The Broken Chargers, Mahomes 3.0, Zombie Deshaun, the Masked Backup, First Coach Fired, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to react to the Chiefs winning in OT against the Colts, before recapping the rest of the Week 2 matchups. Then, they guess the lines for Week 3 before ending with Parent Corner. (0:00) Intro (1:08) NFL Week 2 recap (01:07:04) Guess the Lines Week 3 (01:31:48) Parent Corner Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers 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 have a new rewatchables coming tomorrow. Law Abiding Citizen with Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler will be coming tomorrow. So stay tuned for that. Sal and I are up here. It is almost midnight on the East Coast. Chiefs Colts win forever. And the irony of this, because Sal was listed as questionable on the injury report all weekend. Kidney stone. Kidney stones or kidney stone? Is it one stone or multiple stones?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  I think it's one. Under the microscope, they found that it's one 10 centimeter stone, which is impossible to pass through your penis, which I don't know why it has to go through that anyway, but I am flying high right now.

• 2:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So you have medication. Chiefs, Chiefs Colts has gone into overtime. It just keeps going. It keeps going. We have a long review. It almost becomes the Laquan Treadwell game, but then it doesn't. The Colts kind of blow it and then once the Chiefs get the ball back, you know, it's going to happen next. I gotta say.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  It was going to happen anyway. Well, like it's all right. It's either 3027 final or 3330. You know, Daniel Jones' record in primetime games now?

• 2:52Bill Simmons?

  It's one in 16.

• 2:54Speaker 01

  One in 16. Yeah. So we didn't have to watch that last 20 minutes. It's fine. We know how it goes.

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  So they get the overturn. They have all the momentum.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:02Bill Simmons?

  And then just do the most predictable two run plays in a row possible. Set up like a third and 13. Jones scrambles for five, gets hit right as he's going out of bounds, which that's like the demarcation of how famous of a quarterback you are. He didn't get the call. I think there's like Josh Allen's getting that. Mahomes is getting that. The best quarterbacks, LeVar is getting it. And then fourth and eight, call timeout. And then it seemed like they were going to go for it. Did you, did you want them to go for it there? Because I was like, you might as well. The Chiefs are going to score anyway. But then you think like, well, your quarterback's Daniel Jones. You can't do this. I didn't know how I felt.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  He felt that way too. He's like, I'm Daniel Jones. I can't do this. I don't know what I'm sent out here for. By the way, it was the worst trying to draw someone off sides attempt I've ever seen. It was seven yards in the shotgun, looking around. He had his hands on his hips. It wasn't, was no weird cadence or anything, but if you kick off in overtime, isn't that the point? You don't want to give the Chiefs the third possession. You don't want to give the other team the third possession. And yeah, by kicking a field goal, you're doing exactly that with three minutes left, which is way too much.

• 4:08Bill Simmons?

  That's the point. I mean, the bigger point is you're on the 17, you're in four down territory at that point.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:14Bill Simmons?

  And you've got to get a little more creative. They had the game, the Colts are now 0-2. Chiefs are 2-0 and Mahomes, who had the ACL surgery nine months ago, did not look good, I didn't think on Monday night. I thought he looked way better today and it seems like he has more of a cannon than he's had in a couple of years. So I know he had the ACL reconstruction, but I wonder like, do you think he's in better shape? Do you think he was like getting a little dad body-ish like on the down low the last couple of years? Cause, cause he, he has like a cannon again. The Chiefs are kind of dangerous offensively now. I think they're really fun to watch again.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Would you call it a cannon or a piss missile? That's, that's what Brady called Dak, Dak, when the Dax throws today, a piss missile.

• 5:01Bill Simmons?

  Brady was like PG 13 today.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Andrew Dice Brady today. I don't know what the hell is going on here.

• 5:10Speaker 01

  No, he looks good. He is, he is slinging the ball and it definitely helps. I don't know if it was the defense, the weird zone defense that the Colts were throwing at the Chiefs, but when Kelsey is free to run, you know, just roam like a May, like a 2019 Kelsey. Then it's a whole different game and they're going to score 30.

• 5:28Bill Simmons?

  How many first downs do you think they have in that game?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  The Chiefs?

• 5:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  26.

• 5:35Bill Simmons?

  29.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 5:37Bill Simmons?

  When you're close to 30 for, and that was an overtime game. They had 523 yards. But yeah, Mahomes looks better than he, I think he has in a couple of years and just seems like he has the arm strength back in a different way. And Kelsey, they talked about it and Kelsey even admits, I'm in much better shape. I did this, I did that. And it looked like he was a player on his way out of the league last year. Now he looks fine. Walker has given them a completely different element, which as long as he stays healthy.

• 6:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:05Bill Simmons?

  So I don't, I don't know. I have some regrets. I had, I had the Chargers in that seven seed before the year and obviously would wish I could flip that one. And then from a Colts standpoint, they're 0-2, which is usually a death sentence, but I don't mind them offensively. The big thing with them was they lost Alec Pierce in the first quarter.

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't really love their weapons to begin with. So now it's like Josh Downs, Treadwell was out there, Tyler Warren's their best guy other than Taylor.

• 6:31Speaker 01

  Taylor still runs hard. They seem to have a nice pass rush. I mean, on, on text, you're really attracted to that Colts owner. You couldn't, you would not shut up about it. My God, you love the way she's.

• 6:41Bill Simmons?

  I said nothing. I said nothing about Cal A R C Johnson, whatever her name is.

• 6:46Speaker 01

  Keep it in your cargo shorts, Simmons. We have a podcast to do.

• 6:50Bill Simmons?

  Say one thing. We do have a Netflix poll though. Should the Colts have gone for it on fourth and eight? 77% said yes.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  All right.

• 6:59Bill Simmons?

  On Netflix, a reputable streaming service.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Should we take a break so I could vote? I want to be part of this.

• 7:06Bill Simmons?

  Now that we know the Chiefs won the game, my vote is yes.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 7:09Bill Simmons?

  During, as we were texting about it when it was happening, I was like, ah, Dana Jones. I don't know. Maybe if you had Pierce, but all right. So the other thing I had from this game was Kelsey scores a touchdown. And they cut to, they do the Taylor Swift replay and she's pointing to her ring and going, that's my husband.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:35Bill Simmons?

  I didn't know what I felt about that one. I don't want to enrage the Swifties, but I, I'm trying to think of any, any other celebrity who could have gotten away with that. Like I, I almost feel like she's pushing the line to see what can I get away? How obnoxious can I be in the box without there being a backlash? And I think, I think that's about as close as we're going to get to the line.

• 7:55Speaker 01

  I like what celebrity could get away with it.

• 7:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 7:57Speaker 01

  You don't think like Leslie Jones could pull it off? Like, I'm trying, I don't know. Like who the hell in the world doesn't know that's her husband?

• 8:06Bill Simmons?

  Put it this way.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Famous marriage in history.

• 8:08Bill Simmons?

  Justin Herbert, if she was engaged, if he was engaged to Madison Beer and he threw a touchdown and it cut to the box and she was like, that's my husband. What would the internet reaction have been?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 8:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm guessing she would have taken some shit, but Taylor, Taylor.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  I have to say, you must not have watched the Emmys because Colbert's wife did the same thing.

• 8:28Bill Simmons?

  Evie Colbert? She did.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Going to a ring when he won the award. That's my husband. So you're kidding me? Is this happening?

• 8:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, she was probably surprised. He campaigned for Jimmy with nine hours to go in the voting.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  Congratulations. It's all worked out.

• 8:42Bill Simmons?

  So 2-0 teams, Buffalo and Seattle.

• 8:47Bill Simmons?

  Kansas City, Cincinnati, now minus 460 to make the playoffs.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 8:52Bill Simmons?

  Philadelphia is minus 290. San Francisco's 2-0. Minnesota, minus 158 now to make the playoffs. They're 2-0. And the Las Vegas Raiders, 2-0, plus 215 if you want to take them for the playoffs. So if we have to say at the end of the year, which of those teams aren't going to be in there? We'll cross off Vegas. Would you have Minnesota as a seven, one of the seven playoff teams now? I want to talk about that game later.

• 9:19Speaker 01

  I'm not going to say yes yet because, but I'm always wrong about them. So.

• 9:22Bill Simmons?

  You're more open to it?

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course. Yeah, if they're going to win games like that.

• 9:27Bill Simmons?

  Buffalo, Seattle, sure. Cincy, it's starting to look like it's definitely their year, plus a great schedule coming. San Francisco, unless they have million injuries, Philly would be the one I would worry about at the minus 290. Uh, we'll talk about that game in a second. 0-2 teams. So now we have the Colts, we have the Dolphins, Titans, Falcons, Washington. We have Tampa Bay. Can't wait to talk about that game. We have the Chargers, who are minus 300 now to make the playoffs.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Wait a minute, they are?

• 9:57Bill Simmons?

  I mean, I'm sorry, to miss the playoffs.

• 10:00Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Even that moved. Okay.

• 10:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, minus 300. And then, uh, the Houston Texans are now minus 124 to miss the playoffs.

• 10:11Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 10:13Bill Simmons?

  A team that, uh, with that, I'll just say that would be bad for me. I'm have some Texans.

• 10:17Speaker 01

  It's bad for me too. It's so funny. When they were reviewing that call with Treadwell, I was like, I know they give games to the Colts, the refs or whatever, but I don't think they're, the Chiefs, sorry, but they, they don't, they have a bunch of eight nines in there that are some suspect squads in the AFC. They really need the Chiefs to be good.

• 10:36Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 10:36Speaker 01

  This year, and, and they did stick with it because of teams like that, like the Chargers and the Texans and everybody we have money on. What the hell is going on?

• 10:45Bill Simmons?

  So that wasn't, I don't think, I thought that was a catch and a fumble. And I don't think the guy touched him in time, but I think if we slow it down to one, one millionth of a second.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:55Bill Simmons?

  And it's like, eh, we're doing the $6 million man speed. And it's like, he's glancing it during we can freeze frame when it seems like the guy had control, but I don't think he did.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  I'm with you. Let's hit pocket that for the next time the Chiefs get a call. But yeah, white glove on the white hip pad or whatever it was. It's like, all right.

• 11:14Bill Simmons?

  It was like a brush.

• 11:15Speaker 01

  I didn't see it. Yeah.

• 11:18Bill Simmons?

  So Washington, Miami, Atlanta, Tennessee, and the Chargers, all to miss the playoffs. If you put that all together as a parlay on Fanduel is even odds.

• 11:26Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 11:26Bill Simmons?

  The Jets, it's plus 110. Washington, Miami, Atlanta, Tennessee, Jets, Chargers, no playoffs. Who ruins that parlay?

• 11:35Speaker 01

  Washington, Atlanta.

• 11:37Bill Simmons?

  Washington, Miami, Atlanta, Tennessee, Jets, Chargers. I would actually say I would be the most afraid of the Jets.

• 11:43Speaker 01

  Really?

• 11:43Bill Simmons?

  Cause I think the Chargers are done.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  I think, you know, it's funny. I have Chargers written minus 178. I know you're right. It says minus 300. There's a lot of money just on the Chargers to not make the playoffs in the last hour. It's insanity.

• 11:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow. Um, I did all that an hour and a half ago, so maybe some stuff.

• 12:00Speaker 01

  No, I mean, you got, we'll go over the Charger's schedule, but you know, we could say they could be 0-5, or we could say they're going to be 0-9 with that offense. If they're going to put up 16 points a game or 14 points a game or less.

• 12:13Bill Simmons?

  You want to talk about that game first?

• 12:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, we might as well.

• 12:17Bill Simmons?

  But, uh, Herbert, Herbert today gave me 1999, 2000 range Drew Bledsoe vibes.

• 12:24Bill Simmons?

  And it's year seven for him. And it's funny, I saw this tweet from, uh, not to single out somebody who covers the team, but, uh, or talks about the team, but this, I think this is the general sentiment of Charger fans. Um, this person said, I'm at the point where if a team like the Vikings wants to throw a godfather offer for Justin Herbert, just do it. Restart, get a QB this year, start over. If the Chargers aren't going to support him and his development, then just get as much as you can for him. That's where I'm going to push back.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Support him in his development.

• 12:55Bill Simmons?

  They've drafted, their left and right tackle were both first round picks. Quinn Johnson was a first round pick. I think McConkey was a second round pick. Their running back Hampton was a first round pick. They went and spent money for Harbaugh. They went and overpaid Mike McDaniel, who's done nothing for two weeks.

• 13:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:15Bill Simmons?

  Right? I, I, I feel like he's been as supported from an asset standpoint as any franchise QB. Who's invested more capital in their offensive line and scope position guys? Now, whether they pick the right guys, obviously Johnson, I think is almost a bust. He's like 80% a bust. He was really bad today, but the two tackles were the right picks. The running back was good today. At what, I, I don't understand why everybody is so terrified to just point the finger at Herbert, who has been awful this year.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  That is very weird. Maybe they like his girlfriend. I'm not sure how it goes, but they, they really, yeah. I mean, that's one thing with, if the offensive linemen are getting injured and they can't protect them and you know, that's, that was last year and maybe a couple of years ago, like, right? Slater and Alt, but, um, no, this year, and especially with McDaniel, who I'm stumping for, for, to be the first coordinator fired. Does Fanduel, put those odds up already for first coordinator fired? Or assistant coach?

• 14:10Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was going to be the Denver OC was going to be the other one.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 14:14Bill Simmons?

  Unless Peyton took the play calling at halftime.

• 14:17Speaker 01

  It's a sprint to the finish, but yeah, they are just, um, I, I really want, I mean, what you say minus 300? I just want that 300,000 and went at 100,000, sit back and collect when they have their seventh loss on Halloween.

• 14:30Bill Simmons?

  So for people who missed that game,

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  the Chargers fumbled five times and recovered all five fumbles, including Herbert getting strip sacked basically on his goal line where he just had the, was holding the ball like Michael Jackson holding the baby off the balcony and somebody just took it and it somehow ricocheted forward 10 yards right to a teammate and they kept it. And it was becoming one of those games where you're like, oh my God, this is like an all time horseshoe. I've never seen a team fumble five times to get all five back. Then the sixth one finally got them. And they were driving. Uh, the running back fumbled, but, and then Herbert near the end just had a really, really, truly horrific interception for the nail in the coffin, followed by they come out of commercial and, and we all saw it on our thread, we, cause House took a

• 15:17Bill Simmons?

  picture of it, but, uh, it was McDaniel talking to Herbert and both of them seemed bummed out and it almost seemed like watching two people on a park bench breaking up when you're like walking your dog in a park. You're like, are those people breaking up? Uh, the energy was just terrific. Herbert did not have a 20 plus yard pass in this game that he completed.

