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

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 Lathan and Chris Ryan. We have some Ringer stuff for you. Sean Fantasy, you might have 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, uh, The Ringer and Substack and Spotify. Uh, 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. Uh, he's gonna be on here Thursday to discuss it. Jordan Kahn, who's been with us since Grantland, came to us, uh, along when we started The Ringer. Uh, 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, uh, La Gata, 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.

Uh, La Gata, 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 Mench. We taped earlier today, 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, uh, 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 a 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+ select states or 18+ D.C., Kentucky, or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. All right, I am taping this top part of the podcast. It is 10:23 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, 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 Gahau and Eduardo, um, who are my behind the scenes team. I made them stay up late. Now they have to put this podcast up cuz I thought it would be worth it. It wasn't worth it. We should have done this 2 hours ago. KD came back, so that was a wild card. He had 9 turnovers, um, 4, 4 or 5 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 have been it for Ime and Reed Shepard. I think he played— what do I have here? 10 minutes, 0 for 4 for Reed Sheppard, the number 3 pick of the 2024 NBA draft. One pick ahead of Stephon Castle. Houston, they changed some stuff up. They pressured a game late with that idea. When you have Marcus Smart and LeBron James and Luke Kinnard bringing the ball up, why not pressure those guys 94 feet, Jaden McDaniels style? They didn't do that. I looked it up.

They—

nobody has ever been fired during a series before, so I think Ime Adoka 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 for CJ McCollum at any point during the season before Atlanta got him is just bonkers. It felt like the natural thing that was gonna happen after VanVleet got hurt and the salaries kind of lined up. Houston has a bunch of extra picks. Washington basically, you know, they were ready to give away McCollum. They finally end up putting him in a Trae Young deal, which really they're taking Trae Young off Atlanta's hands. McCollum goes and he is one of the stars of the, of Game 2 and one of the potential stars of the playoffs. He's almost becoming a, 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're, they were good with the team. Like they like having VanVleet around. VanVleet can't play till next year. Like worst case scenario, he could just opt out of his contract.

You can re-sign him. But it's weird to me that they didn't do anything. And Ime clearly doesn't trust Reed Sheppard. So can the Lakers actually pull this off? 'Cause we got info today, maybe Luka wouldn't be around until round 2, that maybe, maybe Reaves was actually a better option to come back. I'm looking at the playoff odds right now. Houston, Wow, Lakers minus, they're up 2-nothing in the series with game 7 at home and they're -120 on FanDuel because everybody's like, well, maybe Houston's gonna turn it around. I don't know, the team I watched tonight, I don't see it. I mean, just to come back from 2-0 in a series, the percentages are against you, but the way they, the chemistry on the court, Durant not looking 100%, Shengun looks like he's already on Redfin. 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 Luka can come back against OKC. By the way, OKC, big winner of round 1, right?

But like Wemby, Wemby gets concussed, which we'll talk about in a second, but that series looks like it's gonna go longer. Denver-Minnesota's gonna be a war. Meanwhile, OKC's gonna cruise through round 1. And then they're gonna 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 got to be kidding me. Yeah, honestly, you got to be kidding me. That would be just one of the dumbest playoff losses I could remember. Your 41-year-old LeBron, Luke Kennard, who anybody could have had, Marcus Smart hitting corner threes, Jackson Hayes is out there. I, I just can't believe it. How many lottery picks does Houston have? I think out of the— I think they had 5 or 6 guys who were taken like in the top 5 of the lottery. Oh my God. Um, anyway, I have Houston number 1. And, and I blame Houston for the fact that it's 10:27 and I'm doing a podcast right now. Anyway, number 2, the Spurs.

Wemby gets concussed on the night that he is given the Defensive Player of the Year award, and it looked bad immediately. Was not great. Um, and I don't— in, in football, the concussion protocol is like at least a week. I— who knows with basketball. He's definitely not going to be in Game 3. But maybe he comes back for Game 4. But at the very least, Portland steals one. If you're San Antonio, there's some questions that come out of that game that I had already been thinking about. Wemby comes out of it, obviously he's their best offensive player. But my fear with them all along was like shot creation in half court when you're in a playoff atmosphere and you've gotta 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 it comes down to Jrue Holiday, who had 16, 5, and 9. Classic Jrue 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 this Scoot Henderson game, 31 points. So Nick Wright texted me this. He now has 10 more career playoff points than Wemby. I feel like I'm still in it with Scoot. Can't give up yet. I thought Scoot was awesome today. Now he had 1 rebound and 0 assists, 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 2 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. Uh, and congrats to Portland owner El Cheapo, who, uh, 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 3. No t-shirts for those fans because those t-shirts are expensive. Um, that 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 5 seed, just bogus with a capital B. Houston, bogus 5 seed, not capital B bogus, but bogus. Portland, frisky 7 seed. Like I, 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 cannon, t-shirt cannons. I can't wait for, for this weekend, but we'll see what do the Spurs have in them without Wemby. They signed Luke Kornet over the summer, who is one of the best free agent signings of the summer. Big game for him, obviously, Game 3, Game 4. They're gonna 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 gonna go away. This is a team that knows who they are, really good defensively. Kamar, I thought, did a great job down the stretch. And, uh, little feistier of a series. I think San— I think San Antonio was -1,400 heading into the series. So it's 1-1 going back to Portland. We're definitely not gonna have 1B for Game 3.

We'll see. That is my number 2 panic team. So Houston, San Antonio. Number 3 is Detroit. They're playing tomorrow night. They got their ass kicked at home in Game 1, and they've lost 12, 11 straight playoff games. This would be the 12th if they lose Game 2. 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 and 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 1 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 2 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+ penalty minutes in a 6-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, they had another fighter, but just every game the same guys were fighting. I don't think Detroit-Orlando is gonna be like that, but I think it's gonna get feisty tomorrow. I think this is one of those Detroit's gonna lay the smackdown. 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, 'cause 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 2. 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 9-point underdogs. In Game 2, which I think is too high. There's a lot of data going for if the home team gets blown out into Game 1 as a big favorite, and Zach talked about that on Sunday, but I think Orlando can play with these guys.

So Detroit's my number 3. The Nuggets are number 4. First Nuggets loss yesterday in 33 days. I have multiple concerns coming out of the game. One, Aaron Gordon not healthy. Um, I thought he got banged up in different ways in Game 1, and then Game 2 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, Jokic's threes, which we've seen come and go in the playoffs if you really put a beating on him, which Minnesota did. Minnesota had Randle beating on him, they had Gobert beating on him, they had elbows, Naz Reid's beating on him. And they just tried to wear him down. And it got to the point, it felt like they were leaving him open a little bit. And I think he was 1 for 7. A lot was made out of the Gobert one-on-one defense against Joker. I didn't think that's why they won.

I thought they won 'cause the physicality of all 4 quarters combined with the third thing I wanna mention. McDaniels, you know, you could see what the game plan was in Game 2. It was like, McDaniels is gonna hound Jamal Murray. 94 feet. And I don't know why more teams don't do this when you have a, 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, inside the jersey, which I, I support. I thought he wore him down. So you have McDaniels, 94 feet, you've Gobert with the one-on-one D, you have Ant with the rim protection. You have Randle and Nas Reid being super physical, and then you have DiVincenzo 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 blocker, they're going. So when I think about upsets, um, I said this after game 1 to Zach, even though Minnesota didn't play that well, I felt like they, The physicality, they seem very comfortable.

And I, and I thought it was a little concerning after Game 1. They didn't play that well, but they still were in the vicinity of winning the game. Game 2, super comfortable. And, um, it's a team that thinks they're better than Denver. So if I'm a Nuggets fan, A, I'm, I'm more concerned than I was 4 days ago that I was getting out of this series. They were 3-to-1 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 1, and, and then I still have OKC waiting for me in round 3, and they're gonna do all the same physical beat-you-up stuff that, that Minnesota's doing. Now, this was the case. I thought Denver was gonna 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 4 rounds. But Ant, who didn't even seem like he was 100% healthy all the time yesterday, combined with McDaniels coming back from injury, I just didn't think they were gonna be able to put it together like that.

