Yeah, that 40 seconds and two timeouts left. And they really, they screwed it up big time. But with that said, that touchdown to Scotty Miller was one of the best throws of Brady's career.

And I rooted for that guy for 20 years. Like that was as good as any throw he made for the Patriots. It was perfect. It was a really cool play. I like that play. The Chiefs usually use that play where it's the three guys bunched together. And then the short, fast guy kind of squirts through and he's just going deep and they don't realize it right in time. Everything about it was great. And the irony is he was so good in that first half.

And the second half, he was awful. And anytime he actually had a good throw, they would drop it. So it was either like, he's terrible throw by him or somebody is dropping an actual good throw from him. And they were a mess. They were up 28, 10. They almost lost. He felt a little invincible with those 50, 50 balls. And then the 50 went against him a couple of times. And all of a sudden the Packers were back in it, but you know, and then there's the whole thing that went for it on two and that went for two and the balls dropped. And then to me, it's, it's so weird because they go for two, the Packers and they miss, but then they don't go for it on fourth down. They kick the field goal to cut it to five. And I wonder if, if that's a seven point game, do they go,

do they go for the touchdown there? Was it because they were down eight, you think they kicked the field goal? You want to go there now? Because I just hated it so much. What were they on, the seven or the eight? Well, I think it was the nine-yard line. I think Tampa would have the ball back at the nine-yard line if they miss. Too many

good things can happen when Rodgers is your QB in that situation. He can either just get a touchdown, he can get a PI. He could scramble and maybe get in or get tackled at the two. I just don't know what, what good does it do to be down five? You still need to score a touchdown. You might as well and create, I don't care what the stupid, uh, the stat numbers in the chart says, like you still need a touchdown. You might not ever get the ball back i just didn't like it i had a bad feeling as it was happening i didn't like it if you wouldn't want to know i looked at the analytics say it's only a percentage point or two more that you go for it rather than kick a field goal but not when the other guy's tom brady right just score there

like you said there's so many things defensively that could happen so many defensive holding calls out of nowhere and we saw it on the other way uh driving down the field for tampa uh rogers could scramble like you said a touchdown all these guys i i get crazy with the announcers when they don't know if the feet are inbounds or out of bounds like yeah he got his feet inbounds all these guys are getting their feet inbounds on the on these close sideline plays so just go for it there that was a killer it makes me think though is it this is a dumb question but is it worth it for coaches to get this far in the playoffs i feel like they always make a mistake aside from think about all the guys that we think about who screwed up their careers by making mistakes deep in the playoffs or the super bowl versus the ones who are praised. How many are praised for great decisions? Is it Sean Payton for the onside kick in the Super Bowl? Andy Reid last week. Andy Reid. Yes. Last week, Andy Reid. But he

already had that. He was set. Right. I just it just seems like you're going to screw up. I know you get a job, Doug Peterson. Great Philly special. You get to stay on for a couple more years, but it really, the lights on you and you almost like eight out of 10 times going to screw up late in the game. Mike Patton had that distinction and the floor took it right away from me. He's like, no, no, no. I want credit for blowing this game. Let me not go for it on fourth down. I have my quarterback hate me for good. So let's say they don't get it at the nine or let's say they get tackled on the two or all the different things that can happen. I just think the bucks are operating a little bit differently from their own nine with the QB who threw three picks that half and all the drops

that they're making. I just think you, at that point you have to go super conservative because you don't have to worry about turning the ball over. As it turned out, the guy screwed up the kick return. I think he slid on the 18, but at least that extra 10 yards is a little room. It feels a little safer. And they ran a couple of good plays, but I just didn't like it. And over and over again, this whole season, we've seen teams either be too aggressive or not aggressive enough. And I don't think we've ever seen the balance be more skewed up. I think it's all these charts that these charts are in the coach's heads. But what's weird, like I said,

he's aggressive on the two point call earlier in the half, but not, but not going for it on fourth. I don't know. You have Aaron Rogers, you have the MVP, just go for it. And then coming the other way,

ticky tack call on the past. And if maybe it's past interference, I felt he had the jersey. Really didn't tug it. Didn't take him out of his route. Ball's overthrown. They don't ever call on catchable anymore. But it seemed like it was going on all day

and especially against Devontae Adams. It was a really physical game. It did feel like there was 10-11 almost PIs that they just said, screw it. And Aikman even mentioned a couple of times, like they're letting a lot of stuff go today. But when they showed that slow-mo of him just yanking the jersey,

he definitely was off balance trying to get that ball. You think so? There's no question. Yeah, I felt that way. I mean, it was so late too. My God. But is that why the Packers lost though? Like they couldn't get it done a hundred times before that.

I get it. You just, you know, your boy Brady got another call there. But no, I think it was just that the flag was so late. But he was 20 for 36 for 280. Three touchdowns, three picks. He was downright bad in the second half. I thought about, I'm going to

say a quarter and a half into the game. It felt like it had a chance to be special. You're watching it going like, wow, this is like the Rodgers-Brady playoff game I always wanted. This is both guys up in the stakes. Brady was just throwing frozen ropes. Rodgers looked good.

And then the second half, it flipped. And sometimes this happens in the NBA. Like I remember like 2016 game seven. Oh, here we go. I'm sorry. Warriors Cavs. If you watch like the last six minutes of that game, it's like two tents.

Nobody can do anything. Everybody misses. Every wide open three is missed. Guys are throwing the ball out of bounds. Like there was like too much pressure. And I wonder if that happened in this game. I don't know if it was a combination of the weather. The atmosphere is weird. You have 8,500 cheeseheads. And I wonder if that happened in this game. I don't know if it was a combination of the weather.

The atmosphere is weird. You have 8,500 cheeseheads. They're all banging these wooden boards against their seats like they're prisoners ready to stage a riot. The whole vibe was weird. And both quarterbacks were awful. I don't know. That had to be part of it, right? The tension, the atmosphere, just everything. It didn't feel right. I don't want to take had to be part of it, right? The tension, the atmosphere, just

everything. It didn't feel right. I don't want to take away from Tampa's defense, though. They had a little more something to them, right? They felt more aggressive in on every play. Forget about even the sacks. We said there were four sacks, but they just were hitting harder than the Packers.

I was impressed with them. I really was. I thought it started last week. That was one of the reasons I wanted to pick them. Cause I thought they were flying around last week. Now they, I didn't even know they weren't going to have Winfield who was really good this whole season. He gets scratched, you know, an hour before the game. It's like, what? And then they lose another safety who made the big fumble hit, who knocked Jones out of the game. Jones, that was another variable this game. They don't have Jones basically the last quarter and a half. Yeah, nothing. 27 yards rushing. He had like six carries or something. But it felt like the Bucs secondary, it reminded me, Hensh and I,

of course, compare everything to the Patriots, but it reminded me of the Panthers Super Bowl when we just had no D-backs in the second half and we just ran out. And you have a lead, but you're holding on for dear life. And that's how it felt a little bit with them, except their front four was still making plays. They were really good. Right. Yeah, they pressured them. I mean, obviously, obviously, they have to do that against Mahomes.

And maybe with Fisher being out and Schwartz probably being out, then they're going to get their shot. There was one other fun thing that happened. We were texting about it during the timeout. It was second and one, the Bucs trying to run out the clock right at the two-minute warning. And the move in a video game is you do the intentional offsides, give them three sets of downs so you can use your three timeouts. And you're in your texting

They should call timeout or they should do encroachment or something and and then they did it and they got a fresh set of downs It didn't work, but I was excited somebody is bad. What about Arians couldn't Arians decline that you could decline any penalty Can't you he should have declined it? That's what was weird. I don't think he realized we should all right more to talk about this game We take quick break. This episode is brought to you by Movember. The mustache is back with a vengeance. Look at Travis Kelsey. Before he rocked that Super Bowl ring,

he rocked that super soup strainer. Grow a mustache for Movember. You'll do great things too. You won't win the Super Bowl, but your fundraising will support mental health, suicide prevention, and prostate and testicular cancer research. And if you don't want to grow a mustache, you could still walk or run 60 kilometers, host an event, or set your own goal and mow your own way. Do great things this November.

Sign up now. Just search Movember. Playoff Rodgers. His record now is 11-9. It includes four OT losses. He's 1-4 in NFC title games. He lost this one. He lost 2015 to Seattle, the famous comeback game. Got killed 2017 in Atlanta. Got beat pretty badly last year too against San Francisco.

Also lost in 2012 when people thought they were going back. The Giants and Eli came in, beat them in Lambeau. Freezing cold day. Didn't make any sense. They lost the next year to San Francisco. I think it was Kaepernick, 45-31. And then they lost the OT game to Arizona and Carson Palmer

in 2016. So for his career, Brady now is 33-11 in the playoffs, which is just twice as many wins as any other great quarterback. And that doesn't count all the buys, which I feel like the buys should count as playoffs wins. Oh, come on.

I just think that should have helped Brady's case. Montana was 16-7. Elway 14-7. Manning 14-13. Bradshaw 14-5. Favre 13-11. Your guy Aikman was 11-4. Rodgers 11-9.

