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NBA Panic Rankings, NFL Draft Guesses, and a Michael Jackson Movie Review | With Todd McShay, Steve Muench, and Van Lathan

2h 7m 40s

NBA Panic Rankings, NFL Draft Guesses, and a Michael Jackson Movie Review | With Todd McShay, Steve Muench, and Van Lathan

The episode begins by honoring the unsung laborers behind sports, from stadium builders to field maintenance workers, and highlights Carhartt’s support for these essential teams. Bill Simmons and his co-hosts then dive into the NBA playoffs, analyzing key matchups such as the Lakers vs. Rockets, Spurs vs. Portland, and the Detroit vs. Orlando series. They stress how physicality, team chemistry, and injuries shape outcomes, with particular concern over the Spurs’ reliance on Kawhi Leonard and the Nuggets’ defensive intensity. The discussion shifts to the NFL draft, where the Giants’ strategy at picks 5 and 10 is examined as a balanced, patient approach. The hosts debate draft philosophy, emphasizing that emotional bias often overrides data, and cite examples like the Jets’ potential pick of Arbel Reese over David Bailey. They also note how scouting interactions—like a player’s interest in Chick-fil-a—can reveal personal traits. Ultimately, the episode showcases how human instincts and long-term team planning shape both draft decisions and playoff narratives, blending sports insight with deeper reflections on decision-making in high-stakes environments.

