The Smashmouth Giants, Bumbling Chargers, Stumbling Packers, Week 1 Overreactions, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal react to Week 1 of the NFL season before looking at some of the futures they already regret. Then, they Guess the Lines for Week 2 before ending with Parent Corner. (0:00) Intro (1:08) Week 1 reactions (01:07:33) GTL Week 2 (01:28:13) Parent Corner Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Jessie Lopez, Chris Wohlers, and Trevor Rabone Enter for a chance to win superior soccer, basketball, and golf prizes at https://michelobultra.com/SuperiorAccess The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season like eBay for collectibles, Fanatics for teen gear, Walmart for tech. Check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with Pay in four with no interest, no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Paying for subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com slash paying for PayPal, Inc., NMLS 910457.

• 0:39Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. The NFL is here and it's the most rewarding season ever on FanDuel with the all time FanDuel Rewards Club. Every eligible bet can earn you points. Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock. Head to FanDuel.com slash BS to start earning with FanDuel Rewards Club. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 1:36Bill Simmons?

  This stream is brought to you by the Farmer's Dog, the official pet food of the NFL. The Bill Simmons Podcast, live on Netflix. I am here with Cousin Sal. Wanted to mention, we have a new rewatchables coming tomorrow night. We did Rambo, First Blood, Part Two. Me and Kyle Brandt.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Who cares?

• 1:58Bill Simmons?

  You can watch some people get shot.

• 2:00Speaker 01

  You can just shit.

• 2:01Bill Simmons?

  Listen, we just watched Giants-Cowboys Sunday night. Cowboys minus three point favorites in Giants Stadium. New look Giants, lot of people loving the Cowboys, lot of theories that Jerry Jones has been quiet this year because he has a really good team finally. Explosive offense, lot of high hopes. And unfortunately for them, you jinxed them on Wednesday with all of your Drake May rhetoric.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I didn't.

• 2:30Bill Simmons?

  I heard of it.

• 2:30Speaker 01

  Oh, no, I didn't.

• 2:31Bill Simmons?

  You did. No, you did. You did. You were mean about Drake May. You were mean last Super Bowl.

• 2:36Speaker 01

  Drake May has nothing to do with this.

• 2:37Bill Simmons?

  You were mean this week. You got a little on your high horse and now it all backfired with Cam Scataboo just scattered all over your body.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Oh, crap. First of all, I didn't, I was nice about Drake May. When they lost the game, I tweeted his, I tweeted his names in capital letters and exclamation points. Like what, what more, how much nicer could I be?

• 2:56Bill Simmons?

  I would have felt bad for you tonight, but after you said Drake maybe 330 times over the course of the week.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  It's more than that.

• 3:03Bill Simmons?

  How about maybe the Cowboys could have stopped the same play over and over again?

• 3:08Speaker 01

  All right, put them up, put them up now.

• 3:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, oh, wait, are you going to run another swing pass to Singletary? You haven't run that for two plays, you motherfuckers. You can't get over the side and stop somebody?

• 3:18Speaker 01

  So mad.

• 3:19Bill Simmons?

  You had the ball once for two thirds of the second half and this defense, this vaunted defense that was supposed to be, you know, ready to roll and new defensive coordinator, all these new changes, and you got steamrolled by a bunch of oversized white guys. Let's be honest. They all looked, I didn't even know who was who. It was like number 45, 44, 41, guys are moving around and you just got, you got bulldozed.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Okay, I didn't know we were going to inject racism into the podcast. I'm looking at the rundown now. It's not on there anyway. We're going to go over our most, okay, futures we regret.

• 3:53Bill Simmons?

  Cam Scatabo, it's like, he's, no, he's going to be running the ball here. There's three minutes left. I know, he's going to run for 13 yards anyway.

• 4:00Speaker 01

  I can't argue. Well, I can't argue with any of it. The only thing I, see, I didn't jinx it because I refused to give those, those nicknames that readers, readers, followers, watchers, viewers, listeners wrote in and gave, you know, Jackson Dart. And I was like, no, no, no, I'm not falling for that. I'm not doing that because I'm going to come up here.

• 4:17Bill Simmons?

  Medieval Knievel.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Upset, right. And there was some other ones too. We kept, but you know, first of all, this is unfair that I couldn't do the Wednesday night show with you. Why can't, why can't I do tonight's podcast?

• 4:27Bill Simmons?

  You got to do the Super Bowl after me, after we lost by 30 points. You got to come on and take a Drake maybe victory lap.

• 4:34Speaker 01

  You weren't in the Super Bowl, come on.

• 4:36Bill Simmons?

  We were in the Super Bowl.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 4:38Bill Simmons?

  New York Football Giants, 29 first downs, six incompletions.

• 4:44Speaker 01

  That was it, six? I don't remember six.

• 4:46Bill Simmons?

  Six incompletions, 29 first downs.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  How many third down conversions?

• 4:51Bill Simmons?

  I, a hundred. It felt like a hundred. He was doing third and nines, third and 13s. That was the most in control dart spin. Anytime there was about to be a turnover that it felt like you might get, you, either you didn't get it or they didn't throw it or fumble it. And, and then offensively, it felt like you guys were on autopilot the whole game. I didn't really understand, I didn't see the urgency in the first half.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 5:16Bill Simmons?

  I thought the end of the first half was really weird where Dak just throws it up for grabs, all of a sudden they're coming down for more points. I didn't like the coaching. I didn't really like anything I saw from Dallas.

• 5:27Speaker 01

  I know.

• 5:27Bill Simmons?

  It is, it is week one, I guess would be the excuse.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  It's such a bummer because I did like them. I really felt like I'd have reason to like them going into this year. There was nuts, nonsense and they signed all the players they needed to and the rookies were playing well and they looked prepared and yet they looked so unprepared tonight, so unprepared. The corners were a mess, were no better defensively. You have like Darnell Mooney and all right, Isaiah Likely is a nice player, but he's not, he's not going to Canton anytime soon. He's open by like 20 yards. Looks like they're playing with nine defenders. You got Christian Parker in there. By the way, this guy could be an Eagles spy. We got him from Philadelphia, so he could be a double agent, you know?

• 6:07Bill Simmons?

  Oh, like a Ramiro Mendoza. We got, the Red Sox got Ramiro Mendoza and he tried to torpedo our season.

• 6:13Speaker 01

  That's it. You're going to read about it. It's going to happen. But like last year was like missed penalty, missed tackles and dumb penalties and you know, guys would get beat, but this is just like blown aside, completely whiffing on assignments. I know we had young players out there, we had rookies all over the place, but just totally unprepared. I'm bummed with Schottenheimer. Christian Park, I don't love, no adjustments at all. I don't even know what to say. Like you said, yeah, the offense was flat. I don't think we would have won that game anyway. I can't give my enemy any credit. I just have to put my own team down. You understand that, right?

• 6:44Bill Simmons?

  Nine penalties for 90 yards, so that didn't change from last year.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:47Bill Simmons?

  I thought the Giants played a great game and both you and I were shorting the Giants heading into this season. And one of the reasons was I thought Harbaugh was overrated with what he did with Baltimore and et cetera, et cetera. There was a moment in this game when they had a lead late and then the Cowboys come back and they score and it's like, oh, I used to watch Harbaugh do this on Baltimore. He's going to do it again.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:10Bill Simmons?

  Then your guy taunts, your guy gets the first touchdown taunting penalty in like three years.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:15Bill Simmons?

  It's like, oh, really? You can't hold the ball out as you're running into the end zone? Like they call that every time. Aubrey misses a PAT and then all of a sudden you, it feels like you never get the ball back. But listen, the Giants, they did remake their team. They looked like a professional football team. I, I don't like the Giants either. I got to give them credit. Super physical. They put their quarterback in positions to succeed. He wasn't like running around, taking huge hits. Really only took one big hit.

• 7:43Speaker 01

  It was a hard hitting game too, by the way. I mean, not really for him, but it was a late hit, I think somewhere in there. Yeah, I, here's the thing, I just, I don't want to give him, I'm so pig headed with this, but I kind of look at them like, who's the pitcher on the Brewers? Mizy Roski, right? Like, oh my God, this is amazing when things are going good. But would you be surprised if it just stopped one day just because of his style? Because he throws 104 miles an hour, like 75, 70, 80 pitches a day? I feel like the Giants played battery ram football, looked great tonight. Wish I would have been playing them in week four.

• 8:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, the question with the season and the reason, one of the many reasons we went under with them was because I didn't think Dart or Scatabo would last for four months. But you caught them tonight, the whole team was healthy and they actually looked pretty good.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Got to hand it to them. I can't remember the last fun Cowboys Giants game.

• 8:36Bill Simmons?

  Now, I know that wasn't fun for you, but in general, like a pretty compelling game. I thought the strategy and the coaching and I thought the Giants played really well. You guys have fun players on offense. Like I had a good time.

• 8:48Speaker 01

  That was fun.

• 8:49Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember the last time I had a good time watching a Cowboys Giants game.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  I'm glad you had a good time.

• 8:53Bill Simmons?

  I felt, well, I felt the same way. We both lost our, our Ringer 107 picks.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Oh, I know. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, I felt, I said the same thing with the Seahawks Patriots. I'm like, I can't remember the last time these two teams played and I had a good ti- oh, wait. Oh, no, no, in February too.

• 9:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, see, this is, now you're gonna go six and 11.

• 9:11Speaker 01

  I don't know. Can I just say, like, setting up, I was so excited for today, right? And then you, you have to get used to physically watching eight screens at once. So I had to actually take Advil because, you know, I'm not like the, the red zone reject. I don't mean to, whatever, however you watch games, it's fine, but I have to watch. I like to watch.

• 9:27Bill Simmons?

  Red zone rejects. I like that. Like the red zone booger eaters?

• 9:30Speaker 01

  It could have been worse, you know?

• 9:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  I said red zone reject. Um, but yeah, I like watching the body language and drive stalling and stuff. You know, you're the same way, right? You like watching all the games. So that's the physical part of it. But I forgot the mental part of it, how angry I get over the course of six hours. This is before my team even played.

• 9:48Bill Simmons?

  Six hours? It was like 11.

• 9:50Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know, but from nine, yeah, I guess, yeah, adding this game. But, but I'm like, oh, man, I'm pissed off at 12 different things here.

• 9:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 9:58Speaker 01

  A couple of hours. I gotta get back in this. It's so much fun. I know. Eventually it'll be fun again.

• 10:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, there, you're right. There's stuff that you gotta get in the habit of. Like, there's four or five moments where you go, why'd you do that?

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:11Bill Simmons?

  You start talking to a TV, like that, like Javonte Williams today, holding the, holding the taunting. You're just watching going, why? Why are you doing that? Or the best one today was the, uh, the Jared Goff backward pass. That they called back because it wasn't a backward pass because his motion, even though his motion ended up throwing the ball backwards, intended to throw it. And look, I know people are gonna be like, oh, tuck rule, same thing. But the tuck rule is a thing that they've called over and over again, whether you liked it or not, for years and years, before they finally tweaked the rule. I've never seen that play ever. And actually, last year with the Broncos, Stidham had a similar play where he threw the ball backwards when he was trying to throw it this way and somebody hit his arm.

• 10:54Bill Simmons?

  And they just said that was a backward pass. And you know why they said that? Cause it was a backward pass.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:59Bill Simmons?

  That's, just like today, Jared Goff threw the ball backwards. There wasn't, I don't care what he, mentally his intent was.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:05Bill Simmons?

  It was like, we talked to Jared and Jared decided that he was throwing the ball forward. So incomplete pass.

• 11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. We gave him a lie detector test, put some truth serum in him.

• 11:15Bill Simmons?

  Jared looked us in the eye and told us, and, but anyway, that just, over the course of the day, you have those.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Right. If the refs had said, because I hadn't seen that before either. But if the refs had said, all right, look, we're just, we're, we're changing the rule and there's nothing you can do about it. We're changing it right now. I'd be like, oh, okay. All right. That's fine.

• 11:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Don't tell us this is how it is.

• 11:33Bill Simmons?

  Pereira comes on, he's like, that was the correct call. It's like, I've never seen that call in my life. We watch football every week. So you have those, you have the, the, the roller coaster of fantasy. Like if you had Loveland today and the Bears, they have 59 points and he has zero fantasy points. This is a guy who is the third tight end taken everywhere. And you're betting on this offense and him being unleashed and he just has a goose egg. There's no reason for it. Or you go the other way. You have Devon Bailey on the Saints, who I have in two of the leagues, who all, you know, all of a sudden, if you started him, so we have the roller coaster with that.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  I'm gonna write this down next. Next week, I'm gonna write this down. All, all things I got angry at in the, from, uh, 10 a.m. to three. Just, I'll just do the two, uh, afternoon windows there. And I wanna be, I wanna put it in tears, like, my wife cheated on me angry. Um, you know, uh, the, the DoorDash screwed up my lunch angry or whatever. I just stubbed my toe angry, you know? I, I'm gonna put them in tears, but I, I bet it's like 30 things, cause we text each other all day. And it's just like, it becomes enormous.

• 12:36Bill Simmons?

  What tear would have been, I wish I had more money against Deshaun Watson. There's only like one or two weeks left for this. Cause that, I mean, that was, I had that, we brought back teasers on, uh, on Fanduel, which was, I think, successful.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Thank God.

• 12:51Bill Simmons?

