Transcript

The Cinderella Wizards, AFC East Intrigue, and the 'Rocky IV' Director’s Cut With Joe House, Chris V

From The Bill Simmons Podcast · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 54 min · 21,460 words · 122 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "The Cinderella Wizards, AFC East Intrigue, and the 'Rocky IV' Director’s Cut With Joe House, Chris V", an episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast published November 17, 2021 (1 h 54 min, about 21,460 words). It mentions 43 people, works and ideas, including Ben Simmons, Rocky IV, John Wall, Celtics, Joel Embiid.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: John Wall, Atlantis, Fanduel Sportsbook, Ben Simmons
  2. – 20:00: John Wall, Celtics, Bradley Beal, Spencer Dinwiddie
  3. – 30:00: Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, Celtics, Marcus Smart
  4. – 40:00: Ben Simmons, Darius Garland, Malcolm Brogdon, Damian Lillard
  5. – 50:00: Ben Simmons, Celtics, Joel Embiid, Carl Anthony Towns
  6. – 1:00:00: Ben Simmons, Celtics, Damian Lillard, Joel Embiid
  7. – 1:10:00: Atlanta Falcons, Kansas City Chiefs, Tennessee Titans
  8. – 1:20:00: Tennessee Titans
  9. – 1:30:00: Tennessee Titans
  10. – 1:40:00: Rocky IV, Justin Jefferson, Kirk Cousins, Sylvester Stallone
  11. – 1:50:00: Rocky IV
  12. – 1:54:16: Atlantis

Notable quotes from "The Cinderella Wizards, AFC East Intrigue, and the 'Rocky IV' Director’s Cut With Joe House, Chris V"

  • Going to zag about as well as anyone zagged in a while talking about daryl moore and ben simmons warren sharp is going to come on to tell us do we even have a best nfl team or is it just a bunch of half decent to good teams.
    about Ben Simmons · at
  • Thursdays and this first one is called jagged it's about atlantis more set it's directed by allison clayman we are very proud of this film can't wait for you to watch it so put that on your radar no pat's falcons.
    about Atlantis · at
  • You did that look i said look it'll be the best center that john wall will have ever played with think of those words wow well i you know that it didn't work out for a whole lot of different reasons.
    about John Wall · at
  • Been thrilled and as things worked out last season russell westbrook with even with all the slander against westbrook and it's appropriate and you and i were pretty vicious over the course of last season that very weird season with all the.
    about Russell Westbrook · at
  • Them and you know that was the team that we lost in game seven to the celtics that we got o linux that was the kelly olynyk game the olynyk season yeah one of my favorite that was a pretty competent you know basketball team.
    about Celtics · at
  • Going down the list cavs just lost moby two weeks nicks sixers with this embiid who knows with his health and then the simmons piece of it charlotte i think their defense is just gonna con they're gonna be the most fun.
    about Joel Embiid · at
  • Been able to get darius garland and kevin love for him or maybe they could have gotten malcolm brogdon and carousel vert and some kind of packages but i'm not doing that i'm…
    about Malcolm Brogdon · at
  • Couple of weeks offensively yeah just in general because i think the tennessee titans especially without derrick henry are a very predictable style of offense you can let them…
    about Tennessee Titans · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Ben Simmons — Person · 23 mentions · first at
  • John Wall — Person · 6 mentions · first at
  • Joel Embiid — Person · 6 mentions · first at
  • Malcolm Brogdon — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Bradley Beal — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    No we're going the other way we're gonna build around bradley beal we got a playoff team here in washington do you believe yet are you in are you kidding me do i believe buddy we're we're.
  • Russell Westbrook — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Thomas Bryant — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Come to grips with you know rui hachimura hasn't played a game yet this season thomas bryant hasn't played the game yet this season is barely playing well that's fine that's fine he's no you're right you got some assets all.
  • Marcus Smart — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    I loved lonzo last summer for the celtics and i had my fingers crossed that there was some sort of marcus smart lonzo and but it seems like the that was called in that he was…
  • Damian Lillard — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Then you get the well he's not trading him unless he can get brad beale he's not trading him unless he can get damian lillard he's not trading him and so everybody seemingly knows what daryl mori thinks all the time.
  • Darius Garland — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    You were telling me hey man because there were rumors that they might have been able to get darius garland and kevin love for him or maybe they could have gotten malcolm…
  • Daryl Morey — Person · 2 mentions
  • Derek Thompson — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I'm derek thompson long time writer with the atlantic magazine on tech culture and politics there is a lot of noise out there and my goal is to cut through the headlines loud tweets and hot takes in.
  • Dwight Howard — Person · 1 mention · first at
    A game i can talk myself two and a half years three years ago i talked myself into dwight howard as a difference maker you did that look i said look it'll be the best center that john wall will have ever played with think of those words wow.
  • Tommy Shepard — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Thing that gave me optimism was the array of professional basketball players that tommy shepard has assembled and i said on our preview pod on the over under pile with rasillo that if you told me that you could turn john wall.
  • Rui Hachimura — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Asset we don't you like danny we haven't even really come to grips with you know rui hachimura hasn't played a game yet this season thomas bryant hasn't played the game yet this season is barely playing.
  • Spencer Dinwiddie — Person · 1 mention · first at
    I think over the course of this season and we've seen it over these last couple games spencer dinwiddie is the alpha and he deserves to be the alpha he has the highest…
  • Kevin Love — Person · 1 mention · first at
    There were rumors that they might have been able to get darius garland and kevin love for him or maybe they could have gotten malcolm brogdon and carousel vert and some kind of…
  • Carl Anthony Towns — Person · 1 mention · first at
    The devil that you know versus the devil that you don't know like at some point carl anthony towns in minnesota like that relationship i we just keep watching them pile up losses and you sent a note you know the other night right about.
  • Chris Finch — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Right here and let's just see if we can be a run and gun team the guy from you know chris finch from toronto might have a team character in mind and maybe there's two sides at…
  • Justin Jefferson — Person · 1 mention · first at
    Out last week and says yeah it would be nice we need to try to get the ball more to justin jefferson as if like he's a fan just commenting on home that he needs to get the ball…
  • Kirk Cousins — Person · 1 mention · first at
    They throw him he's three yards ahead of the other guy so they have the talent and kirk cousins like yeah should he be making what he's making how does he contribute all those…
  • Sylvester Stallone — Person · 1 mention · first at
    All right talk me into it gus well first and foremost you're a sylvester stallone season ticket holder you have probably seen all the expendables you've probably seen all the escape plans right so i was looking at this page.
  • Dalvin Cook — Person · 1 mention
  • Denny Avdija — Person · 1 mention
  • Wes Unseld Jr. — Person · 1 mention

Books & papers

  • Rocky IV — Book · 6 mentions · first at
    Gus comes on to try to convince me to watch the rocky iv director's cut which i've refused to do he's gonna give his review put that at the end because there's some spoilers in and if you still haven't seen the rocky 4.
  • Plain English — Book · 1 mention · first at
    There and my goal is to cut through the headlines loud tweets and hot takes in my new podcast plain english i'll talk to some of the smartest people i know to give you clear…
  • Woodstock 99 — Book · 1 mention · first at
    8 p.m the second of our films because woodstock 99 is already on the hbo max app that premiered this summer but we have five in a row coming five thursdays and this first one is called jagged it's.

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Full transcript with timestamps

i'm derek thompson long time writer with the atlantic magazine on tech culture and politics there is a lot of noise out there and my goal is to cut through the headlines loud tweets and hot takes in my new podcast plain english i'll talk to some of the smartest people i know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways plain english starts november 16th listen for free on spotify or wherever you get your podcasts we're also brought to you by fanduel sportsbook where we're going to be running nba underdog parlays of the week on wednesdays i think we might even start this week it's very possible go to their app and check out the boosts and if we have one for this week it would be bulls and magic which i don't know what they'll boost that to but it will be significant so check that out on the fanduel sportsbook app also brought to you by the ringer podcast network where we have the prestige tv pod which is heated up

with kirby enthusiasm and yellowstone and succession the with the final episode of the morning show my least favorite show that i can't stop watching that will be at some point this weekend and a whole bunch more uh the rewatchables wesley morris and i tackled focus the most underrated will smith movie a movie that uh kind of re-energized his career in a lot of ways and that is relevant because this weekend king richard is coming out and i saw it's fantastic i'm going on sean fantasy's big picture podcast to talk about it but uh man was that a satisfying movie he's great and this feels like will smith week so there you go coming up on this podcast joe house is going to tell us if the wizards are for real chris vernon is going to zag about as well as anyone zagged in a while talking about daryl moore and ben simmons warren sharp is going to come on to tell us do we even have a best nfl team or is it just a bunch of half

decent to good teams uh and we're gonna talk some football stuff with him and then finally my buddy gus comes on to try to convince me to watch the rocky iv director's cut which i've refused to do he's gonna give his review put that at the end because there's some spoilers in and if you still haven't seen the rocky 4 director's cut uh what an action-packed podcast for us though uh one last thing music box don't forget thursday 8 p.m the second of our films because woodstock 99 is already uh on the hbo max app that premiered this summer but we have five in a row coming five thursdays and this first one is called jagged it's about atlantis more set it's directed by allison clayman we are very proud of this film uh can't wait for you to watch it so put that on your radar no pat's falcons this thursday night the good news is we have dvrs now you can dvr the pat's game and watch the music box

or you could watch the pats game in either dvr music box or just go go to um hbo max either way you're watching this atlantis film i'm just telling you now you owe it to me i've been giving you free podcasts since forever you can't watch five documentaries in five weeks come on stop it uh all right speaking of music pearl chip

so all right taping this a little past 3 30 pacific time joe house is here he's got a smile on his face he's wearing a bullets pull over wizards fever is upon us the best start 47 years not only you're not gonna trade bradley beale no we're going the other way we're gonna build around bradley beal we got a playoff team here in washington um do you believe yet are you in are you kidding me do do i believe buddy we're we're approaching 20 of the season we're more than we're like the 15 of the sea of course i believe we're the number one seed in the eastern conference and look i always begin every single season with the same irrational exuberance i i like the washington team before it ever plays a game i can talk myself two and a half years three years ago i talked myself into dwight howard as a difference maker you did that look i said look uh it'll be the best center that john wall will have ever

played with think of those words wow well i you know that it didn't work out for a whole lot of different reasons but in the in advance of of this season the thing that gave me optimism was the array of professional basketball players that tommy shepard has assembled and i i said uh on our our preview pod on the over under pile with rasillo that if you told me that you could turn john wall in the fall of 2020 into this array of nba talent and i include you know aaron holiday in there you have to include daniel gafford in there if you told me that we could get five guys that are capable of playing nba caliber basketball uh for john wall i would have been thrilled and and as things worked out last season russell westbrook with even with all the slander against westbrook and it's appropriate and you and i were pretty vicious over the course of last season that very weird season with all the

