NBA Panic Teams, Best QBs Ever, and Sorry Seattle With Rob Mahoney, Chris Russo, and Danny Kelly

25:04gasp play some stretch five why are we doing this to him like the man is on a surgically repaired leg and you're asking him to play like part-time center basically going small ball with Tatum in the Garza spot. And here's why I bring this up. I don't know how this is going to play out. And it's one of the weirder variables I remember where a team that's playing really well, that's a two seed, is now just bringing this guy who was the fourth best player in the league last year. And he has to fit into what's happening. And I don't know how they're going to do it. And I don't know what he's going to be happy with.

25:38And then if I'm Jalen Brown, who you didn't see the game last night, he's guarding Cade on one end. he's doing everything on the other end and he's the best forward in the league right now and I don't want him to lose some of the stuff he's doing. Totally. But Tatum's going to want to prove that he's so they have, it's just this there's a lot of balance and can we keep the identity of this year's team and not be last year's team and I don't know how they're going to unlock it I think that whole, that balance is incredibly delicate and you're right you should be mindful of what it does to Jalen Brown as a player to introduce this huge variable when he has been able to dictate terms in ways that have been incredibly beneficial to him and wildly successful, given all of our expectations.

26:19I would be mindful of that. I would be mindful of Jason Tatum, as you said, like, is he going to be happy with this sort of arrangement? It's really hard to ask a competitor who is that talented and that successful to, oh, you're just going to play 20 minutes a game. You're going to be on these hard minutes limits, even as you work your way back. Even for someone who I'm sure wants to be a part of it. Yeah. Talk to him after a competitive crunch time or fourth quarter where he's not allowed to play because he already hit his limit in that game. Right. So basically, you're trusting him to be responsible of his minutes.

26:49You're trusting the Celtics coaching staff to be responsible of his minutes. You're trusting every member of that roster to be so squarely in their zone in terms of role that they will understand what Tatum coming back means and doesn't mean. There's just a lot of ways that a really successful season could just be upset all of a sudden. I'm not saying don't do it. If you have Jason Tatum available and he's healthy enough to play, he should play. but these are huge variables for a team that as you said is basically strung all this together because they have overachieved because they have tapped into something like kind of magical in the alchemy of the group yeah now you're challenging the alchemy of the group yeah and and the style that they play is different with how even how they use the two bigs to set picks how much runs through the guards compared to how much ran through tatum last year so it is uh it's going to be fascinating, but people really like the Celtics team and people are also really excited that Jason Tatum might come back.

27:42And it feels like if you have a great coach or a really good coach, and I think that Missoula has been really good and a good organization that doesn't want to rush him back, that trust you know, like, Hey, you got to come back. We like this team, I think is pretty realistic, but it's definitely a, what are we going to do? Yeah. Orlando just quickly. So they're 23 and 19. every time I become intrigued by them or think maybe something will happen, they just suck in a game. They've got some bad losses. Like the last one they had, though, getting killed by Memphis and London or wherever the hell they played that game.

28:18I guess the thing I keep coming back to, Rob, is I think we're halfway through the season. There's some really good advanced stats now. There's good sample sizes. There's good five-man lineup stuff now. There's even good, like, last 20 games where you can look at a team like the Clippers and be like, throw out the record. Look at the last 20. Carter, Suggs, Bain, Palo, and Franz is plus 18 per 100. So even though I'm 23-19, I've had some weird injuries. I'm just looking at that and going, you know what? We can make a run. We could beat Dallas two years ago. Let's just trust the process, right?

28:56Is that fair? Totally. I mean, maybe that's a lofty ambition for them, but it is what they should at least think about embracing. And I think they've been a different team when Jalen Suggs has been healthy. Certainly, they've opened my eyes just with the Anthony Black emergence. The wild part of him, yeah. Oh my God, he's been incredible. So as far as navigating the deadline goes, I don't think they should do anything dramatic. I want to see the healthiest version of Suggs and Paolo and Franz and Bain in particular. And now adding Anthony Black to that mix in some capacity, I want to give them a shot to show something and to prove something.

29:31And I think they've earned that. you can still show up around the edges a little bit. And I think you can maybe find another backup guard who can give you something a little more than what they've gotten from Tyus Jones, who has been muted at best and kind of riding the bench at worst. You know, I'm like eyeing like Ayo Desumu in Chicago. Like, is that a guy that's priable, right? Someone who's like an energy defender who's hitting like 45 % of his threes this season. Could that be an option? Is, you know, the Anthony Simon stuff has always been out there. Is there like a mutually beneficial Simons-Goga-Batace-oriented deal that gets Boston a backup big and gets Orlando some shooting?

30:08I don't even know. But that's kind of where I'd be looking is like that fourth guard spot, basically. I think there's some room for Orlando to do something. Would you like to know my Anthony Simons update for whether I'd want him to be traded or not? I would love to hear it. Have you got my newsletter? I have a sub stack. I don't want them to trade him. No? You're holding on tight. I like him. I actually think it's taken them a while to figure out what he is and isn't. And I don't know. He had a game a couple of games ago when they just spread the floor with him and kind of unleashed him. And it was awesome.

30:47And he was just, I mean, he has, I think out of all the guards, it's weird. One of the best first steps when he's really like just zooms by people. And he's also like one of the best I'm feeling it shooters, I think in the league. And I think if you look at the advanced stats within the last two months combined with just like the way he's been shooting, like I, I just wouldn't trade him. Cause there's a, there's an easy Malik Monk trade sitting there. If they wanted to shed salary and get under the first apron and they could be involved in a variety of ways. And I actually think Malik Monk would be really good with this team.

31:23I wouldn't trade Simons. I think the team likes them, like the players like them. the coaches like them so when anyway when i look at orlando um yeah it's like is there like a kobe jones alvarado you mentioned this to someone like one of those is somewhere one of those three levels of guards that they could add to give them a little flexibility i'm more interested in like what am i getting from palo why aren't you better than you were last year why are we so beholden to at the end of these games? And are you just going to be Sharif Abdurrahim from the 2002 season? That's who you're like. You're just a 21 and eight and you're taking some 20 footers.

32:06Okay. This is a little harsh. I know. I'm being harsh. Look, he's been disappointing this season. In playoff games, he has consistently been like one of the only guys who shows up, right? Whose shot isn't completely failing him. Who's kind of like able to, I say force it, but I mean it as a compliment, like force his way through tough defense and create opportunities and shots in ways that other guys can't always do. So I want to see that. And the playmaking's there too. Yes. There's things that, I wonder like if you gave all the Magic fans truth serum and they woke up from a nap and you gave them truth serum and you said, we've traded either Franz or Paolo.

32:42What would be more disappointing to you? I wonder what the answer would be. I would love to hear it. I feel like Paolo's approval rating in Orlando among Magic fans is still pretty high. Now, nationally, a lot of people who are skeptics, a lot of people who are wondering about, you know, whether it's the jump shooting efficiency or the defense or kind of like who he ultimately will be. Yeah. I feel like Magic fans still like Paolo. Here's the best thing for Paolo and the best case for he'll be fine. Look at what happened to Jalen Brown. What we've learned is social media can just beat out all the bad habits of a player and turn them into an awesome first two ball NBA.

33:16This is the thing. We're so worried about the effects that social media have on the youth. It's the opposite. On the youth, on our brains. What if it can fix us? Jalen Brown now has a crossover dribble and doesn't lose the ball in traffic and has a devastating two-point game. It's great. Incredible. I think Orlando's fine. I was actually looking at the odds for them on FanDuel for Eastern Conference. I thought they'd be higher, but it's only 10-1. I could see them making a little run here, like a little post-All-Star break. It's like, Orlando is 18-2 in their last 20. I'm not ruling them out. Philly...

33:50from a what the hell are we going to do now standpoint. I think their fans really liked what was going on with this team. And then Paul George came back and Embiid came back. And they're both, they're playing. Embiid's played 12 of the last 14. He's played 33 minutes a game. Like knock on every piece of wood you have in your home, but like it's kind of playing pretty well. Kind of moving and looking like Joel Embiid again. Three-point shot seems gone. The second jump stuff's gone. Sure. it looks like one of his legs doesn't really work anymore. But listen, Tim Duncan... I don't know about that.

34:27Tim Duncan's last seven years, I think he was on one leg. That's fair. It's fine. Rebounding, not where it used to be. No. But it still feels like he can score when he wants to. So he's at least become almost like the greatest version ever of like Elgoskis in the late 2000s, where it's like, we can throw this guy the ball and he'll get a basket for us. The greatest version of Zodrunas Ogalska. I'm sure that's what Joel Embiid has been striving for all these years. I know that was what he was hoping for. And Paul George has been playing too, as we discussed earlier, and yet it hasn't really affected their record.

35:01And now when you watch them, it's like when you're on Prestige TV with a bunch of our shows. It's like the TV show where there's two shows going on at the same time. It's like... The writer's room is struggling to pull it all together. I like this procedural room over there. I'm not sure about like the rom-com going on here. Can we do more of the procedural? And I think that's how the Sixer fans feel about Maxie and Edgecombe. I think that's probably true. I personally am waiting for the bottle episode of Dominic Barlow and his exploits. Like I'm into that personally, but... The solo episode, yeah.

35:32This thing though, like this is what's hard about the Sixers is the East is open enough and they're good enough as is. I think they should consider themselves to be a pretty serious player and more buyer than seller. But what exactly do they need? because they're not complete, but you look up and down their roster, and it's like, yeah, they could use a little more forward depth. They could probably use a different kind of creator, especially off the bench, to kind of complement what they have. But you don't want to take the ball out of Tyrese Maxey's hands too much. You don't want to take away Joel Embiid's momentum.

36:04They kind of have some of the stuff that should work in theory, but it's hard to know how much to hedge against Paul George and Joel not being available for this game or that. And what exactly you need to add to this group. It's just not immediately clear to me where the obvious upgrade is. Well, and they have this Grimes contract that's basically a one-year deal, which I think is hard to trade. At some point, they can trade it though, right? They can trade it. Right around now is when it's available. And I think maybe the Grimes contract plus Kelly Oubre, plus Picks potentially. Gets them into the vicinity of people.

36:37Now that's a conversation. And those are two guys who can actually help teams present tense and maybe can help the Sixers resolve some of like this redundancy, basically. There's a trade asset they have that would be a trade asset for me if I ran another team. But I'm not sure it's actually a trade asset anymore. Is Jared McCain? Sure. Who looked good for a cup of coffee last year. We got super excited about him, got hurt. Now he's a Delaware Bluecoat. Now he's in the G League, which is just incredible. I remember before the year talking about, could they put Paul George's contract with Jared McCain as the asset attached to try to get something better than Paul George.

37:15Now it's like, I don't even know if McCain's an asset, but I still, I would trade for that guy. Like, to me, that's like a guy Minnesota should be staring at. Oh yeah, that'd be awesome. But there's a couple of teams, or Houston. Or Golden State, like teams that are just like in a position to take a chance on a guy who isn't as good as he could be right this second. And who I don't think has a path with the Sixers. They have their backcourt. Like, he's just never, he's going to be a 15 to 20 minute a game guy for them for eternity. They have their two guys. Vijay is way too good. Like, he's insanely good.

37:51And I'm sure maybe that's part of the thing with him that, oh, this sucks. Like, I have, my path is to be the third guard on this team. I, that guy is an LA high school guy. I watched him in high school play. Like, I just thought he was awesome. I liked him at Duke. I think there's really something there. And that, I think, is a real asset. So what do they need? Probably some Paul George swing insurance. Like if you're in a playoff series, who's guarding Jalen Brown if I catch the Celtics, right? On that team, I don't know. No easy answers. Currently, I think it'd probably be someone like Kelly Oubre, right?

38:29Getting the bulk of that responsibility. And that's flighty at best. Not awesome. And then the Embiid thing. I guess this has been a success when we thought two months ago that he seemed like he was not going to be in the league. Yeah, I mean, it beats the alternatives. Yeah. I would say this is, we're in the pleasant surprise stage of this. So their odds to win the East are 11-1. So Fando has Detroit at plus 330, South's plus 340, Knicks plus 390, Cavs 5-1, Magic 10-1, Sixers 11-1. And then the only... Is there any other team you'd want to know the odds for? I think that's really it. The Charlotte Hornets.

