Baltimore Blows It, Jayden Daniels Grabs It, and More From the NFL's Divisional Round With Cousin Sal

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Bills eliminating the Ravens (2:17), Texans-Chiefs, Rams-Eagles (23:38), and a potential game of the year candidate: Lions-Commanders (45:28). They then guess the lines for the conference championship games (1:05:21), and close the show with Parent Corner (1:14:20). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Kyle Crichton and Chia Hao Tat The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:02Bill Simmons?

  Coming up, the Cuz and I reacting to a pretty wild round two of the NFL, next.

• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:32Speaker 02

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• 0:43Speaker 03

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• 1:04Speaker 02

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• 1:30Speaker 03

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• 1:37Bill Simmons?

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• 2:22Bill Simmons?

  Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. We're also brought to by The Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. We did a pretty expansive mailbag. It's really fun. So stay tuned for that. You'll be able to watch it on Ringer Movies. By the way, we announced that the Bill Simmons Podcast is gonna be live in Austin, Texas on Wednesday, February 19th at the Paramount Theater. Tickets are on sale at theringer.com/events. And I'm not sure who my special guest is, but there's some really good options. So stay tuned because it's gonna be fun. If you missed my Thursday pod, I talked about some wildfire recovery stuff, some charities that I really liked. So the five that I mentioned, the Wildlife

• 3:04Bill Simmons?

  Recovery Fund, calfund.org, SoCal Fire Fund, that is eifoundation.org, LAFD Foundation Emergency Fire Fund, that is supportlafd.org, World Central Kitchen, wck.org, and then Habitat for Humanity, which is habitat.org. I donated to all of those. I talked about it on Thursday. And if you want to help out everybody out here, that's how you can do it. So my schedule's gonna be a little strange this week because I have to actually do a little unexpected traveling. So I'm not sure I'm gonna have a Tuesday night podcast, but I will have two other podcasts. So it might be a Wednesday night, Thursday night. It might be a two-part

• 3:45Bill Simmons?

  on Thursday, but it's not looking like a Tuesday podcast right now. So stay tuned. I promise I'll have two more. Plus, you get the rewatchables mailbag is coming. All right, coming up, Cousin Sal and I, we went live on YouTube, which you can watch with us on Sundays. We only have two left. We'll have next week and then post-Super Bowl. But you can go to the Bill Simmons YouTube channel and watch us, which is also where you get all the clips and videos. But the cousin and I reacting right after the Ravens blew it against Buffalo. That's next. First, our friends from Pro-Jam.

• 4:38Bill Simmons?

  These are the faces of two guys who just lost a decent amount of money. Cousin Sal is here. It is Sunday night. We just watched the Ravens barely lose to the Buffalo Bills, which I guess is going to be remembered sadly as the Mark Andrews game, right?

• 4:54Speaker 04

  That's gotta be, yeah. It was going to be, and then it maybe wasn't going to be, right? And then he solidified it. He's like, no, no, no, this is, this is all me.

• 5:03Bill Simmons?

  No, no, we're gonna name this after me. Really good tight end, had a great career. And unfortunately, big fumble, fourth quarter.

• 5:11Bill Simmons?

  Big drop, two pointer, Lamar, 3:30 left. The whole legacy drive coming, you know, like whatever, whatever happens is gonna set the discourse. And where it lands is he actually comes through, they have a touchdown drive, but then they lose anyway. So I don't know, I don't know what we do with the Lamar thing. I was thinking about it though, as we were like younger, um, when we would watch sports, we'd watch like people like Karl Malone and A-Rod and pre-2006 Peyton Manning, people like that. And it was like really fun to call people chokers and, oh, this guy chokes. Oh, and this guy, when it matters, he can't show up. And it was like this really fun pre-internet thing that we would do.

• 5:49Speaker 04

  Being at the game, you could do it. There was nothing better than putting your hands around your neck, your own neck.

• 5:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. You either came through, you didn't, you were either in this group or this group. And that's just kind of the way we talked about sports before the discourse got smarter. But now, as I get older, I feel like I'm rooting for people not to fall in that bucket. To not be the Karl Malone, Greg Norman, A-Rod, Chris Webber. And I'm watching Lamar and I'm like, after the first two turnovers, I'm like, god damn, if he loses this game, it's really hard. You're on letdown mountain now and it's really hard to get off. Weren't you thinking about that?

• 6:23Speaker 04

  I was, but I also thought the Ravens were unfairly favored in this game, right? I thought the Bills should have gone into this game when we did this last Sunday night. I was like, the Bills should be, they're a better team. They were treated like they were the seven seed, like they had just won the NFC South. Like they're getting a point and a half or whatever at home. I know it flipped from Sunday night, so I thought this is as much a problem for, you know, Josh Allen and his legacy as Lamar, but you're right, except for one thing. The discourse is not smarter. The discourse is garbage lately. It's terrible. Yeah, it's awful. People don't know how to watch games anymore, but I did feel bad for him for sure. But again, it wasn't his fault, so in a way he gets a pass, right? Except for the turnovers.

• 7:05Bill Simmons?

  I, well, he was the reason they could never get in front in the first place. He had, he sailed the pick. It said, they score on the first drive. Buffalo comes back and scores. Baltimore is the ballgame. They just look like they're in control. The running game hasn't even gotten going yet. And then he sails a pick 20 yards over somebody's head to the safety. And they come back from commercial and Romo's saying how this is Matt Milano. He forced that pressure and I'm watching, I'm like, I don't think so. I think Lamar just like gacked the play and just sailed the play. And then later that fumble he had when they're driving. And it was a bad snap, picks it up and ends up getting stripped. But that was like, you know, that was like a Mac Jones fumble. That was like a Dorian Thompson Robinson fumble.

• 7:50Bill Simmons?

  That's like, these are the shitty quarterbacks we watched during the season. They make stupid plays like that. You're not supposed to make a play like that in this game when it's like the best quarterback in the league versus the best quarterback in the league. Neither guy is Patrick Mahomes, but it was this big showdown and just two crappy plays. And it just felt like the whole game was off after that.

• 8:09Speaker 04

  Can I just, I know it's more exciting to be outraged, but can I defend him and some of the others? We saw turn the ball over today.

• 8:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was 12 degrees.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  It's fucking cold. It's fucking cold out. It is. So we're on text chains with people like, what happened to the Eagles defense down the stretch? Why did they, why they didn't look like that at all? Well, it's cold and they're exhausted. Like that's why they gave up the touchdown for the backdoor cover and almost a touchdown to go ahead. Why isn't Henry in there every play when he's running so well? Well, it's cold. So maybe they need a break. So I think we, we forget about the human element. It's cold. The ball is so shiny. It's easier to fumble. That was a great hit by Bernard on Andrews to force the fumble, but that would be my excuse for Lamar, but it doesn't really, it doesn't really help Ravens fans right now. I know.

• 8:55Bill Simmons?

  I thought they were a better team.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  You did.

• 8:58Bill Simmons?

  That's a great game. I mean, that's such a great win for Buffalo. Three turnovers to none. Buffalo, Baltimore misses both two-point conversions. Two plays that I didn't like. Right? The first one felt a little rushed. Neither one of them was just, we're going to rim the ball down your throats and score. The second one, you're rolling Lamar out. It felt like the entire defense was going. He did have Andrews open, but that's not an easy play. It's 10 degrees outside. It's freezing. He's already fumbled a play before. He's falling backwards. We've seen guys drop that. It wasn't like an absolute, you know, he should have caught it, but it wasn't a layup, but.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Also his ass was hanging out too, kinda. It really was. He was almost naked. I don't know what happened there.

• 9:37Bill Simmons?

  How many times did the Ravens punt today?

• 9:40Speaker 04

  Did they not punt? I know it either ended on a turnover or a

• 9:43Bill Simmons?

  Zero punts.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  Score. Yeah.

• 9:45Bill Simmons?

  Zero punts. Three turnovers. They missed two, two points. And, uh, and yet they, it felt like if it got to overtime, I thought they were going to win. And I thought they did a good job against Buffalo in the second half too. Like, you know, Allen had a chance to put the game away in that last drive when they're up. What was that? They were up five.

• 10:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 10:05Bill Simmons?

  And they ran that same QB draw. It was like when I played Madden against Ben. And he's just running the same play. And I'm like, by the fourth quarter, I'm like, oh, you're going to run the play where you do this and just put two guys there. He, he ran the QB draw seven times. And they finally were ready for it. They had to kick the field goal and it felt like they just left the door open a tiny bit. Plus, there was a great, I mean, it was a great weekend for weird gambling shit. Baltimore minus one and a half is lingering the whole time. The moment they missed the two point, it's like, of course they're going to win 25, 24.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  Right when they tried the two point conversion to tie it up. You're like, there's no fricking way they're going to get it. Otherwise the spread wouldn't have been one and a half. Like I wish I could live bet the two point conversion, but yeah, yeah, that was bad.

• 10:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then Jake Elliott in the, in the game before, just a random missed, missed PAT. Out of nowhere, now they're up 13 instead of 14. They're favored by six and a half. It's like, of course the Rams are going to score. This is, this is pre, preordained now. Uh, and then the KC one was the worst one.

• 11:05Speaker 04

  The absolute worst. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know where to, where to go with it. I, I, I'll say this though. I feel like the game could change no matter what. Like you could change what a catch is, you could change replay, what it can cover, what it doesn't. You could add stick them to gloves, but the one thing's a constant and especially in the playoffs. If you have more turnovers than the other team.

• 11:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:28Speaker 04

  It's, it's, it's unforgiving. It really is. I mean, Allen had what 125 yards passing. Hertz had about the same. If I would have told you in the beginning of the game, hey, the beginning of the day, those two guys are not even going to combine for 260 yards. How much money would we have put on the other sides? Like, right? I guess we would have covered, um, with the Rams, but it is unbelievable. Tried and true. You turn the ball over, especially on the road in the playoffs, you're going to lose a game.

• 11:55Bill Simmons?

  Allen, 127 yards passing. Cook, 67 yards. Allen was 10 for 20 rushing. Shakir was their best receiver at 67 yards. The next guy had 15. And they won. That Ravens finished with 416 yards. Buffalo 273. And they won. But that's the thing. It's like, I, I lost both of my, I lost the Lions because the big tease, I had the Lions with the other three favorites. I had a bet today with the Chiefs and the, uh, I had the Chiefs and the Eagles combined. I had the Eagles and Ravens. So I, I scrambled back in real life a little, but the two games that, that I had wrong with the Lions and the Ravens. I'm not even positive I had them wrong because they're just what you said.

• 12:39Bill Simmons?

  It's like turnovers. Okay. The one that we always talk about like nine out of 10 times, you can kind of have a feel for a football game. And then that 10th time is the won't game. This felt, this game felt wonky, but that's the thing. It's 12 degrees and it's in Buffalo. And that's why so many people pick Buffalo. It's like Josh Allen home. They're used to this weather. And that was it. But man, I thought I thought the Ravens were the best team in the league. I really did. I thought they were the best. And they're going home before round three.

• 13:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, Derrick Henry's great. He was the steal of free agency, but I was looking at this line. And I was like, he has just as many games under of 100 yards than he has over. They're a little bit fraudulent in the four teams they beat over the last month. The offenses they played like Pittsburgh twice. Who was it? The Browns and the, oh, the Texans on that dumb Christmas game where they scored two. So I don't know. I was like, maybe they could figure Henry out and they didn't. I know he had those big drives and it'll end up with decent numbers, but they held them to like 26 yards, I think in the first half. And that was good enough to have that lead. It was 2110. They held on to that. That was huge.

• 13:45Bill Simmons?

  And getting the ball at the top of the third quarter. Yeah, that Henry and Hill combined were 22 for 134. Lamar was six for 39, just for rushing. But they were doing most of the stuff they wanted to do on offense. The first Lamar pick was egregious. The fumble was stupid. And then the, the Andrews fumble, they were driving. It felt like, you know, it felt like they had at least, I, I should have written this down, but it felt like they had at least four, like 25 yard pass plays. Right? They had at least, I'm going to say four or five runs of 10 to 20 yards.

• 14:18Speaker 04

  A couple of big ones to Andrews.

• 14:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I'm like, holy shit. We're the Bills. We never win games like this. This is a fucking miracle. This is usually if you bring in the Buffalo Bills history, it's, you know, Andrews fumbles that two point, but then he holds on to it. OT coin flip. Baltimore wins it. They go down, they win the game. Or I guess, oh, in the playoffs, you had to come back the other way. Yeah. They win in OT. It's like, oh my God. I mean, when Tyler Bass hit that long field goal, even then I was like, oh, that's unusual for Buffalo. So maybe the vibes are, uh, maybe the vibes are shifting for them. This was your Super Bowl pick.

• 14:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, I had him with the Lions, so I feel like it's already a bust. But yeah, I mean, like I said, I think I thought they were undervalued in this game and maybe they weren't the the better team, but the Ravens took too long to get going and those turnovers absolutely killed them.

