An NBA Six-Pack, Belichick to UNC, and Million-Dollar Picks

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I'm going to open a six-pack. Six things I've noticed.
Six things I want to talk about. We hit a little bit with Jacoby and Goldsberry on Tuesday night's podcast.

Specifically, we talked about Jimmy Butler and Golden State

and how from a Golden State standpoint, you saw it last night too.

I think they have a two to three year window here with Curry and Draymond

to compete for a title.

Whether they're going to win a title remains to be seen,

but they need one more offensive player, somebody who can take the burden. You saw in the game last night, they're up six with two and a half minutes left and just some of the worst possessions you could possibly have.
They become very easy to stop at the end of the game. So Jimmy Butler is somebody that makes sense for them and kind of fits in him, Draymond, and some role players.
You can kind of see it. It's not nothing.
So he makes $48.8 million this year. And he has a player option.
The player option's key because everybody thinks that he's either going to opt out at the end of the year and become a free agent, or he'll want to do an extension with Miami, which Miami Clear doesn't want to do because they've had a year and a half to do it. Okay, so we talked about some of the apron stuff on Tuesday and how hard it is to make trades in the NBA right now.
And I was saying how, on the one hand, I kind of like it because it's a little more like the NFL. Guys are kind of stuck in their situations.
You can't just decide you're unhappy in a month and be like, I want to go somewhere else. You look at Brandon Ingram, you look at Zach Levine.
These are guys that are actually, well, Ingram just got hurt, but guys that were playing pretty well in situations that they weren't happy with because they didn't really have any other choice. And that could be how it plays out with Jimmy Butler.
On the other hand, we've already seen that he can get a little frisky if he's not happy. I think Miami's feeling that pressure too.
And if you're Miami, where are you going? You're light years away from the Boston OKC Cleveland group. You're not even really a second-tier contender.
You're probably a second-and a second and a half tier contender. And maybe you could use Butler's contract.
You could put Rozier with it. You could try to create a new world for yourself where you're basically just paying Hero and Bam and Duncan Robinson's last year, next year and some other things.
And you're under 110 million heading into free agency this summer with a lot of options. You might just want to blow it up and redo it.
The problem is this apron stuff. And for Miami, it's not that bad because they are not hard capped.
They're over the first apron. They're under the second apron, not hard cap, which means you can actually make four for twos, three for twos, four for threes, all those kinds of trades.
But some of the teams that they would be trading with, it's just not realistic with the apron. Like Shams reported he had Dallas and Phoenix and some teams that I just don't think there's any way, shape, or form that there's a trade to be had with either side because of the apron stuff and because of the lack of assets.
But that did lead to Jimmy's agent, Bernie Lee, getting really mad at Shams, which I loved. He's probably, he's one of the only agents that I actually like.
Anyway, Golden State. So Golden State is hard capped at the first apron.
I swear there's not gonna be a test after this. And 1.7 million under the second apron, which is key because that means they can make three for ones, four for twos, stuff like that, as long as they don't pop over the second apron.
I'm sorry, this is so much math. Here's the trade.
It would be Wiggins and Kaminga and Melton who's out for the year, right? So that's 46.6 million and Jimmy's making 48.8 million. Well, that doesn't work for Golden State.
They also only have 14 guys. So if they do a four for one, they would have to then sign more guys to get to 14 because that's the rule.
Well, that doesn't work either. So I don't really know how it works with Golden State unless they dump one of their guys, Kyle Anderson, Gary Payton, Moses Moody, who they just signed to an extension.
They'd have to dump somebody to a third team. And I always get suspicious when that becomes in play.
This is why Houston just seems like such a logical team to me. And I know they're on a high right now.
They just made the NBA Cup semifinals with some help from Bill Kennedy. Great call.
Always want to call that loose ball foul when guys dive on each other, which never gets called ever. You definitely wanted to decide a game that way.
Great job by him. The problem for Houston right now is the end of the game stuff.
And you saw it yesterday. As I've said before, they're probably my favorite league pass team.
But the end of the game stuff is where it gets a little dodgy with them. And a lot of that has to do with Fred VanVleet, who just has not been that good this year.
16 points a game, all shooting stats are down and he's also a team option for next year at 42.9 million. So you could actually use Van Vliet as part of a mega trade, right? So they have Steven Adams at 12.6.
They have Green and Tate, eight and seven and a half that are expiring. They have a lot of options.
Dude, they also have a ton of picks. They have a couple of couple of Brooklyn picks, a couple of Phoenix picks.
They own some of their own first. So they have a lot of flexibility and maneuverability.
And the trade that I created being the Picasso, the trade machine, if it's Van Vliet and it's Adams is expiring and Tate's expiring and Cam Whitmore, who I actually like, who's just buried because he's got the Terra twins in front front of him, Jalen Green. And you get Butler and Rozier back, and you put a pick in that trade, and Miami is saving $7 million just on that deal.
Plus, they get a pick. They get to look at Whitmore.
They get Van Vliet. They get to kind of stay peripherally competitive this year.
They could still move Van Vliet in a one-for-one trade if they wanted to, if it was a salary close. That trade makes sense to me for both sides because it allows Miami to reboot.
It allows Houston to end up with Butler, Brooks, Shangoon, Green, Rozier, Jabari, the Terra Twins, and Landale. And I already had them third or fourth in the West anyway.
And I like Van Vliet. Oh, I forgot Shepard too.
I like Van Vliet, but I think they could get by without him. And you put Butler and Butler now becomes the end of the game guy.
I think you'd have a chip on his shoulder. That's the trade I'm rooting for.
I just think that's a fun trade for everybody. Plus, it would be yet another Miami situation where they're doing a reboot and it seems like it's bleak and they're done and then all of a sudden they're a 55-win team again

because they make two moves.

Anyway, that is number one leading to number two.

What the hell does Golden State do

if they can't get Jimmy Butler?

Because I think it's going to be really hard to pull off.

You're going to have to trade a pick

in a Jimmy Butler trade.

You're going to have to trade another pick

to get rid of the contract you need to make it happen or put Pod Zemski, send him somewhere else to create the thing. Is it worth it to trade Wiggins and Kaminga and Melton and a pick and then send Pod Zemski somewhere else to get another asset to get Jimmy Butler? I don't think it is.
My advice for them, the Brooklyn Nets are in a bizarre situation right now where they're playing really well and they're overachieving because Jordy Fernandez has been a revelation as a coach it really reminds me of Will Hardy that first year in Utah, Brad Stevens' first year in Boston, we see this happen from time to time where the coach is just too good for the tank, so Brooklyn is going to have to start sabotaging their own team. And they have Cam Johnson, who's having the best year of his career.
He's 19 a game, 45% three. Eye test looks the best he's been.
28 years old. He's a little older than I think you think he is.
But if I was going to stay out at Audible and go after Cam Johnson and Schreuer and try to figure out, is there something we can do with Wiggins?

Do we want to put Kaminga in that?

If we don't want to pay Kaminga next year,

could you turn Kaminga into Cam Johnson, basically?

Could it be Kaminga and Melton for Cam Johnson?

Is there some version of,

would you rather pay Cam Johnson $22 million

than Kaminga for $30 million?

Do you try to get Schroeder in it?

Could it be Wiggins, Melton, and Unprotected First for Johnson and Schroeder? Does Kaminga even need that bit? It just feels like Brooklyn Golden State seems like the matchup for me. So keep an eye on that.
I don't think Golden State's going to be able to get a second star. I don't see a scenario where they get LeBron and Bronny back.
LeBron and Bronny making 50 million combined. They'd have all the same problems that they would have trying to get Jimmy Butler that I just laid out.
On top of the fact that LeBron is at his 22nd season and doesn't play defense anymore. Brooklyn seems like the spot for them.
I'm still bullish on this Golden State team, but Curry needs some help. Next thing.
The Wilt 50 Club, which I just created one second ago, where you have to play 50 games and you have to average 50 points, rebounds, and assists combined at least. And it is not as easy as you think, my friends.
Just since the merger, Kareem did it three times. Highest was 56 in 1971.
Luka did it last year, 52.9. Russ did it in his MVP season, 52.7.
Bob McAdoo, 50.8 in 1975. Giannis is doing it right now, 50.1.
Harden did it in 2019, 50.3. And Jokic, 56.1 right now, which would be the single highest number anyone has done since Wilt and Russell were playing.
So the reason it's the Wilt 50 club, Wilt has the top six. Wilt has 10 in the top 11.
Wilt averaged a 78.4 points, rebounds, assists combined in 1962. That's insane.
Oscar Robertson did it five times. Pettit did it twice.
Eldridge did it twice. Walt Bellamy did it

once. We don't count Walt Bellamy.

Jordan's highest ever, 48.9.

Shaq's highest ever, 47.1.

Bird, 45.8.

LeBron, 45.6. Kobe,

45.2. Just getting to 50

is really hard. I like the 50 club.

Let's create it. Jokic right

now, 32, 14, and 10.

And he's shooting 56, 50, and 81%.

33.2 PR. This season's just insane.
But I don't know how high this goes because it's too high right now. He's not going to be continuing to do the stuff that he's been doing.
It's not realistic. but could he end up 31-13-9? Could he end up 32-13-10? I don't know.
I'm prepared for anything because nobody on the team could score. So the 50 club, I think Jokic, Kareem is the highest ever, 56.0.
I think Jokic could potentially set the record. I'm in on the 50 club.
All right, they wanted me to do a superior take, and I have one, of course. I've been thinking a lot about the fouling at the end of the game stuff because there was a Celtics-Cavaliers game, which has now become infamous.
I think it was a week and a half ago. Celtics are down four with under 30 seconds left.
There are 18 free throw attempts in the last 26 seconds. Both teams just were fouling each other.
Everybody's like, nobody's going to shoot a three. Well, I'll foul you too.
And it just becomes a foul off. Final score was 115 and 111.
There were 20 points scored in the last 26 seconds because of all the free throws. And I think I speak for everyone.
This sucks. The free throw parade down the stretch is abominable and it feels like it's getting worse.
So how do we fix it? Well, I have a regular season fix for this. If you foul somebody in the last minute of a game, no matter what the score is, whether you're leading or trailing, the first free throw counts for two points.
That's it. And if you make it, you get basically the two points for the free throws.
The game keeps going. If you miss it, you still get to shoot a second free throw, but that only counts for one point.
So when we have these foul-offs at the end, Peyton Pritchard gets fouled by Cleveland, even though they're up four. If Pritchard hits one, now it's a two-point game.
And that's how it goes. And I really think it would work.
I don't know who would be against it. And let's speed these games up because the other option is the Elam ending, which nobody really understands.
Two points for your first free throw in the last minute of the game. Let's try it in the regular season.
Let's see if it works. And if it works, we do it for the playoffs.
That's my superior take. All right.
Two more things really quick. Who could be next year's out of nowhere young contender? So this would be a team playing right now that a year from now, maybe it would look like the Rockets right now as one of the best four teams in the West.
The Rockets were 41 and 41 last year. Maybe it looks like OKC last year

when they won 57 games the year before they were 40 and 42. Maybe it looks like Memphis in 2022

when they won 56 games the year before they were 38 and 34. So a team that's around 500,

maybe a little bit lower, but has some pedigree, at least one young star with a chance to be like

really great, need to be around 500, need to have some other fun pieces. And there's two candidates, one for each conference.
The Pistons. This is a team Rosillo has been very focused on.
I always admire Rosillo's love for weirdly compelling East Coast teams. Detroit's 10 for 15.
Played a pretty hard schedule. They lost to Boston twice, lost to Milwaukee twice, lost to Cleveland, lost to Houston, lost to Memphis, lost to Orlando, split with the Knicks.
And they've been hanging around a lot of these games. And Russell's made this point in his pod, but these early afternoon, like four o'clock games, you're usually stuck with like whatever the 7 p.m.
Eastern. So I've actually watched some Detroit and I've watched some Charlotte and I like what Detroit has going.
Better than Monty Williams is a coach, which is the number one thing. But Cade's 24 points a game, seven rebounds, nine assists.
He has hit every sort of ceiling you would have thought he was going to hit at this point. Almost 40% from three.
He's just really good. He's somebody that you could build a team around.
Beasley and Harris were two pretty smart for agent signings. They're averaging 30 a game and shooting 40% from three.
Jaden Ivey's been good. They have rebounding.
I wonder, if I'm them, fuck it. Do I do a trade? Do I try to get Brandon Ingram's on a discount? Zach Levine's on a discount? CJ McCollum's on a discount.
Do I do a trade? Do I try to get, you know, Brandon Ingram's on a discount? Zach Levine's

on a discount? CJ McCollum's on a discount? Do I think about Jimmy Butler? They don't have to

worry about any of this apron stuff. This could be another Cam Johnson team.
This is actually kind

of a perfect Cam Johnson team. I wonder if Detroit is going to look at what happened with Orlando and

OKC the last couple of years and what's happening with Houston this year and think like, hmm,

What a good one. I wonder if Detroit is going to look at what happened with Orlando and OKC the last couple years and what's happening with Houston this year and think like, hmm, I wonder if we make one move here.
Could our ceiling increase, especially if Miami goes backwards, Indiana's already gone backwards. Could we be a top 16 potentially? So I'm watching them.
The other team is obviously San Antonio, who's 12 and 12, which is surprising because I haven't really enjoyed watching them. Sohan, Castle, and Johnson, shoot 27% for three combined.
Chris Paul, better season than we expected, but he's old and who knows with him. But the foundation I like, they have Wemby and Castle and Harrison Barnes and Pauls.
They have some good bets. They have a couple heat check dudes and they have a lot of picks.
They have a shitload of picks. And I wonder, is that a Cam Johnson team? Probably not a Jimmy Butler team, but could it be like a CJ McCollum team? I'm watching them to see, are they just going to be happy to be a 500 team again? I don't know why they would be because they're going to be too good to tank.
They're not going to be in the top five or top six.

