It. Coming up, hot off the press, football action, more football million dollar picks. NBA rookies next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where we put up new rewatchables on Monday. We did. Officer and a gentleman. We have another one coming on Monday. Next Monday as part of how much money did that movie make month. It's a movie from the 21st century. That's your hint. I'll even I'll give you the decade, the 2000s. So that's your hint for that one. Coming up on this podcast, we're going to talk some football off the top. Great Thursday night matchup. Bengals, ravens, big AFC North. Ramifications. So we had to bring the mother of Dragons Mallory Rubin on. Big Ravens fan to break down what we saw. And then Danny Kelly came on to help me with million dollar picks and go through the week eleven games. We came up with some good ones, and that should have been enough of a podcast. But now, because we had to bring on J kyle Mann, he did NBA rookie rankings on TheRinger.com and we zipped through all of them and talked about our favorite rookies things.

We liked guys who might move. This is a very fun basketball football podcast. I think we got to bring in.

Our friends from Pearl Jam Raping.

This part of the podcast. It is almost 09:00 Thursday night. The Mother of Dragons, Mallory Rubin is here. Diehard Ravens fan from the ringer. We thought this Ravens Bengals game that happened tonight would be memorable in some way. It became memorable in a lot of ways. Most of all, Joe Burrow going down and the Amazon crew just being kind of like nonchalantly handling the thing. It's like the Bengals season is on fire. Guys, what's happening?

That was bent on the drones hovering over the Burrows injury.

Hey, look at that drone. Kirk. And then Lamar's limping around and such a weird gotta even though you're a Ravens fan, I got to start with the they're their season might be over because they're five and five. All five losses in the conference, they've lost twice to you. And I don't really see maybe they can get a seven seed. But the AFC is too hard right now. Right now, they're 1234-5678. They are the 9th team in the AFC. So what a weird night for you because you're going into tonight thinking, we got to beat the Bengals. We got to send their season skidding sideways. And it happens. But we also end up losing one of the most fun players to watch in the league.

It's obviously just a shitty situation. And this was like a classic Thursday night football injury doom fest all around. Just a total debacle. You couldn't go more than like seemingly four snaps without somebody getting hurt. And Burrow's hand looked like an inflatable balloon, like a balloon animal when they zoomed in on it. I mean, this was bizarre because it became apparent over the course of the halftime stretch in the third quarter. He got hurt in the second quarter that he was injured before the game because there was this mystery footage of him emerging from the team plane with a brace on his wrist. Wasn't on the injury report, but he wasn't on the injury report.

The Bengals Twitter feed tweeted out the clip of them getting off the bus. And there's Burrow with like something you would have if you had what's that thing you have? The carpal tunnel. Yeah, the carpal tunnel. Like that giant brace on his throat right here.

Never have them more than a couple feet away. You never know.

And by the way, that video I don't think mentioned during the Amazon. I think the NFL was like, cut that. But this was I mean, there's so many different ramifications here, but there's know, gambling and legalized gambling and you have to report injuries and stuff like that. I would say Burrow having an injured right hand and wrist heading into the game, not being relevant. Yeah, I think they're going to get fine. This is going to be a thing.

It's a very bizarre situation. I'll be curious. We're recording this immediately after the game, so we haven't heard the post game pressers or any of the updates on not only his status, but on maybe what his pregame status was. So I'm sure more will come out soon and there will be a little bit of additional clarity, but I'll be fascinated to see what the team has to say about the extent of what he was dealing with previously and maybe it was minor. And then something, anything really was exacerbated during the course of play because he seemed to get there. Was that before the touchdown in which he emerged grimacing and clearly badly hurt. There was the clowny contact on the prior play. Maybe something was exacerbated there that had just been sort of like a dull, faint thing. Who knows? All we can do is speculate because they didn't say anything about the injuries. Very strange. And then that shot, of course, of him not only grimacing on the touchdown throw, but attempting to throw on the sideline, unable to grip the football. And that was was that was it. And Jake Browning came in and played pretty well in the year of the backup I mean, the year of the backup QB is one of the storylines of the league.

But, yeah, like, it's Joe Burrow. I mean, this is one of the five best quarterbacks in football. They already had gotten off to a really slow start. Obviously, his calf injury at the beginning of the year was part of why he got off to a slower start, and it felt like they were finally beyond that and he was healthy and playing well. So it's just like a devastating thing for their season, but of a piece and of trend on trend with this larger story of the sport where so many teams are reliant on backup quarterbacks now in week eleven. I mean, it's the Josh Dobbs assange, but not for everyone.

It's crazy and it killed one of my three fantasy teams, which is fine. Fantasy. It's not real. You just keep telling yourself it's not real. Yeah, I mean, from a Baltimore standpoint, this is a sneaky game the whole week. It's a Thursday nighter, you just never know. It's just like shaking the snow globe.

The line coming off a terrible loss.

Yeah, coming off a bad loss, so maybe that's a decent sign. But then Cincy, so the line was three and a half and I was going to bet the Baltimore when it got to three because there was so much Cinci money. I was like, all the sharps are going to come on Baltimore. The line moved to four as we got closer to game time, which makes me wonder if some of this Burrow stuff had kind of trickled out because Cincinsei was a huge public team all week and then all of a sudden there was this Baltimore surge of money. So I thought that was weird. I think from A, I said, I know you weren't delighted that Joe Burrow got hurt, but you're delighted from the position that Baltimore is in now where they are eight and three. You have Casey playing Philly on Monday night. You have Cleveland with Deshaun out for the year. Now you have one of the two healthy starting quarterbacks in the division. The other one is Kenny Pickett, who doesn't play well for 50 minutes each game.

Kenny Pickett on the most fortunate team in all of sports. The one score win Pittsburgh Steelers, how are they doing it? I just can't believe it. It's driving me absolutely crazy to watch. I mean, Lamar got hurt in this game too, though. It was a huge relief. I texted you in all caps, kill me. When he got hurt, I was having the heart palpitations. Mark Andrews had already gone out hurt. Just felt like it was going to be one of those doomed nights for the team and he came back. He played really well. He had a great game. They finally late, late, late toward the end, garbage time. Hit a deep ball, 50 1 YD bomb to Odell. The failure to hit passes, who then got hurt on that play. The injury list mounted even in victory. The failure to get the deep ball going had been like one of the storylines of the year amid a broadly very successful and exciting season for Lamar and the offense and the team at large. But Lamar, you could tell he was ginger on the ankle all game, so hopefully he'll be okay. Hopefully he's just got to get fully healed and well.

But it was scary. Every snap that he took, the rest of the game falling, sliding on the turf, falling. Yeah, it was like hard it clearly seemed difficult to make like a really hard sharp cut.

Yeah.

In terms of the overall state of play. I mean, eight and three, it's hard not to be thrilled. I thought that even after the genuinely dismaying Browns game and the third, fourth quarter collapse and totally inexplicable loss of the season, I mean, you can make the case and I think you can make it pretty easily and convincingly that they should be undefeated at this point in the season. There's really no reason they should have lost the three games that they did. I mean, it's a crapshoot season. The parity is extreme. A lot of teams have real flaws. I think they're a legitimate Super Bowl contender in a really weak and kind of muddied field. But a lot of teams are still contenders. And to your point about whether the Bengals are totally out of it, what was one of the most shocking things for all of us to see watching Week Ten? Like, you're looking at the in the hunt graphics with the Raiders on there. That's just a bizarre place to be in this season. So obviously they're not out of it yet. If Burrow is done for the year, though, I mean, that's a wrap on their championship hopes.

It has to be.

He's too important. Yeah, well, whatever the injury was, I don't think that's an injury that's going to be better ten days from now.

If it's like a strain throwing hand seems unlikely to heal quickly, but we're.

Not doctor top something. So in the AFC you have Baltimore, Casey, Miami, Jacksonville, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. All six wins are better. Buffalo, who seemed headed toward being dead on Monday night after blowing that terrible Denver game, they are now tied for the 7th seed with Houston. A team know, I think the over under them was like four and a half. But your team the rest of the way, you got the Chargers get a bye week home. Rams at jacksonville. At san Francisco home. Miami home. Pittsburgh. Not a Pittsburgh.

That's a really hard final stretch. A lot of those games are in primetime, so they've got some really visible high profile matchups and those final couple games in the primetime slate, the Jacksonville and Niners games, which are Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football respectively, those are both road games, so that's no picnic. That said, I feel very confident that they will at this point make the playoffs. I don't see how I couldn't be confident in that. Lamar's playing wonderfully. Zay Flowers is electric. This is the connection that I've been dreaming of. I can't lie to you and say that Mark Andrews getting injured, if that's a bad ankle injury and a lasting one, is not like a genuine wrench in their Lamar's. Even with everything that's been developing between Lamar and Odell Beckham, which has been really fun to watch, and even with everything that's been developing between Lamar and zay Flowers in his rookie season, and he's been sensational. Andrews is the guy, right? Like, he's the heartbeat of the offense. He's the safety blanket. He's the main guy that Lamar is going to build like a rhythm and a routine with. So if he's out, it fundamentally alters what they're going to do.

But then you have the fact that the team is so well rounded. The Mike McDonald defense continues to impress. They're generating a pass rush. Kyle Hamilton is like other than Lamar and Zay Flowers, my favorite player to watch on the team right now. He's incredible.

He jumped off the line of scrimmage today and broke up that third down pass. That was impressive.

You just say the words Kyle Hamilton to Ben Solak, and you clear out for 90 minutes, right? You just let them go, right?

So if you're talking winners and losers from this game, pittsburgh, the Michael Myers Steelers, who are at six and three, somehow none of us understand it. Later in the podcast, I brought Danny Kelly on to do million dollar picks, and we picked Cleveland over Pittsburgh. So I'm sure we somehow reverse jinxed them to a 7th win. But they have Cleveland this week. They still haven't played Cincy. They still have two Cinci games left. They have an Arizona game left. They have the crappy patriots. They're at Indy, who at that point might have been packing it in, and then the last two games are at Seattle, at Baltimore. But that Baltimore game, you might be like the one seed wrapped up at that point or the two seed or at least the division. I don't see how they don't get to ten wins if it's against the backup Bengals quarterback.

But doesn't this just feel like a repeat of the Vikings last year where they're going to amass an impressive record and then completely wither away in front of our eyes in the playoffs? Because they're not actually that dominant of a team, and it's a deceptive record that's not really borne out by any of the supporting evidence either of advanced stats or our very own.

So whoever wins this Cleveland Pittsburgh game now, and Cleveland's got Denver, the Rams, Jacksonville, Chicago, Houston, the jets, and since he left so a couple easy ones.

But it feels like Thompson Robinson is going to be playing quarterback backup, but.

The Steelers will have Kenny Pickett still playing quarterback, right? It feels like whoever wins Cleveland Pittsburgh now is probably going to make the playoffs, and then it feels like this Texans team that everybody loves now has a legitimate chance to make it, which would be an incredible story. And they have some good wins, like they beat Cincinnati, they beat Pittsburgh, they beat Jacksonville, they beat New Orleans. That's not like they've cream puffed it. You know, they have Arizona this week. We decided not to use that on million dollar picks, but that'd be a nice little tester for them. At home, they should win. Kyler Murray is a little scary, but we'll see. And then Buffalo looming over everything else, firing their offensive coordinator.

Yes, because it was his to have to scapegoat someone as the Bills completely collapse. The Texans are like the story of the season, right? I mean, how fun is it that CJ. Stroud is having our ringer colleague Stephen Ruiz wrote a wonderful piece this week about the Stroud MVP buzz and the Stroud MVP campaign being like a legit real thing. Now, of course, I am still in the Lamar Jackson as the MVP of this football season camp, but it was a compelling case. And I would recommend everybody go to TheRinger.com what a great website and give it a read because the comparisons that he's making are not to other rookies in this class. It's to like historic rookie seasons or other MVP caliber showings. So to see if Stroud can maintain and sustain that level of success and obviously everything that Tamika Ryan's has been doing to build that team so quickly is just incredible. They're really fun to watch. The end of their schedule is like I mean, you already mentioned Arizona. Jacksonville is hard. Denver, you know, they're rising. So who knows? The Jets, Titans, we'll see what shape the Browns are in by then.

