NBA Lie Detectors, Duren’s Future, Tomlin’s TV Splash, and a 2026 Sports Media Check With Kirk Goldsberry and Bryan Curtis

This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. You can now get BOGO deals every week on game day favorites like wings, pizza, fries, and snacks. But Uber Eats delivers way more than food, beers, and seltzers for your tailgate, batteries for the TV remote, last minute gear to rep your team's colors. Basically, whatever game day calls for, you can get almost, almost anything on Uber Eats with deals every week. Uber Eats, official on-demand food delivery partner of the NFL. Order now. For alcohol, you must be a legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did 13 going on 30. We also premiered a hockey podcast. We've never had a hockey podcast, not at Grantland, not at the Ringer. Now we have one. It's the What Chaos Show. It's been around for a couple years. It is the best NHL podcast. Please go check it out. The season started this week. These guys are great. They feel very ringery, and I mean that as the highest compliment I can give. I'm hopefully going on there next week or at some point this month to talk a little puck because we now have an 84-game regular season. Somebody decided the NHL season needed to be longer, apparently. WNBA playoffs in full swing. You can follow the Ringer WNBA show as well. We'll be covering. All the stuff, including the link's already out. Miles got hurt. The Liberty got healthy for a brief second. I think the fact that the league stopped for three weeks probably helped, but they knocked out the links. So they're out. Fever beat the Aces tonight, and we have a Fever Aces pivotal game three coming up. Let's see what happens. So baseball playoffs started today. You heard me talk to Sal. I heard you. I heard you on Sunday about how I was not optimistic about the Red Sox. I think he thought I was doing like a reverse jinx thing. The Red Sox offense died at some point in August. This team peaked in July and August with that incredible win streak. They won the city back. They ended up getting the manager. He had the interim manager removed, became the full manager, Chad Tracy. The GM, Breslow, somehow got an extension through. He was supposed. He was supposed to go through 28. Now it's through 29 and 30. Still unclear why he got an extension. Because if you watch tonight, this team, Raffaella barely played in September. Contreras, who was hurt off and on and for different reasons the second half of the year and got hit in the hand two weeks ago. And he hasn't been the same. Trevor Story died five years ago. Gasper carried the offense for two, three weeks there and then got hurt, of course, right before the game. He's nowhere to be seen. Roman Anthony, who was hurt all year, came back, was house fire for a week, didn't look terrible, started to show signs of life here down the stretch this final week and apparently got hurt again because he left halfway through the game symbolically. But the game was already over because the Yankees had already scored two runs and there was no way the Red Sox were going to score three against Schlittler in the Yankee bullpen. Look, this was a pretty limited run. They had a good Red Sox team that couldn't score. And their only chance in this series were 1-0, 2-1, those type of games. And once the Yankees were able to put more runs than that, that was it. I did not agree with the Peyton Tolley decision to take him out in the fifth inning and bring in Miller, who has not pitched well all month. I don't know why they did that. I thought Tolley, especially in Yankee Stadium, in a big spot, I just trusted him to come through. I thought he was going to come through and pitch at least six innings tonight. But Schlittler was amazing. He's a great guy. The two best pitchers that I saw this year were him and Cease on the Blue Jays. But Schlittler did everything he had to do. Ben Rice, who has turned into a Red Sox killer. They talked about it during the game. He's from Cohasset. Somehow he's a Yankee fan. Seems like he hits the hell out of the Red Sox all the time. So anyway, they won game one. They were supposed to win game one. I have no idea why they were only, I think, like minus 170 favorites for this series. Because again, the Red Sox offense is effectively dead, especially Abrea, who I didn't even mention, who hasn't hit for a month either. So I don't know. I don't know where the runs are supposed to come from. I said to Sal on Sunday, I probably trusted Anthony and Sogard the most of anyone in the lineup. And Anthony is now gone. And I do not have high hopes for the rest of this. But the good news is the Patriots are a disaster. Yeah, if you're doing the Boston sports, what team do I feel best about? I think it's the Celtics. Then we had the Pats playing in Buffalo this weekend. This is, you're not going to feel bad for me. I don't expect your sympathy. But this was not. I had a great Boston sports stretch. Especially when you think Anthony and Drake May and Tatum were supposed to be the three people basically carrying those three teams and the young superstars, all under 30. Anthony and May, even younger than that, and now have serious concerns about two of them. Can Anthony stay on the field? Is Drake May, where is he mentally? I was driving around my daughter at a game yesterday. And I was driving, I was listening to WEI. And they had their weekly Drake May interview, which for some reason he decided to do. I guess he had to contractually. And they asked him about his shoulder. And he just gave a non-answer. And then they were like, hey, can you answer this? And pivoted back. And he just didn't answer it. So it doesn't seem like he's healthy. I've narrowed it down to his shoulder and his head are the two things to be concerned about here. And I don't feel great. I don't feel great about either. They play Buffalo this weekend. We will talk about it on the podcast on Thursday. Coming up on this podcast, we're going to talk to Kurt Goldsberry about a bunch of NBA media day opening topics, all kinds of things. And then Brian Curtis. Every once in a while, I have Brian Curtis on to talk about a bunch of sports media stuff. We want to talk about football broadcasters, Mike Tomlin, best-worst playoff, play-by-playing and color guys and all kinds. And we ended up talking about writing. Had a typical combo that Curtis and I usually have, which I really enjoyed. Enjoyed the whole podcast. Enjoyed everything except for the Red Sox laying a stink egg in Yankee Stadium today. We're going to take a break, Pearl Jam, and then come back with Kurt Goldsberry right after this. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. The NFL is here and it's the most rewarding season ever on FanDuel with the all-time FanDuel Rewards Club. Every eligible bet can earn you points. Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the prize. The more rewards you can unlock. Head to FanDuel.com slash BS to start earning with FanDuel Rewards Club. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Get in a problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. We'll see you next time. What have they done, Bill? They've completely ruined reinvented the position yeah they dribble pass and shoot the heck out of the ball and durin is kind of old school that's why i love his game he's like a big that you and i grew up with right um but i think he's got to take this money and move on well you look at the celtics right they have mitchell robinson and they have kata who this year are going to be making less than 18 million combined next year kata's extension kicks in and him and robinson will be making 28 million combined yeah and i really like durin i thought he was a huge part i've talked about this before i thought he was a huge part of the identity of that pistons team um but i don't think you if those two guys together are making 28 and i have to pay durin and paul reed you know almost 50 million bucks i just don't think that makes sense with the way the nba is i don't think the position is valuable enough and it's too easy to be able to patch unless it's yokage right if if it's somebody on that level sure because now it's a superstar thing i think it's hard with the centers because you can play some of them off the floor you have situations like you had in the playoffs last year his age is the right age but it it feels like there's bad blood which is sometimes doesn't go away we've this has been a legacy of the nba where sometimes the staring contest that like 30 years ago sean kemp in seattle all of a sudden they were trading him because he was so mad that jim mclevain was making more money than him and then they had just made the finals a year earlier and they and all of a sudden he's getting shipped out so it makes me think he's going to get traded yeah i think that's more real in the last couple weeks again since it got to media day and the roster and it's there's there is a staring contest it does feel like a trade and the thompson extension who right and his team yeah they took care of the teammate and it was a better deal than the duran deal but that i don't think that helped either um how many how many players are worth five years 200 million dollars in this economy in this economy uh and i again he can't he went from a 20 point a game score in the regular season everybody had him all nba myself included on my ballot yeah in the playoffs against orlando and cleveland not exactly the greatest teams we saw in the playoffs this dude dropped to 10 point a game uh the and his on-off splits were terrible detroit was a much better team when he was off the floor and and look he should be i think he should be happy to get this offer bill the problem for them is the sign-in trades become problematic because in my head i was like oh they should just do a deal with washington and get anthony davis back and picks and that's short term that helps them long term they don't have to worry about this contract being an albatross and they're building around kade and thompson and other stuff they've done the problem is davis is at 58 million right and so if you're signing trading him i assume you're signing trading him to a team that is going to offer more than five 200 so the only team dumb enough to do that is sacramento who of course is in the middle of this and is obviously wink wink to the agent like oh we'd go higher than that which is the old daryl morey james harden move with the okc extension in 2012 well we do five for 75 for 80 they're only offering four for 55 like yeah we're we're at 580 right now if you can if you can figure it out um sacramento has to be sabonis and i'm just not doing that if i'm detroit i'm just not he doesn't seem to fit and i do think like the kade part of it is huge right they have a franchise piece that almost any other team in the league would would say so they want to get somebody on that timeline i think they're going to have to do that they're going to have to do that i think a sort of our sir thompson fits that too yeah but that's where the ad thing is is sort of a hiccup and the other thing is like trajan langdon within five weeks of getting to new orleans uh was part of the deal that part of the front office that traded ad to the lakers yeah um so i'm not sure he wants to get back into the ad business it's not going to work because that that it floated around yesterday with ad then it's just the salaries don't work detroit would have to put another guy in the trade and it just doesn't make sense i like it from washington perspective that's a team that's young and and and could get could fit could find their the center of the future to match their age profile but yeah from the pistons perspective remember there's number one seed in the eastern conference bill they won 60 games last year um well they're not super awkward i was gonna ask you if you could remember you said sean kemp but it's like i couldn't i haven't seen something go this sideways this fast with a young all nba player like this for a rising team in a long time yeah usually it's it's like a vince carter type of situation yeah where somebody's unhappy or t-mac in orlando this happened a lot in the 2000s but the guys already had the money at that point this almost feels like the disrespect is such a huge piece of this um i look at them like i don't think i didn't think they had any chance of winning 60 i don't really like what they did this this offseason right even even like i look at the lack of they basically have one shot creator right yeah to buy a team that's not going to win 60 games that's not going to win 60 games that's not going to win 60 games that's not going to win 60 games that's not going to win 60 games that's not who is now on san antonio who is always everyone's glass half empty on him all the time but um tobias at least they could go to him and he could hit a shot which especially in the playoffs like when when either kade was out or kade was struggling like at least you had somewhere else to go i don't know where they go now yeah and remember the the bread and butter action was this kate duran pick and roll which was one of the most spammed actions in the entire league last season and you look at the most common pick and roll combinations it's very very close to the top if not the top i don't remember but so even from kade's perspective like this is very risky from the team from the perspective of the detroit pistons like that's his running mate that is kade's number one bread and butter action too and so if this thing really goes sideways kade's gonna have to reinvent how he plays and you mentioned the departure of harris you're gonna have a completely new look offense in detroit and stewart's gone which it seems like there was a lot of stuff behind the scenes but i was like stewart i thought he had a weird year last year and the fight definitely mixed it up in the wrong way but they lost harris and stewart and lavert who i've never been a fan of replace those guys with john collins isaiah joe and a cory cory's a rookie but you're asking a lot isaiah joe i think we all like as a shooter but never really has played significant minutes on a really good team ever and then i don't know i watched collins last year some clipper games he's fine yeah i i personally think would rather have uh would rather have tobias i know that like