March Madness Takes, NBA Lottery Debates, and Best NFL Draft Story Lines With J. Kyle Mann and Todd McShay

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann to answer some NBA mailbag questions before previewing an exciting Sweet 16 round of March Madness (4:23). Then, Todd McShay joins to break down this year’s NFL draft class and the best draft story lines (01:03:49). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J. Kyle Mann and Todd McShay Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Sam’s Club | Join The Club of Yes And This episode is sponsored by State Farm®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm® is there with the Assist. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Torturo gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Torturo stars as an aging master pickpocket, whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tatiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York, now playing in theaters nationwide.

• 0:41Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by Sam's Club. We are also brought to by The Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new episode of the Rewatchables on Monday night. We did The Nice Guys, it was part of CR Month. Me, Chris Ryan, Rob Mahoney. The last one we're doing for CR Month, next Monday night, LA Confidential. So you have a few days to watch it. People have loved CR Month. We had a mailbag as well, if you've missed that. I'm not doing baseball today, but I have been really into this baseball preseason. And I actually think the Red Sox are going to be good. I just wanted to get some quick stuff down on the record before we hit the podcast. I think the Red Sox are going to be good. I think the over/under for them on FanDuel is 87 and 1/2. I think they're high 80s, at least.

• 1:24Bill Simmons?

  My favorite over in the American League is the Baltimore Orioles, which I think they're 85 and 1/2. But the 90-plus win, I think, is interesting. That's like plus 170. I just like them. I think they had like the year from hell last year. They did some smart stuff on the offseason. I like the Alonso signing. I like their pitching. A bunch of young guys ready to go. And I think in general, I think the Red Sox, Yankees, and Orioles are all going to be really good. And we'll see with the Blue Jays if they're going to have the year after curse. But in the American League, usually there's three 90-win teams or four. Leans more toward three, sometimes four, but I feel like Red Sox, Orioles, and I think the Mariners are going to be the third 90-plus win team.

• 2:08Bill Simmons?

  So one of the bets I was looking at was Red Sox 80-plus wins, Athletics 70-plus wins, Orioles 90-plus wins, and Seattle 90-plus wins. That's plus 732. Me, Sal Henson, House, I'll, I'll jump in and do that as a group bet this morning. But I'm excited to have baseball back, and I think so. I'm gonna have the Red Sox, and I think I'm gonna be rooting for the Athletics, the Orioles, and the Mariners overs as well. Lots to talk about. I'm really fascinated about the height stuff with baseball, too. I want to get Billy Gill in there to do a complete height breakdown, because now they had to measure people for the automatic strike zone, which I thought was very exciting. So anyway, that's probably coming either later this week or next week, but wanted to get that down on the board. Red Sox over this year. Red Sox are gonna be good.

• 2:52Bill Simmons?

  And I think Roman Anthony, there's MVP buzz for him, which scares me. But, uh, but he has a chance to have a little bit of a Drake May-ish year, too. I think that's, that's the hope in Red Sox Nation. But we like this team. This is good starters. I think they have bullpen, and they have a lot of bats. They almost have too many bats and in, in kind of loaded up at different positions. I'm really interested to see what kind of midseason trade they make. So, uh, stay tuned. All right, coming up on this podcast, I'm gonna do a mini mailbag at the top. We're gonna talk to Jay Kyleman about the, uh, the Sweet 16 this weekend, some of the draft prospect stuff. My love for Acuff, as you remember, like a month ago, House and I were raving about Acuff, and he's, he's exceeded our expectations.

• 3:37Bill Simmons?

  So we're gonna do a whole bunch of March Madness stuff. And then Todd McShay is gonna come on to talk about the NFL draft and whether this is the most boring drafts we've had this decade. That's my feeling. Maybe he could talk me out of it. So, uh, basketball, football, a little mailbag next. Take a break, Pearl Jam, and then...

• 3:55Bill Simmons?

  Mailbag. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by Sam's Club. It is that time of the year when you just got to get in your car and go somewhere. Done that plenty of times in my life. Nowhere gets you ready to go. Quite like Sam's Club. Snacks, the gear, super low prices on gas. They got a bunch of stuff that keep you and the whole crew rolling. And here's what you gotta do. You gotta join the club of yes end at sam'sclub.com/yesend. You must be 18 years or older to purchase a membership. A membership is subject to qualifications. Visit sam'sclub.com/yesend for details.

• 4:59Bill Simmons?

  Kyle Manis here from The Ringer. You can hear him on The Ringer NBA Show. You can read him and Dana Chow doing an awesome draft guide for us. This draft is out of control. I mean, we get to watch some of these guys actually kick ass in the, in the tournament. Some are gone, some remain, some are playing each other. We have a whole guard, we have a top four, and then we have a little guard kind of cluster that you just know five guards in a row aren't going. So something weird will happen with that. And we have my guy Acuff. I feel vindicated. How's that we're all in a month, month plus ago? He's been great. So there's a lot to discuss. Um, I want to start here though, with the non basketball, with the non March Madness thing.

• 5:42Bill Simmons?

  So was talking about expansion last week, and I got this email from Nathaniel.

• 5:48Bill Simmons?

  Who, like me, wonders why Vegas is automatically the second choice for expansion behind Seattle. He called it the entitled trust fund baby sports city being handed every team. Doesn't understand it. And he's like, why would we add two more West teams? So he was like, why wouldn't we consider a Midwestern city, Columbus, Ohio, for example, second biggest city population wise in the Midwest, but behind Chicago, 300,000 more people than Vegas. They have the pathetic blue jackets who are actually turned around, two hours from Cleveland, but mentioned Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Louisville, Lexington. What, what's

• 6:29Bill Simmons?

  your thought about Louisville, Lexington with an NBA team? It's been rumored and whistled around a couple of times, but is it conceivable that that would happen?

• 6:40Speaker 01

  It's good. I mean, there are obviously, as you know, a lot of layers to it. In terms of like the first level of is there interest in it? Yes. I mean, my God, yes. This place is just consumed with basketball. Granted, it's like, we don't have any pro teams here. So, I mean, I tell this story that like some dude with like a like hillbilly, like that's the wrong way to put it. Just like one of those long gray panhandler beards, this country dude was working on my house. And he like caught wind that I was a basketball guy. And he just had this big twang voice. And he goes, you think the Dwan Wagner can shoot the ball? It's just like, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. It's like, everybody knows everything about high school prospects and things like that. So, and then there's the history of like, the Kentucky Colonels killed here, the Hubie Brown team, and they won. They were good.

• 7:24Speaker 01

  And I mean, you know all about that history. It's like, so, I mean, like, in terms of getting interest in it, I think it'd probably be pretty similar to Oklahoma City, except Oklahoma City didn't have any other basketball entity competing with it. So on that level, I, I think people would eat it up, man. I don't think that'd be any problem.

• 7:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I might have to do a special episode with the cases for other teams. Cause Seattle should have had, never had, lost their team and should have a team. And I'm all in on either we relocate and give them a team, we have expansion. Like Seattle has to have a team. I don't personally think we should expand. I think there's other teams we could move around, whatever. But if we're talking about what the other team should be, and you have Kansas City, which I think could, could potentially have a real case. I think the Louisville, Kentucky area. Nashville versus Memphis, I think it'd be weird to have two Tennessee teams. And if anything, it would probably make more sense for the Memphis team to be in Nashville. But I just think there's other options and Louisville, I remember a few years ago, it was in the mix

• 8:27Bill Simmons?

  for a second with rumors and stuff. So I didn't know. So you're pro. You feel like you could support two major college basketball teams and an NBA team?

• 8:37Speaker 01

  I think so. I mean, I would, we came really close. I mean, I think the Memphis one back in the early 2000s, it came down to, it was a pivot and it came really close. We've got a pro arena. There's a lot of stuff with like controlling the dates that they'd have to figure out. And there's the corporate stuff, like UPS is scaling down here. Amazon has a huge, you could figure all that stuff out. I think, but I'm with you. I think Seattle's the one that's just like for the justice of.

• 9:04Bill Simmons?

  It's an outrage. Yeah.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  They gotta, they gotta have it back.

• 9:07Bill Simmons?

  I did two save our Sonics mailbags in 2008 that are actually pretty interesting to reread as this team's just getting taken away from those people. And that was almost 20 years ago at this point. So I want Seattle to have a team. I don't know if we need to add two more teams to make up for this egregious thing that they did almost 20 years ago. Speaking of that, I had a really good, I was gonna do a couple of mailbag questions with you, but this one was about Durant from Josh in Charlotte. I think KD going back to Seattle to finish off his career with the NBA expands. Will excuse him from all his team changes throughout his career. It would just be really cool to see KD throw a SuperSonics jersey on again to finish it all.

• 9:49Bill Simmons?

  I'm really mad I didn't think of this and maybe I did and mentioned it in the past, but now that we know that Seattle expansion is probably happening unless something goofy happens. But KD coming full circle and ending in Seattle. It's kind of the best redemption he ever could have had, right? He won the two titles with the Warriors. He doesn't really have a franchise. And then it all comes around and he becomes like kind of the face of this rejuvenated Sonics thing and he never should have let, they never should have lost him in the first place. I really like the symmetry of it, Kyle, man.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I've been, I've been eyeballing this for a while. Like, I think when I was working on that big Kevin Durant project like two, three years ago, maybe I forget, it's a time warp, I forget how long ago that was, but that was one of the things I was just thinking about his, the, when you, when I was thinking about the arc of his and the narrative of the off-court stuff with him, I was like, that would just be a really nice mouthwash for all of it.

• 10:41Bill Simmons?

  It really would be a mouthwash. It would be like one of those fancy ones, like a $25 mouthwash you get for Christmas from somebody. Got like a lot of alcohol in here, like, whoa.

• 10:50Speaker 01

  You've got fancy $25 mouthwashes for Christmas?

• 10:54Bill Simmons?

  My wife's friends will give weird, weird, yeah, those like weird bath kits or weird, weird toiletry kits, all that stuff. Yeah, I think.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  I'm not in the artisan mouthwash market. I'll have to become familiar with that.

• 11:04Bill Simmons?

  Might not have gotten there into the, into the Louisville, Kentucky area yet. All right, a couple more. Mike Parsons wants to know, does Danny Hurley take the Lakers job offer if he knows Luca is going to be his franchise player within seven months?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Can you imagine those two together? Oh, my God. I mean, JJ's intense enough.

• 11:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Danny Hurley would have quit already. I never believed the Danny Hurley story, did you?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  No, because, I mean, it was pretty obvious what was happening. I mean, it was a pretty incredible moment where they were trying to rally UConn to be more like financially invested across the board, because I think they were in financial trouble at the time, but those questions have kind of gone away. And then it, it just never, he flirted with the Kentucky job, too, in a way that was just like, can we just get through this?

• 11:50Bill Simmons?

  Right. Can we just get to where this is gonna end up?

• 11:53Speaker 01

  And then he admits it, that his agent advised him to just flirt and bat his eyes at him. I mean, when they had all those young players and that was kind of the, the path that they were on before they just pivoted unexpectedly with the Luca thing, you could talk yourself into it. It was like, this guy is, he's elevated every player that's played for him. He just had a, he had a good thing going and he still has a good thing going, but man, I just don't, who's the most intense, who's the most intense coach in the league that knows that the backstop behind them is so solid that they can really, really get on guys? I mean, it's Missoula. I'm trying to think of the other, I mean, Spoelstra will just like, because he knows that he has the top-down support.

• 12:30Bill Simmons?

  Spoelstra doesn't count. He can do whatever he wants because he's like an institution there. Missoula's probably. The one that it could go sideways if he handled it wrong, but I think he handles it really well. I think JJ's out there. JJ will lay into those guys and get pissed off during games and, you know, treat them like adults. But that's like, when you watch college and I think this year especially, and this has been such a good tournament, so much fun to watch and so many storylines. But there's some real major personality coaches in this, none of whom would ever succeed in a million years as NBA coaches. Like, can you imagine Mick Cronin?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 13:06Bill Simmons?

  Coaching like Minnesota Timberwolves or something like, there's no chance. Even Patino, we saw it fail with Patino, we saw it fail with Calipari. It's just a different kind of breed. So I don't, I don't think curly style would work. I never thought it would work. Thought it would have been a huge mistake.

• 13:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, agree.

• 13:25Bill Simmons?

  So, all right, here's a couple more. I had the, uh, talked about the wait, what moments of the 21st century? The Luca trade, Bam's 83 and Malice in the Palace. Couldn't really come up with the fourth one. And David from Portland says there's a clear fourth. The Thunder Jazz game getting postponed in March 2020 when Rudy got COVID-19. This was the oh shit moment for us basketball obsessed mouth breathers that made the pandemic real.

• 13:52Speaker 01

  Mouth breather is a really good choice of words there. Yeah. The pandemic, but yeah.

• 13:55Bill Simmons?

  That's a really good one, and I think it's been lost in history because COVID in general. And I barely remember anything from those first four months of COVID. But that specific day of like, I remember going into my old house, going back to watch the basketball and putting it on. And it, and it just was clear the game might not happen. And, and just the text started and, and you go on Twitter and it was like, oh, man.

• 14:25Bill Simmons?

  We're really doing this now. We've been circling him for two, but now this is now happening. But yeah, I think that would be a worthy fourth.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  It feels that day I can kind of replay in my mind and like the day before in a way that kind of I feel like we're gonna get I don't know if we would ever do it from the sports angle but I mean it was the I guess it's the OJ doc the 30 for 30 right where they went through chronologically in the day.

• 14:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  I feel like that day could could I don't want to watch that because for the reason that you were just talking about was just like anytime I think about it, I just want to fucking vomit. Um, yeah, I mean, my, my wife was pregnant like when that happened was getting ready to have a kid. So all of that is just kind of like, yeah, that was, that was a traumatic time, but I, I specifically have a memory of I went to, this is pretty funny. I perchance just got to go to a Calipari fantasy experience. This is a friend of mine had a ticket to it. I did not buy tickets before people start laughing. I just like, he texted me the morning of, but I remember we were, I was talking with all these people I didn't know. And I remember we were in, we were hanging out in this hotel bar and this guy was just talking my ear off about COVID and I was like not taking it seriously at the time. And he was trying to wait hand wave it away and he was just like going through

• 15:31Speaker 01

  he was like bird flu disappeared and he just rattled them off. And I can hear this guy's voice just reverberating in my head where he was just like COVID, it's going to go away. Just like all of those. And it was just kind of like one of those famous

• 15:42Bill Simmons?

  It's like a fad.

• 15:43Speaker 01

  Rippling, rippling moments of just like, man, I wish he had been right about that.

• 15:48Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man. Um, John from Seattle was talking about SGA streak of scoring 20 points, 130 games right now. You, you like that streak ambivalent? Sort of like it? Where do you stand?

• 16:02Speaker 01

  All the like counting stat things these days, it's kind of like it, it feels like it requires another pass through to like get context just because the, the, the volume is so much higher across the board, you know? And it's like, even when I hear that, when I hear the counting stat things like with KD passing each other or passing, I don't, you remember that staff meeting we had a few years ago where they were talking about LeBron was getting ready to pass the scoring title? And I just kind of murmured some back end of comment about Kareem never shot threes and played four years of college. It's like there's just so many things like that where it's like, it's, it's so hard at face value. I mean, to, to take it just as is. I just think that's my thing. It's like if, if I hear them, I don't get as riled. I like to kind of like swoop in and kind of see unless it's something that just.

• 16:45Speaker 01

  They put the context in it for you when you hear it initially.