• 15:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So they had that first grade TD drive. They had the pick, they had the fumble. They had the first and goal from the two when they just for whatever reason just went backwards and ended up getting a field goal instead of a touchdown. They had that third and 12 from Buffalo 29 in the in the third quarter when they were down 11. And they just get a delay of game. Now it's third and 17. They get five. They kick a field goal instead. But it was a lot of like little Raven stuff that usually if they lose a game like this, it's the stuff that happens. It's the reason they had the five losses during this season when you could look at all five and be like, I'm not sure they should have lost that game. But that's, that's who they are. I felt like with the two tight ends, with the way they could run the ball and with the way Lamar could just kind of take

• 15:52Bill Simmons?

  off and scramble. They were, they seemed kind of unstoppable and they could just kind of never keep it going for more than five minutes.

• 15:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, you didn't see that Lamar gigantic scramble in the second half or like the fourth quarter, right? I mean, that was, that was there for them in the first half when Henry wasn't really doing it on the ground. So yeah, they just.

• 16:09Bill Simmons?

  Even like that big kick return at the end, they get it to the 35, 33, holding penalty. Now they're starting at 12.

• 16:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 16:17Bill Simmons?

  You know, but I don't know. Obviously, we've never played football at the highest possible level in 12 degree weather when it's snowing. I don't know. I don't know how to factor that in.

• 16:27Speaker 04

  I know. Like I said, it's not fun and it's not highbrow Warren Sharp type analysis saying it's too cold for these guys. But I think a lot of it is that. It made for great viewing, right? That was fun. We watched the Rams Eagles together in the snow. We've got two.

• 16:42Bill Simmons?

  All four games were excellent.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:44Bill Simmons?

  I even thought Chiefs Texans was pretty good. So the Ravens heading into this game since 2018, including the playoffs, were 0-9 when they were trailing by 10 plus points at halftime. And now they're 0-10. And the only other team that is winless during that span is the Oakland, LA Vegas Raiders, 0-26.

• 17:07Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 17:08Bill Simmons?

  So, uh, no comebacks, 10 plus. And I guess that's the Lamar era, right? 2018 on, and yet I thought they were gonna win and I felt like it was gonna happen. And especially when he made that improv play on the final drive to Wallace when he ran out, bought some time, hit him over the middle. I was like, okay, Lamar, here we go.

• 17:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, Wallace, I forgot he was on the, wow, that's the biggest catch of the game. But yeah, I think you're right. And I thought you were gonna go after Harbaugh a little there. It's like, that is, that is a little weird for coaches held in such high regard to now be double digits, losses with, uh, down 10 at the break.

• 17:43Bill Simmons?

  Their last Super Bowl win was De'Antler, Ray Lewis season, right? So that was, uh,

• 17:50Speaker 04

  Nine years ago, right?

• 17:51Bill Simmons?

  11 years ago, 10 years ago, this, the Super, the blackout, yeah. 14, 15, where I was at Grantland, you, and you were working for, doing stuff for Grantland, so.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:01Bill Simmons?

  It was 10, 11 years ago.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, House and I are doing the anniversary of, uh, House Heats 3. That's when it was, right? It was in New Orleans.

• 18:08Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean you're doing the anniversary of House Heats 3? You're gonna try to throw up on House again?

• 18:12Speaker 04

  Uh, I gotta try. It's, it's happening. It's happening this time, yeah.

• 18:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, so I don't know where Lamar ends up now, cause he's definitely not on that Karl Malone level, but he also really needs one of these games. And it felt like he was finally gonna get it. And there's this whole alternate universe where Mark Andrews just holds on to that one. And we've moved into this whole other sliding doors of more Buffalo pain, oh my God. And now we have this, this Bills Chiefs game, which we'll talk about when we do Guess the Lines, but, the Chiefs, this all somehow worked out. I feel the best for them out of anybody, right?

• 18:46Speaker 04

  Son of a bitch.

• 18:47Bill Simmons?

  There's four teams left. I feel the best about the Chiefs, the team that we kinda looked at side eyes for, side eyed for 12 weeks, wondering what the hell was going on with them. And now I like them the most.

• 18:57Speaker 04

  And we still will. What we'll spend the next six days trying to convince ourselves, all right, the Bills can win this. Yeah, the Bills are gonna win this going away, but yeah. Yeah, it's, uh, they are just too hard to beat. And I know everyone wants to take the refs and, I don't know. I don't know what to say. Like I, you know, I have a friend, Harry, you know, and he is just so ridiculous with these refs and he'll like bring a petition in front of Arrowhead Stadium because he thinks it's so fixed for the Chiefs. I was like, just shut up already. And then I watched this game. I'm like, those are some bad calls. I still don't think the Texans played well enough to win.

• 19:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 19:31Speaker 04

  I was like, my God, that's three or four bad calls and they need to do something.

• 19:36Bill Simmons?

  There are these keep a drive alive calls, which is

• 19:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:40Bill Simmons?

  like that Will Anderson allegedly hitting Mahomes in the head or whatever that play was when he didn't. Which feels like if we're going to review everything in the NBA and not nearly enough in the NFL, it feels like there's some sort of middle ground where they could look at that again and go, oh yeah, he didn't hit Mahomes.

• 19:57Speaker 04

  Listen, they review touchdowns, right? They review turnovers. A 15 yard penalty, the way the gate, these guys are kicking the ball from 55, 58 yards. It almost always puts you in field goal range. So

• 20:09Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  it is a scoring play essentially. I'll say that. And the other thing I'll say is Mahomes, like he, he's such a master of taking a late hit or maybe not a late hit. First of all, when he turns into the hash mark and takes a hit, that was, that looked like a, a Madden glitch there. So if he's getting away with that, that's terrible. But the sideline crap where he's just falling over, it's like, remember like Segal, Steven Segal, like 15 years ago, they'd show these highlights of him doing the bullshit Akito or whatever. And he's, he's barely touching people.

• 20:40Bill Simmons?

  Painted in goatee?

• 20:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. And they're doing cartwheels like they were hit by a snowplow. Like that's what Mahomes is doing on the sideline. Like they gotta, I, I think they need to call flopping too now, like they do in the NBA and soccer.

• 20:53Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe I'm about to say this, I, cause I hate it in basketball and I hate it in soccer, but I really hate it in basketball. Like when, especially during the glory days of this with Harden and Trey Young and some of these people. I just hated it. I kind of enjoy when Mahomes does it. Cause he's turned it, he's turned it into some art form that we didn't know existed. That thing that, that one play when he was running out of bounds and he had the guy behind him and he slowed down like he was trying to get a call on a three point shot. I've never seen a quarterback do that before. Like the fact that he is so locked in on the situations at all time, or that when he does the quick slides as the guy's starting to dive, hoping to get a hit to the head. He's exploited these rules that were, you know, intended to protect all quarterbacks, including him.

• 21:38Bill Simmons?

  And he's taken it and he's turned it against the defense in this really creative way. I gotta respect it.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  I guess so. I respected, like I respect the art form. There are people who like diarrhea on a canvas and be like, hey, uh, 300 grand for this. Like, I don't know. It's, it's, it's kinda shit.

• 21:56Bill Simmons?

  It's like those people that they do the, the clear magic marker on their license plate so that the, the speeding cameras can't catch it. It's like, I gotta respect it. It's pretty ingenious.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  All right.

• 22:07Bill Simmons?

  He has like five tricks like that, but um, the thing, here's the thing. And I was on multiple texts this weekend and I go nuts when people say this. And we were together with, for the first game and somebody said it when we were all together. This whole thing that he's inherited, the Tom Brady Patriots getting recalled thing.

• 22:25Speaker 04

  I know you don't like that. Yeah.

• 22:25Bill Simmons?

  This drives me crazy. This drives me crazy.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  I'm gonna keep saying it.

• 22:30Bill Simmons?

  I was there for all those Patriot games. Sure, the tuck role, which was by the way, interpreted correctly, but um, we, we are the only team where the team was, we had a deflate gate fake controversy as we were trying to win a Super Bowl. And then we won the Super Bowl and then they suspended our quarterback way later anyway. And there's still no evidence. Like everything has been debunked. We had a four game suspension. It's like, I'm positive that hasn't happened to Patrick Mahomes yet. So everybody's settled down.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  That part's right. Can both be right? That he was like babied as a quarterback on some of these late hits?

• 23:02Bill Simmons?

  He was, so was Peyton Manning. So was Aaron Rodgers. What, what star quarterback wasn't babied?

• 23:07Speaker 04

  I'm mostly with you because I don't think these teams are beating the Chiefs anyway.

• 23:10Bill Simmons?

  I will fully admit that he would get whiny and he would turn and he would yell at the rest, but Peyton Manning did too. Both of them did. Wasn't like it was just, it wasn't like Brady was the only one.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  Well, maybe Lamar Jackson should, maybe they should teach a course and Lamar Jackson should pick it up.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  And Jared Goff should pick up the same thing. I don't know.

• 23:28Bill Simmons?

  I'm in a defending Brady mode because even like his announcing, which I, which has not been great. I'll be the first one to admit. And I know we've talked about it, but he does have moments of insight during the game.

• 23:40Speaker 04

  We should hope so. Yeah.

• 23:42Bill Simmons?

  For $37 million a year, but there are moments like he caught the 12 men on the field. I've never seen an announcer catch that before.

• 23:49Speaker 04

  That was nice.

• 23:50Bill Simmons?

  He had, I thought when Goff threw that interception on the post pass, the deep one, and Brady was explaining like, it actually was the right throw, but he should have led him right to left because he threw it straight. He loved it. Cornerbacks love cutting that pass. And I was like, okay, here we go, Tom Brady.

• 24:06Speaker 04

  He threw a terrible ball. Yeah.

• 24:07Bill Simmons?

  And then it's five more minutes of him just talking about, big play, gotta get this. And you know, like, oh, goddamn it. But I blame Burkhard as much as Brady because I don't think Burkhard sets him up enough.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  Oh, I think he was helping, doing all he could in the beginning, but I don't know. It's fine. It's fine. I was like.

• 24:23Bill Simmons?

  He's no Collinsworth.

• 24:24Speaker 04

  He's no Collinsworth. Bill, how are you gonna be as good as me? There's just no way.

• 24:30Bill Simmons?

  They, they were gonna go through the back door, Mike, and now they're going through the front door. The Rams might take this, Mike.

• 24:37Speaker 04

  Mike, my balls are so frostbitten. I don't think I'm gonna feel them until March, to be honest.

• 24:42Bill Simmons?

  Mike, I, I lost consciousness five minutes ago, Mike. Uh, let's, let's take a break for the podcast.

• 24:51Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. From the first whistle to the final drive, FanDuel takes the NFL playoffs to the next level. Right now, new customers can bet $5, get 300 bucks back in bonus bets if you win. $300 in bonus bets if you win your first $5 bet. The FanDuel app gives you everything you need for live bets, same game parlays, so much more. Plus, when you win, you'll get paid instantly. On Thursday, we are going to be talking about our favorite million dollar picks. And we gotta make a comeback because we did not do well in round two, but I, I think. I think, uh, I think we're in a pretty large group for that. So round three could be a big comeback week. You visit fanduel.com/BS. Join today. Get started. $300 in bonus bets. Fanduel.com/BS. Make this playoff season unforgettable with FanDuel, an official sportsbook partner of the NFL.

• 25:36Bill Simmons?

  You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC. First online real money wager only $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets, which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets.

• 26:19Bill Simmons?

  Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. Chiefs Texans, we'll go backwards. I'd like kudos to ESPN, um, first network ever to play in the air tonight by Phil Collins before a sporting event. Nobody ever thought of it. They should try Pressure by David Bowie the next time or Queen. That would be good.

• 26:58Speaker 04

  Billy Joel's Pressure. Yeah.

• 26:59Bill Simmons?

  Or Billy Joel's Pressure. Yeah. There's songs I'm just good with now, songs that we like, that we've grown up with, that should just be banned from sports now. And it's like, I've been doing this for 10 years, but we're really at a crisis point. In the air tonight, Pressure, there's a couple, anything from pre-89, just get it out. Let's go. Let's move to music from the last 35 years. We can do it. I'm positive. Let's go. There's been a lot of good music.

• 27:25Speaker 04

  It makes me feel good. I just, uh, if I have to pretend to be bopping along to Jay-Z while the, you know, while the show highlights going into halftime.

• 27:33Bill Simmons?

  Jay-Z would be great. That's the last 35 years.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  It's fine. It's not Pressure. It's not any of the pressures.

• 27:39Bill Simmons?

  In the air tonight. I can't, I honestly cannot believe we're still playing that first 40 minutes.

• 27:43Speaker 04

  Drum solo, they just do the drum solo after every play.

• 27:46Bill Simmons?

  So that Chiefs Texans game starts with a long special teams play, followed by the Texans guy has like a meltdown, gets, throws his helmet down, shoves his coach and if the game is barely started and the Chiefs go three now and it's three nothing. And then the Texans go back and it's tied at three and it's just like, what? This is the weirdest game I've ever watched, but the Texans hung around. I don't know if they actually should have won the game, but the game was, I think closer than all of us thought. Their defense was good. Ultimately, I was never in real fear for the Chiefs. Were you?