  If the Broncos hit tomorrow, I think, I think we did really well with our teasers. But, um, I had the Jaguars in the tease and you, you're watching that game and Deshaun just immediately throws a pick. The body language is terrible. I know people look at his stats and in the game be like, ah, it wasn't that bad. It was like, it was terrible. They, they were down 24-0 in five minutes. And you're watching it going, why the hell did I? Jacksonville's home, it's humid and hot. The Browns quarterback, the coach after the game, Monken had some crazy quote like, yeah, it wasn't that fun, but you know, for me, I've never been a head coach before, so that was great.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:27Bill Simmons?

  It was like, what, nothing was great. You can have no superlatives about what we just watched, but.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  I just, I, I thought to myself, Deshaun throws that interception, it's like 10:20 our time, 10:25, 1:20 Eastern. And I was like, that's it. Like the early slate of games doesn't officially begin. The season doesn't really start until he throws an interception. He's like a groundhog. He's like the, our grabby little creepy groundhog comes out and throws an interception.

• 13:54Bill Simmons?

  That should be his nickname, the groundhog.

• 13:55Speaker 01

  The groundhog, intentional groundhog. And we have, uh, 22 more weeks of football, so.

• 14:02Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna make an inappropriate joke, but I'm not going to.

• 14:04Speaker 01

  Go for it.

• 14:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Jets won today too.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:08Bill Simmons?

  So you have New York, you have two football teams from, uh, from the New York area.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:12Bill Simmons?

  Cause they both play in New Jersey.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Let it be this weekend, if any. That's fine.

• 14:15Bill Simmons?

  One, one, I know. Yeah, that was nice that it was this weekend. Um, so the Giants were, I think the big, oh, this might be real in the NFC. And then I think the, the Bengals could make the case for the AFC. Like, we got, we got some hype, some people are behind us, cause it was the same thing for the Giants. There was some worst to first, like they were probably the obvious pick from the eight divisions. If, if you're going all in on a worst to first team, that was probably the team you and I stayed away. The Bengals, so they beat Tampa. And if you just looked at the stats, you would say the Bengals defense, four, four turnovers.

• 14:54Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know, man, like, I, I thought all of those turnovers were just awful by the Bucks. They were all like really stupid plays by Mayfield, by Bucky Irving. Um, there was one like, you know, swipe from behind, but Baker was also, you know, running the ball with the, with the, dangling the ball out.

• 15:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:16Bill Simmons?

  I thought they got some, some fortunate breaks and I just thought the Bucks were super sloppy. I, I, my jury is still out on the Bengals defense, cause I thought the Bucks were going up and down on them.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  Oh, it's gotta be. Yeah. I mean, Baker plays Savannah banana football, basically. It's like, all right, oh, this is funny. Oh, that's funny and effective. That's fun. But yeah, someone, someone said, uh, Burrow throws a pick six. Chase has what, like 12 total yards?

• 15:40Bill Simmons?

  Got shut down.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  And the Bucks never punted. And, and yet Cincinnati won. Yeah, really almost by double digits, but you know, Tampa scores at the end. They really out-bangled the Bengals, I think, Tampa back.

• 15:53Bill Simmons?

  Baker, he, actually, if you look at his stats, had a good game. But he did like four egregiously dumb things and that's what ended up getting them. But I, I actually think this might be the overaction game. Um, and we'll talk about other possible candidates. Yeah, both ways, cause I think Tampa's a little better. I'm not just saying this, cause I like Tampa heading into the season and, and like Cincy less. I just felt like that was an either or game and Tampa just, they had to be in the locker room after going, what the fuck? How did we not, what are we doing? Did we turn the ball over four times and yet almost, and we barely lose, you know?

• 16:29Speaker 01

  They still really can't protect them though. Like, but both teams.

• 16:32Bill Simmons?

  It's weird, they have a good line. I don't, that's the weird thing is they have one of the better lines.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like the battle of the teams who can't protect their quarterback. Bengals are like, all right, big, Bucks are like, all right, we'll show you. We got Baker, the bone breaker. And, uh, you know, they just, that's just what you're gonna get from them every week, I think.

• 16:49Bill Simmons?

  The Bengals, I will say, like, obviously their defense, they have more pressure than I ever remember them getting. And they had a little energy and a little, hey, we feel different. But, I don't know. I, I, I thought either team could have won that one. I had a weird day today because I, I mentioned this last week, but my daughter had a, had a soccer game at 11 o'clock P T. And so I was debating all these, I was gonna put it, I had the TVs, I was gonna put her on the bottom so I could have the, you know, get all the games. And then by the time her game started, I was so excited to watch her. I ended up putting her on the big screen. I had a four box and Bills Texans on the other TVs. And I, I wish my wife had gotten video. I was standing in front of the TVs so I could see everything.

• 17:33Bill Simmons?

  Like, really looked like a madman. Like, and then they were playing the number two team in division three and they took a 1-0 lead. And it felt like, and she drew the penalty kick. And, uh, and I was like, here we go, man. This is gonna be like the greatest day. And then they gave up three goals.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  I know, I live bet them the draw when they were down 3-1. Sucks.

• 17:54Bill Simmons?

  I forgot to tell you, this is to, uh, live bet them the other way, but, um.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  You know, it's weird because.

• 17:58Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, so it was hard. My focus was all over the place. It was tough.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  But normally it'd be okay, cause the early slate stinks, but we had six 20-plus point teams at half. Like, let me ask you, is 1 P M. Eastern football back?

• 18:12Bill Simmons?

  I thought, so NBC did something really interesting with Tomlin. And I thought Tomlin at halftime was excellent. I don't know if you saw it.

• 18:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did.

• 18:20Bill Simmons?

  It was just him and Maria Taylor and they set him up and it was like, you're gonna rip through these, your four favorite talking points over the next five minutes. It, it was the first good NBC halftime show, NBA or NFL, I think, ever. I, I was really, I was like, this is, this is really interesting. But his main point was that, cause she was asking him why, why there were so many points, why the offense was so good. And he was like, I was watching this happen over the course of the last few years, cause we're not allowed to hit in August. You know, we don't, we, we have like very soft practices and the defenses need time to get in a rhythm of just banging bodies, shedding blocks, just hitting people. And he's like, I'm not surprised that this is the result at all.

• 19:02Bill Simmons?

  And I was like, that's, I wish he had told us that before the games, when we could have bet some of the overs. But, uh, but you could feel it. It was like so many defensive breakdowns, like that Bucks, I mean, I'm sorry, the Ravens Colts game, um, just fuckups all over the place, guys wide open.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  Um, and that's what those one o'clock games were. Bucks, uh, Bills Texans, Texans have the best defense in the league. Their defense sucked today.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  I think that was the most disappointing unit that I saw today and this week. I, the Rams offense, say what you will about that game, but the Texans defense and maybe the Chargers offense was awful. Like the Bills had more sacks and they had eight yards per play. So I know it's the Bills and Josh Allen could do his thing, but I, I don't wanna have money. And we do have money on the Texans if they're gonna give up even more than 20 points a game.

• 19:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, according to the Tomlin thing, maybe, maybe we need a couple of weeks with them.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 19:57Bill Simmons?

  The, uh, the Bills did feel different.

• 20:01Bill Simmons?

  Like DJ Moore, he had 100 yards.

• 20:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:04Bill Simmons?

  It said Allen had 11 passes that he completed that were 10 or more yards in the air, which is unusual for him. I think that was a record.

• 20:14Bill Simmons?

  Houston had ball for 36 plus minutes. They had 26 first downs. And they lost. So you can't really say, oh, Bills defense. This game, like, I don't know if the people watching this saw the game, but Allen threw a pick that was gonna end the game and Lassiter dropped it.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  And he's one of the best defensive backs in the league. And it was basically him backpedaling. He should have had it. He drops it. The next play, the Bills get a long touchdown. But that's why, like, oh, Josh Allen, the Bills, here they come. And it's like, they should have lost in that play.

• 20:47Speaker 01

  Always. It's one thing. It's always one thing with the Bills. Either works for them or doesn't. And I know it's like you have to watch your football for years. I shouldn't be surprised. Well, for years, shouldn't be surprised. But yeah, 334 passing yards, four total touchdowns. He was just like, get out of my way. If our defense blows it at the end, so be it.

• 21:04Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  But I like the idea that a lot of people I know didn't start Allen in fantasy.

• 21:10Speaker 01

  Our friend Brad in our league, Brad bid $30 for him. He doesn't spend $30 on anything except for like the orange crush and tobacco, chewing tobacco. But that's, um, yeah. So, yeah, they're gonna be good. They're gonna be all right. And they play the Lions next week.

• 21:26Bill Simmons?

  I got an email from Ryan in Buffalo who said, Josh Allen now has nine career games with at least two passing and two rushing touchdowns in the same game. Five more than any other player in the history of the NFL. Should that stat be called the Josh Allen?

• 21:41Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 21:41Bill Simmons?

  Or should we call it the Josh? And who could even threaten to break it? He wonders if Drake May would have the best chance.

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Oh, that's why I read that.

• 21:49Bill Simmons?

  If he's trying to antagonize you.

• 21:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  He also has the 20th most rushing touchdowns of any player ever as a quarterback, Ryan says. I like the idea of calling it the Josh Allen if you have the two touchdowns from running passing in the same game. I think that's good.

• 22:06Speaker 01

  He has more than anybody? Five more than anybody?

• 22:08Bill Simmons?

  Five more than anybody. It's nine total.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, he has more rushing touchdowns than Earl Campbell. I saw the list. I already forgot it. But I know like there's some gigantic names on there.

• 22:16Bill Simmons?

  But that was the classic Allen game, right? He was incredible. He was awesome. He had multiple superhero plays. And the guy on the other team dropped the game winning pick. And then you have CJ Stroud come back down. And CJ was, for the most part, his stat, he was 274, two touchdowns, didn't have a pick. And then they're in the 20. They have like about, what, 30 seconds left? They gotta score a touchdown. One thing you can't do is take a sack. He takes just an awful sack and then gets a strip sack where he fumbles and they lose. And

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:46Bill Simmons?

  And that's it. So if you're a Texans fan, you feel better about CJ Stroud than you did in January, but you still aren't high fiving anybody.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, but it's that defense that I'd be a little worried about. Cause that has to be great. It has to be as great as it's been for them to go as far as they do, even with Stroud playing well. So, I don't know. And Joe Brady went shirtless after. So you know, he's, that's a hard push for Coach of the Year.

• 23:09Bill Simmons?

  I saw it was a hard push for coaching locker room moment of the year. Yeah. So you had the Bills in that game in Ringer Wise Guys on Friday. You were the only, everyone was zagging toward Texans. I would say the Texans and the Cowboys were two of the most popular picks this week. Right?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  And both of them, both of them fell. Chargers were in a bunch of survivor pools and that didn't happen either. There's a lot to cover from today. We're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back and we have to talk about the weirdest game of the week. And probably the season, Packers Vikings. That's coming up.

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Another killer.

• 23:48Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. It's the small moments where we have the most fun sometimes. Like having a friendly little competition with your friends. See who's the fastest, or who can putt better in the backyard, or who can get to somebody else's house or the better route, whatever it is. Even better, if you put some Michelob Ultra on the line, or a refreshing way to up the stakes. Like, me and House are gonna pick games against each other on Thursday. It's the NFL season. Maybe we keep track in ways of Michelob Ultra six packs. I'm happy to do that. Maybe Michelob Ultra will make a special BS podcast or ringer six packs. And then we could, we could barter them back and forth, whatever it is. By the way, they

• 24:31Bill Simmons?

  should do that for us. Superior is worth playing for. Michelob Ultra Superior Light Beer. Enter for a chance to win superior soccer, basketball, and golf prizes at michelobultra.com/superioraccess. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026. Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri. Just talking fantasy. I have a chance to somehow win this week in our league, even though AJ Brown is now out for six weeks.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Ah.

• 25:01Bill Simmons?

  Really hurt my feeling, but I need, so we were talking 23.6 points for Rashi Rice and Kenneth Walker. That would be what beats me.

• 25:09Speaker 01

  You just gotta keep them under that. Yeah.

• 25:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. The good news is I won't pay close attention to every freaking snap in this one submarine my night tomorrow.

• 25:17Speaker 01

  Zoe's not playing a Monday nighter?

• 25:19Bill Simmons?

  No, thank God. No more games for her. Packers Vikings. Green Bay goes up 22 to 10 with 20 minutes left in the game. Kyler Murray has been knocked out. He threw a pick and then he got concussed. He's gone. Carson Wentz is in. I thought McCarthy was coming in. It was just weird to see Carson Wentz. I forgot that McCarthy wasn't even the number two quarterback.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:42Bill Simmons?

  He comes in, he looks like Carson Wentz. There's a couple of moments where it looks like he's actually maybe physically breaking down.

• 25:50Bill Simmons?

  22-10 feels pretty good. What happens?

• 25:55Bill Simmons?

  They don't, Green Bay hasn't scored another point. The Vikings scored 29.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:02Bill Simmons?

  So Green Bay loses. They outscored them 419 to 219. They had Minnesota 132 passing yards. This was the sixth straight loss for Matt LaFleur, including blown leads of 21-3, 21-3, and 22-10, if you include the playoffs last year.

• 26:20Speaker 01

  That's right. They lost five to end it. Yeah.

• 26:23Bill Simmons?

  This, we try not to overreact to week one. This was an abominable, abominable loss. And if I'm a Packer fan, I'm losing my mind. This is not like the Patriots Seahawks game. This is like, how the fuck did we lose this game?

• 26:37Speaker 01

  No doubt about it. And I was gonna be so mad. This is my best bet of the day. Packers minus, plus the one and a half. So there was some tic tacs in there. The Bills were a tic tac. This one was a tic tac. So, and I was gonna be really mad if they lost by three. They made the two point conversion, Minnesota. You gotta be kidding me with this. And by the way, I deserve it because I interviewed Justin Jefferson, the lovely man, and then picked the Packers to blow them out. So, um, but, uh, what the F happened? Like, I don't, I don't understand how a defense could be working so well and then just salivating with Carson Wentz. I think the big play was, I think they would have gotten out of the drive, but that body to body thing where you put too much weight on somebody when you sack like a guy like Carson Wentz and they got called for the penalty?