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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 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. The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by FanDuel. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new Rewatchables on Monday. We did Kindergarten Cop. It is available on Netflix as well. Next week, Ghostbusters, which you can also watch on Netflix. That's coming with me and Van Latham and Chris Ryan. We have some Ringer stuff for you. Sean Fantasy, you might've heard from him, host of The Big Picture. I've worked with him since 2012. He put up a new newsletter today that you can subscribe to about movies. Did it with The Ringer and Substack and Spotify. It's called Projections. He'll be writing about movies at least once a week. If you like Sean, I'm pretty confident you're gonna like the newsletter. He's gonna be on here Thursday to discuss it. Jordan Kahn, who's been with us since Grantland, came to us along when we started The Ringer. One of the best long form writers in the country. He has a new book that came out today called American Men. It's excellent. If you like reading books, I would recommend it. And then Legata, the third episode of that podcast, which I told you, if you like Scarface and Miami Vice and 80s cocaine, all that stuff, this is the podcast for you. Legata third episode is up now. On this podcast, I'm gonna be reacting to all the basketball tonight, plus the basketball yesterday at the very top of this. And then I have Todd McShay and Steve Mensch. We taped earlier. Today, a whole bunch of NFL draft stuff. All of our thoughts. I threw some crazy stuff at them. Are there gonna be any crazy wrinkles? What's gonna happen in this draft? Covered it all. And then last but not least, Van Lathan came on because he saw the Michael Jackson movie and he thought it was abominable. And we talked about the movie and the state of biopics and documentaries and all the stuff that seems to be going in the wrong direction these days. So that's all coming up next. I'm gonna join you right after the break. First, Pearl Jam. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA postseason is here and FanDuel knows the only thing better than watching your favorite team win is winning along with them. FanDuel, the best place to bet the teams, players, and plays during their playoff run. Build the same game parlay or try live betting and jump in after tip-off. Don't forget with FanDuel, you get paid instantly when you win. Download the FanDuel Sportsbook app now and play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat, Connecticut. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ All right, I am taping this top part of the podcast. It is 1023 Pacific time on Tuesday night because I stupidly stayed up until the end of this Lakers-Rockets game thinking something spectacular would happen. And it was spectacular if a rock fight that almost injured people in the first couple rows of the seats were spectacular with all the bricks and air balls. And oh my God, it was so bad. I'd like to apologize to Gahal and Eduardo. Um, who are my behind the scenes team. I made them stay up late. Now they have to put this podcast up because I thought it would be worth it. It wasn't worth it. We should have done this two hours ago. KD came back. So that was a wild card. He had nine turnovers, um, four, four or five in the fourth quarter. Partly his fault, but also like, A, why is he out there? B, why is he doing so much? Because he clearly didn't seem 100%. Reed Shepard. This might've been it for E-May and Reed Shepard. I think he played, what do I have here? 10 minutes, 0 for 4 for Reed Shepard, the number three pick of the 2024 NBA draft. One pick ahead of Stephon Castle. Um, Houston, they changed some stuff up. They pressured a game late with that idea. When you have Marcus Smart and LeBron James and Luke Kennard bringing the ball up, why not pressure those guys 94 feet, uh, Jaden McDaniel style? They didn't do that. I looked it up. They, nobody has ever been fired during a series before. So I think E-May and Duke is safe probably until after the game. So I think E-May and Duke is safe probably until after the series, but they're down 0-2. And the big thing for me, the fact that they didn't trade, trade for a CJ McCollum at any point during the season before Atlanta got him is just bonkers. It felt like the natural thing that was going to happen after Van Vliet got hurt and the salaries kind of lined up. Houston has a bunch of extra picks. Washington basically, you know, they, they, they were ready to give away McCollum. They finally ended up putting him in a Trey Young deal, which really they're taking Trey Young off Atlanta's hands. McCollum goes and he's one of the stars of the, of game two and one of the potential stars of the playoffs. He's almost becoming a villain for, on MSG with the New York fans. Even though, as he said after the game, I'm the least villainy guy possible. I don't know why Houston didn't trade for him. I don't get it. They thought they were good with the team. Like they like having Van Vliet around. Van Vliet can't play until next year. Like worst case scenario, he could just opt out of his contract. You can, you sign him, but it's weird to me that they didn't do anything. And the email clearly doesn't trust Reed Shepard. So can the Lakers actually pull this off? Cause we got info today. Maybe Luca wouldn't be around until round two. That maybe, maybe Reeves was actually a better option to come back. I'm looking at the playoff odds right now. Houston. Wow. Lakers minus they're up to nothing in the series with game seven at home. And they're minus one 20 on FanDuel because everybody's like, well, maybe Houston's going to turn it around. I don't know the team I watched tonight. I don't see it. I mean, just to come back from two Oh, in a series, um, the percentages are against you, but the way they, the, the, the chemistry in the court, um, Durant, and I look at a hundred percent. Shangoon looks like he's already on red fin looking at Milwaukee houses for the inevitable Giannis trade that I'm starting to feel like could happen. Could the Lakers do this? I, and I don't know why I'm excited about it cause I hate the Lakers, but it would just be more fun to have them in the next series. If Luca can come back against. Okay. See, by the way, okay. Say big winner of round one, right? But like when B when B gets concussed, which we'll talk about in a second, but that series looks like it's going to go longer. Denver, Minnesota is going to be a war. Meanwhile, okay. See, he's going to cruise through round one and then they're going to get one of these two teams in round two. Holy shit. Um, panic rankings. I wanted to take, you into the NBA panic room really quick. I have the rockets now. Number one, because if you lose this series to, if you lose this series to this Lakers team, you gotta be kidding me. Yeah. Honestly, you gotta be kidding me. That would be just one of the dumbest playoff losses. I can remember your 41 year old, the broad Luke canard, who anybody could have had Marcus smart hitting corner threes. Jackson Hayes is out there. I just can't believe it. How many lottery picks does Houston have? I think out of the, I think they had five or six guys who were taken like in the top five of the lottery. Oh my God. Um, anyway, I've used the number one and, and I blame Houston for the fact that it's 1027. I'm doing a podcast right now. Anyway, number two, the spurs, when he gets concussed on the night that he is given the defensive player of the year award, and it looked bad immediately was not going to happen. It was not going to happen. It's not going to happen. player. Um, but my fear with them all along was like shot creation in half court when you're in a playoff atmosphere and you've got to create shots. And really it was just Fox. Fox was the only, everything was on Fox and Portland, Portland could kind of shut it down. And then, uh, it comes down to drew holiday who had 16, five and nine classic drew winning basketball gets the block in the corner, gets the go ahead basket on the, on the putback on an air ball, like always in the right place, right time. That's why they traded for him. And then the scoot Henderson game, 31 points. So Nick Wright texted me this. He now has 10 more career playoff points than when B I feel like I'm still in it with scoot. Can't give up yet. I thought scoot was awesome day. Now he had one rebound and zero assist, but the defense and the fearlessness and the athleticism was what we thought it might be when, when, you know, I was arguing him versus Brandon Miller and I conceded to KOC. Sorry, Kevin O'Connor. I conceded to you two months ago that you won the Brandon Miller versus scooter argument. Now I feel like I'm alive. I just climbed out of the coffin. And congrats to Portland owner El Cheapo, who the guys after the game, they were pouring tap water on each other because he probably didn't have alcohol in the locker room. But El Cheapo gets a win. Now he goes back to Portland for game three. No t-shirts for those fans because those t-shirts are expensive. Anyway, the Spurs, I have them at the top here in the panic because if they don't have Wemby for either of these Portland games, I think Portland's legitimately good. Like Toronto, bogus five seed. Just bogus with a capital B. Houston, bogus five seed. Not capital B bogus, but bogus. Portland, frisky seven seed. Like I think Portland's a better playoff team than either Houston or Toronto. So you're going to Portland. The energy is going to be amazing. El Cheapo is going to be shooting out probably used t-shirts out of 15-year-old t-shirt candidates. I can't wait for this weekend, but we'll see. What do the Spurs have in them without Wemby? They signed Lou Cornette over the summer, who is one of the best free agent signings of the summer. Big game for him, obviously. Game three, game four. They're going to need a lot more from him. But as crazy as it sounds, like Portland, this could be a long series. And I don't think Portland's going to go away. This is a team that knows who they are, really good defensively. Kamara, I thought, did a great job down the stretch. And a little feistier of a series. I think San Antonio was -1400 heading into the series. So it's a 1-1 going back to Portland. We're definitely not going to have Wemby for game three. We'll see. That is my number two panic team. So Houston, San Antonio. Number three is Detroit. They're playing tomorrow night. They got their ass kicked at home in game one, and they've lost 12, 11 straight playoff games. This would be the 12th that they lose game two. Orlando has a ton of confidence. They're catching this Orlando team that just did a 180, that hit rock bottom, crawled out of it. We talked about it on Sunday night and might not give a shit anymore. It might just feel like, fuck it. Maybe we're better than these guys. This is a Normandale and Hoosiers moment for JB Bickerstaff and the Pistons. This is JB looking at these guys. Maybe they're right about us. Maybe we weren't a one seed. He's got to start challenging them a little bit. I think this Detroit Orlando game, Wednesday night, a must watch. I think it's going to be violent. I expect, like, I don't know if you're watching the hockey, but Bruins Buffalo almost had two different bench-clearing brawls. It brought me back to 1988 when I really loved the Bruins the most, the 70s and 80s. And we played Buffalo, and I think it was 600 plus penalty minutes in a six-game series and multiple bench-clearing fights. Guys just fighting every game, the same guys, like Jay Miller. I think that we had Willie Plett. I think they had Clark Gillies. I forget. They had another fighter, but just every game, the same guys were fighting. I don't think Detroit Orlando is going to be like that, but I think it's going to get feisty tomorrow. I think this is one of those Detroit's going to lay the smack down, try to give the physicality. I think Orlando likes when it gets physical. They like that kind of action, and that's a must watch. But I would be really nervous if I'm Detroit because Orlando, you know, there's two kinds of upsets. There's the Philly kind that we'll talk about in a second against Boston in game two. And then there's the, we actually belong on the court might be better than you guys upset. And I felt like Orlando in that one. Now they're, they're nine point underdogs in game two, which I think is too high. There's a lot of data going for if the home team gets blown out into game one as a big favorite. Then sack talked about that on Sunday, but I think Orlando can play with these guys. So Detroit's my number three, the nuggets are number four. First nuggets lost yesterday at 33 days. I have multiple concerns command of the game. One Aaron Gordon, not healthy. I thought he got banged up in different ways in game one. And then game two just didn't look like himself. So you lose rim protection. You lose the crazy athleticism. You lose the reckless threes in the corner that go in all that stuff. I didn't think he seemed like the same guy, not his fault. I just think he's banged up. I think he's been banged up all year. Second, biggest thing. Yoke is threes, which we've seen come and go in the playoffs. If you really put a beating on them, which Minnesota did. Minnesota had Randall beating on them. They'd go bear beating on them. They had elbows, Nas reads beating on them and they just tried to wear him down. And it got to the point. It felt like they were leaving them open a little bit. And I think he was one for seven. Um, a lot was made out of the go bear one-on-one defense against Joker. I didn't think that's why they won. I thought they won because the physicality of all four quarters combined with the third thing I want to mention McDaniels. You know, you could see what the game plan was in game two is like McDaniels is going to how. And Jamal Murray 94 feet. And I don't know why more teams don't do this when you have a Jaden McDaniels, but I thought Murray was just gassed in the fourth quarter because McDaniels was just wearing him down and in his t-shirt, which is, I think he wears the t-shirt instead of inside the Jersey, which I support. Um, I thought he wore him down. So you have McDaniels 94 feet. You've go bear with the one-on-one D you have ant with the rim protection, you have Randall and Nas read being super physical. And then you have defense Chenzo with some big ball shots and you have bones Highland as just a random Dion waiters. We might have to rename Dion waiters on rewatchables. And then you have on offense, everyone attacking the rim because they know if Gordon's a little compromised, Joker's not really a shot block or they're going. So when I think about upsets, um, I said this after game one to Zach, even though Minnesota didn't play that well, I felt like they, the physicality, they seem very comfortable. Yeah. And I, and I thought it was a little concerning after game one, they didn't play that well, but they still were in the vicinity of winning the game game to super comfortable. And, um, it's a team that thinks they're better than Denver. So if I'm a nuggets fan, Hey, I'm, I'm more concerned than I was four days ago that I was getting out of this series. They were three to one to win the series. Now I'm concerned. I'm also concerned. What happens if I get out of this series? Cause now I'm playing San Antonio. I have a lot of miles on me from round one. And, and then I still have, okay, see waiting for me in round three and they're going to do all the same physical beat you up stuff that, uh, that Minnesota is doing. Now, this was the case. I thought Denver was going to make the finals. The case against it was the road is too hard. And the way this is playing out, that case might've been right. I might've been wrong. I thought Minnesota was alive. Potential could put it together for four rounds, but aunt who didn't even seem like it was a hundred percent healthy all the time yesterday. Um, combined with McDaniels coming back from injury. I just didn't think they were going to be able to put it together like that, but man, they looked like a conference finalist last night. So, um, these, these two, either of these teams playing San Antonio is going to be an incredible series. And I thought last night, I thought that was like watching a game five of the conference finals level quality of basketball. I loved it. I'd be nervous if I was Denver, I wouldn't be quite as nervous if I'm the next, but I'm a little nervous. Cause game two against Atlanta, it picks some scabs for me, right there. Are we too Brunson centric? Are we sure Mike Brown is a good coach is McHale bridges playing tonight. He, oh, he's played 32 minutes. I didn't realize it. Oh, he took the last shot of the game with five seconds left. I forgot he was on the team. Uh, they had a bunch of that stuff going. The backup guards McBride was bad. Um, shame. It was bad. So they got nothing really from their bench other than Clark. They made a couple of plays. Um, and the town's piece of it. Now my next fan friends were like, why didn't towns get the ball more? What, you know, why we were so Brunson centric. Come make it was doing a good job on, on town. So I think it was a combination of he was being really physical with them. They found something with that small ball lineup. And if I was the next and our, I rooted for the next that they now make me the most nervous other than Josh Hart was the best part of my team in game two, I would be nervous that Alexander walk. Or in Jalen Johnson Bay Alexander Walker didn't really play well in either either game. And Jalen Johnson did not shoot well in the second game and it's one-to-one and they're going back where I think they're pretty good in Atlanta. So I'd be nervous that Alexander Walker hasn't gotten going yet. And then the CJ McCollum piece was doing, getting to whatever spot he wanted. You have these two wings in an OB and bridges that you've traded all this capital and big, big, big contracts to. Yeah. And over and over again, he was just getting away from those guys and, and trying to repeatedly get Brunson on him. McCollum's like having, this is a moment for him, right? This is the afterthought in Portland. Dame's teammate put it a million trade rumors. He even got mad at me publicly a couple of times, kind of bounces around, ends up in Washington, becomes such an afterthought that Houston doesn't even trade for him. And now he's, he's wearing it. Now he's ready to, to, to be the foil in a Knicks series. So I would be, I wouldn't be. Crazy nervous if I was the next, what are the odds in this series? They are yeah. Minus 1 74 on FanDuel. That seems about right. I, I thought the Knicks were going to win in six. I still think that, but the CJ piece was unexpected. We'll see if he can keep it going. And then the last one for a panic team, the Celtics. So I would have ranked on the bottom here. First of all, in game twos, I don't know what happens to them. They're five and five in their last 10 playoff home game. twos. They lost to the Knicks last year, Miami Cleveland in 24 and the Miami game was one of the dumbest losses of all time they lost to Miami in 23 then they lost tonight Philly did exactly what I thought they're gonna do they shot a bunch of threes um Edgecombe got hot I think he was six for 10 he had a 30 and 10 was super comfortable and then Max he got going a little bit the Celtics were playing this just insanely dumb drop coverage that I didn't understand for the life of me and uh and giving up I think it was 91-89 Boston has the ball about to take the lead Tatum jacks up a bad three and then Maxie I think hit two straight threes on that stupid drop coverage so the Celtics were 13 for 50 from three and Sean Grandy my friend uh who does the radio for the Celtics said regular season and playoffs that's the 12th time in the last 161 games the Celtics have failed to shoot better than 26 percent from three and they've lost all 12 including game one and game two against the Knicks and then this game last night so the question is total aberration or are they starting to look a little like Knicks serious Celtics last year I will say um the two things that scare me a tiny bit Derek White has uh really been bad from three since January 1st he's under 31 percent from three now he's two for 10 tonight and the next scene the uh Sixers seemed totally fine with him shooting from three um whereas I think in November and December would not have been as fine he got to the point I was wondering if they might take him out and put Shireman in which was the second thing I didn't understand Shireman only played 11 minutes he's been a super sub for the last couple months indispensable and that led to the third thing I understand the move seemed to me go small with Tatum at the five because he you could still get the rebounding from him Tatum Brown Shireman and he's been a super sub for the last couple of months Pritchard and White, or take White out and put Hauser in. I just, I didn't really understand the lineups. I voted for Joe for coach of the year. I did not think he had a good game today. And the Vucevic thing, I just don't get. I know offensively he had decent stats, but I think he really hurts them defensively. And I thought the Sixers took advantage of him. I don't think he's fast enough to jump out on three-point shooters. He's not really a rim protector. And if I'm playing the Sixers and there's no Embiid, and I'm playing Bona and Drummond, like I'm fine going small against them. Let's go small again. What are they going to do? Post up one of those guys? So playing Tatum at the five seems like the move. It did worry me a little that they looked like game one, game two, 2025 Knicks. I did get some flashbacks, some PTSD. My daughter and my dad were there. And my daughter was furious after the game. I was very proud. But she was excited that they showed them on the Jumbotron that they were going to win. And my dad wasn't looking, and she was hitting him to look. And multiple people texted me about this, that it was like watching a little sitcom with my dad and my daughter. So congrats to them. Wish I had been there. I'm not nervous about this Celtics series yet. Right now, the odds are Celtics minus 510. So FanDuel is not nervous either. The Portland odds, Portland is plus 410 to win the series now. San Antonio is minus 550. The two series seem like a wrap. Phoenix, OKC, and Toronto, Cleveland. And it's unclear. Toronto should have just passed on the playoff invitation. Like when you get invited to a wedding and you send your regrets and you send a gift. I kind of wish Toronto had done that with the playoffs. All right. That's the panic, the NBA panic room heading into tomorrow night. Can't wait to watch Orlando and Detroit. Again, I'm sorry to everybody at The Ringer that I made you stay up tonight. We're going to take a break. We're going to go backwards in time. I'm going to talk to McShay and Mensch. A big, long convo about the NFL draft. And I'm going to look a lot more awake in one second after this break. The NBA playoffs are here. Everything's on the line. Every possession matters. Every bucket swings the game. And tonight is your shot. Boost your bet. That's right. All customers get a profit boost tonight. So when the moment hits, your win gets bigger because that's how profit boosts work. Lock in your bets. Boost your odds. Make the playoffs pay off. With FanDuel. Official sports betting partner of the NBA. Head to FanDuel.com slash BS to get started. FanDuel. Play your game. 21 plus select states are 18 plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at Sportsbook.FanDuel.