OKC’s Revenge, NBA Cup Nitpicks, and NFL Season Fun Grades with David Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, Kyle Brandt, and Craig Horlbeck

Coming up, NBA Cup, NBA, and a lot of NFL next.

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Coming up, we waited for these two NBA Cup games to end on Tuesday night because especially OKC Dallas had to see what was going on there. Wanted to break it down.
So I reserved, almost like you could reserve an Uber black car or something, I reserved Dave Jacoby and Kirk Goldsberry to be on call after the NBA Cup. So they're going to join me.

And then Craig Horovic and Kyle Brayton and I,

Kyle and I did a rewatchables that we recorded for later this month. And then I made him stick around yesterday.

And me and Craig and Kyle just talked about NFL.

And it went a whole bunch of directions.

I had a great time.

So this is a three-man podcast all the way through

with two different three-man teams.

It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet.
All right, we're taping this. It is almost nine o'clock Pacific time.
Dave Jacoby stayed up late on the East Coast. Kurt Goldsberry, sloppy seconds we're getting you today because you were doing some alt-casting.
Hopefully you have enough energy momentum back. Guys, I'm going to start here.
OKC beats Dallas. Jacoby, is OKC like a borderline lock for you in the West, or is there somebody else you're afraid of? Because the more I watch them, the more I just wonder who beats them in the West.
It's the defense. It's just...
It's on a different level than every other team. I don't want to play against this team.
You can just see the frustration on the body language of the Mavs. They can't throw basic passes without being harassed.
Like, you remember that lively rebound he got, and the cruiser just knocked it out of bounds? It's just annoying. They're just swarming wasps, and it's so frustrating because I was rooting for the Mavs because I wanted a close game, and it's just impossible to do anything against them.
It's awful. What do you think, Goldsberry? Yeah, they're the clear favorite now.
And I know Dallas is going to sit here and say, oh, we didn't have P.J. Washington and we beat him last year and this.
Fine. They should be confident.
But from what I'm seeing, Bill, their net rating, their defensive rating like Jacoby just said, and then the eye test. Oh my God.
Yeah, Luka threw a lob. I think it was to Lively near the end of the game that he's thrown 100 times.
And all of a sudden, there was two Thunder guys, and they were playing small, and they intercepted it. I think they had 12 steals, 31 points off turnovers.
But more importantly, they just frustrate the hell out of everybody. And I feel like they're so far and away better than anything else I'm seeing in the West through the first quarter of the season that, yeah, I'm going to say they're the favorite to come out of the Western conference.
FanDuel agrees with you, but the odds for the OKC Thunder in the West, I thought they'd be a minus, but they're plus one 90 in the West. And I, they just seem too athletic and too fast for maybe any team except the Celtics.
Because I think at least the Celtics,

it's the perimeter guys.

You watch Dallas, and Dallas was on a good run.

They'd won 11 and 12.

They really felt like they were starting to turn into something.

And they just look slow tonight compared to OKC.

You put Luka, you put Kyrie, you put Klay Thompson,

Najee Marshall, who was really good in the first half.

Those are good players. Those are guys,

top five team in the league.

And OKC just seemed faster

and younger and more athletic.

And Luka, I don't know, what was going on

with Luka, Jacoby? What was your take?

You know, one of the things that analysts always say

about Luka is you can't speed him up.

You can't speed him up. There's a part of me who's like,

hey, Luka, can you speed up? It's like, oh, you can't speed him up. He's always speed him up.
There's a part of me who's like, hey, Luca, can you speed up?

Oh, you can't speed

him up. He's always at his own pace.
He's like, cool, cool, cool.

How about you move a little bit off the ball?

There's a couple of sessions he was just in the

corner. He's kind of getting that

James Harden off-ball energy

that like, oh, someone else has the ball, so

I'm just going to stand here with my arms at my

sides, straight up and down.

It was a frustrating Luca day. They were doubling him early, which I think was smart because they doubled him early and kind of got the ball out of his hands and didn't let him catch a rhythm until the second half for like a brief spurt.
You know what though? I still think they're the number two team in the West for me if I had to say who can actually make the finals. I still have Dallas second.
I don't think this is a great matchup for them. And I was trying to think of the rock, paper, scissors thing with the West.
I don't know if you guys saw the OKC Houston game. Maybe it was 10 days ago.
Houston, I think, is the team in the West that can go toe-to-toe on this crazy, young, hungry pit bull, just speed, athleticism all over the place. I think that's the only way in the West.
Nobody's going to overpower them. There's not going to be like, obviously not the Lakers, but the LeBron AD type situation where it's just, oh my God, they just got bully balled.
They got out-rebounded by 10 rebounds. I don't see that happening this year.
I almost feel like you have to beat them with what they do. Is there anybody else you see, Kirk? Houston, I think we'll see tomorrow if they can beat Golden State here in this quarter final.
I don't see anybody else because Minnesota, I think, coming in to the season, Bill, was that other team for me and they have just been off to an awkward start. So I don't see the Randall piece really fitting in there to put them in that category.
And Dallas was the hottest team in the league, period, before tonight. And I think they clearly deserve number two status.
They won the conference. They beat this team in the playoffs last year in six games.
So I think until further notice, it's OKC, Dallas, then Houston. And then actually, I don't know who I put it for.
So you'd have Houston third or just to beat OKC? Would you just have Houston third in general? I love Houston at three. And I want to see what they do in this tournament.
I know some people think it's silly, but I think this is a catapult for them. If they beat Steph and Steve Kerr tomorrow and they get to Vegas and they play the Oklahoma City Thunder, I think it really starts to feel like they're not just a flash in the pan.

Like OKC, Bill, their defensive indicators

scream contender.

They are not, just like Orlando.

Orlando, OKC, and Houston.

Three young, pain-in-the-ass defenses

that nobody wants to play against.

And Eme has really built that team up. So I would put them at three.
I don't know if there's somebody I'm forgetting. The other thing, well, you're forgetting Memphis, and we have to mention that because Jacoby does a podcast twice a week on this match with somebody who's like, how the fuck can Kirk Goldsberry not mention Memphis for eight minutes there? What the fuck is he doing? That might be intentional.
I might have heard that he fast forwards the minutes that I speak on this show. Is that true? He does the 15 second fast forward.
Memphis right now is fifth offensive rating, seventh defensive rating. The per 36 stats are crazy for them too.
Like Ja, who's really only playing like 28 minutes a game,

but he would be 28 and 11 if he played 36.

Brandon Clark looks great.

So from a speed standpoint, maybe,

but I'd kind of like to see those guys play for 20 games, Jacoby.

And I'll tell you this,

they're dining a lot off that Celtics game on Saturday

where the Celtics had played five and seven.

They'd played Milwaukee the night before in this like heated. my dad was saying

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like a like a like a like dad was saying it was like a third round playoff game kind of intensity. And then the next day the Celts have to run it back and they had no legs, they were dead.
And Memphis kind of steamrolled them. But I don't think they should take too much out of that, Jacobes.
I don't think any of these teams would be a favorite in a series against the Thunder.

And watching the Thunder tonight,

watching them just fly around

and watching SGA be like a true go-to weapon on offense

the way that some of the Rockets don't have,

to be honest with you.

And then every once in a while,

they cut to this guy in a velour sweatsuit

in the second row with a big beard

who looked like he leveled up. Chet, obviously I'm talking about, it's like he's coming back.
Like, they have like a major weapon. He looks like a UFC fighter.
Like, he's like this UFC middleweight hanging out outside the octagon waiting to see who's going to fight in the next UFC card. But it's Chet Holmgren.
He's 7'1". I think that

people sleep on the fact that they're doing all of this

without him. A lot of teams

are missing players, but he's like,

I don't know, second or third best player.

Probably their third best player.

What we did get to

see tonight, especially, was the Hartenstein

piece. The whole

rebounding

center rim protection guy

that they just haven't had. We were talking about

some of the matchups with them.

One of the things that's interesting with Houston is Houston's first in the league in rebounding. They're almost averaging 50 rebounds a game.
Which, you know what? Sometimes I like the counting stats. I know the fancy kids, they love the advanced stats, and Kirk's got his efficiency map, and I

love all that stuff too, but

sometimes I like to know who gets the most rebounds

every game. And Houston's getting

50 a game, so to

Jacoby's point, Kirk,

I do feel like they need Chet and

Hartenstein in a Houston series, but the

flip side with Houston is, I still don't really

know who their go-to guy is. I watch them game to game and it's like, because they're my favorite league pass team.
And it's like, really? We're doing the Fred Van Viet step back? That's our shot with 50 seconds left? I don't think they know. They'll go to Shangoon sometimes, depending on the matchup, but it's kind of like a last shot by committee team, which makes me nervous in the playoffs.

Yeah, I think that's valid.

And I think that we went too long not talking about what we saw from SGA tonight.

And I think he really is the differentiator in the top of the West

because he is legitimately the MVP candidate over there right now.

When you look at those three teams we talked about,

you throw in Memphis, maybe John Morant, but SGA is on a different plane. And what we saw tonight from him on both sides of the court, nearly scoring 40 points and then just putting up crooked numbers.
Made some threes. Five for nine from three.
Five for nine from three and then just sets the tone on defense too. Like he is a truly, truly impressive two-way superstar, Bill Simmons.
And I think no other team has that. And if it does get to sort of crunch time at the end, you know that the guy who has the ball in his hands can score in an isolation situation.
By the way, he's isolating more than anybody else in the league. And Houston doesn't have that.
That is fair to say. And I think that is one of the things that separates the Oklahoma City Thunder from everybody else in the West right now is that their best player can be that guy at the end of a big game like we saw tonight.
Houston does have Dylan Brooks doing Dylan Brooks stuff. I think SGA would be the best guy in the West if Jokic wasn't averaging a 56.1 a game, points, rebounds, and assists.
He's in the 56 club right now. It's like him and Will Chamberlain.
It's just the two of them. They're hanging out.
That's it. Who do you have in the MVP ladder right now? Just between those two.
Jokic is having the greatest statistical season of our adult lifetime. I agree, but does it matter to you that OKC is emerging as a clear number one and they're sort of dropping down to maybe play-in status? Does that factor into the Professor Simmons model? Yeah, it's early, right? I mean, Denver hasn't won two straight games for a month.
I don't know what's going on with Jamal Murray. Jokic, I promise you, isn't like, oh, cool, I scored 104 points this weekend.
That's not what he's about. But I don't know if he has a choice.
I want to see if it's 47, 48 wins is kind of the cutoff for me. But if you're a six seed or a seven seed, I think it gets tough if there's some real candidates.
I think Tatum's a candidate. SGA is absolutely a candidate.
Jacob's, I think that thing that would really clinch it for SGA having an argument, maybe even becoming a favorite, is if OKC just becomes like a 65-win team, which I think is in play, as hard as the West is. It seems like an accident when they lose.
I'm always surprised when they lose, right? I think 65 might be a little high, but I think they're going to run away with the number one seed in the Western Conference, which is obviously the stronger conference. They're 19-5 right now, for the record.
I try to stay away from the mvp stuff you know what i mean on december in the early december yeah yeah but um i uh what yogish has done has been very impressive and what he did this weekend as you mentioned i'm sure he's like i don't want to do i don't want to take 39 shots in a basketball game he's like you were like that jacobes when you were taking a lot of shots you were never happy i know i know you want you want to do no looks and you want to take 39 shots in a basketball game. You were like that, Jacobes.
When you were taking a lot of shots, you were never happy. I know.
You wanted to do no looks and you wanted to do good entry passes and just play team basketball. That's like Jokic.
Exactly. What did he do this weekend? Lose to the Wizards? Is that what caught your eye? Lose to the Wizards.
Lose to the Wizards and beat the Hawks. He scored 104 points.
That's true. Killed the Hawks.
It is crazy. It is crazy how little he has around him.
What really jumped out at me about those two games was the Westbrook-Jokic connection. Westbrook was just feeding him.
Westbrook was like, the best player on the planet is on my team. Let me just get him in a position to score.
It was really impressive. I was impressed by Westbrook this weekend.
Yeah, because Murray is kind of like Jokic's basketball wife. And with Westbrook now, he's kind of flirting with the office assistant who just kind of moved into the office.
And it's like, whoa, Jokic just went to get coffee with Westbrook. Does Murray know about this? It's been 30 game.
The SGA thing, I always say this every year. It's just crazy to me after going to some of those games when he was a rookie that this is the guy he is now.
He's in a game with Luka where he just completely obliterates Luka and Luka's team. They have no answer for him.
If I'm Dallas Kirk, who's my guy that's going to be guarding SGA if I'm seeing them in round two or round three? Who's my stopper for SGA? I think P.J. Washington is a huge part of that equation.
And I don't know if that's the correct answer, but it's not going to be Kyrie and it's not going to be Luka. I think we all know that.
And then they have the big. And, you know, I think PJ would be my answer.
But, dude, who can guard this guy? Nobody can guard this guy. So Dallas, I think, beat them last year on both sides of the ball.
And I think that it was really PJ, who, if you look back at the stats from that series, did a lot on both sides. He made a lot of threes.
Yeah. I can't talk myself into what I saw from Dallas beating Oklahoma City, but I have a very, very big recency bias right now because of what we just watched.
I think if I zoomed back out seven-game series, yeah, if P.J. is going to be 20-10, kind of like he was, I think it was 18-8 in that series, and shooting threes and playing great defense, and they have their bigs, and Luka and Kyrie, obviously, at the end of games, they could win four games against that team if they broke their way.
Last year, were too small and they almost won the series anyway, OKC. And it came down to that play in the corner when SGA, the foul when he played perfect defense and they lucked out with that one.
But they also didn't have Hartenstein last year and Chet got overpowered in that series. Or Caruso.
And Caruso was great. It was great tonight.
A different team, and yet they almost beat them last year. So I'm feeling great if I'm OKC.
The other thing, and who knows, Shams wrote this piece today about could Jimmy Butler get traded, Zach Levine. I know Jacoby has some thoughts on it.
OKC to me is the perfect type of team that can make trades because they have all these movable contracts, cheap contracts. They can add stuff together.
They're not getting crushed by the apron. They have a million picks they could trade.
I'm so confused by the trade rules. And I've read everything.
And as you guys know, I'm the trade machine Picasso. I take this seriously.
I am just absolutely flummoxed by these rules. Even that thing today I read where it's like, yeah, Jimmy Butler.
It's like, I'm not sure anybody can add Jimmy Butler. From what I understand about these rules, it feels like they made him too hard, Jacoby.
And I'm going to be useless at the trade deadline. I don't like it.

