The Bill Simmons Podcast - The My Guy Fantasy Football Draft, Plus Adam Sandler and Josh Safdie | With Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck
Episode Date: August 26, 2024The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck of ‘The Ringer Fantasy Football Show’ for the third annual My Guy Fantasy Football Draft, during which they id...entify NFL players who fit unique categories on draft day (1:39). Then Bill talks with Adam Sandler and Josh Safdie about Adam's new Netflix comedy special, 'Adam Sandler: Love You,' aging out of pickup basketball games, the making of 'Uncut Gems,' collecting sports memorabilia, iconic comics like Rodney Dangerfield and Norm Macdonald, SNL's upcoming 50th anniversary, and more (1:34:53). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Adam Sandler, Josh Safdie, Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Kyle Crichton The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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Coming up, the big 2024 NFL preview week is upon us.
We're doing fantasy football today.
A little Adam Sandler as well.
Let's go.
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40 years later.
Came out in the summer of 84. And we overused the word iconic, but this is an absolutely iconic 80s movie. So get ready. Monday night, Purple Rain. That's happening. On this podcast, what do we got? Well, we got some fantasy football. We're doing the third annual, my guy fantasy football draft with Danny Heifetz,
Danny Kelly,
and Craig Horlbeck from the ringer fantasy football show,
which is a great podcast by the way.
And then as a second act,
a long interview with Josh Safdie and Adam Sandler,
because Sandler has a new comedy special coming on Tuesday.
It's called love you.
And we talked about that.
We talked about basketball.
We talked about movies.
We talked about a whole bunch of stuff.
So this is a big, fat, meaty podcast.
That's all next.
First, our friends from Pro Gym. All right, it's the third annual My Guy Fantasy Draft.
Our Ringer Fantasy Football Show guys are here.
Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, Craig Kohlbeck,
who's also in my life as a rewatchables longtime producer.
We spent a lot of time together.
You guys have been doing pods.
How would you rate this fantasy football
preview season just in general?
Like a B minus, B plus?
Where is it, Craig?
I don't know if the preseason's been that exciting,
but I think the offseason in general
and the hype is really high going into the season because the rookies are so
great. The rookie quarterbacks are so good.
There's like a whole new crop of guys going in
the first round this year, so it's really fun.
So a refresh. You agree with that,
Heifetz? Yeah, I think it's definitely
a refresh. You have Brees Hall, you have B. John Robinson,
you have a bunch of guys that are kind of like
new faces at the top, but
to Craig's point, the rookie classes, you have Marvin Harrison
is probably going to be the highest drafted rookie of all time. You have all the, like, you know,
Jaden Daniels, you have a bunch of rookie quarterbacks. There's a lot of new blood,
but then none of the olds have been sunsetted yet. Yeah. The ringer fantasy football guide,
which we do every year and we have the rankings and you look at it. And if, if I had seen this
in February, I would have thought like I was on bath salts or something. Um, Danny Kelly,
I know you had a big hand in that. What was the most shocking thing in the top 10 or 12 for you is you just saw the list laid out. We know it's the right list, but it's like,
for me, it was just Brees Hall. Cause I felt like it's Brees Hall the number one, I feel like he is.
And then when I actually saw him, we had him pegged with 65 bucks in an auction label. What
was the biggest shocker for you?
That's a good one. The fact that we
have both Reese Hall and Garrett Wilson
in the top 10, a little bit scary.
Two Jets.
That's a leap of faith, I would say. Even though
I love both of those guys a lot.
Yeah, we're making a pretty big leap of
faith. I think that's like, the old
expression is you can't
win your draft in the first round, but you can lose it.
Like, that's a little bit scary.
But I think you also have to have, you know, a healthy amount of ability to take a risk on these guys because they could really, really pay off.
Well, I do feel like there's some sort of weird changing in the guard thing happening. Because the ringer, Brees, Tyreek, McCaffrey,
who God knows when he comes back,
Bijan, C.D. Lim, St. Brown, Taylor, Wilson, Gibbs,
Jefferson as the top 10.
It just feels new and fresh and exciting.
And it almost makes me wonder
if the inefficiencies are elsewhere.
Before we do the My Guy draft,
I have an announcement.
I do three fantasy leagues and now somehow i've
been roped into a fourth i am in a guillotine league oh i got roped in as a partner with a
friend of mine and uh i don't really know what to expect i'm excited i'm nervous so you might be
back in three leagues by like week two. Well, that was the appeal.
It's like, wait, I could get knocked out right away?
This guillotine thing has really taken off over the past two years.
And I think part of the appeal is you might just,
it might only be two weeks of your life.
I don't mind it.
I know you guys have talked about it on your pod,
but where do you stand on the guillotine leagues?
It's fun.
I don't have any with my close friends. It's hard enough to explain to them stuff like points per first down.
Never mind.
Okay, you're just going to get chopped.
But I think it's fun.
It's kind of like March Madness bracket where you do some and then you're like,
all right, well, maybe throw it out after a weekend.
And if you're good, you stay in it.
It just can't be the only league you do.
Otherwise, that sucks if you're just out week five.
It has to be like the third or fourth thing you're doing and you focus on your two main leagues.
But that can't be the only way you play fantasy football. Yeah. I didn't mind adding it because
in my knockout league, the West Coast League, my longtime buddy, Kevin Hench won last year
and has gets to vote out somebody. And I look like I'm one of the three safe ones,
but the actual hilarious move would be to for him to vote me out. We've had an American League
only keeper team together for 22 years.
It would be an absolute steel chair over the head,
shocking swerve for me to get voted out.
And now I'm starting to get worried.
So I thought I'd have a leak.
All right.
The My Guy Fantasy Draft.
So we have all these dumb categories.
This is not an actual draft.
Who has the first pick in each category?
They'll go, but two people can have the same
pick. Three people can have the same pick. So we'll just go clockwise and we'll start with
Danny Kelly and then we'll go around. So Danny, Craig, Heifetz, and then I'll go forth. First
category is my one true love. Every year in fantasy, there's one guy you love the most.
The heart wants what the heart wants.
You can't fight it.
You go into your draft knowing,
I need this guy.
I'm going to feel better,
not just about my team,
about my day and my week and my fall.
This guy's on my team.
If he's on another team,
I'm going to be pissed.
Your one true love for 2024,
Danny Kelly, who is it?
Oh God, there's so much pressure.
I'm going with, I just mentioned this team.
I'm going with Garrett Wilson from the Jets.
I just think the combination of talent,
like he was my favorite receiver coming out of the draft.
I think he's proven that he's one of the best receivers
in the NFL, but he's just been stuck
with the worst quarterback situation,
like maybe in the league for the last couple of years.
And so this could be his year.
I think obviously Aaron Rodgers is going to feed him. And he's been one of the, he's been a guy
who's had one of the lowest catch rates among all the top receivers in the NFL the last couple of
years. So I feel like this is his year. Plus he breaks a lot of tackles. So he kind of has that
extra boost in addition to getting a ton of volume. Really good player. I'm just going to bet on his
talent this year. Do they keep a stat for most times
a guy's life sagged out of his body
and he's objectively looking to turf
after an uncatchable ball?
Because, I mean, obviously,
Devontae Adams was number one last year,
but Wilson was probably number two last year
and then number one the year before.
So he's been...
He's got that...
He has that Devontae Adams,
like, give me the ball
or I'm going to go crazy type of vibe to him, which I like.
I think Rodgers is going to absolutely going to feed him or else there's going to be problems.
We've already seen them arguing on the sideline a couple of times.
I like that, though.
That's good.
I want that.
A hundred percent.
Like, they're super, super, like, just pissed off for greatness.
So I don't know.
This could be risky.
I could regret this, but I really like Garrett Wilson this year.
I don't think it's risky at all. Heifetz, what do you think? I mean, I think This could be risky. I could regret this, but I really like Garrett Wilson this year. I don't think it's risky at all.
Hi, Fitz.
What do you think?
I mean, I think this one's risky.
My one true love this year
is Jaden Daniels,
the quarterback for Washington.
I think it's a little crazy,
but I mean, again,
rushing points are worth three times
as many as passing points in fantasy.
Jaden Daniels is the only quarterback
in FBS history
to throw for 350 yards
and run for 200 in the same game.
And you can get him like 95th, depending on where you draft.
And I just feel like I'm getting a top five quarterback,
50 spots after the last top five quarterback went.
And so I just feel like I'm cheating.
The age piece of it is the big thing with him.
Like Drake Mays, 21.
Yeah.
Drake Mays is young.
He's like basically a little kid.
They show him on the sidelines sometimes.
And he looks like somebody that would come over to watch UFC with my son.
Um,
on like a Saturday night,
he just looks young.
Jaden Daniels.
He was in college for 11 years. So I don't know.
I'm not as scared off by that.
Plus the offense that he's in,
where do you stand on Daniels,
Craig?
I think I'm the least warm on Daniels compared to the other two guys here.
I don't know. Rookie quarterback, I don't think
the team's going to be that good. I think the injury risk
is kind of high with him.
He's kind of a chaotic runner,
but the upside's there. It's just
high risk, high reward. If you're going to draft him, I'd probably
get another guy as a security blanket.
Yeah, Danny Kelly,
the things that scare me are the health
piece, Washington's offensive line, a skinny guy who runs around things that scare me are the health piece Washington's offensive line
not pot like a skinny guy who runs around that scares me and then I don't love their receivers
either right that'd be the case against them right they just traded away Jahan Dotson too
um I don't know it's tough because I think there's always going to be an injury risk when you have
quarterbacks who run and that's kind of been the deal they're going to open the
up to hits especially like in the red zone.
But man,
he has,
he has really special big play ability.
He's one of the best deep ball throwers I've seen coming out.
Like his,
his deep ball to the sideline.
I compared it to like Russell Wilson.
He'll just drop it in a bucket.
We saw a glimpse of that in the preseason.
The other thing is I'm not like a big cliff Kingsbury guy,
but they run a lot of plays. They have a high
tempo offense. They're going to give him
a lot of opportunities to score fantasy points.
He could be a terrible passer. He could still be one of the best
fantasy quarterbacks in the NFL, but
I also think he's a pretty good passer, or he could be a
pretty good passer. So, I
think this is a great pick. Go for
it. Go for the gusto. He could be
one of the keys to your fantasy
season this year. But we don't think he's
a top 10 starter, right?
He's fringe.
He's fringe. So he's in that
range.
He's like five, six, seven bucks
and maybe he starts for you?
Basically, it's supply and demand. So again,
first of all, he doesn't have to be top
10, top 20, anything in real life for him to
be incredible in fantasy. Justin Fields got booted out of chicago but he was still top five fantasy every week he
played for jayden daniels it's just the supply and demand of the highest upside quarterbacks
are always going to be russian quarterbacks and once you lose jalen hertz and lamar jackson and
josh allen and anthony richardson at the top and then at that point it's like who could run for
double digit touchdowns it's kyler murray it's jayden could run for double-digit touchdowns? It's Kyler Murray. It's Jaden Daniels.
Caleb Williams.
Fields, if he plays.
That's really the argument, is that Jaden Daniels, the last week one starter,
who could run for a crazy, silly amount of rushing stuff from the quarterback position.
So I think that he goes above the next tier of pocket passers,
because there's so many Jared Goffs and Trevor Lawrences and stuff,
but there's only one Jaden Daniels.
There's a red zone piece to him, too, that would make make him super fun when they're like, let's go to Washington. And he's just running for 58 yards. You gave him, you guys do
this where you do the tears and we did it on the guide and he got his own tear, which is always
funny when that happens where it's like, we don't know what this guy is like. He's just going to be
here. There's nobody
else who could be next to him. But in our guide, he's ahead of Purdy and Burrow and Caleb Williams
and the corpse of Trevor Lawrence. Good luck to anybody who takes him. Kirk Cousin is one leg and
Jared Goff, who just continues to be underrated in fantasy drafts. Craig, who's your true love
this year? Cooper Cup. Oh, you guys are back.
We're so back.
The vibes in LA are great.
Chargers and Rams.
Football's back in LA.
I just, everyone's backed off Cup
because of last year,
which I get, I guess.
He was super banged up though.
And it seems like the mantle
was passed to Puka Nuku.
Everybody just decided that.
But things are actually,
I think, switched this year
where last year Cup was hurt
the entire offseason. Now Puka N year Cup was hurt the entire offseason.
Now Puka Nakua has been hurt the entire offseason.
And Cup is healthy.
And although it didn't really feel like it,
but last year when Cup got relatively healthy
over the second half of the season,
Cup and Nakua were both top 10 guys in fantasy.
And I think we're going to see that version of Cup.
Like, I think he's all the way back.
We did this with Keenan Allen last year,
where he got hurt the year before.
Everybody was like, oh, Keenan Allen's old now. He's 31. It's over. He's washed. And then Keenan
Allen came in last year and had the best year of his career. So I don't know if Cup's going to have
the best year of his career because that's a pretty high mark, but he's 31. He's not 36. He's
a health nut. And you can now get him in the third or fourth round, which is insane. I like the Puka
being banged up piece to that too.
Yeah.
It just feels like they switched bodies.
It's like a 2000s
horror movie.
My guy.
You guys don't know
who my guy is.
I've been like
deliberately holding back
on my fantasy opinions
to make this pod more fun.
My one true love
is Marvin Harrison Jr.
Oh.
The,
on ESPN,
the highest drafted
rookie wide receiver in
20 years. So there's been a lot of hype.
But I went back and I looked at the fantasy
points for, you know, like the
best six modern rookie fantasy
receivers ever, which was
Moss, like 232 points.
Jamar Chase, 223.
Danny's guy, Beckham.
Those were great times, right, Danny?
The 202 point Odell Beckham those were great times right Danny the the the 202 point
Odell Beckham Jr.
fantasy season
on the Giants
that was like
a hundred years ago
and Quan Bolden
what a riot
that caused
he wasn't even
drafted that year
and it was like
one of those
free agent auctions
where I forget
what he went for
Justin Jefferson
182
and Nakua
last year
172
so
the question for me is can he have a better season And Nakua last year, 172. So the question for me is,
can he have a better season than Nakua?
I think he can.
Can he be in that Moss Chase area?
I think he can.
Is he on the right team?
I think he is.
Is he on a team that they're going to be behind a few times
and have to throw the ball a lot?
I think he will be.
And I'm just all in.
As you know, I love reading the preseason articles
and then overreacting. Famously, last year
with Kenny Pickett, which I think
we talked about on last year's pod when somebody
was comparing his coolness to Joe Montana.
He looked good, though, didn't he?
That didn't happen. He looked good, though.
It turned out he did have some stuff
in common with Joe Montana. They both
had a head and two arms and two legs,
and that's about where it ended.
But the Marvin Harrison, the quotes from the teammates and the coaches
are bonkers.
When guys in the defense on the same team start raving about
a wide receiver or running back, you kind of know something's happening.
But I just think he's going to absolutely go off.
Where do you stand on that one, DK?
I mean, I think the only problem I have with him is he's priced really, really highly right now.
But I mean, otherwise, like in a vacuum, I agree wholeheartedly. This is one of my favorite
receiver prospects in the last decade. And he went to a team with a good quarterback who is
going to feed him the rock. So there's a lot to like. I think it's just you have to pay up to get
it. So are we getting him at his floor?
Are we getting him at his ceiling?
Yeah, you're basically getting him like in drafts right now.
He's going right around Garrett Wilson, which is just pretty steep.
He basically has no room for error.
But everything you mapped out, I think is 100% correct.
You're just going to have to pay for it.
Fantasy guide that we had, I had him at 32.
Yeah, we have him a little lower.
It had him below Drake, London, Olave, and DJ Moore,
and there's just no way he's going behind those guys
because it's more fun to take Marvin Harrison Jr.
Where do you stand, Heifetz?
It's exactly what DK said about the price point
where I agree with everything you said, Bill.
I think the question is if you have to take Marvin Harrison Jr. 15th,
that would be too rich for my blood.
If it's in the 30s, then yeah, hop on the ride.
So you're talking Booger Eater drafts,
not auctions?
I'm just trying to bring it to where the people are.
It's like, how much money would you have to spend on
Marvin Harrison Jr.? I have to connect with
Booger Eaters. Auction standpoint,
I think he's low 30s.
That's just where he's going to end up. Maybe even
mid-30s if two guys start getting
possessive about him.
I'll say this.
I think I might've even said this on a previous pod,
but I stand by the Drake may pick.
I'm really glad we have them,
but there's going to be some moments this year with Harrison where it's like,
Oh my God,
like we didn't take that guy.
I,
and I'm super nervous about a buyer's remorse.
Okay.
Next category,
my crazy pills guy. So this could go one way or the other. I'm super nervous about buyer's remorse. Okay, next category.
My crazy pills guy.
So this could go one way or the other.
You're just seeing somebody a certain way and you either love this person
and don't understand why everybody else doesn't love him
or everybody else loves him.
And you're like, what the fuck?
Am I taking crazy pills?
I don't understand this at all.
Heifetz, who's your crazy pills guy?
My crazy pills guy, it's Rasheed Rice for
Kansas City. I know Craig came on here, I think,
a couple weeks ago and talked about Rasheed Rice, but Rice is
basically ranked like he's getting suspended,
and Rasheed Rice is probably not going to get
suspended, and so he's one of the best values
in drafts this year, like, by far.
The final month of last season, he was like a top six receiver
down the stretch, and you're going to be able to get him as
like the 26th receiver?
It's one of the best value probably in years. So we don't think he're going to be able to get him as like the 26th receiver it's it's it's
a it's one of the best value probably in years so we don't think he's going to get suspended
no i don't think he will know i am i am not a lawyer but he probably won't get suspended
you're not a lawyer yeah um okay who do you have for your crazy pills guy craig
uh i don't know why everybody isn't in on Josh Palmer with me, the receiver on the Chargers.
This is a good one. I love this guy.
You'd love him. If something happens to Josh
Palmer, people would be emailing you
like it's your brother. All of my eggs
are in Josh Palmer's basket. I just don't
get it. He's the number one wide receiver
for Justin Herbert. I just talked
about how great Keenan was last year on the Chargers.
He's gone. Mike Williams is
gone. There's nobody else.
They have a rookie, Ladd McConkie,
who was hurt all training camp.
That's basically it.
They have a bunch of busts or vets.
Josh Palmer last year was on pace
for 1,000 yards with Keenan Allen.
He's good.
I don't know.
We're all just refusing to acknowledge
that Josh Palmer is a competent football player.
And it's like, whatever.
The Chargers are going to run a lot.
That's fine.
Josh Palmer, I still think, is going to put up
1,000 yards on the Chargers with Herbert.
We're treating the Chargers like
they're Navy. Like they're not going to throw the ball.
They're going to throw the ball 10 times a game.
All right. My
crazy pills guy,
CJ Stroud.
And even like I brought this up to Craig
when we were just talking about stuff and
Craig was like, well, he doesn't run and just was like shitting on him. You guys have a bunch of, you know, replacement dudes.
He finished with 4,100 yards and 23 TDs in 15 games.
He's got a loaded wide receiver crew now
because Dell's back, Diggs is back.
Second year in the league,
the offensive coordinator stayed,
which was huge for them.
The line's a little bit better.
I'm just in on the Texans in general.