john collins is an advanced stat people there's a lot of positive things behind it but i don't know like and i don't like i don't like it i don't like what they did so the what the other trade because i was like obviously milwaukee just has too many guys and god only knows what they're trying to do but there's some sort of framework of like hero and where basically some of the guys they got in the honest trade and could they throw other stuff in there's only one trade that i really like and i don't know if you were focused on this one but um atlanta yeah that's the one i was hoping you'd say tell me more i just think akagu and daniels for for duran makes a shitload of sense to me for everybody involved especially when they got the lou dort yeah adding him he can just basically go in the daniel spot as another player and he can just basically go in the daniel spot as another lockdown defender for them and now you're upgrading at center and then if i'm detroit i get out of this i've split up the contracts daniels is at 25 a year which is probably fair it's a little it's a little high considering that he doesn't seem to be growing offensively at all but um that that was the only one that made sense to me and if you look at the pattern in atlanta over the last couple years there's a couple of sort of things they're obviously targeting which is size and strength and athleticism which jaylen duran obviously has a lot of experience with more than almost any other player in the nba checks those boxes especially at his position just one of the more physically imposing dominant bigs right uh in the league and i think if that's what quinn snyder is going for uh in his lineup it fills a big need there and remember this is a team that filled uh finished last season before the playoffs about as hot as anybody in the league uh and then was the only team in the east or in the west for that matter to take two games from the knicks in the playoffs so you know atlanta is the only team that's going to be able to the team to watch in my opinion um they've been active do you like that crunch time five if it's duran jaylen johnson mccollum lou dort and alexander walker and that's all i'm rolling with was six minutes left in a huge playoff game i kind of like it i kind of like it i still think cj is running on borrowed time a little bit they drafted a point well they have his replacement ready to roll yeah yeah and so if that kid comes along um and i think they proved it to me at the end of last season and in the playoffs i don't know if i love it like i like the knicks five or like when your team was really humming that five-man group yeah um but i think it's an upgrade for the for the atlanta hawks in the front court well we'll see what happens i do not think a center should make 40 million a year up in this current salary cap economy unless it's yokich or wembi but what do i know uh they also announced some rule changes that they're going to be looking at um points of education are we calling this the jalen brown who are we naming that one after it's basically they're saying you can't use the stiff arm as you're driving. LeBron does the two. I mean, a bunch of people do this, but I'll be interested to see how long they stick to this one. I've heard trainers call it the paddle, the off arm, like, and they're training it now. They're training it. Yeah. The paddle, like you're dribbling with your right hand and you can't use your hand as much, but you can sort of maneuver your off arm, like the Heisman trophy a little bit, as long as you don't fully stiff arm. But yeah, that came out today. And I count me among the people that are sort of happy that they announced this a little bit cynical that they're going to enforce it. Bill, we've seen these kinds of points of emphases now called points of education for years. Sometimes they last a week. Sometimes they last a month. Sometimes they actually last. So I, as an old guy, hand checks were part of the game. Now it feels like the offensive players in this attacking guard era, SGA, Jalen Brown, Luca Donchic are, are weaponizing that off arm and almost committing like reach and fouls as an offensive player. And I would love to see it go away. You don't see it in college basketball. You don't see it women's basketball. You don't see it in European basketball. It's an NBA specific issue that I think is arisen in the last 10 years that has gotten out of hand. No pun intended in, in, in the 2020s. And I associate with SGA. I'll go ahead and say it. Okay. I still think Jalen, but it's because I watched the most Celtic game, but you're right. SGA probably perfected it. I yeah. I still feel like the example they used LeBron was sneaky good at it though. Cause he could, you'd be a fool not to shade. Yeah. If, if you can get away with that, you should do it. And I'm not insulting SGA. If you can get away with it, it's a brilliant play. I mean, but it's kind of the thing. If, if you were playing pickup basketball and you started doing this to people, they'd be like, dude, what are you doing? And it's just commonplace. It's funny in FIBA that does not work in FIBA and they call it and they get mad when you do it. And I'm more excited about is the illegal screening. Um, I thought the screening stuff was out of control the last two years and, and really more noticeable in person than anything, um, where you could really see guys were just never set anymore. And it was becoming a harder to guard everybody 30 feet from the hoop, but then B I think real potential for injury and knees knocking and all kinds of bad things. So I see that I'm actually sticking with this. I blame Steve Kerr and Draymond Green, David. Lee and Andrew Bogut. And I say that lovingly, uh, the moving screen warriors. Uh, but I think they deserve credit. And I would always say to people in the 2010s, if you're not getting called for one or two of these violations, every game, you're not setting dirty enough screens and they really put the onus on the officials. And to this point in 2026 bill, I think it is fair to say that screens are dirtier than ever and breaking rules at a higher rate. They just haven't been in force. Uh, and in the examples in the videos they show have a lot of guys, you know, pushing guys away, moving into the contact, uh, and disrupting what they're calling freedom of movement on the defender, uh, trying to get around a screen. So like you, I think it's an ambitious one. I'm, I'm glad they're focusing on it. But my question back to you is, do you trust that they'll follow through on both of these going into the new season? I think they'll follow through on the illegal screens and I think they'll see how it goes with the stiff arms. Right? Because on defense, they're also doing stuff, right? So I don't know. It'll be a push and pull the bill Simmons podcast brought to you by FanDuel post-season baseball is here. FanDuel has something pretty nice for the wild card series with FanDuel's early win. You don't have to wait around to see how a game ends. If your money line, that one you picked goes up by two, two runs at any point you win instantly. How about that? That's it up to you win. FanDuel is doing it every day of the wild card series. I would stay away from red Sox Yankees with this because I think every game is going to be like one, nothing to one, uh, three, two, somewhere in that. I think the Houston white Sox series is a good one for this. Uh, cause I think there's going to be, I know it's a best of three, but there'll be a game where Houston scores like nine runs. So I would think about that anyway, uh, figure out who you like, make your money line pick. If they get that two run lead, you've got yourself an early win. Download the FanDuel app to get started. FanDuel your home for home runs. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC or Wyoming restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com game problem call 1-800-GAMBLER call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat Connecticut. I have, I wrote down, I was on a six hour flight today. I wrote down, I went through painstakingly and wrote down a do you believe this? Um, LeBron is the first one. He said, I didn't come here to lose in the second round. Um, felt like a slight dig at Embiid, like just a little Embiid's never gotten out of the second round. Very pointed that it was the second round. Here's what I thought was interesting about this. Why didn't he say I didn't come here to lose in the conference finals? Because the way this is come here to lose in the second round. So the conference finals, if he loses, that's okay. I just thought the second round thing was weird. What did he say? I didn't come here to not make the finals or something like that, but this second round I thought was odd. Well, it was even weirder because he said, I didn't leave my family behind or something along those lines. Like he was, it was very emotional, but I think he really thinks this is one of the best teams in the East. And I think it gives him the best shot of winning. And, and ultimately, I think if we asked him bill about why he chose Philadelphia, he thinks it's a superior place to win basketball games than Cleveland, which I think was the other big choice for him. I know he thinks very highly of Tyrese Maxey, Jalen Brown, um, our personal friends of his. So I think he thinks this is a great team. Uh, and I, I don't read much more into it than that. I don't think the Cleveland thing worked out because they couldn't get rid of Harden. The Lakers didn't want him. San Antonio and OKC didn't want him. And the Knicks won the title and Philly turned out because the Jalen Brown thing, I'll be, I would love to know if Jalen Brown, if that hadn't happened, would he have gone there? But we'll never know. Next one, Draymond Green on LeBron said he passed on the Warriors. He couldn't get over the past quote, which is I battled these guys over and over again. What is that going to look like for me? If I sign there, what type of beating will I get if I go there? That's why Draymond thought LeBron didn't go to the Warriors. So on a, do you believe, I actually believe this. I think this was the reason he didn't go to the Warriors. I think that, and the, I think it stacks with the previous point. I don't think he thinks the Warriors are going anywhere. And, you know, Jimmy Butler is banged up. Stephen Curry, is he 37 or 38? We saw the Porzingis news this week, you know, and this is a Western conference that has two juggernauts sitting at the top. They are not passing. Yeah. And Nikola Jokic sitting there in third or fourth, Anthony Edwards. It's just a harder path. As much as the East has improved. I still think he just didn't think the Golden State Warriors were going to make a lot of noise come April and May. It was notable, noticeable that Embiid is in much, much, much better shape too. I don't know if LeBron, how much he had to do with that, but Embiid looks like the guy from eight years ago. When he's good, as you guys saw, like the Boston Celtics fans know exactly what we're talking about. If he can put it together, he is still one of the top five players in the league. Like if he looks good, he looks incredible. Um, and you know, he can't sustain it. So we'll see. I I've, I've yet to see it. And you make this point better than anybody. How many games does he play every year? Yeah. You know, his body breaks down. He has bad luck, but being skinnier will help him not get injured is my expert take. How about this? Just emulate what Tim Duncan did. Well, I let's do it. And I love what you said earlier this week, just play once a week. Like, I don't know if they're going to be able to get away with that sparse, but yeah, like with the depth they have with LeBron James, Jay, Alan Brown, Tyrese, Maxie, VJ edge comb, he can sit out back to backs. They can still win games against decent teams. If they program Joel and beads usage, uh, and load management. I think that we could see the LeBron effect for MB to actually being a sustainability for that dude. Next one is a tweet from John Krasinski, who does an excellent job covering the Timberwolves. Yeah, it does. Tim Connolly says he's quote, super happy in Minnesota. He's entering the last year of the NFL, but notes he's had opportunities to move in his state says he's focused on winning here. Do you believe him? Uh, I think he wants to see what happens with this crazy Lamello risk that he took. And I, for one, I'm very cynical. