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

The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where I put up a new rewatchables. We did... What did we do? Oh, Tin Cup. Yeah, it was me and Joe House and Craig Horlback. We taped it last month. We Dress Like Golf. My buddy Jacko was in town. We made him the executive producer, and he had a mic. He was chiming in. Great times all around. Really fun movie. It's aged nicely. Still can't believe the ending in the theater when it happened. It was just like, why did they end the movie this way? And now 30 years later, like it. Anyway, you can find that on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel or as a video podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, Prestige TV. I'm on there talking about Task every week with Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney as well. If you like that show, and you should, because if you're watching this podcast, you probably like television, and this is a very good television show. So You can find me on there. Coming up on this podcast, old friend Mina Kimes dropped by to talk a lot of different NFL subplots as we have finished two weeks of the NFL season.

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Org/chatnconnect. Paid endorsement. All right, I am recording this. It is mid-afternoon on the East Coast. Mina Kimes is on the West Coast. We got TV Mina today because she's doing TV later. We were texting last night. I was groggy watching two Monday night football games in a row. Raiders Chargers going on forever. Gino is just sailing passes all over the place, and we were texting, and I was like, We should do a pod. We haven't done a pod in a while. Good to see you. Hope all is well. Everything good?

Aside from Gino having A bit of a meltdown. It's brave for me to come on, by the way, after a Gino clunker. We had a support group meeting this morning. Steven Ruiz called it. Everybody was in attendance. We've all agreed to settle on the chargers defense as the elite defense.

I can't get there with that one. I just think Gino does that once a year, twice a year. You just know it's like a child melting down in an airplane. You just know it's going to happen at some point.

The weirdest part for me was the misses because the interceptions, there's an arm punt, and he's always going to attempt tight window throws. Sometimes he shouldn't. But the misses downfield, there were a few of them, were pretty uncharacteristic. I really do think the charge defense is elite, though. I was joking about the excuse, but are you not there yet with them?

No, I thought they showed what they needed to show yesterday. But I thought Gino left a bunch of stuff on the table, especially in the second half. He had Bowers. When they were driving, it seemed at least they were getting a backdoor cover. He had Bowers over the middle a couple of times. He was sailing balls high, throwing balls into triple coverage. You lived through this as a Seahawks fan. This is just what he does. I think maybe their destiny is just twice this year, they're going to beat a really good team. They're going to have a game like last week against the Pats, and then they're just going to have stinkers, and they're going to be all over the place.

A little bit of salty after watching the Pats get beat down by him. No, I think you're right. I also think what really jumped out is if Bauer's isn't 100% and he's clearly not, they just do not have the horses at wide receiver to compete as much as I love Jacobi Myers. And especially with a quarterback like Gino, who's going to give your receiver a chance in one-on-ones, it just felt like the receivers were not winning against, again, an exceptionally well-coached and talented Chargers secondary.

I'm going to whisper this because it's not a take. Genti seems small in that game yesterday. And I know that's part of the package. He's a little guy. We've seen a lot guys succeed. But that charger is a big physical defense. It was notable. I don't know. I'm not going to overreact to it yet. I am going to overreact to a couple of the topics that we have. I sent you some questions. I'm excited to hit some of these, especially the last one. But as the Queen of the Football Nerds, I think that's your official title. What is the nerdiest football nerd thing percolating right now that's bringing out your full football nerd two weeks in?

This isn't actually that nerdy per se, but a thing that I am obsessed with, and Dan Orlowski and I talked about this before the season, we did an offensive trends pod, is just the number of teams that are almost measuring in two tight-end offenses. Right now, just through the first two weeks of the season, offenses have used two tight-end as 12 personnel 25% of the time, which is the highest ever. That's a historic rate. Even five, six years ago, it was way less than that. I think there's a number of reasons for that, but it's the really good teams as well. Green Bay with Tucker Kraft. Obviously, the Ravens are a good example. Arizona has Trey McBride, Bowers when he's healthy. So there's really good tight ends now. But I also think it's a product of just how defense has gone over the last 10 years or so, getting lighter, playing more sub-packages. So this is part of offense is pushing back. And it's been fun to watch because I think these tight ends are really good, Really, really talented.

Do you think that's why... I haven't seen the numbers one way or the other, but do you think this is why scoring feels down a little bit, even though offense seems as competent as ever? Because we have more 12 stuff and longer drives versus the explosive stuff?

I don't know if scoring is down, but as far as the explosive thing, that's a multi-year trend for sure. I mentioned the chargers. I think they're a good microcosm for why that might be happening or why defenses have gotten so good at limiting explosives. I mean, through two games, chargers are allowing three air yards per attempt, which is... Granted, you have the Chiefs, but as you saw week one, the Raiders can vomit, and they just kept everything in front of them. They tackle so well. They communicate so well. And the best defenses, the chargers, the packers, the eagles, I think you saw them bounce back. They're just really good at keeping everything in front of them and tackling that way.

Yeah. Well, the other thing with the 12 personnel I've noticed, you mentioned a bunch of tight ends when you were listing the good ones, and we have a lot of good ones. And we also have a lot of good second-tier good tight ends. I like that guy in the Jaguar. It's strange. I think he's good. It feels like there's 12 of those guys.

And he can block, too. So that's the other thing about the 12 personnel. It really only works. So if you're going against these lighter body defenses and who don't have... They've gone in that direction over the last few years to stop stop high-powered passing attacks. This goes back to the pats and them changing football in that way. If you want to be able to take advantage of mismatches, you really do have to at least be a threat to run. So you have to have at least one tight end who can block so that when you're on the field, if defense has come out It's cool. We're going to use our big guys and just run the ball down your throats in nickel or dime, right? Strange as one of them was. He can block. You're already seeing that Kraft in Green Bay is another great example of that. Such a good blocker. He's like such a throwback tight end to I love him. You're seeing a few of those guys around the league right now. Good God, Tyler Warren. Have you been watching?

He looks unbelievable. I think if you're just redoing the draft or criticizing, the Hunter thing, I think, has a chance to be a real disaster just for what they gave up on him. I'm not saying where he went in the draft as much as all the assets they gave up. But Chicago not taking Tyler Warren. When people for most of the college football season, then leading up to the draft process were like, Tyler Warren, he's going to be fucking awesome. He's the best tight end. And then there was this weird late surge from Lovaland. And then the bears take Lovaland and he falls to the Colts at 14, which is like him falling to 14 and a Buka falling at 19 feels like a miracle now. But Warren's just like a beast. Jesus.

You're completely right. I think everybody overthought it. I also think he passes the, could a person who's never watched football put on a game and immediately say that's the best player on the field watching him in college because he just took over games and did everything. Obviously, there was wild catting, yards after the catch. He often was the entire offense. In retrospect, it does feel a little silly. He took over games against elite competition. Of course, he's awesome. But yeah, I think people... I'm not out on Loveling entirely. I don't think he's even top 10 in the reasons why that offense is struggling right now. But yeah, Tyler Warren just looks like a superstar to me.

I did a lot of work on him when I threw myself into the draft, casual college football fan Bill. But I'm thinking the pats might trade back like two, three spots. And then we're going to be in that Mason Graham, Tyler Warren thing. I was like, if we got this guy, this guy He's very gronkish. I would never compare anyone and just say that's the next gronk because there will never be another gronk. But there was some gronk vicinity stuff he was doing. So the cults had to be delighted. He's perfect with them.

He looks amazing. Are you feeling Feeling better about missing out on Hunter. You talked about Hunter and getting Will Campbell through two weeks of the season.

I wanted Carter. I think Carter was the prize.

Yeah, all right.

Yeah, I would have... I never heard the Hunter thing, I don't like things that I haven't seen before, just in anything, in any capacity in life. Technology, when there's some new car that came out or some new iPhone that they've created out of thin air. I'm like, I want to see it before I know it's going to...

It's a beast on football games.

You just kept saying Hunter, who did this in college, is now going to do this in the pros for 17 games a year against the biggest, strongest, best athletes we have in the world. I was just a little dubious.

The thing that really I feel like maybe was underplayed, too, during the offseason was most NFL players were dubious of it. There were all these quotes from actual players on both sides of the ball who were skeptical of it. It's way too early, obviously, to come up. But he has not been made the impact you would like to see from a guy drafted that high. You do wonder if the demands on him are too much at this point in his career. I think it's a completely It's a very legitimate question.

On our Ringer fantasy football show, the guys were joking that he's expensive, Wandale Robinson, and then decided it was actually an insult to Wandale Robinson because Wandale Robinson was really good this last week. Yeah, he cook. He was like, If Travis Hunter could Is he as good as Wanddale Robinson. I think the prototype for me, because when the pats were in this settlement in the mid 2000s, they were using him as this nickel dimeback and then as a receiver, and he was playing both sides. But there was less responsibility on the defense. I think that's where this would have to go, where you're basically just covering slack eyes or you're in playing a zone in one area on one side, and then you're just doing a receiver stuff.

It never made sense to me that somebody would just play a little bit of corner. I actually thought the reverse made more sense, right?

Just this full-time corner with a little receiver?

