Coming up, part two of our special two part holiday extravaganza on the BS pod. Football basketball. Oh, yeah. Next, we're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did. Mr. And Mrs. Smith also put up a part one of this podcast a little bit earlier today. On Tuesday, we had Kevin O'Connor on to talk about Jalen Brown and the Celtics. We had Derek Thompson on to talk about the open AI saga. There's no other way to put it and how crazy that's been and what it means for not only the future of OpenAI, but the future in general. And then last but not least, Austin Gale came on, did a little NFL nerd out with us. So that was part one. Part two. Taping this first part late on Tuesday night because Rob Mahoney and I are going to react to the in season tournament and everything that happened today and try to figure out are the old superstars that we have in a little bit of trouble here or are we feeling good about them? And after that, Stephen Ruiz and Danny Kelly came on to talk about the NFL MVP, which is one of the worst races we've ever had.

Why can't a non QB win? We're going to break it down. And then Danny and I did million dollar picks. We're not scared that it's Tuesday and there's games Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. And God only knows what could happen. We made the picks anyway. We're feeling confident. We were four and O last week. Fun. Part two coming up first, our friends from Pearl Jet. All right. Rob Mahoney is here. We're taping this part of the podcast. It is 09:00 Pacific Time. The Lakers did us a solid, Rob. They blew out the jazz. We're going to wait till the end of that. I'm going to start here. We wanted to react off tonight's games, and I'm glad we did. I officially like the in season tournament. I think I'm in. I don't know whether this know, they just poured Kool Aid down my throat or I'm just following the herd or they're playing a Jedi mind trick on me. But tonight was the night where I actually was legitimately invested in who won the Indiana Atlanta game, which also happened to be an incredible game. And I actually looked at the schedule before we popped on and was like, oh, Boston Orlando Friday in the season.

That's a big one. And we've hit this point now where the players care, so I care. That's where I've landed.

And the best part isn't even here yet, right? The single elimination actual tournament part of the tournament hasn't even you know, there's a lot of inertia in sports in general, a lot of stodgy old men in dusty rooms complaining about things not changing because of the way they've always been. So I am pro experimentation, trying new things is cool. LeBron caring about these games is cool. Michael Imperiali is like, I'm down for every element we've gotten of this so far. And again, the best is yet to come in terms of what these games are going to actually look like when elimination is on the line.

You know what I realized, especially watching the games today, these guys have been competing their whole lives. And even though this is a pretty dubious prize, it's basically like, hey, everybody wins $500,000, or you're going to hold this cup that will probably be called like, the Amazon Cup next year. Whatever it is, it's still winning something. These guys are all still competitive. They're on a plane every night. They're playing cards. They're playing video games. They've been competing their whole lives. And this is just another thing. I didn't think it fell into place in my head until I heard Halliburton talking about it, and he was just like, I've never won anything. He had this whole monolog about he's like, I care about this. I want to make the tournament totally. I want to make vegas. I want to try to win this thing. I've never won anything before. And I was like, oh, okay. So when you're just talking about a year one of something, and there's been a lot of bad year ones of TV shows, technological products, you name it, this is a pretty good start. The courts made it feel different. We all made fun of them.

But you are aware of, oh, this is actually an in season. So from that piece, it worked. The way they matched up all the teams seems to have worked for the most part. It's not really totally divisions, but it feels like people are in the same vicinity. And then I actually kind of understand the brackets. Like, I was looking at them on ESPN Orlando today. They're trying to win their game, and it's like, oh, maybe they should win by more points in case they don't end up winning their bracket. They want to get one of the two wild card spots. So they've checked a lot of boxes. What's missing for you so far going into year two? What do you wish was in here that we don't have yet?

It's a great question. Honestly, it's working for me for the most part. I think some of the courts can be tamed down a smidge. Some of the reds are quite red, quite intense. And if we hear a little closer to what we saw in Atlanta's court tonight, for example, I think that's the best court design, this beautiful baby blue number that works really well for having actual basketball players on the court playing on it. The more we can get in that range, I think the better off we'll be. But I like the distinctive look. I like the fact that guys are caring about this, and right now they're caring about it on more of a cerebral level, like it's LeBron saying I want to win $500,000 for my teammates. It's Damien Lillard saying I want to win this for the guys who are not making as much as I am. But you're right, once you get into the third quarter of some of these elimination games and your team is down twelve, where normally in the regular season you might just kind of coast it out and see what happens. Maybe you take your stars out if it gets away from you.

Now, I think a lot of these teams are going to be cranking it up and you're getting to that point in those competitive games where it's not just about as you're saying, these guys want to win, they really don't want to lose, they really don't want to lose. And the fact that I think we have the currency of attention on the tournament right now, right there is a lot of push media wise, advertising wise, to make this a thing. And the more the league succeeds in getting people to care about this on the outside, the more it's going to feel like a real lost opportunity for the guys in the teams who get eliminated.

Yeah, I thought Doc Rivers that was when I started to get sucked in, when he was talking about in my podcast last week and explaining from a coach's perspective why he liked it and how it's just added stakes. That now you can test your team in certain ways and cut your rotation and do things to kind of prepare yourself for what it's going to look like in April. So that part's fun. I think when we get to Vegas, you think like this was a league that just stopped mattering in December for the most part, unless somebody scored 60 points or there was a really awesome Friday ESPN game or something. For the most part. There was talk two years ago like, should we just start the season on Christmas and should we just remember? Everybody was like, why does the NBA matter more the first eight weeks? Why does it feel like the season starts on Christmas? I think the league was terrified. You look at some of the stuff that they've done the last couple of years where even moving the TNT games to Tuesday nights just to avoid the NFL completely. It was a league that was a little bit on the ropes here this first part of the season and now the Vegas thing will be something everyone's going to care.

I feel like all the NBA people will be there and I feel like we sound like we're drinking the Kool Aid, but I was fully prepared to be shitting on this and like, oh, this didn't what? What should the stakes be? I think if I had to add one thing, I think it would be cool if the team that won was guaranteed a playoff. So and whether that's the 6th seed, so let's say Indiana actually wins this whole thing and you're just guaranteed no lower than the 6th seed. That's something. Now you're really playing for something. Maybe that means less to the Celtics because the Celtics know they're going to be good. Sure. But I think for some of the other teams, like in Orlando, like in Indiana, that's a real thing. You're going full tilt now for that. If they guaranteed the eight seed, that's not bad either. And maybe you say the playing is for seven seed only in one of the conferences. Like there's ways to rig that, but I wish they added that stake. Are you for or against that?

I'm for maybe a modified version of that. I think what I'd like to see is maybe you get a bump up from wherever you end up. So if you're in the bottom four of the standings, you're automatically in the play in. If you end up in the play in, you're automatically guaranteed a top eight. And if you're a top six team, maybe you're guaranteed home court advantage for a certain number of rounds or certain number of opponents. That way we're not getting the Portland Trailblazers, with all due respect, in a first round series. Just getting absolutely wrecked by the Nuggets or something, right. Everything is still like above board and competitive, but it's a real reward for these teams who are vying for it.

Rob, I don't think we have to worry about the Portland Trailblazers in any sort of scenario this season that doesn't involve deep, deep, deep embedded lottery. Can we talk about the game of the year, please? We officially had a game of the year. The Indiana Atlanta game was a cross between like a late 80s, early 90s All Star game with just some shot making where I don't think anybody missed for 15 minutes. Everything was going in. Both teams shot 60%, and it wasn't an easy 60%. These were 28 footers. These were threes with a in your face. These were double clutch layups in traffic. I had that on the small TV initially on one of the two small TVs, and then the big TV had Philly Cleveland immediate switch.

It happened. It takes over.

We got to see if this could be 300 points combined. I looked this up during the game, only the 9th time. One team has had 157 plus and the other team has had 150 plus in the history of the league. And these would have been two of the suspects, I think for a game like that, Indiana Dallas might honestly get to like 170 to 165. But what struck you watching the game tonight?

I think the Pacers, to kind of bring our conversation full circle, are just the perfect tournament team, right? They are explosive, offensively. They're relentless in a way that's really know Atlanta is technically a better defensive team than the Pacers are. I don't think anyone can argue that based on the numbers of what indiana has allowed this. Yeah, but the Pacers put so much pressure on you with how consistently they score, right? Every game, they're going to have at least one, maybe multiple 40 point quarters. And if you can't keep up with that, if you get a little sloppy with the ball, if your three stop falling, they're just going to run you over. And the fact that a team like that is going to go now guaranteed, clinched a spot into the in season tournament. Congratulations to the Indiana Pacers.

Yeah, you did it.

A team like that is going to be in there with one of the most exciting and charismatic young stars in the league, and Tyrese Halliburton. This is exactly what the tournament should be about. Introducing the basketball world at large to a team like this, to a player like this.

It's the March Madness concept, right? It's like the Wacky. The Loyal Mary Mount in 1991. Like, oh, my God, look at this team. They just scored 150 points the other day. And if you're only playing them once, it's way harder than if you're playing them seven times over the course of two weeks. I was thinking, watching the game, they took 94 shots, they took 45 threes, and they took 28 free throws, which is just in a non overtime game is just kind of dumbfounding to also shoot 60%. Their splits were 60.648 point 975. I was thinking 20 years ago at this time was the three four season, which was one of the darkest seasons in the history of the League.

Some real medieval shit going on in the League at that point.

This was just rock fight after rock fight. Feel free to go look up some of the box scores from that era. And it was so bad that they actually had, like, a crisis that summer and they're like, how do we fix this? The Pistons won the title. God bless the pistons. But they did it old school defense, super physical. Every game was 82 to 80, 87 to 80, and the League was like, we got to fix this. So they made a couple of changes that gave birth to the Steve Nash sons and then some more fun things that came down the road. But 20 years later, if you took this Pacers team and just dropped that into that season from a time machine, I think people would think the aliens had landed. What's happening?

No ability to fathom an offense like this. And bless both of these teams because down the stretch, they both just dispensed with the idea of trying to guard each other. They took their centers out. Jalen Johnson, obi Toppin. You're our fives now. And we're just going to cook and cook and cook and space things out. And, man, it was incredible to watch. It felt very maybe this is like Thanksgiving on the brain of me, but it felt very Thanksgiving. Starches, right? Your mashed potatoes, your mac and cheese, your cornbread dressing. I'm not going to pretend anything that happened in this game was good for me to watch, but if I'm being honest, it's all I want at all times is to consume games like this just straight into my veins.

Hall Burton finished with 37 and 16. He's headed toward first of all, I think he's already locked the assist title up. I bet on Yokich on that, but I think that one's a wrap.

Trey's within range. At least Trey's in range. It's going to be a fight. But Halliburton and in particular the number of games he has like this with 16 or so assists and also one or zero turnovers, absolutely nutty. And it's another reason why Indiana is so dangerous. They play so fast and they basically never turn the ball over.

Well, it feels like he has a feel for his team now that we're 1314 in. So I feel like the 30 716 is something we might see again and again. I mean, a brutal night for warriors fans that wiseman pick and just in general and all the different ways that goes where Minnesota actually does the right thing and takes the right guy, Edwards. And then just thinking of Halliburton on that warriors team compared know, they basically turn it into reacquiring. Gary Payton is what they turn the second pick into.

