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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 had 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 going to 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 going to do week 18 picks, Joe House, Peter Schrager.
We're going to talk about the MVP picks.
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.
These are the movies I genuinely feel like are the 21 best movies 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 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 going to take a break.
And then Peter Schrager and Joe House.
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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, some other stuff.
Peter Schrager demanded to join us.
He's in Tampa Bay in a hotel room.
You just 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.
Maybe my favorite pod with you ever 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 Panthers Buccaneers, I'll be the sideline reporter.
I begged you, can I get more airtime?
And you were so kind to open up the door just a 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, do 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's great.
It became 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 I came over to NFL Network, I was like, you know, it's just my ego satiated.
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.
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 just such a science.
They could go any way, man.
Well, I think, House, I think you would agree with this.
It feels like the NBA MVP matters more.
I think to the history of the sport, how we remember things, how we remember seasons, um NFL maybe.
Maybe it's just a blind spot for me, but Brady has a bunch of them.
Like I, I couldn't tell you whether he has five, six, eight, three, that's it.
Okay.
Manning has a bunch.
Rogers has a bunch.
Uh, it's just a little different.
Whereas like an NBA, I know like, Oh, Kobe had his MVP season was 08.
Shaq's 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?
Hmm.
I kind of do.
I absolutely do.
It still tells us.
I'll admit I'm wrong then.
It tells us a lot.
I'll tell you this.
You can define the season and you can remember the year.
Exactly.
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.
He's 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, right?
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 sign.
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 there, Shregs?
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 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?
Like, what are we talking about?
There's like, you know, eight good quarterbacks in the entire NFL and four that are MVP level.
And he's one of them.
Like, 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 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 position, Ralph Sampson, you know, like there's a similar comparison.
Like there's career is the most successful tall guy we've ever had.
Um, 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, uh, 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?
Yeah.
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 those guys that got the shit kicked out of them early Jim Plunkett and it eventually takes its toll.
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 the same thing where he just was on more of the ballots.
I don't mind it.
So 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 fall in a park game on Monday night, Drake May was minus 700 on FanDuel at one point.
Now he's minus 340.
And he's going to win the MVP unless they lose to Miami, I think is how this plays out.
Do you think Drake May is the MVP house?
I disagree with you.
I don't think he's going to win the MVP.
I don't think it's a fait accompli.
I think it's going to be razor thin.
And I do want to take advantage of this moment that we have with Schrags 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, mostly media folks.
Just call him Pete.
Nobody's ever called him Pete.
He's not a Pete.
We're boys.
We're boys.
We're boys.
I feel like I can go a lot of ways with Schrags here.
Pete Sampras, Pete Schrager.
We're sitting here together.
It's a great Happy New Year 2020.
Usually you do like PS or you have like, anyway, go ahead.
But let's shed some light on this, because I do think that the the, the voting constituency, is important to.
I mean, in the first place, the betting odds.
This market is insane to me.
The idea that that you know the implied probability of Drake may at minus three, 40 is is well north of 80 and Matthew Stafford in the whatever 15.
I don't think 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 taken more hits in his career and still playing at an absolute near MVP low?
Matthew Stafford.
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.
Because 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 a lot closer.
You mean like when Drake May beat the Falcons and Matthew Stafford didn't?
We talked about stuff like that?
You mean the missed extra point that the Falcons, the buffoonery out of the Falcons, the worst special teams in all of football.
Yes.
Yes, that is one difference.
I never remember strength of schedule being this important to an MVP race before, because there's nothing else you can ding Drake May on, other than you haven't played enough people.
It's not his fault.
First of all, how many actual good defenses are there, Schrags?
Denver, Houston, and Seattle.
Those are your three good defenses.
And maybe Philly if Philly's healthy, right?
So he hasn't played those four teams.
But other than that, if he played San Francisco, guess what?
Drake May would have put up awesome stats against San Francisco.
If he had picked 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 me.
It's almost like you have to look twice because the other piece that everybody forgets.
This is what I was texting you about Schrags.
Not to sound like a Boston homer,
I honestly think this is crazy.
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 have the number one offense by EPA.
May's 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 line is like 26th.
Mays had to scramble like on 10% of his plays.
Stafford's had to scramble like on 2%.
Like Mays running for his life in a lot of these games.
He's threaded 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 Devontae Adams for most of the season.
He's a much better offensive line.
He plays indoors.
He's Sean McVay.
Like, what are we talking about?
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 how... 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.
Right.
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, Schrags, Matthew Stafford, minus 450 for the MVP.
This is before the game.
And he goes, how much should I put on it?
I go, whatever.
I move on.
At halftime.
After three interceptions and being down 21-0, he was second in the odds to Drake May, who is now the favorite.
That's how turbulent this is.
Now, I would also add- Yeah, because Matthew Stafford sucked in the game.
He was terrible.
And that was- And 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 Esiason, 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 primetime games in a row, his team lost.
In a game where it was an easy slam dunk going to Atlanta, his home.
He's got all these friends from UGA pretty comfortable setting indoors zero 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.
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 in, And he won one of them on Sunday night before anyone was even attuned to any of this stuff.
And then when they're up 21-0 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... the Africa throw for 6,000 yards against the Cardinals.
The Pats have something again this week because the Miami game is sneaky and they got to lock down the two seed.
Yes, they have the two seed, but the one seed with Trey Lance 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 FanDuel or DraftKings or one of them, it was 500-1 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 500-1 on FanDuel.
500-1.
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 poor 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 don't have a vote.
I have a massive counter to everything Schrag said, but I need House's take on everything Schrag said first.
I agree with everything that he just said.
Oh, fuck you, Hess.
I don't have a rebuttal.
The problem for Drake May is they just played one of the easiest schedules in the last 30 years.
How's that his fault?
It's not.
It's not about fault.
It's a narrative award.
You guys are 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?
Yeah.
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.
Everybody's like, well, he has Stephon Diggs.
Guess who doesn't play every down?
Stephon 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, is it 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.
Ramondre felt like he was going to get waived six weeks into the season.
And then the offensive line has been really rough.
And then he lost his left tackle.
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 Schrags, we've had this narrative with the young QB turning into a guy.
Mahomes, Lamar.
Yeah, second year.
Mahomes at 18.
Lamar in 19.
Dan Marino, second year.
Rodgers, 2011, although that team was awesome that year.
Kurt Warner, 2000 or 99.
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 isn't 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 Shield did his MVP pod before that.
He did another one halfway through the year in Ringer NFL.
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 Pats are a two seed and Stafford's a six seed, then what are we arguing about?
His schedule was tougher and he threw for more passing touchdowns because he's puking Nakua on his team.
And Devontae Adams, 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 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 offseason.
Yeah, finally.
We didn't spend money for 20 years.
It's not like it's the same roster.
It's not Barron.
They're getting Trayvon Diggs.
They didn't spend money on anything.
Kraft, do you have another $500,000, Bob?
Nope, I don't.
Sorry.
The keg is tapped.
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 right now.
If indeed the McCaffrey thread rises to the fore, who does that hurt more?
Does it hurt Drake Mays candidacy or does it hurt Stafford?
Right.
We have a third party candidate who's going to siphon away some votes.
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 running backs.
When was the last running back that 2012 Adrian Peterson 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?
Yeah, Saturday night.
With everyone watching, standalone game.
