Coming up, they aren't just the red hot million dollar pics, they're just the smoking hot million dollar pics. They're not just a smoldering hot topics. They are the hotter than the equator. Million dollar pics. It's all next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer and the Ringer podcast network. We launched a new podcast this week with Danielle Smith. It's called Black Girls Songbook. The first episode is up. It is about Whitney Houston's iconic national anthem performance at the Super Bowl 30 years ago.

I remember watching this in college. I have it as the second greatest national anthem experience of my life.

I still love Marvin Gaye at the ninety three at the eighty three all star game four NBA and Philly first, Carl Lewis third and Whitney second. So there you go anyway.

Really good podcast. Go check that out. Don't forget to check out sports cards. Nonsense as well. We watch bowls. We have potentially to watch bowls, podcasts coming next week.

I'm just flagging this that one of them has a very special guest who who happens to be famous. So there you go on that. Don't forget to check out the Ringer NFL show because they're going to be coming probably right after the Super Bowl, much like me and Sourbeer. If you want to hear Kevin Clark and your Princi Out and Kevin Clark did a great job on some news. They did a whole bunch of interviews this week. If you like that show, you can check it out on our YouTube channel or on our Twitter, as you call it.

That's it. Coming up, Peter Schrager, a good luck charm, million dollar pics.

Then Casey Affleck, who somehow never been on this podcast, talked about a whole bunch of movie stuff. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

All right, taping this, it is to compete on Thursday, the good luck charm is there. Peter Schrager from Good Morning Football from Fox. Now, he's just known as the good luck charm. We have had one of the great runs, I think, in the history of podcasting last three weeks, seven and so on. My big playoff bets, four million of our picks, nine and three against the a spread picked all 12 winners of the actual games made three point two seven one million fake dollars.

This is what you must be getting stopped in the street in New York is constant attention for this crazy.

I live in Brooklyn. There's hipsters with a little mustache and they have their own typewriters at home that they use and they're stopping by the screaming from the streets.

About million dollar pics, in all honesty. I mean, Marc Maron did Louis C.K. twice and those are epic.

You and Kevin Durant, no solid serial, the original serial podcast history. I think we're in their midst now. Rushmore stuff.

This is how I feel. The best part is each week we've talked it out. We haven't necessarily agreed, but at least we've got a good place where I felt like my ankle is strong, the Super Bowl is going to be a beast. We're going to get to it in a second. We have a lot of props and stuff to do. And I'm going to Will batted around. I have a specific angle I think I'm taking, but there's still time for you to talk me out.

Before we do that, though, let's play a little QB carrousel. We had Mikveh finally got rid of Goff last week, last weekend, which I think we had predicted on this POV. This is probably not looking great for Goff. Now, Watson might be out there. The Raiders might want somebody Garoppolo just just let stop the carousel for one second.

Tell us what's going on.

All right, let's start with last week. I wasn't on the million dollar pics but this was happening throughout last week it was reported out there but I don't think enough really got enough press about it. So McVay checks in to a resort in Cabo last week. Cellino Bay.

That might be where you guys roll. I've never heard of it. It's one of these top, high end resorts in Cabo. He gets in the villa. He's texted me from his villa during the NFC championship game. He's watching. He's with his fiancee. They're having a great time. Tuesday, Matt Stafford rolls in and checks into the same hotel. This is on Tuesday. Wow. Now, from what I'm told, Drew Brees about this hotel, Sean Payton was at this hotel.

Andrew Whitworth was at this hotel, and there was nothing nefarious going on. But the second these things start heating up, McVay and Stafford are in Kabul at the same time on the grounds of the same hotel. So they're not allowed to really technically talk. And they did it from what I gather. But when this thing started coming together, it became obvious that this was the guy that McVeigh had his eyes on, not Watson, not Rodgers, not Stafford is who he wanted.

So he's going to work hard at it with the Rams front office. And they love Jared Goff. And they say not like, look, Jared Goff, we've had a nice run. We're not going any further than we are right now. And the two of us, it's run its course. It's obvious he kind of strong arms the front office and says like like let's make this happen with Stafford. Now, on the other end of it, the lions, they've had their there they've had their eleven years with Stafford.

They never won a playoff game. It's injured this year. They want to start a complete rebuild. Their number two in a in a front office about Angelos was a guy named Brett Holmes, who is the new GM of the Detroit Lions. They hired him. Holmes drafted Jared Goff. And believe it or not, and I know people scoff at this is a huge Jared Goff in Loves Jared Goff. And it's like, wait, Jared Goff, we can get him for Stafford and they're going to give us two first round picks.

If you're of the belief that you like Jared Goff, think about this trade. Not only do you get a quarterback, you like a twenty five. And it's been to the playoffs between Super Bowl and all the stuff. You also get two first round picks.

Usually you would have to trade two first round picks, but from former number one overall pick who's not washed up. So Holmes is like, all right, we've got Carolina gets involved. Right. Carolina offers a very sweet deal, one that might have involved the top ten pick from this year, which would have been back to back the seventh and eighth overall pick if the Lions kept their seven pick. They get Carolina's eighth pick and maybe Teddy Bridgewater, too.

So now there's some Horford Denver calls. Indianapolis calls. Washington calls. And I'm told the Washington deal was really strong, all for Stafford.

At the end of the day, Stafford was like, I'm thinking I want to go to San Francisco, Indianapolis or Los Angeles. And the Lions were so sensitive to not ruin this relationship because the way it ended with Calvin Johnson, the way it ended with Barry Sanders, that's not how they want to start this new regime. They're like, let's work with Matt Stafford. Let's make this happen. And the fun, weird inside connection to McVay and Stafford that predates any Karbo festivities.

When McVeigh was in high school, he was. A high school quarterback who was like a running option quarterback in the rival high school had another running quarterback guy named Chad Hall. Chad Hall went to Air Force, ended up playing in the NFL with the Niners and they went to the Super Bowl. He was with the Eagles for some time and is now the wide receivers coach in Buffalo. And it's a really highly regarded Chad Hall, Sean McVay, tight since high school buddies.

They're all in the coaching world. Some of those deals. Chad Hall's sister is Kelly Stafford. So McVay has known Matt Stafford for years through Chad, and it's his sister.

So Stafford and McVay have known each other. They've been in the same social circles. This thing comes together from a football standpoint. He's all in. And I spoke with him throughout last week. I spoke with him this week. And it's basically like, are we living or are we is this thing it sounds like a mathematical kind of a quote or something, but it's this is it. Put it on me. It's on me. I'm the one I want to I want it.

Stafford, I want to get rid of Jared Goff. You can put it all the pressure on my shoulders and let's ride. And at the end of the day, the truck was like, we don't want to piss Stafford off. We think we like Jared Goff.

And that's the trade there.

There's been some good pieces about it, too, especially on the Ringer Dotcom, a great website about the Rams.

Just basically looking at this model of how everybody builds a football team and saying, fuck it, we don't value first round picks we value right now. We'd rather get known quantities. First round picks maybe aren't as valuable as everybody seems to think they are in the NFL. It's no different than what happened in basketball and in basketball.

It's kind of run amok. People now, you know, they're not just worried about two first round picks. They'll give away like seven. They don't care.

It's either going to be a beautiful disaster or they will have stumbled upon a new way to do this, not the only way to do it, but a way, you know, or they're just like, fuck it, we don't value first round picks. I kind of wish the Patriots had unvalued first round picks the last four or five years because we didn't really make any good ones, although that's the point of it.

Right. The Patriots are always picking in the back quarter of the draft and it's hit or miss at that point. Once you get to like twenty.

The difference between the 20th overall pick and the sixth overall pick is really dealer's choice. And, you know, talking to the Rams guys clouted or delayer went thirty two. D'Andre Swift went like thirty six.

They got carmakers at fifty two and they liked carmakers like and that's just what it is. And in the draft, if you are convinced you are a playoff team and you believe in yourself and say, OK, we're built for playoffs, we got Ramsey, we got Donald, we've got of course now Stafford. With all this, this high end stuff, we don't plan on having a top ten pick. So what are we valuing?

If it's the twenty third or twenty fourth pick every year, we don't really care.

But by the way, the other one's not much different than how Belichick handled it when he would trade out of the first round every year, but he would trade for multiple picks and not, you know, current assets.

I get, you know, who knows that this deal will will be considered a home run, a triple double single or strikeout. I guess for me, I would like it more if Stafford was thirty or thirty one instead of thirty three. I liked it for Detroit. I thought it was smart, you know, I really thought it was an inventive deal. They're not going to be good anyway. I think Opsware at the fire, not too crazy.

What happens to me.

This has no effect on the way this was its own trade is now you can't say, well, what's it how many pixels are you going to get that you can't compare them? And that's what everyone saying. It's just.

Yeah, the Watson thing, he's got a no trade clause. And, you know, I was trying to think if I'm running the Texans. And what's in the way players can put pressure now through social media, they can also they can also say I'm just not going to show up for the season. You can't really mail in a football game the way Jimbo's e mailed in those rockets games before I got traded to Brooklyn. James Harden. But if you're in Houston and you're already a shit show, you kind of want resolution on this.

You also have some awesome suitors, you know, and you have that the Jets and you have the Dolphins. And if the Raiders got super excited, you have mystery team X. God only knows who's out there.

I would assume they're trading him and I actually think it's the right move. What do you think's going to happen? Couple of things.

So first of all, everyone you're mentioning and anyone who says like, well, we haven't picked up the phone, they're lying. Everyone is called. And everyone has been told to a man by Nick Kesari or the former Patriots front office, goodrow, who's now their first year GM, who, by the way, signed a six year contract that makes him one of the highest GMs in the league before even doing a single deal. He has told them he is not for sale.

This is as of February 4th that he's even entertaining Watson offers. So anyone who's putting all those trade machine offers together like it's not it's almost premature to do it because the text they're telling everyone he is not for sale. We're going to work this thing out. So then it goes back to what the hell went wrong. And from all accounts, I get.

It happened because people would say, well, they traded away the best receiver. No, he signed a five year extension worth one hundred something million after they already traded away DeAndre Hopkins. So chronologically, that's not why he's upset. What he's upset is there are conversations with ownership multiple times. And he was given word that he would have input on some of these hires. And he didn't he did not have input.

And by the way, he should have had input. Well, that's the question. Right. And I spoke to another executive who put it this way.

It's like in another year, if you wanted to say, come on now, like you're a player, we're seeing how easy it is to get on Zoome for two hours and interview someone. It's not that you want to take a flight. You know, if he if he gave you a list of three GMs and three coaches, you could have interviewed him.

You could have. And that's what I think is it's not lazy, but it's almost like just inconsiderate to tell him we are going to value your opinion and you are going to have input and then to not even get on the field. Now, the name that keeps popping up is that Robert Solla is the guy that Watson hypothetically suggested and Solid didn't get invited to interview on a resume with the Houston Texans. You know how easy it would have been for McNair and whoever else to just say, all right, we're going to interview Robert Solow as one of the 15 candidates that we've interviewed.

But wait a second, though, how many guys in the league actually are at the input level?

Zero, let's say?

Well, zero, but but I mean, input, not like, hey, tell us who we should ask the head coach, but like, hey, Sean, we're looking for a head coach. Like, we just wanted to talk to you about it and just just keep you in the loop on that. I don't think it's that hard to do. How many? It's like Mahomes. It's Watson or the three other guys.

You know, it's like I think Larry Fitzgerald has a significant voice in Arizona. Honestly, I don't know if all the chiefs like. But Brady Brady didn't have much say in New England, pretty at zero say.

I mean, as I'm saying, if Brady doesn't.

But I think Manning had say in Indy once upon a time, I think they they ran stuff by him, especially like with free agent signing stuff like that.

But like, you know, the other Manning Eli, I don't think he had a say in who was being quarterback. I don't think it's very rare. I don't think they do give a Rodgers certainly wasn't involved with the floor. Like, I don't think they do that that often. And that is why this was to say that you're going to bring in Deshaun and then to not I think he was really insulted. And, you know, Cal McNair is not his father.

He's he's been and he's inherited this team.

And I think this is going to have to be one of those deals where they have to really try to repair this thing because the next step is, all right, it's a march.

And now this quarterback carrousel starts going around and and defines a quarterback and Washington finds a quarterback in Denver. And then suddenly the seats are getting filled and the draft comes and maybe the Jets take a quarterback and maybe, well, there's a fight.