They finish against the Colts. I mean, if it comes down to that game, you would take the Texans in that game, right?

You would. You would think you would take the quarterback. You know, the Burrow injury is bad because all the AFC stuff is off Fandel right now for future bets because I was going to look at the division. The Texans ODS everything's off because they're going to try to figure out what happens here. I can't think of any scenario with the hand wrist thing where he throws a pass on the sideline to see if he can do it and bends over and says, what did he say? What did he whisper to the camera? Like he's like, it's done. Yeah, it seemed like you said it's.

Like shout fuck very loudly.

See, him being back in ten days seem great. And then if Philly beats KC on Monday night, I don't think I'll feel great about any AFC team. Your team has the best case to be like, feel great about us. Feel great about us.

But what's not like about the Ravens?

Come on, why blowing that Cleveland game to Sean Watson had a broken shoulder and a high sprained ankle and you still lost. That made me feel not great.

Don't you think it's one of those good, like you learn the lesson in the middle of the season and you.

Know what, seven of those in two years.

No, this is like whenever you're really invested in a college basketball season and you're heading into the tournament, I don't know if you feel this way, but I'm always like, I am not only content to lose in the conference tournament. I would prefer it. Let's get it out of the way. Get it out, learn whatever lesson we need to learn, and then be ready for primetime, be ready for the main show. The point differential, I mean, it's like the Ravens blowing these games. You can kind of make the case either way about whether this is a good or a bad thing. Right. Like, when you see these nuggets that are obviously irrefutably dismaying in terms of the company they keep, how successful those teams have gone on to be winning Super Bowls and how rare it is to achieve that level of success and then blow games like that, you're like, well, this is pretty upsetting, right. You're not just not supposed to lose games like this, but at the end of the day, they had the best point differential in football heading into the game tonight. They still do coming out of it, and they're mounting leads.

So the thing that they have to do is learn how to sustain them. And I thought it was interesting, especially after the Browns game, they talk about blowing the 14 point lead in the fourth quarter. And is some of the shine coming off of the oh, are we looking at another all time Ravens defense?

Rose.

It'S about the offense, right? Like, you've got to be able to sustain drives late and keep generating first downs and moving the chains in addition to just keeping getting points on the board. Like, they've got to be able to stay on the field. Yeah.

The Orioles couldn't finish games once your closer went out. Like, you got to finish games.

The Orioles won 101 games in the regular season. I'm glad you mentioned this because I do want to take a moment to say I know you were hoping for a Ravens loss when you asked me to come on tonight and that you wanted me to come on.

Not true.

Didn't even follow in my sorrow and my pity.

Who better to talk Ravens Bengals at 850 at night than you? Who are my other options wounded that.

You never asked me to come on and celebrate the greatest and most joyous baseball season of my life? We don't need to talk about what happened.

We don't care about baseball.

The windows open in season long.

We don't care about baseball regular seasons on.

Neither does Major League Baseball.

Yeah, they've been proven, just not the matter. It's turned into hockey.

Gunner, unanimous congrats of the year. Thanks, man. Yeah. Brandon Hyde, Manager of the Year. Michael HYAS, executive of the year. It's all happening, man.

Well, one other thing you have is your coach is related to just a blatant cheater. So I don't know if he'll pick up any tips before January. Maybe he'll get maybe at the holidays.

Maybe he'll get I'm not going to let you put this out into the ether and put this out into the they are related.

He's related to a coach who just got suspended for being a cheater.

Has this sparked your interest in college football? You genuinely don't partake in college football as a proposition?

I'm very interested in college football. I need a quarterback. I've been studying these.

That's true. You are crunching draft tape.

But you know where I've landed. I didn't even tell you. This is it.

Drake may. He's your guy.

Well, obviously he needs to be the number one pick, but what doesn't he.

So you've just moved on completely from.

Well, I don't think we're going to get the number one pick, but I think we have a chance to get two.

Okay.

And I think I'd be more excited if they took Marvin Harrison than any of the remaining quarterbacks, because I watch all these games and everybody has well, I guess Baltimore doesn't, but most of these teams have this awesome receiver that just tilts the field and does all this stuff. And it's like he seems like one of the surest bets that have come in at the receiver position since I've known you.

Yeah, he's sensational.

Is he at least I mean, he's.

A he's a generational wide receiver prospect.

So let's take him and we'll figure out a quarterback later. We'll go get somebody at some point, maybe somebody want to play with them. But I would rather do that than do the 50 50 coin flip with the non short thing. Quarterbacks, it just can't if you miss that, it's just devastating. Look at the jets right now. They missed it.

Rather not. Frankly, I would rather not, but I'd.

Rather just say took Harrison or the best left tackle over a quarterback that they weren't sure of.

I would really hope I really hope that doesn't happen because I don't want to see him on the Patriots. But for you, I would be happy. I would be happy for you.

Be great. Well, we used to kick his dad's ass all the time, so maybe he owes us. Yeah. So it's been a fun seat. What's been your other favorite thing about football season other than the fact that Lamar is a legitimate MVP candidate? Any other favorites, favorite plots?

That's obviously top of the list. It's just an absolute thrill for me to say eat shit to everybody who doubted whether he should get that contract, including you like to say eat shit, Bill, to you right now here on this.

I didn't doubt the contract. I didn't understand why nobody else was offering him the contract. It made me suspicious. As we see, all these teams need quarterbacks. Where was Atlanta? Where was Carolina? Where were the oh, I just didn't understand team.

I still can't get over the Falcons most of all, but every team that came out and said, yeah, we're good, and particularly with his record now against the just, it's so wonderful. I think the like, it's been incredibly fun to watch the Lions. I am sort of, like, morbidly curious always about what Jared Goff is capable of achieving inside of a really elevated and advanced offensive that's been that's been really fun to watch. And I think Dobbs it's obviously a little bit of a recency bias thing, and we'll see how long it lasts. But coming out of the trade deadline, wondering why more teams didn't attempt to do something, and then seeing Dobbs play the way he has with the previously on The Verge of being corpse like Minnesota Vikings is kind of astonishing. And then I think Stroud, which we already talked about, I watch a lot of college football as you know, I love the draft, so it's always one of the highlights of my season to track the rookie prospects. And I just thought it was actively bizarre to listen to the analysis around Stroud during draft season, particularly the anti Ohio State bent and the volume of obviously he was the second player taken.

It's not like he pulled it to the third round or anything, but the level of skepticism around whether he would be able to succeed as a franchise cornerstone quarterback because other Ohio State quarterbacks have busted in the NFL and also because he didn't. And Ruiz wrote about this again, really, I thought really wonderfully in his piece.

This week, didn't have to do as much yeah.

On those Buckeyes teams. Where Marvin Harrison Jr. Your favorite player in the world, is always like, we've got to be able to evaluate quarterbacks beyond that, beyond penalizing them for their college teams being good. So that's just been an incredible we're.

Never going to figure it. Yeah. Yeah. What about you?

What's top of your list? Mac Jones, number one, tush Push, number two, CJ.

Stroud, I think is the most fun. We just need quarterbacks. It's like how we need good TV shows, right?

Yeah.

We just don't have any good TV shows. Although you really like the Loki season finale.

Oh, the finale was more it was so just I know you're not an MCU guy, and the season overall I did not think was as successful as the first season of Loki, which is one of my favorite MCU things ever. But the season finale was such a masterful final act of a limited series. And I said to Joanna, when we potted about it on House of R, I just can't think of an hour of the MCU that has, like, other than literally endgame, better rewarded and honored our investment in a character for a decade plus. It was just, like, sublime. I loved it. Great high concept Sci-Fi paired with real heart. It was wonderful. I would try to convince you to watch it, but I know it's hopeless, so I won't bother.

I just want the MCU to self combust.

Well, I mean, it's been a stretch.

No, it's good for us because I think we have the best people covering it and it's great content for us, but just from afar, knowing nothing, I just don't understand some of the decisions where it's like, well, we killed this character off, but we're going to bring him back now because it's the multiverse. So it's like, when you start doing stuff like that, how do I take anything seriously? It would be like if we had a whole football season. You're like, The Ravens lost, but they didn't because it's the multiverse, and they're still alive over here.

That's what the multiverse is.

I know, but I just don't get it. My brain just doesn't work this way.

I would say, broadly, you are revealing your sincere lack of interest in comic book storytelling as a proposition.

Fair. Never read it.

This is a central tenet of the comic book experience. But it's not just I think, to your point, there is a risk with multiversal storytelling of feeling like the stakes are never lasting. I broadly, though, don't think that's, like, a prohibitive thing with multiversal storytelling, and I think that it unlocks a lot. Part of what made Loki so great, without getting into any of the specifics, is that you could take a character and have this character confront other variants of other Lokis right. And say, like, okay, the person who could teach me the most about myself is another version of me. That's, like, pretty interesting as a storytelling concept.

Sure, it sounds great.

You wouldn't like to meet another Bill out there in the multiverse.

It's just not for me.

You're on Earth 6116. What do you think Bill Simmons is doing on Earth Eight? Three eight? Is he in the illuminati? Do you know what I mean by that? Kyle does. Kyle knows.

I'm a meat and potatoes guy, Mel.

Okay.

I just live my life, and I just want things to make sense. Okay.

Everything makes sense in the multiverse, though.

Apparently, if you make a bad decision with a movie, you could just change it and bring somebody back. Now, listen, we agree on a lot of shows.

Yes.

Because people are always like, why is it mal on the rewatchables more? It's because you're already doing 97 things for us. It's hard to book. You're a busy person.

This is not true. This is not true.

But we've had some misses lately, things that we were excited about. I'm still licking my wounds from the American Jiggle series. I really felt like that was going to be a good one. We don't have one. The affair was really when we peaked as a combo. We need another show like that. I don't know why people aren't making no shows. These adult dramas with weird shit going on.

We're not too far away from White Lotus season three, surely. Yeah. The best. One of my real goals, and I think that Chris and Joanna are invested in joining me in this mission, is bringing you into Slow Horses Hive, just a sensational television program. Apple.

Oh, Apple. Okay.

It is so good. I think it is in the running for best show on TV.

Wow. Yeah.

You only have two seasons to catch up on. They're both six episodes. It's a mystery adaptation. The cast is sensational. You'll love it. It's great. Genuinely great.

I was thinking to you today because I was doing emails and stuff and I was flicking channels because I want to have something on the background. I put on Marley and Me because I like the dog scenes, but then kind of stuck with it and all of a sudden Marley started slowing down at the end and I'm like that was what I texted you. Like, should we do Dog Month on the rewatchables? Because I'd have to book you for every episode because you're the only other person at the Ringer who cares about pets.

Have you ever read that book?

Yeah. It's good.

Devastating.

It's good.

Like a true can't see the words on the page through my tears experience.

Yeah, it's really good. And it's funny how the movies age, too, because as I've gotten older, I saw the movie in theater. I thought it was good. I got emotional, obviously, because the dog died. But now as I got older, it's like, you know what? This is really about family and grown old. So I thought that would be a good rewatchable.

Great one. Can I ask you very natural opportunity here, if you've reconsidered your stance on.

Cats, you keep pushing this. Yeah, well, I know my wife is reconsidering. Yeah.

Did you tell her that? I have said, I will be texting you a photo of my cat every day until you adopt a cat, I will not relent.

I feel like it's going to happen because I've caught her on the sites a couple of times. Here's the thing.

You're going to be an instant convert. You are. I know it. You're going to love it.

Cats are the best. I'll keep you posted.

I mean, intelligent.