Yeah, you bring him in on maybe for big plays or in the red zone or on screens, if that's what you want to use him, the way you want to use him. But I thought it's so hard to play cornerback in the NFL. You have to study so many things, not just scheme, but individual players' tendencies. It's tricky. So yeah, it might look better much later on than it does earlier. And I think that's completely within the realm of possibility for Travis Hunter.

Well, after he probably looked at the king of the hospital balls, Trevor Lawrence, for a couple of months, he's probably like, I should play defense. Defense looks great. I don't have to go across the middle with some ball sailing over my head and two safeties targeting me.

One of your other questions hit on the divisive wallet you set it up. Lawrence isn't even divisive at this point, though, right? It feels like people are pretty critical of him.

He deserves all the criticism. Just play well and do well in the red zone. Just Just fix those two things. Don't sail a ball in your traffic and hurt your receivers and don't screw up in the red zone. I'm going to give you a part. I think I count as a partial nerd.

Yeah, of course.

I was doing a lot of DVOA stuff back in the day. I was having Aaron Shatz on the pod. I think this kickoff thing is nuts. I don't know how nerdy of a topic is this or just a football thing, but it feels like- The dynamic kick-off. If 52-year-old Belichick was coaching right now, not North Carolina, near the tail-end dating a 26-year-old Belichick, I think he would have spent so much time on this kick-off thing and felt like this was the greatest inefficiency to exploit. We're seeing kick-off returns all the time. We're seeing the way people actually kick the ball off with these angles and stuff. I just think he would have absolutely loved it. And I think it's had a dramatic difference. Somebody kicked the ball in the end zone last night in the first game, and it was like, the ball goes out to the 35. It's like, the 35? I know. Just kick it out of bounds and put it in the 40 at that point. But I was surprised how impactful it was. What about you?

It's completely impactful. You're getting way more returns, which is what they... It was interesting how much just that five-yard tweak affected the return rate Because last year, a lot of coaches were like, screw it, let's just kick it in the end zone. And this year, 35 is just too... It's just five yards, but there's such a difference, especially with these kickers who are banging it from 60 right now. You don't even have to go that to put up points on the board.

Dallas is in field work position with one first down.

That was crazy when they ran the draw to just set him up for 64 yards.

Oh, my God. I've never seen anything like that. The Javan Monte to the left for four yards.

Back to the kickoff, though. Are you pro or are you aligned with the President here? He seems very upset about the kickoff.

What did he call it? Sissy football?

Yeah, which is not actually... Dare I have an opinion on this. You're seeing more collisions and more actions. So it's not more... You can say it's weird, but it's certainly not more sissy.

Yeah, I wouldn't use that. That phrase. But I think they overdid it. And next year, they'll unwind it back. But I think it's too much of an advantage now. But I like the spirit of it. I thought it sucked watching kickoffs. It wasn't fun. It was like, oh, cool. The guy down in the end zone again. Now you don't want to miss it. You don't want to go to the bathroom if there's going to be a kickoff, especially with certain teams. But I think just taking it to the 35 is... At that point, here's the thing. This is where the Larry David rule of let's just get rid of field goal kickers would make this more interesting. If we had the kickoff row combined with no field goals for the first three quarters of the game or something, then it's like, okay, they started 35, but they still have to go 65 to score. Now I'm a little more Now the balance feels better, but they'll never do that.

I feel like in 10 years, not even 20, they're going to look back people who started watching for Dao or even recently, and they'll be in disbelief that it was ever done the other way, that it was just a touchback city. I actually like field goals. I think it gets maligned because it's not really football and it's soccer players and whatever and how many teams have been filled by being great teams, high-back kickers. But I think it adds a level of drama. It's one of the many things that has a level of drama to NFL games that is unmatched.

What if I gave you a limit? You could only kick four field goals in a game.

That would be so funny to watch the amount of mistakes that coaches would make in managing that.

Just trying to figure it out or setting up a field goal and not realize they already passed the limit for it. I was thinking about that with the Colts game. That would have been a fun rink. I was like, Well, they can't kick their fifth because they've already kicked four. They're going to have to go for this. That's more fun.

When would use up your field goals? I actually like that idea.

Bonus topic. I didn't send this one to you.

Oh, boy.

It just became a story today. I always judge it by if I'm getting text about something from random people in my life, then That must mean something's happening. Tom braided is this cheating that he's in the Fox booth. But then also you've done these games. I've done the basketball version of it where you get to meet the coach and talk about the players. It's a little overrated. It's not like they're like, Here's our game plan. It's more stuff like, We really like Tucker Kraft. He's been a pleasant surprise. It's not, Here's our game plan. But what do you think of Tom braided being able to do this?

I am a little I'm a little surprised by how upset people are about the competitive integrity side of it because of what you said. So obviously, pre-season gives it very different. But I was asked, I asked Dan last night, So have you ever really gotten something in a production meeting where you felt like, whoa, I can't believe they're telling us this. And no, you're right. It's pretty mundane stuff. So I don't feel like he's compromising, like he has an unfair advantage for his team. I think if anyone should be bothered by it, I suppose it would be the perception of bias in the boost, maybe from a media perspective. If you feel like... If anything, I think he's probably going to go out of his way to be nice to divisional opponents when he's calling games. That would be my guess. But yeah, I don't really see the edge. It's I think it bothers people not because of the substance of it, but because of the appearance of just like, oh, he's above the rules. Of course, Tom braided gets allowed to do it. I don't think the actual substance of it is that bad.

I agree with you. I remember I announced a Lakers game when Mike D. Antonio was the coach. It's not like he was telling us a lot, but what you do get is the vibe of the coach about his team because they feel more comfortable. You're coming to their space. He didn't His team wasn't good. He couldn't have been more candid about that off the record. So you just absorb that and be like, he doesn't think his team's very good. But then if they mention a player, I'm really excited about this guy. He's made big strides. You're like, okay, you file that away. And then when you're talking about the game, you're like, Mike... And that's how you hear that. When we talked to Mike before, he told us he really liked how so-and-so was playing, you're not getting... They might tell you one thing. Like, Collinsworth will be like, they told us they were going to try that before the game, right? Some double pass or something. Yeah, right. Other than that, they're not giving you a game strategy. Like, We think we can throw in the chargers over the middle. They're never telling an announcement that.

How often does they really like this guy from the summer pan out?

I feel like. Right. Well, with the pats with Boody, they were doing that all summer. Then they actually, they throw to him and he makes plays. So that wasn't a lie.

Yeah. They kept telling me, not they, anyone of the Patriots, but my friends who cover that team, kept saying he's the ex-receiver in this offense, and I was really skeptical of it. But through two weeks, he definitely looks like the ex-receiver. I thought he caught a back shoulder ball in this last game was really impressive.

Well, the thing with him was he was a first-round pick for a while, and then he had some off-the-field stuff, and it knocked him down. And a lot of times in football, those guys, somebody takes a flyer on them. You keep your fingers crossed. Then there's the Jalen Carter situation where they just follow a couple of pics. But for the For the most part, it's a Jack Jones thing where the guy starts just bouncing around, but they actually seem like they might have looked at with them. All right. We both agree, not a big deal, this Tom braided thing.

I get why people don't like it. I just am not that worked up about the competitive part of it.

How excited can I be for Jake May right now, two games in the season on a scale of 1-10?

Did we make it 20 minutes before you brought up?

We're going to give a break. I thought this would be a quick advertiser for the bigger topic we He looked really good this weekend.

The Miami Dolphins tax or I guess benefit, whatever the opposite of a tax is, is real. That defense is God awful.

Yeah, they can pass rush on third and eight. That's about it.

It's weird how bad the pass rush is because that was supposed to be the good part of the team. We knew that they had a horrible secondary, but the pass rush was supposed to be good. He made some really impressive throws in this game. The throw to Stevenson on third down, one of the best throws of his career. On the money. By the way, amazing catch, too. Steve is going to be pretty good. I was really encouraged watching the offense just as a whole, not just May, because I felt like week one against the Raiders, it didn't feel like they didn't quite have an identity. It was Josh McDaniels writing him, feeling each other out. It was, I thought, too much on May's shoulders. This one, it felt like, Okay, we're really building the play-action, passing a tack down. We've got the power running game that has been McDaniels and May was hitting almost everything off of it. I think that marriage is going to be key to whether or not this works out. I am lower on the pats than you. I think that pass defense is pretty concerning to me.

Well, we don't have all our guys yet, Nina.

Yeah, no Christian Gonzales is pretty massive.

Not only no, Christian Gonzales, no word on Christian Gonzales.

What's up with that? That one stuck up on me. The season started and it was like, Christian Gonzales isn't playing.

Is he in Massachusetts? Is he in America? Where is he? He got hurt in end of July. Yeah, but we've seen some cornerbacks go down this year. I mean, the bears are in a situation right now. It's still gone. All right, we're going to take a quick break and then have a big QB thing for you.

Love it.

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Why are we still holding on to this Mahomes thing when it's three long balls over people's heads and they're scoring 21 points a game now for this will be your three.

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

They have two guys to be waived.

Yeah, so there's your answer. It's Taekwan Thornton. I mean, it's just... Josh and Lamar are the two best scoring backs in football right now. I don't disagree with you. I'm just trying to answer your question. Those guys both have dominant rushing attacks and really good offensive lines, and they don't have world beaters, but they have good pass catching options. Mahomes is... Where would you rank his situation right now as a quarterback around the NFL? Everything. Run game, offensive line, skilled players.

