Winning QBs and Football Nerds With Mina Kimes, Plus Robert Redford’s Incredible Career With Brian Koppelman

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All right, I am recording this.

It is mid-afternoon on the East Coast.

Mina Kimes is on the West Coast.

We got TV Mina today because she's doing TV later.

We were texting last night.

I was groggy watching two Monday Night Football games in a row.

Raiders chargers going on forever.

Gino is just sailing passes all over the place.

And we were texting and I was like, we should do a pod.

We haven't done a pod in a while.

Good to see you.

Hope all is well.

Everything good?

good?

You know, aside from Gino having a bit of a meltdown, it's kind of brave for me to come on, by the way, after a Gino clunker.

We had a support group meeting this morning.

Stephen Ruiz called it.

Everybody was in attendance.

We've all agreed to settle on the Chargers defense's elite defense.

Oh, I can't get there with that one.

I just think Gino does that.

Yeah.

Once a year, twice a year.

You just kind of know it's like a child melting down in an airplane.

You just kind of know it's going to happen at some point the the weirdest part for me was the the misses um because like the interceptions you know there's an arm pun and he's always going to attempt tight window throws sometimes he shouldn't but some of the misses downfield there were a few of them were pretty uncharacteristic i i really do think the chargers defense is elite though are you not i i was joking about the excuse but are you not there yet with them or no i i i thought they showed what they needed to show yesterday but i thought gino left a bunch of stuff on the table especially in the second half like he had Bowers, when they were driving, it seemed at least every back to recovery.

He had Bowers over the middle a couple of times.

He was sailing balls high, throwing balls into triple coverage.

It was just,

you live through this as a Seahawks fan.

This is just kind of what he does.

And I think maybe their destiny is just twice this year, they're going to beat a really good team.

They're going to have a game like last week against the Pats, and then they're just going to have stinkers and they're going to be all over the place.

A little bit of salty after watching the Pats get beat down by him.

No,

I think you're right.

I also think what really jumped out is if Bowers isn't 100% and he's clearly not, they just do not have the horses at wide receiver to compete as much as I love Jacoby Myers.

And especially with a quarterback like Gino, who's going to give your receiver a chance in one-on-ones, it just felt like

the receivers were not winning against, again, an exceptionally well-coached and talented Chargers secondary.

I'm going to whisper this because it's not a take.

Genty seems small in that game yesterday.

yesterday, and I know that's part of the package.

And he's a little guy, and we've seen a lot of little guys succeed, but you know, that Charger is a big physical defense, and it just, it, it was notable.

I don't know.

I'm not going to overreact to it yet.

I am going to overreact to a couple of the topics that we have.

I sent you some questions.

I'm excited to hit some of these, especially the last one.

But as the queen of the football nerds, I think that's your official title.

What is the nerdiest football nerd thing percolating right now that's bringing out your full football nerd two weeks in?

This isn't actually that nerdy per se, but a thing that I am obsessed with, and Dan Orlovsky and I talked about this before the season.

We did like an offensive trends pod, is just the number of teams that are almost measuring in two tight end offenses.

Right now, just through the first two weeks of the season, offenses have used two tight ends, 12 personnel, 25% of the time, which is the highest ever.

Like, that's a historic rate.

Um, even five, six years ago, it was way less than that.

And I think there's like a number of reasons for that, but it's like the really good teams as well, right?

Green Bay with Tucker Kraft, obviously, the Ravens are a good example.

Arizona has Trey McBride, Bowers when he's healthy.

So, there's really, really good tight ends now, but I also think it's a product of just how defense has gone over the last 10 years or so, getting lighter, playing more sub-packages.

So, offenses, this is kind of part of offenses is pushing back.

And it's been fun to watch because I think these tight ends are really good, really, really talented.

Do you think that's why it I haven't seen the numbers one way or the other, but do you think this is why scoring feels down a little bit, even though offense seems as competent as ever?

Because we have more 12 stuff and longer drives versus like the explosive stuff.

I don't know if scoring is down, but as far as like the explosive thing, that's like a multi-year trend for sure.

I mean, I mentioned the Chargers.

I think that's kind of, they're kind of a good microcosm for

why that might be happening or why defenses have gotten so good at limiting explosives.

I mean, through two games, Chargers are allowing three air yards per attempt, which is

granted, you know, you have the Chiefs, but as you saw week one, the Raiders can bomb it.

And they just kept everything in front of them.

They tackle so well.

They communicate so well.

And like the best defenses, the Chargers, the Packers, the Eagles, I think you saw them bounce back.

They're just really good at keeping everything in front of them and tackling that way.

Yeah.

Well, the other thing with the 12 personnel I've noticed, you mentioned a bunch of tight ends when you were listing the good ones, and we have a lot of good ones.

And we also have a lot of good second-tier good tight ends.

I like that guy in the Jaguars.

Strange.

I think he's good.

It feels like there's like 12 of those guys.

And he can block too.

Like, so that's the other thing about the 12 personnel.

It really only works.

So if you're going against these lighter-body defenses and who don't have, you know, they've gone in that direction over the last few years to stop high-powered passing attacks.

This goes back to the Pats and them changing football in that way.

If you want to be able to take advantage of mismatches, you really do have to at least be a threat to run.

So you have to have at least one tight end who can block so that when you're on the field, if defenses come out lights, cool.

We're going to.

use our big guys and just run the ball down your throats in nickel or dime, right?

Strange as one of them was, like he can block.

You're already seeing that.

Kraft in Green Bay is another great example of that.

Such a good blocker.

He's like such a throwback tight end to me.

And I think you're seeing a few of those guys around the league right now.

And this year's, I mean, good God, Tyler Warren, have you been watching?

I think if you're just redoing the draft or criticizing the Hunter thing is, I think, has a chance to be a real disaster just for what they gave up on him.

I'm not saying where he went in the draft as much as all the assets they gave up, but Chicago not taking Tyler Warren, when people for most of the college football season, then leading up to the draft process were like, Tyler Warren, he's going to be fucking awesome.

He's the best tight end.

And then there was this weird late surge from Loveland.

And then the Bears take Loveland and he falls to the Colts at 14, which is like him falling to 14 and Abuka falling at 19 feels like a miracle now.

But Warren's just like a beast.

Jesus.

Warren, like to, you're completely right.

I think everybody kind of overthought it.

And I also think he passes the, could a person who's never watched football put on a game and immediately say that's the best player on the field watching him in college?

Because he just took over games and did everything.

Obviously, whether it was wildcatting, yards after the catch.

He often was the entire offense.

And in retrospect, it does feel a little silly that the not only took over games against elite competition.

Of course, he's awesome.

But yeah, I think people, I'm not out on Ludland entirely.

I don't think he's even like top 10 in the reasons why that offense is struggling right now.

But yeah, Tyler Warren just looks like a superstar to me.

I did a lot of work on him when I threw myself into the draft, casual college football fan, Bill, but I think the Pats might trade back like two, three spots.

Yeah.

And then we're going to be in that Mason Graham, Tyler Warren thing.

And I was like, if we got this guy, this guy's very Gronkish.

I would never compare anyone and just say that's the next Gronk because there will never be another Gronk.

But there was some Gronk vicinity stuff he was doing.

It's a Colts had to be delighted.

He's like perfect for them.

He looks amazing.

Are you feeling better about missing out on Hunter?

You talked about Hunter and getting Will Campbell through two weeks.

I wanted Carter.

I mean, I think Carter was the prize.

Yeah.

All right.

Yeah.

I would have.

I never, the Hunter thing, I don't like things that I haven't seen before, just in anything, in any capacity in life, like technology, when there's some like new car that came out or some new iPhone that they've created out of thin air, I'm like, I kind of want to see it work before I know it's going to

be beast on football games.

You just stop saying Hunter, who did this in college, is now going to do this in the pros for 17 games a year against the biggest, strongest, best athletes we have in the world.

I was just a little dubious.

The thing that really I feel like maybe was underplayed too during the offseason was most NFL players were dubious of it.

Like there were all these quotes from actual players on both sides of the ball ball who were kind of skeptical of it.

And

it's way too early, obviously, to come up with, but he has not been made the impact you would have liked to see from a guy drafted that high.

And you do wonder if the demands on him are too much at this point in his career.

I think it's a completely legitimate question.

On our Ringer Fantasy football show, the guys were joking that he's expensive Wandale Robinson and then decided it was actually an insult to Wandell Robinson because Wandell Robinson was really good this last week.

And he was like, if Travis Hunter could be as good as Wandell Robinson, I think the prototype for me, because when the Pats were doing this with Edelman in the mid-2000s, they were using him as like this nickel dime back and then as a receiver.

And he was playing both sides, but there was less responsibility on the defense.

And I think that's kind of where this would have to go, where you're basically just covering slot guys or you're in playing a zone in one area on one side, and then you're just doing a receiver stuff.

It never never made sense to me that somebody would just play a little bit of corner.

I actually thought the reverse made more sense, right?

Like just he's full-time corner with like a little receiver?

Yeah, you bring him in on maybe like for big plays or in the red zone or on screens, if that's what you want to use him the way you want to use him.

But I thought like it's so hard to play cornerback in the NFL.

You have to study so many things, not just scheme, but like individual players' tendencies.

It's it's tricky.

So yeah, it might look better much later on than it does earlier.

And I think that's completely within the realm of possibility for Travis Hunter.

Well, after he probably looked at the king of the hospital balls, Trevor Lawrence, for a couple months, he's probably like, I should play defense.

Defense looks great.

I don't have to go across the middle with some balls sailing over my head and two safeties targeting me.

One of your other questions kind of hit on the divisive wallet, you set it up.

But Lawrence isn't even divisive at this point, though, right?

It feels like people are pretty critical of him.

He deserves all the criticism.

Just play well and do well in the red zone.

Just fix those two things.

Don't sell balls in your traffic and hurt your receivers and don't frustrate the red zone.

I'm going to give you a part.

I think I count as a partial nerd.

Yeah, of course.

I was doing a lot of DBOA stuff back in the day.

I was having Aaron shots on the pod.

I think this kickoffs thing is nuts.