And Breeze 9-9. And the reality with Rodgers is he ran the slate that one year in 2010. Other than that, it's, it's pretty grim. If you look at his pro football, he's like a 500 quarterback, except for that one year, the talking heads. Some of them were like, well, I'm going to make a case for Rogers here. He beats Brady. That's passing the torch. Maybe he could get that third suit, you know, that second Superbowl, you know, he could be like, no, what's more impressed. I don't know. What's more impressive out of those numbers. You just mentioned the 33 playoff wins the 14 of 19 championship games. That is insane. 19 seasons, 14 championship games, or the six super bowls. Either way,

you can't stack anything. And the fact is he closed the book on everything today. After a day, that wasn't even great. You know what I mean? He just gets there. It's like, forget it. David Blaine's the best magician. How many tricks do you need to see? I don't care if you want to say he's lucky or not. He's getting to this game and he's winning it way more often than everybody else. I mean, what do you, what's the next thing to compare him to Michael Jordan? Because football's done. Yeah. It's, I felt like it was done after the atlanta comeback but i you know rogers i think he's one of the best five quarterbacks i've ever seen it's weird that people can just go into his house and beat him you know a bunch of times here and in situations where they're the favorites and

things like that i really thought they needed him to be better today i would give him like a C plus or a B minus for that game. I told you as much as they came back in the second half, that his second half numbers were not good at all. I agree. So I would say C minus C plus. I don't know. So one thing hurt him in the first half, they ran that play with Adams that they run all the time and Adams dropped

it. And if he catches that, it's at least heading into that. Even if you give them the Scotty Miller thing, it's at least heading into that. Even if you give them the Scotty Miller thing, it's at least 21 to 14. They're still within a score. That wasn't his fault, but I thought he did some other stuff that I just didn't agree with. And that wasn't his fault. That was mine and house's fault for betting big, big money on the Packers over 13 and a half in the first half. That's, that's who's fault it was. So sorry, Aaron. I'm glad you apologized

to him. Damn it. 13 and a half. Should have had that. The, uh, the greatest quarterback list though. Brady having twice as many playoff wins as every other great quarterback I think is the most underrated stat

in football. That is an insane stat. Yep. That is an insane stat. Yep. Nobody else has 17 playoff wins, and he has 33 and might have 34 in two weeks. Well, if you want to give him credit for the buys, I want to give Romo credit for playoff wins for how great he is in the booth every time. Anytime he points out what these quarterbacks are doing wrong,

I think this should count as a quarter of a win. I do think the buy should be, should be counted in some way though. Right. Because if you were good enough that you don't get that cheap round, you know, whatever easy win, you're always just whatever. I can't. To me, it's a, to me, it's a conference championship appearances, 14 out of 19.

It'll never be beat. And here's the thing. You may, you may have thought it was over like he was the greatest we've ever seen before uh when he beat the rent what'd you say oh when he beat atlanta because that was his super bowl he won that belichick didn't win that how about this brady won that by himself we're never gonna see anyone better you know what i mean like it's one thing to say he's the best we've ever seen, but we're getting up there in age whereas we're never gonna see anyone eclipse his marks

in the next 30 years, right? Unless Mahomes. I think Mahomes could. He's the only one. I think Mahomes absolutely could. He's the only one who can, but he still has to win four or five, right? If Mahomes gets the one in two weeks and then he's got two under his belt four seasons

into his career, that's basically the pace Brady was on. Brady had two his belt four seasons into his career. That's basically the pace Brady was on. Brady had two his first four seasons. I guess. How did he keep it going? Back-to-back Super Bowls. That was another thing I had. Happened way less than I remember. Green Bay did it the first two.

Dolphins did it 72-73. Steelers did it twice in the 70s. I mean, all tainted because of just the massive steroid use. That was for the Steelers fans out there.

88-89 Niners. Your Cowboys, 92-93. Broncos, 97-98. And then the Pats did it twice. All right. I mean, we could talk

about tainted Super Bowl wins. This is maybe where we leave the discussion, but that's okay. Well, there's only been nine back-to-back Super Bowl winners, so the Chiefs would be the 10th. Yeah. Remarkable.

I'm very excited for it. It didn't look like, well, we'll get to the Chiefs' bills. You thought... Let's do it. He looked slowed down a lot. I don't think he slowed down. I don't know.

I thought he looked good moving Mahomes. I think it was probably a testament to whatever painkiller they shot in his foot. There's that, like, turf toe is so fucking painful. It's just not... You're barely getting up the

stairs with turf toe. For sure. So God only knows. You're easier cutting it off. And just, like, numbing the area. Right? It's like basically dumping 50 razor blades into your toe that's how it feels um does him not winning the mvp now feel dumb well yeah maybe but he just uh we talked about how he and i loved him i was like at week 13 i was like he has to play one more week and and then he's got it. But Rodgers just went nuts. He had that Sunday night game against the Titans. Everyone saw it. It was kind of snowing. By the way, can we just say, how many times have we been screwed over by no snow? About an hour leading up to the game, they show like a blizzard in Lambeau, and they're shoveling all the snow away. And then we get there, and it just looks like a shitty cold game. Like, oh, come on, don't do that. I don't know. We have to get with the weather reports for that. But, um, well, the weather, you know, the weather people, they, they, he checked that all the time.

Yeah. It's better for them. Big, big thing coming. You know, it's good for them. And a good for Fox too. It's like, oh, maybe people won't watch this game if it's not snowing. No, I don't know what the, what the weather guys wrong. They always have an excuse, right? Like, oh, maybe people won't watch this game if it's not snowing. No, I don't know what the idea is. And if the weather guy's wrong, they always have an excuse, right? Like, whoa, it was supposed to come. You know? And the storm last second moved this way. Like, they can say whatever they want. That would have been fun.

I mean, it was already a fun game. But, yeah, I think Mahomes, you know, they're one and two, depending on the week. He took it easy. People get crazy about them not covering seven weeks in a row. It's like, guess what? If the greatest quarterback of our generation doesn't get a pinched nerve and a triangle chokehold on them, they beat the Browns by 20. Like, what are we talking about here? So

they really, you know, they, they kind of picked up, they went down early against the bills, but we were stupid not to pounce after that. It was a really dumb line. It was understandable why it was minus three, given Mahomes was in question. Like when I did million dollar picks on Thursday, it wasn't official that Mahomes was going to play. And sometimes the concussions can be, you just didn't know for sure.

And then Friday they're like, oh, Mahomes is playing. I thought the line was going to go to four, four and a half. It just stayed at three. And the bills had just all this crazy momentum for, um, and you know, I was on the bandwagon like everybody else, but I just didn't feel like they were the same team because the no Zach Moss thing, the running game wasn't the same. And Beasley, who was pretty good today, but he wasn't good the last two weeks. Well weeks well that's the thing I don't think it's worth a point but at a for a minute Saturday it

was looking like Edwards Allaire and and Levy and Bell weren't going to play and Bell didn't play so I don't know if that was going to be worth a point why they kept it at three or why people weren't betting um the Chiefs but and they went down nine nothing and then our famous text you're like all right let's hear it. Kansas City was minus 105 when it was 9-0. And then like in a freaking heartbeat, it's 14-9. They have 11 first downs to the Bills' one. It was that stupid busted punt.

It was over at 14-9. I was actually like semi-bored. I was flicking back and forth to basketball games. I was like, there's no way Buffalo's winning this. So you knew it at 14-9. It was done. Yeah. And because he was rattled, Alan, right?

He probably should have thrown another pick that he didn't at 14-9. They hadn't had the ball that much. That's what happens when a guy fumbles a punt. Hardman fumbled the punt at the five. And then they're taking right over. It's like, all right, this is great, but your offense isn't in rhythm. And that was that. I thought the Zach Moss injury

was bigger than people gave it credit for. He really balanced them out and enabled them to move the chains and do some stuff. And I like Singletary as like a utility can do a bunch of things back, but he's not a move the chains guy. And the fact that TJ Yeldon was actually like playing real minutes in

this game, they picked them off the waiver wire. What? Three weeks ago, two weeks ago. So I don't know. That felt substantial. Schrager was saying this on my pot on Thursday.

He thought the bills had happy to be their potential. Yeah. Cause he was like the bills. This was kind of them making it to this game was kind of their Super Bowl. Everybody was so excited. He said they had all these guests on Good Morning Football all week for Bills.

And meanwhile, the Chiefs are just banging out wins. They've won 24 of their last 25 and now 25 of their last 26. It really did feel like that. And add to it that the Chiefs were being disrespected, right? I mean, how many times do we have to hear that they didn't cover? They weren't, they're barely beating teams and, um, the homes isn't right. It's like, Oh, it makes sense that they would

step it up here. And you talked about the bills running game. I think Singletary, who was it? Singletary yelled in and Oh, McKenzie got a carry. I think they only had like 41 yards rushing. You gotta be able to move. You have to have like six-minute drives, and you have to, have to, have to not kick field goals inside the 12. How many times are we going to see that? These teams giving up, kicking field goals. Singleton

and Yeldon were 9 for 32 combined. Right, and then McKenzie had like a one-yard run. Yeah, a nine-yard run or something. Yeah, so you made the key point there. I'm just telling my kicker, look, you're not coming out for a field goal unless it's like fourth and 10 or worse. Here's your paycheck.