I personally think that should flip coach of the year.
Vrabel's the favorite right now.
Vrabel's been amazing.
He took a shit team that was really even worse than 4-13 and turned them into what he turned them into this year and completely changed it.
What Shanahan did with that San Francisco situation is just bonkers.
Unbelievable.
Bonkers.
This is where I even have money on Vrabel and I think if they win the one seed, I think Shanahan should win coach of the year.
Vrabel's done one of the best coaching jobs I've ever seen of any Boston team from a first-year guy.
I just can't believe the Niners are even in this.
It's impossible.
I had the Niners two weeks ago in Indianapolis and I had Breakfast with Robert Sala at the team hotel beforehand.
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.
Did you sell that one at the producers yet?
I've been trying.
I've been pushing.
Sneaky Pete's good.
Anyway, go ahead.
Anyway, 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 Mikkel Johnson, who is their, you know, their rookie.
And I'm like, I don't know a single player on their defense.
They have can wait 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 you're scrambling.
But either way, that Niners team has been so ravaged by injuries that That I think it has to go to Shane.
They were on like backup defensive backs on top of all the best guys they lost.
That guy, Williams, I bet on him 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 much money have you lost on the Niners this year?
I actually haven't been once out of the other with the Niners.
You've been afraid of the Niners.
Yeah, you have been wary of them.
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 Ben Johnson that, no, you're not in this?
Oh, for coach of the year.
Yeah.
Liam Cohen?
Yeah.
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.
Rehabilitated a guy that we need to give it up on.
Rehabilitated.
Saved that man's career.
Saved Trevor Lawrence'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, suddenly they're the one seed.
Yeah.
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 seven.
Like D'Amico Ryans has an argument.
It's a good year for it.
Well, also a great year for the new Coach Theory House, one of our future staples.
We had Jags, Pats.
Don't tell Jets fans that.
No, what was the third one?
And Chicago.
Jags, Pats, Chicago.
That was the premise for... I love the Pats 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 in the last couple weeks.
We'll see this week.
This...
We'll talk about it when we get to the picks.
This Jaguars-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 14-0.
It's just something that scares me.
I think you made a really good case for McCaffrey.
Just because of the quarterbacks not grabbing us.
Also like what he was doing in that uh, that last game, where he's clearly not a hundred percent either.
It's going to be what he's, isn't he over 400 touches house?
400 touches.
Yeah.
That's like 400 plus touches is nuts.
A thousand receiving yards.
It doesn't seem like he's going to quite get there, but he's got eight 90.
Yeah.
I said, 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.
Uh, 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.
That's cool.
And the running back that he wrote it about, I can't remember who it was.
Jamal Lewis?
It was like Priest-Holmes, 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.
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?
We'll see if he's healthy.
I mean, I'm watching Derrick Henry still run for 200-something yards.
He's a physical freak.
Can we compare anyone to Derrick Henry?
Jim Brown.
I played Madden with my son, who now can just kick the shit out of me in Madden.
I'm actually going to have to go.
It's like Rocky III.
I'm going to have to go back in the lab, get the eye of the tiger back.
He put Derrick Henry in a shotgun and just ran direct QB drives with Henry.
Was stiff harming Robert Spillane, 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 Stafford.
What would you have, House?
Same.
Same.
Stafford's numbers are astounding.
You need both 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.
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 coming.
It's like the 17th tiebreaker.
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 play Denver?
They did.
No, they didn't.
No, but they played the Texans.
They played the Texans.
They played not a huge production game.
He played the Eagles, played the Eagles pretty early, put up 26 on them.
Um, if he's wins, the MVP is a six seed.
That would be different than anything that's happened with the MVP.
He's a five seed.
Cause that's just like the wild card guys don't usually win.
They don't ever.
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.
I know.
Stafford throws it.
Pukunuku is so good.
He saves it.
He almost makes the greatest catch in the history of football and actually makes the catch but didn't get his 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 him.
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.
All right.
I might change.
I might.
I might.
You made a great case.
I just think the switch to 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 throwing the ball better than him this year.
His completion numbers are insane.
He's complete 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.
Yeah.
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.
Carl Malone.
Yeah, Carl Malone won.
Who won the 1997 NFL MVP?
Nobody knows.
I'll tell you right now.
Favre.
I could do it.
Yeah, Favre.
I could do it.
Ask me.
Who won in 2002?
What, NFL?
Yeah, NFL MVP 2002.
Manning.
Rich Gannon.
That's the thing with the NFL MVP has some stinkers.
Let's be fair.
I'll do respect to Rich Gannon, but come on.
We have Steve Nash on back-to-back MVP.
Back-to-back Steve Nash.
Shaq 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.
Shrags, I thought of another name for your running ESPN segment.
Shrags to Riches.
Dude, I love it.
Where it'd 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 pauper, pauper on the street.
To riches.
We need two riches.
They already have a rich eisen.
Can you get rich, paul?
There's two riches right there, 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?
Uh, 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 in 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 in the Rose Bowl.
I wanted to... I had money on the house.
I want to present two-prong question to you.
One, what is the comp for what this Cignetti 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 Cignetti 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 he just took the job.
Lanning, Notre Dame guy, and then Indiana guy.
Freeman's going back for sure.
Freeman's already re-upped and Did some new contract then.
But those would be the three guys you would go after.
Indiana signed Signetti to an eight-year deal.
But the money to me is when NFL Colton'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 Vrabel sweepstakes were coming.
Well, Ben Johnson and Vrabel were huge names.
You knew Ben Johnson was coming.
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.
We'll go through it.
But this is not last year, where it's Ben Johnson lighting up the league and it's Vrabel and it's the whole thing.
This is the perfect year for a team to think outside the box and say, you know what?
Fuck it.
I just watched this 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'm going to go young here.
I would throw the bag at them.
Well, I would have said Atlanta was going to have a job open, but Raheem's fighting to keep the job.
He's one of the teams we're going to cover.
Raheem is in control of the NFC South.
My question is who is the last great from college directly into the pros to make an impact on the professional team?
And Harbaugh 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.
Somebody hired him again.
Northwestern hired him.
Didn't they watch him work his magic with Vegas?
Yeah, to me, it's apples and oranges.
The best one ever with this was Spurrier, who took over House's team.
I forget what year that was.
2001.
And we knew it was done when it talked about how he worked from 8 to 4.
So he could go play.
And he wanted to go play golf.
Play golf, yeah.
He had me out of the facility by 4.
We were like, this guy's fucked.
He's going to work at 60 hours a day.
It's over.
Very relatable.
I understand where Steve's coming from.
Yeah, I'm an 84 guy.
With the comparison with Cignetti, 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 Cignetti guy, Jim Calhoun with UConn is what I came up with.
Or Geno, I guess, would be the other one.
If Geno had done the crossover.
Like Bill Snyder at Kansas State.
Out of nowhere.
Yeah, I remember.
How's that another one?
Leonard Hamilton they hired for the Wiz thing.
From where?
University of Miami or somewhere?
He ended up at Florida State with a 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's pretty good.
Oh, shit.
Those are going way back.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think 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 Shula 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.
Cause 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, that, 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 uh, Pete Carroll, uh Well yeah, that Pete Carroll and then Stefanski, 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.
But people are like how could you lose this season?
Like that's a total wild card.
If the Glazers 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 an if.