And I don't know how nerdy of a topic of this or just a football thing, but it feels like it like

if 52-year-old Belichick was coaching right now, not North Carolina near the tail end, dating a 26-year-old Belichick,

I think he would have spent so much time on this kickoff thing and felt like this was the greatest inefficiency to exploit.

We're seeing kickoff returns all the time.

We're seeing the way people actually kick the ball off, like with these angles and stuff.

I just think he would have absolutely loved it.

And I think it's had a dramatic difference.

Like, somebody kicked the ball in the end zone last night in the first game, and it was like the ball goes out to the 35.

It's like the 35, like that's

what just kick it out of bounds and put it in the 40 at that point.

But I was surprised how impactful it was.

What about you?

It's completely impactful.

You're getting way more returns, which is what they, it was interesting how much just that five-yard tweak affected the return rate, right?

Because last year, a lot of coaches were like, screw it, let's just kick it at the end zone.

And this year, you know, 35 is just too, there's such a difference.

It's just five yards, but there's such a difference, especially with these kickers, who are banging it from 60 right now.

You don't even have to go that far to put up points on the board.

Dallas is in field group position with one first down.

That was crazy when they ran the draw to just set him up for 64 yards.

I've never seen anything like that.

Javante to the left for four yards.

Back to the kickoffs, though.

Are you pro or are you aligned with the president here who's very, he seems very upset about the kickoff?

he was he caught what did he call it sissy football uh

yeah which is not actually uh

dare i have an opinion on this um it you're seeing more collisions and more actions so it's not more it's you can say it's weird but it's certainly not yeah sissy is not the yeah i wouldn't have used that that phrase but

i think they overdid it and and next year they'll unwind it back but i think it's too much of an advantage now but i like the spirit of it i thought it sucked watching kickoffs wasn't fun it was like oh cool the guy downed in the end zone again now it's now you don't want to miss it you don't want to go the bathroom if there's gonna be a kickoff especially with certain teams but i think just taking it to the 35 is at that point here's the thing this is where the larry david rule of let's just get rid of field goal kickers would make this more interesting if we had the kickoff rule combined with no field goals for the first three quarters of the game or something.

Then it's like, okay, they started 35, but they still have to go 65 to score.

Now I'm a little more, now the balance feels better, but they'll never do that.

I feel like in 10 years, not even 20, they're going to look back at people who started watching Fuadao or even recently, and they'll be in disbelief that it was ever done the other way, that it was just a touchback city.

I actually like field goals.

I think

it gets maligned because it's not really football and it's soccer players and whatever, and how many teams have been felled by, you know, being great teams that have bad kickers.

But I think it adds like a level of draw.

It's one of the many things that adds a level of drama to NFL games that is kind of unmatched.

What if I gave you a limit?

You could only kick four field goals in a game.

That would be so funny to watch the amount of mistakes that coaches make in managing trying to figure it out or setting up a field goal and not realize that they already pressed the limit for it.

I was thinking about that with the Colts game.

That would have been a fun rank.

I was like, well, they can't kick their fifth.

Oh, my God.

Because they've already kicked four.

Right.

So they're going to have to go for this.

That's.

When would you use up your field goals?

I actually like that idea.

Bonus topic.

I didn't send this one to you.

Oh, boy.

It just became a story today.

And I always judge it by if I'm getting texts about something from random people in my life, then that must mean something's happening.

Tom Brady is this cheating that he's in the Fox booth, but then also you've done these games.

I've done the basketball version of it where you get to meet the coach and talk about the players.

It's a little overrated.

It's not like they're like, here's our game plan.

It's more stuff like,

we really like Tucker Kraft.

He's been a pleasant surprise.

It's not, here's our game plan, but what do you think of Tom Brady being able to do this?

I am a little surprised by how upset people are about the competitive integrity side of it

because of what you said.

So obviously preseason games are very different, but I was kind of asked, I asked Dan last night, like, so have you ever really gotten something in a production meeting where you felt like, whoa, I can't believe they're telling us this.

And no, you're right.

It's pretty mundane stuff.

So I don't feel like he's compromising, like, he has an unfair advantage for his team.

I think if

anyone should be bothered by it, I suppose it would be the perception of bias in the booth, maybe from a media perspective.

If you feel like.

If anything, I think he's probably going to go out of his way to be like nice to divisional opponents when he's calling games.

That would be my guess.

But yeah, I don't, I don't really see the edge.

It's, I think it bothers people because it not because of the substance of it, but because of the appearance of just like, oh, he's above the rules, right?

Like, of course, Tom Brady gets allowed to do it.

I don't think the actual substance of it is that bad.

I agree with you.

I remember I did,

I announced the Lakers game when Mike D'Antoni was the coach.

And it's not like he was telling us a lot, but what you do get is the vibe of the coach about his team because they feel feel more comfortable, right?

You're coming to their space and he didn't, his team wasn't good.

He couldn't have been more candid about that off the record.

So you just kind of absorb that and be like, he doesn't think his team's very good.

But then if they mention a player, they're like, I'm really excited about this guy.

He's made big strides.

You're like, okay, you file that away.

And then when you're talking about the game, you're like, Mike, and that's how you hear that.

When we talked to Mike before, he told us he really liked how so-and-so was playing.

You're not getting, they might tell you one thing.

Like Collinsworth will be like, they told us they were going to try that before the game, right?

Some sort of double pass or something.

Yeah, right.

Other than that, they're not giving you a game strategy.

Like, we think we can throw in the Chargers over the middle.

They're never telling an announcer that.

How often does they really like this guy from the summer like pan out to feel like right?

Well, that it with the pats with booty, they were doing that all summer.

And then, yeah, then he actually like, they throw to him and he makes plays.

So that, that wasn't a lie.

Yeah.

They kept telling me, not they, anyone, the Patriots, but my friends who cover that team kept saying he's the ex-receiver in this offense.

And I was really skeptical of it.

But through two weeks, he definitely looks like the ex-receiver.

I thought the, the, uh, he caught like a back shoulder ball in this last game was really impressive.

Well, the thing with him was he was a first-round pick for a while.

And then he had some off-the-field stuff and it knocked him down.

And a lot of times in football, those guys, somebody takes a flyer on them.

You keep your fingers crossed.

Then Then there's like the Jalen Carter situation where they just fall a couple picks.

But for the most part, it's a Jack Jones thing where the guy starts just bouncing around.

But they actually seem like they might have

lucked out with him.

All right.

So we both agree, not a big deal, this Tom Brady thing.

Yeah.

I get why people don't like it.

I just am not that worked up about the competitive part of it.

How excited can I be for Drake May right now?

Two games in the season on a scale of one to 10.

Did we make it 20 minutes before you brought it up?

We're going to break.

I thought this would be a quick quick appetizer for the bigger topic we have.

He looked really good this weekend.

The Miami Dolphins tax or I guess benefit certainly whatever the opposite of attacks is is real.

That defense is god-awful.

Yeah, they can pass rush on third and eight.

That's about it.

It's weird how bad the pass rush is because that was supposed to be the good part of the team, right?

We knew that they had a horrible secondary, but like the pass rush was supposed to be good.

He made some really impressive throws in this game.

The throw to Stevenson on third down, one of the best throws of his career.

Just on the money.

By the way, amazing catch, dude.

Stevenson's good.

I was really encouraged watching the offense just like as a whole, not just May, because I felt like week one against the Raiders, it didn't feel like

they didn't quite have an identity and they weren't with Josh McDaniels, right, and him kind of feeling each other out.

It was, I thought, too much on May's shoulders.

This one, it felt like, okay, we're really building the play action, passing, attack down.

We've got the power running game that has been kind of McDaniel's hallmark.

And May was hitting almost everything off of it.

So I think that marriage is going to be key to whether or not this works out.

I am lower on the pats than you.

I think that pass defense is pretty concerning to me.

Well, we don't have all our guys yet, Mina.

Yeah, no, Christian Gonzalez is pretty massive.

Not only no Christian Gonzalez, no.

No word on Christian Gonzalez.

What's up with that?

I don't know.

That was stuck up on me.

I didn't even know the season started started and it was like Christian Gonzales isn't playing.

Is he in Massachusetts?

Is he in America?

Where is he?

He got hurt in the end of July.

Yeah.

But that's, we've seen some cornerbacks go down this year.

I mean, the Bears are in a situation

right now.

It's still going.

All right.

We're going to take a quick break and then have a big QB thing for you.

Love it.

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All right, QB appetizer question.

Why can't we admit that Josh and Lamar are the two best regular season quarterbacks that we have?

Why are we still holding on to this Mahomes thing when it's three long balls over people's heads and they're scoring 21 points a game now for this will be year three?

I think with Mahomes, it feels like trying to catch a falling knife where nobody wants to

just completely miss it, right?

The timing of it.

And also,

it is so obvious that his circumstances are are so much worse.

I know

he

overthrew a couple deep balls and he has not been connecting that.

Well, the thing about deep balls, though, is like you don't, it requires a lot.

Pass protection has to hold up.

The guy has to be in the right place.

He's throwing it.

Bill, it's Tyquan Thornton is their number one deep threat.

They have two guys we waved.

Yeah, so there's your answer.

It's Tyquan Thornton.

I mean, it's, it's just,

and I, I, I, I, Josh and Lamar are the two best quarterbacks in football right now.

I don't disagree with you.

I'm just trying to answer your question.

Those guys both have dominant rushing attacks and really good offensive lines.

And they don't have world beaters, but they have good pass-catching options.

Yeah.

I mean, Mahomes is like, where would you rank his situation right now as a quarterback around the NFL?

Everything.

Run game, offensive line, skill players.

I know, but Brady was in this situation six years in his career, in his prime.

There it is.

It's true.

We had the famous Roche Caldwell year, Rasha Caldwell, Jabbar Gaffney, with Benjamin Watson as the tight end.

Like it was, that was the word, we almost won the Super Bowl that year with that.

Caldwell's the one who went to, had a weird crime, right?

Am I misremembering that?

Very possible.

Well, his big crime was the AFC title game

for Pats fans.

Okay.

But it was bad last year and he went to the goddamn Super Bowl.

That's why nobody wants to call it on Mahomes because last year we were calling it and he freaking beat the went to the end.

I just think there's two different conversations.

One is who would you want for one game or one quarter?