Zach Levine and Jimmy Butler, I don't think, will be traded. And I think

to bring Jimmy Butler, you have to match the salary.

So you're giving up,

whatever, $40 million worth of players

to bring in Jimmy Butler, who

wants a new contract, and has

a $52 million player option that

he might exercise. It just seems like,

who is Jimmy Butler away from contending?

And if you're the Thunder, you're going

to add a player later.

Chet Holmgren, your third best

Thank you. might exercise.
It just seems like who is Jimmy Butler away from contending? If you're the Thunder, you're going to add a player later. Chet Holmgren, your third best player in your second big.
If you were the Thunder, why would you ever even think about picking up a phone call from Miami? You're not doing that. Golden State's the team.
I think it would be Golden State. Are they Jimmy Butler away from contending? I think Shams Shams put in, he had the Texas teams.
San Antonio would be super interesting for that, but I think they would have to re-sign him, and I don't know if that's on their timetable. But Golden State, I think, has real urgency with, you know, I'm not just a body language guy, but I'm also the trade detective.
And I did notice this weekend, all of a sudden they're pushing Kaminga. They're putting him in the starting lineup.
Draymond Green's like, you can have my spot. When has Draymond Green ever been this magnanimous? There's a lot of red flags where I was like, huh, what are you guys doing? Almost feels like you're trying to showcase Kaminga for somebody.
No, no, take my spot. Draymond Green, the guy who punched Jordan Poole, now he's Mr.
Magnanimous take my spot. I don't know, something that feels like the team because they're on a specific window with Curry, right? If you feel like you can contend for a title with Curry at age 36, he's already wearing down over the first five, six weeks.
Butler makes sense for them. Kirk, you're nodding.
Yeah, I think they've been sort of showcasing players all year. I think it helps explain why Steve Kerr's been playing 12 players a night.
Oh, look at all these guys. You could read into it.
And I think they're one player short of being... So you're saying they're like the farmer's market? Yeah.
Come on over. We got pistachios.
We got Kyle Anders. We got flowers over here.
Organic. There's some chicken.

Got chicken over here.

Free sample.

It's a full chicken.

Some fruit. Yeah, farm-raised Kyle Anderson over here.

But I think then, but Jimmy Butler to Houston intrigues me too because of something you said earlier, Bill,

which is like who's their guy at the end of the game?

We don't have that guy.

Yeah.

And Jimmy's from Texas. You could see E-May talking himself into Jimmy Butler.
I'm not sold on it. The other thing that I would say is the trade machine, Picasso, is coming into hard times.
This new CBA has pretty much cut the number of teams that could make a trade into half, if not more, because so many teams are limited into what kinds of trades, the financial rules, what they can and can't send out or take back are so punitive or prohibitive that just the trade market itself has shrunk. And I think that's going to sort of limit the amount of Picasso-ing you can do between December 15th and February.
I think it's going to really, really harm it. But, so, selfishly I'm mad because I love making up fake trades and they're just going to be super unrealistic.
But Jacob's, there's this flip side to it where I kind of like it where guys who are in situations they might not love,

like to me, it's like if we're driving, you know, like say Jacoby, you have your three kids in the

car and you're like, we're driving all the way to Washington, D.C. and we're not stopping.

But your kids are like, dad, can we stop? Can we get something? Can we stop? Stop? And they just

wear you down and you eventually stop. All these apron rules are basically like the kids are

Thank you. Nobody wants you.
We're not stopping until we get to Uncle House's house. We got to Uncle House's house.
Everyone's trapped in the car and you kind of have to make the best of it. This is what the NBAba used to be like you're like hey you're stuck on your team it's also like the jimmy butler um thing from shams earlier this morning was like oh here are the teams that he wants to go to i mean it's like cool right it's kind of like the nfl like go find yourself a trade go ahead find one like it's, just because you want to go to those teams doesn't mean there's a deal

between us and those teams.

And to put that out publicly,

it almost feels like

they don't really understand

the implications of the new CBA.

It's not happening.

That's a great point, dude.

Like, the whole trade demand ecosystem,

the whole science of the trade demand

from the player's perspective

has to get updated too.

Because you can't just say, oh, I want to trade and make sure it's the Phoenix or whatever. But look at Zach Levine's situation.
He's playing well for Zach Levine. He's 22-5-5.
I've watched a couple games where in the fourth quarter, he's as good as he's ever looked and he could have checked out or been like, well, I'm going to nurse an injury until you guys trade me, but he's not going to get traded. So he might as well make the best of it.
It's a little reminds me of what happened in football. Or in football, there's like never trades, right? Nobody's like, we traded our left tackle today for somebody's starting outside linebacker.
It's just everybody's kind of stuck on their team until the end of the year. And maybe that's what basketball is becoming, which is bad for podcast content, but it's maybe better for basketball, right? I think so.
And I think there's one more layer of it, which is the Moneyball era of pro basketball is so intense. We know so much about how bad bad contracts are, particularly in this new CBA, that those were the contracts the teams used to be able, hey, take this guy.
Maybe you can deal with the contract for a year or two and win a title. No, like I was trying to think of who the best team with a terrible contract is, and there aren't many.
And so it's like, okay, do you want this Levine deal or this Beal deal? The answer to that question is smaller than ever, not to mention the point we already made. The rules to get that player in a trade are more sort of strict than ever.
So yeah, I think we're in a brand new era and it is bad for podcast content. It might be Jamal Murray.
Like his extension hasn't even kicked in yet. Well, if he's going to look like he's looked, I mean, there's some other ones like Nurkic.
I'm sure Phoenix would be dying to trade him in five seconds, right? But yeah, if you look at the best three teams, the Celtics, OKC, and Cleveland, none of them really have like the, oh man, I wish we didn't have this contract guy. All the contracts are pretty good.
But I also feel like it seems like people knew this era was coming and the smarter teams were very careful.

Even that OKC deal for Hartenstein,

they overpaid him for three years based on what his market was.

But it's actually a smart deal.

That's how they got him, and it's not going to kill them down the road,

unlike how Juan Soto is going to kill the Yankees

in the last five years of his deal when he's just destroying them for $60 million a year. Or the Mets.
I meant the Mets. Let's take a break.
I have some NBA Cup questions for you, big picture, whether we actually like this or not. That's next.
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NBA Cup, does this work?

Jacob's, it's year two.

Here's my case for maybe it doesn't work.

I didn't want the Celtics to make the quarterfinals or semifinals and have to play the two extra games. I wanted the rest for them.
So that tells me fundamentally maybe this doesn't 100% work, that I wanted my team not to make it. Okay, that's a fair point and I totally understand that thinking.
I think the cup works, but I'll address your question and I'll say this. How upset are the Mavs right now after being on the road for like a month? They're pumped.
Having everyone be sick. And they're like, oh, we don't have to go to Vegas.
And we get, what, seven days off in the middle of the year to sort of get healthy. And I think the Mavs are on the plane being like, yeah, it kind of sucks.
I wish we won. But I don't know.
Like, I don't think they're like really bummed tonight yeah it was like 100 000 we didn't get yeah yeah but it's four teams to me it's four teams like the hawks the rockets and the thunder like i think that it's really for up-and-coming teams to get sort of like one in your done experience so i don't think it I don't think it's broken, but I think there are certain teams like the Celtics coming off a championship, like what we get to win the Emirates Cup. Like, no, I'm good.
I'll take the time off. What do you think, Kirk? I think it's working, but I think those are valid points.
In fact, I talked to one Western Conference executive who's like, oh, I'm kind of glad we don't have to go play at Oklahoma City tonight and maybe play Houston and Vegas. And I think I'd much rather have the time off or these lesser opponents.
I think the league has something. I also think it's really cool that we had these two games tonight and the whole league was watching them.
And I wish we had more of that, that sort of community feel where it's not just like league pass overload where these games are meaningful in December. Let's not forget, this time of year is really hard.
I do think, and I think we talked about this last time, they should use the divisions for the groups and just bring some spice and meaning back to those groupings of teams. I think there's some little stuff.
I'm glad we have it. But I think it is fair to say that some teams are kind of not disappointed they're not going to Vegas this weekend.
I know Embiid's disappointed. He wanted to get those two extra games in.
I like the NBA Cup, but I think that's the criticism. I was thinking, should there be a couple other things that you win if you win beyond just the money? What if you could get unaproned for the rest of the season? I don't know why the players would care about that, but the fans I think would be like the Phoenix Suns all of a sudden.
I'd be like, wait, we're out of the lock separate apron for three months? It's like a get out of jail free card for the apron. What if you guaranteed the six playoff spot? That's what I think they should do.
You can't fall lower than six if you win. You got to move it later in the season then because if you're locked into six, what are we doing? Well, you could think about the season a little differently.
It's an advantage, right? You know you don't have to be in the playing game. You know you're going no lower than six.
You can rest guys a little differently. It's a real advantage for the season, I think, would be the appeal.
But then if you're a team like Atlanta or even Houston, who's probably going to be a top six team anyway, but I think that would be pretty... Or Orlando, who's losing their entire team to torn obliques.
You kind of want the sixth seed.

I like that.

The other one, that's really it.

You could do a draft pick thing,

but I don't know why the players on the team would care.

It's like, oh, we've locked down the 15th pick.

No, it would be like an insignificant draft pick thing.

You get an extra second rounder or something.

It's like, okay, great.

With Jacob's, we both have the reality background. You, upon a time were the czar of reality TV.
Is there a reality thing we could steal for this? You win and you get to use that power to fuck over another team in some way? Oh, I haven't thought about it in that way. I'm using it by you get your cross and it's like the Celtics now lose a game seven at home and you just stick them with some sort of terrible competitive disadvantage.
Or we can do a rule change. TJ would just come out at halftime and be like, alright guys, here are the four point shots at these three circles.
Yeah, no corner threes. I think they should use it as a testing ground for rule changes.
I think that'd be kind of fun. If they were just like, no three-point line, and not a four-point line, or there's no corner threes.
I think that'd be fun, and I understand there are reasons you couldn't do that, but just while we're spitballing, I think sort of experimenting about rule changes or court changes you've been considering in these games because they are different, it could be a playground for that. Yeah, like the Elam ending.
Wait, one more thing on that. The Elam ending would be great.
And I know they got rid of it from the All-Star game, Bill, but tonight, the end of that first game was like 25 minutes, the last two or three minutes, and it bled into the second game. It's like, what are we doing, doing this free throw, free throw thing? Like, just let somebody win.
So say the NBA Cup quarterfinals, semis and finals are all Elam ending. We just hit a certain score and the game's over? I'm not going to say that.
I mean, every pickup game we've ever played ends with a bucket, dude. And then we watch these free throw contests.
The worst one I saw this year was Celtics Cavs. And it was like 30 minutes.
And it was back and forth, back and forth. And now, because I always say this, the team that's ahead is now fouling a lot of the time.
So it's just adding to it. Yeah, so I'm a big Elam ending guy, but I like Jacoby's idea.
Make it feel special. Do something else.
Elam ending is the best I got for that one. Jacoby, would SGA be fun to play with? Absolutely.
Would it be fun to play pickup with? Okay. Absolutely.
He leads the league in unassisted baskets, so it's kind of one of those situations where you don't feel needed. I know, but here's the thing, but if you're in a pickup game and you're down six, you want SGA on your team so you stay on the court.
You know what I mean? You always associate guys you want to play pickup with, guys that move the ball and get teammates involved. No, I want to stay on the court.
But you have SGA just to stay on the court. That's why he's good to play pickup.
Yeah, when we played, we had that one guy who was the stay on the court guy where we knew we would basically just have to rebound and play defense and he was going to score nine of the 11 points. I can't remember what his name was.
Jalen Rose. I think it was Jalen Rose.
Yeah, Jalen Rose. Jalen was unfair.
He was unfair to play it. Let's talk about the other game and whether we believe in Milwaukee Bucks yet.
I thought they played really well against the Celtics on Friday in a game that was about as intense as you get in December. There's no love lost between those two teams, Kirk Goldsberry.
There's some Giannis Jalen stuff. There's some Giannis Al Horford stuff I felt like.
Tatum has a little bird in his saddle against them. I don't feel like anybody really likes playing against Dame that much.
I always feel like people get annoyed by him. But that was a really intense game on Friday.
But the Celts won. But what struck me was I thought the Bucs hung with them and could have won the game.
And now that Green and Prince have been getting them three-point shooting, now that Portis, who looked like he was going to be out of the league first month of the season, now he's back. Now they have Middleton back.
Giannis is averaging a 32-12-6. I still don't feel like they're at that top echelon and maybe not even in the second echelon.
But they're at least lingering because of Giannis now, right? I don't think they're lurking, but I would go lingering for them. Is that fair? I think they're 11-3 in their last 14 games after starting 2-8.

