Transcript of The Big Suey: The Backslide (feat. Nick Wright)

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Welcome to the Big Sui. Presented by DraftKings. Why are you listening to this show? The podcast that seems very similar to the other Dan Lebitard podcast.

I'm sorry. I'm not going to apologize for that.

In fact, the only difference seems to be this imaging. I have been tempted in restaurants just walking past tables to grab somebody's fries if they're just there. That hasn't happened to you guys? I've done it.

And now, here's the marching man to nowhere, Fatface and the Habitual Liar.

This episode of the Dan Levitard Show is presented by DraftKings. Draftkings, the Crown is yours.

I think that we have to start rooting for OKC. We have to start because Wemby is about to hog all of these. It's going to happen very quickly, and he's going to ruin the sport. Nick Wright is here. You hear him throwing things in the background. Hyped down. He fixed basketball on the Bill Simmons podcast. I'm hearing a great deal of applause. He fixed the entirety of the sport. He's the host of FS1's First Things First, and what's right nick Wright, the podcast. How are you? I am well, thank you. You object to Wemby dominating the sports so much that it's going to get ruined?

Just real quick, because you mentioned my appearance with Bill. If people don't want to listen to the whole thing. There's a lot of different things the NBA needs to fix, but the simplest fix is just make dunks worth three as well. Just do that. That doesn't fix tanking, doesn't fix the injuries, but it sure fixes so many of the other issues we have. And it sounds crazy until it doesn't. Make dunks worth three, and you have different styles of play. You are rewarding different athletes. You are getting back to the soul of the league, which is the sickest athlete who have ever lived competing with each other. Meet me at the rim, Dunksworth three. And I don't know if that would be good for your future GOAT Wimby, because that guy fancies himself just a taller Kevin Durant rather than a guy who's 7'7. We can talk Wimby or we can talk about my brilliant Dunksworth 3.

I want a question about your brilliant Dunksworth 3 points. Oh, yeah. It's a suggestion here, nick. So number one, how do we determine... Blake Griffin used to do the deal where he would throw the ball into the hoop. So is that a dunk? What does your finger have to touch the rim?

Zaz, I'm not trying to always be combative with you, my friend. But you know how I know that is in search of a problem where there isn't one? Because your only off the top of your head reference of that happening was in a dunk contest 15 years ago. I don't think that's true. So the... I mean, I think... I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's just the reference you gave. I think, maybe I'm wrong, I think we pretty much know what a dunk is, what a dunk isn't, and when a guy had a dunk-It's a weird follow from you.

He's bringing up a point. Now, it's not the first time I've heard it. Juju had it years ago, and we'll probably have a complaint about nick stealing that the way Amin has complaints about nick stealing stuff and putting them on a larger platform. We'll find out from Juju later in the show, but it is an odd first question for you to have a nitpick on. What's a dunk and what's not a dunk when we all know what a dunk is?

Okay, so I think... All right, then I'm stupid. The second part that I have, I think, is more interesting.

How powerful is that to admit when you're wrong and stupid?

It should be liberating. You're stupid. Lean in. How How free is this?

Do you feel freer than you have?

No, believe it or not, I don't feel liberated at all now.

You should. Learn to admit your wrong. It's like when Dan finally admitted he has a fat face. You just disarm so many of the attacks. It's just like, what are you going to do? Yeah, go ahead. Sorry, Zaz. We're brilliant.

My next and clearly less stupid question is, I think that... It sounds good in theory, all right? But I think I would slow the game to a crawl because players would foul the three-point dunk attempt so you can only get two free throws. Then it's just a free throw contest the whole game, no?

That is a more nuanced point that I'm interested in. And you know what? I hadn't thought of that, but my snap response is-Not stupid. Well done. Not stupid. Not stupid at all. See, already, the moment you admitted to being stupid, you got smarter. So well done all around. I think you would have to adjudicate that just like you a foul on a three. If it is very clear the player is attempting a dunk and he got fouled, it's three free throws. Simple. Fixed it already. It was a smart question, but I fixed it already.

Now I feel liberated.