Especially living out here in the Bay Area. It really is just a carousel of angst. Whether Edwards or LaMello or Halliburton has a great game, there is always some grousing going on about one of those three guys and it's just going to be that way perpetually. I mean, you're going to have to watch all three of those players grow up and into even greater stardom and success knowing that you could add any of them, stretching out what we now see to be a team that is very steph reliant as steph reliant as it's ever been in Golden State.

Yeah. Well, one of the things that's interesting about Indiana, who by the way, are they eight and five. Yeah, eight and five. So they had the 8th pick in the draft and he doesn't play. Yeah, and I don't even know if it was good pick or not, but they kind of just don't need him. But when you think of like they signed Bruce Brown, they do this sneaky topping trade that I think everybody I think everybody was kind of in on topping just going to a new situation. He showed enough flashes on the Knicks that this guy's something. He's plays the exact same position as Julius Randall and you can't play them together. Those are the type of guys you want to trade for. But just adding those two and then they don't trade. Buddy Healed and it's like he wants to go. Oh, budy. Healed wants to go. Well, now he stays. He was nine for eleven and hit all six of his threes today.

Yeah, huge in crunch time for them too.

This team is just I like the way it's constructed. I actually am wondering, could they be like a buyer at the trade deadline? They have a lot of assets. Walker is somebody who I think a lot of people like coming out of college. Maybe he just doesn't fit for the style they're trying to play. But we're about to hit trade deadline time and I just wonder, is this a team that's like, no, we're good, we just want to be young and frisky? Or is this a team like, holy shit, we have a chance to add Zach Levine to this and maybe we should just go grab him at a discount.

I was actually just out there for a story on Tyrese Halliburton talking with a bunch of their staff and their coaching staff and people there. I get the sense that they are definitely in the market for some big moves. I don't know if Zach Levine is quite to their needs.

If not, yeah, some veteran that's available, right? For sure.

Jarris Walker, like, he does fit their style. He's just so raw. He's just not ready for games like this one, for example. He would be making mistakes all over the place for as athletic and explosive as he could potentially be. He's just not ready. But this was an interesting game in the push toward maybe being more of a buyer in this market because kind of quietly the Pacers changed up their starting lineup in a way that reflects a bit more of an urgency and a win. Now, Sensibility. Ben Matheran had been starting for them and they quietly went back to basically what they had been doing last season, which is Budy healed in the starting lineup, aaron Neesmith in the starting lineup. Something a little more familiar, something that they have proof of concept for that worked for them last year. When they're doing things like that, rather than valuing the reps of Matheran and Halliburton on the floor together as a starting pair, that says to me that they're really trying to win these games. They're really trying to push now to be as competitive as they can. And there are limits to that.

Of course, with a team this young, they're not going to do anything too crazy. But there is a want in Tyrese's case, as you pointed out, that guy just he wants desperately to win. He's never played for a winning NBA team. He wants to do that. He wants to check that box and get to the playoffs and this whole franchise does.

Frankly, it's very similar to the OKC situation where if you have a really special guard and you have some nice pieces around him and the league's pretty wide open once you get past Boston and Denver and Giannis and Embiid, basically, and then whatever the Lakers are going to bring to the table, I would.

Say a lot to get around.

Well, it's a fairly wide open league to at least say, hey, could we make round two? Yes. And I think they could even look at the east. Orlando is the five seed and Indiana is the six seed right now. And it's not surprising. Orlando has played the best defense in the league, at least by all the advanced metrics for the first 14 games. I don't know if it's sustainable, but when you watch them, they're long everywhere, they're really active. They're just kind of funky to play. And over a seven game series, you'd figure it out. But when they're just showing up and every guard is either going 120 miles an hour like Cole Anthony, or six eight with long arms like the rest of the guys, they're just a weird team and they can score at the end of games. The funny thing about them is they've almost blown some of the worst wins of the year. So there's been some crunch time stuff, but there's a great time to be.

A weird team, though. I think you're absolutely right. If you are one of these weird teams that either has a distinct style that maybe has some warts to it or maybe your players a little younger than you might expect out of a real playoff contender, this is the kind of season where maybe you do push forward a little bit more and man, Orlando, Indiana, would be such a fascinating stylistic contrast. And we saw the Magic just absolutely destroy the Pacers in a regular season matchup earlier this week. So I would love to see that kind of situation again. But really, I'd love to see any team grapple with the Pacers for seven games and see how they try to deny tyrese, how they try to take them out of their Pace, because right now, Indiana's offense, even in the half court, is still really effective.

Orlando killed Toronto tonight, and that was a game I thought was going to be really fun, and that game was over within an hour. One thing I remember saying last year, that and I remember Rosal and I talked about on one of our Sunday pods, like, just getting concerned about every team playing the same way, every team looking the same stylistically, just like, all right, and then he's going to slash out and somebody's going to take a three. And that's why we love Jokic so much. It was like, all right, at least we have this guy. He's different. But for the most part, all the styles seem to be the same this year. I feel like the teams are it's like professional wrestling. Everybody's got like a gimmick. The Magic are like, we're fucking weird and long and young, and there's just nobody likes them. Indiana is like, we're going to shoot 90, we're going to take 90 to 95 shots a game. And Dallas is like, we don't care about interior defense at all, but we have luca and Kyrie, and that's what we're going to do. And you go on down the line and the teams actually feel different.

To me, even Milwaukee is kind of weird this year. It's like they can't guard any perimeter guys anymore, but the Yanis Damn thing's great, and they keep stealing these close games. Miami is like the typical weird Miami team, but you go on down the line, everybody's got a gimmick. The Knicks are weird, like just Brunson and Randall and a bunch of shooters. I don't even really know how to describe them. So I think from a eclecticness category, we're way better than we were last year, don't you think?

Yeah, I think the diversity of thought and approach around the NBA, we're definitely seeing some fork in the road stuff with that. And a lot of it comes down to what prospects can you realistically get and how does that inform the totally different trajectory your franchise can take?

Right.

Having Paolo Banquero puts you on a certain path, and once you get him and Franz Wagner, then it's like, okay, now we have an identity. Now we have something to work with. And is it kind of similar to what is going on in OKC? For example? Maybe in the sense that those are both big wings, but Orlando's big wings are like 610 versus six eight, and those two inches make an absolute world of difference. And so even the styles that are kind of technically similar by shot profile or by philosophy on the court feel totally different. The matchups feel completely different. So I'm with you. It puts the league in a really interesting place, even in just a like, how do we advance out of the first round capacity? A first round matchup against Sacramento is just totally different than one against the Lakers. And how you reckon with those challenges in those teams, you may be incredibly well suited for one and just horrifically.

Outmatched in the other. And it seems like teams have more small ball options now than they used to. That with guys at the five who seem more like Obi Thompin and Jalen Johnson on the Hawks, who's been kind of a revelation this year. I really what a season. He's only 21 years old, I think, but I think if you're doing trade assets on Atlanta, he'd be a little higher on the list than I think people would expect. But a lot of these teams seem to have one guy like that who it's like, oh, this isn't somebody I would have ever thought would be a small ball five. But unless you're playing Jokic or, you know, one of the giant centers, you can kind of get away with this. Which is what we saw in that the people it's the Clint Capella types who seem like they're in. More danger than ever that those guys are in no man's land because they're not quite gigantic enough to stop the Jokic and B types, but they're also not awesome enough offensively to take advantage of. Like oh, really? You're going to play Paolo at the five? And they can't destroy that either.

So they're a no man's land. And then there's Porzingis, who's in a category unto himself. Chet feels like where the that feels like the prototype of whatever is going to happen, where it's like, all right, this guy kind of seems like a center. He can protect the rim, but now he has guard skills at the top, and he matches up against basically everybody except Jokic. Anyway, I'm rambling, but I like that the variety we have now in that spot.

But I agree that Chet is a really interesting figure in this conversation in kind of unlocking the future of what the center is going to be because we're seeing if you do play small against the Thunder, I mean, look what he did to the warriors, right? They just had no one who could match his length, who could really contest his shot, who could really get into his in between game because he has little turnarounds and little floaters. He's got great touch. And when you have a player like that who's also as long as he is, he's in such a different conversation from Victor Webanyama, but he presents a lot of similar challenges in terms of what he does to you matchup wise.

Let's take a quick break, and then I want to talk about three old guys. All right, so we have three geezers who are in the MVP conversation. Rob, just rude. Three old guys, extremely like me. Yeah, three old guys, I think, like me. LeBron, Katie, Curry, we're just the old guard trying to hold on.

So are we just reckoning with our own mortality on this podcast now?

Is that what I look at? LeBron, I'm like year 21 for him, year 17 for my podcast. There's a lot of parallels. I can see what he's going through. We both spend a lot on our bodies, of course, millions of dollars a year trying to finely tuned machines, trying to stay at the top. The MVP ODS on FanDuel, where Yokich is the prohibitive favorite now two to one, and he should be because he is a one man wrecking machine and the greatest offensive player I think I've ever seen. But we have three old guys in the mix. We have Duran at 23 to one and probably dropping, who is brilliant again tonight, who is now I mean, it's only 14 games, but nobody has ever averaged 30 points a game and shot 50% from three before. I don't think he's going to end up doing that, but that's what he's doing now. You have Curry, who's also 23 to one, who's basically holding the warriors together with Scotch tape and thumbtacks. And then you have LeBron, who is all the way down right now at 75 to one, but has been more effective than. I was expecting, and you saw it last night.

He's kind of destroying the bad teams at the very least. And he'll have the occasional pull up 19 footer that barely hits the rim and looks awful. But him going to the rim is still pretty unstoppable. It feels like he was the smartest guy in the league for the last five, six years, and it just feels like he's gaining intelligence. I don't know. Just I I'm not taking them out of my top five to win the title just with their size and with him, I'm just not removing. Let's start let's start there. What are you seeing from the Lakers? Because it was a little choppy early, but what are we seeing now?

I think it's still choppy sometimes, in particular when LeBron's off the court. But that kind of speaks to this season as like a greater affirmation of what LeBron can still accomplish at 38, what kind of power he still has, because I agree with you, the way he processes the game, the way he controls matchups, none of that stuff has fallen off at all. And I know we are all running to praise the young players who are coming up, these emerging stars and the way that they like, this guy is one of the best passers in the league. This guy is one of the brightest players in the LeBron is still here. Attention everyone.

And Jokic, those two guys are operating on another plane than the rest of the league completely.

And look, I know the NBA discourse more broadly reduces everything, like, reduces every team really to its stars. And I wish the Lakers were more complicated than that, but they're not. And that's kind of their problem, is that they really still are so dependent on what LeBron can make happen. And this game against the Jazz was an exception to the rule. And dare to dream, everybody, because we just watched the Lakers without LeBron actually carry those minutes for basically the first time all season. But those are always going to be a worry to me. And like, the on off splits when LeBron is off the court are embarrassing for a team that made so many moves at the deadline and in the season did so much to ostensibly improve this roster that we're still having this conversation. Again, kudos to LeBron for being as good when he's on the floor, but I have no idea what to make of the Lakers when he's off it.