coveted stops and starts and westbrook's injury that that wasn't very well disclosed they when he got healthy and he went on his run and he drug the wizards into the playoffs by way of that playing game that was exciting i loved it all those triple doubles in a row but bro that was that was cotton candy that's you're sitting at the circus and you're consuming over indulging on sugar because it's this like yeah i'm here and it's let's just i'm going to blow my head off with some sugar this thing right here is legit this is team building there isn't a single guy that's that's 30 years old on this basketball team the entire team is under age 30 and you have what he brought in was a hundred games worth of playoff experience these are guys who have chops who played on good teams that have you know experience and shockingly maybe not shockingly it's just shocking to me because of how quickly it came together this is the

same page team and i haven't had the same page team in my life for at least half a decade maybe longer all of these guys are coming from the same place you have a bunch of guys that were underappreciated or undervalued because of their situations coming together they're how i'm knocking on wood because health is the single biggest issue they need to to remain healthy and and really dinwiddie and kuzma are are are crucial lynchpins but it it's it's a magical thing and and wes ansel jr was a completely unknown factor unknown quantity nobody knew now he he definitely uh put in his legwork 20 some years in the league as an advanced scout and then as an assistant a lot of different places and he clearly learned some lessons from some good franchises and some good coaches because he's come in with exactly the right touch these guys listen to him they believe in him but you know part of that is because these

guys arrived with already the very well developed basketball iqs this the hoops iq on this team across the board is among the highest i i'm trying to think of a team that would rival it maybe the early 2000s with gilbert arenas and caron butler and antoine jameson for washington those teams you know played to a pretty high level iq wise this team is right like last night's game against uh uh the pelicans was an excellent example they were down 19 points in the second quarter they were taking rush shots they went into the locker room the reports about the press conference say west on cell didn't raise his voice he just said showed him a few clips six or seven different things were kind of russian stuff and they just took their time and they just you know basket by basket put themselves back into the game and then when it was closing time they closed it down so i i just can't say enough good things about the

construction of the team or the the coaching and one thing especially i want to make sure i emphasize already in 13 games we are seeing player development the likes of which i have not seen and again in quite a while here in washington and i'm talking about uh denny abdia who you know was was uh supposed to be a steal the wizards thought they stole him by getting him in the top ten of that draft two years ago and under scott brooks and the rotations the then and again i'll try and be generous i don't have to say bad things about scotty brooks it was it was a fits and starts the whole oh nearly the whole time he was here except for his first season when they won 49 games but the you know the team identity the character of the team the players it was constant fits and starts but last year you know you're there's no way for young players for rookies to get any development and what we've seen

already out of denny he's a he's a true asset we don't you like danny we haven't even really come to grips with you know rui hachimura hasn't played a game yet this season thomas bryant hasn't played the game yet this season is barely playing well that's fine that's fine he's no you're right you got some assets all right there's a lot to unpack there yes let's go backwards the coach wes sunsel jr son of west sunselt helped you win a title the only bullets title you ever had in your life and then eventually becomes a pretty terrible coach in gm that tortured you for uh a few years too many made deals that you had you calling my apartment way back when being like we just [ __ ] traded mitch or chris webber from mitch richmond those kind of moments you have that you have a gm now shepard coming off the what was it unsettled then it was how many years of grunfeld yeah 16 years ago 16 years at grenfell there was guys in

between uh unseld and grunfeld you never had anyone who knew what they were doing so they have this gm who figures out how to get rid of john wall from to a houston team that's panicking right gives up a pick but it's worth it houston literally can't trade john wall he's just going to sit out the season for 40 million so you figure out how to do that then you get this miracle with westbrook where it looks like he's shot halfway through the season has this huge comeback boosts his trade value enough that dumbass lakers are like ah missing piece big three and they give away all of their depth to you and you're insane worst case there you just had all these tradable contracts best case scenario you know you have four good role players that have experience turn the pick and aaron holiday who you and i both loved just in general i always liked them on the pacers good tough guy good tough guard and then they go in on dinwiddie

who was coming off knee surgery but they kind of luck out with that too because for whatever reason the nets don't feel the need to have any kyrie back up they could have signed dim witty sure excited not to i mean at some point the luxury tax becomes crazy but the way this team put was put together other than the bertons extension which is remains inexcusable stealing gafford at the last trade deadline it's a lot of like small nifty moves and then just telling beale like we're not trading him stop and bail's like good i don't want to be traded and then they all stay together publicly hey we're not trying to bradley beal they're like got a megaphone just so you guys know we're not training bradley meal and then nba media and the twitter universe and people podcasts like mine are like hey what can they get for bradley beal and they're going we're not trying to brother bill and they stuck with him and by the way

he's kind of sucked during this 10-3 thing look at his stats that's the weirdest thing about this he's not even playing well yet yep it's great it's wonderful and part of the thing i don't need to be fair to to be also his grandma passed away so he hasn't played the past three games and you know she was a very important person in his life and you know um he i i don't begrudge him trying to hit the reset button with all this this set of professionals he's never played with this much talent i don't in his entire career even i think it was the 2016 2017 season which was john wall at his peak and they had martin gortad and uber was sort of up and coming they had you know you had a morris pieces you had one of them that got beat up by yoker yes one one of the sophomores brothers yes we had one of them and you know that was the team that that we lost in game seven to to the celtics that we got o linux that was the kelly

olynyk game the olynyk season yeah one of my favorite that was a pretty competent you know basketball team that's the team that won 49 games and all went downhill from there because john wall got hurt you know repeatedly and so on and so forth we don't need to go through it but well the fact that you you didn't trade bill which is nice and now he needs to prove that he's an a-list guy is he i well i have i said it out loud i don't think you have you've said it out loud but go do your thing you think he's uh you think he's a number two he's a 1b i think he's a terrific uh beta i think he is is a and and honestly um i think over the course of this season and we've seen it over these last couple games spencer dinwiddie is the alpha and and he deserves to be the alpha he has the highest basketball iq of any washington player that i've um encountered and i mean i think he also has like a genuinely high iq is he's a

he i think he was he had a chance to go to harvard um and chose colorado for the so the basketball part of it but like he his uh press conferences are outstanding and you know just his whole like perspective on life it's clear that he is a deep dude and that as a as a leader as a with with leadership you know it is funny that that now he he's around the same age as as uh harold as montrez um but he's he's a sort of a natural leader and he's got that point guard leadership instinct as well i noticed it in one of the celtic games where they were still kind of figuring out what kind of team they were when they beat us in overtime and didn't really just kind of had the ball and was making all the decisions and it was weird because you just expect most of these teams to work like how the dumb celtics operate where it's like all right tatum take 10 seconds to dribble the ball up and then we'll set you kind of a half-assed

pick and then dribble between your legs and shoot at 25-footer that's most teams offense at the end of games didn't woody was actually like trying to create stuff and more importantly the ball wasn't going to beal and i thought that that was really interesting because i just assumed beal had earned that kind of you know the the biggest piece of chicken at the at the table is chris rocco is jokes so dad always gets the biggest chicken i thought i thought beale was the one who had the biggest plate but didn't witty's actually like no no i got this and you think like would you would you pay for him it was a relatively reasonable contract right it was less than 20. well it came in as part of the westbrook deal like the contract all of the contracts together dinwiddie was a piece uh and i don't remember how the math all worked out yeah it was westbrook was a 40 some million class uh right relatively cheap you know again

it's unknown quantity guy hasn't played any competitive basketball in over a year and you know coming off knee surgery and it's a little goofy like he definitely he has moments where he it seemed like he thought he was a bigger star than he was sure so you combine that with harrow who i think has had some mixed experiences over the years on teams where it seems like he wears that as welcome never seems like he fitted with the lakers i think the clippers were dying to get rid of him by the end of the bubble season um but it seems like the from a personality standpoint everyone's fine i wonder is this the team you have in february is there because you have the you have the kisper piece yup who i think has trade value um i don't think you trade denny but then you have rui hachimora too who i think could also have value and could you flip both of those guys with something else and actually get

somebody who could maybe even play crunch time well there there are you didn't even mention two other guys thomas bryant um should have some value if he can come back and and demonstrate to the league that he is has that same bounce as what he had before he got injured that same relentless energy around the rim yeah and his scoring instincts are are still there he's a he's an asset and berton's not withstanding the money is an attractive asset to a team that that knows that they're gonna play him for nine minutes and try and get did you just say not with state of the money well look i mean something you're like that if you're that girl that was staying in the cold sore if it's february and you feel like you're a shooter away and you'd still be away with uh he's he's he's i will tell you oh my bad he's up to 33 from three this year i didn't realize he was on a hot streak and he's hurt right now but i i think i

think i the right role for him it's a low minutes roll it's a cheerleader role it's a low minutes roll i will tell you that much i don't think you're trying to voice birthdays i mean look he has value because he no his track record was a guy who could could come off the bench and make a bunch of buckets and before he got one out of every five games he does it yeah you better you better get his head right because you actually need him as a shooter i for the record i always kind of liked kuzma i thought on the lakers he was just a horrible fit and it was hard to separate the fit from the player but i just always thought he he and lebron played the exact same position that's the problem he's and he's a stretch for kind of tweener 3-4 and it's like now if when he's out there with lebron they don't make sense together he was a young kid in la also which clearly somehow some of the stuff he did rub

lebron the wrong way once he got on the wrong side of lebron uh that that was kind of it but i will tell you he's an absolute revelation i had no idea what a talented rebounder he is he is strong as bull he is one bad mother effort about going and grabbing the basketball he's averaging over nine rebounds a game wow defender two points good defender will get in your chest this is the thing this team defensively and this is what what ansel deserves credit for you know the the previous three seasons they were like between 25 and 30 ranked in the league in in terms of defensive efficiency and all those metrics and they're in the top five right now and that's the single biggest transformative kind of thing seeing this team defend three-pointers seeing kcp rushing out at shooters seeing the the effort it's a group effort and really tres deserves a lot of credit that dude plays hard as a mug and it's a good

situation for him yeah it's a great situation for him he's he's a little bit of a novelty act i'll be interested like in a playoff series i think you can play him off the floor but um the energy he brings especially during the regular season good in the east good player for the east like really not a ton not a ton of guys that fit his you know in the in the west i i could see you know that that common theme of of he can't go up but he can't play against certain teams in the east i think he can play it's funny if you look at the east and i know it's early and that there's a there's a decent chance that us you leading my podcast with the wizards might be the highlight of the wizard season like it's in play that's that's impossible possible it's possible but you think i think brooklyn's gonna get the one seed unless durant gets hurt he's just too talented and once hard and gets going i just assume