• 15:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:37Bill Simmons?

  And they're playing the Raiders. It's not like they're playing a good team. They're playing, I guess, the 2-0 Raiders. Kudos to them, but come on.

• 15:44Speaker 01

  I saw something great. Said the Chargers are the second team in NFL history to lose back to back games by double digits with both coming at home against teams that had sub 200 win percentages the previous season. The other was the 1926 Racine Tornadoes. Who I lost a teaser. I don't know if you were on the teaser with that, but no, yeah, they, and they played just one more game before.

• 16:06Bill Simmons?

  I think I stayed away from the tornado second.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  Racing tornadoes.

• 16:10Bill Simmons?

  What the weird thing is, now we knew the middle of the line was going to be suspect because we argued about this before the year. You liked them. I was, I, it made me nervous. Um, Joe Alt today, three false starts allowed to safety. Not great. Um, after the game, they asked Khalil Mack what Harbaugh said to them. This is his quote. You tell me if this is alarming at all. Honestly, I blanked out the whole time. I don't really know. My mind was on the game still, still, but I feel like it had something to do with picking up the pieces and getting this thing right. That was Khalil Mack's recap of Jim Harbaugh's speech. I blanked out the whole time. So we got first coach fired. I mean, we have some doozies. We have Harbaugh.

• 16:54Bill Simmons?

  We have Todd Bowles, who's three and 10 in his last 13 and lost today after, well, I can't wait to talk about that. And then Dan Quinn, who got his quarterback injured for the year. We have three really good candidates now.

• 17:07Speaker 01

  Right. Quinn, I think is favored right now. Uh, Harbaugh was like 50 to one, uh, you know, wherever you could do this stuff, um, going into the year. But, uh, yeah, they're not even listening to the coaches. I don't, I don't know what it is. Like, yeah, when you say like all false started three times, like McDaniel, I know he's, I want to make fun of him because he's fun to make fun of, but also let's make fun of him. This has got to be his thing, right? Cause they have protected him with everything else, um, going into this. This doesn't resemble anything that looked like when Herbert was successful.

• 17:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there were good stats offensively for him in Miami, but then you think back, you know, like, like he was doing that kind of gimmicky offense with Tua, but they had Tyreek, they had Waddle, who was great today. Um, they always had fast running backs and, you know, maybe the talent made him look better than he was.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Well, the home crowd loved what they saw. You gotta give them that.

• 17:57Bill Simmons?

  So many Raider fans.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 17:59Bill Simmons?

  Somebody sent me a, a video of after the game, they're in the bathroom and it's all Raider fans chanting. And there's some guy, some poor guy in a Herbert jersey taking a piss and they're like kind of taunting him. And the guy leaves and he kind of files out hoping he's not going to get punched. And the guy goes in with the phone to pee and there's a Chargers jersey in the urinal. And that was the end of the video, but that's where we are.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  We're the only Charger fan there. The Charger jersey there. Yeah.

• 18:25Bill Simmons?

  Also, they're receiving emails like this one from Owen from Richmond. After watching Herbert throw a late game interception and fall 0-2 to a JV Raiders team, I've come up with a new nickname for our former nerd Ken QB, Justin Yeah, But. Because whenever the nerds try to defend this perennial loser, they always defend with, yeah, he's never won anything, but before giving a litany of excuses, he's the player equivalent of Lane Kiffin.

• 18:51Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:52Bill Simmons?

  Pretty good.

• 18:52Speaker 01

  It's not bad.

• 18:53Bill Simmons?

  Pretty good.

• 18:53Speaker 01

  Justin, yeah, but?

• 18:55Bill Simmons?

  Justin, yeah, but it's because we did because you you might be winning the Drake maybe argument with the way he's playing.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Might be, yeah.

• 19:03Bill Simmons?

  Raiders are now two and O with no Brock Bowers, basically, and they're playing in New Orleans last week. And I test wise, because we're in the we're in the P T over here, so there's only four games today. There was five, but I feel like I've watched every snap of the Raiders and the Chargers.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:21Bill Simmons?

  I didn't like the Chargers at all. I didn't have the balls to take Raiders plus six and a half, but I really talked on multiple pods. I was just like, they're not good. They're slow. I don't think they're well coached. They they they look like they don't have it. Raiders, I don't know. I kind of want to see it.

• 19:37Bill Simmons?

  Cousins was flinging it around. Like, he had like eight or nine, it felt like, like real long passes, and he missed a couple, too, of guys that were open. But I don't know. They were fun to watch. I enjoy. I kind of enjoyed them.

• 19:51Speaker 01

  He has six touchdown passes to wide receivers. No one has ever heard of in their lifetime.

• 19:56Bill Simmons?

  And none of them are starting in any fantasy league. Maybe Tucker will next week.

• 20:00Speaker 01

  Start. I don't. Yeah, nobody like even drafted any of these guys. There is a little bit of viewing theory, right? With this Brock Bowers as he as he shaves his heel bone or whatever the hell's going on until he gets back in there. Yeah, they're not bad right now.

• 20:14Bill Simmons?

  They're not bad. They do. The two teams before the year that fit the profile I always look at for worst of first, replacing a bad coach with maybe a better coach were were them and and the and I'm blanking.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  Nobody else.

• 20:30Bill Simmons?

  No, no. And then the Giants.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  The Giants, yeah.

• 20:34Bill Simmons?

  And I couldn't get there with either of them, especially the Raiders, because it just didn't seem like they had enough talent. But.

• 20:39Speaker 01

  Well, the division is loaded. You figure the Chargers are going to win 10 games. So how many wins are you going to give the Raiders?

• 20:44Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  Denver's Chiefs are going to be good, too.

• 20:46Bill Simmons?

  And there was at halftime of the Denver game, they looked like they were going on to. So I don't think I honestly don't think it's overreaction to say the Chargers season is in real in real trouble. Like, they're minus 300 or whatever it is for a reason. I I think there's a talent issue. I don't think they can block. I don't. The coach seems like they're tuning them out. And I do think there's a chance he doesn't make it through the season now. We talked about it last week. It's like, huh, I even asked Tom Palacero about it if it was conceivable. Now I think it's like legitimately conceivable.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  Well, this and, you know, if they had the Raiders every week, or, you know, if they were in the AFC South, maybe. But I'm going to look at their schedule. I didn't write it down. But the next you saw the next seven, right?

• 21:30Bill Simmons?

  It's these were the two easy ones.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Right. This is what does it look like? So they go.

• 21:36Bill Simmons?

  They're playing the Cardinals and the Raiders to start. And you're like, well, they'll go two and O, and then they're going to dip. Well, now they're on two, and now they're hitting the hard part. But they played Buffalo and Houston on these.

• 21:45Speaker 01

  Five of the next seven are on the road. At Buffalo, at Seattle, home versus Denver, at KC, at the Rams, home versus Houston, at Baltimore. Come on.

• 21:56Bill Simmons?

  They're going to win. So do you think Harbaugh is coaching by the end of that?

• 22:00Speaker 01

  I think he is. I don't think I don't know why. I think they kind of they'll respect him enough to keep him around.

• 22:06Bill Simmons?

  I would see. You're not looking at this correctly, though. I'm not just talking from a Charger side. I'm talking from a Jim Harbaugh. Fuck this. I'm out.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, if he sticks around. Yeah, right.

• 22:16Bill Simmons?

  Because we've seen him. He looks. He looks around, you know, the moment everything's not going his way. He'll start sniffing around because he's got to get another job out of this one. So.

• 22:26Speaker 01

  McDaniel's takes over as McDaniel's the head coach? That would be fun.

• 22:30Bill Simmons?

  I would not recommend that one. So we have three retroactive week one games that we have to look at that we didn't know what they meant. And now I think we know. Arizona beat the Chargers. It was very hard to handicap that Arizona Seattle game this week. Like, we had Tony Tokens on a on Ringer Wise Guys. He loved Arizona. Raheem took Seattle. But the thing was like Arizona was awesome in that Chargers game. They put together six long drives like they were really, really impressive offensively. And then the flip side was like, well, what if the Chargers suck? And that's why they look that way. Well, now the Cardinals play Seattle this week and they get murdered.

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Now we know.

• 23:10Bill Simmons?

  So now we know the Chargers suck. So that's, I think, one.

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Isn't it great before? Let me just interrupt you. The psychology behind this, like, week one, we could overreact and and people could call us out on it. But so what? It's clickbait and it's great. And we could keep going. Week two, we're even more experts, bigger experts.

• 23:27Bill Simmons?

  Right. We know everything now.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Now we have. Now we have.

• 23:29Bill Simmons?

  We've watched two whole games.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  Right, okay.

• 23:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, the the second one was Pittsburgh barely beating Atlanta. And you and I on that Sunday pod that we did last week, and I was just like, I watched that game. I think Pittsburgh's offense is terrible. But, you know, and Atlanta looked a little friskier than I don't think Atlanta's good. It's a bad sign for anyway.

• 23:50Speaker 01

  People got mad at us, by the way, after that.

• 23:52Bill Simmons?

  They bad. Rogers, he was taking chances downfield. They were like 4.8 a play. They were lower today. So.

• 23:58Speaker 01

  We were accused of not watching that. The Steelers went over the mighty Falcons last week. They.

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  I did watch it, and I didn't think they were good. I didn't think they could run the ball.

• 24:07Speaker 01

  Couple passes. It's fine.

• 24:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And I didn't think Rogers wanted to get hit, which is true, because we saw it again today. So the lesson from that one is, what if maybe we overrated Pittsburgh? I know I did. I had them 10 and 7. So now we know with Pittsburgh.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:21Bill Simmons?

  And then the last one was Philly barely beat Washington.

• 24:26Bill Simmons?

  It's like, what does this mean? Is that a fluke? Or is maybe Philly's not that good? And then you watch today, they barely beat Tennessee. Now, granted, it's 170 degrees on the field or whatever. But I think I think our suspicions were confirmed on Philly, too, right?

• 24:42Speaker 01

  So mad at that team. Yeah, we're gonna do. We're gonna say they're not very good forever. And they're going to be like 14 and three, because just that's just how they played ball. But and the Titans money line was one of my best bets on Ringer Wise Guys. So I was so angry after this. I challenged Big Dom to a fight on Twitter. I said, once I get this kidney stone passed, I'm gonna get in shape and he's in trouble. I could tell you that much. But.

• 25:03Bill Simmons?

  I'm mailing you my kidney stones.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's it. Throw my toss my stone at his face. Yeah, I don't that. What are they really good at? They don't. They don't. They even they don't even block as well as they used to.

• 25:16Bill Simmons?

  Wait, I got to find that cam. Turf temperature, 157 degrees.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Is that real?

• 25:22Bill Simmons?

  Cletus were melting, which sounds like a fake thing. But I my daughter played a soccer game once where that happened to multiple kids on the team. And it really does where it was. I don't know how it was in the turf, but it really I have seen it happen. Hertz was a monster on the last drive. And in general, it feels like the Devante Smith Hertz thing. And there's something, something there to hold on to. But running 33 for 89, 2.8 a carry against the fucking Titans. Barkley got hurt early. The the big, like, big picture question for me is, did Barkley is he just another victim of the big usage, too many touches season? And this is, and they got the contract, but this is, we've just, how

• 26:07Bill Simmons?

  many times have we watched this now?

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that's why it's frustrating when Tank Bigsby and fricking Will Shipley are leading the way in the backfield on the road. I mean, this is really one that Salah could have stolen. But.

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  Really tough one. Admirable T's under, which a couple of people in Ringer 107 had. T's the Eagles down to minus one, T's the under up. That did hit. But for the most part, this Rams Giants game tomorrow is so fascinating, because that the Giants really could take that division if they can emulate what they did last week and just that could kind of be what their identity is.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:44Bill Simmons?

  Keep Dart and Scatabo healthy. We're going to take a break, and then we have to talk about the Bermuda Triangle game of the Browns and Bucks.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  Which we're going to talk about right after this.

• 26:54Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Monday Night Football just got a lot more rewarding on FanDuel. Giants Rams and a reward escalator. What happens on the field can unlock even more profit boost. Bet Monday night's game with a reward escalator token. You'll find it. If both teams score in the first half, you'll get a 25% profit boost. If any player goes for 100 more receiving yards, you'll get a 50% profit boost. And if there's a defensive or special teams touchdown, you'll get a 100% profit boost. This is a tough game to handicap. You really have to. You have to figure the Rams 0 and 1, playing the Giants, the Rams with a ton of rest, they'd be in

• 27:37Bill Simmons?

  a good spot. I would almost go like Rams with like a minus nine and a half, put it with some Stafford stuff, go nuts and do a profit boost, or go the other way and bet the Giants money line. I need a lot more time to look at this game. But regardless, download the FanDuel app. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut. 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

• 28:19Bill Simmons?

  who's the fastest, or who can putt better in the backyard, or who can get to somebody's 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 going to 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 should do that for us. Superior is worth playing for Michelob Ultra Superior Light Beer. Enter for a chance to win Superior Soccer,

• 29:00Bill Simmons?

  Basketball and Golf Prizes at michelobultra.com/superioraccess. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026. Anheuser Busch Michelob Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 29:14Bill Simmons?

  So the game of the day, for a variety of reasons, was a game that I lost on a couple teases, but I did hit on a 13 and a half, 13-point tease with the Bucks to plus four and a half. Don't ask.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  That's ridiculous.

• 29:27Bill Simmons?

  The Bermuda Triangle game, Browns-Bucks. We thought this was our last chance ever to bet against Deshaun Watson, the embattled Browns quarterback, who was playing the guy that they gave up to basically trade all these picks and sign him. Tom Pelissero did a great newsletter about it this week in the sweep. And then Deshaun comes out legitimately outplays Baker Bayfield and ends up, even though he's only 3.7 air yards per attempt, but he's 24 for 30 for 238 and kind of hit a groove in the second half. Like, he was just going back, four steps, just quick passes out. He was completing third downs. He hit

• 30:08Bill Simmons?