There may be five cubes in the first, what, sixteen picks? Yes.

And like Carolina might take a QB and suddenly these seats are getting filled. Houston, if they don't get anything for Watson, well, then we're in real trouble. And the new CBA is interesting because one of the small fine print things that someone called out to me was you can find these players for years and they used to do it for hold outs.

And then at the end, like a pat on the back, they'd say, all right, here's your money back. We signed a new extension. We figured it out. The new CBA. Apparently you're not allowed to give that money back.

Like if you hold out and you are fined for missing practices and missing workouts and missing whatever else, the teams by the CBA are not supposed to give that money back to the player once he does show up. So if they really want to play this hard ball and I it's dangerous game, the Texans can find out something like three million dollars before the season starts promising things. And then they still have the franchise tag three times after a five year deal.

So he signed that contract five months ago. I am so fascinated how it plays out. But like there right now, not listening to offers, they're confident that they can work it out with them.

All right. So we'll do QB care so quick. You just have to give your pay. I'm going to give you a team, OK? And you can say a player or you could just say rookie for who you think their quarterback is going to be in September. OK, SanFrancisco. By the way, before we do this, let's do it. So when I shout at the teams, if you go like seven for seven, it it'll be the most amazing YouTube clip of all time you'll see here.

You'll be like Uri Geller, like putting a spoon on your nose. Yeah, OK. All right.

Two thousand twenty one September, the quarterback of San Francisco will be Jimmy Garoppolo.

OK, New England. Mac Jones, rookie, Alabama, oh, I was kidding, you could have just said rookie, OK, Mac Jones, Washington. Washington will have a rookie quarterback, Houston. Sean Watson, Miami. To a younger vianello. OK, Indianapolis. Carson Wentz, Carson Wentz, I don't think so, but I think that's fun. Why shouldn't we do Washington?

We did Washington. There was a report out today that. That the Eagles have gotten calls on when I'm not, you know, I don't think it's the league is beating down the doors for Carson Wentz, but I would be intrigued to see if Frank Reich did make a call. I mean, they have a giant hole at quarterback and they got a really good team.

Indianapolis is fascinating to me. They went after Stafford and did not land him bears.

Bears is really interesting to hear they want to be super aggressive, I just don't know who's out there besides Watson that they're going after.

So I'm going to say rookie with the Bears and then Carolina, I guess, would be the last rookie again. What veterans didn't we mention, I think we're good. Let me ask you this, though, Donald. Donald is interesting. How about the Chargers call Houston herbut straight up. Straight up for Watson will throw nothing else in such a good trade.

It's my favorite fake trade. I actually had an argument with somebody recently about it because I actually the Chargers should not do that. I think for what Herbert showed this year on a rookie contract, I think that's the single most valuable thing you can have in football is the cheap quarterback. I would much rather have that. As great as Watson is, I would rather have herbut but it's a great fake trade because if I'm Houston, you're give me herbut for Watson.

Done. Let's call it in. I don't need anything else. You have to throw in like a seventh round pick herbals.

So good this year. So good. He was so good. He might be better than Watson by next year. I think that good Watson is really good. The, the question I think Schefter tweeted out, which is interesting if you're Jacksonville, do you trade the first overall pick?

Trevor Lawrence for Deshaun Watson, straight up.

No, no, because I'm putting him in the same situation he was in last year. Yeah, Deshon, by all accounts, by all football metrics, had an awesome season five and 11 at some point. If you're on a bad team, that's just what your record is going to be as a quarterback. You're going to be five, 11, six and 10. It doesn't matter, you know, how many cool things you do. All right.

We are going to circle back after this break. And it's time to talk about the Super Bowl. Let's go an inch our way toward the billion dollar PEX.

All right, let's talk about this game. I've thought about it, I've stared at it, my initial take was Chiefs minus three lay up. I don't want to go against Mahomes, I don't want to go against Chelsea. I don't want to go against Tirico. All the things we talked about two weeks ago as we were crushing another week of million dollar pics. But staring at it for 10 or 11 days, thinking of worst case scenarios. I can't get past the chief's offensive line.

I'm just going to walk through this for for you in America. Left tackle Eric Fisher gone right tackle. Mitchell Schwartz gone. Ricard Laurant DuVernay, Tardif said, I said, you know. Rakhat, he's gone, he kept it up for the season left guard. I'm going to have trouble with this uncollectible assembly. You got close enough left guard.

He's gone. Four of the five guys they thought they had before the season are no longer on the Chiefs offensive line, Mike Redeemer's signed off season as a backup.

He's now our left tackle.

Quick Mike Rima's background, signed with Denver as an undrafted free agent in 2012, played for eight different teams in nine years. Six of those teams cut him from either their 53 man roster or practice squad.

He was the right tackle who got torched by Von Miller to announce the Super Bowl. As has been recanted many times. That is MacRumors now. This year, he is not allowed to sack in 2020. Andrew Wiley, who is a guard and kind of like a borderline backup Fill-in guy, is now the right tackle of the Kansas City Chiefs.

And then Stephon was Wasniewski two time Super Bowl champion waived by Pittsburgh this season, picked up by Kansas City in late November, signed off the scrap heap. He's their starting left guard. And the more I think about this, I think of this makeshift, pretty crappy offensive line. I wasn't that impressed with their offensive line when these guys were healthy. I thought they had a lot of holding penalties, a lot of, you know, just in general, as I was like and this the same offensive line as last year.

And now you're going against this Bucs team that has Todd Bowles, who I think has been one of the breakout stars of these playoffs, can do a bunch of blitz, disguise, blitz, fake pressure. Oh, suddenly there's not pressure. He's got the two awesome linebackers.

They David and White, he's got the front for now that our guy is back, that's going to be able to potentially just do the four man rush every once in a while and then G.P.A. on one of the sides wherever he decides to line up, I, I don't think they're going to be able to block the bucks. What do you think, Schrager?

OK, let's go through that offensive line again. Rumor's been a journeyman. He's been good this season. He's been good this season as a right tackle, which is inferior tackle position when you have a right and a quarterback filling in for Shwartz.

All right. Nick Allegretti will be at left guard. He's been good this year. He's been solid. Austin writer was their starting center last year.

He's still he's the only incumbent with new skills who was cut by Pittsburgh was their starting left guard last year in the Super Bowl. So he's no stranger and he's been solid. And I go back to this. They've got one of the best offensive line coaches in the league. And Andy Heck, and this team adapts and adjusts no matter what we thought about it thirty times that this is going to be an issue. When DuVernay Tardif up there, I thought that was going to be an issue.

Didn't miss a beat when Damian Williams opted out, didn't miss a beat. It was court ordered to leave for a month. They don't miss a beat. This team is one of those squads that are champions and their whole entire deal is adjust and adapt. Now, I love JP and he had the quote of the week. First of all, I don't know about you, but I thought there's zero buzz around the Super Bowl whatsoever this week.

It just I can never in a pandemic, I never know what the buzz is.

It's a pandemic. So there's no one down there. So there's no, like, media blitz. It doesn't feel wall to wall. And yet I think it's the best go maybe in two decades on paper, like, I'm so excited for it. And JP was asked about Michael Ramirez, who he has faced multiple times in regular season games. And he's like, who? Don't know who that is. I've never heard that name before. Is that who they're tacklers?

And he laughed. And I'm like, I need a need a little bit of that. Like, give me something that is old school. That's not a love fest. Gronk and Kelsey telling each other how great they are all day long. And Brady, your mom's just waxing poetic on the other. The Buccaneers defense is not nice. They are a mean group that does not smile. I've interviewed him multiple times. Peter has never had a grin.

Sue is he can sue. He's still the same guy as much of a polished image he's had. And Jason Pierre-Paul wants to wants to destroy it. So they've got this front for that is fantastic. The linebackers are great. And yet Kansas City doesn't miss a beat.

And I've never seen them all of a sudden have an offensive line collapse. Mahomes throws the ball too fast, gets it out of the pocket so easily. And Andy Reid is aware of their issues on the offensive line.

And I am confident in that team that they can adjust. Is that a good enough counter to all those injuries?

I'm going to give you an example of when their offensive line was barely holding on and borderline collapsing last year in the Super Bowl.

It's true San Francisco pressured him that whole game and a very similar situation this year, I think, where they have good pass rushers, disguised blitz's, all kinds of things and can play some tricks. I really like this Tampa defense. And even last week, the Packers, they end up they give up twenty six, but like their secondary is banged up.

All those guys are back now to man you have is an interesting name. He didn't play in the first game. He's their fastest defensive back. He will be healthy again. Not a household name Jamaluddin but they have him and he can keep up with Hill at the very least because no Tyreke went for two hundred and three yards in the first quarter. Last time they played and ended up having two touchdowns in the game. He did a backflip into the end zone in their building.

So I think Jamal teams a huge addition and a Winfield's from all accounts is going to play, which was a late scratch last time. They played great. So there's a couple of things I don't like for the Chiefs.

One is I really worry about their offensive line, too. I don't think they run the ball very well and I've just never really been impressed by it. And and I think with this Tampa team, I think they're going to have trouble running the ball up the middle and around and doing stuff like that. I also think you can run the ball on the chiefs, which is not a controversial opinion. So you look at this and you think, if I'm picking the chiefs here.

Doing it because it's the homes can't go against my homes. This is how one of the ways you get in trouble with football gambling year after year where you basically do the I don't want to bet against this guy strategy.

Rogers has been like that for years on Green Bay. I don't want to bet against Rogers. Meanwhile, the other teams better.

Couldn't you make the case, Tampa as more talent, like if you're just going to say who has the 12 best guys on each team? Who has the better 12 best guys? I think Tampa's 12 best is better than Kansas City's best at this point. OK, so let's get that quantity, let's rank them. Let's rank the top 10 players in this game. I would go Mahomes one. Yeah, Kelsey two. Kelsey to brain might say, hey, you might say Hill three.

They have the top three and there might be a world where you give Tampa like nine of the next 10. That's fair.

But if you're going one, two, three with those three guys and you assume that Tyron Matthews is going to make a big play, Frank Clark is going to make a big play and the defense can do their own, what if you and Kelsey just go bonkers again, which they can.

They did it last time they played them.

They're not letting him go bonkers this year. Then that's one thing I know. But it was a fuckup. If they didn't learn from that, Tampa deserved to win the Super Bowl anyway. Yeah, I, I just think they're going to Belichick, the whole thing.

They're just going to like, you're not beating us three guys on them and let Sammy Watkins and Michael Harden and beat them.

Let Watkins Hardman let your mediocre running backs. Yeah. Let we're going to we're not going to let him and Kelsey beat us. So I look at these two. I looked at three games that I thought what I like the doppelganger games for how to beat this cheat scheme. It came down to these three Kansas City, thirty one, Carolina, KC, thirty three, Carolina, thirty one.

Do you remember that game though? That game was. I watched it. I watched it was a crazy game. Kansas City. Twenty seven. Tampa, twenty four. Kansas City. Twenty two. Cleveland, seventeen. Yeah. All right. So we're going to throw out the Tampa game because I think they're a different team than they were in Mahomes lit them up. I don't think Tampa's defense is the same. The Carolina game. Carolina at 31st Downs.

Yep.

McCaffrey and McCaffrey basically the only game. McCaffrey was amazing. Seventy six plays. Oh, they had nine drives. They only punted twice. Thirty eight time. Thirty eight minutes time of possession. McCaffrey was basically one hundred and fifty one yards and twenty eight touches. Teddy was thirty six for forty nine for three, ten two TDs. And what happened. Mahomes was just awesome and he throws for three seventy two for TDs and Carolina misses last second.

I think it was a sixty seven yard attempt at the end they went for it. Almost got it. Yeah. This Bucks team compared to that Carolina team and some of the same stuff, can they run the ball, can they have long drives. Will they have a quarterback that controls the clock. Can they can convert third downs. Can they make plays on third and seven, third and eight? The answer is yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Like, I'm not the first person to say this. You don't want to pump more than how many times in this game if you're in Tampa twice.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're pumping more than twice. You're in trouble. One, I would say the combo of turnovers and punts can't go more than three.

That's correct. Yeah.

So the Cleveland game. Cleveland 17, Casey 20 to Cleveland twenty one, first down 60 points, two turnovers, eight drives zero punts, eight drives. One of those drives the guy I can't this is turnover the guy.