they're probably the safest bet i kind of believe in washington as the top four seed from what i've seen wow i kind of believe in chicago as a top four seed from what i've seen and i would say miami would be the other one and then after that you started talking about you're bumping out philly and milwaukee neither one of those is top four c if you put miami washington and chicago yeah you're right i gotta get milwaukee in there my bad top five seats top five seeds top six i mean top six so i we don't know in the play-in that's a that's a great outcome the thing is milwaukee already has eight losses and looks like they're kind of having that i'm not worried yet but it does look like they're kind of having that year from hell post championship they don't get any of their guys no their guys are playing yeah every time they play there's a big bullseye in the back you're right top five i do believe in the bulls

i think the the the lonzo caruso combo yeah that's a real thing those guys defensively that's it chemistry teamwork oh we were just so good we were dismissive before the you know the over about those and we we got to give credit to billy donovan i think he's in the coach of the year running yeah i was skeptical of the defense i didn't think that they would be able to guard people and then what's weird is they lose williams who people thought was going to be their best defensive swing but then you watch caruso i loved lonzo last summer for the celtics and i had my fingers crossed that there was some sort of marcus smart lonzo and but it seems like the that was called in that he was going to chicago probably a year ago you're being called in as in tampered is that what you were saying yeah and there's an investigation there's an investigation right now i do like their five and it's weird vucevic

is kind of the most not sure if that one's going to come through a piece of the five just because how he was used in orlando and the usage rate he had versus like now as this kind of pick and pop banger um they'll figure it out i'm not worried about it but the other four the way they play together is the the fact that derozan levine and caruso and lonzo just all have chemistry already is pretty crazy considering they all weren't on the same team but i just like the way i feel about washington yeah it's crazy chemistry now i mean you know a couple of the three of these guys played together before so yeah so you think i don't know i think they're a safer bet going down the list cavs just lost moby two weeks nicks sixers with this embiid who knows with his health and then the simmons piece of it charlotte i think their defense is just gonna con they're gonna be the most fun team in the east

but probably have the most frustrating losses toronto you're just going down the line i guess the one that i i wouldn't dismiss toronto and i think the sixers are going to be in the mix as well but the east is super i'm dismissing toronto why atlanta is the wild card to me i don't know what to make of them and they're six and nine i think it's a it's some people think it's trading the rules i think it's a too many guys thing it's one of those teams where you look and you're like who's happy on this team who's getting the amount of minutes that they would have wanted and you go through and it's like oh that guy's unhappy that guy's an abbey yep he's unhappy it's a shame that uh simmons and the sixers are in the east because i think the two most interesting trade potential partners would be toronto and atlanta both of those teams could use ben simmons and both of those teams have really interesting young

assets that would be difference makers for the for the sixers but there ain't no way that daryl mori is trading ben simmons to you know rivals in the east i wonder if it's as simple as it's just houston and it's christian wood and maybe a contract and they call it a day i think that's the best they can do it's a fair trade christian wood is really effing good and i should see christian on a good team yeah that insurance policy against embiid that makes a ton of sense to me yeah well we're going to talk about ben simmons in a second with uh with our guy verno we're gonna take an argument that we had on text and we're just gonna bring it to the podcast that is up next all right house we're bringing in our friend chris vernon from the mismatch from grizzlies pre-game and halftime shows it always cracks me up to see you in a suit tie when i'm sitting in my underwear watching basketball i feel i feel i feel like i'm walking

into a sneak attack you're not you're not at all you know it's not going to be a sneak attack it's a it's a front it's a full-on frontal attack yeah you're nothing like that you know you know where we're coming from on it's just unfair that it's two-on-one that's all but you're you're the man for you're up to it i know where's where's my tag team partner who would it be who would your tag team partner even be i'd um jeez louise i don't know kevin would turn on me no tony allen do you have a tag team tony tony yeah yeah i i i bring tony to the party that's for sure tony would kick our ass too yeah i'm afraid of tony allen he's a tough dude he was one of those guys when he played those there's nba players who talked the talk they're the ones that walk the walk and he's the one where he's like no no don't actually go there with tony like stackhouse was like that too it's weird because i was thinking

about this the other day the league is actually going back that way and i was thinking you know with this physical as it's gotten this year is this going to open the door to where people are actually going to find value in defenders again because defenders can actually defend because those guys it was like they just they turned them into dinosaurs uh so quickly with the pace and space and really not letting you put your hands on anybody that maybe maybe maybe the next group of guys you know the guys that can really defend they're actually going to be able to find a spot in the nba i don't know i wonder you would tell him to be on the phone with the denver nuggets with that game circle was it november the 28th the 29th oh my goodness tell him tell him to audition they they need a one more tough guy they can use one more tough guy on the nuggets for that game uh coming up against uh who who is it miami miami

yeah and especially with porter junior injured i mean that's right they're down one really tough guy i was thinking for that game it would be funny if they remember in slap shot for the final game when that team signed all the all the goons for the one game it was like here's ogie oglethorpe um if uh if denver did the version of that they just brought in like kendrick perkins is back and he's angry you think that's why they gave my guy bull ball a little clock last night yeah maybe they did at the least he's got mega reach yeah you know um verno we brought you on because we had a text thread where we arguing about ben simmons like we always do and you come in hot on the daryl moore piece of this and i respect it i love it it's a great zag as you know i i appreciate and treasure the zags as much as anyone with a podcast with i not that i read anymore calm whatever the the art of the zag it's really hard to pull off you really

have to buy into it and believe it and there has to be some substance behind it and you made a great case so let's talk it out do your zag on daryl mori well yeah so here's the thing it's not really that much of a zag i just feel like look i'm going up against the daryl mori fan club in that text threat you guys you guys you guys are united in this i think the my only thought on the whole ben simmons fiasco is that both sides are at fault here that you can't go and try to trade a guy tell a guy that he is being traded and then it it where he's to the point where he's house shopping in houston and this is literally the first thing you've done the first thing you've done when you got the job so he knows right away all right this new guy he doesn't want any part of me he doesn't want me here and then you play out the season you got the best record it all goes wrong uh when it comes down to the end you don't really

obviously build some kind of relationship with the guy all along the while for six months to 12 months all anybody's talking about is ben simmons trades or who could ben simmons go to or when is daryl gonna make the big ben simmons move and so the guy's dangling out there for the entire year and then it gets the playoffs he has his debacle in the playoffs really everybody laid it on ben whether that was right or not everybody laid it on him even though doc rivers teams have wildly underperformed over and over and over again in the playoffs it's all ben simmons fault and so then joel embiid says what he says doc river says what he says and then ben simmons is like you know what i don't want to go through a whole nother year of this i don't want to live this life anymore just let you don't want me here i don't want to be here let's go our separate ways let's go and then you get the well he's not trading

him unless he can get brad beale he's not trading him unless he can get damian lillard he's not trading him and so everybody seemingly knows what daryl mori thinks all the time all the time it is what daryl mori thinks and all the while finally ben simmons said fu and that to me it's not the way they've handled it is obviously the not not the right way i would never defend the way he and his management team have have played this on the other hand like i think daryl mori should have traded him a long time ago and i think he's got too big of an ego now this is all ego both sides and i think he's got too big of an ego to move him for what he could be moved for now because in the end once upon a time he was really close possibly to getting james harden at least close enough that they told ben and so now fast forward all this time and he's going around and the deals get worse and the deals get worse and the deals get

worse because of course they get worse now simmons is playing it the way he's playing it um not helping his stock at all and you're in a spot where you say all right well if it takes four years it takes four years i don't see a scenario in which the price of doing business to get ben simmons is going up but i also think there's probably a level of pride where it's like well i can't i can't i can't take a cj mccollum and robert covington it's a picks deal at this point not when we've been talking about james harden and damien lillard and brad beal and i've said we're only going to trade him for a difference maker and i don't know i don't i don't see how he all of a sudden ends up with some kind of a great deal i think he should have traded him you know in the off season at the draft or before free agency whenever because at this point i don't see how i you know both sides have been screwed

up in this deal and i don't think just daryl mori throwing double birds to clutch which i feel like everybody is so happy that he stood up to clutch he stood up to player empowerment and so he threw those double birds and good on daryl i i don't think it served him well in terms of getting a return at this point so i i don't think the way the the sixers have handled this should be celebrated i think this is this is not good for ben it's not good for the sixers and it's not good for the league all right solid case house i i thought he made some good points the fundamental greatest agreement i have is everything you just laid out insinuates that there was a deal they could have taken in june july or august that would have made sense for them and i have not heard of one deal that comes even close to the value of what simmons had who was until the playoffs last year a top 22 top 23 guy arguably the best defensive player in

the league under a long-term contract which makes it valuable and when he played with mb they were really good defensively and i i i just it's not i'm against the three dimes for a quarter trade just in general i don't know what the trade was so if you were telling me hey man because there were rumors that they might have been able to get darius garland and kevin love for him or maybe they could have gotten malcolm brogdon and carousel vert and some kind of packages but i'm not doing that i'm out on that i'm not i'm not doing that if you're talking about darius garland and kevin love if that was really on the table and i don't know i'm not reporting that don't aggregate me but that that was a buzz that that cleveland was making a play for him and maybe that was that was it if that was really on the table now i have real regrets at pump philly because i i think garland is i he's really emerged as i think one of the

leap guys this year and plus you would have gotten love's back love back in there with the contract tradable um as an competitors expiring let's go back there's a lot of conflicting reports on the houston stuff right and there were reports after that you talked about the hard entry yeah that he regretted it that it was always look go find the better deal i'll give you ben simmons but i'm not adding in tyreese maxie or dybal they had stuff in there no they're how i think that tybo was in there and some pics it wasn't just simmons for hardin but when brooklyn came over the top and it was like oh no and so now it's like to me in retrospect you sit back and you go this is what the value was or at least we had talked about this very seriously and i can't be doing malcolm brogdon for charis levert uh you know deal yeah but the truth is benzema's value was a lot higher than than it is now the ben simmons value has

gone down precipitously and continues to go down who who is training for him really let's talk about that one second i have a question for house house was that i think daryl's biggest mistake and the one that i cannot defend him on was thinking that tillman fertitta was going to trade with him because he did the whole thing i'm going to leave yeah i'm i'm done with houston i'm out i'm going to spend time with my family and from what i heard there was only one team that he wasn't allowed to go to but otherwise otherwise he was out and whether how how genuine that was i don't know but within a couple weeks all of a sudden he was in philly and i don't think fertitta was ever actually trading him james harden is my take and the nets i think they were waiting they were waiting for the nets for durant to really push those guys to do it and then finally they end up throwing in jared halen and picks but house was that

was that the big daryl mistake can we criticize him on that thinking that houston would trade him that he could just leave go to philly and then take james harden with him basically i it's impossible to know we there there's only one way to know that and that's to sit in a room with tillman fertitta and daryl mori and cross-examine those two and see which one of them feels like it's more truthful guys sloan conference february let's do it you know what you guys are going to be so depressed because if i would have known we were doing this pod i could have asked him last night tillman fertitta flew into memphis and showed up at the game wow last night well actually i have plenty of good reasons why memphis ribs would be one reason he probably probably i don't know he wanted to see a 40-point drubbing i don't know i mean i don't know why he showed up but it was weird when he walked in everybody was like what is he