• 27:22Speaker 01

  Did you see that?

• 27:23Bill Simmons?

  Whoa.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  And that kept the drive going.

• 27:25Bill Simmons?

  Did I see it?

• 27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:25Bill Simmons?

  They had three penalties kept that drive going, including that one. Um, yeah, listen, this is, so my buddy, my buddy Chip, college roommate, diehard lifelong Packer fan.

• 27:36Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 27:37Bill Simmons?

  He said, can you please read this during the podcast? I'm gonna do that because I've known him since 1988. Two third down stops and an interception all overturned by insane penalties. In a few years, we'll find out this game was part of a gambling scandal.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Wow. That's the first one of those. I love it.

• 27:54Bill Simmons?

  From my old college roommate Chip. Yeah. So I don't think Packers Nation is happy about the results, but they could, listen, Minnesota blitzed love. The final number was 78.4%. That's how many times they blitzed them today. The Packers offensive line was a sieve, right?

• 28:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:12Bill Simmons?

  Their defense, they, without Parsons, they just have no pressure at all. They couldn't get any stops and they ultimately couldn't stop Carson Wentz, who, by the way, hit Jefferson on that long one. Like that was, I don't know if Murray would have hit him on that. I guess my question is, were the Vikings maybe one injury away from being a decent team? Cause you and I both, we are not Murray fans. You pull him out of that game, I feel like they lose that game if he's the quarterback.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  I kind of did too. And he threw a bad interception, right?

• 28:44Bill Simmons?

  Bad.

• 28:45Speaker 01

  To, before he went out. And then he had a couple decent ones, but he got crushed. Like, I hate saying that, honestly. Like, it's like that. It's like, all right, I'm watching the wrong sport here. I gotta put the tennis on for a little bit. But, uh, um, so, yeah. No, you're right. So 78% blitzing, and I think they got home 58% of the time. I think the pressure was 58%. And it just seemed to pick up in the second half. Like, I don't see any adjustments from LaFleur at all. I guess if you're winning, you don't have to make too many adjustments, but just a

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, in the first half, in the first half, they were blitzing on everything. Then in the second half, they started mixing it up. Love ended up with 387 passing yards. He was hit 15 times and blitzed 78% of the time. And I don't know if you saw this, but Kenny Atkinson announced that analytically, he thought Jordan Love won the game.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Oh, did he write it? He did? He's still doing that?

• 29:38Bill Simmons?

  He looked at the stats, yeah. He looked at the stats. He thought Jordan Love won. But so we had him, Nerd King Jordan Love, the new Nerd King, going head to head against former Nerd King Justin Herbert. And it was perfect because Herbert was just atrocious in the Cardinals game. Whereas with the part of the Nerd King package is the nerds have to make excuses for you after you lose the game. So in this case, it's like, actually, Jordan Love was amazing. With the way the Vikings were blitzing him, that was one of the best games of his career. They lost by 17. But that'll be the nerd argument this week because he's our new nerd king, Jordan Love.

• 30:14Speaker 01

  He's the one?

• 30:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Justin Herbert, who's now been dumped, who's left Nerd Village and he's, he's left the country like Meghan and Harry. And now he has nobody to defend him when he plays like complete dog shit against the Arizona Cardinals.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  Not only that, Madison Beer left. She's on the market for all you single fellows out there. She's seen enough. She's like, I can't be with that.

• 30:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. She was like, I thought I was going to be in the suite, being shown in the suite the whole game. I had like four touchdown dances with my beer.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Thanks a lot. Yeah, they, that was my big loss. Not even my best bet, but I would add a nice day had they come through on a

• 30:50Bill Simmons?

  That was your money line parlay.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, plus they killed like 30% of eliminator pools and like 60% of my voice were screaming obscenities at Mike McDaniel most of the afternoon. It was disgusting.

• 31:02Bill Simmons?

  Also, it was a karaoke LaFleur game. They gave up a 69 yard kickoff return, right? Packers special teams, lock it down. Terrible blown coverages, like TJ Hockinson was just wide open at one point. They had the penalties, they had the bad offensive line. They had the play where he took the field goal off the board to set up the sneak that didn't work. Which leads me to my next question.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  How did he not make that sneak? I'm sorry, I just like, like, oh, he made it. They're going to review that. Oh, god damn it, he didn't make it. He wasn't even close. Stupid.

• 31:34Bill Simmons?

  First coach fired.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  Oh, here we go.

• 31:40Bill Simmons?

  I could give you LaFleur. I could give you Todd Bowles.

• 31:46Bill Simmons?

  Could I give you Jim Harbaugh? Could I interest you in that one?

• 31:49Speaker 01

  Wow. That's a good one.

• 31:52Bill Simmons?

  That was the, one of the worst coaching, I think that might've been the worst coached team I watched today. It's the Chargers. No life, stupid shit. Doing the same dumb stuff over and over again. Really, really egregious coaching stuff. Like, they, they're down, what were they down, nine or 12? There's four minutes left. They have a third and 30. And they, they have like two timeouts left. They call a timeout because they, they don't want to have a delay of game on third and 30. What are you guys doing? When you're on 10 yard line? What are you calling, what are you calling timeout for? And then later, it's like, well, they only have one timeout left because they had to use that to save the delay of game. To save the delay of game so that on third and 30, they could throw an eight yard pass and punt. Like, that's just bad shit. I don't know.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  It was bad. He, I would say he's top three or four at this point. I mean, the team's supposed to win like double digit games, right? I mean, we'll go over our, our big regrettable futures in a minute, but yeah, that was, I talk about like missed assignments. Like, we were led to believe, all right, when Joe Walsh comes back, wait till you see. Nobody's going to get within 15 yards of Justin Herbert. He's going to be able to do whatever he wants. Sean Slater, whoever else is in there. Not the case. Just overthrows, bad. And I know McConkey went out, but that, that game was lost before then.

• 33:07Bill Simmons?

  McConkey went out because, because Herbert threw him a hospital ball. I don't know if you saw it.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:12Bill Simmons?

  He led him right over the middle and he got absolutely killed. And it was, then I remember DJ Mikey Mack is the offensive coordinator who has the hospital ball in his offensive play sheet.

• 33:21Speaker 01

  Should we give someone credit? We'd never, I know we don't give anyone credit, but Arizona was, they were decent. I looked at like, yeah.

• 33:27Bill Simmons?

  I want to talk about Arizona. Hold on, one, one more thing on the Chargers, just quick. Because I do wonder if this is the week one overreaction game. But you love the Chargers heading into the season. I was with you for most of August and when they lost their center and the left guard, center, right guard combo were all like F minuses. I got scared off. Did you see the play when, when they blitzed? They sent three guys hit Herbert.

• 33:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 33:55Bill Simmons?

  The two tackles both blocked their guys and the other three guys were blocking one guy.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Three guys are blocking one guy.

• 34:01Bill Simmons?

  Three guys are like blocking one guy. Three other guys are hitting Herbert and the other two guys are creating the pocket. And I was like, I hope that's not a metaphor for the Chargers season because it kind of felt like it was. And defensively, they couldn't get stops. They, they couldn't cover anybody. They didn't get any pressure on Brissette. I, I thought that the Cardinals kind of dominated them.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  They really couldn't get stops. The Cardinals, if you look at their drive charts, like they, they had like six good drives where they kept the ball away from. I think the Chargers, the Chargers had like three possessions in the first half or something like that. And then like, really like one, the two in the third quarter, it wasn't a lot. I get on Mike McDaniel, like they were terrible by the goal line and everything else. But yeah, I'll, I'll give Cardinals, like, I can't believe it. Brissette like made some big third down plays and they moved the ball and Love scoring early on was big, even though he didn't do a ton after that.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  I wonder with Brissette, he's at least the new Flacco, right? Because when he was on the Patriots, he was unplayable two years ago. Like, he was really awful. And now I watch him and he's got McBride, he's got Wilson and Harrison. He had, who was that other guy who had seven catches today? That third receiver, I'm blanking on his name, but that guy was catching balls. And Brissette was like, you know, methodically moving down the field, making all the right reads. He only had one Brissette play. He like threw it up for grabs. Four guys had a chance to get a pick. None of them got it. But I'm with you. I was watching that game and this is why I think this was the week one overreaction game. Because I left that game thinking like, the Chargers aren't bad.

• 35:37Bill Simmons?

  I mean, the, the Cardinals aren't bad.

• 35:39Speaker 01

  I know.

• 35:40Bill Simmons?

  I actually think, and there was a case for them, who was on, on Wise Guys? The Bundo or Rahim? It's about last year how they were like, there were eight one score games and they were always in the mix.

• 35:51Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 35:51Bill Simmons?

  The Cardinals, like they had a lot of injuries. But I don't know.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  I have a buddy that works in the organization. He's like, he said before today, he's like, they're really rallying behind Brissette. They've playing with a chip on their shoulder. They like LaFleur. By the way, this LaFleur won, the other one didn't, but

• 36:09Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  There's like some bulletin board material, like tickets today were $18 at SoFi. Did you see that? Like the cheapest ticket? So, you know, I think they were like pumped. They're playing in front of Chargers fans in SoFi, which is unheard of. So they really went out there and kicked their ass.

• 36:24Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was interesting, LaFleur's parents were there. But their other son was playing too, but I guess it's because the one son is the

• 36:31Speaker 01

  First game.

• 36:32Bill Simmons?

  First game. But it did make me think if you had two sons that were NFL coaches and like, let's say you're retired and you could just go to the games, like you, you really have to manage some egos in that one, right?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Well, I think you just do like with Zoe, like what if you had two daughters playing soccer? Like who gets the bigger screen? You stay at home. You gotta just stay home.

• 36:51Bill Simmons?

  I gotta watch both of you at the same time. So Brian from Everett wrote in, since the start of Thursday night football, no NFL team has played all their games on a Sunday until the 2026 Arizona Cardinals.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 37:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't think we talk enough about the futility of this franchise. The NFL didn't want to put them on Thursday night against the Raiders in Madagascar. Instead, they punish us in the late afternoon window every Sunday. And yet this franchise went on the road and beat DJ Mikey Mack and Justin, greatest, best ever quarterback to open the season. He's right. And we were talking about, first of all, we did, we did the futures. Should we just do that now?

• 37:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, because we're going to go through all these videos anyway.

• 37:38Bill Simmons?

  One of your favorite futures was the Cardinals would start at 0-5. There was a case for them to start at 0-11. If you looked at their schedule, it was like they didn't have an easy win forever. And, and yet they took it off the board. Let's do it. Let's, what's your most regrettable?

• 37:51Speaker 01

  All right.

• 37:52Bill Simmons?

  So we did the future draft last week and we did what, 60 futures combined, something like that?

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. Let me pull up. All right, I'll, I'll just start. Brian, you have to go with the injured guys first, right? So De'John Stumbling to win offense, Rookie of the Year at plus, plus 850. That's no good. You know what? I'm going to treat this like a yard sale. Like everything must go. Like I'll sell this plus 850. I'll give you, I'll give it to you for 100 to one. Like that's it. So I quickly looked at the list you sent and you're like, all right, here's your list. I was like, I have 30 of them.

• 38:22Bill Simmons?

  Should I just read this?

• 38:23Speaker 01

  I was like, shit, I'll just read all of them. That's my first one, so go ahead.

• 38:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, then mine would be Brock Bowers, 1,000 plus yards at plus 135. That is, that is in the front of my store with a 50% off sign right now. They shaved his meniscus, but he might be ready for week two. What? They shaved his meniscus? What are they, is it straight razor? What the, what the fuck is that? He's fine? No, no, they shaved it. It's fine.

• 38:48Speaker 01

  I wonder though, if he is back for 15 weeks or 14 weeks, he could still get the

• 38:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, let's see, go to the front of the counter. You can bring it up. What's your next one?

• 38:56Speaker 01

  Okay, I mean, AJ Brown, 10 plus touchdowns, same sort of thing. He's out a month, six weeks. I don't know. Was it high ankle sprain? Who knows with these things?

• 39:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you have, you have no chance at that.

• 39:05Speaker 01

  Gross.

• 39:06Bill Simmons?

  And I have no chance at Myles Garrett Defensive Player of the Year for plus 400. I'm going to cross that one off. Tom Palacera breaking the story today.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  Great.

• 39:14Bill Simmons?

  That was pretty fun. Yeah, that was fun. Shout out to him, but yeah, Myles Garrett, who, when you watch that game on Thursday and you're like, wow.

• 39:25Bill Simmons?

  Is Myles Garrett in the game? No, no, he's number 95. He's out there just doing nothing. And now it turns out he was hurt. So.

• 39:31Speaker 01

  Right.

• 39:32Bill Simmons?

  What's your next one?

• 39:33Speaker 01

  All right. Um, well, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Giants, Jets, and Arizona. No playoffs was plus 156. I gotta be a little nervous. Three of those teams won Giants, Jets, and Arizona. So I'm gonna, I would sweat that out. That's yes. I'll put that in the front of the store too. I won't even, you know, I won't sell it. If you want to steal it, just take it.

• 39:56Bill Simmons?

  I'm putting Dallas over 10 and a half wins, plus 500 in the, uh, in the front of the store. Yeah. So they'd have to go 11 and 5 to beat that.

• 40:05Bill Simmons?