Fulminant out of the answer, Higgins.

But they had long drives. They ran the ball, they controlled the clock, I think with a way inferior team. They rush for twenty two for one twelve.

They kept telling Kelsey's sixteen four to nineteen.

But you know, no Mahomes for the fourth quarter. I think it's if if Tampa wins this, it's a cross between that week nine Carolina game and that week eighteen Cleveland game long drives. They can't, they can't be choppy. Weird Tampa they got to make some third downs like they did against the Packers in the first half. And the difference is they can't have turnovers in the second half. That's the recipe. Let's go back to the Saints Buccaneers divisional round, remember Saints for controlling that game.

And James Cook has an all time GAF.

Chiefs don't make those gaffes. Let's go back to last week.

Rodgers is in the red zone and it's all right. We got four to four shots from the nine yard line. Incomplete on first down, incomplete on second down, third down. He doesn't run, he throws it and then they kick a field goal because they're not sure. And essentially the floor whether he would say it or not, it's like, well, we gave you three shots and you can get a yard. Well, actually, I certainly think you're going to get it from the nine yard line.

Now, the chiefs always convert those like these are little things.

But you have to remember when like when you say, well, the one reason is Mahomes.

The one reason is Mahomes is because he's that amazing. And we have never in our long history of watching him three seasons as a starter. He has never not shown up even in that Super Bowl last year, where for the first three quarters it looks like it is a game. He was ahead as good a fourth quarter Super Bowl. The demons that are hard hitting the last play is one thing, but the Watkins Pass was amazing and his elusiveness I feel like I can't in good faith go with you betting against Patrick Mahomes in a huge game.

Not until I see him lose one of these at least once in some situation other than the AFC championship game a couple of years ago, where was his first big playoff matchup with Brady? Then he heated up. He ended up pretty hard on one Chiefs run Rush Defense 31st DVOA.

It's not great. They are, according to Bill Barnwell, the worst team in the NFL at stopping opposing rushing attacks and power situations like third and shorter fourth and short temper rush. And by the week twenty nine for one. Forty two against Washington round one. Thirty five for one, twenty seven against New Orleans and then twenty four for seventy six against Green Bay. Not quite as effective in that game. Why wouldn't they be able to run the ball, control the clock against the Chiefs.

Take out Mahomes Let's talk Tampa offense versus chiefs defense. Why wouldn't they be able to have long drives and keep Mahomes off the field?

That's the old Anderson Theorem, right?

That's what the Giants oh oh seven giants. Yeah, both giants. Yeah. That was Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs that year. But it's run the ball and just keep them off the field and just convert on third down. You have to be really disciplined to do that. And the Bucs were really disciplined throughout the playoffs doing that. Are they going to be able to be disciplined enough to say third and fourth, third and sixth, third and five are OK getting those situations?

As long as we're taking time off the clock? I don't know, because in the second half last week, last time against the Packers, that wasn't the case. And Brady was throwing ducks all over the place like you him to be there. The whether physical game. Yeah, that's true. That's true. But the little past, a little dink and dunk to Jones and Fournette will be there. It always is. It's whether Brady and Aryan's are going to be disciplined enough to say, hey, if it gets this to win, we're good with it.

I don't know if this if Mahomes is coming out and scoring is that they're going to be willing to say, all right, we need to slow down the pace. We're not going to get a track, meet with them because on paper, everyone looks back to last year's Colts and Texans wins in the regular season over the Chiefs and the Colts ran the ball like forty times for one hundred and thirty eight yards. And then the Texans do the same thing.

And they said, OK, that's the blueprint. No one has been able to duplicate it in twenty attempts since. They just don't. It's hard. Even the forty Niners last year had a lead.

They tried to abandon that thing once they got into the fourth quarter. It just happens. You want to be able to put the game away and that's when you get in trouble again on paper, of course Fournette thirty five carries for one sixty five and two touchdowns and we win twenty eight to twenty one. I don't see it happening that way.

Thando betting as of Thursday a.m..

Are you getting excited for this game.

I mean I can I am Thando betting. Percent of bets on Kansas City, 67 percent, really percent of money on Kansas City, 80 percent. I don't like this at all, but she's better.

Money line bets, 40 percent. Seven percent on Casey. Fifty three percent on Tampa. And then over under. Pretty much all the money is on the over. It's like seventy three, seventy four percent. Everybody likes the chiefs, so this line is going to go to three and a half. I think by Sunday, I think they're holding off right now, you can get value, you can get Tampa on Fandor, it basically even odds you don't even have to pay a vig on it.

Beware of the looked a little too good.

The previous round team is one of our gambling manifesto rules.

The chiefs are fucking awesome last round and gets that weird buffalo thing that couldn't run the ball anymore and was missing a couple of key guys that nobody believes in as factor. It's a little bit there with Tampa. Yeah, nobody thought we could win four straight rounds. People thought Tom Brady was old. Everybody said this Mahomes is next dynasty. Well, here's the dynasty right here. It's Tom fucking Brady. Yeah. Rule number six of the manifesto. Don't pick an underdog unless you genuinely believe it can win.

I think the bucks could win rule number ten when in doubt gravitate toward the pick that would screw up the most gamblers and experts. Seems like the chiefs. And then rule number sixteen, take one last look at the quarterbacks, which situation right after this break.

Tom Brady is 43 years old. Capable of playing really well in football games against good teams for stretches, we have not seen the four quarters version of Tom Brady. Here's the case for him being good on Sunday.

It's basically two games. You have the the lead, the huge lead up. And the game starts, it's ugly, it's choppy, everybody's got too much adrenaline, and then around midway through the second quarter starts to heat up and then it stops. And we have a 40 minute Super Bowl halftime, which Brady knows. And Brady has talked about this about, you know, part of the key of playing a Super Bowl is knowing, like, just how fucked up of a game it is and how you have to peak in the second half.

I think you make a case because it's two 1/2 games.

That's actually good for Brady. It's not like I need to put together four quarters in a row, it's like first quarter is going to be first half is going to be weird. I just don't want to turn the ball over. We're going to run the ball. Be careful. I'm going to take advantage of my tall receivers of I'm not making a mistake. Second half now. It's like now I got my adrenaline going. Now I just I'm 90 minutes away from my seventh Super Bowl.

I think he locks in. I think this is the best version of Brady in this game. I actually think it's going to be way different than that Green Bay game. Your thoughts on this prediction? I think you're right. I think Brady's awesome in this game. I also think as much as it was banged over our head over the last two weeks, not enough is being made of as we lead up to this thing that it is a Buccaneers home game.

Yes, sir. It is a Buccaneers home game. And I've spoken to sources on both sides of this thing. And when I tell you that it is the Chiefs fans travel and there's going to be red in there and that's all great. There's 7500 health care workers going to be in the building from the NFL, most of them from the Tampa area.

You have all of the Tampa local folks who have access to this and are going to go because the Super Bowl comes once every 10, 15 years to Tampa Bay. And, you know, there was like a goof of a story. But I can tell you and I mean, the seriously, the Buccaneers wanted to be able to shoot those cannons like the ones that I do at the Games. And they made a big deal out of it. And the chiefs like highest up at the Chiefs were like, that's bullshit.

They're not allowed to do that. They didn't earn that like you guys get. So then for a week, there was tit for tat. Whether they can blow the cannons or not, that turns out the NFL sided with the chiefs. But like psychologically, the Bucs are leaning into that, saying they were worried about the cannons, like we might have something here. They're worried about our kids. Forget what we can like. Look, the chiefs are traveling Friday.

I love that. I love that piece of this.

Yeah, no, they travel Friday. It's like, OK, boom, we're in the Super Bowl. You don't usually have a week to get your your feeling get to work out at the stadium one day. You get to know the whole hoopla. Now you could say, look, it's just another business trip. It's not a game chiefs.

That's what it is. They're used to this. But Brady is sleeping in his bed the night before the game. I'm sorry. You say what you want when you get to sleep in your own home before a game and you get to just say, all right, I'm going to drive my own car to the stadium at three o'clock tomorrow and we're going to play in the Super Bowl. I think that is a giant advantage. And as much as we were like, oh, you know, we roll our eyes at first team ever to host a Super Bowl.

I don't think anyone's talking about it right now. And it's huge. It's huge.

I couldn't agree more. And, you know, heading out of the last break in in this one, talking about the quarterbacks.

For Brady, he knows he's already the goat, that's fine, winning the one without Belichick, I would argue he has more incentive for this one than any game he's played in since that Seattle Super Bowl. Where it was like the Pats had won a Super Bowl in 11 years, maybe it was a fluke, maybe they were never that great all along, and they win that one. And you see Brady jumping up and down after the Malcolm Butler thing.

He's never going to care about a win from the last 12 years. More about winning that game. Right. But this one, all the different legacy shit that goes in. I've just been thinking like, whatever that dude, I can't even imagine if somebody was like, hey, we figured out the hemoglobin from four year old children in the Tampa Bay area might give you a little more adrenaline braided, like put it in a fucking milkshake. I'll drink it.

Let's go. He'll literally put anything in his body that would help him win this game as long as it didn't get him suspended.

The nobody believes in us. We've never been here before. I want this more badly than I've wanted anything in my life. You go on down the line, right?

Sue never won a Super Bowl. Evans and Godwyn Gronk as a fuck you to Belichick because he clearly has issues with them. Fournette as a fuck you to the Jags, you're going down the line. They have twenty five guys, all the guys in the secondary. Devin wait David who's slogged away and all those shit behind you.

This is the greatest moment of their lives. This is like they're three hours away when they're the chiefs won last year.

There he did this, there is no way this game means as much to the bucks, to the Chiefs, says the Bucs, it might be ninety eight percent as much, but this is the single most important night of everybody's life on Tampa sideline, except for like two people, Todd Bowles, Aryan's Aryan's all the way through and they're home.

Like, I feel like that it has to be mentioned as an advantage.

The Brady effect can't be discussed enough on this team. So they're a shit team for the last decade. They never go to the playoffs, all that stuff. And I was getting texts from folks who work for the team around Augusta. And like you should see Devin White at practice. He's unbelievable because Brady's talking shit to him and Brady's getting like it's he's lifting all of them. So the story I got from this past weekend, I think Lavonte David retold it on a podcast he did with like Brian McFadden and Patrick Peterson.

Someone told me the clip because I was like talking about it after the NFC championship game.

I believe it was Jayden Mickens who returns kicks for them, was crying at his locker because he was overjoyed with the opportunity to go for the Super Bowl.

And apparently Brady walks up to him, was like, what the fuck are you crying for? And he's like he's like, we have a Super Bowl win, dude. Like this is we don't cry over NFC championship game. So this is the demand and the standard that Brady has.

And last year I remember speaking with Brady.

I did a sideline game for NFL Network and they played the bills. And I got to speak with Brady and one of those production meetings where, you know, all the announcers like we talked to Tom on Friday. Well, I talked to Tom on Friday and he was like, I don't have anything against Jacoby Myers. I have nothing against Nikil. Harry, you're asking a lot from rookie receivers to play at the standard that I demand. So when everyone sees me barking at them, it's not anger at them.

It's that it's so frustrating for me because I know the standard and we're not reaching it.

And there's nothing I can do about it except for this team. They're all so good, so hungry and they're so loving. So like Aryan's is like Brady. Take a Veterans Day off if you want. That didn't fly up there.

Arians told JP you don't have to practice at all this year. Like, just come. I got you. Just be ready on Sundays. And the other pieces, Alex Guerrero is there every single day with a Buccaneers logo on his jacket, sitting there on the field at practice, like bring whoever you want, whatever you need. Tom Brady, we're going to embrace it.

We're going to make it easy on you and we're going to be grateful for your presence. And I think he's trying to get that Favre back. Like, I want to show you that you can win and have fun at the same time. Do you see that there was a meme this week where they took a photo of him for, like the CBS special issue and he did the shrug shoulders, like having fun, like Brady shrugging and giggling before the Super Bowl.

It's a whole different deal and I think they all feed off it. But they don't want to lose this for Tom Brady. They respect him so much and I think they want to win for him, too.

He's one of the greatest and one of the most special team sports athletes of all time and also, more importantly, one of the most competitive. And him pulling this off, I think he gets it. Some guys, they can play their whole careers. They don't think about the big picture stuff. And even Brady has been on the record as what's your favorite Super Bowl, the next one, this guy.