Just sit on the sideline. You're fine. Just worry about PATs and kickoffs. We might need you if it's like fourth and 17. But wait, every time they went for a field goal, Andy Reid must have been laughing his ass off. Of course. Of course.

And it's one thing if the Chiefs are struggling like they did against Atlanta. You're like, all right, let's just take points like they did against Atlanta like a month ago, whenever that was. But their offense was so in a rhythm, right? So you can't trade sixes for threes. You just can't do it.

It's like punting to another team. Well, and that was the biggest reason I ended up taking the Chiefs in million-dollar picks was just the thought of going against Kelsey and Hill. And I think those guys together are moving into this next piece of turf historically where we're just going to remember these two together, that betting against them is a nightmare. It seems like Hill can get open on every play. It seems like Kelsey is open on every play.

Like one of the Fandle props I want to do on Thursday, just because I think every playoff game, it's a lock is Kelsey over a hundred yards. Chiefs win. It's always like two to one or whatever. It's like, all right, wait, how is Kelsey not getting a hundred yards? If you like gets hurt? Well, yeah, you're win. It's always like two to one or whatever. It's like, all right, wait,

how is Kelsey not getting 100 yards if he like gets hurt? Well, yeah, you're right. And that's the only scenario. The other Kelsey prop I saw like early in the week, like over under seven and a half receptions. My God, that's a monster number. Seven and a half receptions.

Kid in the first half. He had seven with, he had eight with six minutes left in the half and ended up with 13. It's phenomenal. Yeah, they took down all the props because Mahomes was out. I mean, the Kelsey thing, I was looking up tight ends. I was so bored in the second half.

So he basically sat out his first season. Next seven, 7,800 yards, 48 touchdowns. Then the playoffs, this was his 11th game. He's close to 900 yards, nine touchdowns. I think he's had five straight 1,000-yard seasons. And you think like, oh, he's one of the best ever.

And the reality is he is the best catching tight end ever. I still think Gronk is the best. You want Gronk as a... Yeah. I think the blocking set Gronk apart.

I don't think Kelsey can block like that. But Gronk's at, for his career, like 8,500 yards, regular season, 86 TDs played longer than Kelsey did playoff games. He had 12 TDs.

The numbers aren't as good. Gonzalez had 4,000 yard seasons. Uh, Shannon sharp had three. Kelsey's going to like obliterate all these. If he stays healthy, he will be the most productive tight end of all time by far. Oh,

well, first of all, he was going to break the, he was going to have the most receiving yards, not just most productive tight end of all time by far. Well, first of all, he was going to break the rules. He was going to have the most receiving yards. Not just for a tight end, for anybody. Up until last week, then he didn't play. So he was on pace for having the most receiving yards for anyone.

With the Gronk discussion, I feel like you want to measure something, but you want to give a win for a buy. Maybe there's, I think they have this now for first downs. I remember Gronk getting mauled more. I remember he was very hard to cover, obviously, but I remember him getting up and pointing at the refs

and then yellow flags flying everywhere. I don't feel that with Kelsey. I don't know why it doesn't happen to him. He just gets open. If you watch him release from, watch a game where you're just watching him because he's going to probably get it most of the time anyway if Malms is dropping back to pass.

It's fascinating how the little nothing movie does eight yards downfield to get open. And Mahomes, no one's more in sync with the tight end than Mahomes is with him. It's awesome. I remember when the Patriots had Ben Coates in the mid-90s and him and Bledsoe just had a rhythm one year, like 94, 95. And it was just like every third down, we're thrown to Ben Coates and he was always somehow open and catching it and getting hit by four guys. But Mahomes and Kelsey have that to a whole other level because it always seems like Kelsey has more space. And I think it's because they have all this speed on

the sides. So it's almost like basketball. They create space for him. I still feel like Gronk was officiated like he was Shaq. He was so big and so strong. He would just get mauled. Remember that he would always get called for offensive PI, stuff like that. Kelsey seems more normal. I think he's more acceptable to refs. Gronk was like, oh man, what do we do? We got to even it out for the other

team. Teej, another touchdown. Ben Wintercoats. Where's Teej? Where are all those guys? What are they doing? Yeah, but this Kelsey Hill combo. Hill almost, he pretty much almost got caught from behind. Now, it was hard because he was kind of, he slowed down

a tiny bit because he was figuring out on that 71-yard thing. And some guy almost caught him from behind. That was like the most exciting moment of the game, that somebody caught Tyrico from behind. Yeah, it was good. And don't forget, he dropped the pass early. That would have put them, you know, they would have had the lead there.

But you get a bonus thing, like Hardman running, has a rush for 50 yards. I know he fumbled a punt too, but a 50-yard rush for Hardman. Darrell Williams had 52 on the ground. Like, that is all just gravy. Are you kidding me? There's no stopping this offense if that's going to happen. I was watching one of the pregame shows today,

and they were talking about how Watkins wasn't going to play. He was hurt. And somebody was like, and that's going to really hurt this Chiefs team. And I'm like, no, it's not. Yeah. Do they still have Hill and Kelsey? They're fine. Just put the next fucking, put Ben Pringle. They're fine.

The guy misses every other game. What are they talking about? Yeah. It is good, though, that you lost that bet a little bit, right? How unbearable would you have been if you had that Tampa? What was it, 27-1 odds? Do you want to talk about this now? I don't know.

We've run out of games. No, let's take a break. I want to talk about the hedging I don't know. We've run out of games. No, let's take a break. I want to talk about the hedging thing of this because it ties into your book. Take back your free time with PC Express Online Grocery Delivery and Pickup. Score in-store promos, PC Optimum points,

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They're all on Prime. Prime Monday Night Hockey. It's on Monday. It's on Prime. All right. So I had this Bucks-Bills Super Bowl bet. It was 25-1. It wasn't 27-1. It was 27-1 when we talked about it on a pod, but it got it in at 25-1. So now I'm alive with it. And I'm heading into Sunday and I'm thinking,

and I'm million-dollar picks. I took the Bucks and the Chiefs. And in my head, I'm like, I think the Bucks are going to win or come close. And I think the Chiefs are going to win. How do I hedge this? And I'm thinking about the Packers and then all everybody else likes the Packers. Then you tell me the whole thing today about how this money came in on the Bucks. My head's spinning.

So I decide to take. So out of all the potential winnings I would have had for this bet, I decide to risk one third of it on a six and a half point tease Packers to plus three and a half chiefs to plus three and a half. The thinking being if the Packers win, I lose the bet anyway. And now I've covered it. Now I had the chiefs who I felt much better about than the Packers bucks. Right. Um, there's a chance I can middle it. If the bucks went by one, two, or 3 I win both bets and I really honestly felt

in my heart that it was going to be a one score game and it was going to come down in the last couple minutes so I'm like this is the right move this is what I'm going to do, I play it perfectly and the Bucs win by 5 and I lose that tease so now I've lost 1 third of my potential Bucs bills thing and now I have the

Chiefs, the odds are climbing for them. Now they're at minus one 60. So I ended up risking basically everything else I could win on the bills bucks bet. I do in a huge money line chiefs thing. And it all played out where I ended up winning probably one eighth of what I should have won when, when you add up all the bets and all the losses, stuff like that. And what I should have done is just bet on the bucks and the chiefs and taking that bet and just said, well,

fuck it. That's over there. That's the, that already happened. It's, it's just this in this alternate universe, just play this like you would every week. Anyway,

it's frustrating. It's just, I get paralyzed by these hedging situations. Well, because you want to hit both, right? You got that middle. That's great if they lose by a field goal. The middle is what gets us every time. But on the other hand, if you had just gone Packers straight up,

you would have had to lay $1.80 to win $1. So you did better there, right? You would have had to lay almost 2-1 odds to recoup money on the Packers, which would have lost anyway. I really did like the Bucs. The move should have been, I should have done nothing. I should have,

my Bucs-Bills bet should have been the Bucs bet. I should have rooted for the Bucs to win. And then if they won, just gone against it with the Chiefs, so I liked more anyway. Do nothing to the second game. So then if they won, just gone against it with the Chiefs. So I liked more anyway. Do nothing to the second game. Right, yeah. So then the other thing I was going to do was I was going to bet in the second game,

I was going to do the same six and a half point tease with the Chiefs and the over. Because I really liked that too. Of course, I didn't do that either. I would have been so much better off if I just didn't have this bet. All the bets I wanted to do, which I did on million dollar picks,

I didn't do in real life because I had this other stupid long shot bet. And I just hate these future bets. I hate them. Yeah, that's true. Well, I was in my book. I lay it out. I don't, I don't make a compelling case because you and I are terrible at hedging, but I say there should be factors, right? It's different. It's like you should, first of all, don't even think about hedging unless you stand to gain like more than two to one odds or three to one odds. Right. It's stupid if you're nickel and diming trying to get a middle on like a plus 140 or something. Secondly, how well are you doing in life? Are you doing OK? You probably don't need to hedge. The guy who finds this ticket, 25 to one homeless guy should probably, you know, sell it and go to Vegas.