And what you just said, one of the sort of deep cut takes is like, yeah,

A.J. Green, Gary Trent, Torian Prince, Bobby Portis.

They're getting really efficient three-point shooting from those dudes.

And then Giannis stopped shooting threes.

He stopped shooting threes. Today, he shot his first three in six games, I think.
He shot another one at the end of the game, but he'd gone five games without shooting a three. He's attacking the rim, and then they're surrounding him with shooting.
Tonight, they played a smaller lineup. They took Brooke out, and they put these aforementioned shooters.
Chris Middleton's back in the lineups. Damian, obviously.
Spacing starts at the rim. Giannis pressures the rim better than anybody in the league right now.
And he can make passes. If they can make those shots, they're very good.
The Bucs were always supposed to be this good. The only thing weird was they were 2-8.
Do I trust them to be better than the Boston Celtics? No. But it looks like they've righted the ship and look like they're a viable Eastern Conference contender now.
Because Giannis is putting up scoring title numbers and they're getting this three-point shooting from the supporting cast and now they're whole. So they have Chris, Damian, and Giannis.
They were supposed to be good. I'm a little worried about the Lopez piece of it.
He looked really old in the Celtic game, and I thought he was the biggest reason they lost. And it feels like there's a Giannis, Portis, shooters, and Dame, and whether Middleton's in that or not, we'll find out.
But that seems to be probably their most successful lineup,

which is weird because Lopez was so essential to what they did.

I don't know, Jacobes.

I still don't feel like the Giannis-Dame thing is perfect.

And maybe it will never be, but it almost feels like Dame,

it's like, hey, Giannis isn't going to play tonight, Dame. You're going to have to take a lot of shots.
I don't feel like he's shedding tears. You know what I mean? I don't feel like they've totally figured it out yet, but they're kind of scotch taping it and duct taping it together now.
Body Language Doctor doesn't love that duo as much as I wanted to when he signed. But we always, I think people are critical of Dame.
It's. He scores 25.7 points a game and gets 7.5

assists a game.

Is that so bad?

Is that so bad?

What are we being critical of, really?

Derry Bird, Torian Prince is shooting

54% from three on

3.6 attempts or

something. It's not fake.

They're surrounding two of the biggest offensive weapons in the league with shooting. Defensively, we can just pass over that.
They're not stopping anybody. For Tatum, it's a dream.
To Tatum against the Bucs, he's like, this is awesome. Sorry, Kirk, I interrupted you.
No, I was just saying, when they won it all, they were great on defense. This was a defensive juggernaut, too, with Brooke and Giannis protecting the paint, and then Drew and Chris and the role players all seeming like these younger Thunder Rockets teams that we're seeing.
They were a great defense, and I don't see that happening. And for that reason,

I'm out,

to quote Mark Cuban,

on their ability to compete

with Boston

and maybe even Cleveland

at the very top

of the Eastern Conference.

Are you a believer?

Eme said this like three weeks ago

about,

he's like,

if you look at all the teams

that have won a title

or made the finals,

they're all like top five defense. Yeah, it's like something crazy.
I think he's right. I actually think it's that simple.
Yeah. And like even tonight, Suggs had Dame in front of him and he dribbled between his legs like four times.
Then it's like shot a three. And it was like, Suggs, that's Dame Lillard.
Just put your shoulder down and go past him. And a key point, I was really disappointed

in that particular possession because

I think there's a reason that when Dame

is guarding somebody that there's no screener.

There's a reason.

Right. Well, and then when

Dame wasn't on him, he was getting

the switch, but they were asking

a lot from Suggs in that game.

In fact, this is a good time to bring in Steve Cerruti for

two seconds because we have a very important Orlando Magic question. So at halftime, were you on Expedia or wherever looking for Hartford to Vegas tickets? Were you thinking about it? You were, weren't you? I definitely was.
And it was like I saw Gladiator 2 on Fridayiday and i had really low i had really low expectations for it and i really enjoyed it i i liked the movie i don't know if we if it needed to be made it was kind of the same as the first one just with like a new thing i had really low expectations i didn't know what to expect i didn't know if we hit 90 points because i'm just i don't know where the scoring comes from and then yeah like that first quarter happens and i'm like they were going to win the game. And like, you get the halftime.
They kind of, you know, I think they're down one at halftime, but anything's on the table. It just sucked because that Suggs injury in the third quarter, they were, I think, down one at the time.
He goes out for a couple of minutes. And I think he comes back in.
They're down eight and they have to climb back the rest of the game to get there. But without that, like at the end of the day, the guys like when they're fully healthy, like I think they're capable of beating anybody.
They're capable of beating anybody. I'm not saying they'd be favored against any of these teams, but they are capable of beating anybody.
My friend, Sean Grandy, who is the radio guy for the Celtics, who's, I think, a good basketball kind of thinker with this stuff. Orlando is the team he's afraid of for the Celtics when they get everybody back because he thinks they're

defensive upside. They didn't have

Isaac tonight either. He thinks their

defensive ceiling

is the high. Some people would say

it's Tibbs and Knicks, but I just think it's

going to be too easy to get

the Knicks are in a weird position

where their offense is probably

going to be more dangerous than their defense in the

playoffs, but I think Orlando...

The case for them

would be the defense

Thank you. weird position where their offense is probably going to be more dangerous than their defense in the playoffs.
But I think Orlando... So the case for them would be the defense giving Franz all those reps without Paolo.
And now Suggs turning into Russell Westbrook 2017 late. Just doing everything on the magic.
Jacoby, are you buying Sugg stock yet? I bought bought a lot of Suggs stock preseason because of defense. I didn't see this Suggs, but it is...
This is Gonzaga Suggs. It just seems like Paolo's playing so well, and then Franz steps up and plays so well, and then Franz is out, and now Suggs steps up and plays.
So if Suggs has a legit hurt hand, it's going to be like Mo Wagner scores 30 and 12 and 10.

It's like, what is happening?

It just seems like someone on that team is going to play like an all-star no matter what happens.

Anthony Black is next if Suggs goes down.

Yeah, I was nervous.

You got to get some K tape or whatever.

Get his obliques taped up so he can't get him.

There's some oblique epidemic breaking out in Orlando.

But yeah, when his thumb got hurt, I was like, you got to be kidding me.

Because that's the thing about the NBA Cup. It's like, cool, this is fun and all.
But if we're really going to lose Suggs for an extended period of time, pass on the NBA Cup. Well, the other piece with the Orlando that's been interesting with these guys going out is, I don't know, they took the training wheels off Anthony Black a little bit.
Yep. What's the hairdo he's rocking

these days? He moves some hair stuff

around. He's got the corner.

There's a little bun in the back.

Totally different player.

Seems like a new guy.

Who's that?

Oh, Anthony Black.

There's a lot of stuff to like with him.

I don't really know what his ceiling is.

I'm sure when we get to game four of a playoff series and he's in the corner, teams are going to be like, go ahead, take that. But the fact that he's not a bust feels like a win.
So Rudy. So it was kind of an uncharacteristic game from him.
He was weirdly bad defensively tonight. He got lost like a couple of times, but he actually scored way more than you think he was.
Had assist, rebounds, and a lot of that was just like, you know, because they just need an extra ball handler. I would say too, like I'm not nervous, like the panic meter is not going off, but like $22 million a year, like KCP seven points, kind of, kind of, kind of hoping for more than that in a situation where, you know, you kind of need a veteran to step up.
And honestly, like all these young guys, like even just like Tristan Silva, like he's, he started tonight, started a lot of games since Franzolo have been out, and he's been fine. And I really like the two big lineup.
Wendell playing the four, it can't really work when they're fully healthy, but in this version of the team without Isaac, he's actually really good at getting those spots, kind of top of the key, throwing those lob passes, being a facilitator. I think he had the best plus minus on the Magic tonight.
He was awesome. Kirk, what do you see from the Magic? Rudy should be thrilled, man.
I was talking to Vince Carter and Jay when we were watching this game and we were like, holy crap. These guys are going to be a problem and I'm with Sean Grandy.
I don't think anybody wants to play this team in the playoffs. I'm not saying they would beat the Celtics, but they're a pain in the ass to score on.
And like Oklahoma City, they're a pain in the ass to pass on and get rebounds on. I love the two big lineup.
I love that it's Mo and Goga and Wendell. They're playing bigger than almost any.
De Silva, too, when he's at the three. They're just big.
And yeah, the biggest point here is they didn't have three or four of their normal rotation pieces. Gary Harris, Jonathan Isaac, but obviously Gary Harris.
Paolo and Franz, who torn oblique club, stand up. And as a holder of Suggs coin for years now, you guys should be thrilled.
I know you didn't get the result tonight, but it looks like you're built for war for a long time, and you're the Orlando Magic. You guys should be thrilled.
And two games you didn't have to play. It's not like the NBA Cup was going to do anything for you.
It's two more games where nobody's getting hurt. Right? Oh, Cody's got timeout.
Hold on. This is just too much, like, too much for me.
They don't have a player that can hit a three-point shot in 2024. They don't have one.
Can we just address that? They don't have a player that can hit a three-point shot. It's tough.
They're 30th in three-point shooting, 31%. They're 28th in corner threes.
Is that so scared to play them in the playoffs. The worst shooting team in the league.
But Paulo, Suggs, and Franz are all fine. Why do you have to do that to Saruti? He's got like...
I'm sorry. No one wants to see this team in the playoffs.
He said their defense is hard. But I think those corner threes come from good movement elsewhere.
Corner threes are created when their best offensive players are doing other shit somewhere else on the court. Those guys aren't playing, particularly their best offensive player.
And now Franz isn't playing, who's also great at offense. So those are like indicator species.
Yes, their three-point shooting personnel, Jacoby, does lack. KCP is underwhelming.
But some of these are sort of byproducts of the offense itself just not having its alpha and beta creators. Oh, I like how you use the alpha and beta.
Sarudi, did you know where your oblique was five weeks ago? No idea. I thought it was a leg injury.
I thought it was part of your hip? Where did you think it was on your body?

I thought it was like an inner quad thing.

I don't know.

Jacob, did you know where it was?

Yeah, because they're called love handles.

That's all you have to do.

For us, for athletes, they're called obliques.

For us, they're called love handles.

That's what they are.

So it's like right above your rib?

Your love handles are your obliques.

It's a love handle injury that is sweeping through the magic locker room. Love handles.
I wonder if they even knew how to diagnose this in the 80s. Bob McAdoo had a torn oblique for an entire year and had no idea.
He's like, my side hurts. They're like, Bob, take some aspirin.
Slept out. I know everyone's asking this, but it is fucking weird.
How did two guys get the same injury?

It's like a haunted house.

I don't understand it.

I guess Fran said he doesn't even know what he did.

He doesn't know at any point in the game.

They were showing him different plays

and he couldn't even know what the play was.

So maybe he doesn't even know where his obliquus is either.

He's like, what's hurt?

Really weird.

Rank your three teams you're afraid of in the East. Boston, obviously, one.
Who's two? Cleveland. And I guess I'm buying the Milwaukee Kool-Aid.
Over the Knicks. Oh, please.
Die easy Knicks fan. Dave Jacoby is upset.
Maybe this is just a little sense. You just kicked our ass the other night and scared the crap out of me because if we had lost that game by 37, we would have been out of the NBA Cup.
And that would have been one of the most embarrassing losses in my life. It was very much on the table in the third quarter.
And against Tibbs, that's the one guy you don't want to be against. But I don't know.
I'm still worried. I mean, the Cat Brunson thing is incredible offensively right now, but they're not the same team defensively.

And I'm a little worried about the playoff thing with the playoff Cat defensively.

How's that going to look?

What's the Mitchell Robinson minutes?

I don't know.

I'm with Bill, too, the Bridges thing.

Listen, we're picking hairs.

They're a good team, obviously, but I don't know.

There's something about this Knicks team I'm not ready to fully go all in on.

