The Chiefs Break Buffalo’s Heart, Philly Rolls, and Guess the SB Lines With Cousin Sal

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Chiefs once again eliminating the Bills in an electric playoff game (1:00) and the Commanders' Cinderella run ending at the hands of the Eagles (33:42) before guessing the line for Super Bowl LIX (47:51) and closing the show with Parent Corner (1:06:51). 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.

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  Coming up, the last edition of Guess the Lines with Cousin Sal. We're going to talk Super Bowl, we're going to talk conference finals. It's all next. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on, flavor on, Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th.

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  Order minimum before taxes and fees is required. See retailer storefront for details. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. 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 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. We're also brought to by The Ringer Podcast Network. I do have a new rewatchables episode coming for you on Monday night. Can't wait for you to hear it.

• 1:28Bill Simmons?

  You can also watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. Coming up on this podcast, Cousin Sal is joining me. We did this live on YouTube, which you can follow if you want to, on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel, please subscribe. We are going to be breaking down the two games today and what's coming up in the Super Bowl. And I have a very action-packed power and corner for you. So it's all next. First, our friends from Pro Jap.

• 2:12Bill Simmons?

  All right, we are on YouTube, Cuz and Sal is here, taping the BS Podcast after another magical NFL playoff game. Sal, I've had the worst weekend and I can't wait to talk to you about it. This game reinvigorated me. It poured a Red Bull and a coffee and a giant line of cocaine into my body. I am ready for this podcast, baby.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  All right. So, okay, so good. That means you took the Chiefs and I had them too. And, but just as an emotional hedge and then you look back, I'm like, oh my God, I have so much money on this team as an emotional hedge. It's gonna be emotional the other way when I have to explain to the family, we have to move if the Bills win. So, uh, wow, what a game. Do it every week. Do it every year. Who cares?

• 2:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so there's gonna be a lot of stuff over the next two weeks about Chiefs, Eagles. We had this already. The Chiefs are back. Come on. Here's where I've landed and I feel like I've been here for most of my life, but really especially as I get older. I really like true greatness. Like I, I really appreciate this Chiefs team. I bet on them. I really wanted them to cover the bet, obviously, but I also really like the fact that every once in a while in sports, you have this measuring stick, not just for the sport, but for all the sports, right? Like, I hated the Yankees in the late eighties, you know, or late nineties. I hated that team, but I respected the shit out of them.

• 3:31Bill Simmons?

  When Arizona beat them in 2001, it was like, this is momentous. Wait, the Pats were able to get that in the mid 2010s. Philly beat them with Foles and Peterson. It was like, this feels momentous. I think you need teams like that. When the Warriors lost in 2019, you need teams every once in a while that are truly great. And then you see how everyone measures up and they did it again. I don't know when this stops.

• 3:55Speaker 01

  Of course you do. Yeah, you don't want parody in everything, all the time, everywhere. Like, you know, I think if you ask people honestly, they would want Washington and Buffalo to have advanced today, right? So that wasn't going to happen because everybody wanted it, right? Although than that, I, I love that the Chiefs are in it. Mahomes is great. And we saw the greatest quarterback of all time in Brady. And now we're possibly seeing his greatest successor in Mahomes. And that is exactly why I hate when people lead with, oh, the referees screwed them all the, like, no, I, I don't like the negative stigma because that then football could turn into your crappy sport. Sorry, the NBA and why, where everybody's talking bad about it. And like, hey, we're forgetting the fact that we're seeing Mahomes and he's the greatest or, or close to the greatest. So stop that talk, you know?

• 4:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that Buffalo doesn't get the two point.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:44Bill Simmons?

  And Casey gets the ball down one, fourth quarter, and you're just going, Mahomes is, Mahomes is taking this down. He's going to score. He's going to get the two point and they're going to be up seven. I was already mentally in the stage of if Buffalo then gets the ball and scores a TD, will they go for one or two? You're like, the Chiefs hadn't even done anything yet. You just knew they were going to go down and do it. I mean, the Mahomes thing, just big picture. This is now five Super Bowl appearances before age 30. He's 20 and three in the playoffs. He's beaten Josh Allen, who I think along with Burrow, but I think Allen over Burrow and probably over Lamar, Allen's his number one rival. He's beaten him four times in a row now in the playoffs.

• 5:25Speaker 01

  Playoffs, yeah.

• 5:25Bill Simmons?

  And, and, uh, he just feels like, it feels like that Brady versus Mahomes, that first playoff game, that the first playoff loss Mahomes had, Brady beats him. And then it's like, he just handed a torch to him. And he's like, all right, go ahead, take it. And now it just feels like the Chiefs became the Pats.

• 5:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. He handed a torch and Mahomes, I think, like, played a little game with the Bills. Like, look, we don't turn the ball over. We haven't turned the ball over since November. There's been like 280 turnovers in the NFL and none of us, none of them attributed to the Chiefs. So what do they do? They fumble, recovered, but they're off sides, the Bills. So it doesn't count. Like, two plays later, like, all right, we're going to give you one more chance. This is it. And even this isn't going to matter. And they fumble and that was the only turnover of the game, right? And still they couldn't get it done because you got the Chiefs with the ball last and that's what's going to happen.

• 6:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, you have on the flip side Buffalo, Allen comes out, first drive, he throws two picks.

• 6:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:21Bill Simmons?

  That get dropped.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:23Bill Simmons?

  Allen fumbles twice, pulls back both of them, recovers both of them, including on that fourth and one. I, I did have a moment where I thought to myself, maybe this doesn't happen. Cause I remember in the Pats Eagles Super Bowl, uh, which I sadly watched with nephew Kyle. Um, even the bitter end, they've all, I don't really remember what the score was, but the Pats did get the ball with like a little over two minutes left and they were on like the 20 and we were all like, we're winning this. And then when Brady got stripped, it was, it was so shocking. It was like, oh my God, somebody beat us.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:57Bill Simmons?

  That's, there was a moment in this game, it wa, it was when Buffalo was driving, wondering if they were going to go for two or not.

• 7:03Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 7:04Bill Simmons?

  And thinking like, ah, what happens if like they go for two, they get it. In case he just, something weird happens and all of a sudden they're punting and they're down one and Buffalo has a chance to just run out the clock on them. But that's the thing, Casey's avoided this. They said, what'd they say? 17 straight, one possession wins?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:21Bill Simmons?

  That's a crazy stat.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  And, and because of that, when they're driving at the end and they're minus 146, I'm crazy about the numbers, as you know, I.

• 7:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you were texting me during every timeout.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  I don't know what the hell to do with the numbers, but I'm wild about it. I just love it. And it's minus 146. I'm like, wow, that's suspiciously low for this team that's going for a three-peat. And never loses one score games. And then they were minus 154 when they had the three-point lead. Uh, and the Bills were driving or whatever with that last possession there. So it is, it is just amazing what the hell they've done. And I look at the numbers, I'm like, it doesn't even really add up with Mahomes and the stats and how they keep winning and you know, I.

• 8:00Bill Simmons?

  Right. He didn't have an incredible game. He, he ran for two touchdowns. He only threw for one.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:05Bill Simmons?

  The stats, the, the team stats were pretty even.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  How the Bills outrushed them by just 12 yards like I don't remember a ton of

• 8:13Bill Simmons?

  It felt like 200.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  And my cook wasn't in the game on a couple of big plays. I do think McDermott, who by the way, they found out he's Bill Burr's brother. I didn't even know this.

• 8:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, is he?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Isn't that something? They talked about it.

• 8:26Bill Simmons?

  I didn't hear them announce that.

• 8:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. He got out coached. He got bailed out, I think, early when they scored on on fourth down. But he was out coached and Spags wasn't going to let it happen twice in an hour.

• 8:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this was a weird game because Lombardi, shout out to Lombardi, always used to talk about the middle eight, the last four minutes of the first half, first four minutes of the second half. The Chiefs have the ball and they're driving down in the last four minutes of the first half. They get that crazy worthy call that we do this all the time. I still don't understand the rules of football and I watch football. Neither guy had possession. The ball touched the ground and it just seems like that's a dead play. Nobody gets it. And they're back at, they should have gone back to the 20 instead of the five, whatever. So they score and you start going, wow, this could be a blowout. They're up 21-10. They they stopped the Buffalo here at the end of the half. They get the ball, the Chiefs at the start of the play and

• 9:21Speaker 01

  Well, they didn't stop them. The Bills scored, but they didn't get the two.

• 9:23Bill Simmons?

  But I'm saying before the Bills went down, it felt like the Chiefs were going to blow the game open.

• 9:28Speaker 01

  I got you. Yeah, yeah, right.

• 9:29Bill Simmons?

  Buffalo comes back down. He hits Matt Collins and that touchdown. It's 21-16. Now all of a sudden, the Chiefs get stopped at the top of the, so they actually lost the middle eight because then Buffalo came down and took the lead. And they still, and they still won the Chiefs somehow.

• 9:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was weird because, yeah, you're right, because the Chiefs got the ball in the second half. Is that what you're saying? And then they

• 9:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I thought they were going to get last possession in the first half, first possession, second half. You score both times, you're up 28-10.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, they did. The Bills had the ball and then, yeah, it's, it was interesting. It really was. And like, let's put everything in perspective. With that play that hit the ground and should have been called incomplete, it was holding on Hamlin. He like mugged Kelsey, like back back, jumped on his back. So it would have been first down at the 20. Maybe the Bills don't have enough time to drive back and get the six. I don't know that the Chiefs score either, but, you know, but let's, before everybody points to, oh, the Chiefs got lucky again.

• 10:22Bill Simmons?

  No, that turned out to help Buffalo. The challenge had been overturned. I don't, you're right. They probably don't get the ball in the first half.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:28Bill Simmons?

  And that was the one real mistake that the Chiefs made was Leaving Hollins open on that one play. Hollins ended up having two big plays. His over under for catches was basically, I think it was one catch. It was, it was around even. It was like minus 130, something like that. Um, if, if, if I'm Buffalo and I leave this game, do you leave this game going, how did we not win that game? Or do you leave that game going, we're just like three plays short every time we play this team. We had the fourth and one, the QB sneak where Allen actually gets stuffed. Who knows if he actually got stuffed or not, but they called that KC ball. You have the Kincaid play where, um, I don't

• 11:12Bill Simmons?

  know. That was the fourth and five. Spags caused the blitz. You knew it was coming. Allen makes a great, just to jump up and heave it toward Kincaid was great, but they had that wide shot of it and it seemed like the ball was almost like spinning. It was almost like, uh, like when a baseball, when they hit like the, the pop fly that just is like, has some weird thing to it. And Kincaid dropped it and I'm sure he's going to take shit tomorrow, but I actually thought that seemed like a pretty tough catch. Did you think that was a drop or a catch?

• 11:40Speaker 01

  It was rough. There was traffic around them. It was kind of like a moon ball, you know, and, uh, he's got to catch it at his feet. Probably should have grabbed it, but in that situation, like that's, he was running for his life and he's just trying to get good positioning on that ball. But

• 11:55Bill Simmons?

  It's the kind of play that a D back drops over and over again.

• 11:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:59Bill Simmons?

  Like the tip play at the line or the flutter and it's, oh, I can't believe he dropped that. And, but Kincaid was on offense.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  But to answer your original question, the Bills are looking at this like not that we're three plays away, that they should have won the game. Like they're done losing to this team, right? They already beat them in the regular season. They're not like us where we could rationalize it and be like, well, they just can't beat them at Arrowhead. It's a different beast. They, they know deep down, they're just as good and they can't take it. This is a demoralizing loss for them. I mean, after a while, you, you do maybe believe that you can't, you can't overtake the beast, but, um, yeah, another

• 12:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know. I

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Well, there's the, what more do we have to do factor, right? They won time of possession, they won the, they won the turnover battle. They outrushed them. Mahomes had fewer than 20 completions.