So maybe think about going for it.

Which leads me to the sixth and last thing for the six pack, Atlanta, a team that I really liked before the season.

You probably remember from the over-under pod, House and I went all in on their over.

A team that I mentioned last week when House and I, after million dollar picks, we talked

about NBA futures.

I doubled down when I was in Denver last week on FanDuel with the Atlanta over-under stuff because it was 38 and a half. Right now, they're 14 and 12.
They upset the Knicks last night, and it wasn't even really an upset. I thought they kind of dominated them in the second half, and I really do wonder if that was a playoff series.
I would be super scared if I was the Knicks because they don't really have a way

to control the Trae Young dribble,

slash dribble penetration,

whatever we're calling it these days.

Their wings kind of match up

against the Knicks wings, the Atlanta wings.

They have rebounding.

It's just, I think that's a dangerous matchup for them.

They're third in pace, which I like.

And I wonder if Atlanta has a real chance

to become this year's Pacers.

The key for them,

two things.

One is the three-point shooting.

Daniels is only at 31%.

Reese's Shea is 28%.

Trey's 31%,

which is bad.

Hunter has been overachieving.

He's 45%.

But can those swings

start hitting more threes?

Then secondly,

what are we getting from Trey? I think this is it. I think we've hit the let's figure this out once and for all moment with Trey, almost like a political candidate for an election.
He's been dining off that conference finals thing for a few years now, which I think we all know happened because Embiid was super banged up.

There were a couple of fluky games and Ben Simmons basically

had a basketball mental breakdown

and just completely lost it

for whatever reason.

Trey this year, 21 and 12.

12 assists a game, solid.

38% shooting, 31% from three,

which doesn't stop him

from launching the 29-footers.

Free throws are down to six a game. They used to be at nine.
Turnover's highest they've ever been, 4.6. And with all of that said, this is the perfect team for him.
He's got swings everywhere. He's got a bunch of guys to protect him on defense.
Daniels, whoever the other team's point guard is, you saw it with the Knicks game with Brunson. Daniels can guard every team's point guard, small guard, whoever it is, Mitchell, Garland, name a guy you can put Daniels on him.
They're playing the Bucs. He can guard Dame Lillard.
He can guard anybody in the league who's under 6'8". And Jalen Johnson, if you're ranking the swings, Jalen Johnson, Daniels, O'i and bridges i think i would take jalen johnson over the other three guys and daniels is going to be a first team all nba defense guy so perfect spot for trey he's got rebounding he's got shot blocking he's got lob guys he's got tall interchangeable shooters all over the over the place.
And I was thinking, what would the trade be? Should maybe they go get Cam Johnson? It's like, I'm not even sure they need to do trade, especially now that Bogdanovich is back and they have some six-man scoring stuff. It really comes down to Trey Young.
How good is he? Because he is in the perfect race car for him right now. And maybe over the course of these next 2025 games, he's going to start figuring it out.
He's a guy that you saw in the next game in MSG. The bigger the stage, the more he seems to like it, whether he's missing 29 footers or not.
He's one of the, him and LaMelo are the two irrational confidence superstars that we have right now. And if we're ever going to find out that Trae Young can be a real piece on a team that wins 50 games and actually competes in a real way, it should start happening right around now.
So maybe we'll see it. Maybe we'll see it on Saturday against Milwaukee in the NBA Cup.
Anyway, that was today's six major things. Remember, Mick Loeb Ultra courtside you closer to the game than ever before.
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We will be back with

Secwiker Sham talking Belichick

right after this.

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All right, we're taping this on Thursday morning. Seth Wickersham is here from ESPN.
He's popped on here a few times to talk about big picture NFL shenanigans at the coach owner scale and other stuff and the Patriots and Belichick, shockingly to a lot of people, goes back to college. You wrote about it for ESPN today.
I don't really even know where to begin, but I guess I'll start here. People see this story however they feel about Belichick is my takeaway.
And I'm just judging it from the people in my life who are emailing about it. The people who love Belichick think he's a great coach are like, I can't believe there was another NFL job for him.
The people who are done with his style of doing thought he was a little overrated are all like, see, nobody in the NFL wanted him. And the truth is the story really hits both sides of that spectrum, right?

There's no doubt.

And I think that what makes that interesting is that that reflects a lot of the coach,

GM, and owner divide in the NFL.

I mean, I think that rank and file coaches, ask Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Sean Payton. Ask any of those guys if they think Bill Belichick should be coaching in the NFL.
And you won't even be able to finish the sentence before they say yes. Whereas at the GM level, though, and the ownership level, there's just so much concern.
And I think that part of it is his record. Part of is you know that for you know the last half of the dynasty certainly um you know Robert Kraft made the secret that he could be impossible to work with at times even as they were winning but I think that there's just a sense that even if Belichick is willing to be deferential to existing infrastructures and existing GMs whoever they might be, there's a sense of like, if you hire this guy, you got to kind of let him do it his way and give him the keys, even if he's not technically asking for it.

And I think what changed, 2024 has been an interesting year for Belichick, and we should talk about that. But what changed, I think, was that I think that he began to think, maybe I don't really want this.
And I don't want to take the risk and wait in January, hoping that I might get one interview and might get one job when I can go to a program that I've got a little bit of history with, have the space to win or lose on my terms and my career that way. All right.
So there's two major things to unpack there. One is how do I even know if I'll get a job in January? And then the other piece is how do I know I want the job? So let's talk about the league dynamics because I think that's such a big part of this.
He had such a bad experience with the crafts the last five to seven years, really starting with the stuff you were writing about in the mid 2010s that I think, and I was one of them, a lot of the Patriot fans who had gone through Deflategate and Spygate, and then people were starting to write about the dissension between Kraft and Belichick and Brady, and all of us were like, fuck you, there's no dissension, we're fine. But then as the years pass, clearly there was.
But I think the crafts thing got so dysfunctional the last five years. And if you didn't believe it, you just had to watch the Apple doc, which was one of the most insane pieces of sports content anyone's ever released, where it was just an absolute hatchet job that tried to erase Belichick, especially from the first three Super Bowls, where I don't care where you stand on the Belichick versus Brady thing.
Belichick was a bigger reason they won the first three Super Bowls. It's a fact.
The way he put the roster together, the defense he had, the game planning, and it was almost like they knew that, so they had to steer it toward everything that happened after that. And part of me wonders, was he just so disenchanted with his experience with the crafts that as he looked around the available jobs and you see father-son duo, incompetent franchise, father-son duo, and he's just looking around going, that looks awful.
I was already in that situation. Maybe I could have control over my own situation.
So just the NFL infrastructure, which you've written about a lot, is it more dysfunctional than we even know about? Because there's maybe seven franchises that are run smoothly and correctly, and then two-thirds of the league at least are kind of a disaster? Totally. And I think that, yeah, first of all, to go back to the early part of the dynasty, you and I talked about it when my Patriots book came out.
Those were hugely formative years because Belichick finally had the people, the quarterback in place to do what he had had in his mind for so long in terms of being able to create an actual team. and you know that's where that started.
And I think that like Wright Thompson and I and Van Nadeau reported on it a year ago or so that Belichick really felt like the Krafts had eroded what he had built in the past couple of years. Krafts, of course, were pissed off that he let Brady walk out and he told Kraft Kraft that Brady couldn't play anymore.
And he goes and wins the Super Bowl. But then, yeah, 2024.
He gets fired by the Krafts. Even though they call it a mutual parting of ways, Kraft later comes out and says that he was fired.
Well, and he was also telling everyone in NFL circles, like, yeah, I fired him. Exactly.
And then you have seven openings and only one team shows any interest in him. He meets with the owner twice.
And then the next thing you know, you know, he's voted off the Island as we reported about. And you're talking about Atlanta, Atlanta.
And like, he was willing to work with GM Terry Fontenot. He was willing to work with Rich McKay, even there's a lot of history there.
But at the end of the day, they not only went with Raheem Morris, but they made a decision against Belichick. Didn't finish in any of the decision makers' top three candidates.
And they leaked it too to make them look bad, which I thought was really interesting. Well, it was our reporting.
I mean, it's a little bit different than they leaked it, but yeah, we learned about it. Well, true.
You're right. Yes.
But you're reporting it. You're finding out that they weren't in the top three.
So they're telling somebody that. Absolutely.
So he gets shut out. Then you have the dynasty comes out, which just really roundly dismisses his influence in that team's historic run.
So start this season. He's got his media gigs, but every week, he and a lot of the old Patriots assistants who are also out of work would do these Zooms.
And they would go through every team, every game, every situation, these high-level conversations. And I think the subtext of it all is like, what teams and organizations sound good for us if the situation comes up? And there wasn't a lot of back-channel communication with owners.
I think that the Brian Flores lawsuit has impacted that greatly. Wait, can you explain that? Because that's such a crucial piece of this.
So like five years ago, there's texting, there's, hey, what's going on over there? And you're just back channeling constantly. And the Flores thing just completely ended that? Well, it's an ongoing discrimination lawsuit against the league and three teams.
And I think that owners don't want to get wrapped up in that. They don't want to be part of that.
They don't want to violate the Rooney rule. And so I'm not convinced that Belichick wouldn't have ended up with an NFL job.
I just think we're never going to know. And I think that the ones that he thought he might have a chance at just didn't seem appealing enough.
And I think that on those Zoom calls, midway through the season, all of a sudden the college game just seemed much more appealing to him. And he wanted to discuss certain programs, how it would work if they tried to implement some of the Patriot way at that level.
And again, I was as shocked as anybody. I think you and I were texting about it when North Carolina came up.
And it's not Notre Dame exactly, but he felt like this is a good place to end his career the way that he wants to end his career, which is working with people that he cares about, that he likes, and when you're losing on his terms. Well, and he has a little bit of a father legacy with them.
It's a great place to live. It's a place that seems like they were willing to give him the car keys.
I want to go through those NFL jobs, though, because it's such a crucial piece of this. Because there's going to be a narrative like, ah, the league rejected him.
And, you know, even your piece tapped into that. Did Belichick reject the league first or did they already reject him? But if you go through the jobs, Las Vegas, assuming that becomes open after the year.
I mean, they have two wins, but I'm just guessing. Well, Mark Davis fired McDaniels.

He's a legacy kid.

That's a franchise that's never, I would say,

been stable the last decade.

So he's not going there.

Jacksonville was the team I thought.

I don't think he, I think consistently,

he really didn't want to go out West.

Well, and also they don't have a quarterback.

