The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Scary Clippers, Cheating Astros, Best NFL Picks, and The Morning Show WTF Half-Season Recap With Mallory Rubin and Amanda Dobbins | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons talks about Celtics-Clippers (2:27) before sitting down with Mallory Rubin to talk NFL QBs, including Philip Rivers, Mitchell Trubisky, Patrick Mahomes, and Tom Brady (20:42), before Mallory’s Most Intriguing, in which she shares her top five story lines of the week, including this weekend’s NFC playoff implications, Chase Young’s return to Ohio State football, Astros SpyGate, and more (34:45). Then Bill and Mallory run through some Million Dollar Picks (1:02:35). Finally, Bill is joined by Amanda Dobbins to discuss the Apple+ flagship show, ‘The Morning Show’ (1:18:52). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Speaking of Star Wars, Binge Mode, Star Wars. That's the name of a podcast we do at The Ringer. Miley Rubin, Jason Concepcion. Holy shit, they've done 14 episodes already. They are diving through all the Star Wars movies and all of the culture surrounding them. And they're doing a little Mandalorian as well. Kyle, you like that show, right? I love that show.

So good. You love it. So good. It's like a nine out of 10 for you. Appointment TV. Yeah, they're Love that show. So good. You love it. So good. It's like a nine out of 10 for you. Appointment TV. Yeah. They're breaking that down. Speaking of breaking stuff down,

the Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast put up two on Tuesday, both relating to James Harden. One was a pyramid podcast with Zach Lowe, my old friend from Grantland. The other one was a rewatchables of the last three games of the 2012 Western Finals. Me and Joe House broke down a surprisingly emotional and poignant game six,

especially with OKC finishing off San Antonio. It seemed like a passing of the guard, and then it wasn't. So you can listen to the Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google, Stitcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Coming up, we have a whole bunch of things happening. First, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, so we're taping this Thursday afternoon, PT. Last night, I went to Clips Celtics in LA. It's been a tradition of mine. It's actually 17 years since I moved to Los Angeles.

This week, I moved here on November 16th, 2002. It was 80 degrees. I moved here to work for Jimmy Kimmel show. I rented a car at the airport. I had all my stuff in it. I drove to see him at his office, was greeted by him and Corolla. The sun was shining. I didn't know what the hell was going on. I'd lived on the East coast my whole life. And obviously a big part of my life in Boston had been the Celtics. I had been going to Celtic games since I was four years old. I wrote about this in my book. My dad bought one season ticket when I was four years old. It was $4 a game. Carried me into the games from the 73, 74 season on, won the title that year, FYI. And moving to LA, one of the hardest things for me was not going to Celtic games.

I went to a million of them. Saw the entire Bird era. Saw the terrible Patino era, ML Carr, the comeback era with Pierce and Antoine. And it was just a huge part of my life. And the Celtics Clippers games, I think I've been to every single one of them except one. There was one I missed for work reasons, maybe three or four years ago, unfortunately, but I've been to 16 of the 17 since I moved here. And it was a really important thing for me the first few years I moved here because I'd never lived in a place that wasn't obviously New England. I'd never really not been around Boston fans. And except for a time when I went to high school in Connecticut. And even then there were Boston fans there. It was always Boston

fans everywhere. Moved to LA, there were Boston transplants here, but you could, the Celtics Clipper games was when they would come out because Celtics Lakers, impossible to get Laker tickets. Clippers, especially 2002, three, four, that range, very easy to get tickets, very available. And this is before secondary markets. But the first Celtic Clipper game I went to, I was shocked by how many Celtics fans were there. And it really was kind of emotional. It was like, holy shit, look at this. Green jerseys. I felt like I was shocked by how many Celtics fans were there. And it really was kind of emotional. It was like, holy shit, look at this. Green jerseys.

It felt like I was home. And I ended up getting Clippers season tickets in 2004. And it became a sacred game for me. I wanted to go every year. And it just reminded me of 32 years in the East Coast before I moved out here. So never expected that the Clippers would become a contender, much less the best team in the league, which I think they are.

And they have major, major star power. And I kept these tickets and kept them. And Mike Tolan, my friend who I shared the tickets with, I was going to give them up in 08 or 09. It just seemed like the biggest waste of money of all time. Could not give them away to anybody. I mean, literally anybody, like the Gardner wouldn't take them. And then Blake Griffin showed up, got a little more fun. Chris Paul showed up. At least they were relevant. It wasn't very fun to go to the games, but at least they were competitive and there were some playoff games, stuff like that. Then they trade Blake and it looks like they're going to rebuild. And we are now in the secondary market era where it's so easy to get corporate tickets.

And then we start seriously thinking about, should we give these up again? Well, you know what happens next. They get Kawhi, they get Paul George, and they're the best team in the league, I think. So yesterday, um, had a chance thanks to our friends at SeatGeek to sit next to the Celtics bench. And I took my son, he had the seat next to the last guy on the bench. This is the first time I'd ever sat next to the players like that. I've, I've sat courtside, and it's a really weird experience because you can hear everything.

There's amazing parts to it. You can hear everything that's within, I would say, 20 feet of you. You get a real feel for the physicality is what really jumps out. I was lucky enough to sit courtside for a couple of the Warriors-Cavs finals games and talked about it before in the pod.

But you see LeBron on TV versus LeBron in person, and especially LeBron 20 feet away from you, banging into dudes. And he weighs 280 pounds. He's 6'9", and it's intense. And you just think, like, holy shit. Like, these guys. I'm sure football is the same way if you saw an NFL game, if you were, you know, at the sidelines for Rams or Ravens on Monday night and they're running a sweep to your side and somebody's just getting annihilated

and you'd be like, oh my God. That's what it's like to see basketball when you're that close with some of these dudes. So the highlight of the game from sitting next to the Celtics bench, other than when my son successfully pulled off an incredible handshake with Javante Green. I've never been more proud of him. Terrible call against the Celtics. It was a Paul George,

basically barrels in the Daniel Tice. They don't call it or pushes off. I can't remember. Daniel Tice goes flying. No call coming back. It leads to a three by the Clippers. Comes back down. Stevens, who is like a choir boy, never gets mad,

follows the ref from midcourt all the way down to the baseline right in front of us. And he goes, hey, Nick, you fucked that up. And Nick turns around, gives him a tee right in front of my son. And my son was like that was awesome the Celtics coach swore so yeah so he we we left and we went to get sushi

and then on the way home he was just imitating Brad Stevens so it was great what a great experience last night Celts Clippers felt like a playoff game and was incredibly intense and incredibly physical

and hit a point where I think both teams kind of realized there was at least a puncher's chance they might be seeing each other again in June I think the East is really wide open and I think the Celtics team is really good and whether

they need to make a trade or not is up for debate. I personally am not sure they need to make a trade yet. If there's a spot to improve, it's probably the Brad Wanamaker spot, the backup point guard. I'm not positive I would trust him in a playoff series. And I think that's a pretty easy spot to improve. The consensus is that they need a big guy. And I'm not really sure that's true because Daniel Tice, who's healthy this year, has been excellent. I know that's a weird thing to hear, but I'm just telling you, he's been really good. And he was a real handful for the Clippers last night. Robert Williams, second-year player, he's pretty good.

At least you can play him in a game like that. And then Cantor has been in a bunch of big games. You can post him in a game like that. And then Cantor has been in a bunch of big games. You can post them up. The point is the Celtics are, I think, deeper than people realize even without Hayward. They're really athletic and they know what they're doing. They can switch on defense. They're really well-coached.

They shoot a ton of threes and they're hard to play. They slash and kick stuff. They're really, really, really relentless. And they brought out, I thought, the best in the Clippers. And what we saw last night with the Clippers, the Paul George Kawhi thing, we talked about it on the paper. Kawhi's the best money player in the league right now for the one guy you'd want in the playoffs, at least.

Paul George was a top 10 guy last year, was an MVP candidate even for a little bit. And we knew what it would be like when they were together that, oh yeah, that's going to be incredible. These two guys who can create their own shot and then guard wings on the other team at the highest possible level, that's going to be ridiculous. Well, we saw it last night. We saw, you know, you have Tatum and Brown on one end, who I talked about a little bit on Tuesday,

I think have been a revelation this season. Jonathan Jark's word about them on the ringer. They are really, really, really good two-way players already. Tatum is somebody who can create his own shot and has hot streaks like he had last night, where I think he had like 19 in the third quarter, 17 or 19, and can just take over a game. Jalen Brown can't do that, but has a lot of similarities to where Kawhi was the first couple of years of his career offensively. He's definitely getting better. He's

getting better as a three-point shooter. He's better at crashing the paint and getting to the rim, all that stuff. But they're going against Kawhi and Paul George. And Kawhi, I would say, I've seen him now in person four times, got a real close look at him last night. And I would say he's 85%, 80%. I don't think his leg is 100%. Maybe it never will be. I also don't think it matters. I made the point the other day that he's kind of late 90s Bulls, Michael Jordan-ish now where he understands his body, what he can and can't do. He's playing at his own pace. He's doing what he wants to do in a game at the speed that he wants to do it. And it doesn't really matter that he's 85%. Paul George looks great. He didn't shoot that well last night, but as two-way players,

those guys are the standard for wings. So you had this really interesting dynamic last night where you have Tatum and Brown who are still scratching the surface talent-wise, I think, what they can be. And then Kawhi and Paul George who are fully realized products and in their primes. And it was a little like watching the 12th graders on a high school team going against

the two awesome 10th graders who two years from now are going to be running the high school, but right now are still have to get by the 12th graders. So you had that dynamic. You had Patrick Beverly on one side of Marcus Smart on the other, which was just outstanding. And those guys were all over the place. And Beverly really seemed to take the Kemba Walker thing personally. It was a problem in a whole bunch of ways.

Kemba did not have a good game. But around the third quarter, this game got super competitive because both sides, nobody shot well. The Celtics missed, I would say, 16 straight threes in the first quarter or first half. Third quarter, it was on. Tatum started cooking.

Clippers are throwing everybody at him. Doesn't matter. He's making shots. Clippers start getting going on the other side. And all of a sudden, it became a game seven. And it was incredibly intense. And it was really fun sitting on the bench, watching and listening to the guys who weren't playing, just interacting with the game and really locked in. And Wanamaker was playing well and the team really likes Wanamaker. So they're

yelling encouragement to him, Marcus, all that stuff. And at one point, Smart was sitting out, Grant Williams set a great pick for, can't remember who who got an open jumper Clipper timeout and as he's setting the pick Marcus Smart is screaming that's a great pick that's a great yeah

or it was great screen I'm sorry great screen great screen yeah great screen he stands up he's yelling great screen

at Grant Williams and the team was really confident and really thought they could win and then the Clippers Beverly just starts making threes, which is ridiculous. He's been a brick house this year, but he was awesome yesterday. And you see why the Clippers are going to be so terrifying when we get to the playoffs, that they keep everyone healthy.

Because they put out Paul George, Kawhi, Harrell, and Lou Williams. So they have a screen and roll game with Harrell and Williams, which is probably the best screen and roll right now of anyone in the league, unless it's Luka Doncic with fill in the blank. You have that, but then you also have Kawhi who can get his shot now anytime he wants at the speed he wants. And you have Paul George who averaged 28 points a game last year. And it's almost like an embarrassment

of riches offensively. And then defensively, they can switch with anybody. And they have to hide Lou Williams a little bit, but Kawhi and Paul George and even Harrell are so good at running around and covering for people that that didn't matter. And the Celtics, the last four minutes, just could not get a good shot.