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think it's going to work. Uh, if for no other reason that Lamello ball is never going to be healthy to play 82 games. I think it's the most sort of under reported thing about Lamello is his own injury history, his ability to stay upright. Uh, and again, in the context of a brutal, Western conference, you can't have any kind of mess ups. Tim Connolly deserves a lot of credit for building a team, uh, two teams in the Western conference that have been very good over the last decade. Um, so I could see him going elsewhere if this thing falls apart. I didn't believe that tweet. He said he's had opportunities to move in his state. You stayed cause you're under contract and you couldn't move to the other opportunities. So I just don't believe it. I think the Lamello ball trade was, was, uh, uh, Hail Mary. to some degree where you're just basically trying to game the variance of a ton of three-pointers and take some pressure off Ant and you're going to cross your fingers and hope it works. I said it at the time. I thought it was an overreaction. I thought the reason that they didn't succeed like the way we maybe thought they would was because they had a ton of injuries at the wrong time. Yeah, Ant-Man was on one leg. Like, let's not forget it. Yeah. And the Randall thing got weird because they were trying to desperately trade everybody in February for Durant and whatever else. Next one, Tyronn Lue. Quote, I wouldn't want to be at any other place. This is my first. I'm a zero out of 10. I don't believe this. There's no way you wouldn't want to be at another place. I'm going to guess you'd be at 20 other places. He hasn't been this happy since he was looking up at Allen Iverson's crotch when he was getting stepped over in 2001. That is the biggest bologna sandwich I think we heard at Media Day. And that's saying something, Bill. Like, this is such a bad situation. And now Brandon Ingram appears to have some really bad injury news, too. He's a partially torn Achilles. So, this is the Clipper fans I know are like, so is this why they got more than maybe it seems like they should have for Kawhi? Because training for a guy who was injured and has a partially, first of all, how do you have a partially torn Achilles? Right. Yeah, I think it's like, it's like a small tear. But is that something that comes out in the physical that could have slowed down the trade? Is that what you're getting at? I don't know. Or do you, the Raptors didn't know? Yeah. They didn't know he had this injury? They just figured it out? He was, said at the end of the year he was hurt last year. Yeah. Anyway. I mean, that, but yeah, so I think I'd put Ty Lue with Tim Connolly, right? These are two really high caliber, Ty Lue's a great coach. I'm not throwing any shade at him. And Tim Connolly too. Like these are very marketable player or people in the NBA if they choose to go somewhere else. I think they both will. Jason Tatum, quote, they're asking about what it's like to have your own team. It's not a simple thing. Like this is my team. Now it's not just saying it's my team and I'm not going to say that. I've got 14 other teammates I'm going to lean on and we all need each other. So this is, it's going to be his tactic all year being like, this is not the Jason Tatum show. This is not my team. I haven't, I have a little newsflash for Jason. This is your team. They built the whole thing around you and they traded Jalen Brown to make it your team. So whether you don't want to admit it or not, this is your team. Well, as one, one of the joys of my summer bill was to be a guest, I would say in the third chair of the colonoscopy pod. And it was, it was just electric to be a part of that, that BS history. I turn it back to you. I know your fans want to hear you riff more because I know you've come around on Paul George. Yeah. What are your thoughts on Jason Tatum finally being the alpha dog? I mean, I know you've talked yourself into this trade, but can he be an effective leader? Well, I had no choice but to talk myself into the trade because they made it. I do understand why they did it. And the Paul George, I don't know. He's kind of sucking me in with his quotes. This place is great. I wish I had gotten here sooner. I was like, okay, Paul George, twist my arm. I understand why they did it. And I, we didn't have this information during the infamous colonoscopy pod, which I'm sure for you, the year, the colonoscopy pod in the Ohio state game being in person for those, probably your two highlights of 2026. Definitely. We didn't have this information, but Brad Stevens basically admitting we took that group as far as it could go and we had to do something. And that's, he said it in so many words in multiple interviews that, I did not feel like this was sustainable anymore. And that's why they did it. And he had less value than they thought. And I agree. I think the second apron, which we brought up earlier in the context of Jalen Duren, I think is a huge part of this. And Brad referenced it the more I've thought about it. And he said it exactly something to the effect of we can't have this much usage tied up and this much of our cap tied up in two guys. And I think that's fair. And in a league though, our depth is so important that you can't achieve depth if you have a Jalen-sized contract and a Jason-sized contract stacked on each other. Yeah, you're looking at it. Oh, good. Yeah. That doesn't explain bringing in Paul George who has basically the same amount of money due to him, but for one or two less years, right? That's why I don't know if it was a, I mean, it was a salary trade for that third year and he's an expirer next year. So you're looking at this year only plus he's an expiring. I think they looked at it and you, you add up the stats of those two guys and how much they'd have to both have the ball, what that comes at the expense of with the rest of the team. And they thought you move Paul George and Hugo and Shireman, you know, give them a lot of those minutes and you spread the rest of the stuff out and Tatum's going to do a lot of the usage stuff that Jason did last year and that this was the only way we were going to have a happy situation I think is where they landed. I don't know if they're wrong. Yep. And Paul George, one of the most underrated part of his games is he is a knockdown catch and shoot player. He can play off the ball really well and he's content doing so. Switches on D. Yeah, he doesn't know. Smartest defender on the court. Maybe, maybe have lost a little step in his mid thirties, but even the Sixers were raving about this dude's defensive leadership and his ability to perform on that side of the court. So you can talk yourself into it. I'm happy to sort of endorse that. This is from Anonymous from Media Day. Ben Simmons is cringe, cringe. He's lucky he's fine. Zach Levine is cute, but his personality fucking annoys me. It just seems like he's a prick. Hot mics, baby. Oh, man. Only the Kings. If we did a draft of like, what team will this happen to? What team will have a hot mic controversy? The Kings somehow, even though there's 30 teams having a media day, you just would have assumed it was the Kings. Electric group text moment that going around. And yeah, like Zach Levine got, got, I think, thrown under the bus a little bit. There by one of the media members who's anonymous. But I feel bad for anonymous Bill Simmons. I do not. Oh, this is a good Zach. If the craziest shit I said were caught on a hot mic, it would be a terrible day in my career. We all say stupid things. Some of us get caught and I feel bad for anonymous. Shout out to anonymous. As far as I'm concerned, you're forgiven. Shout out to Andy and I'm anonymous. JJ Reddick. Quote, there's a reason we wanted a lot of these new guys on our team. They offer something different and we feel like the pieces really fit. Hmm. I'm going to, I'm like a three out of 10 on that one. Uh, yeah, they, they sent a lot of resources to get Walker Kessler, another person with severe injury issues. A lot. Who's unproven. They have a lot of offense and now they are doing this with Matisse Thibel. Can you please be our shutdown defender? Because if you're not, we're in a lot of trouble this year. I think they're in a lot of trouble anyway at the point of attack and we talked about this on the show before, but if you look at the Western Conference guards, who you're playing on a nightly basis, the idea that Austin Reese and Luca are both on the court, what are you talking about? Stephen Curry or Anthony Edwards or Stefan Castle or Shea Gilgis Alexander, they're going to be able to pick on something there. And that remains a, like a bright red flag for the Lakers. John Moran on starting. Quote, I think winning is the most important thing for me. I'm going to say he wants to start. I think he wants to start and I think he probably should start to start the season. I mean, he has a very high ceiling as a player and there is a world and you and I have been around this league a long enough time for a redemption arc here where this guy gets his shit together. And starts being an all-star, an all-NBA player and Chris Vernon is losing his mind in Memphis. But yeah, like I think Portland, who showed some signs last year and has an awkward off-season story here where Tiago Splitter leaving, the coach getting a one-year deal from Minnesota to come over. It's just an awkward situation, but it could all click. We'll see. We got one-year deal, but they gave him a food card, apparently, for like a $300 limit. Three chicken tenders on game day. $300 limit. He can take himself out to lunch every couple weeks. Oh, man. This might be my favorite. John Horst, Bucks GM, on extending Gary Trent Jr. He's an elite shooter. I think one of five or six players to shoot and make the amount of threes he has as a reserve over the last couple years. Only 27 years old. Was big for us in playoff moments. So there's a big belief in Gary for what we think matters and that's elite shooting in the NBA that's hard to find. John Horst. Wow. I'm going to give this a zero out of 10. Do you believe? Maybe a minus one. That is a CYA statement, I think, would be the technical term. But, yes, some murky stuff at best in Milwaukee with the Gary Trent Jr. stuff. Murky? If you look at the game the way I do, Gary Trent Jr. was a, that's the player he was describing three years ago at 24. I co-sign it. But it has been very bad the last two years. And, in fact, his efficiency as a catch-and-shoot player, When Giannis is on the court Those opportunities aren't going to come anymore was very disappointing over the last two years. So kind of, I'll just say it was a surprising contract that Gary Trent Jr. Got not surprising. If you knew they agreed to it a year ago, 36% shooting threes last year for Gary. I'm pretty sure there's some guys that did better than that. Uh, John Horst is like, please, by the way, please don't suspend me for a year, please. Well, here's my, my, my Bill Simmons question. I was talking to some students about this earlier. Are we, is the new, the new kind of cheating? Like, remember we went through the doping phase with Lance Armstrong and all the baseball players. It feels like we're in a new era of cheating bill where we're just talking about financial crimes on the show all the time. And it, it came through like Manchester city today, just got absolutely leveled. Uh, and so now we're talking more and more about freaking financial crimes. Thanks to Pablo Torrey, Manchester city, this caps our convention story. And I'm like, I'm not going to be able to do this. I'm going to be able to do this. I don't like to say this, but the older I get and the more I I analyzed this league, like these dudes are, some of them are very fragile and you have to sort of factor that into your predictions and your analyses. Luka Doncic said on Walker Kessler, I really wanted him. I do believe that's true. He also said on, on LeBron, it was kind of sad, you know, playing with LeBron was amazing. There's a lot of things I learned from him and we all know who LeBron James is. We spent time together. It was amazing. I think that whole team was ready for LeBron to go. If you read, if you were reading between the lines of the media day thing, I think, I don't think he was really happy for most of the season. Um, and I, I think they were just kind of stuck with each other and then they had to all jockey to pretend whatever, but I don't, I think, I think him Reeves, JJ, they're all fired up for the post LeBron era was my take. Yeah. And the, and the Mark Walter stuff. And I've had all sorts of, craziness in that organization over the last few, I mean, getting Luca in the first place at a team where he, that wasn't really built for him, um, was, uh, it was a whole sort of just big bombshell move. And then, yeah, the LeBron Luca thing was never meant to, to work out, but I agree with that. I think I told Zach, like, I think Luca has a ton of pressure on him now. Cause this is 27 year old Luca Donchage, you, I, Zach Mahoney, everybody thinks this guy thinks the world of him, but he's 27 and you know, better than anybody. He's the sports guy, like 27, 28, 29. Those are the prime. Those are the years. And now you're in LA. It's your team. Um, what are you going to do? That's a lot of pressure for Luca Donchage. Luca, 36 points a game on Fando five to one. Damn. Only a couple of guys at Harden did it. I think Harden was the last 36. I thought he got to 36. Yeah. 34, 34 was like plus one 50. Uh, speaking of, Luca, his teammate, Austin Reeves talked about this year's team and said, we'll do different things. We weren't capable of doing last year. We'll be able to play more free flowing basketball. It's not going to have to be pick and roll every single possession. Huh? Man, do they get a new coach? No, still JJ Redding. I wonder what's different. Um, Nicola Jokic quote, one more thing on the Lakers. I just want to go on the record here in September before we get to the Oakish quote, the problem for Austin Reeves, it's not at the offensive end, buddy. It's on the other side of the court. Nicola Jokic. I'm going to sign next year. If they want me, that was this future at Denver. I believe that. I don't think I thought that was the biggest quote out of media day bill. Cause people have been speculating. He is a private guy. Everybody loves Nicola Jokic. Obviously Denver wants him to stay there forever. Um, but there was real smoke. And the gossip machine starting and he's not somebody who just says anything. Um, so there's no guarantees there, but you knowing what we know about Nicola Jokic, um, I feel like that was the biggest news of media day and great news for nuggets fans. I 100% agree with you. The number two biggest news was Kate Cunningham said about Jalen Duren. That's my brother. Maybe think of Stephen A. Smith and CR doing the Stephen A. Smith impersonation. That's my brother. Um, Kawhi said he learned last year with the Clippers that quote, he needs pressure and needs a winning situation. Yeah, I think that's true. Kawhi, I mean, had the most interesting media day, I think, uh, from the awkwardness and he sort of was happy and in a vibe that I don't really associate with Kawhi like grinning ear to ear, almost like magic Johnson grin on his face. I was like, what is going on? Um, it's ridiculous. I don't know where it came from and nobody can figure it out. But I'll tell you this dude. I think Toronto won 46 games last year. I think they're one of the best defenses in the league. They have a great coach. If Kawhi has a chip on his shoulder and I know for a fact that dude loves basketball and he does want the bullshit to leave and he just wants to play basketball. Yeah. And if this moved to Toronto really clicks and this dude can play 60 games, the Toronto Raptors are a very interesting team to watch in the Eastern conference. So, uh, I thought his media day was fine. It's just weird, right? I'm not doing over-unders with Zach and house for two more weeks, but Toronto really jumped out to me. I thought it was too low. It was like 46, 46 or 47. It was somewhere in there. But to me, that's a 50 win team. Yeah. They just have too much length and too much defense. I don't know if it's