A 2025 NFL QB Pyramid, and Half-Baked Ideas (Summer Edition) With Sheil Kapadia and Kevin Wildes

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The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the rewatchables.

Speaker 1 It will be our 397th movie on Monday night. And it's a movie that I have been talking about and circling around really for the last couple of years.
Brian Koppelman also loves it. He joined me.

Speaker 1 It's the 50th anniversary of Rollerball, which is an absolutely amazing, amazing movie with James Kahn. And we finally had to do it.
Couldn't have had a better time. So that's going up Monday night.

Speaker 1 You can watch it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. We are getting.

Speaker 1 dangerously close to 400 movies. Can't believe it.
And there's a bunch of, I still have a pretty big list. I didn't think we'd make it to 400.

Speaker 1 Now I feel like we have an outside chance of getting to 500 unless I die of natural causes before then. So that's it.
Rollerball and then doing a more modern movie the week after.

Speaker 1 We're going to do all bangers. I'm going to try to do a mailbag at some point too during the

Speaker 1 during the month of August before we hit the whole football thing.

Speaker 2 For football,

Speaker 1 the Ring of Fantasy football show, which is really heating up, August is everyone, all the kids are saying it's the biggest month for that show. But, but people are starting to get fantasy opinions.

Speaker 1 There's some training camp/slash preseason stuff, skewing some of the rankings. So, those guys are covering all of it.

Speaker 1 And we're going to be doing more and more football as we get closer to the season, which is which feels early this year. It's like basically Labor Day.

Speaker 1 And then all of a sudden on September 4th, we're starting with football. I've been really bored by the sports.

Speaker 1 And I was trying to figure out why. And it was because like last year, I was looking at my podcast from last year in August, we had the Olympics.

Speaker 1 So I had like three in the beginning of August, there was three straight podcasts I did just about Team USA and the Olympics. And

Speaker 1 or there'll be other summers where we'll have the World Cup or we'll have another Summer Olympics or we'll have Women's World Cup or there would be just

Speaker 1 some sort of goofy summer event or there would be a big trade. This has been really a lot of nothing.
Like I watched three hours of the FedEx St.

Speaker 1 Jude, whatever the hell that golf thing is, which was great, by the way. Tommy Fleetwood, I think he's the world's preeminent when he has a lead near the end of something.

Speaker 1 You're just waiting for the other shoe to drop. And it always seems to drop with him.
I feel bad for him. But it ended up being Justin Rose beating J.J.
Spahn in a triple playoff game.

Speaker 1 And it was a triple playoff match. And it was really exciting.
And I was like, I shouldn't be this excited. This is golf.
This isn't even one of the four majors, but I am really ready for football.

Speaker 1 I might even be ready for college football at this point.

Speaker 1 Coming up on this podcast, Shio Capati is going to come on.

Speaker 1 We're going to talk about the Eagles at the very top for a second, but really, I have my 2025 QB pyramid, and I have a couple of doozy choices that I made on those that I really came genuinely.

Speaker 1 I really felt strongly about them.

Speaker 1 So he is coming on. We're going to go through the whole pyramid.
He's going to be my conciliary for it. And then old friend Kevin Wilds is here to do some half-baked ideas.

Speaker 1 So that is the Sunday podcast. And I think I'm going to have one more podcast middle of the week this week, too.
So hold on to your seats. It's all coming up next.

Speaker 1 We're going to take a break and then Pearl Jam.

Speaker 1 All right, recording this late afternoon Pacific time. Shiloca Capati is here.
You can read him on theringer.com. Great website.
Hosting the Philly special.

Speaker 1 A lot of Philly stuff. The Phillies kicked the Red Sox ass a couple weeks ago.
I did not enjoy that.

Speaker 1 Almost sent Roman Anthony into a funk. And the Ringer NFL show, which you're the host of, which we have some fun wrinkles coming for mid-August.
So,

Speaker 2 first of all, like you, you know, you're an Eagles fan.

Speaker 1 So I've been studying trying to figure out Super Bowl picks, who to zag against. The Eagles have so much freaking talent.
We do this every year with whoever the defending champ is.

Speaker 1 What would be the reason they didn't make it back to the Super Bowl? If you had to pinpoint one thing that you're worried about, what is it?

Speaker 2 I mean, there's always the injuries and that stuff.

Speaker 2 But the other thing I would probably say defensively, they've got two new pieces in the secondary that just no one's grabbed the jobs at corner and at safety.

Speaker 2 And so I think if you look at them last year, it was one of those old school kind of, I guess, a Belichick style defense where you're built from the back to the front, where their coverage was so good and so suffocating that the pass rush would get home.

Speaker 2 And so I do think there's a chance that if that coverage isn't as good, now all of a sudden the defense takes a step back. But I'm with you.

Speaker 2 Every time I'm like, well, the schedule's hard and the defense could take us.

Speaker 2 It's just like, man, you do roster by roster and you're like, a lot of things would have to go wrong for them to not be in the mix

Speaker 2 yeah i did my rankings and they just had the the highest point total and it wasn't close they were like five six points higher than anybody else but the the young cornerbacks you had i thought were going to be assets so you're are you worried about the depth or are you worried about the starters yeah no they've got two who are awesome quinyon mitchell and cooper degene it's kind of that other cornerback spot and then it's the safety spot they traded chauncey gardner johnson in the offseason so these are first world problems i mean like every eagles team i've watched my entire life, you know, if you would have said these are the issues on your team, or if, you know, fans of other teams are listening, they're like, give me a break.

Speaker 2 Those aren't problems. You got A.J.
Brown and Saquon and Hurts and Jalen Carter and all pros all over the place. So yeah, I don't want to overstate it.
I still think they're going to be very good.

Speaker 2 But if you're painting the scenario, I think that's probably the biggest concern on the team right now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you have a top four offensive line.

Speaker 1 You can rush the passer, you can play past defense, and you have, I would say in the top four for skill position guys right top three top four it's somewhere in there the conversation starts with cincinnati and philly i think the hurts relationship is kind of fun coming off the super bowl right because you would think like he cemented this guy's royalty in philly but it doesn't feel like that's 100 the case it's more shifted toward barkley right what's what's the hurts philly relationship right now no i think that the i think in philly everybody loves hurts right now and it's turned into this thing where he wins the Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 And then like, I was on vacation for a few weeks there in June and July. And it was like, I came back and there were just like a million Hertz debates about how did this person rank him there?

Speaker 2 And what did Cam Newton say to him?

Speaker 2 And so, you know how it is in a city like Philadelphia, where even if you were a fan who wasn't fully sold on Hertz, even after the Super Bowl, once other people start taking shots at him, or doubting him, now you're like, screw you, you suck.

Speaker 2 He just won the Super Bowl. So that, I think it's really turned into that.
And maybe in a way, it's been a good thing for Hurts locally.

Speaker 2 Not only does he win the Super Bowl, but now everybody's just like behind him and like everybody else doesn't get it with this guy. He's our guy and he's going to go do it again.

Speaker 1 Interesting. So that actually works out for Jalen Hurts, I think.

Speaker 1 He's got everybody inside. The Phillies are in a good spot and all of the contempt in the city is just being shifted toward the toward the 76ers now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's very weird how happy like the sports fans here are pretty happy right now with this Eagles team.

Speaker 2 Like you said, the way the Phillies are playing here and the Sixers are honestly, I think people are just waiting for the next era to start whenever that would be.

Speaker 2 So they feel like an afterthought right now.

Speaker 1 Well, the crazy thing with the Eagles, because once you stay on top and if you start nailing a couple drafts in a row, you can really get a half decade out of this, which they've done.

Speaker 1 It feels like the 23 draft they crush.

Speaker 1 It feels like the 24 draft. How are you feeling about it? I wouldn't say it's like as maybe not as impactful as 23, but it's still going to be impactful, right?

Speaker 1 Because there's no way with all the money you're sending out, you have to have young working class people kind of moving into some of those spots. So, do you have that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, they got a linebacker in Jihad Campbell in the first round who seems like a great pick. Now, we'll see, but he's going to come in.
He's expected to start right away.

Speaker 2 The safety they got in the second round, Andrew Makuba, he's expected to start right away. And then it's more what you're saying: rotational guys.

Speaker 2 Hey, you know, Milton Williams signs with the Patriots. Well, you know, a guy who you drafted a few years ago now has to fill that role.
And now someone has to, so it's a lot of depth stuff.

Speaker 2 Now, I will say they were very lucky with injuries last year and even 2022 when they made the Super Bowl.

Speaker 2 I mean, you look at the rosters they put out there during the actual Super Bowl, and it's like they had 21 or 22 starters on the field. So that injury luck, you can never predict.

Speaker 2 So yeah, their depth could get tested a little bit more this year.

Speaker 1 Who is,

Speaker 1 as you, as you worry about the Eagles and who could knock them out, who's the one team in the NFC that you're like, I'm actually kind of afraid of those guys?

Speaker 1 I hope that team doesn't achieve the potential that in my head, I think they have.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think, and I think I'm probably going to disagree with you about this because I've heard you kind of hint at it previously on the pod.

Speaker 2 I do think the 49ers are going to be a pretty big factor in the NFC this year. Now, I know like half their team's injured right now.

Speaker 2 I understand, but they have the easiest schedule in the entire NFL when you look at like Super Bowl odds or win totals or whatever.

Speaker 2 And I just feel like offensively, they have a chance to be pretty good, where if they rack up a bunch of wins and now all of a sudden they get home field advantage, they could be a Super Bowl contender.

Speaker 2 But I mean, it's wide open, as we'll talk about with some of these quarterbacks. I mean, Detroit, Green Bay.
Washington.

Speaker 2 I think those are probably the four or five teams that I'm looking at where, hey, if they hit their ceiling, they have a chance to get to the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 Is there any Tampa, anything for you? I know Wurfs is out for a few weeks, but anything about them interests you? They bring it back so much continuity on offense. They're in the NFC South.

Speaker 1 And I actually thought they threw some haymakers in the playoffs last year. So why don't they get mentioned?

Speaker 2 I do think there is some buzz around the Bucs.

Speaker 2 My concern is that I thought that was a highly schemed offense last year for Baker Mayfield, where they did like a great job of he didn't have to throw into tight windows, a lot of shorter throws.

Speaker 2 And they lose the guy who was their offensive coordinator in Liam Cohen. Now, I'm not saying he's Bill Wall, sure.
You know, you could replace a guy like Liam Cohen.

Speaker 2 It just adds a little bit of an unknown to me where I'm, you know, I could see them playing in the NFC championship game, maybe being a sleeper, but I'm not willing to predict that because I think it's just as likely that maybe their offense takes a little bit of a step back.

Speaker 1 Yeah, see, I'm looking at that.

Speaker 1 I know a lot of people have talked about this, but I think the Lions are the number one team for me with that because we had the Patriots when they won the three in four years in the 2000s right and beat philly mcnab threw up that third super bowl and then basically it felt like the entire coaching staff left other than belichek and they had to turn over both coordinators and um and and it was like oh no this would be easy we'll just bring some new guys in and it's not easy it completely changes uh you just if you miss on one of the two spots it's your coordinator I don't know.

Speaker 1 I just, I felt like the Lions had these overqualified coordinators last year. And I don't know what I'm getting this year.
Not to mention the offensive lines were so

Speaker 1 they have the second best odds in the NFC right now.

Speaker 1 The Eagles are plus 360, and then the Lions are plus 550. And then, I don't know, the NFC just in general, there's a lot of depth, and I think people are trying to figure out who the ZA team is.

Speaker 1 And I'm not sure. The Rams had glimpses of it, but the Stafford thing is terrifying, which we're about to talk about when we do the QB pyramid.

Speaker 1 But old Matthew Stafford with a ton of miles on him already, not looking like he's going to be ready for week one. That's my number one thing I'm watching.

Speaker 1 Would you agree with that or is there something else?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's got to be it. Because even last year, I felt like for one game, Stafford could play as well as any quarterback in the NFL.

Speaker 2 But now, as we're looking at it, to get through an 18-game schedule, a 17-game schedule, and then the playoffs, I can't get there.

Speaker 2 And at his age, and the other thing I look at with him is like, They almost were willing to trade him or let him go this offseason. Like they have more information on his medicals than anybody else.

Speaker 2 And if they were like, no, no, he's great, you know, then would they have really taken that step? Now, ultimately, maybe it's just a negotiating thing and he comes back.

Speaker 2 But that made me a little nervous as well, where it's like, Sean McVay at this point is like willing to let Matthew Stafford go here. Should that make my ears perk up a little bit?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it would be like the Sixers. Oh, no, they did the opposite.
They just paid Joe Ellen Bi and gave him a ton of money, not knowing if he was able to walk.

Speaker 1 I have not figured out who my zag team in the in the nfc is house loves the packers

Speaker 1 and i'm trying to figure out that case and jordan loved being hurt last year we're about to talk about him the qb pyramid and playing hurt the whole year and obviously wasn't 100

Speaker 1 they tried to beef up the receivers they have a young team it's another year it was a little bit year from helly for them last year but i can't totally get there can you

Speaker 2 I like the Packers. I'm with House.

Speaker 1 You like them as a Zag team?

Speaker 2 I like them as a Zag team. I think if I had to name three teams

Speaker 2 to get to the Super Bowl in the NFC, definitely four. They're in there.

Speaker 2 I think the case is Jordan Love had three different injuries last year, and they still had a top five offense. And then Matt LaFleur might be the most underrated coach in the NFL.

Speaker 2 I mean, you look at those last days of Aaron Rodgers were probably harder, you know, looking back now, they were probably a little bit harder than we gave them credit for.

Speaker 2 They transitioned to Jordan Love, and they just don't have bad seasons. I mean, they've been in the playoffs five five to six seasons with him.
He's won 67% of his games.

Speaker 2 They had a very young roster last year, like you mentioned. So, if just some of those guys get better this year, I do think there's a case for the Packers.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 All right, we're doing the quarterback pyramid, which I've been working on for a while.

Speaker 1 I have this is in pencil, but it's not in pen. And I'm willing to be nudged by you.
You're going to be my conciliary for this. All right.

Speaker 1 So, one thing I already did with this, normally with the pyramid, I have the one guy on the top, then two guys underneath him, then three, then four.

Speaker 1 So it's really a top 10, and it's one, two, three, four.

Speaker 1 I couldn't do the second level with two guys because there's four guys that clearly stand out above everybody else.

Speaker 1 And the four guys are, I'll just go alphabetical order, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, and Patrick Mahomes. So I made the second, I did a one,

Speaker 1 three, four.

Speaker 1 So I had to beef out the second level of the pyramid a little, but do you agree with that? Like,

Speaker 1 how do you pick three out of those four guys? I just couldn't do it.

Speaker 2 I like it. Yeah, I think Burrow belongs there.
I think some people might look at it and say, hey, he had the other three guys have all won MVPs.

Speaker 2 He hasn't won an MVP, but I put him right there with those three guys. It would have been weird to me if you had Burrow on like the next line with some of the other guys we talked about.