• 12:49Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  You know, like, I don't know. They scored 29 and they became the first team to give up over 30 to the Chiefs. Weird.

• 12:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, so the Chiefs have the ball after the two minute warning. The Bills don't get it and the Bills need to get a stop.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 13:06Bill Simmons?

  Did you think they were going to get the stop? Cause I did not. And it's, as it turns out, they had two chances to get a stop because the Bills scored. They got the first down on second down, but the guy stepped out of bounds. So now they had this fresh set of downs.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:18Bill Simmons?

  And each time the Chiefs were able to get the eight, nine plays. Conversely, Buffalo had a bunch of chances to make a big play on a fourth and one or a fourth and five, fourth and three. And there was a couple they didn't get. So I would, I would assume that would probably be.

• 13:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, the short yardage.

• 13:33Bill Simmons?

  Driving them crazy too. They did get that when they were down, what was it? Seven, when they got the fourth down play in the end zone to Samuel.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:41Bill Simmons?

  Uh, which was a nice play. That was big. I didn't think they were going to get that one.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  McDermott need, oh, sorry. Spags needed to dial up what he did to the very last Bills offensive play for that fourth down play. Because it came out of a timeout. There was a timeout and then one play on third down and then that play. So that was bad for the Chiefs defense. But I'll tell you, you're right with the short yardage. And I think we, I think we watched almost three and a half hours of quarterbacks plunging on fourth and one today between the two games.

• 14:09Bill Simmons?

  The most fourth and ones it felt like ever in the history of the league.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  I like that they don't make it sometimes. I really do. Like maybe, maybe teams will, I don't like it like when we were growing up in the seventies and eighties where, you know, it was a fourth and one attempt on offense every six weeks or something. But I don't know, just be, be a little more creative on the fourth and ones. Cook wasn't even in the backfield for a lot of those.

• 14:32Bill Simmons?

  So Buffalo missed two, two points, right?

• 14:35Speaker 01

  Uh huh. Two, two point.

• 14:37Bill Simmons?

  Then they missed a fourth and short.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:39Bill Simmons?

  And you would think with Allen, they would be the most devastating team in the league with any, any fourth and one, fourth and short. Two point, which was, I don't know, one, one of the legacies of this game. It was kind of shocking not to see them get certain plays. I felt like the Chiefs were, were slightly better just because I felt like their defense, I trusted their D a little bit more to maybe get a stop when they really, really, really, really needed it. Even that, you mentioned that Spags splits on the last play, that fourth and five. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about how fun it is to have a team like this, that we have a real history with it. You know, we, we root for these NFL teams and the entire team changes over in two years, you know, or you have these teams, like, look at what, what's going to happen to

• 15:23Bill Simmons?

  the Cowboys and they haven't even made the Super Bowl, but two years from now.

• 15:27Speaker 01

  I don't know. We lost the connection. What did you say?

• 15:30Bill Simmons?

  Two years from now, are Dak, C D Lamb and Prescott all going to be on the team? Probably not. You know, and that's usually how it plays out.

• 15:37Speaker 01

  I know. You're right. You're right.

• 15:39Bill Simmons?

  But in this team, same infrastructure, it's Mahomes, it's always some cast of running backs with, and wide receivers with Kelsey. They always have a decent line. Chris Jones is always there. Andy Reid always is doing some funky plays that seem like they're going to work. And then Spags, every time they need it, seems to dial up the perfect blitz. That, that blitz on Allen was a great call. I was waiting for it the whole game and it didn't seem like they could find it. Then they found it.

• 16:06Speaker 01

  That's what they needed before the last score. But you and I, I think, thought, we were texting, we thought this game was over. But like you said, that second.

• 16:13Bill Simmons?

  I did. I thought when it was 21 10, I thought, I thought they were going to blow it out.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Well, because I mean, they were picking on that Elon guy, like, you know, like Romo said it was like, you know, um, cover one, single safety, it's just going to be the stop right route all time with Worthy picking on this.

• 16:28Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, by the way, Romo crushed Brady today, like by 35 points. That was the biggest blow up.

• 16:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Romo, I thought was, uh, that was about as good as he's been in a few years. I thought he was all over the game, spelling, spotting stuff, spelling stuff out, telling us what was going to happen. Um, I, with, with the Buffalo piece.

• 16:51Bill Simmons?

  The defense had a couple injuries and it was pretty.

• 16:57Bill Simmons?

  I don't want to say flimsy, but it was, it was okay. Never like a great defense to begin with. It reminded me a little of what happened to Washington today. Washington probably were lost anyway, but when it came out over the weekend that they were losing their run stopping defensive tackle.

• 17:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:11Bill Simmons?

  You can kind of pass the point and overturn and it felt like their secondary. I just didn't trust the people they had. That poor Benford got two concussions in a week, it looks like.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  You and I haven't mentioned Christian Benford or Daron Payne.

• 17:25Bill Simmons?

  Ever?

• 17:26Speaker 01

  All over 23 weeks. Yes. No, ever. Yes, you're right. And those arguably were the two biggest, you know, one, you know, neither, both for not being able to play. And yeah, Benford actually got out with the second concussion, we think, right?

• 17:40Bill Simmons?

  And it was like the first series.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 17:43Bill Simmons?

  But you have these things where you, you've already decided mentally where you're going in a game. And it's already like, if you're taking Washington, it's a pretty flimsy case. It's like, they're not going to turn the ball over. Jaden Daniels is going to go up a level. He's going to be able to match Philly and Hertz is going to kind of suck. Like that was the case. The other case was Philly's going to run all over them. Washington's luck going to run out turnovers and Philly's going to blow them out. You could see the two cases. It was like, ah, I like the Washington case more. So I took that one and then you find out their run stuff is done when I didn't really like the run defense to begin with. And it's like.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  It's like 15 yard difference when he's out than when he's.

• 18:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's like, oh, this isn't a great sign. But yeah, I mean, we'll talk about that game later, but Philly was also great. The Buffalo thing, this might've been their best chance because I'll say this. I still think Baltimore might've been the best team from a talent standpoint. And I watched in this game, I guarantee like the Ravens, the Ravens fan watching this game today, you had to, I was texting Mallory about it and she's like still sick.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:45Bill Simmons?

  She's, because you watch what was working against the Chiefs. The Ravens were better at pounding the ball, running the ball, being physical, and they had a better defense than the Bills. And I'm sure they felt like, shit, if we'd just gotten in there, we could have beaten that team. But they didn't.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  We, I mean, we talked about it last week, how important, so stupid, but how important turnovers are. And we'll get to it in the Philly game, which absolutely dominated the discussion. But yeah, if the Ravens don't turn the ball over, it's a different story altogether. And maybe if they get a home game too, against Buffalo, but.

• 19:15Bill Simmons?

  Does it seem like football is just now about? The turnover battle, who wins?

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  How you did on fourth and one and fourth and two? Because there's so many of them now and the variance of those.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:26Bill Simmons?

  Is huge. And did you just avoid having a massive fuck up?

• 19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:31Bill Simmons?

  And it seems like in a game like this in Buffalo, all season was kind of pulling off games like this. And their luck finally ran out today. And I know the Buffalo fans last week were pissed because everyone was dwelling on how Baltimore blew the game. And they're like, well, we also won the game. We didn't mess up. We didn't make mistakes. This game, they made some mistakes.

• 19:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, that's why I took the Chiefs. I'm not going to take a lap because I recognize like whoever had the ball last, pretty much when the last six minutes are going to decide this game. But when I was thinking about it, I'm like, wait a minute, I'm going to go against the Chiefs who, like I said, haven't turned the ball over since November. And they're trying to repeat and they're in Arrowhead and have a chip on their shoulder against Buffalo, who beat them in the regular season. Like no fricking way. It's a point and a half. That's stupid.

• 20:12Bill Simmons?

  The line was too low. I, I think if it was Chiefs by three, it was a different.

• 20:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:16Bill Simmons?

  Thought process, but the one and a half, how can you not?

• 20:20Bill Simmons?

  We did, we did this last year. You had the Ravens too last year, right?

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:24Bill Simmons?

  The AFC title game?

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 20:26Bill Simmons?

  And that, that was my never again moment. I was just like, as long as they're.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  That was three and a half. Yeah.

• 20:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, as long as the Chiefs are the Chiefs, it's just not worth it because they're going to figure this out year after year. So, um, on the plus side for Alan, before we get to some of the negative stuff. That pass he threw to Matt Collins before halftime was fantastic.

• 20:49Speaker 01

  Fabulous.

• 20:49Bill Simmons?

  I don't, the list of QBs who can hit that one with the speed and the accuracy that he hit is not, it's basically him and Drake May.

• 20:59Speaker 01

  Oh, him and, oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, I, I lost consciousness for a second there.

• 21:03Bill Simmons?

  That was a trip. It was him, Drake May, a couple others. But, uh, he hit that one. He also had that big drive to, you know, give them the lead in the third quarter. He had the other comeback drive when it was 29, 22. He brought them down again and they scored. And I was thinking like, because I don't, I don't blame this loss on Alan in any respect.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 21:29Bill Simmons?

  He's in that zone now that I'm not sure you want to be in as a great athlete. And I would call it the Tommy Hearns zone.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 21:36Bill Simmons?

  Where you're awesome, you're memorable, you're generational talent. And yet you're the other guy in the sports movie over and over again. And how do you, how do you get out of that? How do you snap out of that? Hearns was in all these great sports moments and he lost most of them. But he was still great. Like he's like one of the best boxers I've ever seen in my life. There's, he was a one on one. Nobody like him. Six foot one, 147.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Pretty good.

• 22:02Bill Simmons?

  Crazy punchy power. He fought everybody. And yet his legacy was like, he lost the Leonard fight. He lost the Hagra fight.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  So how is he different from Lamar then in that respect? Cause they're pointing the same fingers, right?

• 22:16Bill Simmons?

  I think Lamar is a little bit of a different case because he's kind of come up short in these big moments. Allen's had these moments, like in the 13 second game.

• 22:24Speaker 01

  So he's Roberto, he's Roberto Duran? Who's Lamar?

• 22:30Bill Simmons?

  Uh.

• 22:31Speaker 01

  Drake May? No.

• 22:34Bill Simmons?

  That's a two, who is Lamar? I feel like Lamar's story hasn't, I, I, I want to, I'll answer that next year. Not quite ready to.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Next year?

• 22:42Bill Simmons?

  Label him.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  Alright, I'm gonna write this down.

• 22:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, what, it's tougher, like what boxer didn't come through every time it mattered? Is it, I don't know, I don't know who that is. But no, I, the point with Josh is like, they've lost games where he was really good in the game. I thought he was really good in the game today.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:02Bill Simmons?

  You know, I don't know, if you're Bill Spine, you're like, man, Josh has to do more. That's not why he lost.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  No, there's a bunch.

• 23:07Bill Simmons?

  I thought the play calling was atrocious sometimes. I thought the OC, um, I just don't understand some of those third and short, fourth and short. It felt like anytime they play action, they had guys all over the place.

• 23:17Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 23:19Bill Simmons?