I don't think about Tampa this weekend as an if they lose.
You think no chance, huh?
Oh, House.
Well, They haven't covered in nine games.
I mean, what evidence is there?
The vibes look bad, Schrags.
You're there.
Your feet's on the ground.
Well, we had our meeting with the Buccaneers today via Zoom.
And obviously, you're going to get the optimistic team.
But Baker said, I don't know if I'm revealing anything.
It's like there's rules against what you can share.
So here I am.
Baker said, he's like, 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 Lucy hoping to get back.
Kalijah can't see hoping Tristan works plays.
And if you know either one of those guys, if they're hoping they're, I imagine they're both gonna be on the field.
That's a better team than they had last week.
I think Baker is like, House will get this because he's an actual hockey fan.
When the hockey playoffs, the series ends and the team gets eliminated and it's like Brad Marchand 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.
There might be something wrong with both of his shoulders and there's something wrong with one of his legs.
He can't move anymore and he's not accurate anymore.
I don't want to be a dick but, like you know, the gentle response to Baker is it's not suddenly you're you're you're, you're two and eight over your last 10 games.
It didn't happen all, all of a sudden there were many, many, many winnable games in, in there.
Uh, we're going to, we're doing.
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 it's crazy.
Um, I want to get to the picks, but when we're talking about the coaching vacancies, let's just assume more jobs are going to be available than you think.
Last year, Vrabel, who I think could have had his pick, was like, I want to coach Drake May.
And I think he even used the Jets as, like you know, a little bit of a straw man, because he was trying to get Kraft to get to the right place and was using a lot of people behind the scenes to hopefully get Kraft to see the light.
And he did, and it worked out great.
What do you think's the best job that might be available?
Because I think it's probably Baltimore.
Ooh, wow.
If the Ravens lose on Sunday night, or if they get killed in round one and they decide to stick with Lamar, something's got to change.
And Harbaugh's been there forever.
And you could argue new coach, he could 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 elite neighbors at wide receiver.
You can argue that, 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 cap.
Another top four pick.
Another top four pick, maybe a top two pick.
Like Giants is, and it's that logo and it's that market.
People do gravitate towards that.
I mean, Harbaugh for the Giants makes sense to me.
And I honestly, Pete, you know this.
I'm calling you Pete because this is... I can't believe this.
I've never been called Pete in my life.
Your boy.
Cliff Kingsbury.
I don't know about Cliff Kingsbury here in Washington.
I don't know that that's a lifetime.
They didn't sign him to a lifetime contract.
Did you see the stat?
Washington, the schedule makers gave him eight standalone games this year.
I watched.
David, when they do the schedule... And by the way, I would even say this with my own team.
Although I think we're set up a little better than Washington was.
Because Washington had an old roster.
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 past schedule next year.
The other day, we were like, Oh my God, the check is coming for, uh, for everything that happened.
Um, Cincinnati's mildly interesting, but they've won their last four and they're cheap.
I can't see them paying two coaches.
I think they'll keep it.
They kept Marvin Lewis all those years.
I want to go back.
So Cliff you're saying out, you would say he'd be a head coaching candidate, or you would say that what the offensive?
Yeah, because 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 more.
I think that's the perfect team.
Because they have a fuck ton of talent.
If they could play any special teams whatsoever.
They're the stupidest.
How are they not a 10 and five, 10 and six team right now?
Who's your quarterback?
And they traded next year's first round pick for another, another pass.
They don't have a first round pick.
So who's your quarterback?
Malik Willis.
Lamar Jackson.
You guys are the best.
Two great answers.
I agree.
I think Atlanta has a ton of talent.
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 can't believe they're not going to win it.
They don't get a lot of credit as a fervent fan base.
That place was rocking.
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 there was that place was on fire on Monday night.
And gosh, if Lamar was their quarterback and Bijan 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.
We were playing them and we couldn't stop, was terrified of uh 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.
Cause I had had the Rams and a money.
I ended up doing a giant hedge the other 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.
Um, 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, Falcons, Saints, Seahawks, 49ers, Ravens, Steelers.
We have to talk 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.
So Allen's sitting.
I don't know what the Jets' motivations are.
Mitch Trubisky.
Doesn't it matter to the Bills, though?
Wouldn't they prefer— I think they can go from five to six, right?
Or seven.
Yeah, wouldn't they—it's a question.
But it's a high line, though, so I don't know even what you'd do with it.
I mean, tease it.
That's one thing you could do.
I know, but we can't do that for Arena 107.
Before we even get into it, week one my old colleague and dear friend, Kyle Brandt, 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 the 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 7, 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 parlayed with an under 42 and a half?
Thinking the Raiders can't score more than 10 points and the Chiefs have Michael Oluwakandi as their quarterback.
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 chief starters on defense are going to stay?
That's fine.
We'll cross it off.
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 Carroll?
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 stay?
We'll spend some money.
You can stay.
And maybe they'll double-cross him.
I don't think Tom Brady wants that.
Vikings Packers.
Packers locked into the seventh seed, starting Clayton Toon.
Yep.
Had to sign Desmond Ritter.
Yep.
Vikings laying seven and a half.
Let's go.
One, four straight can lock down nine, nine and eight for the year.
Let's go get it.
That's one.
That's one.
Love.
The Packers playing anybody in this game.
And their defense.
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 in the football field this week.
I can't imagine he's going to be picking any two passes off.
My Cowboys fan friends seem to think he was 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.
Is JJ playing or is it Brosmer?
It's my man Brosmer.
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 9th worst DVO offense of all time.
And they have the 10th worst special teams of all time.
Let's go.
Then you have pretty frisky at home not always reliable but frisky and on the road one of the worst road teams in a while.
You have no Harold Fannin in this game house.
He was their one target.
Since he waited DVOA, which they do it kind of favors the second part of the year, the last two-thirds.
They're 17th.
They looked good last week.
This feels like a run it up.
Let's try to end the season with good vibes.
You know what sucks?
Yes, we are absolutely positively betting the Bengals.
I'd lay a 7.5.
Make it 10.5.
I don't give a fuck.
I can make it 13.5.
Fine.
Whatever you want.
What happens if they go up 10-0?
How are they going to score?
No chance.
Zero chance.
Yeah, we're all 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 finished the season.
Especially their defense got much better.
Like from week 10 till now.
It's noticeable when you watch.
Like they actually have like a little bit of a pass rush now.
They stop the run.
They're different.
I agree.
Since 2021, they have won by 20 points two games in a row.
They had that crazy Baltimore 24-0 loss.
I actually thought their defense played pretty good and Burrow single-handedly killed the game for them.
It was sad to listen to the Smiths-Burrow.
Now he's happy again.
Chase Brown has some incentive stuff in this game.
There's some money incentive stuff.
On the Bengals side that you got to watch for?
Yeah.
All right.
I'm going to mark that one.
Lockstep.
Alt spread.
Ravens Steelers.
Ooh.
Where do you... It feels like a stay away, but it's also a playoff game.
And I feel like cowards if we're not betting 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 Metcalf piece and how, how impotent the Steelers offense looked without Metcalf.
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.
It works for them anymore.
They don't get the Rogers third and nine bailout wrong shoulder throws to Metcalf anymore.
That's just out of the offense.
And all you have to do is basically stop the run, and what are they going to do?
I don't—Shrigs, I don't see a case here for the Steelers.
