Coming up, basketball, the NFL Draft, the Pats Have A Quarterback next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday. We did Hardcore. Have another one coming up on this coming Monday. It's an action movie, Kyle Brantz and Bob. I'll tell you what it is on the rewatchables Twitter feed over the weekend. So follow the rewatchables Twitter feed. Why not? It's easy. Don't post a lot over there. You can also follow youtube. Com/bilsimmons. Com where we put clips and videos from the rewatchables and from this podcast as well. The Patriots have a quarterback. They picked Drake May, number 3. It felt like it was headed that way all week, so I did not have to sweat bullets. That was the guy I wanted. I started to maybe talk myself into, could the Giants trade the form up from 6:00 to 3:00? And then the paths would move back, get a bunch of picks, take JJ McCarthy at 6:00. But as it got closer and closer, it was You know what? Just take Drake Ney. Don't overthink it. We talked about that later in this podcast with Van Lathen, who I watched the draft with.

Coming up first, J. Kyle, man. He's going to come on and talk a little basketball with me because we had some good games today, and we also had just an awful Celtics loss last night. We're going to talk NBA playoffs first, then the NFL draft. First, our friends who I just saw in Seattle, if you saw my Instagram photo, our guys, Pearl J All right, we're taping this. It is 9:45 Pacific Time. J. Kyle Manis here from The Ringer. How's it been here in a while? Good to see you, by the way.

Yeah, good to see you, too. It's been a minute. I'm glad we could make I know.

Well, you've been doing some good stuff for the Ringer, and the Nuggets have been doing some good stuff. We have not talked about the Nuggets in a while. They're on this... It's almost indescribable, where if they're down 20, you feel like they can go back. If they're down eight in the fourth quarter, you feel like they're going to win. If they're up eight in the fourth quarter, you feel like the game's over. So they take all these different identities. If you're comparing them to a football team, they're the football team that in the fourth quarter 10 can come back and put two touch downs on you. They're also the team that if they're up 10 in the football game, they could just run the ball and run out the clock and you're never going to get the ball back. It is unreal. I said to KFC the other night, I thought this is one of the three best teams I've seen this century. Wow. Owen Lakers, 17 Warriors in this team. Then special asterisk kudos to the asterisk kudos to the 2013 heat during the winning streak. I think those are the four best teams.

They never were able to really put it together during a postseason. But I think those are the four best teams I've seen this century. Where do they rank for you?

Thank you for saying asterisk correctly, by the way. That's one that people mess up a lot. I appreciate that. I had this written down in my notes. I'm glad that you said this because this is right in the strike zone of where my brain was, too, because I noticed this over listening to different shows and reading different things when people were talking about this team, where over and over again, you would hear people say, they'd say, they They should be up more. If a team gets a little bit of a lead on them, like tonight, they said it on the broadcast, they were like, Man, it feels like the Lakers should be up more. Even if you hit them with a big haymaker, and in the beginning of this game, it was just that LA was just running. It was a little deceptive because they weren't really just executing Denver to death. They had some good moments, but they were just running a lot. I think in the first half, they had 13 transition looks, and they scored or were fouled on all of them. They were having a lot success with that. But Denver just keeps chugging along, chugging along, chugging along.

And I feel like that's the last level for a team that reaches that. I remember, I know this is going to make your skin crawl, but when I used to watch baseball in the early 2000s, it was like those Yankee teams were like that, where even if you had a good game against them, it was just like, man, the lead is still not that big. And I just feel like they have that inevitability about them, where they're just going to continue to do what they do. And you just can't shake them out of it. They just are going to keep coming.

I have not seen anything to change my opinion that they're going to win the title. Kevin Wilds, my buddy who was on here last week, he's been doing this gimmick on Twitter, which I made fun of about, where he's like, Nobody's beating Nuggets in a seven-game series. It's actually one of the most obvious favorites we've had of this century, where I just don't see a scenario where they lose unless somebody gets injured, basically. That's it. I think it would have to be one of the top four guys. But you saw with the Celtics last night, this is like people thought I was trying to reverse drinks to Celtics or I'm just doing the glass half empty thing, but I just don't think they have any chance of out executing this Denver team. So you agree with Kevin?

You agree with KOC. What KOC said about it- Well, I've always felt that.

Well, KOC, he ramped it up. He threw some steroids and some HGH on the take. But I just don't think they will be able to out execute this Denver team in a seven-game series. I don't see it. I didn't see the whole year. You could see in that Miami game, not to ship this to the Celtics, but in that Miami game, some of the strategy stuff was just so head scratching. When they fell behind, all of a sudden, it's one-on-one basketball. You can just see things slip away, whereas Denver always keeps their structure. They never get fazed. They never play at a different speed. They're never frantic. They're always just like, We're the nuggets. We're going to figure this out. They have one of the biggest game-breakers in the history of the sport. To me, he's on the Bird Magic level at this point. Now, it's just about patting the resume and getting the actual resume to where those guys are. But I don't see much difference from impact between him and those two.

I wanted to ask you about... I want to... Well, his play style, specifically, but something that really stood out to me in this game, having watched them on their play off arc over the past a few years, going back to... I felt like it started to shift during the bubble. I remember I had prepared a whole video where I was trashing their effort and stuff, and that was when they kept winning. I was like, Okay, well, that's 90 hours down the tube where I had worked on that. But Denver fans, it was to their benefit. But as it started to shift over time, I've just noticed that the nuggets have taken on Nikola's personality in a way where He used to be... He still has some of that. It's similar to Luca, where if you just prick the surface a little bit, it'll show up every once in a while. But he used to just wear his heart on his sleeve all the time and would just run super hot and get himself out of the game. You were like the crying fits he would have at the refs when he just storm off? You just don't see that as much from him.

I see throughout the game with them, we just keep saying the same things over and over again. You can't speed them up, you can't get them off what they do. I feel like the Nuggets have really just become him in a good way. Whereas in the past, if he pulled himself out of the game, you could feel them fall apart. This physicality, stuff like that just doesn't rattle them the way it used to. I feel like that's the evolution that has made them what we're talking about now, where they have this crazy talent, but you can't get them to get off their game anymore just because of that.

It's a good point. The pace that they play, I think, is so unusual. It's another thing that comes from him because you don't think of him as this guy who's like, go, go, go, go, I want to set up this specific matchup, and I want to get this, and if we do this, then that will lead to this, and we'll get that. But for the most part, they're always trying to push because he's such a special passer and his ability to just grab the ball and take off with it. I don't know how many guys in the history of the league have been able to do that well to be able to get a rebound in traffic and then go and then create the play. Is that a list of less than 10 guys? Is it eight guys? I don't know what the final number is, but it's not a long list. Then his ability to, actually, you know what? I'm going to just take this guy myself. Can you guys just move over here? I'm just going to do my Whirling Burl, back it down thing. Watching him just suck the life out of the Lakers.

I mean, LeBron, the body language LeBron in the second half was crack because he knew. If Dilo is not going to hit, this team has no chance. Their really only chance was to do a little like what Miami had last night. We're just going to make a bunch of threes and try to hang with you and out shoot you, basically. Dilo didn't have it. They wasted two pretty good offensive games from Davis and James, and it just doesn't matter. Those guys had 59 points combined. It didn't matter. Davis over in the third quarter.

Davis was awesome, I thought, throughout the game. It's funny. It wasn't Sometimes you look at the box score and you'll just be like, Well, look at the draw. If you look at it, Denver took 27 threes, and they didn't even hit 20 %. La shot 22, and they shot about 13.5 %. You're talking about Jokuj, what makes him great. Obviously, the passing, obviously the scoring. Having those two separate things in and of itself is great. But I've always said that his understanding of the balance of those two things is what makes him great. Because if you watch him, he could shoot the Philly game tonight. There was a sequence where him be just was like, I'm shooting a no dribble three eight times in a row. But the thing about Jokuj is you can't lure him into any self-sabotaging agenda the way that you can some other players. I'm trying to think of some of the other stars in the league. I mean, Tatum is a guy. If he gets on a tough shot streak, he's like, I'm taking the next one. Guys who are like that, Jokić will not bail you out with a decision like that.

He has no tilt this way or that. I really want to score here. He's just like, No, I want to play the game. He just punishes you. He just constricts a Python over and over throughout the game until you just... And that's the result of his decision making. He had a sequence where, I think it was an offensive rebound, where Rui just happened to on the same side as him. And I was just like, Oh, boy, this is bad. You could just see what was coming immediately. And he posts him for a second and a half, maybe, double comes, rifle to the opposite side, swish three. It was like, that's the challenge of guarding them. But just because he could score on anybody, and it doesn't matter what help you send. He has all the tools to exploit it and the mind to exploit it.

Well, the irony of the Lakers, like Caldwell Pope being on the other side there, right? That was one of the guys that gave up in Westbrook trade. And Caldwell Pope, it feels like he's gotten better every year for the last five and has just turned into this incredibly valuable 3D asset where it doesn't even really matter if he scores, but he can guard anybody. He just fits in. He knows how to play. He doesn't care if he gets the ball. And then Caruso was the other guy they let go after '21, where they just didn't want to pay him. I think they offered him three for '21, and Chicago offered him four for '37. And the combo of those when you watch a game like tonight and you I think that 2020 team, it's a better version of LeBron. He's just four years younger. Davis, that's about as good as we've ever seen him until this year. But then the supporting guys were just a lot more reliable because of the defense, some three-point shooting, some savvy, Rondos on that team. Dwight Howard was another big guy for them. I don't feel like the Lakers are necessarily much worse than that team, but it's the subtle differences where they just can't get stops and they can't survive if Reeves...

I mean, Rui has been terrible for most of the series. But if two of those three guys suck, it's just hard for them to win. They can't get enough points. I don't know how they fix this. It was your mindset. Lebron played 42 minutes tonight. Your mind starts going, Oh, what happens to this guy?

Yeah.

Does he stay in this team? They just got swept by the Nuggets last year. It looks like they're going to get swept by them this year. It would be the 12th time if they lose game four that they would have lost in Denver. That's the team they need to get by. They have no chance.

And Joketis is 27. Where's he going?

Their whole core is young. 28, yeah. Their whole core is young. That team's not going anywhere. They've already had their bad luck with the Murray injury. To me, this opens the door for what happens with LeBron, what's important to him. Is it just, I'm going to finish my career with LA, it's almost done, then I'll be involved with the Vegas ownership. Is it I want to go play with my son? Is it I want to go be on one more really good title team? How this has played out makes it more realistic to me that he wouldn't stay. I'm also not positive that matters. It's going to be his 22nd year, and I'm not sure, can you win a title anymore if he's one of your two best players? I don't know. I would lean toward maybe not, especially with the injury potential. My mind keeps going back to Karl Malone in 2004 when he was just, Oh, man, well, Karl Malone, he never gets hurt. And then all of a sudden, he got hurt twice, and he was out of the league. When you're in your 40s, you start getting hurt. It's a different animal.