  So I'd be more mad about that if I were them.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they the Bills fans, at least early on, I could see they're very upset with the coaching staff, you know, because when you can't blame the kicker, when you can't kill the kicker and they can't, it goes right to the quarterback or coaching staff and it seems like the coaches are getting, we should real quick shout out to James Cook. I mean, that was a spectacular, spectacular play on fourth and two. By the way, good, good job. Another great play by Josh Allen flipping that to him on the quarterback option.

• 23:45Bill Simmons?

  With some speed. Sometimes the toss is too soft.

• 23:48Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:49Bill Simmons?

  That one kind of whipped it to the point that Cook might have like, whatever.

• 23:53Speaker 01

  But it kind of had to get there then, right?

• 23:55Bill Simmons?

  Had to get there.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. And for him to be able to stay horizontally and bridge on his hand and without the elbow falling and extended over the goal line with the other hand was really one of the better plays I've seen all year.

• 24:07Bill Simmons?

  We've had a real resurgence with good running backs. This position that everybody thought didn't matter. And then you look around and it's like Barkley and Jameer Gibbs and Cook and going down the line. It seems like it's more important than it used to be. The sad, back to the Allen, Tommy Hearns thing for a second. The sad shot at the end when the team's running out the clock and then cut to the guy, the losing QB and the, just sitting on the bench with that like deer in the headlights look. It's a tough one. You don't, you don't want that to be the legacy. In a weird way, from a career move standpoint, I actually think he gains human interest stature. Cause now he's come so close a few times and he just can't get over this. Like next year's Chiefs Bills game is even more

• 24:49Bill Simmons?

  interesting. This year's game was so interesting. Kyle Brandt did a Rocky IV mountain parody with, with him as Sly and Mahomes as Drago. And I don't even know what next year's version of that is.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, maybe it's Clubber Lang than Lamar. No, no, Lang won a, won a title.

• 25:10Bill Simmons?

  No, yeah.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know who Lamar is. Yeah, I don't know what you do with Josh Allen. That sucks with the cutaways. You need more cutaways of his fiance, right? I mean, that's, I mean, he's losing that battle too. Taylor Swift. So, but yeah, he, he's playing as well as he can and just can't, can't beat this team.

• 25:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then there's the Buffalo piece of it too, right? So even, it's always lingering with the Bills game. Like even it's 29, 28. They had just scored a touchdown. They have all this momentum and there's Bass and I'm sitting there going, I've watched Bass miss this. Like you're watching the PAT intently. It's like it's the Bills. I've seen Bass miss this. I'm not positive this is going through. I'm thinking about KC minus one and a half, minus one. And he made it, but the baggage of the Bills is another thing. This is, there's some franchises like the Lions, that playoff loss they had two weeks ago, or last week.

• 26:05Speaker 01

  Last week.

• 26:06Bill Simmons?

  It was the last week. Yeah. It feels like January has been 75 days. That playoff loss they had, they haven't had a lot of those because they're never in the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Bills have had, you know, it feels like a hundred of these.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  They're racking them up. They gotta get this game at home. I don't know. Maybe with Pete Carroll in the division, the AFC West and some of these teams getting better, you know, the Chiefs won't go 15 and two or 15 and one going into the last week.

• 26:31Bill Simmons?

  I think it's a hard ass though, Sal.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 26:34Bill Simmons?

  Cause you have, you look around the AFC and there's just a bunch of teams that feel like they're poised to maybe jump up a level or teams that had bad luck in 24. Like what are the Texans going to look like next year? You know, even in their own division, what, could the Jets be better next year if they, if Aaron Glenn turns out to be a good coach? Could the Patriots be next year's Washington? Keep my fingers crossed. Could the Chargers make a jump up? Could the Broncos? Like you go on down and it's just, I don't, I think the AFC is just going to be better next year. And I can't wait to pick all the over unders correctly with you again.

• 27:07Speaker 01

  You're gonna, you're gonna do a good job.

• 27:08Bill Simmons?

  You did such a good job though last year.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, you did. But the Chiefs, as I run that, my mouth on this whole thing, they went through the whole thing on the road too last year. So I don't even know what matters.

• 27:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know, they lose Rashid Rice before the season. He's just a non-factor. This guy who seemed like he was going to be Mahomes' number one target. They're able to patch together. Smith Schuster was so bad in the preseason for the Pats. It was like, how are we, can anyone take this guy from us? And then he's making big plays today. Hopkins, who really didn't do that much today. Kelsey, who looked like he was 55, but then Worthy becomes the key. Guy, this number one pick that they really shrewdly traded up for their drafts. The way that they've nailed the drafts, this is the difference between them and what happened in the second part of the Pats dynasty with in the late 2010s when they just started missing drafts. The Chiefs are getting Carl Aftus, they're getting McDuffie.

• 28:04Bill Simmons?

  They're getting worthy over and over again. They're nailing guys who are like playing big roles in these playoff games. And that's, that's how the Pats, that's why it ended.

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:13Bill Simmons?

  Seven, the seven, 16, 17, 18 drafts, they just weren't getting people and that was it.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank God. Um, I, yeah, I will say the one thing we, we skipped over with Kelsey. Like that's another thing the Bills will be like, oh my God, we held that guy to nothing. He had 14 straight games with 75 or more.

• 28:30Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  14 straight playoff games. He was invisible, two catches for 19 yards. And they embarrassed the most of the game and still couldn't get it done. Yeah, it's a lot of, lot of rough moments there for the Bills.

• 28:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they felt, what was their rushing passing? So they did.

• 28:49Bill Simmons?

  They ran the ball 32 times.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  32 to 22, I think.

• 28:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, 30, they ran 32.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  Oh, 32, 34 attempts.

• 28:59Bill Simmons?

  34 passes, 32 carries.

• 29:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:03Bill Simmons?

  And the Chiefs were 35 carries, 26 passes. This is really, did people look at this box score like 75 years from now or assuming the earth hasn't melted yet? Be like, whoa, that game, that seemed pretty close.

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Right. Travis Kelsey, what? He did nothing? What did the Bills win by? Oh.

• 29:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, then Hollywood Brown had that huge brain fart on the, on the play when he was open and didn't realize he was standing out of bounds.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:26Bill Simmons?

  That's another thing with the Chiefs. Hollywood Brown was supposed to be their big.

• 29:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:30Bill Simmons?

  You know, that this big guy that helped them out and.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, plants his right foot directly out of bounds on a ball that was, uh, it should have been catchable.

• 29:38Bill Simmons?

  They keep finding little things around the fringes like, uh, the kick returner. Made a couple of big plays today. You know, these guys. They owe it. They are always able to locate them and it's a really, it's its own skill. Because that's the, the biggest way you can uh.

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, Pacheco and Kelsey, 43 total yards. Like, how much would we pull back on our Chiefs bet if we had known that was gonna happen?

• 30:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, don't you think part of it is everybody and their brother had the Kelsey over?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is.

• 30:08Bill Simmons?

  I think that was that and Dallas Goddard were the two. Dallas Goddard hit his, but those two seemed like they were the.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  They gave everyone free Barclay money and then they're like, no, no, we gotta figure something out.

• 30:19Bill Simmons?

  So one other thing with, so we'll be talking about the Chiefs going for the three-peat. And I was going through looking who's three-peated in the last 50 years, which is half a century. That's a long time. Jordan's Bulls twice. The Chicago Lakers. The late 90s Yankees. The Canadians, four, four in a row in the 70s and then the Islanders four in a row in the 80s. And that's really it, unless you want to count the comments in the first four years of WNBA. This three-peat thing. Especially in the age of parody, the Pats never did it.

• 30:53Speaker 01

  I can't believe the Pats never did it. I mean, I, I, I looked through it too. Obviously they, they haven't. And the Steelers.

• 30:59Bill Simmons?

  It was the Eagles game. It was the Nick Foles, Doug Peterson game.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. But out of Cowboys, Steelers, Patriots, Niners. It's shocking that there was no three-peat. It's shocking that the Bears only won one.

• 31:11Bill Simmons?

  We didn't do a three-peat in a game where Brady threw for over 500 yards.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:15Bill Simmons?

  Like, think about that. That was how we didn't get it. But this is fucking hard. And you have these games where it's like, they tipped our pass to the wide open guy on a fourth down. We missed the two-point where the guy was, his foot was out of bounds. We missed the field goal at the end of the first half. We needed those. There's so many things. To get that right for three years in a row feels, in a league with a salary cap feels impossible.

• 31:37Speaker 01

  Do you.

• 31:38Bill Simmons?

  Mahomes is great, but it's not like Mahomes was like. You know, throw everyone on my back. I'm gonna carry us all through the season. I don't, I don't even think he was one of the three best QBs this year.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  How.

• 31:48Bill Simmons?

  But he's Mahomes.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  They were 15 and two. They were 15 and one heading into the, the week that they sat everyone and he wasn't even a top three or four consideration for MVP. Like, that's, that's insane. Cause his stats weren't. Patrick Mahomes-esque is the problem, but as like a Patriot fan and one of the few teams that have had two peats, how much are you rooting for? It's not like 72 Dolphins are thrilled and do the champagne toast when a team loses, but are you rooting hard? Cause I've talked to some people who have been part of like a two-peat and are rooting hard against anyone having a three-peat.

• 32:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's an interesting one. Like my dad really doesn't like when the Chiefs do well, because he wants the Pats to be better historically than the Chiefs. My thing is like, whatever the Pats did, that's what they did. The Chiefs belong to this different generation and I, you know, I, like if the Chiefs win three in a row, it doesn't diminish what the Pats did. But I think other Pats fans are like, really need the Chiefs to lose, need the Bills to come through. I, it depends on your perspective on it.

• 32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:52Bill Simmons?

  I personally was more, I'm probably leaning more toward, it would be cool if the Bills never won and we were like the last good AFC East team, but I'm more spiteful.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 33:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  That's pretty specific. Yeah.

• 33:03Bill Simmons?

  But if the Bills never get one, and then now with now with Frable and Drake May and 130 million in cap space and whoever we get number four and some, and all of a sudden we can like try to take the AFCs from him. I'm in that mindset.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  But you're, you're trading that for Mahomes could eventually pass Brady as the greatest ever in every conversation. You're, you're willing to put that up for debate?

• 33:24Bill Simmons?

  He, so much is left for him to do that. Brady won seven. Brady beat Mahomes twice. Brady had the Atlanta game, which is the greatest feat probably any quarterbacks pulled off in a game. I, it's, there's a long way to go.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  If he wins four in a row, if he four-peats.

• 33:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  Which, you know, he's a game and a season away from doing, then, then the conversation becomes real. I don't know.

• 33:47Bill Simmons?

  I'm with you.

• 33:51Bill Simmons?

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• 34:34Bill Simmons?

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• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association Member, FDIC. Eagles, Washington.

• 35:37Speaker 01

  It's like so long ago.

• 35:39Bill Simmons?

  I wrote down Daniels kept trying to throw on a Superman cape and his teammates kept pulling it off. That's my, that's my, half of my take of the game. The other take is the Eagles are really talented and just had more talent all over the place and actually played really well. I thought Hertz was good. They used A.J. Brown correctly. Barkley was incredible. Their defense made a couple, you know, we, couple of those, yet another punch fumble play, a couple stops when they needed it. There's a different version of this game without a couple of the turnovers that I think would have been really fun to watch if it was the Washington with, within a score with 10 minutes left with the ball.

• 36:20Bill Simmons?