Here's the case.
Okay, let's hear it.
Well, they're underdogs, which is always dangerous.
They're home.
Home underdogs.
Rodgers fucking lives for these moments.
Whether you think he's clutching these games or not, he's not going to lay an egg here.
And they were 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 Tomlin.
It's everything.
And last week was horrendous.
And down the stretch, you know, here's what kills you down the stretch.
In February you go to the combine.
You spend 100000 sending your entire staff there to do scouting.
In March, you do free agency.
April, you do the draft.
You get Rodgers.
They signed Valdez Scantling a week ago and he's getting the pass for three straight plays at the end of the game.
They were running the Metcalf plays for him.
They thought he was Metcalf, and he hasn't been on the team, and he hasn't been playing football.
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.
After he got stabbed.
Tyron Taylor style.
Yeah.
So, 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 Trevor Lawrence and saying are you fucking kidding me?
Like, get me in that dance 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, 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 24-5-3 against the spread.
And on top of that...
As an underdog against the Ravens, Mike Tomlin, 14-4-2 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 read you the receivers the Steelers had last week?
Oh, 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 Scantling, three for 21 with nine targets.
Three for 21.
Jay Smith?
Janu.
Oh, that's Janu Smith.
Forgot he played.
Did Adam Thielen get one?
Washington, two for 15.
And then he broke his arm.
He's gone for the year.
Adam Thielen, two for 14 with five targets.
And then Gainwell, three for 12.
Yep.
Are you serious?
Yes.
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're doing.
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 a Steelers team that has no receivers and a Ravens team that's just going to run the ball with Lamar Jackson.
I'm not even sure I want to do that.
The other way we can go is Baltimore Moneyline over 32.5 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 the Packers.
How are Malik Willis and Snoop Huntley going to score 50 points?
Well, guess what?
Highest scoring game of the season.
Yeah, exactly.
So maybe it's a stay away.
Yeah.
I saw Schrags on ESPN in his 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 is in the locker room like oh, if they win this game.
Yeah.
Then we're home next week.
Home.
Probably every wild card in the league.
Let's go.
So there's a case where everyone has money on the Ravens, like everybody.
And it's like the classic, like January Lamar.
Can I, can I request something?
What happens in the future?
Can I get Chris Collins worth from you after a crazy Aaron Rogers touchdown pass in the fourth quarter?
Bill, can I get the impression?
My I mean, Adam Thielen 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.
Sorry, Mike McCarthy.
Mike McDonald watches the video of him cowarding out and kicking the field goal when he shouldn't have, when he should have just gone for the fucking fourth and one kill and cost him the game.
Now he has a chance to avenge it.
I just want to point out San Francisco has the 27th ranked defense in DVOA.
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 been under siege a couple games against good defenses.
Now finally some space and being able to see things, and they'll be able to run the ball 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... It's as good as anybody has put on the field the last few weeks.
And, you know, Seattle's traveling all the way back from Carolina.
They have a short week, have to play Saturday night on the road.
Yeah.
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.
I've never seen a football game there.
No, and it's not candlestick.
Trust me.
It's not.
But it's also not MetLife where you walk in and you feel like you're at a dentist's office.
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 cheese.
House would be the opposite.
House would be like, I'd love to be the seventh seed.
I'm just on the road for a month.
This is great.
I love living out of hotel rooms.
Four straight.
That's four different hotel locations.
First of all, I don't think anyone needs a carrot in this game.
It's for the number one seed we 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 had him for the year.
Shanahan revival.
Rehabilitated him.
Yeah, rehabilitated him a little bit.
So there might be a... I mean, you could say that, okay, that means they're going to be okay.
Or the Niners know 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 is such an X factor.
I totally agree with this.
To me, 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 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.
House and I are old guys.
We know all the old guy bad back moves.
We have done...
It hit me in the heart.
I am pretty strong on Seattle here.
I really think 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.
We just watched and he's going to have Kittle back.
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 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.
So you have Kittle playing hurt for probably playing.
You have McCaffrey playing hurt.
You have Trent Williams probably not playing.
You have a defense that I'm looking at the Bears 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 touchdowns was a pick six.
So it was 31 they gave up.
Fair.
All right.
But still they could have had.
If they score in that last drive, they would have had 36 scoring drives, five offensive touchdowns.
And there were guys open all over Luther burden.
By the end of that game, you thought he was Jerry, right?
So you have Seattle who can go, they can go big.
They can go smaller.
They can control the ball.
I don't.
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.
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 the health streaks, I think you're getting outvoted 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 can just rest everybody down.
And you remember what happened on that Sunday night to Detroit.
I'm not, I am a Sam Darnold fan.
And I think he is.
He is an.
I mean, look at his wins the last two years.
This guy can play, but Purdy.
We're getting the Darnold redemption.
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.
Pretty good.
We'll see who's right.
Cause house and I are jumping on Seattle, jumping on them.
Um, Atlanta and the saints.
Such a fun game.
Three, two best teams in the NFC South.
Unbelievable.
If Atlanta wins, Carolina quenches the NFC South.
Now Carolina and Tampa, or that's the last game we're talking about.
Um, I love the Falcons in this game.
When they scratched, I love them before they scratched a lobby.
When they scratched a lobby, 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 valet who was actually really coming on for them.
Yeah.
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 this Atlanta team, this would just be the most Atlanta game ever to beat the Saints.
By the way, with the Saints, they proved what they want to prove.
They have hope for next year.
It actually makes sense for them not to care about this game.
I love Falcons by three.
This is a classic Falcons game house.
Tregs, I want you to help us, because the only thing that concerns me is that 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?
It's Tet.
No, it's Shuck.
I'm just telling you.
I'll look at the market while we're talking this through.
I thought they were co-favorites right now.
Right.
That's what I mean.
By the way, I left out one case for Atlanta Shregs.
Yeah.
They don't have their first-round pick.
No, I know.
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.
And they love him.
The players love him because he's the nicest guy in the world.
Yeah, and I also think they have way more talent than the Saints.
Saints have won four straight.
You made a great point, though.
I...
They've proven what they wanted to.
I could see them saying, all right, that was awesome.
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, on the injury list.
Like, you know, we're doing this on Thursday night.
So, um, we'll have to see how that, that plays out.
Um 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 like shut down drafts.
Yeah.
So I'm looking at the stats from last week.
They beat Tennessee by a lot of it was eight for one 19 at 11 targets.
Hmm.
The next guy was Juwan Johnson had four targets.
Pettis had three.
Austin Jr. with five.
Mataveo 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 then got knocked out by Atlanta.
It's just like... No, 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.
Wait, are we messing that up?
I'm sorry.
I have to make sure.
No, we're not messing this up.
If Atlanta wins, Carolina clinches the NFC South, no matter what happens in Carolina.
Yeah, that's right.
Every Buccaneers 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.
Bucs, 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.
Since 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.
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 could have talked 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, this would be an on-field 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 for 10 weeks.
Their defensive backfield, which was the strength of those teams, you know, with Brady in the last couple of years, with Baker, the defensive backfield is just completely ravaged with injury.
Now I would add, I would add this from the Tampa side of it.
Just having talked to, let me just say, Oh, he didn't.
I talked to balls on a production meeting call.
I just talked to balls here.
Uh, they, They've got Mike Evans.
They've got Tristan works.
They've got Baker Mayfield.
