transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. With playoffs around the corner, now is a good time to create a tournament of your own. Compete to see who can predict the best playoff series, or put your own basketball skills to the test. And the prize, a crisp Michelob Ultra. Plus, they're giving fans a chance to win courtside tickets, prizes, and more. Michelob Ultra, superior is worth playing for. Enter now at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 2526, no purchase necessary. Open to US. Residence 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2025. Ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, and prizes and details. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by Fandl. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new re-watchables on Monday. We did Kindergarten Cop. It is available on Netflix as well. Next week, Ghostbusters, which you can also watch on Netflix. That's coming with me and Van Lathan and Chris Ryan. We have some Ringer stuff for you. Sean Fantasy, you might have heard from him, host of The Big Picture. I've worked with him since 2012. He put up a new newsletter today that you can subscribe to about movies. Did it with The Ringer and Substack and Spotify. It's called Projections. He'll be writing about movies at least once a week. If you like, Sean, I'm pretty confident you're going to like the newsletter. He's going to be on here Thursday to discuss it. Jordan Kahn, who's been with us since Grantland, came to us along when we started The Ringer. One of the best long-form writers in the country. He has a new book that came out today called American Men. It's excellent. If you like reading books, I would recommend it. Then Legata, the third episode of that podcast, which I told you, if you like Scarface, Miami Vice, and 80s Cocaine, all that stuff, this is the podcast for you. Legata, third episode is up now. On this podcast, I'm going to be reacting to all the basketball tonight plus the basketball yesterday at the very top of this. Then I have Todd McShay and Steve Muench. We taped earlier today a whole bunch of NFL draft stuff. All of our thoughts. I threw some crazy stuff at them. Are there going to be any crazy wrinkles? What's going to happen in this draft? Covered it all. And then last but not least, Van Lathan came on because he saw the Michael Jackson movie and he thought it was abominable. And we talked about the movie and the state of biopics and documentaries and all the stuff that seems to be going in the wrong direction these days. So that's all coming up next. I'm going to join you right after the break of the first Pearl Jam. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here, and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win, is winning along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players and plays during their playoff run. Build the same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip off. Don't forget with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem call 1-800-GAMBAR. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right, I am taping this top part of the podcast. It is 1023 Pacific Time on Tuesday night, because I stupidly stayed up until the end of this Lakers-Rockets game, thinking something spectacular would happen. And it was spectacular if a rock fight that almost injured people in the first couple rows of the seats were spectacular, with all the bricks and airballs and, oh my God, it was so bad. I'd like to apologize to Gahau and Eduardo, who are my behind the scenes team. I made them stay up late, now they have to put this podcast up, because I thought it would be worth it. It wasn't worth it. We should have done this two hours ago. KD came back, so that was a wild card. He had nine turnovers, four or five in the fourth quarter. Partly his fault, but also A, why is he out there? B, why is he doing so much? Because he clearly didn't see him 100%. Reed Shepard, this might have been it for E-Main, Reed Shepard. I think he played, what do I have here? 10 minutes, 0 for 4 for Reed Shepard, the number three pick of the 2024 NBA draft. One pick ahead of Stephon Castle. Houston, they changed some stuff up. They pressured a game late with that idea. When you have Marcus Sparrett and LeBron James and Luke Kennard bringing the ball up, why not pressure those guys 94 feet, Jaden McDaniel style, they didn't do that. I looked it up, nobody has ever been fired during a series before, so I think Emea Doca is safe probably until after the series, but they're down 0-2. And the big thing for me, the fact that they didn't trade for CJ McCollum at any point during the season before Atlanta got him is just bonkers. It felt like the natural thing that was going to happen after Van Vliet got hurt, and the salaries kind of lined up. Houston has a bunch of extra picks. Washington basically, they were ready to give away McCollum. They finally ended up putting him in a Trey Young deal, which really they're taking Trey Young off Atlanta's hands. McCollum goes, and he's one of the stars of Game 2, and one of the potential stars of the playoffs. He's almost becoming a villain on MSG with the New York fans, even though, as he said after the game, I'm the least villainy guy possible. I don't know why Houston didn't trade for him. I don't get it. They thought they were good with the team. They like having Vann Vleet around. Vann Vleet can't play till next year. Worst case scenario, he just opt out of his contract. You can re-sign him, but it's weird to me that they didn't do anything, and the EMA clearly doesn't trust Reed Shepard. So, can the Lakers actually pull this off? Because we got info today, maybe Luka wouldn't be around until round two, that maybe Reeves was actually a better option to come back. I'm looking at the playoff odds right now. Houston, wow, Lakers minus, they're up two nothing in the series with game seven at home, and they're minus 120 on Fandel. Because everybody's like, well, maybe Houston's going to turn around. I don't know, the team I watched tonight, I don't see it. I mean, just to come back from 2-0 in a series, the percentages are against you. But the way they, the chemistry in the court, Durant and I are looking 100 percent. Shangoon looks like he's already on Redfin, looking at Milwaukee Houses for the inevitable Yanis trade that I'm starting to feel like could happen. Could the Lakers do this? And I don't know why I'm excited about it, because I hate the Lakers. But it would just be more fun to have them in the next series if Luka can come back against OKC. By the way, OKC is a big winner of round one, right? Like, when B gets concussed, which we'll talk about in a second, but that series looks like it's gonna go longer. Denver, Minnesota is gonna be a war. Meanwhile, OKC is gonna cruise through round one, and then they're gonna get one of these two teams in round two. Holy shit. Panic rankings. I wanted to take you into the NBA panic room really quick. I have The Rockets now number one, because if you lose this series to... If you lose this series to this Lakers team, you gotta be kidding me. Honestly, you gotta be kidding me. That would be just one of the dumbest playoff losses I could remember. Your 41-year-old LeBron, Luke Kennard, who anybody could have had, Marcus Smart hitting corner threes, Jackson Hayes is out there. I just can't believe it. How many lottery picks does Houston have? I think they had five or six guys who were taking in the top five of the lottery. Oh my God. Anyway, I'm Houston number one. And I blame Houston for the fact that it's 1027 and I'm doing a podcast right now. Anyway, number two, the Spurs. Wemby gets concussed on the night that he is given the Defensive Player of the Year award, and it looked bad immediately. It was not great. And in football, the concussion protocol was like at least a week. Who knows with basketball? He's definitely not going to be in game three, but maybe he comes back for game four. But at the very least, Portland steals one. If you're San Antonio, there's some questions that come out of that game that I had already been thinking about. Wemby comes out of it. Obviously, he's their best offensive player. But my fear with them all along was like shot creation in half court when you're in a playoff atmosphere and you've got to create shots. And really, it was just Fox. Fox was the only, everything was on Fox and Portland could kind of shut it down. And then it comes down to Drew Holliday, who had 16-5-9, classic Drew winning basketball, gets the block in the corner, gets the go-ahead basket on the put back on an air ball, like always in the right place, right time. That's why they traded for him. And then this Scoot-Henerson game, 31 points. So Nick Wright texted me this. He now has 10 more career playoff points than Wembe. I feel like I'm still in it with Scoot. Can't give up yet. I thought Scoot was awesome today. Now he had one rebound and zero assist, but the defense and the fearlessness in the athleticism was what we thought it might be when, when, you know, I was arguing him versus Brandon Miller and I conceded to KOC, sorry Kevin O'Connor, I conceded to you two months ago that you won Brandon Miller over a scooter argument. Now I feel like I'm alive. I just climbed out of the coffin. And congrats to Portland owner El Chippo, who the guys after the game, they were pouring tap water on each other because he probably didn't have alcohol and lacquer on him, but El Chippo gets a win. Now he goes back to Portland for game three. No t-shirts for those fans because those t-shirts are expensive. Anyway, the Spurs, I have them at the top here in the panic because if they don't have Wimby for either of these Portland games, I think Portland's legitimately good. Like Toronto, bogus five seed, just bogus with a capital B. Houston, bogus five seed. Not capital B bogus, but bogus. Portland, frisky seven seed. Like I think Portland's a better playoff team than either Houston or Toronto. So, you're going to Portland. The energy is going to be amazing. El Chippo is going to be shooting out, probably used t-shirts out of 15 year old t-shirt candidates. I can't wait for this weekend, but we'll see what do the Spurs have in them without Wembee. They signed Luke Cornett over the summer, who is one of the best free agent signings of the summer. Big game for him, obviously. Game three, game four, they're going to need a lot more from him. But, as crazy as it sounds, Portland, this could be a long series, and I don't think Portland is going to go away. This is a team that knows who they are, really good defensively. Kamara, I thought, did a great job down the stretch. And little feisty of a series. I think San Antonio was minus 1,400 heading into the series. So it's a 1-1 going back to Portland. We're definitely not going to have 1-1 for game three. We'll see. That is my number two panic team. So Houston, San Antonio. Number three is Detroit. They're playing tomorrow night. They got their ass kicked at home in game one, and they've lost 12, 11 straight playoff games. This would be the 12th if they lose game two. Orlando has a ton of confidence. They're catching this Orlando team that just did a 180, that hit rock bottom, crawled out of it.

Speaker 2:
[12:12] We talked about it on Sunday night.

Speaker 1:
[12:15] And might not give a shit anymore. It might just feel like, fuck it. Maybe we're better than these guys. This is a Normandale and Hoosiers moment for JB. Bickerstaff and the Pistons. This is JB looking at these guys with, maybe they're right about us. Maybe we weren't a one seed. He's gotta start challenging them a little bit. I think this Detroit Orlando game Wednesday night, a must watch. I think it's gonna be violent. I expect, I don't know if you're watching the hockey, but Bruins-Buffalo almost had two different bench coloring brawls. It brought me back to 1988 when I really loved the Bruins the most, the 70s and 80s. And we played Buffalo and I think it was 600 plus penalty minutes in a six game series and multiple bench coloring fights. Guys just fighting every game, the same guys, like J.Miller. I think that we had Willie Platt. I think they had Clark Gillies. I forget they had another fighter, but just every game, the same guys were fighting. I don't think Detroit or Orlando is going to be like that, but I think it's going to get feisty tomorrow. I think this is one of those Detroit's going to lay the smack down, try to give the physicality. I think Orlando likes when it gets physical. They like that kind of action. And that's a must watch. But I would be really nervous if I'm Detroit because Orlando, you know, there's two kinds of upsets. There's the Philly kind that we'll talk about in the second against Boston in game two. And then there's the, we actually belong on the court. It might be better than you guys upset. And I felt like Orlando in that one. Now there are nine point underdogs in game two, which I think is too high. There's a lot of data going for if the home team gets blown out in game one as a big favorite. And Zach talked about that on Sunday. But I think Orlando can play with these guys. So Detroit's my number three. The Nuggets are number four. First Nuggets lost yesterday in 33 days. I have multiple concerns come out of the game. One, Aaron Gordon not healthy. I thought he got banged up in different ways in game one. And then game two just didn't look like himself. So you lose rim protection. You lose the crazy athleticism. You lose the reckless threes in the corner that go in, all that stuff. I didn't think he seemed like the same guy. Not his fault. I just think he's banged up. I think he's been banged up all year. Second biggest thing, yokeage is threes, which we've seen come and go in the playoffs if you really put a beating on them, which Minnesota did. Minnesota had Randall beating on them. They had Go Bear beating on them. They had Elbows, Nas Reid's beating on them. And they just tried to wear him down. And it got to the point, it felt like they were leaving him open a little bit. And I think he was one for seven. A lot was made out of the Go Bear one on one defense against Joker. I didn't think that's why they won. I thought they weren't because the physicality of all four quarters, combined with the third thing I want to mention, McDaniels, you could see what the game plan was in game two. It was like McDaniels is going to hound Jamal Murray 94 feet. And I don't know why more teams don't do this when you have a Jayden McDaniels. But I thought Murray was just gassed in the fourth quarter because McDaniels was just wearing him down in his T-shirt, which is, I think he wears the T-shirt inside the jersey, which I support. I thought he wore him down. So you have McDaniels 94 feet, you've Go Bear with the 101D, you have Ant with the rim protection, you have Randall and Nasreed being super physical, and then you have D'Fincenzo with some big ball shots, and you have Bones Island as just a random Dianne Waiters. We might have to rename Dianne Waiters on rewatchables. And then you have on offense, everyone attacking the rim because they know if Gordon's a little compromised, the poker's not really a shop walker, they're going. So when I think about upsets, I said this after game one to Zach, even though Minnesota didn't play that well, I felt like the physicality, they seem very comfortable. And I thought it was a little concerning after game one. They didn't play that well, but they still were in the vicinity winning the game. Game two, super comfortable. And it's a team that thinks they're better than Denver. So if I'm a Nuggets fan, A, I'm more concerned than I was four days ago that I was getting out of this series. They were three to one to win the series. Now I'm concerned. I'm also concerned what happens if I get out of this series? Because now I'm playing San Antonio, I have a lot of miles on me from round one. And then I still have OKC waiting for me in round three. And they're going to do all the same physical, beat you up stuff that Minnesota is doing. Now, this was the case. I thought Denver was going to make the finals. The case against it was the road is too hard. And the way this is playing out, that case might have been right. I might have been wrong. I thought Minnesota was alive, potential could put it together for four rounds. But Ant, who didn't even seem like he was 100% healthy all the time yesterday, combined with McDaniels coming back from injury, I just didn't think they were going to be able to put it together like that. But man, they looked like a conference finalist last night. So either of these teams playing St. Antonio is going to be an incredible series. And I thought last night, I thought that was like watching a game five of a conference finals level, quality of basketball. I loved it. I would be nervous if I was Denver. I wouldn't be quite as nervous if I'm the Knicks, but I'm a little nervous because game two against Atlanta, it picked some scabs for me. Are we too Brunson centric? Are we sure Mike Brown is a good coach? Is McHale Bridges playing tonight? Oh, he's played 32 minutes? I didn't realize it. Oh, he took the last shot of the game with five seconds left. I forgot he was on the team. They had a bunch of that stuff going. The backup guards, McBride was bad. SheaMint was bad. So they got nothing really from their bench other than Clarkson made a couple of plays. And the town's piece of it. Now, my Knicks fan friends were like, why didn't towns get the ball more? Why were we so Brunson centric? Kaminka was doing a good job on town. So I think it was a combination of he was being really physical with them. They found something with that small ball lineup. And if I was the Knicks, and I rooted for the Knicks, that they now make me the most nervous other than Josh Hart was the best player on my team in game two. I would be nervous that Alexander Walker and Jalen Johnson. Alexander Walker didn't really play well in either game. And Jalen Johnson did not shoot well in the second game. And it's one to one. And they're going back where I think they're pretty good in Atlanta. So I'd be nervous that Alexander Walker hasn't gone going yet. And then the CJ. McCollum piece, he was getting to whatever spot he wanted. You have these two wings in an Obian Bridges that you've traded all this capital and gave big contracts to. And over and over again, he was just getting away from those guys and trying to repeatedly get Brunson on him. McCollum's like having, this is a moment for him, right? This is the afterthought in Portland. Dame's teammate put it a million trade rumors. He even got mad at me publicly a couple of times. Kind of bounces around, ends up in Washington, becomes such an afterthought that Houston doesn't even trade for him. And now he's wearing it now. He's ready to be the foil in a Knicks series. So I wouldn't be crazy nervous if I was the Knicks. What are the odds in this series? They are, yeah, minus 174 on Fandl. That seems about right. I thought the Knicks were going to win in six. I still think that, but the CJ piece was unexpected. We'll see if he can keep it going. And then the last one for Panic Team, the Celtics. So I would have ranked on the bottom here. First of all, in game twos, I don't know what happens to them. They're five and five in their last ten playoff home game twos. They lost to the Knicks last year, Miami and Cleveland in 24. The Miami game was one of the dumbest losses of all time. They lost to Miami in 23, then they lost to eight. Philly did exactly what I thought they were going to do. They shot a bunch of threes. Edgecomb got hot. I think he was six for 10. He had a 30 and 10, was super comfortable. And then Maxie got going a little bit. The Celtics were playing this just insanely dumb drop coverage that I didn't understand for the life of me. And giving up. I think it was 91-89. Boston has the ball. About to take the lead. Tatum jacks up a bad three. And then Maxie, I think, hit two straight threes on that stupid drop coverage. So the Celtics were 13 for 50 from three. And Sean Grandy, my friend, who does the radio for the Celtics, said, regular season and play offs, that's the 12th time in the last 161 games, the Celtics have failed to shoot better than 26% from three. And they've lost all 12. Including game one and game two against the Knicks. And then this game last night. So the question is, total aberration? Or are they starting to look a little like Knicks series Celtics last year? I will say, the two things that scare me a tiny bit, Derrick White has really been bad from three since January 1st. He's under 31% from three now. He's two for 10 tonight. And the Knicks team, the Sixers seemed totally fine with him shooting from three. Whereas I think in November and December would not have been as fine. It got to the point I was wondering if they might take him out and put Shireman in, which was the second thing I didn't understand. Shireman only played 11 minutes. He's been a super sub for the last couple of months. Indispensable and that led to the third thing I didn't understand. The move seemed to me go small with Tatum at the five, because you could still get the rebounding from him. Tatum Brown, Shireman, Pritchard and White, or take White out and put Houser in. I just didn't really understand the lineups. I voted for Joe for Coach of the Year. I did not think he had a good game today. And the Vucovic thing I just don't get. I know offensively he had decent stats, but I think he really hurts them defensively. And I thought the Sixers took advantage of him. I don't think he's fast enough to jump out on three point shooters. He's not really a rim protector. And if I'm playing the Sixers and there's no Embiid, and I'm playing Bona and Drummond, like I'm fine going small against them. Let's go small again. What are they gonna do? Post up one of those guys? So, playing Tatum at the five seems like the move. It did worry me a little that they looked like game one, game two, 2025 Knicks. I did get some flashbacks, some PTSD. My daughter and my dad were there, and my daughter was furious after the game. I was very proud, but she was excited that they showed them on the Jumbotron, and my dad wasn't looking, and she was hitting him to look, and multiple people texted me about this, that it was like watching a little sitcom with my dad and my daughter. So congrats to them. Wish I had been there. I'm not nervous about this Celtics series yet. Right now the odds are Celtics minus 510, so FanDuel is not nervous either. The Portland odds, Portland is plus 410 to win this series now. San Antonio is minus 550. The only series, the two series seem like a wrap. It's Phoenix OKC and Toronto, Cleveland. And it's unclear. Toronto should have just passed on the playoff invitation. Like when you get invited to a wedding and you send your regrets and just send a gift. I kind of wish Toronto had done that with the playoffs. All right, that's the, that's the panic, the NBA panic room. Heading into tomorrow night. Can't wait to watch Orlando and Detroit. Again, I'm sorry to everybody at The Ringer that I made you stay up tonight. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna go backwards in time. I'm going to talk to McShay and Muench. Big long convo about the NFL draft, and I'm going to look a lot more awake in one second after this break. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA playoffs are here.

