2026 NFL QB Rankings, the Villain Dodgers, MLB Trade Deadline Lessons, and SummerSlam 2026 With Mina Kimes, Billy Gil, Anthony Dabbundo, and David Shoemaker

The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by the Ringer podcast network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did Karate Kid part two. It's a Karate Kid two or Karate Kid part two. I can't even remember. Me and Kyle Brandt had a fantastic time. And as I said before, we really had to do this just to pave the way for Karate Kid three. So you can check that out. We have a lot of good movies coming up for the rest of this month. And I think we're doing two episodes next week. It's looking like the Italian job and about last night, the Rob Lowe did me more about last night. So that's on Netflix. Italian job is on every streamer, so you can go check those out. But I think those are going to be the next two and they both can be next week. We have an absolutely loaded podcast coming up for you. I wanted to do quarterbacks with Mina Kimes. I meant to do it last week, but we're doing it this week. I wanted to go through all my QB point system and a lot of good quarterback questions tying into the 2026 NFL season. So this is like the first real summer pod. We're moving into NFL mode in week four of prep feeling good. After that, Billy Gill, Anthony DeBundo, we wanted to talk about the baseball trade deadline and one of the weirdest penit races ever, even my dog's barking about it in both leagues. And all the rymphs case that I've announced a soccer team, I announced by soccer team on that. We talked about a whole bunch of goofy stuff. And then last but not least, David Schumacher has a new book out about a Hulk Hogan that you should get. But we talked about a summer slam last weekend and the new Hulk Hogan book and how we're feeling about how weird the Hulksters last 20 years were and why he wrote the book. So that is all next winter break, take a break, Pearl Jam and then mean it comes. This episode is brought to you by S.A.P. Hello, midsize business. We see your big ambitions, but how do you achieve the wins you want when your technology is holding it back? Hmm. I wonder, well, how about S.A.P. grow? It's built to grow with your business, no matter its size with AI embedded at its core working across every system all ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running. Bring it with S.A.P. Grow AI Cloud ERP for any size business. All right, our friend Mina Codz is here. She's done a lot of ranger stuff lately. She was on the history watchables. She was on the fantasy football show as they finished their rankings of the Hot Cubes. I guess Jalen Hertz just ran away with this. Wasn't even close. Well, spoiler alert, because some folks might not have listened to it. Although, I feel like at this point, anyone other than Hertz would have been a big upset. He has the crown. He has Jimmy G's crown. It was easy. It was not controversial. There was really no debate about it. A kind of like Patrick Mahomes circa 2020, we were all just like, yes, that's fine. But number two was divisive contentious. Who was number two? Who won? Okay. I guess I'll spoiler alert. Don't get mad. If you haven't listened to it, Josh Allen over Joe Burrow. I was surprised. Yeah. I'll have to listen to it. I'm sure I'll have thoughts at some point. This is a great topic, though, because one of my theories with quarterbacks, which we're about to talk to, talk about, quarterbacks, charisma, a lot of times they're handsome, they're just the coolest guy in the room and it feels like part of the job. I try to rank the quarterbacks every year which we're going to go through and I ask you to go through this with me because I have this weird point system that I ranked the teams with. And in the point system, quarterbacks go from one point to nine. It's the only position that's even over five because they're that important. But I had some before we go through the rankings. I had some, some quarterback questions for you in no particular order. The QB you're buying for 2026, even as everyone else or most people are selling. The guy you just can't quit. This isn't an easy one for me. I think because I feel like everybody's overreacting to the postseason. Not Drake May because I don't think anyone with an actual brain is selling Drake May. CJ Stroud. I think people have gotten way too low on, Mike Sano just put out his quarterback tears, which is great. I wish ticket out of the airy surveys, you know, coaches around league. Stroud was like 21, I think, below 42 year old Aaron Rogers. And I understand that it was one of the more dismal playoff performances, not just one game, right? A couple games, but if you go back to the actually the regular season and not only looks statistically shrouded during the regular season was like a nine through 12th rank quarterback in most metrics. Yeah. But then if you really dig into it, his circumstances were atrocious, zero run game. Offensive line was as bad as it's been the offense was completely hamstrung by the lack of an offensive line injuries constantly skill players in the postseason. So Nico Collins play caller kind of still finding his legs. So I young receivers, young receivers, kind of an incomplete group missing tight ends. So I just think he's gotten way too much flack mainly because I feel like the postseason over reaction and then people saying, well, he's not as gozy. Was that rookie season and kind of hung hanging on to that? He's the one I struggled with the most where to put him for all the reasons. And we talked about this on your part because I'm really bullish on Houston, especially with the continuity defense, but you got, when I look at why I quarterback had a bad season. Usually it's like, did your offensive line fall apart, was your play caller a little shaky? Did you have a run game? What was up with your receivers? He was like, oh, for four, I mean, they had the worst run game in the league or I like Montgomery. I don't think he's a superstar. But Montgomery is at least better. Their receivers are going to be a year older. Tank Dell was awesome for them. We'll see if he can come back from one of the worst of the injuries of all time. Offensive line is still, it's a little better, but it's not, I wouldn't put it, it's probably a bottom six or seven offensive line still. So that would be the question. And then it seems like people love piling on him, like he'd been that, that video last week of him walking in. It got like a 12 million views and everybody's like, yeah, and it was like, look at this guy. No swag at all. So I don't know. I always try to put myself in January, if something happened, like something good, like the Texans being really good and CJ Stroud just being good. And we're looking back and we're like, oh, yeah, we should have seen that. So I'm open to it. With that said, he was awful last year. So to me, he's, to me, he's the highest ceiling basement guy. His building is like 40 stories. And you can get me to the 35th floor in his building or you can bring me down to like the bottom 10 floors. And I don't know where he's going to land. It's a little bit of a risky buy for me because of everything you said, like they remade the offensive line again, okay, it's different. It should be better. And I do think like Braden Smith, they had, there's competent players, maybe Erserie and let the left sides a little bit better. But it's like you said, it's not. It's probably still a bottom of the league, bottom half, at least unit. So the idea that he's going to be in like these dramatically better circumstances, I am a little apprehensive of. I just think people are way too low. But I think kind of we do that generally with postseason, like I've seen that with Bryce Young a little bit, who was awesome in that Rams playoff game. After being really up and down over the regular season and everyone just keeps referencing that one game. I feel like generally, and I know this is a hot topic for you with New England. Everybody only remembers the last two games is all. Or have just complete an Asia, like we do with Justin Herbert, where he's terrible in the playoffs. And it's nine months later. It's like, did he make the playoffs? Last year, I don't remember, give me the QB that we are collectively most likely to quit on in 2026. Last year was Kyle Murray. Okay. Most likely to go. We're all just like we're out. We're completely out. I mean, there's a lot of options here at the Atlanta ones, I think this could be it for two. I've already quit on. Okay. We're on to it. Okay. So you want like somebody who's a little bit divisive. I could give you some candidates. Okay. Give me the candidates. Pull up my list. Well, there's the, there's Malik Wilson on Miami. I mean, I'm sorry. Malik Wilson on Miami. He's such a horrible situation. Right. But the staff were crazy for him last year. I know. He's like, oh my god. They might have gotten a sleeper. And we might decide after four games. Jackson Dart, I think it's one where I feel like there's, there's a lot of hot air coming behind him. But I'm not sure he earned any of it and I could also seem just getting hurt in three games because he runs around like a maniac. Daniel Jones would be another one who really hasn't been good his whole career and then had two good months before he got hurt basically. But you look at his stats and I don't know, plus coming off a major injury. And then here's the one I was really looking at is, is Daniels. Like if Daniel, if he stinks again this year, he's heard his brittle like if he has another brittle Daniel season, do we just be like, whoa, this is RG3 all over again? Yeah. Well, I think you did something wise, which is most of his quarterbacks you picked are in kind of if he situations. Yeah. And so they're not going to be buoyed necessarily by their surrounding cast. I mean, Jones, you could argue is the best, but Alec Pierce, they're, they chose him to be the wide receiver one, let pitman walk. He's hurt. I mean, it sounds like he's going to be back early. And he makes almost 60% as much as Zay flowers. I mean, he makes a ton of money. I like Zay flowers. That's a 35 billion a year. That's just how much. Like what did I say, 35 is the new 25 S Leo. That's an insane contract. The only other one we could mention is Jalen Hertz, who I feel like people are really ready to toss aside as in a lead quarterback. Like this, like if doesn't work out this year after the AJ Brown trade. Well, he'll always have the ringer hot quarterback. Right. He has the hot quarterback title. Maybe he's got nothing else to play for. Okay. Well, you gave me a bunch of good names. I think Daniel's is one to monitor because I am a little apprehensive of that situation. Like Terry McLaren's your wide receiver one after that major lack of wide receiver depths. I think the offense of flying is pretty good, but you play collar first time. Hello average running backs. Could we say average? Hello average somewhere somewhere in that. They're okay. Like Bill, but but you know, the offense when they talk about it, it's not totally clear to me how it's all going to come together. It's so different from the Cliff Kingsbury offense. It's more of the Ben Johnson style under center, you know, condensed formation. So I just kind of think it might be a little bit. There might be a little bit of growing pains there. Jones is an odd one because Daniel Jones all off season. I've been hearing I seem back week one. They did the contract. And I'm thinking Achilles. Like every quarterback who seems to come back with his injury is taken forever. It's a two year injury. But those guys were old and he's young and athletic and everybody's saying he looks to save. So I guess the science has evolved. The one thing I'll say about him is I was just pulling his number because I was doing an AFC South preview. You mentioned like two months. And that's some important distinction because he was like the best quarterback in football for eight weeks. But then if you split it and look at the like five game started to really go off the stacks of it. So I think that's one where I do think he's absolutely a competent starting quarterback. But I do think probably what we saw in the first two months this season wasn't, you know, what we're going to see moving forward. QB that you personally mean it comes. Make the most excuses for everybody knows is Lamar. Still. I just so we planned on doing this two days ago. And I didn't know the Sando thing was coming out today. And there was some interesting. The Lamar section in that piece was pretty interesting where people are basically like this. This is the fork in the road here for him as a superstar because his running stats are way down. And if if he's just not going to move around in the same way, then, then are you a top five QB anymore? I think well, okay. So there's a good distinction. I actually thought there was a little bit of nuance to some of the comments I read where someone said he's still a very good pocket passer. So I think we've moved past the idea. At least anyone who should be digging out. Seriously, that Lamar Jackson has to have, you know, a very strong Russian component to his game. Otherwise, he's not a very good passer. I think the question is, is he an elite like top three guy without that? And I think that's actually a fair debate to have in the because of the way his rushing ability changes the way defenses play him and opens up opportunities. And I think that's completely fair. But I would also counter his wide receiver one is 5.9. I know I just defied 35 million dollars a 5.9 also feels generous. I looked that up. I was like, really? 5.9? I don't know. I might have to get a picture next to him next time in Baltimore for reference. Oh, as you know, I love nothing more than heights with athletes and actors. You're a true passion. A truth or are you? No, I love it. There's nothing. I love any, any famous person. I love trying to stay next to you to get a real feel. And there's some people like they're like, Affleck does, Affleck's tall. He doesn't lie about it. Okay. You know, I'm sneaky tall. I know you're, you're in the sneaky tall all stars. Yeah, right. It's the check close to been all stars. It's because of the perspective, right? Because I work with six foot five and six foot six. That's like Steve Nash is another one. You think Steve Nash is like five, five, five. Yeah. I, I, I mentioned this to the ringer, the fancy guy's Brock Purdy is not like in real life. If you met him on the street, you'd say that's a tall man. Yeah. But because he plays in the NFL, he looks tiny. He's six foot two, right? I think. Right. Kyrie Irvings like this, too, where he might even be like a half-inch taller than me. But he plays point guard and you think of him as a little guy and he's just not. I will say I think Zae Flowers is actually just really interesting. He might be five. So Lamar is still your guy. Yeah. Yeah. I, I just think, yes, the body of work at this point, the unique skill set, the throwing ability. I've seen so many games where he's just been so electric as a passer. The one where he went toe to toe with Matthew Stafford lives rent-free in my mind because those quarterbacks kind of remind me of each other with their throwing styles. Yeah. And I just think, you know, I'm all, like, I, so while I do feel it, whether he has diminished rushing ability is worth discussing, it's pertinent. We saw that last year he was not as willing to run and also had a lot of trouble avoiding sacks. That matters. But I do think he was a little banged up. And I think he'll be fine. The question is, is that just two? He is now a little banged up every year or a lap banged up? Or I mean, I think it's fair. I think it's why him and Joe Burrow are in a different year from the homes in Allen for right now, the injuries. Do you think there would be a QB Resurrection this year along the lines of Sam Darnold's Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff in the past? And eight weeks of Daniel Jones. And the eight weeks of Daniel Jones. And the likely suspect candidate here is Kyle Murr and the Minnesota Vikings. Yes, he is the most, most likely one. I don't really, there's no one else who really jumped out to me as a contender other than Kyler. It sounds like he's winning the job in camp. I know it's been a little bit up and down. That's another one where I think it could look a little bit iffy early on as him and Kevin O'Connell kind of feel each other out. But the thing about Kyler and you know this is like even in his like, quote, down years and everything that's happened since, you know, his like, I think 2020 was when he was being talked about as a few candidate. He's been statistically an average quarterback since then. There's been times where he's been higher. He's been inconsistent. But it all nets out to like average. And that's such an obvious improvement from what they had last year. JJ McCarthy were zooming with him every day, going through the offense, getting ready for next season. That's my favorite. The Sandoke had a quote about McCarthy. He had some brutal quotes. I think the quote was playing football looks hard for him. Was one of the defensive coaches said, which was maybe the meanest quote. It was a really tough hit for all the Michigan people. I know. Yeah. Cause all of them were like, you out of anyone will know, JJ McCarthy. He's got it. He's got the intangible. He passes all the things you talk about. And then he came out and was just brutal. Michigan fans love me. Like the most tribal college football. To follow their guys into the NFL and stick with them. I found. But yeah, Kyler's a good one. I think I'm really interested in seeing like where the deep ball went with Kyler because you remember when he was younger, like, it was so good early in his career and the neck kind of went away. But I think some of that had to do with the wide receivers or lack thereof. This is an offense in Arizona that ran through McBride to tight end. So I'm curious to see also Justin Jefferson who I maintain like maybe the one of the most psychologically impressive performances of the 2025 season was him not losing his mind over the course of the year. Great leader. That should be an award. The Larry Fitzgerald award for I'm just completely screwed by this quarterback situation. But I'm going to be a pro. Yeah. It's, I mean, especially given like the nature of the wide receiver position and the stereotypes around it to see him like week after week. Yeah. And he wasn't perfect. I get some drops who want to. But I think he deserves a ton of credit. And I'm interested in seeing if like Kyler can kind of get the deep ball back with Addison Johnson. I'm completely out just so just say no. You're completely out on Kyler. You don't think no chance. I just think he's at best a 500 quarterback. I just don't see. But this is a team that was 500 last year of a JG McCarthy. I just don't see. Your top four bleakest quarterback situations in order from most bleakest to fourth bleakest. What is the worst quarterback situation? I can give you the options. Easy easy one for one. Yeah. Really close. Just no offensive line. No, no receivers and I actually improved a little bit. But I would love to go right in the street in any city outside of Miami with the receivers. For in Miami. And ask people to name two Miami dolphins receivers. Billy Gil is coming on after you. I'm going to ask him a fake name, the wide receiver crew probably. It's insane. It makes me wonder. And it's so weird, Bill, because like I think everything they're doing kind of makes sense, right? Like they ripped it up. Clip, Clip rebuilding. They bring in the entire Green Bay, Halfway and the GM. Everybody gets it. Except like Willis, I feel like they signed him to like a middle class quarterback contract. And then I'm really traded Jalen water. Like it, but it just didn't really make sense to me. like if I'm him and this is my shot to be a starter. Why not? I don't know Atlanta, I they're just feels maybe I would have gone to Atlanta. Yeah, I just don't I just don't get it. So maybe they offered twice as much money and say everybody else. I listen, I agree with you that Miami finally did the right thing. But I also can't congratulate a team for audibling after one of the worst contracts of all time, which was the two of contracts, which made no sense when it was happening. It was a complete disaster. It turned out even worse than everyone thought. And now you're like, okay, now we got it. Now now we've got our shit together. It's like, do you you just did the two thing two years ago when he was already on like six concussions. All right. So you have Miami one who's two? I'm tempted by they're not going to rate us fans aren't going to like this, but raiders. Wow. They're wide receiver. It's tough. Yes, I know the answer is Brock Bowers, but like at a certain point, you also need wide receivers. And then there's any other raiders like and bunch of tight ends lots of lots of tight ends to throw to a lot of short ones over the middle. How would you stack the Raiders offensive line last year? Isn't it a it's it's better this year? I think that's one that there's like five lines that definitely got better and they're one of the five. They signed Leonard bomb. They gave that quote Miller, but the right side is the same. But last year they couldn't block at all. So they're at least better than that. So I'm apprehensive of the entire right side that offensive line and the receiving group. Raiders too. Real. I mean, I'm shocked that you have anybody over. I had Atlanta as the single worst situation. Drake London, Bijan Robinson. I'm just talking about their quarterbacks or two and Penex. Oh, I thought you I thought you were asking me to rank like the situation that the quarterback