• 28:23Speaker 04

  No, I wasn't at all. And CJ Stroud was better than I thought. Like I thought, remember his second playoff game last year, he went to Baltimore and got destroyed. And this, he was making plays with his legs. Like that's not really his game, what he was doing. And you know, he's hitting, he was hitting, you know, his receivers and I don't know. They stuck around and you know, there's like a 10 minute drive, that touchdown from Mixon. That was huge. Uh, but then like.

• 28:48Bill Simmons?

  Receivers that we'd never heard of all year. We're making, actually we're like, that's his first pass attempt. That's ever been thrown to him. It's round two.

• 28:56Speaker 04

  Yeah. So I don't even know where we are with CJ Stroud anymore, to be honest. I feel like that's just a guy you and I are going to flip flop over and over the next seven years, a dozen times. But he did an admirable job about as much as the lines makers thought, because it came down to that very half a point. But, um, I mean, shit, are the Chiefs just playing a joke? Is it like, just like a clubhouse joke? Like, hey, we had 212 total yards. Can we win with 100 total yards? Spags, map it out. What? Let's see. You got us? We're good. Okay. I just feel like it's just a challenge for them to do so little and win.

• 29:32Bill Simmons?

  I know, but it's like what we were talking about earlier with that Baltimore Buffalo game. Like, they don't beat themselves.

• 29:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 29:38Bill Simmons?

  Houston had that play. It was a fourth and 10 in the second half. And they kind of rushed it to the line. And who was the announcer? It was, uh, Aikman.

• 29:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was Aikman.

• 29:48Bill Simmons?

  He's like, I don't like this. They should call timeout. They were just going too fast, fourth and 10. I think he got sacked. It's like, it's the little things you just can't do against the Chiefs. And then the other thing is, January Kelsey, who's just a different human being than regular season Kelsey, who they put in the garage with that car tarp over him. You know, and they're just like, maybe take it out for a spin on Sundays for 10 minutes. But in the playoffs, they actually use him and uh, their offense just felt a little more.

• 30:15Speaker 04

  And yet it looks like he's attending an old timers game. He looks so slow compared to everyone else out there, right?

• 30:20Bill Simmons?

  He looks like it's a snowy field, even though it's not. It looks like he's got the snow field cleats on.

• 30:24Speaker 04

  He's so open. He's got like 20 yards around him. Aikman's good because I really feel like he's, um, I don't know. We give awards for like comeback announcer of the year and stuff.

• 30:34Bill Simmons?

  Comeback of the decade. Yeah. It's been the last, really since Romo got attention. He's, Aikman took it up a notch.

• 30:40Speaker 04

  And it's because he's angry. He'll like, oh, he and Buck do a good job going after the refs. And obviously, they, they had the perfect game to do it for this. But angry Aikman is just terrific. I mean, they, they must have, uh, I don't remember a comeback like this. I don't know what they do before the game to get him so ornery, but good job.

• 30:56Bill Simmons?

  That's the best, that was the best team this year, I think, right? That was my favorite.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, they're very good. Yeah, very good. I, um, yeah, I like, I do like Greg Olson though. I will say, I think, uh, I don't even want to say he's underrated because I think he's getting a good pop lately.

• 31:12Bill Simmons?

  Houston special teams, that was another thing. It was a three hour murder for them. That was another reason they lost that, you know, missed field goals, missed extra point. Um, kick return, all kinds of shit. They, they just weren't ready to win that game. In KC, we got a lot of Taylor Swift shots. Shout out to Tommy Alter in the background. I don't know if you saw him a couple of times.

• 31:32Speaker 04

  Oh, nice. Yeah.

• 31:34Bill Simmons?

  Kaitlyn Clark, all the greats, but.

• 31:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, when you have Taylor, Kaitlyn and the frickin' Rizler there and the refs, forget it. Game over.

• 31:42Bill Simmons?

  Rizler. Um, and then the safety.

• 31:46Bill Simmons?

  So this had one of the great gambling moments, I think of the decade.

• 31:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:51Bill Simmons?

  And this has been a cottage industry now because Instagram reels and Tik Tok. I don't know how long we've been talking about these stupid. This was beyond a bad beat. This was 14 seconds left. I still don't know what the point of the safety was. I guess to chew up. So basically he runs, or as a once runs backwards, runs around. It really feels like he's going to get like stripped or it's going to be like a touchdown in the end zone or something terrible. Then he gets out and then they punt again. So I guess it saves seven seconds. So I guess my question is, was that worth it? All the, all the things that could go wrong with your punter, running around backwards and cold weather like I, I, I'm positive. I would just rather punt it and get rid of the ball and you can have the extra seven seconds.

• 32:35Speaker 04

  Depends who you bet. So I feel like, um, nobody deserved to win this bet against the spread, right? Cause they're up, they're up, um, what were they up? They were up 11, the Chiefs. And Fairburn tries a gimme field goal misses. So now if you have the Texans, you have the Texans, you're like, that sucks. They should have lost by eight, right? But then, all right. So now the, depending on what you got at eight and a half or nine. I think the, the reason they did that is because the only thing that would have killed them is a black, a block punt.

• 33:06Speaker 04

  And that wouldn't have killed them because they still needed to score twice.

• 33:08Bill Simmons?

  How many block punts are you, if you're actually like trying not to get your punt blocked? I don't know. It felt like an overthink.

• 33:14Speaker 04

  I would do. It was a little much.

• 33:15Bill Simmons?

  So the other thing was the line was eight and a half all week. When we were doing Ringer Sunday pregame show on Saturday, it was eight and a half before you guys started the show. And then as the game got closer, jumped to nine and a half. So people got that Chiefs line somewhere around those two numbers and then it ended at nine.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  I feel like I should get an emergency alert on my phone if it goes, if it moves to nine and a half during the show.

• 33:39Bill Simmons?

  That should be a Twitter account or a, yeah.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  We've gotten so many of them lately. What, what the hell? Yeah.

• 33:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, so that was ultimately good for FanDuel?

• 33:51Speaker 04

  Um, that was bad for, that was bad for the books because you could have gotten eight and a half with the Chiefs.

• 33:56Bill Simmons?

  If you're betting Casey up, you win. And if you bet Texans nine after, I never under, I never.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, that one's kind of, yeah, that's, that, they got screwed by that point. So everybody was saying, oh, it's rigged for the books and everything. No, that's not the example you want to use. They lost both ways. But I'm trying to think in general, if they lost money, like you and I are idiots because we have the money.

• 34:15Bill Simmons?

  The Washington, they, they cleaned up. That Washington game made their playoffs.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  You think it did? Because.

• 34:22Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God, yeah. It wasn't just, it wasn't just the game. It was all the Lions bets. It was the Lions to win the NFC. It was the Lions Super Bowl bets. They were like really badly exposed with the Lions. And then on top of it, everybody and their brother, including us, had some sort of tease with the Lions, Eagles, the Chiefs, Ohio State, whatever. The Lions were in a lot of them.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  But the kids, the kids love the same game parlays and you couldn't, you couldn't miss with a same game parlay or a game that had, how many points? 76? I don't know. It's just all overs all over.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  The kids really do love the same game parlays. Does Harrison like the same game parlays? Does he open up yet?

• 34:57Speaker 04

  I think he's too young. Yes. I got scared when you said that.

• 34:59Bill Simmons?

  Six, six, six months from now. When he turns 11, maybe he can do them.

• 35:03Speaker 04

  By the spring.

• 35:04Bill Simmons?

  No, I think Washington made Fanduel a lot of money.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  All right.

• 35:09Bill Simmons?

  I think there were a lot of futures that could have been pretty bad because there was a moment and we had some Lions bets. They were somehow undervalued, even though they were clearly the best team on paper in the NFC.

• 35:22Speaker 04

  So I doubled up. They were even to win the conference before, uh, Saturday. I was like, that's ridiculous. They'll take care of the commanders and then they'll beat up whoever, um, especially if the Eagles come to town, but not meant to be.

• 35:34Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to go on the record. I, I just blanket hate the safety running around to kill time. To send it from 13 to 11 or whatever, 11 to nine. I'm just out. I don't like that play. Yeah. I don't trust safeties. I don't trust kickers. I don't trust any special teams, like guys running around and all of a sudden he like gets and all of a sudden the ball's rolling around the end zone. I just, I'm not taking the risk.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  I'm with you. And this is where we should have bet insurance, betters insurance, right? Yeah, but, uh, yeah, also, yeah. If the, if you're receiving the punt in the end zone, maybe, but don't run back a quarter of a mile.

• 36:13Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  Run out of the end zone, stupid.

• 36:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's a couple of things. Maybe I've just been watching football too much for too many weeks in a row, but I can't watch another fair catch in the five yard line. I just can't, or the fair catch in the seven. I can't watch the guy punting on the other team's 40, somehow punting it out of bounds anyway. It just seems like anyone we know should be able to just punt like a little dribbler, 25 yards that rolls out on the 10. It just doesn't seem that hard. The holding on the kickoff, I just like, I would tell everyone on my team, like that guy today on the Ravens who gets the hold, where he's just bear hugging the dude from behind.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:51Bill Simmons?

  It's just an automatic, you're waived if this, if you hold on a kickoff, you're waived. Your job, I'm taking your job.

• 36:58Speaker 04

  Most of those guys, that's all they do is they're on the kick return or the punt return team. So.

• 37:02Bill Simmons?

  Just don't hold, you have one job. Don't hold anyone. That's it. Don't hold anybody on the other team.

• 37:07Speaker 04

  With the punt return, that was like forever when we were growing up. It was like, all right, stand at the seven. If you have to take one step back, let it go over your head. That seemed to work out. I don't know why they changed that. What's the new edict?

• 37:19Bill Simmons?

  I don't get it either. Well, this was a great weekend for the Chiefs because I think they're, I think the Ravens would have been a much tougher opponent for them than the Bills. I also think they'll probably not say this publicly, but I think, I think there's a lot more animosity with Buffalo than maybe Baltimore. I think that Buffalo Chiefs thing is a real thing.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  And I just like the Chiefs. I can't wait to do guest lines for that one.

• 37:47Speaker 04

  They big brother the Bills, I think. They're like, yeah, we didn't even care that you beat us in the regular season.

• 37:52Bill Simmons?

  Come on, let's play again.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  We get it when it counts.

• 37:55Bill Simmons?

  It's very similar to the Pats Colts dynamic that didn't really totally shift until the 2006 AFC title game.

• 38:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:04Bill Simmons?

  So maybe that'll be the Bills version of that. Maybe they will be the Indy, but the problem is the games in KC. All right. Next one, we'll go Eagles Rams. We'll save the Lions game for last because that's going to be really fun to talk about.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  Be hurtful.

• 38:19Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking with Eagles Rams.

• 38:22Bill Simmons?

  This is like the perfect Eagles win for the Eagles fans that we know in our lives.

• 38:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:28Bill Simmons?

  Right? Kind of ugly. They had the game. They kind of fucked it up in the last four minutes. Siri hunting hurts, still a lot of question marks.

• 38:39Bill Simmons?

  It was a win, but it also was kind of like you escaped by the skin of your teeth. And then the only thing everyone can agree on is that Saquon Barkley is like the greatest Eagle of all time. And they all love Saquon Barkley and he had another like magical game. It was basically like an AI spitting out an Eagles win in round two of the playoffs was how I felt.

• 38:58Speaker 04

  That's excellent. And I think you're right because the most important thing for Eagles fans is that they get, they're angry at their team. And because they, they let up the last touchdown and almost another one that would have lost the game. They could still be angry at the team, but they get to watch them play another game.

• 39:12Bill Simmons?

  They get another one, but they get say, oh, I forgot Jake Elliott. That's another one. Jake Elliott missed the two extra points, but made some big field goals, but they could be mad at him. They could be mad at some of the strategy. It was perfect. Uh, Hertz.

• 39:28Bill Simmons?

  Strange one. He had the long touchdown drive. He ends up, he throws for 128 yards. Last week he threw for 131. So he's still 41 yards away from a 300 yard game. That's going to have to take them three, three games.

• 39:43Speaker 04

  Yeah. He has four playoff wins. Let me just add to that while I have it here. Four playoff wins. Career high passing in those games, 156.

• 39:51Bill Simmons?

  So weird. I don't completely trust them when I watch them. We both had the Eagles in a tease, but they were also six and a half. They somehow not cover, but I never feel a hundred percent comfortable with him. And then the AJ Brown is another one. Like he had another huge drop.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 40:09Bill Simmons?

  He ends up, he had like a touchdown and screwed it up. So they've been getting nothing out of him. I don't remember how many things Devonta Smith did in that game. Goddard seemed like he was like the most reliable receiver, but

• 40:19Speaker 04

  I felt the tight end was incredible. And every game should have been hit more, right? Except for maybe Andrews at the end, but Goddard, Ertz did an amazing job. We'll talk about that in a minute, but yeah. And then, you know, the, the big moment for me with Hertz is like, what the hell? You not getting rid of that ball. Another safety. That didn't make any sense.