I know, but braided was in this situation six years in his career in his prime.

There it is.

It's true. We had the famous Rasha Caldwell year. Rasha Caldwell, J'Bard Gaffney with Benjamin Watson as the tight end. We almost won the Super Bowl that year with that.

Caldwell is the one who had a weird crime, right? Am I miscelebrowing that?

Yeah, very possible. Well, his big crime was the AFC title game for Pats fans.

But it was bad last year, and he went to the goddamn Super Bowl. I know. That's why nobody wants to call it on Mahomes, because last year we were calling it, and he freaking beat the end.

I just think there's two different conversations. One is, who would you want for one game or one quarter? And then one is, who would you want for a season? And at this point, he's just... I don't even... I mean, it's Alan and Lamar for MVP. And Jordan love if they win 14 to 15 games. Herbert is like a dark horse now. But I don't see a scenario where Mahomes is going to be in that conversation with the team he has.

If they... Does any part of believe if Mahomes was on those other two teams, that those offenses wouldn't be dominant?

Well, so this is a great question because this is one of my MVP things that I do for NBA, where if you just flip the guys, what happens? If Allen was on the Chiefs, they would not be worse. I'll just say that. I think there's some stuff that would happen, at least for the regular system, that would not be worse. Lamar is an interesting one because they have this amazing running situation with the line and with Henry. I think they know what their offense is with him completely. If you just transferred that, I think it would be a little clumsy. But I just think Josh is the best guy in the league. This is why I picked him in the Super Bowl. I can't believe I bet against them last week with fucking Jets. I'm still mad at myself. But I think he's going to get one. I just really, not to do like, shitty sports content, but I just think he's going to get one. He's too good. It's like Joke and Giannis in the NBA. I don't see how he does win a Super Bowl at some point.

I think the Bills and the Ravens are just so in a tier on their own right now in the AFC. So you could be either of those guys, and it would be completely believable to me. I just think with the Holmes. The other question I asked, who's got it worst? Who's got it worst? Which one? A quarterback. Tell me, which quarterback is in a worse situation right now in terms of the infrastructure, rather.

But as part of that infrastructure, though, You have to count in. I've had the same offense for eight years. I've had the same coaching situation and the same everything. That matters a little bit. There's some stability with it. But is the offense good?

Is the run game good? I mean, I would not slander Andy Reid. He is still one of the best coaches in the NFL. But let me dumb it down. Is there an offense that's less pleasant to watch right now?

No. Only the Eagles, just because the Eagles actually have some talent. It It's funny, though, that he's replicating this weird stretch of Brady's career where he was so good that they just felt like they could throw away the talent at all these seemingly important offensive positions. Their running backs are terrible. There's not a single running back that you think can even bust a 10-yard run at this point.

If I had to criticize them for a roster perspective, that's the one thing that jumps out to me because we can't talk about both sides of our mouth me and criticize the bangles for not investing at all in their offensive line and paying these two great receiver. But then also say, well, the chiefs chose to focus on the trenches and not receiver and not their skill players. It's a different strategy. The running back thing, though, to me, you can find a cool running back in the fifth round, right? Why not try harder in the mid-runs? I would have drafted someone. I don't know. The whole run game right now looks so bad.

Well, he's an interesting point in his career because- He is the run game. I do think he's been passed by those guys, at least from a week to week, just when you're watching football. He just seems like he's less impactful than some of these other guys and more in that Jordan love area, which for somebody that we were saying had a chance to be the best guy of all time, lost a little momentum. So I'm monitoring it. Anyway, how many 2025 five QBs, in your mind, can conceivably win a 2025 playoff game? And Mahomes is definitely one of them. And so is Alan and Lamar. And so is Jalen Hertz, who just won the Super Bowl. I think Jordan Love has to be there just because his team's so good. I'd be shocked if they didn't win a playoff game. So there's five. Would you still put Stafford on the list from what you've seen from him physically? Oh, my God. Yes.

He is making some of the best throws of any quarterback early on. He looks unbelievable.

I have them as well. There's six. Goff has to be on there because he's won playoff games. Ironically, Mayfield is 100% on there. And you saw it again last night. Not only has he won playoff games, not only has that team been successful, but they could go down five with two minutes left. I'm like, I feel like they're going to win. I believe in that dude. He pulls up that big fourth and 10. But it's crazy that that guy got waived twice.

I know.

And is now as reliable. You must love him.

I love watching him. I love watching that offense. I mean, the combination of backs, Bucky Irving and Rashaad White, they basically thought that thing away. And behind, they had a center-playing left tackle. They lost the right tackle, going up against one of the best defenses in all of football. And they were grinding them down, Irving in the catch game as well. But yeah, I think Bayfield is definitely in that category. Jane Daniels?

Did you mention them already? Yeah, the next two I had were Purdy and Daniels just because they'd both done it. So there's nine. There's nine guys we think can conceivably win a 2025 playoff game. Now the fun part starts. Justin Herbert.

Well, you left out Dak. I would put Dak in there, too.

I didn't get to him yet.

Oh, so sorry. Justin Herbert. That was one tier. Now we're in the debate tier. We moved. Okay.

It's the debate tier. Justin Herbert.

100%, yes.

I think I have him, too. 100%. But this was a sidebar question, but he's now the most polarizing quarterback of this decade. I think Dak had the title for a couple of years, and now Herbert just has it because people are so passionate about it.

Because I feel like the week one against Kansas City was such a strong showing. He was so good in that game. It felt like the divide... If it was 60 pro, 40 anti-Herb, I feel like it moved to 70, 30 after that game.

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

Yeah, they chargered a little bit in that one. Yeah, they did. But I think the defense is so good that there's a floor for this team right now. I also like the way he's playing this year. He's scrambling way more. He's a little feistier out there. Herbert's a no doubter for me. Me, too.

I think he's won me over, at least for winning one playoff game. Dak Prescott, who's never won a playoff game? Has he won a playoff game?

Dude, he put up one of the... He destroyed the books in the wild card round. That was there that year.

That's right. He's won a wild card game. He's never gotten past round one, though, right?

No. I think that's what it is. Yeah, he's never gotten past that.

I have him on the list. Now it gets really interesting. 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers.

I don't think so.

I'm out as well. I think it's just a no. Did you see what he looked like when they're... Well, of course you did. It was your team. When they were actually pressuring him, it was not good.

He still is capable of making some of the most impressive throws off platform, you'll see. You see them go viral the next week. But the consistency when he has to hold the ball for more than 2. 5 seconds is simply not there.

I will say he's He's moving a little better than I was expecting this season. I think he looks better this year than last year. There's no question.

He made some really impressive throws on the run in this game. But for me, when I say I don't see them winning a playoff game, it's about the team. It's not just Aaron. If you have a quarterback who can still make some really impressive throws, he's still really good on quick game. He saw that in week one against what looks like a pretty bad Judd's defense. Okay, you can win that way, but you got to be able to run the football. You need more than one playmaker, and you need a good defense. And holy smokes, a defense This looks really bad. The first two weeks, which is shocking.

Yeah, and high spin, sorry to hear it, but it's not... It's shocking, but it's also not shocking because the seeds were being planted last year down the stretch, right? Yeah, they got spanked by the ravens. Remember that? All of a sudden, they just died, and Watt didn't get a sack for the last month and plus of the season.

I mean, your beloved Seattle Seahawks just ran all over them in that game. Kenneth Walker looked incredible.

Walker was great. There's just going to be no way to figure out who's going to be good game to game between Walker and Charbonet, though. If you're juggling those guys in fantasy, good luck. Good luck. Charbonet was terrible in Pittsburgh, and he'll probably have 120 yards in this next game. All right, Rogers, we're out. Gimpy Joe Burrow coming off a major Turf toe injury on a bangles team that probably is the winner of nine games. I think he's a cross-off just for this year.

Yeah.

All right, now it gets really interesting. Can Bo win a playoff game in your mind.

This is the one I was dreading. I think he is... You talked about Herbie. I think he's going to be the most divisive quarterback, maybe for...

It's already happening.

It's happening, yeah.

Yeah, he took the torch.

He looked better.

I have a lot of Broncos capital for this year. Do you? I'm officially nervous. Yeah.

He looked better, I thought, in week two.

Well, better from a guy that had four turnovers in week one. Yeah.

I do worry. The premise for the Broncos for me this year, being really good, was the defense would continue to be elite, and then they would be able to really run the ball better behind a great offensive line. They invest a lot in it. It looks okay early on, but it feels like there's still a ceiling on the offense, and so you really need the defense to avoid regression. They just got carved up by Danny Dimes.

Shocking.

That was stunning to me.

Although, shocking, but on the other hand, we talked about Tyler Warren earlier and how he's just immediately really good. Taylor looks like, I think maybe the best he's ever looked. He just looks the fastest, the shiftiest, just everything.