The Ravens getting the one seed and me getting a cat. That would just be a huge December for you, man.

Yeah. Gunner winning rookie of the year. You getting a cat. The Ravens moving toward the top seed. I don't know. Maybe I should just retire. What else is there other than the Marley and Me rewatchables? Maybe that'll be a wrap for me. And then I know what you're going to do.

And racing through the rain. What was that dog's purpose?

That movie? I only watched that movie, the Art of Racing in the Rain because we were doing another rewatchables and you texted me, I need you to watch this, too. We were going to talk about this tomorrow, too. We were talking about it was a costume movie. Watched the movie. It did not come up the next day, but I've been ready ever since.

Well, the Dennis quaid. What was the dog's purpose? The dog's soul leaves and jumps into other dogs. That's something that should be a prestige TV show. Lot of did you watch Morning Show.

Or no, no, Adam watches it. I haven't seen a second of it.

Yeah, you're not missing out. All right, we got to go. I took 30 minutes of your time. The busiest person at the ringer. Mallory Rubin. Can you hear on the Ringerverse? What else?

House of R. Yeah, House of R. We've got a standalone house of our feed now. We're there twice a week. Check it out. Follow along.

Yeah, I said ring, verse. But you have your own feed now, and it's House of Art.

Also the ring.

Fun offer, ringerverse. But you also pop on the Ringerverse too. You had a seven person live show two weeks ago.

We did. It was great. It was a blast. Can't wait to do it again.

What's going to be the nerd event of 2024? What's the one seed right now in the tournament?

Well, I mean house of the Dragon Season Two Tough to argue against that. That's coming in early summer, whatever that means. We'll find out. So that's pretty exciting. Despite your MCU critiques earlier and despite the broad MCU fatigue that is sweeping our viewing public, I think that Deadpool Three is genuinely anticipated. Like a hard R movie. Coming to the MCU is an important, I think, moment. And also Wolverine is in that movie. So we're entering a pretty crucial X Men stretch. That'll be really fun. I'm hoping that we get Rings of Power season two. I have no idea what the date of that will actually be. And then there's a ton of stuff coming this year. We've got at the end of this year, a Percy Jackson adaptation on Disney Plus. That's like a really beloved book series that's being adapted on TV after a failed movie adaptation. So that's really fun. Three body problem coming on Netflix. It's Benioff and Weiss, their grand return to genre TV that's hitting Netflix in March. And Netflix also has a Avatar, the Last Airbender adaptation coming, which is sort of an interesting, like, on the one hand, it's a beloved property.

So live action is something that fans, I think, are very trepidacious about because of past failures and the original creators leaving this project. But also it's Avatar. You see Momo in the trailer and you're just, like, transported to another plane of existence. So there's a lot it'll be a nerdy year, as it always is. And I will attempt to get you to watch one thing. We'll see what it is. I don't know what I'll be able to sway you to consume, but something.

I might try to watch Endgame over the Christmas holiday vacation. Van said that was good. Hold on.

You can't just watch you're talking about Avengers Endgame?

Yeah, you can't. That was a good one, right?

Yes, Bill, it's a good one. But you can't just watch Endgame. It's the culmination of the infinity saga.

I'm good. I think I can just watch that. I'll be good. I'll know everything at that point.

No. Did you ever get beyond you stopped watching after iron man, right. I think you watched hulk and then you kind of stalled out.

We watched some, yeah. My son and I were going to watch every MCU and that think I think girls intervened, started dating girls and that was it. He didn't want to watch MCU movies with me. Kyle just told us Joe burrow is a sprained wrist. That's the word.

Sprain.

Sprained wrist.

If it truly is a sprain and it's not a more well, I don't know. I mean, sprains can obviously be pretty bad, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's done for the entire season, right? Is there a prognosis for time also, if they can somehow limp their way into the playoffs, whatever seed it might quarterback, though, maybe he can be ready for the playoffs.

I always felt anytime you have a sprain like that, that usually means like you messed up your ligaments in some way. And if you messed up your ligaments we always see this in baseball when somebody has some sort of wrist thing and it takes forever to come back. So we'll see. Maybe the bengals are alive. We poured dirt on them 20 minutes ago. This is what happens when you emergency pod. Mallory Rubin, great to see you. Congrats on the ravens win.

Thanks, bill. Get a cat.

FanDuel is America's number one sports book, especially during football season. Right now, new customers get $150 of bonus bets when your 1st $5 moneyline bet wins. We are about to cover a whole bunch of fun ones on million dollar picks with Danny Kelly. One of my favorite ones is a bet the first half bet the game. Same game bet that we picked two teams that we thought are going to win the first half and the same game at the same time. So if you've been thinking about joining FanDuel, no better time to get on the action the apps needs to use and so many different fun ways to bet live. Same game parlays bets in the new explore tab, the parlay hub. It's got it all. Visit fanduel.com bskickoff. The NFL season FanDuel official partner of the NFL must be 21 plus in president select states. $5 pregame moneyland wager required. First online real money wager only. $10 1st deposit required. Bonus issued as non withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt c terms at sportsbook fanduel.com. All right, degenerate gambler Danny Kelly is here. Nobody loves placing bets on FanDuel more than Danny.

He barely knows there's lines on the games. But that's part of what we need for billion dollar picks. We just need some know how. You don't need to have gambling experience. We just need your know how.

Your new set of eyes on yeah, yeah.

I want to go through some of these games, and I want to start with Seahawks. Yeah, yeah, the Rams are plus one at home against the Seahawks. Kind of the Rams season here. They're getting everybody back. Stafford's playing. You're not out of it in the NFC. Nine and eight might take it, might take the seven seed. For all we know, these two have played each other a lot. I think McVeigh likes playing the Seahawks.

Oh, yeah.

Seattle on third down, 30th defense, stafford on third down. With these receivers, seven, eight yards a pop, at least for the first half. This looks like a scary matchup. I don't really like your defense.

Right.

And I have a lot of different Seattle. Danny's a Seattle fan. For the people listening, I have Seattle. I have a long shot for them to win the division. I have them to make the playoffs. I have their wins over. And something seems slightly off with this team this year. So what is it?

That's a good question. I think there's a lot of different things. Their defense, I would agree with you, is not really what it wants to be or what they wanted it to be. Know, there's still just a lot of issues. They're a young defense. They're still putting the pieces together. This game worries me. I almost picked this one. I almost picked the Rams for one of my picks, because if you go back in the history of the Pete Carroll versus Sean McVeigh timeline, it's not good for the Seahawks. Like, the Rams have always given the Seahawks a lot of trouble. For whatever reason, like even going back to week one, the Seahawks got absolutely, completely shut down in the second half of that game. I think it was week one or early in the season, and for whatever reason, the Rams really get up to play the Seahawks, too. I don't know why it is, but this is like a rivalry for the team.

Do you think it's like a little brother, big brother thing? Because the Seahawks mid 2010s were the team, and then the Rams were on their way up.

Yeah, I could definitely see that being the case. Even going back to those Lob era games, the Rams, even when they were bad, always gave the Seahawks really hard times. They bring the game down to their level. You know what I mean? It's just a fight in the mud or whatever. And so this game worries me, to be honest. I have marked Stafford's going to be, I think, better. He's going to be back.

So what was that game? Wasn't the playoff game when Goff couldn't play and the backup came in for the Rams and then they won the game anyway?

I think I blocked out of my mind, right?

I think I bet on the Rams because it was like McVeigh Seahawks. I'm just riding I just I like McVeigh in that matchup. Here's another thing with the know, every game is a big game, but this isn't like a must, must win for the Rams. It's like our season's over. If we don't win this game, they're home coming off a buy. Stafford, we think he's healthy, but I just like the matchup for them. I could see like, Stafford with like 28 completions. They get like 22 1st downs. They just have the ball a lot. What's wrong with Gino this year, in your opinion? What hasn't happened? Is this like a Case keenum 2017 Vikings thing or whatever year flash in the pan and he couldn't keep it up.

I know what you're talking about. I don't think it's quite that because I still am a believer in Gino, generally speaking. Last year he had a lot of turnover worthy plays that didn't end up as turnovers. I remember talking about this with my Seahawks chat during the season. Basically, Gino got away with a lot of turnovers last year that didn't actually turn into turnovers. So he's an aggressive passer. He's not afraid to push the ball down the field. He's got that mindset. I generally think, though, the turnovers have been sort of the one blemish. Otherwise he's been pretty good. I know that's a huge blemish. It's a big thing. But I don't know, I'm still kind of a believer in him. I think it depends on how you want to look at him. If you see him as a guy who's kind of like a bridge quarterback, good enough to get him to the next thing, good enough to get them to playoffs, potentially, but maybe not like a superstar. I think that's kind of where he falls, but there's people calling for him to be benched and things like that, and I think that's ridiculous to me.

Was it fair to say you're not happy with your offensive.

Less? It's been a bit of a disappointment, I would say. And they've been really banged up. They just got Charles Cross back at left tackle a couple of games ago. It looks like Abe Lucas is going to be back pretty soon. He's, I think, practicing this week, so I don't know for sure if he's going to play or, you know, better days could be ahead, but they've been, like, rotating guys, like quarter by quarter. It's kind of been a mess injury wise.

I like the Rams. I'm marking them down. I asked you to bring two picks. Give me one of them.

All right, so my first one is I like the Lions this week over.

The so you and I both.

Okay, cool. Because the Lions are really good at home. Ironically, the one game they lost this year was the Seahawks at home. And if you look at the splits with Jared Goff home versus Way, in his time with the Lions in particular, he is just infinitely better at home. He's just so much more comfortable there. His pass rating 106 this year, 8.1 yards per attempt at home. And obviously they got their run game going and I think jamir gibbs looks really good. David montgomery is back. They got that offensive line. They got amon ross, st brown. I think even Jameson williams is starting to flash a little bit. Like they're getting him involved. And this bears not getting excited yet. Yeah, I'm not excited quite yet.

It seems like they're doing the thing the pats used to try to do this with nikhil harry where they'd run the special play for him to try to get him going, build his confidence. Yeah. It's not there, but I've noticed the flashes. I'm with yeah.

And then on the other side it's know, justin fields coming back off this thumb injury. That worries me. I think in the last couple of games that they played, justin fields has run a lot. So I do expect him to kind of run around a lot in this game. But at the end of the day, I just don't really see him being able to keep up with the lions. And this is not a great bears defense even with montez sweat in there. So I like the lions at home.

So the lions are favored by seven and a half points and I want to tease them six points down because here's the thing with the Lions. You beat them by throwing on them. Right. Are the bears going to be able to throw on them? Probably not just the Fields with a thumb injury coming. We you kind of saw the recipe for how to move the ball on them and I don't think Chicago's the team. The only thing that scares me about this is I do think Chicago's defense has shown signs of life the last couple of weeks. But I also think that's probably not going to matter because Detroit is so good offensively. I mean, they were unbelievable in that.

Chargers game playing from were they're not built to play from behind?

No. And that's the thing. So you get a like I just keep coming back to like, do I think the bears are going to beat the lions? No. So I'm going to grab that and a tease, I was thinking for a tease partner. So the vikings are plus two and a half against the broncos.

Glad you said this. Yeah.

And I think the vikings there's a little momentum with know dobbs sanity is I just this feels like a close game to me. I don't see denver blowing out really anybody, much less Minnesota. I thought denver got really lucky last week against buffalo. Buffalo just did dumb shit the whole game and then it came down to the end. Like if they don't have too many men on the field, denver just loses and has this devastating loss where they got right. They got four mean there was one point in the first half. I think they got the first three turnovers in the game and they had like six. It's just everything went right for them. And they still barely, um and I'm just looking at the Vikings. I'm like, I can tease them to eight and a half. That's a two score game. They're going to blitz the shit out of Russell. I'm not even sure Denver can really block for him. Then the flip side, they'll move the ball. Jefferson, is he coming back? He is, right?