• 16:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, I remember writing about this in my book. Sometimes with these streaks or records, it's almost unfair to the eras or the decades when people didn't know this was going to matter. Cause like that, the, the 70 wins and the, when the Bulls got to 72 and 10 and the Warriors beat them. Like, nobody thought about wins like that really until the 70, the 1967 Sixers. When I think they went 68 and 13, it was the first time like a record was a big deal. And then we had the, the streak with the Lakers and the Lakers beat them. And I think that went 69 and 13, but all those Russell Celtics teams, like they're just trying to survive the season, right? They're playing like six games and seven nights. Like, nobody ever said like, man, you should try to get 70 wins,

• 17:33Bill Simmons?

  65 wins or whatever. It's just, they didn't think that way. So when I think about this 20 points in 130 games or whatever, Will, who is the most number obsessed guy out of any superstar in the history of the league, who literally led the league in assists one years just to prove that he wasn't unselfish and was passing up like layups so he could handle the ball. Like, was just a maniac with this stuff. If he had known this was a streak, he just would have done it for like 500 games in a row. I don't, I just, I just think he would have been like, whoa, this is the thing. And he just would have kept doing it. So, I don't know. Anyway, John from Seattle brought up the streak and he said, he thinks Mike Conley's streak of not getting called for a technical foul is more incredible than the Shea streak.

• 18:18Bill Simmons?

  It's over 1,200 games without a technical foul, 19 seasons. What happens in his last game? Does he just crash out and get ejected? Or does he try to throw a perfect game and just never get a technical? I gotta be honest, I forgot that this was a streak that existed.

• 18:35Speaker 01

  I did not know.

• 18:36Bill Simmons?

  An incredible, why, just, why aren't we talking about this? Mike Conley passing the 1,200 mark.

• 18:43Speaker 01

  Do you think you, do you think you're just like not doing your due diligence as a person standing up for yourself if you don't get at least one? Like, is it an indictment? Or is it a credit?

• 18:51Bill Simmons?

  Are you like a pushover?

• 18:53Speaker 01

  It's like, but Conley, I love Conley. It's just like, I don't, I don't really know what to make of that. Who's the top, who's like in the top 10 for that, that stat?

• 19:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I only know the other way where it's like the most technicals in a year. Rashid had over 41 year, I think. Draymond's probably moving toward the career leaders. But yeah, I would love to know more about the Conley streak and whether he cares about it. Um, all right. Next one is, this is a great one. Conspiracy Bill, really love this. Really jealous. I didn't think of this from Kyle Taylor. The Pacers have a top four protected draft pick, thanks to that Zubac trade. If the pick is five, six, seven, eight, nine, it goes to the Clippers. This, this is Kyle Taylor. This basically proves they know the lottery is rigged. They just forced Adam Silver's hand. Do you really think Adam Silver's

• 19:45Bill Simmons?

  gonna let the Clippers get a pick in the five to nine range this year with all the aspiration stuff looming? Conspiracy Bill wonders if this came up when they were trying to make the Zubac trade with the protections. If anyone in the Pacers office was like, hmm, you think, you think there's any world we don't get a top four pick if five through nine would go to the Clippers and make them better with all this other stuff going on? I don't know. I really like that one. Obviously it's ridiculous, but it's like a classic conspiracy one. There's just enough there. I was like, oh, all right.

• 20:20Speaker 01

  Sounds like a really good episode of Wait A Second coming up. That would be a good thing.

• 20:23Bill Simmons?

  I'll get Concepcion out of it. Pretty funny.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  That's a two parter, inevitable two part episode with you. I feel like that's gonna do big numbers.

• 20:29Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait. Uh, I mentioned this email earlier from Matt in Charlottesville about Obama did a video with Anthony Edwards to promote the presidential library in Chicago and, and there was no one on the Bulls who could make it. And he asked, was this the lowest it's ever gotten for the Bulls? So I actually made a list because I didn't do this with Zach. Lowest post Jordan Bulls moments.

• 20:50Bill Simmons?

  It's Rose getting hurt in the first game of the playoffs in 2012 has to be number one. The Jay Williams motorcycle accident. Jay Williams was good.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  Forgotten the history, dude. Jay Williams was, yeah.

• 21:01Bill Simmons?

  I remember there was one game when he, when he went toe to toe with Jason Kidd, where it was like, wow, we might be really doing this with this guy.

• 21:10Bill Simmons?

  When they salary dumped Luol Deng in 2014 for Andrew Bynum and then waived him when they had like a 48 win team because it was a tax thing. That was horrible.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Forgot about that one. Yeah.

• 21:20Bill Simmons?

  Booing Jerry Kraus's family during the Ring of Honor night for the 96 Bulls. Really bad. And then they tanked for three years after Jordan left. And there was no superstar in any of those drafts, 99, 2000, 2001. It was just like really bad luck. If they, if you move those three years, two years ahead, now all of a sudden I'm at least with LeBron and Dwight Howard and might get a franchise guy. So that'd be my top five, other than that they're, they're cheap and they never paid the luxury tax and really seem to pay money for a front office and just do dumb things.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  The, when the, the 44 point game, wasn't it 44? Wasn't that the, the low, the lowest point total game they had? I think that was in 99 when they only scored, I think it was 44 points, like the, the all time record.

• 22:05Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember that. Jesus.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  I think that was right after Jordan. But yeah, you're right. I mean, those like falling during that time. There was a, there was like a, there was a convergence of a lot of kind of things that sucked for them right there. I mean, you're in the, the heat of the Shaq era where teams are just trying to like load up. We had a lot of overlapping things that I think hurt the skill level in the league where teams were like really overdrafting to kind of get bodies to, to play Shaq. And then there was the high schooler thing going on. So you had the Kwames and the Tyson Chancellors and the Eddie Currys. And it's like Tyson ended up being a good player, but Eddie, Eddie had all kinds of problems.

• 22:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Jonathan Bender was a bad one.

• 22:40Speaker 01

  So that was, that was tough because they had a lot of high picks during that time. Yep.

• 22:44Bill Simmons?

  Two great draft questions for you. From Brian Noakes, hypothetically, would you rather have Wemby or the top two picks in this draft?

• 22:51Speaker 01

  I mean, Wemby.

• 22:52Bill Simmons?

  Wemby by far. Here's a better question. Wemby or the top three picks in this draft? I'd still take Wemby.

• 22:58Speaker 01

  Wemby. He's on a goat arc. You take the goat arc.

• 23:02Bill Simmons?

  Wemby or the top four picks of the draft? I get all of them. I could have, I could even have Caleb Wilson.

• 23:11Bill Simmons?

  I still, I still would take Wemby.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Peterson, Boozer, DeBansa, and we'll say Wilson. Is that, is that, what kind of a core is that? Like, do you think, like, if you took that four and compared that to the cores in the rest of the league that we really like, I'm trying to think, where would that rank? I mean, it'd be up there. I mean, that part, that would be the best. That probably the best young core. Aside, aside from the Spurs, I'm trying to think of the other ones. Yeah.

• 23:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, the answer is the top five picks of this draft.

• 23:42Bill Simmons?

  Now you have my attention because now I could have Peterson and Acuff. I could have Caleb Wilson, DeBansa, and Boozer. I just have an entire starting five for Wemby. Now I'm thinking about it.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't know, man. I mean, the only thing that could creep in is you're just like, all right, there is a little, there is the little voice in the room that's like, Wemby's.

• 24:04Bill Simmons?

  The seven foot seven guy who might get hurt. You never know. Yeah.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we, we were doing like the, the redraft for the past few drafts and I just, as an exercise, ran them through this like rubric, rubric that I've been doing lately where I just say like, is they, are they a, can you hunt them in switches? Do they fit this play style? Are they a, are they a spacer? Are they a rim protector? And Wemby got a perfect score.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  And I was going through every other and I was just like, I can't, shoulder shrugging it. But I was like, the one, one thing that I have in there is volatility rating. And I was like, Wemby can't have a perfect volatility rating because everywhere else he's good. But it's like, there is that little sneaky thing of like you were saying, it's just like durability. You know, he's already encountered some of that. That'd be the only thing, man. Because like otherwise, Wemby just, Wemby's impact is just, uh, it's been, it's been belated at this point, but it's, it's unbelievable.

• 24:54Bill Simmons?

  Another Spurs question. Elliot Gold wants to know. He said, he hasn't heard anyone talk about this, and I know we haven't talked about it on the pod. If San Antonio could do it over again, would they take Khan? Or VJ? I don't think VJ is in the conversation over Dylan Harper knowing what they know now. So that, the question for me would be Khan. Because they have Fox and Castle as two ball handlers. And then you're just adding this incredible shooter and guy who knows how to play with or without the ball. I think they would run it back with Harper. And I think Harper is that special and but I don't I also don't think they probably thought Khan was gonna be this good right away. But I think Harper with Wemby, I think is is slightly more interesting.

• 25:37Bill Simmons?

  Like this incredible, uh, physical inside outside guard who's gonna be able to learn how to shoot threes soon. And I think that's where you'd want to be with Castle. Okay, if that's about those three, I think that I like that three more than Castle, Khan and Wemby, but slightly.

• 25:54Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, it's a no lose, obviously. I mean, you're gonna Khan Khan would help them. I remember in the early mocks, I had Khan getting drafted like picked to the Spurs. And I talked myself out of it because I was just like, they just don't really go with guys like that.

• 26:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:07Speaker 01

  They they love to go with the big switchy, physical athletic guys. And they're like, the skill stuff we think will come around. Um, yeah, man, I mean, I think Dylan has a chance to be like a first team all NBA guy. I mean, he could flirt with like he's two way player, you know, gets just, yeah, he's he's a special guy, special talent.

• 26:25Bill Simmons?

  I get this email a lot. This one's from E and W. Would you ever consider becoming the GM of the Holy Cross basketball team, especially with Dame Lord running Weber State?

• 26:34Speaker 01

  And Feuding with Woj.

• 26:35Bill Simmons?

  Curry's assistant GM of Davidson, Woj. I would, I would not do that because I would get too into it. I think it would ruin all the other stuff I'm doing. I would just become obsessed with trying to find guys. It sounds like a tap a little bit to Woj, too. Uh, but I, no, thank you. I do, I would not want to be in the NIL world. Uh, I think

• 26:54Speaker 01

  One, one year, one year and we film it. You wouldn't do it?

• 26:57Bill Simmons?

  I think that's the only way you would do it if it's like a documentary in a book and you're, uh, because Holy Cross would be the team to do it because there's no, there's no reason they couldn't beat Gonzaga in the East. Like they, they really could. There's, there's a New England school that should be awesome. That should just be cherry picking awesome New England kids every year and has a killer coach and, you know, good education, but you're just like the school in New England. It doesn't exist.

• 27:24Speaker 01

  So you don't count St. John's or is you, I mean,

• 27:26Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm saying, I'm saying like going from like past Connecticut, you're, you're talking about Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, basically like that part of the country, but really Massachusetts.

• 27:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:41Bill Simmons?

  Where it's like, it would be conceivable to build a powerhouse up so DeBansa could be. Be like, I know B Y is paying me, but I've always dreamed of playing here and playing at home and that doesn't really exist.

• 27:54Speaker 01

  I'd love to see it.

• 27:58Bill Simmons?

  Did you watch The White Shadow?

• 28:00Speaker 01

  No, I never, you know,

• 28:01Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna save this one.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Core curriculum, but I haven't.

• 28:04Bill Simmons?

  All right, I'll end with one goofy one from Ethan from Houston. If the Paul George suspension is actually helping the Sixers avoid the luxury tax, is the next logical step for the Kings to plant something in Zach Levine's suitcase? Obviously, no team would do this. I was thinking, no.

• 28:21Speaker 01

  Plan something?

• 28:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, listen, if there was like a landman type show for the NBA, like a completely insane show where crazy stuff happen, this would be a season one kind of cliffhanger plot, right? Where the GM's like, we gotta, we gotta get into the salary cap. What are we gonna do? And people start looking at each other. It's like, we gotta, you gotta put something in his suitcase. We got, this is what we got. Cause that would happen on like a Paramount show.

• 28:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, or I was gonna say the, the industry guy who gets him back to the apartment, just keeps turning the stereo up.

• 28:54Bill Simmons?

  Industry, yeah.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Calls the cops.

• 28:55Bill Simmons?

  The, the industry slash Paramount version of an NBA show. I think that actually would happen. All right. Uh, we're gonna take a break and then, uh, we're gonna talk college. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Upsets, buzzer beaters, game changing plays. What happens on the court keeps us on our toes and life isn't any different. That's where State Farm comes in. With over 19,000 neighborhood agents for when you want to talk to a real person and the easy to use digital tools. State Farm is there to help when facing the unpredictable because in life's uncertain moments, big or small, you need to know someone is ready to assist. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there with the assist. Prices are based on rating plans and vary by state. Coverage options are selected

• 29:39Bill Simmons?

  by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. All right, March Madness. You love it, Kyle, man. It was a really good first weekend with a lot of chalk, but also it checked all my boxes because I got to watch some good players. I got some terrible coaching like always. Bill Self, who's become, I think, my least favorite college coach for some, no rational reason for it. I just, for some reason, he annoys me. They blew it again. And we have some great games, including this weekend where we have Arkansas versus Arizona. We have Illinois versus Houston. We have St. John's versus Duke and we have Bama versus Michigan.

• 30:22Bill Simmons?

  I honestly think those are four must-watch games. Like even if you're an NBA fan, you're not really watching college. Those four are like awesome games. And in general, I feel like the level of basketball is just higher than it used to be. And we've, we talked about that with Tate on Sunday, that we have better guards. We have more talent. What's your favorite out of those four games? What are the one that, what's the one that you can't wait for?

• 30:46Speaker 01

  Oh, that is really hard to pick. I was going to say the DC Regional is going to be incredible with UConn and Michigan State, and then Duke and St. John's. I mean, the narratives in Duke-St. John's are so great. I mean, Patino talking about, you know, redemption for the Leitner shot. Granted, Patino's played Duke in the tournament before on their way to their 2013 title. I mean, the two that jumped to me, Arizona, Arkansas, I think is going to be very fun and athletic.

• 31:10Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  It's going to be very fun. You want to just start there?

• 31:15Bill Simmons?

  Does, you think Burries is going to guard Akif?

• 31:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I do. I think, I think that's going to be.

• 31:22Bill Simmons?

  I can't remember an actual draft pick spot being on the line for a game because.

• 31:28Speaker 01

  Loser leaves town. Yeah.

• 31:29Bill Simmons?

  As I've told you over and over again, I think those are the two choices for five. I felt that way for weeks and I actually would give a slight edge to Burries just because I think it's harder to find guys like that. And there's this point, this is such a point guard draft. A lot of teams already have a point guard. Burries is just like. You just know what he is. And even I liked, I liked what he did over the weekend. It was five for seven. He made the biggest shot of the game. But him trying to guard Acuff is going to tell us a lot. And then Acuff, who's on just a fucking heater at this point, trying to navigate that, knowing that a team's going to have five days to think about how to stop him. I can't, I can't wait for that game.