You really saw the weakness. He really exposed, I thought, the weakness of the Broncos defense, which is the linebacker unit. Dre Greenlaw has him playing them because they got him on those backers vertically. I think it's too early to take a Daniel Jones victory lap. Not for people who are supporters of him. But it's not too early for me to take a nail on being very skeptical of why the cult... It wasn't about Waitricherson for me. I thought, well, there's clearly a ceiling on his offense with Danny Dimes. You really As a Colts fan, you want to go into the season. And I think Shane Steigen looked at him and saw a quarterback who would actually execute his offense. And his offense is really good. He's a really good play caller. So even if... I think Jones is going to come back to Earth a little bit, particularly the downfield stuff and under pressure. But he can just run that offense. Is he on this list, by the way? Are we going to get to him?

Because- Yeah, he is on the list.

Yes?

Well, he did already win a play-off game.

True. And he looked worse that year to me.

It's so funny because nobody wanted to pick Houston to win the AFC South, right? We're all doing the three-in, three-out row. I need to get a couple of play-off teams out, put a couple in. And we all stared at Indianapolis. I remember I was listening to Nate and Sheil did a pod, and they talked about it. I was just like, I have my train ticket thinking about this, and I couldn't get there because of Jones. But when you think they can block for him, he's got a good coordinator, they have actual weapons, and I would say they have one of the three or four best running backs. Totally fair. Warren might be a top five tightender already or top six, top seven, whatever. He's at least somebody on third and four. He can get up and make play. I don't know. I mean, they're the favorites in the division now, especially after Houston goes 0-2. Houston's line looked... Who has a worse line than Houston? Three teams?

It's just so depressing to watch because it just feels like last year all over again. It turns out taking offensive linemen from bad offensive lines in free agency is a good strategy for rebuilding. I think I see South is going to be pretty close. I think the other thing about the cool set I like, though, is I like the defense. I know that they gave up some big plays to Bo Nicks, but I think Lou Annarumo was the wrong coach for the bangles. He might be the right coach for a defense that has more veterans, and that's what Indianapolis is.

I said on Sunday night, after the Saints going 2-0 last year, and we got like, Whoa, look at this. And then it could be the Rabbit team this year that just jumps I also thought they should have lost to Denver, and they did lose. And for some reason, there was a weird leverage play. So if they're one and one, are we as excited? Probably not. C. J. Stroud, I do not think we're going to play off game, at least this year, with that offensive line. I don't see a path.

Yeah, I don't either.

Even if they sneak in, I don't see it.

It was interesting to watch him last night, too, in contrast with the Bucs offense. Because the Bucs offense also, they had big shift offensive line, and the Texan's defensive line was just... They were just completely destroying them in the line of scrimage. But Baker thought, did a good job getting the ball quickly. They schemed up a lot of successful screens, and then the run game was still good. It feels like Stroud has no easy buttons, and I'm not completely exonerating him on some of the pressure stuff and there are situations where he's probably holding the ball too long. But does everything he does in this offense have to be the hardest possible setting at all times? It just feels exactly like last year. That's a good point.

Yeah, it's like the all-time feast or famine. How about just an eight-yard pass to somebody? I have no for Stroud. I'm not going to say no for your guy, Sam Darnold, because I still like that Seattle team, and I'm Probably in the all-time minority. I'm sure on your Seahawks text thread, you're not nearly as excited. But I like the team. I think they can run the ball. He's a roller coaster, but you've had that for the last decade anyway, so it's not anything different. I don't mind the defense.

Don't mind? They're awesome. I think this is one of the five best defenses in football.

I hope you're right. That's what I was banking on when I picked them to win the NFC West. But I don't mind how the defense looked, the The first week against the Niners, I thought there were a couple of stops. Maybe you got to get that they didn't get, but they were better in the Pittsburgh game.

Yeah. This is a really tough one for me because I am still a little apprehensive of this passing attack. It looked better against Pittsburgh Well, you have an amazing receiver. One.

You have one amazing receiver.

Jake Bobo. No, just kidding. Jack Smith, Najiba. Yeah, he's unbelievable. Cup was good against the Steelers, But I don't know if there's enough. The premise of this Seahawks offense under Clint Kubiak is they're going to come out with big bodies. They got a tight end or a fullback who's built like SpungeBob, multiple tight ends, and they're going to pound the rock, and then they're going to play action off of that wide zone run game, and they're going to put Sam Darnal under center. And when it works, it looks really good. And at times, against the Sealers, it worked, but did not look good week one. I think it's just going to be up and down based on competition. The defense is going to have to carry them in a lot of these.

Here's their path for a Sam Darnold playoff win. You have to win the division, then you win the 4-5 game. The five seed would be Detroit.

I don't see that. Okay. I'm skeptical. I love it. I like… Sam Darnold. It just seems like a delight. I would love for him to have success.

Penix?

I don't see it. It's nice that They got a pass rush going, though.

I like the team. I wouldn't rule it out.

I just think the Bucks are better, and I don't see them as a wow. You know what I mean? I just think the Bucks are going to win the NFC South. Okay.

Then we go, Drake May, Kyler, Gino, Caleb Williams. We're going no on all those guys.

No on May. So you're out?

I think you can make the playoffs. I don't think they're beating Buffalo or Baltimore in round one. They could be a seven seed. They're not going to Buffalo and winning in mid January. Dimes is the only one out of everybody else we've mentioned. I was like, Shit, maybe, I don't know. They could be the four seed. I think I might be a conceivable yes. It still seems inconceivable, but I really...

I am not... I do not think this is going to continue at this rate. No. But I was just looking at this for NFL Live. He's completing 78% of his short passes, which is top five. Anthony Richardson completed the lowest by a lot. He was the only quarterback in the NFL last year completing less than 60% of his short passes. That, to me, is sustainable. Daniel Jones, he's always hit those. When you got a bunch of Like, mutant skill players like, Warren and Taylor, and they've got a really good group of receivers, and I love Josh Downs. Yeah, they can be efficient on offense. Line looks good. I'm a believer.

Well, they have at the Titans this week. That has all the makings of just Vegas getting violated at the Rams, then home Raiders, home Cardinals. It's not an inconceivable five and one after six games for them, which is bonkers to think about. Okay, a couple more things before we go. The NFC West, what's happening there? We talked about the Seahawks a little, but what's going on? Is this going to be the Waukey division this year? Almost like last year, every week, it seems like somebody is the favorite and then somebody loses, then it's a new favorite. That's just what we're going to do.

Three two and no teams right now in the NFC West. They must be the only division in football. Let's see. They're only in the... Yeah. They're the only division. And then the CX are one-on-one, and they played the Niners week one. So yeah, I think I felt before the year that this was the closest knit division, where all four teams were pretty close. And I definitely still feel that way. I think early on, Matthew Stafford has reminded us that he's still cut above. And that offense, to me, has a higher ceiling than all four of them. But when you look at the teams as a whole, I could see it coming down to the wire between all them because the Seahawks have the best defense. The Niners are probably the most balanced, but then there's the purty.

But have the least depth and already had multiple injuries.

And I don't know. The Cardinals are really hard for me to get my arms around because Tyler is one of the more high-variance quarterbacks in football. There's moments where he looks, to me, unbelievable. And he makes Marvin Harrison Jr. Look good early on. But then there's stretches where he's just not playing to the level he's capable of.

Well, on FanDuel right now, the Niners are plus 155, the Rams are plus 178, the Cardinals are plus 350. And then Seattle is eight to one, which I just don't fundamentally understand. Because I agree with you, I think those teams are all bunched together. A lot of it's going to come down to injury luck. You know there's going to be three or four absolutely stupid games between two of the teams. We're going to have a 19 to 18 scorigami, some field goal hitting both uprights before it goes through. He just know weird shit's going to happen. But I think it's anybody's division. So the eight to one was really surprising to me.

If they all played each other in every matchup, I don't think any of them would have more than a score. They'd probably all be like 4. 3 points or less, splitting them. To me, it's just going to come down to matchups and injuries for all of them. The Niners, that's just a reflection of the schedule being so easy, right? But they didn't look like world beaters. I mean, they look better in Seattle. Obviously, they won that game, and particularly on offense. And the defense looks somewhat fixed under Robert Salah.

I think you win that game if you just go for the fourth down. And McDonald saying afterwards that the nerds told him to go for it and he overrul them.

I know.

I was surprised by that.

I was, too, because I really like him. I'm a big fan of him, and I thought he was really good at game management last year. I He was surprised by that. Sometimes when these defensive coaches get an elite defense on their hands, they start...

They overtrust it? Yeah.

But yeah, I think next time he'll probably be more... He was more aggressive in this last game, too.

Speaking of division odds, this will be your overreaction. This happens every year heading into week three. Colts are plus 135 on FanDuel. Jags are 2 to 1, and the Texans are down to plus 250. It feels a little overreactive. We're 15 games left. They still have the best secondary, probably in the league. They still have a pass rush.

Pass rush is unbelievable. They have the best... I still think they might have the best defense in the NFL.

They I could have just lost two playoff teams, the Rams and Tampa, who might be the third and fourth best teams in the NFC for all we know. I don't know. That feels like an overreaction.

The O-2 thing is hard. The Rams did it, right? But it's hard dig your... Every year someone does it. Every year When it does it. I agree. I think that does. I agree. I think that feels, especially compared to the Jacks.