There you go. Nick, why not just make the three-point line disappear and make every shot the same two points.

Here's the thing on that, Greg. I don't hate that. It sounds crazy. I don't hate it because I do think I think basketball right now is teetering on a ledge of the smart way to play is diametrically opposed to the entertaining way to play, and therefore, how do you square that circle? And so I was, and I talked about this, this is this... Juju, if he came up with that idea before, I seed the ground to him. I like Juju, I respect Juju, and I wouldn't steal from Juju, but I didn't know it. An idea that unabashedly is not mine, but I think is, don't say a thief, is the Hollinger idea of just like baseball teams get to design their own outfield walls, basketball teams draw their own three-point line. And if a team says... I like this. If a team says... This is Hollinger's idea. If a team says, We don't want a three-point line, you don't have And that has two effects. One is you have to be able to win a bunch of different styles. And a sneaky, unintentional consequence of it is the regular season matters way more because if the 2021 Milwaukee Bucks are in a nip and tuck race for the one seed, and it's like, shit, they don't have a three-point line.

If they get homecourt advantage, we're going to have to win a series all by twos because they have Giannis. That does make the regular season more important. And so those are just some back of the napkin ideas. But I would, Dan, love to talk about Wemby. Are we doing the Simmons odd, but worse.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Well, you guys, that's why I'm trying to move on. You guys, I just... And it's not worse. It's not your fault.

I mean, it's not his fault.

Can he hear me, too?

Cedrowski. That's my inner monolog, nick. We're going to have to keep explaining this to the guests, but that's just my inner monolog. It's the voice that was in my head saying to me when Greg Cody, with the nitpicks of Zaz, and then Greg Cody comes in, Well, what about this? All of a sudden, we're fixing the NBA dumber than you and Bill Simmons did it on that- So let's talk WMDBE.

Greg, you're always good with me, buddy. Thank you. The second, pardon me, venture into the Lebitard universe after I was a one-time and one-time only guest on this show was when I was on Greg Cody and Chris Cody's podcast. That was my only appearance anywhere in the universe for two years. Thank you. I assume I just didn't respond to invites to a means podcast, but still. All right, Wimby, what's the next hyperbole with him you guys want to do? It was unbelievable in the first quarter last night. Don't get me wrong.

Oh, I just think that OKC has got that as a problem. That's their only problem. They have a trouble with what he's going to to the sport.

And they went four out of five against OKC this year.

So maybe I misinterpreted. I apologize. If you're saying the Spurs right now this year are the biggest threat to Oklahoma City, I 100% agree. Where I have heard that conversation go is, and man, teams better start winning championships now because Wimby is going to own the league for a decade, maybe. Maybe. I think whatever concerns there were about him coming into the league as far as literally every single player in the history of the league, 7,4 or taller, has dealt with massive health issues, still remain. And the fact that as great as he is, I am yet to see the real obvious improvement from last year to this year. And I happen to believe he does not yet play a game that takes full advantage of his size. He is still one of, at worst, the six best players in the sport, and he absolutely already is good enough to be on a team as well-built as the Spurs, the best player on a champion.

But nick, you saw he's going to learn that stuff faster than Shaq and LeBron learned it. Shaq and LeBron also learned that they have to play better in the post, Shaq developing more moves that made him an MVP, and LeBron just playing in the post in general. He's going to learn it. He's 21 or whatever. How old is he?

That's a great question. 22, but just turned 22. I would have also said 21. That wasn't a got you moment. I just was checking. Yes, I agree. He is going to learn those things. What I wonder is this. I wonder if he will... Young Young Shaq and young LeBron, even though they had a lot of things to learn, still leaned into their physical gifts. Young Shaq was ripping down backboards and showing the league, even if he didn't do it as consistently, the fact that I am the best athlete in the league and the strongest guy in the league is going to be my strength. Young LeBron, before he learned to shoot, that was his strength. Wimby He being 7-7, in my opinion, is his strength, and it seems to me like he goes back and forth game to game between leaning into that versus leaning into the fact that he is the most skilled 7-3 guy or taller in league history. And that's where whatever... And again, it's not real concern. I just pump the brakes on this one guy is going to have a decade long reign. I don't know that I'm there yet with him.

nick, so I like the take, and the take that I was cooking up is right now we need OKC more than ever because of what Wemby is able to do. I know in the beginning of the season, he was playing more inside, but then he had the castrain, then he was out for a while, and now he's trying to drift a little bit more outside and play outside. The take was, we thought OKC was going to win 80 games this year. We thought they were going to be the most unstable team of all time. They've backslided a lot. They've lost 4-5 to Wemby and the Spurs, but we need them right to block Wemby from whatever's happening there.

