A Sox-Yanks Nail-Biter, Intriguing NBA Story Lines, and Five Biggest Fantasy Football Story Lines With Bill’s Dad, Michael Pina, and Craig Horlbeck

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All right, recording the top of the podcast, 6:30 Pacific time.

Just watch the Red Sox beat the Yankees.

Game one of a best two out of three series.

This Red Sox team,

Cassis gets hurt in the first month.

They trade Devers.

They lose Meyer.

They lose Roman Anthony, who's the best guy in the team.

They lose Cutter Crawford.

They lose Giolito Britt for the playoffs.

They lose Hawk.

They lose Hawk.

There's guys in the lineup that I'm getting texts from friends like, Do you realize it's the playoffs?

What is this lineup?

And somehow they win in Yankee Stadium.

What was your favorite part about the game?

Well, you and I texted at the beginning of the game.

We looked at the two lineups and said,

look at our lineup.

Who's playing?

Roman Gonzalez batting fourth.

Soguard.

Soguard was in the minus

two weeks ago.

Had the critical play of the game.

Yeah, he really did.

He really did.

It was a great baseball game.

I'm not just saying that because the Red Sox won, but you're on the edge of your seat the entire nine innings.

I'm sweating, but I have the air conditioning on.

We haven't had a lot of these in the last like six, seven years.

And especially like with the way this Red Sox team is built, this was, I know every playoff game is a must-win, but this was actually a must-win because I don't think they were winning two in a row without crochet.

And then they're using the Chapman card too on top of it.

Our third starter is out with a sore elbow.

We're going to, if we have a, well,

we would definitely, we'll have a game.

It's going to be the rookie, right?

It's going to be a guy that we didn't even know who it was a month ago.

Yeah, it would be Connolly Early, I guess.

It'd be nice if they wrapped, you know, Bello, who's pitching tomorrow, pitches very well in Yankee Stadium.

But that ninth inning, when Chapman seemed to not have it,

he's only once this year come in at the bottom of the eighth and then pitched the ninth.

And it seemed to upset him a little bit in terms of his sequence.

And he was no question.

And his fastball to start the ninth inning, even the announcer was saying 94-95.

And all of a sudden, the bases are loaded and the fastball hits 100, 101, 100, 101.

Terrific stuff.

Well, it's funny, like, the older you get with baseball with the baggage, you know, that going into the eighth inning in Yankee Stadium, not the same circumstances, obviously, but

with a pitcher whose Pedro wasn't awesome in 2003, but just eighth inning Yankee Stadium.

I'm already nervous.

How far can we push our starting pitcher?

I started getting like PTSD to the boon game.

Um, but then Chapman coming in the eighth was so unusual.

They've they've really tried not to do that at all this year.

And he comes in, he's in a lather, he's all sweaty.

This time, he wasn't.

And then a long break, and then he comes back out and he threw 95 with his first pitch.

And it was like, oh my God, this is going to be a disaster.

It was like maybe four,

three or four pitches.

All of a sudden, there's three hits in in a row and the bases are loaded.

And I'm thinking, oh boy, I've seen this before.

But

I watched happen all year.

He had a terrific year.

Yeah, he was awesome.

And I, you know, I guess the wisdom of bringing him in for one batter to close the eighth kind of made sense.

But

maybe you leave, I know Crochet had 117 pitches.

He was done.

That was a career high.

Yeah, I think they had to pull him.

The problem is, if you play the Whitlock card in this game and then you you need them they need to win two or three whitlocks their best reliever by far other than chow i don't think that was only it i i don't think they wanted lefties to come up to bat with that short porch in right field yeah they want to keep ben rice on the bench yeah they want to keep chisholm chisholm on there but uh yeah the the

It had all the makings of just one of the most awful losses, which they've had a lot of this year, but they've also had a lot of goofy wins, too.

I was saying the other day on the pod, it's a really, really lovable, goofy, frustrating, but kind of fun Red Sox team.

You saw today, like Sogard makes the key play of the game, like digging in and getting to second base on that double.

I didn't, it wasn't, I'm watching it.

I didn't even realize that he was going to try to do that.

Well, the insurance from the ninth in the top of the ninth was.

From Bregman, who looked like luggage in the other three at-bats.

Well, and he's been sick.

Story has been sick.

Bregman, you've probably read, didn't even take the team plane to go to new york he was sick they didn't want him getting other people sick so they weren't even sure they weren't sure he was going to play today and he looked he looked like luggage and then big hit i mean well yeah he also hasn't he was awesome the first few weeks of the season got hurt once he hasn't really looked the same since he came back i don't think no i don't think so i think the stats back it up too is some it was a leg injury if i recall and yeah it just seems like he doesn't have the strength in that leg but that's such a key hit but one ironic part two stolen bases key in this game story stolen base as well um we love stolen bases against the yankees don't we right well

the other thing i mean we got to talk about crochet because he was the story of the game this is you know we've disagreed with a lot of the red sox moves they've been some really strange ones over the last really the mookie trade but even some other stuff even trading away sale basically paying to get rid of them and then of course he's good right right away and just uh these moves that we haven't really loved and yet the crochet trade is one of the best trades i think of my lifetime for the sell for the red socks at least so far i think so and i don't know if you do the same thing as me i always look in the white sock box score to see how teal is doing yeah and the other guy medreth and uh

the pitcher they Gonzalez, they traded in there.

And,

you know, you have to give away something to get something.

And we gave away some future talent to get a possible Saiyan award winner.

Who's been even better than I think they thought?

I mean, he threw over 200 innings.

He was today, what he looked like today, it feels like he's done that 10 to 12 times this year, where he's just been Kapoo Domini.

I think, what did he have, like 15 in a row at one point?

16 in a row?

Yeah.

I wish he could pitch tomorrow.

It's tomorrow.

That's not enough rest, right?

24 hours.

But

how about Thursday?

Can he come back?

Oh, man.

Well, that's the thing is

they're going to have to patch together game two or game three.

Whitlock probably pitches both games now.

And he's been not only the best reliever on the team other than Chapman, but one of the best setup guys in either league.

We know we have a game Thursday.

if we don't win tomorrow.

So, and Chapman could pitch Thursday, but you're right.

Whitlock, both both games could pitch.

You know, they may do a bullpen game Thursday if they have to,

if it goes that far.

I don't know.

I mean, how ridiculous is that?

They're going to do a bullpen game?

Well, at least we traded for May from the Dodgers.

And oh,

he's not pitching.

At least none of the guys from the Devers trade are contributing in any way.

But Devers wasn't contributing in San Francisco either.

it's just a stupefying season, but it's been really fun to watch.

I thought when Anthony, when it came out that he had no chance of coming back, that felt like it.

And you could really feel it today when you saw the lineup laid out.

Even when they flashed it before the game, you're like, oh.

And then Raphael is batting eighth, and he's the only hitter I feel like lately, other than Yoshida, who then had, you know, he came in off the bench and had the big hit.

But Rafael has had, he's looked good the last two weeks.

Like all of a sudden, he stopped chasing balls and doing like the weird shit he's been doing.

But then Yoshida, who

talk about looking like luggage.

He looked dead in August.

He was in the running for your least favorite Red Sox player of the year.

He was, but I was happy to see him come up to pinch it tonight.

I know.

Well,

he's been good for like a, I don't know, like a month, five weeks, whatever.

But he's been all of a sudden those grounders to second base were starting to be line drives.

But it's funny,

each month of the season, somebody was inhabited by an evil spirit, right?

Because Raphael, he had that unbelievable stretch right before the all-star game.

And then right afterwards, just like, you know, just became a zombie.

Couldn't buy it.

And he was swinging at everything.

And like, even when he had the big hit the other night, I thought he was going to start crying on the field.

Like, he was so relieved that he came through.

But I really, I like him.

That was another big storyline.

He, he, he got the walk tonight i think i don't know i can't remember him the last time he walked in a ball game um and narbaez had some really good at-bats too which i wasn't surprised by because he's a i felt like he was going to be a big game catcher for them but

i it's it's a weird one they're going against the they're going against the lefty tomorrow and it's the same thing we're going to have all these this crazy lineup again of all these right-handers

oh that's right um roden is uh left-handed um

rodan you got to use the pronunciation well i can i could speak well how about i mean let's talk about the yankee side of things they take out freed

and what by the way he has 99 pitches well how weird was it that they brought him back out for one batter and then got like so he warmed up and then pitches to one guy and then they get rid of him we couldn't hit none of our guys could hit him i think that's going to be a big storyline in new york because the announcers are saying well they're playing the long game that if he's, they go to the World Series, he has to pitch seven times.

Hey, you got to win tonight.

Right.

I never would have taken him out.

He was unhittable.

We weren't going to hit that guy.

Well, the thing is, you either don't bring him back out, or if you're bringing him back out, then see how far he can go with him.

Right.

Because if you're going to go through the whole process of having him throw all the warm-up pitches and everything, then what's the point of then sitting him?

But 99 pitches, Boschet throws 117 pitches i mean

freed is their ace because they had the injury

yeah he's been really good the last

they see his stats like the last seven stars you got to leave him in you got to leave who who were you the most afraid of in the yankee lineup other than judge judge is just absolutely petrifying um

i really like bellinger I know he got the hit in the battle.

Yeah, he is.

He is good at bats.

I'm glad we didn't have a righty thrown to him uh

they have a lot of guys that just kind of can

drop those little singles in and they wait for the big hit that short right field you know the home run

that the uh well who got the home run uh the short stuff

that was well hit that was well hit uh yeah but that was bolpe's like he's He's by far everybody's least favorite Yankee that I know.

Yeah.

And they've been complaining about him all year.

But yeah, Crochet, my buddy Hench pointed this out.

Crochet, this was like his Achilles heel all year was the worst hitter on the other team.

Whoever the worst guy was, that was somehow getting him.

So Volpe got him.

And I was like, really?

They're going to lose 1-0 on a Volpe Homer?

These fans have been complaining about him since April.

Well, you noticed

the next couple of times Volpe came up, Crochet pitched him differently, didn't give him.

didn't anything to hit no fast back

it was it was just an incredible crochet game though i mean

I really like start to finish this season, there's not that many pitchers I would put since I've been a Red Sox fan that I would put over him that the Red Sox have had.

Obviously, you've had like some of those Clemens years and people like that, but just for like a start to finish season,

he's been just as lights out.

Can you think of Pedro would be the Pedro would be the 10 out of 10?

I'm not even comparing anyone to Pedro, but like after him, he's in that conversation for best seasons.

Yeah, definitely for best seasons.

They had a little list in the paper about guys

you'd want starting game one of a series like this.

And

obviously Pedro, obviously Clemens.

