An NBA Mailbag, Belichick’s Snub, Pats Disrespect, and Half-Baked Ideas With Zach Lowe, Kevin Wildes, and Joe House

20:22Bill Simmons:He didn't have a question? Well, Randy, well, his, the Chicago fans question was, why don't we hammer them? Randy's question was, is there any NBA team you would not accept this offer from? Like assuming both of us wanted to be GMs, is there a team we'd cross up? I thought the same thing you did at Sacramento. And I would also not accept New Orleans. No, I would do Sacramento. I would do Sacramento. I would do Sacramento, but I would negotiate in my contract. I'm allowed to write a tell-all book after I get fired. That would make more of the money. That'll do it. I can't imagine running the Kings and you're like working on a trade for two days and then like Vivek comes in with whoever like his right hand person is at the time that he inexplicably listens to and you lay out the trade and they're just like nah we don't like it what about trading for Zach Levine should we do that?

21:16Bill Simmons:what about the bulls? should we just get all the bulls the former bulls and try to make that work? they should just trade rosters quick one from Brett W here's one Porzingis is traded at the deadline He's waived by a new team at the buyout deadline. And then the Celtics sign him on a minimum, send him to Germany for some treatment. And he's miraculously healthy enough to give them 20 minutes a game off the bench during the playoffs. And Tatum is back as well. Possible? Question mark. I did get excited when I read this. Because if Atlanta does make a big move and Porzingis ostensibly is in it, it's probably to a team that then waives Porzingis, I would guess, and allows them to buy a contender.

21:56Bill Simmons:And at that point, the Lakers probably come flying in. I would guess. Do you have any faith that he's going to play? I don't. But if it's like a minimum last two months of the season, you got to think about it. You and I were talking about this last night, how I sound like an old man sometimes now talking to NBA people who are like, well, Anthony Davis should get traded here and Jeremy Grant could trade here. I'm like, they never play. Like, I sound like my dad. Like, he doesn't play basketball. Yeah. He doesn't play. I want my players to play. Sort of getting close to that Giannis point. Talked about that with legs on Tuesday.

22:30I don't,

22:30Bill Simmons:are you playing 75 games? Another one is Cam Johnson. Great guy. Everybody loves Cam Johnson. Can you get on the basketball court? How many games are you going to play? Jalen Suggs. These guys in these 40 to 65. Yeah. Honestly, some guys are more durable than others. We were talking about Jalen last night. I literally can't remember a Jalen injury. Like, do you? And I, and when you said that, I said, knock on wood. Cause people said the same thing about Tatum right up until. Right. but two of the more durable young guys we've had, but they also really take care of their bodies. This is a good one from, I don't know how to say this because it's an international name, J-N-N-E.

23:10Bill Simmons:So maybe Jan, Johnny. East versus West, all-star game. Winning conference has home court for the finals. The coaches and players would care. The counter argument should be that team records are the fairest way to determine home court. But is it? Conferences have different schedules. They're imbalanced. Would this work? No. Didn't baseball try this, right? And just immediately was like, this is not a good idea. I don't think it would work either, but you know what would work? Just getting rid of the All-Star game. 20 years of ideas of how to save the All-Star game. Maybe the idea is to just not have it.

23:50I'm officially just out of the conversation. It's not going to happen. I don't want to go.

23:55Bill Simmons:I don't want to watch it. They don't care. They're going to have it every year. My only contribution would be 12, if you want to expand it to 13, 14, fine. Just East-West. Just scrap all this other shit. Have a 48-minute game. I can't even, if people ask me, if fans, actual fans are like, hey, how's the All-Star game working this year? I'm like, oh, it's interesting you ask. So first, we split them up in international versus U.S., but there's two U.S. teams and one international team. Then Team A plays Team B in a game. No, a quarter. And then Team B plays Team C. Oh, in another game? No, it's the second quarter of the game.

24:30Then the third, I'm like, I'm just, if this is what we're doing, like...

24:33Bill Simmons:It is a great point. If you can't, if it takes more than a sentence to explain something, it's a bad idea. Yeah, if there's a loser's bracket within the game, it's like, let's just call it a day. I give up. I'll probably go this year because it's in LA. So we missed this last night. Cleveland Lakers, after Jaron Tyson said in the post-game Lakers interview that this is Donovan Mitchell's city now. The look on Mitchell's face was the same as Vito Corleone when Sonny talks out of turn during this LASA meeting. I have a set of penal weakness for my young teammates and I spoiled them. As you can see, they talk when they should listen.

25:10Bill Simmons:But it is funny. What a quick email into the mailbag. Well, there's a freeze frame picture of him saying that and then Mitchell like... It's good because he's taller than... Jalen Tyson's taller than Mitchell. So Mitchell's like... did you see jill and tyson issued an apology for real for that he clarified afterwards like i wasn't trying to step on anyone's toes or disrespect anybody that's funny it's like we can't even have any fun like we got to apologize i don't have opinions anywhere um bill h for any trade combo you always hear things like team x can trade two first rounders today after the draft they can trade four because step being rolling all that stuff my question is could teams have a handshake agreement to trade a pick later.

25:50Bill Simmons:I'll trade you Kat and Bridges for Giannis right now. And on draft night, I'll trade you three first-rounders for Gary Trent. Is this legal? And why wouldn't it be? What would they do if this happened?

26:05Wow.

26:06Bill Simmons:They do a trade. They just keep everything else quiet. And then the night before the draft, three first-rounders for Gary Trent. And they're like, was that related to the Giannis trade? Not as far as you know. Just love Gary Trent. Just been trying to get him for years. Two first-rounders wouldn't get him. Great value. Giannis really wanted him. But what would they do? Would they block it? It's a great question. There would definitely be an uproar from the other teams. Considering they can't figure out what to do with the Terry Rozier contract. It's similar. It's not similar, but like, I don't know.

26:38If there's a pre-existing agreement that can be documented in any way, seize the cell phones, you know.

26:45Bill Simmons:That would have to be. against the rules. Almost like Breaking Bad, like a remote location where there's like almost like a desert where they're like drilling for oil and you'd have to just meet out there, not bring your cell phone. How much? I always wonder, what was I watching where there was a meeting like that? Oh, one battle after another. Right. How much time do people have? I just got to drive. Or are those places just so accessible? Like, oh, it's 30 minutes. I'll just be in the middle of nowhere. California, you just go towards like San Bernardino and you could find a lot. 45 minutes?

27:15Bill Simmons:Yeah, 45 minutes. Okay. John from Georgia. Last question. I have a theory that the NBA's top brass engineers the draft as some sort of market correction in terms of karma. Prime examples, Pelicans getting the number one pick in the AD draft after the Benson family buys the franchise. You could also throw in Kyrie, the Kyrie Cavs pick the year after LeBron left. Of course, I thought that was coming in the email. He said the Mavs securing the number one pick in the Cooper flag draft after trading Luka. obviously this is spurious. If this theory holds this year, I'm curious who you think has the best case for the number one pick in the 26 draft based on all the times this has happened and we've gone, huh.

28:04Bill Simmons:So who would that be this year? Would it be Milwaukee trading Giannis and then somehow getting the number one pick? I'm a little confused by the definition of like, what kind of karma is it? Just some sort of like... Because Dallas didn't... Dallas should not have been rewarded. I don't think that's the case for that one. They should have had bad karma. But the case for that one is the league's like, holy shit, we have to save basketball in Dallas. They might actually move out of Dallas if we don't throw them a bone. There's been a few of these. There was the Zion Williamson one was another one.

28:36Bill Simmons:Where it's like, oh, interesting that that team won. And maybe the karma team isn't there yet. I'll tell you who it... How about this? Oh, you got one? Well, I mean... I'm excited. I'm going good karma. I'm going, like... Like, no team who's sitting guys left and right for fake reasons.

29:00No team who's been, like, just incompetent for a long time. Like, Washington or the Kings. Okay. It's tough to rule them out. I mean, I'm just ruling them out.

29:12Bill Simmons:how about Charlotte gets the number one pick? So Charlotte, I used to do the lottery karma rankings and Charlotte would be the number one candidate this year because they've tried hard all year, probably not making the playoffs. They're not far from the play-in now if they get in the play-in. But that's not this question. This question is the league is either trying to send a message or trying to do somebody as solid. And I think the answer is OKC getting the number one pick from the Clippers. as the aspiration penalty to the Clippers. That's really good. It's like, we couldn't find anything, but...

29:51Bill Simmons:And then all of a sudden, OKC gets AJ DeBansa, or whoever they get. Darren Peterson I'm cooling on based on the Ben Simmons. I'm not positive you like basketball because you're not playing basketball. What's going on with you? So this relates to one of my rules if I'm the commissioner. if you've traded a pick outright you should still have to be on the lottery dais with like the team you've traded it to you have to sit next to them like Cersei doing the shame walk you should still have to be out there last question because I got this a bunch last question beyond the last questions people keep asking me would the Warriors actually trade Steph if it was that bleak and he wanted it and also anecdotally people ask me this too because everybody loves Steph.