• 32:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, Acuff versus, I think the narrative for that game is going to be, if you're just through the draft lens, I mean, Acuff versus Arizona's length is going to be the story because Arizona has a lot of size and strength. Arkansas is explosive and long and lanky, but they're not as beefy as Arizona. They have Crevasse, who's like seven foot two. He's gigantic. Koah Pete, who's probably a first-rounder. Toby Awaka is another guy who's a big, strong dude. I think that's going to be the thing to watch. I was pulling up in, in preparation for this, just thinking about what to watch for, you know, his finishing is the thing that I'm going to be looking for, him in the paint. Because I, I looked at the teams, I kind of, I cherry picked it. I mean, they played a great schedule this year. They played a lot of teams with a lot of size. But I filtered for half-court finishes

• 32:55Speaker 01

  at the rim. And he had a hard time on synergy. It was like 34.8% at the rim. So I want to see him use his left hand in the paint. I want to see him draw contact, get to the line, those kinds of things. Because when he plays against bigger players, he kind of has a tendency to just kind of like, you know, pray and throw it over the top of them as opposed to like, he's not super creative. But like we talked about, he has all those other pluses. That's like, you're nitpicking him, you know? It's like, and I, and I think that's the basis for critiquing whether or not he can be a star is like, he's got to get that paint production up, I think, to validate that side of the argument. But man, he's just such a great game manager, shoots the shit out of the ball. It's gonna be a really fun matchup.

• 33:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I've noticed the, the rim stuff too. And that's where, because he really does remind me of Kyrie with a lot of the stuff he does. The one part where it falls apart is Kyrie would have that double clutch ability and that bang off. And he would always finish with a good shot. Acuff sometimes doesn't. But I also feel like. You know, he's in, he's been at the same college for less than a year. He's got Calipari as his coach. They kind of fall into ruts with him where he's just like driving right every time and you kind of know it's coming. They don't, they don't mix it up and have him coming out, getting the ball in different spots. A lot of times it's just, he's just driving right and then teams overplay him and then he'll cross over and try to get a little floater.

• 34:15Bill Simmons?

  I feel like there's more there is my point. I don't, I think when, if you put him on a really smart team and they'll be like, look, this is what happens when you do this. This is what we think you should do instead of this. Like, the sky's the limit. And then the defense stuff, I just don't worry about with him. Like, did we talk about Kyrie's defense when he was coming in the league? Like,

• 34:35Speaker 01

  I worry about the defense.

• 34:37Bill Simmons?

  But it's, it's not going to be great, but you can win with guys who are, you know, who are elite offensive guys who aren't that good on defense. We've seen it.

• 34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, they gotta be pretty special. It's tough, man.

• 34:49Bill Simmons?

  But I think he's pretty special is my point.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:53Bill Simmons?

  That can't be the reason not to take him fifth.

• 34:56Speaker 01

  I think, I think it's, it's, it's more a worry of how like spectacular offensively, you take the rim, you take the rim stuff like I'm talking about because I think that, that is going to be an issue if people can run him off the line.

• 35:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  I just, I'm not as like ready to say to buy into the superstar talk and go as crazy as some of the people, other people are right now. I find myself on the little more pessimistic side of that because of the things we talk about. And then if you add, you got, you've got to build around protecting him defensively. Now granted, I think like we were talking about on the last episode, I think he's going to scale into a different type of role in the NBA because on this Arkansas team, man, he's making the food for everybody and nobody, he, nobody's making food for him. Like he's, he's just making all the meals and it's like, there's nothing easy. Like there might be a broken play where it comes to him and he bangs a three or whatever it is, but I think in an NBA offense where he's given more like catch and shoot things, he'll have a lot of opportunities to produce.

• 35:47Speaker 01

  I'm just like him driving a, a team as the star. I think there are just a lot of kind of outlying questions, outstanding balance on the, on that conversation for me.

• 35:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm glad you made that point because I think he does so much offensively for this team. You have to factor that in the defense. And if your life's easier, it's a little easier to be a two-way guy.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 36:08Bill Simmons?

  He, he could look really bad in this Arizona game. This is the right kind of team. I think to just throw multiple waves of defenders on him, scout him the right way and he could, this could be like a six for 21. On the other hand, he's a pretty special player and this could be a case of like, despite how good this Arizona team is, you know, he just goes on another heater. I don't know, like the stuff he's doing as a freshman, which doesn't have a lot of parallel in the history of, of the tournament. They were saying like Fox was the last guy who had points like this. And to me, like worst case scenario, he's in that Fox Garland range as a pro. Where I think, I think he could be as good as Darius Garland.

• 36:53Bill Simmons?

  And that's maybe where, kind of where this, where the floor is, right?

• 36:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:59Bill Simmons?

  And that's, I like Darius Garland. That's a really good outcome for the sixth pick in the draft, you know?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Um, and those guys end up being, it's like the conversation kind of flows the same way where we're like, okay, this guy's probably the center of a team and you, you, you think about the warts coming in. A lot of time, I mean, those guys end up going to teams that don't have it going. Like the Cavs at the time, the Kings at the time, and this time and anytime, obviously. But, um, they get a chance to have their own team and, and they do have like a lot of production and output and everything. But the warts kind of come, you know, they, they come back eventually. And we, and then we kind of resettle you into like, okay, you're a really good player, but we can't live or die with your ability to sort of like feed everybody all the time and be efficient. And we protect you on defense and things like that. Um, I think you're right about that in terms of what type of, uh, what type of player he's going to be. I mean, like the.

• 37:48Bill Simmons?

  So I'm higher on him than you are.

• 37:51Speaker 01

  I would say you're, you're a little higher at the end than me. And I, I think I'm, I'm just in general, in the, in the overall conversation, I find myself being a little more worried than other people are about some of these things. But you're talking about the loser leaves town thing. Um, um, the Fox Alonso thing was the last, that was, that was one of the better ones we've ever had, right? Those two facing off.

• 38:10Bill Simmons?

  And an awesome game too, like an actual memorable March Madness game. Yeah, I, I worry about the finishing stuff a little bit with him too. Um, and I worry about that more than the defense, just because I saw the same thing you did that. It's it sometimes looks bad and predictable and like we've we're watching with Scoot right now. The Scoot's as good of an athlete as he is, his finishing just isn't good enough. And I thought he was going to be better as a pro. Just being like this Derrick Rose type, but the difference between Rose, Westbrook. Pick a guy who was awesome in the pros was they were able to finish it at the rim. I mean, going way back, this was the Bassie Telfair thing.

• 38:48Bill Simmons?

  It's like Bassie Telfair. Whoa, look at him. And then it's like, yeah, this guy has no chance when he's driving the basket. Like this is not happening. I don't think A Cuff's gonna do that, but Arizona will be a good test. So Bama, Michigan.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Oh, man, yeah.

• 39:04Bill Simmons?

  This is where our guy, this could be, first of all, I think Bama could absolutely win this game. Bama's 11. They're 11 to one to make the final four. I think that's the best bet of all these calls. I don't know if it'll happen. But I know the odds are better than 11 and one. They could win two games in a row and make the final four. And our guy, the lost guard in this draft, who might end up falling to 20 and being awesome. Like this is going to be a really good stage for him.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I've been such a fan of LeBaron Philon for such a long time. He, I got to see him play in a showcase near my house for the first time. And that was kind of when the the hearts over the eyes kind of popped out.

• 39:39Bill Simmons?

  You were texting me about him in like November.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  I was gonna say of like 2023, maybe. He's he's just, he's a winner, man. We were talking about Mike Conley earlier. He has a lot of MF'er in him, but he's he's not as passive as Conley. But he has a lot of the the adhesive kind of things that fall between the wrinkles of a team. And this makes it, he just makes things work. He's a little bigger than I think people realize. Like he's like 6'3 and 1/2, 6'4. He's he's just, he's a lot lower and slinkier than A Cuff. He's not as like solidly built, but he just, he's improved his shooting. He's very, very clever. He has like rondo-y kind of qualities at times to me. Where he just picks his spots really well, a good passer. He had like a, he had, you would have, you would have had, I need to send you this clip.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  He had a touch, a touch pass assist off of a rebound where he just lightly tapped it to one of his teammates like extended. And I remember thinking, I was like, uh, yeah, that that was a 1 million percent of Larry Bird, but.

• 40:34Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God, I would have loved it.

• 40:36Speaker 01

  The problem with it is like Michigan just chokes people out. They just get you in a headlock.

• 40:40Bill Simmons?

  I get it.

• 40:40Speaker 01

  And then you make mistakes. Yeah, it's it's gonna be tough.

• 40:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, you have him 12th on the on your big board right now. Which, where do we have no, he definitely moved up, right? Wasn't he in the teens?

• 40:53Speaker 01

  From, from when to when? That was, that's the first outing. So he hasn't moved this year. He was on our board last year really high, actually.

• 40:59Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember. I'm looking at the thing now because Amen's 14 now. And I'm just, I'm betting on Fylon over Amen 100 times out of 100. Just, all due respect to him, but, Amen, but, uh, yeah. I just, come on. What are we doing?

• 41:16Speaker 01

  The, the Iowa State, Iowa State's gonna be a test for Amen. He's been dealing with like right leg soreness and, you know, uh, but I don't think that forgives some of the things that have been rough all year. It's just a lot of hypotheticals with him and, um,

• 41:30Bill Simmons?

  He's, I was, he's a get a GM fired kind of lottery pick.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  It's scary. It's scary. Yeah, like Iowa State turns people over and they pressure. And if, if he has a good showing against them, I mean, that's kind of, you don't want to, you don't want to go too far of like, you know, somebody has a good game and you draft them based on that. But, um, I don't know with this one, if he has a good outing against them and shows some toughness, I don't know if it's going to swing me dramatically, but, uh,

• 41:54Bill Simmons?

  I like him outside the lottery. I see it. Once we move into the top 12, I'm just not seeing it at that point. Is it, is it weird that I, I feel like Michigan is by far the most vulnerable out of these four? You know, the four, we got Duke, we have Arizona, we have Houston, Michigan, like they're out of like the super teams. Something about Michigan makes me feel like somebody could get them. And I don't know what it is.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  I don't know, man. It goes like they control the glass. They weren't playing well and they, and they've really gotten a lot of stuff together. Yaxle's playing incredible. I mean, they beat a scrappy St. Louis team. They, we'll see. I mean, once, once the teams can kind of like throw punches with them size wise.

• 42:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:38Speaker 01

  Alabama can't, can't do that. They only, they only play one guy who's like six foot 10 and he's kind of beefy. So.

• 42:44Bill Simmons?

  So you think they could just get overpowered? That would be the fear with that game.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they just, I mean, their center's seven foot three. Their Morris Johnson's another guy that I think you would like. He's a real like Isaiah Stewart type energy, muscular.

• 42:56Bill Simmons?

  I like him.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  And then Yaxel plays the three and it's, it's, they're gigantic, man.

• 43:00Bill Simmons?

  So then we have Illinois, Houston, which is another crazy draft battle. Those are two guys that are going to be somewhere between five and nine. The guards on those teams. Flemings, people are cooling off on a tiny bit, it feels like, but we get to see them go against each other. And that's the bracket, like Houston's the favorite in that bracket and they're plus one, 10. So that's the bracket that it seems like people feel like anybody could take, but do you have a strong feeling in either of those teams? Anything you like?

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Uh, I think any other year, I mean, sort of the pedigree and the style that Houston plays year to year is like big, physical. Their bigs aren't as good this year. So this is, this is a really interesting juxtaposition of two teams here where Illinois is very finesse. A lot of Europeans on their team, a lot of skilled guys. They have this guy Murkovich that I think you would really like for them. Uh, he's, he's just this beefy four who can kind of score from all over. But for Wogler in particular, this is going to challenge him in some areas that are key to kind of like how you see his value. Because how he deals with the physicality of those guards of Emmanuel Sharp, of Milos Jusan and of Kingston. It'll, I think it's going to color the way people feel about him. If he comes out and plays great, um, it's going to help him a lot. Uh, I, I think.

• 44:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, then we have St. John's Duke.

• 44:20Bill Simmons?

  Why doesn't Boozer shoot that 12 footer?

• 44:22Speaker 01

  I knew you were going to ask me that.

• 44:24Bill Simmons?

  I haven't texted that to you, I don't think either.

• 44:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did. You were complaining to me and Tate about it. You were like, good looking the pros. Yeah, yeah.

• 44:31Bill Simmons?

  Boozer, that drives me crazy. I mean, I know, I guess he can add it, but I've never seen, I've never seen anybody take an open 12 footer and try to turn it into a layup into two guys more than that dude. Like, it doesn't seem to me like he has his, what you need in the NBA, like that little like foot, I always have this foul line jumper. You know, it's a lot of like stuff in traffic that he can do because he's playing against younger guys.

• 45:00Bill Simmons?

  I might have him three.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Really? Okay.

• 45:04Bill Simmons?

  Which I think.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  I'm still two.

• 45:05Bill Simmons?

  You have him two? You have Peterson three? You have Peterson one?

• 45:08Speaker 01

  Peterson one, yeah.

• 45:11Bill Simmons?

  Good luck with that one. I'm out.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  You're totally out?

• 45:16Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm, I am. I did this a couple of weeks ago and even what the band said to me, it has to be number one. This is like, this would be crazy if he doesn't go number one. I will, I'll be just stupefied by this.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  I think, I think, I think that Peterson is a vastly more talented shot maker. I think he's going to be a better playmaker. I think he's a more explosive athlete when he's healthy. I'm a believer. I mean, that's the big argument that's going on in the nerd world versus like.

• 45:48Bill Simmons?

  When, when you say when he's healthy, we watched this guy scooting around screen, screens, trying to two-hand block layups that, you know, two feet over the rim and he looked plenty healthy to me. I just think he comes and goes during games. And I, I don't, I don't, I didn't see any leadership from him at all. You know, and granted, I get it. He's the Kawhi. He's just a silent assassin. Like, I get it. Those guys have succeeded. But I, I don't know. I watched him a bunch these last two months and

• 46:20Bill Simmons?

  I, I see it on paper. I see the case, but I also saw some stuff that really worried me and I, I don't think it gets better at the next level. And I don't think he looks like he did in the high school tapes last year.

• 46:32Speaker 01

  That's a big argument going on right now. Like I was gonna say, like, um, the people who, the people who watched him coming up, like the grassroots people who were really invested in it, they, in, in, it introduces all these counterpoints where people are just like, well, yeah, he's playing against better athletes now. And it's like, he, he only played against great competition. Like, it wasn't like he was playing against like, you know, little, little Sisters of the Poor kind of schools. It's like, he. I just think he's a super. Now, this has been really odd and I think his personality probably didn't help like him. You know, it's probably hard for him to be the leader when he's been in and out and the way things have gone and how he fits into their offense. So, but I still, it's not that I don't like DeBansa. It's just like, I think that Peterson's separator skills

• 47:16Speaker 01

  are really, really special. Like, I'm not going to come off that.

• 47:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but.

• 47:20Speaker 01

  I could be wrong, but yeah.

• 47:22Bill Simmons?

  But if this was your job, you're the GM of a team, and if you mess this decision up, you're never going to have a GM job again. I don't think you're taking Peterson. I think it's too risky. You could talk yourself on all the pluses, but I just think ultimately you're going to be like, DeBansa's going to be awesome. Like, he's just, the guy's a beast. There's no way he's not going to be good. You're going to pass him up and keep your fingers crossed. The other thing with Peterson, I'm glad you brought up like the, the, how he's quiet and blah, blah, blah. Kawhi was really quiet and the Kawhi thing worked. Well, where did Kawhi go? He went to the Spurs. Like, you're basically in witness protection when you go with them because nobody, they have that whole fam, when he

• 48:06Bill Simmons?

  was there, they had that whole family atmosphere. They had Duncan, they had Ginobili, they had Parker, they had Pop. He didn't have to have a personality and he kind of had five years to grow into it, but we still don't know what his personality was. Then, when, you know, it blows up there, he goes to Toronto. He's like a hired gun. Didn't need to have a personality. They had Ben Vliet, they had, you know, Kyle Lowry, they had all these big Nick Nurse. Goes to the Clippers and we've seen it kind of come and go. Now he's a veteran, respected. But I just wonder if you're a rookie coming in the league with huge expectations and you have the personality Peterson has, and you're going to like Brooklyn, or, I don't know, the Wizards, and people are like, this is our savior, and he's just

• 48:51Bill Simmons?

  doing the stuff game to game that we watched him do the last two months. I don't think it's going to go well.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Do you think your leader has to be your best player? That I just, I don't have an answer. I'm just curious what you think.