Speaker 2 So I was trying, when you sent it to me, I was trying to do the math. Like, wait a minute, how many guys are in each row? So I'm glad you explained this before people see the graphic.

Speaker 1 It's the only time I can remember doing that, but I just like, really, Burroughs going to be a level below those guys? That's great. He was unbelievable last year.
Yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 So, we're going to go through some of the choices, but the big one for me, and I thought about it long and hard, and I'd like to think that I am relatively thoughtful with this stuff and not quickbaity.

Speaker 1 I did not have Patrick Mahomes at the top of the pyramid. And I just couldn't get there with it.
And I looked and I stared and I, and I tried to make excuses left and right.

Speaker 1 And I just, when it came right down to it, I just think Josh Allen's the best quarterback in the league.

Speaker 1 Game by game, regular season, durability, the fact that he doesn't, he had 14 sacks last year. You basically either can't sack him or he gets it away or runs away.

Speaker 1 He can make chicken salad out of chicken shit.

Speaker 1 Physically, he's dominant. I don't don't blame him for them not winning last year.
I feel like he's gotten them right in the spot.

Speaker 1 Even when you think of that overtime game last year that they lost, like the 13 seconds game, he did everything he could. I just think he's the best guy in the league.

Speaker 1 Now, in four months, Mahomes might grab it back.

Speaker 1 But from what we saw from Mahomes last year, which I want to go into in a second, I just don't think it's fair to put him over Josh Allen, especially because Mahomes didn't win the Super Bowl last year.

Speaker 1 So when you saw that, what was your reaction?

Speaker 2 My first reaction was I thought this goes against everything I thought I knew about you in terms of, honestly, from having, you know, read you, listened to you, working with you, talked to you.

Speaker 2 I thought you had sort of a life principle that when one guy has the belt, somebody's got to come take the belt. It's not just that, oh, the belt's on the ground.
And Alan, I love Alan.

Speaker 2 Like, I actually think there is a case to what you're saying, that it's hard to be like, oh, Mahomes does this better than Alan. Alan's a better runner.
Josh Allen's awesome.

Speaker 2 I think we're talking about a very slim margin between the two.

Speaker 2 However, if it is that close and Patrick Mahomes has been to five Super Bowls, won three, has played Josh Allen four times in the playoffs and beat him every time. I hear what you're saying.

Speaker 2 Those aren't Josh Allen's fault. I totally agree with that.
But still, somebody wins, somebody loses that sport.

Speaker 2 I feel like Allen needs to either beat Mahomes and get to a Super Bowl or just win a Super Bowl to actually get the belt.

Speaker 2 So I think the argument is fine and the conversation is fine, but I think if we're talking about actually to actually get the belt, I'm not giving it. I think it's still Patrick Mahomes's.

Speaker 2 I mean, his downseason was 15-2, got to the Super Bowl with a terrible offensive line and a terrible supporting cast. And it's just the four was.

Speaker 1 It was terrible. Like the Patriots had a terrible offensive line.

Speaker 1 Was Mahomes' line terrible or was it terrible against the Eagles? I mean, I know he didn't have a left tackle at the end of last year.

Speaker 1 And, you know, shit happens when you're a quarterback. Nothing gets to be perfect every single season.

Speaker 1 I just thought he's so in 2022, he threw for 52.50 passing yards, 41 touchdowns, 12 interceptions.

Speaker 1 That dropped 1,300 yards last year. Now, he played one last game, but it was down in 26 TDs, 11.
All his stats are down. The rushing stats are down.

Speaker 1 I guess my question is is it possible that he might have peaked a couple years ago as like apex mahomes i'm just i'm talking through it i'm not trying to be reactionary guy i just don't think he was as good last year as he was in that 22 season and some of those other years i didn't see it i thought they i thought they kind of lucked out it were 11 and one and one score games and some of them were really stupid wins i never felt like he had the same command um i i didn't think he moved the same way i know his offensive line wasn't good but i also thought he wasn't moving like he used to.

Speaker 1 And I don't know. I just, and I thought the Eagles killed him.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I personally don't assign, I assign almost no blame to Mahomes for what has happened to the Chiefs offense. If I were a Chiefs fan, I would be furious at sort of the roster building.

Speaker 2 And they've tried stuff.

Speaker 2 It's not that they haven't tried stuff, but it's like, I mean, they had four different left tackles last year, and they had Xavier Worthy, DeAndre Hopkins, 34-year-old-year-old Travis Kelsey.

Speaker 2 I mean, I do think there's a case that if you swap swap Josh Allen with Patrick Mahomes, that the Chiefs' offense might have been better because of Allen and the running element.

Speaker 2 I do think that's a big deal. That Mahomes can scramble, but Josh Allen you can use as a designed runner.

Speaker 2 And I do think that's a factor in terms of just building an offense that might not have a lot of good pieces. He can make up for that.

Speaker 2 But man, I look at it and I'm just like, we make excuses for so many quarterbacks, and this guy didn't have a play caller, and this guy's. And I just look at what I don't think it was good last year.

Speaker 2 I mean, I have a hard time thinking that many quarterbacks could have gotten them better than whatever they were, like eighth in offensive DBOA, with the rookie wide receiver who couldn't stay in bounds, with the rotating cast at left tackle.

Speaker 2 I mean, they've kind of, I hate what they've done to Patrick Mahomes. You gave the numbers.

Speaker 2 It's like we watched this guy and he was bombing it downfield and he had a rocket of an arm and he was the most fun guy ever to watch.

Speaker 2 And now they're throwing it six yards because they can't come up with anything else because they don't have the talent around him. So that's where I'm at with Mahomes.

Speaker 2 I put pretty much nothing on him.

Speaker 1 Now, other people might disagree, but that's kind of how this is typical trophy generation performance parenting by you.

Speaker 1 You made the key point, and this is why I put Allen in that top spot. If you switched them last season,

Speaker 1 the Chiefs would have been better with that version of Allen last season versus what they had with Mahomes. And I've heard all the excuses.

Speaker 1 By the way, I'm the one who just picked Mahomes blindly every week and all the way through the Super bowl i had no other reason i thought the eagles were better i'm like i'm not going against mahomes so i say that knowing that i was that person nine months ago i just keep looking at the josh allen piece and we're not making the same kind of excuses for him because the team performs no matter what happens like who were his who were his people last year james cook was good right But like when you look at the receivers that he had, it's not like Keon Coleman was going nuts.

Speaker 1 He had Shakir. They went and they traded for Amari Cooper during the season.
That didn't really do anything. I thought Schultz was he, not uh, not Schultz, the Knox.
Knox.

Speaker 1 I was getting my Daltons confused.

Speaker 2 White tight ends, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 No, the tight ends were okay, but I, but for where they were in fantasy before the year, when we were like, oh my God, these weapons. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I just felt like he was a one-man show in a lot of ways. And as a Pats fan, I just am the most, or betting, betting against the quarterback.
I was the most afraid going against him last year.

Speaker 1 I always felt like he was going to make a play. Some of of the stuff with his, so he had in the last two years, 27 rush TDs, but he had 109 first downs running.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And normally QBs are between like 20 and 30. This guy's getting,

Speaker 1 I don't know, basically three, four running, three, four running first downs a game. And if it's a big playoff game, maybe five.
And that's the piece.

Speaker 1 I just think I thought they should have won last year. I keep coming back to that.
Like, I don't know if the right team won last year.

Speaker 2 He's the most efficient runner in the NFL and has been for like the last three years. Like when he either chooses to run on a scramble or on a designed run, it's pretty much unstoppable.

Speaker 2 I do think that's a case for him.

Speaker 2 I think the best point you made is probably if you're an opposing fan right now, and which quarterback are you most afraid of in a playoff game?

Speaker 2 I think there's a case for, yeah, it might be Josh Allen. Now, I don't like making arguments against Josh Allen because

Speaker 2 I flip a coin. And I'm basically just saying the tiebreaker goes to the guy who's one more.
But it's fair. They had a top five offensive line, I would say, last year, and it stayed very healthy.

Speaker 2 So I feel like the great quarterbacks can overcome either the average offensive line or like the bad supporting cast. When you get both of them that are bad, sometimes you're kind of just stuck.
And

Speaker 2 you're like the eighth-best offense instead of the second-best offense.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's weird. This is uncharacteristic for me because normally I'm like a

Speaker 1 playoff pedigree wins. Somebody's got to take the belt from the guy.

Speaker 1 I don't know, man.

Speaker 1 I watched everything last year, and I just felt like Josh, when you look at the totality of what he did looking back, versus the mystique of Mahomes versus what actually happened and the fact that he was able to turn it on right when they needed it, but just quarter by quarter.

Speaker 1 I don't know how you would say anyone's better than Josh. I mean, the only other guy statistically that has a case is Lamar, who last year was 41 and 4, four interceptions.
He ran for 915 yards.

Speaker 1 He had 47 rushing TDs or first downs

Speaker 1 through for over 4,000. But the playoff resume just kills him.
Like, that's one where you can't discuss him for the top because he just had, we haven't seen him do it.

Speaker 1 Josh, it's like we haven't seen him 100% do it either. But I also feel like two of those wins, I can't really hang on him.

Speaker 2 I think that's right. If you look at Josh, if you look at the Bills' playoff losses, Josh Allen has played like 95th percentile games statistically, where

Speaker 2 their defense has just let them down every single year in the playoffs. They get carved up by Burrow or Mahomes or whoever it is.

Speaker 2 And yes, you can make the case that not everything in the playoffs has been Lamar Jackson, but I do think you can say it hasn't been quite as flawless. You know, he has made mistakes here and there.

Speaker 2 And then just the physicality of it where. Lamar Jackson has stayed healthy, but earlier in his career, he had seasons where he missed five games.

Speaker 2 And Josh Allen's kind of like what you always talk about with LeBron, where it's just, it would just be shocking if like Josh Allen went down and didn't get up.

Speaker 2 And you're like, oh my, Josh Allen's out for a month. Like, wait, I thought he was indestructible.
Right.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. The

Speaker 1 man. I mean, now I'm thinking, the more I'm thinking about it, like they did have the ball with a chance to put away the Chiefs last year.

Speaker 2 They did.

Speaker 1 And they didn't do it. And that's at least partly on him, even though, you know, whatever.
But, and, and I remember saying that at the time.

Speaker 1 It was like, if you're going to, if you're going to take it from Mahomes, this is your chance. You have the ball.
You can finish them right here. And they didn't.

Speaker 1 But I don't know how you could have Mahomes first after the start-to-finish year he had last year, unless you're going to tell me the offensive line was that bad.

Speaker 1 Because the other piece with Mahomes, the infrastructure of that read, the play calling, like just the stability they've always had there, I think that really matters.

Speaker 1 You know, and that's something that some quarterbacks, you know,

Speaker 1 they might have 10 years where they don't have anything like that. So I know he didn't have a left tackle.

Speaker 1 He's going to have a left tackle this year because by all accounts, that first rounder they took, it feels like that's probably the biggest draft pick storyline, right?

Speaker 1 That they have like a real kick-ass left tackle that crossed their fingers that they took basically at the end of the first round. He's going to kick ass for them.

Speaker 2 Yeah, if it works out, that's a huge, huge deal in the AFC. Now they're swinging another guy into guard because they traded Joe Tooney.

Speaker 2 And so I'm always skeptical with the rookies and like the August August reports where this guy looks great.

Speaker 2 And I'm just like, let me, you know, because I was doing a bunch of like statistical research on this and like

Speaker 2 35 to 40% of first-round picks won't even start eight games this year. Wow.

Speaker 2 You know, and like everybody gets so excited in August that, oh my God, they solved their, you know, you look at a weakness and you say, oh, they solved their problem with this guy.

Speaker 2 And it's like a lot of almost half the guys aren't even going to play. So yeah, I need to see it the first month of the season, but I'm with you.

Speaker 2 That is a huge pick that could kind of swing things in the AFC.

Speaker 1 All right. So my conciliary disagrees.

Speaker 1 I'm going to keep Allen in the top spot. And I'm going to say this to Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 Prove to me I'm a shithead.

Speaker 1 Go take your belt back. You dropped the belt.
You dropped the belt in that Super Bowl game. And just in general,

Speaker 1 I didn't love the season start to finish. And I think Josh is a safer bet.
So prove to me I'm wrong. We'll take a break.
We'll go through the rest of the pyramid. Tuesday, August 26th.

Speaker 1 Guess what that is? FanDuel Futures Day. It's a new holiday for football fans.
I mean, honestly, my entire summer is Futures Day, but let's designate it. Tuesday, August 26th, 24 hours of deals

Speaker 1 on your football season predictions. Take a fire on the MVP race.

Speaker 1 Mahomes come back here. Josh Allen, maybe you go rogue.
Joe Burrow, crown your champion in August.

Speaker 1 I like an Eagles-Broncos Super Bowl. I think it's like 60 to 1.
Maybe do a little Super Bowl matchup. Division winner Dark Horses, Denver, over three to one still.
Mark your calendars.

Speaker 1 This is your day for your hunches, your hot takes, your calls, your odds. We're going to have some special bets on there as well.

Speaker 1 Visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your future bets now because Futures Day is one day and one day only. FanDuel, play your game.

Speaker 1 Must be 21 plus in President Select States or 18 plus in President D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gaming problem, call 100 Gamble or visit rg-help.com.

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Speaker 1 And now it's time for rules and tips to winning your league. A A new segment presented by Yahoo Fantasy, the most fun place to play fantasy football this season.

Speaker 1 I'm the perfect guy to ask since I haven't won my knockout league since 2007.

Speaker 1 Yahoo Fantasy dropping over 28 new features over 28 days through August, like guillotines, which is an awesome way to play. I was in one of those leagues last year.
It was great.

Speaker 1 Whether you're a season pro or a last-minute joiner, there are a few things you'll want to know before the season kicks off. Number one,

Speaker 1 find that rookie receiver who's going going to be awesome. Just try to lock it down.
Brian Thomas Jr. was the guy last year.
Just go in, lock it down. Make sure you get a quarterback.

Speaker 1 Everyone, like there was this new shift where it was like, no, quarterbacks don't matter as much. Guess what? Look at the total points.
Quarterbacks matter. Get a good quarterback.
Don't mess around.

Speaker 1 And then don't draft guys from your own team if you can avoid it because it's like a double whammy if something terrible happens to them. So those are my thoughts.

Speaker 1 Stay tuned for more killer announcements and start playing Yahoo Fantasy Football at yahoofantasy.com slash Simmons and try a guillotine link. They're cool.
All right.

Speaker 1 So, the top four, Alan at the top, then Lamar and Mahomes and Burrow all together.

Speaker 1 That next tier of the pyramid, which is four guys.

Speaker 1 So, I settled on these four:

Speaker 1 Jaden Daniels,

Speaker 1 Jordan Love,

Speaker 1 Dak Prescott, and Jalen Hurts.

Speaker 1 Who doesn't belong in that night? So we are now talking about guys five through eight.

Speaker 1 So when somebody says he's a top 10 quarterback, my recommendation would be do this exercise because you'd be surprised. That top 10 fills up pretty fast.
Daniels love Prescott Hurts.

