The Bill Simmons Podcast - Week 17 Goofy Gambling, the Jameissaince, and Eddie Murphy’s 'SNL' Return, With Cousin Sal and J.A. Adande | The Bill Simmons Podcast

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss another action-packed Jameis Winston performance, Giants-Redskins, Titans-Saints, Patriots-Bills, and more before they guess the NFL lines for Week 17 and try to sift through all the playoff implications (2:05). Then Bill talks with J.A. Adande about Eddie Murphy’s long awaited return to ‘SNL’ (1:00:10). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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as well as The Ringer Podcast Network, where we are not completely shutting down during holiday week. Don't you worry. Going to have a couple of BS podcasts. I'm going to do a rewatchables. Which we already banked. Talented Mr. Ripley.

One of the most fascinating movies. Of the late 90s. 20 year anniversary. It was this month. And another book of basketball 2.0. Episode. The last one. Of 2019.

As well as all the other great stuff we have. Coming up. We're going to talk to Cousin Sal about week 16 NFL, as well as week 17. What to look forward to. Always the most confusing gambling week of the year. And then my old ESPN colleague, J.A. Adande is going to come on to talk about Eddie Murphy's SNL return, which was unbelievable. But first, our friends from Pearl Jam. All right, on the line right now,

he is taking a break from his Christmas Eve dinner at my cousin Jimmy's house to hop into a room and talk football with us. Sal, I'm a little worried you're not going to be prepared. This is always the hardest Guest Alliance podcast of the year. There's 97 different scenarios going on here. I know. I made my wife drive here.

It was an hour drive to my cousin Jimmy's. Like you said, he always has a big holiday thing, right? I mean, this could really easily lead to divorce. No one knows him. I stowed away in Jimmy's office. Everyone's still dancing around, eating cake and stuff. But yeah, I told her, I was like, I have to know all these permutations and the playoff teams.

But one thing's for sure, my team is out of it. Even though they're not out of it, they are out of it. It was, uh, I bet on the Eagles today. I, once I heard Prescott was hurt, I thought the combo of Jason Garrett and an injured Dak Prescott was, uh, was alarming. When did you give up hope? Just out of curiosity. I was okay with it all week. I heard the shoulder problems and everything. I was like, you know, all right, we'll lean on Zeke a little. This Eagles team hasn't showed me anything. Cowboys have a lot of luck against the Eagles. Good track record against the spread.

Everything's straight up. Only thing they can get away is Jason Garrett. And then you watch and you only have to see a little bit. And it's like, okay, after the fifth overthrow of Michael Gallup, I'm like, oh, maybe there's a problem here. They're letting the Cowboys win the game. All you need to do is connect on one of these, right? Didn't it seem like there was a ton of overthrows?

Also, he'd hit guys in the numbers. He'd hit Cooper in the numbers once. He dropped it. There was another one. Also, Gallup dropped one. It was brutal from the beginning. And then I'm like, what am I rooting for this team anyway? I honestly feel like, you know, all right, my abusive dad now, Jason Garrett has been hauled off to jail for life.

I'm okay. The family can move on. Just let, let's let that be the case. It was a bizarre weekend of football because the Saturday games were incredible. Yeah. We had Jameis just going full Jameis in the first game yesterday. Awesome. We had the Patriots that everybody had their shovels out, ready to put the dirt on. Including, I didn't have my shovel out, but I was moving into this very dangerous, scary world of, oh my God, this really could be the beginning of the end. And then an incredible throwback performance by Brady and the whole team

in a really tough, hard fought fought came down to the fourth quarter like we kind of thought it would. They somehow covered, but they pull off. And then the Rams-Niners game was fantastic. Three good ones. And then today sucked. Vegas was off by, I think, like three total points with the spread between the three games.

The first two could have been a push depending on where you got it. And then the Rams were favored by, or Niners were two could have been a push depending on where you got it. And then the Rams, you know, were favored by, or Niners were favored by six and a half, one by three, but yeah, very exciting Saturday.

I think we predicted the Saturday games would be much better than the Sunday games, but yeah, starting with Jameis, do you feel like you're just seeing things after a while? I was like, wait a minute. He knows we're going to make fun of him,

right? Why is the first pass going for a pick six? Well, we can't wait. We did this whole thing with the over-under. What time will it be before he throws his first pick? And he's doing it right away. It's insane.

You said 2.30 p.m. and it was 1.02 when he obliged with his first pick of the day. There's some amazing Jameis stats right now. First of all, he's at 4,908 passing yards. He's thrown 31 TDs and 28 picks. I had been joking for weeks that he had a chance to go for the 30-30, which has never happened before. But now it's really realistic, especially with his two best receivers out. The other thing, I haven't seen this anywhere. I went and actually looked this up. Did you know he's tied for the record right now? Most pick sixes in one season. I think I did see that.

Yeah. Can you name the other two quarterbacks? Is Eli one of them? No, it's, it's Peyton, Peyton Manning, 2001. Forgot about it. And then the one and only Rudy Bukic in 1966. Who the hell was, oh, 1966. 10 TDs, 21 picks, six pick sixes.

Wow. Well, I think the field was only like 35 yards long then, in 1966. Well, then the other thing with Jameis, so you figure he's going to throw for at least 250 yards, seems realistic. 300 is pretty realistic, but only four guys ever have thrown for 5,200 yards in a season.

Peyton Manning has the record, 5,477. Breeze, 5,476. Brady in 2011. And then Drew Breeze again. Jameis has a chance to join Manning, Breeze, and Brady for most passing yards ever. Wow. I've never seen anything like this.

Now, on top of it, he's missing his two top receivers. And what do you do? Because this guy Perryman looks like a stud, too. Do you trade Michael Evans? It's insane what he's doing. I mean, he's playing from behind. It's kind of the same script. If you thought this was...

It makes you think football's fake a little bit. Like, yeah, I've seen that script before. He of throws two interceptions he comes back it's a one score game at the end but what do you do you know it's funny i was joking because he's always been compared to mariotta who is now out he's not even the quarterback for tennessee but you could arguably say the mariotta backers won the argument because jamis played played so poorly that the Texans won, and now they are sitting their starters opening the door for the Titans to make the playoffs, winner Mariota. Somehow, it kind of makes sense, right? It's so weird, though, to me. This guy's in a contract year. Do you want him back if you're the Bucs? I'm pro Jameis. He's got a broken thumb,

and he's missing his top two receivers. So you knew it was a minimum two picks yesterday. They didn't even have a spread for it. There was no over-under Jameis picks against Houston. And the crazy thing was guys were wide open that whole game. I think Houston, from a secondary standpoint, is pretty flimsy. And then Will Foro went down again,

which has, you know, they're almost like, well, what was that? When Sean Lee, was he the linebacker you had when he played, you were good when he didn't play your defense was terrible. We'll forward is kind of the equivalent of that to the Houston offense. So Jamis, I'm sure he sank some fantasy leagues. Although I would argue if you were starting Jamis this week, you probably didn't deserve to win your league. Speaking of fantasy, a lot of people didn't deserve to win leagues, but yeah. Saquon puts up a 39.9 today. The game, the Redskins, for some reason, two, three, and 11 teams, they scored to make it

35-34. The two best games of the day were the Bengals-Dolphins and this Redskins-Giants goofy game. Yeah, two teams jockeying for the top five or six positions in the draft. The Redskins, instead of just going for two to put the game out of its misery, decided to kick the PAT. They're like, who wants 10 more minutes of football? And Saquon ends up getting more points out of it. And it probably swung some leagues.

For sure. Saquon was the big star of the day. Kenyon Drake, yet again, 30.4 points today. And Danny Jones had the 38.8. Yeah. I'm assuming some people probably started him. But yeah, those were the weird ones. And in our fantasy league, Damoshek goes 5-8.

We have this stupid conference system. He ends up getting in. His team gets hot for three weeks in a row and he wins our league. And he's eight and eight. We were congratulated today for climbing to 500 while also winning our league. Yeah. I mean, you guys have the nerve to bring up keepers. Like, hey, we should do

keepers. I said, hold on. We have a problem here. I'll sign off on keepers. If you could figure out, I'll do six keepers per team if it could prohibit the worst regular season fantasy team of all time making and winning the finals. If you can figure out that system, I'm all on board.

We were on a 200 text thread today. We're complaining about the trade. He made a two for three trade where he got the two best players in a five-part trade, including Beckham, who had a pretty good game today. But the bottom line is he had Hopkins, Thomas Beckham and Barkley. And, uh, and that turned out to be enough, but.

And he had Watson who did nothing. He had Watson, Watson and Hopkins who had nothing right. Going into today. So he went against John Hamm's team in the finals. Who was in a bind because Josh Jacobs was out. Somebody else was out. He only had four running backs started LaShawn McCoy, who is a game-time healthy scratch. And he healthy scratched Jon Hamm's team right out of our

championship finals. And what's great about that, extra great is, except for the part where Damoshek won, Jon Hamm and his partner Trevor, big Kansas City Chiefs fans, right? And so they have to have all the Chiefs and Lahawn mccoy doesn't even play what did what was he he got he got uh putting time out what was the problem he just andy reid's like i'm good yeah just uh just wear your street clothes today yeah so that ended up swinging our league but week 16 is super fun this was my first week where uh my fantasy team in our league was out i'm out in our picks pool. Really all I had was gambling and I was really proud of myself. I had a lot of restraint today. I only did a couple of

bets. You did all right. But I was very, it could have been one of those days where I was sprinkling around all over the place. One of the ones I really liked was the cards in Seattle. And I just stayed away because the cards are so Jekyll and Hyde. Seattle didn't really need the game. There were a couple didn't really need the game teams today and all of them lost. Kind of snuck up on us, right? Yeah.

Like you would think Seattle would need the game. You would think Tennessee would need the game. Is that the other one you're talking about, right? Yeah, well, Seattle, when San Francisco beat the Rams,

all of a sudden Seattle didn't need the game as much. They needed to get if they wanted first seed and stuff like that. Right. But it wasn't an imperative. What did we learn from this weekend from the playoff picture? Is there any team that you feel better about? Let me say this.

We're pretty much set on Texans-Bills. You talked about Saturday. We saw the Texxans win we saw the bills lose i think the bills are a ton better than the texans a ton like i don't think i don't think that game will be close if the bills play their game you you had to be nervous you touched on it a little but you had this bills team out for dead and then you got you got josh allen throwing bombs i always liked what he did with his legs and everything but he's a gutty guy to sit out back there and throw bombs and just sling it. And, you know, like just kind of effortlessly and brought the Bills right back in it, making it a one possession game.