And he kept his streak aloud because I think this is the 8th straight season. We didn't even get to Thanksgiving, and there were trade rumors involving Lakers people and things that they might do, trades they can't even make yet because none of the signings are official until December 15. But it's just so weird to me. Why would that stuff come out at this point? Why would you want it to come out if you're the Lakers like, oh, Zach Levine interested in him. I just wouldn't say anything to anybody at this point. You're trying to build, like cohesion you're trying to build teamwork and chemistry, and this is a team that over and over again has just bailed on people left and right. So if I'm Russell, if Gabe Vincent, all these dudes who don't have solid footing yet, I'd be like, Wait, am I getting traded? I just got here. I don't know why that soap opera always has to happen around these LeBron teams. I don't know whether they're just hyper covered or whether he's just on huge teams that have leaks everywhere, but it's not awesome. I don't think it's a great way to do team building.

With that said, I do think they're going to make a big guys and get one bigger guy. Whether they wait for Dallas to go south and it's Kyrie, whether they say, Fuck, it Zach Levine, whether like, oh, DeRozan, let's bring him home, it does feel like they're already greasing the skids for we are going to make one big deal here.

And they should, right?

Yeah.

Cam Reddish left his game against the Jazz with a groin injury, so he wasn't really a factor in it, but he's been playing really well and that's obviously a good thing for the Lakers. But it's a huge red flag that Cam Reddish playing well is matter for this. It really matters. And you could say the same thing for the nights where Delo hit shots or the games where, like, 80 has a big scoring impact. Austin Reeves started the season a little bit slow and it was a crisis level storyline, so, yeah, you should be having the Zach Levine conversation. It's a combination of LeBron's teams have always been quite mercenary, I feel like, in terms of cobbling together the roster around him. And the Lakers, as we all know, are a notoriously mercenary organization for everyone who's not named Kobe Bryant.

Yeah.

So when those two things have collided, all options are on the table. Every player is potentially up and available to be moved at any time if it benefits kind of the larger mission here, which, to be fair, is the mission of improving the roster. And one of the greatest players of all time. I can't even begrudge them that.

Me neither. Which is what makes the warriors conversation we're about to have so interesting, because this is a team that's just been loathed to make big deals and clearly needs to make a big mean. I don't want to pile on Clay Thompson, but he's just at a different point of his career, it seems like, whether he can rally back, we'll see. We've thought guys looked old or had hit a different point in their career before and sometimes they rallied, even happened to him in the 22 finals to some degree, but he had two major leg injuries and I just think he's not Clay anymore. He's a version of Clay, but he's in a dangerous spot where he's still carrying himself like his 2016 Clay. He's still going to the nightclub in the outfit that he wore eight years ago when he could fit into it and can't fit into the outfit anymore.

The buttons are popping a little bit.

Yeah.

Getting a little tight.

Yeah. It's like, whoa, man. You want to get that taken out? And he's a free agent at the end of the year. I also don't think they would have the balls to trade him. But if you were just telling me in a vacuum Kaminga who still doesn't totally make sense with the team that they have when it's like this high hoops IQ movement, whatever, and it's just like, let's also have this raw guy who's still trying to figure out who he is as a basketball player. We're just going to throw him into the middle of this. They're too small. Just point blank. They're too small for the weight. Talked about this last week on the Pod. They're not only getting overpowered by Jokic, who just completely owns them at this point, or any big center, but even the Chet Holmgren types can just eviscerate them. They just seem small. And too much is on Curry, and it too much depends on can Andrew Wiggins have an awesome game? I thought they were going to be better, Rob. I thought this was going to be like a high 40s win team. And now I wonder, is this a playing team?

This might just be the destiny.

It might be. And you're right to identify Clay and Wiggins as kind of the two pieces here that are huge question marks on really a nightly basis. They've shown a little bit more lately, but I think expecting a few games of Clay shooting well to be a legitimate turning point given the injury history you talked about, the difficulty he has creating separation. I'm just not really expecting that. And you can hope that Andrew Wiggins, he was a little closer to the guy he was against Oklahoma City versus the guy he's been against every other team on the schedule this year. I don't think there's a lot of evidence to suggest he is since their championship run. And so I'm looking at this team, and it's bigger than a basketball issue because they have easily the best and most successful bench of any of these kind of old guy teams that we're talking about here. Relative to the Lakers, the warriors bench with Chris Paul is highly functional. The problem is their starting lineup. The thing they've depended on on every.

Run they've been on has been a.

Total train wreck because Clay and Wiggins aren't holding up their end of the offensive bargain. So much is falling on Steph's shoulders, and when that's that's that's existential, right? That's the warriors confronting the one thing they've always been, and they can't deliver on that front right now, that's a huge problem.

And the 22 Finals, where Wiggins was, like, ten rebounds a game and gave them size and length in a way that if he doesn't do that, they don't win the series. Like, as great as Steph was, Wiggins was the other piece. He was the second best player in the team. It's not the same guy. I mean, this year he's twelve points a game is four rebounds a game, 25% from three. Like, he's a shell of where he was in the finals. So you take that, and then you take the Clay piece of it, too, and they're in a lot of trouble. They've been really hesitant to make big trades. I personally don't think they'll have the balls to trade. That would be one of the most dramatic trades in recent NBA history for what the reaction would be. And yet, over and over again, teams have done trades like that when they've hit these fork in the road points. They're at a fork in the road in the courier right now because he's 35. I don't know how many of these seasons he has left. And if LeBron was in the same situation, what the fuck do you think would happen?

Yeah, everybody in the team would be available. And that's been, in some ways, the best way to criticize LeBron and another way, that's been his superpower. He'll do whatever it takes to make his team better, and he has no loyalty to anybody. And I think the warriors have probably been too loyal to some of these guys. And draymond too. They gave Draymond that big contract, and I just don't know if he can behave himself for long periods of time anymore. The go bear thing was insane. That was honestly, like, five games was.

Fair, but the behavior light, to be honest.

Yeah, the behavior was just irrational. That was one of the weirdest things I've seen in a basketball game. And he's, I think, been a little bit unhinged here for a couple of years, so I don't know how much you can count on him either.

He was working some stuff out in that headlock, clearly. But the Clay conversation is always so interesting because you're right, a LeBron team, a team built around another star, might behave totally differently. But Clay has been so instrumental to everything that they've built. And really, their whole ethos as an organization being centered around Clay and Steph and Draymond, it makes it a totally different conversation. I would love to pretend we can have a cold removed basketball conversation about what behooves the warriors, but it's not a cold removed basketball conversation. The sentimentality of who Clay Thompson is to the Warriors, I think, matters as much as anything. And it's another reason why I'm kind of in. Just I don't believe they will trade him basically ever, unless it goes absolutely in the tank, where he is on the brink of retirement and technically a contract you could move, but he's never going to play basketball again. I just don't think they're ever going to opt into putting him in another uniform based on the importance he's had to that franchise.

I just don't believe it. Yeah, because the case against it would be okay. We traded Clay and Kaminga and a future top four protected first for Zach Levine. That change our destiny. Is that helping us not get our ass kicked? By Jokic. I mean, what they really need is to get a big guy with some size who can fill in some of the blanks with them and those guys don't exist.

Like a James Wiseman type.

Like a good James wiseman. Yeah. Could you go get, I don't know, one of the Detroit has 70 big men. Could you try to get Isaiah Stewart? Could you try to steal somebody like that? I still don't know if it totally changes your destiny. Even you watch them play a team like Houston, and Houston just seems like Shangoon just seems like he has too much size for them. Absolutely. Draymond, who made a lot more sense in the mid two thousand and ten s, the way basketball is played now with the size and skill of these big guys, he just doesn't have the same impact anymore. He's not going to be able to stop Nikolikic like, sorry, nobody is. It's not happening. So, I don't know, you might be right. You're closer to the warrior situation than I am. It might be one of those things where they just say, you know what? These are our three guys, and if we have to go down in flames with them, so be it. The Celtics were in a similar situation in the early 90s with Bird and Mikael and Parrish, and they just basically resisted all or just trade them.

They tried to build with young people around them. They got Reggie Lewis, Brian Shaw, D Brown. They made some runs, but the older guys, ironically, couldn't hold up. But I think that was really informative for Danny. I think that's why Danny was so cutthroat as a GM, because he was there and he's like, we should trade him, Mikhail. And in this case, you're not even going to get that much for Clay. He's more of a salary cap figure at this point. But when you hear somebody like Draymond say, we're going to have a statue of the three of us outside the arena, I think that's how they feel. But if that's going to determine how you approach a season that these three guys are going to be in a statue someday, if that's your mentality, guess what? You're going to be in the playing because the team's not good enough, you might well be.

And it's one thing to consider, are you going to trade Clay Thompson? And it's quite another thing to consider. Clay Thompson wants a max contract or a gigantic contract in the offseason. What are you willing to pony up for this version of Clay? And that's a much thornier conversation to have.

Statue or not, that contract is not happening. I don't know if Clay realizes it. Our last old guys, Kevin Durant, who at age 35, the last time we talked, he looked a little gamey on opening night. We're like, what was that? That was weird. And since then, he became Kevin Durant again. And it's still a weird team. I can't get a feel for them. I think they're too small. I think there's too many guys who could just bully ball them in a seven game series. But then we also haven't really seen Booker cooking. Nurkic has miraculous managed to stay healthy for four weeks. We'll see if that can keep going.

Spoiler.

It will not. It will not. But he's been good, and it's just enough to seduce Sunspeople. And I'm thinking, whoa, man. I mean, we turned Ayton into nurkic. He's put up the same stats, and he's actually a little bit of a better passer. I think he'll get you. Are the Suns higher or lower or exactly the same from where you thought they were going to be just for you watching them before the season?

About the same, I would say. I've been very concerned about their overall injury risk across the roster. And the fact that we have not seen a single minute of Durant and Beal and Booker together is kind of why I've been on that wavelength. But at least for Kevin Durant's sake, like Devin, Booker has been back as a regular part of the rotation again because Katie is third in the league in minutes per game. He is putting everything he can on his back and on his shoulders, and man, he has been absolutely incredible. I know a lot of people have been a little checked out on the Suns because their stars haven't all been playing, but he's been killer, like 34 points, seven and seven over the last six games. Considering the circumstances of who he's playing with in terms of just, like, cast of role players in a lot of these occasions, the quality of shots he's able to get and the fact that he isn't taking, the fact that he can shoot over everyone as a reason to settle for that shot at all times, I think has just been incredible. He's been getting to the basket.

He's been getting anywhere he wants on the floor. He's been awesome. They have a really high powered offense, and they are just bleeding points in some of these games, like sweating them out defensively because they can't get any stops, in part because they are so small, in part because their bigs are who they are and have the limitations that they have. It's going to be that kind of season until they get all their star power back, but who knows when that will be and for how long? And will those guys even have time to really form a coherent bond on.

The court right now. It's a team that a couple of nights ago, grayson Allen played 43 minutes in a basketball game.

I think he's behind Durant. Durant's highest scoring teammates this season, I believe at least going into tonight, were Eric Gordon and Grayson Allen. That is the state of affairs in Phoenix, and they're at least winning, or at least winning a fair number of these games with that going on.

One thing about Durant, we talk about LeBron and how it seems like he gets a little smarter every year. I feel like Durant is offensively, is at a whole other level, intellectually with what he's trying to do and how he's dissecting teams. Because one thing I was thinking about tonight, watching it's like, is this really a better situation than what you had with the Nets when you were with Kyrie and you had Claxton and you had Dinwiddie, and it was basically the same team. It was just, for whatever reason, he's like, Get me out of here. Bring me over to the Suns. And now he's playing with Booker instead of Kyrie. Beal is about as untrustworthy as any whoever the third net was last year, but for the most part, he just kind of switched coasts. But he's in the same situation where they were lying on him a ton. And this was why I wanted to lump Curry and Durant LeBron together, because I just think the workload for those three guys for what we're expecting coming into the season is pretty intense. And you're talking about three older know, for me, I could do seven podcasts a week.

