Mavs Fans in Hell, Bleak NFL Situations, an Oscars Recap and RIP Gene Hackman | With Peter Schrager and Wesley Morris

Welcome to the Bill Simmons podcast. Before we get to the pod, I want to talk about Kyrie Irving and the Dallas Mavericks and this crazy situation.
Kyrie out for the year, tore his ACL, came out today. And Kyrie is, I've had a rollercoaster ride with over the years where didn't really like him on Cleveland.
LeBron showed up, really liked him, didn't like him as much, came to my favorite team, was all in. It couldn't have ended worse.
Became probably my least favorite basketball player. Goes to Brooklyn.
That goes terrible. Goes to Dallas.
You guys are so stupid. And then over the last two years or last maybe year and a half, I really grew to like him as a basketball player.
I liked how he talked about everything, how he took some responsibility. It was like everything I wanted from an athlete.
I really liked watching him and I grew to respect and like him as a player. And they make this Luka trade.
It is the least popular, most shocking, most indefensible trade in the history of the league. It's getting worse by the day.
The fans are just so angry. They are like scorn lovers multiplied by a hundred.

They raised the season ticket prices this week.

Everybody goes nuts again.

This is the angriest fan base that we've had in a while.

And here's Kyrie who's, by the way, they're putting crazy minutes on him.

He's in the 2010 draft or 2011 draft.

He's been in the league for a while.

He's a point guard. He's playing the last six weeks, 38.7 minutes, which led the league.
So they're throwing this huge burden on a guy who hasn't exactly been Cal Ripken Jr. And they're talking about how they rebuilt themselves.
This was about a title window. They trade for Davis.
He gets hurt in the first game. They put this crazy load on Kyrie.
He breaks down. It's after the trade deadline.
They have their first round pick next year. And what we've seen with this injury over the years is it's almost a two-year injury.
You lose the guy this year, but even when he comes back, we saw this happen with Jamal Murray in Denver. Either they don't come back the season after or when they come back, they're not, you know, not the same person.
So you almost have to think you lose a year and a half. They don't have control of their own pick from 27 to 30.
And on top of this, they have to watch Luka, who's already rejuvenated. You can see it.
Who, when we talk about face of the league, face of the league, like Luka, on the most famous basketball franchise we have, all due respect to the Celtics, you can watch the Celtic City documentary, but the Lakers, I think, are the premier franchise in the league. The Celtics are the most successful.
The Lakers are in LA. They've had the most stars.
Luka's in there now. There's an energy that's completely different at these games.
And the Maverick fans who already got kicked in the nuts with this trade in the worst way I think we've ever seen in basketball. Now they have to watch this guy blossom as their team already just fell apart.
And I tweeted this earlier today and I really mean it. I went to those three 2011 finals games in Dallas when they came back and they beat Miami.
They actually lost the first game, which was Dwayne Wade, I think the best game I've ever seen him play. And then they come back, they win game four, they win game five.
And a big reason they won those games was their crowd was incredible. I don't know where they rank in the best basketball fan bases, but for me, they're in the top seven.
And I used to love the Warriors fan base even before the Curry stuff happened. There's the Knicks, no matter how bad the teams are.
If you went to a game and they liked the team, it was just a great place to see a game. You could feel the love.
And I really feel like the Dallas fans, everything they had built from 1980 on had gotten to that level. They really loved this team.
They appreciated Dirk. They really wanted him to come through.
And then in those three games, especially the last two, and they started to shift the narrative on Dirk. And you could just really feel the love and the pure euphoria.
And then Luka shows up, becomes their guy, and they're like, we're in. We have 20 year season tickets for this dude.
We'll buy his jerseys. We love this guy.
This is our guy. We'll have some ups and downs.
Maybe he won't always be in shape but this guy's special and we're going to win the title with him and it's going to be amazing. And the trade pulled that away.
They're still pissed about it. Now you have this and this situation is now so bad.
We were joking after it happened that the real reason the family that owns the team did this is because they wanted to sabotage basketball in Dallas and move it to Vegas, move the team to Vegas because the Dallas fans would hate them so much that you'd almost have to move. It's almost like there's a precedent of this, like George Shin in Charlotte.

His name became so bad in Charlotte

that he actually moved the team to New Orleans.

It's obviously ridiculous.

It would never happen.

But the Kyrie injury on top of everything else

is the first time where I started thinking to myself,

holy shit, that's actually how bad this might get,

where they might have to be like,

hey, can we have the Vegas expansion team instead

and we'll just sell Dallas

or make Dallas the expansion team

or we'll move operations to Vegas

and you can make Dallas the expansion team

and call it the Mavericks and keep it the history.

That's how bad this is.

And I'm really feeling for the Mavs today

because the combo of that trade,

losing Davis in his first game and then losing Kyrie for a year and a half probably, I honestly can't think of another NBA situation like this where a fan base has taken in the teeth like this. So shout out to them.
I think it's a sad basketball day because Kyrie was playing great. I loved watching him.
This really feels like this kills the Mavericks now for the rest of the decade. So wanted to mention at the top, let's get to the rest of the podcast.
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We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Rocky.
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Coming up on this podcast,

I'm going to talk to our old friend, Peter Schrager.

What he found out at the Combine.

Is there draft stuff, free agent stuff? Who has the bleakest situation in the league?

We're hitting all that. And then Wesley Morris comes on to review the Oscars, to talk

about the movie year we just had, and really to talk about Gene Hackman, because we had to get

in that as well. Though we did a lot of Demi Morris stuff too, and then he's going to give

us his favorite TV show at the end. It's all next.
First, our friends from ProJab. All right.
Taping this on a Tuesday morning, Pacific time. Peter Schrager's here.
Haven't talked to him in a while. He was just at the Combine.
A lot of people are saying he was the one that broke up the Starbucks fight. I don't think you got a lot of credit for that.
You were like third man in, just trying to keep peace at an Indianapolis Starbucks. Combine, crazy place.
You love it. I love it.
Is that your favorite week of the year? It's the best. It's the best because you see something on TV and you're like, all right, it's a bunch of people in their underwear working out.
And like, it's not even 1% of what combine week is. And I would advise any young aspiring NFL journalist, any NFL fan to like, go, go for a couple of days.
Because as much as it's about the on-field drills, like you will bump into Mike Tomlin at a restaurant. You will see, you know, Sean Payton just, you know, having a private meeting with an agent out in the open, um, in front of that JW, uh, Marriott Starbucks, which by the way, is it's like literally going to like times square and starting a fight when it's at that's like the hub of everything, right? JW.
So like 10 teams are at the JW. Every media member is at the JW.
And for that interaction or that altercation or whatever it is to happen at that Starbucks, obviously the irony of Jordan Schultz's father being the longtime CEO of Starbucks is one thing, but to do it there in that public of a forum, like I got texts from NFL coach, NFL GM, three agents, four different media members that like, oh, there was just something. So that is the crossroads of all things.
Yeah. So it was Jordan Schultz and Ian Rappaport, two NFL insiders, for lack of a better word.
And it would have been funnier if it was because Rappaport made some sort of crack about your dad cost Seattle the Sonics. And that was like it was like way more deep seated.
But it just seemed like some insider kerfuffle. The big thing I'm looking at, and there's already been some buzz about the Giants trading up.
I don't know. Do you feel like it was true that the Giants could have had Stafford and they had the draft pick compensation? Rich Eisen reported that yesterday.
Do we feel like that is 100% accurate, that the Rams were just ready to trade Stafford to the Giants or no? No, I think that the Giants had the parameters in place and were willing to engage, but the Rams never went down that road in such a formal fashion. So they had conversations.
Essentially, Stafford couldn't shop himself to any of these teams. He's not a free agent.
So what the Rams did was they gave Jimmy Sexton, his agent, who's, you know, big power. He's Nick Saban's agent.
He's Parcells' agent, like a big agent. The ability to go look at what the market would be.
And the Giants were obviously interested. And the trade conference.
But not for the first round pick, though, right? No, no. It would have likely.
And I know it from all angles because of my relationship with McVay, but also my relationship with Stafford. So it was, you know, go see what's out there and what destinations could be possible.
And it came down to basically the Raiders being very interested in the Giants. And what I think the trade compensation would have been, would have been Giants give up their second round pick, which is the 34th pick.
And then the Rams give back a third round and Stafford. But then Stafford would need to tear up the contract and have a massive contract, which would have been paying him close to $15 million more per year than what he's essentially going to play for with the Rams.
And at the end of the day, like they went down this road and as it dragged on day by day by day, I think at one point, like on Wednesday, I was like, wow, it might actually happen. And it might actually be the Raiders or the Giants.
But then by Thursday, when I got word that like Stafford and McVay were having breakfast at 630 in the morning in LA, I'm like, it's done. And this conversation started back at Super Bowl, whether that was like some of the rumors.
And I got caught in a little bit of shit because I was interviewed and caught off guard. And it was like, what do you think about Stafford and the Rams? And I'm like, I just know this, that they're going to have to have conversations and figure out a new contract.
But also I know that McVay loves Jimmy G and that set off like an entire, like, Oh, you got aggregated, got aggregated. But if they were to move on from Stafford, which cooler heads prevailed, like they had backup plans, They had Jimmy G.
And then all the reports are accurate

that Rodgers could have very well been

the next quarterback of the Los Angeles Rams.

Yeah.

I mean, the Giants are so stupid.

What's the point of trading for Stafford?

What, are you going to win the Super Bowl

in the next three years?

Like, there's nothing.

You're going to give up a possible starter

slash all pro in the second round

because you want to go seven and ten?

What was the alternative?

What's the alternative?

They think they're a quarterback away from being relevant, and I don't think it's that far off like i look at their team i well i mean it they they get andrew thomas back at offensive tackle and then last year neighbors i didn't realize i'm bumping them up to 11 wins they are in the same division with washington philly they're confident that this team is not that far off and that the quarterback play was the fuck out of here. Come on.
Well, let's see. You can't believe that.
Why not? They've got first-round picks all over the offensive line. They've got Malik Navers.
And then they've got this— One of those first-round picks is Evan Neal, isn't it? Sure. So that's a watch, right? So, like, Neal's not the guy.
Come on. They have no chance.
I would be going the other way and trying to trade guys to get more picks and trying to reboot it. Yeah, look at their front four.
You've got Dexter Lawrence, Thibodeau, and you've got Brian Burns. Like, they're not, this is a team that everyone's like, oh, I can't believe they got rid of Saquon.
Saquon wasn't going to do anything with the Giants last year, close to what he did with the Eagles. So what they do instead, they invested in their offensive line and they have no quarterback play.
But this is the point. Then talk yourself into Cam Ward if you think he can be a top three pick.

I mean, so this is why I brought up Stafford because the stuff that started today

about they're going to leapfrog to one,

they're going to take him one.

It just feels like Cam Ward's going first in this draft.

He very well might.

He very well might.

It doesn't mean he's the best player.

It doesn't mean it makes sense.

But there's three teams right now

who just have no idea who their quarterback's going to be. The Raiders have the best chance to probably stumble into one because they have all the cap space.
The Giants, I don't know how they get one that actually made my case that I just laid out. How are you going to make the playoffs? You're better off betting on a guy who maybe can become the guy.
Here's the case for bringing in a Rogers at 41. For the Giants? Yes, here's the case.
Hear me out. Motivated, cheap compared to what? Motivated, yes.
Embarrassed. Embarrassed that the Jets said we're good without you.
Motivated. Cheap comparable to a Stafford or to one of these you know bigger you know definitely be cheap and then and you've got brian dable who has had his name from being coach of the year to now being the clown of new york and being considered a joke like two guys that know football inside and out and hey let's let's say screw it and let's get the giant chip on our shoulder and see now look look.
That was the case. Would they love to get to one? Sure, they would love to get to one, but here's the deal.
Rodgers, as much as you don't like him, as much as Kimball doesn't like him, as much as Cousin Sal doesn't like him, players like him. The Jets fans didn't like him.
Can we throw them in? Can we throw in how he looked last year where he had no legs and didn't want to get hit and was terrible? I think he had 28 touchdowns, 11 interceptions. I'm pushing the bullpen up the hill here.
I'm trying. But I would say this, the alternatives of, hey, we could roll out Rodgers and still get a young quarterback.
And you have Rodgers as your quarterback for this year, and you're not throwing someone to the wolves and saying, hey, go out there and play for your first season right out of the gates. That's the argument to make.
I would also add that the Titans have the first pick in the draft. Will Levis will not be their starting quarterback week one.
I know that's not necessarily out there. I don't see this happening.
He gave it a good run. I don't think the Browns are going to start Deshaun Watson because he can't physically, but I don't think Deshaun Watson is going to have many snaps, if any, again, as a Cleveland Brown in his NFL career.
I'll say that. So that's a second team.
Then you got the Giants. Then you got the Jets.
Then you got the Raiders. So this whole four teams in the top seven, basically that desperately needed a quarterback.
Yes. Which is why Cam Ward has to go first.
And it's not even going to matter whether he should be the first pick. And usually, what is it? It 50, 50 with a quarterback that high.
Those are the guys from the last 25 years. It might even be like 35, 65 for him to be good.
Totally. But you still got to do it.
And look, if you're the Titans and you can, you know, maybe trade back and still get Abdul Carter and Travis Hunter at three or at five or at two, that's fine. But you still don don't have a quarterback.
So, so to me, the Titans, and I've done a lot of work and talk to everybody this week. Like everyone assumes they're going to go Carter one or Hunter one.
And they're, or they're going to let someone trade up. No, like I wouldn't, I wouldn't dismiss Cam Ward at one, get us the quarterback.
And then we could figure it out and get a bridge quarterback if we need and by bridge quarterback i'm not talking sam darnold i'm talking like a jared stidham or a taylor heineke or like one of those guys because last year talking to now but those are the guys that start off like a jacoby brissette last year or a marcus mariotta in the room i know but if this is the raiders last year right well minshu'll be a stopgap. Sure, but if you get Cam Ward, you're good.
And you've got your guys. So I talked to Cliff and Adam Peters a bunch, and it's like the underrated guy in this whole process for Jaden Daniels was having Mariota there because he had a veteran to learn from.
So that's almost as key as drafting the right quarterback is getting the right room. And last year, Caleb had Tyson Bajent and a couple of undrafted guys and a bunch of second, third options as quarterback coaches.
Drake May had Bursette, which I think was a bonus considering he didn't have a coaching staff, but at least he had Jacoby Bursette. And look at what Drake May has got this year.
You now add in Josh McDaniels. You add in Todd Downing.