But man, they looked like a conference finalist last night. So these two, either of these teams playing San Antonio is gonna be an incredible series. And I thought last night, I thought that was like watching a Game 5 of a 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 Knicks, but I'm a little nervous because Game 2 against Atlanta, it picks some scabs for me, right? Are we too Brunson-centric? Are we sure Mike Brown is a good coach? Is Mikal Bridges playing tonight? Oh, he's played 32 minutes? I didn't realize it. Oh, he took the last shot of the game with 5 seconds left? I forgot he was on the team. They had a bunch of that stuff going. The backup guards, McBride was bad, Shamet was bad. So they got nothing really from their bench other than Clarkson made a couple plays. And the Towns piece of it. Now, my Knicks fan friends were like, why didn't Towns get the ball more? What, you know, why were we so Brunson-centric? Kaminga was doing a good job on Towns.

So I think it was a combination of he was being really physical with him. They found something with that small ball lineup. And if I was the Knicks and I, I rooted for the Knicks, the thing that would make me the most nervous other than Josh Hart was the best player on my team in Game 2, I would be nervous that Alexander Walker and Jalen Johnson— 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 1-1 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, he was doing, getting to whatever spot he wanted. You have these two wings, Anunoby and Bridges, that you've traded all this capital and gave big contracts to. 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 in a million trade rumors. He even got mad at me publicly a couple 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 Knicks. What are the odds in this series? They are, yeah, -174 on FanDuel. That seems about right. I, I thought the Knicks were gonna win in 6. 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 2s, I don't know what happens to them. They're 5-5 in their last 10 playoff home Game 2s. They lost to the Knicks last year, Miami and Cleveland in '24. 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 were gonna do. They shot a bunch of threes. Edgecomb got hot. I think he was 6 for 10.

He had a 30 and 10, was super comfortable. And then Maxie 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 giving up, I think it was 91-89. Boston has the ball about to take the lead. Tatum jacks up a bad 3. And then Maxie, I think, hit 2 straight threes on that stupid drop coverage. So the Celtics were 13 for 50 from 3. 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% from 3, and they've lost all 12. Including Game 1 and Game 2 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 series Celtics last year? I will say, um, the two things that scare me a tiny bit— Derek White has, uh, really been bad from 3 since January 1st. He's under 31% from 3 now. He's 2 for 10 tonight. And the Knicks team— the, uh, Sixers seemed Totally fine with him shooting from 3.

Whereas I think in November and December would not have been as fine. It 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 didn't understand. The move seemed to me, go small with Tatum at the 5, 'cause he, you could still get the rebounding from him. Tatum, Brown, Shireman, 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 did, 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 3-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 gonna do, post up one of those guys? So playing Tatum at the 5 seems like the move. It did worry me a little that they looked like Game 1, Game 2, 2025 Knicks. I did get some flashbacks. Some PTSD. My daughter and my dad were there and, uh, my daughter was furious after the game. I was very proud, but she was excited that they showed them on the Jumbotron and my dad wasn't looking and she was hitting him to look. And, uh, 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 -510. So FanDuel is not nervous either. The Portland odds, Portland is +410 to win the series now. San Antonio is -550. The only series, 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, uh, that's, 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 gonna take a break. We're gonna go backwards in time. I'm gonna talk to McShay and Mench, uh, big long convo about the NFL Draft, and I'm gonna look a lot more awake in one second after this break. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. 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, cuz that's how profit boosts work. Lock in your bets. Boost your odds. Make the playoffs payoff with Fanduel, official sports betting partner of the NBA. Head to fanduel.com/bs to get started. Fanduel, play your game. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

All right, listen up. Ralph's, King Soopers, Harris Teeter, Food 4 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 Number one, I'm an Uberon member. Orders of $30 or more save up to $25. Ends April 30th, 2026. See app for details. All right, McShay and Mench are here. They are here all week doing the Todd McShay Show. The McShay Show, which is behind us.

I like this.

You 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, I had you.

You fluffed me a little bit. Yeah, you 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 where there's no players, right?

Yeah, but it's like Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is always going to be good because, yeah, 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, 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.

Arvell Reese.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I had a double backflip.

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 Arvell 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, are saying the same thing. So the Jeremiah Love thing, I just, I worry about that at number 2, number 3, 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 quiet outside of, hey, everyone thinks we're taking Bailey.

But who are they trying to fake out?

Listen, David Bailey. I actually had to have this internal conversation with myself. David Bailey's been kind of what everyone in league circles has kind of assumed, right, for a while. Let's throw out there we might take Arvell Reese and see if someone's more interested in Reese and get the— get, you know, because there's people talking about Arizona. We're going to move whichever pass rusher doesn't go to— go to— we, you know, the pick is open at Arizona at number 3. 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.

Yeah.

That involves foresight, a plan, understanding, strategy, like chess moves moving around.

Yeah. And if it's true, what I'm kind of surmising, then I think Darryl Moogey 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 always parachute in the draft every year, basically knowing nothing and trying to learn on the fly. Why wouldn't you take the guy who's 2 years younger? Is that just too obvious or am I not?

It's actually not. You, you would be, I don't think you'd be surprised, but it's, it's surprising how much, 'cause Reese is 2 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 2 years late. It's like getting a car from 2024 versus '26 or something. Right. But it's a 5-year lease.

It's a 5-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. Why wouldn't I just take the younger guy?

I would take Arvell 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—

So that means higher talent, higher bust 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 the plan's out the window. And if you're, if you're Mouji, 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—

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 the Sunday before this past Sunday was, what's your football sense if you want the sure thing? And that Darryl Moogee is a human risk aversion. I compared it yesterday to Along Came Polly with Ben Stiller, right? I like that. Just a human risk aversion corporation walking down the street. Everything's about risk. And apparently that's, that's kind of his DNA and his makeup. 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 gotta kind of get stronger and all that. But let's go with the guy that's proven as a pass rusher, cuz that's the most important thing you can do in this league outside of being a quarterback.

FanDuel has Reese -130, Bailey +115 on Tuesday afternoon as we record.

Did that flip from yesterday?

Yes.

Yeah.

This morning I looked, this morning I looked and it was like, it was still +160. And then I looked 4 hours ago and it was -110. So it is shifting rapidly.

Yeah. Betting on the draft is like betting on roulette while doing cocaine. It's insane. It's like the odds are just, oh, oh, it's just going crazy at all times. I would, I, I'd never do draft bets. The only one that seems like it hits every year is like the more offensive linemen than we thought.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Seems like every year I say, nah, it's gonna be 7. No, actually it's 10. Yep. 'Cause we get in the draft and everybody's like, oh fuck, we need a right tackle.

I would bet it's at 8.5. I haven't looked, but I would bet it's at 8.5.

For the over-unders?

Yeah.

There's gonna be a second guard that sneaks in.

Right.

Like Keelan Rutledge from Georgia.

7.5. Oh, I take that. See, that seems like you'd fucking bang that one, right?

Pound it right now.

It'd be at least 9.

Take it right now.

I laugh whenever I see—

There's gonna be at least 8. There's 7 tackles and 1 guard.

I think 9, but yeah, you're right. It's gonna be 8 to 7.

I think the Patriots could take somebody.

Iannaccio are still sitting there at 31?

Yeah.

Absolutely. Yeah. You 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 5? Because they also have number 10. Yeah. If the first 4 picks—

Yep.

Okay. Mendoza, Reese to the Jets, Arizona says fuck it and takes Love.

Yep.

And then Sala and Tennessee go, fuck it and they take Stiles. So it goes Mendoza, Reese, Love, Stiles. Now the Giants are on the clock. What happens?

Bailey.

You think they would take Bailey anyway?

With Bailey. I was told by somebody that, because even if you flip-flop and it's Bailey, it's Bailey at 2 and it's Reese at 5, sitting at 5 either way. I was told, but I don't believe it, that they would take the edge rusher best available and and, uh, Kayvon Thibodeaux would be traded.

That was a little nugget in Schepter's article.

He had all these trade guys.

These are guys that could be traded, and all of a sudden you see Kayvon Thibodeaux, and I was like, I haven't heard that name.

Yeah, but that was last year's trade that was going to happen, remember? Yeah, yeah. Well, they'll, they'll draft him.

So when all of a sudden it was in there, I was like, that's, that jumps out to me. So if they, they could get rid of one of them—

the, the Giants are fascinating, right? Because the Giants are sitting there at 5, 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.