Okay. Um, third is like, how do you do luck wise with this stuff? You typically lose if you don't hedge. Well then hedge. Yeah. And fourth is, are you superstitious? If it's your team, you know, um, we had that one guy who had stood to win a hundred thousand dollars on the st louis blues a couple years ago and he he was offered about 60 grand for the 250 ticket and he didn't take it because he was a blues fan he's like everything i've done it's you know i've done it right i feel like i'm gonna screw up the mojo and even though it made complete sense he didn't do it so there's a bunch of factors involved well i remember one my, I've had some bad hedging things and you covered some of your bad hedges in your book. When I had the super contest in 2010,

when I had a chance to finish like in the top six or seven and it came down to the Sunday night game and it was Seahawks, I think against the Rams. And it was Charlie Whitehurst was the quarterback for, I think, I blocked most of this out of my mind. I should have hedged and made a bet in real life to cover. So basically I was covered either way. I didn't.

And then I went down in flames with Charlie Whitehurst. The classic one, because it also involved the future of the country, was when we had the Pats to win the AFC East with Hillary Clinton in 2016. And Trump was like five to one two days before. And we were like, should we hedge this? The Pats had already clinched the AFC East. And we're like, nah, we can't put money on Trump. And then he came back and won. And that was not a small bet. I don't know. Did I tell you I had Trump to not last the first term? And it's the most tumultuous bet I've ever had. It was even odds

2017, February. I was like, all right, he's in office. He's going to do something crazy. There's this Russia thing. I don't want to get too political, but there's Russia, it's collusion. Everybody hates him. He can't shut his mouth. He's going to go to war, whatever. You know, I could have won that bet 11 times. But I wrote it off as a loss until, like, he lost the election. I'm like, oh, he could lose his mind again, get impeached. It was such, I'll never have a roller coaster bet like that again in my life. But another loser. I don't think we'll ever see a president get impeached.

Because if it didn't happen in the last four years, it's never going to happen, right? Well, he was impeached twice. You mean kicked out? No, I mean like to actually leave the office. Because Nixon resigned. Nixon technically never had to leave. He could have just tried to fight it and take on everybody forever.

Yeah, if it didn't happen this time, it's very, very difficult to pull off. Yeah, for sure. But Tampa Bay, Kansas City preseason on FanDuel was 29 to one. Really? That matchup. Yeah.

If you just went Brady Mahomes, which seems so not so easy, but definitely a top five choice there. 29 to one. Well, I'm sure we'll be talking about the Superbowl for the next two weeks. I think one good thing. Yeah.

What else are we going to do? I think one good thing if I'm Tampa is at least my defense can do some stuff. I don't think you can beat the chiefs without like some, a ball, ball hawking, secondary guys who can pressure the quarterback, all that stuff. The bills didn't have anything today and look how it turned out for them.

So they have that piece. They can make big plays, which is good. They can run the ball. Playoff landing was okay today. Missed a couple blocks. Dropped a couple passes. Moved the chains. But I think they're a worthy opponent. I don't think they're not going to get killed.

Well, study the last Super Bowl, right? I mean, I don't know. You're going to say you're going to chalk up that slow start to nerves for the Chiefs, but the 49ers played them great. They're up with 10 minutes left. They're winning the game, right? And Brady's better than Garoppolo

and all this other stuff. So it could be done. Can I just quickly go through some of the text I was getting during the first half of that Bucs game? People just flipping out about how the Pats didn't have Brady anymore.

Including people who weren't even Pats fans in my life. Like Brian Koppelman's like, I can't believe you guys let Brady go. It was like when Jerry Kraus got rid of Jordan. I'm like, no, there's more that went into this. But, you know, I think it's important for people to remember

Brady also wanted to go. The team wasn't good. He wants to keep winning Super Bowls. It wasn't going to happen with this team the Patriots had this year, as you saw all year. I think the mistake was he should have finished his career with them. They should have just given him a giant contract four years ago and never got to the point where if the team wasn't good enough

and he didn't feel like him and Belichick were cooking, that he could leave. That's the whole point of like taking care of somebody for the whole career. But there was something about him. They didn't want to do that. Belichick just didn't want to commit giant money to him. And so I don't know. Listen, buddy, whatever you need to tell yourself, because this is very, very tough to get through. This is your girlfriend is dating, I don't know, Cristiano Ronaldo. What is this? The equivalent of your quarterback, your lifeline, going to the Super Bowl with another team.

She's dating The Bachelor. I'm not sure what this would be like. But here's the part where you can forget. I can still bet on him. Yeah, I know. He's still my quarterback for those three hours. Like, I can't bet on my wife to have sex with her new boyfriend. Yes, you can.

You can't? Can I? I probably could, actually. All right. Fair enough. Maybe I could bet on that. But yeah, I was rooting for him today like he was in the Patriots. I got you.

But then you win your money and you're going to see him hoist that Lombardi trophy and you're like, oh, what just happened now? I'm at peace with it. I think it... I was in so many Brady arguments over the years with him versus Manning and he's the best, all that stuff. So

if he got his seventh, we got to root for him for 20 years. Okay. I don't know. Wow. I thought you'd be a little more upset. I thought each level, we got to root for him for 20 years. Okay. I don't know. Wow. I thought you'd be a little more upset. I thought each level, it gets to be a different kind of hard punch. I got a little choked up when he hugged his son.

Did you? Yeah. I thought it was a nice moment. His son's 27. He is, right. Yeah. His son came down. His son is working for the Bucs.

He's in player personnel. But he came down. He hugged him. I thought that was for the Bucs. He's in player personnel. But he came down, he hugged him. I thought that was a nice moment, though. For sure. All right, we're going to take a break and talk about your book. This episode is brought to you by Coca-Cola Creations. You love the taste of Coca-Cola

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Copyright 2024. Mondelez International Group. All right, so your new book is coming out on Tuesday. I know there's going to be a massive press tour. Yeah. Ellen, is Ellen happening? Ellen's going to have me. She's going to scare me. And yeah, and then I'm going to leave. I'm going to show the book. I'm going to leave. Now I'm on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I'm doing a bunch of radio and a bunch of podcasts. I do like a tour Tuesday from 5 a.m. to 8 a.m. And then I'm on Kimmel and Corolla, I think.

And yeah, a few others. I don't know. I'd be interested to know, for people who have been listening to us on this podcast since 2007, how many of the stories they vaguely remember over the last 13 years? It's got to be like 40%. Yeah, I know. I feel bad and I feel bad even. Why do you feel bad? I think it's great. I'm just, I'm saying the root for the diehards who know all this stuff. It's really fun to see in a book. I think it's a good thing. I should have given them a discount on the book or like a Superbowl futures ticket in there or something, but no, no, it's very exciting.

And a New York post is doing something on it. You can't lose them all. It's on Barnes and Noble. And, you know, it's funny. I was thinking about it as we, we consider, um, Superbowl props. We've had some great stories and we'll talk about the, the, the greatest, what is the, uh, Gary Russell, uh, touch that we'll do that later as, as we come up on the, on the game. But, um, yeah, we've just done some really dumb.

I talk about in the book, Pete Townsend to smash his guitar during the Super Bowl, the Who was performing at halftime. It's even odds that he smashes his guitar. I'm like, oh my God, that's easy. He goes to a shitty pub in Birmingham and smashes his guitar for no reason. It's the biggest stage in the world. And not only didn't he do it, he put it down so daintily,

like a beanie baby where you don't want to bend the tag because it's going to screw with the net value of it. I was so mad. I just never bet on Pete Townsend. That's in the book, too. You were the first guy I remember betting on Gatorade. Yeah, right.

The Gatorade colors. Who was the guy, who was the Giants fullback you bet on that year? I think I joined you. Henry Hanowski. Yeah. What was that bet? Henry Hanowski, like over three and a half yards. We always pick an obscure player, right, to go over.

You had that, it was like, you guys, the Patriots are like a Samoan tight end. We had him one year, started with an H, I think. Michael something. Yeah, yeah. Humana Nune year, started with an H, I think. Michael something. Yeah, yeah. Humana Nune. Yeah, right, right. We had him. We had, who was the other one?

Shit, I can't remember. On the Panthers, it was a good one, too. Yeah, we always pick an obscure one. We're going to get to that. But yeah, we did Gatorade for a while. And then Daniel Bette, our friend Daniel Bette, blew Gatorade. And it was so obviously green.

It was like the Seahawks won and it was green Gatorade. And then for weeks, he's sending me articles about how there was a blue tinge in the Gatorade. I was like, all right, we can't do this anymore. You're just being a pain in the ass. So that was that. Well, for you and me, I think this is our 20th Super Bowl. Is it really? Yeah, because our first one, the Kimmel Show had started.