They got a little bit swallowed up. And this was where the Hayward thing really comes in because Hayward was playing the best out of anyone in the team offensively before he got hurt. In a game like that, I think they would have run the offense through Hayward, used Kemba off picks, tried to post up Tatum. And if you have Tatum, Hayward, and Jalen Brown out there all at the same time, Lou Williams has to guard one of those three people. And that would have been the mismatch, but they didn't have it. Instead, they had Marcus Smart out there. The point is, this was a way higher level of a basketball game than you're normally going to get in mid-November. This felt like a game you would see in April or May.

I am really, really bullish on the Celtics. I think they have a chance to win the East. And I say that not as a homer, just as somebody who's watched all these basketball games. I'm always the first guy to admit when the Celtics don't have it. I think this team is really good and really dangerous and really hard to play. And more importantly on defense, they can get stops. And even last night, the Clips really had to make a couple of tough shots just to keep that game going their way. And on the Clipper side, we're now looking at a situation where Clippers, Lakers in the playoffs, if everyone can stay

healthy, which is a big if, I still have real doubts about Davis being able to stay healthy for eight months. But the combination of Davis and LeBron right now and how overpowering they've been just to really, really physical guys who know what the fuck they're doing. And the supporting cast is not great, but whatever. I don't honestly don't know if it's going to matter because you're going to see in the playoffs games,

like the one we watched last night where you have two teams that know how to defend, that know every single play the other team's going to run, and it comes down to, honestly, physicality, talent, know-how, savvy, and the Lakers-Clippers is going to be absolutely incredible. It really has a chance to be the best playoff series in a few years. I thought Rockets Warriors, as dramatic as those series were, I never really felt like those two teams brought the best out of each other. I think the best series of this decade,

and we talked about this in the Book of Basketball podcast, from just a pure basketball standpoint, was Spurs and Oklahoma City. Just from a pure, all people on the floor who could score and play off each other and the defense that was being played and the athleticism and the contrast of the old school Spurs against this new type of Thunder team was really great. I think Clips Lakers could be really, really, really great if everybody can stay healthy. And then you look at the East. The East is going to be really fun

because Philly is a really goofy roster as broken down by Zach Loder at ESPN that has so much talent, you have to take them seriously. Not sure they're well-coached. I don't think they are. But they still have to be taken seriously. They have Embiid. And if you had Embiid in a game like last night, nobody in the Clippers would have been able to guard him. They would have had to play Zubac. The Bucs have the Giannis thing, but watching the Clippers and how they could play defense last night, I just think they

would, you know, if the Bucs got to the final against the Clippers, I just think they would be able to take out Giannis and make it really hard for him to do what he does. Toronto, who knows what they're going to do, but I think they're really good. And Siakam has been an all-NBA guy. And then Miami has a trade to make. And Boston, Hayward's coming back. They have only lost three games

and really shouldn't have lost two of them. I felt like they should have won last night. The referees were just horrific. And they had their chances. And it was a 50-50 game. Either team could have won. They're going to be in the mix. But I thought it was certainly the best Clippers-Celtics game I've seen

out of the 17 years that I've been here from a, from a talent standpoint, from an intensity standpoint, it was just really great. It really was. And it was great sitting there. My son got into it. He was wearing a Celtics Jersey, stealing high fives with a couple of the players. And it was just a really cool experience, but I just wouldn't be shocked if these teams play one more time in Boston, I would not be shocked if this ended up being the finals. We're going to take a break, then we're going to come back with Mally Rubin. Hey, if you've been thinking about your home

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Simplysafe.com slash BS. Since we're here, I wanted to mention the rewatchables. We put up Skyfall this week. Last week, we had the holiday with, my wife was involved in that one actually. So if you're jonesing for rewatchables, the holiday and Skyfall, both up there now. All right, we're going to bring in the Mother of Dragons. Here we go. All right, Mallory Rubin is here. She does Mallory's Most Intriguing just about every week here on the last episode of each week.

Hello. Heading into the NFL weekend. Bad news for you. What? It's a Lamar free zone this week. You're not allowed to mention him. Get one week with no Lamar. Listen.

You can't. That's it. I don't need to mention him. Yeah. There you go. He's always in my heart. Yeah. He's in the mind. You can't. That's it. I don't need to mention him. Yeah. There you go. He's always in my heart. Yeah. He's in the mind

of the viewing public. You're already mentioning him too much. You brought him up. I just said. You're not allowed to mention him this week. Although he does have a big game against the Rams.

Yeah. Monday Night Football. Who do you feel the worst for if you had to rank the QBs that you would feel bad for? Trubisky? Mm-hmm. Jared Goff? Mm Rivers. Just in general? Who do you just feel bad for? Just as a human being who has empathy. I'm not sure any of them would be the

top of my list. I'd still pick Eli, I think. Eli? Yeah. Oh, this is great. It's just... Which part do you feel bad? It's not how you want to go out. It's not how you want to go out. Because when you said Rivers, it sort of made me think about not being able to maybe stage the graceful exit that you want at the end. And I don't know if it's the end for Phillip Rivers, but we're at the point in the season, multiple picks, not playing well, not able to lead

the final drive where you have to at least wonder and then you think about the guy who hasn't even been able to make it this far into the year his eternal peer and comp eli manning but and then rothlisberger i will never tough ending i will never say i feel bad for Ben Roethlisberger. I'm saying that draft, that class just got ended this year. Yeah. Well, you know, we were in the era of the eternal quarterback, as Kevin Clark likes to say, you know, the idea of sort of the ageless wonder at the most important position in sports. And that's still true in some ways.

Obviously, your boy, Tom Brady, out there forever. And Breeze. Just the TB12 diet and nothing else, keeping them strong. Nothing else. Nothing else at all. Just keeping them strong. Lives a good life. But the youth movement is upon us.

Listen, let's talk about the all-time QBs who were accused of having PDs mailed to their house to their wife's name. Yeah. Because he's not on that list. Well, that's one of your favorite sports stories, isn't it? Phil Rivers, second in passing yards. Sure. Phil Rivers, 15 touchdowns. Okay.

Phil Rivers, 14 picks. Yeah. Have you watched the last couple of games? Some of the worst throws. Yeah. Like that pass that ended, I was going nuts on Monday night because I was going against Keenan Allen

in fantasy. He needed one more point. They're going down the field. I'm losing my mind. I thought for sure it was going to be the Keenan Allen crossing route for the TD. He throws it right to the Chiefs. It was supposed to be one of those corner loft passes.

No loft. Just right to the guy. There are too many throws from him in the last couple weeks where it's much easier to tell which defender is in the proximity of the ball than which offensive player on his own team was maybe the intended target. So I still say of the names you threw out, though,

I guess I would pick Biscuit. I do feel for Biscuit, who should not be a starting quarterback in the NFL. It's really sad. What's crazy about that Rivers in the last one was Winston threw the exact same interception on the exact same side of the field in the exact same way,

but Mike Evans was the guy. And Mike Evans was so mad after. I actually thought it was going to be a bigger story. He had a tantrum after, and he was screaming at Rivers. Like, what are you doing? Who are you throwing that to? He had no chance at it. It seems like it's done for Rivers. And I wonder if it had been the Rivers from two years ago, how different their record would be, because this has been multiple times now this season. Part of it too, is you look ahead to what the future is trying to draw fans, heading into a new stadium,

trying to establish a footprint in the city. Good luck. Well, good luck. Sure. But also you, the easiest path to being able to do that as a young quarterback that people are excited about.

So that's at some point it does have to be something that they start to think about, especially, you know, obviously the quarterback classes. Well, can I give you this? Less than it was before the Tua injury,

obviously, which is an upsetting thing, but you're still heading into a couple of consecutive elite quarterback classes in the draft. Can I give you this about Phil Rivers? Please. I've said this before. I'm stealing my own point.

If he retires at the end of this year, which I would never tell anyone to retire, but if he retires at the end of this year, which I would never tell anyone to retire, but if he does, huge win for us as football fans from a television analyst standpoint. I think he could immediately be good. Interesting. I thought you were going to say

something completely different. I thought you were going to say the NFL needs its version of LeBron. And what I mean by that, obviously, is not a skill comp, but stick around long enough for one of your children to join you in the league.

That would have been good too. You know? And Phil Rivers has enough children that at a certain point, it's possible, you know? One of them has a chance. No, I think- He would be a great broadcaster.

I think he has Romo potential. I think they're different. I think Romo's probably funnier, but Phil Rivers is kind of what we thought Favre would have had a chance to be before we realized Favre, I think, had taken too many hits. I think that the key difference between

Rivers and Romo is just the charm factor. Like, Romo is eminently likable and charming. And I think, you know, Phil Rivers is fun and has had an extraordinary NFL career. But I don't think he's somebody that a lot of people like. But here's why. Because of stuff he does on the field. Yeah.

And when he gets mad at refs or other receivers or whatever. You don't think he would bring that same brash persona into the booth? No, because he's a really good interviewer. And I think if you're a really good interviewer, you're going to be a good analyst. He's certainly never dull. That's true. No. He always has good sound bites. He's always thoughtful. And I think he could're a really good interviewer, you're going to be a good analyst. He's certainly never dull. That's true.

He's always has good soundbites. He's always thoughtful. And I think he could be really good at it. I think the best thing about him in the booth, in addition to just the football IQ, is that he'd be completely unafraid to ever piss anybody off. Like he's not going to care if a judgmental thing that he says about a coach's game plan

or something he says about the officials or even a player is going to maybe make its way back to that person and then cause a shit storm for him. He shouts those things to people's faces right now, routinely, including his own teammates. So that part's appealing. I agree with you. If you flipped him for Bradshaw right now, that's a better show. Oh, I mean. The Bradshaw thing is just kind of sad now. You could say that about a cantaloupe. Is that too mean? The Bradshaw thing is just kind of sad now. You could say that about a cantaloupe. Is that too mean?

Bradshaw gave a pick two weeks ago. I was watching the end of their thing. That was mean. And he picked I feel bad. Just kidding! He picked a team against another team, but they weren't playing each other. Oh.

And this was like the only part of the segment. All you have to do is remember his pick. You didn't have any empathy as somebody who could never remember where a game is being played. No, no. Like that's my kin right there. That's just me forgetting to look at the game.

I at least remember who's playing. Patrick Mahomes for MVP. Are you trying to piss me off immediately no you know that my answer is that Lamar Jackson is currently the MVP of the

National Football League I know he is I'm not allowed to mention him so he I guess I'll have to say you want me to pull Voldemort or something no I'm just throwing this out

you must not be named you know who Lamar everyone has now decided Lamar is the MVP that's not true but we have six weeks left.

Or five weeks? Five weeks. Five weeks left. This is week 12. Yeah. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. No, six weeks left. Yeah.

Lamar is minus 110. So basically, you bet 100, you bet 110, you win 100. Even nuts. Okay. Russell Wilson, plus 180. Mahomes is plus 1,000, 10 to 1. Okay.

Just laying this groundwork out. What about Watson? Watson is 15 to 1. Rogers, 15 to 1. Prescott, 20 to 1. Nobody else is going to win the MVP. Okay. Here's the case for Mahomes. He's actually having a really good statistical season.

