Maye Vs. Stafford, Week 18 Picks & the 21 Best 21st Century Sports Movies With Peter Schrager, Joe House, and Sean Fennessey

This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Imagine a game where you're on the court solo. No coach, no teammates, no one in the stands. Stressful, right? Sometimes life can feel like that too. That's when State Farm, they show up. They're on the bench, ready to help you find the right coverage when it matters most through an agent online or even on the app. State Farm with the assist, coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability and eligibility vary by state. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by Fanduil Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a rewatchables on Monday. It was my 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century. It was my list. There were a lot of caveats to it, including they were just movies I'd seen the most times because of family, wife, because I liked having just a movie on in the background as I was working, whatever it was, it was my most rewatchable movies. Needless to say, people had some opinions on it, but I loved it. Anyway, you can check that out on the rewatchables on Spotify, on YouTube, wherever you get your pods. We have another episode coming. I think we have two next week. Stay tuned for two. I think we're gonna do a mailbag episode on Monday and then a movie episode on Wednesday. So be ready for that. Coming up on this podcast, we're gonna do week 18 picks, Joe House, Peter Schrager, we're gonna talk about the MVP and a whole bunch of NFL stuff heading into the long weekend because I think most people have Friday off. And then special segment just recorded today with Sean Fantasy, my 21 best sports movies of the 21st century. This was not a me personally, because these are the movies I genuinely feel like are the 21 best sports movies of the 21st century. As you know, I love sports movies, care about them, have been writing about them. My entire career back when I used to write and have a lot of thoughts. So Sean helped me do, he helped me basically react off the top 21 and then came up with a key save for the list. So stay tuned for that. Anyway, this is a very fun podcast. Hope you had a great New Year's Eve. I did as well. I think, I don't know if my wife has showered yet. She's in rough shape. Shout out to her for surviving last night. Anyway, Pearl Jam's coming up in a second. We're gonna take a break. And then Peter Schrager and Joe Hobs. The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Fandall. Fandall's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in lives. They have your way. Go check out your way. You can build the bet that fits your play your way. Plus don't miss out on the NFL playoffs. One of my favorite times of the year, all month long, download the Fandall app or head to Fandall.com slash BS to get started. Get ready for the playoffs. Let's go. Must be 21 plus, president select states, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky and Wyoming. Game problem called 1,100 game. We're a visitor. RG-HELP.com call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. fades fades! All right, we're recording late New Year's Day afternoon. There's probably some college football blowout happening right now. We apologize. We can't comment on that. Joe House is here as always trying to figure out our week 18 picks and other stuff. Peter Schrager demanded to join us. He's in Tampa Bay in a hotel room. You just, you wanted to be on. Explain why. Why did you have the eye of the tiger? We had such a good experience two weeks ago, but the pang in my stomach and in my heart was no Joe House. And I said it there when we were doing the pod after Ram Seahawks, no Joe House. Well, we go on. We have a great pod. I mean, maybe my favorite pod with you that we're done. And just about every text I got was, it was good, but no Joe House. So this week with MVP voting being done midnight on Sunday and coach of the year voting and a full slate and me being in lovely Tampa for the parent Panthers, Buccaneers, I'll be the side on reporter. I begged you, can I get more airtime? And you were so kind to open up the door just to sliver. And here we are. Always available. Yeah. So you don't have an MVP vote. I recused myself. You did. Why'd you do that? Did you, did you still have one for NBA? Yeah. I love having one. Zach got rid of his and I, and I call him a wuss about it every year. I love, I love the responsibility. It came too annoying. Like I had a Hall of Fame, I was a Hall of Fame alternate voter and I would get, I would get from like family members of, and like, it was just a lot. The MVP thing, once, once I came over to NFL network, I was like, huh, you know, it's just my ego satiate. I don't, I don't, I didn't need to do it. So now I could talk freely. I could throw out any hot take and no one's accusing me of bias or anything. Well, House, you don't have a vote. I don't have a vote. I think it's wise. It's probably for the best that I don't have a vote. But it's the same thing as the NBA. I mean, it's like, and I'm not knocking any of the voters, but people think this is some, you know, it's not an algorithm. It's not, it's not like based on stats. It's literally guys like me and guys like Kyle Brandt and I think like Diana has one. Like it's not, and it's really a narrative based thing where there's everyone puts work into it, but it's not like it's such a science. They could go anyway, man. Well, I think House, I think you would agree with this. It feels like the NBA and VP matters more. I think to the history of the sport, how we remember things, how we remember seasons. NFL, maybe, maybe it's just a blind spot for me, but Brady has a bunch of them. Like I couldn't tell you whether he has five, six, eight. He has three. Three, that's it. Manning has a bunch. Rogers has a bunch. It's just a little different. Whereas like an NBA, I know like, oh, Kobe had his MVP season was 08. Shax was, do you feel the same way, House? I understand the point that you're making, but I think it's still pretty important in the NFL. It does. I agree. I think it is important. I just, but from the history standpoint, do you feel like it matters in the same way? I kind of do. I absolutely do. It still tells us. I'll admit I'm wrong then. It tells us a lot. I feel like. You could define the season and you can remember the year. For example, Monday, I was in Atlanta for Rams versus Falcons and I head over to the Rams hotel in the morning just to say what's up to those guys and Matt Ryan's there and my son's with me is nine years old. And what do I identify Matt Ryan as? Not the guy who lost the Super Bowl. Not the guy. That's fair. That's a former MVP. MVP, Matt Ryan. That's right. Yeah. That's fair. I'm an NBA hole. I guess it's just a blind spot for me because you think like with Lamar, he's got his too, and it's a big part of the case and there's some, I don't even think it's like rampant speculation at this point. It seems like there's some serious Lamar Raven stuff. I thought that piece in the Baltimore Sun last week was pretty illuminating and had a lot of breadcrumbs coming from the Ravens organization side. But you think like just saying Lamar Jackson's available versus two-time MVP Lamar Jackson is available. It does feel like it has more weight. Did you believe that story? Do you believe there's real problems, our Shricks? Mike Preston's been working in Baltimore for 30 years and is a respected columnist. That was the first negative piece on Lamar that we've gotten since Lamar has gotten there, especially from the Baltimore media. So I go look, I think everyone's pointing the finger at everyone, but I believe that organization is fully behind Lamar Jackson as their quarterback. So you don't think he's available this spring? I do not. What do you think, House? Why would he be available? How can you do any better than Lamar fucking Jackson? What are we talking about? There's like eight good quarterbacks in the entire NFL and four that are MVP level. And he's one of them. The whole thing is nonsense to me. It seems incredible. Did his leg fall off in the meantime? There is some running QB stuff that I think, if you look at the history of this, we have, I feel that by the way, the same way about Victor Womendiam and tall basketball players, there's some stuff with the history of the, when you think about running QBs, like the hits that they just take the wear and tear of, So you're saying like a Ralph, Ralph Sampson, you know, like there's a similar comparison there where Yeah, man, like there's career is the most successful tall guy we've ever had. But there's been a lot of tall guys who their careers were ended up short. It's just, there's a, you know, it's, it's like a very tall building that you have to do this with running quarterbacks in the NFL. You can talk about how Michael, Michael Vick eventually went off a cliff. You can talk about Dante Culpepper, like famously like falling off a cliff. The question will be whether Lamar can be a pocket passer. I would say Cam Newton. I'm just talking about the accumulation of hits, which I think for quarterbacks, running backs, tight ends, but you could say that would be the case for sacks too, right? Tricks, like if somebody took a bunch of big sacks, Stafford's an outlier in this respect. I don't understand why he's all the hits he took in the Lions, the fact that he's still kicking is pretty crazy. Yeah. But then there's David Carr and there's, you know, those guys that got the early gym, eventually takes, takes its toll. I, one more thing on the MVP. I don't know if the NBA is like this, but you have to fill out a ballot one to five and you rank them and your first place is five points. Your second place is three points. Your third place, whatever. So it goes down. So even if a guy gets a lot of first place votes, if there's a guy who's just swept all the second place votes, that guy might be the MVP, which makes it interesting because first team all pro could be very different than MVP, which is a head scratcher in itself, same voters. This has happened a couple of times in the NBA, most famously with Charles Barkley, I think in 1990 where he had the most first place votes, but I think he finished third. Who got it, Magic? Yeah. Magic got it because he had the totality of the votes, I think. But it was same thing where he just, he just was on more of the ballots. I don't mind it. So it's, it's relatively the same, though, the way they count it. House, you have no dog in this race. Drake May, after the Matthew Stafford, uh, fallen a parking on Monday night, Drake May was minus 700 on Fondle. One point. Now he's minus 340 and he's going to win the MVP unless they lose to Miami. I think it's how this plays out. Do you think Drake may is MVP house? I disagree with you. I don't think he's going to win the MVP. I don't think it's a fate of complete. I think it's going to be razor thin. And I do want to take advantage of this moment that we have with Shregs to give us, let's illuminate exactly what we're talking about here. He hinted at it a tiny bit there. It is voters. It's mostly media folks, right, Pete? Yep. Most media folks. He's called Pete. Nobody's ever called him Pete. He's not a Pete. We'll take it. Boys, boys, I feel like I can go a lot away with Shregs here. Pete Sampras, Pete Shrager. He's four sitting there together. It's a great happy new year. 20th of July. Usually you do like PS or you have like some sort of like, yeah. Anyway, go ahead. But let's shed some light on this because I do think that the voting constituency is important to, I mean, from the first place, the betting odds. This market is insane to me. The idea that, you know, the implied probability of Drake May at minus three 40 is like, you know, well north of 80% and Matthew Stafford, you know, in the whatever, 15, I don't think it's those probabilities line up in any way, shape or form because you said this your own self. It's a narrative kind of vote. Who has, Bill Simmons just made the case. Who's taking more hits in his career and still playing at an absolute near MVP low. Matthew Stafford. This is, if this is going to be an award where we recognize in a year where nobody's really distinguished themselves, a career achievement, then that's Matthew Stafford. Cause Drake May is going to have his turn. He's going to have his chances down the road. And when you do the strength of schedule stuff and you see it all over the Twitter machine, when you do that, even when you put common opponents, performance versus common opponents, it's like when Drake may beat the Falcons and Matthew Stafford didn't. We talked about stuff like that. You mean the miss extra point that the Falcons, the buffoonery, Falcons, the worst special teams in all of football. Yes. Yes. That is, that is one difference. I never remember strength of schedule being this important to an MVP race before it. Cause there's nothing else you can ding Drake May on other than, oh, you haven't played enough people. It's not his fault. He's put, first of all, how many actual good defenses are there? Shraig's. Well, you got him. So if you're going to be like, oh, he's done for Houston and Seattle, those are your three and maybe Philly, Philly's healthy. Right. Yeah. So he hasn't played those four teams. But other than that, like if he played San Francisco, guess what? Drake may would have put up awesome stats against San Francisco. If he had played, pick, pick all the playoff teams, there's a bunch of them that he would have had really good stats on. You go through the advanced metrics. It's so convincing for May. It's almost like you have to look twice because the other piece that everybody forgets, this is what I was texting you about Shraig's, not to sound like a Boston homer. I honestly think this is crazy. The, his legs, the rushing May has over 400 rushing yards. He's rushed for four TDs. He's rushed for 35 first downs. He's kept plays alive. I sent you all these EPA stats where Pat's had the number one offense by EPA. May is at the top in every category or in the top three in EPA. And then you look at like protection and the Rams are top three. The Pat's offensive lines, like 26. May's had to scramble like on 10% of his play. Stafford said to scramble like on 2%. Like May is running for his life in a lot of these games. He's threading the needle on these long bombs. He's had 12 of the greatest throws I've seen in the history of the Patriots this season. And Matthew Stafford has Puka Nakua, the best receiver in the league, who catches five yard passes and runs for 60. He's had Devonte Adams for most of the season. He has a much better offensive line. He plays indoors. He's Sean McVeigh. Like, what are we talking about? So if you switch these two guys, if you switch them on different teams, are you telling me Drake may would have worse stats than Matthew Stafford? Like, are people really think this? So House nailed it when he first said the thing about the betting odds and the lines and the odds makers throw that shit out the window. They have no insight on this. None. They can speculate. But I will tell you this, Monday night I'm in Atlanta and I'm doing the rounds, whatever. I'm kissing babies, doing my thing. And some fan comes up to me and is like, Shraig's Matthew Stafford minus 450 for the MVP. This is before the game was, and he goes, he goes, how much should I put on it? I go, whatever. I move on at halftime after three interceptions and being down 21, nothing. He was second in the odds to Drake may, who is now the favorite. That's how turbulent this is. Now I would also, Matthew Stafford sucked in the game. He was terrible. And that was an, by the way, not a small game. I'm going to give it to you because of the narrative part. So why I mentioned that thing with narrative. We're all journalists or it's Boomer, Asaias and Troy Aikman. It's people in media who are voting on this thing. We love a story. And as much as you're giving the EPA numbers and you're saying strength of schedule, shouldn't matter. It never has. We're looking for a story. So for Stafford, two prime time games in a row, his team lost in a game where it was easy slam dunk, go into Atlanta, his home, you know, he's got all these friends from UGA, pretty comfortable setting indoors, 21, nothing at the half, looked awful. Offensive line was a nightmare, but he got sacked a bunch of times through the three picks. The voters right there are like, oh, it doesn't feel right in a big spot to say he's the most valuable player. Now, Drake may has only played really two big games and he won one of them on Sunday night before anyone was even like a tune to any of this stuff. And then when they're up 21, nothing in a game that everyone's watching, no fault to his own. He dropped the ball. They have nothing to gain. The two of them the next two weeks, the next week. So Stafford could throw for 6,000 yards against the Cardinals. The Pats have something to gain this week. They start. Miami game is sneaky and they got a lock down the two seed. Yes, they have the two seed, but the one seed with Tre Land starting is probably going to go to Denver. So I don't think they have anything more that Drake may can do. And the stats last week against Brady Cook and the Jets, they look great on paper, but the voters aren't like blown away. The guy that I'm going to insert right here, because it's not a two horse race and on Fanduil or DraftKings or one of them, it was 500 to one last week. Is the running back out of San Francisco, Christian McCaffrey, who in two back to back primetime games has been unbelievable. He's 500 to one on Fanduil. 