39:13What are the Hornets' odds to win the East? 125 to 1. I'm glad you asked. You know what? Speaking of buy low, let's get it right while it's good. Speaking of incredible five-man lineup, advanced metrics. See, now we're talking. They were second in net rating with their best five out of everyone in the league over 100 minutes with the Knipple and Miller and the center. Those guys are good. And their West Coast trip was pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, I went at Zach on Twitter. Zach and I have been feuding about the Hornets ever since he laughed me out of the room. And I said they were number six as my league pass team.

39:46Oh, no, they should be higher than six as your league pass team. They're great. They've been just a reliable, entertaining team this whole time. So what do we do now with the Sixers is let's wait another week to see how healthy these guys are? Couldn't hurt. Or modest upgrades on the bench I think would be nice. but otherwise, like, see if you can string together some of these contracts to make a meaningful deal. All right, quick break, and then we'll quickly talk about the Lakers and some others. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Four teams left, two games this weekend, a trip to Super Bowl LX.

40:20I think that's 60. On the line, FanDuel is turning on playoff mode, and right now all customers get a profit boost pack during the conference championship round. That means you'll find a pack loaded with multiple profit boosts waiting for you in the app. More boosts means more ways to level up your playoff bets. And on Thursday's pod, we are going to break down not only the games themselves, but a bunch of fun props related to the game. So stay tuned for that. Visit Fender.com slash NFL. Grab your profit boost pack for the NFC and AFC championship games. You must be 21 plus president select states or 18 plus and president DC, see Kentucky or Wyoming.

41:00Opt-in required bonus issued as non-adorable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fandler.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. The Lakers are my favorite what do we do now team because they're 25 and 16. And if you just freeze frame it right there and you're like, they're 25 and 16. They have basically the same record as the Celtics. What's wrong? Why are you complaining? It's like, well, you haven't watched them. Their last 20, their 29th defensive rating.

41:38There's 30 teams, so that's kind of a big deal. Yeah. Their 25th in net rating, minus 4.7. I thought this was funny. Their 26th in rebounds, 28th in blocks, and 23rd in made threes. If I just gave you those three stats, you'd be like, that team's probably bad. They are second in free throw attempts. but that's just because they're the Lakers in the league. And because Luka Doncic is the best at doing that, basically, in the whole league right now. Luka's 14 a game. Yeah. Yeah. They have a bunch of expiring contracts. Rui, Vincent, Kleber. Kleber, and it's basically 40 right there. 8 and 8. Vanderbilt's 11, 12, and 13.

42:19Then they have some smaller ones. All the Laker fans I know hate the fact that this might be the team in March and feel like they're just drying dead at the poker table with the defense. What do you do now for the Lakers? The defense is really bad. It's awful. There is not one move or one series of moves, I don't even think, that fixes all that this season. To me, the framework is, can you hit a solid double? Can you find a contributing perimeter player who will be a part of this team next year who will make some of this make sense? and I'd be calling every day about like Tari Eason, about D 'Anthony Melton, about Keon Ellis, about like maybe if the Bucks go to shit and they start fire sailing guys off, like Ryan Rollins, someone like that, right?

43:04Like who can you get in on that can give you, honestly, the skill is great and you want guys who can contribute offensively, but they just need somebody who is a dynamic enough athlete that when they try to get back on defense, it doesn't look like they're running a sand dune. Like they just don't have anyone who makes getting up and down the court look easy right now. And that feels like a huge problem every time they bump up against any young team, any athletic team, any team that likes to run. They just work them because of that. And so they just feel like they're stuck in the mud because that's where a lot of their guys are athletically right now.

43:38Yeah, I was saying to one of my Laker fan friends, these teams have the Lakers on the schedule. And if you're a younger team that likes to go up and down and try to score points, you must be like, we're playing the Lakers today. This is going to be great. I'm going to try to score 40 points. I mean, why wouldn't you? Like, that opportunity is there for you. And again, it's like, there isn't one silver bullet solution to that problem. But you need somebody who's going to make sense longer term, or at least medium term, with Luka and Austin Reeves, if that works. With LeBron, if you want to consider him part of the mix beyond this season.

44:10Like, they just need somebody who fits better than what they have. And they just don't have enough actual supplementary talents who fit that. If you catch them on the wrong night, they have successfully replicated the energy of the guys who have been playing pickup for three hours and decided to play one more game and then realized halfway through that it was a bad idea and they probably shouldn't have but they still have to finish the game been guilty on many such occasions you know yeah it's like should we go one more i don't know my feet hurt well one more and then you're just like kind of half-hearted half-heartedly jogging after dudes for 20 feet behind you.

44:46That's what they look like. They still have Luka Doncic, who's having an awesome offensive season. And some of his effort on defense has been as reprehensible as ever. Of course. LeBron, it's even tough to complain about him at age 41. I think it's amazing that he's still as productive as he is at this point. But if you're asking him to lock down people, good luck. They have probably the top two guys in the league who don't move, who move the least when they don't have the ball. Who do the most with the least in terms of their actual body movement. If they have the ball, it's like I'm out. I'm just out of the play, I guess.

45:22And it's just a bad mix of guys. So the bright side is their record's pretty good. But I think that 20-game sample size is pretty illuminating. I actually like Rui as a piece for somebody else, not this team. Because ultimately, I think LeBron has to be a four at this point. To play Rui, LeBron, and Aiton is just nonsensical to me. You could argue Luka could be a four sometimes. But I think Rui, they could turn into something. There's teams, like we talked about the Sixers a little bit ago. That's like an interesting Sixer to me. Like some size, some three-point shooting. I like that. But there's some teams that I just think, honestly, he's a pretty interesting OKC guy for me.

46:03This is kind of one of the problems, though, is that one of the benefits of having Luka on your team is in theory, it opens up room to do a lot of interesting things positionally. You can mix and match guys. You can play different sorts of skill sets. You can move guys around the board in ways that they might not be able to on other teams. But they're so locked in between when Reeves is out there and healthy and Luka and LeBron. But really, it's a Luka and LeBron issue in terms of playing those guys together where you don't have that flexibility. And that makes Rui less valuable. It makes Jake Laravia slightly less valuable.

46:32You just feel so hamstrung by centering so much of your team around guys who don't open up the room for you to play more interesting combinations of players. You wouldn't consider trading Reeves, right? I mean, I'm not like completely ruling it out. I think Austin Reeves is awesome, but this is maybe a team that needs an awesome player who plays a slightly different position or could at least stand to go through the thought experiment of it. Because he's$45 billion a year next year? It's going to be pricey. Could it be$50? Because now, whatever you pay him, you're locked into Luka and him as your top two expensive guys.

47:11Yes. So you have to decide, if these are my top two, am I winning a title, basically? But give me all the best possible people to put with these two guys. Right. I'm fully comfortable paying him at this point. Me too. I don't really have doubts about him as a creator. It's more like, is this the best possible use of all of that cap investment? Is it Austin Reeves and Luka together? Or, again, do we need somebody who's giving you a little more defensively? Do you want someone who plays off of Luka, like Austin honestly plays off of Luka well, but plays off of him in a different way. Yeah. Well, to be continued with them, there's a possibility JJ might have to be hospitalized, though, if they have to keep playing defense like that.

47:51I could just see him all of a sudden be like, I think something's going on. The aneurysm potential is high, unfortunately. Bucks, 18-24 somehow. They are 15-13 with Giannis and 3-11 without him. Part of the issue is they only have two tradable contracts other than Giannis and Turner. One is Kuzma, 22 this year, 20 the next year, and then Portis, 13, and then 14. And then they have a bunch of small ones. And those are two guys who have been around the trade block. Kyle Kuzma has been available at many different points for many different teams at this stage. There's always some interest, but not overwhelming interest.

48:31And Bobby Portis, wildly productive for the role you slot him into, but has so many little red flags or asterisks or like trade-offs to his game that make him hard for a team to like really take a swing on. Yeah, so you're looking at Simons and Portis together. I'm sorry, not Simons. I have a four-teamer with the Kings getting Kuzma, the Celtics getting Monk, the Grizzlies getting Simons and Portis, and the Bucks getting Ja Morant. You're looking at crazy trades like that where you ultimately end up turning your two trade assets into Ja Morant and then crossing your fingers really hard. I don't love it.

49:11I don't either. I mean, I don't love the Ja-Yanis possibility in general. Maybe the Bucs are desperate enough to do it. But this is ultimately their problem, right? They really only have two options. And it's you either go hard at basically any decent proposal that is put in front of you to try to make this team better as soon as possible. Like that would be what investment in this core looks like. The standing pat like middle ground option, I don't think really makes a lot of sense for this team at this stage. The other option is you make the hard call on trading Giannis. So something you don't want to do, something that you've been loathed to even consider to this point.

49:46But if you're not really swinging at big trades and possibilities, like a John Morant style deal, even if I don't like Jaws fit specifically, what are you doing here? What is the point of going through all this, of turning your cap sheet upside down to fit Miles Turner into it, if you're not willing to make then further dramatic... Like the calls you make are only going to have to get bigger and bigger and bolder and bolder to make any of this work. What heat character is Giannis right now? I mean, because I have a hardcore answer on this. I would love I would love to hear yours. Who do you have?

50:21Pacino's girlfriend or wife, whatever she is. She knows she needs to break up with Vincent. Yeah. Doesn't really have the balls to just say it. So she's like just putting on makeup and going out on dates and disgracing herself with Ralph. because Vincent won't bring up this was my question who's the guy she's bringing home from the club basically I don't know who that is yet but Giannis just ask for the trade just do it the Bucks fans aren't going to be mad the Bucks fans want you to basically do it at this point just do it just go and just ask it's just hard to imagine their way out we're talking about John Morant the Jeremy Grant trade rumors have been out there for a long time if Jeremy Grant is your big solution I think you might already be buried.

51:06It might just be over. It's sad because this Turner thing that they did, which I did not like. I was on the record. Yep. Dame, I think, would have been fairly tradable with that contract to at least be a big money figure that you could have attached a couple other things to. Sure. They didn't do that. They're not going to trade Turner. I mean it's not like he was an expiring deal though no but it was this year and next that at least you could have been in the conversation to take back a big contract back plus other stuff and you could have patched together something and they just couldn't do it they took that off the table so now it's all you have is Portis and Kuzma extremely tough I don't really see a way out for them right now the way out is to trade Giannis and they should get to that point and do it Hawks, I don't know do they know like they don't know do they know what they are the Bulls are quietly like pretty good last 20 games and they've had a couple good wins no I mean like they I thought they were going to tank sure well they don't do that no well they're I had it they're 11 and 9 in their last 20 they're 20 and 22 overall nobody can remember a single moment from any game they've had I mean 20 and 22 overall is the most Chicago Bulls record that one could possibly have So this is what they do.

52:33This is who they are. It's the lot they have chosen for themselves. Well, and then the Hawks, they do the Trae Young trade. We think it's leading another trade. Davis gets hurt. I guess they could mortgage everything for Giannis. I don't know what they would do. They can't play defense. Even now that Trae Young is gone, it's still a team that doesn't seem like they can defend properly. And I just, to me, it's like, let's see what we get with the Pelicans pick. Let's see what we get with our, don't they have what's the other pick they have they have their own pick back I think they have two picks who are you missing the big one is New Orleans I'm waiting a year I'm seeing what happens this summer there's no urgency you're not making the finals I just kind of wouldn't do anything right I mean I think they could at this point everything is so new post Trey that I think they need to stabilize a little bit and figure out who they are like it's been kind of a struggle of late but really it's like offensively who are they going to be what kind of team are they going to settle into you're right that the defense hasn't been great and they have the profile of a team that probably needs to win with defense and then have kind of a come and go volatile offense.

