NFL Over/Unders, an Oscars Preview, and a Brady-Pats Feud | With Cousin Sal, Sean Fennessey, and Seth Wickersham

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The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Sam's Club. We are also presented by the ringer podcast that work where we put up a new rewatchable episode on Monday night.

It was the second movie of C.R. Month, me, Chris Ryan, Kyle Brandt.

We did Fargo, 30th anniversary of the movie this week too. So, it was fun timing for that one. Had a great time. The next movie that's coming Monday night is going to be to live in Dynaway, which if you have not seen it just in all time eighties movie.

If you like tea, if you like these gritty crime dramas, highly recommend. So, you have a few days to check that one out. We have an action pack podcast on this one. Cousin, Salon, I are going to break down all the NFL over under that just came out on Fandle and our instant reactions to that.

On Fandle, we're talking Oscars because the Oscars are Sunday night. He's going live on Netflix and we had to talk about best actor and some of the other subplots that popped up. And then if that's not enough, in this action packed, Jaguina podcast, our old friend Seth Wicker, Sham, came out to talk about Brady's bizarre relationship with Patriots.

And everything we've learned about the quarterback position, which he covered in his book, American Kings. So, we have NFL overrunners, we have the Oscars. We have the Patriots and quarterbacks, all come in next. We're going to take break, Pearl Jam, and then Cousin, Salon.

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A membership is subject to qualifications. Visit samscub.com/yes and for details. All right, recording this part of the podcast, it is 245 Pacific Time. We got word today, Cousin Sal, that Fandle Sportsbook was going to release their NFL over-owners for windows, which we love.

I basically begged them to wait. I was going to do this live on Netflix, but they had the World Baseball Classic and they couldn't accommodate us. We're just doing it. We're doing it live here.

We're going to run as fast as possible. You do text me this weekend. You're on calls. This could happen. You could be doing the Thun Cookmen to win some shitty conference tournament and we're just

going to have to do this. We're going to have to go through this. We're ready. I can't wait. So they nailed them to us.

Now you've done some ringer gambling shows where you've tried to guess some of the other markets, some of the lines to come out. I have potentially avoided everything. I know nothing. All I know are the Super Bowl ads for each team.

So you have all the ads that are going to come out on Fandle. We're going to try to guess, we did this last year.

Here's what I learned from last year.

My reaction, if it was too bad one way, was actually probably I'm the one that's wrong. Because the nine years was the one that jumped out last year.

“Oh my god, that's crazy. I can't wait to bet that and I believe they were favored.”

They were 10 and a half. They were favored to win a division and we're like, there's no way they were going to win the division. We were right about that except they won 13 games. So we nailed it except for the four losses the entire year.

There was a couple of that seem low like the Patriots. I remember we were like, huh, right. There's they got very bar ready. They're some signs. So anyway, I've factored that into all my guess is what we're going to do is you have the

document. We're going to go through each team. I'm going to present my guess and then you're going to give us the answer and tell you if you thought it was higher low. So you want to just do divisions?

Let's do it. Let's talk with your viewers. We'll do AFCs and I had so the AFCs displaying AFC West and NFC North, which I think is in the running

Say, eight games against those two divisions. NFC West of Vegas is decent. All of those games can be tough and NFC North is same thing. Minnesota might be the only easy game. So from what we learned last year with this game, maybe it skews a little low.

First one is Buffalo and I guess 11 and half wins for this.

So OK.

“I think that'd be a good guess because based on their past, you know, you're 12,”

one team normally, there were 12, one team last year, they have a new head coach. Fandle setting them at 10 and a half. Oh, OK. So that's part of the schedule thing then, right? That they don't like that. They're a second place schedule.

They're 11 and one win the Super Bowl. The new coach, I can't tell if that might just be a wash, right? Right. Yeah, I think look, you know, how it is with Josh Allen. You're not going to want to get against them.

Even if he has seven wins in November, you know, like they could still get to 12 or 13. I will tell you ahead of time. The AFC East and the NFC South have the hardest schedules. Right. I'll put that out there.

Yeah, yeah. Well, in this case, they play the Jets twice in Miami twice. Two teams that there's a lot of science. Guess what? Either those teams went up a good.

My team, the New England Patriots, 18 and one, they have a first place schedule. So this is just classic. Perfect.

“Perfect storm of an awesome, easy schedule last year.”

And now we're going to get hard this year. And I still went 10 and a half, but I might be a win high. You're going to get hard. You're going to go real soft, real fast, because it's nine and a half. And that is exactly what you're talking about.

This schedule is tough. You play a first place schedule. And you're going to play all those AFC West and NFC Nord teams. And I don't know. They waited for Romeo Dobbs, which you're going to have to throw in 13 million just for

the giant helmet alone. It's a lot of hard plastic. Yeah. The first thing I thought of was, I went and I researched the concussion. So he had two, third in the 24 season, one near the end, and then one two months later,

when he was wearing the concussion helmet in the playoffs. But the price is fine. I mean, that's that 15 to 20 million range for a receiver. I don't think he's a number one receiver, but he's kind of an elevated number two. Good play off guy.

Yeah. And they got better than AJ Brown. You didn't want to over charge for AJ Brown. You wanted Pierce a thing, right? Really wanted Pierce.

And I don't know what happened with that. Whether that was possible or not, but it's, I mean, Pierce was on McAfee.

The moment all the signings are being announced, like, I never wanted to leave.

So maybe that wasn't realistic. I, the very Tucker thing, they signed two guys that worried me from a durability standpoint. The schedule worries me. We, we still don't know if healthy Drake may, what happened to him in the playoffs. Super Bowl hangover, though, those stats are bad.

Harder schedule, there's a lot to be nervous about so they are one of two teams who's win total projected is four and a half games lower than what they presented last year. So they're nine and a half. They were 14 that 14 wins. I'll just start making it.

Yeah, I'm going to start making it. Pierce is now skip the share. I'm going to go past half empty for six months and then, you know, if anything, good happens. There we go.

Roman Anthony, he's good. Jetsman five and a half, I went to job by you. Exactly. Yeah, coming off a three win year. Is this what took Fandle so long?

Do they want to see if Gino was coming back? Sure. Probably bump them down a win. Yeah. No kidding.

Yeah. I mean, it's just the hits keep coming for Jetsman's. I actually, I thought Malik Willis would have been an interesting one for them. And I thought when my Amy paid, my Amy's next, we'll just do them now. I guess four and a half for my Amy.

Good. Right on. Right on. And I think that's fair. I feel like they're trying a little.

I mean, that is where Malik Willis went. What do you get?

68 million for three years.

So that's a lot to pay a backup if that's the plan to get that rich quarterback draft in 26. Right. Right. Well, I thought he was going to, I thought it was going to start with the three.

I predicted that last week when I had the Danny son, maybe there wasn't as big of a market. Just four and a half is the right price when you think they bought out Tyreak. They're, they're bought out to a, I mean, that's one of the worst contracts in the history of the league.

So they're paying those guys what 70 million combined just to go away for the season. Right. I don't know what the cap it is, but it's not great.

“And who's Malik Willis throwing to just Jalen Waddle and whoever they get in the draft?”

It's bad news for sure. I do think though the Jets, do you want to do like for each division? If you, the preliminarily, which, what sticks out at you, because the Jets is the one that I would go on the run. I don't want to go on there on a four and a half ago, I go, I'd go on there on the

gel.

I mean, Gino, look, someone's pointed out Gino got Seattle, Sam Donald. He got the Raiders Mendoza and he's going to get the Jets Archmatch, like it's kind of ridiculous.

“Like, they traded for Minka Fitzpatrick, which would have been a huge deal year ago, right?”

Yeah. There's no interception, which is more than everybody combined on the Jets, but what do they try, I don't think this effort, you know, is worthy of a five and a half when season. It's funny.

In my head, I was thinking about all the games they blew and it's like, well, now that they have a new coach, and then I was like, oh, no, they didn't, they didn't get rid of the coach. He's coming back with a worse quarterback situation. If you're Aaron Glunny, like, just fire me now after, I'm going to have 27 losses after

two, right. Here's, that's not good for my future. You Jackson wants them to keep them, so his, to your record isn't tack. Yeah. So out of those, I mean, so if you combine those, that's 11.5, nine and a half, that's

21, that's, so they're saying 31 is the over under for wins in the vision.

So that's got to be in the running for a second, where's the vision?

Right. 30. Isn't it? Can I just have a, I'm adding the wrong things, you're right. Yeah.

So 10 and a half. Yeah. 30. That is not great. I don't want to give it away, but there is a, uh, there is a worse division.

Oh, I know what the worse division is, and by the way, the listeners aren't going to be surprised. Um, we can't. I like none of these picks just for the record. I mean, we're not going to be doing, get, get the lines for the over under, until late

August, which makes me super sad. Um, I did get sad today, thinking about how long a long away football is. It's a lot of fun. It's really far away. It's like five and a half months.

Yeah. It's like, I mean, we might, I'll be dead by that. Uh, AFC North, AFC North, EZ schedule combo for the AFC North teams.

“They play the AFC South and the NFC East, which I would say, shades on the easier side, right?”

Do they play the NFC, why do I have NFC South written here for the NFC North? Did I already make a mistake? We're only at 90 minutes on the path. This is why we're taping. Oh, I did write that wrong.

You write. So, NFC South, right? AFC South, NFC South, both Souths, which is typically good. I'm so fired up. I made a mistake this early.

So that's a pretty good combo.

Baltimore is the first one.

Baltimore's odds are plus 950 to win the Superborn Fandle, New Coach. The big max cross betrayed, so they cashed in on their first round pick. I had 10 and a half. I think 10 and a half would have been close. Those are to the truth.

They haven't had 11 and a half. They haven't favored to win the AFC. A less than a half. A less than a half. Yeah.

I don't want to give it away, but there's not too many 11 and a half out there. You know, crossbeats great. They lose linder bound. They lost a couple of linemen. They lost another edge rusher.

They lose some defensive players. Dare can we get a year older? Lamar. Lamar either is healthy. The whole year.

That's played five games. That's my first one. I'm going to put a slight under, but some of that has to be the division in the schedule. Probably. It could be a great season for them.

Yeah. Come on. Last year or five.

Barrel will be a little better, who knows what Pittsburgh, but they always split

anyway. I don't know. Yeah, that division is tough, but somehow with that schedule, I mean, they're coming off of eight. They're not going to get eight again, but I'm not going to go so crazy about

the crossbeats. Cincinnati, third place schedule for them. Baltimore was second place schedule by the way, forgot to mention. I had a trouble with this one. It was either a seven and a half or an eight and a half.

They spent some money on some defense. They're going to have a top 15 pick, but I went out eight and a half for them because of the schedule.

“I think you can real life their eight and a half, but Fandle made them nine and a half,”

because everybody pounds their over. Everybody thinks is a playoff team every year. Double digit wins. They came off what six last year and, you know, they're expected to come in second and division.

Was this because of the Joe Burrow, Jessica Alva, rumors that have already been debunked? They're debunked. Wake up, Barrel. You're not dating Alva, but you will have to face Crossbeats Garrett and TJ Watts, six

times this year. Oh, Jesus. I mean, if TJ Watts can look like TJ Watts again. That's six tough ones, but yeah, that's a good point. Miles Garrett and Crossbeats for four times.

I mean, the thing with Baltimore, I did like that trade. There's some horrible histories for giving up two first rounders for a guy. It's basically own 14 unless you want to give one to Stafford for saying that was success, but they also as part of that trade dump golf in the trade.

So I don't even know like if his value was the first rounders, I was just looking

at this. Did you see this list of all the guys? It was sauce carder, Micah Parsons, Russell Wilson, Matt Lee Stafford, Larmi Tutsle, Jamal Adams, Cleo Mack, Jalen Ramsey, Jake Cutler, Ricky Williams, Kishan Johnson, Jeff George, Eric Dickerson, and Herschel Walker.

So it's like just dancing with the stars. This is all guys who've been traded for two first rounders in the last 40 years. Right. And the only one you can say was a legit win so far was Stafford, but golf was in that.

Right. So you're doing this. You're like, this is just you're trying to buck history, but I love the idea across being a good team. We used to talk about them all the time on this podcast.

It's just every game. We're like, holy shit. That's amazing. He's for sure great.

But yeah, back to the two first round picks, it hurts even more when you say goodbye

to one of the best offensive linemen in the game. You can't even replace Linda Brown because you don't have first round picks now for a little while.

“That's what, that's why I think I don't know, maybe maybe it's right around 11 or 12”

anyway, but I wouldn't go over here. It's a lot of money for a center. It's like we've reset the center market. You haven't just reset it. You've blown it up and recreated it.

But I do wonder if there, one thing I noticed at the fridge is spending, if it seems like if teams feel like they can get a top five or six guy at the position, they value that more than whatever we normally value the position, because the Kenneth Walker contract was like that, too. He basically got premium money, but it's like, well, he is probably one of the six or

seven best running backs now, so if you're going to do it, you might as well pay for some of like that. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. If you weren't going to get Jeremiah love because people like getting the running

back on a rookie deal, right? So if you're, if you're draft range falls outside of that, you kind of do have to scramble and make a move like Kenneth Walker. If you make Shay had a thing in his newsletter today about, could he just slide out of the top 10 even though, make Shay thinks he's the best guy in the draft.

Usually the history of the draft is the best guy never kind of makes it past seven, eight,

no matter how much of a non-need position it is. But in this case, you know, now that, now that can't sit his out, who's going to be the team? Could it be like Tennessee? Would it be Washington, like, I don't know, Pittsburgh, I had this at seven and a half.

Remember they're playing the first place scheduled to on top of the fact that, I guess Aaron Rogers comes back, new coach, would you have for this? You nailed it. Coming off 10 wins last year, you're right, seven and a half is your over.

“And so now we're just, they're not even making it eight and a half and you should be”

eight and a half for Tom one every year. Like, oh, this is fun. This is a fun little game. It's going to keep up if he goes nine and eight or gets under there though. But Mike McCarthy has cut a little less slack there, seven and a half and yeah, absolutely

it's the schedule that's going to hurt them. Equivalent has to be among the lowest. I had four and a half for Cleveland. This is high, six and a half. I got to check this again.

Six and a half. So that said, the Sean Watson bump, I have to check this. That's crazy. So Fandel is saying to win your over on Cleveland, they have to go seven and ten. What are the odds of that happening?

Six and a half. The over's plus one, 35. So it's choose to the under minus 160. But yeah, that should be the, that should be at least one win lower. Because when we did this last year, some of this stuff really moved.

Like, I remember the paths jumped up one, a couple of them dropped one. I don't think any, your Dallas one dropped. Right. I don't think any drop two, but they'll usually go up or down one. So that would be the one you jump on now.

So I would go jets under and Cleveland. That's it.

“I mean, I don't have the look at it being it for a while, wouldn't it?”

Cleveland under. Well, don't, do they have, do they have two first round picks or one? Uh, they have the, they have the, they have the sixth pick in the draft. No, they have one in the, in the 20s too. Who's do they have?

They do. I don't know. It's sort of having minutes, so maybe they think they can boost up with the draft. All right. 10 picks in the 20, 26 draft, two first round selections.

Oh, they got it from the, the Jacksonville trade. That's what it was. The Travis Henry. Right, right. Oh, God.

Yeah. And they, Mason Graham was good last year. The Sean back. They're from the schedule. That's Cincinnati game to end.

Four place schedule. Yeah. And they hung around some home games and says good. I'm not going to say that's a lock for an under yet. All right, AFC South, they're playing the AFC North and they're playing the NFC East,

including your team. I had nobody in this division at 10 and a half. The first one I had was Houston nine and a half. Exactly right.

Coming off at, uh, then 12 wins, right? Yeah. Now, if nine and a half, they're favorite to win the division plus 165, nine and a half. Seems fair, seems fair. This division on the whole probably over cheap last year. Feel like late name we're probably talking ourselves into the over.

Yeah. CJ had a bad playoff game. He's fine. Right. Good tank del buzz.

Let me see if he could jacks about I had eight and a half because first place schedule

combined with no first run pick this year because they gave it away in the hunter trade. So eight and a half seemed vicinity. They left them at nine and a half.

“I think because I don't know, there's only a few handful teams that are ever four and a half”

difference between their wins and losses, you know, the wins from last year and projection. So they had 13. It's tough. I don't know. We go back and forth praising Trevor Lawrence.

Not so much praising him, but we thought he came up as best year. Yeah. So it'll probably about all between those two teams. Indianapolis, another team that does that first run pick, who just spent a lot of money and out Pearson then had a trade pitman.

Dino Jones coming back from the Achilles third place schedule because they fell apart near the end. I had them at eight and a half. Exactly right. Eight and a half.