For real.

You're trading a defensive tackle. I know he's good in his late, late 20s.

He was expensive and doesn't, yeah, doesn't wanna be here.

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, yep. That's like, that trade's a miracle.

Yeah.

I thought the Giants would've had to throw in at least like a third to even the seesaw out.

There's something about the Ravens, like the, the Ravens, like Ozzie Newsome and down to Eric Dacosta now, it seems like they, They sit back, they're patient, they wait, 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 though?

I mean, they have, I mean, they were like giving up 5 yards a carry last year. That might be their 10th pick. There's no defensive tackles there. You don't like Fox just reaching or maybe trading back 5 spots.

But they pick 35 in the second round.

Yeah, they'll get a guy there. They'll get a good guy there.

They'll get a guy there.

I thought for the Bengals that— I interrupted you.

That's okay.

The Bengals, that trade was insane. You're paying like $110 million a year to a quarterback and 2 receivers. You've holes all over the place.

Yeah.

And I give her $28 million a year.

Your defense is terrible. And it's like, well, we're gonna get this guy. We're gonna bring him in. He's, he's the best defensive tackle in the league. Cool. Now he's gonna be double teamed the whole time.

Yeah.

Do you have nobody else on 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 at 5, right? And a week ago we would have said Caleb Downs is one of the players they'd like, the safety from Ohio State. Jordan Tyson is one of the players. They don't conceal their interest in players. Joe Shane goes— 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 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 loves to talk about it.

All time.

Just run a straight line and turn around.

Yeah.

So, 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 there, but I don't know, a week, 10 days ago we would've said you'd better take Downs at 5 and, and you can get Tyson at 10. I honestly think with, um, with sitting at 7 would be a possibility. Although I think Dan Quinn is, is going defense there. He's pushing with Adam Peters to go defense. Mm-hmm. And it could be Sonny Stiles. If not Stiles, Caleb Downs at 7. But 8 is New Orleans, and that could be a spot where Jordan Tyson goes. 9 Kansas City.

Sounds like it is.

9 Kansas City.

Jordan Tyson, New Orleans just sounds awful. Why? What do you mean?

But not—

not there. Don't they have a top 3 worst medicine training recovery situation? Them and the Pelicans.

Chris Olave, that's what's worked for him, right? Yeah, that makes me nervous. So regardless, my point is I don't know that Tyson gets there. And so Caleb Downs is much more likely to get there, but may not get there either. So, and then you hear about—

but there's no, there's no scenario where they can end up with Downs and Stiles, the Giants.

They don't want Stiles apparently.

Because they signed Edmonds.

They signed Edmonds.

Yeah.

Honestly, that deal's not huge though.

It's not, it's not huge.

I mean, that's the mack daddy move. 'Cause I was looking at the Giants odds. First of all, 7.5 wins over-under for the, like, all the signs for them are they're gonna be this year's Patriots, right? If Dart's healthy. Fourth place schedule, new coach, like just, they, they're checking all the boxes. 7.5 wins seems too low. Plus 280 for the playoffs, plus 550 for the division. That seems too high.

Yeah.

If they got two blue chip, blue chip, blue chip 5 and 10 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 Jeremiah Love is still sitting there at 5?

You love this. You want to give love to everyone. But yeah, I get it. Skadaboo is not going to stay healthy.

No, I hear you. Well, so if 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. You just get the two best guys in the position who 4 years from now could be like All-Pros.

Yeah.

Or 3 years from now, whatever. That, but that the Downs thing, I, I was just on Tailgate. I stopped by there for a second. I, we do this with the draft every year. I've talked to you about it before where everyone knows Downs is going to be awesome. He's gonna go like 10th. And then 3 years from now we're gonna do the, do the redraft and it's like, and number 2, Caleb Downs.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kyle Hamilton. Kyle Hamilton. Ed Reed crossed with Kyle Hamilton. Yeah. He's just amazing. And wow, what a great pick. And it's like, but we knew that before this draft that he was gonna be a great pick. Right. So how do you go 10th?

It's the position value thing. And then you add to position value. He, he didn't run. We know he's not like his miles per hour is equated like 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—

that's the same thing for Hamilton, right? It's like, what is he running?

Yeah, is he a hybrid?

Well, turned out great.

Yeah, yeah, really great. So I, I think he could go as high as 7, maybe 5, but, um, but it would— I don't know, it— the Giants are fascinating. And also there's You don't pay Harbaugh, what, $100 million to be the guy without letting him be the guy. And that's the indication I get. But there seems to be always—

That makes me nervous too. Yeah. He was on pace to getting fired the first Lamar Jackson year.

Yep.

And then Lamar Jackson saved his ass.

Yeah.

Last couple years weren't awesome. And then it's like, here are the car keys, make all the decisions for us.

Well, then you got to ask, do you see what 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 manage our 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 in Skadaboo 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 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 as the GM, but I don't know, you know? Yeah. He had a tremendous management of a draft last year, but the last time they had two top 10 picks, it was what, Thibodeaux 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 tackle?

Yeah, no offensive tackles are off the board in that scenario.

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 yeah, 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, it 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, that's gonna win games.

I get it.

Yeah.

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 when we redo the draft.

Yeah.

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, 2, and 3 were Ronnie Brown, Bush, Reggie Bush, Barkley, and Trent Richardson. So I'm gonna say those first 4, 3 of them, no way that team does it again.

Yep.

No. And Reggie Bush— Barkley's still defensible.

Yes, 100%.

He was incredible. Right? And it was— and who was the next pick? It was a quarterback. It was like Trubisky or somebody.

I don't remember.

It was, it was a quarterback.

I think he was 13th overall, but yeah.

No, Trubisky was 3rd, remember?

Oh no, he was 3rd.

The Bears. Mitchell. It was some sort of QB. So yes.

Yeah, it might have been Trubisky. Yeah.

So 2, 2, 2, 3, we went 1 for 4. Even if you count Barkley as a hit, he's a hit.

It was their problem.

And you don't count Reggie Bush, right?

I don't.

I don't either.

He won a Super Bowl. Yeah. No, I don't either.

But Pierre Thomas was the better running back in that, in the Super Bowl in that year.

So 4, 4, and 6, Leonard Fournette, Darren McFadden, and Gente last year. That was, by the way, that was— I think, I don't think any of those teams do that again. Even Gente, who I thought had some moments, but I just don't think the Raiders would've done that if they could redo that. I think they would take alignment. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Get a, a year ahead.

But now we go to 7, 8.

I think he's gonna have a good year this year. But yes, I agree with the, the forecast.

Now you're getting into like the Bijan and Peterson 7, McCaffrey 8, Bijan 8.

Yeah.

Yep.

Pretty good value.

Yeah.

And then CJ Spiller 9, Zeke Elliott 10, Gurley 10. All right. So this is a fucking random sample size. But what I learned from that is maybe wait till 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 Peterson. Peterson was in a good situation pretty immediately in Minnesota.

Right.

So whereas like Gente goes to the Raiders and it's not a good situation.

Typically 4 doesn't go to the Super Bowl. Like pick 4 doesn't go to the Super Bowl. That's not a normal occurrence like we saw with the Patriots last year. So I— 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 just 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 are you getting at 10 that's better than Dexter Lawrence?

So you'd rather have 4 years of Lawrence versus the 10th pick in this draft? Yes. The only part you're paying more. And then I know that's the issue, but that's where I—

that's, that's a blind spot. That's a weakness for me that I, I like the cap guy figured that out for me, but I hear you.

You're right. You got to factor it in. I know.

Well, wasn't part of it that they had the cap space to, 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 and try to pick up more stuff. Yeah, true.

They don't.

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 now. 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 7 principles, guys. Yeah. I'm never paying 2 receivers a lot of money.

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm good in the draft. I'm just taking alignment on one side of the ball or the other. That's all I'm doing.

Yeah.

I'm gonna try to get us a quarterback. Like just very, I'm always gonna trade back if I can't decide what to do. And these are my 7 tenets and I'll leave everything else to my scouting department.

Yeah.

I'm always staying this, doing this.

They can, no one can stick to it though. They always fall in love with the player.

