An Absolutely Horrific Patriots Loss, the Rams-49ers Travel Bowl, and Hottest Takes With Craig Horlbeck, Danny Heifetz, and Danny Kelly

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Craig Horlbeck, Danny Heifetz, and Danny Kelly to react to the NFL season opener between the Patriots and the Seahawks. Then, they preview 49ers-Rams in Australia before giving some hot takes. (0:00) Intro (1:07) Patriots-Seahawks reactions (30:51) 49ers-Rams preview and hot takes Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Craig Horlbeck, Danny Heifetz, and Danny Kelly Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers 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?

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• 0:39Bill Simmons?

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• 1:41Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast, we are live here on Netflix with three guys who did the rewatchables this week. Talladega Nights, this seemed like such a great idea. Pat Seahawks opening night, Sam Darnold gets hurt in the first series, which kind of sucked. And it felt like the season parted for the New England Patriots. A.J. Brown goes down. Drake May has three turnovers down the stretch. The Patriots blow the game. I feel like my season is over, guys. I don't know. Craig, you want to start? I just feel like, I feel like we're going 6-11 now. I'm so depressed.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  We just did Talladega Nights and Drake May did kind of look like Ricky Bobby in his underwear, running around. Help me, Tom Cruise!

• 2:23Bill Simmons?

  I just, they played like, they played scared and like they thought 10 points was going to win the game for two solid hours, including right before halftime when it felt like they could have gone for the jugular. And they just kind of left the door open for everything that happened. Danny, you're a Seahawks fan, Danny Kelly. As you're watching that, are you surprised the Patriots are letting them hang around like that? What are you thinking?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  I was a little shocked at the lack of aggressiveness on third downs in particular. I feel like there was, like the one that you're mentioning, I believe they just ran like a draw on third and five, settled for...

• 2:54Bill Simmons?

  At midfield!

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, settled to punt. They thought they were in control of the game. And I mean, for a little while, they were. And then this is what happens when you let teams hang around with a really good defense and they've got some turnovers. I thought, yeah, I thought, and I thought for, I don't really have a lot of confidence in Drew Lock as like a quarterback long-term, but I thought that Brian Flurry, the Seahawks' new offensive coordinator, did a pretty good job of managing it for him in this game. So that was encouraging. I thought he finished 16-22.

• 3:22Bill Simmons?

  No picks, right? No turnovers, nothing.

• 3:25Speaker 02

  One touchdown, no picks. I think that, that play call to do the play action on fourth down, give it to JSN where he scored that touchdown, I thought that was a ballsy play call. But yeah, I mean, this is what happens when you let, you know, teams with really good defenses hang around. The Seahawks defense, I think I was texting the guys, like Seahawks defense needs to get a big play. And then immediately after that, they got that pick. And they just kind of got rolling.

• 3:47Bill Simmons?

  Hi Fitz, we didn't know each other when the helmet catch happened. This is like 40% of what I looked like.

• 3:53Speaker 03

  I've never been happier to be on this show. I've always wanted to be here after an absolute Patriots meltdown.

• 3:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, well, it happened.

• 4:01Speaker 03

  It's the worst Patriots loss I've seen in seven, eight months.

• 4:05Speaker 01

  There it is.

• 4:06Speaker 03

  Bill, I, first of all, in honor of Cousin Sal, who couldn't be here tonight, Drake maybe for Drew Lock, who says no, Bill?

• 4:13Bill Simmons?

  The Drake maybe, I did have Sal in my head. This really could, if the Cowboys are good and Drake maybe just completely goes into a tailspin this year.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Just take the year off, just skip a year. Come back next year.

• 4:25Bill Simmons?

  Who else could I get to guest host the Sunday? Like Kimmel goes away for the summers, maybe I just have to do that. Maybe I get Rosie O'Donnell to host every Sunday with Sal. Maybe that'll be my way I torture Sal back.

• 4:37Speaker 03

  It all serves as, this is pretty terrible. You literally had eight months to prepare for this humiliating Super Bowl loss. Sam Darnold goes out on the fifth snap of the Seahawks' offense of the entire season. You get Drew Lock for 99% of this game. All Drake May has to do is not throw three interceptions and you're going to win this game.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  You never go full strout. He went full strout in this one.

• 4:59Speaker 01

  It's tough because a lot of the mistakes that May made, I feel like, I feel like the thing about Drake May last year, she was so good with the deep ball. And every deep ball he threw tonight was underthrown. Like he got lucky with the P.I. to A.J. Brown. The other one was to Dobbs is underthrown, turned into a pick. And then the last pick to end the game was the most, that was the worst throw he's thrown in his entire career. I don't know why he didn't throw the ball away. He completely forced it. It was totally underthrown. They were forcing the ball to Mac Collins. I was shocked at how nervous he looked in this game.

• 5:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, the flea flicker was a really bad throw. That should have just been an easy touchdown. All three of those interceptions happened because it didn't feel like his feet was set and it felt like he was arm throwing. Danny, wasn't this, Danny Kelly, wasn't this what, uh, this was the rap on him in college, right? The mechanics were a little shaky, but his mechanics last year were fantastic. Like he maybe had, that last, that third interception, which was obviously his worst play of the game, he might've had five of those for the entire year last year. And I don't even know if five of them became interceptions, but that was, and the other thing is he took the sack on first down before that interception, which was also stupid because they had first down on the, you know, on the 20 with 35 seconds left.

• 6:10Bill Simmons?

  At the very least, like you figure you need a field goal, go to overtime. But I just felt like he self-combusted, DK.

• 6:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think, and that, you're right, that was kind of the knock on him coming in is just his feet get a little happy when he's throwing. He doesn't really get set and then the ball kind of sails on him or whatever. Craig, to your point about the deep passes, I saw this from Next Gen Stats. He had one interception on deep passes last year. He had two in this game.

• 6:33Speaker 01

  That was his whole thing. He was almost perfect as a deep ball passer last year.

• 6:36Speaker 02

  So, you know, I think also you do have to give credit to the Seahawks' defense. I mean, this is one of the best defenses in the NFL. They were really doing a good job of bringing the heat from different areas and kind of like forcing them off his spot. Late in the game especially, I thought the Seahawks' defense, defensive line took over. Byron Murphy, Leonard Williams, they were really just, and then Derek Hall late in the game, they were just really getting after him. I think that made him really uncomfortable. Obviously, that decision late in the game, the final pick was, you know, just pretty much on May. But overall, I thought the Seahawks' defense really stepped up too.

• 7:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, either you're throwing it out of bounds, which he didn't accomplish, or you're trying to do a jump off for Mac Collins, who's covered by two guys. I don't like that decision either. You could take the field goal and take it to overtime, but I watched, obviously, I watched every Pats game. Like he was lights out the entire year last year and really starting with the playoffs when I didn't think he was healthy. He looked healthy in this game. That's the thing, there's no excuses this time. He was scrambling around. He looked like the Drake May from the first four months of last season. They were third and ones, like controlled draw, you know, draw sweeps for him and stuff like that, that, that's what they did last year and he still sucked. What were you going to say, Heifetz?

• 7:49Speaker 03

  Well, it's just concerning because he beat so many backup quarterbacks last year that now, you know, it's concerning he couldn't beat the backup quarterback to start the year now.

• 7:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, I had, I mean, I had notes and I was always doing hypothetical notes for if the Pats won about how they passed the Super Bowl curse, the hangover curse right to the Seahawks, like it follows the horror movie. And, and the, just like the, the Darnold going out, what a break that was to start out 1-0 with a game that such, seemed like such an obvious loss. Then you look at the next five games that are scheduled, like they could have been 5-1 after six. Now they're 0-1. Now it's, this is even worse because it's, it's a Wednesday. They don't play again until a week from Sunday. So this is 10, 10, 11 days of what's going on with Drake May. So we're just going to get that over and over again.

• 8:40Speaker 02

  A.J. Brown is hurt as well.

• 8:41Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, that's the nice thing.

• 8:43Speaker 03

  And the depression of losing the Super Bowl arising, which I don't think can be understated because all these guys spent two weeks before the Super Bowl just trying to keep in the back of their mind that you've going to achieve this lifelong goal. And then you're embarrassed in front of 100 million people. And then it just gets like, all of it just comes flooding back after you spent the six months burying it in your head.

• 9:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and that's, those are the stakes of a game like that because you could have flipped the narrative on that last drive. You have 40 seconds left, you have two timeouts, you're on the 20. You have a Seahawks secondary. That was another break they got in this game. Other than Drew Lock, the Seahawks secondary, missing two guys from last year, plus Amon Norrie's out, you know, and this is like, this should, this should, this should have been set up for some sort of great moment and instead.

• 9:26Speaker 02

  I mean, that, yeah, that pick, the second pick that they had, it was ironic because it was Rodney Thomas, who I've barely even heard of, coming up off the practice squad.

• 9:35Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Knocking it into the air and then Nehemiah Pritchett made the interception. He was the, I guess, sort of surprised, or not surprised, but third corner because that was a competition in, in training camp and everything. So that just is like another, another just nod to the Seahawks defense. They found guys to step up in this game and these two random guys that, you know, you didn't really hear much about, certainly not last year, making the play.

• 9:58Speaker 03

  That's the coaching of Mike McDonald, just like Josh Jobe got that pick. He got a contract extension. That was Josh Jobe last year. They found him off the Eagles practice squad. Like the ability to get these guys, they find cornerbacks who can tackle and learn the system.

• 10:10Speaker 02

  Oh, that was big.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  The Pop Douglas tackle on that, on that short pass to the left, I easily thought Pop was going to get that. And everyone was flying around in the Seattle secondary tonight, even though it was backups. I thought McDonald was incredible. I mean, he had Drake May on his heels the entire game. They would send an all-out blitz. Patriots are having to call timeouts. I, I thought McDonald completely cemented himself. Like this was such a, Bill, you've been talking about this all offseason, that like, even though Seattle won the Super Bowl, they almost feel like a, like a fluke or a nobody believes in this team. And this felt like McDonald was like, I'm the best coach in the league.

