Winning QBs and Football Nerds With Mina Kimes, Plus Robert Redford’s Incredible Career With Brian Koppelman

20:23Like, of course, Tom Brady gets allowed to do it. I don't think the actual substance of it is that bad.

20:28Bill Simmons:I agree with you. I remember I did, I announced the Lakers game when Mike D 'Antoni was the coach. And it's not like he was telling us a lot, but what you do get is the vibe of the coach about his team because they feel more comfortable, right? You're coming into their space. And his team wasn't good. He couldn't have been more candid about that off the record. So you just kind of absorb that and be like, he doesn't think his team's very good. But then if they mention a player, like I'm really excited about this guy. He's made big strides. You're like, okay, you file that away. And then when you're talking about the game, you're like, Mike.

21:02Bill Simmons:And that's how you hear that. When we talked to Mike before, he told us he really liked how so-and-so was playing. You're not getting, they might tell you one thing. Like Collinsworth will be like, they told us they were going to try that before the game, right? Some sort of double pass or something. Yeah, right. Other than that, they're not giving you a game strategy. Like we think we can throw in the Chargers over the middle. They're never telling an announcer that. How often does they really like this guy from the summer? Like pan out? Right. Well, with the Pats with Booty, they were doing that all summer.

21:36Bill Simmons:And then, yeah, then he actually like they throw to him and he makes plays. So that wasn't a lie. Yeah, they kept telling me, not anyone in the Patriots, but my friends who cover that team kept saying he's the X receiver in this offense. And I was really skeptical of it. But through two weeks, he definitely looks like the X receiver. I thought he caught like a back shoulder ball in this last game was really impressive. Well, the thing with him was he was a first round pick for a while. And then he had some off the field stuff and it knocked him down. And a lot of times in football, those guys, somebody takes a flyer on them.

22:10Bill Simmons:You keep your fingers crossed. then there's like the Jalen Carter situation where they just fall a couple picks. But for the most part, it's a Jack Jones thing where the guy starts just bouncing around. But they actually seem like they might have looked out with him. All right. So we both agree, not a big deal, this Tom Brady thing. Yeah. I get why people don't like it. I just am not that worked up about the competitive part of it. How excited can I be for Drake May right now? Two games in the season on a scale of one to 10. Did we make it 20 minutes before you brought up? We're going to do a break.

22:41Bill Simmons:I thought this would be a quick appetizer for the bigger topic we have. He looked really good this weekend. The Miami Dolphins tax, or I guess benefit, whatever the opposite of a tax is, is real. That defense is god-awful. Yeah, they can pass rush on third and eight. That's about it. It's weird how bad the pass rush is, because that was supposed to be the good part of the team, right? We knew that they had a horrible secondary, but the pass rush was supposed to be good. he made some really impressive throws in this game the throw to Stevenson on third down one of the best throws of his career on the money by the way amazing catch too I was really encouraged watching the offense just like as a whole not just May because I felt like week one against the Raiders it didn't feel like they didn't quite have an identity and they weren't Josh McDaniels right and him kind of feeling each other out it was I thought too much on May's shoulders This one, it felt like, okay, we're really building the play action passing attack down.

23:43We've got the power running game that has been kind of McDaniel's hallmark. And May was hitting almost everything off of it. So I think that marriage is going to be key to whether or not this works out. I am lower on the Pats than you. I think that pass defense is pretty concerning to me. Well, we don't have all our guys yet, Mina. Yeah, no Christian Gonzalez is pretty massive.

24:04Bill Simmons:Not only no Christian Gonzalez, no word on Christian Gonzalez. What's up with that? I don't know. That one snuck up on me. I didn't even know. The season started and it was like Christian Gonzalez isn't playing. Is he in Massachusetts? Is he in America? Where is he? He got hurt in the end of July. Yeah. But that's, we've seen some cornerbacks go down this year. I mean, the Bears, the Bears are in a situation right now. It's still going. All right. We're going to take a quick break and then have a big QB thing for you. Love it. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Football Fans.

24:36Bill Simmons:Every NFL Thursday is your chance to hit the jackpot on FanDuel because with FanDuel's Thursday touchdown jackpot, you can win a share of$2 million of bonus bets this week. Get in on Thursday. I have to use places in any time touchdown score bet before the game, before the Dolphins and Bills kick off. And if your player scores the first or last three of the game, you'll win your bet plus a share of bonus bets. I almost hit this last week. I gave you Tucker Craft. He did score. and then there was a touchdown right after and I missed it. I'm giving you James Cook this week. I liked how he looked against the Jets.

25:08Bill Simmons:He looks super fast. Miami, especially getting maybe the cheap touchdown to cement the game when it's 38 to 10 Buffalo. James Cook is my pick. This Thursday, any play can be your play of the game with Fandle. Fandle.com slash BS for your chance to win a share of$2 million of bonus bets. Play your game with Fandle, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Must be 21 plus president select states are 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt in, must apply profit boost token on select market price pool to be split equally among all eligible participants who made the correct first or last TD pick.

25:42Bill Simmons:Bonus issued as non-rejawable bonus bet. Which expires 21 days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandle.com. Get in a problem call, 1-800-GAMBLER. Visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket. My friend, NFL Sundays are back. You won't want to miss the action. NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, another friend of mine, lets you catch every game every Sunday all in one place. And now, get NFL Sunday Ticket month to month and cancel anytime. Head to youtube.com slash BS and sign up now.

26:23Bill Simmons:Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games excludes digital-only games and commercial use. If you cancel YouTube TV, you will lose access to NFL Sunday ticket. Terms of bargoes, device and content restrictions apply. Commercial use excluded. Renews every month during the 2025 regular season. Cancel anytime. All right, QB appetizer question. Why can't we admit that Josh and Lamar are the two best regular season quarterbacks that we have? Why are we still holding onto this Mahomes thing when it's three long balls over people's heads and they're scoring 21 points a game now for this will be year three?

26:54I think with Mahomes, it feels like trying to catch a falling knife. where nobody wants to just completely miss it, right? The timing of it. And also, it is so obvious that his circumstances are so much worse. I know he overthrew a couple deep balls, and he has not been connecting that way. Well, the thing about deep balls, though, it requires a lot. Pass protection has to hold up. The guy has to be in the right place. He's throwing it. Bill, it's Taequann Thornton is their number one deep threat.

27:33Bill Simmons:They have two guys we waived. Yeah, so there's your answer. It's Taequann Thornton. I mean, it's just... Josh and Lamar are the two best quarterbacks in football right now. I don't disagree with you. I'm just trying to answer your question. Those guys both have dominant rushing attacks and really good offensive lines. And they don't have world beaters, but they have good pass-catching options. I mean, Mahomes is like, where would you rank his situation right now as a quarterback around the NFL? Everything. Run game, offensive line, skill players. I know, but Brady was in this situation six years in his career, in his prime.

28:10Bill Simmons:There it is. It's true. We had the famous Rache Caldwell year. Rache Caldwell, Jabbar Gaffney with Benjamin Watson as the tight end. Like it was, that was the worst. We almost won the Super Bowl that year with that. Caldwell's the one who had a weird crime, right? Am I misremembering that? Yeah, very possible. Well, his big crime was the AFC title game for Pat's fans. Okay. But it was bad last year and he went to the goddamn Super Bowl. That's why nobody wants to call it on Mahomes. Because last year we were calling it and he freaking beat the end. I just think there's two different conversations.

28:51Bill Simmons:One is who would you want for one game or one quarter? And then one is, who would you want for a season? And at this point, he's just, I don't even, I mean, it's Allen and Lamar for MVP. And Jordan Love if they win 14 to 15 games. Herbert is like a dark horse now. But I don't see a scenario Mahomes is going to be in that conversation with the team he has. If they, do you, does any part of you believe if Mahomes was on those other two teams that those offenses wouldn't be dominant? it. Well, so this is a great question because this is one of my MVP things that I do for NBA, where if you just flip the guys, what happens?

29:29Bill Simmons:If Allen was on the Chiefs, they would not be worse. I'll just say that. And I think there's some stuff that would happen, at least for the regular season, they would not be worse. Lamar is an interesting one because they have this amazing running situation with the line and with Henry. I think they know what their offense is with him completely so if you just like transferred that I think it would be a little clumsy but I just think Josh is the best guy in the league and this is why I picked him in the Super Bowl I can't believe I bet against him last week with the fucking Jets I'm still mad at myself but I think he's going to get one not to do like shitty sports content but I just think he's going to get one he's too good it's like Jokic Giannis in the NBA Like, I don't see how he doesn't win a Super Bowl at some point.

30:20I think the Bills and the Ravens are just so in a tier on their own right now. And the AFC. So you could pick either of those guys and it would be completely believable to me. I just think with the Holmes, like, okay, so the other question I ask, who's got it worse? Who's got it worse? Which one? A quarterback. Tell me which quarterback is in a worse situation right now in terms of like the infrastructure around them.