And it really changed, I think, over the last ten years.

He's crafted his entire life to succeed in football. It's all he cares about. And I think the TV twelve thing has kind of bled into that a little bit because he's so passionate about how his lifestyle choices have led to the extended success he's had as a great football player, that he really believes in that stuff. Like it's not like it's a little time cruzi, but I think it's authentic. I think he gets this. He understands if I do this, this now I have to be mentioned with like Jordan in the league.

There's this whole other level. There's this extra room in the nightclub.

Is he the greatest ever? Is he on the outside of that nightclub right now? I don't think I don't think people yeah. I don't think people think of him on the Jordan level yet.

Jordan, Ali Federer, like, who else are we including in this with Tiger? The tiger tiger was there, and then they kind of kicked him out of the room and they moved into the next room. Federer had, you know, he's the greatest tennis player ever. On one hand. But on the other hand, like, a lot of people went toe to toe with him and beat and beat him. So he's probably on the list with Brady Bradys.

Some people have looked him in the eye and they beat them. You know, I think the difference with Jordan that nobody was able to beat him when it really mattered.

So I think with this, like, it's all going to depend if they win and how he plays, I think they're tied together. If it's like a Peyton Manning kind of Super Bowl win, where it's like he didn't do that much, but all these other good things happen. But I don't think that's what's going to happen. I think he has a lot of weapons and I think the Chiefs defense is not good. I think he's going to do a good job this weekend, so.

Let's flip it on its head, just for argument's sake, because that's what we're doing, second half Brady from Packers game. Well, no, Mahomes is coming into this game. Yeah, and what if he beats Brady? Mahomes has his whole life ahead of it.

It's going to go down. Is like the best quarterback ever. Does this not does this not put a stake early on and say, OK, I've already beaten him so they can't hold that against me?

Like, if you want to think real long term, say Mahomes is there for ten more years and he's got plans of winning all these Super Bowls, I'd be Brady, don't bring Brady's name up.

It's as if Brady beat Montana straight up like right to me, this is Mahomes at twenty five saying here's my second.

And I've already beaten Brady at twenty five in the third year of my career. I wish there third year starting.

Well that's why this is such an awesome game. It's amazing. All right. Well. I think I'm going to take the bucks plus three and here's why you can go to sleep Saturday night knowing your flawless record million dollar picks, the whole deal. Yeah, and you're going to say, OK, I've watched Mahomes and Kelce the all these playoffs. I'm going against them.

Yes, for two reasons. Specifically. One is that. I think either team can win this game and I'm getting the three points in, my goal is to cover the spread and I get Tampa plus three. And I think this is going to be a close game that I think Tampa Bay is actually going to win. But if they don't win, I still think it's going to be close. I don't see a scenario where the chiefs, you know, blow them out or anything like that.

I think Tampa has too much talent.

That's one piece. The other piece is all the stuff we talked about, the incentives, the fact that they're home, the fact that I think they're playing really well. And then I just think they I think they match up really nicely with this Chiefs team. I think they will be able to run the ball on them. I think their top receiver is going to be able to make plays. I think Brady will be meticulous about not making mistakes. He will feel less pressure than anybody in this situation who's ever been in this situation because he's this is fucking 10 Super Bowl.

And I don't know, I keep coming back to that Cleveland game. Even before the Mahomes injury, Cleveland was kind of going toe to toe with Kansas City there. And they could move the ball and they could do things and they could get a little pressure.

And I was pretty telling. I don't know how good this chief's team is, I guess they were down 19 to three before Mahomes got hurt, but they came back, though, with any. But that was what was it at that point, like 1911? Yeah, but the guy fumbled it out of the end zone.

I don't know, they had drives in that game, you know, and they didn't even go to Kareem Hunt in the beginning. For some reason, they were like avoiding they ran the ball. They were like almost six yards a carry with which urban hunt. So the Kansas City defense does, though. OK, I've got thirty two Matthew, who is always there. And then they got this thirty eight Snead who makes a play every game.

He's a rookie fourth round pick Jerry Snead like he will make a play in the Super Bowl and you're going to be like he is good.

Now that guy I'll give you that one there. Opportune they can be run on shore and Bill Barnwell can do the analytics and we can I mean, it's all there. And the football outsiders guys can give you their ranks. When the chiefs defense needs to make a stop or needs to make a play, they do it time and time again. And it's like bend, but don't break with them. And they don't give up the big play. They haven't since technolog out there.

I'm going to go through some props. You're going bucks. I think I'm going bucks. You're so disappointed.

We disagreed on a couple other this. I'm not. I like it. We should disagree. The all of these picks are based on my theory that the Bucs are going to win this game. OK, Devin, wait fifty to one for MVP and GPP 80 to one. I wouldn't bet those. I just wanted to flag them. Could this be. Could this be one where everybody on Tampa's offense, it's kind of amorphous. There's no break out guy.

And it actually goes to JP because they had three sacks.

Yeah, I would do the JP over Devin because I think he's going to get to the quarterback, I would think with the Devon White one pick six or something. Yeah.

He shuts down Kelsey, he gets a pick six. He has a strip sack. Yeah. That's that terrible. Two defensive players.

Why is he not like the most fun player to watch in football, but isn't that a good guy to throw on, Travis, Kelsey. Like somebody who actually athletically could hang with him and and, you know, dismantle a little bit?

Yeah, he could definitely run him down. So CADAVID they're both two of the fastest linebackers in the sport. Play out playoff lineas. Thirty to one for MVP, potentially props six and a half punts seems high. High under, that's what I was thinking. All right, remarked that Diane Brady plus to 90, I'm sorry, Brady is over under four passing yards is to ninety six and a half. That seems really high to me. Especially if if my thesis is going to be the Bucs are going to win this game.

They're going to have to win the game by they have nine drives. They control the clock, they have thirty seven minute time of possession, a little like that. So I don't see him throwing three hundred in that four nets over under forty eight and a half. Tyreke is ninety four and a half. Kelsey's ninety eight if you want to do Kelsey. One hundred and ten plus do a little alternate prop on Fandor plus one forty two.

I mean every game it's one to every game unless he gets hurt he's getting a get in and someone brought this up to me today from another team guy got texted text me like you know what I'd like because their offensive line don't be shocked if Kelsey's using the blocker a lot.

I'm like no no, no, they're not using. Yeah.

Is he will have to do it. Not happening. Gronk is thirty one and a half and Brate is thirty and a half yards. Yeah. Four receiving yards. Kind of like the brate one a little bit, just because it does feel like Brady likes Brait, he finds him in weird spots, but I like it more for a touchdown prop.

It seems like that's like that's like three catches that tough.

How about J-P gets one sack plus 140?

I think JP has a huge debt. I think he might have two or three sacks, OK. Casey, total penalty yards. Thirty nine and a half. That's two holding calls, a pass interference and offsides and illegal man down field.

What were we talking about with Cousin Sal on Monday, though? Like, you don't want to bet you don't want to bet on penalty yards.

I'm just throwing it out there. We don't bet on it. Is it's actually an interesting point, though. Let me if if the strategy is to rush Mahomes, I think we'll know very early. The ref is Carl Jeffers, who is pretty. He throws flags, like if Mahomes takes an early hit from JDP, who's going to be on 11, or Devin White, who plays at this crazy speed. And they go a little hot in it, do they?

Is there a Jordan Rules deal where Brady or Mahomes are out there drawing flags and it's 15 yards here. There for late. It's an unsportsmanlike.

I have I have to bet for you roughing the passer. Just one plus one fifty five. I like it.

I thought this one of my favorite ones. I'm going to mark that one down because you figure Brady Mahomes. They're always going to air in the side of caution with both guys, right?

Absolutely. Will there be a missed field goal in the game? Yes.

Plus one twenty five. Yes, feels like the Bucker thing is almost preordained, he hit it from fifty eight right there, like something weird will happen this. Yes, plus two thirty. Speaking of Bucker, a buck kermesse Patty is yes. Plus 470.

What's amazing is that for years the Buccaneers had such kicking issues with Aguayo and all their guys. Yeah. And now they're the team with the reliable kicker of suck up.

There's some Fournette stuff that I'm intrigued by because it goes along with my theory that. If the Bucs win or come close to winning, part of that would be because he played well. Seven is not an incredible story, though, like they ended up going one in 15 and they cut them because they're like, we don't have room for you on the roster. It's annoying.

It happens in basketball. Sometimes we're like the buyout guys all of a sudden playing crunch time. You're like, what the fuck?

How I get this guy just grabbed them up fournette 70 plus yards as opposed to 65, 80 plus yards plus three, 70, 90 plus yards plus five fifty one hundred plus yards plus 750. How much do you think they're doing.

I mean that's your strategy. If you believe in it, go with 100. 70, 70 or 80, 70 seems realistic, right? Sixty five. The mark, that one down. All right, Fanjul, the same game parleys, I think they're very enjoyable to read you a couple. Let's do it. Scotty Miller scores and the Bucks win plus seven 29. This guy, Tim Miller, followed by everybody in America making jokes about how Brady only throws the white guys, so you get that as part of the Parlato.

Oh, of course, Scottie Miller is going to throw it to him. This one I like a little more. Tyler Johnson scores a touchdown, Bucs win plus thirteen twenty nine. Have you noticed Tyler Johnson's always lurking in big situations are the towns on 3rd.

I'm going to mark that one down just just as Byron Pringle prop it.

I know he's having a game. Oh, you like Byron Pringle. I can find that for you. Something Brady scores a touchdown.

Bucs winners plus seven seven seven. The only reason I mention that is because that seems like good luck. Seven seven seven.

And it's a seventh ring. And he's never scored a rushing TD in the Super Bowl.

I could see the Brady one yard rush over the top. Sure. Nine games, zero rushing touchdowns in the Super Bowl. So that would have to be there's only one scenario.

How about Brady snatching a pass? Is that one of them?

I did not find that one. Gronk scores. Bucs win is five to one. I can see Gronk scoring. Fournette 60 plus yards Bucs win plus three or three, if you're going by your strategy, that's absolutely it's a no brainer Fournette 90 plus yards rushing Bucs win plus eight forty six.

Well what do you like. What do you like more. 60 or 90. What's more likely. I like the 60. I could see him going like. Seventeen for sixty eight, something like that, because I do feel like they're going to use Ronald Jones a little bit for net scores, the first two days of the game Bucs win is plus 16 12. Tampa scores a defensive and special teams touchdown, Tampa wins. Those two things have to happen.

Plus 11, 20 to. Pick six. I mean, return and be monsters special teams. Well, I'm your guy who's going to do it for Tampa. Who's the guy? Is it white?

Devin White. Jump in the Kelsi pass reading it.

See the strip sack the japes strip sack picked up by CEU rumbling just a bit of air just blocking the secondary dude or the pass that's a little behind Michael Hardeman bounces up in the air and the safety takes it down the sideline. I kind of like that one Carl can Davis pick six.

All right, go for it. And here's my favorite prop. This is a three team, same game parlay Brady under to ninety six point five, passing Fournette over 80 yards, rushing Bucs win.

Plus nine ninety eight, almost 10 to one odds. It's a great bet if if you're if the bucks win, I feel like both of those other two things happen. OK, so can you throw on the defensive touchdown and make it a four team parlay on that one? Oh, yeah, let's let's do that and I'm going to get you I'm going to get you to the Pringle odds. We're going to take a break and come back, and we're going to do the controversial dollar picks for the Super Bowl.

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Schrager asked me to look up. Pringle scores the touchdown Chiefs win plus five seventy seven, it's a great Pringle scoring a touchdown in the Super Bowl. The one sure thing. I love the Pringle case really quick. I love Pringle.

He was the one who caught the cool's pass last year for Mahomes against the Colts and then this year Against the Bills made about three big plays. If they love them, they're in Kansas City. I can see Andy concocting a way to get number fourteen by thirteen. Thirteen, Byron Pringle touchdown in this one.

All right, it's time. And look, we don't always agree when the good luck charm Peter Cheggers Million Millionaire picks, but that's part of the fun of this. We talk it out. Maybe we don't land in the same place, but I use him as my sounding board. He makes me think about things, maybe back off a couple of things, whatever. To recap, we are a three point two seven one million for the playoffs. We are up two point three three nine million for the season, seven and eight in the playoffs.