is in my bad. I completely understand. I didn't clarify that enough. I'm so sorry. Okay. No, that's fine. I like that. I like that way. The way you did it is almost a better question. Yeah, you're right. Because Atlanta has a ton of skill guys, but they have the worst actual quarterback school guys. Yeah, if I was if I was ranking actual quarterback teachers, I would have been Cleveland with a bullet. So you'd have Cleveland over Atlanta? Uh, yes, yes. Dude, that's time we saw just Sean Watson play. I just think Sanders is going to win the job. I don't think we'll see to Sean. I honestly, I honestly think I would rather have Sanders than either of the Atlanta guys. I don't think Penex can play three games in a row. And I don't think Tua can either. And I don't know who the third string quarterback is, but I would bet that he plays more games than both of those guys. I think it's Cooper rush. I might be wrong. I think Cooper rush will play the most games in the Falcons. Two has just two has like four starts left in his NFL career. Max. There's no way. He's takes one more hit as career is over. All right. Well, win healthy. I would take both Tua and Penex over the Browns. But the win healthy is like not. No, it's fair. It's totally fair. And I want to go back to what I said with an offense fans if I'm actually ranking quarterbacks. I like Malik Willis. I just hate a situation. I think he's well, that's a good one, though. So you think the two worst situations. Okay. Yeah. Where's the situation? Yeah. And who'd you have for the second one? I picked Vegas. Maybe that's too harsh. I but you still have hours for 1500 yards. You'd outside of him. It is rough. And we sure Pittsburgh isn't one of the worst situations for a QB. What's good about their situation? I think Metcalf, Pitman, and then whatever, who the water see the three Bernard or whoever is pretty good. I think the. Okay. I've got some lines decent. The interior is really good. Kind of figure out the tackle position. Running game. Run game. I think it's a good run game. I think tight ends are good. You like that more than Tennessee? Yeah. 100%. Do you like a more than Arizona? Yes. Because of the offensive line. But Arizona is not bad. Although Arizona randomly has like every running back on earth. Yeah. It was weird when they were the coach was touting James Conner. It's like, you guys just spent the third pick on running back. Where's James Conner? James Conner, what's he doing with this? I don't understand. I think Arizona, the offensive line could be better, but they're pretty bad less here. So my bottom three just for actual quarterbacks. Actual situations. The only ones that got a minus two for me. We're in the team rankings. You actually get negative points. We're Cleveland, the Jets and Atlanta. Yeah. You're got Gina. I'm sorry. He was a my he has to be a minus two unless we see something different. But I don't have any other minus, minus ones. That was it. All right. I have one more question and we'll take a break and go to the rankings. This is really important. Eduardo, get ready to cut this. Okay. No, cut this for a social clip. Yeah. I know. I understand. Has Jordan Love replaced Justin Herbert as the football nerd king of the quarterback position? Has this finally has this been a subtle shift that we didn't acknowledge, but it's happened. I feel like I'm walking into a trap. Like you laid an elaborate like sauce style. I did. There's no way out because you already know I love Jordan Love. And the way you set that question up is makes it look like I'm falling for it. But yeah, he's he's a really good quarterback. And he has this like reputation as being this incredibly irresponsible intersection machine. Yeah. That's not substantiated by reality. And I think and the nerds of all, we had a quorum. We got together to be nerd of poliza. We had a we had a we had a little summit in the off season to discuss. First, we did our giant Justin Herbert presentation and everybody, you know, had major put up slides about how we can defend him this year. Now that the circumstances are better. Somebody was sobbing at the podium about he lost both of his tackles. He lost both of them. Ruiz had to take like a five minute break. But Jordan Love and this was widely discussed at the summit. Yeah. Like actually not a high interception rate. I believe bottom 10 or something in football. I posted this at one point. The problem is that when he does turn it over, it looks so unbelievably goofy. Yeah. That it sticks in people's minds and has a disproportionate impact on like the public imagination that makes people think he turns it over. So you're you're talking about the concept of loud turnovers. Yes. So in basketball, I always call this the 90 10 guy where everybody's 90% really good at basketball. But they're going to be 10% not that good at stuff. And when it's somebody like Russell Westbrook, you really notice the 10% and Love is a 10 that love 10% for whatever reason seems just the worst. He's also like the anti Westbrook in that all of his rate stats are unbelievable. Like when you go back and you look at everything, and I know everyone's always arguing about which quarterback stats matter. And my answer to that is it doesn't, you can literally take any quarterback stack DV8 EPA, QBR password, whatever you want. He is like top five or better in all of them. Like he is both from the film you type of the film nerds, the film nerds and the stat nerds both love him because he's been so good. Right. And yet people talk about him like he's I don't even I think like they kind of talk about him like he's like late stage bread far. Yeah, they don't take them seriously. It doesn't make sense to be. So last year what loses craft, the wide receivers are, you know, Watson gets hurt every year. But in general, like the wide receivers were a mess. Top four pressure rate against him. So all these QB stats, you can go, you can overrate any of them. I think pressure rates are really good stat. It just tells you what quarterback was under duress the most. He was in the top four. And EPA, I mean, you have all these different ones. But his EPA was 0.24 per play. I was like in the top four. Here's how I would, this is why I think he took the title from Herbert. Okay. I think I think the nerd community is scolding us the most about love. And I think scolding is a huge part of this. Okay. Where people like you don't understand. Yeah. You guys are wrong. This guy's really good and here's some things you have to. I feel like you're in and Burnley right now making some profound political commentary. And why we might be in the situation now. But I'm going to put that to the side. Okay. So teach me how to be a Jordan love enthusiast in a way that doesn't alienate the every man. I want you. I want to be better. I want to I want to defend him in a way that's not annoying to people. So here's the thing. This is just like you almost have to go overboard with the look. Either follow the NFL or you don't. If you don't see the Jordan love thing, I can't help you because he's that good. And if you're going to say he's not, then enjoy your Sundays, watch five games at once, eat chicken, chicken fingers, have beers with your buddies and don't actually watch the games because that because that's where you are if you don't see it. You're you're you're veering dangerously close to watch the tape, which people don't talk about. But he has tape and stats. And when. you backing into being a love defender, I am a love defender. To me, love has a better case than Herbert, because at least we've seen him play well in the playoffs. Like he's, he had a really awesome playoff when Herbert does not. Yeah. And we've seen Herbert fall part in the playoffs and love has not as I don't think has. I always feel like he's in the mix. Let me ask you a question. Are any of his receivers better than safe flowers? Well, I think Kraft was the top four tight-em before he got here. I thought he was always open and he looks like Grakash to me. He's not obviously not drunk. The receivers. I like Golden. I don't know what happened with him last year. I had him on two fantasy teams wondering why they weren't throwing it to him. Maybe he's not good, but where they drafted him and what they wanted from him feels like he's the key swing guy for them this year. They have a lot of guys I like. Like I think Watson's good when he's. But he plays. Yeah. I think Golden as potential. Read is a fun piece, but at the point I'm making, and I think this is another thing we can add to our Jordan Love Public Service announcement that we're putting together here is, like we just made a fund of Baltimore for their wide receiver one being, you know, minisized. Yeah. He would be easily the best receiver in Green Bay. So like why doesn't Jordan Love get some credit for that as well? He ain't throwing a Pukanaku and Jamar Chase and JSN, you know, so I just feel, I mean, I'm like, I have his number two. He's top three against the blitz top three on third down, top three on third and long. Like what is it? What does it take? What does it take? I don't know. He's won the title. It's official. All right. We're going to take a break. We're going to go through the rankings. This episode is brought to you by chat GPT. Imagine you're running a professional sports team. Nice. That would be a dream, man. Imagine the player contract report is due today. Not so nice. You've got performance notes from the coaching staff. You got a salary spreadsheet from your analyst. Three rounds of back and forth emails with the agent. And all of it is scattered. Absolutely everywhere. Well, that's where chat GPT work comes in. It's a new way to use chat GPT for bigger multi-step projects. Give chat GPT work access to your apps and files and can create real work documents, for instance, spreadsheets, slides, structured reports. You can bring all those to your next meeting and when you don't need answers, you need help just getting the work across the finish line. Guess what? Chat GPT work can move your projects forward while you stay in control. Put chat GPT to work. And your most ambitious ideas and projects get started. Just go to chat GPT.com by selecting work mode available on plus and pro plants. All right. Highest you can get as nine points at the QB position and it can only be one person in the alpha. And then we go down. And I have for the alpha, the second year in a row, Josh Allen, as my nine pointer, 12 plus rushing to these each year for the last three. I don't need to do his stats. The playoff win is the one thing that people are going to point to. And I had to say, like, I don't think he choked in the playoffs last year, but it wasn't not a joke. Not great. Not great. It wasn't great for the Allen thing. And like Sando did is QB tears and had my homes in the one spot, which we'll talk about in a second. To me, Allen is clearly still the best quarterback in the league, at least if we're just in regular season only. And if we're going to go into who do you want from one game, that's a different category. Do you think DJ Moore changes anything? I do. Okay. And that's not me saying DJ Moore is 2021 DJ Moore or that he's going to suddenly become a top 10 receiver in the NFL. But they just have such had such a lack of receiving option. Good win on the boundary. Who could beat man cover it? Who do you threaten man coverage in any way? So if even DJ Moore is even like a top 20 receiver, I do think that makes things a lot easier for Buffalo. Would you be scared if you're a Buffalo fan that the Bears fans were ready to drive him to the airport? I would be more mad about the deal. My objections to that was less trading for DJ Moore and more what they gave up for him and the contract part of it, which I thought we didn't say two teams or he didn't seem like it went totally perfect behind the scenes or with everybody like two teams that seem like they were pretty happy to move on, which I think to me is a red flag. We'll see. I mean, the the new coach who is a little more offense oriented. Maybe that helps. But I don't know. Josh is just he's the scariest guy to go against. He's the scariest guy to bet against. And I don't think that's changed. So I have him at the top. Do you agree with that or no? Would you have my home sir? No, I think that's fair. I also think Josh Allen just doesn't get hurt. Like I that matters durability matters. I keep saying this. It's I mean, he is literally like a linebacker. Yeah. And the fact that he's become unbelievably accurate and smart on top of that is ridiculous. I think when you compare him at homes, it's a little tricky for me because even though I know I just said the Bulls don't have a receiver who can be man coverage. They've had such a great offensive line and such a dominant run game in my homes. We'll talk about him, been in such crappy circumstances. So it's kind of hard to compare. But I do think it's fair to put out in there now. Top seven favorite celebrity relationship for you. We had a longest side about this because you know, both him and Herbert dating or married to opposite or Herbert's kind of married yet. And I made the argument that I think there are big part of the reason why Allen rose so high in the ranking. Their fantasy guys rankings is because he's such a wife guy, which women love. Good couple pictures of them too. Yeah. There was a clip of him like tearing up talking about their baby daughter that went around. You can't have better publicity than that. Next category is the the Blues. These are eight pointers. I have five and I'm going to do them in the order. I have them. It's brave. Stafford. I have second. I don't have my home second. And I'll explain why. I want to watch. Is it okay if we watch a couple games with him with the repaired ACL? Just see how it looks. Can I just can I just see like two games before I move start moving them up the ladder? Especially somebody who has to in big games when I don't love their receivers and neither do you. Kelsey's just got married. He's in his mid 30s over and over again when they play somebody good. He has to use that. Kelsey just got married. I don't know. I don't know if he's eyes on the price. You just had a wedding of 1200 people. 1200 person wedding. I don't know if he cares about season. Almost all of these guys are married. It's just big wedding. I don't know. I don't know where his head's at. But if my home says they use his legs to save games and quarters for them. Yeah. More relevant. Very relevant. I don't know if he can't. I just want to see it. So I have him third. Stafford. Stats wise was ridiculous. And you know. All right. Let me ask you. Best year since 21. And the question for me with him 38 years old. Yeah. Was that the peak? I got a question for you. Yeah. Those two quarterbacks. If you switch their circumstances here, it'd be terrible for Stafford. Yeah. Well, that's why I think I think by reform. Imagine the homes behind the Rams offense of line with the Rams run game Sean McVeigh, Pukinacua, Devonte Adams. Like, what would that look like? That's fair. So you would have my home's second. No, not necessarily. I would. I would. Yes. But and Stafford amazing. I don't think it's crazy. He's I would probably put him third right now. Can I give you a maybe this is good for you. I went on your pod and I was saying I thought Seattle had the most talented team, which apparently was like a hot take. Dude, because the Seahawks fans were like, finally, somebody else said it other than us. They were like delighted. There's like no Seahawks barely any in the NFL 100, which I know is an absurd sentence to use that as some kind of it is the players though. Devon Winterspoon, who's like, he didn't crack the 100. Yeah, but that can you take that top hundred list seriously, because I do not. I did my rankings in Seattle. I had at 38 points, which was the highest I've ever done in four years. I want to daily on a full show and it's July. Yeah. I do take this. Okay. I just if he's done on it, what list is that? I know. It's right. Anyways, and Cooper Cooper was I think I saw today he was like 45th. Does anybody think Cooper genes better than wither span? At least it's like even pretty awesome. Yeah, but I mean, 45 and not being on the list is crazy. Yeah. Anyway, I made I looked this up and did some research for this pod. Okay. Cubes 38 years or older 38 plus Cubes. Yeah. 10 wins. 4,000 yards. 25 TDs, seven yards per attempt. Seemed solid numbers for a high IQB, right? 4,025,7. It's only happened nine times. Six of the guys were Tom Brady, Red, Farver, 09, Manning, and 14 on Denver and Rogers, 21 on Green Bay. So Stafford, just putting up those numbers, it would be the 10th time it's ever happened at that age. 4,025, and seven, which isn't even remotely close to what he did last year is 47 or seven, 46 TDs. And it just I just wonder he's got a lot of wear and tear a lot of injuries, knee stuff, back stuff. I don't know. I think he will be fine. His arm strength has not diminished at all clearly. However, that Rams offense of line is not deep. If they were to lose one of those tackles and potentially a suspension might be on the left side for one of them, that's when I start worrying about Matthew Stafford because that's where the age starts to show pressure. When you have a top heavy team, it's tough to be good everywhere too. We'll see. Anyway, Mahomes third, his peak year is now four years ago, 5,250 yards, 41 touchdowns at 8.1 yards per attempt. And I guess the question is, was that the peak? Will he reach those heights ever again in his 30s now? I don't think he will unless they actually find a wide receiver one. That's. Do they have a single wide receiver you completely trust? No. Do you ever have a wide receiver you partially trust? I trust Rishi Rice against zone coverage. But that's such a, I think he's a totally useful receiver, I think. I trust him on a football field. Yes, specifically zone coverage between the two lines. I do not, I know I talk like I talked about how the bills and like man coverage. You never want to win. Well, now they have DJ Moore who at least is like competent. Yeah, I don't see that in Kansas City. So I also like they, the Kelsey thing. I mean, he's all fame player. Just got married. Just got a big 1200 person wedding at Mass square garden. Doesn't that mean though that's now that's off his mind? And he's his mind is clear. The wedding is over. That's how I felt after I get married. I was like, I never have to think about that again. Football, football has a life for death element to it that you kind of have to throw yourself into. You know, sometimes these guys who knows, I do think I'm written from homes. Brady had this after he tore the ice out in '08 and then nine and 10. They didn't make the Super Bowl there those years and he kind of moved and he's still statistically was great. But it felt like he needed like a second prime to start and then it finally started in '11 where he had like his second run. So the question with my homes is, is there going to be a second run or was it just that amazing first peak that was historic and all that, but that's going to be where we landed? Like almost like a pool host thing. It's the circumstances that will determine it for me. And we can do the analog with Brady and what what happened they drafted the two tight ends in 11 and in 10 and that led to the second prime. Well, the second one was good for a couple of years turned into a multiple murderer. No, but like the thing right. So it feels like Kansas City. There needs to be a total refresh. I think Andy Reed and the brain trust there. There needs to be some evolution on that offense, particularly the run game, particularly because of the injury. And I'm not just talking about, I'm specifically talking about this season. You talked about, let's see my homes in the ACL. His ability to run was so important, obviously, it's always been important. And it's always been a special important, the postseason, but earlier I mentioned like, they can't, they don't have anyone to beat me in coverage. They did have one person. His name was Patrick Mahomes because deep defense would turn their back to him and he would just take off on food out. If you can't do that, if you're defense, you're not afraid of that anymore. And they don't have any receivers you're scared of playing man. You're golden. So I just, and he was like, they're leading, they messed along the run game this off season, but that's something like I feel like everything around him has to get better for a second golden age to happen. They missed a couple of picks too over the last couple of years, which is always bad. You miss first or second rounders. And this is what happened with Brady down the stretch where it was like, they just missed some drafts and you can't recover from that. The Walker thing getting Kenneth Walker having a real running back, the running back stats were really, really putrid last year. I mean, some of the worst advanced stats for them anyway. So I have my homestead, but I'm ready to move them second as soon as I see him run around. I have Drake May 4th, which I think people would think is high. He made the Super Bowl last year and had crazy stats. Wait, you have Drake May over Joe Barron, Lamar Jackson. I'm going to explain why in a second. I'm a Drake May guy. You're testing me. I mean, you know what I like results. Drake May went 17 and 4 last year and he had crazy stats. It's not like it was like some sort of flute thing and they added AJ Brown, who is either the 7th, the 9th or 10th best receiver in the league. They added dobs. They improved the offensive line. Why isn't he a top five cubic again? Why isn't he a safer bet than Lamar Jackson, who's like six years older than him? Because Lamar has done it for seven years. I