30:43Bill Simmons:But as part of that infrastructure, though, you have to count in. I've had the same offense for eight years. I've had the same coaching situation and the same everything. Like, that matters a little bit. There's some sort of stability with it. Is the run game good? I mean, I would not slander Andy Reid. He is still one of the best coaches in the NFL. But, like, let me kind of dumb it down. Is there an offense that's less pleasant to watch right now? No. Only the Eagles, just because the Eagles actually have some talent. It's funny, though, that he's replicating this weird stretch of Brady's career where he was so good that they just felt like they could throw away the talent at all these seemingly important offensive positions.

31:28Bill Simmons:And their running backs are terrible. There's not a single running back that you think can even bust a 10-yard run at this point. If I had to criticize them for a roster perspective, that's the one thing that jumps out to me. because, you know, we can't kind of talk about both sides of our mouth, pardon me, and criticize the Bengals for not investing at all in their offensive line and paying these two great receivers. But then also say, well, the Chiefs chose to focus on the trenches and not receiver and not their skill players. You know, it's a different strategy. The running back thing, though, to me, like, you can find a cool running back in the fifth round, right?

32:05Like, why not try harder in the mid-rounds? I would have drafted someone. I don't know. It looks, the whole run game right now looks so bad.

32:16Bill Simmons:Well, he's at an interesting point in his career because, you know, I do think he's been passed by those guys, at least from a week to week, just when you're watching football. He just seems like he's less impactful than some of these other guys and more in that like Jordan Love area, which for somebody that we were saying had a chance to be the best guy of all time. lost a little momentum. So I'm just, I'm monitoring it. Anyway, how many 2025 QBs in your mind can conceivably win a 2025 playoff game? And Mahomes is definitely one of them. And so is Alan Lamar. And so is Jalen Hurts, who just won the Super Bowl.

32:56Bill Simmons:And so is, I think Jordan Love has to be there just because his team's so good. I'd be shocked if they didn't win a playoff game. So there's five. Would you still put Stafford on the list from what you've seen from him physically? Oh my God, yes. Oh, he is like making some of the best throws of any quarterback early on. He looks unbelievable. I have him as well. There's six. Goff has to be on there because he's won playoff games. Ironically, Mayfield is 100 % on there. And you saw again last night, like not only has he won playoff games, not only has that team been successful, but, you know, they'd go down five with two minutes left.

33:33Bill Simmons:I'm like, I feel like they're going to win. I just, I believe in that dude. Right. He pulls up that big fourth and 10, but it's crazy that that guy got waived twice. I know. And is now as reliable. You must love him. I love watching him. I love watching that offense. I mean, the combination of backs, Bucky Irving and Rashad White, they basically salted that thing away. And behind, you know, they had like a center playing left tackle. They lost the right tackle going up against one of the best defenses in all of football. And they were grinding them down, Irving in the catch game as well. But yeah, I think Bayfield's definitely in that category.

34:08Jane Daniels? Did you mention them already?

34:10Bill Simmons:Yeah, the next two I had were Purdy and Daniels just because they'd both done it. So there's nine. There's nine guys we think can conceivably win a 2025 playoff game. Now the fun part starts. Justin Herbert. Well, you left out Dak. I would put Dak in there too. I didn't get to him yet. Oh, so sorry. Justin Herbert. That was one tier. Now we're in the debate tier. Okay. It's the debate tier. Justin Herbert. 100 % yes I think I have him too 100 % I mean this was a sidebar question but he's now the most polarizing quarterback of this decade I think Dak had the title for a couple years and now Herbert just has it because people are so passionate about it you think because I feel like that week one against Kansas City was such a strong showing he was so good in that game it felt like if it was 60 pro 40 ante anti-Herbert.

35:07I feel like it moved to 70-30 after that game.

35:10Bill Simmons:Well, because there's the potential camp and the IC things that once this team is better, and then there's just like the results camp, which is where I was more in. It's like, okay, well, if he's one of the seven best guys in the league, can he win a playoff game? Can he do this consistently? Let's see it. Let's see him win 12 games. Yesterday, he's awesome for two and a half quarters. and then he kind of slipped back into the other Justin Herbert for the fourth quarter and did some weird stuff, had some bad throws, should have gotten picked once. Kept trying to have the Raiders hang around in that game and I was like, man, you had us.

35:49Yeah, they kind of chargers a little bit in that one.

35:53Bill Simmons:Yeah, they did. But I think the defense is so good that there's like a floor for this team right now. Yeah, I agree. I also like the way he's playing this year. He's scrambling way more. He's a little feistier out there. He's... Herbert's a no-doubter for me. Can win a playoff game. I think he's won me over, at least for winning one playoff game. Dak Prescott, who's never won a playoff game? Has he won a playoff game? Yeah, he did. He put up one of the... He destroyed the books in the wildcard round. I was there that year. That's right. He's won a wildcard game. He's never gotten past round one, though, right?

36:29No. I think that's what it is. Yeah, he's never gotten past that. I have him on the list. So there's, now it gets really interesting.

36:38Bill Simmons:42-year-old Aaron Rodgers. I don't think so. I'm out as well. I think it's just a no. Did you see what he looked like when they're, well, of course you did. It was your team. Yeah. When they were actually pressuring him, it was not good. So there's, he still is capable of making some of the most impressive throws off platform. You'll see, right? Like, and you see them kind of go viral the next week. But the consistency when he has to hold the ball for more than two and a half seconds is simply not there. It's just... I will say he's moving a little better than I was expecting this season. I think he looks better this year than last year.

37:20Bill Simmons:There's no question. He made some really impressive throws on the run in this game. But for me, when I say I don't see them winning a playoff game, it's about the team. It's not just Aaron. So if you have a quarterback who's... He can still make some really impressive throws. He's still really good on quick games. We saw that in week one against what looks like a pretty bad Jets defense. Okay, you can win that way, but you got to be able to run the football. You need more than one playmaker and you need a good defense. And holy smokes, that defense looks really bad the first two weeks, which is kind of shocking.

37:50Bill Simmons:Yeah, and Heisman, sorry to hear it. But, you know, it's not, it's shocking, but it's also not shocking because the seeds were being planted last year down the stretch, right? Yeah, they got spanked by the Ravens. Remember that? All of a sudden they just died and Watt didn't get a sack for like the last month plus of the season. I mean, your beloved Seattle Seahawks just ran all over them in that game. Kenneth Walker looked incredible. Walker was great. There's just going to be no way to figure out who's going to be good game to game between Walker and Charbonnet though. All right. If you're juggling those guys in fantasy, good luck.

38:24Bill Simmons:Good luck. Charbonnet was terrible in Pittsburgh and he'll probably have 120 yards in this next game. All right, Rodgers, we're out. Gympie Joe Burrow coming off a major turf toe injury on a Bengals team that probably is in winning nine games. I think he's a cross-off just for this year. Yeah. All right, now it gets really interesting. Can Bo Nix win a playoff game? Oh, this is the one I was dreading. I think he is, you talked about Herbert, but I think he's going to be the most divisive quarterback, maybe for like... It's already happening. It's happening, yeah. Yeah, he took the torch. He looked better.

38:59Bill Simmons:I have a lot of Broncos capital for this year. Do you? I'm officially nervous. Yeah. He looked better, I thought, in week two. Better from a guy that had four turnovers in week one. Yeah. I do worry. The premise for the Broncos for me this year being really good was the defense would continue to be elite, and then they would be able to really run the ball better behind a great offensive line. They invest a lot in it. It looks okay early on, But it feels like there's still a ceiling on the offense. And so you really need the defense to avoid regression. And they just got carved up by Danny Dimes.

39:36Bill Simmons:Shocking. That was stunning to me. Although, shocking. But on the other hand, we talked about Tyler Warren earlier and how he's just immediately good. Taylor looks like, I think, maybe the best he's ever looked. He just looks the fastest, the shiftiest, just everything. And you really saw like the weakness. He really exposed, I thought the weakness of the Broncos defense, which is the linebacker unit. Ray Greenlaw has him playing because they got him on those backers vertically. And like one of my it's I think it's too early to take a Daniel Jones victory lap. Not me for people who are supporters of him.

40:17but it's not too early for me to take a nail on being very skeptical of why the Colts it wasn't about weight Richardson for me it was I thought well there's clearly a ceiling on this offense with Danny Dimes like you really as a Colts fan you want to go into the season and I think Shane Steichen looked at him and saw a quarterback who actually execute his offense and his offense is really good he's a really good play caller so that even if I think Jones is going to come to earth a little bit, particularly on the downfield stuff and under pressure. But he can just run that offense. Is he on this list, by the way?

40:51Are we going to get to him? Because...