  I watched multiple guys in your defense leave during this game. Nobody seemed like they were in shape. Over Sean got hurt again, and that guy just can't seem like he can play five games in a row. And I kind of regret having that one. What's your next one?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  I mean, that's not right. I have some Patriots futures. I wasn't gonna use those.

• 40:23Bill Simmons?

  That's fair.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  I didn't know we were playing like that.

• 40:24Bill Simmons?

  Bring them, bring them.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  I have, um, on the show, I said Herbert MVP.

• 40:31Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I'll, I'll, I'll do Herbert 4,500 plus yards, 12 to 1.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:35Bill Simmons?

  Let's, let's, let's put them together as a package steal.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Couple that. That's nice. We'll, we'll sign those too. We'll just.

• 40:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we'll sign that. It's a combo. Two for one, two for one special.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Stafford most passing yards. I mean, we haven't talked about, it's not even an indictment against Stafford over them. And they were, they were really bad the other night, but, um, I, I think Caleb Williams is just gonna go nuts with this one. You know, so I don't like five tomorrow.

• 40:59Bill Simmons?

  One of us had Caleb, I think, for, for, I had him for 4,000.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  4,000 yards? Yeah, that was you. That's a one. He'll get that by week three.

• 41:07Bill Simmons?

  We talked about the Rams, the super team stuff, um, how high the numbers were, how bad of a sign that was for them based on the history.

• 41:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, man. I could see them missing the playoffs. I don't even think that's like a crazy week one overreaction. Because we were all signing up for this team that had Myles Garrett just running a mock on defense. And then Aaron Donald coming in. And now it's like, well, Aaron Donald's gonna play 25 to 30 plays. And Myles Garrett has a bad knee.

• 41:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:38Bill Simmons?

  Right? And now they have, this is my fear in general with them is when you have these top heavy teams. Now you're one more injury away from being the Chiefs last year, right? Now it's like Puka has a hamstring pull or something. Now I'm looking at six and 11 and not 12 and 5. So, um.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  It's interesting because that game, first of all, everyone was right about it. Like, yeah, they should have flown in earlier. And it's like, that did seem like what it was. The 49ers were much fresher. Garrett was out of breath, like the Rams were way out of sync. It had to be part of, either that or the Niners are way better than the Rams. So I don't know. But I don't want to mix games here because we're still doing regrettable futures. But is there a 10 plus win team that you had that you're throwing out the first game that lost that you're okay with? Like that, like that's actually not too many lost, right? It's just, it's just the Chargers and Rams.

• 42:29Bill Simmons?

  Pretty good about the Pats. I gotta be honest. I'm not like, I think, I think the Pats are gonna be okay. And they, you know, they're playing in Seattle. Seattle's really good.

• 42:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, I'm not panicking about them.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  I wasn't gonna panic for the Rams, but it's not, it's not great at all. They, they do have to fix that defense.

• 42:45Bill Simmons?

  I think the 11 and, the 11.5 over under is an official panic.

• 42:49Speaker 01

  You're good.

• 42:50Bill Simmons?

  I wouldn't want, I wouldn't want to have to bet on the Rams having to go 12 and 5. My last regrettable one is, um, I had Washington, Atlanta, under eight and a half wins for plus 112. And I mentioned how the seven and a half was like plus 400 or something.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Oh, you're mad that you didn't put that?

• 43:05Bill Simmons?

  Balls to that one. I did the easier one. It's like, there's no chance either of those teams is winning nine games.

• 43:11Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:12Bill Simmons?

  Like zero.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  I'll couple that with, he wasn't awful today, but Jayden Daniels comeback player of the year, plus 750. Doesn't, he just looks like a quarterback who's coming back from an injury and, um, you know.

• 43:24Bill Simmons?

  So who's gonna win that then?

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Well, we have to see Mahomes. We have to see, who else was on that? Um, was Mahomes? I can't tell. No, Burrow was on.

• 43:33Bill Simmons?

  Damar Hamlin's back on it. He just wins it every year.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Just really just anybody except for, uh.

• 43:39Bill Simmons?

  Wait, we have to rip through a couple more games really fast.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, go ahead.

• 43:42Bill Simmons?

  Um, Ravens, Colts. Lamar looked back, like in a real way. Daniel Jones did not. Daniel Jones and Ha, give House credit. I gotta give House credit every once in a while. He was on this the hardest of anyone. Like this guy, he's gonna, is he gonna be moving around the same as last year? What do you think Daniel Jones's rushing stats were in today's game?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't think I saw one. I don't know.

• 44:07Bill Simmons?

  One rush, one rush for four yards.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 44:10Bill Simmons?

  This was a guy who his legs last year was such a big part of those first eight games. And, um, their defense, I didn't see pass rush. I didn't see a team that could cover either. And Jones just looks like a guy recovering from a really major injury. Baltimore, 506 yards. Indianapolis, 251. The problem is Flowers got hurt and Bateman got hurt during the, and, uh, not Bateman.

• 44:33Speaker 01

  Lane, right?

• 44:34Bill Simmons?

  Lane, the rookie.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:37Bill Simmons?

  He had a hurt wrist. We don't know what happened, but Flowers actually looks like he's gonna be out for a couple of weeks.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  I think so. Also, I also had Jacoby Lane for offensive rookie of the year. Uh, so that's a good one. Yeah, Ravens minus nine and a half was my bet, uh, not my best bet, but the best bet I made.

• 44:51Bill Simmons?

  Great bet. Yeah, I love that one.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  They just, yeah, their offense looked amazing and Zay looked so fast. And like, we were talking on the chain like, oh my God, he's worth every penny. But Derrick Henry, 24 for 1, 44, three touchdowns. Like, when is this guy done, honestly? Like 20, 33 ish?

• 45:09Bill Simmons?

  We were all texting about it. The, the bigger question for me now is

• 45:15Bill Simmons?

  when does the GOAT start coming into play with him?

• 45:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:20Bill Simmons?

  It's like, when does he become eligible for that conversation? And when have we ever had a guy who we never thought ever had a chance to be the best running back of all time? But now we're sitting here after all these years and like, wow, if he does this for like three more years, we've never seen this ever. Like we've seen running backs peak for five, six years.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:39Bill Simmons?

  But not, not just stay steady like this forever, basically it feels like. I, I don't even know how old he is anymore.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  He's 32 and I think you nailed it. So three more years, he'd be at 35 doing this. And it doesn't seem like it's that old compared to other athletes we're about to talk about, but like.

• 45:54Bill Simmons?

  It's a position where you're done in seven years.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  I think Riggins had over a thousand yards. It might've been one more at 35 years old. So if he keeps this going, like, I think he's like the greatest older player or athlete of all time. Like you could say Brady, but Brady doesn't take hits. Like Henry gets tackled on, every time he gets the ball, almost every time he gets the ball. So I think you almost have to go to the pugilistic sports like Foreman and, uh, and Bernard Hopkins.

• 46:18Bill Simmons?

  Oh, like Bernard Hopkins is a good one. Yeah.

• 46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Cause they're taking abuse, you know?

• 46:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  So I don't know. He's phenomenal.

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What's crazy about it is he still is physically dominant and overpowering the same way he was at his peak.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:32Bill Simmons?

  Nothing has changed about how he plays. It's not like, like when Jordan got older and he did, it's, oh, now he has a fadeaway. Now he's figured out like the mental game and he's not gonna try to dunk on you all the time. Derrick Henry's the exact, you could watch Derrick Henry highlights this year and they're the same highlights as Derrick Henry in 2019.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:49Bill Simmons?

  It's the same guy. I don't, I don't know how he does it. He must be like one of those versa climber. LeBron, like wakes up at five in the morning, workout guys, because there's no other explanation. But like Emmitt Smith, your guy, he comes in 1989 draft. By what year was he like, oh man, Emmitt, he's kind of starting to look like a shadow of himself. It was like 1998?

• 47:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:12Bill Simmons?

  Right? 97?

• 47:14Speaker 01

  They say when 95 they win. So it might've even been 96. Yeah, it might've been right in there.

• 47:19Bill Simmons?

  This is a seven or eight year position for great guys. I mean, McCaffrey's defying a little bit too, but he's also missed giant chunks of seasons.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:28Bill Simmons?

  Henry is not. So we both, we both like the Ravens. I like them more than you heading into the season. I had them as a possible one seed. I liked everything I saw today. And what was interesting about today was everyone was on Indy. And that line moved from three and a half to three. It was the sexy pick. DeBundo, you know, he's young. He's a precocious gambler for us, but he made a big deal. This was the first ticket I got this summer was Colts plus three and a half. Shane Steichen, um, so tough one for him.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  He's a Colts fan. He has a shiny blue jacket and everything, but that's it. Not gonna get them any wins.

• 48:03Bill Simmons?

  Your take was probably more closer to the right take, which is you thought they had a chance to be the worst team in the AFC.

• 48:08Speaker 01

  But I said that? I'm smart. Yeah, I didn't realize. But you know, like the bigger takeaway is like Daniel Jones is not right. It wasn't a matter of this game really, I don't think. But we don't, we can't take it for granted. These guys are just gonna come right back, you know? Jayden Daniels was fine, whatever. Um, so tomorrow is interesting, right? That's a little bit of a rehab bowl between both of them, Rex and Mahomes. So.

• 48:30Bill Simmons?

  I agree. Yeah. Cousins, who I thought looked pretty good today for him. Makes you wonder why Atlanta just didn't keep him when they're paying him anyway. And then the Bears were the other offense, 59 points, Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson wasn't kidding when he was saying he thought they could have the best offense, six rush TDs. They might be the best NFC North team, even though they can't stop anybody. Carolina, the Bears defense gave up 478 yards, 24 first downs. And Bryce threw for 361. It's not like the Bears defense did anything, but the offense was so good.

• 49:02Speaker 01

  But yeah, it was, but is it, by the way, that was a scoreagami 59, 37. And they're gonna be the most exciting, uh, NFC North team for sure. They're gonna be a slugfest every week. And you mentioned Ben Johnson saying he wants to break the points record. We talked about this on Ringer Wise Guys. I almost think like he gives the defense a bonus for giving up short touchdown. Like touchdowns that don't take a long time so that he could break this record. He's like, yeah, let's just defense, just get off the field.

• 49:29Bill Simmons?

  Oh, like he sells out? Yeah. He's like running, running crazy blitzes, doesn't really care.

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Could they do it? They have, so 606 is the record. And they had fit, so they now need 547 in 16 games. They need 34 a game. I mean, that's doable.

• 49:45Bill Simmons?

  Especially if the defense is bad. Who do you think is the favorite in the NFC North?

• 49:49Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 49:50Bill Simmons?

  On FanDuel right now. FanDuel where we have saved the six point tease.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  It's got, I think it's the Bears. The only reason I, I, I looked at MVP and he's like fourth. So is it the Bears?

• 50:01Bill Simmons?

  It is still the Lions at plus one fifty-five. The Bears are plus two thirty. Not a lot of action in Arizona at forty to one for the, for the NFC West. And then the NFC South, which went oh and four today. Tampa is still the favorite at plus one sixty-five, but uh.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  You know, I predicted that the winner would go seven and ten and I think I was just a little bit generous there. I, I redid the math.

• 50:26Bill Simmons?

  Could be six and eleven.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Could be four and thirteen. The winner of the NFC South could be actually four and thirteen. Everything would have to fall right, but.

• 50:34Bill Simmons?

  So we have the Bears with a super fun offense. We have the Giants with a competent team again. Like stuff's starting to shift.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 50:42Bill Simmons?

  In the NFC. Lions, Saints, um, Shuck was reprehensible for an hour, hour and a half, two hours. And then did the thing he does where all of a sudden he's just roaring back and making plays and he almost has to taste his own blood and be down fifteen to start playing well. Um, luckiest Lions win. First of all, the Saints, I think they won the coin toss in OT, but they, they decided to go second, which most teams do, but the Lions just were like, thanks. So went right down and scored. And then the Saints.

• 51:14Speaker 01

  I hate that move by the way. Yeah.

• 51:16Bill Simmons?

  Would you want to go first or second?

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, your defense is tired. You don't want to put them on the field. Give them four, six minutes of rest there.

• 51:22Bill Simmons?

  That's how I felt, but it didn't work out for Detroit because the Saints came back down, made a bunch of crazy plays. They score and then they run the worst two-point conversion play probably of the year. Would be my guess.

• 51:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  And they had all their receivers on one side. It was so clearly going to be like a quick flare out to Olave. They read it and he didn't know what to do. It ends up throwing it out of bounds.

• 51:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, Shuck running it in or something was going to be, you know, I had a half of, as the game went to overtime, I had like a half a page of notes written. That's to, to give you about how Dan Campbell sucks, this, this biting kneecap bitch, let him be the first coach fired. And uh, and then you know what? He gutted it out in overtime. So he's really great again. I, I, I don't know what's with this team. Twenty-one, nothing at home. Like, why did they struggle? Uh, this is a team where if they don't have thirty-five points in the fourth quarter, I'm like, oh, something's, something's wrong. Like I could get thirty-five, so.

• 52:13Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, they.

• 52:14Speaker 01

  You're right. That, that defensive touchdown was everything. Saints should have won the game.

• 52:18Bill Simmons?

  Their secondary is going to be really bad until they start getting guys back and it's just something to file away. The other thing I didn't like for them, Gibbs, who now has fifty-one touchdowns in fifty games, he's in this fifty for fifty club that I didn't know about until five hours ago. He had twenty-nine carries for one fifty-six today. You know, so it's six catches, so thirty-five touches total.

• 52:41Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I'm not putting thirty-five touches on Gibbs against the Saints in week one is not a good recipe in my opinion.