just watched Drake May in New York last year. Yeah, it was one year, dude. Tell that to the Texans fans. I'm all in on Drake. I mean, I have taken my slings and arrows for my MVP vote, which I will still stand on and defend, but like I don't think you can credibly after just one season rank him above those guys. I just did it. He's okay. All right. I love him. I think he's so good. R, 340 on yards rushing last year in 13 games. He's never been under 50 yards a game rushing until last year. He's in church. EPA per play last year, 0.07, just slightly better than Jackson Dart and Mason Rudolph. He needs to take away your EPA privileges. Three playoff wins career, which is the same as Drake May had last year. He's 30 years old. And I don't know. I would just rather have Drake May. I'm just telling you there's a Patriot fan. I think, dude, if we're talking about building like from ground up, this year, that's one year only I'd rather. No, I'm saying if it was more than one year only, I would absolutely take Drake May, but I'm not going to take him for one year only over the two time should have been three time MVP. You know what, if Mallorband's watching and listen to this, I don't care. And I burrow last in this group. So I had five in this group. He's the thing with Joe Burrow that I don't love. So I have basically Stafford Mahomes, May, Jackson, and Burrow. So not Lamar for all the reasons that Lamar I just had in there. Oh, I'm always so sorry. So Jackson Jackson. I have Lamar fifth and May 4, Burrow sixth. Okay. Burrow's played three seasons and three half seasons and he hasn't won a playoff game since 2022. Yeah. I think that kind of matters. And I don't know if his offense of lying, it's allegedly a little bit better. Who does? I'd maintain it. Their schedule is super easy. Everybody loves them. There's been a lot of action on their over and I don't know. He's had a lot of wear and tear already. He's had some real injuries, not like flutey dumb injuries, like real injuries. And I just kind of want to see it. I think the injury thing is where you got to start. It's the most credible reason to doubt both him and Jackson, but more him. He's been hurt more. Yeah. I feel like he's not talked about in the same way. And it's a good reflection of how like getting injured doesn't, it's not necessarily correlated to, you know, being, I think sometimes we'll say the dual-threat quarterbacks, you'll get injured a lot. It's like, actually, your, your pocket pass are here. I know he has scrambling ability, Joe Burrow had some pretty weird injuries along the way. You know, when he's been on the field, I think top four or five, four is probably top four is where I would put him, but he's also, again, to go back to circumstances has been in pretty damn good circumstances. I mean, he's probably got the best one to punch a receiver in the NFL. I do think the offensive line has gotten better. So I think that's fair. I think Burrow versus Jackson is a debate most people have. I'm higher on the mark personally, but I think you can argue both ways. Let's see it. It's all set up for him this year. The two easiest schedules in the league are Cleveland and Cincinnati. And if he, if he's a 10 win quarterback and can stay healthy this year, I don't understand how he wouldn't win 10 games with the townhouse. All right. Next category is the light blue. We can move for these fast. Press got who I guess I have as my seventh best quarterback. Year 11 for him. He's got two playoff wins total. I think he has the mantle right now of would I rather have this guy as my fantasy QB or my real QB. We have this from time to time. You wouldn't want him as your real QB. I mean, if I'm trying to win the Super Bowl. We have him seven. That's pretty hot. I know. I know. Okay. I'm just saying it's his legacy going to be fantasy. He wants some people some fantasy titles or he actually won some NFL playoff games. It's funny how he used to be like the most divisive quarterback in the NFL. Yeah. He's sure he kicked everyone away. Yeah. He remember like press cover the Dallas Cowboys bar. Every time I tell you it's not they're not talking about the Cowboys at all. I don't understand. I'm on NFL live today and we have zero Cowboys segments. So. Nice. Yeah. We did it. Starting with the Ravens. They flowers. I, but it is funny right that he now everyone just kind of accepts that he's in this tier that you haven't been like everybody accepts that he's in that I would say six to nine range. Six to eight. And yet if we got to a playoff game and he was like. like a three and a half point favorite at home. I'd be nervous to bid on him. - I wouldn't be nervous because of him. - I have loved right after him for all the reasons we talked about. - Love it. - And then Herbert is the last person in this group. The playoff stuff is horrific. I really thought he was a noble season by him last year, though, with how bad the line was. - A noble. - And yet not noble enough for you to have him over. - He's just running for his life. The question for him, and I think this goes for Burrow too, is, can you take too many hits? - Yeah. - Can you run for your life too much? Is there residual damage from it? - Okay, that's a fair. Speaking on behalf of the greater Justin Herbert supporters, film nerds, alliance, I feel I'm qualified to be the emissary. That's a fair criticism. I think, 'cause I get worried about, I actually have a little theory that I've been banding around, which is, when these quarterbacks have these meltdowns in the postseason, him, he was awful in that game. It's just grow out. - Awful. - I sometimes feel, and honestly, like, nay, at the end, to a lesser, to something. - He was terrible. - He was bad. I do feel like there's something to be said about the accumulation of those hits and bad offensive line play, building and building and building, and then a quarterback just kind of imploding at the end of the year. Like, there's only so long you can shoulder a terrible offensive line. And I kind of think, and that's why I genuinely believe that's why those quarterbacks and some of the other quarterbacks end up being the worst at the end. It's because of, like you said, the accumulation of all. - Yeah, you're talking about, it could be during a season, it could also be a career. When I was a little kid, we had Jim Punkett, who was the first pick in the draft, and just got the shit kicked out of him for six years, and ended up getting traded at San Francisco, waived, and then took like two years to recover and then went to the Raiders and actually won a Super Bowl. But, you know-- - It's hard. It's, I mean, he's on, it's not even just that they allowed it a lot of pressure. It's the way they allowed pressure, which was like right up the middle. It felt like a jailbreak every other play. - Well, good news. I had them, and I had them in the top eight for offensive lines. Now that they're tackles back. - They're guys back. - Both of their guys are back, and they spent money on it too. But I think their line's actually, then the McDaniel piece. He's the one that I could see. I think he's the stealth MVP, but-- - Yeah. - There's a lot of-- - Well, how do you consider though that he's planning a wedding during the season? Did you factor it? - When is the wedding? - I don't know. After the season, I assume. - I don't like it. - But maybe it's gonna, it might be on his mind. - I don't like it. (laughing) - He's preparing for like the Patriots game, and his fiance is like, oh my mom is being such a jerk. She wants us to invite my uncle. - Yeah, I think he's totally stealth MVP. I totally agree with that. - So seven pointers, Prescott, Love, and Herbert. And that-- - I like it. - That actually is our top nine. - I like it. - Which leads to the next question, because now we're in the reds, which are five pointers. And I have Darnold, Goth, Purdy, and Caleb Williams in this group. - Darnold, Goth, Purdy, and Caleb Williams. In that order? - So that was the tentative order. My question for you, because one of these guys, I think is clearly the 10th best quarterback in the league, 'cause I think the top nine is pretty set. - Yeah, I think that's good. - Who is the 10th best quarterback in the league? I can offer you Darnold, Goth, Purdy, or Caleb Williams, with 6/4 quarter comebacks, and pretty kind of basic stats, except for how good he is when his back's to the wall. - I would throw in another quarterback into this group. Why would, I would put Stroud for consideration, but I understand some hesitation. - We're not even close to getting Stroud yet. - I would put Trevor Lawrence in this group personally, and I, as someone who just went back and rewatched Trevor Lawrence for a podcast. - So I had Trevor Lawrence as a four pointer, and my question for you was gonna be, do you believe in 2026 last eight games, Trevor Lawrence, or what we saw in the playoff game, Trevor Lawrence? - Well, he wasn't even that bad, first of all. I believe in it because circumstances stay the same, most part. - Okay, so you want me to move 'em up a point? You want me to make 'em five pointer? Okay, I'm gonna listen to you. - I think he was so awesome. - I agree with you. I just didn't know if it was-- - Some of those get the bracket, I mean. Okay, so, but of the guys you mentioned, I'm gonna parse this out. One year, if it was multiple years, I would put Caleb there, but it's one year-- - Some multiple years. - I know, I know, I know. - This season. - I'm putting Jared, I would put Jared Gough there, recently. - Okay. - I've, Jared Gough is one of those quarterbacks where my estimation has grown over time. And I think he's gotten better over time, so that's a big part of it. I feel that, like the lines, obviously, incredible skill players, you know, we all know that. I do feel like a little bit lost last year was an appreciation of some of the struggles of that offensive line and what he was dealing with. And that's, that's partially, that's his sensitivity, like that he has much better kept clean. All quarterbacks are, but the immobile ones, shall we say, are more. But I just think he's, his toughness and his ability to keep that offense that passing game going with some pretty bad line play, maybe was a little bit slept on. - The stats are really good. Like his last three years, per 17 games, would be 4,634 TDs, eight yards of pass. - You last year without Ben Johnson, by the way, he still was good. - Yeah, the question with him is, oh, is, all right, if he didn't have elite skill guys, where are we? Right? - Yeah. - He's got Gibbs, he's got LaPorta, got St. Pratt. - I think everyone you mentioned though, right? Purdy, Darnold. - I think he has the best skill guys out of all these guys in this group. All right, so Gough, I still have Darnold. I had him 10th, but I'm happy to move to 11. 28 wins plus Superboard, and it's 31 and 7 the last two years. We don't have to talk about him. You've talked about him enough. But, Purdy is my guy that I had a fent, I talked about this on your pod. I just like Purdy. Like when Matt Jones is pretty good for the 49ers, people are like, see, Purdy, I could be anybody. And it's like, I just don't agree. I think Purdy's good. Question for him is the receivers, and then the electric, whatever the fuck that thing is. - They lost in a pier saw, like I-- - Just taking things out. - I don't know what you do with this one. It's crazy. - This, I'm a big believer in July and August, setting a tone for shoving a team one direction or the other. I have not liked that. - Yeah. - I think the Shannon and Carr accident is like just a terrible thing to happen before the season for a variety of reasons, but it's just a weird kind of strange variable to put in versus what you have with some other teams. We're like, yeah, things are going great. We're happy about this and this, and you have the Niners who are dealing with all of them. I don't know, I just-- - I was so high on the Niners, like off season, the moves they made, who we did our power hour. I was like, look at this roster. And then you take a step back and you're like, wait, all of these skill players are either older, coming off an injury or have almost all of them have injury history. So why am I, like I felt, like hubris to assume, this is before a pier saw that hurt, that they would all be fine. So I don't feel-- - At some point it ends for Evans. This is becoming unrealistic for a number one, kind of somewhere between a one and a two receiver, depending on how healthy it is. But at some point, you can't-- He's hitting his mid-30s, which is-- - Yeah. - But, yeah. - Caleb. So I think at Caleb, he's the one I can see jump into a seven or maybe even an eighth this season if he's just awesome, but maybe he's the year away. I like him though. I really feel like he really won me over last year and he's a good example of like, sometimes he just need a good coach and good people around you. Like I think there's another version of his career where he's just basically like a more talented Kyle Burring that never happens. But I don't know, he kind of won me over and then we talked about Lawrence. So, all right, that's the five. Then we move it to the light reds where I do not have CJ Strad. These are all four pointers. Jalen hurts. Jalen hurts, Pickermay filled, Jaden Daniels and Bo Nyx. - Okay. - Question for Hertz. Would you bet on this being a resurgence here or a holy shit we gotta get out of this contract year by like December? Where is this going? - I'm more positive than we gotta get out of the contract. I do fear that it might take a minute to look good though, because it's just such a new offense in Philadelphia. And I do worry that the criticism is going to be so intense. So it's first few weeks if it doesn't look great immediately. - Right. - This has been a tough one for me because I talked about Daniels. I kind of just want to see him in it before I come to any conclusions. Because again, when you talked with Eagles fans about the fact that Hertz doesn't want you throw over the middle of the field and he struggled against certain zone looks and that. They'll say, well, you know, the scheme was so bad and the scheme was bad. So they're not wrong. But also you kind of want to see him do it. Throw with anticipation, maybe make some risk to your throws. So I'm a little apprehensive of it. But I'm never going to be totally out on him because he does have like a really legitimate and unique skill set. Like he throws a beautiful go ball. He's a really good athlete. I wish he ran more. But. - And he's one. He actually won a Super Bowl. My question with him, that I can't, and he's 57 and 25 is a starter better. My question with him is, Why do they seem like that? they're hiding stuff with him. Like that, like I always thought the pace of play that they played with where they just very deliberate, like they're trying to shorten the game. You know, and they kind of talked about it. They're like, yeah, we think we have better parts than everybody else. We want to shorten the game that shortens the variance. And it's like, yeah, I don't know. It feels like your hiding hurts a little bit. Like you don't want him to have 10 cracks. I would defend him by saying, I think they were hiding the offense as a whole last year. Like they knew that the offense was a disaster by their standards. They had a top five or six line. They had Barkley. They had two really good receivers. They'd got her. Like, what are they hiding? Why are they? Why did they think their offense isn't good? Because it was bad. I mean, the run game was awful. The line was hurt. Does it make sense? No, I know. I'm just saying, like I paint your it's line, though. I know. But I think that they were very aware of how bad the offense was. And they they would they had to win games with the defense, which by the way remains awesome. So yeah. Mayfield, I feel like should be a five, but his body is just so banged up. And this feels like a make a break year for him. I know they were doing the basically short-term deal, which is what they did. He's played 120 games as a starter. It's 58 and 62. When he's healthy, though, he's really good. I just he's a he's a smaller guy. And I just wonder this is who he's going to be every year. But in the last year, he had like four different injuries. He was injured. He was I think they put too much on my shoulders last year. Like the run game was bad. Their offensive line was also really banged up. And I think if they want to get things back to 2024, they need to calm things down, bring down the depth of target, get the fun game going again, play action. He is a quarterback. You can absolutely win with. I think though, whether he's like a quarterback, you win a lot of games because of is probably what's holding them back from doing the long-term deal too. And can you keep them healthy? And then Bo Nex, who knows? Why did they game manage with them so much? There's much like why were they always behind? Why were they always scrambling in fourth quarters to, you know, why were they basically a 10 minute team offensively? He's got way better weapons this year and should be better. But I have no idea. But I think he's a four because they won games with them. All right, go in the two's quickly. The pink, the pink chippers. I have CJ Stroud, Daniel Jones, Jackson Dart, Tyler Schuck, and Bryce Young. And I'm happy to move any of those back and make them zero pointers instead of two pointers. Is there anyone who does not belong in that group? Doesn't belong in that group. Stroud, Jones, Dart, Schuck, and Bryce Young. You could talk to me in a dart the most because we just haven't seen him play two months in a row. I thought, so I've gone back and rewatched all the rookie quarterbacks. I thought Tyler Schuck was the best of them. I loved him. You could have talked me in right now to make him a four-pointer. I fucking love that guy. You came up and you were like touting him and you were like, yeah, and Vale. And I got hurt. Vale. I was like giggling. And then when I went back to watch the Saints, I was like, oh my god. There was a game in like week. Vale was a stud for three weeks. Vale was like the best I've received for football. No cam word consideration here. Not yet. A horrible, horrible situation. Not with that. I mean, just abysmal last year. I'm ready to entertain it after I watch a couple games. But I think for now, it's got to be a zero. I felt like watching him. It reminded me of watching the different quarterbacks in some ways. But Caleb Williams is rookie season where there was something there. Some really exciting plays needed to learn how to play on time in bad situation. And then Caleb Williams got Ben Johnson. And then I get Tennessee. And I'm like, okay, well, you got Brian Dable. It's better. But is it? And it's not he didn't get the like Chicago glow up. So I don't know if we're gonna see. And they drafted Tate. Quite like. Yeah. I think he was last years. Well, would have been a good two-minute Twitter video of all of his great throws. Like cam word was a problem. And he's just had like, what, like 10 incredible throws. That was really weirdly unbelievable against Seattle and Kansas City. Yeah. There's something there. I'm in on cam word. I just think for the exercise of this year. No, I get it. And I had to have, I had nine quarterbacks that were zero or minus two. Because I feel like if you're getting, if you don't have, if you're in the bottom 25% of the position with your quarterbacks, I can't give you points. Anyway, CJ strapped. Here's the thing with CJ. I know. And he might be a four or five pointer. But in there, here's the thing. We talked about this when I did your pod. This is the best defense in the league. There's a real case that they could just run through. And if he could just, can he drive the car 58 miles an hour in the highway? I don't even need you to go 60. Just keep it straight. And you're going to have the lead. Your defense is going to, you're going to be a 10-nothing, 13-nothing. It's a little like the Seahawks in a lot of the games last year, we're 13. It's the entire second half of the Seahawks season. 