I think he's 19 TDs and two picks. He's in shouting distance of everybody from yardage. That team is probably has a chance to win. They're probably a 10 win team, but there's a door open where he just gets hot down the stretch and they win six straight and he ends up. And at some point, three weeks from now, people go, Hey, why can't Pat Mahomes win the MVP? As you know, it's all about the narrative. So could he get hot? Yes, he could get hot. He is, I think a victim, you brought up the idea of the narrative of the MVP. I think that it's actually a little bit similar to a college football comp, to Heisman voting, for Mahomes specifically.

Because, okay, think about Andrew Luck when he was putting up astonishing numbers at Stanford. Yeah. When he was in college. Is it safe to mention Andrew Luck to you on this podcast yet? Okay, good. He did the Colts a lot of good by retiring. I've certainly made enough money out of it. At some point, you set the bar so high

through the sheer force of your own achievement that you're not actually measured against your competitors. You're measured against yourself and your own history. The LeBron James factor. Yeah, and so that's what Mahomes is saying. That was what Luck, the hurdle that he couldn't clear. And when you talk about the idea of a repeat Heisman winner, obviously Luck did not win, but guys who managed to win,

we swung to seeing sophomores win, what used to be impossible, redshirt freshmen. Can they then get another one they're always measured against what they did the year that they won and it becomes basically impossible and so Mahomes shattered all these records last year established a template for what he's able to do and that's the thing he's going to be measured against and he's not going to meet he's not going to come close to meeting those numbers five games left left. Home for Oakland, win. At New England,

potential like they win 38 to 30 or something and he has an awesome game and that's when the narrative would start. Home for Denver, at Chicago, home for the Chargers. They're seven and four. 12 and four is not like unrealistic I'm just trying I'm just trying to figure out Certainly he'll be in the mix

I think if other people fall off He's going to be best positioned I'm trying to figure out a world In which Lamar does win the MVP Because here's Lamar's last Well a couple A few really tough games coming up Right

So Lamar has the Rams Rams, Niners, Bills Minus three and a half point favorites In LA Monday Night Football Home San Francisco at Buffalo Lamar has the Rams. Rams, Niners, Bills. Minus three and a half point favorites in LA. Monday Night Football. Home San Francisco at Buffalo. And then home Jets at Cleveland.

Home Pittsburgh, which last three get a little easier. But he's got six left. The next three games are against strong defenses. So that's a huge test. If he comes out of that stretch still as the leader, I think it's his. And if he stumbles, I think it will be in these next three weeks. The biggest difference to me between this Ravens team and the prior Ravens teams,

obviously the actual biggest difference is that Lamar is the most electrifying player in the sport. But the other difference is that you have confidence going into the games that they should win,

that they will win them running away, which was not true even for playoff teams under Flacco. It was always going to be, oh my God. And even earlier this season, losing to the Browns, right? So I look at the end of the season and I don't have quite the terror that I typically would around those division games.

The next three weeks are the key. I can't believe Marty Mortonweg wanted to switch him to receiver. I'm not doing this. That was nuts. This is absolute. That was crazy. Just bullshit. This is fucking bullshit.

It's a lie. It's not true. And I will not let you or anyone else I just, I read it on the internet. Tear this Ravens team apart. Everything on the internet is true. Get out of here. Get out of here. Do you have any Tom Brady concerns? Everything on the internet is true. Get out of here.

Get out of here. Do you have any Tom Brady concerns? Not as somebody in the Ravens who is hoping that he's washed up, but as somebody, a neutral observer, wondering why the Patriots aren't better? I will only arrive at that point if he's playing this way in the playoffs. Until then, I have no concerns.

I just don't think it's a healthy mental exercise to delude yourself into believing that Tom Brady might actually be at the point of decline as a fan of an opposing team. That way lies madness and heartache. I won't do it. I won't do it. All right, we're going to take a break, then come back. Mallory's going to do most of the trick.

Pepsi takes all NFL celebrations to the next level, whether it's a Hail Mary touchdown, a defensive stop on the goal line, or a Super Bowl win. When it's time to celebrate, it's time to crack open a Pepsi. As I've mentioned many times in this podcast, my favorite celebrator ever was Billy White Shoes Johnson, who invented the hold the ball up over his head and wiggle his legs back and forth after he scored a touchdown. As a little kid, I was dying to see this

anytime they broke into a game. My two favorite things when I was a little kid were that and the alley-oop passes to Harold Carmichael. You know who that is, Kyle? Eagles wide receiver. He was 6'8". And it was the original lob pass into the corner, but it actually worked because the guy was a foot taller

than all the defensive backs. And it was like brilliant. And those are the two favorite things I love to watch. Anyway, God bless Billy White Shoes Johnson. Pepsi, the official sponsor of the NFL, reminds you to always be celebrating. Okay, what do you got? Okay, well, that's a nice segue

actually into number five this week, which is a college football item, a draft item, and also a shame on the NCAA item. Chase Young makes his return for Ohio State this weekend after his

criminally absurd suspension. Chase Young, for anyone who doesn't know, including potentially the person I'm doing this podcast with. We know the Chase Young story. He's back. Come on. I'm just kidding.

Giving you a hard time because you don't watch college football. Defensive end for Ohio State. I think in terms of talent, just pure talent. So the difference between a big board and a mock draft, he's the number one player

in the draft. That doesn't mean he will go number one because I think it's safe to assume that Joe Burrow, whichever quarterback ends up being top of the quarterback class,

will go number one to the Bengals, provided that things play out as they're currently playing out. And in a QB class this loaded and with this many teams tanking and needing to reset a quarterback, you're going to see quarterback go atop the draft. I think there's a really, really good chance that Chase Young goes number two. Certainly that he's going to be the first player taken other than a quarterback. Number two would be the Redskins. Yeah. Well, I mean, plenty of time for another team to get in there. A lot of bad teams, but we'll see. Or for whichever team ends up at two to trade the pick, though most likely the team trading up and won a quarterback. This is the game to tune in and watch him. Ohio State, Penn State, battle of two top 10 teams, Big Ten showdown, college football playoff implications. Ohio State is currently ranked second in the top four in the playoff mix. Chase Young was suspended on actually the same day that initially James Weissman from

Memphis, before he ended up saying, fuck it, I'm playing, and then was later subsequently deemed ineligible. They were initially deemed ineligible on the same day. And it was just this moment where, as a college sports fan, you say, how is it possible that we're still here, that the NCAA exists in this fashion? This is why I don't care about college anything.

It becomes very challenging. It becomes hard. Chase Young got in trouble for a family friend giving him money so that he could buy his girlfriend a plane ticket to watch him play in the Rose Bowl last season. That's what this was about.

He paid the money back, still had to sit two games. It's ridiculous. So other than watching him to support him and show your disdain for the NCAA and the continued mishandling of amateurism, which is a blight on our sporting society. He is one of the most talented college football players maybe in the history of time. And I know that sounds hyperbolic, but it's true. So you could just look at it from the Ohio State perspective as a starting spot.

Who were the last couple Ohio State defensive ends who got drafted really high? The Bosa brothers, right? Joey and then Nick. I think he's better than both of them. He's just unbelievable to watch. You should treat yourself to a few minutes. The size, speed, combo. I have he's better than both of them. He's just unbelievable to watch. You should treat yourself. Rich man's Boza brother. Treat yourself to a few minutes.

The size, speed, combo. I have a newsflash for you. I've seen Penn State play this year. There you go. I watched the game they lost. Well, they're going to have a... To Minnesota. They're going to have a...

That's right. Oh, my God. My friends were here. Megan Schuster will be so delighted to hear this. We watched it. As a P.J. Fleck fan. Penn State almost came back. Their quarterback wasn't quite good enough.

That's correct. Chase Young is going to be a problem. That's my college football take.. Penn State almost came back. Their quarterback wasn't quite good enough. That's correct. Chase Young is going to be a problem. That's my college football take. That's exactly right, Bill. I got news for you. You're on it. I was not impressed by the Penn State quarterback, whatever his name was.

You're on it, Clifford. You're on it immediately. I think that Penn State is going to have an immensely challenging time. And I think also this is going to be a statement game for Chase Young where he's coming back and saying, because the thing is,

he was actually in, he was having a Tyron Matthew Honeybadger and Donovan Kinsue kind of defensive player college football season where it was so, so dominant that he had actually made his way into the a few weeks ago, where PFF's Mike Renner, known also on this podcast as the football analyst who went on The Bachelorette, wrote a piece about how in the entire history of PFF tracking college football players, they'd never had someone graded as high as Chase Young. He was actually breaking their metrics. He's extraordinary. So tune in. Great. Start was actually breaking their metrics. Like, he's extraordinary. So tune in. Great. Start scouting.

Watch him chase them. Defensive talents. It'll be great. Overmatch. PSU quarterback. Fuck the NCAA. Paterno's not coaching them anymore, right? Who's their coach now?

What are you doing? James Franklin. Okay. Come on. I didn't see the sideline. I didn't see who was on there. I don't know if they're propping up Paterno's corpse in the games. Mercifully not.

With a chalkboard. Mercifully not. With a clipboard. Number four? Yeah. Astro Spygate. Yeah. This isn't just an unbelievable thing.

I've been following it intently. Every day there's a new update. Rob Manfred now is going to look at the last three seasons. Won't limit it. This will go great. 2017, 2018, and 2019. Cheaters. But my manager's involved.

My manager might have started it. This is one of the things about the story that makes it really worth tracking if you're invested in baseball at all. The net casts pretty far. You know, you have your involvement. Because people leave're invested in baseball at all. The net casts pretty far. You know, you have your involvement. Because people leave every year in baseball. Like Mike Fears was one of the ones that- That's right.

He went on the record in the athletic piece. Mike Fires, sorry. Yeah. And what did Carlos Beltran in his introductory press conference as Mets manager had to answer questions about this? You know, I hate to even say this out loud, but my Orioles manager, Mike Goliath, was a member of this Astros front office. That'd be the best thing that happened to the Orioles

this decade to be involved in some sort of cheating scandal. What are you talking about? The best thing that happened to the Orioles this decade. The best thing that happened to the Orioles this decade wasn't having the best record in fucking baseball for five years. No. When was that?

What are you talking about? Five years. How many playoff years? No. When was that? What are you talking about? Five years. How many playoff wins? Enough. I said sometimes in the middle of the day, I realized I'm just staring into the distance thinking about sweeping the Tigers. You swept the Tigers? I don't remember that. Yes. Oh, congrats. Thank you. It was great. It was great. What a day. You know, anytime you want to just spend three hours talking to me about the Orioles beating you Darvish in the AL wildcard game, I'd be, I'd be delighted to.

What memories. Still the best sporting experience of my life, Bill. So this Astros thing, it would be like if we were doing the ringer podcast network and we were just completely cheating on downloads and all the producers and the hosts knew, but then people were leaving for different jobs. At some point it's going to come out. And with this baseball thing, so many people were involved. What the fuck were they thinking? How did they not think this was going to come out? We need to extend the analogy even further to account for the bald face nature of it,

because the way that, so there was the camera pointing at the catcher. The trash can slamming it so long. Yes, broadcasting the feed into the hallway behind the dugout. And then if they saw, if someone watching that monitor saw that an off-speed bitch was coming, they would bang the trash can lid.