53:38They just don't really show any signs of that. I think it's hard when you have, you don't have organizers who get everyone into place and you don't have volume drivers on the team really other than Jalen Johnson kind of. Like it's hard to have like a good stable offense when you don't have either of those things. And until they do, I think they're going to fall into this zone because it's like this read and react we're just going to figure out every possession as it comes expectation. It seems pretty clear these guys are not up to that. I think they're pretty fun to watch sometimes. And then other times you put them on and they're down 75 to 50 in the second quarter.

54:11And like, what's going on? I would wait a year and figure out what I had. This would be a fun Jared McCain team too. They need somebody like that. Like some sort of normal guard. Who's just like, I'm here to set everybody else up. I'm just here to make some smart basketball plays, guys. So if you're the Hawks, are you totally ruling out Anthony Davis? I think I am. I think I look at this year and it's like, look, we did a really good job. We made an awesome trade with the Pelicans. We rolled the dice with Porzingis and we knew it wasn't 100%, but it was a smart trade, a smart way for us to use our money.

54:45Didn't work out. We thought Trey, with all these athletes around him, maybe this would be it. It didn't work out. Nope. Let's reboot it this summer. We gave it a whirl. let's see what we got we got to get Reese's Shea going we got to figure out if we can run a playoff offense through Jalen Johnson entirely and let's kind of look at this and see what we're missing. It's how I would look at it The counterpoint is if you're already thinking about let's reboot this thing and take another crack at it next year couldn't Anthony Davis be a part of that taking another crack at it? Couldn't you reimagine the team around him being a critical part of your defense, giving you a different element inside especially.

55:30Counter. I just don't know if he's ever going to be healthy again. Oh, none of us do. It feels like Blake Griffin was in this point with Detroit, right? Where he'd had a lot of injuries already and he had that one last really good healthy Detroit season. But I don't think any of us felt like this was sustainable in the 2022 range. Now, he was a little different. and he was a jumper and an athlete. You only have so many things in your legs. He did some knee injuries, all kinds of stuff. AD is those things too, in terms of, especially his offensive game. Like he has a little bit of mid-range to him, but he is a jumper and an athlete too.

56:06But some of his injuries were like, he has this eye thing now that he has to wear goggles the rest of his career. He has this hand thing. Right. You know, and then he had some leg stuff too. I really get nervous about injured big guys who are expensive hitting their, hitting the stage of his career that he's in, which is basically like year, what will be year 15 next year? I mean, he's getting long in the tooth really fast. And some of it is just, you blink in home as a season, you blink him as a half a season. Then all of a sudden, like next spring, he's gonna be 34 years old. He's not a young up and coming player by any means, or even one who's comfortably in his prime anymore.

56:44I'd be nervous. He's gonna have to adjust his game for sure. I think for me, if the price is low enough, If it's just can you help Dallas clear salary and offer them something for their trouble, then maybe that's enough to take a risk on. I'm not throwing Nikhil Alexander-Walker into a deal or something like that. But if the price is low enough, I still think maybe there's enough reason for them to do it longer term. So you're just saying expirings will give you a pick, but not a really good one. We will take Anthony Davis off your hands. Yes. Because if I'm Dallas, I'm keeping him for another year.

57:18And actually with the team that I have, I'm probably more excited about that. Because if you catch Dallas on the right night, there's some interesting stuff going on with them. There's always interesting stuff going on. I think for them, it's the extension looming scares the hell out of me. If you are not comfortable paying Anthony Davis on his next deal, then why would you keep him beyond this season? because that is going to be... That's what you're playing for. That is the expectation of keeping him around, whether it's on an extension or in free agency. If you're not comfortable doing that, you should trade him now.

57:52I know it's hard to do that. I know it's hard to potentially take a return if you're the Mavs that feels like you're selling low on a really good player. I can assure you it can go lower with a guy who is injured this often, who's only going to be older by next trade deadline. Like, if you wait, I think it's going to get worse. I couldn't agree more. Well, the Mavs were the next team on our list, and you just made the key case. I'm probably hanging around and popping the Mavs and not doing anything either way. And I could probably make the play-in team. The play-in with Kyrie back and get Flagg.

58:26All I care about is Flagg. I just want Flagg to be in a good situation. Get some, be in the right kind of games. They're not going to be bad enough to tank ever unless they started shutting guys down right now, which I don't think they're going to do. And if anything, Kyrie's coming back and AD might be back in mid-March. So I don't know. I'm just, I don't think I'm doing anything. There was a moment a couple of weeks ago where they're like, they should trade PJ Washington. They should trade Gafford. Well, they can't. Oh, that's right. They can't trade PJ Washington. Yeah, PJ is going to be on the team.

58:55Marshall, they could trade. Clay Thompson, if anyone wants him. Right. Marshall's really good. I would try to hold on to him as best you can. But Gafford, yeah, I think could make sense if they want to trade anybody. He's a player who could appeal. We talked about a lot of teams who could use a little extra center depth. Yeah. Who could use a little extra bounce at that position that could be useful. I don't know. I think I'm just kind of ready for the AD era to be over. And I don't say that coming from a place of like... Over like he has to leave the country? We don't need to, you know, eject him or anything.

59:28Like he's going to be in NBA Europe? Just moving him out of the league? Someone needs to cut the ribbon, you know, when Paris comes around. Yeah, all right. We'll have him do it. I just... I like the idea of a Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis version of this team for the last couple of weeks of the season, potentially, does not excite me very much. And the idea, especially if that now becomes you're welcoming that team and being beholden to AD's next contract, I think the Mavericks have to run from that possibility basically as fast as they can. I just disagree. I'm looking at it like they're four back from the ninth seed.

1:00:02Let's go. Think of all they can do with that ninth seed. Jesus Christ. What are we playing? You're telling me it's all about Cooper Flagg and now you're like, let's chase the nine seed. I know. I don't know what they do. Well, they're not going to tell Cooper Flagg to stop playing. And he's an additive, really good player, right? So you can't really tank. Cooper Flagg, I mean, he's really good already. Max Christie's having a really nice season. They got stuff going on there. It's just all stuff that should be centered around. I don't mind watching them. I don't mind watching them. Every decision they make should be, what team are we going to be two to three years from now?

1:00:35And not, who are we going to be by April of this year? Clippers, we don't need to discuss because it feels like they've figured it out. So that's why they weren't on the list. They, uh, last 15 games, third net rating, they're 13 and two. And you know, it all depends. Can they just Kawhi, can they keep them on the court doing this for the next four months, three months, two months, however long their season's going to be. And if they do that, they're going to be good. There's no trade. They're not going to trade Zubats. They're John Collins is an expiring. I don't know where you're getting back if they wanted to go nuts and get Michael Porter Jr.

1:01:08The last team I wanted to talk about quickly is OKC. And just like, is there a move for them? But what do they need? A notoriously patient Sam Presti to his anti-detriment. To do his championship validation. To his title as best GM in the league. I, could they get, could they get Murphy? could they actually do the godfather offer yeah could you take dort caruso and case on wallace and say we only need two of these guys aj mitchell can get more minutes and we could add murphy to this could you dort has a team option next year at 18 caruso is tied down for a couple years and if you're the Pelicans and you could turn let's say they get Dort back let's say they get four first round picks the OKC has a million of them they get Troy Murphy then they take Dort they trade him to the Pistons for Levert two more for it they could turn Murphy into seven picks potentially if they got the right OKC package back and honestly if I were them I would think about it if you're the Thunder I would think about it if I was everybody.

1:02:31If I'm the Thunder and I could, I'm basically not losing anything with the defense I have because I still have two of my guys left, but now I'm adding this other piece that gives me insurance and shooting and all these things that could potentially play in crunch time and can guard different players. And if I'm the Pelicans, it's like, well, what's the point of having Troy Murphy? We're not going to be good for three, four years, and then he'll probably leave. And then if I'm the Pistons and I could get my hands on one of those dudes, That's exactly what they need. So I don't know. I'm not convinced OKC is going to stand Pat, is my point.

1:03:05I think they have a lot of reason to talk themselves into standing Pat, right? They're still the best team in the Western Conference. They still have everything at their disposal. I think you could make a pretty strong argument that what they need most is the best, healthiest version of Jalen Williams they can get. And he's been pretty up and down all year. And who knows if that's going to happen this year, right? Maybe the hand will just be in such a state where he's a little more inconsistent that they need him to be. But I think you're right about the market for Trey Murphy, which if you are New Orleans, yeah, they're not going to be good in the near-term future to make the most of someone like Murphy.

1:03:39He's also so good and so young that they don't have to trade him. And so what they should be waiting for if you're the Pelicans and to just kind of like set the, you know, the trade machine market, it needs to be an overwhelming offer. It needs to be something that convinces the Pelicans to give up a player who could be a part of their next core if they just decide to keep him around. And this is kind of what it takes. It's like an overwhelming amount of picks that make you stop and say, holy shit, like maybe we just have to take this windfall from a team like OKC, even if it means giving the defending champions really like the one kind of knockdown shooter they don't have.

1:04:14Yeah, it's a 140 cents on the dollar trade. And I think if you go back and you look at the history of these trades, and we, you know, there's been, we have such sample size now with all of these types of trades. Like, should you trade for a superstar? What about a trade like this? The one thing that seems to work over and over again is overpay me with picks for a guy that I probably wasn't going to win the title with anyway. Right? And like even the Bain and Bridges trades, if you just go to the fan bases or the front offices of either of those teams right now and you're like, would you do that one again?

1:04:49They'd be like, yep, totally would. or even what they got for Durant, for the Nets got initially. Right. I don't know. I just think when you're getting too many assets for a guy, you got to think about it. And it's not like they're trading one of the 10 best guys in the league. This is a really, really good player who might make some all-star teams. I don't think he's an NBA player. No. And if I could turn him into four first-round picks and then an asset that I could flip for more picks, I'm doing it. I mean, he might end up in that very overqualified role player who never makes an all-star team kind of category.

1:05:23That's sort of like where he slots in right now. Yeah. And there's a weird, maybe this is just me like overthinking it from OKC's perspective, but there's this thing happening where they are so conservative in their decision making. I don't see the Thunder making the swing with all of these picks to get another huge high usage star in the door, right? To change the makeup of their team. Like that feels antithetical to everything that they're about. And so if you're not going to make that move, if you're not going to package all these picks for a traditional star in the most straightforward sense, then what are you going to use it for if not overpaying in a deal like this, right?

1:06:00Convincing someone to get the exact supporting player who you think can help your team. And maybe it's that. Maybe it's the Thunder like, but don't love Trey Murphy enough to make that kind of godfather offer. I would understand that. Or maybe it's they're so wary of the financial implications with all of these young guys coming up for new deals that they want to keep the picks to either draft new talent or flip those players into guys on cheaper contracts who are also very good. But it feels like it has to go somewhere, right? Like you have to invest all this draft capital in one of those two places.

1:06:32And I think the argument for trading for someone like Trey Murphy is pretty compelling, even with the Thunder already being as good as they are. Yeah, my thing is they have too many picks. So just start there. You can't, if it's a 15-man roster, at some point you have to consolidate the picks or use five to move up 10 spots in a draft or whatever you want to do. Like, at some point, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, and that's just overpaying in a different way, right? Like, you're going to end up consolidating all of this into something. And it's just a matter of picking your exact right spot. Yeah, like if I'm the Pelicans and I can get A.J.

1:07:03Mitchell and Dordor Caruso and picks, and I can turn Dordor into more picks, like that's the kind of trade I would be thinking of. But I think there's two teams in the league right now that can overpay for players. OKC and San Antonio. There's a player in Murphy who fits perfectly both of those teams. And those are the two teams competing with one another. So I don't know. I just feel like he's a chess piece that is going to really matter over these next two weeks because I can't imagine. You can't, if you're the Pelicans, you can't say he's untouchable. You can't. I mean, you can say it, but it's not true.

1:07:39I'm a huge fan of his, but he's not untouchable. He's not one of the best 15 players in the league. He's not. so you can't say he's untouchable so to me Tyrese Maxey is untouchable if you're calling on me I'm hanging up if you're calling about Trey Murphy I'm at least listening to what you're thinking yes you're saying he's untouchable but you're staying on the line do you notice how I almost did the old guy Troy Murphy instead of Trey Murphy remember Troy Murphy boy do I what a time and place where Troy Murphy was just like an actual somewhat impactful NBA player. You won a McKeskey award? Alright, Rob, what TV shows are we covering?