They had Luster in that list.

That's a good one.

They had Beckett in that list when he was doing well for us.

Even they had Schilling in that list,

you know, for one game when you're really stuck.

I think he deserves to be on that list.

Yeah, I'm okay with that.

Yeah.

But Crochet carved himself a little place in Boston Red Sox galore today.

Well, they might lose the next two,

but

at least statistically,

it's been a start-to-finish like masterpiece.

And considering,

you know,

the stuff they gave up, the bet they made, not knowing if he was going to be able to pitch in the big market and do all the stuff he's done.

I've really enjoyed watching him.

It's almost, he's not at that Pedro level where it's like, I'm clearing out tonight because Pedro's pitching.

He's not at that level, but he's been a fun every five days guy.

He's not at that level because it's his first year with us, but he did sign what was a six-year extension.

Yeah.

So he's going to be with us for a while.

And, you know,

health is everything with a pitcher like that.

Right, especially in this area.

The bummer is that Anthony is not involved in this.

I thought he was such a special player.

He was a must-watch guy, and it just felt like, man,

you still wonder if we are able to move on, if he's possibly gonna play did you just put us in the next round no i don't want to do it i said possibly if we i said if and possibly they said he's in florida yeah i'm not sure what's going on there

well um he's got this oblique thing that the oblique is the new i have no idea how long this injury injury it could be a month it could be five months you just don't know i don't know isn't that the injury cassus had last year oblique

Probably.

I mean, it's...

It's a bad injury.

Yeah.

On my AL Keeper team, it feels like we've had four a year.

It's like getting

there.

Yeah, it's like basketball, like calf tightness.

Yeah.

It was so enjoyable, but so tense to watch.

We haven't had that kind of game where every pitch mattered.

I'm sitting forward on the couch.

I'm sweating in air conditioning.

Every pitch matters.

You don't want to go to the bathroom because you don't want to.

It was great to have that kind of baseball game today.

Well, and the big thing.

We won.

Even better than us winning and us advancing because I don't think this team is probably capable of winning four rounds.

I think that would be borderline raccoons.

The better thing is beating the Yankees.

That was like when they started cutting, when they had the lead in the late innings and they started cutting around and showing the faces, they could have just shown that instead of the game.

I was so happy.

I was was like, Jake, can you show that section again if everybody looks like they're about to cry?

Well, when the game ended and they went to the crowd, you mean?

And there was

a guy like this.

They were doing it the last couple innings when they took out Freed and they immediately gave up two runs.

And they're just the guy's like deer in the headlights.

But we've had that look many times from on the Boston side.

So we know what that looks like.

I was a little surprised how many Red Sox fans were in the crowd because I'm sure your Red Ticketmaster wouldn't sell tickets to Red Sox fans in Boston to go to the the game.

Yeah.

I hope they don't get beat up on the way out of Yankee Stadium.

The fans did not look happy.

No, it wasn't great.

And Boone's going to take a lot of grief for pulling Freed, I think.

And I think rightfully so.

He also had, that was a weird one when he put Jazz in at the end of the game and then Jazz's spot came up against the lefty.

It's like if you were

you put in for defensive purposes, but you're losing.

But he put in

and he had to face

and then he had to face Chapter.

Didn't he face Crochet also?

Oh, I can't remember.

I mean, honestly, everything's blending together.

Did he?

No, he only faced Chapman.

Just the one at bat.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was very strange.

The guy I was most afraid of of all the random guys they had was Grisham because

I had him on

my keeper team, and

he he was just pretty steadily a stud for them.

I can't remember.

Is he a ready or a lefty?

He's a lefty.

Okay, so they said fuck it, and they played him.

The guy that we're avoiding, or at least we avoided today, that I'll be interested if he plays tomorrow is Ben Rice.

Yeah, because he's been

kind of a wild card.

Oh, yeah, but he'll definitely play tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, you're right.

Yeah, yeah, right.

Unfortunately, Bao,

I can't say he's been awesome the last six months.

No, he died in september yeah

but

the one thing is that he has played well in yankee stadium and he has a very good record against the yankees he just isn't pitching well lately he's not pitching well lately but he does it will i will say in his semi-defense

he does like the big moments he likes the he likes like a full stadium and he does have a little bit of swagger to him that i'll be interested to see if it comes out i don't know what happened to him the last few weeks it hasn't been a disaster disaster, but he just hasn't been at the same level.

He had a really nice run for like 11, 12 starts.

He's going four or five innings.

Rodan, as I say, Rodan, yeah.

Who's been really good the last month and a half today?

But we have hit him.

Well, can you imagine?

It's funny to do this because by tomorrow, there'll be another game and this whole segment will be dead.

But if they can somehow win one of these next two and knock the Yankees out, who have a relatively healthy team, they've spent more money on it.

They were one of the favorites to win the World Series, and we knocked them out with this goofy broster of,

you know, it's like a mass unit.

I don't know what that, I don't know how the Yankees respond to that.

And I don't know, like, do they fire the manager?

Does somebody get fired?

Is there like some major trade?

I don't know what they do.

Well, they have been, they've had worse moments and have not fired the manager.

This would be like, I mean, if they're down two runs tomorrow, heading into the late innings with the season on the line, this would be

out of control.

The only thing I would be repetitive is Boone deciding to take Freed out.

Yeah.

That's a mess.

You know, I thought Cora pitched.

Managed

an awesome game.

And he's managed some awesome games to get us in here.

Moving.

I think he likes having all these

players that nobody ever heard of and he's random lefty yeah he's he's batting roman gonzalez queen up just like getting a huge kick out of it and he got free walks which were very important uh

yeah yeah so that max freed i'm looking at it right now i'm trying

99 pitches yeah but i'm trying to see

yeah he went over 100 a few times like his high he went he got to 111 at the end of july he did 107 in their last start of the season i would have at least

finished the inning.

I 100% would have.

I put it this way: I was psyched that they took him out.

Were you?

I was like, This is great.

Definitely take him out.

I think the Red Sox players kind of were going like this.

Yeah,

I mean, we couldn't touch that dude.

He was awesome.

And even the announcers said the same thing.

They're not going to criticize a decision, but they somewhat criticize the decision when they said 99 pitches, crochet 117.

You know, they left it hanging for the

fan to say, why didn't he stay in there?

Well, listen, if this ridiculous Red Sox season, which we've both watched a ton of, and I've really enjoyed it.

Yeah.

And I really feel like baseball has made a nice little resurgence.

I know some people never left.

I know there were reasons why.

You never stopped watching.

I was getting really frustrated.

The Mookie thing

sent me in kind of a tailspin with the team.

The Douglas thing kind of

sent me a little bit the same way except

except i understood it i mean we did yeah we were the

whole thing was so strange with him and it didn't seem like he was in shape and it was a lot of money and it was a chance to you know if they're going to actually use that money somewhere else we'll see well they used it they used it to uh tie up some of it to tie up anthony Right.

And unfortunately, Christian Campbell, who

went to Worcester in June and was never seen again.

Yeah, I think we'll see him again in a couple years.

I hope so.

He's got to be like, I can't believe I'm not playing when he looked at some of the guys in the lineup.

All right.

Well, I'm glad we're still doing this.

It's funny because when I was looking back at the home run, the game I wrote about the Boone home run, or I'm sorry, the column I wrote about the Boone home run in 2003.

And I had a whole thing about how,

you know, I called to make sure you're all right.

And now somehow I'm older than you in that column.

And I was worried you were going to kill over.

And now I'm in the keel over stage, apparently.

So thanks, Japan.

And you're still kicking around.

So we're doing great.

Yeah, except I'm sweating in the air conditioning.

So

yeah, try to have some water.

All right.

I'll check in tomorrow.

Thanks for popping on the podcast.

Thanks.

Take care.

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This episode is brought to you by Hulu.

Glenn Powell is Chad Powers now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus.

I actually saw the first episode of this.

This show was good.

Eight years after flushing his college football career down the toilet, hot shot quarterback Russ Holiday makes a comeback disguised as Chad Powers for the South Georgia georgia catfish

determined once again to take college football by a storm it's a little like mrs doubtfire across for the football show but uh they openly admit it watch the hilarious new hulu original series chad powers now streaming on hulu and hulu on disney plus for bundle subscribers terms apply all right it is september 30th which means it's almost october 1st which means the nba is somehow only a couple weeks away michael peen is here from the ringer uh are you ready feels like it's snuck up this year.

Are you ready emotionally?

I guess I have to be, right?

To be honest, no, I'm not.

It has snuck up, I feel like, but

we have no choice.

It's coming.

It's about a month away.

I usually kind of skip the preseason-ish.

I just don't think that there's too much to grasp, but

regular season is like three weeks away, and when it's here, I'll be ready for it.

Is Tatum?

I asked you to do your five things you want to monitor over the next three weeks is tatum involved or no he is not no okay well can we talk about the tatum thing quick because this one minute video came on and i know you you you know uh you have some celtics birdies as well there this whole tatum rehab thing with how fast they got the surgery and um them never closing the door, but them also not wanting to talk about anything.

And

I don't know, man.

He looked pretty good running around.

And I just wonder, are we going to see him?

What's your instinct?

My instinct was that that was AI generated.

It made absolutely no sense.

He's running up and down the court.

How many months after rupturing is Achilles?

Like there's the clip of him sprinting over half court.

How is the human body able to do that?

I don't understand it.

I'm sure you heard similar things, but the Celtics,

they're not positive about this, but because no one will ever know, but it was potentially the fastest ever Achilles surgery after a rupture in human history.

That is something that I've heard, and so they don't know what exactly that will do to the human body and the impact that could have.

But that video was wild.

I did not anticipate seeing that.

You know, I said that during the

before,

at some point on a pod, maybe last spring.

And I think people didn't think I was serious that this weird slate of events where he gets injured in New York, where the guy who does the surgery better than anyone in the world is in New York.

So he didn't have to fly and he was on the operating table 10 hours after the surgery.

Like, I think it's correct.

I don't think that's ever happened before.

Sometimes it's like a week or it's like you would have to wait till the swelling goes down.

So who knows?

It's this injury that just, you know, when I was growing up, only a couple of people would get it.

And it was always felt like a death sentence, you know, like their career was never going to be the same.

Now it feels a little more common, but I don't know.

It seems like it, all of a sudden, ACL injuries, people are coming back in 10 months.

And that seemed crazy.

So maybe the timetable will speed up.

I don't know.

Can I ask you, do you think that this is a good thing?

I don't unless he's, he'd have to be 100% for like two months.

I would not be like, oh, it seems like he's okay.

Let's get him out there.