  Boston for a nice run and catch touchdown. And all of a sudden, the Bucks are down and everybody in the planet has the Bucks in the tease. Now they're driving. They're over midfield. There are two minutes left. And they're like, oh, we have to stop the game. It's lightning, which happened yesterday, too, the North Carolina game.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:28Bill Simmons?

  Baker's driving. Did you feel like Tampa was going to score? Because I personally did. And all the make, I did. I thought they were going down. I thought this was, the weather wasn't that bad.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  What point of the afternoon?

• 30:39Bill Simmons?

  Before it was called.

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Before it was called.

• 30:41Bill Simmons?

  No. Yeah. I was like, no, no, we, we got this. Baker's just being a dick. There's no way he's losing the Browns. So you felt like it was a loss?

• 30:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. Because I, when they did go to the break, they were, so it's second and four at the 28 with two minutes left for like two and a half hours. And it kept staring us in the face. The live line was Tampa minus 148 or something.

• 31:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I didn't think they were going to win after the break.

• 31:04Speaker 01

  Oh, after you didn't think? Yeah.

• 31:05Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm saying before, when they were going down. I just thought they were going to win, and then it stopped.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Screw them. Yeah.

• 31:11Bill Simmons?

  It felt like divine intervention, shades of 2016 World Series, when the Cubs got the miracle rain delay. Deshaun got the miracle rain delay to keep his job.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Okay. But, but I thought it should have favored them. They got to, they, we can go over the play calling after they came back. By the way, that delay, when we have, we have money on the Bucks, that was like you're playing blackjack and the dealer holding a six, and she can't flip the card for two hours because the guy next to you doubled down or split and is waiting for a marker. It's like, oh, my God.

• 31:41Bill Simmons?

  The pit boss has to go over.

• 31:43Speaker 01

  This is my winning bet. Can I just, I have other bets that depend on this. And we stared for two and a half hours to decide if we wanted to hedge.

• 31:51Bill Simmons?

  It was so long that I missed it. You, you guys were texting, the game was over. And I was like, I've been waiting for it to come back. They gave us, it just disappeared. It was gone for two and a half hours.

• 32:00Speaker 01

  Good for you.

• 32:01Bill Simmons?

  At a pivotal point. I was all excited to put it on my multi-view. And then it was just over. And then, so I rewound it and watched it. And, you know, guy drops a touchdown in the corner. And it was really like, to me, it was, it was, if they had kept Mike Evans, they win the game because he would have caught that pass in the corner and they would have won. They'd be 1-1. But they let him go. They had a rookie who missed it. And then he misses, like, Booker wide open, right over the middle for the winning touchdown. He was terrible.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Second and four, so they, they have the advantage here. Like, the defense is stuck in mud if you're going to run. They have new cleats. They have clean socks. Bucky Irving runs for three on second and four, easy three. Third and one, he runs for six. And now they use a timeout. They have him reeling. Baker throws like a six-yard pass, then incomplete to Hearst, way off, offensive holding. So now you're back at the 23. Baker runs out of bounds and sails. And he was sailing balls all over the place. And ball splashes and hits the mascot. It just sucked. I don't, I don't understand.

• 33:01Bill Simmons?

  He's also, there's the good version of him, but the bad version of him is just terrifying to gamble on. You know, there's traffic. He's good enough to move around, even though there's like guys all around him. But then he's also just dangling the ball around. And you're just, you're convinced he's going to get strip sacked for five seconds or from behind. I thought he was really bad.

• 33:22Speaker 01

  They are such a tough watch. I begged you not to bet the NFC South winner. I begged you.

• 33:27Bill Simmons?

  Not only did I bet them the last two weeks, I have futures on them. They're three and 10 in their last 13, which I wish I had thought of. There was an incredible Twitter video, I think I mailed to you, of this guy in the corner, waiting for them to walk to the runway after the game. And he's like, I'm going to yell Baker when he comes. And then Baker's coming, he's like, Baker, you suck! You suck!

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Then he's yelling at balls.

• 33:50Bill Simmons?

  It was great.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  By the way, I'm fully on board with that. That poor bastard and others were there for seven hours to wait to see Baker blow that drive. I think they should be allowed to even go in the locker room. You know when like the victim's families get to yell at the defendant? Like, I think that's how it should have been.

• 34:06Bill Simmons?

  They can testify. Baker, for two and a half hours, I sat in the concourse.

• 34:12Speaker 01

  Look at Baker's face. He's showing no remorse. And that's why he should ever play again.

• 34:20Bill Simmons?

  A reader, a listener named Brian Godish, wrote in, Todd Bowles was dead man walking at the end of last season. How could you have had such faith in Tampa going into this season? You're usually all over these things. He's right. I usually am all over these things. Why did I like Tampa? I think I was just thrown off by how bad the division was. Wow, they stink. They can't block either, which is the weirdest thing to me. The Browns were kind of in their business. And I gotta say, like, I thought that was a pretty encouraging win for the Browns. You know, they're on the road. It's super hot. The weather's bad. It was, everybody thought it was Deshaun's last game. Monkin, after the game, he was saying, Browns are going to Browns. Fuck that. Which was, he was talking about the Tomlin quote.

• 35:05Speaker 01

  Tomlin, right.

• 35:06Bill Simmons?

  But it seemed like that galvanized them.

• 35:08Speaker 01

  I mean, after two weeks, after the first week, they could claim they won the Miles Garrett trade, right? Because Garrett gets hurt. After the second week, they could claim, oh, we made the right decision for moving on from Baker. Like, in a real, I'm being sarcastic, but forgot.

• 35:22Bill Simmons?

  Not really, though. You're, you're not wrong.

• 35:23Speaker 01

  And Jared verse, like, didn't do anything. I could, he had like one pressure. But you're right. They were in on every play. Like, if Baker couldn't step up through the pocket and run, that was just going to collapse on him and be a disaster.

• 35:34Bill Simmons?

  Pete C. from New Jersey wrote in, I know we all lost money on that inexplicable Bucks, inexplicable Bucks game. But should we all be secretly thanking Tampa by losing to Cleveland? They bought us at least two more opportunities to bet against Deshaun and recoup our losses, including week four, Thursday night at home against the Steelers, that has all the makings of an all-time national hate watch. Did they do us a favor? I did think about that. Is there a Ponzi scheme move? Just keep going against the Browns, week after week. I did, I did think he was pretty good in that game. I was, I can't believe I'm saying it.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  And they play the Panthers this week. Yeah, this practical joke continues with Deshaun Watson.

• 36:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, you would say, we were, we were texting with House about this. We were, you'd think the Bucks 0-2, 15% chance to make the playoffs when you start out 0-2. And yet you look at the NFC South.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Well, you're right on the Falcons. You're right on the Falcons.

• 36:27Bill Simmons?

  Falcons, we can cross off. Carolina 1-1, New Orleans 1-1, and Tampa 0-2. You might have been right. You did that whole thing about 7-10, four, 7-10 teams. 7-10 is going to win this division. It's looking pretty good.

• 36:45Speaker 01

  We'll see. I could be right about one thing from August. Yeah.

• 36:49Bill Simmons?

  Some, some other things, maybe not as right.

• 36:52Speaker 01

  Is Atlanta a real cross off? Or are we waiting? It's too early?

• 36:57Bill Simmons?

  Who's the first? No, I think Miami's the first cross off.

• 37:00Speaker 01

  We're ready to do it?

• 37:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. That's our first cross off, the Miami Dolphins?

• 37:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:06Bill Simmons?

  They're horrible. I mean, that, that San Francisco game, it was minus 13 and a half. And you just had to treat it like a college game and not be afraid of it and just bet it, right? Like UCLA last night was minus 14 against Purdue, which was a push. And Purdue's a lot better than Miami is. But that, I think like five weeks from now, we look back and think that that line should have been 19.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, I'm a jackass because I took Miami as one of my Ring of 107 picks.

• 37:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. What was your rationale? That was a time zone thing? Australia?

• 37:37Speaker 01

  Time zone. They didn't care about this. They could win this game by 10. And then you look and it's like, they have one Pro Bowler versus 54 combined for San Francisco. That's like you do with the points. You know how you evaluate teams? You get points. Like, all right, yeah, that's all you just need to do.

• 37:53Bill Simmons?

  I uh, I'm trying to find.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Outscored 62 19 in two games and it feels like much worse.

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  So did we learn that this time zone thing might actually be overrated? That if you're flying in a huge jumbo jet when everybody's got really comfortable seats and all this football team shit, maybe, maybe it's not that bad?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  I guess so. I mean, what the Rams did wasn't, wasn't smart, right? But.

• 38:15Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, San Francisco has real wide receiver issues now. Cause uh, Robinson got hurt today. Evans is already banged up. They lost all their other guys.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  You know, why did they play guys? They know they're the 49ers and have to sacrifice three bodies a game. So why is Evans in there in the third, was it the third quarter or fourth?

• 38:35Bill Simmons?

  That's true. They should have told Evans, you're playing 10 snaps. Get out of there.

• 38:40Bill Simmons?

  Most interesting game that's gonna seem like sour grapes for me because I, I took a huge position on Texans before the year. I was all in on them, picked them to make the Super Bowl. I was underselling the Bengals, did not believe all the hype, the schedule stuff. And the Bengals beat the Texans and on the face of it was legitimate win. I'm not taking the win away from them, but I also watched the entire game. And it was a really stupid game.

• 39:06Speaker 01

  You were popping off about the lopsided stats.

• 39:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God. The Texans, they fumbled a field goal snap, which happens once a month? How many times does the holder fumble a field goal snap? Is that a once a month, just any team?

• 39:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:21Bill Simmons?

  If I gave you like in October, minus 0.5 fumbled snaps from the holder in the entire, in every game in October, would you go over or under?

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Oh, I think I'd go over it. In October, it's getting a little colder, but yeah, this week, yeah.

• 39:37Bill Simmons?

  It's a rarity. I'll say that. Um, they have another, so that's inside like the 25. They have another horrible fourth and one call, which is like a Texans Groundhog Day thing where it's just fourth and one. Let's want a really slow developing kind of 45 degree angle run and the guy will get tackled. And they kind of controlled the first half, I thought. It's 0-0 forever. And then Chase makes just one of the best catches of the last couple of years. And I have no fucking clue how he caught this. And all of a sudden it's 7-0 Bengals and you, you kind of know the game's over. Houston rushes for 14 carries, 18 yards. Stroud throws for 353 with no Nico Collins.

• 40:20Bill Simmons?

  And Burrow honestly sucked in the first half and I thought turned it on. In the second half it was better, but he was in duress. He got sacked five times. He was maneuvering out, like he was being chased. They only had 12 first downs. They got outgamed by 107 yards. Sal, they punted eight times.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:39Bill Simmons?

  So their defense is definitely better, but I, I, I'm still not a hundred percent sold yet. I'm sorry. I can't get there yet.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  I'm trying to figure out how much we would have bet on the Texans if we knew that they would win the first downs 22 to 12. And they would hold Burrow to under 200, or maybe at 207, including the sacks maybe goes under, but.

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  What about eight punts? Eight punts?

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Punts. And I don't think it's Stroud's fault. Like they had 18 rushing yards, like you said, from their running backs.

• 41:04Bill Simmons?

  Thought he was really good in that game. I really, I thought, I thought that was like the best I've ever seen him play. I didn't even know who he was throwing to. It was Booty. It was whatever the receiver they took last year who didn't have the torn ACL, Noel.

• 41:17Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. And who, who ran the ball too. Like he was one of the better running backs.

• 41:21Bill Simmons?

  Cause I, I had it on the T, I had it on the, the permanently on the lower left TV, but no sound. So I didn't even know who he was throwing to half the time. It was just like, oh, there's another guy.

• 41:32Bill Simmons?

  But the Bengals.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  The, the problem is a lot of smart people and also Anthony DeBundo picked Nico Collins as offensive player of the year. So if he's not, and I know it clicked a little today, but if he's not in that offense, it is going to be tough sledding some of these games.

• 41:47Bill Simmons?

  Right. So we have the Bengals, week one, they get four fumbles from a Tampa team that then proceeded to take a huge dump the next week against Cleveland. Then this game, they beat the Texans, no Nico Collins. They kind of just, they didn't beat themselves was how they won, let the Texans kind of beat themselves. I hate to be a dick when they're 2-0 and their defense is clearly better. Like their defense is clearly better. They have like a little more of an identity. There's no question, but I would not put them as a contender at this point.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it helps when the Ravens lose dumbass games like they do, right?

• 42:21Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 42:21Speaker 01

  And we don't like the Steelers, so um, it'll probably be decided the last game of the year, but yeah, I, I think like, they still have trouble protecting Burrow, which is always going to be a problem. And I don't know, I read, I read into the narrative too. Like he was like throwing lefty in practice, screwing around, but he was also had like a really tight back. And um, it looked like he might not even play. Dumb on us.

• 42:45Bill Simmons?

  The best way to put it, would you do the bet again? I, I, I think I might. If like you're just running that back. No, I just feel like if they played that game 10 times, I think they probably each win five. Whereas like the Tampa game, I had huge regrets from like within an hour. It's like, oh my God, this team's a mess.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Well, you could, you got a lot of money. You could keep losing on, losing bets. I mean, you could, you would do the bet again. It's fine.

• 43:10Bill Simmons?

  Ravens, Ravens, Saints, Baltimore. This was the annual September game. I was texting Mallor about it. It's, it's, it's, I don't even know, what, what other September traditions do we have? I guess Labor Day?

• 43:22Speaker 01

  Labor Day.

• 43:25Speaker 01

  Fantasy football draft.

• 43:25Bill Simmons?

  Survivor comes back, fantasy football drafts, the Ravens losing a stupid game. Saints are down 14-3 at halftime. Didn't matter. Never turned it off. Was waiting for them to make a run. What's the nickname for them? Would you go with the big never easy?

• 43:38Speaker 01

  For the Saints?