You suddenly have a real staff around him

and guys that have been there and done that.

And of course, Vrabel is an upgraded head coach as well.

I was texting with Todd McShay about this this morning.

Isn't it a likely scenario that quarterbacks go one, two,

even if it makes no sense whatsoever?

Because nobody's been able to explain to me why the Browns wouldn't take a quarterback. When Deshaun Watson isn't playing again, they're absolutely screwed with the cap.
There is no possible way they can acquire anybody. And this is their one chance to actually add somebody.
So I don't, what was the, I mean, there's been the Sanders stuff and the stories about the stories and the narratives behind the narratives. We've gone in nine different directions and anonymous QB coaches.
Just wait. Yeah.
It's going to get worse and worse. And it's also, he's, you know, got a famous father who might decide I want to nudge him toward a certain team and is going to know some tricks.
Some other families don't, which if, by the way, I think that should happen more often often i think that should happen with cooper flag in the nba like you have the leverage pick like we always talk about player empowerment with the nba and pick your team like it's never with the rookie we saw it with eli manning where he didn't want to go to san diego ended up with the giants like i'm always amazed it doesn't happen more often but if if deon is like i want sanders on vegas that's just how this is going to play out. It would be pretty hard for the rest of the league to stop that.
Anyway, I feel like there's a one-two scenario with the QBs, right? Absolutely. And Cleveland, very interested in quarterbacks.
And you look at the free agent crop right now. I don't have a team for Sam Darnold that's given him $40 million.
I think Sam Darnold, who had arguably the best 17 weeks of his life, had maybe the most disastrous and financially prohibitive eight days any quarterbacks ever had in NFL history. Oh, shit.
You're right. It wasn't even two weeks.
It was eight days. Eight days.
It was that Sunday night. It's like a Hawaii trip.
It really is. It's like White Lotus.
It was like... He had White Lotus season four.
I've lost $80 billion. Yes.
He was like Isaac's... Yeah, exactly.
Saxon, what a name. So you've got the Sunday night against the Lions.
Then you have an even worse disastrous performance against the Rams eight days later in Arizona. And it went from being potentially lying around the block of teams to like this week at the combine, not a lot of Darnold love.
So can't go back to the Jets. Doesn't sound like the Giants.
I don't think the Raiders are doing flips over Sam Darnold. The Steelers seem to be pretty happy and going for Justin Fields is what the latest I've heard.
So now the teams are rather limited. Are the Browns going to break the bank after already paying Deshaun and now pay for

Sam Darnold? I don't know. So Darnold's number one on that list.
And then it's like very quickly

gets to Kirk Cousins and Russell Wilson. And, and I said, Jared Stidham, like those are the names.

And it's not exactly previous years where there's this long list of, well, Baker Mayfield might be a possibility or we could do like, you might be looking at for the Browns, like, all right, it's Daniel Jones, Carson Wentz or we draft someone at two. And when you're at that point, you're like- That's chilling.
Let's draft someone at two. Which is why the Giants would have to leapfrog the Browns at two to get Cam Ward, which is why I think Cam Ward is going to be the first pick.
And I'm with you. And I also think Giants beat the Colts in a insignificant Week 16 game, and Malik Dabers had about 200 yards, and it cost the Giants the top two picks.
Are you talking about the Drew Locke game? That's what it's called now, right? The Pats had the Joe Milton game, and there was the... But Drew Locke was incredible in that game.
Because I bet on the Colts, Drew Locke was lights out. I mean, you can make a case like, yo, look at that Drew Locke tape.
Maybe we have the solution in-house. Maybe.
He's a free agent himself. So I think it's a very good possibility that despite the fact that this draft class at quarterback is nowhere near last year's,

like those one, two, three picks last year,

those guys we've been talking about for 12 months,

and it was no brainer.

They're going one, two, three.

And it was like, if you can get in the top three,

you're getting a franchise quarterback.

Now, Bo Nix was not viewed this way.

Michael Penix wasn't seen as a top 10.

And McCarthy was like this wild card, which still is a wild card.

This year, Cam Ward's got huge upside,

but despite the great years he's had

at Washington State and Miami,

he's not viewed in that same category

as those top three guys.

And then it's a giant drop-off from what I gather.

And then just viewed as prospects,

not necessarily how they turn out.

Shador, Jackson Dart, and then a bunch of unknowns. So you have Shador next to Jackson Dart potentially.
Yeah. I think Shador is viewed closer to Jackson Dart than Shador is viewed closer to Cam Ward.
So he could be a drop chip on the shoulder guy? Absolutely. And you're talking about leverage that Deanna, I don't know if they have leverage unless they've got an agreement from a team that's like, Hey, no matter what we're taking them, don't worry.
You guys can like, he, I don't, can I zag? I'm going to zag. Son of a famous person.
Tough. Seems like he's smart.
It seems like the thing that people are worried about with him is the athleticism more than anything, but he's got the toughness and the competitiveness that they like and i do feel like as we get closer the teams start talking themselves into the pluses yeah because the minuses aren't like this guy's kind of a wuss this guy's not a leader of men you know that they're more like don't don't read any of that shit he's not a diva this guy chose to go to jackson state right um also I tweeted this yesterday and I'm sure it was the tweet that, that signed up a million. No, no one cared.
Um, I tweeted this yesterday that the one thing a GM told me, don't sleep on Shador with this is he is tough as shit. Got the shit kicked out of him the last few years and got up every single time.
And they love that.

That is a man.

Yeah.

You don't love the fact that he's been beaten around a bunch, but you do love the fact that

he didn't cry about it.

Didn't whine about it.

Got up.

He was against an inferior, he was behind an inferior offensive line on a team that was

really just like slapped together in the last couple of years.

And they put together some wins early, but this was not the same level of talent that necessarily a Jackson Dart had at Ole Miss or a Quinn Ewers had at Texas. This was Shadort.
And his point at the combine, and it rubbed people wrong the way he had some bravado at it, is that he changes places when he gets there. So Jackson State obviously went from this HBCU that had no resources to suddenly being a national name.
And then he goes to Colorado and we had one week where big noon kickoff from Fox and game day were there a week two vying for, you know, real estate in Boulder. It happens.
And the Dion thing is real, but there's also a lot of positives to that in that he's the son of one of the greatest football players ever. And he's seen how to handle yourself as a pro and he's seen how the business works.
And Shador has never wavered in that he is a leader and those guys do respect him. There's the other piece of that when you think about quarterback prospects, because there's two versions of it, right? There's a quarterback who had the weight of the college on their shoulders.
And then there's the guy who was on an awesome team where the program was kind of the star and they were the quarterback of it. And some of the guys that have succeeded, especially recently, you know, Drake May just, he stayed in North Carolina.
He was the whole program. He took all the leadership responsibilities and it was even though the record kind of came and went, but he was whatever.
Bo Nix was in the spotlight in real ways in different colleges. And then Jaden Daniels, same thing.
And then he has that LSU year where I just wonder sometimes, is it better to, in college, you're really the guy, at least for a year, does that prep you in a certain way? Whereas you look at like a Trubisky. Like I would study, if I was a team- Hey, Anthony Richardson.
Anthony Richardson had 14 stars. Have somebody study like the ones didn't work and what are the common denominators.
And one of them is not enough starts. That was a Trey Lance thing too.
How big was the spotlight? How much pressure were they under on this limited level? And how is that going to transfer? Sanders had a giant spotlight on him for three years there, which I think is a positive. Yeah.
I mean, the Colorado years, but also in Jackson State, they really put a lot of resources into marketing that thing. And like the fact he decided to go there and they brought Hunter there, that was a major story for a lot of reasons.
They were in the limelight. It was those two and Dion.
It was a real thing. And Troy Aikman would show up at games and they had like, it became a thing.
I think last year might've changed the narrative a little bit.

Bo Nix played 61 games in college.

He was, you know, older than every other prospect in that draft.

He shows up and he was immediately dismissed by a lot of teams because, well, we've seen

Bo Nix, like there's no upside.

And Sean Payton, who, you know, I'm going to always talk about if I get an opportunity,

it was like, I like the fact he's played 61 games and did it in the SEC and then played at the senior bowl and then was in, you know, major college games. Like I like that fact.
So this year you've got this guy, Tyler Shuck, who's not being discussed at all. Watch.
He will be rising off draft boards. He was out of Louisville, but was at Texas tech before that.
And somewhere else before that he's played a ton of college football. He's 25 years old.
And in the past, it would be like, we don't want that. Shuck stock is rising because of all the experience he's had.
Purdy parallel. Brock Purdy, same thing.
He played all those years at Iowa State. We like that because Cam Ward, we know he went from Washington State to Miami.
He started at Incate word. That was his first school, zero offers anywhere.
But he changed that program, went to Washington state and on a bad Washington state team, competed with all of the pack 12 heavies and did well. And then goes over to Miami and breaks every school record and ends up with the most touchdowns ever thrown in college football.
And it's like, that's, that's a, life lessons. That is adversity.
That is different offenses. Going into a new situation, having to meet a bunch of people.
And I'm going to be the alpha. I know we're a little bit all over the place.
Can we go back to the experience for a second? Because I think this is actually the case for Darnold, who I think is now an underrated asset. He has.
He had 27 games at USC, right? Where he started. Yep.
And then if you go in as a pro, he started 73 games over the last eight years. He's had 100 career starts now and look great until those last two weeks.
Is that a Minnesota offensive line issue? Was it a scheming issue? Was it just that he played two great teams? Like I feel as if we get closer to free agency, there's going to be teams tilting it and going glass half full because if you can get him for less than the Baker, what's the number? Let's say you can get him for 15 to 20. Let's say you can get them to- Yeah, no, 15 to 20, yes.
The question is, is someone willing to get them 30 to 40? But you're talking the Raiders wouldn't want to spend 20 million a year on Sam Darnold if they couldn't get the thing? That would be Brady just being like, this guy doesn't have it, I'm out. Yeah, that's what that would be.
If that's his number and the Raiders aren't in, that's Brady saying, I don't give my vote of approval on this. Look, now that Look, I, my, now that we're two months removed and I, I think this might've been the case and I'm going to make an excuses for them.
I think that Sunday night game with so much buildup and so much on the line for the Vikings and the lions killed both those teams that they, right. It was like a, like a regular season Superbowl.
It was a Superbowl. They destroyed each other.
They got, they were all, they knew what was at stake. You had a home field during the playoffs.
The number one seed was in the balance as well. And it was the most significant football game in the regular season this league has ever seen for both teams.
And they both just destroyed each other, put everything into it, that they were both completely flat the next time we saw them. And the Lions, of course, they lose on the Saturday that follows,

but then the Vikings lost the Monday that preceded that.

So Darnold, those eight days,

and everyone I speak to who's negative on Darnold

is like, well, that's what you hope you never saw again,

that he erased it.

But like, there it was.

That was Darnold.

35 and 12.

I mean, if it's Aaron Rodgers versus Darnold, come on.

Kyle's going to turn the TikTok camera on

because I have a very important Tom Brady point. Okay, let's go.
Tom Brady. I love Tom Brady.
Brought me six Super Bowls. One of my favorite athletes of all time.
This is a dangerous thing where you have him running a football team, thinking he knows what's best with quarterback because he was a great quarterback. Because all of the evidence with the great players we've ever had named the sport mostly they're not good at this they see that they think they're seeing things that other people don't see and it's not actually rational like magic johnson lonzo ball got hurt obviously but magic johnson took lonzo ball over jason tatum right you have like Wayne Gretzky ran a hockey team.
How did that go?