Our first show was after the Super Bowl. It was Bucks Raiders. It was Bucks Raiders. And you and I, our job that day, we drove back from San Diego that day because we had some MTV thing. No, no, Jimmy did the pregame show for the Super Bowl. Yeah. But there was also he was producing some MTV special

and all that stuff. We get back. All the Hollywood boulevards shut off because Coldplay is the first guest. All of a sudden, it feels real. And everybody scrambled to do the show. And our job was to watch the Super Bowl and give Jimmy some thoughts

about the game. And I'm thinking like, this is the greatest job ever. I would have watched this game anyway. This is awesome. And you and I were in somebody's, I think Daniel's office. Yeah, I think so. And Coldplay was rehearsing and we're trying to watch Bucks Raiders. Yeah. And I think we cleaned up on that game though. I remember us doing really well in that game. We had the over, there was so many points. Like we used to bracket off the points, right? So 53 to 59 was like, you know, eight to one and 60 to 66 was 13. And we're like, we nailed all of those. It was a ton of scoring in that, in that game. Now, 20 years later, it's a Superbowl with how many fans are they going to have at this thing? Was it 10? Is it more than 10? I don't even know what they said.

It's a Super Bowl with 10,000 fans. Nobody allowed to go to strip joints? Are strip joints open in Florida? I think they... I mean, the fact that they're getting everybody... Oh, nobody... Fans aren't allowed. Oh, I don't know. Interesting.

Yeah, they lose a lot of money off this. No parties? No parties. CBS has got the game. CBS traded with NBC. NBC was supposed to got the game. CBS traded with NBC. NBC was supposed to get the game. CBS has it. So you got Romo. Is that true? Yeah. They had the 21 and 22.

I don't know why they traded, but they did. So it's Romo Nance, but it's a fun one. I'm excited. Which CBS show were you more excited about? The promos Clarice or the equalizer with Queen Latifah? If you have to pick, if you have to sign up for one.

You got to go with the Queen, right? The Queen every time. I asked my dad if he was excited for it and he just flat out, the answer is yes. He's always loved The Equalizer. He loves CBS. It's really like his two worlds colliding. CBS knows what they're doing. Yeah.

For sure. They had the ticking clock for so Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, enough with the, they had the ticking clock for so many years with 60 minutes and like, we can really make something of this 30 seconds. Yeah. All right. Anything else about the Super Bowl? I don't know.

Not right now. All right. Now it's time for Parent Corner brought to you by CarMax. Don't just buy your next car. Love your next car with the CarMax Love Your Car Guarantee. Our friends at CarMax know that buying a car, it's a big deal. With their new Love Your Car Guarantee, you can take your time to make sure it's the right car for you, starting with

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I don't know how we do this. I'm going to jump the line for the vaccine or something, but these kids are driving me nuts. And, uh, especially the little one Harris. So he lost a tooth for the first time in like six months. Now, the first time he lost a tooth, I gave him $20, right? I had all these $2 bills. Um, and, uh, I went to the bank, got $2 bills, gave him 10, $2 bills. And he, he was wise enough to add it up. And he saw it was $20. Well, the six months have gone by. I've now spent all the $2 bills. I give him out his tip. I don't know what I do. Um, but they're gone. And now, uh, he loses another tooth and I'm caught off guard because it happens like at six at night.

Right. So it's basically, you got to look around the house and find whatever cash you have so i have two fives i'm like all right that's fine and um i'm in bed and uh i forget about it there happened to be a commercial come on uh talk a little kid talking to his father in bed i'm like shit i forgot to replace the tooth with the with the money so i go in there it's in a bag i reach under reach under. I get it. I exchange it for two fives. And he wakes up. The little son of a bitch comes in the room and is like, Tooth Fairy only left me $10. And so now I'm blowing it up. Now I'm like, you know what? I'm arguing in the Tooth Fairy's defense so that even a seven-year-old can tell that I'm now the Tooth Fairy. I'm so mad. Why would I ever be so upset on anyone's behalf if it wasn't me?

And like, and it hits her and he's like, oh, it was you. And I was like, no, no, no. I was like, this is a fairy. This is not Santa Claus. This is a fairy. He doesn't have to be. You already ruined off on the show for him. Oh, forget it.

I know. Right. I kept that sacred. It's like you, $10 is a lot of money. What do you think? You really think $20 a tooth? You think your mouth is worth $640? Get away from me. I was so mad for, uh, for like four days. So now, now I'm going to bump this back down to $2. You watch Harris. So $2 a tooth and you can blame the fairy. Jesus Harris. So just disappointing Jesus, Harissa. Just disappointing news. Yeah, it really is. So,

my son really loves his PS5. Mm-hmm. Because there's a pandemic and he can't hang out with his friends. He was, he took, just like the second or third time it's happened where he brought it to somebody's house and didn't,

basically threw it in a knapsack but didn't take care of it. Oh, no. The last time it happens, all of a sudden it doesn't work anymore because something happened to the HDMI port thing and it's not working. And he's the most, he's reacting like, you know, like we just had a nuclear war and, and, and America's figuring out how to move on after the apocalypse. Right.

And we're like, look, you didn't take care of it. We don't care. And he's so upset and angry. He's got the deep voice now, which is like, when they hit 13 and they get angry, but they don't have the little kid voice, now it's like, it's like Buffalo Bill. So he Googles it. He figures out what's wrong with it and we find this place in la somehow my wife feels bad helps him takes it to get it

fixed and it's 180 dollars and we're refusing to pay for it he's got to come up with it himself so he basically has he has this little account that has all his birthday money and Christmas money and all that stuff that he kind of saves for different games and stuff. Uses all the $180 to pay for this PS5 thing that he broke because he's a dumbass because he's putting in a knapsack instead of like packing it. So gets it fixed. And now, so he's like, I'm going to need something next time this happens. So my wife goes in the attic and finds this metal suitcase

that it was like some HBO premiere, some poker show or something. And it looks like the Money in the Bank suitcase. And when he was little, he actually used it as the fake Money in the Bank suitcase. But it fits in, the PS5 fits into it. So now he's carrying around this metal suitcase with the PS five in it. The next time he has to go anywhere with the PS five and he looks like he's like ready for a money in the bank match. And my point is my son's almost 13 and a half. He's got a PS five case. He's got

a PS five. And the other thing he told me was that he's now back into five case. He's got a PS five. And the other thing he told me was that he's now back into wrestling again. He's excited for the Royal rumble. He's ready to have a pool. He's been following NXT. We went from wrestling's fake. I'm out. I don't care anymore to somehow he got sucked back in.

So my second point is I really need school in life to come back. Cause my son is now the PS five getting broken is the biggest crisis of the year. He's watching wrestling again. I just need social interaction to return. I don't know when that's happening, but anytime that would be great. I agree. And these kids need to get jobs too so they know how much teeth are worth and everything else like that.

Yeah, we need to get outside. I thought you were going to say that. He's like, hey, screw you. I saved the house from burning down. Our house is worth literally hundreds of thousands of dollars. You could fit the bill for this $180 that I screwed up. It would have been a fair point. It would have been a fair point.

I need to be his lawyer. I need to step up for him. Yeah, my daughter's upset about that, too. Oh, and then my daughter went to get her driver's license permit. They drove all the way there and she forgot the piece of paper. So we're now 0 for 2. Oh, no. Driver's license permits.

Oh, no. Yeah. Followed by another mom-daughter fight. So yeah, it was an action-packed week in the Simmons house. Yeah. All right. That was Parent Corner brought to you by CarMax. Don't just buy your next car.

Love your next car with CarMax. Love your car guarantee. Check them out today at CarMax. Don't just buy your next car. Love your next car with the CarMax. Love your car guarantee. Check them out today at CarMax.com. Hey, Sal, before we go, I'd be remiss if I didn't bring up the regular season MVP odds for NBA. Oh, yeah.

Let's see. I won Fox Bet Live, so I get a free futures bet here. I have Luca. I gave you Le. So I have Luca, right? I gave you LeBron like two weeks ago, right? Yeah. He was 13 to one or something like that. Now he's down to eight to one.

Embiid at plus 650, I think are the best odds right now. Really? Embiid playing great. He's in shape finally can play all four quarters he's got the eye of the tiger and I think the MVP odds are skewed this year

because it's really going to come down to who just was able to play the closest to 72 games is he just going to get hurt though I hate these sixers well that's the thing he could get hurt whatever the odds are a little lower than I wanted, but if I had to pick right now, my top three would be

LeBron at one, Embiid 1B, and then Jokic, I think, is still lingering. He's 8-1. Luka's not even in the conversation anymore? No, because I think Dallas is kind of a mess. Oh, shit. Well, that's where I have my money.

All right. So, LeBron and Embiid, I got to figure out. Dallas got murdered by COVID stuff and injuries, stuff like that. Like, their record right now, they're 8-8. Yeah. So, you know, and it's a shorter season. So, instead of being at the 16-game mark, we're really kind of, like, technically at the 26-game mark. So, what's a better bet?

Lakers to win it all or LeBron MVP? I know the odds are much different. I think Embiid to win the MVP is the best bet. They have the best record in the East. He's the best player in the East. And I think it's a good bet. Just telling you. Alright, I gotta look at that. He certainly has the talent.