30:38Bill Simmons:Nobody wants to see him in the Kobe last four years with the Lakers, just kind of lottery death spiral. Nobody wants that. And maybe he just wants to stay and he doesn't care and he's got a great house and that's where he wants to live. But do you think if he went to them and said, you know what, I actually want to chase a title, is it just off limits? Would they do, like, how would that play out? I think you would, I think that's the only way it could ever happen. And I think even in that case, you would have to be completely publicly transparent about it. Like Steph would have to give a press conference where he talked about, look, I love Golden State.

31:14I just have two more years left. I want to try for a ring. And like Mike Dunleavy Jr. would have to be at the press conference. Like we didn't really want to do this, but this is like we love this guy. We love each other. This is all done out of love. And that's the only it's the only way I can see it happening. Because but like like.

31:30Bill Simmons:Well, can I give you a scenario? Sure. let's say Charlotte does stumble into the top three pick on top of the team they have and two years from now they're okay seeing 2023 range and the Warriors it's just dark and Steph's like you know it'd be cool if I could just go home go home join this and everybody's like yeah that would be pretty cool the reason I don't think and the Mellow goes to Golden State and they kind of undo the Wiseman pick or he gets bought out however they have to do it to make it easier the reason I don't think it'll happen is I do think we're in a Kobe-Dirk scenario with this.

32:05Bill Simmons:Dirk was never leaving Dallas. There was no scenario and he didn't want to. And he won his title and he was fine. I was going to say, you're looking back on the end of the Kobe years as being disappointing, wasted, etc. But then you can't do that. I'm not saying you, but you can't do that and then also say, well, how cool it is that he's a one-team player. And same with Dirk. You can't have both. Sometimes this is just how it is. And if like, I think one team players are kind of rare and cool. I think it's cool that Devin Booker has publicly said, like, I want to be a one, a one team guy. I think it's hard to have both.

32:41Bill Simmons:It'd be funny if Tatum and Jalen both said that and the Celtics were like, yeah, sounds great. Wow. No, I just, I hope they're both one team guys. I love those guys. Conflicting reports about Tatum this week. I would like to say for the record, I still think he's playing this year. and I feel really confident about that. Unless there is a setback, which I don't think there's been. I hope there's not a setback. Well, can they make the finals without him? Can they make the finals? You're closing the door on them making the finals. I don't think they have enough. You saw last time we were watching an Atlanta game.

33:15Bill Simmons:If their threes aren't going in and they're playing the right kind of team, literally 20 teams in the league could beat them. I think the East is so bad that I can't slam the door on it. But A, their health has been perfect, which tends to regress at some point. And B, I do think their margin fair is like nothing. Like nothing. You know who's going to tell us the answer to this? The Celtics. Because if they keep Simons versus trading him will be the answer. If they try to trade Simons just for somebody who makes less money and it makes the team worse, we have our answer. Yeah, it's true. Because Simons has been important to them.

33:52Bill Simmons:But also, as I've said many times, if they could turn him into Malik Monk. I would still vote for that why do you want Malik Monk what is your Malik Monk thing well first of all you're not allowed on the island I don't want to be on the island I'm not even sure I turned my boat around he's fine like Malik Monk's fine 26 years old or 27 he's either 26 or 27 how old is Simons 40 % shooter every year well he's making 18 million and Simons is making 27 and I still feel like he's a guy in big games that I trust we saw it in that guy's still sitting there he's just on the worst dumbest basketball franchise we have That guy still exists.

34:28Bill Simmons:Yeah, I agree. By the way, that's somebody I would go for the Lakers. They had him. He rehabilitated his career with the Lakers. Oh, yeah, maybe he wouldn't want to go back. But I just think that dude, he's going to go to a team, I'm telling you. He's going to go to a contender. And people are like, oh, shit, he's really good. I totally forgot. You got to de-kings him. I wonder if there's like a machine that you have to like step in. It's like a soapwood shower? Yeah, a bunch of lasers hit you. You have to get the kings out of your soul. And then you can play, I guess. Remember the movie Soakwood with Beryl Streep?

34:58Bill Simmons:I never saw it. She got contaminated. It was like a nuclear reactor site and they had to do the Soakwood shower. And it was like this like chemical shower you had to take. Maybe that's what has to happen. There you go. Yeah. All right. Zeklo, see you on Amazon tonight. Boom. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The interim lightweight title is officially up for grabs this Saturday. And if you're looking to get on the action, you can do it with America's number one sportsbook, FanDuel, taking your fight night experience to the next level, giving every single customer a profit boost token to use on any parlay this weekend.

35:30Bill Simmons:Moneyline, round betting, method of victory. Build your parlay however you want. I like a little parlay. BSD is fighting. He's fighting Dan Hooker. Always enjoyed BSD. I want to throw him in a parlay. Volkanovsky's fighting Diego Lopez. Beat him a couple years ago or a year ago. I can't remember, but he's had some losses since then. He's in his mid-30s now. I like the revenge. Lopez is plus 118. Put him together with BSD. That's plus 182. And that is the one that I like. So there you go. That's fando.com slash BS. And you can opt into the profit boost and get ready for this weekend's matchups.

36:12Bill Simmons:You must be 21 plus president select states or 18 plus and president DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt in required bonus issued as nominal drawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. Gamble problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, Thursday afternoon. The K-man, Kevin Wilds, is here in the fanciest setup he's ever had. He's on the set of his show. Joe House is here, as always, on Thursdays. I am wearing my authentic Tony Simmons jersey that I bought in 1998.

36:54Bill Simmons:House knew me back then because we've known each other for almost 40 years. Drove to the Patriots pro shop because they drafted a second round receiver named Tony Simmons. And I'd always wanted the Patriots to have a receiver named Simmons so I could have Simmons on the back of the jersey. And he turned out to be a bust. And this jersey has been in my attic for a while. but I'm bringing it back, K-Man, because the nobody believes in us Pats are back. Nobody's picking us. Nobody thinks we're going to win. Belichick's getting snubbed from the Super Bowl. We're underdogs. Joe House thinks Sam Darnold's going to run amok.

37:33Bill Simmons:We're back, baby. We're so back. I'm wearing retro jerseys. I don't even know what year it is. Is it 2026? Is it 1998? I don't even know.

37:42Zach Lowe:I need to ask Wilds. I'm not sure this is a great idea. you pulled out a jersey nobody believed in Tony Simmons and with good reason. So you pull out that jersey for the nobody believes in this game?

37:54Bill Simmons:Guess what jersey I wore a lot during the 2001 season? Tony Simmons right here. There was some good luck in this jersey. Wilds, your thoughts. Good luck in it. Bill and House's relationship goes back so far that the concept of a personalized jersey that you can get delivered to your home in Anchorage, Alaska in 22 hours, if you wanted a personalized jersey, you had to scout the newspapers of the NFL draft predictions and hope there was a coincidence of your last name lined up with your favorite team. And the fact that it worked for you is fantastic. It's so much easier now. And when it happened, I had to drive an hour to Foxborough to buy it at the pro shop because that was the only place I could get it specially made and then do it.

38:55Bill Simmons:And else I had no money. I just love it. But yeah, those were the days. Anyway, Wilds, why don't you stand by here while House disparages the New England Patriots and says why they don't have a chance on Sunday? Go ahead. We're no good. This is outrageous. No, I know you don't think we're going to win. Absolutely not doing that. You thought we were going to win any week.

39:12Zach Lowe:Go ahead. I do want to call to mind amongst this group that we have done this. This is a reunion of source. Now, Alton and I haven't seen each other. You know, I admire from afar his daily television turn. It's wonderful. First things first. All of the best takes. Me too.

39:32Bill Simmons:We've even talked ourselves into liking Nick Wright. That's how much we love you. He's great. Nick Wright, I'm in. Had a great podcast with him a couple months ago. I like him. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, it's great.

39:42Zach Lowe:The only question nobody's ever asked Nick Wright, has anybody ever asked him why he won't just get a haircut? This is his look. It looks cool. Yeah, it looks cool. It's an instinctive look. Yeah, it's his look. Is it? Yeah. It's his look. Okay.

39:55Bill Simmons:Everybody can't have my hair cut. Fine. House, you were compared a week ago to, like you were in the backup band of an early 90s boys band with Thou For You Were on last week's podcast. That was an email I got. Well, that's great. I didn't share that with you.

40:10Zach Lowe:I have no regrets.

40:11Bill Simmons:I'm a guy in my mid-50s wearing a game-worn, not even a game-worn authentic Pats jersey. I'm not here to comment either.

40:21Zach Lowe:It's not a, I mean. So what did we do in Indianapolis?

40:24Bill Simmons:We did half-baked?