Yeah. Yeah. Eight last year obviously tank towards the end because the quarterback went out, but the pair of signing is pretty good again four for 114, 26 years old, I really wanted them for the pads.

I just feel like the guy had nine quarterbacks in four years and just put him a drink. Let's see how it goes. And then Tennessee was one that I had circled as one that I might want to have some action on the over because they're fitting a lot of the profile. Like they're getting weapons, they have a high pick.

“I think Salas, as the coach combined with some of the stuff they did to try to put some”

supporter on camward, I thought I was just, I just thought they were so poorly coach last year. You put anyone relatively confident that's got to be worth a couple of wins. Anyway, I guess six and a half. Really?

So you might want an over at six and a half. I thought you're going to guess five and a half. It is six and a half. Okay. But that to me is similar to the Browns.

Like I know they play a last-place schedule, but there are some of these teams out of there every year struggling to get their fourth win in December. Yeah. They spent some money in fridge. They too.

Yeah. They kept a couple good guys from last year's team.

Like they never traded Simmons, you know, where I felt like that was the most obvious

thing ever for them to finally trade them and they just didn't. Came word year to feel like that's like probably a mid July podcast segment could be this year's Patriots. Well, then you got to think someone's going to fall off then, right? So what do you you're leaning Jacksonville because you always are?

Okay.

“Indianapolis, I think, would be another one where you just put a lot on Dana Jones next”

year. Right. And you have the entire organization is probably in blow up land if things don't go well next year after that last gardener trade. Jacksonville who knows.

I thought it was really good for them last year, like I was surprised that they let him go. These go. Yeah. Yeah.

They went to the Saints. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looked. This is remarkable for this division that you have two teams projected for nine

a half. Those are over 500. Indies, over 500. Yeah. Huge left.

Really. We've really grown with the MCS. It's not even like Tennessee is the Marine. They're six and a half. They're right in there.

I have planted my flag on Brian Thomas Jr. Trade Island for the Patriots, did a lot of recon on him. Okay. His rookie year, I think he was the fourth guy who had a thousand plus yards and ten plus TDs and the other ones were like Beckham, Randy Boss, and Jabart Chase.

And then last year was like just, you know, awful.

But a year ago, that guy, you could offer them two first round picks that we just

said no. Right? Yeah. So could you steal him? I guess would be the question.

Right. Yeah. I'm intrigued by it. It's crazy. Because I like Jacksonville to one of the divisions, one of the few things I got

right last. Yeah. You did. You nailed it. Whatever.

But most of the conversation centered around Travis Hunter and Brian Thomas Jr. And one of them literally didn't show up for the policies and the other one didn't. Well, so it was a lot of Jacobi Myers-Trade that really got the balance. Yeah.

Well, in Parker Washington, too, coming at Parker Washington. So I wonder if he's expendable, we know that. Okay. AFC West. They play the AFC East and the NFC West, which if the pats are good, that could be five

really good teams on your schedule, but at least four.

Out of injuries last year, to me feel like I don't know how they win less than 10 games.

So I had them at 10 and a half. So it fandalism at nine and a half. This is one of the few that fandalists off from other books. I don't ever go to other books. Yeah.

That's what that's ever doing. You wouldn't do it. But I just do have to point it out. Yeah. If you like the under, go somewhere else.

“If you like the over, which I think you do, take the nine and a half now.”

They're an 111 team from last year. They spent some money. They got a few of those like lower level, not flashy for agents, but the guys that them next here, they have guys coming back. I still think they're up at the line could be really good.

They kept a clear match, which I was surprised by, you know. And then we get to talk about, is this the best team just in Herbert's ever had? Is he ever going to come through with it matters? I'm excited for those conversations. For those going to be back, so, it'll be back.

It's happening. Five and a half months, baby. The time last year, KC was what? I think the rest of the division, one of my bets was even odds to win the division instead of KC.

Now it's all bunched up. It's nice. I'll tell you the one thing I'm not doing this year. And we have a lot to prove with our, with our overunders. We had did not have a great year's last year off here, but we also knew it.

We knew like, we knew last year was off. I didn't love it. There are only a couple of ones that felt strongly about, we had a lot to prove next year, but I like this chargers team. Kansas City, I thought this was really hard.

You could have told me seven and a half, eight and a half for nine and a half. Seems like moments is going to be back. They signed Kenneth Walker, they had the ninth pick in the draft. It's, there was a moment when they did that McDuffee trade when I thought, are they, is this a tank season?

Maybe not. Maybe they just didn't want to pay McDuffee.

“They got the, I think the 29th pick in the first round back, so they'll be able to put”

in two rookies. And it's kind of the chief's way of like, let's try to patch together some D-back stuff, take some chances on young guys, Kelsey's coming back. I went all the way up to nine and a half, so. Bill, you could have gone to ten and a half.

No, I would have said you're a, okay. Yeah. And there's just a big difference in terms of positive progression, I guess it would be. Because they won six games last year, it's 10 to half. It's 10 to half.

They're favored to win the division of plus 165. Oh, and they're 10 to half. I'm stunned by that. It's a lot. We haven't even seen the homes walk it.

Isn't this the Bengals thing, though, too? Like, no, by everyone's betting these two teams to make the playoffs, you got to keep the chiefs and double digits because when they're healthy, you know, you just figure that they're going to win those one score games again, right? If, if he is walking, like we said.

So, we talked a few times last year about how sloppy the chiefs were last year from a coaching standpoint. And that Andy Reid and that whole coaching staff was starting to feel a little gamey. And then, stuff's come out since the season, like, they brought Eric sleeping with the enemy.

Shout out to Chris Burman, they brought him back as the OC again.

“I don't, I think he was just shocked as anyone, but they brought him back to try to have”

a little more tough love in the locker room and stuff, but from the way that team was coach last year, 11 wins seems ambitious. Not to mention some some shakeier character guys, just trying to be fair. Yep.

So, on the shaky side, never really kind of know what's going to happen with the chiefs.

Well, I liked it at night and a half. I don't think I like it at 10 and a half. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, it's just like this is just a darling pick. So, that it fandle doesn't want to get burned either way and you're right, the AFC East

if the Patriots are good again who knows and in the bills and then you got three NFC West teams are a very good Denver first place schedule. I have them at nine and a half. It is nine and a half. I would have thought it was higher.

I would have thought 10 and a half. This is another four and a half game regression, right? They won 14 last year. This is the most disrespected team in the out of like you see why the Patriots could come down four and a half games.

The schedules all different. Yeah. Denver was pretty good last year for the most part. You may not love their quarterback, but for God's sake, that defense was good.

And for them to be slated for third place and at the vision at plus two 20 yikes.

Well, some of that is Vegas is not going to be a pushover this year. Combine with the first place schedule. Combine with they play Buffalo, the Patriots and all the NFC West teams. Yeah. So it makes sense to me, but I wouldn't have been surprised by 10 and a half.

All right. Las Vegas, I didn't feel great about it, but I went six and a half because of the money

away potentially. Six and a half. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, look, I want to say six and a half.

If I knew Cleveland was six and a half and Tennessee was six and a half. The Fandalism at five and a half, and there's a lot to get excited about for Vegas. Obviously, what Bendoza and he's going to be putting his hand on Linda Bounce took us there to take snaps, but the coach, she got it all. I just don't know.

I don't know. Wow. That's how they have. They have the Raiders, a win below Cleveland and Tennessee. Right.

“And what about the Jets and the Jets for five and a half?”

Yeah. I don't know. Again, I get burned every year taking the Raiders to make the playoffs and do something stupid. But yeah, that was your worst one last year.

But who knew that Pcaro was done with coaching four years ago?

If you look at Jeno's numbers, it wasn't that the contract was bad. But his numbers the last three years, like if you cover up the name, he had like Baker Mayfield type numbers, you know, and then last air was just unplayable. Yeah, man, that feels loaded me, especially when you throw in the fourth place schedule and who knows what the chiefs and, but I guess they're just afraid of the FC West.

All right. So the highest, highest over under we have amazingly is Baltimore at 11 and a half. Right for the FC. Yep. No doubt.

That's not add up to me. Buffalo's right there. Does that add up to you that they, they feel like they're going to odds on one seed in the FC according to this is going to be the Baltimore Ravens. Right.

With only 12 wins. Yeah. I don't see. Very strange. I don't think they know what to do.

So if you had to bet on a one seed, who would you bet on? Um, like knowing what we know now, looking at this whole thing laid out, just your East has so many. It's really tough. Yeah.

You might have four wins with those two games.

The East is playing 74 wins and the North is playing 63 wins, taking out first place and

everything. I might, I might for fun take the chargers right now. So fun. He said that. That was one of the ones I was like, I think that chargers one goes up to 10 and a half.

Yeah. And especially if we see what they do over the next couple of days plus the draft, I think that's my favorite one. Chargers nine and a half. Yeah.

It's a, it's a moderate risk, I think. I mean, we have enough to go on to know that they're going to be decent and compete. So we like the two that we like the most are chargers over and Vegas over five and a half are the two favorites. Yeah.

It's tough to have two in the same division, like the number of both overs, but I'm also on the jets on there there. Well, you, the jets under five and a half, you still like it. I really, I know 20 can easily share that they move that. I still feel like by probably like with that little, when there's that little CS that

between the NBA conference finals and the finals, we've like four days and we've already figured out who we're taking in the finals and then we start looking at the overunders.

“I feel like that's what I'll make my Cleveland underbed, Cleveland under.”

Yeah. That's that's what I'm feeling like. What am I doing? They're not winning seven games. Uh, something scares me about like, why would it be six and a half with Cleveland?

Yeah. Yeah. What's quarterback you excited you excited about watching coming back? Oh, watch this coming back. It's like, yeah.

Watch this coming back. Is that good? Right. I don't know if you would say how many three touchdown games or two touchdown games will watch and half of the rest of his career and count on zero or one fingers.

I think at this point, we will take a break and then we're going to go to the NFC in your favorite division. The NFC. Oh, yeah. This episode is brought to by Uber eats, marches here and Uber eats is delivering deals

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for all the latest deals, start saving today. So the NFC, I think has the hardest combo that anyone has, NFC West, the NFC South because

I don't know what to make of the NFC South, but even like at Tennessee could be kind of a scary game, but just in general, I'm not a huge fan of that combo.

Philadelphia, first place schedule again, I went 10 and a half after they're just 10 and

half every year.

“It's like the new pit start being eight and a half, right?”

It's 10 and a half. You want to play with the other teams in division, it's fine, but you can't make it. I mean, I'm not on there over right now as we speak in third, we can march second, we can march, but the way they knuckleball their offense to 11 wins, I think it would be a miracle, almost like it was this year, but if they traded AJ Brown for a low first and

like a third or two seconds or whatever, would that make you more or less likely to like that over? I think the more draft picks they have, the better. I would like that. That's what I feel like.

That is the one thing they do well, right? They draft and ignore AJ Brown. That's the other thing they do well. And I still feel like, I just feel like the Pat's AJ, we're now it's three, 15 Pacific time.

You think it could still happen, huh? I do.

“I think it's still realistic, there's too many, too many inner 20 things going on, and maybe”

it doesn't happen to later, but I just, nobody's been able to explain to me why I fill

a doubt if you would want to run it back with 50 million for J.L. and Hertz and 60 million

for the two receivers, when they have this GM who's great at drafting everybody and bringing you guys year after year, and a draft that people seem to like the wide receivers a little bit more as we get in the second third round, right? I just can't imagine they're going to be like, let's run this back, he'll be definitely happier this year, is that going to be happier?

Yeah. No, I'm what to you. And it's still not even one to the top five, I don't think receiver rooms in terms of, in terms of pay, like the bills, we laughed at the bills wide receivers forever, and they're still like, oh, oh, shivers, we picked shivers up, right?

Yeah, they're second, they're the second most expensive. I guess they got rid of Samuel now, so maybe they got, they added their DJ more, but they added DJ more. Yeah. Yeah.

And it's just, uh, which has worse than obviously Cincinnati first Dallas third on that list.

So Washington, third place schedule for them, ton of injuries last year, some, some cap stuff that I think there's still sorting out. We called this. This was, yeah, this is one of our better ones. We don't get a lot of pets on the back for last year.

I have seven and a half for them. That's exactly right.

“Coming off five wins, but you can't make it six and a half, right?”

Still a very good quarterback. They signed, uh, oh, uh, we had ten and a half sacks with the charger, so that's a good signing there. So I wouldn't touch it right now. I was, I was more against the last year.

Let me ask you this, um, if they picked Jeremiah love with the seventh pick, yeah, does that go up to eight and a half, could he be in the wins now? Nothing's worth the win. There's not one move. That's worth the win right now, right?

I'm just trying to picture playing that team. If Daniels is healthy, and they have love who all, everybody loves just, you know, like for McShade to have him as is the top part in the draft, I think that's pretty significant. The janty move, the raiders, the half win or win, no, they couldn't block, and then Gina Smith just throwing the ball through the other team.

He carried the Joe Biden on the sidelines. But yeah, a healthy Daniels, yeah, with love with some of their receivers, like McClorne will be healthy. Like he had his classic, like held out, got hurt, season last year. Right.

Yeah, that seems, that maybe didn't even have to be loved. Like I also thought Kenneth Walker could have helped them. I couldn't get like somebody, you know, there's a couple scary names out there. So it'll be that bad. Your team, the Dallas Cowboys, let's do it.

Second place schedule. It's funny. I have them ahead of Washington. I have Dallas at eight and a half because I just think they want to win. And we don't know all the moves they're going to make, but when I say they want to win,

it's like at the expense of any sort of anything down the road, like I've just prepared for anything with them. Kind of figure out, how do we fit tray Hendrickson in here, how do we trade up for this guy? Like they're just so win now because their owner is 120 years old, then eight and a half

feels feels like the right number. That's it. It's eight and a half. You can't make it any higher. Can't make it lower because everyone's going to bet Dallas, right?

Yeah. But battle party and Vegas, whatever, at a spite so they can be mad at them. But yeah, listen, I can't go too crazy.

lady. They might have been some bachelor bachelor at party. Weird disk going on, but whatever, he's got to put that in the rearview mirror. We signed a Javante Williams, who everyone laughed at.

“Like, oh, that's going to be the toughest 600 yards you'll ever see, you know, 320, right?”

Something like that. Yeah. Okay. So we got to, you know, it's not Derek Henry, but it's good. So you're right.

That Hendrickson piece would be gigantic, you know, that Gary's trying to get the most predictable Cowboys move of all time. Yeah. The Cowboys have agreed to terms with Hendrickson, and then they can take a victory lap about.

We traded Parsons for two first and he got hurt and then we were able to turn one of those

into Williams. And now we have Hendrickson and we're smarter than you. More than Jerry being 120 years old and freeing up this, he's got some drinking money now. He's under the cap, he's got to prove that this Parsons thing didn't kill him. Yeah.

So Hendrickson, you throw money at, and then the other thing that's definitely 100% happening is the George Pickett's holdout that can last. It's got to last until July 1st two weeks at August. So we can lead first take like five, seven times. Right.

Who's going to blink? Jerry's done with this guy, I'm ready for, we just know that's going to go. Yeah. The New York Giants, New Coach, hydraphic, QB coming back, a lot of talent. We all thought they may be under a cheap with the roster they have, neighbors coming back.

Neighbors coming back, who knows, maybe they trade for Brian Thomas Jr. I probably went too high, but I threw down the seven and a half for this. Good call. On lower than that, seven and a half is right coming off of four winces, and this is a sexy pick right now.

“And I think fans will recognize us that.”

Well, everybody, we always worry when this happens, and we, it's not like we invented this

because a lot of people are on it, but that fourth place, easy schedule, new coach, new QB, whatever, two of the three are all three. And it became a really good way to get great value, like with the Patriots last year, which I felt the strongest about the Patriots last year of anything we talked about, because I was excited to understand how we're not going to be better with the worst coach team

of all time. I don't understand how the Giants won't be at least four wins better with everything they're doing and having a confident coaching staff. I guess the question is, how confident is hardball he's about to get fired when the mark out there, the mark kind of covered up a bunch of stuff.

I always thought he was a good coach, but I didn't like the last couple of years. Yeah. He's gone. Well, let's bring Max Cross be in now, because we can do something. Right.

We don't want to get him credit for this. Sure he's gone. Yeah. I mean, look, he's coming into a, boy, the Giants are like so weird, right? With their quarterback, like we knew very early on Jackson Darts the guy, right?

Yeah. And he's a good, like, he's a personality also. And then you don't want to sit him the last month of the season, because he got dinged up a little bit, but you don't want to sit him totally, but he changes his game completely. He's not the same quarterback, so it was a very strange Giants win.