doing here yeah the team didn't even know he was showing up he just showed up out of nowhere that all sounds very consistent with you know what what that owner is all about and some of his legacy you know previous to being an owner and all that kind of thing so so here's the thing here's the question let's just forget the hardened thing we'll forget that completely okay let's just fast forward to me ben simmons value right now is worse than it was even if you want to say there wasn't a ton on the table and wasn't a good trait whatever there was there was right so after after the playoffs and they lose to the hawks that's a bad deal no way around it right but i don't think they could have traded him in june between the playoffs and the draft with wow he played just from how he looked in the playoffs i think everybody needed to kind of take a step back and all right wonder what happened let's say you get to the draft then you

get the free agency then you get to you know you get to the point where the demand becomes public up until that point it's a little different deal because i think if i'm trading aren't you saying like what are you going to do like what leverage do you have you guys not playing for you and he wants out like i don't see how he gets a good deal for ben simmons at this point but could you but i don't know how you get a good deal from house do you is it any different than july when you have a guy going i want out and now everybody in the league knows you have to trade somebody you're not getting a good offer at that point what is the what's the historical precedent of a team being in the power seat in the two weeks after their player says get me the [ __ ] out of here well here's here's what here's what i'd say to that when you step that hold on now virto gets high usage it's two on one verno gets high usage

it's two on one with a frontal look there was original reporting that after the season and this was not made public that rich paul met with the sixers and they said we'll help you let's find a trade let's find a trade at that point you say let's work together like even if you don't have leverage guess who does have leverage that guy he's got leverage everywhere all over the league he's got leverage so if rich paul came to you and said you're better off without him he's better off without you let us help you let's find a deal you get it done then and you would have had that help instead now he's not helping you you guys are adversaries now for god's sakes if you think ben's lying say he's lying you know if the that report is true and rich paul did go to the sixers and they did have that sound sober right-headed rational conversation then the move by simmons to publicly announce that he is not going to show up

for training camp is puzzling at the same time that was that was absolutely that was actually i understand but what what happened between those two moments if they were in a cooperative mood now i i i think daryl's hand was screwed by the combination of doc rivers and joel embiid in the heat of the moment coming out and saying what they said that that put daryl in an impossible position right then and there the playoffs are over everybody saw with their own two eyes what happened with simmons and then doc and and embiid basically created the the environment that was going to be very difficult for for simmons to to to navigate right now and there they had to have gone behind the channels and said look we know what those guys said it was heat of the moment we love you please come play him playing is it was his best leverage all through this it continues to be his best leverage and i i don't agree with

the idea that it's a diminishing asset and the reason i don't is because the nba market is a dynamic market it's not a fixed market it changes on a weekly basis it changes on nearly a daily basis we will know from you know all the way up to december the 15th which is the first kind of interesting date on the calendar when all of the free agents from the summer are eligible to be uh you know assets in in in trades that will be one kind of uh moment and then between december the 15th and the trade deadline we'll have a whole another set of opportunities to examine but in that time frame it's kind of a free option for daryl right just sit tight see how the league develops some teams are going to to feel like they need to be buyers and they might their their point of view on who is a an eligible candidate for for ben simmons is going to change because of whatever's going on with their their local situation well

december 15th is the date yeah that's when all the contracts that you sign in the summer become tradable like and extensions too like somebody like marcus smart this is what i don't understand i don't understand how he has leverage everybody says well yeah then all of these things become available why why am i trading a star to get ben simmons if i'm another team i'm going what if he doesn't like it here then i got to put up with all this [ __ ] like no way i'm not doing this yeah but that now you're talking about that's a different calculus right now you're talking about the devil that you know versus the devil that you don't know like at some point carl anthony towns in minnesota like that that relationship i we just keep watching them pile up losses and you sent a note you know the other night right about what kind of a winning character does that guy possess year after year after year but could he in a different kind of

situation flourish where he you know the whole thing is different and maybe the the the timberwolves looking at their sister we want to build a young team we want a younger team let's go young let's buy ourselves five years right here and let's just see if we can be a run and gun team the guy from you know chris finch from from toronto might have a a team character in mind and maybe there's two sides at the t wolves say kat we've loved you you've been a beloved son here it's time to move on k.a.t would welcome it wouldn't he and then here's the opportunity that's got to be a three-teamer if that happens the other thing is that guy had a affair with this secretary or whatever and and daryl's boy he's gone he doesn't deal with you anymore i don't who knows i'm just this i'm talking about hypotheticals out there about situations changing on the ground in in like what do you think is going on in portland you

think they're happy there maybe maybe maybe not but i will say this if i'm bringing in if again i'm looking at it through the prism of i'm bringing in ben simmons okay and what if he doesn't like his situation here we see what links he has gone to now to not play and to get out of this situation which by the way they were the number one seed they're the number one seed so again i've never made an excuse for the way ben simmons acts i wouldn't trade for him that's why i think you guys are all goofy for talking about how smart daryl has been how on earth does he attain leverage how on earth does this get better if you tell me all right let's say let's pontificate because this could happen let's say a star doesn't become available you've already laid down the the the law right a difference maker if it takes four years i'm getting a difference maker fine let's just say a star is not in the cards it doesn't

materialize there's not there's not one out there that you can trade for there's not another team that wants to deal with this what what's going on right now all right now what i have an answer i have an answer for you okay i don't think daryl ever wanted to trade ben simmons oh give me a break no no i really don't i i really don't i don't think he did you don't believe that no no of what of this episode he clearly wanted to trade ben simmons for harden we know that to be true yeah yeah but in the current under the the the situation that that developed post playoffs i think bill's right now listen to anybody that's good listen listen here's why i don't think he wanted to trade him and we know this for a fact because i know from some reporting i did and some other people at the ringer he went to every team and just asked for their best player he made craig he went to the celtics and asked for tatum okay sometimes we're

never training tatum for business you don't want to trade him is that what you do yeah i think you do i think you go to each team and then you say to you go back to questions listen he goes back to clutch and clutch is like did you go did you try to trade ben simmons he's like yeah i think he's one of the best 18 players in the league and i'm not trading him unless i get a player of his caliber back and nobody wanted to trade for him so let's figure this out and then it escalated after that i think the mistake he made if i if yeah but you can't run around trying to trade him to everybody but he didn't he tried to trade him for players who were as good as him what he wasn't trying to do is try to train him for malcolm brogdon i understand but if but if i've got look bro if i've got a girlfriend and i go around and i go to the bar and there's a million hot chicks out there and i say hey you want

to go out with me hey you want to go out with me they requested a trade what's he going to do and i and then i come back to my girl be like actually you know yeah but your girl what if your would check that requested the trade no yeah and if any of them would have said yes then yeah i would i would have left with them but i guess i'm stuck with you so let's work this is this is what house is like in college she would say no and she would say fu which is exactly what ben simmons did berno the one few the one thing i will say about there being teams out there that would would want simmons where you know simmons is attractive to them that's up to clutch that's the test of rich paul and the and the the clutch mafia to find those teams and i i think those teams do exist i think there are teams and situations out there where clutches influence with those teams and and look ben simmons has a good resume he has an all-star resume

that combination i think like every team believes that a player will be different with them look at look at what russell westbrook's been doing wow he's been traveling all around like the the lakers think that he's going to be good for them i'll tell you this the celtics would trade for ben simmons they're just not putting brown or tatum in the deal those guys are off limits but there's difference makers that's what he says he's laid down the law and said i'm only getting a difference maker but here's here's the thing though he does have a time clock with embiid you can't throw away an entire ben simmons season where you don't trade him so they're going to have to trade him between mid-december and mid-february and everybody knows that everyone knows that which is why he's got to wait for a team to be gone like look at the portland situation lillard had a terrible start the team has no mojo at all it looks

like it's heading in the wrong direction and meanwhile maxie for philly has been fantastic and a maxi and simmons for lillard trade seems a lot more fair than it did five months ago right because baxter it's like whoa you're giving up maxi that's a real asset that guy's good you get you can get a better deal for damian lillard though you're probably good if i'm in the business of shopping damien lillard i can do better than that so you're thinking like [ __ ] shake milton

yeah well there's no look your difference maker in somebody like that's eyes is jaron jackson is best his best role is going to be playing center you have a center so it's not a natural fit next to next to embiid and well hold on wait a second you're never giving up my rant wait wait wait wait wonderful memphis is a wonderful destination wait i'm not kidding first of all jaron jackson makes i they'd have trouble trading with the extension because the contracts get all screwed but i do think he's the kind of asset they'd be looking at for philly i just don't know if memphis can give up jaren jackson's four rebounds a game like how do you replace that you got it yeah so many guys have to chip in it's like what a quarter you would give your left testy for jaron jackson would he rebound i'd give it can he get eight rebounds a game he's stanza he does like every other power forward they stand out at the perimeter now

that's what everybody does what's the difference between him and joe harris oh how dare you what does he go 20 feet within the room what does that guy do one of them just turned 21 years old great how long are you making that excuse come on get grab a rebound jared jackson jesus is he aware he can grab the ball it's up in the air do not take your i look house do not let him take his celtics aggression out on me that you worry about your theme yeah what about me it would be it would be nice to see uh jason tatum on the free throw line i mean i would just you know maybe three times a game four times a game would be nice if jason tatum got better one of these years look you guys got you guys got to tell me all right do you think that daryl is gonna end up with a star for ben simmons i think maxie would have to be involved i think that's the that's the path i don't think if simmons straight up with

picks i don't think gets him anybody who also isn't flawed would be my take what do you think he's a clutch guy too by the way yeah i think it's unlikely i understand what verno means when he has says star and i think it's unlikely that it will be a star i think it will be like two very good players and an excellent draft pick that's that's what i think is two two players that'll be very complementary to the way that the the sixers are built that will maximize their opportunity to go deep in the playoffs and as we discussed with my washington wizards depth matters death matters and especially we know this to be true come playoff time so two really good assets plus a draft pick could be enough i would say that hey hey then you better rip it bill cause that is quarters you said i don't do it for quarters he literally just described quarters you cannot tell me that daryl moray is the smartest man in the room if he trades

the thing for whatever two nickels and a quarter i would keep them i'd rather have them than do the yeah i'm with you all right verno we could hear you on the mismatch house we can hear you on uh fairway rolling yeah we have a small hiatus but i'm on the friday ringer gambling show is fairway rolling officially when does it come back uh january-ish that's that's yourself permission to uh have emergency pods if tiger comes out and plays you know in the bahamas in two weeks or whatever that's not happening all right ringer gambling show fridays for house good to see you guys see you thanks berno warren sharp is here you can hear him on the ringer gambling show on monday wednesday and friday on wednesdays he's with the terminator ben solak and they talk in some language that i think i mostly understand but it's just like the language of people who have surpassed us mortals with football knowledge um why