But to me, the ass-kicking nature of this series in this game and then the way they were able to come back in game two. I know the Laker fans would be like, No, we almost won game 2. It's like, Yeah, but that's not the point of game 2. Game 2 is like, you had a 20-point lead, and it didn't feel like enough when you were up 20. And I just don't know if he wants to win a fifth title, I don't know how you run it back with the Lakers. There's no fix. It's not Trey Young. It's not Zack Levine. There's no fix. I don't see it.

Yeah. It's interesting to think about the types of guys that worked around LeBron, the types of contained roles that he could still win with, having those guys play. If you think about those Miami teams, with catch and shoot guys, he had a lot of success. It just seems like as he's Yeah, but that was 10 years ago, LeBron, though, right?

He was like a Swiss Army knife at that point.

Yeah, that's my point. That as it's gone on, his meter... I'm doing a gesture here that doesn't really make any sense. But his meter for I need more help has gone this way, and he needs guys to assert themselves a little bit more, whereas it'd be incredible to have a Kyrie in this situation or somebody who could assume. But these guys that he has are all distressed asset. It's like, Reeves was an awesome find. They got really fortunate there that that worked out, and that was a great draft. But Christie has been ready to play, who had Schiafino not ready to play.

And not taking Haukes in that draft. Whether it was the ceiling of whoever, but not taking a guy who could be ready to play immediately and taking a project, I guess, as a trade asset?

That's what I thought. This summer, they drafted three of those guys in a row. They drafted Christie, Hood-Shafino, and then Maxwell Lewis, the Pepperdine guy. I was like, this makes no sense. I was like, these guys aren't going to be ready to go. I was like, I wonder if they're going to bank on these are the types of valuable players we could flip for something else. That's what I thought they were doing.

And then they didn't flip them.

Maybe the deal didn't come along or they couldn't make it work. But I heard Hawkins didn't want to be in LA. That's what I heard, that he was glad. Maybe he was just saying that to Miami people, but I heard that he wanted to be in LA.

I find that hard to believe. His sister goes to USA LA. Really? He's not going to want to play for the Lakers? Who knows? Russell had a really good year for them. I think if you're just saying 17 million for a free agent guard for the year he had, where he basically shot 42, 43% from three for the last five months of the season. But deep down, lurking was the Russell we were all hoping. Yeah, look, this is going to be the big topic. I would be surprised if they won the Saturday game, usually, unless the league really intervened and just was like, Hey, anytime Jokaj bowers on anybody, just call Fauna.

Scott Foster is on a plane right now. I bet you.

Scott Foster and his brother Bob. Yeah, this will be one of the stories, but I guess the bigger question is, should it even be that big of a story that this is it for LeBron? It probably is, at least on a Laker If they had Kyrie Irving, do you think that would have changed the series? Because I'm not sure. I just feel like maybe they win two games, but I just don't think anyone's beating Denver.

Yeah, them beating Denver is a whole other part of the conversation. But yeah, I mean, a more competitive series. I think so for sure. I've been a weird Kyrie defender lately in the past. Yeah, he's been good. Serriot was giving me a bunch of shit for drafting him in an All-Star thing we did last year. I was like, The cloudiness all his off-port stuff made us forget. The Dallas stuff has reminded us, I feel like, that this dude's one of the best basketball players alive. I think you would have made a difference, but it's all hindsight now.

Would he have made a difference in actually winning a series different or just making him more interesting?

Well, maybe not against the Nuggets.

Maybe Denver's a 2-1?

Yeah, maybe not against the Nuggets.

Lebron, at this point in his career, draws the worst possible double beat. One is that he just has this monolith in front of him. It's something he never had to deal with his entire East run. He's in the East from 11 to 18. There was really no team on any level of the team. The one team that really had a chance was the Bulls and then Rose hurt his knee. That was the one team I felt like had a chance maybe to get their talent versus talent. Celtics got old as the early 2010s. Never had it. Then the Golden State piece, he goes to the Lakers. Durant blows out as Achilles, then ends up leaving Golden State, and then Murray gets hurt. It just seems like it's going to be the same situation where there's no dominant team. Then all of a sudden last year, there's a dominant team. I don't know what the move is for him. Maybe it doesn't matter. He's had an unbelievable career. He got 40,000 points. He has four titles. He wants some MVPs. He's going to have a lot of the long-term records. Maybe he's just going to want to be like, You know what?

I want to play with my son, and that's going to be it.

So he's going to be playing for... Dallas? Well, I was going to say, what's the Mexico City G League team or something like he's going to be...

Don't bring Bronnie up.

No. When he turned that ball over late in the game, That one that was like an unforeced turnover, it had a weird energy about it. I texted one of my friends, What you were talking about. I was like, That felt just symbolic to me. I don't know. There was something about it. He was like, You're reading into this too much. But that's just what we do, I guess. But he doesn't strike me as somebody that's going to... I think he takes a lot of pride in still being so competitive, and that's part of his legacy. It seems like it would be a really weird left turn for him to just be like, I'm good. I feel like LeBron is going to die on the battlefield.

Well, then that means he's got to switch teams.

Yeah, I would say so.

It's not going to... And people will be like, No, they have a couple of pics. They'll be able to get somebody. It's like, there's nobody they're going to be able to get. That they're going to have enough assets to actually get, let's say, Devin Booker ass out of Phoenix. Let's say that goes sideways. They're not going to have enough assets for them. Guess who's going to have to be in the trade? Anthony Davis. So you're going sideways with whatever, or you're going to have to roll the dice with somebody that's a distressed asset, which they've been doing for the last couple of years. Ironically, all this starts with the Russell Westbrook trade, where they give up some real assets, they give up a pick, then they're stuck with Westbrook. They have to attach a pick just to get rid of him to get the guys back. There's a fork in the road there where they could have rolled the dice with Kyrie, but you can't really blame them, considering we've taken two first, where Kyrie's head was at. It's just the situation is what it is. Yeah, this is the first time I felt like I could see the finish line for him.

I don't know. Unless he starts doing mid-level exception or just like, I'm just going to join this team for 2 million because I want to win a I don't know if he'd want to do that. Could you see him being like, I'm going to... Wouldn't be the Celtics because he hates Boston. So Denver, Minnesota wouldn't be. Dallas would, I guess, be the team. I'm going to join Dallas. I'm now on Dallas for one year, 2 million bucks. Want to play with Luca, moving to Texas. It's just weird. I don't see him doing it.

I'm trying to think of a team that really could use him that has... Because the Cleveland thing I don't think would work. They would have to move off of a lot of people.

How about Philly?

Him and Allen and Moby couldn't play together, but they probably could figure it out.

That Cleveland homecoming would be interesting.

Yeah, because him and Mitchell- They'd probably make a trade. Him and Mitchell and Garland could work together. I think him is a passing fulcrum between those two guys. Good work if Mitchell even stayed. Philly's interesting. I don't know. Is Embiid even going to be in Philly, though? That's a good question. You hear that even from Philly fans are like, he wants out of here. I don't know. Or I'm not going to say. Orlando?

Yeah. Maybe LeBron or show LeBron the tape of Orlando game three, just laying the smack down on Cleveland.

Yeah, I love it. I talk shit about their offense for the game, and then they came out and just had the game. Is that weird variance, or are they going to go back to what we saw before? Was that an outlier? That's what I'm trying to figure out from that one.

The thing is, they were 13 for 37 from three. To me, it was more, I just don't think Cleveland's that good. You flip home court. Orlando comes out. They play really well in the first half. Palo finally gets going and has a real kick-ass Palo game. Then Cleveland couldn't make any shots. They were 8 for 34. It's so funny how So many of these playoff games just come down and you just look at the three-point shots on both sides. How did this team do? How did that team do? Oh, that's why they won. I hate to reduce it to that, but sometimes that's what it is. Miami made 23-3s yesterday. Now, why did they those 23-3s is a real discussion. But the fact is, if you make 23-3s in an NBA game, you're probably going to win. I don't care who's playing who. It's too big of a disparity.

Are you feeling pretty... Are you feeling pretty sick about the... Well, you had a good night, right? The Patriots got their guy, but I bet you're pretty conflicted right now, right? What's the panic meter for you? Is it the nausea, the dread? Is it spiking right now, or are you still like, We're all right with the I'm going to answer that question right after this break.

This NBA Playoffs FanDuel is giving all customers two chances to bring home a big win with a no sweat same game parlay every weekend of the playoffs Just place an SGP on any playoff matchup, you'll get bonus bets back. If you don't win, bet on everything from rebounds to assist to three pointers and more. Fanduel, now live in our nation's capital, Washington, DC. You know, you should watch out. We've been doing these boosts, doing them on my Twitter feed. We did a Parlay Boost token for last Wednesday. I'm going to try to get FanDuel to do it again, where if you won your bet, NBA-wise, 30% profit boost on the bet. So stay tuned. You just got to check my Twitter feed during the week because we do a whole bunch of fun stuff with Fandil, and I'm going to be putting up some bet over the weekend. It's either some boost or same game parlay. I haven't decided yet. I want to see the lines. I want to see the matchups. I want to really put some thought into it. Visit fandil. Com/bs. Shoot your shot on America's number one sportsbook. Fandil, official sports betting partner of the NBA.

You must be 21 plus, 18 Plus in DC. President selects states gambling problem call 1,800 gambler. Visit rg-help. Com. Optim require. Minimum three-leg parlor require. Refund issues, non-manageable bonus bets, which expire seven days after receipt. Max refund, $5 in the Southern West. Specified restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fando. Com. Yeah, so I watched the Celtics game last night on an airplane. I went to Seattle. If you saw my Instagram, I went to go hang out with Pearl Jam, which we'll be running next week on this podcast. Was in the airport going through checking the phone and we're like, Uh-oh, this game's close. Oh, no. And then watched. Are you getting...

That has to be tough for you. You're the most visible self. Are you getting like, Hey, Bill, it's going terrible. There's no avoiding spoilers or avoiding... Are you getting annoying commentary in that situation? No.