You sound, from reading between the lines of you on this podcast today, but also text with you and Danny Kelly. I'm going to say there's a cautious buzz right now in Seahawks Nation. Just like a little something.

You were so high on them this summer.

Just somebody's got to win the division. They seem like the safest pick to me. Everybody was talking about the Arizona Cardinals, and I'm like, What have they ever done? I have to pick Kyla Murray? Why do I have to do that?

I feel like your Seahawks enthusiasm reverse psychologized me into being... I'm learning a lot about this as the mother of a two-year-old, which is you can't sell someone too hard on something because it makes them not want it. I feel like you did that to me a little bit with your Seahawks hype this offseason.

How old is your child exactly?

He turns two in two weeks.

Oh, good luck, man. That is just good luck. Two-year-old boys, just demons. Good luck. I wish you the best. That's going to be during football season? Oh, my God.

No, It's great. I love being told no. No, no, no, no, no, is the most popular word in our house right now. Just good luck. I wish you the best.

Hey, I'm a big fan of FanDuel's Thursday Touchdown Jackpot promo available for every Thursday night a football game, just place a $5 anytime bet on the game using the promo profit boost token. We call it a PBT. You can win a share of the 2 million in bonus bets FanDuel is giving away if your player scores the first TD or the last TD, plus you can win your bet. If your player scores the first TD, split a million dollars in bonus bets with everyone that bet the same player. There's another $1 million jackpot for the last TD score. And again, I almost hit this last week. I had Tucker Kraft. He did score, but he didn't score the first or last. I'm giving out James Cooke with the Buffalo Bills for this week. Be sure to check out the TD Jackpot promo for Thursday Night Football this week and each subsequent Thursday over at FanDuel Sportsbook. All right, last question and most important, some huge Jaden Daniels news What's the deal? Just walk us through your emotions here. Me, the injury. Not the injury.

Yeah.

Oh, Forget the injury. He'll be fine. The other news.

You had me cued up. I was like, he took 206 instances of contact last year in the open field. He's just too vulnerable.

I'm already on that. I've been saying that to house forever.

Well, the big Jane Daniels news, which is that he is one eighth Japanese, which he broke, which is important. So this is not my contingent- It was like an announcement. Assigning the designate. Yeah, he put it on his helmet. He wore it because they wear the little flags. He put the Japanese flag on his helmet.

So what did he say? His grandmother was Japanese or half Japanese?

His great grandmother is Japanese, so his grandmother is half Japanese. So his mom is a quarter, so he's an eighth. I think I did the math right. But I did a deep dive, Phil.

I scrolled back on his mom's Instagram, eight years, and found several pictures.

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

What's the percentage?

Graphic doesn't break it down, so I'll have to do another deep dive in there. I think you needed Daniels because I know Chang was really upset about Kuh.

I know. Kind of falling apart in Atlanta.

We needed a kicker, so we got one now.

What was Heinz Ward? He was Thai, right?

No, he was Korean.

Korean? Yeah.

This was a big deal for me growing up.

Yeah, but how... Like a lot. He was way more Jaden Daniels.

I'm pretty sure he was 50 %, if I remember. And he took it really seriously. We got a good squad going. I did the whole list. I might have to update the roster. We're very strong.

There's a roster?

Yeah, I put together a whole roster. We're very strong. We're surprisingly strong at Skill Player because we got Puka. It's A-A-N-H-P-I because we need all the P-I's in the trenches that we can get. The whole offensive line is basically... Although the Bronco Center is part Korean, I think I found it recently. It's a golden age for Asian safeties, led, of course, by our king, Kyle Hamilton. I forgot. But there's like 10 right now around the league, safeties, for some reason. I don't know why. We're pretty thin at tight end. If anyone's listening to this and knows any tight end who has even just a little bit, please alert me because we really need tight ends.

Honestly, if this was a Twitter account, I would follow it.

Like monitoring the...

It's just updates, breaking news.

We need an aggregator account that only does that, like a dove climbing, but not evil account that just reports on Asian NFL news.

Yeah, I don't feel like Chang has been focused enough on it at all to to be honest. I know he's busy. The Netflix show came back. You and I were on it a couple of weeks ago. He's traveling around with Amazon. He's already been knocked out of my guillotine league. He's very upset about that. Oh, no, really? Yeah. But I don't feel like he's been focused enough on this Daniel thing because that's his favorite team.

I know. When I sent it to him, I expected a way bigger reaction than the one we did.

Yeah, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on. Nickname. Maybe he's slow playing it. Maybe it's too much pressure now because it's crossed the beams for him with two different areas of interest.

This is like, I don't... I don't know if you do this. We've never talked about it. I don't draft Seahawks in fantasy for this exact reason, which is you don't want two feelings of loyalty and incentive at the same time.

Do you do that? I'm the opposite. I have Trevian Anderson in multiple weeks. Meanwhile, I can't block. I was promised a pass blocker. I was promised this awesome pass blocker that then He would play three downs, and he's three holding penalties last week.

Yeah. Dave might also be so reeling from your bold anti-rice take. It got a big reaction.

It was an anti-rice. It was pro-pasta.

It was, you can't rate anything highly that you can make in one minute. I had to defend the food.

I just said you can't make pasta in one minute. Listen, my goal on that show is just to try to throw Chang off. He is thinking he's mad about something I said, and then he forgets what he's cooking. But you did the amazing thing of you go on dinner time live three hours after you had lunch. Yeah, that was interesting. Then I'm the one who has to do all the eating, and you're just picking a little bird because you're not hungry.

You're not a big eater, too. I have seen you.

I don't want to be like, mowing down on live TV. There is something... You're very self-conscious on those shows because you want to eat and it's really good, but you also don't want to It seemed like you're in Goodfellas.

You know what happened to me on that show? What? I don't know if I told you this. So early, Dave started making all this green food, and he made Mando, which I grew up eating. You remember I was like, Yeah, I grew up making this with my mom or whatever. He puts it out. I swear I'm not blaming Chang, but I immediately shoved it into my mouth, and I burned my entire mouth so I could actually barely taste anything. But my thought is, I can't spit out food on television. So for a full minute, I was just sitting there hoping it would cool inside of my mouth because it was so hot. My mouth was burned. I don't think I could feel anything in my mouth for three days after that.

Yeah, that's rough when you really burn it, when you just have skin hanging from the top of your mouth. What's your favorite TV show right now?

Loving Task, your recommendation. Chris Ryan was over in my house talking about how good it was, so I had to watch it. I'm loving it.

Great.

You guys are recapping it? That's it.

I'm watching The Girlfriend on Amazon with Robin Wright.

That is Zoyer.

It's like, people. The algorithm knows me. It's like there's somebody's son. Her son's dating somebody she doesn't trust or like, and there's back stories. All these shows start with a murder now. The first thing you see is a dead body in blood, and then we go backwards.

Do you think the show start that way? I feel like.

Yeah, that's the algorithm tells them to do it.

A show that actually did start that way, but in a different way that I love, Alieners. Are you watching that on Netflix?

Not watching that. It's good?

It's a show. I mean, it's Noah Hawley who did Fargo, which I loved also. Apparently, it's the best at taking source material and turning it in television. It's about these children or hybrids or whatever. But really, It's two actors. Timothy Elephant is one of them, and then the other, I forget the actor's name, but his character's name is Morrow, who are just running away with this series, a cyborg in a synth or whatnot. Every scene with them. I can't believe you're not watching this because you would love the Timothy Elephant scenes in this show.

I'll watch it. I love Elephant. The football really threw me for a loop. I either have to watch a show like Task, where I'm all in on, or a really dumb show like The Girlfriend. Yeah. And those are my two speeds at this point.

Task on Sundays is tough.

I got to be honest. I know you're still watching some of these reality shows. I'm having a really hard time with reality, and I don't know whether I'm just too old now. I might have aged out of the demo. I might be edging towards CBS because I'm old.

I did Love Island this summer, and it was brutal. You know what's the problem with it? This is my theory about all reality television. People started treating it like sports in a way that made it not fun. It's gotten overtaken by Stan culture in the internet. Also, I think maybe there's a sports analogy here for young quarterbacks coming in and trying to be the homes. Everybody on the shows is now just trying to be meamed and influence, which no shame in the game, but I think it's ruining the shows.

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

Is that it? It's still going.

It's It's still going. It really is the fifth American sport now. But even these dating shows like that Bachelor in Paradise, I don't know what they were doing with that show.

I still watch Love is Blind. We recap it. I have a show. Yeah. Viewer discretion. People like Love is Blind. I still like that one because I think it actually gets people who... They're a little older and they're not all influencers. It's just really well-produced. But yeah, I used to watch so much more. I tapped out on. You and I used to text about The Bachelor.

I used to be a good show. I think it probably ran its course. It's been on since 2002. What were you doing in 2003? What were you doing in 2003? That's how long it's been on.

Yeah. Well, it's probably good for my brain that I'm watching less reality TV and more alien.

Now we just have more football. And football is now on. Every channel is on. It's four days a week. It's just done all the time.

I didn't like the Friday. That was... Well, yeah.

You didn't like Friday Brazil?

It was tough. But that might be more like as a mother of a two-year-old, it's just hard with the multiple nights.

You know what's going to be tough is Thursday night, Bill's Dolphins, probably Mike McDaniel's last game, and Josh Allen just going nuts.