And then one is who would you want for a season?

And at this point, he's just, I don't even,

I mean, it's Allen and Lamar for MVP and Jordan Love if they win 14 to 15 games.

Herbert is like a dark horse now.

But I don't see a scenario Mahomes is going to be in that conversation with the team he has.

If they, do you, does any part of you believe if Mahomes was on those other two teams that those offenses wouldn't be dominant?

Well, so this is a great question because this is one of my MVP

things that I do for NBA, where if you just flip the guys, what happens?

If Allen was on the Chiefs,

they would not be worse.

I'll just say that.

And I think there's some stuff that would happen, at least for the regular season, though, would not be worse.

Lamar is an interesting one because

you know they had this amazing running situation with the lion and with henry um i think they know what their offense is with him completely so if you just like transferred that i think it would be a little clumsy but i i just think josh is the best guy in the league and that that this is why i picked him in the super bowl i can't believe i bet against them last week with the fucking jets i'm still mad at myself but I think he's going to get one.

I just really, not to do like shitty sports content, but I just think he's going to get one.

He's too good.

You know, it's like, it's like Jokic Giannis in the NBA.

Like, I don't see how he doesn't win a Super Bowl at some point.

I think the Bills and the Ravens are just so in a tier on their own right now in the AFC.

So you could pick either of those guys and it would be completely believable to me.

I just think with Bahomes, like, okay, so I, the other question I asked, who's got a worst situation?

Who's got a worst?

Which one?

A quarterback.

Tell me which quarterback is in a worse situation right now in terms of like the infrastructure around them.

But as part of that infrastructure, though, you have to count in.

I've had the same offense for eight years.

I've had the same coaching situation, the same everything.

Like that matters a little bit.

There's some sort of stability.

Is the run game good?

I mean,

I would not slander Andy Reid.

He is still one of the best coaches in the NFL, but like

let me

kind of dumb it down.

Is there an offense that's less pleasant to watch right now?

No, only the Eagles, just because the Eagles actually have some talent.

It is, it's funny, though, that he's replicating this weird stretch of Brady's career where he was so good that they just felt like they could throw away the talent at all these, you know, seemingly important offensive positions.

And it, like, their running backs are terrible.

There's not a single running back that you think can even bust a 10-yard run at this point.

That's, if I had to criticize them for like a roster perspective, that would, that's the one thing that jumps out to me because, you know, we can't kind of talk about both sides of both sides of our mouth, pardon me, and criticize the Bengals for not investing at all in their offensive line and paying these two great receivers, but then also say, well, the Chiefs chose to focus on the trenches and not receiver and not their skill players.

You know, it's a different strategy.

The running back thing, though, to me, like you can get, you can find a cool running back in the fifth round, right?

Like, why not try?

Yeah.

I harder in the mid-rounds.

I would have drafted someone.

I don't know.

It looks the whole run game right now looks so bad.

Well, he's at an interesting point in his career because

he is the run game.

You know, I do think he's been passed

by those guys, at least from a week to week, just when you're watching football.

He just seems like he's less impactful than some of these other guys and more in that like Jordan Love area, which for somebody that we were saying had a chance to be the best guy of all time,

lost a little momentum.

So I'm just, I'm monitoring it.

Anyway,

how many 2025 QBs

in your mind can conceivably win a 2025 playoff game?

And Mahomes is definitely one of them.

And so is Alan and Lamar.

And so is Jalen Hurts, who just won the Super Bowl.

And so is,

I think Jordan Love has to be there just because his team's so good.

I'd be shocked if they didn't win a playoff game.

So there's five.

Would you still put Stafford on the list from what you've seen from him physically?

Oh my God.

Yes.

He is like making some of the best throws of any quarterback early on.

He looks unbelievable.

I have him as well.

There's six.

Goff has to be on there because he's won playoff games.

Ironically, Mayfield is 100% on there.

And you saw again last night, like, not only has he won playoff games, not only has that team been successful,

but, you know, they'd go down five with two minutes left.

I'm like, I feel like they're going to win.

I just, I believe in that dude, right?

He pulls up that big fourth and 10, but it's crazy that that guy got waved twice

and is now as reliable.

You must love him.

I love watching him.

I love watching that offense.

I mean, the combination of backs, Bucky Irving and Rashad White, they basically salted that thing away.

And behind, you know, they had like a center playing left tackle.

They lost the right tackle going up against one of the best defenses in all of football.

And they were grinding them down Irving in the catch game as well.

But yeah, I think Bayfield's definitely in that category.

Jane Daniels, did you mention them already?

Yeah, I had the next two I had were Purdy and Daniels just because they'd both done it.

So there's nine.

There's nine guys we think can conceivably win a 2025 playoff game.

Now we get, now the fun part starts.

Justin Herbert.

Oh, you left out Dak.

I would put Dak in there too.

I didn't get to him yet.

Oh, so sorry.

Justin Herbert.

That was one tier.

Okay, now we're in the

debate tier.

Okay.

It's the debate tier.

Justin Herbert.

100%.

Yes.

I think I have him too.

100%.

But, I mean, this was a

sidebar question, but he's now the most polarizing quarterback of this decade.

I think Dak had the title for a couple of years and now Herbert just has it because people are so passionate about it.

You think,

because I feel like that island, the week one against Kansas City was such a strong showing.

He was so good in that game.

It felt like the divide, like if it was 60 pro, 40 anti.

anti-Herbert, I feel like it moved to 70-30 after that game.

Well, because there's the potential, camp

and the I see things that once this team is better.

And then there's just like the results camp, which was where I was more in.

It's like, okay, well, if he's one of the seven best guys in the league, can he win a playoff game?

Can he do this consistently?

Let's see it.

Let's see him win 12 games.

Yesterday, he's awesome

for

two and a half quarters.

And then he kind of slipped back into the other Justin Herbert for the fourth quarter and did some weird stuff, had some bad throws, should have gotten picked once.

Kept trying to have the Raiders hang around in that game.

And

I was like, man, you had us.

Yeah, they kind of charged a little bit in that one.

They did.

But I think the defense is so good that

there's like a floor for this team right now.

I also like the way he's playing this year.

He's scrambling way more.

He's a little feistier out there.

He's,

Herbert's a no-doubter for me.

Can win a play.

I think he's won me over, at least for winning one playoff game.

Dak Prescott, who's never won a playoff game?

Has he won a playoff game?

Dude, he put up one of the all he destroyed the books in the wild card round.

It was there.

That's right.

He's won a wild card game.

He's never gotten past round one, though, right?

No.

I think that's what he's doing.

Yeah, he's never won, gotten past that.

I have him on the list.

So there's

this.

Now it gets really interesting.

42-year-old Aaron Rodgers.

I don't think so.

I'm out as well.

I think it's just a no.

Did you see what he looked like when they're, well, of course you did.

It was your team.

Yeah.

When they were actually pressuring him, it was not good.

So

there's, he still is capable of making some of the most impressive throws off platform you'll see, right?

Like, and you see them kind of go viral the next week, but

the consistency when he has to hold the ball for more than two and a half seconds is simply not there.

And I think that's a good thing.

I will say he's moving a little better than I was expecting this season.

I think he looks better this year than last year.

There's no question.

He made some really impressive throws on the run in this game.

But for me, when I say I don't see them winning a playoff game, it's about the team.

It's not just Aaron.

So if you have a quarterback who's, he can still make some really impressive throws.

He's still really good on quick game.

You saw that in week one against what looks like a pretty bad Jets defense.

Okay, you can win that way, but you got to be able to run the football.

You need more than one playmaker and you need a good defense.

And holy smokes, that defense looks really bad the first few weeks of this, which is kind of shocking.

Yeah, and Heisman's already hurt, but you know, it's not, it's shocking, but it's also not shocking because the seeds were being planted last year down the stretch, right?

Yeah, they got spanked by the players.

Like, remember that?

All of a sudden, they just died, and they, and Watt didn't get a sack for like the last month and plus of the season.

I mean, your beloved Seattle Seahawks just ran all over them in that that game.

Kenneth Walker looked incredible.

Walker was great.

There's just going to be no way to figure out who's going to be good game-to-game between Walker and Charbonnet, though.

All right.

Like, if you're juggling those guys in fantasy, good luck.

Good luck.

Like, Charbonnet was terrible in Pittsburgh, and he'll probably have 120 yards this next game.

All right, Rodgers, we're out.

Gimpy Joe Burrow coming off a major turf toe injury on a Bengals team that probably isn't winning nine games.

I think he's a cross-off just for this year.

Yeah.

All right, now it gets really interesting.

Can Bo Nicks win a playoff game?

Oh, this is the one I was dreading.

I think he is, you talked about Herbert, but I think he's going to be the most divisive quarterback, maybe for like.

It's already happening.

It's happening.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He took the torch.

He looked better.

I have a lot of Broncos capital for this year.

I'm officially nervous.

Yeah.

He looked better, I thought, in week two, but

better from a guy that had four turnovers in week week one.

Yeah.

I do worry the premise for the Broncos for me this year being really good was the defense would continue to be elite and then they would be able to really run the ball better behind a great offensive line.

They invest a lot in it.

It looks okay early on, but it feels like there's still a ceiling on the offense.

And so you really need the defense to avoid regression.

And they just got carved up.

by Sandy Dimes.

Shocking.

That was that was stunning to me.

Although shocking, but on the other hand, we talked about Tyler Warren earlier and how he's just immediately good.

Taylor looks like,

I think maybe the best he's ever looked.

Like just, he just looks the fastest, the shiftiest, just everything.

And you really saw like the weakness.

He really exposed, I thought, the weakness of the Broncos defense, which is the linebacker unit.

Dre Greenlaw has him playing because they got him on those backers

vertically.

And like

one of my, it's, I'm, I think it's too early to take a Daniel Jones victory lap.

Not, not me, for people who are supportive of him, but it's not too early for me to take a nail on being very skeptical of why the Colts, it wasn't about Witt Richardson for me.

It was, I thought, well, there's clearly a ceiling on this offense with Daniel Dimes.

Like, you really, as a Colts fan, you want to go into the season.

And I think Shane Steichen looked at him and saw a quarterback who could actually execute his offense.

And his offense is really good.