Speaker 1 Do all these people belong in this level for you?

Speaker 2 I was most surprised that you had Dak Prescott in this

Speaker 2 tier.

Speaker 2 I looked at it and I'm like, wait, did he send me the wrong thing?

Speaker 2 Not that I think people will make the case, but I think that's more of the, you know, the QB intellectuals, the hipsters, you know, you don't understand what Dak Prescott does.

Speaker 2 And I like Dak Prescott. I just feel like there's a case for other people in this tier.

Speaker 2 You know, I think last year, everyone points to, hey, 2023, Dak Prescott was an MVP candidate and he was awesome that year. He did start eight games last year.
and he kind of sucked.

Speaker 2 I mean, their offense was terrible last year for eight games, and now he's 32 years years old coming off of an injury. So they generally win a lot of games.

Speaker 2 He plays well and their offense is good when they have Dak Prescott healthy. But I have to say, of the four guys in there, I was surprised by him.

Speaker 2 And I was also surprised you had Jordan Love in there. I'm a big Jordan Love guy, but I thought you would say, let's see a little bit more.
He didn't have a great year last season.

Speaker 2 Maybe one of these other guys belongs in there. So I had like three or four names where I thought, I wonder how closely you looked at putting these guys in that tier.

Speaker 1 I had a lot of trouble once we, I mean, to me, the, the, the two that were definitely in there, that had to be in there were Hurts and Daniels.

Speaker 1 Love was unquestionably hurt basically the whole season and just seemed to have like a little bit of the year from hell and fought through it. Not to mention, I thought his receivers,

Speaker 1 you know, for what we thought that receiving core was going to be. And then even Luke Musgrave thought he, and then it turned out Tucker Kraft was the guy.

Speaker 1 I don't know. There's, and, and the smart football people, as we head toward the season, have all targeted him as like, no, no, no, if you actually watch the tape.

Speaker 1 And I, at some point, I trust that a little bit that there's a lot more there. And maybe last year was on the lower end of what it should have been.
So

Speaker 1 that's, that's the case.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I like Love. I mean, like you said, dealt with three injuries.
I think his receivers were among the league leaders in drops.

Speaker 1 And still, you know, what they still got hurt.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and they still won, what, 11 games or whatever and had a top five offense. So, yeah, I like having Love in there.
I was just surprised you had him in there.

Speaker 2 But the guys who I was, I wrote down here where I thought you could replace Dak Prescott with. I had four names written down.

Speaker 1 Okay. I wonder if they're the four names that are in the next level.

Speaker 2 Three of them are in the next level. One of them's in the level below the next level.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 You want to know? How about, no, let me go through when we go to that next level.

Speaker 1 Man, you're really like, I thought I was like being fair with Dak because I'm not, as you know, I'm not like a giant fan, but I went, I mean, I went back to his 03 season or 23 season. Yeah.

Speaker 1 36 touchdowns, nine picks. He threw for 45, 16, went 12 and five.
Yeah. I didn't even necessarily think the team was that good.
And then last year was a little year from Hellish.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I thought their offensive line wasn't good. And, and they had one receiver.
They threw away the running back position for reasons that remain unclear. So, and then he got hurt.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I don't know. Is that his fault or is that everything else's fault?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think he's in the mix there. I don't think you're wrong to have him on this row.
I think there are arguments for some other guys, but you're right. When he plays, they're 76 and 46.

Speaker 2 They're 30 games over 500 when he's on the field, which I think would probably surprise people. You know, they won 12 games three years in a row.
We'll see what it looks like this year.

Speaker 1 Would they want him for four playoff rounds? Probably not.

Speaker 1 Here's the guy as we get to this next level.

Speaker 1 I really looked at Mayfield. I loved how Mayfield played last year.
And Mayfield was 4,500 yards last year, 41 touchdowns,

Speaker 1 16 picks. He'll throw the ball for grabs once a game, maybe twice.
But from a leadership standpoint,

Speaker 1 I just think for as a culture guy, I just like him. I think the Browns giving up on him because he had a bad shoulder that one year is almost as dumb as the Watson thing.

Speaker 1 So that was the one guy I was looking at. Who are your three guys you were looking at in the next level? Because the next, I'll give you the next level.
Mayfield, Purdy, Stafford, Stroud, and Goff.

Speaker 2 So who'd you have? I think it's going to surprise you, probably the three guys I had. I thought you could make a case for Purdy that he belongs in there.

Speaker 2 Honestly, like I learned more about Purdy last year than maybe I did in previous years. They were the most injured offense in the NFL.

Speaker 2 They couldn't do all the Shanahan, you know, tricks and gimmicks that they want to do because they didn't have the personnel. And I don't think they were bad last year because of the offense.

Speaker 2 I think they had one of the worst special teams in the NFL. The defense was bad and they had injuries on offense.

Speaker 2 I thought Birdie did, actually did a pretty good job elevating some of the talent around him. So, you know, you can get to a Super Bowl with him.

Speaker 2 And I thought we learned last year that, hey, the floor actually isn't that low. I mean, they were ninth in offensive efficiency last year, and he was dealing with a shoulder injury.

Speaker 2 Like if you look at his numbers before the shoulder injury, I think it was week 10, week 12, or whatever.

Speaker 2 I mean, he was playing really well and then he finished slow and then he got injured to end the season. But yeah, I know not everybody is a Purdy guy, but I thought he deserved maybe a mention

Speaker 2 for one tier above. So that was one guy I had.

Speaker 1 Stroud. So

Speaker 1 hold on on Purdy. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I mean, he almost stood for 4,000 yards last year. They lose Ayuk, what, five games into the season.
His, the first round pick gets shot before before the season, Pearsall.

Speaker 1 McCaffrey plays barely any games. They're down to like their third stream running back.
The line was a mess. Yeah.
They were the classic all-time year from hell season. I had the same thought.

Speaker 1 Like, you know, he had two terrible games, I remember, Purdy. But for the most part, it felt like he was hanging around.
I think that the best case for him,

Speaker 1 he can extend plays, right? He had 33 rushing first downs last year, but in general, like I can move around and buy two seconds.

Speaker 1 But I think he throws one of the best deep balls in the league, you know, and if the weapons can,

Speaker 1 I don't know what they think. They seem to think IU can come back at some point soon.
I'm a little dubious. That injury happened in October, but we'll see.
Diggs is coming back too.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I like him too. Both him and Mayfield, like if that's your quarterback,

Speaker 1 I'm just not bummed out. I like those guys.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 He reminds me of Romo, I think, is still the guy who I'm like, when I look at Purdy, like he's probably not as talented or might not have the same arm, but just kind of the way he plays, it feels like you're going to complete passes and hit on explosive plays and give your offense a chance.

Speaker 1 All right. So Stroud, you thought, could have made a case for that higher level.

Speaker 2 Could have made a case. I understand why you didn't.
I still think he's really good, but last year, I think he did develop some bad habits.

Speaker 2 But if you're asking me like Stroud or Prescott, if I just am an NFL owner and you're like, hey, you get your chance at one of these two quarterbacks this year, I might be tempted to go with Stroud, everything else being equal there.

Speaker 2 So he probably needs to do it a little bit longer. I understand why you would have Prescott above him.

Speaker 2 And then the last guy, he just never, it's always his coach gets all the credit and he doesn't get the credit.

Speaker 2 And maybe I've just, in my old age, turned into a QB apologist, but like Jared Goff, I mean,

Speaker 2 it's first it's Sean McVay, then it's Ben Johnson. And it's like for five of his seven seasons or whatever, he's quarterbacked a really good offense.

Speaker 2 And so so I just thought, you know, I don't know, if you put Jared Goff into that Cowboys offense instead of Dak Prescott, I don't know.

Speaker 2 Maybe there's a smaller margin there than people would expect, but I think I would have Prescott ahead of him.

Speaker 1 I did examine the Goff candidacy, and his last three years, when you look at them all together, are kind of shocking.

Speaker 1 He goes 44, 45, and 4,600 each year, 29, 30, and 37 touchdowns, never throws more than 12 picks.

Speaker 1 It was just better than I was expecting.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 we're going to find out about him this year. Yes.
No Ben Johnson. The offensive line's definitely, definitely worse.
Schedule is going to be harder. Like, we will know this year.

Speaker 1 We'll know what's in there once and for all. But you're right.
He could be the guy. So,

Speaker 1 all right, you've convinced me to bump Dak. I think I was being too generous with him.
So if it goes Allen, then Lamar, Mahomes, Burrow, and then Daniels, love hurts

Speaker 1 you think that fourth guy should be who

Speaker 1 not mayfield huh

Speaker 2 it might be a guy in your next tier you want to get to your next uh row there if you say justin herbert i'm hanging up

Speaker 1 it better not be justin herbert all right don't do it all right no i know i don't are you gonna say justin herbert i think he has to be in the conversation oh my god

Speaker 2 all right what is happening listen i'm trying to bring Justin Herbert. I'm trying to bring a rational Justin Herbert take here.

Speaker 2 You know, you have the Herbert hipsters, who, if you don't have him as like the greatest quarterback in the NFL, they get all upset.

Speaker 2 But

Speaker 2 this is too low for him, I think.

Speaker 1 It is? Why is it too low?

Speaker 2 Where you have him?

Speaker 2 Don't you think if the Cowboys had their choice of Zach Prescott or Justin Herbert this year, they would take Justin Herbert?

Speaker 1 Would they?

Speaker 2 I think so.

Speaker 1 I think so.

Speaker 1 Let me give you.

Speaker 1 I love this.

Speaker 1 So I had, so level four, I had Mayfield, Purdy, Stafford, Stroud, and Goff. And

Speaker 1 by the way, quickly on Stroud, I just thought he, I just didn't think he was as good last year in every respect as he was the year before.

Speaker 1 And I, especially against shitty teams, there were just games where you'd have them on and their offense just looked like shit. And he, I don't know what he was doing.

Speaker 1 I know he had receiver injuries. I know they weren't totally happy with their O-line, but I just, I didn't like how he played.
Herbert last year, 23 touchdowns, three picks. Really impressive.

Speaker 1 Took 41 sacks. I think they had a top five offensive line last year.
So explain that to me. Almost through for 4,000 yards.

Speaker 1 Here's the thing with Herbert, and all of the Herbert apologists have not been able to explain this part.

Speaker 1 They played a cream puff schedule last year. They played four really good defenses, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Kansas City twice.
They scored 60 points in the four games total, 60 points.

Speaker 1 In the playoffs, Houston, another good defense, 12 points.

Speaker 1 Anytime the defense was good, he looked like crap and couldn't do anything. And nobody has been able to provide a proper explanation for that.
If the defense is good, he's not good.

Speaker 1 And it's like, well, they don't have enough skill guys.

Speaker 1 Like, what is it? At some point, we have to see something from him and we we just haven't seen it.

Speaker 2 I'm with you. Honestly, in most of my conversations with the

Speaker 2 other

Speaker 2 football analysts, I'm the guy making the points you're making. And they're like, no, you know, what can he do? He's got the arm.
He's got the athleticism. He makes good decisions.

Speaker 2 At some point, I'm with you. You have to have a moment.

Speaker 2 It has to all come together. You have to have a playoff win five years into the NFL.
So I'm not irrational about Justin Herbert, where I'm like, he's incredible.

Speaker 2 I think all the points you make are absolutely valid.

Speaker 2 And I do wonder if he's going to have sort of a Stafford-type career where we're going to have like eight, nine, 10 years where everyone's like, this guy's arm. And oh my gosh, look at this throw.

Speaker 2 And there just hasn't been a single meaningful moment for him in the playoffs until maybe there's kind of a late stage part of his career. So I'm with you there.

Speaker 2 I do think if I were an expansion team and I got my choice of any quarterback and I'm ranking them right now, I would have him higher on this list above some of the guys you have above him.

Speaker 2 So that would be my case for him is that I'm with you. It hasn't all come together.
I've been underwhelmed. I loved him in his first season, his second season.

Speaker 2 I thought he was going to have accomplished a lot more at this point that he hasn't accomplished. But I still think there is a good player in there that I don't know when we'll see the results.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying there's not. I just said he's being

Speaker 1 put on this level that we just haven't seen against the, against really good teams, which is part of being an awesome quarterback. It's like, can you Lawrence has the same issue?

Speaker 1 And we're not even close to getting to Lawrence yet.

Speaker 1 But it's like, at some point, let's see it.

Speaker 1 Let's stop making excuses. This year, it's like Slater's already out, right? Oh, well, Slater's out.
And so if he's not doing well against certain, well, they don't have Slater.

Speaker 1 That's why, and the rookie running back's not as good as they thought. And it'll just be another litany of excuses.

Speaker 1 By the way, I don't think a team was better equipped to lose their awesome left tackle than the Chargers, who could just take Joe Alt and take him from the right side and put him on the left side.

Speaker 1 It's not perfect, but no other team has the luxury of moving Joe Alt into the starting left tackle.

Speaker 1 So it's an excuse, but it's not like a real excuse. They still should be fine.

Speaker 1 They improved their scope position, guys. It's year two of Harbaugh.
And I'm not accepting excuses for it. Like, let's see it.

Speaker 2 I think one of the big differentiators with these guys is like, who can overcome a bad situation, a bad situation?

Speaker 2 And like Jaden Daniels, if you go back and look at what we were all thinking about that commander situation going into last year, it was like offensive line, bad.

Speaker 2 Terry McLaurin, and that's all he's got. And they had what? The fifth best offense in the NFL and he got to the NFC championship game.
So I think it's fair.

Speaker 2 I mean, Herbert, they've had one top 10 offense in five years with him. as the quarterback.

Speaker 2 And there's, it's hard to get around that when it's like three different offensive coordinators, different different coaching staffs, different supporting casts.

Speaker 2 At some point, if you're going to talk about a quarterback in a certain level, they have to be able to overcome some of the issues around him. And there probably hasn't been enough of that with him.

Speaker 1 I'd rather have Purdy.

Speaker 1 Prescott's just done more.

Speaker 1 Stafford won a Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 Stroud versus Herbert's an interesting conversation. Yeah.
And Goff has been really good and has been on the cusp of making the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 I feel good about having him in the fifth level here. I still got to figure out.
So Daniel's love hurts. I think I'm just putting Mayfield.

Speaker 1 Like, why not? Mayfield's had good moments. I know.
You like Mayfield over there.

Speaker 1 Is it more fun to put Purdy in there?

Speaker 2 I like Purdy, but.

Speaker 1 All right, fine. I'll put Purdy there.
I'll put Mayfield. This is why you're my conciliary.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Purdy.

Speaker 1 Purdy came, he made the Super Bowl. It's more than Justin Herbert could say.
All right. So that next level, Justin Herbert,

Speaker 1 Sam Darnold,

Speaker 1 who now is like being discussed like he's, you know, the

Speaker 1 11th reliever on an 82-win National League team.

Speaker 1 Drake May,

Speaker 1 Bo Nicks, Geno Smith, and Kyler Murray would be my

Speaker 1 level five pyramid guys.

