The Bill Simmons Podcast - The Warriors and Rams in Trouble, Plus Jimmy Kimmel on Bill’s 20 Years in L.A. | With Rob Mahoney and Peter Schrager

Episode Date: November 18, 2022

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Rob Mahoney to discuss the Warriors’ lackluster 6-9 start, whether it’s time to hit the panic button, possible in-season trades, and more (5:12). Then Bill talks with Peter Schrager of NFL Network and Fox Sports about Chiefs WR Kadarius Toney’s impact, the fall of the Rams, the competitive AFC East, and some of their favorite matchups for the week (37:48), before making the Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 11 (1:24:26). Finally Bill talks with Jimmy Kimmel about Bill’s move to L.A. 20 years ago to work for ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!,' the show’s turbulent first year, JKL!’s 20th anniversary, and more (1:30:51). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Jimmy Kimmel, Peter Schrager, and Rob Mahoney Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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per 355 mil can. So why not grab some Miller Lights today? Your game time tastes like Miller time. Must be legal drinking age. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I am recapping White Lotus. The fourth episode will be Sunday night. It's going to finish on HBO,

and my podcast with Joanna Robinson will go up immediately all of our thoughts we're also covering The Crown and Sex Lives of College Girls we covered the season finale of Atlanta

we're going to do that Fleischman show which I kind of liked it seemed like a show I would not like and I kind of liked it but I think Fantasy and Joanna

are going to be doing that one soon Prestige TV Podcast and if you like reality go check out our Reality TV Podcast because but I think Fantasy and Joanne are going to be doing that one soon. Prestige TV podcast. And if you like reality, go check out our reality TV podcast because that's covering The Challenge, Survivor, all the Real Housewives shows, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we have The Watch with Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan as well.

New rewatchables is coming out Monday. It's the last episode of Naughty November. Stay tuned for that. I'm not going to tell you what the movie is. You could probably guess. And then on this podcast, let's see, what do we got? Rob Mahoney is coming out first from The Ringer

because it is panic time with the Warriors officially. Then Peter Schrager is back. We're going to try to salvage a disastrous million-dollar pick season. We actually like this week's slate, but some really good games to talk about. We have Jets-Pats. There's a pretty interesting Eagles spot

after the undefeated season went for naught. There's a Rams team in distress. And there's a Steelers team in a frisky underdog spot, et cetera, et cetera. So we hit all of those themes. And last but not least my old boss Jimmy Kimmel who had to come on

because on Wednesday November 16th it was the 20th anniversary of me moving from the east coast to Los Angeles California which I thought was only going to be for a couple years and the best way I can describe how long I've been here

I've had six dogs. Two are dead. One won't die, Olivia. She's just going to live until she's like 25. And then three other ones. So yeah, I've had six dogs. That's how long I've been here. I have missed every single Boston title except for the 2001 Pats one. Now, I went back for some of them and certainly followed on TV, but it's so funny. I graduated college in 92, and all I want to do is live in Boston because I had lived there up until through 13th through seventh grade and wanted to come back, and I did. And the teams were terrible. The entire time I was there basically after college, it was terrible. Reggie Lewis died. The Pats almost moved.

The Red Sox went in an absolute tailspin and Roger Clemens left. The Bruins, that was when I really turned on the Bruins. I used to love the Bruins, but the owner just did not give a shit, Jeremy Jacobs. And by the mid nineties, I was starting to phase away from them and going to all these Celtic games during the Rick Pitino era. And I was like, all I want to do is be in Boston. All the teams suck.

Why can't any of these teams be good? 2001, got hired by ESPN. And I think a couple months later, that was when, yeah, I officially got hired over the summer. And then three months later, Brady shows up, everything changes with the Pats. We actually win the Super Bowl and shed this like freaking black cloud that was hanging over the Boston sports scene. And I left eight months after that in November. And I thought I was going to be gone for a few years and I'm still here. And the Boston sports scene turned around, which I was able to enjoy both from afar and from going back to a bunch of stuff, but it wasn't quite the same.

But it's certainly one of those things where you feel like you're from a place and then you take a step back and you go, wait a second, I've been in LA for 20 years. Where the hell am I from? So I don't know. I don't know where I'm from anymore. I'm so confused by all of it. But I don't think I'm leaving is the weirdest thing. 20 years and I might be going for 25, might be going for 30. My daughter's a senior in high school. she's all she's ever lived is in LA so I don't know I gotta reconcile it, maybe I need a therapist anyway, Kim Wall's coming on last

but not least, we're gonna talk about that, we're gonna talk about the first year of the show we're gonna talk about him hosting the Oscars and a whole bunch more, this is a really good podcast, it's a long one, you can enjoy it over the weekend, first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, taping this at 1.30 Pacific time, this part of the podcast. Rob Mahoney is here from The Ringer, also known as an amateur psychiatrist, psychologist, team psychologist of the Golden State Warriors.

I was not ready to do a panic podcast about the Warriors, but I watched that Suns game last night and I was alarmed. And I think Steve Kerr was too, because he was about as candid in the post game about just what he didn't like and where the team was at. He usually doesn't do that, especially 15 games in the season. This was different, but I felt that way watching it. There was no fight. They seemed disconnected and it's the same stuff we've seen all year.

They're 0-8 on the road. Is it panic time, Rob Mahoney? We're kind of getting there. I think you're right to zero in on Steve Kerr's response because when he's calling that stuff out over what he knows as well as anyone is a long season for a championship team. There's still plenty of time

theoretically to round it in shape, but the effort is not there defensively. The focus is not there defensively. I mean, frankly, if Steph Curry scores 50 points in a game, you should win it. And the fact that not only did they not win it, they didn't even win his minutes. That is a huge concern.

Didn't like the look on his face during the tail end of the game either. That was the rarely seen kind of like semi traumatized Steph Curry. Just had that kind of the game either. That was the rarely seen kind of like semi traumatized Steph Curry. Just had that kind of vacant look in his eye. Curry is having the second best year of his career.

Statistically, it's the best. I think it still might be the best. You don't think this is the best? Well, statistically it is, but they're not getting the wins. But I'm just saying like in 16 when he was doing basically the same kind of stuff, they were actually winning and they had the right team around him. 32.8 points a game, 53, 47, 93 splits, 30.4 PR, which is where he was in 16. He was in that range. And then the big thing, 5.1 made threes. He's the only person who's had 400 plus threes in the game.

And it feels like if he gets the minutes and the games played this year, it'll happen again. But it's sad this time because there's nothing around him. And it's like the second best player is Wiggins. Third best player, I guess, is Poole, even though he hasn't, I think, has been as effective as last year. And then it drops. And the drop is, I think, what they weren't expecting this year, right? They knew there would be a transition. I think they probably expected to get one more pretty solid Klay-Dramon combo year, and then maybe that starts easing toward the rookies. But those guys, I just think they've kind of cratered this season, Klay especially,

because if Klay's not going to shoot the lights out, I don't really know what he brings to the table as a two-way guy anymore. So let's start with Clay. Yeah. Kerr was making excuses for him. And that's his right. He's the coach, but he's basically like Clay's trying to hit a home run with every shot, all the stuff he said after. But I see a guy who's not rebounding, who's not getting in the rim at all anymore, who's not the same defensive player that he used to be. So basically now he's just a three-point specialist. He's basically, you're turning him into Sam Hauser overnight, which I don't think is where anyone wants to be. What do you see with Klay that I'm not seeing? Well, I mean, to build on that point first, I think as far as the three or nothing or threes or bust kind of mentality for him, he just has no game inside the arc. He's passing up any chance he could

possibly have to have a layup, and it's especially stark because you see Steph on the other side of this, who's been as good driving the ball as we've ever seen him be, just finishing and creating in so many ways inside. God, I just keep coming back to the juxtaposition of those two guys, because right now, of all the players taking 15 shots a game,

Steph is the most efficient. Klay is the absolute least efficient. Outflanking the Dylan Brookses and the Kevin Porter Juniors and all of the guys you would expect to be in that company. That's where Klay is. And none of us want this to be the case.

Klay is a beloved NBA figure. He's a guy who all of us love to see deliver in big moments, but he doesn't have that offensive part to his game. To your point about the defense, not only is he not great defensively, but he's being targeted. There were points in this game against the Suns where the play was just

we're just going to clear out and let Devin Booker post Clay inside as best we possibly can. That's a different place in his career. That's a different space to occupy when teams are thinking of you that way and going at you that way. It's really hard to watch him like this.

And especially in these games where you see him hit his first couple shots and you have to wonder, is this a good thing or a bad thing? Does this mean we're going to see him pressing in the second half because he's feeling it, even though he hasn't hit half his shots

in any single game this season so far. He just has not had it. Is that true? That's true. Oh my God. Yeah, because we thought when the Booker thing happened, the way he reacted to that, and it felt... I was saying how it reminded me a little of that Dr. J Bird fight when Bird was just so much clearly better than Dr. J and was talking shit, and it finally snapped. You mentioned a crazy thing with him. He's taken 15.4 shots a game, but he's averaging 15.1 points a game. If you're averaging that many field goals, it's almost impossible to have less points than that, but that's where he is. It's really rough. I don't know what the solutions are. And I think he feels the pressure, right? Like he, he worked so hard to come back, came back last year.

He averaged 20 a game last year, coming back off this stuff. And then in the playoffs didn't look great. But then in the last second half of the Boston series started to look like clay again. And the defense came back in the Boston series. For sure. That's why I'm so surprised by this, that the defense is now gone. And like you said, like when they're targeting him, that's a whole other animal. It was like when Luca started targeting Ben Simmons in that one game, it's like, oh, this Ben Simmons thing is bad. Luca's now like, bring on Ben Simmons.

I want to torch him. So you have that piece. And then you have Draymond, you know, his fall as an offensive asset, which has been a couple of years in the making now, but now he's, you know, he's eight points a game. He doesn't shoot threes at all. And where he's only averaging 1.13. He's basically given up the threes, but he also doesn't get to the free throw line. So now you have two guys who don't get to the free throw line. Neither of them really rebound either. And like one of the things that's alarming, you could look at all the different offensive defense. We could go into fancy stat mode, but how about, let's just look at,

they've taken 300 free throws this year and the other team has taken 413. It's at 14 games. Brutal. So they're taking 66% as much as the other team at the free throw line. Every game, that's bad. Rebounding wise, 41.4, which is like 27th,

giving up 45.1. So over and over again, they're losing on the board. So now we're losing at the free throw line. We're losing on the boards, but we're also not shooting threes that well other than Curry. There's not a lot left. That's why I feel like six and nine is not an accident. Oh, and eight's not an accident. When you're on the road, rebounding, get to the line. There's things that happen that can swing that, but if you're not doing either of those things on the road, that gets even worse. And the rebounding

thing is new. The Warriors teams, like pre-Kevin Durant and even some in the Kevin Durant era, those were not especially good rebounding teams, and yet they found ways to win. Last year, the Warriors were a really good defensive rebounding team, and they've just completely fallen off a cliff. And some of that is just

who they're plugging into the rotation of various spots some of it is Draymond getting a little older clay getting a little older you're relying so much on a guy like Kavon Looney at this stage and you're relying on Andrew Wiggins like night-to-night rebounding effort to really make all that stuff work but I think the formula we're seeing is if you're a team that cuts an offensive rebounds you're going to score 120 points on the Warriors. The question is, is Steph going to get 40 or 50 and are they going to get just enough from everybody else to put them over the top? Because what this

feels like to me, I don't know that we've seen any point in... I mean, you'll have to forgive me for calling this the dynasty, but of the Warriors dynasty era. The semi-dynasty. The Warriors semi-dynasty era. They've just never had this little room for error before.

And to your point last year, from a rebounding standpoint, they were 45.5. Their opponents were 42.6. So not only is that flip, that's even flipped a little worse from their end. And I honestly don't know

how you solve it with the guys they have because I think Wiseman they were counting on. Yeah. And he, in theory, could be that, but he doesn't really show a lot of interest on the glass a lot of the times. He doesn't really have the strength

or the body type or even just like the box-out technique for it. I don't know what to do with my Wiseman stock. I talked to my NBA accountant the other day about what to do, and it's just so low now it's not even worth selling. It's got to be a hold, right? Is it? I mean, I guess the move, the reason to keep it is the trade and we can get to some of the trade possibilities in a second. But I just think of that 2020 draft and I haven't seen, maybe somebody's written this

piece, I haven't seen it, but such a weird draft, right? With the pandemic, we have a college basketball season where there's no March Madness, and then we have this goofy draft where if you go back and you look at it, the only guy you would say in the top 12 that has a chance to make it on the NBA team is probably Anthony Edwards. And Halliburton, I think, goes 13th or 14th. But you go on the line, you'd be like, oh my God, Wiseman, man, they missed that pick. It's like, okay, who were they taking?

Who should they have taken instead? Should they have taken Isaac Okoro? Pat Williams? Yeah, Pat Williams. Could you have taken a Congress second over Wiseman? Nobody's doing that. Should they have traded back? I remember making the case during the summer.

I thought they could have traded back, potentially picked up another asset. I know that they liked Hal Burton. I think all the smart teams liked Hal Burton. They weren't going to take him at two. Could have maybe traded back and taken him. But you just had a weird draft. That was the only bad draft out of the last like six drafts, basically.

Right? If you have the number two pick in any other draft, that's an incredible pick. Like, a year later, that's Evan Mobley. You know? And it was just bad luck.

They've had a lot of good luck, but I think that was bad luck. I don't know what happens with Wiseman, but it's hard to imagine him staying on this team would be my guess. It's going to be...