They've got Levante David.
These guys are like who have been there and done that and to just completely shit the bed and let this season go to waste.
There is pride in that room.
And if this is Levante David's last game, there's something to rally around there.
There's just... But why didn't they rally the last five weeks?
I know.
Exactly.
Back against the wall?
Why didn't that happen last week?
All right.
That was my... I tried.
Why didn't that happen in week 16 when they played Carolina?
Right.
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.
They were, you know, remember a Buka was like the rookie of the year.
He was the only guy healthy.
Everyone's healthy on that receivers room.
Now they got Bucky Irving.
They got Tucker.
They got like everyone's healthy on offense and they've completely gone crazy. into the wastebasket.
17 points against Miami.
20 points against Carolina.
Here's my only other favorite with 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 run the ball down Carolina's throats and 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.
It's an even week.
Well, 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 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?
You 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, to, to win the AFC South.
And they're playing at the same time as Jackson, the Jags.
Yeah.
Now the Jags have Tennessee.
And so Houston will be looking and seeing the Jags up 21 points.
You know, you just laid the case.
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 Colts 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.
The only other one I was honestly looking at was the Dolphins.
Shregs has a point.
Dolphins plus 11.5 in New England with, I don't know.
I just think that line's way too high.
I agree with you, but the Patriots keep covering those big lines.
I'm not messing around 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.
Yeah.
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 wild card 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 Texans Steelers.
I tell you this three-minute soliloquy.
I think the Shakey's game with the Texans is in trouble, guys.
Oh, no.
Did you tell Sal?
I have 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 FanDuel.
And here's what we're going to do.
We've agreed on four of these picks and then I'm Audible-ing on the fifth one.
Seahawks minus one and a half in San Francisco.
Schrags made a very strong, enticing case for the 49ers.
That was overruled by House tonight.
Because we think the Niners are too banged up.
We like the Sam Darnold against a 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 DBOA defense.
Uh, so that's one house that 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 Fannin and the Bengals just pouring on trying to confuse us for next July as we're looking at their division odds.
Uh, 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 Schrags' guy, Clayton Toon.
Let's go.
Minnesota could lock down nine and eight 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 if Tampa wins.
And then the Falcons knock 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 money line 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 move ball.
Schrags 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 new 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 13-10 game.
It's a 13-2.
All right, so we're going Ravens-Moneyline under 50.5 points.
Yeah.
How is this game going to have 51 points?
How do any of these games do this?
Malik Willis, New Putley, last week.
You know.
Exactly.
Those are the Ringer 107 picks for Week 18.
All lines.
Or lines that could potentially change on Fandle.
Wanted to mention that.
What was your favorite pick, Shregs?
Cincinnati?
I like the Cincinnati.
I feel good.
They're vibing the right way.
And I think Cleveland had their moment last week.
Beat the Steelers.
Their Super Bowl.
Yeah.
They'll get the sack, too.
Joe B 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 co-hosts.
21st century, not 2000s.
21st century.
The blind podcast.
That you just blindly dropped on these two cinephiles of yours was arguably your greatest success.
Podcast episode.
Oh, wow.
In maybe a decade.
People enjoyed it.
There's a lot of talk online that you are right now in the zone like a Steph Curry zone.
The last few months,
Is there HGH rumors yet?
No, this is heat check Bill Simmons.
And I know you don't respond to the Reddit thing, but they tag me in everything.
And the pendulum has completely swung back that they're all in on Simmons.
They're all in on Simmons.
Plus, I gave up sugar.
2026 can be my best year.
They don't know that we went to Germany two weeks ago.
Yeah, we met.
How's the night?
Keep flying in Germany.
Sneaky Germany.
What did Kobe get?
Was it blood spinning?
Blood spinning, yes.
That's my next move after giving up sugar.
That same Reddit feed said that I had 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.
This is kind of funny.
That is funny.
I like it too.
Did you wait?
When does your no sugar?
No, when is all that started?
Five days ago.
Why do you think?
Why do you think i've been on fire 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 motherfucker.
No, we ate some stuff.
But no dessert, nothing.
No dessert is fine.
I will say, I did have a margarita last night, which I think has sugar in it.
Yeah, that definitely has sugar in it.
It was not Skinny Girl.
It's good.
House, you're just jealous.
I was doing great for four years.
I was so focused on eating and being careful.
House came out.
In the summer of 2017, we had launched House of Carbs, the food podcast we had with House.
And 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 when we went to that pastrami place.
Oh, so goddamn good.
We went to the patty mill place.
All of a sudden, I went off the wagon.
It was like the guy in The Sopranos who started gambling again.
I was friends with Christopher Moltisanti.
Not the guy who's working in the sporting goods store?
No, that's another guy who went off the wagon.
But yeah, House, I was doing so well.
And then House was like, well, we got to get a milkshake.
Well, if we're getting 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 me anymore.
Do you feel 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.
Fantasy, the thing fantasy and I have coming up in a second we do the 21 best sports movies of the 21st century.
It's just good topic.
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.
Yeah.
Have you been following the rosters?
Yeah.
Adam Fox, my guy from the Rangers, did not get put on Team USA.
They left off Conor Bernard on Team Canada.
I was like, whoa.
He's on pace for like 100 points.
Poor Conor.
What did he do?
Marshan's on there, but that hockey is going to be incredible.
Then we got World Cup.
We got basketball playoffs.
World Cup's going to be insane.
With WNBA lockout, hopefully they'll fix it.
No, it's like we'll have labor stuff to talk about.
This year's going to have everything.
Plus Lamar Jackson getting traded to the Falcons.
Drake May going for a second MVP.
Kirk Cignetti, the coach of the Giants.
Have you talked to House at all about how the Wizards passed up Cedric Coward and take Trey Johnson?
Don't do that.
That's not appropriate.
And Derrick Queen.
Derrick Queen was available.
Was he?
Local guy.
Literally grew up in the DMV.
Should have taken Danny Wolf, my guy on the Nets.
I do like Danny Wolf.
My favorite player in the league.
I like him.
He's sweet.
Trash talk by Jimmy Butler.
Called him white boy over and over again.
What did he do?
I mean, that's literally true.
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.
He's had a career renaissance.
All right, guys.
Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
Great to see you.
I hope we win all of our bets.
Shanks, 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 p.
Thanks guys.
All right, recording this on new year's day.
We just finished the first quarter of the century.
Sean fantasy is here.
Pops on the rewatchables from time to time.
Pops on this podcast from time to time.
Host the big picture just did his uh 25 best movies of the 20.
First 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 if you had consulted me, which you didn't, you did the one filmmaker, one filmmaker movie for the list, that's it.
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 rule.
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 you, if i was being honest about what were my favorite movies, you know, pta fincher yeah, um tarantino, you know, like Nolan Wes Anderson, there's like a handful of people for Amanda Sofia who, like our favorite filmmakers, comprise like a lot of our favorite movies.
So we did the one filmmaker thing.
You know, as with all ringer projects uh universal no, universal acclaim.
We we've been told we're the greatest podcasters of all time.
Everyone's really proud of our work.
And, um, 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 pictures.
That was great.
Congratulations.
Everybody just really appreciates these lists and they don't get mad at all.
They do.
They do.
People are really mad at a couple of things that my most, even though I explained the premise over and over again in the beginning, and people are still furious that movies like just go with it and a lot like love are on there.