1:08:20We're covering Industry right now, which is on quite a heater to open the season. And The Pit. We love The Pit. What? I don't even know sports-wise how to describe the first two Industry episodes from a heater standpoint. Because it's like a heater, but it's a deranged heater. The Jon Snow episode was deranged. I was riveted. Like, riveted. I thought it was so good. I don't really fully understand what happened. But I really loved it. That show is great. It's deranged in all the best ways. It's fucking mean, too. We need a little bit of that edge in the TV landscape right now, so I'm thrilled to have it back.

1:09:01Well, as you know, I'm re-watching Thrones in the sauna. Talk about your mean shows. That's about as mean as a show we've ever had. Anyway, all right, Rob Mahoney. Good times. Great to see you. we can watch and listen to on the ringer NBA show as well, as well as the prestige TV. Talk to you soon. Thanks, Bill. Welcome to, we kept the receipts presented by tax act, where we look back at our predictions and figure out who deserves a victory lap and who is completely off base tax act helps you with actual receipts, like the kind that you can use for tax deductions or credits and the ones that help you get your maximum refund every tax season.

1:09:40So I have two from the last year that would be fun for this. One good one, one bad one. The good one, I went on Zach Lowe's podcast over the summer and we were picking our 2028 Olympic team. And my dark horse for 12th spot was Con Knipple because I thought by the time we got to 28, the shooting, the way he moves without the ball, like they're going to need somebody like that. And I picked him to make that team, even though I hadn't played an NBA game yet. That was great. The bad one was, I think during the college football playoffs last year, I made fun of some game management from Kurt Signetti, the Indiana coach, and was talking about, oh, Belichick can't coach college, this guy again?

1:10:20And what happens? Belichick sucked as a college coach and Signetti went 16-0, won national title. Tough one. We kept the receipts. That was presented by TaxAct. This tax season, make your max refund the one prediction that actually pays off. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details. All right, late morning Pacific time. The legend is here. The mad dog himself, Chris Russo. I wanted to talk big picture, quarterback, all-time stuff. And I used to love, once upon a time, listening to you. You were always in the all-time context, which has framed a lot of how I think about this stuff too.

1:11:00And I was talking to Sal on Sunday about Josh Allen, how this is now becoming a career unlike any quarterback career that we've had, where you can make a case he's a top 10 all-time guy, but he's never made a Super Bowl and he's had all these terrible playoff losses. And where does he fit into context? So you're a decade older than me. You've seen, you remember the Staubach Bradshaw. You even go back to the 60s a tiny bit. Where is he in the context of all the guys? Let's start there. And then I want to dive into the history thing. Great to be on there, Bill. Yeah, you can't put him in top 10.

1:11:35That you can't do. Not yet. And, you know, I think it depends how far you want to go back. I mean, Don Shuler once said, you know, if you're going to rank these quarterbacks, don't forget about old Otto, meaning Otto Graham, who, you know, played in 10 straight championship games. And remember, Paul Brown never won a title in Cleveland after Graham retired. Graham retired after the 55 season and Brown never won another one because he wasn't a coach of the Browns in 64. They fired him. Modell did and brought Blanton Collier in. and of course their quarterback was Frank Ryan, not an all-time great.

1:12:08But if you go back to that level, you got to put Graham in. If you want to go back to the modern-day quarterback, that usually starts with a guy who calls his own plays and football is a little shaped like it is today. That usually starts with Unitas. Yeah. And if you don't even want to start Unitas, that's too far. Well, then maybe you go, you know, since the merger. I've heard people say, well, let's start it since 1970. So it depends on the year that you want to begin at. But if you look at the guys, I mean, you know, it's certainly going to be Brady. It's certainly going to be Montana. You're going to, you know, you got to probably put United in there if you want to start with his era, quote unquote.

1:12:47You know, obviously I put Mahomes in and he's won three Super Bowls. So that's four right there. Right. And so before you even begin, that is four. Then you got those next six or seven slots, you know, Manning, Staubach won two titles. So you have Stalbach up there. Okay. No, Stalbach's up there. He's an all-time great. Lee Corso once told me, and he was at Maryland as an assistant coach and played against Unitas. And when he was at Florida State, Unitas was at Louisville, said that Stalbach was the best college player we ever saw. Wow. So you got to keep that in mind, too. And obviously, Stalbach won the two titles.

1:13:27He got floored by the concussion, so he retired a little early. But I love him. You know, certainly, you know, Elway, you got to consider Elway. You got to also figure out what you're going to do with the championships, Bill. Is that a prerequisite? If it is a prerequisite, well, you got to win a Super Bowl. Well, if that's the case, then, you know, you're in a tricky spot with Marino. We lose Marino. I don't want to lose Marino. He has to be in the top 10 for me. Okay, so if you're going to do that, well, then, so the titles, that helps Allen, you know, in the long picture. But, you know, those next five or six after the big four would be Peyton, would be, you know, Elway, would be Marino, would be Bradshaw, won four championships.

1:14:09He's very underrated. Great quarterback. So you haven't mentioned Rodgers yet. And you haven't mentioned Rodgers yet. So, you know, he's only one to one. Not great in the playoff games, but him. So that group after the four, which to me, you can't go anywhere. You can't go. And I'm leaving Graham out. because that's too far back for your purposes. So we're going to leave Graham out. So if you look at it from Mahomes, Brady, Montana, Unitas, those four, those next six slots, if you're just going to narrow it down to a top 10, is dicey because you got Manning is one, Elway, two, Staubach, three, Bradshaw, four, Marino, five, Rogers, six.

1:14:54You got a lot of guys here that you got to put in the equation. And sooner or later, you're going to, you know, I'm trying to think there's a couple. There's a couple more. Well, there's two more. You got Favre you didn't mention. Yeah, I wouldn't put Favre in there. Too many turnovers. And who's the other one? Too many. Favre fell apart, really, in the 2000s. And then some people have Steve Young. I don't think he was good for long enough to put him in the combo. And I love Fouts, but I can't put Fouts in there. They were three and four in the playoffs. Also, his stats are hilarious because that era was like you'd throw for 30 TDs and 28 picks and stuff like that.

1:15:28And he played for the right coach, Correale, and everything else. But the problem with Fouts is he wasn't great in the postseason. He's had a couple of bad losses. So you can't put him in the top 10. He's a Hall of Famer, but you can't put him in the top 10. So you really have to figure out what your criteria is for the top 10. You want to see a lot of playoff wins. Would you like to see a Super Bowl or two? Would you like to see some heroic performances even if the team loses? Which Allen, of course, has got a couple of those, a couple of games against Mahomes. So it depends on how you want to grade it.

1:16:01After you get by the five or six guys, I think Elway is a guy that you got to put somewhere in that one to six level. You know, he won two Super Bowls. He was in five Super Bowls. One, two, he's got the heroic drive. John Wayne, fun to watch. I think you got to put Elway probably in that five, six category too. Well, you think like probably the most talented, like if you're just talking about being able to move around and to the gun that he had combined with the late game stuff, you could argue that he might've been the best one and just was in probably the worst situation of any of the guys from the last 40 years.

1:16:42Quite possibly. He had a couple of bad Super Bowls. And I'll tell you, I'm going to laugh at that you have to, you know, take seriously. What are you going to do with Bart Starr? Nine and one in the playoffs. Super Bowl MVP. An MVP in 1966 for the league. He was an MVP in the league in 66. He had a great year. Threw four touchdowns in the NFC Championship game against Dallas. Killed the Chiefs in a very pressure packed game. and led the most heroic drive in the history of the NFL. And Ray Scott told me at Lambeau, it's the greatest mind, the longtime Packer broadcaster, it's the greatest mind over matter drive in the history of the NFL.

1:17:26And that was the ice ball when he went 68 yards in the last 438 of the game after nine straight three and outs in 59 degree below zero temperatures with a windshield factor you can't believe on the ice in Lambeau, and he caught all the home place. See, this is why I wanted to have you on, because I knew you'd need barely any prep and you'd be like AI. You might be AI. It's possible. I don't know if you have an AI engine in your brain. But Star is underrated because everybody remembers it's Lombardi. They think about all the... It's like Bradshaw, too. Bradshaw and Star, in a lot of ways, Bill, are very underrated historically.

1:18:08Because they played with so many Hall of Famers. Right. You know, Storworth and Swan and Mike Webster and Franco. And then, of course, the guys on defense and Starr, who's got, you know, Horning and Taylor and two or three offensive linemen. Yeah. And Nitsky and Willie Davis. And it goes on. Obviously, Willie Wood and Herb Adley. They got a million Hall of Famers. You almost forget about the quarterback. Elway doesn't have any Hall of Famers. Randy Gratishar he don't have any Hall of Famers well think about that remember the offense he was like one of the first we gotta get this guy some help guys in the modern talk radio era so Elway gets looked at higher because there's not a lot of great players around him can we do this exercise differently you laid out all the cases in the resume let's go eye test now eye test I thank Mahomes Mahomes myself, he's only had one bad half in the history of his postseason playing.

1:19:12He's been in the main games. It was not his fault in the two Super Bowl losses. His offensive line was a mess. He runs tremendously. He's won the three Super Bowls and been to five already. It's a very tricky era now with the parity and everything else. I think, for my mind, Mahomes is the best quarterback I've ever seen. most talented you've ever seen. If, you know, I know Brady. Now, Montana, four Super Bowls, 11 touchdown passes, not one interception. So you gotta, you know, that's pretty damn good. Four and on a Super Bowl, 11 TDs, not one pick. But for my money, where just, and the running ability is not allowed to do with it.

1:19:53He is a great runner. He's a tremendous competitor. He, now, you might disagree, but he's the best quarterback I've ever seen. and I would take him over anybody. And that's saying a lot with Brady and with Montana and people like that. I would take Mahomes one, myself. So the problem, and we're seeing this now in basketball because we're in the steroids era with basketball stats now. Everyone's stats are 20 % higher than they should be because there's more shots, more possessions, three-pointer. Three-point shooting, yep. Just people are going up and down and LeBron is averaging the same stats that he had when he was in Miami at the peak of his career because the sport's totally different now.

1:20:35And there's no way he's the same player he was 12 years ago. So I look back at, like I look at the stuff Elway and Marino did back when you could hit the shit out of quarterbacks. When if you scrambled or if there was no sliding back then, if you scrambled, you were going to take a hit. If you were going to try to stay in bounds and lay one more in, they're going to knock your head off. Not to mention they could hit you after you threw the pass. They could hit your receivers over the middle. So I think it's really hard to, like, could Elway do what Mahomes did if you just took him in a time machine and moved him 40 years?

1:21:07I feel like he could. Yeah, absolutely. And Marino, the knock on Marino is he had a couple of really bad playoff games. Lost a playoff game to Stan Humphreys with the Chargers. Lost 31-14 to the Patriots in 1985. Home game, squish the fish. It's a bad one. That's a bad loss. I mean, you know, you're Marino young in your career and you got, and you got them coming in. That's the year after they got to the Super Bowl and you got the Patriots coming in as a wildcard team and you got a home game. After you beat the bears in a regular season, that was the only loss to bears at 85 height. And he, and he played badly in the game.

1:21:45By the way, the 95 in the game, the 95 chargers one, they're up 15. And is that like, it's Marty Schottenheimer. Marty Schottenheimer was usually the one that was blowing the playoff games and it actually flipped it and they came back and that was probably Marino's last chance. I just know how he made me feel as a fan where you felt like if you were going against him, you're like, oh my God, this guy's going to kill us. Absolutely right. You know, you always were worried about him. He had that bad loss to Buffalo when Buffalo that year beat Houston in a great comeback. And then they went to Miami and won the championship game in Miami.