13-3, 14-0. Just don't screw it up. And I think he'll gain confidence as the year goes along because of how good the defense is. So my hope is that he doesn't come back from the playoff disaster with too much of a, just drive the car mentality. Like, I don't want him to be too conservative. You know what I mean? Because of the like, everybody. So you want him in the carpool lane every once in a while just airing it out. It's my Nico Collins, man. And he throws like a beautiful deep ball. Like, I just think you have to find that balance. I mean, the postseason was insane, but I don't, he's not a game manager quarterback. I really don't think he is. Like, I feel. So you think he's a hitter, mate? He's like a three-point shooter in basketball. Like, he's, I think he's a key checker. I think if I was ranking him, where you have 20, yeah, I had 25 or something. No, I had him higher than that. Okay. Sorry. So I would put him in, personally, he's in my like 12 to 15 range. Wow. So you really, I think he's my talented. This is good. I like this. So you, you dumped Herbert for love and CJ Stroud is now, CJ Stroud is now your rescue, QB. He is my rescue. I have adopted CJ Stroud. I love that. Yes. I will. I will. CJ Stroud's foster mom. We need to post one of those videos where there's like a time lapse video of like, CJ Stroud. He giving him a bath. That's weird. Daniel Jones. I don't know. That's a hard one with the end. Jackson Dard who does. Bryce Young, is he a two or a zero for you? And I don't know. I hate, I hate talking about me. I don't hate talking about the banners, but they were such a psychotic team last year, right? He would get it up for the Rams more than once. Yeah. And then look abysmal against divisional opponents. And I don't know where the truth is. Maybe the worst guy to bet on or against game to game monster, just like fucking pot luck. There was a lot of buzz about him in the training camp. Now, I should mention the Panthers training camp. It's like they moved that thing outside the Cisco practice field to move that's Carolina. They've already had like five injuries. Horrible vibes. Horrible vibes. They are on my bad vibes list along with Cisco so far. Okay. And then for the zeros, Cousins, Mendoza, Kyler, I have Rodgers as a zero. I think he can fool you a couple games, but I just think over the course of 17 games. I don't see it. Could he go nine and eight and think in the playoffs? Sure. Malik Willis, Kim Ward, Berset, who had a successful hold, then congrats to him. I have them all zero. I can't give points for any of those. And then the minus two's were Watson Sanders, Gino Smith, and then two appendix were the three. Someone on Sanders thing had Rodgers as a tier one core man. Yeah, there were just games where he couldn't physically do anything. I just, the funny thing about him is like, I feel like he's he actually still can throw it downfield at times or and make difficult like seam throws and whatnot. He just so clearly doesn't want to get hit. So that's why, you know, the average of the target is like, right? Lois and football. Yeah. He's going to he's either going to dirt it or throw it away if pressure's coming. And it's just so it just affects the entire offense. I do think they've improved the circumstances around him, but I think you're fit. That's fair. I like I told you, I'm higher on Ward. Willis is a bummer because if he was in a better situation, I would I could make a argument for him, but it's hard. The Rodgers thing, anytime they went against a good defense, it just felt like they just played up on the line knowing that he wanted to get rid of the ball in two seconds or less. It was a little like the two on the offense. And there was no plan B if he couldn't find the and it was so frustrating. But I remember the Pats lost to them. It's like, just he's just going to get rid of the ball in a second. Like, I know, just got tackled. Literally, when you were on what Steelers games last year, I'd be like, just somebody tackled. And if they played, it was if they played defenses that were bad at tackling, they could move the ball. If they played defenses that were good at tackling, it was nothing. And that was pretty much it. Who's your favorite backup QB before we go? Like the best. Who's your favorite? Who's your like I've been quietly stockpiling stock on this guy just in case mine is Davis Mills. I can't do that. I mean, I know I'm not using this to track from party because I do think there's a difference. But Mac Jones was legitimately quite good last year. That's fair. Where are you? It's not bad feelings. Yeah, I was going to say like, have you gotten over it? Are you ready to root for his success? I always root for Mac, but it's just, it's listen, this is the problem with this position is you can be in the wrong situation and it's like going on the wrong high school and an 80s movie, which just can just go horribly from day one or you can be in an awesome situation and everything's everything's pitching. It's defining what the night is like, I mean, it was Kyle, like there were losing guys too when Mac was out there, but it didn't matter. It's a giant hand. So good. I think you're right. One of the sneaky biggest things to ma, is like, how's Janet had this season because he's such, such a difference maker for them. Yeah, that's a bummer. Mac is my choice. Is there someone you like better? Do you have a backup? Christ. Mine, David, I've always been a Davis most supporter, sticking your neck out for Davis. There's still, I still have some Tyler Huntly stock. I know he's bounced around and had some swings, but I don't know. There's, there's, he's had moments where I was wondering, is Mendoza count as a backup right now? When do we see, when do we see Mendoza sooner rather than he thinks it would be like a Drake main thing? I saw a Drake main thing. It's literally every first round. Drake main was like, yeah, I don't know. And then it was like week four or five. Every time. When does that not happen? Yeah. Right. Like I just, I think Mendoza would be a plus two. I think he'll be better. I like him. Better coming out of the gate because he's older and, you know, smart guy. All right. I mean, it comes. Are you doing Rams preseason games? Not doing the Rams preseason. I am traveling some for now that we're with NFL network. I'm on the boots on the ground. I'm actually going to Seattle on Friday, speaking of backups, I'll see the Justin Jalen Milbro hype. I'll evaluate that first hand, but I've done, you came on my power for the power hour. Just checked that out. It was really fun. Got the Simmons bump, uh, Simmons bump, a real legit. It looks. You can see it in the little charts. Me and Com Show featuring Lenny were wrapping up our division previews. And then we start our season coverage. And then also, yeah, check out the core facts, thinking even though we spoiled it for you. Sorry. I was trying to do rewatchables in Seattle because I love Seattle. And just the theaters are taken for like three years. I don't know what's going on there. They do a lot of. Hey, Seattle, we tried, we tried to do rewatchables, but you have nothing available. Ever. So I'm sorry. Make it happen. Someone. All right. Good to see you, Mina. Thank you. I'll see you soon. All right. We're going to talk baseball. Billy Gillis here. Anthony DeBundo is here. Before we start, Billy Gill, just talked, uh, footballed Mina for an hour. She claims that if you went on the street, Miami and asked people to name three wide receivers in the plans for the dolphins, people wouldn't be able to do it. So I figured you're right here. Can you name three dolphins receivers who might have 30 catches this year? Oh, who might have 30 catches? I was just trying to name three dolphins wide receivers. Yeah. Can you name three dolphins wide receivers? Malik Washington is on the dolphins still, right? Uh, two to at well, right? Didn't they just say? They have two. Yeah. All right. Oh. Oh, man. This is DeBundo. This is amazing. They have completely shorted the wide receiver position in an attempt to get the number on pick. Well, here's the thing. I only know because I did AFC is prepped first this year. Yeah. On Friday, on the third one. Give me a third one. Malik Washington's on the on the dolphins. He said it already. That was one. Oh, you said him. Uh, well, tober. Tober. Jalen tober. Yeah. Jalen tober. Oh, yes, the dolphins, Billy's get his book, he's getting the book out. My warrant sharp here that I've been doing to those Steelers research earlier today. Jalen tober. Okay. All right. We're talking, uh, we're talking baseball trade deadline yesterday. Um, this is the farewell baseball season until it comes back in 2031. Are the Dodgers ruining baseball? I have thoughts on this, but this has been the big topic since the scuba trade, um, that this is now unfair and we almost have to have a lockout to, to regroup after this. The bundle, you think, no. I do think no. I think we've all gotten a little bit out of control here. I mean, if you want to argue that the Dodgers have certain advantages that could be legislated out, I would probably agree with that. But why? Because they traded some prospects for Tarek's Google. Other teams had opportunities to do that. If your argument is that they're ruining the competitive balance of baseball, did we not watch the last two playoffs, like even though they were seen as the best team, they were the three seed in the playoffs last year. They had to win a wildcard series. They want to toss up series of Philly. They needed a miraculous comeback to win the world series two years ago. They were down to one and had to pitch a bullpen game in game four against San Diego because they had no pitching. And right now I understand in hypotheticals, they might have the best playoff rotation of all time. But right now, O'Connor is not pitching, glass now is not pitching, snow is not pitching. And they're starting Eric Lauer, you know, regularly. So it's not like they didn't have a need. And I understand why my team just swept them right, they've lost four to rose since they broke the sport. It's crazy. Billy, my thing with baseball, it's not like basketball where it's like, oh, we signed this guy to a max steal and the guy's usually good. He's one of the top 40 guys in league in baseball. Like, the mits have been spending money like crazy and it doesn't matter at all. And a lot of times you get these dudes and they're somewhere between 28 and 32. You give them a ton of money and their career is already peaked. So I mean, it's kind of what's happened with Kyle Tucker this year, right? Like, he is not worth like 60 million or whatever, and he got booted at the game. I went to on Saturday. Well, I listen, Dodgers fans have nowhere to boo anything. Okay. Like the idea that they think that they should be upset about anything and they should be entitled to boo people is absolutely insane because what is his, what is his salary actually? Right? Cause like, this is also like prolonged. So it's not 60 million. They're paying it. Probably like $2 million. Like he's fine for $2 million a year player. And to answer your question that you didn't ask me six, they're ruining baseball. Yeah. They're totally ruining. So you're, and you're in Florida where the Marlins have, you know, you did win two world series, but you're also, you've been sellers a lot. And then you've been buyers and you've been sellers again. But so you hate this. You're in the same league with them too. Well, I mean, so I hated the Yankees and I thought the Yankees ruined baseball growing up as a child because they would always go and whatever free agent was out there. And it was like, okay, this is not fun. This is not fair. They can just do whatever they want. Right? They didn't actually ruin baseball. I mean, they went on their run. They had their dynasty there in the middle. And then it kind of just all fell apart when George went away and Cashman has it really been able to figure things out. And the Yankees aren't really the Yankees they were when I was growing up. Like the Dodgers have now become the new Yankees, but the Dodgers, the problem with the Dodgers is that they don't really have a weakness that we can find in terms of like how they're running their organization because they have a great farm system. They have all of the money in the world. They can throw the money at people. But if it doesn't work out, then they could just trade away pieces and they're still loaded and they can go out and get more people. And politically, they're looking ahead of other teams. Like, they just, there's no way around it. And I don't know if you guys have seen this. So like, one of the things that's been going around is because we're trying to figure out like, well, how are the Dodgers doing? And clue, they're cheating one way or another. June Lee had this video that he put out in the offseason that was detailing what an advantage the Dodgers have with their TV deal that other organizations don't because it went, it goes back to the McCourt, like bankruptcy of the Dodgers. So Dodgers declared bankruptcy. They then had agreed to sell the team and they reached a deal with Major League Baseball because they had declared bankruptcy where instead of paying the, you know, standard, like 33% of revenues sharing from their TV deal, they would only pay around 10%. And that would be for the duration of their TV contract. So they ended up signing a massive TV deal that was something like $8 billion over 25 years or something. So instead of paying, you know, the 33% of that, which would amount to like $95 to $100 a year, they end up paying close to $30 million. So they're already having $60 million that they would not be paying. Yeah. Well, it goes to Kyle Tucker and they'll pay him that in like 2040 or something. And here's the problem. But they also have the Japan money too because they're basically like a double team. They have a whole Japan fan base and a California fan base. This is going to collapse at some point, right? Like it would be in like 2039, 2040 where now their TV deal runs out. They have to have a new deal. They're going to go to the 33% instead of the 10% so they lose that extra 66 million. And then by the way, I think this season have like 55% of their salaries deferred. They're going to be paying all of these guys like 2035 to 2040. And at a certain point, if there is a lockout this year, which everyone will blame the Dodgers for, if there's a lockout and then there's a salary cap imposed, which I don't see how they're actually going to do that, even though people want that. But if they do, in fact, impose a salary cap, this will blow up in the Dodgers face. At some point in time because they're going to owe all of these people all of this money. And I don't know how they're going to be able to keep up with this because we know Tony retires, which is way down the road. Then unless they have like a pipeline where they keep bringing in Japanese talent, there's this increased possibility in Japan. I mean, it is. It is possible. They become the team you go to if you're an awesome Japanese player, but we thought that about the Mariners, you know, 15 years ago when each hero was there, right? And it didn't actually end up panning out that way. Like each hero was kind of like this unique guy. And then when Otoni went to the angels, we thought like, wow, this is going to be great for the angels, but it's the angels. So they mismanaged that situation entirely, including not getting anything for him and just letting him walk away. way like down the street to his, you know, cross town team. It's, it's, it's, I don't know if we're gonna get to the angels. I don't understand angels as an organization. We're gonna get to them later. I'm gonna give you my take. They're old too. The Dodgers. Yeah, they're all now. Well, I mean, so my, here's my take. I don't mind it. I like having super teams. We see it in soccer too. I think a lot of the times it doesn't work out. I think the only sport where it can really be damaging is if we had this in the NBA, which we briefly had and they put in all the second apron stuff. But I think half the time, these deals are too long. You end up getting a guy who has all this pressure on him, who's all of a sudden making this crazy amount of money and he goes sideways like, Tucker, even like the Mookie trade, which is the worst trade of my lifetime. Mookie has, how many years left to bundle like 7, 6, 7 on his deal and quite a few. And he's not, he isn't played well for like a year and a half, right? And they're, they're paying him 30 million, 35 million down the road. But I, in general, I like having the team you have to be where it's like, here's the superpower. We have to take them down. This was the Yankees in the 2000s. And by the way, they didn't win until 2009. I think in baseball, you can beat these teams. So I'm okay with it. I like complaining about it. The thing that's not fun though is that they're so smart and they have the young talent that they can kind of just plug or whenever they have a hole. If it doesn't work out, like Kyle Tucker didn't work out and he got booed and what? It doesn't matter. Like, there'll still be favorites to make it to the world series. Mookie, by the way, is under contract with the Dodger until 2032. Like he becomes a free agent in 2033. So there's still like seven years, six, seven years of Mookie left. Right. And then Dodgers Hall of Famer or Red Sox Hall of Famer. Dodgers. Yeah. He's one more. He's one more world series with the Dodgers. Three. Now, maybe four. Mookie is 33 months. He's 35. Teasca is 33. Oh, Tony's 31. Freddie 36. By the way, really fun team to go see in person. Where it's just a, every guy that comes in, we're like, hey, that guy. Oh, that, you know, and when we, I went Saturday night, but when when the Red Sox swept them, it felt like a real achievement. It's like, yeah, we've, the Saturday night game, which the Red Sox kind of tried to throw away because they, they thought that was the game there. And he had smoked. And then all of a sudden, because Contreras was out and they beat them and it felt like a real achievement. Next question. The, uh, the Adley trade, the Red Sox made where you have this guy you're trading for. And they gave up a bunch of prospects. There's something debate about how great those prospects actually were. There was only one guy and, um, Keith Laws top 50. But, um, you're trading for a guy who you have for this year and then next year and then he's a free agent. There might not be a next year. So you're trading all this stuff for a guy. It might be two months. And then next year might not even happen. Would you, DeBundo, would you even have gone all in on these guys when you don't know if next season's even happening? Uh, I talked a couple of front office people. They said that, that led to a lot more controllable guys getting dealt this off season with this trade deadline. Rather, because they felt that those medium term deals might not have the kind of value they normally would have. And thus they were more likely to move them. And I think that was especially the case with Rutchman, where one, he's already kind of getting pressed out for playing time. Yeah. Messiah coming up and maybe being better to he hasn't been very healthy the last few years. And he's played through injury and missed time. And three, like, did he want to resign with the Orioles? Even if there was baseball next year, I'm not so sure. So like, I understand why Orioles fans are upset. And I wrote about this for the ringer. Like, yeah, it feels like they're asking us to trust the prospects again and, and pushing the can down the road. But I'm not sure what Adley's actual value was to Baltimore anymore. But I think it's very clear what his value is to Boston. Well, he's, but if he's healthy, he's a top five catcher, which was the single worst part of the team. Billy, what happens? The Marlins have done this a few times to rebuild. But then it's another to rebuild supposed to pay off. And it doesn't. So now you're in the re rebuild. What do we call this? I mean, this is called my life as a baseball fan. So this is how it works is you go out. You get these guys. You develop them. It doesn't end up working out. So then you say, you know what, these pieces just don't fit together. But like, we're like, trust us. We're going to, we're going to really make it right this next time around. And then it just becomes like an endless cycle where you kind of trust them. And then what in my lifetime, what happens is then the, you know, owner eventually sells the team makes a giant profit. They leave the new owner comes in and says, you know what, none of this is going to work out. Trust us. We're new to town. We're going to fix the situation. And then they end up going and they end up trading people. Do you guys think to go back to your question that you ask about the trades and, you know, whether it's worth it or not? Do you think there's teams that made trades taking on contracts, thinking, you know what? Maybe I don't have to worry about this contract next year. Like I could be taking on money that I may not have to pay if there is a lockout. And it led to teams thinking like, let's be overly aggressive because this felt like a very aggressive trade deadline compared to past years where teams were going for it or teams are saying, you know what? I think the weirder part where the team's kind of like right on the fringes there of like the third wild cars, but they're like, I'm not going for it anymore. Like I'm going to just take some prospects. We're two games out three games out. That was the Luis Castillo trade. Because on paper and I, we're in first place in our ale keeper league. So I'm Castillo was one of the 40 pictures we've been studying. Like Castillo's kind of washed and he was making, you know, I think he was making like 22 million this year, next year. Actually, the Mariners got a prospect back, got them to dump, got them to take the entire contract. It's like, that's crazy. You're taking two years of Castillo. But then like what Billy said, maybe you're taking two months of Castillo, right? And there might not be baseball next year. And then you're not paying anything. Well, for the White Sox fans too, I think that trade was more like, look, we're going for it. Even though like Luis Castillo is not going to probably be a different player than my list. Oh, I mean, he's been on my fantasy team and has been a disaster. But like, he's a guy that's a name. So it's kind of like, if you're a White Sox fan, you're going through all these years of hell as a White Sox fan. Wow, like, this is a guy that they're getting. Like I'd recognize this name. He was good once. Maybe, you know, a change of scenery will do it for him. Right. I, uh, I like the Adley trade, but the prospect of a lockout followed by having given him like a crazy amount of money after the lockout. It's a little concerned. But I feel like you got to push ships in though. We have to look at the American League right now. You have to. This was going to be my next question. The Red Sox could go from being the worst team in the American League to being the AL champs in a four-month span right now on Fandall. They have the third best odds to win the AL. They're six to one. By the way, the Yankees are the favor to plus 220. We might not see Aaron Judge again this year. This has been the hell fit in the fucking room. Right. And then the way they talk about it's