So the equivalent of the download analogy would be like Kyle saying on mic to you so that other people could detect and hear, this is how many I've added. Yeah. I mean, it's like just the audacity of what they were doing. We just had it in the playoffs in 2019.

The Yankees manager got, Aaron Boone got testy with the Astros and then they were like, we've settled it. I didn't mean anything by it. But clearly the Yankees were obsessed with this during their series. Well, it's been pretty pervasive for the Astros the last few years. I mean, obviously the guy who was kicked out of the camera well against the Sox.

That was last postseason. And, you know, even things like the number of pitchers who they face this postseason class now was one example who was they were tipping their pitches and Bregman players in the Astros were you could see clearly how they were communicating about it now that is obviously different that falls under basically acceptable sanction sanctioned... It's not even spycraft at that point. It's your ability to capitalize on a mistake that your competitor is making, right?

It's within the bounds. You know what's not in the bounds? A camera in center field that's relaying the pitches to people in the dugout. That literally is not in bounds. Guess what? That's not legal. It's against rules that were implemented in the last few seasons. Could they strip the title if they found

this was really bad? I don't think that that is possible. The Ringer baseball crew, editors and writers were actually talking about this today. I don't think there's a version. I mean, I don't know, but I don't think there's a version of this where we get any kind of comp for like USC losing the title and Reggie Bush losing the Heisman.

I don't see anything like that happening, but I think the fines are definitely coming. I think the real question is, will they lose draft picks? You know, what is the... Yeah. Because the fine is nothing. They should lose all kinds of shit.

I mean, what are we talking about? Here's the other thing. I apologize if anyone else mentioned this. 100th anniversary of the 1919 Black Sox. And this is probably the biggest baseball team scandal that actually affected wins and losses we've had in a long time. I don't think that this will come close

to approaching how people feel about the steroid era. You know? But everyone was doing the steroid era. Well, I guess one of the questions is are other people doing this too? You know? And that guess one of the questions is, are other people doing this too? And that is one of the things that I think is facing Manfred. And one of the reasons that he maybe will be more inclined to make some sort of example out of them, if the concern is that there's some sort of creep with these practices.

Because again, completely understood to fall within the confines of acceptable sportsmanship and practice if you're a runner on second base and you see what sign the catcher is putting down and you buff your batter that's part of it but when you bring electronics into it when you bring tech into it when you violate an actual rule that says you're not allowed to do those things it's beyond the pale at that point and then the thing with the astros i mean this is obviously this is completely completely different i actually don't want to make the comparison to what happened during the postseason with their assistant gm who was eventually fired and then that whole story that's different but all of you kind of can't help but say it does feel like every few weeks or few months there's some new story with the astros and so there's this this pal you

know hanging over the organization and then you have something like this week with the owner meetings going on and Jim Crane, the Astros owner, refusing to answer questions about this and reports surfacing that he's, you know, using a police escort to get past our scrum of reporters and that the reporters feel like the hotel management is threatening to kick them out of the hotel. They're there to cover it. They're there to do their jobs. You know, at a certain point, it's like, well, where is the accountability for any of it? And that, I think,

almost more than the transgression itself becomes the thing that people rightly focus on. Where is the accountability? Counter. Get ready to clip this one, Kyle. Clip this. This is one going right to the podcast all fan at this point. Wow. Calling your shot like Babe to the Podcast Hall of Fame at this point. Wow.

Calling your shot like Babe Ruth. I kind of like it. We needed a villain. I hate the Astros now. Between the Osuna clubhouse thing and this cheating thing, now it's like I just, I'm glad we have a villain back. I hate the Yankees, but the Yankees are like, the roster they've assembled now is,

it's really hard to hate Aaron Judge. It is hard to hate Aaron Judge. It's really hard to hate Torres. Like, I hate them because they're wearing a Yankee uniform, but I don't dislike the players they have. But you don't dislike the players on the Astros either, right? Now I do. I think they're cheaters. I'm anti-Astros.

I think this is fun. I think baseball is so freaking boring unless you're really into it and die hard or fantasy or whatever, but nobody cares about other teams in baseball. You just care about your own team. And now I care about the Astros and them going down. They become the patriots of Major League Baseball, which we needed. Bauman wrote a really good piece about this, Michael Bauman, for The Ringer recently. The idea that part of, again, if you're not an Astros fan, you're not invested in their success in any way,

part of what is so galling about this is the greed, right? It's like the hubris aspect of it. And they're so ready and willing to kind of boast and peacock and puff their chest about how smart they are. Right. They were better at this than you. And so there is something satisfying. We have a book about us. Moneyball.

No. What was that one called? Astroball. Yeah. The Ben Ryder book. Yeah. There is something satisfying about seeing that kind of smug approach, come back and bite them. I agree with that. But at the end of the day, I love watching baseball and I love watching George Springer and

Jose Altuve and Bregman and Correa and Verlander. I love watching those guys play. Cheater and cheater and cheater and the other cheater and cheater. You're just angry that the Red Sox are going to trade Mookie Betts and you're channeling your dismay wherever you can. I don't support whole scale cheating. You just said you do.

You think it's a good thing. No, I think it's a good thing that we have a villain. Yeah. I like that there's a bad guy in his back. I miss having a bad guy in baseball.

Now it's like every time we can make cheating jokes, get to flip all the stuff people did with the Pats. Never proven, by the way. Oh my God. I mean, this is the hypocrisy right now. That you, a Patriots fan, would be saying this. One game, broke a rule, paid the price.

Weren't supposed to tape that first Jets game in 07. Got caught. Sorry about that. Here's our first round pick. One game Astros did it For three straight years Garbage cans

Paint chipping off walls The garbage can thing Is really unbelievable There are some great If anybody hasn't seen it There are some great clips Google this Go online

People who have Spliced together footage From the games Where this is happening And you'll have You know the left Pan of the video Will be the picture You'll see that the change up or some sort of off-speed pitch is coming. And you will hear as the catcher is putting down the sign and the batter is getting

ready, you will hear this banging. It's so obvious. There's nothing subtle about it at all. What's number three? Number three. We're behind schedule now. I'm sorry. It's my fault. I got fired up about that one. Number three. Well, this can be a very quick one. Pop culture one.

Yeah. Watchmen. Really heating up. It's extraordinary. Are you watching? No, we're done. Next one. Number two.

Well, I'll give you a 10 second sales pitch. Yeah. You should be watching. Okay. Because it is, I think, a really, we'll see how the season concludes, but so far a really remarkable example of the way to continue revisiting IP, finding that connective tissue

to a thing that exists already that people love and also establishing a totally new footprint and a totally new thing. You down with that, Kyle? Oh, I love this. I love this show. I think that midway through the season in particular, Lindelof, the writing team, Jeff Jensen, which if you're a Lost fan,

it's like so cool to see him making something. His Lost columns were like part of how I got into all of this in the first place. Court Jefferson, really interesting writer's room. The ability to say, this isn't just a remake of the movie. It's not just a faithful adaptation of the comic. We're going to connect back to those things

that you're already invested in and then build this whole new world and put a modern spin with the issues and themes of the day that matter to you as the person watching it now. I think it's really, really smart and really well done. And the world is completely immersive.

Check it out. That was in 10 seconds. I'm not checking out until you watch The Affair. I will watch The Affair. I will watch The Affair. It's on my DVR. I'm not. The only person I've talked about The Affair with is my mom. It's the only other person who's seen it.

The worst season of television I've ever watched. Oh my God. Amanda Dobbins is coming up in a second. We're going to talk about The Morning Show, which is the second worst season of TV I've watched in a while. Wow. And we are now entering the phase of peak bad TV. Because those two shows were iconically awful.

The Affair is inexplicable and I can't wait for you to watch it. As you know. You're going to be texting me all weekend with photos from the show. I will be live texting you my updates as I watch. I recently was scrolling through my camera roll, actually. And I saw, I came across the like 85 pictures of Kevin Costner from my rewatchables

for Love of the Game and did not delete any of them. Number two. Number two. Will the pass interference replay continue to be one of the defining things of the season in the worst possible way. It seems like we're at the point with it where there's absolutely

no chance that it gets better. There are not a lot of things... Basketball having the same problem. They added these coaches challenges and it's just made the sport more confusing. There's one that's at the Clipper game last night. They just fucked it up. And it's like, so now we're delaying the game even more and we're not even getting this right when we do it right so that's really the thing with

the pass interference situation somehow instead of fixing the problem they can they compounded it and made it worse still not getting the calls right in the first place but now you're not getting them right on review which you, we're all people sitting there watching the replay 16 times at home at that point and there's absolutely no justification for not getting the call right to the point where we've kind of entered

mass conspiracy culture with this as football fans, where it does, it's kind of hard not to wonder if the refs are doing this as a deliberate fuck you for the policy being introduced in the first place. Or if they killed Jeffrey Epstein.

You know, every now and then I scroll through your Twitter and like one of the, just for my personal exercise is like how many tweets between each Epstein tweet. Like, will it be more than six? What's the over under

on how far I have to scroll to get to the next Epstein tweet? What was my first tweet since Epstein didn't kill himself? Well, you sent an Epstein tweet like two days ago. Oh, okay. There you go. Maybe even a day ago.

He's still alive. He's in like Mexico. Oh, my God. Okay. Kyle? I mean, murdered maybe. I don't know. I fully support the Epstein conspiracy culture, but go ahead.

With the past interference thing, you know, the Marlon Humphrey Hopkins play was the big one from last weekend that really led to new fat uproar. Which, by the way, you would have beaten them by 20 instead of 27. That was stupid. Exhausting, but it was pass interference, of course.

So pretty much everybody who's interviewed about this speaks in the sternest way possible about how broken the system is. And it's just become a complete embarrassment for the sport where the credibility

is on the line every minute. Roll it back. You know, where it's a one-year trial. Just end it early. It doesn't seem like there's any... Maize and Clark were talking about this on the Ringer NFL show earlier end it early. It doesn't seem like there's any... Mays and Clark were talking about this on the Ringer NFL show earlier in the week.

It doesn't seem like there's a way forward. So let's just concede defeat and go backward, right? So here's the problem. There's no commissioner. Roger Goodell is basically like a ghost ship. How many times have you even heard his name in the past year or two years? He stays out of everything now.

Well, he wasn't. His whole job is to intervene with stuff like this. He's supposed to protect the good of the game for both sides, right? I mean, ostensibly he works for the owners, but he's supposed to protect both sides. This is something that is, as you said, everybody's like, this is broken.

Yeah. So where is it? Well, you know, he was an advocate for the rule change in the first place. The leader of the charge was Sean Payton, obviously, because all of this stemmed from what happened in the Rams-Saints game last postseason. Yeah, because he wanted to reflect the fact that they should have fucking won the game anyway and blew it nine other ways. But 31 of 32 voted in favor of the rule. I get it. But that actually, to me, makes it more remarkable and just more notable that we've swung that quickly

and that fully to the point where whether it's Hopkins sending the tweet that he sent after the game, you know, let's see, what did he say? He said, as a leader in the NFL,

we need someone new in New York deciding calls. Like, that's... Yeah. That is a pretty intense thing to say. Any coach who's interviewed, even, you know, Kingsbury was one of the rare coaches who's won one of these. And he was stunned.