Speaker 2:
[24:20] Everything's on the line.

Speaker 1:
[24:21] Every possession matters. Every bucket swings the game. And tonight is your shot. Boost your bet.

Speaker 2:
[24:28] That's right.

Speaker 1:
[24:29] All customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win gets bigger because that's how profit boosts work. Lock in your beds, boost your odds, make the playoffs pay off with FanDuel Official Sports Betting Partner of the NBA. Head to fanduel.com/bs to get started. FanDuel, play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem call 1-800-GAMBAR. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chatconnecticut. All right. Listen up. Ralph's, King's Supers, Harris Teeter, Food for Less, Kroger, many more now on Uber Eats. And you get 40% off your order of $30 or more. Maybe you're trying a new recipe and need some last minute ingredients. That's a possibility. Maybe the kids made a mess. You're lower on cleaning supplies than you thought. Whatever you need, you can get it delivered to you in as little as 25 minutes. So order now on Uber Eats. Get 40% off your order of $30 or more with code KROGER2026 plus Uber One members get $0 delivery fees. I love Uber One. I'm an Uber One member. Orders of $30 or more save up to $25 ends April 30th, 2026. See app for details. All right, McShay and Muench are here. They are here all week doing the Todd McShay show. The McShay show, which is behind us. You like that little fancy thingy? Yeah. So we're using your set. I love it. Last time I talked to you, we weren't, I wasn't that excited about the draft. And then you kind of-

Speaker 3:
[26:07] 45 minutes later, I had you-

Speaker 1:
[26:08] You fluffed me a little bit. Yeah, you got me a little excited about it.

Speaker 2:
[26:11] He's a great fluffer.

Speaker 1:
[26:12] I was barely excited by the end. Now I'm way more excited.

Speaker 3:
[26:16] It's, there's never a bad draft, man.

Speaker 1:
[26:19] That's the thing.

Speaker 2:
[26:20] Even for entertainment value, there's never a bad draft. There's bad drafts, but there's no players.

Speaker 1:
[26:26] Right.

Speaker 2:
[26:26] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:27] But it's like Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is always going to be good because at some point there's going to be food to eat.

Speaker 3:
[26:32] And it always gets hectic. There's always family drama before Thanksgiving. It's the same thing here. And I got lied to, I think, about the Jets pick. And that's okay. I'm here for it.

Speaker 1:
[26:42] You got lied to?

Speaker 3:
[26:42] I think so.

Speaker 1:
[26:43] I did see you did a little switch. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[26:47] Yeah. And by the way, the draft's not here. We'll see what happens. But I get the strong sense that the Jets worth getting that out there. I always get nervous about, because I was the only one saying, oh, Bel Reese, and then a couple other people a little bit. But I always get nervous when everyone, all of a sudden, on a Monday after a weekend, are saying the same thing. So the Jeremiah Love thing, I worry about that at number three. But it looks like Bailey. They're doing a good job of being really quiet about it, even though there's really no reason to be quite outside of, hey, everyone thinks we're taking Bailey.

Speaker 1:
[27:25] But who are they trying to fake out?

Speaker 3:
[27:26] Listen, David Bailey, I actually had to have this internal conversation with myself. David Bailey's been kind of what everyone in league circles has kind of assumed, right, for a while. Let's throw out there, we might take our Bel Reese and see if someone's more interested in Reece. Because there's people talking about Arizona. We're going to move out, whichever pass rusher doesn't go to, the pick is open at Arizona at number three. Why not us get the phone calls? I have a feeling that that's what was going on.

Speaker 1:
[27:59] The only thing I don't like about this theory is it's the Jets. That involves foresight, a plan, understanding of what's happening. Strategy, like chest moves, moving around.

Speaker 3:
[28:09] Yeah, and if it's true, what I'm kind of surmising, then I think Darryl Mugee is doing a pretty good job of managing this thing.

Speaker 1:
[28:20] If there are two guys who play the same position, basically, and people are arguing about which one's better. I always parachute in the draft every year, basically knowing nothing and trying to learn on the fly. Why wouldn't you take the guy who's two years younger? Is that just too obvious or am I nuts?

Speaker 3:
[28:36] It's actually not. You would be, I don't think you'd be surprised, but it's surprising how much...

Speaker 1:
[28:42] Because Reese is two years younger.

Speaker 3:
[28:43] The emphasis is put into the age for a defensive prospect specifically.

Speaker 2:
[28:49] I don't get it.

Speaker 1:
[28:50] But if it was me, I would take the younger guy.

Speaker 2:
[28:52] You would.

Speaker 1:
[28:52] He is two years... It's like getting a car from 2024 versus 26 or something.

Speaker 2:
[28:57] But it's a five-year lease.

Speaker 1:
[28:58] I have two years less of miles.

Speaker 2:
[28:59] It's a five-year lease. You're not going to keep it for the life of the car. You know what I mean? So if you like the car better and you get a better lease, then take the lease.

Speaker 1:
[29:06] But nobody can agree which one of these guys are better. So why wouldn't I just take the younger guy?

Speaker 3:
[29:11] I would take R. Vel Reis, but I've got to have a defensive coach. If I'm the general manager, I've got to have a defensive coach that can lay out what exactly is the plan to show me how it's going to work. Because this guy is more talented. The talent isn't quite developed. He's a one-year starter at Ohio State.

Speaker 1:
[29:28] So that means higher talent, higher bus potential.

Speaker 2:
[29:33] Someone brought this up on Axe. I actually meant to run this by you before we even got on here. But we're talking about the Jets again. So if you have a plan for this kid, that's great. Is Aaron Glenn gonna be their head coach next year?

Speaker 1:
[29:42] Right, or in October?

Speaker 2:
[29:45] Or in October, exactly. So then the plan's out the window. And if you're Muji, are you thinking to yourself, I don't know who's gonna be the head coach next year. I'm gonna take the guy who's been playing at Edge his whole life.

Speaker 3:
[29:55] The information I got 10 days ago, I think it's 10 days now. It was the Sunday before, this past Sunday, was what's your football sense, if you want the sure thing? And that Darryl Muji is a human risk aversion. I compared it yesterday, along came Paulie, Ben Stiller, right? Like just a human risk aversion corporation, like walking down the street, like everything's about risk. And apparently that's kind of his DNA and his makeup. I would argue the better player who the fallback is, like getting Devin Lloyd, that to me is less risk than drafting David Bailey. And maybe he's just a DPR, designated pass rusher, and he's not very good versus the run. So like, it's true. But this guy we know can rush the quarterback better than anyone in this draft. And yes, it's with speed and yes, he's got to kind of get stronger and all that. But let's go with the guy that's proven as a pass rusher, because that's the most important thing you can do in this league outside of being a quarterback.

Speaker 1:
[30:59] Fandel has Reese minus 130, Bailey plus 115 on Tuesday afternoon as we record.

Speaker 2:
[31:06] Did that flip from yesterday?

Speaker 3:
[31:07] Yes. This morning I looked and it was still plus 160. And then I looked four hours ago and it was minus 110. So it is shifting rapidly, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[31:21] Betting on the draft is like betting on roulette while doing cocaine. The odds are just going crazy at all times. I never do draft bets. The only one that seems like it hits every year is like the more offensive linemen than we thought. Seems like every year it's like, no, it's going to be seven. No, actually it's 10.

Speaker 2:
[31:42] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[31:42] Because we get in the draft and everybody's like, oh, fuck, we need a right tackle.

Speaker 3:
[31:46] I bet it's at eight and a half. I haven't looked, but I would bet it's at eight and a half.

Speaker 1:
[31:50] For the offensive linemen?

Speaker 2:
[31:53] There's going to be a second guard that sneaks in.

Speaker 3:
[31:54] I would take the nine.

Speaker 1:
[31:56] Seven and a half. See, that seems like, fucking bang that one, right? Pound it right now. It's going to be at least nine.

Speaker 3:
[32:02] Take it right now.

Speaker 1:
[32:04] I laugh whenever I see it.

Speaker 3:
[32:05] There's going to be at least eight. There's seven tackles and one guard.

Speaker 2:
[32:08] I think nine, but yeah, you're right. It's going to be eight to save them.

Speaker 1:
[32:10] I think the Patriots could take somebody.

Speaker 3:
[32:11] Ian Acher is still sitting there at 31? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. You putting that in right now?

Speaker 1:
[32:17] No, I'll do it after. I have a bunch of questions tied to the drafts, but this is my favorite one. What do the Giants do at number five? Because they also have number 10.

Speaker 2:
[32:28] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:28] If the first four picks, Mendoza, Reese, to the Jets, Arizona says fuck it and takes love.

Speaker 2:
[32:38] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[32:39] Then Salah and Tennessee go fuck it and they take Styles. So it goes, Mendoza, Reese loves Styles. Now the Giants are on the clock.

Speaker 3:
[32:48] What happens? Bailey.

Speaker 1:
[32:49] You think they would take Bailey anyway?

Speaker 3:
[32:51] With Bailey. I was told by somebody that, because even if you flip-flop and it's Bailey, it's Bailey at two and it's Reese at five, sitting at five, either way. I was told, but I don't believe it, that they would take the Edgerusher, best available, and Kayvon Thibodeau would be trading.

Speaker 2:
[33:10] That was a little nugget in Shepter's article. He had all these trade guys. These are guys that could be traded, and all of a sudden you see Kayvon Thibodeau, and I was like, I haven't heard that name.

Speaker 3:
[33:18] Yeah. But that was last year's trade that was gonna happen, remember? Yeah. Well, they'll drop that bull.

Speaker 2:
[33:22] So when all of a sudden it was in there, I was like, that jumps out to me. So if they could get rid of one of them.

Speaker 3:
[33:27] The Giants are fascinating, right? Because the Giants are sitting there at five, and now they've got picked 10.

Speaker 1:
[33:33] Which was an awesome trade. I didn't talk about that trade on the podcast. I was staggered by that trade. You're trading a defensive tackle. I know he's good. And his late 20s was expensive. And now I just get to reset with the 10th pick in a draft that basically has 12 good guys and then drops off. That trade's a miracle. I thought the Giants would have had to throw in at least like a third to even the seesaw on that.

Speaker 3:
[33:58] There's something about the Ravens. Like the Ravens, like Ozzie Newsome and down to Eric DeCosta now, it seems like they sit back, they're patient, they exploit other teams. And now Harbaugh comes from the Ravens, exploiting other teams for being overly eager in a moment.

Speaker 2:
[34:13] Who's stopping the run for the Giants, though? I mean, they were like giving them five yards of carry last year.

Speaker 1:
[34:18] That might be the 10th pick.

Speaker 2:
[34:20] There's no defense attack this year.

Speaker 1:
[34:22] You don't like Fox just reaching or maybe trading back five spots.

Speaker 3:
[34:26] But they picked 35 in the second round.

Speaker 2:
[34:28] They'll get a guy there.

Speaker 3:
[34:29] They'll get a good guy there.

Speaker 1:
[34:31] I thought for the Bengals that... I interrupted you. The Bengals, that trade was insane. You're paying like 110 million a year to a quarterback and two receivers. You've holes all over the place.

Speaker 2:
[34:42] And I give her 28 million.

Speaker 1:
[34:43] Your defense is terrible. It's like, well, we're going to get this guy, we're going to bring him in. He's the best defensive attack in the league. Cool. Now he's going to be double teamed the whole time. You have nobody else in your defense. Like as an AFC fan of the Patriots, I was like, great trade, guys.

Speaker 3:
[34:55] You did it.

Speaker 1:
[34:57] You're going to be a fucking mess.

Speaker 3:
[34:59] But the Giants sit there five, right? In a week ago, we would have said, Caleb Downs is one of the players they'd like to save from Ohio State. Jordan Tyson is one of the players. They don't conceal their interest in players. Joe Shane goes, Shane and Harbaugh were already at the Arizona State Pro Day where Jordan Tyson didn't work out. And then Shane went back out for the Jordan Tyson workout, which was just like 30-something routes in catching the ball.

Speaker 1:
[35:27] Yeah, that was a don't get hurt workout.

Speaker 3:
[35:29] Yeah, but everyone loved it all the time, all the time.

Speaker 1:
[35:32] Just run a straight line and turn around.

Speaker 2:
[35:34] But everyone loved it. It was a great workout.

Speaker 3:
[35:37] And then has, I think, dinner with Tyson. So we know there's interest there, but I don't know, a week, 10 days ago, we would have said, you better take Downs at five and you can get Tyson at 10. I honestly think with sitting at seven would be a possibility, although I think Dan Quinn is going defense there. He's pushing with Adam Peters to go defense, and it could be Sonny Stiles, if not Stiles, Caleb Downs at seven. But eight is New Orleans, and that could be a spot where Jordan Tyson goes.

Speaker 2:
[36:09] Nine Kansas City.

Speaker 3:
[36:10] Nine Kansas City.

Speaker 1:
[36:11] Jordan Tyson, New Orleans, it just sounds awful.

Speaker 2:
[36:14] Why, what do you mean?

Speaker 3:
[36:17] Not in their eyes, but yes.

Speaker 1:
[36:18] Don't they have a top three worst medicine training recovery situation, them and the Pelicans?

Speaker 3:
[36:25] Chris Olave, that's what works for him, right?

Speaker 1:
[36:27] Yeah, that makes me nervous.

Speaker 3:
[36:29] Regardless, my point is I don't know that Tyson gets there, and so Caleb Downs is much more likely to get there, but may not get there either. And then you hear about-

Speaker 1:
[36:38] There's no scenario where they can end up with Downs and Stiles, the Giants?

Speaker 3:
[36:43] They don't want Stiles, apparently.

Speaker 1:
[36:44] Because they signed Edmonds.

Speaker 3:
[36:46] They signed Edmonds.

Speaker 1:
[36:47] Yeah. Honestly-

Speaker 2:
[36:48] That deal's not huge, though. It's not.

Speaker 3:
[36:49] It's not huge.