And the only reason not to like him as a top five fantasy guy is he doesn't run. But if he leads the league
in passing, which is seven to one on FanDuel. So that's like 47, let's say 4,700 yards and 34
touchdowns. I think that's realistic if he doesn't get hurt. And if he does that, he's a top five. He should be like a $16 to $25 QB.
Danny, where is my case fall apart there?
I mean, it doesn't really fall apart.
Really, the only guy, the only non-running quarterback we have above him is Patrick Mahomes.
That's the thing.
It's like, I guess you could put him ahead of Mahomes if you're really that bullish.
And I wouldn't really be, I wouldn't be like outraged if you did that.
Um,
I,
there was a play in the preseason where,
uh,
Stroud dropped back.
He was in the end zone,
like in his own end zone,
there's pressure coming in and just cool as can be goes through his
progressions,
finds a guy in the middle of field for like a 25,
30 yard gain.
And I was like,
Oh my God,
he might actually just be the best quarterback in the league right now.
Um, he is, he's so good. I'm so excited about him. The Stefan Diggs thing, while it might be like a chemistry risk, he could absolutely elevate that offense. There's still meat on the bone in terms of their pass rate. They could pass more this year. They kind of ran a lot on early downs last season. So there's a lot of things that could go right for him and he could end up being, you know, a top five quarterback, especially if some of these other guys that are running
quarterbacks get hurt. So I, you know, I really like Stroud. I just think it's a matter of,
he's just really not going to run. He's not going to score touchdowns on the ground.
I have three guys ahead of him, or I have him ahead of three guys,
which are in the ringer fantasy guide.
You have Richardson fifth.
I don't see that one at all.
Like at all.
Good luck to somebody else.
I just, if you're telling me he's a safer bet
than CJ Stroud, I think that's crazy.
Lamar, who we have third.
Worst offensive line.
He's been injured.
Like basically every other season
he gets hurt.
I just would be super nervous
paying big money for him.
And then
I kind of just want to see it
from Kyle LaMurray.
I know I just made the case
for Harrison,
but
I just wouldn't take
Kyle LaMurray over C.J. Stroud.
So those would be my three.
What were you going to say before?
Well, basically,
there is no hole
in your case for C.J. Stroud.
The problem is
everyone agrees with you.
I would passionately argue C.J. Stroud is the most popular player in the NFL
by just approval rating.
I think we're at the point where more people dislike Patrick Mahomes
than people who dislike C.J. Stroud.
I've never met anyone who thinks anything other than C.J. Stroud
is an awesome football player and he's an awesome guy.
And he's the guy that when he's in that auction draft,
there's just $10, $15 of goodwill that just go up
because people want C.J. Stroud on their team.
So the reason we have him a little lower is that
there's not really any way to get C.J. Stroud as a value.
Like, I don't think it's possible to get him at a good price
or at a good position.
You have to pay this premium of,
you want the most popular guy in the league.
Who is the highest approval rating, guys?
Craig, you believe that Heifetz case?
Because I'm trying to come up with a counter.
I mean,
Is he headed Josh Allen? Everybody loves Josh Allen.
Yeah, but the thing about Josh Allen is
Josh Allen seems really cool, but he's not really
in front of the camera a lot. You don't really
see a lot of him. Stroud has been on a media
tour since he came in the NFL. He had a podcast
with Micah Parsons. He's very comfortable being on camera doing a podcast. So I think he's putting himself in front of them. Stroud has been on like a media tour since he came in the NFL. He had a podcast with Michael Parsons. Like he's very comfortable being
on camera doing a podcast.
So I think he's putting himself in front of people
way more than people like Josh Allen or
Lamar or Jalen Hurts are.
Yeah, I like CJ Stroud. I'm in with
that one. All right.
Danny Kelly, you're up.
James Cook for the Bills. He's been
kind of a guy that no one's talked about at all
this preseason. And I'm just like I might be the only person who thinks he's good anymore at this point.
Like he rushed for 1100 yards last year.
He had the 10th most touches among all running backs.
And he got better as the year went on, especially after Joe Brady took over as the offensive coordinator.
From week 11 on after Joe Brady took over, play calling for them.
He was the RB 11 in that stretch and they got rid of Stefan Diggs.
And he's going to be,
I think an even bigger focal point in this offense.
And he,
by the way,
how many rushing touchdowns did he have?
See,
that's the problem.
He didn't score a lot of touchdowns,
but touchdowns are in there.
They're a volatile stat.
You know what I mean?
Like he doesn't get a lot of goal line looks.
That's very true.
He did drop a couple of touchdowns,
which, you know, hopefully he won't do that again. And I can understand why people might be annoyed by that. stat. You know what I mean? He doesn't get a lot of goal line looks. That's very true. He did drop a couple of touchdowns,
which hopefully he won't do that again.
I can understand why people might be annoyed by that.
I don't know. He's an explosive guy. He's super efficient. 5.6 yards
per touch. That's fifth best among
running backs last year.
He did all that with a 50%
snap rate.
There's meat on the bone for him to go
up in snap rate and get more touches, get more opportunities in the goal in the red zone.
He's not going to get very many goal line looks and that's why he's priced where he is. But I
still think he's like one of the better just running backs in the NFL, like just explosiveness
and elusiveness. Well, I'll tell you this. He was my backup crazy pills guy. There we go.
I love James Cook last year. James Cook hit so many overs on pass
receiving and pass rushing or just rushing or like he was probably what one of the four best
running backs in the league the last two months of the season. And it just seems they've moved
their team toward running the ball, ball control, two tight ends,
move the ball down the field,
use Josh's legs.
And it seems like he'd be the beneficiary of that.
It's almost like,
it seems so obvious that he should be awesome in fantasy that the fact that people aren't in on it
makes me nervous.
I'm like, what am I missing?
Are there more Buffalo Bills running backs
I don't know about?
I mean, they like this rookie, Ray Davis.
But yeah, I mean, I think it's purely what Craig said. He's getting sniped for goal line stuff by Josh Allen. And that's fair. That's definitely fair. I'm not saying he should be the number one running back. I just think people don't talk about him hardly ever. It's just kind of bizarre. Craig, I absolutely hate myself for doing this guy.
Who is it?
Kyle Pitts.
So the story of this category is the draft's going along.
You've told yourself in your head,
I don't want this fucking guy.
He's never going to be on my team.
I'm not ending up with him.
And then the auction's going
and it's like seven bucks
and it's stopping there for 10 seconds.
You're like, oh no, I can't let so-and-so have him for,
I'll bid eight.
And then all of a sudden you're stuck with him
and then you're furious.
Yeah, I'm like the old grizzled detective
who's getting like drawn back into one last job.
Like that is how I feel with Kyle Pitts.
I just think maybe this is also crazy.
It's a crazy pills guy for me.
I get it.
He's been a fucking disaster every year
of his career, I guess, except the rookie season. But like last year, right? Kyle Pitts was coming
into the season. He was less than a year removed from tearing his knee. Desmond Ritter was going
to be his quarterback. And they had Johnnie Smith, another good tight end in the mix with him.
All right. So that was all, that was the situation heading into last year.
Well, and Arthur Smith as the coach.
Sure. And he was getting, and he was going in into last year. Well, and Arthur Smith as the coach. Sure.
And he was getting, and he was going in rounds five or six of drafts.
Yeah.
This year now, heading into this year, he's now two years removed from his torn knee.
Kirk Cousins is now his quarterback.
He has basically the Rams coaching staff as his coaches now.
And he's got a solid backup quarterback and Michael Penix was a top 10 pick.
This year, he's still going the exact same spot
rounds five or six.
Like,
I just,
I actually don't understand
that at all.
I think he should go lower.
People are embarrassed
to take him.
That's the thing.
Yeah.
You know who's embarrassed?
The people who spent
$29 on him
in an auction draft
two years ago like me.
I just see him
and I turn the other way.
I'm just terrified of him.
Craig's like McConaughey in True Detective.
You've got your storage unit with all the string and
the board and the pictures.
The argument though, the part where I'm a little
like I kind of want to join Craig on
this new case with Kyle Pitts is
Bill, you know how the 49ers drafted Ricky
Parasol, the receiver out of Florida?
Kyle Pitts came out of Florida.
Ricky Parasol is older than
kyle pitts like they're like a first round receiver in this year's draft is from the same college
is older than kyle pitts who had a thousand yards in the nfl three years ago so the idea of giving
up on someone who's younger than three first rounders in this year's draft i think that is
the one thing so you can't give up on someone who's you. He's so young. You know what he's going to be?
This is going to be his 2022 Andrew Wiggins year.
It just took some time.
He needed to find the right home.
I guess when I watch him play,
I always feel like he's just a giant receiver
that they're trying to pretend it's a tight end.
It doesn't seem like they've ever figured out
how to actually use him.
That's a good draft rule.
At anyone who's a tweener in the NFL draft,
it's kind of like that just means they haven't figured it out yet.
Yeah, it's true.
My guy, I absolutely hate myself for doing this guy,
is Devontae Adams because I think he's going to have
a big discount price on him.
I don't think anyone wants to take him.
He is the logical guy to just either stop playing or get hurt
because his quarterback sent some ball over the middle of the day
to jump forward and he got nailed by his safety.
He's going to be in trade rumors the moment they start out 0-3 or 1-4.
And as you're watching it and as he becomes super cheap
and you start talking to yourself,
well, he might be on the Jets by week six.
Man, 18 bucks.
Why not? And then you're stuck with this 32-year-old unhappy guy
who has the worst quarterbacks
in the league and might not actually get
traded. So, DK, unless
you have anything else to add, you're up.
Yeah, I agree with all that. My guy
this year, I kind of interpreted this
as I hate that I'm actually going to be talking up this
guy, but basically it's Taysom Hill again.
We're running it back.
What year is this?
I know.
Guess what? He had four touchdowns last
year, 400 yards rushing. Same
number of rushing touchdowns as Bijan Robinson,
who's going top three. One fewer
rushing touchdown than Brees Hall, who's
going top three.
He also had 33 catches, which is more than a lot of the top.
He had more catches than Kyron Williams.
He's basically a running back playing tight end
who is the primary goal line slash red zone player
for the Saints.
And he could have an even bigger role this season.
Kendra Miller can't stay healthy.
The coach can't stop telling everybody that will listen
that Kendra Miller sucks and he can't stay healthy.
This is like the number two running back and the goal
line specialist for the Saints. And you can
get him with your last pick. I just got him in an auction
draft for $1. And I think
he's going to be useful this year. I'm not saying
he's going to be like a top five tight end.
$1. Yeah, it's just basically
look, they love him still
and he's probably their second best running
back. And he's, by the way, probably going to throw a touchdown or two.
He's going to line up at receiver.
He's just basically used all over the formation.
This is a new offense in New Orleans.
I can't believe I'm doing this again.
I hate myself.
Are you saying take him last in your draft?
Yes.
Last round?
Yeah.
But I just hate that I'm even talking about him.
Me too.
He does have the two weeks of season when he just puts up like 25 points.
Yeah.
And you're like, why did I lose?
Oh, because Taysom Hill threw for a touchdown
and had two touchdown runs.
Who's your guy, Heifetz?
I absolutely hate myself for doing this guy.
It's Tony Pollard, the running back for the Titans.
We came on this show last year
and we all were like, we love Tony Pollard.
And I want to get to my better instincts. And Tony Pollard broke came on this show last year and we all were like, we love Tony Pollard and I want to get to my
better instincts. And Tony Pollard broke his leg
in January last year. And then
by August, we were like, he's fine.
And so, yeah, he was not a good pick
as a top 15 pick last year. Tony
Pollard now is actually healthy
and is going like
90th in drafts. He's probably like a
$5 running back bill in the drafts
you do with your friends. And Tony Pollard like, all right, he went from the Cowboys to the Titans. That shouldn't be like
a $50 difference in a fantasy draft. But that's basically it. I'm getting back on the roller
coaster. I feel like an idiot. But it reminds me of what we were saying about pits, where just
people feel silly for doing this again. But Tony Pollard, I can't remember as big of a swing on a
player in one year, where if you look at what went wrong, it doesn't make any sense.
It's like Tony Pollard, last year he wasn't healthy.
Now he's healthy, and he's going even later than he was
entering the 2022 season.
I remember I heard a podcast last year where somebody said,
I think Tony Pollard should be the first pick in the draft.
Oh, it was Craig on this podcast 12 months ago.
Whatever. Stand by it.
He looked like one of the best running backs
I'd ever seen the year before.
What, if you're trying to unravel
what happened with that,
it does, and I worry about this
with Kyron Williams too,
these guys that,
the change of pace guys
who they end up with like,
you know, 175 carries
and, you know,
it's almost like basketball players
that can come in and come off the bench and play
for like 23 minutes and they're awesome.
Deion Waiters. Yeah, if you need them to
play 40 minutes,
it's all of a sudden a different equation.
I do wonder if that was a piece of this.
Okay, we're just getting started. We're going to take a break
and come back with one of my favorite categories
next.
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All right. This is one of my favorite categories. Also an indictment of some really bad teams.
I'm staying away from that entire team team where there's just entire teams become D&D's I will
give you for possibilities
the Carolina Panthers
my own
beloved New England Patriots
the New York football
Giants
and any other team you want to throw
in uh Dan Kelly
yeah who is your I'm staying
away from this entire team team?
The Panthers. I don't want
anything to do with Deontay Johnson, not only just because
not only because he's on the
Panthers, but he's just an annoying player to have on
your fantasy team. He's like hurt three times
a game, you know, taken off on a cart.
He's always back. Oh, okay. It's just an emotional
rollercoaster I don't want to take part in.
And he'll like miss a block that they'll show on
Red Zone of like his running back got hurt
because Deontay Johnson didn't stand up in time
on a play or something. Exactly.
I'm not interested in Bryce Young.
Chuba Hubbard is going to be the starter for
half the year probably, but then who knows
when Jonathan Brooks comes back.
There's just nothing really
to like too much about this offense
going into this fantasy season, even though they're probably going to
improve a little. I just don't want to have anything to do
with it. I'm not betting on the Panthers.
Hi, Fitz.
I think the easy one is to say the
Patriots, but I think everyone knows
the Patriots are going to be bad. Honestly, I will go
off the board, and I'm going to say
the Cincinnati Bengals.
Okay.
Spicy.
And I'm saying it because, again, it easy to say like one team will be so bad
like the patriots look they're projected for like the fewest points in the entire league this season
but they're projected that way my concern with the bangles is just i'm concerned about joe burrow's
wrists and i like again he has this unprecedented wrist injury for a quarterback and everyone's
just like yeah this unprecedented wrist injury the recovery is going to be totally normal and
i'm like yeah i'm gonna let someone else figure that out.
Like the Bengals are a better team.
The NFL is a better league when Joe Burrow is healthy and the Bengals are awesome.
I'm just really concerned.
And there's no injury discount.
Like Jamar Chase is being drafted fifth, sixth.
Like it's not even happening.
So 50, you know, maybe a $60 receiver and people are acting like it's not happening.
I would love to be in on T Higgins this year in a contract year.
But I just looked at since Joe Burrow is being taken like right after C.J. Stroud is like the seventh quarterback.
And I just look and I'm like, where is it being factored in that he has this unprecedented wrist injury that he can't throw three days in a row at training camp?
And I just look and I just don't see that being factored in.
And so at cost, yeah, I'm out on Cincinnati this year.
I just I feel like I feel like I'm taking crazy pills in this one, too.
I like the way you put that. Has he practiced
three days in a row yet?
He's thrown a ball three days in a row
training camp one time in
25 days of August.
So he did it. He did it.
Yeah, he did.
We did it.
I like the way you put
that with the actual cost of the
Bengals isn't remotely worth what in there.
Craig's shaking his head sadly.
Usually there's one team that I have here,
but I really, there will be no Panthers or Patriots
on my fantasy football team in any of them for any reason.
I can't, unless you're in like a dynasty league
or like some sort of keeper league
and you want to grab Drake May because two years from now he might be awesome.
I just don't see it.
And then Carolina, I just can't think of anything worse.
We said that last year, that was the team we targeted for this,
and we were correct.
Thielen had a couple weeks where it was like,
maybe he could potentially be your third receiver during a bye week,
but they were pretty awful.
Craig,
do you have any zags on this?
Are you back in the crew?
I'm with you.
It's the Patriots for me.
Why'd you say it?
So sadly,
look,
I don't even think the Patriots necessarily want to be good this year.
So yeah.
So no shame.
We,
once Barmore got hurt,
that was it for the Patriots season.
Then all of a sudden Judon's getting traded and yeah, that's it for the Patriots season. Then all of a sudden, Judon's getting traded.
And yeah, that's it.
Okay.
Danny.
I think I know who this is going to be,
but my shameless Homer pick,
where we have a guy on our own team that you just shamelessly overrate or love or just want.
I don't even need to guess who this is for you, but go ahead.
Oh, you probably think
it's going to be DK Metcalf,
don't you?
I was going to say
Kenneth Walker
of the Seahawks running back,
who I think is like top four
or five pure running backs
in the NFL.
That's me being a shameless homer.
I thought 100%
this was going to be
Kenneth Walker.
Oh, okay, cool.
And I know what
Heifetz's pick is going to be.
Craig, I'm not, I don't
trust Craig.
He might zag on me, but
the two Danny's I knew
for sure.
I want to give you my
quick Seahawks pitch for
why they're going to
outplay their ADPs.
All the Seahawks players
are going to outplay their
ADPs in fantasy this year.
And it is because they're
going to run more plays.
Pure and simple.
They were the dead last
in the NFL last year in plays.
Their time of possession margin.
So they had a six minute difference between their offense and opponent offense last year.
And it was like twice as much as the 31st ranked team, which was the Patriots, by the way.
Is that because your coach was old?
Like, what are the reasons?
It was literally because they couldn't stop the run.
Opposing teams would just run the ball
and then get a bunch of first downs.
They had, Seattle's opponents had the most first down running,
first rushing first downs in the league last year.
So they would just like...
I think Pete Carroll just loved playing defense.
They would, yeah.
He just wanted to see the defense out there.
I love those guys.
They would just squeeze the life out of the Seahawks offense.
Seahawks offense was efficient.
They were 12th in DVOA and they were 12th in,
I think it was like yards per play and points per drive.
So it was like, this was a top,
like third offense in the NFL efficiency wise,
but they just could not run enough plays
because the defense couldn't get off the field.
And I think that's going to change big time this year.
I think Mike McDonald will make their defense
at least respectable and that will get the offense.
Does Byron Murphy have a nickname yet?
Oh, I don't think so.
Not that I know of.
He kind of needs one.
I think he's going to be a badass.
Oh, he looks great.
In the limited snaps and preseason,
he's like really, really disruptive.
Like the Wolverine, Byron Murphy.
I don't know what it would be.
I like that.
High fits, just go.
We know who you're taking.
Well, I'm a huge Giants fan,
so obviously I'm really pumped about Wanda Robinson entering the season.
Now, Malik Davis, he's the second coming of Odell Beckham.
As Craig said, it was so long ago.
Ten years ago, it was Odell Beckham.
Malik Davis, he checks every box.
It's the same size as Shamar Chase.
The LSU lineage, he continues the crazy run of LSU receivers in the NFL.
Look, everyone knows, but he's got this deep speed.