I'm trying to think. I don't have much on the Coyotes.
Were they no good? Was Shane Doe not good enough? I don't know. But Michael Jordan ran the Charlotte Hornets slash Bobcats forever.
The big Sean May guy. Couldn't have been worse.
Like, steered them toward Kwame Brown, Brown, the wizard steered them toward Kwame Brown over Pau Gasol and those guys. Cause he liked what he saw from Kwame Brown in a workout.
Like, I don't know if I trust the greatest players ever on stuff like this. That's an interesting take.
Are there, is there the argument against that? Jerry West is the greatest evaluator the NBA has ever seen. So there's, so Jerry West is a positive.
There's some that win. I'm just saying it's not a slam dunk, but I think part of the problem is if you and I are in that room with Tom Brady and we're like, yo, man, we think Darnold, like look at these first 70s.
He might dismiss him right away. And Brady's like, I'm out.
I watched that game. He doesn't have it.
I'm out. Are we going to argue with Tom Brady? So it's just, now it's like this one voice that just sees what he wants to see.
I'm fascinated by the Raiders setup. And John Spitek is the new GM.
He was in Tampa for years. And before that, Denver is really a good evaluator.
And I interviewed him at the Combine on camera for NFL Network. And I said, all right, you got a lot of voices now because it's not just Brady.
Pete Carroll is going's gonna have opinions chip kelly's the offensive coordinator and then you've got you know all these different voices that are now new ownership group you've got you know the melman people it's like okay now we've got all this and whoever this quarterback's gonna be is gonna be their first big like unveiling of like here's here's our group decision um that's a lot of pressure on that quarterback i don't think think they're just going to go with a Minshew O'Connell thing. I think they're going to try to find somebody.
Could there be some new owner syndrome with this? Yes. Where they're like, yeah, let me make a splash.
Got to get somebody really good. Got to get Chip Kelly's offense.
Got to find the right person. Nice mobile, whatever.
And I would go through Brady's relationships with some of these guys. What's his relationship with Rodgers? They've known each other 20 years.
They've been competitive. What's his relationship with Russell Wilson? I can't believe Rodgers.
They've played in a Super Bowl together. Is Russell Wilson going to be the quarterback of the Vegas Raiders? Geno Smith? Do you trade for Geno, who has a great relationship with Pete Carroll? If you're the Seahawks and you can get a high second round pick for Geno Smith and then spend 20 million a year on Sam Darnold for three years and just invest in your offensive line and be like, if we can actually block for this guy with the guys we have, we can actually do this.
I would do that. That's why this is fun.
It's such a weird class of quarterbacks because you have these potential Hall of Famers and Hall of Famers at the last stage of their career. I mean, Cousins, we don't even know if he can move anymore, but he's going to be available if someone wants to trade for him.
Or available for TV. Yeah, Russell Wilson.
You might be doing TV for him on Network TBD in about six months. Don't laugh.
Don't laugh. Amy Poehler might have a pod right next to Russell Wilson's.
If we keep on going down, this is it. Who knows? No joke though.
Like this is the last stop on the tour. And then you'd hope that you have a young guy that can come in as well.
And then there's like this middle tier. I keep on saying Stidham's name.
I think Jared Stidham is going to make a ton of more money than anyone expects because he's this like 28 year old guy who's been in multiple systems. And when he plays, I need to take a.
This is it. Patriots fans.
Jared Siddham makes more and more than Sam Darnold. What are we doing? He won't make more than Sam Darnold, but he will be a coveted free agent more than you would imagine because of the dearth of quarterbacks available and how important the position is.
At this point, like go, go take a look at Joe Milton's week 18 game tape and talk yourself into that if we're going down to Jared's to tomorrow. Don't laugh.
I mean, Joe Milton went, what round was he last year? Fourth, fifth, sixth? Joe Milton could go for a fifth or fourth round pick. He was really good in that last game.
Let's take a break. I got lots more to cover with you.
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All right, so quick tangent that I'm going to bring back to the NFL. In the NBA, the bleakest situations right now are the Suns and the Sixers and now the Mavericks who made this catastrophic look at trade and then Kyrie's out for the year.
And it's just, you just look at those and you go, wow, this three, four year window here, pretty bleak. Who, in your opinion, like especially like being around everybody last week, who are the bleak franchises other than the Browns? We're just going to grandfather them in.
The Browns have to be number one bleak, but who else is in that conversation? Well, the Browns is bleak because their star player also is demanding a trade and they don't plan on trading them so you add on just you know terrible results and a question at quarterback and then you have the the star player being unhappy so that's that's the browns that's would you we say that's the gold standard of bleak right now it has to be yeah but they were in the playoffs two years ago and they do have young talent so it's like there's always this like you know hope springs eternal we get the right quarterback the browns fans feeling good all of a sudden they're like schrags there's in on the browns yeah sure i'm in on all 32 as you know um i think i think the jets situation is pretty bleak right now in that they got they feel like they got the right coach and they feel like they got the right gm but you've got a bunch of young players who are up for giant contract extensions in the next couple of years, and you do not have a quarterback. And you went down this road with Rogers.
And now it's like, we're sort of a good team with names on the roster, but we have nothing to show for it. And we have a complete X factor at quarterback.
And we're just out of the top five to actually draft one that we could just pick. We'd have to move and be, and be able to So to me, I think the Jets will be in on Justin Fields.
I don't know if Justin Fields would leave Pittsburgh to go to the Jets. Now money talks, but even if you get Justin Fields and you like Justin Fields and you think you've seen things from Justin Fields, if you're a Jets fan, are you doing flips over? Okay.
We're now ready to take on Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow with Justin Fields and Drake May and Drake May. Sorry.
Thanks. Justin Fields.
So you'd have jets. Who else? Cause I would say at least with the jets, there's a lot of talent there.
There is, but there's moves. You've got a big sauce and Garrett and all these guys are going to be up for contracts and they had had all these first drafts.
Brees Hall, Jermaine Johnson, Garrett Wilson. And of course, you mentioned Sauce.
They all got to get paid if you want to keep them. Well, they're already letting DJ Reed go, which I thought was kind of shocking.
He was good last year. DJ Reed's a good player.
Yeah. Come to the Pats, DJ Reed.
Don't laugh. I think the Pats are going to be very aggressive and free agency.
And I think they're going to load up this year. Hold on.
I was going to end with the Pats. So Jets bleak Browns bleak.
Would you throw the saints in there? Yes, because it looks like there's still a question with car, like his car, the quarterback and they've got salary cap issues. What's the question? How much do we hate ourselves? How much do we, do we keep them? It sounds like they have, uh, you know, the comments that were made by, by Mickey Loomis at the, at the combine was that they were in on Derek Carr still.
And I thought he would be in that same boat as cousins and whatever. And you could, if you're the Titans and you got Brian Callahan who coached Carr with the, with the Raiders, it's like, all right, well, give us Derek Carr and we'll, we'll figure it out.
But I, it sounds like the saints are Saints are all in on Derek Carr and they still have this bloated salary cap that they can't get out under. So I think the Saints is pretty bleak.
Wait, when you say he's in the same boat as Kirk Cousins, are you talking about the Titanic? What boat is that? Is that boat still floating? We say this and yet there are teams that are going to convince themselves that, oh, well, it's better than the alternative, and we'll pay these guys real money. That's just where we're at.
What happened with the Raiders last year is the point for that. You just don't want to have a season where you're the Raiders, and you realize by the third preseason game, wow, our quarterbacks suck.
This is going to be terrible. You've got Desmond Ritter at quarterback in week 16 on national TV.

Like that's not where you want to be.

Saints last year, we're,

we're rolling out Spencer Rattler in big games. Like it's,

quarterback is everything. And so the saints, they're going,

it sounds like they're going still with Derek Carr.

That was the comment made, but we've seen these things change, but,

um, I would you go,

situation's no good either.

Would you go bleak for the, for the Cowboys? Semi bleak? No. Medium bleak? Bleak in that.
It feels like the other two teams have surpassed them in their division and they're still going to have to pay Micah Parsons. And they've got Dak on this contract and CD.
And like, I don't know how they're going to pay all these pending free agents that they have and that it's going in the wrong direction, but gosh, you know, you hire, you don't even do a full search and it's like, we're just going to keep it going with Brian Schottenheimer. It's hard to, it's hard to look at your fan base and say, well, it's totally going to be different.
Well, we just elevated the guy who was number two to Mike McCarthy, and we're not going to have any new fresh talent besides what we already have. And we missed the playoffs last year.
The question is, how does Dak return from injury? Because he's the highest paid quarterback in the NFL. Right.
Well, the offseason, especially this part, and when we had an efficiency draft is all about how do I convince my fan base to be potentially excited about something? And the Cowboys can be like, hey, Dak's healthy. We got Parsons.
We have three of the best players in the league. We're the Cowboys.
I don't know what's the case for the Saints. We have no cap space and Derek Carr's coming back and we hired the ninth coach who got hired.
We're in the NFC South. Never know.
Yeah. And you're in a market that, you know, it's a good team with a great tradition and a great city, but it's not like New Orleans is due to by the NFL as like the Cowboys or, you know, the Giants or one of these premier franchises.
Do you feel like it's less bleak in Jacksonville? Or we just, it's better. Okay.
Give me, give me stuff. Well, it can go.
This is like a social experiment in a lot of ways. I went out of my way at the combine to meet a lot of these people that I'd never met before.
That's always what I like to do. I like to put a list down of like, here are 10 names.
They're all going to be in Indianapolis, get to know them. They're young, they're up and coming.
coming and then you become friendly enough with them where over the years you bond a relationship and you form they they hired a 28 year old offensive coordinator in Grant Udinski 28 and I was doing the math in my head I'm like all right I know how old I am I know where I was like when when OJ was on the chase and Ewing was playing Olajuwon he wasn't born born yet. And that's where I like, that's a bit like, this is how young he is.
Josh McCown tells me he was with him in Minnesota. This kid's brilliant, but that's your offensive coordinator.
Your head coach, Liam Cohen, who I've known, he was UMass's quarterback. And I wrote a book with Victor Cruz way back when in 2011.
And when Victor Cruz liked the sensation, his quarterback was, was Liam Cohen in college. So I got to know Liam then when we were working on this book and I've seen Liam bounce.
Liam is a young, really untested head coach, first time head coach. So you got that too.
And then at GM, they hired a guy named James Gladstone, who's 34 years old. And he was with the Rams and he was living in St.
Louis while the Rams were in LA. And he kind of was doing the scouting from a satellite office, but he was less sneeds like number two.
And the Rams gave him a lot of credit for these recent drafts, including Puka Nakua and including some of these, the Braden Fisk and Jared Verse. That said, you're talking 34-year-old 28 year old offensive coordinator first time head coach and then a first time defensive coordinator and anthony campanil so to me it's like it's fun it's fresh it's different it's it's not hiring urban meyer or doug peterson it's a strategy we're young it is different and then you know shod con whatever and then like, Tony Khan I talked to at the Super Bowl, and he's like, he's talking about wrestling to me.
And I think that's his priority, is the AEW. And he's like, Shranks, we gotta get you.
He writes every episode. He runs it.
It's amazing. He's like, Shranks, his eyes are all darting all over the place talking.
Shranks, you should do something where you come into the ring and you get hit with a chair. MJF is gonna knock you out with a Burberry scarf on.
He's probably trying to book Ian Rappaport and Schultz to have some sort of Starbucks match. He would love that.
They can whip lattes at each other. Big sponsor, Starbucks, or in this case, maybe Dunkin'.
But I honestly think that it's like this football experiment where it's like, let's just do fresh eyes and young and hire guys. And obviously, I love that.

I love that. I hate going retread.
I don't like

the fact that we just typically are like, oh, well,

this guy worked for this guy, and then we just hire him.

They're all fresh faces, and

Jacksonville's fun to me now.

I'm going to give you

a possible bleak candidate, and

you're going to be upset. Why are we so negative?

Let's be positive. This is the last one.
I'm going positive

in one second. Okay.

Are the Dolphins in the bleak zone? It was bleak at times. Tyree probably pushing for the trade.
McDaniel, even though he got an extension, I'm sure he's definitely on first coast fired watch, I would think. Who knows? Classic salary cap team where they had to pay these guys and now it's all fucked up.

And they're in a division with the Bills.

The Pats are going to be better.

The Jets won't be better.

But I wonder if they're on bleak watch.

Here's where I would say

there's a possible turn in that.

First of all,

a lot of these teams,

they show up at the Combine.

They do media. Maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, they fulfill that thing.
Maybe they'll stay Thursday, then they're out of there. Mike McDaniel, Chris Greer, and Dan Marino were in that Dolphins suite until the bitter, bitter end when the offensive linemen were working out on Sunday.
Like, and they were locked in. Dan Marino? What's he doing? Dan Marino's got an executive role right now with the Dolphins, working with the team.
And we're talking about former players and Tom Brady and all this stuff now. Dan Marino, he's present.
He's got a voice. They brought him back into the fold a couple of years ago and he was at the Combine and fully engaged with all of it.
Now, last year's draft, they hit with Chop Robinson. He was really good for them as a rookie.
Yeah, he was good. I liked him.
Jalen Wright, the running back. But to your point, when Tua went down, they weren't ready for that kind of adversity and things went off the rails.
And you saw Tyreek Hill and his comments in that final game about, it just was desolate. And it was the kind of thing you would never want to hear from a veteran leader.
That said, Dolphins, they still have a ton of talent on that roster and I do think the players still respond to McDaniel. I'm not bleak on the Dolphins.
I'm not sure I think that. Well, what do you think on Tua? They paid him.
He was injured again. I have real concerns about McDaniel.
I have real concerns about Tua. And I have real concerns about

we're going to wake up three days from now

and Tyreek Hill's like,

I want to be a Charger.

Yeah.

Let's make that happen, guys.

It would be the Chiefs, not the Chargers.

He tweets every other day about how much he loves the Chiefs.

It would be the Chiefs?

Yeah.

Is that even possible?

The Chiefs just have an unlimited salary cap.

I don't know how to do it.

It's like, hey, we're going to franchise tag our left guard.

And Andy's magic.