• 49:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it has to be your best player. I think there's a responsibility that comes with being the guy that we've seen people either sink or swim with. And we saw LaMelo struggle with it for years. Like he couldn't figure it out, right? And he for that was for different reasons. And it was finally they had to put the right kind of people around him. And he got matured, obviously a little bit.

• 49:22Bill Simmons?

  But I just think fits so much. So like if Peterson went to Indiana, I think that would be great. I could see them taking him first. That would make sense to me. But if we're talking like a shitty team, I'd get really nervous with that. I'd rather have DeBansa. You know?

• 49:36Speaker 01

  I think if you were gonna, I mean, I'm definitely leaning towards the basketball things working. And I think that the where you can throw some doubt in there, I think that's legitimate is. What you're saying, I mean, like the moment that Kawhi got away from that, that accountability and structure. It was like, that's when granted, the injury started and caused it, but. Do you hear a lot of complaints about, you know, in Toronto? It's like, was he the leader of the Toronto team? I don't know. We, I'm sure somebody will hit me up and let me know, but it doesn't, yeah.

• 50:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, and the other thing with Peterson is it seemed like he was very well liked by everybody, right? We didn't, we never heard, it's in my teammates, like I'm coaching, everybody spoke highly of him. They seemed to think that he probably wasn't completely healthy the first part of the year. I just didn't think he showed enough other than flashes and potential.

• 50:23Bill Simmons?

  But it, but he seemed healthy to me is where, where I kind of disagree with people down the stretch. I just thought the stuff he was doing athletically was pretty high level. You know, and he's just kind of floating out of these games and I did, made me nervous. But I do, you know, I would, I would take him over Bruiser. Caleb Wilson's the wild card for me. Like that's the one I've become more and more fascinated by as I watch. Cause I just know what he is. I like, I like when guys come in the league. It's like, I know exactly what you are. And I know, I know how it's gonna work and I know you're gonna put on 20 pounds of muscle. And I, I just know what this is and he'll end up going fourth and I'll be a great pick. Right? I would take him ahead of Peterson.

• 51:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:05Bill Simmons?

  But Peter, Peterson's the one that gets you fired.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  It's risky. I mean, you, I mean, you, just to quickly get the, you're saying that he was doing high level athletic stuff to me. And this is, this is, this argument, I think, is one of the major hinge points in the, in the whole draft is like, our eyes, what we're seeing is, you saw that as high level. And I'm saying, I know what I've seen. And I'm just,

• 51:29Bill Simmons?

  You think there's another level beyond that? Yeah.

• 51:31Speaker 01

  I'm just kind of like, can I be disabused of like, did I, did I see what I saw? I think so. It's like Zion playing defense in college. I was just like, great defensive upside. I think that's more of a part, like a choice thing on his part.

• 51:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  But with, with Wilson, taking it to that, I mean, I think defensive upside in like the top four, I don't really feel like there's much question. I mean, I think that he has the potential to be like a special defender. And I think if you thread that needle and you say, if the offensive outcomes in there is there's any weirdness, like, let's say that Boozer bumps his head on like what he's able to expand and do. And it's like, is he a superstar? No, he's like a fulcrum that adds to good offense. And then Peter, yeah, and then DeBansa, maybe, let's say he's more of a DeRozan, not super efficient from three, he's just more of like a tough shot maker. And then Wilson's an elite defender who can like, I think he's going to shoot the ball. You can talk yourself into it is what I'm saying. I mean, he does some things athletically, Bill, that are like, he's on

• 52:27Speaker 01

  another level, man. I mean, I have these freeze frames where he would jump from like the second block line on the lane. And then like the next frame, he's like, literally, his head is like over the rim. He just does things athletically that are, that are really separator special, like in among the top guys.

• 52:44Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to create a verb here.

• 52:47Bill Simmons?

  Not comparing to Giannis. It's a little Giannis-y. If Giannis-y is a verb, there's some Giannis-y like freak, freak, freak athleticism with him. That and that's what I mean. He's not, I don't think he's gonna have the same. Giannis has gotta be seven feet tall and I think he'll probably end up being not as big as him. But he's a little, he's just, he's that special athletically. And I do wonder like if he could pass Boozer when, when teams are working these guys out. The thing I really like about Boozer and you could see it in the, the game they, that CNN game.

• 53:25Bill Simmons?

  When it was like, holy shit, are they gonna choke and?

• 53:29Bill Simmons?

  Any close game he's in, there's a calmness to him. He's just clearly a guy who's been. He's like a 28 year, 28 year old, like seven year NBA veteran, but he's 19. But he's clearly just been in so many games since he was like 10. That he doesn't get nervous, doesn't get rattled. He'll make like a huge play and he doesn't even like do a fist pump like he's. And he's always like gathering the team. There's like some Duncan stuff with him. That I like. He's just even keeled, super competitive and never rattled.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  And to speak to the, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

• 54:00Bill Simmons?

  No, that's it.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  To speak to the Caleb Wilson thing, I think the body type stuff that you're talking about is, is pretty, pretty spot on with. He has that elastic-y, like he sits really low at a stance and then his like zero to 60 explosiveness is crazy. Not to be overly simple, but he dunks a lot. He dunks a lot. I think he was, he was either close to or leading the country in dunks this year. So he gets easy stuff. The easy stuff that's accessible, Caleb Wilson gets it. You like that. You like to start from a simple premise like that, you know? And then, um, but he just doesn't quite handle the ball. It's just like Giannis was a special cross section of that. It's just like, he just had guard skills in terms of like getting downhill. So that's. That's kind of the difference there.

• 54:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And Giannis was playing, even you could see in the tapes from the, the Greece, the Greek YMCA tapes, like he was handling the ball a lot even back then. This kid is just runner jumper, athlete, shot blocker, dunker, finisher. But could be like the best guy in the league at that stuff in five years. Who knows? It's a really good one. And then you have all these guards. This is great. And it's a draft's gonna get weird because when we get to five, six, seven, eight. You know, um, we didn't do a good enough job about talking about actual college basketball. So we'll end on this.

• 55:16Bill Simmons?

  The Patino thing, because in college, in pro and in college versus pro, pro you have the players, college, football and basketball, the coaches kind of become,

• 55:28Bill Simmons?

  you know, the anchors of the sport in a lot of ways, the signature guys. And it was just so funny watching him in that Duke game, like basically playing all the hits, being a huge asshole, being a motivator, being competitive, and then they they get this winning, this winning play, which was just one of the worst defensive possessions I've ever seen in my life. I don't, I don't, I still don't understand what happened. I give up a layup. And he just kind of walked over the coach and shook his hand. I, there's just nobody, there's nobody like how compelling he is as a coach. Well, I grew up with Bobby Knight and those guys. He really feels like a throwback to this era when these coaches were these larger than life guys. So him going against Duke, I feel like he's, he's

• 56:11Bill Simmons?

  bringing everything in this game. Like this will be it. This will be his like one battle after another PTA movie where he's like, we're going fucking IMAX, we're doing giant chase scene. I'm getting Del Toro, I'm getting Penn. Like, I just think he's emptying the chamber in this game.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  I've gotten it relayed to me that he is very, very confident that they have a legitimate shot to win it all. And I was just thinking about it and I was like, I mean, this team is really, really, I say all that to say, I don't, I don't know that that's going to happen. If it does, I think it'll, it'll apply to this. What I'm going to say here is that I think he has a legitimate argument for best college coach ever. I think if you think about what he's done and where, I mean, and that, that spans all levels. It was like when he was at like, you know, Boston, I figured he was Boston University.

• 56:58Bill Simmons?

  He was at BU and UMass.

• 56:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. No, BU.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  Not UMass, but yeah. And then Providence. He goes to the final four at Providence. He goes to, you know, he wins at Louisville. He could, if he'd stayed at Kentucky, he would have been locked up with Coach K. I don't think there's any question about that. And he, and he leaves and comes back and he wins at Iona, you know, and now he's doing this at St. John's at this stage of his career. I just think that, and then you think about the way that he was a pioneer, he was a forward thinker in terms of college, but his teams were shooting 25 threes in the mid 90s. Like, he just, he was always ahead. But what's funny is.

• 57:30Bill Simmons?

  The press stuff in the 90s was, he was probably, his teams did it the best out of anybody other than maybe Arkansas.

• 57:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, this, I mean, this is the stuff like I know when you, you probably had your, your like hooks in you years as a basketball fan. What were the like the hooks in you years for you Celtics wise? Like the teams that you remember? Was it like, what year were we talking about?

• 57:49Bill Simmons?

  Late, mid, late seventies, like the moment I was going. But yeah, when I first started understanding basketball, which is probably in the, somewhere in the eighties. But college was the best it's ever been during those times, right? And it was, he had so many great athletes and so many, you know, lottery picks staying three, four years in college. And a lot of the coaches, like I remember Guy Lewis was the Houston coach. They had the best athletes and he was just terrible. He was an awful coach. Right? And so when you actually saw a good coach, it really stood out. And Patino was one of those. It was like, wow, this guy's, this guy's mad. And honestly, Coach K was a good coach, as much as we like to make fun of him.

• 58:29Speaker 01

  I would never begrudge him that.

• 58:31Bill Simmons?

  Coach K was a good coach.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  I just want to go on record.

• 58:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Dean Smith, that was always, that God tastes on here. Dean Smith, that was always a little suspect of, I think there was some, uh, there's some shakiness with him. It's like that, that Perkins, Jordan, Kenny Smith team not, I forget where they, when they got ousted, but that was insane that that team didn't make the final four. Michael Jordan is junior year, couldn't make the final four.

• 58:58Speaker 01

  Had some talent.

• 58:59Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, but the Patino, you're right. Like he's, he's definitely a one on one. I wanted Holy Cross to get him when he was, when in career purgatory and he went to Iona. I thought that would have been like an amazing, yeah, let's ride this dude for three years and have, turn it around.

• 59:13Speaker 01

  He went to Greece and won. He went over, like, he's just, he's just a dude who has like established process.

• 59:18Bill Simmons?

  He went over to Boston. He was terrible the entire time in Boston.

• 59:24Speaker 01

  He was probably, he's, he's probably looking at the like, you know, the, the effort era of the NBA and being like, are you fucking kidding me?

• 59:32Bill Simmons?

  Right. We're doing this though? Right. Yeah. We'd have loved coaching a team like, like a team like Phoenix would have been his dream. Like Devin Booker and 14 guys who just tried really hard.

• 59:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:43Bill Simmons?

  They would, he would have loved that.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  So you're talking about him going through the game and it's like him just playing the hits of all the things. It's like every, everybody that I've talked to that's played for him, it really goes on and on about how mellow he is now because you know, you're talking about Bobby Knight. It's just like, he absolutely was Bobby Knight, but just didn't get the same attention because I don't think he did it publicly as much. But uh, yeah, man, I, I think he's got an argument for the best ever. Aside from the messiness at Louisville that he had that went on.

• 1:00:09Bill Simmons?

  Do you think, certainly messiness, to say the least, do you think they have a best player in the game possibility for this game?

• 1:00:16Speaker 01

  For St. John's?

• 1:00:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  I mean, if Zuby Edgifor goes wild, I mean, he's a guy that is like a toolsy, like a team could steal him, does a lot of stuff. Well, I mean, he's the guy who left Kansas because Self wouldn't play him. And it was one of the all time, you should, yeah, I figured that he did a big FU game. Uh, yeah, that, I mean, that's in play. Yeah. The edge of four is their best player and they've got some guys that can get going.

• 1:00:37Bill Simmons?

  Carries himself like the best player. He can't shoot threes, but there's an end of the game wherewithal to him that I just, you just watching and your eyes get drawn to guys when you're watching. Like if my wife was watching, she would just think he was the best guy in the game, watching it, not knowing anybody on either team. He does pass the test. Like I could see him throwing some haymakers at uh, at Duke. And then, I don't know, I thought the C N A game was like significant. Like there's a recipe with Duke where you can see them get a little, little discombobulated. Like obviously their point guard situation, but I think the Boozer brother has been great. Like for where, for where,

• 1:01:19Bill Simmons?

  where, where we thought we were with him a couple of months ago. Like I, I think that guy's, it could be a first round, first round pick possibly, maybe if he came out, like late first round.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  I don't know if I'd go, I don't know if I'd go first round for him. I mean, I could see him coming back another year and playing on the team. They, they're going to be good. And again, next year, but I, I think size wise, yeah, St. John's has a lot to throw at them and athleticism wise. I mean, they've got Dylan Mitchell, who's really big and long that they can throw at Isaiah Evans, the big lanky, like movement shooter for Duke. I didn't know if your eye was with, Domasar is the other dude that I figured that you would like for Duke. The guy who, he looks like a giraffe. I mean, if he hits threes, I mean, he's going to, he's going to be like a first rounder too. They got a lot of guys.

• 1:02:00Bill Simmons?

  I was shocked. The guy I probably liked the most was, was uh, the Boozer brother. Like just for the guys that I was pleasantly surprised that I liked. I just think he, I could see him being in the NBA for like 10 years. He's another one where I know what he is. He's like when Trey Jones just kept landing on teams playing 20 minutes. I think he's one of those. And I do wonder if he comes out, if a team thinks like we'll take like the Pacers, we'll take, we'll take Cam third and then we'll get his brother in the second round and we'll bring them together. Cause I do think they have something pretty, you know, pretty unique, but that game's gonna be great. I can't wait, Kyle man. This is gonna be fantastic.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  I can't wait to neglect my family and watch basketball all day.

• 1:02:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, the other thing is NBA has gotten really good too, because we have 10 teams that don't try and 20 teams that do. And anytime any of the two 20 teams play, it's like Detroit and the Lakers last night. Like that game was really entertaining, you know?

• 1:02:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:56Bill Simmons?

  And we have a lot of teams jacking for playoff positions. So, uh, anyway, all right, comment, uh, comment, don't get divorced. Uh, try to keep it together this week and, uh, and say hi to everybody over there.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Appreciate it, man.

• 1:03:09Bill Simmons?

  Thanks. So every Wednesday I decided to look through the NBA slate, make an NBA parlay. The rules would be whatever I want. We were doing this because, um, on FanDuel on Wednesdays, you can use a profit boost token and increase your potential winnings before you place your bet. But it is, it is baseball season this week and, uh, we're kicking off opening day, obviously. Uh, love having baseball back and, uh, me and Sal and House and Hench, we did a little over under wins parlay. I want to tell you about before the season kicks off where we have the Athletics have to win 70 plus games. The Red Sox have to win 80 plus games. The Mariners have to win 90 plus

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  games. And last but not least, the big one, the Orioles, 90 plus games. This is the, the, our, our sleeper team to be a real contender in the American league. So you throw all those together as a four team futures parlay and it's plus 732. So I'm, I'm foregoing my NBA bet this week and I'm recommending that as my future. Uh, we'll bring back the NBA next week. Uh, but it will be, it'll be, maybe they'll even put it up on the sportsbook app. Either way, don't forget to use a profit boost token for your NBA bets on Wednesday. FanDuel, play your game.