He's a really good play caller.

So that, that even if I think Jones is going to come back to earth a little bit, particularly on the downfield stuff and under pressure, but he can just run that offense.

Is he on this list, by the way?

Are we going to get to him?

Because he is on the list.

Yes.

Well, he did already win a playoff game.

True, and he looked worse that year to me.

It's so funny because nobody wanted to pick Houston to win the AFC South, right?

We're all doing the three and three out row.

I need to get a couple playoff teams out, put a couple in.

And we all stared at Indianapolis.

I remember I was listening to Nate and Shield did a pod,

and they talked about it.

And I was just like, I have my train ticket thinking about this and I couldn't get there because of Jones.

But when you think like they can block for him, he's got a good coordinator.

They have actual weapons.

And I would say they have one of the three or four best running backs.

Totally fair.

And Warren might be a top five tight end already or top six, top seven, whatever.

He's at least somebody on third and four.

He can get up and make a play.

I don't know.

I mean, they're the favorites in the division now, especially after Houston goes 0-2.

And Houston's line looked like who has a worse line than Houston?

Three teams?

It's just

so depressing to watch because it just feels like last year all over again.

Yeah.

And it turns out taking.

offensive linemen from bad offensive lines in free agency isn't a good strategy for rebuilding.

I, I, it's, yeah, I think

AFC South is going to be pretty close.

I think the other thing about the Colts that I like, though, is I like the defense.

I know that they had a little, they gave up some big plays to Bo Knicks, but I think Lou Anarumo was like the wrong coach for the Bengals.

He might be the right coach for a defense that has more veterans, and that's what Indianapolis is.

Yeah, I don't.

I said on Sunday night that's a after the Saints going 2-0 last year, and we got like, whoa, look at this.

and then it could be the rabbit team this year that just jumps out um i also thought they should have lost to denver and they did lose and for some reason there was a weird leverage play so if they're one and one are we are we as excited probably not um

cj stroud i do not think will win a playoff game at least this year with that offensive line i don't see a path yeah i don't even if they sneak in i don't see it it

It is, it was interesting to watch him last night too, in contrast with the Bucs offense, because, right, because the Bucs offense also, like, they had makeshift offensive line, and the Texans' defensive line was just, they were just completely destroying them on line scrimmage.

But Baker, I thought, did a good job getting the ball quickly.

They like schemed up a lot of successful screens, and then the run game was still good.

And it feels like Stroud has no easy buttons.

And I'm not completely exonerating him on some of the pressure stuff and there's situations where he's probably holding the ball too long.

But like, does everything he

does in this offense have to be at like the hardest possible setting at all times?

It just feels exactly like last year.

Good point.

Yeah, it's, it's like the all-time feast or famine.

Like, how about just an eight-yard pass to somebody?

Yeah.

Um, I have no for Stroud.

I'm not going to say no for your guy, Sam Darnold, because I still like that Seattle team.

And I'm probably in the all-time minority.

And I'm sure on your Seahawks text thread, you're not nearly as excited.

But I think I like the team.

I think they can run the ball.

He's a roller coaster, but but you've had that for the last decade anyway.

So it's not anything different.

And I don't mind the defense.

Don't mind.

They're awesome.

Yeah.

I think this is one of the five best defenses in football.

I hope you're right.

That's what I was banking on when I picked them to win the NFC West.

But I don't mind how the defense looked.

The first week against the Niners, I thought there were a couple of stops maybe you got to get that they didn't get, but they were better in the Pittsburgh game.

Yeah.

This is a really tough one for me because

I am still still a little apprehensive of this passing attack.

It looked better against Pittsburgh, but well, you have an amazing receiver.

One.

You've one amazing receiver.

Jake Boba.

No, just kidding.

Jack Smith and Jaba.

Yeah, he's unbelievable.

Cup was good against the Steelers, but I don't know if there's enough.

The premise of this Seahawks offense under Clint Kubiak is they're going to come out with big bodies.

They got a tight end or a fullback who's built like SpongeBob, multiple tight ends, and they're going to pound the rock and then they're going to play action off of that wide zone run game.

And they're going to put Sam Darnold under center.

And when it works, it looks really good.

And at times against the Steelers, it worked, but did not look good week one.

So I think it's just going to be up and down based on competition.

It's going to be on the defense, it's going to have to carry them in a lot of these.

Here's their path for a Sam Darnold playoff win:

you have to win the division and you win the 4-5 game.

And the five-seed would be

Detroit?

It would not be.

I don't see that.

Okay.

I'm skeptical.

I would love it.

I like Sam Dardal just seems like a delight.

I would love for him to have success.

Pennex?

I don't see it.

It's nice that they got a pass rush going, though.

I kind of like the team.

I wouldn't rule it out.

I just think the Bucs are better, and I don't see them as a wild.

You know what I mean?

I just think the Bucs are going to win the NSC South.

Okay,

and then we go Drake May, Kyler, Gino, Caleb Williams.

We're going no on all those guys.

No on May.

So you're out?

I think you can make the playoffs.

I don't think they're beating Buffalo or Baltimore in round one.

They could be a seven seed.

They're not going to Buffalo and winning in mid-January.

Dines is the only one out of everybody else we mentioned.

I was like, shit, maybe,

I don't know.

They could be the four seed.

Yeah, I think I might be a conceivable yes.

It still seems inconceivable, but I really like

I am not, I do not think this is going to continue at this rate.

No.

But I was just looking at this for NFL Live.

He's completing 78% of his short passes, which is top five.

Anthony Richardson completed the lowest

by a lot.

It was, he was the only quarterback in the NFL last year completing less than 60% of his short passes.

Right.

That to me is sustainable.

Like Like Daniel Jones, he's always hit those.

And when you got a bunch of like mutant skill players like Warren and Taylor, and they've got a really good group of receivers.

And I love Josh Downs.

And

yeah, they can be efficient on offense.

Line looks good.

I'm a believer.

Well, they have at the Titans this week that has all the makings of just Vegas getting annihilated

at the Rams, then home Raiders, home Cardinals.

It's like not an inconceivable five and one after six games for them,

which is kind of bonkers to think about.

Okay, a couple more things before we go.

The NFC West, what's happening there?

We talked about the Seahawks a little, but what's going on?

Is this going to be the wonky division this year that we just every like almost like last year?

Every week it seems like somebody's the favorite and then somebody loses and then it's a new favorite.

That's just what we're going to do.

Three 2-0 teams right now in the NFC West.

Are they the only?

They must be the only division in football.

Let's see.

They're only in the yeah.

Yeah.

They're the only division.

And the Seahawks are one and one and

they played the Niners week one.

So yeah, I think I felt before the year that this was like the closest knit division, right?

Where like all four teams would be close.

And I definitely still feel that way.

I think early on, Matthew Stafford kind of has reminded us that he's still cut above.

And

that offense to me is has a higher ceiling than all four of them.

But when you look at the teams as a whole, I could see it coming down to the wire between all of them because the Seahawks have the best defense.

The Niners are probably the most balanced, but then there's the pretty but have the least depth and already had multiple injuries.

And I don't know.

The Cardinals are really hard for me to get my arms around because Tyler is like one of the more high variance.

quarterbacks in football.

Like there's moments where he looks, to me, unbelievable and he makes Marvin Harrison Jr.

look good early on, but then there's stretches where he's just not playing to the level he's capable of.

Well, on FanDuel right now, the Niners are plus 155.

The Rams are plus 170.

The Cardinals are plus 350.

And then Seattle's eight to one, which I just, I just don't fundamentally understand.

Because I agree with you.

I think those teams are all bunched together.

A lot of it's going to come down to injury luck.

You know, there's going to be three or four absolutely stupid games

between two of the teams, right?

We're going to have like a 19 to 18

scoreigami, some sort of field goal hitting both uprights before it goes through.

Like, you just know weird shit's going to happen, but I think it's anybody's division.

So the eight to one was really surprising to me.

If they all played each other, like in every matchup, I don't think any of them would have more than a score.

They would probably all be like 4.3 points or less.

Right.

So yeah, I mean, to me, it's just going to come down to matchups and injuries for all of them.

The Niners, I mean, that's just a reflection of the schedule being so easy, right?

But

they didn't look like world beaters.

I mean, they look better in Seattle if obviously they won that game and particularly on offense.

And the defense looks somewhat fixed under Robert Salo.

But I think you win that game if you just go for the fourth down.

And McDonald's saying afterwards that

the nerds told him to go for it and he kind of overruled them.

I know.

I was surprised by that.

I was too, because I really like him.

I'm a big fan of him.

And I thought he was really good at game management last year.

I was surprised by that.

Sometimes, you know, when these defensive coaches get an elite defense on their hands, they start.

They over trust it.

Yeah.

But yeah, I don't think he'll.

I think next time he'll probably be more.

He was more aggressive in this last game, too.

Speaking of division odds, this would be your overreaction.

This happens every year heading into week three.

Colts are plus 135 on FanDuel.

Jags are 2-1, and and the texans are down to plus 250.

it feels a little overreacting we were 15 games left like they still have the best secondary probably in the league they still have a pass rush

is unbelievable they have the best

i still think they might have the best defense in the nfl um they might have just lost to two playoff teams the rams and tampa who might be the third and fourth best teams in the nfc for all we know i don't know that feels like an overreaction to me the 0-2 thing is hard to i mean the rams did it, right?

But it's hard to dig your.

I mean, every year someone does it.

Yeah, every year somebody does it.

I think that does.

I agree.

I think that feels, especially compared to the Jacks.

Well, you sound from reading between the lines of you on this podcast today, but also text with you and Danny Kelly.

I'm going to say there's like a cautious buzz right now in Seahawks Nation, just like a little.

You were so high on them this summer.

Just somebody's got to win the division.

I just, they seem like the safest pick to me.

Everybody was talking about the Arizona Cardinals, and I'm like, what have they ever done?

I have to pick Tyler Murray.

Why do I have to do that?

I feel like your Seahawks enthusiasm like reverse psychology

psychologized me into being negative.

I'm learning a lot about this as the mother of a two-year-old, which is you can't sell someone too hard on something because it makes them not want it.

And I feel like you did that to me a little bit with your Seahawks hype this offseason.