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right. Listen up. Ralph's, King Soopers, Harris Teeter, Food for Less, Kroger, many more. Now on Uber Eats. And you get 40% off your order of $30 or more. Maybe you're trying a new recipe and need some last minute ingredients. That's a possibility. Maybe the kids made a mess. You're lower on cleaning supplies than you thought. Whatever you need, you can get it delivered to you in as little as 25 minutes. So order now on Uber Eats. Get 40% off your order of $30 or more with code KROGER2026. Plus Uber One members get $0 delivery fees. I love Uber One. I'm a Uber One member. Orders of $30 or more save up to $25 ends April 30th, 2026. See app for details. All right. McShay and Mentor here. They are here all week doing the Todd McShay show. The McShay show, which is behind us. I like that little fancy thingy. Yeah. So we're using your set. I love it. Last time I talked to you, we weren't, I wasn't that excited about the draft. And then you kind of. 45 minutes later. You fluffed me a little bit. Yeah. You got me. Got me a little excited about it. He's a great fluffer. Barely excited by the end. Now I'm way more excited. It's, uh, there's, there's never a bad draft, man. That's the thing. Like even the, for entertainment value, there's never a bad draft. There's bad drafts, but there's no players. Right. Yeah. But it's like Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is always going to be good because at some point there's going to be food to eat. And it always gets hectic. There's always family drama before Thanksgiving. It's the same thing here. And then, and like I got lied to, I think. I think about the Jets pick and that's okay. I'm here for it. You got lied to? I think so. I did see you did a little switch. Arbel Reese. Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, like the draft's not here. We'll, we'll see what happens, but I get the strong sense that the Jets worth getting that out there. I always get nervous about, cause I was the only one saying Arbel Reese. So, and then a couple other people a little bit, but I always get nervous when everyone all of a sudden on a Monday after a weekend talks, they're saying the same thing. So the Jeremiah love thing. I just, I worry about that at number two, number three, but it looks like Bailey, they're doing a good job of being really quiet about it. Even though there's really no reason to be quite outside of, Hey, everyone thinks we're taking Bailey. But who are they trying to fake out? Listen, David Bailey. I, I, I actually had to have this internal conversation with myself. David Bailey has been kind of what everyone in league circles has kind of assumed, right? For a while. So let's throw out there. We might take Arbel Reese and see if someone's more interested in Reese and get the, you know, because there's people talking about Arizona, we're going to move on, whichever pass rusher doesn't go to go to, we, you know, the pick is open at Arizona at number three. Why not? Why not us get the phone calls? I have a feeling that that's what was going on. The only thing I don't like about this theory is it's the Jets that involves foresight, a plan, understanding strategy, like chess moves, moving around. Yeah. And if, if it's true, what I'm kind of surmising, then I, I think, I think Darryl Mooji is, is doing a pretty good job of managing this thing. If there are two guys who play the same position, basically, and people are arguing about which one's better, I'm, I'm just, I was parachuting the draft every year, basically knowing nothing and trying to learn on the fly. Why wouldn't you should take the guy who's two years younger? Is that just too obvious or am I next? It's actually not. You, you would be, I don't think you'd be surprised. I don't think you'd be surprised, but it's, it's surprising how much, um. Cause Reese is two years younger. Yeah. Emphasis is put into the, the age for a defensive prospect specifically. I don't get it. But if it was me, I would take the younger guy. You would. He is two years, it's like getting a car from 2024 versus 26 or something. But it's a five year lease. I have two years less of miles. It's a five year lease. You're not going to keep it for the life of the car. You know what I mean? So if you like the car better and you get a better lease, then take the lease. But nobody can agree which one of these guys are better. So why wouldn't I just take the younger guy? I would take our Val Reese, but I've got to have a defensive coach. If I'm the general manager, I've got to have a defensive coach that can lay out what exactly is the plan to show me how it's going to work. Yeah. Because this guy's more talented. Okay. The talent isn't quite developed. He's a one year starter at Ohio state. He started. That means higher, higher talent, higher bus potential. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Someone brought this up on X. I want to, I actually meant to run this by you before we even got on here, but we're talking about the jets again. So if you have a plan for this kid, that's great. Is Aaron Glenn going to be their head coach next year? Right. Or in October or in October. Like exactly. So then, then the plans out the window. And if you're, if you're Muji, are you thinking to yourself, I don't know who's going to be the head coach next year. I'm going to take the guy who's been playing edge his whole life. The information I got 10 days ago, I think it's 10 days now. It was, it was the Sunday before this past Sunday was what's your football sense. If you want the short thing and the Daryl Muji is, is a, a human risk aversion. I, I've compared it yesterday. Along came Paulie. We've been, been. like just a human risk aversion corporation like walking down the street like everything's about risk and apparently that's that's kind of his dna and his makeup um i i would argue the better player who the fallback is i'm getting devin lloyd it that to me is is less risk than drafting david bailey and maybe he's just a dpr designated pass rusher and he's not very good versus the run so like it's true but this guy we know can rush the quarterback better than anyone in this draft and yes it's with speed and yes he's got to kind of get stronger and all that but let's go with the guy that's proven as a pass rusher because that's the most important thing you can do in this league outside of being a quarterback fandle has reese minus 130 bailey plus 115 on tuesday afternoon as we record did that flip from yesterday yeah this morning i looked this morning i looked you and it was like it was still plus 160 and then i looked four hours ago and it was minus 110 so it is shifting rapidly yeah betting on the draft is like betting on roulette while doing cocaine it's like the odds are just just going crazy at all times i would i i never do draft bets the only one that seems like it hits every year is like the more offensive lineman than we thought right yeah seems like every year it's like no it's gonna be seven no i actually it's ten yep because we get in the draft and everybody's like oh fuck we need a right tackle i bet it's at eight and a half but i haven't looked but i would bet it's at eight and a half for i would take for the over under yeah so there's gonna be a second guard that sneaks in right like a keel and rufflage from georgia seven and a half oh i see that seems like you fucking bang that one right pound it right now it'd be at least nine take it right now i laugh whenever i see there's gonna be at least eight there's seven tackles in one guard i think nine but yeah you're right it's gonna be the patriots could take somebody yeah i think so there's gonna be at least eight there's seven tackles in one guard i think nine ianacho are still sitting there at 31 yeah absolutely yeah um you're putting that in right now no i'll do it after i have a bunch of questions tied to the draft but this is my favorite one what do the giants do at number five because they also have number 10 yeah if the first four picks yep okay mendoza reese to the jets arizona says fuck it and takes love yep and then sala and fuck it and they take styles so it goes mendoza reese loves styles now the giants are on the clock what happens bailey you think they would take bailey anyway with bailey i i was told by somebody that because even if you flip-flop and it's bailey it's bailey at two and it's reese at five sitting at five either way um i was i was told but i don't believe it that they would they would take the edge rusher best available and and uh cabon tibideau would be traded that was a little nugget in shepter's article he had all these trade guys these are guys that could be traded and all of a sudden you see cabon tibideau and i was like i haven't heard that name yeah that was last year's trade that was gonna happen remember yeah yeah well they'll drop all of a sudden it was in there was like that's that jumps out to me so if they they could get rid of one of them the giants are fascinating right because the giants are sitting there at five and now they've got pick 10 which was an awesome trade i didn't talk about that trade on the podcast i that was like i was staggered by that trade yeah you're trading a defensive tackle i know he's good in his late late 20s it was expensive and does it yeah it doesn't and now i just get to reset with the 10th pick in a draft that basically has 12 good guys and then drops off like that's like that trade's a miracle yeah i thought the giants would have had to throw in at least like a third to even the seesaw something about the ravens like the the ravens like ozzie newsom and down to eric dacosta now it seems like they they sit back they're patient they they exploit other teams and now harbaugh comes from the ravens exploiting other teams for being overly eager in a moment who's stopping the run for the giants i mean they have i mean they were like giving five yards of carry last year that might be the 10th pick there's no defensive tackles there you don't you don't like fox just just reaching or maybe trading back five spots but they they pick 35 in the second round yeah they'll get a guy there they'll get a good guy they'll get a guy there i thought for the bangles that i interrupted you the bangles that trade was insane you're paying like 110 million a year to a quarterback and two receivers you've holes all over the place and i give her 28 million your defense is terrible and it's like well we're gonna get this guy we're gonna bring him in he's the best defensive tackle in the league cool now he's gonna be double teamed the whole time yeah you have nobody else in your defense it's like as an afc fan of the patriots yeah i was like great trade guys you did it yeah you're gonna be a fucking mess but the giants sit there five right and a week ago we would have said it caleb downs is one of the players they'd like to say from ohio state jordan tyson is one of the players they don't they feel their interest in players like joe shane goes they shane and harbaugh were already at the arizona state pro day where jordan tyson didn't work out yeah and then shane went back out for the air the the jordan tyson workout which was just like 30 something routes and catching the ball yeah that was a don't get hurt workout yeah but everyone loved it all time just run a straight line and turn around yeah but everyone loved it it was a great workout yeah and then has i think dinner with tyson or so we know there's interest in the game and we know there's interest in the game and we know there's interest in the game and we know there's interest in the game and we know there's interest in the game and we know there's interest in the game and we know there's interest in the game but i don't know a week 10 days ago we would have said better take downs at five and and you can get tyson at 10 i honestly think with um with sitting at seven would be a possibility although i think dan quinn is is going defense there he's pushing with adam peters to go defense and it could be sunny styles if not styles caleb downs at seven but eight is eight is new orleans and that could be a spot um where where jordan tyson goes um nine kansas city nine kansas city jordan tyson just sounds awful yeah why what do you mean but not yes don't they have like a top three worst medicine training recovery like situation them in the pelicans chris chris alave that's what's worked for him right yeah he's always nervous yeah regardless my point is i don't know that tyson gets there and so caleb downs is much more likely to get there um but may not get there either so and then you hear but there's no there's no scenario where they can end up with downs and styles the giants they don't want styles apparently because they signed edmunds he signed edmunds yeah honestly that deal's not huge though it's not huge um i mean that's the mac daddy move because i was looking at the giants odds first of all seven and a half wins over under for that like that all the signs for them are they're going to be this year's patriots right yeah it's healthy fourth place schedule new coach like just they're checking all the boxes seven and a half wins seems too low plus 280 for the playoffs plus 550 for the division that seems too high yeah they got two blue chip blue chip blue chip five and ten guys and then hit the second round pick you're good right away yeah because they already had a bunch of good players and they underachieved last year you know they how many times they have the lead in the second half of a game what if your my love is still sitting there if you love this you want to give love to everyone but yeah i get it scatty was not going to stay healthy no i hear you so they got love and downs and you got the best running back in the draft by far and then you have a safety and i want to talk about downs in a second um you just get the two best guys in the position who four years from now could be like all pros yeah or three years from now whatever that but that the downs thing i i was just on tailgate i stopped by there for a second we do this with the draft every year i've talked to you about it before where i've talked to you about it before i've talked to you about it before everyone knows downs is gonna be awesome he's gonna go like 10th and then three years from now we're gonna do the redraft and it's like number two caleb downs yeah kyle hamilton ed reed crossed with kyle hamilton he's just amazing and wow what a great pick and it's like but we knew that before this draft that he was going to be a great pick so how do you go 10th it's the position value thing and then you add the position value he didn't run we know he's not like his miles per hour is equated to 4.5 type 40 not as long as so yeah so you got all those things working against you but but why not he's not gonna have the same thing for hamilton right it's like what is he running 40 yeah is he a hybrid well turned out it turned out great yeah yeah really great so i i think he could go as high as seven maybe five but um but it would i don't know it the giants are fascinating and also there's like this you don't pay hardball 100 million to to be the guy without letting him be the guy um and and that's the indication i get but there seems to be all nervous too yeah he was on pace to getting fired the first lamar jackson year yep and then lamar jackson saved his ass last couple years weren't awesome and then it's like here are the car keys make all the decisions for us do you see what say zay flowers said what the practices were that's why we had so many injuries the practices were too hard he didn't know how to work or workload he doesn't do well with the current players like he just doesn't know how to pull back a little bit and that would be interesting and he's got a bunch of all gas no brakes guys and scataboo and dart and you mean you kind of want those guys to maybe pull back a little bit and it's not like the giants have been staying real healthy it's it's a good point yeah no well i mean i just i'm fascinated which way they go because it's the first pick there you get the sense this is joe shane's last is the gm but i don't know you know yeah um he had a tremendous management of a draft last year but the last time they had two top 10 picks it was what Thibodeau and another Evan Neal maybe I think it was Evan Neal and so are we going to repeat history with that and the offensive tackle are you waiting to 10 to get an offensive no offensive tackles were off the board in that scenario right it was right well that's the other thing we lived through this with the draft every year where it's like yeah I don't think they'll go to 9 or 10 and then they go 6 and teams get in there and they just panic yeah they can't figure out who to pick and they just go with size yeah how high what's the highest downs could go that you would be either of you that you would be actually kind of shocked by like Arizona is out of the question top 4 would be anywhere in the top 4 so Tennessee but he's not going there so yeah wouldn't shock me if he went 5th but I wouldn't do it and I just heard you guys say all those things about it but give me a top 8 offensive tackle in the league versus the best safety like that's going to win games I get it I was doing all the research for running backs because this ties into the love conversation and it feels like top 5 is just too high for certain positions even though we know we do the draft but 6 to 10 is not too high so if you go through all the running backs basically the last 20 years the 2, 2 and 3 were Ronnie Brown Bush, Reggie Bush, Barkley and Trent Richardson so I'm going to say those first 4 3 of them no way that team does it again no and Reggie Bush Barkley's still defensible yes 100% he was incredible and who was the next pick it was a quarterback it was like Trubisky or somebody I don't remember Trubisky was 13th overall no Trubisky was 3rd remember the Bears it was some sort of QB but anyway so 2, 2, 2, 3 we went 1 for 4 even if you count Barkley as a hit and you go count Reggie Bush right I don't I don't either he won a Super Bowl but Pierre Thomas was the better running back in the Super Bowl in that year so 4, 4 and 6 Leonard Fournette, Darren McFadden and Jenty last year I don't think any of those teams do that again even Jenty who I thought had some moments but I just don't think the Raiders would have done that if they could redo that I think they would take alignment but now we go to 7, 8 I think he's going to have a good year this year but yes I agree with the premise now you're getting into the Bijon Peter? Peterson 7 McCaffrey 8 Bijon 8 pretty good value and then CJ Spiller 9 Zeke Elliott 10 Gurley 10 alright so this is a fucking random sample size but what I learned from that is maybe wait until 6 to 10 to take love because history says you go earlier that's a mistake yeah and it probably indicates teams that are a little bit better than the trash at the time you know right you know teams picking it's like the Chiefs are picking at 9 you know right you're going for a better Peterson was in a good situation pretty immediately in Minnesota right whereas like Jenty goes to the Raiders and it's not a good situation typically 4 doesn't go to the Super Bowl pick 4 doesn't go to the Super Bowl that's not a normal you know occurrence like we saw with the Patriots last year so it's all about where they wind up landing all positions are dependent upon to a certain degree quarterback absolutely but running back I would argue may be the most dependent upon what you have in front of you and how you can how you can block it up and the Raiders weren't ready and all those teams you mentioned weren't ready