40:53Bill Simmons:He is on the list. Yes? Well, he did already win a playoff game. True, and he looked worse that year to me. It's so funny because nobody wanted to pick Houston to win the AFC South, right? We're all doing the three-in-three out rule. I need to get a couple playoff teams out, put a couple in. and we all stared at Indianapolis. I remember I was listening to Nate and Shield did a pod and they talked about it. And I was just like, I have my train ticket thinking about this and I couldn't get there because of Jones. But when you think like they can block for him, he's got a good coordinator. They have actual weapons.

41:34Bill Simmons:And I would say they have one of the three or four best running backs. And Warren might be a top five tight end already or top six, top seven, whatever. He's at least somebody on third and four. He can get up and make a play. I don't know. I mean, they're the favorites in the division now, especially after Houston goes 0-2. And Houston's line looked like, who has a worse line than Houston? Three teams? It's just so depressing to watch because it just feels like last year all over again. Yeah. And it turns out taking offensive linemen from bad offensive lines in free agency isn't a good strategy for rebuilding.

42:13Yeah, I think AFC South is going to be pretty close. I think the other thing about the Colts that I like, though, is I like the defense. I know that they gave up some big plays to Bo Nix, but I think Lou Anaruma was the wrong coach for the Bengals. He might be the right coach for a defense that has more veterans, and that's what Indianapolis is.

42:34Bill Simmons:Yeah, I said on Sunday night, after the Saints going 2-0 last year, we got like, whoa, look at this. And then it could be the rabbit team this year that just jumps out. I also thought they should have lost to Denver and they did lose. And for some reason there was a weird leverage play. So if they're one and one, are we as excited? Probably not. CJ Stroud, I do not think we'll win a playoff game at least this year with that offensive line. I don't see a path. Yeah, I don't either. Even if they sneak in, I don't see it. it is it was interesting to watch him last night too in contrast with the bucks offense because right because the bucks offense also like they had makeshift offensive line and the texans defensive line was just they were just completely destroying them on the line of scrimmage but baker thought did a good job getting the ball quickly they like schemed up a lot of successful screens and then the run game was still good and it feels like stroud has no easy buttons and i'm not completely exonerating him on some of the pressure stuff and their situations where he's probably holding the ball too long.

43:37But like what does everything he has has does in this offense have to be like the hardest possible setting at all times. It's just feels exactly like last year. Good point.

43:47Bill Simmons:Yeah, it's it's like the all time feast or famine. Like how about just an eight yard pass to somebody? I have no for Stroud. I'm not going to say no for your guy, Sam Darnold, because I still like that Seattle team. And I'm probably in the all-time minority. And I'm sure on your Seahawks text thread, you're not nearly as excited. But I think I like the team. I think they can run the ball. He's a roller coaster, but you've had that for the last decade anyway. So it's not anything different. And I don't mind the defense. Don't mind. They're awesome. Yeah. I think this is one of the five best defenses in football.

44:23I hope you're right.

44:25Bill Simmons:That's what I was banking on when I picked them to win the NFC West. but I don't mind how the defense looked of the, the first week against the Niners. I thought there were a couple of stops. Maybe you got to get that. They didn't get, but they were better in the Pittsburgh game. Yeah. I, this is a really tough one for me because I'm, I am still a little apprehensive of this passing attack. It looked better against Pittsburgh, but you have an amazing receiver. One. You've one amazing receiver. Uh, Jake Bobo. No, I'm just kidding. Jackson Smith. Yeah. He's unbelievable. Um, A cup was good against the Steelers, but I don't know if there's enough.

45:02The premise of this Seahawks offense under Clint Kubiak is they're going to come out with big bodies. They got a tight end or a fullback who's built like SpongeBob, multiple tight ends, and they're going to pound the rock and then they're going to play action off of that wide zone run game. And they're going to put Sam Darnold under center. And when it works, it looks really good. And at times against the Steelers, it worked, but did not look good week one. So I think it's going to be up and down based on competition. it's going to be on the defense is going to have to carry them in a lot of these.

45:31Bill Simmons:Here's their path for a Sam Darnold playoff win. You have to win the division and you win the 4-5 game. The five seed would be Detroit? I don't see that. I'm skeptical. I would love it. Sam Darnold just seems like a delight. I would love for him to have success. Penix? I don't see it it's nice that they got a pass rush going though I kind of like the team I wouldn't rule it out I just think the Bucs are better and I don't see them as a wild you know what I mean I just think the Bucs are going to win the NFC South okay and then we go Drake May, Kyler, Geno Caleb Williams, we're going no on all those guys no on May, so you're out I think he can make the playoffs I don't think they're beating Buffalo or Baltimore in round one.

46:27Bill Simmons:They could be a seven seed. They're not going to Buffalo and winning in mid-January. Dimes is the only one out of everybody else we mentioned. I was like, shit, maybe, I don't know. They could be the four seed. Yeah, I think I might be a conceivable yes. It still seems inconceivable, but. I really, like, I am not, I do not think this is going to continue at this rate. No. But I was just looking at this for NFL Live. He's completing 78 % of his short passes, which is top five. Anthony Richardson completed the lowest by a lot. He was the only quarterback in the NFL last year completing less than 60 % of his short passes.

47:10Bill Simmons:Right. That, to me, is sustainable. Like, Daniel Jones, he's always hit those. And when you've got a bunch of, like, mutant skill players, like Warren and Taylor, and they've got a really good group of receivers, and I love Josh Downs. Yeah, they can be efficient on offense. Line looks good. I'm a believer. Well, they have at the Titans this week. That has all the makings of just Vegas getting annihilated. At the Rams, then home Raiders, home Cardinals. It's like not an inconceivable five and one after six games for them, which is kind of bonkers to think about. Okay, a couple more things before we go.

47:54Bill Simmons:The NFC West, what's happening there? We talked about the Seahawks a little, but what's going on? Is this going to be the wonky division this year? Almost like last year, every week it seems like somebody's the favorite and then somebody loses and then it's a new favorite. That's just what we're going to do? Three 2-0 teams right now in the NFC West. They must be the only division in football. Let's see. They're the only division. And then the CX are one-on-one, and they played the Niners a week one. So, yeah, I think I felt before the year that this was like the closest-knit division, right? Where like all four teams were pretty close.

48:31And I definitely still feel that way. I think early on, Matthew Stafford kind of has reminded us that he's still cut above. And that offense, to me, has a higher ceiling than all four of them. but when you look at the teams as a whole, I could see it coming down to the wire between all of them because the Seahawks have the best defense. The Niners are probably the most balanced but then there's the Purdy injury.

48:57Bill Simmons:But have the least depth and already had multiple injuries. And I don't know, the Cardinals are really hard for me to get my arms around because Kyler is like one of the more high-variance quarterbacks in football. Like there's moments where he looks to me unbelievable and he makes Marvin Harrison Jr. look good early on But then there's stretches where he's just not playing to the level he's capable of. Well, on Fandle right now, the Niners are plus 155. The Rams are plus 170. The Cardinals are plus 350. And then Seattle's 8-1, which I just don't fundamentally understand. Because I agree with you.

49:32Bill Simmons:I think those teams are all bunched together. A lot of it's going to come down to injury luck. You know there's going to be three or four absolutely stupid games between two of the teams, right? We're going to have like a 19-18 scorigami, some sort of field goal hitting both uprights before it goes through. Like, he's just no weird shit's going to happen. But I think it's anybody's division. So the 8-1 was really surprising to me. If they all played each other, like in every matchup, I don't think any of them would have more than a score. They'd probably all be like 4.3 points or less. Right. So yeah, I mean, to me, it's just going to come down to matchups and injuries for all of them.

50:13The Niners, I mean, that's just a reflection of the schedule being so easy, right? But they didn't look like world beaters. I mean, they'd look better in Seattle. Obviously, they won that game, particularly on offense. And the defense looks somewhat fixed under Robert Sala.

50:26Bill Simmons:I think you win that game if you just go for the fourth down. And McDonald's saying afterwards that the nerds told him to go for it, and he kind of overruled them. I know. I was surprised by that. I was too, because I really like him. I'm a big fan of him, and I thought he was really good at game management last year. I was surprised by that. Sometimes, you know, when these defensive coaches get an elite defense on their hands, they start... They over-trust it? Yeah. But yeah, I don't think he'll... I think next time, he'll probably... He was more aggressive in this last game, too. Speaking of division odds, this would be your overreaction.

51:06Bill Simmons:This happens every year heading into Week 3. Colts are plus 135 on FanDuel. Jags are 2-1, and the Texans are down to plus 250. It feels a little overreacting. We're 15 games left. Like, they still have the best secondary probably in the league. They still have a pass rush. Pass rush is unbelievable. They have the best. I still think they might have the best defense in the NFL. They might have just lost to two playoff teams, the Rams and Tampa, who might be the third and fourth best teams in the NFC for all we know. I don't know. That feels like an overreaction to me. The 0-2 thing is hard. I mean, the Rams did it, right?

51:43But it's hard to dig your... Every year someone does it. Every year someone does it. I think that does. I agree. I think that feels, especially compared to the Jags.