He has a long road ahead in order to just get to NBA-level competence. But games like this show that it's not just him either. They were relying on him to be a big-time player, but they sent him down to the G League. They went up against a Suns team that is not very deep. Missing Chris Paul, missing Cam Johnson, missing Jay Crowder,

if you want to include him in that conversation. And yet, even their second unit was doing more than enough. And a lot of that is just because the Warriors' defense is that accommodating where Steph is scoring 50 and yet, like, campaign is playing like Steph against you. And that's kind of the trade-offs the Warriors are playing with right now.

I'm glad you mentioned that. The fact that campaign lit it up on national TV. Torched them. That had to have driven Kerr the craziest out of anything. So Wiseman, they're hoping, expecting they can get 20 minutes a game out of now he's in the G League. They signed Jermichael Green to be the Porter replacement. I have never been a Jermichael Green fan. I've never gotten it. I've never understood it. And I feel like he's one of those guys that looks good on paper and the stats guys like him. But when you actually watch him, I just don't get it.

To me, he's like a slow stretch four. He's like a super duper discount version of better stretch fours I'd have. He's already been benched. DiVincenzo, who I always kind of wanted to see on a team like this, but the catch was, well, can he stay on the court? He's already missed a bunch of games. They lost Porter in the green spot. And then the big thing for me is losing Peyton, which we knew was going to be a factor. Peyton's been hurt. He's coming back on Portland soon. But, you know, last year, at least they had lineups where you're like, oh, they're playing this lineup.

Like they had their defensive identity lineup with Peyton. And those guys just really played well together. And I don't even know, like, what is their best five-man lineup now? Would you say it's Curry, Poole, Wiggins, Green, Looney? That's probably the best five they can put out. And in the league this year, that's not going to be good enough

with what's happened with Draymond. Then you'd be like, well, put Klay in the Looney spot. Okay, well, now I'm not getting any rebounds at all. League this year, that's not going to be good enough with what's happened with Draymond. Then you'd be like, well, put Klay in the loony spot. Okay, well, now I'm not getting any rebounds at all. So I don't really know what the answer is, and I don't think they do either. I don't think they do. And really, I think a lot of it, a lot of the pressure points when we're talking about this stuff are kind of circling around Klay, and they're circling around Jordan Poole, who has just been incredibly up and down. And I think mostly down.

Just has not had it. And I think you brought up a great point about Klay in terms of him feeling the pressure and how that affects his play. In a way, these are like the two worst kinds of players to feel pressure. In terms of Klay, a guy who is so reliant on three-point shooting,

and now you're making him live and die with every miss. That's an incredibly tough and isolating place to be as a player. And on the other side, being a young dynamic ball handler who's trying to figure out, when do I pass? When do I create? When do I pull up? And you're feeling the pressure of being up and down every game. It's just a bad recipe

for a pool, too, that's going to lead to some really poor performances just in terms of walking that line. Yeah, and you know, it's a talk radio point to be like, well, Draymond punched him in the face. So that's a weird way to start the year. But guess what? That was a weird way to start the year. Draymond and Curry. Punching your coworkers in the face. Yeah. Draymond, Curry, and Looney are the leaders of the team. Draymond is the on-court energy

kind of emotional fulcrum of the team for better and worse. Right. And you can see like game two in the finals when he knew they needed a different kind of energy. He stepped it up. He got into a Jalen. He's yelling at the refs. He just went full dream on. Haven't seen that guy this year. And it's been like, Hey, I don't know what the right verb is.

Maybe like defanged, which is a weird used word for a basketball player, but I just don't see like that, that crazy in a good way Draymond on the court. And even yesterday with like four minutes left, he started trying to bark with Aiton and it was like, eh, you don't want to be in the position where you're the ex-champs near the end

and you're trying to talk shit, but you can't back it up anymore. And I think that's part of the problem. He can't back it up anymore. So I don't know where that leaves him either because he can't be like aggro chest out guy when the team feels a little fractured. So I don't know how that plays out either.

What do you think with Draymond? Well, it's hard to earn back your teammates' trust and call them out for playing shitty defense at the same time. It's just an impossible place to be as a leader on that side of the ball. And I think if there's one kind of macro silver lining here,

I think it is that Draymond factor you talked about that we have seen just so many times in the playoffs that he can step up his energy, his focus, his intensity in exactly the way that they need defensively. And you would hope that if they can just get through these next couple months and kind of get things aligned and kind of figure out

what their bench situation is, that he'll be able to be that for them in the end. Because I think he's been okay. I don't think he's been a total disaster by any stretch this season. Offensively, he has been tough at times. Defensively, I think he's mostly

been pretty good. But he needs to be great. That's just what they need from him on a nightly basis. And so then if you get into this conversation of like, oh, well, will Draymond be needs to be great. That's just what they need from him on a nightly basis. And so then if you get into this conversation of like, oh, well, will Draymond be able to be the best version of himself when it matters? I mean, your team is like 12th or 13th in the West right now.

It kind of matters right now. They may need playoff Draymond 20 games into the season. That just might be the reality of what this Warriors team needs. And look, I know nothing. As Scott Van Pelt would say, I'm just a guy sitting on my couch. I think if he fell on the sword a little bit publicly, I think that might help with this whole thing.

Like, I think when you're really the leader or one of the leaders, like if he came out today and was like, you know what? We've sucked this season and partly it's my fault. I really fucked up before the start of the season. I think it started us off weird and we've got to get back to who we were.

And part of that's my fault. And I'm one of the leaders of this team and I got to fix it. He kind of went the other way. Like at opening night, when he's wearing that green suit, he's got the documentary on Turner before the game that there was a lack of kind of understanding about what kind of moment that was

just from a public perception, right? So then now you're opening the door for people like us to talk about it. But also like you are one of the leaders. Like being one of the leaders means you're looking out for everybody. You're inspiring people, but you're not undermining them like that.

And I really think that hurt them this season. And I don't think that's like a crazy take. I think when you start, when you're a team that's built on chemistry and the emotional connection and the joy that that team had last year, the thing I've seen, especially in these road games,

the joy is gone. I don't see it. They don't have like that swagger. And I don't know when that comes back. You watch like even a team like the Celtics, who they beat in the finals. Celtics have a little swagger to them, right? They know they're good.

They're on the road. They're taking a lead from 15 to 26 in Atlanta. And they want to have a little killer in strength. And I just don't see it with Golden State. And that's where games like this set off the alarms. Because you would think, if they're going to show up for anything, if they're going to be the old warriors for

anything, national TV game against one of the best teams in the conference, against a team that had their number earlier this season, where there was a little bit of spice in that matchup, and there was just nothing here. They're giving up 18 points in two minutes. That's just an

unacceptable level of execution from a defending champion. It's the reason why this conversation starts slowly shifting from can they get it together to what options do they really have to eventually we have to start talking about are they just squandering an amazing individual season from Steph?

It's just a completely wasted opportunity at a certain point. They have time to figure that out, but we have to start tilting that way a little bit. They have a top five guy. They've won four titles. You have to fix this and save this. The West is open, I think.

Extremely. A West team that completely scares you, there's some good ones. I don't think anybody's grabbed this season by the balls yet. Not at all. I wrote down teams I liked. Denver. Memphis.

Phoenix. All three of those teams I have questions about. Sure. Right? Phoenix, I don't know. I don't know what I'm getting from Chris Paul over an eight-month span. I don't know what they're trading Jay Crowder for.

They were allegedly trading him. The trade hasn't happened yet. Memphis. I don't know what they're trading Jay Crowder for. They were allegedly trading him. The trade hasn't happened yet. Um, Memphis. I don't know if those guys can, Bain's already hurt. I don't know when Jackson comes back. I just want,

can I see those guys play together for six weeks before I decide that they have the West by the balls? And then Denver, do you feel awesome about Porter right now? Like, do you feel like he's going to be there six months from now? Because I like him, but I don't know. And I think he's too important to what they do.

I just don't know. I don't trust it. He's had some really incredible games, but he needs a larger body of work to build that kind of confidence. And frankly, so does Jamal Murray, who post-injury, definitely you can see him and feel him being

a little tentative overthinking some of his opportunities and we need the Jamal Murray that is reactive that is looking to attack guys like that's the most interesting version of that player to watch and project and certainly the most valuable one to the Nuggets so hopefully he can get there by the end of the season but you're right like there's just no teams in this Western Conference landscape that are that are grabbing this right now and even some of the season. But you're right. There's just no teams in this Western Conference landscape that are grabbing this right now. And even some of the ones we thought would be pretty good, like Dallas is blowing some games

that they really should be winning. Minnesota is just not anywhere near where they need to be to be a contending team. The Clippers, obviously, they're going to get, supposedly, getting Kawhi Leonard back soon.

So we'll see how that goes. But there is a real opportunity here for somebody, anybody, to seize control of this thing. If only for playoff seeding, much less for whatever's going to happen in the playoffs. Well, the other thing in the West, and this speaks to how unusually deep

the league is. You just watch night to night, and the Kings can beat the Warriors, right? You watch and it doesn't feel like an upset. Talent-wise, they? You watch and it's like, it doesn't feel like an upset. Like talent-wise, they can play with those guys. And sometimes it'll just come down to the variance of who hit more threes

or did somebody get into foul trouble. But for the most part, like even a team like OKC, who we thought was going to be the bottom, but they have an awesome player. They play well together. They can hang around in these games. They can steal games.

They can guard people. Yeah. There's no night off really across the board except for only a couple teams, I think. So when you look at the West, it's just night after night. It's somebody decent. We didn't expect the Blazers were going to be good. Well, the Blazers

have been good. Number one team in the conference right now, Portland Trailblazers. Minnesota hasn't been good, but guess what? They still have good players in their team. Night to night you just never know so I think that's another thing

with the Warriors so the West is there to be grabbed but the longer they don't do anything 6 and 9 could pretty easily turn into like

15 and 23 and now you're in the danger zone now you're in the play-in you know and then that gets even hairier I just

my question is if they do pull the trigger, who's it with? And what do their young assets, what kind of value do those guys have? The question with Wiseman and Kameka is, those guys had, I think, a real amount of value last summer.

And I don't know what that value is now because neither of them have played well. And you have the league knowing now if the Warriors have to make a move, those two guys are going to be in it. So like people are, you know, Durant is starting to get buzzed again as a possible trade target for them.

Durant gave a couple interviews that as usual, one of the reasons you got to love Durant, like he's pretty candid. Like he doesn't pull punches. That thing about, hey man, I'm in this lineup with Sumner and he lists all the guys.

He's like, how are we supposed to be good? It's like, Jesus, nobody says shit like that. Royce O'Neal and Nick Claxton didn't deserve that. Come on. That was a drive-by. But now people think Durant might be available. To me, Towns has to be at least on a little bit of a watch at that Minnesota thing. I know it's he's harder to trade because he just got an extension. Davis on the Lakers. You never know, but that there's little fringe stuff they can do, right? Like they could do something with Indiana. There's miles Turner potential. Miles Turner's kind of seems like he's available. There's Purtle and San Antonio. Who's who's around. Um, I don't know. I, I, I feel like there's moves to be made,

but how far do you think they would go? Do you think they would go full scale? We have Curry, a generational superstar. We have a window right now. Here's some picks. Here's Wiseman. Here's Kamingo. Moody's on the table.

We're getting another awesome guy. Or do you think they'll try to patch it together? I'm inherently a little skeptical that they'll just throw all the young guys in. For one, I think Poole is pretty well set with the Warriors. I don't really include him in that conversation. I don't either.

It's more of a Moody, Wiseman, Kaminga conversation as far as how many of those guys, if any, could be moved. And their picks. And the picks. Picks, pick swaps. They have all of those guys, if any, could be moved. And their picks. Picks, pick swaps, they have all that stuff available, I think, that they could get frisky with. And the Warriors have been very insistent

on playing the long game, in terms of their public comments, that they are playing the long game with those guys, that they still believe in them, that they still believe in their long-term prospects. They were also very publicly insistent that, oh, D'Angelo Russell is a long-term fit here. And we signed him to keep him. And he's going to be a part

of our core. And then he's gone. These things happen. Things can turn very quickly. And so while I think the default, the hope would certainly be to let a veteran crew sort itself out, I mean, I would not be surprised to see at least one of those three young players gone

by the deadline. It just seems like we're heading in that direction one way or another. The only question is like, who did the Warriors target and kind of what do those packages look like?

Because we've seen a lot of evidence at this point to suggest that just being a good veteran isn't enough to plug and play in this system. Kelly Oubre is a good player for lots of teams. He was not a good player

for the Warriors. And that's something I worry about with a guy like Miles Turner who can be really valuable in a lot of contexts, but quick-hitting read-and-react type stuff is not really where his strong suits are either. Right. It's one of that Landale. People like that. Guys who know

how to play the game. The Anthony Lambs, apparently. Yeah. I'm trying to think what I would do if I were them. It's the same thing I would have done this summer. If I had a chance to get Durant, that would have been my first thing to figure out. The second thing I would figure out is

what do we do with this Draymond thing? Because I think he's going to opt in next year because I just don't think... I think he's like $26, $27 million next year and I just don't think he's going to opt in next year because I just don't think, I think he's like 26, 27 million next year. And I just don't think he's going to get that in the open market. Clay, I feel like they can't trade. As weird as that sounds, I just think he's, he means too much to everything. And that's a really, really, there's only a couple of GMs, I think that would be that cutthroat. Like Danny Ainge would have traded him in five seconds. There are a couple people that do it. I just don't know

if the Warriors are wired that way. But I do think they would trade Draymond. Maybe that's part of the answer here. I was on the trade machine trying to make trades and trying to figure out could the Lakers get Draymond and Kyrie? Could

Russell Westbrook end up in Brooklyn? Could Durant end up, you know, like you start doing these three-team, four-team things and it's like, I can't figure out why Brooklyn would trade Durant unless they were just getting, you know, better than what Minnesota got for Gobert or if they're getting Brandon Ingram, stuff like that.