• 40:36Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God. Well, and they fucked up the end of the second quarter too. That was another one. They're up three. Drive all of a sudden they're going backwards. Then they're just letting the clock run out because he took a sack. He took another bad sack for that safety.

• 40:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:48Bill Simmons?

  So I, Washington's a live dog to me. Like they're, they're the classic playing with house money, a lot of momentum. They're really good on offense. They're definitely not afraid of the Eagles. They beat them last year when they sucked.

• 41:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:01Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Beat them this year, beat them last year. I, that's gonna be a fun one. I, um, you know, all of a sudden, um, it's okay rooting for the Cowboys. We were easily in the best division in football. Like if you had to repower rank everybody, Cowboys would be like fifth or something in football, in the NFL?

• 41:20Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna say, if, if I told you in late August, two NFC East teams will be playing to make the Super Bowl in the third weekend in January.

• 41:29Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 41:30Bill Simmons?

  You'd have been so pumped.

• 41:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's not as fun.

• 41:32Bill Simmons?

  This is amazing. I can't believe we're gonna be, we're, we're one way away from the Super Bowl.

• 41:37Speaker 04

  We're playing the Giants? How did this work out? Yeah.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  It was two teams and it was like, then the other two choices were the commanders or the Giants.

• 41:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:46Bill Simmons?

  You wouldn't have ever thought, we both like the commanders. We went over on them. It was, I mean, they have 14 wins.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  I had them to make the playoffs, but I did not think they'd have 14 wins. But it, it is interesting how that became the division, right? And the NFC North was, I keep comparing it to the SCC, who has no, uh, participants in tomorrow night's game. Just, I think they were 29 and four outside of division and then just got murdered in the playoffs.

• 42:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think we did a podcast segment probably four weeks ago where we were wondering if they had the three best teams.

• 42:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, they didn't.

• 42:20Speaker 04

  They don't.

• 42:21Bill Simmons?

  Fast forward to the end of the movie. They did not. There was a, a cold weather element to this Eagles game too. With, um, with, uh, the toughness, the Rams, uh, they, Nakua had a huge drop. Kyron Williams had the fumble. Stafford had the fumble. Um, you know, and, and we live in LA. We've talked, we talk about this a lot on the pod about how, um, we're both from the East Coast. I was a guy that was always like, you, I wouldn't throw a coat on when it was 20 degrees outside unless I really had to. The windshield was bad. Lived out here for three years. Then when I go back east, I'm fucking freezing every time.

• 43:00Speaker 04

  You're blind.

• 43:01Bill Simmons?

  And I, I get it. When the Rams go to Philly, it's like, I get why Nakua probably, you know, like passed this through his hands. You're just, it's hard to get used to.

• 43:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, there was one indoor game. The other three, I would say this clearly gave one of the teams, the home team, the advantage, the weather, right? The cold weather and the slipping all over. And you just knew Barclay was gonna break one of every three or four runs. It's just crazy. I don't know if he was gonna slide short of a touchdown, which he likes to do. But that is incredible, what he put it, what he put himself through and everybody else.

• 43:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Schrager asked me during the game, he texted me, do you think, is this a good way to decide a playoff matchup? Where the weather comes in and you have a situation like that Eagles Rams game today? And to me, 100% yes.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:47Bill Simmons?

  It's such a huge part of football. I even think back to like, that Chargers Bengals game when we were kids in 1980 and that, I love that Chargers team. And then they go to Cincy and it was like minus 230 degrees and the Bengals just beat them. But it's like, that's why you play for home field advantage. Like you want, you know, you want people to come to your house. And especially if it's like a team like Miami last year playing in, um, or they Buffalo or KC, Kansas City.

• 44:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:15Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's just part of football. I love it. So you like it too, right?

• 44:19Speaker 04

  I love it too. I have some buddies that you, you know, like, you're just like, nah, this is just, we're not seeing the best of every team if they're playing with a shiny K-ball that they can't hold on to. I do like the home field advantage. Am I a hypocrite to say I don't like it in the Super Bowl? I didn't like it when Denver played Seattle and it just looked like, oh, this is gonna be a shit fest. But put, put those in a warm weather climate, but I like everything leading up.

• 44:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think that's the right take. Yeah, cuz I remember the, one of the years when we beat the Colts, I say we, talk about the Patriots, like I was on the team. There was one like super, it was the, it was the one when, uh, the fans were chanting, cut that, cut that meat at Peyton Manning cuz they had the cut that meat commercial.

• 44:59Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:00Bill Simmons?

  And it was just freezing. They scored three points and it was like a combo of, our defense plus like just how cold it was. And it was like, that's why we won. It was really, that was it. The cold weather has been a big advantage for the Pats over the years. I think Buffalo's won a couple, the Chiefs definitely, but I like it. I personally am a fan.

• 45:18Speaker 04

  I guess John Jashrimsky would have a different answer. If, it depends who you root for, right? If you're a Dolphins.

• 45:23Bill Simmons?

  Right, true. Right, yeah, if you're, or a dome, dome team.

• 45:26Speaker 04

  To me, if you're a historian and you love NFL films and you love watching that and just like, there's nothing better than, um, you know, guys grinding it out.

• 45:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, because sometimes it'll be two cold weather teams and bad weather and those are usually great, too. Like the Packers, what was that Packers Giants 08?

• 45:43Speaker 04

  Packers Giants, yeah.

• 45:44Bill Simmons?

  Freezing, it was like one degree and, you know, but at least the Giants were used to it. I didn't, did not feel like the Rams were that used to it today. Really good Rams here.

• 45:53Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 45:54Bill Simmons?

  You know, not only did they make the final eight, it felt like they were pretty close in that, uh, in that game. And it was very similar to the Baltimore thing where it's just they made some dumb turnovers. Philly had a couple dumb plays on their own end, but not as dumb as.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  We almost had a seven versus six in the NFC championship, right? Like the Rams almost had a home game. What, it would have been nuts to think a month ago, but yeah, I'm proud of that team and they, they did a nice job.

• 46:22Bill Simmons?

  Can I give a, a shout out to Jack Wilson, the producer of, uh,

• 46:26Speaker 04

  I don't think it's a good idea.

• 46:27Bill Simmons?

  Sunday pregame show?

• 46:28Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 46:29Bill Simmons?

  Text from Jack Wilson, 1230 Pacific time.

• 46:35Bill Simmons?

  This is when the Rams are looking good in the Eagles game. It's, it's like first quarter, the Rams are moving the ball. Text me, if the Rams win and House comes to LA next weekend, do we want to bring JJ out too? Since Raheem is in Vegas, that's easy because then we could all do the show in LA.

• 46:50Speaker 04

  Great.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  It wasn't even the end of the first quarter yet. So I just sent him back, jinx text.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:55Bill Simmons?

  And then Jack, Jack texts me back, shit, sorry, don't tell House. Well, House is finding out right now.

• 47:02Speaker 04

  House is all right. House is going to play either way, uh, next week. It's the Rams fans.

• 47:07Bill Simmons?

  He's good.

• 47:07Speaker 04

  You know what? Let's give Jack Wilson's phone number on here. So people could, if the Rams fans, uh, we'll give it at the end of the show.

• 47:13Bill Simmons?

  No, House is happy because he just, now that's a short ride to, uh, to Philly. I talked to House today, actually, before the Philly game. He, uh, he's, you know, obviously out of his mind, but we were talking about how crazy it would be if it was a Baltimore, Washington.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 47:31Bill Simmons?

  Like Super Bowl have two teams

• 47:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 47:34Bill Simmons?

  located closer to each other ever played in a Super Bowl. And we were like, this has to, like, it's never been a New York, New York. Jets versus like, no, that's never happened. And I, it was almost like too weird. So the gods decided, yeah, this isn't happening.

• 47:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. Wait, there is no answer, right? The answer that's.

• 47:53Bill Simmons?

  I don't think so.

• 47:54Speaker 04

  You'll have some Midwest. Wait, Tampa.

• 47:57Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it's ever. Yeah, I don't think it's ever happened.

• 48:00Speaker 04

  All right. Um, yeah, House is, uh, he's, he's not going to Philly, is he?

• 48:06Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, he's going.

• 48:07Speaker 04

  He's gonna go?

• 48:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  They have to be on their best behavior now, the Eagles fans, because they're all recorded and they're gonna lose their jobs if they, if they curse or do anything.

• 48:16Bill Simmons?

  Good. Good. I feel like they're gonna keep.

• 48:18Speaker 04

  It's all fine now.

• 48:20Bill Simmons?

  Let's take another break for the pod and then we will talk about Washington and the Lions.

• 48:28Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead, but what if you went to Cancun with Expedia? Save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. One, two, three, Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what, you're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle. Whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season, whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault,

• 49:13Bill Simmons?

  you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today.

• 49:22Bill Simmons?

  Washington Lions, game of the weekend. Possible game of the year, certainly the most dramatic. I was at, uh, I went to UFC last night. And I was just like, I'm gonna watch this game when I get home, but I was kind of checking my phone. And every time I checked my phone, the score was different. What are those games? But, uh, uh, this will be my first question for you. Is this it for the Lions? Was this their window these two years? Can they get back? Is it ever going to get better than this for them?

• 49:52Speaker 04

  Well, hold on, it's like seven questions. My God, yes.

• 49:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's all the same question.

• 49:56Speaker 04

  They'll get back yet? No. I know what you're saying. I think Campbell's good. I think their offense is excellent. I think that defense was decimated. I think after a while, you just can't. They lose three more defensive players during the game. The cornerback goes out immediately. You just can't put bodies in eventually. I don't want to take anything away from Jayden Daniels because I want to make a case for him being the best rookie postseason quarterback we've ever seen. But that said, for God's sakes, how many guys have to go down? Right? And I don't know.

• 50:26Bill Simmons?

  Counter?

• 50:27Speaker 04

  I don't, I don't know that, I don't know that that vision is so tough. After all, I don't think he's going to see Minnesota with 14 wins again. So I think they can come back. Go ahead, counter.

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't think their defense was why they lost the game.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  No.

• 50:41Bill Simmons?

  I'll just read you some plays.

• 50:43Speaker 04

  45 is a lot of points, but you don't think so?

• 50:45Bill Simmons?

  Third and one, they're up 7-3 in the Washington 25. Their passing for some reason and Goff gets strip sacked over and over again. They, remember the first month of the season when the Lions, they didn't start out well? And they were throwing the ball a ton? And we were talking about them on the pod and I was saying, I'm still in on the Lions. I just think they're, they're a running team that for some reason is trying to air it out. I think they need to flip the seesaw and become like a pound the ball running team. They went back to the old first month of the season Lions again. They threw the ball over 40 times. Gibbs touched it 20 times total. He was, every time he touched the ball, it was 10 yards. It barely seemed like he had it. So that play was terrible.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  That play, he wasn't even in on that play. It's an empty backfield on third and one. And you got Gibbs, I think at the time he was averaging 19 yards a touch. And he's not even, I don't even, I don't care.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  Keep him in the game. He should be in the game on every third and short.

• 51:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, as a decoy, but that's awful. I hate that. Yeah.

• 51:41Bill Simmons?

  You have Goff sailing the pick six. And if you freeze it, his receiver is in the middle of four guys. He's surrounded by like a gang of players. There was really, it would have had to been the all time perfect throw. He sails it, pick six, almost gets concussed. He throws that end of the pick at the end of the second quarter on the post play where the guy's open, he throws it to the wrong spot.

• 52:03Speaker 04

  Brady call, yep.

• 52:04Bill Simmons?

  And then the Jameson Williams. That that option pass with the receiver, it's the biggest series of the game. It's 38 28. You have to score. You still have the whole fourth quarter, basically. You have to get three or seven. And they they put the entire game in the hands of a receiver who never throws. And of course, he makes a dumb decision. It's not that it's like, oh, he shouldn't have thrown it. You shouldn't put him in the position to throw it. That was a classic Ben Johnson, just like, look at me. Hey, look at me. Watch these cool plays. It's like, you know what works? Fucking Jameer Gibbs. Just give him the ball. Why are you running wide receiver pass plays?

• 52:40Speaker 04

  Do you think that was a directive to Jameson Williams? Just throw it no matter what. We don't care if the kid, the guy's triple teamed or hey, you're the fastest guy on the field. Let's take it outside and unless, only if he's wide open, will you throw it? I think it's somewhere in between. But the Ben Johnson thing is interesting, right? Like, all these coordinators get jobs. Unless they're on the Super Bowl winning team, their last game is almost always terrible. Right? Like Shane Steichen, we've seen it like it just almost has to be. And you're right, he had like four or five really curious calls, but 45 points, a lot for the other team.

• 53:14Bill Simmons?

  If you give Harrison a giant package and you park across the street from FedEx, you're like, now cross the street and deliberate and I want you to, and he fucks it up. Is that your fault or Harrison's?

• 53:26Speaker 04

  Uh, my wife would probably say it was my fault. Yeah.

• 53:30Bill Simmons?