But Spotify is like, you know what? We want three good ones. We want you to rest. We don't want you to break down.

But that's because they're Swedish, right? The American economy, that's not what we're building.

Totally. We have Wellness Week, like, all kinds of stuff, 100%.

We're going to work until our bones turn to dust in this country, for the most part. And I suspect that's what's going to happen to Kevin Durant and LeBron James and Stephen Well.

But it's concerning. One of those guys is going to get hurt soon. I say that not to jigsaw. I'm just saying it's the law of the NBA, and these guys all have a ton of miles and seizes on them. They're playing too many minutes and they're taking too much of a workload that, frankly, is pretty dangerous. And Durant specifically, I think, is the most dangerous. LeBron picks his spots. You can watch it. And he's usually straight line. He gets some pounding, like, he takes some hits when he drives to the basket. Durant's, like, going two ways like he did in 2016.

He's been really good defensively this year.

Yeah.

He's rimming everything he can. Yeah.

And it just makes me nervous because if you're the Suns, you're trying to win for in months eight and nine of this season, and you're putting incredible miles on him in month one, and I don't like it.

There's the heavy physical toll and then there's the mental attrition of all this too, right? If you are LeBron, as we said, when you're out of the game, your team is losing leads every time when you're steph and you're trying to carry this starting lineup that historically has buoyed you and carried you, and it's been a collaborative thing, but this year it isn't. And in Durant's case, I mean, you saw it in this game against Portland, a team that they should be able to dispatch pretty handily. He has a tough second quarter and misses some shots, and the Suns basically blow a 17 point lead, right? That's kind of what the situation is. Quick Lakes right now, they've gone in stretches this season where he's dropping basically 40 a game and they're losing those.

Games or their three point overtime wins in Utah, and he's got 39 and 14 or whatever he had that game.

And that's where having Devin Booker on the floor, if anything, it's like a psychological outlet, a psychological release of I just don't have to have the ball in my hands on this possession. I can trust this other guy to create to work out of a trap, to find the open man. So I don't necessarily have to, much less set me up for more opportune scoring situations. I think just having that is worth its weight in gold. But man, if you're doing that for a sustained period of time and the physical toll is this great over the course of 82, that's really hard. Even over the course of 50 games or 40 games or 30 or whatever it takes before Brad Beal comes back, the rest of this team is just not built to accommodate taking things off of Kevin Durant's plate. And that's the construction of the way this team was laid out to begin with.

He needs Beal desperately and Beal gets hurt every year. But I think until we see what we get with Beal, it's hard to judge this, but by the time Beal comes back, they might have put too many miles on Durant. But if I was going to say, what's the magic elixir for each guy? The Suns need Beal to come back and they need those three, and they need to give Durant quarters off and maybe occasionally nights off. Curry needs 2022 finals wiggins to come out of the attic and show up again. I don't know what he's getting from Clay, and I'm not even going to put expectations on that because I think the ship I'm not saying it sailed, but I definitely think they just took one of those giant ropes off that's tied to shore and they might be kind of heading out to sea.

They're swapping the deck at minimum.

Yeah, they're definitely like they're getting ready for a voyage. It feels like. And then the Draymond piece that's the other one draymond could come back and we've seen him do it and have one of those crazy Draymond stretches where he's just the best defensive player in the world for four weeks. And is just a maniac and all over the place. And by his intensity and his sheer force and charisma turns their season around it's also likely that he could shove a ref or get an altercation on a bench with an assistant. Just all bets are kind of he's like entered the Tyson zone in some way. The Gobert headlock. That was just weird. And then from on the Laker side, it's going to come down to Davis. Can he just put them on his back some of these nights so LeBron doesn't have to and Davis is in his thirty s now. I think he kind of is who he is too, don't you think?

He definitely is who he is. And man, it just contributes to a cycle of conversation around him where I would love for us all to be in this space where we can accept together that Anthony Davis is not an every huge impact scorer on an every night basis. Yeah, it's just not who he's been. It's not who his game profiles him to be. And yet because of the Lakers specific needs, there's just a spotlight put on those deficiencies on such a consistent basis. I wish they had someone to do more. I love the Levine fit for that reason. I love that trade scenario because I think even just having a guy who can fill it up and have those explosive scoring nights plus be such an incredible spacer, an incredible movement shooter, that makes all the sense in the world. And then Ad is just, oh, your Defensive Player of the Year candidate who's also going off for some huge nights now and again. It just puts everything in such a healthier context for him, for them, for God knows, our larger sports media apparatus.

We could leave on this note. The way you're laying out the Davis thing, it made me think of the seven stages of superstar grief when you realize somebody doesn't have it. I think Vince Carter was a great example for like they were Vince Carter, it's going to happen. This guy is still going to be the next Jordan.

Really?

All the way through when he got traded, the Nets, and then it's like here it comes. And then it's like, oh, and then Orlando got him for the 2010 season. It's like Vincent Dwight Howard, it's going to be a problem. And then around 2011, people just kind of give up on it. And I think this is the year with Davis where if he can't just throw the Lakers on his back, it's not like Anthony Davis is the player of the Week. He averaged 39 points and 19 rebounds in three Lakers wins. I don't know if he's that guy anymore. I think he can do it once, but not for long stretches.

I love this idea of the seven stages, though. Like, stage one, acceptance that your guy does not have that dog in him. Stage two, bargaining to try to get that dog. Can we bring in a Pat beverly a PJ. Tucker? Can we light a fire under him? But eventually we all have to come around to the realities of these situations with these guys.

It could be with lesser players, too, I think Mavs fans went through the seven stages with Roddy Boubois, who they didn't trade for three years. That was an accelerated timeline as they kept holding out for Roddy to make it and just turning down these alleged trades that they were being offered for him.

Step five is reluctantly admitting that your guy should not be untradable.

In fact right. I'm trying to think of some other ones. I'll have to think about that one somewhere. The Mikhail Bridges as a number one guy. I think I might be entering the grief room pretty soon. Did I do some of the advanced metrics with him?

Did that one even fully start?

There was some buzz over the summer like, this guy could be a number one on a really good team. And I think he has the worst isolation offense stats in the league. He was like what was it like? Zero point 69 per 100 possessions. It's pretty alarming.

It was a little concerning when Cam Thomas started going off and Mikhail Bridges seemed, I mean, all too willing ideal. Yeah, this is great. Sounds great. Do your thing, Cam.

Knock yourself out. Cam are you doing? Ringer NBA show. Are you doing group chat this week? Tomorrow?

Group chat this week. We got a Wednesday show. We got a Sunday show. We're here for you on this holiday weekend.

Heavy rumors you might be doing Fargo recaps on the Prestige TV podcast with Joanna Too.

I've heard something about that.

I read something in the trades about that. I don't know if it was true.

It's me or Zach Levine. One of the two of us will be on that podcast.

All right. Happy Thanksgiving. Good to see you, Rob.

Likewise. Thanks, Bill.

We're supported by NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV. Don't change your team and change your town. Get NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV where it's easier than ever to keep up with all your favorite teams on Sunday afternoons. Now you can get the Thanksgiving sale price starting at $89 when bundled with YouTube TV. The race of the playoff starts now. Don't miss the important stretch of the season that leads to the most important stretch of the season where teams make a push for playoff position by getting NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV. You can watch four at a time with Multiview, who's been my best friend in 2023. We have some good. Divisional matchups this week. I mean, the best ones. Steelers, Bengals. I don't know what happens with the quarterbacks in that game, but I know that the defenses are going to be awesome. We have Jaguars, Texans. Could this be the week for the Jaguars to fall behind the Texans? And CJ. Stroud, who would have expected that? Saints, Falcons, that's going to be a good one. Somehow that's for the lead of the NFC South. And then rams cardinals.

Could this be for the Rams? They lose that one, they're done for the season. Lots of good matchups this week. Thanks to NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube, YouTube TV for sponsoring this segment. Remember, it is truly the best place to keep up with all your favorite teams out of market Sunday afternoon games. And right now you can get the Thanksgiving sale price starting at $89 when bundled with YouTube TV. When you sign up@youtube.com, BS offer ends 1127 terms, embargoes device and content restrictions apply. No cancelations. All right, Steven Ruiz is here. Dangerous Danny Kelly is here, who helped carry us to undefeated million dollar picks last week. We're going to talk MVP because it's actually time to talk MVP. We were two thirds of the way through the season. Ruiz, you had a tweet about just being outraged at the Jalen Hurts ODS, which hurt my feelings for a second because I have him at twelve to one, and it was like one of the only future bets I made that might actually win. He's down to plus 250 as a favorite. But your point was well, you say your point. Yeah.

My question was, what does this award become? And it was less a tweet about Jalen Hurts and more so about the environment that allows a quarterback coming off a game where I think he threw for 150 yards and a touchdown and had a quarterback ranking of a rating of 69, where that kind of performance propels you into the MVP leader spot. I mean, by all accounts, he played like a bad game yesterday by stats, by just watching it. The reason why they won that game is because the defense and the run game kept them in it. Jalen Hurts is a part of that run game, obviously, but as a passer, he's the reason why the Chiefs defense looked so good last night. And it's just insane to me that after that performance, that's when you see the line move. If it happened before this week, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But the fact that he won the game and that's what got him up to the top spot, that's what upset me most about this. Not jalen hurts specifically.

It was almost like his competitors, they fell backwards, so he kind of climbed up just because his team won. Danny, we haven't had a non QB win since, famously, Adrian Peterson in twelve, and then Tomlinson won in six, and Alexander wrote, he won it in five, which I had a problem with at the time. Somehow over the last ten years, we've decided only quarterbacks can win this award. Why? How did this happen?

For obvious reasons, because they're by far the most important player on the field, I guess. And it's funny because now we're talking about Jalen Hurts. And my argument for hertz is not even necessarily that he's the best quarterback or best passer, the best pure passer, anyway. It's like what he does as a runner is incredibly valuable. And so I guess my pushback to Stephen would be like, well, what he does as a runner is really valuable. But then you can start talking about, like, maybe it's actually Christian McCaffrey is the MVP in the league if we're really talking about running value. But looking at some of the numbers for Jalen Hurts right now, he has the most total EPA as a rusher in the NFL, and that includes all running backs. He's third in EPA per rush. 53% success rate is first among all ball carriers, first down rate first. He has nine rushing touchdowns, which is the same as Christian McCaffrey, and he also passes the football. So that would be, I think, the argument, even though I don't know if I necessarily believe that makes him the most valuable player, you know what I mean?

So I think that would be sort of the pushback you'd have.

I have one more piece to the argument. The Tush push is the most unstoppable play in football this year. And they talk openly about, we feel like it's first down and nine, not first down and ten. For us, it is the biggest weapon, I think, that any quarterback has. Mahomes shouldn't win because his receivers aren't good enough. Lamar has been up and down. I guess my question is I personally vote for Tyreek Hill. I think he was the most impactful player. This, not the tua. Fans get furious every time I say this, but I'm still not sure how good Tua is. And Tyreek solved so many problems. For whoever your quarterback is, I just think he's been the most impactful, scariest, most dominant offensive player and really player on either end. Why can't Tyreek Hill win this? Ruiz I don't know.