51:51Bill Simmons:Well, you sound... If I'm reading between the lines of you on this podcast today, but also text with you and Danny Kelly, I'm going to say there's like a cautious buzz right now in Seahawks Nation. Just like a little... You were so high on them this summer. just somebody's got to win the division. I, I, I just, they seem like the safest pick to me. Everybody was talking about the Arizona Cardinals and I'm like, what have they ever done? I have to pick Kyla Murray. Why do I have to do that? I feel like your Seahawks enthusiasm, like reverse psychology, me, psychologize me into being, I'm learning a lot about this as the mother of a two-year-old, which is you can't sell someone too hard on something because it makes them not want it.

52:36And I feel like you did that to me a little bit with your Seahawks type this offseason.

52:40Bill Simmons:How old is your child exactly? He turns two in two weeks. Oh, good luck, man. That is just... Good luck. Two-year-old boys, just demons. Yeah. Good luck. I wish you the best. That's going to be during football season? Oh, my God. No, it's great. I love being told no. No, no, no, no, no. is the most popular word in our house right now. Just constantly. I wish you the best. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory.

53:26Bill Simmons:Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady calculated money moves. and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association member, FDIC. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. Did you know you can use TikTok to connect even more with the sports you love? It's not just highlights, it's everything around the game, including the sports community. Find breakdowns of classic basketball plays, deep dives on baseball stats, even videos on how athletes train and recover.

54:07Bill Simmons:There are people teaching strategy, sports, history, even ways to improve your jump shot. It's kind of like the biggest locker room ever and everyone's sharing what they know on TikTok. Hey, I'm a big fan of FanDuel's Thursday touchdown jackpot promo available for every Thursday night football game. Just place a$5 anytime bet on the game using the promo profit boost token. We call it a PBT. You can win a share of the$2 million in bonus bets Fandul is giving away if your player scores the first TD or the last TDs. Plus, you can win your bet. If your player scores the first TD, split a million dollars in bonus bets with everyone that bet the same player.

54:42Bill Simmons:There's another$1 million jackpot for the last TD score. And again, I almost hit this last week. I had Tucker Craft. He did score, but he didn't score the first or last. I'm giving out James Cook of the Buffalo Bills for this week. So be sure to check out the TD jackpot promo for Thursday Night Football this week in each subsequent Thursday. over at Fanduos Sportsbook. All right, last question and most important, some huge Jaden Daniels news. And...

55:14Bill Simmons:What's the deal? Just walk us through your emotions here. Not the injury. Yeah. Oh.

55:24Forget the injury.

55:25Bill Simmons:He'll be fine. The other news. You had me queued up. I was like, he took 206 instances of contact last year in the open field. He's just too vulnerable. I'm already on that. I've been saying that to house forever. uh well the big jane daniels news which is that he is one eighth japanese which he broke which is important so this is not my uh contingent uh yeah he put it on his helmet he wore it because they read the little flags it put the japanese flag on his helmet and then say his grandmother was yeah japanese or half japanese his grand great grandmother is japanese so his grandmother is half Japanese, so his mom is a quarter, so he's an eighth.

56:11I think I did the math right. But I did a deep dive, Bill. I scrolled back on his mom's Instagram eight years and found several pictures. His grandmother just looks like my relative.

56:24Listen, I said to Dominique when the news broke, it was a big piece of breaking news in my community, any quarterback with a QBR of 90 or higher will take anything. You can be one 24th Korean, and we will claim you if you're performing the way Jane Daniels does. But another piece of news broke. Cameron Dicker, the Chargers kicker, who's like really good. Chinese. Saw that. There was a graphic that came across my sources.

56:54Bill Simmons:What's the percentage? Graphic doesn't break it down. So I'll have to do another deep dive in there. I think you needed Daniels, because I know Chang was really upset about Ku. I know. Kind of falling apart in Atlanta. We needed a kicker, so we got one now. So what was Heinz Ward? He was Thai, right? No, he was Korean. Korean? Yeah. This was a big deal for me growing up. He was way more than Jaden Daniels. I'm pretty sure he was 50 % if I remember. And he took it really seriously. We got a good squad going. I did the whole list. I might have to update the roster. We're very strong. roster. Yeah, I put together a whole roster.

57:38We're very strong. We're surprisingly strong at skill player because we got Puka. It's AANHPI because we need all the PIs in the trenches that we can get. The whole offensive line is basically P. Although the Broncos Center is part Korean. I think I found it recently. It's a golden age for Asian safeties led, of course, by our king Kyle Hamilton. I forgot. But there's like 10 right now around the league. Safeties. You're right. For some reason. I don't know why. Wow. We're pretty thin at tight end. If anyone's listening to this and knows any tight end who has even just a little bit, please alert me because we really need tight end.

58:17Bill Simmons:I honestly, if this was a Twitter account, I would follow it. Like monitoring the... Breaking news. We need like an aggregator account that only does that. Like a dove climbing but not evil account that just reports on Asian NFL news. Yeah, I don't feel like Chang's been focused enough on it at all, to be honest. I know he's busy. The Netflix show came back. You and I were on it a couple weeks ago. He's traveling around with Amazon. He's already been knocked out of my guillotine league. He's very upset about that. But I don't feel like he's been focused enough on this Dana thing because that's his favorite team.

58:58I know. I sent it to him. I expected a way bigger reaction than the what we did. Yeah, I don't know what's going on.

59:04Bill Simmons:Maybe he's slow playing it. Maybe it's too much pressure now because it's like kind of crossed the beams for him with two different areas of interest. This is like, I don't, I don't know if you do this. We've never talked about it. I don't draft Seahawks in fantasy for this exact reason, which is you don't want two feelings of loyalty and incentive at the same time. Do you do that? I'm the opposite. I like I have Travion Henderson in multiple leagues. Meanwhile, meanwhile, I can't block. Yeah. I was promised a pass blocker. I was promised this awesome pass blocker that then could play three downs.

59:39Bill Simmons:And he had three holding penalties last week. Yeah. Pretty rough. Dave might also be so reeling from your bold anti-rice take. It got a big reaction. It wasn't anti-rice. It was pro-pasta. It was, you can't rate anything highly that you can make in one minute. I just said you can't make pasta in one minute. Listen, my goal on that show is just to try to throw Chang off. So he is thinking he's mad about something I said, and then he forgets what he's cooking. But you did the amazing thing of you go on dinnertime live three hours after you had lunch. Yeah, that was insane. And then I'm the one who has to do all the eating.

1:00:21Bill Simmons:And you're just like picking like a little bird because you're not hungry. And you're not a big eater too. too. I have seen you. I don't want to be like mowing down on live TV. So there is something you're very self-conscious on those shows because you want to eat and it's really good, but you also don't want to seem like you're in Goodfellas. You know what happened to me on that show? I didn't, I don't know if I told you this. So early Dave started making all this green food and he made mandu, which I grew up eating. And you remember, I was like, yeah, I grew up making this with my mom or whatever.

1:00:51He puts it out. I swear I'm not blaming Chang, but I immediately shove it into my mouth and it was I burned my entire mouth so I could actually barely taste anything and then but my thought is like I can't spit out food on television so for a full like minute I was just sitting there trying hoping it would cool inside of my mouth because it was so hot and my mouth was burned I don't think I could feel anything in my mouth for like three days

1:01:16Bill Simmons:after that yeah that's rough when you really burn it when you just have like skin hanging from the top of your mouth. What's your favorite TV show right now? Loving Task, your recommendation. Chris Ryan was over at my house talking about how good it was, so I had to watch it. I'm loving it. Great. You guys are recapping it? That's it? I'm watching The Girlfriend on Amazon with Robin Wright. That is so yours. The algorithm knows me. It's like there's somebody's son, her son's dating somebody she doesn't trust or like, and there's backstories. and all these shows start with a murder now. The first thing you see is a dead body and blood and then we go backwards.

1:01:57Doesn't that show start that way? I feel like. Yeah, that's how they start.

1:01:59Bill Simmons:That's the algorithm tells them to do it. A show that actually did kind of start that way, but in a different way that I love, Alien Earth. Are you watching that on FX? Not watching that. It's good. It's a show. I mean, it's Noah Hawley who did Fargo, which I loved also. Apparently it's like the best at taking source material and turning it into television. it's you know it's about these children or hybrids or whatever but really it's two actors Timothy Olyphant is one of them and then the other I forget the actor's name but his character's name is Morrow who are just running away with this series both a cyborg and a synth or whatnot every scene with them I can't believe you're not watching this because you would love the Timothy Olyphant scenes in this show I'll watch it I love Olyphant the football really threw me for a loop I either have to watch a show like Task where I'm all in on or a really dumb show like The Girlfriend.

1:02:52Yeah.

