Maye Vs. Stafford, Week 18 Picks & the 21 Best 21st Century Sports Movies With Peter Schrager, Joe House, and Sean Fennessey

26:18It's a great year. I mean, any other year, there's usually two coaches and it's like the team that came from nowhere to win. This year, I think there's six or seven. D 'Amico Ryans has an argument. It's a good year for it. well also a great year for the new coach theory house one of our future staples we had jags pats don't tell jets fans that no what was the third one there's and uh there's jags pat chicago that was the premise for i love the pats every over i like the chicago overs the jags were the one i couldn't get behind because the lawrence and the lawrence that we've seen the last couple weeks.

26:54We'll see this week. We'll talk about it when we get to the picks. This Jaguars-Tennessee game is pulsating as a stay away to me. Throw it in every parlay. You feel great. Oh, yeah, and the Jags money line. And then Cam Ward hits somebody for a 78-yard touchdown. Lawrence throws a pick six. It's 14-0. It's just something that scares me. I think you made a really good case for McCaffrey. Just because they're the one seed. Also, What he was doing in that last game where he's clearly not 100 % either. He's going to be what? Isn't he over 400 touches house? 400 touches. Yeah. That's like 400 plus touches is nuts.

27:37And approaching 1 ,000 receiving yards. It doesn't seem like he's going to quite get there. He's got 890. Yeah. It's like what we were talking about with the Lamar thing. When you're up on the 400 touches for a running back, whoever, it's just not a long shelf life after that. I remember when Aaron Schatz wrote about that. He called it the curse of 370 about running backs. That's cool. And the running back that he wrote it about, I can't remember who it was. Jamal Lewis. It was like Priest Holmes, Jamal Lewis, somebody. And he wrote the piece and the guy's career died in like a year. And it was like, we think this is the number.

28:11So I feel the same way about these quarterbacks that take big hits and then McCaffrey. Like he's not going to be playing football in three years. Do you think? we'll see if he's healthy. I mean, I'm watching Derrick Henry still run for 200-something yards. He's a physical freak. I don't... Can we compare anyone to Derrick Henry? Jim Brown? I played Madden with my son who now can just kick the shit out of me in Madden. I'm actually going to have to go... It's like Rocky III. I'm going to have to go back in the lab and get the eye of the tiger back. He put Derrick Henry in a shotgun and just ran direct QB draws with Henry with stiff-harming Robert Spillane who's slower in the video game than he is in real life somehow and was just cackling as he kicked my ass.

28:55And I'm like, Derek Henry is like eternal as a video game guy, much less a football guy. All right, so you have McCaffrey. What's your ranking right now? You don't have a vote, so you can tell us. One, two, three. I'd probably go Stafford, May, McCaffrey. I can't believe the Stafford. What would you have, House? Same. Same. Stafford's numbers are astounding. You need both Baltimore. He has Pucanuku and Devontae Adams. How does that not Trump's strength of schedule? BS, you need Baltimore and Carolina to win so that the Patriots have three wins over winning teams. Right now, they have one win over a winning team this season.

29:31One win. We play who's in front of us. I understand that. I hate the strength of schedule stuff too, Bill, but it's literally the easiest strength of schedule in the league. And Stafford has the hardest strength of schedule of all the playoff teams in the league. I hate that it's becoming... It's like the 17th tiebreaker, but they're neck and neck. But that's where we are. I get confused with strength of schedule versus defenses you've played, I think, are two different arguments. That's fair. There's only four defenses that have mattered this year. And how many of them has he actually... Did the Rams play Denver?

30:03They did. No. They didn't. No, but they played the Texans. They played the Texans. They played... Not a huge production game. Eagles? They played the Eagles. Played the Eagles pretty early. Put up 26 on them.

30:18if he wins the MVP as a six seed that would be different than anything that's happened with the MVP he's a five seed the wild card guys don't usually win whatever and here's my last case for my Drake May argument it's like third and 70 on Monday night and they have to run a play where they where somebody catches it out of bounds Stafford throws it Puka Nakua is so good. He saves it. He almost makes the greatest catch in the history of football and actually makes the catch, but didn't get his second foot in. This is who he gets to throw to every week. And Bill, the play before, Xavier Smith was open and Stafford missed him.

30:59Yeah. I think Stafford's been good. I would have voted for him two weeks ago. I even thought maybe last week I would have voted for him. I know. All right. I might change my vote. You kind of lost it. I might. Honestly. I might. You made a great case. I just think the switch to teams, how does the guy do, I think matters in this. And the fact that May can move around and Stafford can't, you can't say Stafford throws the ball better than May. You can't. If you watch May all year, you can't say anyone's throwing the ball better than him this year. His completion numbers are insane. He completes 72 % of his passes, but he's also like nailing deep throws, and he's throwing to guys that mostly aren't really open.

31:36Stafford also had two awful halves. I mean, that Falcons half in the first half against the Panthers was horrendous. It's hard for me to say that's an MVP season. I'm with you. It's hard. It's so difficult. I'm so glad I don't have a vote. But I also hope that the voters put as much time and thought into it as the three of us are right now because I don't know if they do. Yeah, this is going to be a two-hour pod now. You know what really annoys me? House pretending he cares about the history of the NFL MVP. House, who won the 1997 NBA MVP? You know it. It was the year after MJ left. I don't know.

32:11Carl Malone. Yeah, Carl Malone won. Who won the 1997 NFL MVP? Nobody knows. I'll tell you right now. Favre. I could do it. Yeah, Favre. I could do it. Ask me NBA. Ask me NFL. Who won in 2002? What, NFL? Yeah, NFL MVP 2002. Manning. Rich Gannon. that's the thing when the NFL MVP has some stinkers who won like some let's be fair I'll do respect to Rich Gannon but come on we have Steve Nash on back to back MVP Matt Ryan that's a good point there back to back Steve Nash Shaq was in the fucking league let me just remind everybody yeah that was tough alright we'll take a break and then we'll do picks Shrags I thought of another name for your running ESPN segment yeah Shrags to Riches dude I love it would be like your name but two riches and it'll be like you as like a rich guy and then a poor guy dressed like a pauper.

33:06Pauper on the street. Shregs to riches. We need two riches. They already have a rich eyes. And can you get rich Paul? There's two riches right there. Bunch of riches. The best one, what was the one we said was the best one? Peter's principles. Oh, no, there was another one. What was the one where you're doing this? For Pete's sake. Can Alabama play defense? It's like his, you've been mossed. For Pete's sake. For Pete's sake, where's Christian McCaffrey and the MVP odds, guys? 500 to one for Pete's sake. Why didn't Mickey Rojas his win moment of the year? What are we doing? Before we do picks, any other topics you want to hit?

33:52Yes. I just watched this Indiana team kick the shit out of Alabama 38-3 in the Rose Bowl. I had money on it, House. I want to present two-prong question to you. One, what is the comp for what this Cignetti has done with the Indiana program? Is there one? And two, if you're an NFL team, are you not breaking down the doors to get this Cignetti as your next head coach if you're one of these teams that are looking to hire a culture center? There's three culture center college coaches right now, right? Removing Lane Kiffin because he just took the job. Lanning. Lanning, Notre Dame guy, and then Indiana guy.

34:32Freeman's going back for sure. Freeman's already re-upped and did some new contract then. But those would be the three guys you would go after. Indiana signed Signetti to an eight-year deal, but the money to me is when NFL Colton's calling, these guys listen. Well, it's interesting that there's no kick-ass candidate this year. There's not. Because even last year, it was like basically you knew the Vrabel sweepstakes were coming. Well, Ben Johnson and Vrabel Johnson was coming this year. So I'll tell you, cause I talked to these folks, the four names you're going to get are Jesse Minter, the defensive coordinator for the chargers, Jeff Halfley, the defensive coordinator for the, for the Packers, Chris Shula, defensive coordinator of the Rams.

35:19These are the hot names. And then of course you'll get, you know, other guys that have coached before or whatever. You'll go through it. But like, this is not last year where it's Ben Johnson lighting up the league and it's variable and it's the whole thing. So this is the perfect year for a team to think outside the box and say, you know what? Fuck it. I just watched this Indiana coach in two years bring this team from the most decrepit program in sports to one of the best coached, most disciplined teams. I would, I would, I'm going to go young here. I would throw the bag at them. hmm well i would have said atlanta was going to have a job open but raheem's fighting to keep the job he's one of the teams we're going to cover oh no raheem is in control of the nfc south my question is who is the last great from college directly into the pros to make an impact on the professional team.

36:16Yeah. And Harbaugh almost doesn't count because he was the NFL quarterback. Chip went to the playoffs his first year, but he wasn't sensational after that. Well, he was sensational this year as the Raiders offensive coordinator, but it's a different use of sensational. Somebody hired him again. Northwestern hired him. Didn't they watch him work his magic with Vegas? Yeah. To me, it's apples and oranges. The best one ever with this was Spurrier who took over House's team. That was... I forget what year that was. 2001. And we knew it was done when it talked about how he worked from 8 to 4. So he could go play.

36:50And he wanted to go play golf. Play golf, yeah. He had to be out of the facility by 4. We were like, this guy's fucked. He's going to get John Quinn's green. 60 hours a day. It's over. Very relatable. I understand where Steve's coming from. Yeah. I'm an 8 to 4 guy. With the comparison with Signetic, the name that I thought of, and I bring it to you because you guys are obviously sports aficionados and Bill, especially you as a Connecticut guy, Like Jim Calhoun with UConn is what I came up with. Or Gino, I guess, would be the other one. If Gino had done the crossover. Like Bill Snyder at Kansas State.

37:22Out of nowhere. Yeah. I remember. How's that another one? Leonard Hamilton they hired for the Wiz. From where? University of Miami or somewhere? He ended up at Florida State with a tremendous run. Like year after year of super competitive teams at Florida State. He just turned out to be a college guy. Jimmy Johnson's pretty good. Oh, shit. Think about those. Yeah, they're going way back. Yeah. Yeah, I think for NFL, I would rather take a chance on a guy who's two or three years too young than do a college guy. That's your Chris Shula argument. I think there's a higher success. Now, there's always like Raheem Morris at Tampa where he was like too young.

38:00He was 30, yeah. But there's some other examples of getting the guy early and you'd rather be early than late because at least you know it's like a 15, 16-hour job. What do you think is the best job that's going to be available though? Out of all the jobs. Well, we have to first decide which ones are available because I think there's a couple wild cards right now. I think we know the Giants and we know the Titans. Like, I have no assurance that Atlanta is going to be available. I have no assurance that Mike McDaniel is coming back to the Dolphins. And I have no assurance that Pete Carroll is out.

38:33Well, yeah, Pete Carroll and then Stefanski, I think, is a wild card too. Yeah. So out of those teams of the maybes, and then if Tampa loses, people hear, I'm reading the local newspaper when I was coming down here. Like, I didn't even think of Todd Bowles, but people are like, how could you lose this season? Like, that's a total wild card if the Glazers decide, you know what, let's start anew. We got Baker, whatever. If Todd Bowles loses this game on Saturday, that's got to be it for him. He's won four straight division titles. I know, but you lose eight of nine to end the year with a pretty talented roster.

39:07I don't know. What do you think, House? How does he come back after that? Yeah, and to me, it's not an if. I don't think about Tampa this weekend as in if they lose. You think no chance, huh? Oh, house. They haven't covered in nine games. I mean, what evidence is there? The vibes look bad, Shregs. You're there. Your feet's on the ground. Well, we had our meeting with the Buccaneers today via Zoom, and obviously you're going to get the optimistic team. But Baker said, I don't know if I'm revealing anything, it's like there's rules against what you can share, so here I am. Baker said, he's like, you know, we've had control of our own destiny since week one.

39:47Suddenly we don't. So today's vibe at practice was good. It was like loose. It was like, fuck it. Let's just go and let's go do our thing. Like the pressure of losing that. Finally, they've lost that. Carolina now controls their own destiny. So they're going to play loose. They're hoping to get back Kalijah Kansi, hoping Tristan Wirfs plays. And if you know either one of those guys, if they're hoping they're, I imagine they're both going to be on the field. That's a better team than they had last week. I think Baker is like House will get this because he's an actual hockey fan. When the hockey playoffs, the series ends and the team gets eliminated and it's like Brad Marchand was playing with a torn labrum and five broken ribs.

40:26You'll find that out after. And a herniated disc in his back. And it's just like all these injuries you didn't know. I can't wait to find out what Baker's injuries were. He has at least two. There might be something wrong with both of his shoulders and there's something wrong with one of his legs. He can't move anymore and he's not accurate anymore. I don't want to be a dick, but like, you know, the gentle response to Baker is it's not suddenly you're, you, you're, you're two and eight over your last 10 games. It didn't happen all of a sudden. There were many, many, many winnable games in there.