How old is your child exactly?

He turns two in two weeks.

Oh, good luck, man.

That is just

good luck.

Two-year-old boys, just demons.

Yeah.

Good luck.

I wish you the best.

That's going to be during football season.

Oh my God.

No, it's great.

I love being told no.

No, no, no, no, no,

is.

the most popular word in our house right now.

Just good luck.

I wish you the best.

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Thursday Night Football is on and it's only on Prime.

This week, NFC West rivals meet again as the San Francisco 49ers visit the Los Angeles Rams.

The NFC West looks like it is our best division of the eight.

Every time anybody plays this division, it always feels like it's going to come down to the wire.

It's always hard to figure out.

I'm always nervous, whatever side I have.

Listen, it's going to be a good one.

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All right, last question, and most important,

some huge Jaden Daniels news.

And

what's the deal?

Just walk us through your emotions here.

Me and the

injury.

Yeah.

Oh,

forget the injury.

He'll be fine.

No, the other news.

You had me queued up.

I was like, he took 206 instances of contact last year in the open field.

He's just too vulnerable.

I'm already on that.

I've been saying that the house forever.

Well, the big Jane Daniels news, which is that he is one-eighth Japanese, which he broke, which is important.

So this is not my

contingent

assigning designation.

Yeah, he put it on his helmet.

He wore it because they read the little flags.

Put the Japanese flag on his helmet.

And so we're going to say his grandmother was

Japanese or half Japanese?

His great-grandmother is Japanese, so his grandmother is half Japanese.

So, his mom is a quarter, so he's an eighth, right?

I think I did the math right, but I did a deep dive, Bill.

Yes, I spoke to him

on his mom's Instagram like eight years and found several pictures.

His grandma just looks like my relatives.

So,

um,

listen, I said to Dominique when the news broke, it was a big piece of breaking news in my community.

Yeah.

Any quarterback with a QBR of 90 or higher, we'll take anything.

You can be one 24th Korean and we will claim you're if you're performing the way Jaden Daniels does.

But another piece of news broke, Cameron Dicker,

the Chargers kicker, he's like really good.

Chinese.

Saw that.

There was a graphic that came across.

What's the percentage?

The graphic doesn't break it down.

So I'll have to do another deep dive in there.

But

I think you needed Daniels because I know Chang was really upset about Koo

kind of falling apart in Atlanta.

We needed a kicker, so we got one now.

So what was, what was Heinz Ward?

He was, he was Thai, right?

No, he was Korean.

Korean?

Yeah.

This is a big deal for me growing up.

Yeah, but how

he was like, he was way more than Jaden Daniels.

I'm pretty sure he was 50%,

if I remember.

And he took it really seriously.

We got a good squad going.

I did the whole list.

I I might have to update the roster.

We're very

roster.

Yeah, I put together a whole roster.

We're very strong.

Surprisingly strong at Skill Player because we got Puka.

It's

AANHPI

because we need all the PIs in the trenches that we can get.

The whole offensive line is basically.

Although the Browns, Broncos Center is part Korean, I think I found out recently.

And it's a golden age for Asian safeties, led, of course, by our king Kyle Hamilton.

I forgot.

But there's like 10 right now around the league safeties

for some reason i don't know why

um we're pretty thin at tight end we need if any if there any anyone's listening to this and knows any tight end who has even just just a little bit please alert me because we we really need tight end i honestly if this was a twitter account i would follow it

like monitoring the news breaking news we need like a like an aggregator account that only does that like a like a dove climbing but not evil account that just reports on Asian NFL news.

Yeah, I don't feel like Chang's been focused enough on it at all, to be honest.

I know he's busy.

The Netflix show came back.

You and I were on it a couple of weeks ago.

He's he's traveling around with Amazon.

He's already been knocked out of my guillotine league.

He was very upset about that.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

But I don't feel like he's been focused enough on this Dana thing because that's his favorite team.

I know.

When I sent it to him, I expected a way bigger reaction than the one we did.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on.

Maybe he's slow playing it, maybe it's too much pressure now.

Because it's like kind of crossed the beams for him with

two different areas of interest.

This is like, I don't, I don't know if you do this, we've never talked about it.

I don't draft Seahawks in fantasy for this exact reason, which is you don't want two feelings of loyalty and incentive at the same time.

Do you do that?

I'm the opposite.

I, I, I, I, like, I have Trayvion Henderson multiple leagues.

Meanwhile, meanwhile, I can't block.

Yeah.

He was, well, I was promised a pass blocker.

I was promised this awesome pass blocker that then could play three downs.

And he's three holding penalties last week.

Yeah.

Dave might also be so reeling from your bold anti-rice take that got a big reaction.

It wasn't anti-race.

It was pro-pasta.

It was, you can't rate anything highly that you can make in one minute.

I just said you can't make pasta in one minute.

Listen, my goal on that show is just to try to throw Chang off so he

is thinking he's mad about something I said and then he forgets what he's cooking.

But you did the amazing thing of you go on dinner time live three hours after you had lunch.

Yeah, that was.

And then I'm the one who has to do all the eating and you're just like picking like a little bird because you're not hungry.

Well, and you're not a big eater, too.

I have seen you

have to do it.

I don't want to be like mowing down on live TV.

So

there is something

you're very self-conscious on those shows because you want to eat and it's really good, but you also don't want to seem like you're in good fellas.

You know what happened to me on that show?

I didn't, I don't know if I told you this.

So early, Dave started making all this green food and he made mandu, which I grew up eating.

And you remember, I was like, yeah, I grew up making this with my mom and whatever.

He puts it out.

I swear I'm not blaming Chang.

but I immediately shove it into my mouth and it was, I burned my entire mouth.

So I could actually barely taste anything.

And then, but my thought is like, I can't spit out food on television.

So for a full like minute, I was just sitting there trying, hoping it would cool inside of my mouth because it was so hot.

And my mouth was burned.

I don't think I could feel anything in my mouth for like three days after that.

Yeah, that's rough when you really burn it.

When you just have like skin hanging from the top of your

top of your mouth.

What's your favorite TV show right now?

Loving Task, your recommendation.

Just I saw Chris Ryan was over at my house talking about how good it was, so I had to watch it.

I'm loving it.

Great.

You guys are recapping.

That's it.

I'm watching the girlfriend on Amazon with Robin Wright.

That is so your shit.

It's like it's it.

They just, the algorithm knows me.

It's like there's somebody's son, her son's dating somebody she doesn't trust or like, and there's backstories.

And all these shows start with a murder now.

The first thing you see is a dead body and blood, and then we go back.

These shows start that way, I feel like.

Yeah, that's how they start.

That's the algorithm tells them to do it.

A show that actually did kind of start that way, but in a different way, that I love: Alien Earth.

Are you watching that on it?

I'm not watching that.

It's good.

It's a show.

I mean, it says it's Noah Holly who did Fargo, which I loved also.

Apparently, it's like the best at taking source material and turning it in television.

It's you know, it's about these children who are hybrids or whatever, but really, it's two actors.

Timothy Oliphant is one of them, and then the other, I forget the actor's name, but his character's name is Moro, who are just running away with this series.

But

a cyborg and a synth or whatnot.

Every scene with them, I can't believe you're not watching this because you would love the Timothy Olephant scenes in this show.

I'll watch it.

I love Olephant.

The football really threw me for a loop.

I either have to watch a show like Task where I'm all in on, or a really dumb show like The Girlfriend.

Yeah.

And those are like my two speeds at this point.

Task on Sundays is tough, but I got to be honest.

I know, I know you're still watching some of these reality shows

i'm having a really hard time with reality and i don't know whether i'm just too old now i might have aged out of the demo i might be edging towards cbs because i'm old i i did love island this summer and it was pretty it was brutal it was you know what's the problem with it this is my theory about kind of all reality television people started treating it like sports in a way that made it not fun yeah it's kind of gotten overtaken by like stand culture and the internet.

And also, I think

it, and maybe there's a sports analogy here for like young quarterbacks coming in and trying to meme at homes.

Everybody on the shows is now just trying to be memed and, you know, influence, which no, no shame in the game, but I think it's kind of ruining the shows.

I think that's a really crucial and important point.

When reality was really working in the 2000s at its best, it was people who almost had no idea they were being filmed and that there would be ramifications combined with

just kind of aberrant behavior that now most of that, if not all of it, is discouraged, which is probably a good thing for mankind.

But for reality shows,

the shows are just way more careful.

Like the challenge, I can't even really watch anymore.

It's like an athletic competition.

Is that it?

It's still going.

It's still going.

And it's like, it's like, it really is the fifth American sport now.

But even these dating shows, like that Bachelor in Paradise,

I don't know what they were doing with that show.

I still watch Love is Blind.

We recap it.

I have a show.

Yeah.

Viewer Discretion.

People like Love is Blind.

But, and I still like that one because I think it actually gets people who they're a little older and they're not like all influencers, but and it's just really well produced.

But yeah, I used to watch so much more.

I tapped out on.

You and I used to text about the Bachelor.

He used to.

It used to be a good show.

I don't, I think it's, it probably ran its course.

It's been on since 2002.

Like, what were you doing?

2003?

What were you doing in 2003?

Yeah.

That's how long it's been on.

Yeah.

Well, it's probably good for my brain that I'm watching less reality TV and more alien.

Now we just have more football.

And football is now on every chance.

It was like four days a week.

It's just on all the time.

I didn't like the Friday.

That was, well, yeah.

You didn't like Friday Brazil?

It was tough.

But that might be more like as the mother of a two-year-old, it's just hard with the multiple nights.

You know, it's going to be tough as Thursday night Bills dolphins.

Probably Mike McDaniel's last game and

Josh Allen just going nuts.

What day of the Ringer NFL show does he get with Brazil?

Should I make the invitation now or wait till he's formally relieved of his duties?

My classmate, Mike Daniel, or maybe I don't know if we overlapped.

I also don't know if he'd be a good

of all the NFL coaches right now, if you could take any of them.

This is not about their coaching talent.

Who do you think would be?

You are, I've often said this, I think the single best talent evaluator in our industry.

Thank you.

Who would you pick?

Appreciate that.

Of the coaches to be the new co-host of the Ringer NFL show.