Yeah. You know, if I ever got a GM job, if I ever gone that route and taken some opportunities, I 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, and like, so you're the Jets GM and you call Pete and you're like, Reese Bailey, what would you do? And he's like, what the fuck? No, I'm hiring him.

And he's—

oh, you're hiring him?

And he— and I'm gonna give him like 4 or 5 things that he's allowed to overrule me on because my emotion or, 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, um 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 3 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 bot. We bounce off of one another well, but I don't think there's anything hard.

Is that what we're calling it, bouncing off one another?

Argue. That's really cute, guys. Yeah, thanks. We're gonna get this all week.

Yeah, exactly.

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 and just rapid fire, get a feel, the players, for each person.

Yeah.

And I can totally see how the, how the people can get enamored with certain players.

Yeah.

Now ironically, the ones we got enamored with actually turned out to be good. Like we love CJ McCollum. Yeah. We're like, this guy's great. Yeah. Like he seems really mature. Like, and then his tape and we're like, I, I would bet on this guy.

Yep.

But the reality is you're spending 15 to 20 minutes with somebody and you're overrating the reaction. But it's hard not to. It's human nature.

Right. And it's amazing what goes into this. And 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 on this human being. And then analytics department comes in and tells you all the things he 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 psychologists and all that. It's amazing to me that we get to this point in the process in the last month. Then the private jet gets— phew. And 4 or 5 of the people who are the most influential people go and they have dinner with, they meet with family, agent. They go and they throw some passes 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 it.

Now, all that information is used to kind of shrink the pool, right? Yeah. So it's down to 4 or 5.

They're just grabbing tidbits every place they can.

But that 24-hour interaction, maybe over 2, whether it's coming to our facility, we go out to you and your college town. 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, like, you cannot do it right out of the game.

Tell them about JaMarcus Russell and all the, the, the SID at LSU telling about Well, are you talking about your own coach or the coach from the school?

Oh, the coach from the school. I meant, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Unless it's negative or like you said, a track record, right? The interesting one is your own coach and oh yeah, yeah, that dynamic.

But, but I, I wouldn't trust my own coach that much at all.

Well, you gotta make sure it fits the scheme or else you're giving them something.

I know, but NFL coaches last 3 to 4 years.

Exactly.

Barring like, exactly a miracle. I would be really interested in the parent interactions. 'Cause 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 Markelle Fultz, Jason Tatum, that when they had the number one pick. Yeah. And they brought Markelle Fultz to Boston to meet him for the weekend. And he, he was really shy. And, but they, he apparently he asked if, 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 was like 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. But that's the kind of thing that I'd be like, oh shit, this is Chick-fil-A in Philly then either. That's amazing. On the other hand, I love Chick-fil-A, so I can see it from his side too. Yeah.

I see it from both sides.

Yeah. But those, that was his big Boston questions. They're like, huh? Like, okay.

You're judging us now, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. How are you gonna fit here? That's good. All right. So Giants at 5 and 10 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 3? Anyone? You guys wanna have a drink? 3, 3 down? Anyone?

No, seriously. Anyone? Yeah. And I don't know if you can create your own analogy to it, but, but also I'm going to 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 that 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 wants Jeremiah Love at 3, and, and that's a whole nother factor, man.

These owners that come in like, that's the guy I want.

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 who are going to be available at 30, and their best case scenario is to be maybe as good as Jaylen 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 in Miami. I believe in John Eric Sullivan. I believe in Jeff Haffley. I think they're the right people to stabilize this thing, 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 like blank slate time.

And we hear BPA, best player available, all the time. They literally can just sit there like legs up. Yeah. Where's our board? Okay, there it is.

Yeah.

Call it in.

Who's number 3? 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 gotta nail these picks. But then Chiefs at 9 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 miss drafts.

Yep.

Doesn't it feel like— cost them Super Bowls.

They're going into that, that era of they're gonna go, they're gonna be very competitive for 7 or 8 years, but they're not going to win a Super Bowl. That's what it feels like to me with the Chiefs.

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 dynasty. Kelsey moving on. Chris Jones is still playing unbelievable though, but he's getting older.

They've been in that for 2 years.

I think you felt that last year. They were already there.

I felt it a year before, to be honest with you.

And I think Holmes. 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.

Yeah, 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 self-assessed.

That, yeah, in, in, you know, in so many ways, like, he, he's reinvigorated, like, he He, I think he recognized this. How many years it was in this?

I mean, he, I don't know, he's 3, 4 years left coaching.

Also, they really, and Belichick did this too, and we've seen teams do this, like really explored the capacity of how many iffy guys can we bring in, guys with baggage. What do you mean? When Belichick, sometimes these guys can have so much success and these teams can have so much success. They're like, ah, it's fine. It's, it's one misdemeanor.

Yeah.

You know, or it's like, no, no, he's mostly on time. Right.

Yep.

And I remember, who was the— Josh Gordon was a class of that.

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 at capacity.

Yep, I think they were.

What do you think they need at 9? Because the easy one would be like, take the best corner. It's right, it's in the vicinity of where you'd go.

I don't think they're gonna get a corner. I think they're gonna get a corner. They pick at 9 and 30, right?

Yeah.

Or 29. Uh, 29. Yeah, Miami's at 30 and then Patriots 31, obviously Seattle. 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 Reece Bailey leftover guy, can we get up there and grab him?

Conversations have been made. That doesn't— there are a lot of conversations. Been made, 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 9 to 3 costs a lot, and I don't think they're in the position.

Would you trade 9 and 40 for 3 in this draft? Because I would rather just stay at 9 and take 40, right?

You're gonna get a pretty good player for it.

Yeah, so you could get a Ruben Baynes, get a Ruben Baynes. So there's that edge rusher they need. They need a wide receiver they can count on, 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 lineman. And I don't know where you get that.

Which you could take at 9. Yeah.

But you can't take it at 29. You can't count on that being there at 29. Now maybe you, maybe you 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. At 9? No, at moving up to like the— Oh, gotcha. Low teens or high 20s if they feel like they have a chance to swoop in and get him.

If they love him, they could. Brett Veach is not afraid to pull the trigger.

Yeah.

But I just, the managing the element of we need an edge rusher, we need a wide receiver, we need a replacement for Kelsey.

They need a tackle.

And we need a tackle. And Andy really wants us to get a tackle.

Yeah.

And there's only 7 of them and that might not get to 29. So we need those 3 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 the tackle, right? That's where the Patriots got in that spot a couple of times.

I don't know if they decided that, but he's missed 19 games in the last 2 years. I just don't know how you're going into this. And the right tackle, Jaylen Morris, started, I think, 5 or 6 games at most in a season.

I floated this before. Chiefs fans murdered me.

I would have—

they were 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, right? Simmons is so talented as a left tackle. I would— I'm not going to make any insinuations. I would have whatever care team that was necessary. Whatever that would be, okay? To be like round the clock, let's make sure this guy has everything he needs because he is the personal protector of the most of the number one guy.

Like Ricky Williams at Texas. Do you remember that essay story that came out where he was dropping banana peels behind him and someone would pick them up and throw them out for him?

Just because that guy—

Ricky Williams, I always think about that stuff.

Because there's no salary cap on support. Yeah. That guy's your answer.

Coaches and support are the two things you could just spend whatever you want on.

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—

I think this isn't two years ago.

This is, this is, they, Mahomes coming off now, turns 30, pretty devastating injury. It's the only reason I'm mentioning this is they have the seventh best odds to win the Super Bowl right now. And that seems crazy to me. To me. They, like, think about all the things that would have to go right for them to be a Super Bowl team.

That's because, that's because there's a lot of people who would put money on it 'cause it's the Chiefs and—

Yeah, I get it. But I'm saying, but it's instructive 'cause 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, yeah.

I'd be really surprised. I mean, they're gonna have an easier schedule.

The unknown obviously is how, when Mahomes comes back, is it—

Yeah, what's he gonna be like?

What's he gonna be like?

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 was a famous Belichick clip of like, follow through, man, like, follow through.

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 like one thing, really, you know, truly, that's the one thing. And then so you get out there and protecting that one thing. So it takes a minute to get over it.

What was always the knock on the Patriots run was the AFC East was just garbage every year. And the, the AFC West with Nicks being hurt—

it's— never agreed with that.