40:56They were six and two. We're going to do. Oh God. They were six and two and they had, they beat the 49ers, the Texans, and they beat Seattle in Seattle. Can you imagine they're missing the playoffs? And it's crazy. I want to get to the picks, but when we're talking about the coaching vacancies, let's just assume more jobs are going to be available than you think. Last year, Vrabel, who I think could have had his pick, was like, I want to coach Drake May. And I think even use the Jets as like, you know, a little bit of a straw man because he was trying to get Kraft to get to the right place and was using a lot of people behind the scenes to hopefully get Kraft to see the light.

41:35And he did. and it worked out great. What do you think's the best job that might be available? Because I think it's probably Baltimore. Ooh, wow. If the Ravens lose on Sunday night or if they get killed in round one and they decide to stick with Lamar, something's got to change. And Harbaugh's been there forever. And you could argue new coach, he could see it differently. I would say Baltimore, would you say somebody else? I know you're going to say this is the bias in me, but there's a team with an elite pass rush, a franchise quarterback and a left tackle on the roster in New York with leaked neighbors at wide receiver.

42:14You can argue that you step into that and the roster is there and you can be a lot further along than some of these other teams that have salary cap. Another top four pick, another top four pick, maybe a top two pick like giants is, and it's the, it's that logo and it's that market. People do gravitate towards that. I mean, Harbaugh for the Giants makes sense to me. And I honestly, Pete, you know this. I'm calling you Pete because this is... I can't believe this. I've never been called Pete in my life. Your boy. Cliff Kingsbury, Maine. I don't know about Cliff Kingsbury here in Washington. I don't know that that's a lifetime.

42:54They didn't sign him to a lifetime contract. Did you see the stat? Washington, the schedule makers gave him eight standalone games this year. 0-8 in those games. Oh, I watched. David, when they do the schedule, and by the way, I would even say this with my own team, although I think we're set up a little better than Washington was because Washington had an old roster. Old. There were some predictable pieces about it. But they should take into account the year after when you went from the super easy schedule to... My dad and I were talking about the past schedule next year the other day, and we were like, oh, my God.

43:29The check is coming. It sure is. For everything that happened. Cincinnati's mildly interesting but they've won their last four and they're cheap. I can't see them paying two coaches. I think they'll keep they kept Marvin Lewis all those years. I want to go back. So Cliff, you're saying out, you would say he'd be a head coaching candidate? You would say that what? Yeah, because there's no head coaching candidates. Atlanta is an incredible situation. Atlanta is amazing on both sides of the ball. Holy shit, that's a good team. I couldn't agree with how it's more. I think that's the perfect team. If they could play any special teams whatsoever.

44:03They're the stupidest. How are they not a 10-5, 10-6 team right now? Who's your quarterback? And they traded next year's first-round pick for another pass rush. They don't have a first-round pick, so who's your quarterback? Malik Willis. Lamar Jackson. You guys are the best. Two greats. Two great answers. I agree. I think Atlanta has a ton of talent. They're very good on both sides of the ball. It's ridiculous that they're not going to be the winners of the NFC South. I can't believe they're not going to win it. They don't get a lot of credit as like a fervent fan base. That place was rocking.

44:34If they just had a team that could like, I mean, it was amazing those years when they were going with Julio and Matt Ryan and all that. That place was on fire on Monday night. And gosh, if Lamar was their quarterback and Bijan in the backfield, are you serious? When my team played them, first of all, they were way scarier. To me, they felt like an 11-win team when we were playing them. They beat Buffalo. and we couldn't stop. Was terrified of Robinson. You know, it just it's just hard to believe. You watch them last week at the Rams. I was scared of that game all week because I had had the Rams in a money line.

45:13I ended up doing a giant hedge the other way, but it felt like just a live spot for Atlanta. And yet they went full Atlanta in the game. The game was over. All of a sudden it wasn't. All of a sudden it seemed like they were going to blow it. It's classic. I have seven games to discuss for Ringer 107. seven and I'm just going to list the games. And if there's a game missing, tell me Bucks, Panthers, Falcon, Saints, Seahawks, 49ers, Ravens, Steelers. We have to talk about those four. I want to talk about Bengals, Browns, because I have some hard thoughts on that. Vikings, Packers, and Chiefs Raiders were the seven I was looking at for picks.

45:48Is there anything else house? I wonder about the bills just because so Alan sitting. I, I don't know what the jets motivations are. Mitch Trubisky. doesn't it matter to the bills though? Wouldn't they prefer? I think they can go from 5 to 6, right? Or 7. Yeah, wouldn't they? It's a question. It's a high line though, so I don't know even what you do with it. Tease it. That's one thing you could do. I know, but we can't do that for Ring 107. Before we even get into it, week one, my old colleague and dear friend Kyle Brandt on Good Morning Football used to say, week one is a liar. Stay away no matter what.

46:27you don't know what the hell we're getting, stay away. I think week 18 is a liar as well. You have no idea what teams with nothing to gain are going to come out and play with their hats on fire like the Dolphins did to the Patriots all those years and those meaningless, you know. You don't know, but I like to find teams that have something to play for and play in those parameters. I don't know what the hell to do with Chiefs Raiders. Well, so the case you just laid out is actually the case for this game because we do know what one of the teams wants to do. That is lose with the Raiders. That's right.

47:00And the Chiefs are five and a half. It's in Vegas. The Raiders points the last eight weeks. They scored seven, 16, 10, 14, 17, zero, 21 in the Houston game, which included a pick six, and then 10 against the Giants. And my question is, is it just Casey Moneyline parlayed with an under 42 and a half? thinking the Raiders can't score more than 10 points and the Chiefs have Michael Oluwakandi as their quarterback. Chris Ola-Doken. Is that just a game we should be looking at, knowing that Vegas is not going to try to win the game? They do not want to win. I don't want to have anything to do with it, to be honest with you.

47:48I really don't. How many Chiefs starters on defense are going to stay? That's fine. We'll cross it off. Vikings. You've also seen these games. I mean, I remember the Jets-Rams a couple years ago where the team has nothing to play for but the number one pick, but the players don't play that way. Yeah, but they keep sitting all the players that could impact the game. I know. They must have cut a deal with Pete, the other Pete. The other Pete. Pete Schrager, Pete Carroll. Yeah, they must have cut a deal. Like, we're going to get rid of the rest of these games. Please, let's lose. We'll get Mendoza next year.

48:19And you could stay? We'll spend some money. You can stay. And maybe they'll double-cross him. I don't think Tom Brady wants that. Vikings-Packers. Packers locked into the seven seed starting Clayton Toon. Yep. Had to sign Desmond Ritter. Yep. Vikings laying seven and a half. Let's go. One four straight. Can lock down nine. Nine and eight for the year. Let's go get it. That's one. That's one. Love. Shrigs, are the Packers playing anybody in this game? No, and their defense has been ravaged to the bone and they're not going to try to play any of those guys on defense, I would imagine, with a playoff game coming up the next week.

48:55They just signed Trayvon Diggs, didn't they? They did. I can't imagine. He ain't in the football field this week. I can't imagine he's going to be picking any two passes off. My Cowboys fan friends seem to think he was genuinely terrible for the Cowboys this year. Is that true? Yeah, there's a lot of stuff apparently. I don't know all the details, but there was off the field and on the field. Okay. Love the Vikings. Who's playing quarterback? I'm going to bowl the Vikings. Is JJ playing or is it? our guy is a bro. Is it Brozmer? My man Brozmer. All right. Bengals-Browns. We're on the same side of this one, too.

49:32I know already. Let me hear. First of all, Cleveland saw this in Aaron Schatz's thing. Cleveland now has the ninth-worst DVO offense of all time. And they have the tenth-worst special teams of all time. Let's go. Then you have pretty frisky at home, not always reliable, but frisky and on the road, one of the worst road teams in a while. You have no Harold Fannin in this game house. He was like their one target. Since he waited DVOA, which they do, it kind of favors the second part of the year, the last two thirds. They're 17th. They look good last week. This feels like a run it up. Let's try to end the season with good vibes.

50:18You know what sucks? Is yes, we are absolutely positively betting the Bengals. I'd lay a 7.5. Make it 10.5. I don't give a fuck. We're laying all the points. I can't make it 13.5. Fine. Whatever you want. Let's alt-spread. What happens if they go up 10-0? The Browns, how are they going to score? No chance. Zero chance. Yeah, we're alt-spreading the hell out of that with my real pocketbook. But here's what I hate. Here's what I hate. The beginning of next season, when we're sitting and looking at how the Bengals finish the season, especially... Their defense got much better. From week 10 till now.

50:56It's noticeable when you watch. They actually have a little bit of a pass rush now. They stop the run. They're different. I agree. This is the first time since 2021 they have won by 20 points two games in a row. They had that crazy Baltimore 24-0 loss where I actually thought their defense played pretty good and Burrow single-handedly killed the game for them. and was like sad to listen to the Smiths Borough. He's happy now. Now he's happy again. There's some like Chase Brown has some incentive stuff in this game. There's some money incentive stuff on the Bengals side that you got to watch for.

51:32Yeah. All right. I'm going to mark that one. Lockstep. Alt spread. Ravens Steelers. Ooh. Where do you... It feels like a stay away, but it's also a playoff game and I feel like cowards if we're not betting it. It's Ravens three and a half in Pittsburgh. Winner gets the four seed Lamar playing Lamar definitely playing yes the thing for me house is the no Metcalf piece and how impotent the Steelers offense looked without Metcalf it was like nothing in the red zone works anymore plus they lost the giant tight end he broke his arm nothing in the red zone works for them anymore they don't get the Rogers third and nine bailout wrong shoulder throws to Metcalf anymore.

52:21That's just out of the offense. And all you have to do is basically stop the run and what are they going to do? I don't... Shiggs, I don't see a case here for the Steelers. Okay, let's hear it. Well, they're underdogs, which is always dangerous. Home underdogs. Rodgers fucking lives for these moments. Whether you think he's clutching these games or not, he's not going to lay an egg here. And they're in the same exact situation before they played Baltimore the last time. came out swimming from the jump and Baltimore didn't have an answer. Like, this is the season on the line. It's Tomlin. It's everything.

52:56And last week was horrendous. And down the stretch, you know, here's what kills you down the stretch. In February, you go to the combine, you spend, you know,$100 ,000 sending your entire staff there to do scouting. In March, you do free agency. April, you do the draft. You get Rodgers in May. They signed Valdez Scantling a week ago and he's getting the pass for three straight plays at the end of the game. They were running the Metcalf plays for him. They thought he was Metcalf, and he hasn't been on the team, and he hasn't been playing football. So that's what, now, it's like, all right, take a breath.

53:27We're home. TJ Watt, we'll see if he plays. The hope is he's back. And after he got stabbed by whoever. After he got stabbed, Tyron Taylor style. Yeah. So, and here's the other part of it. It's such a wide open AFC, and I know you're saying the Patriots, and we're talking about the Broncos and the Texans. It's like, I could see the pep talk before the game. Roger's looking around the quarterback room of the rest of the AFC and seeing Drake May and Bo Nix and Trevor Lawrence and saying, are you fucking kidding me? Like, get me in that dance and let's see what we can do. I've been there. And so all this stuff could be moot if Derrick Henry runs for 200 yards and Lamar is running all over them.

54:08But I kind of like the Steelers in this one. Well, you're supposed to, because in the first place, when the line in this series is three points or more and it's three and a half right now, the underdog is 24-5-3 against the spread. And on top of that, as an underdog against the Ravens, Mike Tomlin, 14-4-2 against the spread when the line is three or more. So you're supposed to like the Steelers here. Man, does it hurt. I don't like any aspect of it. be a stay away. Can I read you the receivers the Steelers had last week? Give me some Scotty Miller. Give it to me. Friar Muth led the team three catches for 63.

54:54Scotty Miller was three for 25. Valdez Scantling, three for 21 with nine targets. Three for 21. Jay Smith? Jonu. Oh, that's Jonu Smith. Forgot he played. Did Adam Thielen get one? Washington, two for 15. He's gone for the year. Adam Thielen two for four targets and then Gainwell three for 12 are you serious how are they going to move the ball for Pete's sake for Pete's sake so House can I at least offer you a life raft with not having to go against the Steelers as a home dog let me hear how you Ravens money line under 50 and a half points gets us eligible for Ringer 107 stuff. They would have to score 51 points to beat us.