The big playoff bets, nine and three against spread. We have picked all 12 winners of the actual games. First bet. Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars on Tampa Bay, plus three, even odds go for a in Tampa. They win, they lose by three. I push, they lose by two or one. I win second one. We're going to bet. One hundred and seventy to one odds that the final score of the game will be Tampa Bay 30, Kansas City twenty three.

I like it. That's the exact score Tampa scored three touchdowns to get three field goals, they punt twice, Casey, they either two touchdowns, three field goals or three touchdowns and missed extra point in a field goal. Sure. Or needed twenty three. There we go. Prop bets. We're going to bet. Twenty five k six and a half punts under minus 110.

We're going to bet twenty five K on a J-P sack plus 140. We're going to about twenty five k that there will be a rough in the PA. Yes I said plus one fifty five Checker's has to keep them in line. We're going to get that 10k.

Tyler Johnson scores Buck's win plus one thirty three. We're going to bet another 15 k oh Brady scores Bucs win plus seven seven seven. I love it, I mean, it's in this has to be around or they throw they maybe they go Philly special to Brady.

That's the one thing he has on his wall. He hasn't done. Let's go.

We're going to do. Do 50 k unfortunate, 60 plus rushing yards, Bucs win plus three or three.

10K on Tampa scores a defensive or special teams touchdown Bucs win. That's plus 11. And we know the guy, we know it's Devin White, we know it. We know the guy. And then. When to 50 K? On this parlay at plus 1998, Brady under two hundred ninety six point five, passing yards for 80 plus yards, Bucs win plus nine ninety eight. If that hits, that's an extra five hundred K, it's great. And then just because it's the Super Bowl, we're going to bet on the Thunder as well.

OK, we're going to put 50 K on the under fifty five point five, which is minus one of five. OK, and that's all we have.

Except what about my man Pringle? Are we getting Cringle in there now? Pringle's your bet. I'm not doing any Cheves bets. I don't want to root for one sheafs thing.

You ever been in Vegas and your friend like you're hot at the roulette table in friends? I just put it on sticks like no, no, it's my money, OK? I thought I was, you know, let me throw it in there.

And then last one. Just because you're pushing so hard for Pringle, we're going to put twenty K on Pringle plus three forty that he scores a touchdown in this game.

Your great friend. Thank you. And that's it. Those are the million dollar picks for the Super Bowl. We'll see how we do. I guess we had one big bet. So we need Tampa plus three to win, and that will be Google eight now and playoff big bets if that hits, plus all the other ones. We'll see how we do. I don't mind that we went against each other. I thought it was a healthy it's a sign of a healthy marriage.

It's great. There was some discourse back and forth. You made some points. I made some points.

If only politics can be so like this, this was great.

If only politics and real marriage could be like this. Trust me. Yes. Yes. Peter Schrager, enjoy Super Bowl weekend. Thanks for being a million dollar pics, as always.

Thank you. This is a great ride. Good luck to your Tom Brady led the Buccaneers, by the way. You know, Tom Brady's favorite Super Bowl is the next one. Let's go, Tom Brady, one more time. Your day bets.

Thanks, Peter Schrager. All right, we're taping this on a Thursday, Super Bowl is a couple of days away. Casey Affleck is here is a new movie coming out, which we'll talk about in a second. But most important question for anybody who grew up in New England, in Massachusetts, are you rooting for Tom Brady?

OK. Do you have a history with Tom Brady? I have, yeah, I've got a long, long love affair with Tom Brady, but I don't think he knows about it. Just it's one sided. I mean, no one has done more for four New England sports, I'd say. I mean, some people have, Larry, and, you know, a few others. Russell Yeah.

He's in there is. In the top four. Yeah, probably. I mean, he saved the Patriots. You grew up you grew up in Massachusetts. The Patriots are the black sheep.

Yeah, I was very young. I mean, Tom's been playing since the early 70s. So I was I mostly remember winning.

We watched the Malcolm Butler Super Bowl in the same room at Kimmel's house. I brought Kornheiser there. Your brother was there with Matt Damon. The Patriots had hit a point where it seemed like those three Super Bowls that they had, one were a mirage. And now we're back to being the bad luck. Patrick Tyree, catch all these things. It's like, oh, we're just going to come close to get kicked in the nuts. And and then all of sudden things flipped and it was complete chaos.

And we won three more Super Bowls. There you go. Yeah, there you go.

And that was that was those were good times. And the Sox were winning. Patriots can be Pete. Wow. Great, great. My kids are two kids born in 04 and 07. I mean, everything was just clicking. I had my my wife was pregnant during the 04 World Series, so we called my daughter the Miracle Fetus, and then my son, she was pregnant with him, the seven World Series. So then I was thinking like.

Should I just keep having children, the Red Sox will keep winning the World Series, but then they went to MA anyway. I stopped at two, but it just kind of kept going and going.

You did?

What was that, S.A. when you did you did the Dunkin Donuts, the fake donuts phone with I mean, it was like the perfect use because I always feel like you and your brother and Matt Damon, three of the best dialing it up, Massachusetts accents ever. I was glad they took advantage of that. The sketch.

That was really fun. I wasn't I wasn't very good at SNL. I was the first time I'd done it. And I just I just I haven't been in a lot of comedies either. I don't know. They just sort of let me do it. And I remember thinking, like, I don't think I'm really killing it here, but then doing that skit that was a prerecorded one and I sort of felt like, oh, I can do this.

It was more like working on a movie or something, you know, 15 different ways and start over. And that was a lot of fun, you know, going backwards to when you were in Good Will hunting, because I remember I love that movie and I was watching the director's commentary.

And I think your brother was one of the people on the commentary, but he was talking about you're basically adlibbing all the shit during the movie.

So that's not that much different than SNL, right.

Well, you know what, SNL, man? You have to stick to the cue cards a little bit. I mean, I a few times I would I would I would misspeak or say something different or whatever, but mostly you got to stay with the program. But then when you do those pre-recorded things, those little short films that they make and you can do whatever you want. Yeah. Now that was a lot, especially with that character. That was a lot like goodwill.

I don't know why I ended up saying making up my own lines in that movie. I think I mostly just felt like they had written all they had written themselves all the good lines. And I was like, well, fuck you. I'll just do what I want then. Yeah, there was one I remember I only saw this once, but I remember there was a scene with you in the baseball glove and Ben was explaining how they had no idea you were going to do that.

And they're trying not to not to make each other laugh and see. And and that scene was the one that they kept in the movie, I think, right?

Yes. I was a long time ago. I can't really remember. But I think that was in the movie. And at a certain point, if you're hanging out with your friends and you're making a movie, if you're lucky enough to do that, you know, you've got 15 hour days. There's a lot of downtime pretty soon that things just devolved into trying to make each other laugh just to entertain one another. And Gus Van Sant, the director, likes that kind of thing.

So nobody was cracking the whip on us and saying, like, get back to the script, which is true then. So we spent a lot of time, you know, just kind of horsing around.

Well, going backwards, I think you did this whatever that that was at the AFI. I think that. At onr, Matt Damon, and you told the whole story, he told the whole thing about how him and Ben just used to torture you because you were literally the younger brother and you were just you were just tortured by those guys for years and years and years.

I don't remember telling that story, but I do remember thinking like that was in a show to give Matt a lifetime achievement award and he was probably like forty three at the time or something. I'm not taking this seriously. Yeah, I think I had a few photographs put up and doctored behind me on the thing just to make him look bad. And so, and so I just said whenever I could try to embarrass and I don't remember saying that they tortured me.

You know, there are pretty good, although the first time I ever met Matt was so the story. We took the same bus to school. I was in second grade and I had a girlfriend named Kamala and her older sister was a girl named Kufi. And she was in like seventh grade with Matt. I didn't know who Matt was. I was much younger kid, but we waited on the same corner and we got on the same bus because this girl who I really liked was sitting next.

You know, she wanted to sit with her sister. So she went to show it to their sister so that I would go sit with her, which ordinarily someone at my age would not have been allowed in the back of the bus to sit with the older kids. And at the time, I was really into karate. Yeah, I was going to Fred Vallauri School of Defense. So I was like a yellow belt or something, you know, eight, nine years old or something.

And so I was wearing my guys to school, which I thought was pretty cool. And and I sat down there on this summer's school bus and the back there and Matt said, Oh, so you're a yellow belt. So and he said, I'm a black belt in street fighting. And that was not a black belt street math. Ever been in the street fight, as I know. So that's one of the one of my favorite stories about him.

And he's I might have told that story if I but I don't think that was as close as he ever got to. Torturing me is he's a pretty gentle, sweet guy. It's crazy that you've known him for that long because you make it you make good will hunting and obviously grew up with Ben.

And then you've known Matt since you're second grade and then somehow Carl Houser gets pulled in as the fourth guy and just tries to fit it because he knew those guys from Dazed and Confused or school ties, one of those movies and and just kind of gets pulled in as the 44th honorary person, right?

Yeah.

And he was a little intimidated about doing a Boston accent, which isn't that hard to learn. And he could have done it. But I think he just thought, like, everybody here is like really, really is from Boston. And so he just he had a bunch of lines in the movie, but he kept either giving them away or he would just say, like, I think my character is drunk in the scene, kind of learn his words or put his head down on the table.

I ended up not saying anything. It was effective. I was living in Charlestown. When you guys are making that movie. When Damon was on the podcast, I told the story. I thought, again, they had an improper Bostonian cover story about local kids making a movie.

And and I remember reading and I was like, oh, the guy from school ties all the o'bannion from Dazed and Confused, like. And it was like, just say, I hope that I hope that makes it. And then, you know, a year later, a year and a half later became what it became. And, you know, I can't imagine you were expecting anything close to that where you filmed that mostly in Southie. Right. Yeah, we filmed it mostly in South and am I?

Yeah, we did a little bit in Toronto. They forced they forced the production to shoot some of the interiors in Toronto. I had done the first thing I ever did was called Todai for which was. Yeah, how how we met Gus Van Sant. That was also set in New England. And it was a true story about that teacher who had a relationship with a student and persuaded her student to kill her husband. And I knew Gus from that.

And we we stayed pretty good friends were still very good friends. And so he called me up when I was I'd gone back to school after I did that movie and I was in school and he called and he said, hey, I read this script. I haven't finished it yet, but I read it. It's by these two guys. This is been your brother. And I said, Yeah, yeah, he's my brother. You should finish the script, you know, and he liked it.

And then he ended up doing it. So I it's I knew that, you know, Gus was a great director and I knew that he was just going to do a good job. So I didn't think like that. I had Robin Williams in it as well. Yeah. So there is some sense that it was going to be a good movie. But yeah, I didn't think that it would be I don't think anyone imagined it would be so popular to die for was a weirdly crucial Nicole Kidman movie because it was really well received.

And it's a good movie and I think it has some legs, but I think that was the movie. After that she became like an A plus or a star. Before that, she was like a movie star who's married to Tom Cruise. But I don't it seemed like her career was different after that. And that was a really cool movie, too, is like black comedy, a little bit different. But now I think that's the kind of movie a lot of people have tried to rip off over the last twenty five years.

Yeah, that's true, Gus.

Just one since one of those directors where people steal and kill, you'll do these movies. They're sort of considered like people like them a lot, but sometimes they're considered too already or something, and then everyone steals it. And Nicole had done dead calm, which was a pretty cool movie, and she was fantastic. And it's true. She was sort of in Tom's shadow just because they were married, which wasn't really fair. And she wanted that part very badly.

I think some that Meg Ryan or someone was going to do it and then and then just ended up casting Nicole Kidman. She was fantastic. I mean, then she went on to be you know, she had long, great career. Yeah. That was just incredible. It's funny. They showed in all that SNL that she hosted because sometimes they'll show the old ones on at ten o'clock at night, you know, pop up on the DVR. And it's one that she hosted in ninety three Stone Temple Pilots was the musical bent.

And her monologue, the whole monologue was about people in the audience asking where Tom Cruise was.

And it's just like, hey, that's great, but where's Tom Cruise? And so you think, like, I think to die for after that, it probably flipped when when Ben and Matt were were.

Living in L.A. and writing good, what you must have gone to visit them a couple of times, right? What were you doing?