  But instead it became a, an absolute blowout. I, I don't feel terrible about picking Washington, but you knew in the first quarter it was a bad pick.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Well, except for that first drive, they did everything you could ask for them, right? So I wrote, for Washington, my big thing was Philly's gonna run the ball. When Deron Payne went out, I'm like, this is gonna be a disaster. And especially because Washington is one time possession the last two times. I think it was 34-26 against, um, last week against the Lions and 36-24 against Tampa. Maybe I mixed those two up, but like, they're not gonna win that. They're not gonna win time of possession. It was dead even. I was a little bit wrong about that because it was dead even time of possession. But that first drive, you must have been excited when he's converting fourth and twos and fourth and threes. Then we settled for a field goal. That sucked, but uh, I also don't know why they went for a field goal. Like they, they were surviving fourth and threes all the way down the field and they have a shady kicker, so.

• 37:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was like Dan Quinn ran out of plays. I was really surprised they went for it. I know the book probably said it was a wash, take the points, all that stuff, but I, the longer they're on the field, the longer the Eagles offense isn't on the field.

• 37:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:25Bill Simmons?

  I would have gone for it.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  And then Barkley crushes their spirit three plays later, so.

• 37:29Bill Simmons?

  Barkley gets it. De'ami Brown has the punch fumble. Eagles score again. Washington's about to punt. I, I thought it was the most obvious.

• 37:40Bill Simmons?

  I swear, I'm not just saying this. I was watching the line because I was like, this is the most obvious fake punt situation I've ever seen because they know if they're punting it back. And I'm watching and I was watching the whole play develop and I'm like, oh, they're doing it like as it was happening was and the Eagles were completely blindsided, which I didn't really understand.

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Were they?

• 37:58Bill Simmons?

  They ended up settling for.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I thought that was a great throw.

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  They were. They only had one guy to cover two guys.

• 38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, but so, oh, man, it was such a good throw. I think the.

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  It was.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  It's like, because it was like two tight ends like going out and he had to judge the way the middle linebacker and he just shifted towards the guy on the right and then he completed and it was a good throw and everything else. But yeah, they should have been a little more prepared, but kudos. And they only got three out of that, right? That made it 14-6.

• 38:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah, I wrote down, it was 14-6. Washington had run 30 plays and Philly had won seven and Washington was losing by eight.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:30Bill Simmons?

  But, uh, and then Elliott missed the field goal.

• 38:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 38:33Bill Simmons?

  McLaurin scores. It's 14-12 and Washington goes for two, which I didn't understand at all, even though like, I don't understand how you're not going for the fourth and three.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 38:44Bill Simmons?

  Then you're going for the two. It's second quarter. Who cares if it's 14-13?

• 38:48Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:48Bill Simmons?

  So they don't get that. And then you start doing the math. 14-12. Uh-oh, this is gonna be a two-score game soon. Um, and then Philly made a couple of big plays, like A.J. Brown had that big fourth and five catch. I thought Hertz was good. Like if, if Hertz had shown what he showed today in previous games, I probably would have taken Philly, but I didn't, we hadn't seen it.

• 39:09Speaker 01

  For sure. I mean, you, we saw how successful he is with this team in the playoffs when he throws for 130 and 140, 150. And this one, this is the anomaly or I don't know, the outlier game because what did he throw for this? He threw for.

• 39:22Bill Simmons?

  It was over 200.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  246.

• 39:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 39:25Speaker 01

  Um, and three touchdowns.

• 39:26Bill Simmons?

  Big runs too.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Running for three touchdowns. So.

• 39:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  I, I, I was like with that, with that field goal miss, I was like, you're playing right into Washington's hands. Like, I feel like with this team on third and six, they should run every time on third and six or third and five. They're gonna go for it on fourth and one or two and make it instead third and six, the one thing he can't do is get sacked and he did. And then, uh, what's his name misses the field goal and that was, and that was. I was like, all right, they're back in it. But yeah, it was just too much, too much firepower eventually.

• 39:53Bill Simmons?

  Twenty and twelve, under two minutes left, and the guy fumbles the kickoff, gives Philly the ball back. Now it's twenty seven, twelve. It's twenty twelve, minute forty four. I feel like that could have gone down, gotten a field goal, and it's twenty fifteen halftime.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Right. They take it.

• 40:07Bill Simmons?

  Instead, it's twenty seven, fifteen halftime. And then Philly gets the ball and they stop them top of the third quarter. But then.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Washington, yeah.

• 40:17Bill Simmons?

  Just kind of flamed out. They got the three and out, and then Philly got the touchdown. That was that. Um, and then right when it seemed like Philly might, or Washington might be able to drive down and get the, uh, the super fun cover, Eckor fumbled.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:33Bill Simmons?

  And that was that. I thought Daniels was a winner in the game regardless. I thought he, he was really, really good. And, uh, a couple of it, the fact that they put that team together with duct tape kind of got exposed, uh, in round three. Great, great season for them, though.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  It's such a tough spot, right? A rookie just can't, just, especially in Philly, to go to Detroit and Philly and do that and be down offensive lineman.

• 40:58Bill Simmons?

  Four straight, four straight road games.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:01Bill Simmons?

  They lose their best guard and they lose their run stuffer going into Philly. And yet I kind of needed to see it from Philly. I wasn't positive they had it, like just in general, like I, you know, were they going to do weird shit?

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Well, Hertz was good, but then you hear about him showing up in the knee brace and I started getting PTSD from the Tyson Paul fight. I'm like, oh, Tyson showed up with a knee brace and I lost a lot of money. I don't know. Maybe this isn't a good idea.

• 41:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, then they had this weird center situation where one guy's got the knee brace and the other guy has a bad back and.

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:32Bill Simmons?

  And Brady kept talking about it because I think he, you know, he's, he knows how important the center is because he's played QB. That never really mattered.

• 41:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, especially with the tush push and everything. I hate that we have to say tush push. My God.

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  So, do we need to ban this play?

• 41:50Bill Simmons?

  Like is it, or is it just not going to be until somebody breaks their back in a tush bush and then they're like, we have to stop this. Somebody was seriously hurt.

• 41:57Speaker 01

  So I want to know what year they brought it back because it was banned, right? You couldn't pull a guy. You still can't pull a guy, right?

• 42:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:04Speaker 01

  Even though they don't call it a lot and you, there was a time when you couldn't push it. So, uh, you, you couldn't push. So I, I don't know. It doesn't jibe with the current rules about like, all right, we don't want guys hitting each other's heads in the wedge and we want safety.

• 42:20Bill Simmons?

  We care about physical safety.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Also it doesn't look like a football play and it's boring. And, and then they have a little problem on their hand with what Washington was doing. I think the whole world that wasn't rooting for Philly was like, good, keep hitting them. Keep hitting them. Uh, keep getting the personal foul. And then the ref admonished them and was like, we're gonna, we're gonna spank you. There's gonna be a spanking that goes on here. If you do it again, we're going to give them a touchdown. So, so you give them the touchdown. So we don't have to give them a touchdown. It's so weird.

• 42:47Bill Simmons?

  So would you get rid of it? Cause like Buffalo tried a couple of times and it didn't work.

• 42:50Speaker 01

  I'm the wrong guy to ask. I hate it. Uh,

• 42:53Bill Simmons?

  I don't like it either.

• 42:54Speaker 01

  The team I hate most uses it most effectively and, um, but I don't, I don't like it.

• 43:01Bill Simmons?

  So.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Someone's gonna have to get hurt though, I think. I think that's the problem with this, right?

• 43:06Bill Simmons?

  Eagles, big picture. Do you feel better about them than you did a week ago? Or do you feel like Washington outkicked its coverage and gave a valiant underdog effort? But this is what happens. This is the March Madness team that made the final four. Now they're playing UNLV in 1990 and it's Larry Johnson and Stacy Augman.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:27Bill Simmons?

  They're going, uh oh, all right, this is running out now.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  I like that. You're such a college basketball fan. I, I think it's a little,

• 43:33Bill Simmons?

  I care.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  It's a, it's a little of both. Definitely Washington, the Cinderella thing. It came to an end, but I do feel pretty good about Philadelphia in the trenches there. So, and they could, you know, I'm not saying I'm taking Philly, but they could present problems like Tampa Bay did to Kansas City in that Superbowl where Mahomes is just running for his life. And there'll be one highlight where he's horizontal to the ground, completing a pass, but otherwise it's a long night. So they were, they were excellent. I mean, what'd they have? 229 on the grid. They averaged like 6.4 carry.

• 44:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, Saquon who's, if they win the Superbowl, I think will go down as. The most popular Philly athlete, just moving into that, basically taking the Bryce Harper spot, but in the pantheon of like guys that the Philly fans love. He was 15 for 118 and three TDs today. The touchdown was spectacular, the first one. Last week, he was 26 for 205. So in the two games, he's 41 for 323 with five touchdowns. And it's like, you remember in the late 90s when Terrell Davis was just ripping off like these crazy postseason, like with the stats, you go back and you look at like, holy shit. My God, that's why he made the Hall of Fame for those two years. And this feels like a very Terrell Davis-y.

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, he should start saluting. And I, it's a question you had posed earlier. Did he do a good deed for all running backs or just for himself and Derrick Henry? I mean, it's, it's, it's gonna, the tough decision for GMs the rest of the way, but he did make a difference. I mean, the Eagles are much better because they got Barkley. And he only had, like you said, 15 carries, like, that's bizarre. They could have had another 100 yards if he had another 10.

• 45:16Bill Simmons?

  His rookie season, I think I said to you on this podcast, that I thought he was the best running back I've ever seen. And we fought about it. And then it became a clip that got, no, we just argued about it. I was like, this is the best running back I've ever seen.

• 45:31Bill Simmons?

  I'll, I'll send out the, it's somewhere on Twitter. And we cut a social clip about it. And then when he hurt his knee and then he was in the Giants and it became one of those like, oh my God, that was one of my worst takes. But now I think, I think I'm back, I'm back in it with the take. Like what running backs that you've seen in your life?

• 45:52Bill Simmons?

  I guess the one thing with him, the pass catching, like even dropped the one today, the pass catching's a little iffy with him. I still have Peyton as the best running back I've ever seen.

• 46:00Speaker 01

  Only Barry Sanders, Peyton, and for a small stretch, Terrell Davis, like you brought up. I, I don't, I don't really.

• 46:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Terrell Davis is in there. I still think for one game, Emmitt is, has to be discussed seriously. If it's like, it's 22 degrees outside.

• 46:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 46:17Bill Simmons?

  And I need a running back who will rush the ball 35 times today. Who's your pick? I'd probably take Emmitt. So I guess it would depend. Terrell is still the most dominant running back on a good team I've seen. Just felt like it was six yards every time. Peyton was the best all around, just special running back. But Barkley's. Wait, it's, it's, it's a little video gameish with him.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  This is a crazy year. Like this is, you know, I know they're not going to give him MVP, but 2,000 plus.

• 46:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  Is he going to get 2,000 in the playoffs also? I don't know.

• 46:48Bill Simmons?

  Could he get to 2,500 for the regular season playoffs combined?

• 46:52Speaker 01

  Oh, I think so. Yeah.

• 46:54Bill Simmons?

  That's in there, right? Well, no, it'd be, he needs like 150.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  And what's interesting is he gets screwed because of the, the one yard plunge by Jalen Hurts, right? He had three of those. Otherwise like Barkley would probably have like 30 touchdowns.

• 47:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh shit, I forgot that they played, what did he have in the Green Bay game? Oh, 25 for 119. Yeah. So he's, so he's been over 100 in the three games. So yeah.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Even the two, two or three before that, the last regular season games, he was spectacular.

• 47:22Bill Simmons?

  So he'll get over 2,500 combined.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:24Bill Simmons?

  So who's your number one running back ever? Is it TD?