• 10:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, and I think he is. I mean, I certainly watched with the stuff they did today and how they kind of undressed the Pats as, as the game went along. And yet, on that last drive, Pats out of fourth and two, like, what was it, on their own 32? Which I thought was really ballsy because there was still enough time left to punt. You had three timeouts and they just said, fuck it. And they get it. Then they have third and 19 because Will Campbell, I think it was Will Campbell, back-to-back drives with huge penalties by Will Campbell.

• 11:10Speaker 03

  Right after Collinsworth talked them up.

• 11:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Third and 19, they cut it to fourth and nine, they go for it at midfield and they get it on that Matt Collins play, which Collinsworth, Collinsworth did a great job today. He called like seven plays. Like he was calling it out. He called out the JSN play on the fourth and one. But they, it's, they're putting together this drive of like, holy shit, they're doing this in Seattle. This is the toughest place to play in the league. They're converting these crazy fourth downs, even though they don't have AJ Brown. And then it all falls apart because Drake just, just loses it. I, I gotta say, guys, there was about an hour there with AJ Brown, especially that one, what was it, like a third and 10? And he just had that slant for the easy 15? And it was like, oh, man. It

• 11:56Bill Simmons?

  was like putting down the top on the highway. Just like, let's fucking go.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  That's, that's the AJ Brown experience. For one play, you're like, wow, this guy looks like a Ferrari. And then usually-

• 12:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my lord.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  And then what happens with the Ferrari, like blows a gasket. And you're like, well, all right, I guess I'll, I guess I'll drive it again in two months.

• 12:12Bill Simmons?

  Right. And he gets more hype than JSN, who, you know, just had a typically awesome game. Somehow was left uncovered on a fourth and one, runs for 40-plus yards. And, uh, all right, there's, there's a lot to discuss on this. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back. We're going to go through some angles. We also, I, I think this is one of the random craziest fantasy days we've ever had. And I want to talk about that too. And then I'm going to drink some cyanide and end the podcast. So that's all, that's all coming up next, right after the break. The Built to Miss Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Thursday Night Football is back. FanDuel has given you a reason to celebrate with every single touchdown. That's right. Niners versus Rams, every touchdown pays. Here's how it works. Opt in, use your token

• 12:56Bill Simmons?

  on an eligible bet, then sit back and watch the touchdowns add up. Stribbling, the rookie receiver on the Niners. If you think he's going to score in this game because the Niners are more rested, well, knock yourself out. He's plus 360, I think, for anytime TD, plus 380, somewhere in that range. Every time either team finds the end zone, though, you'll get bonus bets. Doesn't matter which team scores. Every touchdown can mean more bonus bets coming your way. So stay, stay tuned, pay attention. Download the FanDuel app to get started. 21-plus select states or 18-plus DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Opt-in required. Must apply bonus token to eligible wager. Bonus issued as non-maturable bonus bets, which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply, including minimum wager requirement.

• 13:39Bill Simmons?

  See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by one of my best friends in life, NFL Sunday Ticket. Man, I missed it. Kickoff's coming. Yeah, we're getting close. We're within a month. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game, every Sunday, all in one place, and it's magnificent. And there's no other way to follow the NFL season. I'm so mad I didn't get YouTube TV until a couple of years ago because it's the best. New users, that might include you, can get NFL Sunday Ticket for eight payments of just $30 a month.

• 14:22Bill Simmons?

  You heard me correctly. New users pay $240 or eight, eight non-cancellable payments of $30 a month. First charge at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games. YouTube TV required. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. I just complained about the Keyshawn Booty trade for the entire break. Didn't need that guy. Who needs insurance for a guy who caught like 15 huge deep balls last year and AJ Brown lasted an hour? I don't want to talk about the Pats all the time. We could circle back later. So Sam Darnold, what are we thinking? Who, out of the three of you guys, who's

• 15:03Bill Simmons?

  the number one amateur injury expert? Who is the Dr. David Chow of this group?

• 15:08Speaker 02

  I feel like Craig, probably.

• 15:10Speaker 01

  I would give it to myself, but to be hon, I thought it was a knee and then I thought it was an ankle. And then when I found out it was a hip, I mean, I have no idea what's going on in there. Hip injuries can go in any direction. So I feel like we have no idea if Darnold, I thought he was going to tough it out and come back in the second half when I saw the injury. And now it looks like we have no idea.

• 15:27Speaker 02

  Schefter just tweeted. Do you want me to read his, his report here? So from Adam Schefter, he's been at Harborview Medical Center, which is a big hospital in Seattle. CT scan on his hip. The initial test was encouraging but inconclusive. And Darnold is now scheduled to undergo an MRI. So at least it's not the worst news imaginable. I don't know. It, to me, I'm like, my gut just tells me he's probably going to be back this year. I don't think this is a season-ending injury, but who knows?

• 15:55Bill Simmons?

  Drew Lock, I never thought, like, if you're talking, if we're doing a backup power rankings, I don't think he's in the bottom half of those rankings. I would probably put him in the top 10, right? Is that crazy how he fits?

• 16:07Speaker 03

  He, I think Drew Lock is ironically a lot of what we criticized Sam Darnold for a year ago, when we were not sure how Sam Darnold would be, which, which is Drew Lock is, I mean, self-described a gunslinger who never really, I mean, he came to the NFL. He told Peter King, like, I never really saw receivers open. I kind of just trusted my arm and let it rip. He's kind of like how Brett Favre was. I don't know how much he's reading defenses and stuff, and he's had to learn all that. I think he's not necessarily the kind of quarterback you would pair with like an elite defense.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:37Speaker 03

  Like, it's not, you know, it's not like a Tyrod Taylor game management style thing.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Neither is Darnold, though.

• 16:42Speaker 03

  He's more like a Jameis.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Lock kind of, he's kind of like a mini Baker.

• 16:46Speaker 03

  He's white Jameis, yeah.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  He's got a little Jameis, little Baker to him.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  He's James.

• 16:50Speaker 01

  I feel, James, get rid of the I. He's James Winston. I just feel like, like Drew Lock with a lead is almost a disaster, but Drew Lock down 10, you're like, you know what? He needs a little adversity. He needs to feel something.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  That's a great point.

• 17:04Speaker 03

  I think you saw that tonight because him losing is almost more to his style, where he ripped a couple passes in there. I mean, the third and 22, where he got like 21 and a half yards. I think JSN got that first down. That was a pivot point in the game, too, because I, I think JSN got the first. I think that honestly, A.J. Barner probably would have got the tush push, but they, you know, kind of called that like ticky tack penalty. But I thought Drew Lock actually had a bunch of moments where he looked good, but I don't know if I want him protecting the lead. So it's a huge loss for any game time Darnold misses.

• 17:33Bill Simmons?

  It is funny how many of these quarterbacks that you would just never trust as your full-time starter, but they can have these flashes. Like Drew Lock had that rollout on the drive that ended up being a football, but it's just like, man, this guy runs like a gazelle. This is, were we missing out, were we missing out on Drew Lock? Was this in here the whole time? And then, you know?

• 17:53Speaker 03

  He put Spillane into the grave right there.

• 17:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 17:56Speaker 02

  So my whole thing with Lock is, I, have you ever watched his college basketball highlights or high, high school basketball highlights? I'm like, I still believe somehow because he's like really good at basketball. But I would say the one, like, look, Lock, but don't forget, he also threw that touchdown to Cooper Cup that got called back on procedural thing. That was kind of the big thing here is, and I was saying to these guys during the game, like, you kind of forget how, just how hard it is to run an offense during an NFL game. There's so many procedural things that Lock screwed up.

• 18:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. He had to delay a game at a terrible point. The illegal shift was his fault. I mean, the whole game was messy. I mean, especially the first half. It was very, they always talk about how week one is really just an extension of the preseason. And you, I forget it every year, and then you watch week one and you're like, this is barely football. These guys don't know what they're doing. There's like a million timeouts and offsides and false starts. It was messy for two and a half quarters.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  That's the other thing worth saying. I don't want to pile on, well, that's not true. I actually really do want to pile on. This game should have been worse. I know this was a bad loss, but Drew Lock, Drew Lock cost them, he tossed them four points when he had the illegal shift to Cooper Cup. That should have been a touchdown instead of a field goal. And then he also kind of cost them points later in the draw, like later in the game, when he had another penalty, like the delay of game. That right there is eight points. Like, that's more than a possession, basically. Like, this game actually could have been worse.

• 19:18Bill Simmons?

  You were making me feel better that the Pats are lost by more, but then apparently there was a Netflix poll, should Drake maybe be his name? And it was 88% yes.

• 19:28Bill Simmons?

  I really hate Sal. Like, I don't know. Sal and I might have some real issues this season. I might, I might have to do all the unders in the Dallas and just really, we, we might be having real issues. 2026 Patriots, offensive line looked better. Campbell still had a couple of things, but for the most part, it was at least better than it was in the Super Bowl last year. I, can they just be a middle of the road offensive line? Sure. A couple of the guys from the draft, that looked pretty good. They, they really missed, uh, Trevion tonight. Um, you know, Remandre was just out there basically the whole game. I think there was a couple, especially like with the younger secondary. I think there was a couple of plays for him. Um, the booty trade looks

• 20:12Bill Simmons?

  worse than ever. I, I didn't understand it when it happened. I understand it less now. We'll see with AJ. Um, the big thing that's changed this year is that every Mike Vrabel halftime interview is hilariously funny now. When they, with the announcer, when they're asking him what happened out there and, and I, I don't know. It's just hard not to think about Sedona, Arizona.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  What happened out there? He's like, out where? Out in Sedona or on the field?