The idea, nick, that I live in a world where you're fixing the NBA with Bill Simmons, and what I'm watching from these athletes is that Wemby has already made onto Tukumbo the old iPhone. That evolution is crazy.

I disagree. And what I'm saying is I disagree with that. And that's where I think we are. So I think we get ahead of ourselves on a lot of this stuff. First of all, five of the last six NBA champions a month into the season where they were the defending champion, everyone's like, well, they're obviously going to win it again. And none of them made the finals. None of them made the conference finals in the year back. So as dominant as OKC was, a team that did need seven games to win the Championship last year. The nobody is going to stop this team, I thought felt, even though I was buying into it as well a bit because it felt different, but it felt like the Celtics and the Bucks and hell, people forget the Lakers when they were defending champs. The Nuggets, for sure. The only defending champ this decade that didn't feel inevitable to return was Golden State. What's up, Mike? It's backslided.

It's backslid. I'm stupid.

Oh, you're fine.

You said backslided. Don't worry about it.

It's all good. Everybody knew what he meant. Are you out here doing grammar checks?

Yeah, they like to do this to me.

You know what? That feels targeted, and I wouldn't take it, brother. They do it to me. But now I have to regain my train of thought.

You don't have to. It's okay. I wanted to talk I'm going to have a football with you anyway, and we've backslided into way too much basketball.

Now you're talking.

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Dan Levatard.

To us, residents.

Oh, wow. That's pretty good. It's in there.

It's better.

You think I haven't been practicing?

Stugatz. I didn't realize we had a substitute complicated legacy- Brought you by a headquarters Toyota.

441 Power Line Road, second down to 9.

This is the Dan Levatard show. With the Stugats.

I want to ask you from the game or the halftime show, which is your preferred topic point? Which do you think is more interesting?

Here's the thing. Last time, you did a choose your own adventure style thing, and I chose the sports, and then I did the real life stuff after you got mad at me. So I will start with the real life stuff.

Not mad at you. Just the floor is Do whatever you want.

You've got 10 minutes. I will start with the real life stuff. I understand this is maybe a dangerous room or a shipping container to admit this to. But prior to the halftime show, I was not very familiar with the work of Bad Bunny. I know he has a song with J Balvin, Balvin and Cardi B. I know he's wildly popular, but I was not very familiar with him. Okay? So I went into that as pretty ignorant to the guy's music as anybody. And I'm also not really a big music guy. I'm more of, believe it or not, a sports podcast guy when I'm walking around or in my car. So I have a lot of musical vacancies in my brain. But it takes a sub 70 IQ to not recognize, even though you couldn't understand, if you didn't speak Spanish, the words of the songs, that what this guy was trying to show America and the world at large is on the stuff that matters, we're all basically the same. We all have weddings like that just with different music and different food. We all have the old people in our community who hang out together by Maybe it's old ladies playing bridge in some cultural communities.

Maybe it's Majang in others. Maybe it's dominoes in those. We all have these things that collectively, connectively make us human, and the differentiators are absolutely meaningless to the bigger... The cultural differentiators are not the important thing. The important thing is we all celebrate, live, live and die similarly. And I thought it was a beautiful message. And I also thought he did a better job than I think a lot of people would have done, and some people wouldn't even call a better job, but he had more self-control in making it objectively apolitical by leading off the end with God bless America and then rolling in all of the other nations, all of the other Latin countries, all of the Western hemisphere countries. It was a true artistic attempt at uniting a massive group of people. And the fact that the response from some people who fancy themselves, not only not dumb, but thoughtful or smart or tastmakers, or maybe even one day want to be presidential candidates was, I sure wish I understood the lyrics, either shows a willful ignorance, an ossification of one's heart, or that you're just a dope. And so, again, choose your own adventure on which door that applies to if you're one of those folks that was allegedly outraged by this.