It's not, it's from a talent standpoint, it's not far fetched. We've always known he's had the talent. And then, Rookie of the Year on your Against All Odds podcast

before the year, I gave you Halliburton and he was like 27 to 1. He's back down now. He's 350 now. Plus 350. Yeah. I think it's,

I think it's, it's him and it's Lomelo and I don't think anyone else him and it's Lomelo and I don't think anyone else is in it Lomelo's just getting all the highlights my buddies are all very excited for him but he gets all the but just not playing as much right

they need to play him more and he actually hasn't been playing that well the last week or so Halliburton is probably playing the most meaningful minutes and he's actually won some games. And I could see that one happening. Then most improved. This one I was stunned by.

Well, we talked about it. I sent you Christian Wood a couple weeks ago. How is there a minus already for most improved? Yeah, but that's the whole thing. Colin Sexton is still 36-1. I think he's been incredible. He beat the Nets by himself the other night. I thought he was going to be like 2-1.

So I don't get that at all. So I'm marking that one down. Are you done with Randall? People love Julius Randall at the same odds, but you don't think that holds up? I like that one too, actually. But I just think Randall was kind of in the vicinity

of, he was at least like a 17 and eight guy, you know, like Sexton's become the best guy in a team that everybody thought was going to be the worst

team in the East. And they're a 500 team that occasionally beats other teams. Gotcha. You're betting you're going against your boy, Jalen Brown,

right though? That's a, he's, I mean, there's a few guys ahead of him here. I don't, Jalen was really good last year. You know, against your boy Jalen Brown, right? I mean, there's a few guys ahead of him here. Jalen was really good last year. He's even better this year, but I don't buy that

when it's like somebody was an A-minus and now they're an A and we give them most improved. Sixth man of the year, Clarkson at plus 195. I'm amazed he's not a minus because Utah's been really good and Clarkson's been really good. And then defensive player of the year, I have no idea. It's too early.

There you go. Giannis won it last year. People are really down on the lack of effort on the other end of the floor. He's plus 750 at this point. I just think Giannis is the same as he was the last two years, and people

are disappointed. What did you have? You had finals, Eastern or West or whatever? What did you need? Like a future bet? I could take any of these that you just mentioned, but I already have Luka to win MVP, so am I going to water it down with Joel? I mean, if Luka is not going to win, I just need to walk away

from that. So I could take Embiid, or I mean, if Luka's not going to win, I just need to walk away from that. So I could take Embiid or I could, you know, who are we kidding? The Lakers look great when they. Well, why wouldn't you take Embiid? Then you have Embiid and Luka. Well, because you also like LeBron and Djokic. I don't know. I guess I could take Embiid.

I just hate that he has to stay healthy. That's fair. Well, the way this season is going, I mean, it might be freaking stopped. Yeah, that's true. All right, Sal, before you do the rest of the stuff you have to plug, your new book,

You Can't Lose Them All, available on Tuesday. You can get it wherever. If you order it on Amazon Prime, it could show up in 24 hours if you want to do it that way. I'll deliver it to you people. What the hell am I doing?

I'm just paying money for teeth. Well, I'm proud of you because you really ground this out. You moved the chains with this book. What did you rate? Like 700 words a day? Thanks, buddy. Yeah, I try to keep it. And you know, I didn't realize it was,

you look at it, you hate what it looks like. You rewrite it and you rewrite it and you rewrite it. But you and Babydoll, and you didn't even have 10% to gain out of this, but you guys inspired me to do it. So I appreciate it. Well, Babydoll, if it does well, you know he's going to take most of the credit for it.

Baby, listen, you got to do the audio. I told Sal. Do it. Do the audio version. I'll get you 500 bucks. It'll take you like 16 hours. You could do it, baby. Sal didn't want to do it.

I told Sal, look, I told Oprah to write a book. She did. We were legitimately upset with him for trying to skip the line to get a vaccine. He's like, well, I'm in a high risk. Yeah, you're high risk because you smoked seven packs a day for 30 years. How is that fair?

Also, he doesn't see anybody. Why does he need the vaccine? He's been hiding from everybody for 11 months. Yeah, he golfs with his wife. That's it. Is that his only interaction? I think so, yeah. Unless you count another lung dart an interaction.

But no, I think that's it. That's been another weird thing about the last few weeks is these people who claim to have inside scoops on vaccine being available. And then it turns out it's not. Concierge services and stuff. And yeah. Friend of mine who knows a guy who went down and at four o'clock they ran out, but they didn't. And then he just got the vaccine.

Yeah. It's a lot of that going around these days. Well, I hear that they're throwing some out out here. And so that they're calling people who live like five minutes away to come down quickly, which that sucks if we read at the end of January that 15,000 needles were thrown out or whatever. But yeah, let's just get this going already. Come on. Yeah.

I'm really ready for real life to come back. All right. What else do you have to book? That's really it. Oh, against all odds, Tuesday, we'll be going over some props, extra points with me, Dave, and Charlotte, and Kendrick Perkins and Gina Paradiso, the betting academy. He swears a lot, that Kendrick Perkins.

I like it. Oh, yeah. Who's your biggest swearer on The Ringer? Probably me. Is it me? Yeah, you and me. I think it's the two of us. Maybe House. He's good for an hour? Yeah, you and me. I think it's the two of us. Maybe House.

He's good for an F. Yeah, House is good. House talks about lotion, so it's not really a swear word. That's true. He works blue. Perkins is good for an F-bomb every three minutes. Congrats on the book. Good job by you.

Thanks, buddy. Good job by you. At Pennzoil, we have one job. Pioneering a motor oil so advanced, you don't have to think about your motor oil. Instead, you can think about how your engine sounds, how your stomach feels as the RPMs build, how your wheels hug the curves,

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love from Starbucks, the new pecan crunch oat latte and new baked apple croissant, and enjoyed that warm apple filling and those nutty flavors with rich brown buttery notes while the sun rose just for you. That's the feeling of fall. And it's only at Starbucks. All right. As promised, this is a piece of the Ringer NBA show from Friday. Me and my friend, Chris Ryan, he hosts a show on Fridays there called The Answer. I popped on, we talked about obsessions, and here is that segment. All right. Now I'm joined by Bill Simmons. Bill, how is Book of Basketball 3.0, the Peyton Pritchard pyramid going. Is that your project?

Are you working on that? Yeah, it's more, it's comparing him to the Aaron Neesmith pair and just my gamut of emotions with that draft. I think the most New England thing in my life right now is the thread between you and Russolo about Neesmith and Pritchard and the various Celtics. Is Pritchard become one of your obsessions for this season? Well, it's interesting. They don't really need him. And

they kind of can't keep him off the court. But they paid for, you know, Jeff Teague. They have Smart. Kemba's back. The last thing they need is another point guard. What they really need is a wing. And they've had all these picks over the last two years to just find anybody who can play 20 minutes a game instead of

Tatum and Brown. Somehow couldn't solve that, but then landed Pritchard. So maybe the answer is to just play smaller lineups and more guards. A little like what Charlotte does when they play Graham and Rozier and Lamello all at the same time. They're like, fuck it. Yeah. I wonder whether or not that's like, everybody kind of saw Billy Donovan do that. I mean, obviously there've been three guard lineups before, but I do feel like people saw the SGA CP3 Dennis lineup and were like, this is fun. Let's just let this rock. Right.

And that might be the answer because you saw in the Philly game, especially without Tatum, like they just don't have anybody else to play those minutes. And we're in year 17 of semi-ocial. They don't have that other swing. Meanwhile, you have like a million swings and weird dudes on your team. But that's what one of my obsessions is your team, by the way,

but I'm stuck behind your setup. No, I wanted to hear about this because I feel like you're a very sobering force in my life when it comes to Sixers, both for better and for worse. How are you obsessed with the Sixers? I really like Ben Simmons and I just can't believe we have no momentum at all. I voted for him, I think for a second or third team all NBA last year, maybe third team. And I voted for him, I think second defensive player of the year. And he finds a way to fill the stat sheet though. You watch Sixers games and you're like, I don't, I can't think of three things he's done this entire game. And we're in the third quarter and then they'll show the stat sheet and it'll be like, Ben Simmons, eight points, nine rebounds, seven assists. And you're like, oh,

okay. He gets all his points basically off defense and offensive rebounds and tip-ins and nothing organic. And then when it slows down and it's a half-court offense, he just kind of floats around like somebody who doesn't know where to go. And I really wish he had been in the Harden trade. I just think it would have been more fun if you had Harden. He had his own team in Houston. And Brooklyn was just the two guys

instead of the three. The Simmons thing is starting to get a little weird. The one thing that jumped out at me is since the trade rumors, like there have been two games that he's... I think he... Did he foul out against the Celtics? He definitely had like five fouls

in like the late third quarter. Well, they had to call more fouls on the Sixers to make up for the 120 to 20 free throw advantage. Not that you were counting. I think he was the fall guy for that. Right, that was just... I didn't realize Joel Embiid was the best player of all time and couldn't be touched.