Scadabo gets hurt, neighbors gets hurt, right? Their defense maybe didn't perform like we thought, they signed Isaiah likely, that could be good. Right. Like, you know, I liked that one.

I liked that. He also needed to leave the Ravens. It felt like he was just involved in too many controversial plots for them in games. Right. Right.

Just needed to change the scenery. For sure. So, yeah. So, Harbo's got his guy there.

“Yeah, but seven and a half, to double your wins is tough, though, right?”

So, you got four. Yeah. I haven't loved it. I haven't. I haven't got it.

No, I'm not going to lock it in, but I do like it. I do think they fit. Well, two things that would have happened is your team would have to be not as good as people think and watch and same thing. Yep.

But there's a chance we talked about this a lot last year with the NFC West and we were pretty right that we thought there could be three-point off teams that came out of that.

And that division turned out to be, you know, that division in the NFC North basically carried

the conference. This division is definitely better. It's definitely better. Washington the two years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. NFC North. Easy. NFC South in the AFC East. Are there two divisions?

The easiest out of all. So you're basically getting all of those weird NFC South teams plus the jets of Miami. Yeah. That's just six winners. And if you're Minnesota, you get the fourth place scheduled, too.

Right. There are another candidate. Like, what if they figure, what if Kyla Murray goes there? What if somebody else goes there? What if they figure out quarterback combined with some of the town there to have?

Anyway, Green Bay, I just, there are blind 10 and a half for me without the town, second

So I went 10 and a half. Yeah.

“10 and a half is right coming off a nine win year.”

There's, you know, well, I won't tell you what their odds are for the division because you figure out maybe Detroit from that. But I like them this year. I feel like they're Chicago from last year. They had so much, so much had to go wrong for them to lose the two games they did to

the bears. And they had, you know, they were on lucky the rest of the way. Oh, they did just the team that we like every year and every year they let us down and we're like, I like them. I still like them.

But it's just for seven years, they're going to let us down the bangles with the lighter colors, maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's it.

So they last stopped at the Patriots today, they win Jenkins, which I was surprised by because I was one of the, one of the highly respected interior linemen in the league. We'll see what they do in the draft. I'm sure they'll end up with two more receivers.

I don't know that they missed the golden pick.

We never really heard his name last year.

Right. Well, he's banged up for a while. Yeah. I just to me that whether we're the unlucky team of the year or so. I agree.

Yeah. Well, a team that was not the unlucky team of the year was the Chicago Bears. Right. First place scheduled this year, lost their center who abruptly retired, so they got to figure that piece out.

They traded DJ more. And just a lot of talent. And I felt they got a great year from Caleb. I went nine and a half. Yeah.

Is that it? That's it. And I like the over for that. He's like the over. I do.

I think the Bears. I don't know. I'm pro bears. I wouldn't put it down as a lock, but I'd be hard to believe that they're just not a playoff team anymore.

So you must not like the Lions. Or do you think they're not playing? I do not like the Lions. I do not like the Lions.

I know there's some good signs with them in the third place schedule and maybe getting

out there. I had nine and a half for the Lions. So they're 10 and a half, and they're favored to win the division. Only slightly over Green Bay. I don't get that at all.

And then the Bears play the case for that. I think it's exactly what you said. Third place schedule, how long we're going to keep Dan Campbell down. Maybe they see Montgomery leaving as a, you know, it goes well to Houston.

“I think they see that as a positive for the San Francisco today to be the Montgomery.”

Right. Yeah. I don't know if that's going to work. I don't know. I still had a lot a lot of injuries.

So when you say they're, they're unlucky team also, but I'm going to give him one more year. Because I think we say, so when you say the Lions have a lot of injuries, isn't that every year with the Lions? Yeah.

I kind of have the factor that it at this point. And the offense of Lion. I think is a lot different. That was one of the cases we forgot to mention this with Cleveland, like their offense of Lion, which I think was at one point really good.

And then was pretty good. But I think every guy from that offense of Lion is gone heading into this season. Right. All five guys are gone. I think with the Lions, the offense of on that two years ago is not going to be there

in the same way. So yeah. I don't know. I did that to me. I could see that team.

Raheem loves the all, unders in the alt overs where we just go like four or five lens. That could be an all-dunder team for me. Yeah. I mean, that's all scheduling, right?

So if that's a third-place schedule, they'll play everyone in the bid.

They'll play what, the staff was Dallas, third, and all of this. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Sam says go, they'll get those kind of teams.

I mean, it's not so easy. So you, it sounds like you like the Lions. You think they have another year though. Yeah. You got to talk me off the Lions.

You got to, you're going to have to do it. I don't love the Bears. But what's going to be interesting is the Vikings.

“So what is it, is it Rogers or Murray at this point?”

Mack Jones. Rogers, Murray, Mack Jones, cousins could have been before. Let me see what pick they have. So could it, or it could have been like a draft pick to think back to the well. Really?

Yeah. So they're like the low teams. Yeah. It sounds like the McCarthy thing is headed toward a conclusion. Definitely.

I don't know if they want to admit failure that much to just draft somebody. I think you do if you think you're going to lose your job if you don't admit failure. Right. Viral Connor. Yeah.

I guess so. Yeah. The GM was. Yeah. I think I rid of the GM.

Yeah. I told you not to get rid of Sam Donaldson. They're like, but wait, you were telling us you were on the phone every day for an hour, which I just heard you. Right.

I have the number seven and a half. Yeah. Eight and a half. So this entire division is over 500 or I guess eight and a half would be 500. And then Chicago's nine and a half and Green Bay Detroit 10 and a half.

All right. So stacked. Let's really capture this moment. Because we mentioned that they have the easiest other two divisions that they're playing.

And we're like two, three wins lower than what the overs were. So here we have Green Bay 10 and a half Chicago 9 and a half Detroit 10 and a half and Minnesota 8 and a half.

I mean, that they're basically saying that's a 39 win division.

Yeah. A lot. When you, there's one division every year that gets into the 40s. Last year was the NFC West I think. Right.

But that's not a good. Well, let's think about. So I mean, are they just saying two, two and a half across the board against the dolphins and jets? Is that two free wins for everybody?

I'll get tripped up. I mean, we don't, I'd love to know the Minnesota quarterback is. Yeah. And now that would help. I guess do Rogers, who are we rooting for?

Rogers?

“That's a fun division if it's Rogers better than going back to Pittsburgh, I think.”

I like the idea. Rogers going back there. I'm being in the NFC North one last time and play in the packers doing the far thing. Exactly far thing. Literally.

The far thing. The NFC South, they play the two North divisions. So one of my predictions for we do anything. I did not have a single team over seven and a half in this division. So I'm just going to flag that for you now.

Atlanta Falcons, third place schedule, they did the impossible.

They went from cap space in the eighth pick to Kurt Cousins, overpaying him, coming off in Killis, drafting Michael Panic super early to everybody's complete shock in this May. And now they're buying up Cousins, Panic's got hurt yet again, which I think is his fourth one. And the recipe for all of this was signing to a, who's just done as a productive quarterback

had there's no scenario where he's ever going to be good again. It's impossible. Let us see it.

“That's who you bring in and what are you doing?”

I appreciated NFL Twitter really, really stepped up yesterday. I mean, it was like great memes like when two assigned, they show like Falcons in free agency, they show guys picking up trash. They throw into the, just rapid fire, picking up trash and two will put his house up for sale.

And in my am, I mean, it's a blue tent going for $72,000, like I love it. Like two, you know, maybe mentally challenged, lefties throwing a football to each other that way. That was pretty good. It's like, okay.

There's a quarterback room for Atlanta. I love it. I don't know what's to fanski thinks of this. He's like, man, send me back to Cleveland because at least we knew there was no plan there. But what the hell, also you're in the NFC sounds just bring back Cousins.

Yeah. I guess the money, it's easier.

I saw that if they get rid of them before the date, it's 22 million dead cap this

year, 12 million next year and they just figured that's easier.

“But any scenario where two is not my quarterback is the scenario I'm picking is that”

guy's not a competent starting quarterback anymore. I just begin to have been competent. Like we laugh at the tap of like the Carolina, I mean, they've won the end of winning the visions somehow. We laughed at that owner.

Well, what is art, the blank doing? What is going on? Like Jerry Jones wants to be like, hey, what about, come on, let's go with the two now jokes here. Seriously.

Then lost out to your who I liked out to your ambition together, they didn't even lose him for that much. Anyway, I said seven and a half for this seven and a half is right coming off eight wins seven and a half. We forgot to mention they traded their first round pick this in this year's draft to

the Rams. Oh, yeah, which is now going to be the 13th pick for James Pierce, who is in one of the worst non football news stories that we've had in a couple of years. Um, you know, if you believe the alleged report seems like an absolute maniac, and that's who they lost their first round pick to you.

So this was not, I'm going to say not as long as two years. I thought it was a best coaching job out there just because of the division and how little is expected of the winner, right, couldn't agree more. You're going to be close with your prediction here, um, but uh, yeah, but I don't know seven for them, I had seven and a half for Tampa who just lost my heavens, so they're eight and a half.

Oh, don't agree with that at all. I don't know why. I mean, they, they looked like they could have 11 wins last year at some point, and then they just decided I'd play football anymore. But who was the running back that got?

They got it. Was it gain well? Oh, did they, they did get gain well, right? I like that. I thought gain well was a good.

Yeah. I was hoping the paths would get him. I thought he was like the best part of the Steelers' offense last year, every time their offense would fall apart, they would just throw him like a screen and he'd go for 14 yards. He was good.

Not good. He scored a little bit.

I mean, that could, that could compliment Bucky Irving pretty well. Carolina, I also had seven and a half. So the division winning Carolina Panthers are at six and a half. Oh, I would have had them at seven and a half. Yeah.

“I think that might be, they do have the first place schedule, I guess.”

Yeah. Is there a Jalen Phillips and Devon Lloyd, but the Jalen Phillips one was a good one? Yeah. So they, do they have a draft pick this year? Yeah, they do.

Yeah. They, so they're in the low teens with their draft pick. I like, I thought, I thought McMillan, that was a home run, that picked turned out

Coker who missed the first half for their Holy Cross's own Jalen Coker.

Oh, yeah. He's back. I don't know. That seems really low. Can we talk about Kenny Pickett?

Who they signed to? Why teams? Just keep giving him jobs. Five teams since 2022, he's draft in 2022, he's drafted four years ago. It's been on five teams.

What about that? That's remarkable. Like you have to not suck and not be good. Like he is right where you have to be. I don't, I don't think we'll see this again.

“So you think you have to be terrible, but also tantalizing?”

Yeah. Think about it. Like any other, I don't know any other industry, this would work, because you have a resume. That's not good, you know?

I thought the weirdest one of all the signings, and it wasn't a major signing, but when

the chiefs got, been shot back for 1 year, 8 million, meant you back for 1 year, 8 million.

Did they get him back? I thought that was the sign, or the Cardinals sign him, who signed him? I think the Cardinals took me to do that up. Leave that in because I want people to see that, right, that even their heroes can make mistakes.

Yeah, 1 year for the Cardinals. So the Cardinals, so we see you get a start. Did they watch tape on him last couple years? I mean, I was like the biggest minshaw guy, and even I like gave up on it. Right, right.

But that chiefs came last year, it was awful. It was just awful. You gave up on figuring out what team he's on, though. Yeah. Listen, there's a lot of moving parts in the 32 team league.

Anyway, that's my favorite one, that Carolina over.

I don't care, first place schedule, NFC North, AFC North, like whatever, how is that team

not going to win seven games? They have a lot of talent. They were right there with the ramps, they went, they threw some punches in that playoff game. Let's true.

They'll play the Eagles, they'll play the, who's NFC North, Jeff Shacago, I guess, and then they'll play the ramps, right? I like that team, I thought they were pretty well coached, too. Yeah, because Atlanta, Atlanta was going to be my sleeper for that division, and then two of them was just like, we don't have to, it's annoying enough that we're even talking

about this division. Like, let's go to Atlanta, let's go, let's not, until November, let me check on it. Here's one, here's another fourth place to first candidate, the New Orleans Saints, six and a half. Sure.

Is my guess for them. Is that right? That's exactly right. Plus 350 to one division. I thought there was a little bit, they signed fans at the end, we mentioned, not bad, quarterback

to gamer, if you want them to cover, I'm a fan of Chuck, as we discussed over and over again last year. I like the ETN signing, that means to me they're probably going to trade Camara. We'll see if they bring a lot of it back, they have their first ramp pick.

“I mean, honestly, you put these four teams together, and it's like, who can I get the”

best odds on to win the division, you probably just bet that team? Yeah, I think they're the best plus 350, you're better out there for a division. What are they going to get for the division? They're plus 350. I mean, your bears are plus 382, but so I thought Vegas is one and a one caught my attention

for a split second. Always. Always. Two and a one. It's like Jesus.

I mean, the Patriots are one and a one last year. Yeah. Yeah. In Whirlens, I guess the downside for New Orleans would be worse front team in the league, where most medical staff situations are really, almost like a negligent ownership, and

probably won't be spending a lot of money, so that would be reasons not to take them. So you got teams that can't get out of their own way in Tampa Bay, and it landed with their front office mood, you know, whether moves free agency moves, and Carolina won't afford place casual. So yeah, you know, could get lucky.

NFC West, they're playing the NFC East and the AFC West, some tough ones in there. Seattle, first place schedule for them, I wanted to go 11 and a half and I just couldn't get there. I did 10 and a half for them. You write in your wrong, it's 11 and a half on Fandal, you want to go somewhere else.

Okay. This is one of the four or five that they're different with some of the main books, but yeah, coming off 14 wins.

“So, and that's kind of what you need to win this division.”

It seems they got some guys plucked, right? They kept shaheed over Kenneth Walker, which had to go with really interesting. Would you, if you could only have one and they were around the same money, she

had was like 2 million more, 3 million more.

Would you kept Walker, they that sharper than he's coming off of ACM? Right. Yeah. So they're going to have to dress running back somewhere. It wasn't in Ph.D. yet.

But I was surprised they didn't bring back Walker, it almost made me wonder, like, what did they know? They might be a little trade in there coming up there, right, and they four of, if we're coming up. But I like shaheed for both.

They get him for like 50 million for three years. He was on my Patriots list, because they were just kind of figuring out how to use them to and to try to make those like weird explosive, like flip passes and striker shirt them for reverse. Devastating returner, 11 and a half.

So they think they see how I was going to 10 or 12 and 5 with the first place schedule. Okay. Day jack these up like they, it was like a kind of a reverse of what they did with the NFC sales. I think these lines.

Well, Rams. That means I got the Rams right, because I had them 11 and a half. That's right. Yeah.

Second place schedule for them.

“So that's, I don't think you're going to get it's 11 and a half for the nineers, right?”

So that's how many 11 and a half. So is that three total, just the two and the last three in the revolts? Yeah. That's it. I feel like typically we have more.

And the Rams did the McDuffy trade. They basically spent, we didn't love their DBACs last year and thought that was one of the reasons that they, they didn't make it to the Super Bowl and they didn't like the DBACs either. Cause they spent real capital trying to replace everybody.

Adam's coming back and special teams in the water just do that. Yeah. They should have spent a bunch of my dad, a special team's coach, that's it. Adam's coming back for one more year. We'll see.

Stafford. I'm sure we'll hear 49 different stories about his body and he might want to retire and he'll be back. Good for Cisco. Had a hard one, hard time with this, it was either 9 and a half for 10 and a half.

I landed at 10 and a half, third place schedule for them.

It's 9 and a half coming off 12 once, it's 10 and a half last year when we freaked out. 9 and a half this year. But I get my Kevin's three for 60. Lot of one. Lot of guys coming back on injury.

They basically, they, I mean, they didn't dump IU key and dumped himself. I guess they're going to let Jennings go. So you're basically replacing IU Ken Jennings with Mike Evans, who, as anyone who had him in fantasy knows, he's just going to miss four to five games a year somehow at this stage of his career, right?

You're not getting four straight months out of Mike Evans, now you're the Kaffrey who's another one, like if you four straight months from him's a miracle, Brock Perti was hurt last year, Pierce all got shot last year. Yeah. I can see the night and half, it makes sense.

It does. And Evans, you know, first of all, that's not a guy who needs to be speeding, you know, I guess you lose your speed in their 30s, whatever, right? Yeah. But he gets to 50, 50 balls a lot, right?

So speed might not matter as much, but those hamstrings is definitely a deal at 32. Also, you have bad injury luck, he wants to bring his ham, his hamstrings next to the Electromagnetic factor, right?