Limitless.
I stand by it at number 16, even though it drew arborious laughter from both you and Chris.
In the moment.
It was extremely funny because 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 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 broke back, 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 night there will be blood, no country and broke back, 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 the spotlight Zodiac Oppenheimer.
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 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the other Ang Lee movie.
And they're like 50-50 to me.
Those are two really big movies for me.
And Amanda and I didn't really get too deep into that conversation.
But you guys just did Brokeback on the pod.
And 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 Bellinger come 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.
It checked 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 a docudrama 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.
Oh, yeah.
Just totally focused on it and engaged, even though I've seen it dozens of times.
But that's a hard needle to thread.
This is a great and important film that is also fun.
It's 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 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 inches above it, right?
It's a family movie.
You'll be watching it with your kid.
How old is your kid now?
She's four.
Almost five?
She's four and a half.
Age seven?
Watch what happens.
And Daniel Day-Lewis, actor of the first quarter of the century?
I think so.
Is he the number one?
I think he is, right?
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.
Cruise has a case.
You know, Damon.
There's a couple of people who had like incredible 25 years.
I would say, yes, Streep had 25.
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 well done with a good director.
He didn't have a lot of those clunkers.
What was that Jennifer Lawrence, Darren Aronofsky movie, Mother?
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.
Cause 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.
Yeah, it's happening.
I mean, he's awesome in that movie.
Yeah.
And that movie's a hit.
You just covered.
Movie's a hit.
People like great performances.
They do.
I was thinking for an 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 eras.
It was almost like basketball.
Whereas Leo was like all the way through remained about as relevant and never kind of lost it.
Yeah, none of those three were like consistent box office killers.
Like we did a Cate Blanchett episode 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 in 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 in page two and even at Grantland 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.
Because there was really like no roadmap for it.
And it was like, well, I'll do culture stuff.
I'll do running diaries.
I'll talk about fantasy football.
I'll talk a lot about pop culture.
And then sports movies, I'm going to try to be like Roger Ebert every time there's a sports movie.
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 one else is writing about these movies in more than 250 word capsule reviews.
Yeah.
But then occasionally there are some really good ones, and I obviously developed a lot of opinions.
It's something I care about, something we cover a ton on the Rewatchables.
We've now done all four Rockies.
AMC Rocky Marathon on 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 are like comfort movies.
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 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?
Seabiscuit, Million Dollar Baby.
Keep going.
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's 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, Clint?
And then she's in tubes for 10 minutes and then suffocates her to death.
Spoiler alert, I don't care.
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 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.
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?
What did it win, 04?
It was the 05 ceremony for 04.
I think that's right, right?
Is it right after Lord of the Rings?
Yeah, so it's...
Neverland, Ray, and Sideways were the other nominees.
Well, now if you did that again, Sideways would win.
Sideways would win, yeah.
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 at 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, the lead of the movie, not care nightly.
The other one is just not good at soccer.
It just jumps out and every scene and they have to do these cuts.
And it's like almost like when they have like a lifetime TV movie or like a bad cable movie or something.
And there's like a high school soccer scene.
And it's like, they have to like cut it together.
Cause none of the actors, 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 and has like, Has a huge fan base.
They made a sequel.
It's fine.
I think it outpunched its coverage, outkicked its coverage.
I think you underrate 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 And I'm not even a hockey guy, as you know but I think it's really funny and really 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.
Sam Jackson.
If it's on, it kind of gets sucked in.
Big fan is the one with Patton Oswalt as like a crazed.
Was he an Eagles fan?
No, Giants.
Giants fan who hated the Eagles.
I like that movie.
It's dark invincible, with mark walberg 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 a 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 walberg 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 sure didn't happen.
So yeah, it's one of those.
Uh, well, I didn't mention the hammer with Adam Corolla, my friend Hedge, but that movie is 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 Blind Side, 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 comedies month.
I think The Blind Side 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 Giamatti?
Yeah, quality wrestling movie.
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 Forrester, 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, 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 several motorsports films on a list for
That was part of my thinking.
You're not a motorsports guy, right?
It's obviously gotten a lot more popular given the rise.
We talked about this in the F1 rewatchables.
I'm not a F1 or motorsports 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 sixties and seventies too, right.
Like there was like winning and Grand Prix and Bobby Deerfield.
Like there were great, there were great star part movies.
Ford versus Ferrari is a double star part.
It's Bale and Damon, both in like the disguise 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.
Two 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 versus 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 would the documentary of this just have 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 all played 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 um 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 blades of glory was another one that I think, uh, 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 sports comedies from the 21st century.
And you got to kind of... Everybody has their favorites, but...
I think there's one that is superior.
Yeah, I probably could have thrown SemiPro 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.
Farrell'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 till we get to the end?
Oh, let's do that now because 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.
Um, 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 shit 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 bears, Kerry Von Eric.
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 Wimbonyama story and we cast somebody who was like five 11.
It's like, what are we doing?
Kerry Von Eric's whole thing was he was this larger than life kick-ass dude who could go against Hogan and whoever, and And they cast the guy from the Bears.
It's just unbelievable that they did that.
I'll never get over that.
And Jeremy Allen White is like roughly 5'5".
He is not a tall man.
He was too short to be Bruce Springsteen.
Much less care about Eric.
Good actor.
But come on.
What are we doing?
I think if you remove, you know your intellectual relationship to that wrestling history, then the movie maybe works better for you.
Didn't they merge together two deaths into one death?
That was another one.
There was an extra brother.
They just cut one death out.
I mean, that's just how crazy that story is, though is completely left one brother, an entire brother, out of the movie, who also died.
I don't know.
I was like, that's why I was left off.
All right, keep going.
Um, There were two... Well, okay.
One, I know you hate this movie, but I would a million percent put Challengers on.
I think Challengers is great.
I know you and Wesley tore it apart.
I couldn't stand it.
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.
It's like broadcast news, but in tennis.
That was how I saw that movie.
I thought the ending was maybe the worst ending of any sports movie I've ever seen.
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 of heated rivalry.
I got to keep going on that.
I've skipped it, but my wife, my hungover New Year's Day wife, is currently ripping through it right now.
And I think is, I don't know if she 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 Ephus, which is a movie about a rec 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-end 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.
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 you know it's?
I know you have another, a 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 the one 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, I'm going to have some bad news for one of the top 20.
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.
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 probably shouldn't have been in the top 21 to begin with, but it's so enjoyable, has Costner's last great sports movie.
Um, it's got Chadwick Boseman uh, playing out playing.
What's he playing?
Alvin mack, i can't remember the name of the linebacker program.
Yeah uh, it's got jennifer garner inexplicably, as like as owner's daughter love it.
I can't remember that, but i i like that movie and 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.
Yeah, late period, ivan reitman.
Well, now it's out.
Okay, we're gonna take a break.
Hold on.
I have to ask you an important question before you go to the break.
Why 21 movies?
Um, 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 the 21.
Cause I wanted to do a pyramid graphic for my, 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.
It all makes sense now.
Okay.
We'll take a break and do the top 21.
All right.
The top 21, with some important help from Sean Fantasy, 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.
Uh, I was not on the episode.
We let the fantasy boys handle that one.
Uh, very funny movie.
I think culturally it's had some, it's, it's had a nice tale.
People like the distiller piece of this and I, it's, it just feels like it's lived on.