don't we have a best football team this year sharp we've got a number of great ones best one i think there's a variety of factors i think defenses made some big adjustments to take away what some of the very best offenses were doing in the past we're talking like the chiefs and the bills um and these offenses knew that heading into the off-season the teams are going to try to figure out how to slow down what they like to do they're going to play more of this defensive coverage that includes dropping these two safeties back and playing the shell defense and keeping everything in front of them um but i think they've been a little bit slow to counter punch and to figure out what to do from there it's been a little bit of a shock to their system in both cases these were two of the very best offenses in the nfl i mean the bills 20 plus first downs every single game last season no other team in nfl history had

been able to accomplish that and the chiefs of course two straight super bowls so uh defenses are figuring out different strategies to defend these great offenses and it's now going to be a matter of making the adjustments down the stretch of the season and that's why i think this year is so fascinating because what we've seen to date is is fine it's been very exciting and interesting for a while there were no big upsets now we've seen a few so at least that adds to the intrigue this stretch run bill is going to be absolutely insane i think there's going to be separation from some of the greatest teams they're going to make some adjustments i think it's going to be really exciting throughout the rest of the season and into the postseason so when you say the great offenses and you would have said going into the year casey and buffalo would be in that conversation i think dallas entered the

conversation and then they got shut out um by denver who then the next week got picked apart by an inferior quarterback with inferior receivers and i'm looking at i bet on denver last week and it's just like all right now we have entered the there's no rhyme or reason from week to week stage of the season which has now been three weeks long there was some predictability with the high favorites i think at one point what was it like 27-0 with the favorites in that like six to nine point range then it flipped and it's flipped and flipped and the underdogs have basically been hitting over 50 percent but that the denver that sequence of denver shutting out dallas and then getting crushed by philly to me was the weirdest thing that happened this season what was the weirdest thing for you this season the weirdest result that you're just like i don't understand that that breaks my brain oh well um

i think that one was close because i did not think that there would be a chance that we would see the the uh cowboys lose that game i think another one to me if i'm looking back i'm trying to pull up some of the uh prior results here another one to me would be the rams performances over the last couple of weeks offensively yeah just just in general because i think the tennessee titans especially without derrick henry are a very predictable style of offense you can let them go ahead and try to run the ball on first down like they want to do they're not going to have very much efficiency you have to figure out how to block up that front four so that they're not pressuring you and then deliver the ball over the top but you know the the funny part was and i actually mentioned this on the monday show on the gambling show which you guys need to be subscribing to the ringer gambling show it's a lot of fun with

these three shows a week but to vernon yesterday on the monday show i said i'm looking forward to betting against this quote-unquote super team of the rams the next couple of weeks because everybody's talking non-stop about how they've built themselves this juggernaut that can't be defeated and so the 49ers were absolutely the right side last night uh and that was pretty clear and obvious but i just think sean mcvay's inability to figure out what to do offensively coupled with the fact that matthew stafford has lo delivered results i don't want to see he looks like but has delivered results particularly on a down to down situation that aren't that much different than some of the throws and the decisions that jared goff had been making it's like what are we doing here we got matthew stafford the hand-picked guy to go out and win sean mcvay this super bowl that he hasn't been able to win because jared

goff was the reason he couldn't get it done and now we've seen a couple straight weeks against teams that i mean the titans now have the best record in the nfl but i don't think anybody's saying that they're the best team in the nfl and the 49ers were backsliding completely and the rams just have not looked right offensively whatsoever the last two weeks hot take i don't think stafford's healthy he looks super banged up to me and this is a guy who's had a lot of a lot of dinks and dunks in his body over the last 10 12 years and that was the big question with him right what are we getting when we get matthew stafford we're getting a guy who got the [ __ ] kicked out of him in detroit for an entire decade and what you know how is he going to evolve as he hits his mid 30s to me he does not look like uh he does not look spry he does not look even somebody like brady who's 44 looks like he's in good shape good

health he looks like he's physically good which has made his last couple weeks so strange like he just hasn't been accurate and people are like oh he doesn't have gronk he doesn't have antonio brown's like all right well he still has godwin and evans and tyler johnson's pretty good and breit's okay and but he just doesn't look accurate to me stafford doesn't look healthy to me which i think is the difference maybe i'm overthinking it it could be i mean look the defenses that they've played have been respectable that's for sure the titans defense is exceeding my expectations in terms of how beat up their secondary was and yet they're continuing to perform well against respectable offenses um the 49ers this is a team that i've been very down on what kyle shanahan has been able to deliver uh for the 49ers you're here you're here he's really let you down he's let me down but it hasn't been that

unsurprising because he's let me down from his ability to win games but this is something that we knew before his ability to design offenses that can have success in a non-traditional manner where the modern nfl is these three wide receivers and we're going to attack you through the air and he can just flip to a completely different style of offense that plays really well to what jimmy g can excel with that is something that i always knew that kyle can do and he one of the reasons i like him as a play caller and an offensive mind but his ability to bring a team together to actually win games has been lacking um but he really matches up well he does really well against sean mcvay i mean these two guys used to work with one another those games are always must-watch tv so that that was not that surprising i'll just say that uh in terms of that result i was backing the 49ers there but you're surprised i had the niners

too it saved it saved a pretty pretty lackluster gambling week for me and the niners saved it at the tail end um are you surprised by the bill's relative impotency compared to the defenses that they've been playing like six points against the jaguars is almost a cry for help i'm gonna say one thing here before you answer is it possible they just only have one above average scope position guy like other than diggs do they have a guy who's above average out of all of their weapons and maybe that's part of this and you look at some of these other teams i don't know if their offense is really from a skill standpoint that different like is there is their skill are their skill guys better than the patriots guys i'm not even sure i actually like the patriots running backs way more i like kendrick bourne as like a second receiver more than anyone the bills have i like hunter henry i i just don't know if there's much of a

difference and i'm wondering did we overrate the bill's talent a little bit um so john feliciano's injury along the offensive line who plays a key part in setting productions and making adjustments he his first game out this season was against you can probably guess which team the jacksonville jaguars right and immediately like that offensive line was unable to pick up the blitz and josh allen was under tremendous amounts of pressure they need him back this is not an offensive line that can afford to lose players it's such a different offensive line than your offensive line with the patriots because you guys can run block really well the bill's offensive line is built to pass block and it does not do as well when those guys are called to run block and that's why even though the bills have been see the bills have wanted to try to change up a little bit when you have a team like the bills like

the chiefs even like the eagles this season through the first like six seven weeks defenses played these three teams with the fewest men in the box on average on early downs they just said try to run it we don't care if you try to run it you guys only want to pass the ball right we're daring you to run the ball and so none of those teams with the exception of the eagles really had the o-line that was going to get out there and try to run block with success and trusted the efficiency that the running game could deliver as compared to what the passing game could deliver the eagles on the other hand are like look we've got a great offensive line that can run block and hertz is fine but he's nowhere near josh allen patrick mahomes like who cares if we run the ball a few more times like it's not going to hurt our efficiency that much and boom you go up against which is going to be interesting

against the saints and i'm kind of getting off the answer here but with this with the saints such a great run defense the eagles have been able to run the ball against three very bad run defenses over the last three weeks now they have to go up against the number one run defense in the nfl what will they try to do this week big question yeah but getting back to the bills the true test for the bills in terms of uh well let me answer your immediate question i think the bill's skilled position players are more than adequate when you've got a quarterback the level of josh allen being protected and playing at his level that we should expect he doesn't have to be incredible he just can't be terrible and if he's playing what we expect them to be this offense is putting up high 20s to low 30s per game on a given week the issue becomes um yeah once if you can try to eliminate digs teams were trying to do that last

year but they were they're playing this bill's team a little bit differently and i think dave all has been trying to run the ball a little bit more to try to balance things out and it's actually put them in some difficult situations especially if you look at some of the second down decisions from a play calling perspective and how frequently they are choosing to run the ball in like second and long it's still not like egregious but it's at a higher rate than the nfl average and it's something that i think they need to make some adjustments on because this stretch that they're about to go on and i mentioned this maybe it was on the friday show well uh on the gambling show if you look at uh bill the bill's offense from week two after they played the steelers who have the 13th best defense they have played from week two to week 10 so all of the games since only one team that even ranks 20th or better defensively and that was

the tennessee titans now yes they put up 31 points lost that game probably could have won that game but all these other defenses that they are playing are 25th miami dolphins twice the 30th ranked washington football team the 28th ranked uh kansas city chiefs the jaguars the jets the houston texans terrible terrible now they're about to enter the stretch for six weeks where they are doing nothing but playing top ten off top ten defenses the colts ranked number 11 so that's the only one outside of then you've got number three saints number five patriots your patriots twice that's going to determine the afc east in my opinion then they've got a game against the tampa bay buccaneers who ranked number nine defensively and a game against the carolina panthers who ranked number six so buffalo was not looking great to me offensively the last three weeks now you're talking about going up against these top ten defenses for six

straight weeks they need to figure some things out and do so very quickly if they're going to have any success or hope at looking good against these defenses make the case to me that buffalo is better than new england in 2021 what is better about buffalo than the patriots at this point we the patriots to me seem like a more balanced team i think they have a better coach i think they have more ways they can win game to game their arrow is pointing up they can run and pass and really the only thing you would say if in my opinion if you're making the buffalo cases in one game i'd rather i'd trust josh allen over a rookie qb would be the default what what else am i missing because i've watched 10 weeks of the season i think the patriots are better than the buffalo right now neither team has been tested with great defenses that they've played for the most part this season the patriots have played the fifth easiest

schedule of opposing defenses and the eighth easy schedule of opposing offenses the bills have played the third easiest schedule of opposing defenses and the third easy schedule of opposing offenses the strength of schedule that both of these teams were playing and we knew this entering the season has been terrible because you look at the jets and the dolphins plus they're playing games against the houston texans and sprinkling in um like the carolina panthers or the atlanta falcons for you guys like these are teams that are not very good in general so we haven't really seen them tested when we are heading into the winter months in the northeast i love the fact that you guys can execute what i think is a very dynamic game plan where the defense won't know is it going to be a run or a pass yeah they have to respect both equally because the runs are actually productive for buffalo the difference is that the passing

attack is much more explosive and aggressive but they don't have the balance that the defense really has to respect the run dabal can call some run plays to mix it up but those run plays are not going to be nearly productive enough to make the defense really scared and i still think defenses will be playing the bills and say go ahead you've been trying to do this all year keep trying to run the ball if you want to we're still playing the pass and going to try to limit the upside of the pass and we're still going to try to rush josh allen and disrupt that passing attack and you guys can try to run the ball if you want but you're not going to have much success the defensive side of the ball is very interesting because the bills have the number one defense the number one defense against the pass the number three defense against the run they have performed incredibly but if you look at the quarterbacks that