They had him using his legs too, which is what Kyle and I were afraid of watching the game. We didn't understand why he wasn't trying to scramble around and do some stuff. That game, even though the Pats won by seven and somehow covered, I thought they played really, really well, and they barely won, which is, I think, a credit to the Bills. Because I didn't feel like the Bills played great. They almost got an out-of-the-bottle check.

Yeah. And one thing about this Josh Allen, he has the most exciting quarterback sneaks ever. We saw the one against Dallas where he pulled in and out like three times. And then the fumble and everything. The one against the Patriots was just as nifty. Pretty good. Pretty good stuff.

I don't know why your guy doesn't. You had fourth and one. You kicked. What'd you do? It should be a quarterback sneak all the time. Are people afraid because of the Mahomes thing? Well, we screwed up the end of the half. So we're up 10-3 at the, near the end of the first half.

And we had like the fourth and one. And I thought, normally I'm like, go for it, go for it, hammered, all that stuff. I just wanted to go in a halftime 10-3. Right. They go for it. They kill Harry, end around. Sanu misses his block. All of a sudden, the Bills have it, and they're marching down, and it's 10-10. And I'm like, oh my God, Belichick just out-Belichicked himself.

Then it just went back and forth. It was a really even game. I thought the final score was deceiving, especially that Pat's got the two-point to make it seven. You weren't as excited about that two point conversion for various reasons. Well, I thought it definitely hurt the Pats minus six and a half or it helped if you had them. Right. Yes. No, at that point, I just wanted to get up to seven because I thought I really thought the Bills are going to come back down and score and they end up getting first and goal in the eight. And I thought the Bills were going to score and Belich score and they ended up getting first and goal in the eight and i thought the bills were going to score and i and belchik called time out remember right because i thought he i think he thought he was getting the ball back and then the bills

they had a wide open on third down that play to the tight end and now and overthrew him and that was the game well one thing you don't want out of your defense it's fine you did well defensively as far as points allowed but the the deep plays, you know, it's weird that you're getting beat on deep plays and certainly not good if you got Kansas City coming back to town in a few weeks, right? Yeah, McCourty went out relatively early in that game, and I don't think Chung's been 100% since he came back.

The secondary was an A-plus there for a little while. I'm not sure it's an A-plus now. It's probably an A-minus. But yeah, so I thought the Bills,. I'm not sure it's an A plus now. It's probably an A minus. But yeah, so I thought the Bills, if I'm coming out of that game and I'm a Bills fan or I'm playing for the Bills or I'm coaching the Bills, I'm feeling pretty good. They've had a lot

of tests the last few weeks. I agree with you. I think they can beat Houston right now. We don't want to look ahead to the lines because what we do, but if the Bills are, I know they won't be a favorite, but I'm taking them if they're laying three or less in that game. I really like them this year. Sorry, bills mafia.

I'm now I'm going to screw you over because cousin Sal's on your side. That's it. It's over. It's never a good time. Let's take a quick break. Then we'll go through the playoffs scenario. Let's talk about Roman. Talking about erectile dysfunction isn't easy.

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Just go to GetRoman.com slash Bill to get a free online visit and free two-day shipping. Once again, that is GetRoman.com slash Bill. Okay, so playoffs right now as it stands. The two bye teams in the AFC are the Ravens and Pats. We have Titans Chiefs 6-3 and pats we have titans chiefs six three and we have bills texans five four and then in the west right now now we have packers vikings are playing monday night but in the west 49ers saints are the two bye teams vikings packers would be playing again in the uh six three and then seahawks-Eagles. Yeah, I don't know why you call the NFC the West, but I like it.

Well, whatever. Yeah, the Packers are, because the Packers haven't played, there's a lot of things going on. The Packers win, the Saints move out of that two spot, and like I said, there's a lot going on. If you're just talking about teams that I don't really like how they look heading into the playoffs, which perennially has never mattered. We've seen a lot of teams look like dog shit heading into the playoffs, which perennially has never mattered.

We've seen a lot of teams look like dog shit heading into the playoffs and then flip the switch. I don't like the way the Seahawks look at all. Me neither. I don't like the way the Texans look if Will Fuller is not going to be 100%. I also think you can throw on them and move the ball on them. And they just seem flimsy to me. I will say Watson got sacked a bunch

and I think that was the first time he's ever won when he's been sacked five times or more. I'm pretty sure that's a stat. So he survived that game. And Tunsell got hurt at the end of that game too. Tunsell was hurt. The Eagles, I just don't think can score. Now, could they win a 17-13 game in round one

or 16-10? They're probably going to be in a cold weather game, I'm guessing. Boston Scott. Sorry. Sorry about that. Five yard out to Dallas Goddard. Aikman's like, Goddard and Ertz are their two best receivers, and those guys are out right now.

It's like, I'm going to kill myself. Goddard and Ertz are their two best receivers, and the Cowboys out right now. It's like, I'm going to kill myself. God, are the NERTS are their two best receivers, and the Cowboys are going to lose by double digits. It's pretty bad. Nine points against the Eagles is pretty bad. You were moving the ball a little bit too, but as you said, I think there were two teams that were kind of put, two fan bases that were kind of put out of their misery today.

One was yours. The other was the Pittsburgh Steelers. Right. Because they're fans. They really warmed up to this team, the defense, the coaching. They really pulled some games out of their asses. But ultimately, Duck and or Rudolph in a playoff game is just, it would have been fun to bet against.

We would have loaded up. But yeah. Rudolph the RedNosed Duck is not scoring. I mean, they scored like 13 points a game over the last six. You certainly can't lay points, even against the Jets. And then what are you going to do? I mean, how much do the Chiefs, how much would they rather play the Steelers than the Titans? Rudolph and Hodges have been so bad the last couple weeks

that I actually Googled to see if it was possible for Roethlisberger to come back, to come off IR with like a cast on his arm and still try to at least like complete 10 yard passes. What did Google say? Uh, no, he was on the IR for the year. So that doesn't happen.

Yeah. So meanwhile, you have the Titans who they're going to be the succeed. Probably we'll go through all the probabilities, but that Saints game, it turns because they're down three. They're crossing midfield, pass over the middle of the receiver, gets hit in the head. His whole body just loses all life and he drops the ball. Yeah.

Saints pick it up, run it 30 yards the other way. And I'm waiting for the yellow flag sign to come up. Never comes up. The rule is usually when, when somebody is just out cold and they drop the ball when they're running upright and they go from just their, their crumpled heap and they drop the ball, that probably something horrible happened. I don't know why they can't review that. Cause it was definitely a hit to the head

of a defenseless receiver, which I'm positive is a penalty. It was, what's weird about it is, and guarantee they call it 99% of the time, they should have called it there, but it was, if you watch the D-back, he is trying to avoid it, and in doing so, his shoulder just pops

the receiver's head. It just, it wasn't helmet to helmet. But yeah, defenseless, all that, head blow, definitely a flag. Well, could we make a rule that if I'm completely knocked unconscious and I drop the ball, that I can get to keep the ball at least as I'm ushered to the hospital with the fucking neck brace on? It's unlikely that he just had a stroke in you know in celebration coming down with the ball like that he was probably hammered or or he got shot by a sniper those are really those are only two possibilities yeah yeah so the game you might say i i thought i you talk about teams that worry you saints look great i mean this could change because we've seen them blow it against like the falcons

at home and stuff like that but i don't know the titans were up 14-3 yeah the saints just moved up and down the field and i don't know if you deserve to win a game that you allow michael thomas to get 12 receptions for 130 plus yards but true but they they had a chance to grab the lead with like five six minutes left yeah i'm with you though i think the saints offense if you're talking about things that are peaking right now i would say the saints offense is in the top three. And Kamara stepped up too, and he's been lost last month. The other thing is Brady looked very Brady-ish yesterday. He was really sharp.

I don't feel – he only dumped the ball a couple times where he just did the panic, get rid of it move. But for the most part, mechanically, everything just looked old school Brady. He was locked in. There was a lot of fist pumps. Edelman, I think had his 97th concussion. When he has his hundredth concussion, they're going to actually stop the game and give him the ball. He won't know where he is, but, but yeah, he, he definitely got his brain scrambled yet again and comes back in and makes two more big catches. The,

but I thought Brady looked really good and they, they looked a little patsy whether it was just a one-time thing or whether that was a sign that maybe they're starting to figure it out. I don't know. Brady looked good. And I think we could stop with the, we have no receivers talk as long as Edelman's in there. I really do. Well, this, the new trade's been just a flat-out catastrophe i get it but there are some

teams around the nfl whose quarterbacks put up decent numbers with just as bad receivers jaguars you wouldn't trade receivers with the jaguars or carolina or cincinnati right i mean it's fine these quarterbacks have good numbers Sanu could maybe block somebody and maybe catch two passes. Yeah. Would be one of my hopes for him. They ran the ball, too. You should talk about that. I mean, Sonny Michel is looking like he belongs on the roster again.

Yeah. Last two weeks. I'm not going to hold my breath. I don't know why you and Kyle are so down on Sonny Michel. I know you've seen enough of his. I thought he was good. Yeah, good this weekend. Well, maybe he eats up in December. I know you've seen enough of it. I thought he was good this weekend. Maybe he eats up in December.

Maybe he's a Derrick Henry light. Hope so. The craziest thing about all these scenarios, and we'll do Guess the Lions in a second, the Raiders still have a chance to make the playoffs? Yeah. Here's what needs to happen. They need to beat Denver.

Realistic. The Ravens need to beat the Steelers. Pretty realistic, right? I know they're not playing for anything, but we've also seen the team that's not playing anything that's the one seed lay the smack down in these situations a lot. Can't be ruled out.

Plus, Steelers don't have a quarterback. Colts need to beat the Jaguars. The Jaguars look like they're already making plane reservations for vacation. And then the Texans need to beat the Titans. Here's the problem with it. And the Raiders were exciting today. And the Chargers sucked. I don't know why.