I mean, a couple of people did mention stuff, but I'm at the point with that Miami Celtic series where I'm like, We're fine. We're way better than them. And then I was able to actually watched the last two and a half quarters. Then when I got back last night, went back and watched the whole game. I think all the Celtic fans who are realistic about this team have some real concerns about strategy, coaching, and the team's ability to perform under duress. It's a team that has been killing everybody. They've been up 15, 20 in 75 to 80% of their games. They also have really played a meaningful game in a month, month and a half. They had everything wrapped up. There was a New Orleans game maybe four weeks ago when they laid the smack down on New Orleans. I was like, Oh, that's a good sign. But Miami just picked all the scabs. Everything They threw some weird ideas. They defended Porzingis in a goofy way, and they completely discombobulated the Celtics. They slowed us down. It's a lot of iso-ball stuff. And then they just bombed threes, Which is what you should do if you have an inferior team, right?

I mean, we've been talking about this forever. If you don't have as good of a team, shoot a bunch of threes. And Boston was like, You guys aren't good three-point shooters. Well, they were last night. But the thing that really bug me, Kyle, you got no point guard on the other team. Hero did a really nice job as a playmaker yesterday, but he's not a typical point guard. I don't know whether it was one-third of the players or one-fourth of the players or 40% of the players, but you had Caleb Martin bringing the ball up. You had Haukes bringing the ball up. You had Duncan Robinson bringing the ball. That fucking guy can't dribble. They're not pressuring anybody. Just watched him. At one point, they had Duncan Robinson just walking the ball up and I'm on the plane, and I forgot I was on the plane. I'm like, What the fuck? And then a bunch of people... Then I'm like, Oh, shit, I'm in public. Why are we letting Duncan Robinson walk the ball up? How is Drew holiday not hounding him full court. They made it so easy for them. And it's like, yeah, Miami hit a bunch of shots, but they also ran any play they wanted and got all the shots they wanted.

So when I see that, I'm like, All right, is this... You just It was your lack of days ago because you thought you were going to sweep the series, or is there something else going on here? So you tell me, what did you see?

Well, you're talking about them just getting to the shots that they wanted to over and over again. I mean, this is a big, scary number. They ran 43 pick and rolls in that game, and they were 1.628. Just running 43 is crazy. So they clearly had a mindset, but the 1.6.

Is like-And like, presenting I think it had to have been at least 40% of those. They were just trying to get him over and over and again in a pick and roll.

But they spread it around and everybody had success. Now, maybe you bank on that was a one-time thing, an out-of-body zombie experience, but they spread it around. I mean, it was Hero. It was a little bit of Haukes. It was a little bit of Martin, and it was Robinson had success. Even Yowich. Ryan and I were text about Jovich, and I'm just like, I should have been higher on him, but he's just tough. Yeah, I mean, pressure them, speed them up, do whatever you can on that front, and then depend on your room protection to put out any fires. But my gut says that it's shooting variants and that they'll regress because they had some guys just... But then if I'm boss, then I'm not banking on that because we got knocked out of the playoff last year because of crazy shooting variants. So you can't bank on that. I just think if I'm Miami and I'm looking at the fact that we have the best coach in the world in this situation, I'm feeling pretty good. Because they're just house money. I don't know. I don't know what the exact tweak is for them.

But if they keep shooting the ball like this, you got to chain something up.

So it's He's playing with no pace. Tatum, the offensive stats were good for him. The on-off court stats were really good for him. There's still that piece where he's just not at the same level as There's the Luka Jokaj SGA class of guys, and then Abid when he's healthy and looking like he did tonight, where just guys that are unstable. If you're down eight or if you're up six, you just know you can go to them again and again. He really wants to be that guy, and the Celtics want him to be that guy, but he's not totally that guy. Porzingas has been the big superpower for them. I'm not willing to say Miami figured out Porzingas. I just think he had a bad game. It didn't bother me that he had a bad game because it happens. What bothered me was the defense and how they defended what Miami was doing, which was basically they didn't have an answer or a real original thought about it, which speaks to the coaching and the strategy piece of it. And Spolstra, it's just a hilarious disadvantage. It just is. So can they overcome it? I'm sure they will.

Does it make me feel better about them playing Denver in six weeks? No, it made me feel worse, and I already felt awful.

That shifted hard in the last 24 hours, that conversation, because I don't know. Do you feel like that's true? Or did you come into the playoffs thinking you all couldn't beat Denver? Because I feel like that changed in the last- No, I never felt like they could beat Denver because I watched the two games when they lost to Denver, and I just don't think...

If they did, I'd go nuts. It would be amazing. But I just think, first of all, Denver is the best team in seven years and one of the three or four best teams of the century, as I said. Second, Denver executes at a level that does not resemble anyone else in the league right now. And that's been the Celtic's biggest end of the game issue. And if you're just talking about a bunch of close games where they can't execute at the same level as Denver, why would I think they could beat Denver in a series?

You know something else that's interesting if you're comparing Boston and you're comparing Denver? And crunch time offense is a big thing, obviously, for the elite of the elite. When you watch, I was really struck tonight by Porter Jr, who had a great game. Murray had moments. He was battling through some physicality. The whistle has been really interesting to watch for some of these guys who score the way he does. But Denver is very mature about the silos of what they do. They're in the beginning of the shot clock. If there's an open shot, we'll take it. We're aggressive, we'll go after it, but we're running our stuff. We're doing our actions. They have shot makers who can go and get theirs at any other time. Porter Jr. On another team would average more points. Murray on another team would average more points. But they wait until certain situations to be like, Okay, talented shot makers, go find your shot. And I feel like that is a little bit of a difference between them and Boston in the past few years, where Boston has these guys like Tatum, you were saying, who's not quite to that level yet of the maturity of when to create rim pressure, when to get your jump shot, when to get off the ball, when to stay on the ball.

I just feel like that is the thing about Denver that makes them so tough, is that they just have these guys in their back pocket that after we run our stuff, our last backup generator for our offense is like, Hey, all-star level. To have Michael Porter Jr. Just over there on the wall like, We're in a jam here. Did you see the pull-up that he shot over Anthony Davis? Yeah. My wife was like, I went, Oh, my God. My wife was like, What? Was that weird? I was like, Yeah, people don't shoot pull-ups over Anthony Davis like that so casually.

Well, they also get the six points a game off Gordon on the baseline, just people forgetting that he's over there. Meanwhile, you have Philly, who's down 2-0. Embiid is very bombastic about, We're going to come back. We should be winning this series. First half, thank God for it. This was a thank God for three TV night for me because I had the draft. I'm seeing what the paths are going to do. Cleveland's getting their ass kicked by Orlando. Then Philly, we have with no sound. Embiid really looks I feel like he's unraveling a couple of times there in the first, I don't know, quarter and a half of the game, including the Mitchell Robinson play, which was just super weird. That was like Clemens throwing the back of Piazza level bizarre. I thought he was getting kicked out. I think normally guys would get kicked out for that. There was a little superstar tax for that, but that was really weird behavior. Just in general, he seemed a little unhinged. Then he just channeled it into one of the more memorable 50-point games I've seen because he didn't even take shots. He's just unstable going on the line.

He's making threes with people right in his space. The Knicks, to their credit, the game seemed like it was over, especially in the fourth quarter, five different times. It was like, Oh, that's it. They're up 12. It's over. They're at 15, it's over. And the Knicks just, they come back, they come back, they come back, they come back. Philly was just able to fight it off, and Bede was just awesome.

I can't remember a legendary playoff performance like that from a player who should have probably been ejected. I was trying to think of another.

Yeah, I'm sure there's been a few.

I couldn't think of another one. Well, Leightner in 92 came to mind. He should have been ejected. I stand by that. But there was a sequence where But, you know, Embiid, speaking to how you were talking about, it came out that there were people talking about he has Bell's palsy.

Roche reported it, that he had a mild case of Bell's palsy. It made sense because it didn't seem like his left eye was blinking or closing correctly.

Yeah, I didn't even notice that. Somebody was texting me about that. I was like, I didn't even notice that. The main thing that struck me was I was like, And B just looks... He looks like I look if my wife has been away with her family for a weekend or something, and I don't shave, and I've just been in the house.

He's just eating like leftovers.

I just look a little crazed, and I've been up too long. He just looked a little on the edge, and I was like, Man, what is it?

Then, yeah. When the Knicks were yelling at him, and he was yelling at Hartenstein, he was just looking around. He was like, You seem like a maniac.

He looked, yeah. He had the Tom Jane and Boogie Nights look on his face. He was like, I've been away. He really did.

Well, then on top of it, it really felt like they were Because we flipped the game to the big TV a couple of times, and it felt like there was like one-third Knicks fans there. That was insane. The energy of the game was totally weird.

What was that about? I was asking Chris.

About the secondary market.

I was like, yeah. I was asking Chris, I was like, How many fights in the stands? He was like, Oh, countless. Oh, my God. I can't imagine.

Get those videos.

Yeah. He had a stretch, though. I mean, this was a back and forth game. For me, the big thing for this was when I took a step back, because in the first half, I kept thinking, New York looks like the more put together team. I was like, New York is running their stuff, and they get to their spots. And I was like, But they're not pulling away. And I was like, Why? I was like, Why do I feel this way? And I was like, This game was the definition of a four quarters don't equal a dollar in the NBA, where it's like, you can have an incredibly well put together team and a team that maybe is a little wobblier in execution and just have insane elite shot making talent. And like Embiid and Maxi in different times. They were bridging the gap. There was a sequence where it was tied and Embiid was just... Yeah, it was like a minute and a half. It went from tied to up 10 just because Embiid was like, I'm making three threes in a row. So that was my And then he just started wearing away on him from the free throw line.

So Brunson was good, but the Knicks just didn't have enough talent. Do you think they missed Randall? That's what I was saying. I don't.

I think today was a little fluky. The Sixers were 15 for 31 from three. Right, 48%. That's the one thing. Campaign, who I don't even think played in game one. Can't remember if he played it all in game two. But some people were calling like, Why aren't they playing campaign over Buddy Hill's dead body? Buddy Hill played minutes tonight. But campaign hit three threes, 11 points. I actually thought he had big points.

Oh, yeah.