• 1:04:25Speaker 02

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• 1:04:55Speaker 03

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• 1:05:21Speaker 04

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• 1:05:46Bill Simmons?

  All right, Todd McShay is here. You can listen and watch The McShay Show, which is now on Netflix as well, or you can watch this video on Spotify. We launched, tell the, tell the audience what you launched this week. This is pretty exciting.

• 1:06:00Speaker 05

  I'm pumped, man, and I appreciate your support. I've told you that privately, but I also want to share it publicly. The fact that I came to you, I don't know, eight months ago and said, there's this project I want to do. We kind of mentioned I fueled the draft tracker for ESPN for a long time, and I always thought it was, it was a good product, but we could do it better. And we're kind of in phase one of what we just launched yesterday, which is the, the McShay NFL Draft Board, which is basically a microsite connected to The Ringer. It's theringer.com/mcshay. And we, it's the initial launch. It's the top 100 prospects, top 50 evaluations. It's got the mock 3.0 on there. It's just, it's everything housed in one place.

• 1:06:44Bill Simmons?

  Mensch lives there. We forgot to mention, Mensch is actually just living inside it virtually.

• 1:06:49Speaker 05

  No, I

• 1:06:49Bill Simmons?

  He's just there.

• 1:06:50Speaker 05

  Truly.

• 1:06:50Bill Simmons?

  Virtual, virtual mensch is in there.

• 1:06:53Speaker 05

  He's in there and he's, and he's writing, hopefully right this moment is writing a report on a guard from like Iowa State, you know, like that's the vision I have that he's always just kind of grinding in

• 1:07:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:04Speaker 05

  The mini version of mensch. So we're, we're really excited about it and finally a place to, to kind of house everything. I've been doing this 26 years, Bill. I've always kind of dreamed of being able to create a database.

• 1:07:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 05

  As I've, I've directly dealt with, um, catapult used to be Exos and they had multiple NFL teams and I've talked to general managers and all the things that go into their database with the comparisons that they pull out with the, the history and kind of the trends for each position, each workout drill. We're going to build that together to make it as, it'll be the only thing in the market that will, that will mirror that of an NFL scouting department and what they use for their draft room.

• 1:07:44Bill Simmons?

  I'm excited. Um, the best thing about the draft, and this is the case for the NBA too, is being able to then look back and forward and who does this guy remind you of? Who does that guy and the comparisons? The NBA has, the NBA has some great ones right now with this draft that's coming up. Then with football, it's the most fun with quarterbacks. We don't really have as many fun quarterbacks to talk about in this draft, but this does lead to my hot take.

• 1:08:10Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:08:11Bill Simmons?

  I thought of this this week as ESPN, our old employer was trying to get a, are we sure Ty Simpson is the best quarterback? And I was like, this is the most boring draft we've had this decade. This, the, the, we're trying to manufacture.

• 1:08:24Speaker 05

  That's a direct insult, Bill.

• 1:08:25Bill Simmons?

  No, no, I'm saying like from a storyline standpoint, we just don't have the drama yet. And I don't think it's going to be Kentai Simpson catch Mendoza, but the drama comes. Right now I feel like it's boring. Where's the drama? What's going to happen? What are you looking at? It's like, oh, this is going to be good. Ooh, this is going to be juicy. Where, where is it? What's going to happen?

• 1:08:48Speaker 05

  I think it's, I think it's Jeremiah Love. He's the best player in the draft, but he's a running back. And you look at, you know, I don't know that it equates to the NBA, but

• 1:09:00Speaker 05

  you look at the money and it doesn't, there isn't a correlation, an exact correlation. But you look at the running back position, if I take a running back and, you know, like last year, Ashton Gentry was a six overall pick. You're now paying him as if he's the eighth best running back in the league by veteran salary.

• 1:09:19Bill Simmons?

  And you could have bought for him and you're paying him like he's the eighth best running back in the league. That's the worst case scenario.

• 1:09:24Speaker 05

  And, and even if you could block for him, you're having to pay him based off of what the running back salary structure is in the, you know, the annual per, or the average per year of the top five guys, whatever it is. Running back's the second lowest on that chart.

• 1:09:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:41Speaker 05

  Where it starts with quarterback, then it's edge rusher. Surprisingly, it's now wide receivers, third. Then you get down to the offensive tackle spot. So if I can get an offensive tackle or an edge rusher and pay them that, that money, which is eighth in the running back list, but you're talking, you know, 30, 40 million dollars per year for a veteran on their second contract.

• 1:10:02Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:10:03Speaker 05

  That's a massive difference. And that's how teams, you look at, at the Seahawks, right? JSN still on his rookie deal. Kenneth Walker still on his rookie deal when they win, win the Super Bowl. They can then take all that extra money in the salary cap and go put it in different places, like a deep defensive line. And so that's the struggle with Jeremiah Love. And you've got a team in the Cardinals that could use him at three. You've got the Titans that would love to pair him with, with Cam Ward at four. The Giants at five with John Harbaugh and the, the commanders at seven. But I don't know that any of those teams in the top five want to spend that capital. It'll be interesting. I think the watch starts at five with the Giants. But everyone I talked to in the league says he's the, if he's not the best, he's the second best player in the draft.

• 1:10:45Speaker 05

  And that guy's not going to get out of the top five, but where's he going to go?

• 1:10:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's no way this can happen in the NBA. The only real way it can happen is, is what we have this year. We have the top four. And then basically the next five guys are guards in some order. And a couple of them are point guards. And there just might be a situation where like the fifth, sixth, 17 already has a point guard. They don't need a second point guard.

• 1:11:13Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:11:13Bill Simmons?

  But it, but by the board, it's like, whoa, we're gonna pass up Akaf. He just dragged his team in the final four and he might be Kyrie Irving. We're not gonna take him because we have Darius Garland. That's the only way I can think of it. I was talking to a Giants fan today who is, one of the funniest things, and this is why I think the draft will eventually become way less boring and actually pretty funny. You have the Jets and the Giants, both of whom are like, all their fans are like, ah. You know, the Giants are a five, the fans are like, ah, we should probably take Love, right? But then everyone who takes a running back in the top five, it's a disaster. Downs is another one. Nobody wants to take a safety that high. You have him on your big board, you have him fifth.

• 1:11:56Bill Simmons?

  But as you, as you laid out, the Seahawks, over and over again, we see these teams, they stack the offensive and the defensive lines and then build out. And if you have the quarterback and the two lines, the rest is a lot easier. And then over and over again, we see these teams in the top seven, eight, like, yeah, I'll take a safety. It's like, well, you can find safeties anywhere. So why don't these teams try to marry the Seahawks and actually just try to build out the lines?

• 1:12:23Speaker 05

  The Eagles are another example, right?

• 1:12:25Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:12:25Speaker 05

  The last two Super Bowl winners, right?

• 1:12:29Speaker 05

  This year's unique. I can't remember, I've been doing this, like I said, 26 years. I can't remember a year in which you can make an actual strong argument that the three best players are a running back, a safety, and off-ball linebacker in Sonny Stiles.

• 1:12:42Bill Simmons?

  Oof, like three of the positions we've learned to save money on over the years.

• 1:12:47Speaker 05

  Right. And then our Val Reese, who we're calling an edge, was kind of a hybrid edge, off-ball linebacker.

• 1:12:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:53Speaker 05

  And if you, so, and you're projecting, yeah, he's gonna be the next Micah Parsons. But the tape doesn't show that he's there. And Micah didn't, you know, Micah was, went into the Cowboys locker room as a rookie as an off-ball linebacker. There were some injuries. He went to edge and we know the story, how it played out from there. So it's, that part's fascinating because.

• 1:13:15Speaker 05

  I talked to GM, but we did six interviews at the combine, right?

• 1:13:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:18Speaker 05

  With general managers. And every single one of them, and I talked to a bunch of other ones in the league. It's this mantra of you don't pass up on a Hall of Fame player in the draft. You take the best players.

• 1:13:29Bill Simmons?

  Are there Hall of Fame players in this draft other than maybe?

• 1:13:31Speaker 05

  I mean, Sonny Stiles could become a Hall of Fame linebacker. Yeah.

• 1:13:35Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:13:36Speaker 05

  He is, he is today. And Jeremiah Love could become a Hall of Fame back. And Caleb Downs could become a Hall of Fame safety. They're, they're all that good. But on, it's kind of talking out of both sides of your mouth that you don't pass up on a Hall of Fame player. A guy that you have that high on your board with that grade. But then you look at the economics of it. And you say, this doesn't work.

• 1:13:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:58Speaker 05

  You look at running back, every, every running back taken in the top 10. Not one, go back to Todd Gurley. We're talking about, you know, Fournette, Christian McCaffrey, Bijon, Ashton Gentry, Saquon. None of them have won a Super Bowl with the team that they were drafted by.

• 1:14:18Bill Simmons?

  Or, or made the Super Bowl with the team they were drafted by.

• 1:14:21Speaker 05

  Gurley made a Super Bowl later on, but, but yeah, not one of them actually won a Super Bowl and, and yeah, only, and it's been a long time since the running backs drafted in the top 10. I think Gurley was 10 overall too. Who wound up even making it to a Super Bowl. So.

• 1:14:36Bill Simmons?

  So Peterson was the last, I don't regret this at all, running back taking that high?

• 1:14:42Speaker 05

  I'd, I'd have to look at it, but I think you're probably right.

• 1:14:44Bill Simmons?

  And they didn't make the Super Bowl, did they?

• 1:14:46Speaker 05

  And that was one of my first years. So that was like, what was that, 2001, 2002?

• 1:14:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, somewhere in the mid 2000s. And I guess Tomlinson would be another one that you don't regret taking him where they took him.

• 1:14:57Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 1:14:59Bill Simmons?

  Odds are you're going to end the other way. I mean, the Gentry thing was instructive because this is why we love the draft. The longer you stare at it and stare at it, you get seduced. And you're the Raiders and you can't block. You're a complete mess. You're, you're bringing in a new coach and you have Gentry and it's like. You know what? This guy might be awesome. And then all of a sudden you're taking him at six and he spends the year like running for his life and getting tackled by four guys at

• 1:15:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, you don't have an offensive line. You don't have a quarterback. You don't have receivers. It's just, it's not the right spot for him.

• 1:15:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:30Speaker 05

  Now, now, Washington, the Giants, I feel like they've solidified their offensive line.

• 1:15:37Bill Simmons?

  I like the Giants spot for him, even if it seems a little high, because I think they have a lot of talent. Like, they're not a typical top five team with new coach and all the blue chippers and guys coming back from injuries and they might actually have a quarterback and they're gonna have an easier schedule and you put him in and if he's like a superstar right away, that might be, like, if they were picking ninth, you would say, of course, do it. But fifth, it feels a tiny bit high, but...

• 1:16:03Speaker 05

  I think the Giants and the Titans are two teams that are gonna be a lot better next year, that are gonna make the biggest jumps. Now, obviously, the Chiefs are sitting there at number nine and we don't know what's gonna, what's happening with Patrick and, you know, is he gonna be back to form and everything's gonna be fine? But, but of the, let's say, the top eight teams, I think the two that could make the biggest jumps will be Tennessee and the Giants. I really do.

• 1:16:23Bill Simmons?

  What about Washington at seven? Cause that, in my head, I feel like that's where he's going.

• 1:16:27Speaker 05

  How did that happen last year, man? You know what I mean? Like, I want you to think back to that, that NFC playoff run with Jaden Daniels. And it was like, oh my gosh.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:16:39Speaker 05

  You know, he's better than Caleb, he's better than Drake. What could go, the new ownership, new staff, new, like, everything feels right. And to see what the product was the end of last season in, what, eight months, nine months, was pretty wild.

• 1:16:58Bill Simmons?

  Hard, hard schedule. Daniels got hurt. They had old guys that, you know, that can be a 50/50 coin flip. A lot of the old guys either got old or got hurt. You know, the momentum starts swinging the other way. All of a sudden, you're six and 11.

• 1:17:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, but they, they absolutely could, they could make a jump right back up.

• 1:17:16Bill Simmons?

  By the way, worst case scenario for the, for the Patriots.

• 1:17:19Speaker 05

  Yeah, you're, you're down on next year already. I'm noticing that from my tech.

• 1:17:22Bill Simmons?

  The schedule's brutal. And I do think they overachieved a little bit, but, and I didn't love, the free agency was fine. It was a lot of sideways stuff. I don't, I don't know if you could say they were better. Now, we'll see with the draft, but...

• 1:17:37Speaker 05

  Don't you think A.J. Brown's gonna be a Patriot?

• 1:17:40Bill Simmons?

  You're doing this to me?

• 1:17:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:44Bill Simmons?

  They have to wait till after June 1st. He loves Rabel. He grew up rooting for the Patriots. There's only one other suitor.

• 1:17:52Speaker 05

  The Rams?

• 1:17:53Bill Simmons?

  The Rams.

• 1:17:56Bill Simmons?

  And it's like, if you're the Eagles, maybe you're talking yourself into I'd rather have next year's Pats first because maybe they're not going to be that good. Maybe they know stuff about AJ Brown.

• 1:18:07Speaker 05

  An NFC opponent in the playoffs, AJ Brown?

• 1:18:12Bill Simmons?

  Do we know why he wasn't nearly as good as he normally was last year?

• 1:18:16Speaker 05

  I mean, the whole, he, I mean, there's multiple layers. It's not a talent thing. It's, he's, how do I put this kindly? Can flow, can fluctuate a lot.

• 1:18:30Bill Simmons?

  He's a fluctuator.

• 1:18:32Speaker 05

  He's a fluctuator, right? And then, and then you, like, the whole offense was a mess and the, the timing wasn't right. And the quarterback play got frustrating. And I think it started with the, the coaching and the, and the system, the scheme and all that. So I, I think it's, yeah, I, I will be more surprised if he's not a Patriot by July 1st than I will be if he's

• 1:18:53Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God. So you're looking at that, like, so they signed Dobbs.

• 1:18:58Speaker 05

  I just did my mock draft, assuming that he's going to be a Patriot.

• 1:19:03Bill Simmons?

  Okay, because that, because that was another thing that made this draft really fun is there's just really good receivers. And we might have a situation where

• 1:19:11Speaker 05

  Oh, it's loaded.

• 1:19:12Bill Simmons?

  Teams are grabbing players and there's two receivers left and one of them just starts dropping because everybody has their receiver. And now six more picks have gone and nobody needs a receiver. And all of a sudden, somebody awesome falls to 31. It is one of those drafts.

• 1:19:28Speaker 05

  We could see it two times. I think it was 2022 and 2020.

• 1:19:34Speaker 05

  What is the number? I want to say 13 receivers have gone in the first two rounds. That's the most. I went back to 1967, the common draft era. I think there could be 13 again this year and possibly 14.

• 1:19:46Bill Simmons?

  In the first two rounds?

• 1:19:48Speaker 05

  In the first two rounds. There's, there's no Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, you know, Larry Fitzgerald, Jamar Chase. But, but when you get to pick, it could start at six with, with Cleveland, with, with Cornell Tate from Ohio State. But from that point on, like, Mackay Lemon from USC is an absolute dog. Jordan Tyson reminds me of Stefan Diggs coming out of Arizona State, had some injuries, could go mid first, but could be a steal. Omar Cooper Jr. From Indiana, really good. He would be a perfect fit for McVay in that system.