I bet the Chargers over on there was 26 and a half, which they haven't hit since like September. I was like, oh, this is a fixed line. I'm betting over. No, they just don't score points sorry that's how it is but the problem with this is and the raiders chances are pittsburgh and tennessee are probably going against backup quarterbacks yeah you know tennessee's probably going against aj mccarron pittsburgh goes against rg3 which i'm sure rg3 is better than a duck Rudolph or whoever it is, but, um, yeah, we've done merge. But, uh, that, that's the Raiders. Uh,

that's what happens when you lose to the jets Raiders. Let's uh, let's take one more break and then we're going to do guest lines and, and go through all the scenarios as we do guest lines. Cause there's a lot going on. Hey, the holidays are in full swing right now. You know, the rest of driving drunk. There could be a crash. People could get hurt or killed. You could get arrested, incur huge legal expenses, possibly even lose your job. According to NISDA's fatality analysis reporting system, 839 people

lost their lives in traffic crashes involving a drunk driver during the month of December 2018. During the Christmas and New Year's Day holidays in 2018 alone, there were more drunk driving related fatalities than during any other holiday period that year. It's illegal to drive with a BAC at or above.08 in 49 states in the District of Columbia. No exceptions in Utah. The limit is.05 BAC.

On average, a DUI could set you back $ 10,000 in attorney fees, fines, court costs, lost time at work, higher insurance rates, car towing, and more. Always remember to plan ahead if you're going to be celebrating over these next few days. Arrange for a sober driver or use public transportation or ride service to get home safely. You know the consequences of driving drunk. You're wrong if you think it's no big deal. Drive sober or get home safely. You know the consequences of driving drunk. You're wrong. If you think it's no big deal, drive sober or get pulled over. All right, here we go. I changed the categories around a little bit to accommodate all the weird shit that week 17 normally brings. We should mention this is always the funniest week of Guess the Lines because sometimes we're off by six, seven, eight points.

You just never know. Yeah, I'm off by five. Yeah, on a few of them, I'm off by close to five points. We're going to start with the Sunday night game, which is the marquee game. All right. Now, we don't have a do or die game this year on the Sunday night, which is usually fun,

but there is no do or die game. So they decided to do Seattle, san francisco the do is the five c and it's really not a bad consolation prize the loser goes to play most likely philadelphia i'm not even going to entertain that the uh scenario where the cowboys could still win the division but uh aside from having an extra game that's not an awful spot to be in. So if Seattle is home, if Seattle wins, they win the NFC West, and they end up... It seems like

they would be a two seed, I'm guessing. Right? Because the Saints would then be the one seed. Yeah, but if... Wait a minute. No, but they could lose a game on the Packers if the Packers win, right? If the Packers won both of these games, then the Packers would be Packers win, right? If the Packers won both of these games, then the Packers would be the

two seed. So yeah, they have the chance to be a two seed. If the Niners win, they win out. Then they're a one seed. So those are the stakes. These two teams played before. Seattle barely won.

And now we're back. San Francisco, I think, has been involved in the most fun games this year for good teams, right? Yeah, for sure. At least like six or seven really memorable, enjoyable, felt like a playoff game kind of games. If you would have told me one of the quarterbacks in that Rams-Niners game was going to get sacked, dumped five times, I would have thought it would be Go for sure, but it wasn't that, that, that it, that defense is screwing me up a little right now. I love the 49ers overall, but after seeing them and like you said, it's an exciting, exciting game when they beat the saints, exciting game when they beat the

Rams, but you do wonder what's going on with that defense. The Ravens game was fun. Well, the defense is banged up, but I also think teams probably figured out a couple of things too. Yeah. And the game yesterday, the pick six that got through was, was, was obviously not great for golf and the Rams, but I thought the Rams were really moving the ball as we end the season, the Rams. It's hard to say they're not one of the best 12 teams.

I know they're not making the playoffs, but yeah. Well, thanks for nothing. They killed me on 700 futures for sure. I have, I'll go into it, but I have the Colts seven and a half with the really exciting Jaguars game that I get to go against them potentially and hedge the thing. Wait, are they seven and eight? Yeah. They are? Oh, yeah, they are. They're seven and eight. Yeah, I have a chance to get there. Oh, good for you. All right.

So excited. Anyway, Seattle, San Francisco, Sunday night. I have Seattle favored by three points. All right, so that's what I did. And I'm looking at it. I'm going to look at this again because I don't think this is right. San Francisco is favored by three. In Seattle? Yeah. Jesus. I told you we'd be wrong on some of these

lines. Yeah, but that one we should get. I mean, that's as easy as it gets. Wait a minute. I want to look one more time. San Francisco. It would make sense because they have only one loss on the road, Seattle. They're a better road team than they are home. Well, it also goes back to what we said earlier. They've looked like dog shit. San Francisco, minus three, yeah. Jesus. That's really weird.

I do think they're the better team, but that's a tough win. I did too, and I thought that was a character game. There's a good clip on Instagram. The Niners' Instagram had a clip of Shanahan's speech after the game. Because the backup quarterback's brother got stabbed. Terrible story. Got stabbed to death. And he gave this speech and just

it was like a proud of you guys, but then talked about Bethard and how Bethard, the last thing he said to him after he was consoling him for an hour was try to get me a win. And he was so proud of his guys that they did that. And it just had the vibe of, it had a Super Bowl-y vibe, the whole thing. Like that definitely, that team's wired to be there, I think,

a couple rounds down the road. And I agree. I think they're better than Seattle. So I thought they would give Seattle more credit. Well, as someone who had Seattle on a money line parlay that just went up in flames because Brett Hundley was running for first downs on like third and 12.

Yeah, that was... Yeah, it's going to be hard for me to jump back on Seattle bandwagon this week. That was... There's some Marshawn Lynch rumors with Seattle right now. What do you mean? That they might... He's suing the team?

They might sign him for the playoffs. Oh, even better. AFC, the sixth seed is at stake. And it is either the Texans, the Steelers, or the Raiders. I mean, I'm sorry, the Titans, the Steelers, or the Raiders. It's in the Titans' hands. The Titans are on the road in Houston. Houston, as far as I can tell, has really nothing to play for

unless they want to bank on the Chiefs losing to the Chargers, which isn't happening. Is that even a thing anymore? Maybe not. But the Texans beat the Chiefs this year. Right. So in a tiebreaker, they'd win. In a tie, they would have it.

So I think the Chiefs have to win that game. Okay. They're not going to lose to would have it. Yeah. So I think the Chiefs have to win that game. Okay. They're not going to lose to the Chargers. No. So I have the Titans favored by two and a half in Houston. Yeah. Houston 10 and five. KC 11 and four.

So they would have to win. Say it again. I'm sorry. I have the Titans favored by two and a half. All right. Titans by two and a half. All right. Titans by two and a half. I had Titans by two. It's Titans by four, so you get it.

Oof. Four? They're for sure banking on second stringers in that Houston game. Jesus. And all day, that was one of the ones we were told, like, really? Titans don't have to win? If the Steelers beat the Jets and Titans lose, isn't that going to hurt them a little bit? Like, no, no, no. Doesn't matter. They still have to win. If the Steelers beat the Jets and Titans lose, isn't that going to hurt them a little bit? Like, no, no, no, doesn't matter.

They still have to beat Houston. I was so confused by that because I was going to load up on the Titans today and then everyone was like, it just doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what happens with them today. And it's like, really? Nothing matters? I mean, no, doesn't matter.

I had heard that if Derrick Henry was iffy, this was the game they were going to sit him. But it's still because of AFC tiebreakers, the Steelers, if they lost to the Jets, it would be an AFC game. And the tiebreaker-wise, that would vault the Titans ahead of them. It's just weird. The Chiefs have to be rooting for the Texans to somehow win this. They get Duck Rudolph. Duck Rudolph bounty hunter.

Yeah. No, because duck Rudolph dynasty, but I don't know. The Titans are scary. I don't think they're one of the best teams, but they have two game breakers when Henry's healthy.

This AJ Brown is all of a sudden in the top three discussion for offensive rookie of the year. Yeah. So you get two guys like that. Doesn't matter what kind of spread you have on it. Those guys can score any time the the tragic events of november 14th 2019 when i waved them on my fantasy team oh that's right i sent him packing jesus um i uh so just so just so you know there were three games flexed to late afternoon the one you just talked about

tennessee houston the pittsburghaltimore game, and Washington-Dallas. There's also four other 425 starts, but those three were flexed because they don't want any teams to have an advantage having known the result ahead of time. Right, and the one that would have had the advantage potentially is Raiders in the Broncos game if they knew that they actually had a chance to win. So the second team with a chance for the sixth seed is the Steelers. They are playing at Baltimore. And we've seen this before, and it's always weird. I have the Ravens by four, even though I don't think they're starting anybody.

Okay. I went way high. You were in the middle, and then the low end is the actual thing. I said six. You said four. It's two and a half. So I get that one. So you get that one, and again, I guess we're to assume no one's starting.

I feel like that one seed always surprises us in this game. The Ravens. Well, when it's the Patriots. Plus, the other thing is, they can run a lot of their offense with RG3. I like the Ravens.

I think the Steelers are done. Well, now Ingram. Ingram's going to be interesting. It looks like he's not going to play. He's got that injury. I think it's a sprain. Their next big game's in three weeks, so he might be back.

But that's a big loss if he's out. I think I was watching that when it happened and I thought he tore his calf because it was like a non-contact injury and he went down in a heap. I, that game, by the way, the classic Freddie kitchens. Did you see that game?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. The Ravens finally score. Browns get the ball back under two minutes left in the first half. And they maybe run 10 seconds off the clock before putting it back. The Ravens go down and score again. It was unbelievable. The other thing is-

I'm going to miss them. I don't know where this new book, we got to get this new book. It's Christmas time. Someone would buy me this new book that says, when you're down nine, you go for two. I'm screaming about it. And everyone's like, no, no, no. That's actually the right thing to do. you go for two. It's like, I'm screaming about it. And everyone's like, no, no, no. That's actually the right thing to do. It's percentage wise.

It's smarter. It's like, okay, there needs to be a new, new book for when Freddie Kitchens goes for two down nine, because that's what we're dealing with right now. And you know, it's not going to work. You go for two down nine when you've run 175 plays inside the four yard line and gotten a total of four yards.

Yes. Maybe we wouldn't do that. Yeah, that's a good addendum to the new book. Third one for the six seed is the Raiders are at Denver. I assume Josh Jacobs will play in this one because they'll actually think they have a chance to win. And since it's at the same time of the other games, I had to go Raiders by one and a half. All right.

So I went Denver by two. They've been playing well. I like them at home. They're playing defense. It's Denver by four. Ooh. Again, I'm going to check this because I know the Raiders aren't done. Well, they're going to be scoreboard watching.

They'll be done. Raiders. Yeah. Denver four. Yeah. Denver 4. So, which game is Tessitore getting in round one? I'm already getting focused on that. I hope he gets all of them. Can he get all of them?