500 to one. So I'm telling you now, don't believe any. If he against that defense in Seattle in a third straight primetime game goes for like 200 yards, has two touchdowns. We're going to lose house. House is going to leave the pod so he can go bet on this. I'm telling you, I have another screen. Remember this narrative. Narrative. Everyone in America is going to be watching that Seattle, San Francisco game. Nobody in America is watching Arizona Rams. The last taste they have in their mouth, whether you think it's fair or not, is a three interception game against the Falcons. And for Drake May, the schedule thing matters in that it's kind of like, yeah, that's been the story all season, but he didn't really do any slam dunk stuff to us in the big spots. In the one big spot, they give up a 21 point lead. I have a massive counter at everything Shraig said, but I need house's take on everything Shraig said first. I agree with everything that he just said. I do think you house. I don't have a rebuttal. Like the problem for Drake May is they just played one of the easiest schedules in the last 30 years. Like they did his fault. It's not about fault. It's a narrative award. That's all jerks. All right. If you pumped it into an algorithm and all this stuff, you might say it's a no brainer, but you could also say it's a no brainer for Stafford. The fact of the matter is there is a small window for a door number three. And we haven't given this award to a running back since 2012. And if you're comparing Saquon to McCaffrey last year, Saquon, Saquon season was better. But Lamar and Josh Allen had historic seasons. Do you think Drake May, I know it's been a great story. Do you think it's an all time historic season from a quarterback? Well, I've watched every snap of Drake May's career. His team was terrible last year. Yeah. It couldn't have been worse. It couldn't have been worse coached. The offensive line was bad. He had no weapons at all. He dragged them to four and 13. I don't know how they won four games. Going to this season, look at the receivers and the weapons he has compared to the Rams. Like everybody's like, well, he has Stefan Diggs. Guess who doesn't play every down? Stefan Diggs. Stefan Diggs runs, I think, 22 routes a game. Because they've been, he was hurt last year. They've been really careful about how they use him. So his one weapon, the most reliable guy he has, isn't on the field. Maybe 50% of the game. Nobody else he has, you'd care about other than maybe Hunter Henry. Henderson was the running back who didn't do anything for two months and then finally came on. Remandre felt like he was going to get waved six months, six weeks into the season. And then the offensive line has been really rough. And then he lost his left and he lost his right tackle. And all he's done is just carried the team and been incredible week after week. And I don't know why that doesn't matter. When you talk about narrative shrigs, we've had this narrative with like the young QB turning into a guy. Malhomes, Lamar, yeah. Yeah, second year. Malhomes at 18. Lamar in 19. Dan Marino, second year. Rogers, 2011, although that team was awesome that year. Kurt Warner, 2019. Yeah. When we've had the, I'm now here, I'm now one of the guys that sometimes has been rewarded with the MVP. But the bigger thing to me that I can't believe is in part of this, the Rams are fucking six seed. The MVP always comes from the one seed or the two seed. We've kind of established that like shielded his MVP bot before that. He did another one halfway through the year and ringer in FL. And it's like, you have to pick the pool of candidates who will either be the one or the two seed because that's who usually wins. So if the, if the Pats are a two seed and Stafford's a six seed, then what are we arguing about? I hear you. His schedule was tougher and he threw for more passing touchdowns because he's puking a coup on his team. And Devante Adams, if you, this is what we use for the NBA. House and I have used this forever. Switch the players. What happens? What happens if Stafford's on the Patriots? What happens with that, with the offensive line they have without the weapons, with the new offensive coordinator, does he do as well as Drake may did? I don't think he does. I mean, the argument could also be pushed back to you and say that last year's Patriots were awful. They also spent more money than any team did in the history of free agency this off season. Yeah, finally. We didn't spend money for 20 years. And I'm not, it's just that it's not like it's the same roster. It's not there. They're getting Trayvon digs. They didn't spend money on anything. Craft. Hey, do you have another 500,000 Bob? Nope. I don't. Sorry. The keg is tapped. No, I just, I just made myself a coffee. So I'm fucking flying right now. I'm fired up too. I just walked off a plane. I got a lot of caffeine going through. I want to last, like this, if, if indeed the McCaffrey thread, you know, sort of rises to the four, who does that hurt more? Does it hurt Drake May's candidacy or does it hurt Stafford? Right. We have a third party candidate who's going to siphon away some boats. It's good. We both, none of us here think that, that McCaffrey is going to win. I don't, I don't, I mean, I can't imagine. Right. Running backs. When was the last running back that one? 2012. Adrian Peterson. It was Adrian Peterson, right. So I think that impacts. So if the Niners win and we're going to do picks in a second, the Niners win on, on Saturday night, Saturday night, right? Yes, Saturday night with everyone watching standalone game. I personally think that should flip coach of the year. Vrables is the favorite right now. Hmm. Vrables been amazing. He took a shit team that was really even worse than four and 13 and turned them into what he turned them into this year and completely changed it. What Shanahan did with that San Francisco situation is bonkers. Like this is where I even have money on Vrables. And I think if they win the one seat, I think Shanahan should win coach of the year. And this is like Vrables had one, don't want the best coaching jobs I've ever seen of any Boston team from, from a first year guy. I'd still like, I just can't believe the Niners are even in this. It's impossible. I, I had the Niners two weeks ago in Indianapolis and I had breakfast with Robert Salah at the team hotel beforehand. And what a fucking name drop from Pete, Pete, sneaky Pete. Doing it again. For Pete's sake, for Pete's sake, here's a name drop. I need to serve that one at the producers yet. I've been trying to be pushing. I think I think Pete's good. Anyway, I don't have to go. Anyway, we need, we need, we need like a sound something from like a radio. When I do a name drop, sneaky Pete. Yeah. And, you know, he was like so proud of these guys. And then I'm like, yeah, you know, no Warner, no Bosa, no McKell Johnson, who is there, you know, their rookie. And I'm like, I don't know a single player on their defense. They have Keon White, who we gave to them for like a conditional seventh round pick. He plays every down. Like you go and it's not me insulting like Bryce Huff is their top pass rusher. Yeah. And that's not an insult to him. It is completely the truly no name defense. And they don't, they're not exactly the 2000 Ravens or the 76 Steelers. But when they have to, they make a stop and they did that with the D Winters pick six. And then of course, last week with Caleb, where I hated the hook and ladder call because it eats up all the clock and then all of a sudden they're scrambling. But either way, that Niners team has been so ravaged by injuries that I think it has to go to shame. They were on like backup defensive backs on top of all the best guys they lost. That guy, Williams was awesome for defensive rookie of the year before the year. Did I say Johnson? I meant Williams. Yeah. Or whoever. Well, whatever. And then you have offensive line injuries. You have the quarterback switcheroo. You have some of the close games they've won. How's this like, how much money have you lost on the Niners this year? I actually haven't been. You've been afraid of the Niners. Yeah, that's yeah, you haven't been wearing. I haven't been jumping in there too much. But Bill, I think there might be like seven worthy contenders. It's not a two horse race in that conversation. How do you tell, how do you tell like Ben Johnson that no, you're not in this? Oh, for coach of the year. Yeah. Liam Cohen, the Jaguars. So I would have Liam Cohen third right now. First year coach, first year offensive coordinator, first year defensive coordinator, first year GM. I felt rehabilitated. A guy that we had given up on. Rehabilitated. Save that man's career. Same triple horse's career. Yeah. Mike McDonald in Seattle, if they're the one seed after firing the offensive coordinator after one year and bringing in Sam Darnold, or like suddenly they're the one seed. It's, it's a, and Sean Payton has an argument too with that Russell Wilson salary cap hanging over that team. And they're the one seed. It's a great year. I mean, any other year there's usually two coaches and it's like the team that came from nowhere to win this year. I think there's six or so. Like the Miko Ryan's has an argument. It's a good year for it. Well, also a great year for the new coach, Therry House, one of our futures staples. We had Jags, Pat's, and, Don't tell Jets fans that. No, what was the third one? There was, and uh, There's Jags. Jags, Pat, Chicago. That was the premise for, I love the Pat's every over. I like the Chicago overs. The Jags were the one I couldn't get behind because of Lawrence and the Lawrence that we've seen the last couple of weeks. We'll see this week. This, we'll talk about it when we get to the picks. This Jags-Wars, Tennessee game is like pulsating as like a stay away to me. Throw it in every parlay. You feel great. Oh yeah. And the Jags money line. And then, you know, Cam Ward hits somebody for a 78-yard touchdown. Lawrence throws a pick six. It's 14-nothing. It's just something that scares me. I think you made a really good case for McCaffrey. Just because of the quarterback's not grabbing us. Yeah. Also like what he was doing in that, that last game where he's clearly not 100% either. It's going to be what he's, is it any over 400 touches house? 400 touches. Yeah. That's like 400 plus touches. It's nuts. A thousand receiving yards. It doesn't seem like he's going to quite get there, but. He's got 890. Yeah. I said it. It's like what we were talking about with the Lamar thing. Like when you're up on the 400 touches for running back whoever, it's just not a long shelf life after that. I remember when Aaron Schatz wrote about that, he called it the curse of 370 about running backs. It's cool. And the running back that he wrote it about, I can't remember who it was. Jamal Lewis. It was like priest homes, Jamal Lewis, somebody. And he wrote the piece and the guy's career died in like a year. And it was like, we think this is the number. And that, so I feel the same way about these quarterbacks that take big hits and then McCaffrey. Like he's not going to be playing football in three years. Do you think? Well, see if he's healthy. I mean, I'm watching Derek Henry still run for 200 something yards. He's a physical freak. We compare anyone to Derek Henry. Jim Brown. I played Madden with my son who now can just kick the shit out of me and Madden. I'm actually going to have to go, it's like Rocky three. I'm going to have to go back in the lab, get the eye of the tiger back. He put Derek Henry in a shotgun and just ran direct QB draws with Henry. With stiff harming Robert Spelane, who's slower in the video game than he is in real life somehow. And was just cackling as he kicked my ass. And I'm like, Derek Henry is like eternal as a video game guy, much less a football guy. All right. So you have McCaffrey. What's your ranking right now? You don't have a vote. So you can tell us one, two, three. I'd probably go Stafford May McCaffrey. I can't believe the staff. What would you have? House. Same. Same. Stafford's numbers are astounding. You need both. He is Pukinakun Devante Adam. How does that not shrink the schedule? BS, you need Baltimore and Carolina to win so that the Patriots have three wins over winning teams. Right now they have one win over a winning team this season. One win. Except we play who's in front of us. I understand that. I hate the strength of schedule stuff too, Bill, but it's literally the easiest strength of schedule in the league and Stafford has the hardest strength of schedule of all the playoff teams in the league. I hate that it's becoming, it's like the 17th thighbreaker, but they're neck and neck. I get confused with strength of schedule versus defenses you've played, I think are two different arguments. That's fair. There's only four defenses that have mattered this year. And how many of them has he actually, did the Rams played Denver? They did. No, they didn't. No, but they played the Texans. They played the Texans. They played not a huge production game. Eagles. They played the Eagles. Passing the Eagles pretty early. Put up 26 on them. If he wins the MVP as a six seed, that would be different than anything that's happened with the MVP. What about if he's a five seed because that's still in play? It's just like the wild card guys don't usually win the whatever. And here's my last case for my Drake May argument. It's like third and 70 on Monday night. And they have to run a play where somebody catches it out of bounds. Stafford throws it. Pukinaku is so good. He saves it. Almost makes the greatest catch in the history of football. It actually makes the catch, but didn't get a second foot in. This is who he gets to throw to every week. And Bill, the play before Xavier Smith was open and Stafford missed them. Yeah. I think Stafford's been good. I would have voted for him two weeks ago. I even thought maybe last week I would have voted for him. I know. All right. I might change my vote. You kind of lost it. I might. Honestly, listen. I might. You made a great case. I just hope to switch the teams. How does the guy do? I think matters in this. And the fact that May can move around and Stafford can't. It's you can't say Stafford throws the ball better than May. You can't. If you watch May all year, you can't say anyone's thrown the ball better than him this year. His completion numbers are insane. He's completed 72% of his passes, but he's also like nailing deep throws. And he's throwing the guys that mostly aren't really open. Stafford also had two awful halves. I mean, that Falcons half was awful. And the first half against the Panthers was horrendous. It's hard for me to say that's an MVP season. I'm with you. It's hard. It's so difficult. I'm so glad I don't have a vote. But I also hope that the voters put as much time and thought into it as the three of us are right now because I don't know if they do. Yeah. This is going to be a two hour pod now. You know what really annoys me? House pretending he cares about the history of the NFL MVP. House, who won the 1997 NBA MVP? 97. It was the year after MJ left. I don't know. Carm alone. Remember, yeah, Carm alone won. Who won the 1997 NFL MVP? Nobody knows. I'll tell you right now. Farve. I could do it. Yeah, Farve. I could do it. Ask me. Ask me. Who won in 2002? What, NFL? Yeah, NFL MVP 2002. Manning. Rich Gannon. Daaah! That's the thing with the NFL MVP has some stinkers who won like some. Let's be fair. I'll do respect to Rich Gannon, but come on. We have Steve Nash on back to back. Matt Ryan was in the MVP. Who put it there? Back to back Steve Nash. Shack was in the fucking league. Let me just remind everybody. Yeah, that was tough. All right. We'll take a break and then we'll do picks. This episode is brought to you by Venmo. Supporting your team never gets old, but here's something new. You can now pay for your game day wings and rip your team at the same time. How? By getting your college colors on your card. Score more with the college branded Venmo debit card. Get up to 5% cash back with Venmo stash. Sign up at venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bank Corp bank NA. Select schools available Venmo stash bundle terms and exclusions apply at venmo.me slash stash terms. Max $100 cash back per month. This episode is brought to you by Mikolo Baltra. Those superior moments in the game, like dropping a buzzer beater at the last second are worth it. It feels so good. And have you noticed all the smoothest plays are served ice cold just like Mikolo Baltra? That's why Mikolo Baltra is one of the reasons the official beer partner at the NBA or maybe it's because it's a superior light beer with a smooth refreshing taste of only 95 calories or maybe it's because they're giving fans a chance to win amazing prizes, including courtside seat tickets. Mikolo Baltra superior is worth playing for. Enter now at Mikolo Baltra.com slash courtside. Mikolo Baltra courtside 2526. No purchase necessary. Open the US residence 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025 ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at Mikolo Baltra.com slash courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, and prizes and details. Shrags, I thought of another name for your running ASP and segment. Shrags to riches. Dude, I love it. It would be like your name, but two riches and it'll be like you as like a rich guy and then a poor guy just like a popper. Popper on the street. Shrags to riches. We need two riches. They already have a rich eyes and can you get rich? Oh, there's two riches right there. A bunch of riches. The best one, what was the one we said was the best one? Peter's principles. Oh, Pete. No, there was another one. What was the one where you're doing this? For Pete's sake. Can Alabama play defense? It's like his, you've been mossed. For Pete's sake. For Pete's sake. Where's Christian McCaffrey and the MVP odds guys? 501 for Pete's sake. Why didn't Mickey Rojas, his moment, win moment of the year? What are we doing? Before we do picks, any other topics you want to hit? Yes. I just watched this Indiana team kick the shit out of Alabama 38-3 on the Rose Club. I wanted to... I had money out of the house. I want to present two prong question to you. One, what is the comp for what this signeti has done with the Indiana program? Is there one? And two, if you're an NFL team, are you not breaking down the doors to get this signeti as your next head coach? If you're one of these teams that are looking to hire a culture center... There's three culture center college coaches right now, right? We're moving Lane Kiffin because you just took the job. Laning. Laning. Notre Dame guy. And then Indiana guy. Freeman's going back for sure. There's three. Freeman's already re-upped and did some new contracting. But those three guys you would go after. Indiana signed signeti to an eight-year deal, but the money to me is when NFL Colm's calling, these guys listen. Well, it's interesting that there's no kick-ass candidate this year. There's not. Because even last year, it was like basically you knew the Vrables sweepstakes were coming. Well, Ben Johnson and Vrables were huge names. This year, so I'll tell you because I talked to these folks, the four names you're going to get are Jesse Minter, the defensive coordinator for the Chargers, Jeff Halfley, the defensive coordinator for the Packers. Chris Shula, defensive coordinator of the Rams. These are the hot names. And then of course, you'll get other guys that have coached before or whatever, you'll go through it. But this is not last year where it's Ben Johnson lighting up the league and it's Vrables and it's the whole thing. So this is the perfect year for a team to think outside the box and say, you know what, fuck it. I just watched as Indiana coach in two years bring this team from the most decrepit program in sports to one of the best coached, most disciplined teams. I would, I would, I'm going to go young here. I would throw the bag at him. Well, I would have said Atlanta was going to have a job open, but Rehems fighting to keep the job. One of the teams that we're going to cover. Rehems, they're Rehems. Oh no. Rehems is in control of the NFC South. Here's my question. My question is who is the last great from college directly into the pros to make an impact on the professional team? Yeah. Man, Harbra almost doesn't count because he was the NFL quarterback. Chip went to the playoffs his first year, but he wasn't sensational after that. Well, he was sensational