There's so many variables, so cross them up.sonville is the team i thought made the most sense but what do they have they have the father-son duo who's been pretty incompetent over the last 10 years like he just dealt with that with the crafts now he's getting the more incompetent version of the crafts trevor lawrence you'd have to really talk yourself into um and it would have to be a situation where they just gave him everything, but they've already proven they don't really work that way. The Sun runs the analytics department.
And it just seems like that wasn't a match. So cross them off.
New Orleans, no quarterback. The Benson family, they're a mess.
He's not going there. They're in cap hell.
You can't succeed there. That makes no sense.
Cross them up. The Jets, no quarterback and he can't stand Woody Johnson.
Took shots at him constantly all the way during the season and all his media places. So cross them off.
The Giants were interesting because I thought that was another possibility, but it's pretty clear that he really likes Dayball. And even in some of some of the reporting was like telling them like,

you guys need a better front office, but you have a good coach.

He just didn't want to shank day ball.

So that's out.

Plus they don't have a QB.

Dallas.

We won't know until January,

right?

That's another father son duo,

by the way,

but won't know until January.

And he didn't want,

he couldn't wait that long because this North Carolina job was either going to be there or not.

So let that one go.

And then the only other one I can think of

before the one that you talked about in your piece,

Cincinnati, if this ended badly,

they didn't make the playoffs

and they fire Zach Taylor,

who has not covered himself in glory this year.

That's a really good job

because you have Borough, Ohio.

But again, you can't wait till January.

So the only one that really might have made sense was Chicago. And in your reporting, they seemed receptive to that one, right? But Chicago is just, they want one of those offensive whiz kid play callers.
Everybody has Ben Johnson linked to them already. So it just didn't seem like a fit.
And that was the one team that seems like they've rejected him, kind of. Yeah, and I mean, again, one of those situations is interesting.
I mean, Dallas is interesting to me because nobody can take a collection of talent and turn them into a team quite like Belichick. But again, can the Jones share the spotlight with someone like Belichick? I have no doubt that they could all get along, but I don't know if Jerry Jones values coaches enough to go after someone like Bill.
Well, he had Jason Garrett for eight years or nine years, so we know the answer to that already. Exactly.
And so I think that, again, he saw the Giants as a rebuild, but he also believes that Brian Dayball has done a good job.

And so it's almost like you take yourself out of the running for that

if they were even considering it.

And again, this is all just...

I think that even Cincinnati,

remember when he would go on his podcast or on the McAfee show,

he was really critical of Burrow.

And usually when he does that publicly,

you know that there's a lot more there

in terms of his private scouting report of a certain player.

So were you devouring some of the Belichick media stuff?

Because you know him so well,

and you know the little breadcrumbs he was dropping

one way or the other.

Was that like a sport for you?

I loved it. It was really fun.
It was really fun. I mean, that's all we've wanted, right? Because what you have is the, you know, for all these decades, you knew, you know, you had his public performance, which was, you know, very buttoned up.
And then the things you would learn about what they were like behind the scenes and the way that they would really, you know, put so much thought into like all these decisions. It was just mind blowing.
And so I loved like just getting a glimpse of that this year from him. And especially like his disdain for certain things was really funny.
Like sloppy special teams, just really, really cut him to the heart. Yeah, I interviewed, I was talking with Peyton Manning earlier this year for my quarterback's book.
And he was talking about how Belichick just loves coming on the Manning cast and loves watching punts. Right.
Yeah, like Belichick, if there was a punt near the end zone and the guy screwed it up and fell into the end zone, it was like Belichick was being electroshocked on the sidebines. It was the worst thing that could happen to him as somebody screwing up a basic play.
And then you watch him when we had an Atlanta game and I think he was the Manicast, and he's just ripping them for sloppy tackling and things like that.

And that was a job.

Obviously, they made a point of making sure everyone knew why they didn't hire him.

And so I enjoyed that stuff quite a bit.

Yeah, he seemed like he had an axe to grind against Atlanta.

The Jets, he couldn't take Willie Johnson shots enough.

There are a couple others. But I'm torn on this because I really thought him trying to be the coach GM everything the last couple of years, which just wasn't sustainable anymore.
And he wasn't good at it. The free agent draft stuff the last five years, he was just bad.
And you could see the results in the roster. He He just didn't do a very good job.
And that combined with, I think he had a lot of trouble replenishing assistants. Once guys got plucked left and right, that becomes really hard to just keep replenishing these guys that you kind of taught your whole system to.
You get older, you don't have the same kind of motor. So, you know, the way he did it in the 2000s, no chance he was going to be able to do that again.
But I still feel like he was a pretty good, a pretty like top, maybe not top seven coach, but in the top 10. What was interesting about last year, the team got sloppy in ways that were really uncharacteristic for Belichick.
And I do think people around the league probably noticed that. This wasn't like the same buttoned up overachieving thing.
Now their defense overachieved and finished like I think sixth in DVOA. Some of that had to do with the schedule.
Some of that had to do with when you're playing a shit team, you're not necessarily throwing the kitchen sink at them. You're just trying to get through the game.
Some of it was smoke and mirrors, but at the same time, the team did overachieve. They were awful offensively.
They couldn't have been worse. And the reason I bring this up is the irony of all of this is the best job for him, I think would have been the Patriots for 2025 with some pieces desperately needed, like a stable hand, and they have an awesome quarterback, which is the thing he didn't have for six years.
The funniest thing about all of this is that was the perfect job for him, but it never would have happened. Never would have happened.
There was definitely no chance. I think that...
Although Ben and J-Lo happened, so Maybe no chance is too strong. There have been reunions that have been shut.
The Eagles got back together, but that one would have been an all-time shocker, I think. I know.
I'm trying to think if there's... I mean, you just look at the toxicity of how that ended, and I don't know if there's a sports parallel where they could have, like, mended that again..
I mean Phil Jackson, Jerry Krause is the only thing I can think of. I was thinking about that and that wasn't going to I mean it was it got pretty bad.
I mean you saw the body language at the press conference when they let Belichick go. You saw it at the Brady roast.
The roast was the best. He just had complete disdain.
He couldn't hide it. Couldn't hide it.
And yeah, I mean, I'm with you like on paper in terms of like, if you're looking at the situation that's kind of best suited for him, where you're taking a team that, you know, again, needs to kind of like come together and play smarter. That might be, you know, the Patriots might be his forte.
But yeah, that was never going to happen this year.

Yeah, because you look like Sean Payton,

they give him the car keys in Denver,

turns it around now.

He's younger than Belichick.

Harbaugh with the Chargers this year, same thing.

Like, there's probably seven, eight guys that could do that. But in those cases, those guys are also

running a lot of the front office thinking.

And I think Belichick with his last five years

probably lost that.

The perfect job would have been

Thank you. running a lot of the front office thinking.
And I think Belichick with his last five years probably lost that. The perfect job would have been, hey, we have a good team.
We ran our course with our coach. Can you just come in? That's why Philly became super interesting in September for a couple weeks there when it looked like Sirianni was going to go badly.
And that was like, whoever's taking that one, that's like a hired gun job. Could he just come in, hired gun, hey, just try to win as many games as possible and compete for titles.
But then Philly turned it around. They won nine to 10 games.
So it makes sense to me that he did this because I do think he just wants to coach. And maybe he started to realize the NFL isn't for him.
Now on the other hand could he do this for two years and then realize oh that job's open and all of a sudden he's hopping back. Do you think the Shula record's important to him because I've heard different takes on this.
I think it is important but it's not the thing. It's not why he gets out of bed in the morning.
It's not what really motivates him. And I think that probably given a year off, he was able to reflect a little bit on what are the essential things that I enjoy about this job.
And I think that one of the things with the New York Giants, let's say he had gone there, and he knows that it's going to take a year to get that team back. He would have been going through his third straight coaching year.
So 22, 23, and then next year with the media on him and whether he's lost his fastball, a daily piece of speculation and content. And I don't think he really wanted to deal with that.
And I think that college football media is a little different than the NFL. And I think that even though it's intense in its own way, that's something that he won't really have to contend with, I think, when he's in North Carolina.
So the things working against him, the crafts, poison the well, GM performance last five to six years was just bad. A known curmudgeon, which he tried his hardest over this with the eight-minute jobs he had to really try to prove that he wasn't.
And I'm in the camp that he's probably more entertaining than a curmudgeon. But I think if, if, if he's working for you and you're just a rich guy who wants answers, he's going to be a curmudgeon, um, brings a lot of like people that come with him.
Some would say they're cast offs. Some would say there are people that if it was for Belichick would not be working in the league anymore.
But he has a lot of those people. And the irony of it is this is the same kind of thing he probably despises with owners.
Like, why do I have to deal with your family? Why do I have to deal with your, you know, now your son's telling me what to do. But this North Carolina situation he's going to be in, he's going to bring a lot of his family with him, including actual family members.

But it seems like to me that was probably a huge piece of this for him,

just working with people that he trusts and likes, right?

Absolutely.

And I think that that was something that a year ago,

when the Eagles were at the highest levels, were talking about, hey, look, he's available. Do we make a move here? That was one of the things that was considered is that even though those group of minds for the longest time were just so desired in NFL circles, owners just could not wait to try to tap into his thinking until they realize, you know, that it's, it's so singular.
His system is not a playbook like Bill Walsh's. It's literally his decision-making in real time.
Um, you know, he did, they thought, you know, he doesn't necessarily have the best record of, of developing coaches and considering if he comes in, you have to kind of let him run it his way. Are you doing this again in two years? Are you blowing up the building again? Or do you give someone a third shot at being a head coach or one of the people out of that group, a second shot of being a head coach? And so those things were definitely on minds.
I think that like with Belichick, just him having been in the NFL for half a century now and been in the public eye really for most of the last 30 or so years, is that there's just enough material out there that if you want to lay out a convincing conversation as to why you don't want to hire him, it's there. But his record is also there.
And I mean, just imagine him going through what he went through last January and February and then having to go on his podcast and on the McAfee show and everything and explain to us, and him trying to do it politely, just how stupid some of the coaching is in the NFL. I mean, when they have to bring him on to explain what happened at the end of the Bears-Lions game.
Right. And I mean, this is stuff that he knows how to do in his sleep.
I mean, he is the one who, with the clock melting down against the Seahawks, saw confusion, saw personnel change, calls go line three. I think that was the name of it.
Butler goes in, all that stuff comes together in a way that I can't ever see being replicated again. So much preparation and thought and execution and dones for lack of a better word.
And yet, you know, you're watching these coaches screw up game situations all the time and they they bring him on to try to explain why. And these are the guys who have jobs right now.
Right. Well, this NBA has the same problem.
Most, if you have between those two, there's 62 franchises, NBA, NFL. Probably three-fourths of them are terrible at hiring coaches.
And in the NBA, coaches just change all the time. The NFL coaches change all the time.
We see situations like last year where Iberflues clearly, you know, that was going to be risky to bring him back with a new QB. That could have gone either way.
Salah looked like he'd already run his course with the Jets. They talked themselves into bringing him back.
But a lot of the times you can kind of see it just from not being attached,

just from watching your TV, being like,

eh, that guy seems like him.

Like Brandon Staley last year.

He's like, there's no way.

There's no path out of this.

So I'm sure Belichick watches that too.

And he's like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, really? Absolutely, and I think a year ago, I think it was a year ago, there was a, you know, they have owners meetings, and then they have the privilege meeting, which is just owners, and you know, maybe they're family members, but it's not team executives. And I think that it was in a privileged session where the league presented some data as to the total amount of money

that owners are paying coaches

that are no longer working for them.

And it was a staggering amount.

And then it prompted all this discussion

about the value of coaches,

are we paying these guys too much, all this stuff.

But the bottom line is that most owners

are not good at this.

And even if you're invested in a GM,

like, I don't want to pick on him, but let's just say Terry Fontenot or whoever it might be. Why not have an owner who says, look, I'm keeping you around.
I want you to absorb as much as you can from this guy while we have two to three years with him so that we can take the best pieces going forward after he sets the record and rides off into the sunset. That would be some really strategic thinking on an owner's part.
Yeah, but Seth, you know how this works. The rich guys just call each other and then they weirdly look out for each other even though they're all competing against each other in this league.
And there's no way that Arthur Blank didn't call Kraft to ask for his take on Belichick.