So

is the caveat they're never going to coach football again?

They're going to just be a little bit more.

Don't worry about that.

Don't worry about the coaching.

Don't worry if they're good at coaching.

Don't worry if they're going to be available.

Just who would you pick?

Because you think that guy is going going to be freaking awesome talking.

McVay.

Yeah, that's, that's the number one draft pig.

Easy.

Although, I'm becoming more and more intrigued by Kevin O'Connell.

He's good.

He's a good talker.

Dark horse.

I think his life, I watch all the locker room speeches.

This is my true passion now that reality TV has died for me.

And I think his locker room stuff is really high end.

Like he's almost playing for the cameras in the right ways, but I think he's really good at it.

Have you, you haven't met him in person, right?

No.

He's really charismatic, too.

And you can see why all the players love him so much immediately as soon as you talk to him.

So he would be, he's too tall to be a podcaster, but he'd be good otherwise.

Well, he's smart enough to make up a fake injury for JJ McCarthy, the high ankle sprain that I don't think happened.

Yeah, his ankles hurt.

We need Carson Wentz for a couple of weeks after JJ missed 130 throws.

Mina,

thanks for popping on.

Go do television.

And let's go Seahawks.

Congratulations on Jaden Daniels.

Great to see you.

Thanks for coming on.

Glad to have him as a member.

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All right, my friend Brian Koppelman is here, a long time, long time, long time movie aficionado.

He's made movies, he works in Hollywood.

Robert Redford died today, and for some reason, you were my first text.

I wanted to talk to you about Robert Redford because I think we both appreciated and liked and were frustrated by all the same things.

But I'll start here.

In the running for best all-around career of any actor ever,

considering all the things that he did?

The movie star rankings, like as far as a true movie star person who then became a director, filmmaker, producer.

I mean, are you counting, you include Sundance in that?

No doubt.

You have to.

You have to include it.

No doubt.

Yeah.

That was the, I was just thinking about the scope as for some reason, I didn't know that this day was,

I hadn't heard that he was sad.

Obviously, it was 89, so you never know at that point.

But when you think about, you start reading the score stories, and you're like,

holy mackerel, this guy did so much stuff.

His career is in all these different segments.

I mean, he's the biggest actor of the 70s,

right?

That, and we'll go into some of the reasons why that happened, but he's just he owns that decade over some great guys.

Newman's in there, McQueen, Reynolds, and he's the guy from that decade, right?

Yeah, I mean, it's funny.

He

had some runs.

When I was looking looking it over, even just as soon as we started texting about the movies, he had runs as each thing that

little runs within the thing, each of which would have made him in the running for kind of like the best eight-year chunk.

And he repeated that a bunch of times in different ways, like from when he would get a foothold at something, he could really run with it.

for a while in a crazy amazing way.

But also, Bill, I think part of why you wrote me is, we're not going to say, but, you know, someone who meant a lot to the two of us had told us a lot of stories

about him, you know, and so I think we just had a bunch of different reactions together.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, he started, he wins best director and best film for ordinary people,

which was the first movie he directed in 1980.

We already did it in the rewatchables, but it's during a time

when actors really weren't supposed to do that.

Actors were supposed to act.

Directors were supposed to direct.

And for the most part,

you didn't really cross the beams.

He started in three best picture actor or best picture Oscar winners and laid down this whole model for all these actors that followed where it's like, well, I want to be an EP on this film.

I want to own my own stuff.

I want to own a company.

I want to do more festivals.

I want to be an activist.

I think him and Newman.

Really were the first two that I can remember that did that.

Can you think of anybody else?

He, no, I mean, who did Wish Peace?

Who did Wish?

Newman did the, he was big on the activism side and just trying to do a bunch of charity stuff and just use his platform for other things.

Reference was doing something.

Brando certainly did.

Different actors did along the way in different ways, maybe,

you know, for political commentary.

Yeah, yeah.

Smaller ways.

But

yeah, those guys both absolutely did it.

I mean, Jane Fonda definitely tried to do it, it, you know, did it too.

But those guys,

no doubt about it.

Also,

he just did lay down.

I think it's got to just start for me.

Like

Robert Redford is like the quintessential idea of what a movie star is supposed to feel and look like.

And I think so much of it had to do with, yes, his, of course, his physical appearance, but the stillness in him as an actor, how he would just, however he got that confidence to like let the camera just land on him.

But also, his taste, which is what runs through everything you were just talking about.

This is a guy who just could pick.

He went through these periods where he just kind of, it felt like understood what the mood was or what cool was or what classy was.

And he could anticipate it at just the moment the wave was going to break and he could ride the wave.

And that's like an incredibly rare skill over a long period of time.

Yeah, taste and self-awareness is a really good combo if you're an A-plus listener.

Yeah, I was thinking,

I wrote down the three things that he just seemed to completely understand that all seemed pretty basic.

And the first one you just mentioned, he knew he was a movie star.

He wanted to make movies where he seemed like a movie star.

And this was something Tarantino wrote about when he wrote about Steve McQueen in his book.

where he was like, Steve McQueen, the most important thing to him was just how he looked in film, how he looked in a scene, scene, how he didn't want a lot of dialogue.

He would tell the screenwriter, like, cut that out.

I only need to say two words there.

I don't need to go back and forth with a bunch of people.

Redford was like, I'm really handsome.

I'm a little mysterious.

There's something a tiny bit hard to figure out about me.

I play it close to the best.

You're going to have to figure me out.

But I'm really handsome.

And he rode that through the late 60s and early in the 70s as well.

I mean, I don't know if from, I can't remember when we did the margin call podcast, um, if

you had seen JC's movie that he made with Redford on the All is Lost, right?

I think right, very much.

Yeah.

Did you ever see that movie?

Oh, yeah.

Because it's incredible.

And it's this thing you're talking about.

I mean, Redford says five words in the movie.

And you're just with him and his face and his body and the situation he's in.

And you care so much about

what's going to happen to this guy.

And there's no great backstory.

You don't know a tremendous amount.

But in a way, that I remember watching that theater and like you just said, you had no idea he was sick, neither did I.

I didn't know, other than when he said he was stepping down from being actively running stuff.

So you had a sense how, you know, he feels like he maybe isn't.

But I didn't know him.

I never met the man.

I had no idea.

But all is lost.

I remember watching this little theater in New York York and thinking, well, he put it down.

He put down that performance a guy does at the very end, where it's like, remember, this is what I was great at.

Because he didn't have to speak in that movie, but he had to be and carry all of what Robert Redford was.

And because that guy was self-sufficient, that guy was stoic.

That guy also beat himself up at moments.

You know, he had hubris, but it was like this whole grit and he had dignity and he had resolve and he had grit.

And it was like stacking all these aspects of all these characters that Redford had played.

Another, by the way, just incredible work by JC Shandor, who I think is like the most underrated director for some reason.

Well, think about how underrated that guy is, what he's done.

Redford, amazing and

towering.

Like, I don't know who's, I mean, who do you, I'm sure you've thought about it.

I don't know who's in that conversation with him in your mind.

I want to get to that.

I have a spot spot for that.

Okay.

The second thing that I thought he understood: work with as many great directors as you can.

I mean, he made seven Pollock movies.

He and Cydney Pollock had a special relationship.

But that's something that I think some of the modern actors have really, that was a big Leo thing.

And the smarter guys are like, I just want to work with the best people.

The third thing I think is really underrated.

And I haven't heard anyone make this point.

And I don't know if it's a coincidence or if it's something, if I had ever had him on a podcast, I would have asked him.

He really understood the importance of an ending

and how important it was when a movie is coming to a close, some sort of scene or moment that when you're leaving the theater, you're like, man, that was fucking awesome.

And again, I don't know if it's a coincidence, but think about: I have nine movies here.

Downhill Racer,

the fucking amazing last five minutes, right?

Spoiler alert.

He thinks he's just won the downhill and there's one last guy coming and they're all celebrating.

And then they're kind of looking up and this guy's hitting the times and all of a sudden that guy flies in the air.

It's just awesome.

Butch and Sundance, one of the great endings ever written.

Jeremiah Johnson, my dad's favorite movie.

I only saw that movie one time with my dad.

I don't remember the ending.

It's just the, you know, he's fought these

Native Americans forever.

And then at the end, they have this begrudge and respect, and it's a wave, and he waves.

And

then this voice comes in.

Some folks say he's up there still.

And

it's just fine.

It's like, yes,

he survived.

The candidate.

Oh, man.

He wins.

I love the candidate.

It's on the rewatches list.

The last moment of the candidate.

It is one of the all-time.

What do we do now?

Yeah, what do we do now?

The sting?

The whole reason people love that movie was the fight, was the last 10 minutes.

The way we were.

Kind of a flawed movie, but when he runs into Streisen at the end,

your girl is lovely, Hubble.

Stolen for Sex in the City, first season, last episode, or second season.

All the President's Men with the typing and Nixon.

And then the last two.

I think he had figured out the endings things.

Brew Baker is one of my favorite endings of any random movie ever.

The clap.

I made the case and invented the slow clap.

You think, oh, is that the first?

You think that's the first usage?

He invented the slow clap.

I do.

Sick.

I do.

For people listening who don't know who Brew Baker is, he's a prison warden.

He's a warden, yeah.

Goes undercover in the prison because the prison is so corrupt.

He pretends to be a prisoner, but after he gets a job, goes in

and then ends up, he gets pushed out by the state, but the prisoners realize he was actually like trying to make the prison better and they slow clap him as he's driving away.

It's fucking awesome.

And then the last one's the natural, one of the great endings of any sports movie.

Incredible.

Probably the number one game you would have wanted to go to.

Anyway, I don't know if that's a coincidence, but he just always left you leaving the theater, thinking about it, feeling on a high or feeling something.

Yeah, I mean, that goes back to taste, right?

And knowing what to choose to be in.

And then by all accounts, he was pretty relentless as far as making sure the scripts were right to his own satisfaction.

So I'm sure,

you know, look, he had the benefit of working with some of the greatest screenwriters ever, like William Goldman.

Yeah.

And,

I mean, Bill certainly wrote about that experience in certain ways.

And Bill won the Oscar

for all the president's men.