this year as the Raiders offensive coordinator, but it's a different use of sensational. He's now the Northwestern. Northwestern hired him. Didn't they watch him work? He was magic with Vegas. Yeah. To me, it's apples and oranges. The best one ever with this was Spurrier who took over house this team. That was, forget what year that was. 2001. And we knew it was done when it talked about how he worked from eight to four. They could go play. And he wanted to go play golf. Play golf. Yeah. He had me out of the facility by four. We were like, this guy's fucked. He brought in one guy. He did some work at 60 hours a day. It's over. Very relatable. I understand where Steve's coming from. Yeah. I'm an eight to four guy. With the comparison with Signetti, the name that I thought of and I bring it to you because you guys are obviously sports aficionados and Bill, especially you as a connect guy, Jim Calhoun with Yukon's, what I came up with. Or Gino, I guess would be the other one. If Gino had done the crossover. Like Bill Snyder at Kansas State. Just out of nowhere. Yeah. I remember the house had another one Leonard Hamilton. They hired for the whiz from where University of Miami or somewhere. He ended up at Florida State. What the tremendous run. Like a year after year of super competitive teams at Florida State. He just turned out to be as a college guy. Jimmy Johnson is pretty good. Oh shit. Think about those. Those are. Yeah. They're going way back. Yeah. Yeah. I think if for NFL, I would rather take a chance on a guy who's two or three years too young than do a college guy. That's your Chris Hulor argument. I think there's a higher success. Now there's always like Raheem Morris at Tampa where he was like too young. He was 30. Yeah. But there's some other examples of getting the guy early and you'd rather be early than late. Because at least you know, like it's like a 15, 16 hour job. What do you think is the best job that's going to be available though? Out of all the jobs. Well, we have to first decide which ones are available. Because I think there's a couple of wild cards right now. I think we know the Giants and we know the Titans. Like I have no assurance that Atlanta is going to be available. I have no assurance that Mike McDaniel is coming back to the Dolphins. And I have no assurance that Pete Carroll. Well, yeah, Pete Carroll and then Stephansky I think is a wild card too. Yeah. So out of those teams of the maybes and then, you know, if Tampa loses people here, I'm reading the local newspaper when I was coming down here. Like I didn't even think of Todd Bowles where people are like, how could you lose this season? Like that's a total wild card if the Glaciers decide, you know what, let's start a new. We got Baker or whatever. If Todd Bowles loses this game on Saturday, that's got to be it for him. He's won four straight division titles. I know, but you lose eight of nine to end the year with a pretty talented roster. I don't know. What do you think, House? How does he come back after that? Yeah. And to me, it's not if I don't, I don't think about Tampa this weekend as an if they lose. You think no chance, huh? Oh, House. They haven't covered in nine games. I mean, what, what It looks like the vibes look bad, Triggs. You're there. Your feet's on the ground. Well, we had our meeting with the Buccaneers today on via Zoom. And obviously you're going to get, you know, the optimistic team, but Baker said, I don't know if I'm revealing anything. You know, it's like there's rules against what you can share. So here I am. Baker said, he's like, you know, we've had control of our own destiny since week one. Suddenly we don't. So today's vibe at practice was good. It was like loose. It was like, fuck it. Let's just go and let's go do our thing. Like the pressure of losing that finally they've lost that Carolina now controls their own destiny. So they're going to play loose. They hoping to get back. Collegia can't see hoping Tristan Werff's plays. And if you know either one of those guys, if they're hoping they're, I imagine, they're both going to be on the field. That's a better team than they had last week. I think Baker is like, how so get this? Cause he's an actual hockey fan. When the hockey playoffs, the series ends and the team gets eliminated. And it's like Brad Marsham was playing with a torn labrum and five broken ribs. You'll find that out after. And a herniated disc in his back. And it's just like all these injuries you didn't know. I can't wait to find out what Baker's injuries were. He has at least two. Punch, picture. There might be something wrong with both of his shoulders. And there's something wrong with the one of his legs. He can't run anymore. And he's not accurate. I don't want to be a dick, but like, you know, the gentle response to Baker is it's not suddenly your, your, your, your two and eight over your last 10 games. It didn't happen all of a sudden. Many, many, many winnable games in there. They were six and two. We're going to do, oh God. They were six and two and they had, they beat the 49ers, the Texans, and they beat Seattle in Seattle. Can you imagine they're missing the playoffs? And that's crazy. I want to get to the picks, but when we're talking about the coaching vacancies, what's just assumed more jobs are going to be available than you think? Last year, Vrable, who I think could have had his pick, was like, I want to coach Drake May. And I think even use the jets as like, you know, a little bit of a straw man because he was trying to get craft to get to the right place. And he was using a lot of people behind the scenes to hopefully get craft to see the light. And he did and it worked out great. What do you think is the best job that might be available? Because I think it's probably Baltimore. Oh, wow. If the Ravens lose on Sunday night, or if they get killed in round one, and they decide to stick with the Mar, something's got to change. And Harba has been there forever. And you could argue, new coach, you can see it differently. I would say Baltimore. Would you say somebody else? I know you're going to say this is the bias in me, but there's a team with an elite pass rush, a franchise quarterback, and a left tackle on the roster in New York with leaked neighbors at wide receiver. You can argue that you step into that and the roster is there. And you can be a lot further along than some of these other teams that have salary. Another top four pick. Another top four pick, maybe a top two pick like giants. And it's the, it's that logo and it's that market. People do gravitate towards that. You can, I mean, hardball and for the giants makes sense to me. And I honestly, Pete, Pete, Pete, you know this. I'm calling you Pete because this is I've never been called in my life. Your boy, Cliff Kingsbury, main, I don't know about Cliff Kingsbury here in Washington. I don't know that that's a lifetime. They decided to do a lifetime contract. Did you see the stat Washington, the schedule makers gave them eight standalone games this year, 0 and eight in those games. Oh, I'm, I'm, I watched. They did when they do the schedule. And by the way, I would even say this with my own team, although I think we're, we're set up a little better than Washington was. Cause watch that an old roster and there were some predictable pieces about it, but they should take into account the year after when you went from the super easy schedule to my dad and I were talking about the path schedule next year the other day. And we were like, Oh my God, the check is coming for a firm thing that happened. Um, since an ad is mildly interesting, but I, they've won their last four and they'll probably, they're cheap. I can't see them paying two coaches, but I think they'll keep it. I think had Marvin Lewis on those years. I want to go back. So Cliff, you're saying out, you would say he'd be a head coaching candidate. You would say that what the offensive there's no head coaching candidates. Atlanta is an incredible situation. Atlanta is amazing on both sides of the ball. Holy shit. That's a good team. I couldn't agree with house for it. I think that's the perfect team. If they could play any special teams whatsoever. They're the stupidest to how are they not a 10 and five, 10 and 16 right now. Who's your cornerback? And they showed it next year's first round pick for another, another pass rush. They don't have a first round pick. So who's your quarterback? Malik Willis. Lamar Jackson. Guys of the best. Two greats, two, two great answers. I agree. I think Atlanta has a ton of talent. They're, they're very good on both sides of the ball. It's ridiculous that they're not going to be the winners of the NFC South. I was at that game. I believe they're not going to win it. They don't get a lot of credit as like a fervent fan base. That place was rocking. If they just, if they just had a team that could, like, I mean, it was amazing those years when they were going with Julio and Matt Ryan and all that, they was, that place was on fire on Monday night. And gosh, if Lamar was their quarterback and Bijon in the backfield, are you serious? When my team played them, first of all, they were way scarier. Like to me, they, they felt like an 11 win team when we were playing them. We couldn't stop. It was terrified of Robinson. You know, it just, it's just hard to believe you watch them last week at the Rams. I was scared of that game all week because I had had the Rams at a money line. I didn't have to do it in a giant head. She had the way, but it felt like just a live spot for Atlanta. And yet they went full Atlanta in the game. The game was over. All of a sudden it wasn't. All of a sudden it seemed like they were going to blow it. It's classic. I have seven games to discuss for ringer 107. And I'm just going to list the games. And if there's a game missing, tell me. Bucks Panthers, Falcon St, Seahawks 49ers, Raven, Steelers, we have talked about those four. I want to talk about Bengals Browns because I have some hard thoughts on that. Vikings Packers and Chiefs Raiders were the seven I was looking at for picks. Is there anything else house? I wonder about the bills just because. So Alan sitting, I don't know what the Jets motivations are. Mitch Trebisky. Doesn't it matter to the bills though? Doesn't, wouldn't they prefer? I think they can go from five to six, right? Or seven. Yeah. Wouldn't they, it's a question. I'll put it. It's a high line though. So I don't know even what you do with it. I mean, tease it. That's one thing you could do. I know, but we can't do that for ringer 107. I, I, before we even get into it, week one, my old colleague and dear friend, Kyle Brandt, on, on Good Morning Football used to say week one is a liar. Stay away, no matter what. You don't know what the hell we're getting. Stay away. I think week 18 is a liar as well. I have no, you have no idea what teams with nothing to gain are going to come out and play with their hats on fire. Like the dolphins did to the Patriots all those years and those meaningless, you know, you don't know, but I like to find teams that have something to play for and play in those parameters. I don't know what the hell to do with Chiefs Raiders. Well, so the case you just laid out is actually the case for this game, because we do know what one of the teams wants to do. That is lose with Raiders. That's right. And the Chiefs are five and a half. It's in Vegas. The Raiders points the last eight weeks. They scored seven, 16, 10, 14, 17, 0, 21 in the Houston game, which included a pick six, and then 10 against the Giants. And my question is, is it just Casey Moneyline Parley with an under 42 and a half thinking the Raiders can't score more than 10 points and the Chiefs have Michael Oluwakande as their quarterback? Chris Ola-Dokin. Is that just a game we should be looking at knowing that Vegas is not going to try to win the game? They do not want to win. I don't want to have anything to do with it. I really don't. How many Chiefs starters on defense are going to see? That's fine. Let's, we'll cross it up. You've also seen these games. I mean, I remember the Jets Rams a couple of years ago where the team has nothing to play for but the number one pick, but the players don't play that way. Yeah, but they keep sitting all the players that could impact the game. I know. They must have cut a deal with Pete, the other Pete. The other Pete. No, Pete Schrager, Pete Carroll. Yeah, they must have cut a deal. Like, we're going to get rid of the rest of these games. Please, let's lose. We'll get Mendoza next year. And you could say, spend some money. You can stay. And maybe they'll double cross them. I don't think Tom Brady wants that. Vikings Packers. Packers locked in the seven seed, starting Clayton Tune. Yep. Had to sign Desmond Ritter. Yep. Vikings laying seven and a half. One four straight can lock down nine, 98 for the year. Let's go get it. That's one, that's one love. Shraggs, are the Packers playing anybody in this game? No, and their defense has been ravaged to the bone and they're not going to try to play any of those guys on defense, I would imagine, with a playoff game coming up the next week. They just signed Trayvon Diggs, didn't they? They did. I can't imagine. He ain't saying in the football field this week. Can't imagine he's going to be picking the passes off. My Cowboys fan friends seem to think he was like genuinely terrible for the Cowboys this year. Is that true? Yeah, there's a lot of stuff apparently. I don't know all the details, but there was off the field and on the field. Okay. Love the Vikings. Who's playing quarterback? I'm going to bold the Vikings. Who you know? Is it JJ Planner? Is it our guy? Is it Brozmer? Is it Brozmer? It's my man Brozmer. All right. Bengals Browns. We're on the same side of this one too, I know already. Let me hear. First of all, Cleveland saw this in Aaron Schatz's thing. Cleveland now has the ninth worst DVO offense of all time and they have the tenth worst special teams of all time. Let's go. Then you have pretty like Frisky at home, not always reliable, but Frisky and on the road, one of the worst road teams in a while. You have no Herald Fannin in this gamehouse. He was like their one target. Since he waited DVOA, which they do that it's kind of favors the second part of the year, the last two thirds, they're 17th. They look good last week. This feels like a run it up. Let's try to end the season with good vibes. You know what sucks is, yes, we are absolutely positively betting the Bengals at least seven and a half. Make it 10 and a half. I don't give a fuck. We're like all the points. I gave you 13 and a half. Fine. Whatever you want. Let's alt spread. What happens if they go up 10-nothing? The Browns, how are they going to score? No chance. Zero chance. Yeah, we're alt spreading the hell out of that with my real pocketbook. But here's what I hate. Here's what I hate. The beginning of next season, when we're sitting and looking at how the Bengals finish the season, especially their defense got much better. Like from week 10 till now. It is. It's noticeable when you watch. They actually have a little bit of a pass rush now. They stop the run. They're different. I agree. This is the first time since 2021, they have won by 20 points, two games in a row. Well, they had that crazy ball to 24-nothing loss where I actually thought their defense played pretty good and Burrow like single-handedly killed the game for them and was like sad. Listen to the Smiths, Burrow. He's happy now. Now he's happy again. There's some like Chase Brown has some incentive stuff in this game. There's some money incentive stuff on the Bengal side that you got to watch for. All right. I'm going to mark that one. Lockstep. Alt spread. Raven Steelers. It feels like a stay away, but it's also a playoff game. And I feel like Cowards, if we're not bidding it, it's Ravens three and a half in Pittsburgh. Winner gets the four seed. Lamar playing. Lamar definitely playing. Yes. The thing for me, House is the no Mac half piece and how, how impotent the Steelers offense looked without Mac half. It was like nothing around in the red zone works anymore. Plus they lost the giant tight end. He broke his arm. That's right. Everything in the red zone works for them anymore. They don't get the Rogers third and nine bailout wrong shoulder throws to Mac half anymore. This is out of the offense. And I, if it is basically stopped the run and what are they going to do? I don't, Shraigs, I don't, I don't see a case here for, for the Steelers. Here's the case. Okay. Let's hear it. Well, they're underdogs, which is dangerous. Home underdogs. Rogers fucking lives for these moments. Whether you think he's clutching these games or not, he, this is, he's not going to lay an egg here. And they're in the same exact situation before they played Baltimore the last time. Came out swimming from the jump and Baltimore didn't have an answer. Like this is the season on the line. It's, it's Tomlin. It's everything. And last week was horrendous and down the stretch, you know, here's, here's what kills you down the stretch. In February, you go to the combine, you spend, you know, $100,000 sending your entire staff there to do scouting and March, you do free agency, April, you do the draft, you get Rodgers and they signed Valdez scantling a week ago and he's getting the pass for three straight plays at the end of the game. It's like they were running the Metcalfe plays for him. They thought he was Metcalfe and he hasn't been on the team and he hasn't been playing football. So it, that's what, now it's like, all right, take a breath. We're home. TJ Watt, we'll see if he plays the hope is he's back. And after he got stabbed by Tyrone Taylor style. Yeah. So I, and here's the other part of it. It's such a wide open AFC. And I know you're saying the Patriots and we're talking about the Broncos and the Texans. It's like, I could see the pep talk before the game. Roger's looking around the quarterback room of the rest of the AFC and seeing Drake May and Bo Nix and, and Trevor Lawrence and saying, are you fucking kidding me? Like get me in that dance and, and let's, let's see what we can do. I've been there. And I, you know, so all this stuff is, could be moot if Derek Henry runs for 200 yards and Lamar is running all over them. But I kind of like the Steelers in this one. Well, that you're supposed to, because in the first place, when the line in this series is three points or more, and it's three and a half right now, the underdog is 24, five and three against the spread. And, and on top of that, as an underdog against the Ravens, Mike Tomlin, 14, four and two against the spread when the line is three or more. So you're supposed to like the Steelers here. Man, does it hurt? I don't like any aspect of it. Might be a stay away. Yeah. Can I redo the receivers the Steelers had last week? Give me some Scotty Miller. Give it to me. Friar Muth led the team three catches for 63. Scotty Miller was three for 25. Valdez Gantling, three for 21 with nine targets, three for 21. Jay Smith? John O. Oh, that's John O. Smith. Forgot he played. Did