So I just doubt they would trade him. But maybe there is some version with Indiana and Miles Turner and some other piece. And maybe you get Brooklyn in and they just take Westbrook back to get rid of Kyrie and maybe they get some sort of little sweetener. I'm sure they're in the office thinking about all this stuff, right? Like, what do we do? How do we get out of this? And I would say it's Wiseman, it's Kaminga, and probably Draymond would be the three pieces. I don't think they would trade Moody. just even in a slightly different context where you're asking something a little different of him or you're putting him in different positions. And certainly Jonathan Kuminga is a guy who plays with the confidence and has the opinion of himself

where he thinks he can fill those other kinds of prospecting star roles to step into something bigger. We'll see if he ever gets that opportunity here or elsewhere. But I kind of lean the fact, I do think if they make a trade, it's going to be more on the role player end of the spectrum

than the like, Draymond is also in this package and we're gunning for stars I just don't see all the pieces kind of aligning in a way that the Warriors would need for something like that not to much of a damper on you and your studio you know really putting the masterpiece on canvas with this thing but listen

I wasn't using like the paint I was using my mess around paint I was using like one of my cheaper canvases. Now, the Draymond thing, part of the problem is they need him and he's not playing well for them. So if I'm another team,

I'm like, well, why would I trade for him then if you guys don't want him? Really, the Lakers would be the only one. I mean, there's Davis possibilities if that Lakers season goes completely sideways, right? Towns has to be watched. Other than that, I mean, everybody's pretty happy with their teams. It's not like there's all of these solutions falling out of the sky, right? And that's another issue with this. So you're

probably right. Maybe it's patchwork stuff. It's probably people at that Miles Turner level. But ultimately, I think the window might have come a year earlier than maybe everybody thought I really thought this was going to be the transition year for them I thought they were

going to be good the pool thing made me nervous and now I don't know but all I know is they're wasting one of the great

not only Curry seasons but one of the great guard seasons like this is like one of the like through 14 games this is one of the greatest guard seasons. This is like one of, through 14 games, this is one of the greatest guard seasons, non-MJ seasons we've had.

And they're kind of pissing it away. He's been absolutely unbelievable. And that really is the tragic piece of it so far. What will really make this a shame if they can't salvage it in some way. But the ripple effects too, as far as the trade piece of this, all the teams that we just talked about

as being like, oh, these teams that we thought were going to be lottery teams that have actually been really competitive. A lot of those teams have veteran role player guys who could have been on the trade market. The Utah Jazz are full of those players. Right.

And now the Utah Jazz might be a playoff team. And so if you're the Warriors, like the market, even for the guys you could get, may just be slimmer than you even thought it would be a month ago. Yeah, I wonder if Danny, like deep down, Danny's like playing with house money now, but if they lose like three straight, I think he could get aggressive pretty quickly.

That's another thing, right? You're going to have all these teams that are kind of was supposed to be tanking, but none of them have made the first move yet. And all of them are doing better than maybe they thought they would. And somebody's going to break the seal. Not sure who it's going to be. Then again, you go through all the teams and it's like, well, Detroit just extended Bogdanovich. You know, maybe they like their team. Maybe they don't want to do anything. Maybe Orlando doesn't want to do anything.

We have more organizations that just seem like they like their team than we've had in a long time. Usually we have like seven unhappy teams as we're heading toward Thanksgiving week. We have at least seven, right? That are just like, man, this went bad. But there's time. January is the most depressing month of the year. We have time to really get into the dog days of this thing and see where, you know, which teammates are kind of looking

at each other sideways just in a couple months. And the KD situation will be, I would say, the wild card of all. Absolutely. Because those interviews this week were pretty interesting. I cannot get over that quote.

I can't get over it. All right, Rob, what are you writing about next for The Ringer? TBD. We're sorting things out. We're reflecting. We're taking stock.

As you said, all the pieces are shifting around right now. So still trying to figure out if you... Look, if you have great ideas out there, hit me up. Let me know what I should

be writing about. Listen, to me, we did it on Tuesday. The story of the season was just this leap SGA made, which I... And they did it. We did the pod and then last was just this this leap SGA made which I and they did it we did the pod

and then last night against Washington just goes toe to toe with that entire team and crushes them and hits the game winning three. So I would say from a player standpoint

that's a big one. I'm I'm really intrigued by all the depth. I haven't read the rate. Maybe you got to look into that. Just all the depth around the league

and why is this so unusual and what are the reasons for it? Every team I watch, I'm like, ah, that guy's pretty good. You watch Sims on the Knicks. You're like, ah, that guy's not bad. Whereas, what was it? Four or five years ago, we were just

dragging semi-corpses or playing 20 minutes in playoff games and guys that are washed up. It just feels like that era's over. Not a lot of washed up guys. Not a lot of 15-year NBA veterans kicking around on benches. It's a lot of G League guys. It's a lot of hungry players.

It's all like rangy wings who have something going on in their game that's interesting. Teams are taking shots on the right people right now. Yeah, it's like the Celtics lose Gallinari. They're like, it's cool. We have Sam Houser. And Sam Houser's like, I got this. Plus minus monster. Oh my God. There you go. Deep League. All right, Mahoney, good to see you.

Thanks, Bill. The NBA season is underway. It's the perfect time to download FanDuel, America's number one sports book. Right now, new customers get a no-swept first bet up to $1,000. Plus FanDuel, the only sports book giving all customers three months of NBA League Pass when they make a $5 bet on the NBA. That's it. You can do player props, point spreads. You can do a same

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and mow your own way. Do great things this November. Sign up now. Just search Movember. All right, Peter Schrager is here. We missed him on Million Dollar Picks last week. He was in Germany. We got murdered on Million Dollar Picks. We're going to atone for that much later.

I have to ask you about Kadarius Toney. Yes. The young joker. There was a spending spree for him in the three fantasy leagues I was in. In one of the leagues, somebody spent $44 on him. He looked really good last week. And Travis Kelsey was on a podcast. His own.

With his own podcast with his brother. He's basically like, I don't understand this. I don't understand how this guy landed with us. You know how I roll when I see the teammates talking about the other teammates. And you can kind of read between the lines of some of the quotes. He was spectacular in that game. Two questions. One, is that a fluke?

Two, how did the Giants let him out of the building? I trust Abel. I trust the new GM. But man, that's a rough one. Well, he's, you know, and when the trade went down, I was on with you and like we did a good 10 minutes on Kadarius Tony. And a lot of the feedback I got was like, wow, you and Simmons did a lot of time on Kadarius Tony.

And I was like, no, this is a major deal as a first round pick. And coming out of college, everyone said, once this guy gets the ball in his hands and is in a system where he can operate, he's going to be unbelievable. Giants loved him that, that once they got him on the field, it was just that he couldn't stay on the field. There was injuries. There was talk of, you know, I've got a hamstring injury this week. I have a hamstring injury that week. And then he came out and said he wanted to play. Then they tried to get him in all this stuff with the injuries. There was never a doubt with the Giants about how good he is. question is does he fit what we're

trying to be and that sounds very loaded like what are we trying to be well look at what the Giants are doing right now it's Daniel Jones Saquon Barkley and David Sills and a bunch of you know Darius Slayton out of Darius Slayton we hadn't heard from in two years Darius Slayton's like their number one wide receiver now. Right. It just, Tony, there was never a question about it. It was whether they can get him on board. Now, when the Chiefs look at it,

they were like, all right, we get him for a third and a sixth. And then- Yeah, we covered all the pick stuff. I just like- No, but he gets there and it's like, he is that awesome. And- Right.

Andy Reid's whole thing is this. And like, I laugh. I'm like, the young joker, because that's his rapper name. And if you go on which we are partners with and you can listen there is a whole catalog of young joker y-u-n-g j-o-k-a music and the Giants that wasn't going to fit like what they were doing go to the Chiefs Andy Reid's like dude do what you want to do just be ready on Sunday and of course Mahomes and those guys have wrapped their arms around him. Of course,

Kelsey loves him. And he only had two catches last week. One of them was the touchdown where he fakes limping across the, the side where everyone's like, Oh, is he hurt? No, that was what he's doing.

The second one, I don't know if you saw this bill. He goes up and mid mid jump, he adjusts his yellow gloves. Like you've got to watch. It's like he does shit in a bad shit, crazy way that like traditional receivers don't. But he is electric when he gets the ball.

And I think with MVS and Juju and other potential guys going down with Kansas City, you're only going to get more Kadarius Tony. It's just whether this can be a long term thing with this guy, because he's always been electric. It's just, can he stay on the field? Well, you made the key point. Andy Reid has always enjoyed talented and crazy or talented and weird or talented and hmm, what's going on with this guy? Personality. Yeah. He's always going to opt for the talent. We've seen in football and in

basketball, the talented guys, if they can go to the right team, the right infrastructure with the right star, it can work, right? Moss was, you know, you don't think of this, that Moss is the second best receiver of all time. But there was a moment there in 2006 with the Raiders where it seemed like he was on his way out of the league. It felt Kyrie Irving-ish where it's like, Pat's ended up getting him for a fourth rounder. And the question was like, can this guy exist in a team kind of structure?

And then they bring him in with Brady and Belichick and guess what? He was incredible. You know, not to compare Tony and Moss, but I do, I like the fit. It's one of those things where if he goes to like Jacksonville or if he goes to, I don't know, Carolina. Totally.

It probably goes sideways, but with Mahomes and with the infrastructure, now they actually need him. They have this big game against the Chargers on Sunday night. It's a little bit of a backs-to-the-wall game for the Chargers, I think. I don't want to say it's a must-win, but it's kind of a must-win.

It's one of those deals. It's bordering on it. Back in August, you and I came on here, and we were two of the moderates as far as the Chargers goes. I think I said this, that the NFL Network, they have 21 people who are on air and they polled everyone and said who's going to the super bowl and five of the 21 chose the chargers to win the super bowl and i was like they haven't won a playoff game you know

since 2017 they certainly haven't won a you know a series of big games over the last few years yeah what about their coach we haven't seen him do anything and you know what the injuries have riddled them and i there's a million excuses you can make. And I actually do think there, I mean, if you look at their defensive line, like the injuries that they've suffered, it's insane. But here we are, week 11, they're five and four, backs against the wall, have to beat the Chiefs. And it's home. You know, Kansas City is going to come rocking out there. They always travel well.

It'd be 40% Chiefs fans. Yeah, 40%. It's so embarrassing, the Chargers. There's been some action on them. It was seven. It went down to five. It's been around six.

To me, it's a stay away from a parlay standpoint with the Chiefs. It's a stay away from underdog parlay because, you know, I don't know what we're getting with Keenan Allen and Mike Williams

or those guys playing or those not playing. We don't know if Juju's going to play or not. There's just too many variables to think about on Thursday, but a really fun game. The Chargers, even when they lose... They always play the Chiefs well.

They hang around just in general. They've had... Go back and look at their games. They're always kind of lingering, but you're never really satisfied. The one thing with them is they just can't run the ball. I think they have the worst running offense in the league. But, you know, big picture with Mahomes,

this is just laid out perfectly for him. Right? The AFC West is the complete opposite of what people thought. Allen is now a little bit a little bit in flux.

Leads the league in interceptions. Right? I came on here two weeks ago with you and I said, I don't think the Bills are going to lose another game. They've lost two games since, naturally.

And Josh Allen leads the league in interceptions. It's a crazy stat. Leads the league in interceptions. So if you're telling me Kansas City had to go to Buffalo for the AFC Championship game or through the Buffalo play, all right, the Kansas City Arrowhead Invitational seems to be all laid out. All they got to do is take care of their business.

They're hosting a playoff game and you might as well book them for Arizona if that's the case. Yeah. The division seems locked up unless the only path is that they blow this game and then they have some injuries, but I don't see it. The Buffalo thing, now Buffalo's not even winning their own division. Miami's probably the one that could threaten them for the one seed. Just if, if this Miami offense thing just keeps going going going going going every week they've been crushing it sal and i talked about it on sunday i'm not afraid to go against them i know like they've at least earned that where it's like you know that just the way they demolished cleveland

where were you on to uh in august like i was not a to uh i mean i thought like all right i was completely out like completely i was like i just don't we haven't seen it from him at all what are his i didn't know what his thing was. I didn't know what his about, like, is it arm strength? Is it, can you scramble around? What is it? But I think, I think as you watch them, what it is, is gets the ball, gets rid of the ball immediately, mostly to the right guys.

To the right guys in a beautiful, like it's a beautiful pass. Yeah. And it's like, they're, they're always like catching it in the right thing. It looks like Drew Brees a little bit, like the perfect spiral, like in stride. And the one point that I kept making all summer is this, and I, again, people love it when I just drop names on your podcast and they say, you are just a bootlicker. But, uh, Mike McDaniel and I have become very friendly over the years. And one of his things was like, he takes a lot of pride in getting the very best at every quarterback he ever worked with. So if you go through his resume,

it was like Matt Schaub and McDaniel doesn't take full credit for any of these guys. But he's like, Matt Schaub was whatever. We had him leading the league in passing at Houston. Then we eventually get RG3. We build a whole offense around what he would do right. Then we had Cousins and Cousins was a good NFL starter in Washington. Matt Ryan wins an MVP. Jimmy Garoppolo, we got a lot out of. And he's like, his whole sell to Stephen Ross and to the ownership group there was, and Chris Greer was like,

and Tom Garfinkel, the president, was like, I don't know, look, I don't know what you're looking for in front of a head coach, but I will get the very best out of that quarterback this year. I will get the very best. I will maximize this year. I will get the very best. I will maximize his abilities.