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know. I mean, just from what I've seen, I, I think we missed a lot of Walter Payton's greatness, right? But I'll, I'll trust it. And if we want to keep going back to Jim Brown.

• 47:36Bill Simmons?

  I mean, he wasn't on, I, I promise you, he wasn't on, on the East Coast more than twice a year for his entire prime. But you always, he, the clips are amazing. The NFL film stuff was amazing. And then the way everyone talked about how he's the best blocking running back ever. He's the best pass catcher. Like he checked all these boxes that nobody in that era was like that. Tomlinson hit some of that stuff too, but I was, the Payton stuff is the most fun NFL films to me, other than Barry Sanders.

• 48:05Speaker 01

  For sure. I, I, but like short yardage is so important now. I would say Davis and Barkley over like a Barry Sanders. But Barry Sanders was spectacular in his own right too. So.

• 48:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, my, my Barry Sanders take, I've done this before, but my Barry Sanders take is probably in your wheelhouse.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:24Bill Simmons?

  I, I'm like in the, probably the minority, but I would rather have Emmitt Smith than Barry Sanders. I'd rather have the four, five, six yards a pop than the guy who every once in a while can run for 70. But what, but was always looking to break the big play. I've, I've had a million arguments.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  I would, you used to get in fistfights over this one. I loved Emmitt more than Barry Sanders. And I don't think anyone has as many negative, carries for negative yards as Barry Sanders, but there was something. I mean, you just go by, SportsCenter highlights were so important back then, you know?

• 48:54Bill Simmons?

  So we have Jalen Hurts in the second Super Bowl.

• 49:00Bill Simmons?

  Which is twice as many appearances as Matt Stafford, Drew Brees, Dan Marino, Aaron Rodgers.

• 49:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 49:15Bill Simmons?

  We have Nick Sirianni in the Super Bowl, where it looked like he was gonna get fired in September and early October. And since then, I think they've lost once. Against Andy Reid, who is now 28 and 16 in the playoffs in his sixth Super Bowl. And starting to really legitimately breathe down Belichick's neck. And his, his breath smells like barbecue.

• 49:43Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. 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.

• 50:25Bill Simmons?

  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. Let's do Guess the Lines, because Guess the Lines is brought to you by Hookah and Bondi9, their new daily trainer. Bondi9.

• 50:50Bill Simmons?

  What was your favorite Bondi?

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Uh, I like seven. I thought it jumped the shark around after that.

• 50:56Bill Simmons?

  Now it's back. Bondi nine is the best one they've had. Guess the Lions, you already won. You won your first title. I gotta say,

• 51:04Bill Simmons?

  my team has noticed a lot of, a lot of talk with this win and now we're, we're rededicated for next season.

• 51:10Speaker 01

  Oh, I made a nice little breakout clip of it and yeah, I don't know what the NFL could do about this.

• 51:15Bill Simmons?

  I won like 10 years in a row and I, I just sheepishly accepted my trophy and just kept my head down and thanked my fans.

• 51:20Speaker 01

  That was your fault. Shouldn't have done that.

• 51:22Bill Simmons?

  You won once and you're talking a lot of shit. So next year it's on, baby.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  This is a big freaking deal. And I don't know that, like I said, the NFL has a problem because now this is a waste of a week. I don't know what they could do scheduling wise to make this interesting with me having won the title, but.

• 51:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know what's really annoying? The NBA.

• 51:39Speaker 01

  I agree.

• 51:40Bill Simmons?

  Has their trade deadline. The Thursday of Super Bowl week.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 51:44Bill Simmons?

  When it should either be this week or next week. Like just for content, the NBA just shoots themselves in the foot over and over again. I've never seen anything like it.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:53Bill Simmons?

  Why would you have your trade deadline during Super Bowl week? It's so fucking stupid.

• 51:57Speaker 01

  Are they announcing it in the park, parking lot of media day? Like how, how close are they getting? How much attention do they need?

• 52:04Bill Simmons?

  I, I don't understand it. Like by Thursday, everyone is either at the Super Bowl or talking about the Super Bowl. I, I just don't get it. I don't understand how they screw up shit like this.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  That doesn't matter.

• 52:16Bill Simmons?

  You think Jimmy Butler's going to the Dodgers?

• 52:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, they get everybody.

• 52:20Bill Simmons?

  Guess the Lions.

• 52:23Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs. Eagles. And I'm going to say. It's in New Orleans. I'm going to say Chiefs.

• 52:33Bill Simmons?

  By two and a half.

• 52:34Speaker 01

  Okay. I said, I've not seen it yet. Swear. I've said, it has to be one and a half. Because every line has been one and a half this year. And I'm going to say the Chiefs are favored. And so now let's look.

• 52:48Bill Simmons?

  I pulled out my starters, by the way. Joe Milton made that guess.

• 52:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, you should have. It is one and a half. Of course, it's the biggest practical joke in sports gambling. Chiefs are favored by one and a half.

• 52:59Bill Simmons?

  Why did the football scores get so weird? We never had 29 versus 29, 29 in the fourth quarter. Never happened our entire childhood. Everything's weird. The Lions are weird. Everything's weird.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  And not only that, I was like, oh, 29, 29. All right, the one and a half is going to come into play. And then like you, me and Hench, we listed like 10 ways the one and a half can come into play. Oh, the Bills can miss the extra point. Oh, the Chiefs could go for two and like, oh yeah, I forgot. It's the NFL. One and a half.

• 53:30Bill Simmons?

  That's it for Guess the Line. That's not it for the Bondi 9, which 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, resilient ride that's become synonymous with the Bondi. Everybody Bondi. Visit hooka.com, H-O-K-A.com to learn more about the Bondi 9.

• 53:53Speaker 01

  Well, they got everything up already.

• 53:54Bill Simmons?

  What's everything up? Tell me. Let's talk about it.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Barkley over under yard.

• 53:58Bill Simmons?

  Oh, let's, let's do a quick tour.

• 54:00Speaker 01

  You want to guess that?

• 54:01Bill Simmons?

  For our fans on YouTube.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:03Bill Simmons?

  On the Youtubes. Barkley over under? Can I guess some of these?

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, do it. Yeah.

• 54:09Bill Simmons?

  Barkley over under, I'm going to say 85 and a half.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:14Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 54:15Speaker 01

  114 and a half.

• 54:17Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 54:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's, you just read his stats. They can't give that free money.

• 54:21Bill Simmons?

  He's playing the Chiefs.

• 54:23Speaker 01

  The, I mean, Cook could almost add that, right?

• 54:26Bill Simmons?

  What did James Cook have today?

• 54:29Speaker 01

  I don't even know. It was 70, 70, 80, somewhere in there. What else you want to see?

• 54:35Bill Simmons?

  James Cook had 85 yards.

• 54:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:39Bill Simmons?

  Why was that a bad guess? 114 is a lot for the Super Bowl. That means you're probably winning if you rush for 114.

• 54:46Speaker 01

  They can't give him 15. They can't give him the ball 15 times.

• 54:48Bill Simmons?

  Plus, the Chiefs can kind of try to jam the line and make him throw to Devonta Smith.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  I dare you. I dare you.

• 54:55Bill Simmons?

  I'm betting the under.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 54:58Bill Simmons?

  Do they have Mahomes?

• 54:59Speaker 01

  They do.

• 54:59Bill Simmons?

  Rushing attempts yet? Because that's my favorite bet.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Oh, okay. You gotta be careful with this.

• 55:03Bill Simmons?

  He had 11 rushes today. That that bet hits every single time. Mahomes of the playoffs rushing attempts is the safest prop in sports.

• 55:13Speaker 01

  I'm not seeing rush attempts yet. Oh, wait. Oh, I, uh, yeah, I do see it. Okay. What do you think?

• 55:21Bill Simmons?

  I think they jack it up to like five and a half because it keeps hitting.

• 55:24Speaker 01

  Oh, they jacked it even further. Six and a half.

• 55:27Bill Simmons?

  I still like it.

• 55:28Speaker 01

  The over's a plus, but we'd like this bet more than Mahomes rushing yards, right? Because of the kneel down factor. He takes gigantic.

• 55:35Bill Simmons?

  The kneel down factor kills the rushing thing. They gotta figure that out.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  But you get three free.

• 55:39Bill Simmons?

  We didn't talk about that that moment today when the official was slapping the, uh, slapping Washington with the newspaper because they kept jumping offsides. And he's like, if this happens one more time.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  I did say.

• 55:52Bill Simmons?

  We're awarding a score to Philadelphia. So what what would have happened from a gambling standpoint? Who gets the score?

• 55:59Speaker 01

  Oh, right, right, right. We were trying to figure that out.

• 56:02Bill Simmons?

  Is there a way we could have bet on this? Somebody like, could we bet on this at the Super Bowl? Phillies, no, no player on Philly scores a touchdown.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, the scolding score. Does the center, the center get it? I'm not sure. That's, that's good because it's like an own goal kind of, right?

• 56:16Bill Simmons?

  Have you ever seen a ref say that before? I didn't even know that was.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Not even close.

• 56:20Bill Simmons?

  I feel like they made that up.

• 56:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's not a lot of brotherly love being sent that way. One other play was that the measurement, and again, the Chiefs won because they're better and everything else. The measurement on that fourth down where the, the line judges.

• 56:34Bill Simmons?

  The two refs, yeah.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  Wild, wildly different. And they just don't measure anymore. They don't take those chains. They're embarrassed of the chains. Like, why don't they measure? So like they guessed and then that guess has to be conclusively overruled to change. Like, measure it. Put, put it down. First of all, that, there's, that, there's not a chip in the ball.

• 56:53Bill Simmons?

  I think the ball wasn't hitting the hash mark and the, the, the chain was actually on the hash mark.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Exactly, the hash mark.

• 56:59Bill Simmons?

  So they knew it, just missed it.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  Interesting. All right. This is a $500 billion league. Put a fricking chip in the ball. Like, it's one thing if the guy's knee is down, but if we're really just measuring to see where the ball, furthest the ball got, I think we could do that.

• 57:12Bill Simmons?

  Wow, you're a put a chip in the ball guy?

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Well, what, what are we doing? The chains.

• 57:16Bill Simmons?

  Do you get along with the make the goalpost hires guys? Do you guys have meetings together or are you like rival gangs?

• 57:22Speaker 01

  There's a big meeting. It's also an AA meeting. So, yeah. Well, we're bringing chains out there. Like, these guys are surveyors in the 1650s. It's so stupid.

• 57:32Bill Simmons?

  So what do we have for the over under? Can I guess that one?

• 57:35Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Sure. That's easy. That's right there. I mean, not easy.

• 57:38Bill Simmons?

  Forty-nine and a half?

• 57:40Speaker 01

  Uh, now I lost it. Forty-nine and a half is exactly right. You know what? I'll give you a win for this week. I'll give you that win for that.

• 57:48Bill Simmons?

  I got one.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:48Bill Simmons?

  So the two games today went crazy over.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 57:52Bill Simmons?

  I mean, by, over by 15, 20 points. Usually, there was a lot of dialogue about, well, Eagles, Washington. Each team only gets seven possessions. They'll be, these slow games. It's like, nope, that's wrong. And then KC Buffalo, just, they kept moving the ball up and down the field.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  And last week, was it the over four and out? No, Chiefs Texans went under. But we had Eagles Rams had 50, Bills Ravens had 52, and the Lions Commanders had 76. So, yeah, you had like five out of the last six go over in cold weather, most of those games.

• 58:22Bill Simmons?

  So for a Super Bowl rematch.

• 58:26Bill Simmons?