Kirk, were you seeing 25-13 with 46% three-point shooting from Towns this year? Was that in your bingo card? Dude, yeah. He is incredible.
I didn't know that Tom Thibodeau was an offensive genius until this year. I think that they're— Just found that out, yeah.
Yeah, I just learned that. 25 and 13, though, I think I would have put him around there.
The 45, 46% number from three-point is crazy, dude. I thought it was going to go the other way.
I thought it was going to be like, oh, they got to figure out how to get the ball more because there haven't been enough. Instead, it's like this him and Brunson as a combo have been crazy.
And then it seems like the Knick fans really like him, too. That's the other thing that I think was up in the air.
They're going to get Precious and they're going to get Mitch Robinson back. And I don't think we've seen what their defense really could be.
Yeah. But I'm with Saruti.
I definitely go Celtics, Cavs, Knicks. Then I go Bucs.
But I do think the Knicks offense deserves respect. They can score against anybody in a variety of ways.
It's just like their shooting is great. And then Brunson and Cat.
I do love the geometry, to borrow Jalen's basketball geometry phrase. I love what the Knicks have spacing the court right now.
Yeah, I think I'd go sled edge to the Bucs because of just how crazy Giannis is this year. Yeah.
It just seems like anytime he wants to go downhill, he turns. So my daughter went to the game on Friday because my dad got a COVID shot.
And I don't know. First of all, why did he get a COVID shot? What? Second.
Wait, what? He's like, I don't know. Did he get injected with COVID? Is that a COVID shot now? I was like, nobody.
Dad, it's 2024. What are you doing? So he got a COVID shot.
And then go figure, him and my stepmom both felt like crap the next day. So my daughter got to go with her boyfriend.
And she hadn't seen Giannis in person. And it was, so she called me after.
And she was like, dad, is he like the best player of all time? What's going on with that? It just seems like every time he wants, he could just bulldoze over everybody and get a layup or a dunk. And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of who he is.
No, it's the fat guy from Serbia, actually. Yeah, it's the fat guy.
This fat guy is going to have 104 points this weekend, two games.

But I think we've been watching the honest thing for so long,

we forget just fundamentally how insane it is that he can just basically get to wherever he wants,

no matter what the defense is.

Middleton is the thing with them.

To me, it's a 3A, 3B thing.

And I want to know where we are with Middleton in March.

And then Orlando's kind of lurking as the who knows team.

Miami, it's interesting.

And I don't think they have any chance to move up into this ladder,

but they do seem like they've figured out something

over the last two weeks with their team.

Like Hero carries the offense for three quarters.

Butler kind of takes over late.

Bam's having a really weird season.

All his field goal stuff and stuff around the rim is terrible.

It's really uncharacteristic. But for some reason, I could see them maybe upsetting somebody in one round, but not more than that.
And that's really it. I don't even know who else we would have in the East.
Saruti, you seem serenely confident, just focused on March and April. It just sucked.
The Franz injury sucks because it takes away the potential all-star, the potential most improved. All that stuff is kind of not there anymore.
It took away the Supermax, though, which is good for you. I guess that could have been a salary cap nightmare to have two Supermax guys.
Speaking of contracts, I need to say this. To the people who this summer were criticizing the Jalen Suggs deal, five years, $150 million for a guy that scores 12 points a game.
Who criticized that? People did. Who's that? People? Yes, yes.
A lot of our friends over the border. Maybe some Raptors fans were still a little upset about how that draft.
By the way, the 2021 draft is my favorite draft in recent history.

It's incredible.

Go down the list.

Every week, I feel like you change the order of what guys you want.

Obviously, Franz Suggs.

What do we got?

Cade, Mobley, Shang-Goon, Jalen Green, Barnes.

Jalen Johnson was in that draft.

Unbelievable draft.

Pace Suggs.

The man's worth the money.

He's one of the best winners in the league. He does things that other guys...

He is the ultimate winning player.

And whatever you need him to do,

and you saw it tonight,

he doesn't need to be a 30-point-a-game scorer,

but he was tonight.

I think he's a third guy on a championship team

and maybe even potentially has the ceiling

of being a second guy

if he was with somebody incredible, right?

Like being the Jamal Murray, Drew Holiday spot if you get to play next to a Giannis or Jokic. Alright, thanks for stopping in, Saruti.
Thanks, guys. Appreciate you, Saruti.
Congrats on your heroic effort tonight. Yeah, hopefully we'll see you in April, May.
Before we go, Jacoby, you want to talk about Embiid? I do. What do you got? What the fuck is going on? What going on my questions for you Bill are what is the plan do his teammates like him and all I hear about is like how little he communicates with the team about his availability how he's late all the time.
Verno knew some guy who said he missed the team buses the day after the report came out that he was late. It's just all like he's become, in the last three years, he's turned from one of the most likable stars in the league to someone who I'd like less and less and less every three months.
And we're there right now. So here's why I've landed, Goldsberry.
To me, remember we said that joke about Twitter, when Twitter was really a place a lot of people went to that you just wish you could have certain stories and just not even see them, that you could meet the story. If the story was happening, you just wouldn't even know about it.
That's how I feel about Embiid might play tonight. Embiid's not going to play tonight.
Embiid's going to rest tonight. Embiid has some swelling again.
Embiid's feeling better. I just, I'm just out.
I'm tapping out. I can't do it.
The chronic swelling was the most disturbing part of that story, I thought, this weekend. It's not even like he re-injured or anything.
It was like, yeah, it's maintenance because he has chronic swelling. What does chronic swelling mean? None of it sounds good.
Goldsberry, you were at San Antonio when this was going on with Kawhi. It was a little different.
There was more mystery. And Kawhi was younger.
He wasn't 7'3", carrying a bunch of weight. But this just has a stranglehold over your franchise after a certain point, right? Yeah, that's a perfect word.
It really is just like a black cloud or a stranglehold. I'd actually compare it to Tim.
A lot of people forget that Tim Duncan had a really bad knee his entire career. And the scourge that is known as load management has a lot to do with Tim Duncan's knee and Greg Popovich and the staff really making sure that they could get everything.
But that also meant that Tim had to be very serious about his nutrition and his sleep and all this other stuff. And I think as Joel enters sort of the later stage of his career, if he wants to keep playing at this level, he has to be more serious, more professional, not just about being on time to the bus, but taking care of his body.
Like the reason LeBron is LeBron at this age is because he was really careful about his body and respected that stuff. And unfortunately, this is what it looks like when somebody doesn't do that kind of thing, in my opinion.
And I'm not quite sure where this is going. I do think Philadelphia has reasons to be more optimistic than the last time we talked about these guys on the podcast.
I still think the East, what we just went through, is like, oh, maybe Miami's the five seed. Unfortunately, there needs to be eight playoff teams in the Eastern Conference.
And I think Philadelphia will get one of those slots. And so I think they could be pretty patient here.
I just agree with what you guys are saying. This is really troubling.
The lack of communication, the lack of clarity, the weird Timmy Bontemps quotes from this week. It's depressing.
I don't even know it's injured. It's just inflammation.
These are bad signs, guys. Yeah, this happened to the Celtics in 09 with KG.
I don't know if you remember. KG got hurt.
They were like 31 and 5. They had some crazy record.
And it was like, KG's coming back. And then it was just, is he coming back? And then it was like, team not sure, still feeling pain, nobody's saying anything, and it just turns into this, that like you said, a black cloud, where you don't know, game to game we tweak.
What's weird is that, I guess he looked pretty good in that Bulls game, I didn't watch it, I just saw the highlights. I watched the game, it was weird, he like, he started out terrible, like oh for seven or something it was like and everything was short like that memphis game was the same thing where everything was short and he has this brace like his full leg brace on and they started to get warmed up and they're spamming this like they're spamming this high pick and roll with him and maxi and maxi would just give him a pocket pass and he would just shoot from like 16 feet and bucevich just didn't do anything about it and even if bucevich was on him he would just jab step and then shoot over him and he was like i don't have the numbers for him he's like eight for ten from like around the foul line yeah which is where in my opinion when he was best when actually doc was coach he would just like operate from the foul line but he would do a lot of distributing and like driving but they really just like it got to the point when like the third quarter he was just absolutely wet from the mid-range like he scored like a like a ton of points after starting starting over seven looking like he might as well just like go back on the bench yeah it's like it's like when you see um like in a sports movie there's like the the fat old washed up guy who wanders on the court and just starts hitting like 20 footers.
It just seems like a bead. He's so skilled from 18, 19 feet.
It doesn't matter. They hadn't played for a month.
All of a sudden he could just hit nine straight 20 footers. But not to be a party pooper, but they're in this stretch.
They were calling it, Hollinger called it the NBA bi-week basically where everybody has like one or two games over the course of eight eight days. They're playing Chicago, then they have all this rest.
So he can have a game. He's playing Vucevic.
He's playing the Bulls for a bottom five defensive team. And he can go out there, get a good run, get his points, not have to worry about playing the next day.
It's hard to feel optimistic after that, is my point. I want to see what their schedule starts to get harder.
I think at the end of the year, they've got, did they have a road trip? Is he going to be on the road trip? Is he going to play? Then there's the part that you mentioned about the teammates being asked about it. What do you think about Joel? How much do you guys miss Joel? It's just day after day.
It's not awesome, especially when you're competing against teams like OKC where everybody's young and hungry and they're all doing the post-game press conferences together. They're hanging out and they're ready to go.
I don't know how it plays out. I'll tell you this, though.
The extension. Yeah.
That's just a wow. No, that is a very debilitating contract.
We talked about this earlier. It's like you don't see a lot of good teams with this new cap bill with any bad contracts, let alone a max contract with a guy who's not playing at that level.
That hasn't even kicked in from the extension part yet. A hundred percent.
It's like how do you build a team when you have that much sort of money locked up in a player that may or may not even be able to play most nights? Jacoby, who's your favorite rookie? My favorite rookie? Yeah. In terms of like to watch or like I would want on my team.
Because I mean, my favorite rookie is obviously Jared McCain just like as a

vibe yeah you know what I mean because he's so much fun and just sort of like so himself off the

court but um I am also on Reese's Shea Island like I wish he made threes he's like 28 from three but

Everything else is there.

He's like 20.

Fluid.

I know.

I like him.

That team of Johnson, Daniels,

Reed, Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed,

Reed, Reed, it's like, Trey or no Trey, that is a core that I really, really like. I'm much higher in Atlanta than I should be, and I'll admit that, but I feel the same about Risa Shea.
He had a huge game. I forget who it was against.
It was early in the season. He had 30 points or something.
I was like, this dude looks like a number one pick in the NBA draft. He's good.
He knows what he's doing. I had over under bet.
I had over bets for them before the season when I was in Denver last week. I doubled down because the over was still too low because I think that's a over 500 team.
I think my favorite rookie is Castle. Yes.
For what he's going to do I think this year I think they're going to have real trouble keeping him out of the lineup and there's a chance he's their second best player by the end of the year. I just like him.
I like how hard he plays. He seems like the kind of guy OKC would have.
Just like a really, really, really gives a shit two-way guy. He can't really shoot yet.
But I thought he was my favorite guy heading into the draft. I thought he's the guy I would have taken number one if I was Atlanta.
And everything I've seen from him, I would not waver on that one. I want to see more.
Reed Shepard is the one I think I'm the most interested by because I don't think Van Vliet's had a good season. And the shooting stats back it up like they're not good and I wonder you know I know they have like a I forget if it's a player option or a team option next year but it Reed Shepard within two years will probably be running that team but I almost that's one of those where you want like you know Van Vliet to have some very minor injury for three days or three games just to kind of see Reed Shepard get to drive the car out of the garage a couple times.
It's weird. I like this draft more than I thought, Kirk.
There's a lot of guys that are not superstars, but there's a lot of guys where I'm like, I kind of like that guy. Even Klingon on Portland.
I like Zach Eadie. There's a bunch of them.
I'm going to come back to you on Eadie because I need to know how the surf has been over at Eadie Island if the seawalls are holding up. But I want to know.
Yeah, Castle is the answer for me, and it's not close. And I'm obviously close to the Spurs.
They are very excited about all the stuff he does. I love the description of a Thunder-like player.
He is that kind of dog in him stereotype, but he does the stuff that doesn't show up in the box score. They love this guy.
He's adding sort of an edge to their group. I think Jeremy Sohan is kind of like that too, and I think it could help them.
They're destined to build a great defense in San Antonio, and I think he could be part of that. Like Lou Dort, another potentially great defender, he needed to get a shot, and Lewis figured that out.
So I feel like Castle could get a little of that. Dalton Connect obviously needs to be mentioned.
I know he's older, but I think he's been fantastic given where they got him in the draft. I'm still on Reacher Shea Island.
I'm not giving up on that anytime soon. But for me, I'll say Reed Shepard, I think is going to be great in this league for a long time.
But I'm going, Castle has really won me over in the last few weeks specifically. But tell me, Bill, Zach Eady, was he everything

you dreamed of? Or are you a little bit

let down at this point in the season?

Well, I think Memphis is so deep

that

I thought he would actually

be this important, like weird,

just kind of

throw a cannonball

in the pool just to shake it up kind of thing.

But they don't need it. They just have too many good bench

guys. Their bench is crazy.

And the fact that Aldama is actually good now... You can't take minutes away from Alph and Aldama? What are you crazy? He's also not available right now.
We haven't seen him too much. Yeah, true.
Yeah, Saar, that's probably the worst possible situation for a guy like that. It's like your team's going to just be awful, and you're just going to learn some bad habits.
But too early to say what we talked about to him. I mean, one other thing with Memphis, like another reason that Edie's probably not even going to play that much is that Brandon Clark has, I was so impressed with him in the Boston game, but just it feels like he's got his explosiveness back.

And he's a really unique player,

like that crazy undersized energy guy

that always seems to be on good teams.

So yeah, I like the draft.

We'll see with Dillingham.