like, no, no, it's, it's progressing. It's like all this like goobly duke where they were like, it's just, yeah, he's, it should be good. He's progressing well. He's got like a major rib injury and he's a six foot seven guy who is 280 pounds. And I don't, I don't think we're going to see him again. Do you debundo? Jaco doesn't either. He was tweeting about it. Jaco does that. Jaco is convinced that they're lying about this. They're hiding. He's more hurt than than they're thinking on that. I mean, the Yankees still have the three starters or those guys are back now. And that's still the scariest thing in the American League is those three guys in a row and a playoff series. But they're bottom 10. And offense, the judge got hurt. Right. And they didn't push any chips in. Right. Every player that they went for, they didn't do the bullpen upgrades, which you normally would do if you were pushing in for this year. Yeah. They got two players who were going to be on the roster next year with Garcia and Ramos. It felt like a little bit of a, let's not burn our prospects chasing 2026. If we don't know that Aaron Judge is going to be back, maybe he's back for the playhouse, but how healthy is he, right? And theory had missed four months by then. Right. He hasn't done any baseball activities. So I, I think the Yankees actions speak a whole lot louder than their words. You weren't excited about Luis Garcia Jr's home run yesterday earning his first game. I actually slapped Ben Glixman. And then five minutes later, the bullpen gave up five runs. That was one of the games of the year. They're up. They were down six nothing came back took seven six lead and then gave up seven runs in an inning. And the same picture got lit up right after he was at a AAA. He was terrible. The Yankees read, so the Red Sox, the thing flipped when they swept the Yankees at the end of June. Right. And then Contreras got into it. The nationals and all the sudden it's going. I will say this because this Red Sox thing has made no sense as it's happening. I've actually been watching the entire time. Has this been happening? It doesn't. I was even, I went with, I took my wife to the Dodger game and I'm like, yeah, this guy, Monasterio, like, he'll have a big hit during this game. I have no explanation for it. This guy's 29 and this got like a 190 batting average career. But their bullpen's really good. And they, they got the Giants lefty, which they finally gave up on Marcelo Meyer, which I think Red Sox fans had already given up. But this, this Red Sox, they have this bullpen now that if they can just get to like the six seventh inning and they did this against Dodgers, they can just keep bringing guys out that hold the lead if they have a one related. I'm, I'm actually Billy. I'm, I'm, I'm weirdly optimistic. I can't explain it. If you still feel the way you once felt about the Red Sox Especially like with the Yankees like do you still hate? the Yankees the same way that just with every bone in my body really. Yeah. Like I have the Yankees on I'll have the three TVs. I always have the Yankees on a TV to root hoping they lose and hoping like yesterday it was a dream. Just this guy's just getting bomb. They leave them out. The crowds go nuts. Another guy comes up. Another two run homer. It was awesome. But I do think matters too, Bill. You got the wild card race here. Well, here, this is maybe a division race. This is one of the questions I had for you. Like who do you like in the American League? I know you I know you guys are both nationally guys. But you go through and like the white socks are plus nine fifty to win the pennant. No. Texas is 16 to one. And probably they tried to sell right. Cleveland's 11 to one Seattle's 8 to one that like everybody thought they might completely got the team. Really, it's a three team race with a wild card that might come out of nowhere between Seattle, Houston, young white socks. Cleveland kind of dabbled around the edges. I don't know about them in Texas. But if you had to pick a team to bundle, who would be the out of nowhere team in August and September? And it's still Seattle. If you base off priors, all my Seattle buddies have given up. They were they kind of soft-sold with Castillo. But again, I thought they were just dumping salary there. And then they they have prospects that can call up your guy Kate is in waiting to probably come out of the bullpen and potentially save their their middle relief in the playoffs because they're really short-handed there. This offense, I mean, it's like looking around at Josh Naylor. Hey man, you're going to hit any time soon. At Cal Raleigh, you're going to do something. All time. Flip season. That's the team. And the way the bracket sets up, Tim Bay, whoever wins the division is going to be the one seed. Then four five is going to be the other two Boston, New York probably. So they're on going to be on one half of the bracket. So you have one of the winners of the West or the central has to be in the ALCS. And I'm not sure any of them are any good. I mean, again, Texas tried to trade to Grom. Grom said no. The White Sox feel like a year early. They've had a great season, but I don't think their their bullpen is is competitive long term in a playoff series. It's like Cleveland, baby, because they've done it before. They have it. David Aison and Closer Cleveland at least. So I don't like anybody. I had Seattle. I had Seattle to have surprised the odds were that high. The Kade pieces a wild card. Kade's having like one of the great minor league seasons in the history baseball. He Keith Law made him the number one prospect on his revised list last week. And he said it was the first time he's ever had a pitcher first, which seems notable. And he's going to come in at the August 15th. He's on our keeper team. We really need him. And it seems like they're just going to use him as that this guy that will come up every once and while in the playoffs, the young phenom guy who doesn't start, but has these big innings like, you know, and just as in the mix. And it seems like they're saving them for that. But they still have to actually get to the playoffs. Billy, is it it's fair to be scared of Texas, even though they're 16 to one? Like they're bad. They've had some injuries. They have a I think they play 12. They're next 19 in home. Texas in August. There's always a nightmare. They have a ball day. They have the gram. Like I still have my eye on them as like a sleeper. I mean, it's hard to trust them when they have a minus 40 run differential. Like I guess things could turn around. But there are only a couple games out of the wild card, but not that run differential is, you know, and I'll be all, but it is kind of telling it's like if you're that much of a difference, how much of this is kind of like you've been getting lucky here that you're in the position that you're in. Like if you go down, you look at a team like the tiger tiger to plus 63, they're really a half game behind them. But there's so many teams. I mean, the AL really, like you were saying, has a couple teams at the top and then it's somewhat wide open. The rest of the way and it's going to kind of be like who wants it more. You see what skipshumacher did the other day, by the way, since we're talking about Texas manager, the Texas Rangers. He was going out there as a game against the Astros on Sunday. And it was the seventh inning. They ran out of challenges. So they couldn't challenge the strike zone anymore. Goes out starts arguing with the umpire. But it's the seventh inning. Take me out to ballgame happens, whatever. Thank God, bless America starts. So skipshumacher and the umpire both, you know, turn take off their caps respectfully, sit through God bless America. Then they go turn back around, put the hats back on and go right back at it. Got them tossed out of the game immediately after. That's awesome. I love baseball and hoping baseball can these things happen. Yeah, I took the Phillies wanted to walk off ABS last night. It's great. Yeah. I took my wife Saturday. We hadn't been to a baseball game in a couple of years and we did the take me out to the ballgame. First of all, she had a great time. It was a great day. Um, but the take me out to the ballgame and she was just like, is this the best tradition in any sport? Does she do the one, two, three strikes you're out? No, we did. We do the, we do, we yelled red socks when it's a and it's you root, root, root for the, for the Dodgers, we yelled red socks. Yeah. She didn't do the hand for the one, two, three, um, but I was wondering, does basketball need this? Could there be at the six minute time out? Could there be something that unites the crowd? Then he like, there weren't any song, but yeah, something. Let's see. Could something happen there? It has to be more organic though. Right before crunch time, just something, I guess not. I think it's better if it's team specific. Like we saw this at the World Cup even. Like certain teams had their songs or their moves or their, yeah, the drumming or the rowing. Wonder, Wonder Wall was revived. Um, right. By the way, I really missed the World Cup. It was like a real void. The next like, when there weren't games every day, it was, it was like withdrawal almost. I'm getting an MLS bill, knowing it for the first time in like 10 years. I'm, I'm been locked in the Union of one, three in a row, trying to try to fill the void somehow. I don't see what's staying. Um, I mean, I made a decision on the Premier League, by the way, because I am getting back this year. Yeah. I'm doing now. So now or should I save this? I'm going to go back to Tottenham. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. I had my buddy, David Nyman, who lives out here as a huge Tottenham fan and he sent me, and he's like a very nice, like gentle, congenial guy. Never gets mad. He sent me along Texas. Like, what the fuck? You can't switch teams. You pick the team. You have to come back. Like, we'll watch games. This would be great. I was like, all right. So I'm, I'm, I'm doing some, I'll be leaning on you to bundle, but I'm doing some recon. I'm, I, I will be going back. This is my official announcement, Billy. I will be returning to Tottenham, it's per on or two in your family alarms, baby. It's celebration time. We, this is the first big problem is they don't have any stars right now. Like, they need another star to kind of galvanize around. It was, it was Kane. It was Son. It was deli. Now it's like, I don't know, Risharlas and, uh, well, they need me this year. They need some, some star power and need more celebrity fans. Who else do we have? Who are the celebrity fans right now? Uh, other than Steve Nash, Steve Nash still into it? Adele? I think he is. Adele like a real fan or fake fan? That, that's up for interpretation. I know. So I could ask who? Rich. I could ask Rich. I'll ask him. Does Adele still care? I mean, she, she lives here now, right? Anyway, I'm back. What's it? What's their coach situation? You guys happy with the coach, Billy? You want to bring in a coach of your own now that you go to Tottenham and say, you know, what? Like I, I have my eye on soccer situation. I got some pull here as a celebrity fan. I'm going to save this organization and bring in a coach. Yeah. Who do I suggest? The bundle? Who's bad? Sorry. The coach that Tottenham fans would want back has just signed a four year extension the US men's national team. So we are, I saw that. You know, Pogetino was our guy for many years. Now we have Deserbys. He's a, he's a very intense Italian man. He doesn't take shit from anybody. He's been known to accost his players and training and that has run him out of a couple of jobs in the past. But he's a, he's a damn good coach. So we're happy about that. National jobs are like full-time jobs. Like you can't go coach, you know, like in the NBA. Like you can't coach. I agree. I thought that was weird. I don't know how that's his only thing that he does. Like what does he do for the next year? Yeah. Just looks at under 17 footage. That's weird. They're supposed to like travel around to see the players in person. It's like a, it's like when you want to take a vacation but you still want to get paid lots of money. You go coach an international game. And so we've actually seen a lot more of the club guys, especially since there's fewer top club jobs open. They just were like, wow, you know, go coach Brazil or I'll go coach England or I'll go coach the USA. For example, and now Poget sign down for a few more years. Yeah, it's, it's funny going through the entire world cup and getting excited about America and be like, yeah, and then it gets to like the last few games in the skill level. It's so dramatically better. It's like, oh my god, what were we thinking? Like Spain, Spain's connecting on 58 passes in a row. It's like, what were we even thinking we had a chance against anybody? Why aren't we good as a country at soccer? Like why can't we be better? The Chinese communist revolution, Billy Gil. I got a. All right. No, that's what you're close to. I got a great email that I really want to dive into at some point for real. And I can't remember who sent it, but I'll give them credit when we do it about. Do we designate one of the 50 states as a soccer only state? All they have is soccer. And like if you're good at soccer, you actually, so it's like South Dakota, which is like, we've designated South Dakota as our soccer state. And that's it. There's no other sports. You can't play basketball. You can't play football. All you have to do is play soccer from day one. And then that becomes like our little mini country within the United States, that's soccer. Billy's, I can see Billy's wheels turning on this. I mean, I'm kind of wondering what like the ramifications might be for like, you know what? Also, no schooling. It's just soccer in this state. Like this is what you're going to learn. There'd have to be a lot of money like thrown at them, right? Or do they not have a choice? Like, there's just no option. You literally can't play any sport. I don't think it's a not a choice. No, no, it'd be soccer early, but you could do it with a small stay too. Like you just pick Rhode Island would be tough because the weather, but you could go smaller state and just be like Rhode Island or Maine or Delaware, one of those. But, but we're sending kids there or are we bringing them up from this? Yeah, this is getting problematic. No, we're pretty quick. It's like hockey. Families are moving there. It's like in Canada how the people move to different cities. But I thought as a half-baked idea. I thought it was tremendous back to baseball. What a tangent. That was great. Well, I had one more big baseball thing for you because you talked about this in the piece you wrote for the ringer to Bundo. There's like five playoff teams in the NL. And you could see there are odds for a fan door to win the pennant. The Dodgers or minus 115 goes all the way through. It's Milwaukee, Atlanta, Chicago, Philly's, 10 to one. And then the six best odds are San Diego 35 to one. So we have a five team race basically in the national league. Is that just where we're going to end up or is there going to be an out of nowhere team? No, I think that's very much where we are. And that's it. And I think that kind of informed the deadline. It's like, you know, I know Billy is is persona non grata on Marlon's Twitter now because he's not happy with the team. Is that true? I have set Marlon's Twitter because I wanted their manager Clayton McCullough to be fired after he took out Yuri Perez during a perfect game. It was a whole thing. I really, really upset them because this is like right when they were, you know, getting hot on their nice, you know, month of June where they were kind of showing everyone like, wow, this is like the real team. Everybody ignored the first couple of months. Like, June, that's, that's the real team. Then there was a 12 game losing streak that like, you know, kind of derailed that whole thing. But like in the process to getting 10 games over 500, which is not common accomplishment down here for the Miami Marlins, particularly that point in the season, I was very upset at the idea of pulling Yuri Perez during an attempted perfect game. I mean, he had gone seven days. He had 92 pitches, but their whole thing was it was his third start back from injury, but it was a leg injury. And I have lived my existence as a Marlins fan with the excuse making of we need to save these arms for October, knowing full well, October is not guaranteed for the Marlins and like longevity of these players career as bad as this may sound is not of my utmost concern. Like I don't really care if they have a long and healthy prosperous career that will get them traded to another team. I would like to see a no hit or a perfect game. This is why I hate Don Mattingley and DeBundo. I'm sure you love Donnie Baseball because he's come really. You hate Don Mattingley. I don't think I've ever just like to fill in because I like just like Don Mattingley's managerial of the Philadelphia Phillies right now, really feel the same way we've discussed this on the Philly special. He, I mean, it's like a vice person, his son is the GM sort of. Yeah. It's a very weird power snap. Oh, yeah, hold on a second. He came in and he completely turned around your season. They conveniently fired Rob Thompson the day before Zach Wheeler came back from injury and has pitched like a saw young and, you know, all the players started playing better. I think that would have happened with or without the great Donnie Baseball. I was going to say the Red Sox manager, Tracy, who took over for Cora. And he's like a scramble for Runs Guy, which we haven't had forever. Like somebody will double and he'll bump the guy over. Like we're like a suicide squeeze thread. Small back, though. It's really fucking fun because Cora was very holy or the bow about all that. And this guy will just be like, we're bumping people over. We've been games with like sacrifice, you three sacrifice, Bunts and, you know, the last four innings. And it's really fun. It's, it's energetic. I enjoy it. There's more variants in baseball now. Bill Ben Lerndberg wrote about this. Yeah. Brewers have broken clutch hitting Tampa Bay, like invested in a bunch of dudes who hit the ball really hard, but on the ground are line drives, not homers. Right. And it's worth them. And like, you know, you got the Red Sox doing this. So there's more, there's more variants. The Phil is just traded for a hall for Luisa rise who never strikes out. And he's really won't be your strategy. Would you be a all line drives guy? Would you be a home runs and strikeouts GM? What would you be? I like small ball. I like the stolen base. I think it's fun. Like I like the idea of a triple or, you know, like something happens and whoa, could we get it inside the park home run here? Like the home runs and the strikeouts, like, they're fine. Right. But like, I like the, it's kind of like instant gratification with the home run. Like you immediately have that feeling and then it's gone. We're like a stolen base, like a triple or, you know, you have a team that you know, like anything can happen here. Like this guy's going to be like a demon on the base path. I like that kind of baseball. That's why I don't understand why, like, why did games go beyond the 10th inning when you start with a runner on second base with no outs. Like it's very easy. Just move them over, let them over, sacrifice, fly, and you score a run. But we have games going beyond the 10th all the time because there's no, like they said, just stop teaching small ball. And it's coming back now, thankfully, but we had like a generation of people who are just discovering that you can steal bases and bun people over. It's incredible. You also had people when they're bunting looked like they had never attempted a button their entire life. And this felt like it was like for 15 years. Just people would be like, yeah, it's second and first no outs. They're going to bun them out. And the guy would be like holding the bat. Like it's like a broomstick. Well, I mean, with the shift, you would have like everybody on one side of the field. And it's like, you literally just have to put it down the third baseline. And you could hit a double here and, and nope, sure enough, you hit like right into the shift. And then there, if there is a but now, we have the opposite where no one knows how to field a but. So like if you're going to blunt it, you're probably going to get on because they haven't been teaching people. Freddie Freeman is the only one who knows how to do a button and more. Do you hate the arise deal? The bundle. I'm very lukewarm on it. Really. Well, they moved breast harper in the afield. So everybody's sick. It's going to be amazing. It's literally it's like, all right, you want to play now? You'll play third, play first, play right field. Arise adds on base value to a team that's 28th and on base percentage. So like, that's exciting. I'm excited to watch him hit. He's like annoying to play against and fun to have on your team. He's gotten better defensively. But like you said, you know, Bryce Harper hasn't played outfield in five years. He got injured last time he played the outfield. That's why he stopped playing the outfield. This is the area judge problem too. Yeah. And he wasn't a good outfielder in 2021. And I don't think he's going to be a very good one in 2026. And some of the metrics already say the failures are the worst defense in the league. I think I can't wait again. It's going to make it a TV for me. I can't wait to watch them play defense. I went down an Arise rabbit hole yesterday for you to bundle, but I wanted to save it to talk to you today because I don't like, what is this guy's deal that no team wants him? He's about to win. He potentially could win if he keeps his average up. His fourth batting title for his fourth different team. Like, he just is constantly moved because all he does is get on base. And that's essentially it. I was like, how in the history of baseball, how many people do you think have won four batting titles that are not in the Hall of Fame? Do you do you know off the top of your head? You wouldn't know that. No, I need to be amazed if there were. I used to know things like this. So how many have won four batting titles for four teams? I don't think that anyone has. There has to be a record. So there's one guy that has three batting titles that is not in the Hall of Fame. And that's Pete Rose. But I don't think it has anything to do with his play. And then there's a guy that has four batting titles, not Pete Rose. Fuck yeah. All these guys should be in. This is ridiculous. What's the point of the Hall of Fame? I say, you're watching the history, you're watching the history of baseball here by now. Put like make his plaque. Yeah. Make his plaque. Put on the plaque. What he did. Like we want our kids to learn about the past. But the pretend he didn't happen. Like he's in there. He just doesn't have the plaque. I like the punishment. I'm very unpopular on the situation. But like the fact that like I know this eats at very bonds. And I know the seats at Roger Clements. Like I kind of like it. You know, like, why can't we put it? Why can't we have like a basement? And it's not nice. And the lighting's not good. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, wait a minute, I have an idea. What if we put up their plaques like in an infirmary? Like if somewhere inside the Hall of Fame, there's like a first aid station where you can go and you can get like all the drugs or whatever. And then in there, there's like a whole wall with like the Palmeros and the McGuire's and everyone. But like you have to go into like a place where they're going to sell you drugs or give you like Medicaid. Can I go one step further? Put them in the bathrooms. There's like 15 guys. There's 15 bathrooms. Each bathroom. There's just like the Barry Bonds plaque next to where you dry your hands. But like in the bathroom or like would you put a plaque like as a urinal toilet? Yeah. Over the urinal. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, like in the urinal, like the urinal case being that catches it. So it doesn't like splash back. It's like all of Barry Bond's stats or whatever. You know, I think there's something here. Listen, Barry Bonds is the best left fielder I've ever seen in person. I can't believe he's not in the Hall of Fame. He's unbelievable. It's fun. Look, he cheated, right? Like we know he cheated. He did it. He got the stats, which is what he wanted. He got the money, which he was going to get anyways. Why not take this little thing from him knowing that it's just going to drive him crazy to can't go in there? Like Pete Rose. Pete Rose is obviously like an extreme situation because like it was literally all he can. about. And then he died. So it's like he's never going to see this now. Yeah. And then immediately after me like, you know what? Maybe it's time for Pete. It's like, I guys, this doesn't mean anything to Pete anymore. Like he's gone. He's not going to be there signing autographs anymore. Anyways, back to what I was telling you. There's one guy that has four batting titles, not in the Hall of Fame. It's this guy Bill Maddog Madlock. Do you know him? Oh, yeah. The Cubs. Yeah. So he wins four batting titles. He has a career 300 average. He was good. He has a world series that he won with the pirates. He didn't even get five percent of the Hall of Fame vote and was gone off the ballot after one year because apparently he was so difficult with the media and he was such a jerk to like, umpires that I guess they sent him this point. I mean, he has over 2,000 hospitals like 1800 games. So it's not the best. But in a baseball season now where you have like five guys hitting over 300. The idea that you have a career 300 hitter with four batting titles that didn't even make the second year ballot in the Hall of Fame is crazy. In 1996. So 93 was when he was up. They, they, he didn't make it past. In 96, the like veterans committee or whatever the baseball writers association, they got together in petition for him and like three other guys, including Larry Boa, who didn't make a second year after a second year of election. They wanted to put like five guys back on the ballot who had gotten the five percent. They approved it. Then the ballot came out and they changed their mind. They just left them off the ballot. So they said, you know what, we approved this, but no, we're not going to ever vote you into the Hall of Fame. Garvey's the biggest miss for me. When I was a kid, Garvey was the best first baseman for like a decade. I don't understand how he's done it. Well, don't maddenly. He's not in either, right? He didn't, his peak, what he had the great peak, but his career, I don't think was long enough. I had another topic for you guys. I watched four Red Sox games when they put the A's in Sacramento. I love that. I kind of loved it. I love Sacramento. And I love it. It was really fun. I love when they played a Las Vegas and everything was flying out. Like that. There was parts of the parts of the outfield where the ball would fly out. No other parts where you had no chance. And it just, it felt like more, it felt like honestly like a double A game. It was crazy to watch on TV on like a, you know, a nice wide-screen TV and HD. And it was like, it seemed like people are at like the park and not like a baseball game. When they would hit the home run, it would be so like hilariously over the fence that it's like, yeah, like this ball just went 480 feet somehow and it went to parking lots. It kept you on your toes every single at bat because he was like literally anybody could hit a home run. But I don't know, I kind of, I kind of enjoyed the vibe. The other funny thing is that where the club houses are located, yeah, is different from a normal like major league setup. So last year when Katsai got thrown out of a game, he had to do like the walk of shame down the third baseline. So he like milked the walk. He's like walking super slowly because he just wants to make his point clear that he shouldn't have gotten thrown out. And then he, you know, he veered off down the left field line, I guess, where the medical store, the clubhouse is. It was so funny. It was such a weird series because we had, we traded for Curtis Mead. And then he got hit the second time he went up on the hand. He had like a suit of armor on it was, it was like three inches of his body where a ball could have actually hit his flesh. And somehow ends up breaking the rest. So it turned into the Aaron Rogers Jets game of Aaron Rogers coming out the flag and getting that was it. He's gone. That was our big one of our big trade dead line moves. The sacramental crowds are also kind of great because they're not really invested. Like they're going out and they really like it. Yeah, they're hanging. He's been nothing to them. So they're going out there just to have fun. The perfect game that I was telling you about your Perez that I upset Marlon's Twitter. So they take him out of the game. This is in sacramental. The A's fan or the road team that's being no hidden and hasn't even gotten on base is just letting the Marlon's manager have it for the rest of the game. They're all in unison just chanting shame at him over and over again. So the game's going on and you just hear chance of shame, shame, shame. And they're like pointing at him. And he's like on the top step eventually he's like got to like get back in the dugout here. But they letting him have it for three straight innings because they're just there to have a good time as long as they have baseball there. I like it. I think it's been a bit sacramental probably shouldn't have a majorly baseball team. But I do like when cities get a cameo for a year. Like, yeah, here's what it's like. I don't know who the next team would be, but I think the biggest thing's going to be bizarre. It is going to be weird. I don't think like it's not like football or it's a destination or like basketball, even where it could be a destination or hockey where they have their own team like baseball, you know, of all the places to travel to go watch your baseball team. Are you going to pick Vegas? There's too many games like for even the tourists. We're not going to have a home field advantage at all. It'll be like a road tourism environment. And then like, yeah, in the middle of June, who's going to Vegas to watch their team play the ace? All right. So before we go, is there an out of nowhere team these last seven weeks? I know we talked about a couple candidates. You know, it's going to happen. It's August 4th. We know somebody's going to get hot. So who is it? And it could be either league. My guess would be the NL just because the NL has the top five and then everybody else and everybody else seems suspicious to me. Well, I don't think what you're saying. I'm like, come out of nowhere and do what? So like win the just to make a run and be like, what's going on with these guys? It always happens. I don't know if they'll win a pen it, but somebody throwing their hat in the rain that we're not expecting. I mean, the crazy case would be that Detroit's only two and a half games out. A little schoolable schoolable viewing theory. And they metricly like they are underrated. They've got a bunch of younger players coming through that have popped for them of late. They, you know, there was a little bit of malaise early in the season. And I do wonder how much of it was related to the fact that the clubhouse was just kind of pissed off that schoolable didn't get paid. And they were pissed at ownership and pissed at kind of the inability to negotiate the situation. So just getting him out of the picture, of course, it hurts their pitching staff. But just getting him out of the picture helped them. Now, you know, you're not dealing with a ton of starting pitching anymore. But we've seen Detroit do this before two years ago. Yeah. They were dead, dead in the water and got hot and managed to pitch their way into the playoffs. It wouldn't be shocking just because I just don't really believe in any of the teams in the American League Central. Honestly, I would have kept them. I think for what they got, because you get, if he leaves as a free agent, you get draft picks and it's okay. It's not getting to top 60 prospects. But at least you get something. But then it gives you a chance for, I don't know, for some sort of playoff run, plus you know, next year's can be a lockout anyway. I don't know. I just, if I was running the Tigers, I would have kept them. I mean, it's two and a half that they're out too. They have to jump like five teams right now to get into a playoff spot because everyone's so tight. But like, you did kind of punt on the whole schoolable thing. And we haven't talked about it, but doing it two days before the deadline was weird. I know that we don't want to say that the Dodgers have ruined Facebook. But like, something's fishy here with that situation because now he goes to the Dodgers and now they're already probably starting the contract negotiation situation. And I wonder how much, like he, do you think he's motivated with the impending idea of a lockout with a salary cap too? Let me extend before this season's over and just get a ton of money before there isn't a ton of money to be gotten. So like, I'm happy to be going to the Dodgers. I would have wanted to go there anyways. I'll have a lot of money they can give me. Like, let's do this either like during the season or right after the season and let's not risk the idea of I can't get paid because the problem with the salary cap is the salary floor. Like in my thoughts, everybody says, I guess it's going to be great. All of the bad teams and they're going to have to spend a hundred and fifty million dollars. But what ends up happening is the bad teams end up spending that money in the dumbest way possible. And you get it happened in the NBA. Remember 10 years ago at the cap spike and all the sudden Portland and the net saw the like Alan Crabbs making 71 million dollars for four years. Yeah, we saw this. No business making the money that they're making. Just getting thrown money because they're the free agent at the time. And the team that's bad that's not going to reach the salary floor is afraid of getting, you know, like a slap on the wrist or whatever from the league. So they just throw dumb money at players. You're almost spending the money. Yeah. You're almost better. Like, yeah, penalize me versus me having to go get. Well, dang. So you said it was fishy that he went to the Dodgers. To me, there is a weird angle there too. No, but to me, it's beyond fishy. I think the rest of the league just assumed he's signing. He's signing with the Dodgers this way. Like to me, it reminded me of the honest situation when you're honest said, I'm either going to Boston or Miami. Other teams could have traded for honest, but he had already said, I want to go to these two teams. I think scuba was just going to the Dodgers. Like, you can trade for me, but you'd be renting me basically. He must have made it. But teams have traded for rentals before. I mean, the raise and the brewers are the two teams. Everybody is kind of pointing the eye or at. Well, so the brewers were the team that's about like they should have gone after him. Yeah. You know, teams have traded for rentals. The Dodgers just paid two two and a half prospect, two three prospects to get him early for one more playoff run. Why didn't Milwaukee do this? Why didn't Tampa do this? The conspiracy that I am open to is from a pure politics angle. It feels very rare that the negotiation politics, not politics. From a pure negotiation angle, like the fans are very split and very anxious. about this and a lot of them are going to side with the owners because they're mad at the big bad Dodgers. So there is a theory of like if you're the owner of the race or the owner of the brewers and you want to solve that this happened. You're thrilled that everybody's faced the Dodgers. It's like yeah, yeah, get mad at them. So we can try to get a salary cap, which is what all of them probably want because they get to cap the earnings of their labor, which is ideal in an environment where you have the billionaires fighting against the millionaire players. So that I am open and sympathetic to the idea that not everybody loses from the Dodgers being seen as this unbeatable behemoth, even if they're not. I'll tell you this. First of all, it's so much more fun to go to baseball games now. I just can't it can't be said strongly enough that you're just standing out in two and a half two hours 45 and you're not just sitting there watching somebody grab his groin and step out of the batter's box and they have a song you get to sing and like it's just seen so much more fun to go with that said, if they do have a lockout and baseball disappears, it is just not going to like when this happened in 1981, this was I was I was 11. It was catastrophic. Like we didn't have nearly enough other stuff to do. So just taking baseball away, even in 94 when it happened and it was awful, there was slightly more stuff to do. Now there's so much. I just think people move on to different things and you know, it could go away for a year and it'd be terrible. But I don't think it would have the same impact that it did 40 years ago. I just don't. But does that benefit the players? Because like the owners are going to be the ones that are going to be more incentivized. So like we cannot have this be a prolonged lockout and lose kind of the momentum that the sport has had to pass a couple seasons. It's the other way though, because for the owners, these are all the people that buy teams now. We're seeing an embassable football right now, especially. There are all these rich dudes. These teams are assets to them. They're not. They don't have a connection to the city or the fan base. They're these things they buy the same way they would buy companies or whatever. And if they could hold the asset for a year, not have to spend any money. They get to write off all this stupid shit for it, try to break the players a little bit and get a cap. Like they're going to they're going to do that. They're not going to care about the fans. I don't I don't feel like these professional sports teams care about the relationship with fans in the same way that they used to. It's not just fans. I mean, think about how much of the local economy is is, you know, between stadium workers. Right. It's devastating employees to the fact that it's, you know, smaller US cities around the country have 80 plus events every year that are guaranteed that provide local broadcast rights, local TV. Like it goes beyond billionaires. You know, like the one thing you'll say is like, Oh, you're choosing the billionaires over the millionaires when you side with the owners, which is true. And like I'm pro labor, but there's labor beyond just the millionaire players that go into the entire baseball ecosystem. And people kind of leave them out of the mess. Like they're not the ones that are actually the most impacted out of anybody. You know, Bryce Harper doesn't get paid next year to live. But like, if stadium employee number 326 that loses their job, you know, you're talking about massive ramifications. Well, need also to think about all the bars around the stadium, all the restaurants, all the stores that are around there. Yeah, you're, you're decimating these different locations. Well, and then people will have to turn to the Savannah bananas. And we can't have that be something that it takes. I will make that my mission in life to make people, I feel like I had a little bit of an impact on pickleball because it feels like people, you know, just a tiny bit, if I helped it anyway, great. But people are down on pickleball now, which I'm delighted by. The Savannah bananas, bananas are next. What do you know about that bill? And it totally pickleball is alive and well. What are your biggest like culture, like places where you have kind of flexed your muscles? So you got the use, you got the UCLA coach fired or hired, I should say. Yeah, you got the UCLA coach hired. I mean, that's, that's going to be my legacy. Yeah, you've, well, hold on, you've contributed in your mind to the downfall of pickleball. No, just small, just a small contribution. Just okay, just a little, if I was able to help it anyway, great. I think people are annoyed by pickleball now. Just takes a little cut and all of a sudden the reflecting pool is green, you know, you just need a little thing to kind of get the ball rolling downhill. I think the one thing that I feel like I actually really helped was Friday night lights, weirdly, the TV show. I think it was going to get canceled. And I wrote this ESP in the magazine piece about it. And they decided not to cancel it in Peterburg. And I don't know if this is true or not, but Peterburg, the creator of the show, like genuinely believes that the column saved the show. So who knows it? That's true. But I'll take that one. We never would have had Landry and Tyra accidentally killed a guy outside the bar. You know, the show just would have been gone. I don't know if you guys watch that show. The bundle doesn't seem like he did. Do you know, I never watch it start to finish. I've seen it just watch season one. It's great. Do you know the impact that you're going to have when you do these things? Or do you just like find out after the fact, like when you go to sit down the Friday night lighting, you're like, you know what? This is going to do it. And you sit down, you say, this is how we save the show. That was what happened. That was literally the column was, I need to help save the show. This is the best show on TV. That was 12 hundred words of me, putting like, please, please watch this show. Yeah. So, so what is my new, what's my new thing now? The Savannah Bananas. Yeah, you got to stop sparing bananas from taking over major league baseballs. You know, if they if they go into a lockout, it's really dark. I'll go to the bananas. It's really, it's really one. I was at a bar that night and I was tempted to ask the bar to just put something else on because it was on. But I literally went through the guide and I was like, there's nothing else that I could even recommend right now. Like the Phillies weren't playing. I was like, man, and this is this is dark. Not banana ball. I will say ESPN feels like it's reverting back to the 1980s with some of the stuff they're showing. They've had they had the Pillow fight championships last weekend. I don't know if you guys know. This is the summer. This is summer programming. But there's like look like football on the other day. Flag football. Our friend Kyle Brandt was the color guy and the flag football really under 18 championships. Yeah. It feels like I don't know whether they lost rights to different stuff, but it feels like they're definitely throwing stuff against the wall lately. What's the basketball league with the trampolines? -Slam ball. -Slam ball. That was on last summer and my buddy's not really at the bar like kind of getting into it for a second. Yeah. It's back. My question for any sport is my question with all of these things is will the bundle bet on it? Will the bundle on Sal actually think about wagering on this? That's when you know you've arrived. I don't see that with this Savannah Benanas. Saturday night I was in an airport delay in Dallas for two and a