It's always on.
It's always on a streaming service or on cable.
And, uh, it's just had a nice shelf life.
It's, it's, Bill Simmons' history core as well with the Ocho joke.
I feel like it's connected to your mythology.
And for me, Pete Bateman.
Some people might say Ozark, Arrested 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 I 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 in 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 the, 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.
Right.
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 that.
This is when it shifted in the last 15 years of if you're gonna 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 lost what he.
This is another one where he lost a lot of basically playing a drug dude.
The big issue for me with this movie and I watched it in the last year is I they never really messed with the Gotti war trilogy in it, which I never understood.
Just felt like the easiest IP.
I remember seeing it for the first time.
So 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.
Um, Yes.
It's possible.
It's been a fucking 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.
Okay.
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 got a, I feel like I had a Patriot, but that's fair.
Uh, number 19, King Richard.
This is a weird one because I think this movie has a completely different tale.
If the Will Smith Oscars thing doesn't happen.
This was like his moment.
Finally, it happened for him.
And I think if he doesn't slap Chris Rock, this movie is just remembered differently.
It's probably on TV more.
It's just kind of gone.
Yeah, you're right.
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 Telluride.
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's good.
Yeah.
Alice Taylor is great in this movie.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I came on the big picture and broke this down with you.
Like the really big picture stages.
I don't remember.
What was it?
2020.
It was 20 or 21.
I can't remember.
Yeah.
Somewhere in there.
But, but between the slap and and the fact that it was like a streaming movie ultimately, is what it kind of, what it felt like.
It feels smaller, but it's really, really well made.
Number 18 is, Talladega Nights, The Legend of Ricky Bobby.
Just a really good sports comedy.
A little low for this?
Maybe a little low, except the stuff that's coming here.
I don't know.
This is hard.
It's 21 years of sports movies.
Sacha Baron Cohen's 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's really fun and they did a nice job of actually diving into NASCAR and 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 rank Anchorman, Step Brothers, and this movie?
Exactly how you just said it.
Yeah, okay, 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 Miracle, probably the most successfully executed after 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.
And to your point, it's not just that, this era of Disney original 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 also all straight to streaming.
Yeah, this was quite an era, and they all made money.
That's why they kept going and threw Gridiron Gang and Invincible.
They kept going for 10 years.
They'd spend 15 on it.
They'd make 30.
They'd make 40.
Sometimes Blindside would 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 wondering if documentaries were ruining sports movies in some ways that, as documentaries were getting better, was that going to be bad for sports movies?
And I think The next 15 years kind of proved that 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.
Chadwick Boseman did get his sports movie.
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, you lose something pretty significant.
It's weird because the blueprint they were still trying even in the 2000s.
Like Josh Lucas...
It was like a lot of guys now.
It's like, could he be a guy?
Maybe.
And then he wasn't.
No.
He's a guy who is the voice of car commercials during football games.
Right.
We have a lot of Josh Lucas's now.
He's been in some good stuff.
Next one.
Number 16.
Air.
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 Viola Davis performance as Jordan's mom.
It's just great.
And it's just, this movie's a really fun hang.
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.
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't 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 violating is really sincere but it is a fun watch they it they did a good job of capturing the mid 80s 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 uh 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.
It was one of those where it was like, let's go to the theater.
It's one of the craziest things I've ever heard, Bill.
Yeah.
Let's go to the theater.
We're both bummed out.
But this movie of Zay's...
Perfectly.
And we already did a rewatch of those.
G-Baby's death, I think, is maybe the most iconic sports movie death of any of these movies.
On this list?
Yeah.
Any sports movie in this century.
Okay.
Not like Apollo Creed?
No.
Okay.
Okay.
No, Apollo dying.
Brian's song.
You know, there's a few.
Although Apollo's death did lead to the end of the Cold War.
So maybe he died.
G-Baby died for nothing.
Apollo at least had something good come out of it.
What's more tragic, G-Baby's death or the fall of the Berlin Wall?
Yeah, 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.
Diane Lane just being in this movie is hilarious.
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.
It's a great movie.
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 being the champ, but then all of a sudden we skip through fights.
But you weren't in two and a half hours.
You couldn't cover everything.
I think the first 10 minutes and the last 15 minutes of this movie are genuinely great.
I think there are several... chill-inducing moments throughout the movie.
And it is Mann trying to do something a little different than what he usually does, which I really appreciate.
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 like a boyhood thing.
Yeah, 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 who is so inimitable.
But Smith is good.
You've now got two Will Smith movies on your list, which is quite 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 seventies were 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 him at all
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 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.
Uh, it's like a rags to riches, uh, 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 a.
I have a an allergy to the filmmaker Tom Hooper, who made uh the King speech and lay Ms 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, Link, later.
Yeah, fucking great movie.
We've not done this on Rewatchables yet either.
This is where we all bought Glenn Powell stock.
We had it for basically, when was this, 2016?
We had it from the beginning of The Ringer.
We were like, Glenn Powell, circle him.
Then he was in a rom-com.
Was it 14?
I think it was 14.
I think it was still in the Granlin days.
Oh, one or the other.
This movie's great.
And uh, And it's weirdly not a Dazed and Confused sequel but kind of operates as a Dazed and Confused sequel.
Oh, no, you're right.
It is 16.
It's March of 16, right before we launched.
High school to college.
Dazed and Confused 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, Blake Jenner.
He was involved in some controversies.
Yeah, this was the peak for him.
Incredible Wyatt Russell in that movie.
Wyatt Russell is outstanding as the 33-year-old guy trying to join the baseball team.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This movie's great.
The Wrestler, number 11.
Used to be number 10 until Sean reminded me Marty Supreme was eligible.
This was Mickey Rourke's big comeback movie.
Aronofsky, 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 wrestler families or wrestlers that were still alive or wrestlers that were in the business that were kind of headed for this.
Uh, mr tomei's 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 aronofsky's style in this movie.
But i really like it and work is great.
And rorke 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 gotta 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.
Um, great kurt russell, great kurt russell's 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.
Not in 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 an eternal movie.
It'll be on 50 years from now.
I thought this would be in your top five.
Yeah.
I just had someone's hire.
Okay.
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's 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 uh, there's never been a movie quite like it and it feels like a documentary, but it's not.
Um, and it's, 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.
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 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 10 for this.
Right.
We'll see if it gets higher.
Haven't spent enough time with it.
I've only seen it once.
Um, It has this Chalamet performance that, if you're looking at all the sports movies of this list, has to be in the running for a best one.
And all the actors, all the lead actors are pretty good.
As I spend more time with this movie, I'm going to know whether the supporting stuff and some of the gimmicky casting stuff.
I wonder how I'll feel about it five years from now.
It was fun the first time, five years from now, and I'll be like, eh.
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 watched it 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 Safdie, you talked about it with him when you did the pod.
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.
Not throwing shit together.
That's why Bend It, Like Beckham, which would have been on here if they had gotten the soccer stuff better, didn't make it.
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?
Sitting there, but waiting forever.
Waiting forever.
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.
Um, 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 Smashing Machine this year, which did not make this list and did not make honorable mention either.
What about Never Back Down?
Was that in contention?
Who's in that one?
There have been like nine of them.
The original one, who's in the first Never Back Down?
Never Back Down sounds so familiar.
Was that this century?