But I don't give a damn about Bad Bunny's music. I knew none of Bad Bunny's music, and I thought the message in that 15 minutes was beautiful. I thought it should have been pretty obvious to everyone what the message was.

But what ended up happening afterward was sound like this. So explain and take us through what it is your reaction is, and you've answered some of this, when you hear sound like this from Shitstein and Sid Rosenberg.

It was a bad football game. When you coupled that with Bad Bunny, who may have been the worst halftime show, not one word of English, not one word of English, one word. You combine the halftime show on the football game. I think Clay would agree, he's a great sports this guy, too. What a waste of three hours. Clay, yeah, Bad Bunny. I walked him with him. I took German in high school. I walked him with my dad. He said he's 81. He said, Hey, this is the worst football game top to bottom ever. So I think he was right on that one. Although, Turning Port put together a great show.

It looks great.

He does.

It's a hell of a mustache. I mean, that... I... Try I'm going to catch him.

What's wrong?

That doesn't surprise me.

You know how hard it is to throw him off there? You know how good you have to be with those Sid Rosenberg heads to throw this man off?

Or he could just hold up a sign that says backslip.

I mean, that one, that's to me not even that disappointing or surprising. That's just put the coin in the machine and get what you know you're going to get. It was more other people that I have more professional or personal regard for than some of the people on that screen you just showed me, which, of course, was on a sister network of the one who pays all my bills. And so that doesn't surprise me. The other folks that tried to... Let me say what I'm actually trying to say. I owe that to you guys. I have more respect for that than folks who try to both sides this stuff, who try to be like, Listen, I'm a straight shooter. I just call it how I see it. And gosh, darn it, that I understand why that bothered people. Even if I'm not, it's just everybody knows what you're doing, man.

But you have conflicts, I guess, that everyone knows you're talking about Steven A. Smith without saying it's about Steven A. Smith. How about the football itself?

How about- Well, for the record, listen, I don't think Steven A was the only person I was talking about there, but of course, my conflicts are not there. I don't mind saying this. He can be upset with me or not. You guys know how much professional regard and respect I have for him in the sports take field and that he is the rabbit that I am chasing professionally. I've said that. I've open with that. That is not contradictory to the fact that I find a lot of his political commentary to be so transparent. And I am trying to make sure that I don't ever have to actually give a real opinion. All I'm trying to do is expand my tent as big as possible. I think that is in times like are in now and on important real life topics, I find that to be a damaging approach. Now, on the game itself, if we may for a moment or two, the question So this is what has gotten thrown at me. I can't hold Drake Mays Super Bowl performance against him because I am the captain of the team that it is logically ridiculous to say losing a round early is better than making the final round and losing there.

And it's all fruit of the poisonous LeBron tree.

That tree has not been poisonous for you. That tree has been bountiful for you, the poisonous LeBron tree.

Yeah. I mean, Tony, you still like the watch, bro?

I do. I was going to say we're going to make a bet for next season. Yeah.

And this, by the way, a week from today, you guys can watch it on Poker Goes YouTube. I'll be playing in a game where table stakes are about this watch and against some of the best players in the world and some businessmen. And that game will probably end with me either getting another one or if it goes real poorly, this being like, hey, what's the price of gold per ounce at the moment? But that's either here nor there. So here is My big takeaway. Going into the playoff run, I thought Drake May was a lock top five quarterback in the league moving forward. I just thought he checked so many of the boxes that I care about, the athleticism, the arm strength, the fact that he was so young or is so young, all of those things. He's in a good organization, good head coach. He was so irredeemably bad. In every single first half and in at least two, if not three of the games overall, that I have downgraded where he is now, to me, alongside Caleb Williams on the probably will be awesome, but I'm not 100% certain yet. Oh, wow. And that has- You're holding- No, you're just holding against him the fact that I think he faced in the playoffs, and you expect this to be great and grow.