Andy will trade you away. Andy will cut you.
And then the players long for Andy. Yeah.
They want to go play for him again. By the way, you saw the John Cena, you know, dropping the mic.
You saw that? That's Mahomes this year. That's where he's at right now, I think.
Like, he's got villain. Like, everyone just...
Good. I think we're going to have a different...
Good. It's going to be an incredibly disappointing season by his standards last year.
The Super Bowl was a disaster. So I hope he's motivated.
The anti-bleak watch. You go to combine and these teams are like...
It's like the sky has opened. It's after it's rained for a week straight and all of a sudden it's the first sunny day and everybody's like, I want to go outside.
We don't have to talk about the Pats. I talk about them too much.
We can. Well, we can do that at the very end.
But who else is in that? Washington. The skies have opened.
Washington. It is like the angels.
And last year at the Combine, I interviewed Adam Peters on camera. He's a GM coming from San Francisco.
First time GM. Super nervous on NFL Network beforehand.
What questions are we going to do? Like, and then this year comes in all swagged out, has like, you know, he's wearing the Palenka jacket. No doubt.
He's got the jacket. He's got the custom Jordans.
He comes in. He's like, ask me anything.
Let's go. Let's go.
They trade. Ask me how great she had a Daniels in.
Daniels is having love to talk about that. They have a ton of salary cap space.
Everyone loves their coach. Like Dan Quinn's got that Andy Reed thing where like players just love them.
And you know, they just trade for Debo. And I do want to say this.
I think people misread the NFL. Like the Cowboys got crushed because they traded a fourth rounder for Jonathan Mingo.
And everyone's like, how could you trade a fourth rounder for Mingo?

And they trade a fifth rounder and they get Debo.

They're taking on Debo Samuel's entire contract.

So that's $21 million.

The Niners are basically them cutting him.

And that was the team that was willing to take it.

And Adam Peters drafted Debo in San Fran

and Anthony Lynn coached him.

And Cliff is like,

please bring him.

He'll be motivated and we'll make it work.

Can I give you my 30 second debo take yeah as an intermission san francisco being like yeah we're good take them it reminded me of the celtics with marcus smart and this is where i bring the celtics into a football podcast like they knew something but well it was in watching him and this was the case Priscilla and I made on the podcast after that trade.

It was like, that dude's body's been through a lot.

We watched him for the last nine years.

He took a million charges.

He was on the floor all the time.

And I think they're getting out a year too early

instead of a year too late with his body.

So what happens?

He goes to Memphis, he breaks down

and he has not been healthy ever since.

I think he's playing now. I saw a picture of him this week.
Yeah. He's like a veteran of Washington.
So I look at Debo and like you, I watch football every week. Debo took a fucking ton of hits.
The way they used him, he was like a crash test dummy. And I just wonder if they were like, I think we took this as far as we can go.
If it starts to dip, it could be on somebody else's team. Absolutely.
You're right. But in the same breath, like Washington knows what they're inheriting.
Like Cliff watched every snap of Debo. It's like this incredible toy for Cliff.
Holy shit. He cannot wait.
And he's like, please. And also- He's going to have 40 Debo plays.
Yeah. And also he was 20 pounds overweight, whatever you want to say.
And, and now he's going to the final year of his contract.

Give me a motivated chip on his shoulder and a contract year Debo.

Like,

sure.

So like,

it wasn't like it was a false. It was like you on TV last year.

That was the same thing.

I just felt like a giant chip on your shoulder.

Let's go.

You want to disrespect Debo and Schrager.

You're going to get the best of us.

I'll do anything.

I'll do anything.

I'll do any hit.

Send me anywhere.

Contract year. Let's go.
The, so the Washington thing, the vibes are unbelievable. Unbelievable.
Great coach, great GM, franchise QB, most beloved guy in Washington, even more than Ovechkin. House is like, can't even come up with somebody on par with him at this point.
You have to go back to like the Gibbs era. Who else is the skies have parted? Skies.
parted? Give me another team. Did you say Chargers? Rosie? Rosie Chargers or not totally? Season ended weird.
That lost to Houston. So there's kind of like a bad taste.
Bosa might be out. Yeah, I wouldn't say Chargers.
I'm trying to think. Oh, Denver.
Those guys. They are super high on what they've got.
All young players. Bo Nix.
I had a really cool opportunity Friday night. The Broncos do a team dinner at the Combine.
And it's everyone from the team doctor to the head coach to the intern. Anyone who's in Indianapolis.
I'd say 60 people. And Sean Payton does a big team dinner.
I don't think any other teams do this in this way. And they rent out a room at Prime 47, which is the big steakhouse.
And Peyton let me come in and just hang with them at the table. And when you feel good vibes, good vibes team, it's everyone's busting balls.
Everyone's laughing. Everyone is having a great...
And they have such confidence in this quarterback that they're like, we're set. This has been the albatross around this franchise since Peyton Manning left.
We finally got our guy and they will be active in free agency and they will get a good running back. And they have a little more money this year, right? Yeah.
And finally have money. They've had no money, but like upfront last year, like Zach Allen had a career year when they're paying him, you know, but Alex Singleton was great.
Like, and then they've got Sertan, this amazing corner. They're set.
They are going to get a running back in this draft. And that's always been Sean Payton's favorite position to tinker with.
And they haven't had, he calls it the Joker. It's like the Alvin Kamara, the Darren Sproles, the Pierre Thomas, that type.
The guy that can catch out of the backfield, run in the backfield. And there's good high second round running back candidates for that.
Yeah, it's loaded. Great running back draft.
And you can sit there and on day two, pick up a guy who's going to pick up 1,000 yards and 60 catches. So I'd say Denver and Washington, both based on the young quarterback and then New England, you don't want to talk about him, but the optimism is sky high around the Patriots.
And also they become now- And with me and nephew Kyle. And every time we're together, Kyle's waiting for Abdul Carter to fall to four because of some amorphous foot thing.
And then he's buying the jersey that day. It's become all of a sudden a desirable place to play too.
And the free agents- It's funny how that works when you have a good quarterback and a good coach. No doubt.
It's funny how that shifts. No doubt.
The fourth overall pick is interesting for them because Hunter or Carter could be there if the quarterbacks do go in the top four. And even if they don't, I think Will Howard's a real possibility.
Or yeah, the lineman from LSU. Oh, Will Campbell.
Will Campbell, sorry. Not the Ohio State quarterback.
No, but he had the short arms. I was on multiple short arm threads.
That's okay. He couldn't even get to 33 inches with his reach.
How's he going to hold back Michael Parsons with those short arms? The other two names, it would be Mason Graham, who I think you're high on, right? I'm high on. Michigan.
Now- McShay says there's three elite guys in the draft, and that was how I was feeling anyway, knowing nothing but doing all the prep. But the thing is, with defensive tackle, that's the easiest position to get in free agency.
There's a million of them. If you're trying to put together a team of assets, which is what they need to do, that's probably not where you go.
But I want an all-pro in this draft. You have to get an all-pro in this draft.
I'm going to put this out here now because his draft stock is slipping because he didn't do anything at the combine. I don't think four overall is so crazy for this Tretororo McMillan out of Arizona, also known as T-Mac.
I think they like him, yeah. Oh, there's a lot of fans in the league.
And you're talking about the comparison starts at Drake London, but it can go even higher. This huge wingspan and this huge upside, six foot six basketball body out of Arizona.
Jed Fish was his coach at Arizona and Jed Fish is a lot of NFL people. And he has been raving about this guy for years.
Didn't do anything at the combine, but interviewed everywhere. And apparently he's a great kid.
Nickname is T-Mac. I don't see him in the top 10 of any of these mock drafts.
And I know that everyone loved what Matthew Golden, the the wide receiver out of texas did and it's like he's the guy i would be shocked if tmac falls out of the top 10 and i would think patriots at four might be a little rich but if you're no that's a trade back that's you flip picks with the jets or the saints or whoever and you or the even vegas are you scarred by by uh keanu uh what's his name by nicole nikhil harry of going to the state of Arizona for a wide receiver? The only thing that worries me with TMAC is the wide receiver class is so bad that when somebody is the best looking person at a party of ugly people, they look fucking so handsome or beautiful. That was me at the combine.
You should see it, dude. You would walk into one of these steakhouses.
You would vomit. It is so ugly.
And it's all over the country. It's all of us in the media.
And everyone's got the same exact look. It's a button-down with an ill-fitting blazer and jeans.
It sounds great. And maybe someone trying to have a cool pair of Jordans doesn't work.
But that's the look. But that's what worries me.
But if they want him, I think he's in the 8-12 range. I don't know.
They can't take... Well, the team that I could see taking him is Jacksonville at 5, because it seems like it's their decade's mission to just keep spending capital on wide receivers to try to talk themselves into Trevor Lawrence.
The Patriots can't block. I'm just going to say that.
They can't take Will Campbell at four because we don't know if he's a left tackle or guard. But I think that moving back into the six to 10 range and taking a receiver or a tackle, it's hard to argue with.
But you'd have to move back. You'd have to have a team wanting to move up.
That's the other thing. It's also like, and I work for the NFL Network and I'm going to be doing the draft.
Like it is not the draft class of years prior there are no you said three blue chip guys and i think mason graham is borderline blue chip like travis i could really see i could see carter for the paths though oh dude i think if there's a scenario where people get worried about well what's going on this foot or any of that shit and two quarterbacks go in the top three and hunter goes at like it's car that would be the dream it's car that's willie mcginnis the 96 although 95 or 94 whenever we got him all over again did willie did willie fall in the draft for parcells no but we took him like fourth or fifth yeah and it was like hey this guy is like gonna be our this guy is gonna go chase the quarterback now for the next 10 years for you guys yeah carter would be a home run and it's him and Hunter are like the two names. And then you got this other bucket of the quarterbacks where if you're doing an overall players list, they're probably seven, eight, nine, 10.
Like if you want to go that way, they're not. And then it's just the great unknown.
And it's like, what do you prefer? And it's, I mean, truly after like the fifth or sixth pick, it is a complete crapshoot to like pick, they say, as far as ranking and stacking these players. So not the richest draft class, but it's also the most intriguing.
At the Combine, we did Bleak, we did Happy. Who's the...
What the fuck is that team doing, team? That people were just kind of gossiping about. They were like the friend in friend in the the friend in the uh neighborhood who like what's going on in that house yeah just saw some car out there at three in the morning what what cincinnati is a little bit of a question mark just because they have such a big off season ahead and it's it's really going to be a lot of cap gymnastics but they have told every agent they have told every team like their goal is to bring all three of these guys back.
And that's Jamar Chase, Tee Higgins, and Trey Hendrickson. Franchise tagged Higgins already.
They did, but the intention is not to have him play on another franchise tag. The intention for them is to sign all three of these guys to long-term deals.
And if I was to stack it, I would say Jamar Chase is their first priority. Tee Higgins is their second priority.
And then Trey Hendrickson, who led the NFL in sacks and was second overall in defensive player of the year, he would be probably the third priority, which makes him a potential free agent to be signed. Wow.
So we always talk about how you can basically afford three giant guys in the NFL the way they want all three. And if you can pull off four, well, you got to countrow though burrow burrow's got this huge contract and burrow so if you're doing burrow with the two receivers that's an insane use of cap it's insane and you can't it's not they just waved alex kappa too they waved alex kappa which was although he didn't have a great year but but it's they're losing guys already they're gonna have to they're gonna have to wave guys and you can't build a team around a quarterback and two receivers and expect that's going to work.
They're going to try. And they're cheap.
They're like the Pats. They're cheap.
I mean, Vrabels try to change the Pats, but Bengals are cheap. Pats are cheap.
So on top of, at least the Chiefs are like spending when they try to do this gymnastics. They would bristle at the cheap thing.
I think historically they're viewed as cheap. So Mike Brown's granddaughter, Mike Brown's granddaughter, Elizabeth Blackburn, who's, uh, or Katie Blackburn.
No, Elizabeth is the granddaughter of Mike Brown. She's now taking over a little bit more.
And like, it's all about, let's make this team fun. Let's make this team marketable and let's spend money.
Like let's spend money. We have it.
We have to have a cap thing. So like that's their intention, but Duke Tobin and Zach Taylor have a giant, giant few weeks ahead of them right now.
And you already saw that Jamar Chase is posting things and T. Higgins is posting things.
Well, Burrow will be a dick, don't you think? If it gets to the point, he will be like an NBA star putting pressure on them. 100%.
He already has been publicly. You don't do radio row interviews and talk about company business.
He was doing that. So I think Cincinnati, a lot of eyes are on them because historically they have this, this feeling of, you know, small market team, 32nd market.
They don't spend money. It's a family run business.
And now you finally have put yourself in this position where like, you have to pay up. There's nothing left.
It's, it's not going to be good feelings. It's not going to be, it's going to be money.
Are you going to spend the money? And do you have a way to use the cap gymnastics? And to that point, they put up 40 points. They put up 40 points every game last year, and they still lost.
So if you're focusing on offense and you're letting the defensive player of the year, the runner-up, walk out, where are your priorities at? It's Louie Amarillo's fault. The Higgins chase when they play together with Burrow, the numbers are undeniable.
They're undeniable. and even if you're entertaining team in the league.
Right. But if you're looking at Higgins, and Sheil had him as his number two free agent, he had Darnold number one only because there's no quarterbacks.
But the Higgins thing would be, well, what about the games without Chase? Hmm. And you look at those.
What happens when the defense is targeted against him versus, I think Tee Higgins is amazing. I think he's unbelievable.
That would be my dream Pats guy. I wouldn't give up the first pick for him, obviously, but the second pick, the second rounder I would do in a heartbeat.
Go watch what he did with Jake Browning last year at the end of the season. Tee Higgins is fucking great.
They were going to Tee Higgins on every big play against Minnesota on that Saturday game.