  There's not a lot of those either. Pat's Giants was probably the most famous one of this century, but we've had some other ones. When we were growing up, Steelers Cowboys was like an exciting rematch. I think, I get the feeling people now don't like rematches as much. Like the KC Philly, ah, we've already done this. I wrote it in the Jalen Hurts thing.

• 58:45Speaker 01

  People like to complain.

• 58:46Bill Simmons?

  Or the Mahomes thing. Yeah, but like Buffalo or Washington being in there would have been content fodder.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 58:52Bill Simmons?

  But I think this is a really good game.

• 58:53Speaker 01

  It's great. And first of all, Fox is delighted and the NFL is delighted, right? Cause you got Hertz, you got Barkley, you got Mahomes, you got Taylor, everything. If the Rizler shows up again, I don't know. But I think the casual fan probably is bummed about this matchup a little bit, right? Like, I think like maybe Cowboys Chiefs would bum them out a little more. But other than that, I think this is right up there.

• 59:17Bill Simmons?

  My son who follows football on Tik Tok and through YouTube Shorts. He watched the, uh, most of the second half with me. And at one point he turned to me and said, Dad, isn't every football season the same? Like the Bills come super close and then they lose. The Chiefs make the Super Bowl. They play somebody from the other team who seems good, then the Chiefs win. And I was like, nope, you're wrong.

• 59:40Speaker 01

  I'm gonna lie to you right now. The answer is no.

• 59:44Bill Simmons?

  That's not true at all, son. Every season's way different.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  There's no chip in the ball. Of course it's the same.

• 59:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, no. Jaden Daniels, you never know, son. Jaden Daniels, last week in Detroit, you shocked the world, son.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. McDermott's not gonna blow this game. Well, you could just tell him that every year he could rely on a great AFC title match, right? Like seven of the last nine have been seven points or few, decided by seven points or fewer.

• 1:00:14Bill Simmons?

  My son, I always impressed my son by predicting what plays are gonna happen. I've been playing a lot of Madden lately. I'm like, oh, empty back. I think he's gonna, and half the time, that's how predictable some of these plays are though. I think it's actually a bad sign if I'm on my couch and I could figure out where the ball's going.

• 1:00:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:31Bill Simmons?

  Half the time. Like the, the, uh, especially on those like swing screen passes, you can kind of see. Do you do that when you're watching the games? Do you try to predict what they're gonna do?

• 1:00:41Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone wants to be like Romo in that regard. I, I just can't, when, when I get-

• 1:00:45Bill Simmons?

  Romo doesn't do it anymore.

• 1:00:47Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah. I think he's, um, you know, I don't know, cause people are assholes and they're like, we don't want to hear it. What's about to happen? So stop circling the screen. I think, I don't think he was told to stop, but I think he's just like, forget it.

• 1:00:58Bill Simmons?

  The one I got wrong, I would have bet my life on, it was before the Samuel touchdown when Buffalo tied it.

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:04Bill Simmons?

  It was like third and goal from the five. I would have bet my life that Allen was gonna do the QB draw on that play.

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  Was gonna take off. Yeah.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I just think it's, it's been so obvious. They've been, they've been relying on it to the point that I think they, even they realized they probably can't do it.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  I, can I ask you when the shotgun from the one started?

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, listen, you know, that's my, you know, my least favorite plays are fourth and goal or fourth and, fourth and short, fourth and one, the QB not over the center. To me, you're like just throwing away an advantage.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Who started it? Did it start in college? Was it like Vince Young or like Tebow? Like it wasn't that long ago. I mean, it wasn't, you know, it wasn't like in the seventies or eighties. I really feel like it's.

• 1:01:44Bill Simmons?

  It's the cousin of, it's a tie NBA game with under 10 seconds left and they do the ISO where then the guy does a step back three to win the game.

• 1:01:53Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:01:54Bill Simmons?

  But it was a tie game. It's like, we just need a basket. You don't need to do your step back 27 footer.

• 1:02:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:01Bill Simmons?

  Same thing for the shotgun snap. I don't understand it. I don't, I also don't understand why Mahomes doesn't sneak, which we always talk about.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:02:08Bill Simmons?

  Cause he got hurt that one time, like five years ago. Like they can't sneak him anymore.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  It was kind of fluke.

• 1:02:12Bill Simmons?

  They can't, he can't just like lean down and burrow in and go for half a yard.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  Yeah. Although I'll say that fourth and two, where they rushed up to the line after a timeout and he rolled right. It's like, wow, this guy's got it, man. This is why it's so fricking hard to beat them.

• 1:02:30Bill Simmons?

  It's really impressive.

• 1:02:33Bill Simmons?

  We have two weeks to talk about the Super Bowl. On your podcast, on my podcast, people are gonna be in New Orleans, whole bunch of things. You have a new Cowboys coach.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Oh, we could skip. We can go right to parent corner, right? We don't have to talk about this.

• 1:02:48Bill Simmons?

  You hired Marty Schottenheimer's son, Brian.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  They are related. I had a feeling, yeah.

• 1:02:54Bill Simmons?

  I wouldn't say Brian was a red hot coaching candidate.

• 1:02:57Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:02:58Bill Simmons?

  Which might be a good thing or a bad thing. He's the kind of guy I would have expected, oh, the Patriots have hired Brian Schottenheimer as the QB coach for Drake May. I'd be like, good hire, veteran. He's your head coach.

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand it. Why didn't you hire Cliff Kingsbury? At least he's like from Texas and he's young and you could make excuses for the first job. It's like, maybe you didn't get along with Kyler Murray. Like, I don't understand Brian Schottenheimer at all.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't understand it either. And nothing against the guy. I'll, I'll give him a chance. I hope he does well, but I really think Jerry Jones is fucking with us. I mean, the way he's even introduced him. He's like, ah, he was known as a career assistant. It's like, yes, yeah, great, Jerry. That's what we're all thinking.

• 1:03:37Bill Simmons?

  Career assistant.

• 1:03:38Speaker 01

  That's what he said. That's how, he's not just Brian anymore. He's the head coach. I'm like, you just don't care about us. You don't care about this team? This is just a joke. Um, I, I kinda wanna enter the fan trend, you know, the portal. I really wanna get into the portal and pick a different.

• 1:03:55Bill Simmons?

  No, you're fine. No, look at the Washington fans this year. You gotta keep, you gotta stay with your, stay with the marriage.

• 1:04:00Speaker 01

  Joe House.

• 1:04:01Bill Simmons?

  Stay with your bad unhappy marriage.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  Hate watched the, the Washington team until they switched ownership and now he gets a seat in the luxury box, courtesy of Washington. I'm like, all right, I'll do that. Like, why can't I just watch from afar? This is disgusting. Brian Schottenheimer, like you said, wasn't on anybody's list. It's like in fantasy, if you're doing like a snake draft and someone drafts like, um, in the seventh round drafts like, uh, like Ray Ray McLeod and you're like, all right, hold on, I'm still looking down my list to cross them off.

• 1:04:31Bill Simmons?

  Right. You're making the joke. Hold on, I got to get to page 12.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Gotta keep going, gotta keep going. Like, there's something to be said about at least going through the motions and interviewing a Kellen Moore or a Flores.

• 1:04:41Bill Simmons?

  Jones broke. What's, like, is it possible he doesn't have as much money anymore? Because he paid Mike McCarthy to the last minute of the contract and then just let it expire. And then he's obviously trying to save money with this coaching hire. Really weird.

• 1:04:57Speaker 01

  He's an actor.

• 1:04:58Bill Simmons?

  There are better versions of this guy out there. Maybe the landman thing, he.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  I think he said that. He's like, I'm an actor. I can fall back on that if the team's bad and the team will be bad.

• 1:05:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, it was an interesting one because the Jets interviewed, I think, 230 possibilities for their head coach. And I don't even think he cracked that list. And they were interviewing people that you didn't even know were still, you know, professionally working.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's our guy. He's been in the building three years and they still have to interview him. The fact, the funny part is that they actually interviewed him. Like, yeah, I think you know what you're getting with him. It's fine, but.

• 1:05:36Speaker 01

  I'm so bummed.

• 1:05:37Bill Simmons?

  Does the interview start like, Brian, what went wrong with your career?

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  Why are you still here, Brian?

• 1:05:44Bill Simmons?

  Why did it peak five years ago? Conversely, I'm on an absolute high with the Patriots again. Why not? Frable, Frable's putting together this awesome coaching staff. That's like the complete opposite of what we had last year. We have all these overqualified, we have Doug Marrone. Doug Marrone like almost beat the Pats in a play, in a round three playoff game, five years ago, like he was a good head coach.

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  I'm really pumped. I really feel like, I think the Washington thing has given all the Pats fans so much energy that it's like, they did this in a year. They just, they hit the quarterback, they did all that. So now I'm, I'm going to be more into this NFL draft than I was last year.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  It's so funny how Washington has affected other teams near the bottom, right? And.

• 1:06:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Speaker 01

  The exact opposite effect on Dallas. Cause now we have Jaden Daniels in our division for anywhere from next year to the next 12 years. Right? And, uh, and we celebrate.

• 1:06:38Bill Simmons?

  He even took a win today, I felt like. I thought he was, you know, he, he maybe a couple of passes were a little low. But for the most part, like his poise and the way he kind of kept them at that two point conversion he had was great. I just thought.

• 1:06:52Speaker 01

  He still seems very, very cool. It's very cool. Never freaks out. Threw a couple of bad passes, but it's to be expected. I mean, how many, how many weeks are you going to do this for?

• 1:07:01Bill Simmons?

  Well, the cool thing for us selfishly, just like for the Sundays where we're trying to watch all these games at once, we just want as many fun QBs as we can get. And now it seems like at least May and, and, uh, and Daniels are two more to the list. Hopefully Caleb can get there. You know, hopefully Herbert will. Take some sort of leap. Hopefully, the new Jacksonville coach will resuscitate Lawrence. Like, we might get into a situation where

• 1:07:28Bill Simmons?

  half of the teams have a fun QB.

• 1:07:30Speaker 01

  Wouldn't that be something?

• 1:07:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What if J.J. McCarthy's good?

• 1:07:35Speaker 01

  Fun, fun QBs and

• 1:07:37Bill Simmons?

  Dak's coming back?

• 1:07:38Speaker 01

  And bad coaches, shut up, are what's gonna keep guest lines going for another 17 years?

• 1:07:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, the one thing we know is we're always gonna have bad owners and

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:07:47Bill Simmons?

  Bad coaches.

• 1:07:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:49Bill Simmons?

  By the way, the Celtics, here's a little, here's a little tidbit. The Celtics, they have, they, it was the first round of the buyers.

• 1:07:58Bill Simmons?

  That they had to cut down all the prospective buyers and like, I don't know, five people made the first round, four or five people. One of the people was the Eagles owner.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:08:09Bill Simmons?

  Jeffrey Lurie. Who's apparently from Massachusetts. So he was, he was, uh, they, cause there's been a couple like, hmm, I wonder who these guys are. And there was a couple I couldn't figure out, but that's, that's one that, uh,

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Do you like that? Do you like one that, I mean, that happened with your Red Sox too, right? Isn't there like the whole?

• 1:08:28Bill Simmons?

  So the precedent is Josh Harris owned the, owned the Sixers and then bought Washington's football team. The Crockies owned the Nuggets and he owned the Rams. So there's been a couple of NBA NFL things, but I mean, I always thought the Eagles were one of the best run football teams, right? So if, if, uh, if he bought the Celtics, that's a decent outcome. There's a couple decent outcomes in this.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  It's so funny how there's only like a few owners, there's only a few quarterbacks to get, and there's only a few coaches. If you don't get them, you're kinda screwed.