He'd be in that short list of guys who could win a game of tag
if all the players played tag.
He could do anything, get open deep and short.
And also, he has my favorite quality in NFL receivers,
which is he doesn't have a case on his iPhone,
which to me, I think that's necessary to be an alpha receiver in the NFL.
He's confident.
Yeah, I don't trust any receivers with Otter boxes on their iPhone.
Yeah, I'm all into neighbors.
And I think that's, I couldn't,
I don't think I've been more excited
for like a Giants player since Odell,
including Saquon Barkley.
Doesn't have a case, so that means he's unafraid?
Arrogant hands.
Yeah, if a receiver's dropping his phone all the time,
I don't like that.
We have him in our ringer guide. Arrogant hands. Yeah, if a receiver's dropping his phone all the time, I don't like that. Okay.
We have him in our ringer guide.
We have him 56th for overall
and for the actual receiver spot.
He has Tank Dell over him.
Diggs.
I am obviously higher on him.
Devonta Smith.
I would take him over
those guys
I think I'm bringing him down
because I'm not that in on him
do you know who his quarterback is
well
doesn't matter
I don't want to die on the Giants
does it
you know what I mean
I don't need to deal with that
there's a feast or famine
thing with him though
because he's going to have
some weeks where it's like
one catch for 13 yards
and then he's going to have
like the 80 yard touchdown
or the reverse
or whatever
so
okay sadly I'm up with my shameless homer pick on a team where to have like the 80 yard touchdown or the reverse or whatever. So, okay.
Sadly, I'm up with my shameless homer pick
on a team where I don't want
any of their fantasy guys.
I do really like everything I've read,
watched, seen from Jalen Polk.
And I think he has a chance,
especially in the second half of the season,
where if they end up trading Kendrick Bourne like week six to a team that has a chance, especially in the second half of the season, where if they end up trading Kendrick Borden
like week six to a team that needs a receiver,
I really do think he could have some like seven for 90,
eight for 100.
I wouldn't spend more than a dollar on him.
I wouldn't take him.
You know, it'd be the tail end of the draft,
but he's the real deal.
I think he's the best receiver
they've probably drafted since Edelman,
who wasn't even a receiver right away.
But he's just, he's checked every box so far and really seems talented.
Craig, what do you got?
I have to go with George Pickens.
I love George Pickens.
Again, you guys are back.
Yeah.
He's just, he's the most exciting Steelers receiver since Antonio Brown.
And he's the perfect Steelers receiver because he's super talented and he's always pissed.
Yeah.
You know?
It's a long lineage. He has the most highlights that actually end up not being real catches.
Like that dude has the most catches ever that are just out of bounds, but would be incredible
if he had like one more blade of grass in play. I don't know. I mean, look, he had Kenny Pickett
and Matt Canada for the first two years of his career. Regardless of what you think about Russell Wilson or Justin Fields or Arthur Smith,
this is an undeniable huge upgrade.
So I have to be into him.
I wish Fields' preseason had been a little better.
I wish the entire Steelers' preseason had been a little better.
I wish I saw one thing I liked from anything that happened this month.
Bill, we figured out the preseason.
It took us however many years of doing our show.
The preseason is the driving range.
And the problem with Kenny Pickett last year
was he had an incredible range session
and then was terrible.
But when you're bad on the range,
then you have a good round.
Interesting.
Yeah.
He didn't love it.
He didn't.
No, I just, I don't know.
There's no positives coming from the Steelers.
That Wilson Fields battle is one of the all time atrocities.
It really is just like Wilson died two years ago as a starting quarterback
and fields were trying to make happen.
He's going to be 35.
We're like,
here it comes.
It's the year new category.
I didn't tell you guys about,
because there's only one answer for it.
Uh,
the veal chop guy,
my veal chop guy for this year. It's a special A-chain.
You guys have talked about it on your pod. Every year there's the hit or miss guy
that you feel like if you miss out on, you're just going to have deep regret. But if you take it,
you know there's a 50% chance it's probably not going to work out and it's ruined your draft.
And that's how I feel when I order the veal chop.
You just never know.
And sometimes it's amazing.
And then other times it's like my whole dinner is ruined.
And also that was $85.
DK, make the A-chain case for us.
Yeah, I almost put him as my one true love.
People that listen to our show know
I'm obsessed with Devon A-chain. So last year, he finishes the RB4 in points per game, 16 points per game on 42% snaps. He had 11.8 touches per game, 42nd among running backs. If you get him 15 touches a game, he's the RB1 in points per game. I'm just saying that. And I think that they're going to make a concerted effort to get him more involved in the passing game. We've seen flashes of that in the preseason.
But, I mean, obviously, his floor is good
because even if he doesn't have a lot of volume,
he's so efficient.
He was best in the NFL in yards before contact
and yards after contact last year,
if that gives you an idea.
And he was second.
He was like if an NBA player shot 40%
from half court for the entire season. Yeah. So I don't know. I just think he's really,
really good. And he's in the perfect offense to utilize his strengths and his speed and the way
that they manipulate space in that offense is amazing. We've seen him line up wide a couple
of times. They're hitting him on vertical shots in the preseason. I still think there's just a
ton of meat on the bone for him to get more touches.
And obviously the issue and the worry here
is he might get hurt.
But I don't know, man.
You had him at $39
and you had him in his own tier.
He was another guy.
There's nobody else who compares to this dude.
Heifetz, would you rather have him
or not have him?
I think you'd rather have him.
You'd rather have him.
At $40?
You want him as a $41, $42 guy potentially.
If he's good, it doesn't, like if he gets the touches,
the price doesn't matter.
You're going to want him on your team.
And it's not the stock market.
It's not something, you're not trying to take small gains.
It's like Ricky Bobby, your first or last.
And every year there's like three players, four players
that just having taken that player,
your odds of making the championship are like 4X.
And you're talking about HN had eight yards to carry last year as a running back.
That's like a quarterback at 15 yards per attempt.
And so, yeah, he might not go well.
But the problem is if HN does have another incredible season,
and he's even better this year,
I don't know how you're going to be able to beat the team that has him.
I don't need to ask Craig if he likes A-Chan because you're like Jenny Gump.
You're just standing on your hotel room balcony pretending you can fly when you do fantasy.
You're like, oh!
I want to go for a ride!
I want him and Raheem Mostert.
Just give me both of them.
Yeah.
The combo?
Yeah.
Okay.
Next category.
We'll start with hugh heifetz the my i wouldn't take
him even if he was free guy which is a nice way of saying this is the dnd list the do not draft
list who's your number one dnd here i mean it's the sean watson for the browns not only do you
have all this off-field stuff with him but hey on the on the field he's been the worst quarterback
in the n, and he's
always hurt, and he's hurt again now.
So I don't know why I wanted to change this guy.
See, I didn't even know he was eligible for this list
because who's excited to draft Deshaun Watson?
Is there anyone in your
life who's like, I got a super. Don't tell
anyone. It's Deshaun Watson. This is the
year. This is it. They're changing
offense for him. He's going to light it up.
Well, mine is tied to Desha're changing offense for him. He's going to let it up. Well, mine is
tied to Deshaun Watson. Jerry Judy. It's an amalgam of things that I just reject fundamentally
with fantasy football. He's never really done it. He's better in name than actual action. He's
heard every year. We have no real evidence that he's a really good receiver and yet there's talent.
So people are like, Jerry Judy, watch out. He's on a team with a, with a shit quarterback. And I, I, I wouldn't
pay a dollar for him. Like I wouldn't, if he was a dollar, I'm like, I'm out. I don't want to,
I'll spend my dollar on Taysom Hill and try to get TE five for two weeks. Craig, who's your guy?
Uh, Devin Singletary, the running back on the Giants. I can't deal with Daniel Jones.
I can't deal with the...
Yeah, it's tough.
He stresses me out.
I'm cutting toxic people out of my life,
and that's the Giants.
I'm just not doing it.
I'm good.
DK, who do you have?
How many touches is he going to get?
Craig, mine's a little bit similar
because it's just cutting out players
that have disappointed me in the past.
And this year for me, it's A.J. Dillon of the Packers
who's looking like he's going to be the backup
slash rotational 1B guy for the Packers offense he to me is just the living
embodiment of the old expression if you need one yard i'll get you three yards if you need five
yards i'll get you three yards like if you need seven fantasy points he'll get you eight if you
need 10 he'll get you eight like he's just a roster clogger he's not going to give you any upside
um if you want those eight points, that's fine.
But like you can get that from a hundred other guys.
I just don't really, you know, I just don't want that on my team.
It's just taking up a spot.
I like it.
All right.
I'm going to lead this next category.
It is the, my, that 2023 booty call ain't happening again, guy.
It's a guy that you had a little fling with in November and December.
Didn't expect it.
Turned out great.
Picked him maybe
off the waiver wire
or some dumb trade.
You really enjoyed it
and
you're probably not
going to date him
in 2024.
For me,
it's Williams and the Rams.
I really,
I loved how he finished
down the stretch.
He's being treated
as a top 10 receiver.
I think he's really good.
I just have real questions like the Rams offensive line. Now their left tackle is going to miss the
first two games. There was injury stuff with them anyway. He's got a rookie running back right
behind him, who I think we all like, who might steal some carries. And I think he's being treated
as last year was the launching pad for him to be a top five or top six running back.
And I don't know if he's going to get the carries and I don't know if he's going to stay healthy.
He's already had a lot of injuries.
So that would be my guy.
Who do you have, DK?
Jordan Addison, the Vikings receiver.
He basically, you know, he went off last year.
He scored 10 touchdowns.
But there were a lot of other variables to that play here.
Justin Jefferson was hurt.
TJ Hawkinson was hurt.
He had a 17% target rate.
That's really not going to get it done in Fantasyland.
And now Justin Jefferson's back.
Kirk Cousins is gone.
Sam Darnold in this offense could be a little bit better than people expected.
But I don't think it's going to be what we saw with Kirk Cousins.
So I just don't think...
He basically got by on scoring a lot of touchdowns. I just don't think that's going to happen what we saw with Kirk Cousins. So I just don't think he basically got by on scoring a lot of touchdowns.
I just don't think that's going to happen again.
Hi, Fitz.
Joe Flacco.
You know, Joe Flacco was the number two fantasy quarterback in December last year.
The only person who had more fantasy points than Flacco in December was Lamar Jackson.
How is he your guy?
He's not even starting.
Well, he's not happening. It's a booty call.
Did you not have any leagues where someone picked him up and you're like, God, what an idiot. I can't believe they're playing
Joe Flacco. And then Joe Flacco like 30 points and they wrote him.
There's people like that won championships. Yeah. Yeah, he was like
you're right out of college and somebody starts hooking up with like a
42-year- old divorce woman.
It's only lasts a couple of weeks, has no chance of ever being long-term.
Here's the thing about Joe Flacco. Is it crazy to think he could throw for 2,500 yards this year with Anthony Richardson? He's the backup to Anthony Richardson where 90 things could go
wrong with Anthony Richardson, including the fact that he got hurt twice last year.
Craig, who do you have?
Zach Moss rocked my world for like hurt twice last year. Craig, who do you have? Zach Moss rocked
my world for like five weeks last year.
He was great. It'll never
happen again. But man,
that was a special time. When Jonathan Taylor
was holding out, Zach Moss was just
going fucking crazy.
Everybody was scrambling to add him,
spending a ton of money and free agency to get him on your team.
Now he's on the Bengals.
I guess he's the starter.
I don't think I wanted anything to do with Zach Moss.
I think that was a flash in the pan, but it was a great time.
I'll look back on it fondly.
It's a good one.
All right.
Next one, Craig.
You're my, hey, look, somebody's got to get points on that team guy.
Is, is it Josh Palmer?
You can double dip if you want.
Well, it actually is Josh Palmer,
but because I didn't want to pick the same guy, I have to go with Terry McLaurin on the commanders.
I mean, they just traded away Jahan Dotson. Their tight ends are Zach Ertz, who's like 43 years old
and a rookie, Ben Sinnott. And their other receivers are guys most people have never
heard of. And I'm like, maybe this is the year that Terry McLaurin actually puts up
a decent year
because the poor guys
had the worst quarterbacks
in the league
for his entire career.
And it's kind of
just him now
more than it's ever been.
So if somebody's going
to catch passes on this team,
it's going to be Terry McLaurin.
That's a good one
because he is
sometimes a jump
out of the TV guy.
Yeah.
And you've always,
you know,
he had Sam Howell
must have been
4,000 yards last year. I still
I thought that was the stat of the year. I like that
one. What do you have DK?
I got the Broncos back
field essentially. So right now it's Javante
Williams and Jaleel McLaughlin. And
I particularly I'm kind of interested
in Jaleel McLaughlin at the end of the draft
like a $1 guy.
Sean Payton in his history
has always had running backs that produce.
Last year, I mean, we saw it.
I think the Broncos had the highest pass rate
to running backs of the entire NFL.
It was like 20-something percent.
And now we have a quarterback
who loves passing and checking down
and taking the easy option,
like taking care of the football,
distributing it in Bo Nix.
I think that the running backs in this offense
are going to catch a ton of passes, especially in half
PBR and PBR leagues.
Jalil McLaughlin is a really interesting
sleeper for me. By the way, this is a guy...
Some buzz for him, too, by the way.
He started playing with the starters in the
preseason.
I hadn't realized this until recently,
but he was college football's all-time
leading rusher. 8,166
yards.
He played for FCS Youngstown State, so obviously caveat there.
Supremely
productive player in college.
He's just good. He passed the DI test for me.
Really
just a droid pass catcher.
Schrager had him as
a top 10 breakout guy, which I thought
Schrager's list, sometimes he'll nail like four or five of those.
Here's a stat.
He was third in half PPR points per snap last year
behind Devon A. Chan and Keaton Mitchell.
So he got something.
Everyone's behind A. Chan in all lists.
Hi, Fitz, who do you have?
Somebody's got to get points to that team.
I mean, I think it's Deontay Johnson for the Panthers.
I know we're kind of out
on the Panthers,
and I'm not even saying
I'm endorsing it,
but they got Deontay Johnson
in trade because they're going
to throw it at Deontay Johnson
on like every pass.
I mean, I think he's going to get
a third of all their
completions this year
will probably just be
to Deontay Johnson.
There's like very little
competition there.
It's disgusting.
I don't recommend anyone
watching the Carolina Panthers,
but if you need a Carolina Panther,
I guess you could go with Deontay Johnson.
Mine, we mentioned him earlier, is Malik Neighbors,
where if the Giants score 20 touchdowns this year,
I feel like he's going to have like 10 of them,
but I just wouldn't want anyone else in that team.
Okay, our next category.
This is a fun one.
I think we're going to have four different responses for
this. The, my sorry, that's a little too rich for my blood guy. So basically as the auctions go in,
Tony Pollard was the perfect example of this last year. It's like, I like Tony Pollard. I don't know
if I want to spend 53 bucks. Craig's like, I'll go 60. Craig, who do you have for this?
We've hit on this. so it's not as fun,
but it's Jamar Chase going in the middle of the first round.
I don't think I can spend as much money on Jamar Chase
as I am guys like Tyree Kilton and C.D. Lamb
because of the Burrow thing.
I just can't do it.
I agree.
DK?
I got Kyron Williams.
You mentioned him already.
At cost, it's just a little bit much.
He has a history of foot and ankle injuries.
He already had another foot or ankle injury.
I can't remember what it was,
but that kept him out of the preseason part of the way.
And so he's undersized.
He runs really hard,
and they gave him a ton of carries last year.
And I think he's going to lose some of his market share
in terms of total carries and opportunities this year
because they got Blake Horham,
and I think they want to protect him.
So at cost,
I think you're paying for the volume you got last year.
And I'm just usually looking past him at that
part of the draft.
Call me old-fashioned.
Marvin Harrison Jr., I don't want a rookie
as my number one receiver on my fantasy team.
Maybe I'm out of touch with the youth,
but I'd rather get Malik Nabors
20 spots later if I have to pick a rookie.
That hurts.
Fine.
Mine's easy. Jonathan
Taylor. This is a good one.
Why don't you share he's going to be awesome again?
And what are the examples of running
backs who were awesome for a little while and then
had a super off year
just like immediately turning the switch back on?
I kind of want to see it. Also, like,
is it going to be harder to run if your quarterback can't
complete a pass?
Also, like, it's the Eagles thing
where Jalen Hurts steals all the goal line touches.
Yuki Richardson might be that guy.
And he doesn't check down as much as some other quarterbacks
because he's scrambling instead.
He's part of the running game.
He's stealing some of the rushing yards from the offense.
It is an interesting one.
It feels like you're buying Taylor at his absolute peak.
Yeah, in our list, he's RB4 and he's 50 bucks.
I can promise you I'm not spending 50 bucks
on Jonathan Taylor.
I'm just telling you right now.
Heifetz, who's your $1 QB guy this year?
If you want a $1 QB guy, I feel like Jared Goff,
Justin Herbert, Tua, I think any
of those. I would start with Goff. I'm curious where you
think the dollar quarterbacks begin. I don't think those guys
are dollar
QBs on paper, but I
don't think they would actually go for a dollar, right?
Yeah, someone bids them up and then you got to go
with three bucks to get them. You have to pay three
at least. In that case then, honestly,
I think that there's so many good quarterbacks and you're going
to laugh at me for this in advance. So none no for no one dollar guys the answer is if there's
someone it's justin fields which is a little insane because i don't think he's gonna play
to start the season but the moment anything happens to russell wilson again justin fields
even when he's bad in real life justin fields i mean even 2022 justin fields was a top six fantasy
quarterback like in 2023 by points per game justin fields once he had a bad september but then he got I mean, even 2022, Justin Fields was a top six fantasy quarterback.
Like in 2023, by points per game, Justin Fields, he had a bad September, but then he got really going with the best months of his career in October.
From October on, Justin Fields was like a top 10 fantasy quarterback, points per game.
And so with the rushing upside, he's one of the few guys that can actually get a 30, 35-point performance if he's playing.
So Fields is a guy that I don't mind carrying on a bench, or just I am on waivers, but a dollar in a league. See what happens
to Russ early in the season.
Is it I'm up
next. Is it realistic to say Matt
Stafford is a $1 quarterback
or no? He's in that
area that got off to your where he's in that three
to four range.
So I really
wanted to say Sam Darnold here and I can't get there because he's Sam
Darnold. I had other reasons, but really that was the number one reason. Don't do it. Just on paper,
like those receivers and it's like, ah, Sam Darnold, but I'm not going to do it. Um,
I don't mind the Drake May $1 late flyer.
Hope he's starting by week five because he really can move and they're going to
be behind a lot.
And I can see like when we get to like their schedule gets a little easier as
we get into the middle part of the season where he might actually be able to
put some points.
But I don't know.
I just think there's upside with it for a buck.
Late, late, late.
Or last pick in the draft just to see what would happen.
How many quarterbacks do you hold in your leagues, Bill?
Well, you know, I like to take five to seven.
I like to load up.
You have more quarterbacks than actual NFL teams carry.
Yeah.
I like to load up.
You never know.
Quarterbacks get hurt.
You know, I talked to the Atlanta GM about never know. Quarterbacks get hurt. You know,
I talked to the Atlanta GM
about this a lot
after he spent
$50 million a year on Cousins.