Speaker 1 Kyler is the one statistically that you could get more excited about, but I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I have a Sunday ticket and I watch football. And I just that he is who he is.
Like he's nine games under 500 as a for his career. And I just,

Speaker 1 I don't know. Yeah, I do not see somebody that elevates a team.

Speaker 2 I feel like I know how every Kyler Murray season is going to go. You know, there's going to be some flashes in September.

Speaker 2 In October, someone's going to make the case that he's playing as well as any quarterback in the NFL.

Speaker 2 There's going to be some fun highlights, and then you're going to get to the end of the season, and they're going to be like nine and eight, and their offense has never been in the nine and eight.

Speaker 1 That would be a miracle. Yeah, that would be

Speaker 2 a good one.

Speaker 2 So, yes, there is like, there are flashes there, but

Speaker 2 like Herbert, in a way, like you need to see a little bit more at this point where has the guy put it all together? So, I don't have an issue with where you have him.

Speaker 1 That's the lamello ball guy out of the quarterbacks this year, where it's it's like, you catch the right highlight package. He looks amazing.

Speaker 1 There's going to be a moment earlier in this season where you're like, lamello ball. Whoa, here we go.
And then you look at the record at the end of the year.

Speaker 1 I had trouble with May versus Nicks. And as you know, I love Drake May.

Speaker 1 I do think we're putting a lot on him this year. And he's going to have.

Speaker 1 Two plays a game where you're like, he had one in the preseason game, which for the first time ever, Shiel, I paid for the preseason package. Wow.

Speaker 1 I normally hate the preseason, but but I was like, I got to see these rookies. I shelled out my $14

Speaker 1 and I watched the first three quarters of the pass.

Speaker 1 And Drake May, of course, had his one dumb. Drake May held onto the ball through it, basically fumbled.
But I think,

Speaker 1 I don't think people understand how bad his offensive line skill position coaching situation was last year, where it was an F minus.

Speaker 1 at receiver, at offensive line, and at coaching. And now the receivers, they at least have some speed.
Henderson in the backfield, it looks like he's Jameer Gibbs on freaking steroids. And then

Speaker 1 he has a whole new offensive line and Vrabel. And I just, I think he's going to be good if they can keep him on the field.
The big worry for me with him is just taking hits.

Speaker 2 He's, don't take this the wrong way. I don't want to scare you because I like Drake May.
He's got a little young Carson Wentz to his game. Remember when Carson Wentz was good?

Speaker 2 You know, when Carson Wentz was good, you know, MVP candidate and you saw the highs, but there would be a couple plays every game where you're like, dude, like, you have to stay on the field.

Speaker 2 Yeah, don't do that. Um, he's got a little bit of that, but I have a Drake May stat you're going to love.
I don't think I've mentioned this to you before. There's this stat I like called success rate.

Speaker 2 All it looks at is when a guy drops back, was it a positive play for the offense or a negative play?

Speaker 2 So it's like a 50-yard completion is treated the same as a 12-yard completion, but it's just good for like how consistent is this guy. If you look at every rookie quarterback over the last 10 years,

Speaker 2 he ranks fourth out of 31 rookie quarterbacks in success rate last year. So, like that, that's pretty impressive.
When you like, it's CJ Stroud's up there, Dak Prescott's up there.

Speaker 2 Like, there are good quarterbacks there, and his highs are very high, where like those 1% plays where you're like eight, 10 quarterbacks in the NFL can do that. He's got that.

Speaker 2 It's kind of like he just has to get those, like you mentioned, those two, three, four, five plays where either he's getting crushed or he's making a bad decision or it could be a turnover.

Speaker 2 Like coaching that out of him to me is going to be the key as to whether he just makes like a okay leap or like a leap where we're talking about him as one of the guys by the end of the season.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the Pats looked awesome on Friday night and they interviewed Vrabo at halftime and then after the game. And he did the balichek thing where he was like, man, we look great.

Speaker 1 I hope we can play that. Like he's just like, yeah, I didn't love this.
And he specifically just kept mentioning the May thing. He's like, he's got to be better.

Speaker 1 He can't do that. So I think they're going to be coaching him hard.
I don't think people realize how fast he is and

Speaker 1 what his legs are and how, especially if there's actually guys out there making plays who have to be covered and the field opens up.

Speaker 1 They ran one play in the preseason where they did the classic video game play of they sent the receivers out and cleared out a side of the field and he ran. And it's just like

Speaker 1 he's an unbelievable athlete.

Speaker 1 Could he be like mini Josh Allen someday? I don't know, but I think they're going to be taking advantage of the legs. So anyway, Nick's was the other one.

Speaker 1 Nick's had 41 first downs last year just with his legs. 29 TDs, 12 picks.
He ran for 430 yards. He's in year two.

Speaker 1 That team, I think is, as you know, I'm all in on that team. I think that team's going to be really good.

Speaker 1 And the fact that the Chargers have already had...

Speaker 1 you know, have had a major offensive line injury. The Raiders have already lost Christian Wilkins.
Like, it just feels like they're solidified as the second team in that thing.

Speaker 1 But Nick's was somebody that I feel like if anyone could climb out of this level and jump up a notch, it's going to be Mayor Nix, in my opinion.

Speaker 1 Do you think Nick's has another gear or no?

Speaker 2 That is the question because I feel like he's high floor and he proved his competency last year. But if you really look at it last year, his superpower was avoiding negative plays.

Speaker 2 Like he didn't take sacks. Like you just mentioned, he'll scramble.
He didn't turn the football over and it wasn't lucky.

Speaker 2 Like if you look at the advanced numbers about, you know, turnover worthy plays, like he did a very good job, Sean Payton in his ear of like, do not create negative plays, live to see the next down.

Speaker 2 So you have that. I think it establishes a high floor.

Speaker 2 And now I wonder, is there another gear where, because if the other thing is like, when he was pressured, when opponents knew he had to throw the ball, those kinds of things, he wasn't as good in those situations where you really need the quarterback to kind of carry you and everyone knows you have to pass the ball.

Speaker 2 So that's the next step. And I think he might, like, I liked what I saw.
I'm not, you know, I wouldn't plant my flag on it and be like, he's definitely going to take a step forward.

Speaker 2 I think the most likely scenario is maybe he's a little bit better, but they're still maybe in that 10 to 15 range in terms of offenses.

Speaker 2 But if he can get them a little bit higher, then it goes to what you're saying that they could be a surprise team.

Speaker 1 Next level is Pennix, Lawrence, Caleb, Tua, Bryce Young. JJ McCarthy.
God only knows what's going to happen with him. I'm not accepting any shit for the Lawrence being in that level.

Speaker 1 I just like, give me a break. He's 22 and 38 in his career.

Speaker 1 His last two years, he's played 26 games, 32 touchdowns, 21 picks, 15 fumbles, doesn't use his legs really like the way we thought he might in college. And we haven't seen him elevate teams.

Speaker 1 He throws, does anyone throw more hospital balls than him? He did one in the fucking preseason game.

Speaker 1 I just don't, I don't see it.

Speaker 1 And I don't know if being in a losing situation with all the turmoil and different coaches, I don't know if that was bad for him, but I'd be really surprised if he was able to elevate himself into like one of those top four tiers.

Speaker 1 Have you given up on him or you still feel like there's hope?

Speaker 2 I think there's a chance, but I'm not like, I see it. You know, I don't think this is an outrage.
I think it's fine to have him here.

Speaker 2 You know, I think if you look at his last three seasons, one terrible season, one mediocre season, and then 2022, I thought he was pretty good.

Speaker 2 So it wouldn't shock me if he settles into kind of average. Hey, if the situation around him is good, you know, he can have a good year.

Speaker 2 But I'm with you just in terms of some of the stuff we saw last year, the bad habits, the inability to overcome some of the things around him.

Speaker 2 Now, I will say, like, I forget who were you, you said with Goff, we're going to learn more about him this year. Shouldn't we learn a lot about Trevor Lawrence?

Speaker 2 If Liam Cohen can get that year out of Baker Mayfield last year, now I know the Jags offensive line isn't as good as Tampa's was last year, but still, like, there was a scheme there where the coach looked at the quarterback and said, I can build to your strengths and we can have one of the better offenses in the NFL.

Speaker 2 I feel like you should be able to do that with Brian Thomas Jr. and Travis Hunter and Trevor Lawrence.

Speaker 2 So I do think, and, you know, we've probably said this in previous years, but we should learn a little bit more about Trevor Lawrence this year.

Speaker 1 You underrated how bad that Jacksonville offensive line might be. Yeah.
They might be

Speaker 1 legit bad. They might be a bottom.
I have them in the bottom five. Thomas was a revelation, though.

Speaker 2 He's awesome. I mean,

Speaker 1 he has to be one of the six, seven, eight most impactful receivers. So at least he has that.
We'll see with Hunter. I have no idea.

Speaker 1 The Hunter thing, anyone who can say they're going to predict that is

Speaker 1 nuts. All right.
And then the last level

Speaker 1 of the pyramid. This is the bottom level.
And it's Cam Ward, Fields, Rodgers.

Speaker 1 Russ Wilson is the last human QB before we get to Indy question mark, New Orleans question mark, and then Cleveland question mark.

Speaker 1 And I am not spending two seconds talking about Shader Sanders looking good in a preseason game against third stringers.

Speaker 1 I'm rooting for him because it would be more fun if he's good, but let's all settle down.

Speaker 1 We can't all pretend or we can't all say preseason doesn't matter and then overreact when somebody does want a preseason game. So anyway, Cam Ward.

Speaker 1 What if he's good?

Speaker 1 Now, there's some offensive line stuff working against him. There's some scope position stuff working against him.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't say it's the best coaching situation, but there is like some good buzz coming out about just like, hey, this guy's, what if he's good?

Speaker 1 Like, could is there any possibility that he could be Stroud two years ago or Daniels last year?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's probably the hardest thing in the NFL to predict is which rookie quarterback is going to be good.

Speaker 2 I mean, it just last year with Daniels, the year before with Stroud, maybe like one person on an island said it, but you usually have no idea.

Speaker 2 I think the thing he has working for him is they did build up that offensive line where it should, it's going to give him a chance.

Speaker 2 Like it might not be a top five unit, but it's not going to be a situation, at least I don't think, where we're looking at it going, man, he's getting sacked six times a game and is a disaster.

Speaker 2 Now, supporting cast isn't great. I'm with you on the coach.
Like, I don't know. Like, we'll see with it with Brian Callahan.
It's just sort of the least talked about coach in the NFL. But I.

Speaker 1 I had some Will Levis stuff last year with him that just seemed,

Speaker 1 it just made me question the judgment. Totally agree.
It's like, what do you, because they were game, it felt like they would hang around in some of those games.

Speaker 1 And then it was like just mismanagement, terrible quarterback play, something really stupid happening. At some point, that's a little bit the coach.
I don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 2 Terrible special teams, which is always, I look at that and go, what's the head coach doing here? If everything else sucks and the special team sucks, that's a red flag too.

Speaker 2 But yeah, like the, the, you know, the row above, you had Pennix

Speaker 2 and you had JJ McArth. It's like a bunch of guys we don't really know a lot about and are wild cards.
And Cam Ward probably fits in that same group right now.

Speaker 1 So Tua, I had, you know, is in

Speaker 1 level five, like, you know, in the bottom 10, basically. And that is that, it's mostly a durability thing.
I just don't trust him to play four straight months. You can't.

Speaker 1 You don't want him running the ball at all. They have the worst short yardage stuff of the decade of anybody.

Speaker 1 And I think partly because everybody knows he's, there's no QB sneak, any sort of role at anything. And like, they're just going to be like kid gloves with him.

Speaker 1 He can't stay on the field. And I think everything has to be specifically perfect for him to succeed.
I've just never been a giant fan of his.

Speaker 1 I don't know. You're kind of where I am on that one, right?

Speaker 2 I'm with you. I did think there was a case to bump Darnell down one and replace him with Tua.

Speaker 1 If I were more.

Speaker 2 Yeah, if I were more. I mean, they're 38 and 24 when Tua plays.
And I know a lot of it's beating up on bad teams. And everything you said is true.
Durability, concussion history.

Speaker 2 If they play a good team, I don't think they're going to be good.

Speaker 2 But I could also make the case that Darnold has had one year of above-average quarterback play, and that was with Justin Jefferson, Kevin O'Connell. Like, I need to see more with Darnold.

Speaker 2 I think there's a, there's a, there's a chance.

Speaker 1 23 is pretty good.

Speaker 2 It's good. It's good, but it was one season.
I think there's a chance he comes back down to earth.

Speaker 2 So I don't have an issue with it just because with the the two, you know, he's going to miss four games most seasons.

Speaker 2 But I did think there was at least a little bit of a case there that he could replace Darnold.

Speaker 1 All right. So my finalist, Allen at the top, then Lamar, Mahomes, Burrow, then Daniels, Love Hurts, Purdy, Shield of Conciliary stepping in.

Speaker 1 That's the top eight. No, I'm fine with it.
I think you're right. Mayfield, Prescott, Stafford, Stroud, Goff.
So that's 13.

Speaker 1 And then the next level starts with Herbert and weirdly drops off at that point from Darnold, May, Nick's, Geno, Murray.

Speaker 1 It's probably a top 14 with a drop-off, so maybe you make a case Herbert goes up one level in that golf group just because it feels weird that he's on a level with Darnold May, Nick's, Geno, Murray, whether you're a Herbert guy or not.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I felt like,

Speaker 1 yeah, yeah, so maybe I could get a little creative with that level. Um,

Speaker 1 move him up. So that would give me this: some pyramid where it goes one, three, four, six.
six

Speaker 1 um i'll figure it out but uh most important the last four

Speaker 1 going backwards cleveland with the worst quarterback situation in the league or would you would you have them leapfrog in new orleans at this point they probably leapfrog like sanders might be better than anyone in new orleans i agree with that i think the saints are probably the worst All right, so we'll have the Saints last, which helps with all the unders and terrible Saints bets I have for them to suck.

Speaker 1 Cleveland second and last, and then Indy, God only knows. Richardson already has gotten dinged up.

Speaker 1 Daniel Jones is on that team. And then Russ Wilson and Rogers.
That's our bottom five. And Rodgers, I just, I'm just stupefied by anyone thinking Rodgers is going to be good on Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1 I don't get it. I've talked about it.
I don't know. You have takes on that or no?

Speaker 2 The full list of quarterbacks age 42 or older that have just started 10 games in a season in the Super Bowl era. Want me to give it to you?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 Tom Brady.

Speaker 1 That's literally. We're done.

Speaker 2 That's it. Nobody else has even started 10 games at this age.
And then we saw what we saw last year. I'm with you.
I don't know how you could be optimistic about that situation.

Speaker 1 I didn't see any semblance of a guy who wanted to get hit

Speaker 1 when I watched the games last year. So there we go.
All right. My conciliary Shio Capadia.

Speaker 1 We're here. It's football time.

Speaker 1 What's your favorite future bet you've made?

Speaker 2 I like the Packers over. I think it's nine and a half for what we said earlier.
Yeah, I think they're a 10 or 11 win team. So I think that's probably my favorite over right now.