I just refused to believe he didn't.

And there's no way Kraft didn't give him a bad review.

So then if you're blank...

We were playing on it.

Yeah, you have this...

If you're blank, you have a franchise that's worth $7 billion.

And you're trying to think,

do I want to give the car keys to the $7 billion franchise,

to this guy? And his last employer is just absolutely like smashing him. You're going to hesitate and you're going to go to the yes man.
Because this is the other thing. Lombardi and I talked about this when he was on, I think in August, September.
You have a lot of people in these organizations. And I've dealt with this professionally too.
Job protection people, that their job is just to keep their own job. And they're always going to push blame on other people and undermine other people because that's how they're going to keep their seat.
And that happens in so many of these football. We just saw it happen with the Falcons.
The Cousins-Pennix thing is probably a disaster, right? Are there going to be repercussions for it? They're just going to blame other people. Well, Cousins, he didn't tell us he was healthy.
They'll figure out how to blame and keep going. Rob Palenka is the master of this with the Lakers.
They fire a coach every year. They've traded all their picks.
They've done everything, but somehow everybody else gets blamed for it. So I just think that's such a big part of sports now.
And I don't think the common person who just roots for football sees it. And owners, you bring up two interesting points.
I mean, number one is that a lot of them are kind of risk-averse and conflict-averse, which I think within that context, it makes you realize just how ballsy it was for Robert Kraft to trade a first-round pick for Belichick back in 2000.

Right, which is his Hall of Fame case, by the way.

It's like he not only hired Belichick,

he traded a first-round pick.

He was that convincing the guy.

Absolutely.

And then the thing is, though, is that you're right.

I mean, like groupthink takes over.

Like even though these guys are, you know,

in charge of these multi-billion dollar businesses,

and even though they're all bosses in their own right,

Thank you. Even though these guys are in charge of these multi-billion dollar businesses,

and even though they're all bosses in their own right of whatever other businesses they might own,

when you see votes taken in the NFL, there's not a lot of close votes.

They're almost always 31 to 1 because Mike Brown never votes.

Whatever it might be.

Groupthink does just take over. And I that like you know like we said they can they can use whatever excuse they want for why they don't want to hire Belichick but it doesn't look good for all of them it doesn't look good that this guy left and went to college to a mid-level program while we're watching just like so much bad coaching every week.
Well, I don't think it's a mid-level program anymore with the kind of money they're probably spending. I think that for North Carolina, you always have to look like, why would somebody do, why would somebody spend, I don't know how much it's, it's 30 for three, I saw 50 for five, whatever it is, plus all the other people in Belichick's life, plus the commitment to NIL.
It's probably like a, I don't know, 40 to $50 million commitment per year. But when was the last time anyone talked about North Carolina football? Like we just got Drake May from them.
And all I read about leading up to Drake May is like, we have no idea how good he is because his team was such dog shit in this last year, right? So that's who you're getting. So this writer named Molly Conley, who I think does a good job, and he was on some of the reporting on this, but he wrote a piece today about when Bill Walsh went back to Stanford and how badly it went.
And it went badly for a bunch of different reasons. College football was totally different back then.
Walsh maybe didn't have the stamina or the motor that he thought he did. He tried to bring an NFL mindset and it just went badly.
There was a book written about it. And, you know, I've been really like Stuart Mandela, the athletic wrote a piece like this is going to be a disaster.
Like he was just like, mark my words, come back here in two years. This is going to be a disaster.
I don't know whether I'm just like a Belichick junkie at this point or a Belichick apologist. I don't know.
I just, I watched him do so many great things. I just really find it hard to believe he's going to go to college and not be good.
And yet the track record said he won't, it says that he won't be good. So where do you stand? My gut tells me he'll do pretty well there.
Now, look, I don't know what that means. You know, does that mean they make the playoffs? I don't exactly know.
But I think when you have a legend who still feels like he has something to prove and, you know is really sharp i think history usually lends itself pretty pretty well to those guys and i think that clearly this was a space that in 2024 really just started to appeal to him and like from the people i've talked to closest to him again in september when they started these meetings and they're going through all these games, I don't think that they were thinking what college program might come open that would be cool. It was really as the season went on and he became more intrigued with the college game that he asked these guys to look into some of these programs a little bit more.
Well, what would it look like if we took my methodologies and tried to adapt them to this? How would that go? And is the ability to knowing that I'll be able to win or lose on my own terms worth the risk of not interviewing or taking a job before any of

those jobs come open? And it was really kind of a resounding yes. This episode is brought to you by Nissan.
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There was one thing that I read in some of the stuff that's been written about this already is with this college job, what he wants to do at North Carolina, I thought was fascinating where he basically wants to turn it into this football factory that trains people to go to the NFL. So this is something Cal Perry tried to do at Kentucky, right? This was a big part of their mindset of like college sports is changing.
The one and done era is coming. We are going to be this factory that sends people into the lottery, top five pick, whatever you want to be.
We're going to train you to do that. And if you look at the success of the Kentucky guys that came in the NBA, like there's other reasons for that.
There were other people that were involved in that kind of chain, like people like World Wide West is now one of the people on the next. But a lot of those Kentucky people did come into the league position to succeed.
And they did. And they've had the most success, I think, of any college the last 15 years.
So when I read that about Belichick, I was like, that's interesting. That he's trying to reinvent himself basically as, you know, using North Carolina.
Awesome, awesome school. Like one of the top 25 colleges probably.
ACC, you have a natural arrival in Duke. You get to play big games.
You have a chance to make the playoffs. But big picture, hey, if you want to play in the NFL, you're going to learn stuff here that maybe other places won't be the same.
That makes sense to me. Now, whether he can sell that to some 17-year-old kid and their parents

in Memphis, Tennessee, or

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wherever

he goes to recruit, I don't know if that's going to work,

but it makes sense to me.

It's a pretty good pitch, and I also

think that it'll be interesting to see

which NFL teams

end up drafting out of that program most.

When he

had the first run with the Patriots,

when they win three

out of four Super Bowls, and then

Thank you. end up drafting out of that program most.
Like, you know, when he had the first run with the Patriots, you know, when they win three out of four Super Bowls, and then his system got raided around the NFL, he had some tough drafts there. And one of the reasons was because all of a sudden, what felt like half the league was looking for the type of player that only he was looking for before.
And so all of a sudden there was a premium on those types of players. Now, who knows exactly? I mean, it would be interesting to see if the Chargers, if the Ravens, if...
Oh, teams that he has connections with? Yes, teams that he would have connections with. The Giants, Denver if like those types of players, those types of teams end up really looking hard at North Carolina players and wanting them because they'll have a better sense that they're mentally equipped to handle the rigors of the NFL, name another coach who can get you ready for it.
I think that Jim Harbrod, Michigan, could probably do it pretty well, but name another coach who you can say, I will prepare you for what life is like in this league. And as we all know, that goes way beyond schematics in doing your job.
It is a complete

lifestyle change. Everyone talks about it, how different it is when football ceases to be your

quote unquote job and becomes your real job. And I think that he'll enjoy doing that.
Years ago, it was in 2006. It was around the time the Halberstam book came out.
Bill wouldn't promote it during the year, but in the offseason, he did a couple events. He did one at Southern Connecticut.
And he received a Distinguished Speaker Award. And I went to it.
And I was really curious on how it was going to go. And he was so at ease in that audience in front of those young minds.
And he wasn't talking about football. He showed some clips.
He went to the film in a funny way. But he wasn't talking about football and using these flat metaphors for how it prepares you for life and this type of thing.
He was actually addressing these kids in terms of their passion and what they want to do and how best to do it. And he was just on fire and he was inspiring.
And I do think that like, that's probably a muscle that he hasn't had a chance to flex as much in the NFL. And I think that he'll really look forward to doing that because he'll know that the vast

majority of even his players won't play in the

pros, but I think that he'll

enjoy preparing these

people for life

beyond football, which

to be honest,

even though

we know that he can do that, it is surprising

for Belichick because

he's someone who's self-worth almost seems tied to the results of games. Yeah, it made sense to me that he went to a school that actually is a strong academic school.
Because the other way this could have gone that wouldn't have shocked me is if he just took over, I don't know what jobs are open, but Amherst, Williams, Harvard, Yale. One of those, just like he went full div three.

Now that would have been tougher

for all the people he's bringing with him.

And I don't know if they're the same amount of money,

but the North Carolina Duke,

that kind of level of really good schools

that also have football at a pretty competitive level.

It makes sense to me.

Now, the thing he has to deal with here is if he's grumpy, curmudgeon, Belichick, every single person he's coaching is on a one-year deal with this new college system. And that balance, that's why we've seen a bunch of coaches get out.
They don't want to deal with it, right? He's approaching it fresh, but that's the biggest X factor to me.

He's yelling at whoever and they're just like,

okay, cool, I'm going to be at Ohio State next year.

So college is kind of a combination,

and maybe it's unofficially always been this way,

of like raw NIL money and how much am I getting

and cult of personality. I mean, you see it with Deion Sanders.
It is just such a cult of personality. Yeah.
Even Saban, you know, he had reached that level. And I think that like, it's, it's, it's kind of interesting to consider, but I mean, it's like, you know, Belichick has reached a higher cultural place than any football coach for the last two decades.
I would hope so. And, you know, as a cult of personality type of guy, I mean, you knew when Kraft started marketing the hoodies with the sleeves cut off, you know, that something could change in the atmosphere.
And, you know, a lot of the players that he'll be recruiting won't know, they wouldn't have been born when he was winning Super Bowls with the Patriots. But I think that the culture personality will be strong with him.
And I think that that affords you a lot of the things that if you're a good coach at a good program, makes this job so difficult. Because I don't think that he's going to be married to his phone all day, texting every single position and making sure that they're not entering the portal after practice, metaphorically speaking.
Right. Well, I'll tell you this, he's going to be going against certain coaches that he's going to be so overqualified competitively that it's going to be kind of hilarious.

And I'm in the camp of,

I think he's actually going to do really well

because just like his attention to detail

and the game management stuff he'll be able to do

is going to be so far superior

to some of these dudes that are in college.

That's one of my frustrations when I watch college

is I can't believe how sloppy and dumb and stupid

some of the stuff is, especially late.

But here's where we leave.

Well, I mean, just imagine someone like Davo Sweeney.

I mean, just like, you know,

he's clearly an elite college coach

that doesn't run the most sophisticated offense.

And, you know, I think that like

when Deshaun Watson came into the NFL, I think Bill O'Brien did a great job with him. And Deshaun for a while there was like on the verge of being one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL.
I mean, they had to mesh a lot of what they did in Clemson with like the stuff, you know, pulling from like the Brady rookie playbook, right? Yeah. Of the Patriots offense.
And, you know, he will take that stuff is a huge challenge. I mean, you know, the fact that you essentially have, you know, great inflation in college with some of these quarterback numbers that are being put up.
I mean, he will take that stuff personally. But there's also that aspect to, you know, the fact that like he is who he is.
And I mean, Brady on Fox the other day was asked about Belichick in college, and he could not imagine him there. It's a funny clip of him doing his impression of Bill giving his pitch.
We don't really want you, but if you want to come here, we'll see what you can do. That part of it is really interesting because he's going to be the complete opposite of what every other kid hears.
Yeah, it's basically he's Bobby Knight in the modern era. Exactly.
So if it's over, 302 wins for the NFL, third all-time. 31-13 in the playoffs, not including, 13 buys.
So 31-13 plus the buys, he's basically 44 and 13. 333 combined wins.
Only Don Shula had more, 347. Six and three in Super Bowls.
Three more as an assistant, so nine total. And really the only person with a chance to catch him with any of this stuff seems to be Andy Reid, who is 32 wins behind him and five playoff wins behind him and is probably going to pass him.
And I'm sure Belichick's probably okay with it. I wondered if that factored into it.
Even if I go to Jacksonville and I coach two years and get the record, am I going to hold it for... Remember when Drew Brees was breaking all those records and you knew that he was only going to have them until Brady another half season? I wonder if that calculus went into things.
Is that worth it for me? Probably not. If it was Philly, if Sirianni went sideways and he's moving in mid-season, but I talked to his people about him doing a podcast with Ringer, Spotify, because they talked to everybody last year.
And one of the things they made very clear to everybody who was discussing any sort of media thing with him is Belichick will be coaching in February, right? It's like, keep it low, but this is a one-year thing. This is not a new career.
He's doing this for one year.