40:25Zach Lowe:We did, we did. But the true highlight of that, one of the highlights, there were many highlights because Wilds came in and he was firing, as is always the case. but you chose during that show to share with wilds and I how proud you were that you possessed a Starbucks card like the Starbucks reward card you remember this wild this was like a half hour we

40:49Bill Simmons:talked about this for a half hour that every time I got a Starbucks I was one step closer to a free iced coffee. And you guys were dumbfounded by this. No, it wasn't a loyalty card, Bill. What do you mean? You were just getting the card just to carry the card because you liked giving a gift to yourself. There was no loyalty component. I did that as well. Yeah, you're right. I forgot about that. I forgot about that. Yeah, I had like a$50 card. Yeah. Jonathan Kraft was on that podcast too. Shout out to the Patriots. That's true. That's right. And by the way, this is one of the topics I had. That was the last time I went to a Patriots Super Bowl.

41:36Bill Simmons:I sat with Jamie Horowitz, aka Suit. We were supposed to get our revenge to the Super Bowl, the Giants-Helma-Catch game. The Giants, listen, I'm fine with losing the Helma-Catch game. The second Giants team never should have beaten that past team in a million years. Didn't even play well. And we somehow lost anyway. And it was like leaving your own murder scene for 45 minutes. The problem with the Super Bowl, if you go and your team loses, you also can't get out. And you're just trapped when half the fans are happy for the other team. I was just recognizable enough that I was getting a lot of, hey, Simmons, how'd that one work out?

42:16Bill Simmons:I wanted to fight everybody. And I was just like, I'm never going again. And I haven't, I've been to Super Bowls just wanting out with the Pats. So people are asking me, hey, you going down? When are you going to get there? I'm like, I'm not going. I'm going to be watching on my couch. I'm going to have my son with me and my dog. And I'll do a podcast after. But I don't want to go to the game because I'm really scarred from the two Giants games. Do you think this is farewell? We were favored in both of those Giants games. Yeah, well, heavily favored. So I think the letdown was even harder. Yeah.

42:48But now that we're four and a half point underdogs, we're supposed to lose. Now, the letdown would still hurt, but the world thinks we're going to lose. I think it's worth the risk to go because the high is going to be extra high this year. I'll fire back a question to you, Bill. Out of our six championship rings, where would this one rank if we pull it off?

43:13Bill Simmons:Wilds and I say we and R like we're on the team house, just in case you're wondering. Of course you do. Nothing will ever be 2001. and I would rank the Deflategate Super Bowl number two for me. That's fair. Just all the shit Brady took that week and then being able to beat Seattle and come back. And also, honestly, there was a little bit of some curse stuff lingering that Spygate had put a curse on the Patriots and that's why we'd had bad luck and we weren't going to win again. So that one, I'd have number two. This might be three if they did this. Really?

43:50Zach Lowe:It has to be high up there.

43:53Bill Simmons:We were dead. We were the freaking Browns. It was over. We were the Jets. We were the Raiders. There was no hope. There was nothing. You don't agree with this, Wilds? No, I agree. It might be two for me. Wow. Yeah. So you have 0-1 first? 0-1 first. 16 just the game against the 28-3 is on its own island but I can also make an argument because I was an adult for all of these but I wasn't a father or like a father this is the first one that my kids are super into the Patriots this has an opportunity to be won I think that's fair I completely agree it's also So Drake May's first, potentially.

44:49Zach Lowe:Could be Drake May's first. I love the way you're talking, House. I love that. As if we didn't have enough obstacles.

44:55Bill Simmons:Well, as if we didn't have enough obstacles. Now it's like Drake May's shoulder limited in practice today updates. And we have Dr. David Chow breaking down in slow motion, Drake May hitting the turf, and all of these things I was not expecting on Sunday night. I don't like any of it. Question. A little bit of gamesmanship? Yes. I certainly felt that way with the Stafford back stuff before the year that threw off House and I when we wanted to bet on the Rams. Right? House, we just got immediately scared off with the old guy with the bad back thing.

45:28Zach Lowe:Yeah, except I think they were telling the truth. I don't think it was gamesmanship for the Rams. I think they were genuinely concerned about Stafford's back. They had nothing to gain going into week one. Like, oh, we're going to rope a dope for our week one opponent. Darnold? Are we sure there's something wrong with this oblique? see that one I like I like this this is conspiracy bill

45:49Bill Simmons:territory it looks fine winging the ball around through for 340 yards I never know what to do we found out Josh Allen had a broken foot today like they're supposed to release Josh Allen's broken foot his foot hurt for weeks and all of a sudden he's on crutches in a walking boot right but they're supposed to report this stuff that's the rules he ran for 66 yards against the Broncos. Well, he said I would still be able to, if push came to shove, I could play right now. I'd just play through whatever. It's kind of exactly the opposite of certain NBA players. It's a hero. Love that guy. Yeah. I don't feel like I'm trying to think.

46:32Bill Simmons:Who's the NBA player who would say the opposite of that house? Zion Williamson. Zion Williamson, yeah. Alright, so the kids thing, you're buying that house when you can share it with your kids when they've become fans. Because I remember Ben and I watched the 28-3. Whole family watched the comeback. And that made a little extra special that I had the next generation there. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. See, House, you're never going to know because nothing with the Wizards will ever happen. The Washington football team was in the

47:03Zach Lowe:NFC Championship game last year. Did your son care, though? Then you fired everybody. Well, everything went weird. It was all weird this season. fired everybody by the way that can happen so wow prepared as as a a long time take person

47:18Bill Simmons:long time follower um i've been surprised not only is everybody picking the seahawks it feels like but now people now it's becoming like evil knievel now i can jump this canyon with the picks i think steven a said he thought they're gonna lose 60 to nothing was the thing said this week they might

47:35Zach Lowe:lose 60 to nothing but we're doing that down today he took it he walked it all the way back today

47:42Bill Simmons:Cam Newton was comparing him to Trent Dover or Drake May? I don't know what... Drake May idolized Cam Newton. Why is he doing this? It's like his hero... Okay. I want to have a solution to this Cam stuff. Great. Because I think it literally, personally, hurts Drake May's feelings. It's his childhood hero. He went to the Super Bowl. He's got Panther stuff. It also hurts my feelings as a guy who loved Cam and appreciated everything he did in that COVID year. He moved. He was like by himself. Yeah. He was in a new system. And he made that post-Brady era interesting pre-Mac Jones. So here's what I want to say to Cam.

48:32Bill Simmons:I hope this is nice and really nice for you to even call it interesting. It was interesting. We were close. We had a few fumbles. Yeah. But it was good. It was interesting. He didn't immediately stink. I enjoyed it. Okay. Here's my take on Cam. And I hope this gets to Cam. Cam, if we win the Super Bowl, and if Drake May plays well in the Super Bowl, you had a part in that. Josh McDaniels made all of his bones in the Super Bowls with Tom Brady, who could not move mobily. God bless Tom Brady, but he's not a running quarterback. Yeah. The one year Josh worked with Cam, 592 yards, 12 touchdowns, 55 first downs.

49:21This first year with Drake and Josh, 450 yards, four touchdowns, 38 first downs. To the point where the bootleg against the Broncos, I started to, I'm like, did Josh get that from Cam? Josh was not a guy who designed running court of scrambles or sneaks or anything. He never did that with Brady. That's you, Cam. You are responsible for Drake's greatness, not just when he was a kid, but the fact that you put this into the playbook for the Patriots. If we win, you win, Cam Newton. Yeah, he gets the W. We watch you at the parade. Right. House, what do you think of this?

50:02Zach Lowe:Who was the terrible quarterback for the Raiders when McDaniels was the head coach? I mean, which one? He had a few of them. I think he had De 'Acar. I feel like he might have. De 'Acar. It undercuts some of what we're talking about here.

50:16Bill Simmons:Yeah, the thing with, the thing, I just don't get it. I get why people have to do these stances and do whatever, but Drake May was really good this year. You can't compare him to these quarterbacks that kind of were along for the ride. I also, the weather thing, this is another thing that I've been arguing with people about. I don't know if you feel like you're Jon Snow defending the wall here with the Patriots, but it's fine. If you think they're going to lose the game, I get it. Seattle's really good. But they haven't played a normal weather game in like a month. And Stafford was in Chicago, that game that went into overtime that they almost lost.

50:55Bill Simmons:And they won 20 to 17. They scored 17 points in four quarters and then got a field goal in OT. They didn't look like the Rams at all. Puka, I think, had 55 yards. They didn't really have any explosive plays, and Stafford looked creaky for most of the game. And afterwards, everyone was like, man, really tough weather game. The weather really affected both teams. This has been the entire Patriots playoff run. They haven't played a normal game yet. And even if San Francisco is like 55 degrees and not raining, it's the biggest win the Pats have had weather-wise in over a month. So I don't know. Does that sound like an excuse to you, House?

51:33Zach Lowe:Yeah, the weather for the Chargers and the Texans games was like regular New England weather.

51:40Bill Simmons:No, Texans game was freezing. It was freezing. Texans game was cold and rainy snow. It's New England.

51:47Zach Lowe:That's what happens up there. It sucked. We're saying that all those players, because of how new they are and the system, none of them are acclimated to what New England weather. It doesn't confer an advantage. No, it's just when you compare Stafford and Darnold's performance with a guy who's playing in a blizzard.