That was the other one I was super duper intrigued by,

but it feels like they phased him out a little bit

because they're trying to get their defense going.

So we'll see what happens with that. Who's your most disappointing team, Jacoby? Indiana? I mean, you're leading the witness, so I'm going to try to go with another team.
Oh, you're going to zag on me? That's fine. I'm trying to.
But, I mean, obviously the most disappointing team is the Sixers, but I think there's a reason for that. It's just availability.
I think the Sixers will turn around and end up being a playoff team.

Let's not forget they were in the play-in last year

and ended up in a really good series against the Knicks.

But it has to be the Pacers and Halliburton.

Remember this time last year,

during the in-season tournament,

it was called at the time,

they were the bell of the ball.

And Halliburton was this rising superstar.

They put him in this stupid commercial

with Rosario Dawson.

He's not even a factor whatsoever.

And his home road stuff is really strange.

I don't think I've seen anything like that.

But yeah, I would say the Pacers

because the expectations were at a point where they're just not reaching. It's probably Tommy Elter's fault.
Who's your most disappointing team, Kirk? Well, this one's for Chris Vernon, the Memphis Grizzlies. I've been very disappointed.
I'm just kidding. You fast-verted, you didn't hear it.
Yeah, that's right. I would say the Minnesota Timberwolves because I thought the Randall trade was good.
Dante DiVincenzo too. It hasn't worked.
It has not worked. They went from having a very strong identity with great defense and good offense to not really having an identity and looking like a middle of pack team in the Western Conference when most of us thought they were going up a level, not down a level in this exact season, Bill.
So for me, I think the Pacers have a very strong claim to this conference finalists. But I will say Minnesota because I really want Anthony Edwards to be the face of American superstars in the next five, ten years.
I love everything about him. So I've been particularly disappointed with that team's performance after what they did last year.
Those are two great choices. Congratulations to both of you.
But the answer is the Phoenix Suns. They don't have KD.
Okay. They don't have KD.
Make excuses for Big Shot Bob Sarver. They're 13 and 11.
They're like one and nine without KD. Okay, but guess what? They traded all their first-round picks.
They traded Mikael Bridges. They traded Cam Johnson.
They traded DeAndre Ayton. They traded all their second-round picks.
They traded everything to have basically a three-guy team. And one of the three guys has been in the league since 2007 and has a bunch of injuries and has gotten hurt twice.
And I don't know why I fell for it. It made me mad.
They were one of my favorite overs. I picked them to win the division.
I thought they were going to be a 50-plus win team. And I forgot the fact that they're built around this guy who's been in the league for 18 years, asking him to be the rim protector, their crunch time score to put do 30 a game, nine rebounds a game, make 50% of your shots and 45% of your threes do everything.
And it's like, oh, guess what? He lasted a month before he got hurt twice. And I'm just mad at myself more than anything.
But you have to be disappointing when you trade

literally a decade

of stuff

for the team you have in your

13 and 11. So that's my

answer. Hurts not.
They made the Beal

trade where you're like, that's great.

No one liked that trade.

Yeah, especially now with all

the apron stuff that happened. That trade looks

even 100 times worse. You would much

rather have the flexibility now. But

when you just consider all the assets, they

I'm sorry. Yeah, especially now with all the apron stuff that happened, that trade looks even 100 times worse.
You would much rather have the flexibility now. But when you just consider all the assets they sent out for the team that they have now, and it's all hinging on, well, when Durant's healthy, it might not happen.
You know? He's 7'1", and he's had a lot of lower, below-the-hip injuries at this point, And they put a huge burden on him and play in big minutes. And I would just be nervous if I was the Suns.
Yeah, I can see it. Counterpoint.
You don't want to draw them in the first round of the playoffs. Because let's imagine that KD plays well, gets back.
They're going to climb in the standings. Like right now, I think they're 10th or whatever.
They're going to climb in the standings, and then you see them in the first round, and you're like, man, Booker and KD can get on a heater. It feels a little bit like they're basically the Sixers.
But, Counter, doesn't everybody have two good guys at this point? No. No, the Rockets have zero.
They're one of the best teams in the league. But they can play defense, though.
Yes. I guess for me, Kirk, with Phoenix, there's always going to be, now that Nurkic is pretty much unplayable, so they're leaning on Plumlee now as their center, and Tyus Jones.
These are like bench guys. These are guys that would be like 10th or 11th players on the Celtics or the Thunder, and these are two of their crunch time guys.
Yeah, it goes back to our theme earlier. It's like, there's not a lot of old and overpaid great teams in the NBA right now.
And their best players older, as you pointed out. Devin Booker's certainly not old.
I'm not mad at his contract. The Beal deal, to me, sticks out like a sore thumb on their cap sheet.
Nurk, you have to have pretty much a perfect roster. And I kind of agree with you.
Doesn't everybody have at least one superstar that we're talking about winning at all? Yeah, pretty much. I think that is fair.
And to me, the differentiating stuff is now lower down on your depth chart. And that's where this team is just really not great.

And I don't think they'll ever be able to play defense well enough to keep up with the top teams in the West.

But I keep going back to that Bradley Beal decision

because that was a lot of depth they traded, essentially,

for one other player that might have sort of a repetitive role

next to Devin and Kevin. 70-plus million for Bradley Beal and Nurkic and Bulbul.
Is Bulbul still on the team? Yeah. Smells like new owner decisions.
Guys, thanks for staying up with me. It's a pleasure seeing you.
Great seeing you in your weird undisclosed New York City location at 1 in the morning. I don't know where you are.
Be careful walking home, Jacobes. Kirk, great to see you.
Even though we were your sloppy seconds tonight, I had a great time talking to you guys. I will see you soon, I'm sure.
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All right, we're taping this part on a Monday. I did a Rewatchables taping with Kyle Brandt, who we haven't been together in a long time, really since Super Bowl with the Giants and the Pats that I never like to talk about.
Craig Horlbeck is here too. Let's talk football.
There's no reason for this. We just turned the mics on.
Come on. Sal brought up last night on the podcast about whether if you were, granted, it's like a generic talk social segment, but it really got my brain turning about Josh Allen versus Mahomes.
Mahomes, the resume versus what we're actually watching week to week,

game to game, like the shit that he's doing,

the shit when they're down 35 to 13 against the Rams.

And you're just like, not turning this off.

I feel like Josh can bring this back.

You've been on the Bills thing forever.

So is anything different this year?

Or are the toys better for him? Is it just the experience? What is it? What's different between the ears? It's like the happiest he's ever been in his life. And I mean, I mean like in all different ways.
Is that a Stefan Diggs subtweet? A little bit. Yeah.
It's funny to think about it. Like, can you even remember the last Bills loss? It's been so long before the Rams game.
Yeah. They lost to the Texans that night and the take was like, wow, Diggs got over on the Bills.
And there was this viral moment of Diggs like side-eyeing him. And we haven't heard from Diggs since he got hurt.
And Alan's taken over the world. But loves his offensive coordinator.
Never more comfortable. Loves the guys in the room.
And I don't think this is irrelevant. Like, he's engaged to a movie star and a pop star.
And his personal life is out of control. Like, over the moon amazing and he has a good run game a good offensive line like what do you want as a quarterback my line's awesome my running backs are awesome i have like a really cool girl that i'm with and like my receivers are cool guys and i know they're not calvin johnson but like they make plays for me i think he's so happy and so confident i think it's great yeah we joked last week on the fantasy pod that last week was Josh Allen's Apex Mountain, right? Engaged to Haley Steinfeld.
Had the big night game, whole thing. Literally a week later, he already beat it.
Even though he lost to the Rams, I would say now this is his Apex Mountain. He had the greatest day in fantasy football history, basically.
52 points. And he locked up the MVP.
You think it's done? Yeah. I think he did, yeah.
I can't count out Lamar yet for some reason, but I think it's like, Fando would say it's done. It's like he's like a minus 500 favorite.
In a regular year, Lamar. There's still a month left.
There's Lamar fatigue. He's already got it a couple of times.
Yeah. And listen, I want Saquon to win a bat.
It'd just be cool. He would have to have the perfect campaign.
Like he'd have to break the Dixon record. He'd have to have the touchdown, everything.
Allen just took it away. I'm not sure it can be Saquon.
Oh, really? It's hard. Two years ago, the Eagles made the Super Bowl with Miles Sanders.
Yeah. And so it's like, I just...
I'm out. I did this last week.
I'm out on the Saquon. I just think like...
I want it to. It would be cool, but I don't think they can do it.
This is the dumbest way to think about it, but I also think it's the best way to think about it. When somebody gets hurt, what happens to the line? Like if Josh Allen got hurt, the Bills line moves by nine points.
If Barkley gets hurt, the Eagles line moves by two and a half points. Again, they were the best team in the league with Miles Sanders two years ago.
I hate that it has to be a quarterback pretty much every year unless the guy's having the most amazing season ever or there's no awesome quarterback. But for the most part, it's like saying like no the pilot's not the mvp of this airplane it's actually the third flight attendant got those peanuts she's killing it's like you know who's the mvp the fucking pilot because we're crashing if the pilot doesn't make out but i i think as the allen thing especially as it pertains to mahome my concern is that that rams game 20 years from now when like you tell your kids, your grandkids about Josh Allen, that's the Josh Allen experience.
He's unbelievably cool superhero action star and the Bills lose. Right, and they have the dopey play with the QB sneak where they waste a time out.
Is that this era? What are you doing? Like, is he... I just worry that he's like Dominique Wilkins or something.
Like, just so awesome. Incredible talent.
What did it amount to? He's even said it. He's like, he said it.
I'm sick of winning t-shirts. He has a whole stack of t-shirts that are like division champ t-shirts.
And he's like, I want to get them out of my closet. I don't want these anymore.
That's what he's known for at this point. Because if they lose in the playoffs, if they lose in the playoff this year to the Chiefs, what do you think if you're a Bills fan? Like, this Chiefs.
We can't even beat this one. It's a big, big playoff year.
That's why it'll be the Steelers that they lose to. It might be.
I know you're big on the Steelers right now. I am.
I'm stunned that the Steelers have not gotten more credit this year. I don't get it.
I don't know what else they have to do. I'm holding my breath a little bit.
They have a really tough— Craig's a Steelers fan, so he's being super careful. This is a tough four-game stretch they're heading into.
It's been pretty easy the last four weeks.

Now they're Eagles, Chiefs, Bengals.

Bengals? No. Eagles, Chiefs, Bengals.

It's a tough stretch.

They're playing Christmas night, too.

The Josh thing, the way you laid it out,

really makes me think of Peyton Manning

first half of the 2000s,

where he had reached this point

where he was the best regular season quarterback.

He was the guy you would take first in fantasy, all that stuff. But you never felt like he was actually going to win.
And then they end up winning in 06, partly because the Pats choked away a 21-3 halftime lead. In the dome.
Marlon Jackson interception sealed it. And it was like, holy shit, they beat Brady.
And this is my test for the Chiefs right now. So we're picking away at all of them,

and they barely win,

and all their numbers are terrible,

and the offense looks legitimately bad

except for one drive every game.

Let's say they get the one seed,

they get the bye.

The division run,

you're watching on your couch,

and the Chiefs lose to Pittsburgh or Baltimore

or Houston or somebody like that.

Are you surprised?

Because I'm shocked.

I'll fall off my chair if they lose the divisional round.

Even as bad as they've been.

That's my respect for them.

I agree completely.

It's every week.

You'd be shocked?

I'd be shocked if the Chiefs lost.

I was like, oh, you know, if the Bills play the Chiefs again in the playoffs,

this is what we see every year.

The Bills beat Mahomes in the regular season.

Mahomes beat Talon in the playoffs.

It's the same thing every single year.

The problem for the Chiefs is sometimes you can pass the point of no return with weapons. Because, and I said this last time in the pod, like, this did happen to Brady a couple times where, like, 06, he was awesome.
And we just had nobody. We had Lawrence Baroney and starting running back and Rache Caldwell and Jabbar Gaffney and Ben Watson.
It was like, we just didn't have enough weapons. When we needed third downs, there was that one guy to get open.
There wasn't that awesome running back. I don't think the Chiefs weapons are that bad, but there's been some Brady seasons where he was better than the team.
And I wonder with Mahomes' shot, I thought he took a lot of hits on Sunday night. It's so weird.
I feel like last year was the year the Chiefs were supposed to lose and then the criticisms would come. What did they go? 11-6? And it was like, yeah, you know, this is what we were saying.
You can't do this again. Not with these weapons.
Yeah, the Raiders killed them on Christmas. Yes, it was like a super weird year.
Should they have lost and Allen missed that one throw to Diggs. There was one other play.
Like, if you really watch that game closely, it was kind of amazing the Bills didn't win that game. Yeah, I don't think anybody knows what to do now.
Now that they come out of this weird 11-6 year where they shouldn't have won the Super Bowl, but they did. And now they're 12-1 and they've won 16 straight games that were one score.
It's the most improbable run. I mean, can you think of anything like this in the last 20, 30 years in the NFL? No, there were some weird Patriot years wondering how we were doing it week after week.
But this is different because they're almost adding this degree of difficulty to the wins and i'm not a lucky person with football i don't never really bought into that because clearly they're good clearly like the plays that he was making yesterday especially in the last drive that third and 15 was crazy cool yeah right the third and seven you know he's gonna get it. So that's its own skill.
I thought what concerned me if I was them was the Chargers, I thought, were really physical with them in the second half in a way that I don't remember seeing with the Chiefs. Yes.
But you always felt like the Chiefs were going to lose. It was because they, you know, they dropped the key third down pass or something.
I thought the Chargers were like pushing them back. Without their best running back.
Yeah.