I think he's the key to that offense. He's the reason the offense is able to function the way that it does. They do stuff with motion that no other team is capable of doing. Like when they motion him and have him run a dig route 15 yards downfield, that's not viable for any other team except for the team that has Tyree kill. And I'm not exaggerating when I say their offense is built around like, four plays and how they mess up those plays and all those plays are built around him and Waddle and their speed. Every time I watch the Dolphins play, there are times when I'm like, am I wrong about like, am I hating on him? Am I not giving him enough credit? And then I watch him play and I'm like, no, I'm not. If anything, I'm overrating him by having him where I have. I'm at the point where I'm almost willing to put Brock Purdy over Tua in the MVP discussion. I think he does more for that offense, for that 49 ers offense outside of the stars on the team than Tua does for his offense. I think he makes all the same throw, like all the same anticipatory throws over the middle.

He's doing all that stuff. What does Tua do that Brock Purdy doesn't do? Brock purdy scrambles at least.

Well, it seems like a big part of Miami's offense is just to have Tua get rid of the ball as fast as possible so he doesn't get that we have enough cool, advanced stats now. They're like first and hits allowed on their quarterback, right? He gets hit less than any other quarterback in the league. Their sack rate is way down partly because he gets rid of it fast. But you can also do that when you have Tyreeko on your team. If he was playing with Marquise, Valdez, Scantling, Juju Smith, Schuster and I'm trying to think of Devante Parker you're not getting rid of the ball in 2 seconds. But with Tyreek Hill, they have to ease in motion. They're using all these different ways. The defenses are terrified of him. And I think to me that's a big part of the MVP candidacy for Tyreek. It's like, who is the other team the most scared of heading into a week? Lombardi has been on this for years about how he felt like Tyreek was. He called him the field tilter. And I remember last year I was talking about how him with Steph Curry where Steph Curry can have 22 points in a game but still dramatically affect the game because all his motion in the game is just affecting and opening doors for other guys.

I do feel Danny, I feel like Tyreek does that not only for Tua, but for Miami. It's because of his speed that they're.

He'S the word I use. I like the fill tilting thing, even though that's a little bit hard to picture. I do think he's a force multiplier and that's a variable that you can come in and affects everything else. It multiplies everyone else on the field. The defense has to tilt to Tyreek because he has so much speed. He can score from anywhere, anytime he touches the football. So you have to account for that. That opens up room for the run game. It opens up room for the other receivers and gives them an opportunity to have more space and get rid of the ball quicker. There's like a snowball effect with what he can do. I think in the secondary, I just like to picture Tyree kill. There's more plays where it's like you know how they do a still image it's like Tyree Kill scored on this play. He's, like, got six guys all around. It's like, how the hell did he get through the defense? He's just so much faster than everybody else on the field, which is, of course, it's a field full of the elite athletes in the so I would probably lean Tyreek to definitely, if it's not going to be a quarterback, I would lean.

But isn't that the same argument you're essentially making for is, like, the value he presents to the Eagles is, like, the space thing. Like, you have to account for this. And I think Tyreek Hill does it in a more unique way.

An example, before Josh Dobbs got traded.

From the Cardinals, the Cardinals were, like, 10th in offensive EPA in run game. Yeah, because they ran zone read and they did RPO like, jalen hurts does help the Eagles offense, but it's not in a way where any other option quarterback, let me say the run game.

Not the pass game.

It's not in a way that any other mobile quarterback wouldn't help the run game. Not only were the Cardinals really good at running the ball, like, just zone read and doing all that stuff that the Eagles do, by the way, they have, like, a similar coaching staff, so there's a lot of overlap in the offense. But they were also really good at the tush push. They're one of the teams that were doing the tush push. They were doing it even better than the Eagles at one point in the season. I haven't checked the stats since then. I wrote an article about the Tush push, like, a month ago. But at that point, they had a perfect success rate. They were averaging more yards PA better success rate than Philadelphia. So I don't think it's like a jalen hurts thing. I think there's more to it than just the quarterback being able to squat 600 pounds or whatever.

It is interesting. Yeah. Even you look at how they value the MVP ODS where Tua is five to one and Tyreek is 60 to one, and I want to find the one person in America who thinks Tua is more valuable to Miami than Tyreek. That's just insane. So if you're making the case for jalen, it's what you just laid out as like, oh, he does this, he does this, he does this. The counter to all of it is I'm not sure he's played that well this year for him. For what his ceiling is. It's weird to think somebody could win the MVP, but it's like a B plus season for them. I wouldn't even say it's an A minus season. I think he's missed throws. He was terrible in that jets game. I thought in the Chiefs game yesterday, I thought he missed open guys. And in general, he didn't seem 100% healthy to me. What did you think of just how he played last night, Danny?

Yeah, I would agree. And even in the run game where he's so valuable, he looked a little bit gimpy at times. He's still, I think, coming back from that knee injury didn't look as explosive as normal. There was a couple of design runs where it just blew up in the hangar. It just didn't get anywhere. So it is a weird feeling. Like you said, it's a great point that it doesn't even feel like he's playing that well, especially, even relative for what he can do, like what we've seen him do. And so to give him the MVP in a season where he's not even playing at his best is a little bit weird. I would contrast that with like Lamar Jackson, who is probably playing his best football right now. But there's, I think, just some recent stuff like he had a really bad pick against the Browns. That kind of like narrative wise is going to make him hard to win that. But I think overall, he's passing and Stephen, maybe you could speak on like he's passing, I think, better than he has in the past at any point in his career. Yeah, I would agree with that.

I think he gets better as a passer every year. I just think some people just jumped a little too far ahead with him and put him in the top five elite passer. I think collectively, everything he does on the football field makes him a top ten talent, maybe a top five player at the position. But as a passer, it's clear to anyone who watch, I don't know how you watch and don't come away with the feeling that he can improve a lot as a passer. Every time I watch him, I'm like, there's a lot of meat being left on the bone here.

So the two guys that could jump over the next couple of weeks, prescott is at 15 to one and I don't think they have a good win yet. Have they beaten a team with a winning record? Probably not, but they're going to play Washington on Thanksgiving. And I could see him having like a 370 yard, four TD runs for a TD and then all of a sudden, why can't Dak be the MVP? That momentum will start. Could see that. The other one, ironically, is Mahomes, because yesterday cemented the narrative of, oh my God, poor Mahomes, he's got nothing to work with. And sometimes those are the greatest years a QB can have. I always mentioned the Brady 2006 season, but Brady was amazing that season when none of our receivers could get open and we almost made the Super Bowl. And what if Casey ends up being a one seed and it's going to be all because of my homes, right? Because of the fact that he can just basically grab all these spare parts and Kelsey and turn them into something. But I could see that happen. I still feel like Tyreek is the value, though, because even you look at he's got 200 yards more than anyone else in the league receiving.

He's got nine touchdowns. He has a chance. I had it wrong. Sal and I talked about it on Sunday and I was looking at the numbers hadn't been updated. He has a real chance for 2000. I actually would bet on him getting to 2000 versus not getting 2000. He needs 778 more yards in seven games. You figure out one of those games will be 200 yards. So it's basically 500 plus for the other six. But I'm trying to think of the media narratives and how they unfold, especially over the last couple of weeks. And you'd think it'd be like, why can't it be DAC? You don't understand how much Jalen hurts. Does tyreek Hill 2000 yards. He's the real MVP of that team, especially if they go 14 and three. Lamar, if he has like a strong finish and can get a one or a two seed, what other narratives would be out there? Danny? Is there a Brock Purdy narrative you're buying?

To me, there's just too much talent around him. It's like the antithesis of what's going on with Mahomes. Like Mahomes is dragging this offense, it's like a top ten offense by DVOA, at least last time I checked, and he's dragging that offense into being good. And then on the other hand, you've got Brock Purdy who has all this talent around him. It's like literally maybe the most perfect situation for any quarterback ever. And so that to me is where I don't know if I buy that. It is kind of tough to argue with his numbers in terms of like if you're talking about narratives, though, his numbers, like he literally just had a perfect pass rating. They're talking about for the first time since Steve Young and Joe Montana. It's like, well, this is where narratives start to kind of take over. But going back to the Tyreek thing, when you were talking about how you like that value, my first thought was like, are they really going to give it to this guy? The media is obsessed with quarterbacks, but you make a great point where if he gets over 2000 yards, everyone's going.

To be obsessed with that.

It's going to be like, wow, this is unprecedented. Basically. That could be enough, I think, to kind of propel him into the real conversation there.

Well, you could also he could have the one crazy game always helps. If he has like the 240 yard game with two eightyard touchdowns, then it's like, all right, what are we doing? He's got to be the MVP or Tua gets hurt. If Tua gets hurt for like two games, that's all. Then it's really yeah.

Mike White.

Yeah. We talked about Brock Purdy without talking to America's number one Brock Purdy critic Steven Ruiz. We're in national news stories about being critical of him, but he's done a little better for you. Where is he in the rankings now? Where do you have him after this week?

He's going to be 20th. I think it gets hard because we've added so many people to the list. Like Tom Brady's in the list. Caleb Williams drake May, this guy named Tommy DeVito. Some Italian man from New York is in the rankings now.

I don't know.

But yeah, the intro to the Quarterback rankings I write one every week is actually about Brock Purdy and about how I've been silent during his little cold streak. I wasn't talking too much. I'd sent out a joke tweet about the record since Peter King asked about it but I honestly thought those were some of the more impressive games. Outside of the turnovers, like, you started to see him become more decisive as a playmaker. I think he's been more comfortable in the pocket. He doesn't panic as much as he used to, especially last year.

Last year he was just like a.

Chicken with his head cut off. This year I think he's more calm. So I'm giving him that credit. I just think that we need to pump the brakes. That was always my argument. I always felt like I wasn't being the weird one with the Purdy discourse. It was the people trying to propel this Mr. Irrelevant into this elite quarterback conversation, this MVP discussion. I thought I was being normal by saying, like the guy that was drafted with a 200th pick a year ago is the 20th best quarterback in the world right now. That's a pretty big accomplishment to me.

I don't know.

But these performances are all in the range of outcomes for a quarterback talented like he is in an offense, like he is like him playing like he did against the Brown that's in the range of outcomes. Him playing like he did against the Bucs or playing it like he did against the Jaguars that's in the range of outcomes. So I'm not really just I don't know. The needle on Brock Purdy hasn't moved much for me over the past month.

Can you answer this question? If we flip two and Purdy, what happens this season, in your opinion?

I think both offenses look different but I think Miami's offense is better. Like I said, I'm getting close to the point where I think Brock Purdy.

Is a better player than Tua. What do you think, Tanny?

That's a really good question. I'm very fascinated to see what Tua would look like in the Shanahan scheme because like you mentioned earlier, he's just such a quick processor. I think that's one of Brock Purdy's strengths is that decisive and he basically goes where he's supposed to go. He's, like, usually making the right calls. And that's, I think, the strength of Tua. So I'd be very fascinated to see him in that offense.

You hate the 49 Ers and you have to root against them. Does Brock purdy scare you? Danny is a Seahawks fan.