• 52:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:49Bill Simmons?

  So now he's on pace for six hundred touches this year and I, I, I just don't think that's sustainable.

• 52:56Speaker 01

  It might be scarred a little bit.

• 52:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, and then we have Eagles, Washington. I just wrote down for this game. Philadelphia sucks the life out of both fanbases for three solid hours every week. I don't have any other notes.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  It's pretty good.

• 53:12Bill Simmons?

  It's just, everybody's bummed out. People who bet on the game, the other team's fans, Philly fans. Who has a good time during an Eagles game? Nobody. Not one person.

• 53:22Speaker 01

  No, you're right. I, I mean, I did a little bit because I, I'm not afraid of their offense. Not that my team's going to contend really, but it's not fixed in any way. They had ten first downs. Not scared of that. So, I don't know. I, they, they could have lost that game.

• 53:36Bill Simmons?

  Did you think they were protecting as well as they used to? I felt like, uh, Washington, who's not exactly the eighty-five Bears, I, I thought was kind of beating them on the line of scrimmage. I was surprised.

• 53:47Speaker 01

  No doubt about it. Yeah. I thought, you know, and then like just really they, they screwed up like David Blough's drawing up a shuffle pass to a blocking tight end. There's the two-point conversion. That's not going to be good. Um.

• 53:57Bill Simmons?

  Well, we know who the guy who's going to go twenty-nine dollars and uh, your fantasy draft auction week one is going to be. It's going to be Dontavion Wicks.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:05Bill Simmons?

  Cause I don't think anybody has him.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Right, right. Yeah.

• 54:08Bill Simmons?

  Twenty-nine bucks for him. I wouldn't do it.

• 54:10Speaker 01

  It's fine. I, I don't love that offense.

• 54:12Bill Simmons?

  McLaurin had two catches. He sucked last year. We blamed on the contract holdout. He never seemed to be open in this game. None of their receivers ever seemed to be open. And Washington's going to be bad. Um, Raiders, Dolphins?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Let me just say one thing about Stefan Diggs because he's might, might be one of the.

• 54:30Bill Simmons?

  Humping the goalpost?

• 54:31Speaker 01

  Humping the goalpost, costing them a penalty and a two-point conversion attempt. And I'm sorry to go after your boy Brady, but he and Burkhardt don't mention it at all. Until the fact that they don't mention the fact that it, it prohibited them from going for a two-point conversion. Until they're bumping into commercial and then they couldn't, they're like, oh, oh, by the way, they could go for two there because of the penalty. We'll be right back. Getting drowned out by widespread panic, whatever music they have going into the break there, but come on, guys.

• 55:02Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to hold about ten Brady jokes. Um, Raiders, Dolphins.

• 55:06Speaker 01

  Here's a good Brady joke. The Raiders won. Yeah.

• 55:09Bill Simmons?

  Raiders, Dolphins. They're like, who do we get for this game? How about Chris Myers? He's back. Chris Myers. He hasn't retired and they're just, he's going to be doing Raiders, Dolphins until he dies. This was Malik Willis against Kirk Cousins. It was everything advertised. It was only one of the four games we had. And the big takeaway for me in this one is Ashton Gentry, who I think I have in every fantasy league.

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Really?

• 55:34Bill Simmons?

  I think we got him for, I got him for twenty-eight bucks in our league. He was going for like in the fifties before he got hurt. He looked really good.

• 55:41Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 55:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he looked, I think he's, they didn't look bad. They, now they're playing Miami who's really awful.

• 55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, they shouldn't look bad.

• 55:50Bill Simmons?

  But I thought they looked a level higher than Miami.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Miami didn't look awful. We like Willis, I bet Willis to throw an interception. That was my only thing on this game. But they just didn't score points. He wasn't, he wasn't, he wasn't that bad. Uh.

• 56:03Bill Simmons?

  I think that's a good bet every week is a Willis interception because none of their receivers can get open and he's not opposed to throwing the ball into traffic.

• 56:10Speaker 01

  I wrote down the receivers in this game. Did you hear me go through this whole routine?

• 56:14Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  The receivers in this game, I think were the worst batch of receivers in a non-strike season. On both sides. The top three were Malik Washington, Chris Bell, Caleb Douglas, Trey Tucker, Jalen Naylor. And Jack Bash, Bash? How do, how are we even saying that? I know, I know he scored. I know he scored. Do you get worse than that?

• 56:35Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 56:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 56:36Bill Simmons?

  No. I don't think, try, like, I'm trying to think of a good offensive matchup. I don't think they see the field. They're probably the sixth receiver and.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, right.

• 56:47Bill Simmons?

  On a good offensive team. Um, Cleveland, Jacksonville, we mentioned Deshaun more depressed than ever. And then Falcons, Steelers, we got to talk about because this line moved three and a half points. With the six and a half. Two, uh, do we ever, is, do you think we ever see two again? Like in all seriousness?

• 57:09Speaker 01

  Well, will we be healthy enough to get, they have to put him in if he's healthy.

• 57:13Bill Simmons?

  Do you think he plays another down of football ever?

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Well, you think Cooper Rush is just like, he let it, I don't know. Yeah.

• 57:19Bill Simmons?

  I just thought that, that House has a conspiracy theory that.

• 57:22Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 57:23Bill Simmons?

  That maybe, no, no, that maybe, uh, it's like, yeah, say you're injured, but maybe he's not playable.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Oh, I know they want Penix in there. I know they're like, they're propping him up and everything. Yeah, this was, this is bad. I mean, they, it combined for the thousand sixty-ninth ranked total EPA out of a thousand ninety-seven games offensively.

• 57:46Bill Simmons?

  Wow, it felt worse. Um, Steelers offense, I didn't think this would happen till week six, but about late in the second quarter, it became, let's try to get a PI. That became the offense.

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 57:59Bill Simmons?

  Rogers was five point five yards per attempt. Rushing attack, twenty-one for fifty-eight. I would not call it explosive. I don't want to say too much because the Patriots play them next week, but uh, hard to, hard to overstate how punchless they looked. And how unthreatening they were. And Rogers did not want to get hit ever. All his decisions were based around, I don't want to be hit once in this game.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. And Mike McCarthy must be like, God, this doesn't resemble any kind of offense I've ever been a part of. And that's my thing is offense. What the hell do I do?

• 58:35Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 58:36Speaker 01

  Are we going to play the Falcons every week? And you know what? Michael Pittman, did you see him? His, uh, he caught a few catches for like sixty yards for, uh, did you see his post-game interview? I don't know if you saw it. He said, uh, he's like, you know, he came over from the Colts and he said, he's looking forward to this marriage with Rogers, but he just needs to fuck other teams first.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  He didn't say that. I'm sorry.

• 59:02Speaker 01

  Did he say that? Someone find, I'll find that interview.

• 59:05Bill Simmons?

  DK Metcalf said he feels like he's lost the intimacy he had with Rogers last year.

• 59:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:16Bill Simmons?

  Jets Titans. Salah's revenge ended up being a one out of a hundred on my revenge scale. Tennessee had 195 yards of offense. The Jets had an easy win. They somehow did not get a turnover.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  No interception, 18 in a row.

• 59:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and that's about it. I, I really wanted to make the Jets my fifth Ringer 107 pick on Sunday and I just couldn't pull the trigger because I, I, I just kept thinking about betting them or picking them and then having to watch Gino and the humidity and just doing Gino, I just couldn't do it. I didn't want any part of that game.

• 59:52Speaker 01

  I think, uh, you know, is it a wild card to say Salah could be a first coach fired?

• 59:57Bill Simmons?

  Week 11?

• 1:00:00Speaker 01

  If he's like 0-9 and there's a buy in there somewhere and they're like, you know what? We screwed up. This is not going to get better. You weren't good with the Jets. You're not going to, it's just not going to work here, so.

• 1:00:10Bill Simmons?

  Jeremy in Hudson, New York wrote in. He's a longtime Jets fan. After watching Robert Sala shit the bed for years with the Jets, then somehow shit the bed against the Jets on Sunday, I found myself wondering, what is this guy actually good at? In light of the one thing he's demonstrated, sustained high level of production, I'd like to nominate a new nickname for him, Successful Seaman Sala. Enjoy. Well, he has nine kids.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Oh, that's right.

• 1:00:38Bill Simmons?

  I guess Jeremy's saying that's the one thing he's been successful at is reproducing.

• 1:00:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:43Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if Successful Seaman Sala is going to catch on, but we'll have to watch Peter Schreger's show tomorrow and see if he takes that.

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  All right. He'll cover that.

• 1:00:55Bill Simmons?

  All right. Before we get to guess the lines, we have to talk about, um, first of all, can I, can you give me 20 seconds on the Mariners?

• 1:01:04Speaker 01

  No, I don't know.

• 1:01:06Bill Simmons?

  Just 20 seconds.

• 1:01:07Speaker 01

  Oh, you take them, yeah.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  I want to take 20 seconds.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I don't have 20 seconds, yeah.

• 1:01:12Bill Simmons?

  So Hanch and I, we haven't won our AL Keeper League since the mid 2000s and we had our best chance this year and unfortunately we have multiple Mariners on the team, including George Kirby, who we traded for mid-season, Munoz, the closer, uh, Cade Anderson, who we've been waiting for them to call him up for three months. They finally did three weeks ago when it was far too late to help us. And Josh Naylor, who is supposed to have homers and steals and has had one homer since the All-Star break. And just in general, I feel like I've been sucked into the vortex of this Mariners season. One of the guys we're competing against has Brian Wu, who is the only competent pitcher they have right now for some reason.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  Oh, no.

• 1:01:49Bill Simmons?

  We have Munoz as the closer, who's the best closer in the AL. He has 10 blown saves and six losses this year. And today, um, when we're finally having a good day and it was a make or break day for us, Munoz comes in against the Athletics in Sacramento. And this is after George Kirby, yet another atrocity on Friday night. Um, just the A's beat George Kirby two times in a row. The A's have like, everybody's heard of the A's. They play in Sacramento. It's a bunch of dudes you've literally never heard of in your life and they're just beating the Mariners over and over again. Munoz comes in with a one run lead, proceeds to walk somebody, which he does every, every single time he comes in. It's like, it's just, they should just put the first guy on first base.

• 1:02:31Bill Simmons?

  Then Lawrence Butler comes up, who's hitting like 200, has, I don't know, nine homers. And it's just like, I know Munoz is either going to give up a double or a homerun here. So he goes 3-1 on Butler. Butler, walk off Roy Hobbs homer off Munoz for his 10th blown save. So instead of, so we get the minus one, we get our ERA and it's just like, we're going to have to bench Munoz because he's that much of a disaster when we're trying to win. And so between that and all the other guys in this team, I just, I hate the Mariners. I really, I hate their guts. And I've been tweeting about them and the Seattle Mariner fans, they love it because they're like, finally, somebody other than us have noticed what a fucking dumpster fire this team is.

• 1:03:14Bill Simmons?

  They, the Mariners fans hate their manager, they hate the general manager, they hate all the guys in the team. It's like, it's like, this is the most unlikable baseball team this year. And somehow I got sucked into them with a fantasy team and I can't tell you how much anti-joy they brought me this year and they can fuck themselves and go to hell, the Seattle Mariners.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  And Seattle, just the city of Seattle has to be on top of your shit list, right?

• 1:03:39Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's, I like the, I feel bad for them because they took the Sonic. No, they took the Sonics from Seattle. I like Seattle.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Whatever the Seahawks are doing.

• 1:03:46Bill Simmons?

  I empathize with them. I, I just can't believe, this team was favored to win like 93 games.

• 1:03:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:53Bill Simmons?

  This is one of the World Series favorites.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Wow. You know, that might've been longer than 20 seconds. I wasn't timing it, but yeah. Sorry, Zoe, I was watching Munoz blow a save.

• 1:04:02Bill Simmons?

  My bad.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  I had to put Seattle on the big screen.

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  I didn't see that corner kick. Munoz puts you guys out. And then the only other thing I had was the scheduling stuff this weekend. Where we have the US Open, they have the men's final, which is an awesome final, Shelton against Vera. Everybody's rooting for Shelton on the planet and they put it on during football. And there's just no way this is the right solution. Could you put it at night? As like 8 o'clock ET, maybe you go head to head against the Sunday night football game? The Bundo is suggesting, or somebody on our thread was suggesting, maybe move everything a day back and the men's final is Saturday night and the women's is Friday?

• 1:04:40Speaker 01

  Do them both Saturday. Do the men's and women's Saturday night, it's fine. It's good.

• 1:04:44Bill Simmons?

  So do the women at like 2 and then that goes right into the men?

• 1:04:48Speaker 01

  You got two weeks to figure out the days off and everything, but just putting it, so we see an hour and a half of football finally back and then someone's supposed to remember that there's a tennis match, the best, the biggest tennis match of the year is on? That, I want to, I know you wanted to be like sports czar years ago.

• 1:05:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm still, I'm still available.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  I just want to do the scheduling. Just get me scheduling. I'll do, believe me, I won't put golf up against anything stupid, basketball, I'll, I'll line it all up. And then you had a whole thing with the WNBA, right?

• 1:05:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, if we, so if we were the sports czars and WNBA came to us and they were like, hey, thinking about folding the season for three weeks near the end of August when there's no football or anything going on, when we actually have people's attention other than baseball and we're going to have momentum heading toward the playoffs. What we were thinking of doing, we're going to shut everything down for three weeks and we're going to send everybody to some World Cup tournament and that nobody even knew was happening. I, I'll pay anybody $5 who knows who won the last 10 Women's World Cup FIBA tournaments. I don't even know where, what, what, what was this? All of the best players go over there and then they play France today. I actually watched the semifinal yesterday against Spain.