You know, I know, I hear you, but if you're going off the argument, the Chargers, I think, are gonna be— I think the Chargers are coming, man. I think they are coming on, and you're gonna 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 But why can't you— right in there, why do we talk about San Francisco's injuries?

I swear to you, I've been, 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. Yeah, some organizations, they don't have an electromagnetic button next to them.

Yeah, 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. So I, I hope I hope so. It would be great to see. But they're frightening if they stay healthy. Frightening.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. They, what are their odds? Yeah. So they have the 5th best odds. That makes sense to me. 15 to 1.

Yes.

Better, slightly better odds than the Pats. The Giants being 70 to 1 is pretty crazy. 'Cause that seems, I just think those, I think that'll be 30 to 1 by the time the season starts.

Yeah.

They're gonna 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 like really diving into these rosters.

Yeah.

I mean, 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 Caserio has built in Houston.

Hmm.

The quarterback element of it and what is really going on there, and there's been speculation and rumors and all, like, and you drafted him that high and he was that good as a rookie, you know what I mean? If, if they get him right, and I don't even mean right, like playing his, but like three-quarters of what he was playing as a rookie.

Yeah.

Um, 20 to 1 for them.

They're friendly.

Yeah. But, but that's the biggest if in sports.

Yeah.

Like their roster's like 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, you know, or the third, the fourth. And but for them, like, they—

there's—

yes, their offensive line, let's continue to build that. But they don't have a lot of— like, they're loaded with deep wide receiver and running backs coming back this year. Their defenses—

the Rams are up there too, man.

I mean, no, I said the Rams and Seattle have what?

Yeah. But 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. I don't know. It's been one of those kicked under the rug.

Yeah.

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 or is it going to get better? And they're one of the teams that's just like, we're probably taking a receiver, probably taking a receiver, like so, 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. There's like, I bore you out with this, like attraction is different, right? Like, you know, like one, one person you'd be attracted to, everyone's beautiful and all that.

Um, for the blondes or brunettes or. Yeah.

For the Rams. They, 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 ram, you know, and keep it rolling and block for our, for our run game. And so I can get that in the second round. There's Dijon Stribling from Ole Miss, there's Jeremy Bernard from, from, uh, from Alabama. There's even the third round. So I, I think Les Snead is the biggest wild card in this first round of the draft.

But they seem like a downsy kind of team to me.

I—

so here's like moving up like a couple spots and just swooping in and getting them.

They have guys there.

I don't know if it's, you know, like they have Players.

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 that 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, 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. 6, Cleveland.

Yeah, I mean, can we stop? Or can we, 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.

Yeah.

Or for most of the guys in the draft.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, so you're saying Rams switching, going—

yeah, something like that would be, would be something to look out for.

Like a little, like Todd Gurley 2.0 action for that.

But then what if it's a total pivot and it's like, here beyond Stafford. And let's— we're doing a deal now with Matthew, and we're going to keep him happy, but, 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, next.

Holy mackerel. Wouldn't you at least trade back to do that?

He's going higher than you think.

That was one of my, uh, 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's 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 liked Ty Simpson. I like— that's firm.

His Fanduel draft position is 29.5 under.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because even if you're the Cardinals, you are, you're worried that there's another team or I don't know.

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 had—

Jets are 16?

No, no. At 33 could take him.

I think he's not getting out of the first round. Like, I just don't see it.

We're saying the same thing.

Yes. Well, plus you get the extra year. That's the secret sauce to all this. You get the fifth year if you take them in the first round.

Yep.

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—

he's like, he's smoking this.

How many times are we gonna put— I don't even understand why, like, Shefter and those, like 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 know, you should tell the organization this stuff.

Like, 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 through the second day of the draft.

Him and Jerry Jones are the two that, like, how, how can I get attention, right?

This is gonna be going on in late March, but the draft being in Pittsburgh.

Late. Yeah.

Late, late.

No question.

Yeah. It'll be going on in June in Pittsburgh.

He can go out in front of all the fans. He has this—

he wants us all to be like, is Aaron here? Is, you know? Yeah.

I, I mean, I, I'm here for that.

Kind of the sad thing about that is nobody's doing that. Yeah. It worked the first few.

So 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. We did it.

Right.

You know, like it's not the response that he thinks it's gonna be.

Also, I, 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 reason.

It's like we left last season being like, yeah, Aaron Rodgers probably not winning more than, uh, one playoff round at most with Aaron Rodgers as your QB at age 42.

And it's like 4 months off and everyone was like, I remember.

Could they get him?

Yeah. Yeah. I remember.

They're 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 FanDuel. FanDuel 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, is being overlooked. They were like +9, something like that. I think that's a 50-50 series potentially. I also like Denver and Minnesota. I think Minnesota's a really good road team, but you could also get 'em in Minnesota. Those would be the two I would look, I would look at. I'm gonna have at least one more set of picks over the weekend. I'm gonna put on Twitter, check out my picks in the FanDuel Sportsbook app and on my Twitter feed. Don't forget, to boost your potential winnings before you place it. FanDuel, play your game. So we think, so Rams are off the board. We have no idea what they're gonna 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. NFL, it's like, well, they can't trade him until June 1st 'cause then they can split his cap. So it would have to happen after June 1st. It's gonna 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 gonna do this. Like, I'm just, glass half empty on this AJ Brown thing.

Is this Patriots fan speaking or just in—

Is this Patriots fan speaking?

Okay. Yeah.

Is this trauma from when the Red Sox didn't get Aaron?

Trauma from when we didn't get everybody. Alex Bregman, 4 months ago. He was coming for $150 million, then he wasn't. Yeah. I just don't— when you get agents involved 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 in Brookline or something. That's right.

Or, I mean, he did grow up a Patriots fan.

Yeah, there you go.

Yeah, but it's—

no, I, I understand Tennessee tie. It's almost too good.

What if, what if he's in Vegas and Jalen Hurts is there too, and they're like, let's, let's have dinner, let's hang out? 2 hours later, it's like, hey, we're good, AJ wants to stay, right?

So the only problem there is how he's like, well, I just traded for Wicks and brought in this other guy. Yeah, we're gonna draft someone.

And yeah, so they're picking 23.

Yeah, the Eagles, but they're not going to pick 23. That's Howie Roseman. Howie'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 gonna have, um, Francis Maunuenoa from Miami and Spencer Fahono 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 Iwane from Penn State. But then 17's Detroit, and everyone knows that they've put in more work than every other organization on these offensive tackles. So the Jets are at 16, Tampa's at 15. They're already getting phone calls.

Yeah.

From organizations like the Steelers, the Eagles, the Texans, the, who are the other, the Texans, the 49ers.

Bears.

The Bears are possibility. So all those teams, you got this murderer's row of teams that need offensive tackles from 17 to 30. I mean, Miami, if they don't get a tackle at 12, they could use one. So, 31.

I can't say the Patriots don't need a tackle.

No, 31, sorry, 31. Yeah, absolutely, 31. So 17 to 31. There's about 8 teams that need an offensive tackle and there's at that point only 5 remaining.

Yeah.

So there's gonna be movement there.

That's why 7.5 over. Yeah. Do you want to hear the Patriots excuses I've talked myself into? Oh, here we go. Ever since Super Bowl?

Yeah.

Why they lost?

Yeah. Okay. Drake was hurt.

Mm-hmm.

Just that. That's a fact. I just, I don't know if that's true or not.

That's a fact.

But well, we think it's true.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay.

I did see him throwing the mini footballs at the basketball game a couple weeks ago.

I don't know if you saw that.

You were good.

Studied that.

I did see that actually.

Yeah.

Thought he was snapping 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. And 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 the him and Elliott Wolfe? Oh no. We, we had, uh, we had Elliott Wolfe in. We did the GM series.

Yeah.

And, um, and we had Elliott Wolfe in. I, I had, I had met him before, but I didn't know him well. And Mench 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 ask a couple questions. I'm talking about like, you know, Elliott, 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, I'm kind of getting them warmed right? The fluffer. The fluffer.

Yeah, a lot of fluffing.

Question 3 goes from Mitch. I could kind of feel him like— he's like, Will Campbell.

Yeah, I thought it was early. Oh, you did tell me this.

Will Campbell. I, you know, I saw the short arms on tape. We saw it in the playoffs. And I'm like, oh my—

he's going for it.