What a revelation. You can't touch him anymore. I'm going to get to that, but Simmons fouled that Miami game, and there is a degree to which now when I'm watching him in half court, it's feeling knoblockian. It's feeling a little like Yipsian. He is not

going to the hoop with confidence anymore, and I don't know whether it's because he really doesn't trust his free throw. Here's my thing. It's like Doc is doing all the right things. Like whenever anybody asks him about the shot, he's just like, I don't care. I don't care. He makes a huge impact on the game.

I'm wondering whether or not Doc should just flip that and just be like, I do care. Because I don't know if I don't care is working. I mean, you're a parent. You know that some kids need this and some kids need that. I'm not so sure that like pretending like this isn't a problem is helping Ben Simmons.

First of all, thanks for mentioning that I'm a parent because it's a key part of my arsenal. I don't say the words, I don't care about things my kids are bad at. Like my daughter failed her driver's license test. Guess what? I cared. I didn't do the Doc Rivers. I don't care. She'll driver's license test. Guess what? I cared. I didn't do the Doc Rivers.

I don't care. She'll get a license someday. It's like, we got Uber. Yeah. You failed your test. We've got to fix this. Yeah, I'm with you. I think we're well past the I don't care thing

because it's not cute anymore. You know, you look at his draft. Ingram has emerged as, you know, an elite offensive player. Jalen Brown, who, you know, an elite offensive player, Jalen Brown, who, you know, and granted I'm wrong a bunch of times, but when it came down to, do you want to trade Jalen Brown for a year of Kawhi? And I was a voice crying in the wilderness saying, no, I don't, I don't think that's worth it. I think Jalen Brown has a chance to be special.

He said every check mark that Paul George had his first first couple years, I don't want to give this guy up. Now he is what he is. But my point is, both of those guys got better. And Ben's in the same spot he was, you know, two years ago offensively. And I think that's a concern. I still think when he has the ball in his hands and there's an in transition,

he's one of the best players in the league. I just think that the more that people, the more that people figure out that half-court part of his game, and I don't really understand. I think the Sixers are more efficient this year. They've obviously got shooting, and I think Harris is having a bounce-back year. The thing that I'm obsessed with is the way

that a lot of Sixers' half-court possessions end, which is Embiid at the top of the key. Embiid at the top of the key, staring down a three-pointer, and the lack of enthusiasm both he and everybody involved in the game seems to have for that being the end point of a possession.

If you were me, would you be satisfied with the amount of threes Embiid is taking and with the way that so many Sixers possessions end with just Embiid standing at the top of the three with nobody around him? I wouldn't be happy with it.

I can tell you, having rooted against him this week, it just feels like he's unstoppable. I think the difference with him now, he could always play a good quarter and a half. A couple years ago in the playoff series, I remember one of those games, he took over the game in the second quarter, and I was there. And we're just looking at each other during one of the timeouts, like, oh my God, what do we do? Like, we're not going to, we can't stop this guy. But then he would get tired. Last year he would do it for, he really always, always had a good quarter and a half in him. And that's it. He couldn't play four quarters. Now it feels like he could play four quarters. And I thought that was a really important game for him. The fact that he took that many free throws. Now granted, some of the calls were iffy, but he didn't, I don't feel like he wore

down as that game went along. That was the first time I've ever rooted against him where he didn't wear down. And if he's not going to wear down, maybe you don't need Simmons as much, you know? And maybe I still feel like Simmons and Bradley Beal should be in a trade and everybody's happier and Simmons gets his own team. I don't think Wizards fans would be happy about it. When I talked to Sharp last week about this, he was just like, I have to prepare myself for the inevitability that I'm going to be cheering for

Simmons and Westbrook on the same team. And he just seemed miserable about it. But I think that if that deal was out there, it would have been done already. You think? I was amazed. I said this last week when I did my pod, because 24 hours after the trade, the takeaway for me was that Philly didn't get Harden over all the other mechanics of the trade. Just like, wow, they might've missed a

chance to have Simmons and, I mean, I'm sorry, Harden and Embiid on the same team. When Embiid is looking like the guy we've always wanted Embiid to look like, that's going to be an unstoppable combo. And I don't know. I like Maxie. I think he's good. But if it's like Maxie, Tybal, Simmons, and two picks to get Harden, I'm just doing it.

I definitely had like a dark night of the soul on MLK Day watching the Bucks and the Nets and watching Harden and just kind of being like, oh, fuck. Yeah, but then it flipped two days later as you watch Steve Nash trying to murder him by not taking him out in a double overtime game. It's like, hey, James, you're going to lose the weight one way or the other.

You're staying out there. I'm not subbing. So that actually brings me to another thing that I've been obsessed with this year, which is the Sexton sexland. Yeah. I am obsessed with Colin Sexton. Yeah.

And especially Colin Sexton when he's in a broken play. Like, basically, Colin Sexton when, like, the breaks go out and he's got to jump up in midair or he's got to follow up his own missed shot or he's got to, like, he's doing stuff, like, on the fly

and improv that is, like, so magnetic. It's so magnetic to watch. He's so athletic. I'm shocked that the Cavs are an entertaining league pass team. It was not, they would have been, if we did the league pass fantasy draft, they would have been one of the last couple picks. I guess it did start last year with him pre-pandemic. Yeah. Because he started to go on a run and then basketball stopped.

But I thought he jumped out from day one. It's bittersweet. My dad and I were talking about it today. He was the number eight pick. That was the Kyrie trade. I do the Kyrie trade 100 times out of 100. But you do that trade thinking you're going to have Kyrie for eight years, not two. And the fact that there's this all, I mean,

nobody knows about alternate universes with picks more than Sixers fans, but there's this alternate universe where it's like, we just don't make the Kyrie trade. And we, now we have Sexton and Jalen and Tatum all on the same team. Like, what does that look like? He's clearly, you know, the fun thing would be like pitting him against the De'Aaron Fox, some of the other guys of his ilk. Like, who would you rather have? I would have him above Fox now. Cause he's, he's younger. He's still in his rookie contract. I think he plays just as hard as Fox does. And I think he's a little better offensively. You wouldn't have him above Trey, would you?

I personally would. I'm, you know where I stand on Trey. There was a play in the Brooklyn game, I think it was early on, when Durant has this clear line for a dunk. And Sexton not only blocks Durant on this breakaway, but knows he's going to block him for six steps. And he's eyed the angle, and he does this low trajectory shot block

so that Durant never even gets up there. And I think it kind of pissed Durant off. It was kind of, it was kind of awesome. But like, I love it when like a younger player kind of steps up and says, like, I'm not going to be intimidated by the fact that I'm on the court with KD. I remember, um, one of the KD podcasts I did, it was one of the first two, I think, asked him what young players he liked. And he said Booker. Yeah.

And this was, Booker wasn't on anyone's radar yet. And he's like, that guy's got something. He definitely comes at, he came at us in a way that I really respected or whatever he said. And the Sexton thing reminded me of that. Think about Sexton yesterday.

It's basically him versus Harden, Durant, and Kyrie. Yeah. Those were those two overtimes. And he beat them. Now, granted, Harden was about to keel over. He looked like he was

in a reunion pickup game. On defense, the Nets looked like hobbled mailmen playing in like a YMCA Senior League. It was, I mean, and then Durant, anytime his minutes are nearing 50,

you just get nervous. Like he had the worst injury you can have. And they rely on him so much on both sides. But yeah, I mean, Sexton's 27 a game now. This is like Donovan Mitchell stuff. And the thing, again, the thing I really like is just how hard he plays. I think he's just super competitive,

which, you know, that's a really special pick for them. Think about how bad that Kyrie trade was where they get nothing out of Isaiah Thomas. Jay Crowder, they end up flipping after three months. And it's just like, if that pick isn't perfect,

they basically get nothing for this guy who was the first overall pick and the hero of the 2016 finals. And now they got something. So pretty cool trade. Of course, the GM got fired. That's true. What else have you been kind of obsessed with this season?

So this is on Rosillo's corner. I apologize to Rosillo. But I share his fascination in the Pistons for a variety of reasons. Team bet on yourself. Yeah, just the Jeremy Grant, just his whole thing was like, finally, man, somebody gave me the car keys.

And it's like, you're Jeremy Grant? I don't know if your usage rate should be in the 30s. But this is the thing is, you espouse the church of bet on yourself. If you had the Bill Simmons book, it would say bet on yourself and it would be a picture of you putting a chip down on a picture of you. Jeremy Grant's betting on himself. If Tillman Fertitta can write a book about himself, then I can write bet on yourself.