for that guy so did you guys like the Bengals trade for the Bengals or no the Bengals trade for Lawrence yeah no okay yeah I wanted to make sure here's the thing I don't like it in a lot of drafts I don't hate it as much in this draft I really don't because he he's by far the best defensive tackle in this class if he was to be there like who you're getting a 10 that's better than Dexter Lawrence so you'd rather have four years of Lawrence versus the 10th pick in this draft yes the only part of it but you're paying more and then I know that's the issue but that's where I that's a blind spot that's a weakness for me that I the cap guy figured that out for me but I hear you you're right you gotta factor it in who's the cap guy there I know well wasn't part of it that they had the cap space to grab the extra money to fit in and so basically instead of paying the 10th pick this they could pay the 10th pick this yes yes I just would never do it I would rather trade first of all the Bengals needed players I'd rather trade backwards than try to pick up more stuff but here's yeah true the problem the problem is urgency that is created by situations and that's why I started this with the Ravens the Ravens are have always been good at this this thing and some organizations are really good at there's going to be an opportunity by an organization that is going to be presented to us because they're desperate and if you've got Joe Burrow and the injuries and the timeline and now the contracts with the wide receivers you are desperate to win them and and I think this is a desperate move and honestly it almost never pays off if you go look at the history these desperate moves almost never pay off I wonder if somebody could run a football team and just stick to like like somebody hires me as the GM and I'm just like I only have seven principals guys yeah I'm never paying two receivers a lot of money yeah I'm good in the draft I'm just taking alignment on one side of the ball the other that's all I'm doing yeah I'm going to do this I'm going to try to get us a quarterback like just very I'm always going to trade back if I can't decide what to do and these are my seven tenants and I'll leave everything else to my scouting department yeah I'm just saying this doing this they can no one can stick to it though they always fall in love with a player yeah you know if I ever got a GM job if I ever gone that route and taken some opportunities like I've always said there's a couple people in my life I would hire full-time the common sense guys the common sense guys who are paying like Pete Woodfork works for Major League Baseball yeah pain in my ass my whole life since we were like 10 years old always does the right thing sticks by the you know so you're the Jets GM and you call Pete and you're like Reece or Bailey what would you do and he's like what the fuck no I'm hiring him and he's oh you're hiring and he and I'm going to give him like four or five things that he's allowed to overrule me on because my emotion or the situation or no way you would never give anyone that power I'm telling you there's certain things that are blind spots for all of us including general managers in the NFL and there are certain principles if you just stick to them it's like playing it's like playing blackjack like over time but like who has the patience to play so you wouldn't let him overrule you on like three things you wouldn't hire him I think I'm off the list after the Dexter Lawrence thing there are a couple things I think I just got cut he's a good he's a good we bounce off of one another well but I don't think there's anything hard is that what we're calling a bouncing off one another argue that's really cute guys yeah thanks we're going to get this all week yeah exactly through the draft check us out on Netflix live for the first and second night of the NFL draft we'll be bouncing off one another it is funny like we Jalen Rose and I when we were doing the countdown show in 2013 we did this this gimmick called the interview yep and we we went to the lottery combine or wherever and we interviewed every person we spent 15 minutes with each one in like a we had cameras just rapid fire get a feel the players for each person yep and I can totally see how the how the people can get enamored with certain players now ironically the ones we got enamored with actually turned out to be good like we love C.J. McCollum yeah we're like this guy's great like he seems really mature like and then his tape and we're like I would bet on this guy yep but the reality is you're spending 15 to 20 minutes with somebody and you're overrated in the reaction but it's hard not to it's human nature right and it's amazing what goes into this and you think about how many people and how many flights and how many car rides and how many visits and how many people in the cafeteria to the training room to all that you have these NFL scouts and the salary money and everything that goes into this process right and you're handed as a general manager this basically a portfolio if you will of everything you need to know in this human being yeah and then the analytics department comes in and tells you all the things you can and can't do and all that and then you've got the whether it's AIQ or different intellectual testing and then you have the psychologist and all that it's amazing to me that we get to this point in the process in like the last month and the private jet gets you know right and four or five people who are the most influential people go and they have dinner with they they meet with family agent they go and they throw some passes out in the you know out in the side field or they put them through a test they get them on the board and they wind up not necessarily disregarding but that kind of trumps now all that information is used to kind of to shrink the pool right and so it's down to four or five players they're just grabbing tidbits every place they can but that that 24 hour interaction maybe over two whether it's a coming to our facility we go out to you in your college town like I don't know 10 to 20 hours worth of interaction typically winds up trumping a lot of other stuff would you trust what the coach said because I wouldn't really trust it that much unless the coach was so psychotic about how much he loved the guy it has to be earned like it has to be something that he's told you in the past about a player he has a track record right of telling you that you cannot do it right out of the game tell him about Marcus Russell and all the SID at LSU telling about are you talking about your own coach or the coach from the school the coach from the school yeah I meant yeah yeah unless it's negative or like you said a track record right the interesting one is your own coach oh yeah yeah that dynamic I wouldn't trust my own coach that much at all well you've got to make sure it fits the scheme or else you're giving them a second chance. - I know, but NFL coaches last three to four years. - Exactly. like a miracle I would be really interested in the parent interactions because I do think like you could you could learn a little something my favorite story of all this stuff was this might be apocryphal but it was when the Celtics had the Markel Fultz Jason Tatum that when they had the number one pick yeah and they brought Markel Fultz to Boston to meet him for the weekend and he he was really shy and but they he apparently he asked if uh if Boston had Chick-fil-a like if they had Chick-fil-a franchises in Boston and they're like no it's not we don't have it in Boston and he was like crestfallen and they were like uh-oh like it set off some sort of red flag that he was like you don't have Chick-fil-a and that's amazing I have no idea if the story's true but it's so good I almost can't think it'd be made up right that's the kind of thing that I'm like oh shit this guy really likes Chick-fil-a in Philly then either that's amazing on the other hand I love Chick-fil-a so I can see from his side too yeah I see from both sides yeah but that was his big Boston questions they're like huh okay you're judging us now yeah are you gonna fit here that's great all right so Giants at five and ten is the most fun team in this draft Arizona's kind of the most pathetic they're just wearing a cocktail dress at the bar like anybody want three anyone guys want to have a drink three three down anybody anyone yeah and I don't know if you can create your own analogy to it but but also I'm gonna stay here there's also an element with the ownership where you're not you're you're out at the bar by yourself but you're still being controlled by who's making right decision and I'm depends on who you you listen to now there there's been a lot just talking to people in the league there's there's been talk of maybe ownership once Jeremiah Love at three and and that's a whole nother factor man these owners that come in like and um Arizona needs so many things I don't even know what they need if I was doing the team needs I'd be like ah players have you looked at the Dolphins roster well that's I mean that's the saddest situation it is it's beyond I mean at least they have a lot of picks so it's interesting but I mean it's bad I mean bad well it's it's weird when you trade Jalen Waddle for 30 and then you see all the receivers are going to be available at 30 and yeah their best case scenario is to be maybe as good as Jalen Waddle right like a notch below yeah yeah they need so much I don't know that I've ever been this late in the process studying rosters and really diving in and felt more helpless about about a roster I actually believe Miami Miami yeah I believe in John Eric Sullivan I believe in Jeff Halfley I like I think they're the right people to stabilize this thing um but it's going to take more than a minute to get this thing turned around they've got I think that would be fun to just you have no pressure because you need so many things it's like all right this is a great time and we hear BPA best player available all the time like they literally can just sit there like legs up yeah where's our board okay there it is um yeah call it in who's number three yeah take them whereas like I think the Chiefs have an incredible amount of pressure I would say the Giants have the most pressure yeah because you you got to know these picks but then Chiefs at nine and they're 42. but they they have this Mahomes window that I watched it and you watched it with Brady yeah you watched it as well yeah where the draft just ebbed and flowed the the Brady Arc and there were years cluster drafts where they just missed drafts yeah doesn't it feel like cost them Super Bowl they're going into that that era they're gonna go they're gonna be very competitive for seven or eight years but they're not gonna win a Super Bowl that's what it feels like to me with it comes down to the draft Mahomes will keep them in it yeah but now it's the the roster turnover the early Patriots Dynasty was a totally different roster than the later Patriots still playing unbelievable level but he's getting older they've been in that for two years I think you've made that last year a year before to be honest with you and I think Mahomes but you know what I mean I felt I I honestly the years that the last year they went to the Super Bowl and lost I think getting overpowered by Philly yes I think about the comp all the time the one thing that's really interesting is Andy Reid's not as young as Belichick was when they went to the first and he was terrible last year I thought they were really poorly coached last year and everyone's afraid to criticize Andy Reid but they were badly coached self-assessed that yeah and and you know in so many ways like he he's reinvigorated like he he I think he recognizes I mean I don't know he's three four years left also they really in Belichick did this too and we've seen teams through this like really explored the capacity of how many iffy guys can we bring in guys with baggage what do you mean when yeah Belichick sometimes these guys can have so much success and these teams can have so much success they're like oh it's fine it's one misdemeanor yeah you know it's like no no he's mostly on time right yeah and I remember who was the Josh Gordon was a class Josh Gordon but Belichick just went in that mode like it'll be fine we'll bring him in we'll figure it out the Chiefs had a lot of those and I think they were probably a capacity yeah I think they were what do you think they needed nine because the easy one would be like take the best corner that's right yeah I don't think it's gonna be corner I think they're gonna get a corner they pick they pick at nine and thirty right yeah twenty nine uh twenty nine yeah and Miami's at 30 and then Patriots 31 obviously Seattle um the interesting element is that in this is I think they want they if they were to get aggressive which I would I would not do but I would understand it would be to move up for a pass rusher like so the the Reese Bailey leftover guy can we get up there and grab them conversations have been made that doesn't a lot of conversations have been made that things we never even knew about you know and you find out after the fact um it doesn't mean a trade's gonna happen I don't moving up from nine to three costs a lot and I don't think they're would you trade nine and forty for three in this draft because I would rather just stay at nine no I'd say 40. right you're gonna get a pretty good player for it yeah so you can get a room in Ruben Bain so there's the edge rusher they need they need a wide receiver they can count right so there's that element of it then there's this Andy Reid like my understanding is Andy Reid's like we've got to get another offensive line and I don't know where you get that which you could take at night yeah but you can't take it at 29. you can't count on that being there at 29. now maybe maybe move up from 29 to 24 and it costs a whole lot less or something like that so see I wonder if they're going to do that with tight end Sadiq yeah nine no at moving up to like oh got you low teens or high 20s if they feel like they have a chance to swoop in and get him if they love them they could do that yeah they could do that they could do that they could do that they could do that they could do that they could do that they could do that they could do that they could do that they could do that but I just I the manage managing the element of we need an edge rusher we need a we need a wide receiver we need a replacement for um Kelsey they tackle yeah and we need a tackle and Andy really wants us to get attacked yeah and there's only seven of them and that might not get to 29. so we need those three things we're not in the business of giving away picks to go move up also tough when you already use draft capital to draft the tackle but now you've decided that's not a tackle right well that's where the Patriots got in that spot a couple times I don't know if they decided that but he's missed 19 games in the last two years I just don't know how you're going into this and the right tackle Jaylen Morris started I think five or six games at most in a season I would have this before she stands murdered I would have really pissed on X about you can't use that pick on a guy who's not going to be a starter I was like what are you talking like this guy's probably going to start like I want you to think about how much money these organizations spend talented as yeah at left tackle I would I'm not going to make any incident I would have whatever care team that was necessary whatever that would be okay to be like round the clock let's get let's make sure this guy has everything he needs because he is the personal protector of the most of the number one Williams of Texas do you remember that story that came out where he was like dropping banana peels behind him and someone pick him up and throw him out for him just because that guy he Williams like I always think about that because there's no salary cap on support yeah that guy's your answer coaches and and support yeah the two things you could just spend whatever you want right so I would get that guy right I think it might be over for them I mean at least for this window of it is that you just being hopeful as a Patriots fan or are you two years ago this is this they have my homes coming off now I'm pretty pretty devastating injury it's the only reason I mentioned this is they have the seventh best odds to win the Super Bowl right now and that seems crazy to me they think about all the things that would have to go right for them that's because that's because there's a lot of people who would put money on it because it's the Chiefs and yeah I get it but I'm saying but it's instructive because that's the perception is they're gonna flip the switch and be fine this year and I feel the opposite I don't think I'd be really surprised I mean they're gonna have an easier schedule the unknown obviously is how when my homes comes back is it what's it gonna be like what's he gonna Brady wasn't when he came back in 09 the offense was good but I really felt like it took him like an extra year to be yeah there's a famous Belichick clip of like followed through man like yeah yeah because you you get all these guys going around your legs and I don't know I I just felt like it took a while for him yeah think about that it's in your brain like when you spend the entire offseason recovering and rehabbing and you're worrying about one thing really yeah truly that's the one thing and then so you get out there and you're protecting that one thing so it takes a minute to get over it what was always the knock on that Patriots run was the AFCs which is garbage every year And the AFC West, with Knicks being hurt. I just never agreed with that. I know, I hear you. But if you're going off the argument, the Chargers, I think, are a B. I think the Chargers are coming, man. I think they are coming on, and you're going to have a tough time in that division. That's the team. I think they're the one I'm the most afraid of in the AFC, is the Chargers. I agree. Because I just felt like last year, they probably would have been right in there and just had dummy tackles who weren't playing. Why do we talk about San Francisco's injuries? I swear to you, I've been doing this for 26 years. I swear to you, I've been talking about the Chargers' injuries for a good 18 of those years. Some organizations. Well, they don't have an electromagnetic button next to them. I love that they're doing studies on it. It's in their head now. But every year, it seems like the Chargers. Oh, they could have. They'll get those guys back from injury, and it'll be just fine. I hope so. It would be great to see. But they're frightening if they stay healthy. Frightening. Yes. Yeah, they. What are their odds? Yeah, so they have the fifth best odds. That makes sense to me. 15 to 1. Yes. Better, slightly better odds than the Pats. The Giants being 71 is pretty crazy. Because that seems. I just think that'll be 30 to 1 by the time the season starts. They're going to have enough talent with the schedule, and we just have seen this every year, that there's no way that they're not going to be in the mix somehow. This isn't a draft thing, but spending this amount of time really diving into these rosters. Yeah. Obviously, the Seahawks have what they have. The Rams have what they have. I don't know that there's an organization. with a better roster, let's just say in the AFC, top to bottom roster-wise, than what Nick Casario has built in Houston. The quarterback element of it, and what is really going on there, and there's been speculation and rumors and all that. And you drafted him that high, and he was that good as a rookie. If they get him right, and I don't even mean right, but three-quarters of what he's playing as a rookie. Yeah. 20-1 for them. They're friendly. Yeah. But that's the biggest if in sports. Yeah. Their rosters. Some teams with needs, it's like the first two are really important needs. The second one, we need to get some depth. The third, or the third, the fourth. But for them, yes, they're offensive line. Let's continue to build that. But they don't have a lot of. They're loaded with deep and wide receiver. Right. And running. They don't have a lot of receivers coming back this year. Their defenses. The Rams are up there, too, man. No, I said the Rams in Seattle have what they have. I mean, I was going to talk about the Rams with one of the pressure teams at 13, because the Puka thing's a huge story. It's been one of those kicked under the rug. Yeah. No one's talking about it. This guy's had a lot of personal shit going on publicly, and then finally went into rehab, and this was the best receiver in the league? Yeah. And we have no idea what we're going to expect from him this year now, or what was going on with him. Yeah. Or is it going to get better? And they're one of the teams that's just like, we're probably taking a receiver, we're probably taking a receiver so blatantly that I almost don't trust it. I don't think they are at 13. I think they're going to take a receiver in the second round. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's like. They've wore you out with this, like, attraction is different, right? Like, you know, one person you'd be attracted to, everyone's beautiful and all that. They're like blondes or brunettes or. Yeah. For the Rams. With their system specifically, they're not attracted to a lot of the fastest, tallest, all those receivers. They're attracted to one type, and that one type is a physical son of a bitch, blocking, contact balance, toughness up, and we're going to scheme you up, and we'll get you open, and all you got to do is break that first tackle and just ramble, you know, and keep it rolling and block for our run game. And so I can get that in the second round. There's. Sean's dribbling from Ole Miss. There's Jeremy Bernard from Alabama. There's even the third round. So I think Les Snead is the biggest wild card in this first round of the draft with that 13th pick. They seem like a Downs-y kind of team to me. So here. Like moving up like a couple spots and just swooping in and getting them. But they have guys there. I don't know if it's, you know, like they have players there. It's one of two things, right? I just. I don't envision Les and Sean sitting back at 13 and we'll take a guard or we'll take a. Right. It's either we are all in as all indicators are pointing. They have to be all in in general because Stafford's got two years left max. Right. We're all in. And like we really don't. Like if we want to give up 2027, we're not that worried about it. We can give up second next year or something like that and go move up and target a guy. Jeremiah Love is fascinating to me if he starts to fall. Six. Cleveland. Yeah. I mean, can we stop? Can we make a rule that he can't go to Cleveland? No. No, I'm saying trading. I'm just saying like. You don't want him to go. That's my worst case scenario for him. Or for most of the guys in the draft. Yeah. So you're saying Rams switching going 13 and six. Something like that would be something to look out for. Like a little. Like Todd Gurley 2.0 action for them? But then what if it's a total pivot and it's like, yeah, we're going to be here beyond Stafford and we're doing a deal now with Matthew and we're going to keep him happy. But we are in love with Ty Simpson. And so we're just going to take him at 13. We can move on. Don't ask more questions. We don't have to dwell on it, but I'm just saying I said it. Yep. Okay. Holy mackerel. Wouldn't you at least trade back to do that? He's going higher than you think. That was one of my. One of the questions I had for you because I was watching one of the channels this morning. They were talking about is 21 too high to take Ty Simpson for Pittsburgh? And I'm like, what are you guys talking about? He's definitely. The question is, will he be there at 21 for Pittsburgh to take? Because somebody is going to shoot their wad and take him in the top 20 would be my prediction. That's the information I'm getting and I don't definitively know. I throw the Rams out there because I'm getting information definitely. And I know the Rams at one point really like Ty Simpson. Like that's. Firm. His Fando draft position is 29.5. Under. Yeah. Yeah, because even if you're the. Even if you're the Cardinals, you are. You're worried that there's another team or. I don't. Yeah. Yeah. You can't wait. Yeah. I'm told that the Jets do have interest, but I'm also. I was told that the Jets have interest in. Jets at 16? No, no. At 33 could take him. I think. He's not getting out of the first round. No. I just don't see it. We're saying the same thing. Yeah. Well, plus you get the extra year. That's the secret sauce to all of this. You get the fifth year if you take him in the first round. Yeah. You talked about Pittsburgh. Is Aaron Rodgers going to make an appearance and say he's coming back in front of the tens of thousands of draft fans there? And then what would their reaction be? No, because Aaron Rodgers won. He's like, oh. He's milking this. Aaron Rodgers. How many times are we getting input? I don't even understand why Schefter and those. Why people are out there. And I know he and those two have a thing and I love it, right? But I don't even understand why there's this like. You should tell the organization this stuff. We get. It's every year. It's the same thing. It's just the human being. The human being, Aaron Rodgers, wants this and he would like nothing more. Going out there gives closure and then we're still not talking about it. Now, it's him and Jerry Jones are the two that like, how can I get attention? Right. This is going to be going on in late March. But the draft being in Pittsburgh? Yeah, late. No question. Yeah, it'll be going on in June. In Pittsburgh, he can go out in front of all the fans and soak it up. He wants us all to be like, is Aaron here? You know? Yeah. I mean, I'm here for him. Kind of the sad thing about that is nobody's doing that. Yeah. It worked the first few. That's what I mean. Like, does he come out and be like, I'm coming back and all the Pittsburgh fans are like. It's like, oh, cool. Great. Yeah. Great. He's coming back. Right. You know, like, it's not the response that he thinks it's going to be. Also, I said this to you last year. I just think people get amnesia with NFL seasons. And we throw ourselves in the draft and free agency and then it's the summer and then we get to August and people just don't remember what happened the year before. There's a reset. And it's like, we left last season and be like, yeah, Aaron Rodgers, probably not winning more than one playoff round at most with Aaron Rodgers as your QB at age 42. And it's like four months off and everyone's like, Aaron Rodgers? Could they get him? Yeah. That or Will Howard right now, so I don't know. Well, we finally made it. The NBA playoffs. No more tanking discussions, at least for a couple days. We get to watch the best players and teams compete every day when the stakes are highest. And when I watch, I like to bet on Fando. Fando is a brand I trust. Easy to build. Buy bet. I know I'll get my winnings instantly. I love looking at the odds there. So this week, I still feel like Orlando is being overlooked. They were like plus nine, something like that. I think that's a 50-50 series, potentially. I also like Denver and Minnesota. I think Minnesota is a really good road team, but you could also get them in Minnesota. Those would be the two I would look at. I'm going to have at least one more set of picks over the weekend I'm going to put on Twitter. Check out my picks in the Fando Sportsbook app and on my Twitter feed. Don't forget to boost your potential winnings before you place it. Fando, play your game. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras, and watch Tip-Off Plus as the official beer sponsor of the NBA. Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at MichelobUltra.com slash courtside. 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Multiple entry period, see official rules at micklobelcher.com slash courtside for free entry entry deadlines prizes and details all right quick break this episode is brought to you by fire tv you ever sit down ready to watch the game only to search and scroll endlessly if so you need fire tv it shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place right on the home screen no more searching just sit down and turn on fire tv separate subscriptions may be required feature and content availability may vary so we think so rams are off the board we have no idea what they're going to do and then the philly thing is the other weird thing about this draft why we talked about this before we started with this aj brown trade that is apparently happening and yet unlike in the nba where you say we've agreed to a trade we can't become official till july 15th in the nba yeah nfl it's like well they can't trade him until june 1st because then they can split his cap so it would have to happen after june 1st it's going to happen is it happening or is it not happening right and then all the variables that could change this happening including like a wide receiver ending up for either the patriots or the eagles that they get excited about aj brown feels like he has leverage and says well i need a contract extension if we're going to do this like i'm just glass half empty is this the patriots fan speaking or just in patriot fan speaking okay yeah is this trauma from when the red sox didn't get a run trauma from when we didn't get everybody alex bregman four months ago he's coming for 150 million then he wasn't yeah i just don't when you get agents involved and and just outside factors i just don't trust anything until it happens if you're someone a receiver gets hurt or something happens where you they someone needs and all of a sudden they're in the market and they're calling philadelphia yeah but aj brown's wife is is calling about dance classes and brookline or something that's like i mean he did grow up a patriot fan yeah there you go yeah yeah but it's no i i understand it's almost what if what if he's in the business and jalen hurts is there too and they're like let's let's have dinner let's have a minute two hours later it's like hey we're good aj wants to stay right so the problem there is how he's like well i just traded for wicks and he brought in this other guy and yeah we're gonna draft someone and yeah so they're picking 23 yeah the eagles but they're not gonna pick 23 that's how we roseman how he's got he has to move around and they need an offensive tackle and what's going to happen is we're going to have we're going to have um francis maui noah from miami and spencer fano from from utah and somewhere in that top 10 12 range right and then it there's this like second wave of and i think it starts at 17 there could be a team in between uh the ravens could go off and could go guard and venga you want a from penn state but then 17 is detroit and everyone knows that they've put in more work than every other organization these offensive tackles so the jets are going to have to put in more work than yeah these offensive tackles so the jets are going to have to put in more work than every other at 16 tampa's at 15 they're already getting phone calls yeah from organizations like the steelers the eagles the texans the um who are the other um the texans the 49ers the bears the bears are possibility so all those you got this murderer's row of teams that need offensive tackles from 17 to 30 in miami if they don't get a tackle at 12 they could use one so i can't say the patriots don't need a tackle no sorry 31 yeah absolutely 31 so 17 to 31 there's about eight teams that need an offensive tackle and there's at that point only five remaining yeah so there's gonna be movement there that's why seven and a half over yeah do you want to hear the patriots excuses i've talked myself into oh here we go since superbowl yeah why they lost yeah okay drake was hurt just i just i don't know if that's true or not that's right well we think it's true yeah okay i did see him throwing the mini footballs at the basketball game i don't know if that's true i don't know if that's true game a couple weeks i don't know if you saw that really good i did see that actually i thought he was snapping it again yep drake was definitely hurt that's one thing i say uh will campbell definitely playing on a bum knee yeah gutted it out it you know he was a whipping boy during the playoffs now he's a hero to me he's played through pain yeah god only knows what kind of suffering wasn't great either by the way like i mean everyone talks about campbell but jared wilson our whole line got destroyed seattle didn't even know which side to go after did i tell you about him and elliot wolf oh no we had uh we hit elliot wolf and we did the gm series yeah and um and we had elliot wolf and i i had i had met him before but i didn't know him well and mensch got in late the night before we got in indianapolis all sorts of weather in new england you don't deal with it out here anymore bill and i know um and and so we hadn't had a chance to really talk about it we sit down i asked a couple questions i'm talking about like elliot what's it like you know ron you're with your dad and like the bowels of lambeau field and you're watching tape as you know you know i'm kind of getting him warmed up right the fluffers the fluffing yeah a lot of fluffing question three goes from mensch i can kind of feel like he's like will campbell yeah i thought it was early oh you did tell me this three will camp i you know i saw the short arms on tape we saw it in the playoffs and i'm like he's going for it i was like you guys move in regard i didn't say it that way but i was like everyone wants to move the guard great card he was awesome he looked like he goes he is absolutely our left back yeah you're moving he was great you know it was great but i felt like i had to ask i mean i've been ripping campbell like now he's going to be on our show and i'm not going to say anything it was the time the only thing i worry about him is i think he's such an intense committed competitive crazy all about the football team guy like the moment he got drafted he's like i am now drake may's bodyguard i'm gonna die yeah yeah and i really wonder mentally how he handled just getting his ass kicked in the playoffs you know like he's probably been successful at that position at every stage of his life dating back to like age four yeah and he's yeah some of the stories too are he's he's in he's as intense as he can get yeah like the team worries about him a little bit taking the job home yeah taking the job home so i just i hope i hope he got through that because we've certainly seen some boston athletes over the years that yeah kind of wilt yeah that had that well that yeah that had the bad moment and they were kind of i can't remember an offensive half having that kind of moment that kind of plus now ruben bain is the new short arm guy yeah right he passed his torch he's like here ruben yeah everyone can talk about your arms though there's an offensive tackle from utah i love and he's got shorter arms will campbell and everyone's like what's the deal dude how can you how can you like one over the other yeah it's different tape so the other thing i the other past stance i have now is we just should have lost in denver and it would have been fine like lose there in a blizzard they score in the with five minutes left we don't have to go to the super bowl get this huge ass no one wins in denver it turns out right it turns after the game drake may was actually hurt the whole time yeah and we're just like great okay great season let's move building it's like getting that super bowl ass kicking just made it so much worse yeah i really wish it hadn't happened it's not a good thing right and then you think about all the bad signs for this year and the bad juju that comes with this yeah yeah um the aj brown thing 2022 and 23 his first two years when he got traded from tennessee to philly 303 targets in those two years almost 3 000 yards and 18 tds he's only he's gonna be 29 this season there's good pretty good track records with people moving that age yeah and yeah um it seems good something scares me about it and i don't know what i didn't like the way he looked last year and i'd love to know more about why did he look that way i agree with that i also think fresh start like i think everyone kind of looked that way on the offense for the eagles last year there was a lot going on so i'm hope i would be if i'm they were just going to work like this sucks skiing my job yeah with all the reports i i think it was just a drain and obviously he wears his emotions on his sleeve and it's very public about everything that he's dealt with and i think it's just it he hit a point is there a receiver that doesn't wear their emotions on their sleeve very few like fits was one that's it yeah yeah yeah that's part of his hall of fame case yeah yeah like never wears emotions on his sleeve first ballot unlike any other receiver actually literally didn't wear sleeves i just think about drake with his development getting him that he doesn't have that he's never had anything close to that well mina said on nfl live yesterday which i was watching um that the pats had man-to-man defense the highest number of any team in the league yeah because what are we you could feel it watching the game because every defense is like yeah yeah we what are we worried about let's just let's play up on all these guys yeah and aj is like by all these big stats the best guy against man-to-man defense and this would be a game changer right so i get it the thing was interesting about the espn article that came out about the eagles and jalen hurts calling his own place and did you hear did you read this oh yeah yeah so he was changing all the play if you're an office coordinator and you're game planning for a guy if you have a talent like aj brown and you're like we're game planning in this way and all of a sudden your quarterback is changing everything that's no longer making him the focal point of the offense yeah on certain plays at least and then you have an opportunity to go to play for josh mcdaniels who's going to like that's what he does yes well they'll also play with pace which is the thing i never understood with the eagles i know they it seemed like this was an actual strategy for them to limit the minutes in the game because of possessions because of the math of this i don't think the pats think that way at all so they they would be more like oh we'll put pressure on you and we have aj out there and you're going to have to be constantly worried and yeah keep your defense on the field and our quarterback can run if you You turn, you know, so, yeah. and run and throw on like the last two games of the season I assume he'll be able to roll out and throw again but the Patriots you're wearing the scars I don't know if I will when we were calling the Drake May rolls out and whips a whips a line drive play I was like he's fucking hurt like you can't tell me he's not hurt it wasn't even the arc and the velocity were just different one of the Patriots taking a tight end they're going to need a tight end right I feel like people aren't talking well there's 28 of them invited to the combine talking about tight end it'll be some third round guy or maybe fourth they signed a blocking tight end they were all excited yeah Julian yeah Julian somebody yeah Julian Bell okay last thing second to last thing so Zona and Cleveland are the trade down teams yep and you think Saints Cowboys have 12 and 20 and like getting attention Jets at 16 Rams at 13 are there any other trade up teams um yeah I'm trying to sit here I don't Washington Washington's not going to Cleveland we talked about I think that's the list yeah I think that's probably the list I was trying to figure out when we get to the offensive tackles I think when we get to like Philly and some of those teams I could see a move up a little like quick moves but not four or five yeah four or five spots yeah I was trying to figure out like somebody is on the board at nine that Jerry gets all excited about because he's 98 years old yeah I don't know I don't know like Jeremiah Love falls to nine or down somebody's down we can't anticipate right you know and could there be a they have 12 and 20 yes and the Chiefs have nine and 40 could there be like a you take our 12 and 20 we'll take back nine 40 and a third one of those type of trades yeah the problem the problem with that theory is I'm told the only reason that the um the Cowboys would move up is for an edge rusher and if there's an edge rusher worth taking there I think the Chiefs would take that would be Ruben Bain right so we do this we talk about you talk about the amnesia in the offseason in the NFL there's amnesia every year with the Cowboys in the draft yeah you know that they've had 34 37 picks I want to say somewhere in the mid to high 30s of picks in the first three rounds dating back to 2014 and one time they have moved up that was Demarcus Lawrence in 2014 since then nothing so it's a lot of chatter about moving up but then it's like Jerry's gonna go crazy well it worked on me because I no I know we do it every year but this year it actually would make sense as long as it doesn't require pick 20 they've got to pick I think 92 overall the third round I could see that but that's not getting up to three that's moving up a handful of spots to go get an edge rusher I just don't know how feasible it is unless you're giving away next year or something which I think I said it's a fireable offense now she kind of walked it back by the way I have no idea I haven't I like fireable offenses one of my favorite phrases and would be a good blog name but yes yeah it would be and maybe even a good band yeah going to see fireable offense today in the garden so a fireable offense is trading a first round pick from next year that class is gonna be and it's not just the quarterback so but has Mitch already started his work on the class of 27 yet the quarterbacks we know pretty well not not a lot of the other players I got a mock draft coming out on way too early mock draft for next week I love those taping the show on Monday I mean you're the problem but you know what would be you know what would be a good podcast is is reviewing the way too early mock draft oh they do it in like February no you guys doing it yeah oh yeah yeah we should do that that's because you had a couple quarterbacks way up there yeah but that's the thing with the draft it's humble pie man it's so volatile thanks Bill no but you're right you're guessing with 20 year old kids club Nick club Nick my son's 18 and he's had 5 zags just in the last 7 months like I'm just these are teenagers and young dudes who knows yeah and we saw some zags this fall well with the quarterbacks are Aller you're out on him I wasn't in on him last year yeah he was never yeah but he's gonna go probably in the third round there's some teams that like him Nussmeier he loves Nussmeier I like Nussmeier yeah I think I think there's a shot no you can see Nussmeier in the third round the right system doesn't have a ton of starts he gets hurt he's small I don't I don't I don't see it I didn't see it either alright