52:04Bill Simmons:Yeah, and look, Drake missed a lot of throws, and I don't know what was going on with his shoulder. I thought that it was the worst throwing game he's had since the Vegas game. But he made some stuff happen with his legs. He put together a 10-minute drive that effectively gave them the lead for good. And I just don't think... I didn't think he was good by his standards, but we've seen a lot of quarterbacks kind of be up and down like that. The problem is the next game, Darnold and Stafford were both awesome. You know, and then you watch that first game and then you watch the second game. You're like, oh my God.

52:36Bill Simmons:There's also the Sam Darnold piece that I think people have just slept on. Right? The Patriots, I would say, is it fair to say, kind of ended his Jets career? That was the tipping point. Right? Is that fair? It's a... The IC Ghost game... unrecoverable. Probably hurt his career more than was fair. More than I think the NFL films team realized when they just had a random soundbite. They're not trying to hurt people's careers. He was actually penalized, Bill, for being creative. For being thoughtful about his circumstance. Just because he was a good writer. So the sports movie version of this is, well, now he gets to exercise the ghosts and play the Patriots again.

53:30Bill Simmons:His career has come full circle. The Patriot fan side of me is like, it's fucking Sam Darnold. We're still paying interest on that guy from when we owned him a couple years ago. And I'm trying to talk about some of that. House, what's your case for Seattle just easily winning this game and covering? Because I feel like you're leaning that way.

53:48Zach Lowe:I don't think anything's going to be easy. The case is they have the number one by DVOA pass defense, and they will put pressure on Drake May and the pressure that they're able to put on him. They're super fast in the middle. They'll take the middle of the field away. It's not like the Patriots possess absolute burners on the outside. So the case would be that they put May under so much pressure. It's the version of what we saw with the Texans, except for Seattle will not be giving New England the ball on the 30-yard line of five consecutive possessions. So that's the case.

54:28Bill Simmons:All right, Seattle's not going to be home. Neutral field. I think both teams are really good. I think the Pats are better than people realize, and I think Seattle is cruising on the fumes of those first two games, especially, like, I go back to Week 18. I was saying this to Mina. Mina and I, we're getting along.

54:48Bill Simmons:it's a little bit of a tap dance but it's fine but I was saying like week 18 Seattle was favored by one and a half at home against the Niners in a must win game for the one seed they beat San Francisco they beat them again then they squeeze by the Rams and now they're being treated like a different team by the odds makers I personally think this line should be two and a half I don't think it should be four and a half I think it should be two and a half and it seems like there's an extra two points in here because there's some Seattle steam. You know what I mean? They have some steam. They're the team.

55:26We pulled a graphic today. The last seven teams that were favored by four or more, two and seven outright, and none of them covered.

55:41Yeah.

55:44Bill Simmons:I'm trying not to get too excited about it, but I really do feel like we're back. I mean, when you go back to 1773, guys, who was the first place that really stood up to the British? Boston. 1775, Revolutionary War. Watch the Ken Burns documentary. Who really put their foot down and kicked the British the fuck out? Boston. and ever since then go all the way through all the nobody believes in us stuff you go to gem in the town you can go all the way through it's the DNA but the titles kind of shifted it where Boston won a lot and then you lose that but now being the underdog the disparaged underdog I feel like the Pats are back can I say something and ask us because I think you're going to have a visceral reaction to this film yeah let's hear as a fan of sport house yes kind of ruined for sam darnold as i disembody my patriots fan removing the pats fan yeah

56:47Zach Lowe:it's a one i'm not rooting against him well no i understand it's a one-of-a-kind story we really don't have anybody we can point to in our nfl experience that has a career like this uh not only do we have the redemption arc that was the Vikings season last year. I mean, he really transformed that Vikings organization, put them on the precipice of being like, you know, a potential run for them. Their defense is so good. And they had all those skill players. But, you know, he went and replicated that with a whole nother team, a whole nother situation, a brand new offensive coordinator and skill players that everybody at the beginning of the season, they were question marks because they kicked out DK Metcalf, they let the other receiver go.

57:37Zach Lowe:Lock it. Yeah, lock it, right. But we came in with a bunch of question marks with the Seattle team, and all he did was kick ass and take names all season, Kevin Wilds.

57:46Bill Simmons:The other thing is, I forgot this. And this is pretty unusual from a Super Bowl odds standpoint, because everybody's so good at doing odds now, you don't really get a lot of future value. right and there is ironically fox sports said this tweet top 10 longest pre-season odds to win the super bowl since 1977 the 99 rams were famously 150 to 1 150 to 1 the 01 patriots were 60 to 1 and the 81 niners were 50 to 1 right you have the the patriots and the patriots were 80 to one before the season. The Seahawks were 60 to one. Either outcome would be the second biggest future odd that we've had since 1977.

58:31Bill Simmons:Which, that house, that's not supposed to happen anymore. I'm shocked by that. We do these over unders. And I remember, I love Seattle, but their over under was eight and a half. I wouldn't have picked them to win the Super Bowl. I wouldn't have picked the Patriots either. It was another team I liked, but this is pretty crazy. But it goes back to a pretty nutty season. Do you think the Belichick stuff is good for the Patriots, or it's a non-factor? I don't. Don't think it's a major factor. I don't think it's a minor factor. I don't think it's a little factor, House. But the Patriots' legacies in the building of being discredited, doubted, and disrespected.

59:13Not nothing.

59:15Zach Lowe:I'm just so glad it happened this week. because if it happened next week as the lead into the game, like people would be losing their minds. Thank God we're going to dispense with this. And the stupid hall of fame is going to change the rules, right? Isn't that the way we're leading now? The dummies will fix it because it's like, well, we made up the stupid rule that led to this result. They certainly can make up, can fix the stupid rule and just usher the man in for God's sake.

59:44Bill Simmons:I mean, the football hall of fame, especially, as you know, I hate all hall of fames. in 2009, wrote an entire book devoted to blowing up the Basketball Hall of Fame and starting over and making a pyramid. All of these Hall of Fames have been screwed up. Did you want to actually make a real pyramid? Was that the concept? You didn't have architectural draw. Yeah. It was a pyramid and the top level was the Pantheon. Yeah. You can't see me, but I'm making a pyramid. Where do you think Nick Wright got Mahomes Mountain from? The fucking Hall of Fame pyramid. You could tell him I said it. Doesn't it kind of look like a pyramid now?

1:00:26Bill Simmons:What do you mean? The Hall of Fame? Well, the concept of the pyramid, the concept was you go to the Hall of Fame and as you go up each level, and this original person who had this idea was my buddy Gus's dad, Wally Ramsey, one of my great English teachers of all time. was the concept is you go up and you go up to another floor and now the players are getting better. And then by the time you get to the top floor, it's like the best of the best. And that's the whole concept. It's very good. It's really good.

1:00:58Zach Lowe:Not a half-baked idea, a fully-baked idea. No, that was a great one.

1:01:02Bill Simmons:And then the basement had all the people that couldn't make it, but all had their little stories, like the people, the comments, the drug guys, all that stuff. Anyway, the Pro Football Hall of Fame guys I always felt like they were the most annoying because it was like 50 people and they carried themselves like a fucking fraternity at Harvard where it's like when in social network where Mark Zuckerberg and his roommate are trying to get into that fraternity it's like oh we made the second round in these douche bags and like put a robe on we all hate all that stuff right that's basically the NFL Hall of Fame how they do it it's 50 guys you're not allowed to talk we argue about it in the room Let's get the fuck out of here.

1:01:43Bill Simmons:Whatever your process has led to the best coach in the history of the league, not making the Hall of Fame the first thing. And I never get mad about this stuff. And this actually made me mad. Like at some point there should be a shit detector part. I got mad at a visceral level. Feels like everyone got mad. It made Belichick a sympathetic figure, which was like impossible. What were the odds of that? That was 80 to one, like the fucking Patriots. It was probably a win for him in the end. Oh, an amazing win.

1:02:09Zach Lowe:Are you kidding? An 11 out of 10. Speaking of redemption arcs, we're all going to go into this coming summer. And he has a free out yet to preserve his legacy. Is he going to go back to stupid North Carolina and try and do that again? Is he really going to go do that?

1:02:27Bill Simmons:The team's going to be great. I'm buying stock.

1:02:28Zach Lowe:It doesn't make any sense, especially with the gift that he's just been given. He's just been giving an immense, unexpected windfall lottery ticket here with this outrageous Hall of Fame nonsense. Just ride on off into the sunset with this.

1:02:47Bill Simmons:Wilds, would you, if Buffalo out of nowhere announced, we've hired our new coach and it's Bill Belichick, how would your feelings have been? Walk me through your first 30 seconds of that. First thought. Total fear. That's exactly what my first thought would have been as well. I would have been like, fuck. Second thought, bring it on.

1:03:14Third thought, a practical, who are the assistants? Who's the OC? Right. And I think he's lost his fat. Without Josh or the whole Matt Patricia's OC thing, I feel a little bit calm. So you would eventually calm down from it.

1:03:32Bill Simmons:Okay. What would your thoughts have been, House?