they've been playing if you look at the offenses that they've been playing it still is nothing really to write home about and i think hold on you can't emphasize that point strongly enough roethlisberger tua whoever the hell washington's qb was at week three davis mills mahomes they were for homes in a funk yeah um tannehill's the best qb they've played just in terms of consistency this year other than the homes two again trevor lawrence and then last week uh mike white might lotus himself mike wait that's a brutal crew i have no idea if their defense is good how do we know we're gonna find out over these next few weeks we are and that's why this game against the cult sets up to be really intriguing because what do the cults want to do this week they want to try to run the football they want to be balanced offensively but if that game is close or they have a slight lead frank wright i mean i like frank reich

as a coach but as an offensive it's really weird my thoughts aren't very great he is a very creative offensive mind who really gets a lot out of his quarterbacks he's worked with a bunch of them they've always excelled under his system he calls a lot of a variety of plays that tend to work against defenses but from a conservative approach when his teams get the lead on early downs yeah they're so they just turtle up and shell up and just run the ball and hope that they can get into third manageable and convert and then keep bleeding the clock i'm gonna be really interested to see that colt's secondary the colts defense great against the run bad against the pass injuries in the secondary if the bills are able to block up this colts pass rush throw the ball over the top and they're favored by seven points if they can get a lead here then force the colts to try to actually open up their offense the entire game and chase them

what does this bill's defense do is this bill's defense elite i don't really even think the colts offense is elite but do they look really bad against the person wins no definitely not taylor's elite i think taylor's been one of the three most reliable running backs we've had the pats are in a great spot yeah where they got atlanta on thursday and granted the thursday night games are wonky every week it's hard to trust anything i i've made the smart decision not to bet any thursday game which i'm really proud of myself on but if they get through this and they go seven and four there's some pressure now on the bills in that colts game where all of a sudden they could be tied with the pats um and then they still have the two left and you know as you said with the cold weather stuff i didn't love what mcdaniel i didn't know what mcdaniel's i was texting you and a couple of people about it like i

don't know what mcdaniels is doing i don't know why he won't take the training wheels off back i think some of it had to do with he didn't trust the offensive line didn't really know the team he's been lights out the last couple weeks i gotta say he came he came out of his coma the stuff they did against the browns was just fantastic the opening drives they've had game after game i think they've scored on six or seven straight opening drives and they're kind of built for cold weather bang smash mouth stuff especially with trent brownback and i like where my team's at i really do i i think they have the most well-rounded afc team mack is the question can a rookie qb do this we've never seen at least in recent history or rookie qb light it up like this i i have to go back to you'd have to go back to russell wilson on the seahawks that year or roethlisberger with the steelers this was my case

for picking them to win the super bowl when i i think people thought i was being a lunatic but i i really did feel like the afc was wide open this year but it's going to depend on can matt come through for another two two and a half months what are you seeing from him so far well i i for a little while was very frustrated that you guys weren't utilizing your two tight ends now johnny has been hurt over the last couple of games and so that's understandable but the efficiency that you guys were getting when utilizing the two tight end sets because what belichick has always done i mean you obviously know this is he's tried to do some things different with personalities use a lot of fullback 21 personnel just do things that not as many teams are doing to make you adjust to figure out how to play them differently and i really felt like with going out and acquiring these multiple tight ends that you stick those heavier

personnel packages on the field you force the defense with their personnel to adjust before the snap even occurs with their personnel on there to match up and then you can run or pass out of it and you can motion and you can put hunter henry out split out wide you could do a lot of different things with those tight ends that make it fun for your offense and unpredictable for the defense and i really felt like they weren't doing that enough you know i still think this is a team that yeah the falcons game is going to be interesting thursday short rest for both teams um but i mean you look at their at their schedule this is a team for the patriots so far you've either played great teams or [ __ ] teams like there is only one game that's been in between and that was the chargers who ranked 16th in total efficiency otherwise you're literally talking about nothing but bottom five teams the the jets twice the

texans the dolphins the panthers and now the falcons or top ten teams clearly the bucks the cowboys the saints and the browns so the browns were the only team that you were able to win now you're going to go up in a stretch and this is where i really that's setting up for so much we're going to learn about these teams and their ability to kind of prove themselves over the next four weeks because after the falcons you've got the titans who have the best record in the nfl two games against the bills and one game against the colts that's your proving ground that's your test the last two games of the season you got the jags and the dolphins again those are like uh you know the the that's like the take-home test here's your real test that you're going to be going up against those four weeks you got a bye week in between that's another thing it's been incredible to watch what they've been doing with mac despite not having a buy

because rookie quarterbacks there's so much that they can review and i found that teams do not self scout nearly as much as they should when they've got another game on deck a lot of teams go back and like okay let's sit down let's break out the notebooks let's review all the tape what can we do from a self-scouting perspective and it's like you need to be doing more of that over the course of the season so i think that buy in week 14 is gonna set you up perfectly i like where you're at where mac jones is at right now i think he's great i don't think they're asking him to do too much could they be asking him to do a little bit more i think the answer is yes and they're going to because they're going to need to in that stretch run against some really great uh teams coming up here and i think he's gonna rise to the challenge i'm curious do you have you come around on the nelson aguilar signing do you still i i mean i think

you guys really wasted that one but i love the tight ends that you brought in and that's what i think you need to push the diversity in the personnel groupings needs to continue to increase i think we have not seen the ceiling of this patriots offense the defense is rounding into shape as it tends to do later in the season a lot of the time i think this offense we have not seen the ceiling i think they can be better from a personnel deployment from a game planning perspective mac is continuing to grow and you know from a health perspective you're just now starting to get some guys back that i think are going to help out too plus 370 to win the afc east on fanduel right now yeah i mean look you guys pretty good games against the bill yeah those are pretty good ads you've got great odds i think that should be like plus 250 but on aguilar that one hasn't worked out no i think part of it is

mack has then the time to take a big drop and chuck it down feel to him really until this last game and he tried once and cleveland had cleveland has good d-backs they had him covered and that was that but i do think as the season evolves because mack has more time i think that's going to be in play but you didn't mention kendrick bourne who was the other guy they signed who's like the perfect patriot guy they and there's so many similarities to the early 2000s pats in this team right down to how the 2001 season played out where i think the 2001 pats were one and three and this team was two and four they were both three and four at one point they both started peaking in the middle of the season and and got momentum but kendrick bourne is like a classic david patton david givens type of just like he does a lot of stuff he's a good blocker um so he's been good henry is the one that worries me because his history says it's

hard to get five straight months out of him when he's on the field he's a force and mack he's become mac's security blanket you can almost tell when mack's going to throw it to him um what i want to say i just want to see one week when they have all the weapons with the line which could be thursday i don't know if harris is going to play but radre this draft they had where they get mac they get randre and they get bar more and those might be three blue chippers you know and you think like you get one blue tripper and a draft you're happy they got three and then the draft last year with duggar and uche and they got two linemen out of it so they were able to rebuild a little bit and aguilar's really been the only miss other than jalen mills who's gonna put my dad in the hospital frankly i don't i don't want them to get harris back for this thursday and i want them to i mean you don't want this i'd be fine

with it if they lose this game i'd be fine if they barely win this game because which will probably how it plays out i want the tennessee titans to throttle the houston texans this upcoming week and then i want the patriots at home against the tennessee titans i want the patriots that's next week's game week 13. i'm sorry week 12. i want you guys to be at your full strength i want that line to be really short and i want you guys to be able to throttle the tennessee titans at that point well that's an offense that we should be able to do well against because they're running backs that that is now one of the worst running back casts in the league and it looks like they missed on julio jones which was a big move for them to try that was basically their aguilar move um i'm not sure they have the fire power but the thing with tennessee like we have these teams every year and i think baltimore was a little like this too

until last week these teams that if if they can hang around in the fourth quarter they steal the game and tennessee has been a steal the game team all season which is you know out of the belichick dna but um they're they the other team can hang around and they can still pull one out of their ass wait i have i have two more nerdy questions for you and then we'll go fourth down steph you've been one of the leaders of this movement of going for it on fourth down how great this is a thing that has really evolved since the late 2000s and has now gone to another level if you look at the fourth down stats they're kind of shockingly good like you have almost two-thirds of the teams are 50 and up on fourth down you have some teams like the chargers are 11 for 17 on fourth down denver's 10 for 15.

tennessee is 10 for 14. the jaguars are 10 for 17 but just for the most part like the vikings are eight for 11 kc seven for eleven did you ever think we'd get where fourth down was 55 60 percent across the board because that seems like where we're headed well i think the reason that it has such a high conversion rate is because most of these are these short-yarded situations where the conversion rate should be high they're not the desperation fourth and seven we're down in the fourth quarter by two scores we gotta go for it here they're the plus ev when you should be going for it on fourth down because the alternative is either punting on fourth and two from midfield or kicking a 53-yard field goal on fourth and three and and so they're these short yardage high leverage opportunities to convert and there's so much at the offenses disposal in these short yardage situations because you can run you can

pass your quarterback can run everything's open on the table for you there the key was not would we be able to convert these the key was always can we get a team to attempt these because we know the conversion rate should be good enough these are good spots to go for it that's why we're trying to get the teams to attempt them they just need to have a little bit more understanding of the expected wind percentage that is gained the higher wind probability that is gained by making the decision to attempt these plays and i think once you see that success it's like a cascading wave you know like it starts out not looking all that great but once some teams start to do it and see the results then more and more teams are kind of following them and we're seeing this cascading wave increasing the crazy thing to me bill about this season is that i went back and looked every single team now has played at least nine

games yeah and we have seen the exact same number i mean it's uncanny 3630 third down attempts in the first nine games for every team this year as last year the number is identical to the attempt 3630 we've also seen more fourth down attempts as you mentioned this is what we've tried to get teams to do more fourth downs attempted this year than last year and yet we've seen over five percent fewer first downs this season we've seen 5 590 first downs converted this year compared to 6 317 over the team's first nine games last year and there's a variety of factors that play into that but i think you know i don't know we don't have the time or desire to like dig deep into the reasons why but the bottom line here is that is part of the reason why we are seeing teams struggling with opponents teams that should be better having a game that they're not as great because we're seeing still not as many third downs being

bypassed and we're seeing teams perform a little bit worse overall on these third downs and so it's making the games more competitive more exciting and just more opportunity for flings uh swings and fluctuations in the end result particularly from an ats perspective we've seen dogs do really well this season what about home teams home teams are like under 500 just to win not even against spread right yeah and same same as same as last year which is what we some people probably didn't think was going to happen this year once you got the home crowds back because last year i think the home teams weren't nearly as good but home field advantage was declining and now a sudden you take away that crowd noise you think okay yeah of course that makes sense now in hindsight some people were able to predict it ahead of time we got on the front of the bandwagon that's why we saw more points being scored look at the totals too bill