What day of the Ringer NFL show does he get with for him?

Should I make the invitation now or wait till he's formally relieved of his duties?

My classmate, Mike McDaniel, or maybe... I don't know if we overlapped. I also don't know if he'd be a good... Of all the NFL coaches right now, if you could take any of them, this is not about their coaching talent. Who do you think would You are, I've often said this, I think the single best talent evaluator in our industry. Oh, thank you. Who would you pick? I appreciate that. Of the coaches to be a new co-host of the Ringer NFL show.

So is the caveat, they're never going to coach football again? They're going to just do this for a living?

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

Mcbay.

Yeah, that's number one draft pick. Easy.

I I'm becoming more and more intrigued by Kevin O'Neill.

He's good. He's a good talker.

Dark Horse. I think I watch all the locker room speeches. This is my true passion now that reality TV has died for me. I I think his locker room stuff is really high-end. He's almost playing for the cameras in the right ways, but I think he's really good at it.

You haven't met him in person, right?

No.

He's really charismatic, too. You can see why all the players love him so much immediately as soon as you talk to him. He's too tall to be a podcaster, but he would be good otherwise.

Well, he's smart enough to make up a fake injury for JJ McCarthy, the high ankle sprain that I don't think happened. Yeah, his ankle's hurt. We We need Carson wins for a couple of weeks after JJ missed 130 throws. Mina, thanks for popping on. Go do television and let's go Seahawks. Congratulations on Jaden Daniels. Great to see you. Thanks for coming on.

Glad to have him as a member.

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Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. All right. My friend Brian Koppelman is here, a long-time, long-time, long-time movie aficionado. He's made movies. He works in Hollywood. Robert Redford died today. For some reason, you were my first text. I wanted to talk to you about Robert Redford because I think we both appreciate it and liked and were frustrated by all the same things. But I'll start here. In the running for best all-around career of any actor ever, considering all the things that he did?

The movie star rankings, as far as a true movie star person who then became a director, a filmmaker, producer. I mean, are you counting? You include Sundance in that?

No doubt about it. You have to. You have to include Sundance. Yeah, no doubt. I was just thinking about the scope. For some reason, I didn't know that this day was... I hadn't heard that he was... Obviously, he was '89, so you never know at that point. But when you think about it, you start reading the stories, and you're like, Holy mackrel. This guy did so much stuff. His career is in all these different segments. He's the biggest actor in the '70s. We'll go into some of the reasons why that happened. But He owns that decade over some great guys. Newman's in there, McQueen, Reynolds, and he's the guy from that decade, right?

Yeah. I mean, it's funny. He had some runs when I was looking it over, even just As soon as we started texting about the movies, he had runs as each thing that little runs within the thing, each of which would have made him in the running for the best eight-year chunk. And he repeated that a bunch of times in different ways. From when he would get a foothold at something, he could really run with it for a while in a crazy, amazing way. But also, Bill, I think part of why you wrote me is, we're not going to say, but someone who meant a lot to the two of us had told us a lot of stories about him. I think we just had a bunch of different reactions together. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. Well, he wins Best Director and Best Film for Ordinary People, which was the first movie he directed in 1980. We already did it in the rewatchables, but it's during a time when actors really weren't supposed to do that. Actors were supposed to act, directors were supposed to direct, and for For the most part, you didn't really cross the beams. He started three best picture Oscar winners and laid down this whole model for all these actors that followed where it's like, Well, I want to be an ERP on this film. I want to own my own stuff. I want to own a company. I want to do more festivals. I want to be an activist. I think him and Newman really were the first two that I could remember that did that. Can you think anybody else?

No. I mean, who did which piece? Who did which piece of it?

Well, just like Newman, he was big on the activism side and just trying to do a bunch of charity stuff and just use his platform for other things. I think Brando certainly did.

Different actors did along the way in different ways, maybe- For political commentary. Smaller ways. But those guys both absolutely did it. Jane Fonda definitely did it, too. But those guys, no doubt about it. Also, he just did lay down. I think it's got to just start. For me, Robert Redford is the quintessential idea of what a movie star is supposed to feel and look like. I think so much of it had to do with, yes, his, of course, his physical appearance, but the stillness in him as an actor, however he got that confidence to let the camera just land on him, but also his taste, which is what runs through everything you were just talking about. This is a guy who just could pick. He went through these periods where he just it felt like, understood what the mood was or what cool was or what class he was. And he could anticipate it at just the moment the wave was going to break and he could ride the wave. And that's an incredibly rare skill over a long period of time.

Yeah, taste and self-awareness is a really good combo if you're an A+ lister. Yeah, I was thinking, I wrote down the three things that he just seemed to completely understand that all seemed pretty basic. The first one you just mentioned, he knew he was a movie star. He wanted to make movies where he seemed like a movie star. This is something Tarantino wrote about when he wrote about Steve McQueen in his book, where he was like, Steve McQueen, the most important thing to him was just how he looked in film, how he looked in a scene, how he He didn't want a lot of dialog. He would tell the screenwriter, Cut that out. I only need to say two words there. I don't need to go back and forth with a bunch of people. Redford was like, I'm really handsome. I'm a little mysterious. There's something a tiny bit hard to figure out about me. I play it close to the best. You're going to have to figure me out. But I'm really handsome. He wrote that through the late '60s and early in the '70s as well as anything.

I can't remember when we did the Margin Call podcast, if you had seen JC's movie that he made with Redford, All is Lost, right? I think. Did you ever see that movie?

Oh, yeah.

Because it's incredible. And it's this thing you're talking about. I mean, Redford says five words in the movie. And you're just with him and his face and his body and the situation he's in. And you care so much about what's going to happen to this guy. There's no great backstory. You don't know a tremendous amount. But in a way, I remember watching that at the theater, and like you just said, you had no idea he was sick, neither did I. Other than when he said he was stepping down from being actively running stuff. So you had a sense how he feels like he maybe isn't... But I didn't know him. I never met the man. I had no idea. But all is lost. I remember watching this little theater in New York and thinking, well, he put it down. He put down that performance that guy does at the very end where it's like, remember, this is what I was great at. Because he didn't have to speak in that movie, but he had to be and carry all of what Robert Redford was. Because that guy was self-sufficient. That guy was stoic. That guy also beat himself up at moments.

He had hubris, but it was this whole grit, and he had dignity, and he had resolve, and he had grit. It It was stacking all these aspects of all these characters that Redford had played. Another, by the way, just incredible work by J. C. Shandor, who I think is the most underrated direct for some reason.

Wow.

Well, think about how underrated that guy is, what he's done. Redford You're amazing and towering. I don't know who's... I'm sure you thought about it. I don't know who's in that conversation with him in your mind.

I want to get to that. I have a spot for that. Okay. The second thing that I thought he interested, work with as many great directors as you can. He made seven Pollock movies.

Pollock, yeah. He and City Pollock had a special relationship.

But that's something that I think some of the modern actors have really... That was a big Leo thing. The smarter guys are like, I just want to work with the best people. The third thing I think is really underrated, and I haven't heard anyone make this point, and I don't know if it's a coincidence or if it's something... If I had ever had him on a podcast, I would have asked him. He really understood the importance of an ending and how important it was when a movie is coming to a close, some scene or moment that when you're leaving the theater, you're like, Man, that was fucking awesome. Again, I don't know if it's a coincidence, but think about, I have nine movies here, Downhill Racer, the fucking amazing last five minutes, right? It's a spoiler alert. He thinks he's just won the Downhill, and there's one last guy coming, and they're all celebrating. Then they're looking up, and this guy's hitting the times, and all of a sudden, that guy flies in the air. It's just awesome. Butch and Sundance, one of the great endings ever written. Jeremiah Johnson, my dad's favorite movie.

I only saw that movie one time with my dad. I don't remember the ending.

It's just he's fought these Native Americans forever. Then at the end, they have this begrudge and respect, and it's a wave, and he waves. Then this voice comes in, Some folks say he's up there still. It's just like, Yes. He survived. The Candidate.

Oh, amazing.

He wins. I love The Candidate. It's on the rewatching list.

The last moment of the Candidate is one of the all-time- What do we do now? Yeah, what do we do now?

The Sting. The whole reason people love that movie was the last 10 minutes. The Way We Were. Kind of a flawed movie, but when he runs into Streisand at the end, your girl is lovely, Hubble. Stolen First Sex in the City, first season, last episode or second season. All the President's Men with the typing and Nixon. Then the last two, I think he had figured out the ending things. Brew Baker is one of my favorite endings of any random movie ever. The Clap. I made the case and invented the slow clap.

You think that's the first usage?

I think it invented the slow clap. I do. I do. For people listening who don't know what Brewbaker is, he's a prison warden.

He's a warden, yeah.

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

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

Well, in the last 60 years, Redford had a case for making the best Western, Butch and Sundance, the best baseball movie, the best conspiracy thrower, the best political movie, and the best reporting movie.

Oh, yeah. Don't leave out the ending of Three Days of the Condor either.

Yeah, that's where I got the conspiracy throw. Yeah, I got the ending of three days. Yeah, I got to say the ending of that movie, yeah.