“You should have gotten the most durable guys ever on that free edge, see where do you get”

a Mike Evans for? We get shit on every day, let's move on their a pigeon coop, let's do it, let's test 10 feet. Yeah, that's something. That's like if we signed our friend Daniel and moved him right next to a sports bar.

Or any bar, yeah, or all bars. Last one is Arizona. I've slept the five and a half on this. Yeah. Well, you want now that you know, they have meant you, what do you, you've got to keep

it there, five and a half, so fourth place gets from for them to obviously. They have it a four and a half, so weird that they won't move these teams off, I mean, I guess, just because they're looking at one and five against Ram Seattle San Francisco unless something drastically weird happens there. So you think Fando was in the over under's war room and they wanted to go five and a half

and somebody said, I think there's going to be a Jacobi percent minceo to be battle and they're like, all right, drop it one, four and a half. That's what it is. Minceo gets to bring his clipboard in that battle, this is the one one. Yeah, 30 to one to win that division.

Wow. David NFC one, or it sounds like yours, you're, you don't, the trait 10 and a half

What? No, no, no way.

“I, you know, I, Green Bay, I think would be mine.”

I know nobody like. Green Bay 10 and a half like I've been burned by them before. That's probably 50 to win. I like the more the, the, the, the conference taking a shot at them at like eight to one or seven 50.

I'm probably leaning toward Carolina in New Orleans, six and a half, one of those being know, maybe with those health, with these freaking seven and ten. Oppa, stop shot, can't get seven wins.

The guy was incredible last year, riding him.

I would stay away from NFC West because I think they did a good job with those. Yeah. Good job that, good job by Fandel there with the NFC West. They really, Mike, they really, really now. And now that they, now that it's at the point five, bike, NFC North.

The Chicago ones, though, I need to know more about what Chicago did, but that night and half still feels like there could be some action. And then I guess the giants, I guess by default, at seven and a half might be my favorite one. Yeah.

I have that as a semi-lock, it's a good one. I would get it in. That could go up because I just think more and more people are going to like the giants. I mean, that's another way to look at this. What, what's going to go up?

What is the get in now price? Because the Patriots last year, what we did this was clearly like that's going up. Yeah. Chargers nine and a half to me is going to go up.

“I think that ends at ten and a half, right?”

Yeah. That's not enough. Ten and a half. That's going to jump.

Giant's probably doesn't go to eight and a half.

So you might be fine waiting that one out. But that Carolina and the Orleans at six and a half just seems low to me still. So maybe those are the get in early. So that, I mean, that's just, have we seen that lower number? F C South is 29 wins 29.

We bet that then we bet like under 32 or something like we did 29. That's nutty number under again. Number one, we bet the Quippers would make the playoffs and the words weren't to make the playoffs. That's nothing.

Is that going to happen? Steve Kerr's complaining about the schedule now. I'm feeling great. Yeah. Quippers look good.

Last night. Nice win last night, Father. I do like that. Unfortunately, we lost most of our bets.

We lost most of our future, because we had Milwaukee tied to half of them.

“I said the other day to the fellas, I think the East is going to be crazy.”

I think you could pick four conference finalists and you'll get them wrong. I'll give you a shot. Go ahead. Yeah, right? Who's going to be in the conference finals?

The Celtics were the big disruptor, right? The funny thing is there's four teams and Charlotte's probably a year away. And I would say it's four teams and then Miami and maybe Charlotte as the all-time wild cards for the new watch. The crash to the left or land, though, gets in there against the Celtics or something

dumb. I mean, we saw it with Miami as an seed right there in 18 with Butler. Yeah. They know just all the sudden figures it out for four weeks. Yeah.

Great. Yeah, I'm prepared for anything. Okay. So your single favorite over under was, uh, I'm sticking with it. I'm going Cleveland under.

Sorry. That's too many too many at this point. My single favorite is chargers, not an app over, but we'll see. We'll see more signings to come, more draft mix to be made. Yeah.

We touched on it. But you think there's any single move that would move these aside from just natural momentum of gambling, any move in free agency or draft that would move a number one game. You mean, a move along the lines of Shoms reporting 18 minutes ago that Tyre's Maxi

will be reevaluated in three weeks. Yes. Like something like that. Like does that move the Eagles line, even though he's a big three. They now no longer have Maxi, Joel and Beat and Paul George.

They're battling minus $4.50 to make the play in. That's nuts. That's a sixy right now. So maybe we'll talk about that. We might not be dead with our Milwaukee one yet.

But yeah, you're right. I think the one that could move the needle to answer your question is if Washington picks love seven love OK. I could see that and then do a couple other smart moves and at some point we look at the finished product and we're like, oh, it's kind of potentially explosive team here.

They got no offensive coordinators. So that would be mine. Is there any other one that you would go in? No, no, no. Don't have to be.

It would have to be Rogers cousins. I don't think any of those guys, Murray. I don't think any of them do it. What about Harry Styles that linebacker is the singer. Harry Styles.

Is it Harry, what's that style on? It's fun. Yeah. Nobody's training up for him is going to move the lines. Can I make a recommendation with these combine numbers?

The fastest. Have you looked through the history of the fastest wide receivers from John Ross to, yeah, you were these best of them. It's like it just, it's disgusting.

You're like run with an anvil in your pants or something.

“Right, you want to be, you would have a four, five and be good at like the cone drill.”

Yeah, right. Exactly. And I don't think teams are on to it, too. Like, oh, yeah, you're the fastest dude. All right.

Not taking years of fit around if you know who wasn't on to it was Bill Bell check for years with Patriots.

See, we always get seduced.

You like to learn over. Yeah. All right. Customs. All right.

I'm glad you're hanging in with. Let's do it. Look, we got March Madness coming. We're going to do something at the Kimmel Club, fan little sponsoring this. Right.

March 26 when this is a sweet, 16 week. Yeah, the bundle will be there. Tate Frazier will be there. Simmons is plus 850 to make an appearance. Get it on that now.

Yeah. Might even be. Might even be 101. Oh, come on. Well, all of a sudden you hate Vegas.

What's Madness with you? What thing is?

“I'm about to, right after you were talking to Sean Finnissie about the Oscars.”

And the Michael B. Jordan numbers are he's now on minus. I bet him. For best you did it. Okay. Yeah.

That's the Leo Backwash vote.

We're going to talk about that with Sean Finnissie's second.

Because we can find in the ringer gambling show Monday Wednesday Friday. And then I'm sure you'll pop on when we get close to the draft on this podcast. I'm going to see you. You won't even know it. I'll pop on.

Good job. I get belly. Hey, everyone's there. I've decided to look through the NBA slate and make a parlay. And there's no rules for these parlayers.

I can do anything I want. I hit the first parlay last week. Hopefully you didn't miss out. If you did, you have a brand new chance this week to get in on the action. I'll be tweeting my parlay out on Wednesdays.

But just so you know, I am looking at Minnesota in the Quippers. Because I went to the first Minnesota Quipper game in LA two weeks ago. The Quippers didn't have a point guard. Garland was a back get. They still hung around thinking about parlaying that with Charlotte at Sacramento because

Sacramento is tanking for the year. And Charlotte is on a two-game skid and needs a win. So there you go. That's at least two of the legs I'm looking at. The bet will be live in the Fandle Sports Club app on Wednesday.

Don't forget to use a profit boost token to increase your potential winnings before you place it. We call it the PBT. Fandle. Play your game.

Play your game. To all the prizes. This week, Mini Cherry Rysbentomaten 300g for only $2.79 or $1.41 kg for only $1.49 kg. And there are so many other prizes to all the prizes. Now in your all-in-all, a lot of years.

And to all the prizes for every match. All the. All right, Sean Fandle says here we're taping this on a Monday afternoon. Actually, they before the podcast, we just did rewatchables. You're part of CR Month.

We just live in DIA in LA, which we recorded for next week, been very fun. But Oscars is this week. And we have a live, big picture, which you're going to do right after the Oscars on Netflix. Yeah.

So on Spotify. But we're doing that. The show will end. And you will be on there. You'll be surprised by something major that happened during the telecast on that live show.

So I think so. The last two weeks has been very, very fun in the previous three months of Oscar prognostication and awards tracking. I think has been kind of boring. And then the race got very exciting, very quickly, which leads me to believe that we're

going to have a very fun and interesting Sunday. However, I haven't made my predictions yet. I'm about to make them on the pod later this week. And I'm starting to lean towards a lot of chalk. And I've looked at the bedding favorites.

I've looked at every precursor. I've looked at the history and the precedents here.

“And I'm starting to bore myself a little bit with what I think is going to happen.”

That's never how it plays out.

It's always never a shocker. But you know, I got to say, Amanda Dobbins has been pointing this out on the big picture. The last few years, very early in the season, everybody just decides what the movie is. And that movie tends to dominate for long stretches of time.

Everything everywhere all I want. Oppenheimer, a Nora, those movies were bedding favorites for long stretches of time. So one battle after another has been the bedding favorite for a long time. And it has, it is steamrolled the competition at all, precursors. So you know, we'll see.

Well, if you had to bed on anything that would seem like a safe bed, it would be one battle and PTA winning. I think PTA for director has locked. Um, picture is not locked, because sinners, you know, that what you're hearing a lot about is the vibes in the room at the saguards, when Michael Jordan won.

And when the cast won best ensemble, people in the room were like levitating. They were so happy because that cast is so loved.

It's the most nominated movie of all time, 16 nominations. But if one battle loses it will be probably the most unprecedented upset in Oscar's history, just based on what it has done so far. Now, that doesn't ultimately matter because the voting window is short, and people might just be really thinking about sinners and loving sinners right now in voting for it.

But a movie has never had the collection of, and these aren't just like critics awards.

These are awards from the guilds, which is a lot of people that vote for the Academy Awards. The producers, the directors, sag, the editing group, the cinematography group, like one battle's one, everything there, and also sinners has one best film at zero award shows and at zero precursors. So you're talking about, it would be a pretty historic upset of sinners win.

We would take quick detour, because you've triggered something that I've been meaning to say to you. Great. You know, I always talk about how we need to sports our. We also need a culture's our, which I'd like to nominate myself for, I don't know, I'm

sure.

“I think you're probably exactly who we should pick.”

Thank you. And too many award shows now. Yeah. We just have too many. And I don't know where we went wrong.

And it's, it just feels like people are getting dressed up week after week after week.

I feel like Seth Brogan has given 40 speeches, uh-huh, where he's just thanked whoever

and he can't believe he's up there and it's like, you actually can't believe he's up you're up there because you've been giving a speech every Saturday night since like September. Yeah. I've just had it. Can we just go back to Oscars, Emmys, Grammys, I'll give you the Golden Globes that's

like the Fun Wild Card and then the rest of the stuff. Let's not tell about as the many more. Let's just stick with four. So I think that the number of televised award shows has not increased dramatically, but I do think that the Oscar machine has gotten no easier.

So for example, there's a lot more attention paid in the kind of like Oscar media, movie media, to things like the producers' guild and the director's guild awards, those shows are not on television. They're not televised at all. I went to the director's guild awards this year was really, really fun and you can see

“why people like doing this, why this is such a cottage industry into itself because it's”

a nice night out. You get dressed up. You see like friends. Yeah. It's a good time.

But, um, to me, the real devil's work is March 15th Academy Awards way too fucking late. There's just, this should be, I firmly believe this should be the week between the championship games and the Super Bowl. Yeah. It's the end of January.

January. Yes. And it's like force the globes to move up. I realized that that's the Grammys. The Grammys should pick another date.

The movies are getting really far from people's minds. We're 11 months since sinners was released in theaters. That's a long time. Mid-March is way way too late for the way the culture off. So how do we end up in March?

Didn't we're in February for a while? It has fluctuated last year was an early March. Sometimes it's later in March, sometimes it's later in February, historically it's all across that kind of two month corridor. My theory is, is that this is good for business.

It's good for the business of the awards, industrial, publics, yes, business and demand, yes. HBMX. It's good for media. You know, it's good for us.

I mean, for the pods, like people want to hear us talk about the Oscars. That's consistently like, it's a horse race. So it's something exciting about it. But I don't know, just covering it, like, it's just the same conversations over and over again.

It's the same people at the same parties. It's just a lot of written on this app and you were doing IGs of each movie, counting down. And I was like, I'm pretty sure I know where Sean stands on F1 and you've been talking about these movies for a year.

I know. I'm a little bit sick of it, obviously. It's gotten exciting because there's more unpredictability, especially in the acting races, which has been cool. But this is just too long.

It's too long. I like your February ideas. So we at Super Bowl, which it seems like they're going to drag out the Super Bowl now, too. Like February 8th, make this Oscars February 1st.

That would be great. Right. Either do it the week between Championship Super Bowl or the week after. The week. It would be great.

It's been like the NBA All Star Game is kind of trying to grab that and some other stuff. In general, everybody's just getting way better at the calendar. Yes. And I've talked about this on my podcast before about UFC, WWE, all of these different

play, like, oh, third week in August.

There's nothing. We'll target there. I mean, with World Baseball class right now, and some of these other things that we just didn't have 20 years ago, but the Oscars should be signature OG, shit on the weekend. Yeah.

“I think I'm with you that March feels late.”

I saw sinners, I saw it with van. I was like, over a year ago. It came out of April. It was an April 20, 25 movie. So it just feels a long time ago.

And that's not the only reason there are plenty movies in Oscar history that I've like come out earlier in the year, but just pushing a deeper and deeper kind of sucks. But there is like a whole complex around the Baptist. There's a whole complex now around the actor awards because they're on Netflix. Like, all of this space has been made because the Oscars keep deciding to be in March.

It is still the second most watched thing in most Americans homes after NFL football. The Oscars. Even though it has shrunk a lot in the last 10 years, it's a big thing. This is awesome. Yeah.

It's great. Yeah. And we can talk about the movies and who we think should win, which you've already talked about many times. So I know your answers.

But the most interesting one is the best actor. We're Shalame if he had just been kidnapped by gypsies and brought to New Zealand for four months. We're just being running away with the award. And it's this old Hollywood story of first you can do too much.

Second, you could say a couple of things that people can go on onto.

At some point, you hit this mode that I always call the, ah, fuck this guy mode.

“And it's it's hard to get to, you need to have some success.”

And you need to do just a couple things that make people basically stop rooting for you. And I don't want to say start rooting against you, but they stop rooting for you. Well, and I think he's hit that point now where people are like, all right. Enough. Break it down.

He wins the actor award last year. And he gives the speech about pursuing greatness at first performance in a completely own. Which I kind of enjoyed. I loved it.

Yeah, it was a very swaggering athlete style speech. Yeah. You called out who he thought the greats were enacting and he wanted to be just like which is, by the way, his, his kind of spiritual backbone is sports and music. And he's generationally, and this is the people that he loves.

Talk like this. And you're a kid. Talk to shit. Like, that's the kind of guy that he is. I love it.

I've always liked it about him as like kind of a persona.

That also was basically the soft kickoff of the Marty Supreme Marketing campaign, because everything he did in the run up to the really smart Marty Supreme was like a stunt to show how swag he was.

“And I think that some people found that a little eye rolling, but it obviously worked because”

the movie did really well, despite being a period piece about a ping pong player. And so if you take all that stuff away, a lot of that stuff that I think was annoying, some of these voters, potentially, the movie doesn't get to 100 million. And if the movie doesn't get to 100 million, then he doesn't have that same primacy as like the guy of his generation as a movie star, because this was the last step.

Open an original movie by yourself. So he pulls that off. But then as soon as he pulls the first time and did that, right? It is. Yeah.

Because I mean, he didn't want to do it in other movies that are all based on IP. This was an original movie. And nobody does that anymore. Yeah, hard to do. So he got that.

But then the price to pay for that was you're overexposed. People think you are this guy, instead of it being a part of the marketing strategy. And you add on top of that that the academy historically doesn't really like young guys anyway. I would also throw in his, uh, involved in the extended Kardashian, also a factor universe,

“which some people have of this role reactions.”

They do. We've got some some marks against him, you know, if you're talking about a subjective objective opinion, he's obviously an insanely talented actor, like it's a very comfortable caring movie. He's on the shoulders.

I love Marty Supreme. Marty Supreme is not the most likable character in the world. There are a lot of people who tend to vote by which characters they like and not just whether or not they think a performance is good. So that's a factor, um, I don't know what the hell's going on in this race though, because

even though Michael B. Jordan is the favorite. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around him winning because he also has one nothing all the way up until the actor awards. And it almost felt like he won in part because there's so much affection for the movie and he's an industry veteran now, right?

He's pushing 40. And also it's a sort of like a not shallow may vote. There's a little bit of that. So I thought Leo is going to be the not shallow may vote. And like even Fando as that prediction at there's gold derby, there's some difference.

MBJ is basically as we're taping this on a Monday afternoon.