Adam Thielen get one? Washington two for 15. He's gone for the year. Adam Thielen two for 14. Five targets. And then Gainwell three for 12. Are you serious? How are they going to move the ball? For Pete's sake. For Pete's sake. So, House, can I at least offer you a life raft with not having to go against the Steelers as a home dog? Let me hear how you do it. Ravens money line under 50 and a half points gets us eligible for ringer 107 stuff. They would have to score 51 points to beat us with Steelers team that has no receivers and a Ravens team that's just going to run the ball with Lamar Jackson. And Derek Henry. Not even sure I want to do that. But I'm just, the other way we go is Baltimore money line over 32 and a half if you think the game can get to 33 points. I don't want to do a combination because we just did this. We just did Baltimore. Yeah. And Packers. How are Malik Willis and Snoop Huntley going to score 50 points? Derek Henry. He's scoring game of the season. So maybe it's a stay away. Yeah. I saw Shraig's on ESPN and is for Pete's sake segment doing the don't count out Aaron Rodgers for Pete's sake. It's true. His MVP last year. Well, the thing is if they get in, so Rodgers and Locker, I'm like, oh, if there's been this game, they were home. We'll get Neck have back next week. Home. Probably on Monday night. We can beat every wild card in the league. Let's go. So there's a case where everyone has money in the Ravens, like everybody. And it's like the classic like January Lamar. Can I request some more? Can I request what happens in the future? Can I get Chris Collins worth from you after a crazy Aaron Rodgers touchdown pass in the fourth quarter bill? Can I get the impression? I mean, Adam Thelan should be in, should have been out of the league five years ago, Mike. Here he is catching back shoulder balls in the end zone. All right. We can stay away. Seahawks minus one and a half in San Francisco. Winner gets the one seed. They played in week one. It was San Francisco, 17 Seattle, 13. And in the sports movie version of this game, Mike McCarthy watches the video of him being a coward. Mike McDonald. Mike McDonald. Sorry, Mike McCarthy. Mike McDonald watches the video of him cowarding out and kicking the field goal when he should know, when he should just go on for the fucking fourth and one kill and cost them the game. Now is a chance to avenge it. I just want to point out San Francisco has the 27th ranked defense in DBOA. I know we talked about them a bunch earlier, but if there's ever a team to light the wick on Sam Darnold's candle, it's this Niners defense. Sam Darnold's under, been under siege a couple of games against good defenses. Now finally some space and being able to see things and they'll be able to run the ball and, and they have a really good defense, which San Francisco has not faced in a while. I am leaning pretty hard, Seattle, here, Shrakes. Nobody has played quarterback better the last two weeks in the NFL than Brock Purdy. I get it. This offense is as good as, The throw pick six. It's as good as anybody has put on the field the last few weeks. And Seattle's traveling all the way back from Carolina. They have a short week, have to play Saturday night on the road. There's a lot of things to like about San Francisco. Do you feel like San Francisco has a home field advantage in that weird Santa Clara stadium? Yes. That place was rocking last week. And I would ever say this. I've never seen a football game there. No. And it's not candlestick, trust me. It's not, but it's also not met life for you walk in and you feel like you're at a dentist's office. I would, I would say the carrot at the end of this thing is the first team ever to be the number one seed and have a Super Bowl at home. So it's like, if we just can win this game, we don't have to sleep in another bed other than our own the entire way. And we could be Super Bowl champions. And that's the message there right now. Like get through this game one win at a time, but how to be the opposite. How's it be like, I'd love to be the seven seed on the road for a month. This is great. I love living at hotel rooms. Four straight. That's that's what you're pushing for hotel. First of all, I don't think anyone needs a carrot in this game. It's for the number one seed. You have to play in round one. I'm not trying to guess incentives. I'd also add Clint Kubiak, former Shanahan disciple, Sam Darnold, Shanahan, Hadham for the year. Shanahan Revival. Rehabilitated it. Yes. So there might be a, I mean, you could say that, okay, that means they're going to be okay, but or the Niners know what's, what the pros and the cons are of that team. Can I add one thing here? McCaffrey looked fucking banged up by the end of that last game. That's, that is such an X factor. I totally agree with that. I mean, that's the number one reason I want to take Seattle. That did not seem like the kind of guy who wanted a 35 touch workload in this game. He was doing, so what do you think house? The plank where, with the stretches where you try and get your hamstrings into your glutes. He's on the sideline doing that in the end of the third quarter. The poor man. I felt so bad. How's our old guys, we know all the old guys back moves. We have done all of that. To hit me in the heart. I am pretty strong on Seattle here. I really think that, that this defense that can put pressure on without blitzing and drop guys back into the middle of the field. Brock Purdy lives in the middle of the field. He looked, we've just watched and he's going to have Kittleback, but man, every time they need third and sixth, second, he goes right to the middle of the field and he is incredible at it. But like, if you look at the defenses, the success rate of the defenses, since he came back from injury, all they've done is beat up on questionable defenses. The two best defenses that they've played were Cleveland, who they took care of with Cleveland being buffoons and Carolina, who also had their own sort of version of buffoonery. And there were not incredible like yards per play numbers or success numbers for the San Francisco offense against those defenses. This is an entirely different level of defense. And Mike McDonald now with his ability to put pressure on, especially with Trent Williams, the news doesn't seem good. If he's out, then give me Seattle all day. You see, if Kittle playing hurt, probably playing, you have McCaffrey playing hurt. If Trent Williams probably not playing, you have a defense that, I'm looking at the name here last week, they gave up 38 points to the Bears. And by the way, it should have been 45. Caleb Williams kind of gacked that last throw. He did. Guy was open. One of those touch sounds was a pick six. So it was 31 they gave up. But still, they could have had, if they scored on that last drive, they would have had six scoring drives, five offense and touchdowns. And there were guys open all over Luther burden. By the end of that game, you thought he was Jerry Rice. So you have Seattle who can go, they can go big, they can go smaller, they can control the ball. I don't want to bet on Darnold in a playoff game when he's going against an awesome defense. I'm just telling you now, I'm not doing that. Me either. That is a cross off for me. No, thank you. But when he's going against a flimsy defense, I don't mind Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold's put up big stats against bad defenses. And I just think with like, with the health tricks, I think you're getting out voted on this one. Winning in last year, if they win against Detroit in a big spot, Sam Darnold's team gets the one seed and gets a week off and then could just rest everybody. And you remember what happened on that Sunday night to Detroit. I'm not, I am a Sam Darnold fan and I think he has, he is an, I mean, look at his wins the last two years. This guy can play, but Purdy in these games, Brock Purdy is a robot in these games. He is like from another planet. He is, he is T, he's terminator two. I, I don't know, man. I look at the quarterbacks. I look at the coaches. I look at the big game experience. Give me San Francisco at home. Pretty good. All right. We'll see who's right. Cause house and I are jumping on Seattle, jumping on them. Atlanta and the Saints, two best teams in the NFC South, unbelievable. If Atlanta wins, Carolina quenches the NFC South. Now Carolina Tampa, that's the last game we're talking about. I love the Falcons in this game. When they scratch, I love them before they scratch the larvae. When they scratch the larvae, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Cause I've actually watched a lot of the saints house and I have quietly been betting saints games and mostly in the saints. They lost Valle who was actually really coming off for them. And then everything moved to a lobby who all of a sudden looked like a top five guy again. Now he's out. I just, there are no weapons anymore. And Tyler Shuck, it's like, I didn't know how he was doing it to begin with. And then that's Atlanta team. This would just be the most Atlanta game ever to beat the saints. By the way, with the saints, like they proved what they want to prove. They have hope for next year. Like it actually makes sense for them not to care about this game. I love Falcons by three. This is a classic Falcons gamehouse. Shregs, I want you to help us because the only thing that concerns me is the Shuck has played his way legitimately into the offensive rookie of the year conversation. He's winning it. It's over. He won. Wow. Okay. Well, there you go. Who would be the alternative? Everybody has, it's Ted, you know, Ted, Ted. No, it's Shuck. I'm just telling you, like, let's look, I'll look at the market while we're talking this through. I thought they were, they're like co-favorites right now. Right. This is what I mean. So, but Shregs is telling us. By the way, I left out one case for Atlanta Shregs. They're not their first run pick. No, I know. They've nothing to, there's no tanking here. And their coach is below. They literally have nothing to play for. And their coach is trying to keep his job. To me, they love him because he's the nicest guy in the world. Yeah. And I also think they have way more talent than the Saints as good as House of the Buddy. Shregs, you made a great point though. They've proven what they've wanted to. I could see them saying, all right, that was awesome. Here we go. There also is a big difference between a fourth place schedule going into 2026, 2027 and a third place schedule. That's not like to be dismissed out of hand. There's a bunch of injuries. You keep seeing defensive guys for the Saints on the injury list. Like, you know, we're doing this on Thursday night. So we'll have to see how that plays out. Cause the defense has quietly been the thing that they're, you know, they've covered five straight games and one four outright. And they've been good in second half and stuff too. Yeah. They're like shutdown drafts. So I'm looking at the stats from last week. They beat Tennessee by eight. O'Lave was eight for 119 at 11 targets. The next guy was Juwan, Juwan, Juwan Johnson had four targets. Pettis had three. Austin Jr. with five. Mateveo with two. I mean, they got no guys left. If Atlanta can't win this game, give me a break. The other thing, it's just the most NFC South thing ever. If Tampa beat Carolina and they got knocked out by Atlanta, it's just like, no, I think it's, I think it's the other way around. It's just hilarious. They need Atlanta to lose, right? Who? Tampa needs Atlanta to lose. Yes. But it would be hilarious if Tampa won and then Atlanta won and they got knocked out even though they won. But I think the Carolina Bucks game, I know where house is going. I'm sorry. I have to make sure. No, we're not messing us up. If Atlanta wins, Carolina clinches the NFC South, no matter what happens in Carolina. Yeah. That's right. All right. Every Buck and Ears fan is a Tyler Shuck fan. Yes, that's right. That's what I said to myself to get this right. Yep. Bucks minus three Panthers is the last one. This is an I'm so stupid game because no matter what happens, if you're on the wrong side after this game, you tell yourself how stupid you are. Bucks, we covered all this stuff with them. We saw this game in week 16, Carolina 23, Tampa 20. It felt like Tampa should have won the whole game and they just kept doing dumb shit. Carolina kept having drives and then as house loves to point out house's favorite zigzag team, the Carolina Panthers, week seven, bad win, loss, win, loss, win. They've done this for almost three months. House, you love this when this happens. Every one of their wins, they have eight wins this season has come as an underdog. What are they this week? An underdog. It's time to play the Carolina Panthers. It's an even week. They're unstoppable in even weeks. Yeah, look, this isn't either team could win. You might as well grab the points would be. And also like with the Bucks, because I started the week and even like started this podcast, you probably get to talk me into the Bucks. But as we laid out how awful they've been for two straight months and how we don't know if Baker Mayfield is healthy, like it just, this would be an on feel stupid game if you lay minus three with them. They just lost to Quinn fucking Ewers. What are we talking about? Their playoff life was on the line. Their destiny was in their own hands. Their defense has been horrendous. There's a defensive backfield, which was the strength of those teams, you know, with Brady in the last couple years with Baker, the defensive backfield is just completely ravaged with injury now. I would add this from the Tampa side of it, just having talked to, okay, okay. Let me just say, oh, he didn't. I talked to balls on a production meeting call. That's a big, I just talked to balls here on sticky. They've got Mike Evans. They've got Tristan Werf's. They've got Baker Mayfield. They've got LaVonte, David. These guys are like, who have been there and done that and to just completely shit the bed and let the season go to waste. Like there is pride in that room. And if this is LaVonte, David's last game, there's something to rally around there. There's just, Yeah, but why didn't they rally the last five weeks? I know, I know. Exactly. Back against the wall. Why didn't that happen last week? All right. That was my, that was, I tried. Why didn't that happen in week 16 when they played Carolina? They should have been very proud to be Carolina. Exactly. That's why this is such a great game because you can totally talk yourself into either one. By the way, I don't really want to take Carolina. What's so great about it? I don't trust Bryce Young. They were, you know, remember Ibuka was like the rookie of the year, I think. He was the only guy healthy. Everyone's healthy on that receiver's room. Now they got Bucky Irving. They got Tucker. They got, like everyone's healthy on offense. And they've completely gone into the waste baskets. 17 points against Miami, 20 points against Carolina. Here's my only other favorite this game house. When they played two weeks ago, Tampa had the ball for almost 35 minutes. Carolina had the ball for 25 minutes. Tampa rushed for 169 yards. Do they just like run the ball down Carolina's throats and bake, just tell Baker don't be crazy here. That'd be my fear. This is why this is an I'm so stupid game. Carolina only ran for 101 yards in that game, which if you're going to make the case for Carolina, they're going to be able to run the ball. Mcmillan's back this week, right? Yeah. And it's an even week. Let me ask this. And Tampa has proven that home field advantage means nothing to them because they keep losing games at home. Should we just stay away? Should we, because these are two stupid teams. I mean, we've just established that they're neither one of them is the best team in the NFC South, but they're playing. If we stay away from this, then that means we have to either take Raven Steelers or Chiefs Raiders. Why are you afraid? That means we just have to take the Chiefs minus five and a half. Let me, why wouldn't, why don't you like Houston? What are you afraid of with Houston? They still have a chance to win the AFC South and they're playing at the same time as Jackson. It's the Jags. Yeah. Now the Jags have Tennessee. And so Houston will be looking and seeing the Jags up 21 points, you know, I'm afraid of them because they, in the second half, they could just not give a shit about the game, but they are also playing Riley Leonard. Riley Leonard is traveling to Houston to play football against the Houston Texans. I can't have the coats have a lot of good dudes though. They still have like talent on offense. I just worry about Houston at halftime going, call off the dogs, time to see what we got. Let's save everybody. Fair enough. Fair enough. And I only, the one I was honestly looking at was the, the Dolphins. Shrek's has a point. Let's listen. Dolphins plus 11 and a half in New England with, with, I don't know. I just think that line's way too high. I agree with you, but the, the, the Patriots keep covering those big lines. I'm not going to surround with it. This is unrelated to the games this week, but it is something I've thought through. The Texans right now would most likely be the five seed. Okay. The four seed would most likely be the winner of the rate. It is the Raven Steelers winner. It's the Steelers hosting somebody or the Ravens, right? Or the Ravens. Now the four, five matchup is traditionally the wildcard Monday night game. I don't think back to back weeks ESPN is going to get Carolina or Tampa as their Monday, you know, as they're on their slate. They have it this week, which leads me to Texans Ravens on Monday, Texans Ravens or Texan Steelers. I tell you this three minute soliloquy. I think the Shakies game with the Texans is in trouble guys. Oh no. She tells Sal. I'm not told Sal. I don't think they're playing on Saturday afternoon this year, guys. All right. I'm going to have to make an executive call with one of the picks. You're allowed. I think we're right to stay away from Carolina. It's such a stupid game. All right. Today's ringer 107 presented by Fandall. And here's what we're going to do. We've agreed on four of these picks and then I'm audibling on the fifth one. Seahawks minus one half at San Francisco. Shragues made a very strong enticing case for the four Niners that was overruled by House of the Night because we think the Niners are too banged up. We liked the Sam Darnold against the Flimsy defense and the Seahawks D. And we just think they're a worthy one seed. By the way, incredible DVOA team, Seattle, San Francisco, 27th DVOA defense. So that's one. House and I both love the Bengals in a smash spot against the Browns minus seven and a half against one of the worst offenses in the history of the league now playing without Harold Fanon. And the Bengals just pouring on trying to confuse us for next July as we're looking at their division odds. House, is this your favorite game? I really love it. Yes. Okay. Next one Vikings minus seven and a half at home against the Packers and Shragues, this guy, Clayton Tune. Let's go. Minnesota could lock down 98 for the season. They could lock down a five game winning streak. They could talk themselves into a, oh, if this hadn't happened and this hadn't happened, blah, blah, blah. Maybe we would have won 11 games if they had a professional quarterback. Right. And Green Bay locked into seven. They don't care. This is a, let's not get anyone hurt. Let's get the fuck out of dodge game. So that is one, two, three. Oh, and then we have Falcon Saints, Falcons minus three. Can you imagine it's going to come down to a Falcons game, the most perplexing, maddening, vexing team in the NFL. The Saints have just run out of playmakers kudos to them for a spirited second half effort, but they have nobody left for Taylor Shuck to do anything with Falcons. This would be the most classic thing ever of Tampa wins. And then the Falcons knocked them out of the playoffs, but don't win the NFC South. Falcons minus three. That's our fourth one. And then our fifth one, we're going to do the Baltimore Moneyline in a parlay that house hates. Ravens minus three nap against the Steelers. I don't trust it. Steelers home underdog, house laid out all the case. I just think the Ravens have a better team. And you take DK Metcalf out. I have no idea how the Steelers moved ball. Shrags warned us. He begged us, told us to listen to him. Technically not listening or not listening to him because we're not doing the minus three, five. We're in a Baltimore Money house. You pick over 32 and a half or under 50 and a half. I don't want responsibility for this. Which one you pick? I mean, it's a 13 to 10 game. It's a 13 do. All right. So we're going Ravens Moneyline under 50 and a half points. How is this game going to have 51 points? How do any of these games do this? Those are the ringer one of seven picks for week 18. All lines are lines that could potentially change. Unfandle wanted to mention that. What was your favorite picture? Shrags Cincinnati. I like the Cincinnati. I feel good. They're, they're vibe in the right way. And I think Cleveland had their, had their moment last week beat the Steelers. They're super bowl. Yeah. They'll get the sack too. The Joe Jopee will go down. They'll get the sack for miles. As an aside, I am getting texts from everyone in my life that this rewatchables top 50 movies of the 2000s that you just sprung on your two codes. 