At the points of the game when he scored, it was like, Oh, that was fucking campaign, backbreaker. But really, it was if Maxine and Beat are going to score 75 points, they'll probably combine with shooting almost 50% for three, you're probably winning that game. It's amazing the Knicks were hanging around. I wouldn't blame the Randall thing. I thought the Mitchell Robinson injury was a bigger issue because they were really killing them on the boards in the other two games. This game, the Sixers actually had the rebounding advantage. I still think the Knicks are going to win this series. I'm not worried the Sixers were supposed to win tonight. They're favored by five and a half, and that's how it's going to go. Cavs, Magic. Magic, we're supposed to win tonight. We'll see game four. Okc New Orleans last night, as we head toward the weekend, I thought OKC was fantastic last night. I really was blown away. Maybe the best Chet game I can remember, and I don't even know if Chet was leading the headlines on that one because SGA was so great and Chet 26 and 7. But I always felt like, how are they going to handle overpowering centers?

And Chet just over and over again, he's in the right spots. He's got the vertical. He's perfect. He's super competitive, plays with a motor. He spreads the floor. I thought the best game I've seen that team play with considering the stakes. They really like, violated New Orleans. And I thought New Orleans was going to either cover or win in that game. I think going back to New Orleans, I could see New Orleans winning game three, but I might have underrated OKC a tiny bit. Where were you on them heading into the playoffs and has it changed?

I thought, well, if Zion was going to be there, I thought it was going to be a toss-up, honestly, because I didn't think they had an answer for him. Aside from the Valenzunas thing, if you just get his size moving in space, they I don't have anybody like that. But overall, I thought they'd win in six. That's where I was. I thought they'd need a minute to get their legs under them a little bit. But I thought last night was a really impressive response to that first game because they came back with their shit way more together, shot the ball a little better. But yeah, Kevin and I were talking about this on the draft show that everybody's pressuring them to go get a big guy. We got to get a big guy. We got to do this thing to account for the things other teams have. But it's like, okay, see, just has such a speed advantage, one through five. They have lineups that they can put out there with five shooter handler passers. It made me think of the seven seconds or less sons, where they had this style that was such a get you on your heels odd thing.

And they got this pressure. They ran into the spurs a couple of times, as we remember. They just got this pressure to hedge a little bit. If you listen to Mike D'Antoni talk, now he is just filled with immense regret about that.

The Shaq trade, so Steve Kerr. Yeah. He's like, We're not big enough. We got to do something.

He's like, We should have gone on. But if you watch that game, I was saying, if you can stomach the moments where Valentunus makes you look like a junior varsity squad, because he does.

There's the times where he's just- It's like five times a game. Yeah.

Palming it and putting it in effortlessly. But there are also moments where Chet makes him look like a wax figure on the perimeter. I think you lean into your strengths. So I'm just like, stand pat unless you have to make... I just don't know that I would be in a hurry to undermine your stylistic advantage if you're OKC. I think they're going to win the series. I could see New Orleans getting a couple, but I still think that they're going to win.

Well, and they would get Dallas or the Clippers in the second round when that series is already zagged. It goes from what's wrong with Dallas after game one to, could Dallas be the team that beats Denver? As the story in round two. I don't know what to expect from that series. I think anyone who bets major money in any of the Dallas Clippers games needs to have their head examined because there's no primer reason. I just think it's going to yo-yo back and forth. Do you have any gut feeling on where that series goes, especially where we don't know what we're getting out of Kauai?

Yeah, the Kauai part of it, I mean, just the bigs for Dallas. They're just such a big variable for them.

If they're going to get nothing- Yeah, Gaffer's already hurt.

Yeah. Lively, he does very narrow things well. It's like he has a very small script of things that he can do. If you push him off of those, he's just not ready yet. You can really see that. That's the thing for me. I think it's going to just rise and fall similar to Philly. Philly might get a couple more if they have some more out-of-body experiences from their stars. I think it's going to rise and fall with Luca and Kyrie, which we've seen Luca do that, though. That's the thing. We've seen Luca get crazy. I don't even know. I feel like Luka could play even better, honestly. So it could happen. I don't know how much I trust the Clippers, though, either. I have no trust in the Clippers. Yeah. Well, you never trusted the Clippers. No, I don't.

I'm never going to trust them. I also think they played a great first half in game one, and then the next three halves they played got progressively uglier, what they were doing offensively. Dallas really figured out a way to just do all the things that I don't like when I watched the Clippers. It's a lot of one-on-one stuff and just a lot of people standing around. I thought Westbrook actually really helped with some of his energy and stuff, but otherwise, not a lot to love. We also, the hardest series, I think, to figure out, if we're just looking toward the weekend, is Timberwolves Suns because you could tell me, Series is going to zag Suns will shoot the lights out, a little like the magic today. 2-1. Why are we worried about the Suns? Booker and Duranches combined for 68 points. There's also a world where they suck like the Lakers did tonight. And by the end of game three, we'll be having the conversations about them as we just did about LeBron and the Lakers before. It's like, Oh, my God, this is done. What are they going to do? It's a little like what KOC and I talked about the other day.

Do you see road back for them or no?

For the Suns?

Yeah.

This series just feels like an Anthony Edwards, I've arrived mission for him in a way that makes me think that it just has that feeling. And these two teams stylistically are just a really interesting pair because you have the length and the size and the rim protection against, I don't know, they're probably the best dribble pull-up shooting team in the league, I would say, or at least the most dependent on it. I just feel like, yeah, I still feel like Minnesota is going to come away and win this one. But I don't know, betting against Durant and Kevin Booker. It's just that, like, Minnesota has the tools to throw at those guys if there is any ultimate answer. But I'm still going with with Minnesota. Where are you on that?

I'm so mad at myself that I put my opinion on this series because of game 82. Well, it's interesting. Phoenix is plus 350 to win this series, which I thought seemed low. That's on FanDuel. Because usually when the first two games and you have game seven at home, that becomes a Herculean task to come back for the other team. You win four out of 5. But game seven is almost definitely going to be on the road. Plus 350 seemed a little crazy. I didn't like what I saw from Phoenix in game 2 from a body language cohesiveness standpoint. I thought it was a little alarming, actually. Then Grace and getting her, too, which I think has been pretty important for them. I would lean, if If you had to tell me this series is going to go seven or Phoenix is going to get swept, and those are my two options, I would pick Phoenix getting swept. What would you pick?

I think that's more likely, too. I'm with you. I just think I don't know. It's an interesting thing to just keep repeating because the shot making of your stars. I don't want to keep reiterating this, but they lean on it so heavily. It so specifically plays into what Minnesota can defend well. And the Ant thing, man, he looks like he's on a mission. He looks determined. Yeah, I agree. We're still getting the brain fart Carl Towns moments, but Ant- Might not matter this, Ram. Just got that glow about him right now.

We'll know how Desperate Phoenix is, because if they play Azea Thomas in game three, that will tell me that Frank Vogtle is officially at the... And maybe that's not even a bad idea, but if they do that, then now we're throwing darts against the wall and hoping. The other Darts Against the Wall series is Indiana-Muaki, which right now Indiana is minus 150. They have the next two games in Indiana, and we have no idea when Yannis comes back. There's been some real good shit talking. This is a sneaky good series because I forget who called them front runners. Maybe it was Bobby Portis. Somebody took a shot at Indiana about, Oh, yeah, they're front runners. They talk a lot when they're up 15 or whatever they said. But I think without Yannis, I think Indiana is going to win the series. The hardest thing to figure out is, can he come back? Can it be 2-2 when he comes back? Do they bring him back when they're down 3-2 in Indiana? Does he come back at all? If he doesn't come back at all, Indiana is going to win the series.

Yeah, I think so. The Kav stuff just makes me nervous. Me too. I would wait. I don't think it's... I don't necessarily think... I mean, even if he comes back and he's healthy and they win this series, where is it going? I mean, I don't know.

What do you think? 80 %.

What do you think their ceiling is, even if he comes back and looks all right and they play one of these other teams? I don't know if it's worth... I don't know if the juice is worth the squeeze, to be honest. These teams, even when he was healthy, Indiana was a terrible matchup for them just because you're really seeing the stresses of what has made Milwaukee have such a tough season, really played out in this team that plays this really particular, specific way of playing as up-tempo as they can and shooting a lot of threes, getting out and running. It's just a really interesting style juxtaposition between those two.

Celtics are plus 110 on Fando to win the title. Ridiculous. Denver is plus 230. Now, Fando's job is just to put the odds where they're going to not have too much risk. So obviously more people have just been on Boston because the road in the east is easier. Oklahoma City is 12 to one, Dallas, 17 to one, New York 17 to one, and Minnesota is 18 to one. I mentioned that because Minnesota is probably our best chance in the West to beat Denver, and they would be playing them in round two. If they beat Denver, that's a real path. I don't know what they'd be in that series. They'd probably be like the Lakers were plus, I think, 3-30. So Minnesota probably plus 250 against Denver, maybe plus 270. But if they beat them, they'd have to be considered the favorites or the co-favorites. So, those are probably the best odds. But it's interesting that OKC has crept up to the number three odds. I think a lot of that had with how good they looked in that New Orleans game, where it was just like, that was the first time. It was like, okay, this is happening.

We watched this happen in 2012 with a different version of the Oklahoma City team that resembled this one, where a lot of young guys, we were like, now they're not ready yet. And then all of a sudden, they're in the finals. It's like, oh, they're here.

It has some of the 13 warriors vibe to me where it's like maybe... Because Thunder did the same thing. It's just like the ahead of schedule thing. Sometimes you a step back and you retool and address some of your things that need to change. But yeah, there were some questions, too, that people had about Shay's offensive game. You heard people talk about that a lot, about like, Oh, he likes to get these. He likes to generate this much free throw offense? Is he going to get the same whistle in the playoffs? Is he going to make the same types of shots? He made some plays in that game that... I was talking to a buddy about this, that he wasn't making a couple of years ago. He was making a couple of dribble pull-ups in pick and roll that were really effortless and getting to the rim and just the mid-range, just pull up stuff. He's doing things and getting off the ball in ways that I think are confirming that this isn't a feel good, we got the one seed. They are maturing in front of our eyes. Whether or not they do it this year.

Who are the people questioning Shay's offense when he had 55, 30-point games this year? Was that a topic on a podcast I didn't hear?

You see things out on the I think whenever the foul generation, he's not the same type of player, but it's the hardened conversation about, is this going to translate? Is he going to be able to generate as much offense? And I don't think he was doing... I don't think what he did last night was driven by foul baiting at all or a good whistle. It was skill and tough shot making.

What would have been Sharks' favorite plot of this playoff?

Oh, God. I was thinking he would have loved John Isaac versus Mowbley because those two squaring off was That was a good one.

I think he would have enjoyed just how weird this OKC team is. I think he would have completely talked himself into Kyrie, probably by January. Kyrie's amazing. I've been underrating him all along.