And like Higgins is a true number one.

And if they can get both those guys back, great.

Back to Darnold really quick.

Yeah.

If you're Minnesota and they're not franchise time, they're going to let him hit the market.

Okay.

What does it say to J.J. McCarthy if you do bring him back on a 25 to $30 million contract? Does it tell the rest of the league that J.J.
McCarthy were not you do bring him back on a $25 to $30 million contract, does it tell the

rest of the league that J.J. McCarthy were not

like, this is the bind with Minnesota.

They don't know what they have in J.J. McCarthy

and you could read all the positive press.

They don't know what they have in J.J. McCarthy.

He was injured all last year. He was on the sidelines.

They haven't seen him play.

It's not like they know. If you take a guy

in the top 10, he's got to be your quarterback.

Okay. You let Darnold walk out the door.
You don't say let's try to hedge this a little bit. Two for 35? Do you have an out after one year? Like one of those type of deals? And if you're Darnold, you played your best football with Kevin O'Connell.
Let me do it one more year and then I can maybe break the bank maybe break the bank. Like, I think, I think they're going to make a very concerted effort.
I'm like, by the way, I had COVID those last two games. Sorry.
Sorry, guys. I can't believe you guys didn't get sick.
Why'd you make me play? Should it make me nervous that the Pats are probably going to spend on Ronnie Stanley? Because I still don't understand why the Ravens would let Ronnie Stanley go as their left tackle. The Ravens have a different salary cap situation and different team.
I'm not nervous. If I'm the Patriots, I'm looking at Zach Vaughn if the Eagles let him out.
I'm looking at Josh Sweat. I'm looking at Milton Williams.
They said they didn't like Josh Sweat. I think Vaughn is a real possibility though Bond would be great, and Sweat is good, and Milton Williams is good.
The other name, I don't know if... Nick Bolton from the Chiefs? Unbelievable linebacker.
Is he available? He can get Nick Bolton. I mean, it's Robert Spillane.
These are real names that can add to this team. Well, the move is what the Commanders did last year.
Getting those guys that weren't the A-list guys, but they were like, it's almost like the white Lotus cast strategy. No doubt.
It's like, we're going to get Carrie Coon. She's a really good, yeah.
Carrie Coon's a really good actress. Washington just went out and got like nine Carrie Coons.
Yeah. So that makes Zach Ertz here.
Patrick Schwarzenegger. I think so.
Yeah, maybe it does. Austin Eckler starring as Leslie Bibb.
Yeah, Austin Eckler is Greg Gary, the evil guy. That guy's been in all three seasons and just consistently doesn't say a word on the episodes.
Just look at the camera. He has that and he was the drug dealer 90210.
He's got one of the great IMDb's of all time. He got Dylan hooked on drugs.
Khalil Mack, what are the Chargers doing? Bosa and Mack? Yeah, a bloated salary. They could.
They could. We'll see.
That's why I'm not like, I want to wait and see on that. And this is also Joe Ortiz who comes from the Ravens.
It's his first real offseason. Last year he was the GM and they drafted well, but like this is now you got to, you know, it's time to make some decisions that might not be as easy as just drafting and signing players.
Last question. Houston is the most interesting offseason team to me because I don't know how far away they are from being impactful.
I thought they were in the mix last year, especially if you look back at how the season went, how they were able to play against the Chiefs defensively, what they were missing feels easy to add. I like their coaching staff.
I like their division. They're in a great division.
That could easily be like a 14-3 team next year. You were high on them last year.
I was. They had bad luck.
No, they finished strong. I know, but Diggs got hurt.
They lost two receivers by the time we got to the playoffs. Diggs will be a free agent likely.
He's going to be gone. Okay.
What was really interesting to me was Bobby Slowick was one of the offensive masterminds interviewing for head coaching jobs two years ago after they had this great successful season. They didn't think they got enough out of the offense.
They fired their offensive coordinator and then they go to the Rams and they get Nick Caley, who was a wonder kind under Sean McVay. They bring Caley in and they also, with this offense, like they didn't have, like you said, Stefan Diggs, they didn't have tank Dell in the last few weeks of the season.
And they still in that chiefs game, move the ball up and down the field. If they don't have two botched special teams plays and a block kick and get sacked eight times, they're in that game.
In retrospect, that was the red flag game for the Super Bowl, looking back, as I still continue to kick myself for not just having the balls to take Philly. You've mentioned this on quite a few pods.
That Houston game was a bad sign for the Chiefs. No, that game...
That they hung around like they did with the, I don't know. Blocked field goals, muffed kickoffs.
They got everything from the Texans. They couldn't put them away until the very end.
So there was some red flags there. But what are you going to do? I didn't bet, but I picked the Chiefs to win in that Super Bowl too.
And I've heard from Philly fans the entire last month. So it's all good.
We have to go. I have to go talk to Wesley Morris about the Oscars.
Oscars. Can I tell you? Probably.
Have not seen any of these movies. Now I'll go see one of them.
I'll go see Nora. Great move.
Oh, Nora's good. You should see Nora.
Is it good? Yeah. Schraggs, we'll talk to you before the draft.
Great to see you as always. You're the man, Bill.
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My old longtime friend, Wesley Morris is here. We used to work together at Grantland.
He's at the New York Times. Did not talk to him right before the Oscars.
Although we talked a couple months ago, we were waiting until after the Oscars, which was a very strange Oscars and was dominated by a movie called Anora. Chalamet is not- I did like Anora.
Chalamet did not win. Demi Moore did not win.
I'm going to start here. We haven't talked.
We've only texted a little bit. I was so happy Mikey Madison won.
I thought that was the best performance of any movie I saw, and I did not see The Brutalist yet. But I thought she was awesome.
And this whole... Sometimes this will happen in sports too, where they'll just decide, well, to be more, she's been waiting forever.
She's got to win. And that was an important movie.
And I was just like, what the fuck? Like Mackey Madison should win. Now, do you agree or disagree with that? Cause I feel like you might disagree.
Well, okay. I disagree with everything.
Um, I think, uh, what do I, okay. I, first of all, I just want to be clear.
I have no deep, visceral problem with Mikey Madison winning. I actually was, I was happy for the surprise of it.
of those five nominees I wasn't terribly excited about I loved Fernanda Torres

and I'm still here I think

that Demi Moore, we can talk about what Demi Moore is doing in the substance that I think made her deserving of an Oscar. Okay.
But my two favorite performances are two of my very favorite performances from last year. Their movies got no nominations.
and I just was kind of like there needs to be an asterisk next to this five nominees. Who were the two performances? Nicole Kidman and Baby Girl.
She was really good in that. I can't believe she didn't get nominated actually for that.
That is one of the greatest... I mean, this is true of Nicole Kidman in general in the last like 15 years.

But that performance in Baby Girl is one of the greatest feats of psychological acting I have ever seen.

I don't know how I'm I'm not an actor.

And I don't know how you simulate any of the things that Nicole Kidman was asked to do and Harris Dickman or is it Harris Dickson? Dickinson? Dickinson I think. He is also great.
That is one of the top his performance is one of the top five performances I saw last year. Hmm.
Um, would that have been supporting actor for you or actor? Supporting. I can live with supporting.
We can talk about category, category fraud too. Yeah.
Um, because two of our winners, total category fraudsters. Um, and I, anyway, I think that Mikey Madison is good in that movie.
Yeah. My problem with, with the performance is only that the four guys she is working with in this film are extraordinary.
All four of those guys is great. And, or all four of those guys are great.
And, you know, Jora Borislav, I, I'm, I'm so out of practice with these names. I'm going to get some of them wrong.
But, you know, to single him out is right because, you know, he's got the scene at the end in the car, which is her great moment as an actor, too, in this movie. I like Enora.
I like it more than fine, but I don't love it. Um, that's how I felt.
I think that I'd be curious to hear you talk about what you love about Mikey Madison so much. I thought it was a very strange movie year.
I didn't feel like a lot of stuff jumped out. And I, you know, we always talk about how it's a little bit like sports where you look back years later and like, oh, what was that year? Oh, that was the year Nora won all this stuff.
I just thought I didn't know her really at all other than TV stuff. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Working actress. She was like the 11th person in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
True. That's the other thing.
And I just felt like I like those movies sometimes where it's just like, oh, this person's a star. I'm watching her become a star during the movie.
I thought it was a pretty, pretty out there performance. It's a crazy movie that I think has some flaws, which we talked about in the past.
But I just thought it was a really like memorable performance. But I also felt that way about Nicole Kidman.
If she had won in that category of her, I still wouldn't have agreed, but I would have understood it. Here's what I'll say about Demi Moore.
There's a shot at the beginning or toward the beginning of this film where she has left the set of her aerobics instruction show, her big hit fitness show. She's going to the bathroom and on our, on our walk from the studio, I believe, or maybe the executives, I don't exactly know what, where the hallway is going to and leading.
I know it's going to the bathroom. But anyway, there are all of these photos of various versions of Elizabeth Sparkle, Demi Moore's character in The Substance, on the wall.
And they're all from different periods of this character's life. And I just felt like I was also watching the the hall of Demi Moore.
And it like all those portraits correspond at least at least in my brain, they corresponded to some moment in Demi Moore's cultural life and her movie star life. And then she gets to the bathroom and I believe there's like somebody's cleaning the women's room.
So what does she have to do? She goes into the men's bathroom. That is the Demi Moore's shot or sequence, maybe ever.
And this movie is so dialed in in its way because it's not about America. It's not about, it's like set in a kind of fictionalized Hollywood.
We can talk about the kind of Europeanification and the ways in which non-American filmmakers and ideas have officially made an inexorable mark on the Academy Awards and the Academy itself. It's just not going anywhere anytime soon.
So we have to think about what the Oscars even are going forward.

But anyway,

um,

this movie to me,

like,

and once she gets into the bathroom,

you have the Dennis Quaid character in the bathroom talking about how over the

hill to me more is as an actress or,

you know,

Elizabeth sparkle is as an actress.

And I,

I,

from that sequence forward, this movie was as much about the actor playing this part as it was about the character she's playing. And the total, I have never seen, to me, Moore is committed to a lot of parts.
I mean, G.I. Jane being maybe the ultimate, strip tease being an ultimate part commitment.
she's never been the strongest line reader. She's never been the most convincing when her, when, when she has to hit an upper register, like anger is not something like verbal anger, verbally expressed anger, but she can make her face twitch.
Her eyes can do that. Like, um, you know, like they're, they're, yeah, they're, they're like sizzling a little bit when she's when she's suffering um and but her lower register you know you know suck my dick that that that line and gi j and i mean she can sell those lower register rages um but this was something new for me with Demi Moore, where her physical commitment to the

part had emotional stakes.

You're bringing in your 40-plus

year history with her movies, and

that became part of the performance for you.

Yes, and I think

that might have...

I think that's fair. I get it.

Can I do my history?

Yeah, but can I just real quick, if you're

an Iranian voter, do you care about 40 years of Demi Moore 40 years you don't you're just doing best performance which is right right right um I went back to to be more in general hospital because I was watching general hospital in the early 80s that's where she broke in yep uh was with her through the Brad Pack years it was amazing to watch her it felt like she fizzled out and then became a big star I think she was really under it like we did disclosure for rewatchable she's just great in that movie she's just a 10 out of 10 smoking hot incredibly confident but I swear to god I think the best scene of her entire career you're gonna laugh and this is one of my one of my takes that I'll probably take shit for and I don't really care you're you you're used to it go on when Rob Lowe breaks up with her in about last night and he says he doesn't love her anymore I honestly think that's the best acting moment of her career the way and apparently he ad-libbed it and it wasn't in there but the way way she reacts to it, you could just see it go through her entire body.

I think she's had some really great acting moments over the years.

I was just about to say, Bill,

there's so many moments like that in her career.

Like G.I. Jane's another one.

Disclosure's like that.

I think she's good in Ghost.

I think in St. Elmo's Fire,

she has a couple moments where you're like,

I would run through fiery hell to get this girl to like me, right? Yep she's a one-on-one where I don't even know. There's a little Kathleen Turner in there just because of her voice, but she was drop dead beautiful in the 80s and then kind of transformed over the 90s.
So we've been there the whole time with her. But part of what I thought was interesting about this movie, because you're right, it's a career retrospective of her.
I actually feel like her career should have been better. I think she could have made better movie choices when she had her peak.
You think about even making a movie like Strip Tease. That was like a paycheck movie.
That's like what we get mad at some actors doing. Right, but that Strip Tease, wait, let's go back to 1990s.
That's like, I want to work with my husband. That movie But you know, striptease.
Wait, let's go.

That's like,

I want to work with my husband.

That movie sucks.

I don't like that movie.

Wait,

wait, wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

wait,

let's go back to striptease.

It,

it,

that movie was more than a paycheck movie.

Like it was,

I believe,

well,

it did pay her a lot.

If memory, she became the biggest, biggest contract. That was the I believe, well, it did pay her a lot if memory serves.
She became the biggest contract. That

was the biggest salary anyone made in Hollywood.

But it was also at the peak of

her demeaneness, right? She

had a great 1990s.

She had, I mean, she was

a top five box office

draw. She was in

Indecent Proposal.