1:22:18One great night game. Elway, I can't think of a championship game or a playoff game where he was bad in the game. Me neither. Super Bowls, yes. Super Bowls, yes. Because he didn't play. He got ambushed by Washington. He was terrible against San Francisco. Now, listen, they were going to beat him anyway, but he was bad in the game. That's the thing. He probably went against a couple of the greatest teams in the history of the sport. That's fair, too. And the Giants in 86 were a great team, too. Yeah. So you got to give him a little break. See, the thing about Elway that you like, Bill, and you're on top of this.

1:22:54You're doing a good job here. The thing about Elway you like, when he lost to three Super Bowls, they were by far the inferior team. Yeah. Now, I know Doug Williams beat him, but they scored 35 points in the second quarter. That's not Elway's fault. Well, the case for Elway is like, how about this? Just randomly name the offensive players he was with in the first 10 years of his career. Most people would probably get like three of them. It really wasn't until... Ricky Nathiel, Mark, Ricky Mathieu, Mark Jackson, Sammy Winder. There's not a lot of guys, 100%. But then it all circles back, and all of a sudden he's playing with McCaffrey, Rod Smith, Terrell Davis.

1:23:33So I still think pound for pound, just those two years is in the running for best running back I ever saw. Shannon Sharp, he's in there too. Like it's just all of a sudden they were like loaded. Yeah. And he had Shanahan too, you know, who was a better coach than Dan Reeves. Yeah, and it was a different, it was a different stage of his career. And I think he had taken a lot of hits, but that's why it's really hard to, I think about Elway. I'm sorry, Josh Allen. He's definitely a one-on-one with how he plays and how the physicality and the size that he has and all the different things he can do.

1:24:08So it's almost like you have to think about him in a basketball context where he's like the basketball player who can do everything. And yet something's happened to him in these playoff games. And I think this, you know, Now, we always try not to overreact. You're on a show. You're on first take on Wednesdays where one of the goals is to come in hot with an angle. I don't think it's possible to overreact after that last game because I thought he was the reason they lost. And this season parted for them in these playoffs and there's just no excuse for it. So now I don't know where to place them.

1:24:40Well, I disagree with you on the idea and I'll do this tomorrow too. To me, he left the field and they were up 27-23 and on third and 11 with 238 to go, that defense allowed freaking Nix to throw a 26-yard completion to Sutton. It's fair. Who I could have thrown a ball. He was so wide open. Right. If they make a stop there, Denver punts and one first down wins the game. All right, but counter. Buffalo had the ball back. They had a chance to score and he overthrew Knox to win the game, basically. Yeah, but he also, So if Hardeman makes a catch, which he should have made. Bad throw. He's got a bad route, I guess.

1:25:26So he's got a catch. He has two hands on the ball. And if Cooks comes up with the ball, which he should have, they win a game. Well, so the Buffalo fans who are defending Allen are like, look at the supporting cast. He's only playing with a couple pro bowl caliber guys. The front office let him down. I do think this is part of the sport now. If you're paying 55, 60 million a year for your quarterback, you're going to lose stuff in other spots. This is what happened to Brady in the 2010s, right? At some point, and Brady was even taking a little bit less than the highest part. But at some point you have to pick and choose.

1:26:03You can't have, it's not like the 90s with the Cowboys where you could just be like, we need Deion Sanders. Let's get him. And you just get him. So you're going to be missing stuff all over the place. And for them, it's like, all right, if we give him more weapons, now I can't stop anybody on defense. Or maybe now I can't block. You know, so you're always giving up something. So I don't know if that flies for me. Now, listen, I can't absolve him. The play before the half was bad. All right. He had Shakir there. He hit a ground. We threw a ground ball to him. That could have been a touchdown. Right.

1:26:33You mentioned the Knox play. I cannot absolve him. He wasn't great in the game. He was a little herky-jerky. You are a thousand percent correct. but the defense Cooks fumbled at 7-3 a huge play in the game after the interception and he fumbles there at the 32 yard line that's a terrible fumble you know can Cooks make the can he come down with the ball can he come down with the ball and not get it taken away can Hardeman now I don't know enough about the actual routes but everybody seems to think that he didn't cut it left enough and he went upfield instead of going to the sideline. But even if you say that, he still should have caught the damn thing.

1:27:15He catches the ball there. Buffalo's got a first down at the Denver 43 in overtime. They're going to win the game. They are going to win the game. And I'm not even going to talk about the overtime defense with the two pass interference. We'll throw those out. Third and 11 with Knicks. Can they make sure they don't get a first down in that play? Is it possible that maybe you give them a five-yard catch instead of a 26-yard catch and not put him in a tough spot. Now, again, if your point is greatness on the Brady level means that you've got to do everything in your power to overcome the team's weaknesses, and you have to be the guiding light when everybody else is kind of falling back, whether it's a receiver drop in the pass, whether it's a fumble by a running back, whether it's a defensive penalty.

1:28:07Legs to make a play with all that stuff. You got to figure out a way to win a game. That's what you're getting paid. If that is Bill Simmons's argument about Josh Allen, I cannot argue. But I would also say he's up 27-23, 2.38 to go in the game on third and 11. I dare you to think. I wasn't. You were thinking about the fumble before the end of the half at that point in the game at 27-23 with 2.38 to go. I was not thinking about the fumble. guys make a stop. Peyton's going to punt. He's got three timeouts and he's got, obviously, his two minute warning. He's not going for it on fourth and 11. He's going to punt.

1:28:47Hope his defense can make a stop, get the ball back and do his thing. I don't think he's going for it on fourth and 11 and the defense couldn't make a play. So, but I think there's blame to go all the way around with the loss for Buffalo. That was an underrated piece of the Brady Super Bowls in New England. There's a couple ones where if they don't get a stop for him to get him the ball back, they lose the game, right? Atlanta, Atlanta who seems like they won the game with the Julio Jones catch. The game's over at that point. And this is after the Pats defense got the ball back with Hightower, all that stuff.

1:29:17But then they somehow made the Falcons go 10 yards backwards so they couldn't kick the field goal. They got a holding penalty, but they came through for Brady in a way that Buffalo's defense never did. That's a very good point. And then the Seattle one was the other one. They're down 10. Brady scores two touchdown drives, but they also stopped Seattle to get the ball back. And if they don't, they don't win that one either. And that's Super Bowls. How about a couple of times in the playoffs? Brady got a break of all time and Troy Brown caused that fumble in the San Diego game. Right. Well, when he threw the, when he threw the interception, the forward offsides was probably the biggest break.

1:29:49There's another one. You know, Ford was offsides, uh, which, which was an interception and the game. So yes, a lot of this sometimes is happenstance and for whatever the reason, the bills themselves, the team, the franchise, you know, it's almost like they're cursed. I know. Nobody has had the kind of losses that they have had since 1990 in big spots, or even going back a year before with Cincinnati when they beat them. They've had incredible losses. Norwood missed field goal, the other three in the Super Bowl. Music City miracle. Mahomes two or three times. I mean, they've had so many bad ones.

1:30:30And this is one that is in line with the Bills' history. There is a black cloud over that franchise. Minnesota has not had as many of these chances as Buffalo's had. You know, they had the Gary Anderson missed field goal against Atlanta when they were 15-1. But they haven't as many. They haven't. And every time they played in the Super Bowl, they got killed. I mean, Buffalo should have beaten the Giants. I mean, so it's incredible that this franchise just can't get out of its own way when the money and everything is in the middle of the table. And Allen is now part of that because he can't win these games either.

1:31:04Yeah, and you and I have both been in that position as fans because I was certainly there with the Red Sox and even wrote column after column and books about it about what it was like to just feel like you're just cursed with your team. Do you want to pass this team down to your kids? Should you just get out? Should you just have a sports bet? You were in a similar spot with the Giants there for a while where it's like, is this going to happen in my lifetime? And that what's happening in the Bills, I think is as dark as anything that's happened since the Red Sox. I think I still feel like the Red Sox foregoing 86 years and cold weather, New England and all the history of coming up close and falling short.

1:31:46And it just was in our DNA. And it feels like it's in the DNA now for the Buffalo fans. I think there's some now remember what the Red Sox, you had the Celtics who won all those championships. True. You know, you can chronicle of them. You also had the Patriots who won in 0-1. With Bobby Orr, we had a couple cups. Yeah, I do. You know, Buffalo doesn't have any other teams. This is it. Yeah. They don't have any other teams. There's no baseball team. The Sabres, all right, but they haven't won a Stanley Cup. They've been close, but they haven't won. And they have no NBA team now after the Braves left to San Diego.

1:32:17Right. So from that standpoint, this is it. This is their franchise. At least in a place like Boston, you know, you have some other franchises. You're the huge Celtic fan. You got all those, you got how many champions? Is it 20? I don't even know how many you got. Well, even after we lost, he had 18, I think. Now that we have, like when we had, we lost to the Bears, the 45 to 10 game, whatever that, the 46 to 10. And then we had a cocaine scandal two days later, but we immediately moved to the 86 Celtics. And then Roger Clemens showed up and we, And we had at least other stuff to talk about. You're right.

1:32:53So I think Buffalo is number one. It's weird because the Browns fans have to be heard from as well. They at least had the LeBron Cavs thing. But in a way, it's almost worse to have this many where you come close and you have all these horrible losses. The Browns have just been irrelevant and not mattered, and just futile, which is almost easier. I remember Allen's going to be in Buffalo for a while. They're going to have a few more of these opportunities, and they may lose more of them. because he's still young enough. That stadium will give him a little juice next year. You know, they made McDermott the scapegoat, but, you know, they get somebody else in there.

1:33:30They're going to be a competitive team. I mean, it's not like the Bills, the division stinks, the Jets stink, Miami stinks. You know, the Patriots, now they're going to have to deal with. But you get the idea. The Bills are going to be a playoff team for the next five, six years. When you have a quarterback this good, now where you and I want to rank him is a different argument. But when you have a quarterback, he is a Hall of Famer. When you have a quarterback this good, you're going to be good every year in the NFL. There's very rare where you have a great quarterback where you have, you know, you're going to be bad.

1:33:57You know, once in a while, Mahomes team gets hurt. Injuries, it doesn't click for you. You might go 6-11. But most of the time, when your quarterback is this good, you're a playoff team year after year after year, which means that he still has a chance to redeem himself and win that championship. You know, we said this a lot about Manning for a long period of time in his career. Eight years. Before he finally won that one against the Bears. So he lost a lot of brutal games before he beat the Bears and then won the other one there at Denver against Carolina. Yeah, Manning's playoff history is pretty checkered.

1:34:30He had a lot of like his big favorites, blowing games and choke jobs at home. But then that, you know, you win one Super Bowl, that stuff washes away. Who's your number one? this guy was great, but something was missing when it really mattered. Athlete in any sport. That's in any sport, any sport you can pick baseball, football, basketball, hockey, just somebody that had everything and it couldn't get there. I'm not a fan of his, but Harden is a perfect example. I mean, Harden is terrible in a big game. He's going to look at his games and elimination games. Yeah. I mean, I know I used to talk to Van Gundy about this all the time.

1:35:06He thought he was better than Jerry West. No, he's not. He's better than Jerry West. Now he's stuck with him. His punishment was to have to coach him. And how he's got to deal with him. Harden, I would never trust Harden in a big game. You could see it in the game seven last year. He wouldn't even look at the rim. Terrible. How about a game seven when he was with Philadelphia against the Celtics that one year in game seven, he was terrible. There's so many examples of Harden. And he's a Hall of Famer. And everybody thinks he's an all-time great. Because Karl Malone was a legitimate one. Karl Malone, you could see it on his face as the game got bigger and bigger.

1:35:37and he just, and people, now we live in this stats era where you could go back 50 years later and be like, whoa, are we sure he wasn't better than Tim Duncan? It's like, no, we're sure he wasn't. You would have much rather had Tim Duncan. Trust me, we were there. You didn't feel that way about Stockton. You did not feel the way. You knew Stockton was, he's gutty, was gonna figure out a way to beat you, was gonna overachieve with his talent. Malone, I think at times, now he had to go up against Jordan, but I think at times the moment became a little too big for him. So I do think, I think there's, and I think you definitely can make the case for Wilt.