No. If I'm being totally honest, no. It's like the talent around him that scares me. It's Christian McCaffrey. It's Brandon Ayuk. It's george kittle. It's all the talent they have. The offensive line is really good. Their defense is one of the more intimidating units in the NFL. That as a whole is what makes the 49 Ers, I think such a scary proposition to play. It's not like, oh, Brock Purdy is going to slice and dice us. That's maybe true, but I believe more like because is the Ruiz like the microscope meme, I'm worried about who he's going to pick on on our defense know it's not necessarily Purdy, but maybe that's unfair. Honestly, I don't know.

Well, I feel like Brock Purdy with this podcast because I'm just surrounded by talent. I'm just trying to move the ball forward. I felt like AJ. Brown wasn't out of the MVP race until last week when he put up 0.8 fantasy points and absolutely murdered me. But there was one throw when he was wide open and Hertz missed him. But for the most part it seemed like Casey was very determined to not let him beat them. But I think the ship sailed for that. And then from a running back standpoint, McCaffrey is at 825 yards, nine touchdowns, plus all the receiving stuff and that could be another big game guy. There's going to be a big game guy over the next two weeks that will get MVP momentum. The bigger question for me, Ruiz, does anyone care about the NFL MVP the way we care about the NBA MVP? If I asked you to name the last ten NFL MVPs, could you do it?

No, I couldn't and I don't think they do. I don't think it's the same type of award.

Could you do it, Danny? Could you name ten?

No.

The last ten?

No. I feel like I could.

I can name the names like Aaron.

Rogers, Tom Brady, but no, I couldn't do it in order, I don't think.

Like Matt Ryan won the 2016 MVP. Oh, yeah. Anyway, I interrupted you, Reese.

I was going to say I think it's just a different award. It's even given out at different times. The NBA award is given out before the playoffs start. The NFL Award is given out before the Super Bowl. And I think part of the reason why it doesn't matter as much is because it's become a quarterback award. I don't know when exactly that happened. I would say it was around like 2012, but I remember the year when I realized that one, a defensive player was never going to win the award and probably a non quarterback would never win it again. And that was that year. TJ. Watt started playing offense and scored a bunch of touchdowns and was carrying the Texans and they made the playoffs. And I think Brian Hoyer was the quarterback and I think he received like.

One or two votes. They've just decided defenders that can't win this. Basically. What would you have to do? Have 30 sacks and he was literally playing offense.

He had like 25 sacks, like 100 pressures. He scored like three times as a tight end. I think he had a couple of defensive touchdowns and no, not even close.

So I don't know, I just don't.

Even think any other position has a chance. And that's kind of what I'm lamenting. I think it would be a more interesting award and I think people would care about it more if more guys could win it.

Maybe this should be something goodell. I mean, God forbid he ever does anything for the fans, but maybe he should just be like, you know what? I looked in the mirror and we're not doing a good enough job with the to. Let's all figure this out. Because, as you know, I care about the MVP way too much. And especially in basketball. I care about the MVP in the NBA because I think it's a good way to have a snapshot of who mattered during a specific season. You can look back 2019. Oh yeah, that was the Lamar season. You go back to the Cam Newton. Oh, that was the Cam Newton season. When we get to like Matt Ryan winning in 2016, it's like I just don't know. I remember he had an awesome season and Atlanta was really good, but I don't think there was ever a moment where anybody was like, that's the best player in the league. He should win. So I'm not really sure what we're trying to do with this award. And this is going to be the worst year yet. Unless somebody can stretch themselves. Then we're just like, all right, we couldn't think of anyone here's a quarterback.

Let's just move on.

That's why it's got to be Tyreek. It's got to be Tyreek because I think Tyreek is that guy. This has been a season where it's like, holy shit, how do you stop this?

Think to me it's always a little bit like watered down and confusing because there's an offensive player of the year. Get I feel like we need to get rid of that or something and then that would make it easier for a receiver or running back to win. But usually I feel like that people are going to default to being like, oh, Tyreek will be the offensive player of the year and then we'll give.

The MVP to a quarterback. What do you want to happen? Danny? Do you have a vote? None of us have votes.

No. Who votes for this?

Nora has a vote.

Nora has a vote?

Yeah.

Got to start lobbying to Nora then.

Why do you think I'm going railing against purdy so much on the pod? I'm just trying to get it through her head. Not it's an inception situation.

Last thing on Tyreek and then we'll go I think he's moved up to three on my all time receivers I've seen in my lifetime, have two. Rice is always going to be number one for me. Somebody's going to have to be really almost like a cross between Tyreek and AJ. Brown for me to kick Rice out. Just the shit he was doing compared to the other receivers when he was doing it, it was unbelievable. The all time money receiver I've ever seen in my life, and just was always open and always not only open, but running full speed, and was just completely terrifying at all times and was amazing. And it didn't matter who his quarterback was. And Moss is two for me because there were some highs and some lows and he certainly was a handful of times, but I've just never seen somebody more dominant at that position. There was just no way to basically defend him and you could just throw it up for him and there were three people there and he'd catch it anyway. But I think Tyreek might be three for me. So you guys are younger than me.

What is your list if it has to be people you remember seeing in your lifetime?

I saw the end of Jerry Rice, but my older brother was a 49 Ers fan, so I knew a lot about Jerry Rice growing up, and he's number one for me. I know everyone in my generation thinks he's like, overrated and he wouldn't make it in this era, but I've seen his stats.

The worst take ever.

I saw him as a 40 year old man go for 1000 yards with the rich cannon throw into him. He's the best player ever. He's not the best receiver ever. He's the best player for me. I think I'm with you. I think I would put Moss second, and I think I'm getting close to putting Tyreek third. And my comparison for Tyreek is it's Steve Smith, and it's not Steve Smith over the course of his career.

It's that one Panther season steve Smith, 2005.

Steve Smith, when it was Jake Delone, throws like a screen pass to him and he takes it for 80 yards and he scores. That's what the Panthers offense was. But with Tyreek, it's not one year. It's like, been every year for the past couple of years. And the fact that he's done it twice in a row in a new offense without Patrick Mahomes, with a quarterback that we all think is limited and is especially limited when throwing downfield in certain ways. Like, I'm not going to do the Stephen A. Smith thing where I say he doesn't throw down field, but driving the ball downfield into tight windows, he doesn't do that well. And a quarterback like that would get more out of Tyree kill, I think. And the fact that he's still producing with that type of quarterback. He's probably like one of the top five offensive threats in the history. Of the league in terms of game planning.

Danny, some people throw to in this conversation, and I go nuts. To was a fucking cancer on multiple teams. Like, he literally submarine seasons. He was so hard to deal with.

A lot of drops too, a lot of yeah.

And it just as the years pass, then it just becomes the stats. And a couple games people remember, and it's like, oh, that play over the middle of the packers. And then, oh, he played a broken leg in the Super Bowl, but he was really detrimental multiple seasons. And I just think that has to matter if we're talking about the all time Alzheimer's. So who do you have? Who's your top?

Like, Jerry Rice was a little bit before my time. I mean, obviously I watched him, but I would say the guys that immediately come to mind for me are like, Calvin Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald. Larry Fitzgerald to me, is as close to the Jerry Rice in terms of overall career, just excellence from start to finish. He put up more like, I think he's second or third at all time in receiving yards and catches. So he's up there with the longevity and total numbers. But just watching him play so dominant, so big, so strong, and he just did it for so long, and I got to see him. Obviously, he was with the Cardinals for a long time. And so playing against my Seahawks, always just like, demoralizing, I actually have him fourth.

I could not agree with you more. And he also had the weird just didn't have a quarterback for like five important years of his career. Nobody to throw it to him. In basketball, you never have that situation where it's like couldn't put up stats. That year we only had four guys. We're only allowed to play four guys against five. In football, you can literally lose half your career because you have a quarterback. And that definitely happened to and then.

You know, Calvin Johnson just in terms of, like, a lot of these guys. I think Tyreek unique player in terms of pure explosiveness, the most explosive player I've ever seen on the and then.

I have him five.

And then Calvin Johnson, just the way he moved at that size and what he could do, the catches he could make, like the difficulty of catches, and you could throw it anywhere in his area, and he would come down with it kind of deal. And I think Julio Jones had a little bit of that too, though he never scores enough touchdowns, I think, to be in that conversation. And then the other guy, of course, is Antonio Brown, who was just incredible.

But he's definitely a lot of baggage. Yeah, there's another baggage guy. Yeah.

If to is not in it, Brown can't be in it.

But he was very good. Yeah. To, if you're doing the top ten, top twelve for me, the guy that got lost to time was Sterling Sharp because he got hurt. But for four or five years there, he was just as good as any of these guys ever. And then he just had a neck injury and that was it. All right, so right now our recommendation on FanDuel would be Tyree Kill, 60 to one. But can I throw one long shot at you? Take a flyer on this danny's old friend, Russell Wilson, 200 to one, just for fun. People are talking about him. Their four game winning streak can't be ruled out. Would you take a flyer on him? Ruiz?

No, but I would bet champagne for.

Coach of the Year.

I was on that train a couple of weeks ago.

I think I had him before the year.

I can't remember off top of my head, but yeah.

Danny Gino is still at 20 to one. He is the exact same ODS as Russell Wilson. That feels like a win in some weird way. And everybody's guy, Justin Herbert, he's free fall to 150 to one.

He went down after Sunday. He went down after Sunday when he.

Played a perfect game.

Tough times. I don't know. The football nerd community is just running out of ways to keep lifting him up. Now, it's got to be if Brandon Staley could just leave and the defense could take the pressure off him. What are the next three excuses? We're going to he's on the Chargers. Come on, mike Williams, he's out it's every year with Herbert. Excuses galore. Swayton, is he over 500 this year? No, I don't career wise, is he?

They won ten games each of the last two years. I know they missed the playoffs two years ago, but they won ten games.

When they might not have.

Brandon Staley is above 500, Coach.

Jesus. Well, that just goes to show you Ron Rivera is still over 500. He's had ten losing seasons out of 13 and is still somehow over 500 because he had that 150 to one season.

Herbert's, 29 and 30. According to PFR.

Ruiz, he was 500 last week.

What's?

Brock Purdy? He's like, 32.

Let me pull this up.

Him and Jalen Hurts are like a combined 64 over the last couple of years, and those are the quarterbacks I.

Choose to shit on. I'm pulling it up. Hold on. He is twelve and three.

Correct. And three solid. Yeah, well, Tim Boyle is going to be own one after this week, and we're going to talk about him after the break. Ruiz, we could read the QB rankings and everything else you're doing on the ringer.com. Plus you're with Nora twice a week on the ringer. NFL show. Good to see you.

Thanks for having me.

All right, we're going to do some million dollar picks. It's rare that we bring somebody back two weeks in a row, but dangerous Danny Kelly, who barely knows anything about gambling. All I know is we went four and o last week and the million dollar picks. The train is in the positive. We won 1.2 million last week. We're up to 270,000 for the season. This is one of the most fun gambling weeks because we have three Thursday games. We somehow have a Friday game and a bunch of Sunday games. And more importantly, we have enough data now that you can start comparing holes on teams against holes on other teams. I felt super optimistic the last couple of weeks. I feel optimistic again this week. Let's talk Thanksgiving really quick, though. Yeah. So the most obvious parlay ever, which, by the way, I really like, and you can get on fando, I think it's plus 100 is just take Detroit over Green Bay in the early game and take the Cowboys just to beat Washington and take the 49 ers to beat your beloved Seahawks in Seattle. And those are even odds. And just all three favorites are going to win.