I feel like he's got enough energy to do all of them. The funniest outcome would be if the Steelers somehow made it and he did the Steelers game. Hodges! Over the middle of the Chiefs! Funniest outcome would be is if he did, if the Steelers somehow made it and he did this Steelers game. Oh yeah. Hodges over the middle of James Connor for three yards.

And it's third and 18 Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh has a dozen of no name players that he'll, he'll demand that we get to know. That'd be great. You know, Eisen, Nate Burleson and Joe Thomas thomas were excellent yeah joe thomas let's get him a job he's good why can't he do games can we vote on this i saw joe thomas i think i was in oakland for thursday night it's when uh fox and uh nfl network chairs yeah you know sometimes i

share that he uh it bums me out he's slender offensive lineman you want these guys to be that's what happens when you stop playing football you balloon up to 400 no he's like 190 and freaking caught chiseled just kill me now

I have no hope get him in a booth we need more good people in booths, and I nominate him. That was a good crew. What game did they do Saturday? Did they do your game? No, they did the Jameis game. Oh, the Jameis game.

Which they announced with the proper amount of surprise, excitement, and horror. Do they get paid to do a Jameis? I feel like announcers shouldn't get paid to do a Jameis game. It's such a gift on its own. What a win he was this year. Almost a five banger. I know you were rooting for it, that five interception. He got the ball.

They shouldn't have gotten the ball back at the end. They did just for the five banger. I really wanted it. The three people that really won social media during football games this year, Lamar won, I think Jameis, too. And then the Browns. Just doing Browns stuff was probably the three. The Browns and Antonio Browns.

Those were our medalists. Yeah, Antonio and the Browns. Yeah. All right, it's time to take a little water break, if you get my drift. Last year, Crown Royal launched the first off-the-field water break to encourage fans of the game to moderate and hydrate to stay in the game. Whether you're watching in the stadium, watching at home, or in a bar,

have a great time. Enjoy some Crown. Don't be that person. That ruins it for everyone. Make the right call. Take a water break. So, Sal, who made the right call this week or not? Well, the right call was made by Jerry Jones.

I'm assuming this is a week from tomorrow. He let Jason Garrett go. I don't know what Jason Garrett had on him, but it was time. He was embarrassing the franchise. And Jerry, you finally saw it to it. I'm predicting the future here. This is a right call in the future. Thank you, Jerry.

We can move on. I really don't care who you get, but he's got to go. And thank you, Jerry Jones. You made the right call firing Jason Garrett. We'll see if it happens. It's got to happen. I just said it. My right call.

You were at Christmas Eve dinner, so you missed this. But Collinsworth was on like page 19 of his filler material because it was like 23-3 Chiefs in the fourth quarter. And Michaels was there were not even anys in the fourth quarter and Michaels was there were not even any gambling things going on to ignite Michaels. So Collinsworth is just going through his rainy day notebook and does this whole thing about

Al, I watch every throw from both of these guys, Trubisky and Mahomes. And if you watch the best throws of each guy, they're not that far apart. And then launched into this whole thing about how Trubisky, his best receiver is Allen Robinson.

And he is like, where would he rank on the Chiefs? Is he better than Tyreek Hill? No. Is he better than Kelsey? No. He's more in that Watkins, whatever. I don't know what was going on, where would he rank on the Chiefs? Is he better than Tyreek Hill? No. Is he better than Kelsey? No. He's more in that Watkins, whatever.

I don't know what was going on, but I'm giving it the right call of the week. Cause it was the most insane four minutes I've heard. Collinsworth comparing this convoluted Mahomes Trubisky comparison. I didn't know what was going on. And Michael's I think was just drinking eggnog and he was just out. He was just out completely. The confusing he was just out, just out completely. The confusing call of the week. It really was.

When we picked this game on Lock It In, Todd Furman, who's been struggling this year, said that this is going to be the Bears Super Bowl. They need to step up. They've heard enough about Trubisky being, you know, the Bears passing on Mahomes to take Trubisky. Everyone passed on Mahomes. The Bears did it and took Trubisky. They don't want to hear the end of it.

I was like, wait a minute. Timeout. What is this? You think because you think the Chiefs are going to have egg on their face after Sunday night for taking Mahomes over Trubisky? I was stunned. I had a headache afterwards, but it actually didn't add up. Well, it sounds like Todd Furman needs to take a water break.

Yeah, he should be waterboarded. Crown Royal reminds everyone this football season to take a water break and moderate to stay in the game. I think you should call him the struggling Todd. It's been, what is it? 15, 16 weeks slump now for him? I like that. He's won one out of

17 weeks because we started the week before football. That's tough. Alright, so we have next one we got to cover is the two seed versus the three seed in the AFC 17 weeks because we started the week before football. Next one we got to cover is the two seed versus the three seed in the AFC. Pats get it if they win. If they don't win and the Chiefs win, the Chiefs climb up to the two seed because they beat the

Pats. Pats are home against Fitzpatrick who was magnificent today. That was an incredibly exciting game that I actually happened to watch. The Bengals scored with 40 seconds left, recovered the onside, went down,

scored on a 30-yard Hail Mary. That Eifert caught it. And then the announcer goes, that was a basketball play right there. I want you to watch how he boxed out. And they show the replay and he doesn't box out at all. It was just directly to him. It was great.

I don't know who that announcer was. But then it goes- It wasn't our guy Tess, that's for sure. Then they go into, oh, if that had happened in a Tessitore game, he might have exploded. Yeah. And then they get the two point goes in overtime, Miami wins. So Miami's a little frisky right now. They are at least moving the ball.

And Devontae Parker has 120 to 180 yards every game. How about that guy signs a $40 million extension and then puts it up, shows he's worth it for a team that sucks. I have the Pats by 13 at home against the Dolphins. You boxed me out here. I said 12. I thought that was plenty enough. 15 and a half for your team.

Jesus, that's too high. Again, you don't score that much, but I guess the Dolphins force teams to score as many points as they are capable of, right? Yeah, we'd have to. The defense would have to get involved to cover that. I mean, the Giants scored a lot on it. Cincinnati scored

a lot on them. Well, Chiefs Chargers, that's in Kansas City. I have the Chiefs by 13 and a them. Well, Chiefs, Chargers, that's in Kansas City. I have the Chiefs by 13.5. Oh, wow. I said 9. It's only 7. Well, why would that be? I get that again. Let me check this again because I pulled

it in the fourth quarter. No, you know what? See, this is why I said earlier how week 17 we're off by 6 points to some of these. Vegas is accounting for the Pats are almost definitely going to beat the Dolphins. And if they're up by 14 in the third quarter, the Chiefs start taking everybody out.

Scoreboard watching. Yeah. Holmes doesn't play the whole game. Or he only plays a quarter and a half. Yep. All right. Well, it's still the Chargers. Yikes. All right right the NFC East

here are the two games Eagles at the Giants if they lose and the Cowboys beat the Redskins all right your pathetic Cowboys become the NFC East champs at 8-8 get the parade route ready there won't be a parade like this in Dallas

since JFK too soon 1963 probably still too soon the the Eagles this is a losable game for them can Jason Garrett sit in the back of the convertible alright that's Jerry Jones

crawling on the back of the car are? All right. Jerry Jones crawling on the back of the car. Are you telling me there's a 0% chance the Giants could win this game? The Giants had 38 points today. I did it and I looked for a second. I was like, why did I do this? So I looked at the two spreads and what the money lines would be.

It's like a two and a half to one odds chance that the Cowboys win the division still. Unbelievable. But I hate it. I don't want to watch it because I'm going to tell you what happened. Simmons. You don't even have to watch. The Cowboys are going to look dynamite against the Redskins.

I'm like, oh, forget it. They won by three touchdowns and the Eagles are going to be losing to the Giants. Eli is going to come in for an injured. Daniel Jones is going to be trying to finish off this team and he's going to throw a pick six, getting me back for all the terrible things I've said about him. That's how the Eagles win a division.

So lock it up. That's it. Do you want the Cowboys to make the playoffs? No. Serious question. Anything means Jason Garrett is getting even a day more than week 17. Yeah. He went coaching.

No, it can't be. I have the Eagles favored by three and a half at the giants. I think you know, I get it. I said five, it's four and a half. They giants i think you know i get it i said five it's four and a half they put it firm in the vegas zone i think the giants could win this well they could have won and maybe should have won monday night a couple weeks ago when they played them then the other

one cowboys at redskins in dallas it's gonna be a weird cowboys crowd right you think they'll be like fire garrett signs and stuff yeah yeah i I'm going to try to make 12 a day. I don't know. You'll see them. You're flying down there on a Friday. It's been all Christmas Day knowing it. Cowboys minus nine I have over the Redskins. You edged me out here.

I said eight and a half. They went as high as 11 and a half here. 11 and a half. They scored nine points today. They're favored by 11 and a half. That's what I mean. It's crazy. The same thing with all these teams. Okay. here. 11 and a half. They scored nine points today. They're favored by 11 and a half. It's crazy. The same thing with all these teams. Next group, the NFC two-seed,

three-seed, four-seed group. I like the way you did this, Simmons. I rarely ever compliment you, but this is a nice way to space it out. Packers, Saints, Vikings, all playing. The Packers right now, they only have to win once, and it looks like they're the two seed.

I mean, or they win the NFC North. If they win twice, they're the two seed. Saints, Vikings, probably a wild card unless some weird shit happens. Packers in Detroit. Detroit, apparently Matt Patricia's coming back. We made all those jokes about him getting fired and then Detroit's Adam and he's coming back. So congrats to the Lions fans.

It's great. Got him for a third year. That's bizarre. I mean, it's weird how some coaches get a break when the star quarterback goes and Riverboat Ron doesn't. You know,

it's very strange to me. So I have Packers by nine in Detroit. Good call. I said seven. It's nine and a half. I have saints by nine in Carolina. That one was way high. You're going to get that one too.

I said seven and a half. It's 12 and a half. Jesus. As I said earlier, this is the one week we'll be off by five or six points on yeah well the saints defense was phenomenal the pressure they put on townhill all day and if will greer's back there you have to figure the saints that it's going to be the same thing although mccaffrey how many receptions did he have 14 or something stupid today yeah something like that he's he's gone for that all purpose yards record.

Yeah. Mallory talked about it on my pot on Thursday. I remember breeze having some bad games in Carolina over the years. Right. Yeah. You think, I mean, he showed me a lot.