Well, a funny thing that we were talking about, that Kevin and I were talking about was the Palo versus Shet thing. I know Cerruti is going to come strangling for this, but you hear a lot of people talk about that, and I haven't moved at all.

It's a done deal that Palo is a better pick?

I don't know where you are on that, but I haven't moved on that at all. I still have Chet one in that class. It's a great argument. Yeah. I don't know. Where are you on that? I mean, and that's I'm pushing Palo off a cliff. I just prefer Chet. His two-way offerings and spacing and passing and stuff like that. I still think Chet's ultimately going to be the better player.

Is Sareely still on the Zoom?

What's up?

Are you mad?

No, not at all. I mean, I famously, I wanted Chet. I went on the KOC, I went everywhere, and I was like, I love Chet. So the fact that both of them are good, I feel like, is a W for me. So I'll take that. But I keep going back to, I think both teams got the exact guy that they needed. I think, Orlando, we needed a guy who just was like, screw it, give me the ball. I don't care. And I'm going to be maybe a little I'm not afraid. And I am definitely a one. And OKC didn't need that guy. If you swap these two guys, I don't think it works, actually. I don't know how much SGA works for Paulo. And I don't know that Orlando... I don't know that Chet. Chet would be good. He'd be great, but he's not a number one option on a team that just want to play off game by 30 something points. So I think everybody's happy.

I think that's the right answer. I also don't think we have an answer yet because I want to see how these guys evolve over the next four years. I will say this. I think what Chet does translates more to a team with a higher ceiling than maybe the Palo version of it. Because I think Palo is just like, if you have Palo, he's your best player. If you win the title, he's going to be the number one guy, a little like Tatum. Whereas Chet, I think he could be the second, third, or best player potentially on a team, depending on who's on the team. He's such a unique asset I just can't believe that he's able to hold the fort against Balanchunis. Even at the trade deadline, I was going nuts. I didn't get a center. But as Kyle said earlier, yeah, he'll look bad five times in a game where you're like, Oh, man, that looked awful. But he comes right back. He just puts his head down. He runs back and he'll make a three. I love how competitive he is, and it ties into what people saw when he was in AAU five, six years ago when everybody was coming at him and trying to dunk on him and test him.

He just always came back. It's a tough one. I guess the question for me is, and maybe Kyle, maybe you can answer this as a neutral party. What is Palo's ceiling? Because is his ceiling top three MVP candidate? Is it first-team on VA? Is it 30 and 12 a game? Because if it's that high, then he's probably the ultimate answer to the question. I don't know if Chet's ever going to be a top three player in the league. I would doubt that. But Kyle, do you think he has the chance to be a top four MVP candidate? Because I would say I'd lean toward yes over no on that.

Yeah, he feels high, all-MBA-ish ceiling to me. I've said that I thought that his developmental path would be similar to Blake Griffin's because they have the same tilt in their game, whereas they played in different areas where if Blake had played now, he probably would have played more facing the basket. He was so post-up dominant early in his career. But I feel like they're going to end up similar places where they both can pass the ball. The shooting is like, Every once in a while, it's okay. But to answer your question, I don't know about top three in the league. I'm not sure about that. But I do think that second-ish flirt with first-team All-MBA, which is hardly an insult to me.

I'll take that. Basically, Yeah, basically Tateum range.

Yeah, I think that's fair. Where Tatum is. Yeah, I think that's fair.

Because I don't know if Tatum gets higher than where he is right now, unless there's one last thing he can add to his game that he doesn't have yet. But to me, he's getting closer to a finished product than maybe I felt before the season.

Really quickly, the Paulo thing, you saw it today. His tough shot making ability. And yeah, the efficiency is always going to be... It's going to improve. I mean, he's in the second year and it's his first playoff series.

And he's 21.

Yeah, and let his team point to rebounds and assist. Youngest guy ever do that. So that, to me, those things that he does. I don't know that Chet ever does that. Chet's an incredible secondary piece to me.

But does that matter?

I think it does because he's already a really good playmaker. I mean, I know people are going to throw the turnovers in his face. I don't know, man. It was two road games. He doesn't have a point card. It's the first playoff. So I got two cool. Two big guys Zero turnovers. I don't know. The shots he was hitting tonight, you're like, There's not a lot of guys in the league that can do that.

Yeah, I guess Chet's destiny would be the Anthony Davis piece on a title team. Palo's Destiny could be, Can I be the best player on a finals team? Something like that. Could I get to that Durant-Tatem territory, which I think at the age he's at with some of the stuff we've seen already, it's a great argument. It's amazing that this isn't even close to being a finished argument yet. Usually after the second year, we know who should have been the first pick. But in this case, I'm not positive we know yet. Anyway. Poor Jabbari.

Still holding my Jabbari stock.

The funny thing is Jabbari was also a really good pick, and maybe this actually worked out perfectly. I hope we say the same about the football quarterbacks in the draft today, Serruti, where it's like, Oh, man, looking back. Yeah, Caleb's the best, but man, Drake May, really good pick at number three.

Maybe Paddocks will be awesome. Who knows? That'll be actually be the greatest plot twist of all.

He actually would have been some guy. Oh, my God. All right, Kyle, great to see you. Sourdi, thanks for popping on. We're going to take a break, come back, talk NFL Draft with Van Lathen. All right, I'm taping this part of the pod. It is 7:45 Pacific Time. Van Lathen and I just watched 20 plus pics in the NFL draft. We watched two basketball games. Yeah. The Falcons took Michael Penix with the eighth pick in the draft. Every once in a while, the NFL draft reminds us, no matter how many mock drafts you do, no matter how many experts you listen to, something fucked up is going to happen. Yeah, something crazy. This was a fucked up thing because they just spent all this money on Kirk Cousins. It feels like a team that's pretty close to really competing in the NFC with a couple of moves, and now they spent the eighth pick on a backup quarterback. I don't get it.

It's a drama factory. You have a guy in there, a league veteran, a proven quarterback, not an elite quarterback, but a proven quarterback. You think you're tooling up to make a go at it, and then you bring in youth. We're all sitting here, we're watching the draft, and no sooner is that pick made, then you start to hear rumblings that he's actually, I think the word is stunned that they went for Michael Penix.

Disappointed, I think was the other word.

This is the thing. You wonder with a pick like this, number one, With a player like Michael Penix, who has all the talent in the world, had a really strong combine in Pro Day, if they just fell in love with him so much for whatever reason that they had to draft him, no matter how it would shake their organization up, and despite, obviously, the huge medical concerns that he has.

You love Michael Penix? Love him. So make the case that this was actually a great move to do this, because by the time he actually starts for them after is out, which would be a couple of years from now, Michael Penix will be 34 years old.

Well, he is older. He's yet another one of these transfer guys. And look, he's had significant Significant, significant medical issues. Two torn ACLs, same knee, a shoulder surgery. You guys have seen it all. They ran down on the draft. But look, if there was a world where you could say Michael Penix is going to be healthy and he's not going to have any injury problems, and obviously that's a huge conjecture given his past. Yo, he can just fucking ball. He can throw the ball down the field beautifully. He puts the ball in pockets and in windows with amazing touch and accuracy. He's like a Drew Brees type of quarterback while he was at Washington in college. It's almost like he's handing the ball off down there. Anticipatory throws a whole nine. And then plus all of that, his knees seem to be holding up, his legs seem to be holding up, his body seems to be holding up well enough for him to go four or five at the combine, which I think shocked everybody.

But he doesn't really run as a quarterback, though. So what do I care if he runs four, six if you're not actually running?

He's not running, but the fact that he can still move and the fact that his body is functional and working, I think that explosion and that type of speed was surprising to a lot of people who had heard that he was essentially held together by thumb tacks and chewing gum throughout his college season.

Well, he tore the same ACL on his right knee twice. That means the second one was a cadaver ACL, maybe bad cadaver.

Or maybe it's like Rooky of the Year. Remember Rooky of the Year when he got hurt? And then all of a sudden, that made him throw harder than anybody right there.

It just got stronger and better.

It just got stronger. It was like they put the Rooky of the Year ligament in there. Now, he's like the man. But look, Here's the thing. If their plan is to not play him for a while, make sure that his body can take the load of an NFL season, give him a look seat for a couple of years, and then turn it over to him, it's a very smart draft pick. The reality is that it's one of the riskier draft picks that I can remember somebody making right now. Like with a new QB coming in and with the 10 as close to continuing as you said.

And one of the funnier draft picks.

Nobody thought it was going to happen.

I love when there's, though. And I said we were watching with a couple of people, and they showed him three, four minutes before the pick. I immediately got suspicious because I thought the Falcons were going to trade out of that. They were such a logical trade candidate for somebody to come up and get J. J. Mccarthy. Instead, they were staying put. Then they're just showing him in his living room with his family, and you want to talk about the families later. You have some thoughts. I have some thoughts. You have some theories.

It's a tough night.

But it was I was like, I think they're going to take pennex. But I said it the same way you would say, if you're at a bar and one of your buddies was talking all night to somebody, you were like, That lady's 25 years older than him. I think he's going to go home with her.

I think they're leaving together.

I think she just paid the check. Then that was it. They took it. You hate the Falcons. We should mention this.

Yeah, with deceiving white hot passion.

This must have delighted you. They wasted all their cap on Kirk Cousins, and then they spent the eighth pick on a backup quarterback.

Here's the thing. This is why the draft is sometimes tough for huge college football fans. It's tough because you get connected to the players and their stories over three or four, or in the case of Bo Nicks, 12 seasons that they've been playing. Then all of a sudden, they get drafted to your moral enemy, like the Falcons. I want to see Michael Pennix do well Because it's just such a fantastic story.

You were even defending his performance in the playoff game, which was not good.

Look, he played against in Michigan, what I believe to be a top three, if not the best defense in College football, and they had him schemed up. They played him really well. It was a hard hitting, very physical defense. He diced Texas up, bad secondary, but he diced Texas up. All throughout the year, except for a couple of games where he just led them to and didn't really dominate, Michael Pennix was the offense for Washington. Obviously, he had some great guys on the outside, but he was the engine of the whole team. He played fantastic football. He played fantastic football. So he made me a believer in him.

Was this his fifth year in college?

He was a long time. A lot of guys, all of these guys are old. They're 4, 15, 6 years, 25-year-old, rookies, the whole nine. That's the way of the world now, Bill.

Can you walk us through a couple of years here in the city of Atlanta, where you have Kirk Cousins as the incumbent and Michael Pennex as the backup, how that might play out?

I want to walk you through it, but I can't do better than a meme that I saw.

Okay, what's that?