I was like, you guys moving the guard?

I didn't say it that way, but I was like, everyone wants to move the guard. He would be a great guard.

He was He looked back, he goes, he is absolutely our left tackle. Yeah, he was great about it. He was great.

But I felt like I had to ask. I mean, I've been ripping Campbell all—

like, now he's gonna be on our show and I'm not gonna 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 Maye's bodyguard.

I'm gonna die for him. Yeah.

And I really wonder mentally how he field 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 4.

Yeah, 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.

Yes. 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 wilted. Yeah, that had that. Well, that, yeah, that had the bad moment and they were kind I can't remember an offensive tackle having that kind of moment, that kind of— plus now Reuben Bain is the new short arm guy. Yeah, yeah, right. He passed his torch.

He's like, here, Reuben, everyone can talk about your arm style.

There's an offensive tackle from Utah who I love, and he's got shorter arms than Will Campbell, and everyone's like, what's the deal, dude? How can you— how can you like one over the other?

But 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 5 minutes left.

For sure.

We don't have to go to the Super Bowl and get this huge ass kicking. No one wins in Denver. It turns out right, it turns out right after the game Drake Maye was actually hurt the whole time.

Yep.

And we're just like, great. Okay, great season. Let's move on.

Yeah. We're 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. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The AJ Brown thing, 2022 and '23, his first 2 years when he got traded from Tennessee to Philly, 303 targets in those 2 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. It seems good. I had 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. I, there was a lot going on, so I'm hope I would be, if I were just going to work, like, this sucks. Skeen broke his foot.

Yeah.

And with all the reports, I, I think it was just a drain. And, 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 just, it, it, he hit a point.

Is there a receiver that doesn't wear their emotions on their sleeve?

Very few.

Like, Fitz was one.

That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That should be part of his Hall of Fame case.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, never wore his emotions on his sleeve.

First ballot. Unlike any other receiver.

Actually literally didn't wear sleeves. He was sleeveless the whole time.

Um, I, 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, that the Pats had man-to-man defense the highest number of any team in the league.

Yeah.

Because you could feel it watching the game because every defense was like, eh, yeah, we, 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 advanced 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 plays. And did you hear— did you read this?

Yeah, yeah.

So he was changing all the play. If you're an offense 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 play for Josh McDaniels, who's gonna like That's what he does.

Yes.

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 'cause of possessions. Yeah. 'Cause of the math of this. I don't think the Pats think that way at all.

Mm-hmm.

So they, they would be more like, oh, we'll put pressure on you and we have AJ out there and you're gonna have to be constantly worried and yeah, we'll keep your defense on the field and our quarterback can run.

Run if you turn, you know.

So hopefully he can run and throw on like the last 2 games of the season. Yes, I assume he'll be able to roll out and throw again. The scars— I don't know about Will Campbell. When we weren't calling the Drake May rolls out and whips a— yeah, whips a line drive play, I was like, he's fucking hurt. Like, you can't tell me he's not hurt at this point.

It wasn't even—

yeah, the arc and the velocity were just different.

When are the Patriots taking a tight end?

They're gonna need a tight end, right? I feel like people are always talking—

28 of them invited to the combine.

They're talking about tight end enough.

It'll be some third round guy.

Yeah, or maybe fourth.

They signed a blocking tight end they were all excited about.

Yeah, Julian.

Yeah, Julian somebody. Yeah, Julian Bell. Um, okay, last thing. Well, second to last thing. So Zona and Cleveland are the trade-down teams.

Yep.

And you think Saints, Cowboys have 12-20 and like getting attention. Jets at 16, Rams at 13. Are there any other trade-up teams?

I'm trying to sit here. I don't— 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—

Now 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 there.

So a little like quick moves back and forth.

But not in 4 or 5.

Yeah, 4 or 5 spots.

I was trying to figure out, like, somebody is on the board at 9 that Jerry gets all excited about because he's 98 years old. Like, Jeremiah Love falls to 9, some credit, or, or some, or down, somebody down.

We can't anticipate, right?

You know, and could there be a— they have 12 and 20.

Yes.

And the Chiefs have 9 and 40. Could there be like a, you take our 12 and 20, we'll take back 9th, 40th, 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 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 it. That would be Reuben 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 3 rounds dating back to 2014. And one time they have moved up, and that was DeMarcus Lawrence in 2014. Since then, nothing.

So it's a lot of chatter about moving up.

Oh, Jerry's gonna go crazy.

Well, it worked on me because I always wanted to trade up. 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, uh, but that's not getting up to 3. That's moving up a handful of spots to, 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, I said it's a fireable offense.

Now, kind of walked it back, by the way.

I haven't—

I like fireable offense. Is one of my favorite phrases and would be a good blog name. But yes, yeah, it would be even a good band. Yeah, going to see fireable offense today.

Yeah, so a fireable offense is trading a first-round pick from next year. That class is going to 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, not a lot of the other players. I got a mock draft coming out on— yeah, way too early mock draft for next week.

I love those.

Taking the show on Monday.

I mean, it's—

you're the problem.

But you know what would be, you know, it'd be a good podcast is, is reviewing the way too early mock drafts. Oh, they do it in like February. No, you guys doing it?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah.

Yeah, we should do that.

That's, that's a great couple quarterbacks way up there. Yeah, that's the thing with the draft, it's so volatile. Thanks, Bill. No, you're right. You're guessing with 20-year-old kids. Yeah, 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, a couple 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.

Nussmeyer?

He loves Nussmeyer. I like Nussmeyer. Yeah, I think there's a shot.

No.

You give me Nussmeyer in the third round, the right system.

Doesn't have a ton of starts. He gets hurt. He's small. I don't see it.

I didn't see it either.

Good.

All right. Wildcard. Crazy. I'm looking at the Fanduel odds. Is it Bailey or Reece? There's no chance anyone else goes too.

Correct.

What if it's a trade?

They didn't think there was gonna be a trade last year.

Everyone else's odds are 125 to 1 and up. Yeah. So it's really, everybody's decided these are the two.

Yeah. It's definitely, yeah.

Number 3, Reece is the favorite at +130. Bailey's +260. Love is +330.

Say them again.

Reece, +130. Bailey, +260. Love, +330. Which I thought was fairly enticing.

Bailey's assumed to go the second overall pick, so that makes Reece the favorite. The problem with the Arizona pick is that there's a legitimate chance that a team moves up to 3 and Arizona takes a below-market pick.

But if they move up to 3, who are they taking? It would be Reece. Yeah.

Yeah. All right.

4.

What's Sonny Stiles' name? Number for 4. For 4? Yeah.

Well, Love is +150 and the favorite. Bailey's +410 and Stiles is +490.

That's interesting. I think Stiles could be, I'm not saying he will. What I've been told for Tennessee is it's, if one of those edge rushers does get there, if let's say Arizona takes Jeremiah Love at 3, they would take Reese, let's say. If not Sonny Stiles, Robert Saleh views it differently than most. That middle linebacker is like, that's the equivalent of getting an edge for him. Like, yeah, that's the, you know, Fred Warner, that's their— 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 do 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.

He's money down the stretch. He's good. Yeah, he was like winning.

And then AJ Spears, but Spears can't stay healthy.

Yeah, 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 got to 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 try to bait up a team to come get Jeremiah Love. And the Giants putting out the, all of a sudden in the last 72 hours, it's tough to manage all this, man. 'Cause 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 and what they're hearing, what their 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, we're kind of, and we're doing the, like, you know, the tap dance.

Yeah.

Um, and then you get off the phone, you get on the next phone 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—

now the board's set, the decisions are basically made. So, but all of a sudden the Giants, it's like, oh, if love is there, they'll take him. But wouldn't— if love's there, isn't that like, come, come move up, come move up and get it. What they don't know is maybe that might drive the market up for Tennessee to get a good deal to move out of 4. Now Styles is probably gonna go 7, so where would that be too? But, but yeah, I would just—

I was gonna say I wouldn't mind moving back a couple spots and picking up something. Cool. 'Cause I just need people.

Yeah.

Fifth pick, the odds. Styles is the favorite at +185. Tyson's +280.

I'm, I'm told it's not Styles.

Yeah. Take the field on that one.

Love +380. Caleb Downs +550.

What about Tyson?