I think they only played outdoors. This was breezes first game outdoors this year in a game that he finished. He played the Rams outdoors against, you know, and then got hurt, right? This is why the touchdown pass record should have the fucking asterisk next to it. You think so? Oh, my God. I mean, imagine if like in basketball, the scoring leader and one guy played half of his games outdoors and the other guy got to play just inside an arena his entire career? Come on, Breeze.

Drew the Astros Breeze. And then you got kickers for long field goals and stuff like that and thin air. Yeah. I don't like how you try to flip that back. Well, because Brady's in third now. If he jumps up to first, you're going to love it. All I know is Tom Brady's out there in 20-degree weather.

Drew Breeze plays in Carolina once a year. He's like, oh my God, it's so cold out. If he jumps up to first, you're going to love it. All I know is Tom Brady's out there in 20 degree weather. Drew Brees plays in Carolina once a year. He's like, oh my God, it's so cold out. Yeah, he's good. He's really, really good. He's had it with the Drew Brees records. Oh, wow. Hiding in a dome for his career. San Diego in a dome.

I have to say- Tom Brady's in the AFC. He's like a man. That's the Super Bowl I want to see. I want to see Brady Brees. That would be fun. Let's do it. We haven to see. I want to see Brady Breeze. That would be fun. Let's do it. We haven't seen it.

Vikings-Bears is the third one. The Bears looked awful today. I had the Vikings by seven and a half. Oh, man. Beating the hell out of me. I said seven. I thought I'd get it. It is seven and a half.

Now, the Vikings, this will go down to nothing if they have nothing to play for, right? If they lose Monday? Yeah, so if they lose on Monday... If they lose Monday, would they be... Yeah, they're out of the loop. If they lose Monday, they're... A six. Pretty much a guaranteed six seed, yeah.

So then that would become... Yeah. Then everybody sits and they're up against... It's too hard to figure out who. They might be up against the Saints, but... Would you rather play the Vikings or the Seahawks in round one? You're home? I'm home either way.

Would I rather play the Vikings or the Seahawks? I think the Vikings. I don't know why the Seahawks have this mystical effect on the road. Well, if Cook's hurt, probably would want Minnesota. All right. So now we are moving to the meaningless games, which we'll go through quickly. Buffalo is playing the Jets. This game means nothing.

Jets have a chance to finish 7-9, though, which is impressive. Unbelievable. I have the Bills by 8.5 in this game. All right. So you really whipped Impressive. I have the bills by eight and a half in this. All right. So you really whipped on this. I said three, they have bills by one, which means they can't be playing anybody.

Right. Oh, so they think the bills are just not even, they're playing just seconds. That's a lock. That's a lock game. Isn't it? Bills Texans.

Yeah, but I thought the, Oh, I guess they're locked into the five seat either way. I don't think they can move. Yeah blew that one oh well I was due next one is uh Tampa's home for the Falcons I have Tampa by two and a half the James goes big screen yeah you get me here I said I went high I said three and it's only one is Tessa tour involved in week 17 they should send him to this game whoever what is this a Fox game

Fox should be allowed to get Tessitore for a week could they do that he's open 5200 yards for Jameis is he your new Gus your new Gus Johnson yeah I thought my nickname for him

is Gust Johnson. Oh, Gus Johnson. Gust with a T. Gust Johnson. Yeah. Yeah. Colts, Jaguars? Nobody's going to be watching this one except me because I have Colts seven and a half wins for the season. I have the Colts favored by

three and a half in Jacksonville. You're going to get it. I thought the Jags would be favored. I was like, what do they care? It'll be a one point game. Colts are favored by three and a half. Iville. You're going to get it. I thought the Jags would be favored. I was like, what do they care? It'll be a one-point game. Colts are favored by three and a half. Oh, I'm sorry. Colts are favored by three, so you get it. You have to lay a little the hedge.

Oh, no, you take Jacksonville. I take the Jags. Yeah, I could try to middle it. I'm going to try to middle the shit out of this. Yeah, you could get this. Rams home for the Cardinals. They look good, though, by the way. How does a team... You talk about a Monday to Sunday change?

Yeah. They couldn't look worse against the Saints, and then they're just lighting it up against today. Who did they play? What bad team did they play? Somebody bad. The Panthers? Yeah, Panthers.

Oh, was it the Panthers? I tried not to watch any of that game. Yeah. Rams home for the Cardinals. This could set a record for fewest people at a Rams game because there's no Cardinals fan. There's no Cardinals fans. They're not traveling for this. No. So who's at this game?

Who wants to go to this game? If Hundley plays, well, what happened with Kyle Murray? If Hundley played, that's a UCLA guy. Maybe, maybe, maybe people care. Maybe 2,000 extra people. Yeah. I have Rams by uh oh i forgot about the hunley thing now i'll stick to what i picked i had rams by six and a half all right i we're gonna split it you don't even know what you're doing we split it's seven and i went seven

and a half so last one the poopfecta you killed me 11 to five so far yeah one more theopfecta. You killed me. 11-5 so far. Yeah. One more. The Poopfecta Bowl. Browns at Bengals. Bengals desperately trying to not get the number one pick in Joe Burrow. The onside kick. I don't know what they were doing, but now they officially have him. Congratulations to Joe Burrow.

Isn't he from Ohio? He is, right? Yeah. Yeah. So now he gets to go to Cincinnati. That's a cool story. I have the Browns by three. All right, you nailed it, and you killed me this week. I said five.

I don't know why I said that. They shouldn't give anyone five. It is exactly three, so you win that. All right. Bill Simmons, 12 to five. Yeah, you killed me on the very tough week 17. I'm rooting against the Browns here. This will be fun.

I think Andy Dalton gets out there. He's like, screw this. I'm a better quarterback than Baker Mayfield. I don't care if I'm on this team next year. Got to win this game. I think Freddie's on your show in two weeks. Oh, interesting. I love nothing more.

It's a fourth seat. They add a fourth seat. It's like when Shaq joined inside the NBA and TNT. They just added a seat. It's going to be Freddie. I love nothing more. It's a fourth seat. They add a fourth seat. It's like when Shaq joined inside the NBA and TNT. They just added a seat. It's going to be Freddie. I love it. Freddie's going to be on there with you. You're going to have Clay Travis screaming at him like Odell Beckham,

get me out. Get me out of here. Come get me. Yeah, he was come get me. He did a come get me to Lamar. It's like, Odell, you don't seem happy anywhere you are. Why do I want to come get you? The perennially unhappy guy. Hey, you want to come play for my team? You seem like a barrel of laughs. As soon as things go wrong, you're telling the other team

you want to play for them. All right. It's time for Parent Corner. As always, it's brought to you by CarMax. Explore CarMax.com. 50,000 CarMax certified vehicles nationwide. Search filters that make it simple to narrow down options, especially the ability to search by budget. This is what nephew Kyle did when he found a Mustang he was interested in. He was able to have it shipped for free from the Oxnard CarMax to the more convenient location for him in Burbank. For a test drive, he felt comfortable about choosing the Mustang because it was CarMax certified.

Even noticed the car came with a new pair of tires. How are those tires, Kyle? Holding up. Holding up. There you go. CarMax rules out millions of vehicles with their vetting process to select only the best to become CarMax certified. They even have MaxCare, an optional service plan that Kyle added for additional coverage after CarMax's 90-day $4,000, whichever comes first, limited warranty. How's that MaxCare working out for you, Kyle?

It feels good. I had to grab that, no doubt. Great job by you. At CarMax, the price is based on the car, not your negotiating skills. There's never any haggling or pressure to buy. We'll get back to CarMax in a second. Sal, you're on the clock. Hold on.

We're not both going to be able to hear, but is there a speaker phone or anything? Yeah, there's a speaker. All right, go ahead. What's going on, Simmons? What kind of a slave driver are you? I mean, we're having Christmas Eve right now. We're almost done. I mean, what kind of, how much of this do people need to hear?

We're done. We're about to do parent corner. Do you have a parent corner? Yeah, I have a parent corner. Here's the parent corner. Sal is nowhere near his children on Christmas Eve. Parent corner is empty. There's no parent in the parent corner.

I have a parent corner for you, though right let's hear it okay so you know the elf on the shelf is a big thing in our house yeah and like a big thing like it consumes us because we forget it then we have to lie the whole next day so we try to remember it and most of the time we do but my daughter jane who's five years old says where does the elf go at night and my wife molly says well the elf goes to the north pole to tell santa what he saw and jane says well how does he get all the way back here in the morning and molly says, well, magic, I guess. And Jane says, am I supposed to believe all of this? She's five, by the way. That's fantastic.

It's a smart kid. She hasn't started kindergarten yet. Well, watch out. She'll be lurking on the stairwell when you're putting the presents on there, trying to see. Let me tell you what's going on right now. child's children are opening their gifts is that really true yeah oh we gotta finish then yeah that's why i came up because people because there are tears downstairs like where's daddy and and everyone's saying well daddy's doing a podcast

and everybody's going what's a podcast and they say well as you know you'll know when you're a little bit older what a podcast is but right now daddy's doing it and it might as well be heroin you might as well say daddy's doing heroin you know it's bad when corolla's rolling yeah girl oh jesus by the way corolla's totally sober and bonding with his children right now no way meanwhile sal is you should see where Sal is right now. He might as well be sitting in my bathroom. I don't believe the Corolla thing for a second. Well, yeah.

Either part of that. I may have exaggerated a little with Corolla. I don't believe either part of that, nor do I believe the elf on the shelf. Well, I'm glad. I'm excited I got a chance to be part of Parent Quarter. That's really why. That was great.

Thanks for coming on, Jimmy. Okay. Bye. All right. I'm going to wind it up. That's really why. That was great. Thanks for coming on, Jimmy. Okay. Bye. All right. I'm going to wind it up. I've winded down. All right. I'm not going to top that Parent Corner.

So you want to borrow that for your parent? Yeah, that'll be mine. All right. Jimmy. Yeah, yours is. That's it. Say hi to the family. Merry Christmas.

Happy Hanukkah. All that stuff. And and we will talk to you before round one. Okay. Good job by you. Good job by you. Parent Corner was presented by CarMax. At CarMax, the price is based on the car, not your negotiating skills.

There's never any haggling or pressure to buy. Kyle found that out the best possible way. He worked with Kobe and the helpful business office staff at CarMax to buy the Mustang he wanted. He was surprised by how easy and hassle-free the whole car buying experience at CarMax turned out to be. He's covered with a seven day money back guarantee. He had a full week to make sure everything about the Mustang was just the way he likes it. And it was right, Kyle.