• 1:20:26Speaker 05

  I, I'd look at even his teammate, Elijah Surratt is a second round pick, is a big X on the outside. Denzel Boston's another big X out of Washington. Notre Dame's got one in Malachi Fields. I mean, K C Concepcion's a great after the catch and, and super quick and fast. There's just, I mean, I could, I could literally sit here and list 13, but I don't think it's really good for podcasting, but.

• 1:20:48Bill Simmons?

  I've been scouting, I've been scouting some of them, by the way. I had, I do have some thoughts.

• 1:20:53Speaker 05

  Then give me some.

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  I really like Cooper.

• 1:20:57Speaker 05

  I do too.

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  Because he's, he's basically between, if you look at, and I've looked at all of them. If you, he's usually between like 13. There's been a couple where he's been at the bottom of the round, just because people are moving other receivers up. I don't know where he's going to go, but he's just like, there's no way he's not going to be good. That's the one where I'm just like, what are we doing?

• 1:21:18Speaker 05

  I think the Ravens are 14, right?

• 1:21:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Speaker 05

  I, I'd be surprised if he gets past. It depends on where the first one goes, right? Because it's going to go Tate and then either Lemon or Tyson. Those three will, should be the first three off the board. Wouldn't shock me if Omar Cooper Jr. Went ahead of one of those guys, but.

• 1:21:35Bill Simmons?

  You have him 17th on your board. You have the three guys in front of him.

• 1:21:40Speaker 05

  So 17 would probably be the parachute, but I think he could go 13 or 14. I really do.

• 1:21:47Bill Simmons?

  Like him. I don't, some of the other ones, I, I'm so scarred with the Pats because they've missed on so many receivers like you go on forever, but there's some other like, one of the things that I like about this draft, if you're going glass half full on this draft being, being really fun. There's teams where I'm just like, I look at Cleveland, I'm like, you guys need everything. I don't even know, like, if they take a receiver at six, like what's that going to do? You don't, you lost every offensive lineman you had in free agency. And then on top of it,

• 1:22:16Speaker 05

  They brought in a few, but yes.

• 1:22:17Bill Simmons?

  But, but I mean, you're completely revamped offensive line in this bizarre quarterback situation with Sanders and Watson. And I was like, if they, like, if they took, you have, you have Tate ninth on your big board, but if they took him sixth, I would just immediately feel bad for him. It's like, man, that sucks. I know it's nice to be playing home, but what a shady situation. You know, same thing if you get picked by the Dolphins. It's like, cool. I'm not going to have a quarterback.

• 1:22:46Speaker 05

  Those are, the Dolphins are different because they brought in Malik and then just decided to trash the rest of the roster.

• 1:22:52Bill Simmons?

  Right. They brought in Malik, Malik would know anything. It's like, all right, keep your fingers crossed.

• 1:22:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, for his safety. Um, but, but there, here's another storyline that I'm, I'm kind of fascinated by. Next year's draft.

• 1:23:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Speaker 05

  I haven't pitched this to you yet, but I, I really wanted, the Washington DC lawn, like, Arch and Dante, and like, I just think there's, we could make a, I want you there in Washington with us.

• 1:23:20Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:23:20Speaker 05

  I wanted, I want it to be a scene. Anyway, next year's draft has a chance to be one of, if not the best quarterback drafts of all time. But the thing that kind of is getting overlooked is there's a ton of other talent too. So you look at this from a, like the Jets for a fact, I know. But then one of their deals for the first, you know, when they would get multiple extra, they, they dealt Quinn in a defensive tackle. They dealt,

• 1:23:46Speaker 05

  they dealt Sauce Gardner at cornerback.

• 1:23:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:23:48Speaker 05

  Their whole plan was, listen, we don't want the one this year. We'll, we'll take a, a two this year. Give us the one next year. So now they've got two first rounders this year. They've got eight picks in the first two rounds this year and next year combined. But they got the three first rounders next year.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:02Speaker 05

  They're one of a few teams where it's, we're, we're operating under 2026. Like, yeah, we want to win some games and we want the fans to be happy and the owners to be happy. We're building for 27.

• 1:24:15Speaker 05

  And that's, that's why you bring in a Gino. They're going to win enough games where it doesn't completely implode and Woody doesn't fire everybody, but they're going to be in a position where they can get their quarterback.

• 1:24:23Bill Simmons?

  Or you bring him in to lose all your games. Did you see him last year? If you, if you want to be bad, I would start with 2025 Gino repeating it.

• 1:24:33Speaker 05

  I, I promise you the mantra was, we want to win enough to keep this job and everything. Like it doesn't blow up, but, but not enough where we have to package too many picks to go move up and get our guy.

• 1:24:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:44Speaker 05

  Then you've got Arizona. Everyone's saying Ty Simpson now, maybe Arizona trades up into the first round, or maybe they move out of three. If a team wants to move up for Jeremiah Love or whoever it would be. Arizona though, it kind of looks like if they don't, if it's not Ty Simpson, they're, they're working towards 2027, right? So, and the Cleveland Browns, you just mentioned, that's what got me thinking. The Cleveland Browns, like let's get it, let's get a wide receiver, let's get Carnell Tate at six and Caleb Lomu, the offensive tackle at, at 24.

• 1:25:13Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:25:14Speaker 05

  And let's, let's, let's see what Shador does. And if, if he has this miraculous season and it looks like he's our guy, great, that's a win, but it probably, we're going to address quarterback in 27 as well. So that's three organizations right there that I think very much are kind of working towards, not tanking for a couple of them, but working towards 2027 already.

• 1:25:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we don't use tanking in football because there's less games and it's so violent and these guys aren't, it's not like what, what we're doing in the NBA, which has been a complete disgrace, but.

• 1:25:45Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:25:46Bill Simmons?

  There are things you can do and we've seen it. We, you know, we saw with Vegas last year where you're shutting down Crosby when he wants to play.

• 1:25:53Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:25:54Bill Simmons?

  There's a couple of those moments you have. I think the Browns would have the easiest path to do that because either quarterback choice is going to be pretty, pretty bad for them. Miami, I, I don't really understand why they torpedoed the roster and signed Malik Willis. That didn't make sense. Honestly, it makes sense to me. I get the torpedo in the roster and throwing away the year, but then why are you also making like a pretty sizable bet on this guy to be a franchise quarterback for you, but then you're just giving him the worst car possible to drive? I don't, what are you going to learn from that next year? Nothing.

• 1:26:28Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, thankfully for him, he's, he's mobile and, and hopefully can, can endure it. And I mean, honestly.

• 1:26:36Bill Simmons?

  What does he look like when he's running like this?

• 1:26:39Speaker 05

  John Eric Sullivan, the new GM, like I actually believe like he he's doing all the right things. It's almost like you want to put Malik on the shelf and play him in like six, six to eight games and protect him. And so he's ready for 2027. But it is, it's challenging to look at that roster and see where you're getting five, six wins, you know?

• 1:27:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. All right. So other storylines we have the Sonny Stiles thing, who is the Combine superhero this year? Was he the big winner of Combine Superhero Cape? The one that got everyone the most excited?

• 1:27:12Speaker 05

  Yes. Also a great player, though.

• 1:27:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, he, everyone came out of that like, holy shit. What is this?

• 1:27:18Speaker 05

  Well, he's different, man.

• 1:27:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:19Speaker 05

  And he's, and he's, and he's like a special human being too. So you're getting, you're getting, I gotta talk to one, one decision maker, we'll call him, who's like, this guy's gonna be CEO of a company. Like, he's, he's that level. And, and this, and in this league, it's like, he can play the overhang and cover slot guys. He can, he, he actually, if you look at his production as a pass rusher, he had about half as many edge rush opportunities as Arvel Reese over the last two years. But he was just, he was on par in terms of sacks, pressures, all that with what Arvel did. And so I'm not saying he's gonna be that guy, but I do think his role is not gonna be that of your traditional off-ball linebacker. So I would take him in the top five.

• 1:28:02Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna ask you, would you, would you take him two or three?

• 1:28:07Bill Simmons?

  Over the other choices?

• 1:28:09Speaker 05

  I actually would.

• 1:28:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it seems like you would. I could tell from reading you, it seems like Reese, Reese feels flimsy to me where it's like, best case scenario, Michael Parsons. And we've seen these guys where it's like, sometimes the worst case scenario, you're like, oof, I can't believe it turned out like this. It just seems like he's almost like a coin flip, which I don't want to do at number two. I'd rather, I want sure things at number two.

• 1:28:34Speaker 05

  I mean, he really, he is, he's a cyborg, you know?

• 1:28:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:38Speaker 05

  Just the power, the speed, the, the length, all of it.

• 1:28:43Speaker 05

  His pass, like, there's a lot of great flashes and he got, he got a lot of reps as an edge rusher this year. The problem is if he, if he goes full time in the NFL at, at edge and he's not as big as Sonny Stiles.

• 1:28:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:55Speaker 05

  If he goes full time at edge and it, and it works out where he's just okay, now you're dropping him back to off ball linebacker or having him play this hybrid role. He's not great. I mean, he's good. He's okay, but he's not great dropping into coverage like Sonny is. And

• 1:29:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:09Speaker 05

  So, so what do you have? And so, yeah, I, but there's a lot I want to bet on.

• 1:29:13Bill Simmons?

  Whereas Sonny, you know, you know what he is. You know what he's gonna be. You know, he's gonna be awesome.

• 1:29:17Speaker 05

  Former safety, playing linebacker, has shown that he can rush the passer at times. In this league with all the personnel packages and trying to keep the same 11 on the field and want to be multiple, I, I just, I think he has more value, Sonny Stiles does than, than even five years ago in the league.

• 1:29:36Bill Simmons?

  So is it crazy to think if, if he's there at five, the Giants just say, fuck it? Let's add him to our defense and do it.

• 1:29:43Speaker 05

  I would, I would take Sonny Stiles if I was the Giants.

• 1:29:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:46Speaker 05

  Even though they brought in Tremaine Edmonds. Their run defense has been atrocious. They want to be a physical team under Harbaugh. Yeah, you like Jeremiah Love, but maybe you draft another back to go with, with Scataboo and, and Tyrone Tracy. Um, I just, I think Sonny Stiles would bring that. And then you think about the, what they have at edge, right? I, I think he would, he would take that defense to another level. I, I, the Giants are in a good spot. Like they kind of can't screw it up.

• 1:30:13Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:30:14Speaker 05

  If you take Jeremiah Love, yeah, you deal with the economics of it, but he's the identity of what they want to be with a, a mobile quarterback, with a, a back who took the league by storm in Scataboo. But that can't, that, that's not sustainable. His running style, like one season injured and now he's coming off of an injury.

• 1:30:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:35Speaker 05

  So that would be, that's a win. Sonny Stiles is a win. Caleb Downs is worth the pick, but I'd be more excited about Sonny Stiles if I'm being honest.

• 1:30:44Bill Simmons?

  And it's the most fun if Love goes seven with Daniels, with the rejuvenated Commander's team and, and us in mid-September being like, holy shit, Daniels and Love, the speed and watch these teams try to figure out blah, blah, blah.

• 1:30:58Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:30:59Bill Simmons?

  That'd be fun.

• 1:30:59Speaker 05

  Yep. That would be a lot of fun.

• 1:31:01Bill Simmons?

  I can't think of a real fun Jet scenario, unfortunately.

• 1:31:06Speaker 05

  It's gonna be take, take an edge rusher. It's gonna be Bailey or, or Arvel is my guess at two.

• 1:31:11Bill Simmons?

  And then just be back.

• 1:31:12Speaker 05

  The six, it's 16, take wide receiver.

• 1:31:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:19Bill Simmons?

  Just.

• 1:31:19Speaker 05

  But the beauty is like, what do they have 11 overall picks? Like they're, again, they're building for 2027. This is about putting pieces in to get ready when you do insert that quarterback next year. And hopefully don't have to use all three picks to, to go get them. That, that they'll be ready to roll. You know what's gonna be fascinating? This is, this is over a year, this is a year and 30 days away.

• 1:31:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:44Speaker 05

  Will Arch go to the Jets if the Jets have the first overall pick?

• 1:31:47Bill Simmons?

  Oh, the repeat of the Eli?

• 1:31:50Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:50Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:31:51Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:53Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:31:54Bill Simmons?

  I don't know why it doesn't happen more. Like Ace Bailey kind of passive aggressively tried, his team tried to do it when he wanted to go to Washington and Utah picked him. But he just ended up going, but we've never seen.

• 1:32:04Speaker 05

  He did, yeah.

• 1:32:05Bill Simmons?

  We've never seen anybody just, especially now with the NIL stuff. I don't know exactly what the rules would be if somebody just been like, yeah, I don't like the team that drafted me, I'm going back. Cause I don't know if there are any rules in college sports anymore. But I'm, I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often where a team, a guy's just like, yeah, no, thanks. Danny Ferry did it in 1990 with the Clippers. He was just like, I'm out. Francis did it with the Vancouver Grizzlies. And then we had Eli do it and Elway do it, but it's, it's, the number's less than 10 in my lifetime of guys who have just said, yeah, I'm not going there. No, thanks.

• 1:32:45Speaker 05

  It'll, that'll, that will be fascinating because we're tracking towards, you know, maybe it's Miami at one, but the Jets are very likely to be one of the top, the Jets are likely to have a top five pick. And, and, and if they, if they don't own the first pick, then they have the capital to go get that first pick. If it's a team that doesn't need a quarterback, so.

• 1:33:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but here's the thing, if it was like my son or your son, and they were in this situation and the two teams looking at them were the Jets or the Browns, knowing everything we know, I'd be like, you're not playing there. We're holding out.

• 1:33:21Speaker 05

  If I had any kind of control.

• 1:33:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're, we're holding out. You're not going to Cleveland. No, thank you. It's not happening. Same for the Jets. Like it's no, like we'll wait them out. Eventually they're going to have to trade you. What are they going to do? Just get nothing for the asset? Let's be patient. If you, hopefully we'll have a 20 year career. You're not starting your career there. Like prove to us you can have a competent franchise for a year before we, I send my son there. I'm amazed it doesn't happen more often.

• 1:33:47Speaker 05

  Yeah. Next year's going to be that, that part will be intriguing to see where the Jets wind up in the, in the first round draft order.

• 1:33:54Bill Simmons?

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• 1:34:38Bill Simmons?

  They get Al Horford and then the Brooklyn trade that starts paying dividends. They get Tatum, they get Brown and somehow they have enough cap space to also get Gordon Hayward. And it's this unbelievable hypothetical Celtics team that we thought had a chance to win titles.

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  Hayward got hurt. Kyrie kind of, kind of didn't last and we had to move in the 2020s with different nucleus. But it was brilliant the way they, the way they laid the whole thing out. You certainly can't kick yourself for the decisions they made. Anyway, that was Great Returns presented by TaxAct. This tax season, simplify your moves, maximize your refund. Visit taxact.com to learn more. Conditions apply. See taxact.com for details.

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• 1:36:20Bill Simmons?

  I talked myself way more into this, just talking to you for a half hour. I'm way more excited. The Chiefs, the Chiefs just being on the board with Mahomes. You know, in July, I'd be like, Mahomes is doing great. He's, he's running full speed already. We'll be getting those stories around July 10th. Kelsey already resigned. Easier schedule. They brought back Biennium. We're going to have the whole Andy Reid, I had a come to Jesus moment last year. I've got to do better. I'm not the same guy I was 10 years ago. I got to double down. I can still be a good coach. And then they have this ninth pick that could be a really exciting player. This could be the most impactful offensive player they've drafted since Tyreek, which was nine years ago, eight years ago, I don't remember.