wild card crazy I'm looking at the Fando odds is it Bailey or Reese there's no chance anyone else goes too correct what if it's a trade didn't think there was gonna be a trade last year everyone else's odds are 125 to 1 and up so it's really everybody's decided these are the two yeah it's definitely number 3 Reese is the favorite at plus 130 Bailey's plus 260 Love is plus 330 okay say them again Reese plus 130 Bailey plus 260 Love plus 330 which I thought was fairly enticing Bailey's assumed to go the second overall pick so that makes Reese the favorite the problem with the Arizona pick is that there's a legitimate chance that the team moves up to 3 and Arizona takes a below market but if they move up to 3 who are they taking the other okay yeah alright 4 what's Sonny Stiles number for 4 for 4 yeah well Love is plus 150 in the favorite Bailey's plus 410 and Stiles is plus 490 that's interesting I think Stiles could be I'm not saying he will what I've been told for for Tennessee is it's if one of those edge rushers does get there let's say Arizona takes Jeremiah Love at 3 yeah they would take Reese let's say if not Sonny Stiles Robert Sala views it differently than most that middle linebacker is like that's equivalent of getting an edge for him like yeah that's there you know Fred Warner that's there so that's something to look out for I could see Stiles going for it too I also didn't mind Tennessee's running backs last year but you'd have to really love Love but it makes me nervous spending all that capital on a QB and a running back yeah right you're gonna the 4th and the 1st pick in back-to-back drafts the thing about Tennessee's run game when I started looking at it Pollard's a pretty good back I mean 1,000 yards for like 5 or 6 seasons in a row he was money down the stretch last year he's good yeah he was like winning fantasy drafts and they had Ty J. Spears but Spears can't stay healthy he can't stay healthy so they had the 3rd fewest carries you have a rookie quarterback and they had the 3rd fewest carries in the league they gotta get it doesn't have to be Love they gotta get another back that they can get more committed to the ground game like they just have to what I'm interested in is you're sitting there at 4 you have to take Stiles at 4 or you you try to bait up a team to get come get Jeremiah Love and the Giants putting out all of a sudden in the last 72 it's tough to manage all this man because you're having I'm having conversations with people who are actually making decisions and we're talking about all 31 other teams and what they could do what they're hearing what the scouts are hearing and they're kind of using you to find out what you're hearing totally yeah and I'm using them to find out what they're hearing and it's a you know and so we're kind of and we're doing the like you know the tap dance yeah and then you get off the phone and you get on the next call so there's just a lot of but I always get worried in the last 72 hours to like 150 hours of why is this this message is coming it's resurfacing or this is the first I've heard of this you know right is this late developing news or is this a purposeful because now the board is set the decisions are basically made so but all of a sudden the Giants it's like if Love is there they'll take them but wouldn't if Love is there isn't that like come come move up come move up and get what they don't know is maybe that might drive the market up for Tennessee to get a good deal to move out of four now Styles is probably going to go seven so where would that be too but but yeah if I was going to say I wouldn't mind moving back a couple spots I'm picking up something because I just need people fifth pick the odds Styles is the favorite at plus 185 Tyson's plus I'm told it's not Styles take the field on that one Love plus 380 Caleb Downs plus 550 what about Tyson Tyson was plus 280 I think Tyson's in play I mean I know Tyson's in play but do they think they can get him at 10 same thing with Downs Jeremiah loves the wild card taking Tyson at five would be kind of insane I think that seems too high because of the injuries yeah yeah because of the injuries I want my right receivers to be in the field yeah yeah it it becomes this balancing act of now we've fallen in love but where should where do we really truly think we should be able we should be able to take him versus where can we take him why do the Giants need another stud receiver by the way well Malik neighbors they don't even know they're worried about when he's coming back to full strength like the start of the season there's part of that you've got a quarterback that needs another weapon honestly it reeks to me Jordan Tyson feels like if we can get him at 10 awesome okay but the information for what it's worth is saying that they might they could take a swing there can I give you my five types of receivers yes yes speaking of Jordan Tyson the injury prone stud yep really tough one yeah really have to have a lot of meetings about that high floor ceiling guy but something leaves you a little cold Cardinal Tate like yeah he's going to be awesome but it's well why aren't I more excited to take him yeah well because he was the second best receiver on his college team. So was JSN. I get it, but that was the same thing on JSN. Was this guy going to be. High floor ceiling leaves me a little cold. Physical and traffic wins every ball guy. This guy just goes either way. You know, this was like the DeAndre Hopkins was a great example of this. The Patriots have had guys like this. Other times, the guy just can't get open. Yeah. It depends on the scheme. Kelvin Benjamin for the Panthers, wasn't he a big guy? Yeah. So Denzel Boston is the version of that this year. I like him. We know. The inside-outside guy that everyone calls Twitchy. That's Casey Concepcion. Twitchy is a good one. So the Panthers have Kyle Williams last year. He's Twitchy. He'll beat you. And then Slot Stud, which is my personal favorite. That's Lemon. I like when it's just like, you know what this guy is? He's an awesome fucking slot guy and he's just going to get open and he can block. That sounds great. I'll take that guy. How early the second round? Because that's the second round. There you go. Yeah. So you'd love Jeremy Bernard. You'd love Dejan Stribling. Omar Cooper Jr. At one point, we thought it was going to be second, but it's going to be first. Those are those guys. And then there's the other, there's the sixth type, which is the guy what's his name? Brazil Jr. Yeah. It's one of those like, you fall in love and or you're getting fired. One of those picks. Yeah. Depending on how high you go. It's a lottery ticket. Yeah. Yeah. But he's just seems the highlights for him are awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Like, whoa. And then the Trey Lance's brother is another one like that. Tall for threes. All of it. Yeah. The one guy I would never take is just this dude's super fast and we'll figure out the rest. Yeah. The Pats took that guy 20 times. Yeah. Well, the Raiders used to take him every year. Then there's the Bengals, John Ross. Yeah. That was a good one. Was it Devin? What was the name of the Jets? The Jets took one. Well, in the 80s, this guy used to go all the time. Yeah. They used to, the Raiders and the Jets. Who was the guy that Jets had that one time? They took him in the top four. Oh, shoot. Remember him? It was Johnny Lamb Jones. Okay. That's great pull. That is insane. Great pull. It's like, he's really fast. That's about it. Yeah. We've had those. Yeah. There's a lot of those. I think we're getting better at not taking those guys too high. It's like, oh, he runs a four or two. Cool. Historically, they don't do. Yeah. They just don't do well. The fastest guy at the combine, mine, is like 10% chance of you hitting on where they actually drop. Who's your chip-on-the-shoulder receiver this year? Because that guy hits 100% of the time. The guy who's just angry that he's not being mentioned with better guys and produced everywhere he went. It could be Jeremy Bernard. It could be. The Alabama guy who wasn't even the best receiver by everyone's measure at Alabama. Yeah. Ryan Williams just disappeared. Could we get him in the second round? Yeah. Jeremy Bernard? Yeah. I just don't get it. Because all I hear about, it's the same conversation. We have these conversations. We talk about how speed isn't as important as you think when you get down to that range. Like, Jeremy Bernard, all he does is make plays on tape, man. Like, all he does is make plays. Yeah. He's the best player on that team last year. And people are like, eh, I don't know. I don't know. He's not dynamic. Yeah, he doesn't make. He isn't. But if you fit him right, in the right system, he's got a chance to be an 80-catcher-a-year guy. If I was the wide receiver draft specialist, I would just want guys that got to open on the tape that I was watching. And caught the ball. Yeah. Get open. Did you get open? Did you catch it when they threw it to you? It sounds so easy. It sounds so easy. Those guys about, like, he's amazing in traffic. It's like, cool. No thanks. Antonio Williams is one from Clemson. He just gets open. He gets open. Is there a beloved running back for you in the second, third, fourth rounds that you're just. Jonah Coleman. Okay. Maurice Jones Drew. That's what he's built like. He is a short, low-to-the-ground. I love those guys. Yeah, he danced behind a Washington offensive line that wasn't great. His twitch and his build and his contact balance, I think he's going to be a really good pro. Second round? Fourth. Oh, wow. Yeah. And who's your Tyler Shuck this year? Cole Pate. McShay fucking nailed that last year. Oh, yeah, you talked about him on my pod, so you're still with him. Yeah, you might be able to get him late third, early fourth. Are you in on this? No, not at all. Good. And he looks like T-Bone. McShay will sit there all year long and tell you about how important snaps are. We're getting, like, texts from everyone. This is why I would hire him. Sanford Steve is busting his balls all year long about, like, how many snaps, though, McShay? How many snaps? And then we get into the process, and Garrett Nussmeyer's the greatest, even though he doesn't have that many snaps. And he pulls this guy out from the watered-down FCS. Yeah. Where all the guys have left for better teams, and Bryce Lance, who's the best athlete on the field, is running around like it's backyard football. And this lefty, who was playing running back two years ago, is all of a sudden going to be the next great quarterback. He called him better than Carson Wentz, right? You said he was a better prospect than Carson Wentz? I think, yeah. I think he has better traits. Sometimes you can just get a lot of confidence after you hit one of these. Like, this might be your heat check moment. Post-Shuck? I'm rolling. You're just trying to make the magic happen again. Yep. Dart and Shuck last year. Give me Talon Green. I love Shuck. I don't know how many years he's going to play, because he takes huge hits and doesn't care. And he darts the same way. The history's not good either. But Shuck gets up every time. Or at least he did last season, but I liked him. He's a tough, he's a tough I just, I, yeah. Alright, so you're playing this week. Yes. We are going to be doing shows all week. We're going to be live on Netflix. Yep. During the first round Thursday night. Oh, I wanted to run this by you. Yeah. It's not my idea. It actually came from Rich Eisen. I'm just going to be honest. Instead of the chime from ESPN, the ta-dum from Netflix. What point of players picked? Oh, do the Netflix know it? Yes. That's a good idea. Right? You like it? I don't know. We'd have to find out from the guys looking in the control room. I think they were working on it, but I just wanted to. That's a really good idea. Right? Right. Yeah. The NFL draft is live on Netflix. I hear that noise. I feel like I'm about to watch a true crime documentary, but no, it'd be the next pick. With all the stuff that he asked you, were you worried when he said, I want to run something by you on your show? I mean, with McShay, you've got to hold on to your seat at all times. Right. Like, yeah. I'm not sure where we're going. Yeah, it's fair. No, the Netflix chime is good, though. That actually is pretty doable. So we got Thursday night, Friday night live, then we'll do a Saturday, like, wrapping up the whatever, and then. And then we're on Sunday, we do the big 32 team, so it lasts the offseason, so you can kind of, yeah, get the deep dive in that. And Monday, we're in taping the way too early mock draft, and then we're out of your hair. Can't wait. Don't forget to do the redo of last year's mock draft. I think that's a good idea. Dan Comer, you got that? In the lead up, right? Not now, but in the lead up. No, like, just when you need evergreen content for when it's kind of dying in the spring. Yeah. I think it's great. Yeah. I love it. All right. Good to see you guys. Thanks for coming on. Good to see you. Yeah. And now it's time for today's With the Assist segment presented by State Farm. On the court, you can't expect everything to go as planned, but that's when your teammates come in. Because when you know someone's there, you have the confidence to take on whatever comes next. And we've seen some pretty iconic teammate combinations. My favorite was Bird and McHale in the 80s for the Celtics. Three titles. 81, 84, 86. The best forward, combo I think we've ever had. Complementing each other perfectly. Both guys' bodies broke down by the late 80s, but we had an incredible ride for them, and they really complemented each other perfectly. Life's no different. Unexpected things happen. You want to know someone's there to help. Like how Larry Bird was there to help Kevin McHale. That's where State Farm comes in. They've got easy-to-use digital tools, like the State Farm app and neighborhood State Farm agents when you want to talk to a real person. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there with the Assist. Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, and eligibility vary by state. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead, but what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1, 2, 3, Cancun. Or, if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. Hey, I was lucky enough to get a son and a daughter through their early teens and their mid-teens in the social media era, and even though we were constantly monitoring it, there's still a whole bunch of stuff that can go wrong. And that's why Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see. Contact limits for who can contact them, and time management tools like daily time limits. And sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed in the teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com slash teen accounts. With Van Lathan, we're in the ringer tailgate set. You saw the Michael Jackson movie last night. We did rewatchables together. We taped rewatchables for next week. We did Ghostbusters. And then you left to go see Michael Jackson. A movie that ends in 1989. With Bat. Yeah. With Bat. With a live performance of Bat in London. I'm gonna try not to spoil as much movie as you guys can go out and see the movie for yourself. I encourage you. Well, we know what happened to Michael Jackson. We do. We do. But you know, there's still some things in there that I think people are gonna be interested in seeing. Like what? Uh, the performance of Jafar Jackson in the movie is a revelation. He's phenomenal as Michael Jackson. Is it any relation? I know nothing. I've read nothing. I know nothing. Okay. Jermaine Jackson's son plays Michael Jackson, which in some ways is probably some weird cosmic justice for Jermaine Jackson. There wasn't always a great relationship. Did he need justice? No, he didn't. But what I'm saying is at times Jermaine and Michael didn't have the best relationship or whatever, but they're brothers, so that's what happens in family. But yeah, so he plays Michael Jackson. He dances like Michael Jackson. He embodies the spirit of Michael Jackson. And honestly, he nails it. When I say he nails it, he nails it to a degree that like a Hugh Jackman Wolverine type nailing it. He really nails Michael Jackson in the movie. And it's a shame because the movie is an abomination. Abomination? Yeah. Okay, so why? So I have to, you guys know me, I always start in love. Homer Domingo, great. Nia Long, great. Jafar Jackson, great. It's not a serious movie. It's. A movie about somebody who we all love to pieces. Love Michael Jackson to pieces, right? He is almost like a mythical character, not even like a human being. And that's the way the movie treats him. The movie treats him like a mythical character. Don't all these music hagiographies treat the people that way? Like Elton John, Freddie Mercury. Like I'm kind of used to this with my biopics for movies. Yeah, to a degree, you're not wrong, which is why. I realized something while I was watching Michael. The biopic is dead. The biopic as to me, the biopic and maybe even the biographical documentary as a storytelling tool, I think is gone. I would say both are. I've been saying this for a while. We saw this happen with books. Books used to be, they would do biographies about people that people would participate in. And sometimes they'd be pretty hard hitting. You know, maybe the person would have regretted participating at all. And then eventually. And then eventually that shifted to the autobiography. And almost every time when somebody does the autobiography, it's like, all right, I'm going to take this with an entire salt shaker of salt, not just one grain. I'm going to just assume this is this person's version. It's going to be very flattering to them. They're going to remember the things they want to remember. Not be that candid about the things maybe they don't want to talk about. And that's just what I'm getting. And in documentaries for a while, they felt pretty, you kind of felt like you were getting. And all the sides of the stories and something shifted with that in the last 10 years. Yeah, I think the streamers had something to do with it in terms of the amount of people that were doing biopics on themselves while they were still around. I think. Or the estate that controls. The estate that controls it. When you look at this movie, though, there's like right off the bat, there's a storytelling issue here. The movie has no story. There's no story to the movie. Well, wasn't the famous, the story was that they did it a certain way and the estate made them change everything. Right. I mean, this has been a long time. I want to make sure. I want to make sure people understand. I am not complaining about this movie or down on the film because the movie didn't go into some of the more controversial aspects of Michael Jackson's life. Controversial. Yeah. So. Hey, that's the word we're going to use. Got it. The sexual assault allegations against. Oh, we can say that as well. Let's say that. Great. I'm not. I'm not tripping because the movie didn't get into that. It because I didn't expect it to. Is that it doesn't really interrogate anything about Michael Jackson really that seriously. Like the movie. What you were supposed to come away from is that Michael Jackson is like divinely touched. Extraordinarily good. I thought that anyway. Well, but what I'm saying is. As a musician or a person. No, no, no. As a person. Oh, like as a person. The movie goes through a great length, great lengths to saint him, to make him look like an every every time there's a kid. Michael stops for the kid every time. And you. You see people looking at him as he's doing these good works and they seem to be like arrested by his purity. It's really laid on thick. Now, look, once again, the same magical space that Michael Jackson exists in for a lot of people. He exists in that space for me. And I understand that, that that's people want to kind of live in that. But like, you got to give me something right. You got to give me you got to give me a real analysis of where the genius and the drive and all of that stuff came from. And the movie just doesn't take any of that seriously. Yeah. All right. So if the estate's like, here's all the stuff that's off limits, but you can make a movie anyway, I'd be I'd probably have focused it thriller to when his hair gets caught on fire and he starts getting weird and he becomes so famous that he basically can't do anything. He becomes a recluse on top of the fact that the hair thing seemed like it was really damaging to him. He got burned. He felt like he was disfigured. Led to a lot of the stuff that is. His skin changing all of all the plastic surgery that seemed to be the tipping point moment combined with the victory tour when him and his brothers went out and they bankrupted the Sullivan family, basically. But that just that whole era, I just would have centered it there versus stopping in 1989 is insane. Bill, what? Like, why would why was that the stopping point? I think, you know, I mean, if you if you want to stop in like 1987, why'd they pick 89? Well, if you go to 1997, you can't not talk about. But I'm saying why not just stop in 87? Just stop with that for bad. Like they they get to they get to him on a on a world tour. It's like him doing a solo world tour, which was a big deal for him. He wanted to do a solo world tour. So they stop with him doing the bad world tour. Here's a frustrating thing. Everything that you just talked about, that's all in the movie. All of it's in the movie. His plastic surgery stuff is in the movie. Vitiligo stuff is in the movie. The burning of the hair is probably the thing that