I don't know yet. Hopefully he was limited today. So hopefully I think they're probably going to be conservative with it. So who knows? But this is the Sunday night game, right? Like, this is the national stage, so.

This could be dobbs everyone go nuts about. I also have you noticed they might have stumbled into something with Ty Chandler?

I agree. I like this guy.

He's just better than, uh this is.

The level of degeneracy that I have. Like I'm a dynasty guy. I have him on literally every single one of my Dynasty teams.

Well, you host our fantasy football podcast, too. So Ty Taylor is going to be on your though. Like, he's got some bursts, he's got some juice.

He's been like their kick returner punt returner at times. And it feels like and I think one of his coaches even said it this week, like, every time he touches the ball, something good happens. He just has that spatial awareness. He's got the juice. I remember really liking him in college. He's a little bit smaller, but the fact that they were trusting him, they did like a wildcat play in the red zone with him last week, that to me, bodes well. And if Madison can't play, we get to see more Chandler. So he's exciting. You mentioned I almost brought the Vikings up as a team that I like this week. I'm a little worried about. Like you said, the line is pretty close here. But Russell Wilson versus the blitz this season. I looked up the stats. They're really bad. He has a 71 pass rating when blitzed, negative zero point 33 EPA per job hack, which is 32nd out of 33 quarterbacks that have a pass rating qualified. And then 15.4% sack rate when blitzed, which is second worst. And by the way, the Vikings blitz at 49%, which is the second one.

Flores is the blitz every other play, literally.

So that's an interesting matchup. I think that the Broncos, what they'll try to do is just run the ball and try and get them out of that. This is almost like a Rams Seahawks type game where they're just going to run the ball, play bully ball. So that'll be like the only problem I see with the Vikings. But overall, I do like the Vikings in this one.

And I do think Denver. I like Denver's. Running game. And Giovante, who had traded. I got sal. I got Sal did a trade. Mac Jones for Giovante. I won the trade. I've already the jury's come in. I won that one. But Javante looks like Giovante from before he got hurt.

Yeah, he's back. He's back. He looks good.

I just don't trust Russ against the butts. Yeah. So, lions, Vikings, little tease. Action. I'm looking at that. What was your second pick? You really like?

I don't know if this is too low hanging a fruit, but the Dolphins over the Raiders. Okay, so if you look at what the Dolphins have done at home this year, they're four, and they've outscored their opponents by 100 points. Part of that is obviously because they won 70 to 20 in one game, but they're averaging almost eight yards per play at home. They're getting to third down on one of six offensive series at home. So they are just absolutely moving the ball at home. I think they're trying to get their run game back with Devon Achan coming back this week. I think that's one of the big problems they've sort of had. The offense has stalled a little bit compared to what we saw early in the season, is they just can't get their run game going. And I think that's going to be a big part of this game plan this week. And the Raiders have not been good against the run. Their best player on probably both sides of the ball well, on defense certainly is. Max Crosby running can certainly kind of take him out of the game plan a little bit.

So I see them running a lot in this game and kind of just dominating from that point of view.

So what's the bet then? Because they're favored by twelve and a half, and I normally don't love laying that many points just because then you get the cheap touchdown potential and all those different things. Would you think about like a Miami over total points for the game type of thing? Would you just lay the twelve and a half? What would you do?

Well, I was thinking that could be one of your tease options. Like tease the line down a little.

Tease it down under seven. Yeah. You know what I can do? I can throw them with the Lions and the Vikings, and then we can get plus 140.

There you go.

For the three of them. Take the Lions down to minus one and a half, vikings to plus eight and a half, and the Dolphins under seven to six and a half. All three of them would have to win. So you'd recommend that one? I like that. Should I be worried as somebody who has a legitimate chance to win all three of my fantasy leagues, really, for the first time in my life, that mostert is a big part of that on all three teams. And now here comes a chain. Do I have to hire the Tanya Harding guy to kneecap them? What do I need to do?

Please don't do that. I love a chain.

What a scandal. That would be ringer founder Bill Simmons hires person to kneecap a chain to win. Fantasy.

Mean, obviously it certainly is going.

To lower Mostert's ceiling in fantasy, but I don't think they're gonna he's not the type of guy who's gonna get like all the volume, you know what I mean? Even when he was scoring all those points early in the season, HN, I mean, he was doing it on like twelve touches. They're still going to rotate these guys pretty heavily, I think, and you might even see Mostert still be the starter. I don't think you're going to get like, he's the top five running back in the NFL anymore going forward in fantasy in terms of Mostert, but I do think he's still going to be startable and solid.

I still feel like the most unstoppable play in football is Mostert running at a 45 degree angle, seven yards every time. Never seen it not get seven yards, and they'll just do it every once in a while. But nobody has ever run the 45 yard angle sweep that's better than that, dude.

This whole offense is just about annihilating pursuit angles. For some reason, they're the fastest offense, obviously. But Mostert my joke, my inside thing is that Mostert runs like a paper airplane flies where it's just like all of a sudden it's just like floating along. All of a sudden it just banks really hard and stabs you in the eye, you know what I mean? He's so fast, he's so fluid, so smooth. And then when he plants his foot and gets downfield, he's just gone. And so I love mostert The HN stuff has kind of overshadowed how good Mostard has been, certainly this year. But over the last few years, he's just been one of the top guys in terms of yards per carry and stuff. He's just really explosive.

So if I gave you Dolphins total points, 29 and a half, would you go over 30 points for the Dolphins?

I don't know. Because again, if they're running a lot, are they going to score that many points? I don't know.

Then again, you hesitated, which is good.

Yeah.

Okay. I'm going to give you a couple of games that I like on top of the ones we talked about. As you know, I've been riding the Steelers like Willie Shoemaker over and over again, week after week. I don't know who the modern jockey is for that analogy. And now it's like, oh, rookie quarterback for the Browns. No. To Sean. Devastating. Their playoff options are out the window. And we're taping this before Ravens Bengals tonight, so we don't know what happens in that game. I think the Browns defense can win this game by itself. I don't even really think they need more than ten points from their offense, and I think they could still win it. Right. Other thing with them is they can run the ball in Pittsburgh who just lost another linebacker and was already 24th against rushing this year in Cleveland. It doesn't matter. Like chubbs out, they're missing tackles. They're still able to run the ball every week. I think they're going to be run the ball to keep the league. And then on the flip side, Cleveland's defense, they're the best against passing. Pittsburgh's 29th. Pittsburgh takes 55 minutes to get going.

You're not going to be able to do that against Cleveland, right? Cleveland is the best against first downs allowed. Pittsburgh's 30th, they're one of the worst. I just don't see how Pittsburgh is.

Going to move the ball.

And I've watched them, I've bet on them. I'm always stunned how bad their offense is and how hard it is just for them to get first downs. Now you're going into Cleveland against a team that hates them and I just feel like I'm getting a free point and a half. I still think the line should be three. The Steelers offense is so bad that I just think this line's kind of insulting. I don't think the Ricky quarterback drop off from Watson is dramatic enough to I just feel like I'm getting free points. What do you I mean I think.

The way that I can see the Steelers spoiling this, I guess this is kind of like the story for their whole season is like getting turnovers. But they're probably going to have Dorian Thompson Robinson just run the ball a like they're probably not going to ask him to do much of anything and that would be the smart, you know, he can scoot too. So maybe they incorporate him into the run game a little. You know, in his last game, in his only start this year, I think he had like three or four turnovers.

But here's the thing, though. So I've heard people talk about, well, his other game, he was terrible. He literally didn't know he was playing until like an hour before the game.

True.

He shows up, he's thinking, all right, I'm going to get my backup QB reps in. And all of a sudden like, hey, dude, you're starting. And guess what? He sucked. But it seems like this week he's had a whole week of practice. I know they really liked him in preseason. He was know they waived dobbs because they felt like he could be a better just I sometimes there's an inefficiency with gambling where it's like, well, they're starting, quarterbacks hurt, so now cross them. You know, Watson was good in the second half last week, but for the most part has been a liability for them. And I find it hard to believe that this is this dramatic of a difference that, oh, my God, they don't have Deshaun Watson. I think they'll be fine. So I hate turning my back on the Steelers, but honestly, if they're six and four after ten games, that feels about right.

Sure.

I just think pickett against that defense is going to be. A nightmare.

Did you see there was the passing chart for Pickett last week and it was literally like nothing past five yards in the middle of the field. It was all just dump offs, like little swing passes. You take a shot down the sideline once or twice, but he just can't.

Do it against the brown.

No, you can't do that at all. You can't do that against anybody, really, right?

No. And the one thing with the Browns, I do feel like you can kind of run the ball up their throats potentially. Like, that would be the one way to go at them. But the Steelers haven't been able to do that all year. Although they are playing Jalen Warren a.

Little bit, their running backs have looked a little better, a little bit better. The last few, you know, I'm not going to say they can't run, but yeah, when you're one dimensional, it's tough.

All right, my last bet. Now, we could also do this with Miami instead of one of these teams, just for the record. Okay. But there's a bet on FanDuel where you can bet the team to win both halves.

Oh, okay.

And we can parlay that bet. And what I was looking at was the Cowboys to win both halves against the Carolina Panthers.

I like that. Yeah.

They're in Carolina and the 49 ers to win both halves against the bucks. Okay. Now I could switch that and just have the Cowboys and the Dolphins winning both halves and then we'd be good to go. And that will be how we get the Dolphins bet in.

I kind of like that. Yeah. I'm a little worried, like, there's going to be if the 49 ers are winning by a lot after everyone was making fun of Kyle Shanahan for keeping his starters in last week. Maybe they'll take their foot off the pedal. I don't know if that would even matter enough.

Well, I guess the question for me is are they just up seven nothing in the first two minutes of the game? And then it's like, oh, my God, this is going to be like 38 to ten. And we're done the first half. Second half bets are usually pretty fun if you have the right thing because you can relax pretty quickly. Let me see what the Dallas ODS are here. So that would be 240. Oh, that takes us to -109 that's perfect. So what do you think of that miami first half, miami wins the game. Dallas first half, Dallas wins the game. So I was looking at that. Dallas, Carolina, the teams that have scored big points against Carolina, against their defense. Seattle put up 37. Detroit put up 42. Miami put up 42. Then on the flip side, their 31st DVOA. Offensively, only the giants are worse. But the giants are like historically, we've never seen anything like this worse.

Right.

Dallas is top four DVOA, and we've seen them like, they killed DeVito. They killed mac jones. They killed zach wilson. They killed bret rippin. I just don't see any scenario where carolina is going to be able to move the ball and stay in the game.

I know the cowboys this is another game I was going to bring up. I thought it was a little too, like, low hanging fruit or whatever, but they're just such a buzsaw. I mean, they played like two normal games all year. Everything else has been either them getting blown out or them blowing out a mean. Just imagine this pass rush for the cowboys against bryce young and this carolina offense who just hasn't really had an answer for anything this year. They've had flashes here and there but it just doesn't seem like they can move the football. Like their best receiver is like 33 year old adam thiel. And relying on that to win against the cowboys, that scares me.

Plus, as you know, I love when weird shit starts happening behind the scenes. So that reich takes the yes, I was going to say takes it back from the offensive coordinator. He gives it to the offensive coordinator. They beat houston 1513 and you can watch the locker room speech. He's like, my guy right here called a great hit. Two games later he takes it back. It just seems like reich knows he's going to get fired at the end of the year now. And he's know throwing shit against the know, it's never a good sign, right?

Yeah, I like that one a lot. I just think the cowboys are going to be overwhelming in this one.

Okay so we have dallas winning both halves with miami. Winning both halves. That is -109 on fando just quickly the tampa versus niners game. There's some advanced stat stuff that I thought. Tampa can't run the ball and san francisco has like a top four russian defense. All right, so we're just removing Tampa's running game from this game coming out of the gate.