half hours getting home from Montana and my friend and I sat down and there was USL which is second division American soccer on it. It was Louisville versus Tampa Bay and Louisville was up three know at the half and Tampa Bay had this crazy comeback. They won five before and I will say I did check to see if they had betting odds up. They did not. So there were no haters placed. But it was it was a curiosity thing. But yeah. I have never been on slam ball. Never been on pitch ball. This is the dark days of gambling August. No. Yeah, I take some time off. It's nice because we have no no golf majors yet. The FedEx playoffs is here. All the tennis stuff is done. There's just. It opens coming up. US opens coming up. No, but I mean for right now, there's nothing. Yeah. There's some preseason football, which is like preseason football is a clear indication whether you have a gambling problem or not. Well, you see that bill the sharp people will tell you that's where they find their big edges. Yeah. Exactly. That's just a lot of work and it's been off. It's never been clear to me. Even I don't bet preseason football like that's like that's like a next level thing. All right, guys, this is fun. Baseball. I'm actually paying attention and watching and I care. So we'll do we'll have to do this again. Billy Gale, how's coach football tailgate going? We're gearing up for a couple of weeks away, right? We're like less than a month at this month before we have actual games going on. So exciting, exciting times the bundle. We'll talk more about Tottenham. Come on, you spurs, Bill. Come on, you spurs. We are 17 days to the opener. All right. Thanks, guys. Good to see you. All right. My friend David Shoemaker is here. We've been working together for literally 15 years since year one, Grantland all the way through the ringer. Do you go summer slam last week? You must have. I didn't go. I didn't go as my first one I missed in a while, but I've been moving and doing all this kind of stuff and, you know, I wish it was for you. Yeah, I spent a couple of summers and Minneapolis growing up. So I don't I'm not anti-miniapolis, but I heard it was one of the most fun summer slams in a while in terms of just, you know, the hanging out and the vibe and stuff. So yeah, I wish I'd been there, but I didn't go this year. Did we definitely need a two nights summer slam? Just curious. Is that something that needed to happen? I appreciate the shorter shows, you know, like each night. I appreciate that my like seven year old can stay up and watch the main event, you know, and it's not be three in the morning or whatever when it finally drags out because they were getting to a point. Some of those WrestleMania's before they went to two nights were just sloths. The New York one was the longest one. I actually think I might still be there with my son. Yes. I think I don't know if we've ever left. I think we entered the seventh circle of hell. And they had like four really dramatic main events in a row at the end. So like and they were all long. The big thing this year is there was just a ton of ads and the matches weren't that long. And if you were just there for the wrestling, you know, it was a nice fast moving show or whatever, but there's just a lot of other content. They could have fitted on the one night. I don't know if they could have fit all the ads into one night, but they could have fit the content. And there were a couple of matches like I'm a big Danhausen fan, but that Danhausen Don match would have worked a lot better as like the third. to last match in a, in a really long show, you know, kind of the popcorn match as opposed it sort of trying to hold its own. So anyway, they could have done with maybe a little less time. I zoomed through both of them after the fact, after they happened. And the ads were an issue, which I get, we all have ads, like, but it was just different than the old pay-per-view experience and just being able to rip through it. But the one I cared about the most was the Lesnar match, which was, you know, in the, on the first night in one of the, you know, I, I thought was the main event. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was the single most compelling storyline. Like, how many times can Seth Rollins and Roman Reigns have to have some sort of reckoning? This was like a clear torch pass to have a new guy in this whole legacy of, you know, going back to Andre the giant, an undertaker, Lesnar now befamming like the, the big unstoppable force. So it feels like they finally found that, right? It does. I mean, I was going through the list myself and, I mean, there's a little bit of a, you know, blurry line between the next big thing monster edition and just sort of the next big thing, you know, like, where do you put diesel in this conversation? I guess, but like, you know, you can definitely put Sid Vicious in that category. Oh, that's a good one. Diesel's good too, by the way. Yeah. When Drew McIntyre debuted, this was his gimmick. He was the next big, he was the chosen one, you know, he was Vince's thing, but he was really slight. Like, he wasn't the same Drew McIntyre he is today. Right. But, but it's been, you know, and you can put a little bit of Bobby Lashley, a little bit of Randy Orton, a little bit of even John Cena, Roman Reigns, you know, those guys are in that category as like, we have our eye on you. We know, like, you know, contract negotiations be damned. We're going to say out loud that you're our next star, you know. And it's, it's a really, it's a huge moment, you know, I've known Obafimi to talk to him to say, hey, to him since his NXT days, obviously. And, and he's just a really great dude, man. I mean, just really he's like, he's a true believer. He's the exact kind of guy you'd want in that spot. And it's really amazing to see how quick his rise has been and how justified it's felt. Well, and from a real live standpoint, six foot five, six four, he's a big dude. Six six. Yeah, he's probably six, he's probably six like legit six five like he was, he was, you know, noticeably bigger than me. And that's not usually the case when I'm hanging out with wrestlers. Well, wrestling is seven foot three, seven foot two. Exactly. Seven foot two five hundred pounds. I said the NBA agent should send their players just to go hang out with wrestlers all the time during the pre draft stuff. Let's be according to the according to the tape. They're all like seven and a half feet tall now. But what a Hogan was six six six five. Sure. Hogan in his prime was probably a legit six five six six, he was a really, really big guy. And by the time that, you know, I interviewed him on cheap heat back at Grantland by the and certainly by the time that we interviewed him for the vent stock, he was, he was declining in size a little bit. He had a lot of both hip surgeries. I think both hips replaced a couple of times. And I think some back stuff too. I mean, and that's just, you know, in just general shrinkage, you know, he had, he had come down quite a bit. Andre was listed at seven four was probably like six 10 six 11 at his peak. And then pre after like the vertebrae started going on. I mean, probably ended up it around six seven. But yeah, but the big show probably six nine six 10. And he's keeping it together for the most part. A lot of these big guys have leg have not just knee surgeries, but like Kevin Nash just had a corrective leg situation a couple of years ago. We got a lot of like blood patlet plat whatever's like shot up into his knee in Mexico. He's a whole new man. I mean, obviously, Andre turned down some surgeries that could have prolonged his life pretty significantly along the way. So I mean, and that's a medical condition as opposed to, well, I think big show has it a little bit, but there's a lot more you can do to keep the keep going, you know, to like stop from curving over whatever. The more finance when they try to annoy the next giant unstoppable guy, but the guy's terrible like giant Gonzalez. Oh my god. I mean, even all the way to like, I was Vladimir Coslov. Like there's so many just like weird gigantic like scary dudes who we just thought were going to be, but you know, during the whole Kogan era, there were so many feuds. It was just Hogan versus a monster. And you had to keep finding people who looked physically imposing next to a guy who was already the biggest dude, you know, with the business on, you know, one of the biggest dudes in the business. So yeah, there were a lot of he, I think the whole Kogan is responsible for skewing the the size charts for a whole generation. Right. You know, like in any other promotion, Hogan, a guy of Hogan size would have been the heel or they would have kept the five 10 guy that they were crawling six one as the hero, you know, and it, but it all got thrown. Well, that was the irony. It's Hogan was one of the best, like when Hogan was heel, he was one of the best heels ever. Big John stud was kind of the underrated one from that horror. He loved it. He was, but he was legitimate. Like if you saw him in person, he seemed like a legitimate six 10 6 11. Yeah, I think with a lot of these dudes, it's you get the impression of their size even in person, even if even if the size is fake, like John Cena and Stone Cold Steve Austin, I'm probably an inch taller than both of them, but both of them feel twice as big as me person, you know, and, and, you know, giant Gonzalez, I'm sure did not feel like as tall as he was. He's a very wispy seven footer. And then you get like the same punk guys who are like shockingly not as big as you'd think they are. Yeah, but punk is also tall. I mean, like he strikes you as tall in person too. He's been, he's gotten into crazy good shape over the past, you know, several years or whatever. But yeah, it's just that it's when you've just carried around all that muscle forever, and then it just sort of congeals into asphalt as you become an old man, you know, those, those guys are like, I don't think I think I could work out for five years and not be able to pick up Steve Austin off the ground. You know, he's just, he just, the guys like that are just so intimidating. Where WWE is, it's, this is right after the hot streak, which has happened a few times in history where it's like, we had this incredible run. Everything's going great. And then it's like, it's right after you're still sustaining it, but you kind of know it's not the same. And it feels like a little bit of a low right now. Right. So I wrote my book, why Hogan matters. I have to wave it around. That's my job. But this is, but, but Hogan was the, like for people of our generation, Hogan was the original apex, right? It was that the rock and wrestling, the Hogan Mania era was so big. And at the time, it seemed like it'll be like this forever. But of course, we know now what every wrestling promoter prior to Hogan knew very well, which is a wrestling's incredibly cyclical, right? And it's about, it's like, it's like boxing where you gotta have the right fight, but it's just, it's a broader, almost like, it's hard, it's inexplicable, you know? It just goes up and down and up and down. And I think that for if you're running a wrestling company, the real, I mean, there's basically like two knobs that you can control. One is delay gratification, put it off as long as you can. The way Cody Rhodes lost his first WrestleMania match against Roman Reigns, right? Right. And two is just keep, try to drag out the top for as long as you can. That's why we had Hogan Andre, at WrestleMania and then Hogan Andre again at the first summer slant. You know, they found ways to keep the thing going and going and going. Well, then they made my show man the champ, but Hogan was still the biggest draw. Yeah, that's where it comes in. Get him. Yeah. They did the squash matches with Andre, the giant all over the place to build him up. But yeah, by 91, they kind of ran out of moves. They, yeah, there's not, there's only so much you could do. And so right now, yeah, I think we're in the post peak from the moment that we were all saying, I can't believe it's this big again with Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes relatively knew that WWE and CMPunk very new to WWE. That was the real peak. And then, and I'm sure that I guarantee like, you know, the folks at the TKO headquarters are not saying, well, we all know it's a cycle, but you know, they're saying, how do we stay this big forever? How do we get bigger? Yeah. But it's just now, you're kind of riding the wave and it's really, it's going to be interesting to see like how far it goes down and how far and how quickly it can start going back up. It's not a bad spot right now at all. But I think it's, I think it's notable that we had CMPunk versus Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns versus Seth Rollins at Summerslam. These are two like rest, quote, unquote, WrestleMania matches and they just say and let's just put it all out there and let's see what we can do. They also very smartly are picking weekends better now. Like this last Summerslam weekend, nothing's going on. Right. You can really kind of own ESPN, who when I was there and I'm doing running diaries, and I think I was the only wrestling coverage they had in the mid 2000s. Now they're doing three hour pre-game shows before night one of Summerslam. It was on ESPN proper. The number one ESPN for three straight hours leading up to the pay-per-view. So I obviously happy that wrestling is getting more mainstream coverage is we both, this has been a big part of our lives, less a part of mine lately. But it's weird when it's on ESPN. I cannot get used to it. Well, it's just weird. You used to watch like the like the old world class stuff and AWA stuff on ESPN news or whatever, like decades ago, right? That was the last, that was the last time. That was on ESPN one. It was AWS. Yeah. Yeah. 885. Yeah. And so I mean, that was that was the last time and it never so it never really felt out of place to me, but I get everybody saying I can't believe it. I mean, you know, when I talk about media stuff on press box with Brian, it's all in the context of everything being a show, right? It's all it's all like like every everything filmed in a studio sports or news or whatever, it's all K-fabe. You know, it's all we're all doing a job here. You know, and what's funny? They're using the ESPN infrastructure the way they talk about like the NFL. And we're watching like Joe Tessetor with our old friend Rosenberg. And it's like, what would this mean to Roman Reigns? And it's honestly like watching it. I felt live. It's just weird. Well, and you have leaf. I mean, you have a you have an army of former ESPN producers running WWE's, you know, production wing now, which is, which has predated their ESPN relationship, right? So for the past several years, fans like me have been watching saying, Oh, no, that's a college football camera angle. They're like, that's a that's a pregame thing they would have only done on real sports, you know, and these things start trickling in. And so now it's all sort of the same thing, but you're right when it's like you're watching ESPN in the weirdest part is that it doesn't seem totally out of place just because the production is so high, you know, and and and and and also it's just like you see these wrestlers wandering in and out of the set of like, get up and first thing like there's so much weird synchronicity that are like synergy that like it's it's almost hard to process. But when you were there, you remember that people were in the highest seats of power who would have just quit over WWE being, a WWE story being on the homepage of the website, you know, and now it's just seamless. It's that it's all part of the product. It was a great opportunity for us 15 years ago, right? When we were recovering wrestling and really throwing ourselves into it, there was nothing else going on. So do you think I remember I remember very well the first time we talked at Grandland and you and you called me on the phone and we were just like, what does a wrestling column look like? Like I like we didn't know what the what the world would want, you know, or like what could even happen. And so, you know, we've come a long way, I guess. So do you think the ESPN things helped or it's neutral? I think I think it's helpful. I think go I think more than anything. It's it's thrown a lot of these questions into stark relief. You know, it's like now every single insider wrestling conversation is like trying to read tea leaves about how excited ESPN is and or or unexcited or how pleased or unpleased they are with the numbers they got last month. I think if it weren't ESPN, it probably wouldn't feel quite as dire every time new numbers come in or whatever. But, you know, the acquiring WWE is an interesting move for ESPN. I think it's worthwhile. But it's always been very transactional. All of their various, you know, over the top, you know, homes. It's always been, you know, they had the WWE network. And then when they went to peacock, it was like because because the Olympics got canceled, you know, because of COVID. And suddenly peacock was like, how do we get more like built-in subscribers? And WWE at that point came with like 1.5 million like diehard fans that would follow it anywhere, you know, that that same for Netflix. The way it always is good. It's that for exactly doing live. This is a good fit for us. Yeah, they're always in the right place at the right time. But I think that actually in terms of just like like the synchronicity affecting the bottom line, like the ESPN, WWE partnership like make like increased WB's numbers in any sort of crazy way, we haven't really seen evidence of that so far. I think it's I think the audience is always the audience. Yeah, that's why I said neutral. I just think the audience just moves to wherever the product is. And that's it. Now I think if the product, you know, if something if it catches fire again, if the cycle, you know, goes back up quicker than maybe we would guess, I think it being on ESPN is a huge help just because people know where ESPN is, right? They're like they're more likely to potential fans are more likely to stumble across it, you know, in places like ESPN and even Netflix, than just being on TV, like being the old. The biggest thing they need to figure out with all the families, if you're going to be the good guy, unstoppable guy, that's really hard to pull off. So hard. It's incredibly. It's way easier to be yeah, it's way easier to be the I'm actually, there's a darkness to me. I'm a bad guy and I'm a bad guy who is unstoppable and you just keep throwing these baby faces at me and I'm just going to keep nailing them and I wonder long term how they play that with them. I think you see this in the way he's been booked already. They had him win the King of the Ring tournament because he was the most deserving, I guess, in terms of what people thought backstage. But the winner is supposed to get a title shot at Summerslam and they just had to say, yeah, forget about that stipulation. Let's have him fight Brock Lesnar instead. I mean, the Brock match is a bigger match. Yeah. But I think I think the distance from now to at least WrestleMania, the entire booking strategy has to be keep OboFimio wave from the title, right? Because it's, it's, because you're right, it's hard. Once he gets the belt, you know, I mean, the undertaker got that title run early in his career when he won from Hogan, you know, and Tuesday in Texas or would have, you know, lost it back immediately, sorry. And, and, but that wasn't that, in the Hogan era, it was really hard for someone to feel anointed. You know, now this is a real anointing, you know, this is real. Well, you also, if he's the biggest attraction you have or potentially going to be that, you don't necessarily need to give him the title anyway. No, you don't, but it's, you know, it's just harder and harder to come up with reasons for him to go out and fight it right at big events when the title is not involved. So it's just a matter of like I was saying before, it's delayed gratification or whatever, you know, you have to figure out a way to stretch it out. Here's what I would do. As you know, I'm an amateur WWE Booker. I think he needs, I think he needs a little bit of a group. I think he needs it. Like, I still feel like that forehorsement type of type of thing. Like he needs unstoppable people around him where he's the leader of it. And then you could kind of flip him being a bad guy or he could be the guy. He wants this so badly. He wants to own WWE and be the power in these are his people. But now that his sidekicks are starting to push the envelope a little too hard. Is this who he wants to be? And like, I would go that direction. I like when somebody like him is flanked with other people. I agree. I mean, listen, you're kind of describing what Roman Reigns has figured out that worked over the past, you know, five years or whatever. But I think you're absolutely right. I mean, you said forehorsement, the worst legacy of the forehorsement, is it any time forewrestlers get together on screen, people say, like, oh, it's like a new forehorsement, but not as good. But like, three, four, like four competent wrestlers being friends seem as should just be a renewable resource, right? You know, just like put these guys. So he'd have to be so much genuine. Yeah. But I think so. I mean, listen, they sowed the seeds of him being a Paul Heyman guy last night. So, you know, maybe, you know, Heyman had the dangerous alliance. There's always opportunities. AW. Just kind of over here now. Is this a battle anymore? What's going on? I don't think it's a battle. I mean, I mean, it's a, it's a, I don't mean, listen, I don't know a lot of people that