Indeed it was. You can select an optional max care service plan for additional coverage, which Kyle did as well. Anyway, check it out at carmax.com. All right, it's time to talk Eddie Murphy with J.A. Adande. All right, this was a big weekend for a lot of people, especially people right around my age range. I think it meant the most. One of those people is the director of sports journalism at Northwestern, my former ESPN colleague, J.A. Adande. You might've heard him on the Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast a couple of weeks ago.

I saw him tweeting about Eddie Murphy's return to SNL. And I was deciding today, who do I want to talk about this with? And I was like, you know what? This means something to Adande. I can feel it. What was the weekend like for you? I stayed home on a Saturday night and a pretty decent, warm, relatively warm night in Chicago for December. My whole weekend was based around watching this, this Eddie Murphy appearance on sent out live. And it did not disappoint. Were you scared? Cause I was scared. I was scared all week. I didn't talk about a lot. I was, my fear was that it was going to be bad because the show has not been good this year. The cast and the writing has not been great, not up to the usual standards. And Eddie hasn't done this since 1984 or 1985. And I was just like, man, it's almost not worth

it for this to happen because the downside is so much greater than the upside. And then when he was out there, I was like, this is the best. I'm so glad he did this. He did make it look so easy. You know what's funny is, I guess I didn't have those same fears because I haven't been watching. I've seen the sketches with Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump, and it feels like that's been my only exposure to Saturday Night Live.

I definitely haven't watched it live this year. So, you know, similar to that joke that Eddie said, you know, black people haven't watched since he left the show in 84. I wouldn't quite say that, but, um, you know, so, so I didn't have that fear because I hadn't seen what the, the day in day out sketch to sketch product had been like. Um, but I didn't have that fear. I, you know, when, when has he ever been bad is the thing, you know, like he hasn't been in this format in a long time, but when has he ever been bad? You just never know. I, I talked,

Sandler was on my pod the other day and he said, it's, you know, KG asked him actually if it was like just riding a bike at non and he said, you know, there's so much adrenaline at the beginning. And then you learn how to control it. And I felt like Eddie during that show, it wasn't really until weekend update when you could feel, when you could feel that he felt he was a hundred percent comfortable because he started coloring outside the lines in that segment and ad-libbing and, and turning the tables on those guys and going off script and doing all the stuff that,

you know, when, when we were growing up in the eighties, that's what made the show so great. It wasn't just that he's the most talented cast member they've ever had, that he was, I think, really him and maybe Will Ferrell were the only two guys ever to kind of be overqualified to be on that show. But then he was so good at it, it was almost like those basketball players,

the really, really great ones who just start fucking around during the game because they're so great. You know, you'll see LeBron do this sometimes. Back in our day, Bird and Magic. Larry Bird shooting left-handed all game. Yeah, and Eddie was so good at SNL that he would just start doing that during sketches

and start kind of creating out of nowhere. And the cast members either went with it or they didn't. I felt like he started to do that in the Gumby thing. And that was my favorite part of the show. Gumby just shouldn't work in 2019. It was so freaking funny. Well, that aged the best. Well, Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood had a fortuitous return of Mr. Rogers, you know, obviously

who the character is based on, you know, a spinoff of, you know, and so it helped that Mr. Rogers, the movie just came out. So it's kind of been a misurgence of Mr. Rogers, but that made this character feel more relevant. Buckwheat didn't really work for me just because he's been gone since Eddie Murphy left the show. He's been gone since the mid-eighths. We haven't thought about Buckwheat, and, you know, it's just based on his mispronunciations. That one didn't work so much, and then Gumby, Gumby shouldn't work, but just the whole concept of a young black man dressing up in a giant green styrofoam costume to portray a claymation, you know, character as an old Jewish vaudeville guy. I mean, just when you say the sentence, it's hilarious.

And his execution has always been perfect on it. And yeah, Gumby, it's just a concept. It's just a concept. Eddie Murphy's sitting there in that ridiculous costume, you know, acting like an old Jewish man. And it's hilarious. I'm Gumby, damn it. Like you have me with those, you know, those three words.

And he was started roasting the two-week update guys, which was great too. Yeah, it's funny. Buckwheat, even when we were growing up, I barely knew what Buckwheat was. I didn't watch the Little Rascals. I only knew about the Little Rascals from Saturday Night Live's interpretation of The Little Rascals. So now you're talking 38 years later. I did watch them. Yeah. It's funny. They were just

starting to go off as they came on. I actually just started this book about how The Little Rascals were way ahead of their time because it's in the 30s and 40s and they've got this integrated cast of young kids. And even there's some you know painful stereotypical you know uh oh yeah cool like you know pick a mini sort of caricatures of the black kids the black kids had a lot of authority they were actually paid you know as much if not more than the white kids there was a lot of racial equality on that but by the 70s and 80s, there was, you know, you just couldn't make it hold up. So they were disappearing from the popular culture because, you know, the racial stereotyping was just too painful in that era.

Yeah. You know, and so he kept it alive for a little bit. But, you know, there's, there's, there's actually a lot going on, uh, in terms of racial progress with, with the, uh, with the little rascals, but yeah, it, this was getting hard to translate. So he personally kept it alive. Um, and, and then, you know, as soon as he stopped doing it, he had little rascals just mean nothing to anybody under 40. I think. I thought if I had to bet on a sketch and maybe it was just too hot for them to do, meaning it would have just been too close to the line, but I thought for sure he was going to play Cosby in jail and Trump coming into Cosby's cell as his new roommate,

like in 2022 or something. Because Eddie has always hated Bill Cosby because Bill Cosby was a real jerk to him way back in the day. And he talked about this on Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee with Seinfeld. Cosby was so dismissive

and condescending to him during his rise. And, you know, Eddie's kind of held a grudge about it. And I thought he would really go after him. But I think maybe that's just the third rail. And he didn't want any part of it in his comeback thing he definitely got his shot in the monologue he did you know and he basically and and not only did he get in his shot at Cosby I

thought that was like the greatest illustration of his talent because he just became Bill Cosby for a second right did the facial expression and you're watching like oh my god that's just a dead on Cosby but I tried to do that in the mirror this morning and it's not as easy as he made it look. Like he just, he looked at him like that. Bill Cosby, you know, the little eye roll and the, you know, jello pudding. Right.

And he had that expression on his face. And so he got a shot in, but also I thought in just a brief, ever so briefly, he showed, you know, the complete upper limits of his talents as a comedian as well. Yeah, he didn't sing was the only thing he really didn't do, but that was a huge advantage for him in the early eighties. And he was James Brown or Stevie Wonder. He was actually a really good

singer. And it was one of the reasons the imitation worked. The faces, especially in Mr. Robinson, which I'm sure he hasn't done on stage in at least 35 years. How many different expressions did he come up with in five minutes? I couldn't believe he pulled that. You know, talk about dusting the cobwebs off. 35 years is a long fucking time. I was, you know,

I was going through puberty the last time he did that sketch. And yeah, just how he can make those things work is that breaking those, you know, the third wall, the fourth wall, you know, breaking that wall and looking at the cameras and just those little asides made that sketch.

And, you know, it's interesting. Go ahead. I was just going to say when you talked about relevant, it wasn't just relevant from the Mr. Rogers movie. They were able to tie gentrification into it, which I thought was really smart. I didn't even think of that. I didn't think of that as a possible angle. But him having these nerdy white neighbors and all that stuff was like, oh, that's brilliant.

I was fired up they thought of that. It was a great update. And then it's funny. A lot of people thought that the final sketch was the best. That was the one time where he did. It might have been new to a lot of people thought that the final sketch was the best that was the one time where he did it might have been new to a lot of people now everything else is just kind of playing his his hits but that that that sketch kind of the black eyewitness was something that was on his very first comedy album right um there's something called hit by a car and and and he does you know early prototypical version of that and the interesting thing is that

that has aged well because you know in the youtube era we've all been exposed to you know everyone across the country he was doing something that was you know in in new york neighborhood that everyone in his neighborhood has seen you know the guy that shows up like and and it it kicks in about four minutes in the routine and it's just the guy that witnesses the car accident that kind of embellishes and probably didn't even see it, but this is his time to get some attention. He comes in, oh, shit, yeah, you got this. I'm walking down the street, right?

I'm walking down the street, my mother. Walk down the street, boom. It's hilarious, and then we've seen it like Charles Ramsey, the dead giveaway guy in Cleveland that found the kidnapped girls down the street on his block. And it's funny because he literally said the same thing Eddie Murphy said, and that's good. I wrote it down.

He said, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms. Dead giveaway. And Eddie Murphy said almost the same thing. Antoine Dodson is another guy that kind of became virally famous. And Eddie Murphy was doing this back before things could go viral. So he recognized this character. And now everyone has seen that guy, some version of that character, through a YouTube clip.

Yeah, a lot of the choices that were made yesterday I thought were purposeful. And with real thought put behind it. And I think the ending, doing that, as they always call that the 10 to one sketch, the last sketch doing a callback to basically his first comedy album way, way, way, way,

way back then I thought was purposeful. I also thought it was purposeful when, uh, just a throwaway evisceration of Piscopo in the monologue, because I'm sure, I don't know what happened to him in Piscopo in the monologue. Yeah. Because I'm sure, I don't know what happened to him in Piscopo, but when he left the show, they were tight,

and they were tight for a little while. And I remember Piscopo had, he did one comedy special, I think for MTV, and him and Eddie did a parody of Miami Vice called New Jersey Vice. Do you remember this? I don't,

but just the concept of it sounds like Gumby. Piscopo was Sonny Crockett and Eddie was Tubbs basically, but it's in New Jersey. So the opening credits was like the Miami Vice with the speed boats and the hot woman, but it was New Jersey. So it was like toll booths and garbage and stuff like that. But then they, I think they were going to pay for a toll and neither of them had a quarter. And in slow motion, they were looking at each other like panic that nobody had changed. It was really good. So they were friends all the way to that point. And then I'm not sure what happened. And then that led to the, uh, the little drive-by shooting of Piscopo and that. What was your reaction seeing,

I don't even know how to describe it, black comedy royalty in the monologue? Yeah. Everybody but Pryor, basically. Pryor's not alive, but everybody else was there. And it was amazing. I'm just wondering whose idea that was. Did Eddie say, hey, I'm doing Sound Live. I want all you guys there.