It's like,
you know what?
I got to take number eight
on Peddix.
Never know.
Need help there.
Craig, who's your $1 guy?
Does Geno Smith count?
Does he qualify?
He might.
So maybe it's a,
maybe we should change
this category to my $3 QB.
Yeah, maybe.
I would do Aaron Rodgers or Geno Smith.
Just like late round slash cheap QB.
Yeah, that's a better...
I should have done that before.
So your $3 QB would be Goff?
Yeah.
I think mine's Stafford.
Who's yours, Danny?
I went with Justin Fields.
It's the Forrest Gump Alabama thing.
He might be the worst passing son of a bitch alive,
but he sure is fast.
He can run, man.
He's like one of the
fastest players in the
league, I think.
And like we said,
like Heifetz said,
it's the rushing
upside is just
monumental if he gets
in this offense.
Honestly, he might
play.
Like, Russell Wilson,
I was a little bit
excited about him
coming into this
preseason, but man,
he has looked really
bad so far,
and it doesn't sound like there's that many good fives going on.
So, could see Justin Fields play.
Who would have guessed that that situation might not have worked out?
Craig, who is your, my, I'd be afraid to look on Tuesday
and see the red flag guy?
Meaning, you take the guy, deep down you know he might get hurt,
then things go well for five weeks.
You're like, I'm so glad I took him. This is great and then you go on tuesday week six and it's the red flag and the
yellow square that there's news and you're like oh no oh god what happened who is it for you this
year it's got to be anthony richardson right like especially if you're in a if you're in a league
that has two quarterbacks you got to spend a lot in your auction drafts. Like you got to spend 40, 50, 60 bucks on
quarterbacks. You drop 50 bucks on Anthony Richardson, which I might do next weekend in
my draft. I'm like, man, you know, do I think the upside is there where he could have a Cam
Newton-esque season where he runs for 15 touchdowns and throws for 25? Yes. He showed a little bit
in his rookie year. He had four touchdowns in four games.
He looked awesome.
But he just needs to stop
lowering his head
into like three linebackers.
He's like those,
remember,
it's like those outfielders
who just like sprint
into the back fence
as fast as they can.
There was an Oakland A
growing up.
Eric Burns used to do that.
He would like dislocate
his shoulder every three months
because he was sprinting
into the wall.
And I do feel like
Anthony Richardson needs to learn
how to slide a little bit, but
yeah. I mean, that was
the Larry Bird problem way back.
He would be like flying into the scores table
trying to save some loose balls.
Too much hustle.
Who do you have, DK?
I have J.K. Dobbins. I want to believe
and honestly, it wouldn't surprise me
if he had like 115
yards and three touchdowns in week one and we're like oh god
this guy's gonna be
the greatest value in fantasy
football but then by week three he's like banged up
and hurt and you're like oh wow that was fun
I don't know I'm excited to see
if he can be the starter for the Chargers but I'm very
worried about obviously the long
laundry list of injuries that he's had in his career
he also has
about as much confidence
as anybody's ever had who had a major injury
and hasn't really done that much,
but talks like he's, you know, Walter Payton.
Jamal Adams and J.K. Dobbins.
Yeah, that's the irrational confidence all-stars right there.
Don't go after these guys on Twitter.
Don't go after them anywhere.
They'll find you.
Right, they might find this clip right now
and be like, what?
What'd you say?
Hi, Fitz, who do you have
i think i craig's on is something with anthony richardson and the other one i think you got
to throw is christian mccaffrey just because he's got the calf injury missing the preseason
if you're taking christian mccaffrey first or second or third or whatever obviously it's because
you think yeah whatever he'll be fine and then if you if the injury thing bumps up week three and
you're like oh calf huh calf, huh? Okay.
I've made a huge mistake.
Yeah, exactly.
We should have talked about him sooner than an hour into this podcast,
but I'm so scared to take that dude.
Especially like the calf hamstring.
Like we've just seen it with the running backs.
It's like, oh, there's been red flag goes up.
There's been a setback.
He stopped full contact practicing because there's some soreness.
He's going to take a day off. There's nothing worse. And he's such a setback. He stopped full contact practicing because there's some soreness.
He's going to take a day off.
There's nothing worse.
And DK and I disagree.
Go ahead.
No, DK and I disagree because I'm basically like
I don't want my first round pick
to have a calf injury in August.
And DK's like,
you're a worrywart.
And I want my first round pick
to have scored 100 more points
than the second place
running back last year.
We're like the only rankings
that don't have McCaffrey number one overall.
I do, for the record.
So if he gets hurt, sorry.
Craig, it's weird that you're not Jenny Gumping that one.
Just climbing right on the balcony again.
McCaffrey!
No, no.
I don't mess with preseason injuries.
They freak me out.
And McCaffrey's such a maniac.
He's going to push himself to play.
They should sit him for a week.
And Shanahan.
Yeah.
So I had McCaffrey. I think Debo He's going to push himself to play. They should sit him for a week. And Shanahan. Yeah. So I had McCaffrey.
I think Debo is just grandfathered
into this category every year
because every year the red flag pops up.
You just know when you draft him,
it's going to happen.
But my guy this year is Nick Chubb
because as we get closer to the season,
I've always loved Nick Chubb.
I mean, he's been one of my all time, my guys forever.
And,
uh,
and I can see myself talking myself into him and being like,
I'll spend $8 on Jerome Ford.
It's a stopgap starter until Nick's ready.
And then Nick will be ready week four.
And then he's going to be first name basis.
Yeah.
We call it,
you know,
we're first name each other.
The Nick,
Nick carries me in November and I win the title.
And I just,
that injury was so bad.
I just like, why talk yourself into somebody recovering
from a complete total reconstructive knee surgery?
And it's the second one on the same knee.
Yeah, I heard it a while ago.
All right, one more break.
And then we have some fun categories.
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slash business platinum. All right, Danny Kelly, you are my,
I know there's a 99% chance he's getting hurt again,
but goddamn, I can't resist this guy, guy.
Who is it?
James Conner, running back for the Cardinals.
Every year he'll miss a few games, granted.
It's just kind of, you have to,
it's baked into his price,
but I think he's still got it.
I think he's a really good running back. He passes the eye test
for me. People maybe complain that he's
not the fastest guy, but he breaks a ton of tackles.
He has a ton of yards after the catch. In fact, he was
only Christian McCaffrey, Derek Henry,
and Isaiah Pacheco had more yards after
contact last year than him. He was
third in missed tackles for us.
He's going to be the bell cow
guy in this offense next year. They showed
a ton of trust in him. I think this offense is going to be a lot cow guy in this offense next year. They, they showed a ton of trust in him.
I think this offense is going to be a lot better than it was last year.
And I don't know. I'm just taking the value on James Connor every year.
I feel like I'm the only one still just scooping up Connor every season.
And he always just produces at least what he's on the field.
Yeah.
I don't think I've ever had him.
And I'm always jealous because it just seems like he just has these four
week ones where he's just ripping off points.
Do you have high fits?
DK just mentioned him.
J.K. Dobbins, the running back for the Chargers.
J.K. Dobbins, he's going to get hurt.
He had the Clay Thompson, the ACL, the Achilles.
He's 25.
J.K. Dobbins is 25 years old.
He's like two years older than Jaden Daniels.
He just was the second pick in the draft,
and everyone's giving up on J.K. Dobbins.
On Yahoo, J.K. Dobbins is like the 150th ranked player.
I think he will straight up be the starting running back for the Chargers,
and you could get him literally right before you take it.
With Harbaugh and a good offensive line and an identity.
They're going to try to lead the league in carries.
Again, literally, he's Raheem Mostert this year.
It's like Raheem Mostert outside of McCaffrey.
That was the best pick you could have made was Raheem Mostert
like the 13th round.
To me, J.K. Dobbins,
if there is one this year,
it's J.K. Dobbins.
Well, you're going to laugh at mine
and you probably would have been
able to predict it.
J.Lo and Ben Affleck
have obviously had a rocky.
They've been married twice.
There's been some comebacks
and it never ends great as it just
ended badly. That's me and Christian Watson. Two years ago, I wrote him down the stretch. I think
he had like eight touchdowns in four games. He was like the most exciting young receiver in the
league. I went in on him last year. He just broke my heart, hurt my feelings, did a bunch of things
that really brought my self-confidence down. And finally, I traded him or waved him. I can't
even remember. And whoever got him next, he immediately went on a run. And I'm vulnerable
and I'm hurt. And I kind of want to work it out with him and have him again. And I know he's going
to get hurt if I take him. So that's my guy. He's super excited to have, he's super fun to watch. And I don't know if I ever put
it together, but I don't want it to be with somebody else. I love it. Uh, who's, who's,
who's left you, Craig? Yeah. Craig, you're last. Mine's Raheem Mostert.
Yeah. He's kind of getting pushed to the side. He's getting way pushed to the side. I mean,
the guy led the league in touchdowns last year. He's in the exact same situation and he's kind of getting pushed to the side. He's getting way pushed to the side. I mean, the guy led the league in touchdowns last year.
He's in the exact same situation,
and he's going 75th overall.
Like, what are we doing?
We did a Seattle live show last week
for the Fantasy Football Show,
and I compared Devon Achan to Zoe Kravitz
and Raheem Mostert to Lisa Bonet.
I'm like, look, sure, they're a little older,
but, like, if you squint, they pretty much look the same.
Like, Raheem Mostert is way closer to Devon A-Chan
than we're giving him credit for right now on this team.
I'm going to have the A-Chan thing settled by November.
That's my plan.
It should be A-Chan.
He needs to get rid of the E.
Spelled A-Chan and I just, I know, and I just can't.
It's the same issue
with me over and over again.
All right.
Wow.
We're really getting to the good stuff now.
Danny Heifetz, you're my 2022 Cooper Cup.
It's a year after the year guy.
You don't want to have anybody a year too late after they've had the big year.
Who is it for you this year?
Not quite the spirit of the word.
I mean, I know we already talked about C.J. Stroud.
I do think there's going to be a little bit of a comedown on Stroud,
but I think that if that's more young than what we're talking about,
I think it has to be Stephon Diggs for the Texans,
just because I think that for Diggs' decline down the stretch in Buffalo,
where, again, he had fewer receiving yards than Khalil Shakir
for the final three months for Buffalo.
Not to mention that, frankly,
he dropped the pass. They should have won the game in the playoffs
for Diggs. It's basically either he kind of fell
off or he was hurt.
I understand that there were scheme changes
with Ken Dorsey and stuff at offensive coordinator,
but I don't think it's
possible for me to reconcile
what happened in Buffalo at the end
unless you think there was a decline or an injury.
And I think digs is the guy that stands out as,
as,
as like Cooper cup,
just like,
all right,
you just have to have an opinion on whether the cliff is here or not.
I'm really embracing the spirit of the word with mine.
I'm taking Puka.
You're after the year.
It's just like the legacy of Cooper cup.
Cooper cup has been a mentor to him and now he's mentoring him
and had to be a huge fantasy disappointment in 2024
because I just think he's going to be banged up all year.
Craig, who do you have?
Is it bad that I love Devon Achan?
But the answer is Devon Achan.
Like that's the answer to this category.
It could be one of those where you were like,
hey, remember that time when he had that one awesome year
and now he's in the XFL?
What FL are we in?
UFL?
There's a million of them.
Whatever Terrible League does.
Nobody knew who this guy was.
He came onto the scene like crazy.
And again, he was shooting 40% from half court.
Like maybe he's just not going to do that again.
And there's a lot of running backs on this team.
So although he's awesome,
I mean, this guy's going for $50 in your league
and he like barely gets
10 rushes a game. That's just kind of
insane. DK, who do you
have? Keenan Allen. He
finished as
the wide receiver three last year. That's a good one. 17
points per game. He basically had
zero target competition on a team with
Justin Herbert that passed 37
times a game, which was third most in the NFL.
Now he's on Chicago with a rookie quarterback.
I love,
I love Kelly Williams,
but it's a rookie quarterback.
He has DJ bar,
Roma Dunzey,
Deandre Swift,
Gerald Everett,
Cole commit,
you know,
down the line,
there's just much more target competition.
I think they're going to spread it out a whole bunch more.
I'm not really buying the whole 230 pounds thing is,
is the big deal.
I don't,
I'm not like on that,
but I just think he's probably not going to get
nearly the target volume
that he got last year.
All right.
One of my favorite categories.
I tried to do this last year
with Philadelphia
with mixed results.
I just want everyone
on that offense.
I don't fucking care, guy.
Or in this case, team.
I'm going to go.
I think it's the Green Bay Packers.
That's mine too.
I just want all the people on the team,
including the tight end.
Give me everybody.
Both tight ends.
Be super happy.
I think they're going to score points.
I don't even know which wide receiver
is going to be the wide receiver one,
but I like all of them.
The Josh Jacobs rejuvenation
year, I'm in. Jordan Love, second half of the season, in. I'm just in on that team. So Craig,
you have them too? Yeah. I just think everyone's looking at the Texans and the Packers as the two
most exciting ascending offenses. It's like Texans, Packers, Super Bowl. We love Stroud.
We love Jordan Love. That's all great. Everyone's drafting all the players's like Texans, Packers, Super Bowl. We love Stroud. We love Jordan Love.
That's all great.
Everyone's drafting all the players
on the Texans.
People are drafting three
Texans wide receivers
in the top 65,
which is Dell, Diggs, and Nico Collins.
People are drafting zero
Packers wide receivers
in the top 80,
which I don't really understand.
If you think that this team
is going to be a top five offense,
it'd be awesome.
None of these receivers are being
drafted. I would take any of them. I would take
Christian Watson, Jaden Reed,
Dontavian Wicks. Romeo
Dobbs is probably a sleeper. People are bored with him
because he was like a sixth round pick. And he's got the
most buzz out of the four dudes in the
preseason. They've gone nuts about him.
Everybody just refuses to believe that.
He loves Dobbs.
Yeah, I don't even know who the number one is.
What do you have for this one, DK?
Call me crazy, but I want all the Chiefs.
You know the team with Patrick Mahomes?
I'd like...
It's a good zag.
Yeah.
Pacheco, Kelsey, Mahomes, Rasheed Rice, Xavier Worthy, the rookie, Hollywood Brown.
Like, you could get several of those guys if you, like, go through the draft.
And, I mean, this is a team
obviously Patrick Mahomes, best quarterback in
the NFL. This is a team that has been
over the years one of the highest pass rate
teams over expected.
They want to go up tempo. Last year
was like, we don't have anybody, so we're going to
completely sort of change our identity. I think there's a
chance to get back to their
high-octane pass first, like let's
score 50 points a game and just
you know grind our opponents into dust kind of deal
through the passing game and so
yeah I kind of want back on
that in the you know Patrick
Mahomes renaissance or whatever
in fantasy. I actually also
had the Chiefs and then my number two
is the Packers. There you go.
It's great. The Chiefs are back baby.
It's 3P time.
They have their fantasy mojo back.
Mahomes' wife is yelling at people on social media.
We're back, baby.
Travis Kelsey's filming a movie.
Yeah, we're back.
Shit's happening.
Okay, Craig.
What a great category for you to kick us off with.
I know it's a year too early,
but fuck it guy.
One of my favorite categories in this whole draft.
Who is it?
I really like the rookie
Brian Thomas Jr.
Oh, that's mine.
Damn it.
Yeah.
That's all right.
We'll share them.
Yeah.
Rookie at LSU.
He's on the Jags now.
You know, Calvin Ridley's gone.
They need a new deep threat.
Great vibes out of camp.
I was listening to Mina Kimes talking about
how the Jags wide receivers were terrible going deep.
They basically got zero separation going deep.
That's exactly what Brian Thomas does.
I think everyone's sleeping a little bit on the Jags.
And yeah, the reviews out of camp are so good with him.
Probably better than any rookie wide receiver
other than Malik Neighbors.
He's actually playing in the preseason. He's making plays. And look, I don't really like anybody else on this
team. It's like, okay, you have Gabe Davis. You have Christian Kirk. There's not a lot going on.
I'm sure this will be a year too early because it's tough as a rookie, but I love Brian Thomas.
Yeah. And a scale of one to Kenny Pickett has Joe Montana vibes.
Yeah.
The Brian Thomas buzz has been like at nine.
Yeah.
Which is a red flag.
People just raving about him.
Like,
I can't believe
we were able to get him
where we got him.
This guy's amazing.
He catches everything.
He's always open.
Like,
it's pretty noticeable.
And this is,
you know,
this is backed up
by the people that
loved Rudy Furman in college.
They were all like,
this guy's fucking awesome.
Like,
you,
like,
not sure if he should go ahead and harass the neighbors, but this guy's fucking awesome. Not sure if he should go ahead, Harris
and the neighbors, but this guy is fucking awesome, just so you
know. Who do you have, DK?
Roman Dunze from Bears.
So everybody is projecting him
to be sort of the distant wide receiver three on his team,
and he might be, especially early on.
But I don't know.
I think the risk that he will just be
the wide receiver three is already baked into his price.
I want to take him and just see how it all shakes out.
Maybe Keenan Allen gets hurt.
Maybe Rome just leapfrogs him in terms of the hierarchy
of that passing game.
Maybe he just turns out to be the better player ultimately this year.
Keenan Allen could kind of fall off.
Or you could have injuries in the wide receiver group here.
Odunze is already showing like pretty incredible chemistry
with Caleb Williams.
They took a flight together.
Craig was on that flight.
They're best friends.
Headed to the draft.
And I just think like
Odunze's skill set is perfect
for the way that Caleb Williams plays
in terms of like,
he's running around,
he's running around
like this is the scramble drill. Odunze's huge. He wins at the catch point. You know, he knows how to get
open at the last minute. So like if, if Caleb Williams is going to throw it up for him, he'll,
he'll go get it. Um, I don't know. I just think this is the number eight overall pick, right?
Like he is one of the better wide receiver prospects we've seen in years and nobody wants
him in fantasy. Well, and also the more you read about and watch the bear stuff, they were like obsessed
with getting him a number nine.
Like one of the many mistakes that the Falcons made was, you know, I think these teams, I
always thought they had Intel on what other teams wanted.
Like they could have just flip pit, pretended they were going to take a dunes day and the
bears would have freaked out and probably given them something.
They could move back a spot and take a penix anyway.
But seems like
he's, it just might be
a legendary wide receiver class. That might be
that might be where we landed. We might have just gotten
four awesome guys. Who's your side fits?
Jonathan Brooks, the
running back for the Panthers, because I mean,
I'm not a big fan of running backs coming
off ACL injuries for one of the worst
offenses in the league.
But I also think next year, Jonathan Brooks is a three down skill set.
He could easily be a top 20 pick in drafts if he had down the stretch of this year, if he plays well.
And then I'm like, all right, depending where he goes, I don't love him if you have to use a top 100 pick on him.
But if he falls outside that and you have an injury reserve spot on your league and Yahoo and you can stick him in there for a month.
Fuck it.
Just take Jonathan Brooks this year, man, because I think he's immensely talented. I'm
dubious that he'll be useful in the first
half of the season, but I do like him
for the stretch run if he goes late
enough. I don't want
any Panthers, but I see the case.
Danny Kelly, you're
my missionary position. We've
all had him. This is fucking boring guy.
Who is it?
I mean, every year it's Amari Cooper, isn't it?