we've seen far more unders this year than last year last year was like free money being given out if you're betting overs the first four weeks if you were ahead of what was happening and this year i've hardly bet any overs most of the stuff that i've been betting has been unders and i started back in the beginning of the season in doing that and it's not as fun for people to bet on it's not as fun for people to you tell them okay bet this team under like oh crap i hate betting unders because you're like nervous the entire time but um it is absolutely the way that the league has been trending this season i have a theory on this and i don't know if i'm right but we saw it happen in the nba where everybody gravitated to a specific way to play basketball in the nba where it's like shoot three shoot as many threes as possible find guys who shoot threes move away from big men and there was a stylistic thing that

happened and everybody kind of moved that way i wonder with football because the emphasis the last 10 years has been on throwing the ball running backs don't matter as much running back back benny find offensive lineman who can pass block you know and then on the on the flip side the defenses are watching this evolution of these past heavy offenses and then they start thinking all right how do i put my defense together to stop teams like this and they're moving more uh d-backs right you saw in the draft last year certain and horn go ahead of mac jones and justin fields and even devonta smith and michael parsons because it's so hard to find good cover people i wonder if the defenses that are being built now are being built to stop these types of offenses and at the same time these offenses are only built to do one thing so you see like a team like the rams or the bucks where the bucks should

just clearly be ramming the ball down washington's throat once chase young goes out but they're kind of built just to throw the ball and move the ball by passing same for the chargers where it seems like they could run echo down people's throats but they're always trying to like throw throw throw move the ball i wonder if that there's like this weird disconnect now where the defenses have caught up to the offenses i might be overthinking it i don't know that they've caught up um but i do think that offenses in general league wide are trending towards a more efficient style of play just like in basketball for how what's the most efficient way to score and so we figured out the way the place is on the court to shoot from it's your fault by the way it's you and your brethren you're telling all these people to throw on first down to just move all that stuff but now these teams are doing it and they're

forgetting how to establish the run unlike my cats who still run we don't we don't we don't necessarily want them to establish iran what what i still want teams to be able to do is to attack the weakness of the defense first you have to understand what the rules construct is and to game plan your build of your team to attack the weakness of what the rules are in the nfl then the second part is is to maximize that the tweaks for who you have on your roster emphasize the personnel that you actually have so you're attacking the rules construct then you're building towards what you do well then you have to build towards what the defense that you're playing on that given week struggles to do and what i feel like we've seen a lot of is defenses have been more willing to adapt their entire strategy change okay for this week we're going to change everything and do what the chiefs struggle to defend or struggle to attack

against we haven't seen quite as much offenses just throw caution to the wind and attack that weakness of the defense as that third stage in the equation of how to win games the most effectively what is the quickest path to victory is yeah you need to do what you do well in the rules construct but attack this defense where they are the absolute weakest and i think more teams are going to need to do that but in terms of league-wide trends and whatnot yeah i mean if you go back in preparation for the pot early down target depth has absolutely decreased it was 7.1 yards back in 2018. it's dropped to 6.9 6.7 and now it's 6.3 this season um first down explosive play rate has decreased as well uh third down target depth has increased more teams are throwing it beyond the sticks because they know that that's more efficient but if those plays those plays the further you throw the ball the harder it is to actually

complete those passes which then does lead to more fourth down uh uh situations and fewer first downs which we're seeing league wide we're seeing more pre-snap motion usage um which we've been begging teams to like do more play action do more pre-step motion but the teams still are trying to figure out how to make the most out of pre-snap motion i've seen a variety of teams ramping up their pre-snap motion usage but they're really seeing no efficiency that's being added they're just doing it because they know it's smart to do but they're not doing it in the ways that are going to hurt the defense or put them in a bind or help the quarterback enough to identify things with that motion so the offenses league wide in general trends are improving towards more efficiency but i do think we need better strategies on a week to week basis to attack weaknesses of defenses it's a chess match feels like the

defense is caught up a little bit this year last thing and then we'll go let's make this quick vikings are plus two and a half against green bay at home this week i know you're going to cover this on wednesday and on friday green bay has been crushing everybody this year gambling was they've just been that they've covered every week but two maybe even every week but one minnesota is interesting because if you just look at the stats it's it's pretty good if you look at stuff like they're the only team in the league that's led by a touchdown every game this year and these things like that they've gone toe-to-toe with teams they can run they can throw they have a pass rush they're kind of their own worst enemy they have some shoot ourselves in the foot losses last week they pulled one out they have cousins who i hate betting against center i'm betting on under any circumstances but yet every year there's a team like

this that the numbers say they're better than the record says and the eye test says and then sometimes that will catch up and then they'll they'll kind of start moving in the second half of the season i feel bad bringing this up because the viking fans really hate themselves for loving this team probably more than any other franchise but is there a chance the vikes make a little run here though the last two wild card spots in the nfc are wide open and they do have talent like i wouldn't be shocked that they beat the packers this weekend is they is there any reason to believe in the bikes well i mean look the stretch run for the vikings is beautiful if you look at it they do play a tough game um this week and next week against the 49ers but you've got the lions and two games against the bears plus a home oh yeah the pits a home game against the pittsburgh steelers so it sets up well that like four of your last six

opponents are pretty decent opponents to be drawing um in those spots the tough part is you are gonna have to win some of these games now like you said they've gone on a little run they beat the the ravens and they beat the chargers and i think they have to win they have to win this packers game for this to be a real thing they're home yeah i think they got it they they it just has to be a win or else like that's it the ship is sealed yeah and you have a team obviously offensively my concern with their offense in this game is simply the fact that i do not believe in their play caller and their strategies offensively i don't think they're creative enough and they've self-admitted that kubiak needs to try to do more things he comes out last week and says yeah it would be nice we need to try to get the ball more to justin jefferson as if like he's a fan just commenting on home that he needs to get the ball he's the play

caller he could do that if he wants to he's had weeks months to do that um why are you admitting that so he's always open jesse jefferson's open every time they throw him he's three yards ahead of the other guy so they have the talent and kirk cousins like yeah should he be making what he's making how does he contribute all those questions great questions probably the answer is no but he is a fine quarterback when he's put in the right situations and he can deliver the ball i like this receiving core that they have and it's not a great run game i mean they're top two receivers plus the running back most teams in the league would die to have that combination of cook plus thielen um plus jefferson they're great so they just yeah i think they need better play calling i think the chargers and the vikings have been the two most frustrating play-calling teams this year the chargers even the patriots going against them and just

just you're relieved by the choices they make during the game like oh thanks for doing thanks for doing that really appreciate it that last week thanks for never throwing the ball deep with justin herbert who has a [ __ ] rocket what are you doing it's ridiculous i gotta tell you we kind of were worried about this before the start of the season we liked the coaching change the staff changed but we had major question marks about joe lombardi and they're coming out utilizing too much of the principles from the saints which was the short passing attack when they have one of the most talented armed quarterbacks it's ridiculous right now and you see some of the passes that get tweeted out stephen ruiz tweeted one out he writes for you guys now uh with the the great pass that he feathered in and layered over the defense last week i mean it's absurd what he can do and yet they're trying to just coach him like he's a rookie like

he's he's fields or somebody that you just want to make sure doesn't make mistakes on early downs and then let's deal with whatever comes on third down make a play for us to keep the sticks moving like attack aggressively and we knew this going into the season and it's been nothing but frustration if you look at their passing charts it's just uh it's deplorable quite well how about the mike williams thing where they're like well they just you take out mike williams and then you you ruin the chiefs the chargers offense because they have no deep passing game it's like well i don't understand why can't they throw to mike williams anyway herbert can throw 60 yards down field once a quarter mike williams should just run a straight line and he should just chuck it get it past it or friends i don't know what they're doing all right sharp we can hear you uh on wednesday with the terminator ben solak we can hear you on

friday with house the worst gambler in the world who's actually having a half decent season and then on mondays too with verno uh good to talk to you as always my friend i do want to mention two things if i can bill go hey i hope you guys are listening to this gambling show not only are we giving out nuggets and and betting ideas and insights but we're breaking down the games and the strategies that the coaches are going to be using identifying mismatches and things that they can take advantage of each week and it's a lot of fun and there's three shows a week so the ringer gambling show please check that out and then over at sharp football analysis i just got to mention this bill yeah this is our free week everything is free uh football analysis.com so you want all of our articles that are usually behind a paywall you want all the betting picks there's going to be a couple of totals this week that have a tremendous track

record historically just go to shortfootballanalysis.com and there's a banner at the top and you can sign up awesome good to see you as always thanks for having me all right my buddy gus ramsey is here we've been friends for four full decades at this point one of the many things that uh bonded us in the 80s was rocky iv rocky iv has been re-released as the director's cut by 75-year-old sliced alone and i have not seen it i don't want to see it i'm afraid to see it gus of course immediately went to the theater and saw it and he's going to now try to convince me to see the director's cut and we have not talked about this there's been no planning there's no outline i just this is going to be like if he called me on the phone and tried to talk me into this all right talk me into it gus well first and foremost you're a sylvester stallone season ticket holder you have probably seen all the expendables you've probably seen all the

escape plans right so uh i was looking at this page there's probably a few movies on there that i i haven't seen that you've probably seen so let's start with just what's the reticence to see it if i have if i have a picasso if i have the best picasso painting in my living room and then somebody says hey picasso he took another crack at it he added some colors it's different he reinvented it right you know like the tail end of his life i'm still good with my original picasso that's how i feel about rocky iv all its flaws are what are part of what makes it great for me the fact that adrian just shows back up in russia and it's never really addressed they they it in 90 seconds and then they move on even a terrible wave performance by her but now in the director's cut apparently there's a scene where they actually talk it out i don't know if i wanted more illumination on the rocky adrian marriage in rocky iv because that's one

of the things i love complaining about you're taking away things i complained about what if picasso came to you and said but i can make that better he said in spanish because if you watch the documentary on youtube of stallone going through the process of the recut he sees the flaws in the film and they bother him you and i have talked for 36 years about where does the british announcer randomly come from for the fight in russia and in the documentary someone says that this alone he says i have no idea i don't know if they were looping that day and i wasn't around he claims amnesia he has no idea why that voice is in there so he takes it out um the scene where rocky and adrian are talking on the staircase in the original wait a second are you talking about the you can't win scene like the way it's originally cut as soon as she says that rocky responds stallone put more space in there so that

he can react to it without saying anything first before he looks at her and says adrian always tells the truth so it's a more hurtful moment for rocky because there's that pause of my wife just said that to me wait he figured out a way for me to like adrian less in this movie yeah potentially oh that's amazing and then in the scene after he talks to his son and tells him he's not afraid but sometimes you know it hurts so much you want to quit but the part of you that tells you not to quit that's that's a good part too and he gets up to leave and the next thing we know he's getting in the car the chauffeur is waiting for him and adrian's just standing at the window yeah well now he sees her in the hallway and she tries to convince him not to go oh and she cries and so now when we look up and see her standing at the window it's not they're mad at each other it's this is a really difficult