Right.

Tampa sucks on their defense is the worst in the league. On stopping teams on third down. San francisco is like one of the best third down teams and I was just looking at it going is this one of those games where the niners just have 34 1st downs and they have the ball for 40 minutes. I agree. I think the miami and the cowboys one are the best bets. I like the chargers, but I'm not betting on brandon staley chargers minus three at the packers. I'm just not doing it. That was the classic sucker bet.

Another one I almost brought up. But again, it's like the chargers to me are always just like I don't want to have to deal with that. They're just so unpredictable week in and week out.

I love herbert, but, yeah, last one. We don't have to talk about the other games. Although I did stare at the jets for a split second. Against the Bills before I realized I didn't want to bet on Zach Wilson. Chiefs, Eagles. Yeah. So my instincts are, Chiefs under three points. Anytime this happens, take it. They talked about the Sun East Coast bias today on the Ringer gambling show, where it's like if you're getting less than a field goal and you have Mahomes at home in a game he needs, that's about as good of a gambling spot as you could be in over the last five years. And you think like, all right, phillies, eight and one. They're physical, they're big. Could they run the ball down Kansas City's throats? I actually don't think so. I like Kansas City's defense.

Yeah, they're good.

Can Kansas City move the ball on Philly? Well, I don't know if I love their passing game, but I also think Philly is the perfect team for them to play because it's a lot of, like, five yard, seven yard, him scrambling around. And as the week went on, I started really leaning toward KC. But I don't totally trust it. So what do you see when you look at this game?

Oh, man, it's so tough because everything you said is true. And it's like watching the Chiefs offense this year has been really frustrating because it's just like, no cohesion it feels like they're just not smooth. Everything is a little like everything operates.

And fits and starts is like, how I no speed. Yeah, they're just not fast. They don't seem scary.

It's like they have all these random receivers that they rotate into the game in and out. No one even is playing, like, over 60% of snaps for them, so it's just bizarre to watch. And I don't think their run game is especially intimidating either. But then you got Mahomes. Mahomes kind of, like, smooths all that out, and if he can get away from the pass rush and get outside the pocket and make things happen out there, then that gives him a chance. I don't know. I kind of come into this game liking the Eagles, to be totally honest with. Um, yeah, I don't just that's why.

I've stayed away, ultimately, because I think Philly might be the best team in the I, and they haven't had the game yet where everybody goes, oh, Philly's the best team in the league.

Right?

They played nine games. I've never felt that way once about them. There's always been, Ah, what was that? What was that? So I think ultimately, plus it's a revenge game for that. But, man, I keep looking at that. Mahomes minus two and a half. I'm like, Ah, this is like a like when this used to happen with Brady, it's like, oh, you're giving me less than three points with Tom Brady. Great.

Kansas City is going to be rocking, too. That's going to be a tough place to play.

Well, the Kelsey's and the Swifts are meeting focused on that. It's going to be the biggest storyline. Yeah. So we'll stay away from that. But if I had to pick, I think I would do the Chiefs and the Eagles. All right, you ready? Yeah. Million dollar picks. Week eleven. Can't believe it's week eleven.

I know.

It flew by seriously.

It's crazy. Fantasy regular season is almost over.

I know. Who's the fantasy MVP for you?

Oh, man. Well, for a while it was Mostert. I know he's definitely fallen off. I don't even know. Like, honestly, Chris McCaffrey is boring answer.

Probably, but there's some CD lamb momentum all of a sudden. There's a lot of people that have a chance to win fantasy MVP. This would be a good podcast for you guys.

That's a great point because I think there's been like two or three week periods where a new different MVP kind of emerges. For a minute there was like, you know, raheem. Mostert was the number two or three running back in the NFL for a while know, AJ. Brown was absolutely going bonkers for a while. Now we got C. D. Lamb going know, there's a couple of quarterbacks, too in know I would probably just say Christian McCaffrey overall, but this is a good know AJ.

Brown is another reason I don't want to bet the chiefs. Yeah, he's just terrifying and I have him on two of my teams. So really, really enjoyed it this year. But man, they've just completely figured out it's nice when a team just completely figures out how to use a like, these are the four routes you can run, and you're good at all of them, and we're going to get you the ball.

The reason I really like the eagles and I agree with you completely, like the whole year, and I've been saying this on our pod, that every game you come away a little bit like, man, what's going on with the Eagles? But they're still winning every game. It's just like they're not doing it as smoothly or pretty as you want them to do it. But I keep coming back to the idea that they have these little competitive advantages that no other teams have. Number one, they steal a down because they do this tush push thing, and they basically can play for fourth down so much more confidently and easily and convert so much more at a higher rate than any other team. They basically steal it down compared to every other team in the red zone on third and fourth down. And then obviously you add in the fact that Jalen hurts kind of like steals a gap in the offense, the way he can run, especially in the red zone. And then now you've got guys like AJ. Brown who's like unstoppable, just throw it up to him and he'll go get it. They just have these little edges at so many different areas, and they have the pass rush that can close games down.

And to me that's why I just keep going back to the Eagles as like the obvious Super Bowl favorite to me because they have these just advantages that wear other teams down.

I'd be excited for that because that was my preseason pick. Right now, they are third on FanDuel. They're plus 550, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me because they're probably going to be the one seed, and then in the second round, they're going to play somebody not that good. Maybe it'll be Dallas. Maybe Dallas will be good. But yeah, they'll be in the four or five hoping that New Orleans or whoever beats Dallas, but maybe it'll be Dallas. But they know they can beat Dallas. But they might not even have to play a hard game until the NFC title. All right, here we go. Danny Kelly million dollar picks, week eleven. Last week we made $760,000. We had a big week. Could even been bigger except Brahim talked me out of two teams. I love last week. Last week was the week of the year. That's all right. I forgive you. Raheem down 930 for the season. 930,000. But here's what we're doing today. We are going to put $300,000 Browns minus one and a half against the Steelers. We talked this out. You're a little nervous about the Ricky QB? Tiny bit.

DTR.

Yeah, but not DTR. Not really.

Not DTR.

Honestly, though, you laid it out. It's not like Sean Watson's been elevating that offense, really. So it's just they're going to keep doing what they do. They play defense, they stop you, they run the ball, and they kind of wear opponents down.

By the second quarter this game, I'm going to know his acronym is DTR and not DTN. DTN sounds like a TV network. I think I'd be scary. We're scared of him if he was DTN. All right, Browns minus one and a half. Lot of advantages for the Cleveland defense. I mean, this is really like the all time with good teams, awesome defense against a crappy offense matchup, and they're home. And I just like Cleveland at home. All right, that's one. Number two. I can't believe I did this to Danny. I brought him on so we could bet against his beloved Seahawks. But he knows rams seahawks. There's a lot of advantages for the Rams. Staff are coming back. It's a must win kitchen sink game for the Rams.

Cup is going to finally get back to doing his dominant things. He's had like three straight subpar games. Like, Cooper Cup is going to have like 200 yards in this.

Probably rams plus one. So insulting. So we're grabbing them. Oh, we didn't mention cards. Texans. I forgot to throw that one at you. We're staying away.

Really? That's an interesting one.

Plus four and a half over the Texans. That line is too high.

The Kyler thing is just so I don't know what to do with it. I think Kyler makes them a lot better than they should be, probably. Plus this McBride guy, Trey McBride. He looks incredible. I really, really like him. I think he's been, like a huge so we're going to stay away from.

This for million dollar picks, but I want to flag that. I looked long and hard at cards plus four and a half, but I don't know if I want to go against the CJ Strad machine at this point. Plus, you can throw the ball in Arizona, so if there's ever a game he throws for 450, it'll be this one teaser is our next 1300K. Lions minus seven. F against the bears. Lock that one in. I'm not worried about that one. Vikings, we're going to bring them up from plus two and a half to plus eight and a half against Denver. Yeah. Did you see the dobbs thing coming?

No, of course not.

But is there any version of this that seemed conceivable?

Like, just the fact that he's been so good or that he switches teams and immediately just elevates every offense he's.

On, or what Craig called him the host body. Yeah. I don't know. I just feel like there should have been some way for all of us to figure out that this was conceivable. But maybe that's why it's DOB sanity.

It's like every year I feel like teams screw up quarterback for whatever reason. Like, you get a guy in that's the backup or the third string guy, and he's like, so much better than the starter. You just never know. My joke has been he's the quantum leap quarterback. You ever watch that show back in the day?

Oh, yeah.

He quantum leaps into a new life. He's like, in surgery, and he's like, oh, crap, I got to figure out.

How to perform surgery.

I think.

Yeah, he's just man, obviously he's very smart. That helps a lot. But he can run around, too, do things, like with his legs. I think that changes the offenses that he's in. And I don't know, man, it's crazy. He looks really good.

If I ran a football team, I would just never have a quarterback that couldn't move anymore. Like, if I had my choice of like, oh, I can have Derek Carr or I could have Mac Jones or whatever, I would just want somebody who could run around and try to save plays and then covers up so much stuff. Yeah, I'd run the 40 yard deep pass, like every five plays trying to get a pi. That would be my offense.

Under throw the deep throw.

Yeah, the jets should just that should be their entire Zach Wilson offense. Just throw it down, throw like high lob 45 yarders to Garrett Wilson in traffic and just hope somebody hits him. All right, next one we're doing. This is a parlay on FanDuel. -109 dallas wins both halves against the Panthers, and Miami wins both halves against the Raiders. So first half end the game that happens. -109 we're putting 300K on that. And you don't want to put a tiny bit on the cards money line or no, I mean, I think they.

Could pull it off. I think they could pull it off. Are you talking about cards win?

Yeah, cards, actually, just to win. That would be 196.

That's kind of a fun one. I don't know if I believe it in my heart of hearts.

Yeah. All right. We're staying away. Sorry, cardinals. Those are the million dollar picks for week eleven.

Love it.

Thank you, danny kelly, sorry we bet against your team.

It's okay. Reverse jinx.

Don't tell Mina. Don't tell her it happened.

Thank you.

All right, j. Kyle mann is here from the ringer. He just wrote a rookie power rankings piece on TheRinger.com that I loved reading. I had a great time with it. We are not going to talk about any Thursday night basketball because we're taping this beforehand. So the warriors are playing. Draymond can't get ejected from that. I think he's already suspended. Right. He can't get ejected again.

It's five games.

Right.

So I think it was immediate. Right. So he's not in there at all.

Is there a way for him to add to the suspension during the suspension? Like, can he lash out on social media and they'll just add games? I don't know. He's been off his rocker this year. All right, so rookie rankings you had wembin yama, number one. How much time do you want to spend talking about him? Let's limit ourselves to 40 seconds. Go.

Okay. The thing about Wimbanyama, you're going to hear some kind of I was awaiting some of the dialogs I thought I would hear. I mean, the Chet wimby thing. We talked a little bit about it on group chat. I think that the situations are always really big. I think this is a good segue into just kind of the thinking behind the rankings. I tried to go into it with rewarding older players who were doing well in winning situations. And then you're weighing it with sort of the grace that comes with guys that have bigger roles also who are younger. Chet is on a team that is ahead. It's more sort of actualized than the spurs as you and I have talked about, as the people in the ringer have talked about ad nauseam.

And they needed somebody who is exactly like him. So that helped. Yeah.

Yeah. So, I mean, he's just fitting in on a lower usage and his touches have been different, whereas WIMBY's usage is, I think, 30%. And a lot of that has been sort of leaning on the areas of his game that are kind of inefficient right now. So it's been a little messier. But I think when you compare age and situation and that extra year has been big for Chet. So I still consider WIMBY's projection being the thing. And he's had some really brilliant high points too. Already in this early season.