You know, after high school, I was still 17. And I mean, a friend of mine drove out to L.A.. Yeah. You know, I wanted to be actors. I didn't know anything about. I didn't have an agent and just kind of came out here. My brother was in school out here. I knew a couple other people living out here and I spent the whole year auditioning. I didn't get anything. And then at the end of the year, I got that movie tonight for sure that I just thought, you know, that wasn't a lot of fun being in L.A. auditioning.

So let me I'll just go back to college and, you know, go do other stuff. And they moved. So I was living in Massachusetts. Those are some of those guys, me and some other friends, including those, too. We all lived together. And a city called Somerville, Massachusetts. Yeah, yeah. And that's when they were they were working on it and they were trying to get it made. So, yeah, I was around and.

Wait, hold on. Where, where in Somerville.

I got to know we lived in Davis Square. I would have been of my guess, like one of those big old school houses that were kind of semi broken down, but the plumbing still worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mostly it still works, mostly every two, but the public goes goes haywire.

So when when Ben when that whole thing took off and those guys became like massive, massive celebrities. And you're watching it from the side, did it make you want to be famous or did it not want you to not make you not want to be famous? Not at all. Yeah. I mean, you know, you can't complain. Those guys should never complain about, you know, anyone who has that. You know, if you don't want that, you can quit.

And pretty quickly, people forget about you. Yeah, but it isn't always fun. And from, you know, being next to it, I could see, like, I don't want this. I think they like it more. They wanted that more. We're less bothered by the kind of invasions of privacy. They didn't see it in mind, you know, so but it didn't you know, I was young enough to see sort of other people go through it early on to see sort of like what was good about it, which was that it creates opportunities.

You want to be an actor, you know, you get famous will then you get to work with a lot of great people. And there's also downsides, too, you know, but for whatever reason, it wasn't something that I was craving it.

Because with your career, you if you even if you go and look at like your IMDB, you just disappear for like two years and then you'll come back and and then all of a in there will be the you know, like you look at all sudden, you're not the Ocean's Eleven movies. And then and then in 07, you do the the assassination of Jesse James in Gone Baby, gone in the same year. And then you don't do anything for three more years after that.

But I think the 07 thing, it's funny that the Jesse James has really has legs. I think that's now considered one of the best movies of that decade.

I a lot of people and I don't know if that was the case when it came out, I think it was respected. You know, you obviously did well. You got nominated for it. But I don't think that was the consensus coming out of 07. Like, oh, that's going to be one of the decade's movies. Now, it seems like that's a consensus.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's it's funny how that happens. A movie was kind of a bomb. Warner Brothers, you know, they had really good people that running Warner Brothers at the time. And but they just couldn't fit that into what the studio was. It wasn't a part of like it wasn't like other movies that they kind of marketing. So it was a tough one and didn't do well. And but it has now since become it also is a Western.

So people you know, some people like Westerns, some people really love them. A lot of people just aren't interested at all. So it was hard to market. And also Brad Pitt dies, you know, two thirds of the way through or something like that. And so it was kind of like a lot of people that were going there see a Brad Pitt movie, and then I kill them and they're like, why are we still watching? You're like, it's in the fucking title.

Would you think he he's going to live at the end?

It didn't do well. It has become recognized. You know, Andrew Dominic had made a movie called Chocker before that. He has a movie about Marilyn Monroe coming out isn't out yet, but I've seen it and it's unbelievable. It's just great. So he's incredibly talented guy and he works on these movies. He doesn't just crank him out. He stays with it for two years, editing and refining it. And I think they get to a point where they are just the kind of thing that pops immediately.

But then people, they learn over time that it's they're great. It's an amazing movie. And it's I I'm still I still have cable and DirecTV.

I'm I'm old, but, you know, so that's why we have a podcast called The Watchbox. There's a lot of times just flipping channels like, oh, this movie, I'll jump in, and it didn't seem like that would be a very watchable movie, but I feel like it is because it's so different and there's also like a million fucking people in it. It's you know, it's a it's just like every actor.

Oh, that guy. Oh, hey. Whoa. And it just kind of keeps going and going when you like it. When when you're working with your brother. Were you was that something you wanted to do? Were you nervous about it?

You know, your big brother is directing you like what were the what were the things that concerned you heading into that? I wasn't too concerned, I mean, at the time he hadn't made anything, and so no one really thought that he was going to make a good director because usually, for whatever reason, people tend to like doubt instead of believe that. Right?

Well, people have kind of written a people kind of written them off, too, because he had a couple of bad movies.

Then I got Affleck is out. Yeah, that's true. And I think that's why he wanted to direct it, because he was having a hard time. Maybe, you know, people have all kinds of ups and downs in their career. And he was he was not a good to run as an actor. But I knew that he was like a really smart guy and had good taste. And so I had already done Jesse James. In fact, I was shooting in Canada and he came up to the set to visit and he said, hey, do you want to do this movie?

And I think that, you know, he probably had I not had just gotten the lead in like a Warner Brothers movie. He wouldn't have been able to get it made with me. So I think he kind of thought like, oh, shoot, maybe you can get my movie made. And so then he put me in it and I wasn't concerned. But we did we did fight a lot. But just in the way that brothers do, you know, sometimes you work with a director, you know, it's a pretty it's a pretty charged relationship and you can fight a lot.

And you and I usually end up like, you know, really having a good, close, strong bond with the director. But but but in the middle there, while it's happening, it can be it can be difficult. But you just met the person a few months ago, so you're not really going to just, like, start yelling at each other. You know, you want you're still trying to get along. Yeah. And, you know, we've known each other forever.

We were very comfortable fighting. So so we were just sort of as soon as we started disagreeing, but the smallest things there just turned into a big fight. And I looking looking back, I think people thought, like, these guys really aren't getting along here. But that's just how we relate.

You know, I guess I knew him a little bit back then when he was making that. And one of the things he told me that made me think the movie was going to work was he was fanatical about using real Boston people as like the extras and the little side pieces and stuff like that. He had the same thing that always drove me crazy about Boston movies, where they sometimes didn't seem authentic enough. But I think certain cities are like this.

I think Philly's like this. There's there's maybe Chicago is like this a little bit. If you're going to set the movie in there and really route it with the real people, the people who are going to, like, live and die there and have the kids that then grew up there and they live and die there and then they have kids.

I have to feel like those are the real people. And I think one of the smartest things he did with that and the town was to cast real people that seem like they were from Boston because they were, you know, and that's one of the reasons I really like the movie.

I don't know why people who make movies in Boston more than in other places, they really like to do that. I guess that they feel like there's a there's a strong sort of like a sense of place. There's still another way in other places have been more homogenized by whatever culture, whatever it is. And but in Boston, there's still a sense of like, oh, this is in Boston. These people still have accents and they still just don't like what it means to be someone who lives there.

That is changing. But it's just it's like the city has been gentrified so much over the past twenty years. But all other movies, you know what I didn't when we did Manchester by the Sea, they can he did the same thing. He just he gets a lot of people there. He also mixed in a lot of, like theater actors and stuff because he comes out of the world and they blended in perfectly, you know. Right. There are people like, wow, Kenny, where'd you find this person is like she was on Broadway last year.

I'm amazed. She seems like she's been living in Leon for thirty five years. Yeah. So you know that I've thought a lot about why so many movies are in Boston. I think it's a couple of things. I think it's the accent, the fact that the downtown it's you have these identifiable pieces. I think for the viewer who's not even there, there's just things they know, like they get water. Oh, there's water around the city.

They know, oh, there's Fenway Park and the Citgo sign. Oh, there's like the big park like it. It's kind of condensed in the right way for a movie. And then you got the little side pocket towns where it's, like you said, a movie in Philly. I think it would be probably I like I don't have in my head what Philly is, you know, so I wonder if that's a piece of it. But I also think, like, just a lot of people came to Hollywood or have some sort of weird Boston tie, which I don't I don't really understand them.

A lot of people from I don't know. So. Yeah, because it's, you know, far. Yes. How do they get here? It's a lot of people from Massachusetts working. Mindy Kaling. Yes. I mean, the list Errol Morris, I don't know. For some reason, it just goes on and on and on and has for a while. But more recently, it might be because there's been a big tax incentive. They want movies and TV to shoot messages so they get a big break on the taxes.

So that means that there's tons of production. They go there, they end up hiring local. Those people get a few breaks and then they're like, hey, I'll go give it a shot in Hollywood, you know, they go out. So then there's a lot of people out here or we're just like super, super talented. I don't know. Right. One or the other.

Or maybe the cold weather and the and the the all the tough sports losses, maybe push people toward being more creative as to what outlet.

Well, I'm talking way back now. Maybe the next generation is so much happier with sports. Maybe that's maybe it's going to die away. People will be less creative. Well, you know, one thing is when I go home, I find a lot of those people just there are people that mostly it's people who have just moved there, you know, like Cambridge up from just didn't used to be all young urban professionals. It was people who had been there for many generations.

And just in my lifetime that's changed completely. That's a bit of a bummer. I know that life is change, but it is still I wish that when I was there playing at the park and the kids and stuff, I was seeing like the kids, people who I knew grew up there with just not that way anymore. So yeah, yeah. I lived in Charlestown for like ten years. In the grocery store downtown was Johnny's food master.

He's grandma.

I went back there like a year ago and it was now Whole Foods. And I was like, oh, there you go. So long, so long, Johnny.

Not nothing against Whole Foods. I just thought it was kind of telling that, you know.

Well, Chinese food master, you're holding up the seventy five percent ground beef, like kind of said if it talks back to you, you mentioned Manchester by the Sea, which you won an Oscar for which I think most people know that movie is incredible.

It's also grueling in a way that I would say only a handful of movies I've seen in my life like that scene with you on The Hill with Michelle Williams.

It's one of the toughest four minutes I think I've ever spent in a movie theater, you know, and and somehow and we'll get to the movie you have coming out now, which also has some really tough moments. But like what?

After you finished filming a movie like that, what happens to you? Like mentally and physically? Because I got to imagine doing the same takes over and over again was something that that serious and profound and whatever, like that's just kind of take something out of you.

The whole movie took something out of me for sure it was, you know, sometimes you go and you do a movie and you just, you know, you give it your best shot, but it's it's just not that taxing. And whenever I've talked about sort of movies being hard, I just hate I hate that. I hate the way I sound. I just it it's something about it just sounds like I work too many other jobs. You sit here and say that acting is a hard job.

I mean, it's it's they've been I've been done a lot of stuff that is actually hard, but that was hard. And, you know, it's just something that shouldn't be talked about because it just sounds so lame. But it was the thing about that scene on the Hill with Michelle Williams so good and all the other scenes in there, you know, like, I don't know, every scene in that movie was that Kenny Lonergan wrote such a good script.

It just did it did a lot of the work for us. And he's also such a just like, bizarrely brilliant guy about people's behavior and about storytelling and that he's just a master at it. And so those those are the movies that he writes and directs. They just work really well. He really touches really moves people. I just don't want to take any credit for it. It's just not it was just something that when I read the script, I cried and so did everybody else.

And the same thing happened when you saw the movie. And there were a lot of really good actors in it, Kyle Chandler and Michelle Williams, all these people. And they're all great. But I you know, all the credit has to be to to continue who's just a genius. And, you know, I was listening to Will Ferrell was on your show. I can't remember what it was, but I listened to him and he was talking about how was thinking in the future, people will watch.

You know, he wondered whether or not people would watch movies or they would just watch their favorite scenes, like on YouTube or something. You know, like people just go in and sort of watch, like they'll return. So, you know, they've seen the movie once and they'll just like, look up their favorite scene on YouTube and watch that again and enjoy it. And they will they will sit and watch movies over and over. And I was thinking, how are you?

Don't have any scenes like that. My whole career, like I when I go to three, like sometimes you go to a talk show and they want to show one clip of a movie done. I've never been in that position and had the clip really good. And I always wondered, like, why does my any time I'm in a movie or something, the the you can't find one scene on its own. That's very good. Some of those movies have been really good, you know, but Will Ferrell, every single one of his scenes is great, like, have you seen the scene?

It's great. It's going to be funny. You can show it and watch it for two minutes and you'll laugh. You know, I just don't have any of those whether.

Well, you have you have dramatic versions of those you don't have, like the hilarious versions of this.