• 20:37Bill Simmons?

  My wife happened to be sitting next to me. She barely watched the game, but was there for the halftime interview and she did it and they, he did it and my wife was just like, I don't know. I just don't trust him anymore. Just left the room. And I was like, that's it? You're leaving me at that? But I didn't know if I would think about the offseason with him during the game, but I thought about it 20 times. I don't know how you guys felt.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  It's, it's definitely still there. I, Mike Vrabel must've been in the production booth cutting to Romeo Dobbs' face over. He's like, cut back to Dobbs. Cut back to Dobbs. Get off me. Poor Dobbs is sitting on the bench. They cut to him four different times in over two minutes.

• 21:15Speaker 03

  Dobbs played like Dejounte Love. In retrospect, it was weird Romeo Dobbs just bringing that giant helmet around with him everywhere. You know what I mean?

• 21:22Bill Simmons?

  It, that drop he had, it felt like maybe they had a chance to get, and then they kept the drive going, but.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  No, the next play was a pick after that drop.

• 21:30Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's right. You're right. It was the second to last draft. Every time Dobbs was involved with anything, it felt like it went terribly. And, uh, this was somebody they were really counting on and, um, thought he was gonna make a dramatic difference. Obviously, they traded next year's first for AJ Brown. I'm not ready to talk about that on a live Netflix draft, uh, podcast when we're 0-1, but, um, but for that moment, that AJ looked like he was good. It's like, we've drafted that receiver with those kind of tools 12 times and have gone 0-for-12. And it was just nice to be like, okay, we finally have it. And here's Matt Collins and here's Dobbs. And this, the hypothetical Patriots felt like they lasted for, uh, about 10 minutes. Um, yeah,

• 22:11Bill Simmons?

  the Vrabel thing is, is, it's just weird. I don't know what week it's gonna stop being weird. Have you guys ever dealt with anything with your week to week football team or sports team or anything where there was some off the field thing you couldn't stop kind of thinking about?

• 22:24Speaker 01

  Steelers are a super normal team. They haven't had any.

• 22:26Bill Simmons?

  That's right. Oh, that's right. Craig's a Steelers fan.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  There's been no issues with any Steelers player the last 10 years, I don't think. Everyone's been normal.

• 22:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Last 20 years were fine. They went great. Um, and then the, the Seahawks, I thought Price looked, I mean, he, it's not like he had 30 carries, but he certainly has the burst. That's, you know. DK, you must've been pumped.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. He had, like, uh, he just clearly has juice as a runner, which is something they definitely, definitely need. I mean, they've got Holani and they have Emmanuel Willsey who are kind of like, you know, just pickup truck running backs. And I think, I think that Price could be the guy that, it, it's kind of like the Trevion Henderson thing. Like, he just gives them some speed, some, some big play potential on the ground. They were really good. Um, this was kind of been talked about in the preseason. They're really good on wide zone runs. This is something that I think Price is just really good. So like, they basically string it, string it out to the end and then to the outside and then he'll just cut up field. He did that several times. I thought he looked great. Um, so, yeah, I mean.

• 23:24Bill Simmons?

  What'd you think, Iffits?

• 23:26Speaker 03

  I thought Price was awesome. I mean, Jadarian Price was awesome at Notre Dame, too. I mean, again, it's weird. The first two running backs taken in the first round were Notre Dame, but Jadarian Price, if he went back to college, would have been like a $3 million NIL player. I, he's legit and he had all this explosiveness at Notre Dame and he just didn't play a ton because he didn't get, he didn't really catch like, I think he caught less than 15 catches in college because he tore his Achilles and then Jeremiah Love was like Reggie Bush. But then he didn't get goal line stuff because he fumbled kind of early in the season and he had a couple inopportune fumbles. But, I mean, he was an incredible kick returner. He's just, he's a human highlight reel. And I thought that the zone running and everything, it was frankly way more in sync, the Seahawks' running game than I thought it would be. And he did a way better Ken Walker impression in the

• 24:09Speaker 03

  Super Bowl than I ever thought he'd be able to do in his debut. I thought it was like really encouraging, especially once Drew Lock came in.

• 24:15Bill Simmons?

  So he was 10 for 52, two catches. It felt, rookie running backs, where, where do we want to get from a carries standpoint, Craig? We're like at, if we're using like the Jameer Gibbs kind of, it's two, you want to be around 200 carries or less for the season?

• 24:31Speaker 01

  For any guy you want to actually be relevant, like you need him to be touching the ball like 15 times a game. And I think Jadarian Price already getting 12 in week one. Like, definitely think he's gonna get there. This is just, I feel like these week one games are, are just like survive in advance. Even if you lose, it's like, just, just get through the game. Nobody get hurt. And I feel like both these teams, it's like, I know Seattle won the game, amazing comeback, but they're down Darnold. The Pats are now down AJ Brown. Trevion Henderson's hurt. Like.

• 24:57Speaker 02

  It's just a war of attrition, man.

• 24:58Speaker 01

  It's a war of attrition. And I'm like, I, I don't know who you feel better. I mean, you, you obviously don't feel good about New England, but Seattle doesn't have Sam Darnold going forward. Like, I don't, I don't know who you'd rather want to be going forward. DK, how do you feel about that?

• 25:09Speaker 02

  I mean, look, I'm still a little bit hopeful. It sounds like, you know, based on Mike McDonald's, uh, talk after the game that they're pretty, they're feeling pretty good about it. Like they, like they maybe dodged a bullet on this one. He didn't fracture his hip. So I'm feeling a little bit encouraged that like, maybe he'll only miss a few games. I, I don't know if that means that they're just gonna roll with, with Lock or try to make a trade of some sort. Or I, I highly doubt they'll do that. I think they'll just roll with Lock. But, um, right now, at the very least, I'm feeling a little bit encouraged. Like, he's not gonna be out the whole year. If he was out the whole year, obviously that's pretty devastating.

• 25:40Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing. The Seahawks have the best coach in the league. They have one of the best three defenses. They have one of the two or three best receivers. It looks like their running game's gonna be fine. They have a good offensive line. They have a good home field advantage. They have the pedigree and the chip on their shoulder from last year. And if they have to have Drew Lock for eight games, I, I think they'll be fine. Uh, AJ Brown, Andrew Callahan, good follow. Patriots Twitter is elite. I don't know if you guys are aware. We just have a lot of good beat reporters.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  Callahan, Callahan would, is my like dark alley guy at the NFL Combine.

• 26:13Bill Simmons?

  He, how, how big is he? What is he like?

• 26:16Speaker 02

  He's like Vrabel. Yeah.

• 26:19Bill Simmons?

  Could he, could he beat Brian Curtis in a fight or no?

• 26:21Speaker 03

  Uh, definitely. No offense to Brian Curtis.

• 26:24Bill Simmons?

  Are you kidding? Brian Curtis? He's killed guys.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  You seen Curtis lately?

• 26:27Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean? You didn't hear about the Brian Curtis bar fights in Texas?

• 26:31Speaker 02

  Oh, I heard about those. Yeah.

• 26:32Speaker 03

  That should be a narrative pod we do.

• 26:34Bill Simmons?

  Brian Curtis is, he's the strength of like five people. Uh, Andrew Callahan said AJ Brown just walked out of the Patriots locker room wearing a boot on his right foot. But Romeo Dobbs said his message to the receivers were, he told us that everything was going to be all right. What does that mean?

• 26:50Speaker 03

  DK Metcalf just said there's a city underneath Antarctica. So I don't know what they're teaching at Ole Miss, so.

• 26:56Bill Simmons?

  Did he tell them everything was gonna be all right? Because we're all human beings and next day you wake up and it's a brand new day? Or is, was his ankle gonna be all right? I don't know.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  Good question. Good question.

• 27:09Bill Simmons?

  The boot on the right foot is not how I wanted, uh, I was gonna talk about this with you guys later, but I, I have the, in the fantasy league I really care about with Sal and those guys where we vote somebody out. I have the Drake May, AJ Brown hookup.

• 27:22Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 27:22Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and that hookup has gone horribly. It's, the hookup is going like the first date in obsession, basically, so far. Um, pretty soon that's gonna be, be made a cat sandwich or something. Um, the, uh, the biggest first half plays, just to go back to the Pats blowing that game, third and five, Remandre, minute left, handoff,

• 27:49Bill Simmons?

  and then punt. And this is something Vrabel did a little bit last year, too, where he basically like, he did this in the Denver game in the playoffs last year and it actually worked. I'm good. I think we might have enough points. We'll get 10 this half. Maybe we end with 13. I don't think Seattle can get to 16. I just fundamentally don't agree with that, guys. What do you, Heifetz, when, when a team does that, the, don't you feel like it's, they're doomed?

• 28:14Speaker 03

  You say the end of the half when they were up 7-0 and they kind of just like.

• 28:17Bill Simmons?

  7-0, yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 03

  I, I'm okay with it because for a variety of reasons. Mike Vrabel is, I mean, look, he's an incredible coach. Like they, he got that Patriots team to the Super Bowl and the truth is, I thought the Patriots roster was fine. And he got them to the Super Bowl because he's a great in-game coach. He's frankly, the only person in the Bill Belichick tree that's learned all the Bill Belichick rules. And if he's like, it's 7-0, Drew Lock's not going to score any more points. I'm fine with him just at that point on, like, kind of ending the game and not want, like, wanting to move on. I, I think he was afraid of Drake May doing something stupid at the end of the half.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  It was the Jared Stidham Broncos game plan.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 28:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 28:52Speaker 03

  Exactly. And I think Vrabel was afraid Drake May would do something dumb. And he was right. Drake May just did it dumb at the end of the game when they needed him to do something.