There's a little movie called Any Given Sunday. This is where Dennis Quaid played Cap, the old veteran QB who had led the team to glory in the Past.

This was the first rewatchable we ever did after He.

True? Any Given Sunday. Any Given Sunday was the one. Any Given Sunday, some shocking locker room scenes there.

Some shocking drug use?

Shocking drug use.

Some shocking, all kinds of things. You're going to say that Cousins his cap.

And Penix is Willy Beeman. We're not there yet because we haven't seen Penix outperform and take his job, but that type of locker room animus, especially if Cousins is already there. Now look, Kerr Cousins has a decision to make. He can either try to nuke this kid in an Aaron Rodgers, Jordan Love type of way.

He's too nice of a guy. I don't see him doing that.

Too nice of a guy. I don't see him doing that. However, The choice to, I guess, talk about or discuss or lead to the media your displeasure at the pick is an interesting one. If you wanted to go with the flow and not rock the boat too much, you would I don't think that you would stay away from any public criticism of the pick itself. Not saying that he came out and went on a record, but obviously, if it got out how he felt about it, he knows that it got out.

But you can't win with any scenario if you're Kirk Cousins. Because if you're like, No, I think it's a great pick. But I can't wait to work with Michael People are like, You're full of shit.

Who are you kidding? But to me, it's just sometimes you tell the lies that you have to tell. Hey, I can't wait to show this kid how to be a great pro. I can't wait to get in there and make sure Michael Pennings has... We know that he doesn't mean it, but letting people know now that he's not feeling okay with it makes it a story going into mini-camps and going into OTAs and going into training camp in the summer.

The city of Atlanta, you gave me on the one hand a Dennis Quaid character, and then you gave me a Jamie Fox character. Sure. Where do you think the city is going to lean?

Look, let me tell you something.

I don't know how it's going to play out.

Let me tell you something real quick. Atlanta loves a winner.

Okay.

I think that's going to be a problem for Kirk Cousins. Kirk Cousins is a good QB, but- He's a 9-7, 9-8 guy. He is a 10 and 7 ranger. He is the cream of the crap, the best of the worst. Now, I'm not hating on him because he's had a great career, but I don't think anybody is looking to Kirk Cousins to take you to the promised land. Now, if he goes in there and he has problems figuring out a little bit, they're going to be people that want to see the new kid. That's the thing. And not just because he is culturally, should I say, what Atlanta is looking for, just because he just came off a fantastic college football career.

The Netflix series really helped Cousins. I've been saying that for a while. It made people forget that he's just basically a slightly over 500 quarterback who doesn't really do well in the playoffs. And the Minnesota thing was fine. Coming off an Achilles to boot, made me wonder if they think he's going to be 100% healthy. Maybe they wanted insurance. Maybe they were worried about something.

The question is, is Kire Cousins a quarterback? I think everybody knows the answer now. That you think you can win with or is he Garner, meant you Plus, meaning a quarterback that's a stop gap that comes in.

Or is he Dak Prescott?

Well, I mean, Dak Prescott is different because- A stop gap. Well, Dak Prescott, they built the whole fucking thing around him.

They think- They're the same guy. I've been saying this for years.

You think Prescott and-Yeah, they're the same guys.

Same level of success, same stats. It's just one guy plays in Dallas and the other guy was on Minnesota and a couple of other teams.

I think the only difference with Dak Prescott is he really put the team in a real bind to where he failed It's just enough to ruin your franchise. If you commit that type of money and make that type of commitment to, obviously, a guy, I'm not rewriting or saying anything profound here, to a guy like Dak Prescott, you almost have to win. And he just hasn't demonstrated that at all. Kirk Cousins was different. It's one of the more unique careers ever. A bunch of different franchise tags. It wasn't a real commitment to him long term.

Kept betting on himself, making a shitload of money.

Kept betting on himself, making this shit. But he never asked the team to commit long term. So there was still some type of flexibility that other teams didn't have. So it was odd in that way, but you never thought that you could put a team around him that was going to win a championship. I don't think anything's changed now.

So to sum up the Falcons offseason, they decided not to hire Bill Belichick. They kept their whole inner circle in place. They had done all the other stuff. They tampered with Kirk Cousins and are probably going to get penalized with some something at some point down the road when they get more info. Then after tampering with Kirk Cousins and paying for him, even though they don't know if he's going to be healthy for the start of the season, then they spend the eighth pick on Michael Pennax.

They drafted his successor.

The only thing I actually think for he more is I actually like that coaching hire. It would have been way more fun if they had hired the guy Carolina hired, Dave Canales. Oh, man, you didn't hire Bell. But I actually do think Rahm Morris could be a good coach. But at the same time, they passed on Bill Belichick, the greatest coach of all time.

Well, I mean, Robert Kraft, right? Robert Kraft. Yeah, Robert, he definitely What is it like for you to watch the most buttoned up, the most disciplined franchise in the history of American professional sports, maybe, turn into the real housewives of Massachusetts?

It's been an adjustment. My dad was at the Celtic game yesterday, game two. I don't know if you saw it, Celtic's lost. We didn't put any pressure on- I saw that. Miami had no point guards. We just decided to let them dribble the ball up. Oh, Duncan Robinson, you want to just dribble the ball up? Great. We won't do anything. Bob Kraft was there sitting courtside. Whenever they used to show Bob Kraft during the games, huge ovation, right? Kept the Patriots in New England, hired Bill Belichick, Super Bowl champ. Everyone loved Bob Things have fallen to the point they showed him on the Jumbotron. My dad's like, Yeah, they showed Kraft on the Jumbotron last time. I was like, Oh, my God, what happened? Did they boo? He's like, No. I was like, Did they cheer? He's like, No. It was just awkward. He was just on the Jumbotron, and they stayed on him, and then they moved off. So he's hit that level where it's afraid to even have a reaction.

Let me tell you something. That's tough. Let me tell you something. I'm not one to defend Bob Kraft, but after six fucking Super Bowl- Yeah, made nine. If I was anything less than a walking deity in Boston, I would sit courtside and show that entirely on my entire ass. I get it. It's been a couple of down years.

Six Super Bowl. Well, I think it was how he treated Belichick. I think it's- Yeah, well, look, how he treated Belichick- I just tell people appreciate it. I get it.

How he treated Belichick. Fine. Belichick was not Methuselah. He wasn't going to coach there forever. It was only going to go either... It was going to go one or two ways. Either Belichick was going to leave on his terms or he was going to leave on the terms of the organization.

Well, you know it's like Coughlin and Coughlin in a cocktail.

Oh, yeah.

Everything ends badly. Otherwise, it doesn't end. One of the great quotes of all time, from one of the greatest movies of all time.

He ended badly.

He did.Not the greatest. Killed himself in a yacht.

Tom, real quick, before we move on that. One of the great what the fuck just happened scenes from Tom Cruise. In movie history, because If you guys have never seen content, I don't want to ruin it. One of the great, Oh, my God, scenes.

It's Cruise's greatest performance in a movie. I've made that point before. Really? Yeah. He's carrying a 12-win team to 48 games. 48 I don't know.

Kelly Lynch was there for a couple of wins herself. That's true.

She didn't help out. The thing that shocked you tonight, so we had six quarterbacks going in the top 12, which I'm pretty sure that's ever happened. And Bo Nicks goes to Denver at 12. This is after Minnesota trades up a spot with the Jets to get JJ McCarthy, which we expected. Drake May goes to the Pats. We'll talk about that later. Jd Daniel goes to Washington. Caleb Williams goes to Chicago. He's going to be the hero. But then Bo Nicks, Denver was the last team that needed a QB. Maybe Maybe he could have gotten them later. Take them 12. And you started laughing.

Yeah, I did because the Bo Nicks thing is very funny to me. I'd read a lot about the fact that Sean Payton has fallen in love with Bo Nicks, and Bo Nicks is the Sean Payton type quarterback. He sees Drew Brees in Bo'Nicks. I don't know. I mean, Bo Nicks is a way better athlete than Drew Brees was.

No question.

I don't see the same type of accuracy, but look, if you follow Bo Nicks' career, you saw just an up and down career at Auburn where he was nearly benched, and might have actually been benched, if I remember.

We should mention you're one of the world's preeminent SEC experts.

I've watched all of the guys. I've watched all of the guys. I've watched all of the games. I watched all of the snaps. Bo Nicks was really embattled there for a long time in his career at Auburn to a point to where it was almost a record room for Bo Nicks at a point. Like, oh, my God, what could have been? He transfers to Oregon. And Dan Lanning, to his credit, puts things around Bo Nicks to take advantage of his skillset. But even still, the offense that they ran up there in Oregon, there's a lot of passing out to the sideline. I mean, there's a lot of... It's a very college offense in terms of what he was asked to do. You just did not see first-round draft pick Bo Nicks in his future when he's leaving in Arvin. You just did not see that.

So he's five, fifth-year senior.

Yeah, fifth-year. Everybody got a COVID year, so I'm not sure how many years he was actually in, but yeah, it was fifth-year.

Might have been six years. He had 77% accuracy. Look. Sean Payton, he just wants... Drew Brees is the ideal for Sean Payton. Just keep the chains moving. You had it. You root for the Saints. I did. That's what he wants from a QB, which was so interesting when they moved toward the Jameis era, which This is the opposite.

The complete opposite of it.

Keep the chains moving.

The Drew situation is different. Drew never had the biggest arm, but a lot of that stuff was vertical. A lot of that stuff was timing. I'm not... I'm rooting for Bo Nicks. It's just interesting to see Bo Nicks and to a degree, JJ McCarthy, both go on the first round, both go at the top of the first round. Obviously, Bo Nicks was like... He had fantastic numbers and all of that, but I just did not think of Bo Nicks as a first-round quarterbacking talent.

Well, I sent you... Belichick was doing McAfee's show, doing the draft stuff, and they showed his best available board, which his top five was Caleb, Jaden Daniels, Marvin Harrison, Malik Nabors, Drake May. But apparently, he was a little critical of Drake May's footwork, but Drake May is also 21. I don't think anyone thinks he's a finished product. Then he had Rome 6, Brock Bauer, 7. He had Dallas Turner, 8, who ended up going in the mid-teens. The reason I bring this up, he had Bo Nicks, 36, and he had Michael Pennicks, 37.

Well, Michael Pennix, this thing is probably, once again, about the medical. But when you look at Bo Nicks at 36, if I remember correctly, Drew Brees, the quarterback that he's being compared to their win at the top of the second round. Right.