I think it would have to be one of those things where he's scrimmaging with the team, you know, in December, early January, and he's doing that for two months.

And there's a point where it's like, well,

if he's going to work out every day anyway, why wouldn't he just play?

You know, but I would be so on the side of being careful versus they don't have a center.

They don't even really have a, I don't know who the leading rebounder is going to be.

I don't know who the rim protector is.

It's not like this is a good team, but the East after the, you know, top four is so bad.

They might be in the six to nine range anyway.

I don't know.

I think that it's dependent on how good the team is.

And even then, I would probably

be extremely cautious, overcautious with his body and his future because I don't think they're winning the championship this season.

They got rid of Drew Holiday and Christoph Sprzingis.

That's just not on the table.

A playoff run is not on the table, even if Tatum was 100% healthy.

So I would be extremely cautious with him.

I would,

I don't know, stop short of making an announcement that he's not going to play to quell suspicion and talk and and rumors throughout the year if that's a thing

to do that he's too competitive he's not going to be like yeah cross it off he's i guarantee he's like i'm going to be back i'm going to be back i'm going to be back and that's all he's thinking but you know i just don't know enough about there's two types of achilles surgeries apparently and he got the one where they really repaired it because you can get the other one where you can cheat it a little and maybe you can come back faster he got the real repair So I guess we'll see.

It makes me obviously super, duper, duper nervous to think of him coming back if he wasn't 100 because as you said they're not winning the title this year no there's no say that he could come back and be last year's tatum in april and they're still not winning the title so i would take it easy i i still i'm in the side like the over-under for them on fandel i think is 41.

i'm on the side of

I just can't imagine Missoula rolling over.

The guy is a complete maniac.

They have this system in place.

They have good guards.

They're going to shoot a ton of threes.

And I just think they're, you know, Jalen will obviously be

having a

feast every day, taking 28, 30 shots a game.

But I think they're going to hang around a lot of games and probably be a little better than people think.

I can see that path.

I understand it.

Missoula will be, I feel like it wouldn't be shocking to see him wheeled out onto the court in the Hannibal Lecter mask

at some point during the season.

But

you look at the roster, and I just think the defense,

the defense, the rebounding, there's so many just like porous elements of this team that can't be fixed.

And it's just Tatum is a top five player, and removing him alone makes you an average basketball team, I think.

And so

I think this is going to be a pretty bad team.

And I would bet the under if I were gambling, a gambling person.

Yeah.

I just think they're going to shoot so many threes, the variants of every every like betting a random Celtic game would not be recommended because they're going to probably try to shoot 63s a game and just get as many up.

Yeah, the thing with Tatum, it's not just the points and, you know, all the ball handling and stuff.

It was all the other shit he was doing.

He was their best rebounder.

He was their best defender.

They could play big with him.

He was Swiss Army knife and all over the place.

You're not replacing that.

All right.

I asked you to do five things

that you're monitoring for these next three weeks.

Things that will help shape shape what you're looking for with the 2025-26 NBA season.

We're going to go from five to one to your biggest one.

So, what's your fifth one?

How good can the Golden State Warriors actually be?

They are top of mind right now for me, and I think everyone, just because of the recent activity that we've seen.

Now that the moves, we kind of knew throughout the offseason that some of the stuff was going to happen, but now that it's official, you can kind of grade it out.

You mean like Horford and

Al Horford, Gary Payton II, Anthony Melton.

It just feels more solid and real and worth analyzing after a summer where so little was nailed down and you had the Jonathan Kuminga stalemate.

They had like seven guys on their roster.

It didn't feel like a real team.

And the way that they lost in the playoffs with Steph Curry getting hurt after playing 45 minutes in game seven against the Houston Rockets, it just didn't seem like, regardless of what they did, that they could actually make

another lengthy playoff run.

But

now that I'm seeing the rotation,

I don't know.

I kind of like this team.

And

I'm charting it out as in a best case scenario where Al Horford, who now that he's officially on the Golden State Warriors, I think he might be in the conversation for best free agent.

signing of the offseason.

He's just tremendous.

He's 58 Al Horford games, but they'll be really high level each game.

Right.

He's tremendous.

He fits in.

He can play out of the pocket, spot up threes.

Like, if he shoots 40% behind the three-point line, he provides

the top-tier level defense that he does on his best nights and his best stints.

I just think that that is a humongous addition and like a huge upgrade over the center rotation that they had last year with Trace Jackson-Davis and Quentin Post and playing Draymond at the five.

But now you have more options and versatility.

So I just, I love that addition.

And

look, I think the Kaminga thing is kind of its own side conversation, but I, I, I feel for some reason optimistic that they will

come to some sort of mutually beneficial conclusion here

and get him out of there and replace him with anyone.

Like Malik Monk, Royce O'Neal, those, those names that I saw, honestly, I would be thrilled if I was the Golden State Warriors because I think that those are better fits for what they're trying to do in the short term.

Yeah, last year they were playing Quentin Post in that spread the floor spot that now they're going to have Al Horford, who's an NBA champion and headed to the Hall of Fame.

So the vibes will be better.

Like he's probably the most beloved Celtic teammate of all time.

They'll have Butler for

a full year.

The Kaminga thing's weird.

Like I thought it was weird that Kerr and Dunleavy didn't speak at Media Day because they didn't really seem like they want to answer questions about it.

This is just so adversarial for just something that's part of the CBA, right?

You can

either sign a guy when he's got one year left or you just roll it into the next season.

He takes the qualifying offer and you go.

And like, when it got to the point, like his agents going on a podcast to complain about it, it's like, this is your, your union signed up for this.

This is how it goes.

They don't want to sign him for that kind of

money and play it out.

So I don't.

It feels like it's going to be really adversarial.

And I don't really understand it because the best thing for him would be to just kick ass and either gets traded or he gets contract well but

kerr is just on the record in various forms that

he doesn't really like jonathan kaminga for this team so i just when are we gonna end this and rip the band-aid off like it just i feel like it's a divorce and it's just kind of it's lingering

the problem is probably kerr probably shouldn't have said anything

he probably shouldn't have said anything and then also if you watch the Golden State Warriors, whenever Jonathan Kaminga misses a defensive rotation or shoots a shot when he should have passed it, Kerr is like throwing the clipboard against the ground.

So

it's just, you can see the frustration with the coaching staff with him.

It's funny.

He was putting up stats in that Minnesota Saras.

Meanwhile, they're getting waxed every day.

And that might be who he is.

He just might be a good stats, bad team guy.

And that's...

Jonathan Kamingo, which is why I think people are pretty lukewarm trying to trade for him.

I don't, he's the type of player that I just don't know how to value anymore in this market.

Because if you're paying him 22, 24 million a year with this apron and, and how stingy you kind of have to be with guys that aren't your best guys, I just don't know where you're going.

Like that was the Josh Giddy conundrum too for Chicago.

They ultimately gave him right around there.

But that, it's that like 18 million.

That's why the Clippers traded Norm Powell.

It's that 18 million to 26 million range seems really confusing for teams right now.

Because you just, you're better off just getting a guy making 5 million who's 80% as good as Jonathan Kaminga, you know?

Yeah, and I just don't think he's a good fit for that team.

And

based on the timeline of where they are, it just doesn't make sense.

The giddy with Chicago made sense, I guess you could argue, because of where the Bulls are, which is, I mean,

that's a different conversation.

The Bulls are going nowhere and doing.

Well, he helps them go 40 and 42 and get the 10 seed.

Very good point.

You got to lock that down.

Yeah, so it's just a different situation.

And I personally, if I was running a team, would stay clear of Jonathan Kaminga.

I would too.

What's your number four?

My number four is

when will Laurie Markinen get traded?

So I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago in the ringer.com.

You had the team that I had been thinking about all summer in that piece.

Yeah, I feel like I'm banging my head against the wall advocating for a trade that would send Lowry to the Detroit Pistons.

It's the most logical trade of the year.

I couldn't agree more.

And I just think that they should do whatever it takes, considering how poor the Eastern Conference is with the Celtics down, the Pacers down, considering, you know, they have this.

They have Jaden Ivey, who's this question mark, who's due a contract extension eligible.

Is he a good long-term fit with Cade Cunningham and Asar Thompson, who I think are your best two young players, Jalen Duran also?

And the other side of that track is

a guy who just complements everyone perfectly.

He is like one of the better sidekicks you can get in the league, I think.

I know his contract is incredibly pricey, and they're going to have to start paying their young talent.

pretty soon detroit is but i would just i would swing and i would go for it because he's in his prime.

He's 20, Lowry Marketing is in his prime.

I think he's 28 years old.

And he doesn't need the ball to make other guys better.

I think he's one of the more ideal

pieces that you could add if you are a team like Detroit that is ascending right now.

So I would, I would,

I just want it to happen so bad.

I want to see it.

Well, he can, he can shoot.

He can space and shoot.

He can roll to the rim on anything.

Like the, it feels to me like that, like him and Cade would be perfect together.

The bigger question for me is, why is he still on Utah when they clearly don't care about the, I mean, they're just, they gave away Collins Sexton.

They gave away Collins.

They've been this way station for all these dudes that,

I don't know, I mean, I like a couple of the guys.

I thought Sensiba looked pretty good last year.

But for the most part, I don't really know what that team is.

How many of those guys will even be in the team three years from now?

And all he's going to do is hurt them as they try to get another high pick, right?

So

is the question for me is like, it's probably a little more than the bane trade, right?

For what they get for him.

It's probably a player plus at least three picks.

So it's like Ivy plus

three firsts and a swap.

Like that's the plus contracts are in there too.

Plus, we know, yeah, Tobias Harris would be involved for sure.

I support Tobias.

He's probably dreading it.

Do you think he's been on Reddit and Salt Lake?

Like Lucia Suggenic?

Yeah, so just a tear reading my column.

Yeah, so I think that it just makes so much sense for him to go there.

But as you said,

the price, plus the fact that Danny Ainge and Austin Ainge are the ones who are negotiating this, and they're notorious for, particularly Danny, notorious for having his price and not budging from it until a team gets there.

And we don't even know if he likes Jaden Ivey.

If he doesn't like Jaden Ivey, then there's nothing to talk about.

Plus the prospect of paying Jaden Ivey immediately.

So it's plus he's coming off a pretty major injury.

I mean, they said he's 100% and everything, but

yes.

I mean, Lori's making 46.

Tobias is 26.

You can patch the rest of those together.

Tobias and Ivy together.

Ivy's.

probably is an asset better than any of the guards they have.

You know, absolutely.

The conundrum of, all right, is he worth 100 million?

Is he worth 120 million?

I would probably want Beef Stew in the trade, but I don't, I wouldn't give him up if I'm Detroit, if I'm getting Lowry, because now I feel like I can actually make a run at the East.