  Cause it's like, here's Jameson Williams. He's rolling out to the right and the guy's not open. He's not a quarterback. It's like, oh, my God, I can't believe he made a terrible decision and threw the ball. Yeah. But we see this happens every week in football.

• 53:42Speaker 04

  If I told Harrison, don't cross the street unless you, there's not a car visible for a quarter of a mile on your left or right. I think it's a different thing. I don't know what he said. You're right, it's dumb that they should have handed off and they should have run more. Because if they go up 14, three, that third and one play, they're up 7, 3.

• 53:58Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 53:58Speaker 04

  They go up 14 to three, that building's bananas. It's a whole different story. It was already loud and then maybe, maybe, I don't know, maybe they don't come back, Washington.

• 54:07Bill Simmons?

  Their defense had two fuckups. The the McLaren, the McLaurin, the RPO touchdown. And both guys just, it was like comical how bad the tackling was.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 54:17Bill Simmons?

  Right, so that was bad. The fourth and two inside the five, they're down three, it's 31-28 and they have 12 men on the field, inexcusable. But for the most part, like, I thought Daniels was incredible and to just say all the Lions defense, the Lions came up big a couple of times. Like, they came up, the first quarter, they were really good. Beginning of the third quarter, they stopped them on the first drive to get the ball back. Daniels, that, like, that throw he made to De'ami Brown, that 50-yard Russell Wilson moon ball, where he's covered by two guys and just catches it in stride, on fourth and two, like, some of the RPO stuff, like, nobody's stopping that.

• 54:54Speaker 04

  He was great. But, I mean, what's gonna be your bottom line here? If they give up 60, is that a bad outing? Like, 45, still a lot.

• 55:00Bill Simmons?

  I just think if they don't turn the ball over, they outscore the commanders and they win.

• 55:04Speaker 04

  Daniels was great. There's zero blitzing.

• 55:06Bill Simmons?

  Daniels was great. Didn't turn the ball over once.

• 55:07Speaker 04

  The shit out of them. And I bet them the throw interception. Like, nothing against Jayden Daniels. This is just such a tough spot and such a loud place. And if he drops back 35 times, one of them's gonna end up in a Lions defender's hands. But, he was getting blitzed. He was like, waiting, waiting, and he always had, there was always a guy open. He was so smart. And then, yeah, that 12 men on the field was disastrous.

• 55:29Bill Simmons?

  But, I mean, the fourth quarter yardage, the game is up. Once they, once it's 38-28 and Williams throws that pick, the game's over. I'll say this with Daniels. I said this to House today. And we should add the Daniels, how special he is combo. He's just, he was so good in that game. And he had a couple of highlight plays, but for the most part, he's just, he's always doing the right thing. He's always calm. He never turns the ball over. Like, if you compare him to Lamar today, you know, I think it's a real conversation, is where he ranks on, like, what playoff QBs would you trust the most? Cause, he's, what he did last week against Tampa, what he did in that Detroit game, on the road, in a dome, where it's super

• 56:11Bill Simmons?

  loud, and he didn't fuck up once for three hours? That's fucking surreal.

• 56:15Speaker 04

  You can't break him. You can't break him at all. Like, mentally, he's just on a different level altogether.

• 56:21Bill Simmons?

  He's smiling? He's just, he's like, having a great time? He's just like, ah, look at this.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  He's like, smarter than Vince Young with all the physical, you know, comparisons. And I, I'm trying to think what you do, because you can't compare him to any of the other rookie quarterbacks. Playoff performances. He's better than Flacco was. We never thought Flacco was like.

• 56:41Bill Simmons?

  No, I did this on Thursday. All the guys were pretty.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  What is it? It's Flacco, Purdy and Sanchez?

• 56:46Bill Simmons?

  Sean King.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  Sanchez?

• 56:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Sanchez.

• 56:48Speaker 04

  Well, King won a game, but only three got to the championship game, I think. I think it was Sanchez, Purdy and Flacco.

• 56:52Bill Simmons?

  Sean King did too. Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 04

  No, not the championship game. He did?

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there was five. I had it. Hold on.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Really?

• 56:58Bill Simmons?

  I had it in my.

• 56:58Speaker 04

  Oh, was it Big Ben too?

• 57:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Big Ben was the other one.

• 57:02Speaker 04

  All right.

• 57:03Bill Simmons?

  No, I think the comparison to me, I think Mahomes is the comparison. Even though Mahomes, he had like a gap year, his first year on the Chiefs. But you'd think like Daniels was in college for five years. Mahomes was in college for three and then had the gap year. So they're around the same age. And then Mahomes goes in that first full year as a starter and he's incredible and he almost beats the Pats and he almost beats Brady. I think that's, that's the level it's at. And we saw like when we were kids, like Marino as a rookie, he was awesome.

• 57:33Speaker 04

  Right.

• 57:33Bill Simmons?

  That first year and then that second year made the Super Bowl, but or didn't make it. Didn't he make the, yeah, he did make.

• 57:38Speaker 04

  No, the second one he made. That's when he had like 47, 47 touchdowns. Yeah. So.

• 57:42Bill Simmons?

  Um, but it's on that level already. And it's, it's a weird one because the Pats, I love Drake May and I'm fine with how it turned out, but we, it was a big one of, there was two months leading up to that draft last year was like, is Washington going to take Drake May or Daniels and who do we want? And every Pats fan, we're all talking about the same thing and it came down, Daniels was three years older. Well, he was in college for five years. He's going to get hurt. He's so, he's so skinny. And you know, he got hurt during the middle of the year. House, I were talking about this today. They kind of threw us off their scent because they played really well for the first like six weeks.

• 58:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 58:18Bill Simmons?

  He got hurt. And then it was pretty rocky and he was clearly hurt for four or five weeks. Then Eckor got hurt. And they didn't really start to become the team they were in the first month. I don't feel like until that Tampa game. Right? Or maybe like week 18.

• 58:33Speaker 04

  It's a weird trajectory, right? So you don't want to peek at the wrong time because it's very hard to play great football for 17 weeks, 18 weeks. So there was those weeks two to six or whatever, where he didn't throw an incomplete pass or some shit. It was really weird, right? It was just dominant. Then you're right. They got, had the rib injury and whatever. They weren't as good, but he picked up perfectly. That Atlanta game, that was only a couple of weeks ago on Sunday night. If they lose that, that's a whole different, you know, this whole shakes up differently, the seedings and everything. So, yeah.

• 59:03Bill Simmons?

  Or Tampa, second and one, they get, they have a chance to potentially go up four, second and one gets stuff, third and one, they screw up. It's the snap at the wrong time. All of a sudden they're kicking a field goal and

• 59:14Speaker 04

  And they never get the ball.

• 59:15Bill Simmons?

  You know, I'm sure Tampa's like, we should have beaten these guys. Now they're in the fucking NFC title game. This sucks. But the last piece with Daniels, I don't want to say, I really wanted to ask you, who would you rather have and have Daniels versus all of these veteran quarterbacks we have, but we need to see him win a cold weather game before we have a full feel for, you know, like this, Detroit was a dome. He's going to be going to Philly next week. It's going to be cold. The field's going to be, you know, of fucking concrete. He's going to have this big defensive line. And if like he's, if he's as good as he was in Detroit in that scenario, I don't know what the ceiling is at that point.

• 59:53Speaker 04

  No question about it. Yeah. The Eagles are praying for weather conditions like today, right? They even have the game moved to somewhere like Anchorage, Alaska or something. Cause yeah, that's the only key. That's the only thing we're missing. And their coaching staff, they did a great job. They did a great job drafting and the GM and they got the terrible owner out of there, Snyder. I feel like Dan Quinn, if you don't ruin his life with the 28-3 game, is Dan Quinn like a top two or three coach in the league?

• 1:00:22Bill Simmons?

  It's why it was a good hire, even though we all kind of were like, oh my God, Dan, really? Dan Quinn? You could add Ben Johnson, but.

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  When somebody's had real success, the first time they were a coach where you can go back and watch that Super Bowl and 13 plays in a row have to go well for the Pats, for the Falcons not to win the Super Bowl.

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe not entirely his fault. Yeah.

• 1:00:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, some of it was his fault, but, but he's clearly like a good coach. He was great for you on Dallas.

• 1:00:51Speaker 04

  He was, but that, that's another example of a guy who his last game was bad and they still hired him away, right? The Packers game was just miserable. So it's, it's funny how it works out.

• 1:01:01Bill Simmons?

  It's, I mean, I'm not ashamed to admit, I'm on some Pats threads where Washington has now become the North Star for the Pats. Where it's like, they sucked last year. They got the second pick. They had nothing. They get the franchise QB. They get a good coach. They get a good coaching staff. They make some smart signings. They have a good draft. Some of the guys that were already on the team, they coached up so that they're actually better assets than were a year ago. They had an easy schedule. All these things where it's like, why can't that be the Pats? So thank you, Washington. You've given us hope here with the.

• 1:01:35Speaker 04

  Football's great. Yeah.

• 1:01:36Bill Simmons?

  New England. Yeah. You never know.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  We don't need six new playoff teams every year, but if we get three and one of them's like, Washington has a real run at this and almost plays the Rams in the championship game. It's dynamite stuff. I'm gonna miss it.

• 1:01:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, we talk every year about the circle of teams that have a chance to win the Super Bowl. And then it comes down to these goofy plays like Mark Andrews dropping the two point, like Tampa not getting a first down when it's second and one. And for the, like, what level are you at? How can, how close can you be to winning a Super Bowl? I did not have Washington in the circle. Even heading into this Detroit game, I thought the line was too high. I never would have played Detroit nine and a half. I kind of liked some of the alternate Washington Lions, like they were plus three and a half. They're plus 190. And yet their defense seemed like it was such an overmatch in that Lions game.

• 1:02:29Bill Simmons?

  It just, I couldn't figure out how their defense was gonna stop them. And the answer was Jared Goff has to completely suck.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:37Bill Simmons?

  That was the one factor I didn't factor in. It's like, what if Jared Goff is just terrible? And he was.

• 1:02:42Speaker 04

  What if they forget that Gibbs is on the team despite the fact that he has 19 yards to carry every time?

• 1:02:47Bill Simmons?

  Right. What if they, what if they have an option pass with their receiver on their biggest drive of the game?

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  So. And then we also had the Teddy Bridgewater has come into the game moment, which was pretty exciting. Teddy Bridgewater was coaching high school and all of a sudden it seems like Goff's concussed and anyone who had the Lions in a tease is like, oh my God, I can't even ima- I can't imagine what that game was like. Like, talk about the extremes of like, if you're a Lions fan and you're like, you're in there with the Bills and the Vikings and all these tortured franchises, but you also don't really have any terrible playoff losses because you've just been terrible. You know what I mean? I have losses to point to.

• 1:03:24Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  And now you have one of the worst losses we've had this decade where you could go back and just drive yourself crazy with 20 plays.

• 1:03:32Speaker 04

  And you have people like me and you saying, is that it? Is the, the window closed on this team that won like 15 games?

• 1:03:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, think about it. They might lose both their coordinators.

• 1:03:40Speaker 04

  I know, yeah.

• 1:03:41Bill Simmons?

  They're never gonna be, you can never trust Goff in the same way again. I don't think. You know?

• 1:03:48Speaker 04

  I think they can get this far for the next couple of years. But yeah, it's, it's, this should definitely have been one they, they rolled. It's, um, they, they might've taken them lightly too.

• 1:03:59Bill Simmons?

  Well.

• 1:04:01Speaker 04

  I mean, Laporta's catch was dynamite. Like, there were so many turning points, right?

• 1:04:05Bill Simmons?

  It was.

• 1:04:05Speaker 04

  When the 76 points, like, when the 76 points scored, you could point to 30 plays. Like, oh, had this gone different. But when Laporta catches the ball and doesn't make use of one of his hands, arms, it's like, oh shit, all right, that's it. They're, they're toying with them now, but wasn't the case.

• 1:04:22Bill Simmons?

  Really tough loss. Tough loss for us. We had Lions Super Bowl bets that I somehow didn't properly hedge with Washington.

• 1:04:31Speaker 04

  You know what happened? You know, I, I think the, the gambling god said to, all right, Sal, Bill, you had a good year. You bet all these money line favorites. You got to keep your money.

• 1:04:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Speaker 04

  New year, not so fast.

• 1:04:41Bill Simmons?

  For a kicking of teeth.

• 1:04:43Speaker 04

  We're not letting you win with another big favorite. Your wager warranty has expired. Pay the fuck up.

• 1:04:48Bill Simmons?

  So if those teams play, if those teams play 10 times, how many times do, do the commanders win?

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  Um.

• 1:04:57Bill Simmons?

  Would you say three?

• 1:04:58Speaker 04

  Maybe four, though.

• 1:05:00Bill Simmons?

  Maybe four? Okay.

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  I'm still saying like, you know, the Lions.

• 1:05:05Speaker 04

  They had a ton of yards. I just, I wish they had like two defenders back, like two, just two out of the 20.

• 1:05:10Bill Simmons?