Or did the writer say, hey, we should bring them in. Or did, you know, Chris Rock or Chappelle said, you know, it reminded me a little bit of when LeBron and Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony went to the Nets game to catch Dwayne Wade's last game in the New York area. Remember that? Yeah. Because that was like really organic. Cause that was just the guys like, Hey, we're going to go see our boy,

you know, one last time, you know, play. I wonder if it was like that, that the similar thing, like, Hey,

we got to be there. Eddie's Eddie's going back on Saturday live. We got to be there for him. Um, you know, or did somebody say, Hey, would be great in the monologue.

Or did Eddie say, no, I don't really want to do a monologue. I just want to, you know, have this, this black comic reunion on, on, would be great in the monologue, or did Eddie say, no, I don't really want to do a monologue, I just want to have this black comic reunion on stage. Obviously, all those guys, as they said, owe a tremendous debt to him, and it was

just a great moment, and an acknowledgement to Eddie Murphy what his priorities are, that he always did want to expand opportunities for black people and black comedians and to break ground and to push the boundaries. And I think he is really proud of that legacy.

You know, that Dave Chappelle is his legacy. Chris Rock is his legacy. Yeah, see, I thought... I thought everything in that show last night was purposeful, including having those guys up there. I think he did it. My guess is he did it for two reasons. One, he didn't want, if he's by himself doing a monologue, now the expectations are rising,

right? And now people are expecting him to basically be doing Delirious or Raw up there for 12 minutes. And he probably was afraid if he could do that or not. So having other people on stage with him is, you know, a buffer for that. But then also I think it was a meaningful moment and it goes back to something. I think it was a meaningful moment for him. And it goes back to something. I remember I wrote, I wrote about Eddie in 2011 for Grantland about his whole career when he had Tower Heist

coming out about how basically the main theme was he never got credit for being a pioneer. You think of certain people in pop culture have gotten the pioneer tag attached to them. Sidney Poitier is a good example, right? People, oh, he's a pioneer in the 60s and they'll list all this stuff. When Eddie came to SNL and he's 19, it's 1980 and the show's about to die. It was a bizarre time for TV with black characters because when we were growing up, it was an overload of awesome black TV characters

and black TV shows, you know? Good times, what's happening. Sanford and Son, Jefferson's, White Shadow. And I did all the research when I wrote this piece by 1981, when Eddie really started to take off on SNL. Really, the only character on a top 20 show who or, you know, like the Jeffersons lasted until the mid-80s. Different strokes lasted. But, you know. 227 maybe was around there. Wasn't the same. TV got super white.

And SNL was a show. I did the research on this, too. I think the first five seasons, they only had five guest hosts who were black. One of whom was Bill Russell, amazingly. Wow. only had five guests so so we're black one of whom was bill russell amazingly um so so obviously who then there's a whole thing about whether you know prior would have been an original snl cast member but like some people were in the network thought he was a little too risky right and they were afraid to even have him host so by the time eddie shows up

the landscape is barren and then the guy who shows up ends up being the most gifted cast member the show's ever had, you know, and brings black culture onto that show in all these different ways. He's doing, I barely knew, I'm a little white kid growing up in New England. I barely knew who James Brown was until Celebrity Hot Tub.

You know, what he did for culture in general, I thought has been really, really underrated. Do you think it's fair to call him a pioneer? It's interesting. I hadn't thought of it that way just because, you know, and he would be the first to tell you so much of what he did was following in the footsteps of Richard Pryor. So, you know, Pryor was a pioneer and Pryor, you know, maybe Eddie Murphy doesn't get the film break that he gets without Richard Pryor doing the movies that he did, in particular, Stir Crazy, right, with Gene Wilder. Yeah. Which really set Pryor up to be a crossover star and was kind of like a forerunner, you could argue, of Trading Places or 48 Hours.

Something I want to get into is, you know, his portrayal of blackness and especially as compared to Richard Pryor. So, you know, Eddie Murphy, you know, and we came to realize that he really wasn't Axel Foley or Reggie Hammond. Like he wasn't that cool. Right. You know, but he played that character. Like his quote unquote black character was kind of like Robin Williams, if you think about it. And he just had a little more license to go that road just because, you know, Robin Williams could do it in limited doses. But it was kind of a stereotypical affected, you know, black accent, black dialect. Yeah. And Robin Williams did it and Eddie Murphy was able to do it and it felt more authentic,

but it wasn't authentically who he was was as we would kind of find out later. Um, you know, Richard Pryor was great because he was sort of a character. He was the person Eddie Murphy tried to portray in some ways, but Richard Pryor would go in a different direction and he would, he would, uh,

show black fear. Like prior had a great comic, uh, routine where he was in his very kind of forecast, the whole black Matter movement in a way and just dealing with the police and just how afraid black people were in any interaction with the police, how it was different? You know, black people, he talks about, you know, basically being a masqueraded guy. Black guys on a date, you know, and the cops pull him over and he just has to be super careful. He's got a famous line. I am reaching into my pocket to pull out his wallet and get his ID. You know, don't shoot me.

You know, but the fear, the black fear that he had. Whereas Eddie Murphy would get into kind of the black audaciousness you know if you notice he did it in the mr robinson where he yells at them like hey you know basically yells you know shames the the white couple that knocks at his door that you know you're trying to say a story on television you know um you know so he would get loud and bold and that's how he would kind of perform blackness right it was kind of of that loud boldness, whereas Richard Pryor could take it in different directions. And Eddie Murphy, you know, he came off as that cool, you know, he portrayed that cool character in his early movies. But, you know, maybe he was more like, you know, Donkey and Shrek or, you know, Professor Klump, right?

And the Nutty Professor. You know, it's interesting that he wasn't as cool. And I thought it showed in that Eddie Murphy story, you remember, I'd never seen until then that clip of him at the MTV Music Awards or the MTV Video Awards with Morris Day. And they just start roaming around. And he's like, come on, Morris, let's go.

And Glenn Frey comes along. And Morris Day is so much cooler than Eddie Murphy naturally. And Eddie Murphy is all of a sudden struggling to keep up with Morris Day's coolness. Morris Day's like, hey, as long as we're going, we need some women with us, right? If we're going to go hang out, it's not a party without some women. And Morris Day is ready to pick women out of the audience.

And you feel Eddie Murphy trying to keep up with Morris Day's coolness because he wasn't as cool as Morris Day. I thought that was kind of a fascinating glimpse when he tried the audible and he was like, oh, I got to keep up with Morris Day's coolness now because he's better at this than I am. Well, that was part of the reason I think he tried to become the Black Elvis, basically.

Like with the outfits that he'd wear in the comedy specials and buying his own kind of compound in New Jersey and all that stuff. He tried to have some of the mystique. I think that he was barring from other people. Kind of weird. He's got a weird vibe. So he, I was the only time I've been around him was at a Laker game one time. And I was in that, that whatever they call it now,

the chairman's room was what they used to call it. That kind of where the, you know, the celebrities go at halftime of the Laker game at Staples center. And I'm in there and he was in there. And I've never been shy about going up to somebody whose work I really admire. Yeah. Like, as I certainly do with him.

But some, like, the vibe around him, like, made me not want to go. And it's not like he would stand off. It's hard to explain. But it was just the type of vibe that made me not want to talk to him. You know, not like he's always friendly. Whenever I see him at a Laker game, people are like, Eddie Murphy, you know, wave and smile at people.

So it's not like he's standoffish. Yeah, but I think... But he just has this vibe around him, this energy that's like, I wouldn't want to hang out with him and talk to him. I think he became so famous at such a young age that that's pretty tough. When you're one of the biggest stars in the world by 22, and by 1984, I think Michael Jackson was the most popular celebrity. And Eddie might've been second

by the time Beverly Hills Cop comes out. And he wasn't even 25 yet. So at that point, when is he ever gonna have a normal conversation with anybody? Yeah, maybe. Maybe it did happen so soon. I didn't realize how young he was at the time, because when you're young, anyone that's two years older than you

seems like they're 10 years older, right? Right. So it was actually the story you guys had on The Ringer, talking about him and how he was 19 when he saved Sound Out Live. And I said, God, I didn't realize he was that young. Hold on. Let's take a quick break. We'll come back. Let's talk about Square. They make that little white reader that helps businesses

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And while Square can't do all that work, it can help with a lot more than you think. See how Square can take your business from Square One to whatever's next at square.com slash go slash BS. Okay, picking up on Eddie being young. And how quickly he blew up. So this is a great IMDb.

I think, if not for best defense, remember that movie he did where he had a role in a Dudley Moore movie called Best Defense? It's a cash grab. So if not for that, I think he arguably would have had the best three-movie start of anyone on IMDb. Because you take out Best Defense,

and then you go co-starring role in 48 Hours, co-starring role in 48 Hours. Yeah. Co-starring role in Trading Places and then starring role in Beverly Hills Cop. Like, boom, boom, boom. If you take out Best Defense, those are his first three movies. And, you know, I really challenge you to find somebody who had a better start of, you know, at the very least, co-starring roles, co-starring or starring roles in three memorable, rewatchable, to use your word, movies at the first three movies out of gate in their movie career. Best defense ruins it.

With high stakes for the first two, too. I think you could even keep best defense and say first four and he still wins. Because three of those four are iconic. Yeah. Most people have some secondary role or background role. From the get-go, he's playing co-starring roles. The movies don't work unless he's as good as he is in those roles. You mentioned the stuff that Pryor concentrated on with his comedy versus what Eddie did. To me, I look at Eddie as he was raised by pop culture, basically.

And he's in that first wave of entertainers in the 80s. And I think Seinfeld was a lot like this too, and some others. And you could see it in the, especially the first few seasons of Seinfeld and him and George sitting at the diner, a lot of those arguments about Superman and things like that, that were just like, he was just somebody raised on pop culture and Brady Bunch and all the shows that everybody watched. And I think that was a lot of Eddie's comedy.

And you, you look at those first two albums that he did, and then some of the stuff he does on SNL and it's, you know, like he, he did, what, what was the, um, what was the Jackie Gleason show? The Honeymooners? He had a whole Honeymooners thing. He had a whole Elvis thing. He did Mr. T, um, on, on SNL, like a lot of the characters he did, like, you know, we

talked about little rascals. Um, a lot of it was pop culture or music, right? James Brown, Stevie Wonder. And the culture of it, I think was the thing that appealed to him. Whereas prior it was like, you know, he, he was more into the social side of things. It was pop culture. And also, I think this is also a function of his youth, right? So he didn't have a lot of experiences when he was coming up

doing stand-up right so he had he had his family which he mined you know for yes you know he really looked for kind of the you know the archetypical back black family members you know the guy's uncle at the grill or aunt bunny falling down the steps you know so so he would mine or the you know the aunt with the mustache you know give me a bunny kiss all that stuff you know so so he would mine the ant with the mustache, you know, he'd come keep the ant bunny kiss, all that stuff. You know, so he mined the black family dynamic. And then because he hadn't done a lot of stuff, yeah, then his next thing was to turn to pop culture. And Elvis?