I like that thing.

If you have Cade and Lowry as your top two down the stretch in a playoff series, like that's

you're in the mix.

I don't know if you're better than

the Knicks,

but you're in the mix.

They're not in the mix right now.

They almost beat without Beef Stew, without Ivy.

Of course, the Knicks made some moves, but.

Yeah, true.

Has he said anything, marking him?

Has he just been like.

I have not seen him comment on it beyond the,

I love Utah.

I love being here.

He's happy there.

He's happy with his family there.

I just think coming off of Euro Basket, being super competitive, being a guy who has never played in the playoffs.

Like

at some point, is that true?

He's never played in the playoffs.

He's never had a minute?

Not a minute.

Not a minute.

So

at what point do you

are you sick of what's happening in this?

Like, how many losing seasons can you go through if you're Lowry Marking in where your team is getting fined because you have these questionable issues that are keeping you on the sideline and away from basketball action?

So yeah, I just, at some point, I feel like he will get a, I don't know, disgruntled is probably too strong of a word, but he will put out the flyer that he wants to play competitive basketball.

Yeah, it's a little different than somebody being mad that their team can't win the title.

This is like,

can I just be on a decent team that gives a shit about six months of the season?

Can that happen?

I'm with you.

This is one of the more obvious ones in a while, and I don't know what the mechanics of the trade would actually be but something's there and whether they if i'm you tom thompson has to be in it

and not ivy ivy well that's a no-go for me really

it's a no-go for you he's he's untradable for me if i'm untradable well in this context yeah he's untradeable i give up something to get something though that is very true i'm extremely high on a star thompson who i think we could see really special things out of this year um already one of the better perimeter defenders in the entire league, already one of the most athletic players in the entire league.

Well, that's why I want him up from Utah.

I'm with you.

Detroit, if I'm Detroit, I'm not doing it.

I have to keep him and I have to keep Cade.

I'll talk about everybody else.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think we're on the same page.

Although I'd probably want to keep Darren too.

I don't know why Utah would want him anyway.

Now it's time for a very special segment of the show.

It's called Perfect Balance, brought to you by our friends.

at McDonald's.

I love McDonald's.

Perfect Balance.

Let's talk about a duo

operating in a professional sport that just seem like they're made for each other.

It's got to be Stafford and Puka Nakua right now for the Rams because it's weird.

Stafford had this with Cooper Cup, and he had that legendary best start-to-finish wide receiver season ever.

And then just Cup came in, became the 2.0 version of it.

And when you watch those guys, it doesn't matter third and three, third and eight, third and 13.

It just always feels like Puka is going to get open and Stafford's going to find them.

And they are in perfect, perfect sync.

The best I've ever seen for this was Montana and Rice.

Any big game, you just felt like Rice was getting open and Montana is finding him.

Not saying Stafford and Nicoor, like Montana and Rice.

But right now, when you're watching football, the connection, those two guys really, really stands out.

Really special.

Anyway, that's it for the edition.

This edition of Perfect Balance, our special segment brought to you by McDonald's.

And if you want to taste Perfect Balance McDonald's special edition gold sauce, sweet, smoky tangy made just for chicken it's making me hungry just talking about it taking that delicious snack wrap macrispie sandwich or mccrispy strips to golden new heights mccrispie just sounds just making me hungry available for a limited time at participating restaurants this episode is brought to you by prime video thursday night football is on it's only on prime video This week, a rivalry is renewed as the Philadelphia Eagles take on the New York Giants.

You can see Jackson Dart.

You can see a really, really good Giants front four.

A lot of history between these two teams.

I'm sure they'll show the

Joe Prisarch play, Herm Edwards.

Coverage begins at 7 p.m.

Eastern with football's best party, TNF Tonight, presented by Verizon.

Not a Prime member, not a problem.

Simply sign up for a 30-day free trial.

It's the Eagles and Giants Thursday at 7 p.m.

Eastern, only on Prime Video.

Restrictions apply.

See amazon.com/slash Amazon Prime for details.

This episode is brought to you by Velveeta.

Game Day is all about the tailgate spread.

Listen, if you're going to have friends over, you absolutely 100% have to have a lot of things for them to eat.

Everyone gets hungry.

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

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

So why not do creamy shells and cheese, melty Velveeta blocks, and cheesy jarred quesos?

I don't know.

Why wouldn't you?

They're taking down one taste bud at a time.

Do yourself a favor.

Stock up on Velveeta before kickoff.

All right, what's number three?

Number three is

so this deep, versatile, highly skilled and experienced version of the Denver Nuggets.

Just how great will they be?

I can't wait to watch the Denver Nuggets this season.

That's my number one this year.

I am so excited.

Like, not to spoil anything, but I'm picking them to win the title and not really thinking twice about it.

They've been the best offense in the NBA the past few years whenever Jokic is on the court.

And the past couple of years, particularly last season, it felt like he was doing it with one arm tied behind his back.

And now you give him a solid backup center with Jonas Valentunis.

You add Bruce Brown Jr.,

old friend from the finals team.

You get Tim Hardaway Jr.,

solidifying the bench, giving yourself more crunch time options.

The more I think about the Cam Johnson, Michael Porter Jr.

trade, the more I like it for the Denver Nuggets just on the court in the short term.

I just think he's a fantastic fit, and he gives you things as a ball handler

and a play creator that...

Michael Porter Jr.

just doesn't.

You can go tit for tat about who's a better shooter, who's a better movement shooter.

And you can talk about the

years of chemistry that are baked into the relationship with all those DHOs that MPJ had with Jokic.

I just think Cam will pick up right where MPJ kind of left off in that role and be awesome.

And he can play with Jokic on the bench and I think boost the offense a little bit.

That's another thing.

I'm looking forward to watching.

So

the other piece with that is he's

he's not a health risk.

Porter had the back issue forever.

Last year, he had the shoulder issue.

And it's just like, I'm not positive I'm getting eight months out of him.

Cam Johnson, I feel way better about just knowing that he's going to be there in April, May, and June.

Porter, I think his body really makes me nervous, especially at 40 million a year.

Yeah, that's definitely a huge factor.

So I know they only won 50 games last year.

Like, I don't know how crazy I want to get with this, but I feel like this can be a 61, 62, 63 win team.

Do you feel the same way?

Like, how optimistic are you about the Nuggets?

You're preaching the choir.

They're 54 and a half on FanDuel right now.

Their 60-plus odds are plus 320, which I think is a live bet because we've never seen them with a bench before.

Also, last year, you mentioned they win 50.

Murray was an absolute mess for the first six weeks of the season, right?

And figure he'll come back.

They wouldn't have played international.

He'll be healthier.

And

I think their coaches, I think that situation is going to be better.

I was really impressed by Adelman last year in the playoffs.

I think they really like him too.

I think the Malone thing kind of burned out.

I love everything they did.

I haven't decided what I'm doing yet, but I'm either picking them or OKC to win.

It's got to be one of those two teams in my mind.

And we've already seen Denver can go toe-to-toe with them.

I really, I got to look at it more and I got to look at the back-to-back stuff and

factor in stuff like Jalen Williams just not being hurt for four months last year, or, you know, which he was.

He was hurt down the stretch.

They hid the injury from us.

Top itch, is he actually going to play for them?

What is that going to do?

The, what you have after you win the title, the confidence you have, which I just think teams are different in a good way after they win one.

And they're young.

And usually when a team is trying to repeat, they're usually a little older and they start getting injuries.

they're like babies still you know so it's a tough one but i i think denver i think those are the two to pick um

i'm with you i cannot wait i'm really happy that they finally did some it feels like i was looking at it they still have a little room left to do maybe one more thing whether it's like a buyout guy or maybe even get a little creative they're not like over the second apron or anything They got rid of that porter money for Johnson and they added a couple guys, but like Hardaway's on a cheap contract, you know?

Yeah, they're barely in the tax.

You're right.

They're under the first apron, kind of way under the second apron.

So they do have, and they have an empty roster spot.

So a little bit of flexibility.

The guy I wish they had signed, and I can say this about five teams, is Yabicelli, who I just thought was such a great pickup by the Knicks.

I just really like him.

And I think, like, I didn't understand why San Antonio didn't get him.

And they spent like $10 million a year on Cornette.

God bless Cornette, but I would just rather have Yabaselli for half the price.

But I think Yabaselli is just a playoff guy.

And I thought he would have been good for Denver too.

What do you have for number two?

Number two,

I don't want to get judged too harshly with this one.

Is there any chance the Fred Van Vliet injury ends up being a blessing in disguise for the Houston Rockets?

Whether they find out...

Reed Shepard is actually way better than they thought.

Thompson can handle the ball.

You run it through more.

Yeah, there's some stuff.

There's a case.

There's a case.

You know, I heard you talking about this right after the injury happened, and I was nodding along listening to you and Zach talk about it and specifically talk about how, you know, the development of Ahmed Thompson and Reed Shepard and the Young Pieces was

not really the point of the season.

The point of the season is to contend for a championship and win it.

You just signed Kevin Durant and the time is now.

And I get that.

You know, I've come around, and I'm just like, maybe I'm overthinking this, but just considering the size of this team

and if you play like at Ahmed Thompson,

Jabari Smith Jr., Kevin Durant, Alper and Shangoon, Stephen Adams starting lineup, which is something I think

Emei Odoka said was a possibility at Media Day.

That is like, have have we ever seen any basketball team that huge?

How do you match up with that?

Like, how?

I don't understand how anyone gets a rebound except the Houston Rockets when they're playing their starting five.

Like, I think that it's, it's,

there's just so much intrigue with them in terms of, you know, you take out Jalen Green, who I thought was a minus in a lot of ways.

You add KD still to kind of boost up the half-court offense.

I'm just really intrigued by Amin Thompson.

I think he can can be one of the more special

highlight reel type of forces we've seen in quite some time, given his size and shift.

And he's somewhat a monitor too over the next three weeks.

If he starts like there's a GQ feature, he launches his new cologne.

I just, I hope he's, I hope he's more basketball centric and not, this is my time.

Here I am.

I want to see him.

Can you make like third team all NBA before you add like the 17 things off the court?

That would be my hope for him.

Sure.

I think we're aligned there.

Yeah.

Just third team All NBA.

And I love Shangoon

so much.

I loved him for a long time and watching him.

Were you a Eurobasket guy?

No, I'm not a EuroBasket.

I need my rest and relaxation guy.

Yeah, because apparently the Eurobasket stuff with him is out of control, but

I'm the same as you.

I need to decompress for basketball.

Yeah.

I think just you like the depth of this team.