Speaker 1 I think my favorite bet so far.

Speaker 1 Well, I have a bunch of Broncos bets

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 I was all excited about.

Speaker 1 But my favorite one,

Speaker 1 Miami, Cleveland, the Giants in Tennessee, no playoffs, plus 103.

Speaker 2 Yes, you put the Giants in there.

Speaker 1 I like it.

Speaker 1 I did that when I was, where was I in Chicago for one day? And I jumped on Fando and I was like, I'm just jumping on this. If I had to say who would screw that up, it's probably Tennessee.

Speaker 1 It's just if Cam Ward is awesome. And we're like, oh my God, Cam Ward's awesome.
They're going to go nine and eight and sneak into the seventh seed. That would be the one I would be worried about.
But

Speaker 1 that was my favorite. Yeah.
All right. Shield, great to see you.
Keep an eye on the Ringer NFL show of the next couple of weeks because we have some fun stuff brewing there.

Speaker 1 And in general, always great to see you.

Speaker 2 All right. Good to see you.
Talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 Thanks. This episode episode is brought to you by Rain X.

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Speaker 1 This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

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Speaker 1 Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas.
All right. My old friend Kevin Wilds is here.

Speaker 1 He is a national talking head on FS1's First Things First, and yet continues to have the worst home video set up of any guest we have.

Speaker 1 I don't know how to do it. I, you know,

Speaker 1 because I've never, I've never, I, you know what? If I figured out how to do it, maybe I could say, hey, I'm going to do the show from home. But since I've never figured out how to do it,

Speaker 1 I go to the office every day. So I should probably invest some time.
I still have three books. Like this is the first day of the pandemic.
I'm like, I'm going to stack some books up.

Speaker 1 I was going to say, Kevin Wilds, keeping 2020 alive.

Speaker 1 I'm in the room we never go to. There's nothing cool.

Speaker 1 I caught you on a Sunday night East Coast time after you went to a family function and I asked if you'd been drinking and your comment, well, say what you said about when you have drinks these days.

Speaker 1 Well, I say I'm only Topo Chico now. Yeah.
And I'm very aware that even after one drink, I'm less interesting.

Speaker 1 And it may have

Speaker 1 always been that way, but it certainly felt like I was more interesting.

Speaker 1 Or maybe it's that I felt like I was,

Speaker 1 you know, just like around in some conjugacy.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Or just like there was no, maybe it's just because I don't feel awkward at all anymore, ever.
I guess I've, I've reached old man.

Speaker 1 I don't feel the need to like lubricate any conversations anymore. You're just hitting it 275 yards down the, down the fairway.
You're not trying to hit it 300.

Speaker 1 At the same time, my wife and I went through

Speaker 1 because the kids were at camp these last two weeks. So she was going out with all of her friends,

Speaker 1 catching up. And

Speaker 1 she and she told the kids like yeah dad doesn't have any friends and i said i have friends she said no the your friends in town are just the kids parents i said yeah but they're still my friends independently but i don't have any independent friends so maybe maybe that's maybe they're all tied together you know it's not just your wife that says that because My wife has said that too about how you never

Speaker 1 you have all these friends, you never see them.

Speaker 1 And the reality is women are just better at coordinating when we hit their 40s and after they're just better at coordinating dinners going out doing things and whereas the guys we were great at it in our teens and our 20s and then it just gets worse every decade and then eventually you're like i haven't seen whoever in three years i mean and we're finding three years five years it's like seven years

Speaker 1 i think my dad hasn't had seen buddies in like 40 years

Speaker 1 but then i'll be like hey what's going on like nothing got a new truck like that's good and then you know the 10 minute covers

Speaker 1 last year you came over to watch. What did we watch? Football or basketball, or you came over,

Speaker 1 yeah. You just surprised me, texted me.
Yeah, you're like, Hey, I'm in town, can I come over? I was like, I was delighted that somebody was coming over on short notice. Um, it might be the too much,

Speaker 1 it might be too much texting.

Speaker 1 That texting gives you a false sense of uh connectivity, where you really should just like old school, like Seinfeld apartment style, just like Elaine's here, like just show up.

Speaker 1 So, just

Speaker 1 show up. Yeah, I've seen a lot of my old friends this summer just for different reasons.

Speaker 1 And it's always one of those things where it's like, why don't we make a concerted effort to do this more often? But the reality is, guys are just bad at it. Well, too much planning.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I think it's that. I think it's like, hey, could you do,

Speaker 1 you know, can you, hey, Bill, how about November 17th? Like, well, I know I got this thing. And it has to be like, hey, tomorrow, we're going.
We're like,

Speaker 1 right now, 9 p.m. It's how you book the the podcast 9 p.m but you know who's figured it out who

Speaker 1 the golf people and the fishing people

Speaker 1 they do like golf trips going to wherever going to pinehurst and late april and they plan it nine months ahead of time because you have to make reservations and the same thing with the weirdo fishing people so i know a bunch of fishing people and they're like yeah

Speaker 1 We go fishing and then we all get together and we take gummies and then we catch the fish and we throw them back. It's like, what's fun about that? But it's smaller windows.

Speaker 1 Like, I think if we were into something with a limited window, like my buddy fish is like, oh, excuse me, striped bass are running. So you have to, you guys have to hang out in this time period.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But if we're just like going to watch football, like, hey, want to hang out sometime between like preseason and the Super Bowl? Like, yeah, we'll figure it out.

Speaker 1 The next thing you know, week eight, week 10. Yeah, it just never happened.
That just never happens. Like, you know, I'll get you next year.
What, you want to do the draft? Like, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 We have, we have sporting events that we'll go to, like, a basketball game. Yeah, that was good.
You come to New York. That was good.

Speaker 1 So I forget where I saw this first, but somebody said when men gather

Speaker 1 together, it's better. They like situations where they're both next to each other, looking at the same thing forward.

Speaker 1 But when women are together, they like looking at each other. They like being

Speaker 1 it's like this weird physics thing, not physics, sociological thing, whatever the right word is. Oh, I like to look, I don't want to look at, it's too confrontational.

Speaker 1 We like like on a road trip where somebody's next to somebody, you drive to Vegas, or like you play blackjack together, you're all on a table. Yes.
Whereas like women like seeing each other.

Speaker 1 No, like I would prefer like

Speaker 1 TV if like we all went out to dinner, TV sitcom seating where we're all like in a round. Like in a horseshoe? Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then the camera's there. Like, oh, what's going on? But you're never like locked in, mano-e-mano.
Like, does this guy want to fight me right now? Like, what's

Speaker 1 going on? Well, you're, you're my legitimate friend, and I think I've seen you once in three years.

Speaker 1 The other problem is the better friend you are, the less time. I have my buddy that I grew up with that my mom taught with.
I haven't seen him in 20 years. But I have friends with him.
He's my friend.

Speaker 1 But, you know, if we were worse friends, we'd hang out

Speaker 1 Like, I gotta see that guy. Yeah, because you gotta like almost

Speaker 1 make the friendship happen. Yeah, true.
We're pat, we're post-friendship.

Speaker 1 See each other whenever. That's right.
Just we're post-friendship, post-hanging out.

Speaker 1 I made you the second guest on this podcast because I knew your camera setup was going to be terrible. And now we've moved to a video podcast era.

Speaker 1 You missed, I unveiled my QB pyramid for the preseason. And Patrick Mahomes was not in the number one spot.
It was Josh Allen.

Speaker 1 You know,

Speaker 1 probably statistically fair. At the same time, like, is he now 0-4 against him head-to-head in the playoffs? He is.
That's got to, I mean, something.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to light a fire under Mahomes because I just

Speaker 1 didn't love last season for him. For somebody who's supposed to be the GOAT, and I didn't like all the money I lost on him in the Super Bowl.
So, you know what?

Speaker 2 Fire lit.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, if he, the weird thing that's going to happen is

Speaker 1 if they win and he has another statistically mediocre season,

Speaker 1 are we just going to say, like, ah, you know, it's actually like, look at some of those Brady years. And maybe he is kind of like post-statistics.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 his fourth quarter statistics are still crazy. His like record, he's like, what is he? He's like 700 winning percentage, like when he's down a score in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 It's just 14 and 7 when they're trailing in the fourth quarter. It's just like it's an unnatural stat.
So until those things go sideways. You still have him won.

Speaker 1 I still actually have him won. I like to, you know, tease Nick Wright about it.
But,

Speaker 1 and I don't love the hypothetical draft like start a franchise, but I feel like he's obviously the answer.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the thing is, I'm not sure he is anymore.

Speaker 1 But then what happened?

Speaker 1 I just thought Allen was incredible last season. And

Speaker 1 it's the classic, if you just switch the guys in their situations,

Speaker 1 how would each team look? And I think it's just open for a debate, which is fun. And it's the worst sports summer we've had all decades.
So,

Speaker 1 what kind of thing we argue about? He was down like he had the ball with three minutes left in the fourth quarter.

Speaker 1 And if I could, like, hey, one of these guys is definitely going to score and one of them's not, and the season's going to be over on a bad push-push. You would still get a Mahomes.
I know.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I do love John.
I mean, he is amazing, but I'm still a Mahomes guy.

Speaker 1 Are you a Trayvon Henderson?

Speaker 1 Like, what kind of stock do you have at this point? Kevin and I are both Pats fans for the audience. The Henderson thing was unbelievable on Friday night.

Speaker 1 So here's how I'm viewing pre-I don't know how to really watch preseason football because there's too many variables. So this is how I've come to judge it in my mind.
You know how they do ice skating?

Speaker 1 Like the spinning ice skating, like the flips and stuff? No flips, flips are actually not a lot, but twirls. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They they take all the you know the six scores top score and uh bottom score and top score get thrown out and you just judge from these scores i do the opposite i'm like what let me look at this preseason game and look at your worst plays and your best that's all i care everything in the middle that looks like a normal play i throw out i'm just looking for the peaks in valleys yeah and that was a definite peak all in surprise surprise the fast guy from ohio state still looks super fast there's been zero letdown

Speaker 1 Amazing. The Drake May thing, on the other hand, I'm surprised that is being dismissed so casually.

Speaker 1 The Mac Jonesian,

Speaker 1 oh, you know, I'm going to take a sack. Let me try to make something amazing happen or just get rid of the ball.
I hated that with all my heart. I hated that so much.

Speaker 1 I think it really put a scare into me. And hopefully it did variable as well.
Henderson was genuinely, euphorically exciting.

Speaker 1 He just has it. You just know right away.
It's like this guy's clearly an NFL running back who's going to be explosive and awesome. Yeah, he's at least Gibbs.

Speaker 1 Yes.

Speaker 1 At least Gibbs is a fantastic comparison. But I mean, how they're going to use him and the kind of explosiveness he's going to have, they have speed and they can block.

Speaker 1 And I think you and I are both, we would have been probably leaning high on them anyway. But when you throw in the schedule and the coach and it's just, it's the all, it's the entire recipe.

Speaker 1 But there's the Drake May piece that's the, that's the one variable. It's like, is he a year away from being ready for this or is he ready now? He should be ready now.

Speaker 1 Here's the other thing no one's talking about. I think Coach Mangini told me this.
Oh, what a name drop.

Speaker 1 Josh McDaniels. We're like, oh, and we have Josh McDaniels.
Josh McDaniels has gotten better. It's like Josh McDaniels has been like moving around, studying stuff.

Speaker 1 Like Josh McDaniels revenge tour is happening now, too. So I think that it's just natural for all Patriots fans like, oh, yeah, Josh McDaniels, like proven quality.

Speaker 1 Like, no, what if the Josh McDaniels last time you saw him is now a much better coordinator, besides the fact that he got more head coaching? Now he's a much better offensive coordinator.

Speaker 1 Like, hey, guys, by the way, I think we had the ninth best scoring offense with Mac Jones. Like, I'm going to make this work.
And he couldn't run a yard. Like, it's going to work.

Speaker 1 I made games interesting with Cam Newton. He couldn't throw.
And now I get to combine those guys.

Speaker 1 It's an odd comparison, Mac Jones and Drake May, excuse me, Mac and Cam. But you have a guy who can throw the ball and run.

Speaker 1 I think it's, you know, I'm probably too optimistic. I'm like,

Speaker 1 if I had to, if I, if I had another Topo Chico, I'd start talking crazy about the Patriots. I had them 12 and five mentally two weeks ago.
Now I've brought it down to 10 and seven.

Speaker 1 Now I'm mentally 10 and seven again. I had a 12 and five stretch for like four days when they were all excited about the rookies.
I know. I'm not saying it's rational.

Speaker 1 It's like if we lost their opening game to the Raiders with Tim Carroll and gina i'd be like what

Speaker 1 i mean

Speaker 1 like yeah like you guys are the patriots we're like what makes you like i don't know we just we thought we were on preseason's idiotic but

Speaker 1 you can notice is a team like do they actually have some sort of identity that they're going for and for the patriots the identity is they're a violent team this version of the vrabel team it's like a hats to the ball uh people blocking after the whistle oh my goodness all that shit's happening yeah you know what it comes back to vrabel jumping in the pile yeah vrabel coming up bloody i just

Speaker 1 i mean i just love it i would be if we're not good this year it's really gonna

Speaker 1 i'm gonna really be doing some soul searching well especially you think like miami is not gonna be good the jets are we sure miami's not gonna be good yeah i am

Speaker 1 i'm sure the bills are are going to be good yeah

Speaker 1 i look at aaron glenn and justin fields who i've seen torture the patriots

Speaker 1 and Sauce and Garrett Wilson. I'm like, I'm not willing to say they're going to be bad.

Speaker 1 And then Tua. I'm not going with you on the Jets.

Speaker 1 There's some sort of running defense, low scoring kind of physical identity that they might have.

Speaker 1 That's happening for them, too. And I know like we just assume that the Dolphins are going to be bad, but we're going to go down there and lose like we do every year.
And then it's...

Speaker 1 Oh, surprise, surprise, Tua, who has led the league at some point in completion percentage, yards, and like yards per attempt, he's going to do something crazy again.

Speaker 1 Like, oh, yeah, Tua is actually pretty good. Tyreek Hill's pretty good.
Like, a chance, like, I'm just not willing to write them off as being bad.

Speaker 1 Yeah, they're going to be like kind of like a chill team because it's Miami, but

Speaker 1 offensive line is terrible. Secondary is going to be terrible.
I have no idea if their coach is good. We still don't know.
He's certainly good in press conferences.

Speaker 1 Worse. Well,

Speaker 1 he might have never been good. I think we just wanted him to be good because his press conferences were fun.
And then Tua gets hurt every year.

Speaker 1 What was your bleakest moment during one of the bleakest sports content summers we've had?

Speaker 1 What was the bleakest show? What was the most forced segment where it's like, fuck, it's Wednesday. We got nothing.
We have talked more.

Speaker 1 Let me say this, not too mean-spirited, but.

Speaker 1 There's a point where

Speaker 1 I think Trey Hendrickson's immediate family would have days, you know, and then people are, you know, dad's got to go to Home Depot and the mom's got to go, you know, run some errands and sisters and, you know, everybody's aunts and uncles.