• 1:37:07Bill Simmons?

  I guess, I guess Mahomes was the most, they traded up for him, but yeah, it's, they haven't had a guy, you know, they got love, if they got one of these receivers, this would be a real thing for them.

• 1:37:18Speaker 05

  I actually have heard that if Jeremiah Love somehow gets to nine, which I don't think he will, but if he gets to nine, even though they sign Kenneth Walker, that they would still entertain drafting him there, which would be fascinating, right?

• 1:37:33Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:37:33Speaker 05

  It would kind of signal a whole new Chiefs offensive mindset. But more realistic is, are we taking an edge rusher? Are we taking Monsour Delane, the LSU cornerback, who's clearly the best cornerback after we just let our top two corners walk out the building?

• 1:37:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, they have two firsts though, so maybe they get the quarterback with the other pick.

• 1:37:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, 29. But um, so Delane would be in play there. If like a, if a Ruben Bain were to fall, I think he would be in play there. But if not, is it, is it a wide receiver? I mean, they've missed from Sky Moore, Rashid Rice, Rashid Rice. They need someone reliable receiver. They need someone they can trust, you know? And is that Carnell Tate? Is that Mackay Lemon? Yeah, it'll be fascinating. They've got those two first, first round picks and an opportunity to kind of turn things right back around. So Brett Veach is one of the better talent evaluators out there, but has not, you know, it hasn't been the best track record with offensive skill guys, you know?

• 1:38:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, Clyde, Clyde Allaire, Edwards Allaire.

• 1:38:48Bill Simmons?

  That was tough.

• 1:38:48Speaker 05

  And then the wide receivers. So like, do you just go with, Andy Reid's always been really good identifying offensive linemen. They've been good identifying defensive line. Are they just going to go at one of those positions? Or are they going to try to make a splash and actually hit on one of these offensive weapons for, for Patrick?

• 1:39:06Bill Simmons?

  So if Love somehow fell to nine and they didn't take him because we just signed Kenneth Walker, we're not taking him. The next two teams are the Bengals and the Dolphins and then the Cowboys at 12. Ready to do the all time victory party if the best guy in the draft called them at 12. This never happens. Usually if he gets to around seven, eight, somebody will trade up to take him. I think would be how it plays out. Um, I just don't see him going past seven or eight. The other guy that-

• 1:39:35Speaker 05

  If the commanders don't want him or, or don't see the value and get an offer, I think they could move out of that spot. They pick at seven, but they don't pick again until 77 in the third round.

• 1:39:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So maybe they go backwards.

• 1:39:47Speaker 05

  Recoup that. Yeah.

• 1:39:49Bill Simmons?

  Maybe-

• 1:39:49Speaker 05

  Maybe the Rams. What about the Rams?

• 1:39:52Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:39:54Speaker 05

  Right?

• 1:39:56Speaker 05

  He's sitting there at seven. We don't have to give the biggest offer to go from 13 to seven. We put him in the backfield. We get some good backs.

• 1:40:04Bill Simmons?

  You sure that's not the Cowboys just moving up five spots for him? They have two picks.

• 1:40:09Speaker 05

  I think the Cowboys gotta go defense, but yeah, I-

• 1:40:12Bill Simmons?

  But you're talking about them like they're a rational franchise. This is Jerry Jones.

• 1:40:17Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:40:17Bill Simmons?

  They say, wait, Jeremiah Love's still on the board. We gotta get him. Trade up for that guy. He's great.

• 1:40:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I, I just felt like that's like the classic splashy, we've won first take the next day kind of draft pick that the-

• 1:40:32Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:40:33Bill Simmons?

  Kind of move that they make.

• 1:40:35Speaker 05

  Yes. They, they will definitely win first take and get up. I promise.

• 1:40:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, and that's-

• 1:40:39Speaker 05

  Regardless of who they take.

• 1:40:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, and that, that leads to the Ty Simpson thing. Um, you know, he's, he's in like the low twenties seems like where people have him like around somebody taking a flyer at him between like 27 and 35.

• 1:40:53Speaker 05

  Fascinating, man. The one guy who's never drafted before, right? But has played the position, but is one of the, like Orlovsky comes out and says, I would take him number one. Now, everyone's pointing to he, they're both represented by CAA and I like, fine. I've been, I was texting with Orlovsky like a month ago about what we were seeing on tape. The funny part is, or the interesting part is I've probably been the highest, like even talking like Daniel Jeremiah, like-

• 1:41:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:24Speaker 05

  He and I were kind of going back and forth on, like I'm, I'm clearly higher on Ty Simpson than he is, but we were, but being rational about it, right? With Ty Simpson, here's the problem. If you're a purist, right? And you, you grew up in Boston, like, think about growing up baseball, like, the, it's, it's romantic, right?

• 1:41:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:46Speaker 05

  If you're a purist and you're someone who just, like, you studied the quarterback position your whole life and you put on the tape for Ty Simpson, it's like watching Willie Mays or like one of the, you know what I mean? It's, it's how the game's supposed to be played. It's pre-snap, it's, it's identifying, it's control at the line of scrimmage, it's utilizing the motions pre-snap and, and tendencies on the defensive side to identify, then post-snap, it's quick reads, it's, everything's in rhythm, everything's on schedule, ball's out on time, throwing with anticipation, hitting spots, leading receivers, it's, it's beautiful.

• 1:42:24Speaker 05

  But then you get to game nine or 10 and the play starts to decline. Now, if I'm making excuses for Ty Simpson, it's, well, they had like the 126 best running game in the, in all of college football, which is like mind blowing for Alabama.

• 1:42:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:42:40Speaker 05

  Then you've got the pass protection that started to fail because Brent Venables came to town with that Oklahoma defense and kind of showed some weaknesses in how to attack it. From that point on, everyone was kind of doing some of the same things. Then you got, he's taking a beating and he's got gastritis and by the time he gets to the Rose Bowl, he's down to, he's 212 pound quarterback at the Combine, he was down to 190. And then your top wide receiver, star playmaker, came in recruiting class with, like, 1A and 1B, was he, Ryan Williams and Jeremiah Smith at Ohio State.

• 1:43:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:10Speaker 05

  And he just disappears. So all those factors add up. And so if you're watching the tape into November, Ty Simpson's clearly better than Fernando Mendoza. Fernando Mendoza didn't play well against Iowa or Oregon or Penn State. But the fourth quarter, after he made mistakes, interceptions in all those games, late in those games, after that, when the game was on the line and all the pressure was there, he was- Perfect. He was awesome. And then you fast forward, I'm telling you, if you just watched the Ohio State tape of Mendoza, you're like, this guy's generational. The toughness, the decisiveness, he's on the move, they're hitting his ass, they're getting after him, man. Like, he got hit in that

• 1:43:54Speaker 05

  very first play, looked like he should have been knocked out. Then later in the game, no one talks about it, that same defender, uh, Kaden Curry, comes and hits him in the end zone, head hits the, it's the turf, like, and he just never flinched. So, and, so when the, as the season progressed, and he got more comfortable with that offense, and the reads, and the adjustment, he was, he was phenomenal. Like, all those top 10 teams he faced at the time, and he was like, seven or eight teams, he was like 85% completion. So, you compare all those things, and then you look at one guy who's six foot five and 232 pounds, and did all those things, but, but progressed, but in an offense where RPO stressing defenses, they've got to play honest, he has one read, makes a decision,

• 1:44:39Speaker 05

  balls out, and he's awesome at it. But it's not that easy in the NFL.

• 1:44:44Bill Simmons?

  And he had awesome receivers.

• 1:44:46Speaker 05

  Two guys who were gonna be drafted, I just told you, probably in the first two rounds, and a third one who's, who might be the best of them, Charlie Becker, who came out of nowhere.

• 1:44:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:55Speaker 05

  And two running backs that could be drafted. So, you, all those things. And now you've got Alabama, right? 6'1", down to 190 pounds, bucked up to 212, couldn't stay healthy as one year as a starter. 15 starts, it means you are the outlier of outliers. Anyone with fewer than 25 starts, it's been a struggle. Anyone with fewer than 20 starts, it's been an outright bust as a first round pick at quarterback. So, it's this juggling of like, my eyes tell me Ty Simpson's every bit as good, in some ways, better and more NFL ready.

• 1:45:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:28Speaker 05

  Than Mendoza. But, history and general managers who have to, who have to assess risk, are saying, Mendoza's, Mendoza's the safer pick. He's got more, he's got, he's in that range of starts, he's in that range of size, he can run on a straight line, he won the big games. That's the debate. And so, one person comes out this week, right, Norlofsky, and I don't think he's wrong with what he's saying in a lot of regards. And it's cool if you want him to be your number one, number one quarterback ahead of Mendoza. He's not alone. I've also talked to people in the league who would take Simpson over Mendoza. But A, the Raiders are taking Mendoza.

• 1:46:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:08Speaker 05

  And, and B, I don't know why it has to be this huge, like it is the story. Like the, the March Madness is going on. Everything on my timeline, every show I turn on is, is Orlovsky, CAA. How do you have Ty Simpson? He said that Mendoza didn't play in big games. Like it's pretty wild, you know, to see how one, one person can have these opinions, which are not wrong in a lot of regards, but are not shared by the majority of teams in the league, can now set off this, this brush fire, you know?

• 1:46:39Bill Simmons?

  See, I think it makes sense because people love the NFL draft and there was no controversy with the NFL draft and it's March 24th. I really think people just love arguing about the draft and we needed a moment for somebody to say something where it's like, wait, what? And then now we're off and now we're going and now we have some Ty Simpson stuff. I think that's really it.

• 1:46:59Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:47:00Bill Simmons?

  Because you, you didn't mention when you were laying out the Mendoza case, like really, really smart, which teams love. They love when guys have like just these fucking crazy brains, which it seems like he has. He'll be able to like remember the entire offense right away. Like they love that shit.

• 1:47:16Speaker 05

  And Brady's pulling the strings there, right? And Brady, I probably sees a lot of a young Tom in, in Mendoza, like over, he was a two or three star recruit, depending on who you talk to.

• 1:47:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:29Speaker 05

  Couldn't even, they wouldn't let him walk on at Miami. He had one offer coming out of Christopher Columbus High School in Miami.

• 1:47:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:36Speaker 05

  And it was to Yale, non-scholarship. He committed to Yale and then wound up getting an offer late from Cal. It was his only scholarship offer and he takes it. Red shirts and kind of grows, you know, incrementally, gets this opportunity at Indiana. And I said in the summer, when we did our, our show, I said in the summer, I thought this guy's a first-rounder if he, if he develops and I think he will under Signetti. And people thought I was crazy then, uh, but I was probably also last to market. It took that Ohio State game for me to go chips all in on, on Mendoza. So.

• 1:48:09Speaker 05

  It's an unbelievable story and I think Tom, see, you know, having spent a lot of time with Brian Greasy and knowing what Tom was up against at Michigan and seeing, he kind of, he probably relates to what he's been through and then the mental part and the commitment to the game. Yeah, I can see why it's a no brainer for the Raiders that he's going to be picked and I think he'll do really well in Kubiak's system. That's the thing we don't talk about enough is Kubiak's a good fit for him and will hide some of his weaknesses and kind of, just like Signetti and that staff did at Indiana, they will know what to do to protect him from what his weaknesses are while he develops.

• 1:48:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, they had the devastating Max Crosby cancellation trade where they were clearly trading this guy who, I don't want to say is a bum knee, but I don't think it's a healthy knee. They were going to get two first round picks from him. He's heading into his 30s. Like that trade would have been amazing. So now I don't, I don't know what the, what that is. Speaking of trades, by the way, with Simpson. So we saw this with Dart last year and you were kind of hinting at it, not quite predicting it, but that somebody was going to get aggressive and maybe try to move up and try to grab him. How, what's a realistic range for you with Simpson for somebody to be like, like what number are we looking at where somebody's like, we gotta get this guy, we gotta trade up to here?

• 1:49:28Speaker 05

  I think back half of the first round, anywhere in there. Now, depending on what show you watch and getting ready earlier today and I, the show in the background, they're talking about like, well, maybe if Arizona moves back from three, they could take him at, you know, eight, nine, 10, like, I don't know that it's going to be there.

• 1:49:47Speaker 05

  I, 16 is, it seems like the jumping off point. That's the Jets. Unless the plan has changed, I'm, I am, I know the plan is 2027 for the Jets quarterback. So I would say 17, barring something that's completely unforeseen at this point, 17, and I'm not saying that pick, but like when we get 17 and beyond in the first round is about where I think the range for him would be based off of where I evaluate him, but it also is like everything I just went through, what he is on tape versus he's an outlier. He's going to be an outlier in a couple of regards. So I think that, and if it's Arizona moving in somewhere like the Giants did last year, I knew the Giants wanted to move up.

• 1:50:32Speaker 05

  But the funny part was in talking to Dable offline. And really fascinating, having spent a lot of time talking to Brian Daboll recently, before he took the Titans job, like, and then talking to Mike Borgonzi, the GM of the, of the Titans, and now they're working together, but Daboll's sitting there trying to talk him into taking Jalen Carter, you know, move back to three.

• 1:50:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:57Speaker 05

  They offered a boatload to go get Cam Ward, and now Daboll gets fired by the Giants, gets an opportunity to go work with the guy, and he loves Jackson Dart. He talked Joe Shane into moving up to go get him, and he loves Scataboo. Those were his two picks last year. But, but, but now he gets to work with Cam Ward, the guy that they, they wanted to give away a whole lot to go get him. But the Giants, I kind of knew about two weeks out that this is the plan. The plan is, we're going to stick at three and take Abdul, and the Shador thing blew up, and I, and I knew the behind stories and some of the things that happened in some of the meetings, and it wasn't good. I didn't know he was going to fall to the fifth. I thought, second round is probably where it's going to happen. But then you start

• 1:51:39Speaker 05

  to hear people in the league, and you understand the why. My point is, the Giants played it perfectly. Let's get our guy here, just like the Cardinals sitting there at three, and then let's move up from, I think they're 34 in the second round, and let's move into that mid twenties range to get ahead of anyone else who could potentially try to come and get him, if, if the opportunity presents itself. So I think if the Cardinals like

• 1:52:02Bill Simmons?

  So Eagles at 23, who are always like thinking ahead of time, can we just turn this into

• 1:52:09Speaker 05

  three assets? And then how he will move back to 34 and then move back into the first or something. Yeah.

• 1:52:12Bill Simmons?

  Because the other one I was looking at was, uh, the Jets at 16, tying into what you were saying earlier about how they care about 27, not 26. And if you could get Arizona to move up to 16 and get next year's first from them, and flip like, you know, a second and a third, whatever, but now you have Arizona's first with the three firsts you already have. You're thinking about it.

• 1:52:35Speaker 05

  If you're Arizona, who scares you? From, from picks, if it's, if the Jets are willing to move, that means they're not taking Ty.

• 1:52:43Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:52:44Speaker 05

  And then who scares you? 24 is the next team you look at and say.

• 1:52:48Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying that multiple teams are trying to trade up to 16. And you're worried you're not going to get them. If you like them, we don't even know if the Cardinals like them. But yeah, I felt like 16 would be in play. I'm always prepared for the Eagles. The Browns, because they don't care about next, this upcoming season either, they would probably think about it. I wonder, you mentioned the Titans about Dayball and just, you know, they have a really interesting structure because they're two guys that I didn't like as head coaches, but I do like, like I thought Sal at a good job with the Niners. I just think he's a really good defensive, even when he left the Jets, like they completely fell apart on defense the moment he left.