I, I definitely don't have the various versions of those. And I'm not sure that the sometimes I watch a few scenes sort of out of context and movies. I just think like, well, that's not that interesting, just never that impressive, except the one time in my whole career was the one scene I did with Will Ferrell, which is like you can watch that scene out of context and it works. So I you know, I think that like movies like Manchester and scenes like that scene in the show, even those in the way that can tell stories, it's hard to lift one thing out.

There's something else going on that he's doing that is sort of carrying the audience with them. And and and that's why that movie ends up being so devastating, is because it's it sort of moves you in a way that's totally unexpected. And it's it's done like magic by Loneragan.

Well, and then you also have Damons, the guy who wants to make it and he can't make it get and gives you this part and produces it instead. This guy you've known since you were in the second grade and what was I remember when he came on and we talked about it, there was no like, fuck, that should have been me or any of that stuff. He was like, literally so happy that the movie worked out and that you were great in that.

And he's had his own, like, incredible success. And it really did seem genuine. You know, where I wonder, like some people, like deep down, like, fuck, that part was awesome. I wish I wish that had been me, but I didn't feel like he was like that at all. And values genuinely happy for you. Yeah, I think he probably was. He's had a lot of success. I don't think he's.

Yeah, he's doing fine. Matt Damon, isn't that good. What do you think. That director's a genius. I've asked this question a couple of times on podcasts to actors because he strikes me as a particular. There's he's a one of one. He's like a unicorn. I don't feel like there's anybody else like him.

There's some statistic about people, directors. Ninety eight percent of directors or ninety percent or something. I don't know what it is. Make one movie and then there's like, you know, the rest make or make more than that. And it's because most people, they go and make a movie, then they it's no good, you know, it just turns like it's easy to, you know, the skills that it takes to get a job. As a director are sitting in a room and sort of getting people excited, persuading them that what you're going to do is good.

That's a whole different skill set than actually being good as a director, you know, and he is someone who has that second skill set. You really, you know, in a way that other people don't. He hasn't made anything bad talking with Kenny Lonergan. He's made three movies and they're all amazing. So people should just throw money at them. You know, if the industry got together and thought, like, how do we want to save the movie industry?

Let's just give all the resources to the people that make the best stuff that really reaches people who'd be at the top of the list. You know, he's expanding a thousand. So, yeah, I think he's a genius.

It's because I remember the the rough hello Laura Linney movie, which I think is one of the best movies that I know.

I have now said this twice about two different movies, but I love that movie.

I really do. I think that's that movie just shouldn't have been as good as it was for how kind of simple was. But it's not simple, which is why it's such a cool movie. So I was always following him after that. And then he made that in a Pachon movie that they argued about the length. And I don't think they even really settled it. And you can buy the one director's cut on Amazon versus the one that shows on cable.

But that movie is that movie will reappear every once in a while. And that movie is also really fascinating. And that was like, what, five years before Manchester. So my point is, I'm glad I'm glad it worked out in a big way for him because you could see the town. I wonder, though, I would love to see what his version of like an eight episode TV series is, because a lot of his stuff is long anyway with a lot of different characters.

That's what that's what I would love to see somebody throw money at him with, you know, be great.

But just here's some money. Make give us a like almost like with David Kelly when he does the big little lies type things, it's like seven episodes. Get it here. Here's some money.

Get some actors go Dubnyk. The movie you made, which which is coming out now, even though you made it like two years ago, our friend, it was initially my friend. Now it's our friend. Like, you probably filmed that one twenty eighteen. Twenty, nineteen, twenty nineteen. Yeah. So it's you did it two years ago and now it's finally out. And it's in this weird pandemic world where it's released on demand. There's no theater.

It got held that was supposed to come out a year ago. Like you've never had an experience like this. Like what do you think about this movie? What do you remember about it?

That's but two years, every movie, you know, when it's over and then you have to talk about it a little bit later when it's coming out.

It's hard for me to kind of you're in such a different place, like you go to making movies like summer camp. You know, it's such a like contained little experience. So you go, yeah, show up and make it. And then you leave wherever you're shooting and go back to your real life and you kind of leave it all behind. So it's hard. But yeah, after a couple of years, it's even harder to remember. I think that, you know, I had a great time with Jason Segel.

Dakota Johnson is great in the movie. It's a true story. And it's it's a nice message, you know, which I like. It's not really why I like picked movies, but it is what I like about that, about this movie. I just thought, like, this is something that whether it turns out and it's good or it's not, it doesn't matter. In the end, it's going to be something that I feel like I agree with that like the spirit of the movie is just it's just right.

And I've done a lot of movies where I thought that they were great characters, but it was like a lunatic or a serial killer or someone I go like, you know, I was younger and I just wanted to play that part. I liked it. It was dark material or whatever. And I don't know these days I've been thinking, you know, trying to find things more. I kind of like the spirit of the movie. And our friend is one of those one of those because it's about a guy who has got nothing.

His life feels totally empty. He feels sort of aimless and depressed, and he drops everything to go live with this these friends, his friends who whose lives are in crisis because the the wife is dying of cancer. And so he sort of puts everything from his own life aside and he goes to take care of these other people. And by doing so, he kind of rediscovers things that he likes about himself. And, you know, sounds sort of hokey, but like, I just I just love that that sort of message about, you know, being of service to other people and how how it sort of is good for everyone.

And it's a real life story. And you don't play the friend, you play the husband. So for people who haven't seen it, Jason Segel is the friend. Yeah. Who I think had a really interesting career. He I did a podcast with him last year and I really enjoyed it.

Like, I really love talking to him back back when we could do a podcast where the two people are in the same room. Now, everything's had to. But I thought he was excellent in this movie. I thought that the three leads were really, really good. But he kind of if he doesn't do as well as he did in that part, I think the movie falls apart. You know, every movie has like that one. There's the one performance that if it's almost like in sports, you know, like the Bucs this weekend, like if Fournette sucks, I don't think they can win it in your movie.

If if Jason Segel is like a C plus, the whole movie falls apart because you have to buy that. This guy, his life's in crisis. Yeah. He's going to give up all this stuff. But I'm also kind of worried about him. I just thought he navigated it really well. And and by the end of it, you just bought all the relationships.

He's a really good actor, I think. Yeah. People just think of you as the stuff that you've done. So he's done a bunch of comedies, did a bunch of like Judd Apatow movies, and he did a bunch of which are also great. And he did a bunch of like TV stuff. And so they don't think of him as fitting in. And I like more of a dramatic role. He's great and there's no reason he shouldn't. And I he'll do more of that.

And he's a lovely, lovely guy. Sports movies like No One Will Let me do a sports movie or a comedy because they just think I'm the guy who does the Manchester by the Sea or Jesse James or whatever. That's your father.

I feel like you could get this stuff done. I can't. I've tried. I tried to do a movie. I wanted to make a movie about those two Yankees in the seventies traded. I remember that Fritz Peter said to make my Kikuchi's package. Yeah. Oh, such a great game. You bought. You bought. You bought the rights to it though. I wrote it. I wrote the script for Warner Brothers. But but MLB is notoriously difficult, giving their permission to use the names, team logos, all that kind of stuff.

So there came it was a pretty sordid tale. I think it was an interesting story because it's really about the salaciousness the of two players trading wives, families, dogs, houses, everything, that stuff. Notwithstanding, by the way, for people listening, he's not kidding. That's literally what happens. They they traded their lives for each other. These two pictures and the ex wives, kids houses, the whole thing.

Yeah, it escalated. They felt like there were swingers one night. They sort of like spent a night, which was then they kind of fell in love. They tried to make it stick. They tried to keep it a secret. And the story ended up breaking in a really interesting way, because at the time, women were not allowed to cover. They weren't allowed in the locker room, female journalists to cover these, to cover the team. But the Yankees were kind of they were in the basement and the Mets were very having a good season.

And some of the better journalists wanted to go cover the Mets. And one of them would be traveling with the Yankees for a long time, Bill, to spend the season with the Mets. And there was a a woman who was tried to cover the Yankees and she wasn't allowed into the locker room. She was kind of like bar. And so when when this story came out, people heard about it. But it was not covered because at the time, journalist, it was it was kind of gauche.

It was you weren't supposed to talk about players private lives. Right. And not the way it is now. So things were really different and that was just considered like kind of gross. But this woman, it was treated so terribly by being she wasn't allowed to cover the team. So she thought like, OK, well, I'll write about this. And Ladies Home Journal, she wrote a story about these two these two players trading families. And then the story broke and then it became national news.

And Johnny Carson was making fun of them every night on TV. And it was really the first time that that happened. And in part, it was because none of the other journalists wanted to be scooped. And it was in part because Watergate had happened and Woodward and Bernstein were heroes, national heroes. And a lot of the sports journalists wanted to feel like they could be heroes, too, that they could write about. They could be investigative journalists, not just cover the games.

And these guys were traveling with the team out of an era of like Mickey Mantle, the Yankees. We'd seen all kind of stuff. And then there was the cover it up era. It was the cover it up here. They were all doing drugs. They were doing drugs during the games. They're doing drugs at night. They're all fooling around and having affairs. And none of it was written about. And so suddenly the journalists thought, hey, we can write about this.

It's big news. We get our names in print. And then they did. And so it sort of got blown open and the Yankees were embarrassed. They canceled Family Day that year for one day. Yeah. And and these guys, they one of the couples tried to make it stick. Fritz Peterson and Suzanne tried to they stay together forever for the rest of it. They're still together. And the other couple broke up pretty quickly. They broke up right away.

It just didn't work. So it was a really fascinating story. I thought it said a lot about the times. It said a lot about the social landscape. It was also right when the Yankees had been bought. Steinbrenner wasn't even allowed to go to the stadium. But like everything in sports was changing, the reserve clause was going to be overturned so these guys could negotiate collectively. At the time, players were like in the off season. They're selling car used cars because they weren't making any money and the owners didn't want to pay them.

Steinbrenner was brilliant because he came in and said, pay them, make them, make them stars. You know, give them a fortune, make them stars will make them wear suits to make them shave their faces. We're going to turn them into these household names and they are going to sell jerseys. They're going to get people in. They're going to be we're going to televise it. He sort of saw the future of it all led to Reggie Jackson.

Yeah.

So so it sounds like it sounds like baseball swinger ice storm.

I mean, that's the kind of sleazy side of it, but there's a lot of art to it. It was also the birth of the Modern Family. It was like divorce, divorce. Families can work. They can yeah, you can break and come back together. And at the time, it was such a taboo, everyone was humiliated that they were in this broken family. Truth was, they had, you know, at least Fritz and his wife had a really happy family.

So I love that story. I try to make a couple others. I got one about the chaplain of the Forty Niners and the Golden State Warriors right now, which were we are writing. So you're you're really trying to do you want a sports movie?

You want this on your resume? Yeah. I mean, I love sports. I grew up I grew up being wishing I was a professional athlete and having no shot in hell. So here I am just trying to like, you know, to make a sports movie.

I got to say, I loved your brother's basketball movie. I thought it was really good and it's been on cable and. First of all, they nailed the basketball sense because I like I judge movie first, but then also you have to get the sports teams right. I really get upset. And I thought all the basketball scenes in that movie were really authentic. Usually when they make basketball movies, those photos up or there's the one guy is their favorite.

What's your favorite sports movie?

So it used to be Hoosiers in the natural for a long time, right? Yes. And now I've seen all these movies so many times that now at now it's just weird for me, like probably Rocky three is probably my favorite sport, just in terms of like if all of them are on at the same time, what would I gravitate to?

It might be Rocky three. What about you?

I think Hoosiers in the naturals or I would have said that. So those are those are going to be the best and I don't get sick of them. Also, I think Moneyball is is like rarely totally. But it's fantastic. Totally.

So that's I think Moneyball has been the best one of the last 10 years. Warriors kind of grown on me. I think that was really good. It's it's a movie. I'm counting it. But then going back, it's funny. Longest Yard came out forty six forty seven years ago at this point with Burt Reynolds. I still think that movie is good. That's about as far back as that go. But I was watching roller ball with James Caan probably, I don't know, two, three months ago that those 70s sports movies are really fun to watch.

Like North Dallas 40 Bad News Bears I watch with my son. It's so politically correct. People have like a fucking stroke. If it happened now, I think the probably my favorite inappropriate one is fast break with Gabe Kaplan, which I don't even think they're allowed to show on cable.

Yeah, he basically he goes to Vegas. He brings this kind of ragtag group of people who don't belong in college who tries to turn this basketball program around. So.