they. That the movie gets the most right. Right. Interesting. Because of the reason why he's doing that commercial, obviously, at the behest of his father. He wants to go back out on tour with his brothers, like what it cost him and how him being burned actually starts his relationship with with painkillers and stuff like that, which we all know would eventually take his life. So that sounds interesting to me. But it doesn't. It just it's just on the screen. Yeah. OK, is there's nothing. So it's just like, hey. Like, I have vitiligo. I have to take this medicine for it. Like Michael, at one point says he doesn't like his nose. The next thing he comes home and he and he's had a nose job. Yeah. Right. There was a movie called The Jackson Family, An American Dream, a miniseries from the early 90s. Right. I saw it. OK. That movie treats Michael Jackson as a real fragile, wandering mind of genius in a real serious way. There's a scene of him looking in the mirror. Talking about the fact that his face is breaking out, talking to his mother about his nose. And you get the feeling of how displaced he felt in his body at some time. Right. And it's a serious scene. It's like a real scene. Or when Motown 25 is about to happen and Michael goes, I'll do it with my brothers. I'll perform my brothers. But I want a solo spot. It's a powerful moment of him, like, stepping away. This movie just can't get to any of that stuff. It's on the screen, but not really interrogated in any way. But I do know what is interrogated. A weird scene with Miles Teller as the lawyer. Right. Where Michael Jackson is going to. Where's Miles Teller in this movie? But, bro, as the fucking. I'm sitting next to Jomie. I'm like, we're watching the scene and there's this weird scene where all of these guys are sitting around. And he fucking talks to Miles Teller's character. And he's like, everybody get out the room. You stay. You're my guy. And then they're in the movie. And I'm like, yo, whoever that guy is. Right. He greenlit this movie. He has something to do with this movie. Because this scene doesn't make any fucking sense to be in a movie about Michael Jackson. Now this guy pops in and you got an A-list star playing him. It didn't make any sense whatsoever. And then at the end of the movie, I'm looking. And it says, yeah, look, producer, John Branco, whatever his name is, whatever. So, like, I don't mean to trash it because there are. I think that people are going to enjoy it because you're going to take a trip down memory lane. But it's just. It was just, like, glossy bullshit. Right. Right. Well, and Antoine Fuqua is the director. Yeah. So, when he. He probably signed up for something that he felt like was going to be a completely different movie and now has to pretend this was the movie he made, which is clearly not the case. I mean, the movie isn't poorly made. I mean, it's got all. It's got, like, top. It's well done gloss. Well done gloss. But, like, I don't know. People are going to hear this and they're going to be like, how could Van be this upset about it? Van is the one that, year after year, goes into the theater to watch some of the most ham-handed superhero shit that's ever existed, right? It occurred to me. Yeah. I held out a difference, or I made a distinction here. This is the MCU-ification of a biopic. This is the we know that we have you, so we don't have to do anything else. Which is the criticism. Is the criticism about the MCU that exists now? About superhero movies that exist now? You signed up for this, so it's not our fault. Hey, you're in here to watch action figures fly around. Yeah. And that's all we got to give you. Earlier on, I think the exciting thing about, like, those movies was that they did not do that. They played around with the genre. They took chances. They did other stuff. But it got to the point to where they knew they had us, and so we were going to watch whatever it was. And now there's a lot of people that are disillusioned with them. When I go to see a movie about this type of person, that this type of impact. impact. You want to come away feeling like you know what made that guy tick so what would be the perfect ip that you would want to sign up for for michael jackson because for me it would be like a 10-hour documentary that was like warts and all like let's go let's dive into this dude there are two different movies one movie would be this same movie but just about the making of thriller so you can find it to like 82 to 85 that's it just about the making of by the way that's what they should have done right like when i say just that takes them off the hook with everything that happens in the 90s you can flash back to stuff that happens we really don't necessarily need the whole jackson five journey it is one of the most famous uh journeys that's ever existed in in super stardom but the making of thriller is very special it's a special time in music it's a special time in culture and it's a special time where this this person like reaches their zenith like an athlete like what was the season that michael jordan just became the guy that everybody was waiting for michael jordan to become like that doesn't happen in culture as much as we think they try to do that with the springsteen movie and it was weird they picked nebraska which i'm a springsteen guy nebraska was a really interesting choice but it was basically they told the whole story to set up what happens with born in the usa which then they don't go into so it's like we assume you already know what happened with born in the usa this part's more interesting it's like yeah you know what would have been really interesting born in the usa well with that and and if you go granular if you get deep into like what michael had to sacrifice uh what he was going through the pressure he was under you see how a child star that piece of art he's in the 70s cocaine era he's at studio 54 all of that everyone's trying to get in with him and just after and what it means to be like the biggest star in the world that's one number two an interesting story that no one talks about is the just ridiculously amazing story of how michael jordan was born in the usa right like not just hi i'm cool with paul mccartney paul has the idea michael is shrewd enough to go and and work him on the idea just everything that had to happen for him to get that because that ends with a deal for him yeah so like have to perform in australia right and him performing in australia one of the accusers yeah ended up so there's a whole bunch of things that happen i mean you don't necessarily have to get into that there's a whole bunch of things that happen with that and it's one of the more that is a story about the genius the business genius and the cultural genius of michael jackson i would also throw in the lisa marie presley wedding it's the third movie i want to say i just don't know what happened with that that was one of those nobody knew what's going on the entire time we still don't know what happened we don't and i remember they came out on mtv and it's like no one thought this would last and my dad was like it like what are you talking about it hadn't lasted yet i think with some of these things the biggest things we've ever had which is basically like elvis the beatles michael jackson these things come around content wise every few years like the b it happened with the beatles a couple years ago when that that thing the behind the scenes peter jackson documentary that was awesome yeah and it was like oh the beatles are having a moment again and then it goes and then six years later something else will happen i think that's happening with michael jackson now i know everybody doesn't like the movie but i think it's going to be the catalyst to a re-examination of all the stuff he did because what what really happens is the new generations who don't you know like my son when my son was like five he didn't know backstory of michael jackson he just knew he liked the songs yeah and the kids get into it and it's a generational thing that never stops and i think this goes to a bigger point which we were talking about with when kanye was here at a couple weeks ago about people being able to separate the art from other stuff that may have happened and how you can compare if you like the music you like the music and you can just put it there and you can kind of push the other stuff this way and that whole dialogue about whether that's something we should we be that way with the heart what with the heart wants we'll have any choice i mean just if we're being honest when i say we don't have any choice what i mean is is like i can choose if i want to not to uh listen to michael jackson music or to whatever what i can't do with him specifically not all the artists that have been involved in fuck shit are like this but with michael jackson it's so tied to the most formative years of my brain right that if i see him or i hear the music my body reflexively does something right you hear billy jean and it is uncontrollable there's nothing you can do now you can make this decision to talk about things responsibly and make sure you hold space for victims and make sure you have these conversations with the gravitas and the weight that they deserve right you can do all nobody wants to do that when they're on spotify on a walk at two in the afternoon or working out and they're just like fuck it i'm gonna put my michael mix yeah it's it's true and so the reality of all of this and by the way i just want to say this real quick and this is you know people can feel how the way the way i want about this i worked at tms for a very long time yeah with tms for a long time so the people that i know that have looked into uh michael jackson's the people that i know have looked into them in a really granular way like in a really detailed way looking at his situation is interesting because i'd have to be real real observation the people that i know the deeper you get into all of the stuff that happened with him the more questions you actually have about whether or not he ever was actually guilty of something i the news director at tms back in the day was like wasn't i'm not talking about he's not from south baton rouge like me he was a white boy from orange county swore up and down he's like van i have all of these documents he didn't do anything yeah all of this stuff and so there is there is this thing with him in all of his cases he beat it in court there's this thing with him to where the more you get into it of people that i know that really have deep knowledge of everything that happened they look at it and they go they don't think that he did anything now maybe that's me coping that could be me coping but the reality of the situation is that is true from people that i know that have really looked that's how i feel about meg frabel like man the guy just wanted some rest the other six people they were there it's a great resort yeah it's a great resort like a relaxation weekend but to your point though the movie the first thing i did when i got home was put on michael jackson shit on youtube the first thing i did but even that if you do a biopic about michael jackson and jafar jackson once again in the performance and yeah in in in the dancing it's great if you do a biopic about michael jackson the best parts can't be like making thriller or performing on stage because if i want that i could just go to youtube and watch that so there has to be other parts of the movie that aren't oriented around the music and around doing a michael jackson essentially uh an impression uh and that movie this movie just doesn't well apparently there's an incredible elvis documentary right now that somebody spent a lot of time on bosnian i think um and it was like behind the scenes vegas they found all this footage and it's amazing and if that had come out in like 1989 it felt like it would have been the biggest movie in the world now it's 2026 elvis has been dead for 49 years i don't know if he has the same hold on people under 50 i think like people in their 70s and 80s might care i wonder when michael jackson is going to hit that point i would argue with like in the spotify era where people are just downloading music you might not hit that point for like 40 more years yeah where people are just like there might be some five-year-old right now in a car on the way home from school they're listening to thriller and they don't know any better they don't they don't know anything other than the songs they're listening to you know and this might be the old man talking but and elvis is a you know ridiculously important american pop culture figure it just feels different with michael jackson i don't i don't know i think i think that's generational it probably is everything is everything culturally expires everything culturally expires but because it's the same thing for like mickey mannell babe ruth um frank sinatra there are these people that had these runs but then as the years pass there's nobody there to kind of keep the torch going with the flames you know i mean ain't none of them people got a thriller though that's true elvis was way up there though elvis is i mean elvis was the biggest star we had in the world i know but for years but that's how we thought yeah then the biggest star came into the room it's just different you have to tell me i was there michael's the biggest he's the most talented biggest star i've ever seen in my life right and like him doing the motown 25 was like probably the greatest non-sports tv moment i've ever had and so i remember watching that just over and over and all of the videos michael has so many different eras like you can't really put it all in one biopic because it's like his life was like it had like three or four sequels right until he until he passed on but and a lot of analysis too like just long conversations with friends in high school about what does mama say mama saw mama pusa mean my mom was like yeah like whatever whatever that what do they mean to me to me to me that genius like not just deserves but it requires - Special, real examination. - Examination. Ezra did that with Prince, and we're never going to see that either. Right. But look, once again, I think that we're out of the era of biopics. If we think, what are the best biopics? Rey was a great biopic, right? I actually, I kind of like the Queen one. I watched it again. Okay. And why is it good? Because in the last 25 minutes, it just is the Live Aid show, which I could watch on YouTube, but it was really fun to watch as the movie. Usually, it's the performances that make it. Outside of music biopics, you want to relive the music, and you want to see how people embody the character. But when I think about movies like Malcolm X, like X with Spike Lee, obviously different, but that's a guy that's a cultural deity to me. The movie does not deify him at all. The Johnny Cash movie doesn't deify him. That one, I think, is one of the best ones. Coal Miner's Daughter is really good. These movies are about people who have genius. But usually, they work the best when it's people who have genius, but also have a flaw, or two flaws. Have a flaw. Or have a relationship that doesn't work. Or marry the wrong person, fall in love the wrong way, or whatever. Something that humanizes you. Tina Turner one was good, too. Right. That one was phenomenal. That is probably. That might be the best one, actually. That's the best music biopic that I can remember. It's phenomenal. But it had a villain. Had a villain. This one has a villain. Joe Jackson is the villain. Yeah, he seems. Joe Jackson's not a great guy. But even in this movie, it's made by his family, and you can tell. You can feel. You can feel. You can feel the conflict in this movie. Yeah. The estate makes the movie. They're telling this story. You can feel them holding back. Well, it was heavily reported. They had to change just about everything about the movie. Right. As they're making. But even in this version, like, okay. You think Miles Tower is like, Hey, Miles, heard you have a new movie out. Yeah, well. Yeah, I guess. Filmed it a long time ago. I'm just saying, man. Like, when you do it, commit. Like, you know, blood on the dance floor. Show how hard it was. Show the road he had to climb. We agree, but this will be the number one when it ends up on Amazon or wherever. This will be the number one rental for, like, five straight weeks. I'm probably going to see it again. Yeah. I'm probably going to see it again just because, like. I can't wait till the seventh time you see it when you talk yourself into it. Do you know why? Do you really know why? Higher learning? No. I missed Michael Jackson. I missed him. Like, I. You guys, I'm just a regular person. So you guys can get mad, whatever. You missed the genius. I missed him. Like, I had missed him. This was the secret of the last dance with Michael Jordan. Same thing. It's like, you know what? I really missed this guy. Yep. That's why the biggest documentary right now that's sitting there, if it was done correctly, is the Kobe doc. But it'll never happen because I think his wife just will never let it happen the way it could happen. Mm-hmm. But I think that would have the same impact. So many people love Kobe that if they did that correctly, it would be the same thing. You're like, you know what? I'm going to watch that a fifth time. I really miss this guy. Yeah. And more to the point with Michael Jackson, I missed the version of Michael Jackson that existed before I had to consider any of the others. 80s Michael Jackson. I miss that guy. I miss just being able to have. I miss the feeling of unbridled joy that exists with me being dumb and not knowing. And like, just not. Now, that's super. Hulk Hogan, another one. Hulk Hogan. Like, I used to. I used to rip the shirt being a Hulk. Yeah. This is an everybody. You were a Hulkamaniac. I was a Hulkamaniac. Everyone was a Hulkamaniac. You didn't know that he probably wouldn't have liked you. No. He was a. He would not have liked you. He would not have liked me at all. He would not have liked me. He would have said it. Or he would have liked me until I tried to take his daughter out. He would have flipped. Then he would have flipped out. Anyway. I see what you mean about. My wife says this all the time. She'll be watching some. movie or TV show that she's seen 1,700 times and she always is like, I miss my friends. Devil Wears Prada. I miss my friends. I'm going to hang out with them again. The Michael Jackson experience, same thing. I'm definitely going to see it. I won't see it in the theater, but I'm going to. When it's out on rental, I'm going to rent it. No, you should go see it in the theater. You think? Yeah, go see it in the theater. I like. Everyone that had any interest in the movie because the reviews have been brutal. I have to keep it real. The reviews have been hilarious. People are furious. Yeah. They really hated it. But at the same time, the people that feel super connected to Michael Jackson are going right into defense mode. I'm sure some of those people would be mad at me. I'm encouraging people to go see the movie in the theater because I think. I saw it in IMAX. I think it plays best in the theater because you want to be a part of the concert experiences and things like that. But yeah, not to me a serious attempt at trying to tell a real story about somebody as consequential and as important as Michael Jackson. So what's your Roger Ebert four stars? How many do you go? One and a half. One and a half? One and a half. All right, Van Lathan, good to see you. Peace. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to McShay and Mensch. Thanks to Van. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm going to be back on this podcast on Thursday night after the NBA playoff games we're going to be recording. I think Rob Mahoney is going to join me. Don't forget about Sean Fantasy's newsletter or Jordan Kahn's book or Legata or the Rewatchables Kindergarten Cop which is up or Ghostbusters which is coming next Monday. And I will see you on Thursday. Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and president in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply including any token expiration max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook.fandler.com. Game and problem call 1-800-GAMBLE or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana. Call 877-770-7867. This episode is brought to you by 7-Up. Okay, this one's a case for a conspiracy bill. Let's bring them in. 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Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. The episode highlights the often-overlooked workers behind sports, emphasizing their vital role in making games possible.
  2. Carhartt proudly supports these crews, showcasing their dedication and professionalism through gear and recognition.
  3. Bill Simmons and the team discuss the NBA playoffs, with deep analysis on key matchups like the Lakers-Rockets and Spurs-Portland series.
  4. The draft conversation features insights on the Jets, Giants, and other teams, including strategic picks, trade rumors, and coaching decisions.
  5. The hosts question the value of emotional bias in player selection, contrasting it with data and long-term team strategy.
  6. A notable theme is the physicality and unpredictability of playoff basketball, especially in series like Detroit-Orlando and Denver-Nuggets.
  7. The Giants’ draft strategy at picks 5 and 10 is analyzed as a patient, calculated move focused on long-term team balance.
  8. The episode concludes with a reflection on human nature in sports decision-making, including how personal connections and biases influence picks.