55:51The Steelers team that has no receivers and a Ravens team that's just going to run the ball with Lamar Jackson. I'm not even sure I want to do that. The other way we can go is Baltimore Moneyline over 32 and a half if you think the game can get to 33 points. I don't want to do a combination because we just did this. We just did Baltimore. Yeah. Fucked ourselves. How are Malik Willis and Snoop Huntley going to score 50 points? Well, I guess what. High-end scoring game of the season. Yeah, exactly. So maybe it's a stay away. Yeah. I saw Schraggs on ESPN in his For Pete's Sake segment doing the Don't Count Out Aaron Rodgers for Pete's Sake.

56:31It's true. His MVP last year. Well, the thing is, if they get in, so Rodgers is in the locker room, like, all I have to do is win this game. Yeah. They were home. Next week. Home. Probably on Monday night. We can beat every wild card in the league. Let's go. So there's a case where everyone has money on the Ravens. Like everybody. And it's like the classic January Lamar. Can I request something? Followed by what happens in the future. Can I get Chris Collinsworth from you after a crazy Aaron Rodgers touchdown pass in the fourth quarter? Bill, can I get the impression? Oh. My. I mean, Adam Thielen should have been out of the league five years ago, Mike.

57:13Here he is catching back shoulder balls in the end zone. All right, we can stay away. Seahawks minus one and a half in San Francisco. Winner gets the one seed. They played in week one. It was San Francisco 17, Seattle 13. And in the sports movie version of this game, Mike McCarthy watches the video of him being a coward. Mike McDonald. Mike McDonald. Sorry, Mike McCarthy. Mike McDonald watches the video of him cowarding out and kicking the field goal when he shouldn't have, when he should have just gone for the fucking fourth and one kill and cost him the game. Now he has a chance to avenge it.

57:53I just want to point out, San Francisco has the 27th ranked defense in DVOA. I know we talked about them a bunch earlier. But if there's ever a team to light the wick on Sam Darnold's candle. It's this Niners defense. Sam Darnold's been under siege a couple games against good defenses. Now finally some space and being able to see things and they'll be able to run the ball and they have a really good defense, which San Francisco has not faced in a while. I am leaning pretty hard Seattle here, Shrakes. Nobody has played quarterback better the last two weeks in the NFL than Brock Purdy. I get it.

58:33This offense is as good as... To throw a pick six. It's as good as anybody has put on the field the last few weeks. And, you know, Seattle's traveling all the way back from Carolina. They have a short week, have to play Saturday night on the road. There's a lot of things to like about San Francisco. Do you feel like San Francisco has a home field advantage in that weird Santa Clara stadium? Yes. That place was rocking last week. I've never seen a football game there. No, and it's not candlestick. Trust me. It's not. But it's also not met life where you walk in and you feel like you're at a dentist's office.

59:08I would say the carrot at the end of this thing is the first team ever to be the number one seed and have a Super Bowl at home. So it's like, if we just can win this game, we don't have to sleep in another bed other than our own the entire way and we could be Super Bowl champions. And that's the message there right now. Like, get through this game one win at a time, but geez. House would be the opposite. House would be like, I'd love to be the seventh seed. I'm just on the road for a month. This is great. I love living out of hotel rooms. Four straight. That's four different hotel oceans. First of all, I don't think anyone needs a carrot in this game.

59:40It's for the number one seed. You have to play in round one. I'm not trying to guess incentives. I'd also add Clint Kubiak, former Shanahan disciple. Sam Darnold. Shanahan had him for the year. Shanahan revival. Rehabilitated him. Yeah, rehabilitated him a little bit. So there might be a... I mean, you could say that, okay, that means they're going to be okay, or the Niners know what the pros and the cons are of that team. Can I add one thing here? McCaffrey looked fucking banged up by the end of that last game. That is such an X factor. I totally agree with this. That's the number one reason I want to take Seattle.

1:00:18That did not seem like the kind of guy who wanted a 35-touch workload in this game. He was doing... So what do you think, House? The plank with the stretches where you try and get your hamstrings into your glutes. He's on the sideline doing that in the end of the third quarter. The poor man. I felt so bad. House and I are old guys. We know all the old guy bad back moves. We have done all of them. It hit me in the heart. I am pretty strong on Seattle here. I really think that this defense that can put pressure on without blitzing and drop guys back into the middle of the field. Brock Purdy lives in the middle of the field.

1:00:56We just watched, and he's going to have Kittle back. But, man, every time they need third and sixth, second, he goes right to the middle of the field. And he is incredible at it. But, like, if you look at the defenses, the success rate of the defenses, Since he came back from injury, all they've done is beat up on questionable defenses. The two best defenses that they've played were Cleveland, who they took care of with, you know, Cleveland being buffoons, and Carolina, who also had their own sort of version of buffoonery. And there were not incredible, like, yards per play numbers or success numbers for the San Francisco offense against those defenses.

1:01:38This is an entirely different level of defense. And Mike McDonald now, with his ability to put pressure on, especially with Trent Williams, the news doesn't seem good. If he's out, then give me Seattle all day. You see, if Kittle playing hurt, probably playing. You have McCaffrey playing hurt. If Trent Williams probably not playing. You have a defense that, I'm looking up the Bears last week. they gave up 38 points to the Bears. And by the way, it should have been 45. Caleb Williams kind of gacked that last throw. He did. Guy was open. Good defense, though. One of those touchdowns was a pick six.

1:02:19So it was 31 they gave up. Oh, fair. Whatever. But still, they could have had, if they score on that last drive, they would have had basically six scoring drives, five offensive touchdowns. Yes, yes, yes. And there were guys open all over. Luther Burden, by the end of that game, you thought he was Jerry Rice. DJ Moore, they're jumping. He's crying. So you have Seattle who can go, they can go big, they can go smaller, they can control the ball. I don't want to bet on Darnold in a playoff game when he's going against an awesome defense. I'm just telling you now, I'm not doing that. Me either. That is a cross-off for me.

1:02:55No, thank you. But when he's going against a flimsy defense, I don't mind Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold's put up big stats against bad defenses. And I just think with the health strikes, I think you're getting outvoted on this one. Winning in last year, if they win against Detroit in a big spot, Sam Darnold's team gets the one seed and gets a week off and then can just rest everybody. And you remember what happened on that Sunday night to Detroit. I'm not, I am a Sam Darnold fan and I think he is, he is, I mean, look at his wins the last two years. This guy can play. But Purdy in these games. We're getting the Darnold redemption.

1:03:29Brock Purdy's a robot in these games. He is like from another planet. it. He's Terminator 2. I don't know, man. I look at the quarterbacks. I look at the coaches. I look at the big game experience. Give me San Francisco at home. Pretty good. We'll see who's right because House and I are jumping on Seattle. Jumping on them. Atlanta and the Saints. Two best teams in the NFC South. Unbelievable. If Atlanta wins, Carolina quenches the NFC South. Now, Carolina and Tampa, that's the last game we're going to talk about. I love the Falcons in this game. When they scratched, I loved them before they scratched Olave.

1:04:13When they scratched Olave, I was like, you're going to be kidding me. Because I've actually watched a lot of the Saints. House and I have quietly been betting Saints games, and mostly in the Saints. They lost Vele, who was actually really coming on for them. And then everything moved to Olave, who all of a sudden looked like a top five guy again. And now he's out. I just, there are no weapons anymore. And Tyler Shuck, it's like, I didn't know how he was doing it to begin with. And then this Atlanta team, this would just be the most Atlanta game ever to beat the Saints. By the way, with the Saints, like they proved what they want to prove.

1:04:45They have hope for next year. Like it actually makes sense for them not to care about this game. I love Falcons by three. This is a classic Falcons game house. What do you think? Shregs, I want you to help us because the only thing that concerns me is that Shuck has played his way legitimately into the offensive rookie of the year conversation. He's winning it. It's over. He won. Wow. Okay. Well, there you go. Who would be the alternative? Everybody has, it's Ted, you know, Ted, Ted. No, it's Shuck. I'm just telling you, like, I'll look at the market while we're talking this through. I thought they were, they're like co-favorites right now.

1:05:20Right. This is what I mean. By the way, I left that one case for Atlanta Shriggs. Yeah. They're not their first-round pick. No, I know. There's no tanking here. And their coach is beloved. They literally have nothing to play for. And their coach is trying to keep his job. And they love him. The players love him because he's the nicest guy in the world. Yeah, and I also think they have way more talent than the Saints, as good as House of the Old Buddy Chase Young has been. You made a great point, though. They've proven what they wanted to. I could see them saying, all right, that was awesome. Here we go.

1:05:55There also is a big difference between a fourth-place schedule going into 2026, 2027, and a third-place schedule. That's not to be dismissed out of hand. There's a bunch of injuries. You keep seeing defensive guys for the Saints on the injury list. We're doing this on Thursday night, so we'll have to see how that plays out. Because the defense has quietly been the thing. They've covered five straight games and won four outright. And they've been good in second halves and stuff, too. Yeah, they shut down drafts. So I'm looking at the stats from last week. They beat Tennessee by eight. Olave was eight for 119 at 11 targets.

1:06:32The next guy was Juwan. Juwan Johnson had four targets. Pettis had three. Austin Jr. with five. Mataveo with two. I mean, they got no guys left. If Atlanta can't win this game, give me a break. The other thing, it's just the most NFC South thing ever. if Tampa beat Carolina and then got knocked out by Atlanta. It's just like... No, I think it's the other way around. It's just hilarious. They need Atlanta to lose, right? Who? Tampa needs Atlanta to lose. Yes. But it would be hilarious if Tampa won and then Atlanta won and they got knocked out even though they won. But I think the Carolina Bucks game, I know where house is going.

1:07:19Are we messing that up? I'm sorry. I have to make sure. No, we're not messing this up. If Atlanta wins, Carolina clinches the NFC South, no matter what happens in Carolina. Yeah, that's right. Every Buccaneers fan is a Tyler Shuck fan. Yes, that's right. That's what I said to myself to get this right. Yep. Bucs minus three Panthers is the last one. This is an I'm so stupid game because no matter what happens, if you're on the wrong side after this game, you tell yourself how stupid you are. Bucs, we covered all this stuff with them. We saw this game in week 16, Carolina 23, Tampa 20. it felt like Tampa should have won the whole game and they just kept doing dumb shit Carolina kept having drives and then as House loves to point out House's favorite zigzag team the Carolina Panthers since week 7 win, loss, win, loss win, they've done this for almost 3 months House, you love this when this happens every one of their wins they have 8 wins this season has come as an underdog what are they this week?

1:08:18and underdog. It's time to play the Carolina Panthers. It's an even week. They're unstoppable in even weeks.

1:08:29Yeah, look. This isn't either team could win. You might as well grab the points. And also with the Bucs. Because I started the week and even started this podcast, you're probably going to talk me into the Bucs. But as we laid out how awful they've been for two straight months and how we don't know if Baker Mayfield is healthy, Like, it just, this would be an I'm feel stupid game if you lay minus three with them. They just lost to Quinn fucking Ewers. What are we talking about? Their playoff life was on the line. Their destiny was in their own hands. Their defense has been horrendous for 10 weeks.

1:09:02Their defensive backfield, which was the strength of those teams, you know, with Brady in the last couple years with Baker, their defensive backfield is just completely ravaged with injury now. I would add this from the Tampa side of it, just having talked to Bowles. Okay, let's listen. Let me just say. Oh, he did and I talked to Bowles. On a production meeting call. Sneaky Pete. Sneaky Pete. Sneaky Pete. Sneaky Pete. Sneaky Pete. I just talked to Bowles. I'm here on Sneaky Pete.

1:09:33They've got Mike Evans. They've got Tristan Wirfs. They've got Baker Mayfield. They've got Levante David. These guys are like fans who have been there and done that and to just completely shit the bed and let this season go to waste. Like, there is pride in that room. And if this is Levante David's last game, there's something to rally around there. There's just... But why didn't they rally the last five weeks? I know. Exactly. Back against the wall? I don't know. Why didn't that happen last week? All right. That was my... I tried. Why didn't that happen in week 16 when they played Carolina? They should have been very proud to beat Carolina.

1:10:09Exactly. That's why this is such a great game because you can totally talk yourself into either one. By the way, I don't really want to take Carolina. What's so crazy is... I don't feel great about it. I don't trust Bryce Young. They were... Remember Abuka was like the rookie of the year? Yeah. He was the only guy healthy. Everyone's healthy on that receivers room. Now they got Bucky Irving. They got Tucker. They got... Like, everyone's healthy on offense. And they've completely gone into the wastebasket. 17 points against Miami. 20 points against Carolina. Here's my only other favorite this game, House.

1:10:42When they played two weeks ago... Tampa had the ball for almost 35 minutes. Carolina had the ball for 25 minutes. Tampa rushed for 169 yards. Do they just run the ball down Carolina's throats and just tell Baker, don't be crazy here? That'd be my fear. This is why this is an I'm so stupid game.