Well, I'm already in the record. I hate the Sohan as the point guard. The whole experiment, it just feels like stealth tanking to me and I'm just not messing around. If I have this dude, I want to surround him with people that will help him actualize his potential as fast as possible. I have no interest in spending the year trying to figure out if Jeremy Sohan could be my point guard. Even if they have Jones who every time he comes in his plus minus is way. I just even two Joneses I'm fine with because the thing that's frustrating about Wembadama is there's these stretches where he's just not involved for four or five minutes because they're not getting fast break points because nobody can run a fast break. Meanwhile, he's the perfect guy to do that. Doesn't seem like really anybody can throw a good entry pass on his entire team other than the backup point guard and then they'll just forget about him. And I think that Knicks game was a perfect example where it wasn't just that he had a bad game. It was like he wasn't involved in the game, which is almost worse.

I want him involved everywhere. I want somebody looking out for him, thinking about him, taking care of him, pouring water on him like he's a plant and they do not have that this year. And I think it's an important thing that they're missing.

Yeah. I feel like their roster is sort of like they have a lot of working appendages but they need some central nervous system brain type things to So. Sohan is like he's a great connector. That's a theme of this class is like connectors. We can talk more about that and defenders and things like that. Sohan in the right position is going to be great. But people don't respect him as like a pull up threat. People don't respect he's not like the scoring threat. I think that you can drive your offense. You can't have him as the initiator and expect that to be the just. I think one more guy because Kelden is a score first guy who's learning how to get off the ball and pass a little bit, vassel, exact same thing. And those guys when they want to get into their rhythms, like Kelden was like notoriously rough as a decision maker coming out of college. Vasel is learning to do this on the job, too. I think sometimes when you combine that with the fact that we saw in that Knicks game that Vic just can't run a straight line right. So we're not seeing him hard run to the rim.

And Chet couldn't do that really a year ago either. He used to just evaporate in contact. So I think they're just kind of balancing that with know. I think the most likely outcome for Vic is that he's going to be like an elbow short corner operator the way Dirk was because he can see I was floating this to somebody. I was like, when you stack all the elite defensive stuff, I think that's.

Going to happen for him.

He is a really good passer, too. You keep catching yourself being like, is this too much? Is this really happening? But I think he's going to become a great passer. So I still am like 100% in.

On the upside with him. I am 100% in as well. And I've loved Chet. And obviously, I love that. OKC, team. I have a lot of future bets and all kinds of things with them, so I watch a lot of them anyway. And there are certain types of teams they're just going to have problems with, right? When they play Jonas Valenciunis, it's like, oh, shit, that guy is 45 pounds bigger than everybody in the Thunder. They play Yokich. It's like this is a rap. He's getting a 38 and 19 and ten. But the thing that I've loved about him is his ability to attack people off the dribble, which I think I had just forgotten about because I hadn't seen him for two years. But I just wasn't expecting that because he's so tall, you just think he's going to fall over when he does it, but he really does have the ability to go by people or pull up. And on top of that, all the other stuff, like, we knew the defense was going to be there, we knew the offensive rebounding, and then he has some fuck you in him, which I think you could see from 10th grade.

But to me, he's actually further up the ladder for me than I was expecting. He's more of a finished project, more of a finished product than I really thought. I thought this was going to be the year wemby's having right now. But he's kind of having a sophomore year, but he didn't have a freshman year, so I don't really understand that piece. Yeah.

Your point about him, like, going by people? I mean, I posted a clip in the guide where I was just kind of watching what OKC's offense does whenever he's on the floor. Like, the respect that he gets. You mentioned the shooting and the driving, and those two things are just linked with the fact that he can handle the ball 46.3% on almost four attempts per game in 30 minutes. And I think the big thing there is that I think I wrote this in his draft eval is that he's going to get faster. The better he shoots. It because he draws those fives out there. He just owns Zach Collins. Again, like, I was watching that tournament board, Zach Collins, but he has a few moves for not being twitchy fast. He just is very mobile. Like, he's flexible. And that's something that Wimby and Chet both is really interesting, is that I know you talk a lot about athletes in different eras and being prepared and how things are different now than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago. They are very ahead of the schedule. Like, Chet's dad was a center for Minnesota, who, by all accounts, from everything you read, was really talented but had crazy physical problems.

And so when Chet started to play, he was ahead of that. On making sure, taking preemptive physical therapy, I can't speak to the exact science of all this, but they were thinking about Chet being flexible ahead of time. So a lot of his just in traffic comfort. And Vic's, the same way you see Vic doing these insane stretches where I screenshotted something of, like, him guarding Chris Paul where he sits down, and you cannot tell how tall he is based on how flexible he is. So I put in there a clip. I was just kind of watching what their offense does, and they'll have sequences where Dord will have it around the basket, or they'll go to offensive rebound, and if they get the ball back, they just sort of exhale, basically like an organism. Like, you'll just see their offense and then what happens? Lo and behold, they'll exhale. And then you'll see these gaps open up and then suddenly gildes, you know, is like these driving lanes. It's just a really interesting thing to watch, the way it's working, because you.

Got to respect Jet and shooting. Well, they're playing tonight. Unfortunately, they're playing the warriors, so we'll see what happens. That's an interesting game for them because I like them against any small ball team or smaller team. And the warriors, that's kind of the model for where they want to be, right? Just being able to switch on defense, just having got five guys who can attack on a floor, a lot of shooting, their three point shooting is what's killed them. And the losses they've had, they'll just go like seven for 38 from three and have these things. But for the most part, I like the pieces. And I think the west is the best team, is Denver in the west. Minnesota is the second best team right now. That might change as we go, but they, I think, have number two locked up for now. But that number three spot's open. And I look through everybody and it's like, oh, they could beat that team. They could beat that team. So, anyway, really good year for him now. Osser Thompson versus Chet Holmgren. You had Thompson third on the Pistons. He is my favorite rookie. In a while.

Oh, in a while. From this respect. Whatever my expectations were versus what I've been watching, I'm just like I fell in immediate love with him. He is like the perfect energy wing defender, gives a shit. Just everything he does is additive. He's the type of guy that no matter what situation he is, the team's just better if he's on the team. I've never seen a game where he. Wasn't impactful in some way. And I know that, yeah, the shooting needs to get better, all that stuff. But the stuff he's doing, it's really rare for a perimeter guy. You're talking about there's some Pippen pieces in there. There's some sean marion pieces. You're talking about, like, hallowed ground. And he's there already. He could have a 20 rebound game tomorrow night, and I wouldn't be surprised.

Right.

He could have ten offensive rebounds in a game. I wouldn't be surprised. Like, when you watch him, the itest is backing up the stats. He's averaging ten rebounds a game as a rookie, and he's not a front court player, so I don't even know who's like him in the league. He's already a 101. And I know you had him ranked third, but what are you seeing?

I mean, he surprised me. There were things that didn't surprise me. I knew he was competitive. And the thing with the Thompson Twins that you always had to kind of weigh was who they know. They were a little older in the overtime elite, and they were playing these the games were just hard to watch. They would inevitably turn into these just transition fests that would look like bad kind of, which is bad for him.

Because of his style. You want him in the highest level games with some structure, and then he really stands out the shit. He does.

Yeah. And I think playing next to a twin brother who kind of has a similar kind of skill set profile, I leaned Amen because I thought Amen's passing, and Amin's had kind of a rougher start, so we'll see if it evens out, and they both end up being incredible. But the defensive, I think he's also in kind of like a weird, like, Houston situation. They have all these guys that are kind of graduating as their touches are going to go up, their role is going to increase and change. And then they added Brooks and Fred. So I think he's kind of getting squeezed by some of that. But I think playing next to amin, who is another just total non shooter, I think there's a weird fit thing going on where we're starting to see. And I think when Bogdanovich comes back, we're even going to see it even more is that when you put you can almost play asar like a big and I think it starts to he can be the cutter. He can really pass the ball. That's another thing. He'll have these plays where he'll cut and he'll make these crazy head, shoulder, eye fake passes to Cutters.

He's really good at finishing. His percentage isn't reflecting that right now, but he's really athletic around the rim, crazy in transition. But the defense, man, the defense is the thing. And that's like a common thing that keeps coming up in this class, is I really think he could be an all defense player. I really think it's a matter of when because he's been terrorizing people. He gave Shay a hard time. He's super disruptive around the basket. He's just something else, man.

I absolutely love that dude. I really do. I just can't believe, first of all, how good he is right away and the fact that he can grab, like, 16 rebounds in a game in his 9th game as a rookie against a good team. But I always look at this stuff, like, would it be fun to play with that guy if I was still playing pickup? Is that a guy you'd want on your team? He is, like, the exact guy you would want on your team if you were just picking like, all right, I'm roaming these fives. I want this guy. All he's doing he doesn't care if he has the ball going to do is try to help. He's going to bust his ass. He's going to create plays all over the place. And the defense is, like, just jaw dropping.

He wants to guard the best player. That's another thing.

Wants to yeah, the defense is jaw dropping. And it changes the trajectory of that team. And I don't know what's going to end up happening with them because you could argue they're probably one of the worst seven teams in the league. But when Bogdanovich comes back and what we've seen from Cade already, and they have a lot of big guys to throw, and then you throw him in, like, they're just going to be a bitch to play. They're going to be really hard. They're going to have shooting, they're going to have rebounding, they're going to have size. And then if Cade can keep like, that's a team that I think as the season goes along. I texted you. I think you had Chet in the right spot at but Thompson, like, if you had had Thompson at two, I don't think I would have been upset because to me, he's like a safer bet. Chet, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen with this.

Really?

I'm talking health wise, physicality. I watch Chet and same thing with Wimby where I'm just nervous half the time. Anytime somebody's diving for a loose, like, they're just too tall. They can't get out of the way. And I'm just always worried they're going to get hurt. And this Thompson is just like, this guy's not this guy is a machine.

Yeah.

I'm more worried about Vic on that front than Chet. I feel like Chet has gotten, like, almost sneakily strong in the past year. I know.

I hope you're right. Maybe it's the legacy from last year. Like, he just gets hurt in that summer league game, and it's like, what happened? Chet's gone already. But the tall gangly guys make you called Chet a gangly savant. I'm sorry, but I'm going to worry about a gangly savant health wise for 15 years. I just am.

Did you did you hear me talking about how the guy that Kevin actually did this too, independently of me, I found out later, was like I was trying to project him and I kept coming back to Pal. Gasol pal played differently because he grew up in a different era, but he would have shot threes if he were an international prospect coming in now. But I was joking with the group Chat guys. I was like when we were at Salt Lake City last year, I had just done that and I was like palgasal was like in the roundabout of our hotel. And I was just kind of like looking at his frame in a way that might have been a little creepy, but I was just kind of because I had had that in my mind and I was just like foul's, pretty skinny. He just put on a lot of weight. And I don't know. I think the thing you said about the Pistons though, back to them is interesting because if Assar is a know, they took Ivy because the talent was there. And I think that's always smart. Like Houston did that with, you know, if there's a guy taking it's worth taking that risk, just take the talent.

But I just think I don't know that they can have three dissonant kind of shaky know, like with Ivy and with know, Killian obviously is probably fingernails on the edge of the cliff right now. I just think especially with Cade playing like a pick and roll style, he's capable of doing other stuff. But those defenses are all about you can keep everything in front of you. I just wonder if they should kind of lean towards picking one of those guys. And I'm kind of dubious about that style because the shooting thing, the bill always comes due with that stuff. Like they're going to have to figure that out because he's just a total non shooter right now.

Kaden Asar, I don't really care. I'm good. I can put a real team around those two guys. This is a borderline. Turn the camera on, Kyle. As you know, I probably own the most Scoot Henderson stock. And by the way, if people are selling, I'll happily buy it. I did wonder though, knowing what we know now about Asar, could he have been the Portland pick? And then you keep Dame for what we're watching from him. And then what does Portland look like? Because it's like, oh man, we can't keep Dame. We'rebuilding but if you put the stuff he's doing in Detroit, in Portland with Dame and with the rest of the pieces they had, and maybe you still figure out how to make that, you know, because Phoenix clearly wanted nurkage. They want to get rid of the money. But there's some version of a Portland team where they take not and not Scoot, where I'm like it's kind of a fun team because he's like literally the perfect guy for what the Dame version of that team was right. So I don't know. It's an interesting sliding doors that I never expected to entertain.