But the three worst defenses that will expose anyone who has skill position problems and offensive line problems. There couldn't have been a fourth defense that's even close to the three that made him look like that. And I'm with you. He looked progressively worse in each of the games.

So here's why I... Because I keep hearing that, because obviously, close to the TV show, Kevin Wilds, Diehard Pats fan. If you played one of, if not the toughest run of defenses in a playoff run ever, and you played mediocre. I then give you a curve of, man, you played unreal defenses, and you were able to be mediocre. If you played these incredibly tough defenses and played awful every spot, that to me, you don't get a boost from that. You get a boost if you're in an AP class and get a 70 on a test, and it's like, okay, in a regular class, that's probably a 90. But if you get a 15, nobody's like, well, it was a hard test. It's like, no, you failed, bro. And I thought the fumbles were highly problematic. I thought some of those sacs were on him. I understand taking a decent guard at four overall to play left tackle hurt him. I get that. But I also... In the Super Bowl, clearly, Vrabel thought, and he was almost right, Darnal is just going to give it to us. And so What was so disturbing to me about that Super Bowl from Drake May's perspective is first nine drives of the game, no turnovers, just punts.

And the moment it was like, Man, now we've got make plays. Final five drives of the game, all turnovers are touch downs. And it felt like, oh, that's the Texans game, too, right? You were hunting big plays, hit three of them, and fumbled four times and threw a pick. The Broncos game, you were so conservative on, I am not going to make the mistake. You made no big plays. It felt like what was exposed a bit this postseason was a against legitimate defenses, the cost of doing business for Drake May at this point in trying to make big plays is some catastrophic mistakes, and that is concerning. And then one other point on this, I am hereby demanding that the NFL take, it can be a sixth-round pick, I don't care, a draft pick from the New England Patriots for the Super Bowl injury. Injury report. Because I am not going to have a six-month offseason of Patriot fans saying, Well, he was hurt. His shoulder was shot up. It was an injury. And the Patriot It's the day before the most gambled on football game of the year, removing him from the injury report saying he's fine.

That's right. Those two things can't both happen.

He's the host of FS1's First Things First. What's Right with nick Wright is the podcast he does with his son. I urge you to check that out. It is personal, it is intimate, and it shows you more of him than the TV show does because there's just more room. Thank you, nick. Good talking to you.

Appreciate it. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Zaz. It's Tony. I got your back, bro. I don't want to mess with you. Talk to you later.

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I want to address Tony and all men who would wear that shirt in public.

Stugatz.

Don't do it.

This is the Don Levatard show with the Stugatz.

I wanted to talk to you guys about a couple of the things that he said. But before I do that, can you guys get me the audio of the last interception that Drake May threw? Because Julian Love, who intercepted it, called it, called it on the sideline. We have the audio here. This is pretty cool audio if you want to be inside of the game and just hear what it sounds like when somebody is predicting that they're about to do something, then they do it, then they're running to the sideline scared because people are chasing them with the football. Coming to you? Yeah. It's coming to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all right, though. I'm going to say patient.

I'm going to give me one.

Classic young quarterback. He's... No, he's... I know. As soon as that backfoot hits... He's going to keep on his desk. As soon as the backfoot hits, he's going to where he wants, but he's pausing for a second to confirm that he's open. He's not a blindly doing like Stafford. There's a little hit there. But you can see you jump May from the shotgun.

Second down and three.

Steps up in the pocket, going to let one fly down the seam, and it's intercepted. Julian Love. Julian Love is right where he's supposed to be at free safety. You're New York's gunman. I'm telling you. You've been in the race for the whole time.

How about a little pick in the soupy? Come on, dude.

Love you, man.

The most damning-Pick in the soupy at the end there. Unnecessary to say it that way. They just won a championship. What's up with you?

I dig It was Sam Darnold and him after the game. He's like, How about a pick in the soupy?

Yeah. How much did you love the Stafford thing, too? That was cool.

Dan's ears perke up.