1:11:11Carolina only ran for 101 yards in that game. which if you're going to make the case for Carolina, they're going to be able to run the ball. McMillan's back this week, right? Yeah. And it's an even week. It's an even week. Well, let me ask this. And Tampa has proven that home field advantage means nothing to them because they keep losing games at home. Should we just stay away? Oh. Oh. Should we? Because these are two stupid teams. I mean, we've just established that neither one of them is the best team in the NFC South. But they're playing... Well, if we stay away from this, then that means we have to either take Raven Steelers or Chiefs Raiders.

1:11:57Why are you afraid? That means we just have to take the Chiefs minus five and a half. Why don't you like Houston? What are you afraid of with Houston? They still have a chance to win the AFC South. And they're playing at the same time as Jacksonville. As the Jags. Yeah. Now the Jags have Tennessee. And so Houston will be looking and seeing the Jags up 21 points. You just laid the case why I'm afraid of them. Because in the second half, they could just not give a shit about the game. But they are also playing Riley Leonard. Riley Leonard is traveling to Houston to play football against the Houston Texans.

1:12:31I can't. The Colts have a lot of good dudes, though. They still have talent on offense. I just worry about Houston at halftime going, call off the dogs, time notes, see what we got. Let's save everybody. Fair enough. Fair enough. The only other one I was honestly looking at was the Dolphins. Shregs has a point. Dolphins plus 11 and a half in New England with, I don't know. I just think that line's way too high. I agree with you, but the Patriots keep covering those big lines. I'm not messing around with it. This is unrelated to the games this week, but it is something I've thought through. The Texans right now would most likely be the five seed.

1:13:08Okay? Yeah. The four seed would most likely be the winner of the... It is the Raven Steelers winner. It's the Steelers hosting somebody. Or the Ravens, right? Or the Ravens. Now, the 4-5 matchup is traditionally the wildcard Monday night game. Yeah. I don't think back-to-back weeks ESPN is going to get Carolina or Tampa as their Monday, you know, as they're on their slate. They have it this week, which leads me to Texans Ravens on Monday. Texans Ravens or Texans Steelers. I tell you this three-minute soliloquy. I think the Shakey's game with the Texans is in trouble, guys. Oh, no. Did you tell Sal?

1:13:57I have not told Sal. I don't think they're playing on Saturday afternoon this year, guys. All right. I'm going to have to make an executive call with one of the picks. You're allowed. I think we're right to stay away from Carolina's Panthers. Carolina, too. Thank God. It's such a stupid game. All right. Today's Ringer 107 presented by FanDuel. And here's what we're going to do. We've agreed on four of these picks. And then I'm audibling on the fifth one.

1:14:29Seahawks minus one and a half in San Francisco. Schrags made a very strong, enticing case for the 49ers. That was overruled by House and I. because we think the Niners are too banged up. We like the Sam Darnold against the Flimsy defense and the Seahawks D, and we just think they're a worthy one seed. By the way, incredible DVOA team, Seattle. San Francisco, 27th DVOA defense. So that's one. House and I both love the Bengals in a smash spot against the Browns, minus seven and a half against one of the worst offenses in the history of the league, now playing without Harold Fannin. And the Bengals just pouring on, trying to confuse us for next July as we're looking at their division odds.

1:15:10House, is this your favorite game? I really love it, yes. Okay. Next one, Vikings minus 7.5 at home against the Packers. And Shrigs' guy, Clayton Toon. Let's go. Minnesota could lock down 9-8 for the season. They could lock down a five-game winning streak. They could talk themselves into a, oh, if this hadn't happened and this hadn't happened, blah, blah, blah, maybe we would have won 11 games. If they had a professional quarterback. Right. And Green Bay locked into seven. They don't care. This is a let's not get anyone hurt. Let's get the fuck out of Dodge game. So that is one, two, three. Oh, and then we have Falcon Saints.

1:15:54Falcons minus three. Can you imagine? It's going to come down to a Falcons game. The most perplexing, maddening, vexing team in the NFL. The Saints have just run out of playmakers. Kudos to them for a spirited second half effort, but they have nobody left for Taylor Shuck to do anything with. Falcons, this would be the most classic thing ever if Tampa wins. And then the Falcons knock them out of the playoffs, but don't win the NFC South. Falcons minus three, that's our fourth one. And then our fifth one. We're going to do the Baltimore Moneyline in a parlay that House hates. Ravens minus three and a half against the Steelers.

1:16:33I don't trust it. Steelers home underdog, house laid out all the case. I just think the Ravens have a better team. And you take DK Metcalf out, I have no idea how the Steelers move the ball. Shrigs warned us. He begged us. Begged. Told us to listen to him. Technically not listening or not listening to him because we're not doing the minus three five. We're new Baltimore money. House, you pick. Over 32 and a half or under 50 and a half? I don't want responsibility for this. Which one you pick? I mean, it's a 13-10 game. It's a 13-2. All right, so we're going Ravens money line under 50 and a half points.

1:17:11Yeah. How is this game going to have 51 points? How do any of these games do this? Malik Willis, Snoop Humpley last week. You know. Exactly. Those are the Ringer 107 picks for week 18. All lines are lines that could potentially change. Unfando wanted to mention that. What was your favorite pick, Shregs? Cincinnati? I like the Cincinnati. I feel good. They're vibing the right way. And I think Cleveland had their moment last week, beat the Steelers. Their Super Bowl. Yeah. They'll get the sack too. Joe B will go down. They'll get the sack. For miles. As an aside, I am getting texts from everyone in my life that this rewatchables top 50 movies of the 2000s that you just sprung on your two co-hosts.

1:17:5821st century, not 2000s. 21st century. The blind podcast. You just blindly dropped on these two cinephiles of yours. Yeah. It was arguably your greatest podcast episode. Oh, wow. In maybe a decade. This seems like people enjoyed it. There's a lot of talk online that you are right now in the zone, like a Steph Curry zone the last few months. There you go. Is there HGH rumors yet? No, this is Heat Check Bill Simmons. And I know you don't respond to the Reddit thing, but they tag me in everything. Oh, Jesus. The pendulum has completely swung back that they're all in on Simmons. They're all in on Simmons.

1:18:34Plus, I gave up sugar. 2026 can be my best year. They don't know that we went to Germany two weeks ago. Yeah, we met. House and I keep flying in Germany. Sneaky Germany. What did Kobe get? Was it blood spinning? Blood spinning, yes. That's my next move after giving up sugar. I said that I had a splitting image with Lena Dunham last time I was on the podcast, which I don't know how to take that. I just don't like the meanness. on these internet threads. That is funny. I like it too. Wait, when does your no sugar, when does all that start? You started five days ago. Why do you think I've been on fire this whole podcast?

1:19:12What'd you eat after all the drinking yesterday? Almonds? You were on a bar crawl. What'd you eat at the end of the bar crawl? You didn't have almonds, motherfucker? No, we ate some stuff. It wasn't, but no dessert, nothing. No dessert is fine. What about two slices? I did have a margarita last night, which I think has sugar in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That definitely has sugar in it. Skinny girl. It was not skinny girl. It's good. House, you're just jealous. I was doing great for like three, for four years. I was so focused on eating and being careful. House came out in the summer of 2017.

1:19:52We had launched House of Carbs, the food podcast made with House. And we wanted, House wanted to go to all these LA spots. and House was here and I gained five pounds in four days with House. Beautiful. Including we went to that pastrami place. Oh, so goddamn good. We went to the patty melt place. All of a sudden, I went off the wagon. It was like the guy in the Sopranos who started gambling again. That was friends with Christopher Moltisante. Not the guy who was working in the sporting goods store. No, that's another guy who went off the wagon. But yeah, House, I was doing so well and then House was like, well, we got to get a milkshake.

1:20:28well, if we're getting the pastrami, we got to put cheese on it. And then I just have never, I've always been focused, but never quite the same. Do you feel like you're having, you're in the zone right now? Podcast? I don't want to jinx it like a perfect game, but you've been in the zone. You've been fucking hot lately. I just think there's been good stuff to talk about. Fantasy, the thing Fantasy and I have coming up in a second, we do the 21 best sports movies of the 21st century. It's just good topic. It's going to be pretty good. Good content. A lot of good stuff. I'm going to listen. in 2026 football playoffs.

1:21:00The basketball has been great. We got Winter Olympics. I care about the hockey. Have you been following the rosters? Yeah, Adam Fox, my guy from the Rangers did not get put on Team USA. They left off Conor Bedard in Canada. I was like, whoa! He's on pace for like 100 points. Poor Conor. What did he do? Marchand's on there, but that hockey's going to be incredible. Then we got World Cup. We got basketball playoffs. The World Cup's going to be insane. With WNBA lockout, hopefully they'll fix it. No, it's like we'll have labor stuff to talk about. This year's going to have everything. Plus Lamar Jackson going to be traded to the Falcons.

1:21:41Drake May going for a second MVP. Kirk Signetti, the coach of the Giants. Have you talked to House at all about how the Wizards passed up Cedric Coward to take Trey Johnson? Don't do that. That's not appropriate. And Derrick Queen. Derrick Queen was available. Was he? Literally grew up in the DMV. Should have taken Danny Wolfe, my guy on the Nets, my favorite player in the league. I like him. Got trash talked by Jimmy Butler. Called him white boy over and over again. He's better, Jimmy. What did he do? I mean, that's literally true. How's that an insult? The Nets are like in a panic trying to trade Michael Porter right now because he's ruining their draft pick.

1:22:18Yeah, he's too good to be on the Nets. He's had a career renaissance. All right, guys. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Great to see you. What a way to start 26. I hope we win all of our bets. Shrinks, maybe for the playoffs, maybe you could just pop on. I would love to. Hey, you know me. I am a total glutton for the punishment I get online when I come on this podcast. Every time I name drop, I cannot wait to join. Sneaky Pete. Thanks, guys. All right, recording this on New Year's Day. We just finished the first quarter of the century. Sean Fennessey is here. Pops on the rewatchables from time to time.

1:22:55pops on this podcast from time to time, hosts the big picture, just did his 25 best movies of the 21st century. Always complicated with the 2000. 2000 doesn't count. It's not part of the century. People get mad about that, but it's just not the case. Well, you know, we did a pod on the rewatchables as well for your favorite, your most rewatchable movies of the century. And you shared that rule, but then you did pick proof of life. And I fucked up. I thought it came out in like 2003. It was December of 2000. And so it was right in the cutoff line. No, I would have bumped it. Well, Zodiac can go right in that spot because we forgot to put in Zodiac.

1:23:32So you had Social Network at number one, which is what I was figuring because we've talked about that movie a lot over the years. But you had, if you consult me, which you didn't, you did the one filmmaker movie for the last that's it. You couldn't get two. So what was the big regret of, did anyone qualify for, they should have had two movies on the list if you were doing it. If you had a two movie rule. I think part of the reason we did that was because I was, I personally would have put like five PTA movies on there. And if you, if I was being honest about what were my favorite movies, you know, PTA, Fincher, Tarantino, you know, like Nolan, Wes Anderson.

1:24:11There's like a handful of people for Amanda, Sofia Coppola, who like our favorite filmmakers comprise like a lot of our favorite movies. So we did the one filmmaker thing, you know, Well, as with all Ringer projects, universal acclaim, we've been told we're the greatest podcasters of all time. Everyone's really proud of our work. And yeah, we're being celebrated today at the Rose Parade. We were on a float. I don't know if you saw a 25 for 25 float and they were really cheering us on like big picture, big picture. So it was great. Oh, congratulations. Everybody just really appreciates these lists and they don't get mad at all.

1:24:45They do. They do. People are really mad at a couple of things that my most, even though I explained the premise over and over again in the beginning and people were still furious that movies like just go with it and a lot like love were on there. Limitless, I stand by it at number 16, even though it drew arborious laughter from both you and Chris. In the moment, it was extremely funny because you were naming a lot of movies that we know you love that are like sentimental favorites. And then you were also naming all-time classics, you know, Dark Knight and so yeah, Limitless is in that weird nether zone of just like Bill, it's 3.30 on a Tuesday afternoon and he just puts on TNT and Limitless is there and it's like a warm bath for you, you know?

1:25:28There it is. Yeah, he just started taking the pills. I'm waiting for basketball to come on. I'm ready to roll. One thing I was thinking with the Century from like not a rewatchable standpoint, but from a best movie standpoint, I feel like five movies are kind of anyone can have their own list. the one that surprised me that wasn't on your list was Brokeback. Because I felt like the five movies from the first quarter that I just feel like would be on most people's lists are Social Network, Dark Knight, There Will Be Blood, No Country, and Brokeback. And then everyone else's list is probably going to look different.