And when he was asked about it after the game, he was basically like, I can't believe that actually worked. It's at the point where if the rule is actually implemented in a way that leads to the correct outcome, it's astonishing to people. I don't know how we got there. There's no leadership at all. It was poorly thought out. And they haven't stuck with it. And it's a huge waste of time. And it seems like a conspiracy to have more commercials.

Interesting. Conspiracy to have more commercials. I just think they want the games to be longer. I think it's in their interest. The ratings don't go down when the games are longer and all of these sports are trying to figure out ways to make the games go longer. Prove me wrong.

Yeah. Well, okay. It's like, what's fun about this? Who's like, the Clipper Celtics game yesterday, there must have been five challenges. You know how fucking boring it is when you're at the game? Pace of play is a disaster.

There was one thing, it was seven minutes and they're just playing music. And at one point, the fans started booing because it was an awesome game. Right. We were like,

can we watch the awesome game again? The difference though with the NFL is that I think most fans are in favor because of the way that replay has long been used in the sport of being able to review things if it actually leads to getting the call right. Like, nobody was like, oh, my God. I'm old enough to remember Mike Renfro before your time. You weren't born yet. Houston, Pittsburgh.

Oilers should have beaten Pittsburgh that year. They got screwed on Mike Renfro. Incomplete. It was a touchdown. Right. And that's when this, that was the genesis of all this. Because that actually swung the Super Bowl. You know what?

That's the other thing. Like, we spent so long as football fans in this just sort of constant existential dread over what is a catch. Yeah. And adding more aspects of the game into that bucket where we're now like, wait, what is pass interference? That's just not something that we should be questioning. There's always going to be a bit of subjectivity. Of course, that's the nature of the sport. We're not actually sending robots out there to call balls and strikes or to officiate games.

There's not currently a sensor on the tip of the ball for football. Maybe there will be. But while human error is a part of the game, there's some degree as a fan of accepting that, if not embracing it. This is different because you are reviewing it. You're sending it to other people to say, get this right, and they're not doing it. This is different because you are reviewing it. You're sending it to other people to say, get this right.

And they're not doing it. But the funniest thing about this is they're so meticulous about this part. And then you watch how they do first downs and they're still doing it like they did in 1910. Right. And these guys are like, I think it was here. And they just put the ball down. And it's like, no, the ball wasn't there. It was six feet back.

It's all stupid. Anyway, next one. Last one. It's very, no, the ball wasn't there. It was six feet back. It's all stupid. Anyway, next one. Last one. It's very bad. Number one, huge weekend for the NFC playoff pecking order. Seattle Eagles is... I'm about to do that million dollar picks. We got a handful of games. Packers, Niners. Sunday Night Football

certainly one of the games of the day. Cowboys Pats. Obviously, that's a huge one for the Cowboys because the Eagles are, while they are struggling, they are not out of it yet. And the Cowboys need to continue to try to separate in the division. You worried about that game, Kyle? I'm not doing a million dollar picks.

Yes. I feel like we could lose that one. That line six and a half, it feels like it should be like three and a half. That's the test of the season so far for Dak, you know, as he creeps into the MVP conversation. Really good secondary. Chasing that contract. He's been

playing extraordinarily well. Riley Maxey wrote a great piece for The Ringer about how he's the analytics darling of the season. And facing the Pat secondary is. But the Pat secondary hasn't had to face a team that had three receivers playing well at the same time like this for as long as Cobb

is going to stay in the field. I liked your suggestion on Sunday about just putting Cobb on ice until you need him. Keep him healthy. Yeah, it's good. Just sending him away. I like that. Yeah.

Randall Cobb is one of my, I need to draft this person in fantasy basically every single year. I just can't resist. And there's always those few weeks. I called him Reggie Cobb on the first three years of the BS podcast back at ESPN. I just kept calling him Reggie for some reason. That's just because you weren't watching those Kentucky games,

scouting him when he was in college football. I'm going to turn you into an enthusiastic college football consumer one of these days. I'm gonna. It's going to be the great achievement of my life. We need, with the NFC, we need somebody to lose a dumb game so we don't just know who the six playoff teams are. Cause right now it's like the five plus whoever wins between Dallas and Philly. Well, you have a dumb loss soon. The Rams against the Ravens, the Eagles against the Seahawks,

even like the Panthers in their game. You have a lot of teams right now that are still in it, but really need wins. Can't afford too many more losses. And so those games are interesting to watch. One of the things that I'm really intrigued by with the Packers-Niners game is, you know, I think all of us have spent all season talking about the Vikings as the wildcard team.

But if the Packers drop this game, it's completely within the realm of possibility that the Vikings could still take the division and the Packers could this game, it's completely within the realm of possibility that the Vikings could still take the division and the Packers could fall down to the wild card. And I think also just the play-caller matchup in that game with LeFleur and Shanahan is just super exciting if you're a football nerd. I was looking at the Packers schedule

thinking that same thought. Like, could they actually fall out of the playoffs? Could this be a spiral? Their next two are at the Giants home for Washington and then they're home for Chicago yeah they have a favorable slate

for sure at Minnesota at Detroit so they're getting in that's happening yeah but it's it's still a question of of

whether they could fall in the wild card yeah potentially but I was like thinking more like oh I wonder if they could actually fall out of the playoffs. Potentially. But I was like thinking more like, oh, I wonder if they could actually follow the playoffs,

but that's not happening. All right. We're going to do million dollar picks right after this break. Okay. Everyone loves a gift that they can feel good in and good about. Allbirds.

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Yeah. Shout out to Allbirds. Just adding stuff to the dictionary. What a brand. Allbirds, the perfect gift to make the holidays a little more comfortable for everyone on your list. Give the gift of comfort this holiday season or get a pair for yourself at allbirds.com. All right. So we're going to do million dollar picks. Mallory's going to join for this one. Last week I was down like 1.7 million because I had some bad luck with two big bets. Right. As often happens with gambling. Did the

Hail Mary on the Pat's Moneyline. 3.3 million and won 1.75. Once again, a recurring theme over the last two decades, me and gambling, the Patriots bailed me out. They just continue to do it. I'm happy for you. Back to even.

Excited for the stretch run. Have some really nice thoughts. It's a lot of pressure. I don't think that I've ever once given you good gambling advice. You're not. I'm just going to bounce stuff off you. I wanted to mention, even though people will... So this will be a good test, right? People won't hear this until late tonight. The Colts

game will already happen. I love the Colts tonight. Okay. Well, I mean, you're Indianapolis Colts. Three and a half? Your adopted team. I like the kid Williams. So people listen to this now, they'll laugh if he has 16 rushes for 10 yards, but I think they're going to be fine. I think they could beat Houston.

I had the top waiver pick in one of my leagues and I picked him up. It was good. He was good last week. Actually, I need to make sure right now, as we're talking, that he's in my lineup. Hold on. I'm not doing anything with the Pats this week.

As I said earlier, the line is too high. Okay. They're six and a half point favorites. I don't totally get it. The offense does not look good. I actually think Dallas can rush Brady a little bit.

They should be able to run with Zeke and Pollard on the Pats and try to control the game. I think this is a really winnable game for Dallas. I think that hopefully the Pats and try to control the game. I think this is a really winnable game for Dallas. I think hopefully the Pats will win, but this game scares me for a lot of different reasons.

I also think, boy, this makes me nervous to say this. It hurts my soul. I think there's going to be some Cowboy fans there. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. I think the- The secondary market, the Northeast,

there's a lot of like Dallas Giants fans. Dallas never plays in New England. And Kyle, I think there's going to be like 15,000 Dallas fans there. That's a big number. 15,000. I do. I think it's going to be like 20%. That's a lot.

They're going to be spread around, but they'll be there. A lot of health questions to monitor for the Cowboys right now, but it seems like that's all trending in their favor. Yeah. The reports could certainly change in the back half of the week here, but it seems like Amari Cooper, DeMarcus Lawrence, Collins are all probably going to be fit enough to play. So I like the Cowboys.

I like them too. I'm not putting them in because I don't bet against the Pats on million-dollar picks. So we're staying away from that. Here's who I like for week 12. And it's nice to be back, by the way, with no pressure of being down. First one. Yeah. I just think Seattle.

This scares me because it's too obvious. I don't like that the line is Seattle plus one. I don't understand why Seattle is not a three-point favorite in this game. I can't imagine anybody betting on Philly in this game from what we've seen the last couple weeks. Why are you making a face? Well, I'm just particularly confounded by it with the Seahawks coming off a bye. So you have that.

Philly's receivers are just awful. Yeah, terrible. I mean, awful. The last couple quarters of that game, Wentz had nobody to throw to other than Zach Ertz. They just double-teamed Zach Ertz. Lane Johnson, I assume, is coming back, but the numbers of when he disappears are alarming.

Yes. And I just don't think they're that good honestly I really don't I didn't think the Pats played well last week And they still You know won Not convincingly but They won on the road They gave up 10 points

So the Eagles are at home And the Seahawks have been involved In basically all close games That's the explanation here I think so from a DVOA Standpoint And the Seahawks have been involved in basically all close games. That's the explanation here. I think, so from a DVOA standpoint, the advanced metrics, Seattle's eighth, Philly's tenth. And I do think there was a time when DVOA didn't factor into the lines,

but now they do. And I do think people look at that. But what I don't get is it says Philly has the 11th ranked offense, which I'm sure they do, but I don't think if you were just ranking offenses right now, they would not be in the top half.

Well, I mean... It's a lot of earlier production that probably skews that a little bit. They've lost Deshaun Jackson to the injury. Jeffrey's banged up. Aguilar hasn't caught a pass

since he was at USC. Yeah, shouldn't play. I feel bad for him. I thought he was... When he was in college, I thought he was going to be just an extraordinary bro. He's the Contavious Caldwell Pope of the Eagles. And Jeffrey,

either he's not going to play or if he does play, he's going to just be limping around like Fred Sanford. I just don't see it. I think Seattle's good. And if you look at Seattle week by week, they've just pulled out close games over and over and over again. Yeah, I like Seattle.

I do. I guess with the Eagles offense, there's been a little bit of a, you know, inverse correlation between the receiver health and production dipping, but the running backs figuring it out a little bit. Yeah.

Metcalf last couple of weeks has been terrific. Wilson's still in the MVP race. Not that that's going to affect how hard he tries. The other thing is we talked earlier about the NFC. It's not like Seattle

doesn't need the game. No, they need the game. They're in an arms race with San Francisco. San Francisco's playing Green Bay. I actually like Green Bay in that game. I'm not going to bet on them.

But they have a chance to leapfrog to the number one spot if they win this. Yeah, I mean, we talked about the same thing that's true for the Packers and Vikings is also true for the Seahawks and Niners. And then looking at the rest of their schedule, at Minnesota, I'm sorry, home from Minnesota on ESPN Monday night,

at the Rams, and then at Carolina, home Arizona, home San Francisco. There's like a 13-3 season in play for this team, which is crazy because, again, all of their games have been close, but they've just shown a knack for pulling them out. The other thing for the Seahawks that I think is really encouraging is that Clowney seems to be figuring it out. Yes. He was really good last week.

That's clicking in a pretty thrilling way. They've really only played one bad game this season Clowney seems to be figuring it out. Yes. He was really good last week. That's clicking in a pretty thrilling way. Yeah. They've really only played one bad game this season against your Ravens. That's right. That was it. And I think part of that was they didn't really expect what was going, what was the potential of what might happen there.