I could have put that in. With the newspaper in front of it. That's incredible also. That movie's influence is like, you can't even begin to talk about that movie's influence.

It's so big. Then the other thing, you talked about how he just had a good sense of what to do and what roles to take, and more importantly, not to take. There was that famous story of the graduate when Mike Nichols wanted him, but then wasn't sure he was right for the role because he wanted the guy to be more of a loser. As the story goes, he asked, Redford, Have you ever made a move on a girl and been turned down? And Redford's No. He's like, This is why you can't have the role.

He said, Redford didn't even understand the question.

He's like, What do you mean?

Yeah, what are you talking about?

I put my sights on a woman and she's not interested? What's that like? Was he treated like he was an alien. But it's interesting. He never did a horror movie. Apparently, he turned down Rosemary's Baby. He never did. He never did some movie where he's playing somebody that's completely different than who was. He always felt like it was Redford in whatever he did, which I think was intentional. Some people are just like, I need to be around the vicinity of me.

Yeah, they play roles that the essence of who they are is the thing that shines through. And big movie stars a lot of time where the essence that we associate with them somehow is the thing that shines through. And he didn't always play a Some people think that means that they're always playing someone who's a good man. That's not the case. But it's a guy in Redford's case who has always had the ability to be competent. I mean, Khanda is a great example where at first he seems incompetent, but by the end, he's a guy who can figure it out. He played smart really well, and especially a guy people could think, Oh, they think he's dumb because he's so handsome, but really, he's smart. Really, he can think. Maybe not the fastest thinker, but a good thinker. And of course, I mean, even though Goldman wrote it, the way Redford played, Can I Move? As Sundance, invented a whole a character, the sidekick character that he was who becomes the equal buddy. And a guy who could admit, I can't swim. There are a couple of scenes in Butch Cassidy that are among the best scenes in cinema history that really rely on a line readings by Redford that were unbelievable.

Well, then all the Presidents, which we didn't rewatch a while ago, there's that great scene when Hoffman's stealing his copy and he realizes what's happening and the way he plays that. And then he finally goes over and goes, I don't mind what he did. I just don't like how he did it.

That's the greatest. I mean, that's one of my dad and quiz show, which he directed, those are two... The guy was involved in absolutely deeply. Two of my personal 10 favorite movies of all time. It's All the President's Men, maybe my most rewatched movie, it's really possible. But Quiz Show is definitely top 10 of my most rewatched movies that he directed, and they're similar. They're cousins, those movies.

What is it about All the President's Men that sucked you in? Because I've heard different answers for this, depending on who you asked.

The two, honestly, originally, because I first saw it as a kid. I mean, that's been a movie I've rewatched my whole life.

Yeah, me too.

Well, Bill, I don't think you could separate it from I was seven when Nixon resigned My mom made me sit down.

I just feel like it's been on since I was a kid.

My mom made me watch, and I'm so glad she did, Nixon's resignation speech. So the story of getting those bad guys. And then it was writers who did it, right? The way When you're a kid processing it, reporters who did it. Those guys were famous in my house. They would talk about those two guys because it was amazing what they did. Then this movie that I had heard was so great. I just remember the way they talked. Also, I remember when you were a writer. Do you remember, Bill, when you were a writer?

When my fingers were?

Yeah. Yeah, when you were a writer back, it was great. You were a great writer, and you know how much I loved your writing. But so you do know when you're young, even if you don't know you're going to be a writer, Stories about writers, they get your attention in a certain way. You're like, Wait, these are writers? What does that mean? Even if you don't know, you're like, There's something about that that just hits you. And that was the thing. What do you mean there? Other journalists? Wait, what? It was just the cool... I don't know. It was the Also the long hair and the way that they just even dressed in the situation and their friendship. Also, they were so fucking cool in the movie. The way they would trap people with the dialog, the way they would concoct schemes. Also, their boss being such a mother. It was like every one of those things, the crackling dialog, and that they won. The good guys won, but it was really complicated, and they barely won. No one even knew if it was a good thing. I don't know. For me, every part of it is incredible.

What about you? What is it about it? I didn't get into it until college.

Maybe right after college because I had to have a Watergate phase because that's what you bet he would have afterwards. You would have your JFK phase, your Watergate phase. You're Charles Manson phase. You just go, I'm going to read the book. I'm going to read this. I'm going to watch that. I did the Watergate thing and I just watched all the President's Then just from that point on, I felt like I've watched it at least once a year since. The only movie I can think of that came close to it was Spotlight, which I think is the most depressing subject possible, but is this amazingly rewatchable movie that's now been out of 10 years. But very similar beats of there's something really important happening. We actually need reporters, and they're solving it almost like this true crime thing. People are against them. There's a big establishment that wants to knock them out.

You're so right. I mean, I just also to say, obviously, when I say all the President's Men's my most rewatched movie, the Godfather movies don't even count. They're just their own...

That's their own staff. No, that's like saying, like Nicks games.

Yeah, I can't count the Godfather movies. Obviously, those are the most... It's not even close. But I was talking about after that. Yes, Spotlight, man, the first time I saw it, I saw Spotlight in a screening when it was not even finished yet. I sent emails around to a bunch of people like, I just saw the best picture winner. I said, That movie Spotlight that Tom McCarthy made, It is every single thing, every ambition I could ever have of what the ultimate thing you could do as a filmmaker is what Tom did in that movie. You're right, I hadn't thought of it in terms of... But it is all the present. To me, quiz show, which, as you know, it's the rewatchables that you and I are going to do someday. Quiz Show is, for me, really right up there because it's the same story in a way, which we could talk about another time. But I feel like it does the same thing. But There are very few movies that do it well. And Redford did that.

Only nominated for one acting Oscar, which seems nuts. It's like finding out that some incredible NBA player only made one all-MBA team.

I don't even know. I saw that he only won one. What did he win for?

He won for directing.

Right. That's it.

The only- Ordinary people. That was his own right. When he beat Scorsese, which has turned out to be really cop.

Right. For best pivot as producer or director on that one, did he win? Direct. He won it as director. Right. Yeah.

He was He nominated for The Sting. You mentioned all his loss. That's way late in his career. He never had his version of the verdict or call or money like Newman did. But what's interesting is he was in on the verdict. He was doing the movie and really wanted them to rewrite it because he didn't like that the guy was such a loser. This is something Goldman would talk about. Goldman would always talk about how stars didn't want to play losers. They always wanted to seem like the hero. He's just like, This guy's too much of a loser. So he drops out and gives that role. Newman ends up getting it and should have won the Oscar for it. But it became such an important Newman role. Redford just didn't fit fit his model for what he wanted for himself.

The thing ended up working out perfectly just the way that it should.

For everybody. I don't think I would have bought him as Frank Galvin, but that's the thing. I think deep down, he knew that was a good character.

Not necessarily in the Lumet Mammet version of the movie.

Yeah, right. But I feel like he never got acting respect past a certain point. I don't really know the... I think sometimes Sometimes, especially with actors, when somebody is simple and really good like that, sometimes we recognize it and sometimes we don't. In his case, maybe he was... I'm not an actor, so I wouldn't be able to speak like, Could he be on stage? Could he have been belting it? When you hear these legendary stories of Pacino on Broadway or Olivier back in the day, I don't know if he was an actor like that.

In a way, maybe that's to do with the era. Because, yes, he's a movie star. I think you said it perfectly. He's a movie star. But it's hard to do what he did as an actor. If you look at the actors who were the ones, mostly in his prime lead era, who were getting recognized, they were big performances. They were people really doing something, right? Whether it's Peter Boyle, whether it's Dustin, or Pacchino, or De Niro, they were showier. They were incredible. They were our favorite actors. And Redford's were much less showy. He didn't do that, really. He wasn't big in that way. So many things get tied to the period that they're in, the moods and tones. But to be a star for as long as he was a star, it's amazing and rare. And I think he chose I think by the thing you're talking about, he didn't take the character. He also didn't take those parts.

Right. He loved being... So many of his movies, he's a hero. Or there's a little bit of... Like, Downhill Racer is definitely a Cruise character. Thirty years later, Cruise is easy.

Of course, that's the movie you made. Yes, 100%.

So he could do that downhill racer thing. He could be this sidekick like Butch Cassidy. He could do Jeremiah Johnson, which is basically 1973 Revenant. It's not like the crazy director where you're sleeping in a bear's stomach, but it was still like it's one guy. He could have been in Castaway. I think he could have done that role where it's just like, I'm going to be the star of the movie. I'm going to carry scenes by myself just by being interesting.

He may look effortless, maybe. I'm just trying to think about the question. Actually, I'm trying to give a second to your question, and I'm just reviewing all these performances. If I think about it, other than Sundance and Condor, most of these performances, he did make it look... He was an actor who looked like...

I would say effortless.

Yeah, it was. He made it look effortless, which is why the natural, Roy Hobbes is such a great part for him in a way. This guy with that swing, and who looked a certain way. And believable.

Believable swing.

And he looked a certain way, and you'd never know what this backstory was. You wouldn't know that there was any trauma there or any of that shit. And he had that swing. And that swing, in a way, is a great metaphor for just looking like Redford looked and walking like he walked. It doesn't invite you to go, Oh, look at the craft. Because, of course, to build a swing like that took a lot of effort in Roy Hobbes, right? It's like people watch Federer and they go, Oh, it's It's like, you know how much torque that guy's generating?