And then you'll know if he's your guy or not. I don't think even McDaniel expected Tua to be in the MVP conversation. Well, plus after the two concussions, it seemed like it was more likely he wasn't going to play again. Here's why, obviously, the Tua fans are a little rabid. Very passionate. They're taking a lot of victory laps. A lot of revisionists in the media, too. I you this a lot of people are like see i told you

i was a two and then slow down pal if you really thought you were a two and i'm not naming any names which is everywhere it's like yeah there was a conversation that two it wasn't the guy no you were also part of the conversation everyone all right how about this the dolphins tried to get two other quarterbacks so they didn't have to start him this year. They went down the road with Brady two different times and they tried to trade everything for Watson. So, you know, I look back at, um, I guess they got so much stuff from Cleveland and Watson was driving the Cleveland thing because they were guaranteeing him so much money. But if the Browns could have gotten to a plus all the same picks they got from Cleveland,

probably a better trade. But I think Watson was deciding where he's going to go. I, I just think like they try to get rid of them twice. So you can't say, nobody can say like, I knew this was going to happen, but he looks really good with these receivers.

Like this is just, it just feels like a college offense. So I think McDaniel, he gets a ton of credit for it. I still want to know what it looks like in December and January. I want to know what it looks like when it's cold. What happens if... Look at the Buffalo game this weekend. We don't even know that's going to be played.

Blizzard. Six feet. I think people have to be careful with these fast high scoring meant to play like on turf or in good weather teams because we know what's going to happen in January. Yeah, it's a great point because the historical comparison, and I just dig into all the numbers historically. I can't do all the next gen stats and necessarily the DVOA stuff, but I will tell you that historically, the only other offense that's doing what they've done with those two receivers is the 99 Rams, but the 99 Rams were playing on a carpet indoors. And so that thing, you go to the playoffs in your home in the Edward R. Jones Dome,

and then you go just having to take care of business in a Super Bowl in Atlanta, if I'm not mistaken, at the Georgia Dome, they never had to really face the conditions and do it in the snow or I remember Tua two years ago, maybe it's not fair, but they had a win and end game against Buffalo up in Buffalo in the playoffs and the Bills had nothing to play for and the Bills blew Tua out in the final week of the season. And it was like, all right, maybe Tua's not meant for this. But two years later, they've done everything they've been asked to do, and every single game that he has started, he has won this season.

Well, here's the thing. Yeah, he's 7-1. Here's the thing. If they can get the one seed or the two seed, they can control at least two of those home games. And then that last game, let's say it's Kansas City. Now, it's a little different elements. The other thing with them, and I was thinking about

them, and I was looking at some of the stats, like we weren't sure about the running backs at all. It's like, how are they going to run the ball? Now it's like the Wilson-Mostert combo. I actually like those guys. They know exactly what to do in that system. So yeah, I think that's been the most shocking kind of team going up.

The most shocking team going down has been the Rams. And the Rams I have down for a million dollar picks. Taking Cup out of this already terrible team, in my opinion, makes this, if it's not the worst team in the league, it's in the bottom three. They couldn't score anyway. They had their last six games,

they lost five of them. They scored 14 at points a game and Cup had half of their receiving yards and every third down, it was like Cup with two guys on them having to do something. They're skill guys. You go through all the teams. I think they have the worst

skill guys now. Even Houston has Pierce. Go through everybody. Even Tennessee has Derrick Henry. Who's the Rams guy? Now you have Stafford coming back from a concussion. They're playing in New Orleans. Stafford hasn't been good all season anyway.

And he's, Stafford's looked like he's been just banged up. They're playing the Saints. The Saints haven't been awesome either, but it's in the Superdome and the Saints are only laying three and on FanDuel,

60% plus of the bets are on the Rams. And it's like, people just can't, people can't quit the Rams. They just keep waiting for it to turn around, turn around. That's the Colt McCoy last week. Yeah, they're cooked. I mean And it's like, people just can't, people can't quit the Rams. They just keep waiting for it to turn around, turn around.

That's the Colt McCoy last week. Yeah, they're cooked. I mean, it's done. I don't, it's done. To me, this was the, if you're a,

you know, and like the McVay thing, I was talking about TV, like I just know he's got too much pride to end a coaching career on this. If you thought he was going to TV after this,

I don't see that. I think that this, like this, if anything, this season is going to bring him back to LA. Cause he's like, I can't go out on that note. This is,

this is as bad as they, in their worst nightmares this season. I mean, look at that. I think Aaron Donald really considered retiring. He came back for this. I think Matt Stafford, you know,

got this huge new contract. No idea what, what the return on investment is there. And I think McVay considered it, really considered it and, and came back because of those guys and cup and, you know, a couple of those other veterans and his coaches,

but like, I, I don't see a win in the future. And Cooper is such an important piece to that offense. And, you know, he's out, I'd say in quotations a month,

but say he gets better in a month. Are you putting him back on the field? Like when is Cooper Cup? There could be like three and 10. Why would you put Cooper Kup coming off a serious ankle injury? I would take the Saints in this one.

We're going big on them. I don't love the Saints. They lost to Pittsburgh and Baltimore the last two weeks. They killed Vegas, which seemed more important than maybe we thought, which seems now less important after we've seen Vegas

the last couple weeks. Do you want to know what's interesting about that one? But I'll tell you what's interesting about that one. And I don't know if it was reported at the time. I could say it now. It's Monday. Like, Sean Payton was with like, popped in because he had something to do in New Orleans and like, gave them a pep talk that week and they won 24-0. Then Sean Payton leaves and it's like, back to

what, like, maybe the worst thing that he could have done was just like, give him a little taste of the Sean Payton leaves. And it's like, they're back to what they... Maybe the worst thing that he could have done was just give him a little taste of the Sean Payton magic. Right. Because they won 24-0 once he lit a fire under their asses

and called out the defense. He goes back to LA where he's living in Manhattan Beach or wherever. And they're back to not being able to stop or score any points. You know?

I still like them more than the Rams. Also, Saints not dead yet. They're 3-7, which normally means you're dead. But they're in a division. Tampa's 5-5. They get to play them again near the end of the season.

I don't know. I'm not ruling anybody out in that division. I wouldn't even rule out the NFC. Yeah. The entire NFC, I'm not ruling anybody out. I'd rule out the Rams. Maybe just the Rams. Yeah, I'd rule out the Rams.

Lions, I guess. Well, yeah. They got three wins or something. Yeah, rule out the Rams. Lions, I guess. Well, yeah. They got three wins or something. Yeah, the Lions maybe, but they have the Giants this week. The Falcons are another one. The Falcons, they're home. Bad loss last week. Tough.

It was tough. Marriott has been really bad, and I think a lot of people have been calling for Ritter. I had a couple people that I know in Atlanta and all of them are like, that's all anyone talks about here is why won't they play Ritter? Or worth Kyle Pitts. Right. There's, oh yeah, why won't they throw it to Kyle Pitts?

The Bears are plus three in that game. They just had one of the all-time horrible losses if you had Bears minus three, which I had in real life. Up two touchdowns. They get a 90-yard pick. It gets called back for this bogus...

I still don't understand what that call was. And then they end up... They miss the extra point. Of course, that comes back to haunt them. Fields throws a pick six. The Falcons are only favored by a three at home against Chicago. Herbert's out. And if you watch the Bears, which I have a few times,

Herbert's shifty and kind of scary. Good compliment to Montgomery, for sure. Yeah, and a good compliment to Fields. So he's out. The Bears are three and seven. They've lost their last three. They've given up 115 points in the last three weeks. They have the 29th defensive DVOA and they're banged up.

They have a couple of injuries too, like come at her, he might play and go in their defense. A couple of the, a couple of the starters are hurt. Um, their last five drives against Detroit last week, fields had the 67 yard touchdown.

They had the ball five times after they're up 14, three, three announced. Basically one of them was like a five and out, but no first downs. And then Fields threw a pick six, and then Fields had the 67-yard run. They just couldn't close the game. I don't understand

why 83% of the bets right now on FanDuel are on Bears plus three. And the Bears are the sexy upset pair. They're so fun to watch. Look, I'm not betting against them, Bill. I mean, we can, but I watched them last week. They're a joy to watch.

They're playing team football. This guy, Sanborn, number 57, their new linebacker. So they trade Roquan. Then they've got this undrafted rookie out of Wisconsin, Jack Sanborn. Looks like he was born to be a Chicago Bear. I think he's from Lake Zurich, Illinois. Grew up a Bears fan. And he's out there.

He's 10 tackles, two sacks. I can list all the players, but they're playing a really fun-inspired brand of football. I think people want to root for this version of the Bears. And Justin Fields, for two years, we've been rooting for him to just run the ball. And since the bye week, he's been doing just that. I don't know.

I feel like, to me, this is one of those fun teams that next year, I don't know. I feel like to me, this is one of those fun teams that like next year come, you know, July and August, they're going to be the hot pick out of the NFC because of the way they finished the season. Like, I think they're going to win a bunch of games over the next few weeks.

Fields was 147 rushing yards, two touchdowns. How good is that? That's fun though. That's good. Herbert was 57 yards, but Fields, once again,

he was 12 for 20. He had one long pass. The last quarterback to run for more than 100 yards in three straight games. This is a good trivia. Who do you got? Who was it?

Billy Kilmer, 1961, 49ers. Not sustainable. No, but... I like Atlanta in this game because I think the Bears look too obvious to me. And they're 3-17 being treated like they're 6-4. The public loves them, huh? The public loves them.

Everyone is on the Bears. Everyone. Also, the Falcons coming off the last couple. So if the Falcons win this, they're at Washington the next week. They're home for Pittsburgh, at New Orleans, at Baltimore, home Arizona, home Tampa to finish the season.

The one thing with them is they do move the ball. Patterson's back. So I don't know. I had them marked down. Seems like you're less enthusiastic. Yeah, I'm not rooting. I'm not rooting against these Bears. I feel like there's something going on. There's a moment, and they lost,

and the locker room wasn't dejected. They were like, shit, we lost, but we're playing good. I love these young, fun teams, especially in the final eight weeks of the season. I feel like this is that team. So you wouldn't give the Falcons the fun, young team category? No, not as much. What don't you like about the Falcons?

Mariota's still at quarterback. They're being stubborn about, like, we're still, you know, to me, it's after throwing those picks last week and throwing that pass from his backside, like, I'm not sure what you're getting from Mariota, but Arthur is really loyal to him. Brought him in as a free agent, had him in Tennessee. Like, he's not one of these guys that plays to the sports talk radio

and whatever Stake Shapiro or whoever the Atlanta radio guys are these days are calling for. He's going to just stick to his guns. And to me, I don't know if that's the wisest decision. Is that a real person, Stake Shapiro? Yeah, Stake Shapiro, 790 The Zone. Hot, hot Atlanta guy for years, like decades.

Mid-October, Falcons beat the Niners by 14. They get killed by the Bengals. They beat the Panthers in OT in a game they probably should have lost. They lose to the Chargers by three. They lose to the Panthers on a Thursday night by 10. In the rain. And now, 10 days off,

playing this Bears team that's getting some smoke blowing up their ass even though they've lost three straight. We'll be returning to that game on Million Dollar Picks. Giants-Lions. Let's talk about this one. There's been some, like Lions are another one that's been, although 69% of the bets

are on the Giants. This line is strange to me. The Giants are favored by three. The Giants are seven and two. It's Jared Goff in Giants stadium. The weather's not going to be good. And I don't know why this line isn't like Giants by six. Why are the Lions getting so much respect? Because their offense can score. And if it becomes a shootout, that becomes a very, very tricky thing for the New York Giants because that's not how they're ever going to win a football game. So Detroit, say what you will, their defense can't stop anyone, but their offense puts up points. They've got this 36-year-old offensive coordinator who suddenly... I was not even familiar with this guy before this season. When you talk about Dan Campbell, and of course,

they've got all this thing. Ben Johnson is their offensive coordinator and everyone around the league is buzzing about this guy. He's 36 and he's like, here's Jared Goff and a bunch of young guys that no one knows about

and they score as much as anybody in the league. 24 points per game, which is pretty impressive. And I think the fear is that the Giants, we know how the Giants like to dictate games. We know how they win games. They're not going to win games when the score is more than 24 points. Giants have to win games 21-17. And if Detroit can put up points, that's trouble for the Giants. I watched a lot of that Giants-Texans game last week, and it was an incredibly winnable game for

the Texans. They just left it on the table. Yeah Yeah, they left on the table. It felt like they were in the red zone for two hours. How many times was Charles Davis talking about Nico Collins? I just feel like there was a million chances for the Texans. The Giants win and no one talks about it on Monday. Yeah, Giants beat the Texans, but that was a battle. There is a weird stat that I loved.

Saquon Barkley leads the league in rushing right now, and I think it's just the sixth time in NFL history that after week 10, you have the number one rusher in the league versus the worst defense in the league, which the Lions are a putrid defensive unit. They can't stop anyone.

And all six of those times, it's been a blowout with the running back, his team winning. So whatever that means, and again, historically speaking, who cares if you don't want to go back 30 years, but that defense is so bad and that running back is so good that maybe it's just Saquon just takes care of business. And this is the Saquon game. Well, Houston's Houston's home

against Washington, who everyone's in love with Washington's favored by three in Houston. I thought, again, I thought Houston Houston was pretty frisky last week. The Washington game, which we'll talk about when we get into the Philly section of this a little bit later. The Washington piece of it, they get four turnovers. They get three fumbles

that go to them. They go three for three on just getting fumbles. A couple of huge penalties at the perfect time. The possession stuff is like crazy, but partially because of the four turnovers. They're freaking Joey Sly, who I think has murdered million-dollar picks

a couple of times. When he was a Panther, he probably killed us 11 times in 11 weeks. Yeah, like $3 million, a million-dollar pick. He makes a 55-yarder and a 58-yarder. And the Eagles still almost won the game. And now the narrative of it coming out is like, they can't stop the run.