He will be coaching in February.

And I always thought that was interesting

that they're so honest about it.

And just like, this is,

he clearly wanted to do all the media stuff

because he wanted to make money.

But he was also trying to shift

some sort of perception about him.

And I think for the most part, it worked. Because I think if you think about him in July, people just knew him as the all-time coach curmudgeon we've ever had.
Not the same now, I don't think. Like, he's inside the NFL.
His humor came out a little bit. The Manning cast.
You know, There were some pretty dreary moments in the Manning cast,

but there were also some fun clips too.

And some edgy moments.

You got to see that edginess with him sometimes.

He would do that

Jim Gray podcast sometimes, and he'd

start throwing darts at coaches and stuff

occasionally. So there was a little more

I think that most people thought, but for people like

you and me who had been watching him forever,

none of it was surprising. It backed up everything we'd already heard.
But I always felt like his sense of what his place was in football history and how he could shape that a little bit, I always thought he was way more aware that you don't let Halberstam do a biography of you. You don't let the NFL film crew follow you around for a year.
He did care about that stuff, I think, a little more than people realize. That was always my take.
Absolutely. Legacy has always been important to him and not just his legacy, but the legacy of the things that he built.
I always was told that back when he thought he would always leave the Patriots on his terms, he would never leave it if they were down. Like he always wanted to hand over the team, a good team to his successor.
So that like, no matter what you said about him, you could always say that he made decisions that he thought were best in the best interest of the team, not himself, but the team and the franchise. And that was a lasting legacy beyond him on the sidelines.
And watching him this year, and even he was throttled. You could tell there was moments where maybe he would have gone there a little bit more, but he had to restrain himself a little bit because he knows that he still wants to get back in, and he's not quite done with with this and it's not quite his personality just to rip guys that was my fear with him doing a podcast with us yeah how far is he gonna go is he gonna hold back but the gap between him and most of the league was just painfully obvious and yeah i get all the reasons that i i think there's a lot of people who thought that like Remember when Mike Shanahan sat out a year and teams started to fire their coaches early so they could get the inside track on him? Yeah.
There was a sense that might happen with Belichick, but because of the rules that are in place, that never really happened. And plus, I just don't think...
I think owners just had, like we've talked about,, all their reasons as valid or not as they may be of why they would rather bring in someone else and it's kind of hard not to be happy for Belichick that he's landed in a place that he seems legitimately stoked about Yeah, and even the Crafts they did end up up with Drake May somehow, right? They probably have one of the four worst coaches in the league. They have one of the, I think one of the worst front offices in the league that just had a horrible draft and a horrible free agency.
But they do have this guy now who has a chance to be one of the five or six best QBs in the league. And the whole fan base is completely in on him.

And now it's become,

I look at it and I'm just like Vrabel sitting there.

Like,

I don't understand.

They,

if you go back and you look at Vrabel's Tennessee career in 2021,

he was 12 and five.

And go look at that team.

Like,

it's kind of like about to be washed up. Maybe already was Tannehill.
There can replace half the season. AJ Brown is about to get traded for Traylon Burks straight up or Trayvon Burks, whatever his name is.
And they overachieve with that team. And then they trade, they trade Brown QB situation goes sideways.
Vrabel starts, you know and he's gone and now he's just sitting there and to me like what we were talking about earlier about Harbaugh, Payton there's just like 7-8 coaches, Tomlin, 7-8 coaches that really matter. I think Vrabel's one of the 7 or 8.
You have Drake May. I don't understand if these last four games for the

Pats don't go badly. If they go badly,

just admit the mistake and

hire Vrabel. He's a Patriot Hall of Famer.

I think he'd come. Why wouldn't they

do it?

Well, a couple things. I think that, like,

first of all, Vrabel is suffering from

a little bit of the same thing that Belichick has.

You know, this perception that you've got to give

him the keys and let him do it his way.

I think that guy's an excellent, excellent

coach. I actually think

Thank you. a little bit of the same thing that Belichick has.
You know, this perception that you got to give him the keys and let him do it his way. I think that guy's an excellent, excellent coach.
I actually think that, I mean, it's obvious that Tennessee was better under him and they were tougher under him. I actually think that if you are trying to develop Will Levis, he was better for that because he knew how to protect quarterbacks.
Right. Like he knew how to run an offense that didn't put everything on them and took some of the pressure off.
And I think he's suffering from a little bit of the stuff you see from Belichick. Would the Crafts move on from Gerard Mayo? I don't think so.
I don't think so either. I think Craft has said publicly that he decided in 18 or 6, 5 years ago, yeah.
Yeah, somewhere around that time that he was going to succeed Belichick.

And it's... 18 or 6 5 years ago somewhere around that time that he was going to succeed Belichick and unless there's something that's going on in the building that's so dysfunctional that hasn't come out yet that is just beyond intolerable I would really have a hard time seeing Robert Kraft move on from a coach like that after one year I agree agree.
And yet, I do feel like this is one of those situations where from everything we've seen this first year, there's really no glimmer of hope so far with the coach and the coaching staff and really any piece of this. And now it's like, so now we're going to run and then a year from now, we'll change everything.
That's why these next four games are going to be so important because Arizona this weekend is a winnable game for them. Arizona, I think, has overachieved a little.
They're not that talented. From a talent standpoint, not crazy different than the Pats.
And May might be able to just beat them by himself um but if they they play buffalo twice i forget who the last game is but i feel like if they go own four and it's like a bad own four i'm prepared for anything because craft's old these these owners get old and they're like fuck it i'm let's i'm in my 80s like i don't want to go down this way and press some plus with a very bowl as prickly he can be, they're used to that. They're like, whatever.
Whatever Tennessee can't handle, they're like, it's fine with us. This is a beach.
We've been through worse. He's a good coach.
He's a really good coach. It's a real...
The funniest thing to me is why Chicago And it's like, they're enamored with Ben Johnson. He calls great plays.
It's like, how much evidence do we need that that might not be the deciding reason to hire a coach? In the last 15 years, Kyle Shanahan is the only real whiz kid, new coach. Even somebody like McVay, who I think gets credit for that.
McVay's a football coach. He's doing everything on all sides.
He's a people manager. He's a strategist.
He's not just like, here are my 50 plays I'm bringing in the game. Free Bowl is like a culture changer.
Chicago needs to, you know, they play in the worst weather probably in the league other than maybe two other cities. They need to be tougher on the lines.
They need to be able to protect Caleb. I don't understand how just hiring a play car is going to be the answer for them, but what do I know? Absolutely.
It's a little bit like Belichick. I mean, he's a total head coach.
He can go coach running backs if he needs to. And Vrabel is a very similar...
He learned from him and others,

but Vrabel is a total head coach.

I'll never forget Belichick's last playoff game.

I guess we're saying last playoff game with Brady

when they lost to the Titans at home on that rainy night.

And the Patriots need the ball back.

They get a stop.

And you keep thinking, you're thinking this is when we've seen, we've seen this, you know, all of a sudden they're going to turn it on. And Vrabel deploys that clock management trick that Belichick had used against the Jets earlier that year.
And Belichick's just going nuts on the sideline and melting down. And you can tell he is hot because, but, but Vrabel had learned, like he had studied the guy and he knew in the exact situation when to use that that is next level coaching and when you watch like again the end of like the bears um lions game which is just like a debacle on every front it's just obvious that there are some of these guys out there that are fundamentally coaching and teaching a different sport and others are just kind ofified play callers.
And that would be my concern with Ben Johnson, even though he's an imaginative play caller. Yeah, Sal and I talked about a little on Sunday.
I just think being a head football coach and being somebody who specializes on one side of the ball or the other, over and over again, I would just rather have the overall head coach. Kevin Clark like kevin clark wrote a really good piece for us on the ringer i think it was for the 23 season about rabel and all the stuff that he did for the titans people can go back and read it but just about yeah how he would grab different time with different you know he'd just be like oh i'm gonna spend a half hour with the left guard because i don't like the way that he's stepping back on just every aspect of the team and I think for the Patriot fans like the stuff we read and hear about Mayo it just doesn't seem like that's happening not to mention the media stuff's been bad the game management stuff's been bad the team is exceptionally sloppy and I'm waiting for a light at the end of the tunnel with him because it would be a hell of a lot easier for all of us if he was a good coach or had a chance to be a good coach.
But these next four games are going to determine it. All right, so you announced you have a new book coming in September.
It's called American King's Biography of the Quarterback, available for pre-order now. And you just used your massive media clout to just go get time with a bunch of famous quarterbacks

and find out what's going on with that position.

Including Drake May.

But yeah, I wanted to write a book

that takes the most encompassing look

at this position I possibly could.

What's it like to do at every one of these levels?

What does it build in you?

What does it strip away?

What is it like doing in high school, college,

as a rookie?

How did this thing become cool? The answer, as it turns out, goes back to 1885 and runs right through LA in the coming decades. Wow.
And, you know, then what is it like to live with this the rest of your life? In what way is it incompatible with kind of future happiness? You know, that's what I wanted to do. And yeah, I spent some time with your boy Drake may when he was at Carolina and his family and the coaching staff there at the time.
And I really enjoyed, you know, spending time with him. And I do think that like part of the reason he was appealing to the Patriots, there's a Brady factor there where it's like you had the youngest kid in a family of achievers who had to fight for attention.
Yeah. And when he decided to go to North Carolina,

he knew right then that it's not about whether you make it in the NFL or not.

It's actually just whether you have something to say at Thanksgiving with your family around.

Did you do something that year that lets you be part of that conversation? And anyway, I had a great time reporting it and working on it and looking forward to September. Yeah, I obviously was obsessed with that draft in April and reading everything, talking to as many people as I could talk to.
And I was so all in on May. But Manning, ironically, I was at a thing with him and I was just picking his brain cause he knew May a little bit.
And I was like, I really feel like May's the guy. And, and Manning was like, oh yeah, that guy's the man.
Like that guy's going to be really good. I was like, really? Like I was like a little kid.
Really? You think it's going to be good? But I do think part of, and I'm sure your book taps into that, is how the guys who have done it can spot things with the next guys. Like, oh, they just kind of know who has and who doesn't.
And May's been, it's been the opposite of some of the other people we've had in different sports over the years. May's just been, he's checked every box.
It's crazy. He even knows what to to say in the press conferences already.
It's nuts. He has.
And I mean, I think like to take back what you said, I mean, I think there's an element of it where, you know, they think they can, and then sometimes they can't too. So like, you know, what makes this job in these weird responsibilities it has so unique and so hard, you know, so mythologized and so hard to predict baffles these guys.
Steve Young loved Zach Wilson, mentored him. What happened? What happened to Sam Darnold? How does he go from...
That's the thing. I think situation's so much of it, which is why the Drake Ma made thing has been amazing because he's in a bad situation.

He's got bad receivers and a bad offensive line.

And it doesn't seem like his coaching staff's that great.

Although Van Pelt might be all right,

but,

um,

but Darnold,

holy shit.

You look back at the situation he was in.

It was like,

of course he wasn't going to succeed,

especially at the age he was at.

Um,

anyway,

title back and title back.

Belichick used Darnold to take another crack at the jets. Oh yeah.
He loved that. You know, he loved mentioning that.
And to tie it all back, Belichick used Darnold to take another

crack at the Jets.

Oh, yeah.

He loved that.

He's done that a few

times.

He loved mentioning

that every team wanted

to keep Darnold and

liked him except for

the Jets.

Right.

All right.

Well, I look forward

to reading that book.

It's a great idea.