Speaker 1:
[36:53] I mean, that's the Mac Daddy move. Because I was looking at the Giants' odds. First of all, seven and a half wins over or under for the- Like, all the signs for them are they're going to be this year's Patriots, right? If Darts healthy. Fourth place schedule, new coach. Like, just- They're checking all the boxes. Seven and a half wins seems too low. Plus 280 for the playoffs, plus 550 for the division. That seems too high.

Speaker 3:
[37:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[37:16] If they got two blue chip, blue chip, blue chip, five and 10 guys, and then hit the second round pick, you're good right away.

Speaker 3:
[37:23] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[37:24] Because they already had a bunch of good players and they underachieved last year. How many times they have the lead in the second half of a game?

Speaker 3:
[37:31] What if Jeremiah Love is still sitting there at five?

Speaker 2:
[37:34] You love this. You want to give love to everyone. But yeah, I get it. Scatterby was not going to stay healthy.

Speaker 1:
[37:40] So they got love and downs and you got the best running back in the draft by far. And then you have a safety. And I want to talk about downs in a second. You just get the two best guys in the position who four years from now could be like all pros. Or three years from now, whatever. But the downs thing, I was just on Tailgate. I stopped by there for a second. We do this with the draft every year. I've talked to you about it before. Where everyone knows Downs is going to be awesome. He's going to go like tenth. And then three years from now, we're going to do the re-draft. And it's like, number two, Caleb Downs. Kyle Hamilton. Ed Reed crossed with Kyle Hamilton. He's just amazing. And wow, what a great pick. It's like, but we knew that before this draft that he was going to be a great pick. So how do you go tenth?

Speaker 3:
[38:28] It's the position value thing. And then you add the position value. He didn't run. We know he's not like his miles per hour. He's equated to 4.5, type 40, not as long as, so you got all those things working against you, but why not? He's not gonna fall.

Speaker 1:
[38:45] That's the same thing for Hamilton, right? It's like, what is he?

Speaker 3:
[38:47] He didn't run a 40. He didn't run a 40. Yeah, is he a hybrid? Well, turned out great. Yeah, really great. So I think he could go as high as seven, maybe five, but it would, I don't know. The Giants are fascinating. Also, there's, you don't pay Harbaugh 100 million to be the guy without letting him be the guy. And that's the indication I get, but there seems to be already-

Speaker 1:
[39:15] That makes me nervous too.

Speaker 3:
[39:15] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[39:16] He was on pace to getting fired the first Lamar Jackson year.

Speaker 3:
[39:20] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[39:21] And then Lamar Jackson saved his ass. Last couple of years weren't awesome. And then it's like, here are the car keys, make all the decisions for us.

Speaker 2:
[39:30] Do you see what Zay Flowers said?

Speaker 3:
[39:31] What?

Speaker 2:
[39:32] The practices, that's why we had so many injuries. The practices were too hard. He didn't know how to manage our workload. He doesn't do well with the current players. Like he just doesn't know how to pull back a little bit. And that would be interesting. And he's got a bunch of all gas, no breaks guys in Scadaboo and Dart. You kind of want those guys to maybe pull back a little bit. And it's not like the Giants have been staying real healthy. It's a good point.

Speaker 3:
[39:56] Yeah, no, I mean, I just I'm fascinated which way they go. Because the first pick there, you get the sense this is Joe Shane's last as the GM, but I don't know. You know? Yeah. He had a tremendous management of a draft last year, but the last time they had two top 10 picks, it was what, Hibito and another, Evan Neil maybe. I think it was Evan Neil. And so are we gonna repeat history with that? And the offensive tackle, are you waiting to 10 to get an offensive tackle?

Speaker 2:
[40:26] No offensive tackles were off the board in that scenario, right?

Speaker 1:
[40:28] Well, that's the other thing. We lived through this with the draft every year, where it's like, yeah, I don't think they'll go to nine or 10, and then they go six. Teams get in there and they just panic. They can't figure out who to pick and they just go with size. How high, what's the highest downs could go that you would be, either of you, that you would be actually kind of shocked by? Like Arizona is out of the question.

Speaker 3:
[40:50] Top four would be anywhere in the top four. So Tennessee, but he's not going there.

Speaker 2:
[40:55] So yeah, it wouldn't shock me if he went fifth, but I would do it. And I just heard you guys say all those things about it, but give me a top eight offensive tackle in the league versus the best safety. Like that's gonna win games.

Speaker 1:
[41:07] I get it. I was doing all the research for running backs because this ties into the love conversation. And it feels like top five is just too high for certain positions, even though we know when we do redo the draft. But six to ten is not too high. So if you go through all the running backs basically the last 20 years, the two, two, two and three were Ronnie Brown, Bush, Reggie Bush, Barkley and Trent Richardson. So I'm going to say those first four, three of them, no way that team does it again.

Speaker 2:
[41:38] No.

Speaker 1:
[41:38] And Barkley is still defensible.

Speaker 2:
[41:41] Yes. 100%.

Speaker 1:
[41:43] He was incredible.

Speaker 2:
[41:44] Right?

Speaker 1:
[41:46] And who was the next pick? It was a quarterback, it was like Trubisky or somebody.

Speaker 2:
[41:50] I don't remember.

Speaker 1:
[41:51] It was a quarterback.

Speaker 3:
[41:52] Trubisky was 13th overall.

Speaker 1:
[41:53] No, Trubisky was third, remember?

Speaker 2:
[41:55] Oh no, he was 13th.

Speaker 1:
[41:56] The Bears, it was some sort of UB, so.

Speaker 3:
[41:59] Yeah, it might have been Trubisky.

Speaker 1:
[42:01] So two, two, two, three, we went one for four, even if you count Barkley as a hit.

Speaker 3:
[42:06] He's a hit. It was their problem.

Speaker 4:
[42:08] And you go count Reggie Bush, right?

Speaker 1:
[42:10] I don't.

Speaker 2:
[42:10] I don't either.

Speaker 1:
[42:11] He won the Super Bowl. No, I don't.

Speaker 2:
[42:12] But Pierre Thomas was the better running back in the Super Bowl in that year.

Speaker 1:
[42:16] So four, four and six, Leonard Fortnett, Darren McFadden and Gentie last year.

Speaker 2:
[42:22] That was by the way, that was.

Speaker 1:
[42:23] I think, I don't think any of those teams do that again. Even Gentie, who I thought had some moments, but I just don't think the Raiders would have done that if they could redo that. I think they would take alignment.

Speaker 3:
[42:33] Yeah, yeah, get a head start.

Speaker 1:
[42:35] But now we go to seven, eight.

Speaker 3:
[42:37] I think he's gonna have a good year this year, but yes, I agree with the premise.

Speaker 2:
[42:39] They're gonna get into like the Bijon and...

Speaker 1:
[42:41] Peterson seven, McCaffrey eight, Bijon eight. Yeah. Pretty good value.

Speaker 3:
[42:46] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:46] And then CJ Spiller nine, Zeke Elliott ten, Gurley ten. All right, so this is a fucking random sample size. But what I learned from that is maybe wait till six to ten to take love because history says you go earlier, that's a mistake.

Speaker 3:
[43:01] Yeah, and it probably indicates teams that are a little bit better than the trash at the time, you know?

Speaker 1:
[43:07] Right.

Speaker 3:
[43:08] You know, teams picking, it's like the chiefs are picking at nine, you know?

Speaker 1:
[43:14] Right, you're going to a better situation. Peterson was in a good situation pretty immediately in Minnesota.

Speaker 3:
[43:18] Right.

Speaker 1:
[43:19] Whereas Genti goes to the Raiders and it's not a good situation.

Speaker 3:
[43:22] Yeah, typically four doesn't go to the Super Bowl. Pick four doesn't go to the Super Bowl. That's not a normal occurrence like we saw with the Patriots last year. So it's all about where they wind up landing. All positions are dependent upon to a certain degree, quarterback absolutely, but running back, I would argue, may be the most dependent upon what you have in front of you and how you can block it up. And the Raiders weren't ready and all those teams you mentioned weren't ready for that guy.

Speaker 1:
[43:50] So did you guys like the Bengals trade for the Bengals or no?

Speaker 3:
[43:53] The Bengals trade for Lawrence?

Speaker 1:
[43:55] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[43:56] No.

Speaker 1:
[43:56] Okay. Yeah. I just wanted to make sure.

Speaker 2:
[43:59] Here's the thing. I don't like it in a lot of drafts. I don't hate it as much in this draft. I really don't because he's by far the best defensive tackle in this class if he was to be there. Who are you getting a 10 that's better than Dexter Lawrence?

Speaker 1:
[44:10] So you'd rather have four years of Lawrence versus the 10th pick in this draft.

Speaker 2:
[44:14] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[44:15] But you're paying more and then that's the issue.

Speaker 2:
[44:18] That's a blind spot. That's a weakness for me. The cap guy figured that out for me. But I hear you. You're right. You gotta factor it in.

Speaker 3:
[44:25] Who's the cap guy there?

Speaker 2:
[44:26] I know.

Speaker 1:
[44:26] Well, wasn't part of it that they had the cap space to grab the extra money to fit in. So basically, instead of paying the 10th pick this, they could pay the 10th pick this. Yes.

Speaker 3:
[44:36] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[44:37] I just would never do it.

Speaker 3:
[44:38] I would rather trade.

Speaker 1:
[44:39] First of all, the Bengals needed players. I'd rather trade backwards than try to pick up more stuff. Yeah, true.

Speaker 3:
[44:46] The problem is urgency that is created by situations. And that's why I started this with the Ravens. The Ravens have always been good at this, this thing. And some organizations are really good at, there's going to be an opportunity by an organization that is gonna be presented to us because they're desperate. And if you've got Joe Burrow and the injuries and the timeline and now the contracts with the wide receivers, you are desperate to win them. And I think this is a desperate move. And honestly, it almost never pays off. If you go look at the history, these desperate moves almost never pay off.

Speaker 1:
[45:23] I wonder if somebody could run a football team and just stick to like, like somebody hires me as the GM and I'm just like, I only have seven principals, guys. I'm never paying two receivers a lot of money. I'm getting in the draft. I'm just taking alignment on one side of the ball, the other. That's all I'm doing. I'm going to try to get us a quarterback. Like just very, I'm always going to trade back if I can't decide what to do. And these are my seven tenants and I'll leave everything else to my scouting department. I'm just doing this.

Speaker 2:
[45:52] No one can stick to it though. They always fall in love with the player.

Speaker 3:
[45:55] If I ever got a GM job, if I ever gone that route and taken some opportunities, like I've always said there's a couple people in my life I would hire full time.

Speaker 1:
[46:04] The common sense guys?

Speaker 3:
[46:05] The common sense guys who are paying, like Pete Woodfork works for Major League Baseball. Pain in my ass my whole life since we were like 10 years old. Always does the right thing, sticks by the, you know, and like.

Speaker 1:
[46:16] So you're the Jets GM and you call Pete and you're like, Reece or Bailey, what would you do? And he's like, what the are you doing?

Speaker 3:
[46:21] No, I'm hiring him.

Speaker 1:
[46:23] Oh, you're hiring him.

Speaker 3:
[46:24] And I'm going to give him like four or five things that he's allowed to overrule me on because my emotion or the situation or.

Speaker 2:
[46:31] No way, you would never give anyone that power.

Speaker 3:
[46:34] I'm telling you, there's certain things that are blind spots for all of us, including general managers in the NFL. And there are certain principles, if you just stick to them, it's like playing blackjack, like over time, but like who has the patience to play.

Speaker 1:
[46:48] So you wouldn't let him overrule you on like three things? You wouldn't hire him?

Speaker 2:
[46:52] I think I'm off the list after the Dexter Lawrence thing.

Speaker 3:
[46:53] There are a couple of things that...

Speaker 2:
[46:55] I think I just got cut.

Speaker 3:
[46:56] He's a good, he's a good, we bounce off of one another well, but I don't think there's anything hard.

Speaker 2:
[47:01] Is that what we're calling it, bouncing off one another? Argue, we argue a lot.

Speaker 1:
[47:04] This is really cute, guys. We're gonna get this all week?

Speaker 3:
[47:07] Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1:
[47:08] Through the draft?

Speaker 3:
[47:09] Check us out on Netflix, live for the first and second night of the NFL Draft. We'll be bouncing off one another.

Speaker 1:
[47:14] It is funny, Jalen Rose and I, when we were doing the Countdown Show in 2013, we did this gimmick called the interview. And we went to the lottery combine or wherever and we interviewed every person. We spent 15 minutes with each one. We had cameras. It's just rapid fire. Get a feel for each person. And I can totally see how the people can get enamored with certain players. Now, ironically, the ones we got enamored with actually turned out to be good. We love CJ. McCollum. Really, this guy is great. He seems really mature. And then his tape. And we're like, I would bet on this guy. But the reality is you're spending 15 to 20 minutes with somebody and you're overrating the reaction. But it's hard not to. It's human nature.

Speaker 3:
[48:00] Right. And it's amazing what goes into this. And you think about how many people and how many flights and how many car rides and how many visits and how many people in the cafeteria, to the training room, to all that. You have these NFL scouts and the salary money and everything that goes into this process. Right. And you're handed as a general manager this basically a portfolio, if you will, of everything you need to know in this human being. Yeah. And then your analytics department comes in and tells you all the things you can and can't do and all that. And then you've got the, whether it's AIQ or different intellectual testing. And then you have the psychologist and all that. It's amazing to me that we get to this point in the process in like the last month. And the private jet gets, you know.

Speaker 1:
[48:44] Right.

Speaker 3:
[48:44] And four or five of the people who are the most influential people go and they have dinner with, they meet with family, agent, they go and they throw some passes out in the side field or they put them through a test. They get them on the board and they wind up not necessarily disregarding but that kind of trumps it. Now all of that information is used to kind of to shrink the pool, right? And so it's down to four or five players.

Speaker 1:
[49:13] They're just grabbing tidbits every place they can.

Speaker 3:
[49:15] But that 24 hour interaction maybe over two, whether it's coming to our facility, we go out to you in your college town, like I don't know, 10 to 20 hours worth of interaction typically winds up trumping a lot of other stuff.

Speaker 1:
[49:30] Would you trust what the coach said? Because I wouldn't really trust it that much unless the coach was so psychotic about how much he loved the guy.

Speaker 4:
[49:37] It has to be earned.

Speaker 2:
[49:39] It has to be something that he's told you in the past about a player.

Speaker 1:
[49:43] He has a track record.

Speaker 2:
[49:44] Right, of telling you that you cannot do it right out of the game. Tell them about you, Marcus Russell, and all the SID at LSU, telling them about...

Speaker 3:
[49:52] Were you talking about your own coach or the coach from the school?

Speaker 2:
[49:55] The coach from the school I met. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[49:57] Unless it's negative or, like you said, a track record.

Speaker 2:
[50:00] Right.

Speaker 3:
[50:00] The interesting one is your own coach.

Speaker 1:
[50:03] Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[50:04] That dynamic.

Speaker 1:
[50:05] But I wouldn't trust my own coach that much at all.

Speaker 3:
[50:07] Well, you've got to make sure it fits the scheme or else you're giving them something.

Speaker 1:
[50:10] I know. But NFL coaches last three to four years, barring like a miracle. I would be really interested in the parent interactions because I do think like you could learn a little something. My favorite story of all this stuff was, this might be apocryphal, but it was when the Celtics had the Markel Faults, Jason Tatum, when they had the No. 1 pick. They brought Markel Faults to Boston to meet him for the weekend. He was really shy, but apparently he asked if Boston had Chick-fil-A, like if they had Chick-fil-A franchises in Boston and they're like, no, it's not, we don't have it in Boston. He was like, crestfallen? They were like, uh-oh, it set up some sort of red flag. Then he was like, you don't have Chick-fil-A? And I have no idea if the story is true, but it's so good. I almost can't think of being made up. But that's the kind of thing that I'm like, oh shit, this is where I really like Chick-fil-A.

Speaker 2:
[51:05] I hope you get Chick-fil-A in Philly then either.

Speaker 3:
[51:06] That's amazing.

Speaker 1:
[51:07] On the other hand, I love Chick-fil-A, so I can see from his side too.

Speaker 3:
[51:10] Yeah, I see from both sides.

Speaker 1:
[51:11] Yeah, but that was his big Boston question. So they're like, huh.

Speaker 3:
[51:16] You're judging us now, huh?

Speaker 1:
[51:17] Yeah, huh, how are you gonna fit here? That's great. All right, so Giants at five and 10 is the most fun team in this draft. Arizona's kind of the most pathetic. They're just wearing a cocktail dress at the bar like, anybody want three? Anyone? Guys want to have a drink? Three?