• 1:06:00Bill Simmons?

  I did, I was, I enjoyed it because it was fun to see who the lineups are going to be. They went with the vets, like, I like these players. And so today it's going head to head against football, wasn't ever watching that. Apparently we won and they stopped the season for this.

• 1:06:13Speaker 01

  That was afternoon, late afternoon or?

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  No, it was at 11 o'clock PT. But my question is, what's the point of stopping the season for a tournament that nobody knows is happening? And it was on TNT or TBS, one of those. Maybe it got a decent rating, I don't know, but they had so much momentum with the season. And now they have to come back and be like, okay, the season's back because we're back from the World Cup, we won. It's like, cool, I didn't even know we had a World Cup for women's basketball.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  All right, and so now they have to finish the season against, uh, football gearing up, right? College football, um, baseball playoffs, like this is, they really screw themselves on that end too.

• 1:06:54Bill Simmons?

  Can you imagine if the NBA, it's like late March and they're like, yep, got to shut the NBA season down for three weeks here because we have the FIBA World Cup.

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:05Bill Simmons?

  We're just going to stop it. We'll, we'll be back, just hold, hold it, just remember where the standings are. Like, everybody'd be like, what are you guys doing? Who cares about a World Cup?

• 1:07:14Speaker 01

  You'd have to go from 14 NBA podcasts down to 11 a week when they shut down, yeah.

• 1:07:19Bill Simmons?

  I like the Olympics, the World Cup is fine if it's in the off-season, but during the season?

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. Now, put us in charge of scheduling, we'll do it for nothing. We'll pay you, whoever.

• 1:07:29Bill Simmons?

  Also, Steve Ballmer, before we came on today, said he wasn't going to sue the league because he didn't have a case. Um, but, uh, but he said that we want to move on, move forward, we want to rebuild our relationship with our fans.

• 1:07:41Speaker 01

  You know how? He told Maria Taylor this?

• 1:07:43Bill Simmons?

  No, they put out a thing, uh, from the Clippers account.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:07:47Bill Simmons?

  You know how they could rebuild relationship with the fans? Offer us refunds for season tickets and tickets. Give us a chance to get out of the relationship and then that would rebuild the will. Because I promise you, there would be some people that wouldn't keep season tickets or tickets they bought this year.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:08:03Bill Simmons?

  So maybe do that, that would be a good way to rebuild some will. Okay. Guess the lines. We tied last week.

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did.

• 1:08:12Bill Simmons?

  Now, what ends up happening, I'm going to pull the curtain back a little bit. We tie and then you decide that we didn't tie and Jacoby's like, Sal, you should have won or whatever. And, and you're like, he didn't win, he didn't even tie. I'm like, what? I went back, I thought you cheated me out of a win, but I went back on this and you did.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Never, I would never. I'm going to lose this week though.

• 1:08:30Bill Simmons?

  Thursday night, this is unbelievable. Detroit has to play on Thursday night in Detroit. I mean, I'm sorry, Buffalo has to play on Thursday night after that pretty physical Houston game and they're playing the Lions who just played an overtime game.

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:44Bill Simmons?

  So, good luck, welcome to the NFL season, everybody.

• 1:08:48Speaker 01

  And this is a new stadium, right?

• 1:08:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Home opener, yep.

• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  I put this in the Vegas zone. I had Bills minus four and a half.

• 1:08:56Speaker 01

  Okay, good. I had four and it's three and a half.

• 1:09:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, I don't agree with that at all. But I accept the result of the, of the books.

• 1:09:09Speaker 01

  That's good, you're not going to, you're going to pull Steve Ballmer?

• 1:09:11Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm not going to contest. I'm going to accept the result and move on and try to rebuild relationships with my fans. From what I saw of the Lions secondary, this should be a really nice Josh Allen game, would be my guess.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  They're not as good. I guess they played at a level of competition, is that what we, the best thing we could say about the Lions? But they're not as good as them.

• 1:09:30Bill Simmons?

  Does a new stadium opening help or hurt or have no effect?

• 1:09:36Speaker 01

  Um, it didn't work for the Cowboys. I know they lost in the last second field goal to the Giants.

• 1:09:42Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it matters.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  I don't think it works. I don't know.

• 1:09:44Bill Simmons?

  They do this in TV too, when they have a new set.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:09:48Bill Simmons?

  And they're like, look at our set. Hey, new set. I remember when I was doing countdown, we had, had to do a whole thing about we had a new set.

• 1:09:58Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:09:59Bill Simmons?

  People don't care.

• 1:10:00Speaker 01

  And then people see it and it's like, oh yeah.

• 1:10:02Bill Simmons?

  People are like, oh, cool. So yeah, there's light and you have a desk. And there's TV behind you.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  Well, what's it gonna do anyway? It's supposed to get the fans, but you don't have a crazier group of followers than the Bills anyway, right? They're cracking their skulls open in the parking lot.

• 1:10:17Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  You, you already got the best fans.

• 1:10:20Bill Simmons?

  Sunday marquee game. Pretty clear. It's Texans Bengals in Houston.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Bill Simmons?

  A semi must win for the Texans who did not want to go into Bengals trying to capitalize on some momentum. I don't think they'll be getting four turnovers again. This game is in Houston. And I put it in the tic tac zone of Houston minus one and a half.

• 1:10:45Speaker 01

  You get it. I said one. It's two and a half.

• 1:10:48Bill Simmons?

  Okay. So maybe the books agree with our not getting too excited about the Bengals yet.

• 1:10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, I mean, Coach Taylor, don't forget. I mean, he went, he went two and O last year, but so I guess it's possible.

• 1:11:03Bill Simmons?

  We forgot that, that was probably his most convincing week, week one victory ever.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure.

• 1:11:08Bill Simmons?

  Taylor, right?

• 1:11:10Speaker 01

  He didn't get it. It's like, what? Why are you carrying me?

• 1:11:14Bill Simmons?

  Three watchables. We should mention, there's a lot of like good team against a not as good of a team matchups. Which lead to more fairly watchable and poop fucked the games, but three watchables. First one is in Denver. Broncos home for the Jaguars.

• 1:11:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:32Bill Simmons?

  Uh, tough one, cause we didn't see the Broncos yet. We don't know how Bo Nix is gonna look. I have Broncos minus two.

• 1:11:37Speaker 01

  All right. I got it. Exact. It's two and a half.

• 1:11:40Bill Simmons?

  Ah, okay.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  That is tough.

• 1:11:45Bill Simmons?

  So tough to learn anything from the Jags today, other than that Parker Washington, uh, picked up where he left off last year.

• 1:11:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was fun. Um, you know, they got turned over twice, Cleveland. One was an awful interception, but I don't know what else to say about him.

• 1:12:01Bill Simmons?

  Only thing I noticed from the Jags is I don't love their running backs and I'm not sure they fixed the ETN now, HN.

• 1:12:08Speaker 01

  HN, yeah.

• 1:12:09Bill Simmons?

  Leaving. Um, it was Tooten and Chris Rodriguez was out there and just all like backup fantasy running backs.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:12:16Bill Simmons?

  Those are just their running backs. So I don't know.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Right. Those are your third and two guys. I'm not, I'm not sure if that's gonna work.

• 1:12:22Bill Simmons?

  All guys you don't really want starting in your fantasy.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  Should I change my name to HN too? Cousin HN?

• 1:12:29Bill Simmons?

  Think, think about it. I like it.

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  Shake things up a little.

• 1:12:32Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Chicago is home against the Vikings.

• 1:12:35Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:12:36Bill Simmons?

  And I guess Carson Wentz. I can't imagine Kyler Murray's, cause Ky, that poor guy was doing the fencing position. That's usually two weeks. Yeah, we won't see him. Um, I have Bears minus three and a half.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Oh, all right. I thought I would lose it here. I had three and a half also. It's five and a half.

• 1:12:54Bill Simmons?

  Carson.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  Tie there.

• 1:12:57Bill Simmons?

  You know.

• 1:12:57Speaker 01

  Look, you're thinking teaser. You're gonna tease through the zero slightly.

• 1:13:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if the, from what we saw from the Bears defense where the, they should be put with other teams.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:11Bill Simmons?

  To me, if you're gonna do the money line with them, you do it with the over.

• 1:13:14Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:14Bill Simmons?

  Right? Just like ride on. Although, man, I, I had the Cardinals one. I almost did them for Ringer 107. I had a tease with them in the over.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  With their over?

• 1:13:27Bill Simmons?

  Forty-one. And the final score, final score was 26 14.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Fourteen.

• 1:13:33Bill Simmons?

  Chargers didn't score in the second half.

• 1:13:36Bill Simmons?

  I thought I nailed that game perfectly.

• 1:13:37Speaker 01

  Football's back, baby.

• 1:13:39Bill Simmons?

  It's back. It's self-loathing and regret. We're back. Pat Steelers is our last watchables. It's in New England.

• 1:13:50Bill Simmons?

  I can't go higher than two and a half for this.

• 1:13:52Speaker 01

  Wow. Really?

• 1:13:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I can't. What is it?

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  I win this. I said three and a half and I was a point off. It's four and a half.

• 1:14:02Bill Simmons?

  Vegas, son.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Come on, you gotta like, that's, I mean, you would be, you wouldn't be shocked if they lost, but you'd be pretty, if that's on a one score game. You're not gonna give Aaron Rodgers trouble?

• 1:14:16Bill Simmons?

  They beat us last year. No AJ Brown. We also don't have booty. So now we don't have a deep threat. We have Dobbs, who was so bad last week. It's still a topic of conversation back home. Kyle Williams, who I guess is the deep threat now, who one out of every 10 times, it's like an awesome pass to him. And then the other nine times, it seems like him and Drake May both thought it was a different play. Um, Henderson might not be healthy.

• 1:14:46Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 1:14:47Speaker 01

  I love all the negative talk, but if, if TJ Watt doesn't get his big mid on that pass, Cooper Rush beats the Steelers today.

• 1:14:54Bill Simmons?

  This is the stupid Steelers though.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:57Bill Simmons?

  Um, okay. Fairly watchables. I got four. Bucks Browns.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:04Bill Simmons?

  In Tampa. I'm probably too low. I had Bucks minus seven.

• 1:15:09Speaker 01

  No, you're gonna get it. I was too low. I said six and a half. It is seven and a half.

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  Hmm. Now, we're talking teaser.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  We're talking turkey teaser.

• 1:15:19Bill Simmons?

  That is, that is looking teaserish.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  This is the kind of game though, you will absolutely hate the Bucks, even if you win, because they'll, they'll screw with you a little bit.

• 1:15:33Bill Simmons?

  As I said earlier, you know, when, when you have loved ones that might not be around for a lot longer and you go visit them. You know, like an uncle or a grandparent.

• 1:15:43Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:15:44Bill Simmons?

  You said this to me 20 years ago, when we were sitting next to each other, 22 years ago. We're sitting next to each other at Jimmy Kim Alive, cause we shared an office and our desks were right next to each other.

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:15:55Bill Simmons?

  And we had a lot of spare time and your brain was moving a hundred miles an hour back then. And you would just ask me these weird questions that would break my brain. And one day you asked me, how many times did you think I would get to see my dad for the rest of his life?

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  I was so much more far back then.

• 1:16:17Bill Simmons?

  And I was, and you were like, just the rest of your life, how many more times do you think you'll see him? He lives in Boston. You live here. How many more times? And then I just, and then you moved on and you started another conversation. I was just sitting in a, in a world of.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  There's nowhere I moved on. I'm, I demanded a number. I must've demanded a number.

• 1:16:37Bill Simmons?

  I think, I think you had somehow calculated your parents, cause your parents didn't live here yet.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  I know, and then they moved out.

• 1:16:47Bill Simmons?

  You, you were, you were thinking maybe 68 more times and now it's been 680.

• 1:16:52Speaker 01

  I know, it would've been plenty. No, no, I love them. I love them to death.

• 1:16:56Bill Simmons?

  Anyway.

• 1:16:57Speaker 01

  Not gonna happen.

• 1:16:58Bill Simmons?

  I mentioned that story.

• 1:16:59Speaker 01

  What does this have to, why?

• 1:17:00Bill Simmons?

  As a segue, cause I, I feel sad. We only have so many more times to bet against the Sean Watson.

• 1:17:05Speaker 01

  Oh, I see. I got you.

• 1:17:06Bill Simmons?

  This might be it. This is the last week. I'm gonna have multiple bets. And this is like the goodbye. We're taking them to hospice after this.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  It's also the Baker Bowl. Baker, uh, Baker's gotta hate this team a little, right?

• 1:17:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. This is, this, this line will be nine and a half in two minutes. Baltimore's home against the Saints. I, uh, I put minus seven for this one because of the, uh, the late touchdown potential of the Saints and the Ravens defense, which seems like it would love to give up a late touchdown. I don't think it can be much higher than seven.

• 1:17:41Speaker 01

  I said eight. It is eight and a half.

• 1:17:43Bill Simmons?

  Oof. It's a little pricey.

• 1:17:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think they just, they just think the Ravens.

• 1:17:50Bill Simmons?

  You're beating me this week. I'm a little off. I'm like a point and a half off.

• 1:17:54Speaker 01

  Five to three, including ties. Yeah.

• 1:17:56Bill Simmons?

  Cowboys home for Washington. I put this in the Vegas zone. I have four and a half for the Cowboys.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  My God. We tie here. Yep.

• 1:18:03Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:18:04Speaker 01

  Four and a half.

• 1:18:06Bill Simmons?

  Oh, we both got it.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, we both got it.

• 1:18:10Bill Simmons?