21st century. That's 2000s. 21st century. The blind, blind podcast. You just blindly dropped on these two cinephiles of yours. Yeah. Arguably your greatest podcast episode. Oh, wow. It may be a decade. There's a lot of talk online that you have, you are right now in the zone, like a Steph Curry zone the last few months. It's our HGH rumors yet. No, this is, this is heat check, Bill Simmons. And I know you don't, I know you don't respond to the Reddit thing, but they tag me and everything. And the pendulum has completely swung back that they're all in on Simmons. They're all in on Simmons. How suppose I gave up sugar? 2026 can be my best year. They don't know that we went to Germany two weeks ago. Yeah. We went, how's the night keep flying in Germany and getting the sneaky Germany? That's what it could get. What was like blood spinning? Blood spinning. Yes. That's my next move after giving me a sugar. Said that I was at a splitting image with Lena Dunham last time I was on the podcast, which I don't know how to take that. That's pretty good. I just don't like the meanness of these internet threads. I like it too. Wait, when does your no sugar, no, when is all that started? It started five days ago. Why do you think I've been on fire at this whole podcast? What'd you eat after all the drinking yesterday? What do you mean? You were on a bar crawl. What'd you eat at the end of the bar crawl? You didn't have a mother fucker? No, we ate some stuff. It wasn't, but no dessert, nothing. No dessert is fine. I will say I did have a margarita last time, which I think has sugar in it. Yeah. Is it a skinny girl? Yeah, that definitely has sugar in it. It's a skinny girl. Kind of cheated a little bit there. It was not skinny girl. It's good. House, you're just jealous. I was doing great for like three, for four years. I was so focused on eating and being careful. House came out in December of 2017. We had launched House of Carbs, the food podcast with House. And we wanted, House wanted to go to all these LA spots. And House was here and I gained five pounds in four days with House. Beautiful. Including we went to that pastrami place. Oh, so goddamn good. We went to the Paddy Mill Place. All of a sudden I went off the wagon. It was, it was like the guy in the Sopranos who started gambling again. That was friends of Christopher Molto Sante. Not the guy who was working in the sporting goods store. No, we went without another guy who went off the wagon. But yeah, House like, I was doing so well. And then House is like, well, we got to get a milkshake. Well, forgetting the pastrami. We got to put cheese on it. And then I just have never, I've always been focused, but never quite the same. So House, you're not getting any more. Like you're having, you're in the zone right now podcast. I don't want to jinx it like a perfect game, but you've been in the zone. You've been fucking hot lately. I just think there's been good stuff to talk about. Fentasy, the thing Fentasy and I have coming up in a second, we do the 21 best sports movies of the 21st century. It's just good topic. It's going to be pretty good. Good content. A lot of good stuff. I'm going to listen to 2026 football playoffs. The basketball has been great. We got winter Olympics. I care about the hockey. Have you, have you been following the rosters? Yeah. Adam Fox, my guy from the Rangers did not get put on team USA. They left off Connor Bernard. I'm in Canada. I was like, whoa. Wow. I'm paced for like a hundred points. For Connor. What did he do? Marsh Ann's on there, but it's like that your hockey is going to be incredible. Then we got World Cup. We got basketball playoffs. The World Cup is going to be insane. We have WNBA lockout. Hopefully they'll fix it. No, it's like that we'll have like labor stuff to talk about. And say this year's going to have everything. Pustle, Marjaxi going to be training the Falcons. Drake may go on for a second MVP. Kirk Signetti, the coach of the Giants. Have you talked to house at all about how the wizards passed up Cedric Howard and take Trey Johnson? Don't do that. That's not appropriate. And Dare Queen. Dare Queen was available. Was he? The typical guy. Literally grew up in the DMV. Should have taken Danny Wolf. My guy on the Nets, my favorite player in the league. Got trashed hot by Jimmy Butler. Called him white boy over and over again. What did he do? I mean, that's literally true. Why, how's that an insult? The Nets are like in a panic trying to trade Michael Porter right now because he's ruining their draft pick. Yeah, he's too good to be in the Nets. So he's had a career renaissance. All right, guys. Happy new year. Happy new year. Great to see you. We're going to start 20-6. I hope we win all of our bets. Shraigs, maybe for the playoffs, maybe you could just pop on. I would love to. Hey, you know me. I am a total glutton for the punishment. I get online when I come on this podcast. Every time I name drop, I cannot wait to join. Sneaky pee. Thanks, guys. Transfia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Transfia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit trimfiaradio.com. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. You know, with just one trip to Whole Foods, you can travel the world. First stop, discover the taste of the Mediterranean with big sales on brands like DeSecco, Oreos, and San Pellegrino. With Whole Foods prepared, foods dinner is solved. You can roam the world with empanadas, burritos, soups, and more. Maybe expand your snack repertoire to South America with colorful and crunchy Peruvian potato chips. Then straight to Mexico for dessert. You can pick up a Trace Leche's Family Pack Cake for only $10 every Friday. All aboard, save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market. All right, recording this on New Year's Day. We just finished the first quarter of the century. Sean Fenton is here. Pops on the rewatchables from time to time. Pops on this podcast from time to time. Host, a big picture, just did his 25 best movies of the 21st century. Always complicated with the 2000. 2000 doesn't count. It's not part of the century. People get mad about that, but it's just not the case. Well, you know, we did a pod on the rewatchables as well for your favorite, your most rewatchable movies of the century. And you shared that rule, but then you did pick Proof of Life. And I fucked up. I thought it came out in like 2003. It was December of 2000. So it was right at the cutoff line. No, I would have bumped it. Well, Zodiac can go right in that spot because we forgot to put in Zodiac. So you had Social Network at number one, which is what I was figuring because we've talked about that movie a lot over the years. But you had, if you'd consult me, which you didn't, you did the one filmmaker, one filmmaker movie for the list, I'd say you couldn't get two. So what was the big regret of did anyone qualify for, they should have had two movies on the list if you were doing it, if you had a two movie role. I think part of the reason we did that was because I was, I personally would have put like five PTA movies on there. And if I was being honest about what were my favorite movies, PTA, Fincher, Tarantino, Nolan, Wes Anderson, there's like a handful of people for Amanda, Sophia Coppola, who like our favorite filmmakers comprise like a lot of our favorite movies. So we did the one filmmaker thing, as with all ringer projects, universal, universal acclaim. We've been told we're the greatest podcasters of all time. Everyone's really proud of our work. And yeah, we're being celebrated today at the Rose Parade. We were on a float. I don't know if you saw a 25 for 25 float and they were really cheering us on like big picture, big picture. So it was great. Oh, congratulations. Yeah, everybody just really appreciates these lists and they don't get mad at all. They do. They do. People were really mad at a couple of things on my most, even though I explained the premise over and over again in the beginning and people were still furious that movies like just go with it and a lot like Love were on there. Limitless, I stand by it at number 16, even though it drew or glorious laughter from both you and Chris. In the moment, it was extremely funny because you were naming, you were naming a lot of movies that we know you love that are like sentimental favorites. And then you were also naming all time classics, you know, Dark Knight. And so yeah, Limitless is in that weird nether zone of just like Bill, it's 330 on a Tuesday afternoon and he just puts on TNT and Limitless is there and it's like a warm bath for you. There it is. Yeah, he just started taking the pills. I'm waiting for basketball to come on. I'm ready to roll. One thing I was thinking with the century from like not a rewatchable standpoint, but from a best movie standpoint, I feel like five movies are kind of anyone can have their own list. The one that surprised me that wasn't on your list was Brokeback because I felt like the five movies from the first quarter that I just feel like would be on most people's lists are social network, Dark Knight, There Will Be Blood, No Country and Brokeback. And then everyone else's list is probably going to look different, but I feel like most lists would have that. Those were the five for me that I think as I thought back. And then you start getting into like the spotlight zodiac op and I mean, then it becomes a little more personal preference. But then it really social network, Dark Knight and There Will Be Blood are probably the three because I think there will be blood had the as you talked about on the pod, it has the best performance of the 21st century. And then social network is kind of culturally maybe the most significant and then Dark Knight is the most ambitious from IP. We kind of blinked at the last minute and flipped Dark Knight for Oppenheimer because of the one director rule, but I think they were like neck and neck the whole time. We didn't do Brokeback. I kind of psyched myself out on that one because I crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the other Ang Lee movie and they're like 50-50 to me. Like those are two really big movies for me. And you know, Amanda and I didn't really get too deep into that conversation, but you know, like you guys just did Brokeback on the pod. That's just like a classic movie. It's just an amazing film. So I don't know, it's tough. You're right that there's some films that feel like totally canonical, but also we're in our own bubbles, right? Like we're in our own, like to me, the social network, the age that I am, the people who were involved in it, what it meant to like what my career was going to become are all feel so important. Other people see that movie and they're like, this is like a biopic about a dickhead. It's not that important. You know, it is what it is. No, that's the Steve Cohen story. Hey, hey, hey, hey, we don't know that yet. We don't know that yet. We're not positive yet. Let's see if Kyle Tucker or Cody Belanger comes to New York. Then we can say that. I think one of the things when I think of best movies, it's a combination of, was this a great movie, but also could this reach a bunch of people? I think is the sweet spot, which is why social network was so interesting because it was such an awesome movie, but it also could appeal to almost everybody and was also rewatchable. Like it checked like every, and it was well acted and it was perfectly written and perfectly executed. And it just, I mean, it was one of the first rewatchables we did. I think we did that in the first year. Yeah, it was. I think, yeah, it was a huge hit. It made like $250 million. And it was at a time, it's only 15 years ago, but that feels unusual for like a docu drama to make that much money. And the rewatchable thing, we felt that immediately going back for this project because the second I put it on, I was locked in, like just put my phone in the other room, just totally focused on it and engaged, even though I've seen it dozens of times. So, but that's a hard needle to thread. Though like this is a great and important film that is also fun, is really challenging. Yeah, because I thought Phantom Thread was great, but I don't think it has the same legs because I don't think it was for everybody. It's kind of a weird rewatchable movie. But it's like just impeccable. It's impeccably done. It's perfectly acted. It's really unique and original. There's no movie like it, but it kind of got lost as the years passed. But you think just go with it, just like inches above it, right? Just in terms of it. It's a family movie. You know, you'll be watching it with your kid. How old is your kid now? She's almost five. She's four and a half. She's four and a half. Yeah. Eight, seven. Watch what happens. And Dana Day-Lewis, actor of the first part of the first quarter of the century. I think so. Is he the number one? I think he is, right? I think, who do you think is the star of the century? I guess the easy answer is Leo, but we talked about that a bit too. Like Denzel has a case, Cruz has a case, you know, Damon, there's a couple of people who had like incredible 25 years. I would say, yes, Striphead. You'd probably have to break it down with Oscar nominations, box office, batting average, I think would be big. So it's probably Leo from a batting average standpoint. I think so. Every single movie that he put out, either made money, had an audience, was done well done with a good director. He didn't have a lot of like those clunkers. Like that Jennifer Lawrence, what was that Jennifer Lawrence, Darren Arnav's movie, Mother? Mother. So it was called. He doesn't have like a mother in the 25 years. It's just like all either bangers or really interesting choices or like Shutter Island. There's no, there's no like weirdo movie for him. Everything had some purpose. They all made a lot of money too. I mean, even like Revolutionary Roads, probably the smallest movie he made this century. And it's still, I think it's still made like $80 million or something because it was a reunion with Kate Winslet after Titanic. So yeah, I think he's probably the biggest for the future. I mean, it's Timmy's time, man. It's happening. It's happening. I mean, he's awesome in that movie. Yeah. And that movie's a hit. He just covered. Movies a hit. People like great performances. I was thinking for Actress, it's probably Streep and Kate Winslet and Emma Stone are probably the three that would be in the combo from success, box office, number of good projects they were in. But they all kind of had different areas. It was almost like basketball. Like whereas Leo was like all the way through remained about as relevant and never kind of lost it. Yeah. None of them, none of those three were like consistent box office killers. Like we did a cake lunch at episode at the, I think earlier this year and it's like she's made a ton of movies, most of which most people haven't seen. But when she's good, like when Tar comes along, right? You're like, well, this is clearly the best actor in the universe when that movie happened. But she picks a lot of artistic projects and smaller films. So it's a lot harder to say on the actress side. Well, you're here to talk about sports movies with me. I love sports movies. I wrote about them a lot when I, when my fingers worked when I was at page two and even at Grant Lynn was what it was part of my, when I was trying to figure out what my column would be for page two in 2001, trying to figure out how do I be a national columnist? Cause they were, it was really like no roadmap for it. And it was like, well, I'll do do culture stuff. I'll do running diaries. I'll do, I'll talk about fantasy football, talk a lot about pop culture, but in then sports movies, I'm going to try to be like Roger Ebert every time there's a sports movie. I was, I did reviews of like summer catch, like terrible movies. I remember man, I was reading them. I was reading them and I was like, no, else is writing about these movies if we're in more than 250 capsule reviews. Yeah. But then in case you there are some really good ones and obviously developed a lot of opinions. It's something I care about, something we cover a ton on the rewatchables. We've not done all four Rockies AMC Rocky Marathon out tomorrow, by the way. So I asked you to come on. I sent you the alphabetical version of my 21 best moves of the 21st century, which goes from 2001 to 2025. You do not know what the actual order is, but I wanted you to at least be a little prepared and some caveats here. This is not like the rewatchables list was like, these are just the movies I saw the most. I have no explanation for it. Some of them have to do with my family, my