• 28:59Speaker 02

  This is the runner-up MVP. Like, why would you play that way, though? Why play scared?

• 29:03Bill Simmons?

  That's how I feel.

• 29:04Speaker 03

  See, here's how I see it.

• 29:05Speaker 01

  I don't think he was afraid May was going to do something dumb. I think he just wanted to bet on Drew Lock making mistakes and they wanted to play safe.

• 29:11Speaker 03

  He's a defensive coach.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Let me put it, this, to me, this test is the most, like, clear way of telling whether there's something was right or wrong. When, when the Patriots were doing that, I was celebrating. I'm a Seahawks fan. I was like, hell yeah. Go ahead and do that. I'm happy with that. If they would have been aggressive.

• 29:27Bill Simmons?

  Oh, it's the best test.

• 29:28Speaker 02

  Continue to like, push a, and, you know, you know, like, try to take advantage of the situation. The Seahawks felt like they were really reeling in the first half. I felt like they were on the ropes. Um, and then I think the Patriots kind of gave them a break.

• 29:40Bill Simmons?

  And the crowd was dead, too.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 29:42Bill Simmons?

  Here's the other thing. You have a, and they, the whole first quarter, there's as conservative as all hell, the Patriots. I have A.J. Brown. This is the first game where I get to take him out of the garage, give him a little spin around, right? I'm not just going 20 miles an hour around my neighborhood. Like, I'm taking A.J. Brown on the highway. I'm sure you're watching the game, DK, like, like being like, oh shit, they're going to test our secondary. They're going to chuck one deep. And they just never did. And the, the only real A.J. play was that one slant thing, but they never unleashed him. And now with Booty out, I don't really feel like they have another deep ball person. So you, you watched what happened to them in the, in the second half, Craig, and it was like,

• 30:24Bill Simmons?

  this was kind of the Super Bowl offense all over again.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  They've, they've caught, now that I feel like they're just last year's Patriots again. Where I'm like, can you trust Romeo Dobbs? Booty's gone. You have, it's just Matt Collins and Pop Douglas again, is kind of what you have to deal with. I was also annoyed, I feel like every time May ran, it, things, it went well. But it's always scrambling with him. He led the league in scrambles last year as a quarterback. And I feel like they just need to design rushes for him more like Josh Allen. Every time it does, it goes well, and they refuse to do it.

• 30:50Bill Simmons?

  They did in the fourth quarter, they ran the Denver play. The Denver play was a naked bootleg where nobody knew who was doing it. This time, I think it was designed. But I just think he beats every single edge guy he can beat around the corner and get out of the way. So, the past schedule, they're Steelers at home next week, at Jaguars, at Bills, Vegas, and the Jets. And they were looking like that could have been 5-1 and not, and now, who knows? Now you have the Seahawks who win today. Tomorrow is Rams-Niners. If you're ever going to get a Rams loss, it's tomorrow when they flew. I had a friend who's in, uh, in Australia and saw the Rams coming into their hotel. And I was like, how'd they look? And he said, they looked like a team that had just been on a 15-hour flight.

• 31:35Bill Simmons?

  I was like, great. Good sign for tomorrow. Niners, plus four, plus three and a half, whatever. So you could get the Niners beating the Rams and you could have DK a one-game lead heading into the first Sunday of the NFL season. That's not bad.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm, I'm into that. I, what it, so I assume your take is that the 49ers did it, right? In terms of like traveling there a week early and?

• 31:57Bill Simmons?

  No, here's my take. I know you guys have talked about this too, but we can all do it together. I think the Niners did it. It's, it's going to lead to a win tomorrow, would be my bet. I think long-term, it's going to be bad because everybody says the longer you stay over there, the harder it is to adjust when you come back. Whereas the Rams are basically like, not throwing away the game, but, but, you know, rolling the dice with this game, going in and out. But then when they come back, they'll be fine for week two. So it's almost like a short-term, long-term thing.

• 32:27Speaker 03

  The only quibble I'd have with that bill is everyone, like, the whole, well, I went for a week for Australia and I came back. No one's ever flown to Australia for a day and then flew back like 30 hours later, except for the one scout they, the Rams sent to test this whole theory. And so I, I don't, I, I kind of keep wondering if the Rams are going to be just as trouble.

• 32:46Bill Simmons?

  Who was it?

• 32:47Speaker 01

  I know. Did he have to audition? Like, how did, how did he win that job? That's interesting.

• 32:51Bill Simmons?

  Craig would have done that.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  I would have done that immediately. Did you see the plane that the Rams flew in? It was some special plane. It's like the biggest commercial plane ever. And it had enough lay-down seats for every player on the team.

• 33:02Bill Simmons?

  Sounds great. Should we get one for the Ringer?

• 33:04Speaker 01

  I think we should.

• 33:05Bill Simmons?

  So they auditioned somebody, Heifetz?

• 33:07Speaker 03

  They, I believe what they did is they sent at, at least two people. And one got to stay there for seven days or eight days. And then one had to come home after 30 hours. And imagine drawing the short straw and not getting the week in Australia. You have to fly to Australia, get one day of jet lag and immediately come home. And they tested it and they were like, you know what? Screw it. Let's just try.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, the guy who went for eight days just partied his ass off.

• 33:30Speaker 03

  I know. What a job.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Man, I'm tired.

• 33:34Bill Simmons?

  Legal brothels.

• 33:37Bill Simmons?

  I, the other funny thing about this is this, this, this huge, uh, experiment, but the smallest sample size possible.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  I know.

• 33:45Bill Simmons?

  They're like a baseball team, like, we've tried two bunts and here are the results for our entire season.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  This is a million variables, too.

• 33:52Speaker 03

  Meanwhile, like, whether Stafford sleeps is more important than probably 30 other players.

• 33:56Bill Simmons?

  Right. What's, has anybody been on a plane for 15 hours?

• 33:59Speaker 01

  I have.

• 34:00Bill Simmons?

  On this, you have. Where'd you go?

• 34:02Speaker 01

  I flew, I, when I went to Africa, I had to fly from Nairobi to Qatar, which was eight hours, and then immediately get back on a plane in Qatar and do Qatar to LA, which was 16 hours.

• 34:13Bill Simmons?

  Did you have to play a football game the next day?

• 34:15Speaker 01

  Uh, I, I didn't. I, yeah, I went on a run the next day, though. It was really difficult, so.

• 34:23Speaker 04

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• 34:51Speaker 04

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• 35:11Speaker 04

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• 35:52Bill Simmons?

  DK, what do you think of, uh, the game tomorrow?

• 35:56Speaker 02

  I mean, yeah, I think this, this jet lag thing is obviously a huge deal, but, um, I don't know. I'm, I'm kind of just like with you where I feel like the 49ers are being overlooked. The Rams have had such an awesome offseason on paper, you know, getting Garrett and.

• 36:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 36:11Speaker 02

  Donald coming back out of retirement, like, just like my actual nightmare thing that could happen for the, the top rival for the Seahawks.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  But yeah, I mean, I think the 49ers are so good. I was like, you have to remind people, they won like 12 games last year. They're still really good. And now they're theoretically a little healthier, although that could be not lasting very long.

• 36:32Speaker 02

  I don't know. I just think Shanahan gives them, gives them an edge.

• 36:34Bill Simmons?

  So you think they're alive, dog? Yeah, it's three and a half.

• 36:36Speaker 02

  I do, I do.

• 36:37Speaker 03

  Just take the points. I wish it was the Ringer 107 eligible. This whole thing is insane. And I, like, the fact that there is a team, you can get three and a half points, they're somewhat evenly matched. I, I, the Rams are a better team, but this is in frickin' Australia. No one knows what's going to happen.

• 36:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, now I'm nervous because everybody, now that all of us are on the Niners, I, one of us should probably take the Rams. But I, I agreed as well. I was like, well, I think the Rams are more or less punting this game. Donald's not flying there. I, I just feel like, there was even quotes from the, the president, Kevin Demoff, was like, we don't need to be there for a week, like, we'll, we'll focus on.

• 37:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he got a little feisty.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  He's like, we'll focus on expanding the league the other 51 weeks. We're just trying to get through. I feel like the Rams are like, we're old. We're just going to get there, get out. If we lose, it's fine. We're going to be okay.

• 37:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because I thought today, I thought was actually a pretty easy. The under, the under was, I think, forty-four and a half. The Pats were three and a half. And a lot of people had Pats in the under, parlay, tees, whatever. And every version of that hit. Tomorrow, everybody's in the Niners.

• 37:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:39Bill Simmons?

  What are the odds, two days in a row, everybody's on the right side of football bets? Because I, I really feel like almost, every version of today's game was a win, right? Because even if you had Seattle, you probably had them in a money line or a money line parlay, whatever. But this was Seattle winning but not covering was like the perfect result for normal betters. And then tomorrow, everyone on the Niners makes me nervous.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  It was a perfect result for betters, but a kind of a catastrophe for fantasy football. I feel the Drake May, A.J. Brown, pretty much everybody except Jackson Smith and Jacob was a mess.

• 38:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, let's talk about today that being one of the most traumatic fantasy days ever. Darnold, I don't think was starting for anybody, but he was definitely a backup for people.

• 38:17Speaker 01

  If you had two quarterback league.

• 38:18Bill Simmons?

  Or if you had a fifteen, yeah, two quarterback league or like a fifteen-team league. Um, A.J. Brown, who is the sexy receiver, right? He was one of the, one of the eight or nine biggest value guys, but is one of the most fun people to go in on. Because it's like, new team, he could be Randy Moss. But then the other thing that happens, one of the craziest stories in, I think, fantasy football history, Brock Bowers waiting until everybody had done their draft and then announcing he needed meniscus surgery. What the hell was that? I don't remember that ever happening.