Speaker 1 I think there's days where Trey Hendrickson's immediate family talked less about Trey Hendrickson than we did on the show. Like we talk a lot of Trey Hendrickson.

Speaker 1 I'm like, guys, I don't think Trey Hendrickson's a

Speaker 1 Trey Hendrickson's moving the knee. Like he led the league in sacks in Cincinnati.
Like,

Speaker 1 I think the deal is getting done. And

Speaker 1 when when he does come back, they had a horrible offense. So it's kind of, it's not even,

Speaker 1 it's not Micah Parsons, which is the Cowboys into Micah. Oh, I can't wait to talk about that.
I have a half-baked idea specifically for them. Right away? Well, Michael Parsons.

Speaker 1 You're starting half-baked ideas. It's your thing.
But I have a half-baked idea. It's peripherally tied to Micah Parsons.
But we've been doing half-baked ideas. This is your thing.

Speaker 1 It's been your thing forever. When I had my old podcast, and ESPN used to come on and do them, we kept them going.
We kept them going.

Speaker 1 And now almost 17, 18 years later, you still have half-baked ideas. I asked you to come up with some.
I always bring like a couple small ones, but this is really your show.

Speaker 1 What's on the docket? Is it, do we have like appetizers and a giant entree? Is it multiple entrees? What do you have? Well, I can start. You know what? I have a food.

Speaker 1 I have two food ones right off the jump if you want to do that. Let's go.

Speaker 1 Restaurant idea. Okay.

Speaker 1 I wrote, I wrote down phrases to get you interested. Yep.

Speaker 1 Food, mediocre.

Speaker 1 Ambiance, blah.

Speaker 1 Service,

Speaker 1 unreliable.

Speaker 1 Location,

Speaker 1 inconvenient.

Speaker 1 Menu font, freaking huge, huge font.

Speaker 1 The font's huge. The bill, when your bill comes, that's huge.
The fonts in this place. So So it's just for people whose eyesight is kind of going on them a little bit.

Speaker 1 They're not saying that. Is it called huge font restaurant? Maybe, but I would like to dance around it a little bit more.

Speaker 1 But is it a place I'm tired of going somewhere and being embarrassed? Like, I'm not. Very lit, like huge lights, like almost like studio lights? Because I hate that.
I don't like that at all.

Speaker 1 It's just the font. The fonts out here, like the, like the, you know, the teleprompter you have to read at the Academy Awards from when it's out in the seats.
Yeah. Huge font.
Oh, yeah, there it is.

Speaker 1 I'll have the beef Wellington. Just Wellington, almost like a graffiti train.
Boom. Huge font.
Bill comes. What? Is that how much is this?

Speaker 1 Am I going to tip wrong? Am I? I don't know. Are you using your Apple phone to try to

Speaker 1 go because like the senior citizen two tables down is using the phone? I can't do that. It's probably me.
You know what I'm doing? Dangerous? I take the candle.

Speaker 1 I'm like, oh no, I'm just looking at the candle. I'm about to burn the whole restaurant down.

Speaker 1 So not at huge font, not at the huge font diner. No, huge font restaurant.
You're in there. You can, you know, have a good meal and leave with your dignity intact.

Speaker 1 Off to a good start. I love Huge Font.
Huge Font Restaurant. What was the other restaurant one?

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 I can, I had a nice dinner. I made a nice dinner for the family.
Steak, vegetables. I'm on the grill.
I'm doing doing my thing. We set it up.
We got the

Speaker 1 plates.

Speaker 1 Steak. We got all the whole thing, right? Flowers.

Speaker 1 Only thing I can't do, and the best part of eating at a restaurant, can't do the bread.

Speaker 1 I can't figure it out. Either I get it from the store and it's like stale by the time it gets in the home.
It's just like

Speaker 1 I can't cut it. It's like hard.
It's like

Speaker 1 an Easton stick of bread, or I've got bread in a plastic bag that looks like

Speaker 1 it's been there for a week and hasn't aged at all. It's like when I, you know what the algorithm is serving up all these like fitness influencers like, I'm 74.
I'm like, bro, you actually look

Speaker 1 the fact that you haven't aged makes you even grosser. That's that bread.
Ice cream truck for bread comes around the neighborhood. 515.

Speaker 1 It's got a little bread saw. Who wants bread? It's maybe it's French.
There's a guy with like a little chapeau on.

Speaker 1 He comes out. Oh, good.
My hot bread. I leave like a, you know, a little French boy.
I have a striped shirt on. I'm bicycling to my home.
Come in, slice the bread. I've got everything working.

Speaker 1 Oh, it comes in a basket as well, obviously, like a cool basket. And it's different types.
I don't know where you get that bread. Pretzel bread.

Speaker 1 And then your meal goes to the next level. And you don't have to deal with any.
If there's not a,

Speaker 1 if there's not a large font restaurant like within

Speaker 1 your vicinity, you can have the restaurant experience at home and not get embarrassed.

Speaker 1 That might be a fully baked idea. That one works.

Speaker 1 I actually had a restaurant one as well. Let's hear it.

Speaker 1 You know, I go out to dinner from time to time. Sure.
Double dates, go out with the wife, go out with a bunch of people.

Speaker 1 And this has been ever since I've gone out to dinner, even as a kid with

Speaker 1 my mom, my stepdad, or my dad, or my stepmom, whatever.

Speaker 1 You go to the restaurant a bunch and you get to know some of the people. I'm like, you know me.
I'm like, I don't want to know my neighbors.

Speaker 1 I'm not friendly. Other people are like super friendly.

Speaker 1 And some people will make friends with the Mator D,

Speaker 1 the Matri-D. I don't even know why.
I called it Mater D. Mater D.
I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 I'll correct you. It's R-E.
I'm not even sure. It's French again.
Matri-D. I'll talk to whoever, the host.
Yeah. And the person will come over and it's like, and come and do the whole thing.

Speaker 1 Um, we saw this happen in baseball with they sped up the game in baseball, they had the pitch clock, yeah. I think

Speaker 1 Major Day clock, there's a little bell on the thing, it's like a minute, it's like in chess, it's like searching for Bobby Fisher.

Speaker 1 They come over, they hit the clock, it's a minute, and it's the how you guys doing.

Speaker 2 How are you?

Speaker 1 Go anywhere, but but it's got to be done in 60 seconds. You can't linger for the seven minutes

Speaker 1 where it's like one of the four people at the table who's probably had too much to drink. They're like, So, what's happening with Rosa? Did she go off to college yet?

Speaker 1 And you're just like, What just happened? We were just talking about our friends.

Speaker 1 We just got divorced. We just did, oh, yeah,

Speaker 1 can we go back to talking about our divorce friends? We got the zoning for it to add another level. Yeah, just

Speaker 1 60 seconds or less.

Speaker 1 Made sure to stop, stop, talk

Speaker 1 like, yeah, it's like chess, bang it. 60 seconds.
We want to be friends. Yeah, I think that's fair.
Friendly. 60 seconds is more than enough to catch up.
That is, that is, you know, a

Speaker 1 third of a heavyweight fight. Like, you can get it done in 60 seconds.
So, this was a Sopranos episode. Artie was going over to the tables and hanging around too long.
And then finally,

Speaker 1 somebody said something to him and his feelings had hurt. And he's like, that's why they come.
They come for the food and then talk to me. And his wife was like,

Speaker 1 they hate when you come over.

Speaker 1 Don't come over. I think there's a middle ground.
I like talking to them, but they can get out. All right.
what's your next half-baked idea?

Speaker 1 We're moving away from restaurants now.

Speaker 1 Oh, this is similar about

Speaker 1 baseball.

Speaker 1 So, oh, this is the rarest of all things. Someone coming up to me, a fan of the podcast, pitching me a half-baked idea.

Speaker 1 Oh, do you like that or is it or you feel like you're- Look, I appreciate people love the show. The show is very popular.
You are. And I, you know, I pop in every once in a while.

Speaker 1 But this is a very narrow needle to thread because if it's a good idea, I'd be like, buddy, that's just a good idea. That's not what I'm into.

Speaker 1 And if it's a bad idea, like, why is this guy talking to me about bad ideas? It's got to be a half-baked idea. And it's tough.
It's just tough.

Speaker 1 Next thing you know, my buddy Tim, I was like, Tim, you've done it. That is the perfect half-baked idea.
Okay. Perfect.

Speaker 1 So he says,

Speaker 1 he's like, I'm watching this baseball game the other night.

Speaker 1 Gets out of hand.

Speaker 1 And they bring in the position player to pitch, which is fun. It's always exciting.
I always enjoy it. It's fun for a little while, but, you know, the bloom is off the rose eventually.

Speaker 1 If he's still in there and he's locked in. Oh, like for like three innings? Yeah, yeah.
It's too much.

Speaker 1 The other day, and I wrote it down, Rockies, blue jays it was 12-1 they bring in the backup catcher he gives up eight runs so now the blue jays are up there blasting this guy it's like all right enough yeah

Speaker 1 like should their stats even really count i'm like i don't know so this is my buddy tim says he goes you know how they have those emergency goalies in hockey yeah where it's just like the local guy who played hockey They don't try to take a position player and suit him up.

Speaker 1 And I go, you're a goalie now.

Speaker 1 They have a real goalie who's just an amateur, and that's even more exciting because sometimes those guys like win games:

Speaker 1 high school, high school flame outs, triple uh, college kids.

Speaker 1 They're just on, they're just on duty at the game. They're yes, they have both jerseys ready and their high school hat or whatever they are.
It's like, hey, it's 12-1.

Speaker 1 We're bringing in Tim. He works at Lowe's, but he was all state five years ago for the Falcons.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And he comes in and next thing you know, it's him and Otani. It's so much better.
But he's throwing gas. He's not throwing these lollipops.
He's really trying to throw. And who knows?

Speaker 1 You'd get a little rally, maybe get a nice story out of it. So in best case scenario, the guy's awesome and maybe gets signed to like a triple-A deal.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't need to see, you know, it's fun for the first lollipop pitch and then it's like, oh, we threw a fast one. But this guy's out here trying to really throw.

Speaker 1 Got a few of them. I like it.
So it's almost like,

Speaker 1 what's the both sides QB in a touch football game? What do we call that?

Speaker 1 Every time QB? The all-time QB. It's like an all-time pitcher.
He's just available for either side. Either side.
It's like we're playing in Philadelphia this weekend and

Speaker 1 our all-time pitcher for the weekend. You remember him? He pitched at Drexel for two years.
Yes.

Speaker 1 And his buddies,

Speaker 1 the weird thing is like like, his buddies wouldn't even go to the game because he's going to be sitting there for 80 games. Right.
But you never know.

Speaker 1 Three times a year. He walks in and he's got his Drexel hat.
People start going nuts.

Speaker 1 He gets good seats.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah. He's always, he's just worried that, oh, he's warming up.
So when it's, so it's like an eight or nine run game. It's eight to one, nine to one.

Speaker 1 All of a sudden, he gets starts, takes on, gets, starts loosening up. Yeah, that would be great.
All the Drexel alum.

Speaker 1 The other idea I had of that, I put this one on Twitter, of how they've made all these relief pitchers. Their entrances have gotten really produced.

Speaker 1 Would you be into that with fuel goal kickers in pivotal moments?

Speaker 1 The lights go out in the stadium. It's like,

Speaker 1 Harrison Butker going.

Speaker 1 People are going nuts. The place is going crazy.

Speaker 1 Or the other option, it's home team specific when the other guy is getting ready you play some like i don't know some you try to mess with them yeah like you know non-confident music i don't know what that is other than like that cold play song that the couple was on the jumbo chart for he's like what was it what is what is that inferring like it's like really in his own head or you play

Speaker 1 the shiny music yeah just something but but it's more i don't know how much money and time the mets are spending on that but it really works and the phillies are doing it too there's like fire and stuff happening more entrances people love them no one's ever upset at an entrance i don't know

Speaker 1 i don't remember when it started with the reliever music but papelbon was the first red sox guy that remember he used to come in What did he come into? He came into the dropkick Murphy song.

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, I thought that was just a Red Sox song. That was his, he started that? Didn't he come in? That was the song, right? I'm old.
I can't remember.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's like, I always just assumed that was a red song. But I don't remember anything before that.
That felt like

Speaker 1 Mariano used to come in and enter Sandman. That was a big thing.
So that was late 90s. But there's got to be somebody before then.
But then

Speaker 1 it didn't used to be cool. It used to be like the Role-Aids Fireman of the Year.
They used to just play like the Role-Aids music, I think, the Role-Aids theme song. Well, WWE had entrances forever.

Speaker 1 And then the road dog, Jesse James and Billy Gunn would come come out and be like, oh, you didn't know your ass better call somebody. And the whole crowd would go nuts.

Speaker 1 And then in wrestling, they were like, oh, shit, we got to. It's actually.
It became like a call and response. And then the pyro started going.

Speaker 1 I think your field goal kicker thing is a really interesting idea.

Speaker 1 So Bucker's warming up

Speaker 1 in the pace.

Speaker 1 I guess there's not enough time.

Speaker 1 It would almost have to be coming out of

Speaker 1 a timeout or something. Yeah,

Speaker 1 I mean, you just build time in for it. Like,

Speaker 1 he takes his sweet time. He jogs out there.
People

Speaker 1 are nuts. I really like it.

Speaker 1 I'm checking that one as a win. No, that's a win.
This episode is brought to you by Black Friday Game Day on Prime. It's Bill Simmons.

Speaker 1 Black Friday Game Day coming to Prime, and it will be an epic day of live sports. Black Friday football at the center of it all with the Chicago Bears taking on the Philadelphia Eagles at 3 p.m.

Speaker 1 Eastern. This might be an actual round one playoff game.
That's followed by the final night of Emirates NBA Cup group play

Speaker 1 and a doubleheader starting with the Bucs and Knicks at 7 p.m., Giannis in New York again, and the Mavericks and Lakers at 10 p.m. Boy, I wish those two teams had a history.

Speaker 1 The whole day starts with the return of the Capital One Skins game as four league PGA golfers face off with $4 million in the line.

Speaker 1 Black Friday game day tees off with the Capital One Skins game at 9 a.m. Eastern before the Big Bears Eagles football game at 3 p.m.

Speaker 1 And it all culminates with a double dose of Emirates NBA Cup action featuring Bucks Knicks at 7 p.m. and Mavs Lakers at 10 p.m.
only on Prime. This episode is brought to you by Velveeta.

Speaker 1 Game day is all about the tailgate spread. Listen, if you're going to have friends over, you absolutely 100% have to have a lot of things for them to eat.
Everyone gets hungry.

Speaker 1 They can say they're not going to eat, but guess what?

Speaker 1 If you lay out the right kind of spread and you have some good, cheesy, creamy, melty dip with some good crackers, some chips, they're probably going to eat it.

Speaker 1 So why not do creamy shells and cheese, melty Belveeta blocks, and cheesy jarred quesos? I don't know. Why wouldn't you? They're taking down one taste bud at a time.
Do yourself a favor.