I entertained man at number two all year last year. I thought that it was very feasible. But the thing is that I think I underrated Asar's playmaking a little bit, and on that team that you're describing, pretty I think you would fit with them. Does it elevate them to I mean, fun, I think, is where it elevates them to. Maybe it's just I don't know. But I don't know. He provides more things, I think, like, intangibles than Thibel does. I compared his shooting repertoire to Thible. I feel like it's always going to be similar to that. But a that's an interesting think. But that would imply that you think they shouldn't have taken Scoot, though, right? And you still think that Portland should have taken Scoot?

Yeah, I'm in on scoot. I'm still buying everyone's stock. And the key to him is to be a downhill guy, the same way Derek Rose and Westbrook when they came into the league the first two years. That's who he has to be. And you had some stats in there about his when you had him ranked number ten on this, about some of his pull up jumper, stuff like, that's not who he is. Get to the rim, get downhill, slash and kick. Get to the rim. That's who you are. And I just think he seemed a little overwhelmed the first couple of games. Plus, they had this new team. They're still making trades all the way up to the season. I'm not worried about him. I think other people are, though. I think this draft was so good that if somebody's not awesome right away, and then you look at all these other guys, you had 15 guys listed in this thing, and I like all of the guys. This is one of those rare drafts where it's like, man, this is going to be some redraft in a couple of years. Let's take a quick break and then we'll talk about the rest of the top ten.

All right, so you had Lively at four on Dallas, and this is an interesting one. We've talked about him a little bit already, but just this is the fallacy of that one year one and done, where you have these guys who are top five in their class, top three, whatever, and then the college season maybe doesn't go quite where you think, and then the overreaction happens. It was hard to watch Lively at Duke last year and think that he would end up being the fourth player in this list. But then you watch him on the right team, and I think that playing with Luca, and it seems like he's in the right situation for the most part, but they're accentuating all the things he's good at, but more importantly, he really gives a shit. And that's a recurring theme of this class. Specifically is these guys really play hard and really care and they really give a shit. And that's what surprised me about him. Did you see that quality at Duke or saw there were some things I.

Mean, I knew that he had I really think that the spacing and the lack of playmaking and the lack of shooting, that's a really tough I mean, those things interact with each other and calls another, obviously, but at Duke, it penalized him more than I think anybody else on that team. And it was tough because he also had a slow start to the year. I think he had a calf injury. And from what I was watching, at lower levels, his learning curve was pretty steep in terms of learning defensive concepts and things like that. The thing know, I've had a lot of kind of back and forth talking. The main sort of arguments that I've heard people throw is that Lively versus a Jordan Hawkins. And I think that's something you have to weigh in a class like this is you mentioned, like, the guys that have I'm building into these rankings. Ideally some forgiveness for role, because if you look at touch time and number of dribbles and things like Lively. You mentioned I said this in the.

Piece, but if you told me who.

Is the perfect human being for Derek Lively to be paired with it's and now you give him that's.

Okay.

That's a condition. But also Lively is doing his part in it. Like, he's reading the screens, he's reading when to roll defensively. He's been okay, and I think the two of the hardest jobs are, like, to be a defensive anchor as a rookie if you're a big, and to be a point guard just because it's so much it's so fast. I think he deserves a lot of credit for as good as he's been.

I think worst case scenario, he's a 25 minutes a game guy who's really impactful and has good stats and fits in with certain types of players. And that's your worst case scenario for him. Now. Then the best case scenario is he becomes like a Tyson Chandlery, but even more springy and kind of the late 2000s version of Chandler crossed with some Nick Claxton in there. But we've seen guys who do all the stuff he does. Those guys come in the league and they succeed over and over again. So we know what he is. The fifth thing is a great point because Thompson on Houston worst possible team for him, right? Like Van Vliet. Brooks, Jalen Green, they really have something already. EME seems to think his team's good, and he's right. I think that team's actually pretty good. They're running everything through Schengun and Shangoon has turned into a revelation this season, and I just don't see him getting the touches on that team. It doesn't mean he's a bad pick, but that's the kind of guy, man, I wish he would gone to Chicago. The two of us could probably think of five teams and be like, oh, if he gone to that team, that would have been really fun.

And this team, I just don't think he's going to get the possessions. Whereas I think if they'd taken Asar, I think he actually would have played more for them because they kind of need one more guy like that just flying around, helping Shangoon on the rebounding. But Fit is a huge part of this. I think Ivy's on the wrong team. And is it a Dennis Smith Jr. Situation where the only situation is he needs to have the ball all the time, but then your team has no ceiling? Or is he somebody that can play off other players? We don't know yet. But it doesn't look right with him on the Pistons because I've enjoyed watching the Pistons and Monty is already yanking him around. I'm not really sure what he is yet. I don't know what the comp would be for him, but I look at man and I'm just like, I have no idea. We're not going to know this year. He'll have moments. He'll probably have one game when he comes in and puts up 20 and 15 minutes. Oh, look at him. But for the most part, I just don't think he's going to play a lot this year.

Yeah, I think we're 1011 games in. We're still in twelve in some cases. We're still in forgiveness mode. Where Suggs went through this a couple of years ago where when he got drafted, there were a lot of people who were like, okay, Jalen Suggs going to bring balance and order to the Magic. And then we got to Christmas time and we were like, well, I just think there's a net under some of these guys. I think of adjustment period because a lot of good NBA point guards struggle. I've brought up Darius Garland was considered the worst player in the league by every metric his rookie year, and things started to come around. I think you do have to give some grace, but for now we're in the benefit of the doubt because if it was pure raw performance like Scoot would be and I'm in wouldn't be in consideration. Like they're getting a big benefit of the doubt based on what I project them as and what their situation is. But as it goes along, I think that net is going to kind of loosen. Understandably.

Well, you had Wallace on OKC number five, and you had Brandon Miller on Charlote number six, and I actually would add Wallace four and Brandon Miller five and Lively six. But this is why the rankings are so fun. Everybody's got their own opinion on them. Wallace is another one. I mean, you talked about this in the piece and I thought it was a great point. I never really thought about it this season, even though I'm watching all these games. The defensive upside of this class, you might have four first team all defense guys in the future on this list. And Wallace is one of those mean Wallace, and like, both of those dudes, I think, have first team all defense potential, shutdown potential. They to me have that, you know, anthony Edwards going against the Celtics side of, oh, shit. Oh, these guys are bringing it. These guys are hard to get by. But Wallace, they get Bertons's salary to trade up two spots. It's like, man, couldn't you got him at twelve? Was that worth the risk? It was worth it. They can't keep him off the floor. To me, the interesting piece with him is, is he going to slide in there and crunch time eventually?

Is he going to be like a finishing guy for them?

He's dependable. That's the thing. He's a low waist player who in the sort of narrow kind of parameters of what he does. He's been super efficient. He's been crazy efficient offensively everywhere. He's a smart cutter. Like I mentioned, the spacing thing, how all eyes go to the drivers of OKC. He's been really clever about cutting at those 45 degree angles into the lane and has made a living off of that. The other thing too is he really competes. Like, he's a really smart player. It was frustrating for me fits in.

With that team because that whole team is just super competitive.

Yeah, they draft bright kids. If you listen to the interviews, they had a roundtable with a lot of their youngest players and I was like, these are all just like really bright guys. They think the game really well. And Kason does. The question for Kason now is just kind of like, how much can it expand from? Like, I think that he could become like I don't know about a primary long term, but he could grow into a guy for them that could make some decisions on the like he opens up so many possibilities. But the defensive class thing, I brought this up to you because I didn't want to get too carried away. I was looking back like, 2007 is about as far back as I got. I just think if you think Wimby, Chet, Asar Ahmed, I still think is a great defender. Anthony, black Kulabali case and lively hawk.

Yeah, Kulabali. We didn't even talk about Kulabali on the defense side. Yeah, that's another one.

Parisian Pippen Omax, I think is going to be a good defender. Andre Jackson, if he gets a chance. Jordan Walsh, he gets a chance.

Leonard Miller, what about the psycho on Portland? I love that guy. He made your rankings too.

He's he's a role player.

That's an annoying player that always ends up on good teams. I guarantee that guy wound up on a final four NBA team in the next five years. Like, oh, man, this guy. Look at him doing stuff.

The tag for him I said was he was everybody's dad's favorite. He was going to be every dad in Portland. I guarantee you. If you could audit the texts in like I bet the percentage of dads who text their sons like, love Kamara, favorite player. He's got those dad skills that are.

Like, he's the ODS on favorite to probably be the next person punched by Draymond Green. If you're doing who's next, I think he's definitely one of the favorites. I love Wallace, another great pick, presti, who clearly has he's figured out something. He's figured out something with length and competitiveness and brains and puts something into a supercomputer and it just spits out these dudes. The biggest loser with Wallace, though, I think, is Giddy, because there might only be room for one in that one. And Wallace is younger and on a rookie contract, and Giddy still can't shoot. I love Giddy. I think he's important in that team and he's another guy who's super competitive, but at some point he's going to have to learn how to make an outside shot to play the kind of minutes or else you're not going to be able to have him out there in crunch time. So Brandon Miller Koc was higher on him than Scoot. We argued about that a lot last summer, and his whole thing was like, I know what this guy is. Here's what he's going to do. He's going to come in, he'll be able to get a shot.

He'll be a good defensive player. I think what surprised me about him, at least in the games that I've seen so far, he's a better all around player than I was expecting. In my head, I just had him as more of like, he's just going to come in and be a guy who a little like Keegan Murray last year. He'll shoot some threes, he'll get some shots, but he's not going to be that impactful on both ends yet. Maybe that'll come. But there's a feistiness to him that if he didn't have that incident happen last year, maybe he just goes too. I mean, maybe it's just a slam dunk. Everybody knows, oh, this guy should go too. We shouldn't even argue about this. But I see what he is. He makes sense to me. And you like him too, obviously.

Yeah. His shooting percentages, if you would look at them, you'd be like, oh, that's lower than I thought from three. I believe in the shooting. Not worried about it. He can come off screens. He can shoot Dribble pull up. He's shown all that stuff and it's translating. He had a couple of that were bigger. I think he had one at MSG that was like an over six and then he had an for five. That's pulling him down a little bit. But I think a big thing for him is that he's not being too stressed. Like, if he was being a little more featured as the primary ball. Like, I think it'd be a little messier, but he's, like, behind LaMello and Gordon Hayward right now, I think his usage is in the teens, so he's just kind of coming along slowly. We're seeing it. But he competes on defense, too, and he's a big body. The finishing and stuff is going to have to come around. There's a discussion about what's the ceiling.

I said that I thought that he's.

Somebody that, depending on how that goes this year, he could kind of I have tears in these rankings for anybody that hasn't seen it yet. And it's like superstarter all star MVP on down. He's somebody that I think could ascend to that All Star status. If he really turns the corner on that front because he passed the ball, he can shoot the ball. So I'm a believer in those things.

Yeah. I don't see him as an omba guy, but I do think he could be an All Star, potentially. The thing with him, I like the shots he takes and the percentages will go up. But the same thing with Maxi. Like, Maxi will have games where he's like eight for 22, but I like every shot he takes. And I think with Miller, he's just got a nice feel for where to get to the spots that he wants. And he's got, like, his three or four shots that he knows he can probably make, but he feels pretty complete. I've been impressed when you see him out there with these other guys. He is a little, like, taller. I know we knew what his measurements were, but he doesn't feel like small rookie. It is a little paul George ish like his size body. So you had Keante George at number seven. He's in a great spot because eventually they're going to go there's not even great players to tank for this year, but they're not going to be a playoff team. And they're already slowly, like, letting them drive the car around the driveway, but eventually they're just going to flip them the keys and we're off.