I mean, the Chargers are built like Michigan. Without their best

receiver. No, definitely.
I think the Chargers

are going to win a playoff game. I like them still.

I'm not jumping ship on the Chargers. Yeah.
Without

the best receiver, without the best running back, they play great defense.

So they'll be a six seed, right?

They'll be whatever behind Baltimore and Pittsburgh.

So a six seed would put them

probably against either Buffalo or

Pittsburgh. Yeah.
And I don't like that much. I don't like the Char charges.
But the distinction, I think, with the Chiefs' weapons, it's like, I think there's having players that are just kind of average, but then there's having players who are just kind of average the way they're playing, who are made guys. Like Jandre Hopkins and Kelsey, even Juju.
Those are guys who have been around, who've been in playoff games. Those are the guys who are like, oh shit, we turned on the division around.
Kelsey had nine catches and two touchdowns. They've done it.
It's not average players who just suck and have never done it. These guys are all a friend of ours.
They can turn it on. That's why they go in.
That's why I'm so cautious with the Chiefs because of the Kelsey keeping him in the garage with the tarp on thing. Yeah.
Like, they're just clearly doing that. Yeah, we didn't see him for two hours in the game yesterday.
And you know in fantasy, like, people are still paying for him in fantasy. Yeah, he was still fringed first guy who went off the board in drafts.
It was like him and Laporta. But then you watch Bowers, although the Tampa was able to take him out a little yesterday.
And Bowers is just like, Gronk crossed with Kelsey, crossed with like a sports movie tight end. Easily number one.
He's open all the times. He's just crushing everybody.
And Kelsey could probably do that in January in round two, but I don't think they're using that skill now. So I don't know if I had to rank them.
I honestly think Pittsburgh's the safest bet out of the three. Because of the defense.
More than Buffalo? Yeah. Yeah, okay.
I think they could beat Buffalo in Buffalo because they can get some explosive plays, but I think Buffalo has a better chance of beating KC because the thing with KC that I can't wrap, I feel like if you can get 24 and up on them points-wise, you're probably beating them, right? Buffalo beat them 30-21. Yeah.
But Pittsburgh's more likely to play the 18-16, 19-16 type Kansas City game, which is better for KC. So I do feel like there's some rock, paper, scissors.
Yeah. I think Arthur Smith and Russ are really starting to work well, especially last week without Pickens, which I do think Tomlin held Pickens.
I think Pickens could have played in that game. I think they knew they had this gauntlet coming up.
They held him against the Browns. I 100% agree.
They were at home. I think that was a very smart move by Tomlin.
They knew they could beat Jameis. There were more open guys in that game than there have been all season for Pittsburgh.
So I do think Arthur Smith and Russ are really starting to gel. I just worry that in January, they're in Buffalo.
They need to score 35 to beat the Bills. They're doing too high.
They're taking off all the top end stuff for Russ. You really got to rely on Najee Harris having a good game, running the ball.
And then if it's not Pickens, it gets real thin real quick. I'm a little worried.
I almost wonder if they could muck it up with the Chiefs and win a game like 1970. That's where I feel like this.
Yeah, but Kyle knows the way to beat the Bills is what the Rams did yesterday. You're just… Five-yard run.
Four-yard run. Seven-yard run.
Seven-yard pass. four-yard run, seven-yard run,

seven-yard pass, three-yard run,

five-yard. You're just chipping away, chipping away,

chipping away. Lock a punt.

You get this big play. Yeah, big defensive play.

And then, Jesus Christ, Nakua and Cooper were just doing

anything they wanted. They looked bad.

Stafford, Nakua, and Puka are the highest degree

of difficulty offense in the league.

It is so hard, but they do it because they're so good.

And I'm like, I will worry a little bit. But what did they run for? The running game, I thought, was the most interesting part of that.
Because Buffalo, I wouldn't say they're like a giant defense. No, not really.
It feels like you can push them backwards. They thought that, okay, so Matt Milano's back now.
Like, he was the heart and soul of their defense. He's back there going to stop it.
And Terrell Bernard's amazing in the middle. But, they did this Blake Corum thing that we haven't seen a lot of them this year.
And then obviously Kyron. I have a little bit of a spicy take on the Bills-Rams thing.
I actually think that loss was good for the Bills. And I'll tell you why.
Everybody was just on their nuts across the whole country because they did a lateral play and they won in the snow and they're the best team ever. They go across the country.
They get their ass whipped a little bit. Now they play the Lions, which is one of the biggest games of the regular season.
I think they need to have their shit humbled a little bit, just a little bit. They were such a darling for about three or four days and then they weren't that good.
And I think that get that loss out of the way now maybe and have a little bit of a wake up call. I actually was not shocked that they lost that game because McVay is amazing.
And when Cup and Nakua are out there for the Rams this year, the Rams are six and two. They're a very, very good team.
And their defense is super young. Super doesn't give a crap.
I'll hit Josh Allen late. Talk shit to him.
Don't care. The Rams are, if I had to pick a team that, holy shit, a team that's in the Super Bowl, I'd pick the Rams as the holy shit team.
Your holy shit team? My holy shit team is the Rams. That is a dark horse, Cinderella, all that.
They have the quarterback.

I think they have the best coach in football.

They have this crazy young defense

who doesn't know if they're not supposed to be that good

yet. They're my holy shit Super Bowl team.

I think the holy shit team has to be AFC.

Okay. Just for me.

But I like that pick.

The Chargers would be a holy shit AFC team.

I just think that Detroit-Philly talent pedigree

is going to be really... Especially if you have to go into Detroit round two, round three, and try to take those guys.
Whereas the AFC, I don't really love any team. And I feel the best about Pittsburgh.
I certainly wouldn't feel awesome about Russell Wilson winning three straight playoff games. Yeah, and if this is the year to go against KC.
My holy shit playoff team would actually be the Chargers because I'm with you on that they can block and they can chase the passer and once we get into January if you can just do those two things make a couple plays not turn the ball over and win a couple ugly games that's what the Chiefs did last year you know I was really impressed by their mystery I think they're the Chargers in a loss I thought they I thought they really handled the Chiefs defensive line I was surprised and like Herbert misses wide open touchdown Palmer yeah he missed another guy like 35 yards down the field their running backs are among the worst in the league without Dobbins yeah Gus Edwards and the doll like come on they're overachieving this year like it's impressive already what Harbaugh's done year one. This was supposed to be kind of like, all right, we'll get our line and we build from the inside out, see what we got.
We'll see what we have in Ladd McConkie. He's already one of the better rookie wide receivers in the league.
You know what's funny? We talk about football all the time and we always look for these angles on what makes the team special, who's going to be the sleeper. This was the first year where I was like, all I care about are coaches and QBs.
Smart. I did all my over-unders and I was like, if you have a coach or a QB, I'm not even going to worry that the Chargers don't have receivers.
I'm going over. I'm picking them to make the playoffs.
They have Harbaugh and Herbert. Doesn't matter.
That should be enough. Whereas flip side, I don't know Vegas, I don't understand their quarterback

situation at all. I don't know what we're getting into.

I'm out. And I wonder

sometimes is football just that simple?

Is it all about the QB and the coach and the rest of it

is periphery? Yeah, in retrospect,

looking at Rodgers and Sala, it's like

I like Robert Sala.

Were you big on them, Craig? Yeah.

That was my big mistake.

I had the Jets over Buffalo in the division. my biggest regret but my big rogers is washed like he's you know if you knew it was gonna be the 41 year old wash rogers i wouldn't have picked that i know my big thing in fantasy this year was like try to eliminate uh as much randomness as you can like only bet on things that you can depend on that you know are going to happen and then i just was completely blind to the jets completely blind to the Jets, like a 40-year-old quarterback coming off a torn Achilles.

My biggest miss.

I got so deceived by all the Buffalo dead cap space stuff

and transition year.

They snookered me.

I think they snookered themselves.

I don't even know if they expected this.

I really do think it was, all right, this will be a year

and we'll lose in the wild card or whatever,

but just Allen's been that good and defense has been that good. Can I give you like a surprise disgruntled team right now? Yeah.
I'm kind of with you. Like I have a couple of friends and they're Philly guys.
And they're like beside themselves right now. They hate this team.
They're like, we're going to lose. We're going to go one and done.
They're panicking. But like six days ago, everybody was thinking Detroit's defense is so banged up.
Philly, the season parted for Philly. That's how I was feeling.
The Eagles have won nine in a row. Yeah.
And they're like, nope. Hertz doesn't have it.
Their kicker keeps missing. That freaks people out.
He can't make one from 50 plus. He hasn't made one all year.
After this game, this last game. The problem is, all right, they barely beat the Panthers.
And people have to update their expectations of the Panthers. The Panthers aren't the Panthers of September.
They're actually kind of good. They're frisky.
Like they almost beat the Chiefs. Yeah.
They're exactly frisky. They did a, they had a 98-yard drive almost to win a game with three minutes left.
I mean, Bryce Young won that game. Leggett dropped it.
Yeah, I know. And so Eagles fans are like, we suck.
Like, first of all, the Panthers are pretty good. But then right after the game, A.J.
Brown, after a win, the ninth in a row, they're like, A.J., what do you think you need to work on? He's passing. You got to get better at passing.
Jesus, A.J., you won nine in a row. There's some issues with Hurts.
And I think there's Eagles fans still don't totally believe in him. Just my friends.
I think he's a really good player. But there's my friends.
And I think also- And they don't really believe in Sirianni either, right? Definitely not. So coach and quarterback.ianni either right definitely quarterback and also i think aj brown is like tired of the saquon shit like we passed the ball the least in the whole team they're they're ranked last in the league in past attempts they run it they have an mvp running back i don't know if he's liking that either this reminds me of i was talking to an mb there's nine in a row they've won and they're like they're so are they waiting for the collapse because remember the Eagles were like 10-1 last year

but it was the weirdest

Super Bowl hangover

where everybody was miserable

but they were 10-1

no they're supposed to be good

their defense is awesome

it's amazing

they retooled immediately

this was a theory

I heard about the Nuggets

you made me think of

about like

AJ Brown being pissed

yeah like

that was like

why isn't Jamal Murray

playing better

it's like

because Jokic does everything

this person I know

was saying how

NBA

it was just a theory

it's like those because Jokic does everything. This person I know was saying how NBA, it was just a theory.
It's like those guys are tired of just being like Jokic's towel boys. And everything's Jokic's Jokic's Jokic's.
Oh, what a miracle it must be to play with Jokic. Oh, he gets all the stats.
And like Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr. is, where's mine? I want you too.
Because they already won a title. So AJ Brown's like, enough with the backwards hurdle.
We get it. Enough with the Saquon shit.
Enough with the tush push. I don't know.
It's probably easier when the star is the quarterback. When it's the running back, it probably rubs AJ Brown the wrong way.
He's like, I'm just as good as that guy. Look, I can't play quarterback.
That's true. It's the running back? Really? It's true.
I mean, counter, is there a wide receiver who's gruntled? I know. We have a lot of disgruntled receivers.

Do we have gruntled receivers?

Jefferson always seems pretty gruntled.

Yeah.

Even when he wasn't putting up numbers.

Yeah, he seemed happy for Addison.

Huge contract.

Huge.

Plays indoors.

Like, everybody loves him.

I think Jefferson's gruntled.

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SIMMONS20. Do you buy Minnesota yet? I know that's been a, for three months, all of us who do podcasts and content, we're all just assuming this was your classic Viking season where the stats say they should have been 9 and 8 and they went 14 to 3.
No, they went every week. But it's not a Sam Darnold conversation.
It's nuts. So my nuts so my background in sam donald is okay we're supposed to be the number one overall pick fell a little bit baker rises up and steal it from that point every single coach slash guru all the mcveys and shanahans and like jordan palmer types they all swear that sam's the man oh donald's incredible donald's got it and as a like, he mostly sucks every time we see him.
It just feels like when somebody keeps recommending this show, you got to watch this show. It's so good.
It's so good. And you're like, it's not that good.
They're like, watch another episode. I promise.
Watch another episode. That was Schitt's Creek for me.
Yeah, keep on. You got to watch.
I'm like, dude, I'm on three seasons in. I don't like the show.
It's a sitcom. The show is finally amazing.
And all those coaches were like, he's amazing. And yet, they may just cut Bat for him this year.
Well, I was going to ask. I don't know.
What do they have to do in the playoffs where it becomes a problem for the Minnesota front office thinking, well, now what? I said to Sal. Through the NFC Championship, what happens now? I said to Sal on Sunday's pod, I don't know how they let him go at this point.
Like when you have a quarterback that you're built, your team's built around these two awesome receivers that you have, right? You have a quarterback who's clearly clicking with them in a real way, who's made big plays over and over again down the stretch. Why do I have to start J.J.
McCarthy next year? Why can't I just trade J.J. McCarthy? He's the eighth, he was seventh or eighth pick.
What was he, seventh? Seventh pick. I don't know where he was.
Top ten. I know he's coming off a torn ACL.
But you loved him.