  Cause I watched the whole game this morning knowing what happened and I thought it was going to be way more one sided toward Washington. And I'm watching and I'm like, the fuck did the Lions lose this game? Every time they give the ball to Gibbs, he rushes for 12 yards. Or it's like a 15 yard screen pass. It's like, what, what happened in this game?

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  Stupid. I don't know why.

• 1:05:29Bill Simmons?

  Daniels was great. And by the way, he had, they hit those fourth downs. You feel like every fourth and two, fourth and three. That's the situation where I always feel like they're going to get it. There's other teams.

• 1:05:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:39Bill Simmons?

  Not as, not as sure.

• 1:05:40Speaker 04

  You got the kicker massaging his scalp in all different OCD directions. And you look to the sideline, you're like, yeah, he's not ready. Just, you're gonna have to take a snap here. Sorry.

• 1:05:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, his, his fingers are embedded. Jayden Daniels, we have a lot of Washington fans in our life. This is just one of the most unbelievable turnarounds I can remember. We had even when this happened to the Pats fans with Brady. We were still immersed in that whole Brady or Bledsoe. Who, who's the starter? And then we had this crazy, you know, Cinderella run to the Super Bowl, which you lost a lot of money on.

• 1:06:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:06:13Bill Simmons?

  And it even at the end, we were like, okay, Brady, I guess, like, he's good, but this Jayden Daniels thing, this is, this is. Like if, if you're just talking about the elite QBs that you feel the best about, he just has to be in the first sentence now with all these other guys. It's one of the best rookie years I can remember.

• 1:06:30Speaker 04

  And I'm with you with that. Like we went over who the others like, uh, but.

• 1:06:34Bill Simmons?

  He's on that Mahomes 2018 level of like, this guy's here now. He's gonna be here for 20 years.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  Okay, but if, if Joe House is just getting really loud and obnoxious with us, could we, could we throw the, uh, hey, remember RG3 card at him? Will we be able to do that? Like, or is this completely different? I mean, they were excited about him for over a year.

• 1:06:55Bill Simmons?

  I know, but we were there for the RG3 thing. It was really fun to watch.

• 1:06:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:59Bill Simmons?

  This is different. First of all, this guy's pulling, this guy's pulling out huge wins. He's this double threat. He's incredibly accurate. I have a lot of regrets. Like, I really wish, I know we say this after the fact, but I really wish I had had put more thought into the nobody believes in us part with Washington. Cause you could feel it in the game and especially the quotes after, like, that team's got a chip on its shoulder and I, I don't know. I felt like, looking back, a team that has a shitty defense or mediocre defense, whatever you want to call the Lions defense, favored by a big spread against a team that's clearly good offensively, that completes a lot of passes and can run the ball.

• 1:07:43Bill Simmons?

  I'm never doing that again. I'm taking the underdog the next time.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  You gotta write that down. We're not gonna remember that.

• 1:07:48Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna add that to the playoff manifesto. It's like, bad defense, team that completes 70% of its passes and doesn't turn the ball over. The other thing that happened, which I, I don't know if that's gonna get momentum this week or not, but Kingsbury, the Washington OC,

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  grew up in Texas.

• 1:08:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:08Bill Simmons?

  Like, could that be the Cowboys coach? And when you watch what he's done with Daniels and with Washington's offense, is that a better option than some of the options I've seen, which you showed me in Shaky's today?

• 1:08:20Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:08:20Bill Simmons?

  Robert Sala.

• 1:08:21Speaker 04

  Yeah. That list I showed you was the Shaky's of coaches list, by the way. It's really, yeah, it was Robert Sala. It was, I mean, Flores was in there. Kellen Moore, I really, Deion Sanders, of course, Jason Witten. I guess we're just gonna keep trying, trying Jason's until one of them works. Like, I don't frickin' know. Yeah, bring Kingsbury. And people didn't want to interview him, right? Like, the Steelers passed on him last year for defensive coordinator. Three teams didn't even want to hear from him this year. It's a little strange.

• 1:08:50Bill Simmons?

  It went awful for him in Arizona. And there's a chance it went awful because maybe, maybe there was stuff, maybe it was a weird organization, weird quarterback, but I think what-

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  Kyle's tough. Yeah, Kyle's a tough one to navigate.

• 1:09:02Bill Simmons?

  I can't really 100% hang in on, on him for that. All right. We're gonna take, we're gonna take one more break for the pod and we're gonna do guest of the Lions.

• 1:09:14Bill Simmons?

  All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows you your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by State Farm. Every football player brings something different to the field. Maybe they have a cannon arm, speed, power, maybe they have their own podcast. That being said, no two players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you. So they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. So before we do guess the lines, we were all together.

• 1:10:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  We went to Shakey's today. The original Shakey's we used to go to Shakey's Pizza, which we've joked about for years and years in this pod, was on Santa Monica in a not awesome area of Hollywood. And we used to go there and it was pretty grim. Well, that's gone. It did not survive COVID and there's a chance it could have started COVID. We're not sure. It either started in Wuhan or at Shakey's in Santa Monica. So we had to go to Shakey's on Sunset Boulevard, past the 10, past where Netflix is, a little down further, going toward, you know, the Scientology place. And we all went and it was like a really nice time.

• 1:10:49Bill Simmons?

  And they had a lot of TVs and it was pretty clean and it wasn't the Shakey's I was accustomed to.

• 1:10:55Speaker 04

  I pulled into the parking lot, there were some models, cars that were, it seemed like they were made, you know, after 1979.

• 1:11:02Bill Simmons?

  They had to be driven for more than 20 minutes.

• 1:11:05Speaker 04

  Right. And it was, it was clean, the bathroom. I clenched my fist, but it was good. And, you know, food still, whatever, but it's fine.

• 1:11:14Bill Simmons?

  We'll post, we'll post on Instagram. We took a Shakey's. Shakey's team photo.

• 1:11:19Speaker 04

  I wasn't gonna go and then John Hamm's like, you're going, right? I'm like, this is kinda weird if this guy who's in like 700 movies currently.

• 1:11:26Bill Simmons?

  And it just died in Landman. It felt like we had to go pay our respects to him.

• 1:11:30Speaker 04

  Oh, you son of a bitch. I'm behind. Why would you do that?

• 1:11:33Bill Simmons?

  It was the season finale a week ago. What? It's a spoiler?

• 1:11:37Speaker 04

  A little bit, little bit. I don't know. I mean, it's the first time I'm hearing it. All right, that's fine. I mean, he looked good today. I don't know. You're saying he died?

• 1:11:45Bill Simmons?

  Is that a spoiler? Kyle, is that, did I just spoil Landman? It came out a week ago?

• 1:11:48Speaker 04

  A week? What is this, on Sunday?

• 1:11:50Bill Simmons?

  How long do I have to wait? It was a week ago. Kyle?

• 1:11:53Speaker 04

  At least eight days, it turns out.

• 1:11:54Bill Simmons?

  I think you could call it a spoiler. Uh, I think you could, you could definitely call it. Really? Can we find out in the chat? Do people, are they in the YouTube chat? Do they? Whatever, chat?

• 1:12:04Speaker 04

  I'm with you. Like, two years is, you know, if you're telling people The Sopranos.

• 1:12:08Bill Simmons?

  I'm going on YouTube chat.

• 1:12:11Speaker 04

  What are they saying?

• 1:12:13Bill Simmons?

  Um, nothing really.

• 1:12:14Speaker 04

  Give him Jack Wilson's number. Let him find out if this is a spoiler.

• 1:12:18Bill Simmons?

  Tom says, yes, that is a spoiler. One week is not enough. Massman says massive spoiler.

• 1:12:25Bill Simmons?

  Two weeks is the window? Did we decide that? Was that one of President Biden's last, last verdicts?

• 1:12:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:31Bill Simmons?

  Before he fell into the cement?

• 1:12:33Speaker 04

  He's not gonna pardon you, I hope, uh, in his last few hours here. Yeah, two weeks is for two weeks' notice. You get two weeks' notice, right?

• 1:12:40Bill Simmons?

  God damn. I guess I spoiled. Sorry. YouTube guys agreed. My bad. My bad, everybody. I just Jared Goff, I Jared Goff the podcast.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  Did he die in Shakey's? What did, what happened? Did he eat something bad?

• 1:12:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, I was saying to Hamm, like-

• 1:12:55Speaker 04

  Mojo potatoes?

• 1:12:56Bill Simmons?

  It was, I wasn't positive he died, which means that they could always bring him back next season.

• 1:13:01Speaker 04

  All right, good.

• 1:13:03Bill Simmons?

  Hamm seemed in good spirits, though. I think he had a good time with the out.

• 1:13:05Speaker 04

  It's fun. And Brad went after you about your documentary. We don't have to go into the details.

• 1:13:09Bill Simmons?

  He did.

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  He gave you a very honest, um, opinion. Yeah.

• 1:13:15Speaker 04

  Shakey's where you go for C minus pizza and to get berated by um.

• 1:13:19Bill Simmons?

  It was great. There was a moment where it felt like an LA sports bar. There are people rooting for the Rams.

• 1:13:25Speaker 04

  It's true.

• 1:13:25Bill Simmons?

  There was a basketball game on on one side. I was like, alright, Shakey's.

• 1:13:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I walked to and from to Shakey's and uh.

• 1:13:33Speaker 04

  That's dangerous.

• 1:13:35Bill Simmons?

  Couple of interesting moments in the way. Yeah.

• 1:13:37Speaker 04

  Well, and especially since you didn't even know what kind of Shakey's you were walking into. Although I guess you knew the neighborhood, so it wasn't as.

• 1:13:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:43Speaker 04

  It wasn't scary.

• 1:13:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was watching. I did this yesterday too. I was walking, watching the game on YouTube TV. Which I, I love YouTube TV. I'm so mad I didn't have it, but I'm not just saying that because they, we've done stuff with them. I really like it.

• 1:13:56Speaker 04

  You, you heard the hack there? How, where you could turn off the 15 second delay?

• 1:14:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  That's amazing.

• 1:14:02Bill Simmons?

  How did we not know about that?

• 1:14:04Speaker 04

  I know. They should, they should let people know. I mean, that wouldn't, that wouldn't count as a spoiler. That would actually be something good for everyone.

• 1:14:10Bill Simmons?

  But I was thinking of, because eventually I'm gonna die by getting hit by a car in LA somewhere when I'm walking because I'm gonna be looking at my phone and somebody's just gonna pancake me, but. It will probably 50% chance it's during a football game that I'm watching on my phone and I'm just walking across the street and it's like, what happened to Bill? Yeah, that was it. It finally happened. He's, it's either that or me not wearing a seatbelt somewhere are gonna be the two ways I go.

• 1:14:33Speaker 04

  I can't imagine the idea of burning calories while watching a football game. I have to take, I have to take.

• 1:14:39Bill Simmons?

  It's really liberating.

• 1:14:40Speaker 04

  A bite of something every play and it.

• 1:14:43Bill Simmons?

  I gotta say, every time Collinsworth talked, I was, I, I was walking faster. I was like, Collinsworth is giving me energy. It was like a Gatorade.

• 1:14:50Speaker 04

  Interesting. What about Brady?

• 1:14:51Bill Simmons?

  He was having a great time.

• 1:14:52Speaker 04

  You wanted to dive into traffic every time?

• 1:14:54Bill Simmons?

  I didn't walk during the Brady thing. Yeah. But yeah, it was, because I didn't, because that was the uh, going to UFC yesterday, which I want to talk about after we do Guess the Lines. Guess the Lines, so.

• 1:15:06Bill Simmons?

  Let's set up the drama for Guess the Lines. You haven't beaten me since 1932, right before World War II.

• 1:15:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:15:12Bill Simmons?

  Um.

• 1:15:12Speaker 04

  For that, yeah.

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  You, uh, you are up one week.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  I'm up one week?

• 1:15:18Bill Simmons?

  I can still win. I have to win this week and I have to hit the Super Bowl and beat you both weeks, basically to win. You could clinch. You could beat me this week and I honestly don't remember the last time you've, you've won.

• 1:15:30Speaker 04

  I don't either. And it's, uh, it's gonna be liberating when I could smack you with a Subway sandwich, although I'm almost positive you're gonna guess these two. Exactly right. Look at you. You can't even hide it.

• 1:15:40Bill Simmons?

  No, I, I didn't even, I forgot to make a guess for the other one. I have the Eagles, Washington.

• 1:15:44Speaker 04

  All right. So that's your only game? That's 3 Eastern?

• 1:15:48Bill Simmons?

  3 Eastern, Fox.

• 1:15:49Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:15:50Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 1:15:51Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:15:53Bill Simmons?

  All right. So I'll just give you my thought process. It's in Philadelphia. Philadelphia was favored by six and a half against the Rams.

• 1:16:01Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:16:02Bill Simmons?

  Now they're playing Washington, a team that's done pretty well against them. I think the line has to be less than six and a half.

• 1:16:10Bill Simmons?

  And I'm gonna say Eagles by five. Vegas own.

• 1:16:16Speaker 04

  You're gonna be mad at me because it did, an hour ago was four and a half and I had guessed five and a half. And I swear on my kids, I, I liked at least two of them. It's five and a half.