Tyson was +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 5 would be kind of insane. I think that seems too high.

Because of the injuries?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because of the injuries. I want my wide receivers to be in the field. Yeah. Yeah.

It, it becomes this balancing act of, all right, now we've fallen in love. And, but where should, where do we really truly think we should be able, we should be able to take them versus where can we take them?

Why did the Giants need another stud receiver, by the way?

Well, Malik Nabers, they don't even know. They're worried about when he's coming back to full strength. Oh, 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 5 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. Carnell Tate? Like, yeah, he's gonna be awesome, but it's— yeah, 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 gonna be—

so, JSN leaves me a little cold. Okay, physical and traffic wins every ball guy. This guy just goes either way. Yeah, like, he just— I, you know, this was like the— the DeAndre Hopkins was a great example of this.

Yep.

The Patriots have had guys like this.

Mm-hmm.

Um, other times the guy just can't get open.

Yeah. Who's the— it depends on the scheme.

Kelvin Benjamin for the Panthers. Wasn't he a big guy?

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He was— so Denzel Boston is the version of that this year. I like him. Um, we know the inside outside guy that everyone calls Twitchy.

Yeah.

That's Casey, Casey Concepcion.

Yep.

Twitchy's a good one. So the Pats had Kyle Williams last year. He was Twitchy.

Yeah.

He was like, Twitchy.

Yeah.

He'll beat you up and he—

yeah.

And then, uh, slot stud, which is my personal favorite. That's Lemon. But yeah, I like when it's just like, you know what, this guy is— he's an awesome fucking slot guy and he's just gonna get open and he can block. That sounds great. Yeah, I'll take that guy.

Well, then you take—

how early?

The second round.

Because that's the second round. Yeah, there you go.

Right.

Yeah, yeah. So you'd love Jeremy Bernard, you'd love, uh, Dajon Stribling, uh, Omar Cooper Jr. At one point we thought was going to be second, but probably— but it's going to be first. Um, those, those are those guys.

And then there's the other there's the 6 type, which is the guy, what's his name? Brazil Jr. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It's one of those like Chris Brawls would be in that. Fall in love and, or you're getting fired. One of those picks.

Yeah.

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.

Yeah. You're like, whoa.

And then the, the Trey Lance's brother's another one like that. Tall, 4'3", all of it. Yeah.

The one guy I would never take is just the, this dude's super fast and we'll figure out the rest. Yeah.

Xavier Worthy.

The Pats took that guy 20 times. Yeah, yeah.

Well, the Raiders used to take him every year. Then there's the Bengals, John Ross.

Yep, that was a good one.

Was it Devin— what was the name of the— 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 the Jets had that one time? They took him in the top 4. Oh shoot, remember him? It was Johnny Lamb Jones.

Okay, yeah, that's a great call. That's great.

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 4.2, cool.

Historically, they don't do— yeah, they just don't do well.

The fastest guy at the combine is like, is like one— it's like 10% chance of you hitting on where they actually get drafted.

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 Jermy Bernard, right?

It could be.

The Alabama guy who wasn't even the best receiver by everyone's measure at Alabama.

Yeah.

Um, you had Ryan Williams who just disappeared.

Could you get him in the second round?

Yeah.

Jermy Bernard?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't, I, I just don't get it. 'Cause all I hear about, it's, 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, that range. And like Jeremy Bernard, all he does is make plays on tape, man. Like all he does is make plays.

Yeah.

He's best player on that team last year. I mean, and people are like, eh, I don't know. I don't know.

He's not dynamic. Yeah, he wasn't dynamic. He isn't. But if you fit him right in the right system, he's got a chance to be, you know, an 80-catch-a-year guy.

If I was the wide receiver draft specialist, I would just want guys that got 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?

Sounds so easy.

It sounds so easy. So overcomplicated. Those guys about like, he's amazing in traffic. It's like, cool, no thanks. Yeah.

Antonio Williams is one from Clemson. He just, he gets open. Yep. 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 load of the ground.

I love those guys.

He dances too much. Like, yeah, he danced behind a Washington offensive line that wasn't great. And like, I get, you know, he just, he, His twitch and his build and his contact balance, like, I think he's gonna be a really good pro.

Second round?

Fourth. Yeah.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Yeah.

And who's your, who's your Tyler Shook this year?

I mean, Cole Pate.

McShay fucking nailed that last year. Oh yeah, you talked, 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.

Man.

Are you in on this? No, not at all.

Good. And he looks like T.

McShay will sit there all year long. And tell you about how important snaps are. We're getting like, yeah, texts from everyone.

This is why I would hire him.

Busting his balls all year long about like, how many snaps? Then we say, how many snaps? And then we get into the process, and Garrett Nussmeier is the greatest, even though he doesn't have that many snaps. And he pulls this guy out from the FC— the watered-down FCS. Yeah, where all the guys have left for better teams. And, and Bryce Lance, who's the best athlete on the field, is running around like it's backyard football. And this lefty Who's playing running back 2 years ago is all of a sudden gonna be the next, the next great quarterback. He called him better than, um, Carson Wentz, right? You said he was a better prospect than Carson Wentz.

I think, I think, yeah, I think he has better traits.

Sometimes you can just get a lot of confidence after you hit one of these. Yeah. Like this might be your heat check moment.

I'm rolling.

Post-Shuck.

I'm rolling. You're just trying to make the magic happen again. Yep. Dart and Shuck last year.

Give me Taylen Green.

I love Shuck.

Yeah.

I don't know how many years he's gonna play cuz he takes huge hits. He doesn't care.

And he doesn't—

darts the same way.

The history's not good either.

But Sheck gets up every time.

Oh, he's—

or at least he did last season. But I liked him.

He's a tough, he's a tough— I just, I don't, yeah.

All right, so your plan this week.

Yes.

We are gonna be doing shows all week. We're gonna be live on Netflix.

Yep.

During the first round Thursday night. And then—

oh, I wanted to run this by you.

Yeah.

Oh, here we go. It's not, not my idea. Actually came from Rich Eisen. I'm just gonna be honest. The, instead of the chime from ESPN, The ta-dum.

Yeah.

When a player's picked.

Oh dude, the Netflix noise. Yes. That's a good idea. Right? Yeah.

You like it?

I don't know. We'd have to find out from the guys. I'm 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. Yeah.

And 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.

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 gotta hold on to your seat at all times.

Right.

Like, yeah.

This should be good.

I wasn't sure where we were going.

Yeah, that's fair.

No, the next one's 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 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 the hair.

Don't forget to do the redo of last year's mock draft. I think that's a good idea.

Hey, Dan Kober, you got that?

In the lead up, right?

Not, 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. 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 too.

Yeah.

Thanks.

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. 3 titles, '81, '84, '86. The best forward combo I think we've ever had. Complimented 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. 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.

Ghostbusters.

Mm-hmm.

And then you left to go see Michael Jackson, which is a movie that ends in 1989.

With Bad.

Yeah.

With Bad. With a live performance of Bad 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?

The performance of Ja'Far 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's son. So Jermaine's son, Jermaine Jackson's son plays Michael Jackson, which in some ways, probably some, like, weird cosmic justice for Jermaine Jackson. You know, there wasn't always a—

Did he need justice?

What?

No, he didn't. But what I'm saying is that they, at times, Jermaine and Michael didn't have, like, the best relationship or whatever. But, you know, they're brothers, so that's what happens in family. Um, 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. Well, okay, so why?

So, I have to— I have to— You guys know me. I always start in love. Colman Domingo, great. Nia Long, great. Ja'Far Jackson, great. It's not a serious movie. 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 of 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 it would be pretty hard-hitting. You know, maybe the person would have regretted participating at all. And then eventually that shifted to the autobiography. And almost every time when somebody does the autobiography, it's like, "All right, I'm gonna 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 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 wanna make sure people understand I am not complaining about this movie or down on the film because the movie didn't go into more, some of the more controversial aspects of Michael Jackson's life.

Controversial.

Yeah.

Soi.

Hey, that's the word we're gonna use.

Okay.

Got it.

The sexual assault allegations against Michael Jackson.

Oh, we can say that as well.

Let's say that.

Great.