• 38:53Speaker 02

  It was like an hour after Clint Kubiak told reporters at a press conference that everyone was looking good to play for the game.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  You could see Kubiak deciding to lie in the middle.

• 39:02Speaker 01

  It was, it was a very interesting choice of work. It was kind of like an, I've been immunized, where they were like, hey, is Bowers, is everyone, is Gentian Bowers going to play? And he was like, I'm planning on having everyone out there, ready to go. What do you mean by everybody? Very tricky.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  I have spent a lot of August.

• 39:22Bill Simmons?

  Same injury as last year, Heifetz?

• 39:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  No, it was a PCL last year. I don't know exactly, obviously, who knows? But what happened to Brock Bowers last year is like what happened to Ricky Pearsall. We had a PCL injury, Drake London had this. And for reasons I don't totally understand, they don't want to do PCL repairs the same way you do ACL repairs. Because long story short, there's just more risk of bringing in like a career-threatening destabilization of the knee. So they just, if they can, they let the PCLs heal, heal on their own. Sometimes it's like Brock Bowers where it goes well. And sometimes it's like Ricky Pearsall where it didn't get better and they have to do the surgery later and they regret it. The Bowers thing was like, he was fine. He looked good in practice, all this stuff. And then suddenly he has a meniscus trim, which is bad. I don't know if it's a meniscus injury, if there was mobility issues in the knee. But what, I spent too much of my August hyping up Brock Bowers and A.J. Brown.

• 40:07Speaker 03

  And there's a chance they combined for three catches in September. And I'm never going to recover from this.

• 40:14Bill Simmons?

  Why do we do it?

• 40:15Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 40:15Bill Simmons?

  Maybe we should just all not do it.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Fantasy football and golf, I'm like, why do we even play?

• 40:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, why don't we do it?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Well, I, I, sometimes I play in a survivor fantasy football league and, and like, like the show Survivor, where I like, you draft players. But the way you do it is you watch the first episode and then you pick the players. I think you should do the same. We should just do drafts after week one.

• 40:35Speaker 03

  We should just do drafts after week.

• 40:37Speaker 02

  That's not bad.

• 40:38Speaker 01

  It's not worth it. Everybody gets hurt week one. It's still basically preseason.

• 40:41Bill Simmons?

  Week eighteen, it should go through week eighteen. We're always afraid of week eighteen. Maybe we should be more afraid of week one.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Or you just do week two to week seventeen. We got a sixteen-game season. Isn't that what we all wanted anyway? Let's just do that.

• 40:52Bill Simmons?

  I did, because I know Deshaun Bailey is going to be the number one fab fantasy pickup after week one. Because he's going to have seven catches for a hundred and forty yards. He's going to be the guy. Calling it right now. Clip this out, put it on Sunday night. Um, so I just, I picked him up in the league with Sal. I just spent a dollar on him. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to spend the dollar now instead of the twenty-eight dollars after week one. Got him in a guillotine league too. And I just like, this is how it goes. Because fantasy football's stupid and Deshaun Bailey is going to have seven catches, a hundred and twenty-eight yards and a touchdown.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Well, and you had, you had A.J. Brown in that league, right? So you knew, you knew you were going to have to find a backup.

• 41:29Bill Simmons?

  I knew, I knew, I knew A.J. would be in a walking boot. Um, all right, so traumatic fantasy day. Interesting sports media television day as Mike Tomlin debuted for NBC.

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  What did we think? What'd you think, Craig? This is your coach.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  I mean, I, I think Tomlin is a great quote. I don't, I, I feel like they're using him in kind of a weird way. I feel like they're trying to Gen Z-ify Mike Tomlin. I saw him doing TikTok dances. He recently said he's been playing Minecraft for the last twelve years, which kind of upset me because the Steelers haven't won a playoff game since like two thousand and sixteen. And he says he spent twelve years building a city on Minecraft. But I, I mean, I still think Tomlin's great. I, I thought he was a little bit kind of boilerplate. And I want to kind of unleash him a little more, but, but I still think he's good.

• 42:17Speaker 03

  It was bizarre. Like, the beginning of that thing, they, they really, they made him Jason Garrett for like most of that. And then he just like, you could tell that all the media training they gave Jason Garrett, as Mike Tomlin kept going, he like slipped out of it and just became himself. He's like, look, the, the nickel cornerback, you got to deliver the baby. Like, you gotta, you gotta be there and deliver the baby. You're the one who's up to. And then he's like, and then they're like, oh, there's Mike Tomlin with his Tomlinisms. Back to you, Jason. And it was like such a strange.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  I know. They're leaning into it too much. Yeah.

• 42:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you can't try this hard to establish somebody as a TV person. They either have it or they don't. And I agree with you, Craig. Like, I, I thought, uh, it's like you get Daniel Day-Lewis, you don't put him in the wrong missy. You know, like you put him, you put him in a drama. You lean into the fact that he's an awesome dramatic. Mike Tomlin is this super intense, charismatic, whatever. I don't want to see him doing TikToks. And I don't want to see them like turning him into a TV character. Like, to me, it's like, he has real command of the TV. When he talks, I'm like, oh, Mike Tomlin's speaking. So I don't, I just think they, you know, this is, this has been an NBC issue with all their studio shows. But they're, they try to make it, they, they try to be intentionally jovial.

• 43:29Bill Simmons?

  And they try to make everybody characters. And, and Jason Garrett's just sitting there grinning like a fucking serial killer. Like, every episode. So he's like Dexter.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  I just, I don't like seeing Mike Tomlin in a suit. Like, put him in a hoodie. I, I don't want him in a quarter zip. I don't want him in a suit. It's just, the whole thing feels weird.

• 43:45Speaker 03

  Steelers gear.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they should be dressing him like he's one of the leads in CSI New York or something. Like, he shouldn't look like he's doing studio stuff. DK, did you learn anything from him today?

• 43:57Speaker 02

  No, not really. Do, do we ever, really? I, I feel like, look, you already mentioned it, but I, I do want to call it back. Like, Chris Collinsworth calling several of the biggest plays in the game before they happen.

• 44:10Bill Simmons?

  He was all over it.

• 44:11Speaker 02

  This is exactly what I'm looking for from a, from a, you know, color commentator or a guy who's calling the plays or whatever. It's like, understanding the situation and the formation and the defense. Like, when that JSN play happened, he was like, this might be the only time the Seahawks get JSN lined up one-on-one with a cornerback in the entire game. And then lo and behold, they, you know, it's not like a, you don't expect a team to run a play-action thing on fourth and two in their own. Like, you know, that was, I think, a pretty ballsy play. So, yeah, I just give credit to Collinsworth. Because I do feel like I learned from him, you know, at least once a game.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  Still throwing his fastball. He still is great at capturing the moment. You know, Drake May is falling apart and is, Mike, I don't know what Drake May's looking at there. I just don't know, Mike. And, and, you know, he kind of captures how you're feeling. I thought he was great.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  Craig can do it. Craig can do the Collinsworth. He's scared. Come on. Sal's not here, Craig. You gotta do it.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Sal's good at it. I don't, I don't know if I have it as good as Sal. I just, I, Mac Collins, Mike. Mac Collins over the middle is looking at Mike. What a play. What a throw, Mike. Drake May.

• 45:12Bill Simmons?

  Just so good.

• 45:14Speaker 01

  He did call that Mac Collins, fourth and nine.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Both fourth downs.

• 45:17Speaker 01

  An end breaker. He's like, Drake May loves these end breakers to Mac Collins.

• 45:21Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:22Bill Simmons?

  Um, any other stuff we want to hit in the fantasy or real NFL universe? Do you feel like the NFL changed today, DK, in any way?

• 45:30Speaker 02

  I mean, they did do a camera on the fish throw in Pike Place, Pike Place Market. Pretty revolutionary, I felt like. Um, Craig and Heifetz hadn't seen that before I told them about it. They didn't know that the fish toss was a thing. Still shocking to me.

• 45:43Bill Simmons?

  What, what is the Pittsburgh equivalent of the Pike Place throwing the fish? What, what do they do for the Steelers games?

• 45:50Speaker 03

  Fremantle Brothers, maybe?

• 45:51Bill Simmons?

  Fremantle?

• 45:52Speaker 01

  Putting french fries and sandwiches? I don't know.

• 45:54Bill Simmons?

  Boston, they always go to Faneuil Hall, but meanwhile, the game's being played an hour away in Foxborough, which is almost right near the road out border.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  It's always like the Santa Monica Pier and then they go back to Inglewood.

• 46:06Bill Simmons?

  It's like, let's go back to, uh, take a right right after the Target in Inglewood, and it's right there. Um, yeah, the Pike Place thing. What, so what else would you do, Danny?

• 46:16Speaker 02

  What else would I do to revolutionize the Pike Place throw?

• 46:19Bill Simmons?

  No, what else would you do for Seattle footage? Like, would you show like the sub pop?

• 46:24Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  Like, where, like, would you start like leaning into like the old, here's where the Seattle Supersonics used to play?

• 46:30Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, that's good. Like, the old Key Arena.

• 46:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I just think people, they think we want to see fish being thrown.

• 46:36Speaker 03

  Well, I like that they put the camera on the fish, and that's good. Because it's kind of like what Josh Jobe was seeing, right? When he caught Drake May's final interception, you know, it was kind of like POV.

• 46:46Speaker 01

  I love it. The Giants are about to get their ass kicked.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  He is taking advantage of this situation right now.

• 46:53Speaker 03

  Well, while we're here, Bill, honestly, was the peak of the NFL season for you? Literally, the NFL season being like, but first Pearl Jam?

• 47:01Bill Simmons?