It's like, well, I don't know, 49 carries for 154 yards. Like, I'm not telling my grandkids about that rush performance. They were good. They controlled the clock. But I think people got a little carried away with, watch this, Heineke wasn't great in that game. He threw a pick. He obviously is great from an energy standpoint,

but I don't feel like he's lights out. It's not like something special is happening. He's solid. I don't know. I just wonder if this is a letdown spot for them. Yeah, and it could be. This was an emotional, emotional game last week. Obviously, you saw Rivera in the postgame after losing his mother, how his mom would have been spot for them. Yeah, and it could be. This was an emotional, emotional game last week. Obviously, you saw Rivera

in the postgame after losing his mother, how his mom would have been proud of them. And then you see the plane ride home, which, by the way, I know it was a small trip

from Washington to Philly or Philly to Washington. Like, you see that Vikings plane and those guys are celebrating in first class and it looks like they've got like a castle up there. You go to the Washington plane

and they're in like 30 row, 35D, united. Spirit Airlines. Spirit Airlines. Come on, Washington. But that's a high against a division opponent. And for whatever it's worth,

Lovey used to be the head coach of the Bears. Ron Rivera was an assistant under Lovey. There is stuff there as far as maybe Houston can sneak one out of this one. But gosh, I don't know if the Texans can put it together to actually win one of these games. Do you? Do you feel the confidence watching the Texans offense last week? I'm probably not betting on them, but I think there's just some three-point favorites that you kind of stare at and you go, wait a second, that line looks a little weird.

You look at the Washington, they lose to Dallas by 15. Lose to the Titans by 4. Beat the Bears, but that was the game the Bears probably should have won the Thursday night game. They beat the Packers by 2. They sneak out that Colts game by 1.

Terry McLaurin. Which they had no business winning that game and they won it. And then they lose to the Vikes by 3 in a game where the Vikes had to come back. Then they beat the Eagles by 11, but it wasn't really 11. It was a one-score game. They get the weird fumble. We got to name those laterals that end up in the defensive touchdowns. The end of it.

The spread buster. I don't know what it is. So, yeah, they're a 500 team. The Texans aren't awesome. They only have one win, but who knows? Look at the flip side of it. If you're Ron Rivera, who's a good coach and motivates these guys.

We're 5-5. We got the Texans. We win this game. Guys, we're 6-5. Don't keep your eye on the NFC. I'd be very surprised if Washington just had a complete no-show in that game. They have Atlanta, Giants, bye week. Giants, Niners, Browns with Deshaun, Cowboys to end it.

And probably nine and eight gets the seventh seed in the NFC, I think, right? They're in it, man. Nobody's getting, the seventh seed will not have 10 wins. Yeah. There's too many teams that are like, Too many craft teams. Yeah, and we're doing this on Thursday, but we're entering Thursday night, and even the Packers, everyone's high on the Packers.

They're four and six. Everyone's ready to crown the Niners. They're five and four. It's not like these teams are eight and one or seven and two. Let's take a break, and then we'll talk Pats, and we'll talk Eagles, and the game of the day, Minnesota Dells. What does possible sound like for your business?

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When you ride transit, please be safe. Yeah, be safe. Because what you do, others will do too. Others will do it too. So don't take shortcuts across tracks. Don't do that. In fact, just don't walk on tracks at all. Not at all.

Trains move quietly, so you won't hear them coming. You won't hear them coming. See, safe riding sets an example. Yeah, an example for me. Because safety is learned. It's learned. Okay, give it up. Give what up?

Really? Really, really. Ugh. This message is brought to you by Metrolinx. Alright, so the Pats, just for Million Dollar Picks purposes, we're staying away. They're three and a half. The half point scares me. I think the Jets, their defense

could win this game outright. I don't trust Mac Jones at all. I think, first of all, this will be a Mac Jones what do we got here game? I think we're now at the fork in the road with Mac. If he sucks in this game, I don't know what that means for QB the rest of the year.

I don't know what this means for the offseason plans, but he kind of has to play well. It's lined up for them, right? It's Zach Wilson against Belichick in New England. I think he's thrown six picks against the Pats in the two games he's played. He's looked completely awful. And the Pats know that the Jets are going to go into this game

with the mindset of Zach Wilson will not beat us in this game. He's just not. We might scramble him around a couple times and do a little Justin Fields, Monday night stuff we might do some quick screens but we are not letting this guy beat us we can beat this Patriots team with our defense by controlling the ball maybe get one special

team's play so I think it's a stay away and yet I do wonder if we'll be looking back on this Sunday and be like man it was Zach Wilson against Belichick what the fuck why didn't we take the Pats? Belichick off a bye week. Yeah. Like, what were we doing? This was a layup.

But I think it's a stay away. You've always taught me this when it comes to the Patriots. What does Belichick like doing the most when game planning? What does he want to do? Oh, you don't want to do this one thing? Okay, you're doing it. Yeah. What's your greatest weakness? All right. Welcome to my dungeon.

The Jets know that. It's amazing you're talking talking about like the jets don't want zach to have to win this game but that is exactly the situation it's going to come down to jets are not going to blow those patriots out it's going to be a one score game late and zach wilson's going to have to make a play the question is does zach wilson make that play i i don't see it don't i see everyone else on that team stepping up and being awesome. And I think that they've got a great energy. And gosh, if you were in New York this week, you'd think that the curse is already over. I mean, they haven't won in Foxborough in 13 years. It was Brett Favre and Eric Mangini who won the game. I mean, it's insane how long it's been

since the Jets have won a regular season game. They won the Bart Scott game in a playoff game, but a regular season game, that's the time Scott game in a playoff game. But a regular season game, that's the time we're talking here, all the way back to, I think it was 2008. I mean, it's that long. Plus, they just had that loss that many Jets fans in my life were like, that's our worst Jets loss in a while.

I can't believe we lost that game. Oh my God, I'm so bummed out. Three turnovers, Devin McCourty's intercepting picks, and then they go and they beat the Bills and you're like, well, wait a second. Then you have the bye. And Jets win this game, Bill.

They're in a good position to win the AFC East. They're in the driver's seat. I don't see it. There's a bet you can do on FanDuel that we can save for later whether we're actually doing it. But Pats win both halves is plus one 15. Basically Pat's won the first half.

Then Pat's when the game has a parlay is plus one 15. And the reason I like that versus laying the three and a half lane, the money line, which is plus minus one 70 is like, I don't think the Pats are built to come from behind against this jets defense. So if they're down like 10-3 in the first half, as somebody who's watched this team all year, I would feel like we're going to lose. Okay. Because I just don't, I don't trust Mac. I think

the Pats are too predictable offensively. And if they're in a situation where they have to kind of scramble for points, I don't know if this is a play from behind team. This is a, like what happened with Detroit. Belichick takes the folk field goals. Yep. Oh, we're up nine, nothing. This is great. Let's make Zach Wilson make a couple of plays. Oh, we're going to run the ball again.

Second and eight, we're going to run the ball, even though you know we're going to run the ball to get it to third and five so Mac doesn't hurt us. So I like the under in this game, but I really think like if the Pats win, they have to win the first half as weird as that sounds. You could say that about most teams, but I really think the Pats are one of those teams. We have to win the first half. I hear you. And last year, Mac did have a couple of those second half come like in Houston. Mac was really good last year. He led them. He's like, come and follow me. I'll take care of business.

We'll get it done. Haven't seen that this year. I ask you as a Patriots fan, and Kyle's on this also, obviously, like, would you, say you finish a season, you make the playoffs with a wild card, you miss it, like, would you consider Garoppolo as a free agent? Or would you say, we can't go down that road.

We've got to stick with Mack? This is the game for Mack. You could make a lot of excuses for the start of the season, whatever, new offense, new coordinator, the whole thing. Now that Ramondre is playing the way he is, I think their receivers are pretty good. Their tight ends are pretty good. Their offensive line, Andrews, comes back this week, so they're going to be able to block, which is a huge thing.

And if he's any good at all, he should be able to spearhead a win this week because it's Zach Wilson on the road. They should win this game. But, you know, you have that one terrible throw. He makes me nervous. I haven't seen one thing this year that makes me feel good about Mac Jones' year two. And I was all in on this guy. I really believed in him. He seems physically limited.

Like he's masking some injury that we don't know about. He seems skittish. And it takes him like an hour and a half to get going. So I think this is a kitchen sink first half for him. They have to go out.

He has to succeed. They have to get the crowd behind him because the other thing is the crowd is like, this is like the biggest half. I know, they want to see Zappy. Yeah, they want to see their Mac do well or not play. And it's like, it could be Zappy. It could be Brian or whatever, but I think the crowd's going to be pretty restless. So if you have

come out the three and out and Mac throws like a duck on third down, it's going to start right away. The vibe in the stadium will not be good. I'll tell you this. And it's, it's, you won't notice it on the broadcast and you won't see in the crowd, but like, I've got a lot of friends of mine who are diehard Jet fans and against their better judgment, whatever, they're all going to this game.

Like, they've all got to, like everyone in the New Jersey, New York, I mean, it's Thanksgiving week next week. So a lot of people are off Monday,

Tuesday, Wednesday. And like, this is the biggest Jets regular season game in easily a decade. And they are going to see their team up in Foxborough.

And in recent years, they lost 54-13 last year. They haven't won in more than a decade there. They might be going as lambs to slaughter, but I think the Jets fans, there might be some action in the parking lot before the game, all that stuff. If this was ever a rivalry, the Jets fans are trying to have some sort of presence.

Action in the parking lot. I would encourage the Jets fans not to mess with the Jets fans in the parking lot. Yeah, that is not a parking lot you want to get frisky in. One of the bets that I like in this game that I don't think they have yet. Do they have it yet? No, they don't have it yet. I love the defensive special teams. Oh, they do have it.

So Jets defense scoring is plus 850. Pats' defense scoring is 7-1. Should we parlay those? Well, we could do... Both of them. Well, you... Both of them. You could do the Pats plus 700

for their defense to score. With Pats win the first half and they win the game. Plus 700 for their defense to score. With Pats win the first half and they win the game. That would be plus 1266. So almost 13-0 odds. Pats win. Pats control the first half. They get a defensive touchdown.

It's a pretty fun one. Let's do it. Let's have fun with it. Let's go. All right. I'll mark that one down. So Philly, and I can't tell you how many times Indy has kicked us in the balls this year on Million Dollar Picks.

Kansas City game, Raider game. It was actually, Ryan's terrible, right? He's like, they bench him. Nobody tries to trade him. And yet he has four game winning drives. They announced that he's the quarterback after we did million dollar picks. I'm like, Oh,

you knew. I heard. I was like, Oh my God. Why? Um, but anyway, I was on,

I was on set on good morning football when Joe Thomas blew a fuse over the Jeff Saturday hire. And then I see cower on Sunday is near tears, calling it a disgrace. And I'm like, once I saw that and I heard Joe Thomas who I really like and I was like

oh there's no chance they're losing this game the second you get this like indignant like you know that's when they go and of course Andy's going to win that game

and Vegas defensively they're in the running for worst defense so they couldn't they had no pass rush at all they couldn't stop this Philly team

coming off a loss which I think is actually, we didn't talk about this yet. I think it's great for them that they lost. I mean, great for them that they lost camp. Get it over with. Get rid of the undefeated stuff. Just worry about winning a division. Don't worry about this shit. And they also lost

the dumbest game possible. Those teams could play 10 times and I think Washington beat them once. So it happened the way it happened. And now they go to Indy. They have so much more talent than Indy. And people go, whoa, they're going to run the ball with Jonathan Taylor. It's like, no, they're not. The Eagles are fine.

They're indoors. They're a team that's, I would say, a better indoor team than an outdoor team. And right now the line is six and a half and they're just dying to be teased just dying okay we've had trouble with teasers and parlays this year but we have god damn we're putting them in a tease okay make all right so the saturday thing he's want to know obviously i i did the work i was looking like what's the case so interim head coaches who have won their first game yeah on a combined 11 and 19 in that second game. So they always take this giant dip. I don't think Saturday goes 2-0, but do you want to bet against them?

It's kind of a fun story, dude. I actually do want to bet against them. Come on. The Colts, stop it. Shaq Leonard's now out. He's playing hurt anyway, but he's gone now. They still have Buckner who I think will be able to do some stuff. It does open the door, though. Say he wins a couple games, whatever. You cover the NBA so well, and you don't flinch when they're like, all right, Steve Kerr's the coach of the Warriors,

and you don't flinch when it's... Steve Nash is going to be the coach. Maybe that was a big surprise, but you know what I mean. Yeah. This thing, and I talked to all the coaches, you would think they spit in their mother's eye

when it was announced. The amount of outrage, and I don't think it was fake outrage, from coaches around the league who felt so violated and so just disrespected. You know,

I've moved my family, I got a text from a guy, I've moved my family seven times in nine years so I could see Jeff Saturday get an opportunity before me. The amount of people... It's like Whoopi Goldberg taking over an Eddie

when she became the Knicks coach. That kind of like, this is a circus. What's happening? I felt that way too. I didn't realize he had the connective tissue with them that he was actually kind of... Consulting. At least grading their offensive line.

It wasn't like he was finding out who the players were. But he gave a good speech. They played a bad team and it was a great story, but now they're playing the Eagles. And if this line a week ago, it would have been the Eagles by 12. Come on. You don't want to put them in? Who's the player that's going to, which player do you think would be a good NFL coach? Like I'm watching JJ Watt and hard knocks and everyone rolls their eyes about JJ and how he's always looking at the camera. I'm like, he's got, he's got a lot of that to him though. Like a head coach, like we could do this type of thing. I'm watching JJ Watt. I'm like, would some of these teams be any worse off with JJ Watt leading the locker room than, you know, other teams? I don't know. That's where my head went. But yes, if you want to go Eagles, Sirianni was the O coordinator there for three years.