I'm not, I'm not tripping cuz the movie didn't get into that. It, because, uh, I didn't expect it to. It's 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—

Maybe 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 it. Every, every time there's a kid, Michael stops for the kid every time. And 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 gotta gimme something, right? You gotta gimme, you gotta gimme 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. Let's, all right. So if the estate's like, here's all the stuff that's off limits, but you could 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. Um, on top of the fact that the hair thing seemed like it was really damaging to him. Mm-hmm. Like, he got burned. He felt like he was disfigured. Led to a lot of the stuff that his, his skin changing, all, 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've centered it there versus— Stopping in 1989 is insane, Bill. Like, why was that the stopping point?

I think you know why. I mean, if you—

But why not 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 Bad.

Oh, stop before Bad. Like, they get to him 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 stopped with him doing the Bad World Tour. Here's the frustrating thing. Everything that you just talked about, that's all in the movie.

Hmm.

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 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's just on the screen.

Yeah.

Okay? There's nothing— So it's just like, "Hey, 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.

Okay. That movie treats Michael Jackson as a real fragile wandering mind of genius in a real serious way.

Mm-hmm.

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 with 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—

Miles Teller in this movie.

But bro, as the fucking lawyer, I'm sitting next to Jomey, I'm like, we are 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, ah, look, producer John Branco or whatever his name is, whatever. So like, I don't mean to trash it because it, There are— I think that people are gonna enjoy it 'cause you're gonna take a trip down memory lane, but it's just— it was just like glossy bullshit.

Right. Well, and Antoine Fuqua was the director.

Yeah.

So when he— he probably signed up for something that he felt like was gonna 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 gonna hear this and they're gonna be like, how could Van be this upset about it? Because 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 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 gotta give you. Now, earlier on, I think the exciting thing about like those movies was that they did not do that. They played around with genre. They, they took chances, they did other stuff, but it got to the point to where they knew they had us. And so we were gonna 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 at that, this type of impact, you wanna come away feeling like, you know, what made that guy tick.

Well, so what would be the perfect IP that you would wanna sign up for, for Michael Jackson? 'Cause 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.

They're two different movies. One movie would be this same movie, but just about the making of Thriller.

Hmm. So you confine it to like '82 to '85. That's it.

Just about the making of Thriller.

By the way, that's what they should have done.

Right? Like when I say just—

'Cause 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 5 journey. It is one of the most famous journeys that's ever existed in, in, in superstardom. 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, 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 that it does.

They tried 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 they then 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, eh, you know what would've 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 what he was going through, the pressure he was under. You see how—

Well, child star.

That piece of art.

He's in the '70s cocaine era. He's at Studio 54.

All of that stuff.

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 Jackson came to control the Beatles catalog.

Right.

Like, not just, "Hi, I'm cool with Paul McCartney." Paul has the idea. Michael is shrewd enough to go 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 to, like, have to perform in Australia.

Right?

Yeah.

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 wanna say.

You like that?

I just don't know what happened with that. That was one of those nobody knew what was 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 hadn't lasted.

What lasted?

Like, what are you 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 Beatles, 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 6 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 reexamination of all the stuff he did. Because what really happens is the new generations who don't— like my son, when my son was like 5, he didn't know backstory of Michael Jackson. He just knew he liked the songs. 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 SoFi a couple weeks ago about people being able to separate the art from other stuff that may have happened.

Mm-hmm.

And how you can compart— 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 dialog about whether that's something we should— should we be that way? —what the heart wants.

We don't 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 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 Billie Jean and your legs just start moving. 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 of that.

Nobody wants to do that when they're on Spotify on a walk at 2 in the afternoon or working out and they're just like, fuck it, I'm gonna play my Michael mix. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's true.

And so the reality of all of this, and by the way, I just wanna say this real quick and this is, you know, people can feel how the way, the way I want about this. I worked at TMZ for a very long time, right? Yeah. Worked at TMZ for a long time. So the people that I know that have looked into Michael Jackson's various cases, 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 have to be real, it's a 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 TMZ 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. Like all of this stuff. And so there is, there is this thing with him and 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 at—

That's how I feel about Mac Fraybo. Look, man, the guy just wanted some rest.

The other 6 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 Jaafar Jackson, look, once again, in the performance and in the dancing, it's great. But if you do a biopic about Michael Jackson, the best parts can't be like making Thriller or performing on stage. 'Cause 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 someone doing a Michael Jackson, essentially an impression. And that movie, this movie just doesn't have that.

Well, apparently there's an incredible Elvis documentary right now that somebody spent a lot of time on. Baz Luhrmann, I think. Okay. 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've 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's gonna hit that point. I would argue with, like, in the Spotify era where people are just downloading music, might not hit that point for, like, 40 more years. Yeah. Where people are just like, there might be some 5-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, 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—

'Cause it's the same thing for like, Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth, 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 what 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 it's— For years. But that's how we thought. Yeah. Then the biggest star came into the room. It's just different. You don't have to sell me.

I was there. Michael's the biggest, he's the most talented, biggest star I've ever seen in my life.

Right. And I—

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 'cause it's like his life was like, it had like 3 or 4 sequels, right? Until he, until he passed on.

But I— And a lot of analysis too, like just long conversations with friends in high school about what does Mama say, Mama sa, Mama poo sa mean?

My mom was like, "Yeah, you like that?" Whatever that, whatever that, what, what did that mean? To, to me, to me, to me, that genius, like, not just deserves, but it requires special examination.

But Ezra did that with Prince and we're never gonna see that either.

Right. But look, once again, I, I think that we're, we're out of the era of biopics. If we think what are the best biopics? Ray was a great biopic, right?

I actually, I kind of like the Queen one. I watched it again. Okay. And I, 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 like, when I think about movies like Malcolm X, like X with Spike Lee, obviously different. Yeah. 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.

Like, like these movies are about people who have genius.

But usually they, 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 it are, like marry the wrong person, fall in love the wrong way, or like whatever. Something that humanizes— Tina Turner one was good too. Right. That one was phenomenal. Yeah. That is probably— That might be the best one. 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 seems not a great guy.

But even in this movie, it's made by his family. And you can tell, you can feel 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 it.

But even in this version, like, okay, you think Miles Teller 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.

If you, 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 5 straight weeks.

I'm probably gonna see it again. Yeah. I'm probably gonna see it again just because like—

I can't wait till the 7th time you see it when you talk yourself into it.

I'm probably gonna see it again. Do you know why? 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. I missed Michael Jackson.

You missed the genius. I missed him.

Like, I, I, like, I, I had missed him. I had—

this was the secret of The Last Dance with Michael Jordan. It's like, you know what, I, I really missed this guy. Yep. Like, 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 'cause I think, 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 where so many people love Kobe that if they did that correctly, it would be the same thing. You're like, you know, I'm gonna watch that a 5th 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, I'm, I, that, that's super cool.

Hulk Hogan, another one. Hulk Hogan.

Like I used to, I used to, I used to rip the shirt being a Hulk. Yeah. This is, and you were a Hulkamaniac. I was a Hulkamaniac.

Everyone was a Hulkamaniac.

You didn't know that Hulk Hogan wouldn't have liked you. Nah, 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've said it, or he would've liked me until I tried to take his daughter out.

And then he would've flipped.

And then he would've 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. Yeah. Devil Wears Prada. I miss my friends. I'm gonna hang out with them again. And The Michael Jackson Experience, same thing. I'm definitely gonna see it. I won't see it in the theater. But I'm gonna, when it's out on rental, I'm gonna rent it.

Nah, you should go see it in the theater.

You think?

Yeah, go see it in the theater. I like it. It, it, 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. They've been, yeah. People are furious. Yeah. Because they really hated it.

They, they, 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 will 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—

So what's your Roger Ebert? 4 stars? How many did you go? 1.5. 1.5? Okay. 1.5. All right, Van Lathan, good to see you. Peace. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to McShay and Menchie. Thanks to Van. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. I'm gonna be back on this podcast on Thursday night after the NBA playoff games. We're gonna be recording. Uh, I think Rob Mahoney's gonna join me. Don't forget about Sean Fantasy's newsletter or Jordan Kahn's book or La Gata or the rewatchables Kindergarten Cop, which is up, or Ghostbusters, which is coming next Monday. And, uh, I will see you. On Thursday. Must be 21+ and present in select states for Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. Or 18+ and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.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.