going to translate to, you know, winning three straight playoff rounds or anything, but they're going to be a absolute bitch to play with all those dudes. That's a team on your calendar. Like, oh no, know. You and Mahoney had a great nerd King, Justin Herbert segment. And I texted you guys after the podcast last week. And I was like, we definitely need a nerd King, um, for the NBA. And I think for me, I said, it's Chet Holmgren. Uh, but I also think Kawhi Leonard has a sneaky case here too. Cause the advanced stuff for Kawhi is so insanely high. The same exact numbers that made Jalen Brown look so bad in the, uh, when that discourse, if you look at Kawhi and things like estimated plus minus, he's number three in the league, number four in the league, the nerdy stuff still points to this guy being one of the most impactful players in the whole league when it comes to winning basketball games, obviously he has to stay healthy, but when he is out there, he could be the best player in the Eastern conference. Like, I know what that sounds like, but he is that good at this phase of his career. Well, his old team, the Clippers, the acting GM, whatever he is, Trent Redden. He said, yeah. Talked about Clipper fans. We hope to fulfill our promises to them and build their trust. Good luck. Ben Simmons, uh, had, had, uh, really like got passionate about it. He said, quote, all these people talk about, I don't love the game. That's bullshit. I love this game. Eh, I know he said some physical stuff, but the, the, the way he handled himself the year after the Atlanta series with the Sixers, I think speaks for itself. Well, let's do this. Who loves the game? Like, I know when I think of guys, guys who just want to play no matter what, right? Like guys who want to hoop. I feel like Durant loves the game. Durant is number one. Yeah. There's going to be footage of Durant just playing in some parking lot pickup game when he's like 48. Shoot. Yeah. There's certain guys you love, you know, they love hooping. Yeah. And I think, I think LeBron, LeBron loves to hoop. And no question. I don't think Ben Simmons likes to hoop. I said, I don't think it's the rap on him until he proves everybody wrong. Who's coached or played with him. He doesn't like basketball that much. Bradley Bale on taking number three. Oh, quote. It's no disrespect to Chris, Paul, Chris and I are amazing friends. I asked the team if number three is available. They talked about it. They came back and said, we'll do it. Have you talked about this on the show before? If you're giving it up, you're not giving it up to Bradley Bale is my take. You're not giving it up. I mean, you're a Clippers season ticket holder. Who are the two or three greatest Clippers of all time? He's one of them, but you know, what do we do with those numbers? This is not like six years, never made a finals. I had a lot of disappointing things. I can see both sides. I personally think his numbers should be retired, but what do I know? They don't have a retired number. They haven't retired a single number. I think Bob McAdoo, I would retire Bob McAdoo. I'd retire Chris Paul. I'd retire Blake Griffin. Um, I've not retired Kawhi or Paul George. Yeah. On the list of things, the Clippers fucked up this year. Like the Chris Paul relationship is somewhere in the middle of that long list. Um, and I, for one, yeah, I mean, I, I think six years in this organization that starred for any kind of legacy like that count me on the side of like, what are you doing? Giving that to Brad Beal. Like that doesn't make any sense to me. I'm sorry. Last one, Michael Porter, Jr. Quote, my goal is to definitely be the best off the ball player in the NBA. But that was the weirdest thing I heard at media day. I don't even know how he decided that was his goal. He realizes he's playing with Agor, Demin and McHale Brown. And like, what does he think is going to happen next year? Julius Randall. Does he realize what's going to happen with Julius Randall? He's another one like Paul George that I think, the casual fan doesn't realize just how fucking good this dude is at catch and shoot threes. Yeah. And he is off the ball. And that's why he was so great next to Jamal Murray and Nicole York. Uh, but you're exactly right. I mean, Julius Randall is going to be doing a lot of this. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. But he's going to have to be on ball too, in that environment in Brooklyn. Cause there's not a lot of, there's not a lot of options in that offense. Brooklyn. Um, okay. Kurt Goldsberry, anything else before we go? No, that's it. I think that, uh, we should talk briefly about the Vegas thing. Uh, cause that came out. Let's do that. Yeah. So they said between 12 and 13, which means 12. They also said the arena was involved, which is between two and two and a half. So the number is where everybody thought it was going to be. It's going to be nine and a half. There's three groups. I learned nothing. They're going to pick between the three groups. They staggered Seattle, hoping one of the two losers with the Vegas bid will then talk themselves into Seattle. Cause the number's not nearly high enough. So yeah, that's why I learned nothing today. Well, we learned that they don't have the Seattle number. I think we're not even close. We knew this for two months. They're not even close. So they're going to go 31 teams and, and I think staggered, I think is how they're going to go. And, and Minnesota doesn't really bother me. Yeah. Minnesota moves to the East. Maybe you have 16 East teams, 15 West teams for, or, oh yeah. I don't know when they would do the move. Right. Because yeah, that's interesting. West teams. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's interesting. I know you've been following this Vegas thing for a long time. I remember when they first started talking about it, the number was like five or six. So it just speaks to how quickly these valuations have changed, but yeah, the NBA obviously wants a new building there. Um, for those who have been to the NBA cup, the T-Mobile arena is not, I don't get it. I, to me, it's an insane number and, and there has to be, there has to be, I'd never, I haven't studied the part of this where can you fill the arena for 350 days a year? And if you own the arena, is that just a crazy amount of revenue? The Warriors did this when they built the chase. It's a crazy amount of money. They spent on it, but that thing's a cash cow for them. So they were obviously right. So maybe that's the feeling with Vegas too. It's not just the basketball team. It's you get all the other stuff too. Yeah. And that's a city where they need that stuff. So yeah, it's a real estate play. Um, I, I'm a little bearish on Vegas as a long-term sports city. Um, but it's going to be exciting. And I think the more interesting thing for me, Bill, is what will they end up doing with the expansion draft? As soon as next summer, we could see players being peeled off. It's going to be exciting. I think the more interesting thing for me, Bill, is what will they end up doing with on Vegas as a long-term sports city, but it's going to be exciting. As soon as next summer, we could see players being peeled off of the other 30 teams' rosters to go populate this new team, which is going to be really fascinating for us to go through. So if it's nine and a half, just for Vegas, divided by 30, that's basically like a $315 million check to every single owner. Matt Ishby is like, can you wire it to me? Any chance I can get that this week? Mark Walters is like, can I have that now? I'll drive to the office. Yeah, it's not bad though, but that'll be interesting. Do you have a preferred nickname for this team? Have we talked about that? No. I'm just assuming it's going to be terrible, and that they'll overthink it, and they won't do something relatively simple. Do you have a preferred nickname? I love the Knights. I don't think they can do it because the hockey team is that, but I think the hockey team did great there, and they didn't lean into the cards or the gambling, whatever that sort of cliche might be. I don't know. I'll be a little more optimistic than you. I think it could be cool. Maybe they lean into the desert nature, but yeah, it's going to be fun just to see a new NBA team pop up and brand. I like that they're moving into cities that clearly can support an NBA team. At least Seattle, we know we can. Vegas, hopefully, but I still don't think it solves the problem of some of the other franchises that they currently have. I agree. They're just kind of looking the other way with that stuff. Anyway, Kirk Goldsberry, good luck with the rest of the Texas season. I hope you have your mustache for the whole year. Come back with your guy, Brian Curtis, right after this. And now it's time for Sports Power Weekend presented by Mazda. Which has been named Consumer Reports' safest new car brand. It's true. All right. So what sports are we looking forward to? First of all, we're heading into October, which I think is the single best sports month of the year. Sometimes I decide it's April, but usually it's October because of the World Series, college football, NFL, NHL's kicked off, basketball. There's always a good UFC thing. If you look toward the end of the month, I think it's October 24th. There's no football on Saturday, but there's UFC. College. All the other sports are in play. World Series. Anyway, this week I am the most excited for the NFL because we have the London game going all the way through to the Sunday night game. It's 14 straight hours of football. I hope I can handle it. Anyway, there's driving and then there's driving with peace of mind in the Mazda CX-50 Hybrid, which comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features. So confidence isn't an upgrade. It's a given. Mazda, move and be moved. Consumer Reports does not endorse products or services. Visit mazdausa.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. By TikTok. When you watch a football game, you follow the ball, right? Well, there's a video on TikTok where this guy says to watch the players without the ball, watch the routes and the action away from the play. I'll change how you see the game. And guess what? He's not wrong. That's the thing about discovery on TikTok. One video can change the way you see the game. You can learn something new or see things in a completely different way. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Visit tiktok.com slash discover more. This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a lot of time talking about the players, the coaches, the big plays, there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com slash join the trades. This segment is brought to you by Uber Eats. My old, old, old friend and colleague, Brian Curtis is here. We've known each other since the 1890s. He hosts a press box on the ringer podcast network. He writes pieces for us. Rumors of other stuff may be coming. I don't know maybe who knows something down the road, maybe possibly. I have a lot of media stuff for you. And I want to start with Mike Tomlin because this is the first time I've been excited about a football studio hire. You tell me since when, when was the last time we were like, wow, halftime's coming. I shushed my wife at halftime of the Sunday night game and upset her. But I was like, Tomlin's talking just like, give me two minutes here. And she's like, it's halftime. I'm like, no, no, Tomlin has good stuff. I want to hear this. Then she got mad. You didn't feel that way when CBS hired Russell Wilson? I didn't. Or Matt Ryan? I didn't. These are some of the most exciting people on the planet, Bill. I don't. I don't feel this way really with anyone who does this. But yet with Tomlin, Tomlin before that Rams game, Rams Broncos Sunday night, like spelled out what was going to happen. He's like, I think the Broncos are in trouble. Sean McVay, and they were up 16, nothing at one point. And he seemed like a genius, but he forgot to factor in the altitude. Anyway, they're using him really, really well, really, really smartly. And I'm almost like Southside Sunday night. It makes me mad. He didn't do this sooner. I agree. And I'll tell you what I loved, especially about halftime on Sunday night. Two things. There was one person there with Maria Taylor. There weren't four people. Yeah. We weren't doing the pregame pass the ball around the perimeter thing where everybody talks for 15 seconds. And as a viewer, you're like, what did you just say? And nobody listens to anybody. It's just, you wait your turn and you say you're 15 seconds. They're not like actually interacting. You never have a conversation. No. You never get deeper into anything. And that's my second point too. What he did at halftime sounded like a football podcast. Yeah. If you remember, he was talking about Cowboys Ravens and he was like, Hey, end of the game, Cowboys are in this defense. Umbrella coverage needed to be in it. Yeah, exactly. And they were in man to man. And then he went to the commanders and talked about their offensive coordinator and the plays he was calling in that great game down the stretch. And I was like, you know, the thing that has killed pregame shows, halftime shows and everything is a football podcast because even normies like you and me, we're not crushing all 22 on Monday morning, but we know way more about football. By osmosis than we did 20 years ago. Right. But these shows never changed. They never met us halfway. And I'm watching Tom and I'm like, that's the kind of point we would make on the ringer NFL show on Monday morning. And you and I'd be sitting there listening and go, Ooh, that's an interesting point. I learned something. Yeah. It's weird. They, they try to keep the old infrastructure of how they used to do stuff. And they're just going to go down with the ship for the rest of eternity with it. 90% of the time. Like I was on the East coast on Sunday night. I mean, I, on all weekend and on Sunday morning got a early. It's that first time in a while. I'm like, fuck the game. Don't start until one o'clock. What are it's pouring rain out. I can't even go walking. I'm like, all right, let's put on the ESPN show. And it's just five guys interrupting each other, laughing at things that aren't funny and doing the whole thing. And I'm like, how are we, how are we still doing it this way? The