He knows that team inside and out. He goes back there. Like it helps to an edge. I could go Eagles with you. It was also like, I liked that. He said they played like shit. Yeah. He knew it.

Yeah. He was like, we sucked. Let's move on to the next one. This is a good, really good Eagles team. And I got in Damakensu today. I saw that. Another good player. So I was thinking about teams to tease with them. And I landed on the nobody believes in us Minnesota Vikings,

who are home, getting a point and a half against Dallas. I don't understand the line at all. I thought when Sal and I did guest lines on Sunday, I thought it was a joke. Has it moved at all? Has it gone in Minnesota's favor? No. It's Minnesota plus one and a half. There's just so much scar tissue, huh? Well, it teased them to plus seven and a half. Yeah. Like, is Dallas going to blow out Minnesota? Like, have you liked what you've seen

from Dak Prescott this year? Because I have not. No. I have not at all. No. Like, not at all. How about McCarthy in the game? Like, wasn't it not enough

to go back and just play? You had to wear the coat. He was wearing Lombardi's coat. Yeah, I didn't love that. I don't love a lot of McCarthy. Come on. It was bad. Dak, this year, four games,

856 yards, six touchdowns, four picks. It was weird because I had them last week. I think I had them. I was rooting for them. Maybe I picked them in my picks poll. Oh, I had Dak in fantasy too. I still don't have a lot of confidence watching him.

Are we sure he's the same guy since the broken ankle? Do you feel like he's the same guy? I don't feel like... Sal was complaining about how he doesn't move around the same way. I kind of feel the same way. I felt like he was a better athlete than he's shown since that ankle injury. Yeah, that wasn't a great fourth quarter for them as a team. So Micah Parsons, who I was like, he could be the MVP. He was invisible too. He's hurt though, isn't he? Yeah.

Yeah, he's not healthy anymore. So that's, I think, been a factor for them too. So I don't know. I just feel like this is a three-point game. I don't know who's going to win, but seven and a half points in Minnesota. Viking fans love this team. That was like, I mean, the Jefferson catch. That was an iconic win, potentially.

I usually try not to catch it with might have been or are you. I think it's the most significant regular season catch I've ever seen. It was fourth and 18. Yeah, it was. And it was so improbable. And then, you know, you and I talk about it. You've got your friend Jeff Gallo, I want to say his name is. Yeah, Jeff Gallo.

I remember it from all the Greg Joseph misses. But Gallo, I want to say his name is. Yeah, Jeff Gallo. I remember it from all the Greg Joseph misses. But I have 10 of those in my life, Vikings fans. And they always lose that game. Yeah, always. And that doesn't happen to them. And the Bills and the snap with Allen, like 99 out of 100 times it doesn't happen. And if it does happen, it doesn't happen against the Vikings.

That's not the team that gets the benefit of that. And even after that, Josh Allen leads them right down the field and they tie it up with the Tyler Bass field goal. And then Cousins has to do it again. And I just think it's different. I think it's different. And I think this fan base,

as tortured as they are and as much scar tissue as they have, they're going to welcome that team on Sunday with such open arms. And I think that place is going to be raucous on Sunday. I think the Vikings win. We saw this game week one with the Packers game. The crowd was great and there was real energy. And I think that really helps them. Jefferson's amazing. I think you can get guys open on this Cowboys secondary too. Watson got open multiple times in that game. It just used his speed

and torched him. All right, so we'll mark down that Eagles-Minnesota tease I love. I love the Saints. Oh, we didn't do... There's one underdog. Well, there's a couple underdog parlay possibilities.

Arizona and Mexico City. Love it. You love money or the money or the straight up? What's the spread? The spread right now in Mexico City is

Niners by 8.5. All right. We don't need to go money. Cardinals are plus 290. I like plus 8.5 for sure. And if Coltinals are plus 290. I like plus eight and a half for sure. And if Colt McCoy is under center, I like them even more. So I was thinking that you could do the alternate spreads.

Cardinals plus three and a half is plus 172. Plus four and a half is plus 148. So it could be our version of like, if we want to do underdog parlay, we could be like, it's a three point game. They might win. Take them down to three. Maybe they

have the garbage time. TD at the end. I'm with you on McCoy, though. If they had McCoy, I'd be like, I'm all in. They love playing with McCoy. They don't like playing with Kyler. I can see this from my television. So then they're like, yeah, Kyler Murray might be ready. It's like, really? Is that a good thing? You're playing for your season.

Play McCoy. Yeah. It's one of the more interesting paradoxes that they just signed Kyler for this huge deal. And I think everyone watching from afar is saying, play Colt. And I think everyone who's within the building probably knows, let's ride the hot hand a little bit. It was the first bright spot we've had in months. And yet the owner and the pressures of when you just signed this deal, like what do you do? I guess the Patriots did, you know, Belichick did it with Bledsoe and Brady, right? Bledsoe was making $100 million and they kept him off the bench. But I don't know if Cliff or Colt or even anyone has that much gumption to say,

you know what, Kyler, you're benched because of one game and a hamstring. I don't think Cliff has the testicular fortitude. That's your word, the cojones. The cojones. I think what could happen is they could say they want to give it one more week. Yeah, yeah.

But what are they going to do? I mean, this is an all time disaster. We were going to do a game about headlines we could see in April and that would be one of the headlines. We could do it next week. But the, one of the headlines I could see is, um, you know, Arizona wouldn't, wouldn't be opposed to talking trade about Kyler Murray, like murder their cap. I could see that as a headline. I could see Kyler Murray as the quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders next year. Oh, yeah.

There you go. All right. So we'll mark them down in some sort of way. And then the Pittsburgh against Cincinnati. Pittsburgh's plus 164 to beat Cincinnati. They tied them in week one. They couldn't block Watt at all. Watt's back.

Looks like Fitzpatrick's going to be back. I don't mind the Steelers team. They kind of know who they are. They're very well coached. They can't really run the ball that well, but they at least attempt to. They have these receivers that they'll at least throw the ball up and have them try to make a couple of plays. They'll do a little bubble screen and stuff like that. Pickett's getting better. Pickett's getting better. Yeah, they figured out how to use him a little bit during the game just to make sure he touches the ball, and the defense is good. They got three good rookies right now on offense in Pickett, the quarterback. This kid, Jalen Warren, the running back, who I don't think anyone had anything for.

He's a nice compliment to Najee. And then Pickens makes plays. I think that's a pick-em game, especially in Pittsburgh, in that weather, in that building. I love what Burrow's done over the last few weeks. Last time we saw them, Mixon had five touchdowns, but I could see Pittsburgh beating them. Absolutely.

Pits plus 164. If you do the one where they win both halves, you get even better. They win the first half to win the game. We don't have to do that. If you do the Pats win first half and the game plus 115 with Pittsburgh plus 164,

that's plus 467 as a parlay. Pitt wins the first half. Cincinnati wins the game. It's plus 650. Plus 650. You'd be like, oh, Cincinnati crawling back. But,

um, I don't know, man. I like the pit plus 164. I think they could win it. We have to play Lucy Goosey right now. No Jamar Chase, by the way.

Still no Chase. No Chidobio Woosier. Who would you put them with the, uh, so put them with Pats to win both halves plus 115? Let's do it. Plus 467? Alright. Yeah. Million dollar picks.

Turn the camera on, Kyle. Week. What week is this? Week 11. Last week we lost some money. We are down 3.093 million for the season.

How much money did you bet without me there last week? Why would you do that? Well, we might've lost 1.326. We lost every bet. We lose every bet. Oh, Dallas was one of the bets we lost. Dallas let us down. Up 14 and a fourth.

Wait, Bill and Peter took who? Okay, let's figure this out. We got to get back here. Yeah. So I think we go big. Oh, do you? Yeah, let's figure this out. We got to get back here. I think we go big. Oh, do you? Yeah. Let's go. Let's either go down in flames

and have to declare bankruptcy like FTX. Love it. Has there been a million dollar picks? Has anyone declared bankruptcy for their fake gambling picks yet? No. SPF, let's go. First one, teaser. Eagles, minus six and a half in Indy.

Jeff Saturday, wonderful story. Congratulations. Eagles coming off a loss. Eagles are going to win this game. I don't know how many points they're going to win it, but we're teasing them down from minus six and a half

to minus 0.5. And if Matt Ryan screws me over again, I might have to, I'm going to have Matt Ryan on the podcast Matt Ryan screws me over again, I might have to, I'm going to have Matt Ryan on the podcast. If he does this again, Matt, you're invited. We're going to tease them with Minnesota at home.

Yep. Underdogs. I repeat, underdogs. I repeat, underdogs against Dallas plus one and a half point underdogs. We saw what happens with these, these, these big Fox afternoon games. It's on CBS.

It's a CBS game? I know. They gave it to Nansen Romo. I don't know this cross-pollination. It's so weird. Oh, that's good for this pick because I think Romo is kind of secretly disgusted by Dak. Okay. I feel like there's going to be a lot of underlying.

I don't know what Dak was seeing there. We are teasing Minnesota to plus seven and a half. I think it's a three-point game, not positive. I would bet on Minnesota to win, but I like getting the seven and a half. That's even like, let's say Dallas is up late, a little cheap touchdown at the end. I'm worried about Joseph, the kicker, who's missed four PATs this year, who is just a nightmare every time he's lining up. And that's the only thing that worries me about that plus seven and a half hook, but

we're doing it. Don't you feel like that home crowd is like, that feels like this is like three decades worth of frustration just boiling over. And like, we love this team. This is our Vikings fans. Finally, like since 98, haven't like loved the team like this team. And now they're finally back home after that conquest last week.

Yeah, I think this is going to be a good Vikings win. A million dollars on that tease. Eagles minus six and a half. That's the most we've ever bet in a game, Bill. Yeah, Minnesota plus seven and a half. That's our first one. Next one, Saints minus three and a half against the Rams.

Yep, Rams are cooked. Rams are three and a half against the Rams. Yep. Rams are cooked. Rams are cooked. We're shorting the Rams. Yeah. I want you to do a podcast with me. We enjoyed it. It's over though, pal. This is not the season.

Rams have scored 14.5 points a game the last six games. And now Cooper Cup is gone. They have the worst skill position, guys. If anyone in the league, we're grabbing the Saints. Don't love the Saints, but it's more of a shorting of the Rams. We're grabbing the Saints minus three. There's a lot of bets's more of a shorting of the Rams. We're grabbing the Saints minus three. There's a lot of bets on the Rams. 61% on Fando.

We don't care. We're not scared. We're going to bet a million dollars on the Saints minus three. One million dollars. SPF week, baby. Let's do it. And then,

so you don't want to do Falcons minus three over the Bears no I will not bet against this Bears team they're too fun to watch I like watching them I'm not rooting against them alright

we'll skip the Falcons and we're staying away from the Giants minus three against the Lions I'm intrigued by that one how about I think Saquon

can eat this week that's a really bad Lions defense alright we'll put 100k and Giants win the first half end the game I think Saquon can eat this week. That's a really bad Lions defense. All right. We'll put 100K and Giants win the first half and the game at plus 130. They have to win the first half. They win the game.

We have that one. We are also putting 100K on the Pats to win both halves. So they win the first half. They win the game. Plus 115. This is a bet against Zach Wilson. This is... So it is. Listen, last week,

I had Geno Smith against Tom Brady. It seemed like a great idea. Seattle was playing awesome, but fundamentally... Same starts. Yeah, what am I doing? You're watching a game, you're like,

I bet against Geno Smith against Tom Brady, what am I doing? Yeah. This is how I feel about this Zach Wilson game. Jets three and a half, lively.

I think they could absolutely win the game, but I think if the Pats win. Jets, three and a half. Lively. I think they could absolutely win the game, but I think if the Pats win this game, they win the first half. Okay. So why not do the plus 115? It's better than the minus 180 odds. Put 100K on that. All right.

And then our underdog parlay, Schrags. Steelers, plus 164. We think they have like a decent chance to beat this Bengals team with the way their defense. Fitzpatrick's going to come back. It looks like TJ Watt destroyed the Bengals in week one. And, you know, I'm into the rookies.

I like their rookies. Home game, Pittsburgh at home. I just kind of like the spot. They're plus 164. We're going to do an adjusted Arizona Mexico City parlay. We're going to bring Arizona to plus four and a half. I like Arizona as the dog. I never want to bet them on a million years as a favorite. We both hope Colt McCoy is the starting quarterback in this game. We'll see what happens. The adjusted plus four and a half is plus

148. Combo that is plus 554 and we will put 50K on that as well. Let's hope. Let's pray. This is the comeback. Week 11, million dollar picks. Give me one, let's pray. This is The Comeback, week 11. Million dollar picks. Give me one, Schrager. Let's go, come on. Let's go. Come on. All right.

Peter Schrager, good to see you as always. You're the best, dude. Thank you. All right, Jimmy Kimmel is here. He's my old boss. He's the reason I moved to LA, which happened 20 years ago this week. I hopped on a plane. I packed a couple of suitcases. I moved into corporate housing next to the Grove because you told me the Grove was cool. I knew

nothing else. Landed in the airport, went to see you in Corolla. It was 80 degrees outside. I didn't know what was going on. And I've been here ever since. So thank you. But also, I was thinking about you this week and it was you were overdue to come on. So here we go. Yeah. Well, you know, I think the only time we really get to talk is on the podcast.

Well, no, we're going to, we're having a dinner this week, so that'll be fun. But yeah, we will talk. Yeah. Although we'll be there. So we probably won't get the same much.