1:02:53Bill Simmons:And those are my two speeds at this point. Task on Sundays is tough. I got to be honest. I know you're still watching some of these reality shows. I'm having a really hard time with reality, and I don't know whether I'm just too old now. I might have aged out of the demo. I might be edging towards CBS because I'm old. I did Love Island this summer and it was pretty it was brutal it was you know what's the problem with it this is my theory about kind of all reality television people started treating it like sports in a way that made it not fun yeah it's kind of gotten overtaken by like Stan culture and the internet and also I think um it and maybe there's a sports analogy here for like young quarterbacks coming in and trying to be at homes everybody on the shows is now just trying to to be memed and, you know, influence, which no, no shame in the game, but I think it's kind of ruining the shows.

1:03:51Bill Simmons:I think that's a really crucial and important point. When reality was really working in the 2000s at its best, it was people who almost had no idea they were being filmed and that there'd be ramifications combined with just kind of aberrant behavior that now most of that, if not all of it is discouraged, which is probably a good thing for mankind. But for reality shows, the shows are just way more careful. Like the challenge, I can't even really watch anymore. It's like an athletic competition. Is that it? It's still going. It's still going. And it's like, it really is the fifth American sport now.

1:04:27Bill Simmons:But even these dating shows like that Bachelor in Paradise, I don't know what they were doing with that show. I still watch Love is Blind. We recap it. I have a show, viewer discretion. People like Love is blind. Um, but, and I still like that one because I think it actually gets people who they're a little older and they're not, um, like all influencers, but, and it's just really well produced, but yeah, I, I used to watch so much more. I tapped out on you and I used to text about the bachelor. He used to, I used to be a good show. I don't, I think it's, it probably ran its course. It's been on since 2002.

1:05:06Bill Simmons:Like, what were you doing in 2003? What were you doing in 2003? Yeah. That's how long it's been on. Yeah. Well, it's probably good for my brain that I'm watching less reality TV and more alien. Now we just have more football. And football is now on every channel all the time. It feels like four days a week. It's just on all the time. I didn't like the Friday. That was, well, yeah. You didn't like Friday Brazil? It was tough. But that might be more like as the mother of a two-year-old. It's just hard with the multiple nights. You know, it's going to be tough as Thursday night, Bill's Dolphins. Probably Mike McDaniel's last game and Josh Allen just going nuts.

1:05:45What day of the Ringer NFL show does he get with?

1:05:48Bill Simmons:Should I make the invitation now or wait till he's formally relieved of his duties? My classmate, Mike McDaniel, or maybe Warren. I don't know if we overlapped. I also don't know if he'd be a good, of all the NFL coaches right now, if you could take any of them, this is not about their coaching talent. Who do you think would be your, you are often said this. I think the single best talent evaluator in our industry. Thank you. Who would you pick? Of the coaches to be the new co-host of the ringer NFL show. So is the caveat, they're never going to coach football again. They're going to just do this for a living.

1:06:26Don't worry about the coaching. Don't worry if they're good at coaching. Don't worry if they're going to be available. Just who would you pick? because you think that guy is going to be freaking awesome talking.

1:06:34Bill Simmons:McVay. Yeah, that's number one draft pick. Easy. Although, I'm becoming more and more intrigued by Kevin O 'Connell. He's good. He's a good talker. Dark horse. I think his... I watch all the locker room speeches. This is my true passion now that reality TV has died for me. And I think his locker room stuff is really high end. He's almost playing for the cameras in the right ways, but I think he's really good at it. You haven't met him in person, right? No. Really charismatic too. And you can see why all the players love him so much immediately as soon as you talk to him. So he would be, he's too tall to be a podcaster, but he would be good otherwise.

1:07:15Bill Simmons:Well, he's smart enough to make up a fake injury for JJ McCarthy. The high ankle sprain that I don't think happened. Yeah, his ankles hurt. We need Carson Wentz for a couple of weeks after JJ missed 130 throws. Um, Mina, thanks for popping on. Go do, uh, go do television. Um, and, uh, let's go Seahawks. Congratulations on Jade and Daniels. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on. Glad to have them as a, as a member. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

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1:08:12Bill Simmons:and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimphiaradio.com. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. On the court, the pitch, the track, even the pool, professional athletes show extraordinary physical flexibility.

1:08:49Bill Simmons:For us normal people, we've got PayPal's flexible monthly payment plans. Pay nothing at checkout, then enjoy a flexible monthly payment plan that works for you with no signup or late fees. And it's available millions of stores. Pay monthly with PayPal. Subject to approval, pay monthly consumer loans made by WebBank. Available through PayPal Inc. NMLS 910457. Learn more at paypal.com slash pay monthly. And now it's time for a special part of today's episode brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV, our friends. And if you're an NFL fan like me, obviously I'm a fan because you've heard me talk about it constantly.

1:09:27Bill Simmons:You want NFL Sunday Ticket. You want to subscribe. You want to do it on YouTube TV. You get every game, every Sunday all in place. You can watch four games at once on multi-view, which is going to be difficult this week because there's nine early games, the one o 'clock PM ET games. There's nine of them. And lucky for me, YouTube has crowned me their CMO, their chief multi-view officer. It's my job to tell you which four games to pick, but remember, local and national games on YouTube TV, NFL Sunday take a variety of market games, excludes digital in the games that commercially use, device and content restrictions apply, terms and embargoes apply.

1:10:00Bill Simmons:No refunds. Well, two of the picks are easy. Rams, Eagles, that's going to be awesome. Steelers, Pats, are the Pats for real? Is Steelers' run defense a mess? Rogers, can the Pats shut them down? Drake May, is that for real? I'm excited for that one. Cincinnati, Minnesota would be the third one. Two backup QBs. Kind of interested in both. Wentz, Jake Browning, not terrible. Since he's 2-0, Minnesota's a 1-1. And then last but not least, I'd probably put Indianapolis and Tennessee on, even though Tennessee's 0-2. I really like watching Cam Ward and Indianapolis. Let's see, can you go 3-0? Is your offense the 99 Rams?

1:10:41Bill Simmons:What's happening with this team? those would be my four. So thanks again to YouTube for giving me the chief multi-view officer job, the CMO. With every game every Sunday at your fingertips, choosing the ones that deserve a spot on your multi-view screen is serious business. So you can never miss a moment of action. All you have to do is get an NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube TV. For a limited time, only get$36 off NFL Sunday ticket using code BS36 at checkout. New Year's is only while supplies last ends September 22nd. Go to youtube.com slash BS to sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV.

1:11:20Bill Simmons:NFL sending a ticket for out-of-market games. Excludes digital-only games and commercial use device and content restrictions apply. Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. All right, my friend Brian Koppelman is here. A longtime, longtime, longtime movie aficionado. He's made movies. He works in Hollywood. Robert Redford died today. and for some reason you were my first text i wanted to talk to you about robert redford because i think we both appreciated and liked and were frustrated by all the same things but i'll start here um in the running for best all-around career of any actor ever i mean considering all the things that he did the movie star rankings like as far as a true movie star person who then became a director, a filmmaker, producer.

1:12:10I mean, are you counting? You include Sundance in that? No doubt about it. You have to.

1:12:14Bill Simmons:You have to include Sundance. Yeah, no doubt. Yeah. That was the, I was just thinking about the scope. For some reason, I didn't know that this day was, I hadn't heard that he was, obviously it was 89. So you never know at that point. But when you think about it, you start reading the stories and you're like, holy mackerel, this guy did so much stuff. His career is in all these different segments. I mean, he's the biggest actor in the 70s, right? And we'll go into some of the reasons why that happened. But he owns that decade over some great guys. Newman's in there, McQueen, Reynolds, and he's the guy from that decade, right?

1:12:52Yeah, I mean, it's funny. He had some runs when I was looking it over, even just as soon as we started texting about the movies he had runs as each thing that little runs within the thing each of which would have made him in the running for kind of like the best eight-year chunk and he repeated that a bunch of times in different ways like from when he would get a foothold at something he could really run with it for a while in a crazy amazing way but also bill i think part of why you wrote me is we're not going to say, but, uh, you know, someone who meant a lot to the two of us had told us a lot of stories and, um, about him, you know?

1:13:37And so I think we just had a bunch of different reactions together. Yeah. Yeah.

1:13:41Bill Simmons:Well, he said he wins best director and best film for ordinary people, which was the first movie he directed in 1980. We already did it in the rewatchables, but it's during a time when actors really weren't supposed to do that. Actors were supposed to act. Directors were supposed to direct. And for the most part, you didn't really cross the beams. He started in three best picture actor or best picture Oscar winners and laid down this whole model for all these actors that followed where it's like, well, I want to be an EP on this film. I want to own my own stuff. I want to own a company. I want to do more festivals.

1:14:17Bill Simmons:I want to be an activist. I think him and Newman really were the first two that I can remember that did that. Can you think anybody else? No. I mean, who did which piece? Who did which piece of it? Newman did the, he was big on the activism side and just trying to do a bunch of charity stuff and just use his platform for other things. I think Brando certainly did. Different actors did along the way in different ways. Maybe for political commentary. Smaller ways. But yeah, those guys both absolutely did it. I mean, Jane Fonda definitely did it too. But those guys, no doubt about it. Also, he just did lay down.