They all need the games and just drive that one home. Who screws that up? Who's the party crasher for that one? Is it the packers? Is it the Washington Commanders. Or is it your Seahawks at home trying to send a message to the Niners?

I think, and this is not the homer in me talking, this is more just looking at history. The Seahawks could play spoiler to that, even though they were one of the teams I picked, that I think I would want the 49 ers in this case. But if they are going to play, if any of these teams will play spoiler, I think the Seahawks could do it. Looking past before last season, Seahawks actually had pretty much dominated the head to head like matchup between these two teams for a long time. These are really big rivals. They hate each other. The Seahawk fans are going to be massively fired up in this game. So there's a little bit of maybe the noise and the home field advantage going there. So I think that could be the reason why the Seahawks could do it, but I don't think they will. I think that 49 ers will win this one.

I do as well. I watched your team for 3 hours lose to the Rams last week. We had the Rams, a million dollar picks. I had some money on the Rams. The Seahawks just aren't that good. And now you'd lost Walker. You're down to basically one competent running back. Gino hasn't been great. And defense holy shit. So looking at the stats, like, the Niners are third in first downs this year. They're 6th on third down in the league. Seattle's 30th. Their defense is 30th on first down. They're 29th on third down. Yeah, you think like, somehow your offense is also 30th, and then you think San Francisco's third against the rush defensively, and you have the 25th rushing offense that was with Walker, right? This feels like a mismatch in all these different ways where I could actually see San Francisco killing Seattle. And I'm trying to figure out how does this game go where that doesn't happen? And that would either be some pretty mistakes or you just get lucky with the not lucky. But every once in a while, Lockett will have one of those two long catches games. But what's the roadmap for them even doing well in this game?

Seattle, really the only thing that comes to mind is just that they know each other so well. These teams know each other so well. They played so many times. It's like a divisional matchup. They're always kind of close. Although I will say so. The 49 ers won the last three matchups. They beat Seahawks at home last year. They destroyed them at home. They won by a touchdown or, sorry, eight points in Seattle late in the season, and then they absolutely destroyed them in the playoffs. And so they are clearly the better team right now. I think that's, like, the main thing is, like, the 49 ers are really ridiculously good. And like you said, Seahawks are kind of I don't know what they are. They're not very good right now.

Yeah, you think even the 49 ers Funk, Trent Williams is out. Debo is out. They have seven, eight really good players in their team. And they lost two of them. They just lost Sofango, which isn't awesome.

But they picked up Chase Young.

Your team feels like a pretty flimsy six and four.

Yeah.

Even that game yesterday, I thought Stafford was just he was like watching a car try to make it at the end of a cross country trip. I don't know how many more weeks he has, but what do you think? Less than three as a starter, it just seems like he's just breaking down and somehow he was able to pull that one, probably. I am personally the most afraid of the packers in that scenario. That game, the Lions are favored by seven and a half. The packers. It looks like Aaron Jones is out. And it looks like the Lions will be able to run the ball in this game because they have a top five rushing offense and Green Bay is 20 eigth against the run. But I do think the packers have found a little something with throwing the ball the last couple of weeks. Yeah. And maybe that helps with who they're, you know, Watson. They finally got him going a little got they got Reed going, the rookie a little bit. And love just feels a little was. He was, to me, a complete write off. So there is something that worries me about the packers just throwing the ball in this game because we've seen two straight weeks teams moving the ball on the Lions.

The Bears did it with their run game. The Chargers were able to throw on them. And could the packers just throw on them? But that worries me more for the minus seven and a half than just the Lions winning. I still believe in this Lions team, and I thought they showed a lot of character scoring 17 the last six minutes. On the other hand, they shouldn't have been in that position in the first place.

Right.

But I think they can run the ball in the packers. But I wanted to flag that. Did you see anything you like from the packers last couple of weeks?

I mean, I'm with you. I think Jordan Love had a really tough sort of middle part of the season. And then over the last three weeks, I've seen that he's had, I think, seven big time throws over the last three weeks, which is one of the top numbers in the NFL. He's made some really nice deep throws. His accuracy down the field has improved dramatically because that was a big part of some of his struggles early on, is like, they would take these shots is a big part of their offense, is they do play action. They run the ball, run the ball, and then take a play action shot downfield. And he'd just, like, overthrow the guy by, like, 5ft. And now I think he's getting more in sync with his receivers. And that's another big part of this, is like, this receiver core is all 22, 23 years old, and so it's like they're all growing together. Yeah, Jaden Reed definitely showed up. I think he could be another guy. He was on the injury report today, so hopefully he'll play. But he's another guy that can kind of play that Randall Cobb style role where they were giving him runs, they were giving him end around type plays.

He can move in space. Kind of hybrid sort of running back, receiver type guy. So he could help with Aaron Jones out. But, yeah, I agree they're frisky. I thought the option that I thought about was maybe teasing the 49 Ers and the Lions together.

So I looked at that long and hard, too. There's a couple of ways to go here. We haven't talked about the Dolphins yet either.

Yeah.

And the Dolphins are minus nine and a half against the jets in the first Black Friday game. And the Tim Boyle stats. I was on a flight for 6 hours just researching million dollar picks and just killing time and watching Liam Neeson movies. I had no idea Tim Boyle was like, that devastatingly bad of a quarterback. The college resume is awful. The pro resume is non existent. It's somehow they found somebody who's worse than Zach Wilson, which seems impossible, and he's going against a Dolphins defense that I think has gotten better as the seasons went along. Even if you just look at the most simple stats possible, miami has scored 305 points this year, and the jets have scored 150. They've scored twice as many points as the jets. So I just feel like this is a once in a lifetime chance to bet on the worst offense in the league, adding Tim Boyle on Black Friday against Miami, who just is going to at least get to 20 points. And if you put all four of those money together, lions, Cowboys, niners, Dolphins and you do a little Thursday Friday combo parlay money line, that's plus 135.

All right. Which is fairly enticing. Is there anything you've seen from the jets that would make you pause on that one?

I mean, just the basic idea that the jets defense is still really good.

But is it really good, though? Is it are we against the rush? So that has to matter, like, a tiny bit, right? Yeah.

What I was going to kind of get to, I think, is they're good, but at the same time, I can see the Dolphins just, like, wearing them out long enough. The jets are going to struggle, it feels like, to score on the Dolphins team. So they can just keep at it. They can keep doing their thing. With the run game, it'll be interesting to see if Devon Aichan comes back. It's unclear if he's really hurt bad because he only played a couple of plays and then he re injured his knee. So we'll see. But like Raheem, mostard's still out there. He's you know, they still have Jeff Wilson. I think they can really just continue to run, know, just kind of wear down the opposing team. I don't think they really have to worry too much about the jets scoring a bunch of points. So, yeah, I'm with you. I think moneyline is safe on this one.

I think, well, one way we could do it is we could tease the Lions in the 49 ers, and that could be one bet. And then we could also do the four team money parlay for the plus 135 to get all four of them involved. This will drive Raheem. Raheem just is going to drive into traffic if he hears this. But there's a 1413 point tease you could do. So you could take the Lions to plus five and a half, the Cowboys to plus two and a half, the 49 Ers to plus six, and the Dolphins to plus three and a half. The reason not to do that is it doesn't help you enough at the Cowboys game, like, to tease somebody to plus two and a half. By the way, people would say, don't do that anyway. But I did hit a 13 pointer last week. All right, let's move to the Sunday games. I asked you to come up with at least two that you love, so give me one of them.

All right, so the first one I want to talk about is the Saints versus the Falcons.

Oh, I had this one, too. Okay, let's hear it.

So hopefully we're on the same page here. The Saints have beaten the Falcons nine of their last eleven games and Desmond Ritter is back. I feel like the Falcons, just across the board, are a pretty bad team. The 29th in overall DVOA, 25th offense, 26th defense, 20 Eigth. Special teams. The Saints have more talent.

I think the reason the line is.

Where it is probably is because the uncertainty at quarterback, it's going to be James Winston. Is it going to be Derek Carr? I kind of don't care, honestly. I kind of hope it's James Winston. That's kind of where I am. So James or Carr? I kind of feel like the Saints.

Should win this game. So the counter would be, is Ritter bad or did he play.

Like, what do you think is the difference?

I think he throws a good long ball, which I enjoy. I did think their offense moved, and a lot of it was these self inflicted wounds around the end.

Yeah.

And stupid red zone shit and just kind of bad clock management and bad strategy and things that had nothing to do with whether he might be okay. I did feel like at least he could throw the ball. So he's better than Heinecke but I'm with you. Like, could the Saints defense just shut him down? I worried the reason I was looking at it was because of the Jamis piece of where just Jameis starting against a team that has a pretty decent defense this year. Like, they're 7th against first down, their fourth on third downs. They're 6th in red zone, they're 9th against the pass. The Falcons defense isn't horrific and could they get a couple picks on Jameis? The game's in Atlanta, I had it marked, but I'm not sure if it's a stay away or to is it the right move to bet on Jameis Winston? I guess is my question.

Is it the right move? No.

So you're out on the Falcons.

It sounds like I'm kind of out on the Falcons. You do bring up a good point that the red zone stuff has been a factor. And then I feel like Arthur Smith kind of finally got bullied into using Bijean Robinson in the red zone. Finally. And so that could be like a difference. But I don't just I think this is probably logically a stay away with Jamis, but for whatever reason, I was drawn to that. I want to bet on James for some reason.

All right, so here's the first one I was looking at browns getting two and a half points in Denver. This would be a straight 100%. Cleveland defense bet just a pure. I don't think Denver will be able to move the ball against this team. Wager Cleveland's defense first in basically everything, especially first against the pass. I don't think Denver can throw the ball, and when they do, it's either Russ scrambling out of the pocket and then just some lob screen pass or the two times a game when he just throws it up for grabs. Of courtland sudden. I don't think they're going to be able to move the ball and I don't think they've ever seen anything like what they're about to see next week. And then on the flip side, Cleveland's rushing game is good. It doesn't seem to matter. They don't have Nick chubb. They're third in rushing right now and Denver's defense is 32nd against the run. So could Denver just take a three nothing lead, run the ball, run the ball, run the ball, and then that's it. And is Denver really going to win five games in a row? This just seems off to me I think this game should be a pick them.

You could also take the Browns at plus 116. You could get a little funky potentially and take the Browns laying points. Like you could do Browns minus two and a half is plus 140. Could get wacky doing that. But what do you think of the Browns?

I think this is a great one. You've convinced me. I agree with you. I think the Browns and the Broncos are going to have the same game plan in this game. It's going to be trying to run the ball, control it, don't turn the ball over and play that bully ball style of game. And I think the Browns are just better at it and they'll control this game. And I think that pass rush is going to make life very difficult for Russell Wilson, who's for a long time sort of subsisted on his ability to scramble around and make plays out of structure. And they just have so many guys on that front and so many guys that can chase him and make life hard on him. So I kind of like, yeah, I don't think either team is going to throw a lot. Do you think the under is over under 35 and a half.

The under seems almost too easy. But you could potentially right. No, I'm with you. Because you could do Cleveland plus three and a half and then you could do an alt total points under. So it's at 35 right now. So we could jack it up to like 44 and a half is -460 what are the odds. That these teams score 45 points.