1:03:35Zach Lowe:I want to ask you guys this. There are still two teams that need quarterbacks. I mean, need a head coach. What if Tom Brady hires Belichick to be the head coach of the Raiders after all of this?

1:03:45Bill Simmons:It seems like they're getting Clint Kubiak. I think that's...

1:03:48Zach Lowe:That is what makes a ton of sense, by the way. He's a total badass. But Arizona. Arizona is so irrelevant and has done nothing but cover itself with the opposite of glory with the way it's conducted its affairs. Why not one last run for the old man in the year that he was, you know, undeservedly. Exactly. Exactly. One more time.

1:04:10Bill Simmons:So I was thinking the Browns. And then they hired Todd Monken. And you're like, that's the team that definitely should have hired Belichick. Like, really? You're going to hire that guy? They had Jim Schwartz, who's I think worked with Belichick in the past. But if I'm hiring Todd Monken, I'm just hiring Belichick instead. let him figure out Shadar Sanders and just, he comes back to Cleveland. He brings back his Cleveland Browns starter jacket. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. There's a lot to like there. We have unfinished business here. They took the team away.

1:04:44Zach Lowe:Yeah. That's right. It's pretty good. But I think he's smart enough to know

1:04:49Bill Simmons:I have to go where the quarterback is. Like, that's basically what Braybel did. Braybel was in all the mix for these jobs last year and he was like, I want to coach Drake May. That only makes sense if it really matters.

1:05:01Zach Lowe:Like he's not going to go in and immediately transform a situation. Bill Belichick at this point.

1:05:07Bill Simmons:No, I'm saying if you're him, you want a quarterback. I'm just, and I would feel that way if it was me and I was an NFL coach. Like I'm not going anywhere that doesn't have a quarterback. Who's my quarterback? It's like, keep your fingers crossed. Like the signety to the Raiders. I know he's kind of poured cold water on it, but I love that idea of the coach college combo, a little Jamar Chase, Joe Burrow action. Be really sexy. Let's take a break and then we're going to do half-baked ideas with Wilds. Unless there's any more 98 Patriots stuff you guys want to do. Are we done? Want to talk about the team?

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1:07:47Bill Simmons:So ever since I've had a podcast, which dates back to 2007 at the worldwide leader, ESPN, Kevin Wiles would come on and do half-baked ideas. I did one on Dave Chang's show. I went on Dave Chang's show and gave him my idea for a restaurant that only accepts credit card roulette and forces the customers to play credit card roulette with each other. And then they videotape everything and they cut it into social video to promote the restaurant. That might've been a fully baked idea. I don't even know if that was a half-baked idea, but I was really proud of that. It was almost too good. It was too good.

1:08:23Bill Simmons:I probably should have figured out how to screw that up somehow. Anyway, Wilds, usually you have like two big ones and two smaller ones. So what do you got? All right. So I'll start with a big one and we'll do four total. And since house is here and I'll piggyback off of your restaurant idea. Went out to dinner. I said, ooh, let's get a seafood tower. Love the seafood tower. You know, you got your oysters, your clams, you got your shrimp. It's great, but I'm always thinking about the food. Can I just tell you, nobody loves the Seafood Tower more than Joe House, probably on the planet.

1:09:07Zach Lowe:This is an amazing start, Wiles. Perfect. The guy I'm with says, I don't want the little clams, which are the junior varsity kids table of the Seafood Tower. It's kind of gross. He says, let's just get this one. It's called the Tableau. I should have had red alarms going off in my mind. The waiter brings over a bowl of seafood. It was a disaster. It had no altitude house. So I'm thinking, oh, it's very obvious. I always thought the shrimp and the lobster tail was the star of the show. It's not. It's obviously the height. And I know that's right in front of me, but I needed to be punched in the face with it.

1:09:59Then I'm thinking, you know what? I need more towers in my life, period. Just off the top of your head house, I'm going to say a waffle tower. Wow, is there a breakfast bar? No, there's our waffle tower over there. Oh, you want a Cobb salad? Do you want it in a bowl? Do you want it in a tower? We got lettuce. We got your bacon here. We got your blue cheese. And as it goes up and up, however tall, we got the bacon bits up top. anything and have a tower option.

1:10:26Zach Lowe:It works so well. It's an incredible concept. Let's, we, this is the second restaurant. We were opening two new restaurants. This is the group right here. We have the credit card roulette and we'll have to come up with a clever name for it. But the name of the restaurant is the tower and everything you order. Yeah. And, and too many The burger tower is immediately the number one for me, right? You can have, you know, like regular American cheeseburgers at the bottom and you're climbing all the way up to your most decadent, however funky, you know, whatever you want to have on it. You want to have, you know, foie gras and your fanciest cheese on the top burger.

1:11:11Zach Lowe:It could be a lobster burger. This is an incredible concept. Well, could you have also studied the tape on this, Bill? and I'm like, I got to self-scout. Am I underplaying the value of crushed ice and tiny things of Tabasco? It's on the board.

1:11:34Bill Simmons:Well, part of my head immediately went to, could the tower also only accept credit card roulette? You just merged the two ideas. It's a one plus one equals three. I mean, you could obviously do that. So I was trying to think about towers. So like sometimes when you'll do, I don't know, when you're at somebody's house and they're making cheeseburgers and then they have the extra plate that has like lettuce, tomato and onions. And then there's like another plate with the cheeses. The cheeseburger tower would be kind of be perfect for this, right? Because you would have the burgers at the bottom and then it would go up and then the top, as house said, would have all the cool extra things.

1:12:13Bill Simmons:Why is it seafood is the one that works the best with this house? Like, could you could you do like a pasta tower?

1:12:20Zach Lowe:The ice definitely plays a role because it's visually stimulating. It's the temperature change when it comes to the table. It changes the gravity of the table. And it's so visually appealing. And it's so interesting that the variance you get between what a shrimp looks like, what an oyster looks like, even the clams, the clams have. Oh, is this a clam or is it an oyster? Well, it's a little smaller. Okay, I got it. Some folks will take a tiny bit of a, do a tiny hamachi and kind of like, you know, put some sliced stuff on a tiny plate and slide it. Like there's all kinds of room for creativity with this.

1:13:05Zach Lowe:That's the sushi tower.

1:13:08Bill Simmons:So that's a great one. Sushi tower is a great one because you could have different levels. I've worked at a few restaurants. I've never worked at a place that sold or offered seafood towers. But if you get a Diet Coke, I feel like it's out of bounds to ask, hey, I know you've got seafood towers on the menu. Can I have the crushed ice from the tower in my Diet Coke? I think I would be shut down. I was like, no, that ice is for the tower exclusively. We can't start handing out this ice all over the place. Then the tower is not special. we built two different things. They got two ice machines back there.

1:13:49Bill Simmons:This reminds me, we built this little bar in the back of my house that had an ice cube machine that has the big ass cubes. Not just the crushed ice, but like those big fat ones. Love those. You say overrated. I present to you... They're like bocce ball ice? No, they're just like big ass ice cubes. Square cubes. The joy of people's faces when they're offered a big cube. you can't really put a price on it, including Joe House. I have my hand on one cube. People like, although sometimes it'll be like the two big cubes. Be like, look, look at these two big cubes in my glass. I feel like something to confess on the ice.

1:14:28Bill Simmons:I have something to confess.

1:14:30Zach Lowe:Yeah. Um, for Christmas this year, my wife, she says, yeah, it's just impossible to shop for you. Give me some things. So I gave her three or four things. One of the things that I asked for, for my wife for Christmas this year was, square ice cubes because there is, you can make them and, and Bill has a machine that makes them. Um, there, there is, there used to be in Washington, DC. I don't know if it's the place still exists. Um, kind of, uh, uh, uh, uh, and the curated ice, like a, a, a, a place where you could go to buy because there's a machine that will make the perfect ice. Obviously I'm going to get a lot of feedback from people saying you just pour some water into a tray and the shape of that giant ice cube but no no i don't want to do work so she ordered ice that was delivered to my house and that was made by this machine in in the perfect shape that i like and i can put four of those cubes in my giant 30 ounce water uh and and that's what i drink get on board get on board with the ice wiles well and you're getting i didn't realize that that you're ordering the ice I know.

1:15:41Just the packaging and the styrofoam alone.

1:15:44Bill Simmons:Sure. Yes. Well, it's good for the environment is what they tell us.

1:15:47Zach Lowe:I thought that she would go to the local place and she did not go to the local place and it may not even exist any longer. Instead, she did order it and it was shipped here. The shipping costs greatly exceeded the cost of the ice. Yeah, I don't know. I can't go sign that one. I'm not recommending that. I have another one. Go. It's similar restaurant theme. You know those Cosmo places? I think it's called Cosmo. It's like an IMAX for sporting events.

1:16:22Bill Simmons:Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. There's one in LA. It might not be called Cosmo. Yeah, there's one in LA and people go and it's like the giant screen. They feel like they're at the game. Yeah, and it's like you're there, right? It's cool. Immersive. So combine that with a video I saw of a Packers fan who was watching his game outside in his Packers jersey through the window. And his wife was like, what are you doing? He's like, if they're cold, I want to be cold. I'm like, this guy knows what it's about. And me and Billy went to the Texans game because part of it is we wanted to be miserable with the players.