Seth, awesome to see

you read his piece

today if you want even more information on this. But I hope all is well.
Thanks, man. Good to see you.
All right. Joe House is here.
We're going to do some million dollar picks in a second. Brag about our record.
Do all that stuff. But NBA Cup is the semifinals are Saturday night.
The odds on FanDuel. OKC's plus 115.
Milwaukee's plus 270. Rockets 4-1.
Atlanta. A feel-good, super fun bet at plus 550.
My instinct says just lay the plus 115 with OKC and call it a day. I kind of landed the exact same place as you, what we saw in terms of how they handled Dallas.
And I really enjoyed the breakdown you, Jacoby,

Kurt Goldsberry. I felt like it took you guys

too long to get to the part where

Luka sucked. He

sucks sucked. He just

was a flat out no show.

He couldn't go up and down the court. And

what was crazy to me was

in the previous three games,

he looked fine. He looked like he

was all the way back, but I don't know if it was

a setback. I don't know where his head

was at. He was out of that game

Thank you. in the previous three games, he looked fine.
He looked like he was all the way back, but I don't know if it was a setback. I don't know where his head was at.
He was out of that game before it even really got going BS. Yeah.
It seemed like that OKC team is kind of a bitch to go against with all those swings they have and all those athletes. And they just seem like they knocked him out of his rhythm in the first half and that was it.
It shouldn't have been easy, though. But if I'm OKC, we talked about it Tuesday night.
That's such a good outcome that that's the team. That's one of the hurdles you needed to get over in the West.
And now you just feel like you can go at those guys. So they're playing the Houston Pit Bulls on Saturday night, who are just the classic.
I don't know why I love this team so much, because their last few minutes of their offense is so, you know, it's just, it's just a chore, which is why Jimmy Butler trade, yeah, I talked earlier about a Jimmy Butler trade, but they just desperately need somebody who can get a really good shot. It doesn't appear like it's going to be Jalen Green, but I just like the, I think it's going to be an awesome back and forth game.
We saw it two weeks ago. I loved it.
The Atlanta game, Atlanta-Milwaukee with that weird, goofy Milwaukee team. And I know Giannis can just have the 38-19 and just overpower them.
But I talked about it earlier in the pod. I continue to be infatuated by this Atlanta team.
And you feel the same. You know I do because we bet heavily on them at the preseason we did we imagined this possibility with their size and their versatility and lo and behold you know every once in a while we get a couple things right um and this was the team we thought for sure that DeJounte Murray was uh an enormous addition by subtraction because what they got back in Dyson Daniels and Larry Nance Jr.
like it's a mindset it wasn't just you know sort of the player aspect of it but they are long they can they defend from from side to side they defend full length and they they are a team that can score late in games that I'm not worried are going to get good looks. The shots are like, no, you get, you get worried about the 29 footer from Trey.
So I said earlier in the pod, Trey is at this really, really interesting inflection point where I feel like it's either going to happen or it's not, you know, like statistically, all these signs that he's going a little bit downhill as a scorer. And yet he's on the most fun Hawks team he's ever been on, the kind of team we would create.
We're trying to create a team for him. He's got lobbers and lob targets and shooters, all of these things, people to protect him on defense.
Now I want to see him elevate. I think both of us are suspicious that it's in there.
Well, I was going to ask clarify what you mean whether um it's gonna happen or not because my my immediate response is it's happening we are seeing it this is but not statistically for him though i guess that's the difference is could he become with all these weapons could he turn into like a 24 and 12 guy and a 40 percent shooter and all the stuff we need? The only stat that matters is the assists. Like if he continues to lead the league or be right up there, top three in assists with this set of assets, then I would say, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, this team has the composition of a team that can make some noise in the playoffs. They were so tough against the Knicks.
That's always, you don't know whether a team's going to show up and be prepared to have that bully instinct. They bullied the Knicks.
They had 10 more offensive rebounds. They kicked the Knicks right in the front and the back of the lower section there.
Yeah, I thought it was a moment. You know, and I think Trey is such an interesting guy to discuss and watch.
And there's so many things I don't like about his game, like that Lakers game. He just took a couple of horrible shots, but then he'll make a shot, right? But the thing I do like about him is the swagger and the competitiveness is there.
Like you knew at the end of the game, he wasn't going to be afraid of the moment. And the guys that he has around him, even that Risa Shea, and we watched him before the season in that Brooklyn exhibition game, and both of us, you were at my house, and we were just watching going, what's up with this guy? We kind of like this guy.
Maybe, yeah. Yeah, and I just think it's a bunch of dudes that Bogdanovich comes in, he's not scared.
It's a bunch of guys that aren't afraid. So I'm kind of leaning toward liking them in that milwaukee matchup as an underdog they are uh plus 148 plus three and a half i'm on record i'm on record i'm on the gambling pod is uh already up i played them on the money line and the points i'll take them both ways yes sir please oh wow a double okay a double helping of Hawks.
The Milwaukee team continues to be, you know, it's just everything they can extract from Giannis and they need a good game, good to great game from Dame just to be, they lost by 15 points a week ago. Now, no Middleton, but you know, okay.
And Dame shot very well from three, had 25 points,

and Giannis did one of his 38-19s,

and they still got their ass handed to him.

It's just a bad matchup, I think, for

Milwaukee against this Hawks team.

Couldn't agree more.

Because Giannis could still have the 38-17

and they could still lose. They're going to put Daniels,

they're going to try to take out Dame

with Daniels and some of the other swings. Somebody like Trey has always been a problem for this Bucs team with how to guard these shifty point guards.
So if Trey plays well, they win. I almost feel like you could do the Hawks money line with some sort of Trey overbet.
Alright, let's talk some football. Let's do it.
We're doing really well on million-dollar picks. We won $551,000 last week.
We are up $1.764 million. That's pretty good.
This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. It almost scares me a little.
There's just, it's playing all the hits for me. I love good to decent teams.
Three points are under. I love Mike Tomlin getting points.
You could probably guess what my picks are going to be. There's like an easy teaser.
So we'll go through some of it. Steelers-Eagles.
Steelers plus five and a half. I'll let you take the floor because I heard what you said on the Ringer Gambling Show today and you had a couple points on this game that I just wholeheartedly agreed with.
Do your what good defense is Philly played thing. Yeah, well, I went through their list of wins and please don't misunderstand.
A nine game winning streak is outstanding. It's excellent.
But when you go through the teams that they've beat, I don't think you can get to a top 10 defense. I think you're hard-pressed to get to a top 15 defense.
Now, they... Wait, can I give them quick? Please, please.
Cleveland, Giants, Cincy, Jaguars, Cowboys, Washington, Rams, Baltimore, Carolina. And it's not like they were throwing up 40 points a game either against those defenses but that speaks to like just nobody even remotely approaching what Pittsburgh has yeah and I guess Cleveland would be the best out of out of that group but right so the thing about Pittsburgh and why I think it's going to be a shock to the system is their ability to bring a pass rush that these Eagles have not seen this entire season.
And the Steelers are really rounding into form in terms of their quick pressure rate, their ability to disrupt, and they have health at the linebacker position, both Herbig and Alonzo Highsmith. Healthy.
And I just think, yeah, so we already know that this Eagles defense is one-dimensional. They are the least passing team in the NFL.
The fewest number of attempts and completions in the entire NFL. Jalen Hurts and this Eagles passing defense.
31st in a passing league that has some horrible quarterbacks. They're 31st out of 32.
You want to give this Steelers defense a one dimensional look? Do you think that they'll load the box and say, please try and run on us? And, you know, I think this is finally a matchup where the Eagles, very excellent offensive line. Again, don't misunderstand me that they're going to meet their match in terms of what this Steelers defensive front seven can bring to the table.
And Pittsburgh has a way better special teams. Yes.
Like Pittsburgh has one of the preeminent special teams of this decade. The season Boswell is having, I think Boswell might be having the greatest fantasy football season by a kicker in the last 15 years.
I had him on the vote-out league that I'm in with Sal and Henshin, those guys, and I didn't make the playoffs. My team sucked.
And I felt bad. I almost felt like sending Boswell a letter.
I'm sorry I let you down. You did everything you could.
This wasn't your fault, Boswell. You should have figured out a way to put him on a contender.
I mean, you know, I understand the dynamics that are at work, but like, is Jon Hamm still alive? He could have done something nice for you. He might have over 200 fantasy points this year.
Just outrageous. But that's like, kickers don't do that.
The top kicker is usually 160, 170. So they have him, the Tomlin factor, Tomlin as an underdog.
Philly's first rushing offense. Pittsburgh's fourth against the run in the entire league.
Yeah, it's great. And the only thing that worries me is the pickets part.
That's it. They're not going to have pickets.
That's a viable concern. And you're not imagining a game script here where Pittsburgh tries to get the ball way down the field, which has been one of their pathways to success with Russell Wilson.
He's been throwing a very nice deep ball, but that's not the way. The way that they win this game is field position, special teams, defense, long drives.
Under, under, under. You're just laying out unders left and right.
You're absolutely right. i think this has been a season about the general public underestimating things and pittsburgh is like the leader of the pack with that people have underestimated them before the season as the season was going people kept looking for reasons and then this is the most offensive line of them all like the eagles could win and win 14.
I still think the line's offensive. I think

it's a three-point game. I can't believe it's five and a half, especially with how the Eagles looked last week, barely beating Carolina, having some sniping after the game.
And this is where Pittsburgh loves to be. The weather's not going to be that bad, but it's a Pennsylvania game, So not long travel.

And to me, it just feels like a 20 to 16, 19 to 16, 21 to 20. Perfect.
So I was looking at different bets. The other thing is the Steelers are five and a half.
So Vegas is like, we don't know. We're throwing this to Vegas.
Steelers plus four and a half on Fando is even money. Steelers plus five and a half is like minus 113.
If you do Steelers plus four and a half with an under of 45 and a half, that's plus 198. It's almost two to one.
Great. And I guess my question to you is, so how many points become unrealistic for a game like this? Because if we don't think the Eagles are going to be able to run the ball, that might actually lead to more long passes.
But I don't think the Steelers are going to be able to get the same explosive plays that they used to have. So the model for them to win is just run the ball, run the ball, control it, try to wear the Eagles out.
And then on defense, the Eagles stubbornly try to run against them for a half. It doesn't work.
And then maybe it opens up second half. But I was looking at that.
Steelers plus five and a half under 47 and a half is plus 163. Another great one.
As many of these as you want to do. I'm here for it.
Steelers win the game outright with under 45 and a half is plus 328. So there's some great good ones.
But normally my instinct would be to pull the Steelers up over seven. I don't think, I think in one, like this is this feels like a three point game to me.
And they've played these games all year. And I think I think they're going to have a chip on their shoulder.
And this might be a team they see in the Super Bowl. I couldn't agree more with any of your handicapper assessment there.
I want to just add a couple other layers. You mentioned the special teams thing.
Tell me how many field goals Jake Elliott has made of 50 yards or longer this season. Oh God, probably like one.
The answer is none. Wow.
He is over five. So if we're talking about, if we imagine a game script where it's tight, it's, it's, you know, a field position kind of game, those 50 yard field goals start to become important and then the last sort of element of it is like who do you trust more in a game like this nick sirianni or mike tomlin and you know that that for me matters what's the best unit in the game and i i would say it's pittsburgh's defense now if if philly can run the ball on them, we'll know within a quarter and the game and I would say it's Pittsburgh's defense.
Now, if Philly can run the ball on them,

we'll know within a quarter

and the game's probably over. But I think

to me, this feels like a close game.

It feels like a field position game.

Special teams will factor it in

and I just, I like some combination

of maybe it's all the way up to

47.5. Maybe it's Steelers plus

5.5 with the under 47.5.