Speaker 2:
[51:36] Three down?

Speaker 3:
[51:38] And I don't know if you can create your own analogy to it, but also, I'm going to stay. There's also an element with the ownership where you're out at the bar by yourself, but you're still being controlled by who's making that decision. And it depends on who you listen to now. There's been a lot, just talking to people in the league, there's been talk of maybe ownership wants Jeremiah Love at three and...

Speaker 2:
[52:06] That's a whole other factor, man. These owners that come in, like, he's the guy I want.

Speaker 1:
[52:11] Arizona needs so many things, I didn't even know what they need. If I was doing the team needs, I'd be like, players.

Speaker 2:
[52:17] Have you looked at the Dolphins roster?

Speaker 1:
[52:19] Well, that's the saddest situation.

Speaker 2:
[52:21] It is.

Speaker 3:
[52:22] It's beyond.

Speaker 2:
[52:23] I mean, at least they have a lot of picks, so it's interesting, but I mean, it's bad. I mean, bad.

Speaker 1:
[52:27] Well, it's weird when you trade Jalen Waddle for 30, and then you see all the receivers are going to be available at 30, and their best case scenario is to be maybe as good as Jalen Waddle.

Speaker 3:
[52:37] Right, like a notch below.

Speaker 1:
[52:39] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[52:40] They need so much. I don't know that I've ever been this late in the process studying rosters and really diving in and felt more helpless about a roster. I actually believe in the Miamis. I believe in John Eric Sullivan. I believe in Jeff Hathley. I think they're the right people to stabilize this thing. But it's going to take more than a minute to get this thing turned around. They've got...

Speaker 1:
[53:05] I think that would be fun to just... You have no pressure because you need so many things. It's like, all right, this is like blank slate time.

Speaker 3:
[53:12] And we hear BPA, best player available all the time. Like they literally can just sit there like legs up.

Speaker 1:
[53:19] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[53:20] Where's our board? OK, there it is.

Speaker 1:
[53:22] Call it in. Who's number three?

Speaker 3:
[53:24] Yeah, take them.

Speaker 1:
[53:26] Whereas like, I think the Chiefs have an incredible amount of pressure. I would say the Giants have the most pressure because you got to nail these picks. But then Chiefs at nine and they're 42. But they have this Mahomes window that I watched it. You watched it with Brady.

Speaker 2:
[53:42] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:42] You watched it as well. Where the draft just ebbed and flowed the Brady arc. And there were years, clustered drafts where they just missed drafts. Doesn't it feel like it cost them Super Bowls?

Speaker 2:
[53:52] They're going into that era of they're going to be very competitive for seven or eight years, but they're not going to win a Super Bowl. That's what it feels like to me.

Speaker 1:
[53:59] Comes down to the drafts.

Speaker 2:
[54:00] Mahomes will keep them in it, but now it's the roster turnover. The early Patriots' Dynasty was a totally different roster than the later Patriots' Dynasty. Kelsey moving on. Chris Jones is still playing unbelievable level, but he's getting older.

Speaker 3:
[54:14] They've been in that for two years. I felt it a year before, to be honest with you, and I think Mahomes, but you know what I mean? I felt, honestly, the last year they went to the Super Bowl and lost.

Speaker 1:
[54:26] Getting overpowered by Philly.

Speaker 2:
[54:28] Yes. I think about the comp all the time. The one thing that's really interesting is Andy Reid's not as young as Belichick was when they went to the first three.

Speaker 1:
[54:33] He was terrible last year. I thought they were really poorly coached last year, and everyone's afraid to criticize Andy Reid, but they were badly coached.

Speaker 3:
[54:40] He's self-assessed in so many ways. He's reinvigorated. I think he recognizes it wasn't him. How many years is he on though?

Speaker 2:
[54:48] I don't know, he's three or four years left to coach.

Speaker 1:
[54:51] Also, they really, and Belichick did this too, and we've seen teams do this, really explored the capacity of how many iffy guys can we bring in, guys with baggage.

Speaker 3:
[55:02] What do you mean?

Speaker 1:
[55:03] When Belichick, sometimes these guys can have so much success and these teams can have so much success. I'm like, oh, it's fine, it's one misdemeanor. It's like, no, no, he's mostly on time. And I remember who was the Josh Gordon was a class. But Belichick just went in that mode, like it'll be fine, we'll bring them in, we'll figure it out. The Chiefs had a lot of those, and I think they were probably at capacity.

Speaker 3:
[55:26] Yeah, I think they were.

Speaker 1:
[55:27] What do you think they needed nine? Because the easy one would be like, take the best corner. It's right in the vicinity of where we'd go.

Speaker 3:
[55:33] I think they're going to get a corner. They pick it nine and 30, right? 29, 29.

Speaker 1:
[55:40] Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 3:
[55:41] Miami is at 30. And then Patriots 31, obviously Seattle. The interesting element in this is, I think they want, if they were to get aggressive, which I would not do, but I would understand, it would be to move up for a pass rusher.

Speaker 1:
[55:57] So the Reese Bailey leftover guy, can we get up there and grab him?

Speaker 3:
[56:02] Conversations have been made that doesn't, a lot of conversations have been made about things we never even knew about, and you find out after the fact. It doesn't mean a trade is going to happen. Moving up from nine to three costs a lot. I don't think they're in the position.

Speaker 1:
[56:16] Would you trade nine and 40 for three in this draft? Because I would rather just stay at nine than take 40.

Speaker 3:
[56:22] You're going to need a pretty good player for it. Yeah. So you could get a Ruben Bain, get a Ruben Bain. So there's that edge rusher, they need a wide receiver they can count on. So there's that element of it. Then there's this Andy Reid. My understanding is Andy Reid's like, we've got to get another offensive lineman. And I don't know where you get that.

Speaker 1:
[56:42] Which you could take at nine.

Speaker 3:
[56:43] Yeah. But you can't take it at 29. You can't count on that being there at 29. Now, maybe move up from 29 to 24 and it costs a whole lot less or something like that. So.

Speaker 1:
[56:54] See, I wonder if they're going to do that with tight end.

Speaker 3:
[56:57] Sadiq?

Speaker 1:
[56:58] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[56:58] At nine?

Speaker 1:
[56:59] No, at moving up to like the low teens or high 20s.

Speaker 2:
[57:04] If they feel like they have a chance to swoop in and get him.

Speaker 3:
[57:08] If they love him, they could. Brett Veach is not afraid to pull the trigger.

Speaker 1:
[57:13] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:13] But I just, the managing the element of we need an edge rusher. We need a wide receiver. We need a replacement for Kelsey.

Speaker 1:
[57:22] They need a tackle.

Speaker 3:
[57:23] And we need a tackle. And Andy really wants us to get a tackle.

Speaker 1:
[57:27] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[57:27] And there's only seven of them. And that might not get to 29. So we need those three things. We're not in the business of giving away picks to go move up.

Speaker 1:
[57:35] Also tough when you already use draft capital to draft the tackle. But now you've decided that's not the tackle.

Speaker 3:
[57:41] Right.

Speaker 1:
[57:41] That's where the Patriots got in that spot a couple of times.

Speaker 2:
[57:44] I don't know if they decided that, but he's missed 19 games in the last two years. I just don't know how you're going into this. And the right tackle, Jalen Morris, started I think five or six games at most in a season.

Speaker 3:
[57:55] I would have floated this before. She fans murdered me.

Speaker 2:
[57:57] They were really pissed on X about, you can't use that pick on a guy who's not going to be a starter. I was like, this guy's probably going to start.

Speaker 3:
[58:05] I want you to think about how much money these organizations spend, right? Simmons is so talented at left tackle. I would, I'm not going to make any insu... I would have whatever care team that was necessary, whatever that would be, okay? To be like, round the clock, let's make sure this guy has everything he needs because he is the personal protector of the most of the number one...

Speaker 2:
[58:31] Like Ricky Williams of Texas, do you remember that SNS story that came out where he was like dropping banana peels behind him and someone would pick him up and throw them out for him?

Speaker 3:
[58:37] Just because that guy...

Speaker 2:
[58:39] Ricky Williams, I always think about that stuff.

Speaker 3:
[58:41] Because there's no salary cap on support, right? That guy's your answer.

Speaker 1:
[58:46] Coaches and support are the two things you could just spend whatever you want on.

Speaker 3:
[58:50] So I would get that guy right.

Speaker 1:
[58:53] I think it might be over for them. I mean, at least for this window of it.

Speaker 2:
[58:59] Is that you just being hopeful as a Patriots fan or are you...

Speaker 3:
[59:01] I said it two years ago.

Speaker 1:
[59:03] Mahomes coming off a pretty devastating injury. The only reason I mention this is they have the seventh best odds to win the Super Bowl right now. And that seems crazy to me. Think about all the things that would have to go right for them to be a Super Bowl team.

Speaker 3:
[59:19] That's because there's a lot of people who would put money on it because it's the Chiefs.

Speaker 1:
[59:23] I get it. But it's instructive because that's the perception is they're going to flip the switch and be fine this year. And I feel the opposite. I'd be really surprised. I mean, they're going to have an easier schedule.

Speaker 3:
[59:34] The unknown obviously is how when Mahomes comes back is...

Speaker 1:
[59:37] Yeah, what's he going to be like? Brady wasn't... When he came back in 09, the offense was good, but I really felt like it took him like an extra year to be Brady again.

Speaker 2:
[59:46] There was that famous Belichick clip of follow through, man.

Speaker 1:
[59:49] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you get all these guys going around your legs and I don't know. I just felt like it took a while for him. Nothing to think about that.

Speaker 3:
[59:57] It's in your brain. When you spend the entire offseason recovering and rehabbing and you're worrying about one thing, really, truly that's the one thing. And then so you get out there and you're protecting that one thing. So it takes a minute to get over it.

Speaker 2:
[60:09] What was always the knock on the Patriots' run was the AFCs were just garbage every year. And the AFC West with Nix being hurt.

Speaker 1:
[60:16] He's never agreed with that.

Speaker 2:
[60:18] I know, I hear you. But if you're going off the argument, the Chargers, I think are going to be, I think the Chargers are coming, man. I think they are coming on and you're going to have a tough time with that division. That's the team.

Speaker 1:
[60:28] I think they're the one I'm the most afraid of in the AFC, is the Chargers.

Speaker 3:
[60:31] I agree.

Speaker 1:
[60:31] Cause I just felt like last year they probably would have been right in there and just had dummy tackles in one place.

Speaker 3:
[60:37] Why do we talk about San Francisco's injuries? I swear to you, I've been doing this for 26 years. I swear to you, I've been talking about the Chargers' injuries for a good 18 years. Some organizations-

Speaker 1:
[60:46] Well, they don't have an electromagnetic button next to their...

Speaker 2:
[60:49] I love how they're doing studies on it.

Speaker 1:
[60:51] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[60:51] It's in their head now.

Speaker 3:
[60:52] But every year it seems like the Chargers, oh, they'll get those guys back from injury and it'll be just fine. I hope so. It would be great to see. But they're frightening if they say help. Frightening.

Speaker 2:
[61:06] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[61:07] Yeah. What are their odds?

Speaker 2:
[61:10] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[61:10] So they have the fifth best odds. That makes sense to me.

Speaker 2:
[61:12] 15 to 1.

Speaker 1:
[61:13] Better, slightly better odds than the Pats. The Giants being 71 is pretty crazy. Because that seems... I just think that'll be 30 to 1 by the time the season starts. They're going to have enough talent with this schedule, and we just have seen this every year, that there's no way that they're not going to be in the mix somehow.

Speaker 3:
[61:32] This isn't a draft thing, but spending this amount of time really diving into these rosters.

Speaker 1:
[61:36] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[61:38] Obviously, the Seahawks have what they have. The Rams have what they have. I don't know that there's an organization with a better roster, let's just say in the AFC, top to bottom roster wise, than what Nick Casario has built in Houston. The quarterback element of it and what is really going on there, and there's been speculation and rumors and all that. And you drafted him that high and he was that good as a rookie. You know what I mean? If they get him right, and I don't even mean right, like playing his, but like three quarters of what he was playing as a rookie.

Speaker 1:
[62:11] Yeah. 20 to 1 for them. They're friendly.

Speaker 3:
[62:16] But that's the biggest if in sports.

Speaker 1:
[62:19] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[62:21] Their rosters, like some teams with needs is like the first two are really important needs. The second one, we need to get some depth. The third or the third or the fourth. But for them, like there's, yes, they're offensive line. Let's continue to build that. But they don't have a lot of like they're loaded with deep and wide receiver and running back.

Speaker 1:
[62:42] The receiver is coming back this year.

Speaker 3:
[62:44] They're defenses.

Speaker 2:
[62:45] The Rams are up there too, man.

Speaker 3:
[62:46] No, I said the Rams in Seattle have what they need.

Speaker 1:
[62:50] I mean, I was going to talk about the Rams with one of the pressure teams at 13, because the Puka thing is a huge story. It's been one of those kicked under the rug. This guy's had a lot of personal shit going on publicly, and then finally went into rehab, and this was the best receiver in the league. And we have no idea what we're going to expect from him this year now, or what was going on with him, or is it going to get better? And they're one of the teams that's just like, we're probably taking a receiver, we're probably taking a receiver so blatantly that I almost don't trust it.

Speaker 3:
[63:22] I don't think they are at 13. I think they're going to take a receiver in the second round.

Speaker 1:
[63:26] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3:
[63:26] There's like, they bore you out with this, like attraction is different, right? Like, one person you could be attracted to, everyone's beautiful and all that.

Speaker 2:
[63:38] Like, Blonser Brunets or, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[63:40] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[63:40] For the Rams, with their system specifically, they're not attracted to a lot of the fastest, tallest, all those receivers. They're attracted to one type, and that one type is a physical son of a bitch, blocking, contact balance, toughness up, and we're gonna scheme you up and we'll get you open, and all you gotta do is break that first tackle and just ram, you know, and keep it rolling and block for our run game. And so, I can get that in the second round. There's De'Johns Stribbling from Ole Miss, there's Jeremy Bernard from Alabama, there's even the third round. So, I think Les Need is the biggest wild card in this first round of the draft with that 13-k.

Speaker 1:
[64:24] They seem like a downsy kind of team to me. Like moving up a couple spots and just swooping in.

Speaker 2:
[64:31] But they have guys there, I don't know if it's, you know, like they have players.

Speaker 3:
[64:34] It's one of two things, right? I just, I don't envision Les and Sean sitting back at 13. We'll take a guard or we'll take a...

Speaker 1:
[64:43] Right.

Speaker 3:
[64:44] It's either we are all in, as all indicators are pointing.

Speaker 1:
[64:49] They have to be all in in general because Stafford's got two years left max.

Speaker 3:
[64:53] Right. We're all in and like we really don't... If we want to give up 2027, we're not that worried about it. We can give up second next year or something like that and go move up and target a guy. Jeremiah Love is fascinating to me if he starts to fall. Six, Cleveland.

Speaker 1:
[65:10] Yeah. I mean, can we stop?

Speaker 3:
[65:11] Four.

Speaker 1:
[65:12] Can we make a rule that he can't go to Cleveland?

Speaker 3:
[65:15] No, no, I'm saying trading.

Speaker 1:
[65:17] I'm just saying like... You don't want him to go. That's my worst case scenario for him or for most of the guys in the draft. Yeah. So, you're saying ramp switching goes 13 to 6.

Speaker 3:
[65:26] Something like that would be something to look out for.

Speaker 1:
[65:30] Like Todd Gurley 2.0 action for them?

Speaker 3:
[65:32] But then what if it's a total pivot and it's like, yeah, we're going to be here beyond Stafford. We're doing a deal now with Matthew and we're going to keep him happy, but we are in love with Ty Simpson and so we're just going to take him at 13. We can move on. Don't ask more questions. We don't have to dwell on it, but I'm just saying I said it.

Speaker 4:
[65:50] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[65:50] It's on.

Speaker 3:
[65:51] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[65:51] Holy mackerel. Wouldn't you at least trade back to do that?

Speaker 3:
[65:56] He's going higher than you think.

Speaker 1:
[65:58] That was one of the questions I had for you, because I was watching one of the channels this morning. They were talking about, is 21 too high to take Ty Simpson for Pittsburgh? I'm like, what are you guys talking about? He's definitely, the question is, will he be there at 21 for Pittsburgh to take? Because somebody is going to shoot their wad and take him in the top 20, would be my prediction.