• 43:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 43:40Speaker 01

  Well, I was thinking, I was putting it more on Tyler Shuck because we tried to come up with a nickname for him, but I think every game is going to end with a Tyler Shuck comeback. And then announcers are going to be like, oh, did he get in? Did he not get in? Or it depends what they, what they ever called on the field. It's, that's what it'd be. It's like, so I think we need to come up with a name for, for when he's right on the goal line and the game hangs in the balance and we wait on the booth review.

• 44:02Bill Simmons?

  Just a tip?

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Just a tip is good. I was trying to do Shuck. Shuck around and find out. Like we gotta, we gotta find out. We gotta figure it out.

• 44:11Bill Simmons?

  Mother Shuckers?

• 44:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:13Bill Simmons?

  He leads the NFL in passing.

• 44:17Bill Simmons?

  Do you have any explanation for why Derrick Henry had five carries after halftime?

• 44:21Speaker 01

  So I know the lineman went out. That was big, but yeah, they scored three points in the second half and he had five carries. And it's awful shit what they do. Like this is their 11th home loss when winning by more than a possession in the last

• 44:37Speaker 01

  half dozen years or something. Like this is really weird.

• 44:40Bill Simmons?

  I thought the line was too high. I did not take Saints for ring 107 because they played overtime last week and that always scares me. But losing the two receivers, Rashad Bateman, who was, you know, who had a big game today, but was available in every fantasy league I had. Did you finally pick him up the last day?

• 44:57Speaker 01

  I'm one of them. Yeah.

• 44:58Bill Simmons?

  Like on Thursday and Friday, he was just sitting there for anybody to take because we've all, I think we've all had him at this point.

• 45:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:05Bill Simmons?

  Marlon Humphrey said after the game, there's consensus among the team that everybody is tired of seeing us doing what we just did.

• 45:14Bill Simmons?

  And Lamar, we should mention, had a singularly atrocious end of the game pick.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  Right. Really bad.

• 45:21Bill Simmons?

  Really, really, really awful.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:25Bill Simmons?

  But it's September and they're missing Zay Flowers and I'm not, I'm not going to overreact to this.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Well, and, and you want to kill quarterbacks because that's just the way, the way this goes, but people get mad at the Allen Lamar comparison. And it's like, here's how you can compare them. Their defenses cannot get stops in the fourth quarter in big spots. They really, it's almost the, the same for both of them. So maybe this wasn't a Harbaugh thing. Oh, I gotta think Harbaugh was just loving this. If they're gonna lose anyway.

• 45:52Bill Simmons?

  He had a great time.

• 45:53Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 45:54Bill Simmons?

  He had a great time. I will say this about the Saints who I've enjoyed the last two weeks. Shuck is, he's definitely a heat check QB. Like he, you can see it as he's starting to feel it. The two receivers are just good. Olave and Vale are, are both good. They get open. They can catch in traffic. They have speed. And the tight end's good, Johnson. Right? And that, now when they have Kamara and, and Achan, we're supposed to call him now.

• 46:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:19Bill Simmons?

  They have just a lot of explosiveness. So I think any game like that where they, where they're big underdogs, I almost think like they're an automatic pick at this point for me. If they're getting more than a touchdown, yeah. Or second half, they're a cheap touchdown team, but they move the ball. You know, I don't really, are they going to make the playoffs? I don't know. They're not going to go nine and eight or 10 and seven, but.

• 46:41Speaker 01

  They don't need to.

• 46:42Bill Simmons?

  Eight and nine might, might be good enough.

• 46:44Speaker 01

  Seven, seven, 10.

• 46:46Bill Simmons?

  Vikings, Bears.

• 46:51Bill Simmons?

  I wasn't really focused on this game because it really felt like nothing was ever happening.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  They didn't want us to look. Yeah.

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if you, I don't know how much you watched this, but.

• 46:59Speaker 01

  I did have it on one of the big ones.

• 47:00Bill Simmons?

  It was just like it was three to three or six to three for three hours.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  This was opposite of Detroit Buffalo, right? Where every SGP in this one like just burned in hell. It was just bad. And then the, I don't know, like when Ben Johnson's like saying, we're going to break the points record. He's got to remember that it's, he's a coach of a team that where the weather is awful for their, all their home games, you know? Even in September. So, um, I don't know. It's a bummer. We all like Caleb, 4,000 yards plus and bring a wise guys. I think he was their favorite quarterback this year. I know he's not done for the year, but, um, this is, this is bad.

• 47:36Bill Simmons?

  It just, we, we have like Achilles PTSD at this point. And the way he went down, it just seemed like it was an Achilles for 10 minutes.

• 47:45Bill Simmons?

  And they showed the replay. There was an unbelievable, somebody had a Twitter video of a cameraman, just no announcers, but somebody who was on the sideline taking the video.

• 47:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:54Bill Simmons?

  And Caleb goes down, the crowd, he's scrambling and the crowd's going nuts, right? Cause they think he's gonna, he's like, ah, and then he gets trips. It's like, oh. And then he rolls over and the crowd goes, oh. And then he tries to get up and rolls over and it's like a third, oh.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  It's like a Simpsons episode. Yeah.

• 48:16Bill Simmons?

  They're just getting kicked in the nuts, but it was like 70,000. I didn't mean to make fun of it. It was, it's like really crazy. The crowd like reacting to this and slowly realizing that he was hurt. And it seemed like he was out for the year and he's crying. He's got the towel over his head and then it turns out it's a hammy.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Then there's one 40 minutes later where they're all on their phone checking Twitter like hamstring. Oh.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Backup delayed.

• 48:40Bill Simmons?

  I thought Tyson Bejat was going to win it for them. I like him. He's one of my favorite backups, but he was terrible when he came in. So they go 59 points last week, three this week. And Colton Loveland is officially, is it him or Drake May for fantasy murderer of the year so far? Not of non-injured guys.

• 48:58Speaker 01

  Well, Loveland was one for three today, right? And then zeros.

• 49:01Bill Simmons?

  Zero points last week, one for three. He was going for 20, 25 bucks in fantasy leagues. Right? Second or third tight end.

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would say Loveland and it doesn't seem to get better, but I, I guess we can give credit to the Vikings defense, right? They kept the Bears under 300, 300 yards at home after like you said, put them 59. And, but I think it's like, just get out of our way, Carson Wentz. Just complete 10 or 11 passes and let Brian Flores work his magic.

• 49:31Bill Simmons?

  Brian Flores has to get a job in the National Football League. You're going to be seeing that a lot this week.

• 49:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:38Bill Simmons?

  Carson Wentz. 11 for 20. 143 yards, no touchdowns, no turnovers. Minnesota 11 first downs. It was enough. They scored nine points. Did what they had to do. Uh, but that's a, that one's kind of smart for the Bears. I feel like you gotta win that one at home against Carson. Carson, uh.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  They had 14 plays in the red zone. The Vikings had one. It was that fumble. Was that, was it Swift that fumbled? That was.

• 50:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  They were right there.

• 50:11Bill Simmons?

  So then the other quarterback injury is a little more serious. Uh, Jaden Daniels, who has now been injured in four of his last five starts. This one was a bad one. It led to the, they're showing the replay and Tom Brady screaming, oh shit. On national TV. Um, so we injured QBs so far. Daniels, Caleb, Darnold and Herbert psychologically. And maybe Drake Bay as well. Uh, Daniels is the only one who seems like he might be gone, gone. But I don't, I don't, I don't know what the prognosis is on that, but I can't imagine.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  The one he had last year, right? And he got injured and he came back and then he had it again. And if you look at it, it looked bad. Like it's, it's bad. We're used to seeing that with legs and everything, but there was extra whatever hanging from his arm. And it's like, you know, I'm a Cowboys fan, but you can't root for injuries. You just can't. I, I don't know who I'm talking to right now, but when you look at it, it's like.

• 51:00Bill Simmons?

  You're talking people out of rooting for injuries. You're doing public service.

• 51:03Speaker 01

  Don't root for injuries because then you get, you get Bajin and you get Cooper Rush and you get Jack fricking Strand and Carson Wentz and Marcus Mariota and Justin Herbert. No, but it's, it's week two and what's this going to look like? What's this going to look like in a month?

• 51:18Bill Simmons?

  Not only, not only do you get Jack Strand, you get fans cheering when Jack Strand comes in. Cause he's a better option than the guy you just had to watch for two hours. Uh, Washington, 0-2, the season's over. You could, you easily could have talked me into making them a cross off team. The, they might be in the hunt for the number one pick. You gotta think about it because Daniels is going to be a huge extension after this year. And it's like, he's played one of three seasons, you know?

• 51:48Speaker 01

  That's a bummer for them. I mean, they could have won that game, even if he doesn't throw that, whatever. If that pass goes incomplete, they were going to win that game. Like the, the Cowboys defense.

• 51:57Bill Simmons?

  You felt that way?

• 51:59Speaker 01

  They allowed 20 points, but it could have been another 40. I mean, Daniels did overthrow, right? He had wide open guys overthrowing. And there was a couple of drops. This defense is just, they hit hard, which is fun, but they got, there's like six guys moving from a four, three to a three, four. And you just, um, I don't know. They just look way out of place.

• 52:18Bill Simmons?

  So I'm not going to win my Cowboys over 10 and a half wins, bud?

• 52:22Speaker 01

  It's just going to be a dumb team again, I think. I'm just glad I got, Hal owes me a Fogo de Chao dinner because of, or side bet. That'll get excited, but, but nothing.

• 52:31Bill Simmons?

  Can I, can I come to that?

• 52:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, that you can come to. Yeah.

• 52:33Bill Simmons?

  Thanks. Um, I wrote down in my notes, Mariota is like the Masked Singer. I can't believe we're still doing this. I don't even know what that means, but it's like season 50 of the Masked Singer. It's another, it's another eight game starting stretch for Marcus Mariota. Like who wants this at this point? Washington fans don't want it. I don't want to bet for or against it. Nobody wants it on their fantasy team. He doesn't even seem like he wants it. Who, who wants him to start NFL games?

• 53:05Speaker 01

  It was like that. You don't know who the backup is and then they come in and they take the mask off.

• 53:09Bill Simmons?

  That'd be good.

• 53:10Speaker 01

  That could go too. Yeah.

• 53:11Bill Simmons?

  The Matt, the Masked Backup?

• 53:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 53:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God, it's Deshaun Kaiser. What's he doing here? Uh, all right. So you're not enthused by your team. My team.

• 53:24Bill Simmons?

  As you know, nothing good happens when you play the Pittsburgh Steelers. Just guys get injured, dumb fumbles happen. People lose confidence, penalties. You just never feel good after. Uh, we lost our.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  Sweat game for you though. That you had a, I mean, you only needed one explosive play.

• 53:40Bill Simmons?

  We lost on Wenu though. We lost probably like our.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  Oh, and one of, oh, the.

• 53:44Bill Simmons?

  Our red guard. It's probably our most consistent lineman. TJ Watt rolled up on him.

• 53:50Bill Simmons?

  Post Sedona Vrabel.

• 53:55Bill Simmons?

  They use that. Post Sedona, not, I wouldn't say he's as crisp. There's some, there's some clock management stuff that he missed today that I was like, oh, Vrabel doesn't usually miss that stuff.

• 54:08Bill Simmons?

  Our DBs were decimated by the end of the game. And it didn't matter because Aaron Rodgers was on the other team and he was really, really, really awful. And we were hitting the shit out of him and I had a great time.

• 54:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why not? Nothing's changed for that team, right? How long has this team been the exact same way? Like seven years? The Steelers?

• 54:27Bill Simmons?

  I feel like it's grimmer now. That like Rodgers was 39 for 187 today. And then took some big hits.

• 54:33Speaker 01

  39, oh, for 187.

• 54:35Bill Simmons?

  39 attempts for one, 39 attempts for 187 total. Metcalf's a mess. Gonzalez is like, I, I don't know what the final stats were, but he guarded him most of the game and defended him and followed him around the field. And Metcalf was just, got crushed. The biggest thing to me, and I know Dado got hurt during the game, but I, I thought the same thing last week. They can't really run the ball either. They're not, at least last year with Gainwell, they had this

• 55:01Bill Simmons?

  pass catching running back kind of angle. This year they don't even seem to have that. So they have no running game. It's really just Metcalf and Fryermuth. This guy, Jeremy Bernard had a couple of plays today, but, um, I would say from a skill position standpoint, it's one of the grimmest situations in the league, right?

• 55:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's bad.

• 55:21Bill Simmons?

  Who's skill, which, would you want Pittsburgh's guys over any, anybody else's guys?

• 55:27Speaker 01

  Well, the Raiders without Bowers, except they're making it work.

• 55:30Bill Simmons?

  You got Gentey though. Yeah. I got Gentey and Bowers with the Raiders.

• 55:33Speaker 01

  Dolphins.

• 55:33Bill Simmons?

  Miami, I get Achan.

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Achan. Yeah.

• 55:36Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 55:36Speaker 01

  At the end. I think he wants to go by at the end now.

• 55:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he's, he flipped the other way?

• 55:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, they, they switched. Yeah. Yeah.

• 55:42Bill Simmons?

  Chargers, I get O'Meara Hampton and I get, uh, I get McConkey.

• 55:46Speaker 01

  I love that. We got, the Chargers are in this conversation now.

• 55:49Bill Simmons?

  But I'm trying to think like who has worse skilled guys than the Pittsburgh?

• 55:53Speaker 01

  You're right.

• 55:54Bill Simmons?

  You could see in the pregame, Tom and I was like, yeah, it's really hard. Like he, he, you had a vibe like, I'm glad I got him.

• 56:01Speaker 01

  I do have to read some, I'll read an Aaron Rodgers stat because he still remains the only quarterback who accused my cousin of being the Epstein file. So if there's another one, I'll read this. All right. So Aaron Rodgers has attempted 12 passes, 20 plus yards downfield. All their first two weeks without a completion. It's the most deep attempts, uh, in a two game stretch without a completion in four years. And the Pats blitzed him. This seems to be the, the thing to do. Just blitz him on 18 drop backs. Their most in a game since 2024. Good job by them figuring it out. He had 43 yards passing on the blitzes. Eight pressures, two sacks, one interception. It's pretty easy.

• 56:35Bill Simmons?

  I hit this one on Ringer 107. I thought the line was a little too low and I thought the defense could win.

• 56:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:41Bill Simmons?