separation moment for the both of them i always looked at that like she's pissed at him staring at me staring out that window but with that scene in there that's not the case anymore there's an entire scene of rocky trying to convince the boxing commission to let him fight drago for the title and they're not having it basically because they don't want another death on their hands so that sounds like a good keeper yeah i mean there's stuff in there i felt 90 of the things he did actually made it better there's some stuff during the fight scene at the end that i could have did without like added fight stuff yeah and some some cutaways i will say somehow the living in america scene is even better because there are more cutaways of drago reacting to it and the dolph lundgren's comedic touches there cannot be understated like she does a great job of basically going what the [ __ ] is going on

that was really good i think there's a little more um of the press conference um but all the things you still love about it are in there i think his goal was and he says in the documentary in 1985 everything was an mtv video and even this movie so i think he tried to make it less of that and much more oh see so he feels like it was too mtv-ish as the years pass yeah but but see that's one of the reasons i love the movie because it's like a 90-minute mtv video it belongs to that era 100 and i think i texted you when i was watching it i just said as soon as it started i compartmentalized it as a different experience i didn't like the original will always be the original it's it's the original coke like i'm never gonna stray away from that although you know this isn't new coke it's just a different way to look at it and i think as a lifelong stallone person you kind of owe it to the artist to say

i'm willing to see what you see so he chose to make this instead of an mtv or artifact to try to reinvent this as more of an actual movie that didn't necessarily have to take place in 1985 correct correct and i i think it's just over the years he says he's watched it you know more than you and i have combined which is probably saying something um i don't i don't think that's true maybe not john anderson texted me the other day how many times you legitimately think you've watched it and i said probably 40 to 50 because there's got to be on average slightly over once a year 40 to 50. i would i would say 60 to 65. yeah wouldn't you say like one and a half times a year would be the average there's probably a stretch there where maybe i went a year or two without seeing it but in its entirety what about in 1987 probably good for 10 times just that year that's true yeah that's true so i think

that that juice is the averages i i wonder how much of it has to do with the creed movies and him seeing kind of the continuation of the apollo story and making him want to look back at he admits he says he wishes he hadn't killed apollo off he thought it would be more powerful if you saw apollo you know like a wheelchair or something like that someone who really suffered at the hands of drago but didn't die um and so maybe the creed movies made him look back at the apollo story in that way he also makes the apollo drago fight uh much more representation of apollo putting up a fight that fight scene lasts longer apollo actually lands punches and the throw the damn towel goes directly from duke saying it to the towel dropping on the floor whereas before there was enough of a pause in there where you felt like rocky was really thinking about it like he choked right like he choked but this is much

more in real time throw the damn towel he apollos down there's nothing he could have done about it did he add any more weight to the wheelbarrow scene or the the wheel plow scene in the in the law cabin when he said did he add cgi like five more people no i was hoping maybe the chess scene with duke and the russian would play out more he would play him you know what he did i have to i think he got rid of the part where the russian like knocked over all the pieces in disgust oh wow i think duke says checkmate and then next thing we know he's like looking upstairs to go talk to ryan i'm glad there was no more to that speech like yeah the duke speech is perfect yeah send that to the movie museum so stuff he took out he took out the robot the robot's gone the robot is completely gone um that's ridiculous that's like the most unintentionally funny part of the entire movie i think that's why he hates it

um there's a few more young lines in there i think during the press conference uh there's a longer scene actually i believe a completely new scene where apollo and rocky are talking about who should fight drago oh and and rocky basically like i don't want to not yet and apollo is like well then i should do it because we need to stand up to these people was that it's like at rocky's house and they're outside and apollo's holding a football and that was a whole new scene any bridget nielsen ads or cuts that's a weird one considering they dated yeah no i don't i don't think so um there's a little bit more of the russian head guy when he's talking about the training and all that oh that guy yeah there might have been one or two but nothing substantial you know what's it we did cobra on the rewatchables recently and i had no idea the back story where the movie was like 35 minutes longer and then top gun was coming out the week

before and stallone got freaked out that cobra was gonna get killed by top gun and like the 11th hour cut 25 to 30 minutes out of cobra so that it could play in more theaters so it could be like an hour 35 instead of two hours so they could turn around one more showing so it would make more money and that's why that movie is so incoherent and we we'd always said with cobra like it just feels like there's scenes missing yeah what's going on and then it turns out yeah third scene's missing because they hastily edited 30 minutes out i wonder if he's going to do cobra next because cobra actually feels like there's more there i i wouldn't touch rocky 4 now you're making me want to watch it i think i'm like 80 percent now i'm gonna end up getting this but cobra i'd be fired up for well i wonder if something similar happened because rocky 4 came out i want to say thanksgiving of 85.

yeah so there's probably some other powerhouse movies coming out at that time maybe chopped it maybe he felt some of that some of that was probably the studio also i mean in general you just when you watch the documentary you get the impression that he just um didn't care for a lot of decisions that other people made on behalf of the movie well the british announcer anecdote is crazy i'll tell you this hey sly if you're listening stay away from rocky 3. that movie's perfect it's one of the 10 greatest movies of all time and it needs no adding or taking away it just doesn't well sadly there's no more warner wolf i was hoping that you know warner might get a few more lines oh for rocky iv yeah no he still still just can't get over the size of the russian that's pretty much all werner has unfortunately i would like to if it's okay i would like to um paraphrase sly in an effort to get you to that last twenty percent

to watch right yeah i believe you should watch it but it doesn't matter what i believe because you're the one that's got to carry that fear around inside you afraid that it's going to ruin the original that there will be fewer gear shifts during no easy way out that the russians don't embrace rocky in the end well none of it's true but it doesn't matter if i tell you it doesn't matter because you're the one that's got to settle it get rid of it because when all the smoke is cleared and everyone is through watching it for themselves it's just going to be you and you can't live like that because it's going to bother you for the rest of your life look at what it's doing to you now because in sal thinks you should watch it so do i you're going to want to watch it for the right reasons not for the guilt over rocky 5 not for your followers not for the ringer not for the podcast or me but for you

just you just you alone that's great is it on demand yet i don't know if i'm going to a theater for this but i'll be able to rent it right yeah i watched it on apple tv oh i'm definitely getting this thing god damn why did you do this to me i was so happy with just my original rocky iv experience i did i didn't need to add to my rocky 4 experience you know what i'm wondering is three years from now does this version air on usa and all the channels that show it ad nauseum i don't think so i think the original will be the one that plays in purplitude and so you get this you try it you go all right that was interesting i got it but i don't know that this is something you go back and watch again it does tap into this you know obviously we have a podcast called the rewatchables these rewatchable movies that you see so many times then when you find out there's deleted scenes on youtube or something and it's

so fascinating to see those like oh my god there's two more minutes of this movie and usually they're disappointing for the most part but in this case it sounds like there's some real stuff that needed to be in the movie yeah but you also watch those deleted scenes out of context so when you watch this in its entirety you go oh this makes sense oh i get why he said that now oh i understand what she was feeling now so i think it's just kind of a different experience i think like i said i think it's worth watching one time but i don't know that you go back and watch it again but you know for my 60th birthday you can send me the complete dvd set and i'll probably be part of it they didn't change any of the gear shifts right just just some of that all the gear he still has 37 gear shifts yeah i think he took out a few of the very tight shots of his eyes there's a couple in there but in the documentary

he was talking about how that was just nothing but pure vanity he just wanted to see himself looking so good up nice and close well incorporates like that too there's just scenes where he just wants to wear sunglasses and have a matchstick in his mouth and not do anything did he take out the stuff when rocky isn't looking at the road as he's going 85 miles an hour and he's just looking down that's still in there's no other cars on the street he drives through that tunnel all by himself all right i'm gonna watch it i'll report back i look forward to it you want to say goodbye to noah syndergaard before we go or no uh well i i i figure if nothing else he's just gonna be closer to trevor bauer right so that's a good thing what are the mets gonna do this i guess there's gonna be no season so it doesn't matter no i think there'll be a season i just think uh we'll we'll have to wait no i think spring training actually will

start on time i think this is one of those oh you're optimistic gus yeah i think that you know december 2nd i think that gives them enough time maybe abbreviated spring training but uh yeah i think that's probably the reason why teams are taking care of some of this business now but i think it'll be a season i would have brought eduardo or rodriguez back for 14 million a year if it were me but really what do i know yeah i think 14 million a year for a starter who's i don't know above average at least statistically i'm not against that we got a draft pick out of it so i guess that's what they were thinking about they figured they could send that money somewhere else but was it five years it was five years but it was only 14 million a year yeah i don't know i i was getting seven years to me i'm always a little sketchy about giving pictures what's your max shares or that kind of money me too

forgetting about those 30 years all right thank god thanks to your broncos for losing me a bunch of money last week and appreciated that too well we're a 500 team that plays like a 500 team hey good to see you as always thanks for the report my pleasure all right that's it for the podcast it was produced by kyle creighton thanks to house and to verno and to sharp and to my buddy gus don't forget about music box 8pm hbo first of five films in a row on thursdays jagged it's about atlantis more set directed by austin clayman check it out and i will see you on this speed on thursday

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Questions about this episode

What is discussed in "The Cinderella Wizards, AFC East Intrigue, and the 'Rocky IV' Director’s Cut With Joe House, Chris V"?

In order: 0:00 John Wall, Atlantis, Fanduel Sportsbook, Ben Simmons; 10:00 John Wall, Celtics, Bradley Beal, Spencer Dinwiddie; 20:00 Ben Simmons, Joel Embiid, Celtics, Marcus Smart; 30:00 Ben Simmons, Darius Garland, Malcolm Brogdon, Damian Lillard; 40:00 Ben Simmons, Celtics, Joel Embiid, Carl Anthony Towns; 50:00 Ben Simmons, Celtics, Damian Lillard, Joel Embiid; 1:00:00 Atlanta Falcons, Kansas City Chiefs, Tennessee Titans; 1:10:00 Tennessee Titans; 1:20:00 Tennessee Titans; 1:30:00 Rocky IV, Justin Jefferson, Kirk Cousins, Sylvester Stallone; 1:40:00 Rocky IV; 1:50:00 Atlantis.

What is mentioned in this The Bill Simmons Podcast episode?

43 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Ben Simmons, Rocky IV, John Wall, Celtics, Joel Embiid, New England Patriots. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "The Cinderella Wizards, AFC East Intrigue, and the 'Rocky IV' Director’s Cut With Joe House, Chris V"?

The episode runs 1 h 54 min; the transcript is about 21,460 words in 122 timestamped sections.

More from The Bill Simmons Podcast

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.