1:17:00We're like, we're in it. We're all one. so a bar if you can't be like the Packers guy in Green Bay but like for LA fans of the Patriots oh man it's a disaster in Denver or it's terrible in Foxborough coming in this place get out your old north face it's freezing it's raining in here it's a disaster a bar that controls the elements but if the elements are of your favorite home team and you can be different places the Patriots are playing in Miami me. It's hot as hell down here. I'm like, gosh, darn it. Right. It's like 98 degrees in the bar. Yeah. You want to go see the Bears game?

1:17:40Zach Lowe:Get your jacket. Sounds like it's more expensive than shipping in ice. I mean, how can you get it cold enough? How do you make it as cold as Chicago was? My son plays hockey. It gets cold in those places. I think that idea too, Kyle. It makes pockets a bit hot. Yes.

1:18:00Bill Simmons:I think it's one of those ideas that it would take a while to build the restaurant and get all the elements right. I think there would be a lot of PR when it launched. And I think people would go for about three weeks. And then...

1:18:11Zach Lowe:Wow, does it have a name? Oh.

1:18:14Bill Simmons:In the elements? Yeah, elements. Elemental? The elements. I'm going over the elements. It's pretty good. It's getting cold in here.

1:18:31what's your next one

1:18:37I got this is viewer submitted Micah Adams who used to work with I remember Micah Adams big research guy good guy sent me a full paragraph for a half-baked idea and I didn't ask him if I could use this but I assume he would be cool with it I'll just read it verbatim okay you're going to be in immediately. NBA Royal Rumble. It's either one-on-one or knockout, but not just current players. Bring out retired guys, college players, whatever you want. The fans have no clue who comes out next. 30 names, a King of the Hill survivor, but stealing the idea of the Royal Rumble where dudes just sprint out of the tunnel.

1:19:20There's a belt in everything. Tell me that's not the best all-star Saturday event. That's a free half-baked idea. Thumbs up. Crushed it. So,

1:19:31Bill Simmons:alright, so two guys are out there and what do they play to like three? Play to one. I think so. Play to one. So the guy who comes out has the ball? Have you played tennis king of the court? The person who stays on gets one, but the person entering needs to score two. Oh, okay. So it gives you an advantage. if you've played 10 games. Okay. I'm so glad you said tennis king of the court and not pickleball king of the court because I just would have ended the podcast if you said pickleball. I'm glad you used the sport where we use athleticism. It's unbelievable. All right. So two guys come out. It's Anthony Edwards and Zion.

1:20:17Bill Simmons:Anthony Edwards wins. He's king of the court. Now Con Caniple runs out and he's got to score two baskets before. but if Edward scores one basket, he stays on. Con Canipo has to leave. He's got to score two times in a row. Yeah, guess who else comes... Then guess who comes out next? Hakeem Olajuwon.

1:20:36Zach Lowe:Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. It's Angel Race's music.

1:20:42Bill Simmons:What is she doing here? She's number five. Why not? Why not? My God. Let her play Dennis Rodman. Is that Christian Laettner? Christian Laettner. That's a pretty good one. Oh, no. The music is so good. Oh, you just hear the Bulls music? What's going on? Steve Kerr? What the heck? Steve Kerr? They were getting Jordan.

1:21:07Zach Lowe:That's right. They play the famous Bulls music and Steve Kerr comes out. Jed Bushma comes out.

1:21:13Bill Simmons:And then number 30 is LeBron and everyone gets mad that they rigged it. Of course he's number 30. Of course they just wanted LeBron to win and then we talk conspiracies. This all sounds great.

1:21:22Zach Lowe:You don't know the guys are injured

1:21:24Bill Simmons:and you have all like, oh, is Kyrie going to be available for All-Star? Oh, here he comes. Can I tweak this a tiny bit? All due respect to Mike Adams. It's a two on two. So it's a tag team Royal Rumble basically. So you'd have 30 names. I guess four into 30 doesn't work. Maybe it's 28 names. Maybe it's 32. It's eight teams. Okay. And you have like, it goes a little longer. So basically, if you score, if you get to five, you've stayed. How are we dealing with ones and twos on this, though, House? Well, do you choose your teammate is my first question. No, because you want the surprise of the Rumble.

1:22:07Bill Simmons:That's the best thing with the Rumble. Okay, good, good, good. But if you played to 11 with twos and threes, and then you won too many basketball, so you'd have to play to seven? Or five? But then I need people coming in and out, Bill.

1:22:21Zach Lowe:Yeah. One's that will you play one point or two points.

1:22:25Bill Simmons:Yeah. All right. So it's singles. Keep it. Keep it. I really like it. It's phenomenal. Here's the other thing. It's a timer like the Royal Rumble. If you guys are playing hard defense or people miss tough luck. Here comes Kevin Durant. Oh my God. Why? There's three guys on the court now. Boom. Putbacks.

1:22:47Zach Lowe:Everybody's gone except for Durant.

1:22:48Bill Simmons:The best part would be like, He's number 27. Who's it's going to be? My God, it's Anthony Davis. He's running out. Oh, he pulled the calf. He's not going to be able to play. Get in the game with the college branded Venmo debit card. Wreck your team with every tap and earn up to 5 % cash back with Venmo Stash, a new rewards program from Venmo. No monthly fee, no minimum balance. Just school pride and spending power. Get in the game and sign up for the Venmo debit card at Venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank N.A. Select schools available. Venmo stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo.me slash stash terms.

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1:23:56Zach Lowe:That's why you rack.

1:23:59Bill Simmons:Sometimes the greatest financial victories aren't the huge flashy contracts, but the mid-level moves that maximize your cap space. Just like TaxAct helps you get a great return by finding every deduction, even the small ones, to minimize your refund. In great returns presented by TaxAct, we look back at the best decisions GMs have made to land an inexpensive player who paid huge dividends down the stretch and owners that have seen their team valuation skyrocket. So I always think of the Warriors with this in the mid-2010s, with the combination of having Curry on this amazing contract that somehow wasn't a max contract, even though he was a two-time MVP, having Draymond Green as a second-round pick, and then anticipating the cap spike that was coming in the summer of 2016, which allowed them to let Harrison Barnes go and then sign Kevin Durant.

1:24:53Bill Simmons:and all of a sudden they had Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson, and Andre Iguodala all on the same team. I mean, hard to think of a better great return than that. It ended up winning them two titles in a row. Great Returns presented by TaxAct. This tax season, simplify your moves, maximize your refund. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. All right, what's your next one, Wilds? All right. This is a dumb one, but I already got this one shot down by Greg Jennings, but this is a good idea. I don't care. There was a point where Drake May was in shotgun to buy him some time because our offensive line was a little bit porous.

1:25:43And I also thought Justin Herbert could have done this. Okay. You guys need to take a deeper shotgun snap to buy some time. combine that with Caleb who ran back 26 yards from the line of scrimmage to make a large largely normal play made me think the pocket needs to be deeper our center is out a long snapper is in I'm taking the snap 15 yards back I buy myself two extra seconds I can look around. It's a revolutionary idea. I don't know if the league is ready to hear about this. But once I saw Caleb run 26 yards back, and he needed four yards, he's like, this is the best way for me to get four yards.

1:26:31I want to go back 26 yards. But if he had a long snapper, he would just have it there.

1:26:36Bill Simmons:So the problem would be the snap would have to be pretty on target for like 16 yards.

1:26:43Zach Lowe:But every time a long snapper snaps to a punter, it has to be on target. Like it's not often the case that the punter is like running all over the world. You know, the punters have to jump. They have to move in response to the ball. But most of the NFL quarterbacks can move in response to the ball. They can see it coming. There's enough time to adjust.

1:27:07Bill Simmons:I have a small half-baked idea. I was thinking about icing the kicker when teams ice the kicker at home before a big field goal. Right? Call timeout. give the guy two minutes, two and a half minutes to think about it. I was thinking about this during, uh, for some reason, my wife and I were watching Bohemian Rhapsody, the queen movie and was thinking about, we are the champions was such a brilliant song by them. And I don't think it was the intention of the song when they made it. I think they wanted like a big arena song, but I don't think they realized it would be played in sports for the rest of their life.

1:27:40Bill Simmons:Like it's perfect. Yeah. And we've always, I think we've even talked in the past about how we don't create enough songs that first sports moments there should be an Icing the Kicker song some band should create it and it should be ominous and dark and it should like fuck the kicker up it's almost like David Fincher like a song he would have put in 7 in the last 30 minutes and it's just blaring in the thing and the whole crowd is chanting like your career will never be the same. And just like singing these lyrics that are just like infecting the guy's head right before he kicks it. Really dark.