Something like that. Fine.
I think that's the move. Fine.
Next one, Lions Bills. So this is Lions minus 2.5, which is just a complete FU to the Lions defense by everybody.
People are like, you didn't fool us last week. Your team spent 38 seconds calling every play on offense and just doing everything they could to keep the defense off the field.
And now you're going to play Josh Allen. We don't trust you.
My counter is that the Rams showed what to do against Buffalo last week. They ran the ball.
They ran the ball. Then play action or quick passes.
And they just got first downs, moved the ball. And Detroit has a better offense than the Rams do.
They have a better offensive line. I don't know how Buffalo, I just feel like they're going to get pushed backwards the whole game.
I think that's, Buffalo's a team that needs the lead. And I think the Lions are just going to push them back, push them back.
Maybe there's a scenario where Josh is chasing the cover late, but this defense looks like an awesome matchup for the Lions. So I'm more focused on their offense and less the defensive deficiencies.
What are you looking at? Yeah, so this is, again, kind of a razor-thin coin flip kind of game. And so you're trying to find the teeny-tiny slices that might tip it one way or the other.
And, you know, if you were wanted, if you wanted to back the bills and grab the points, you would talk about Detroit secondary being susceptible to explosives and the bills are getting back both Coleman and Kincaid this week. They're supposed to be ready to play.
And we saw it through, through, you know, the tremendous comeback against the rams um shakir was incredible allen is at the absolute peak of his powers and if he is out of structure you don't you don't worry about josh allen out of structure getting the ball down the field he is the best quarterback that detroit will have faced this whole season with a pretty healthy offense. One of the things I'm interested in, I'm looking at it right now, James cooked these nuts over because I do think that they are going to try and establish a little run.
We're going to go cook these nuts over 52.5 rushing yards, but that's just a side play for me. That would be the case for Buffalo.
But if the Lions win this, what do you think? 30 points for them at least? Oh, I mean, the points are going to be abundant. And I don't want to do this, but I'm just saying, if you're taking the Lions, if you're like, I want to take the Lions plus 2 and a half, I would take Lions Moneyline and do over 50 and a half.
Over 50 and a half, Lions Moneyline is plus 206. I would do something like that.
This is not going to be a 24 to 16 type of game. I think there's going to be points.
But I feel like there's been a few times this year where Detroit's offense got discounted a little bit. Even Green Bay last Thursday night.
We all love Green Bay. We ended up, actually, I think we ended up winning that bet.
Yeah, we won our bet because it was, you know, we got the three and a half. Yeah, but Detroit, 34 points, probably could have more.
To me, this is just a, just don't overthink it. Lions are home.
They need the game. That's the other thing.
It's not like they have a three-game lead in the NFC. Minnesota's one game behind them.
And their offense is just way better than Buffalo's, even though Buffalo's offense is really good. But Detroit's plus 27 in touchdowns this year.
Buffalo's plus 18. Detroit's net yards.
They've scored almost 1,000 more yards than the other team or gained 1,000 more yards. Buffalo's at 300.
Buffalo's had weeks where they just look like that Baltimore game, the game last week where it just feels like you can go up and down the field in them. I like the matchup for Detroit.
Here's the thing that really tips it for me. If it's a tight game, we're in the fourth quarter, and it's time to start doing some math about the most efficient way to produce an outcome.

We just watched it.

Sean McDermott just has too many unforced errors in this regard.

And Dan Campbell never makes a mistake.

It is like Dan Campbell and the Lions are at the same level as the Chiefs in terms of like, it's an end of game scenario and I've got it mapped out and I know the correct call to make. We might not execute and we might lose the game because of a failure to execute, but I know the call I'm going to make and it's the right call and that's how we're going to win.
McDerm just gets it wrong so many times too often and I don't want to be in that position of watching this great game back and forth back and forth and the Bills have the ball and dumb dumb McDermott makes a dumb dumb call and they're like god damn it why did I invest in this team like Detroit really needs the game Buffalo they're either going to be the two or the three seed. There's urgency, but not like crazy not urgency.
Wow, you think they can drop to four? No, I don't think we're... I don't know if we're going to get to the Chiefs, but I'm not...
After what we watched in that game of the Chiefs Sunday night... Oh, you think they can get to the one seed? Hmm.
No. Yeah, yeah.
I'm not ready to cross off that possibility. Bigger game for Detroit.
Detroit has to win this game. Fine, fine.
That's fine. Campbell and Goff at home last couple seasons.
Incredible against the spread. With that said, I hate betting it's Josh Allen.
Sure. We'll take a break and then we'll hit the rest of the games.
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Alright come back more games that I like

well there's one I don't

that I stared at that I wanted to throw in

Chargers minus three

at home against the Bucs. And I had them written down all week.
I kept looking at it, kept looking at the injury report. And this seems like a week to stay away with the Chargers.
I just, there's something I don't like about it. The McConkie's not healthy.
Dobbins is out. Herbert now has this sprained ankle situation again.

And

I feel like this line should be like

Chargers by four. And the books are trying to tell us something.
The Bucks being a three-point underdog, they didn't even look good last week. So it's a stay away to me house.
Yeah, and it is 100% the injury uncertainty. It was trending in a way that let me go ahead and get a little bit down on the Chargers minus three, because I think it's a great number for the reason that you just laid out.
I mean, the Bucks have a bunch of wins against nobody teams. They beat the Giants with Tommy DeVito.
They beat Carolina in overtime. They played in the NFC South.
Right. I mean, they handled the Raiders because Aiden O'Connell broke his leg.
There's a bunch of wins. Now, again, you win.
You have to play the games in front of you on your schedule. Congrats to them.
But brutal spot. What's the status of Bucky Irving? That will impact the handicap.
And then what's the status? McConkie was running drills on wednesday so i started saying well this is part of why i i went ahead and get got down a little bit on that chargers minus three um you can't have herbert under any circumstances impaired at all because the the what tampa has been doing these last three weeks very successfully against bad teams is blitz, blitz, blitz, blitz. They've greatly increased their blitz rate and it's been successful.
I know I'm coming on the ringer Sunday pregame on Sunday. I could see being back in on the Chargers on Sunday.
I'm not doing it now on a Thursday afternoon. Great.
Here's a game I do love. Houston minus two and a half against Miami.
Okay. Texans off a bye.
Miami's pass defense, kind of getting semi-shredded by Aaron Rodgers, who's been done for three years. D'Amico Ryan's versus Tua.
Raheem talked about that on the Ringer Gambling Show today. There was a San Francisco game with Tua that was not awesome for Tua.

Houston's defense.

Seventh against the pass. Second in sacks.
Second in tackles for

a loss.

Most importantly, House.

We're kind of due for a good

CJ Stroud game.

We're just due.

I know that's a goofy

thing to say, but he's got his receivers back. Nico Collins is back.
They're coming off a bye. It just feels like this is a first quarter where they come out swinging, make a couple big plays.
They hit two a couple times. I don't think Miami's good.
And I think, to me, this is a gift of a line. This line should be Texans by three and a half.
People don't trust Houston. I get it.
Not even sure Houston's that good. If they can't win this game, we might have to take their AFC South title house.
Just give it to somebody else. Well, the culture are, you know, sort of hovering around interesting, uh, matchup against the Broncos.
But, um, I understand your point with this, uh I just can't unsee what the Jets did to them. It looked like, you know, Devontae Adams was open on every play.
It looked like Wilson was open on every play. Nine-yard outs over and over again.
I just... And the...
And Jalen Ramsey looked like shit in that game, didn't he? Yeah, right. Yes, yes.
They put him on an island, and they just cooked him. The Houston Texans do not deserve to be trusted, but I think we finally might be in a situation where you outlined it properly.
We're not laying a ton of points. They're at home.
It's off the bye. We're dying for a CJ Stroud game.
And, you know, we saw a version of Houston at the beginning of the season where Joe Mixon was super effective. We're like, oh, look at this.
This Houston team might be an 11 or 12 win team. They went through their injuries and stuff.
Their offensive line is the issue. They can't really be trusted.
But I like the spot for Houston. I'm in your direction on this.
You know what I like the most about this game? So if the Jets just finished the game last week, that stupid game that they gave away, and the Dolphins lose to the Jets last week, what's the line on this game? Right. Exactly.
It's at least three and a half. It might even be four.
So instead, we're at two and a half because the jets just decided to actually have like a stroke on the field they were so stupid um houston's four and what here's another reason to be suspicious of houston they're four and one against the south a terrible division they've also beaten the the text the uh bears the patriots and theboys. So this might be the best win they have in a while.
Well, let me put this to you because you'll go through the stats, and you mentioned this, them coming out fast. They are one of the top five teams in the NFL in terms of scoring in the first half.
Yeah. And they don't have to lay very much in the first.
We can look at the FanDuel Sportsbook to see what the first half spread is.

They're one of the worst teams.

They're one of the worst teams in the NFL in the second half.

Yeah, I saw the second half stuff is terrible with them.

Right.

Yeah, I hate doing those first half.

You don't like the exotics.

It's minus one and a half.

We saved like a point, you know.

Okay.

All right.

Listen, you did make me think. Do you think two is good? Yes.
Yes, I do. I do think he's good.
So you're in the pro two account. I am a pro two guy.
Yes. I just can't get there.
Under the right circumstances, when he's playing either indoors or in Miami when it's 80 degrees, think he's good and I do think that the DJ has created a playlist for him he's they're spinning some some some smooth sounds down there um where he can be super effective with those weapons but like under any kind of adverse conditions as soon as they go outside we watched it forget about it Yeah, well, or if he's getting pounded by the passers. Yes.
Okay. Last straight up game, Seahawks-Packers.
Still the stupefying line to me of the week, the lack of respect for Seattle. Pittsburgh and Seattle were the two-hours.
Like, wow, why am I seeing this so differently? Seahawks are plus two and a half at home against the Packers. I just don't get it.
Now that, and you laid out the case on the gambling pod today, but I don't feel like the defense thing is a mirage. There was real reasons why they started to struggle defensively.
All of their guys are back now. They're actually playing really good defense.

McDonald's been there for a while. They understand what he's trying to do.
And then the other thing that jumped out, especially last week, is the blocking for their offensive line went from horrific to pretty passable. They ran the ball down the throats of Arizona last week.
Their last four wins, they beat San Francisco. They won three road games last four weeks at San Francisco, home Arizona at the Jets at Arizona.

The other thing I like house their third they basically have the third best passing attack in the league and that's been a weakness for Green Bay so I'm trying to think of how Green Bay goes in there and just waltzes and beat them it would have to be a pretty extraordinary Jordan Love game, and I think Seattle's defense can actually contain him.

Yeah, I mean,

you went through those games that they won,

including the road games. Those are all high-leverage games.
Those are all

season-determining games.

They lose really any of those,

and they're probably out of the playoffs.

And it's a real testament to McDonald,

and they did get healthy

at the right time. The bye couldn't have come at a better time for them.
So since the buy, 50%, you know, disruption rate, we saw it against the Cardinals. You love that, Seth.
Number one, I do, because top five disruption, that means that they're going in and not letting the offense get itself set into a scheme that, you know, where they can execute what they have in mind. And they're certainly not letting the quarterback get itself set into a scheme that, that, you know, where they can execute what they have in mind.
And that they're certainly not letting the quarterback get set up. But to me, you mentioned all the offensive side that, you know, they, they, they had a zone blocking scheme.
We saw Zach Charbonnet look like the guy that, you know, like, Hey, yeah, look at him run the ball. That was really effective.

It takes so much pressure off of Geno

if they can run that way.

And look, Geno, from a clean pocket,

nine touchdowns, two picks.

It's like the diametric opposite under pressure,

five touchdowns, 10 picks.

But the Packers don't generate any pressure.

They're 22nd in pressure rate

and 26th in pass rush win rate. Pass rush? You do it.
You can do it. Well, the last few games, they lost to Detroit twice.
They came back and beat the Bears 20-19, Iberflus' last win. They killed the San Francisco, the game, which was a good win for them, but also San Francisco had a ton of injuries.
And then they beat Miami on that Thursday night. And I like the Packers.
I think they're a good team. Sure.
But I don't think they should be favored in Seattle. If it was the Seattle from five weeks ago, I get it, but not the Seattle we've watched last month.

To me, that's...

I think Seattle should be favored.

The rule is, if you

feel like you're getting so many more points

than you thought you might be getting.

Anyway, there's a couple

things we can do with this.

I think Seahawks' money line is the play.

Oh, okay. Fine.

But

Seahawks in a teaser is kind of fun. That's one of my favorite legs of the week.
Seahawks Seahawks minus two and a half is plus 154. Sure.
Great. In.
Maybe that's the way to play it. Maybe play the money line and then put them in a teaser.
So teaser possibilities. I'm just insisting on one.
The Chiefs are minus four and a half against the Browns. So it's more of a money parlay than a teaser.
But the Chiefs are only minus four and a half in Cleveland. Bad weather.
It's the Chiefs. Nobody trusts them anymore to cover anything.
The Browns are horrible. You're wrong.
I went through their schedule. The Browns should be 1-12.
They're not horrible. The Browns are 32nd in DVOA this year.
They're last. They're dead last with DVOA.
They're getting more and more injuries every week. Now Greg Newsome is out.
They can't run the ball at all. They can't run the ball at

all. That's true.