  Uh, I know I'm gonna put them in a money line.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  I have some bad ones. I have some, two that are three off. So you're gonna, three that are three off.

• 1:18:18Bill Simmons?

  This was the hardest one for me, this next one. Packers are at the Jets. I tried this in a bunch of different ways. It was, I was like, when you get ice cream and you eat the little spoons.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:30Bill Simmons?

  I'm like, can I try the banana cream pie? Can I try that almond? Um, I tried Packers minus one and a half. I tried Packers minus one. I tried Jets minus one and a half. I put, I wrote down pick 'em. I landed at Packers minus one against the Jets.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  Uh, you gave it too much thought, cause you weren't even close. It's, uh, four and a half. I said four.

• 1:18:51Bill Simmons?

  Packers four and a half?

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Bill Simmons?

  Really? At the Jets?

• 1:18:56Speaker 01

  Must, mustish win, right? Mustish.

• 1:19:04Bill Simmons?

  From what you saw from the Packers today.

• 1:19:06Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:19:08Bill Simmons?

  They can't, their running backs are probably bottom five out of all the running backs in the league without Jacobs. They can't block and their defense gave up multiple big plays. They have real special teams issues. Their fans hate their coach.

• 1:19:25Bill Simmons?

  Why would they be favored on the road against a Jets team that? I don't know. It's coming off a win and I don't get that one.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  I gotta be honest. I saw the least of the Jets. I had it on my computer screen. My biggest takeaway is with that Aaron Glenn should keep the towel. I know it's sweltering hot, but he should like turn into Tark from UNLV. Like he won with it. Don't, don't let that go. But otherwise, it was a lot of guys just not moving the ball for hours, I thought.

• 1:19:51Bill Simmons?

  I'm proud to say I didn't see any of it. It was, it was one of the sacrifices. Yeah, there's eight games. I'm not watching all eight games.

• 1:19:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:58Bill Simmons?

  So that was a pretty easy sacrifice.

• 1:20:00Speaker 01

  I don't know. I just think it was.

• 1:20:04Bill Simmons?

  I guess my, my bigger point is, my bigger point is I don't think the Packers are good.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:20:09Bill Simmons?

  And I don't think that's a weak one overreaction.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:20:13Bill Simmons?

  They gave up 29 straight points to Carson Wentz to lose today.

• 1:20:18Speaker 01

  Could this be, there is always one where there's a team that's 0-2 and a team that's 2-0 and they either have, has business being the other, you know? This could be the one.

• 1:20:27Bill Simmons?

  I don't like them on the road or at home. Poop facta. Panthers are at Atlanta and I have the Panthers in the Tic Tac Zone as a minus one and a half favorite.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  All right. That's what, wait, I had plus one and a half. So I had Panthers minus one and a half. It's Falcons minus one and a half. Yeah. So we're both off three points.

• 1:20:47Bill Simmons?

  Jesus. So Falcons not even knowing who their quarterback is.

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  It's gonna be 1-1. It's insane.

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  So, so, yeah, so no matter what happens in that game, the AFC South cannot be 0-2 next week.

• 1:21:03Speaker 01

  Right. Oh, that sucks. Yeah, you're right.

• 1:21:05Bill Simmons?

  Sorry.

• 1:21:06Speaker 01

  Oh, I know it had to end. Can I just say, there's no way either team should lay points in this game. They should both get four and a half points. Is that possible? Both teams are getting four and a half? Does that make it too easy for the betters?

• 1:21:22Bill Simmons?

  You tease them each way?

• 1:21:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:24Bill Simmons?

  I mean, you could do that with this game, but for this game, you could tease it.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  Oh my God.

• 1:21:29Bill Simmons?

  Falcons plus four and a half and the Panthers plus seven and a half and just try to middle it with a close terrible game.

• 1:21:35Speaker 01

  That's the worst.

• 1:21:37Bill Simmons?

  I might do that. Eagles are at the Titans. I'm sure very few things, but I'm betting anything. This is in the Vegas zone. I'm gonna say Eagles minus four and a half.

• 1:21:46Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm gonna beat you this week. I had six and a half. It's seven.

• 1:21:51Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm off all over the place.

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  What's going on with you, Bill?

• 1:21:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm off.

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  Is it your site? Are you not able to see?

• 1:21:58Bill Simmons?

  No, I got new contacts. I can see. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:22:01Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:22:02Bill Simmons?

  Pretty happy. Yeah.

• 1:22:03Speaker 01

  From Bosnia?

• 1:22:05Bill Simmons?

  Finally see you again. Eagles minus seven, huh?

• 1:22:08Speaker 01

  AJ Brown Bowl.

• 1:22:10Bill Simmons?

  Titans thing.

• 1:22:13Bill Simmons?

  Cause they looked, I mean, they, they had the same yardage and everything as the, as the Redskins.

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  That might be another teaser game.

• 1:22:20Bill Simmons?

  Seahawks are at Arizona. I think I hit this one exact.

• 1:22:25Bill Simmons?

  Seahawks, no Sam Darnold, so Drew Lock. Cardinals looked awesome. It's in Arizona. Fans are gonna be excited. I have Seahawks minus three and a half.

• 1:22:34Speaker 01

  All right. Yeah, I was off by three points here. It's five and a half.

• 1:22:38Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  It's definitely Drew Lock, right? They're all but ruled him out.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  Darnold's out for this week. So I at least got that one right. I'm off by two points every game.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:52Bill Simmons?

  Cards, kind of a sexy home dog there.

• 1:22:56Speaker 01

  I'm just trying to think. So they have the rest advantage, right? Seattle? They didn't come from anywhere stupid.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's just, boy, that, you talk about a backdoor cover potential. That's the one.

• 1:23:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Chargers home for the Raiders. They will be a lot of Raider fans in this game and I have Chargers minus eight.

• 1:23:18Speaker 01

  I had eight. Also, it's seven.

• 1:23:21Bill Simmons?

  So the Chargers had a really hard schedule, especially from a rest advantage standpoint, which was about as unfavorable as it's ever been in the history of the league. But they were supposed to go 2-0 to start the season. So they lose the first game. Now they have this Raiders game where the Raiders actually looked semi competent. So who knows?

• 1:23:42Speaker 01

  Well, if you need 15 points to beat the Chargers, then fine. No one's out of it.

• 1:23:48Bill Simmons?

  I forgot to tell everybody, everyone who had all the, all the negativity toward my guy Drake May Wednesday and Thursday. I really hope that kept the same energy for Justin Herbert over the next 24 hours because he was worse than Drake May was. He was awful.

• 1:24:03Speaker 01

  No, but he was worse.

• 1:24:04Bill Simmons?

  He was a hundred percent worse than Drake May was. Are you kidding me?

• 1:24:07Speaker 01

  Maybe threw three picks in his last three drives.

• 1:24:10Bill Simmons?

  He was in Seattle against the Super Bowl defense. Justin Herbert was playing the fucking Cardinals. A team that had an over under of three and a half games. It looked like he was playing, he looked like he was playing the Seahawks.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:24:24Bill Simmons?

  He was way worse than Drake May and almost killed McConkey.

• 1:24:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. Drake May didn't kill McConkey.

• 1:24:32Bill Simmons?

  Drake May didn't kill anyone. Um, last one, Niners home for the Dolphins. I'm just operating as the Dolphins have to be double figure underdogs against everyone they play. I have the Niners minus 12 and a half and I think this goes up.

• 1:24:46Speaker 01

  You were smart about it. I said 10 and a half. It's 13 and a half.

• 1:24:52Bill Simmons?

  Now. It should go higher than that.

• 1:24:55Speaker 01

  But what, man, I just think that Australia thing has to screw with, now I'm really into these time zones and everything.

• 1:25:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I feel like we learned so much about time zones.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  What's the score everybody?

• 1:25:08Bill Simmons?

  Am I down two? Do I have a chance?

• 1:25:10Speaker 01

  Four, five, six, seven, eight, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. 10 to eight. Is there two more or one more?

• 1:25:16Bill Simmons?

  Two more.

• 1:25:17Speaker 01

  Okay. I was off by two on one and I was off by one on this game.

• 1:25:21Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night, Kansas City.

• 1:25:25Bill Simmons?

  Home for the Colts. I Vegas owned this. Chiefs minus five.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  I get this. Five and a half for me. It's six and a half.

• 1:25:37Speaker 01

  But there's no way to know.

• 1:25:40Bill Simmons?

  Beat me.

• 1:25:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, baby.

• 1:25:43Bill Simmons?

  Now I have the, you and Jacoby texting as celebrating.

• 1:25:48Speaker 01

  Here we go, Jacobes. Here we go.

• 1:25:50Bill Simmons?

  You always start out early and then you fall apart.

• 1:25:52Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:25:54Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Monday night, Rams home for the Giants. So before tonight's game, I had this in the eight and a half range and as I'm watching the Giants, I lowered it. I have Rams minus six and a half.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. I thought I was gonna miss. I missed by two points. I said seven and a half. It's nine and a half.

• 1:26:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's stupid.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Destruction.

• 1:26:13Bill Simmons?

  That's stupid.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  Let me see if they changed it. Maybe I'll give this one to you because I did check the photo. Yeah.

• 1:26:23Bill Simmons?

  I, there's no way it's nine and a half. It's gotta be lower than that.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  No, it's seven and a half. It went to seven and a half now.

• 1:26:28Bill Simmons?

  Oh, so I won that one.

• 1:26:29Speaker 01

  I still get, no, I said seven and a half. You said six and a half.

• 1:26:34Bill Simmons?

  Fine.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  See, this is what happens.

• 1:26:40Bill Simmons?

  Jesus.

• 1:26:42Speaker 01

  You can lose. You're all right.

• 1:26:45Speaker 01

  12 to, yeah. I'll take it.

• 1:26:51Bill Simmons?

  Big win for you.

• 1:26:52Speaker 01

  Let me win something. That frigging team is awful.

• 1:26:55Bill Simmons?

  UCLA 2-0.

• 1:26:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:58Bill Simmons?

  Two big second halves. Um, I watched the entire Ohio State-Texas game. I've watched more college football. I'm on an incredible college football pace. It's not, Premier League has not been great.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Bill Simmons?

  I picked the team that doesn't score and I've already lost interest.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Are you man you?

• 1:27:13Bill Simmons?

  They don't score, no, I have Tottenham. They haven't, they don't, they don't score goals.

• 1:27:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:17Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know, I wouldn't say I'm Mr. Soccer, but I like soccer. I know soccer pretty well. Like one of the goals of soccer is to score goals.

• 1:27:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:26Bill Simmons?

  They don't, they don't score goals. Yeah, I like to see goals. They don't score them. So I'm losing interest and I'm moving toward college football. This week's a great one. You have LSU, Ole Miss, so they're gonna be pissed. Do they criticize the college football coaches like they do with NFL? Cause I thought Ohio State, I, no, when, no, during the games, like the announcers.

• 1:27:51Speaker 01

  Oh, maybe not, yeah.

• 1:27:52Bill Simmons?

  I thought Ohio State completely blew that game. I couldn't believe it. The, the third and four, where they basically throw the thirty-five yard lob pass in the corner.

• 1:28:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:03Bill Simmons?

  To their best receiver. It's like, okay, that's fine, but that's not the play you needed there. You just need to get four yards. You're probably winning the game. You need to get closer. They throw that play, doesn't work, and then they miss the field goal, setting up Texas coming back down. But it's like, you've third and four on the other side of the field, like, and you have the team you have, like, that game should be over.

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  They depended on Jeremiah Smith too much, I thought.

• 1:28:24Bill Simmons?

  Way too much.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I don't know. I, I thought Arch would move up in the, in the Heisman there, but.

• 1:28:33Bill Simmons?

  Did you feel like enough people were running toward him after he won? I felt like he was running around like Jim Valvano style, looking for somebody to hug. Everybody was gravitating toward other players.

• 1:28:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. He almost gets run over by the steer, yeah.

• 1:28:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Uh, today's parent corner brought to you by PayPal. In parenting and in sports, the best game plan is having the right tools at the right place. That's why the new PayPal app brings shopping, paying, earning rewards, and managing your accounts together in one spot. Plus, offers, deals, and stackable reward shows up every time you open the app. Parent Corner, you're up.

• 1:29:06Speaker 01

  All right, here we go. So my wife, um, flew out with my son Archie to set him up for his senior year. So he and his friends moved from a, like a nice apartment to a house. And she was not happy with this because it's a nice apartment. And now it's a house that is, it's got like a, uh, a used, uh, it's like an auto body shop on one side, and then behind it and down a little is a dispensary. Um, so she's not happy with this location. And like, I think like college kids, it's more important to have a dispensary close by than even like your classes, right?

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:29:39Speaker 01

  Close, right. Yeah. So they wanna have parties, so they're gonna have parties. Now, my wife was freaked out because as she's like setting up his furniture and stuff and whatever, they, they make that crazy, um, target run. There's a tweaker outside and just wanders the neighborhood. And it freaks her out. And like, they all kinda like know him in the neighborhood, but he can get like ornery too. So he'll like steal like DoorDash orders, but just parts of them. Like if somebody orders like a, like a raspberry lemonade or something, it'll just be gone. So they know to like order extra because it's gonna be stolen, even if they have their eye on it. So, and the cops will come by, but they don't do anything. They get, just give them like granola bars and stuff. So,

• 1:30:19Speaker 01

  um, so she is really messed up about this guy. She's like, God, he's gonna kill everybody. He's got, but he also like, he hung two branches in the tree right in front of their house. He, two branches and wire and like phone cables to ward off evil spirits, which I think is nice, like trapping evil spirits.

• 1:30:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's neighborly. Yeah.