And I think they had a good working relationship on Butch, Cassie, and the Sundance Kid.

Yeah,

well, in the last 60 years,

Redford had a case for making the best Western, Butch and the Sundance,

the best baseball movie, the best conspiracy thrower, the best political movie, and the best reporting movie.

Oh, yeah, don't leave out the ending of three days of the condor either.

Yeah, that's what, that's where I got the conspiracy thrower.

Yeah, I got

three days, yeah, I couldn't do it.

Unreal too, with the newspaper in front of that, that's incredible, also.

And, you know, that movie's influence is like, you can't even begin to talk about that movie's influence.

It's so big.

And then the other thing,

you talked about how he just had a good sense of what to do and what roles to take.

And

more importantly, not to take.

There was like that famous story of the graduate when

Mike Nichols wanted him and, but then wasn't sure he was right for the role because he wanted the guy to be more of a loser.

And as the story goes, he asked Redford, have you ever made a move on a girl and been turned down?

And Redford's like, no.

And he's like,

this is why you can't have the role.

He said, Redford didn't even understand the question.

He's like, what do you mean?

Yeah, what are you talking about?

I put my sights on a woman and

she's not interested.

What's that like?

He treated like he was an alien.

But it's interesting.

He never did a horror movie.

Apparently, he turned down Rosemary's Baby.

You know, he never did,

he never did some sort of movie where he's playing somebody that's completely different than who he was.

He always was kind of felt like it was Redford in whatever he did, which I think was intentional, right?

Some people are just like, I need to be around the vicinity of me.

Yeah, they play roles that the essence of who they are is the thing that kind of shines through.

And big movie stars, a lot of the time, where the essence that we associate with them somehow is the thing that shines through.

And

he didn't always play a good like some people think that means that they're always playing someone who's like a good man that's not the case but it's um

kind of a guy in redford's case who has always had the ability to be competent i mean condor is a great example where at first he seems incompetent but by the end he's a guy who can he can figure it out he played smart really well and especially a guy people could think oh they think he's dumb because he's so handsome but really he's smart really he can think Maybe not the fastest thinker, but a good thinker.

And of course, I mean, even though Goldman wrote it, the way Redford played, you know, Can I Move as Sundance invented a whole kind of a character, the kind of sidekick character that he was who becomes kind of the equal buddy.

And a guy who could admit, I can't swim.

You know, there are a couple of scenes in Butch Cassidy that are like among the best scenes in cinema history that really rely on like line readings by Redford that were

unbelievable, you know?

Well, and then all the presidents, which we did and rewatch was a while ago, there's that great scene when Hoffman's stealing his copy and he kind of realizes what's happening and the way the way he kind of plays that.

And then he finally goes over and just goes, I don't mind what he did.

I just don't like how he did it.

It's the greatest.

I mean, that's one of my dad and Quiz Show, which he directed.

Those are two,

the guy was involved in absolutely, you know, deeply, two of my personal, like 10 favorite movies of all time.

and like all the president's men probably my maybe my most rewatched movie it's really possible but quiz show is definitely top 10 of my most rewatched movies that he directed and they're similar they're cousins those movies so what is it about all the president's men that sucked you in because i've heard different answers for this depending on who you ask to honestly originally because like i first saw it as a kid i mean that's been a movie i've re-watched sick my whole life.

Yeah, me too.

Well, Bill, I don't think you can separate it from like, I was seven seven when nixon resigned my mom made me watch i just feel like it's been on since i was like you know

my mom made me watch and i'm so glad she did uh nixon's resignation speech you know so like the story of getting those bad guys yeah and then it was writers who did it right the way when you're a kid processing it reporters who did it and those guys were famous in my house like they would talk about those two guys because it was amazing what they did so and then this movie that i had heard was so great and i just remember the way they talked And also, like, you know, oh, I remember, remember when you were a writer?

Do you remember, Bill, when you were a writer?

When my fingers worked.

Yeah.

Yeah.

When you were a writer, back, it was great.

You were a great writer.

And you know how much I loved your writing.

But so you do know when you're young, even if you don't know you're going to be a writer, stories about writers, they get your attention in a certain way.

Like, you're like, wait, these are writers?

What does that mean?

Even if you don't know, you're like, there's something about that that just like hits you.

And that was the thing.

Like, what do you mean?

They're other journalists.

Wait, what?

It was just the cool.

cool i don't know like it was the cool and they also the long hair and their the way that they just even dressed in the situation and their friendship also they were so fucking cool in the movie the way they would trap people with the dialogue the way they would concoct schemes also their boss being such a motherfucker it was like every one of those things the crackling dialogue and um and that they won the good guys you know the good guys won but it was really complicated and they barely won and no one even knew if it was a good thing.

I don't know.

For me, every part of it is incredible.

What about you?

What is it about it?

I didn't get into it.

I was like, I'm not going to be watchables, but what is it?

I didn't get into it until college, maybe right after college, because I had to have a Watergate phase, because that's what everybody would have.

afterwards.

You would have your JFK phase, you'd Watergate phase, you would just your Charles Manson phase.

You just come through, I'm going to read the book, I'm going to read this, I'm going to watch that.

And I did the Watergate thing and I just watched all the President's Men.

And then just from that point on, I felt like I've watched it at least once a year since.

And the only movie I can think of that

came close to it was Spotlight, which I think is the most depressing subject possible, but is this amazingly re-watchable movie that's now been out 10 years?

But very similar beats of there's something really important happening.

We actually need reporters and they're solving it almost like this true crime thing.

People are against them.

You're some big establishment that wants to knock them out.

You're so right.

I mean,

I just also to say, obviously, when I say all the president spends my most rewatched movie, the Godfather movies don't even count.

Like, they're just their own.

That's their own.

No, that's like saying like Knicks games.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I can't count the Godfather movies.

Obviously, those are the most exciting close.

But I'm talking about after

that.

Yeah, Spotlight, man.

The first time I saw it,

I saw Spotlight in a screening

and when it was not even finished yet.

And I

sent emails around to a bunch of people like, I just saw the best picture winner.

And this is like my, I said, that movie, Spotlight, that Tom McCarthy made is every single thing, every ambition I could ever have.

of what the ultimate thing you could do as a filmmaker is what Tom did in that movie.

And you're right.

I hadn't thought of it in terms of, but it is all the presence.

To me, Quiz Show, which as you you know it's the rewatchables that you and are going to do someday quiz show is for me really right up there because it's this it's it's the same kind of story in a way uh which we could talk about another time but um i feel like it's it's it it does the same thing but there are very few movies that do it well and redford did that

only nominated for one acting oscar which seems nuts It's like finding out that some incredible NBA player only made like one all-NBA team.

I don't even know.

I saw that he only won one.

What did he win for?

He won for directing.

Right.

That's it.

For all people.

That was right.

That was the one.

When he beat Scorsese, which has turned out to be really common.

Right.

For Best Pippet as producer or director on that one.

Did he won?

Director.

He won it as director.

Right.

Yeah.

He was only nominated for the sting.

He never.

You mentioned all his loss.

That's like way late in his career.

He never had his version of the verdict or call or money like Newman did.

But what's interesting is he was in on the verdict.

He was doing the movie and really wanted them to rewrite it because he didn't like that the guy was such a loser.

And this is something Goldman would talk about.

Goldman would always talk about how stars didn't want to play losers.

They didn't, they always wanted to seem like the hero.

And he's just like, this guy's too much of a loser.

So he drops out and gives that role.

And, you know, Newman ends up getting it and should have won the Oscar for it, but it became such an important Newman role.

Yeah.

And Redford just

didn't fit his

didn't fit his model for what he wanted for himself.

The thing ended up working out perfectly just the way it was.

For everybody, it's probably, I don't think I would have bought him as Frank Galvin, but that's the thing.

Like, I think deep down he knew that wasn't.

Not necessarily in the Lumat Mamet version of the movie.

Yeah.

Right.

But he never got,

I feel like he never got acting respect

past a certain point.

Right.

And I don't really know the,

you know, I think sometimes, especially with actors, when somebody is simple and really good like that,

sometimes we recognize it and sometimes we don't.

And in his case, maybe he was, I'm not an actor, so I wouldn't be able to speak like if, could he be on stage?

Could he have been built in like when you hear like these legendary stories of, you know, Puccino on Broadway or Olivier back in the day?

I don't know if he was an actor like that.

You know, he's a movie star.

Maybe it has to do with the era.

Like, because, yes, he's a movie star i think you said it perfectly he's a movie star um

but it's hard to do what he did as an actor and

if you look at the actors who were the ones mostly in in in his sort of prime lead era who were getting recognized they were big performances they were people really doing something right whether it's peter boyle whether it's dustin you know dustin or pacino or di niro

they were

showier.

They were incredible.

They were our favorite, you know, actors, but, and Redford's word much less showy.

He didn't do that really.

He wasn't a, he wasn't big in that way.

Um,

so many things get tied to the period that they're in, right?

The moods and, and tones.

Right.

But to be a star for as long as he was a star is kind of amazing, right?

And, and, and rare.

And I think he chose it.

I think he, by the thing you're talking about, he didn't take the character.

He also didn't take those parts.

Right.

He loved the, he loved being like so many of these movies, he's a hero.

Or there's a little bit of like that, like Downhill Racer is definitely a cruise character, right?

30 years later, Cruise is easy.

Yes, 100%.

So he could do that Downhill Racer thing.

He could be the sidekick like Butch Cassidy.

He could do Jeremiah Johnson, which is basically 1973 Revenant,

you know, it's not like the crazy director where you're sleeping in a bare stomach, but it was still like, it's one guy.

Like, he could have been in Castaway.

I think he could have done that role, you know, like where it's just like, I'm going to be the star of the movie.

I'm going to carry scenes by myself just by being interesting.

He didn't look effortless, maybe.

I'm just trying to think of that question.

Actually, I'm trying to give a second to your question.

And I'm just reviewing all these performances.

And if I think about it, other than Sundance and Condor,

most of these performances,

he did make it look,

he was an actor who looked like.

I would say effortless.

Yeah, it was.

He made it look kind of effortless.

I mean, which is why The Natural Roy Hobbes is such a great part for him in a way.