1:15:07I think it's got to just start. For me, Robert Redford is like the quintessential idea of what a movie star is supposed to feel and look like. And I think so much of it had to do with, yes, of course, his physical appearance. but the stillness in him as an actor, how he would just, however he got that confidence to like let the camera just land on him, but also his taste, which is what runs through everything you were just talking about. This is a guy who just could pick. He went through these periods where he just kind of, it felt like understood what the mood was or what cool was or what classy was.

1:15:43And he could anticipate it at just the moment the wave was going to break and he could ride the wave. And that's like an incredibly rare, skill over a long period of time.

1:15:54Bill Simmons:Yeah. Taste and self-awareness is a really good combo if you're an A-plus lister. Yeah. I was thinking, I wrote down the three things that he just seemed to completely understand that all seem pretty basic. And the first one you just mentioned, he knew he was a movie star. He wanted to make movies where he seemed like a movie star. And this is something Tarantino wrote about when he wrote about Steve McQueen in his book, where he was like Steve McQueen. The most important thing to him was just how he looked in film, how he looked in a scene, how he didn't want a lot of dialogue. He would tell the screenwriter, like, cut that out.

1:16:32Bill Simmons:I only need to say two words there. I don't need to go back and forth with a bunch of people. Redford was like, I'm really handsome. I'm a little mysterious. There's something a tiny bit hard to figure out about me. I play it close to the vest. You're going to have to figure me out. but I'm really handsome. And he rode that through the late sixties and early in the seventies as well. I mean, I don't know if I can't remember when we did the margin call podcast. If you had seen JC's movie that he made with Redford on the, all is lost. Right. I think. Yeah. Did you ever see that movie? Oh yeah. Cause it's incredible.

1:17:14And it's this thing you're talking about. I mean, Redford says five words in the movie. And you're just with him and his face and his body and the situation he's in. And you care so much about who, what's going to happen to this guy. And there's no great backstory. You don't know a tremendous amount, but in a way that I remember watching that at theater and, and like you just said, you had no idea he was sick. Neither did I. I didn't know other than when he said he was stepping down from being actively running stuff. So you had a sense, oh, you know, he feels like he maybe isn't. But I didn't know him.

1:17:51I never met the man. I had no idea. But all is lost. I remember watching this little theater in New York and thinking, well, he put it down. He put down that performance a guy does at the very end where it's like, remember, this is what I was great at. Because he didn't have to speak in that movie, but he had to be and carry all of what Robert Redford was. And because that guy was self-sufficient. That guy was stoic. That guy also beat himself up at moments. You know, he had hubris, but it was like this whole grit and he had dignity and he had resolve and he had grit. And it was like stacking all these aspects of all these characters that Redford had played.

1:18:33Another, by the way, just incredible work by JC Shandor, who I think is the most underrated direct for some reason. well think about how underrated that guy is what he's done uh redford amazing and um a towering like i don't know who's i i mean who do you i'm sure you've thought about it i don't know who's in that conversation with him in your mind i want to get to that i have a spot for that okay

1:19:00Bill Simmons:the second thing that i thought he understood work with as many great directors as you can I mean, he made seven Pollock movies. Pollock, yeah. Sidney Pollock. He and Sidney Pollock had a special relationship. But that's something that I think some of the modern actors have really, that was a big Leo thing. The smarter guys are like, I just want to work with the best people. The third thing I think is really underrated. And I haven't heard anyone make this point. And I don't know if it's a coincidence or if it's something, if I had ever had him on a podcast, I would have asked him. he really understood the importance of an ending and how important it was when a movie is coming to a close, some sort of scene or moment that when you're leaving the theater, you're like, man, that was fucking awesome.

1:19:46Bill Simmons:And I, again, I don't know if it was a coincidence, but think about, I have nine movies here, Downhill Racer, the fucking amazing last five minutes, right? Spoiler alert. He thinks he's just won the downhill and there's one last guy coming and they're all celebrating. Then they're kind of looking up and this guy's hitting the times and all of a sudden that guy flies in the air. It's just awesome. Butch and Sundance, one of the great endings ever written. Jeremiah Johnson, my dad's favorite movie. I only saw that movie one time with my dad. I don't remember the ending. it's just the you know he's fought these Native Americans forever and then at the end they have this begrudging respect and it's a wave and he waves and and then this voice comes in some folks say he's up there still and it just it's just like yes he survived the candidate he wins I love the candidate it's on the rewatch list The last moment of the candidate is one of the all-time greatest.

1:20:55What do we do now?

1:20:56Bill Simmons:Yeah, what do we do now? The sting. The whole reason people loved that movie was the last 10 minutes. The Way We Were, kind of a flawed movie, but when he runs into Streisand at the end, your girl is lovely, Hubble. Stolen for Sex and the City, first season, last episode, or second season. All the President's Men with the typing and Nixon. And then the last two, I think he had figured out the endings things. Brubaker is one of my favorite endings of any random movie ever. The Clap. I made the case and invented the slow clap. You think that's the first usage? He invented the slow clap. I do. For people listening who don't know what Brubaker is, he's a prison warden.

1:21:46Bill Simmons:He's a warden, yeah. Goes undercover in the prison because the prison is so corrupt. He pretends to be a prisoner, but after he gets a job, goes in and then ends up, he gets pushed out by the state. But the prisoners realize he was actually like trying to make the prison better and they slow clap on him as he's driving away. It's fucking awesome. And then the last one's The Natural. One of the great endings of any sports movie. Incredible. Probably the number one game you would have wanted to go to. Anyway, I don't know if that's a coincidence, but he just always left you leaving the theater, thinking about it, feeling on a high or feeling something.

1:22:23Yeah. I mean, that goes back to taste, right? And knowing what to choose to be in. And then by all accounts, he was pretty relentless as far as making sure the scripts were right to his own satisfaction. So I'm sure, you know, look, he had the benefit of working with some of the greatest screenwriters ever, like William Goldman. Yeah. And, I mean, Bill certainly wrote about that experience in certain ways. And Bill won the Oscar for All the President's Men. And I think they had a good working relationship on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Yeah.

1:23:01Bill Simmons:Well, in the last 60 years, Redford had a case for making the best Western, Butch and Sundance, the best baseball movie, the best conspiracy thrower, the best political movie, and the best reporting movie. Oh yeah, don't leave out the ending of Three Days of the Condor either. Yeah, that's where I get the conspiracy thrower. Yeah, I guess the ending of that movie, yeah, I could have put that in. Unreal 2 with the new spray in front of it. That's incredible also. And that movie's influence is like, you can't even begin to talk about that movie's influence. It's so big. And then the other thing, you talked about how he just had a good sense of what to do and what roles to take.

1:23:39And more importantly, not to take.

1:23:42Bill Simmons:There was like that famous story of The Graduate when Mike Nichols wanted him, but then wasn't sure he was right for the role because he wanted the guy to be more of a loser. And as the story goes, he asked Redford, have you ever made a move on a girl and been turned down? And Redford's like, no. And he's like, this is why you can't have the role. He said Redford didn't even understand the question. He's like, what do you mean? Yeah, what are you talking about? I put my sights on a woman and she's not interested? What's that like? Was he treated like he was an alien? But it's interesting. He never did a horror movie.

1:24:18Bill Simmons:Apparently, he turned down Rosemary's Baby. You know, he never did some sort of movie where he's playing somebody that's completely different than who he was. He always kind of felt like it was Redford in whatever he did, which I think was intentional, right? some people are just like, I need to be around the vicinity of me. Yeah. They, they play roles that the essence of who they are is the thing that kind of shines through and big movie stars a lot of time where the essence that, that we associate with them somehow is the thing that, that shines through. And, um, he didn't always play a good, like some people think that means that they're always playing someone who's like a good man.

1:25:03That's not the case but it's um kind of a guy when redford's case who's always had the ability to be competent i mean condor is a great example at first he seems incompetent but by the end he's a guy who can he can figure it out he played smart really well and especially a guy people could think oh they think he's dumb because he's so handsome but really he's smart really he can think maybe not the fastest thinker but a good thinker and of course i mean even though goldman wrote it, the way Redford played, you know, can I move as Sundance invented a whole kind of a character, the kind of sidekick character that he was who becomes kind of the equal buddy.

1:25:44And a guy who could admit, I can't swim. You know, there are a couple of scenes in Butch Cassidy that are like among the best scenes in cinema history that really rely on a like line readings by Redford that were unbelievable, you know?

1:25:58Bill Simmons:Well, then all the presidents, which we, we didn't rewatch was old a while ago. There's that great scene when Hoffman stealing his copy and he kind of realizes what's happening and the way, the way he kind of plays that. And then he finally goes over and goes, I don't mind what you did. I just don't like how you did it. The greatest. I mean, that's one of my dad and quiz show, which he directed. Those are two, the guy was involved in absolutely two, you know, deeply two of my personal, like 10 favorite movies of all time. And like All the President's Men, probably my, maybe my most rewatched movie.