1:36:15Yeah, so you were barely there for Wilt, but you got to see some of it. And that was when you're getting into sports. But I mean, Wilt, all the, everything written said Wilt was the number one guy like this, that something would happen to him in these games. Well, he did win the two championships and he did anchor two teams that were the two greatest, arguably, teams of all time, that 66 team. Yeah. With that beat the Celtics finally. And then, of course, the 71, 72 Lakers that won 33 in a row. So you can argue that, but he couldn't make his free throws, took himself out of game seven against Russell in his last game, looked around the arena before Willis freed game seven at the guard.

1:36:56Hey, is Willis playing tonight? Jeez, Will, you're Will Chamberlain. Who gives a crap if he's playing? And he's got one leg. You'll be fine. Yeah, yeah. You know, as Havlicek once told me at a Rollins college dinner when he was at and I was the emcee. Wow. Remember that game seven the following year when Philly played the Celtics and they were trying to go back to back. Philly was up three games to one that year. And in game seven in Philadelphia, Wilt did not take any shots essentially in the second half because he was in foul trouble. And he didn't want to get called for an offense to foul. Right, he had that dumb streak about he never wanted to foul out of a game.

1:37:35He never fouled out of a game. Yeah. And he never wanted to be in a situation where he fouled out of the game. So he got very passive. And Boston beat him in game seven when they were down 3-1 in that series. Remember, the Celtics have lost the Sixers. I'm not telling you anything you don't know. They lost the Sixers in 66-67. And then in 67-68, Philly's up 3-1. And Wilt goes quiet at the end of game seven against Russell. doesn't want to shoot the ball. So I think that Wilt has got a little bit of that aspect to him where in a big moment, life on the line, you get a little nervous. You get a little nervous.

1:38:12I'm going to make you laugh. Aaron Judge?

1:38:16You know, he helped himself last year. He helped himself last year in that Toronto game. I know when he was down. He helped himself. There's a little of that in Judge. Yeah, there's a little of that. I got to say, I thought Clemens had it in him for a while. I thought, especially on the Red Sox, I thought in the 90s, started to go sideways on him a little bit. Clemens had some big moments later on. He won a championship for the Yankees. So a couple of championships for the Yankees. Yeah, he shed it. Now, he was on a great Yankees team, but he, 99 and 2000. So you give Clemens, but I think there's some truth to that.

1:38:53I tell you, the one guy that you're going to think I'm crazy, that I say this all the time, and the media loves him, that is, if you look at him in the postseason, he's atrocious. And that's Clayton Kershaw. Well, I mean, I think the Dodger fans, I was at the 18 inning game when he had to come in. This year? Oh, wow. The World Series game. He was lucky that 3-2 pitch, he swung at it. That was ball four. Well, that's the thing. He came in and it was a legendary game even before it went 18. And they brought him in and you could feel it in the stands, the Dodger fans. You're like, no, no, please, no, no, no.

1:39:33We don't need to add another one to his legacy here, please. 4-4, 4-4, 5 ERA in a postseason and a 2-4 ERA in a regular season. People don't like to talk about that with Kershaw, but he's a little overrated in these big games. A lot of times you don't want to, and he had a lot of terrible moments. That's just reality. People don't like to say that because everybody loves Kershaw, but that is fact. That's one of the things I really miss about whatever baseball has turned into is these start. You had one with Baumgartner, the starters that are just like, I would bet my life this guy's coming through tonight because now nobody's allowed.

1:40:10That was why the Yamamoto thing was so fun. The guy was like, wait, do we need, do you need me again? I'll come back. Let me, let me save another game for you guys. But that was so old school. Cause that's what we grew up with. I grew up with Jack Morris, just going 10 in a game seven, you know, and these guys who are like, get on my back, I got you. And that's why I kill Scuba all the time. Game five in Seattle, six innings, 98, 99 pitches. He took himself out of the game with a one nothing lead. Finnegan comes in, gives up a run in the seventh inning, and then they lose the game in the 14th inning and the Tigers season is over.

1:40:47I understand he's a free agent. And you know, Boris, who knows, He tells them, hey, your money is more important. In game five of an ALDS, and you're the best pitcher in baseball, and it's 1-0 Tigers in the sixth inning, seventh inning, stay in the game. 98 pitches, stay in the game. And A.J. Henson didn't take him out. Scoobo took himself out. You think Bob Gibson would have done that? How about Randy Johnson? You think Smokes, Schilling? How about Randy Johnson? You think Randy Johnson, who pitched many back-to-back games in the postseason, You think he's taking himself out of, how about Tom Seaver?

1:41:23You think Tom Seaver in that spot's taking him, hey, going to kill Hodges, put somebody else in? That really, really bothered me. We had that with Clemens, game 686, when he got taken out and they said he had a blister. And it was, yeah, we never know who was right. And then John McNamara died. But each guy had a different version of the story. All I know is he came out of the game. Yeah, he did. And then of course, McNamara to his grave said Clemens asked out, Clemens says not true, so who knows? But yes, that's a famous one. That's a good job, Bill. That's a famous game six. Did you ever think about if a game had swung when you really cared about the sports the most when you were a kid?

1:42:03If a game had swung, would you be different as a personality? I always feel like if the Red Sox had won game 686, I just might be a fundamentally different person. I don't even know if I'd be doing this. Do you have one of those where you're like, wow, that might have been a sliding door for me in life. That's a very good one. I think if Star doesn't sneak and get the touchdown in 67, I was a Packer fan, young kid, loved Lombardi. I think if they got stopped in that situation, I wouldn't have had the same love for Lombardi and Star and all those Packer teams. I think that's one that went in my positive direction, not the other way.

1:42:38Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did the Giants have a bad one? Yeah, 93. You're an adult at that point, though. Yeah, I'm an adult. 93 when they went 103 and 59 and the Braves went 104 and 58. The last great pennant race. Remember, 94, they had no season. And 95, they came back with wild card. Yeah. 93 was the last great American pennant race. And the Giants, who blew an eight and a half game lead, won 15 of their last 17 to get even. after they blew an eight and a half game lead, took a three and a half, fell three and a half back and got the game and tied last day of the season in game 162. And we lost 13 to one to the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium.

1:43:28And the Braves beat Colorado to win the pennant. That one, that one really pained. Well, that was like the 78 Red Sox blowing the 14 game lead, then rallying back and tying it and then losing anyway. Very similar. And the Red Sox won 99 that year and the Yankees won 100. So it was the first to 100. And that's still based on the regular season. Yeah. And the fact they battled from April 1st, that is still the most significant game I've ever seen. Red Sox, Yankees, Fenway, 78. It was very much like the regular year. Red Sox slid first half of the year, 2-0 through 6, 10 hits the home run, fell behind by Moore, and then clawed and battled and scratched.

1:44:10And then, of course, Jazz pops up a two-one in the ninth off Gossage, and they lose the game 5-4, you know? So that, to me... Penel and the Suns stabbing at a bouncing ball and gets it. Lynn hit it down there. Yeah, that game has got so much drama to it. Yom Kippur... Oh, yeah, we didn't have school that day. That was Yom Kippur. Early October of 78, 5-4 Yankees. It was a Monday, no school. and the Yankees won a championship that year. They beat the Royals and they beat the Dodgers. That game, those innings, were for the World Series, those two or three innings. That was one of the great games I've ever seen.

1:44:52You have to go to prepare to do your show soon. I had one Knicks question for you and then we can do this whenever. I'll come on your show whenever you want. Knicks are two and nine in their last 11. This was a conference that had the season parted. Halbert is out, Tatum's out. They clearly had, they're built to win this year and they're going backwards and they look miserable together. So what's going on? Yeah, well, number one, does anybody give a crap about that stupid nation, Champions Cup, whatever they called it, and the Knicks beat the Spurs and the argument was, should we put a banner up?

1:45:29Really? We're going to do something as dumb as that for a regular season tournament that nobody cares about? And now the Knicks, since that moment, in whenever it was, December, have been absolutely awful. And I was one that thought Thibodeau got a terrible deal. Dolan just woke up one day and decided he didn't want Thibodeau coaching him, coaching his team. And Leon Rose got stuck and he didn't have a list. And that's why he went to the Jason Kids of the World, because he didn't have a list. He was not prepared for it. He was scrambling. And so he got his sixth choice in Mike Brown. And I'm not knocking Mike Brown.

1:46:05But the bottom line is Thibodeau did not deserve this. And Knicks lost last night, which I did not see because I was watching the college game. But the Knicks lost last night to Dallas when they're down 28 at the half to a Maverick team that's got nobody, you know, no Davis, no Kyrie Irving, our 18-year-old kid in flag. P.J. Washington's out and so is Gafford. And the Knicks lose by 28 points to the Dallas Mavericks. And everybody played. I mean, you've got to be kidding. after they had been playing poorly. That's as bad a loss. Thibodeau never had a loss like that. They gave up 75 points in the first, 75-48.

1:46:42I mean, that's ridiculous. And I'm not blaming Mike Brown, but this, to me, Dolan deserves this. He's the one who wanted Thibodeau out. He couldn't stand looking at him anymore. Thibodeau got a terrible deal. They got beat by Indiana. Indiana was better than the Knicks. And Halpert made that incredible shot to force the first game on overtime when it bounced nine million feet in the air and somehow went in and Knicks lost the game and OT changed the whole series. I mean, I really feel, you know, that was a move that was just not fair and unnecessary. And again, I'm not trying to kill my ground, but the Knicks deserve what they get.

1:47:18And the fact that the Celtics without Tatum have been this good, give that head coach a lot of credits and Jalen Brown. That is a tremendous job. This is a year you could completely write off if you were a Celtics fan. You know what? We've had a good run. I did. I did it in the first week. I was like, we got to trade Derek White. This is going to be a bad season. Let's keep the pick. And as it turns out, what are they, about 15 games over 500? 30 and 15? Something like that? Second in net rating. They're 26 and 16. They're in the two seed. And Tatum, he had a very conspicuous workout yesterday.

1:47:52He's definitely coming back soon. So you're adding that to this. It's everything they have going. They're not going to make a trade deadline move. I think he's the deadline move. But Detroit's really good, though. I just, like, I got to shout them out. That's a really, that's an old school, tough-ass Pistons team. I got to see Detroit make baskets last six minutes of a playoff game in a close spot. Yeah. I got to see them lose. Yeah. I got to see them make some baskets, though. When games on the line in the postseason, something they could not do last year against the Knicks. Brunson made the baskets and they didn't have anybody.

1:48:27I got to see them make baskets in that kind of spot. But I agree with you. They're tough. They're physical. Cunningham's a very good player. You know, they take their personality at Bickerstaff and they're hungry. Detroit, it means something to Detroit to finish with the best record. They're hungry. They're hungry. Yeah, there's a physicality and aggressiveness to them. That's going to be great in the playoffs. And actually, honestly, bad for the Knicks because, and all the Knicks fans I know are really turning on towns now. they're like this is the guy I was terrified I was terrified we were going to get this version of this guy and now we're seeing him all right you're going to read a lot about Giannis now because the Knicks are going to be desperate and you're going to you know the bucks are bad and I know Giannis said he wants to stay there and Doc Rivers has said he's going nowhere but you're going to hear whether it's true or not by the deadline you're going to hear a lot of Giannis to the Knicks stuff whether the Knicks could ever pull off a trade like that we can hear a lot of that.

1:49:22Well, the problem is they traded all of their first round picks for the 53rd best guy in the league. I don't know if they would do that one over again. I like Bridges. He's fine, but they basically, that was their Giannis chance and they traded it for Bridges. Yeah, that was a terrible trade by Rose. Terrible trade. That was a tough one. Bridges is a decent player, but you can't give up five draft picks for a decent player. You got to give up five draft picks for a Hall of Famer and he's not a Hall of Famer. The problem is you do a trade like that. And I didn't mind the trade, but it was like, this is, you have no outs now.