1:26:06But I feel like most lists would have that. Those were the five for me that I think as I thought back, and then you start getting into like the spotlight Zodiac Oppenheim, and then it becomes a little more personal preference. but then it really Social Network, Dark Knight and There Will Be Blood are probably the three because I think There Will Be Blood had the as you talked about on the pod it has the best performance of the 21st century and then Social Network is kind of culturally maybe the most significant and then Dark Knight is the most ambitious from IP we kind of blinked at the last minute and flipped Dark Knight for Oppenheimer because of the one director rule but I think they were like neck and neck the whole time we didn't do Brokeback I kind of psyched myself out on that one because Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the other Ang Lee movie and they're like 50-50 to me.

1:26:52Like those are two really big movies for me. And Amanda and I didn't really get too deep into that conversation. But you guys just did Brokeback on the pod. That's just like a classic movie. It's just an amazing film. So I don't know, it's tough. You're right that there's some films that feel like totally canonical, but also we're in our own bubbles, right? Like we're in our own... Like to me, the social network, the age that I am, the people who were involved in it, what it meant to like what my career was going to become are all feel so important. Other people see that movie and they're like, this is like a biopic about a dickhead.

1:27:24It's not that important. You know, it is what it is. Now that's the Steve Cohen story. Hey, hey, hey. Hey, we don't know that yet. We don't know that yet. We're not positive yet. Let's see if Kyle Tucker or Cody Bellinger come to New York. Then we can say that. I think one of the things when I think of best movies, It's a combination of, was this a great movie, but also could this reach a bunch of people, I think is the sweet spot, which is why Social Network was so interesting, because it was such an awesome movie, but it also could appeal to almost everybody and was also rewatchable. It checked like every, and it was well acted and it was perfectly written and perfectly executed.

1:28:02And it just, I mean, it was one of the first rewatchables we did. I think we did that in the first year. Yeah, it was. I think, yeah, it was a huge hit. it made like$250 million. And it was at a time, it's only 15 years ago, but that feels unusual for like a docudrama to make that much money. And the rewatchable thing, we felt that immediately going back for this project because the second I put it on, I was locked in. Like just put my phone in the other room. Oh yeah. Just totally focused on it and engaged, even though I've seen it dozens of times. So, but that's a hard needle to thread. The like, this is a great and important film that is also fun is really challenging.

1:28:38Yeah, because I thought Phantom Thread was great, but I don't think it has the same legs because I don't think it was for everybody. It's kind of a weird rewatchable movie, but it's like just impeccable. It's impeccably done. It's perfectly acted. It's really unique and original. There's no movie like it, but it kind of got lost as the years passed. But you think just go with it, just like inches above it, right? Just in terms of it. You know, you'll be watching it with your kid. How old is your kid now? She's four. Almost five? She's four, yeah. Are you going to be five? Four and a half. Age seven?

1:29:07Watch what happens. And Daniel Day-Lewis, actor of the first quarter of the century? I think so. Is he the number one? I think he is, right? Who do you think is the star of the century? I guess the easy answer is Leo. But we talked about that a bit too. Like Denzel has a case. Cruz has a case. You know, Damon. There's a couple of people who had like incredible 25 years. I would say, yes, Streep had... You'd probably have to break it down with Oscar nominations, box office batting average, I think would be big. so it's probably Leo from a batting average standpoint every single movie that he put out either made money, had an audience was well done with a good director he didn't have a lot of those clunkers like that Jennifer Lawrence Darren Aronofsky movie Mother?

1:29:57Is that what it's called? He doesn't have a mother in the 25 years it's just all either bangers or really interesting choices or Shutter Island There's no weirdo movie for him. Everything had some purpose. They all made a lot of money. Even Revolutionary Road is probably the smallest movie he made this century. I think it still made$80 million or something. Because it was a reunion with Kate Winslet after Titanic. I think he's probably the biggest. For the future, it's Tammy's time, man. It's happening. Yeah, it's happening. He's awesome in that movie. And that movie's a hit. Movie's a hit. People like great performances.

1:30:34They do. I was thinking for an actress, it's probably Streep and Kate Winslet and Emma Stone are probably the three that would be in the combo from success, box office, number of good projects they were in. But they all kind of had different eras. It was almost like basketball. Whereas Leo was like all the way through, remained about as relevant and never kind of lost it. Yeah, none of those three were like consistent box office killers. Like we did a Cate Blanchett episode I think earlier this year. And it's like she's made a ton of movies, most of which most people haven't seen. But when she's good, like when Tar comes along, right?

1:31:15You're like, well, this is clearly the best actor in the universe when that movie happened. But she picks a lot of artistic projects in smaller films. So it's a lot harder to say on the actress side. Well, you're here to talk about sports movies with me. I love sports movies I wrote about them a lot when my fingers worked when I was at page two and even at Grantland it was part of my when I was trying to figure out what my column would be for page two in 2001 trying to figure out how do I be a national columnist because there was really like no roadmap for it and it was like well I'll do do culture stuff I'll do running diaries I'll talk about fantasy football I'll talk a lot about pop culture and then sports movies I'm going to try to be like Roger Ebert every time there's a sports movie.

1:31:59I did reviews of like Summer Catch, like terrible movies. I remember, man. I was reading them. I was reading them and I was like, no one else is writing about these movies in more than 250 word capsule reviews. But then occasionally there are some really good ones and I obviously developed a lot of opinions. It's something I care about. It's something we cover a ton on the rewatchables. We've now done all four Rockies. AMC Rocky Marathon on tomorrow, by the way. So I asked you to come on. I sent you the alphabetical version of my 21 best movies of the 21st century, which goes from 2001 to 2025.

1:32:32You do not know what the actual order is, but I wanted you to at least be a little prepared. And some caveats here. This is not like, the rewatchables list was like, these are just the movies I saw the most. I have no explanation for it. Some of them have to do with my family, my wife, just what was on, what are like comfort movies. That's a different list. These are just the best sports movies, in my opinion. So Ineligible, all the 2000 movies, which include Love and Basketball, Remember the Titans, The Replacements, Bring It On, and 61, which is a really good HBO movie that I'm throwing in there, directed by Billy Crystal.

1:33:09All right, honorable mention. And stop me if any of these were like, whoa, he didn't put this on, what the fuck? Seabiscuit, Million Dollar Baby. Keep going. I kind of hate Million Dollar Baby I know it did well in the Oscars but I just can't believe people weren't more upset about the last 15 minutes it's just so dark and awful it is very well made but it's impossible to get away from that feeling that you had when she just falls and hits the ring chair and breaks her neck you're just like what the fuck Clint and then she's in tubes for 10 minutes and then he supplicates through to death spoiler alert I don't care came out 20 years ago.

1:33:55It's the most depressing movie I think anyone's ever made about sports. It is a very weird movie. And the fact that it was a very weird movie in the time, I remember specifically because it came out really late in the year and it didn't play fall festivals or anything. And it came out around Christmas and it was a big hit, right? It did really well and it was like, you got to see it, you got to see it. And so it kind of like came in really late in the Oscars door. But now it's like, it lives forever as the best picture winner from that year. And I think Clint won Best Director that year too. And it's, you know, it's like a fine sports drama with like a painful twist.

1:34:28If we ever do five-year Oscars, that's one of the first ones we have to redo. We've always talked about the five-year rule for Oscars. That's one where I just don't think that one wins again. And there were other good ones that year, right? What did it win? 04? It was the 05 ceremony for 04? I think that's right, right? Is it right after Lord of the Rings? Yeah. So it's, I mean, this is not the greatest year in the world. It's the Aviator, Finding Neverland, Ray, and Sideways for the other nominees. Well, now if you did that again, Sideways wins. Sideways would win, yeah. Okay. Keeping going here.

1:35:02Bend It Like Beckham, which I don't know if you've re-seen, and it's a good movie. It came at a time where there weren't a lot of girls' sports movies. It's a movie I've watched with my daughter. It's a soccer movie. It just has some major sports flaws. The lead of the movie, not Keira Knightley, the other one, is just not good at soccer. Parminder Nagra. it just jumps out in every scene and they have to do these cuts. And it's like, almost like when they have like a lifetime TV movie or like a bad cable movie or something. And there's like a high school soccer scene. And it's like, they have to like cut it together.

1:35:36Cause none of the actors, I just have never gone over it. I couldn't put it on the list. Goon is a movie I like, but I've only seen once. It has like, has a huge fan base. They made a sequel. Um, it's fine. I think it, it out punched its cover, out kicked its coverage. I think you underrate this one. I've told you this before. I think this is the one on your honorable mentions that I'm like, this is the one that I think is... And I'm not even a hockey guy, as you know, but I think it's really funny and really involving. I think it's good. I think you're right. I already have regrets. Okay. Coach Carter, a movie I've seen at least five times.

1:36:11It's a half hour too long. I really enjoy it, though. It's a high school basketball movie. It's Sam Jackson. If it's on, it kind of gets sucked in. Big fan is the one with Patton Oswalt. as like a crazed, was he an Eagles fan? No, Giants. Giants fan who hated the Eagles. I like that movie. It's dark. Invincible with Mark Wahlberg. Just throwing it on because it's got a bonkers Elizabeth Banks performance. She's just lights out in that movie. She's playing like a Philly blonde bartender. It's definitely a captain on the Chris Ryan throw your life away and all stars. I don't think I've seen this movie.

1:36:43I think I just saw Mark Wahlberg as a Philadelphia Eagle and I was like, I would sooner drown myself. Like there's no chance I'm watching this. Well, it's one of those based on a true stories and it ends with him blocking a punt and running in for a touchdown, which I'm positive didn't happen. Yeah, sure. So yeah, it's one of those. Why don't I mention The Hammer with Adam Carolla? Oh yeah. That my friend Hedge, but that movie's good. Go check it out if it's ever on cable. Carolla plays a boxer. Yeah, it's a boxing movie. That's a very fun movie. It's a good one. The Blind Side, which has a great Sandra Bullock performance, is a ridiculous movie and is now, when we do on the Rewatchables dramas that have turned into comedies month, I think the blind side will be on it but I've seen it multiple times I seem to recall thinking it was pretty funny the day it came out but that's just me yeah Win Win Paul Giamatti yeah quality wrestling high school wrestling movie yeah not quite enough wrestling in it but I like this movie The Fire Inside which is a recent boxing movie that we both liked a little underrated I think it kind of came and went around Christmas last year but if people haven't seen it it's a pretty good film yeah I think it's worth watching Finding Forrester I guess technically is a basketball movie yeah you're the man now Bill Another drama that's now a comedy, but is a surprisingly fun rewatch.

1:37:54And then last one, Gridiron Gang. Which, you know, I wrote a column when it came out about this is just what Hollywood's giving us now and comparing Gridiron Gang and The Wire. Like Hollywood wants to give us this. Meanwhile, over here is The Wire. Please watch The Wire and not this. But it's still a solid movie. Anyway, Toughest Cuts. I have five. Ford versus Ferrari. Where do we stand on this movie now? It came out a few years ago. It's elite. and it's shocking that it's not on your list. I haven't spent enough time with it yet and it probably should be on the list. It's extremely good. Now, I know that there are other racing movies that we have to consider for your list.

1:38:30And it would be weird to put several motorsports films on a list for... That was part of my thinking. You're not a motorsports guy, right? It's obviously gotten a lot more popular given the rise. We talked about this in the F1 rewatchables. I'm not a F1 or motorsports anything guy, but I love the movies about those sports. always deliver. I think they have the highest batting average of any sport. They were also really an interesting portal for movies in the 60s and 70s too. There was Winning and Grand Prix and Bobby Deerfield. They were great star part movies. Ford vs. Ferrari is a double star part.

1:39:07It's Bale and Damon, both in the disguise at the center of this movie. I think it's really really good. You should check it out again. I almost had it. I kept moving stuff around. If I did a top 25, it would have been on there. Two for the money probably wouldn't have made it either way. But from a rewatchable comedy gambling standpoint, we just did it on rewatchables. It's hilarious. It's the definition of a sports movie. It's just turn your brain off and go for an hour and a half. That's sometimes what you want. So next one, Borg versus McEnroe. With Shia LaBeouf as McEnroe. I don't know if you've seen this one.

1:39:43I have. I have. It's kind of excellent. I don't know how rewatchable it is because it's almost like you'd wonder with the documentary of this, it'd just have been better. But I think it's really well done. I know you have a really big relationship to tennis from this time too. So I wonder if the amount that you know about the matches and their rivalry and the way that that all played out. Who played Borg? Was it a Swedish actor? Yeah. I remember seeing it and thinking it was fine, but that's interesting that you had a hard time cutting that one. Hustle, Adam Sandler, the Sandman. quality good movie I just liked it Anthony Edwards is great yeah I haven't spent enough time with it there's a chance like five years from now it might move into the top 21 but for now it's on toughest cuts and then blades of glory was another one that I think I have a couple other comedies over it I didn't want to have too many comedies but that was a tough one for me and a movie you like I think I do there's a trilogy of Will Ferrell sports comedies from the two from the 21st century and you got to kind of everybody has their favorites, but I think there's one that is superior.