  By itself. What I wasn't counting on was McDaniels, who had his second straight horrific play calling game. Uh, I just don't know what he's doing and I don't feel like he has a feel for the team. But there's like a real Drake May conversation now, like every Pats fan text right I'm on. My dad is probably the most upset about it. He doesn't understand what's happening. He's like, this is what happened to Mac Jones. I'm like, don't say that. Don't utter those words. But

• 57:11Speaker 01

  I'm gonna call him after this. I know it's gonna be late by him, but I'm gonna call.

• 57:14Bill Simmons?

  Drake May has been a mess. He just has. And like even when they've hit big plays, he's been short on the throws. He was short on the flea flicker in week one. He was short today to Dobbs. That should have been a touchdown. He knows he's not playing well because he said in the post-game press conference, like he was like, really like, it seemed like he was bummed out.

• 57:34Speaker 01

  Why don't you just stick with the injury thing? Like, I would even buy it, I think, now. He doesn't throw the same ball as he did last year, right?

• 57:41Bill Simmons?

  No, he's got, there's some happy feet stuff happening with him. He was so awesome last year. And I don't know how they get him back, how they get his confidence back, but he does not look like he has the same confidence. He has a little bit of yips. Yeah, he does.

• 57:57Bill Simmons?

  Now, if you're defending him, you're gonna say they play Seattle in week one, who just dismantled Arizona, too, and might have the best defense in the league. Pittsburgh's front seven is excellent, right? He lost A.J. Brown in the first hour of the season. They don't really have another, they don't have, they don't have Diggs from last year. They don't really have a receiver you trust. But this is why, like, they nailed the second tight end, this Raridan, they took him the third down. He's made big plays in both games. He's an excellent blocker. I don't know why they don't play him and Henry together more and just go bigger and try to run and use more play action. And just try to get Drake more confidence, but over and over again, it just seems like he's rolling out and, and just, I don't get it.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  You'll be okay.

• 58:40Bill Simmons?

  He's supposed to be better this year, not worse.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  You'll put up 40 against the Dolphins and who else? There are a couple cupcakes on there.

• 58:50Bill Simmons?

  I'm concerned. I didn't like what my dad texted the Mac Jones thing. It made, upset me, set me off, knocked me backwards. Broncos, Jags. This was interesting because about halfway through this game, I was like, holy shit. Should we look at AFC title odds for the Jags? They look like a juggernaut. And all of a sudden, their offense stopped doing anything. Their defense is not good. And Denver did the thing that they used to do last year where they start out slow and then all of a sudden they put together a good hour. And you're like, holy shit, they're winning.

• 59:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, and you look at Bo Nix's stats, like, how did he get to that?

• 59:26Bill Simmons?

  He was so bad. 298 yards. I watched the whole game.

• 59:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, nuts. It looked like another game they were just gonna give up and they're not scoring a lot. But Vance Joseph's defense was good. I guess we couldn't expect it to go sour two weeks in a row. They needed to show up and they did. They're also down two running backs now. They have that rookie Coleman now, got a bunch of carries, so maybe that's the offense. But the most promising thing for Denver, I thought, was working Waddle in there. He had eight grabs for almost 140.

• 59:54Bill Simmons?

  He was really good. Their defense looked like they actually remembered to tackle this week. Denver for the year, six for 22 on third down. They're one out of four first and goal actually scoring. Not, not great. But I, I thought it was an important win for Denver. Because if they're 0-2 and Nix isn't good, there's some real stuff now. And then everyone's gonna talk about the play caller. Should Peyton take the play calls back? Like, it's just another week of that.

• 1:00:25Bill Simmons?

  The Jags could kind of get away with this, but I, I thought they had a nice chance here. And now I have more questions than answers with them, especially with the defense. I, the reason I didn't think they were a playoff team is because of the defense and you saw it in the second half.

• 1:00:37Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:00:39Bill Simmons?

  September, it's altitude. I get it.

• 1:00:42Speaker 01

  I don't love the rootin' tootin' deal. Anybody have like 65 yards? I don't think like

• 1:00:47Bill Simmons?

  He seems like a backup.

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  But they need like a third and four or something. It's still gonna be heavy on Lawrence's shoulders.

• 1:00:54Bill Simmons?

  Seattle and the Cardinals. I wrote down Mike McDonald. He's like a jacked Belichick. Did you see him?

• 1:01:03Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:01:04Bill Simmons?

  On the sideline?

• 1:01:05Speaker 01

  There's something hard knocks his back.

• 1:01:07Bill Simmons?

  Wearing like the medium T-shirt, just like doing this whole thing. But they, they looked awesome. I gotta be honest, I can't really tell the difference between Drew Lock and Sam Darnold.

• 1:01:20Bill Simmons?

  At least it gets a lousier team, but I thought Lock was, I thought legitimately good, legitimately solid today.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  It's interesting. I had like a reverse thing. I said, I wonder if like the Seahawks said, hey, NFL, we're giving you Drew Lock to feast on for two weeks. If you can't figure out how to beat us, then we're just gonna steamroll everybody now. And he had 235 yards to Brissette's 95. Brissette was trailing the whole freaking game.

• 1:01:46Bill Simmons?

  My one red flag with them is the short yardage stuff.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:50Bill Simmons?

  Until, I know Charter is coming back, but when it's like third and one, fourth and one, stuff near the goal line, I don't, they don't have that one batter and ram guy. It's a lot of like finesse running backs.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  They get. The JSN, I know, I'm not unveiling anything here.

• 1:02:06Bill Simmons?

  He was incredible.

• 1:02:08Speaker 01

  I wonder if he's like an actual Seahawk. Like, I don't even know if that's real, a bird, but his routes are ridiculous. The way he glides and he like fakes and doesn't even have to plant his foot. He like, he doesn't slow down to deek the defender. He's just before, before he had, this is before he has the ball. 17 receptions and four touchdowns this year with Drew Lock throwing to him.

• 1:02:28Bill Simmons?

  There was a great clip of him when he, how he got open on that 82-yard touchdown.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  Was that the one?

• 1:02:35Bill Simmons?

  He made it like he was going to the right, but he used his head. And by his head, he made the guy move and it reminded me of like those old Magic Johnson clips where Magic Johnson did the no look and he would just be going, his body would be going in different directions from the ball and you're like, what's happening? I can't imagine, would he be the number one person you'd be terrified to try to defend?

• 1:02:55Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Not like today's game.

• 1:02:57Bill Simmons?

  Just to be embarrassed, I think, as a receiver, I think he would be the one I'm most afraid of.

• 1:03:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still Aaron Hernandez's first, the most terrified, but

• 1:03:06Bill Simmons?

  Smart. I like that.

• 1:03:09Bill Simmons?

  I have Mac Jones, Drew Lock,

• 1:03:14Bill Simmons?

  Stetson Bennett, Tyson Bajent. And I think Mario at a fifth. That's my backup QB list right now. My backup QB power rankings.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:03:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I don't know if there's any others you'd like.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  I didn't, um.

• 1:03:30Bill Simmons?

  I feel like Mac Jones and Lock are the only ones that could actually come in and keep steering the car straight on like an 11-win team.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Right. Let me look through here. Yeah, I mean, we might be seeing Trey Lance soon enough.

• 1:03:43Bill Simmons?

  I did not have Trey Lance in my top.

• 1:03:45Speaker 01

  Who the hell knows? Might get there.

• 1:03:47Bill Simmons?

  I'm not counting out Arizona yet. I think that was a different in class, but I think there's, I think for three fourths of the league, I think they're gonna be able to move the ball. The big story of this game, Chris Myers was the play-by-play in this game.

• 1:03:59Speaker 01

  You don't say.

• 1:04:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I got some emails about it.

• 1:04:04Bill Simmons?

  He, he, this is Ben in Guadalajara said, I'm guessing this is the first time ever of defending Super Bowl champs that Chris Myers called their game the following year.

• 1:04:15Speaker 01

  That's a compliment.

• 1:04:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then Rick at San Diego said, biggest upset of the day, imagine Chris Myers surprise when he found out he'd be calling the defending Super Bowl champs instead of Atlanta, Carolina. It is, it is amazing. He didn't get Atlanta, Carolina.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:04:32Bill Simmons?

  Because it feels like they've tried to torture him with the worst game every week. But they actually threw him a bone. They sent him to Seattle this time.

• 1:04:41Speaker 01

  I think the biggest upset is that you got an email from Guadalajara and the guy's name is Ben.

• 1:04:47Bill Simmons?

  Speaking of Panthers, Falcons, Cooper Rush, your guy, 10 for 17 for 86 yards, two picks and a fumble. And bench for a guy named Jack Strand who got a big ovation from the crowd because everybody was excited it was a Cooper Rush.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Minnesota State's Jack Strand is here.

• 1:05:06Bill Simmons?

  Jack Strand.

• 1:05:07Speaker 01

  Chris Myers isn't here to see it.

• 1:05:10Bill Simmons?

  There's some good stats about how bad the Falcons are, but there's only been four teams ever that had no red zone plays in the first two games of the year. You saw this?

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did see that.

• 1:05:20Bill Simmons?

  08 Rams, 97 Lions, and the 92 Pats. A team that really, really got my gambling to go to another level because they were so bad, I had no team.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:05:32Bill Simmons?

  92. That was like the first year I was like, I got, I gotta have some rooting interests. I think we went 1-15. It was really bad.

• 1:05:40Speaker 01

  Let me ask you this. Out of those teams that didn't have a red zone possession in two, two games, did any of them have three primetime games in a row following week two?

• 1:05:50Bill Simmons?

  That's coming.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  Because that's what the Atlanta Falcons have. What is going on? What happened?

• 1:05:56Bill Simmons?

  I looked up, why didn't the Falcons keep Cousins? And it was because if they did, he, his salary would have been a big $67 million cap hit for 2027.

• 1:06:07Bill Simmons?

  I still would have kept him.

• 1:06:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:06:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what the cap hit would have been otherwise, but

• 1:06:11Speaker 01

  He might just be too annoying, but yeah.

• 1:06:14Bill Simmons?

  There's some interesting Bryce Young stuff going on. If you go back to week 18 last year in the wild card game in these first two games where he's 250-plus pass a year, it's four straight games.

• 1:06:25Bill Simmons?

  Good fantasy stats, throwing the ball 35 a game. You watch them and it's like McMillan and Coker and Darren Waller, like they actually have weapons.

• 1:06:36Bill Simmons?

  And Bryce, I thought was good again.

• 1:06:38Speaker 01

  I'm laughing because of what we did to Hyphits. You remember, right?

• 1:06:41Bill Simmons?

  Tell the story, yeah.

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  Well, we, Danny Hyphits, who runs the Ringer Fantasy League, he's very, very, very much into it. And he passed and passed and passed for 10 rounds on a quarterback and

• 1:06:51Bill Simmons?

  He did the, I'm so smart, I'm gonna get my quarterback later move.

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  And so we're like, hey, you know what we'll do? There's, there's 14 quarterbacks taken. Let's each take a quarterback in the next, you know, 24 picks or whatever. So Hyphits doesn't get one.

• 1:07:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, he was the end of the round, so he wasn't coming back for 22 picks.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Right. So he, we basically picked the top 25 quarterbacks and left them with Bryce Young. And now he has the last lap, six touchdowns, 600 yards plus for Bryce.

• 1:07:20Bill Simmons?

  Bryce Young, Cam Ward was left.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Shuck wasn't even there. Brissette was taken, I think.

• 1:07:28Bill Simmons?

  I took Jackson Dart. That was really fun. Um, we'll take another break for the podcast, but we'll keep going here live on Netflix.

• 1:07:38Bill Simmons?

  Guess the Lions. You beat me in week two. We tied in week one. Thursday night is a class. Put it this way. I am not going to be taping live after the Thursday night game this week.

• 1:07:53Speaker 01

  Why?

• 1:07:53Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna, I'm gonna bank the podcast and just put it up because it's Packers Falcons. And, uh, I'm not staying up late to watch that.

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:08:04Bill Simmons?

  And do a podcast. I'm just gonna do my podcast normally during the day.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  If you're worried about that.

• 1:08:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, and again, as you mentioned, Packers this week for them. Saints, Monday, Ravens, Sunday. We have to watch this team three weeks in a row. Penix might be back and they're making this seem like, well, Penix might be back. It's like, Penix was one of the six worst starting quarterbacks in the league last year.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:25Bill Simmons?

  You can't be this excited about Penix being back.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  Well, I, I know you saw a lot of stats and everything, but the one that I like was, um, I think their quarterback rating is 38 and it would be 39. If they just bumped the ball on turf every time. Did you see that? It's not even, I'm not making that up. Maybe that stat, that trend should go away, that metric. Maybe, maybe we're just saying that's a bad metric, but yeah.

• 1:08:53Bill Simmons?

  They're calling it the kidney stone offense.

• 1:08:57Bill Simmons?

  Sunday's marquee game. I think this is what it is because the match.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  A lot. We didn't pick, we didn't guess.

• 1:09:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you're right. So part of the, part of guess the lines is we have to guess the lines, which I just didn't do right.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Skip the lines, we'll call it. Yeah.

• 1:09:08Bill Simmons?

  My guess was Packers minus seven and a half.

• 1:09:10Speaker 01

  All right. You're gonna get it. I went nine and a half. It is only six and a half.

• 1:09:15Bill Simmons?

  Oh, oh my God. That's a lot of credit to Michael Penix.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  Hear ye, hear ye. Get your free teaser leg here. It's the Packers.

• 1:09:26Bill Simmons?

  You just made me realize I accidentally skipped the Jets game.

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  You might have skipped.

• 1:09:31Bill Simmons?

  My notes. I just had a lot of, no, that was the biggest one I skipped.

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:39Speaker 01

  Well, when we get to, when we get to the line.

• 1:09:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, cause, cause the Packers being favored in this game.

• 1:09:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:46Bill Simmons?

  If you watch that Packers Jets game in a rainstorm, um, I know the Packers ended up winning. I did not leave that game remotely impressed with the Packers who had 199 yards, 16 first downs. They were one for nine, third down. Uh, their running backs were 18 for 63. They had 14 penalties. Um, and I don't know how the Jets lost that game. They had it.

• 1:10:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:08Bill Simmons?

  There was some incredible clock management near the end with Aaron Glenn. He did something near the end that, um, I don't even really fully know how to describe.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  But he explained himself.