He's a slight favorite. Yeah. And Shalame is in the plus one 41 50 range, which is crazy because he was like a prohibitive favorite for a while. He was.

And Leo is is, you know, he's 13 to 11, 14 to 11 range. Um, there is weird because there's also not a lot to support either of these predictions. So this just shows you how kind of at CIM on this category in particular. But I haven't ruled out Leo or Wagner more for my picks. I just, I, yeah, not the Morris case, the more cases that we've got a much more international

academy one into one. Um, he's very, very well-liked in the industry and he is also very personally well-liked by pretty much anybody who comes across him. I interviewed him seven years ago. One of the most genuinely charismatic and thoughtful guys that's ever been on the pod.

He's also been laser precise in campaigning with the academy as opposed to just like, "Oh, did you win the Golden Globe or not win the Golden Globe or did you win the critics choice award or not win the critics choice award?" He hasn't given as many speeches as you'd want to, but when you've got to consider the

of stuff in America and in the English language. He was in Narcos, you know, like he's very well-known.

“Three, there's a lot of admiration for the secret agent.”

There's not a ton of data that supports this take, but I've kind of been hanging on it for a while that if he's standing up there, I'm not going to be stunned. I think it's close. How about that? You have four of the five actors you wouldn't be stunned.

Well, at least how we had a category like that. A major acting category I can't remember. The other thing too about sag, I shared this to you over the weekend, sag for best actor and best actress has only been predictive in three out of the last six for the actor awards.

That's kind of a shaky category. Sag is a weird group of people. It's like, it's a huge body and less than 5% of the people who are in the body vote for the Academy Awards. So, it doesn't really tell you like a ton about who's going to win all the time.

It wasn't. Well, he gave a great speech and Vile Davis had that awesome moment of giving it to him. So, it was very memorable. So, if like, members were watching, they clocked that and they saw that. They probably felt it the way that we did.

It was such a cool win for the actor awards. Well, so how many best actor, black actors have won, not very many, less than 5. 3, I think. 3.

“I think it's Denzel, Sydney, Poitier, and Force Whitaker.”

He checks the boxes from this kid's bed and Hollywood for a while. He's paid his dues. He's done all kinds of things. He got a taste of it with fruitville. I think he's really well-liked.

He's the eye-side of the show. We don't really know anything about Michael P. Jordan. He's not a very good job of his persona. It's very modest. So, people like that.

They like when they don't know anything about the person. They know that Lewis is one of this award three times. Right. I mean, Francis McDormand won three times. I don't think she can't paint any of the three times.

Right. So, that to me, what you just said there is the case for Leo, which is that Leo has been more present this year. He's very, very admired across the industry, obviously.

In part because he always picks good projects and people really respect that about him.

He's in the movie that is the best picture prohibitive favorite. There's a world where-- Also, people love him in this movie. He's great in the movie. Yeah.

He's not-- like, he wasn't at the actor awards because he's just making a movie this course easy. Because people are like, he's about love with the game. That's his thing. That's what he's into.

He loves making movies. He wants to make movies with great filmmakers. His next movie after this, he too with Michael Mann in his 80s. You know what I mean? We think.

I'll still believe it when they're filming it. So, there's also some fun Leo versus Timmy stuff here where you're talking about the last guy who was able to get to every time I release a movie, it has it. It's almost like what I was talking about, the NBA, where how many guys nearly guaranteed 46 wins no matter who's on the team.

And Leo was the only guy who could guarantee you a release forever. And now, shall I may maybe the next guy? Can you believe Bronson is one of those guys now?

The next one about to have their third consecutive 50 win season.

What has it happened? 40 years. Spensive team though. What come on? Oh, yeah.

He's like, like, even Janice does in guaranteed 46 wins. I mean, you'd be 500, it's true. I'm giving Bronson all the credit. Like right now, it's probably YoKage's YoKage and, uh, and, I don't even know it. Might not even get to 46 wins this year.

YoKage might be the only guy who guarantees you 46 wins no matter who's on his team. Okay. Leo is Leo. Leo. Yes.

I'm trying to think of a scenario what kind of movie he'd have to make. So body Eliz was probably the last one he did that didn't do that well. Since then, he's Jager Jager. Oh, Jager. That was a bad decision by him.

But he was, but it was Clint Eastwood. I mean, I know.

“I think that wasn't a good, not a good choice by him.”

No. But that's, I mean, so rare. There's like three or four movies you can point to with the last third years. You're like, I don't know about this one. It's funny because I saw one battle and there were people in the theater really laughing throughout

the movie. There were some people that thought it was just absolutely hysterical. I didn't laugh once and I didn't get that part of it. I'm so blown away by that. Yeah, I was like, all right, you've only seen it one time, right?

Well, I see it one time. At him in Sensei's apartment on the phone, trying to get the password is the funniest fucking scene of the year when he's yelling at him right now, I shouldn't get with me for some reason.

I'm, you know, we don't always share taste, but stuff like that.

We always, I don't I feel like we're always on the same page with that sort of thing. I do have to see it a second time. I've seen centers like four times. Centers of my favorite movie the year. I don't know why.

I mean, who's your favorite. You different ways. You talked about it on the rewatchable. No, I know. I really, you know, I just, I just thought it was just really cool and it took me for

a ride. I knew where I was going. I probably saw one battle a little bit late. So the hype was already there, which I do think can affect you when you see it. It does.

It was also like fucking exhilarating and awesome. And if it wins, there's this whole PTA piece too that I think's going to be pretty

Yeah, he's over 11 in his career at the Oscars.

So he's more than overdue. He's also widely revered in the Academy as like one of the greatest living filmmakers. If you talk to most filmmakers under 40, his name comes up in the top five of their favorite directors among most people. He's a 10 to one favorite cooler.

“I think is the only one who could take it.”

Cougars 8 to 1 apparently. I'm Fando. I'm sure this stuff will change, but with Cougar, it's one of those things that if you want to be shocking, but I wouldn't be like, oh my God, I can't, I can't believe that just happen.

It would be shocking. But I do think like people really like that dude. And sometimes the Oscars comes out of it's popularity. True. I think to me, the more likely outcome is one battle wins best.

No, is that PTA wins director and sinners wins best picture than the inverse.

I think it's very unlikely that Cougar wins best director and one battle wins. But what's going to actually happen is it's going to win one battle on both. Probably. The director thing feels pretty tight to me because he, PTA, one of DGA, he's do, he's been shot on him all the way through.

Yeah. And people want him to get one. The other thing. There's time is coming. He's younger.

Yes. Also, one battle is dedicated to Adam Sumner, who is his longtime AD and was a producer on one battle. And is a really a very widely liked person. And he passed away last year, he was the AD on many Steven Spielberg movies.

This is an industry award. He got to remember that. Like, these people, a lot of people have worked together, they know each other. This isn't voting for the NBA MVP, where it's like a lot of people in different cities just watching TV and deciding or watching games and deciding, you know, even though

there's a fraternity of journalists, it's not the same as when, with like people that work in the film industry.

“So I think it's one battle, but I don't feel confident.”

Do people really think, like, if MGA won, people would be surprised? But do you think that's considered a great performance or a very good performance? I think it's considered very good. I think there's a case for it is very great because it's two performances, obviously. He's playing smoke and stack.

So he's doing a lot there. I did point out when we did our secret agent revisit last week, though, that Wagnermore is technically playing three people in a way in the secret agent. He's playing the same guy, but one guy before witness protection and another guy after witness protection.

And then he's also playing his son in the future. And he also gives a very layered, deep, complicated performance that shows you like which guy is, which in certain ways, MBJ, I think he's just not as showy and actor. And I think he's also at his absolute best in kubler movies. And he's given some uneven performances in other movies, so I think that people are a little

resistant to him. I think that helps his case for this, though, that it's a little bit of, I didn't know you had that in you, which is how I felt. I thought I had figured out like whatever his ceiling was as an actor and you went above it in this movie.

It's also just how he was fucking awesome. Simon Kuhler together is just a great thing in movies. It's just cool when you get a pair like that where they come along and they're doing that, of course, he's a generic thing where, you know, they're going to make at least three or four more movies together, you know, he's going to evolve as an actor where he's going

to start to be more like Delroy Lindow than Michael B. Jordan at a certain point. He's going to take on like old guy supporting parts.

“So just the idea of that union, I think, makes people who love movies.”

The idea of there's two guys who are under 40 who are doing that right now in the biggest movies of the year as really exciting. This actress, Jessie Buckley, it's a rats a wrap. It's not even going to bounce off her that she was in a bad movie. She was just in one of the biggest bombs in the last 10 years and no one cares.

She's going to, she's going to win in a walk. There's a, there's a story going around that she doesn't like cats. You hear about this? She's like, or even more. She forced her husband to re-home his cats when she moved in with him and, uh, I don't

care. But I, that, that's where my life away from her, she's the greatest. She's the best. Yeah. There's video of her dang, uh, singing and bars and all kinds of friends.

Oh, yeah. Did you go back to her like talent show competition days on YouTube? Great voice.

It's just an amazing singer.

I don't know if I've given you this take. I thought it was the best male or female performance this decade. You did. I, I did share Cape Lancia and Tar with you as a counterpoint. I thought a hand that was incredible.

Okay. The first hour or whatever. Is it your number two movie of the year? I thought the last, so there's two different conversations, right? It's like, the movies start to finish.

But then almost like extended moments or long scenes or stretches where I think this movie or had a lot of great memorable iconic stretches, you know, like even, in sinners when, when the vampires finally get in into the bar, like just that whole run where you're like, oh my God, it's like what we call and rewatchable stuff. Okay.

Like classic the one battle when we, that has a bunch of them, like when we were with Del Toro, but then really the car will be, that's going to be the ultimate. I thought what she did in that big final climactic scene was as good as I've seen. I just, it was really, it was way more moving than I thought.

I just thought she was just incredible and at a whole other level with, like, some

of the great actors ever. Yeah. I agree. I really held the first hour of that movie against it though. Yeah.

But that's, it's almost like the, it redeemed itself and then some. Yeah. I just, I can't pretend it didn't happen. Like the whole approach to that world, the performances, but Paul Mascals doing

“in the movie, though, like the, the, the patients that it makes you have to get to them”

having a family, which is something that we know walking into the movie that we're waiting for. I just felt like it was really, really, really languid in a way that I didn't really vibe with at all. But I don't, I, I've been saying it since I saw it over the summer that the final 40

minutes is Toro for shit. And part of it is like they're performing Hamlet. Yeah. It is Hamlet. Like Hamlet is captivating and watching someone be captivated by Hamlet and having

his personal catharsis with it is really cool. But I was also upset that he didn't get nominated, but it was a deep year. But I thought Paul Mascals was, I thought, especially in the last half hour. I think it was really good. I think the script doesn't have a little bit of a disservice in the movie.

He does the two be your not to be thing while like standing on the ledge. I was like, this is a little on the notice for me. Just put that out there. So, did you interview Chloe? I didn't.

And I never have. Oh, I just like, yeah. Yeah. Well, she's gonna win. Could you I couldn't stand the Roseburn movie?

At least popular movie in the Simmons house this year. I enjoyed it, but I specifically understood what it was trying to accomplish, which is

“I think like alienates some people and show you how alienating it is to feel like that character.”

You know? I didn't like it. Okay. Best supporting.

So Champagne is like basically a two and a half to one favorite at this point.

Do you think this is gonna happen? Scar's guard is plus 350. And I'm surprised how toward him get more momentum, but I think because he's already one, whatever. I don't know where I lingo.

I had nine to one. So towards only in 12 minutes, one after another. I have thought Scar's guard was gonna win for a while for right reasons. He fits the Oscars profile in a lot of ways of the old guy and let's get him one. Had a stroke four years ago, he's really good in the movie.

He's got his son and very like fun Hollywood family situation and I think people would be fine. Champagne's won a couple times. He's got some zanytakes out there, Sean's got some take, but a character. This could be a little fuck that guy in there who should win.

It's a complicated question because Scar's guard to me is a lead and sentimental value is an

“amazing film and it is a film that makes you think it's about Renata Reinsville, but I think”

it's just as much about him and I think he is asked to do the most and he's making a film in Scandinavia where he's career launched and he's made so many great and important international films. I was like to mis an actor, good while hunting, you know, he's elite, field's metal winner.

I, what Benicio's doing in one bow. Oh, take your field's metal, Sean, you could have it. It's convenient that I'm doing, Sean. Benicio is pretty sick. You know, it's really good.

I really did not like Benicio, the autorostrank and son, but Jacob Alordy is incredible

in that movie and what he does as the creature is really unique and he brings something really new to this like hundred-year-old character. It's interesting because nobody really liked that movie that much. He's got its defenders for sure, I've not been one of them, but because I was taking him when we joined, we watched most 20 years from now when I'm in a nursing home and you

guys are coming into film with me will be like, "Alordy, how did he get in there? What? You're going to be someone serving him in 20 years?" I don't know, maybe. Wait, not 50 years.

I don't know if you're okay in 20 years. 60 years. Alordy will be the one that we're kind of like, "Wow, how did that get in there?" Nobody's talked about that Frankenstein movie for 20 years. Yeah.

I don't, but I don't think it's a bad nomination at all. I think that you for your cast just giving us him and Zadaya and Sidney Sweeney. Like three of the biggest under 35 stars we have. I mean, don't forget, like, composite Coleman Domingo, who is way more famous now in Oscar nominee, Austin Abrams, who was just in weapons and as about to be the star of the new

Resident Evil movie. Right. I just saw faces of Death the other day, the star of his Barbie Ferreira, also from that. And Maude Apatau, who obviously was known before that because of her father, but and just

So, when's the last time a show threw off legitimate movie star potential like that?

That's like, I don't think that's happened with the cast that told me lies, I'll do respect to them. I don't think so. So, I would bet on Scar's guard for this and I think he's going to win anyway. Is there a champagne, champagne was mesbrizing in the theater? It's a little cartoony.

“You got to remember that in this particular category, the Academy loves villains.”

This is Anton Shiger from no country for old men. This is Heath Ledger's Joker. This is like, this is where the Academy likes to award its bad men. So, that's the case for showing that. I think this is 50, 50.

And then best supporting actress feels like we're going to, I don't even know what the box will happen. Amy Madigan feels like that, this happens with the Oscars every year with the older actor. It's like it's going to be her time or his time and then they just get kicked in the teeth

on Oscars. Yeah.

Glenn Clos has been getting her head blown off for decades now.

Yeah. I think I'm going to predict Amy Madigan. I don't know. I, I remember vividly, I was at the tellyard film festival in the fall and I'm sitting next to a person who is an award strategist.

Hmm. What a job. That is a real job.

“And I said to them, you know, I think there's a really good campaign.”

It may need to be made for Amy Madigan, because she's really liked in the industry. She's had a 40 year career, so real professional and she's, this movie is a big hit. Yeah. A lot of people saw it. And she's doing a very dramatic thing.

A lot of makeup. You know, a lot of like a transformation that Academy loves a transformation. And I remember him going, hmm, interesting. Now I'm not saying I inspired that this was going to happen no matter what, but it's come a long way from her being like, wow, this is a weird horror movie that Amy Madigan

shows up in for 10 minutes to potentially Academy Award-winning part. I think I'm going to pick her. She also gave a great speech to the actor awards and people were member of that stuff. I mean, she was, we're filled with dreams, you know, the dreams. Thirty-five years ago.

Well, at the PTA meeting, yeah, talking about book banning. It's great in that movie. Yeah. Oh, it's like they're stayed with that Harris. They're still together.

Yeah. They famously did not stand for Alia Kazan when he won his honorary Oscar, very memorable Oscar's moment. All right, so if you had to predict a holy shit, I can't believe that happened category. Which one is it?

Wagner Moro winning best actor would be holy shit. Okay. That would be crazy. The odds are like 3%. We have to, I have to bring this up just because it's been such a big part of my, uh, column

from way back when about the hammer. Yeah. For the Oscar. I think you should be more, yeah. Speaking about this.

Yeah. Yeah.

I was always fascinated by and then it's become a, they've kind of blown that segment

out, sometimes that people singing to it. There's been times when there's too many celebrities, too many famous ones that died where they have to, they almost can't have the hammer.

“And this year, I think, is the biggest Oscar year of famous people that I can remember”

where we have Redford, we have Rob Riner, Duval, Diane Keaton, Jean Hackman. Did Hackman? Hackman count? Well, was he at the end of last year's, maybe I can't remember. Whether he is there isn't that we still have at least like, uh, major heavy hitters, for

crazy ones. And my guess is that they're going to do little segments in the show, probably a little longer than it normally is, gosh, I hope so. My guess would be they would have to do four special segments for those four and then do the in Memorial for the rest.