So you have how many sports movie possibilities here? Three.

I've got this one about Earl Smith, who is the chaplain of the he wrote a book called Death Row Chaplain. It's about his time on working in San Quentin. I played baseball in San Quentin a little bit. I was playing a baseball team and we would go up and play the prisoners and think when this guy started that program and he was in the eighties, he went and got it. He was shot six times in the face and neck when he was a Jesus and he was in a coma and he came out of the coma.

He decided to sort of get his go straight, stop doing drugs and stop gang banging and stuff and go become seminary. You become a chaplain. And he and he went to San Quentin at a time when the prison was terrible, terrible shape. And he showed up there and he and he was hoping that he was going to save some people. And he was frustrated. No one was really he couldn't get traction with any of the guys there. He felt very he felt like he was not helping anyone.

And then he decided to start a baseball team inside the prison as a way of bringing people from different gangs together. It worked and it's lasted until now. They still have the team there, the organization, it was interracial. It was it was everything that people said it wouldn't it couldn't possibly be. And he then left San Quentin and he went on to work for four years and four years. And that sounds promising. It's great. And so that's in the works.

And, you know, best prison sports movie ever.

Tell me, Jerkovic, Richard Pryor, Jeriko Mile, Michael Mann's first movie. Guy, guy, Peter Strauss is a guy, I think it's on Amazon, and I promise anyone listening, you will not regret running the Jericho Mile. Peter Strauss is in prison and he runs around the track every day. And somebody kind of sees him is like, wait a second, that guy's going pretty fast. This coach bring them in there. Like, you could probably actually qualify for the Olympics here, but you got to do it on a professional track.

But he's not allowed to leave because he murdered somebody. The inmates come together. They build him a track so he can try to qualify. I won't spoil the ending, but it's fucking great. Michael Mann's first movie led to Thief, led to everything else after that. That was it was a TV movie. So right then he's in it. Brandon, all these different people. What what leading actors, sports, movie performance. Are you the most jealous of him.

Wish you had been cast in instead. Moneyball. Moneyball is a good part.

Yeah. My goal is to create part. I mean, Redford was like, you know, in his 40s playing a kid who was like, sixteen, great. So they use some good shadows that like the early guy cause it's like darker. Yeah. So I he could be cast as that. I don't think that would go over these days anymore. But he pulls it off. He's the legend. The greatest. What else I wrote I wrote a review of when I was writing for ESPN.

Com and Damon did that rugby movie Invictus. And the guy that he played was like this mountain of a guy. He was like six foot five. And I was like a Damons like five nine. He's playing this huge guy, Davidi babies like I'm five foot eleven motherfuckers like half joking, but half serious.

I'll tell you right now, he's joking by about three and a half inches. That's how much is joking. But it's true, man. It's hard to find actors. All these athletes in these you come across these great sports stories and the guys are huge and actors are all five, three, and I don't know why. So I want to do the Josh Hamilton story. Yeah, great story. He was like junior in high school and he was six five, you know, two hundred and ten pounds.

He was just like I'm just a bizarrely, like, big athletic dude at a very early age. So hard to catch that one. That's a I love that story. It's just kind of went south. The movie ends when he gets back into baseball, you know, he wins the home run derby. Is he? This is a guy who had been thrown out of Major League Baseball for three strikes. Rule violated the substance abuse rules. They threw him out for good and then they let him back in a beautiful story about redemption.

But then sort of his life then sort of fell apart a little bit after that.

So it's almost had to make it right when he was redeemed. Yeah. And then, yeah. You know, here's what we don't need anymore of boxing movies.

I think we're good for like about eight more years. Yeah, it's it's and it seems like every great actor, they feel like they have to do one. It's like you got to put that notch on your belt that you got in amazing shape. And yeah, I'm in the best shape in my life. I trained with this guy for three months and I did it and I played like Rocky Marciano or something I did the whole time.

I was just thinking about the poster, you know, totally how rip they're going to be. Yeah, we're good. And meanwhile, on the flip side, like, there's been like barely any hockey movies, which I don't understand. Like Slapshot came about in nineteen seventy seven and it's still The Godfather and it's like, no, nobody's even made a run at Slapshot since there's been a lot of basketball movies, but they're almost always like the coach trying to save the the kind of ragtag group of whatever.

At least Ben's movie flipped it where the guy had his own problems. Football's been a mess, but, you know, there's a sweet spot I'm going to say like that. Ninety one and ninety, like a movie like Rudy, which I think was ninety three, which I think Rudy is really good. I think Rudy is held up even though the real Rudy is super annoying. I wish they just made more of those.

Maybe now we're in the streaming or maybe Netflix, Amazon, those places. It's like twenty million. You get a sports movie and everyone's going to see it.

Well you know soccer I mean, so now people worry so much about selling their movies overseas and they say no one cares about baseball overseas. No one cares about American football overseas. You know, but but soccer, you know, there was a story I really loved. I wanted to make about a kid who was a refugee and in Africa, and he played he was living in a refugee camp. And all he was they realized he was great at soccer very quickly.

And he they kept sort of like, you know, bumping him up and traveling him around and playing in other camps. And the whole time he was just looking for his parents because he was an orphan, he ended up being finally the playing and some like U.N. game and the.

The galaxy spotted them and they brought them to the United States and he still couldn't find his family. And then he put himself through school in the US and then he went back to Africa and he found his mom. A really beautiful story. That's one you might be able to tell now. But you're right, people. There's also a kind of irreverence and a lot of sports movies that, like right now doesn't doesn't fly. Call it political correctness or there's a certain thing that gets tricky.

And, yeah, I don't know hockey.

That's why I watch a lot of the 70s, 80s ones with my son, who's now 13, like his one of his favorites. And one of mine too is bad news. Bears are breaking training, the second one when they steal the van and drive to the Astrodome.

And it's like a bunch of 13 year olds. It's just like it was just never happened now.

But it's just fun to kind of relive those. But I think you're right with like the casting part is why so many stories can happen. Like Hakeem Olajuwon, his story's amazing. It's 100 percent a movie, like he's playing soccer in Nigeria and somebody sees how good his feet are and they convert him to basketball, comes over here. He's in the University of Houston. But like, how do you cast that movie is the seven foot gazelle.

You're finding an actor, you know, at least like Ali is about as far as you could push it when they got Will Smith and even that, it was like the Ali shadow hung over. Ali was such like an indelible character. It's hard to even think of somebody playing him in a movie.

Yeah. I mean, I got this theory that anyone can be an actor. People, you know, we've worshipped for a while now sort of movie stars. And as it's sort of it's a rare a rare talent. And there's some people like Will Smith who were just incredibly watchable and likeable. Yeah, talented. But there are other people who have never been in anything and they're just amazing in movies. And I think it's because it's the director knows how to to help them along and make them make it work.

So it might be that, you know, you just have to find a guy who's seven feet tall and have a really, really good director and just you get a fantastic game. Larger one story. Well, the Safty Brothers did it with with uncut gems where it was supposed to be Embiid and then he couldn't do it and they got CGY and they thought Kagi was really good in that movie.

Whatever they tapped into his charisma and made it work and I really felt like it was he was acting was good.

Yeah. Well I support your quest to come up with but the next great sports movie I'm always worried we're just going to run out. Last thing I'll mention before we go, my wife is a big crier. So we watched this movie, your new movie last night, but I didn't tell her it was about and she had no idea.

And sometimes when she cries during the movie, I always look over and and I'll just start laughing and then she'll get mad, but she'll be crying. So I didn't look at her the whole movie.

And then it ended and I looked at her and she I could hear sniffling but it wasn't like major like breakdown. And then I looked at her and she was like, and it's just freaking waterworks. It's just like all her at the end. For some reason, it's an emotional movie.

I think what's interesting about a movie like this, in this day and age, in a movie theater, everybody tries to be kind of cool, you know, like no easy ride. All these strangers, you kind of. You're going to rein yourself in when you're home, you just kind of you are who you are, right? I I thought I was a pretty gut wrenching movie and well done. Thanks.

Then I don't cry, though. I'm a cyborg. I was just I basically just laugh at my wife when she starts crying, but even I was touched. What's wrong with you? I don't know. Say I'm a kid, a divorce. You know, we're all dead inside.

Good luck with everything. Oh, thanks, buddy. Have you ever had. I'm on your show. Oh, yeah. He's been on. Yeah. Well, you get along with him. I was just thinking of who could play people he plays on my baseball team, so he plays so him and I, he's been on a few times. One of the things the last time he was on, we were talking about how his sports movie mortality rate was about to run out because he's like a really good baseball player.

And it's like you you've got well, I mean, for an actor, you've got to you've got to do this now. Like, you're going to hit a point where it's not realistic anymore, that you're like the, you know, Dennis Quaid and the rookie. Yeah. Where Dennis Quaid is probably like forty nine in real life. And it was really pushing it. But he was playing a guy who was like thirty nine in real life, so was OK, but they would have got like a year left him.

No he doesn't. He's past. You think he's past expired. Yeah it's expired. I think he did a million dollar arm. He was a producer with him. That's how we got to know each other. No way. You produced that movie. Yeah, we huge movie. And you're bringing that to me, buddy. Huge, huge. Appreciate good looking out. Thanks for bringing me that. Everybody loved that movie. And then people just saw it on demand and on airplanes.

And it's just like one of those things does it when as on the weekend against some other monster movie and it just kind of went away.

It wasn't like a. Pretty decent. It's like 15 minutes to life. OK, great. It was great. It looked really beautiful, too. I love that. I thought it was 15 minutes too long.

My big argument at the time was like, if I'm taking my son to this, it can't be more than two hours. Yeah. Like my son. This is a movie that, like an eight year old kid could could see. Right. And no eight year old kid wants to be in a theater for two hours and five minutes.

You got to you got to get through that story a little bit faster. That's true. But hey, and we could do like a guy who is gone to, like, fantasy camp like an older man because that offense is getting rid of him, having had one good year when he played with us. But he had 400. That was his best year, really.

So what is this baseball team can you tell, is this is an L.A. baseball team of Hollywood people and it's like fast paced Hollywood people.

It's fast pitch. It's not Hollywood people. It just happens to have me and I'm on the team. But mostly it's made up of like guys who are real athletes. I started it about 10 years ago. I was like the L.A. Parks and Rec League and we were awful. We got beat there. We put the we got a little bit better in like third year end. We won that thing. Guys wanted to be one L.A. city better than people wanted to step it up to the would bat league, which we did with that league.

Jesus. Yeah. And we we got demolished. We have not yet won that that league, but we've had some good showings. The first season we lost you know, most games are immersive. You know, it's like we play like seven innings. We usually lost by fourteen runs after the fifth and they just called it off or something. Second season, though, we did a lot better. And I my batting average hovers around one hundred. And what position are you, third base.

So I'm trying to think of what Red Sox player no one has ever had that given the state of the game terrible average third baseman, I don't know.

That would be. I had one year where I hit three hundred, but I only played like three games. But Hamilton is better. He plays first and he did a one year. We hit over 400. I think all that is behind both of us now. But next time you have an idea for a for a sports movie, don't bring it to John.

Call me up. I'm going to bring it to you. And if you ever want to start a triple-A baseball team in the Hollywood area that we call the Hollywood stars, I mean, I've always felt like that idea could work.

Put it in Van Nuys, 15000 seat stadium. I just feel like people would go, I love it. It's not going to matter that it's 108 degrees in July. People are still going to like it. They're still going to have a good time as part of the fun.

What was that team? Who who's that guy who started that, like, really kind of rough around the edges club, like minor league club and like Portland or somewhere. He had a book. There's a book written about them. That's a pretty good story.

I don't know that one, but good luck with your movie.

It was good seeing you. Good luck to Tom Brady and thanks for coming on. OK, thanks for having me.

All right. Thanks to Casey Affleck. Thanks to Peter Schrager. The good luck charm. Hopefully the million dollar pics will take it to the finish line.

We'll be back Sunday night on this podcast, talking with Cousin Sal and breaking down the big game and my track, my dad into this at the end of the pod to see what his feelings were. My dad still hasn't landed on it. On the Brady thing. I've never seen anyone more tortured by anything that's just stupid in my life. But we'll be back Sunday night. Enjoy the game. Enjoy the weekend. Stay safe. CNN Sunday.