1:28:22Bill Simmons:Almost like Creep Radiohead, right? You hear Creep and it's like, man, that's a pretty dark song. What's the Ice and the Kicker dark song that would fuck with the guy? Can I tweak this house and put it to you? Please, let's tweak it. I'm listening. Everyone's trying to figure out how to use AI and it's a lot of data, right? oh run this data through the AI but you also have AI taking these you know deep fakes oh it's not we have deep fake video on the video screen oh no of him missing it and the crowd celebrating and he's sad and deep fakes of his teammates being like oh no and then privately saying like I never believed in him on the bus home yeah i love this his wife's like i i we gotta sell the house i'm genuinely relieved because it's like a for sale sign in front of the house simmons was was pushing us in a dark

1:29:23Zach Lowe:direction and then you went you said ai and deep fake and then i started thinking of like really dark things that you could put on a screen now to mess with somebody like the parents are hostages. Look, your parents are hostages right now. Not that dark. It's an ethical AI. Ethical AI. Very good. Yeah, I won't even be. Yes. Great job.

1:29:45Bill Simmons:I have been doing mailbags. People have been sending great emails. And they can send them to BS Podcast 33 at gmail.com. David Haynes. I love that mailbags are back, by the way. Mailbags are back. Well, when the emails are good, mailbags can come back. They shouldn't have gone anywhere. I know. It's my fault. It's my fault. You know, we all can't bat 100. We'll bat 1 ,000. 100 or 1 ,000. Like, I'm going to take Happy Meals off the menu for a few years. They'll do that sometimes. We all can't bat 100. How did I come up with that? David Haynes. 100, not good. Here's his pitch. You love your new child, but don't you miss the nightlife of the city cozying up to the bar for the 1 p.m.

1:30:27Bill Simmons:games? Maybe you loved attending a matinee before you had a little one. Well, with the baby weight, You don't have to give up the former pleasures of your social life. You can leave your child at home, enjoy hours free of your child without any worry of them getting into the pantry, calling over stairs, or really getting beyond the one to two foot radius where you left them. The baby weight is a weighted diaper that strengthens the will and the physique of your child. They won't go far, but you can. I thought obviously not a great half-baked idea but I really admired how fucking crazy it is wait you're at the bar hold on let me get the baby weight

1:31:10Zach Lowe:I don't understand is it to restrain the baby you lock the baby in your home

1:31:15Bill Simmons:it's like a weight harness

1:31:18Zach Lowe:well you could also just take a 25 pound weight and handcuff him to the weight Is that, I mean, what's the difference?

1:31:25Bill Simmons:I would say that was not even a half-baked idea. It bummed out Wilds. No, that doesn't, that wouldn't, that wouldn't make it through our sensors. Didn't make it? That's not ethical AI. What was the last one you had? Final one. You guys will like this one. Baby Wait, we can recover from Baby Wait. He spelled it W-A-I-T, which I really, it's pretty good. Yeah, the best part of that is the name. I think that was the genesis of it. Baby Wait. He's like, I'm backed into that one. Bill, when Sean Payton went for it on fourth down, instead of kicking the field goal and making it 14-0 Broncos, and you saw that they were coming out and the field goal unit was staying on the sideline, were you happy or nervous?

1:32:11I have text threads praying that they were going to go for it. Exactly.

1:32:21Bill Simmons:I thought it was our only chance. Ecstatic. Please go for it. Because even if they got it, it wouldn't have necessarily been a touchdown. They would have been like first and goal from the eight. Wasn't even guaranteeing them anything. And if we stopped it, which we did, that will be the momentum to carry us through the game. And I thought we could stop him. It's Jared Stidham. Please go for this. We're locked in. As part of your analytics team, for an NFL, NBA, baseball, if you want to pull a pitcher, should you leave them in? You have one super fan of every opponent you play on your schedule.

1:33:03And you've got them watching the game in your building, but they're hooked up like a F1 racer. And they're seeing their heart rate and they're measuring sweat. and your data guys can figure out like, uh-oh, hey, before you make this call, Peyton, we've got three Patriots fans sequestered away and I just saw their dopamine shoot up till 99. Call a timeout and get the field goal kicker on and let's see what happens. Uh-oh, it just dropped. They don't want you to kick the field goal. They want you to go for it. But the fans of the other team

1:33:40Bill Simmons:wouldn't want to participate in this because they wouldn't want to affect the outcome negatively. I mean, what really should happen? I don't understand. You couldn't kidnap the Patriot fans to study their dopamine because they wouldn't want to help the other team. No, but we're looking at pupils dilating. You can't... You're not just saying, I want you to go for it. You're hooked up to a machine. I still have to choose to be hooked up to the machine. Right? You're getting paid a handsome salary. To turn on my team, I'm helping Sean Payton. I'm not putting the machine on. No, you're a baseball fan.

1:34:20Bill Simmons:You're getting paid for it.

1:34:20Zach Lowe:Yeah, it's$20 ,000, and you get seats right on the midfield, 10 rows up, and all the nachos and beer.

1:34:29Bill Simmons:That's my price for helping the Broncos? Well, that would be my price.

1:34:33Zach Lowe:I mean, I'm cheap. I'm watching the game.

1:34:35Bill Simmons:See, I think it would be the technology of a camera from far away could zoom in and study the pupils of the fans in attendance. That's true. Unwittingly, they're participating. And you have everybody mic'd and you hear the Patriots fans going, I hope they go for it. I hope they go for it. And that's how you do it. There's something here though. I do feel like nobody knows, there's no more honest reaction in sports than people rooting for their own team, instinctively being like, I hope this happens or I hope this doesn't happen. I would still take a hundred times out of a hundred over the analytic charts.

1:35:08Bill Simmons:and I like analytics and I've obviously used them a lot with stuff, but that was a perfect example of misreading the situation because no Patriots fan wanted them to go up 10, nothing when we're in bad weather and there's snow coming and it was just like, this is a disaster. If they go up 10, nothing, please go for this. Yep. 14, nothing, 10, nothing. I don't think even think it mattered.

1:35:32Um, that's a perfect idea. That's perfect. Do you have any golf

1:35:35Zach Lowe:have baked ideas for us? No, no, I didn't come in prepared. I didn't even know that this was going to be the thing. Most of golf is half-baked ideas. That's the thing. Go look at golf gadgets. A very simple Google will send back to you 15 ,000 ways of improving your swing, improving your posture, improving every aspect. And remember, golf has three different kinds of techniques that you have to be good at. You have to be good at driving the ball. You have to be good at hitting irons. More than that, chipping the ball, putting. So every one of those activities, those disciplines, has 10 ,000 suggestions for getting better at them.

1:36:17Bill Simmons:I have one small one. First of all, SNL had a sketch about making fun of Spotify wrapped, and it was your Postmates wrapped of all your orders, and you just got them all delivered of everything you've ordered on Postmates or Uber Eats, any delivery wrap. I already look at my DoorDash orders. I thought it was a great idea.

1:36:38Zach Lowe:For pleasure.

1:36:39Bill Simmons:Everything in there. And it's just like how I did in 2025. I thought that was great. Can we talk about, so people, if you have dogs, like some people have dog walkers, some people walk their own dogs, some people have help if they have work. Why don't we have Postmates dog walkers? Like 9.30 at night, Murph's just has too much energy. and I'm like, oh man, Murph probably needs to go out and walk around, but I'm wearing pajamas. I want to watch this Clippers game. I don't feel like taking them out. I'm going to go outside. And that dialogue exists, but certainly not at the level that it should.

1:37:18Bill Simmons:That's right. Postmates Dogwire, I call in and somebody just shows up, walks the dog 20 minutes, the same way they would deliver food.

1:37:26Zach Lowe:I love this. And DoorDash, at least in my area, now has expanded to where you can order stuff, right? You can order running shoes. You can order a computer mouse. They're basically like a personal assistant. That's it. So you add to the menu of things that are available, DoorDash, Uber Eats, whatever, Postmates, a personal assistant that is also available. This person will be at your residence in 30 minutes. And maybe they have a bunch of people in the neighborhood.

1:38:01Bill Simmons:So they have like 15 people that they're kind of on call for, like doctors. It feels like this is where we're all heading. We're just never going to leave our house is where we're going. That's the thing. Convenience is the enemy. It is a good idea. You could probably tie it into an exercise app too. It's like, hey, get your steps up and do it with a dog. Well, let me ask this.

1:38:25Zach Lowe:Wilds, we just went through an enormous snowstorm here on the East Coast. I know you got walloped. Did you shovel your own walk? He definitely did. Several times. Yeah, there's no way. Wilds is self-started. I like doing it.

1:38:43Bill Simmons:Yeah, Wilds. I get that.

1:38:45Zach Lowe:I like it for when it's about two inches and, you know, it takes a half hour to do one portion of one walkway. There's no chance for what Washington, D.C. received, the DMV received, which was five inches, five, six inches of snow. And then hours and hours of sleet on top of that snow that made the snow weigh each shovel full 214 pounds. I mean, I might be exaggerating, but I waited until Monday. You know, all the snow was done Sunday night. I waited until midday Monday and I went into my TaskRabbit and found a couple enterprising young fellas. Like, come on. Because, you know, we don't have any more Wilds or Simmons.