She's good in Indecent Proposal. I'm not arguing arguing the success I just wish there were a couple awesome movies in there where she was going for an Oscar and I don't think that was even on the radar for her but I don't think she had that in her is the thing so that's where we disagree I think she had it not like she didn't get cut.
I don't think she had the right part.

What if she was the prostitute in Las Vegas instead of Elizabeth Shue?

Was she probably too old?

No, she's too...

I mean, too old when they made that movie.

No, no. I think that that's not it

because I bet you she and Elizabeth Shue

were the same age.

I think... Yeah, you're right.

They probably are.

I think that Demi Moore... And this is why she's so good in Ghost, by the way.
I think that she presents as invulnerable, right? She's... I mean, her whole thing when she became a real major movie star, where people were paying money to see movies she was in was just about her toughness.

Right? I mean, she's often

the only woman in these movies. A few

good men, she's the woman.

Well, that's her worst part. It's her

worst part and maybe like her worst

piece of acting because she's kind of seemed

secondary to everybody else's

priorities. Rob Reiner

is a great director of actors, so I don't know what his side of the story is. Part of the problem is the mid nineties did not have a lot of great female parts.
If you go back, even you look at, you go back and look at the Oscars during some of those stretches. Like, could she have been Sharon Stellan's part in Casino? No.
You don't think so? Why? I mean, I'm sure that, I mean, I can't say no. I definitely would have loved to have seen her play the part.
I don't have an argument for why she couldn't have done it. Like, yeah, like cast her into Casino.
I thought you were going to go with Basic Instinct. Which she really could have done.
She would have been too famous for. But she could have been one of the, disclosure was basically her Basic Instinct.
Could she have been Annette Bening in American Beauty? No.

No. So you think she's

more limited than I do? I think

I feel like there was more there.

She also got married to Bruce Willis. They became

a giant celebrity couple and they had three kids.

So that probably

hurt the output of movies she was making

at some point. This is why I want to go back to Mortal

Thoughts because it's

a great combination of the thing

I'm identifying about her that

I like, which is the strength

Thank you. at some point.
This is why I want to go back to Mortal Thoughts because it's a great combination of the thing I'm identifying about her that I like, which is the strength with these pockets of vulnerability. You don't believe, and the thing about Mortal Thoughts is it's two women, Glenn Headley's the other woman because Glenn Headley used to be a thing.
Right. And wonderful actress.
The two of them in that movie are wonderful. She stuck with Mr.
Holland even after he almost ran away with a 17-year-old. Still stayed there with him.
Yeah, did it. Did it all.
And this movie, Immortal Thoughts, I think, is it Alan Rudolph directed this movie? Yeah. From 1991.
It's a Tubi classic. Tubi just is always trying to get me to rewatch it.
I'm like, no to be no, not biting. Bill, I fell for it.
You did to be sucked you in. I have fairly was like recently thrown the fishing rod at you.
I rewatched it and there's more going on. It does not ultimately work because it's structurally it's structurally.
it should just go chronologically and shouldn't do all the sort of jumping around in time that it does. But Demi Moore We don't have to spend 10 minutes on Mortal Thoughts.
There's a struggle in here. I know.
I'm just thinking through what worked for me and what the surprise was with respect to me more. Like there's a struggle in her,

I think as an actor where she's trying to figure out like what the,

what,

how to modulate the, the shell that she sort of moves through movies with.

And in a movie like mortal thoughts,

I mean,

some of what's required for that part, she's plays, she's playing a woman being abused by her husband. They conspire to kill him.
I think I'm getting this right. They conspire to kill him, she and Glenn Headley.
And then they spend the rest of the movie trying to figure out how to get away with murder. It's like a bad thumb in Louise.
It's, oh, whoa. You know what's crazy is, yes.
And it came around right around the same time. Yeah.
And that was, the movie didn't work also because you don't believe them as New Jersey housewives or whatever. Oh, that way they had their accents.
Bruce Willis had a crazy facial hair thing going. It's like, come on, Bruce Willis.
So what was your favorite to me more performance before this movie? What was your number one? Because my favorites, I loved her in About Last Night, which, as you know, I think is the first modern rom-com. But I thought she was great in that.
I thought she was great in Disclosure. I think she's great in Ghost.
I listened to you guys talk about Disclosure. You don't like Disclosure.
I don't like that. I don't like it.
I don't think she's good. It's not a

good use of Demi Moore.

I liked it. If you're just making a random

movie and you're just showing up for

11 days of shooting, it's

a good one. I mean, three straight

guys talking about Disclosure is

just... That was part of the

gimmick. I know.

It just was like...

Ghost is really good, though. Ghost, I think, is the number one answer.
That movie was a monster movie. Number one answer.
Because that movie is not so secretly strange, right? It's not just the supernatural parts. It taught us what happens when you go to hell.
Goblins come out of the street and they pull you down.

They shadow goblins and that's it.

You're fucking in hell from that point on.

They have the code.

But I also love what she and Whoopi Goldberg get up to.

Yeah, they have great scenes.

I love her disbelief that the thing that she's being told is happening is happening to her.

I believe her as a woman named Molly, which, you know, that's a huge, that's a big deal. And I just think that that movie is so, it's so much about Demi Moore's character and the movie's about her.
And there's just, she's so soft in that movie. And the moments in which she has to put a shield over herself they work because you understand the movie has given you enough of this vulnerable you know woman who just doesn't believe that this magical thing that is about to happen it about to, that's about to happen to her is really going to happen.
Yeah. Um, I just think it's a, I mean, it's strange because in 1990, who were your best actress nominees? Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Joanne Woodward, Kathy Bates, who won and Angelica Houston, I want to say for the grifters.
I mean, it's not like she was remiss. I mean, Julia Roberts took the movie star part of the movie star nomination for those five people.
Roberts. Yeah.
You had the five. That was impressive.
Um, I don't know. Loaded, loaded year.
Jesus Christ. Any one of those people could have.
Holy shit. And then the next year was loaded too.
And then in the mid nineties, uh, nothing will top her turning on the lights and about last night because I think we've been in the dark long enough. Oh, wow.
That movie has some growner lines. You got to watch it.
She's really great in it though. I haven't seen it in a while.
Haven't seen it in a while. It's really, really, really an enjoyable romp.
Uh, how'd you feel about the best actor?

Well, I mean,

the winner or the nominees, the speech?

Just how it played out.

So here's my sports angle

on Chalamet.

Great career move not to win.

Oh, yeah.

Great career move.

He should not have won.

Way better.

Now, next movie,

this happened to Leo too.

This is,

oh, when's he going to win?

You want to get into that

when's he going to win zone because it just helps you with the celebrity of being an actor. I also don't think it, I also, it's complicated, right? He's probably going to be one of the last actors to be in this position.
Right. We're like, he'll just, he'll just be nominated to maybe, maybe two more times before he actually wins.
Yeah. It'd be like he'll have to be in The Revenant.

He'll have to crawl out of a dead bear.

Oh, my God.

He'll have to get the shit kicked out of him.

I'm looking forward to Timothee Chalamet's The Revenant because he definitely has it

in him.

The question is, like, is that script ever going to come his way?

Well, here's the thing.

Can I throw this theory at you?

Okay.

I think what happened with this Oscars run and with Chalamet in general we always I mean how many pods did Sean do about who's the next big star who we always would we've done pods about who's the next big actor in Hollywood are we ever going to have one it's just moving into this talk about that stuff well is it is this ever going to happen again? Does the way this system, the way it's structured now, does it just make it impossible because we just throw some DC Comics or Marvel suit on them after they become famous? I think what happened with him, SNL really helped. Going on college game day, the way he navigates, you could feel it in the Oscars telecast too.
He was kind of in that Leo spot. They kept going to him.
They kept showing him. Oh, people are mentioning him.
And it just felt like it was kind of his Leo early 2000s moment. Right.
This is a great point because I actually didn't even think about DiCaprio in that moment. And I thought I went I went past Leonardo DiCaprio and went to like Streep and Nicholson, right? Right.
Where he was the person, they weren't even making fun of him at some points. It wasn't even Conan O'Brien.
He felt like he had clout. Yes.
People were like just shouting him out because they thought he was cool. I think he has about as high of an approval rating of an actor that we've seen in a long time.

I think really since Leo and the early two, when Leo was in that aviator stage and we were like, you know what, man, this guy is, he's handsome.

Everybody likes him.

He's a really good actor and he stands for the right things.

He wants to work with good directors.

He wants to challenge himself.

I know, I know Chalamet's SAG speech didn't go over a fantastic when he was talking about how he wanted to be one of the greats, but I loved it. I thought it was great.
I'm glad he said it. I mean, as sports people, Bill, I think what we want is a little bit of honesty in terms of people's ambitions.
Yeah. And if you think you can go all the way, he wasn't even saying, I'm the greatest.
He's like, I want to to be one of the great. It was authentic, which is all we want from athletes, celebrities, whoever.
Just be just fucking say what you want. Be yourself.
Be yourself. Don't try to be some manufactured.
I think people are going to like this version of me and this will help me if I appear this way. Like, I don't think he's like that.
No, I think there's I mean, at least not yet. Maybe Maybe he'll turn into that.
They don't talk about you that way. I mean, think, I mean, this is not quite fair to the person I'm about, I'm about to name, but think about a show where like they would treat Kieran Culkin this way.
Right. I think that there is, there's like real belief in, in, in Timothy Chalamet as more than just like an actor.
I mean, he, he embodies something that people seem to like. Also, it's important to say that he, he's just really good at being himself.
And I don't know what that is really, but I just enjoy when he shows up, you know, on some, you know, know Canadian talk show like hanging out in the record store with this with the talk show host I don't know if you saw that like I don't even know where I saw but it came to me and I was like I love this guy he really went along with it and he's the guy who is waiting outside MSG for Maurice Stoudemire to like a fucking jersey for him. He still has that authenticity.
And I don't know. Hollywood beats that out of you sometimes.
I hope it doesn't happen with him. Yeah, I think the difference between him and DiCaprio also, and this is also important, he seems to be fine with it.
DiCaprio didn't like it. I don't know that he likes it to this day.
Well, he liked some of the accoutrements. He liked the spoils.
The spoils, yes. He liked the spoils.
Right. But he doesn't like the actual...
He's not in it for Jimmy Kimmel, Conan O'Brien, kind of poking him in the ribs a little bit. Yeah.
Chalamet, he's like... his skin is thick.
He can handle it. I gotta say, I think the way Leo handled his career was brilliant.
No notes. No notes.
I mean, just like, he studied some of the old greats. I don't need to do a shitload of interviews.
There needs to still be a little mystery about me. And he kept the mystery.
For better and worse. Because that also allows people to, you know, he's doing this.
He's at this party. He is a pussy wrangler.
Like, that's an actual phrase used with Leo. That guy's his pussy wrangler.
Keep him on their toes, right? Like, I mean, let... He is willing to be the brunt of some brutal jokes.
I'm thinking specifically about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler going at him at the Golden Globes. Yeah.
He can he just he's like if this is the price if the price is having two funny people like roast me for some stuff they think I did or like the community thinks I did. I'll take it.
I still don't have to do an interview. I like it.
Who else? I mean, there's been

De Niro for a while.

He had a real mystery

and then something snapped in the 90s

and

we went the other way with it.

What do you mean? What do you think?

Well, he just started doing a ton of movies.

He started going on SNL.

Part of De Niro, De Niro was this

mythical figure.

Who is this guy?

He relaxed.

But does he seem any more known to you?

No,

he's actually ironically a terrible interview.

Yeah.

I mean,

he's still,

he's still mysterious to me.

I don't,

I don't pretend to know anything.

Because I have a couple other things

I want to hit with you.

So you,

your best actor was who?

Of those five people. No, give me anybody.
You know somebody who didn't get nominated. Who was the best male performance for you? I mean, I really, I'm just going to stick with Adrian Brody.
I mean, he was the person who when I saw him in the opening shot of shot of the brutalist, I was just like,

well,

this is we're,

we're headed into there will be blood territory in terms of what the

acting is do.

Um,

I just think that this is a guy who I'm just going to,

we don't,

I don't want to talk about the speech.

I can't even,

I didn't even know what to do with the speech.

Forget it.

He's,

he's,

um,

whatever.

I,

I,

I a little bit understand where it came from, but then it took a turn. And then I was like, no, you got to just anyway.
But he was my, of those five guys, I'll just stay with those five guys. He was my favorite of the nominated performances.
And he also was the best. It was one of the best pieces of acting I saw last year, period.
And I think what I loved about it was the, the restraint, um, the way he, the way his, there's something like an, there's an anchor. It's so different from the piano, from, from the pianist performance, right? Yeah.
Where that character seemed to be blowing through, through the, through the narrative. And part of what was beautiful about that performance was just that he was in a silent

movie, essentially.

And you were watching somebody do like a Charlie Chaplin, but under the worst possible

circumstances for a human being.

And he just seemed to keep surviving in an almost tragic realist way. And this movie is the opposite where it's everything about it is internal.
And how many levers can he keep down on the emotional circumstances, you know, dealing with the guy, Pierce character,

um,

keeping his eyes open.

You know,

there's a wariness and a,

uh,

uh,

skepticism about what this character is up against at all,

at all times.

Yeah.

Um,

there's that great scene.

Oh,

you haven't seen it,

Bill.

Have you?

I haven't seen it.

All right.

I got to just,

I'm going to tell you about this one scene.

There's this one scene.

Felicity Jones is his wife.

Thank you. scene.
Oh, you haven't seen it, Bill, have you? I haven't seen it. Alright, I gotta just, I'm gonna tell you about this one scene.