Summary:

The episode begins by honoring the unsung laborers behind sports, from stadium builders to field maintenance workers, and highlights Carhartt’s support for these essential teams. Bill Simmons and his co-hosts then dive into the NBA playoffs, analyzing key matchups such as the Lakers vs. Rockets, Spurs vs.

Portland, and the Detroit vs. Orlando series. They stress how physicality, team chemistry, and injuries shape outcomes, with particular concern over the Spurs’ reliance on Kawhi Leonard and the Nuggets’ defensive intensity.

The discussion shifts to the NFL draft, where the Giants’ strategy at picks 5 and 10 is examined as a balanced, patient approach. The hosts debate draft philosophy, emphasizing that emotional bias often overrides data, and cite examples like the Jets’ potential pick of Arbel Reese over David Bailey. They also note how scouting interactions—like a player’s interest in Chick-fil-a—can reveal personal traits.

Ultimately, the episode showcases how human instincts and long-term team planning shape both draft decisions and playoff narratives, blending sports insight with deeper reflections on decision-making in high-stakes environments.

FAQs

The workers who build stadiums, pave parking lots, grow grass, weld goalposts, and make footballs are essential but often overlooked. They work long before kickoff and ensure the game runs smoothly, making their contributions vital to the event's success.

Carhartt outfits crews involved in sports infrastructure because they value the dedication and hard work of these professionals. The company honors their commitment to their craft and the essential behind-the-scenes efforts that make games possible.

Bill Simmons discusses the intensity of the NBA playoffs, highlighting key matchups, team dynamics, player performances, and potential upsets. He also shares his personal anxieties and insights into how teams are performing in the postseason.

The 'NBA Panic Room' is a segment where Bill Simmons analyzes team odds, potential outcomes, and key concerns ahead of playoff games. It provides fans with a detailed, realistic assessment of which teams might succeed or fail in the postseason.

The series between the Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves is seen as physically intense and potentially long, with both teams relying on physicality and defensive pressure. This makes the matchup a high-stakes, competitive series.

The Giants are expected to make a strategic move at picks 5 and 10, possibly trading for a top-tier player like a running back or defensive player. This reflects a patient, calculated approach to building a competitive roster during the draft.

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