1:39:35Zach Lowe:Kids that come to the door and say, hey, can we walk for 20? I was one of those kids. I was going to tell my kids. like, hey, there's money to be made out there today.

1:39:45Bill Simmons:Yeah. Yeah. Society is different. Like we did the Zodiac rewatchables on Monday and there's a scene in Zodiac when the guy's flashing his lights behind the lady who's got the kid in the car played by Oni Sky. And she pulls over and he's like, hey, your back tire's loose. Let me fix it. And she's like, sure, thank you. And then he loosens the tire even more so it comes off because he basically wants to kidnap her. People were just way more trusting and friendly back then. We've lost that. Nobody would shovel your house now. We're all afraid of the guy coming behind you, flashing his lights. That's the problem.

1:40:16You know what? House, next time, call me. I'll get on the Amtrak. I'll do it. I appreciate that. I like it. It's like a workout. I do appreciate that.

1:40:23Bill Simmons:House and Wilds, before you go, I had one last tiny, I don't even know if this is a half-baked idea, but it's about my son. It's almost like a parent corner. My son started drinking coffee. Love it. Happened about two months ago. had never tried it before never really understood it and just decided at some point you know he said they have like those Zins they have all these different things those little nicotine things like not for him wanted some sort of a little caffeine boost that was a big soda guy but finally had a coffee and was like this is the most amazing thing I've ever seen I had a coffee in the morning I don't think he needs it per se Well, because I had leftover coffee, had it in the morning, had a great day at school.

1:41:15Bill Simmons:And he's like, I can't believe you didn't tell me how great coffee is. And I was like, well, you saw me and mom drinking it. You know how much I care about it. We make it every day. It's like my favorite thing of the day. Like, I don't know what you were missing. You've been here the whole time. It's like, yeah, but you still, you didn't tell me. So now he's really into coffee. Today, he made a coffee and made a little, in the espresso machine, a little espresso to top it off. And I'm wondering, here's my half-baked idea. Should I just do PSAs for people, where we used to do the don't do drugs for when we were kids in high school?

1:41:47Bill Simmons:Do I do PSAs about how great coffee is for high school use? People like eighth grade and up. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I want to tell you about something called coffee. It changed my life. I have it twice a day. It's really great. Do you feel a little sluggish at school during the mornings? I have an idea for you. Coffee. I felt like drinking coffee in high school felt like you were an adult. It was validation. Well, you're carrying around like you and the teachers like, yeah, I hear you. Like, I got a coffee too. I'm at Dunkin' Donuts. It's fantastic. It's the best drug. How old are your kids now?

1:42:32Bill Simmons:Hi, I'm Joe House. Every afternoon, I have a Trenta iced coffee. Well, that's true. And they add an espresso shot to it. And I'm able to do podcasts for three hours at a time. Please try coffee. My kids are 13 and 11. And when Russell comes down, I ask him, like, hey, I'm drinking coffee. I'm like, hey, do you want a coffee? And he says, no. Obviously, he's 13. Yeah. But I ask him every day, waiting for the day where it's going to be like a field of dreams moment. It's like, hey, dad, can I have a coffee? Age 16. If I could do it over again, I would have started Ben at 16. That's my question. You're 16.

1:43:17Bill Simmons:That's my question. At what age? I have to introduce the coffee. Yeah. The other day, we went to see my mom on Saturday. And we were driving back. And Ben looks at me and goes, Starbucks drive-thru? I almost started sobbing tears of joy. I was like, this is, I've never felt closer to you in 18 years. It's appropriate.

1:43:36Zach Lowe:He is college age and it is part of the college experience. And that's like really where you experiment, you find your thing. I mean, there's the coffee experience is so much more sophisticated now than what we grew up with. You know, what we had available to us. It was, it was purely a matter of function back when we were in college. It was not like, this is delicious. You know, it was like, I need this for fuel. I need this to power through.

1:44:06Bill Simmons:No, it's like putting gas in your car. Because on the Zodiac pod, I said one of the most 1970s thing about the movie is somebody comes over to somebody's house and the cop has to wake up and his wife goes, let me make some Folgers. And I said, that's the most 1970s thing that instead of saying coffee, she said Folgers. And then I got some emails from people like, you're a snob. they still make Folgers like why do you yeah and I don't I personally don't drink Folgers because I'm a coffee snob I like to buy like really douchey $16 bags like we get stuff from milk test from Hawaii sometimes because I like well you don't have to confess

1:44:43Zach Lowe:all that you could just say I really like coffee I enjoy getting like go full douche

1:44:49Bill Simmons:I like I'm going full douche I like trying different coffees I like trying different beans and Folgers just seemed like that was like what you bought in a store 50 years ago, but apparently it's still being made. I'll drink coffee as a drink and deal with the caffeine, deal with the caffeine, even though I know it's bad. Nine o 'clock, want espresso after dinner? Oh, do I want to be up till three in the morning?

1:45:17Zach Lowe:Yes. a lot of times I will get a decaf because I love the warm I love the smell of it I love how reassuring it is I don't really have a lot of vices

1:45:33Bill Simmons:I like to game up on football I'm not like one of those oh I got this great $300 bottle of scotch you guys gotta try but I really do like coffee and also like when my wife makes it she never I'm always a little off. I feel like I'm like an F1 car. My engine needs to be perfectly calibrated. Not too much coffee, too much caffeine. I feel a little off. Not enough caffeine. My head hurts. I kind of know what my engine is. Do you guys feel that way with coffee? No? Am I the only one like this? Supposedly, the guy who gave up coffee, was it Michael Polian, who's written all those health books? Yeah, Polian.

1:46:15Yeah, he gave up coffee and his brain started to try to get him to places where there was coffee. Like, you need to go run this errand. But his brain was telling him to go over there. Really? Because there was coffee. So he gives up coffee for 30 days. And the question he was discussing was, is his normal self caffeinated? When your normal self is actually not caffeinated, right? Your normal self is your normal self. But I view my normal self as caffeinated, but it's not true. actually on the stimulant. Is it a stimulant or is it just a drug of the gods?

1:46:58It can be both, can't it? It's the best drug. We don't have to choose. Everyone's like, we've got to legalize this.

1:47:05Bill Simmons:I gave up sugar in my coffee right after Christmas and I missed it for two days. Now I don't miss it at all. If anything, it makes me taste the coffee even better. I know. I know. House is like, he's blacker than black with the coffee. Yeah. I don't put anything in it. He pours tar in his coffee to make it blacker. That's not true. The other thing that this Poland was talking about, he quit for 30 days and he said that first taste of coffee was... Didn't taste good. Out of this world. Oh, out of this world. Out of this world.

1:47:36Zach Lowe:That's right. Oh, yeah. That's right. To the point where I was like, the way he was describing it, I'm like, should I quit coffee just to hit that high? now I'm drinking coffee and it's not hitting you know I gotta I feel like if I was built up too much of a tolerance there's a half baked idea in here

1:47:54Bill Simmons:if I was Tom Hanks in Castaway the coffee thing would be a top three thing I'd be the most upset about on the island like no humans not knowing what sports is going on or with any of my family's alive and then what the fuck am I gonna do about coffee is there can I find a cocoa bean on this island

1:48:16Bill Simmons:he would want that before other people would have been looking for food I'd be walking around like is there coffee wait does that look like I could grind that with some rocks I could grind that then I would figure out how to spearfish and maybe wean myself off but I really love coffee anyway Wilds thanks for hanging around just for people like you guys Wilds had to hear an echo in his ear the entire time so he's probably like half insane the poor guy All right. House. Way to fight through it. Great to see you as always. I'll see you on Tuesday. We'll do some Super Bowl stuff. Super Bowl. Let's do it.

1:48:50Bill Simmons:Wilds on First Things First with Nick Wright and Broussard. Every day, three o 'clock. Every day. How much taunting is there with Nick Wright? Because he was like such a fucking pompous Chiefs fan there for a while. Like, oh, the AFC runs through us. And guess what? It doesn't and your coach is old. You know, at some point, Nick is going to get mad at me for how pompous I've been. And I'm going to pull a line from that old drug commercial. It was like a PSA. It's like, you know where I learned this from? I learned it from you. Yeah. I learned it from watching you. I remember that commercial. That's a great one.

1:49:28Zach Lowe:Let's dig that up.

1:49:30Bill Simmons:Kevin Wilds, thank you. Thanks, House.

1:49:32Zach Lowe:All right, see you guys. Thanks, fellas.

1:49:35Bill Simmons:All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Zach. Thanks to House. Thanks to Wilds. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahal. as well. Don't forget Rewatchable. Zodiac was last week. It's up. You can also find Wild Things is coming Monday night and you can watch that on Netflix over the weekend. Enjoy the weekend. I'm going to be back on Sunday night at 5 p.m. PT, 8 p.m. ET live on Netflix. We're going to be doing our special Super Bowl props episode that we've been doing since the 2000s. I'm not kidding. That's how long we've been doing it live on Netflix and And you'll be able to hear that wherever you get this podcast, including on Spotify, I hope.

1:50:13Bill Simmons:Anyway, enjoy the weekend. See you Sunday.

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