wife, just what was on, what is, what are like comfort movies? It's, that's a different list. These are just the best sports movies in my opinion. So ineligible, all the 2000 movies, which include Love and Basketball, Remember the Titans, The Replacements, Bring It On, and 61, which is a really good, really good HBO movie that I'm throwing in there, directed by Billy Crystal. All right, honorable mention. And you stop me if any of these were like, whoa, he didn't put this on. What the fuck? Sea Biscuit, Million Dollar Baby. Keep going. I kind of hate Million Dollar Baby. I know it did well in the Oscars, but I just can't believe people weren't more upset about the last 15 minutes. It's just so dark and awful. It is very well made, but it is impossible to get away from that feeling that you had when she just falls and hits the ring chair and breaks her neck. You're just like, what the fuck? And then she's in tubes for 10 minutes and then suffocates her to death. Spoiler alert, I don't care. I came out 20 years ago. It's the most depressing movie I think anyone's ever made about sports. It is a very weird movie. And in fact, it was a very weird movie in the time. I remember specifically because it came out really late in the year and it didn't play Fall Festivals or anything. And it came out around Christmas and it was a big hit, right? It did really well. And it was like, you got to see it. You got to see it. And so it kind of like came in really late in the Oscars door, but now it's like it lives forever as the best picture winner from that year. And I think Clint won Best Director that year too. And it's like a fine sports drama with a painful twist. If we ever do five-year Oscars, that's one of the first ones we have to redo. We've always talked about the five-year rule for Oscars. That's one where I just don't think that one wins again. And there were other good ones that year, right? Would it have been 0-4? It was the 0-5 ceremony for 0-4? I think that's right, right? Is it right after Lord of the Rings? Yeah. So it's, I mean, this is not the greatest year in the world. It's the aviator of Finding Neverland, Ray, and Sideways for the other nominees. Well, now if you did that again, Sideways, man. Sideways would win, you know. Yeah. Okay. Keeping going here. Bend it like Beckham, which I don't know if you've re-seen. And it's a good movie. It came in a time where there weren't a lot of girls sports movies. It's a movie I've watched with my daughter. It's a soccer movie. It just has some major sports flaws. The lead of the movie, not Karen Knightley, the other one, is just not good at soccer. Parminder, not really. It just jumps out in every scene, and they have to do these cuts. And it's like, almost like when they have a lifetime TV movie, or like a bad cable movie, or something, and there's a high school soccer scene, and they have to cut it together because none of the actors can. I just have never gone over it. I couldn't put it on the list. Goon is a movie I like, but I've only seen once. Huge fan. And has a huge fan base. They made a sequel. It's fine. I think it outpunched, outkicked its coverage. I think you underrated this one. I've told you this before. I think this is the one on your honorable mentions that I'm like, this is the one that I think is real. And I'm not even a hockey guy, as you know, but I think it's really funny and really like involving. I think it's good. I think you're right. I already have regrets. Okay. Coach Carter, a movie I've seen at least five times. It's a half hour too long. I really enjoy it though. It's a high school basketball movie, is Sam Jackson. If it's on, it kind of gets sucked in. Big fan is the one with Pat Noswald. It's like a crazed, what's he, the Eagles fan? No, Giants. Giants fan who hated the Eagles. I like that movie. It's dark. Invincible with Mark Wahlberg, just throwing it on because it's got a bonkers Elizabeth Banks performance. She's just lights out in that movie. She's playing like a Philly, blonde bartender. It's definitely a captain on the Chris Ryan throw your life away, all stars. I don't think I've seen this movie. I think I just saw Mark Wahlberg as a Philadelphia Eagle, and I was like, I would sooner drown myself. Like there's no chance I'm watching this. Well, it's one of those based on a true stories and it ends with him blocking a punt and running in for a touchdown, which I'm positive didn't happen. So yeah, it's one of those. Well, I don't know, I mentioned the hammer with Adam Corolla, my friend Hedge, but that movie's good. Go check it out. If it's ever on cable, Corolla plays a boxer. That's a very fun movie. It's a good one. The Blindside, which has a great Sandra Bullock performance is a ridiculous movie and is now when we do on the rewatchables dramas that have turned into comedy's month, I think the Blindside will be on it, but I've seen it multiple times. I seem to recall thinking it was pretty funny the day it came out, but that's just me. Win Win, Paul Giammani. Yeah, Quality Wrestling. High School Wrestling movie. Yeah, not quite enough wrestling in it, but I like this movie. The Fire Inside, which was a recent boxing movie that we both liked. A little underrated, I think. It kind of came and went around Christmas last year, but if people haven't seen it, it's a pretty good film. Yeah, I think it's worth watching. Finding Forester, I guess technically is a basketball movie. Yeah, you're the man now, Bill. Another drama that's now a comedy, but is a surprisingly fun rewatch. And then last one, Gridiron Gang, which, you know, I wrote a column when it came out about this is just what Hollywood's giving us now and comparing Gridiron Gang and The Wire. Like Hollywood wants to give us this. Meanwhile, over here is The Wire. Please watch The Wire and not this, but it's still a solid movie. Anyway, toughest cuts. I have five. Ford vs Ferrari. Where do we stand on this movie now? It came out a few years ago. It's Elite and it's shocking that it's not on your list. I haven't spent enough time with it yet, and it probably should be on the list. It's extremely good. Now, I know that there are other racing movies that we have to consider for your list. And it would be weird to put like several motor sports films on a list for, that was part of my thinking. You're not a motor sports guy, right? Like it's got obviously gotten a lot more popular. Given the rise. No, we talked about this in the F1 rewatchables. I'm not a F1 or motor sports anything guy, but I love the movies about those sports. Always deliver. I think they have the highest batting average of any sport. And they were also really like an interesting portal for movies in the 60s and 72s, right? Like there was like Winning and Grand Prix and Bobby Deerfield. Like there were great star part movies. Ford vs Ferrari is a double star part. It's Bale and Damon, both in like the, this guy is at the center of this movie. I think it's really, really good. You should check it out again. Yeah. Like I almost had it. I kept moving stuff around. If I did a top 25, it would have been on there too for the money. Probably wouldn't have made it either way, but from a rewatchable comedy, gambling standpoint, we just did it on rewatchables. It's hilarious. It's the definition of a sports movie. It's just turn your brain off and go for an hour and a half. That's sometimes what you want. So next one, Borg vs McEnroe with Shia LaBeouf as McEnroe. I don't know if you've seen this one. I have. I have. It's kind of excellent. I don't know how rewatchable it is because it's almost like you'd wonder like with the documentary of this, it just had been better, but I think it's really well done. Oh, I know you have a really big relationship to tennis from this time too. So I wonder if like the amount that you know about the matches and their rivalry and the way that that will play out, who played Borg? Was it a Swedish actor? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I remember seeing it and thinking it was fine, but that's interesting that you had a hard time cutting that one. Hustle, Adam Sandler, the Sandman. Quality. Good movie. I just liked it. Anthony Edwards is great. Yeah. I haven't spent enough time with it. There's a chance like five years from now it might move into the top 21, but for now it's on toughest cuts. And then Boyd's of Glory was another one that I think I have a couple other comedies over it. I didn't want to have too many comedies, but that was a tough one for me. A movie you like, I think. I do. There's a trilogy of Will Ferrell's sports comedies from the 21st century. And you got kind of, everybody has their favorites, but I think there's one that is superior. Yeah. I probably could have thrown semi pro and honorable mention. I'm going to do that right now, even though we've already done that part of the podcast. I think it's the least of the three. Yeah. It's still watchable though. It's fun. Yeah. But yeah, it goes sideways a few times. I have some casting questions. It's right in that how hard can we go for the hard R era where it's kind of like they might have been better off just going PG-13. Ferrell's really funny in it, but it feels like at that point he was playing the same character in a lot of different movies and it was just, I don't know, maybe it's aged better for some people. Okay. We're going to take, go ahead. Do you want me to share any other that you left off or do you want to wait until we get to the end? Oh, let's do that now. Cause then we can take a break. Let me give you your fantasies left off list. Let's go. The iron claw? Now I know you have some issues with it. Yep. But I think if you pulled the universe of recent sports movies, that would be pretty high. I was a very big fan of it. I'm not, it's not perfect, but I thought it was very effective. So I thought it was well done. I had just huge issues with how they bent the facts. I don't, I thought they went, leaned way too hard and this is a true story. And then just completely left it out to the point that I was enraged as somebody who actually knew the story that they were doing. And I could never get over the guy from the bear is Carrie Van Erick. I thought that was one of the craziest casting decisions of all time. Honestly, it's just, just bonkers. It's like, if we were doing the Victor Wimbenyama story and we cast somebody who was like 511, it's like, what are we doing? Carrie Van Erick's whole thing was he was this larger than life kick ass dude who could go against Hogan and whoever and they cast the guy from the bear. It's just unbelievable that they did that. And Jeremy Owens is like roughly 5'5". He is not a tall man. He was too short to be Bruce Springsteen. Much less Carrie Van Erick. Good actor. But come on, what are we doing? I think if you remove, you know, your, your intellectual relationship to that wrestling history, then the movie maybe works better for you. And didn't they merge together two deaths into one death? That was another one. There was an extra brother. They just caught one death out. I mean, which that's just how crazy that story is, though, is that they just completely left one brother, an entire brother out of the movie who also died. I don't know. I was like absolutely hammered by that movie. That's what was left off. Okay. All right. Keep going. There were, there were two, well, okay. One, I know you hate this movie, but I would a million percent put challenges on. I think challenges is great. I know you and Wesley tore it apart. I never thought you would put it on your list, but for me, I think that's a really great, I thought that was like an interesting modern take on a sports movie. It was like, this is, we're moving the ball forward. You know, it was like broadcast news, but in tennis. That was the ending was maybe the worst ending of any sports movie I've ever seen. Well, also, I mean, to be fair, a couple of years later, challengers walked so heated rivalry could run. There's a lot going on there. There's definitely some continuation in terms of, I haven't really gotten it. I only watched the first episode he did rivalry. I got to keep going on that. I skipped it, but my wife, my hungover, New Year's Day wife is currently ripping through her right now. And I think is, I don't know if she's showered yet. Anyway, keep going. And then there's two from this year. Okay. One, I don't know if you've seen yet is called Ephis, which is a movie about like a wreck league baseball team, which is a really solid movie, an indie film that came out directed by Carson Lund, which I liked quite a bit. And it's kind of making a lot of the year on list for the movie fans. I was okay with it. I liked it. I didn't love it. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for it, but it's more of a hang. It's not like a propulsive narrative movie. And then Marty Supreme. Oh, fuck, you're right. I mean, is this not the best sports movie since what? Oh, man. Like, you know, it's, I know you have another few more recent films that we will talk about. No, you're right. Marty Supreme should be on here. Oh, you screwed me up. I was going through, I had all these lists forever and I forgot to add when that came out on December 25th. You're right. It got it under the wire. It's pretty good. I mean, I think it's a very effective sports movie too, because when you're engaged in the sports movie aspect of it, the ping pong matches, that to me feels like watching a Rocky when I was a kid. All right. You know what? I'm going to have, I have some bad news for one of the top 20 ones. You're going to cut one? Yeah. I got to put Marty Supreme in. It's such a good call. I can't believe I missed that. I'm glad we're doing this in real time. Listen, we're not perfect. Everyone makes mistakes. No. Admitting your mistakes and moving forward are some of the best things you do. Marty Supreme came out on Christmas Day 2025. It should be on the list. This is why I'm here on the pod, just to say this shit. Well, draft day, I'm sorry. Oh, no. draft day, it would have been funnier to cut Miracle because it could have been like the Ralph Cox thing. It's just like, wait, I thought I was going to the Olympics. draft day sadly is going to have to get cut. A movie that she probably shouldn't have been in the top 21 to begin with, but is so enjoyable. Has the Costner's last great sports movie. It's got Chad McBosman playing out, playing, what's the, playing Alvin Mack? I can't remember the name of the linebacker. Alvin Mack for the program. It's Fontenac. Fontenac. Yeah. It's got Jennifer Garner inexplicably as like as owner's daughter, love it. I can't remember that, but I like that move in. I've watched it a bunch of times. It's not good though, and I'm happy cutting it out. I think it's absolutely terrible, but it's kind of enjoyable to watch. Late period, Ivan Reitman. Well, now it's out. Okay. Wait a second. Hold on. I have to ask you an important question before you go to the break. Why 21 movies? Because 21st century, 21 for 21. Okay. I don't know. So one for each century? I can cut one more and just make it a top 20. You want to do that? It's your list. I'm just asking questions. There was a reason why I did 21 because I wanted to do a pyramid graphic for my sports movie pyramid. There it is. And it was one, two, three, four, five, six, and it was 21 movies. I thought that looked better. And all makes sense now. Okay. We'll take a break into the top 21. This episode is brought to you by Instagram. As a parent, I know that you're always going to worry about your teens, and while we can't keep them at home in a bubble, there are still ways to make sure they're protected. Like Instagram teen accounts. Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections for your teens C and who can contact them, plus time management tools and extra controls for parents who prefer them. And Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at Instagram.com slash teen accounts. That's Instagram.com slash teen accounts. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn ads. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from the other ad buys. You could target your buyers by job title industry, company role, seniority skills, company revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B return and ad spend on all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them spend $250 in your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash Simmons bill terms and conditions apply. All right. The top 21 with some important help from Sean Fennessey, who reminded me that Marty Supreme was eligible. So draft day sadly got bounced as did all the 2000s movies. We just went through all the honorable mention. Coming in at number 21, Dodgeball, a movie we've done on the rewatchables. I was not on the episode. We let the fantasy boys handle that one. Very funny movie. I think culturally it's had a nice tale. People like the stiller piece in this. And it just feels like it's lived on. It's always on a streaming service or on cable. And it's just had a nice shelf life. It's Bill Simmons history core as well with the Ojo joke. I feel like it's connected to your mythology. And for me, Pete Bateman, some people might say Ozark rested development. Bateman is elite in that movie. I remember writing a column about it. I didn't like it as much the first time as I did probably the fifth time, but I remember writing a column about it. And it saw it in Hollywood and it felt like everybody was high. People were just dying, laughing. But as the years have passed, I've got to get it. All right. So that's 21. Number 20 is The Fighter. Came out in 2010. It was a boxing passion project movie, which it seems like every male actor has had except Leo and maybe one other one the last 30 years. The Rock had one this year. Christian Bale, Mark Wahlberg, your girl, Amy Adams. She's fine in this movie. She's great. I think this is probably my favorite Amy Adams movie. Deep Massachusetts, set in Lowell. You know, we have like the Deep South. This is like Massachusetts. Lowell is like deep Massachusetts. Like you're just, everyone's got an accent. Everyone has the, you think you're better than me, look to them. And they do a really good job of just hitting Massachusetts in the right way. This is, this is when it shifted in the last 15 years of, if you're going to make a movie in Massachusetts, use some locals. Make sure your actors really know how to sound like they're from Massachusetts and act like it. And this is part of the renaissance, Sean. I have two questions about this movie for you. One, do you think Bale passes the Massachusetts test? He's good. I mean, he, this is another one where he lost a lot of weight. He did. He did. Because he's played Dickie, played a drug, dude. The, the big issue for me with this movie, I watched it in the last year, is I, they never really messed with the Goddy Ward trilogy in it, which I never understood. Just felt like the easiest IP, I remember seeing it for the first time, being so confused that they never dove in there, but it's, this is a very well acted, well done sports movie. And probably, this might be