1:40:49Yeah, I probably could have thrown Semi Pro and Honorable Mention. I'm going to do that right now, even though we've already done that part of the podcast. I think it's the least of the three. Yeah, it's still watchable, though. It's fun, yeah. But yeah, it goes sideways a few times. I have some casting questions. It's right in that how hard can we go for the hard R era, where it's kind of like they might have been better off just going PG-13. Farrell's really funny in it, but it feels like at that point he was playing the same character in a lot of different movies. And it was just... I don't know.

1:41:19Maybe it's aged better for some people. Okay. We're going to take... Go ahead. Do you want me to share any other that you left off or do you want to wait until we get to the end? Oh, let's do that now because then we can take a break. Let me give you your fantasies left off list. Let's go. The Iron Claw? Now, I know you have some issues with it. Yep. But I think if you pulled the universe of recent sports movies, that would be pretty high. I was a very big fan of it. It's not perfect, but I thought it was very effective. So I thought it was well done. I had just huge issues with how they bent the facts.

1:42:02I thought they leaned way too hard and this is a true story and then just completely left shit out to the point that I was enraged as somebody who actually knew the story that they were doing. and I could never get over the guy from the Bears, Kerry Von Erich. I thought that was one of the craziest casting decisions of all time. Honestly, it's just bonkers. It's like if we were doing the Victor Wimbanyama story and we cast somebody who was like 5 '11". It's like, what are we doing? Kerry Von Erich's whole thing was, he was this larger than life kick-ass dude who could go against Hogan and whoever.

1:42:36And they cast the guy from the Bears. It's just unbelievable that they did that. I'll never get over that. He was like roughly 5 '5". He is not a tall man. He was too short to be Bruce Springsteen. Much less caring about Eric. Good actor. But come on. What are we doing? I think if you remove, you know, your intellectual relationship to that wrestling history, then the movie maybe works better for you. Didn't they merge together two deaths into one death? That was another one. There was an extra brother they just got rid of. They just cut one death out. I mean, that's just how crazy that story is, though.

1:43:07I know. They just completely left one brother, an entire brother out of the movie who also died. I don't know. I was like absolutely hammered by that movie. That's why I was left off. Okay. All right, keep going. There were two... Well, okay, one, I know you hate this movie, but I would a million percent put Challengers on. I think Challengers is great. I know you and Wesley tore it apart. I couldn't stand it. I never thought you would put it on your list, but for me, I think that's a really great... I thought that was like an interesting modern take on a sports movie. It was like, this is... We're moving the ball forward.

1:43:37You know, it's like broadcast news, but in tennis. That was how I saw that movie. ending was maybe the worst ending of any sports movie I've ever seen. Also, I mean, to be fair, a couple of years later, Challengers walked so Heated Rivalry could run. There's a lot going on there. There's definitely some continuation in terms of... I haven't really gotten it. I only watched the first episode of Heated Rivalry. I got to keep going on that. I've skipped it, but my wife, my hungover New Year's Day wife is currently ripping through her right now. And I think is... I don't know if she showered yet. Anyway, keep going.

1:44:06And then there's two from this year. Okay. One, I don't know if you've seen yet, is called Ephus, which is a movie about like a rec league baseball team, which is a really solid movie, an indie film that came out directed by Carson Lund, which I liked quite a bit. And it's kind of making a lot of the year-end list for the movie fans. I was okay with it. I liked it. I didn't love it. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for it. It's more of a hang. It's not like a propulsive narrative movie. And then Marty Supreme. Oh, fuck. You're right. I mean, is this not the best sports movie since what? Like, you know, I know you have a few more recent films that we will talk about.

1:44:46No, you're right. Marty Supreme should be on here. Oh, you screwed me up. I was going through, I had all these lists forever, and I forgot to add the one that came out on December 25th. You're right. It got it under the wire. It's pretty good. I mean, I think it's a very effective sports movie, too, because when you're engaged in the sports movie aspect of it, the ping pong matches, that to me feels like watching a Rocky when I was a kid. All right. You know what? I have some bad news for one of the top 20 ones. You're going to cut one? Yeah. I got to put Marty Supreme in. It's such a good call.

1:45:19I can't believe I missed that. I'm glad we're doing this in real time. Listen, we're not perfect. No. Everyone makes mistakes. No. Admitting your mistakes and moving forward are some of the best things you do. Marty Supreme came out on Christmas Day 2025. It should be on the list. This is why I'm here on the pod, just to say this shit. Well, draft day, I'm sorry. Oh, no. Draft day, it would have been funnier to cut Miracle because it could have been like the Ralph Cox thing. It's just like, wait, I thought I was going to the Olympics. Draft day, sadly, is going to have to get cut. A movie that probably shouldn't have been in the top 21 to begin with, but it's so enjoyable.

1:45:56Costner's last great sports movie. it's got Chadwick Bozeman playing Alvin Mack I can't remember the name of the linebacker it's got Jennifer Garner inexplicably as like owner's daughter I can't even remember that but I like that movie and I've watched it a bunch of times it's not good though and I'm happy cutting it out I think it's absolutely terrible but it's kind of enjoyable to watch late period Ivan Reitman well now it's out okay we're gonna take a break I have to ask you an important question before you go to the break Why 21 movies?

1:46:33Because 21st century, 21 for 21. Okay. I don't know. So one for each century? I can cut one more and just make it a top 20. Want to do that? It's your list. I'm just asking questions. There was a reason why I did the 21, because I wanted to do a pyramid graphic for my sports movie pyramid. There it is. And it was one, two, three, four, five, six. because it was 21 movies. I thought that looked better. It all makes sense now. Okay, we'll take a break into the top 21. All right, the top 21 with some important help from Sean Fennessey who reminded me that Marty Supreme was eligible. So draft day sadly got bounced as did all the 2000s movies.

1:47:14We just went through all the honorable mention. Coming in at number 21, Dodgeball. A movie we've done on the rewatchables. I was not on the episode. We let the Fantasy Boys handle that one. Very funny movie. I think culturally it's had some, it's had a nice tail. People like the distiller piece in this and it just feels like it's lived on. It's always on, it's always on a streaming service or on cable and it's just had a nice shelf life. It's Bill Simmons' history core as well with the Ocho joke. You know, I feel like it's, you know, connected to your mythology. And, you know, for me, Pete Bateman, you know, some people might say Ozark, Arrested Development.

1:47:54And Bateman is elite in that movie. I remember writing a column about it. I didn't like it as much the first time as I did probably the fifth time. But I remember writing a column about it. And I saw it in Hollywood. And it felt like everybody was high. People were just dying laughing. But as the years have passed, I've got to get it. All right, so that's 21. Number 20 is The Fighter. Came out in 2010. It was a boxing passion project movie, which it seems like every male actor has had except Leo and maybe one other one in the last 30 years. The Rock had one this year. Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg.

1:48:32Your girl Amy Adams. She's fine in this movie. She's great. I think this is probably my favorite Amy Adams movie. Deep Massachusetts, set in Lowell. You know, we have like the deep south. This is like Massachusetts. Lowell is like deep Massachusetts. Like you're just, everyone's got an accent. Right. Everyone has the, you think you're better than me, look to them. And they do a really good job of just hitting Massachusetts in the right way. This is when it shifted in the last 15 years of, if you're going to make a movie in Massachusetts, use some locals. Make sure your actors really know how to sound like they're from Massachusetts and act like it.

1:49:12And this is part of the renaissance, Sean. I have two questions about this movie for you. One, do you think Bale passes the Massachusetts test? He's good. I mean, this was another one where he lost a lot of weight. He did. He did. Because he's a physical painter drug dude. The big issue for me with this movie, and I watched it in the last year, is they never really messed with the Gotti Ward trilogy in it, which I never understood. Just felt like the easiest IP. I remember seeing it for the first time, being so confused that they never dove in there. But it's just a very well-acted, well-done sports movie.

1:49:44And probably, this might be David O. Russell's last good movie. Yes. It's possible. It's been a fucking drought for him. I'm way more down on this movie than you are. This is like, to me... Well, let me ask you this. If the movie was set in Boise, Idaho, instead of Lowell, Massachusetts, would you like it? So, it's a fair question. I think when it came out, it was very well received. It was. It was. Oscar nominations. It was a hit. I think the acting is so good. I don't think you can have a list like this and leave this movie out and Million Dollar Baby. I feel like I had to have one. Okay. So that's why I had a 20.

1:50:21you've got other boxing movies on here though that are better. I know, but this is like the prestige sports movie. We got to, I feel like I had to pay tribute. That's fair. Number 19, King Richard. This is a weird one because I think this movie has a completely different tale if the Will Smith Oscars thing doesn't happen. This was like his moment. Finally, it happened for him. And I think if he doesn't slap Chris Rock, this movie is just remembered differently. It's probably on TV more. It's just kind of gone. Yeah, you're right. There's not a lot of legacy around the movie itself. And there wasn't as much at the time because it came out during COVID and it was part of Project Popcorn and went straight to streaming and all that.

1:50:58I saw it at a film festival. I saw it at Telluride. And, you know, it was like rapturous. It was like, this is Will Smith's best performance. It's his time. The daughters were great. His wife's great. This movie's good. Yeah, Angelina L. Taylor's great in this movie. Yeah. I came on the big picture and broke this down with you. The really big picture stages. I don't remember, what was it, 2020? It was 20 or 21. I can't remember. Yeah, somewhere in there. But between the slap and the fact that it was like a streaming movie, ultimately is kind of what it felt like. It feels smaller, but it's really, really well made.

1:51:32Number 18, Talladega Nights, The Legend of Ricky Bobby. Just a really good sports comedy. A little low? A little low for this? Might be a little low, except, I mean, the stuff that's coming here, I don't know. This is hard. It's 21 years of sports movies. Sacha Baron Cohen's great in this movie. We haven't done it yet on Rewatchables, but I think he would win the movie. I think you're right. Is he sponsored by Perrier? I think he is. He's really good. This movie's really fun, and they did a nice job of actually diving into NASCAR and using all the sponsors. NASCAR embraced it very smartly, and it caught Will Ferrell and all these guys at the right time.

1:52:17It's just really good. How would you power rank Anchorman, Step Brothers, and this movie? Exactly how you just said it. Yeah. Okay. Me too. Next one, The Rookie. That's number 17. A movie that's gotten a little lost in the shuffle. It was this stretch from maybe 97 to 2005 where we kind of had these adult Disney sports movies. And you kind of always knew what you were getting when you saw the poster and what star they picked. Some of them were good. Some of them weren't as good. You would have your Glory Road with Josh Lucas, which was not good. You would have The Rookie with Dennis Quaid, which was excellent.

1:52:54I think this was, other than Miracle, probably the most successfully executed after I Remember the Titans, which I think crushed that blueprint the best. But not eligible for this list. But The Rookie, really good Dennis Quaid. He cements his legacy, his sports movie Hall of Famer, first ballot, which I think he didn't even really need it, but he's like, fuck it. No, this is a really, really good performance based on a true story. And to your point, it's not just that this era of Disney original sports movies is over. It's like Disney doesn't even really make original movies anymore. Remember when they would pretty consistently, was this released under Buena Vista or Touchstone?

1:53:32I can't remember what the sub-label was, but there was a time when you would get five or six movies a year like this from Disney. And now that's also all straight to streaming. Yeah, this is quite an era. And they all made money. That's why they kept going and through Gridiron Gang and Invincible. They kept going for 10 years. They'd spend 15 on it. They'd make 30. They'd make 40. Sometimes like Blindside would just crush. But you just had to make sure you got your one star. You had a good story. And you go through. I wrote a piece in 09 or 2000, maybe 2010 about, because you could feel sports movies starting to die.

1:54:05And we were moving to another era and I didn't know what was coming. But I was wondering if documentaries were ruining sports movies in some ways that as documentaries were getting better was that can be bad for sports movies and i think the next 15 years kind of proved that that that might have been true we also might have run out of ideas is the other thing well sports documentaries are getting shittier so maybe we'll tip back to sports movies that's that's what we're hoping yeah we've there's no question sports documentaries have gotten way worse but continuing like our now decades long conversation about movie stars this is something that like there's not a lane for glenn powell or austin Butler to make movies like this.