I know Dorian Finney Smith is hurt hurt right now, but just I forgot he was on the roster until I was

checking out Media Day.

Yeah.

Aaron Holliday is like a stopgap, can be a stopgap point guard who gives you a solid 10-15 minutes a game.

I'm really high on Reed Shepard.

I like him a lot.

And I think this is a fantastic opportunity for him throughout the course of this season.

I think we could see him contributing in ways that are different in March and April than they are in

October and November.

So

I love this team still.

I sound like I'm not really an appreciator of Fred Van Vleet.

I am.

I just think that

how the team is built can still withstand that injury to a certain extent.

And by the time we get to the playoffs, they will have figured out some stuff about themselves that I think is crucial to surviving multiple playoff rounds in the Western Conference.

Yeah, we'll see.

I mean, my big point was when we get to these playoffs and you have to play OKC or Minnesota.

And if you don't have a true ball handler, I'm just going to be nervous.

It's fair.

And that's the thing with Reed, who after we did the Padma Sack,

a friend of mine who's who loves basketball and is involved in the league texted me and said he saw Reed at Summer League playing and said he played like a rich, spoiled kid at an AAU tournament.

That made me nervous.

That's a

pretty pointed scouting report.

It's where all of our guys really loved him heading into the draft, which we're usually not like way, way off.

Everybody's like, ah, there's some Mark Price here.

Now, the draft was weird.

I don't think he would have been the third pick in a normal draft.

I think in last year's draft, he probably would have been in the probably six to nine range, but we'll see.

He's the X factor.

I think it'll be interesting because we'll know in December, January with him whether he's actually going to be able to play.

Pritchard, not to compare two white guys with vaguely similar games, but I'm going to.

Pritchard, there was that moment where they were like, he's going to play more this year.

We're going to start using him.

And then he actually, you know, he had the six-man, but there was a moment there with Pritchard where we were like,

what is this guy?

Is he,

do we just like him because he comes in and he's a heat check guy?

Or is there really something here?

Maybe we'll find out with Shepard.

I don't know.

The other thing with Houston that I haven't heard a lot of people talk about is just

Durant has moved into this Aaron Rodgers LeBron area where he's just been in the league for so long.

We just assume he's going to be the same every year and his stats are relatively the same.

But

at some point, it becomes unrealistic for a seven-foot guy

nearing his 40s to just be what we're expecting from Durant.

And I don't know what that year is.

He said he was open to the extension, which kills the Saudi Arabian League because I think he was one of the guys that was probably going there if they had it.

But I just don't know what he looks like

next year, three years from now.

Is this going to be the last good Durant year?

I don't know.

I will say real quick, I like the fact that the Houston Rockets are built to preserve Kevin Durant, like preserve his body.

Like he's not going to be playing in the interior defensively at all.

That's a really good point.

Yeah, because he was almost had to Brooklyn and Phoenix.

Yeah, you're right.

He was probably Phoenix's best defender last season, which really says a lot about their situation and why they were so poor.

But yeah, I just think it's a really great,

well-constructed team.

And I think to answer the whole point of this exercise, I'm just super interested in seeing how it looks on the court with this just being so huge.

Like Tari Eason is like one of the better wing offensive rebounders in NBA history.

I can't wait to see it.

It's just going to be a lot of fun.

Sounds like you're going to watch some Rockets preseason.

What do you got for number one?

I think that this is the most important question in the league from a big picture standpoint.

Where and how will Victor Wembanyama be better this season?

It's just

like,

are his post-moves going to be tighter?

Is he going to shoot 40% behind the three-point line?

Is he

just going to be quicker reads in the pocket?

You know, I don't know if you saw, but he's officially listed at 7-4 now.

They're still lying.

He's 7-6.

Why do they do do this?

He's definitely 7'6.

He's clearly the biggest person in the league.

And

just, I mean, I don't need to explain why Victor Wemanyam is awesome, but adding more sensible pieces around him.

I know DeAaron Fox is this like

nagging injury that's kind of a bummer and could derail a little bit of the beginning of the season.

Still, when Dylan Harper gets back, when Fox is back, they still have Visel.

I like the Luke Cornette signing a lot.

And I feel like a lot of the talk at Media Day with the Spurs was just how excellent their defense is going to be.

And I agree with that.

I mean, top five defense is in the cards for them this year.

And I want to see just how Victor evolves offensively to the point where, you know, last year, San Antonio's offense was the exact same with him on the court and off the court.

And obviously the roster is a little bit different now.

But I just want to see the offensive rating go to a top 10 in the league tier when he's on the floor.

And I feel like that is already possible.

And I'm not going to spoil where I had him in my top 100, but by the end of the year, I think he could get even higher when there's not too many players that he can jump.

Over 44 and a half for them.

Out of all the teams in that range, I think that's the one you have to stare at as who could make the big jump that we aren't expecting.

And it basically comes down to if he's just on the court for six months with all these athletes and all this defense they're going to have, and finally a little bit of size.

I like Cornette too.

I just, if I'm, I, I would have just rather had Yabaselli, who played with him in France for half the price, but they have Cornette.

They had the money to do it.

Um,

he'll be able to play with Wemby, I think, a little bit.

Wemby's talked a big game about the training he's done.

He shaved his head.

Yeah, you're probably right.

They're probably the biggest floor-ceiling team.

Like, if you think like who has the most floors between their ceiling and their basement,

they probably have the most floors because there's also the, can Wemby play a whole season?

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's.

Because do you trust him?

What would you move over under for games for him?

I was like, I don't know, 65,

62?

At this time of year, I'm always just an eternal optimist, and I assume everyone's going to play 82 games.

So that's where I'm at.

And he talked a lot about, yeah, you mentioned it, the off-season training, and no one worked harder than me this summer.

And

I don't know, like, he's already the best offensive player, but there's still so much that he can get better at defensively.

And obviously, like offensively, still so high impact.

I mean, I always think about just him at MSG on Christmas Day and the show he put on.

And it's like, we're going to get to a stage where that is consistently who we see.

And I just want to see when that, when that happens.

And this is year three.

A leap could be coming.

If it does,

San Antonio Spurs could be extremely dangerous.

And they have some

pieces if they want to get frisky December, January range.

It's interesting.

I'm FanDuel.

He is tied for the fourth best MVP odds already.

Him and Giannis are both 12-1.

They're behind SGA and Jokic and Donchich.

But better odds than Edwards.

It gets really kind of dumb after that.

All of a sudden, Durant's 50-1.

He has the sixth best odds.

Cade Cunningham, Brunson, Mitchell.

It's really a four-person MVP race.

with Wemby and Edwards as the wild cards.

Edwards as a wild card, only if Minnesota, for some reason, went like 65 and 17, and he was just incredible.

That would be the way for him.

Giannis, I mean, Wemby,

they're 54 and 28.

He's defensive player of the year.

He plays 72 games and puts up, what, 25, 10, and 3 with five blocks a game.

I don't know.

There's some case.

I'm excited to watch him with Fox, too, because

we just didn't get it at all.

I didn't really know what it looks like.

Only five games last year, yeah.

Yeah, Harper.

I don't know how much he's going to help them this year because he's pretty raw, but it'll be fun when he comes in, you know.

But it's, and he's been at every stage of his life, he's been one of the best players at whatever level he's been on.

So I find it hard to believe he's just not going to play this year.

You'll hear from him.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's an interesting team.

I think that's a good first choice.

I think I agree with it.

The only one

I would have, the only one I would have added

is the, I'm really interested even in the preseason

with how Dallas is going to use flag.

And I don't think they even know what they have yet.

And they're doing this point forward.

And I just, to me, I wouldn't have him dribbling the ball.

I wouldn't have him handling the ball like that that much.

I would be using him.

as this crazy Swiss Army knife all over the floor, playing big lineups, small, and just kind of taking advantage of him as a two-way guy.

I'm going to be interested to see how much they throw at him, especially with Kyrie not back yet.

You know?

Yeah, I think that's an interesting one.

And,

you know, Dallas has so many different types of lineups that they can play even with Kyrie out.

Right.

And if you play Cooper Flag as your point guard,

you know, or if you don't play him as your point guard, I should say, then does Clay Thompson come off the bench?

Is he happy about that?

Does Anthony Davis play the five more instead of this really

eternally frustrating commitment to the four with Gafford and Lively constantly?

Or do you play a center with AD and Flag as your front line?

It's huge.

And then you just play Clay and D'Lo or you play Clay and P.J.

Washington and you have Flag dribble the ball up.

Like, they do have like some crazy lineup options, and I have no idea how they're going to play it.

Because I think Flag, for his age, remember how long it took for Tatum to even figure out how to be a point forward?

It took him like probably four years to even be able to consistently handle pressure and things like that.

His rookie year, he was just running into corners and not doing anything.

He was a spotted shooter.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So just to ask Blag come in to the hardest league in the planet and you're going to handle the offense, I don't know.

Maybe you can do it, but I'd be surprised.

And apologies to Con Knipple for not making your top five.

I was really,

I thought about it, you know, gave him a long look.

Just couldn't fit him in.

Unfortunately, unfortunately i don't know who my league pass favorite is going to be for the bad 4 p.m pt games between charlotte or washton but they're both in the mix because washton's just a freaking fantasy team i don't know what i don't know what's going to happen with them but i'm kind of excited to watch them and then charlotte has the makings of maybe being okay

you know who knows Yeah, Charlotte has been a bit more likely to be a little bit like 13 and 7.

Oh, yeah.

You know, to start the first 20 and they're talking like Lamello's figured it out and all that.

Who knows?

All right, Michael Pina.

Look forward to reading you on the ringer and seeing you and listening to you on all of our shows.

Good to see you.

Thank you.

Thanks, Bill.

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All right, Craig Horbeck is here, just back from the streets of Ireland, where he was with the fantasy football crew going to see Stewart's Vikings.

Your favorite team, the Stewarts.

What was the overseas football experience like?

Not just Ireland, but just in general,

the whole thing.

Tell us.

It was way better than I thought it was going to be.

It felt like the Super Bowl there.

It was the first game in Ireland, obviously, and the Steelers being there was a big deal, particularly.

Like the Roonies and the Steelers really pitched Goodell specifically on going to Ireland.

Dan Rooney, who was the son of Art Rooney, the founder of the Steelers, was the U.S.

ambassador to Ireland.

under Obama.

So like there's a lot of connections between Steelers and Ireland.

And it was crazy.

I mean,

90% of the people walking the streets were wearing Steelers jerseys.

There was very little Vikings action there.

So it was awesome.

Like the whole atmosphere, it honestly felt like I was at the Super Bowl.

Wow.

Because we took the Vikings in Ringer 107 last week.