There's this one scene, Felicity Jones is his wife.

She eventually makes

her way over to the United States.

They wind up living together in this

smallish apartment

with her cousin.

And these three Holocaust

survivors in this little apartment,

they haven't, the husband and wife have not seen each other in a long time. And there is an expectation from her that they're going to do it.
And this is truly, this scene between these two actors and between these two characters is, like, I getting chills just thinking about it is one of the most loaded sexual encounters that also is freighted by, you know, watching it in 2024, 25, you know, 60 years, you know, 70 years of history. And the history that these characters have with each other, we're like, they're just different people now.
This, this, the Holocaust has changed them. The time they've spent a party has changed them.
Her body's different. His, his interest in her body is different.
It, it is, I'm not even going to, I can't be more detailed about the scene because I don't want to ruin it for people who haven't seen it. I wasn't going to skip it, but I just, that is one of the best directed, best acted scenes between two actors in a bed that I have ever seen.
And I will say as a, you know, parenthetically, not a lot of bed scenes in baby girls. So they didn't have a lot of competition.
Yeah, that's true. A lot of hotel room carpets.
And I want to talk about Hackman and I want to talk quickly about White Lotus. So any other Oscar thoughts? Because we're going to take a break.
We can talk about Hackman. No.
Well, can I just say one thing? We can save it for after the break. But I want to talk about what these Oscars mean.
There's something is, something has changed. I don't, it, it kind of is both promising, but also not, it doesn't feel good based on the way people are talking to me about the Academy Awards.
Um, and I'm curious if what people in your life and world are saying. I mean, we can do this now.
I just think we've been talking about the Oscars for a while. I think sometimes things morph over time culturally.
You know, like when we were talking about All-Star Weekend a couple weeks ago on the podcast, I think it was, maybe it was Van or I can't remember. I'm sorry.
I can't remember who said it, but about whether it just had a cultural expiration

date.

Yeah, yeah. I think that was Vanner.

Yeah, things can shift and change.

I think about people used to

care about regular

season baseball, and now they just care about their

own teams. As you get older, you just

see things sometimes run their course.

With the Oscars,

whether people care about who wins the way they did in 1982 I I just don't know if they do I don't especially the younger generation the younger generation was probably like did Chalamet win would be the way they could that like my kids I prompt my guy have a 17 year old 19 year old who are pretty sports in the mix, at least a little bit because of me, they didn't care about the Oscars. But when we were kids and I'm older than you, but both of our generations, like we really cared who won.
And I just, I wonder if that's just shifted now, but it's shift, man, you know, but a part of it is like the NBA issue, right? When they talk about face of the league and in my whole case is like, when somebody really matters, we won't have this conversation because we'll know something, we'll know that person mattered. Like if there's another Titanic, there's another big ass movie or there's another big ass star with an awesome performance, people are going to care if that person or that movie wins.
This year didn't have a movie like that. And it's always going to suffer when that's the case.
But I also think that those movies aren't like, that's just, they're not going to happen. And also the thing about the old way, and this is not nostalgia speaking, this is just, you know, facts, you know, there were, there was a kind of randomness to what the five best pictures wound up being, um, or the five and you know there was a healthy movie going ecosystem or one that seemed healthy to like an average could seem healthy to an average movie goer where like there was a lot of movies to choose from they weren't all trying to win Oscars you know and sometimes the ones that weren't trying wound up mattering to a lot of people.
So we were making less movies. There was no confusion between, is this something I watch at home on my TV or do I go to the theater to see it? We had way less TV competition with the high-end stuff.
We didn't, we had all the best actors were just doing movies. And now it's like, you might see a really great actor just do a TV show instead.
So it just feels like it's splintered in a whole bunch of different ways. I still care.
I still care about the history and how current stuff relates to it. But I think I'm like an anomaly.
I was going to say, we don't count. I don't think.
Yeah, we don't count. But I'm telling you, you're mentioning your kids.
I'm talking to people your kid's age.

And I'm talking to people older than we are.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Who are also like, I'm out.

I can't.

Y'all got me to see Conclave and then pull that shit at the end.

I don't.

I'm out.

Like, y'all trying to rope-a-dope me into having feelings I don't want to be having.

Now, as a Conclave person, I will tell you that that dismount is pretty ingenious. I love the end of that movie.
A conclave supporter, okay. You don't like it? I thought the twist was stupid.
I loved it! It is such... I didn't think the movie needed it.
I was more interested in... Who did you want to win? Who did you want to be? I just like being in the world as they try to figure it out and undermine each other.
It was just a classic old school movie. I didn't feel like it needed a twist.
I think that what we're going to call a twist was really ingenious because they I think the movie earns it I've heard this case I'm not I I just personally didn't work for me all right but that's not my point my point is I talked to so many people of so many different age ranges like age demographics right generationally everybody's out like nobody feels the movies are for them. And I don't know what to do with that because it's not Sean Baker's fault.
It's not the substance's fault. Do you think Nickel Boys was out here trying to win a bunch of Oscars? No, this is the story that Marmel Ross wanted to tell about, like based on like, you know,

quote based on Colson Whitehead's novel.

Like he, there was,

there was so much risk taken in these,

by these movies,

these best picture nominees this year.

They, they, they were doing strange,

unusual, weird things.

And I'm saying this as a person who saw

Giamo del Toro's The Shape of Water, which won Best Picture, a woman in love with a fish. Like, you know, strange things happen to Best Picture nominees or in Best Picture nominees.
But this was the first year where I can understand what it is the public wants. And what the public wants is movies that not only have they seen, but they want to have like a wealth of movies if they're going to be going to the movies, like to a physical movie theater.
Yeah. They want to go look at, they want to look at famous people.
They want movie stars like Deadpool and Wolverine are movie stars. Yeah.
Like this iteration, this Anthony Mackie, Captain America to like two people who aren't invested in the Marvel universe, Marvel cinematic universe. Like he's important.
And we all know like what this iteration of Captain America is and does. If you read the comic and et cetera, et cetera.
But like, do people, does, is Anthony Mackie a draw for people? Um? I mean, the movie seems like it's doing okay. But my point, my larger point is, this is just me saying once again to you, Bill, that the IP is still, I think people are now tired of the IP even.
The IP's worn out its welcome. We did Rocky for the rewatchables that went up last night.
And Rocky won Best Picture. Wait, you guys have never done Rocky? We did three and four.
Rocky is now a prequel for Rocky 3. That was part of my case.
We're not doing it. Rocky 3 is the best movie of the 80s.
I agree. I mean, sort of.
Rocky wins rocky wins all the president's men network and taxi driver

don't win and then you go to the best actor and it's just you're just looking at it like oh my god and granted it was almost 50 years ago you're like oh my god look at the movies we were making um go back to 2014 right yeah Was that the year that Gravity and was that the year of Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, American Hustle, 12 Years a Slave, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Her, Nebraska, the Wolf of Wall Street. That deck was so stacked that Tom Hanks, giving one of the best performances he's ever given in Captain Phillips, did not get a Best Actor nomination.
Right. Let's take a quick break.
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Okay, Gene Hackman died earlier this week. And he was old.
It wasn't like a big surprise. Hopefully the details of how he died.
Um, I've heard some things aren't too awful, but I have a feeling they, they might not be great, but, uh, you know, he was somebody that had this awesome, awesome, awesome career forever. And then just walked away and didn't, we never kind of saw him again.
He almost did the Johnny Carson going to Malibu and I'm out. That's it.
I'm done. Um, there was nobody really like him that I can think of.
It's like a, he's a true one-on-one and you know, even like we, in the rewatchables we've done, I think, I think we did like eight Hackman movies, something like that, where, and you would never think like he would be one of the more rewatchable actors,

but he just over and over again

would pop into stuff.

And what was interesting watching

as his career evolved

was how the other actors would talk about

what it was like to kind of be in a movie with him.

And it was like,

almost like you're going against him.

And it's,

I was trying to think of like how many actors

are discussed that way,

where it's like,

I'm with Hackman, got to raise my game today. I got to raise my game this week.
He reached that part of it too. There was just nobody like him, but you could go way back.
Downhill Racer, which I think Fantasy and I are going to do in Rewatchables at some point. It's an awesome movie.
It's probably the first great modern sports movie, even though it's not totally modern, but he's even great in that and that was

what 1969 so yeah there wasn't a career quite like this will we ever have another gene hackman no because i mean here's you know you you know me well enough to know that my taste and men

is eclectic

but I'm just going to say for the average

person

they enough to know that my taste in men is eclectic but i'm just gonna say for the average person they're not they're not looking at gene hackman and going oh yeah yeah i'll take you tight you're tapping in a horny hack horny hacks already yeah that horny side yeah we talk about that on the rewatchable sometimes a little randy in some movies. He is, but I think there's something about the, his kind of average lookingness.
Yeah. Like, you know, he did not wear a toupee.
He did not hide his loss of his hair. He always just seemed like he was perpetually 45 years old.
Yeah. He came to us 45 years old.
And like when he left, he maybe seemed 60. I don't know.
It's like 58 years old. Yeah.
He just seemed permanently middle-aged, which is a thing that just will never happen now. But the other piece with that was it somehow allowed him to play all these different parts.
Yes. That he could be a basketball coach.
He could be in a buddy cop movie. He could be the bad guy in a buddy cop movie.
He could be somebody that's running a submarine. He could be somebody who's the president.
He could be an FBI agent who thinks he alone can solve the civil rights movement. Yeah.
He could be somebody who's the president. He could be somebody trying to break into the White House.
Yeah. He could be somebody who's like trying to figure out the heist and he's in charge of the heist.
Or he could be the person who is like working on the heist. He could be the sports movie coach.
Like he could do literally anything. Anything.
I think that his also that kind of does speak in some weird way to what America is. And I know this sounds like cheesy and corny and cheap, but like if you are coming to this country for the first time and you want to you like one of the many things that tells you that you're in the United States of America, it's probably Gene Hackman, right?

This is a person who,

in all of the jobs that he could be doing,

seems credible in them.

He's not conventionally good-looking.

Like, the idea that he and Warren Beatty are supposed to be brothers in Bonnie and Clyde

is just one of the most laughable things I've ever seen.

Like, yeah, adopted brothers?

I don't know.

It's just, it's comical.

There is something also, like, unpredictable about him.

And it isn't so much that, you know,

I think about him in the French Connection, right?

One of the, if you think of,

if you diagram the psyche of,

you've diagrammed that sentence psychologically,

this is like a terrible human being.

He's a racist, like, racist cop in New York City, shaking down people in bars just for kicks, basically. Him and Jack Cates in 48 Hours are my favorite cop characters that are also completely indefensible.
Yeah, but, you know, Popeye Doyle never had an Eddie Murphy to come and give one of the great rebuttals to the racism in the movies, right? Yeah. Or to anybody's racism in the movies.
Popeye Doyle stands as a singular character because he's never brought in to heal. He's never, nobody ever wags their finger in his face in a a way that means anything because ultimately he's looking for what, you know, a moviegoer will recognize as, as, as a kind of narrative justice.
Like he's trying to solve this mystery and the command, the like easy, like kind of sexy command that he has in that, in those bar and those shakedown scenes, you know, he just, it's just a great, dirty, filthy character who in the character works because he's got swag, you know? Right. And he didn't, he could turn that on and he could turn it off, but you really.
No way out was like that. That was another one where he's just kind of, kind of sleazy, right? Yeah? But sleazy, powerful, and you could just kind of see it.
The other thing with him that I thought was cool, you could just throw him in other great parts and he makes sense. You could put him in The Godfather.
He's just, just be Tom Hagen. You're going to be Tom Hagen instead of Duvall.
And it's like, yeah, Hackman would have been fine. Could have pulled it off.
Can I tell you how many years I thought the Tom Hagen was played by Gene Hackman? Right. I sometimes have to remind myself that Robert Duvall is not Gene Hackman in that movie.
Could he have Nicholson's all-time incredible in Chinatown, but could the movie have survived if it was Gene Hackman in Chinatown? Probably. It still would have worked.
It still would have worked. It still would have worked.
Terms of endearment works with Gene Hackman.

Yeah, that's the thing.

And that's why I think he's so unique

because it's almost like a basketball player

that could play a bunch of different positions

and guard a different bunch of it.

And it's just like, oh, when we have this guy,

we basically can do anything we want.

But you know what he cannot do?

And never really tried.

Comedy?

He never did crazy.

Well, he did do comedy.

And he was pretty...