Speaker 3:
[66:20] That's the information I'm getting, and I don't definitively know. I throw the Rams out there, because I'm getting information, definitely, and I know the Rams at one point really like Ty Simpson. Like, that's firm.

Speaker 1:
[66:31] His Fando draft position is 29.5 under.

Speaker 3:
[66:34] Yeah, because even if you're the Cardinals, you're worried that there's another team or, I don't know. Yeah, you can't wait. Yeah, I'm told that the Jets do have interest, but I'm also told that the Jets have interest.

Speaker 1:
[66:49] Jets at 16?

Speaker 3:
[66:50] No, no. At 33 could take him, I think.

Speaker 1:
[66:55] He's not getting out of the first round. I just don't see it.

Speaker 3:
[66:59] We're saying the same thing.

Speaker 1:
[67:00] Plus, you get the extra year. That's the secret sauce to all of this. You get the fifth year if you take him in the first round.

Speaker 2:
[67:06] You talked about Pittsburgh. Is Aaron Rodgers gonna make an appearance and say he's coming back in front of the tens of thousands of draft fans there? And then what would their reaction be?

Speaker 3:
[67:13] Because Aaron Rodgers wants this.

Speaker 1:
[67:15] He's milking this.

Speaker 4:
[67:16] Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 3:
[67:17] How many times are we gonna get him put in? I don't even understand why Schefter and those people are out there. I know he and those two have a thing. I love it. But I don't even understand why there's this like, you should tell the organization this stuff. We get, it's every year. It's the same thing. It's just the human being. The human being, Aaron Rodgers wants this. And he would like nothing more. Going out there gives closure. And then we're still not talking about it for the second day of the draft.

Speaker 1:
[67:44] Him and Jerry Jones are the two that, like, how can I get attention at all times?

Speaker 3:
[67:48] This is going to be going on in late March.

Speaker 2:
[67:50] But the draft being in Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1:
[67:52] Yeah, late, no question.

Speaker 3:
[67:54] It'll be going on in June.

Speaker 2:
[67:55] In Pittsburgh, he can go out in front of all the fans, soak it up.

Speaker 3:
[67:58] He wants us all to be like, is Aaron here? You know?

Speaker 4:
[68:01] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:02] I mean, I'm here for it, though.

Speaker 1:
[68:02] Kind of the sad thing about that is nobody's doing that.

Speaker 3:
[68:05] Yeah. It was the first few to all be...

Speaker 2:
[68:08] That's what I mean. Like, does he come out and be like, I'm coming back, and all the Pittsburgh fans are like, oh, cool.

Speaker 3:
[68:12] Great. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:13] Great.

Speaker 1:
[68:13] He's coming back.

Speaker 3:
[68:14] Right.

Speaker 2:
[68:15] You know, like, it's not the response that he thinks it's going to be.

Speaker 1:
[68:17] Also, I said this to you last year. I just think people get amnesia with NFL seasons, and we throw ourselves in the draft of free agency, and then it's the summer, and then we get to August, and people just don't remember what happened the year before. There's a reset. We left last season and be like, yeah, Aaron Rodgers, probably not winning more than one playoff round at most, with Aaron Rodgers as your QB at age 42.

Speaker 3:
[68:39] It's like four months off, and everyone's like, could they get him?

Speaker 1:
[68:42] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:43] That would have been Will Howard right now, so I don't know.

Speaker 1:
[68:47] Well, we finally made it. The NBA playoffs, no more tanking discussions, at least for a couple days. We get to watch the best players and teams compete every day when the stakes are highest. And when I watch, I like to bet on FanDuel. FanDuel is a brand I trust, easy to build, by bet. I know I'll get my winnings instantly. I love looking at the odds there. So, this week, I still feel like Orlando is being overlooked. They were like plus nine, something like that. I think that's a 50-50 series, potentially. I also like Denver and Minnesota. I think Minnesota is a really good road team, but you could also get them in Minnesota. Those would be the two I would look at. I'm going to have at least one more set of picks over the weekend I'm going to put on Twitter. Check out my picks in the FanDuel Sportsbook app and on my Twitter feed. Don't forget to boost your potential winnings before you place it. FanDuel, play your game. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Upsets, buzzer beaters, game changing plays, what happens on the court keeps us on our toes. And life isn't any different. That's where State Farm comes in. With over 19,000 neighborhood agents for when you want to talk to a real person and easy to use digital tools. State Farm is there to help when facing the unpredictable. Because in life's uncertain moments, big or small, you need to know someone is ready to assist like a good neighbor. State Farm is there with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Price and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. We've seen some legendary athletes don the number four jersey. Now, I can't name names, but you guys know who I'm talking about. In fact, if you look at my studio, there's a framed picture of one of my favorite number fours. He played hockey. Anyway, you know what else is game changing for? PayPal Pay in Four. No fees, no interest, no impact on your credit score, just the flexibility to pay the way that works for you. It's available at millions of online stores. Pay in Four with PayPal. Subject to approval, learn more at paypal.com/pay in Four, PayPal Inc, NMLS 910-457. So we think, so Rams are off the board. We have no idea what they're going to do. And then the Philly thing is the other weird thing about this draft. Why? We talked about this before we started. With this AJ Brown trade that is apparently happening. And yet, unlike in the NBA where you say, we've agreed to a trade, we can't become official till July 15th in the NBA. NFL, it's like, well, they can't trade them until June 1st because then they can split his cap. So it would have to happen after June 1st. It's going to happen. Is it happening or is it not happening? And then all the variables that could change this happening, including like a wide receiver ending up for either the Patriots or the Eagles that they get excited about. AJ Brown feels like he has leverage and says, well, I need a contract extension if we're going to do this. Like I'm just glass half empty on the AJ Brown thing.

Speaker 3:
[71:51] Is this the Patriots fan speaking or just in this?

Speaker 1:
[71:53] Patriots fan speaking.

Speaker 3:
[71:54] Okay, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[71:55] Is this trauma from when the Red Sox didn't get air on?

Speaker 1:
[71:58] Trauma from when we didn't get everybody, Alex Bregman, four months ago. He was coming for 150 million, then he wasn't. I just don't, when you get agents involved and just outside factors, I just don't trust anything until it happens.

Speaker 2:
[72:13] If you're someone, a receiver gets hurt, or something happens where someone needs it, and all of a sudden they're in the market and they're calling Philadelphia.

Speaker 3:
[72:19] Yeah, but AJ Brown's wife is calling about dance classes and Brookline or something like that.

Speaker 1:
[72:24] I mean, he had to grow up a patron fan.

Speaker 3:
[72:25] Yeah, there you go. Yeah, but it's the Tennessee tie.

Speaker 2:
[72:29] It's almost too good.

Speaker 1:
[72:30] What if he's in Vegas and Jalen Hurts is there too and they're like, let's have dinner. Let's hash it out. Two hours later, it's like, hey, we're good. AJ wants to stay.

Speaker 3:
[72:39] Right.

Speaker 2:
[72:40] So the problem there is how he's like, well, I just traded for Wix and brought in this other guy.

Speaker 3:
[72:45] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[72:45] We're going to draft someone.

Speaker 1:
[72:47] And yeah, so they're picking 23.

Speaker 3:
[72:49] Yeah, but they're not going to pick 23. It's Howie Roseman. Howie has to move around and they need an offensive tackle. And what's going to happen is we're going to have Francis Mowinoa from Miami and then Spencer Fano from Utah. And somewhere in that top 10, 12 range, right? And then there's this second wave of... I think it starts at 17. There could be a team in between. The Ravens could go off and could go guard and Venga Juane from Penn State. But then 17 is Detroit and everyone knows that they've put in more work than every other organization in these offensive tackles. So the Jets are at 16, Tampa's at 15. They're already getting phone calls from organizations like the Steelers, the Eagles, the Texans, the... Who are the other? The Texans, the 49ers.

Speaker 1:
[73:45] The Bears.

Speaker 3:
[73:45] The Bears are a possibility. So all those teams, you got this murderer's row of teams that need offensive tackles from 17 to 30. In Miami, if they don't get a tackle at 12, they could use one. So, 31.

Speaker 1:
[73:58] I can't say the Patriots don't need a tackle.

Speaker 3:
[74:00] No, sorry, 31. Yeah, absolutely 31. So 17 to 31, there's about eight teams that need an offensive tackle and there's, at that point, only five remaining. So there's gonna be movement there.

Speaker 1:
[74:13] That's why seven and a half over. Yeah. Do you want to hear the Patriots' excuses I've talked myself into?

Speaker 2:
[74:19] Oh, here we go.

Speaker 1:
[74:19] Most of the Super Bowl? Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[74:21] Why they lost?

Speaker 1:
[74:22] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[74:23] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[74:23] Drake was hurt. I don't know if that's true or not, but well, we think it's true. Yeah. I did see him throwing the mini footballs at the basketball game a couple weeks ago. You saw that?

Speaker 3:
[74:33] You were good?

Speaker 1:
[74:33] I studied that. I did see that, actually. I thought he was snapping it again. Drake was definitely hurt. That's one thing I say. Will Campbell definitely playing on a bum knee, gutting it out. He was a whipping boy during the playoffs. Now he's a hero to me. He's played through pain. God only knows what kind of suffering he had.

Speaker 2:
[74:50] Jared Wilson wasn't great either, by the way. I mean, everyone talks about Campbell, but Jared Wilson.

Speaker 1:
[74:53] Our whole line got destroyed. Seattle didn't even know which side to go after.

Speaker 3:
[74:58] Did I tell you about him and Elliott Wolf?

Speaker 1:
[75:00] Oh, no.

Speaker 3:
[75:02] We had Elliott Wolf in. We did the GM series.

Speaker 1:
[75:04] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[75:06] We had Elliott Wolf in. I had met him before, but I didn't know him well. Muench got in late the night before. We got in Indianapolis, all sorts of weather in New England. You don't deal with it out here anymore, Bill. I don't. I know. We hadn't had a chance to really talk about it. We sit down. I ask a couple of questions. I'm talking about like, Elliott, what's it like? Ron, you're with your dad and the bowels of Lambeau Field, and you're watching tape as you know, I'm kind of getting them warmed up, right? The fluffers.

Speaker 2:
[75:34] The fluffing.

Speaker 1:
[75:35] A lot of fluffing from McShay.

Speaker 3:
[75:36] Question three goes from Metsch. I can kind of feel him. He's like, Will Campbell.

Speaker 2:
[75:42] I thought it was early.

Speaker 1:
[75:43] Oh, you did tell me this story.

Speaker 3:
[75:45] Will Campbell. I saw the short arms on tape. We saw it in the playoffs. And I'm like, oh my God.

Speaker 1:
[75:52] He's going for it.

Speaker 2:
[75:53] I was like, you guys move in regard? I didn't say it that way, but I was like, everyone wants to move in regard.

Speaker 1:
[75:57] He would be a great guard.

Speaker 3:
[75:58] He was awesome. He looked back and he goes, he is absolutely our left-hander this year. He was great about it.

Speaker 2:
[76:04] But I felt like I had to ask. I mean, I've been ripping Campbell. Like now he's going to be on our show and I'm not going to say anything.

Speaker 3:
[76:09] It was the time.

Speaker 1:
[76:11] The only thing I worry about him is, I think he's such an intense, committed, competitive, crazy, all about the football team guy. Like the moment he got drafted, he's like, I am now Drake May's bodyguard.

Speaker 2:
[76:21] I'm going to die for him.

Speaker 1:
[76:22] And I really wonder mentally how he handled, just getting his ass kicked in the playoffs. He's probably been successful at that position at every stage of his life, dating back to like age four.

Speaker 3:
[76:35] Yeah. Some of the stories too are he's as intense as he can get.

Speaker 1:
[76:39] Yeah, like the team worries about him a little bit, taking the job home.

Speaker 3:
[76:42] Yes, taking the job home.

Speaker 1:
[76:43] So I hope he got through that because we've certainly seen some Boston athletes over the years that- Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[76:50] Kind of wilt.

Speaker 1:
[76:50] Yeah, that had the bad moment and they were kind of-

Speaker 3:
[76:54] I can't remember an offensive tackle having that kind of moment. That kind of stage.

Speaker 1:
[76:58] Plus now Ruben Bayne is the new short arm guy.

Speaker 3:
[77:01] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[77:01] Right. He passed his torch. He's like, here Ruben, everyone can talk about your arms now.

Speaker 2:
[77:06] There's an offensive tackle from Utah I love and he's got shorter arms, Will Campbell and everyone's like, what's the deal, dude? How can you? How can you like one over the other? It's different tape.

Speaker 1:
[77:15] So the other thing, the other past stance I have now is, we just should have lost in Denver and it would have been fine. Like lose there in a blizzard, they score with five minutes left. We don't have to go to the Super Bowl and get this huge ass kicking.

Speaker 2:
[77:29] No one wins in Denver.

Speaker 1:
[77:30] It turns out right after the game, Drake May was actually hurt the whole time and we're just like, great. Okay. Great season. Let's move.

Speaker 3:
[77:37] We're building.

Speaker 1:
[77:37] It's like getting that Super Bowl ass kicking just made it so much worse. Yeah. I really wish it hadn't happened.

Speaker 3:
[77:43] It's not a good thing.

Speaker 1:
[77:45] And then you think about all the bad signs for this year and the bad juju that comes with this.

Speaker 2:
[77:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[77:50] The AJ. Brown thing, 2022 and 23, his first two years when he got traded from Tennessee to Philly, 303 targets in those two years, almost 3000 yards and 18 TDs. He's going to be 29 this season. There's pretty good track records with people moving that age.

Speaker 2:
[78:11] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[78:13] It seems good. Something scares me about it and I don't know. I didn't like the way he looked last year. I'd love to know more about why did he look that way.

Speaker 3:
[78:22] I agree with that. I also think fresh start. I think everyone looked that way on the offense for the Eagles last year. There was a lot going on. So I'm hoping I would be-

Speaker 1:
[78:31] They were just going to work like, this sucks.

Speaker 3:
[78:34] Scheme problems.

Speaker 1:
[78:35] I hate my job.

Speaker 3:
[78:36] With all the reports, I think it was just a drain. And obviously he wears his emotions on his sleeve, and it's very public about everything that he's dealt with. And I think it just, he hit a point.

Speaker 1:
[78:46] Is there a receiver that doesn't wear their emotions on their sleeve?

Speaker 3:
[78:48] Very few.

Speaker 2:
[78:49] Like Fitz was one, that's it.

Speaker 3:
[78:52] Yeah, Fitz.

Speaker 1:
[78:53] That's part of his Hall of Fame case. Never wore his emotions on his sleeve.

Speaker 3:
[78:58] First ballot.

Speaker 1:
[78:59] Unlike any other receiver. Actually, literally didn't wear sleeves. He was sleepless the whole time.

Speaker 3:
[79:05] I just think about Drake with his development, getting him that. He doesn't have that. He's never had anything close to that.

Speaker 1:
[79:12] Well, Mina said on NFL Live yesterday, which I was watching, that the Pats had man-to-man defense, the highest number of any team in the league. Because you could feel it watching the game, because every defense is like, eh, what are we worried about? Which is, let's play up on all of these guys. And AJ is like, by all these advanced stats, the best guy against man-to-man defense, and this would be a game changer. So I get it.

Speaker 2:
[79:39] The thing was interesting about the ESPN article that came out about the Eagles and Jalen Hurts calling his own plays. And did you read this?

Speaker 1:
[79:46] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[79:46] So he was changing all the players. If you're an office coordinator and you're game planning for a guy, if you have a talent like AJ Brown and you're like, we're game planning in this way, and all of a sudden your quarterback is changing everything that's no longer making him the focal point of the offense, on certain plays, at least, and then you have an opportunity to go play for Josh McDaniels, who's going to be like, that's what he does.

Speaker 3:
[80:05] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[80:06] Well, they'll also play with pace, which is the thing I never understood with the Eagles. I know they, it seemed like this was an actual strategy for them to limit the minutes in the game because of possessions, because of the math of this. I don't think the Pats think that way at all. So, they would be more like, oh, we'll put pressure on you and we have AJ out there and you're going to have to be constantly worried and keep your defense on the field.

Speaker 3:
[80:29] And our quarterback can run if you turn, you know, so.

Speaker 1:
[80:32] Hopefully, he can run and throw on like the last two games of the season. I assume he'll be able to roll out and throw again. We stopped calling that play.

Speaker 3:
[80:40] You're wearing the scars.

Speaker 1:
[80:41] I don't know if I will be able to. When we weren't calling the Drake May rolls out and whips a line drive play, I was like, he's fucking hurt. You can't tell me he's not hurt at this point.