don't have that choose not to watch one of the other because of time, but I'm sure that's a real thing for people. I don't really know what the battle would be. AEW has a really good product and they're still doing things that WAB is not doing. Yeah. And I mean, I just think that that, you know, the CLI didn't quite come off the industry in the same way, but AEW is making a lot of money from Turner and, and, you know, I think their next contract negotiation will be interesting because I don't put it past WWE to try to somehow, like, get in between the two parties or, you know, whatever. But that's more of a business thing. That's not about, like content. I think AEW does really, really great stuff. And I, but I think that, that both companies kind of are where they are right now, you know, like, I don't, people talk about ratings all the time. I really couldn't care less if like, now it's, it's almost like BW or like what, I mean, it does, it's just, it's, it's just a vibes thing. You're right. I watched, so I did watch the reins, the reins, rowance match. We watched that Ben and I, I wrote Ben in a watching at least some of it. He's too cool for all this stuff now. It'll, he'll, he'll circle back because this is what's happening to age 24. I feel like he'll come back a little. But, um, I, you know, I did have Dean Amber as in the back of my head as a, as the big surprise. And I don't think I was alone. And the shield coming back and, uh, but that didn't happen. There was no big in the, in the two day summer slam. There was no big holy shit. Oh my god. This guy didn't happen, right? Like crazy comebacks or whatever. He's back or this guy's back. No, whoa, this guy, we're all last night. We had big cast. I think they saved that. I think the roster of summer slam is now just, you know, big of thing is the roster of WrestleMania. But no, summer slam didn't have those moments. And I think that was because they wanted reins and Rollins to feel final, you know, to feel like, you know, like a real serious thing. And by the way, he'd had a post reigns after one did like an interview outside the ring, just like he's a real, you know, like a real athlete would do like a basketball player would do. Um, but they, but yeah, I mean, the Dean Ambrose thing, my, my co-host on the Mass Man show, Kaz was, came, came away saying there's no way they would have done that if they didn't think that Dean Ambrose might come back. Dean Ambrose, by the way, is wrestling under a different name is John Moxley in AEW and seems very happy there. He's repeatedly said how happy he is there. He would never come back and all this kind of stuff. I mean, you never say never in pro wrestling. Um, I don't think that what we saw at summer slam when they were winking at him, doing his moves, you know, doing all, referencing him vaguely on air. To me, that was less of a, you know, of WWE having a secret deal with him and probably more of a sort of long term contract to go a long term like wooing process. You know, he's just like, hey, just so you know, we haven't forgotten you. So if you ever want to come back to do, you know, WrestleMania 50 for like a billion dollars, we'll be here, you know, and, and I think that's always going to be on the table. A share rating would be a big deal. huge. That's the biggest thing I feel I think it did. All right, so, so why did you write this Hulk Hogan book? So why Hulk Hogan matters? I mean, you, listen, you and I are, you know, are both writers who don't write a whole lot anymore. But when I wrote about, I mean, obviously I've been writing about wrestling for 20 years and been writing about dead wrestlers from the very beginning and sort of what the wrestlers mean to me when they die. When I wrote Hulk Hogan's obituary, I was just sort of floored thinking like, well, it was a lot to get out, but it was also a lot to think like, this is the last time I'm ever going to write about Hulk Hogan. And so the idea came up to write a book. Her friends at Harper, Sean Desmond, who's edited a bunch of wringer books, who was willing to take a shot on this. And so just sort of cranked it out. It was a lot of a, for me, it was like, I think for a lot of wrestling fans, there's so much that he did latent his life that I just hated, you know, that like really just killed me, but it killed me because of how much I loved him in the 80s. You know, how much he was, how meaningful he was to me. And, you know, the title, I think, is deliberately a little bit of provocative, just like in the reverse way that dead wrestler of the week was provocative back in the day, right? Like people saw the title and they thought I was going to be offensive. I was like, no, I'm talking about how much I love wrestlers. And so why Hulk Hogan matters to me is both exploring why he's really meaningful to me and, you know, through much, so much of his career. And, you know, kind of coming to grips with the, with everything that happened in his post-wrestling life and, and, and what it means when like one of your idols can break your heart like that. Yeah, I went to that. It's the night before the fires. The first rod at, I'm not sure. Hogan came out and the response from the crowd was like one of the most shocking things I've ever been in a arena for couldn't believe it. Like people were fucking furious and booing him. He didn't know how to audible in the moment to it. And that old Hulk would have immediately been like, oh, I'm going to be, I guess I'll be a heel for this and just figured out. And he was too old and couldn't. But it was really like, mostly despised. Now this is LA, like, you know, maybe that would happen every state. But then the fires happened the next day and it, and, you know, out here. But I just felt like that was such like a weirdly big deal that Hogan got treated like that. And, but that was where it got into with the last 20 years of his life. People were just fucking out on him. Yeah. I mean, listen, he never, I think there's a lot of people who rightly believes he never really apologized for, you know, his racist, you know, video, the video of him saying racist stuff, whatever. And, and, you know, there was a point where he famously came back to have a talk with the locker room and WWE was letting him back in. And instead of saying, I'm sorry for what I said, I'm a change man. He said, be careful of video cameras. Right. Yeah. Just like the worst advice. And the fans knew about it too, you know, so because all that stuff gets out. But I really think for me that the icing on the cake was him coming back on that episode of raw. And instead of saying, I love this business. I just want to wish you guys good luck. He said, buy my beer, right? The whole thing was like a promo for real American beer. And I think that was just, that was just the bridge too far. Jimmy Hart waving the flag behind him. And you can't really audible a heel turn when you're like, hawking your new alcohol endeavor. You know, you gotta say, it was, it was really, really rough. And it's crazy that it happened. It's crazy that nobody, him or WWE saw that coming, you know, and it's just one of the most surreal experiences for a long time wrestling fan. And especially that being the last time you really saw it. Serious. I mean, like that's like the ultimate warrior who had just, I mean, almost as turbulent out of the ring life, you know, he's not a great dude by a lot of estimations came back when he got, you know, put in the hall of fame and the fans and myself included when absolutely bonkers cheering for him. And then he passed away like the night after all, like, it was right. It happened right away. But he went out on a high comparatively speaking. And, you know, Hogan's was, Hogan just got boot out of the arena like, like literally. It's pretty tough in wrestling to turn a mass audience off with any behavior when there's been so many shaking people over the years of behavior that. So many, so many. Yeah, it's pretty, well, going back to the 80s. I mean, we do these movies sometimes in the rewatchables, but that whole popcorn hero era. And to me, Hogan was right there. It was Stallone and Schwarzenegger. Yes. And everything he stood for was also happening in the movies simultaneously. Yes. That's, it's funny because you, you know, he never reached the success. And I write about that in the, in the book, but he, he never reached the success in Hollywood. Obviously, of Stallone and Schwarzenegger, despite being lumped in with them all the time. But, you know, looking back, Hogan was more of the I, the American icon than the bigger stars were. I mean, he represented this country more. You know, as you look back and we've had these conversations for years, right? You look back and it's like, like, you know, the Reagan era or whatever, Hogan was the Reagan era. You know, Hogan was like everything that we aspired to be at that time. How full of shit everybody in the 80s were. It's like, take your vitamins. And meanwhile, he was like, do it more serenzy than everybody. That was the. He's the most amazing. He's the most like quintessential American icon of that decade. So part of what I'm, when I was writing while Hogan matters, the thought process is like, am I just sad that he's not like me now? Or actually, does he say more about me now than I want to admit? You know, right? Is he still what America is? But yeah, I mean, honestly, that, that, that 80s, the popcorn movie era was just, it's incredible. I mean, you talk about rewatchables. There's like, there's never a time where you say no to a Schwarzenegger movie or you know, an 80s Schwarzenegger movie or still-loan movie when they pop on. Yeah, it was weird that Hogan never was able to put the puzzle piece together for a movie career because I think he was so big of a personality on the wrestling side. You couldn't kind of buy him playing a character or Schwarzenegger in a matter. Yeah, Schwarzenegger. And the thing, the, the stunning thing is when you look at how bad Schwarzenegger was at acting in the beginning, like could somebody not have held Hogan's hand through a movie like this or whatever, but- Well, the thing about Thunderlips is probably a better five minute scene than any scene Schwarzenegger ever had in a movie, but Hogan couldn't figure it out. But here's, but here's the thing. I think Vince senior Vince is dad who told Hogan he couldn't be in Rocky III. Yeah. Was kind of right. I think wrestlers at the, on the scale of Hogan, we just feel like we know them too well, and it's harder even than with an actor to see them play another role. I just, I just think there's a weird disconnect there that like, and that's part of what I came to why, you know, a lot of, why Hogan, why wrestlers in general can affect you. So can affect me so much is because you feel like, you know, I'm, it's because you feel like even though we, I logically know he's playing a character, I feel like Hogan is like a figure in my life, you know, and it makes it hard for him to be, to be a movie star. Yeah, it's where this is happening in professional sports too, where there's guys that were everybody idolized who are some of the best people ever played, and then they just turn out to be pieces of shit. It's like, well, how do you record South? Pete Rose was the most famous baseball player when I was growing up. And then it's like, oh, he's actually a piece of shit. And it's like, well, what does that mean when the Reds won two world series in a row, and you just kind of have to move the pieces around your head, but it never feels great. And I think with Hogan, just, it's not even just a racist, all that side of it, he really seemed to be reviled by all the people behind the scenes for how selfish he was and how he always put himself over the guys. Yeah, I mean, listen, I always say that he, I mean, he was for, for fans like me who were like on the internet during those days, like Hogan stories about Hogan is how we learned about backstage politics, you know, all the weird stories about Hogan refused to do this job. At the same time, you had like Ric Flair refusing to do job, you know, like everybody refused to do jobs, but Hogan became like the icon of it. Well, the famous quote, that's not going to work for me, brother. That's what we say all the time. And when he, and yes, when he was doing the NW, like he had a, he had a contract, I mean, peasants contract that said he had creative control, right? And that generally is a thumbs up, thumbs down. Part of me thinks that like, you know, people that had, the champions had had de facto creative control forever, you know, if back in the days, I mean, you didn't have to show up, you know, like you want to hold the belt, like, you know, you can do whatever you want. But, but I do think that things were moving too quickly in the, in the, in the Monday Night Wars era. And those sorts of like, I'm not losing to that guy happened. That doesn't work for me, brother was happening like 20 minutes before showtime, right? You know, and like they're alive all the time. And so this becomes such a huge problem. And also when you're like, when you have that kind of power, you can't see the forest for the trees. You can talk about how, you know, that all you want to do is make money and, and, and get, and build the business. But like, it's hard. You're, if you're the one making the calls, you can't, you can't tell. You can't tell what's working. You're always going to be selfish. Well, it was, and it was a LeBron, like career where you have the whole long peak, right? Which is the 80s and early 90s for Hogan. And then you have the NWO heel turn that whole thing, which I think is the greatest moment in the history of wrestling. In terms of impact, shock value, the crowd reaction, I just think that's number one. But then you have that last thing, which maybe for LeBron will be the sixers if they win the title, but when Hogan has the great match against the rock and then finally ends up winning the title and has this one last kind of moment that I think seemed inconceivable. You're talking and at that point, that's. That's almost a three-decade career of him being relevant, which for wrestling is really unusual. If you, I mean, I don't disagree about the turn, about the heel turn. It's certainly, you know, with top two or three moment of our lifetimes and could very easily be number one, the Hogan versus the Rock. I mean, you wouldn't have to bend yourself too hard to say that's like the best wrestling match of all time. It certainly wasn't the best like technical wrestling match by a long shot. And then him versus Andre is the biggest wrestling match. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's go forever. And, yeah, in terms of what wrestling pro wrestling can accomplish, you know, I mean, the fans were such a part of that rock match, you know, I mean, that's, that is peak wrestling to me. Yeah. To have the fans that involved in it. And, yeah, I mean, he's obviously one of one in terms of his impact on the business. And it's just crazy to think that like, you know, for the last decade of his life, he just wasn't really a part of it. Also, I don't think anyone ever held on to a receding hairline better than Hogan like to the bitter end. He was like, holding off the cliff, just like, I'm not going to give up, brother. When they did the book cover, I was like, just make sure we get an angle that doesn't expose the hairline. They're Bruce Richard, you know, who's an exec over WWE was a big producer for a while said that they would spend like tens of thousands of dollars back in the 80s trying to find the camera angles that didn't show his bald spot until Vince realized how much money they were spending. And he was like, stop doing that. But like, but it is, it is incredible, man. I mean, it is, you know, there was a, there were a couple of periods. I feel like in WCW where he had a hair piece. And it was like, it was, he was doing it for a movie, but he was also sort of like the Jason Alexander, like I'm also sort of trying this out for like the real life. Um, he bandanded and we really settled on the bandana, which I guess would have been a blue down there. Well, when he, when he sued gocker and put them out of business and that whole, that whole travesty happened, you remember, he, there was a whole thing about whether he could wear a bandana in court and they eventually allowed him to say like the black bandana is like the formal bandana, you know, that one was like, we know your ball, dude, just shave your head. Yeah, look, I'm not wearing my baseball cap for this, for this conversation. So if I can do it, Hogan can do it, man. Well, it was, it was quite a career, though, it'll never be certainly another one with the ups and downs that that one had. I will say, I mean, he's, we said this, you came on after he died and there's just no question he's by far the most significant wrestling figure in the history of the business. And doesn't mean he was the best wrestler, doesn't mean he was the greatest chance, but he had the biggest impact and that's just, it's kind of an arguable, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's absolutely true. I mean, we come from, from, from our generation, if you want to like put our generations together, you know, there's some memory for people a little bit older than us of the, of the big names of like the East Coast, you know, of like the, you know, the, the big MSG icons before Hogan, but yeah, before backland. And, but, but really for, for, for our generation of fans, we've got, we've got to see a lot of giant stars. And so it's tempting to be like, some cold was bigger than Hogan. The rock was bigger than Hogan or like, you know, whatever. But in terms of just the lasting impact and the whole arc of the career, I mean, it's totally feasible that like wrestling might not exist the way it does today without the rock or without Steve Austin. Yeah. But to get to them, Hulk Hogan was necessary, you know, and, and, and the heel turn was another huge thing. Heal Hogan, I think was really necessary for, for those, sometimes for those, you know, casual fans, because what he allowed, when he, when he turned healed and the casual fans were like, oh, like, we're all in on the joke together. Like, I want to be, like, I want to, like, their rest, outside, there's always think wrestling takes itself seriously and they, we don't, you know, and, and, and so I think that Hogan was great in the 80s because he was silly. Like, there was no way you could watch Hogan and say, like, wrestling is real, you know, like, that's what made it, that's part of what made it so accessible, you know, because then everybody's got, like, oh, wrestling gets it. And I think there was a sort of reverse of that too when he turned heel. He was just so, he changed everything, like, you know, two different times for pro wrestling, and he couldn't have a friend in wrestling because that friend was always going to turn on him, usually in the ring with a clothesline to his back. I, I write about that and why Hogan matters. There was a whole chapter called Hogan, the bad friend. He, it was Hogan's fault, man, and all those guys sat in the bag. Yeah. But if you go back and watch it, like, Hogan was in the wrong every single time. The first one was Zorndorf, which was shocking, but then it just kind of kept going and he, orn dorf had a match with that he wanted Hogan for his partner and he called Hogan and the assistant said Hogan can't come. He's lifting weights. Right. Like that. Come on, Hogan. Like get on the phone with your best friend Paul Orn dorf. Yeah. It's a little like Daniel son in the karate kid series, like, you look at it further away. It's like, maybe Hogan was to dick the whole time. Maybe all these people are the right to turn on him. I mean, maybe that's why the heel turn worked because we're just like, yes, thank you. Thank you. You finally embraced it. Definitely a little inappropriate with the macho man and Ms. Elizabeth. No question. More than a little. Yeah. There's ever some blood on his hands. Anyway. All right. Name of the book. Why Hogan matters. Hogan matters. It is available everywhere. You can, you can get it on your, on your iPad. You can buy it in a bookstore. You can get it online. Whatever you want. And you can listen to shoemaker on the, uh, the ring of wrestling show. How's Kaz doing? Kaz is great, man. Kaz is still in the nicks after glow. Man, I mean, when he was there, he went to the raw after, um, after the next one, and he had Jalen Brunson and Roman Reigns, like hugging him and letting them hold the tight. Oh, my God. The trophy. So it's like, he's done. Like he's done. I did. Yeah. All right. Good luck with the book. Go buy it, everybody. Uh, thanks, shoemaker. Thank you, man. I'll talk to you soon. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to shoemaker and Mina and Billy and the bundle and Gahal and Eduardo as always. Uh, remember, Karate Kid 2 is up for rewatchables and we might be doing two next week. So you might want to prep for Italian job and about last night, 40 year anniversary of about last night, uh, just an incredibly important, ladies movie. Um, so that's all coming up. I don't think I'm going to have another podcast this week unless something crazy happens. So I will see you again on Sunday. Uh, must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas star casino or 18 plus and president DC Kentucky or Wyoming game prom call 100 gamble or 1 800 by reset call 888 797777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat and connect it or md gambling help.org Maryland hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma dot org or call 80327 50 50 for 24 seven sport Massachusetts or call 877 8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York for Louisiana call 87777. 770-7867.