1:54:42You know, like Chadwick Boseman did get his sports movie. Like a handful of these guys got their sports movies. But once you remove this from the menu for what you can do as a young star, you lose something pretty significant. It's weird because the blueprint they were still trying, even in the 2000s. Like Josh Lucas was like a lot of guys now. It's like, could he be a guy? Maybe. And then he wasn't. No. He's a guy who is the voice of car commercials during football games. Right. we have a lot of Josh Lucas's now he's been in some good stuff next one number 16 air the Michael Jordan shoe movie which he's not in directed by Affleck it's a really really good Matt Damon performance and my favorite part of this movie is the Viola Davis performance as Jordan's mom is just great and it's just this movie is a really fun hang I you didn't like it as much as I did no but I do like it I don't think it's a bad pick here at all I think it's really good it is really more of a movie about the world of marketing more so than sports like athletics it doesn't mean that it's not a sports movie because it clearly is because you kind of have to know what this milieu is to get the movie and get all its nuances it's just it's like it kind of can't decide to me whether it wants to be really funny or really serious.

1:56:07And like Affleck's performance is hilarious as Phil Knight. Yeah. But it's kind of happening in a different movie than the rest of the movie where Matt Damon's giving this really sincere performance and Viola Davis is really sincere. But it is a fun watch. They did a good job of capturing the mid-80s, even with the decorations in the office. I remember just appreciating stuff with that. You're right. Affleck won the Judd Nelson New Jack City year in a different movie award. Number 15, Hardball. a movie that was hilarious in the theater for all the wrong reasons when I saw it I think with Jacko right after 9-11 was one of those where it was like let's go to the theater it's one of the craziest things I've ever heard Bill yeah let's go to the theater we're both bummed out but this movie has aged perfectly and we already did a rewatch G-Baby's death I think is maybe the most iconic sports movie death of any of these movies on this list.

1:57:04Yeah, any sports movie in this century. Okay. Not like Apollo Creed? No. Okay. No, Apollo dying in Rock and Roll. Brian's song. You know, there's a few. Although Apollo's death did lead to the end of the Cold War. So maybe he died. G-Baby died for nothing. That's a really good point. Apollo at least had something good come out of it. What's more tragic, G-Baby's death or the fall of the Berlin Wall? Yeah, it's dead even. This movie is very enjoyable. I also love, and I've seen it a few times and my kids like it, that Diane Lane just being in this movie is hilarious. She can't believe she's in the movie the entire time.

1:57:41You have no idea why she's attracted to Keanu. John Hawks is great as like a scumbag. Anyway, this is a good sports movie. Number 14, Ali, a movie we have not done on the rewatchables. It's a great movie. It's on the rewatchables 2026 level. It's weird. It's a movie that could never decide what it was. it tries to basically hit why Ali was so important but then it's compressing years together it spends a lot of time of him trying to not being the champ but then all of a sudden we skip through fights but you know you weren't in two and a half hours you couldn't cover everything I think the first 10 minutes and the last 15 minutes of this movie are genuinely great I think there are several you know chill inducing moments throughout the movie and it is man trying to do something a little different than what he usually does, which I really appreciate.

1:58:32I have thought in the past that if Mann and Will Smith made a pact to make a new 90-minute Ali film every four years, you might have gotten... Oh, like a boyhood thing? Yeah. You might have gotten a slightly better version of this movie. Because there are times when it seems like Smith is too old. There are times when it seems like he's too young. He's in incredible shape in the film. but he's also trying to capture somebody who's uncapturable, right? It's just like the Elvis movie where it's just like, you're not Elvis, man. Like the icon of icon, that person who is so inimitable. But Smith is good.

1:59:07You've now got two Will Smith movies on your list, which is quite fascinating. I know. This came out in 2001. I was writing for page two at the time and wrote a big review about it. And it was, Ali was still so fresh. I mean, he had been, the 70s were only two and a half decades earlier than that. So it was really tough for Will Smith to compete with that. But he did feel like Ali in a couple of scenes. He had that one thing when he's yelling at the reporters and he just kind of becomes Ali. I think as the years have passed and we have less of a memory of Ali, or at least there's new generations that don't really remember him at all.

1:59:41That's probably better for this movie. It's really good. And it's Michael Mann. And that's why it'll be on the rewatchables this year. Number 13, Damned United. Never seen it. Yeah. Michael Sheen. just an awesome soccer movie. This would be my one if you listen to anything on this list that you hadn't heard of. And you're like, what's that one? Let me mark that down. This one's great. It's like a rags to riches English soccer movie. A Chris Ryan favorite? I know, yeah, I know among the soccer heads it's a big movie. I have an allergy to the filmmaker Tom Hooper who made The King's Speech and Les Mis and Cats.

2:00:19And this is one of his movies. It's a very well done movie. Number 12, everybody wants them. You're going to link later. Yeah. Fucking great. I've not done this on rewatchables yet either. This is where we all bought Glenn Powell stock.

2:01:03we had it for basically high school 1976 this is like around 79 to 80 I think really well cast there's some really good people that went on to do some good things including Zoe Deutsch and I forget the lead guy I don't think made it yeah Blake Jenner he was involved in some controversies yeah this was the peak for him incredible Wyatt Russell in that movie Wyatt Russell is outstanding as the like 33 year old guy trying to join the baseball team. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my favorite part of the movie. This movie's great. The Wrestler, number 11. Used to be number 10 until Sean reminded me Marty Supreme was eligible.

2:01:42This was Mickey Rourke's big comeback movie. Aronofsky, just killing it. It tapped into, if you liked wrestling at all, it hit this theme that was really important. And I think hit way close to home for a lot of either dead wrestler families or wrestlers that were still alive or wrestlers that were in the business that were kind of headed for this. Marissa Tomei is great in it, but this is just an excellent sports movie. I love this one too. Part of the reason, I hold this movie against the fighter a little bit, where I felt like it was kind of using a similar tone and approach. Even though the stories are different, it's kind of felt like he was kind of glomming on to some of Aronofsky's style in this movie, but I really like it.

2:02:24And Rourke is great. And Rourke, he never, you know, he worked again a little bit more, but it wasn't the massive comeback that we were promised. He didn't make like 10 award-winning films after this either. And it's kind of a great document. Also, you got to think about the shape he got himself into for this movie at the age he was. It's crazy. The steroids, all that stuff. All right, we're into the top 10. Number 10, Miracle. We did this on the rewatchables as well. Great Kurt Russell, Great Kurt Russell's Speeches. This also made the 50 most rewatchables list. I did not like the idea of them making this movie because this was the most important sports moment of my life.

2:03:03Not in Boston. But I thought it held up. And it's a fun one to watch with the kids or people who don't know what the story was. It's just, it's an eternal movie. It'll be on 50 years from now. I thought this would be in your top five. Yeah. It just had someone's hire. Okay. Was it in your top five? No, but it's up there. I mean, it is like, it's kind of the platonic ideal of a movie that feels like it came out when you were 11, even though it didn't. You know what I mean? Like, it just gives you that, that feeling of like, sports sentimentality, emotionality, where it kind of like, just hits you when the moments happen.

2:03:43Kurt Russell's phenomenal in the movie too. Yeah, I like it a lot. Sugar is my number nine. This movie's just awesome. I'm not even gonna tell people about it. They should just watch it. Baseball movie. Baseball movie. Yeah, it's a baseball movie. And there's never been a movie quite like it. And it feels like a documentary, but it's not. And it's just a really unusual movie. It's really good. It kind of came and went. I don't even think it did that well. It was a small indie. I think it was a Sundance film. The same filmmakers who made Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind, another sports movie. They also made that movie too.

2:04:25I think if you're a baseball fan and you see that there's just, you know, Latino players kind of dominate the sport now, and you don't necessarily think about the roads that they have to travel to get to Major League Baseball. It's a really good insight into what some of them have to experience. Number eight, Marty Supreme. Oh, no, that's number eight. Number eight. Nice. That's a good spot. Number eight, Marty Supreme. Was draft day at number eight? No. No, I'd bump the wrestler from the top 10 for this. Right. We'll see if it gets higher. Haven't spent enough time with it. I've only seen it once.

2:05:05It has this Chalamet performance that, if you're looking at all the sports movies of this list, has to be in the running for a best one. And all the actors, all the lead actors are pretty good. As I spend more time with this movie, I'm going to know whether the supporting stuff and some of the gimmicky casting stuff, I wonder how I feel about it five years from now. It was fun the first time, five years from now. And I'd be like, why's this person in? I've seen it twice. And all that stuff held up perfectly well to me because I think it just makes the movie feel a little bit more real. I will say to your point about it being a sports movie.

2:05:40So I lean watch it the other night and I was doing something else. But I told her, call me in during the two big ping pong matches because I want to watch them again. And the last one especially, I feel like it's just a lot of fun and really affected at this sort of stuff that we're talking about. Well, it's one of those sports movie lessons in general where if you're going to do it, you have to almost be a psycho about the sports scenes. And Safdie, you talked about it with him when you did the pod. He was just a psycho about ping pong, like really cared, really wanted to get every aspect of it right.

2:06:12And most of the movies that end up lasting as sports movies, they go the extra mile. They do. Not throwing shit together. That's why Bend It Like Beckham, which would have been on here if they had gotten the soccer stuff better, didn't make it. Anyway, go see Marty Supreme. Really good 2025 new IP out of nowhere movie. Do you think that with all this consolidation in Hollywood, there will be finally an opportunity for the sports consultancy business that you've been trying to develop over the years? Sitting there, but waiting forever. Waiting forever. There's just, nobody's come. Even this one, I was waiting to have like a ping pong nitpick, even though I don't know anything about ping pong, but I thought they handled everything really well.

2:06:51I have no, I don't know anything about ping pong. There may be like several guys on ping pong Reddit right now who are just like, Marty Supreme is bullshit. Nobody has that grip. Number seven, Warrior. Did this on the Rewatchables. It's weird that there haven't been more really great MMA movies. When we figure MMA is 30 years old now at this point and we've had so many boxing movies and we're still coming out with boxing movies and we're coming out with boxing movies with Sidney Sweeney as a boxer and yet we've had barely any MMA movies. We had The Smashing Machine this year, which did not make this list and did not make honorable mention either.

2:07:29What about Never Back Down? Was that in contention? Who's in that one? There have been like nine of them. The original one, who's in the first Never Back Down? sounds so familiar. Was that this century? Is it Sean Farris? Is that the guy's? Yeah, Sean Farris. Jim and Hansu's in it. Amber Heard. Remember this in 2008? there's also been like nine sequels you've never seen these? I probably saw it once but it did not did not in my prep did not make it they're kind of terrible but they're entertaining Warrior has Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton we covered this when we did the rewatchables about it and a really crazy Nick Nolte who's just a just on the alcoholic scale is like a 10 out of 10 even for him who's played alcoholics in other movies Edgerton's really good and Edgerton's had one of those he's like a Matthew Stafford type career where it's like, just wish he'd been on more 11 and 5 and 12 and 4 teams.

2:08:25And then he's in Train Dreams. He's fucking incredible in that movie. And there's years where he might've won the Oscar for that. It's not going to be this year. No, he's fantastic. He picked the wrong year to have that movie. You know, he's a guy who I've always kind of had a little bit of an issue connecting to. Yeah. But I think in this movie and in Train Dreams, he's asked to do the same thing, which is like really taciturn quiet. He doesn't have to give big emotional speeches. He doesn't have a lot of dialogue. It's all about his presence and him being emotionally open but not talking. This movie would be in my top three.

2:08:58This is one of my favorites. I think it's amazing. I think Gavin O 'Connor is a great director. I had a lot of trouble with these last seven in the order. This was really the cutoff for me. Number six, Rush. I probably like this movie the most. You do. Ron Howard. Chris Hemsworth. I think this is the best he's ever been. Daniel Bruhl. Still have his stock somewhere. I think it's in my closet. Always liked that guy. He's great. And Glorious Bastards. He's a great actor. I wrote a long, I think this might have been the last sports movie column I ever wrote was for Grantland in the end of 2014. I wrote a long piece about this movie because I loved it and I really connected with it.

2:09:40But it's an F1 movie. It's a movie that I think has, because it's in the past, Some of these movies are just like timeless. This one's set in the 70s and it's just, you can just go and go forever. I love this movie. I love this movie too. I know you don't like it as much. The Way Back. No, I like it. I'm on board with this. Same director as Warrior. I prefer Warrior to The Way Back, but it's really good. I know you love Affleck's performance in it. I love this movie. I love the choice that they make. If you haven't seen it, sorry, I'm spoiling it. It feels like the big game is the ending and it's not.

2:10:16and it just goes, which is just such a zag. But it's, it's, I think this is the best Affleck's ever been in a movie. It's really interesting because I feel like, would you say that like addiction and recovery movies are something that you typically enjoy? No. I don't feel like I hear you talk about movies like that too often. No, I, there's something, I think part of the problem, this is a Gavin O 'Connor movie, by the way, and it was written by Brad Inglesby. That's a pretty good combo. Yeah, your boy. Came out right after COVID started. It was supposed to come out in the movies, I think, a month after COVID.