• 1:16:29Bill Simmons?

  It's five and a half right now?

• 1:16:30Speaker 04

  It's five and a half right now.

• 1:16:32Bill Simmons?

  God damn it.

• 1:16:33Speaker 04

  So I get that. So you have to get this one.

• 1:16:36Bill Simmons?

  To push. So now you've basically clinched at least a tie for the season.

• 1:16:41Speaker 04

  Yeah. And what's tiebreaker? I think I have better common opponents, so I think I'm gonna win anyway.

• 1:16:45Bill Simmons?

  Better schedule.

• 1:16:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:47Bill Simmons?

  A sadder last 10 years.

• 1:16:49Speaker 04

  I'll tell you this. I was off by a full point here. Uh, no, I was off by a half a point, but I, but you could get this.

• 1:16:58Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Kansas City hosting the Buffalo Bills.

• 1:17:01Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 1:17:04Bill Simmons?

  I thought about putting this in the Tic Tac Zone and I'm not going to. I'm going to say Chiefs by two and a half.

• 1:17:09Speaker 04

  Oh, yes. Champion, baby.

• 1:17:14Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:17:14Speaker 04

  I said two, it's one and a half. You should have put that motherfucker in the Tic Tac Zone.

• 1:17:19Bill Simmons?

  Is it two and a half right now? Now I'm looking. Hold on.

• 1:17:22Speaker 04

  It's one and a half.

• 1:17:23Bill Simmons?

  Trust you. I don't trust you. I'm looking right now in FanDuel.

• 1:17:25Speaker 04

  Go ahead.

• 1:17:26Bill Simmons?

  America's number one sportsbook.

• 1:17:29Speaker 04

  Spoiler alert, I win.

• 1:17:31Bill Simmons?

  One and a half.

• 1:17:32Speaker 04

  Oh, this is nice. I feel good. My heart's like pumping a little bit for the first time all day. Wow.

• 1:17:38Bill Simmons?

  So Washington to 11 and a half, Chiefs to plus four and a half?

• 1:17:43Speaker 04

  Uh, be careful. Yeah?

• 1:17:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm just, just spitballing.

• 1:17:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's probably right. Why do we have to tease it? We can pick two winners.

• 1:17:56Speaker 04

  Put Ohio State on there.

• 1:17:57Bill Simmons?

  But I felt that way about the Ravens and turned out it wasn't a winner. It was a big L loser. Well, congratulations.

• 1:18:05Speaker 04

  Thanks, buddy. That's great.

• 1:18:06Bill Simmons?

  Nobody's happier for you than Dave Jacoby.

• 1:18:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, we did it, Jacobs. Listen, I'll, I'll trade, um, knowing the ending of Landman for, uh, for my first title in, uh, three decades.

• 1:18:17Bill Simmons?

  So spoiler alert is two weeks.

• 1:18:20Speaker 04

  I would think so. I think that's a fair place to start.

• 1:18:24Bill Simmons?

  Is this President Trump has weighed in on this? Our new president started tomorrow. Can he, can that be one of his first rulings? Is the spoiler alert ruling?

• 1:18:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. Uh, yeah, it is funny with this stuff with, um, like, uh, you and I trying to figure out Lamar Jackson over props and some 15 year old makes like $35 million overnight buying a fricking coin.

• 1:18:47Bill Simmons?

  The Hawk to a, Hawk to a, to disappear after a crypto thing?

• 1:18:51Speaker 04

  I got my wife the Hawk to a coin for Christmas. I haven't checked on it. I imagine it's doing.

• 1:18:56Bill Simmons?

  It's not, it's not doing well.

• 1:18:57Speaker 04

  What? It's not?

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  It's going badly.

• 1:18:59Speaker 04

  Another spoiler out of Bill. Thanks.

• 1:19:00Bill Simmons?

  Nah, it's, it's in bad shape. This edition of Parent Corner is brought to you by Hookah and Bandai 9, their new daily trainer. So you go first and then I'll go.

• 1:19:11Speaker 04

  All right. So my 11 year old Harrison, we've, we've talked about him a couple of times already. So he and his class have what's called puberty night, where all the fifth grade boys go through puberty in the same. No, where they get together and.

• 1:19:26Bill Simmons?

  I was scared for a second.

• 1:19:28Speaker 04

  I know. That's something like that. No, they, but some instructor comes in every Friday for six weeks and talks to them about, you know, lectures them about like the, the body and the biological growth and the birds and the bees and everything like that. And it rotates at different houses and it's going to be at our house next week. I think it's next week is our, our Friday and I'm not invited to any of these. Like last Friday or the Friday before there was football, it was college football. So I, I wasn't there and last Friday it was off. But I'm not invited. My wife has prohibited me from going because she thinks I'm going to make a mockery out of it. She's like, no, you're too immature. I was like, well, what are you talking about? She's like, well, you know, like some.

• 1:20:09Bill Simmons?

  What are you talking about? Here's 178 examples.

• 1:20:13Speaker 04

  She's, well, I had to know. She's like, well, some of the fathers, I'm like, the father, the fathers are there. It's like, yeah, they'll stand up and talk about like, you know, the first time they had a boner in class or something like. What? That seems fine. I could do something like that. They're like.

• 1:20:26Bill Simmons?

  Next time Jimmy come alive.

• 1:20:27Speaker 04

  I'm like, you're going to go over the top. You're going to be too over the top. You're going to embarrass him in front of his friends and that's going to be that. It's not good. So I don't know. Of course she's right. Of course they're right, but I want to see this because I want, when it's at our house, I want to make hot dogs. I want some hot dogs. I think that'll be appropriate, but I think like, um, I don't know. Am I too immature for this?

• 1:20:51Bill Simmons?

  Yes. I watched you, Jimmy's wedding, you tried to shove Dixon into the wedding cake and knock over a $25,000 wedding cake.

• 1:20:59Speaker 04

  Oh, that was one of the more mature things I ever did. No, that wasn't good.

• 1:21:04Speaker 04

  I think I should do this.

• 1:21:05Bill Simmons?

  Have we, we've told that story before. I don't think P like Dixon, if he, he was almost like, he was like, no, you tried. It was like,

• 1:21:14Speaker 04

  It was like a Jedi mind trick.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  He was Jayden Daniels on the RPO, like just reading the defense. He saw you out of the corner of his eye and he jumped to, he jumped out of the way and I don't know.

• 1:21:24Speaker 04

  If it was Mahomes, the referees would have called it me for.

• 1:21:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he would have flapped right into the cake.

• 1:21:28Speaker 04

  Even though I didn't talk. Yeah. He knew the cake was coming. No, but like Harrison, like he asked my wife, he said, like, she, after all this, he asked her, when was your first wet dream? Like the kid's obviously confused. And she's like, no, she answered, it was 1996, which is bad news for me. No. So anyway, these kids have a lot of questions. I don't know if I could help out, but I'm not allowed.

• 1:21:50Bill Simmons?

  Wait, how old is Harrison now?

• 1:21:52Speaker 04

  He just turned 11.

• 1:21:54Bill Simmons?

  Feels early. What's going on in Manhattan Beach?

• 1:21:57Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't know. Is that early? Yeah.

• 1:22:00Bill Simmons?

  Oh, just, I remember I was reading a Judy Blume book when I was a kid. Remember Judy Blume?

• 1:22:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure.

• 1:22:08Bill Simmons?

  And there was a wet dream reference in the book and my dad was driving and I was reading the book and the pastor's sitting, I was like, dad, what's a wet dream? Like I didn't know. And he was like,

• 1:22:18Bill Simmons?

  it's like steering a good traffic.

• 1:22:20Speaker 04

  I think that's what A.J. Brown was reading on the sideline, didn't it?

• 1:22:24Bill Simmons?

  Inter excellence.

• 1:22:25Speaker 04

  How did you find out? I mean, to friends and everything else, but was there like, I do remember going to like a parent night. I think it was fifth grade, like a where somebody set.

• 1:22:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember, I just don't remember school talking about this.

• 1:22:37Speaker 04

  Just health class? Not until?

• 1:22:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:39Speaker 04

  Middle school?

• 1:22:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I remember like eighth grade was when, uh, when that dialogue started. So anyway, you're banned from this parent night?

• 1:22:47Speaker 04

  So far. I don't know what I have to do to prove myself, but.

• 1:22:50Bill Simmons?

  What do people on the chat? This YouTube chat's kind of fun. Uh, yeah, that apparent, somebody said it's called embarrassing the children 101.

• 1:23:02Bill Simmons?

  Uh, my parent corner, I took, I took Ben to UFC last night. And um, it was at the Intuit Dome. Where the Clippers play, which is my favorite arena. I, I sound like I'm a show. Oh, I've loved it the whole time. No, I'm in. Oh, I'm in. I, I love it. Um, and uh, running a Corolla. And Corolla's all excited. And I'm with Ben and see Corolla and Corolla's like, I got a special guest. It is a special guest. You're gonna be surprised. I'm like, is it Joe Biden? He's like, not as high as Joe Biden, but high, almost as high. I'm like, alright. And it was Kevin Costner.

• 1:23:42Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:23:43Bill Simmons?

  So, we're in this row and Corolla's sitting between Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson. And then a couple of seats down is Anthony Kiedis, the Red Hot Chili Peppers lead singer. And sitting next to him is my son Ben. Cause we were in this row of seats. And he's just like talking to the Red Hot Chili Peppers guy, watching UFC. And it's like the greatest, greatest night of his life. Like, cause he's been waiting for this UFC card forever. And I was like, this is pretty cool. Like, I'm glad, um, you know, we, we spend a lot of time together, obviously, but I was like, I'm glad we could do this. And he's really pumped. It's nice to, so just when I think it had, we've peaked. Pereira's there.

• 1:24:26Bill Simmons?

  Like our favorite guy. He's sitting over to the left. So now he's like staring him down and he's like, how do we get the picture? How do we, like, we're just trying to figure out the prayer picture, but he's sitting and there's like a bear in front of him. There's people. And now I'm like, what happens if we go over? Do we do like get Ben in the selfie? Like, like, how do we do it? And also the guy doesn't speak English. There's no way he knows who I am, like, and ended up bailing on it and not being able to do it. But like, for the last two hours, just trying to figure out. Can we get the prayer picture? Like this sort of that. So then we found out after that Frank Ocean was there. Who is like one of Ben's favorite artists who never leaves his house. He's like that, like a recluse. And it was like, he was there too. So Ben's like,

• 1:25:10Bill Simmons?

  see, he see, maybe it's not true, cause he saw it on like frigging Snapchat or wherever. So we're leaving after and we're in the bottom where all the cars are. And uh, and O'Malley's coming out and he's dressed like a crazy person in a good way. Ben's like, we, this is it. We gotta get, and so we get, we get the, uh, we got the O'Malley picture. So it was, it was a level B. It was great. It was one of the best pictures he's gotten. But we didn't get Pereira. How should we have attacked the Pereira picture, in your opinion?

• 1:25:42Speaker 04

  Well, how far away was he?

• 1:25:44Bill Simmons?

  He was, like, we were, we were on one thing. So he was like, probably ninety, we were sitting at six o'clock. He was at nine o'clock, basically.

• 1:25:53Speaker 04

  I think you just gotta ambush him. I hate to say, you gotta just be that fanboy.

• 1:25:57Bill Simmons?

  He had a huge guy next to him, like huge scary guy next to him. And he was really into it, cause Hill and, Hill and Yuri were fighting. So he was like locked in, like a motherfucker for that fight. Like, cause he's beaten both of those guys.

• 1:26:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. Maybe you corralled Mel Gibson to put him in some kind of chokehold, like Lethal Weapon 2 or something, the, the bodyguard and then snap the picture real quick.

• 1:26:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, then he came over to take a picture with Mel. So that was another thing. So he was like fifteen feet away, but there was like ten, so we just couldn't pull it off. But that was the most, that was the single most exciting celebrity that I've seen Ben from an excitement standpoint.

• 1:26:32Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:26:32Bill Simmons?

  That we've been in the same room with. And we've, you know, we went to a lot of cool wrestling events. You were with us for a couple of months.

• 1:26:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, he had a Bella girl twerking about, you know.

• 1:26:40Bill Simmons?

  We had Nikki Bella twerking.

• 1:26:41Speaker 04

  Eight feet from him.

• 1:26:42Bill Simmons?

  Two feet from us.

• 1:26:43Speaker 04

  Where does this, so one to 10, what's wrestling, what's, what's UFC for him? Live?

• 1:26:49Bill Simmons?

  UFC's a 10 right now. Wrestling was a 10 when he was like, from age six to age 10. And now it's like a five. UFC is like a full, complete 10. But the funny thing with Pereira, cause part of it was, you know, if it's like an actor, right? If it was like whoever, you'd be like, all right, we go over, like, you know, they'll, they'll do it. But Pereira is just as intimidating when you're just watching him just exist.

• 1:27:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Bill Simmons?