cast just keeps changing, but it's the exact same show. And I agree with you. The, the putting Tomlin alone with Maria Taylor on Sunday, we're like, we only have three and a half minutes here. We might as well just ride our best person. Everybody else clear out for Tomlin. Nobody does stuff like that anymore. Nobody. We don't need to hear from Jason Garrett at halftime. We also don't need to hear from Jason Garrett in the pregame show either, by the way, just throwing that out there. I also think this, I was watching the pre pregame show or any show. Yeah. I'm with you. Really? We don't need to hear from Jason Garrett in American life is what you're saying. Yes. I was thinking about that too. Remember when Jaden Daniels got hurt right before halftime the other day and they go to the Fox guys and they just look like completely discombobulated at halftime. Right. I mean, Howie long, I mean, just could not get the words out. And you're like my guy, this is a kind of a big moment in the NFL right now. He got to give me something. He's like, well, you know, they built a team around Jaden Daniels. Like, yeah. Okay. Thanks man. I appreciate your help with that. It's just the whole thing is like, like people don't watch games anymore and so when you get a guy like that you're like oh you watch this game that's not even the game you're assigned to it's not even the game you're at in Tomlin's case right and you have like a nice brief smart take on it that's all we want yeah you have to have the ability to ad lib but also center in on two three things during the day if you're gonna be on another NBC show which they've it's been a failure the entire time they've had it you know that when whenever they got football and it was always Dick Ebersole he loves spending money he's gonna go he'll pay top dollar but they never figured out the actual like surrounding shows and I did the only time I would ever watch it is if I was preparing for the Sunday night pod and I just wanted to remind myself what some of the highlights were but they're doing like the last couple years they've been doing facetiming people in the locker room who's that for hey Brian Curtis great win today and then he's just his face is taking up the TV thanks Maria yeah we had a good win I I just I don't get it I mean last year was probably the nadir when they had those those super brief Matthew Barry fantasy things where he's like I like Jameer Gibbs over nine yards back to you I think it was recorded at some strange time and you can't totally tell when and then it's going down to Jack Collinsworth they have like two different shows at the same location it's like how about just pick four people or three people and let me know what's happening so is Tomlin too good is my next question because sometimes when stuff is too good to be true with TV it usually is yeah and this is always a problem with the coach yeah when you get a coach who is not Jeff and Gundy he always wants to coach again he wants to get back in the game and his TV stuff is an audition to get back in the game and you know I was a little bit surprised when he took a shot at the Cowboys for the defense because sometimes coach doesn't criticize another coach crime yeah coach on coach crime but I'm also like hey if you're auditioning for another NFL job what better thing can you do than criticize another coach you know coach isn't gonna hire you GM is or an owner right like it's actually showing off how smart you are and I mean isn't he gonna be the number one free agent with all the coaches next year well he had the Browns gonna Browns thing whatever he said that every week he said something we were like wow no you're firing you're firing shots here it makes me think he doesn't want to coach and I'm sure he's having a great time yeah he's working he's probably getting paid around the same that he got to coach right they had to have overpaid him to for the 17 Sundays a couple playoff games whatever I mean I'm sure he's near the top of the salary stratosphere he's working Saturday Sundays like he's flying he's flying him maybe on a Friday or Saturday he's having lunch with the guys the the night before he's in a big booth with TVs watching the games on Sunday and he's home Monday right oh absolutely I did here by the way there wasn't quite the salary market for Tomlin that some people thought there would be just because there wasn't really open there wasn't really an opening anywhere well we didn't know about Romo yet we didn't know about Romo so I get that that was my third question what is the best use of Mike Tomlin because I think if you're NBC and they always have there's always one game where like Collinsworth isn't there or like you have to do the backup crew however it works out you've got to see what he's like doing a game I think and I think Collinsworth is as good as he's ever been I'm not trying to push Collinsworth out but um I think you have to just test drive it or you have to put him in the booth with those guys which I think would be awesome and I think Collinsworth is a good enough broadcaster that if you put Tomlin in there he'd be able to play off you know and Tirico would know how to handle it but I think you have to see it at some point this season right I completely agree I mean this is the Jason Garrett slot in previous years he's been in the booth this is the Drew Brees slot a couple years ago when he was there and that all-time terrible playoff game Bengals versus Ravens which convinced everybody that maybe he shouldn't be in broadcasting had eventually come back and take the number three job at Fox just to get back in the game by the way it's not bad that's the thing I think he's pretty good I he's been a revelation as not being bad this is the thing with Fox they always say bring him over here we'll get you tons of reps we'll get you really good producers and we think we can make you into the announcer we want to make you into and NBC he just didn't do a bunch of games no well we and we've talked ever since I've known you we've talked about this where they just throw these people into the fire basically with little Jerome Bettis the most famous example I still think he should have been good at TV but they they just pushed him in like basically off a cliff like learn how to swim and they just shove you um but with Tomlin I think I like him more in this role um but I also feel like we're not getting enough of him and I think there needs to be a second piece of it maybe this is just how much he wants to work but I you know we've seen like Belichick tried this right Belichick's like I'm doing media and he was on three different things and I felt like he played it very safely you could tell he was holding back um all the shows were different inside the NFL was probably the closest to being interesting but I didn't go out of my way to watch it um and I just felt like he was tiptoeing Tomlin's the first one in a while that doesn't seem to care if he's going to get another coaching job or not maybe he doesn't want to coach anymore you know he's done it for a long time maybe it's that maybe that's just it Bill Belichick went on that tour because he wanted people to like him he's like I'm going to convince you to like me and he convinced absolutely no one to like him at all people already like Tomlin I think they would hire him if he was out there but yeah maybe he wants to be on the cower track I mean how long has been Bill Cower been speaking of guys you don't pay attention to on Sunday mornings right how long has Bill Cower been on that CBS show but I agree with you I'd put him in the booth I think the three man is actually the best idea because as you said Collinsworth is great you don't really have that many games you throw them on unless you start throwing them on like college games Notre Dame that kind of stuff which just doesn't seem like a very good use of Mike Tomlin yeah but I would just like find a couple of occasions where you're like I'm just gonna put you in here even for a quarter just have some fun as you know I hate three-man booths and I'm morally opposed to them with very very few exceptions this is one where even if he came in second quarter is perfect for this right um before halftime you know you can feel it out for 10 minutes have him talk about what he's seeing in the game and maybe he leaves but this is I can't believe this worked out and then the other thing that's happened Brady's now good I don't understand how this happened either he he he's letting it fly now he's way more comfortable and he's saying the meatball sub kind of stuff and the piss that was great and just it it feels like we're closer to what it's like to hang out with Tom Brady during a game I don't think he's all the way there yet but this is going better than I thought year one he's got interesting parts of a bunch of different announcers yeah he's got Tony Romo's enthusiasm like he sounds genuinely I'm happy to be here this is where I want to be in the world watching this game but then he's got the Trey Aikman thing where when he sees crappy football he's like I don't like this right he's horrified yeah and you can always tell with Brady and you won't find any compliments you will find grudging compliments you can tell exactly what even when even when he won the Super Bowl yeah you could just tell Brady being like and not my guy Mahomes loves him Jared Goff loves him Justin Herbert who might be in the hurts column yeah after the other he's just like you can just tell the way and it's like this is what we want to know right we want to know what Tom Brady really thinks of people do you think it's weird that he's also owning a part of the Raiders and helping run that extremely extremely weird it's weird I talked about it last week it violates basically one of the basic premises of things you're allowed to do in the NFL and media and somehow everybody's decided it's fine because it's Tom Brady I like the the listener mailbag I had was it was a deflate gate like kind of payback we owe you because we screwed you over on this so we're gonna look the other way but it's definitely strange but he's I think is is at least in the top three now who do you have for the top three so it's Collinsworth Eggman and Brady that's my top three so you wouldn't put Olsen in there it's right there I don't know I think I think I'll go with those two those three is my top ones I really do so I have Collinsworth one I think I have Brady two and I think I have Eggman three and then Olsen probably I JJ Watt I need more of that was another top three I want to discuss because I think Nance and Watt have been really awkward and um you know at some point because once they're played by this happened with Mike Breen too who I don't I don't think since Van Gundy and Jackson has really found his groove with any partner in the same way when he was you know throwing 99 miles an hour with really carrying Van Gundy and Jackson a lot of different ways and I just don't think he's matched that since but I think because it's Mike Breen we've already decided Mike Breen so anytime the broadcast isn't perfect you always tend to blame the other people right and I think that might be the case here with Nance like he it's the really really great ones would be able to pull out the JJ Watt but a lot of it still feels forced it's a lot of like whoa it's like when we went to that Brazilian place last night JJ and and you you the waiter finally tapped out and it's just like almost like like they went into AI to have some like fake exchanges to print out to execute or something all the Brazil stuff was so magical because we got steakhouses yeah we got dancing and we got christ the redeemer so i also played where in the world is carmen san diego it's a video game and right learn those exact facts about brazil thank you guys for for filling me in so so you're in brazil right is that we're brazil you're in brazil okay there's some culture here you're in you're in brazil got it first time ever in rio yeah they like they like field goal kicking here jj i'm so glad you said breen is a comp because that's exactly where i was going to go you got a guy who's in his 60s and nancy 67 you're in the last decade of your career at least at like that level of calling games you know being a lead guy and all of a sudden they're like you know what your analyst isn't your analyst anymore we're changing things up you felt you were in a groove and and with nance maybe it was twofold maybe romo kind of collapsed on him and now he has to like have this new guy and i'm just like it just feels how many times by the way did he say jj watson name during that game did you notice that after every play jj would you see on that play jj well as you know that's my favorite broadcasting crutch for we don't have chemistry yet when uh when they i remember writing about in my book with it was uh costas isaiah thomas doug collins it's just like repeatedly just calling each other because nobody had they had such little chemistry they had to like repeatedly just call out each other so they would know the other person would be the one to call out each other and they would know the other person would know the other person was up next talking so you know that's bad did costas call him zeke remind me probably probably year two maybe maybe that was when you're like comfortable enough to call him zeke yeah the one thing is fascinating because i love lineman we need more linemen in big jobs like that and if you listen to him he's really sharp he sees the field well he's got a little of that big galoot lineman in him yeah and it's funny a friend sent me a text it was like it feels like he doesn't know quite how much to lean into that you know like he had little moments where he almost sounds like alex karras did when we were kids you know i'm a big old guy i play football you know i'm that i'm that kind of lovable lug but i don't know he all felt a little downbeat to me he also started getting really shouty at the end of the game if you noticed when things got exciting he was just he didn't quite know emotionally how to get there yeah the thing about romo you and i just have whacked romo and i just i don't know how to get there i don't know how to get there i don't know you know over and over again over the last couple years but like romo to me understood the emotional parts of football announcing