Even after a couple of years with the Chargers was still... Figuring it out. Yeah, and he ended up... He switched teams. Miami almost got him.

Yeah, right. But that was a shoulder injury It really wasn't until he got to New Orleans that he became Drew. He had a couple of good years.

Yeah, he certainly never thought he was going to be a Hall of Famer.

No, the numbers got crazy. But look, one thing about Sean Payton is he likes to get his guys in there. Once he has a quarterback that he actually believes in, he believes that he can take that quarterback and that his system is so superior, his play calling is so superior that he can get that guy to the numbers he needs to get them to.

Unless it's Russell Wilson.

Well, he never believed in Russell Wilson. Right.

They pay all this money to get rid of Russell Wilson. Then they have the 12th pick in the draft. After they've traded other picks for Russell Wilson, they're going to have this huge cap hit. Then on top of it, now you roll the dice with Bo Nicks, who we'll see if he's better than Russell Wilson. That caught our attention. Your guy, Nabors, goes number 6. There was a lot of... It was Hamer Harrison. Harrison, who was a slam dunk as the best receiver as we headed the whole draft process. By the time we got to this month, people were like, I don't know, Nabors, Harrison. He played for your favorite team.

Of course.

Now look- And now he's in New York City.

Now he's in New York City. There's absolutely no way I can be objective about this. I think that Malik Nabors has a higher upside than Marvin Harrison Jr.

You've said this the whole time.

Right, I do. Here's the thing, though. Marvin Harrison Jr, just the workload and what he was able to do for the Ohio State offense. I've said it before. He earned his position as the number one, the number one receiver in the draft. Just the explosiveness, the dynamic ability after the catch, the strength. I mean, Marvin Harrison Jr is much stronger He's a stronger player than Malik Nabors. But when you have everything that Malik Nabors has and the ability to be a dog like he is, he is, to me, a surefire all pro going into some of these years.

He is getting compared to Jamal Chase and Tyrie Kill. And Tyrie kill. And those are the two names, which makes me think like, Oh, this guy. I wouldn't have been bummed out if the Pats had traded back to six, gotten a bunch of pics, and ended up with him. Right.

It's such a stack receiver draft, too. We talk about the quarterback draft is right now. The stack receiver draft as well.

Well, your guy Thomas just went to the Jags. We're taping this near the end of the first round. He went to the Jags at 23, which is amazing value for them. They lose Ridley, and they just get to move him in. As we continue to try to prove that Trevor Lawrence is a franchise QB, they keep spending money on free agent, receivers, making trades, spending first-round pics in them, and he's like a rich man's Mac Jones.

Here's the deal. I'm tipped to believe something deep in my soul here.

About neighbors or Trevor Lawrence?

About Brian Thomas Jr.

Okay.

The Brian Thomas Jr.

Another L. C. Guy.

Another L. C. Guy. The Brian Thomas Jr. Malik Neighbor situation, to me, is very evanescent of the Jamal Chase and Justin Jefferson situation. Now, Brian Thomas Jr. Is not the route runner that Justin Jefferson is. However, he is around 6'3 He ran 4-3 at the combine. He led the nation in countdown catches last year. There is a chance that in terms of the receivers that have been drafted, that he is actually the steal of the draft.

Well, you know what he has now?

What?

The fucking giant chip on his shoulder. Not only did I go fourth, I went deep fourth. It went 4, 6, 9, 23.

Now, a lot of people that know LSU Ball will say that a lot of the opportunities that he got were because so much attention was being paid to him in the lead. But if you watch BTJ, BTJ is a dog, man. Dead straight away speed.

I was hoping the paths were going to trade up from 35 to get him.

He is a dog. He could easily, easily, easily be the best pro.

Him versus Rome, you think if you were going to say who's better in five years, to you, It's a toss-up.

It's a toss-up. However, I don't want to take anything away from these guys.

No, you love all these guys. I'm just saying it's not inconceivable.

It's not inconceivable at all that Brian Thomas Jr ends up becoming the best receiver in this draft from the guys in the first run. It's not inconceivable at all. He is that type of talent. If you watch it at LSU a lot of times, if you watch him in some of these big games, a lot of times BTJ was holding things down. As his season went on and he picked up steam, you started to hear his name called as much as Malik. You started to see team's game plan for him a little bit more. I think when he has an opportunity to be wide receiver one, he's going shock a lot of people with how he's able to produce compared to those other guys.

Malik Nabors in New York City? I think he's going to be an immediate fan favorite. Yeah, he's got to start right there. I mean, you could even see from the draft, coolest guy in the draft, you could just tell. And he went third person on us. He laid that out early. He's like, Look, if you don't think I'm going to call myself Malik Nabors, he went full-name third person. He went full-name, third-person.

He went full-name, third-person, and I think he did it two or three times in a row. He was like, These are the type of people that made them Malik Nabors, where Malik Neighbors came from, who Malik Neighbors is. It was amazing. He was describing a Malik Nabors.

He's from New Orleans?

He's from down in that area. Yeah.

Let's take a break. More draft stuff to discuss. All right. We have a Louisiana update on neighbors.

Yeah, he's not. He's from more like the Lafayette area. He's a 318 boy.

I'll find out more on your-337 boy.

He's a 337 boy, middle of the state.

You'll talk about it more on your pocket Louisiana podcast that we have. That's in the Stealth Ringer.

What do you know about the The middle of the state there. Not a lot. Lafayette. The real, real, real- My life.

Never took me. Never invited me.

Let me tell you something about the 337 real quick, and I love this. All my people in Lafayette, New Iberian, all these places like this. You think that the actual culture of Louisiana is exemplified by New Orleans. When you talk about food and all of that stuff, the real culture, it's really right there in the Acadian.

It's all the stuff the Waterboy captured.

Basically, that's where it really is. It's really right there in the Acadian.

Hardcore Waterboy, Louisiana.

The 318, I keep saying that because that's where I went to. That's the north of the state. That's up there, the north side. But I'm talking about the 337 right there in the middle, Swamp in Lafayette, all of that stuff. I'm not giving any shine to the other school across the Basin, but that's really the joint right up in there.

Are we going to cover this in New Orleans Month on the rewatchables?

We should.

What's New Orleans Month be?

So Heaven's Prisoners.

Heaven's Prisoners. Can't wait.

Big Easy. The Big Easy. Of course, the fuck with the Big Easy. Yeah.

Tightrope with Clint Eastwood.

Angelheart.

Angelheart.

Angelheart is a big deal.

That's the one that might get the feed shut down.

Louis Cypher.

Louis Cypher, Lisa Bonet. Oh, my God. A couple of other things that happened in this draft that I thought was fun. Well, we barely talked about my team getting a quarterback, taking Drake May. It was just three months of... I really was through the torture chamber. I was convinced they were going to fuck this up. There was so much JJ McCarthy buzz. I don't know. I just like Drake May. I'm in. Even watching him in the draft today, I was like, I like the way this guy carries himself. I'm on the record as I think quarterback is 75% how you deal with people and how you lead people. All these guys from a talent standpoint, I know there's degrees to it. Then sometimes there's the guys who are just incredible. Mahomes, you can't compare them to other people. Yeah, it's just a freak. But when you're talking about why guys succeed and fail, I do feel like The personality piece is a big piece of it. You're leading these fucking dudes. Eighty thousand people, the pressure of the moment, being scouted, getting the shit kicked out of you, having people... You're the pilot of the airplane.

If you can't If you can't fly the airplane, if you're nervous, if you're like Denzel's partner in flight, the other guy, you don't want that guy. You want Denzel. You want Denzel. You want the guy who's like, he's had some cocktails and some cocaine. He could still fly the fucking plane upside down.

He knows he can do it.

Yeah, you don't want to be the other guy. The guy who's praying in the side seat.

This is what I would say. You definitely don't want to be the guy who has a strong religious background in prayer. Bill Simmons. Stop. Okay, so this is what I would say. I like Jake May. I told you before I like Jake May. I've always liked Jake May. I think Jake May is a baller. I think you like Jake May.

I do.

I also think that Bill Simmons has the strength of mind to convince himself that Drake is the savior of New England?

No.

You don't. You have made yourself fall in love with Jake.

I'm old enough to know that these quarterbacks, you just want to get to 70, 30, the guy might be your guy.

Because you don't. You never know.

You never know. I just don't want it to be 50, 50. I want to get to 70, 30, 75, 25. With him, the reasons that he's not going to make it are if they threw him in too soon, if they never are able to fix some of his mechanics. But from a physicality and a physical standpoint, he has it. He's big enough. His arm is strong. He's a fucking gamer and a half. I like that he stayed loyal to North Carolina, that he He didn't leave, that he didn't go to Alabama or wherever, tried to win the Heisman. I like that he's a little brother. I like that he's young. I've covered all this stuff.

Hyper competitive.

Yeah. Where it could go wrong is you just throw him... There's some quarterbacks that I still feel like even now, after their careers are over. I think Sam Bradford actually should have been a good quarterback.

But he was for a little while. He was okay. But I think there's another world where he goes to a much better situation and it works out amazing.

I think there's a world where Eli Manning could have sucked. He just goes to Jacksonville and gets a shit kicked out of him, and he's out of the league in eight years. Situation, when you get thrown into the fire, who your coaches are, what your weapons are.

Consistency system, all of those things.

Yeah. And what division you're in. In his case, cold weather, which is a little tougher, but he's a physical specimen. I don't know. Then I look at Daniels. I think Daniels is in a great situation.

You're a guy. I think he's in a real good He's in a good situation. I think he's in a good situation for a lot of reasons. I think he'll be embraced in DC. I think he's been through a lot. It's funny. A lot of the things that you say about Bo Nicks, a lot of the things that I said about him, you could make the same types of observations about Jaden Daniels. You really could. You could say that Jaden Daniels had an up and down career at Arizona State.

His teammate He celebrated at Arizona State when he left. Yeah, it was tough. That was weird.

Then after he leaves Arizona State and he comes to LSU, he's with LSU for that first year, and you can see that he's got tools there. But there were tons of questions about his ability to push the ball down the field. Jaden would not throw to the middle of the field.

I don't think he did last year that much either, right?

He did more so than he did before.

He likes the sides and he likes to run.

Right. But you could see the anticipatory throws in the middle of the field, him just letting the ball go a little bit more than he did the first year. No one had Jaden Daniels. People were talking about whether or not he would be a first-round pick. No one had this. The explosion of what happened had to do with his familiarity with the offense and really a lot of hard work. So I'm very proud of him, but I'm not going to act like he was a surefire. I mean, he came in as a pretty tired prospect. But after his first year at LSU, just to be honest with you, a lot of fan wanted him to leave so that they could turn the keys over to Gare Nesmier and see what was going on there.