So nothing has changed in the last 20 years. There'll just be Corolla dominating the conversation. But yeah, so that for people having the story, so you get this late night, we had been talking for a while and then you get this opportunity to potentially host a late night show and you start convincing me to move to LA, a place that I did not like because the Lakers were here. But I was also fascinated by it because we grew up on all the same TV shows and most of them

were here. So part of me was like, man, this is like to be where like Charlie's Angels was. That would be cool. I knew you were going to love it just because of the white shadow with nothing else. Right. Yeah, I had to back that up.

It never even occurred to me that you wouldn't love it out here. That never crossed my mind. From reading your column, I was like, oh yeah, he really, really really loves you know 90210 melrose place all this garbage that we we pump out here you love it by the way not loved it i would say still love that stuff's on paramount it's on pluto i think it's it's still a love

that's raging 30 years later um so i move out here. First of all, you had to convince my future, my fiance at the time to come with me. So you flew us out in like mid September. It also was 80 degrees that day. And then I moved out by myself because she couldn't come. And it was 80 degrees for most of the month. And I didn't know what was going on. I had all the wrong clothes. I remember the first time I hung out with you, I had on long pants and a shirt. Everybody else was dressed like they were about to go to the beach. And it took me a while to get a hang of it. How long did it take you to get a hang of living here? Not long because I grew up in Las Vegas. So it feels cool here. It feels damp to me.

I moved here from Tucson. I lived in Vegas, Palm Springs, Phoenix, Tucson, and a stop in Seattle, a stop in Tampa. So I've mostly been in the dry places. So that really didn't even occur to me. But it is weird to me to... I was in Vegas last weekend to think that I've lived here in LA longer

than I live everywhere else combined. Because you always think of yourself as from somewhere else when you live in LA. Yeah, but then... I mean, how long have you been here now? It's been like 20, 25 years for you? I've been here since 94, so... Oh, Jesus.

So almost 30 years. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you. People ask where I'm from, and I always say Boston or I'll say East Coast, but I've been here 40% of my life now, almost 40%. So at some point, you kind of have to admit, I'm kind of from LA, but I don't feel like I'm there mentally. I look forward to that day. On that day, I'm going to come to your house and we're going to take all the Celtics stuff down. Red Sox? Yeah. I'm trying to think how I feel now compared to how I felt 20 years ago. When I showed up, LA seemed like this giant metropolis.

I didn't know where it began and ended, right? You just don't. People be like, yeah, you go that way and this exists. It probably took me like five years to be like, all right, if I keep going down the PCH, then this is at the end of it.

And if I keep going that way down the five, Disneyland is at the end of it. But then I keep going that way down the five, Disneyland is at the end of it, but then you could go further and San Diego's that way. And I, it was just trying to wrap your head about it. It was the hardest thing. I was trapped in my navigation system for like three years. I still am. It took me much longer than five years to figure it out. And I'll tell you how I figured it out. And I don't know if this is of any interest to anybody who doesn't live in an LA, but I drew a line that represented the four Oh five. And I don't know if this is of any interest to anybody who doesn't live in LA, but I drew a line that represented the 405 and I drew another line intersecting with it that represented the

101. And then another line that represented the 10 down below it. And then I finally figured it out. I was like, okay, I'll use this as my, and then, you know, when you go to the get, when your car hits the ocean, you've gone too far. Right. Yeah, the ocean is always a good barometer. I remember within a month of when I was working with you, I think everybody got sick. And I wanted to get this bronchitis medication or something from a pharmacy. So I did this pharmacy and it was on Sunset.

And I'm like, Sunset, that's near the office. And then went and got on Sunset and was just driving for like 35 minutes. Brent went, I was like, whoops, all right, wrong one. So I had a lot of those, but I feel like I have kind of a handle on it now. When you look back to that November, you were doing the man show, you're finishing that up. You were trying to figure out the new show. And I guess our goal back then was, can we try to keep the show on for at least a couple of years? But now you just signed another contract. Can you even believe it went like it did? I just don't think there's anybody who wasn't there with us at the beginning who would in any way comprehend how many terrible

decisions we made they weren't even decisions just things that for whatever reason we like if you look back at our set it looks like no structure ever occupied by human beings before it looks like it's like it looks like kind of like a merry-go-round meets Caesar's Palace. Right. And the decisions that we made just even just the fact that I went on the air the first night

with really no jokes at all. Just went on after the Super Bowl with no material. I just kind of was there to I just sitting there talking, mostly by myself. It was absolutely ridiculous. You wanted to make the top of the show feel loose. Oh, it was loose.

Because you had like the radio background. Well, you think back to all the mistakes, right? We had a guest announcer that you would then, you would talk to all the mistakes, right? We had a guest announcer that you would then, you would talk to at the top of the show. And at least 60% of the time, that person was completely terrified because they're on national television. And that was in the first couple of minutes. A good idea would be to have a sidekick every night.

It was their first night on the job. Every single night. But it was desperation, really. I mean, even just bringing my Uncle Frank out and making him a security guard on the show, somebody I could talk to. This was before Guillermo was on the show. It was just because I needed something,

someone to bounce off of. And I just approached it like it was a local radio show. Well, part of it was you're trying to zag. You didn't want to have the traditional show. So you put all these things in there. That would make it different, right? So you'd feel fresh and new. So it's like, all right, I'm not going to start standing up.

I'm going to be behind a desk. I'm not going to have a monologue. I'm going to ad lib it. I'm going to talk. I'm going to work the staff into it. It's almost like if you think about it, it's almost like every, it's like you said, you know, everybody who gets married wears a tuxedo. I'm going to wear a clown outfit. But I don't know if you remember this, but they did that focus group, but it was like

six, seven months in and they did the focus group and the focus group just like assassinated every, like the other one they didn't like was the guest host because you had a guest host every week. And the focus group was like, we don't like the guest host. We want continuity. We're half asleep. Why isn't he wearing a tie?

Why is he standing at the stage? They just went through and it was just, they were just systematically shooting every idea that ever we had. It was the only situation, I think, in television history where the focus group sued the company doing the focus test for wasting their time. Well, the other thing was having the audience drink. That lasted a day. But what's crazy is you basically did the opposite of how we started but then you figured

out how to do your best version of the typical talk show but make it different but that took like how many years like 17 something like that you know it's funny because one of the big reasons adam and i quit the man show and didn't want to do it anymore. And this was this, we made this decision before I was offered the talk show was because the audience was drunk and because we felt like they were laughing at the wrong things. And then our first decision with the new show was to let the audience get drunk again. And it's amazing that nobody ever really intervened and said, are you sure you want to do this? They just let us make all these decisions. And that was just a terrible idea. I wonder, there's no social media back then, right? Yeah. And the show, people watch the show, there's reviews.

And then you can kind of just move on and never think about it again in 2003. There's no clips. If something bad happens, it's really not going to resurface in any way. And in a way, like once everything calmed down and whatever the ratings were, were the ratings and then other people were like, all right, I'm never going to watch that again.

But then you have a chance to get the reps, do the whole thing, and the show builds in the show. Nowadays, in the social media era, I don't feel like you'd get the reps like that. Yeah, I don't know that we would. But also, over the summer, I had some time off. And for whatever reason, I decided to start looking up some of the reviews we got that first week. Yeah. And there are reviews that I remember as a group, we thought were good reviews that in no way are good reviews. When you look at them, we would seize on one sentence. Like, this was kind of funny. And we're like, oh, we got a great review from Variety.

Or they'd say you were likable. But as they were torching the show, they'd say, they said you were likable. That was good. Oh, man. One of the things that I was talking, I was driving with my daughter the other day, who's now 17.

She's three years younger than the show. And we were listening to Coldplay. And I was like, Coldplay played the first show. She's like, really? Because Chris Martin's son is at her school. And he's like this musician who's going to be like, I think she thinks is going to be a great musician someday. So she's a little interested in them. And I was like, yeah, they were like the hottest band in the world.

And we shut down Hollywood Boulevard for them. And the Super Bowl was happening. And I remember being in the building, hearing them rehearse on Hollywood Boulevard. And they were the biggest band in the world. And it was like, this is such a gift to us to have this band on this night. And then they played. And I think they had two songs. But it's kind of like the peak time you would have ever wanted Coldplay, right?

They did a bunch of songs. Yeah. But I mean, two on the air. And then they kept going after. Two on the air. Yeah. It is kind of interesting that our guests were Snoop Dogg was the co-host. Yeah.

Coldplay was the band. George Clooney was the main guest. And then we had Warren Sapp fly up because the Super Bowl had happened earlier that night. And those, you know, well, Warren Sapp obviously was playing in the game. But like George Clooney, Snoop Dogg, Coldplay are still like big. You know, it's kind of crazy. And Warren Sapp, even though he's been retired for however many years, but it was the equivalent of having whoever the most famous defensive lineman is now.

And he had a big personality. You know, it's funny because whenever there's a World Series or a Super Bowl or whatever, you kind of go through both teams and you try to pick which players you might be interested in booking after they win. And you want to put the offer out there. And there's a lot of gambling

kind of that goes on because you don't know who's going to win. And you have to stick with the offer that maybe somebody else on the team has a great series and that person wasn't really a factor and uh we probably couldn't have asked for a better choice than warren sapp at that time yeah it was that for i mean it was only an hour i remember it really flew by everything was like

oh man if we only had more time and then within four days it, it was like, man, I wish the show was shorter. Don't you remember thinking, I don't know, what did you think about the show after the first night? I thought, I mean, you don't know what to think because it's so exhilarating. I thought it was like, we did it. Crushed it. That was the funny part. We thought it, I think we all thought it went really well. And then we had to come back the next night

and do another show and on that show uh 50 cent was the guest and the musical guest i think and um i'm trying to remember i know the rock was a guest like some were in like one of those first weeks too but i just remember when we hit Wednesday of that week, we'd done the show on Sunday night and then Monday and then Tuesday and then Wednesday hit. And I said, Oh, this is what it's, this is what it's going to be like. We have to do, it doesn't matter if the show was good the night before, which they never were by the way, but sometimes we thought they were. We then have to do another one and then another one after that. And that really hit me on that Wednesday. Yeah. Well, especially that was a six-day week, which six, six, now, I mean, you've never, you do four a week now, right? We do four a week.

But I mean, there's never been a scenario where you do five unless it's like a special Oscar show or something. Six, even when you were doing the five a week that first year, by that Friday, it was getting a little gamey. Especially like the writers meetings. Everyone's tired of each other. We were done with work at 10.05 PM. Right. But then it would just go right into the green room.

Right to the green room. Which somehow became the hottest place in la yeah i felt wasn't a great time for me and and my fiance like just in general like this person i made move to la and then i had this crazy job uh i remember coming to work in the morning and my car being the only one in the parking lot. And I'd be so mad. I would just be like, how am I the only person at work? This is, this can't be how it's supposed to go. Well, one of my big contributions was getting rid of the pasta for lunch

because I was convinced it made everyone tired. The Chinese food, one of the things, the Chinese food, I was convinced it put everyone in a coma and the show was going to suffer if we had Chinese food. And everyone got mad at me. Like, guys, why do we want to be tired? We're

supposed to write jokes. They're like, traitor. Yeah. You can't mess with lunch. That's the one thing you don't mess with. No. Well, you also did the writer. Yeah. I know you have a different thing to it now, but back then we would go around the room stupidly and it would sometimes be like two and a half hours. There was a time during those riders lunches that we used to have that this was after you you'd left that we decided it would be a good idea to let each rider take a week and pick the lunch spots for the whole week oh my god so we took it really seriously and like i would cook two of the meals like it became like a competition really except for when sal was in charge cousin sal and i remember that first

monday he was in charge of the food and he walks in and he's got this tray of kind of crappy cold cuts you know like supermarket cold cuts and he puts the tray down and Molly, who's now my wife, I remember her saying something to the effect of, oh, wow, appetizers. That's nice, Sal. And I just remember thinking those aren't appetizers. That's the whole meal. It was salami and some like American cheese and that was it. And then the next day I ordered a backup lunch because I knew he was going to do something crazy again. And he saw the backup lunch coming up the stairs and attacked the guy carrying it to try to throw the lunch all over the ground. I've told this story before. I don't know if we've talked about it, but I had the desk next to Sal in the original office

and quickly within about 10 times learned that I always had to log off when I left my computer to go to the bathroom or something. Like Sal was a walking benevolent HR violation in 2003. Like he would just go on people's computers. He would send people emails from somebody's email address and they would think it was from the person, but it wasn't. He got on Jill Lederman's computer, our executive producer for many years. He got on her computer and just sent email after

email after email after email to as many people as he gave. It was like smoke was coming out of his fingertips when she finally walked in and shrieked. And he just sent all these crazy emails to people saying things like, what exactly do you think you're doing every day? I'm on to you. He got on my email

once and sent out a whole bunch of crazy emails and threw everyone into a tizzy. Well, that was when you just started taking the computer in the bathroom. Yeah, that's right. It's a good move. Well, Sal also used to do the staff updates the first year, which was another thing that would just never happen in 2022.

He would take pieces of gossip, things he heard, hearing somebody didn't like somebody else or that two people had hooked up you know a week before and that was actually a segment that we did on the show who's south staff and i love that it was titled staff update because it's such a bland you know staff update i remember having to call people's wives and apologize after that, having to send flowers to people because I didn't even know what he was going to say. And he would just go through the whole staff and whatever you did not want announced on television, he would announce those things. And then there would just be a complete... The show was so much more interesting in the office than it was on television.