Yeah.
And he's somehow getting better every year.
Yeah.
I mean, he was incredible last year.
I still don't want to draft him for a multitude of reasons.
Yeah.
I think there's bad vibes, obviously, with Sean Watson this season.
I mean, if Flacco was a quarterback, I'd be pretty stoked about it but he's not Hi Fitz
Keenan Allen this should be named the Keenan Allen Award
he had the best year of his career last year
went to Chicago no one cares
I think Debo now
is old enough to qualify for this award
that's what I'm taking
I feel like we've all either had him
or traded for him or had some sort of
pass with him in fantasy at this point.
And he's probably a little undervalued because people now factor in whatever Debo injury is going to happen.
I don't know how many more years he has left in elite level.
And I just feel like you get him for $5 less than maybe what he probably should go for at this point.
Who do you have, Craig?
Joe Mixon.
Everyone's done the Joe Mixon thing.
True.
We did a ringer draft a couple weeks ago,
and Joe Mixon fell like three rounds.
Nobody watched him.
And it's like every year he's actually pretty good.
And he's had a really good offense as the lead back,
and he's probably got a lot of touchdowns.
That's a good one.
Okay.
Heifetz.
Who's up?
Who's up to lead the next category? Yeah, it's Heifetz. Oh, who's up? Who's up to lead the next category?
Yeah, it's Heifetz.
Oh, this will be fun.
I fell for the preseason
hype guy. This could be rookies.
This could be three-year
guys, veterans, whatever. This is the Kenny Pickett Award.
Oh, God. This is it. Who'd you
fall for? Who sucked in? You guys beat
me to it, man. It's Brian Thomas, the Jaguars
receiver. He's so good. I know we just did it, but
I just can't get over that we were all
obsessed with Xavier Worthy running a 4'2",
40-yard dash. Meanwhile, Brian Thomas
ran a 4'3", 40-yard dash. He's 46
pounds heavier. Everything
you guys said about the Jaguars and more,
I think they signed Gabe Davis out
of panic of losing Calvin Ridley, but I think Brian
Thomas could be... I wouldn't
be shocked if a month into the season, we're saying
Brian Thomas looks like the best receiver
in this rookie class. I'm not saying he'll be better
than these guys long-term, but I wouldn't be shocked
if he had, along with Marvin Harrison and
neighbors, the immediate impact right on
that level. By the way, Hype
that's just saying, I wouldn't be shocked
dot, dot, dot with a proclamation
just now made him eligible
to be on an ESPN show.
I don't know.
You just passed the final test.
I think that's Dana Orlovsky's entire bit.
I wouldn't be shocked if Patrick Mahomes
threw for 70 touchdowns this year.
I'm going to go last because I have two guys
that I really like and either Craig or Danny Kelly
might take one of them.
So, Craig, you go.
I don't know if this counts,
but can I say Caleb Williams? I know he's the number one overall pick. So, Craig, you go. I don't know if this counts, but can I say Caleb Williams?
Like, I know he's the number one overall pick.
You absolutely can.
You can.
Okay.
I know he's the number one pick and everything,
but man,
there is a thin margin of error
for Caleb Williams this year.
Even if he's mediocre,
I think everyone's going to be pretty upset.
And the media tour,
the hard knocks,
him and Adunze are best friends.
It feels like Adunze is already
the most famous wide receiver
on the team,
which is crazy.
He just looks awesome and so fun
and he's already doing the crazy
USC scramble in a million circles
for 10 seconds
before he makes an awesome throw thing.
I'm falling for all of it,
but like, man,
he's flying hot right now
it's a great one
I can't believe
it took
it took so long
to even bring him up
I was looking at
bets for him for
like
4,500 yard
passing seasons
and up on Fandle
where he's like
I don't know
6-1
7-1
something like that
and it's like
could he throw for
4,500 yards
Danny Kelly,
who's yours?
Mine is the Tennessee Titans offense.
Basically the,
the,
and I was just watching Will Levis just looking exciting and awesome and
throwing the ball down the field and like play action and all this stuff.
And just now was he,
was he tearing it up?
Yeah.
The preseason game,
but that's,
you know,
whatever he,
I don't know. To me, this is like the siren song. I
want to believe in Will Levis because he's big,
strong, throws the ball real hard and he
runs around and he sacrifices
his body. He's like trucking dudes. It's
just like I want that to be successful
in the NFL. They brought in Brian Callahan.
They brought in Brian Callahan's dad.
You know, they got Calvin Ridley, Tony Pollard,
you know, offensive lines looking pretty solid.
There's a world in which this works really well,
but there's also a world in which it fails spectacularly.
And Will Levis is just bad and he takes a million sacks
and their offense can't operate.
So, I don't know.
I've allowed myself to have hope that Will Levis
and this Titans offense is going to be fun.
Caleb Williams on FanDuel,
11-1 to throw for 4,500 yards.
Craig, are you aroused?
I mean, a little aroused, yeah.
I mean, that'd be the record, right?
For a rookie?
What did Herbert do?
17 games.
What did Herbert do?
17 games.
That's 260 a game.
But cold weather,
seems like a lot. I don't know if i would do it herbert
was 4300 i i have two it's my podcast so i'm gonna give myself two i fell for the preseason
hype guys what the fuck i mean the easy one is trey mcbride who i think we all love down the
stretch who was really good and is now everybody's just like Trey McBride watch out
like he's kind of become the pits for
this year Danny Kelly's one of them
and I'm also one of them because I think he's
really good the counter is they
now have Harrison
they built out
they have more receivers like it's just
there might have been reasons he was doing so
well down the stretch that have nothing to do with this
year's team so have him flagged.
And the big one for me,
this,
I can't believe it's taken 85 minutes for this to come up is the Jameson
Williams rehabilitation watch out tour where it's like,
yeah,
we know he was a fucking disaster.
He came off the ACL and then he was an absolute fucking disaster,
but he's learning how to run routes now.
And they're really talking him up in a way that I'm both suspicious and excited.
Because if it was like, oh, Jameson Williams for six bucks on a loaded team, great.
But on the other hand, it just feels like they're trying hard.
You guys are reading all these websites and you've seen it, right?
Oh, yeah. Feels like intentional Jameson Williams.
Dan Campbell has been talking him up a ton
this offseason, which is... I don't trust it.
I don't trust it either. I don't want it at all.
They're like gearing up to trade him or something.
Yeah, it just feels like, yeah, you know who's great?
He's the type of
player where, in terms of
excitement per touch, he's like top
one.
Every time he touches the football, it's like top one. You know what I mean?
Every time he touches the football,
it's like, oh my God,
this is the fastest person on earth.
I mean, it does seem like they have one play
that they can run wherever
where he just runs a straight line
and he's five yards ahead of every defensive back.
I mean, Goff just has to kind of reach it down.
All right, we only have three categories left.
This is a great one.
My, I'd never root for an injury,
but he is one injury away guy.
I,
well,
I'll,
Craig,
you go.
I'll go last
because I have two.
I think,
I think it's Tank Dell
on the Texans
because I think
Stephon Diggs
coming to the Texans
really neutered
the Tank Dell hype train.
It sucked
because he's like
C.J. Stroud's best friend.
C.J. Stroud can't stop talking about him this off season.
And it's like,
if I could have three wide receivers,
like of all time,
he was like,
well,
who happens?
Who are the three?
Do you remember?
He was like,
Oh,
if I got to run one plate,
Jerry Rice,
Calvin Johnson,
tank down and tank down.
And I'm like,
ah,
fuck man.
Stefan Diggs is here.
Just mucking up the whole situation.
So yeah,
that's a good one.
Who do you have?
Danny Kelly,
Blake Corum, the running back for the Rams.
If Kyron Williams gets hurt,
Blake Corum could legitimately be
a top three running back in fantasy.
He was my 1B for this category.
And it really seems like the Rams
genuinely like him.
Yeah, yeah.
So, who do you have, Heifetz?
I don't want anything to happen to Russell Wilson.
But I would rather Justin Fields be the starting quarterback for the
Pittsburgh Steelers.
Yeah.
I have a great one and it's going to cause an actual audible reaction
shake from one of the three people posting this podcast with me.
JSN.
You want him to get hurt or you want, he wants DK Metc him to get hurt?
No, he wants DK Metcalf to get hurt.
Yeah, the Metcalf or Lockett, pulled hamstring,
he's out for five games
and JSN just goes fucking bonkers.
That's a great one.
90% of the reason to spend
$17 on him, right?
Because they have too many
receivers and I just don't
see it.
But one of those guys,
all of a sudden he might be like a top 10 receiver with one injury.
All right.
Two new categories to end it.
So excited about this.
Danny Kelly,
my rookie nitrous oxide guy,
the guy that,
you know,
you probably shouldn't take just like you should never try nitrous oxide but it's like man it also might be fun i might just fucking do it and all of a sudden you're
doing it who is it i mean i had malik neighbors circle for this one like he the preseason stuff
he's just looked incredible he's made like three or four just like george pickens s catches on the
sideline one of the most explosive players in college football last year, if not the most explosive. Just a fun, fun
player. But again, he's catching passes
from Daniel Jones. We don't know.
This might be one of the worst teams in the league, sorry, Heifetz.
I've
been on the Giants for the last few
years because they just suck at scoring
touchdowns. They can't score touchdowns. It's a
big part of football. Teams need to
score touchdowns, and the Giants are bad at it.
So I'm like,
why am I taking Malik Nabors
in the fourth round?
They can't score touchdowns.
But also, he might just...
You can't resist.
He might score all of the touchdowns
for the team.
Who knows?
He's that good.
I think he is really...
He'll be in the discussion
for the best rookie receiver,
and Marvin Harrison Jr.
is going to have a huge year.
So, yeah, I love Malik Nabors.
Hi, Fitz.
I mean, Xavier Worthy, man.
I think he's nitrous because he runs like he's on nitrous
and he's also nitrous because, you know what?
Xavier Worthy, fast.
Like, look, some of these fast guys never work out.
John Ross, some of these guys never work out.
But you're like, you know what?
John Ross never had Patrick Mahomes.
Look at Xavier Worthy.
I don't know if I want to base my success on my season
on whether or not he pans out.
But yeah, I want a little
huff. Just give
me one hit of Xavier Worthy.
I can't live my life having
not gotten a hit of Xavier Worthy.
So he's the reason I created the category. He's also
my pick. I saw that
clip where they used him four different
ways in the same preseason game and
each one was just him running right by
somebody. I was like, oh my god.
What is this?
Is this like a...
He'll end up...
What's the price range for him in a fantasy draft?
Let's be honest. It's going to be $5
higher than any of us would ever think.
Yeah. I think that $15.
You're going to have to pay up. Yeah. I was going to say
he's in the 10 to 15 range
with no evidence that he should even be more than three bucks.
Just because of the combine.
And the other problem is his name is sick.
Like Xavier Worthy.
Like Brian Thomas is going to be lower.
Brian Thomas on the Jaguars.
If Brian Thomas and Xavier Worthy switched names on teams,
I mean, that'd be totally different.
Yeah, I just try to ignore
the fact that xavier worthy weighs 20 pounds less than me as long as i don't think about that
i'm fine drafting him if we have that the pats this year there's been incredible ty thornton buzz
like he's oh yeah he's gonna be starting receiver like he's been awesome the whole year and i just
they were like he's put on weight too and And it's like, cool. So now he's 130 pounds?
Last category.
There's probably only one answer for it,
but we had to create it for this year.
I know this is good value right now,
but I simply don't want to root for him, guy.
I created this category for Aaron Rodgers.
I don't want to root for anything good to happen for the Jets or Aaron Rodgers.
I just think he's annoying. And that's enough for me not to want to root for anything good to happen for the Jets or Aaron Rodgers. I just think he's annoying.
And that's enough for me not to want to take him.
But then if he's just sitting there at two bucks,
I'd probably really think about it,
considering he's got two elite offensive weapons
and a really good offensive line,
and the Jets might be really good.
So I would pick Rodgers for this.
Who do you have, Craig?
I didn't know this was like guys
that we had personal vendettas against.
Yeah, well, you can audible on the fly
or professional podcast.
Who do you hate, Craig?
Well, I hate a lot of guys.
Who don't you want?
I mean, to be honest,
I fucking hate Chris Godwin.
I'm not going to lie.
That guy pissed me off so much.
That guy ruined my life last year.
He was so bad.
Mike Evans was scoring
three touchdowns a game
and Chris Godwin was on the sidelines on his phone.
And I know he's back this year.
This is like the year after his ACL, whatever.
The new OC in Tampa Bay.
I'm just like so sick of Chris Godwin.
Sometimes when a guy double crosses you like that,
you can't go back.
That's how I feel about Kyle Pitts as well.
I wish him all the best.
Me too.
I'll never have him on another team.
He really hurt my feelings.
Who do you have,
Danny Kelly?
I had some cognitive dissonance here because I really love Garrett Wilson,
but it's Aaron Rodgers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like you have to,
I've traded for him in a few dynasty leagues because he's so cheap.
Everyone's like,
he's going to be gone after this year,
but he might be a top 10 quarterback.
Well,
for all we know,
like,
you know,
go back to the MVP years.
He was scoring or throwing like 45 touchdowns to two picks.
I mean, he still has that in his bag potentially.
So you have to kind of take that chance.
I mean, one of the fun things about Rodgers this year,
just as a football storyline is wherever it goes is going to be enjoyable.
Yeah.
Because if he's good, that means Garrett Wilson will be good.
That means the Jets will be a really interesting team
and it'll just be like a fun football storyline.
If he's bad, combined with the Packers
and Jordan Love being really good,
and then the Jets fans just being absolutely furious
that Rodgers isn't good,
like that's going to be hilarious to watch.
So there's no way to lose.
The only way this doesn't really work
is if they're like an 8-9 team with some injuries
and I don't see a scenario
where they're not entertaining. Hi, Fitz, finish
this off. Who do you have? It's Rodgers
for everything you just said. And the one thing I'll
say, the last time he did
Ayahuasca, he
then won the next two MVP awards.
That's all I'm saying. He needs
to get back? I think he already did.
He went to Egypt. Look, it's a way more fun season that's all I'm saying he needs to get back or he is back he already went yeah
he went to Egypt
this look
it's a way more fun season
if the Jets are like
12 and 5
let's be honest
it feels like a lot of stuff
is lining up for them too
Sal and I are going to do it
on Tuesday
we're doing the AFC
and I'm really
trying to be
there's just so many red flags
with the Jets
as a franchise
and the coach
and there's a million reasons.
Like the oldest offensive line in the league.
You're hard on Salah.
I think Salah's a good coach.
He's a good defensive coach, but we haven't seen evidence he's a good head coach yet, have we?
Am I missing something?
I feel like it wasn't Salah's decision to keep the quarterbacks on the roster that were on the roster last year.
And then he was told to cook with the ingredients he had.
And I think they actually had an incredibly coached season.
I think the roster management's been crazy.
Yeah, he's basically been like a chef on Chopped.
And it's like, all right, make spaghetti out of quail eggs,
Hershey's chocolate, and Ritz crackers.
Jim boils.
I make it ice cream.
That sounds delicious.
Yeah, because I was going to talk myself into the bills for that division.
And then when Milano got hurt, and now I know Milano gets hurt every year.
But when that happened even before the year, I was like,
that's just a lot of signs pointing at some.
All right, guys, what's the podcast schedule the rest of the way?
What do we got?
The rest of this week, we are doing sleepers.
And then we're going to do an episode about ESPN leagues, Yahoo leagues,
like what our favorite rules are, how to set up your league, all that stuff.
And then we'll do our annual Take Purge where we give our hottest takes
that we're not responsible for.
And also during the season, we got four episodes a week during the season.
We do fantasy.
We also just do the league and a lot of nonsense too.
But yeah, we do waiver pickups, Sunday night awards.
We do Wednesday power hours.
We do Friday previews.
And then, Craig, I'll see you tomorrow night for Purple Rain.
Oh, you're announcing it.
A movie you've never seen.
Can't un-mem the edge of my seat waiting for your reaction to that movie.
Guys, great to see you as always.
The third annual My Guy Fantasy Draft in the book.
Thank you.
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Life and death were two very realistic,
coexisting possibilities in my life.
I didn't even think I'd make it to, like,
my 16th birthday, to be honest.
I grew up being scared of who I was.
Any one of us at any time can be affected by mental health and addictions.
Just taking that first step makes a big difference.
It's the hardest step.
But CAMH was there from the beginning.
Everyone deserves better mental health care.
To hear more stories of recovery, visit CAMH.ca.
Adam Sandler is here. Josh Safdie is here recovery, visit camh.ca. Adam Sandler
is here. Josh Safdie is here.
They have a new comedy special
on Netflix, the home of Adam Sandler.
You're basically like Jason Tatum with
the Celtics with Netflix now. You're just
like lifelong. They retire your
number in the Netflix Hall of Fame. If he's
Tatum, who's Brown? Because
I think he's the MVP of the finals.
I know. Don't try to divide the the team I see what you're doing Billy saw what you were doing you were trying to get
them the one up each other they love each other I'm just saying who's there's then there's MVP
when I'm playing basketball like I did yesterday alone sadly uh but I told you I would have played
with you yeah I didn't want you there.
Not yet.
Not your giant elbows.
But when I'm playing pickup basketball and I win because my teammate is incredible every time, I'm excited.
I drive home just as excited.
That's right.
That's right.
Tatum felt the same.
He loved his buddy scoring.
The reason his buddy was scoring a lot, everyone was scared of Tatum felt the same He loved his buddy scoring The reason his buddy was scoring a lot Everyone was scared of Tatum
I love Tatum
He's one of the top five
One of the coolest, greatest dudes
And hardest work
Yeah, oh my god
His relationship with his son makes me cry
Of course
And he was, you know
When we showed gems to the Celtics in Boston, KG organized the screening. He was one of the fewples Center back then. And so we went to Shaq's opening, and Tatum was there.
And he was a rookie, and he was very nice.
And I remember just going, now, this is just a stud.
What a cool bastard.
Is that restaurant still open?
I'm not sure.
Is it called Shaq's?
No, it wasn't called Shaq's.
Shake Shack?
No, no.
It was good, though.
It had good food.
I ate a lot that night.
It was like midnight when I went.
I mean, Shaq's restaurant is definitely going to have good food.
Would you notice what Josh did at the start of this?
He immediately tried to bring Celtics dissension into the podcast.
I know what you're doing.
You're all excited about the next season coming.
I know what you're doing.
Listen, the Celtics are dependable and you know some maybe
not that exciting i mean they're great basketball players yes uh but it's not like not like the
knicks it's not like you know i like the mecca of basketball or you know a dysfunctional franchise
that's now all of a sudden incredibly solid and with, you know, a great core of players and potentially the greatest point guard in the East
and the Eastern conference. Wow. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
Billy, Billy, you just,
who's a better point guard in the Eastern conference.
You don't take Donovan Mitchell.
I don't disrespect Donovan. I love Donovan Mitchell.
I'm just saying I'm a Jalen Brunson. He's not really a point guard.
Jalen Brunson is amazing. He controls the ball, though.
But yeah, tell me who's a greater point guard in the East.
The Knicks fans are hilarious to me because they haven't won a title in 51 years.
Wait, wait.