You know how many thousands, millions of hours he's put in so that it looks like this beautiful effortless thing?

But still, we watch it and we go, Oh, graceful.

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

It's an old fashioned movie. It felt old after a while. Barry Levinston embraces... It's Barry Levinston, right? Yeah. He just embraced all that. So it's shot that way, the gliding camera. It doesn't feel like a contemporary movie in any way. It feels almost like it's a throwback, right?

You and I have probably seen it a combined 700 times.

I mean, I've certainly seen it plenty of times. I love it. But if you're asking why people don't... I don't know. I bet you, I don't know if Sam has seen it. Incidentally, I'm in the room my son grew up, and I love that I'm throwing an entire Nicks wall.

Even an entire Nicks wall.

And we've asked them, do you want us to repaint the room now that you're out of here and whatever? No, Keep it, keep the Nicks up there. And also, I'd say, in the pro wrestling, Simmons, Pablo Torre back and forth, Sammie broke this huge story on Pablo today. So you had to have- What was the story? It's just an insane sports It's an insane story about China stealing the brainwaves of athletes. It's crazy. You'll freak out. But Sam and Pablo did it together. So you had to have me up just to balance the scale. You got to balance the scale.

We do the old guy version of of the combo. Totally.

We're like, we got to bring our walkers in and do our version.

Hold on. It's time for Bingo.

I'm talking about the natural. Yeah, talk about the natural.

You're the best damn hitter I ever saw. Wilfred, how many times do you think that combined, Pablo and Sam have seen the national?

At the most. I'm giving you two at the most.

That's the thing. It shifts where money becomes the new natural. I think Moneyball for the last 15 years probably took the spot in a lot of ways.

Are you an 8-Man? Do you love 8-Man out? I love 8-Man out. I do.

I love 8-Man out. So does Van Lathen.

I would put 8-Man out. Might be the best baseball movie. It's possible.

Another great ending movie.

Yeah, incredible.

Oh, my God. Shula show, five years after.

That's not an incredible. That negotiation scene is one of the most incredible sports movie scenes. If you haven't seen 8-Man out, go see it.

Quickly, Basically on Redford. So he has this run from '69 to '76. You mentioned earlier how he had this crazy eight-year run. He blows up with Butch Cassidy and with Downhill Racer, right? Just immediately becomes a megastar. In '73 and '74, he has Jeremiah Johnson, The Way We Were, The Sting, The Great Gatsby, and then they rerelease Butch Cassidy and Sundance, That Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid. And it becomes top 10 again. He has Two of the top five in '73 and three of the top 10 in 1974. Out of the top 10 movies for two years, five of the 20. Then he does Great Wilder Prepper, which is a flawed movie, but I, I don't know, George Roy Hill, Goldman. I enjoy it. Three Days of the Condor. Then all the President's Man, he's an ERP on that and Wins Best Picture. It's about as good as it gets, man. When you think of the taste of those movies, holy shit.

Incredible. It's truly a staggering run because he had that run. Then in 1980 is when he starts the directing run.

That's when he moves in the Ordinary People, Brew Baker, The Natural Out of Africa, Legal Eagles. That's all in seven years.

But then also the four movies he directed, the first four, that's a really strong coming out of the gate first four movies as a director.

Then he has a fun, a little bit drunk 1990s where he does River, runs through it, makes Brad Pitt a star. That's it. And weirdly passes the torch because I think there's a lot of Brad Pitt, Robert Redford. Millions of people have talked about that. Sneakers, Indecent Proposal, Quiz Show gets nominated, and then Up Close and Personal. And Indecent Proposal is the weirdest movie choice he made. It was the one where you're like, Wow, he's in this? But he had built up so much credibility, and it's Demi Moore and Woody Harrison. We did it on rewatching this. I like that movie.

But that's another example of a movie that he understood the era he was in.

Yeah. Well, and you never see him. He's not banging away at Demi Moore in the scene. There's an elegance to it. He understands the era.

He understood where we were thinking as a culture about money and sex and men and women. He understood something, surfed it, and made a huge hit. I mean, that's a huge hit movie, right? And it made him culturally relevant or kept him culturally relevant again.

Well, and then Sundance was the other thing. I think he was really smart about that, I'm only going to have this run for so long. I'm going to get replaced by somebody else. My looks are only going to last for so What else can I do? How can I be entrenched? And that's what leads to Sundance and all the other stuff he did. And then Sundance, God only knows how many movies broke out of that. And it's easy to say now, Oh, well, somebody else would have created a Sundance. Well, nobody did. He did.

No, he did. That guy put his money where his mouth was. Obviously, if he includes Sundance, it's very hard right off the top of my head to think of somebody who is on that level. I do think movies start a movie star. You don't even think about the fact that Cruise is 60 years old or whatever, because these guys were making the big valedictory movie when they were in their 60s, and Cruise is still just a movie star. Cruise is the greatest movie star of all. To me, Cruise is the movie star of all time.

Cruise is in his 60s now, FYI.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He's in his 60s. He's just been a movie star the whole time. But it's so easy to forget because he's still making movies as though he's 40.

But he's not. But that goes to the self-awareness thing, which I would argue Cruise might not have a lot of self-awareness at this point. I don't think he should be doing Mission Impossible anymore. He should be trying to figure out what's the next thing I can do that more reflects where I'm at in life? And it's like he doesn't want to think about where he is in life, obviously. He just wants to keep being Ethan Hunt.

Yeah, though, I bet you he has an incredible... Someone was saying this the other day. I think it's true that he'll have an incredible character, actor, run like a Newman-like run soon enough.

I hope so. We're running out of time. Newman made the verdict when he was in his early '50s, I think. Might even been younger than that.

But all right. Tom did Magnolia.

I don't know if he wants to open up that side anymore.

Well, we'll see. I don't know. Who knows? I just think it's Redford, and I think you can make the argument it's like Redford and Cruise. You got to put Clint. But Clint obviously also did a lot in various capacities that's pretty incredible.

Clint's a good one when you talk about best careers because the fact that he was still directing into his '80s and '90s is nuts.

A lauded incredible. As a director, like him or not, you can't argue with what he accomplished as a director. It's staggering. And in his own way and at a time, he started directing movies way earlier and at a time when, yeah, like you said, they weren't just handed actors movies. So Clint is the other one in the comment.

Quin's a good one for this, too, because I asked Lorin Michael once what host you weren't able to get or couldn't get that you would love to get. And he, Clint was the first one I think he mentioned.

That's great.

But it's interesting because Redford never hosted that show either. And it's two guys that always kept the mystique of, I'm a movie star, I'm over here, I carry myself a certain way. I don't... You You're only going to get these pieces of me.

Has Leo hosted? Maybe he did. He must have hosted around Romeo and Juliet, or he never hosted.

I don't think Leo ever hosted.

Because Leo is in that. He's the last one who has Mystique. He's the last of those movie stars with Tru.

I I don't know if you could have this stick like that anymore in the society we have. It's almost like you have to be out there connecting in all these different ways. You can't just be like, Oh, I'll let my work speak for myself. Who does that?

I was thinking about this today when I saw the announcement about the Masters. The Masters allowing Amazon to stream them, making a streaming deal. And at first I was like, whoa. But then I was like, Right. Because you know what? Even the Masters realizes, well, we made a deal with CBS at a certain point because everyone was watching television. This is where the world is. We got to go there. So you're probably right about that, that maybe that model just doesn't even interest anybody anymore, that level of mystique.

It's like when you figure out rounders, too. Yes, sir. It can't just be like Rounders 1. You've got to use all these different pieces.

Rounders 2 is going to have to come from Sam's kid and then Levine's kid's kid, and Pablo will probably fund it, finance it.

I was going to say you have Pablo and Samy investigating Mike McDee for some Caribbean poker situation.

They'll have to fund it with replicons of DNA of Matt and everything, because by then, they'll be able to... They can do anything. I mean, they'll do any of it. It'll be easy.

Samy came to... We did a talk in Cambridge in April, and Samy showed up and I was very touched.

He was very happy to see you. Yeah, I remember. He was very happy to see you. All right, man. Yeah, I'm good. I'm dealing with a little appendicitis, but See, it's the...

But you were able to pod.

This era, they don't just take it out right away always. They go, Here, we're going to bomb you with antibiotics and then take it out in a few weeks. So yeah, I'm fine. Hopefully, my appendix doesn't explode.

Save your energy for a Always show rewatchables next month because you have my word. We're doing it in October.

Can't wait. All right, Bill. Talk to you soon, buddy.

Thanks, Koppelman.

See you, man. Bye.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mina and Koppelman. Thanks to Gehow and Eduardo as well. Don't forget, the rewatchables is up for this week. We did Tin Cup, and you can find it wherever you get your podcast. You can find them in the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. I am going to be back on Thursday with another, hopefully, awesome podcast. I feel like we're two for two this week. Great content. I will see you on Thursday. Must be 21 plus in President's select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 100 Gambler or visit rg-help. Com. Call 188-789-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support, Massachusetts, or call 1877-8 Hope, NY, or text Hope, NY in New.