• 1:10:19Bill Simmons?

  He, well, he wanted to give them the ball in overtime, not knowing who was going to win the coin toss.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:25Bill Simmons?

  Was that what he said? I didn't really even, he explained it. I didn't understand it.

• 1:10:28Speaker 01

  We didn't want to be pinned back because we wanted to set up for overtime or something.

• 1:10:32Bill Simmons?

  He had, it was fourth and two. There was like 58 seconds left. And he could have called timeout and tried to get the ball back. Now, in his defense, he is Geno Smith as a quarterback. And maybe he'd just want to get to overtime, but he let them run the clock all the way down, take a delay of game. Do this whole thing where all of a sudden the Packers got to try a hail Mary. Which wasn't successful, but there was no scenario where they should have been in any sort of touchdown danger whatsoever. They should have declined the delay of game. It was all like basic Madden shit. And all of a sudden the, the Jets are in danger with a hail Mary for a second. Then they get to overtime and it's just as bad, but, uh,

• 1:11:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:12Bill Simmons?

  The point is the pack, the Packers are not good. I don't think. Do you think they're good?

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  Well, they became the first team since 1941, the year my father, a giant Jets fan was born, to lose a game. The Jets holding an opponent to less than 200 yards, having opponent with 100 plus penalty yards and a positive turnover margin. No, they're not very good. I was wrong about the Packers.

• 1:11:36Bill Simmons?

  Six and a half. That, that is, uh, proof that it's a Thursday night game. Against one of the three worst teams in the league and they're not even a touchdown favorite. So there's your answer. I think if the Jets won that game, I wonder what happens with LaFleur. I know he got an extension. But you're talking about a, a pretty big.

• 1:11:54Speaker 01

  It's looking bad. I know Jaden Reed went down big. He seems to be okay, but, uh, yeah, they could not move the ball. Their offensive line looked really bad.

• 1:12:03Bill Simmons?

  Offensive line's bad. I don't really like any of their running backs.

• 1:12:08Bill Simmons?

  They do have the nerd king, Jordan Love. Sunday marquee Jaguars home for the Patriots. This is a really good game. One of these teams will be one and two after the game and the other one will be two and one. Yeah. Yeah. I just looked that up.

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Can they tie? All right.

• 1:12:23Bill Simmons?

  I have the Jaguars minus two and a half against the Pats.

• 1:12:27Speaker 01

  I had one and a half. It is in fact, two and a half. You get that.

• 1:12:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I figured that's what it would be. We'll see with the weather. There's some weird nor'easter stuff happening on the east coast this week and I don't know, I don't know.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Really? Already you have a weather report?

• 1:12:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. There's gonna be a nor'easter on the east coast, but, uh, I think that's a nice matchup for the Pats because the Jags defense is bad and that's kind of what they need. They need to go against a defense that's not that good.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  Oh, you just crushed your karma.

• 1:12:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying.

• 1:12:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:59Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, they kind of need to be in a shootout where Drake May, our quarterback.

• 1:13:07Bill Simmons?

  Drake May.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  You could say it.

• 1:13:08Bill Simmons?

  Can make some plays.

• 1:13:10Speaker 01

  It feels good to say it.

• 1:13:12Bill Simmons?

  I have five watchables. The first one would normally be a fairly watchable, but because the Chargers are own two and they're playing in Buffalo.

• 1:13:22Bill Simmons?

  And Josh Allen is on a rampage. I think it has to be a watchable. Buffalo and the Chargers in Buffalo. I have Buffalo minus seven.

• 1:13:32Speaker 01

  Oh, oh, so you cheated today. I see.

• 1:13:35Bill Simmons?

  You know, I don't cheat.

• 1:13:36Speaker 01

  I said six. Fandel is sick of Chargers shit. They're just like, yeah, this is seven.

• 1:13:42Bill Simmons?

  I made a mental note from a year ago when we did week three that they do with the own two teams. I think they bump it a little bit toward the own two teams, expecting our season's on the line kind of shit. Yeah. I think normally this should be like eight and a half, but, cause the Chargers are own two.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Oh, you think it would go, interesting. So I thought it would be low.

• 1:14:00Bill Simmons?

  Week 15. No, I think it would be higher. Chargers are bad. Uh, next.

• 1:14:08Bill Simmons?

  It's a hundred percent chance I'm putting the Bills in the tease.

• 1:14:11Speaker 01

  Bills Packers. Good. Don't even worry.

• 1:14:14Bill Simmons?

  It won't be the Packers and it won't be the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

• 1:14:18Bill Simmons?

  Next one is the Lions and the Jets. Lions are home, but they're terrible defense.

• 1:14:24Bill Simmons?

  The Jets are on the road. Probably a good idea to get away from their fans. And I can't believe I think this is less than seven, but I have Detroit at home favored by six.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  We split it. I said seven and it is six and a half.

• 1:14:40Speaker 01

  That's fair. That's fair. The Lions are weird. Yeah. I, I just, I, I don't think if you're using them in an eliminator, there's no team I'd be comfortable using the Lions against in an eliminator. Just the way they play, even though they're better than most teams. It's just.

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  Not with their secondary. I didn't think Geno looked bad today, especially in, in bad weather. It was kind of a Geno, uh, recipe for him to do dumb shit, but it didn't happen.

• 1:15:06Speaker 01

  He had two third and long conversions early on, and then he ran for one, like third and seven or something. He converted. Yeah. I thought it was good. It was like 247 or something. Touchdown.

• 1:15:15Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't bad. Bengals are at Pittsburgh.

• 1:15:21Bill Simmons?

  Not a must win for Pittsburgh because they're one on one, but this is, uh,

• 1:15:26Bill Simmons?

  this will be a nice test for the Bengals because the Steelers front seven was getting there.

• 1:15:31Bill Simmons?

  Not that the Pats have the best offensive line, but I have the Bengals as a road favorite. I have the Bengals by two and a half.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  All right. Good. I get this. I said three. It is three and a half. Oof. Wow.

• 1:15:44Bill Simmons?

  When's the last time the Steelers have?

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  It's just not a lot of scoring, right? Like this is, their games are always 18, 16 against the Bengals. It seems.

• 1:15:53Bill Simmons?

  In the Tomlin era, this was an automatic, I'm taking the Steelers. I don't even care. I'm not even looking at the injury report and, or the weather. It's like, there's no way they're not covering the hook. Three and a half. We'll see with Joe Burrow. Uh, Niners are home for the Cardinals. I probably shouldn't have put this in the watchables, but, with the Niners, with their weird receiver situation, I think the Cardinals can hang with them. I have the Niners by eight and a half.

• 1:16:18Speaker 01

  Oh, come on. I got it exact and I wanted it for myself. It's eight and a half. That's what I had.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  That's a tease.

• 1:16:27Speaker 01

  That's your teaser?

• 1:16:28Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm saying it's a possible tease. I'm a little afraid of the Cardinals still. I like their running backs. It's weird because it's so stupid to triple down on a position that the NFL has decided is pretty dispensable, but I, I do like all their running backs.

• 1:16:42Speaker 01

  He's so inconsistent, Brissette. He didn't have a pass over 10 yards or complete a pass over 10.

• 1:16:47Bill Simmons?

  That was 2004 Brissette today. Last one, going to Brazil.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Bill Simmons?

  Your team, your dumb team playing the Ravens.

• 1:16:58Speaker 01

  You're sending me and Mallory, right?

• 1:17:01Bill Simmons?

  I mean, she'd go. I'd be fun. Talk her into it.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  She's having a tough time between the Ravens loss and the Herbert's her quarterback. She's a pick me up.

• 1:17:09Bill Simmons?

  Herbert's her quarterback. I forgot. I have a, I gave Ravens minus one and a half for this.

• 1:17:14Speaker 01

  All right, let me see. Okay, that's what I had and it was wrong. It is three.

• 1:17:19Bill Simmons?

  Oof.

• 1:17:22Bill Simmons?

  So this will be a big topic this week. I'm going to read an email from a Brazilian listener named Kai, C A I. He said, I want to warn you about the condition of the Maracanhas Field, the stadium where the Cowboys versus Ravens game will play in week three. I hope I said that correctly. The soccer teams that play there complain about the condition of the pitch after every single game. It's honestly embarrassing for Brazil considering Maracanha is one of the temples of soccer. Tell Sal, that's you, to expect a game with lots of slipping and possible injuries to his team.

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Great.

• 1:17:58Bill Simmons?

  Because this game is going to be played on a pasture. Oh, and please, whatever you do, don't bet on this game. That's from a Brazilian listener, just begging us to stay away from this game. What am I, I might add this to the gambling manifesto. When a, when a podcast listener from Brazil begs you to stay away from a game being played in Brazil, stay away.

• 1:18:21Speaker 01

  I think that's smart. Also Brandon Aubrey is going to be slipping all our best players. Going to be, he's going to be missing extra points and shit.

• 1:18:29Bill Simmons?

  Sounds terrible.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  You know what? I'm not going.

• 1:18:31Bill Simmons?

  What was that game? What was it? Two years ago? It was Eagles, Packers, maybe on a Friday night. It's like in Rio or somewhere. And it's the same thing. The field was an abomination.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was one they canceled because the field wasn't ready. It was at Mexico.

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  We'll have to reach out to our.

• 1:18:46Bill Simmons?

  Maybe that's what it was, Mexico.

• 1:18:49Bill Simmons?

  All right, fairly watchables. I probably put this in the wrong category. This should have been a watchables after knowing what we saw with the Colts tonight, but Texans are at Indianapolis. Two 0 and 2 teams. Is this a loser leaves town match, Sal?

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:19:06Bill Simmons?

  Although the Texans did make it last year after going 0 and 3.

• 1:19:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, the Colts were 8 and 2 and they didn't make it. So I don't think you could say one way or another for this division.

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  I hit this exact. I think you could do it too.

• 1:19:19Bill Simmons?

  I had Texans minus 2 and a half.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  That's it. That's exactly right.

• 1:19:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm doing way better this week.

• 1:19:26Speaker 01

  You are.

• 1:19:27Bill Simmons?

  Better field.

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  When you get the lines ahead of time, I think it's probably, can't miss.

• 1:19:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't appreciate that.

• 1:19:37Bill Simmons?

  Texans minus 2 and a half Colts.

• 1:19:41Speaker 01

  I might stay away from that. I don't care what the field conditions are there. I don't love that at all.

• 1:19:46Bill Simmons?

  How many D backs are Indianapolis even have for that? Okay, next one is in Washington. It is the Seahawks at Washington. I feel like these two teams play every year, the same division.

• 1:19:59Bill Simmons?

  I, I wanted to push this above 7 and I couldn't get there because of Drew Lock. So I said Seahawks by 6 and a half.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Oh, come on, push it. Push it above 7. Push it. Push, push.

• 1:20:09Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  You said 6 and a half? That's what it is. I said 7 and a half.

• 1:20:14Bill Simmons?

  So what is that with Darnold? 8 and a half?

• 1:20:18Bill Simmons?

  See, we're 2 points.

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  I was looking the other way. It's Mariota against this defense, right?

• 1:20:23Bill Simmons?

  That's going to be awful.

• 1:20:26Speaker 01

  That's, that's probably a teaser game.

• 1:20:29Bill Simmons?

  Mariota kind of killed the quarterback show. I didn't, I never watched an episode of it, but that Netflix show with the quarterbacks.

• 1:20:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:35Bill Simmons?

  And Mariota was like, his experience wasn't going well and he basically bailed near the end, like in the most interesting part.

• 1:20:41Speaker 01

  Well, he's a mass singer guy. He can't, can't control all the shows.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  The mass singer part is Mariota. Oh my God.

• 1:20:51Bill Simmons?

  Oh, it's Joe Milton.

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  The mass backup.

• 1:20:58Bill Simmons?

  That would be unbelievable. That'd be so exciting to see the mass backup come out.

• 1:21:02Speaker 01

  It would be good. Yeah.

• 1:21:05Bill Simmons?

  Is that Andy Dalton's music? Oh my God, Andy Dalton. Take his keys.

• 1:21:13Bill Simmons?

  Bucks Vikings in Tampa.

• 1:21:18Bill Simmons?

  Please don't let me bet on this, Sal.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  I'm all 5 points. I'm already skeptical. What the hell's going on here?

• 1:21:26Bill Simmons?

  It's in Tampa, chance of really weird weather. I just tic-tacked it. I did Bucks minus 1 and a half.

• 1:21:33Speaker 01

  I said Bucks 2 and a half.

• 1:21:36Speaker 01

  It's Vikings minus 2 and a half.

• 1:21:37Bill Simmons?

  No, no.

• 1:21:39Speaker 01

  There really is.

• 1:21:40Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  They're all in on Carson Wentz and this defense.

• 1:21:44Bill Simmons?

  Holy mackerel. You're telling me Carson Wentz

• 1:21:50Bill Simmons?

  is a 2 and a half point favorite on the road against a team that's not one of the 5 worst teams in the league?

• 1:21:56Speaker 01

  Well, I have to say, now that I think about it, if the Browns had so much success pressuring Baker, if Brian Flores just does the same. Is Baker going to complete a pass? I don't know what to expect.

• 1:22:08Bill Simmons?

  Brian Flores deserves a chance to be a head coach. It's gonna be, oh, there should just be an ESPN channel where it's just, they just rotate guys in with a suit where the, it's really tight in their neck and they're just yelling at us, even though.

• 1:22:22Speaker 01

  And everyone's afraid to say no. It's not true.

• 1:22:24Bill Simmons?

  I'm not in charge of an NFL team. You're yelling at me. I'm just on my couch. Poop fact that we have four games.

• 1:22:33Bill Simmons?

  Panthers are at the Browns.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  One of these two teams is going to be 2 and 1.

• 1:22:41Bill Simmons?

  I mean, honestly, I should have put this in the, in the watchables and you could have even talked me into game of the week because we never thought Deshaun was going to start this game and now he's going to start and I have no idea what the fans are. I'm, this definitely isn't a multi-view for me. 100%.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Can I tell you what happened with the Panthers Falcons to me today? Well, I had, um, so I, all right. So I do the three games. I have a big screen that splits into four and that's not obnoxious. Everyone could have a big screen right now. It's the one thing that has gone down in value, like it's gone down a thousand dollars.