We have the Atlantic Division in 2012.
Haven't made the finals in 25 years.
You made round two once, and the chests are out and puffed.
Talking shit.
Like shitting on the Celtics title.
It's just hilarious. I don't shit on the title.
I was rooting for the Celtics.
You kind of shit on the title. You said
the Celtics were boring. No, no, no. I didn't say
they were boring. I didn't say they were boring.
I love the team. Drew Holiday has been
one of my favorite players in the NBA since he came
in. I love his style of play. I love
White's style of play. I love Tatum's style of play. I like
everyone's individual style of play. But they're so style of play. I love Tatum's style of play. I like everyone's individual style of play,
but they're so good.
They're so good.
They're such a well-toned machine
and fine-tuned and perfect.
Who wants perfect?
But Bill Simmons wants perfect, that's for sure.
No, listen.
You have to grapple with some Knicks stuff that's coming,
which is you have too many guys now, not enough minutes.
And Randall wasn't in the playoffs last year.
There's going to be some ego stuff.
Adam figured this out with like grownups and grownups too.
Like you need the hierarchy, need role players.
You can't have somebody who's like the seventh guy in the movie
who thinks he should be in more scenes.
You figured it out.
Thank you, Billy, for noticing.
And in those moments, what you do is
you just bring those fellow superstars
who don't have as much to do in for a week
rather than a whole movie.
Because if they're there the whole season,
there's going to be some snapping going on.
Get me in there.
So that's your strategy?
So you're like, hey, Chrisris rock just come for like 10 days
i say well chris rock can stay as long as he wants but anybody uh who's a hit and run spade i give
him seven days maximum i say you gotta go bro you're starting to lose it on me by the way spade
can lose it by the end of a shoot because his body he doesn't love shooting too long he starts going
like what time are we finishing today?
And stuff like that.
He gets a little.
Spade came to one of the performances for Love You.
And he was.
Everyone had their phone locked in those special cases.
Somehow Spade snuck his phone in there.
Oh, my God, Bill.
I looked out in the crowd, my comedy special, all the years of being best buddies with david
and he's on his phone in the middle of a joke so i just go you know i stopped and yelled at him
and then he goes i was just writing down something i like so when he when he sees my shit when we're
on the road together he he writes down stuff he's a note taker or he writes
like a button he came up with for me but it looks like he's texting his mother so i start yelling
that so did he two phones it because the only way to really get the second the phone in there is to
have the second phone i think he had i think he had he snuck in i don't think he yeah people i
think security disallows david they don't no one wants
he's so awkwardly weird
that they just go I just let him through
man he's making such a moment out of us
asking for his phone you know
wait I want to talk about filming movies
and movie sets and being on there for a long
time because I don't know if I've ever talked about
that with anyone on the pod yeah so like
you're like you're doing uncut gems how
many many days on how many days filming on the set is that?
That was considered a short shoot.
It was like a 160-page script,
and we did it in 31 days.
Wow.
Yeah.
Oh, so that's better
because you're like in and out.
Now I have to like eat crow
because I did it so quickly.
Now everyone's like,
he expects me to do everything so quickly,
and it's... That's like the Clint Eastwood style where you're just like like one shot clint just
for the this is how i win scene with kg there's a basically we had to do like 12 pages in one day
which is very unusual that's right remember we had like oh it's lunch now we have an hour to get
that whole scene and it was like what we had an hour to get the most important scene in the movie done?
Yeah.
Well, so KG's on the set.
Huge personality. Super famous.
And is on the set for multiple days.
So, like, what is he doing when nothing's happening?
We had a basketball court set up out on the stage.
He didn't take one shot.
No, he went during lunch.
And, you know, KG sweats thinking.
Like, he's like, he's a big sweater.
And we somehow, I heard, everyone heard that KG's shooting on the hoop.
And we were like, oh, shit.
And everyone, like, in Exodus from the set, like, went like moths to a flame to the set the hoop that we had set up and we get in there and he's
with um some of the guys who were extras in that scene not really extras they were kind of um
jewelers well no they were they were actually lenny cook's like best friends growing up oh yeah
yeah yeah yeah and they were all and they all played ball so they were all but they haven't
played ball now they're like at the time they're in their like late 30s so it was totally they were they were like retired from recreational ball uh and um yeah we showed up and he was fully drenched in sweat in
his costume so like we had to like do a change and do that but no when when kg was like off he was
just telling some of the most amazing nba story like hearing it from his mouth some of the most amazing NBA story. Hearing it from his mouth,
some of the stuff that I wouldn't repeat,
but just amazing inner circle NBA stories that you as a Celtic fan
were probably really excited to hear,
but I'm not going to share them.
So as basketball fans,
are you just trying to start shit with him
and be like,
yo, honestly, who was better, you or Duncan?
And just try to throw him monkey wrenches.
That's all I would do if I was on the set with KG.
Did you do that?
Never said anything that'd make him feel an ounce more than happy.
I loved KG.
And yeah, I didn't bring Duncan up one time.
I brought up him a lot.
Yeah, because I think he's getting mad as his career, as the years have passed.
Yeah.
I think he's mentioned a couple times that Duncan was in a better situation.
It's like, ah, he's kind of right.
KG was buried on those Minnesota teams for years with no chance to win.
I brought up Melo.
I brought up Melo.
I did.
I brought up the Melo confrontation.
And I brought up him.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I brought up that.
And I kind of brought up the heat.
He'll talk about anything, you know what I mean?
And what's great about KG is he has respect for players who, you know,
so he doesn't talk shit.
He's just a straight shooter.
But the Melo Amari thing was really funny because he just looks at me,
he's like, this guy, like you think, This guy's like a demented Knicks fan.
He thinks they can do no wrong.
He looked at me like I had, like, you know,
I, you know, was like a
seven-year-old, like, asking for
an autograph. Like, it was...
Even though, like, at that point I had, like,
become friendly and now, like, I'll text
him after. He is a huge Knicks fan
now. You see what he says on his
show? KG? What do you mean? Why is a huge Knicks fan now. You see what he says on his show? KG?
KG's a big Knicks fan now. Why is he a Knicks fan?
He was never on the Knicks. Because he's
smart.
It's a good career move?
It is.
A big market.
New York is a big market.
I think the player podcast there of
these ex-players, which has now turned
into pro wrestling, is fascinating.
I was trying to think of like,
if this happened with acting,
because the players are coming in now
and they're just saying crazy shit like,
the 2004 Pistons were the best team of all time.
Then you see these clips,
you're like, wait, what's going on?
But I always thought it'd be funny
if like this happened with comedians or actors,
where you just had like comedians just claiming some B-level comedian was the greatest stand-up who ever lived.
And then the videos would get shot out.
I don't know.
On the one hand, I really like hearing the perspective of the ex-players.
But on the other hand, you have to color it through this crazy lens of whatever agendas they have yeah yeah yeah
hey do you have basketball courts wherever you are adam when you're shooting these movies
yes yes yes i or something nearby like i'll the location scout will go around like i'll hear
you use a location scout for that he literally literally, like we have scouts, men and women running around,
getting the movie sets all set up, and then I'll get a text.
Six minutes from a good court.
It's probably Schneider.
11 minutes from a good court.
Hey, Schneider.
All right, we're going to a bill.
Bill?
Yeah.
Is he dressed like Elvis?
That's Bill.
He's Bill Schneider.
What's up, Schneider?
All right, brother.
Nice to see you.
Wait, so how many years do you have left?
Because, you know, you're hitting your late 50s.
You're in the torn MCL meniscus stage of basketball.
Bill, that's a good question.
I think I'm going to keep going, but you know what happened?
I'm making a movie in England
and I walk out on the court.
London.
Cool place we found.
I forgot the name of the park.
Right when
I went on the court, I said,
I don't think most of the...
There were some good players, but there were a couple guys
I was like, they don't play basketball.
This is going to go bad and immediately boom guy bangs into my thumb i felt
something and it's been like four four and a half months i tore the ligaments in my thumb
and i it won't come back i can't like end it a certain way stanley in the hustle yes yes yes
exactly and so i i've started going man man, maybe I got to stop playing hoop
because it hurts so bad when I shoot.
But I played yesterday alone.
This is your way of saying this is why I can beat you one-on-one.
Oh, my hand hurts.
If I lose, I have the hand thing.
It's a good excuse.
Yeah, the thumb's never healed.
If it was pre-hand, I would destroy you.
You know, when you get older with pickup, two things happen. One,
you mentioned earlier, you're totally fine not being the best player, not having a lot of big
plays on the team that stays in the court. That's like late thirties where you're like, you know
what? I'm going to be on this guy's team and I'll drop up and down. I could guard people. Maybe I'll
hit one shot. Then the other one, you develop the sixth sense for you go out and you kind of can tell who the guy is to watch out for on the other team.
That guy can hurt me. That guy looks like he'll jump over my back or I might get hit by an elbow
by him. But you don't have that when you're in your early twenties. It like develops later,
right? A hundred percent. And you know what? That's why when I play, I'm so handsy now and so elbow-y because I'm always trying to
keep distance from these guys.
They're so big and strong and they're fast.
And I'm just like, okay, I know you're not only going to beat me, you're going to hurt
me badly.
So I'm always pushing away.
Everybody I guard looks at me like, will you stop touching me, man?
They hate me.
Handsy.
Did we ever do the celebrity basketball pantheon of people you've played with?
Because you've played with everybody.
Played with so many great NBA guys.
No, NBA guys don't count.
It has to be actors or comedians.
I played with some great.
Woody's really good, right?
He's great.
Yeah, there's a lot of greats.
I can't say.
You know who was the most exciting, fun moment? Playing with the professor.
The professor was fun.
Oh, really?
What a nice guy.
Where did you do that?
During hustle.
We had a few minutes.
We hung out and played.
And then you just watch him.
The professor?
Who's the professor?
The professor.
And one, he played with the and one guys.
And he does all these cool passes and dominates everybody in one-on-one on the internet.
You should watch his stuff.
It's the best.
And he gives you some tricks that you need.
KG was, speaking of Antoine, KG was one of the few pro athletes sponsored by Antoine.
Wow.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
He was.
Mark Jackson, too, but that's because his brother was Escalade.
Exactly.
And I know Mark Jackson's other brother.
So was there like a Clooney kind of, you guys kind of measuring each other up?
Because he's like the big, oh, I play pickup basket.
He's kind of on your corner.
Yes, yes.
I just did a movie with Clooney.
We didn't play, we didn't get, go back.
You can play?
Yes, he's got a great shot.
And he's like, you know what he is?
He's a real jump shot.
He's got a good looking elbow in, perfect shot.
And then he's an athlete.
He does not stop moving. He's in great in, perfect shot. And then he's an athlete. He does not stop moving.
He's in great shape.
Good Lord, he's in good shape.
So, no, but we never played against each other.
Which comedians are good at ball?
A lot of good ones.
By the way, when I was in England, I would show up to this game,
and they were like, we're all comedians.
And I would jump in, and everybody knew how to hoop pretty good no i got
a phone call from maybe adam sandler's over here right now he's just playing basketball yeah yeah
yeah you didn't tell me and i said because i don't want to he's a beetle this was a beetle
it's ringo star yeah yeah right ringo was following me around in England going hey now he's Ringo's the only Beatle not
independently as a solo artist
in the Hall of Fame, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
yeah? he will be
yeah and at some point
so Josh after you worked with
KG were other NBA players trying to get into
movies with you?
I'm doing something now that's
there's a Globetrotters
oh wow a 1952 Globetrotters there's a Globetrotters. Oh, wow.
A 1952 Globetrotters.
And, you know, Globetrotters in 52, that's all the greatest NBA,
all the greatest basketball players existed.
There were no NBA players, black NBA players really, you know, back then.
And then Bill Russell went, you know, and Will Chamberlain,
they all toured.
Will Chamberlain most famously.
But so I have talked to him.
I mean, Will did it for a year.
Yeah, Will did it for a year.
Did you see them growing up, the Globetrotters?
I did.
In Boston?
We're somewhat close to the same age.
When they were in the wide world of sports,
it was like the single most exciting thing that could happen.
Metal Ark.
Metal Ark was just, he was as cool.
Metal Ark was the first Rodney Dangerfield to me.
Was Goose still on the – no, he wasn't still on.
Curly Metal Ark.
Curly Metal Ark.
1970.
Curly was still on.
Marcus Haynes.
Marcus Haynes was still there?
No, he was on –
They said Marcus Haynes was the greatest ball handler of all time.
Jason Williams said that.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
That's cool.
Yeah. Ball handler. Ball handler of all time. Jason Williams said that. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's cool. He said that him and Kyrie are the greatest ball handlers of all time.
That makes sense.
It's amazing to think that that guy was doing it in the 40s.
And you watch footage of him, and you're like, wow, he's pretty contemporary and sick.
Yeah, they would sell out the Boston Garden.
Oh, yeah, man.
I could see you getting confetti thrown on you and being tricked.
Oh, no question. I would have loved it.
I would have loved it. I remember when they were on Gilligan's
Island. That was like a transformative moment.
They were on Gilligan's Island? That's so sick.
And then they had the
animation. They were on
Scooby-Doo, I think. Yeah, they definitely were on
Scooby-Doo. Oh yeah? Yeah.
Well, the wide road of sports, it was
Evel Knievel, Muhammad Ali,
the Globetrotters.
The big three.
That was it.
That was before your time, Josh.
That was before my time.
I'm sorry. The Globetrotters still sell out.
They have a really
diverse group of people on the team now
who can do a lot of different things.
It's more of a show.
Back then, the Globetrotters would tour America and too who could do a lot of different things it's a bit more it's more of a show like in back then
the globe tires would tour america and the best local players would go up against them and they
would sweep the floor with whoever they were playing right they would put up people in the
nba the nba the best players from the all-stars from the nba would go up against them and they
would have no shot um yeah i didn't know really when i was on my book, I really didn't know what to do with the
first 10 years of the league because it was just basically
all the white dudes. Yeah. There were
barely any black players in the league. I think
one black player per team was
the rule. I think the thing that everyone
says now, all the people on the
internet or on Twitter and stuff are like
plumbers and accountants.
That's all it was. Well, when you go pre-
Shot Clock,
because the Shot Clock came in for the 54-55 season,
so Mikan was dominating. That's when the Shot Clock came in?
Mikan was the first center.
Yeah, and when the Shot Clock came in,
Mikan was done,
because they started running up and down,
and that was it for the big, clumsy centers.
Yeah, he would play against...
He was the one person the Globetrotters
were kind of scared of.
Globetrotters weren't even from New York.
From Chicago.
Oh, wow.
And there was a Harlem team.
I forgot the name of the team that also had a squad.
And they were better.
They were kind of like, who the fuck are these guys?
Claiming Harlem Globetrotters.
Pre-Shot Clock, I saw a game one time when I grew up in the 40s.
It was the best game I ever saw. grew up in the 40s. Yeah.
It was the best game I ever saw.
And the Knicks won four to nothing.
What happened with the collector's movie?
Because I know you were working on it forever.
Yeah, we were still working on it.
Josh kept texting me ideas and stuff.
The strikes derailed us and it was complicated because the MLB was a huge part of it.
And getting the tectonic plates in order after the strike finished up were kind of impossible.
We're going to come back to it.
A lot of the research from that movie popped up into the special, into Love You.
Because I spent so much time at all these autograph
collecting you know conventions in particular i went to the national that year i texted you
and uh you know i just got really i mean sandler's sandler's character is a great
oh it was a great character so we're not we're gonna go back to that you know we just have to
you know figure out the timing bill there's four more days on the Heritage Sports Collector's website to buy my Ty Cobb cleat.
Are you really selling it?
Yeah.
That's amazing.
His Ty Cobb cleat?
Yeah.
One single cleat.
One single shoe.
Just one cleat, not even two?
Just one shoe.
Yeah.
Warren or not Warren?
I've had it since I was a kid.
Why are you selling it?
That's kind of sad.
I don't know.
Because my wife's getting,
what am I going to do with this?
I didn't even know I had it.
So it's on Heritage site now.
It's the only,
there's no shoe that's been sold for,
that's Ty Cobbs.
And I've had it since I was a kid.
My dad and I bought it,
you know,
when I was a kid,
that's some sports thing.
Bought it. Now, you can have it, Bill. Buy it since I was a kid. My dad and I bought it when I was a kid. It's a sports thing. Bought it now.
You can have it, Bill.
Buy it.
Go on Heritage.
I'll look it up.
Four more days, Bill.
I hit this point with collecting.
When you get older and you're like,
why do I have all this stuff?
Yeah.
And then some of the best stuff I have to put in boxes at a bank
so I can't even go and look at it.
So it's like, what was the point. What's your best stuff, Bill?
What's the best thing you ever collected?
I had a lot of
basketball cards.
Especially when I was
working on my book in the late 2000s
and I realized you could basically get all the Hall of Famer
rookie cards and they weren't that expensive.
When I was a kid,
I got into
collecting when it was peak
so they printed so many worst possible time yeah i mean when you got in the market at the very
beginning of you know all those early 70s cards and you know yeah but we didn't take care of them
though we just kind of like shoved them in a shoebox. Yeah, same thing. I remember I had a Freddie Lynn when he first came out.
75.
Yeah, Freddie Lynn card.
I had so many great cards, but I didn't even take it taken care of.
But you know what I did pretty good with taken care of?
The Sunoco little football helmets.
Remember those?
Those are cool, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I have about –
You still have them?
I had every team.
Whenever we would stop at Sunoco and I'd say to my dad,
please, please get this.
Oh, you put the quarter in and turn it around and the one helmet comes out?
Yeah.
So by the end of that run, I had every team.
But now when I go home and my mother says, go to your room,
and my mother's screaming at me, she says, go to your room,
and I go in there, open my closet, and I cry for about a half hour
saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry. but then i look at my old helmets i have about maybe
80 of the helmets and they're a little beaten but pretty cool i have you know what i saw that i
thought was cool one of the conventions is they had basically like the first version of kind of
like an nft they had these little tiny discs that had grooves, vinyl grooves in it.
And it had the photograph of the player.
And it said the name of the play.
So it would be like Larry Bird, like Fadeaway Jumper.
And you could listen to the commentator.
Wow.
You put it on a record and you can play it.
That's cool.
I remember this.
Yeah, it was Johnny Most talking.
Because of Boston.
I didn't buy that one.
I bought an OJ one.
I bought an OJ one. I like stuff that I can use, like these Dream Team cups.
That's cool.
And they're not even expensive.
I had, I collected those.
It's Larry Bird right there.
Is that signed or that's the fake signed one?
No, it's the McDonald's ones, but you can buy them and they're like 40 bucks.
The funniest is like the 96 Dream Team, which nobody liked.
Those are like way cheaper.
Yeah, you can get those.
Usually those end up becoming more valuable because they didn't make that many, right?
Everyone threw them away.
How about Karl Malone's wife went into the locker room after the first Dream Team,
picked up all the jerseys off the floor.
Now those jerseys are worth $20 million and he's selling them.
No.
True story.
Wow.
Walking away, leaning back.
Is that true?
Yeah.
Well, that's like that crazy story.
I say that to Schneider literally after everything he says to me. Is that true?
No, I never heard that one. He just dropped two things I'd never heard in my life.