But anyway, I am putting $400,000 on Seattle plus one. Okay. Next game. Denver continues to be the best value team in the league. Okay. They, uh,

week by week. Yeah. They lose to the Raiders by eight. They were in that game the whole time. They lose to the bears by two game. They totally choked. Lose to green Bay by 11. They were in that game as well.

Lose to Jacksonville by two. Should have won. Beat the Chargers. Beat Tennessee. Get killed by KC. That's their one bad game. Lose to the Indianapolis by two. Game they could have won.

Beat Cleveland. Blow a 20-point lead to Minnesota. That was tough. Let me say, as someone who is married to a Broncos fan, difficult few hours. Yeah. Tough one. Very tough one.

They're the best bad team. And they're playing Buffalo, who I think is the worst good team. Interesting. Not sold on Buffalo at all. Buffalo laying four in Buffalo to Denver. And I think Denver can win the game. I like getting the points. But it's at Buffalo. Yeah. And you're still asking Brandon Allen to go against that Bills defense. Not sure I'm asking him to do anything.

I'm just asking him to not turn the ball over. And are we sure the Bills defense is that good, by the way? We're sure? We're sure they're that good? Because last week they gave up 20 to Miami. 19 to Cleveland, nine to Washington. Philly put up 31 of them.

That was a strange game though. We sure they're good? Defensively? What are they DVOA? DVOA, by the way, they are 25th, 14th defensively. They are 23rd offensively.

Denver is actually eight spots higher than DVOA. Now we're at the DVOA sample size where it's like, we have 11 weeks of stuff to look at. So I don't know. I just think it's an either or game. And I'm taking Denver for 300K. I like a lot about what the Broncos are doing on offense right now with

the skill position guys. Your boy Sutton among them. Clicking. Finding an identity. Sutton's excellent. He's great. His pass last week? Extraordinary. And they double teamed him basically the entire end of the game just to take him out.

I think that as is so often the case with the Broncos in recent years under Elway, you arrive at a crisis point about identity and planning though. Like Brandon Allen is not the future at quarterback. He's, he's playing fine, but at some point we call him Allen number three in Allen number three. That's us.

That's all right. Excuse me. Is drew lock going to get into a football game this season? Now, he had the thumb injury. Do that last two weeks. But why? No.

See, I totally disagree. No, I'm saying if you're going to ever do it, do it. I still think they have a chance to go like seven and nine. The second that he is healthy enough to play, he needs to be out there

because obviously it's not Flacco and it's not going to be Allen. You need to figure out if you're drafting a quarterback or if Locke is the future. You have an obligation to figure that out and they're already blowing it and I think that that's it's not going to be Allen, you need to figure out if you're drafting a quarterback or if Locke is the future. You have an obligation to figure that out and they're already blowing it

and I think that that's it's the kind of thing where Is he healthy enough to play? Well, the thumb injury is a real thing, but at a certain point, you have to see, right? You got to get him out here

and see and now and Fangio is saying, oh, it's not imperative that he plays this season. I find that alarming and I think it's going to be the kind of thing that starts to dominate the discussion around the team.

Now, maybe you're right. If they go on the road, they win in Buffalo. Suddenly they're semi-competitive. You have a little bit of like a Falcons-esque resurgence where you start to respect them a bit. The dangerous Falcons. And then you can justify continuing to keep Allen out there. But I don't know.

You're still putting a guy who grew his hands ahead of the draft in there over someone you drafted in the second round. I'm putting 300 of them plus four. What was the team you just mentioned? Oh, the Falcons. Yeah.

Playing your favorite team. They're home playing my favorite team, the Tampa Bay Bucs. I've seen more snaps of the Bucs than any non-Bucs fan, I think. Your obsession with the Bucs is alarming to me. That game,

Bucs are plus 177 to win outright. Over-under is 51.5. If you do Bucs and the over, Yeah, I would definitely take the over there. Parlayed together. It's plus 429.

That's appealing. I'm going to put 100K on that just out of principle. Okay. Bucks and the over. My man, Jameis. Oh, my God. He'll throw it to his guys. He'll throw it to the other team

he's fun to watch putting 100 on that and then finally last but not least okay your Ravens hell yeah here in Los Angeles Bill

your Ravens laying three and a half points against the Rams who the life has just been beaten out of them by Jared Goff. Not true. They are

back in the race. No, you're just saying this because you're not trying not to reverse drinks the Ravens. Coming off a big win. They're still alive. Coming off a big win.

That was like the saddest win. It doesn't matter. A win is a win in the ledger all the same. It was a win that felt like a loss. And they need this game, Bill. And I'm, you know, I'm on edge a little bit because they need the game.

And a desperate team is always a little scary to face, you know? Well. I need to, this is the position I need to operate in as a fan. The good news is I'm removing the money line for you. Okay. I mean, I'm removing the spread and doing the money line, which is minus 175. Okay. you. I mean, I'm removing the spread and doing the money line, which is minus 175. Parlaying that with New Orleans, which is minus 500 at home against Carolina. All they have to do is win. Carolina is in a free fall. Yeah. And New Orleans is playing quite well.

If you do those two together, it's almost even. It's minus 113. I'm going to be putting 400 on that. So if I lose, I lose 452. If I win, I win 400. Baltimore and New Orleans, all they have to do is win. Okay. They both have to win. I'm going to 400 on that. So the picks. Makes me nervous. Baltimore and New Orleans, minus 113 parlay, 400K.

Seattle plus one, 400K. Denver plus four, 300K. Tampa and the over both have to hit the overs 51.5 Tampa has to win outright plus 429 those are my million dollar picks for week 12 coming off the biggest win we've ever had last week

Mally Rubin I wish you luck Bill I can't believe you said I wasn't allowed to bring up Lamar and then you mentioned the Ravens like 67 times are you guys want to talk about Mandalorian for two seconds? Hell yeah. Spoiler warning. We got a spoiler warning. Just thought A plus, A, A minus.

A plus. Redacted characterized Shant's name so as not to spoil it for the audience of the show is the cutest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. Protect at all costs. Okay.

I would die for this character. I would gladly lay down my life. Kyle knows what I'm talking about. Questions about the timeline, I guess. Clone. Okay. A minus?

I mean, it's two in and it's appointment TV. I'm waiting. It's been great. The Star Wars community is beside itself. It's been great. I've really, really been enjoying it. You can do Star Wars this way and that's cool. It's awesome. It's been great so far. The Star Wars community is beside itself. It's been great. I've really, really been enjoying it.

You can do Star Wars this way and that's cool. It's awesome. It's funny. Disney Plus versus Apple Plus. And we were talking about Morning Show in a second with Amanda. Apple Plus comes out and it's basically like, here's some bad shows. Can you pay us $5 a month? And Disney Plus is like, here's every Disney movie you've ever liked.

Here's every Disney series you've ever liked. Here's every Disney series you've ever liked. Here's The Simpsons. And here's all the Marvel movies and all the Star Wars movies. It's incredible. Oh, and here's this new show, The Mandalorian, that you have to watch if you like Star Wars. It's pretty great. And you can bundle this with Hulu and ESPN. It's like, oh my God.

You finish an episode of The Mandalorian and the algorithm just starts playing Empire Strikes Back for you. It's like fucking crack. Wow. It's great. Unbelievable. Mallory, pleasure as always. All right, before we bring in Amanda, let's talk about FanDuel Sportsbook, the premier mobile sports betting app for a ton of reasons. They made it easy to sign up a deposit, ton of

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1-800-9-WITH-IT. I should also mention the Ringer Dish podcast, which Amanda Dobbins, who's about to come on, is frequently on. There's rumors of my daughter doing a For Realsies next week, Kyle.

I heard. I heard. I think it's going to happen. So Ringer Dish is a really fun podcast. If you love celebrity culture and all that stuff, I would highly recommend it. All right, here's Amanda. Okay, so we're finishing this up.

Amanda Dobbins and I have been circling each other now for two weeks. Yes. There's been a lot of texts. There's been conversations. We ran into each other on the street, on the corner of Gower and Sunset and ended up in a seven minute morning show conversation

as homeless people circled us. We were very animated outside of Denny's. Yeah, I think people thought we were, maybe they didn't know what was going on with us. This show, I'm obsessed with how weird and bad it is. It's called The Morning Show. If you haven't seen it yet, believe me, we're not going to spoil much. You should listen to this anyway, because this is

more of an appreciation of when a lot of money for a television show goes wrong, and yet we're enchanted and we can't stop watching. And yet it goes right. Yeah. Yeah. So The Morning Show is Apple TV Plus's quote flagship show, which is just important to know in the sense of these people really believe they had something and they put a lot of money and marketing behind it. They hired Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell. Those are the people in the ads. It's like a big TV deal. 300 million bucks. It's been two and a half years They've been working on it

It started in 2017 It was always supposed to be the flagship show As often happens in Hollywood There were rumors People were coming and going Writing staffs were being changed There was a lot of red flags That we've learned to obey over the years

The trailer came out Reese Witherspoon's hair Which we think is a wig. I do believe it's a wig. Reasonably sure it's a wig. Yeah. Willa Paskin and Slate said that she thought the part was moving in a couple different episodes. Yeah.

That's usually a sign. At one point, she just shows up with a totally different length. And I mean, she got a haircut. It's not, it's, she got a haircut, you know, it's not wild that the character would get a haircut, but they never mentioned it. It's just kind of like, oh, now your hair is a different texture. You've definitely gotten some highlights and you've cut it and it's never mentioned again. Yeah. Well, like a lot of things in this show that have episode four versus episode two and just things are different. The most fascinating slash weird thing about this show is the Me Too thing happens or the Me Too, I guess, what's the right word? Era.

Yes. The movement starts- The era, whatever. It starts right after they had already bought the rights to Brian Stelter's morning show book. And now they have a completely different show. Yes, because all of the information about Matt Lauer comes out, I believe, after they buy the rights to this book. And it's not, none of that is in the book itself. And after Steve Carell has already signed up and checks are cashing. Yes.

They're like, hey, Steve, so we're going to have to change the character a little bit. Yes. So now it's a Me Too show with Steve Carell. With Jennifer Aniston. And then Reese Witherspoon is in there playing the young upstart. And unfortunately, she's only maybe four to five years younger than Jennifer Aniston. And they don't really seem any different age-wise. No. really seem any different age-wise. But it's supposed to be like a Brie Larson

that kind of late 20s I would think would have been the character ideally. I think the way that they are pitting them against each other, which they are, even though you're not supposed to say that about two women, but there is kind of the Jennifer Anderson

character, her name is Alex Levy and she is the, the established morning show host. She's been there for 15 years. And Reese Witherspoon is the new woman on the scene who has different ideas about how it's going to be done. The new woman on the scene who has been on the scene for 20 years, just doing local news, but somehow hasn't been discovered. 15 years of just toiling away on local news, but she always was going to be a star. Can we talk about how she gets discovered? Yeah, go ahead. So she is a local field reporter and she is doing a segment on a protest at a mine in West Virginia. She's from West Virginia.

And she just has a total psychotic breakdown on air. She just starts yelling. With a protester. Yeah. She starts yelling at a protester and it turns into a quote viral video. It's actually her best acting on the whole show. No, it's not. She's really good. She's screaming so loud. I think she's trying.