I've been joking about it for years. Yeah, Jeremy Grant is 25 a game. But when you watch him, and they're clearing out for him and stuff, it's honestly not that much different than some of the really good guys that we see, you know, get plays. Cause he's been really, I think he's been really effective. I'm kind of shocked. I always thought he was a little overrated as a defensive guy, but in general, that Pistons team, it's not just him. Isaiah Stewart is like my guilty pleasure rookie of this draft. That was a widely reviled and mocked pick. And it was like, why do you take a center? You can get centers for $2 million. Why would you draft one? And then you watch

that dude and it's like, that dude just plays hard. I wish he was on the Celtics. I like him. I like Sadiq Bae. The Blake Griffin kind of Dirk Degler in the church parking lot pulling it out for $30 stage of his career. It's just, that's like just riveting

where it's like, oh man, Lob City. But in general, I kind of enjoy the Pistons. Give me another one for you. I was going to say, based off of that, this stuff this week from Monday and from Wednesday is chippy Durant. Like when Durant starts to kind of get a little bit annoyed with people, not on

his own team, but he had a couple of plays. I felt like he was kind of digging into Giannis a little bit on Monday. There was one play where Middleton had a breakaway dunk and Durant was kind of like half-assedly following it up. And Giannis was standing in front of Durant and Durant just pushed him over.

And I kind of feel like Durant, Durant just pushed him over. Right. And I kind of feel like Durant this season is a little bit like you guys have spent two years talking about Giannis and Luka and all these guys and now I'm back. And he was actually like

on Wednesday when Sexton followed up that Osman 3 that he missed and Sexton grabbed it in midair and put it back. He turns around and Durant just shoulder checks him. And I was like,

I like this version of Petty Durant. Yeah. I have Anthony Edwards as another one. I don't know what to make of this basketball player. Yesterday, he played 23 minutes. We're taping this on a Thursday.

He played 23 minutes. He was three for 14. He had zero rebounds and zero assists. This is a guy who is, he's, he's like fucking the Terminator. He's from another era. He got sent,

not from the future, from the past. He got sent from 1994. From Ricky Davis University. Yeah. Yeah. He got his Isaiah Ryder master's degree. It's just like,

I'm just shooting. I don't really have any other skills. I'm really athletic. I think he seems like a good guy. He's hilarious. I don't think he's like,

I don't think he's like one of those Sprewell, Isaiah Ryder, like head case guys. But, you know, I judge these guys by would it be fun

to play basketball with this person? He just comes out. It's going up. He doesn't really do anything else. If he's not in the play, he's just standing there. He's got a lightning fast first step. And I don't know what to make of him.

You could give me any scenario with his career and I would believe it. You could tell me he's the next Dwayne Wade. I'd be like, all right. It doesn't seem like it yet, but athletically, I could see it. You could also tell me he's Dion Waiters, and that seems more conceivable. That's a little bit of an overreach, especially given what LaMelo and Wiseman look like now. Him going one seems tough. Honestly, it was tough in the moment. I just felt like Wiseman had to be the first pick.

And if your reasoning is, well, we already have Towns, it's like, well, that's another reason why Wiseman should be the first pick. You have Towns. You've won nothing with Towns. Those two guys are two of my favorite people to watch. Just watching Wiseman kind of figuring it out and then the Lomelo experiment. If you were the Warriors, would you have taken Lomelo over Wiseman at this point? No they, you know, this is why the NBA is the NBA. The weak continue to screw up and the strong continue to have breaks fall in their laps. This was the Celtics Sixers recipe for the first 40 years of the league, right? You take advantage of everybody else's dumb mistakes. I just feel like you can find Edwards every year in the draft. If you think his ceiling's Dwayne Wade, great. But you know what I can't find is Wiseman.

I can't find guys like that. I can't find guys with hands like that, the size that he has and the athleticism. They don't exist. So if you're going to pass on that, it better be somebody who's awesome. I think Charlotte was the one that really lucked out because it should have been Wiseman. I thought Halliburton should have been second. I don't know if they would have the balls to take Halliburton over Edwards. But in general, just that somebody made the decision for them

and they got Lomelo at three was pretty cool. And I also really like Patrick Williams. I think he's just a winning player. He's a guy that can play 40 minutes. He takes seven shots. So if you go like two, three, four, I like all those picks. I'm fine with those.

I thought Halliburton probably should have gone seventh instead of Hayes, but the Edwards one is the one that stands out as like, ugh. Yeah, this has been a surprisingly delightful draft class. And it's been nice because I think it's been kind of a depressing season in some ways with all the COVID stuff.

But to have all these kids come into the league and even like watching Maxie and, you know, like you said, watching Pritchard, delightful draft class. And it's been nice because I think it's been kind of a depressing season in some ways with all the COVID stuff. But to have all these kids come into the league and even like watching Maxie and, you know, like you said, watching Pritchard, it's kind of like fun to watch these dudes

not be... And Bay on the Pistons, Bain on the Grizzlies I think has been good. I like Okoro on the Cavs as at least somebody that could play in crunch time and defend people.

I don't know. There's at least 12 rookies I like. I'm kind of surprised because this was sold to us as a terrible draft. Yeah. This is like a wait till next year. And now it turns out that these guys are actually really fun. Um, another guilty pleasure for me is the Oladipo contract drive. Now that he's on the rockets, the rockets in general are, they're like a seventies basketball movie. It's like, they're basically fish that save

Pittsburgh for 2021. Just everybody's on their own fucking agenda. That was the two things that I love right now are that there's like a subterranean NBA where there's like,

there's all the people going for the championship and then there's all the teams that are kind of like jockeying for position. And then there's like the Rockets and the Wolves. And they kind of remind me

of reading about basketball in the late 90s and early 2000s, where like Ryan Saunders is like, hey, at least we're not cannibals. You know, like at least we're not eating each other after we lose. And you're just like, Jesus, is this what you're like counting on? And Boogie and Wall are trying to be like, you know, William Wallace and Braveheart. And now it's just going to be like three guys putting up 25 shots a night. It's incredible stuff. Well, if you're a Timberwolves fan, you give Wiggins the massive contract extension,

which is mistake number one. Then you compound it by trading Wiggins. You're excited to get rid of him. And you'll be like, here, we'll give you this top three pick, protected. We'll get Russell back. He's friends with Towns. It's like, well, awesome.

Now you're going to be one of the worst teams in the West every year. Why is this a good thing? And then Towns will probably, you know, two years from now want to get out. But you always see that in the NBA where it's the first mistake that leads to the even bigger second mistake.

And the reality is they might have like the fourth pick in the draft and it goes right to the Warriors. And especially with the lottery this year, you're not even, you know, you it's totally random who goes where you can have the worst record in the league and be sixth. God, that's so tough to imagine for that franchise. They deserve so much better.

You have one more obsession for me. Last obsession to me, just the weird Pelicans team that makes no sense with three, three bigger players as your front line and then two guards who can't shoot. And then Stan Van Gundy, who we spent the bubble playoffs with him as an announcer, and I was annoyed by him like a round and a half in. Imagine having him as your coach day in, day out. Such a weird team. Everyone falls all over themselves to just praise David Griffin and Neil O'Shea and Tommy Shepard and all these GMs that are just friends with all the media people.

And it's like, what is this Pelicans team? Are you trying to contend? Are you trying to rebuild? Can Zion and Ingram play together? If Zion and Ingram can play together, why is Adams the center with them? And then you have no spacing because you don't have any guards who can shoot except Redick, who you're barely playing. What is this? It feels very much like a TV show that has

two star young actors who you know are waiting to get off their contracts to go into the movies. And then it's in season six and you're just texting your friends like, am I the only one watching this? Because there's something really friends like, am I the only one watching this? Because there's something really strange happening here. I can't stop watching Pelicans games. They're not actually fun, but they're so interesting because you just are watching like,

oh, who's that guy wandering around aimlessly on the baseline? Oh, that's Zion Williamson. And then there are points where he's had a great week, but you just know that they're not maximizing any one part of the team. Yeah, it just feels like the wrong team for him. Not like forever, but it's not the kind of NBA team I wanted to see him on.

I wanted to see him on a team where it's like there was just a lot of space and the paint and he's shooters and he just has room to cook. And this is like the opposite. Look at Adams like lumbering around. People playing seven feet off Lonzo Ball because he just can't shoot anymore at all. It's just weird.

I feel like he's like in the Anthony Mason role or something. Like he's setting picks and getting boards and then gets like one or two extraordinary dunks a game. But like he just seems to be doing a lot of lunch pail stuff. And it doesn't seem, nobody wants to say this, it doesn't seem like he is jumping as high as he did at Duke. Interesting. I test wise.

I just feel like the guy at Duke seemed like he could jump actually over people he was playing against. Like, it was conceivable he could dunk over, do the Fred Weiss dunk once a game. This guy's like 80% of that. Now, he might be playing himself back in. Yeah, maybe injuries,

I don't know. But I don't feel, I was there for, I had the front seat for the Blake Griffin when he could really jump for those Clippers games. And I thought Zion

was at least going to be that. And I don't think he's totally that yet. But we'll see if it comes back. Yeah, we'll have to see. All right, Bill, thank you so much for joining me, man. It was good to see you, Chris Ryan. All right. If you enjoyed the Ringer NBA show, you should be checking it out. You should

be checking out that. You should be checking out the mismatch. Check out Chris Ryan on Fridays with his new show, The Answer. Check out Ringer U, another new show we added on the Ringer NBA show on Wednesdays. I'm coming back with the rewatchables Monday night, Terminator 2, back on this feed on Tuesday. See you then. We'll be right back.