Well, we talk about percentages. He's maybe same 70, 30, 75, 25, but all the percentages on the downside would be, can he stay healthy? It's what happens when he gets racked up by somebody. Even today, we were stunned how skinny he was. I made a joke, he looked like it was like Timothée Chalamet at the Dune 2 movie premiere. He's just skinny.

He's his. The thing is, he is small, he is slight, and we've seen him get slammed and knocked around a lot.

But he always got up, right?

Didn't have a ton of injury problems. He got knocked out of a couple of games. But for the most part, he was a gamer When you called his number, he was there, and he played a very aggressive style of football. Jay did not like to slide very much. He liked to run sometimes to the middle of the field to then break out towards the sidelines. He's a tough football player.

We dissected every Caleb Williams shot that we had during the draft every time they showed him. Did you see anything that made you like him less or more?

No. Look, Caleb Williams is ridiculously talented. I just watched a lot of the games. And in watching a lot of the games, you saw a guy who... As far as me, I saw a lot of hero ball. I saw I wish for nothing more than the success of all of these kids, all of these young men, go out there and do your thing. But I always tell you, tell your story, me and Jomy are watching the game, shout out Jomy, and I'm watching Caleb, and maybe this is maybe more on Lincoln, maybe it has to do with some deficiencies of the SC roster. I'm just watching Caleb make simple plays hard to me. He's going to the NFL, and if there's the structure there to get him to play within that structure, he could be a very, very successful quarterback. But I think he's going to have to learn some things about his game to be the guy that they want him to be in Chicago. Honestly, I would rather have Drake May.

Interesting.

Yeah. Of the three guys that were at the top of the draft, I think Drake May is going to be the last guy who who gets an opportunity, but I think he's going to be the most successful quarterback of the three.

Well, Caleb's in the best situation out of those three. Probably. Now he's got DJ more on Rome. Offensive line seems solid enough for a rookie QB compared to what other people have seen. Their defense is good. I think some people would have thought with a decent QB this year, they might have been a playoff team anyway because the second half of the year, they were better.

Justin Fields, second half of the year, he played better. Yeah.

Good It was a tough situation for him. Other subplots, JJ McCarthy goes 10th to Minnesota. My wife happened to join us for the three minutes when they were doing JJ McCarthy stuff, and she was like, He's so cute. I think that helps his stock. I was surprised after that that he felt a 10th. But he's got the charisma. He's got something. But you were- I mean, look, he pulled off draft boards.

When I asked a question on Twitter, I was being 100% serious. When I asked the question on Twitter, what is with the... Not the resurgence. What's with the surge of JJ McCarthy and how he's flying up draft was. I really wanted to know what was happening. When you looked at the team, it seems as if they were a team that didn't ask their quarterback to do very much. He made a lot of big plays. It It felt like they were a team that didn't ask their quarterback to do very much.

Well, our friend Noah was-Who did. Who's watched every Michigan game and was saying this guy came through every time.

And he did. They played a bit. But for him to be as highly talented as he was in terms of his place in the first round and where he went. I think that has a little bit more to do with us being in the age of the quarterback than it does to do with anything he did when he was at Michigan because he wasn't asked to do that much. He wasn't asked to do that much. Even with what I said about Bo Nicks, the numbers that Bo Nicks put up, even if the offense was tailor-made for him to have a hyper completion percentage and all that stuff, the numbers were still crazy. Mccarthy's weren't really. They had a punishing run game, and they grinded teams out. They were like a Python the way Michigan was. But people are looking at it. They're looking at intangibles, and they're looking at what a guy can do, and they're thinking that they can build a stable offense around it.

I like his situation, too. Kevin O'Neill. Justin Jefferson. I thought Addison was really good last year. Then Minnesota, they got Dallas Turner, too. Everybody was saying he was one of the three best defensive players in the draft, so they're feeling good. I thought that was a nice spot for him. The only other thing that stood out from the first 20 picks was just the offensive tackles. I've been saying this forever. I just didn't understand why the draft never mirrored what actually happens once these guys become older, what we see in free agency. Because you get to free agency when these guys are four, five, six years in. And what always happens, nobody can get a left tackle. Everyone just resigns the left tackle they have if the guy's good. Or even the right tackle, like Sewell and the Lion's just signed a huge deal. And it's like, if you get a tackle, that guy stays on your team forever unless either he had some injury or something. There's some major cap issue, and maybe they jump. Whereas, Bowers, I just never was buying that he was going in the top 10 because we've just seen these teams getting burned by tight ends, getting taken that high.

And tight end just isn't as important of a position as left tackle. I can get a left tackle. I'm always going to want a left tackle over a tight end. I don't care if the tight end is... You basically have to be Gronk or Kelsey to justify it.

Well, I mean, look, you got Kittle, you got Andrews, you got a A lot of guys, a lot of tight ends that are huge, huge important parts.

They don't make as much money as left tackles.

No, left tackles definitely- Left tackles make shitloads of money because if you have a good one, you want to keep the guy on your team. I know, but we're talking about Brock fucking Bowers, bro.

I know. You have to explain how good he is to me.

He is literally, to me, he had some injury problems as well in and out of the lineup and stuff. But when you look at the type of athletic specimen that Brock Bowers is, he could be dominant wherever you put him.

You were saying you would use him as a Mike Allstatt running back every once in a month.

I'm saying that you could. I'm saying that if you got to a situation right now-Third and one, you just put him in the back. If you had to Payton Hillis or Mike Allstatt him, he could literally be an all pro at that position, dynamic with the ball in his hands, strong, ridiculously athletic, and can catch the ball like crazy. He's like a different type of... Those talents don't Don't come around very often.

Yeah. Well, unfortunately, he went to the Raiders.

You can make an argument at some point that Brock Bowers, when he's healthy, that he might have been the best player in all of college football.

Wow.

I'm serious. He's that good.

Well, it does seem like everybody wised up this year to the sense of, Oh, what are the two most important positions? Quarterback and left tackle. Yeah. Let's just take those until basically the draft drops off. Then we'll grab the other positions. It was It's interesting because I remember two years ago when the Pats took Cole Strange, and it was like, All right, we took a guard. But then when I watched Free Agency, guards go for a couple of million bucks, or it's like, Oh, Kansas City, they found this guard. It's his seventh team, and now he's starting in a Super Bowl. This is a great story. It's like, Why would we take a guard in first round? Why not take positions that are hard to get? Like receiver, tackle. I think one of the reasons running backs have fallen off. All right, before we go, you had some thoughts on the draft telecast in the rooms. I'm just going to clear the floor for you.

It's funny. The draft is always a talking point in the Black Twitter sphere, because if you're following on Black Twitter right now, you're seeing a phenomenon in the draft. You're seeing very prominent Black athlete with a White Girlfriend. Every time we see it, we laugh. There's one particular situation right now. It starts this morning. It starts this evening with Caleb. Caleb walks out there. He's got his beautiful blonde lady with them. One tweet was like, Caleb already getting ready for success. Looking at him right there. He already got the white girl. He had to have played one snap yet. Then it's funny Because I don't care how... I don't give a fuck. You all can't tell me that race isn't funny sometimes. I don't give a fuck. You can't tell me that it's not funny to see a whole family full of Black people. Sometimes they're West African and stuff like that. So everybody got Dashiki on and they're wearing all of this shit. And then in the middle of there, right in the middle, there is a Becky, a Barbara, a Suan, a motherfucking Jenny right there. That's fucking funny. I don't give a fuck.

And the mamas always try to make a little barrier. You all look at it right now, I can't remember which brother it is, the brother that got drafted, and his girl is literally trying to reach for him to hug him, and mom is keeping her off to the level. But I find the girlfriend angle of the draft always really hilarious because for these girlfriends that are with these guys right now, it's both probably the best and at the same time, the most nerve-wracking night of their life because they got to hold on now. Not only are there guys going into the big league, they going into the big league, too. They're not competing against- This is Haynie against Garcia.

You're just grabbing around the waist.

Exactly. You're trying to figure it out.

Trying to get the ref to help out.

Only a couple of these guys had it like that. If you were Caleb Williams, you could have run the IG streets and made the whole thing pop. But some of these linemen and some of these defensive guys, they didn't have it like that. Ain't nobody knew who they were. So now- Do you think this should have been an alt cast on ESPN?

You know those alt cast? The Girlfriend cast? Just studying the- You remember a couple of years ago where CeeDee Lamb, his girl- Who are the announcers for the Girlfriend cast? Oh, this is easy. Is Big Rage on this?

Big Rage, Dreya Michelle, You got Big Rage, Dre and Michelle. You can have a couple of different people in there. Throw them in there. Like the Girlfriend cast. Just the whole thing is just watching the girlfriends, watching them try to get next to the guys and stuff.

And the mom Mom, Girlfriend, Reactions. Mom, Girlfriend, Reactions. Then sometimes there's a sister who gets a little elbow-y.

Sometimes there's a sister who will like, Look, bitch, you ain't been around. You just got here six months ago. Yeah, you just got here before the draft. Get out of here. Now, like I'm saying, now these girls got to compete with everybody. They got to compete with the pop singers, the cast of Loving Hip-Hop Miami. They got to compete with everything on IG, everything on Twitter.

Do you think they root for the guy to go to a smaller city?

Yes.

It's like, Oh, he got drafted by Jacksville. Yes. Love it.

What are you talking about? Green Bay? That's the number one. Buffalo. That's the number one destination. La, New York, Miami. These places, you got to... There's a lot of Thunder Kiddings out there, baby. It's different.

Girlfriend cast.

Girlfriend cast.

We'll work on this for next year.

Definitely.

Sponsored by a fan, no sportsbook. Fan, good to see you.

No problem, brother. Thanks.

All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Van Lathen and Jay Kyleman. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerruti for producing as always. I will see on Sunday night with Lucilla. Enjoy the weekend. I don't have Must be 21 plus, 18 plus DC, and present in select states, Fandil, offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gamble problem? Call 1-800-Gamble or visit fandil. Com/rg. In Colorado, DC, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800-Next Step or text Next Step to 53342 in Arizona, 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg mdgamblinghelp. Org/chat-in-connecticate, 800 down with it in Indiana, 800-522-4700, or visit ksgamblinghelp. Com in Kansas, 877-770. Stop in Louisiana, mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland, 800-gambler. Net in West Virginia, 800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-877-8 Hope-N-Y or text Hope-N-Y in New.