She's trying. But Reese Witherspoon actually can do like aggressive, angry women. And in this one, it's honestly just like she is screaming like she's in a horror movie. And this whole thing also, they're like creating a viral video. And then it becomes such a sensation that they have her on the morning show. And then she becomes a figure. But it's very funny to watch old school, traditional TV programs, try to like recreate the internet and recreate viral videos. And the number of times they say viral video and she went viral. And have you seen the,

have you seen the views on this? Yeah. It's, um, it's an early sign of some things to come in terms of how they handle the media. So then you have Aniston who's playing a character that has no parallel on television. I don't even know who this person's supposed to be or be a piece of. It's not anybody I've ever seen anywhere. She's not warm. She's not funny. She's not that likable, but she's an institution apparently, allegedly. I have no idea how she became an institution. She doesn't seem very smart. Like she's, I don't know what, what is the hook?

If you had to say like, what's Alex's best skill? I have no idea. I think it's just like wearing pantsuits, you know? She does look very good. Her hair looks great in every episode, though I have some questions about her routine, which they show, and she's blow-drying her hair. The 330?

Yeah, but she's blow-drying her hair before she goes to hair and makeup. I just don't think that's realistic. Anyway. It seems like she decided that this show is worth doing and this character is worth playing because she was really fascinated by, man, it must be so hard to get up that early.

And how do you keep your skin looking great? And how does your face not get puffy? And man, can you imagine? How would you work out? It'd be tough to be on that treadmill. And that was her motivation. I think that's true. I think the other thing in the Willa Paskin piece

that you mentioned gets at this as well is that this show, if she's based on anyone, if Alex Levy is based on anyone, it's based on Jennifer Aniston. Yeah. And Jennifer Aniston was involved as a producer on this show and you can see her trying to make this America's sweetheart character

about her relationship to America over the past 20 years. And I don't know that they're always doing it well because her relationship as Alex Levy to the public changes every episode because Alex Levy changes every episode. I really honestly think some of it is that they filmed things out of order. They filmed things out of order and then changed the writers. Exactly. So you have characters just behaving completely different than they did the previous episode. So something that was originally episode two is now in episode five and eight is in one.

And who really knows? But I think she gives this boardroom speech, which is, I mean, I know you just made a face and I feel that way as well. It's hilarious. It's supposed to be her sort of big Sorkin monologue. And it's supposed to be about women taking charge of their lives and the time for men is over. And it just feels like, do you know what the skim is? Yeah. So the skim is like a, they write news. My old great link colleague Deirdre works for that.

Yeah. But they kind of write it for women. And sometimes the news is not presented as intellectually as you might want. Right. And it kind of feels like they took a girl power speech and then just dumbed it down as much as possible so that they just have Jennifer Aniston screaming, America loves me! And she just is banging her hand on the desk. It's like she has watched so many bad courtroom dramas

and is just screaming about how America loves her. But I genuinely think that Jennifer Aniston thinks that that's her talking to the public. To her people. About like her life. I wanted it to end with, and people are going to see Charlie's Angels because Elizabeth Banks directed it. You made the key point. It was supposed to be her big Aaron Sorkin speech. Yeah. Anytime that sentence is said, it's going to go badly.

Yeah. If you have people in a room going, so this is supposed to be your big Aaron Sorkin speech. It's like, stop. No, don't. Don't. Don't do it. Don't try. It turns out that Aaron Sorkin is one of the most gifted screenwriters of our generation,

which we already knew, guys. But anyone who is trying to do it, it just, it's, it's hard. He makes it look easy, but I'm going to go basketball for a second. I know you can ride with this. Cause Zach Baron watches a lot of Sixers games in your house. Okay.

Certain people like Kobe Bryant was like this. He took terrible shots, but he made them. And it was part of his whole thing. He took a lot of shots. He took, he made plays. He shouldn't have made,

but then other people would be like, Oh, then I'll do that. And they would be terrible at it. Aaron Sorkin's like that. Yeah. He broke, he broke a lot of conventional rules. He did things that made no sense, but it worked because he's Aaron Sorkin. He's one of the most talented people we have. Right. But then you end up with the morning show in the boardroom speech and Aniston pounding the table. I mean, I've had more conversations about how we did not appreciate the newsroom or even Studio 60 when we had it after watching the morning show, which is what happens when this stuff goes really wrong. I think Studio 60 is one of the big winners of this show. And that was a much maligned show. And it was like 20 times better than this show. Yeah. So let's talk about things we love about this show. I love Reese and Aniston seeming to

be the same age, even though it's a young upstart thing. And I'm convinced Aniston was like, there's no way you're bringing Brie Larson in here. It's not happening. It's got to be somebody at least close to me. I'm not getting blown off the screen by a younger person. It has to be Reese, but it's the major flaw of the show because you can't be the young precocious America's finding out about this person upstart on television like this when you're that age. It would have happened. That's true. It would seem to be like this precocious NBA player who's 41.

And the character also has a tremendous amount of baggage that they introduce in episode one and then also in episode five yeah and then they kick to the side but if you know anything about people who are on morning shows or have that level of fame it's like if you have sex with a bartender in the back room oh you want to talk about that now no i'm just saying the show that would be on tmz but you can't behave that way and she's been doing this for 15 years. Reese kind of flips out in episode five and decides to go get drunk. Goes to the bar.

Good looking bartender. Yeah. Pretty good looking bartender. Yeah, he's great. Does three shots in a row in 30 seconds. Have you ever seen that in your life? No. In 30 seconds, three shots in a row.

Next scene, they're in the back where they keep the liquor. They're standing up having sex and she's got one leg kind of up. I don't the geometry of it doesn't work at all. And she's going, ah, ah, with like one leg kind of sideways. And it's like, how are you guys?

Who thought this was a good idea? It's the worst sex scene I've ever seen. Ever. I cannot how it's shot, the performances, the geometry, the motivation. I! I cannot how it's shot, the performances, the geometry of it, the motivation. I have no idea how this happened. Reese Witherspoon is a smart person. How is she letting herself have that leg up for that long without being

like, huh, I think something's off here. I think he's just having sex with her right hip. Maybe it's some new forward thing. And it's supposed to be this sexy, uh-oh, she's letting loose. And instead it's one of the worst scenes I've ever seen in my life. And I just can't believe, I can't believe it made the final cut.

It's also tacked on. They could have, they just could have cut it off. She could have taken the three shots in a row very quickly. And then you're like, Oh no. And taking a long look at the bartender. And we're going to be like,

Oh, we know that we did not need to see it. It's also like motion smoothing is off in that scene for some reason. The way they lit it, it just looks like it's from a different, it's like from a, if PBS did sex scenes, that's what it looks like. Well, this, but this goes back to the Apple point. They're trying to create the streaming service, but they've been very clear. Like we're not doing Breaking Bad. We're never doing The Deuce.

Like we have to be a little bit family friendly. They're never doing The Deuce. Right. Like we have to be a little bit family friendly. They're kind of going for PG-13. Yes. And this is the most PG-13 sex scene of all time. I would feel comfortable with any six-year-old

watching this sex scene. Be like, what's that? Why are they dancing like that? Because it doesn't look like sex. I don't know what's happening. I just want to say that I'm not comfortable with six-year-olds watching this.

I just want that on the record. Maybe just six-year-old Ben Simmons. But sex. I don't know what's happening. I just want to say that I'm not comfortable with six-year-olds watching this. I just want that on the record. Maybe just six-year-old Ben Simmons. But also, I don't think six-year-olds deserve the nightmares that that would give them. But they wouldn't even know it was sex. Don't teach them that that's what sex is. You want to give them positive examples, not Reese Witherspoon in the back alley

with bad geometry. Oh my God. Oh my God. It's so bad. So I just feel bad for her in the show. Yeah. Is that the right feeling? I think she's horribly miscast.

I don't think she's that good. I don't really fully understand her character. I don't know why the character's named Bradley. I think that's just fucking crazy why they didn't switch that. I have no idea. I mean, there's speculation that it was originally written for a man

and then they just were kind of doing like the gender broadcasting. Jennifer Aniston's in this. Change it. She's, I mean, there's speculation that it was originally written for a man. And then they just were kind of doing like the gender. Jennifer Aniston's in this. Change it. She's I mean, her foil can't be named Bradley. I know. I actually think it's kind of funny, but I have to assume that someone recognizes that similarity at some point and let it go because this show seems like so noted

that there's no way that didn't happen. And then she has. So we should talk about Billy Crudup. Oh, I can't believe it's taken us this long to talk about Billy Crudup. The performance of the year, in my opinion. Willa had the best line ever. I'm so jealous of it.

There's been a couple of things lately where other people have said stuff and I'm just like, I'm so jealous of that. I feel like I'm slipping. I wish I'd come over that. She was saying how he's in a different show entirely. That it's- It's a good show.

Whatever show he's in is the show I want to watch. I know. He's like, he's galaxy bra different show entirely. It's a good show. Whatever show he's in is the show I want to watch. I know. He's galaxy braiding with the script. He's like, I see all these words. And the writing in particular, there's just like a lot of buzzwords. It's very clear that the Me Too thing happened.

And so the writer's room was like, they didn't know what to do. No, the writer's room was like, we're going to address this head on. It's our responsibility to be brave and like talk through Me Too in real time. And they didn't know what to do. And they don't know what to do.

So you wind up with scenes where Steve Carell is just like in a totally different set in a lawyer's room, just screaming morality clause over and over again. Do you remember that? And he just said like morality clause, morality clause. Like that's literally what happens. So the script is, it has a lot of like ideas that aren't really fleshed out. And a lot of things like viral video and me too, and morality clause and all this, and like woke Twitter, which is something that Billy Crudup has to say. But where everyone else gets freaked out by those words, Billy Crudup is like,

I've seen God. And I just, I know how to say this. And I know what to do to make this ridiculous and fun. And I am just going to be an agent of chaos on this show. He's basically, one of my favorite movies ever is Almost Famous. He's basically playing Russell Hammond in the scene where he drops acid and goes to the high school party. Yeah.

And he's just walking around that crazy look on his face. He's playing that combined. He's playing that character. Combined with his spotlight character when he's like the really skeezy lawyer. Remember that? Oh yeah. He combined those two characters. Yes, because Corey, his character, who is like he's the network president. Is that

right? Alright, so stop there. Yeah, let's talk about this. He's the network president. Okay. He's insane. He's he makes rash moves and decisions and just walks around with this delirious grin on his face

like a crazy person and is making like everyone else is so this is a serious show yeah there's not a lot of fun happening in the show very solemn

it's like journalism is important and he's making pop culture jokes and I don't know what's going on and it feels like

he's ad-libbing all of his dialogue. I fully support it. I think it's the performance of the year. At one point, he just yells, chaos is the new cocaine. Yeah. And which they make the title of the episode. I wonder whether that was the title of the episode before he decided to give this very

inspired line reading of it. But that's a summary, basically, of what's great about this show. Should we talk about him and Jennifer Aniston perform a Stephen Sondheim song in episode five? I lost my mind. Honestly, I was watching it alone in a room because my husband does not care about the morning show. Bad move. And he came in to be like, are you okay? Because of the sounds that I was making of, oh my God, oh my God.