And then you texted me, yeah, it's all Steelers spancer.

And I'm like, what?

I had no idea that it was like basically Pittsburgh adjacent.

Yeah, it was crazy.

Like there was a quote after the game from Patrick Queen, the Steelers linebacker, and he said that the atmosphere there was better than in Pittsburgh.

Oh my God.

Just like they should play there every year.

What were the fans like?

Like, were they the stereotype of, I'm 25% Irish, so I could say this, like a hard-drinking, happy Irish crowd?

Or like, were there things you, did they seem like they knew the rules?

Well, there was, it was funny.

Before the game started, they were like on the Jumbotron.

They were teaching the fans the game.

There was like every rule for like the first hour before the game.

They were showing every like rule, every flag, what each position does.

So they were clearly trying to teach people what was going on.

But luckily, I feel like the game had a lot of big moments that people who didn't even really know what was going on

could be happy about.

Like the DK Metcalf run, there was the Jalen Ramsey.

We thought it was the fumble return for a touchdown.

That was huge.

People went crazy.

So at least there was a lot of like big, easy to understand moments.

But they must, I mean, there must have been 50,000 Irish people there that are now converted Steelers fans for life.

Wow.

I mean, did they seem like they had enough sophistication to realize that when the Vikings lost two guys, that Carson Wentz was their QB, the game was over?

That that was a wrap?

They probably now know what Carson Wentz is all about.

It was great because

they really got a real masterclass of two coaches crumbling at the end of the game, O'Connell and Tomlin.

They must have thought they were drunk on Guinness because the last four minutes, they probably didn't even really know how bad it was.

But also,

it was a perfect NFL game because there was so much fun stuff, big plays, big moments.

But then at the end of the game, there's all these like tiny, ridiculous rules, like the Carson Wentz getting thrown to the ground, but getting the

intentional grounding call.

People were confused by that.

There was like the Kevin O'Connell on-side kick.

It was kind of the perfect NFL experience, I feel like, for the Irish fans there.

They got a little bit of everything.

What was the dominant Steelers jersey in Ireland?

Please don't tell me Aaron Rodgers.

Watt.

Okay.

Yeah.

Watt was everywhere.

I got to say, I was very little Ben Rothesberger jerseys these days.

Interesting.

I know.

There was a, he was there.

Bettis was there.

There There's a lot of Steelers guys there.

It's all Watt.

And then a little bit of Rogers sprinkled in.

People, people like Rogers right now.

Like

the players like Rogers.

I know there's a lot, like a lot of people in the media don't like him, but I think a lot of players like Rogers.

He was, he met Aaron Jones after the game on the field.

And like, they all love Aaron Rodgers.

So it's interesting that there's such a, I think it might be the biggest split between media perception and then what players actually in the locker room feel about a guy.

Do you, Pittsburgh Steelers fan Craig, like Aaron Rodgers?

Have you gotten there yet?

You're three and one.

You're in the catbird seat in the NFC and the AFC North, which I want to talk about in a second.

But you were, it took you a while to come around on this one, and then you kind of had to blindly come in because it's your team.

But have you come around?

I mean, right now, yeah.

How can I not?

They're three and one.

Rogers is playing good.

Vibes are high.

The schedule is about to get horrific, so it might turn very quickly.

And Angry Rogers, when the, like, Rodgers,

it's a lot more fun, his antics, when they're winning.

If they go like one and four over their next five, the vibes might kind of drastically flip.

But right now, yeah, he's playing good.

They're using him well, I think.

Like it's a lot of quick hitting stuff.

He's getting the ball out quick.

They're using DK Metcalf like Debo Samuel.

They're just like, they're not running him down the field that much anymore.

They're just getting him the ball, you know, two yards down the field and letting him run and pick up steam.

It's like a bunch of tight ends and heavy offensive line sets.

I think the Arthur Smith Rodgers thing is actually working a little bit better than everybody thought.

Rodgers is kind of playing ball with Arthur Smith and actually like doing some of the things that Arthur Smith wants, like taking the ball under center and stuff.

So it's nice to see right now.

Well, it was really frustrating to go against when my team played them because I just felt like he was only he can only do two things anymore, but he does them really well.

And the defenses haven't seemed like they've figured out the quick stuff.

You said the schedule does get harder.

They still have some good teams left.

They have Green Bay left, Indianapolis, the Chargers, Buffalo, Detroit.

They got Baltimore twice.

So they're 3-1.

I was trying to figure out.

Well, there was a lot of dirt port on the Ravens this week.

Lamar went out.

They've lost all of these defensive starters, including a couple for the year.

I don't know where their pass rush is.

They're a little top-heavy now from a salary cap standpoint.

And they're one and three, which is usually not a good sign for a possible playoff team.

The thing is, I was looking at their schedule because I said on Sunday, because I had in my head, I thought they had a tough schedule, but it was really tough in the first month.

Then it died a little bit.

They had three straight home games.

Then basically they play all non-playoff teams except for Pittsburgh until week 15, whereas Pittsburgh has a much, much tougher sneak.

The bigger question to me is, is this just a bad division?

Because since he's bad and Cleveland's bad, and maybe neither of these teams are good, maybe this is just like the AFC South this year.

Yeah, I mean, Lamar's going to be out, it looks like, for at least a couple of weeks.

So even though they're playing the Texans, the Rams, and then the Bears, which is tough because they could probably lose a lot of those games.

But you're right.

I mean, I still think it's likely that he comes, if he comes back in two, three weeks, Dolphins, Vikings, Browns, Jets, Bengals, Steelers, Bengals, they're going to have to go like eight and one, eight and two down the stretch to make the playoffs, which I definitely honestly think they will.

But the Browns, it looks like are starting Dylan Gabriel now, Burroughs out.

This, to me, it's like the Steelers, it's all going to kind of end up, I think, the way everybody expected.

It's just going to be a different path there.

Like, I think the Steelers will end up with like nine or 10 wins.

It's unbelievable.

I finally went under on them.

I couldn't take it anymore.

The 41-year-old Rodgers, I was like, I can't.

I'm out, guys.

And some other three and one, and they're just going to figure out how to get to nine wins because six and eight gets up to that nine wins, six and seven.

I mean, they were winning nine and ten games with Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph.

How can they not do it with Aaron?

That feels easy.

This is weird.

Tomlin is just like, he's like a family member for you at this point that just does weird shit every

day.

And you're just like, ah, that's Uncle Mike.

Yeah.

Just taking the delay of game on fourth and one for no reason at all and then punting it in the end zone.

I wish he could coach for three and a half quarters and then we have a new coach for the final quarter.

That goes closer.

Yeah, yeah.

Can we do that?

Can we have two coaches for different quarters?

That'd be great.

That'd be amazing.

Like whoever the best unemployed coach is, they just come in and they take it over.

The Cincinnati piece, I didn't think they were going to be good anyway.

And then on Monday night, they were so bad.

I mean, did you get back in time to watch the two terrible Meta Net games?

No, I was in the air, but I was watching on my phone.

You missed nothing.

You missed nothing.

Cincinnati feels like this might be a wrap for them because they were so top heavy to begin with.

And now

with no offensive line and Browning, it doesn't even matter that they have $60 million of receivers.

And then Cleveland, at least Cleveland's defense is good.

I don't know if they're going to figure out the quarterback situation in time.

So, I mean, this might be a nine-win title champ.

Definitely.

Yeah, the Steelers have a real shot to win the division, but the schedule just gets so hard for them and it opens up so easily for the ravens at the end that i think it's going to be close still i'm looking up the odds so you think so lamar's out we don't know for sure

and they're still minus 150 and the steelers are plus 190 now which is under you finally got into the 100s i mean 190 is not bad you should probably take that

well how many what do we really think with lamar

Because these hamstring things always are two weeks longer than they say they are.

I never trust the hamstring.

Also, it's like worse for him than a different quarterback.

like if he was jared goff with a tweaked hamster it's like less not that big of a deal with lamar i don't think lamar in general we were talking about this on the fantasy show i feel like lamar

is slightly less athletic than he used to be and you can kind of see it and it's like all these guys i mean mahomes is 30 which is weird in my head he seems like he's 27 so lamar is 38 josh allen's 29 all these guys who are super physical all these great runners like we're in this new awesome era where half these quarterbacks are great throwers and runners we don't really have a lot of like data on how

running quarterbacks age, like really good running quarterbacks age.

There's like a few guys we've seen, it's like Michael Vick, but I think Lamar did not age well, by the way.

No, and like, I think Lamar is a good passer, but I do think that he is in a different phase, I think, athletically.

Like, he's no longer outrunning linebackers as easily as he used to.

He's not as twitchy, I think.

So, the hamstring, even if he does come back in a couple of weeks, I don't know.

I don't know if he'll be the same.

Not to defend Lamar,

it's possible he was hurt already and the thing got worse.

I noticed it too, but I think he's too young to be like moving into a, if he's like 33, it'd be one thing.

But it is interesting to watch somebody like my guy Drake May, who Sal derisively called Drake Maybe, which I'm still upset.

Maybe he's good now.

It looks like.

Maybe he's good, but he does seem really athletic.

I know, if you think about like a running back, right?

A running back around 28, 29 starts to enter a new phase of their career.

And Lamar and Josh Allen, these guys are like, they're not running quite as much as running backs, obviously, but they're also runners.

So I don't think it's that crazy to think that when they're 28, 29, 30, maybe their passing is still like going on the way up.

But the rushing, I think, will start to plateau, at least athletically.

I think a good one for this is Steve Young, who unfortunately for him was playing in a different era where you would just get it absolutely annihilated.

But Steve Young was like the best athlete of the 90s.

And his career started later, so we had less miles on him.

Let me look at this.

Yeah, Steve Young, he didn't start until he was, what, 30?

Yeah, but he basically 30.

Yeah,

so

yeah, I guess that's a tough one.

Yeah, there's not a lot because I'm trying to think of some other ones.

I mean, Cam Newton, who was more physical as a runner, but still like he, he kind of was moved into a different phase by that late 20s.

You might be right.

It's an interesting theory.

Peptimonere.

This will be the first wave of dudes, though.

I feel like Allen will be superhuman until he's like 35, 36.

He's just too big.

Yeah, he's got the size.

That's the thing is he's not, he's not reliant on like the quick Twitch stuff.

He's just like a freight train.

Are you back in on Mahomes?

I mean, yeah, what he's doing with these receivers, he made you, he's making all the old Patriots receivers that got cut relevant, Taekwondo and Juju Smith Seaster and all that stuff.

Xavier Worthy being back, and I didn't think he was going to be healthy or look good because that shoulder injury from week one looked bad.

And I, I can't believe believe he's back so soon.