Speaker 1 Stock up on Velveeta before kickoff. I had a quick one.
Okay. Restaurant-related.

Speaker 1 Another one.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I've talked about this with Chang. Chang and all the chefs, they really get mad about this.

Speaker 1 My whole thing on dry-age steak.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you've heard me do this. No, I haven't heard this.

Speaker 1 All the foodies go nuts about the dry-aged steak and how great it is. And it's so buttery.
And it's like, there's, it's a whole other level. It's like the greatest steak you can have.

Speaker 1 And oh, this is aged for 180 days. And

Speaker 1 then you just get diarrhea that night.

Speaker 1 And I don't think the common person cares whether a steak has been dry-aged or not. I think this is really for like the food elite and the people who really care about this shit.

Speaker 1 you can definitely it definitely tastes a little different a little elevated but

Speaker 1 i don't know like how many friends do you have are like oh we got to go to this place it's 90 day dry aged

Speaker 1 it's if you put me to the test

Speaker 1 i would probably put steak and wine in the same category of like if you say so oh yeah i can taste it so but i know it's not a hamburger But like, yeah, I got this steak from Costco and this one's been hanging in like the Louvre for two years.

Speaker 1 I'm like, all right.

Speaker 1 They both, they're pretty good for me. They got something on it.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 this brings me to my take because I think I'm like this. And I think a lot of people are like this.
Where it's like, if you say so.

Speaker 1 And this is really for your show and for the daily talk shows where you come up with stuff. All right.

Speaker 1 Dry age takes.

Speaker 1 You came up with a take, but you've been marinating on it for 180 days. And then you're like, guys,

Speaker 1 it's ready. I have a dry edge take.
I've been thinking about it since

Speaker 1 December 2024. And now the take is ready.
It's a dry age take.

Speaker 1 And it really is just a take you came up with anyway. But because you said it was dry age, now I have to take it more seriously.
You've been marinating on this for 170 days.

Speaker 1 It's a take, but it's not a take. Like, I'm not putting a take into the, you know, wherever it is.
No, now

Speaker 1 that's ready. It's been, I've been, I haven't debuted, I haven't been ready to debut this take yet.
It would be like me saying, now I think Josh Allen is at the top of my QB pyramid.

Speaker 1 And here are all my reasons why. And I have it laid out.
And it's like, I've actually felt this way since February, but I've been dry aging it and going on pro football reference

Speaker 1 and really trying to get it ready.

Speaker 1 I feel like you need to, you have to have some like proof that it's dry aged.

Speaker 1 I feel like that's the thing. Do we have proof with the steaks? When they're like, it's 180 days.
Was it? Do you have photos of each day?

Speaker 1 How do I know it's 180 days? It could have been like 30.

Speaker 1 I also am too embarrassed to be like,

Speaker 1 so I just threw away some ground beef that was in the fridge because it said sell by, you know, August 5th and it's August or whatever now. Yeah.
And so how does the 180 days thing work?

Speaker 1 Because I would thought it was rotten. Is it just no, they put all this stuff on it.
See, See, this Chang is probably listening to this, losing his mind now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like salt, they cure it, all this stuff. What's your next? That's not my problem.
I'm the consumer.

Speaker 1 The restaurant industry hasn't done a good job messaging to me. I'm a little worried that this is a whole marketing thing and it's a little like crypto.
We just go to restaurants.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you're just like, yeah, it's a 180-day dried steak and they're just making it up. They just bought it.

Speaker 1 It's like one day.

Speaker 1 They didn't do it at all. How do we know? People lie about everything.

Speaker 1 AI is coming. Our whole society is about deceiving other people.
We can't lie about dry age fake.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, I guess you could. All right, I got another one from my buddy.
Okay. Lives down the street from me.
So this is the same one who came up with the other one? No, different guy.

Speaker 1 Different guy. I was going to say, that guy's a fire.
We're not having any friends. I'm really.

Speaker 1 Seems like he's filled with friends. No, no, they're all fake.
They're all just AI bots.

Speaker 1 Triage friends.

Speaker 1 All right. So I think he, I don't know, I forgot how he got to this.
I'm gonna say he was on a skiing, he was in a skiing accident. I was like, I'm taking some creative liberties with this story.

Speaker 1 I'm like, How you banned he comes over, he's like, Oh, good, we went out skiing, and I'm like, Oh, that sounds lovely. I don't love skiing, I don't love falling down.

Speaker 1 He's like, Yeah, I broke something, uh, had to get surgery on a bunch of surgery. I said, Oh, that sounds bad.
I'm like, Did you have to go under for that?

Speaker 1 He's like, Yeah, I was like, Oh, it stinks. He goes, no, I love it.

Speaker 1 I'm like, what do you mean you love it? He's like, I love it. I got a calling Oscar.
I just, I love going under. He's like, I love anesthesia.

Speaker 1 I'm like, I don't know if this is good, dude. It sounds like you're like on the verge.
He's like, no, I love it.

Speaker 1 So.

Speaker 1 So he's like, I'm like, you know what? I'm going to talk to Bill about. He also loves.
I'm going to talk to Bill about that, like just like voluntary anesthesia.

Speaker 1 But you don't want to just like, I don't think that doing it recreationally.

Speaker 1 Well, can't you die during anesthesia? Like, it's like

Speaker 1 you can die skiing. You know, you can die a lot of ways.
So it's under, you know, you, yes. I don't think, again, it's half-baked.
I'm not saying you should do recreational anesthesia.

Speaker 1 So I'm trying to, this is where I'm trying to, I'm trying to round the edges of his idea.

Speaker 1 So he's like, yeah, I love it. I'm like, all right.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 same time

Speaker 1 send my vol we got a volvo we went and sent the volvo it's been gone for three days it's just we thought it needed a tire tire change in oil it's like no we're giving it a thousand point inspection it's they're checking everything i was like boom

Speaker 1 go into the doctor Instead of getting a,

Speaker 1 last time I got a checkup, they're like, how much do you weigh? I'm like, are you weighing me? What? I can do this on my own. I'm paying for this to get weighed and measured and checked.

Speaker 1 Yes, my heart is still beating.

Speaker 1 Go under.

Speaker 1 Run it all. Run everything.

Speaker 1 Just treat me like a Volvo.

Speaker 1 We're already crossed the biggest. When you got to call an ASCII, we've already crossed the largest hurdle.
Just get in there. Check the lungs.
Check the stents.

Speaker 1 Check it all, man. What's going on up here? Just make sure nothing's growing anywhere.
Check it all.

Speaker 1 And it's and make it yearly, but really get under the hood.

Speaker 1 Just yearly anesthesia, intentional anesthesia once a year. Just go to town.
Extreme checkups.

Speaker 1 We are extreme checkups. I want to make sure I come out refurbished.
I'm like, I'm brand new. Heck, take some stuff out.
Just like

Speaker 1 do an e-search. Like, hey, you're,

Speaker 1 switch some stuff out. Hey, switch out.
You know what? Your Achilles tendon's got 45 years of use on it. We threw a new one in there.
Oh, cool thanks just

Speaker 1 fix me up dude this is probably where life is going i'm just getting switched out i like this well it reminds me of like like the people who who intentionally get ivs the next day after they've done a lot of drinking is a thing that's a 21st century thing

Speaker 1 yeah our generation did not do um no but some people swear by it Well, of course it works, but you're getting an IV. It's part of like, you have to deal with the punishment.
That's part of the

Speaker 1 part of the process. So that's how I felt.
Yeah, you can't. You're not done with the race yet.
You have to, you know, crash. You got it.
It's part of it. What's your next one?

Speaker 1 You might like this.

Speaker 1 This is a bad idea.

Speaker 1 What do you think about?

Speaker 1 Remember, you kicked around the idea of like there's some podcasts out there that, and maybe it's just all podcasts, that are like two-hour podcasts but they're only existing for like

Speaker 1 the gold clip to to take off and the rest of the podcast is kind of in support of kind of mining just trying to get that 90 second Instagram

Speaker 1 yeah and that's what actually is the driver and everything else is kind of it's like when you find out like you know

Speaker 1 McDonald's actually only selling you the drink and the food is all free. What? Yeah, it's like drinks where the margin is like, oh, I didn't know it.

Speaker 1 It's like Paul George's pod when he's like, there's a time there where i was the best best player in the league if you actually look at it i was better than lebron then it's like whoa clip

Speaker 1 you have no idea what happened on the rest of the podcast no so i'll be watching youtube's uh

Speaker 1 some random clips from movies

Speaker 1 and and

Speaker 1 everyone's like it's a good clip a good scene

Speaker 1 And then the first comment on the YouTube is like, what movie is this from? And someone will write, I don't know what movie it was was from.

Speaker 1 And then it'll be a movie like, I don't know if that movie even exists. This

Speaker 1 movie might just exist for this scene. So not short films, just

Speaker 1 scenes.

Speaker 1 Like, hey, so I wrote down some scenes.

Speaker 1 I'll give you, I'll make a sports one. This is a classic scene that I'll always watch.

Speaker 1 It happened, I think it was inspired by Die Hard, but you've seen a few times. Bad guys, you know, the bad guy's got a, you know, bad guy's got a Dodgers hat on.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But he's, he, he, he doesn't, he doesn't like the Dodgers. He doesn't know.
He's from somewhere else. And you walk up, you're the good guy.
You're like, hey, who the Dodgers? What was it?

Speaker 1 You get the Dodgers Lakers score. And he's like, oh, yeah, five, four.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you're not a Dodgers fan, buddy. You're a bad guy.
Love it. Oh, what's happening? You're speaking in a foreign language to your counterpart because you think I don't understand it.

Speaker 1 Surprise, surprise, I do speak that language. And I answered back to you.
So just several scenes.

Speaker 1 That sounds like AI could just do that now. So I want it.
So, so I'm going to get to another one.

Speaker 1 Car chasing, going through different markets and fruits exploding and all that. Then I got to, can you combine all of these scenes? And I just wrote down, die hard in a Costco.

Speaker 1 Oh, where's that scene from? Oh, it's, it's from Die Hard in a Costco. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 The The movie doesn't actually exist, but you make it seem like it did. No, but maybe I'll just put enough.
It's got like 12 scenes, but there's no like opening scene. Like the movie doesn't actually

Speaker 1 work.

Speaker 1 It's you can't sit and watch the movie. It's just 12 scenes from Die Hard in a Costco.
But you did.

Speaker 1 I thought you were going toward playing scenes. You know, when they played the scenes to fire up the crowd at like an NBA game.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But now they have this technology with the AI where like there was a great one last week where Aaron Judge was just like, Aaron Boone's an idiot. I wish I played for the Red Sox.

Speaker 1 It was like this minute-long thing, but it was just AI like changing

Speaker 1 his voice.

Speaker 1 But, but I thought that's where you were going, where you take scenes and you can show them to the crowd, and it's just the stuff to get the fans fired up. That would work too.

Speaker 1 But would you get really fired up on that?

Speaker 1 People don't like AI.

Speaker 1 I didn't really like it until the Aaron Judge Red Sox thing. And then I was like, there's something here.

Speaker 1 My dad got completely fooled like six months ago with

Speaker 1 a Christapse Porzingis AI thing where he gave something.

Speaker 1 He just said all these crazy things. And my dad was like, did you hear what Porzingis said? This is going to be dad.
I was like, dad, dad, this was AI.

Speaker 1 No, there's going to be like AI disclaimers soon. That's going to be the end of us.

Speaker 1 I have a really quick one, by the way. There we go.

Speaker 1 So, you know, on Instagram, if you look at like the, there's, there's some thing on Instagram where you can look at this for you suggestions and it's all of these things.

Speaker 1 And it's supposed to mirror the stuff you care about, but it's really like when you look at it, it's like, oh no. Yeah.
Is this stuff I care about? I think you should be able to pay extra.

Speaker 1 for some Instagram filter for that section where it's like all stuff that makes you seem like a great person

Speaker 1 Where

Speaker 1 it's a subscription tier, yeah, it's just like, oh, hey, here's the charities that you've donated.

Speaker 1 Like, if anyone picks up your phone and they look at your Instagram, they're like, wow, oh man, look at this. He's just doing a lot of research on

Speaker 1 human behavior. Yeah.
I didn't realize you were this into like saving redwood trees.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I didn't realize that.

Speaker 1 Why did they take out of the red trees this much? Wow. I didn't realize he liked clean water this much.
These are all his videos. He's like, wow.

Speaker 1 He really wants the WNBA players to get paid. This guy's a really good one.
He's like 40 videos in a row about it. This is a great guy.
It's like basically virtual signaling

Speaker 1 Instagram filter. I pay extra and then I just look like I'm like the best guy ever.
Maybe it's just worthwhile, even if no one ever sees it, just for yourself, your own self-worth.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so I don't have to actually look at what the algorithm says I like. Yeah.
What's your next one?

Speaker 1 This is, I don't,

Speaker 1 well, this goes back to Drake May.

Speaker 1 This goes back to this specific play that we already talked about. So if you didn't see the play, Drake May is trying to avoid a sack.

Speaker 1 He decides to try to either throw the ball out of bounds or throw the ball for incompletion. And while he's getting tackled, of course, he cocks his arm back and the ball falls out.

Speaker 1 Classic doing too much. Classic Mac Jones again play.

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 so the half-faked idea is this

Speaker 1 everybody brings in motivational speakers right to these teams like holy cow this guy this woman did all this amazing stuff

Speaker 1 the motivational speaker that Mike Rabel needs to bring in and this happens every six weeks oh a plane going from Paris to New York had to land in the Azores.

Speaker 1 Something wasn't right. Okay.
Oh, this plane was going from New York to Miami. Uh-oh.
Had to land

Speaker 1 in Dulles.

Speaker 1 Something was wrong. And the pilot gets out and he gets harassed by his buddies.
Ah, you could have made it. Yeah, Timmy, you're scared to fly with, you know, gas gauge.

Speaker 1 You know, you just tap on it, it'll work. You win.

Speaker 1 Beard on you.

Speaker 1 And Timmy's going to get up there. It's like, you know what? Yeah.
Everybody made fun of me. But guess what old Timmy the pilot didn't do? Lose the plane or lose anybody's life.

Speaker 1 Stop trying to do heroic stuff. Take the sack, tuck it, fall down.

Speaker 1 It's several. And then another pilot.
Hey, my name's John. I was on a flight from Dallas to Kansas City.
I had to land it in Oklahoma City. You know what? It wasn't perfect.

Speaker 1 I lived to fly another day. If Drake May starts doing heroic stuff, I'm going to have Mac Jonesy.
I'm going to lose my mind.

Speaker 1 I'm just going to go crazy. So you had the pilot come in and be like, you know Captain Sully, you don't know me.
Exactly. We were flying to Hawaii.
Somebody got sick on the plane.

Speaker 1 They turned us around and got us back to L.A. Yeah.
And everyone was safe. Yep.
And everybody was pissed off. But guess what? I was right.

Speaker 1 No news story the next day, but guess what? Everybody lived. And you know what? The best play is the play you don't make.
There's no movie about me. I didn't get a raise.
In fact, I got penalized.