Classic young quarterback. He's taking that little halfbeat to make sure the guy's open. He doesn't throw it blindly like Stafford. That right there. That should have just been the deciding vote. Not the dude that voted for Justin Herbert. They should have just played that at the NFL honors.

That's why the Rams are better than the Seahawks.

I would have given as soon as Matthew Stafford threw a no-look pass in a game-winning drive against the bangles in the Super Bowl, I would have given him all future MVPs until he decided to stop playing.

The Wemby conversation.

Just no look passes in the Super Bowl on the last drive. I'll never forget that. And Cooper Cups is the only receiver he has. Everyone knows the ball is going to him, and there's no way to stop it. But as it relates to losing confidence in Drake May, as nick Wright said, Mike Ryan was telling me, I agree with nick, and he's been a big Drake May buyer. I just thought that we were all in agreement that the Patriots widely overachieved, that their skilled guys were weak, and Will Campbell still apologizing for... I allowed so many pressures. So I thought we were all of the understanding that the first two games were weather and bad matchups defensively if you've got offensive line problems. Houston-denver pass rush, an Apocalypse for any quarterback, Stafford included. I don't think Stafford would have looked like that if he had to go against Denver and Houston, even though he did look like that against the the Seahawks, because I believe the Seahawks and them have played enough that Stafford's learned enough that nothing's going to surprise Stafford when he's playing the Seahawks. Whereas I thought before that game was played, I thought that Houston's defense and Denver's defense were a unique set of problems for Drake May.

If we're in an agreement that his team overachieved, went from 4-13 to 14-3, the biggest turnaround in history, does it not stand to reason they didn't have enough players?

It does. It's not a total capitulation. I just crowned his ass too soon. He was bad in that Super Bowl. I know you outlined all the great defenses that he played. He was bad.

Mike, he was bad?

He went up against a good defense, and on top of that was pretty bad.

He was unrecognizable in those last three games that he played. But I gave you the stat, the only teams that got more plays from their rookies this year were the Browns, the Titans, and the Jets, all incompetent. Clearly, that's a skill problem around him.

Yeah, but there's enough context, too. He got fat off of some really bad teams. I don't think any quarterback's ever played so many teams that ended up firing their head coach. There is some context that allows you to scrutinize their run. Look, they made it. They were the last team from the AFC, but the AFC was a bit bonkers this year.

But to Nick's point, was he hurt the whole postseason? I mean, right? Are we giving any level of credence to that's why he performed so far?

If he's getting a shot, I don't think it's an excuse. It can be both. It can be, I guess, an excuse and an explanation. He was unrecognizable. It's even the simple throws. Even if I say to you all of what I just said, limited offensively in a million different ways, great defense as well, and furthermore, he was scared, obviously scared and should have been, because I imagine there's some post-traumatic stress disorder. In the last three games you've played, unique set of matchups that overwhelm your offensive line, past rush galore. Also, I can't do anything, and now I'm sinking. I'm sinking because we can't do anything at all. If I tell you on top of that, he was bad. Easy throws, bad. Beyond all the other stuff, it was confusing to me to see him be unrecognizable.

That Julian Love clip makes Julian Love seem like a cyborg, but it was a bad throw. It was an awful throw. If he throws him to where he anticipates the route going to-Yeah, he didn't jump any route or anything. That's a huge chunk play. In that game situation there, it changes the game. Like, yeah, they were on his ass, but he threw a really bad ball.

I think the story of the postseason is that defense still wins Super Bowl. But, Drake, if you're going I'm not going to say the Patriots overachieved all season. That's because Drake had such a great season. He wasn't second in the MVP voting as a fluke. I think he just turned 23. I don't think he's fully developed yet. I wouldn't give up on him as as a top five quarterback.

I think that's pretty mature. But to the point that Mike is making, all right, that they played seven playoff teams this year, and in those games, his TD to turnover ratio was 11 to 11. He had as many turnovers as touch downs. When he played the 14 non-playoff teams, it was 31 to 8. He did feed off of bad teams, and then when he ran into the good one, he got handcuffed. But those are the three best defenses in the league that he played back to back, two of them in bad weather, two of them in bad weather, and also on top of that, because I don't think this part's irrelevant. I saw Zaz perk up when he's like, Yeah, why wasn't he on the injury report? That sport hides so many injuries that I never know if Stafford's throwing the interceptions because his fingers hurt and they've been hiding that he's got some dislocated index finger.