Speaker 2:
[80:51] The arc and the velocity were just different. When are the pages taking a tight end? They're gonna need a tight end, right? I feel like people aren't talking.

Speaker 3:
[80:57] Well, there's 28 of them invited to the combine.

Speaker 2:
[80:59] Talking about tight end.

Speaker 1:
[81:00] It'll be some third round guy.

Speaker 3:
[81:02] Or maybe fourth.

Speaker 1:
[81:03] They signed a blocking tight end. They were all excited about it.

Speaker 2:
[81:05] Yeah, Julian.

Speaker 1:
[81:06] Yeah, Julian somebody. Julian Bell. Okay. Last thing.

Speaker 2:
[81:13] I'll second the last thing.

Speaker 1:
[81:15] So Zona and Cleveland are the trade down teams.

Speaker 3:
[81:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[81:19] And you think Saints, Cowboys have 12 and 20 and like getting attention. Jets at 16. Rams at 13. Are there any other trade up teams?

Speaker 3:
[81:33] I'm trying to sit here. I don't, Washington's not going to. Cleveland we talked about.

Speaker 1:
[81:41] I think that's the list.

Speaker 3:
[81:42] Yeah, I think that's probably the list.

Speaker 1:
[81:44] I was trying to figure out.

Speaker 3:
[81:45] Now, when we get to the offensive tackles, I think when we get to like Philly and some of those teams, I could see a move up.

Speaker 1:
[81:50] The little like quick moves back.

Speaker 2:
[81:51] Like four or five, yeah. Four or five spots, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[81:53] I was trying to figure out like somebody is on the board at nine that Jerry gets all excited about because he's 98 years old. Like Jeremiah Love falls to nine or down. Somebody down is lost.

Speaker 2:
[82:07] Something we can't anticipate, right?

Speaker 1:
[82:08] And could there be a, they have 12 and 20?

Speaker 3:
[82:12] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[82:12] And the Chiefs have nine and 40? Could there be like a, you take our 12 and 20, we'll take back nine, 40 and a third, one of those type of trades?

Speaker 3:
[82:22] Yeah, the problem with that theory is, I'm told the only reason that the Cowboys would move up is for an edge rusher. And if there's an edge rusher worth taking there, I think the Chiefs would take it, that would be Ruben Bain.

Speaker 1:
[82:35] Right.

Speaker 3:
[82:35] So, we do this, you talk about the amnesia in the off season, the NFL, there's amnesia every year with the Cowboys in the draft. You know that they've had 37 picks, I want to say, somewhere in the mid to high 30s of picks in the first three rounds dating back to 2014, and one time they have moved up, that was DeMarcus Lawrence in 2014, since then, nothing.

Speaker 1:
[83:00] So it's a lot of chatter about moving up, but then they're moving up. Jerry's going crazy. What worked on me, because I was the way to try it out.

Speaker 3:
[83:05] No, I know, we do it every year, but this year it actually would make sense as long as it doesn't require pick 20. They've got to pick, I think, 92 overall, the third round. I could see that, but that's not getting up to three. That's moving up a handful of spots to go get an edge rusher. I just don't know how feasible it is unless you're giving away next year something, but I think, I said it's a fireable offense. Now-

Speaker 2:
[83:30] Kind of walked it back, by the way.

Speaker 3:
[83:31] I haven't-

Speaker 1:
[83:32] I like fireable offenses, one of my favorite phrases, and would be a good blog name.

Speaker 3:
[83:37] But yes, it would be, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[83:39] And then even a good band.

Speaker 3:
[83:40] Yeah, fireable-

Speaker 1:
[83:41] Going to see fireable offense today at the garden.

Speaker 3:
[83:44] So a fireable offense is trading a first round pick from next year. That class is going to be, and it's not just the quarterbacks, so, but-

Speaker 1:
[83:52] Because Muench already started his work on the class of 27 yet.

Speaker 2:
[83:55] The quarterbacks we know pretty well. Not a lot of the other players.

Speaker 3:
[83:59] I got a mock draft coming out on, yeah, the way too early mock draft for next week.

Speaker 1:
[84:04] I love those.

Speaker 3:
[84:04] Take the show on Monday.

Speaker 1:
[84:05] I mean, it's-

Speaker 3:
[84:06] You're the problem.

Speaker 1:
[84:07] But you know what would be a good podcast is reviewing the way too early mock drafts.

Speaker 3:
[84:13] Oh, they do it.

Speaker 1:
[84:14] In like February. No, you guys doing it.

Speaker 3:
[84:16] Oh yeah, we should do that.

Speaker 1:
[84:18] Because you had a couple of quarterbacks way up there. Yeah. But that's the thing with the draft. It's humble pie, man. It's so volatile.

Speaker 3:
[84:24] Thanks, Bill.

Speaker 1:
[84:24] No, but you're guessing with 20 year old kids.

Speaker 3:
[84:28] Club Nick, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[84:30] My son's 18 and he's had five zags just in the last seven months. These are teenagers and young dudes. Who knows? Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[84:39] And we saw some zags this fall.

Speaker 1:
[84:41] Well, are you out on him?

Speaker 3:
[84:45] I wasn't in on him last year.

Speaker 2:
[84:46] Yeah, he was never.

Speaker 3:
[84:47] Yeah, but he's gonna go probably in the third round. There's some teams that like him.

Speaker 1:
[84:50] Nussmeyer?

Speaker 2:
[84:51] He loves Nussmeyer.

Speaker 3:
[84:52] I like Nussmeyer. Yeah, I think there's a shot.

Speaker 1:
[84:54] No?

Speaker 3:
[84:55] You can see Nussmeyer in the third round, the right system.

Speaker 2:
[84:57] He doesn't have a ton of starts. He gets hurt, he's small. I don't see it.

Speaker 1:
[85:01] I didn't see it either.

Speaker 3:
[85:02] Good.

Speaker 1:
[85:02] All right. Wild Card, crazy. I'm looking at the Fandl odds. Is it Bailey or Reese? There's no chance anyone else goes to?

Speaker 3:
[85:12] Correct.

Speaker 2:
[85:12] What if it's a trade? They didn't think there was gonna be a trade last year.

Speaker 1:
[85:16] Everyone else's odds are 125 to 1 and up. So it's really, everybody's decided these are the two.

Speaker 3:
[85:22] Yeah, it's definitely.

Speaker 1:
[85:23] Number three, Reese is the favorite at plus 130, Bailey's plus 260, Love is plus 330.

Speaker 3:
[85:31] Say them again.

Speaker 1:
[85:32] Reese plus 130, Bailey plus 260, Love plus 330. Which I thought was fairly enticing.

Speaker 3:
[85:40] Bailey's assumed to go the second overall pick, so that makes Reese the favorite. The problem with the Arizona pick is that there's a legitimate chance that the team moves up to three and Arizona takes a below market deal.

Speaker 1:
[85:51] But if they move up to three, who are they taking the other?

Speaker 3:
[85:53] It would be for Reese. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[85:54] All right, four.

Speaker 3:
[85:55] What's Sonny Stiles' number for four?

Speaker 1:
[85:58] For four? Yeah. Well, Love is plus 150 and the favorite, Bailey's plus 410, and Stiles is plus 490.

Speaker 3:
[86:08] That's interesting. I think Stiles could be, I'm not saying he will. But what I've been told for Tennessee is it's, if one of those edge rushers does get there, let's say Arizona takes Jeremiah Love at three, they would take Reese, let's say. If not, Sonny Stiles, Robert Sala views it differently than most. That middle linebacker is like, that's equivalent of getting an edge for him. That's, you know, Fred Warner, that's their, so that's something to look out for there.

Speaker 1:
[86:38] I could see Stiles going for it too. I also didn't mind Tennessee's running backs last year, but you'd have to really love love, but it makes me nervous spinning all that capital on a QB and a running back.

Speaker 2:
[86:49] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[86:50] Right? You're gonna do the fourth and the first pick in back-to-back drafts.

Speaker 2:
[86:55] The thing about Tennessee's run game when I started looking at it, Pollard's a pretty good back. I mean, thousand yards for like five or six seasons in a row.

Speaker 1:
[87:01] He was money down the stretch last year.

Speaker 2:
[87:03] He's good.

Speaker 1:
[87:03] Yeah, he was like winning fantasy drafts.

Speaker 3:
[87:04] And they had Tiesway, Spears.

Speaker 2:
[87:05] But Spears can't stay healthy. So they had the third fewest carries. You have a rookie quarterback and they had the third fewest carries in the league. They got to get, it doesn't have to be love. They got to get another back that they can get more committed to the ground game. They just have to.

Speaker 3:
[87:19] What I'm interested in is you're sitting there at four. You have to take styles at four or you try to bait up a team to come get Jeremiah love. The Giants putting out all of a sudden in the last 72. It's tough to manage all of this, man. I'm having conversations with people who are actually making decisions and we're talking about all 31 other teams and what they could do and what they're hearing, what the Scouts are hearing.

Speaker 1:
[87:46] And they're kind of using you to find out what you're hearing.

Speaker 3:
[87:49] Totally. And I'm using them to find out what they're hearing. And we're doing the tap dance. And then you get off the phone and you get on the next call. So there's just a lot of... But I always get worried in the last 72 hours to like 150 hours of why is this message is resurfacing or this is the first I've heard of this, you know?

Speaker 1:
[88:15] Right. Is this late developing news or is this a purposeful steer?

Speaker 3:
[88:20] The decisions are basically made. But all of a sudden the giants, it's like, if love is there, they'll take them. But if love is there, isn't that like, come move up and get it? What they don't know is that might drive the market up for Tennessee to get a good deal to move out of four. Now, Styles is probably gonna go seven, so where would that be too? But yeah, I would just pick it on that.

Speaker 1:
[88:43] If I was Tennessee, I wouldn't mind moving back a couple spots and picking up something. Because I just need people.

Speaker 2:
[88:48] Yeah, I would.

Speaker 1:
[88:49] Fifth pick, the odds, Styles is the favorite at plus 185, Tyson's plus 280.

Speaker 3:
[88:54] I'm told it's not Styles.

Speaker 2:
[88:55] I'm gonna take the field on that one.

Speaker 1:
[88:56] Love plus 380, Caleb Downs plus 550.

Speaker 3:
[89:03] What about Tyson?

Speaker 1:
[89:05] Tyson was plus 280.

Speaker 3:
[89:09] I think Tyson's in play. I mean, I know Tyson's in play, but do they think they can get him at 10? Same thing with Downs. Jeremiah loves the wild card.

Speaker 1:
[89:18] Taking Tyson at five would be kind of insane, I think. That seems too high. Because of the injuries?

Speaker 3:
[89:24] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[89:25] Yeah, because of the injuries. I want my receivers to be in the field. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[89:31] It becomes this balancing act of, all right, now we've fallen in love, but where do we really truly think we should be able, we should be able to take him versus where can we take him?

Speaker 1:
[89:42] Why did the Giants need another stud receiver, by the way?

Speaker 3:
[89:45] Well, Malik neighbors, they don't even know, they're worried about when he's coming back to full strength, like the start of the season, there's part of that. You've got a quarterback that needs another weapon. Honestly, it reeks to me. Jordan Tyson feels like, if we can get him at 10, awesome. But the information, for what it's worth, is saying that they could take a swing there.

Speaker 1:
[90:07] Can I give you my five types of receivers?

Speaker 3:
[90:09] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[90:11] Speaking of Jordan Tyson, the injury-prone stud, really tough one. Really, I have to have a lot of meetings about that. High floor ceiling guy, but something leaves you a little cold? Cardinal Tate? Like, yeah, he's going to be awesome, but it's... Well, why aren't I more excited to take him?

Speaker 2:
[90:29] Well, because he was the second best receiver on his college team.

Speaker 3:
[90:31] So was JSN.

Speaker 2:
[90:33] I get it, but that was the same thing on JSN. Was this guy going to be...

Speaker 1:
[90:35] High floor ceiling leaves me a little cold. Physical and traffic wins every ball guy. This guy just goes either way. This was like the DeAndre Hopkins was a great example of this. The Patriots have had guys like this. Other times the guy just can't get open.

Speaker 2:
[90:56] Yeah. It depends on the scheme. Kelvin Benjamin for the Panthers. Wasn't he a big guy?

Speaker 3:
[91:00] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[91:01] So Denzel Boston is the version of that this year.

Speaker 2:
[91:03] I like him.

Speaker 3:
[91:05] We know.

Speaker 1:
[91:06] The inside-outside guy that everyone calls Twitchy. That's Casey Concepcion. Twitchy is a good one. So the past time Kyle Williams last year was Twitchy. He was like, Twitchy. He'll beat you out of a heat. And then Slot Stud, which is my personal favorite. That's Lemon. But I like when it's just like, you know what this guy is? He's an awesome fucking slot guy and he's just going to get open and he can block. That sounds great. I'll take that guy.

Speaker 3:
[91:31] How early though?

Speaker 1:
[91:32] In the second round.

Speaker 2:
[91:32] Because that's the second round. There you go.

Speaker 3:
[91:36] Yeah, so you'd love Jeremy Bernard, you'd love Dejan Stribling, Omar Cooper Jr. at one point we thought was going to be second, but it's going to be first. Those are those guys.

Speaker 1:
[91:46] And then there's the other, there's the sixth type, which is the guy, what's his name? Brazil Jr. Yeah. It's one of those like fall in love or you're getting fired, one of those picks depending on how high you go.

Speaker 2:
[92:00] It's a lottery ticket, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[92:01] Yeah, but he just seems, the highlights for him are awesome. Yeah, you're like, whoa.

Speaker 3:
[92:06] And then the Trey Lance's brother is another one like that, tall, four threes, all of it, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[92:12] The one guy I would never take is just the, this dude's super fast and we'll figure out the rest. The Pats took that guy 20 times.

Speaker 3:
[92:19] Yeah, yeah. Well, the Raiders used to take him every year. Then there's the Bengals' John Ross. Yep, that was a good one. Was it Devon, what was the name of the Jets? The Jets took one.

Speaker 1:
[92:30] Well, in the 80s, this guy used to go all the time. They used to, the Raiders and the Jets. Who was the guy the Jets had that one time? They took him in the top four.

Speaker 3:
[92:39] Oh, shoot.

Speaker 1:
[92:40] Remember him? Johnny Lamb Jones.

Speaker 3:
[92:42] Okay, that's a great poll.

Speaker 1:
[92:45] That is insane.

Speaker 3:
[92:45] Great poll.

Speaker 1:
[92:46] He's like, he's really fast.

Speaker 3:
[92:48] That's about it. Yeah, we've had those.

Speaker 1:
[92:51] Yeah, there's a lot of those. I think we're getting better at not taking those guys too high. It was like, oh, he runs a four, too. Cool.

Speaker 2:
[92:58] Historically, they don't do, they just don't do well.

Speaker 3:
[93:00] The fastest guy at the Combine is like 10% chance of you hitting on where they actually get dropped.

Speaker 1:
[93:06] Who's your chip on the shoulder receiver this year? Because that guy hits 100% of the time. The guy who's just angry that he's not being mentioned with better guys and produced everywhere he went.

Speaker 3:
[93:15] It could be Jeremy Bernard. It could be. The Alabama guy. He wasn't even the best receiver by everyone's measure at Alabama. Ryan Williams just disappeared.

Speaker 2:
[93:25] Could we get him in the second round?

Speaker 3:
[93:27] Yeah. Jeremy Bernard?

Speaker 2:
[93:29] Yeah. I just don't get it because it's the same conversation. We have these conversations and talk about how speed isn't as important as you think when you get down to that range. Like Jeremy Bernard, all he does is make plays on tape, man. All he does is make plays.

Speaker 3:
[93:43] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[93:43] He's the best player on that team last year. People are like, I don't know. I don't know. He's not.

Speaker 3:
[93:47] Not dynamic. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[93:48] He doesn't make.

Speaker 3:
[93:49] He isn't. If you fit him right in the right system, he's got a chance to be an 80-catcher-year guy.

Speaker 1:
[93:57] If I was the wide receiver draft specialist, I would just want guys that got open on the tape that I was watching.

Speaker 2:
[94:03] And caught the ball.

Speaker 1:
[94:03] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[94:04] Get open.

Speaker 1:
[94:04] Did you get open? Did you catch it when they threw it to you?

Speaker 3:
[94:06] It sounds so easy.

Speaker 1:
[94:07] It sounds so easy. Those guys are about like, he's amazing in traffic. It's like, cool. No thanks.