But you think like I'm trading him

for a high second and I get

to pay Sam Darnold.

Sal and I went through all the teams that

need quarterbacks. There's probably four

legitimate plus maybe Seattle

if they don't pay Geno. Maybe Purdy.

Six total.

I just think if I'm Vegas, I'm

paying them. They're like the anti-Chiefs because no matter how bad the Chiefs look, I think to myself, I'm still going to bet on Mahomes.
No, how good the Vikings look. It doesn't matter how good the Vikings look.
I'm like, in the playoffs, I'm going to bet against him. Yeah, we did million dollar picks Thursday and the house was like imploring me to put the Vikings in a parlay.
And I was just like, it looks too easy. Something's wrong.
I don't make me nervous. Nobody likes cousins.
And we ended up doing it and Falcon scored seven, nothing. and I was just like, it looks too easy.
Something's wrong. It makes me nervous.

Nobody likes Cousins.

And we ended up doing it

and Falcon scored seven, nothing.

And I'm texting house like, motherfucker.

Why did I listen to you?

Fucking dick.

They were good early.

Listen, same organization, Vikings,

a few years back.

They're in the NFC title game.

Their quarterback is Case Keenum.

Right.

Killing it.

Making miracles to Stefan Diggs.

Like, oh my God, Keenum.

Yeah.

Moved on.

Went to Cousins. It was the right move.
Yeah, but here's the difference with Darnold. If you're just talking about what, if I have a franchise quarterback, what do I want? Do I want size? Well, he has that escapability.
He has that cannon arm, has that. Is he pretty good down the stretch or when you need him to make some plays?

He's done that all year.

Also, he doesn't say shit.

He's like a model citizen, great reputation.

Teammates like him.

I don't know what he's missing.

I watch quarterbacks for 10 to 11 hours every Sunday,

and most of them are bad.

And he's actually pretty good.

The take is very insulting to him.

Here's the take.

Okay. You have Jefferson and Addison and Aaron Jones jones and hockinson and ko sees your coach of course you're succeeding right it's the it's the brock purdy we put somebody in there it's the brock purdy and you know how it's gonna go because when he leaves and signs a four-year 160 million daniel jones contract somewhere else he's not gonna be good because it's the kevin o'connell system of making josh dobbs good good for three weeks.
And it seems like Kevin O'Connell is like the guru quarterback whisperer now. And I just know Darnold is going to go sign a deal with like, God forbid the Giants or something and be terrible.
It's going to happen. And we've seen cousins won 11 and one as a Vikings quarterback and they won every, and they got to the play and they lost to Daniel Jones.
So that's part of the reason why everyone's like, I don't know, Darnold. I feel like we've seen this shit before.
That's why you're saying no matter how much they win, you don't believe in them.

Because we could look up and they lose in the wildcard round.

We said this about Baker last year

and then they signed him and he's been good this year.

That's true. The best thing

with Darnold is how young he is. What is he

like? He's very young. 27, right?

So,

if I were

them, I would try to sign him for like 100 for 4 years something like that try to get him like 25 a year and then try to trade J.J. McCarthy but supposedly he hurt his ACL again so maybe he doesn't even have the same to me that feels like the disaster we had this guy now we let him go because J.J.'s ready and then what if J.J.'s not good and those receivers are like what the fuck I know.
like, we had this guy. Now we let him go because JJ's ready.
And then what if JJ's not good? And those receivers are like, what the fuck? I know. Darnold had 40 touchdowns.
Imagine the other way, though. They trade their top 10 pick, JJ McCarthy, who goes off and has a great career.
And then next year, Sam Darnold turns back into a pumpkin. And it's like one of the worst front office moves of all time.
Yeah. To your point, though, let's say the Vikings are like, we love Sam, but we have a very bright future for jj we want to be in benji what is the line that the vikings get to where they're like well we're in the super bowl we can't get rid of sam donald now right so they have to win it i i think if you get i think you have to get to the super bowl because already case keaton was in the title game with them they've already been that a few years ago i think if he gets to the super bowl it's i guess you're coming back you know as a fan i was in a situation once with a guy by the name of Tom Brady in 2001.
Bledsoe gets hurt. Brady keeps his job and we're kind of like, is he going to be the starter? We'll be like, I don't see what happens.
And all of a sudden, he won the Super Bowl. This is the first Tom Brady-Sam Darnold comp.
Yeah. You never know.
I like it. The thing is, Detroit's defense mess, and I don't see how it really gets better.
Right? So at least there's a little bit of a hole there. Philly has all the chemistry stuff.
Green Bay. I'm not sure I trust Jordan Love and just in general, I wouldn't pencil them in.
Like Minnesota can play with all of these teams. Those three teams in the North, they're 28 and three outside of the North.
They beat everybody. They might be the three best teams of the league.
They're up there. I think they're all top five teams.
Who knows? They're 28 and 3 when they're not playing each other. So they kick the shit out of everybody.
I think the Lions defense reputation is down right now because of what we just saw. I think they'll be better.
I think they'll be back. I still think they're going to win the Super Bowl.
I still think it's the Lions. I would at gunpoint pick them as well, but I don't feel great about it.
Lions over Pittsburgh, you think, maybe? Or Chiefs? No, I would still. Life depends on it.
I'm still doing Lions-KC. But I just think right now, mid-December.
Is it mid-December? It is. Well, yeah.
I think Pittsburgh is the most complete all-around team right now. I don't know what that's going to mean.
Where are you at with Russ? Isn't this weird for you to be saying that? Every fucking week, Russ makes three 40-yard plays or gets a pass interference. There's a play that moves the ball 35 to 50 yards, three times a game with him, and it happens every single week.
And at some point, that's what they do. Yeah.
The Chiefs get none of those plays. The Chiefs had one 30-yard play to Hopkins and he dropped it.
It seemed like a miracle that they almost completed it. They did it so bad.
Russ is cocky right now. He's doing this like, you know, he's talking a lot of shit.
He gets down on one knee and like points to the side. Has he always done that? Or is that a new move? I never saw it.
He unveiled it. He does a lot of like running over to the sideline and barking at the OC and shit like that.
Have you, have either of you, have you done the culture comp like what what this is because like i was doing it the other day with peter i think it's it's it's travolta and the comeback seattle was all of the 70s and 80s and he's a superstar he's the coolest rock star ever denver was look who's talking it's pathetic and then like four and two mike thompson put him in and it just Pulp Fiction and like he's like the coolest guy ever now and can't miss it's an amazing I would go Lady Gaga you go Lady Gaga really strong start considered a diva pretty early on did some good stuff faded a little bit and then A Star Is Born was her Pittsburgh that's the the four and two Pittsburgh. But then is he going to end with Joker 2? That would be a bummer.
Oh, yeah. Greg, you should have to bring the house down.
Next year. But I mean, you root for Russ every week.
Yeah. He's surprisingly good.
There's just no other way to say it. He's been doing this now for two and a half months.
I'm enjoying it one week at a time. He makes plays over and over and over again.
I'm not looking ahead. I'm not looking into the future.
I'm just every week I'm having a good time.

I always would think that Tomlin wouldn't be here

for the Russ theatrics that we used to see.

Tomlin's good at that.

He seems so affected.

I guess he's worked with every problem.

Tomlin likes weird.

Yeah.

I mean, he works with Pickens,

who's ready to start a giant fight.

I mean, Pickens, Antonio Brown.

The list goes on and on.

Pickens is great.

The other thing with Pittsburgh, their kicker.

Is there another kicker you feel better about

during any playoff game in bad weather

the game. The list goes on and on.
Pickles is great. The other thing with Pittsburgh, their kicker.
Is there another kicker you feel better about during any playoff game in bad weather than Boswell? He's like the new Tucker. He lined up like a 54-yarder yesterday.
He's making that. He's been that guy.
He's been the best offensive player in the Steelers for the last five years. I think he leads the league in points.
Tomlin, Boswell, I can't find the holes. It's really like who's going to be that second receiver on third and nine.
But Mike Williams had a couple of good plays yesterday. Yeah.
And Fryer-Muth is like, they're really good. They're amazing team.
It's like the rust thing. You see comebacks like they suck.
You never see when someone's a superstar, then sucks. And then as a superstar again, the only ones I can think of are Kurt Warner, who went St.
Louis with Arizona. And then the Giants was like just weird.
And then Arizona's the Super Bowl again. and then as a superstar again.
The only ones I can think of are Kurt Warner who went St. Louis.
Right, with Arizona. And then the Giants who was just weird.
And then Arizona to the Super Bowl again. And then even a slightly less version of that, Carson Palmer was with the Bengals.
He was with the Raiders. I don't even remember that.
And then he was with Arizona and was also in a title game. But the good shit and then good again is really hard to pull off.
It especially happens with quarterbacks because it feels like the wrong offensive line, the wrong coach, the wrong team, and they can just get the shit kicked out of them for two years and just completely lose their confidence, right? It's funny. Russ has never been paid the right amount based on what his talent is at the moment.
Like when he was on Seattle when he first got drafted, he kind of like started that new rookie quarterback model thing. He was making like 700 grand a year and leaving them to Super Bowls.
Then the Denver thing happens and he's making $43 million a year and he's terrible. And now he's a great again on Pittsburgh making $1 million a year.
I know Denver's still paying him. And then he'll probably, I think the plan is, and I think this is what the Steelers envisioned the whole time.
I think they are going to definitely re-sign Russ. No question.
They just don't want to pay more than 10 to 12, I'm guessing. They have a whole thing.
We also might get Pittsburgh-Denver in the playoffs. That'd be pretty fun.
You talked about the comeback, though, with them and how unusual that is. The other thing that's unusual for me, I always feel like quarterbacks hit that point of no return.
It just doesn't seem like they want to get hit anymore, which Rodgers was clearly the last seven, eight weeks. It's like, that guy doesn't want to get hit anymore.
Wilson last year to me just seemed like he didn't want to get hit anymore. That's why when he's a free agent this summer, I was just like, well, who cares? The guy doesn't, you know, he's made enough money.
He won a Super Bowl. He doesn't want it anymore.
I know. But it seems like he's okay with getting hit again.
So I don't know whether Tomlin, I justlin tomlin and reed to me levitate over everybody else coaches and quarterbacks yeah when we do playoff picks to start the season about four years ago i learned this i always pick pittsburgh no matter what picked them this year to make the race and everyone's like you're an idiot they have no quarterback i'm like i know but just always pick pittsburgh they get in the playoffs always and i pick mcveigh now too every year the ramps Rams. That was another one.
That was another guy with the Futures. I just did over on the Rams.
I get that they only have seven players. Doesn't matter.
Just pick them. As long as they have the QB and two receivers, they can move the ball.
Yeah, we always joke that McVay is the chef on Chopped. And he's making bolognese out of mayonnaise.
Who's your holy shit team? I have the Chargers. I have the, who say the Rams you said the Rams holy shit this team is in the Super Bowl can I have the holy shit this team there's no way this team is going to make the Super Bowl and it's the Houston Texans you hate the Texans I hate the Texans no they're not good the Texans are definitely going to play a Saturday playoff game like they always do and it'll be like one o'clock everyone's going to pick whoever the other team is it's probably going to be the Char.
It's just going to be like that Browns game last year. Everyone's like, Black O.
Yeah. Slalick, I think, is super overrated.
I think Stroud's in his own head big brothering every quarterback at midfield and it's completely failed on him. Yeah.
Stroud's had a tough second half of the season. He's had a great guy, I think.
The Ringer Fantasy Show hates Stroud big brothering. One of the most The Caleb moment? The Caleb moment.
He's done it multiple times. Yeah.
He did times he did it with Drake May too yeah three straight weeks after the Caleb thing and then he finally got off of it I missed the Drake May one yeah he's been terrible he's weighing in with his big picture thoughts on everyone he plays against and it's like dude you're in your second year settle down yeah I might go with the Chargers as well, probably, I would say. Just because of their ability to play cold weather.
Herbert's so good. The only thing with Herbert is I'm worried that he's going to get hurt sometimes.
Herbert is almost too good of a player. I think he's kind of like the Puka Nakua of quarterbacks where I'm like, you actually play the game with too much honor.
You don't go out of bounds ever. If there's a throw and Herbert needs to make it and he knows he's going to get drilled, he will get drilled to make the throw.
Nick Bolton put a huge hit on him in that Chiefs game. Yeah, that leg hit.
But he had to step in to make the throw. So they're 8-5, Baltimore's 8-5, Denver's 8-5 for the 5-6-7.
So the key for the Chargers would have to be to somehow get that five seed and try to play Houston.

But I don't know how realistic that is with their schedule.

But if they can somehow get, what do they have left?

Houston is just dog shit on this.

Tampa, Denver, home.

Oh, another third and 10 in Houston.

Tampa, Denver, at home for the Chargers.

Then at Pat's home Vegas.

They could sweep that.