• 1:53:25Speaker 05

  Oh, totally. Yeah.

• 1:53:26Bill Simmons?

  Dayball is just a great offensive coach, probably had some bad luck, maybe the wrong city for him. Maybe he shouldn't be a head coach, but I like the combo of them together where it's like just.

• 1:53:37Speaker 05

  I love it.

• 1:53:38Bill Simmons?

  You handle the offense, I'm going to do the team and the defense and we're going to work together. And I wonder, because Dayball was at Buffalo, seeing like how they were able to build around Josh. And Cam Ward, like, I wonder what the lessons, good and bad, were for him with how they built the Bills, right? Because ultimately, like when they got Cook, I think that made Josh's life a lot easier in a whole bunch of ways. And I wonder if they would think that way with Love it for, for Tennessee. Like, let's do this, this guy's going to, now, now we have the two game breakers and we can build around that.

• 1:54:13Speaker 05

  I would be shocked if Brian's not pushing hard with Mike Borghanski, the, the general manager and, and Wasala, to, to take Jeremiah Love it for. I, I would be shocked. That doesn't mean it's going to happen.

• 1:54:27Speaker 05

  For all the reasons I laid out earlier, and, and do we want to make that financial commitment to a running back where we could go get a, a, a defensive end here, you know? But.

• 1:54:38Speaker 05

  But I also, the best thing that happened to Cam Ward is Brian Daboll took that job and didn't get a head coaching job with Buffalo or anywhere else. It's what he does best.

• 1:54:48Bill Simmons?

  It's like McDaniel's last year was May. It was, it was a miracle that that guy just wanted to be the offensive coordinator and like commit for a few years.

• 1:54:56Speaker 05

  Right. And had it been anyone else besides Cam Ward, I don't know how, how, you know, thrilled he would have been about, about doing it.

• 1:55:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:03Speaker 05

  He wanted to work with him that badly. So now you, if you throw, and I, Schefter came out last week and said, I don't see it at Tennessee. I don't think it's going to be Tennessee. And I made a couple of calls and I, you know, I, I never want to call the source and they're never going to give me the information specifically on that. But I, I can see it both ways. I think there's going to be some internal debate, which is healthy, on, on what we do with that pick. They spent a lot of money, more money on, on free agency on the defensive side than they did the offensive side, which leads me to believe like the breadcrumbs, their plan, they're, they've got everything in place with a, a really good defensive coordinator and a really good head coach as a defensive coach, that we can go out and, and spend that pick on an offensive weapon. So.

• 1:55:48Bill Simmons?

  And they, and they kept Simmons, which, I mean, their defense might be pretty good next year. And you throw in Sala, you throw in how bad their coaching was last year, you know, they, and they have an interim coach. It's just a mess and they were a mess to watch. That's a team, I don't know if they could win the division, but when you think every year we have the fourth to first team and you're looking at candidates, I think they're definitely a candidate. It's not like.

• 1:56:11Speaker 05

  I totally agree.

• 1:56:12Bill Simmons?

  It's not like in the AFC South, like, do you love any AFC South team? We have no idea with Daniel Jones. Who knows with Jacksonville a year after, a, a pretty good year for them? And then Houston with CJ? I don't know. I could see, I could see good stuff happen. The last thing I just want to mention quick, because normally teams shoot high on the offensive line, especially in the top 10, but it's a bad offensive line year for like blue chippers. And yet every year that doesn't stop somebody from being like, look, man, we just need, we just need a tackle. Like this guy's 15th on our board, but. It still makes sense for to take him at six because we're not getting a tackle otherwise. Do you see that happening with any of these guys?

• 1:56:53Speaker 05

  I, I think it's almost going to be an exact mirror of what happened last year. It may start a couple picks later or it could start at three with the Cardinals. Like Francis Maui Noah coming out of Miami. The problem with this class is Maui Noah is an awesome player, phenomenal athlete, around 300, 320 plus pounds, 330 pounds. But he's not your, he's a right tackle. He's been a right tackle. He's going to be a right tackle and in worst case, he's a guard. Then you've got Spencer Fano, who's a terrific athlete and plays like smart and he like the energy he has and great zone blocker and all those things. But some teams are working him out as a center because he may be an elite center because he's got those both, he's got short arms, right? And then you've got.

• 1:57:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh no, short arms. I got Will Campbell PTSD. Trying not to think about the short arms.

• 1:57:43Speaker 05

  Did you see, um, Mench when we sat down with the, with the Patriots GM and, and, uh, and I, I, you know, I'm talking about, you know, you grew up of son of a Hall of Fame general manager and, and you've been watching film in Lambeau field before. Take us through what you've developed and I asked a couple of questions, not, not buttering up, but like, let's get, let's start with the history of it.

• 1:58:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:07Speaker 05

  Mench comes in.

• 1:58:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh no.

• 1:58:09Speaker 05

  Grew up in Andover, you know, he's a New England guy, Patriots fan, everyone in his life.

• 1:58:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:15Speaker 05

  He comes in with this haymaker off the top rope of, you know, I thought at the time when Will Campbell, when you guys drafted Will Campbell, it's short arms. And I saw it on tape and then, you know, sometimes the short, short arms, like if you don't see it on tape, then I don't get caught up in it. But I saw it on tape and then we fast forward to the Superbowl and is he going to be your left tackle? And the response is Will Campbell is our starting left tackle. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, oh my gosh, how do I recover? But it was great. He handled it well.

• 1:58:42Bill Simmons?

  They've been adamant, this is our left tackle. There's no discussion, there's no debate.

• 1:58:47Speaker 05

  And if you look at him pre-injury and he was holding up just fine. And you give him a second year and development and kind of the motivation from that. I think he's actually gonna be all right.

• 1:58:59Bill Simmons?

  But that's the problem with how that Patriots season ended among many of the problems, including getting shellacked in the Super Bowl. We have no idea how healthy Will Campbell was and we have no idea how healthy Drake May was. And they can't really tell us after the fact, right? Cause they gotta file those injury reports and once you do that.

• 1:59:17Speaker 05

  Well, I feel like they've kind of told us.

• 1:59:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, they they kind of told us with Campbell. Yeah, and Campbell's even admitted like, I have a torn MCL. That I probably shouldn't have played with, but it's the playoffs. Drake May, I don't know if we'll ever get an answer.

• 1:59:31Speaker 05

  Probably not, no, yeah, it would, yeah.

• 1:59:33Bill Simmons?

  I think the answer lies in the tape and some of the plays they ran and didn't run.

• 1:59:37Speaker 05

  I think we know the answer. I think we know the answer, Bill. I mean, you watched it even more closely than I did. Like I, that, that is not, that the last few games and last two games, it just, it wasn't, it wasn't the same, so.

• 1:59:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, even down to the plays they called for him were not the same. That's what made me the most suspicious, like rolling him out to the right where he could throw, like they just didn't want to do it.

• 2:00:01Speaker 05

  Right.

• 2:00:02Bill Simmons?

  So that, anything where he might get hit, they didn't want to do it.

• 2:00:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, and, and that was such a big part of what they were. Like I was, I told you, I was at that Bills game where they jumped out to the big lead. He was every bit of a running back early in that game when they got the big lead before they wound up giving, you know, the comeback from the Bills and just like his mobility is such a big part of what they do.

• 2:00:24Bill Simmons?

  So my last thing, and then we have to go. I really want the Patriots to get a tight end. My dream for them would be 31, a tight end, but there's no tight ends. There's one guy who's gonna go from, the guy from Oregon's gonna go before they pick.

• 2:00:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:00:42Bill Simmons?

  There's no chance they, there's no chance he'd end in the. Could he fall to the twenties and could they move up? Can I like dream about this for a second or that's just never happening?

• 2:00:50Speaker 05

  I just did a mock draft where Sadiq fell to 27 to the 49ers and I, and I went there because of George Kittle's injury. I, I don't think it's, I'm not banking on it, but I, like if you're the, I get it. I don't. To me, he's not Tyler Warren and he's, he's not Colson Loveland. I think he's a really good player, but I don't, I don't think he's at that level. So as we're continuing to build, if you're a Patriots fan, it's like, I don't know that I want to give up capital to go get a tight end.

• 2:01:19Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 2:01:20Speaker 05

  I also will say this, maybe get two of them on day three. This class is weirdly, they have 28 tight ends invited to the combine. It's the most in the history of the combine. It's, there's no elite guys, but like this Marlon Klein from Michigan, they just had him blocking when they threw him the ball, Underwood couldn't throw the ball and it was a disaster.

• 2:01:42Speaker 05

  At Michigan, so I like him, I like Sam Roush from Stanford. There's two SMU guys that can run. They're like, there's a lot of good tight ends. I feel like maybe you double up on tight end on day three and see if you can hit the jackpot with one of these, these kinds of guys. So we'll, we'll see how it plays out.

• 2:02:00Bill Simmons?

  My guess with them, it was interesting that they got Buffalo's fullback. Right? Because I actually liked when they ran out of the eye, they just didn't really have the personnel for it, but it was, I, I didn't understand why they didn't do it more in the Superbowl.

• 2:02:13Bill Simmons?

  And with Dobbs, and if we think AJ Brown's a possibility, that takes receiver off, but I just want them to have tight ends and blocking options and the ability to go big or small, depending on, that's what they didn't have last year. And I think the best teams offensively, and Seattle was a good example of this, and so was the Rams, these teams that could go bigger or smaller, depending on what the situation was, they had no flexibility to do that. I would like to be able to see them do that. It'd be my dream.

• 2:02:41Speaker 05

  They will this year, they will. It's, it's the evolution. It's, you know, this is the first year and, and kind of, it's not a miracle, but yeah. I mean, you've been out in LA how many years, but you just sound like the people I'm surrounded by here, my whole life, basically.

• 2:02:59Bill Simmons?

  The good news is Miami and the Jets four times. The bad news is basically everybody else on the schedule, but you do have four games that should be pretty winnable. All right. Before you go, give me, give me one completely insane prediction that's not that insane.

• 2:03:19Bill Simmons?

  A completely insane prediction that would make me go, oh my God, but then we could replay it on April 30th and be like, McShay fucking called this in the completely insane prediction section.

• 2:03:30Speaker 05

  Cole Payton, North Dakota State's quarterback was a one-year starter at, at North Dakota State. He was essentially Tim Tebow. Remember the role Tim Tebow had with, was it Chris Leek? His freshman year where he kind of came in off the bench and would rotate a little bit, would, would handle the inverse, inverted veer and, and the, the inside running. Essentially it was a fullback and would handle short yardage, goal line and some, some run plays, right?

• 2:04:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:02Speaker 05

  He did that for three years at North Dakota State. He was a runner who was kind of utilizing this gimmicky, not gimmicky, but in a, in a sub-package role, if you will.

• 2:04:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:12Speaker 05

  Gets the starting job this year. He's also a lefty. He's also got a tight upper body. And the first 20 throws I watched of him and as I'm watching and I did his background of what he is, I'm like, oh, Tebow. And I'm, I, Tim and I are good.

• 2:04:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:27Speaker 05

  After tumultuous start to our relationship.

• 2:04:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:30Speaker 05

  But, um, but I just did not see it with Tim Tebow coming out and it became like this big thing. So I had to get over the Tebow effect, right? Cole Payton from North Dakota State might be the third best prospect. I'm not saying he's there now, but a guy who could come in, kind of like Seattle was trying to use Jalen Milrow, short yardage, goal lines, kind of play that role and develop into a starter. He's mobile, he throws the ball well on the run, he's deadly accurate and it's the weirdest thing because all of his mechanics look horrible, like tight upper bodies, south paw, all that. I think he could go ahead of Nussmeier and Carson Beck.

• 2:05:07Bill Simmons?

  You have him 65th on your big board.

• 2:05:10Speaker 05

  Yep. I think he could wind up going in the second round and I'll be shocked if he doesn't go in the third and I'll be, I, I honestly think he could be the third quarterback off the board and I don't think anyone's really talking about this guy.

• 2:05:23Bill Simmons?

  Got to say, great name. Cole Payton, just sounds like somebody who'd be good. Like that sounds like a sports movie.

• 2:05:29Speaker 05

  Quarterback or NASCAR, right?

• 2:05:32Bill Simmons?

  Channing Tatum plays Cole Payton.

• 2:05:36Bill Simmons?

  That's a great name. So Carson Beck, even though he's in his mid twenties and has had 100 college starts, you have him 100th? Nobody's going to talk themselves into him in like the late second round or anything?

• 2:05:48Speaker 05

  It could be. I don't trust. I don't, I don't trust him. I don't think, he's unique because he's, he's a big pocket passer and he can be accurate and he played his best ball down the stretch. And he, outside of two games where he had multiple interceptions, he really protected the ball and did all, a lot of the things that kind of cursed him. I like this experience. I like the size and I like the toughness and all those things. I just, I don't know. I call it a bad taste in my mouth. The elbow surgery. Why does Georgia, why does Georgia let Carson Beck go? They have plenty of money to bring him back. Like, I don't know. It's gonna, it'd be interesting to see. I've, I've heard the Steelers are

• 2:06:31Speaker 05

  kind of intrigued with him on day two and a couple of other organizations. He'll go. He'll go on day two. But, um, but I, I would take Cole Payton before him.

• 2:06:40Bill Simmons?

  So it doesn't sound like you have your Tyler Shuck yet. Maybe, maybe they-

• 2:06:45Speaker 05

  Cole Payton's my Tyler Shuck.

• 2:06:46Bill Simmons?

  So you, but Tyler Shuck, you were like, this guy could actually start next year. Watch what happens. Like you were pretty adamant.

• 2:06:53Speaker 05

  This is a different-

• 2:06:53Bill Simmons?

  This is a different kind of, yeah, this is, this is like, yo, this guy could be fun.

• 2:06:58Speaker 05

  I'm doing the best with what I got.

• 2:06:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. So it's the Ringer dot com slash McShay. It's just an NFL Draft smorgasbord. And also, uh, the McShay Show. And then you're coming out to LA and you're going to do a bunch of live shows that we're going to do on Netflix and, uh-

• 2:07:15Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm pumped.

• 2:07:15Bill Simmons?

  And don't forget about the newsletter, which is indispensable.

• 2:07:19Speaker 05

  Yeah. And we did, we did a second round mock on that. It's going to be a lot of intel coming up. It's going to be the additional like bonus stuff. So yeah, between the, the new site, the newsletter and the show, we, um, we're pumped. We've got exactly what we need, man.

• 2:07:34Bill Simmons?

  And I'm going to have you on one more time before the draft. I'm sure there'll be a million things that change, but, uh, this is fun. Thank you. Thank you for getting me re-energized about this draft. That's kind of like Luke Warren.

• 2:07:43Speaker 05

  You're welcome.

• 2:07:44Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm excited. Good to see you, McShay.

• 2:07:45Speaker 05

  Good. Good to see you, bud.

• 2:07:48Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle, thanks to McShay, thanks to Gahan Eduardo as well. Don't forget, rewatchables went up. We did the Nice Guys, LA Confidential coming next Monday. So you have five days to watch a really, really great movie before you do our, you do a listen for our little four-person podcast, which includes Andy Greenwald for this one. First time he's been on in a while. It was great to see him, me, Andy, Sean and Chris. We had a blast. So there you go. All right, I'm going to be back on this feed on Thursday with a lot of basketball stuff and maybe even a little baseball, too. Stay tuned. See you on Thursday.

• 2:08:43Bill Simmons?

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