Speaker 1 It's like anti-Captain Selly. I like that.

Speaker 1 That's what we need. Don't do dumb stuff, Drake May.
You're so close to being great. This idea is not even an idea.
It's just two words, but I feel like there's something there.

Speaker 1 What do you think? Well, I just wrote LeBron golf. Those are two words.
What do you think about LeBron's golfing journey?

Speaker 1 So I know somebody, a good friend of mine, mine, is at the same club as where LeBron goes. So I won't name the club, but apparently he's there every day.
Just

Speaker 1 like I want with his son some of the times too. It feels like there's, I just assume there's lots of guys like me who are like

Speaker 1 have kind of missed the golfing window and need a reason to do it, but I'm not, you know, it's like anything. It's like, hey, I'm just going to start golfing randomly.

Speaker 1 And my wife's going to be like, what? Why is there clubs here? Why are you in the garage all the time?

Speaker 1 But I feel like LeBron is like my entryway. Like, oh, yeah, LeBron started golfing with his son.
Maybe I'll do that. It just feels like there's either

Speaker 1 a whole nation. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I don't know if it's a reality. It feels bigger than a reality.
It feels like a platform. It's like,

Speaker 1 he's out there and I'm rooting for him. And he's like, hey, can you golf as good as LeBron? And I don't know.
It just feels like.

Speaker 1 there's something for Nike to do or for him to do to get a lot of people into golf. Well, the thing is, it's like the best version of a midlife crisis, right?

Speaker 1 When one of your friends starts playing golf, I'm always like jealous. It's the opposite.

Speaker 1 Well, because it's just like, man, that's great.

Speaker 1 I would love to just spend the summer trying to see how good I could get at golf. And then like his buddies, like, and then they're just, it was very just like normal guys at work.

Speaker 1 And like Steph's like, hey, been waiting for you. It just felt very normal.
I'm like, I want to be in this man. I'm like, hey,

Speaker 1 how's it shooting today, LeBron?

Speaker 1 First great social media thing he's done in a while. Like, I'm invested in it too.
I want to know, like, I want to see his shots. I want to see

Speaker 1 one of the greatest athletes we've ever had. How easy would it be for him to just be good at golf? Yes, how good is he going to get? I'm, I don't even know anything about golf.

Speaker 1 And he's like, well, he's too tall. Everyone says, like,

Speaker 1 and that was like the Jordan issue, too. No, I mean, to be really good.

Speaker 1 He's good, but I think when you get past like 6'4,

Speaker 1 that's why when you see all the like the really good golfers,

Speaker 1 like once you get over 6'4, it gets hard because you just have more, you have a longer body. There's more ways it could go wrong on a swing, right?

Speaker 1 That's why there's no

Speaker 1 right?

Speaker 1 There's no like seven-foot golfer. They're like, oh, look, Croish is churning out these tall golfers.
This is revolutionizing golf. Too busy playing basketball.

Speaker 1 It's almost like the running back position.

Speaker 1 Like the running backs look like the best, most successful type of running back is always going to be like trebion henderson or saquon barkley like that kind of body

Speaker 1 so six eight for six what's he six eight and a half for golf it's it's hard that's even better then it's even i mean i'm glad you brought this up i'm also invested in lebron's golf and i want to see how good he can get

Speaker 1 it'd be funny if he was just like i'm going to shoot a 75 by december yeah like could he do it there's also like a whole jordan element to it like if he gets better at golf than jordan or maybe they get together in golf and it's this great thing, that won't happen.

Speaker 1 I'm just really into LeBron golfing. I'm like shocked at how into it I am.

Speaker 1 Speaking of NBA Legends, I have a quick one. Okay.

Speaker 1 So I've noticed that, you know, every play, every ex-player has a podcast at this point.

Speaker 1 And Kobe gets thrown around a lot, like stories about Kobe and these interactions they had with Kobe or Kobe helping them out. Legendaries.
Yeah, his legend continues to grow.

Speaker 1 Kobe,

Speaker 1 one of the things I liked about him when he played was he kind of didn't want to be friends with anybody. He was pretty famous for that.
Like he was pretty cutthroat in a fun way

Speaker 1 and wanted to destroy everybody else and famously didn't have a lot of friends and wasn't one of those. What are you doing after the game, guys?

Speaker 1 And even, even like at the Olympics, I think he kind of stayed on his own. I suggest, I think it's like a PI, but it's not even like a full-time job.
It's Cobe detector.

Speaker 1 Anytime somebody on a podcast tells some Kobe Bryant story, I just think it should be investigated. I want to find out if it's actually true or not.

Speaker 1 Because my guard is always up with every, where it's like, man, then Cobe called me one night and I was in a big shooting slump and Cobe saw it and

Speaker 1 he noticed and he called me out. And I'm just like, I don't know if I believe this.
Wow.

Speaker 1 I just don't think he did. I'm believing them all.
You believe them all.

Speaker 1 But But it's gotten to the point where I feel like anybody can say anything. It all feels within his, I haven't heard one that I feel feels out of bounds.
Like the Chandler Parsons.

Speaker 1 Have you heard the Chandler Parsons one? What was that one? That Chandler Parsons

Speaker 1 that they

Speaker 1 he was on. I forgot what team drive.
Was he on the Grizzlies, maybe?

Speaker 1 The Chandler,

Speaker 1 you just cut to Chandler Parsons telling the story, obviously, but he

Speaker 1 they were like, you got to guard Kobe.

Speaker 1 So he's like very intimidating kobe was like giving him like icy glares the whole game but then eventually he was like are you guys going out like i'll i'll set you up somewhere and kobe sent him he's like yeah

Speaker 1 and kobe said told him to go to some restaurant and then the bill came and it was like this monstrous bill and chandler parsons i've heard the story and then he's like no mr bryan is taking care of it but kobe wasn't there that's why i like the story it's like no see this is why i mean

Speaker 1 so this maybe it's a podcast code detector there's a kobe Kobe story, and the host is just like, all right, time for a deep dive. It's a little like Pablo's podcast.

Speaker 1 I just love every story. I just, every story I like.

Speaker 1 I have one more. This is not even.
I have one more as well. I have one more.

Speaker 1 The Savannah Bananas.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I watched an hour of them. That's how bad the sports content's been this summer.
I watched an hour trying to figure it out. It's pretty entertaining.

Speaker 1 It was like Harlem Globe Trotters for baseball. That's exactly what I have.

Speaker 1 Also, an argument against parody.

Speaker 1 It's the best argument for, like, you know what? We're going to be awesome. We're going to be so awesome.
We'll be doing backflips and catching the ball at the same time.

Speaker 1 So, when anybody wants to start a league, just pick anywhere, professional

Speaker 1 with pickleball. They'll pick one out of the air.
And it's like, all right, we're going to have all these teams from all these places and they're all going to have a real challenge.

Speaker 1 And they'll all like, it'll be, everyone thinks it's the NFL model where parity works. No,

Speaker 1 have your pickleball league and put Pete Sampras and Roger Federer on one team and a bunch of regular guys on the other team and have them crush. That's what, how it works.
That's how sports works.

Speaker 1 Hey, you know what's good? The New York Yankees with Bay Ruth and Lou Gehrig and they won 20 some odd championship. We like that.
Oh, the Celtics. We like that.
That's how leagues get started.

Speaker 1 Dynasties in one team crushing, not just like, oh, they're all good. Like, hey, who won the

Speaker 1 Frisbee football championship? So you want a lower class for leagues? No. I just want, I want a normal league, but with a stacked,

Speaker 1 I'm anti-parity.

Speaker 1 Me too. I don't want parody.
This is really filthy. He grew up with 80s NBA, where it was like there were four teams.
So this is my most impassioned, you'll like this.

Speaker 1 You're a sports Republican.

Speaker 1 by

Speaker 1 not allowing, you know, putting a cap on compensation for superstars. Yeah.
You are not only in

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 effort to have parity in the league, what you're actually doing is putting a cap on the excellence of the sport. Like, we still haven't seen the best basketball team ever.

Speaker 1 Like, just what if

Speaker 1 we came in this century was the 2017 Warriors who achieved it by this complete salary cap fluke combined with Curry's contract. And then that was probably the best team we've seen.
Yes.

Speaker 1 So, like, and it brought basketball to another level. Like, what's the next level of basketball look like?

Speaker 1 We're not actually going to get a chance to see it because we don't have the best talent playing together.

Speaker 1 So, then when you have the Olympics, like, sure, but that's kind of like tossed together. But, like, the best basketball basketball is still

Speaker 1 like, what is the Manhattan Project of Basketball? We're like, here are the 10 greatest basketball players. What does that look like? What are we going to unlock? Like, I'm there.

Speaker 1 That's what I want to see. But now it's like, no, we take the 10 best players.
They're all on separate teams. Everyone gets a bite at the apple.
It's like, it's, it hurts the sport,

Speaker 1 the sport's potential. It's a very, very heady, half-baked idea.
I don't even even know if that-baked idea is.

Speaker 2 What was the idea?

Speaker 1 I don't know.

Speaker 1 That you need to have a bad idea.

Speaker 1 The Salad Cat would have more Savannah Bananas. You need to have like one superstar.
Like, my dad used to always tell me about the team. What was it called? The King and his court.

Speaker 1 You ever hear about the King and his Court? They're a softball team. Yeah.
Like, yeah, we're just four guys. I don't even think they play four on nine or something.

Speaker 1 I forgot what it was, but we just, we're so good. I just want to see the best.

Speaker 1 I just want to see the absolute best to have the NBA be the best basketball, but not actually, because we've dispersed it so far and it doesn't make sense for anybody.

Speaker 1 Like, you want to see great basketball? Someone's going to have to be paid $30 million less than they deserve is nuts. So, I just

Speaker 1 wanted to see great basketball. I don't know how

Speaker 1 we're never seeing it.

Speaker 1 That's not the half-baked idea. It's actually just a fully baked idea is let's not have a salary cap in the NBA anymore.
Yeah, let's see awesome. Let's go nuts.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm for that. Like soccer, guess what? It's awesome.
All the great players are playing together. Yeah.
Yeah, that is true. It's guess what? The whole sport looks different.
It looks awesome.

Speaker 1 Now it's maybe we would, maybe we'd break free from, you know, layups and threes if you put great players on the team and they figured out something brand new. I'm viewing it like an AI experiment.

Speaker 1 I don't know. That one got

Speaker 1 off the table.

Speaker 1 That went sideways, but I enjoyed it.

Speaker 1 I was the most excited for this one. Is this your Michael Wilds?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
Here we go. So

Speaker 1 the Michael Parsons things happen, and obviously you had to do probably 100 segments on it because there was nothing going on. We're all over it.
It was interesting.

Speaker 1 All the ex-players who are on these shows, it goes to them like, yeah, pay him.

Speaker 1 You pay him. He's Michael Parsons.
You got to pay him. Yeah.
And that was kind of the ex-player take across the board.

Speaker 1 And I was thinking, like, you know how they have cameo where the celebrities, you could be like, it's Kevin Wilds' birthday. And Steven Seagal sent Kevin Wilds a birthday message.

Speaker 1 Hey, Kevin, it's Steven Seagal. Love your stuff.
This is like cameo, but it's with actual daily talk shows. So like first things first.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 For like $1,000,

Speaker 1 I'm working in like a hardware store. And the assistant manager wants a raise.
And they won't give him a raise.

Speaker 1 And the assistant manager goes to first, first things first cameo and is like, can you guys do a segment about how

Speaker 1 I've been here for three years? So we lay out all the arguments. And you'd be like, hey, Bob's been there three years.
The store's up 20%. You got to pay him.

Speaker 1 And you guys just go around and then you guys just, you do pay him for all these people around the world. And then there's one tenured professors at like, you know, Middlebury College.
Love it.

Speaker 1 We did a lot of research for it and we're like ready to go. And you're like passionately talking about how they should pay him.
And And then they sent they send a video to his boss.

Speaker 1 It was like, I don't know if you saw this, bro. Yeah, Kevin Wildes and Nick Wright and Brussard were talking about how I should be.
Also, there's one person that has to like be the sacrificial lamb.

Speaker 1 Oh, that's that guy. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't pay him. I wouldn't pay.
And he just gets crushed.

Speaker 1 Like, all I don't know. If you look at the NESCAC schools, it's like tenured professors.
That data is outdated. You're like, what? What?

Speaker 1 Like, you just get crushed. Like, oh man, I, now you put it that way.
So it has a little bit of an arc to it. Oh, that's funny, actually.

Speaker 1 You know, that Trump with the not letting international students in, tuition's down. There's less money for the school.
We can't have tenured professionals. And he was like, no, stop it.

Speaker 1 That's bullshit. You guys are doing a good job.
You should get more money.

Speaker 2 You got to pay him.

Speaker 1 And we just simulate that with all walks of

Speaker 1 all walks of America workforce.

Speaker 1 That's a great take. That's a nice auxiliary piece of ink.
The challenge here, and this is why I like it because it's half baked. Yeah.
How do you get the shows to actually do this?

Speaker 1 No, no, good to do it on our free time. The person who, it's a real gamble for them because they already need more money, right? They're

Speaker 1 already underpaid. Then they're going to have to pay us to do it.
Right. So, you know, it's not super lucrative.
There's actually, I hate to say it, there's probably more money in the not paying.

Speaker 1 They're like, look, we got to give this guy a $50,000 bump. We pay you guys five grand for a segment.
Cut him down. Sounds like a commission.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And And I'm like, oh, gosh, darn it. We actually

Speaker 1 this is where AI is going, where we could just AI the pay him thing.

Speaker 1 What's the scenario where the X players wouldn't want the guy to get paid?

Speaker 1 Has that happened yet? I guess maybe Bradley Beale

Speaker 1 Beale. You don't want to run into the same guy at the restaurant, like, why did you try to convince people not to pay me $20 million?

Speaker 1 Like, sorry, we just needed to do content that day. Sorry, I needed a Zach.
Let me buy you

Speaker 1 a bottle of wine. Like, no.

Speaker 1 All right. Have faked ideas.
We've done it again. That was great.
You stayed up late on Sunday night for me. I appreciate it.
We talked about friendship, restaurants,

Speaker 1 sports,

Speaker 1 golf,

Speaker 1 all over the place. All right, Wildes.
Good to see you. We can see you first.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 let me know. Give me no notice at all and just come on over.
I'll be here. I'll see you in 2030.
All right. Thanks, Wilde.

Speaker 1 All right. That's it for the podcast.
Thanks to Sheil and Wildes. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.

Speaker 1 I have another podcast coming probably Thursday. It's going to be a good one.

Speaker 1 And then I have Rewatchables Monday night, Rollerball, 50th anniversary of the second

Speaker 1 great sports movie that we've had in the last 50 years. The first one's longest year out of 1974, Rollerball, 1975.
And then we're off. We have a nice little sports movie boom.

Speaker 1 So Brian Koppm and I, we covered everything. Really, really, really, really kooky podcast.
So I highly recommend it. That is coming, and I will see you later in the week on this pod.

Speaker 1 I don't have

Speaker 1 a few years

Speaker 1 with them.

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