He looked all right.

And Rashi Rice is back in two weeks.

And

yeah, I think you have to be back.

It's playing out the way it felt like.

It was fun to do the, oh my God, the Chiefs.

But it was like, all right, let's see what this looks like when Rice is back.

The Thornton thing is a fun X Factor.

We all liked him on the Patriots.

He just couldn't stay on the field.

But it was clear like he was fast as shit, but he kept either getting hurt or dropping passes.

And they just gave up on him.

Yeah, he looks pretty good.

Fun toy for them.

We had the most traumatic traumatic fantasy injury we've had in a while last night with Tyreek Ho, who's having a really good game, too.

He, of course, is on most of my teams.

But that was one of those immediately, it's over.

It feels like for the most part, though, through this

first month, we haven't had a ton of like, oh, no, my season's over injuries, right?

That was the biggest one.

And neighbors.

Yeah, this week started a lot of them.

But no, knock on wood.

Last year, the running backs were super healthy, and everybody thought that wasn't going to happen again.

And so far, the running backs have been pretty healthy.

It's the quarterbacks who have been injured.

Right.

Well, and the thing with the quarterbacks is if you don't have Allen and you don't have Lamar, there's like 10 other guys that are all around the same.

Right.

And it doesn't, in our Yahoo fantasy draft that we did with that 0-4.

And I took all those quarterbacks.

It was actually the right move.

My mistake was building a team around Jamar Chase and Brian Thomas Jr., who apparently is in witness protection now.

Are you starting to sweat in that league?

Are you nervous?

You're the only 0-4 team.

The punishment is kind of looming.

Of course.

I mean, I built my team around two receivers who are underachieving and Brock Bowers, who it seems like he's either playing hurt or being used as a second tight end.

I know.

I had a theory I wanted to pitch to you because of, honestly, based around all the injuries that are going on, I think fantasy should start after week four.

I think that's the solution.

I think you watch for a month because there's no preseason anymore, basically.

Nobody plays.

So no one's, everyone gets hurt the first month of the season because they're not used to the physicality yet.

Like, like they're not practicing in pads.

They're not getting hit.

First month, everybody goes down.

Everybody looks like shit.

And so many people's fantasy seasons are just over already.

It's week four and it's like, oh, great.

Brian Thomas is just terrible.

I had no idea.

Malik Neighbors just tore his ATL.

Burroughs out for the season.

And it's like, it's just a horrible experience.

If we all just drafted after week four, it'd be a much more interesting situation, in my opinion.

I was in two guillotine leagues, and I think that solves some of what you're thinking because you could do the mid-season guillotine league.

We lost the other one that I'm in that you're not in, we lost because we have Tyreek and Lamar.

And it was just the unrecoverable double whammy.

But the bigger issue is having Kenneth Gainwell on the bench

and then waking up and finding out that he was actually starting.

Regardless, the guillotine, I was way more invested in where we are and did you survive and what do you do and then the guys that come up.

It's it's versus like the old school fantasy where it just seems like completely random.

I know.

When you're 0-4 in a regular fantasy league,

you're just fighting to stay above water for the rest of the day.

Yeah, it's like

you've basically been guillotined anyway.

Well, we did punishments for the Yahoo Fantasy League.

And

I was okay with the one I had, but now I'm starting to wonder about,

does the winner, so I picked, I have to wear a jersey of a team that I absolutely hate.

Yes.

This is kind of your worst case scenario because you're right now in last and Sal is in first.

So he gets to decide what you wear.

Oh, Jesus.

And who knows what he'll do?

So like he could basically say,

I don't know,

wear like a LeBron Lakers jersey or wear.

a Roger Clemens Yankee jersey.

And then I would have to wear that on my podcast for a solid week.

Yeah.

But I feel like I would deserve it because I did a bad job with the fantasy league.

I asked you to come up with your top five fantasy stories through four weeks.

I don't know if we stepped

them already, but let's go from five to one.

What do you have for number five?

So we're starting small and then we're ending on the biggest.

Yeah.

All right.

So starting small, I got to say, I think fifth is just that the a lot of these are rookie related because this was a big rookie hype season.

I feel like there was a lot of rookies being drafted very highly in drafts.

Travis Hunter just being irrelevant.

immediate just a disaster.

We joke on the fantasy show.

We call him expensive Wandale Robinson.

Yeah.

And

I was very jealous of that bit.

Yeah, it's almost insulting to Wandale Robinson at this point.

He's like, he's like expensive Pop Douglas.

He is.

He's just like not playing.

And he's the worst of both worlds.

He doesn't play corner that much and he doesn't play receiver that much.

So I don't understand.

He's the 77th highest scoring wide receiver this year in fantasy, which feels impossible.

But he, you know, he was being drafted before guys like Romadunze, Abuka, Pierce Hall.

He plays 58% of the snaps.

He's like a backup tight tight end.

You know, it's a disaster.

He doesn't really jump out off the TVs either, like I thought he would.

I mean, there's a disaster from a fantasy standpoint because people were drafting him like he was better than Igbuka, which was nuts.

But there's the other piece where they traded up to two.

They gave away next year's number one pick.

And even worse, they didn't take Abdul Carter.

Like, if they had traded up to two and taken Abdul Carter, I'd be like, all right, I get it.

The guy looks like he's Michael Parsons 2.0, basically.

Or even if they had taken Will Campbell, who's been awesome at left tackle, or they just stayed at five and they took Mason Graham, who's been really good in the Browns.

But they traded up to take a guy that if you redrafted, there's no way he goes ahead of those three.

I'm not sure he goes ahead of Genti, especially after what we saw last week.

I'm not sure if he goes ahead of Membo and Banks, the two tackles that win the top 10.

It's really rough.

Fortunately, there's no Jaguar fans to get mad about it, but holy shit.

No, it's, they need to just give up.

I think that they're trying to double down because they want to prove that it was worth it to trade up for him.

So like, no, no, we're going to stick to the, he's going to play both sides of the ball thing because that's the only way we can explain having to trade away a first-round pick to move up.

That's the only way you make the trade if you think you're getting two players, which is how they kind of

soft-sold it after the draft.

Like, look, this is like filling two positions at the same time.

And it's

it's filling none it really was was you know that guy took over gladstone yeah who's like and it seems like he want yeah and he wanted to make a big move and be splashy and gutsy but you know it's like putting a putting an indoor pool in like your two-bedroom house you know like look at this we can swim inside it's like all right cool we really do need a ranking of like the the new gm new owner splashy move disaster power rankings we need a list of that like ishbia coming in and just like signing bradley beal like we need we need a ranking of all of those.

Well, the owners, it's pretty reliable.

It's weird when the GMs do it.

Like if I'm getting a job, I'm like, man, I really want to do everything right.

He was like, ah, Travis Hunter.

He's Deion Sanders.

Here are all our picks.

Yeah, I mean, he's like 34.

He's been watching football for 10 years.

Like, you know, Travis Hunter was probably the best player he's ever seen in his life.

He's like, I'm taking that guy.

Unbelievable.

Well, that trade, we'll see, but it has the early makings of an all-timer.

All right, what's number four?

Number four four is Tyler Warren, the tight end on the Colts, just immediately being a top five tight end in fantasy for the next decade.

Yeah.

It was week one.

It was the first drive of week one, and he had three catches for 40 yards.

And I think it was the quickest I've seen all I need to see start to a career ever.

I was like, it's it.

It's over.

He's good.

He's he's now immediately in the top five.

Cause, I mean, Kittle's hurt.

Brock Bowers is banged up.

McBride's been fine.

It's like Tyler Warren might be the number one tight end in the NFL right now.

What's weird is we have a ton of good tight ends.

Yeah.

And yet he really jumps out.

I mean, it's so funny because when I was doing the Pats preparation when they had the fourth pick, and it was like, well, maybe we trade back two spots and we just take Tyler Warren because he looked amazing.

Yeah.

And then by the time the draft started, it was like people stared at his tape too much.

And then they decided Loveland was better.

Loveland went 10 and he fell to 14, which was like, that's stupid.

This guy's clearly a monster.

I like when they line him up in the backfield, and then he's basically like,

I don't know, almost like a sports movie, like a high school running back that's just way bigger than everybody else and just plows into everybody.

He's awesome.

They treat him like they, like Derrick Henry in high school, where he just like does everything.

He ran in a touchdown last week.

He was throwing touchdowns in college.

He'll probably throw a touchdown this year.

He's like LaDanian Tomlinson, but as a tight end, he can do everything.

Yeah, it's funny.

I really wanted to talk myself out of the Colts being a playoff team, but they should have won last week.

They should be 4-0,

and they just have a lot of skill.

Like, Taylor, I think, is in the running for our most talented running back, and he's certainly one of the best running backs this year.

They have a bunch of receivers who can get open.

They have Warren.

They have a good offensive play call.

Like, I think it's legitimate.

I thought they should have beat the Rams last week.

That was a really stupid result.

It's a really tough beat for Anthony Richardson.

Like, the fact that the Colts are so good immediately, like they brought in Daniel Jones, who, you know, I don't know, is a fine quarterback and run an offense.

And they're like fucking awesome.

Right.

It's like, Jesus, how, how bad was Anthony Richardson that this team is immediately a playoff team?

So you're buying the Colts long term.

Yeah.

I think for fantasy purposes, too.

Definitely.

I mean, Michael Pittman's been really good and surprising.

Jonathan Taylor's always been one of the best running backs in the league.

I mean, he was, he looks great.

He was amazing in college and he's finally healthy.

He just had a weird couple of years.

He was suspended.

He was hurt.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The holdout always like kills these guys for a year.

I think we're going to have two AFC South playoff teams, the more I stare at it.

And I, and Houston might be one of them.

I'm still not willing to count them out because their schedule was tough early.

They're one and three.

Like they're right in the middle of this.

They can, you know, they're, I think they're playing Baltimore.

Aren't they playing Baltimore this week?

Yeah.

Catching Baltimore with a backup, which, you know, on paper was supposed to be one of their

toughest games and suddenly doesn't look as tough now.

And then what was the other thing i noticed with them

are you still in on stroud i i'm i don't know about cj stroud anymore it's it's it's been like two like a year and a half since he's been good

it's weird because they drafted these receivers and they kept collins and then i've heard the case that losing tank doll was really important for him but

i don't know like that should that completely change the course of your career that tank dell got hurt his offensive line can't block no but there's a lot of other quarterbacks.

You could say, like, nine quarterbacks don't have an offensive line that can block.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I'm starting to worry.

Like, Bryce Young is still not very good.

So it still looks like C.J.

Stroud was the right pick, obviously.

But I don't know.