  McCrea, well, I was, I was in a whole different situation because my daughter was playing a game in pouring rain and, uh, and wind in Boston, actually against Suffolk. So I was watching that game and trying to watch the Pat and there, it was like second half of her game. The Red Sox were trying to come back against the Angels and then the Pats game started and I, I'm just trying to watch everything all at once. And all of a sudden, Darnold's just, looks like he's walking off the field and I'm, I, I'm just too old. I, I thought my head was going to explode. It's like, is Darnold, is he leaving the field? Is it Drew Lock time? And there's 10 minutes left in Zoe's game. So I don't know. I, I was, I was, uh, that was probably the peak of my NFL season because now it's looking pretty grim for the Pats.

• 47:46Bill Simmons?

  Listen, Raheem did all these stats today in Ringer Wise Guys, like these, the, the Super Bowl matchup. It, I think it's your own five this century when they, when they do it as the opening game. There's all this stuff about the Super Bowl loser after, and you never want to think it's your team. What, what happened to Sean Alexander team the next year? Probably not great, right Danny?

• 48:08Speaker 02

  Um, I'm trying to remember. They, they were not nearly as good.

• 48:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, probably.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  I was talking to, I think I was talking to Van about this, like the fans kind of turned on Alexander a year or two after his big season because he kind of started just going down too easy and, and trying to preserve his, preserve his body, I think, late in his career and people were kind of starting to turn on him.

• 48:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, remember, we used to get mad at athletes about that?

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Yeah. Now it's like, I kind of get it for sure.

• 48:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Cause when I was growing up, Frank O'Harris used to go out of bounds over taking a hit. And everybody was like, pussy.

• 48:39Speaker 02

  People get so mad about it.

• 48:40Bill Simmons?

  Furious at him. Look at this loser.

• 48:43Speaker 02

  I was at a game, I remember they were booing Sean Alexander because he like, you know, went down before he got hit or whatever. And I was like, man, the tide turns quickly.

• 48:51Bill Simmons?

  That would be a great podcast. That wouldn't do well, but like, cause we had Wade Boggs on the Red Sox who used to try to draw walks. So it'd be like third and second one out. He's hitting like 360, but he'd like work the pitcher to like a, you know, five pitch walk. And the fans would like get mad. They would like boo. It's like, what are you doing? Why are you being so selfish, drawing that walk? And now 40 years later, that's exactly what you're supposed to do.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  Meanwhile, now it's like, Puka, go down, go down, Puka.

• 49:18Speaker 03

  I know, seriously. It's funny though, we've been joking about this on our show, the amount of things that like should have been done in sports earlier, but guys were just afraid of looking like wimps. Like my favorite is catchers should have been splooting for like a hundred years. Catchers just crouched. And now all of them stick a leg out and the answer is, well, we just thought you kind of looked like a bitch. And like same with hockey, like they used to just stand up on two feet because no one wanted to like get on their knees. And like that's, they did that for like 40 years.

• 49:46Speaker 01

  I think the problem is that it's called splooting. Who's, why would you do that? Come up with a better name. Call it something cool.

• 49:53Bill Simmons?

  Thankfully we still have the UFC if you just want to see people with no disregard for their bodies or heads or anything. What were your football picks for the season? Although Collinsworth made a great point today about people ask me for my Super Bowl pick. I don't even know why I have to give one. Everyone gets hurt every week. I was like, that's genius. We should be using that for every Ringer podcast.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  That's what I'm saying. Thank you. That's what I said and they made fun of me.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  Bill, on our last episode, we ju, we made our Super Bowl picks and DK kind of refused to make one. He's like, I don't know who's going to win. It's week one. How am I supposed to know?

• 50:25Speaker 02

  I said the Seahawks, all right?

• 50:26Speaker 03

  Craig, no, you, after Craig and DK, Bill had the biggest fight I've seen them have in a while about this.

• 50:32Speaker 02

  We can run the tape back. I said the Seahawks and then Craig goes, really? You think that? And I was like, I don't know, maybe.

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and you got mad he didn't have conviction?

• 50:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. He's like, I don't know. How am I supposed to know? He's like, ask me in week 15, maybe I'll give you the answer.

• 50:43Speaker 02

  I didn't know Darnold was going to get hurt in six plays, you know?

• 50:46Bill Simmons?

  What was, Craig, what was yours?

• 50:49Speaker 01

  I picked the Bills.

• 50:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. See, I, I was thinking about that because Sal had the Bills. This is why predictions are stupid. You're picking something that's never happened before and will probably never happen.

• 51:01Speaker 01

  I just think everyone.

• 51:02Bill Simmons?

  And people are like, I think it's their year. It's like, this is like when the Red Sox fans would go and bet on the Red Sox to win the World Series every year for like 50 years in Vegas and then we actually won.

• 51:11Speaker 01

  I just feel like, everybody likes the Texans, a lot of, you know, the Ravens are a hot team to pick. I feel like Josh Allen's the best quarterback in the league and nobody's picking them. So that feels easy to me. That, for some reason, because he hasn't done it the last four years, it means he'll never do it. He's like 29 years old.

• 51:24Bill Simmons?

  I guess Mike, I had the Joe Brady questions is where I really landed on that. Where, because McDermott, he, I know it had some bad endings, but the guy was a, you know, a good, good coach. There, he was a defensive coach and now they're replacing him with a guy who's never been a head coach. And people were like, should be great. Whereas like Minter, I felt like, I just thought he was awesome on the Chargers last year. I don't know, how awesome was Joe Brady in Buffalo when you have Josh Allen and James Cook? You know, he had two of the best offensive players in the league.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Are you wondering about Joe Brady as coordinator or Joe Brady as head coaching, managing, decision-making and all that? Or are you just wondering about the offense?

• 52:01Bill Simmons?

  I, I just don't know how much credit he deserved for their offense.

• 52:06Speaker 02

  For Josh Allen.

• 52:07Bill Simmons?

  They had a top seven or eight offensive line. They had the best quarterback in the league and they probably had one of the five or six best running backs in the league and they scored points. So it's, it's, I don't know how much, we'll see. I guess we're going to find out in these next two months. Whereas Minter, I do feel like, I do feel like something special might happen. But they, it feel, I said this on the pod on Sunday, it feels like once a year, there's a coordinator that everybody kind of knows is going to be an awesome head coach. Like last year's Ben Johnson, everybody was like, this guy's going to be an awesome head coach. And I would, I would think it's Minter, right? Do you guys have another candidate?

• 52:39Speaker 03

  No.

• 52:40Bill Simmons?

  That's not him?

• 52:41Speaker 03

  The, to take it extremely oversimply, oversimplified analogy, I think if Mike McDonald's the Sean McVay of defense, the hope is that Jesse Minter could be like the Kyle Shanahan of defense. That's a tremendous label to put on anyone, but that kind of is the comp because I mean, his dad is, goes way back with the Harbaughs. They have a system that's kind of spreading like it's, it, it is kind of similar in that what McDonald and Minter are doing there at the cutting edge of this thing that's like cutting the McVay Shanahan thing down at the knees. I think, I had, I kind of thought the Ravens are going to make the Super Bowl.

• 53:09Bill Simmons?

  Was that your pick?

• 53:10Speaker 03

  I had the Rams winning. I had the Rams winning the Super Bowl. It's kind of lame.

• 53:13Bill Simmons?

  Rams over Ravens.

• 53:14Speaker 03

  But it's like, yeah, it's like eight, eight teams are trying to win. The Rams are trying really hard to win the Super Bowl, which is actually more than you can say for a lot of teams. And I know the super team thing never works. I know Stafford at 38 years old, making it unscathed is a whole thing, but my God, if Stafford actually is healthy again, I'm like, I, I don't know. I mean, I, the Rams, they're so good.

• 53:33Bill Simmons?

  You know what I didn't like today? I forgot to mention this. Tomlin sitting down with Harbaugh.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 53:40Bill Simmons?

  And calling him Harbs. He's like, I don't want you guys to like each other. What are we doing? I thought the Steelers and Ravens hated each other this whole time. It was, it's like being behind the curtain, Craig. I didn't like it.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  I feel like that's more of a modern thing. Did they used to do that back in the day? Now the second, like the careers end, I feel like rivals are now doing commercials together and they're in bits and they're on TV. I've never liked it. It's why I didn't want LeBron on the Warriors. I'm like, I, I just, I, we, we can't have Steph and LeBron on the same team. Like what are we doing?

• 54:07Speaker 03

  What, we're going to pretend this is some new thing? I mean, I don't know. Was it, I mean, the beginning of Space Jam has like Michael Jordan and Larry, all these guys are in the beginning of, this is like everything. People used to do this as soon as they retired.

• 54:18Bill Simmons?

  I like, I, I like animosity. I want animosity to come back.

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• 55:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, you guys did the take purge. What was the best take purge out of the three of you? It's an annual gimmick. Great idea.

• 55:58Speaker 02

  Craig said that.

• 55:59Bill Simmons?

  You purge the takes that you don't actually want to say in the show, but you get, you basically get a get out of jail free card.

• 56:04Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 56:04Bill Simmons?

  With the take. So what was the best one?

• 56:07Speaker 02

  Well, if you don't, the non, the best non-football one was Craig saying that magicians should be the most famous people in the world. Um, which I fully get behind.

• 56:15Bill Simmons?

  That's really good.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  I do believe.

• 56:17Bill Simmons?

  I really respect and appreciate that.

• 56:19Speaker 01

  It kind of makes no sense that David Blaine is not, not as famous as like LeBron James, but that doesn't matter. Uh, I, I thought Hyvins, Hyvins said that he wanted to see Jerry, he secretly wanted to see Jerry Jones win the Super Bowl. Which, um, I thought was absolutely fantastic, but we've already cursed a couple.