1:26:33It's really possible. But Quiz Show is definitely top 10 of my most rewatched movies that he directed. And they're similar. They're cousins, those movies.

1:26:42Bill Simmons:So what is it about All the President's Men that sucked you in? Because I've heard different answers for this, depending on who you ask. The two, honestly, originally, because like I first saw it as a kid. I mean, that's been a movie I've rewatched my whole life. Yeah, me too. Well, Bill, I don't think you can separate it from like I was seven when Nixon resigned. My mom made me sit down. I just felt like it's been on since I was like, you know, a kid. My mom made me watch, and I'm so glad she did, Nixon's resignation speech. You know, so like the story of getting those bad guys. Yeah. And then it was writers who did it, right?

1:27:13The way when you're a kid processing it, reporters who did it. And those guys were famous in my house. Like they would talk about those two guys because it was amazing what they did. so and then this movie that i had heard was so great and i just remember the way they talked and also like you know oh i remember remember when you were a writer do you remember bill when you were a writer when my fingers worked yeah yeah when you were a writer back it was great you were a great writer and you know how much i loved your writing but so you do know when you're young even if you don't know you're going to be a writer stories about writers they get your attention in a certain way like you're like wait these are writers what does that mean even if you don't know you're like there's something about that that just like hits you and that was the thing like what do you mean they're other journalists wait what it was just the cool i don't know like it was the cool and then also the long hair and yeah the way that they just even dressed in the situation and their friendship also they were so fucking cool in the movie the way they would trap people with the dialogue the way they would concoct schemes also their boss being such a motherfucker.

1:28:17It was like every one of those things, the crackling dialogue and that they won. The good guys, you know, the good guys won, but it was really complicated and they barely won. And no one even knew if it was a good thing. I don't know. For me, every part of it is incredible. What about you? What is it about it? I didn't get into it until college.

1:28:40Bill Simmons:Maybe right after college, because I had to have a Watergate phase, because that's what everybody would have afterwards. You would have your JFK phase, your Watergate phase, your Charles Manson phase. You just go through, I'm going to read the book. I'm going to read this. I'm going to watch that. And I did the Watergate thing and I just watched all the president's men. And then just from that point on, I felt like I've watched it at least once a year since. And the only movie I can think of that came close to it was Spotlight, which I think is the most depressing subject possible, but is this amazingly rewatchable movie that's now been out 10 years, but very similar beats of there's something really important happening.

1:29:22Bill Simmons:We actually need reporters and they're solving it almost like this true crime thing. People are against them. There's a big establishment that wants to knock them out. You're so right. I mean, I just also to say, obviously when I say all the presidents men's my most rewatched movie, the godfather movies don't even count like they're just their own that's their own that's like saying i can't like nix games yeah yeah i can't count the godfather movies obviously those are the most it's not even close but i'm talking about after after that just spotlight man the first time i saw it um i saw a spotlight as in a screening um and uh when it was not even finished yet and i i sent emails around to a bunch of people like i just saw the best picture winner and this is like my i said that movie spotlight that tom mccarthy made it is every single thing every ambition i could ever have of what the ultimate thing you could do as a filmmaker is what tom did in that movie and you're right i hadn't thought of it in terms of but it is all the presence been to me quiz show which is you know it's the rewatchables that you and i going to do someday quiz show is for me really right up there because it's this it's it's the same kind of story in a way uh which we could talk about another time but um i feel like it's it's it it does the same thing but there are very few movies that do it well and redford did that only nominated for one acting oscar which seems nuts it's like finding out that some incredible nba player only made like one all nba team i don't even know i saw that he only won one what did he win for he won for directing right that's it for people that was when he beat scorsese which is turned out to be really right for best pivot as producer or director on that one that did he he wanted as director right yeah he was only nominated for the sting he never you mentioned all his loss that's like way late in his career he never had his version of the verdict or color money like Newman did.

1:31:25But what's interesting is he was in on the verdict.

1:31:29Bill Simmons:He was doing the movie and really wanted them to rewrite it because he didn't like that the guy was such a loser. And this is something Goldman would talk about. Goldman would always talk about how stars didn't want to play losers. They always wanted to seem like the hero. And he's just like, this guy's too much of a loser. So he drops out and gives that role. And Newman ends up getting it and should have won the Oscar for it, but it became such an important Newman role and Redford just didn't fit his model for what he wanted for himself. The thing ended up working out perfectly just the way that it should.

1:32:04For everybody.

1:32:05Bill Simmons:I don't think I would have bought him as Frank Galvin, but that's the thing. I think deep down he knew that was a good character. Not necessarily in the Lumet Mamet version of the movie. Yeah. But he never got... I feel like he never got acting respect past a certain point. Right. And I don't really know the, you know, I, I think sometimes, especially with actors, when somebody is simple and really good like that, sometimes we recognize it and sometimes we don't. And in his case, maybe he was, I, I, I'm not an actor, so I wouldn't be able to speak like if, could he be on stage? Could he have been belting it?

1:32:44Bill Simmons:Like when you hear like these legendary stories of, you know, know, Pacino on Broadway or Olivier back in the day. I don't know if he was an actor like that. In a way, maybe that's to do with the era. Like, because yes, he's a movie star. I think you said it perfectly. He's a movie star. But it's hard to do what he did as an actor. And if you look at the actors who were the ones mostly in his prime lead era who were getting recognized, they were big performances they were people really doing something right whether it's peter boyle whether it's dustin you know dustin or pacino or de niro they were showier they were incredible of our favorite you know actors but and redford's word much less showy he didn't do that really he wasn't a he wasn't big in that way um so many things get tied to the period that they're in, right?

1:33:46The moods and tones. Right. But to be a star for as long as he was a star, it's kind of amazing, right? And rare. And I think he chose it. I think he, by the thing you're talking about, he didn't take the character. He also didn't take those parts.

1:34:04Bill Simmons:Right. He loved being, like, so many of these movies, he's a hero. Or there's a little bit of, like, Downhill Racer is definitely a cruise character. Right. 30 years later, Cruz's ease are 20 years later. Yes, 100%. So he could do that downhill racer thing. He could be the sidekick like Butch Cassidy. He could do Jeremiah Johnson, which is basically 1973 Revenant. It's not like the crazy director where you're sleeping in a bare stomach, but it was still like, it's one guy. He could have been in Castaway. I think he could have done that role, where it's just like, I'm going to be the star of the movie.

1:34:41Bill Simmons:I'm going to carry scenes by myself just by being interesting. he might look effortless maybe i'm just trying to think yeah that's actually i'm trying to give a second to your question and i'm just reviewing all these performances and if i think about it other than sundance and condor most of these performances he he did make it look he was an actor who looked like i would say effortless he yeah it was he made it look kind effortless. I mean, which is why the natural Roy Hobbs is such a great part for him in a way, this guy with that swing, you know, uh, and who looked a certain way, believable swing.

1:35:25And you, he looked a certain way and you'd never know what this backstory was. And you, you wouldn't know that there was any trauma there or any of that shit, you know, and, uh, it, he had that swing and that swing in a way is a great metaphor, right? For just looking like Redford looked and walking like he walked. And it kind of doesn't invite you to go, oh, look at the craft. Because of course, to build a swing like that took a lot of effort in Roy Hobbs, right? It's like people watch Federer and they go, oh, it's gorgeous. It's like, you know how much torque that guy's generating? You know how many thousands, millions of hours he's put in so that it looks like this beautiful, effortless thing.

1:36:09But still we watch it and we go, oh, graceful.

1:36:11Bill Simmons:Oh, effortless. It's interesting how that movie age, because I think for the entire time I was in high school, through college, through the first six years I had my column, the sports guy column, The Natural and Hoosiers were the two best sports movies of all time. And those were the only two acceptable arguments. Those are the ones we argued about as like, which one's better? But then as the years passed, I don't feel like The Natural held up in that conversation in the same way. I'm not really sure why. Maybe it's partly baseball or maybe it was so far back, you know, we're in like the 19, it's an old fashioned movie.

1:36:48It's an old fashioned movie, I think, in a way. And Barry Levinson embraces, it's Barry Levinson, right? And he, I mean, he just embraced all that. So it's shot that way, like the gliding camera. It's, it doesn't feel like a contemporary movie in any way. It feels like almost like it's a throwback, right? You and I have probably seen it a combined 700 times. I mean, I've certainly seen it plenty of times. I love it. but if you're asking why people don't it's i don't know like i bet you i don't know if sam has seen it incidentally i'm in my the room my son grew up and i love that i'm throwing an entire nicks wall an entire nicks wow and uh we've asked him if you want us to repaint the room now that you're out of here and whatever no keep it keep the nicks up there but and also i'd say you know in the pro wrestling simmons pablo torre back and forth sammy broke this huge story on Pablo today.