Yeah. I cannot believe that this happened. It is like watching a train wreck and also someone winning the Super Bowl in real time. I was just like, this is amazing. It's a shame that HBO didn't run this show because I feel like, I don't know how many people have Apple Plus. My guess is that, Kyle, you don't have Apple Plus. Anybody your age

willing to pay $5 a month for Apple Plus? Does it come free when you buy Apple TVs? Yes, it does. Kyle, I have the $5 for you. I will give it to you in cash after this podcast. He wouldn't like this. But I don't feel like a lot of people are watching this show. I've been trying.

If they were, the Stephen Sondheim thing, I feel like that would have dominated national discussion for 36 hours. It's so bizarre. And it also starts, for a while, it's just crud up. Let's just talk about the setup. It's at a party that Jennifer Aniston's character is hosting that I think is some sort of Broadway gala. And so you can pay $1 thousand dollars to perform a Broadway song

with the pianist who is there in the room. And people are actually doing this. And so it starts with Billy Crudup is trying to make a point to Jennifer Aniston's character. And so he starts singing and he has some, he's a Broadway actor. He has a lot of stage experience. I don't know how much of it is singing. Just what you said is insane. It's really insane. Because the point he's making, he makes this very clear. What's the song?

What's the beginning of the song where he's like? Nothing's going to harm you. It's from Sweeney Todd. And he's singing it right to Jennifer Aniston, who is allegedly like the biggest morning star in America. This feels like this would be a thing in the room. Like what's going on? Why is he staring at her?

Are they fucking? Why is there this weird intensity? But no. And then, but so he does a verse and then I didn't know that it was a duet. I am not, I had forgotten. So when she started singing, when she started grabbing the mic,

I was just like, I can't believe that this is happening. And my wife was going, my wife finally got corrupted. It took a couple episodes. But my wife was going, she's not singing. That's not her voice. And then there's a moment where it's like, oh, it is her voice. She's definitely singing.

Oh, she's, no dubbing here. She's definitely singing, which I admire, actually. I like the fact that they're just Neither of them are You know Fantastic singers They've chosen other paths Well so There's also a creepy

Me too-ish vibe to Billy Crudup Absolutely Where there's that one scene When he goes into I think Reese's dressing room And he's just kind of behind her It's really weird She's sitting in a chair

He's standing behind her And it's a little bit like Trump Hillary Hillary Clinton, the debate when Trump was kind of a little too close. Yeah. And so then you watch and you go, so are they planting a seed for something? Or is Billy Crudup just continuing to be another show? We don't have an answer to that yet. I haven't seen episode six.

I think there are a few because they go shopping together. They go to Barney's and she's wearing the pantsuit and they bond. And that's when he gives his speech about how his mother, Martha, was a community organizer because the show just randomly has people give speeches about biographical detail that have nothing to do with anything that's going on. But she also tells him after she has sex with the bartender, she's hammered. Yeah. In the hotel.

And she's like, I just had sex with the bartender, which you wouldn't do if you wanted to have sex with somebody. You wouldn't tell them. I just had sex with the bartender. I think we're meant to believe that Bradley Jackson just might do that. She's a she's a quote. She's a mess, Bill. She's a mess.

She's a hot mess. She's a hot mess. That's what they're teaching. How did she make it five episodes before she just had sex with a stranger? They should have. I really don't know. She should have had sex with the protesters in the coal mine. We didn't even talk about the, I can't remember whether it's episode three or four, but it's

her first day on the morning show where within six minutes of the morning show start, they turn it into a pro-choice, pro-life debate. She just immediately drops it in. And then suddenly it's like a whole, whole segment about abortion rights in America in the middle of the weird morning show. And I'm like,

whether you're allowed to say it on air. I was just like, what's happening? You guys aren't equipped to handle this. The fact that we went 17 minutes without bringing that up tells you everything you know about the morning show. It comes out of nowhere. It's something nobody would ever say on live TV

ever. At all. And then it becomes the focal point of one episode, but then... Then it's fine. With everything else with the show, it just goes away. All of a sudden, the abortion and pro-life, pro-choice activists are no longer outside the building. They're only there for a week.

It's settled. We've settled abortion. It's just, it is so astonishing. Every episode, the things that they come up with and the, just the lack of development. Do you think it's like South Park where they just feel like every episode is a self-contained episode that doesn't have to match anything that happened in the last episode. It's just all the same characters in different situations. I don't think they think that.

I think that's like a great piece of criticism. Who's the lady I like from Beyond the Limits? Gugu Mbatha-Raw. We got to talk about that. You haven't seen the most recent episodes. So episode six, I'll keep quiet. Let's take one of the most likable younger actresses we have and give her the worst role possible.

So she's the booker for the morning show. So it's her job to show up at people's homes and be like, what I think you should do is come on this national morning show tomorrow at 7 a.m. That's a tough job. That requires a certain amount of finesse and being in the center of people's tragedies. You're harried most of the time when you have that job. She, again, seems like she's on a completely different show

than everybody else, but it's not a great show. There's one scene which, oh, we didn't even talk about how they have. So the Steve Carell character becomes a sexual harasser and he is fired because of Me Too related concerns. But we're supposed to like him for they present him as a sympathetic character, but not really. I don't know what their goal is. I don't either. I think they're trying to work through it. They're like, it's complicated. I think't know what their goal is. I don't either. I think they're trying to work through it. They're like, it's complicated. I think their thesis is it's complicated.

To an observer, it doesn't seem as complicated as. Seems pretty uncomplicated. Yeah, exactly. But so he is fired from the show. That's what brings Bradley Jackson, aka Reese Witherspoon, into the environment. And at some point they decide that one of his accusers is agreeing, who worked at the morning show, agrees to come back on air.

But that's because Gugu goes and recruits her in one of the most aggressive and upsetting fake hotel room scenes I've ever seen. It's bad. And it's just totally very weird. It's just kind of like everyone is a different energy level on this show. You know, it's funny. If Gugu had just been the Bradley Jackson character, it would have solved a lot of different problems. That's very true, though. I think we don't need Reese Witherspoon at all in this show. And that's so sad to say you and I both love Reese so much.

We do. It's just a misfire. It happens. Sometimes people end up. She was also bad in the softball movie. Yeah. I don't, is this her fault or is it just that they have no idea what to do with her and they shoehorned her into a character instead of writing the character to her? It goes back to the basic fundamental problem with Reese, in my opinion. And you know, I love Reese. I do know you love Reese. You want her as like the, in the America's Sweetheart's role. Ironically, she could have been the Alex Levy role. She would have been fantastic at it. You want her in the Cruel Intentions,

the really good person who shouldn't fall for this guy role. You don't want her like banging the bartender after three shots. That's not, I've never seen her pull off that character. Even in Big Little Lies, her being the one having the affair was just seemed, that wouldn't have been the character I would have picked for her. She's so type A that you can't imagine her even in a state of extreme drunkenness letting it fly in this way. Big Little Lies, I think, got a bit closer because the affair was presented as like a lapse in her control and her trying to control everything so much that she kind of, she loses it. This one, she's just flailing all around the place. And it's like,

no, this is Tracy Flick from election. This person is on her shit. She reads like eight books a week in real life. But I don't know if that's, if we feel that way, cause that's our history with Reese as an actress or, but it's just an obstacle. And then we didn't mention they fucking Martin short, one of my favorite people on the planet. Oh, that's really tough. They bring him in as like the most loathsome Me Too guy ever. He goes to Steve Carell

and Steve Carell over the course of them having a post-tennis drink becomes horrified by him and confronts him. I was like, this would never happen. They don't have anything to do with Steve Carell because he's been fired because of the Me Too stuff.

But then they need to keep him on the show. So one of the subplots they give him is that he wants to start like a podcast where men who have been accused of harassment and sexual misconduct are like talking through it in real time. We're still talking to them for Ringer Podcast Hour. They still have to tweak the idea. I don't know whether it's a podcast or a new series, but he basically goes to pitch Martin Short on this. And he's like, we could talk about our experiences. Can you imagine trying to get ads for that podcast? I can't.

It'd be tough. It's tough to get ads for podcasts that are terrible. Yeah. That whole scene and Martin Short. Martin Short's actually really good in the scene. It's just completely unrealistic. And then we should talk about poor Mark Duplass,

who's egregiously miscast. Most miscast of everyone. I don't even know how to... Well, the most miscast is Aniston's foreign... What country is he supposed to be from? Is he straight? Is he gay?

Is, is it, I'm not clear. Do they have a sexual relationship? So I, I'm going to let you know that in episode six, some of Jennifer Aniston's details of the relationship with that person are clarified,

but it is not until episode six that I understand what her relationship to this person is. Is he a husband? Is he an ex-husband certainly not physical around yeah does he live there does he live episodes of we don't know if they're married if they have sex and if he lives in her house yeah literally nobody he just shows up seems relevant all of the time they do clarify that in episode six but i still do not know i guess guess they have, they have a child together. So we know that because the child shows up very occasionally for Jennifer. So they had sex once. I guess so. Yeah. That's all it takes.

Carrie was like, my wife said, this is, this relationship is the answer to, in my best friend's wedding of Julia Roberts and Rupert Everett had ended up together. This would have been exactly what their relationship was like 20 years later. It's true. It's a dynamic of just being like, you need to calm down. So they're awful. And the Me Too

thing, which crests with the big piece comes out, which I actually kind of like. Like everybody worrying about this piece coming out in New York Times. Right. And they're all looking at their iPhones. They're all looking at their phones.

That was actually pretty well done. Which is sponsored by Apple. Yeah. So. But leads to Steve Carell just deciding to show up at the station. That was so uncomfortable. And give a speech to everybody about how they were all family. And it's like this not only would never happen, I think he would go to jail.

Yes. Yes. Because he was forced out of there and there's probably not allowed back at work. I mean, how does security let him in the building is a real question that I have. I feel the worst for him now that I'm thinking about it. Steve Carell. This is such a bad show for him to be on. It's such a bad

part. It's such a non-win for him. Do you think he's bad in it? No, I just feel bad for him. I think he's playing Steve Carell. I don't think he's bad in it. I think he's doing the best with the absolute dregs of what they're giving him. I mean, we haven't even talked about how he and Jennifer Aniston just drive around

listening to Steely Dan for a while. And seem to have a semi-sexual chemistry? I think it is implied at some point that they did have a relationship. We also didn't mention how funny it is her pretending

to be an anchor. Jennifer Aniston did not get enough coaching on the whole... So they're supposed to be bad. I think part of the thing is that the show...

Well, the show needs to be saved, right? That's one of the major narratives. Besides the whole Steve Carell's niche character, it's just kind of like the show is stale.

So that's why they bring in Bradley Jackson. But even for them being bad at morning TV, they're so bad at morning television. It reminds me that that was the Studio 60 flaw, right? The sketches were bad. Their morning show, it's like, okay, Bradley, we're coming up next. It's like if you and I tried to do a morning show right now,

it would be as good. How many more episodes are there? I believe there are five more. There are 10. Okay. You're coming back after the season finale. I can't wait. This is the only thing I like talking about.

So thank you. You can listen to Amanda on The Ringer Dish. My favorite Ringer podcast. Thank you. We appreciate you, Bill. Jam session, a whole bunch of other things. Thanks, Amanda. Thank you, Bill.

All right. Thanks to Mallory and Amanda. Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to Pepsi. They're taking NFL celebrations to the next level. Whether it's a Hail Mary touchdown, offensive stop in the goal line, or a Super Bowl win.

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