yeah that was his great gift all the oh jim oh here we go jim like it was annoying but that was his superpower like he knew like hey we got patrick mahomes josh allen joe burrow coming down the field in the fourth quarter this is a big deal like i need to underline this i need to jump on this i need to feel what the viewer at home is feeling it was the here we go here we go jim i know it sounds corny but that's what romo was really good at and with what you're like hey second year broadcaster he's still learning television but he just doesn't have that sense of the medium that guys like romo collinsworth do where you just you have to get a big moment you have to just make it feel really big yeah and even when romo i i just don't think he worked as hard the last couple years and i could feel it there's just no question but you heard saying the numbers herb street does this too now because he's just doing too much too many too many games everywhere like ah 78 was there it's like all right you know by the way i'd be a disaster because i wouldn't be able to remember anyone's number it is a certain skill but i think when you're when you're doing a thursday game and a saturday game it's a pretty tall task to begin with but with romo like i i did feel that his superpower was the more invested he was in whatever the moment or the drive or whatever it made me more invested and with watt i think he has good stuff like he did the pittsburgh new england game and it was annoying because his brother's on pittsburgh right and it's like there's no way you're not rooting for pittsburgh i know you're trying to suppress it so as a pats fan i'm like fuck like wait really we have to have tj watt's brother do this game but he did have good stuff it's just i like you wouldn't be able to do an snl sketch about him and which i think is weirdly a part of how to be a great announcer is you have to almost be able to be teased like for whatever your character is like and brady already definitely has that romo had that in spades madden had that and jj watt and i think greg olson fits into this too where it's like they're good at their job they do they do perfectly fine job but i wouldn't be doing like jj watt impersonations on my podcast on sunday night i don't know if that matters what would you parody is what you're asking he's he's he's fine he does a good job yeah right he's like he's like a b or a b plus he's sound observations and i was thinking about this at cbs right so romo's in purgatory he's in time out that was gonna be my next question like where is he it's gonna be week week four this week week four you're david berson and you're sitting there and you're like part of this equation as we know is not just a moral equation it's like do i have a number one announcer that i can just put into that slot and feel good about for the next couple years or at least i'm gonna be able to do it for the rest of this year yeah and i look at watt and i'm like i can see it i could project it but i'm not sure he's the number one guy or he's in a three-man booth as the number two guy i feel like he needs another person and again i don't like three-man booths but um it it just feels like it needs a little more um if there's something to be said about seeing brady um and especially seeing brady these days but seeing brady and it just it's like that's tom brady you know collinsworth has been in our lives for this entire century as an announcer and it still feels like a big game when he's there i think terrico's the best he's ever been announcing football just in general like he's still i feel like he's still climbing as a play by play guy his football stuff is fantastic he's leveling up in in front of our eyes which i didn't think was totally possible have you noticed like when there's a weird rules moment before the i know it's not gonna be a 10 second runoff here yeah because the clock was stopped and just like it's this command of small things combined with the moment too like he's if it's a good play he's by far the best guy on a big play you know and this is what al used to be great at forever but um terrico's on top of it he's got the right amount of excitement but then you're right he also has that nerd side which i felt like was holding him back for the first 10 years he had to be perfect with everything right he had to like you know he was like that the batter at the batter's box who had to do his gloves nine times and grab his cup and now he i think he lets it fly better i think he's the number one football play-by-play guy right now i don't i don't think it's close i sat in a booth with him for the ringer a couple years ago for a piece and this dude came out for the bangles he was like a backup defensive tackle and terrico's calling the game and he pulls out this ipad that he's written all these notes on and he's calling the game he starts going like this through the ipad this is weird television is is happening at this point yeah and he finds this note about this guy about his like usage rate you know how many snaps he played in the last couple games because he barely played it all and has the exact number of snaps and just like goes all the way and then just puts the ipad away and i'm like how the hell did you do that and just watching that i mean that's not something you can't remember everything right so you're like reaching for things during the game and looking over here and all that stuff and yeah i feel he's really really really good and getting better which is a scary part he's probably i would say this generation's michaels for the ability to basically be thrown into anything and be really good and this is top of the line i agree and then the interesting part is also with collinsworth because i asked him about this once i was like what's the difference between calling a game with al calling a game with mike and he goes al was a little more you know snarky little little down here and so collinsworth went way up yeah he felt like he needed to be mr energy oh you know i can't do the cousin sal imitation but he felt like he needed to be that chris mike's way up here right he's an energy guy so i think that also allowed collinsworth to come down a little bit i mean remember the great caleb williams on the playoffs last year and terrico calls the play perfectly and then you just hear calls we're just laughing yeah he can put that laugh out five seconds after the play now he's got it on command and then he laughs it's great and that was that to me is like the perfect pairing for them collinsworth can kind of relax and be chris collinsworth with us since 1990 on television yeah and mike is calling the game superb i thought luke keighley was interesting but unfortunately on netflix that doesn't get enough games i almost wish he could get more reps calling stuff um during this season but that that's another one where it's it's like the a traditional he's was a linebacker jj watts and defense defensive uh linemen but i like the perspective of those guys they always come up with a couple things where i'm like ah you know there was a lot he did a lot of generic stuff too but for the most part i thought he was pretty interesting there was some generic stuff and some stuff that just sounded like i'm supposed to talk for exactly 9.8 seconds here and then i shut off but he's another guy yeah give him a full season on fox or cbs and he could really turn into something interesting so you noticed the breeze thing too i thought i was i didn't realize who it was and i was i was flipping games around and then he whatever game he was doing ended up with the sound and i'm like this guy's good who's this and it was like it's true breeze wow i was like pleasant I was pleasantly surprised, but I thought he said he feels feisty or now he does. And the Fox guys were always like, we felt like there was something there that didn't get used at NBC. And mostly it's just doing games. And hey, you're in the number three slot, you know, until you bring the sound over there. You're not like focusing on Drew Brees like we would be if he had a big, big job. Greg Olson's going to clearly go away. And he's going to be the number two guy pretty soon. And that's interesting. This episode is brought to you by Mazda. There's driving and then there's driving with peace of mind. Knowing you're behind the wheel of Consumer Reports' safest new car brand, Mazda. The Mazda CX-50 Hybrid comes standard with a suite of proactive safety features. So confidence isn't an upgrade, it's a given. Visit MazdaUSA.com. Discover how confidence comes standard. This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance, and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24-7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. Herbstreet. I've been watching a lot more college football this year. It's really been a Bill Simmons college football renaissance. Including the 4-0 UCLA, which is covering my fifth. I've watched every UCLA game. I try to watch the big game of the week. I'm fascinated by the quarterbacks. There might be some wagering as well to pique my interest. But yeah, put me in the camp of, if his name was Arch Lewis, I don't think he would be in the top. Three, I like, I know other people have made that point. I think it's a hundred percent. I don't think when I watch all these quarterbacks, they have flaws. They do good things. They do bad things, but I personally don't see it as a top three pick, but you, this is your team. You're you're a Texas guy. So do you see it? What am I missing? When, uh, Kurt Goldsberry and I were there at the Ohio state game when it was 94 degrees at kickoff at 6:30 at night. And we were like two old men in a sauna that are like talking to each other in towels. Uh, what are you doing? Here, Kirk, it's just like, he's the most incredibly frustrating guy I've ever seen. Cause I agree with you. If it weren't Manning, you'd be like, eh, I don't, I don't think this guy's it. He's just not consistent enough. And the funny thing about him being a Manning is I think maybe his best skill is using his legs. He's a really good, a traditional Manning. Yeah, yeah, exactly. He's a great runner. And when he's more like a, you know, a lot of college quarterbacks, like is a good enough passer. But when you combine good enough passing with like a really dynamic runner. Who can just go to the house all the time that then you can win some games. Yeah, that's arched to me. I don't see him as like a classic top five pick because, Hey, you know, he's got great pocket awareness. And I mean, he takes forever to get through his reads. He makes dumb throws all the time. How many times he twice against Tennessee. If you're watching on Sunday, he threw balls past the line of scrimmage. You're like, what is fourth year you're a Manning. You're throwing balls past the line of scrimmage. Well, with Herb street. I just don't totally get it. What am I supposed to get? As a college announcer, we're talking, we're not talking about Thursday night football. We're not even going to NFL yet for the college. Cause I think that's, he's the most respected college guy, right? Is there somebody more respected than him? Joel Klatt's probably the one B on Fox. And I'm not saying he's bad, but what am I missing? Cause he seems pretty generic to me. And like, especially compared to the NFL guys we talked about, I just don't think he's in the same class. Yeah. As a college guy, his claim to fame is that he's a human computer. You got way more teams to worry about. You got way more players to worry about and the players change all the time. So it's just a completely different job in the NFL. When you're coming back year after 10 years later, you're watching the same quarterback that you games you've called. Well, I will say this when he does a Texas game, he'll say little things about the roster. And there are things that are not only just like correct, but are the, the really good take about it. I'm like, oh, that's the stuff I'm reading about on my message board. Yeah. So he's incredibly well prepared. There's a lot of really bad college announced. So welcome to college football, first of all. And if you're watching UCLA and they don't have like the lead or the, even like the fourth or fifth telecast, it gets pretty bad. And you guys are like, man, did you read the program before you started calling this game? I've never caught her be in that situation ever. Okay. Well, that that's a good and compelling case. He certainly, I like, I haven't heard anybody that. That I thought was better with them in college, but I also don't feel like it's not like John Madden. I'd have no idea why he's doing these Thursday in NFL games. Now, maybe they just needed a name and it was like, just this was, oh shit. We have football this year. Who can we get? Who's available? And this is the biggest name and you do it. But I, I just think he's a college guy who also like on the side kind of seems like he's following the NFL. And I don't really learn anything from him during the games. And then I don't, he says. Pretty, pretty basic stuff. Um, it's, it's not a great experience. You remember when they were looking to fill that job, it was Sean McVay, I think was choice one, Troy Aikman. They wanted, they wanted John Lynch. Yeah. They wanted all kinds of people for that job. And then everybody was said no, or was unavailable. And all of a sudden it was like, okay, Herbie, let's put him with Al and they could have had Greg Olson, by the way, for that job way back when that was not somebody they pointed at. It's interesting. And this, this feels, I mean, this feels like maybe he's like, he's the contracts up this year and maybe he just goes back and does. Well, now that he has the dog store and now he's, now he's, who knows where that goes. That was in Mississippi. Was that what it was? Pop-up dog stores. As you know, I love dogs. You're a dog guy. I've never had less than two dogs since 2004. Love dogs. Wrote pieces about my dogs. The dog store. Very memorable one. Dog stars a little much. Come by a coffee mug with my dog's face on it. A portion of the proceeds goes to the veterinary clinics. What's happening? Like that is just a heat check. That is a classic, like, eh, nobody in your life. Try to talk you out of that one. I have not sat down on the couch, the psychologist couch with Herbie. But also when I see him now, like this, a guy who got the game day job when he was 26 years old. Ooh. Child actor. 