Speaker 3:
[94:13] And Tony and Williams is one from Clemson. He just gets open. Yep. Gets open.

Speaker 1:
[94:18] Is there a beloved running back for you in the second, third, fourth rounds that you're just to commit?

Speaker 3:
[94:22] I'm gonna commit.

Speaker 1:
[94:23] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[94:25] Maurice Jones Drew. That's what he's built like. He is a short, low to the ground.

Speaker 3:
[94:29] I love those guys. He dances too much. Like, yeah, he danced behind a Washington Offensive line that wasn't great and I get, Joe, he just, he, his twitch and his build and his contact balance, like, I think he's gonna be a really good pro. Second round? Fourth.

Speaker 1:
[94:46] Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[94:48] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[94:48] And who's your, who's your Tyler Shuck this year?

Speaker 3:
[94:51] I mean, Colpate.

Speaker 1:
[94:52] McShay fucking nailed that last year. Oh yeah, you talked about him on my pod. So you're still with him.

Speaker 3:
[94:57] Yeah. You might be able to get him late third, early fourth.

Speaker 2:
[95:00] Are you in on this? No, not at all.

Speaker 3:
[95:02] And he looks like T-Bone.

Speaker 2:
[95:03] McShay will sit there all year long and tell you about how important snaps are. We're getting like, yeah, texts from everyone.

Speaker 3:
[95:09] This is why I would hire him.

Speaker 2:
[95:10] Every team is busting his balls all year long about like, how many snaps, McShay, how many snaps? And then we get into the process and Garrett Nussmeyer is the greatest even though he doesn't have that many snaps. And he pulls this guy out from the watered down FCS, where all the guys have left for better teams. And Bryce Lance, who's the best athlete on the field, is running around like it's backyard football. And this lefty, who was playing running back two years ago, was also going to be the next great quarterback. He called him better than Carson Wentz, right? He said he was a better prospect than Carson Wentz?

Speaker 3:
[95:40] I think, yeah, I think he has better traits.

Speaker 1:
[95:42] Sometimes you can just get a lot of confidence after you hit one of these. This might be your heat check moment. Post-Shuck, you're just trying to make the magic happen again.

Speaker 3:
[95:51] Yep, Dart and Shuck last year.

Speaker 2:
[95:53] Give me Taylor Green.

Speaker 1:
[95:54] I love Shuck. I don't know how many years he's going to play, because he takes huge hits and doesn't care.

Speaker 2:
[95:59] And he doesn't.

Speaker 1:
[95:59] Dart's the same way.

Speaker 2:
[96:01] The history's not good either.

Speaker 1:
[96:02] Shuck gets up every time. Or at least he did last season, but I liked him.

Speaker 3:
[96:05] He's a tough, he's a tough, I just, I, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[96:09] All right, so you're playing this week.

Speaker 3:
[96:11] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[96:11] We are going to be doing shows all week. We're going to be live on Netflix. Yep. During the first round of Thursday night.

Speaker 3:
[96:16] Oh, I wanted to run this by you.

Speaker 1:
[96:18] Yeah.

Speaker 3:
[96:18] It's not my idea. Actually came from Rich Eisen. I'm just going to be honest. Instead of the chime from ESPN, the ta-dum, the point of players picked.

Speaker 1:
[96:29] Oh, dude, the Netflix noise?

Speaker 2:
[96:31] Yes, that's a good idea.

Speaker 3:
[96:32] You like it?

Speaker 1:
[96:33] I don't know. We'd have to find out from the guys.

Speaker 3:
[96:36] I think they were working on it, but I just want to...

Speaker 1:
[96:38] That's a really good idea.

Speaker 2:
[96:39] Right?

Speaker 3:
[96:39] Yeah. The NFL draft is live on Netflix.

Speaker 1:
[96:42] I hear that noise. I feel like I'm about to watch a true crime documentary, but no, it'd be the next pick.

Speaker 2:
[96:46] With all the stuff that he asked you, were you worried when he said I want to run something by you on your show?

Speaker 1:
[96:51] I mean, with McShay, you've got to hold on to your seat at all times. Right. I wasn't sure where we were going. Yeah, it's fair. I think I've given you a lot, Todd. No, the Netflix shot is good, though. That actually is pretty doable. So we got Thursday Night, Friday Night Live. And then we'll do a Saturday wrapping up the whatever.

Speaker 3:
[97:07] And then we're in Sunday. We do the big 32 team. So it lasts the off season. So you can kind of get the deep dive in that. On Monday, we're in taping the way too early mock draft. And then we're out of your hair.

Speaker 1:
[97:20] Don't forget to do the redo of last year's mock draft.

Speaker 3:
[97:23] I think that's a good idea. Dan Colmer, you got that?

Speaker 2:
[97:25] In the lead up, right? Not now, but in the lead up.

Speaker 1:
[97:27] No, like just when you need evergreen content for when it's kind of dying in the spring.

Speaker 3:
[97:32] Yeah, I think it's great. I love it.

Speaker 1:
[97:34] Good to see you guys. Thanks for coming on. Good to see you, man.

Speaker 3:
[97:36] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[97:38] And now it's time for today's With the Assist segment presented by State Farm. On the court, you can't expect everything to go as planned, but that's when your teammates come in. Because when you know someone's there, you have the confidence to take on whatever comes next. And we've seen some pretty iconic teammate combinations. My favorite was Bird and McHale in the 80s for the Celtics. Three titles, 81, 84, 86. The best forward combo I think we've ever had. Complimenting each other perfectly. Both guys' bodies broke down by the late 80s, but we had an incredible ride for them. And they really complimented each other perfectly. Life's no different. Unexpected things happen. You want to know someone's there to help. Like how Larry Bird was there to help Kevin McHale. That's where State Farm comes in. They've got easy to use digital tools. Like the State Farm app and neighborhood State Farm agents when you want to talk to a real person. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there with the assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Viori, whose lounge collection is a total game changer for fall comfort. Take their Ponto Performance Joggers and Coronado Hoodie, made with Viori's signature Dream Knit fabric. Super soft, lightweight, move with you wherever the day takes you. Plus, they're designed to look great. Whether you're working out, running errands, or even heading to the office, or like me, power walking around LA. Basically, Viori is an investment in your happiness. For our listeners, they're offering 20% off your first purchase at viori.com/simmons, vuori.com/simmons. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Well, marketers know the feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great. Impressions, reach, reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's not such a great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your CFO? LinkedIn ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. You can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull spend. Advertise on LinkedIn the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn ads. Get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin.com/rewatchables. Terms and conditions apply. With Van Lathan, we're in the Ringer tailgate set. You saw the Michael Jackson movie last night. We did rewatchables together. We taped rewatchables for next week. We did Ghostbusters. And then you left to go see Michael Jackson. A movie that ends in 1989.

Speaker 4:
[100:19] With Bad. Yeah. With Bad. With a live performance of Bad in London. I'm going to try not to spoil as much of the movie as you guys can go out and see the movie for yourself. I encourage you.

Speaker 1:
[100:28] Well, we know what happened to Michael Jackson.

Speaker 4:
[100:30] We do. We do. But, you know, there's still some things in there that I think people are going to be interested in seeing.

Speaker 1:
[100:34] Like what?

Speaker 4:
[100:36] The performance of Jafar Jackson in the movie is a revelation. He's phenomenal as Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1:
[100:42] Is there any relation? I know nothing. I've read nothing. I know nothing.

Speaker 4:
[100:47] So Jermaine Jackson's son plays Michael Jackson, which in some ways probably is some like weird, cosmic justice for Jermaine Jackson, you know. There wasn't always a great relationship.

Speaker 1:
[100:58] Did he need justice?

Speaker 4:
[100:59] No, he didn't. But what I'm saying is that at times Jermaine and Michael didn't have like the best relationship or whatever, but, you know, they're brothers. So that's what happens in family. But yeah, so he plays Michael Jackson. He dances like Michael Jackson. He embodies the spirit of Michael Jackson. And honestly, he nails it. When I say he nails it, he nails it to a degree that like a Hugh Jackman, Wolverine type nail in it. He really nails Michael Jackson in the movie. And it's a shame because the movie is an abomination.

Speaker 1:
[101:27] Abomination? Yeah. Well, okay.

Speaker 4:
[101:30] So I have to, I have to. You guys know me. I always start in love. Home of Domingo. Great. Neil Long. Great. Jafar Jackson. Great. It's not a serious movie. It's not a serious movie. It's a movie about somebody who we all love to pieces. Love Michael Jackson to pieces, right? He is almost like a mythical character, not even like a human being. And that's the way the movie treats him. The movie treats him like a mythical character.

Speaker 1:
[101:59] Don't all of these music hagiographies treat the people that way? Like Elton John, Freddie Mercury. Like I'm kind of used to this with my biopics for movies.

Speaker 4:
[102:09] Yeah. To a degree, you're not wrong, which is why I realized something while I was watching, Michael. The biopic is dead. The biopic, as to me, the biopic, and maybe even the biographical documentary as a storytelling tool, I think, is gone.

Speaker 1:
[102:30] I would say both are, I've been saying this for a while. We saw this happen with books. Books used to be, they would do biographies about people that people would participate in. And sometimes it would be pretty hard-hitting. You know, maybe the person would regret participating at all. And then eventually that shifted to the autobiography. And almost every time when somebody does the autobiography, it's like, all right, I'm going to take this with an entire salt shaker of salt, not just one grain. I'm going to just assume this is this person's version. It's going to be very flattering to them. They're going to remember the things they want to remember, not be that candid about the things maybe they don't want to talk about. And that's just what I'm getting. And in documentaries for a while, they felt pretty, you kind of felt like you were getting all the sides of the stories. And something shifted with that in the last 10 years.

Speaker 4:
[103:18] Yeah, I think the streamers had something to do with it in terms of the amount of people that were doing biopics on themselves while they were still around. I think-

Speaker 1:
[103:25] Or the estate that controls-

Speaker 4:
[103:27] The estate that controls it. When you look at this movie though, right off the bat, there's a storytelling issue here. The movie has no story. There's no story to the movie.

Speaker 1:
[103:38] The story was that they did it a certain way and the estate made them change everything, right? This has been a long time.

Speaker 4:
[103:44] I want to make sure people understand. I am not complaining about this movie or down on the film because the movie didn't go into some of the more controversial aspects of Michael Jackson's life.

Speaker 1:
[103:54] Controversial.

Speaker 4:
[103:55] Yeah, sorry.

Speaker 1:
[103:56] That's the word we're using? It's the family picada.

Speaker 4:
[103:58] The sexual assault allegations against Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1:
[104:01] Oh, we can say that as well.

Speaker 4:
[104:01] Let's say that. I'm not tripping because the movie didn't get into that because I didn't expect it to. It doesn't really interrogate anything about Michael Jackson really that seriously. Like the movie, what you were supposed to come away from is that Michael Jackson is like divinely touched, extraordinarily good.

Speaker 1:
[104:27] I thought that anyway.

Speaker 4:
[104:29] But what I'm saying is...

Speaker 1:
[104:30] Maybe as a musician or a person?

Speaker 4:
[104:31] No, no, no, as a person. Like as a person, the movie goes through a great length, great length to saint him, to make him look like it every time there's a kid, Michael Stosser the kid, every time. And you see people looking at him as he's doing these good works, and they seem to be like arrested by his purity. It's really laid on thick. Now look, once again, the same magical space that Michael Jackson exists in for a lot of people, he exists in that space for me, and I understand that, that people want to kind of live in that. But you gotta give me something, right? You gotta give me a real analysis of where the genius and the drive and all of that stuff came from, and the movie just doesn't take any of that seriously.

Speaker 1:
[105:17] Yeah, all right, so if the estate's like, here's all the stuff that's off limits, but you can make a movie anyway, I'd probably have focused it thriller to when his hair gets caught on fire and he starts getting weird, and he becomes so famous that he basically can't do anything. He becomes a recluse. On top of the fact that the hair thing seemed like it was really damaging to him. Like he got burned, he felt like he was disfigured, led to a lot of the stuff that his skin changing, all the plastic surgery, that seemed to be the tipping point moment. Combined with the victory tour, when him and his brothers went out and they bankrupted the Sullivan family basically. But just that whole era, I just would have centered it there versus, stopping in 1989 is insane. Bill, why was that the stopping point?

Speaker 4:
[106:05] I think you know why. I mean if you-

Speaker 1:
[106:08] But why not stop in like 1987? Why'd they pick 89?

Speaker 4:
[106:11] Well if you go to 1997, you can't not talk about that.

Speaker 1:
[106:14] But I'm saying why not just stop in 87? Just stop with that?

Speaker 4:
[106:17] Oh stop before bad. Like they get to him on a world tour. It's like him doing a solo world tour, which was a big deal for him. He wanted to do a solo world tour, so they stopped with him doing the bad world tour. Here's a frustrating thing. Everything that you just talked about, that's all in the movie. All of it's in the movie. His plastic surgery stuff is in the movie. Vitaligo's stuff is in the movie. The burning of the hair is probably the thing that the movie gets the most right, right? Because of the reason why he's doing that commercial, obviously at the behest of his father. He wants to go back out on tour with his brothers, like what it cost him, and how him being burned actually starts his relationship with painkillers and stuff like that, which we all know would eventually take his life.

Speaker 1:
[107:06] So that sounds interesting to me.

Speaker 4:
[107:07] But it doesn't, it's just on the screen.

Speaker 1:
[107:11] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[107:11] Okay, there's nothing, so it's just like, hey, I have vitiligo, I have to take this medicine for it. Like Michael, at one point says he doesn't like his nose, the next thing he comes home and he's had a nose job.

Speaker 1:
[107:22] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[107:22] Right? There was a movie called The Jackson Family in American Dream, a miniseries from the early 90s, right?

Speaker 1:
[107:28] I saw it.

Speaker 4:
[107:29] Okay. That movie treats Michael Jackson as a real fragile, wandering mind of genius in a real serious way. And there's a scene of him looking in the mirror, talking about the fact that his face is breaking out, talking to his mother about his nose. And you get the feeling of how displaced he felt in his body at some time, right? And it's a serious scene. It's like a real scene. Or when Motown 25 is about to happen and Michael goes, I'll do it with my brothers. I'll perform my brothers, but I want a solo spot. It's a powerful moment of him like stepping away. This movie just can't get to any of that stuff. It's on the screen, but not really interrogated in any way. But I do know what is interrogated. A weird scene with Miles Teller as the lawyer. Where Michael Jackson is in the movie. But bro, as the lawyer, I'm sitting next to Joe and me. I'm like, we're watching the scene and there's this weird scene where all of these guys are sitting around and he fucking talks to Miles Teller's character and he's like, everybody get out the room. You stay, you're my guy. And then they're in the movie and I'm like, yo, whoever that guy is.

Speaker 1:
[108:42] Right, he greenlit this movie.

Speaker 4:
[108:44] He has something to do with this movie because this scene doesn't make any fucking sense to be in a movie about Michael Jackson. Now this guy pops in and you got an A-list star playing him. It didn't make any sense whatsoever. And then at the end of the movie, I'm looking and it says, yeah, look, producer John Branco, whatever his name is, whatever. So like, I don't mean to trash it because I think that people are gonna enjoy it because you're gonna take a trip down memory lane. But it's just, it was just like glossy bullshit.

Speaker 1:
[109:14] Right. Well, and Antoine Foucault is the director.

Speaker 4:
[109:17] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[109:19] So when he, he probably signed up for something that he felt like was gonna be a completely different movie and now has to pretend this was the movie he made, which is clearly not the case.

Speaker 4:
[109:28] I mean, the movie isn't poorly made. I mean, it's got all, it's got like top.

Speaker 1:
[109:31] It's well done gloss.

Speaker 4:
[109:32] Well done gloss, but like, I don't know. People are gonna hear this and they're gonna be like, how could Van be this upset about it? Because Van is the one that year after year goes into the theater to watch some of the most ham handed superhero shit that's ever existed, right? It occurred to me. I held out a difference, or I made a distinction here. This is the MCU-ification of a biopic. This is the, we know that we have you, so we don't have to do anything else, which is the criticism about the MCU that exists now, about superhero movies that exist now.

Speaker 1:
[110:17] You signed up for this, so it's not our fault.

Speaker 4:
[110:19] Hey, you're in here to watch action figures fly around, and that's all we gotta give you. Earlier on, I think the exciting thing about those movies was that they did not do that. They played around with genre. They took chances. They did other stuff. But it got to the point to where they knew they had us, and so we were gonna watch whatever it was, and now there's a lot of people that are disillusioned with them. When I go to see a movie about this type of person, that this type of impact, you wanna come away feeling like you know what made that guy tick.