This guy with that swing, you know.

uh and who looked at

believable swing and you he looked a certain way and you'd never know what this backstory was.

And you wouldn't know that there was any trauma there or any of that shit, you know.

And

he had that swing.

And that swing, in a way, is a great metaphor, right?

For just looking like Redford looked and walking like he walked.

And

it kind of doesn't invite you to go, oh, look at the craft.

Because of course, to build a swing like that took a lot of effort in Roy Hobbes, right?

It's like people watch Federer and they go oh it's gorgeous like you know how much torque that guy's generating you know many thousands millions hours he's put in so that it looks like this beautiful effortless thing but still we watch it we go oh graceful oh effort it's interesting how that movie aged because

i think for the entire time i was in high school through college through the first

six years I had my column for the sports guy column, the natural and Hoosiers were the two best sports movies of all time.

And those were the only two acceptable arguments.

Those were the ones we argued about as like which one's better.

But then, as the years passed, I don't feel like the natural held up in that conversation in the same way.

And I'm not really sure why.

Maybe it's partly baseball, or maybe it was so far back, you know, we're in like the 1940s guy.

And it's Barry Levinson embraces.

It's Barry Levinson, right?

I mean, he just embraced all that.

So it's shot that way, like the glide and camera.

It doesn't feel like a contemporary movie in any way.

It feels like almost like a, it's a throwback, right?

You and I have probably seen it a combined 700 times.

I mean, I've certainly seen it plenty of times.

I love it.

But if you're asking why people don't, I don't know.

Like, I bet you, I don't know if Sam has seen it.

Incidentally,

I'm in the room my son grew up in.

I love that I'm throwing an entire Knicks wobble at him.

And we've asked him, Millie, do you want us to repaint the room now that you're out of here and whatever?

No, keep it.

Keep the Knicks up there.

And also, I'd say, you know, in the pro wrestling Simmons, Pablo Torre back and forth, Sammy broke this huge story on Pablo today.

What is the story?

Oh,

it's just an insane sports.

It's an insane story about China stealing the brainwaves of athletes.

It's crazy.

You'll freak out.

But Sam and Pablo did it together.

you had to have me on just to balance the skate you know you got to balance the skate and we do the old ver the old guy version of of of the combo

we're like the we are we got to bring our walkers in yeah and do our version coming in hold on it's time for bingo um

we talk about the natural yeah talk about the natural you're the best damn hitter i ever saw oh

wilford how many times do you think um

that uh combined pablo and sam have seen the national at the most i'm giving you two at the most that's the thing it's it's and it shifts where like Moneyball becomes the new natural, right?

And I think Moneyball for the last 15 years probably took the spot in a lot of ways.

Are you an A Men?

Do you love A Men Out?

I love A Men Out.

I do.

I love 8 Men Out.

So does Van Lathan.

I would put 8 Men Out might be the best baseball movie.

It's possible.

Another great ending movie.

Yeah, incredible.

Oh, my God.

Shula Show five years after.

That's no an incredible.

That movie's.

That negotiation scene is one of the most incredible sports movie scenes.

If you haven't seen A Men Out, go see it.

Quickly on Redford.

Yep.

So he has this run from 69 to 76.

You mentioned earlier how he had this crazy eight-year run.

He blows up with Butch Cassidy and with Downhill Racer, right?

Just immediately becomes a megastar.

In 73 and 74, he has Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Sting, The Great Gatsby, and then they re-release Butch and Sundance,

Butch Cassidy, Sundance Kid,

and it becomes top 10 again he has two of the top five in 73 and three of the top 10 in 1974 out of the top 10 movies for two years already five of the 20

um and then he does great wild dog pepper which is a flawed movie but i kind of i don't know george roy hill i kind of goldman i kind of enjoy it three days of the condor and then all the president's men he's on he's an ep on that and wins best picture It's about as good as it gets, man.

And when you think of the taste of those movies, holy shit.

Incredible.

and it a truly like a staggering run because he had that run and then in 1980 is when he starts the directing when he moves in the ordinary people brew baker the natural out of africa legal eagles that's all in seven years but then also the four movies he directed the first four that's a really strong coming out of the gate first four movies as a director um and then he has kind of a fun a little bit drunk 1990s where He does River runs through it, makes Brad Pitt a star.

That's it.

Like, and weirdly, like, passes the torch, because I think there's a lot of Brad Pitt, Robert Redford, millions of people have talked about that.

Sneakers, Indecent Proposal, Quiz Show gets nominated, and then up close and personal.

And Indecent Proposal is the weirdest movie choice he made.

It was the one where you're like, wow, he's in this, but he had built up so much credibility.

And it's Demi Moore and Woody Harrison.

We did it on rewatches.

I like that movie.

But that's a nice, yeah, that's another example of a movie that, like, he understood where the, he understood the era he was in yeah well and he also you never see him like he's not like banging away at the meet more in a scene like he understood the era he understood the where we were thinking as a culture about money and sex and um men and women like he understood something

surfed it and made a huge hit i mean that's a huge hit movie right and it made him culturally relevant or kept him culturally relevant again for a while and then sundance was the other thing and i think he was really smart about

that i'm only going to have this run for so long i'm going to get replaced by somebody else my looks are only going to last for so long.

What else can I do?

How else can I be entrenched?

And that's what leads to Sundance and all the other stuff he did.

And then Sundance, you know, God only knows how many movies broke out of that.

And it's easy to say now, like, oh, well, somebody else would have created a Sundance.

Well, nobody did.

He did.

No, he didn't.

You know, that guy put his money where his mouth was.

And

obviously, if he includes Sundance, it's very hard right off the top of my head to think of somebody who is on that level.

I do think movie star to movie star,

because you don't even think about the fact that Cruz is like 60 years old or whatever, because you know, these guys were making the big valedictory movie when they were in their 60s, and Cruz is still just a movie star.

Like, Cruz, the greatest movie star of all.

To me, Cruz is the movie star of all time.

Like, he's just been in 60s now, FYI.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

He's in his 60s.

He's just been a movie star

the whole time.

So, but I, that, that's, I don't, it's so easy to forget it because he's still making movies like as though he's 40.

But

that goes to the self-awareness thing, which I would argue Cruz might not have a lot of self-awareness at this point.

I don't think he should be doing Mission Impossible anymore.

Like, he should be trying to figure out what's the next thing I can do that more reflects where I'm at in life.

And it's like he doesn't want to think about where he is at life, obviously.

He just wants to keep being Ethan Hunt.

Yeah, though, I bet you he has an incredible, someone was saying this the other day, I think it's true, that he'll have an incredible kind of character, actor, run, like a Newman-like run soon enough.

I hope so.

We're running out of time.

He's, you know, Newman made the verdict when he was in his early 50s, I think.

Maybe have been younger than that.

But, but, all right.

I mean, you know,

Tom did Magnolia.

I don't know if he wants to open up that side anymore.

Well, we'll see.

I don't know.

Who knows?

I just think it's Bradford and I think you can make the argument.

It's like Redford and Cruz.

You got to put put Clint like, you know, Clint obviously also did a lot in various capacities that it's pretty incredible.

Clint's a good one when you talk about like best careers, because the fact that he was still directing into his 80s and 90s is

a lauded, incredible, you know, as a director, like him or not, you kind of can't argue with what he accomplished as a director.

It's staggering.

And in his own way and at a time, I mean, you know, he sort of directed movies movies way earlier and at a time when, yeah, like you said, they weren't just handing actors movies.

So Clint's

a good one for this, too, because I asked Lauren Michaels once, like, what, like, hosts you weren't able to get or couldn't get that you would have loved to get.

And he, Clint was the first one, I think you mentioned.

That's great.

But it's interesting because Redford never hosted that show either.

And it's two guys that always kept the mystique of, I'm a movie star.

I'm over here.

I carry myself a certain way.

I don't, you know, you're only going to get these pieces.

Well, like Leo, did, has Leo hosted?

Maybe he did.

He must have hosted around Rome.

Did he host around Romeo and Juliet or he never hosted?

I don't think Leo ever hosted.

Right.

Because Leo is in that, he's the last one who has mystique, right?

He's the last of those movie stars with true.

I don't know if you could have mystique like that anymore in the society we have.

It's almost like you have to

have to be out there connecting in all these different ways.

Like you can't just be like, oh, I'll let my work speak for myself.

Who does that?

This is what I, I was thinking about this today when I saw the announcement about the masters, you know, the masters allowing Amazon to stream them, making a streaming deal.

And at first, I was like, Whoa, but then I was like, right, because you know what?

Even the masters realizes, well, we made a deal with CBS at a certain point because everyone was watching television.

This is where the world is.

We got to go there.

So, you're probably

right about that.

That maybe that model just doesn't even

interest anybody anymore, that level of mystique.

The culture can you figure out rounders two, yes, sir.

It can't just be like rounders one.

You've got to use all these different pieces.

Rounders two is going to have to come from like Sam's kid and then Levine's kid's kid, and Pablo will probably fund it.

Finally, I was going to say you have Pablo and Sammy investigating Mike McD for some sort of Caribbean poker situation.

They'll have to fund with replicants of DNA of Matt and everything, because by then they'll be able to, they can do anything.

I mean, they'll do any of it.

Be easy.

Sammy came to, we did a, we did a talk at in cambridge in april and sammy showed up and i was very touched he's he's very happy to he was very happy to see you yeah i remember he was very happy

yeah i'm good i'm uh uh you know i got i'm dealing with a little appendicitis but see it's the

but you have a pod this era they don't just take it out right away always they go here we're gonna bomb you with antibiotics and then take it out in a few weeks so yeah i'm fine hopefully my appendix doesn't explode but save save your energy for Quiz Show Rewatchables next month because you have my word we're doing it in October.

Can't wait.

All right, Bill.

Talk to you soon, buddy.

Thanks, Koppelman.

See you, man.

Bye.

All right.

That's it for the podcast.

Thanks to Mina and Koppelman.

Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well.

Don't forget the Rewatchables is up for this week.

We did Tin Cup.

And you can find it wherever you get your podcasts.

You can find it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well.

I am going to be back on Thursday with another hopefully awesome podcast.

I feel like we're two for two this week.

Great content.

I will see you on Thursday.

I don't have

a feeling with them.

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