He did the super political thing. He did that whole thing on Elvis, Fat Elvis? Yeah. Yeah, the titans of pop culture. And what's interesting is that, you know, so I looked it up. I'm like, which generation is he? So like, he's right on the border. Some people say Generation X starts in 1961. Some people say it starts in 1964. He was born in 1961. But if you think about it, you know, he basically came up with the same pop culture that we did as

Gen Xers, right? So he doesn't really reference anything that came before. And also that pop culture of that time was basically the same from like the television was the same from the 50s through the 70s pretty much, right? Like we watched Honeymooner reruns.

We watched, you know, I Love Lucy reruns, which I think was another one that he referenced right i think he did in delirium references i love lucy yeah no he did a whole thing about ricky yeah so all those things you know are things that both baby boomers and gen x gen x we saw you know we saw those shows so we got as as young gen xers coming up we got all of his pop culture references he wasn't talking about the beatles he really didn't talk about things that weren't around when we were growing up and uh and so i i think that makes him really the first gen x i think he's more gen x than than

the baby boom and you know so that made it easier for us to relate. He talked about stuff that we knew. Mr. T, Honeymooners, I Love Lucy. Sliced Alone. All those things were, yeah, were things that, yeah, Sliced Alone and Italians reacting to Rocky, right? Like those are all things that we could relate to, even though we were younger. And Amity Vilhar, that was one of my favorite Eddie routines. Yeah.

Black people. And that's the origin of Get Out. So there's so many little things so you know the origin of of get out you know one of the the greater movies of the last few years the whole title comes from a routine you know that eddie murphy did right you know this is great here you know i love it here this is great get out well too bad we can't say Yeah, it brought back a lot of memories. I think the one out of everything that happened last night, the one thing that really brought the memories floating back

was the Mr. Robinson set. Because of all the things that he did on SNL, I think that was the biggest hit. The best sketch he ever had. And this was another thing that was really dangerous back then. He made fun of Stevie Wonder. And Stevie Wonder was the all-time off-limits celebrity. And he put glasses on and did imitations of him.

He did the Ebony and Ivory thing with Frank Sinatra. And that was the all-time off-limits guy. And then Stevie was hosting and it was like, well, he won't do it. He won't do Stevie with Stevie there. And then he did. And that I just don't think that's the best sketch in the history of the show. Cause or, or James Brown hot tub, you know, celebrity hot tub, which a lot of people last time were like, Oh man,

I really hope he does James Brown. Like I, I feel like he couldn't, you know, like now that James Brown is, is no longer with us. Um, it'd be kind of weird to do that, but, um, yeah,

I still want to, and it's funny cause just like people, um, you know, when they, when they do the impersonation of Rick James today, you know, it's really,

they're, they're doing, um, they're doing Chappelle's version of Rick James. And so when people would imitate Stevie Wonder, they were doing Eddie's version of Stevie Wonder. And same thing for James Brown. Somebody in the eighties. Yeah. You know, they, and then the fact that James Brown and live in America, you know, says Eddie Murphy, eat your heart out, you know, like he gives them that, that, that clap back basically in the middle of arguably his last hit song, I would say, um, you know, he feels necessary to kind that clap back basically in the middle of arguably his last hit song, I would say.

You know, he feels necessary to kind of clap back at Eddie Murphy. But it showed you the power of Eddie Murphy that he could take on these titans of pop culture and of black music, could take them on and get responses from them. And not mean spirited either, you know either. Kind of friendly fire returned at him. I think if you start with 1981, because his first year on SNL, he really doesn't start appearing on the show until the later part of the year. And then there was a writer's strike.

It was just kind of an aborted year. If you start with 1981 and you go all the way through 1988, coming to America, I still think that's the best eight-year run pretty much anyone has ever had. I really... In pop culture.

I'm sure there's some Tom Hanks runs. I'm sure there's... Like Nick Nicholson in the 70s. Yeah, I'm sure you could do it. You could find an unbelievable eight Jay-Z years, whatever you go through. But if you just look at all the stuff he did, Saving Saturday Night Live, a show that is now still on almost four decades later, during a time when a lot of people watch TV, we had

less channels. The fact that he crossed over and would go on Letterman and do that kind of stuff. He does all these movies that are huge hits. He has Party All the Time, which was actually a really good song. He's hosting the MTV Music Awards during the absolute peak time you'd want to host that. And just the expectations with every Eddie movie, there was nothing like it. Even The Golden Child, which wasn't very good.

Everyone was just so excited that he had a movie out. We were delighted. And it wasn't even a good movie. It was an Eddie fix. Because it wasn't like now. Nowadays, I don't think somebody could be famous like that because you would have to have your Instagram presence and you would have to be on Twitter and you'd be in people's lives. Eddie didn't make a movie in 1985. And he basically disappeared.

He basically disappeared and I didn't know what disappeared right in the middle of his peak yeah he basically disappeared and I didn't know what was going on with him and he would just pop up from time to time

in these different things but um unbelievable year round it was really fun to relive what did he

come back with then after 85 so he kind of goes away in 85 and what's his return

well so then he does golden child but then okay then he does cop 2 okay and then I think coming to America wow Golden Child, but then he does Cop 2.

And then I think Coming to America. Wow. And Cop 2, I still think is his third best movie. Push Comes to Shove. Just beginning, middle, end. That movie is really, really good. That will be a rewatchable at some point. It feels like it

never comes on recently. I did watch Gravity Hill Cop again recently after listening to a rewatchable at some point. It needs to be. It feels like it never comes on recently. So I did watch Gravity Hill Cop again recently after listening to the rewatchable pod. And yeah, that one, you just see his talent. And yeah, there's definitely something going on with his buddy that gets killed. Yeah, that was a little weird. I know you talked about that on the podcast. You wrote about that. Like, you know, like they love each other.

And they profess their love to each other. Yeah. You know, and then he gets killed because he comes back to his apartment, right? He's like going to spend the night at his apartment. It's a little strange. It's a little strange. But again, it's, you know, the early movies he was able to play away with, you know, here's the black guy getting over on all the white people and making them look foolish you know and making them look making even the less cool black people you know that i'm not gonna fall for the banana sale pipe trick you know like he

just gets over on everybody my biggest my biggest criticism with the show last night and i can't believe they did this and i think it was an all-time fuck up by them the first 10 minutes of the show he wasn't on. Yeah, I could not believe he was not on the show. God, what a fucking mess that was. They did the same political sketch that they've opened the show with for the entire year. It's like, we've seen Alec Baldwin as Trump. We've seen Larry David as Bernie Sanders.

Like, we've seen all this. You've fucking Eddie Murphy there. What are you doing? Get him out there. And also, it's amazing that, you know, the president got impeached this week or last week. And rather than, you know, oh, I wonder how this is going to play on Saturday Night Live. All you want to see was how Eddie Murphy was, what Eddie Murphy was going to do. Right. Like at any other point in the last 30 years, the president getting impeached, you know, and you're watching Saturday Night Live.

You want to say, what did they have to say about the impeachment? Right. But in this case, you really want to see what's Eddie Murphy going to do? Which characters is he going to play? Like, I cared about that much more than I cared about how they were going to respond to Trump getting impeached. We forgot to mention the Jesse Jackson bit he used to did about if Jesse became president when he's just running around back and forth and doing

stop and starts what's that guy do over there um well you know you know what i was thinking about too and a i was thinking all right so remember jesse i don't i don't know if we can or should use the word that jesse said he made a kind of derogatory comment about new york and you know they did an snl song about it yeah and and a i don't think like a candidacy could recover from that today no but b the the way it almost helped that you know it's so like okay it's not that bad that yeah yeah eddie murphy did a song based on it um like he was like a like a kind of like a bluesy lounge singer right jesse jackson singing it as a song using the word as a song and he nailed it perfectly and that might have actually

helped jesse yeah you know because like it's okay we can laugh at it and you know jesse's campaign still continued on after that gap but but but look it up look up the word that jesse said and then see if you can find eddie's sketch, which was hilarious when he sang, sang it, you know, like, like he was closing down a blues club singing that song. Well,

he's, he's the only cast member ever who was so famous that he actually hosted the show when he was on the cast. Cause when Nick Nolte called in sick the week, they were supposed to promote 48 hours and they just pet Eddie host. And that will never happen again. I don't think we'll ever see anyone like Eddie again. And,

uh, and that's it. I think we're done. J. Donda. You did it. Thanks, man.

It was important that he showed that he could, he could still do it. Cause a lot of his stuff from the eighties hasn't aged well. That is true. So he showed that, that he can still be really funny without using that material that you could not get away with using today. I thought that was important.

I actually thought that's why they did the Tyrone green. Cause that was like a nod to how some of Eddie's stuff from the eighties has not held up to say the least. Or the velvet. No, I'm sorry. Yeah. Velvet Jones.

Yeah. Velvet Jones. Velvet Jones. That was interesting about it. Yeah. You can't do it in this day and age and the me too. And some of the stuff. Yeah. That, that was interesting about it. Yeah, you can't do it in this day and age, and the Me Too and some of the stuff. Yeah, that was, I do think that was an acknowledgement.

And they pulled that off too. Like, he pulled off everything that he tried to do. So it was so satisfying. I didn't have the same fear going into it, but maybe it was a little bit of relief afterward. Like, yeah, Eddie Murphy, this such an important figure of our youth. And like, guess what? He still got it you know watched dolamite which is pretty funny on netflix um still

got it man eddie murphy like delivered well maybe now eddie murphy album delivered now we need a pay-per-view game with magic and larry i think that's the next step it's getting shape not in well game 211 that would not end as well Game 211. That would not end as well. Jay Adande, thanks so much for coming on. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me, Bill. All right.

Thanks to Sal. Thanks to Adande. Thanks to State Farm. Thanks to the Rewatchables and the Book of Basketball 2.0 podcast. New ones coming this week. Thanks to Nista. You know the risks of driving drunk. There could be a crash.

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Just it's, it's, it's, it's floating around a little bit like how there's rumors. Drew holiday might get traded. You never know. Drew holiday might stay on new Orleans. We might never run the best of parent corner. Stay tuned. On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within.

On the way so I never said I don't have feelings within.