I would be so happy with that to somebody who loves clips and learned about loving movies from watching award shows and learning about what other movies people were in. And I think that's a great way to kind of slide people into movie history. Also four people that are worthy of it. Oh, no.

I mean, they have to have friends in there, all five of them are their iconic figures. They're incredibly important to the evolution of movies from the 1967, these 80s into the present day. I, there is a dead giveaway about this though, with that they're announcing these special people they're doing.

Well, that Barbara Streisand's going to perform, yeah, and probably going to perform memory, and that would make Redford the hammer. But I think that's going to be its own segment. Okay. They already said Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan are going for Rob Riner.

Okay. And Rob Riner should get his own segment. Totally. All kinds of resources. And then if you're going to do that, you also have to address the Duval and Diane Keaton.

And maybe you could say those are the focal points of the Memorial. Diane Keaton, I think for her stature, and just as one of the best actresses of the last 50 years, it would be weird to be like, "Let's just celebrate the guys." And I think Barbara Diane Keaton, her and Jane Fonda are the signature stars in the 1970s.

Yeah. So I hope they do that. That would be honestly be great. It's obviously terrible that we've lost all these people. But I don't know, the Oscars is tricky with this.

Like sometimes they just forget people in the Memorial, you know, but it's not full rip.

After Duval died, I banged out tender mercies and my wife who had no idea what was going on. Put it in the sun. I want to watch the Duval movie. And it was on Tuesday.

Like it. It's fucking great. It's a beautiful movie.

“And I called my dad the next day to check in and I was like, "I watched tender mercies”

last night." Figuring that he would like it because it checks a lot of his boxes and he was like, "Just watched it two days ago. It's one of my Alzheimer's." Like really loves it.

Wow. And it's a movie that didn't do that while when it came out. But I thought one of the things I was so interesting about Duval was how many different people were lurking in his body where he also had this like Texas, you know, country Western, singer, alcoholic, domestic abuser, trying to turn his life around.

Just quiet movie guy. But was also Tom Hagen in the great Santini, in the guy from colors and the crew boss and days of thunder. Yes. The apocalypse now.

Yeah. And the apocalypse now guy. So the movie that I watched the night that he died is called, the eagle has landed, which is a World War II thriller, seen through the eyes of the Nazis. That's about a complicated scheme.

And in the movie, he plays a German lieutenant. And the cast is mostly English actors playing Nazis. And he's an American actor playing a Nazi. So he affects a German accent in the movie. Oh, it's interesting when it happens.

And all the English actors are just doing English accents. So it's a very odd movie to watch, like Michael Keynes in it. Yeah. He did a, he was like, he played Stalin in an HBO movie, like, he had a really big weird career.

He also just comedy stuff in the 2000s. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

But he also, like, pretty much never bad in a movie.

You've never been like, oh, that was a lousy, duval performance. Like, could you think of one movie where you're like, he sucked in that. And that doesn't really work that way with him, which is pretty special. Yeah. And I'm hard pressed to think of tackling counts for this year if we've had a more

impactful five. I don't know. You probably got to go back to when that first generation, you know, that 30s and 40s generation of actors were dying.

“And if there was a more dying young, though, yeah, but that's what I'm saying.”

Like, in the 70s, there might have been, you know, right, Doug was fair banks, and you know, people like that who were passing away all at the same time. But for us, since we've been alive, this feels like it's the most loaded. Before we go, we have the Goldman's book is next to you to the left. Yeah, Goldman, the number one champion of, uh, show us the fucking votes.

Did we ever figure out how we can't find out what the votes are? No, man, you know, you know my latest idea for this, right? What is it? I don't know if I've done this on the show before, if I have to tell me, um, it's not just that we should know the votes, but I think that the show should be, um,

a series of a sequential or a, you know, so every 20 minutes, another, we learn another film has fallen out in the best picture race. And then if you want to be, it really only works for the best picture race. Yeah, we, we dropped four and we end up with like, or five, we end up with four at the end. Yeah, I think, yeah, I like that.

But that would be really exciting. Now this year in which is really like a two horse race, it's not as interesting. Um, but just for the viewership, I think it would be for the, the common viewer doesn't

follow this stuff closely when like F1 goes out first.

You know, you'd have a lot of people be like, oh, fuck, I like that one. What's wrong with these people? You know, I don't know.

“I just, I think that'd be really fun if they tried that.”

That's a really good idea. And I'm really wondering if if the Oscars going to YouTube, if they will make any modifications in a few years. Is that this year? It's 28.

It's going to be a few years. Maybe 29. Might be 29. I thought it was an awesome movie here. It was really memorable.

I think part of it had to do with, we didn't have COVID anymore and we finally were back and actually making movies and, and we also had good filmmakers making movies and we had good actors and actresses in those movies. So we just felt, it felt like COVID feels very far away now for movies. Yeah, I feel like that would just be in the big better ones.

I feel like a nice balance of the industry making franchise movies that were not based on previous movies that you had your mind crafts and your F1s, but then you also had outdoors making big, kind of tent-poly movies, like one battle in centers and the industry rewarding them, you know, and being like, this is what it should be guys.

Like, give a hundred million dollars to really create people and let them try something new.

That's what makes Hollywood special. So that would be the positive spin that the Glass-FMT spin would be, yeah, Ryan Cooper and PTA, we had some real-ass people make movies that's not going to happen every year. Well, this year we got Christopher Nolan and David Fincher, you know, like, it happens. It can happen every year if we want the year to die, you got Steven Spielberg this year.

We got Jordan Peel in 2027, like, you can, this is, we're fine. Right, I'm going to move you out this year, like, we can do this, it's fine. Do we need dynamic pricing for movies? Ooh, it's been pitched.

I just think the audaces shouldn't, it's almost like, maybe just an LA Newark, but it

“should just be like, it's fucking free for all.”

You could easily... You could easily charge 50 bucks to go see it at the City Walk and people would pay to see it in that line. Oh, I think you go to hire. Yeah.

Especially because they only have, like, two or three eye max status. I don't really want this though. Oh, I don't think that I don't want it either, but if it's a way to help save movies, I'm ready to at least entertain all the suggestions. Yeah, movies are just, they're a mask-communion event, and they're like a regular, they're

an every person art form. That's part of what's so great about them is it's the same ticker price for everybody. It's not like you get to sit in the orchestra and you get to sit over here. We're doing it together. That's the whole beauty of the thing.

So I don't, I'm a little, I want movies to be saved, maybe we just have one, maybe one theater that becomes the free-for-off theater. It's like the 730, like best eye max possible for the out of saying it's like, should we open up? You know what?

Name your price. Yeah. Well, it's 730 dollars a ticket for dead center. You got to have really good sound and a good screen in there. If you want that to work.

It's got to be the best ever. That's been the other thing that's happening. We're even like the shitty screens are really nice. Oh, yeah. Oh, no.

It's an amazing theater. It's like, all right, I'm still having a great time. You know, I took Eline and I took Alice to see Hoppers yesterday at the AMC of the Americana and we sat in the Dolby room, which was like a nicer premium thing but not the nicest room. And it was like being in a fucking amusement park.

The seats are huge. It's incredibly comfortable. You feel like you're in your own world. If you're willing to pay for it, movie going can be way more comfortable than it was when we were kids.

As the name used Rickety old chairs and everything and the floors were sticky. Like it can be nice, especially, I mean, in LA, we're very spoiled because we have so many options. Although, we don't have the arquette, so now it's fucking bullshit. Such bullshit.

It's an absolute disgrace. I blame everybody. Just keep naming people. Let's blame them, too. Just be open.

The politicians, like there's just be things that should never disappear in different

cities, right? Boston has their stuff. New York has their stuff. The arquette, the Chinese theater here. I agree.

Are just like, should never go away. Well, I mean, one really good thing the Netflix did was that they came in. They bought the Egyptian and they completely refurbished it. Yes. Beautiful movie theater.

We did a live show there last year. It was awesome. We watched, in Glorious Bastards there, it was amazing.

“And to me, I think you're right that the arquette, which is a historic movie theater, should”

be a civic landmark, and they should make it, honestly, put it in the hands of the government for all I care, and have it be an open and active movie business all the time. That's when I really had it going, like, pre kids to somewhere 2004, just writing three columns a week, free SPN, and then I'd finish something, and I would just tell my wife, like, yeah, one o'clock, arquette.

I might play two. You might see me at six, not sure yet. Yeah. You're going to run out there for collateral and syndrome and, you know, I'll see you on the other side. I could talk by itself in a second one, who knows?

We'll see how it goes. Yeah. It's really the days. I'm still doing that. And I have a kid.

It's a perilous lifestyle. Well, the best was in the '90s in Boston when I had nothing to do. So it was, like, a movie we've talked about the sub-rewatchables. The movie releases sometimes, or was like, holy shit, I might be able to do three. Can I run J three times in a row?

Yeah. We only had, like, two really good movie theaters. I mean, that's the other thing. The movie theaters. So we're doing a good job of having good movie theaters.

LA is amazing right now. I mean, there are a lot. It has a couple good ones. I mean, I don't New York City does.

If you're not an amazing city, it's a lot harder now, because a lot of the smaller stuff

is closed. I feel bad for a lot of people out there who really want to go see movies that have to drive a long way. There's a little bit of like an IMAX epidemic where they're not enough IMAX theaters. They should really open more and build more because people want them.

Yeah. I don't think it's Chicago.

“You have to drive like a long way to get to an IMAX screen.”

Yeah. Yeah. So there's some issues with that stuff. But, I mean, when we worked, it's sunset, yeah, where that was the shit. That was, like, we're going to the arc plate every Friday, every Friday.

And to work. That's what we walked over there. It was the best. See, I really miss it. Movies.

Good year. A minus. I hope you ask. Oh, five. They might have said no.

It was over two and a half months ago when it ended. Yeah. It's just too late. Dude. It's just way too late.

All right. We'll have fun on the live show. Thanks on Netflix. Probably around. 7.

13. 13. 10. 13. 13.

13. 13. Are you really? Yeah. Spoiler alert.

What's Amanda going to wear? That she can make some nice. Get dolled up. Yeah. We decided to go super black tie this year.

Oh, wow. This is really exciting. Just segment presented by state farm and basketball, the best players don't just go

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Very, by state. All right, our friend Seth Wicker, sham is here. He has been writing for ISPN for a lot. How many years down for you? Dude, 25 years. 25 years.

Oh, my God. Website magazine, website in the magazine, there's really the magazine is become the website. Okay.

And you have a book that came out a few months ago called American Kings, which is basically

a deep dive on the quarterback position, a position that we have just not figured out. And I want to talk about that in a little bit, but we want to talk about first was Tom Brady, a guy that you have covered him written about. And just has a bizarre relationship with Patriots that I don't feel like has got enough attention since he's the greatest, could be of all time in the greatest Patriot of all

time and brought six Super Bowls. So Max Crosby gets traded. They have a bunch of suitors, the Patriots are allegedly one of the suitors. And it comes out in their reporting after they turn to Baltimore for two first runners. That the one team Brady said there's no way we're traded there is the New England Patriots.

This is on the hails of him saying he didn't have a dog at the race in the Super Bowl. And just some general vibes of his relationship in New England, even when he came back when they did the statue, I heard that he got paid to come back, because he was a come back for free. What happened the last seven years to flip this?

And is it worse than we thought between him and craft, because I am endlessly fascinated by this?

“Well, it's totally weird, and I think the other thing that makes this kind of Brady aspect”

interesting is that one of the reasons that Max Crosby wanted out of the Raiders is because of our old friend Alex Guerrero, who of course, depending on the way you look at it, either caused a bunch of problems in New England or was just somebody that Bellach had didn't want around. And so he banned him from the building back in 2017.

And so there are all kinds of aspects of it that kind of are patriots centric here. But I think that when it comes back to Brady and the Patriots, I think Brady and Bellach have got a different thing. But when I think when it comes to Brady and the Patriots and craft, there are slew things that I think happened.

We're starting back in 2010 when craft and Jonathan, Robert Craft and Jonathan Craft had to get involved in Brady's contract negotiation. We're talking about 2017 when Brady unveils the big TV 12 brand, run to Google, bunch of problems with Bellachack, in the off season, you know, basically tells craft that he wants to go to a different team and craft has to figure out a way to keep it together.

And that's in Guerrero Ranch too, where Guerrero blows the back up, and they're wondering if he's looming is the next guy. Exactly. And then you have, they beat the Rams in the Super Bowl for the second time in 2019. And then he comes back once his contract read on, you know, really a statement that he'll,

you know, retire a Patriot. Remember he wanted to play until he was age 45 and he did. And really what the Patriots gave him was a one-year deal with a little bit more money and it opt out to be an unrestricted pre-agent. And remember he put his house on the market the day after that deal was announced.

And so, I can't even bring the Brady campus like, it's no big deal, it's just a coincidence. But none of this is a coincidence.

It's never a coincidence.

“And I think that's how Brady talks, you know what I mean?”

He's never going to hold a press conference and, you know, do what Kobe Bryant might have done. You know, I mean, this is how he talks to the public. And I think that at the end of the day, Bellachack opened the door for Brady to walk out, craft back to him, and, you know, Brady went on to win a Super Bowl with another

I mean, remember, like Joe Montana was traded from the 49ers to the chiefs and it took like a decade for the ownership to try to get him back involved after Eddie D., you know, had kind of flamed out and had to give the team to a sister. I mean, some of these great athletes just hold these epic legendary grudges. And, you know, you see a little bit with Brady in a cute way.

Like how he wasn't following the Patriots on Instagram and that broke, you know, Super Bowl week also.

“So, I think that's the just a bit, but we can go deep on any of those things.”

Paint Manning in the Colts, that was another incident. Totally. Revarving the Packers, another interesting one. So normally, you know, maybe a 50/50 chance that it doesn't end awesome with the team

and the QB, if they feel like the QB, who's established himself as like this incredible

Alpha dog, I've done everything as the skills start to decline, you get the wrong coach in there, the wrong GM, something weird with the owner, a cheaper owner, whatever. And it goes sideways. I wonder if this was as simple as this was about money and Bella check and Brady, a relationship that you were reporting about.

And I didn't want to believe it for years and I'm really mad at you a couple of times. But clearly, clearly some stuff happened in the 2010s that they worked together for too long. They started to wear any other's nerves. Bella check was a pretty logical guy, or at least he wasn't in 2010s.

He's basically playing this like the Seattle Seahawks non-time out before the Malcolm Butler play, where he's just like, I'm playing the ads here. Nobody's playing quarterback until 45. I want to still coach. I want to still win Super Bowls and it's unrealistic for this guy to go past 40.

I need alternatives and meanwhile, you have Brady going, I'm playing Tom 45. I'm doing this and then you have Guerrero in there who's like this weird shaman, you know, doing whatever. You have TB12, whatever the deal craft made with Brady to build that whole center there. And it just became a Molotov cocktail ending with them not committing a long-term deal

to him in 2019, heading into 2019 season.

“And that feels like that's why I wonder if him and craft, it's a little deeper rooted”

than maybe we knew. Where he felt like yo, man, your team is 10 to pulled in value since I showed up. Maybe 22 pulled. You've won the most valuable franchise in the league. You're the black sheep of the Boston Sports scene for decades.

Now you're the role model of the entire city and you're the role model of the league. I did that. I will check that. And now you're telling me to basically take a one-year deal and walk off in in the sunset. Fuck you.

I wonder if it's as simple as that. Well, and I think that there's a collective aspect of, and this is, I think Brady actually is under appreciated. It's a look. It's hard to find anything in Brady's life that he's under appreciated for.

“But I think that like when it comes to eating shit, and his capacity to eat shit, it's”

really kind of remarkable because there's no way that Dan Marino or John L. Way or Aaron Rodgers would put up with some of the stuff that Brady put up with.

And like, look in 2010, Brady wants a new deal, and even though he had always taken

below market deals, he was willing to do it again, but he didn't want to do it quite as drastically. And the Patriots actually wanted, so craft ends up getting involved, because months and months go by, and nothing happens on the Bellachek front. The crafts get involved, and this is in training camp.

And the Patriots wanted to sign Brady to a longer contract, actually, than he wanted. And the reason why he wanted a shorter one was because he knew that Bellachek loved to trade guys as soon as they got a little bit older and a little bit expensive. So forget about age 45. We're talking about age 35, 36.

And so the Patriots ended up paving, and he got the short-term deal that he wanted. They sweetened it and extended him in 2013. And then once they went five, six Super Bowls, Brady's saying, look, what we've accomplished is unprecedented for a coaching quarterback.

I want to retire here, and Bell was just never on board with it.