30 years ago, he became the host of College Game Day on ESPN. And he's been calling the games for 15 plus years now. And it just feels like he's in this part of his life, part of his career. We're like, what do I do now? Do I just, you know, roll this out and go to Oxford? And I think he still loves that. Like, he still seems like with college, he seems like he's into whatever's in front of him. But I also, there, it feels like there's a little bit of searching going on there. Perhaps. I think that sounds fair. Um, speaking of. Searching Charles Barkley. Oh, set up my podcast a few weeks ago that this was his last year. It wasn't even really a news story because he said this multiple times before. And I joked on the podcast that he was the Muhammad Ali of retirements, which he took exception to and claimed he had only tried to retire once. I let it go. Um, in fact, Jack falls, he, uh, said it again this week, but this is going to be his last year. Do you believe him? I don't believe him. Uh, the only thing that made me think twice was the Ernie Johnson part of it. So let's say Ernie does retire because that's what Charles is saying, right? This is going to be my last year on inside the NBA and Ernie's last year. Yeah. Could he do that show with somebody other than Ernie? And here's the more interesting question. Who'd you put on that show as a host? If Ernie does retire. It's, it is one of those things every time it's not Ernie, I'm bummed out. Yeah. I don't know if you'd put him on, I think he would have fine if you put him on like an NFL pregame show or something like that, but that show is where he belongs and if he were to leave and you were trying to keep the chemistry, which has already been kind of threatened by the ESPN thing and it's already, you know, everybody felt a little bit weird about it last year. They gave them a lot of time in the playoffs though. I think my, my one fear about. That the time stuff would screw them up was not really what happened. ESPN rallied late and gave them time, which was good. They did. It'll be different this year when McAfee's on the show. Is he doing that too? I don't know. It's funny. They, you know, it, it seems like he gets written about a lot and my, my attitude on all of it is I don't really care. Like he's not a lot of stuff. They absolutely like him. Like more power to him. He works really hard. I respect the work ethic. Yeah. People freaked out about the NFL pregame show. I'm like, isn't this what you want Pat McAfee doing? Like football talk, talking ball on the pregame show. He's one of your big stars. Of course you want him on here. Yeah. I mean, and same thing with college game day. Um, I think the, the Stephen A. Smith piece of it is fascinating though, that this was basically how they were treating Stephen A. Smith two years ago and putting him on everywhere to the point that people were getting pissed off about it. And then there's been organizational stuff behind the scenes at ESPN. There's new people in charge of that. the stuff who are, I would say it's fair to say pro McAfee, um, and Stephen A who got this new deal and is on two other shows that aren't on ESPN. And it seems like they've come to a little bit of a, okay, you're just going to do first take, maybe pop on a couple other things every once in a while. And that's going to be his ESPN relationship. But that was not the case two years ago. Things really flipped, didn't they? Yeah. Remember writing Stephen A is the most powerful talent in ESPN history became such a cliche that we all stopped writing it. And all of a sudden you're like, Ooh, I don't think he is anymore. They kept them away from inside the NBA. I don't, did he ever even go on that show? I don't think they, I mean, they really, I don't remember, but that was interesting. I thought so too. And now back, back, Pat McAfee can do anything he wants. We have to be careful because I don't want him to start his YouTube show tonight saying Bill Simmons, you and I have always been. Gotten along, but my name was in your mouth and we have to talk about this. Stephen A knows I like him. I don't know if you should be on three shows a day. I don't think that's sustainable. There's just a lot of works. I'm somebody who does shows. It's hard to research them and follow everything. And to just do three a day, every day, I am just, I, I worry about him. I don't know if that's ultimately going to be efficient for him, but I guess we'll see. I agree. He has different things. Different shows, you know, first take is still first take recognizably. So even if he didn't quite have the co-host go-to guy that he did in past years now, but then like the politics thing just seems to be either like him interviewing potential presidential candidates or him just like calling out some journalist and getting into some huge fight with somebody from his past or, and I was like, what is this? Yeah, there was a whole thing. I barely followed it, but he went on Jamel and Carrie champion show and then didn't like, and then it just kept going for a couple of days and, and then was doing post the full interview after it was over. Every time I saw something about it, it was on my Twitter, whatever, but I realized that was on the for you page. I'm like, no, no, this is not for me. And then you go to the people you're following. Um, but yeah, it just feels like you can have a side career, just, just intermittently doing these. What did they almost like wrestling things? It's like what we grew up in the eighties where it's like, magnificent Morocco. You had your name in my mouth, but we're at the Nassau Coliseum on Friday night. I'm going to show you. And that's kind of half a sports media now. Yeah. Yeah. Our Undertaker voice Carrie champion. Good luck to everybody. Um, Charles Barkley. So you think he is coming back? I think he's coming back. By the way, remember his retirement this year? You think he's back after this year? I think he's back. I think he's back forever. Okay. I still, I'm old enough to remember when he was going to retire to go to live golf four years ago. People forget about that retirement. There was the whole, I'm going to retire when I'm 60. I'm going to retire when the Turner deal's over. I'm going to retire when Ernie retires, but there was also, I'm going to retire to go to the renegade golf thing. Yeah. That just turned out to be completely bogus. He's a lot of money being thrown around. But the, but the live was the all time. Wait, how much are you offering? And then some golfers took it. Oh yeah. I mean, Barkley had that quote, like I, you know, Hey, I have a price. There's a price that I would go to live golf. I mean, we've seen that with comics. We've seen that with all types of people. We have the MLB we're taping this during, uh, the Phillies Braves game, but we, we have the MLB playoffs, which is always interesting because it always reminds me that we've never been a hundred percent satisfied with an MLB. National color guy ever who came the closest early McCarver. Yeah. I think that's the answer. It's like ABC, ABC, McCarver, ABC. And then like early, like with Jack Buck McCarver, like probably till like the mid nineties. And then people started to, he was one of the first announcers when I, I might even made fun of him in my college column. But when, when I had my website, just so easy to, to do McCarver material. And then we had him in Deardorff at the same time and plus Paul McGuire and ESPN. Oh my God. And all the basketball guys were terrible. It was like a smorgasbord for me to stuff to make fun of whenever I, whenever I'm reminded, like whenever I complained about announcers, now I'm like, he used to be so much worse. Yeah. They were just always like guys. You're like, man, that dude's doing a national game, right? Yeah. They'd surprise us over and over again, especially in the NBA and McCarver got cranky. This is the thing. Why did baseball announcers get cranky? The longer they're in the seat. Oh, that Joe Morgan, even a more famous example at Smoltz has gotten crankier. Yeah, I don't, it's not doing it for me. They, and it's another, there's something about baseball too, where every fan base decides pretty early on that you hate their team. And I think with Smoltz probably has the most of these, I don't know, a single fan base. Who's like, yeah, John Smoltz has been fair to us. Everybody's John Smoltz. Fuck that guy. He hates us. Everybody thinks he's carrying on these grudges. Like he's Michael Corleone in these games. And you know, I, I just think that we'd never figured out how to move baseball announcing into the 21st century. You know, I think about it when I obviously watch a ton of Red Sox and I think the Red Sox stuff is more on the higher end of some of these broadcasts, but it's still, it's a lot of filler. It's a lot of, a lot of babbling. It's a lot of just trying to kill time. Yes. Even with shorter games. Yeah. Killing time. It's funny. I texted a baseball announcer this morning. Cause I knew you and I were gonna talk and I was like, Hey, who's the color guy I should be really excited about to hear in the post season. Ooh. Cause I can't think of anybody. And the announcer wrote back. The reason you can't think of anybody is cause there's not anybody. How's that possible? I it's yeah. And I was just trying to think of names, like, you know, and I was like, what, what is it? It's like, is it, you know, Ron darling and Jeff Frank, who are on TBS? Does that get you there? I mean, that, that's solid to me, right? That's okay. That's not bad. Ron darling. That sounds like baseball. I think Pedro could have done it, but it's easier to do studio stuff. I think Pedro could have been really good. He's really smart with baseball. Poppy's good in studio. I think like, but just in the booth, we haven't had that. I haven't had that guy. I mean, I think Lou Merlon, he's doing red, the red Sox Yankee series, right? With Jason Benetti on NBC. Yeah. Lou's good. I, I actually think as a, as a local guy, he's about as good as we've had. That's not bad. Yeah. But I'm surprised he's doing our series. Like if I was a Yankee fan, I wouldn't feel great about that. Oh, but it's also Joe Girardi's part of that too. So this is the thing with NBC, right? They're like the local flavor, you know, get it in there. That's that to me is not a bad solution. Yeah. It's not bad. It's just strange that we haven't had somebody, somebody who mixes like the old school way of how we used to talk about baseball when it was just, we were all full of shit versus the new school way, using the stats and launch angles and all these different things. Like you, there's some really interesting discussions out there. Do you think that this is just the networks not paying enough attention to baseball? Cause they've spent all their time thinking about their football stuff? Probably. But the, the difference is I think the baseball audience is, is really gonna keep growing this, this decade, assuming they don't have a lockout coming off the most amazing world series. You can imagine red Sox, Yankees best two or three is just amazing. That's that that's happening. Right. And then we have all these other teams that are in the mix, like the Cubs and the Phillies. Um, I don't know. Yeah. It just, it's a weird mystery that they haven't developed, especially like one big national guy. You're like, I can't wait to hear that guy break down a game. Cause if this were the NFL playoffs, you and I'd be excited about Brady and Aikman and Collinsworth and, and Olson, we'd be like, oh, look, I can't wait to hear what he has to say. Like, that'll be a fun, a fun listen. And I'm just like, who is that in baseball right now? I think it with baseball podcasting, it's been a little similar because there's almost two different conversations going on with baseball at all times. And nobody has figured out how to synthesize those for a larger audience. Whereas we have 50 NBA podcasts that could probably appeal to, to whoever, like even this hockey podcast, we just added though. What chaos guys they're really good. And it's like, the reason we never had a hockey podcast at Grant land or at the ringer is I just never heard one that I felt like could cover the sport the way like how fucking fanatical hockey fans are, but also would do it an accessible way to casual fans. It's like the hardest thing to balance and hockey and baseball and soccer. I think to some degree too, um, you really have to nail both demos. Cause if you don't, if you don't hit both, they, they, one or both will go. And that's just how it goes. It also goes back to what we were talking about with Tomlin. Like there's a bridge, there's a bridge between baseball statistics and all the great data we have at our fingertips now, and then appealing to a general audience and being like funny and relatable and emotional. Right. And it's not, it's gotta be doable because there's so many football announcers to do it. Like, you know, Greg Olson does that, right. He dignifies the X's and O's and he's that guy. Like Chris Collinsworth is that guy, you know, they, they, Chris Collinsworth used to own a data company, right? Like this, this can be done. Yeah. But I just don't know why that person has been found in baseball. And again, I just, I wonder how much they've even tried to develop that person gone shopping for it in the way they would with the NFL. Every time you think things evolving PTI is just cranking out another year as the best half hour sports show format that was created in 2000. Yeah. They got that award the other day. You know, there was like, what was it from a camera, which a college was going to give them an award. And I'm like, they just winning. They're into just like, Oh great. We're honored to accept another award. Here we go. You know? Yeah. That's like, like the pit season 12, just going up there, just getting, getting more Emmys. That's because they're grandfathered in, right? Like we couldn't create another show on ESPN. That would be that. Right. I didn't like when Wilbon gave the answer about if Tony retired, when he said the thing about why I would, I would do it with Frank. I saw that. I was really surprised. He said that I thought the correct answer would have been, it's my show with Tony. Like I want to do the show with Tony for as long