And Baltimore, I think, is going to have a lot of trouble sweeping because they had that weird Christmas situation. Isn't it crazy we've talked to playoffs this long? We haven't even mentioned the Ravens.
Well, because we know they're going to be there. I know, but what are they going to do when they get there? I don't have them in the Super Bowl.
Does anybody? Their stock's low now. It's funny that people get mad about the January Lamar thing.
It's like, okay, when is it not going to happen? It's just until he doesn't do the January Lamar thing, that's the way it is. The Raven fans are very touchy about it.
Lamar media is weird. Tua media is the worst, though.
The Tua fan base. The Tua people who think he was good yesterday.
He was 23 for 37. No picks.
It's like, all right, I watched the game. He had 10 terrible throws.
Like, stop. I don't trust Tua.
Dolphins fans are frosty for sure. No picks.
It's like, all right, I watched the game. Like, he had 10 terrible throws.

Like,

stop.

I don't trust Tua.

Dolphins fans are frosty for sure.

No,

when I think of a Tua play

in my head,

it's Tyreek Hill

turning around

to catch an underthrown

defense.

Who's your fantasy MVP

this year, Craig?

Fantasy MVP?

We all overthought

Saquon so much.

Him going in the second,

and Derrick Henry,

the two of them.

Both of them going

in the second round.

Everybody was afraid

of the veteran of them. Both of them going in the second round.
Everybody was afraid of the veteran on the new team thing. Now it's going to go the other way.
Everyone's going to overvalue it in next year's draft. The new running back guy.
It's also one of the most unusual fantasy seasons in history because of what happened with McCaffrey. That was so strange.
Well, and Brie Saugh, who just died of natural causes. Also, just in general with fantasy, this is the healthiest running back season outside of McCaffrey, which that happened before the season, kind of in-season injuries for running backs.
This has been the healthiest season in forever, and I think there's definitely, you know, it was always get a wide receiver in the first round for the last five years. Next year, it's going to swing way back.
Everyone's going to be back in on getting all these running backs in the first round, and it will probably regress back to the mean and, like, guys will start getting hurt again. I'm in the camp of—and I have three teams, two that did badly and one that's doing well.
But I just want to have a good QB. That's all I care about.
I feel like I can patch together everything else. But, like, anyone who has Lamar or Josh Allen or Burrow in any of these leagues, you're just like, fuck.
That guy's probably going to win. That's why you play fantasy.
Because of that Allen game against the Rams. Yeah, 100%.
The key point is getting a guy who can move. I'm so done with pocket passers.
I drafted Goff, who's been good. He's been solid.
Goff and Stroud. It's so tough because you basically need 280 and three touchdowns out of Goff every single week just for him to get by.
Lamar, Josh. Mahomes has turned into that different reasons he's probably one of you can't start him he's the biggest bust at quarterback in fantasy yeah before we go um new york because you're in new york giants versus jets um which team is more down which franchise fan base is more down in the dumps right now between those two i think the jets fans are a little in shock whereas the giants fans are like i don't know like when i run into people on the street and they're like oh you're on the football show and i go yeah and the thing i always say to them wherever i am i'm like oh who's your team oh you know cowboys texans the giants fans always go giants like they're so apologetic at that point where they're apologizing oh no yeah it's just like our show that we do on NFL Network started in 2016 every single year the Jets and Giants have sucked they've always sucked the only one that didn't suck was the Giants team when they went on the boat with the Odell thing like that's the only what about the Danny Dimes playoff win in Minnesota that was a fever dream yeah but that was they were like nine and eight that year or whatever yeah but so But so I think the Giants fans are like, we know we're terrible and we're embarrassed.
I think the Jets fans were like, they bought some lottery tickets and before they won it, they like put a down payment on a mansion and a boat. And they're like, I'm going to win this shit and then match one number on their lottery ticket.
And I think, so I think they're like, their mental health is in question and they're in shock. It sucks.
Yeah. It's tough because the Red Sox fans used to be like this too, before we won the world series, where it's this rare combination of fatalism and thinking things aren't going to go wrong.
But then before the season, like this crazy optimism, it's like, how are these two things the same where it's like March spring training in 2000, like, this is it. Here we go.
this year we've got a great rotation the Vegas the odds for the Boston team they could always put them down because they knew all these dumbasses would come from Massachusetts and bet it and the Jets have those fans too that they actually think it's going to work out and then there's people like Phenasy who's like this is going to be a beautiful disaster Sean had the best tweet ever the one he keeps retweeting about it was the day the jets niners were gonna play i love it i just want to go on record i think this will be a complete disaster everyone will be fired and rogers will retire and he's probably going to be right that like the jets season it might have been the last great tweet it might it was a great tweet we talked about that on our show we even brought up fantasy's tweet but this season for the jets is not like a d or It is an F. It is as bad as it could go.
Short of like a tragedy happened off the field. Like it is an F.
But they basically had what? Seven one score games that they had the ball in the last three minutes but somehow didn't win any of them. I don't know how they fixed it either.
Rodgers tried his best. You know, he has that doc coming out in two weeks.
Yeah, Nygba. You can see he was trying.
He had his first 300 yard game as a Jet this week. He game as a Jet this week.
He was on the press tour. He was trying to get viewers.
Now, what? A 3-11 Jets team? I watched that whole Jets-Miami game because I had Miami in a parlay. Miami was terrible the whole game.
They looked like they didn't want to be there. They looked like they were the team that was 3-10.
Rodgers looked good for a couple quarters. The Jets were into it.
They were trying to win. They were moving the ball.
Their offense was better. And somehow Miami still won the game.
And it was basically because the Jets, as usual, just fucked up completely with three minutes left. F.
Pretty brutal. Yes.
So what would you rate this season from A-plus to F-minus? What's the grade for the season so far through 14 weeks? Oh, just as a whole? a whole for content storylines uh excitement everything i think it's like a v plus because we have just some really good teams like i mentioned that thing the nfc north is fun that bill's rams game we just watched was amazing that lions game against the packers was a 34 31 like we've got some rembrandts we've got some like when you say what's the game of the year we have like eight or nine games of the year and i like that the quarterbacks aren't hurt like right like that's really what i care about alan's out there mahomes out there even burrow on a losing team like you get to watch those guys you don't have to turn on the thursday nighter and it's taylor heineke versus mitch trubisky i mean we did lose aiden o'connell we lost aiden but i heard it's not as bad as. Maybe he'll be back.
Preventative aircast for Aiden O'Connell, yeah. What do you have for a grade? Probably A-.
See? I think it's been really fun. I mean, the Lions storyline is amazing.
I feel like everybody in America wants the Lions to win a Super Bowl. Also, they're the rare public team that's actually really fun to watch every week.
I genuinely enjoy watching their offense. When Jamar Gibbs is in the game, I'm like, I don't even have him on a fantasy team.
You feel like you do. You feel like you do.
The golf storyline's great. The weird 12-1 Chiefs is fun.
Saquon going to the Eagles and then maybe breaking the rushing record is unbelievable. I think it's been a really fun year.
I would be at an A- but the Drake May thing puts me at a solid A. I'm just out of my mind about how fun this Drake May thing is.
I can't believe he's this good already. I just can't believe it.
It is really cool. It's crazy that he's this far along.
And I've had terrible quarterbacks and I've had the greatest quarterback ever. I don't know if he's going to be even in the ballpark of somebody like Brady, but he's clearly a franchise guy.
Like, worst case scenario, I feel like he could at least be like Herbert. All you care about is you got a guy.
We have a guy. That's all you need in football.
Well, I can't believe I did the B-plus then without mentioning it. I mean, I think like they are huge.
There's two massive blemishes on the season. The Jets, just a complete disaster, and the Bears.
I mean, the Bears are a massive disappointment from start to finish. If the Jets are an F, the Bears are a B-plus.
Well, I thought, new coach, I thought you guys bumped back. Oh, no, that was the opposite.
You're supposed to get the bump. Yeah.
Like, the Saints got the bump with that guy. The clogger bumped you back.
That Niners-Bears game was maybe the worst game of the year. I mean, it was an unbelievably terrible, pathetic game.
I think that was the only pick I lost, and it was over five minutes into the game. You thought the Bears were going to win? I did.
I was like, new coach bump. Definitely.
They figured out Caleb just getting rid of the ball fast. They were way worse than they were under Matt Iberflus.
Think about that. They looked way worse.
They should have brought Iberflus back. They would have had a better performance.
Well, it's like Iberflus leaves, the defense probably gets worse and then you promote the guy running the offense and now you have a different person running the offense. Right.
Gets messy quick. You get suckered by that though.
Yeah, the locker room was so excited about the new guy and they're going to be ready to play. They were so bad in that game.
Well, that was like when Antonio Pierce got the job and they were smoking cigars after the first win and then within nine months, Devontae Adams is like, get me the fuck out of here. I'm glad you brought that up.
What happened to the cigars? Because I have landed on this take and I say it all, never hire an interim coach. I don't care what happens.
The interim coach is, you get out of a miserable marriage. You're just so pissed, and the next girlfriend you meet, you fucking marry her.
You don't take her to Cabo. You marry her.
It never works out. Have her fling.
Do it. Fine.
She made me too sad. It was incredible.
Watch the Saints win a couple more games,'re like, I don't know. There's Darren Rizzi gets them to compete.
Don't hire Darren Rizzi. Do respect him.
The only interim coach who actually should have been hired was Pip-Boss Rich, the Raiders guy. Oh, Tom Cable? Rich Bersuccia, whatever.
Oh, Visaccia. Yeah, Visaccia.
Special teams coach. Pip-Boss Rich.
Chris Bersuccia. He'd come in with like, all right, guys, I'll be back in 20.
Damn right. Changing out 200 their They were in the playoffs that time.
Yeah, I like Pip-Off. And then now he's the special teams coach again.
But no, don't ever hire the interim coach. You're marrying the fling after the marriage.
It's terrible. My dream is Drake May year two.
Yeah. Vrabel.
Brian Dayball, offensive coordinator. Let's go.
Who do you want to respect? There's not a head coach opening though Bill. What are you talking about? There might be if we lose these last four games.
The problem is we're going to go to Arizona and he's probably going to throw for like 360 and beat Arizona and then May will keep his job. Do you want a tackle or a wide receiver in the draft? Thanks for asking because I've obviously studied a lot.
My dad is now wading into the draft waters as well.

Just finding out about this T-Mac character,

this wide receiver.

Sure.

It doesn't feel like they're going to be a top five team,

but there's no top five left tackle,

which sets us up for the trade down,

which I'd feel great about if we had an owner

that wasn't 83 years old and we had an actual GM and not an interim GM. But it feels like they have to trade back.
I'm in the camp of I would take Hunter if we had the third pick. Really? If he's there.
He just seems like he's going to be a superstar. I'm going to change my mind on this a hundred times, but it just seems like sometimes these guys get in the draft

and everybody's just like, that guy's special.

And he just seems like a that guy's special guy.

You could have said this about Marvin Harrison last year,

and he hasn't tried to be the best special.

But there's no left tackle.

This is the one draft where there's no even a Joe Ault.

Yeah, probably not one worthy of a top three pick.

Who's the defensive line guy?

There's an awesome defensive tackle. That's another one.
When does it go wrong to have an awesome defensive tackle? Fine. Craig, have you had some takes on where Shador is going to go? I mean, he certainly feels like a Raider to me.
The Vegas, the father-son Vegas thing feels like a layup. It's a perfect fit.
It's so Raiders-y. What if the Giants get the number one pick? Because the worst fit of all time is the

Mara family and the Sanders family. Oh my god.

Not at all. But what if they get the number one pick

and he's the guy? Raiders feels perfect.

The Giants might get it though.

Well, they almost screwed it up yesterday

and then the kicker missed.

There was a conspiracy theory that Shador

was tweeting thank you Lord every time

the Raiders lost because he wanted to go to the Raiders. It happened for 11 weeks.
It was perfect. Even when they were on a bye, he didn't tweet it that week.
This was great. But the Raiders, I think, won, and then he tweeted it, and so it turns out not true.
But there was a while there where I was like, Shador and Deion are angling to get to Vegas. It is the most fun destination for those guys.
Yeah. It's amazing.
Because the team's a disaster every year anyway, so we might as well have the same. And Bowers is sitting right there now.
He already has a stud. And let's just have a carnival.
Make Deion the coach. Why not? Have Shadruby the quarterback.
It'd be great content. I had somebody who knows stuff tell me about the Pats.
If that job did become available, they said, you know, it's actually like a destination job now because because of drake may i was like it's like i need a cigarette six to midnight just give me a lighter i just need a cigarette i just want to reflect this but uh i think with uh vegas the fun part would just be having some sort of personality with that franchise well we had it in pier in Pierce. Like, that's the guy.
We smoked cigars. I won a Super Bowl.
But he just looks miserable now because they hired the interim coach. You don't do that.
Right. Can't do it.
Can't do it. I like your theory.
Thank you. All right.
I'm going A, A minus, B plus. Kyle Brands, great to see you as always.
Craig. Thanks, Craig.
Pleasure. All right.
That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Jacoby and Goldsberry.
Thanks to Kyle

and Craig. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti and Jesse Lopez.
Thanks to Gahau and Jack.

Thanks to you guys for making it through our second podcast of the week. I'm going to have

another one on Thursday. I'm going to have an NBA six pack.
I'm going to have a million dollar

picks. I'm going to have a guest.
Stay tuned. Get ready to buckle up.
I'll see you on Thursday. I'm going to have an NBA six-pack.
I'm going to have a million-dollar picks. I'm going to have a guest.
Stay tuned. Get ready to buckle up.
I'll see you on Thursday. On the wayside On the blue side

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