• 1:09:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and you're way more likely to have a mediocre to bad coach and a bad owner.

• 1:09:06Bill Simmons?

  All right, anything else before we hit parent corner? Did you hit the sad point of the season yet?

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:11Bill Simmons?

  You're just going to like wrestling tournaments on a Saturday and thinking about how you have no games?

• 1:09:16Speaker 01

  That is pretty sad. I told you, when you can't make a three-team teaser unless you use the over-under, that is a, that, that's a milestone.

• 1:09:24Bill Simmons?

  Official sadness day?

• 1:09:25Speaker 01

  Really bad, really sad. And after next week, after we do our prop podcast, that'll be sad too. It's a, it's a step. We're gonna do.

• 1:09:38Bill Simmons?

  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. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. This episode is brought to 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 going to 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.

• 1:10:21Bill Simmons?

  You're going to want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. Parent Corner, you go first.

• 1:10:31Speaker 01

  All right, I'll go first. Speaking of wrestling tournaments, so yeah, wrestling season's coming to a merciful end for me. And so that's my middle kid. And my youngest kid has travel baseball and rec league basketball. So Saturday I have to go from Jack's.

• 1:10:47Bill Simmons?

  Rec league basketball?

• 1:10:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, he's all over basketball too. It's fun. It is fun at that age and running around. So Saturday I have to go from Jack's tournament to Harrison's basketball game. I'm about, I'm going to catch just the end of his basketball game. So I walk in there, it's the fourth quarter and I see my wife's there. And the game, it's 18-17 and she's talking to this woman seated next to her. And I have no idea who the woman is. And I mentioned that, I was like, wow, the gym seems tense. And, and my wife's like, yeah, the refs aren't calling anything. These kids are really going at it. And then she goes back to talking to this woman that I don't know. So, um, and then it's clear to me, I'm like, well, she must be guessing that the refs aren't calling anything because she's not watching a second of this. And so I'm starting to get annoyed. I'm like, it's 18-17 with like two and a half minutes left.

• 1:11:34Speaker 01

  Like Harrison's taking shots and he's playing defense and everything. But anyway, okay, so, uh, she's still talking to this woman. There's eight seconds left. We're up by three. The opponent inbounds it, dribbles down the court, runs down the court. And just before he pulls up for the three, Harrison hard fouls him. Before he goes into shooting motion and I was like, that's fricking smart. That's like one of the smartest things my kid has done.

• 1:11:59Bill Simmons?

  The announcers must have loved it.

• 1:12:00Speaker 01

  The announcers loved it. The gym did not love it. The referees didn't love it either. And everyone's like, oh, oh, boy. But now there's like point six on the clock.

• 1:12:09Bill Simmons?

  What was the hard foul? Was it like a shove or was it like a karate chop?

• 1:12:12Speaker 01

  Right, right shove to the chest, maybe a little elbow. Kid's off balance.

• 1:12:16Bill Simmons?

  This is great.

• 1:12:17Speaker 01

  Before, before, way before the shot, definitely before the shot, but he saw that the kid was about to pull up. And there's point six on the clock and there's like, no, it's not a shooting foul and they're just gonna inbound it. And the ref like mildly scolds Harrison, much like the refs did to, um, to, uh, um, sorry, who played Philly today? Already lost.

• 1:12:37Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, Washington, when they were jumping off the sides, uh, over and over. But he's like, game's over. And, uh, and so that was it. And everyone's like, oh man, oh boy, alright. So I was like, oh geez, I'm like, I can't wait to high five him in private later.

• 1:12:54Bill Simmons?

  Like, like a small fist pump?

• 1:12:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then the kid who he shoved is like crying, um, after the game. And I say, and I'm like, now I'm by my wife and this woman, I'm like, oh God, look at this. This kid's crying now. And she turns to me and mouths, that's, that's this woman's son. His name is Bob. I'll say Bob, uh, cause I don't want to say the real name, but that's off by one letter. She's like, that's Bob and this woman's son. I'm like, oh shit. Now she's looking at me. And so now I have to eat shit a little bit. Like I let like a minute pass and I go up to her after the game. And I'm like, hey, I just want you to let you know, Bob played a great net game. And she's giving me the look like, yeah, I fucking saw you walk in like with four minutes left in the game. Don't give me this crap. You didn't even see him play.

• 1:13:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you made it worse.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  I made it worse. She didn't say that, but she gave me that look. But anyway, talking to Harrison afterwards, I'm like, look, you know, you're not supposed to foul. I was like, dad, we lost a game like that last week. I wasn't gonna let him get the shot off. That's my boy.

• 1:13:54Bill Simmons?

  That's good hard-nosed stuff. I like it.

• 1:13:56Speaker 01

  That's it. So I'm the jerk, uh, again. You know?

• 1:14:02Bill Simmons?

  So 10 and 11, Harrison's 11?

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:07Bill Simmons?

  Those are really emotional ages for boys' sports.

• 1:14:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:14:10Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot more crying than I was ever prepared for, like in the baseball and the basketball. Like, kids really melt down.

• 1:14:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:19Bill Simmons?

  It made me, it made me think how funny it would be if, like, we did this as adults, like, if it was, like, in the game today. Like, Don Cade drops the pass, he's just sobbing on the sidelines. When did they grow out of that, at age 12?

• 1:14:31Speaker 01

  We do this as gamblers. Well, what's interesting with basketball from 10 to 11, which makes it even more intense, at 11, they start, they start calling double dribble a lot, and they start calling, uh, travel, and you can play backcourt defense. So it gets pretty rough and stupid. Yeah, 10, 10 and under, you couldn't play defense until we crossed half court.

• 1:14:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, cuz I, I was visiting our cousin Jimmy yesterday.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:58Bill Simmons?

  In South Bay, and, uh, I called you to see if you were around, and I just heard whistles in the background. And I'm like, oh, I forgot, on Saturday, you just drive around to different.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  My son gets.

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  Sporting events.

• 1:15:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that was it.

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  My parent corner, so my wife went away for a couple of days with some friends. She still lives here, it's not a Michelle Obama thing.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  And I was left alone with, with me and Ben and the dog.

• 1:15:27Bill Simmons?

  Murph, who, if you've noticed, has not been really on Parent Corner.

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:15:31Bill Simmons?

  All year, cuz he's four, like, he really has blossomed into a great dog, mature, no accidents. We have no gates in any of the rooms in the house, anything like that. Well,

• 1:15:46Bill Simmons?

  my son had, uh, had a friend over, and they made a cake.

• 1:15:52Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, it was a female friend. And, um, he left the, you know, there's the frosting? Left, I think he left the frosting on the counter, but maybe not enough distance for Murph not to get it. So I come home on, on Thursday, and in the, in the TV room.

• 1:16:15Bill Simmons?

  There's just the remnants of something and it's like white. It almost looks like somebody spilled cocaine powder. And I'm like, what is that smelling it? And it just smells like icing. And I'm like, oh my God, Ben. So now I'm on Murph watch. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. And then Saturday morning, the apocalypse. I noticed him sneak away a couple of times. Usually he's always where I am.

• 1:16:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  If I'm home and I noticed him sneak away a couple of times. Like that's where Murph, where are you going? And he's like, I'll be right back.

• 1:16:46Bill Simmons?

  It was a poopocalypse.

• 1:16:49Bill Simmons?

  My, my office that I'm in right now, multiple shits.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  I could smell it.

• 1:16:54Bill Simmons?

  Our, our living room, which we had a gate so that nobody could go in there. That was a dog for months and months. And finally, we don't need the gate. It's ugly. Murph never goes in there. Double shit on, on the rug in there. The, the, uh, what was the other place? Oh, and then the TV room, like ruined the rug. That like so, like three different shits.

• 1:17:17Bill Simmons?

  And I had already closed the doors for, so anyway, I, we have this machine that I would recommend anybody has a dog who likes to shit in their house. This water tank machine where you can scrub it and it picks the shit up. And I saved two of the rugs, but I haven't saved the third one. And, uh, and he ruined it. And so last night I was like, I, so I didn't have a good night's sleep Friday night. And I'm like, last night, I'm like, that hopefully the shit's done. I lock all the doors. He's locked in in our bedroom. There's no rug for him to pee on. The bathroom doors closed or poop on bathroom doors closed. There's nothing he can get to. And I'm like, now I can just get a good night's sleep. Got the pod tonight with the two games. Like, I just want to be rested and prepared.

• 1:18:01Bill Simmons?

  Fall asleep at one o'clock. Like 2:45, I just hear him circling around in the room, which means he has to go. So bring him down. It's pouring rain. Goes out, he does whatever, comes back, towel him off. Hour and a half later, we repeated again. 5:45, let's do it a third time. And now I'm up and I've been up since 5:45. So I don't know what I look like, but, um, but three shits. And I haven't told my wife because she's away. And so I guess this is, if she hears this, this is how she's gonna find out.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  So who will get in person? Well, did you reprimand your son or no?

• 1:18:40Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he's like, it wasn't my fault. He shouldn't have jumped on the counter. I'm like, no, it's a hundred percent your fault. If you leave something on the counter that like, if you left poison on the counter and he ate it and he died, is that his fault or yours? He's a dog. He has an IQ of 20. So I've been mad at him all weekend.

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:58Bill Simmons?

  And just like, like, I, I've never picked up this many shit. So it was like, he had never shit in the house. And then it was like a year and a half of shit saved up.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 1:19:07Bill Simmons?

  Just dropping them everywhere. So anyway, mercy back.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  What, what do you, what, they make a wedding cake? What the fuck? How much icing did he?

• 1:19:14Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand. And then I was like, do I have to take him to the vet today?

• 1:19:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:18Bill Simmons?

  And I'm like, I'm not fucking taking the vet. The games are about to come on. If he dies, he dies. I was like rocking. It was like Drago.

• 1:19:24Speaker 01

  Creed.

• 1:19:25Bill Simmons?

  If he dies, he dies.

• 1:19:28Bill Simmons?

  But, uh, but it was just like, and I actually felt bad for him because last night I just, I was like, I'm not even bringing him in. Just stay outside.

• 1:19:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:36Bill Simmons?

  And for two hours. And then I kind of forgot about him. I was watching a movie for rewatchables. And then I remember I heard him barking. I came back down. I brought him in and he was like so emotionally destroyed.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Bill Simmons?

  You left me out there. I didn't think you were gonna come get me. So anyway, it's been a roller coaster weekend. And I've had, I think, three hours of sleep.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  Wow. Can I say something? You said.

• 1:19:56Bill Simmons?

  The lesson is don't get a dog.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  No, yeah, yeah. Wait on the dog or at least get that rug cleaner for sure. You, you said that the dogs have an IQ of 20. This, this sounds like a smart dog. Like when you say like the dog left the room to do all this, he, he knew. He knew. Like that makes me think sometimes that dogs are smarter than humans. Like he had the wherewithal to be crafty enough or embarrassed enough or whatever it was to do it in another room for, uh, just temporary.

• 1:20:20Bill Simmons?

  It's almost like a cheating spouse where it's like, I'll be right back. I just gotta go to the bathroom. And then they're have, they're on a phone call in the closet.

• 1:20:27Speaker 01

  You said she went away with her friends. Oh, the dog, the dog.

• 1:20:30Bill Simmons?

  The dog. Yeah. No, he's, he's like, I'll be right back. Just gonna go get some water. And it's like, it is like, what rug haven't I shit on yet? So anyway, uh, I'm looking at our chat.