Remember he presented craft with a study once that showed how quarterback's dropped off the cliff after age 36, which by the way is accurate, or was accurate at the time? And Brady keeps defying the odds, and then he still can't get that long-term deal. And then in addition to everything else, he still Bellachek mocked him after the AFC Championship game against the Jaguars when he had his hands sliced open.

And he was like, we're not talking about open heart surgery here. I mean, Bellachek, it was so hard for him to give an inch when it came to public displays of affection for Tom.

I mean, he was raised in a loving family.

“And I think that like he always kind of wanted Bellachek's not only approval, but just”

kind of like, hey, we're in this together. And we're going to write it out and go down as the greatest ever by far. I wonder if the Flake Aid had anything to do with this two, where Bellachek basically ran for the hills when the Flake Aid broke, right? He seemed way more concerned about, I don't know what the fuck was going on over there.

I wasn't involved at all, and I don't think that went over well. So you have that you have Garoppolo two years later, looming as the next kind of Garoppolo in a place that looks Guerrero. Yeah, and you have the Guerrero piece. Yeah.

I understand the Guerrero piece though, because when you're, I'm sure variables like this now with Patriots where you have this team, everyone's aligned, the medical staff, the coaches, everybody's like one thing. And that Guerrero thing was kind of over here, and then some of the other Patriots started drifting over that thought, I thought Brady maybe didn't see that that was not

awesome for the Patriots, but there's another thing here, and it ties into what's happening right now as we're taping this on a Tuesday morning with Kraft, who, I don't want to

“call him sheep, but let's just say he hasn't been extravagant these last 10 years, right?”

And there's been some, I think Philly has been a good example of a team that is really smartly use the NFL seller cap to their advantage where you like spend spend spend spend the cap keeps going up, and you're basically like treating it like this dinner check that you can just keep ordering and you're not to pay the check. Kind of city's done this too.

Kind of city gave that giant long contract to my homes a few years ago, and they restructured that this year, and they restructured it and all of a sudden they can sign kind of walker. The Patriots never did that with Brady.

They never did the 10 year, 320 million dollar deal, whatever, that you can pay somebody

a lot up front, and then basically redo it, restructure it, and you're basically barring from this Brady contract ATM, like what the chiefs did with my homes, and I never got a good answer for why they didn't do that. And I think it was philosophically delicious, also look, look, there's few ways that especially bleached a tweaks craft that hurt a little harder or cut more to the core than when he talks

about cash spending. I mean, it really bugs proper craft, and you know, in a lot of ways you can't blame it. But I think the other aspect of that is that the Patriots are always about the next year. So they didn't want, you know, they always wanted to do what was best for the latest iteration iteration, and like when you had Brady at the end of his career, he wanted to be

more involved in personnel. Remember he took that, he took that sort of blow market deal, but it was an extension in 13, and then they let Walker go, right? And so he was pissed about that, even though they ended up, you know, that let Edelman grow into a good player, and it ended up working out, but he was upset about that, but the end

of his career, he was really interested in personnel, and, you know, Bella check was never

going to record her back, have that kind of say. I mean, he had to key involved Brady in a lot of really interesting and unique ways, but there was no way that he was going to have Brady in on these scouting meetings.

“And I think that was interesting, because remember, the Bella check method is to take young”

guys and give them all kinds of football work in this great football education, but them in the room, and then, you know, have them funnel information to Bill who ultimately makes a decision. And here Brady was having been in the NFL for twenty some years, he wanted to try to have to say in some of these things, and that, you know, wasn't going anywhere in New England.

I wonder first that they had done the long contract like with the chief stayed with my homes. I wonder if that flips this completely, and the other thing I wonder, if they had done something near the end, where it's like finished your career here, and you'll get a piece of the

team at the end on a discount, basically what the Raiders got with them, they never did that

either, and from what we know from the crafts, you would have had to pry even one percent from his, from his sweaty hands and just never would have happened. So near the end, the two, most, they weren't under-reported, but they were kind of under-appreciated stories, was him looking for an escape hatch during the his last patches, and with either Miami or New Orleans. There was a lot of reporting about this, and it was kind of a crazy

story that I never felt like God, it's just you, and I think all the Patriot fans were like, I love Brady, I'm going to kind of look the other way on this one, and pretend this never happened. The Miami thing was a real thing that it seemed like he had going during the last Patriot season, as he's in the same division with Miami, and that's all part at the end, but what

Well, and like, well, Ben Voila, the Boston Globe did a really good job of reporting on this, and so did Jeff Duncan down in New Orleans. I mean, the other interesting piece is that Sean Pate was in the middle of both of those, and they're both represented by Don Yee, who's a, you know, fantastic agent, but those were his two biggest, you know, high profile

clients. So you have Sean Pateen, who is he told me, you know, felt like he could never

get a jump ball in New Orleans, either from like a free agent, or especially the league office. The type of things that the crafts kind of enjoyed for a long time. And then you would Brady leaving, and for a while, Pateen walks away from the same, and he's all set to go to Miami. Now, the question I have, and I never was able to figure this out, is if Brady, well, wrote rewind, in 2000, Brady's looking, he's a free agent, and the same

looks like it's going to be the place that he either strongly considers or ends up.

“It's not for a thousand, what year, but, 2020, 2020. And so he, I think San Fran was a”

number one on his list. He would be close to his parents. He could play for Kyle at the end of the day. You know, the Niners were really interested in him, but they just felt like they couldn't do it to Jimmy coming off a narrow Super Bowl loss. So Brady turns his attention in New Orleans is really interested in him. It looks like Breeze is going to retire, and Sean desperately wants to coach Tom Brady, Breeze ends up coming back, and that blows that thing

to everything up. Brady ends up in the box, and of course, ends New Orleans season in the playoffs. And then you have two years later. So remember, Brady retired for a period

after his second year in Tampa. And I think he was so frustrated with the way that things

were going. You know, look, I think there were some personal issues going on at that point, too, but the Bruce Arians, Tampa Bay, Buck and Ears, were nowhere close to the Bill Balochette doing what Patriots. I mean, it's like going from Harvard to Florida State. And so he retired, and was looking, it looked like everything was going to come together in Miami. Now, I think he was going to be an executive there, because the box still held

his right, I think. Right. So I think he was going to go to Miami. Sean Payton was going to be a coach, and he was going to be an executive there, but Brian Floreyans and his lawsuit

“ended that. And so that's how we ended up, you know, with Brady, you know, looking and looking”

at the Raiders and of course, Sean Payton and Denver. But wasn't there also this scenario near the end of his Pats career where he was looking at Miami and maybe Sean Payton jumping to Miami. And that was, I mean, that was the thing I remember from his last year. Yeah. There was going

to be some sort of combo thing that they never really figured out. Right. Well, remember, some

of the, the, the meat of the Florey's lawsuit was tampering charges against the Dolphins involving Brady. And so yeah, that was a key element of it also, you know, again, like that higher situation kind of crazy. But I mean, because the alternate universe is they just keep giving Brady a 10-year deal and keep rolling the money over. And he just plays with the Patriots for 25 years and gets a piece of the team after and everybody's happy instead he's in Las Vegas where he gets a small

piece of that team. And he's in charge of seems like in charge of front office stuff combined with these announcing games on Fox, which I thought he got a lot better last year actually really enjoyed him by the end of by the playoffs. I thought he was excellent. Me too. Yeah. But, and the other thing about the other weird thing about the Raiders is he's on the headset for the coaches during games. I mean, like there's people at the smarter teams around the NFL who saw him on the headset. I

think our friend Peter Schreger was the one who pointed it out during the Monday night football broadcast. Who just loved it? I mean, that speaks to a level of dysfunction. Well, and the Guerrero thing, too, that came out, too. That was the athletic word about that they thought he was like Brady spy in the locker room. Basically, that was crazy. Well, not only the spy, but they're advocating a certain methodology when it comes to

helping players, prevent injuries and recover from them that, you know, but Brady is that is the lone shining, you know, testament to. Yeah. And there's a lot of, you know, aweshing of traditional principles of Western medicine within that. And in the center of it is Alex Guerrero who really doesn't have a lot of credentials, other than he's Tom Brady's guy,

“and he was Willy McGinn's guy. And so that, I think, is the problem. I mean, these are professional”

athletes. And I think that they had a big issue with him in all of those ways. I mean, remember, he has this big idol, I think it's wellness coordinator. Right. And, you know,

you know, the reason why he doesn't have, you know, I'm making this up, but chief medical officer as a title is because of that. He doesn't have those credentials. Right. Well,

they check a lot of boxes for the fourth place, the first place team with the fact that they

traded Crosby from the two packs, they have Mendoza. Maybe he's good right away. That could be act from Seattle. They spent a lot of money in for age to see this week. And we've just seen this right before we saw the Patriots last year. We saw it with the commanders to years before. But the dysfunction around the team makes me wonder, should we start looking for another fourth place to first place team? I don't know. We have six months to stare at it.

“I can't get over that. Really quick. What do you think? What do you think about Mendoza?”

Like, do you think Brady looks at him and sees part of himself reflected in him? Very possibly. I know he was, he was a little fascinated by him, right? But the thing is, like, I think

my thing is he's going to go first. The people like the draft experts, like the guys we

have, like the Shay and Dana Kelly, but that they don't feel like he's the best part in the draft. But he's in the vicinity, which I think is okay. I think when teams get in trouble is when they take the 13th best guy in the draft first. It seems like he's, you could have him wherever in the top seven. But he's at least he can kind of sniff the number one spot, which makes a little more palatable. And there's also somebody else in the draft, which is the other thing. But it seems like a Brady kind of guy.

Really smart. Got better every year in college, like really driven. Just seems like the kind of guy Brady would have responded to. I don't, I don't know if Brady would have been, just like he, I don't think he would have been a raw tool's lower active type of

“QB. I don't think that would have been, right? Do you agree with that? Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting”

because in one sense, you have Mendoza who's, you know, he faced a couple of crossroads in his career

in college where this easily could have gone the other way. And maybe he doesn't really have much of a college career. And I'm sure that Brady can relate to that in his own way. And yet another aspect of it that I find interesting and Brady has talked to me about this over the years. And he's, I think he's mentioned it elsewhere, it's just like how lucky he was to be under the radar at a young age. The fact that when he was a rookie, nobody was paying any attention

to what he was doing when he was out there with the practice squad guys after practice, their own balls in the dirt and cussing up a storm. Right. And how much respect he has for guys like Peyton Manning and L.A. and these guys who were the had so much attention and pressure and accolades and eyeballs on them and that they were able to to make it work and they were able to live up and maybe even exceed those expectations. Like those two dynamics are really

fascinating to be because there's no way that the Raiders are drafting a quarterback that Brady

“doesn't like. I mean, I think that's, we can just say that. And I'd be really curious like which”

parts, again, the biggest question in sports is like, how do you find greatness in a quarterback? Brady completely turned that question, whatever theory we had for, Brady's career turned it on its head. And I'm curious like what parts of it he sees in himself and what he doesn't. Well, one thing we've learned from football and basketball is that great players don't necessarily have that skill set to figure out if anything, they're, they're probably a bad judge because

either their expectations are too high or they look at it as like two glass half full versus like just a cold evaluation of it. So I have no idea if he is that skill set or not. I wonder with craft, if you had to do this over again, I feel like he would just run it back the way it played out with the pat sucking for four years, but any of the Drake may variable showing up and then being, not being beholden to Brady, him not giving an ownership piece to Brady, even though it was

clumsy and weird and it's led to a very strange relationship with Brady and the team, I don't think craft probably cares. And in general, like, it's a weird one because the team does not spend like other teams would in the position there and now. And you could even feel a little bit in freeage so you could feel it in the way they didn't take care of some such it like that. They lost Tonga to the chiefs who they could have just spent money on in November and December

and they're a little contracting with them and they didn't not doing it and then they lose them. It's a little stuff like that that you don't see like the teams like filling the ramps, they just spend the money and that's if they're competing against. So they got to the Super Bowl last year and a lot of it had to do a schedule and the luck of the weather and Denver that day and stood them. I don't know if they were Super Bowl team, but they got some good breaks.

if they're going to blow it or not. I mean, it remains to be seen. But like I think going back to what you were saying, I think it hurts craft that Brady self-identifies as a raider and I think that's like, you know, I mean, going back to 20. So I don't know if he would do it exactly the same. I mean, going back to 2010, you know, Brady's paranoid that Bill's going to trade in the moment that, you know, he starts to see a decline and, you know, craft told him, look,

I'm not going to tell Bill a check what to do. But if he decides that he wants to move on from

“you, I'll give you what you need to have some agency over your next destination. Whether that's”

right, you know, letting you pick your trade partner or just being an unrestricted pre-ageant, whatever that is. And so, you know, that ended up playing out in 2020, but I just think that like it hurts craft deeply that Brady goes and wins a super bowl and the, as a buck and that he comes back to New England and beats them as a buck. And, you know, he's sitting there with Belechak as they're slogging through these things. He's getting mad or mad at him. Where they're losing games like 10 to

three, right? Yeah. And then, you know, as soon as craft has a chance, he has Brady back at the stadium. I mean, I think he's doing anything he can to remind Tom Brady that, you know, these people

love you. And I think that Brady knows the fans love him and he'll always have a good relationship

with craft. But, you know, he has that. I don't see, I don't know. I think when I think that was really a really important moment when he said he didn't have the dog in the race. I know

“for a fact, I think that crafts were like, what the fuck? You know, vrables caught up on coaching for”

the game. But, vrable is like his buddy. Like they had this whole extended crew that would go to the Kentucky Derby, all these different places. It's like, vrable, West Walker is all these guys. vrable is one of the guys and so is Brady. Like that's his real friend. That would be like if Joe House was coaching for the Super Bowl. And I was like, yeah, I don't have a dog in this race. I thought it was really, really weird. And kind of, to me, it said it said something a little

bigger about his relationship with the team. Absolutely. And I think that like Brady might look at the fans one way and the craft's the other. Whereas he can love them. And he knows that he cosmically won. But, he won't forget that, you know, they allowed him to walk out of that building. I mean, he's a fucking statue of Mexico. At some point, it's six years later, you have a statue, like your patriot. But that's the point. It's like, I don't think he thinks that way anymore.

No, but, you know, Joe Montana does a documentary where he starts criticizing George Seaford. And this is 30 years after the fact. John Hillway does a documentary where, you know, Dan Reeves, who is deceased, can't even defend himself. And they crap all over Dan Reeves in that documentary. You know, I mean, I think that like the level of scar tissue that the grades, you know, accumulate over the years, even though we intellectually know it, we still kind of are surprised

by how deep it goes. Yeah, as you said, and then I was thinking if I did a documentary, would I take shots at Skipper and Walsh or not? I might. Oh, yeah, later. I don't know. Maybe, maybe I'd be bitter about something. Yeah, the Brady things really weird, though. And just that

him being in Vegas of all places. Anyway, all right. While you're here, you did, you're basically

like psychologically profiling the quarterback position, which is impossible. And as the years have passed, we are exactly the same. And at either, it's basically 50, 50. I have no idea who's going to be good,

“who's going to be not. And as I get older and I look at this stuff, the only thing I really”

that I've really landed on is fit combined with competitiveness seems to be the two things that give you the best chance. Caleb, if somebody you spent a lot of time on in the book, I read the book, I don't know five months ago, so I'm remembering from, you know, retroactively. Caleb, somebody that I really feel like could have gone either way and ended up in this awesome situation with the right coach, the right season. You could see him growing. I don't want to say he was

changing, but it was just stuff was bubbling to the surface with him. And now I think he's an incredible

spot, whereas like if you just gone to Arizona from day one, Ben Ana, you know, a typically crappy Cardinals team developing bad habits, running for his life every play, there's a version where it just goes Kyla Murrayland. So is there anything else I'm missing other than fit and competitiveness? You know, I mean, context matters so much. I mean, where you go ends up so much, you know, it just mattered. And I think that like one of the most interesting aspects that I

pro, is I spent a lot of time with Kevin O'Connell for the book. And remember, Caleb Williams, I reported in the book, wanted to play for Kevin. I mean, he loved each other during the drop process.