David O'Russell's last good movie. Yes, it's possible, it's been, it's been a, been a f***ing drought for him. I'm way more down on this movie than you are. This is like to me. Well, let me ask you this. If the movie was set in Boise, Idaho instead of Lowell, Massachusetts, would you like it? So it's a fair question. I think when it came out, it was very well received. It was. It was Oscar nominations. It was a hit. I think the acting is so good. I don't think you could have a list like this and leave this movie out. And million dollar, baby. I feel like I had to have one. OK. So that's why I had a 20. You've got other boxing movies on here, though, that are better. I know, but this is like the prestige sports movie. We've got to feel like I had a paycheck, but that's fair. Number 19, King Richard. This is a weird one because I think this movie has a completely different tale of the Will Smith Oscars thing doesn't happen. This was like his moment. Finally, it happened for him. And I think if if he doesn't slap Chris Rock, this movie is just remembered differently. It's probably on TV more. It's a great point. Yeah, you're right. It's there's not a lot of legacy around the movie itself. And there wasn't as much at the time because it came out during covid and it was part of Project Popcorn and went straight to streaming and all that. I saw it at a film festival. I saw it at Tell Your Ride. And, you know, it was like Rapturous. It was like, this is Will Smith's best performance. It's his time. The daughters were great. His wife's great. This movie is good. Yeah. I was Taylor's great in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. I came in the big picture and broke this down with you. They're really big picture stages. I don't remember what was it, 2020? It was 2021. I can't remember. Somewhere in there. But between the slap and the fact that it was like a streaming movie, ultimately, it's what it kind of what it felt like. It feels smaller, but it's really, really well made. Number 18. Talladega Nights, the legend of Ricky Bobby. Just a really good sports comedy that is. A little low for this? Might be a little low, except. I mean, the stuff that's coming here, I don't know. This is hard. It's 21 years of sports movies. Sasha Baron Cohen is great in this movie. We haven't done it yet on rewatchables, but I think he would win the movie. I think you're right. Is he sponsored by Perrier? I think he is. He's really good. This movie is really fun and they did a nice job of actually diving into NASCAR and, you know, using all the sponsors. NASCAR embraced it very smartly and it caught Will Ferrell and all these guys at the right time. It's just really good. How would you power anchor man, stepbrothers in this movie? Exactly how you just said it. Yeah. OK. Me too. Next one, The Rookie. But that's number 17, a movie that's gotten a little lost in the shuffle. It was this stretch from maybe 97 to 2005, where we kind of had these adult Disney sports movies. And you kind of always knew what you were getting when you saw the poster and what star they picked. Some of them were good. Some of them weren't as good. You would have your Glory Road with Josh Lucas, which was not good. You would have The Rookie with Dennis Quaid, which was excellent. I think this was other than Maricall, probably the most successfully executed after I remember the Titans, which I think crushed that blueprint the best, but not eligible for this list. But The Rookie, really good Dennis Quaid. He cements his legacy as Sports Movie Hall of Famer, first ballot, which I think he didn't even really need it, but he's like, fuck it. No, this is a really, really good performance based on a true story. Yeah. And to your point, it's not just that this era of Disney original sports movies is over. It's like Disney doesn't even really make original movies anymore. Remember when they would pretty consistently, was this was this released under Buena Vista or Touchstone? I can't remember what the sub label was, but there was a time when you would get five or six movies a year like this from Disney. And now that's that's also all straight to streaming. Yeah, this is quite an era and they all made money. That's why they kept going and through Gridiron Gang and Invincible. They kept going for 10 years. They spent 15 on it. They'd make 30, they'd make 40. Sometimes like Blindside, we just crush, but you just had to make sure you got your one star. You had a good story and you go through. I wrote a piece in 2009 or 2000, maybe 2010 about because you could feel sports movies starting to die and we were moving to another era and I didn't know what was coming. But I was I was wondering if documentaries were ruining sports movies in some ways that as documentaries were getting better, was that can be bad for sports movies? And I think the next 15 years kind of proved that that might have been true. We also might have run out of ideas is the other thing. Well, sports documentaries are getting shittier. So maybe we'll tip back to sports movies. That's what we're hoping. Yeah, we've there's no question. Sports documentaries have gotten way worse. But continuing like our now decades long conversation about movie stars, this is something that like there's not a lane for Glenn Powell or Austin Butler to make movies like this. You know, like Chadwick Boseman did get his sports movie, like a handful of these guys got their sports movies. But once you remove this from the menu for what you can do as a young star, like you lose you lose something pretty significant. It's weird because they the blueprint they were still trying even the 2000s. Like Josh Lucas was like a lot of guys now. It's like, could he be a guy? Maybe here's a man. And then he wasn't. No, he's a guy who is the voice of car commercials during football games. Right. We've a lot of Josh Lucas's now. Seems like he's spending some good stuff. Next one, number 16 air. The day the Michael Jordan shoe movie. Which he's not in directed by Affleck. It's a really, really good Matt Damon performance. And my favorite part of this movie is the Ville Davis performance as Jordan's mom. It's just great. And it's just this is this movie is a really fun hang. I you didn't like it as much as I did. No, but I do like it. I don't think it's a bad pick here at all. I think it's really good. It is really more of a movie about the world of marketing more so than sports, like athletics. Yeah, it doesn't mean that it's not a sports movie because it clearly is because you kind of have to know what this milieu is to get the movie and get all its nuances. It's just like it kind of can decide to me whether it wants to be really funny or really serious. And like, Affleck's performance is hilarious as Phil Knight. Yeah, but it's kind of happening in a different movie than the rest of the movie where Matt Damon is giving this really sincere performance and Ville Davis is really sincere. But it is a fun watch. They did a good job of capturing the mid eighties, even with the decorations in the office. I remember just appreciating stuff with that. You're right. Affleck won the Judd Nelson, New Jack City, you're in a different movie award. Number 15, Hardball, a movie that was hilarious in the theater for all the wrong reasons when I saw it. I think with Jacko right after 9 11 was one of those where it's like, let's go to the theater. It's one of the craziest things I've ever heard, Bill. Yeah. Yeah, let's go to the theater. We're both pumped out. But but this movie of Zage perfectly. And we already did a rewatch of all those G-babies death, I think is maybe the most iconic sports movie death of any of these movies on this list. Yeah. And any sports movie in this century. OK, not like Apollo Creed. No. OK, OK. No, Apollo dying in Rocketsmore. Brian's song, you know, there's a few there. You know, Apollo's death did lead to the end of the Cold War. So maybe he died. G-baby died for nothing. It's a really good point. Apollo at least had something good to matter. What's more tragic? G-baby's death or the fall of the Berlin Wall. You know, it's dead even. This movie is very enjoyable. I also love and I've seen it a few times and my kids like it. The Diane Lane just being in this movie is hilarious. She's just she can't believe she's in the movie the entire time. You have no idea why she's attracted to Keanu. John Hawks is great as like a scumbag. Anyway, this is a good sports movie. Number 14, Ali, a movie we have not done on the rewatchables. Is it coming? It's it's on the rewatchables 2026 level. It's weird. It's a movie that could never decide what it was. It tries to basically. Hit why Ali was so important, but then it's compressing years together. It spends a lot of time of him trying to not be in the champ. And but then all of a sudden we skip through fights. But you know, you weren't in two and a half hours. You couldn't cover everything. I think the first 10 minutes in the last 15 minutes of this movie are genuinely great. I think there are several, you know, chill inducing moments throughout the movie. And it is man trying to do something a little different than what he usually does, which I really appreciate. I do. I have thought in the past that if man and Will Smith made a pact to make a new 90 minute Ali film every four years, you might have got a boyhood thing. Yeah. That you might have gotten like a slightly better version of this movie because there are times when it seems like Smith is too old. There are times when it seems like he's too young. Like he's an incredible shape in the film. But he's also trying to capture somebody who's uncapturable, right? It's just like the Elvis movie where it's just like, you're not Elvis man. Like it like the icon of icon, that person was so inimitable. But Smith is good. You've now got two Will Smith movies on your list, which is fascinating. You know, this came out in 2001. I was writing for Page Two at the time and wrote a big review about it. And it was Ali was still so fresh. I mean, he had been the 70s. We're only two and a half decades earlier than that. So it was really tough for Will Smith to compete with that. But he did feel like Ali in a couple of scenes. Like he had that one thing when he's yelling at the reporters and he just kind of becomes Ali. I think as the years have passed and we have less of a memory of Ali, or at least there's new generations that don't really remember and love. That's probably better for this movie. It's really good. And it's Michael Mann. And that's why it'll be on the rewatchables this year. Number 13, Damned United. Never seen it. Yeah. Michael Sheen. Just an awesome soccer movie. This would be my one if like you listen to anything on this list that you hadn't heard of and you're like, what's that one? Let me mark that down. This one's great. It's like a rags to riches English soccer movie. A Chris Ryan favorite. I know. Yeah. I know among the soccer heads, it's a it's a big movie. It's I have an allergy to the filmmaker Tom Hooper, who made the King's Speech and Les Mis and Cats. And this is this is one of his movies. It's a very well done movie. Number 12, Everybody Wants Some, Your Guy Linklater. Yeah. Fucking great movie. We've not done this on rewatchables yet either. This is where we all bought Glen Powell stock. We had it for basically when was this 2016? We had it from the beginning of the ringer. We were like going to Powell circle him. Then he was at around 14. I think it was 14. I think it was still in the Grand Linde's. Oh, one or the other. This movie is great. And and and it's weird. It's weirdly not a dazed and confused sequel, but kind of operates as a dazed and confused sequel. Yeah. Oh, no, you're right. It is 16. It's March of 16, right before we launched. High school to college. Days views. High school, 1976. This is like around 79 to 80, I think. Really well cast. There's some really good people that went on to do some good things, including Zoe Deutsch. And I forget the lead guy, I don't think made it. Yeah, he was involved in some controversies. Yeah. Yeah. This was the peak for him. Number 11, why Russell in that movie? Why Russell is outstanding as the like 33 year old guy trying to join the baseball team. Oh, yeah. Yeah. For the movie. This movie is great. The wrestler number 11 used to be number 10 until Sean reminded me, Marty Supreme is eligible. This was Mickey Rourke's big comeback movie. Aaron Opsky just killing it. It tapped into, if you liked wrestling at all, it hit this theme that was really important. And I think hit way close to home for a lot of either dead dead wrestler families or wrestlers that were still alive or wrestlers that were in the business that were kind of headed for this. Ristatao May is great in it, but this is just an excellent sports movie. I love this one too. Part of the reason I hold this movie against the fighter a little bit, where I felt like it was kind of using a similar tone and approach, even though the stories are different, it's kind of felt like he was kind of glomming on to some of Aaron Opsky's style in this movie. But I really like it. Interesting. And Rourke is great. And Rourke, he never, you know, he worked again a little bit more, but it wasn't the massive comeback that we were promised. You know, he didn't make like 10 award winning films after this either. And it's kind of a great document. Also, you got to think about the shape he got himself into for this movie. At the age he was, is crazy. The steroids, all that stuff. All right, we're into the top 10. Number 10, Miracle. We did this on the rewatchables as well. Great Kurt Russell, Great Kurt Russell speeches. This also made the 50 most rewatchables list. I did not like the idea of them making this movie because this was the most important sports moment of my life. Non-Boston. But I thought it held up. And it's a fun one to watch with the kids or people who don't know what the story was. It's just it's an eternal movie. It'll be on 50 years from now. I thought this would be in your top five. Yeah, I just had had some ones higher. OK, was it in your top five? No, but it's up there. I mean, it is like it's kind of the platonic ideal of a movie that feels like it came out when you were 11, even though it didn't. You know what I mean? Like it just gives you that that feeling of like sports sentimentality, emotionality, where it kind of like just hits you when the moments happen. Kurt Russell is phenomenal in the movie, too. Yeah, I like it a lot. Sugar is my number nine. This movie is just awesome. I'm not even going to tell people about it. They should just watch it. Baseball movie. Baseball movie. Yeah, it's a baseball movie and there's never been a movie quite like it. And it feels like a documentary, but it's not. And it's just a really unusual movie. It's really good. It's kind of I kind of came and went. I don't even think it did that well. It was a small indie. I think it was a Sundance film. And, you know, the same filmmakers who made Half Nelson and Mississippi Grind another sports movie. They also made that movie, too. I think if you're a baseball fan and you see that there's just, you know, Latino players kind of dominate the sport now. And you don't necessarily think about the roads that they have to travel to get to Major League Baseball. It's a really good insight into what some of them have to experience. Number eight, Marty Supreme. Oh, no, that's number nine. Number eight. Number eight. Nice. It's a good spot. Number eight, Marty Supreme. Was draft day at number eight? No, no, I bumped the wrestler from the top ten for this. Right. We'll see if it gets higher. Haven't spent enough time with it. I've only seen it once. It has this shallow may performance that if you're looking at all the sports movies of this list has to be in the running for best one. And all the actors, all the lead actors are pretty good. I as I spend more time with this movie, I'm going to know whether the supporting stuff and some of the some of the gimmicky casting stuff. I wonder how I feel about it five years from now. It was fun the first time five years from now. I'm going to be like, ah, why is this person in? I've seen it twice. And all that stuff held up perfectly well to me because I think it just makes the movie feel a little bit more real. I will say to your point about it being a sports movie. So I lean watch at the other night and I was doing something else. But I told her, call me in during the two big ping pong matches because I want to watch them again. And the last one, especially, I feel like it's just a lot of fun and really effective at this sort of stuff that we're talking about. Well, it's one of those sports movie lessons in general. Where if you're going to do it, you have to almost be a psycho about the sports scenes and Safty, you talked about it with him when you did the pilot, he's just a psycho about ping pong, like really cared, really wanted to get every aspect of it. Right. And most of the movies that end up lasting as sports movies, they go the extra mile. They do that throwing shit together. That's why I bend it like Beckham, which would have been on here if they had gotten the soccer stuff better than making. Anyway, go see Marty Supreme. Really good 2025 new IP out of nowhere movie. Do you think that with all this consolidation in Hollywood, there will be finally an opportunity for the sports consultancy business that you've been trying to develop over the years? But wait forever. Wait forever. They just, nobody's come. Even this one, I was waiting to have like a ping pong nitpick, even though I don't know anything about ping pong, but I thought they handled everything really well. I have no, I don't know anything about ping pong. There may be like several guys on ping pong reddit right now who are just like, Marty Supreme is bullshit. Nobody has that grip. Number seven warrior did this on the rewatchables. It's weird that there haven't been more really great MMA movies when we figure MMA is 30 years old now at this point. And we've had so many boxing movies and we're still coming out with boxing movies and we're coming out with boxing movies with Sidney Sweeney as a boxer. And yet we've had barely any MMA movies. We had the smash machine this year, which did not make this list and did not make honorable mention either. But never back down that was that in contention. Who's in that one? There have been like nine of them. The original one, who's in the first? So familiar. Is it century? Is it Sean Ferris? Is that the guys? Yeah, Sean, Simon Hansen is in it. Amber Heard. Remember this 2008? There's also been like nine sequels. You never seen these? I probably saw it once, but it did not in my prep did not make it. They're kind of terrible, but they're entertaining. Warrior has Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton. We covered this when we did the rewatchables about it. And a really crazy Nick Nolte, who's just a just on the alcoholic scale, is like a 10 out of 10, even for him, who's played alcoholics in other movies. Edgerton's really good. And Edgerton's had one of those. He's like a Matthew Stafford type