But this feels like a steal. I mean, he was out of the lottery, right? 16. Yeah.

His skill set, if it's there, I think it made sense for them to reach for it because I think a lot most people agreed on his on ball talent, and he's got that kind of irregular rhythm kind of thing going on. He's not a super athlete, but you can see, like, okay, if this guy gets really technically polished, kind of like Booker had a little bit of that. I don't want to say that he'll become Booker. That's a separate thing. But that makes up for some of that blow by speed, I think, and his pick and roll. Like, the percentage of his possessions right now that are in the pick and roll is 42.3%. That's incredibly high for the rookies. And Dribbles. Per possession is four and three quarters per touch. So he's got the ball in his hands a lot. You said around the driveway. I always make this comparison that with ball handlers, again, in this kind of situation, it's kind of like giving the keys to a man year old transmission like McLaren to like a 15 year old. You're like, all right, budy, take it around the track. And you just hear him grinding the gears.

He's spinning out, and every once in a while he'll go 100. And then it's like, oh, he's learning how to drive. And so you kind of have to give a little bit of grace, I think, for some of that stuff. But I believe in the shot making. It's just can he be a primary, is the question.

Yeah, he's at a really cute stage right now for a rookie. Sometimes he's going faster than his body and he'll drive to the basket. He's going so fast, he can't even finish. Whatever on a flying of the basket sport, but you can see it. And honestly, Black, I've liked more than I expected on Orlando. I didn't understand the pick because I felt like they already had faults and well, you take another tall guard who can't shoot, but he's different. There's a personality thing with him.

I know what you're going to say.

That I think is super important. You can see just he's like a quarterback on a football team. He's this kind of larger than life, charismatic, old school point guard, and he's a connector, and he's just trying to make everybody and get people the ball in the right spots. He's happy, weirdly. It was the right pick, and I didn't feel that way at the time, but I think for you don't need him to score 25 points a game. You have these two scores. What you need is somebody that brings kind of the energy and the playmaking that he does. And he's tall and he's weird and he's just unusual. He's like an unusual player. Who would you even compare him to?

Oh, gosh, that's tough.

I honestly don't know.

It's so strange that this class has, you'll see, little patterns and clusters of player types. This class has a bunch of big switchy defenders that are athletic and smart.

But cannot shoot the ball for shit.

It's really weird. There's like eight of them in this class that I really believe in. I thought you were going to say the shot of him where he was on the bench where he'd made the big play and he was, like, all sad that he was depressed because he'd made, like, a negative play in crunch time and it was like, he cares. I mean, he's clearly he's not going, but we've always known that about him. He's just a psycho competitor in the best way. One of the clips I spelled out in the profile that I would encourage people to check out is there was a play against the Lakers that. Almost went the length of the shot clock where he single handedly disrupted him. D'Angelo kept trying to screen him with yeah, over and over and over and Black was blowing. It just he really cares. I still think that I was higher on the Jet Howard thing. I'm giving it more of the benefit of the doubt for the Magic. I thought that Kason would have been amazing with Orlando. I think Jordan Hawkins would have been amazing with like they need movement in their offense, like Spacing.

They need something to distract from Cade and Paolo or from Franz and Paolo. Black, I think, helps them stay big and helps their defensive switchability. Just the shooting, it's the same thing again.

I don't know that I have a.

Comp for him, though. I can't think of one off the top of my head.

I was thinking he's kind of the guy I always kind of wanted Michael Carter Williams to be, because part of the Michael Carter Williams thing was he didn't have any of the leadership stuff. Right. He had the size, it seemed on paper, but there was just something missing. And this kid's the opposite, where he's just like a natural know? And you mentioned the Hawkins thing with them. They took Jet Howard over Hawkins, right?

Yes, believe so. I don't have the number that's really.

He'S just he's carry Kittles. He's carry Kittles with a better three point shot, but you just kind of know what he is. He's going to be in the league for 14 years, just doing whatever. Yeah. And I don't really know what that means for McCollum on that team. I know they signed McCollum to an extension, but you basically got his replacement just sitting there and who could come in and probably put up 95% of the same stats. But he's on a rookie contract, so I don't know what that team is. That New Orleans team, they had a big win the other night. They're clearly something. I don't know if they're going to be able to stay out of their own way. They've had terrible injury luck. They've lost almost their entire bench. But God damn, they have so much talent just to bring hawkins was like their 11th man, and he can come in and have these 30 point games, but he was one of the fewers. Like, you could kind of see what he was going to be coming out of the draft like, all right, I know what this is. And then he's been even better than I thought.

I said you can just sprinkle him on everything. I compared him I was saying he's just like a food item that you can just put on everything you're like. That tastes pretty good. That's because he can shoot with movement. I mean, his shot is fast. I think he's at like 36.7 on like a huge volume. And I think that the point I made in the piece is that I really think they could ramp him up in like a Miami Heat type way where his attempts could he's proven that he can do it at a high volume. And if they ramp him up and start using him off ball even more, if Willie Green decides to really hit the gas with that you pass a point as a shooter where Steph and Clay obviously are like the benchmark for this. But you get in your mind like, oh, this dude's, like, he will shoot this ball. Like Duncan Robinson is the same. Like, Hawkins, I think, is eligible to do that because I think he can shoot it like that. And I want to see him and Trey Murphy play together when Trey Murphy is back and fully healthy, because I think that would be a nuisance to guard.

I like that dude. It's really so hard to come in as a two guard and do a Ray Allen imitation. Basically, when you've been in the league for three weeks, it's crazy that they were able to rely on him like that. You had him eight, I would have had him seven. You had hawkez nine. That's just shots fired at Scoot at that point. I like Hawkez, and he's a very good role player for Miami. He's exactly as advertised, and he's kind of slid into their crunch times a little bit. It's like, yeah. All of a sudden there's three minutes left and he's kind of still out there.

I think this would be your favorite player. I was teasing you about him. I didn't know if you were sour about it, and you were like, God damn it.

No, I love him. They did it again. They drafted the perfect guy for them. We'll see with the three point shooting. Ultimately, that'll be whether he stays on the floor or not in the big moments, but he knows where to go and what to do. And they always seem to have these dudes that that's the first thing you would say. They know where to go, they know what to do. I would not have Scoot lower than him, though, just because Scoot had three bad games. Again, I'm buying everyone's Scoot stock just quickly racing through the rest. You had sass at eleven. Jesus Christ, where did this guy come from? He came out of NBA Central casting as a Heat check, third guard off the bench. He's a mix of 20 guys that we've seen succeed.

Right.

He's like, clearly a six man of the year candidate four years from now, and it's just instant.

He's he's a guy who was like a big time dribble, pull up shooter and defender in college. He played at a program that he likes to defend. He's a guy that looked a little smaller to me. When I saw him in an NBA game, I was like, man, he looks really small, but he's a smart. When you have a big playmaker like Cade, you can play a score. I made like a very pump the brakes. Nobody take this like one to one. But it's the Luca Brunson thing. When you have a bigger playmaker like that, you can put a guard size guy next to him.

Totally.

But he's just been seamless.

I think he's a steady.

He'll take the Ivy spot. I feel like he'll take a lot of those Ivy minutes because he's the more idealistic version of what you would want next to Cade. I think you're right. Sasser there's crunch times and he's just out there taking big shots. You had black number twelve, my guy, Kamara, number 13, who's definitely getting punched by Draymond at some point. Vazankov, number 14. Fundamentals. He'll end up on the warriors in like three years. And then you had Ahmed Thompson at number 15, Kulabali. I almost feel like there should have been a 16 because Kulabali has done enough. And I hate watching the Wizards, but anytime I've watched him, I've just been intrigued by him and it just seems like he hustles. He's got a weird long athletic body and he's just clearly like, all right, let's keep an eye on this dude. I don't know if it'll happen this year for him, but it seems like he's getting more minutes at mean that's that's one.

That's a totally valid argument. I've heard the most from Wizards fans and they're not out of bounds saying that to me. I like Bali. There's a reason I call him Parisian pippin. I'm a believer. He was the guy that was right there that I was just like, I gotta do, I need to go get this guy on the list. Vizinkov's a guy that could slide. And I could see Kulabali climbing on this. Just he's in that cluster of guys that the defensive upside. And you watch him out there and he doesn't look lost. He's a guy who grew a lot. He's one of those kind of point guard size guys that grew late all at once. So he just has a nice processing kind of power. You hear that people? It's a nerdy way. He just thinks the game really well.

For a young guy. Really fun draft, I would say on the higher end of drafts with crazy upside and then the bonus of Chet somehow counts for this draft, at least for this rookie class. But if you're counting him in this rookie class, which is kind of unfair, but I think we have to this is one of the best rookie classes we've had. And the defense and the switchability, and just some of the 101 unicorny kind of qualities that some of these guys have is pretty unusual. Maybe it's just where the league is going, like, oh, here's our six eight point guard and here's our 610 skinny Sean Marion guy. And maybe the league is just going to get weirder and weirder, but this is a weird draft that has been really good. You didn't have Hendrix in there. We haven't seen enough of Hendrix yet. Do you like him?

I, like think, you know, I had been told that he was going to spend some time in the G league, which I was totally in favor. I it's possible he could have a resurgence and Jarris Walker is another guy who Rick Carlisle surprise, surprise didn't want to have on the floor because he's just not ready. The Pacers already have enough defense. Vasinkov has a similar problem where it's a team trying to they're just hemorrhaging points. Kind of the Pacers are doing it, but they're like, all right, we're just going to outscore you. But he's a guy who just isn't quite ready to defend. I was kind of in the middle on kind of that was the reasoning there.

I think this rookie class is yet another reason we need two more NBA teams. We have so much talent like dudes that aren't getting enough time now. And part of it is just there's too many good players and you look at somebody like Thompson on the Rockets and it's like, that dude's not going to play. He's on a team that has a bunch of veterans. They'll be lucky to play. Twelve minutes a game. We have no idea what he is. All right, Kyle, man, great job in the rookie rankings. Good to see. How are we feeling about Kentucky before we go?

Did you watch them the other night on their champs classic? I was in La. Watching it with Tate. They're going to be fun. They're going to be wild. Actually, I wouldn't always recommend this to you because I don't want to make people watch college basketball. I felt embarrassed because in the first Duke Michigan state game, we were watching it with like sear it and Tyler and it was like four to three after like 13 minutes in the game and I was like, oh, my God, this is a terrible marketing moment. Kentucky, I think it's going to be chaotic, fun in a way that I think you would like. I bet you Ben even knows some of the players for Kentucky. They're like social media stars. A few of them are so I would recommend checking them be I don't know how good they'll be, but they're definitely going to be fun.

All right. Good to see you. Thanks for coming on.

My pleasure.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Mallory. Thanks to Kyle. Thanks to Danny Kelly. Thanks to Steve Cerudi and Kyle Creighton. As always, I will see you on this feed on Sunday. Enjoy the weekend. I wanted to say go Pats, but A, they're not playing and B, I don't want the Pats to do well. I'll say go holy cross. Go holy cross dance on a seat.

On a waste of.

I don't have you with him on the wayside on the front. I don't have must be 21 plus in president select states. FanDuel is offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem, call 1800 Gambler or visit Fanduel.com RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee and Virginia. You can call 1800 Next Step or text Next Step to 53342 in Arizona, call 1887-8977 or visit Ccpg.org Chat, Connecticut, 1809, with it in Indiana, 1805 to Two 4700 or visit Ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas, 18770 stop in Louisiana, Mdgamblinghelp.org. In Maryland, 1800. Gambler Net in West Virginia, or 1805. Two two 4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit Gamblinghelplinema.org or call 803 2750 50 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 18778 Hope, NY. Or text Hope, NY in New York.