1:49:53This is your team. You're going to do this. This is, you're stuck with this. And if it doesn't work, you can't get out of it. And the Knicks might be one of those teams that will be, you know, a 50-win team for the next three, four years, but always never on that top shelf. You know, sort of be a top four, top five team, which is purgatory. You got to get past the top four, top five. Getting that last jump, Bill, as you know, from, you know, pretty decent to pretty good. And then a championship level with the same group. That is very difficult. Portland never did it with Adelman. That is a very, very, and they never, you know, they had Duckworth and they had Terry Porter.

1:50:31And, you know, they never, they never were able to pull that off. How about the Suns in the 2000s? They had seven years there. Just could never get over. Yeah, they did lose to the Bulls that one year, You know, so you get a little break there. But I'd be a little worried about the Knicks. I'd be a little worried about the Knicks. And I tell you right now, Dolan deserves it after he did to Thibodeau. He deserves it to underachieve. He fired Thibodeau thinking he was going to get to the NBA final. What? You don't do that. He did not deserve that decision. And because of that, I've been down on the Knicks.

1:51:08I felt bad for him. The great Chris Russo, you can hear him on Mad Dog Radio on Sirius. Say hi to, are you doing first take tomorrow? Yes, I am. I will say hi to Steven for you. And please say hi to my guy, Schrager. Peter. Yes, of course they will. He's the animal. I think we're like his two surrogate media fathers. I know. He loves you too. Yeah, he's a big fan. I know. He grew up with us. He grew up with us. And I saw you a couple weeks ago with Kellerman. You did a great job. Oh, thank you. Well, let me know if you need me on the show. I'm here for you. I will, Bill. I'll keep in touch. Thank you, Chris.

1:51:45You got it. All right, last but not least, a year one ringer guy, Danny Kelly. You can find him on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show as well as on our website, theringer.com as well. He's also a diehard Seahawks fan. I made a horrible error in Sunday's podcast. I just want to talk it out. I feel like I've been in a really good spot with the Seattle sports fan bases. Sunday night doing a live pod on Netflix. A lot of stuff going, coming off Bears-Rams. heads spinning all these different directions and we're talking about Super Bowl matchups and I say the Seahawks never won a Super Bowl. Right, right.

1:52:23Now, you could say I'm old. I would go with brain fart because I would say I know the Seahawks won a Super Bowl. I was writing for Grantland at the time. I was doing podcasts and writing about that Super Bowl year. I thoroughly enjoyed watching them kick Peyton Manning's ass. And if I had thought about it for a split second, I would have remembered they won. But I think I brain farted and mixed them up with the Mariners. So I'm here to ask for forgiveness. Well, I appreciate it. I'm not mad. If I was mad, I would say something like the Seahawks defense, which could be counted among the best of all time, shut down the best offense the NFL has ever seen.

1:52:58That literal highest scoring offense in Peyton Manning. Most touchdown passes in a season. And the Seahawks defense completely shut them down in the Super Bowl. That's why I would say if I was mad, but I'm not mad. I understand. I also think I won money on that game. I don't know. How'd you forget that? because that would have been... I just blanked. It would have been... The Seahawks would have beaten Peyton Manning and then Tom Brady in back-to-back Super Bowl. Of course, that didn't happen. But yeah, that's what the Seahawks... I got a lot of texts about this. I know. My standard response for this stuff is it is hard to host a pod.

1:53:30You're not going to bat a thousand. Unfortunately, it's not like flying an airplane where if you have a screw-up, you're just... The plane crashes. Right, right. You can just kind of get past and save it. But yeah, I couldn't believe... I was thinking afterwards. I was like, why did I say that? What happened to my brain? But then I realized the Rams, Bears, and the Bills game probably broke my brain. I think that's fair. I've been texting with you and Mina about the Seahawks really since the summer when I was like, I like the Seahawks to win the division. We were talking about pros and cons. The season could not have worked out better.

1:54:05I think you're the one that put the electromagnetic thing next to the diner's practice field. I don't know. We got to check the security cam footage. I love this. You have that. You have the Niner season goes to hell. You have the Rams and Seahawks left. First of all, is there animosity between Rams and Seahawks fans? Is this a feud? Like, what do we have here? No, I think it's different. So there would be definite animosity between Seahawks and 49ers. No question. That is like the biggest, longest rivalry, I think, at least for the Seahawks' point of view. The Rams have always just been a really tough team for the Seahawks to play.

1:54:40I think there's some grudging mutual respect between the two teams. I don't like grudging mutual respect. I know. I know. I would say it's not as fun. I think it's the 49ers thing is just, I mean, the Seahawks fans have been in absolute heaven the last two games. They played the 49ers their last two games and absolutely annihilated them both games. So that's been incredible. I would say it's a different dynamic with the Rams, though. We hate the Rams, but it's not that primal deep-seated hatred. It's more just like we want to beat them. Got it. Well, ever since... So the season's evolving and it's like, eh, still nervous about Darnold.

1:55:15Then he's fine. Then it's time to get nervous again. Now it seems okay. The running game, frustrating all year. There was always like, why isn't Kenneth Walker doing more? And then he looks awesome in the last game. The offense got really stagnant there for about six weeks in the second half of the season. That looked like it was going to be the Achilles heel. And then they finally... I don't know, that part of it was special teams and just figuring out different ways to use Shahid, which we had been texting about. Like, just use this guy. Figure out ways to give him the football. It feels like that's going better.

1:55:51And then the defense is really good. So why wouldn't they win the Super Bowl? Give us here two things you're the most scared of, other than Sam Darnold, number one. Sam Darnold, number one. What's two and three? I've been kind of hard on Sam Darnold this year. He did lead the NFL in turnover, so that's the big one. honestly, with the other ones, you know, Charbonnet got hurt. He has a torn ACL. He's out for the year. He's been a big part of their offense in terms of the really high leverage situations where they need a yard on third down or fourth down in the red zone. He's been good in pass pro, which is important.

1:56:26Kenneth Walker's not nearly as good at pass pro, so that could be an effector. So I think that's one thing to worry about. And, you know, generally speaking, just, I think, offensively, making sure there's a spark there because there's some games where the offense just doesn't really click all that well. Yeah. I think I'm really confident in this defense. The defense is going to give them a chance to win. Yeah. But I think it's like honestly just weird stuff happening for the offense that really worries me the most. There should be a special teams advantage. Yeah. I don't, he's been such a big, I mean, he's been huge.

1:57:01He's been a huge spark on special teams. He's been a huge spark. He's kind of like the no-drama Percy Harbin for their offense where he can create explosive plays on some of these gadget plays. He's really good in special teams and kickoffs and punt returns. So he's been a huge, huge bonus for them. It's frustrating for me as a Pats fan because I thought he would have been a perfect dad. I think they probably felt Kyle Williams could do some of the Shahid stuff, at least with stretching the field, and they're good on special teams, at least for punt returns with Marcus Jones. So maybe that's why.

1:57:34But that was the trade when you made it. I was like, fuck, that's a good trade. That's kind of exactly what they need and he's perfect for them. I think there's been a little bit of consternation because they haven't incorporated him into their offense quite as much as people thought. If you look at what Clint Kubiak did with him in New Orleans last year before he got hurt, he was a huge part of that offense. He was getting deep every other play, Every other game, he was creating a big touchdown down the field. He hasn't really done that as much on offense, but he's been such a huge spark on special teams that I think people are totally happy.

1:58:06They want to keep him long-term, all that stuff. Do the Rams have the kind of defense that could take out JSN or is he just going to get his eight catches for 110 yards? I think, no, I don't think they have the shutdown defense to do that. I think, especially with what they do on play action, if they can get their run game going a little bit, They've always been really good at getting Jason behind the second level of defense when they get play action rolling. And so I'm not too worried about that. I am worried. The CX defense is really good, but they did give up like 500 yards to Matt Stafford in the last game they played.

1:58:40I think the offense is really, really good. I think just straight up McVay and Stafford is one of the scariest combinations I can think of on a football field. And Puka is really good. I just think that's kind of, you know, the big thing in this game is like, what can the Seahawks do? And the first time they met, the Seahawks pretty much shut down the Rams offense, or at least stymied them more than anybody else had to that point. And then in the second game, the Rams offense went absolutely nuclear. So I don't exactly know what we're going to expect from this game. But I think that's, in this Rams matchup, the big worry I have is not necessarily JSN or shutting them down.

1:59:14It's just, what is Stafford going to look like in this game? Yeah, especially coming off a terrible weather game that was just funky in every single respect. You must have been watching, like dying for the Bears to win that game, I'm guessing. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. Again, it's not the hatred with the 49ers. It's kind of like a healthy fear of, and again, I just don't want to play Stafford. He's so good. But a young, erratic Bears team. Yeah, I would feel a lot better. With a pretty shaky defense, not at home. Probably seemed like the perfect matchup. Yeah, I'd... I just don't think the Rams looked that good the last couple weeks.

1:59:50And I don't know how much of that was the Panthers game. You know, just weird. And I don't think the Rams played that well, but they still pulled it out. And then the Sunday night game, how cold it was in the field as though whatever. I thought it was the weirdest Puka game I've probably watched where he just didn't feel like as present as he normally does in these games. I'm guessing in Seattle. What's the weather? Do we know? Oh, that's a good question. It's cold here right now. I don't know what it's supposed to be like on Sunday, but yeah, it's been cold and clear here. So I think, you know, hopefully it'll be cold again.

2:00:24I did think that the, it's going to be like 44 on, 44 on Sunday, so it's not too cold. But I think the one thing you did notice a little bit about the Rams offense in that really cold game was it just didn't feel like they had anybody that was very explosive or fast. You know, Puka is more of a physical, you know, tough over the middle, run after the catch, that kind of player, red zone threat. And Duante, obviously, he's not super explosive at this point in his career. So that's maybe like one variable we can talk about here. It's funny you mentioned that because I was thinking, as I was watching the Bears game, thinking the Seahawks, it feels like a game you push everyone close and basically get super physical and you're not really worried about them going over the top on you.

2:01:08Yeah, yeah. Which I think you can do with the Seahawks. This is like the perfect type of team to do that with. The Seahawks have an incredible... secondary, the way that they can match up with pretty much any personnel formation with their diamond nickel packages. You know, they have Nick and Monwari, they have Devin Witherspoon, those guys play like linebackers, but can cover, you know, like safeties and corners and nickelbacks. And so it does give them a pretty unique schematic advantage. I saw this, I think, from the 49ers game the other day, the Seahawks had something like a 50 % pressure rate on a 10 % blitz rate.

2:01:44So they just get home. Yeah, that's the sign of death for an offense. Yeah, and so if they can do that against a Shanahan team, you know, I'm feeling pretty good. Like, I think all Seahawks fans right now probably feel really good about where the team is. I think you've been saying this. This is a great chance for the Seattle, especially with kind of how the season has gone. But the big bad in the NFL to me is the Rams. Like, they are the scary team. If you look at DVOA, it's Seahawks and Rams number one and number two by a mile. So this is this is a big, big matchup. And obviously there's a lot of history between these two teams.

2:02:16And McVay knows the Seahawks. And, you know, I think McDonald was probably brought in to kind of like contend with McVay. So there's a lot of cool narratives with that. So yeah, it's going to be an awesome game. So we have home teams that have blown it at home in the title games. Oh, God. Ravens, 17-10 to the Chiefs. That was two years ago. Chiefs at home to the Bengals, that goofy 2021 game where I think Mahomes got concussed at halftime and nobody would admit it. 2020 Bucs Packers in Green Bay during the Bucs run when they... That was the Brady? Yeah, the Brady run. Yeah, yeah. Then we really don't hit anything until 2018.

2:02:58Chiefs and Saints both lost at home to the Pats and Rams. And the Rams honestly should have won. And then it was like, the last one before that was 2012, Pats and Falcons both losing at home. So, you know, being at home does help. Playing a team that's played three games in a row in the road in the playoffs, I think I, like that's a, when the Bucs were able to just win four straight and I, were all four of them on the road? I can't remember. I think we had this discussion the other day. I want to say one of them was at home. Yeah, but I think the first, yeah, maybe the first one was, but just in general, it's always feels like an achievement.