The birdcage, that's the first one. Thank you.
want but you know what he cannot do and never really tried he never did crazy net well he did

do comedy and he was pretty the birdcage i'm that's the first thing that comes to mind how about are you a heartbreakers person sigourney waver jennifer love you corny hacks is out this is i mean i i mean i'm already out as like you know i'm out of myself as being like into gene Hackman. But yeah, it does not take much.
But no, his Lex Luthor, his Lex Luthor. That's how I got to know him, by the way.
That was my first Gene Hackman movie. That was my first Gene Hackman.
My first Gene Hackman was Lex Luthor in the 78 Superman. And listen, he's sexy.
He is sexy in that movie. And there's like, and he, I don't know what he knew, but he definitely seemed to understand that Lex Luthor thought he was sexy and that was good enough for him.
Right. Like, could he have done Liam Neeson in Taken? I think he could have.
Yeah, but he, oh wait, but this is my, I was going to say, speaking of which, he never did crazy crazy crazy is the thing he never did he never so he never did like Tommy Lee Jones and blown away just as a crazy Irish terrorist I mean up shit go back to like one of his primes like he couldn't have played Travis Bickle no you also wouldn't have believed him as as Woodward right you wouldn't have believed him as Bob Woodward. No, because I would never think he was, I would never think he would not be in control when I see Gene Hackley.
Yeah, exactly. He would have flown off the handle way before it was time.
Right. And there, there are just some things like, this is an interesting distinction that we're trying to make here, which is that I'm saying he's never crazy right he's never played a crazy person like a psychopath you know you can say what you will what you want about little bill and unforgiven but that guy was just evil's not the same thing as crazy no you're right i i totally get what you mean but what the other part is he didn't bring Gene Hackman, the famous celebrity person into the role, that kind of baggage that some other, like I would see Dustin Hoffman or Nicholson.
And you're always thinking it's Nicholson. You're always thinking it's Dustin Hoffman.
This is a good distinction too. Hackman could kind of blend into the different parts.
And where it's like, oh, I love Gene Hackman, but then you'd kind of like Enemy of the States, a good example. He's Gene Hackman, but you're watching, he just kind of blends in and out.
Now all of a sudden he's this weird guy. I don't know what he's up to.
And is he going to help Will Smith or not? And you kind of just forget he's Gene Hackman. Think about all the people he's mentored to, right? Oh yeah.
I mean, just everybody talks about it after like, Whoa, that was, I went to grad school when I did acting with Gene Hackman. But what is it? But what is that, though? Right.
Well, I think it's professionalism. Just going on to the set, knowing exactly who you are, like real confidence, a little bit of charisma.
You're not going to back down anybody. I think it's some size size to him too, which I think is unusual for Hollywood.
Was he 6'1"? Yeah, I think he was... He definitely seemed substantial, right? Yeah.
I mean, this is part of the thing that I've got for Gene Hackman is he just seemed meaty. There was often some meat on those bones.
He seemed big-boned, is really what it was. Not fit at all, but not interested in fitness.
Not vain. There's no vanity, right? He just, whoever he's playing, it's just there to do the work.
Because often these are working people. All these guys have jobs.
And even the guy that he plays in the birdcage, the senator, the kind of bigoted senator who never changes but keeps going along with the program and part of the comedy of the movie is you fully expect him to give himself over by showing up and coming out of the place. Some crazy plot twist or something but instead he's just like man this is the world it's very billy wilder of him that that the approach he takes in the in the birdcage michael nichols directed it so it's not like it's not a crazy thing to have a smart performance like stay in a lane because the director knows the payoff will be there at the end but there's your your crazy point is good because i wouldn't have wanted to see gene hackman in the shining he couldn't have done it i don't think i just wouldn't have bought it i wouldn't i just don't think it works but he doesn't burn slow like that he's eruptive he's erupted um he well what's interesting is like he could play the president he could have played the president's conniving chief of staff yes he could have played he basically could have played every part in the white house could have played the vice president who doesn't like the president he could have played the the guy the military general who works for the president just go go through anybody that is involved with the president he could probably play every part whereas It's like when Nicholson's the president, Just go through anybody that is involved with the president and he could probably play every part.
Whereas when Nicholson's the president, you're kind of like, eh, it's Jack Nicholson. Even when Jack Nicholson is in broadcast news and he's good.
Yes. But you could argue Hackman might've been better on that part, right? You know what's interesting? Because he still feels like Jack Nicholson in broadcast news.
I'm not buying him as like

a network anchor.

The thing, well,

he would have been the president of the network,

right? Yeah, whatever he

was. No, no, no.
Nicholson was

the anchor, but what I'm saying is Hackman,

you would have more believed him as the president.

Or like the Robert Prosky part.

He was working with Holly Hunter. Yeah, he could

have been that guy. He would not have made

sense as any of, he wouldn't have made sense

as William Hurt or Albert Brooks. But you know, that same era of Hackman, he has a cameo appearance in Postcards from the Edge.
Do you remember this scene? Oh yeah. He's the director of the movie Meryl Streep is fucking up in.
And the Meryl Streep character, this is based on the Carrie Fisher memoir. She's playing this drug-addicted actress who bottoms out.
And she goes through rehab. And her redemption, essentially, is going back into the post-production studio to do voiceovers and Gene Hackman's her

director.

Yeah.

And he,

the thing that we're talking about with this mentorship,

um,

I think it was a version of what it looks like is this director telling this

Meryl Streep character to get her life together and,

you know,

giving her this,

this,

this,

I mean,

it's not another chance.

The movie still needs to be looped. Um, and there to do her voiceovers.
And it's just this wonderful sequence where you learn something about the movies. I didn't know what that process was until Postcards from the Edge, another Mike Nichols movie.
But he's so warm and firm and clear about what it is that he needs, but he's also got a sense of humor. And he's not, I don't know who this character is.
He's Gene Hackman. Right.
Whatever that means. One on one.
But fatherly in a really touching way. Well, the other thing, and obviously we've done almost 375 rewatchables movies at this point, part of, part of what becomes somebody's legacy is the rewatchability of some of the movies they made.
And he just had such a great instinct for this great. And then sometimes like he didn't, he thought Hoosiers was going to be a bomb that ends up being the biggest basketball movie anyone's ever made.
Right. And lives on forever and ever.
He was, he was pissed the whole time he was making it. He was like, nobody's going to see this shit.
No best actor nomination for him in that movie, by the way. Yeah, I think it was because it took him so long to realize just turn the ball into Jimmy Chitwood.
Clear out. Clear out.
Don't overthink this. Stop running plays.
We don't need four passes anymore. We have a generational star on our team.
Royal Tenenbaums. I would say the last great Hackman performance.
It was close to the end. It was one of the last ones anyway.
And one, I mean, the thing that you love about, that's the one performance I think anybody's given in a Wes Anderson movie where it felt like Wes Anderson, which is giving him, giving the enterprise over to this actor. I don't know.
I don't know anything about anything with that movie. I just know how I feel watching it versus watching him in it versus watching anybody else in any other Wes Anderson movie.
That's the one where I felt like Gene Hackman just, just one overrode the vision. And you know, most people, a lot of people think that that's their, that's their favorite Wes Anderson movie.
I think in part because Gene Hackman is the one person who's the, one of the rare people to act in a Wes Anderson movie who feels differently alive from the sort of dioramic project of the film. And he frequently exists on the streets of that city, right? He does not exist.
He's not in the houses that much where he doesn't, he doesn't live in my memory as being an indoor cat. He's an outdoor cat in that movie.
And like anything outside, Wes Anderson just seems to have less control. He's such a soundstage interior design oriented person.
And something about Gene Hackman out in those streets is just classic. It's very on brand for hackman and very disorienting for for wes anderson and the and the tenenbaums is greater for it because there's a tension there that exists between his energy and the the the movie at large his energy one great thing about him he's just in movies with most of the great stars from like three different generations of movies.
I think Denzel might be. I'd be interested to see what the list is.
But we always talk about Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. And it's like one degree of Gene Hackman.
You could just go through name a star. He's worked with Redford.
It doesn't matter. You go 50 years or 45 years, however long he was.
And he's going to be in a movie? It'll be like Travolta was paying homage to him. Hackman made so many movies.
What was it? Get Shorty was his Travolta movie? Yeah. But you go through and you'd be like, just shout an actor out.
Did they work with Gene Hackman? And they probably did. Shout an actress out.
They probably did. Sally Field? Am I missing a very obvious one? Because, like, the two of them seem like they just...
Sally Field. It just should have worked.
He did a movie with Barbra Streisand. Oh, that underrated, by the way.
All night long. All night long, underrated.
Yeah, you go through a bunch of them. But he and Sally Field seemed like they would have had a really good connection.
He did a movie with Richard Gere, Julie Christie, Kate Capshaw, and Denzel Washington and JT Walsh. Can you name the movie? Can you name those names again? Richard Gere, Julie Christie, Kate Capshaw, and Denzel Washington as Arnold Billings what's the year? it was Lumet Power ooh that's right I forgot about that throw that shit on the main screen that's like 1981 isn't it? no it's later it's 86 86 okay it was right when Hollywood was hollywood was like hey richard gear what's going

on here yeah why are we making all these why are all these bombing are you not a movie star anymore i know we're not talking about richard gear here but like you know it's funny because luke like to compare richard gear to to gene hackman is interesting right like why does it work for Hackman and not for Richard

Gere. Well,

this raises the

second, where Richard Gere?

Well, this raises the second,

well, Richard Gere's too handsome.

That's part of the problem.

But we've talked about Richard Gere when he taps into an internal affairs

and officer gentleman,

that's Richard Gere.

Hackman as the guy in Pretty Woman

would have been really interesting.

That's the one that they wouldn't make, right?

That's the one they wouldn't make,

but that's the more realistic one.

That's the more realistic one

where he's like an older, dirty fucking guy.

What was that original title?

Was it called $2,000 or $4,000?

Whatever her fee would have been.

I think that's what the original title was.

Then they tried Whore on the Street. That't work they just kept trying titles just kept going for stuff I feel like there was some Hackman money left from the table if he never did a movie with Sally Field because that would that's a no brainer to to me.
Murphy's Law instead of...

Well, Murphy's Romance, sorry,

is the Sally Field James Garner movie that got James Garner his only Oscar nomination.

I feel like Gene Hackman...

That could have been a good Hackman.

He's making so many movies.

Anyway, Gene Hackman, first bout Hall of Famer.

Give me your one-minute review of White Lotus

through three episodes.

Are you caught up?

Here's my one-minute three... I don't know how many words it's going to be.
Here's my review of White Lotus through three episodes. Are you caught up? Here's my one minute.
Here's my one minute three. I don't know how many words it's going to be.
Here's my review of White Lotus season three. I'm watching The Pit.
You're watching The Pit. I'm watching The Pit.
ER is back. I'm not watching White Lotus.
White Lotus had his chance with me, Bill. This show doesn't know what it's about.
I'm watching The Pit. Wow, you're into The Pit that much? Oh, I'm in The Pit.
You're in The Pit. No, Wiley, you never gave up your stock.
Are you kidding? Did I ever own stock? I was like, I should have bought stock. No, you had some stock.
I mean, the vesting happening here is extraordinary. Are you watching the show, Bill? I'm not.
Should I be watching? People keep telling me to watch it. Let me tell you.
It's like ER crossed with 24. Y'all can keep your White Lotus.
You can have it. Eat it up.
I don't want it. I don't want any more.
I had my fill. Y'all don't know how to feed me.
The Pit. This show.
And it's crazy that like the

most excited I've gotten talking to you was about this show and not about anything else. But I do.
If we were talking about Baby Girl or Hard Trues, which has the other great performance from last year by Marianne John Baptiste, I'd be psyched to talk about that. But we're talking about the pit.
And I, it's such a strange viewing experience if you ever watched ER. And I actually would love to know how people feel who haven't watched ER ever to watch it for the first time.
Because within like five minutes, you are someplace you know you've already been, even though you don't know where you actually are everything about it is familiar it's this show is made by john wells who is responsible in part for er and it's the structure is basically one hour like every episode is one hour in this in this staff it's 24 across the er basically It's 24 across the ER. Basically.
Yes. That's exactly.
You said it. I, it went over my head cause I was enthusing about you watching the show, but you were a hundred percent correct.
Formally. That's the, that's the show.
I don't know how anything that happens on this show actually happens. What are the retakes like? You know what? How many takes do they need to do? Say no more.
I'm going to watch. You don't need to sell me anymore.
This is, I'm in. The characters.
I'm going to watch it. Noah Wiley giving the TV performance.
Nobody's going to do better than Noah Wiley on this show. Oh, I'm so happy.
Nobody doing better than Noah Wiley on this show. I never gave up on him.
I mean, you didn't? Because I haven't seen him since 2001. He's been doing some good stuff.
He was on that, what was that movie with the train? The crazy train? I thought he was on that movie that turned into a TV show, Snowpiercer. Snowpiercer train? I think it might have been.
TNT's Snowpiercer? Or the Bong Joon-ho Snowpiercer? He might have been. No, he's in the TV version, I think.
Maybe. I don't know.
You're right. You say so.
I'm glad he's back. You know, he was on TV.
He was on it. He might have been that show, actually.
You're right. I remember seeing him being like, well, I'm glad the checks are still coming in.
It's great. This is more than I'm glad the checks are still coming in.
This is an extraordinary. Everybody on this show, even if you're not, even if the acting isn't good,

you have to be present in a really interesting way, like a way that feels new to me for television.

And it is just, it's thrilling. It's really gross and suspenseful and I love it.

Anything to plug?

Personally?

Yeah. I'm working on a podcast.
I turned in my book, you'll be happy to know. I don't believe it.
Is there video evidence of it? I mean, there's still a lot of work to do, but we're going to make it really good, I think. It's going to be going to work.
I can't wait to read it. But yeah, I'm working on a show, a podcast.
It's going to be me talking to people like you. I can't wait to invite myself on it.
Well, I mean, I would have invited you had you not already just invited yourself. You know you're invited.
Wesley Morris, great to see you as always. Nice to see you too.
Alright, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Peter Schrager and Wesley Morris.
Thanks to Kyle and Gahau and Saruti as well. And don't forget Celtic City.
You can catch up on the

first episode on Max, new rewatchables, Rocky, Prestige TV podcast, episode three, White Lotus.

Check out theringer.com, a great website. And I will see you on Thursday on this podcast.
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