2:10:59And then just became one of the first VOD test case when the infrastructure wasn't really ready for it. And it came and went a little bit, but I feel like it's having a moment again. It's always on a streamer. It's on cable. It's around. and I think one of the things I liked about this one, I like sometimes in movies when the real life bleeds over into the character and I feel like Affleck was having so many issues in his own life that it just feels like, it just feels like there was an overlap that made it an unusual watch in a good way. Yeah, I love that feeling when you feel like there's like some reflection of the person's real life.

2:11:36That's like, that's a Marty Supreme thing, right? Where it's like Chalamet's trying to be the best and you can feel that in the movie. Affleck's never been nominated for an acting Oscar in his career. And even this movie... This one's outrageous. I mean, this is actually like... Makes you wonder, is there like some sort of weird bias against certain actors and actresses? Well, even just dating... They dated it for March, you know, when it came out in the same month as COVID. And it wasn't taken seriously by the studio to make an awards push for it. Like if it had come out in October, maybe everybody might have thought about it a little bit differently.

2:12:05But yeah, it's definitely overlooked. Yeah, so best... This was... Anthony Hopkins as the father. Riz Ahmed in Sound of Metal. Bozeman. Gary Oldman in Mank, your movie. And Steve Youn in Minari.

2:12:26Affleck could have snuck in there, I feel like. I just don't understand that. Anthony Hopkins win. I think the father's so overrated. I've said this a million times. I know you liked it. I didn't get it at all. I only saw it once. I did like it. All right. Mount Rushmore, final four, 21st century. F1, just did it on the rewatchables. You love this. I loved it. I loved it. You liked it more the second time. So I talked to my dad. My stepmother had to go to New York for a family thing. He was by himself two days ago. He's like, I need to write a movie tonight. And I was like, you should watch F1 again.

2:13:01He's like, I never saw F1. I was like, what? You would love F1. How have you not seen F1? Oh my God. I was so mad. So he saw it that night. We talked the next day and he was like, F1 was awesome. He was like, I thought you were kidding. It's just, you know, it could have been number three in my list, but I put it at four. I'm very pro. I liked it a lot. I think it's a great popcorn movie. I always think Joe Kaczynski is so creative at how he captures these worlds that he goes into. I will say one of my challenges that I popped it in a couple nights ago, the 4K. 4K looks fucking incredible, by the way.

2:13:38I popped it in. And one of my challenges with the movie is it never really gets over the hump of the first 10 minutes for me. When he's in the NASCAR race and a whole lot of love is playing and the fireworks go off. The first time I saw it, I was like, holy shit, this is going to be the best movie of the year. This is amazing what they're doing. And that was just NASCAR. It wasn't even F1 racing. So because I never could get back up to my excitement around that stuff. And because I don't really know anything about F1. I don't follow it at all. I found myself a little... not disoriented because they narrate through every race, like what's actually happening, but I just didn't have as much connection to it, but there's no doubt.

2:14:15It's like amazingly well-made and, you know, Pitt just really flexing the movie star muscle in the movie. Important Pitt movie for the catalog, which we, we talked to him. We did the pod about it. Kind of needed it. This is one for the sixties. It was like his Tom Brady, Tampa Bay Superbowl. Yeah. I know meant a lot to you. Well, it did because then I got to say it wasn't Belichick. it was Brady you know then forever more I got to know that it wasn't Belichick yeah alright number three Friday Night Lights did this one we've done all these unrewatchables Friday Night Lights number three I we did it last year and I just forgot how awesome it was and also how overshadowed it became by the TV show and actually the TV show never existed this movie would be talked about even even more reverentially it's the best high school football movie I think ever.

2:15:09I don't even know who it's competing. It's all the right moves and stuff like that. But it's the best. It's got one of the two best locker room speeches ever. It's Billy Bob in this movie and Pacino in every given Sunday are in the finals. It does a great zag at the end where they lose but that's what happened in real life. And then the way it was cut in 03 were these fast cuts and it was like a little hard. But now it's like that just fits into the way we watch everything these days. So it actually feels a little more current than it used to. Great cast. The rare porting over Connie Britton from the movie to the TV show.

2:15:48Love to see that. I was thinking to you as I was watching The Family McMullen which you ignored my text about. Oh, I was busy. Sorry. I haven't gotten into it, but you know, I'm like the biggest... You were like the number one Brothers McMullen guy. Yeah. They brought the band back. Irish brothers who are like hate each other but love each other. Yeah. Surprisingly good movie. A couple people didn't make the cut for the... I mean, John Mahoney's dead, but one of the other brothers just isn't in it. McGlone's there, though. McGlone, but the third brother's not in it. They just kind of talk about him like he's not in the room.

2:16:20Maybe I'll fire it up tonight. I don't know. Haven't seen brothers with ball and sober in like 40 years. Connie was available and ready to come back. Great career for her. Number two. I thought that I had the seven. I knew what they were. and I knew what the top four was, but then the top two, I kept switching back and forth. Number two is Creed. It was number one. It was number two. It was number one. It was number two. I finally put it at two because Moneyball is number one. But I think these are the two best sports movies of the quarter century. I don't really think it's arguable. I'll accept other arguments, but these are the two that they, if anyone's making a list and they're not in your top 10, It's just kind of an invalidated list.

2:17:06They're important for different reasons. Creed had the degree difficulty of, wait, we're doing this again? What's going on? Coogler, Fruitvale, that guy's going to do, he's going to direct? Stallone's going to be in it? What are we doing? And then it was the fucking best. And I'm so glad it happened. but just like the odds of it were almost insurmountable. And then Moneyball, very similar. They're making a movie out of the Moneyball book? How the fuck are they going to do that? And then they had 40 scripts for it. Oh, wait. Oh, Brad Pitt. Oh, I heard it's good. And then it's like, whoa, that movie is fucking awesome.

2:17:51You told a story when we did the 50 Rewatchables about how you did a big picture blind screening and the music played up and the crowd just started applauding. Right. So Moneyball, I think, has resonated in its own way. And so has Creed. Creed's had two sequels. But I think it's Moneyball 1, Creed 2. What do you think? Such a tricky one. So we had Moneyball on our list. And that's a real shared passion for Amanda and I. She loves that movie too. But when we rewatched Creed for the live show, I did feel like, damn, this 28-year-old kid made this movie. Like, how old was Googler when he made that movie?

2:18:32And he is just able to summon that classical storytelling thing where the way you get invested in those characters that you otherwise just should have no relationship to. Because even though it's based in a world that we already know, it's a whole new layout for Adonis. And also the fight scenes are legit interesting and new and feel different. You know, like that's a huge plus in that film's register. Because it's just like, there have been so many boxing movies. You've got boxing movies on this list. Very rarely you see a boxing movie where you feel like you're seeing it a little bit differently.

2:19:07And I feel like he pulls that off there. Plus MBJ, him and MBJ, just being Scorsese and De Niro for us, I think is really exciting. The idea of getting another 30 years of these guys making movies together is really cool. And it's obviously the second time that they work together, but it feels like them syncing up in a way that was very kind of mainstream that a lot of people get excited about. So its legacy, I think, is going to be real strong because Sinners isn't going to be the last time they work together. He really sees him as his guy, like his avatar for his storytelling. So that makes the movie really, really powerful.

2:19:40Moneyball is cool. It's really fun. It's really smart. It's really insightful. It's bizarrely emotional considering the subject matter. But I don't know. Just talking about Creed makes me want to watch Creed. So you go Creed 1 Moneyball too? It's a really hard one. It's a tricky one. They're both great for different reasons. You know, Moneyball is not a movie about getting over the hump and winning at all. It's a different kind of film. It's more about an exploration of process and how sometimes you don't, even if you have the right answers, you don't get an A-plus on the test, you know? So that's why there are a couple reasons I like them as the final two for this 25-year run.

2:20:19Because sports movies basically start with The Longest Yard in 74, even though they're making them for a million years. It's the first modern sports movie. It's like 26 years of sports movies. And now you look at the final two that are left. Creed's like a typical sports movie sequel, but it's not. It belongs to like this new era. But Moneyball is about where sports went in the 21st century, right? So I was thinking about that piece of it, that this is a movie that just wouldn't have existed. It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle, putting it together movie, combined with capturing some sort of movement that would go on to transform how we watched, followed, and how teams are put together.

2:21:01Every single piece about sports. And then it's a really awesome movie. And it's accessible to people like my wife who would normally not care about it. So I feel like the degree of difficulty was probably a little bit higher. But I still can't believe how high the degree of difficulty for Creed was. So it's a good last two. Moneyball, you're 100 % right that it totally sees the future about how we think about sports and how you're citing DVOA and expected points per play on NFL pods now, all because of that Michael Lewis book and the way that the film kind of elevated its status among kind of mainstream, non-hardcore sports fans.

2:21:39But there's also so many other things that happened with Moneyball where it was supposed to be Steven Soderbergh. They were really close to production. It didn't happen for whatever reason. It goes to Bennett Miller. It becomes an Aaron Sorkin script. It becomes a much more kind of romantic and traditional movie because of the Sorkin script. I think it would have been a much more experimental and like confrontational, almost documentary style. Like Soderbergh wanted to make it like Reds, but for baseball. Yeah. You know, where he had the real people in it and there was into camera interviews. It never would have been on this list if he had done that.

2:22:08No. Unless he nailed it. Like unless he made something we've never seen before and it worked. But it just seemed like it was a very high bar. They're both great. I think they're both incredibly worthy of number one. Well, that's the other thing with this movie. It comes out in 2011. I was peripherally involved with that early wave of the Sloan Conference, all that stuff, when people are trying to figure out how to use these new wave stats. It wasn't accessible at all. And as you just said, the movie really made it accessible in a way that it wasn't accessible before. And it saw the future of team building, even though it was about the 03As.

2:22:46It lays down this blueprint that now seems really obvious when you watch in 2025, but it was not obvious to normal people, I don't think, in 2011. No, I mean... And then it became obvious. Baseball sportscasters, who are the most crotchety old-school figures in the world, have to know what OPS Plus is now because of this movie. Right. You know, like, they have to use that data to communicate with their audience that cares about the games. That's pretty profound, the way that it shifted. Obviously, the Lewis book is the most significant part of that. But without that book, this, you know, this movie doesn't become a Brad Pitt level awareness thing.

2:23:22Yeah. Creed, though, Creed is just like the hang glider movie, though, where once it starts, you're just like, wow, I'm flying off the mountain for hours. Yeah, and same thing where it has a couple really, really, really memorable scenes, which is the last piece of a sports movie. Am I getting chills? Do I have a couple hook scenes that I'm always going to remember? Is it about something? You look at the last four, Moneyball, Creed, Friday Night Lights, F1. all capture something that belonged to these first 25 years too. Right? Friday Night Lights becomes a TV show where IP now starts to become confusing with movies and TV.

2:23:58And we don't know really what's a documentary, what's a movie, what's a TV show. It's like almost like part of trying to figure out what IP is. F1 is the sport that took off this year other than MMA, which I think started. But I mean, it took off this last 10 years in a way that no other sport did. It became this mainstream, huge sport. Yeah. Creed, boxing, all the traditional sports movie recipe, but tied to this different era and then Moneyball tied to where sports are going. So pretty interesting top four. Wait till my biopic of Jim Pickle, the creator of Pickleball comes out. Then you're gonna have to add it to your list.

2:24:35I did sports consulting agency does not want to work on that one. Pickleball's almost dead. It's like 90 % gone. Yeah. What's your beef, man? Why is it? That's what people, people, it's what I'm hearing on the streets. The streets, I told you? Well, you do walk a lot. So I guess you would probably be running into ex-pickleball enthusiasts. The noise stuff is going to kill pickleball. Oh, how much noise it makes. That's what's really happening. Yeah. The neighborhoods are starting to rebel against pickleball. What happened? Did some guy pick a fight with you the first time you ever played pickleball?

2:25:07What happened? I cannot like certain things. Well, I agree, but you got to be in your bonnet on this one. I just think people should play tennis. Okay. All right. Just play tennis. run around try to get brick of sweat then don't play sports anymore just watch TV then just quietly die on the couch Sean Fentasy what's your best prediction for this year pain good ending thanks Sean thanks Bill alright that's it for the podcast thanks to Shrigs and House thanks to Fentasy thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as always I will be back on Sunday night live with Cousin Sal the last time we would be live on YouTube with the Sunday night podcast.

2:25:49So get ready for that. Should be a fascinating week 18 with the NFL. And we'll see what happens. See you on Sunday night.

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