Sometimes it's awfully convenient, too. I think Tom braided, for seven straight years, showed up on the Patriots' injury report when he wasn't actually hurt.

Haven't they been gonged for manipulating it? Haven't they been- Rable is from that culture.

They put everybody questionable.

They're all day to day.

They have 15 guys questionable every week.

Look, I'm still a believer in Drake May. I'm rattled because that was a really bad game. He's off to a better start to his career than most quarterbacks. The one that I like to compare him to, Josh Allen, he's off to a much better start than Josh Allen was, and he's already gotten further than Josh Allen ever has. I think they'll be back, but they very clearly need to build around him. He's not this demigod.

As far as He was seeming overwhelmed in the Super Bowl on that stage, he should be at that age. He was the youngest starter in the Super Bowl since Dan Moreno in '84. I mean, give him a little bit of slack.

This year, they were aided by what they did last year, which was obviously be a four-win team. This year, they had all the easy games on their schedule. Now being 14 and three, now they're going to get all the tough games next year. Now we're going to see, okay, do they get A. J. Brown in the offseason? Are they trying to shore up the offensive line? What do they do there? Because next year, we're going to see the rubber meet the road in a big All right, but give me some help here, historically between all of you.

I love it when a rubber meets the road.

Dog and sports.

In a big way.

It's not just rubber hitting the road, but it's happening in a big way. Do you disagree? The part that I disagree with, and I want to bring it up with all of you because I don't think it's fair. In my lifetime, I have seen precious, precious few quarterbacks that I believe can be the demigod that you guys are talking about. When these are the particular problems, I feel like your skilled guys aren't that good, and your offensive line is getting caved in because it's not that good, and then it gets injured at the end of the season. John Elway is one, but there are very few quarterbacks that I have seen on what I think is a bad team, and they were a bad team last year, and they added a bunch of new guys who were learning how to play football because it's not like a bunch of free agents. They turned over the entirety of the roster, and they got more plays from their rookies than any team in the league. Those guys don't know how to play football yet.

Dan, I agree with you, but we don't have to look that far. Look at Chicago. They were a terrible offensive line. They had terrible weapons on the outside, and Caleb Boons looked like a total shell. They bring in Ben Johnson, they shore up guys in the offensive line, they get weapons on the outside, and now he looks like the iceman.

He's great now. But he scored 17 points in a game against the Rams, and one of them was a fourth down throw that he's running back to his 50-yard line and throwing it to Cole Knaet. They were the best team in football. But I'm saying at the end, they got eliminated because they scored all of 17 points, and seven of them were asinine. In whatever the last game was, no matter how much I believe in Caleb Williams, you're giving Caleb Williams more credit for losing a round earlier than you are, Drake May, for losing a round later.

We always do that. The guy who loses in the Super Bowl, if he plays poorly, gets so much more criticism than the Qby who lost the wild card round. We always do that.

I hate that the narrative is, what's wrong with Drake May when it should be Seattle's defense? Oh, my God.

Pablo's got another one. It came out at five o'clock in the morning. Another one. An eighth installment of this aspiration Clippers thing. He's next.

Mike, you know I have one rule to live by, right?

Don't place parlays on multiple long shots. Don't say a game is one when it hasn't hit triple zero.

Always drink your Jägermeister ice cold. That's the rule. Everything else is merely a suggestion.

Everything else?

Everything else.

Wearing clean underwear every day?

Well, that's just a personal decision.

Brushing your teeth?

Obviously smart, but not a rule.

Never PP on an electric fence.

Okay, maybe there are two rules, but the one that is 100% that I insist on completely, Jägermeister must be drank ice cold. Or don't drink it at all. Damn, that's cold. Exactly. You're finally starting to get it.

Drink responsibly. Jägermeister L'Core, 35% alcohol by volume, imported by Mass Jägermeister US, White Plains, New York.