Speaker 1:
[110:48] So what would be the perfect IP that you would wanna sign up for for Michael Jackson? Because for me, it would be like a 10 hour documentary that was like warts and all, like let's go, let's dive into this dude.

Speaker 4:
[110:59] There are two different movies. One movie would be this same movie, but just about the making of Thriller.

Speaker 1:
[111:06] So you can find it to like 82 to 85, that's it.

Speaker 4:
[111:09] Just about the making of Thriller.

Speaker 1:
[111:10] By the way, that's what they should have done.

Speaker 4:
[111:12] Right, like when I say just-

Speaker 1:
[111:13] Because that takes them off the hook with everything that happens in the 90s.

Speaker 4:
[111:16] You can flash back to stuff that happens. We really don't necessarily need the whole Jackson 5 journey. It is one of the most famous journeys that's ever existed in Superstar. But the making of Thriller is very special. It's a special time in music, it's a special time in culture, and it's a special time where this person reaches their zenith, like an athlete. What was the season that Michael Jordan just became the guy that everybody was waiting for Michael Jordan to become? That doesn't happen in culture as much as we think that it does.

Speaker 1:
[111:49] They tried to do that with the Springsteen movie, and it was weird. They picked Nebraska, which I'm a Springsteen guy. Nebraska was a really interesting choice, but it was basically, they told the whole story to set up what happens with Born in the USA, which they then don't go into. So it's like, we assume you already know what happened with Born in the USA. This part's more interesting. It's like, eh, you know what would have been really interesting? Born in the USA.

Speaker 4:
[112:11] But with that, and if you go granular, if you get deep into like, what Michael had to sacrifice, what he was going through, the pressure he was under, you see how...

Speaker 1:
[112:22] Whoa, a child star.

Speaker 4:
[112:23] That piece of art.

Speaker 1:
[112:25] He's in the 70s cocaine era. He's at Studio 54.

Speaker 4:
[112:28] All of that stuff.

Speaker 1:
[112:29] Everyone's trying to get in with him.

Speaker 4:
[112:31] And just after and what it means to be like the biggest star in the world. That's one. Number two, an interesting story that no one talks about is the just ridiculously amazing story of how Michael Jackson came to control The Beatles' catalog. Right. Like, not just, hi, I'm cool with Paul McCartney. Paul has the idea. Michael is shrewd enough to go and work him on the idea. Just everything that had to happen for him to get that. Because that ends with a deal for him to have to perform in Australia, right? And him performing in Australia, one of the accusers ended up... So there's a whole bunch of things that happen. I mean, you don't necessarily have to get into that. There's a whole bunch of things that happen with that. And it's one of the more... That is a story about the genius, the business genius, and the cultural genius of Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1:
[113:25] I would also throw in The Lisa Marie Presley Wedding. It's the third movie I want to see. I just don't know what happened with that. That was one of those, nobody knew what was going on the entire time. We still don't know what happened.

Speaker 4:
[113:36] We don't. And I remember they came on MTV and it was like, no one thought this would last. And my dad was like, it hadn't lasted.

Speaker 1:
[113:43] It hadn't lasted.

Speaker 4:
[113:44] Like what are you talking about? It hadn't lasted yet.

Speaker 1:
[113:47] I think with some of these things, the biggest things we've ever had, which is basically like Elvis, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, these things come around content wise every few years. Like it happened to The Beatles a couple years ago in that thing, the behind the scenes Peter Jackson documentary. That was awesome. And it was like, oh, The Beatles are having a moment again. And then it goes. And then six years later, something else will happen. I think that's happening with Michael Jackson now. I know everybody doesn't like the movie, but I think it's going to be the catalyst to a re-examination of all the stuff he did. Because what really happens is the new generations who don't, like my son, when my son was like five, he didn't know backstory of Michael Jackson. He just knew he liked the songs. And the kids get into it. And it's a generational thing that never stops. And I think this goes to a bigger point, which we were talking about when Kon Nue was here at SoFi a couple weeks ago about people being able to separate the art from other stuff that may have happened. And how you can, if you like the music, you like the music and you can just put it there and you can kind of push the other stuff this way. And that whole dialogue about whether that's something we should, should we be that way? With the heart wants.

Speaker 4:
[115:03] We don't have any choice. I mean, just if we're being honest, when I say we don't have any choice, what I mean is like, I can choose if I want to, not to listen to Michael Jackson music or to whatever. What I can't do with him specifically, not all the artists that have been involved in fuck shit like this, but with Michael Jackson, it's so tied to the most formative years of my brain that if I see him or I hear the music, my body reflexively does something.

Speaker 1:
[115:35] You hear Billie Jean and your leg just starts moving.

Speaker 4:
[115:37] There's nothing you can do. Now you can make the decision to talk about things responsibly and make sure you hold space for victims and make sure you have these conversations with the gravitas and the way that they deserve. You can do all of that.

Speaker 1:
[115:48] Nobody wants to do that when they're on Spotify on a walk at two in the afternoon and working out and they're just like, fuck it, I'm going to put in my Michael Mix.

Speaker 4:
[115:55] It's true and so the reality of all of this, and by the way, I just want to say this real quick. And this is, you know, people can feel the way I want about this. I worked at TMZ for a very long time. I worked at TMZ for a long time. So the people that I know that have looked into Michael Jackson's various cases, the people that I know have looked into them in a really granular way, like in a really detailed way. Looking at his situation is interesting because I have to be real. It's a real observation. The people that I know, the deeper you get into all of the stuff that happened with him, the more questions you actually have about whether or not he ever was actually guilty of something. The news director at TMZ back in the day, he's like, wasn't, I'm not talking about, he's not from South Baton Rouge like me. He's a white boy from Orange County, swore up and down. He's like, Van, I have all of these documents. He didn't do anything. Like all of this stuff. And so there is this thing with him in all of his cases. He beat it in court. There's this thing with him to where the more you get into it, people that I know that really have deep knowledge of everything that happened, they look at it and they go, they don't think that he did anything. Now maybe that's me coping. That could be me coping. But the reality of the situation is that is true from people that I know, that have really looked into it.

Speaker 1:
[117:20] That's how I feel about MacFreyable. Look, man, the guy just wanted to rest.

Speaker 4:
[117:32] The other six people, they were there.

Speaker 1:
[117:33] It's a great resort.

Speaker 4:
[117:34] Yeah, it's a great resort.

Speaker 1:
[117:35] It seems like a relaxation weekend.

Speaker 4:
[117:38] But to your point, though, the movie, the first thing I did when I got home was put on Michael Jackson's shit on YouTube. The first thing I did. But even that, if you do a biopic about Michael Jackson and Jafar Jackson, once again, the performance and the dancing is great. But if you do a biopic about Michael Jackson, the best parts can't be like making thriller or performing on stage. Because if I want that, I could just go to YouTube and watch that. So there has to be other parts of the movie that aren't oriented around the music and around someone doing a Michael Jackson, essentially an impression. This movie just doesn't have that.

Speaker 1:
[118:18] Well, apparently, there's an incredible Elvis documentary right now that somebody spent a lot of time on Basler and Wren, I think. And it was like behind the scenes Vegas. They found all this footage and it's amazing. And if that had come out in like 1989, it felt like it would have been the biggest movie in the world. Now it's 2026. Elvis has been dead for 49 years. I don't know if he has the same hold on people under 50. I think people in their 70s and 80s might care. I wonder when Michael Jackson is going to hit that point. I would argue with in the Spotify era where people are just downloading music, you might not hit that point for 40 more years. Where people are just like, there might be some five-year-old right now in a car on the way home from school, they're listening to Thriller and they don't know any better. They don't know anything other than the songs they're listening to.

Speaker 4:
[119:05] You know, this might be the old man talking, but Elvis is a ridiculously important American pop culture figure. It just feels different with Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1:
[119:18] I don't know. I think that's generational.

Speaker 4:
[119:20] It probably is. Everything culturally expires. Everything culturally expires.

Speaker 1:
[119:25] Because it's the same thing for like Mickey Manil, Babe Ruth, Frank Sinatra. There are these people that had these runs, but then as the years pass, there's nobody there to kind of keep the torch going with the flames. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4:
[119:38] Ain't none of them people got a Thriller though.

Speaker 1:
[119:40] That's true. Elvis was way up there though.

Speaker 4:
[119:42] Elvis is...

Speaker 1:
[119:43] I mean, Elvis was the biggest star we had in the world.

Speaker 4:
[119:45] I know, but...

Speaker 1:
[119:46] For years.

Speaker 4:
[119:47] But that's how we thought. Then the biggest star came into the room. It's just different.

Speaker 1:
[119:53] You don't have to tell me.

Speaker 4:
[119:53] I was there.

Speaker 1:
[119:54] Michael's the biggest... He's the most talented, biggest star I've ever seen in my life.

Speaker 4:
[119:58] Right. And...

Speaker 1:
[120:00] Like, him doing the Motown 25 was probably the greatest non-sports TV moment I've ever had.

Speaker 4:
[120:05] And so, I remember watching that just over and over in all of the videos. Michael has so many different eras. You can't really put it all in one biopic because it's like... His life was like... It had like three or four sequels, right, until he passed on. But...

Speaker 1:
[120:20] And a lot of analysis, too. Like, just long conversations with friends in high school about what does mama say, mama say, mama pu say mean.

Speaker 4:
[120:28] Mama pu say, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[120:30] Whatever that, whatever that. What do they mean?

Speaker 4:
[120:33] To me, to me, to me, that genius, like, not just deserves, but it requires special real examination.

Speaker 1:
[120:45] But Ezra did that with Prince, and we're never going to see that either.

Speaker 4:
[120:48] Right. But look, once again, I think that we're out of the era of biopics. If we think, what are the best biopics? Ray was a great biopic, right?

Speaker 1:
[120:57] I actually, I kind of like the queen one. I watched it again, and why is it good? Because in the last 25 minutes, it just is the Live Aid show, which I could watch on YouTube, but it was really fun to watch as the movie. Usually it's the performances that make it.

Speaker 4:
[121:13] Outside of music biopics, you want to relive the music, and you want to see how people embody the character. But when I think about movies like Malcolm X, like X with Spike Lee, obviously different. But that's a guy that's a cultural deity to me. The movie does not deify him at all.

Speaker 1:
[121:29] The Johnny Cash movie doesn't deify him. That one is one of the best ones. Cole Manner's Daughter is really good.

Speaker 4:
[121:35] These movies are about people who have genius.

Speaker 1:
[121:38] But usually they work the best when it's people who have genius but also have a flaw, or two flaws.

Speaker 4:
[121:44] Have a flaw, or have a relationship that doesn't work, or marry the wrong person, fall in love the wrong way, or like whatever, something that humanizes.

Speaker 1:
[121:53] Tina Turner one was good too.

Speaker 4:
[121:55] Right. That one was phenomenal.

Speaker 1:
[121:57] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[121:58] That is probably.

Speaker 1:
[121:59] That might be the best one actually.

Speaker 4:
[122:01] That's the best music biopic that I can remember. It's phenomenal.

Speaker 1:
[122:04] But it had a villain.

Speaker 4:
[122:05] Had a villain. This one has a villain. Joe Jackson is the villain.

Speaker 1:
[122:08] Yeah, he sings. Joe Jackson sings. Not a great guy.

Speaker 4:
[122:10] But even in this movie, it's made by his family, and you can tell, you can feel the conflict in this movie.

Speaker 1:
[122:17] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[122:17] The estate makes the movie. They're telling this story. You can feel them holding back.

Speaker 1:
[122:23] Well, it was heavily reported they had to change just about everything about the movie.

Speaker 4:
[122:28] Right.

Speaker 1:
[122:28] As they're making it.

Speaker 4:
[122:29] But even in this version, like, okay.

Speaker 1:
[122:31] You think Miles Towers is like, hey, Miles, heard you have a new movie out. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess. Filmed it a long time ago.

Speaker 4:
[122:39] I'm just saying, man, like, when you do it, commit. Like, you know, blood on the dance floor. Show how hard it was. Show the road he had to climb.

Speaker 1:
[122:52] We agree, but this will be the number one, when it ends up on Amazon or wherever, this will be the number one rental for like five straight weeks.

Speaker 4:
[122:59] I'm probably gonna see it again.

Speaker 1:
[123:00] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[123:00] I'm probably gonna see it again just because like.

Speaker 1:
[123:02] I can't wait till the seventh time you see it when you talk yourself into it.

Speaker 4:
[123:06] I'm probably gonna see it again. Do you know why? You really know why?

Speaker 1:
[123:08] Higher learning?

Speaker 4:
[123:09] No. I missed Michael Jackson. I missed him. Like, you guys, I'm just a regular person, so you guys can get mad, whatever. I missed Michael Jackson.

Speaker 1:
[123:19] You missed the genius.

Speaker 4:
[123:20] I missed him. I had missed him.

Speaker 1:
[123:22] This was the secret of The Last Dance with Michael Jordan. It's like, you know what? I really missed this guy.

Speaker 4:
[123:27] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[123:28] That's why the biggest documentary right now that's sitting there, if it was done correctly, is The Kobe Doc, but it'll never happen because I think his wife just will never let it happen the way it could happen, but I think that would have the same impact. So many people love Kobe, that if they did that correctly, it would be the same thing. You're like, you know what? I'm gonna watch that a fifth time. I really missed this guy.

Speaker 4:
[123:48] Yeah. And more to the point with Michael Jackson, I missed the version of Michael Jackson that existed before I had to consider any of the others.

Speaker 1:
[124:02] 80s Michael Jackson.

Speaker 4:
[124:03] I missed that guy. I missed just being able to have, I missed the feeling of unbridled joy that exists with me being dumb and not knowing. And like just not, that's super-

Speaker 1:
[124:16] Hulk Hogan, another one.

Speaker 4:
[124:17] Hulk Hogan. I used to, I used to rip the shirt.

Speaker 1:
[124:23] You were a Hulkamaniac.

Speaker 4:
[124:24] I was a Hulkamaniac. Everyone was a Hulkamaniac.

Speaker 1:
[124:26] He probably wouldn't have liked you.

Speaker 4:
[124:27] No. He was a.

Speaker 1:
[124:29] He would not have liked you.

Speaker 4:
[124:30] He would not have liked me at all. He would not have liked me. He would have said it. Or he would have liked me until I tried to take his daughter out. And then he would have flipped out. Anyway.

Speaker 1:
[124:39] I see what you mean about, my wife says this all the time, she'll be watching some movie or TV show that she's seen 1,700 times and she always like, I missed my friends. Devorah Sprada, I missed my friends. I'm going to hang out with them again. The Michael Jackson experience, same thing. I'm definitely going to see it. I won't see it in the theater, but I'm going to, when it's out on rental, I'm going to rent it.

Speaker 4:
[125:01] No, I should go see it in the theater.

Speaker 1:
[125:02] You think?

Speaker 4:
[125:03] Yeah, I should go see it in the theater. Everyone that had any interest in the movie, because the reviews have been brutal, I have to keep it real.

Speaker 1:
[125:12] The reviews have been hilarious.

Speaker 4:
[125:14] They've been, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[125:14] People are furious.

Speaker 4:
[125:15] Yeah, because they really hated it. But at the same time, the people that feel super connected to Michael Jackson are going right into defense mode. I'm sure some of those people will be mad at me. I'm encouraging people to go see the movie in the theater because I think, I saw it in IMAX, I think it plays best in the theater because you want to be a part of the concert experiences and things like that. But yeah, not to me a serious attempt at trying to tell a real story about somebody as consequential and as important.

Speaker 1:
[125:42] So what's your Roger Ebert? Four stars, how many do you got? One and a half, one and a half, one and a half. All right, Van Lathan, good to see you.

Speaker 4:
[125:48] Peace.

Speaker 1:
[125:49] All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to McShay and Muench. Thanks to Van. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on this podcast on Thursday night after the NBA Playoff Games. We're going to be recording. I think Rob Mahoney is going to join me. Don't forget about Sean Fantasy's newsletter or Jordan Cahn's book or the Gata or the rewatchable Kindergarten Cop, which is up, or Ghostbusters, which is coming next Monday. I will see you on Thursday. Must be 21 plus in president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus in president DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Often required bonus issued as non-profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including any token expiration, max wager amount, C terms at sportsbook.famil.com. Game problem call 1-800-GAMBORER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPENY in New York for Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.