• 1:30:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. I wish someone would do that around here. Keep some of the evil spirits away from me taking the chargers, you know? Um, but it drives her bizarre. And she's, she was mad that like, I'm not getting mad about it. And she's like, put it on Parent Corner and see what Bill thinks. I was like, Bill doesn't allow his eighty-eight-year-old father to take a cab home from Fenway Park. He's fine. He's, he's gonna be fine with it. He lives on the edge, doesn't wear a seatbelt. So he's gonna say, let the tweaker move in. So, um, I don't know. I think it's fun to tough it out. My apartment's got worse and worse, um, through college, like my sophomore to junior to senior year. I think it builds character. Unless you're murdered, then you have like zero character in that case. But, um, I don't know what to tell her. I think it's fine. What do you think?

• 1:31:23Bill Simmons?

  I think from ages twenty-one to twenty-four are probably gonna be the worst apartments you live in.

• 1:31:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:31:29Bill Simmons?

  With the, there's, it's just not gonna go perfectly.

• 1:31:32Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:31:32Bill Simmons?

  Right? So I think this is how you learn about life.

• 1:31:37Speaker 01

  This is it, right?

• 1:31:38Bill Simmons?

  The counter would be unless you were murdered, as you were sleeping, would be the counter.

• 1:31:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. Don't get murdered. It used to be, don't get fired, right?

• 1:31:45Bill Simmons?

  What about aluminum baseball bat under the bed, just in case?

• 1:31:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know what? I, I will.

• 1:31:50Bill Simmons?

  Just go to, yeah, just go to, uh, Dick's Sporting Goods or something. Just get, I would go for the aluminum, cause the wood could break. The aluminum, you get some good swings, maybe get like a, you know, he figures out what, what he could get, like three, four good wax in.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  I like that. But then maybe he's one of the evil spirits, my son is with the aluminum bat that's being warded off. I don't know, it gets complicated. I know what you're saying though.

• 1:32:14Bill Simmons?

  Um, my parent corner, so we've been talking a lot about getting another dog.

• 1:32:21Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:21Bill Simmons?

  And it's, uh, it's, you know, cause Ben's going to college in January. Um, and then when he goes, he's got first semester, second semesters over in the summer in London, third semester, like he's just gonna be gone. And then Zoe's gonna be graduating and probably staying in Boston. So it's like, if we're ever gonna bring another dog in, this might be around the time. And my wife doesn't wanna do it, but then every time I look over, she's on like Pet Finder, looking for rescue dogs and all this stuff. So I had the, the, we got, we got Murph. We, we have multiple rescue dogs, but we got Murph from a breeder, cause we wanted a golden retriever.

• 1:33:01Bill Simmons?

  And so that same one, we're talking about maybe getting another golden retriever because even though Murph's a sociopath, he's been a great dog for the most part. We love Murph. And, hey, what do you have? Do you have a litter? So there was a litter that was allegedly coming. And we've been arguing about it the whole time because I'm like, well, if she has litter, we could get a girl. And then Murph would have a playmate and two Goldens. And, uh, my wife's like that, no, we'd have another Murph. We'd, this would be the worst thing we ever did. We'd end up getting divorced. This would be a nightmare. So we just argued about it. And then she, and we go back and forth. So anyway, it turns out, uh, the litter, the puppy never got pregnant.

• 1:33:42Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:33:43Bill Simmons?

  So there's no litter. So we thought like maybe in December. So we're like, okay, that was God deciding we're not getting a dog. So what happens over the next, I don't know, five, six days? I've, I've noticed my wife a few times, like checking out Instagram stuff. There's this dog she wants to, so now she's like, if we get a dog, it has to be a rescue dog. And I was like, well, we got these two other rescue dogs. And, you know, I feel like we did our rescue dog, but she's like, no, we gotta do that again. That's gotta be what it is. And this is kinda all we talk about now. It's about whether we get a dog or not. I don't know if this is what happens when your kids go to college, but this is just, it's just a non-stop, never-ending argument about whether we should get a third dog or not.

• 1:34:26Speaker 01

  Why don't you wanna rescue, why, what's your con against the rescue?

• 1:34:31Bill Simmons?

  Obviously great to rescue dogs. I'm all for it. And we, and we've had a couple.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  All right, yeah, yeah, go ahead, yeah.

• 1:34:37Bill Simmons?

  The counter is sometimes the body language isn't great.

• 1:34:40Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:34:41Bill Simmons?

  And the, you, you kind of assume the body language in the house of the rescue dog, right? Like the rescue dog has, it's always like, are you leaving? Is this gonna be it? Are you coming back?

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:53Bill Simmons?

  Whereas like the dog that's been there since it was a puppy, just is, like Murph thinks he's as much owner of the house as we are. Like he's just like, hey, I'm going to bed. I'll just lie like right in the middle of the bed. Whereas the rescue dogs are always just a little nervous, like they might get abandoned again. And you've had it. You've had a bunch of them too.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  You're right. We have one too. My dog, rescue dog, won't eat unless my wife is, and if she's out of town for the weekends, like, all right, he's not eating. I'm like, all right, stupid. I'm the one who walks you. Why are you just, uh, you know, you should be, anyway, you're right. Emotionally, they're a little.

• 1:35:23Bill Simmons?

  But the rescue dog thing is the right thing to do. And I think that's what we'll end up doing because there's so many dogs that need a home. So

• 1:35:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:35:30Bill Simmons?

  We're kinda gradually getting there, but, but I think it has to be a puppy, um, so that at least we can get them early and try to.

• 1:35:38Speaker 01

  See, to me, that's, that's the dilemma, the puppy. That's the pain in the ass.

• 1:35:43Bill Simmons?

  This is my wife's case. She's like, are you gonna be getting up? Are you gonna be the one getting up at three in the morning? It's like, well, I don't have a job.

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  The puppy could cause a divorce more than even just the dog, the whole, uh, do you get a rescue or not?

• 1:35:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, then there's the thing where you send the dog away for like three weeks, so it gets trained. And everybody who does it says it's the best.

• 1:36:03Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:36:04Bill Simmons?

  Um, but that kinda feels like cheating. Like we wouldn't do that with humans. Like, we've had it, we had a daughter. We sent her away. We, we get her back when she turns two.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  It's three weeks. That's not that bad. You get, so you immediately send them? You get to know them for like a couple of weeks and then send them?

• 1:36:20Bill Simmons?

  Here's what's, yeah, that's what happens. But here's what's gonna happen. We're not gonna end up getting a third dog.

• 1:36:24Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:36:25Bill Simmons?

  And I, I just know how it's gonna play out. It's not gonna happen. And we'll just ride it out with Murph and Jesse. Jesse's like thirteen, but in great shape. But at some point, if Jesse, you know, if that, if Jesse, it goes in the wrong direction and we only have one dog, my, this is all, my wife will, there's no way we will, we'll have one dog.

• 1:36:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:48Bill Simmons?

  So I think that's how this plays out. But my point is, we've spent a lot of time, and I just wasted a whole parent corner talking about it. And I don't even think we're getting a dog. We're, it's like, we're like the, we're like the, uh, Charger sideline. We're calling timeouts and we, we've run out of timeouts and we don't even have a plan. Um.

• 1:37:06Speaker 01

  You'll get one within the next two years, I'm sorry to say, but, you know.

• 1:37:10Bill Simmons?

  The dog I really want, and a dog that's, you can't really adopt because it's too hard to, no, nobody, there's no rescue versions of these, at least that I don't know. But I really love Newfoundland's.

• 1:37:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:37:22Bill Simmons?

  And we've argued about that a lot. I've always wanted one, but they drool. And they have like they, you know, and that's kinda, and my wife's like, well, yeah, you, you'll like it until he drools all over your shirt right as you're about to do a podcast. It's always about like ruining a podcast. Like, look how I'm dressed now.

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:37:40Bill Simmons?

  But I've always liked those dogs. I've always, I've always wanted one. That's kind of the.

• 1:37:44Speaker 01

  My cousin Katie has one, and it is just non-stop drool. They will walk. It won't, it won't fall a lot of times. They'll walk with it around the house and, you know, it's just, unless it's different.

• 1:37:51Bill Simmons?

  It's got a string.

• 1:37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's kinda cool.

• 1:37:54Bill Simmons?

  So does she like it?

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But she has three, three dogs too. Gigantic dogs. So they're just in it to win it.

• 1:38:00Bill Simmons?

  Three gigantic ones.

• 1:38:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why don't you just buy the Mariners?

• 1:38:05Bill Simmons?

  Maybe that's what I'll do instead.

• 1:38:07Speaker 01

  Talk to her about that after this.

• 1:38:10Bill Simmons?

  Maybe I'll buy the O A Sparks. I'll get involved in an ownership group, try to save them.

• 1:38:15Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:38:16Bill Simmons?

  Either that or Newfoundland, one or the other. That was today's parent corner brought to you by PayPal. More security is always a win and the new PayPal app has you covered with pass keys, biometric security, plus purchase protection on eligible items all working together. So you're safe every step of the way. Download the PayPal app to get started. See paypal.com slash protection terms. Emmys tomorrow night.

• 1:38:37Speaker 01

  I was just gonna say, yeah.

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  Come on, let's just win one for Jimmy Kimmel. Everyone within the sound of my voice, vote for Jim, although these people can't vote. No, the votes are in.

• 1:38:47Bill Simmons?

  It's so long and.

• 1:38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:38:49Bill Simmons?

  Is he favored, you think?

• 1:38:51Speaker 01

  Oh, no, no, no. No, they, well, the, the technical Emmys are a precursor and Colbert won most of those. And if you look on some of these sites or whatever, yeah, it's a, it's a long shot. But the, the voting's weird this year and you could tie or something, you could share the award, maybe that's more of a possibility, but he's not favored.

• 1:39:12Bill Simmons?

  Share the award, who, that's ridiculous.

• 1:39:14Speaker 01

  It would be a tie, that's very, I don't get it, it's a long, it's a long thing, but.

• 1:39:20Bill Simmons?

  So tomorrow night, is he doing this, is he doing his show too tomorrow?

• 1:39:24Speaker 01

  No, no, they're off tomorrow.

• 1:39:25Bill Simmons?

  No show, all right.

• 1:39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, the Emmys are five Pacific, so.

• 1:39:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, good luck to him. You're gonna be on, you're gonna be on Ringer Wise Guys, what days this week?

• 1:39:36Speaker 01

  Tate, Raheem, Tony Tokens, Joe House and myself for tomorrow and then Tuesday and Thursday and our big week two preview on Friday. Always fun with those guys.

• 1:39:45Bill Simmons?

  The first preview was great.

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  Oh, you liked it? Okay, good.

• 1:39:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was good. I actually liked having it more on a Friday than you guys doing it on Sunday.

• 1:39:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:52Bill Simmons?

  Liked having, you know, 40 hours to kind of.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  That's nice.

• 1:39:56Bill Simmons?

  Listen to it. It was interesting though, House was basically doing the same bits he did on the Thursday night pod with me.

• 1:40:02Speaker 01

  The same bits.

• 1:40:04Bill Simmons?

  It was like watching the, Bob, back when John Stud, the New York where the backbreaker and then it goes to Boston and I saw the same match. So I don't know, he's got to work on that. I don't know if he could have the same ending for the match.

• 1:40:18Speaker 01

  Well, it might be a different audience, so much like the wrestling. Yeah, I used to love that too. Didn't, weren't we just talking about that, Andre the Giant and the Ultimate Warrior? They did like.

• 1:40:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the squash matches.

• 1:40:27Speaker 01

  The squash matches.

• 1:40:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because Andre couldn't wrestle, so they would just go around the country and Warrior would beat him in 90 seconds.

• 1:40:33Speaker 01

  Same three moves.

• 1:40:34Bill Simmons?

  And every, every time it would be this new thing in the city, but nobody knew. I was thinking if I was in the mid eighties, if you had told me all the wrestling would someday be available and basically like a TV that looked like this.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:52Bill Simmons?

  That I could just hold up and watch every match from the eighties on my command, like what my reaction would have been. I think, I don't, I, I just would have had so many more questions.

• 1:41:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:03Bill Simmons?

  Like, is there basketball too? Are football games on there? What about Letterman episodes?

• 1:41:09Speaker 01

  Everything, yeah.

• 1:41:10Bill Simmons?

  And everything.

• 1:41:13Speaker 01

  But you'll probably get involved in a, you know, he's stuck in a dog adoption algorithm and then that, that's what you end up watching.

• 1:41:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're just not gonna end up getting one.

• 1:41:25Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna have to be, I'm, I'm kind of glad I put it out there because then maybe somebody will hear and be like, oh my God, my next door neighbor has a, literally Newfoundland's coming.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:35Bill Simmons?

  And there, there's two left, you can get in on it.

• 1:41:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. Get a junkyard dog, get a British Bulldog, get a Bulldog Buzzsawier.

• 1:41:47Bill Simmons?

  Short fat dog that died in my kid.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:41:50Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the pod. So thanks to Gao and thanks to Eduardo. And that, I always forget to thank Chris Wohlers, who's unsung MVP at the Ringer. Yeah, he's really, we have a great, great, awesome crew beyond the scenes, but thanks to him, thanks to Jack Wilson, who's probably working tonight, even though he's pretending he's not.

• 1:42:07Speaker 01

  He's the second best.

• 1:42:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we have a lot of bests, we have a lot of great people at The Ringer. Sal, I will see you next Sunday after whatever the NBC game is. As always, good job by you.

• 1:42:18Speaker 01

  Good job by you, buddy.

• 1:42:20Bill Simmons?

  Thanks, everybody at Netflix.

• 1:42:25Bill Simmons?

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