• 1:23:14Bill Simmons?

  It's crazy. TVs are, are five times cheaper than they ever used to be.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  Don't buy bread, buy bigger TVs. So that's it. So it's split into four boxes. So I, I have the three games I'm betting on the most on 1, 2, and 3, and then the fourth one I have in a YouTube TV four box. So now I have seven games covered. The shittiest game goes on my computer monitor and it was Carolina, Atlanta, and it wouldn't let me load. And I was like, this is, this is karma for all the shit I talk about, about the NFC South. It's not letting me watch it. And I was like, you know what? I'm fine. I won't watch that game at all.

• 1:23:49Bill Simmons?

  Guess what? You didn't miss anything.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  I didn't miss anything and I'm going to do the same with this, one that you're calling the game of the week, the Browns and Panthers.

• 1:23:56Bill Simmons?

  I've never figured out whether I like the red zone or not with the multiple TVs.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  The red zone, no.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  Because there was eight today and I wanted to have six. I had the red zone in the top left. So the two smaller TVs and the big TV. But then the red zone is always like, it's either a little ahead or a little behind with one of the other games. And they kept going to the Pats game and they were a little ahead of the Pats game, which, you know, I'm focused on, on the TV I'm at. And now I'm doing this and I'm, I got it out. And I did what you did.

• 1:24:26Speaker 01

  That's it. That's you'll be in a straitjacket by the end of the three hours and trying to sync up everything.

• 1:24:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, speaking of straitjacket, you're going to be in a straitjacket if you bet on Panthers Browns.

• 1:24:37Bill Simmons?

  I have the Panthers in Cleveland

• 1:24:41Bill Simmons?

  favored by 3 points.

• 1:24:43Speaker 01

  All right. I think you're going to beat me this week. I have 1 and a half. It is 2 and a half. You get that.

• 1:24:49Bill Simmons?

  I've been pretty good this week. I have a good feel.

• 1:24:51Speaker 01

  You're winning 9 to 5.

• 1:24:53Bill Simmons?

  I would have done really well with bets this week if it wasn't for Tampa nut.

• 1:24:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, no kidding.

• 1:24:58Bill Simmons?

  Against the Cleveland Browns. I still, I still did good.

• 1:25:02Speaker 01

  I, I, I, it's one of those rare weeks where I lost money, but I'm not mad because I could have, I could have lost a ton. I could have, right? I could have had the, all those teaser teams, the Chargers. I only had Tampa, but the Chargers were one that lost. Who else? Who was another?

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  Who's the other?

• 1:25:15Speaker 01

  Chargers, Baltimore, Tampa.

• 1:25:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Fando, I bet. Fando, they're calling whatever, whatever date Thursday was that Bills Lions is apocalypse, apocalypse day. Cause they lost every same game parlay you could have possibly put together on Thursday, but I think they probably did a little bit better today.

• 1:25:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, they'll get back.

• 1:25:37Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs at Miami.

• 1:25:44Speaker 01

  Wow, I'm seeing this for the first time.

• 1:25:46Bill Simmons?

  I picked Chiefs minus eight. Might be too low.

• 1:25:50Speaker 01

  I said eight and a half. It is 10 and a half.

• 1:25:54Bill Simmons?

  I made that guess before they put up 33 points on the Colts. I hope I don't choke now. I had to send my picks to Eduardo like two hours ago, so I can't even cheat. Start popping up on the screen. I can't even change my guesses as we go.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Wow, that's a Accountability is a sad thing. I know.

• 1:26:15Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:26:17Bill Simmons?

  Three team 10 pointer with the Chiefs. Is it my future?

• 1:26:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's gotta be. Now we have to look at three teamers.

• 1:26:25Bill Simmons?

  You know, it turns out Malik Willis isn't that good.

• 1:26:30Speaker 01

  He was fine against the Raiders.

• 1:26:32Bill Simmons?

  It seemed like a great idea based on this extremely small sample size in December of a couple of good games he had. It turns out maybe he's not that good. And there's a reason maybe Tennessee gave up on him after a couple of years.

• 1:26:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, but the Dolphins are okay with it. They're all right.

• 1:26:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're fine. They're doing what they need to do. Giants Titans. I mean, we have no idea with the Giants because that game's tomorrow night. It's in New York. I had Giants by four and a half. I probably missed that one.

• 1:26:59Speaker 01

  All right. I had, now you're close than I am. I said three and a half. It is six and a half.

• 1:27:06Bill Simmons?

  Six and a half?

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  They just don't score the Titans. I mean, they essentially scored on, it wasn't a pick six, but it was run all the way back.

• 1:27:18Bill Simmons?

  They're in a weird spot with Cam Ward. I don't know what I would do if it was my team.

• 1:27:24Bill Simmons?

  Where I don't feel like he's the answer, but you also watch something like Bryce Young and

• 1:27:31Bill Simmons?

  you think like, well, maybe this, yeah, maybe this is like a souffle. It's got to stay in the oven for a while. But

• 1:27:39Speaker 01

  Well, if you lose to two New York teams in three weeks, everything has to be reevaluated.

• 1:27:44Bill Simmons?

  Saints Raiders. This shouldn't have been the poop factor. I should have put this in Fairly Watchables. It's in New Orleans. I think this will be a fun game. I'm excited to watch it.

• 1:27:54Bill Simmons?

  And I have the Saints by one and a half.

• 1:27:56Speaker 01

  Let me find it. Saints by one and a half is what I had also. Saints by three is the number.

• 1:28:03Bill Simmons?

  So I beat you.

• 1:28:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We'll still do the other two.

• 1:28:07Bill Simmons?

  We're tied for the season. I'm going to take out my starters.

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Three. Okay.

• 1:28:11Bill Simmons?

  I'm putting in my my mass backup quarterback.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Uh, here's what's weird about this game.

• 1:28:17Bill Simmons?

  I'm putting in Gino Toretta.

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  Which mass singer are you putting in?

• 1:28:22Speaker 01

  It's a 425 start and the Saints are home.

• 1:28:27Speaker 01

  Like if it was in Vegas, I could see, but.

• 1:28:30Bill Simmons?

  So how many late games do we have?

• 1:28:32Speaker 01

  I think they did the eight, five.

• 1:28:33Bill Simmons?

  They finally listened to us?

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  111. I think so. I think so.

• 1:28:37Bill Simmons?

  So we have

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  two, three, four.

• 1:28:41Bill Simmons?

  Arizona, San Francisco, Minnesota, Tampa, Baltimore, Dallas and Vegas. There's four. That's good. We just need four for the multi-view.

• 1:28:48Speaker 01

  So, but it's funny that that's the one they would add to the four o'clock.

• 1:28:52Bill Simmons?

  I like it. Thank you, NFL. All we want is four in the late games. Just give us four.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  We do. And I want them all start at 425. I don't like this 406 crap. 405, 406, and then two start at 425. And I'm going through the thing and I, but I can't add the 425 until it actually turns 425. And then there's always an overtime game anyway, that they're not going to click at 425. It's fine. 425. We'll still have 20 minutes before the late game.

• 1:29:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'm the chief multi-view officer of the Sunday ticket, so I'll put your complaints back.

• 1:29:24Speaker 01

  Put in a word.

• 1:29:24Bill Simmons?

  My other complaint is if you stay on Packers, Jets, but that game is turning into the next, like the Cowboys, Washington. Sometimes they'll move, even though you're on the Packers, Jets, they'll move it to the Cowboys, Washington game. And then you have to like scramble and sometimes the game will just be gone. Like something gets screwed up. I don't want that to happen anymore.

• 1:29:45Speaker 01

  Right. Well, that's why I had to do Tampa. I had to have red zone on for my TV, my computer. Because I'm like, I don't know when this game's coming back. And I lost it on the, you can't retrieve it because it's gone to another game.

• 1:29:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'll bring it up in our, in our Monday multi-view meeting. Sunday night, Rams at Broncos. I thought the Rams should be favored.

• 1:30:07Speaker 01

  Did you forget Vikings, Bucks? Or did we do that?

• 1:30:10Bill Simmons?

  Uh, we did it. Vikings minus two and a half.

• 1:30:12Speaker 01

  Oh, I'm sorry. Okay.

• 1:30:14Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night, Rams, Broncos. I made the Rams as little of a favorite as possible. Rams minus one and a half.

• 1:30:21Speaker 01

  I said two and it is two and a half. So I get that one.

• 1:30:27Speaker 01

  That's a fun one.

• 1:30:29Bill Simmons?

  I mean, Puka, we don't even know if he's playing tomorrow, right?

• 1:30:32Speaker 01

  I don't think he is.

• 1:30:34Bill Simmons?

  No Miles Garrett.

• 1:30:34Speaker 01

  Is he definitely out? Yeah. Well, that line went down a point too. Six and a half.

• 1:30:43Bill Simmons?

  The Rams line did.

• 1:30:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:46Bill Simmons?

  Monday night, Eagles at the Bears. No Caleb Williams. Tough, tough beat.

• 1:30:51Speaker 01

  Lucky ass bitches. Hate it.

• 1:30:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Eagles could be three and O with like the flimsiest three and O of all time. And their fans will do the thing where they, they pretend they don't think the team's that good, but like in their little side chats.

• 1:31:06Speaker 01

  Shock if they lose.

• 1:31:07Bill Simmons?

  If we could just be 11 and one, we'll get, we get this guy back and Howie will do something. They'll do their whole thing.

• 1:31:12Speaker 01

  Right. So they get Jaden Daniels, first game off the injury. They get whatever Cam Ward version of that that was today. And now they get Tyson Bajin.

• 1:31:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I want to look at, I want to look at the rest of their.

• 1:31:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So they have at Bears, home Rams. I'm sure Puka will be on the IR by that point. At Jacksonville, home Carolina, home Dallas, at Washington, first eight. They'll be like seven and one.

• 1:31:42Bill Simmons?

  I have Eagles minus one and a half at Chicago.

• 1:31:45Speaker 01

  Wow. I said five and a half. Well, I guess we tie. It's three and a half. Well, I said six and a half. Yeah. All right.

• 1:31:53Bill Simmons?

  So we didn't tie.

• 1:31:54Speaker 01

  You get that one.

• 1:31:55Bill Simmons?

  Give me the W for my stats.

• 1:31:56Speaker 01

  Seven. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 13.

• 1:32:03Speaker 01

  13 and eight.

• 1:32:04Bill Simmons?

  For me.

• 1:32:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:32:05Bill Simmons?

  Big win for me.

• 1:32:08Bill Simmons?

  Interesting week next week. There's, I love week three. It's really, uh, you're really getting it from some of the O and two teams. This is like, this is it. We're, there's no going back if we lose this one. All right. 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 rewards show up every time you open the app. You're up.

• 1:32:40Speaker 01

  I know PayPal very well with my kids, with how I get their money. All right. So my middle guy, Jack, is a senior in high school and we're figuring out the driving thing with him. He's not there yet, but so for now, I drive him to school every morning. Except for Fridays, when we do the Ring of Wise Guys early, we have to be seated. We have to go over the outline for a while. It takes, it takes a while. So I drive him to school. He took the super early class, so he's home by one every day so that he can get a job, although I see no evidence of that happening. So, so so my wife's busy. She's making sandwiches for the boys while riding a SoulCycle. I don't know what she's doing, but she can't help. So it's, it's, I, he goes.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  But when I can't drive him on Fridays, he's late every time. I was like, hey, you gotta leave the house. If you're walking, you have to leave the house by 710. If I drive you, we can leave by 717 and you can, you can make it by 730, but you have to leave by 7. He's not out the door at 710. And he's late and I keep getting emails every time. Now there's been like three Fridays.

• 1:33:46Bill Simmons?

  Tardies.

• 1:33:46Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:33:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:47Speaker 01

  It's tardies. It's imperative that your child be in class on time. The school may take disciplinary action if this becomes habitual. If you feel your child, student was marked tardy in error, please have them speak to your teacher to clear, clear up any confusion. Thank you. So I get mad at this. I'm like, these are stupid emails. What are you? He's like, well, when I walk, there's a light at the top of the hill. What do you want me to do? Cross against traffic? I'm like, no, now this is my problem. And so, uh, no, I don't want you to cross again. I want you to leave at 710 and so you can make it. I don't get these emails. So now I call him, uh, tardy Marty and he hates it.

• 1:34:20Bill Simmons?

  Tardy Marty.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  I'm like, oh, here comes tardy Marty. Even if he made it to school five days in a row on time, like tardy Marty. He's like, I don't like that at all. I was like, you know how you could stop that? Stops being so tardy. And then I'm like, what do I care? You know, like, why am I getting so worked up? Like there, there are no real consequences here. He's not going to get thrown out of school. They push everyone to graduate, right? Not gonna do shit. He's gonna graduate.

• 1:34:44Bill Simmons?

  Maybe he could leave, he could lead the league in tardies this year.

• 1:34:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, get something. I'm sure you got like a plaque for that or something, but it's like, you know, is he not going to win a Nobel Prize because he's tardy? Like it's, this is, this is his problem if there are consequences and there are none. So I'm not going to care anymore, Jack. You can go to school two o'clock if you want. And I'm going to also, I'm going to make a blanket out of all the tardy emails. I'm going to print them out and make a blanket out of them. So that's, uh,

• 1:35:10Bill Simmons?

  Coff table bug?

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  Tardy Marty gets for

• 1:35:12Bill Simmons?

  I thought for sure your parent corner was going to be kidney stone related.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  Oh, well.

• 1:35:18Bill Simmons?

  You've been playing in pain on the podcast since when? Thursday?

• 1:35:21Speaker 01

  I've been playing, uh, since Thursday. I had to get it checked out. I'm flying high right now with this kidney stone thing. But I'm timing out my pain meds like a, like a meticulous scientist and they're dynamite pain meds. They're really, like I have, I have a newfound respect for Brett Favre. I might, I might send you a dick pic actually after parent corner, but I don't know what I'm going to do. But yeah, I have to get this taken out. It's too big. It's 10 centimeters. It's not going to pass through my urethra or whatever. And so they have to zap it. They have to put you, they have to put like a camera and something up there and they, they zap. I know it's not good. It's not good, but, um, and it's been painful. It's painful now, but it's supposed to be even worse if it passes.