2:03:34And I felt like the Rams really did look creaky the last couple of weeks. they were really lucky in that Bears game the Bears are midfield in OT with momentum and felt like they were just getting eight yards whenever they wanted I don't I still don't understand what they were doing on that play yeah the we had this discussion on after the game it was like basically we talked about the Bears for the first like 20 minutes on our show right and I think a lot of Rams fans are probably pissed about that but that was kind of the story of the game it's like man how did the Bears not like follow through with this miracle just felt like it was their destiny that they were going to win that game.

2:04:08That touchdown throw by Caleb was completely just incredible. That lost in history. Yeah, I know. It's one of those footnotes of whatever happens next. It's just like, oh yeah, remember that play by Caleb Williams that would have gone down as one of the most miraculous things I've ever seen. But yeah, the Rams are good. I think the better team won. This is kind of what we were saying too. is just like the better team did win, but they didn't look as dominant as I think I was expecting them to. They looked more mortal. A lot of that had to do with the weather. I think they're pretty banged up. Stafford hurt his hand a little bit in that game, and I think that affected his ability to throw a little bit.

2:04:47And he's old. Yeah. Before I let you go, because I promise you, I wouldn't keep you on that long, but I did want to ask you, your Pat's Broncos take. Line is back up to five and a half, directly in the Vegas zone. Jared Stidham. Yeah. starting for Denver, obviously. Pats fans feeling good. The thing I was saying to you and Mina, because everyone's like, oh, the Pats, this is going to be amazing. You're going to win the Super Bowl. You didn't play anybody. Well, first of all, the Seahawks are like the sixth best DVOA team all time. Yeah. I think since 1978. So that, I would consider that playing somebody if they played the Seahawks.

2:05:22I mean, either. Yeah, either the Rams. The Rams have been way up there too. So that's one thing. You could argue they'd be, if they played the Seahawks in the Super Bowl, if they managed to get past the Broncos, that those are the best four defenses they would have beaten all in a row? I think that matters. Chargers, Texans, Broncos, Seahawks. Is there anybody else?

2:05:45I'm sure there are, but those are the big three that I can think of. Yeah, and I think even shoehorning the Chargers in there is probably a reach, but they would probably be the number four pick. Yeah. So anything I should be scared of in this game for my team? Other than the playoff history in Denver? Yeah, well, there's that. I think obviously the defense, the Broncos defense is just really good. If weird stuff starts happening, you get turnovers on offense. That's kind of the way that I see this going. If the pass can play clean ball and not turn the ball over, I don't see how they lose this game.

2:06:24But that's kind of the variable that you can't control. That's a very tough variable on the road in Denver, you know, against a very strong defensive, very experienced playoff coach in Sean Payton. And they're going to be hunting for turnovers and trying to get Drake to cough the ball up. I think he has, what, five or six fumbles now just in the last two games. And they're going to be targeting Will Campbell. Oh, my God. Yeah. I thought it was so fascinating in that game. It felt like the Texans really had just the timing dialed of his backswing or whatever. When he was going to throw, they were just able to time to get the ball out by May.

2:07:03They had two plays where he hit it when he was putting the ball back behind his head. So they're obviously going to try and do more of that type of stuff. They'll try and drag the Patriots down into the mud and play a defensive battle. I think Stidham is one of those backups that we haven't seen him in two years in the regular season. I honestly don't even remember what he looks like. I remember there was like one game a couple years ago where he looked good and was like, Stidham, okay. And then that's all I remember. He could be, in theory, like a very poor man's version of Knicks in the sense that they could use him in some of the run game stuff that they do with Knicks, like rolling him out.

2:07:39I'm not saying he's as good as Knicks. What's the comparison for him? Is he like, is it Davis? Like best case scenario is Davis Mills? The guy who came to my mind was Drew Locke, actually. Oh, interesting. And, you know, you remember Drew Locke last year had won six touchdown games. Yeah. Like, I don't think he's good necessarily, but I think that there's some physical talent there and in the right situation, he can make some things happen. But, you know, obviously, I think... I think the line's too high. I really do. I think this is... I don't care that Stidham's the quarterback. Yeah. This is a lot to ask to go into Denver.

2:08:14What's the weather there? Against a really good defense. Yeah, I don't know what the... I haven't seen that. I haven't heard anything about, like... You know, 36 and sunny. Yeah. So it shouldn't be a huge factor. But the height, you know, the altitude is certainly a thing. The Pats fans, like, we're concentrating on the positives. Like, we put together three good touchdown drives on the Texans. Right? Which ain't nothing. Now, the other drives, I think they had two yards. Like, total. But they did put together three. and uh you know the issue especially with these road games is the drake may slow start which just seems to be part of the package for him at this stage of his career where he just it's kind of choppy for 45 minutes and then gets going and there's going to be a time and place where that doesn't fly in a playoff game where you don't get going but now i'm down 13 nothing right so um who do you trust who do you think is going to make the big play in this game you think it's Diggs.

2:09:17I think it's Ramondre. Is Ramondre he's good to go? We lost Ramondre for like an hour of that Texans game. He came back, right? Yeah, he came back. He went back into the game? Okay. Yeah. I really think Booty's good, and I love when they throw it to him. So, Sertan, I'm guessing, is going to try to just take him out, which would make Diggs the key person. But one of the things that we don't know yet, Matt Collins was massive for the Pats all season. Oh, yeah. Late in the season, he He was huge. He was big in fantasy. He really was important and he was a good run blocker. And I'm looking right now.

2:09:56We don't know for sure if he's back, but it seems like he might be. But I just felt like he had something with Drake and Drake really trusted him. Totally. And they missed him the last month. So that would be one. But, you know, and then, I don't know, just winning in Denver in my head is a tough one. Before we go, can we talk Mendoza really quick? Are you 100 % in on him as the number one pick? I think so, yes. I think he's definitely, during the season, it felt like he was getting shoehorned in as the number one just because there wasn't really anybody else. But the way that he's played during the college football playoffs, I thought, has been pretty illuminating.

2:10:33He's just got that steely drive, and he's really accurate. He throws with anticipation. He's got a little bit of athleticism. We saw that on that fourth and five where he ran the ball in on a touchdown. I like that he's tough too. He takes a couple of big hits and then he just gets up. Yeah, he like wants to get hit. He likes that physicality. If you looked at his arms after the game, his arms were just all completely beat to hell. So he really has grown on me. I think my initial impression of him was like this guy's kind of a cornball personality. He's looking directly into the camera when he's interviewing after the game.

2:11:11And I think it's like, but I think honestly now I kind of like that. I've gone the other way. I'm like, he is kind of infectiously genuine and optimistic, and I can see why his teammates love him. So, yeah, I'm kind of in on him. I think he's certainly not as physically talented as some of the other number one overall picks we've seen over the years, but I think he's got a lot of the other things you really look for at the quarterback position, like I said. He throws with anticipation. His back shoulder throws in this game were huge. He has an ability to kind of elevate this entire program that came out of nowhere the last two years.

2:11:44So yeah, I think it makes a ton of sense for the Raiders to take him. It just feels kind of locked in at this point. I like that he's super smart. And I look forward to the draft cycle of, I think people are going to start working on the tape and stuff for a couple of weeks and they're going to be like, holy shit, this guy is everything and he's smart. And then there's going to be the backlash. Is he too smart? I can't wait for that. That part of the process, that's probably like second week of March. Teams now worried Mendoza is too smart. It could be like an Andrew Luck situation. Does he take coaching?

2:12:16Yeah. Will he be coach? Could he just walk away at age 28 because he has other career options? We'll do that all week. That'll be fun. But I think it's if you're Vegas, first of all, I can't believe they wouldn't try to get an offensive coach. Like I can't even believe they're looking at. Right. I'm just trying to match somebody with him that, you know, there's been some weird hires already though. I mean, Salah was. I know. Salah was a weird one. I'm not even necessarily against it because you could argue that with the Jets he never had a quarterback so what are you going to do? But who knows?

2:12:52I think it's a strange one for me just because it's hard to understand exactly what he brought to the Jets because they were such a disaster and then he comes over to the 49ers as their defensive coordinator and they lose their top two players they're completely banged up all year and their defense wasn't very good and then the Titans decided to hire him I just, the timeline of how it went was a little strange to me. Obviously, you know, I'm not in there in the interview and see how impressive he is. I think the players, he gets the players to play hard, which is huge. Are you in? I'm in the pro McDaniel camp.

2:13:24Yeah. I've come all the way around on DJ Mike. Yeah, I would. Spinning the songs. Like if there's the Raiders teaming him up with Mendoza, it's like, fuck it. We're not going to win the Super Bowl the next couple of years. Maybe we should just put like a fucking genius with him. I know. I'm into that, honestly. I like him. I think he had the, in an exact same thing, what I was just saying was he had the, he had the dolphins playing pretty hard at the end of the season. Um, and he was, I think it was a, I don't know what the word is, but he, it was good that he benched Tua and decided to kind of like go a different direction with it.

2:13:56Um, and I don't know, it felt like to me, the dolphins rallied around him and he had them playing really hard. So I think that's like, it answers a little bit of the question of, you know, how is he in a room of, you know, alpha pros and all that stuff. Because that's always the question with him. Is he kind of a quiet guy, kind of an awkward interview? And how does the team react to this type of coach? And I think, I don't know, to me that answered at least a little bit of it, that he can get these guys going, keep them playing really hard. We know that he's really good with scheme. I would just like to see him with any other quarterback besides Tua at this point.

2:14:29I'd love to see what his offense would look like with a lot of the openings right now. I think he partly designed that offense because he had Tua who couldn't make a decision after one second, and if he got hit, was going to get knocked out of the game. So you design the offense accordingly. And, I mean, honestly, seeing him with Ashton Gentry would be incredible, I think, because he's gotten the proven production from the run game over the years. So I think that would be really fun to see what he could do with the Raiders run game. Yeah, so we'll see if he ends up being a head coach again. At the very least, if he doesn't get a head coach job, he's going to be at the top of the list for a lot of offensive coordinators.

2:15:07I like the thought of him in Vegas, too. Yeah. Listen, if the Pats can make the Super Bowl, all of these teams that suck but have a fourth-place schedule and some real draft capital, they have to think about it because we saw with Washington, we talk about this every year when we do in the previews in the summer. There's always the team. And that Vegas team was poorly coached last year and had some bad luck and they're going to have another high draft pick and they have some other stuff. They're probably going to turn Max Crosby into a couple things. Yeah. Would be my guess. Yeah. And they're in a division that maybe you don't mind being in as much as you did a year ago.

2:15:41Right. But we'll see. All right. Do you have your number one fantasy player for 2026 yet? Bijan Robinson? I don't know. Boring. It's going to be tough. It's the boring ones like Jameer Gibbs, Bijan, Jamar Chase Puka. When does Heifetz do the... It's actually Ashton Gentry. And here's why. It's actually the opposite. It's Ashton Gentry. Yeah. That'll be coming probably in like July. I'm sure he'll workshop something. I'm in that playoff, that fantasy league that goes through the playoffs that I told you about. And it's basically going to come down to, can Drake may play two more games? Yeah. As if I didn't have enough at stake with all the other things going on in life.

2:16:25Anyway, You can watch and listen to Danny Kelly on the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. He's with Craig and Heifetz. Craig's on the Rewatchables as well, premiering on Netflix next week with the video. So we're having fun. Good to see you. Good luck with the Seahawks. I'm almost definitely betting on them in some form. So be ready. And by the way, we do appreciate that you've been in the corner of the Sonics this whole time. Listen, as long as I'm back and as long as my live Rewatchables in Seattle at some point in 2026 will not be awkward for everybody. I think we're fine. I think we walked through this.

2:16:58All right. Good to see you, DK. All right. You too. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mahoney and Mad Dog. Thanks to Danny Kelly. I apologize again to the city of Seattle and all the Seahawks fans. Thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well. Don't forget, new rewatchables is up. Just one of the guys. Another one coming Wednesday. Another 48 hours. And again, February 11th will turn Los Angeles. if you like the rewatchables and Michael Mann movies, I would strongly consider going to this. I will see you on Thursday with some playoff picks, some football, maybe some basketball too. Go Pats.

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