Bill, do your work. We're going to talk about this stuff. Look it up now. Go on. You have
somebody helping you? Have him look it up now.
He does it. He does it on his own.
He's in his house right now talking to us.
Bill, hire somebody.
This is a very popular podcast.
There was an era in the 80s and 90s when people like the equipment manager was just grabbing jerseys and sneakers.
Right, right, right, right.
And people were like, yeah, yeah, take it.
And those people just put them in the garage.
What was that story, the Brady story?
Didn't someone steal a jersey?
Yeah. Right? Yeah.
Well, you know what's happened now?
There's been this boom with movies
and pop culture stuff.
Oh, yeah.
You know that you can get a happy Gilmore
sealed VHS tape
and graded near mint or mint
or 10-0 if it's sealed.
Some of those go for like $900,000.
Not $900,000.
$900 or $8,000. $900,000 is better, yeah. Yeah like $900,000. Not $900,000. $900 or $8,000.
$900,000 is better.
Yeah, $900,000.
I was excited because I had one in my car.
I wanted the Halloween VHS tape, like the original one.
It was on some auction.
I'm like, oh, I'm getting this.
I thought it would be like $400.
And it went for like $18,000.
Wow.
See, the Happy Gilmore probably was a lot more, like a PSA 10 is probably for a Gilmore.
I don't know.
But Gilmore was like, Gilmore was the video store video.
That movie.
That was big on video.
I remember that.
Yes.
You couldn't go into a Blockbuster and not have it playing.
Yeah, that made happy for sure.
Hey, Bill, do you know the Mark Jackson rookie card?
Not the rookie card, the Mark Jackson.
Oh, yeah, with the Menendez brothers in it.
Yeah, that's funny.
Which they bought those front court side seats with their parents.
They recently murdered parents' credit card.
What else are you going to do with your recently murdered parents' credit card?
Go to a Nick game.
That should have been a movie you worked on, the Menendez brothers.
I think the best version, the closest they got was Stiller.
Was it in Cable Guy?
The Menendez brothers show up?
I think so, yeah.
I think there's like-
They did do a movie.
Well, no.
He plays both Menendez brothers.
And it's constantly on television.
Oh, right, right, right, right.
Yes, yes, yes.
It's like his version.
It's his version.
Yeah, that's right.
Love Stiller.
Absolutely.
That blockbuster time you mentioned,
that really was a fascinating time to release movies
because there were only so many cable channels.
And if you hit that sweet spot of the blockbuster
combined with all of a sudden it'd be on HBO
and you just have these five-year runs.
Now I don't know if it's the same way now.
No.
I think it'd be harder to hit that vortex
because we have too much content now.
We didn't have enough content in the mid-'90s.
Your stuff gets hot for a couple weeks maximum now
if you get a smash, and then they go,
okay, all right, we got 30 more things coming out this
weekend so what was cool about blockbuster
or any video store blockbuster in particular
is they would have the deals with the other big corporations
so you would go in there and there would be like
the Newman's not maybe not Newman's but they're
the butter popcorn by the door you get the
raisinets and it really felt like you were
going to the movies it was fun
you know what I mean and you walk through the aisles
and you know a big movie and you walk through the aisles and you know
a big movie would come out to be like 75 tapes remember you get there and that whole aisle
gilmore you know what i mean yeah you used to go and used to count how many of your movies was on
the shelf and compare it to other people's how many movies they had but i will say blockbuster
could have been the netflix they just just didn't see the end coming.
They didn't make the transition.
But they had it all and lost it.
No, there's been a couple of those, right?
Because Rolling Stone could have been MTV and they missed it.
Sports Illustrated could have gotten involved and been basically ESPN and they missed it.
And Blockbuster easily could have been Netflix.
But Netflix didn't seem like it was going to be Netflix
for the entire late 2000s.
I mean, the whole beginning of Netflix,
I spent just renting the DVD, ripping the DVD,
and then returning it immediately.
I would go through like 5,000 Netflix.
I would get the three rentals.
They'd come, I'd rip them,
I'd immediately return them and I'd get new ones.
So I would just amass a huge library.
And it seemed like the worst business possible
because you just couldn't understand
how is this going to make it.
Well, Netflix knew something early
because I remember like when the studios say,
hey, something's going on,
we're not going to give them discounts anymore
for $8 or $2
for a title.
And they said,
you're going to have to pay $12.
And they said, we're still going to pay for it.
I said, well, they must know something.
They did.
The old school video stores, if you rented something
and you lost the tape or whatever,
they would be like, it's $180.
Oh, I lost a very rare tape from Kim's
and I got robbed.
And I told them, I was like, I was robbed.
What was I supposed to do?
Someone ripped my back off my back.
That's a $900 tape.
I was like, $900?
This is a rare, it was a super rare movie.
And by a filmmaker who didn't put out many films so
i didn't know what to say to them so i kind of just kept passing the buck and then they went
out of business um because of you because of me but i it was like 900 for a tape i was just like
to wait out the bankruptcy i didn't know the bankruptcy was half coming then they sold the
entire collection to uh i think in italy but anyway that's another story i had a similar thing when i didn't return
a library book growing up and i went to the library and they said it's overdue and i said
i'm not gonna i'm not gonna uh uh bring it back i like it too much and they they had maybe six or ten librarians come out and beat me with their books.
With the Britannica.
With the Britannica finger smashes.
Put your hands up.
I think we talked
about this before, but isn't it, like I noticed
when Carl Weathers died
and it was like he was a member of
Adam's family because people had
such an attachment to that movie.
It's weird when you just make a movie,
you spend how many days on it,
you put it out in the world,
and then it takes on this whole different form of identity
and becomes part of people's lives
and characters from the movie die
and people act like it was their uncle.
It's true.
I did get so many calls about Carl.
Man, but there's certain people you make a movie with and that you literally, you lock in and become family.
The movie goes so well.
You hang out the whole time while making it.
Not because if it's a hit or not, just that the experience of making the movie and Carl.
Carl was like that.
Henry Winkler was like that. It was just kind of like Bob Bark Carl was like that. Henry Winkler was like that.
You just,
it was just kind of like Bob Barker was like that.
We became family too.
We hung out and,
um,
but Rob never got there.
Schneider's not in there yet.
He's working hard.
I'm one movie away,
Bill.
It's one more,
just one more.
You're almost there.
What was the connection with you and Josh from,
from Uncut Gems that made you want to keep working
oh we've
had the best time
all of us kind of got
while shooting
pre-production
we became really tight
putting it together
yes we had a nice lunch
at that hamburger joint
we sat outside there at the
bar first time ever was when i i came from we came we were just shooting the jay-z video
marcy me and i shot all we shot all night yeah and then we were like a helicopter let's meet
yeah and i was scared on the helicopter shooting and then i ended up then you said we'll shoot
we'll play ball at like eight.
There was the first time.
Oh yeah,
we played ball.
Yeah,
yeah.
At 830.
And I was like,
oh man,
we fit.
We wrapped at like 430 in the morning.
Oh,
you're tired.
And then I ended up coming straight to the gym.
Yeah,
yeah.
And,
uh,
you and Benny were both.
Yeah.
Exhausted.
Yeah.
Up and down.
And Benny's way of playing basketball is like,
he'll beat you with his hustle. Oh yeah. He's a big, oh, he's one of playing basketball is like, he'll beat you with his hustle.
Oh, yeah, he's a big strong guy.
Oh, he's one of those guys.
Yeah, he'll beat you with his hustle.
You know the type of player who will just...
Kevin Wilds, yeah.
He's just like, just trying super hard the whole time.
Exactly, which is, you need a guy like that all the time.
Yes.
Yeah.
No, those guys always end up on the right teams.
A thorn in the side of the other team all the time.
You're like, oh, this guy's in again. I have to deal to deal with this you know what i'm talking about yeah but adam was one
of your guys though growing up though and then all of a sudden you're you're making a movie with him
yes i still to this day you know i i had to do the uh tech check for the special this morning
and um you know i i cry i mean the, the ending of it is very emotional for many reasons.
But I actually met, I met Sam, I met Sandler.
I got, my relationship with Sandler began on the wall of this music store called The Wall, actually, where they have all the new releases.
In New York?
In New York, yeah.
And they had, and I, you know, it was a thing.
If you broke, you got a sticker. And if it broke, they give you a new one, no questions asked. And my dad would say, like, I'll get you whatever, you know, once a month, I'll get you whatever CD you want. And obviously, it was for that for the house. And, you know, we got a Queen album, you know, I remember. And uh I think it was a Prince album uh the one with um uh his
first album uh what was the name of the first album that has crazy uh crazy you let's get crazy
no no no um shit I can't my mind is blank anyway I um you know comedy was so important to me I had a kind of a we had many had kind of a rough
childhood so comedy was so important and my dad would always be we go to the movies and he'd be
like I want to see this film and we're like we want to go see the comedy movie and he would make
a compromise we'd maybe go see both or he'd come he always laughed and he was like oh we were
embarrassed about how how loud his laughter was but uh we would go and I would see, I saw that there was a comedy album.
And I had never heard of anything like that before.
I was, they're all going to laugh, he was 93.
I was nine years old.
And the coolest part about it is it had, you know, I was 93, New York, whatever.
You were into hip-hop that was if you were a kid
everyone listened to onyx or whoever or you know biggie that's what it was hip-hop was so they all
had the parental advisory black and white little thing right and i'm looking at this comedy album
and it's got that big fat parental advisory on it and i was like oh man this is this is
definitely what i want you know maybe i'll just grab it and you know there'll be no questions
asked and i just remember just benny and i just listening at night the lights would go off when
we just listen to those uh and i the you know there's a medium pace when you're nine years old
it's like kind of happened you know i don't fully understand what medium pace when you're nine years old. It's like kind of happened. You know, I don't,
I didn't fully understand what medium pace was,
even though like the,
uh, yeah,
I didn't know about any pace,
you know what I mean?
So,
uh,
medium pace was even more nuanced than that.
But you know,
there was like,
there was a,
uh,
uh,
you know,
teenage love.
I mean,
there's a lot of,
Oh yeah.
The,
the jokes themselves,
the acting inside of it was was um was so amazing because
you were listening their sketches they were so they were made for your headphones oh yeah we
had this uh little boom box and it was just that was my introduction to to sandler and then when
uh what what the hell happened to me came out and you have like an eight minute track like the
hypnotist oh yeah that's me yeah but there's eight minutes you
know what i mean so like and he's just ripping ones the whole time but you are laughing was it
what was he doing was he doing a fart machine like how it was making you laugh so no i don't
know if you know that one bill it's it's the hypnotist says i he's He's trying to get you to quit smoking
But he keeps
Farting throughout the whole thing
Just relax, he's blaming you
He's telling me
He thinks he's got
Me in a trance that he can say it was me
But there was no
Farts
There was no sound effect in yet
So Nealon would be doing we'd
be going back and forth and neil and would just put his finger down like he did like i'm gonna
put one in there and so i used to laugh at kevin's giant hand just going neil and it was good i mean
neil's amazing anyway but like you listen to that and i think that came out it was 95 so i was like
shit i don't remember i was 11 or something and And then that, you know, or The Goat.
The Goat was on that.
And then the first one had songs, too,
and the second one had a lot of songs.
Yeah, yeah.
I think we split it up with a bunch of,
like, maybe six, seven songs,
and then the rest are comedies.
We packed it in.
On the second.
Both of them have it.
First one, you have Medium Pace, you have...
Steve Policronoff.
No, that's the second one. No, that's the second one? I don't know. Go To Cars on You have Steve Policronoff. No, that's the second one.
No, that's the second one?
I don't know.
Ota Kars on the first one, isn't it?
No, that's the second one.
He's Shikar.
I don't remember.
Those two kind of blend together.
Anyway, that was my introduction to Sandler.
And so when Billy Madison came out, it was – and that was also my introduction to Norm.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And Farley, too.
You know, that was my introduction because I was a living color guy.
I watched it in color.
And then SNL.
Yeah, I don't know why.
I was just, I watched that more than I watched SNL.
It was good.
Yeah, it was great.
I loved it.
And I loved it and I loved
the Wayans brothers
so I love that
there's a shout out
in the
yeah we give them
a shout out
in the special
but I love that
and then you get to know
all the SNL crew
and you start watching those
and you're like
Schneider and Sandler
and you know
Farley obviously
and Tim Meadows
and Rock
and that whole
David Dave of course David Dana uh, Farley, obviously, and Tim Meadows and rock. And, and, uh, that whole David,
Dave,
Dave,
of course,
David,
Dana,
Carvey.
And,
and,
uh,
I mean,
that was just an all-star,
uh,
you look at that cast photo and you're just like,
Jesus Christ.
That was a really fun era for comedy.
Cause those two shows run at the same time.
I like both of them.
Oh yeah.
But then you had,
we had enough comedy movies at that point to
re-watch, like the whole Caddyshack era,
Stripes, all of those. Those
had nice legs at that point.
And then there was all the comedy stuff from
the late 70s, early 80s. Steve
Martin, Eddie, people like that.
Back to school.
I remember seeing Back to School, and I saw
very shortly after, I saw Billy.
And I saw...
The premise of a guy going back to school and i saw very shortly after i saw billy and i saw like oh yeah yeah
like you know this the premise of a guy going back and just like i just saw i was like you know
i don't know if if we could have made gems with anybody else i probably would have been like
rodney peak rodney oh wow he would have been incredible being good at rodney peak rodney yes
rodney was just a special,
and I remember
reading Rodney's,
one of his books.
He's got
Billy's Blue Eyes,
Rodney.
He had him.
Yeah.
Well,
he also had,
he had that comedy special
and he was just breaking
all these young people
nobody had ever seen before
on HBO.
He had Seinfeld.
He did Seinfeld.
He had Jim Carrey.
Well,
that was where I saw
Sam Kennison.
Jim Carrey was on there.
It was basically all that.
Dice, of course.
That generation.
It was pretty cool.
We all loved Rodney, every comedian.
He was just such a hardworking...
I told you I went into his archive
and I was able to look at
this artist
Richard Prince bought his entire archive.
All his jokes that he wrote down.
All his jokes from the beginning,
so you can see how No Respect, the character, evolved.
When he was Jack Roy.
Oh, when he was Jack Roy, exactly.
And then you could see he had one joke that he worked on forever,
which was a guy on a date at a fancy restaurant.
And it was all about the lobster,
and the lobster gets more attention attention than him and okay and you could see little no respect jokes inside of this big
epic joke that's so great uh which kind of reminds me i don't know of your stuff i i love
rodney and and uh sandler are very much like i definitely was influenced huge by rodney and
there's so many people i was influenced from growing growing up. But yeah, Rodney was.
Well you did that, I mean, I don't wanna spoil the special,
but that's a big part of the last part of the special
where some of the influences.
Yeah, I did.
That's, yeah.
Well I also know, I know how hard those are to do
and probably trying to sketch that out,
but then make the video.
That's so funny.
I don't wanna spoil it, but I thought it was really cool.
We did it, Thank you, man.
That was only the second time I ever played that song.
What happened was,
I think I went to,
before we did the special,
I had to go to Europe
and I did something for a while.
I forget why.
Anyways, I came back
and I was like,
we're doing a special, man.
I got to get my shit cooking
because I did a tour. We all were on tour and i had the shit going and like when you do stand-up you take a three-day
break it can fuck you up you know you just right not the rhythm anymore so i had it cooking on tour
then i had to shut down for a month or two to do something i don't even remember what the fuck it
was but anyways then you just lose the rhythm
completely? You just don't know your
transitions. You don't know.
You forget
key lines in the thing. Your head spins.
So I did a practice show
at this place
called the Hayward Theater
in LA. And you
were there because he was putting this special
together. and then we
played that song that we played at the end of
the special for the first
time and with no visuals
and it was nothing going on
behind but it was just the mentioning of
other
comedians and stuff and then all of a sudden
fucking the crowd
was like building and building and locking into
who they liked and stuff and if I mentioned a name it was like building and building and locking into who they they liked and stuff
and if i mentioned the name it was like big laughs and big yeah big fucking cheers it was the coolest
that night yeah i mean the thing is i remember we were texting early about that about doing a
song at the end of the of the show that like was emotional and real and yeah this guy over here is a very deep well of emotions and a complex person.
Very funny for a reason.
The best comedians are very complex people.
And the best artists, from my point of view.
And I think the greatest part of that track is, of course,
obviously you relate to all of the comedians that that um you
see on screen but it's different it's bigger than that it's more about you're seeing the stuff that
made sandler happy the stuff that made sam yeah like forget about any trouble he was having in
life at the time and just it's amazing comedy is an incredible incredible thing that we have in life
and what's so powerful about that final song is it really reminds you of it.
And it really makes you emotional.
It makes you really appreciate it in a way that I've never really appreciated.
Comedy, you appreciate it because you're like, oh, I want to escape right now.
I want to laugh.
And I want to check out this crazy brain and get into tune with it.
But that's what I'm saying.
It's amazing.
It's awesome to see the stuff that made you laugh
because it's like a little documentary about you.
Right, right, right.
It's all about like you go to someone's house,
you look at their record collection or whatever.
That's true.
That's funny, yeah.
Oh, wow, he likes this record.
Oh, that's really cool.
But like, oh, man, you like the, you know, I'm trying to think of a.
There's so many in there.
I love that you put the jump kick from Martin,
like a very specific thing.
He was very specific about the things that you saw of the comedians.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We,
we worked hard on this.
It was for me just watching it.
Cause I hadn't seen it.
And I saw with the visuals,
it is overpowering to me.
It was,
it was Sandler's way of,
of just saying, I love i love you and and thank you
and i just i've never seen a comedian do that as completely as as this and it was just it really is
like a generous thing it was it was really you know i think it's really overpowering like for
people who love the farley song this one to me is is a sledgehammer to your heart. For me, for all
the people who love comedy. Well, we all give
it up. All us comedians give it up to
our past and talk
about it and get to say it. And this was a nice way
to
cement it.
Chris Rock opened
was it
Bring the Pain? Was he opening
with, I remember he opened comedy albums comedy
oh yeah yeah that was tambourine yeah that's right was it not tambourine
i don't know i don't know tambourine but um he's like yeah something like that he opened
with anyway it's very different but but i don't know i can't sorry i don't i remember
chris rock's first album uh born a suspect i think i remember him doing it and how killer it was and how funny it
was and man he has so much energy yeah it's the energy that you can feel all the time i mean he's
one of the great he changed modern stand-up comedy completely on the back of all the greats even if
we just watch him do stand-up he doesn't stop. So it's always just exciting to just see him moving.
The rhythms are out of control too.
Well, it's such an interesting spot.
Comedy albums in the
era of
what Adam and I see with our kids, like
these 90-second TikTok clips
or Instagram
reels, and you can literally get
150 funny things in
I don't know, 20 20 minutes it is crazy how good
it is too man when i go to sleep but i wake up every night for some reason at three in the morning
and i just offered like two hours and i start flipping through just going through the reels
the the reels i guess my kids make fun of me they say dad such i guess i do some i don't do tiktok
because i don't have it instagram i don't do instagram yeah I don't fucking have that
but there's something else I have so I'm
always going like this I'm laughing and my kids
like that's so you're
so old dad you just look like an old
guy and they're like you're going through
with like young
boys look at the same thing I'm like
I don't know what I'm looking at but the jokes
are so fucking funny and the
reality of what goes on and what like everybody
and you're in Minnesota making the funniest thing now for 20 seconds.