1:37:39What was the story? Oh, it's just an insane sports. It's an insane story about China stealing the brainwaves of athletes. It's crazy. You'll freak out. But Sam and Pablo did it together. So you had to have me on just to balance the scale. You know, you got to balance the scale. We do the old guy version

1:37:58Bill Simmons:of the combo. Totally. We got to bring our walkers in and do our version. Hold on. It's time for bingo. I'm talking about the natural. Yeah, talk about the natural. You're the best damn hitter I ever saw. Suit up. Wilford, how many times do you think that combined Pablo and Sam have seen the national? At the most. I'm giving you two at the most. That's the thing. And it shifts where Moneyball becomes the new natural, right? And I think Moneyball for the last 15 years probably took the spot in a lot of ways. Are you an eight man? Do you love eight men out? I love eight men out. I do. I love 8 Men Out.

1:38:39Bill Simmons:So does Van Lathan. I would put 8 Men Out might be the best baseball movie. It's possible. Another great ending movie. Yeah, incredible. Oh, my God. Shula's Show, five years after. That's not an incredible. That movie's... That negotiation scene is one of the most incredible sports movie scenes. If you haven't seen 8 Men Out, go see it. Quickly on Redford. Yep. So he has this run from 69 to 76. You mentioned earlier how he had this crazy eight-year run. he blows up with uh butch cassidy and with downhill racer right just immediately becomes a megastar um in 73 and 74 he has jeremiah johnson the way we were the sting the great gatsby and then they re-release butch and sundance that but butch cassidy and sundance kid and it becomes top 10 again he has two of the top five in 73 and three of the top 10 in 1974 out of the top 10 movies for two years, five of the 20.

1:39:39Bill Simmons:And then he does great Waldo Pepper, which is a flawed movie, but I kind of, I don't know, George Roy Hill, I kind of Goldman, I kind of enjoy it. Three days of the Condor. And then all the presidents, man, he's an EP on that and wins best picture. It's about as good as it gets, man. And when you think of the taste of those movies, holy shit. Incredible. And truly like a staggering run because he had that run. And then in 1980 is when he starts the directing run. That's when he moves in the ordinary people, Brubaker, The Natural, Out of Africa, Legal Eagles. That's all in seven years. But then also the four movies he directed, the first four, that's a really strong coming out of the gate first four movies as a director.

1:40:18Bill Simmons:And then he has kind of a fun, a little bit drunk 1990s where he does River Runs Through It, makes Brad Pitt a star. That's it. And weirdly passes the torch because I think there's a lot of Brad Pitt, Robert Redford, millions of people have talked about that. Sneakers. Indecent Proposal, Quiz Show gets nominated and then Up Close and Personal. And Indecent Proposal is the weirdest movie choice he made. It was the one where you're like, wow, he's in this? But he had built up so much credibility and it's Demi Moore and Woody Harrelson. We did not rewatch this. I like that movie. But that's another example of a movie that he understood the era he was in.

1:40:58Yeah.

1:40:59Bill Simmons:Well, and he also, you never see him, he's not banging away at Demi Moore in a scene. like there's an elegance to it. He understood the era. Where we were thinking as a culture about money and sex and men and women. Like he understood something, surfed it and made a huge hit. I mean, that's a huge hit movie, right? And it made him culturally relevant or kept him culturally relevant again. Well, and then Sundance was the other thing. And I think he was really smart about that I'm only going to have this run for so long and I'm going to get replaced by somebody else. My looks are only going to last for so long.

1:41:29Bill Simmons:What else can I do? How else can I be entrenched? and that's what leads to Sundance and all the other stuff he did. And then Sundance, God only knows how many movies broke out of that. And it's easy to say now, oh, well, somebody else would have created a Sundance. Well, nobody did. He did. No, he didn't. That guy put his money where his mouth was. And obviously, if he includes Sundance, it's very hard right off the top of my head to think of somebody who is on that level. I do think movie star to movie star, because you don't even think about the fact that Cruz is like 60 years old or whatever because you know these guys were making the big valedictory movie when they were in their 60s and Cruz is still just a movie star like Cruz the greatest movie star of all to me Cruz is the movie star of all time like he's just mid 60s now fyi yeah that's what I'm saying he's in his 60s he's just been a movie star the whole time uh so but I that's I don't it's so easy to forget it because he's still making movies like as though he's 40.

1:42:33Bill Simmons:But he's not. Well, but that goes to the self-awareness thing, which I would argue Cruz might not have a lot of self-awareness at this point. I don't think he should be doing Mission Impossible anymore. Like he should be trying to figure out what's the next thing I can do that more reflects where I'm at in life. And it's like, he doesn't want to think about where he is at life, obviously. He just wants to keep being Ethan Hunt. Yeah, though I bet you he has an incredible, someone was saying this the other day, I think it's true, that he'll have an incredible kind of character, actor run like a Newman-like run soon enough.

1:43:03Bill Simmons:I hope so. We're running out of time. He's, you know, Newman made the verdict when he was in his early 50s, I think. Might have been younger than that. But all right. I mean, you know, Tom did Magnolia. I don't know if he wants to open up that side anymore. Well, we'll see. I don't know. Who knows? I just think it's Redford and I think you can make the argument it's like Redford and Cruz. You got to put Clint, like, you know, Clint obviously also did a lot in various capacities that it's pretty incredible. Clint's a good one when you talk about like best careers, because the fact that he was still directing into his eighties and nineties is nuts.

1:43:44And I'm allotted incredible, you know, as a director, like him or not, you kind of can't argue with what he accomplished as a director. It's staggering. and in his own way. And at a time, I mean, he sort of directed movies way earlier and at a time when, yeah, like you said, they weren't just handing actors movies.

1:44:04Bill Simmons:So Clint's the other one in the combo. Clint's a good one for this too because I asked Lauren Michaels once what hosts you weren't able to get or couldn't get that you would have loved to get. And Clint was the first one I think he mentioned. That's great. But it's interesting because Redford never hosted that show either. and it's two guys that always kept the mystique of, I'm a movie star. I'm over here. I carry myself a certain way. I don't, you know, you're only going to get these pieces. Like Leo, has Leo hosted? Maybe he did. He must've hosted around, did he host around Romeo and Juliet or he never hosted?

1:44:35Bill Simmons:I don't think Leo ever hosted. Right. Cause Leo is in that. He's the last one who has mystique, right? He's the last of those movie stars with true. I don't know if you could have mystique like that anymore in the society we have. it's almost like you have to have to be out there connecting in all these different ways like you can't just be like oh i'll let my work speak for myself who does this is what i i was thinking about this today when when the i saw the announcement about the masters you know the masters allowing amazon to stream them making a streaming deal and at first i was like whoa but then i was like right because you know what even the masters realizes well we made a deal with cbs at a certain point because everyone was watching television.

1:45:15This is where the world is. We got to go there. So you're probably right about that, that maybe that model just doesn't even interest anybody anymore, that level of mystique. It's like when you figure out Rounders 2.

1:45:28Bill Simmons:Yes, sir. It can't just be like Rounders 1. You've got to use all these different pieces. Rounders 2 is going to have to come from like Sam's kid and then Levine's kid's kid and Pablo will probably finance it. I was going to say you have Pablo and Sammy investigating Mike McD for some sort of Caribbean poker situation. They'll have to fund it with replicants of DNA of Matt and everything. Because by then they'll be able to, they can do anything. I mean, they'll do any of it. Be easy. Sammy came to, we did a talk in Cambridge in April and Sammy showed up and I was very touched. He was very happy to see you.

1:46:05Yeah, I remember. He was very happy to see you. Everything else good? Yeah, I'm good. I'm dealing with a little appendicitis, but see, it's the... But you were able to pod. This era, they don't just take it out right away always. They go, here, we're going to bomb you with antibiotics and then take it out in a few weeks. So yeah, I'm fine. Hopefully my appendix doesn't explode.

1:46:27Bill Simmons:Well, save your energy for Quiz Show Rewatchables next month, because you have my word. We're doing it in October. Can't wait. All right, Bill, talk to you soon, buddy. Thanks, Koppelman. See you, man. Bye. All right, that's it for the podcast. thanks to Mina and Koppelman thanks to Gahau and Eduardo as well don't forget the rewatchables is up for this week we did Tin Cup and you can find it wherever you get your podcasts you can find it on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well I'm going to be back on Thursday with another hopefully awesome podcast I feel like we're two for two this week great content I will see you on Thursday

1:47:09I don't have periods with them.

1:47:39Bill Simmons:us here, visit Gambling Helpline, ma.org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This message is brought to you by Mariner. It takes the right team to help develop an athlete's talents. Managing your money works the same way. You've ever thought, am I getting the most out of my financial plan? You're ready for Mariner. With Mariner, you get an advisor backed by a full team of specialists, so everything's working together toward your goals. Take the next step in your financial journey with Mariner. Investment advisory services offered through Mariner LLC and SEC registered investment advisor.

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