With him, they're moving through offensive coordinators.

They're moving through offensive lines, and none of them are seeming to work.

And it just goes to show you you shouldn't start a podcast after your rookie season in the NFL.

It's a bad sign.

Or, dude, didn't he big bro?

Who did he, big bro?

Caleb Williams?

Yeah.

It felt like from the moment he did that, the wheels came off.

I thought he was really good as a rookie, though.

So we know.

Oh, he was amazing.

I just, I refuse to believe it's not in there.

But yeah, every week he does not jump out of the TVs and doesn't look awesome.

All right.

What's number three?

Number three is Ameka Ibuka just being the most obvious rookie that was going to be good.

He's a top, he's the wide receiver seven in fantasy right now.

Wow.

And I can't remember a wide receiver looking like a, like a vet so quickly.

Yeah.

And it's just one of those classic things where Scataboo was kind of this way, where it's these players who are obviously good in college, but they don't test well.

And it's like, well,

he was never the best receiver on his team.

You know, there was all these other awesome Ohio State wide receivers around him.

And, you know, at the combine, oh, you know, he's not the fastest.

He's not, he can't jump the highest, all this stuff.

But every game you watch, he's, he's just like always good, always clutch, always delivers.

These guys always work.

It's like a Monroe St.

Browns and Keenan Allen's, Chris Godwins, these guys who just look.

Puka.

Yeah, Puka.

We should go the other way with the combine.

I want the guys who test poorly.

If they were good in college and then they test poorly, I want them.

Well, the fact that they named him captain before the year, that was crazy.

I've never even seen that.

We talked about him when we did our big fantasy my guy draft with DK and

Danny.

Yeah.

But it was like you guys all had him too.

It was, you can kind of tell from the preseason when somebody just has it with the way everyone's talking about it.

And what's weird is Brian Thomas Jr.

was that guy last year.

Yeah.

And then I don't know what happened to him this year, but Igbuka seems like a little bit of a safer bet.

I like the fact that Evans went out and he was still impactful against Philadelphia.

Like, you know, that was like, all right, he's got Mike Evans on the other side, but it didn't matter.

He's just going to get his yards.

What do you got for number two?

Two, I have that Roma Dunze and Caleb are quietly very good at fantasy.

I don't, Rome, I think, is really good.

Yeah.

Caleb, I think the jury's still out.

We don't exactly know.

But in fantasy, I mean, it's, it's working.

Roma Dunze is a top three wide receiver in fantasy.

Caleb is the sixth highest scoring quarterback right now, which I think people aren't really realizing.

And even if they haven't like looked that good, the Ben Johnson stuff for fantasy is working.

And the schedule is so easy.

I mean, we knew that going in, but man, you know, they've already started out pretty hot in terms of fantasy.

You look at their next four games.

They play Washington, New Orleans, Baltimore, and Cincinnati.

I think like it's only going to get better.

And again, I'm still on the fence with Caleb, but the people who bet on them in fantasy and believed in Roman Dunce and Caleb Williams, it's working.

It was a huge success.

Yeah, it's funny.

Josh, Lamar, and Mahomes are the top three in fantasy just for points right now.

The next two are Drake and Caleb.

Yeah.

The two second-year guys.

And I like Drake this year, especially because he's going to get the extra points with his legs.

But Caleb, I loved.

Yeah.

And I think you're right.

I think even in a game where the bears kind of suck i feel like he's still going to get points somehow he'll still get to 20 in fantasy yeah it's just so underrated what they play like there's two three times a game there's just like a wide open receiver for caleb to hit for 40 yards and yeah um so

i'm in all right what's your number one number one is just that the elite wide receivers have sucked or been hurt like it's a disaster at wide receiver and if you look at the top the top 15 guys drafted like three of them have been good and it's puka amonros st brown and jackson smith and and Jigba.

The rest are a disaster.

Brian Thomas and A.J.

Brown, it's like DEF CON one for those two.

Nico Collins, Justin Jefferson, Lad McConkey have been super underwhelming.

Jamar Chase has not been great because Burrow got hurt.

And then you have Tyreek is out for the season.

Malik is out for the season.

CeeDee Lamb, high ankle sprain.

It's just been a disaster.

And it was the same way last year.

A bunch of wide receivers got hurt last year.

And so

the lesson is just as all like wide receiver is always super deep.

And there's so many good wide wide receivers coming into the league now that you should just be taking quarterbacks and running backs at the top of your draft and just waiting on wide receiver because there's so many good ones.

And

the talent is pretty flat.

There are actually like a lot of really good wide receivers that you can get pretty deep.

I think it's hilarious that Keenan Allen is a top 20 fantasy receiver.

He was one of those when somebody took him and like, oh, man.

You almost felt bad for the pick.

Yeah, he didn't even get drafted half the time.

Yeah, he got drafted in our knockout league.

And I was just like, oh, man, that's a reach.

He's done.

But we see these sometimes.

The Pickens one, I think, is the most surprising because even Quentin Johnston, like, he had enough flashes last year.

And the way they've been using Herbert, like, I'm not surprised he's putting up stats.

I didn't personally like him.

But Pickens.

I mean, you had him on the Steelers.

Like, were you shedding tears when they traded him?

No, because we got DK Metcalf, and I thought that was a worthy trade-off.

Right.

You can only have Pickens for three or four years, and then he's got to move on, I think, before he gets squirrely.

But I mean, the talent, he's incredible.

His like down-the-field stuff, the contested catch stuff, I mean, even just the amount of balls he caught that didn't land in bounds, like he has, he's the number one wide receiver of all time with catches that were almost in bounds.

Right.

He catches everything.

I think talent standpoint, he's great.

And honestly, CD getting hurt was like the best thing that ever happened to him because now he's happy and can run.

How funny is Dak.

He's never had a QB like Dak either.

Dak was putting the ball in places where he could do weird pick and stinks.

So if

we were doing a fantasy draft right now starting week five and we did

snake draft, old school.

Yeah.

Jonathan Taylor's the first pick, right?

Yeah, it's probably the top three are probably Jonathan Taylor, Bijan Robinson, and Puka.

And I would take Puka before Bijan.

Yeah.

So I'm getting 10 catches, 90 to 140 yards every week, and and probably a TD.

But then you also have to deal with him going to the medical tent twice a game.

That's like the only downside.

You just, so you factor that in.

It's like, there he is.

I think he just goes in there to hang out.

I think he charges his phone.

Yeah.

He's doing text.

Yeah, I think he needs a breather.

I mean, he catches so many goddamn passes.

He needs to take a playoff and relax.

Fucking exhausted.

So you think Bijan and then drop off after that?

I mean, McCaffrey's been pretty good, to be honest, but yeah.

You know,

it feels like fantasy is gravitating toward this a little more each year, but you know, who's nice to have on your team?

Josh Allen.

Yeah.

He's just going to have more points than all the other quarterbacks, and he's not going to get hurt.

And it's the most important position out of all the fantasy things because you can always patch together and grab some weird running back and do this.

And oh, R.J.

Harvey, I'll grab him.

But Josh Allen just putting up 29 points a week can't beat it.

Now, Hurts, Lamar, Josh Allen, it's the same.

But Hurts is an emotional toll with Hurts.

Like he had 132 yards.

Yeah, but he's just push-push it into a touchdown.

It's tough, though.

They had no completions in the second half.

Yeah.

No, you're right about Josh, though.

Every time somebody drafts Josh in fantasy, I think it was the week one, the Ravens game, when he had like 30 fantasy points in the fourth quarter alone.

I got a text from my buddy being like, I will be drafting Josh Allen every year for the rest of his career.

Yeah.

That's how everybody feels when they have him.

He's like most when you're out with a group of friends and somebody orders something and then everyone else gets super jealous of it.

Whatever that is, like whatever restaurant you're at, you're like, oh, that looks good.

I wish I got that.

The person who gets the dessert, Josh Allen.

It's like, yeah, I should have gotten a dessert.

Damn, the fucking crumble?

That looks great.

Why didn't I get that?

All right.

So that's your number one.

The wide receivers just being completely disappointing during a time when we're spending $50 on receivers.

Yeah, it's a bloodbath out there.

It's absolutely brutal.

So just take that.

But Jamar was the first pick in a lot of drafts.

In the ringer draft as well.

Yeah.

Well, the funny thing with that is Burrow, who gets hurt every year behind a horrible offensive line,

probably not a safe pick.

No, I shouldn't.

He should be like, oh, I have Chase attached to this guy who's going to just get the shit kicked out of him until he eventually goes in the blue tent.

Yeah, but you could have said the same thing about Puka.

I mean, Matt Stafford was getting epidurals at his back.

Well, that's why Puka fell.

Like, Puka was in the,

felt like he he was in the 30s by the time draft started.

I mean, if you really want to be savvy, you should probably trade away Puka because either he or Stafford or both of them are going to get hurt and you could get like a ransom for him, but it's hard to do that.

He had a really enlightening quote about how important Devontae Adams has been for him, Puka.

That felt like a...

kind of shots fired at Cooper Cup without it being a shots fired.

Oh.

Where he's just like, from the moment he got here, you could feel our offense open up and all that.

And it's like, Cup was jealous, probably, because Puka does the same things that Cup did, but Devontae is different.

Like they play different roles, so they can coexist more easily than Puka and Cooper Cup could.

Yeah, he liked Puka like 2.0 to Cooper Cup, who had the single greatest start-to-finish wide receiver season in the history of the league.

Yeah.

And

was made irrelevant.

Robert Red for a month on the rewatchables.

How many of these have you seen?

That we're going to do, I think the Sting.

and Condor are the only two I've seen that we're going to do.

And who knows if we're doing Condor?

Right, right, right.

We don't know that.

We have Jeremiah Johnson coming next week, which I have not seen.

I'm going to watch that today.

I cannot, I absolutely cannot wait for your take.

That's the one that the famous meme, right, of Redford getting the nod.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's sad that that's how I know that movie.

Fifth highest grossing movie of 1972.

And 50 plus years later, it's been reduced to the nodding meme.

That's how people know it.

That's your generation.

It's your fault.

Well, we wouldn't know it at all if it wasn't for the meme.

True.

You wouldn't even know it was on Tubi.

Yeah.

All right.

Say hi to the fantasy guys for us.

Good to see you.

Thanks.

All right.

That's it for the podcast.

Thanks to my dad.

Thanks to Michael Pina.

Thanks to Craig Horabach.

Thanks to Eduardo and Gahau as well.

And I'm going to be back

Thursday.

Maybe Wednesday.

Definitely one more podcast.

Who knows?

Might be back tomorrow night if anything crazy happens in Red Sox Yankees.

I will see you later in the week.

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