• 1:20:43Speaker 01

  What are they saying?

• 1:20:44Bill Simmons?

  Uh, people. Chris Schemmer says, I love how Bill still contends he's never done blow. I have never done cocaine. I swear on my kids.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  I'm not even positive I've been in the same room with it. Like very virginal with cocaine. I'm not gonna ask you if you've.

• 1:21:01Speaker 01

  I've not done it and I, I, I had the opportunity, cause I had gambling money once to loan my roommates who were dealing it money. It's like, you give me a hundred and fifty dollars and you can make six hundred by the end of it. I was like, I don't even, I, I don't know why I said no, but I.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  Start a good.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Wasn't even doing that. No.

• 1:21:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So anyway, Murph, Murph ruined my weekend.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Bill Simmons?

  And it looked like, uh, the two bets were gonna ruin my weekend. And then the Chiefs came through, which brings us full circle.

• 1:21:27Speaker 01

  There we go.

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  Can always count on the Kansas City Chiefs to save your weekend.

• 1:21:30Speaker 01

  We're back.

• 1:21:31Bill Simmons?

  Especially when they're the second team. I thought Romo was outstanding today. I want to mention that as well.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 1:21:36Bill Simmons?

  I really thought he did a great job. Romo, we were in rough shape with him a couple of years ago. It, it just didn't seem like he was putting in the work, but I, it feels like he is.

• 1:21:44Speaker 01

  Well, I like it because even last week, a little tiny bit wishy washy. I was like, oh man, is he just not a cold weather announcer? But no, he, he came back.

• 1:21:52Bill Simmons?

  I think he did cocaine.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  Like two of us. Yeah.

• 1:21:57Bill Simmons?

  That's it for, uh, that's it for parent corner. That's it. So next time I see you will be next Sunday.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:04Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna be doing our annual Super Bowl props podcast.

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  I love that there's like a hundred and fifty up already. It's not even Monday. This is terrific.

• 1:22:12Bill Simmons?

  It's amazing.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  We always used to have to wait, right? Until the second week.

• 1:22:16Bill Simmons?

  I have a quick NBA thing for you.

• 1:22:20Bill Simmons?

  I, you know, we had that Pacers bet?

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell everybody what that is. Tell me.

• 1:22:25Bill Simmons?

  No, we did. Well, it's Pacers over Minnesota under Sacramento under. We did like four weeks ago. And now it seems like Sacramento might screw us, cause we need them to be under forty-two wins.

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  Mm-huh.

• 1:22:36Bill Simmons?

  I think the Pacers are about to make a little run here.

• 1:22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:41Bill Simmons?

  Just talking about from a gambling standpoint, next couple of weeks. I, I like what I'm, they have all their guys back. I just think there's something interesting about them that I've been monitoring.

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  What did we get?

• 1:22:50Bill Simmons?

  Of all the teams in each conference, that's, and I think Golden State's on the flip side. I think, did you see the stat? Golden State is one and twenty.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:57Bill Simmons?

  After the third quarter, when they don't have a lead, like.

• 1:22:59Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:23:00Bill Simmons?

  To me, Golden State, if they don't make a trade, like this is, this season's a punt. Yeah.

• 1:23:05Speaker 01

  What did, uh, what'd we get the Pacers at? Wins?

• 1:23:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, we're gonna hit that one. We got it at like forty, forty-one and a half.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Okay, so it's, it's forty-six and a half, but you wouldn't double back on it, would you? That's too much.

• 1:23:18Bill Simmons?

  Oh, for regular season wins?

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:21Bill Simmons?

  Um, what's their record?

• 1:23:23Speaker 01

  Uh, that doesn't matter. Yeah, no, I'm, I don't know. Uh, their record.

• 1:23:27Bill Simmons?

  So they are 25 and 20. So 47, they'd have to go 22.

• 1:23:36Speaker 01

  22 and 15.

• 1:23:38Bill Simmons?

  22 and 15?

• 1:23:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty good.

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  That seems like it comes out till last week. Yeah.

• 1:23:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, at least. Well, we already have that.

• 1:23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. I was just wondering. I mean, so I don't even know how you play them at this point. What, what more?

• 1:23:53Bill Simmons?

  46 and a half's high. So we, so we definitely hit that one. Golden State is 41 and a half now.

• 1:23:58Speaker 01

  Uh huh.

• 1:23:59Bill Simmons?

  And unless they do a desperation trade, that one might be going under. Um, the only other one that I think I, I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Lakers look good in that Celtic game.

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:24:11Bill Simmons?

  And then they look good against the Warriors and I'm starting to wonder if maybe they found a little something because there's a physicality to them. I wrote them off. I, I thought they should have traded Anthony Davis and it's only two games. I'm not zigzagging, but I'm just watching them because I saw a team in that Boston game in person that

• 1:24:30Bill Simmons?

  just seemed like they had, they were figuring out an identity that I didn't think they had. And then they did the same thing against Golden State.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  This was a tough stretch.

• 1:24:37Bill Simmons?

  Physical team.

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, like they, they three of the last four, the next four games, or they're in that four game run that was going to be tough. And I bet them to make the play in. I'm like, oh, they're definitely going to get in the play in because you could do that on Fandel. I'm like, now they're minus 225.

• 1:24:51Bill Simmons?

  That could actually make it.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  Well, now they're minus 225 to make the, to make the playoffs. So, ugh.

• 1:24:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're seven games over 500 and I wasn't even considering them potentially being good until um, those last two games. Cause they're defending way better than they did. They have, they, they have enough shooters now. Gabe Vincent's giving them something. Um, that he was not giving earlier in the season. So I, it's, I, I, I don't want to put, plant a flag on it yet, but I'm, I might've been wrong about them.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Well, I thought for sure. Once they let Bronny go to the G League, I'm like, that's a mistake. They're going to regret sending that generational talent somewhere else and, uh, and who knows if he even comes back if they want him.

• 1:25:33Bill Simmons?

  No, Bronny's the best thing that happens to go into Laker games now because people want to, they want to see him, but they, usually the game's over.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:40Bill Simmons?

  So we, I took Hinch to the Laker game. We got out of there. We were out of the garage and like, 30 seconds because every it was like the easiest time to yeah there Lakers are up 20. Usually people are fleeing, but everybody kind of wanted to stick around.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:25:54Speaker 01

  Everyone just wanted Hench to leave, I think.

• 1:25:57Bill Simmons?

  He was in rare form.

• 1:26:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the only other one is Cleveland. I was thinking about this for next year, that team that starts out super hot.

• 1:26:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're ridiculous.

• 1:26:08Bill Simmons?

  And then around the 40 game mark, they're huge favorites in every game, but they they relax a little bit and they lose a couple. And I want to remember that for next year.

• 1:26:17Speaker 01

  Dave Atkinson is minus 470 for coach of the year. What would they have to what kind of what kind of claps would they have to have for him not to win it at this point?

• 1:26:27Bill Simmons?

  Wow. What's crazy is the Thunder coach is 30 to one and that guy's doing an amazing job. He lost Holmgren for the whole season, basically.

• 1:26:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, but he won he won last year though, right? I mean, I'm all for the guys that get votes, but I think that's I don't think they give it two years in a row too much.

• 1:26:43Bill Simmons?

  Joker at plus 230 for MVP on FanDuel seems like a really good odds. As you know, I'm not allowed to.

• 1:26:49Speaker 01

  All right, you promised me you'd get the vote. You have the vote.

• 1:26:52Bill Simmons?

  No, but I'll tell you, here's why. Because

• 1:26:56Bill Simmons?

  first of all, it's only game 45. Second of all, there's really only two candidates right now. But Denver's a four seed now. Like you can't win the MVP unless unless it's either a shitty year or you're like a top three team. They're probably going to be a top three team in the West, which puts him in play and he's having this historic offensive season. And it's at least an argument.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  So that's the hedge on Shea because I have SGA because of you, House and Russillo. I got like plus 350. Now he's minus 350.

• 1:27:25Bill Simmons?

  Oh, when we were we were telling people early that yeah, if you're just talking value.

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:30Bill Simmons?

  I it's a two person race now. I would be really surprised. Tatum, oh man.

• 1:27:36Speaker 01

  I mean, Giannis is 120.

• 1:27:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, everybody's triple figures. Anybody else?

• 1:27:43Bill Simmons?

  No, it's those two. So if you wanted to hedge it, I would hedge it with Jokic. The Rookie of the Year is funny because all of a sudden Ware on Miami became the favorite. Cause he was good for two weeks. Like that's how bad, I still, I still think Castle plus 310 is probably a little.

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, uh, from the beginning of that year.

• 1:28:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then most improved, that one always changes right around like mid February. All of a sudden people get excited. Same for Defensive Player of the Year. I think six man's a little more open than Pritchard being minus 170. Cause he hasn't been, uh, like just looking at those odds, Amon Thompson, who's been incredible, especially lately, he's eight to one.

• 1:28:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:21Bill Simmons?

  He's, he's having a, I think a more impactful year than Pritchard is.

• 1:28:26Speaker 01

  Well, the pitfall is.

• 1:28:27Bill Simmons?

  Thompson's the best Rocket right now.

• 1:28:28Speaker 01

  I mean, remember Westbrook was a big favorite, uh, not Westbrook, who'd they make, um, was it Westbrook with six man? Did that make sense? Like a few years ago? Then like you became, it became a starter and then.

• 1:28:38Bill Simmons?

  It screwed it up.

• 1:28:39Speaker 01

  Odds went away. So that's what you have to avoid. Like which one of those top four can be, uh, get in the starting lineup.

• 1:28:45Bill Simmons?

  Cause what do you got to plug?

• 1:28:46Speaker 01

  Uh, what do I have against all odds? Couple of times this week through the ringer with Tate Frazier, Cousin Sal's winning weekend at the end of the week. And, uh, Frontier Wireless blows and their customer service reps are fucking liars. That's it. Bye. See you next week.

• 1:29:04Bill Simmons?

  Are you doing content with Tate this week?

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you want me to ask?

• 1:29:10Bill Simmons?

  Is he focused yet on Charlotte trading for Curry? That was always his dream scenario.

• 1:29:16Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting. I don't know. He's all about.

• 1:29:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't think Golden State's ever trading Curry, but Tate's, Tate's dream was Golden State was going to become mediocre. And at some point the move was just to cash in Curry before, during the last stretch of his career.

• 1:29:29Speaker 01

  What does that look like?

• 1:29:30Bill Simmons?

  He goes back to Charlotte.

• 1:29:32Speaker 01

  First round pick.

• 1:29:32Bill Simmons?

  He grew up there.

• 1:29:33Speaker 01

  The number one? No, I know, but what did they have to give up?

• 1:29:36Bill Simmons?

  I think LaMelo's in it.

• 1:29:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  Two guys who never want, who never want to play. That's what a great trade.

• 1:29:45Bill Simmons?

  Anyway, ask Tate, see what he thinks. All right, I will. All right, thanks to Kyle and Gahal. Thanks to Saru Deve though he's not here. You can watch all of our stuff on YouTube. Please subscribe for us. And then I got a movie watch of us coming tomorrow. So that's the pod. Sal, congrats on the guest of the Lions title again. Good job by you. Good job by you, buddy. And good job by the Chiefs. Thanks, everybody.

• 1:30:29Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states. For Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. Or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777. Or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org. Or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support. Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY. Or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures. Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller

• 1:31:12Bill Simmons?

  from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer, director of The Banshees of Minnehoshan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Set in the 1970s. Filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys. Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9. Only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now. This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes?

• 1:31:56Bill Simmons?

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