career where it's just wish he'd been on more 11 and five and 12 and four teams. And then he's in Train Dreams, who's fucking incredible in that movie. And there's years where he might have won the Oscar for that. It's not going to be this year. No, he's fantastic. Too come he picked the wrong year to have that movie. You know, he's a guy who I've always kind of had a little bit of an like an issue connecting to. Yeah. But I think in this movie and in Train Dreams, he's asked to do the same thing, which is like really taciturn, quiet. He doesn't have to give big emotional speeches. He doesn't have a lot of dialogue. So his presence and him being like emotionally open, but not talking. This movie would be in my top three. This is one of my favorites. I think it's amazing. I think Gavin O'Connor is a great director. I had a lot of trouble with these last seven in the order. Just said this was really like the cutoff for me. Number six, Rush. I probably like this movie the most. You do. Ron Howard. Chris Hemsworth. I think this is the best he's ever been. Daniel Brull. Still have his stock. Somewhere. I think it's in my closet. Always liked that guy. He's great and glorious bastards. He's a great actor. I wrote along. I think this might have been the last sports movie column I ever wrote was for for Grant Lynn and end of 2014. I wrote a long piece about this movie because I loved it and I really connected with it, but it's an F1 movie. It's an F1 movie. It's a movie that I think is because it's in the past. Some of these movies are just like timeless. This one set in the 70s and it's just you can just go and go forever. I love this movie. I love this movie too. I know you don't like it as much. The Way Back. No, I like it. I'm on board with this. Same director as Warrior. I would prefer Warrior to The Way Back, but it's really good. I know you love Affleck's performance in it. I love this movie. I love the choice that they make. If you haven't seen it, sorry, I'm spoiling it. That it feels like the big game is the ending and it's not. And it just goes, which is just such a zag. But it's it's. I think this is the best Affleck's ever been in a movie. It's really interesting because I feel like would you say that like addiction and recovery movies are something that you typically enjoy? No, I don't feel like I hear you talk about movies. Like that too often. No, I there's something. I think part of the problem is in a Gavin O'Connor movie, by the way, and it was written by Brad Anglesby. That's a good combo. Yeah, your boy came out right after covid started. It was supposed to come out in the movies, I think a month after covid and then just became one of the first VOD test case when the infrastructure wasn't really ready for it and it came and went a little bit. But I feel like it's having a moment again. It's always on always on a streamer. It's on cable. It's around and I think I think one of the things I like about this one and what I like sometimes in movies when the real life bleeds over into the character. And I feel like Affleck had was having so many issues in his own life that it just feels like it just feels like there was an overlap that made it an unusual watch in a good way. Yeah, I love that feeling when you feel like there's like some reflection of the person's real life. That's like that's a Marty's Supreme thing, right? Where it's like shall we be the best and you can feel that in the movie. Affleck's never been nominated for an acting Oscar in his career. And even this one's outrageous. See, I mean, this is actually like makes you wonder is there like some sort of weird bias against certain actors and actresses? Well, even just dating they dated it for March, you know, when it came out in the same month as covid and it wasn't taken seriously by the studio to make an awards push for it. Like if it had come out in October, maybe everybody might have thought about it a little bit differently. But yeah, it's definitely overlooked. Yes, the best. This was Anthony Hopkins is the father. Riz Ahmed and Santa Meadow, Bozeman, Gary Oldman and Mac, your movie. Hell yeah. And Steve Ewan and Menari. Affleck could have stuck in there. I feel like I don't I just don't understand that Anthony Hopkins win. I'm just like, you know, I think the father's so overrated. I've said this a million times. I know you liked it. I didn't get it at all. I only saw it once. I did like it. All right, Mount Rushmore final four, 21st century. F1 just did on the rewatchables. You love this. I loved it. I loved it. You know what? You did more the second time. So I talked to my dad, my stepmother had to go to New York for a family thing is by himself two days ago. And he's like, I need to write a movie tonight. And I was like, you should watch F1 again. He's like, I never saw a fun. I was like, I was like, what? You would love F1. How have you not seen that for? Oh my God. I was so mad. So he saw it that night when he talked the next day and he was like, F1 was awesome. Like he he he was like, I thought you were kidding. It's just, you know, it's it's it could have been number three in my list, but I put it at four. I'm very pro. I liked it a lot. I think it's a great popcorn movie. I always think Joe Kaczynski is so creative at how he captures these worlds that he goes into. I will say one of my challenges that I popped it in a couple of nights ago, the 4k 4k looks fucking incredible, by the way. I popped it in and the one of my challenges with the movie is it never really gets over the hump of the first 10 minutes for me. When he's in the NASCAR race and a whole lot of love is playing and the fireworks go off. The first time I saw it, I was like, holy shit, this is going to be the best movie of the year. Like this is this is amazing what they're doing. And that NASCAR wasn't even F1 racing. So I never because I never could get back up to my excitement around that stuff. And because I don't really know anything about F1, like I don't follow it at all. Yeah, I found myself a little not disoriented because they narrate through every race, like what's actually happening. But I just didn't have as much connection to it, but there's no doubt. It's like amazingly well made. And you know, Pitt just really flexing the movie star muscle in the movie. Important Pitt movie for the catalog, which we talked to when we did the pot about it. Kind of needed it. This is one for the sixties. It was like his Tom Brady Tampa Bay Super Bowl. Yeah, I know men a lot to you. Well, it did because then I got to say it wasn't Bella check. It was Brady, you know, then forever more. I got to know that it wasn't Bella check. Yeah. All right. Number three Friday night lights did this one on Rewatch. We've done all these on Rewatchables Friday night lights. Number three. I we did it last year and I just forgot how awesome it was and also how over shattered it became by the TV show. And actually the TV show never existed. This movie would be talked about even even more reverentially. It's the best high school football movie. I think ever. I don't even know who it's competing. It's all the right moves and stuff like that, but it's it's it's the best. It's got one of the two best locker room speeches ever. It's Billy Bob in this movie and and Puccino and every given Sunday air in the finals. It does a great zag at the end where they lose, but that's what happened in real life. And then the way it was cut in 03 where these fast cuts and it was like a little hard. But now it's like that just fits into the way we watch everything these days. So it actually feels a little more current than it used to. Great cast. Great cast. The rare like porting over Connie Britton from the movie to the TV show. Love to see that. I was thinking to you as I was watching the family McMullen, you ignored my text about. Oh, I was busy. Sorry. I haven't gotten into it, but you know, I have I'm like the biggest. You were like the number one brothers. McMullen guy. Yeah. I mean, I'm back Irish brothers who are like love each other. Yeah. Surprisingly good movie. A couple people didn't make the cut for the. I mean, John Mahoney is dead, but one of the other brothers just isn't in it. McGlone's there though. I'm going, but the third brother's not in it. They just kind of talk about him. It is like he's not in the room. Maybe I'll fire it up tonight. I don't know. Haven't seen brother in like 40 years. Connie's Connie was available and ready to come back. Great career for number two. So I thought that I had the seven. I knew what they were. And I knew what the top four was, but then the top two, I kept switching back and forth. Number two is Creed. It was number one. It was number two. It was number one is number two. I finally put it at two because money ball is number one, but I think these are the two best sports movies of the quarter century. I don't really think it's arguable. I'll accept other arguments, but these are the two that they, if anyone's making a list and they're not in your top 10, it's just kind of an invalidated list. They're important for different reasons. Creed had the degree difficulty of wait, you were doing this again. What's going on? Kugler, the fruit fail. That guy's going to do, he's going to direct. Stallone's going to be in it. What are we doing? And then it was the fucking best. And I'm so glad it happened, but just like the odds of it were almost insurmountable. And then money ball very similar. They're making a movie out of the money ball book. How the fuck are they going to do that? And then they had 40 scripts for it. Oh wait. Oh, Brad Pitt said, oh, oh, I heard it's good. And then it's like, whoa, that movie is fucking awesome. You told a story and then when we did the 50 rewatchables about how you did a big picture blind screening and the music played up and the crowd just started applauding. So that money ball, I think has resonated in its own way. And so is Creed. Creed said two sequels. But I think it's money ball one, Creed two. What do you think? So such a, such a tricky one cause we, so we had money ball on our list and that's a, you know, a real shared passion for Amanda and I. She loves that movie too. But when we rewashed Creed for the live show, I did feel like, damn, this like 28 year old kid made this movie. Like how old was Google when he made that movie? And he is just able to summon that classical storytelling thing where the way you get invested in those characters that you otherwise just should have no relationship to because even though it's based in a world that we already know, it's a whole new layout for a, for a Donis. And also the fight, the fight scenes are, are legit interesting and new and feel different, you know, like that's a huge plus in that film's cat, that film's register. Cause it just like, there've been so many boxing movies. You've got boxing movies on this list. Very rarely you see a boxing movie. You feel like you're seeing it a little bit differently. And I feel like he pulls that off there. Plus MBJ, you know, him and MBJ just being Scorsese and De Niro for us. I think it's really exciting idea of getting another 30 years of these guys making movies together is really cool. And, you know, it's obviously the second time that they work together, but it feels like them syncing up in a way that was very kind of mainstream that a lot of people get excited about. So it's legacy. I think it's going to be real strong cause centers isn't going to be the last time they work together. Like he really sees him as like his guy, like his avatar for his storytelling. So that, that makes the movie really, really powerful. Moneyball is cool. It's really fun. It's really smart. It's really insightful. It's bizarrely emotional considering the subject matter, but I don't know. Just talking about Creed makes me want to watch Creed. So you go Creed one Moneyball too. It's a really hard one. It's a tricky one. They're both great for different reasons. You know, Moneyball is not a movie about getting over the hump and winning at all. It's a different kind of film. It's like a, more about an exploration of process and how sometimes you don't, even if you have the right answers, you don't, you don't get an A plus on the test, you know? So that's why there are a couple of reasons I like them as the final two for this 25 year run. Cause sports movies basically start with, with the longest yard and 17 yards. The longest yard and 74, even though they're making them for a million years. It's the first modern sports movement. It's like 26 years of sports movies. And now you look at the final two that are left. Creed's like a typical sports movie sequel, but it's not. It belongs to like this new era, but Moneyball is about where sports went in the 21st century. Right? So I was thinking about that piece of it that this is a movie that just couldn't have, wouldn't have existed. It's, it's almost like a jigsaw puzzle, putting it together, a movie combined with like capturing some sort of movement that would go on to transform how we watch, followed and you know, how teams are put together, every single piece about sports. And then it's a really awesome movie. And then, and it's accessible to people like my wife, who would normally not care about it. So I feel like the degree of difficulty was probably a little bit higher, but I still can't believe a high degree of difficulty for Creed was. Moneyball. It's a good last two. Moneyball is your 100% right that it is totally sees the future about how we think about sports and how, you know, you, you're citing DVOA and, you know, expected points per play on NFL pods now, all because of that Michael Lewis book and the way that the film kind of elevated its status among kind of mainstream, non hardcore sports fans. But there's also so many other things that happened with Moneyball, where it was supposed to be Steven Soderbergh. They were really close to production. It didn't happen for whatever reason. It goes to Bennett Miller. It becomes an Aaron Sorkin script. It becomes a much more kind of romantic and traditional movie because of the Sorkin script. I think it would have been a much more experimental and like confrontational, almost documentary style. Like Soderbergh wanted to make it like Reds, but for baseball, you know, where he had the real people in it and there was into camera interviews. It never would have been on this list if he had done that. No, unless he nailed it, like unless he made something we've never seen before and it worked, but it just seemed like it was a very high bar. They're both great. I think they're both incredibly worthy of number one. Well, that's the other thing with this movie. It comes out in 2011. I was in, you know, I was perfectly involved with with that early wave of the Sloan conference, all that stuff when people are trying to figure out how to use these new wave stats. It wasn't accessible at all. I and as you just said, the movie really, really made it accessible in a way that it wasn't accessible before and it saw the future of team building, even though it was about the O3As. It lays down this blueprint that now seems really obvious when you watch in 2025, but it was not obvious to normal people. I don't think in 2011. No, I mean, then it became obvious. Sports baseball sportscasters who are the most crotchety old school figures in the world have to know what OPS plus is now because of this movie. Right. You know, like they have to use that data to communicate with their audience that cares about the games. That's pretty profound the way that shifted obviously the Lewis book is the biggest, the most significant part of that. But without that book, this, you know, this movie doesn't go to doesn't become a Brad Pitt level awareness thing. Yeah. Creed though. Creed is just like a had the hang glider movie though, where like once it starts, you're just like, wow, I'm just I'm flying off the mountain for hours. Yeah. And the same thing where it has a couple like really, really, really memorable scenes, which is the last piece of a sports movie. Am I getting chills? Do I have like a couple of hook scenes that I'm always going to remember? Is it about something? You look at the last four moneyball, Creed, Friday Night Lights, F1. All capture something that belonged to these first 25 years too. Right. Friday Night Lights becomes a TV show where IP now starts to become confusing with movies and TV and we don't know really what's it. What's the documentary? What's a movie? What's a TV show? It's like almost like part of trying to figure out what IP is. F1 is the sport that took off this year other than MMA, which I think started. But I mean, it took off this last 10 years in a way that no other sport did. It became this mainstream huge sport. Yeah. Creed, boxing, all the traditional sports movie recipe, but tied to this different era and the moneyball tied to where sports are going. So pretty interesting top four. Wait till my biopic of Jim Pickle, the creator of Pickleball comes out. Then you're going to have to add it to your list. I did sports consulting agency. Does that want to work on that one? Pickleball is almost dead. It's like 90% gone. Yeah. What's your beach, man? Why is that? That's what people, people, it's what I'm hearing on the streets. The streets, I told you. Well, you do walk a lot. So I guess you would probably be running into X. No, the noise, the noise, the noise stuff is going to kill Pickleball. Oh, how much noise that's really happening. Yeah. The neighborhoods are starting to rebel against Pickleball. What happened? Did you like, did some guy like pick a fight with you the first time ever? No, I didn't like it. Like what happened? I cannot like certain things. Well, I agree, but you have a, you got to, you got to be in your bonnet on this one. I just think people should play tennis. Okay. All right. Just play tennis. Run around. I'm trying to get, break a sweat. Then don't play sports anymore. Just watch TV. Then just quietly die on the couch. Sean Fentasy, what's your best prediction for this year? Pain. Pain. All right. Good ending. Thanks, Sean. Thanks, Bill. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Shrigs and House. Thanks to Fentasy. Thanks to Gahoun and Eduardo as always. I will be back on Sunday night live with cousin Sal. The last time we'll be live on YouTube with the Sunday night podcast. So, uh, get ready for that. Should be a fascinating week, 18 with the NFL. And we'll see what happens. See you on Sunday night. Yeah. Must be 21 plus and president select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas start casino or 18 plus and president DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem called 100 gambler visit rg-help.com call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling help line ma.org. We're call 800-327-5050 for 24 seven sport mass true sets or call 877-8 hope and why or text hope and why in New York. This episode is brought to by tax act like an expert coach tax act offer step by step guidance and guaranteed accuracy when filing taxes. Get tips along the way. 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