Is it Sean Farris?
Is that the guy?
Yeah, Sean Farris.
Jimen Hansu's in it.
Amber Heard.
Remember this in 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 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 like I just wish he'd been on more 11 and five and 12 and four teams.
And then he's in Train Dreams.
He's fucking incredible in that movie.
And there's years where he might've won the Oscar for that.
It's not going to be this year.
No, he's fantastic.
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 issue connecting to.
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.
It's all about his presence and him being 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 Connor's a great director.
I had a lot of trouble with these last seven in the order.
This was really 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 Brühl.
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 a long.
I think this might've been the last sports movie column I ever wrote was for for Grantland 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 a movie that I think has because it's in the past.
Some of these movies are just like timeless.
This one's set in the seventies 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 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.
It feels like the big game is the ending and it's not.
And it just goes... Which is just such a zag.
Yeah.
But 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 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.
There's something...
I think, part of the problem.
This is in a Gavin O'Connor movie, by the way, and it was written by Brad Inglesby.
That's a pretty 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 a streamer.
It's on cable.
It's around.
And I think one of the things I liked about this one I like sometimes in movies when the real life bleeds over into the character.
And I feel like Affleck 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 supreme thing, right where it's like chalamet's trying to be the best, and you can feel that in the movie.
Yeah, 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 from 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 sound of metal bozeman, gary oldman and mac your movie, hell yeah.
And steve yoon and minari um, Affleck could have snuck in there.
I feel like.
I just don't understand that Anthony Hopkins win.
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 it on the rewatchables.
You loved this.
I loved it.
I loved it.
You liked it more the second time.
So I talked to my dad.
My stepmother had to go to New York for a family thing.
He was by himself two days ago.
And he's like, I need to rent a movie tonight.
And I was like, you should watch F1 again.
He's like, I never saw F1.
And I was like, I was like, what?
You would love F1.
How have you not seen F1?
Oh my God.
I was so mad.
So he saw it that night.
We talked the next day and he was like, F1 was awesome.
He was like, I thought you were kidding.
It's just You know, it could have been number three on 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 is that I popped it in a couple nights ago, the 4K.
4K looks fucking incredible, by the way.
I popped it in And 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 mitten 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, pit just really flexing the movie star muscle in the movie, important pit movie for the catalog which we we talked when we did the pod about it Kind of needed it.
This is one for the 60s.
It was like his Tom Brady Tampa Bay Super Bowl.
Yeah.
Which I know meant a lot to you.
Well, it did because then I got to say it wasn't Belichick, it was Brady.
Then forevermore, I got to know that it wasn't Belichick.
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, um, how overshadowed it became by the TV show.
And actually the TV show never existed.
This movie would be talked about even, uh, 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 Pacino in Every Given Sunday are 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 were 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.
The rare 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, which you ignored my text about.
Oh, I was busy.
Sorry.
I haven't gotten into it, but you know I'm, I have, I'm like the biggest.
You were like the number one brothers McMullen guy.
Yeah.
Irish brothers who are like, love each other.
Yeah.
Surprisingly good movie.
A couple of 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.
McGloin's there though.
But the third brother's not in it.
They just kind of talk about him.
It's like he's not in the room.
Maybe I'll fire it up tonight.
I don't know.
I haven't seen brothers who've fallen sober in like 40 years.
Connie was available and ready to come back.
Great career for her.
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.
It was number two.
I finally put it at two because Moneyball 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.
Um, I'll accept other arguments, but these are the two that 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 of difficulty of, wait, you were doing this again?
What's going on?
Coogler, Fruitvale, that guy'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 Moneyball, very similar.
They're making a movie out of the Moneyball book?
How the fuck are they going to do that?
And then they had 40 scripts for it.
Oh, wait.
Oh, Brad Pitt's... Oh!
Oh, I heard it's good.
And then it's like, whoa, that movie is fucking awesome.
You told a story 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 Moneyball, I think, has resonated in its own way.
And so has Creed.
Creed's had two sequels.
But I think it's Moneyball 1, Creed 2.
What do you think?
Such a tricky one.
So we had Moneyball on our list.
And that's a real shared passion for Amanda and I. She loves that movie too.
But when we rewatched Creed for the live show I did feel like damn, this 28-year-old kid made this movie.
How old was Googler 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 for adonis and also the fight, the fight scenes are are legit, interesting and new and feel different.
You know, like that's a huge um plus in the in that film's cat, that film's uh register, because it just like there have been so many boxing, 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 is really exciting.
The 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 gonna be real strong because it's sinners isn't gonna 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.
Money ball 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, money ball two.
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 it 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 uh, The Longest Yard in 74, even though they're making them for a million years.
It's the first modern sports movie.
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 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 wouldn't have existed.
It's almost like a jigsaw puzzle putting it together movie combined with capturing some sort of movement that would go on to transform how we watched, followed and how teams are put together.
Every single piece about sports.
And then it's a really awesome movie.
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 how high the degree of difficulty for Creed was.
So it's a good last two.
Moneyball, you're 100 right that it totally sees the future about how we think about sports and how you're citing DVOA and 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 script.
I think it would have been a much more experimental and like confrontational, almost documentary style, like sort of 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.
Um, 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 peripherally involved with that early wave of the Sloan Conference, all that stuff, when people were trying to figure out how to use these new wave stats.
It wasn't accessible at all.
And as you just said, the movie 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 it in 2025, but it was not obvious to normal people, I don't think in 2011.
And then it became obvious.
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.
They have to use that data to communicate with their audience that cares about the games.
That's pretty profound, the way that it shifted.
Obviously, the Lewis book is the most significant part of that.
But without that book, this movie doesn't become a Brad Pitt-level awareness thing.
Creed, though?
Creed is just like the hang glider movie though where, once it starts, you're just like wow, I'm flying off the mountain for hours.
Yeah, and same thing where it has a couple really really, really memorable scenes, which is the last piece of a sports movie.
Am I getting chills?
Do I have a couple 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.
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 a documentary.
What's a movie?
What's a TV show?
It's 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.
Yep.
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.
The sports consulting agency does not want to work on that one.
Pickleball's almost dead.
It's like 90% gone.
What's your beef, man?
That's what I'm hearing on the streets.
The streets, I've told you.
Well, you do walk a lot.
So I guess you would probably be running into ex-Pickleball enthusiasts.
The noise stuff is going to kill Pickleball.
Oh, how much noise it makes.
That's what's really happening.
Yeah.
The neighborhoods are starting to rebel against Pickleball.
What happened?
Did some guy pick a fight with you the first time you ever played Pickleball?
What happened?
I cannot like certain things.
Well, I agree, but you got to be in your bonnet on this one.
I just think people should play tennis.
Okay.
All right.
Just play tennis.
What if you got a bad hit?
Try to break a sweat.
Then don't play sports anymore.
Watch TV.
Then just quietly die on the couch.
Sean Fantasy, what's your best prediction for this year?
Pain!
All right.
Good ending.
Thanks, Sean.
Thanks, Bill.
All right, that's it for the podcast.
Thanks to Schrags and House.
Thanks to Fantasy.
Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo.
As always, I will be back on Sunday night live with Cousin Sal.
The last time we would be live on YouTube with the Sunday night podcast.
So get ready for that.
Should be a fascinating week 18 with the NFL.
And we'll see what happens.
See you on Sunday night.
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