as he wants to do it. I'm not going to think about what's happening after it was weird that he had somebody warming up in the bullpen. I was really, really surprised by that. I agree. It would be really weird to see it just with one of them permanently. It's weird when, when, when I'm gone, you know, it's weird. That's, that's a show where like, I know they, they do fill-ins and stuff, including I sold who's good, but it'd be weird not to have Mike and Tony together. Well, Tony's been retiring for 12 years on the Charles Barkley plan, almost at the end of 2026. I'm so old. Nobody wants to look at me. I just don't see him. And the ratings are fine. I saw it. The other day they had an hour long show and I was like, maybe like three, four weeks ago, um, which Tony has resisted forever. He feels like that would be the death of the show. The moment it went for an hour, wasn't not interesting. Like they made the little five good minutes. Those interviews were longer and they figured out a way to string along. You're basically have to do 42, 43 minutes of content instead of 22, but I wasn't against it. No, sometimes you gotta, you gotta evolve a little bit. You know, I agree the shortness of it though, back in the day was part of the magic. Cause it felt like the length of a column they would write in the post. Right. Remember columns, remember how short they were compared to everything now? It's not like a sub stack that just goes on for hundreds and hundreds of words. It's like, Oh, you know, nice and tight. You remember those? Yeah, I do. What do we think is the ideal sports calm length? I don't know the inches, but I think like around a thousand words, maybe, maybe, maybe you could talk me into eight 50. Yeah. I remember when I was doing the magazine thing, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Don't read too much into that. But, um, but the, uh, I started out with six 50, which was just basically putting myself in a car bomb. Like there, I had no chance. I'm just blowing up every week. I couldn't barely say anything at 650 words. Then they gave me like, it was like somewhere around eight, 10. And that was a little better. Like I could at least have like, here's the premise and race through it, hit some bits and go. Um, but then I finally ended up at 1250, which was two pages. It was like between 1225, 1250. And I really felt like that was a pretty good length. So I, I, I personally think it's somewhere probably between a thousand and 1250, but you know, I, I've seen some stuff I've written, like some of the, not even mailbag things, stuff I wrote that would be like 55. 500, 600, 6,000 words that didn't even think twice. I'm like, people read this. I don't think anyone would read that now. I would have to spend like a month on it to make every single part of it. Perfect. To even put that out because people are just, they're just doing this all day. I don't know how you could capture their attention like that. Yeah. And you're talking about with the magazine stuff that's written, you have some time to do, or you're thinking about a little bit. I'm talking about newspaper stuff that you're writing in a press box. You know, how long you just, a game just happened. Yeah. Fair, fair, fair. Yeah. Right. Like you got an hour, a Turner. I got to say Shaughnessy who I've obviously had a lot of problems with over the years. He still cranks out those 850. I have an angle. Boom, boom. Same kind of thing that, I mean, Sally Jenkins is probably still, I would say the best pure calmness for that. Although she's not at the Washington post anymore, but, but there's still a couple of people that still do it that way. But yeah, it was such an art. It's such, I mean, it's just in terms of like having ideas and then having to react, you know, this thing happened right before me and I got to just sit down and write this baby and it's gotta be great. Those were all my favorite things I ever wrote when I had a limited amount of time to do it, because I think that's, that's when the, when the degree of difficulty comes in on top of whether you wrote something good or not, but when you have some sort of obstacle and you have to do it, those are always like the best piece I ever wrote was after game four, game five of the ALC. Yes. When just coming home from that and having to stay up till five and write something that I thought I thought it ended up being really good, but trying to capture that, but having a limited amount of time, but also like starting to fade because I'd been up for 22 hours, you know, and I'm drinking like a big gulp Coke, trying to get through it. Like those are like, when you pull those off as a writer, those are the best. And it's so immediate. Yeah. You're not, you don't get in your own head. Cause you can't, you can't just like, what's the metaphor. Okay. I'll take it. First choice, second choice, third choice, you know, let's go, you know, well, that's a good lead. Okay. I'll take it. That's what screenwriters will say that like, when they talk about like advice for screenwriters and it's always like, don't slave over your script. Like just try to bang out in two, three days, the bones of the first draft of the thing, and then worry about filling in all the color later, but try to bang out the structure, all the beats and you'll hear like people will write the first drafts of movies, like famous movies that we know about in like two or three days. Cause they're just like, I'm putting my head down and going and I'm banging all of it out and I'm going to trust my fingers and see where it goes. And I have a general idea. Um, I don't know that, that, that became, as I got older, the part that terrified me, which I think happens to everybody, but not to you because you're still writing. Well, and then we became podcasters. So it's all kind of, it's deadline easier to podcast. It is way easier to podcast. It's way easier. And. Yeah. I still put a lot of the, you know, the beats and the thoughts and stuff I would do, but that it's not, it's not even remotely as, I don't know, impactful as writing something that people could read that you're actually, I think the thing that worries me about some of the writing now is people, I think there's a sameness to a lot of this stuff. And, um, and I don't mean that in a bad way or a good way. It's just, I think people are so used to writing emails and texts and. Whatever that when they write, they're like, here are my thoughts. And they kind of put the thoughts and they structure them in a certain way. The stuff we grew up with people would be like, here are my thoughts. They're over here. Now I'm going to figure out how to tell you my thoughts, but I'm going to use some sort of fun innovation or gimmick or thought, or I'm going to take these thoughts and twist them, or I'm going to take the way you thought I was going. I'm going to zag the other way. And that was part of what we loved all the great writers were, you know, that, that we love the sports writers. Or culture writers or whatever. They, they all had that second thing and now you kind of don't need it in 2026. It's like, here's my premise. Boom. I'm going. So it was a badge of honor to do the Axios thing. Like here's some, here's some bullet points. Yeah. Let's forget all that fancy lead and, you know, a zag. Let's just go straight down the list. Well, don't you think part of it is a fear of if this doesn't work, I'm going to be made fun of tomorrow. And it's way easier to, for a writer to be made fun of in 2000. 2026 and really 2020 and 2016 and 11. I guess so. I feel like I don't see the purple pros ridicule as much as I did. Maybe like the heyday of it 15 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Just cause maybe, cause there's not that much of it at all. And by the way, what you're talking about, what we grew up with and we were doing when we were younger in this business bill. Yeah. Like sometimes you do that and you'd be like, wow, that was just, that was terrible. Like that gimmick I came up with was really stupid. Yeah. But that's the thing. You're not going to bat a hundred percent on gimmicks, you know, but it would also sometimes unlock something and be like, Ooh, that was, that got to a different level than I could have gotten to if I just told it straight. Yeah. One of the things I used to do on my old website, I used to have these characters, Murph and Soe that I would talk about Boston sports through, and I would just write these dialogues of the way. And I would try to, you know, make it like a bunch of the way my, I was talking to my friends when I lived in Boston, I would never do that now. And I don't even know if it worked, but I like. I really liked it. And some of them worked, some of them didn't, but I was like, fuck it. I'll do another Murph and Soe. And now I don't think I would, it would never even occur to me to do it. You would never do like a fake. You're reading Mike Royko and Jimmy Breslin and like, what's my version? Fake, fake dialogue pieces. When's the last time you read one? Um, but some, some of them ends up, but it seems like, um, in general with, with, especially in the sub stack era, now you're writing for people who really like you. And you're getting that audience, but then how do you pull other people in is going to be the big question, I think, of the next five to 10 years. I think so too. And also if you're writing for an audience that likes you, how do you challenge the audience that likes you, right? They're there because you give them a widget and what happens when the widget isn't something they want or something they like. I mean, the old, you know, the old way you work for a paper, you work for a magazine and part of it was just crossing up the audience sometimes. Just like, ah, you thought I was going to write this today, huh? Right. Bam. Yeah. yeah, eat that, send your letters to the editor, jerk, you know, and, and you just kind of live with it. Right. And that was part of the way you made your reputation of being a little bit unpredictable and saying, I'm not, I'm not going to do what you think I got, I got more pitches here. Right. And I do wonder now if the change up is as common as it was, because again, people expect a certain thing, you know, and, and, and challenging them in that way. You're like, oh, so not like people are going to unsubscribe from the paper because you wrote that column, but they might unsubscribe from the sub stack. True. It's true. If you piss them off enough. Do you subscribe to sub stacks more for information or for, um, the, the quality of the writing itself? A little bit of both. I think what I do is I try to recapture what I liked about the old world and sub stacks. There's a, uh, Cowboys one that I just love. Cause it's just like, here's the Cowboys column that I, that I, that I crave on. It's like this guy named Bob Stern, but it's like, you know, here's the, here's the one about the combat, the offense combat defense, the preview for the big game. That's like really stat stat driven, but also like well-written. And I'm like, yeah, this is what I want. This is what I need in my life. Right. You can go out and seek out the thing. I like, obviously we have a lot of writing on the ringer.com, which I'm very proud of. I get excited when I see, you know, all the, all the angles that people could come up with have been done at this point after we've been on the internet now for 30 years. But I, I always get excited when somebody executes, The angle correct. Like Austin Gale had a piece. He did the, uh, the take meter with the, with the different things going on. And I read when I texted him, I was like, that was just really good. You should be proud of that. Like you, you had the right things. You wrote them correctly. You had good jokes in there. And like, that's, that's what we do. And sometimes, sometimes that's, that's, that's the wind with this stuff, but I don't, will it ever be like 2011 again? I don't know. You mean the, when we launched Grantland? No, just that era. Of, of how many writers were coming up, everybody, like the energy behind it, um, and all the different styles. And I, I just, I wonder if we'll ever have that many writers again, trying that many different things. I, uh, I don't think so because everybody was coming up as a writer. Right. Well, also coming up as a podcaster yet. Well, and also people were reading back then people were reading, maybe reading will come back. Jess, when the book club's happening, you're keeping alive on Instagram. Yeah. Movies are back. Baseball's back. It's going to be unbelievable. My wife would say reading never left because she loves audio books. And a lot of people she knows who get older when they drive around, they, those podcasts or audio books. So there was, I think, I don't, I think my reading has bounced back. My young parent years were, were pretty rough. Yeah. I could barely write. And that, that was kind of my first priority, much less sit down and like read something I was interested in reading. But I've bounced back last several years. What was the Brian Curtis book club? What was your book of the year so far? 2026. Oh, a regime change. Probably Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan just in terms of like a pure page turner. Like, Oh wow. I just want to read. And I want to read this right now. Remember books you just wanted to read right now. Right. That was a time. Yeah. Maybe it'll come back. Maybe a lot of stuff will come back, including Charles Barkley. Um, all right, Brian Curtis, the press box, follow Brian. Brian Curtis, who knows, but there might be more stuff under his sleeve. You never know what this guy, uh, what's your final Texas prediction by the way, for the football season, I think 10 and two and in the playoff. And we'll see from there. 10 and two, even that's, even that's pretty bold. Cause man, the sec is, is loaded this year. It's going to be a tough schedule. All right. Great to see you as always. We'll see you in the office. Great to see you, Bill. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kirk and Brian. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris from the ringer side as well. Um, I'm going to be back on Thursday with an action-packed football podcast, but probably a little baseball too. So stay tuned for that. See you in a couple of days. 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