See, it was never going to happen, but Caleb kind of fantasized about it. And so KFC, he's a four-year

starter at San Diego State. He ends up getting drafted by the Patriots. He figures he'll sit behind Brady for a year. And then you take what he learned to another team and start for 10 years and have a great career. And he never could catch on. I mean, his career was over in like in a year. And that devastated him. And so when he was first, you know, giving up on his dream of playing and getting into coaching, he went back and he looked at all the game winning drives from L-way

and Dan Moreno and Joe Montana and Tom Beespecially. And wanted to know, it was very autobiographical. He's wondering what he lacks. And when he watched them, he realized that all of these unbelievable throws, and you see, L-way make these kind of highlight real throws, were never really in those

situations. Like those situations were dominated by them doing the mundane, simple stuff at the

highest level. Like if you watched Joe Montana against the Bengals in Super Bowl 23, I mean, almost every pass on that last drive was a checkdown. And when Kevin O'Connell was trying out for teams, he was trying to make that John L-way throw. And he realized that was like the very

“worst thing you should do. And I think that like the ability to take what's there and to not get”

sucked. And you know, just keep the chains moving while you're learning how to play. I think is one of the most kind of hidden factors in, you know, quarterback development. It's one of the reasons why I think that like Brock Ferdy has done well is because he knows he knew to do what the coach has told him to do until he had like developed enough knowledge on his own where he could make decisions a little bit more for himself. Now, a lot of quarterback struggle with that. I mean,

came a William spent his entire life making those highlight real throws where he runs left and throws from his ankle and it goes 70 yards in the air. But those situations hardly ever come up in the NFL. It's really like embracing the mundane that I think is the prelude to being an effective NFL quarterback decision making efficiency. I think toughness is a huge part of that. Like I really, I really grew to like Tyler Schepp last year. I thought he was good. He had some of

the stuff you're talking about. But he was also like a tough mother fucker. Like he took big hits. He'd run out of the pocket. He was just he just kept getting up. And that was one thing. There were two things that stood out in those early Brady years because I was in right away with like I was

“living in Boston that year. Brady versus Boyd so became the the only thing anyone talked about.”

And I was always team Brady because I felt like there was an efficiency with how he did everything

whether it was play action. Just the ball was always in the right spots and he was tough. And he took some big hits those first couple seasons that there's some good Instagram, you know, or YouTube clips of just him getting popped. He would immediately get up and he was just a just a tough mother fucker and you just knew it. And he did everything like really well nothing great. And then the greatness came probably probably four years in. I really felt like the third time

they won the Super Bowl. The Pittsburgh playoff game. That was one of them was like wow. This guy's like, you know, we were hoping he would be like the basically the bill rustled of the Manning motion. But somewhere in that third Super Bowl season is like, wow, this guy holy shit. Where's this going to go? He's incredibly tough. And I mean, like I remember when they played the Charters in the AFC Championship game during the O7 season, the undefeated year.

Yeah. And they played that game. It was an ugly game. Charters easily could have won really a silver ever. It's been healthy. And Brady gives his press conference and I was there and I was watching him when he exited and there's like a step that they you step down. And when he did his

“leg buckle, I was completely stunned. And he limped around a door so fast. And I think that like”

most people there are kind of missed it because they were hustling to get into the locker room. And then it comes out that, you know, he had this high ankle sprain in the Super Bowl. And still went out and played. That is asked kicked in that game. But thought like, yeah, throws a 67-yard pass with seconds left that really moss could have if he had made more of an effort on. Maybe he catches that. I think that like when you talk about cable Williams, like one of the things he

showed me as a rookie was that he was tough as hell. I mean, he got sacked a lot and hit a lot and a lot of it was his fault. But that was a game. And I think they were playing the lions on Thanksgiving Day. I remember right. But he ran to the right and he got hit on the borderline of it being legal right on his being. And I mean, it looks like one of those hits where you're like,

the things that that Caleb's proven is that he's got that magic, which, you know, nobody can

“predict. And then he's also just tough as hell. And I think that like the way is that he'll grow as a”

quarterback will be, you know, incrementally when he learns to, you know, take the easy throws and keep the chain moving and know that'll come with time. But I think you're right. And the toughest factor or something you can't know until you know, because there's no way to replicate how hard these guys get hit in the NFL. There's also the damage you get from the first couple of years. You might not be able to bounce back from you start getting the eyes in the back of your head.

And once that your head's on a swivel, Lambarrio is used to talk about the eye contact drops down toward the line. And it's been looking over the line. That was a fear with Drake May that first year when he was just getting the absolute shit kicked out of him this year. It wasn't much better. And then in the playoffs, he just got annihilated. And, you know, I still feel like he was,

what, they'll never tell us how hard he was because they were probably lying on the injury report.

But I think it was a accumulation of all those hits combined with the fact that he's such a tough guy. It really felt like he was breaking down by the end of the year. And that's where you don't want because three years from now, that's not going to be headed in a good place if they don't fix that. Yeah, there was that clip of them that went viral. There was NFL films and, you know, the Josh McDaniels is telling him on the bench, like, you know, I know it's hard, but, you know,

you're never going to forget this feeling. You have a chance here. And I bet you anything he was talking about, not, you know, battling through a place against. Yeah, or a book or the snow. I think it was because his shoulder was really, really bothering him. And I'll be interesting to see. I mean, like, what do you think a bad game like Drake May had at the Super Bowl can do real a guy sometimes? I don't think it will with Drake, but I mean, does that concern you with him?

Yeah, I think the past fans, it was the combination of all the hits he took the four games. The fact that he just didn't seem like the same guy by the time we finished the Super Bowl. And they weren't even running plays. They normally ran for him, right? He's so good on the run to his right. They just stopped doing that, which really made me think he was hurt. His guys weren't getting open anymore, either, which was the other thing. I think they cut ties with

digs, partly because he kind of peaked in that bill's game in Buffalo. And after that was never really

the same and never really opened in the same way. So it's, it's a fast anyone, much tougher schedule. The offensive line that they got very Tucker, but you know, they really have to hope that Wil Campbell is better. We don't know how hurt he was. But I only think you have so many seasons in row where you're just getting hit like that. I think variable was telling him, like, when you're

“when you're scrambling, you have to just go down, you have to slide because you could see it all”

really was not reckless. And that's the same thing. Hardball will do a Jackson Dark this year. But long-term, you know, you look at what the chiefs were able to do with my homes for those first couple years. They were just able to kind of protect him in the formative years. And that's what Chicago wants to do with Caleb, right? They lost their center in this week or last week, he retired suddenly. They had a really good offensive line. I mean, that's what Denver was able

to do with Bonax. Just just block for our guys. So Vegas, Brady's like, I'm going to overpay this, this is by far the most we've ever paid a center in the big. But I want to make sure that this guy doesn't get his ass kicked in year one. So I do think that's part of it. We had you funky when I was growing up in New England who was just discarded to San Francisco, you know,

after years because he just got the crap kicked out of him. To go back. And he was like the first

of those guys that you see now with anyone that the jet stick and you know, where like in mostly, you know, until Caleb with the bears, where, you know, he looks like a bust. And then he goes to a different team and he has phenomenal success. And it shows the context matter. And that's a darn Sam Darnell thing too, right? Exactly. And you know, you know what I mean, Baker may feel to an extent. I think that like the only question I have about Drake is I would like to see him perform

“a little better in two-minute situations against like the best teams. Like I remember that second”

bill's game where, you know, New England really just, it couldn't stop him. And it couldn't stop Josh. And you know, they were at home. They needed this game and Drake got the ball. And I think they went foreign out. If they didn't, it was pretty close to that. And this wasn't like a early dynamic bill's defense that he was against. You know, I wonder, like again, I think Drake's going to be a phenomenal player, but like Caleb and Bonax have been better in those absolute

he would kind of settle in by the second quarter. You, when you were working on this book,

the big draft was the three guys, man. And he knows. And Caleb, that we all had a chance to, we all felt like they had a chance to be special. And Drake was the one people seemed to be the most put on. So I'm sure you were talking to teams like, yeah, he's, we don't have them in the top 10. We don't see it. It's too erratic. And then other people that love them. And I spend a lot of time with him and his family. And I mean, the one thing I loved about Drake, if I were looking

to draft him, it reminded me of Brady was that he came from an incredibly loving yet really competitive

“family. I think that like when he, a key moment for him that's kind of overlooked is when he”

decided to not go to Alabama and he decided to go to UNC because being on May who goes to UNC is not just a normal decision because he was risking something worse than, you know, having a losing season or not handing out. It was that it Thanksgiving. He would look with, sit with the table with his brothers and he'd be the one who hadn't, you know, done what they had done. And instead, he ends up becoming, you know, a phenomenal prospect. I thought the most interesting thing with,

with Drake coming out of the draft was Bellachx opinion of him because, you know, he was really really dismissive of Drake in some ways, especially when it came around, you know, how young Drake was and how little experience he had. I mean, that was pretty clear. He liked, you know, Drake's arm, but he really didn't think that he was seasoned enough to maybe be picked that early. And, you know, I was wondering, like, how much of that is him giving an honest assessment and how much of

that is where Drake ended up going? I never really bought that one. That felt like a little

vindictive by him. As you studied all these quarterbacks and talked to all these people, was there anyone in the last 20, 25 years that people were like, still don't understand why he did make it, still don't understand what was missing. Not sure, this guy's the outlier or was there a verse of, like, I can't believe this guy made it. I still don't understand, you can't replicate what happened with this. Maybe party was the guy for that. I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, Brock stands out, but Brock was so, you know, he was Mr. Riverland and so, you know, nobody was talking about him, really that much. I mean, people are thinking he's going to be

“an unrestricted free agent. I think the thing that's interesting is just that, like,”

you had that series around the turn of the century where you had like Kurt Warner and Brady and Jake the Lone and Bulger to a certain extent. You have these guys who are coming, you know, low draft picks coming out of nowhere and leading their teams to these phenomenal seasons. And then things kind of settle down. Like we didn't want to admit it quite as much, but just about like every good player as a quarterback who ended up handing out was a first round pick. I mean,

there's a couple exceptions, but for the most part, they were first round picks. And so I think that, like even though, and now we're flip bad at this. Yeah. And now we're back on the other side of things. But, you know, I think that like, the weirdest thing about college is this that you can't trust, you know, statistics at all. It's like the equivalent of like performance inflation and great inflation, where it's like Mike Leach and how mummy created these dynamic offenses that

opened these huge windows for quarterbacks that just don't exist in the NFL and they help you win games. Paley's after your boy owns the touchdown pass record for both touchdowns in the season

“in college. I mean, he barely hang on in the NFL. And so, you know, I think that that's the most”

interesting thing. It's just like you cannot trust any statistic for a quarterback coming out of

college. Yeah, you can't even accuracy was always a good one. But then there's been some guys,

like like the Josh Allen types or they're like, yeah, we fixed it. He's now accurate. And it's a little like with in the NBA with shooting where there were guys over the years. Like, why Leonard was a good one. He fell out of the lottery because he couldn't shoot three pointers. And then he was like, yeah, we fixed it. And then he was fine. So, yeah, that to me, the competitiveness, the efficiency, toughness. And then, you know, the obviously the Johnny Men's All types words,

like, this guy might not be able to handle success. Yeah, total career might not be able to handle being the focal point of a franchise. And I wrote about in the book, but Sean Payton, you know, developed this kind of analytics formula that he did on his own, which was like a failure metrics where he looked at negative plays that college quarterbacks had and divided them by attempts and came up with a certain number to see, you know, how often they had negative plays.

And so, you know, Sean looks at at stocks as a quarterback stack. He doesn't look at it as

starts. He was sacked, like, maybe three times higher, more than, than Boe Nix was. It his first 50 starts. And in that draft class, Boe Nix had the best, or also the lowest failure index. And that's originally, look, he knew he wasn't going to get Caleb, but everybody else might be in play. And because of Nix, you know, because he took so few sacks, I completion percentage hardly ever fumbled it despite playing in, you know, rainy weather sometimes. He felt like, okay, this guy

process is quickly. And it's just one team, but that's a way that he tried to take analytics about the hardest thing possible in judging the quarterback, which is quick thinking and processing speed and try to project it forward. And so far, it's worked out, okay. I mean, his, his, his,

“the homes was, I think, by far the best ever at, at his formula. Yeah. But generally speaking,”

it's worked. And I think it's held up pretty well in the NFL. Last thing, when after book came out, and people read it, was there one comment from anybody in the league that read it that, about something in the book that made you go, oh, I didn't realize I was on the something there. Was there anything that surprised you? The coolest thing about it was the, like, I played, I'm not trying to be the uncle Rico of Alaska here, but I played quarterback in high school.

And, you know, I, I failed at it. And it wasn't great. And, you know, those, those things, you know,

I always was curious about it. But, you know, I rooted for quarterbacks of all different times.

It's like, at some point, I wanted any quarterback you read it to feel like maybe there was a phrase where their life felt, it intersected with it. And the coolest thing was just like, Steve Young, Alex Smith, like some of these guys who read it, and I, I chatted with them, is just how much of themselves they saw in the book, even in moments where it wasn't writing about them. So that was, I think that was the coolest thing. Well, Steve Young was a good one, right,

because he's somebody that, if he wasn't wired the way he was, it just would have been too much too soon. USFL was a mistake. Never got a chance. And then he has an eight-year career in his out of the league.

“And it's like, oh man, remember Steve Young? He was so talented. What happened to that guy?”

But he just kind of wouldn't let it happen. He's a great philosopher. Like quarterback philosopher. Like Dan Marino doesn't know a day and most of his life, or he can't throw the ball wherever he wants. Whenever he wants, right? And Steve had to work at it. And so few of these guys, like you go back to what we were saying earlier, were the greats often can't coach, because they can't explain the things that they did. Yeah. Whereas like Steve can actually explain it in really fascinating, honest,

kind of vulnerable terms. And you know, that's, he's just a great guy to shoot the shit with about quarterbacks, because he sees where other people see analytics or reads, you know, he kind of sees cosmic powers, which I think is really fascinating. Well, I remember Delphar, like the, maybe the third year I had my podcast, he was on. It was the Mark Sanchez draft. There were a bunch of quarterbacks and Delphar said on the pot about

if you had all these guys together, and we're headed somewhere. And I needed somebody to drive the car. I would toss the keys to Sanchez. And I was like, oh, the car keys test. I like this. But he was like that's the kind of alpha Sanchez is now, I mean, these days you probably wouldn't want to toss the keys to him. But he had, he, it made me wonder, like, because I was not charisma. I had to be a piece of this, too. This is the last thing we'll say in the

moment ago. But like, you're in, you're in a huddle with these dudes that's 70,000 seats stadium.

There's an incredible amount of pressure. Half of the guys in the huddle are bigger than you.

And at some point, they have to believe in you. And this was what I saw happen with the Patriots who Drake, they're in the air, the little anecdotes of the way they were talking about him was like, oh, this is good. But they're talking about, well, when we have our guy, we have a chance against anybody. Like, there has to be some sort of bigger belief in the guy for the season. And you kind of know it when you have it. And you know it when it's not there, too.

And so I felt like that all ties together somehow. Yeah, deal for a call to dude qualities. Like I once, when I was interviewing Steve for the books, Steve Young, I asked him, like,

“what are all the hats you have to wear as a starting quarterback for an NFL team? And I mean,”

he leaned back in his office and he just starts going. So Matt Nay Idol, field general,

spokesperson for a multi-billion dollar organization. You know, chief cheerleader, breathtaking

asshole at times. Like, you know, all of these things have a wide receiver therapist. Like, these wide receivers, like, you constantly have to make sure they stay invested. And you're

it's a daycare manager. Yeah, totally. Just trying to keep it like happy. So they don't check out. Exactly. It was like all of these hats that had nothing to do with making reads and throwing

“the football. And I think that's why, you know, I wanted to write the book because when you decide”

to be a quarterback, you're not just doing it because you throw the ball about. You're taking on all of these other identities and qualities that, you know, can help form you, can help destroy you later in life. Like, all of these things that I wanted to write about.

Yeah. But our essential for playing quarterback at the highest level. All right. It's

“caught American kinks. Got father's days coming up down the road. Mother's days coming up,”

but something to read as we, as we miss football the time during the off season. What are you working on? Anything big? And any, any big starter coming? You know, I spent the entire playoff run with Sean Payton in the Broncos. I had full access. So I wrote about the fourth down. I thought that was great. I love that story. Yeah. He clearly blew the game. That one decision. Yeah, you knew how it ended. Yeah. I did. I loved how it ended, but it was also interesting.

But I had never done this before where I was spending like 14, 15, 16 hours in every meeting,

watching every decision get made. And so I accidentally reported an entire book on that.

“I don't want to write a book. But it's going to be a really good story. I think on ESPN when”

I get it done. Nice. All right. Cool. Good to see you, Seth. Thank you. Good to see you, man. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to the cause. Thanks to Wicker Shamp.

Thanks to fantasy. Thanks to Gahown Eduardo as always. And I'm going to be back on Thursday with

one more episode of a very fun sports week. Don't forget to far go up for the new rewatchables. And I will see you on Thursday. Must be 2021 plus some president and select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas star Casino or 18 plus in president DC, Kentucky, or well, and game problem caught 100 gambler or 1-800 by reset. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org and Maryland. Hope is here visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050

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