• 56:36Bill Simmons?

  That's pretty good.

• 56:37Speaker 01

  I, I, we cursed some people already. I said that Sam Darnold was gonna turn back into a pumpkin and that Brock Bowers was the most overrated pick in fantasy this year. And so.

• 56:45Speaker 02

  Craig is two for two.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  I'm two for two. I don't know who the third one is gonna be. They, they always go down in threes, so we'll see.

• 56:52Bill Simmons?

  Um, on the magician thing.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 56:55Bill Simmons?

  ABC, maybe 15 years ago, had a show with David Blaine, 12 to 15 years ago, where he did tricks for celebrities.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I've watched it 10 times.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  The Harrison Ford one?

• 57:05Bill Simmons?

  I think it's the best thing that's been on television this century. I've never been more riveted by anything. And the way people reacted to it, like real famous people.

• 57:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:14Bill Simmons?

  Not like actually being truly authentic famous people versus like this massage thing that we're fed by all the celebrities. But the way they were reacting to him, I don't know why that show isn't on every year. I would watch it over and over again. What happened to that show?

• 57:29Speaker 01

  Everybody makes fun of magicians. I don't, I think it's because they're frustrated that they don't know how the tricks work, but every time you, you are forced to go see a magician or something. You kind of have a good time and you leave going, oh my God, how did he do that? These guys, they should be more famous. I really think.

• 57:45Speaker 02

  Can this be our reward for winning Ringer 107 and not getting a prize and then Sal and Tabundo coming in last place and going and getting to go to Vegas? Can we just go to the Magic Castle in LA? Next time we're in town?

• 57:54Speaker 01

  That's a great question, Bill.

• 57:55Bill Simmons?

  We could just do that anyway.

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Have you been to the Magic Castle in LA, Bill?

• 57:59Bill Simmons?

  I went, um, early when we, I, it's been over 20 years since I've been there.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Was it fun? I've never been.

• 58:05Bill Simmons?

  It was, it was okay. I've had better magician experiences.

• 58:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 58:10Bill Simmons?

  Um, but yeah, I, I feel like it should come back. The prestige 20th anniversary of that movie.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Good movie.

• 58:16Bill Simmons?

  Um, yeah, it's, it's been on the, uh, on the rewatchables.

• 58:20Speaker 02

  Bill, do you remember when that guy, I don't remember his name, made the space shuttle disappear? Does that ring a bell?

• 58:27Bill Simmons?

  I don't.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  For some reason.

• 58:29Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember that.

• 58:30Speaker 02

  To Craig's point, I don't know why I remember this, but it was when I was a kid. It was probably in the eighties or nineties. And someone made a space shuttle disappear on TV and I thought it was like the coolest thing I've ever seen and I still remember it. I don't remember hardly anything these days.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  It does, it does just feel like society collectively agreed that because we're annoyed that we can't figure out these guys' tricks, that we're, we're not gonna anoint them as cool people.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  Where do you stand on card tricks? Is that like cousins of this or?

• 58:54Speaker 01

  Card tricks are okay. It's like that's running the ball, setting up the play action for a deep ball, but. I, my friend hired a magician for his birthday for like 10 of us on a roof. This random guy came up, did tricks in front of us for an hour. It was amazing. He like emptied a Coke can and filled it back up somehow. Like these people, it's remarkable and I.

• 59:13Speaker 02

  Illusions, Craig.

• 59:15Speaker 01

  I love it.

• 59:15Speaker 02

  Illusions.

• 59:16Bill Simmons?

  This sounds like the start of Hangover four. Like Galvinakis gets a magician for the group and then they all wake up the next day.

• 59:23Speaker 02

  Did he strip after the, after doing all that stuff or what?

• 59:26Speaker 01

  I, I will say, I don't like when they're, when they include technology. Now it's like pull out your phone and open up Instagram and check my story. And then it's like. Some illusion is inside the story. I don't love when they do that, but.

• 59:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's the internet and YouTube, I think has hurt magicians too. Like people debunking the different tricks. I don't want these tricks debunked.

• 59:42Speaker 01

  I mean Pablo Torre took down Oz the Mentalist. So.

• 59:45Bill Simmons?

  Right. Did that, did you even have to take him down though? Wasn't?

• 59:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Spoiler alert, it's fake.

• 59:51Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, the new magicians could never survive in that earlier physical, more physical league, you know? Now it's just too digital.

• 59:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 59:58Speaker 02

  Craig likes the analog magician.

• 59:59Bill Simmons?

  So Craig won the take purge. With the magician thing.

• 1:00:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:00:04Speaker 01

  Maybe.

• 1:00:04Speaker 02

  It's the one I've been thinking about the most.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Well, speaking of Mike Tomlin, the other one I had that I do feel deep in my soul, but I, that I don't want to admit is that I think there's a chance that Mike McCarthy goes like 12 and five, wins a playoff game with the Steelers. And then everyone's like questioning if Mike Tomlin was a good coach. I do think there's a chance that happens.

• 1:00:21Bill Simmons?

  I had the Steelers in the playoffs, as you know.

• 1:00:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:24Bill Simmons?

  Um, I had. Oh, I have a hot, I have some hottest takes. I don't know if we're ever doing hottest take again.

• 1:00:34Speaker 01

  I thought, I thought that was in the plans. It's not happening?

• 1:00:37Bill Simmons?

  No, it is. Well, now, now we have the new, we have the new, the, the new thing we added in Sycamore and we're gonna have this conference table. I'll just test drive one that I didn't think was good enough, but I think is good for the purpose of this. People, this is like an adult male thing where people, they want to get together and they go, we should get a beer.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:00:56Bill Simmons?

  Let's go get a beer. I just think we need more options when we, when we say that. Let's get a beer is always the go-to. I don't really just want to randomly get a beer with somebody that I haven't seen for a year and a half. So what are other things I could do with them?

• 1:01:08Speaker 01

  I feel like saying let's get a beer though is like a disarming phrase to a man. It makes them feel comfortable.

• 1:01:13Bill Simmons?

  I know, but I'm saying it's 2026. What else, what else do we have? Uh, how about let's just go get lunch? We, wanna go to putt putt?

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:23Speaker 02

  You wanna go to mini golf?

• 1:01:24Speaker 01

  You wanna go get a matcha latte?

• 1:01:27Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you a ride? I won't wear a seatbelt? Any interest? Anybody? Um, yeah, matcha latte would be good.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  Is, is that good? Okay.

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't know, but I just feel like let's, hey, you wanna go get a beer? Hey, I'm gonna be in town. Should we go get a beer? It's like the only option that's ever been presented. I just wish there were more options.

• 1:01:43Speaker 01

  It's, it's a, it's a good call, but I feel like specifically with, with men, like men don't get dinner. You know what I mean? I feel like you and your frie, like friends, it's like me and my friend Chris, I'm never like, we should get dinner. So I was like, let's grab a beer.

• 1:01:54Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing, it's true, because women, women converse and catch up on their lives face to face and men have to do it shoulder to shoulder. Like men tell each other, they're like having a kid in the middle of talking, but like by accident, you've probably learned like watching Red Sox games with someone.

• 1:02:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, men have to be next to each other looking out.

• 1:02:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Bill, maybe.

• 1:02:12Speaker 02

  TVs or golf carts.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Instead of, instead of let's grab a beer, what about we should, we should catch a game?

• 1:02:18Bill Simmons?

  Ooh, let's catch a, yeah, catch a.

• 1:02:20Speaker 01

  Let's watch a game.

• 1:02:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, not a Dodger game. Yeah, football game.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:23Bill Simmons?

  Let's watch Monday night game.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  So is it about the beer or the, or the time? Is it about the beer? Like, are you just done drinking beer?

• 1:02:30Bill Simmons?

  I just want, I just think it's too much of a cliche. We need more options. The other one I had, I don't think this one works either for hottest take is facial technology for movie theaters. We have it for sporting events.

• 1:02:40Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:02:41Bill Simmons?

  I just walk right into AMC. They know me right away. If I have my thing, I'm just in, I get charged later. I just decided on whim, I wanna go to a movie. I'm just in. They, they, they have all our shit anyway.

• 1:02:52Speaker 02

  Bill, there's a, there's a thing. I, I mean, I went and did this at, uh, the Mariners game the other day. It's like you just show your ID when you're going in, like you kind of flash it to them and then. You go in and you can take as many beers as you want or whatever and you walk out and they charge you. You don't have to like check out. You just grab beers and leave.

• 1:03:09Bill Simmons?

  The Clippers have that.

• 1:03:10Speaker 02

  Technology sometimes is good.

• 1:03:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Clippers have that and nobody will use it next year because nobody's ever going to a Clipper game again, but they had the same thing where you just walk. And you, you kind of feel like you're looting the store.

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:21Bill Simmons?

  But they're charging you the whole time. So, I don't know. You guys like facial technology or no? Like that, that facial recognition? Where they walk in and they know it's like, it's Craig. He's been to three Clipper games this year.

• 1:03:33Speaker 02

  Probably not.

• 1:03:34Speaker 01

  It's Craig.

• 1:03:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's a little creepy, right?

• 1:03:36Speaker 01

  He's seen Babylon three times in theaters.

• 1:03:38Bill Simmons?

  He didn't like Megapolis.

• 1:03:41Speaker 02

  As a Knicks fan who really, really, really wants to attend a Knicks game this season in the Garden. I love facial recognition technology.

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. He's, I, I love you, James Dolan. This would be my first hottest take though.

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:03:55Bill Simmons?

  I'll just test drive it. America could tell us if they want it to come back. No more dogs in hotels.

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  You know what, Bill? I think you're a hundred percent. We've gone way too far.

• 1:04:07Bill Simmons?