• 1:36:03Bill Simmons?

  Maybe you'll, maybe you'll come out after they, from the anesthesia and you'll find out they traded C.D. Lamb.

• 1:36:10Speaker 01

  That's right. That was a big moment.

• 1:36:12Bill Simmons?

  And a second rounder.

• 1:36:13Speaker 01

  Oh, I can't go under. You're right. That's when bad things happen.

• 1:36:16Bill Simmons?

  You have your wife be like, is C.D. Lamb good? He just got traded.

• 1:36:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:22Speaker 01

  It's Jack Tardy. What's going on?

• 1:36:24Bill Simmons?

  It's one of my worst nightmares. So what did you do wrong? I think you have to look in the mirror. Usually when you get kidney stones, it means you didn't drink enough water.

• 1:36:31Speaker 01

  I don't know. They always say to drink water. It is weird to me that just a piece of one of your organs could break off and just float around and you could be in trouble because you have to get rid of it.

• 1:36:41Speaker 01

  I don't know what I did wrong.

• 1:36:42Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't seem great.

• 1:36:42Speaker 01

  I'll drink some more water.

• 1:36:45Bill Simmons?

  I took Ben to the UCLA game yesterday, which is, they played at eight o'clock. They played Purdue. We hadn't, we hadn't really hung out for like a long stretch in a few weeks. I've been busy. He's been, you know, his girlfriend was leaving and the whole thing. So we, we haven't really like hung. And so take them, it's eight o'clock game. It's in, the Rose Bowl is for people listening who don't know where it is. It's in Pasadena. It's in this bizarre.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:12Bill Simmons?

  You, you don't even understand it. The Pasadena has got this really nice stretches and neighborhoods. And you just would not imagine like, I'll take a right there and a right. And then there's this huge football stadium. It makes, makes no sense. It's like the opposite of Lambeau. You go to Lambeau, it's like, take a right at the Target. And then you take a left at the grocery store, you know, it just feels like.

• 1:37:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:33Bill Simmons?

  The Rose Bowl makes no sense. It's beautiful. There's so much energy around the UCLA program, wearing a hat.

• 1:37:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:37:40Bill Simmons?

  Our guy, Bob Chesney. They haven't been good. And I think since like the Jim Mora era.

• 1:37:47Bill Simmons?

  And they hate USC and USC has got Lincoln Riley. And now they're like, you know, and.

• 1:37:53Bill Simmons?

  They were favored. It was, I think seven plus wins was, was even odds, basically. Right?

• 1:37:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:37:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, they win this, they're three and O. They have Oregon and Michigan on their schedule.

• 1:38:04Bill Simmons?

  Both which seem scarier games for road games than I think they do now.

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  They'll score forty against.

• 1:38:10Bill Simmons?

  Good teams, but I, both beatable, right?

• 1:38:13Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 1:38:14Bill Simmons?

  And they had this running back that he took from JMU, who's like, gonna be like a Heisman contender if he keeps scoring three to four touchdowns a game. So anyway, good energy. Great back and forth game. And my son and I got to like basically go on the sidelines for, which I'd never done before.

• 1:38:35Bill Simmons?

  And you can be on like the 20 yard line to the end zone on either side, right? So you can go, and then if the ball goes to there and you race to the other side and you basically, and they're right there and the team's right there. And it was like incredible. And my son was having a great time.

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  You're like Michael Irvin of the UCLA. Taking selfies in the corner of the end zone.

• 1:38:56Bill Simmons?

  So, so, and it's an awesome game. It's back and forth. And UCLA goes up in the fourth quarter. And it's like, they might have it in hand, but having a great time. And my son's like, hey, I'm gonna bounce. I gotta, I gotta go to this thing. And, but I've had an awesome time. It was great. I was kinda, I was kinda crestfallen.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:39:16Bill Simmons?

  Because we hung out for like six hours, but one of his friends was in town and he's like, we're gonna go out. He's recording studio. I gotta go and I'm just gonna, but I had an awesome time. And then, then he ditched me with 10 minutes left. But it's, I almost got a full football game out of him. That's just where we are with our kids at this point.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  No, you got a full, but that was a five and a half hour game.

• 1:39:35Bill Simmons?

  It was a five and a half hour hang. Yeah. We left the house at five. The game was running long. It was like at 11, but it was still, you know, it was great.

• 1:39:43Speaker 01

  Did you know he had this plan? Did you drive together? What did you do?

• 1:39:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we drove together and then he Ubered out. I had no idea. It was a classic thing that our kids do where they don't, they tell us half the story. Yeah, I'd love to go. They don't, we don't know that they have this other thing happening. But, so I was psyched that we got to spend so much time together and UCLA won three and O. But I did get dumped in like the seventh inning.

• 1:40:06Speaker 01

  It's an official game, I think.

• 1:40:07Bill Simmons?

  I was like, I don't know if I can do better than this. We're, we're on the sideline of an awesome game with an undefeated team. And it's like, I gotta, I gotta bounce. I got this recording, recording thing. So anyway.

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  Rose Bowl, shmoes bowl. Tommy's laying some tracks down. I gotta get the hell out of here.

• 1:40:21Bill Simmons?

  That's what it's like to have kids. That's 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/protectionterms. PayPal is what I use on eBay.

• 1:40:42Speaker 01

  Forever.

• 1:40:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:44Speaker 01

  It makes sense.

• 1:40:45Bill Simmons?

  I've had PayPal. I don't even know how long I've had it at this point. Like I've had, when you start thinking of some of these things that we've had our whole, like I've had Amazon since 1998.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:55Bill Simmons?

  And you can go back and you can look at all the things you bought.

• 1:40:58Speaker 01

  Can you really?

• 1:40:59Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah. You can go back and look at every single thing. And the first thing I bought were a bunch of DVDs in 1998, like actual DVDs.

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  I might do that right afterwards, after I call your father. Yeah.

• 1:41:10Bill Simmons?

  You'll be blown away. For me, it was like DVDs and, and books for like five years on Amazon. And then they started adding stuff, but.

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  Can you do that with PayPal too? I'd love to see who I gave money to in 2008.

• 1:41:21Bill Simmons?

  PayPal would be a lot more interesting. Yeah. Wait, I, I don't remember giving my son $200.

• 1:41:28Bill Simmons?

  When did that happen?

• 1:41:29Speaker 01

  Right. Well, he had to take an Uber to get away from it.

• 1:41:33Bill Simmons?

  All right. So what's your kidney stone plan? Tuesday?

• 1:41:36Speaker 01

  That's it. Somewhere Tuesday or Wednesday. These offices aren't open tomorrow for whatever reason. And, and that's gonna do it. But I'm gonna plug away. And then we're gonna get that thing zapped. Maybe I'll show it to you. Maybe I could pull it up next Sunday.

• 1:41:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I mean, the more details and the grosser it gets, I think, I think people would want that.

• 1:41:52Speaker 01

  But we got Ringer Wise Guys, gave out a bunch of good bets to, this weekend.

• 1:41:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:57Speaker 01

  Our Ringer Wise Guys. And, oh, if you had a bad beat, take advantage of FanDuel's Bet Protect program. And I have a new site. You think this is ridiculous, but betaches.com where you could show your losing ticket. And if you had a horrific football loss like Baltimore or Tampa Bay money line, and you show enough anguish, I'll reimburse you. B E T A C H E S dot com. Did you see Vanderbilt, NC State? Could we talk about that for a second? That ending?

• 1:42:24Bill Simmons?

  I had never seen an ending like that, I think, ever.

• 1:42:29Speaker 01

  NC State up three, getting three and a half points, six seconds left. They go to take a safety at the two yard line, the quarterback.

• 1:42:38Bill Simmons?

  Why didn't he just run out of the end zone? What's the big deal?

• 1:42:40Speaker 01

  Feels that he needs to bleed the whole clock. I think that's the only thing. I mean, he could have just run out of the end zone. Then there's three seconds left. And then they pumped it, whatever, sky high in the air. No, he drops back. He gets, right before he goes down, he gets strip sacked. And, and it's a touchdown for Vanderbilt, who kicks the extra point and covers.

• 1:42:59Bill Simmons?

  I still think the Posarczyk one is the best one ever of these.

• 1:43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:03Bill Simmons?

  Cause that's a good, completely changed how they played football. After that, they put the two guys behind and they were so terrified that was ever gonna happen again.

• 1:43:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:43:10Bill Simmons?

  And it just never happened.

• 1:43:12Speaker 01

  Ran it back.

• 1:43:12Bill Simmons?

  Came famous. It was like a famous, the Giants are terrible moment that looked at them. And so they finally got good. But this one was pretty great. Did people, the only thing is, did people actually bet on NC State versus Vanderbilt?

• 1:43:25Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:43:25Bill Simmons?

  Did you know people had bets on that?

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I've already, I've already seen a few. No, I didn't have. I, I stayed away from it. But you, it's funny. You said the Posarczyk thing. I think you replied to my thing like Posarczyk is the worst, the, the fumble. And people are like, you're too young. You guys are too young to know Posarczyk. I'm like, uh, actually, we're not.

• 1:43:45Bill Simmons?

  They said we were too young?

• 1:43:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:46Bill Simmons?

  It's like, no. That was a huge deal.

• 1:43:48Speaker 01

  We're too old.

• 1:43:48Bill Simmons?

  That was the only way we knew Herm Edwards for like 20 years. And all of a sudden, he was a coach. It was like, the Posarczyk guy's a coach?

• 1:43:55Speaker 01

  Do you think he got a job because of that?

• 1:43:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't know.

• 1:43:59Bill Simmons?

  That was nuts. That was such a weird moment.

• 1:44:00Speaker 01

  If Flores had a Posarczyk moment, would he be a head coach right now? I don't know.

• 1:44:06Bill Simmons?

  He needed it. Yeah, we had that. We had the guy do the snowplow to open up the.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:11Bill Simmons?

  Piece of turf for the Patriots and the Pats Dolphins game in the early eighties.

• 1:44:14Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:44:15Bill Simmons?

  We had, we had the, the game where there are no announcers. It was just whistles and you could hear the crowd.

• 1:44:22Speaker 01

  And that's with no graphics either. I think they added a couple of graphics just to be nice or something.

• 1:44:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. We remember, we, three TV channels back then. We saw this shit. All right. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahow and Chris from the Ringer side. I don't know if you saw, but we were adding the What Chaos Hockey Pod that they're launching with us.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  Oh, great.

• 1:44:42Bill Simmons?

  End of September. They're the best hockey pod. So they're coming to us in time for the season. Very excited to have, have them aboard. So shout out to those dudes.

• 1:44:53Speaker 01

  They gotta give us, they gotta give us two winners, over unders or.

• 1:44:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's a good idea.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Division winner or something. Yeah.

• 1:44:58Bill Simmons?

  We should make them do something.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. You feel good about your Red Sox? I guess, but this, we talked next, I mean, they're playing the Yankees almost definitely, right?

• 1:45:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there, there was a case for the Red Sox to potentially tank and try to be the six seed, which I felt like they were doing because they kept pitching Patrick Sandoval every five days. So it was like, are we trying to tank? I think he's 0-7 in his last eight starts, but, but no, I, I, we'll see if they can get the actual team that we're supposed to have back in time for a Yankee series, but now no judge. Judge is gone.

• 1:45:31Speaker 01

  But you'll still be an underdog. You want to beat the Yankees in the first round as an underdog. That's the best.

• 1:45:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, so we have Toley and we have Suarez and we have Gray, who all can get to the seventh inning against those guys. And then if it becomes, I mean, Chapman, of course, got hurt right down the stretch, but.

• 1:45:48Bill Simmons?

  I don't know about the bats. It's, you know, when you just watch a baseball team too much and you, you just put in like, when we get into like fucking Nut Crunch time and like October.

• 1:45:59Bill Simmons?

  Do I trust this guy? Do I trust this guy? We don't have a lot of guys I trust.

• 1:46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So. Well, this is the year. I mean, the American League has what? Four teams over 500? You can get to late October with that.

• 1:46:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, I mean, the Texas Houston division, Texas is in the lead now. They're 500.

• 1:46:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:16Bill Simmons?

  Houston seemed like they were headed toward having it wrapped up. And now Texas had Quantrill pitching his ass off.

• 1:46:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:46:23Bill Simmons?

  And he just got put on the injured list.

• 1:46:25Speaker 01

  Believe me, I'm looking. They're minus 170 to make the playoffs. I'm thinking.

• 1:46:28Bill Simmons?

  Their bats have been hot for like five weeks.

• 1:46:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:31Bill Simmons?

  Then White Sox Indians, hard to take either. I, like, to me, the Rays, like, we played the Rays on Saturday. And they beat us in a classic, like stupid Rays game where, you know, Cam and Arrow hit one up the catwalk and he got to get another at bat to get a single. And then, you know, we have a pass ball and then they get a dink hit and they win. And it was just like, okay. We had a guy get thrown out at third. Like, they're just good at all these little things. And I watch a team like that and I'm like, these are the fucking kind of teams that win. Right? Like, just like smart plays, timely catcher throws out somebody at third base.

• 1:47:07Speaker 01

  Great seven and it, seventh inning guy.

• 1:47:09Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:47:09Speaker 01

  Pitchers that aren't even expected to go past four innings. It's, I, I don't even know what to compare it to. Like Princeton basketball or something? I don't know what.

• 1:47:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. All their starters can get to the sixth inning. They have a really good closer. Cam and Arrow is terrifying. I think he's, out of all the guys I watched this year, he's the second scariest guy other than Alvarez, who's the most terrifying.

• 1:47:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's gonna be fun. We're gonna, good spot of the season here.

• 1:47:33Bill Simmons?

  Well, the ultimate revenge, right, would be if it was Tampa and the Brewers. And that was our last World Series before we had like a two-year lockout.

• 1:47:40Speaker 01

  Oh, right, right, right. Yeah. Just small market.

• 1:47:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:44Speaker 01

  I'll root for that.

• 1:47:44Bill Simmons?

  All right. So good luck with the kidney stones. We'll listen on Ringer Wise Guys. Good job by you.

• 1:47:48Speaker 01

  Good job by you, buddy.

• 1:47:50Bill Simmons?

  Bye, Netflix.

• 1:47:57Bill Simmons?

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