Right. Well, that was part of it. Like, how do you get some of this stuff on the show? You know, and we had always been, we were both Letterman people. That was one of the things we bonded on. But Stern was even a better one of, Stern would just take everyone in the universe and try to put it on the show. But he also had four hours a day yeah you know to dip into we had a 42 minute show or 45 minute show whatever it was about commercials it was very it was very indulgent and um it was a ridiculous show

and if in my vision of hell is being put in a room and not being able to close my eyes and just having to watch one show after another. Weirdly, none of them are on YouTube. I mean, there's like very little YouTube footage from that era. It's not a coincidence. It's because of

they have to pay for if they, you know, there's a certain amount of money they have to pay if they put these shows on YouTube. So, Oh, interesting. After a certain amount of time,

they have to come off or a trigger, some kind of a, a payment, but it's probably for the best. Well, I thought you were going to retire at the 20 year mark. I, you just,

you just, you just, you're back. I don't know if you leave now. I think now this might be a, it's like how like Lorne Michaels is in season 48. I should just die on the air. Maybe that's how it should end.

But I mean, they keep making it easier for you to, to want to keep doing it right. You get, get the summer off. You have guest hosts. That's fun. You get to hang out with your family a little bit. But it can't, but it's not, it's, it's definitely not easy. Get the summer off. You have guest hosts. That's fun. You get to hang out with your family a little bit. But it's definitely not easy. They took it from a 10 to a 9.

Right. Even during the summer, there's stuff going on. There's questions to be answered and whatever. It's just, I don't, I just, you know what? And I know this sounds like a crazy thing, but a big part of it for me was I didn't want to go through the emotional upheaval of ending it, you know? I know I have to have a last show. I have to clean out my office, which is something I just don't want to do. That was a really big part of it.

I know that sounds like the dumbest thing ever, but it really was a big part of it. If you know you, it's not dumb at all. I could see you be like, oh my God, I'll cry in the last show. I don't want to have to cry.

Yeah, I look at Vegas. Yeah, I don't know. We'd have to almost do like when you can bet the length of the national anthem, we would have to bet the length of the sobs on your last show.

There'll definitely be tears. There's no question about that it's just going to be a miserable experience so I figured I'd just kick the can for a while well what was the rating that or what was the audience for the first season the audience on television

was wasn't it a few million people three million or something like that a night think about that. Yeah. But the truth is that's what we get now. You just have to add you. Yeah.

So you got it. All the digital stuff. Yeah. You know, lately we will get, we wake up in the morning and there are 2 million views of the monologue on YouTube. So it just people.

And then you can't even count like things that are on Instagram and things that are on Facebook. They don't give you a number in that way. So it just kind of spread out. Well, and plus it's international, which in 2003, it's basically America. I don't know where else, but now it's like anyone can go on YouTube and watch any piece of the show.

Plus you have so many years of bits now that for somebody like my son, who I guarantee my son doesn't know what time the show is on ABC. But I also guarantee he's probably watched, I don't know, hundreds of hours of the stuff that's on YouTube. And that's kind of the under 20 audience, I think.

Right? They're just like, that's how they know the show. If you like it, they just keep feeding it to you. Remember that first year, there was no YouTube yet and there was that weird video server where we would have to find the clips? We talked about this before, but

it was like this kind of underground YouTube almost. Because you remember, we had Andy Milonakis on the first show and we found him on YouTube. But there wasn't much on YouTube. It wasn't populated with much. But yeah, there was some weird, yeah, like some kind of BitTorrent thing

or something like that. That's what it was. We had a guy who, his job was to basically, you'd say like, hey, there was this Michael Jackson, whatever. He would just go into this weird BitTorrent world and try to grab the clips.

Turns out that guy was a slumlord, we found out later. That's true, we did find that out. Before we go, you're doing the Oscars. Yes. You did it two years in a row. I did it 2017 and 2018.

You came on after the set, the seventh, the first one was the one that had the mix up. It was right. We thought that was going to be the most famous moment in Oscar's history. It turns out it was not. Yeah. And now they have the,

and everyone assumed Chris Rock was just going to be the host this year, but he seems still kind of mad about what happened. So he's like, fuck that. I'm not helping. But it's just going to be the host this year, but he seems still kind of mad about what happened. So he's like, fuck that. I'm not helping. Um, but it's still going to be, I think an intensely watched and covered Oscars.

So you threw yourself back in the mix on that one. Yeah. You know, I didn't throw myself in the mix. He's just got a phone call out of the blue and, um, and I got it early, which,

you know, it's, you hate to be like the 11th person they asked. So getting the call early means something to me. And I just started thinking about it. I was like, yeah, why not? Why shouldn't I do it? I asked my wife.

I thought she'd be against it. I said, they asked me. I was actually nervous. I don't think I told her for a few days. I said, I have to tell you something. It was a confession as if I cheated on tell you something. It was a confession as if I cheated on her or something. She's like, what? I said,

they asked me to host the Oscars. And she's like, oh, great. I was like, really? Wow. I was like, oh, okay. All right. I didn't know how to think of it. I think it'll be a it's a fork in the road moment for the Oscars

in a lot of ways, right? Where it's like everything will be fine or they just keep reinventing it, trying new things. Let's do this. Let's do that. And maybe they just need to go back to, let's just have a host who has a good sense of

when to come in and make some jokes and let's just celebrate movies again. Maybe that's what the show should be. Yeah. That'd be my take. Kind of always was that, but, you know, and sometimes it works better than others as far as the hosts go. But, you know, the hosts said, you know, they didn't, they weren't responsible for what happened last year. No, and Amy Schumer was good last year. I thought she was funny.

You know, they were all good. And I just think that when you have three hosts and something like that happens, it's not clear who should go up. It's like making a decision by committee and somebody needed to go up right then, I think. Well, he might be nominated, but I don't know if he's allowed to be nominated. But he's got this movie that everybody thinks is really good and he's really good in it.

And it's in play that he might be involved in the Oscars somehow. I think he is allowed to be nominated. I just don't think he's allowed to come, which is so dumb, right? I mean, what could be dumber than this? No, I have something that'd be dumber when they're like, accepting for Will Smith is Alfonso Ribeiro. That would be the only way it got dumber. Yeah. I, it almost is so much more fun if he gets nominated. Like I'm hoping the movie is going to be good enough that it would be a legitimate nomination. I have, you know, I have to say he's going to have to be spectacular, I think, to get nominated because people do seem pretty upset still about this.

And yeah, he's handled it pretty, pretty tough. Yeah. I can't say, I can't say the remorse game has been played perfectly. Would you like if he was on your show, you would obviously say yes, if they're like Will Smith wants to come on your show. But it would also be super awkward. Not that you haven't had awkward interviews before,

but I think that one would be about as awkward as it gets, right? They're almost all awkward. True. I don't know, you know. I do, I am interested in the whole thing. You know, I'm curious. I think we all are. Like, we all are. I mean, listen, this guy, Will Smith, this is one of the most genuinely friendly guys. you know if he's got that in him you know i you know who who knows you know just you have no idea because obviously our gauge isn't working so right um i would love to know the whole story you know like what he was what was in his head because there was something in his head before that

happened you know there was something something that he'd arrived at a point and whatever it was that Chris Rock said tipped him over that point. I'm just curious to know what that was. It does feel like there's a missing piece to the story. Even if he had come out and said,

it's funny because we talked about it that night and we were like that. I basically forced you to come on my podcast that night I was like this is the craziest thing that's ever happened we have to talk about this but the more I think about it I think he must have had so much adrenaline going and is going through his body

maybe because he you know he knew he had a really good chance to win the Oscar and the whole thing and it's almost like he blacked out and it reminded me I I was thinking of when Clemens got mad at Piazza that time when he threw the bat. Yeah. At Piazza.

Sometimes we've seen public figures just have this where they leave their body for a couple seconds. Even if he said that's what happened, I was super nervous. I'm just going to intervene. I'm just going to correct you. Piazza did not throw the bat. I said Clemens threw the bat at Piazza. Yeah, all right.

The bat broke and then he threw the piece of the bat at him. Clemens picked it up and just kind of whipped it at him and then was like, what? I thought it was the ball. You think Will Smith is on steroids? Is that what you're saying? I don't know. Maybe he's on something. Maybe he took some pill

to calm down and it made him nuts i just think it was such a bizarre moment i still can't wrap my head around it like even cruz who's had some weird ones like nothing like that nothing where you're just like what's going on like cruz jumping on oprah's sofa was as weird as cruz got that was like a two out of ten compared to the chris rock. Yeah, I mean, but it's one thing to be weird. It's another thing to be violent, I guess. Right. Yeah. But that's what was weird, though. And Chris Rock, you watch and he's

got his hands behind his back and never moves. See, he just, he can't conceive that Wilson was going to hit him. Right. He figured he was going to say something. And I also think, and I'd love to ask Chris Rock about this specifically, that it was possible that Chris was aware that Will Smith was unmiked, that he did not have a microphone on and that he was leaning in so that they could hear what he was saying. Interesting. But I don't know. Well, I'm sure you will have to do something

on Oscar night to pay homage to that moment. What are you doing for the 20th anniversary? Of the show? Yeah. Well, we're going to have a party. You'll be invited. Thank you. That's great. Yeah, we're going to have

a great surprise planned. I don't want to reveal Thank you. That's great. We, yeah, we're going to have, we're going to have, we have a kind of a great surprise planned. I don't want to reveal it right now, but I think we have a great plan for the show. I think you should have Vince McMahon and Bob Costas and whoever was at the third hospital try to have the 20 year anniversary baby. Just reenact that Letterman gimmick

that we learned from 40 years ago. One of the great moments of all time, Vince McMahon with the winning baby. Is Vince still allowed in public? Probably not. Probably not. Maybe you'd have to get Shane McMahon. It's just some McMahon. Stephanie McMahon.

Ed McMahon's dead, right? We can't get him. One of the McMahons. To me, that was the Watershed anniversary show. That will never be topped. The elevator races were also Bob Costas and Vince McMahon. I'll never forget

when Letterman said to Vince McMahon who was wearing a tuxedo for the elevator. He said, is that a rental tux? Vince McMahon was totally tongue-tied and said, yes. Dave laughed. And it was funny because as a kid, I didn't know you could even own a tux.

I thought they were only rented. Right. I just found out right now. You just had Letterman on the Brooklyn show. Yeah. He's settled into this version of post late night life that I never expected. It's great. It was great, obviously, for me because, you know, my affection for him to have him on the show.

But it's a great reminder that he wasn't just a great host. He was a great guest. Great guest. He would kill on Carson. Yeah. And he'd have these little asides, you know, he'd tell these stories and there were just these little inroads that he would take that got laugh after laugh after laugh. And I thought his last appearance on our show was excellent.

He, of course, thought he was terrible, but... Well, he was always good as a guest that used silence and kind of the, you know, taking his time and kind of working the crowd a little bit, which I think a lot of guests, they don't realize they can do, right? The guests come out and they have energy and they want to tell their three stories and whatever. But he was always in command of the room as a guest. A lot of composure. And he even speaks in a low voice. So you have to lean in to hear him, which is interesting,

you know? Well, I remember taking it back to LA when, uh, when Letterman came out here and did his week, which was like what, 84 and 85. And he had Carson on as a guest and Carson came out and brought his,

his like fake makeshift desk and put it next to him. I was like, this is the greatest moment of my life. I can't believe this is happening. It just led him in. There was so much energy with those LA shows. I guess maybe that was

one of the hundred reasons I wanted to kind of move out here. But anyway, 20 years. It was your destiny, Bill. It really was. I remember reading your columns and thinking, this guy and I have a lot in common. And I remember reading your columns and thinking, this guy and I have a lot in common.

And, um, and I remember reading your, you wrote about, um, about the movie, uh, the Gabe Kaplan movie,

fast break. And I, I, I never had a discussion about that movie with anyone other than Cleto, my best friend, who's my band leader. And we watched that at least a hundred than Cleto, my best friend, who's my band leader, and we watched that at least

a hundred times. You wrote this long analysis of the movie Fast Break and I was like, I have to write to this guy. I mean, this is it. I also remember printing out your columns and giving them to some of the other writers that I'd hired and I said,

this is what I want the show to be like. So they immediately then hated you coming in. It was a little icy the first couple weeks. Yeah. What? Who the fuck is this? Thanks for that. Yeah. Sorry.

I learned a lot over the last 20 years and that was one of the things. Well, the best thing you did was when I came out in mid-September and you were like, I'm just going to put you with Sal. You guys are immediately going to be best friends. And I was like, why? And he's like, he's funny, but he loves to gamble. And I'm like, all right, that sounds like my kind of guy. And now 20 years later, Sal and I are

still going strong. You really are. You know what? I was quite a matchmaker there. I also remember picking you up in a Jeep Wagoneer that I bought for $6,000 and sold about a year later for $1,000. And I picked you and carry up in this car that I spent almost every weekend in the parking lot of like a Trader Joe's begging someone for a jumpstart because it never worked. I remember that car being like cool car. And you're like, eh.

And I was like, Oh no. Yeah. I was just, I was hoping we'd get to the hotel. That was my main goal. Yeah. All right.

Um, 20th anniversary January 26th I believe that's correct yeah alright January 26th and then Oscars is in March

and I'll see you this weekend because we're belatedly celebrating your birthday we're going to eat lots of lots of lots of food at a certain place

and I look forward to gaining three pounds thanks for coming on good to see you. Happy anniversary. Thank you. All right. Bye. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Jimmy Kimmel. Thanks to Peter Schrager. Thanks to Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Kyle Creighton for producing as always. And I will see you on this feed on Sunday night. We'll see if I'm complaining about Mac Jones or not.

Come on, Mac Jones. You got it. You got this, Mac Jones. You got this. Come on, buddy.

See you on Sunday. I don't have a few years with him on the wayside on the first I never said I don't have a few years