It's pretty cool.
Were you prepared for how uncool you would become with your kids?
Because it's been shocking for me.
Yeah, it's an all time high right now.
They just ridicule.
I just spent a week with them and you just get ridiculed the whole time.
Yeah, man. Just out of touch. You're old. Everything you just get ridiculed the whole time. Yeah, man.
Just out of touch.
You're old.
Everything you like is for the past.
That's amazing, buddy.
I walked in on my kids last night.
The two of them were at a hotel.
And two of them, I came in.
I said, hey, guys, how's it going?
You guys having fun?
And one of them goes, we were.
They're dead serious.
I have, what, 15 years until she's two you got 13 maybe 11 years yeah you got
like you got like nine years until all of a sudden she's like dad well that's when the dad i mean adam
made a movie with his kids and it was actually good and you pulled it off i i thought the degree
of difficulty that was like that... That was probably at the end
of them liking me, maybe.
Well, I remember you told me you were doing
that and I was like, oh my god.
There's just so many ways this can go
sideways. I can't believe
you decided to do this.
What a move that was.
They're both great in it, though.
Yeah, it worked out and it was super popular.
Just like your daughter doing your show.
You got to do it.
No.
Being terrified.
Your daughter led a Netflix movie.
That's a whole different level.
It's crazy.
You got the same going on.
Your daughter's excellent and so is her buddy.
Were you surprised?
I forgot to ask you about this.
When OJ died and Norm had this crazy resurgence. I don't know if you followed this.
It became like a two-week Norm.
Oh, yeah.
Kind of greatest hits of OJ Joe.
And all of a sudden, Norm was like back in the mainstream.
Oh, man.
Huge way. I'm delighted that he has the legs that he has.
He has amazing legs.
He's still modern.
He's still contemporary with a lot of his jokes.
His jokes were timeless.
They were timeless. If you look at me doing stand-up, just hear the audio of it on Spotify.
Norm's me doing stand-up.
That is perhaps the most brilliant hour of stand-up you'll ever hear.
It is perfection, word for word.
And it's even better just to hear it than watch it.
He had so much much time by the way
when we'd go on the road together he he i i am i lying when he i think he said i have i got seven
good hours oh my god yeah i think he said i got seven good i like he fucking used to write it out
he'd phrase it perfectly he'd go joke to joke perfectly i love when you'd see norm kind of go yeah like he
started for his next joke and be like ah so hot yeah so the other day there whatever he did man
he was so badass man yeah he's a classic and it was and he never made any never told any jokes
outside of obviously oj when he wasend Update, he was doing timely jokes.
But all of his jokes in his stand-up
are just completely timeless.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're absurdist.
The Weekend Update is so funny because
there was a stretch when he wasn't
getting the laughs that were as funny as
the actual jokes. So I remember
being home thinking it was like the absolute
funniest thing. Yeah. And he would tell
a joke and it would just be like almost silence.
Yes, yes. And he just sat in it.
What are you people? How are you not laughing at
this? He didn't give a fuck. He was a tough
bastard. He just sat in
the great joke and that was it.
He's killing a bug right now. What is that?
What's he doing?
Oh, God damn it. You're going nuts
on that. What is it? You don you don't need billy he's beating
up uh josh is killing a bug he's killing a bug but i don't know if i would do that oh my god
all right that's giant invasive species they're called the lantern bugs where are they from
well he's i don't know where they're from wait I have
three things we have to do before we go
one talented behind
the scenes people always want to do
direct a comedy special
which seem like they're
pretty simple but I know they're not
what is it about comedy specials
this is like a movie about a guy
doing a comedy special
there's a lot
and I really, really, really, when Sandler asked me,
like, you want to, well, I went and saw the show a bunch
when he was on tour.
And it is like two and a half hours of material.
And I was like, oh, wow, this is like a powerhouse.
Kind of like Rodney.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
It was like a machine.
And I don't know when he was like saying, do you want to do this special?
Turturro came to one of the shows.
Yeah.
And he had something that he said that really, you know, sometimes you don't know what you're making until someone tells you how it felt.
And he said it was like hanging out in his friend's basement drinking like, I think he said like drinking like a two liter soda and just like laughing at your funniest friend and it and it really did like to me like the carpeting the
design of the stage we wanted to create i really wanted to create this space of like
this nowhere space that like we all kind of remember but it didn't really exist
and and uh you know you have you create vibe, kind of like the final song that like, life is pretty
fucked up. And then you have this like, hour of just like, you forget about it all. And then it
releases you and you're like, oh, that's what we do. We get this comedy, we get this comedian who
gives us this, and then he's gone. Then he's just gone and the credits are rolling. And I just,
and like the feeling of doing this in particular, it was like the closest thing i ever did to feel like i was on kind of an snl type show because we
would do two shows a night and then we would have inter in between be like all right let's cut this
song and we have these certain things that i would throw at sandler that he didn't know was coming
so like i would have to go and talk to ronnie and be like ronnie i'm like i want to change this
little part i have to rewrite this thing.
And, you know, I'm like a character in it a little bit where I'm not a character.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Communicating with him.
Yeah.
But it's nice because it throws it's a it's a good curveball for like for for people who are seeing stand ups, comedy specials, because you keep some but you don't really know 100 percent what's happening.
Are they putting you on?
But maybe they're not.
So it's anything that can get the audience a little bit out of their seat of normalcy.
You have the potential to come in with different stuff.
So I really loved it.
It was fun.
I mean, every show was different.
So it was a blast.
I just really like this idea.
You were great.
Yeah, you were great, man.
I mean, I really wanted,
and I don't want to ruin it because it's a great surprise,
but I just really wanted to, like, give the feeling.
I love feeling.
And I just really felt like we wanted to feel like we were there
and we had, you know, shooting it and figuring out a way to shoot it
and, like, putting the camera in the right places
and all the cameras handheld so you really feel like you're there and uh you know again like that torturo's comment afterwards it really resonated
with me because like the color of the carpet is like the cult kind of the color of the carpet
when i first listened to your cd it also matches the carpet from what the hell happened to me and
i don't know i just like it to me it was a great challenge. I had a great time doing it.
You know what I mean?
Bill, when I talked to Josh about doing it, I didn't know.
I thought, I'm going to shoot a comedy special.
I got a good act.
Right now, I was psyched with my act.
Let me just get this song fucking down so I got it forever.
I said, Josh, you to uh direct it and he goes
yeah you know we got into josh doing it and then it became like a thing to josh where he couldn't
couldn't stop creatively thinking about it with with him ronnie his partner and uh and just he
would call me up with ideas and i'd be like oh fuck i thought i was just gonna do this just gonna
do my act man i didn't know all this shit was coming.
But it does have the feeling.
Getting you out of your comfort zone is pretty hard.
Yeah, I would call him up like a couple of days after.
I'd be like, wait a minute.
Why do we got to do all this shit, man?
Let me just do my fucking act and do my songs.
It's working on the road.
And he was like, well, yeah, I know, I know.
But just you in a small room, it's a little more people get to see you and see your mind thinking i was like well yeah they get that
when i'm doing my fucking act that i've been writing for the last three years too you know
but we did it uh josh's way it was cool no it was it was a great i mean we collabed but it was
your thoughts and like yeah at one point at one point i think monty and i wrote like i think we
sent you like 25 pages of scripted material in the beginning and you were like this is amazing
this is amazing but like what are we doing because i saw a dice i saw a dice andrew dice clay special
that he did when he performed at the garden and it was like a 25 minute short film that kind of
showed the origins of that character yeah yeah oh wow. Oh, wow. Yeah, it was great.
Him as a kid.
Yeah, he's like, no.
And then he's got the wife character.
He's like, you.
He does his voice.
You know what I mean?
Like, aw.
Anyway, I just like, and then we got realistic about it.
And I really just wanted to just give the feeling.
Like, Live on Sunset Strip, the Richard Pryor album,
is one of my favorite albums.
The show is one of my favorite specials.
And what's great is you do have that moment
where you're seeing Richard Pryor.
And they have that weird text that tells you
someone was performing.
I don't remember.
Someone performed before him.
Some amazing musician performed before him,
but they didn't show it to you because there was not enough time.
But you see that and you're like,
oh wow, this was like a whole night.
And then you see him and then the greatest part
of Richard Pryor
is his jokes and
the way he sees life is amazing, but his acting
is amazing. That was what was so great
about the Commie albums and you as an actor
in general, your acting is incredible.
So when you're watching you do some of these jokes these super surreal jokes you're selling it with your
performance and like to me that was like it was that's why i say it's like a movie you're watching
this guy arrive in this really shitty mood and then he slowly gets into it and even though as
much as the venue doesn't want to let him get into it he ends up kind of winning right right right
yeah yeah that's true bill when you do stand up you do walk in with a mood and you got to shake
that fucking mood or sometimes you're stuck with the mood and you suck that night it just happens
or it takes you 20 minutes to get cooking or whatever it is and this this uh was a version
of a comedian coming up too much shit's going on before the show to
fucking really concentrate yeah and then you get on stage and you go oh shit i got a show to do
and it's not fucking uh it's not gonna go exactly the way i thought it was bill i got there and i
didn't really know exactly what was happening and i go why aren't we doing this in a, an arena? And then after you realized the
intimacy of this was super cool where it reminded me of like, this is Adam's, you know, like what
Elvis did in that small place in the round, in the round, man, and totally had that beautiful feel to
it. Is it better to be a small place or a giant arena? Cause it's funny. Like the, if you talk
to like the great bands, I think there's this, like, it's really fun to be a small place or a giant arena? Because it's funny, if you talk to the great bands,
I think it's really fun to do the giant arena or football stadium,
but I think they like when it's a little more intimate.
You were afraid at first.
They feel like they connect with the audience more.
Well, I get maybe it's an ego thing because you're playing these big ass joints
and you go, oh, fuck, let me make sure I capture that so I can show my kids
you were afraid just about doing the intimate one
because you were so used to doing
giant minutes
I'll tell you
when I prepare for these tours
I play the little rooms
I play Largo
little tiny spot at Improv Comedy Store
whatever the Hayward Theater
I go on in front of 50, 100 people.
And I fucking, I'm so calm in that number.
I don't feel like I'm letting that many people down when I suck.
If I'm at a huge place and I suck, I feel like calling them all up and going,
look, let's do this again.
I apologize for how bad i was but um so but
when we we did this special and it was what was it 150 people 50 yeah something like that it felt
fucking fun it was nice so you look you look at people you lock eyes you're actually talking to
them you're not going holy shit let's keep cooking or we're going to lose the energy. You feel like you can sit and
stuff a little longer, so it's nice.
It's like when I saw Adam at Holy Cross
when he came. Same thing.
The field house, like 300
people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, man.
Boy, that was fun. Was Schneider
there that night too? There's no way you
remember visiting Holy Cross
doing stand-up. Come on. No, I swear
to God, I remember those days.
It was when I was early
SNL and I was doing all the
colleges and Rob was doing that shit
too and Spade
and Dana and
Neil and all that shit. I remember that
all of a sudden these field houses were getting
bigger and bigger and more and more
people were knowing your shit. That was exciting.
Wait,
I have an SNL thing quick because it's the 50th year. bigger and more and more people would know about your shit. That was exciting. Wait,
I have an SNL thing quick because it's the 50th year.
I don't
know what's going to happen this year, but I know
they're going to celebrate the season.
They're going to do all the documentaries.
What's your involvement in all
that, Adam? I don't know yet. I don't know.
And Rob either.
I talked to Lorne recently and, you know, they told us when it is.
It's in February and we'll see what happens. Just be ready, basically.
Be ready to do anything you want for the team, man.
We just want to – it's going to be an amazing night.
We're all going to be together.
Always fun to be together with every comedian you love.
And it's going to be a big, big, big weekend.
Not many things make me feel old,
but SNL having a 50th season makes me now feel like
I need to reevaluate shit.
Shit, man.
Because I literally remember every point in my life,
SNL was involved and now it's like 50.
Jesus.
Can't wait.
We,
we got to talk to Anthony Edwards
before you go.
Anthony Edwards.
Anthony Edwards.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry, buddy.
I'm glad we can talk about it.
I'm glad.
No, this is,
this was your guy.
You adopted him.
Yeah.
In Hustle.
Yeah.
You were touting his virtues.
Yeah.
And he was like,
he's,
he was,
you know,
really feels like he could have been an actor
in another life, but then last spring goes to a whole other level ends up ripping through the
playoffs, almost making the finals. And I don't know, you, you must've been like a proud dad.
I texted you all the time. Yeah. We all, we all love them. I mean, everybody worked on the movie, got to know.
It's just a great energy.
Him in the Olympics was fun to watch.
He's just a superstar.
And a good person.
He seems like a good, funny guy, too.
Funny as hell says funny shit all day long.
Calm, sweet.
And he looks like Mike Jordan. He has something, yes.
He's a handsome bastard.
He played the Olympics perfectly. He was like, I. He's a handsome bastard. He played the Olympics perfectly.
He was like, I idolized Durant.
This is my favorite person ever.
I'm just going to follow him around.
I love Steph Curry.
He was like, I'm happy to be everybody's little brother.
I respect everyone.
I don't care if I play that much.
I thought he did a great job.
It was similar to me and Schneider and Spade when Dana and Phil and Kevin and Jan Hooks would kill you.
Just like, I'm part of this shit.
This is cool, man.
Let me watch them kill it.
Oh, my God.
He's in all the videos of the celebration.
Edwards is in like two thirds of them, I think.
People saw you just see him like everywhere.
Yeah, yeah yeah yeah he has he has a
real um uh he has just like a burning quality like he's just a shines really bright he's just
not afraid of the moment and his game he has like he had a couple of plays in the playoffs where he
looked just like jordan and you think so like yeah yeah he was crazy and then i said to sandler i made a joke and i'm not gonna say this is hyperbole but i said can you imagine if jordan anthony edwards
is not michael jordan so no that's not what i'm saying but can you imagine if jordan did do a movie
and like he did like uh i forgot what the the the comp was i said he did like uh what the nick
like no or like a like a james conn movie or like
and he was the guy yeah yeah oh shit and then they become like they win multiple championships
and they become one of the greatest players of all time and you go you go back and you watch
you're like oh shit right like if he was if he was like lamar and revenge of the nerds he was
like just like one of the guys i guess you could use kareem as a good comp
because kareem but that was already he was already a superstar yeah let's just say he was a youngster
anthony i mean but i haven't that's having read the script and was involved in that yeah yeah i
when he when he held right the script when i saw when i saw him like when i saw like the first cut
yeah holy shit this guy can act and he was
he just made that character so much bigger that was so cool that was wancho bill that the reason
right i haven't given up on wancho wancho's doing great he kicked some ass in the olympics and he's
happy as hell and he's in a plane in greece and uh he's he's he's doing good. But I remember when we were casting that part
and Wancho said,
my teammate, he'd be really good as...
What the hell's the character?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he said, wow, I didn't know that.
And so then him and Jeremiah, the director, met
and that's how that all happened.
That was all Wancho.
It seems like he's got that same kind of thing
that KG has, or just like this natural overpowering charisma at all one. It seems like he's got the, he's got that same kind of thing that KG has,
or just like this natural overpowering charisma at all times.
So happy.
So funny.
Every,
everybody loved them.
I remember the days when a lot of the superstars were together and they were
playing hoop.
Fuck.
And he was just such a fun bastard that they all loved.
They were all laughing at shit.
And then Ty young and and
anthony were having a half court like shoot off and shooting it like it's a fucking eight foot
jump shot they were both kind of like lightly throwing the shit in hitting you know two two
out of three from the half court and they were just laughing and having such a nice time together
yeah cool cool man he's the coolest like and you got you felt
like the whole league because like the league is in a transition right now like who is the new face
all these these titans are you know how much longer are they going to be playing who's going
to take the baton and you know for a while it was maybe john moran and then it was you know
and one was maybe going to be trey and then you know now we're we don't know and
it's everyone's like okay it's anthony edwards has the baton right now and he kind of saw it
yeah you know what i mean he kind of felt like you're talking you're talking the american baton
yeah the american because well i'm talking about this has the baton no no i'm not talking about
skill skill set yeah no i got like stardom you know what i mean like there's a lot of amazing
players in the league who are a lot of stars oh my god a lot of stars but like he just felt like
everyone being like pushing it really hard at least being like oh and like all of the advertisement
and stuff and and he um and he had he released that amazing commercial i don't know if you saw
that because his sneakers are like kids love
those sneakers those are kind of like right my friend's son who's like nine
years old all he cares about are the Anthony Edwards see us cool and he did
that commercial where they were it was like all about receipts and how he's
saving everyone's receipts and it's just printing up all the haters comments and
he's saving all the receipts and he's basically he's addressing the fact that
everyone's putting all this weight on him right now.
Anyway, he's cool. He's got a great
attitude about it.
My favorite thing is that he's convinced he's the
best athlete in every sport.
Because there was this moment in the Olympics where
the ping pong,
the women's team kind of challenged
him and it seemed like he was
ready to go. And I was like,
are we going to like a video of him
trying to play play the ping pong he showed up at six matches yeah yeah he was he was definitely
into the olympics man when the vikings quarterback got hurt mccarthy the rookie yeah and now it's
like basically down to sam darnold and i was like i bet in the back of edwards's head he's like
i'm here if you need me to run the office. I think I watched an interview
with one where he said he was the best at fishing
or something like that.
How do you be the best at fishing?
He could figure it out.
All right. We got to wrap. Good to see
you guys. Special is
what is it? August 27?
When's this on the air?
Today? Are we doing this live?
No, they wanted it to run
closer to the special.
Okay.
All right, man.
But yeah, love you.
How many Netflix things
for you now?
Oh, shit.
I don't know.
A lot.
I don't fucking know.
15?
You might have the record.
So I'm sure my name's
on the YouTube.
First ballot Hall of Famer.
Netflix Hall of Famer. Oh, I think so. All right. Good to see you guys. Congrats on the special. Hey, Bill. First ballot Hall of Famer. Netflix Hall of Famer.
Oh, I think so.
All right, good to see you guys.
Congrats on the special.
Hey, Bill, thanks.
Thank you, Bill.
Good seeing you.
Thanks, guys.
All right, bye.
Later.
All right, that's it
for the podcast.
Thanks to Kyle Creighton
and Steve Cerruti
for producing, as always.
Thanks to Josh Safdie
and Adam Sandler.
Thanks to Craig,
Danny, and Danny
from the Ringer
Fantasy Football Show. Don't forget, new rewatch of. Thanks to Craig, Danny, and Danny from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show.
Don't forget, new rewatch of us coming Monday night,
Purple Rain.
You'll be able to watch it
on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel,
and you can watch everything that we did on this podcast
on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel as well.
You better subscribe,
because when Cousin Sal and I come back
for, I think it's our 18th NFL season,
we'll be doing the podcast live on YouTube.
You'll be able to hear it as well.
But if you really want it late at night, East Coast time,
or middle of the night, 830 range, West Coast time,
we'll be doing it live on YouTube.
So subscribe now to the Bill Simmons channel.
I will see you on Tuesday with AFC over-unders with the Cubs.
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