I think it would be like an extremely weird game if they did that.

Yeah, you could do that and then you could go to Cleveland plus three and a half. That gets us to -105 we could buy the half point with Cleveland. Or you could just go bold and you just say Cleveland's winning this game and nobody is scoring oh, that gets us to plus 142. Danny okay, cleveland to win under 44 and a half. So they would have to have 45 points to beat us. That would be 24 to 21.

Yeah.

Does that seem conceivable?

I mean, no.

To the people who can't see this, danny's just grinning.

Anything can happen, of course, but it doesn't feel likely at all. I feel like this is going to be like a nine to six game where it's just like a couple of field goals.

Right. You could jack it up to 40. Oh, wow. You jack it up to 46 and a half. That still gets us plus 132. It's going to be two teams running 47 points to beat us. Yeah.

There's not going to be enough clock. They're both going to be running the clock constantly.

Yeah. All right. We're going to do something in that rain. All right. What was your second one?

The other game I was looking at was the Rams at Cardinals. Let's hear it again. The Rams have dominated this matchup over the years. They've won, let's see twelve of the last 14 matchups, including one of those games they lost, john Walford was the starter.

Oh, yeah.

So that doesn't really count. I understand that Cooper Cup may not play, but I feel like their passing game was still good enough when they had like Atwell and a couple other guys going pukanakua is a baller. They're getting Kyron Williams back this week. In theory, Matt Stafford will be maybe a little bit healthier and the Cardinals defense is still really bad. They are giving up the 6th most points per game, 25.8. They've given up the fifth most passing touchdowns and third most rushing touchdowns this year. They have the 31st ranked defense by Devia. So obviously the Kyler variable is big here. But the Rams have just dominated the Cardinals over the years and I don't think this is like an especially good Cardinals team outside of Kyler.

So this line right now is still Rams plus one and a half. I thought Kyler looked pretty good the last two weeks. I actually thought he looked as fast as he did before he got hurt. I was surprised. But yet they only scored 16. Would they score 16 points against Houston?

Yeah, I think so.

Here's my fear with this bet. How many more healthy weeks is Stafford going to have realistically?

Yeah, it's funny. The whole team, it just feels like they're so beat up right now. Every time Puka Nakua catches the ball he's like slow to get know. It's like we make the joke. He looks like John Wick, like at the end of the movie. He's just know, bleeding limping. That kind of feels like Stafford and Puka and cup and whoever. I agree with you, that is a concern. But I don't know. Stafford's like one of the toughest guys.

Out so well, they also need the game and I guess one of the things to watch for with the Cardinals is I know we don't have tanking in the NFL but last week was the perfect outcome for them. Right. They lost a game. But Kylo, we're competitive. Yeah, they're competitive. The whole thing. The next one I had for you. Wow, I can't believe I'm going to even bring this up, but the Steelers against the Bengals. The Steelers are favored by right now, it's one and a half against Jake Browning. Washington's own you're, you're from Washington. How many Jake Browning conversations were you in?

There's quite a few going around in the text know, I think the general gist is people don't have a ton of faith in him right now.

Yeah. Okay. That joins with my beliefs as well. Pittsburgh, I just think the defense can win. Here's the sneaky thing about Cincy, we've had enough games now. Like, their defense just hasn't been that good. Yeah, they're 22nd in DVOA. They're 31st in yards per play. 29th on first down, 20 Eigth on third down. Steelers fire their offensive coordinator finally this week. I don't know if that's going to be necessarily the new coach bump, but it'll be a little better. They're also realizing that Jalen Warren should just play. Austin talked about that in part one. Just feed Jalen Warren. And I think this feels like the death of the Bengals season.

Yeah, I do think I'm a believer in the new coach bump in this specific case for when it comes to coordinator, so many of the team just did not like like the players have come out and talked about it, like the scheme, the lack of imagination. I think that there's, as I described it, a kids jumping up on the desk and dancing type atmosphere right now. Probably like the teachers out of the classroom. The kids are all just super stoked. And so I do think there's a bump there. And like you said with Warren, I think he is literally the most explosive running back in the NFL right now. If you look at all the advanced stats, explosive play rate, yards over expected, all that stuff, he's like elite in that area. And so that's at least an advantage. I'm very interested to see if they can figure out a way to get Kenny Pickett going. But, yeah, I don't love the Bengals in this one. I think this is a good call.

Okay, steelers minus one and a half. The only other one I wanted to throw at you. Ravens at the Chargers. The Chargers defense is just legendarily bad. They're either last or almost last in any category you want to look at, including 20 Eigth in yards per play. And Baltimore is first in yards per play, and they're third on first downs and third in passing. And just when you watch them when it's going well for them, it looks a lot like what Detroit looked like two weeks ago against the Chargers, where it's just like, oh, we'll do this, that'll get eight yards. Oh, let's do this, that'll get twelve. And the Staley thing, it just feels like this is basically the last chance to bet against Brandon Staley. So the lines four, which I don't love because especially with the cheap touchdown potential, but I do love the Ravens in. This game. And I think it's going to be, I think, a last stand for Staley. What do you think about the Ravens this game is?

I've called the Ravens like Chargers East a couple of times this year just because I feel like they are so unpredictable at the end of games. For whatever reason, they have this magic ability to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. They're not to the level of the Chargers though, and I do agree they're like one of the best teams, if not the best team in the NFL. So I like this one. To me, they're a little bit chaotic, but maybe this is like betting on Jamis. Maybe we just get a little wacky because it's unpredictable. But I do think just they're a better team.

I what if I did this with you? What if we did a little Raven Saints tease? Oh, yeah, or a parlay. We brought the Saints to plus three and a half that's -180 and then we combine that with the Ravens. The Ravens are down to minus three and a half now Ravens -190 that combo is plus two plus 137 not really great ODS on that to be honest. Let me check one more thing here. If we do the alternate, maybe the alternate spread with the Ravens, let's bring that down to two and a half and that will get us to -160 oh, yeah, plus 151 that's a little more exciting. Saints plus three and a half Ravens minus two and a half plus 151. What are your thoughts?

I like that.

I like that a lot. All right, the million dollar picks for week twelve, thanksgiving week, dangerous danny Kelly helped us get to four and o last week. We're going to open it up. We're doing the worst possible thing. Is making all our bets on Tuesday, not knowing the injuries. So love it. Listen, if any of the weekend games, if there's some major injury, like if we have the Ravens in this, if Lamar gets scratched on a Friday, guess what, voiding the bet. I can make my own rules here on million dollar picks, but it has to be a big scratch. So it would have to be Stafford or Lamar or that's really it out of anybody we have. All right, million dollar picks, week twelve. We are going to jump all over Thanksgiving. We have a little Lions niners tease lions teased them down to one and a half against the packers. Slightly worried about Jordan Love but not 100% worried. And then we're teasing the Niners down to one against Danny's beloved Seahawks. This is a talent mismatch, unfortunately. I don't know if we're going to have a very fun time on Thursday night with that game.

We're going to tease that. We're going to put 250K on that. And then we are going to do the most obvious bet of all time that I actually think is going to win lions, Dallas, San Francisco, all the favorites on Thursday combined just to win with the Miami Dolphins against tell them who the opposing quarterback is going to be one more time, Danny. Tim Boyle. Who? I know a lot about Tim Boyle. One touchdown 13 picks at Yukon. He's starting on the first Black Friday game. It's going to be a Black Friday for him.

This is the guy they found to replace Zach Wilson.

Yeah. His credentials are he's friends with Aaron Rogers. So anyway, this all sounds great. Those four favorites together plus 135. We are putting 200K on that as well. And then we go to the weekend games. Ravens moneyline. We like the efficient Ravens offense against the inefficient, confusing, disturbing Chargers defense. Yeah, we're going to take that the Ravens money line. Danny Loves the Saints. Make the Saints case quickly one more time. Saints against the Falcons.

I just think the Saints have dominated this matchup. They have a more talented team. They have a more balanced team. And I don't even care whether it's Derek Carr or Jameis Winston. I think either guy is going to be better. So I don't trust the falcons.

I care because I'd rather watch Jameis Winston. And I can't watch Carr check down.

I mean, 3 hours from a fantasy point of view, rooting for Jameis. No offense, Derek.

Yeah. So we're going to do Ravens money line with the Saints adjusted line plus seven and a half. The line for that bet is -105. And we're putting 300K on that next one. We both love the Browns, the Browns, they're playing the Broncos. I don't see Denver winning five in a row. I don't think Denver's offense has any chance against this Cleveland defense. It is a full fledged back in the Cleveland defense. Bet I also don't mind DTR. I think he can actually move around and he's not a disaster. He's not like Zach Wilson level. We're going to tease that up a tiny bit or move it up to Browns plus three and a half parlayed with the under of 46 and a half. They would have to score 47 points to beat us and that line. Is -116 we're putting 300K on that Steelers minus one and a half against Jake Browning and the Bengals. This feels like the official end of the Bengals season. More importantly, Matt Canada new coach theory danny Kelly says qualifies. Great vibes.

Excellent, excellent vibes. The kids are loving it. They're dancing on the desks. The teachers are gone. They're throwing toilet paper out the window.

Everything all right. George pickens. They might actually call more than two plays for him.

Maybe like run him over the middle field or something like that. Who knows?

Jalen Warren, who you said was the most explosive back in the league right now. Maybe he'll get more than 15 touches. We're taking the Steelers minus one and a half. We're putting 300K in that. And then last but not least. Rams to win the first half against the cardinals. Rams to win the game against the cardinals. Plus 170. We're going to throw a token one and 150 on that. 150k.

Like it.

See how that goes. And those are the million dollar picks for week twelve. What's your favorite side for thanksgiving, by the way?

Good question. I was looking at recipes today. I got to say, like a pecan pie. Is that counter?

Is that dessert? I guess that's that's dessert. Come on.

The sweet potato. Like a sweet potato something or other.

Anything. Sweet potato casserole.

That's what I was looking for.

Yeah.

I was literally looking at just recipes online today and my mouth started watering. I was like, I'm kind of getting excited for this.

So, yeah, there you go. This is why we're undefeated on million dollar picks together. Hopefully it keeps going. Danny kelly happy holidays. Thanks for doing with us.

Thank you.

All right, that's it for the two parter. Thanks to Danny Kelly and Stephen Ruiz and Rob Mahoney. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Cerrutti as well. Have a great holiday. Enjoy yourselves. I'm going to be back on miss speed on Sunday with the cubs. Can't wait. Happy holidays. On a waste of I don't have with him on the wayside on the first I never must be 21 plus in president select states, FanDuel is offering online sports wager in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas star casino, LLC. Gambling problem. Call 1800 gambler or visit fanduel.com. Slash RG in colorado, iowa, kentucky, michigan, new jersey, ohio, pennsylvania, illinois, tennessee and virginia. You can call 100 next step or text next step to 53342. In Arizona call 1887-8977 or visit ccpg.org chat, connecticut, 1809 with it in Indiana. 1805 two two 4700 or visit Ksgamblinghelp.com in Kansas. 18770 stop in Louisiana. Mdgamblinghelp.org. In Maryland. 1800 gambler net in west Virginia or 1805 two 2700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 803 2750 50 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 18778 HOPENY or text hope, NY. In New York.