  As he is, when he's in the ring. Like, he, he was just motionless staring at the two guys. Like, and he doesn't move. It's like watching Michael Myers. So it's not like the number one guy. You just wanna be like, hey buddy, can I get a picture? Cause it looks like he's just about to kill somebody at all times. I was riveted by him.

• 1:27:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, like Nick Diaz has that look too, Nate Diaz, but he's also a little more approachable to, right? I know what you're saying. Pereira's locked in.

• 1:27:42Bill Simmons?

  The two best fights were Yuri and Hill. That was just a savage. Light heavyweight is such a great. Weight class. The guys just beat the shit out of each other. Every punch or kick seems like it could end it. And then Marab came out and just from the moment he came out, he stole the show. He had the crowd. And the crowd was, was for at least a couple of the matches incredibly loud. And really into it. They were in with Marab like, like he had, they were just like living and dying with every time he did it. It was great. I had a great time.

• 1:28:14Speaker 04

  I'm glad the crowd was good.

• 1:28:16Bill Simmons?

  Main event suck. That wasn't their fault.

• 1:28:18Speaker 04

  Well, they had to move it around. Yeah, that's, that was great. I mean, that was supposed to be, he was supposed to be minus 450. Did anyone there, including you, after the Lions lost, put Talbot on a big money line parlay?

• 1:28:31Bill Simmons?

  It was like you?

• 1:28:31Speaker 04

  Minus 1100. Oh, yeah. And he lost.

• 1:28:34Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you did that?

• 1:28:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, yes, yes, yes. He lost. That was, he got killed, but anyway. No, but that's great. That's fun. And Adam, and he's a member of QAnon now, Ben?

• 1:28:49Bill Simmons?

  Adam, he came over a few times and he was progressively less sober each time and having, having a great time. One of the funny things about UFC is after the fight, a guy loses. You know, in the crowd, they'll, they'll cheer one guy or the other guy. But then they lose and they'll, sometimes they'll interview the loser and the crowd are still like booing the guy. It's bad enough. The guy just lost. Like he's like reevaluating his career and it's like, yeah, let's bring him in. And they're fucking booing him.

• 1:29:16Speaker 04

  Everyone becomes an Eagles fan all of a sudden. Yeah.

• 1:29:18Bill Simmons?

  It's really, it's UFC is great. It's like one of the best in-person things. The crowd's hilarious. Everything about it's really good.

• 1:29:26Speaker 04

  I'm glad it worked there and I'm glad they kept it there. I know they were talking about switching it because of what's happened in LA.

• 1:29:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:31Speaker 04

  I'm glad they showed that it could work and I'm glad it was a good, it sounds a lot better than puberty night. That's for sure.

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  They properly did the whole. You know, they paid tribute and all that stuff. All right. The Bondi 9 delivers peak plushness for everyday miles, overhauled from top to bottom. They've increased the stack height and added a new premium foam midsole to deliver that soft Brazilian ride that's become synonymous with the Bondi. Everybody Bondi. Visit H O K A dot com to learn more about the Bondi 9.

• 1:30:02Speaker 04

  Well, you're gonna have to say peak plushness again. That that came out like Collinsworth doing, uh, doing the pass rush.

• 1:30:08Bill Simmons?

  Multiple people texted me today that

• 1:30:09Speaker 04

  I got it too.

• 1:30:10Bill Simmons?

  He slowed down on pass rush.

• 1:30:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, he really

• 1:30:13Bill Simmons?

  Kind of paused between the two words. Yeah. So you think somebody talked to him?

• 1:30:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, but then he was right back to pronouncing it incorrectly. So it's, uh, there is good in the world.

• 1:30:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's it for the podcast.

• 1:30:26Speaker 04

  That's it, man.

• 1:30:27Bill Simmons?

  That's it. Next time I talk to you. Yeah. Guess the lines. I, we're just gonna play it out of pride, I guess.

• 1:30:33Speaker 04

  We'll still do it. It'll be like the Pro Bowl, whatever. Yeah, it's fun. Hey, you tried, kid. You really did. I'm gonna go on a

• 1:30:39Bill Simmons?

  What a win for you.

• 1:30:41Speaker 04

  Very excited. I don't have to sweat out the Super Bowl.

• 1:30:44Bill Simmons?

  It's funny you're wearing the Mets hat. Yeah, you don't have to sweat out the Super Bowl, the Cowboys, and neither of us have to sweat out baseball because the Dodgers are just, I guess, gonna win the next, next five World Series.

• 1:30:54Speaker 04

  Trying to figure it out. And like, like we used to like the Dodds, you know, we talked about the Yankees of the, you know, the, whatever, the Jeter team and everything.

• 1:31:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the 90s, early 2000s, the Giambi, Kevin Brown and Randy Johnson.

• 1:31:09Speaker 04

  Hated it, but the, you know, Pettit, all those guys, mostly, and Jeter came through the farm system and like you respected that. And now you just sign any free agent and you're, uh, you're like, all right, yep, tax us, whatever it is, we'll bring it back because Japanese players, Japan will take care of us.

• 1:31:27Bill Simmons?

  We're just printing money over in Japan.

• 1:31:28Speaker 04

  They're gonna spend money. Yeah. So we're trying to figure out what the equivalent of that is, like with Dubai. Like if the Red Sox sign like three players from Dubai.

• 1:31:37Bill Simmons?

  Right, like a lefty reliever from Dubai who becomes the most popular person in Dubai.

• 1:31:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, who cares if they're any good? You got all Dubai watching and spending money on them.

• 1:31:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, the other thing we thought of was how the Seattle Mariners really missed this because they had Ichiro. They were

• 1:31:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:31:53Bill Simmons?

  way ahead of the game. They knew how much this stuff's worth and they, they should have just been like, we're the, we're the Japanese American team. That like everyone in that country will root for the Mariners. They will associate their best guys with us and will just overpay for every guy. And instead they just gave that to the Dodgers.

• 1:32:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're right. And that's a good spot for, you know, yeah, Asian Americans like flourish there. That would have been a good spot. Yeah, they lost their basketball team, but that might've been the second worst decision, not capitalizing on that.

• 1:32:23Bill Simmons?

  They had it. Ichiro was huge. Anyway, so we're not going to have to care about baseball. I'm on the fence. I might drop out of League of Dorks.

• 1:32:31Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:32:31Bill Simmons?

  Actually, I've been talking about it. Yeah, it's just, it's too hard. It's just too old.

• 1:32:36Speaker 04

  What do you mean? What? Do you have to change your lineup multiple times a week?

• 1:32:40Bill Simmons?

  No, it's just that we haven't won in a few years. It makes me feel bad about myself. I really want to reevaluate some of my fantasy league stuff. I've been too many fantasy football leagues.

• 1:32:52Speaker 04

  You love the Guillotine though, right? The Guillotine's good.

• 1:32:55Bill Simmons?

  Guillotine is good. Guillotine was good. I think we have to figure out our version of that, but have you gotten sad about no football yet?

• 1:33:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm starting to get like, you know, no, no three team teasers anymore, right? Unless you use Ohio State or something.

• 1:33:09Bill Simmons?

  Like the unders.

• 1:33:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, that, that's another like milestone part of my year where it gets, it gets very sad, but what are you going to do?

• 1:33:18Bill Simmons?

  The Masters.

• 1:33:19Speaker 04

  I, I was thinking about it. Yeah, we are going.

• 1:33:21Bill Simmons?

  If FanDuel comes through, we're going to the Masters.

• 1:33:24Speaker 04

  That's a challenge. I think they will. I think they're going to come through.

• 1:33:27Bill Simmons?

  They will. Well, the thing we're, we're having, we have a very special guest coming with us this year potentially.

• 1:33:33Speaker 04

  Is it Kevin Costner?

• 1:33:34Bill Simmons?

  No, it's going to be James Baby Doll Dixon.

• 1:33:37Speaker 04

  I love it. Now you said he wasn't as excited as when he got the invitation as you thought he should be?

• 1:33:42Bill Simmons?

  It's a weird one. He always clears it with the wife.

• 1:33:46Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:33:47Bill Simmons?

  He won't just say yes, he'll say it's a, it's a, it's a hesitant yes. I will let you know for sure tonight. Because he's, he's, and he's very happily married. I think this is one of the reasons. He never makes decisions where I'm going away for a week without making it a collaborative effort. It's something to aspire to, or you could just call him a giant wuss. Like, I don't know which side you want to be on on that, but.

• 1:34:12Speaker 04

  I think the reason he does it more than anything is because he knows you and I can maybe talk about it on the podcast and then he can maybe play it backdoor. Like, you see sweetheart? You see what I did? It's all for you.

• 1:34:25Speaker 04

  It's gonna be fun. I'm gonna push him into a cake if I see one. I can't wait.

• 1:34:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's watching him in the Masters on Augusta without a cellphone is is gonna single handedly bring me out of the funk of that. We started out here in January where it just seems like this is gonna be the worst year ever. But it's like now, now it's like giving me hope and strength. Just because you have to give your cellphone to the at the at the at the front. But I know he's gonna bring like three cellphones. He'll have one like in his shoe. He'll have like almost like when people in prison movies put like a shank in their shoe. He'll have like a iPhone in his shoe somehow. There's no way he's not gonna have a phone for eight hours.

• 1:35:06Speaker 04

  That's where I'll pounce. I'll blow the whistle on him right there. I'm like, hey, he's got it. He's got his phone in his shoe.

• 1:35:11Bill Simmons?

  Check him one more time.

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, you gotta check. Keep checking him. Yeah, he does do that because we've been to like movie premieres and so not movie premieres or like concerts or something where you have to check your phone in that pouch. And he always well, you go through it and everything. And then like 20 minutes later, he's like, baby, I'm not gonna let them fucking take that. You fucking kidding? I'm like, what are you talking about? You were in the same line as me. How did you just pull that off? So?

• 1:35:33Bill Simmons?

  So what would he? So if he does check the phone, but he'll have a pack of cigarettes?

• 1:35:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was my next question for you.

• 1:35:40Bill Simmons?

  One pack or two? He'll just have one, right?

• 1:35:42Speaker 04

  They let you do that? You could blow smoke as Scotty Scheffler's doing his back.

• 1:35:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, outdoors.

• 1:35:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, nephew Kyle, he smoked. He smoked in the Masters. Yeah, he was very excitedly. He loved it.

• 1:35:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, because you're not holding a phone. I might start smoking too.

• 1:35:59Bill Simmons?

  There's so many great possible variables. It's really giving me uh giving me strength. Like like him, him, him getting super golf analysty as we watch guys on the sixth hole and him repeatedly telling us how hard the shot is and doing all that stuff. It's gonna be great.

• 1:36:19Bill Simmons?

  You shoving him into the gallery.

• 1:36:21Speaker 04

  It's gonna be good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:36:23Bill Simmons?

  He's got this nine.

• 1:36:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, look at Rory's using that nine iron. Now he could probably make I have my nine irons better. It's a higher quality. He might be able to use his, you know, more skillfully, but mine's better. Mine's, you know, mine's made in Prague.

• 1:36:40Speaker 04

  We're gonna have fun. It'll be good.

• 1:36:42Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait.

• 1:36:42Speaker 04

  He might leave early. He might actually leave early.

• 1:36:45Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean?

• 1:36:46Speaker 04

  Leave early to do what? I might drive him so crazy that he's just like on a plane like it foregoes the last couple of days.

• 1:36:52Bill Simmons?

  When was the last time you were in a house with him?

• 1:36:55Speaker 04

  It was one of the bachelor parties. Might have even been Jimmy's.

• 1:36:58Bill Simmons?

  Like a what? That's what we're talking like 10, 12 years ago.

• 1:37:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:37:03Bill Simmons?

  So he's gonna have to demand he stays in a house that has a lock on the bedroom door that he's in.

• 1:37:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:37:09Bill Simmons?

  Cause otherwise horrible things are gonna probably happen to him.

• 1:37:12Speaker 04

  I have a fun video where I threw water on him when he was taking a nap. Remember that one? It was like at a bachelor party and I'm like, baby, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. He's like, what the fuck you mean? You're kidding. I'm soaking wet.

• 1:37:25Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man. All right. Cause congrats on the guest alliance title this year.

• 1:37:29Speaker 04

  Thank you, buddy.

• 1:37:30Bill Simmons?

  Good job by you.

• 1:37:31Speaker 04

  Come by next year. You'll be right there with me. Good job by you, bud.

• 1:37:36Bill Simmons?

  That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle and Saru Dinkah for producing. Remember you can watch all the stuff we do on this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And we'll also be, I think, starting in February officially, we'll be a video podcast on Spotify. So only a couple of weeks left until that happens. New rewatchables, rewatchables mailbag going Monday night. So stay tuned for that. That will also be on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. And as for the schedule for this podcast,

• 1:38:06Bill Simmons?

  probably not a podcast on Tuesday night, but definitely two more podcasts over the course of the, of the week. So that's the schedule. You will hear from me at some point midweek. Stay safe.

• 1:38:44Bill Simmons?

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• 1:39:27Bill Simmons?

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• 1:40:11Bill Simmons?

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