  I have two dogs. I've had two dogs the entire time I've lived in California, basically. I've written columns about my dogs. I, we have an Instagram page for my dog Merv. I love dogs. I don't wanna see a dog in a hotel. And you know what else? I don't wanna see your dog in a grocery store either. Keep your dog out of places where there's food.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  Keep going.

• 1:04:25Bill Simmons?

  I love dogs. I'm never gonna bring my dog into a place where like people are shopping, there's produce, there's meat. Like get it the fuck out of there. Nobody wants to see your dog.

• 1:04:35Speaker 01

  Keep, well.

• 1:04:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, planes don't get me started.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  Restaurants? No dogs in restaurants. Give me a break.

• 1:04:40Bill Simmons?

  Maybe outdoor, maybe?

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  May, maybe they could sit outside.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Beer gardens.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  Dogs should only be in a place where if they immediately take a shit, it's okay.

• 1:04:51Speaker 02

  Everyone kind of chuckles.

• 1:04:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's fine.

• 1:04:54Bill Simmons?

  Not a plane, not a six hour flight.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  No, not a Target, not a coffee shop.

• 1:04:58Speaker 02

  Did you ever tell Bill the story of the time the woman made you hold her dog on the plane?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  I'll make it quick. I was flying from LA to, to Park City and a woman was next to me with a tiny little chihuahua on her lap. She asked if I could hold it for. 20 seconds as she got situated. I said, sure. I looked over, the plane was about to take off. She was knocked out of sleep. And I had to take care of that dog for three hours.

• 1:05:22Bill Simmons?

  Come on.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  True story.

• 1:05:24Speaker 02

  So that's Craig, that's Craig's dog now. He, he adopted a dog.

• 1:05:27Speaker 01

  The plane landed, I gave the dog, the dog's name was Greta, eight pounds soaking wet. I gave it back to the lady. And the guy across the aisle as we landed, looked over at me and said, you're a saint. Wow.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  Why didn't you just wake her up and give her the dog back?

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  I don't know. She had like a bunch of clothes on her lap. It seemed like she was having a day. So I was like, whatever. This dog can sit in my lap, I guess.

• 1:05:49Speaker 03

  Craig got a lot of karma.

• 1:05:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So no dog hotel, like if, I don't know, the, maybe not the Marriott, but like the Kimpton was like, hey, one of our things in Kimpton, no more dogs.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  I'm into that. I'd pay a premium.

• 1:06:02Bill Simmons?

  Don't ever have to see a dog. You don't have to stay in a room that a dog had diarrhea on the night before and the floor and they cleaned it up, but you can still kind of smell it. Nothing. Checking in, nowhere.

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  It's like no smoking. There should be like no dog sections of restaurants and planes and things like that. You could pay a premium for that.

• 1:06:18Speaker 03

  I kind of like getting in the elevator and seeing a dog, though, and then just never seeing it again. It's kind of nice.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  Sure. Elevator's okay.

• 1:06:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, part of the problem is there's too many do- everybody has a dog now.

• 1:06:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:28Bill Simmons?

  It's a proliferation of dogs all over the place. Like in 40 years ago, there weren't dogs all over the place.

• 1:06:33Speaker 01

  I feel like you're speaking Chris Ryan's language, right? I feel like he'd love this take.

• 1:06:38Speaker 03

  I asked someone-

• 1:06:39Bill Simmons?

  He would love this take.

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  I asked someone the other day, I thought they had a mutt, and I was like, what kind of dog is that? And they were like, it's an Exo. And I was like, what? It's like, it's an exotic. And I was like, oh. And it meant one of those French Bulldogs that was like $18,000. I was like, oh my God. Okay.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. An Exo?

• 1:06:53Speaker 03

  Like exotic. Like one of those Frenchies, French Bulldogs with the blue eyes and like a little pink hue that I think is actually like Kendrick Perkins is breeding or whatever. It's like $15,000.

• 1:07:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, then another thing that this might be an LA thing. People are breeding dogs that are like really dramatically different sizes.

• 1:07:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:13Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know how I feel about that. Where you have like, it's like a Great Dane had sex with a schnauzer and now it's a schnauzer Dane. It's dogs like short legs and jay-bye. Like, what are we doing?

• 1:07:26Speaker 02

  Your scientists never considered whether they should, right? They only asked if they could.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  It does feel like we've gotten bored and now we're trying to, we're doing tricks.

• 1:07:34Bill Simmons?

  You have so many dog breeds.

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  There's a Rick and Morty episode where they go to a dog planet and the dogs are doing this with people.

• 1:07:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And what happens?

• 1:07:43Speaker 03

  Uh, it goes poorly, but they're like, you know what? If you don't like this, then you're weird. That's-

• 1:07:48Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, we've never done Island of Dr. Moreau on the rewatchables, which is one of the worst movies of all time. But that's where Dr. Moreau is breeding humans and animals and he has this island of human animals, basically.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  We, uh-

• 1:08:01Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and it's tremendous.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  We have a Netflix poll. Should dogs be allowed in hotels? 67% said no.

• 1:08:07Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:08:08Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:08:09Speaker 02

  The people are on your side.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  People agree with you.

• 1:08:10Speaker 03

  So but if you take the poll results, you mean that Drake May should be called Drake Maybe if you're going with the, with the mob?

• 1:08:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, after today, I can't even fight back on Drake Maybe. This is the worst. Sal's gonna be like a pig in shit for four fucking days. I, now I threw for the Giants on Sunday night. Hi, Fitz.

• 1:08:26Speaker 03

  Their, their Giants are gonna lose. I told DK and Craig this, the most underrated thing. I mean, Dak Prescott hasn't lost to the Giants in a game that mattered since his rookie year. Like the, the Giants are like 2-16 versus the Cowboys and the two wins are like games that they benched Dak because the game didn't matter.

• 1:08:40Bill Simmons?

  Do you think Harbaugh, before the game, will get everybody together and say, you play for the New York Giants?

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  This is Sunday night football. Sunday night football.

• 1:08:51Bill Simmons?

  NBC is here.

• 1:08:55Bill Simmons?

  Part two of Tomlin and Harbs?

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:57Bill Simmons?

  They liked each other all along. Yeah. So if we bring back the hottest take, which I really want to do and have wanted to do for a while now that we have this expanded, um, studio situation, I think we're gonna be able to. The Netflix polls would be good for this.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:12Bill Simmons?

  Because a lot of people accuse Craig of killing the hottest take with his cannibalism should be legal hottest take.

• 1:09:18Speaker 01

  Altruistic cannibalism.

• 1:09:21Bill Simmons?

  Altruistic cannibalism.

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  I still think there's a case, but-

• 1:09:24Bill Simmons?

  People think like that the, the feed kind of slowed down and I think stopped right after that.

• 1:09:29Speaker 02

  They're like, we have to stop.

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  I believe you made us do the rewatchables. We did that movie Alive after I gave that take, right? About the plane crash with Ethan Hawke? Yeah.

• 1:09:37Bill Simmons?

  Right. Right. So altruistic cannibalism is one of the last hottest takes. We need to bring it back, uh, just for that. Did you guys agree with that take or no?

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Not really.

• 1:09:47Speaker 03

  Honestly, when Craig breaks it down, it's like, so, you know, when hypothetically, if, you know, you're not wearing a seatbelt and you die in a car crash, Craig's like, I can donate my eyes, but no one can eat me?

• 1:09:57Speaker 01

  Well, like I can donate all my organs? What about my, what about my bicep? What about my thigh? What's the difference?

• 1:10:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, your rump.

• 1:10:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, my rump.

• 1:10:06Bill Simmons?

  It's a rump steak.

• 1:10:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. We talk about the veal chop all the time. What did my veal chop look like? I don't know.

• 1:10:13Bill Simmons?

  Uh, all right. Guys, you're in the Ringer 107 contest. Ringer Fantasy Football, you, did you win last year? You did, right?

• 1:10:20Speaker 03

  Yes, we won. We won 11 games.

• 1:10:24Bill Simmons?

  There was no prize.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  We bet on the coin toss in the Super Bowl and won.

• 1:10:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. There it is. So you're in the Ringer 107. You'll be given your picks.

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:10:33Bill Simmons?

  On, uh, on your last show of the week. House and I are gonna be back tomorrow. We're gonna do, so we're doing a gimmick where we're going back and forth, four picks each, but we can't have the same picks. Um, and then everybody's gonna have the fifth picks that will be, uh, on social media, but this will be good. I feel like last year was a test run. This is gonna be a real thing. And Fanduel was saying, um, there's gonna be some stuff. There's gonna be some prizes.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  That's how I felt about the Ringer Fantasy Football League that Mallory won. I felt like that was a test drive as well. Now it starts, I feel like. We didn't really know what we were doing.

• 1:11:03Bill Simmons?

  Mallory won it last year and she lost it this year.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  She has Brock Bowers.

• 1:11:07Bill Simmons?

  Brock Bowers is already out. His PCL, MCO, whatever CO. And, uh, and my Patriots season is, now feels like it might be over. Really need to rally. 10 days of intensive therapy. Hopefully AJ Brown, uh, in the walking boot. DK, congratulations. You beat us again. Um, I wish I could work up any hatred for Seattle and I just don't have any. You might get an NBA team again soon. We might be out there in December doing rewatchables too.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Heck, yeah.

• 1:11:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, might happen. All right. DK, Hi, Fitz, Craig, great to see you guys. Uh, check out the Ringer Fantasy Football Podcast. I am back tomorrow night, live on Netflix, after their post-game show from Rams-Diners. We're coming on about a half hour after that meet house. We're gonna be doing all of our picks. Thanks to Gao and Eduardo and everybody behind the scenes as well. Thanks, guys. Uh, I will talk to you soon.

• 1:11:54Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:12:15Bill Simmons?

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