And to beat the Chiefs, it's just going to have to be Jameis

doing stuff every week.

Well, you know who we didn't think could run the ball

at all? The LA Chargers.

Now, I'm not going to

sit here and say that Justin

You're not going to make the case for the Browns, are you?

I like the Browns. I like the Browns

quite a bit. In fact, I think this is the Browns Super Bowl, and I think there's a decent chance to validate their season.
If they have a season where they beat the Ravens, they beat the Steelers, and they beat the Chiefs. They're terrible.
They're not terrible. Their defense is finally— I watched them last week against Pittsburgh.
They're terrible. Those were short field, mistake-driven scores.
They held Russell Wilson to under 160 yards. He didn't have pickets.
It was short field. I understand.
But this Chiefs situation is busted. And I said on one of our shows this week, I can't wait to find the opportunity to fade them in the playoffs because I promise you I'm going to fade them in the playoffs.
How about them in Cleveland just to win and beat Jameis Winston in a team that's missing a kajillion guys? I'm not doing it. I can't endorse it.
I think the variance with Jameis... You've been hanging out with JJ too much.
No, I just can't. That secondary for the Chiefs has no solution.
You can't name five of the guys that the Chargers had on the field catching passes last week. And it just didn't matter.
They were all open. They were open every time.
It's why the Chiefs had to run the Anaconda offense at the end of that game to win. They had to strangle the Chargers for five minutes and get to a field goal and kick that field goal.
It was their only chance to win because the Chargers otherwise would have gone down the field and won. Maybe the Chargers are good.
They could be, but you can't name the guys that were catching balls at tight end or receiver for the Chargers. I can name them.
Josh Palmer, Quentin Johnson, Smith Disley. They're so bad.
Disley got hurt. It was stone.
Smart stone. So you don't trust the Chiefs.
And yet, I heard you earlier today talk about how much you like the Cowboys in a fucking tease. Wow.
The Cowboys are reprehensible. Look.
So you trust the Cowboys? To getting eight and a half against the Carolina Panthers, yes. I just need the Chiefs to beat the Browns.
They can win by half a point, and I win the bet. I hate it.
I hate it. You could say that about every team that the Chiefs, every bad team that the Chiefs have won by the tiniest hair on their ass in each of these last.
They're one and seven against the spread. Go ahead.
Yeah, I know all those stats. But in a weird way, you're proving my point.
The Browns have Jedi mind. It's not sustainable.
But the Browns have Jedi mind trick people into thinking they're not terrible. And they are.
They're not. They're 32nd in DVOA.
They have a worse DVOA than Carolina, New England, Tennessee, Las Vegas, and the New York Giants. Worse than everybody.
That number has so much Deshaun Watson spilled all over it. What did Jameis do last week that you liked? Other than just sail the ball over people's heads and make terrible plays.
They had the backdoor cover staring them in the face. It was right there.
Oh, my God. The other tease I like is the Vikings against the Bears.
Just because I'm tired. Yeah, yeah.
I'm tired of passing on Sam Darnold. Now you're talking.
Now you're talking. Yeah.
And look, if you wanted to go ahead and grab my team and go from seven and a half down to one and a half against Spencer Rattler. I don't trust your team.
Spencer Rattler? I don't trust your team. The closest margin of victory I don't trust your 27th run defense against the Saints just running the ball like 200 times against you.
Makes me nervous. All right't trust your team.
I'm sorry. That's fine.
I just wanted to put it out there. I'm not going to try to make the case.
Vikings minus seven against the Bears. The Vikings' weakness is you can kind of throw at them, and the Bears are 30th pass.
That's a dead man walking team. I very much like this.

Minnesota fourth in sacks, not to mention

all the Flores blitz stuff, Chicago 32nd.

The only case for the Bears

is just that they played the Vikings pretty well a month

ago.

But now that Darnold, Jefferson,

Addison, they're all humming again.

Did you see that there was

a long video of Kirk Cousins saying

goodbye to everybody in Minnesota after the game? Did you see this? I think I sent this to you. You didn't, but I love the time.
I'm dying already. It's a four minute video.
All the Vikings, all their players, coaches stuck around in the field to say goodbye to him after the game. And because his career is over.
No, they loved him. They loved him so much that it was just guy after guy coming over, hugging him.
Hey, man, it's great to see you. He just seems like he was the most beloved teammate ever.
He's a gamer. People love Kirk Cousins.
$200 million by being a gamer. Not very good, but a gamer.
So you're down on Vikings minus seven. Oh, 100% down.

And what if I talked you into Casey money, Minnesota money. I'm not doing anything with Kansas City.
I'm telling you right now. Casey money, Minnesota money, Seattle plus eight and a half is plus 150.
You can do that on your own. I'm not endorsing anything with the Chiefs.
You're really mad about it. I'm not mad.
What is it about the ringer gambling show that the shitty teams and the bad quarterbacks are like fucking catnip for you guys? I don't get it. I laid three and a half points with the chiefs on Sunday night and they showed flaws that are unlike out of them.
Yeah, so I'm out on them.

They are super beatable.

They keep telling us who they are.

Every single week, they get down to a single moment,

a single score, and they've been on the correct side

of the outcome.

I'm not betting on that.

I'm not betting on that anymore.

I'm done with the Chiefs.

So there's a Minnesota tease possibility with Seattle. Okay okay in i still like that seattle minus two seattle minus two and a half plus 154 great love it no argument i think that defense is super legit like uh green bay in in detroit got a version of a detroit defense and we were like oh detroit they're really banged up this is going to be a hard spot for them and you know they they were they were gamers it wasn't that that you know green bay went out and flew all over them but this this seattle defense is a different deal and we're outdoors now i respect uh you know green bay's outdoor acumen.
I'm not suggesting that they're going to have a problem playing outdoors. It's just a different kind of situation, different speed.
All right. I think I know what we want to do for Million Dollar Picks.
All right, it's time. Million Dollar Picks, week 15.
We are staying away from Niners Rams tonight. As much as we usually like throwing a little something on the Thursday night, if we can get the pot up in time.
To me, it's just an abject stay away. Rams Niners staying away.
So apologies to both of those teams. We did not want to wager on you tonight.
Here's what we do want to do. And we're up $1.764 million.
We won $551,000 ours last week, House. Pretty good.
First one, Steelers. We looked at this all different ways.
We thought about money line with the under. We thought about Steelers plus four and a half on FanDuel.
It was even on. It's like all kinds of machinations.
Both of us feel like this line is two to two and a half points too high because of the Steelers' defense, how good it is. Such a good defense.
Don't trust the Eagles passing offense. Do not.
Love Mike Tomlin as an underdog. Love.
The most underappreciated discounted team of 2024, the Pittsburgh Steelers, plus five and a half in Philly. We were putting $200,000 on that one, even though George, don't call me Carl Pickens is not playing.
So there you go. That's our first one.
Second one, Lions minus two and a half at home against Josh Allen and the Bills. This is a straight backing of the Lions offense.
We're going in eyes wide open. Could be a fun live head, live hedge house near the end.
Bills down 14 late. Just jump on Josh.
Try to middle it.

You have to get Sean McDermott out of there, but yes. Who's your, who do you think is the best team right now? Just in general, is it still the Lions for you? Detroit, yes.
Detroit, yes. Yeah, that's how I feel.
All right. Well, we get them under a field goal at home in a big game.
Great. And by the way, the Bills don't necessarily need the game.
They're either going to be the two seed or the three seed, unless Casey loses in Cleveland this week. If you missed the first part of the pod, House wouldn't let me put Casey in a teaser parlay, even though Cleveland's 32nd DVOA.
Cleveland sucks. They're terrible.
I don't think they suck. This seemed like a layup, and House threw his body in front of it.
So I get to just send him MF or text if Casey's up by 20. Next bet, Texans minus two and a half at home against the Miami Dolphins, who came very close to losing Aaron Rodgers, who gave up a 300-yard game to Aaron Rodgers, which should get kicked out of the league at this point.
Texans minus two and a half coming off a bye. Still winging the ball around.
Yeah, we have to see whether Toronto Armstead's even able to go for Miami. Overtime game for Miami, all those extra plays.
Houston off the bye, rested, and really ready to put their stamp on the back half of this season. They have a really tough schedule.
They have to win a home game like this. We're banking on this being a, hey, CJ Stroud, welcome back to the season game combined with if the Jets had just taken care of business being the Dolphins last week, there's no way this line would be minus two and a half.
We're grabbing Houston 200 can that. Now we're putting a little teaser with Minnesota and Seattle.
Minnesota's minus seven. Seattle is plus two and a half at home against Green Bay.
So we'll nudge that up six points. We're putting 200K on that.
We don't understand the Seattle line at all. Minnesota at home against Chicago.
We believe in this Minnesota team. Still lingering, still hoping the Lions stumble and they can just hop up and grab the one seed.
Sam Darnold, would you take him on the commanders if you didn't have Daniels? I think he would. Oh, if we didn't have Daniels, sure.
He would immediately be one of the best quarterbacks of the past 25 years in Washington. I would take him on the Pats if we didn't have Drake made the future of the NFL on our team.

I like them.

It's a great bounce back season.

And then we're going to do a little 50K parlay of the Pittsburgh money line

combined with the Seahawks minus two and a half on FanDuel,

which is plus 142.

You put those two together.

Plus 638. That's juicy, which is plus 142.
You put those two together. Plus 638.

That's juicy, baby.

Pittsburgh Moneyline.

Seahawks minus two and a half.

We're going to put 50K on that.

I really was trying to figure out a way

to work Drake May and a million dollar picks

in Arizona because I think they actually

may be dumb enough to beat Arizona this week,

but we'll stay away.

We don't need it.

Good job.

Good job.

Those are the million dollar picks

for week 15.

Thank you. enough to beat Arizona this week, but we'll stay away.
We don't need it. Good job.
Those are the million-dollar picks for week 15. House, we can see you on the Ringer Sunday pregame show.
I might be stopping by. Can't wait.
Looking forward to it. Have you thought about who's your underdog pick? It's just going to be Pittsburgh, right? It might be.
One of the other guys might jump ahead of me, but there's a lot of great choices, including the Cleveland Browns.

I hope you're dumb enough to take them.

We'll see.

We'll see.

You know who I was looking at as a possible underdog?

I wouldn't bet it,

but just for if you're forced to take an underdog for that segment,

the Riddler and the Raiders going against Atlanta in Vegas.

It's the, I feel like the Raiders have one more dumb win in them.

It's the funniest outcome for sure.

Thank you. the Raiders going against Atlanta in Vegas.
It's the, I feel like the Raiders have one more dumb win in them. It's the funniest outcome for sure.
It would, it would be hilarious. And I do think, you know, the guys, the defense for, for the Raiders, um, we'll, we'll be playing cause they know they're really auditioning for the next head coach.
Right. the Raiders.
They're not playing for that guy any longer.

Yeah, I thought that one jumped out to me.

Seahawks are somehow an underdog.

I'm sure JJ will take them.

I don't mind that Pat's as an underdog pick, though. Anyway, House, great to see you.

Enjoy the NBA Cup this weekend.

I will see you next week.

So thanks to House.

Thanks to Seth Wickersham.

Thanks to Saruti and Kyle Ngahal.

Don't forget, new Rewatchable's coming on Monday.

Don't forget, you can find all the clips

Thank you. So thanks to House.
Thanks to Seth Wickersham. Thanks to Saruti and Kyle Angahal.
Don't forget, new Rewatchable is coming on Monday.

Don't forget, you can find all the clips

from this podcast on my YouTube channel.

And I think we're running video for this podcast as well.

So if you're on Spotify, just flip your phone.

Just look.

You might just see me in house right now.

I will see you on Sunday.

Enjoy the week.

I don't have a few years with them

On the wayside

I'm a bruised side

I don't have a few years with them

Must be 21 plus and present in select states

for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas

I'm just... I don't have it.
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