A Crazy Good NBA Rookie Class With J. Kyle Mann, Plus Tua’s Cleveland Adventure, and NFL Week 7 Picks With Joe House

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by J. Kyle Mann to react to the NBA rookie class in the preseason (2:55). Then, Joe House joins to make their Ringer 107 picks for the week (39:22). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: J. Kyle Mann and Joe House Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo Get Gameday Deals all season long only on Uber Eats. Order Now. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  It's football season and Uber Eats is delivering deals every single day. This week, buy a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free on Uber Eats. When your watch party gets hungry, order in and keep everyone's attention where it matters on the game. Order a four-piece signature chicken from Popeyes. Get another one free. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score great deals on Uber Eats all season long because it's not football without food. It really isn't. Popeyes offer valid through November 1st. Add eligible menu item to order prior to checkout. Taxes, fees and terms apply. Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network.

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  New rewatchable is coming on Monday. Last one for Redford Month. It is a quiz show, an awesome movie nominated for an Oscar. Brian Koppelman has been requesting it for at least five years. So he's finally getting his wish, doing it with Koppelman. That will be on Monday. If you missed Sneakers last Monday, a really, really fun one. Broke down Ben Kingsley's running for a good five minutes. So if you want Ben Kingsley running takes, get ready because I had them. So you got that. And then Sunday night, Prestige TV, final episode of Task. Right after it ends, you can listen or watch to me and Rob Mahoney and Joanne Robinson. Break down everything we thought about, not only the final episode, but the season itself.

• 1:31Bill Simmons?

  I am in Boston, Massachusetts right now. It's cold. I feel like a wuss because I grew up here on the East Coast. I spent my first 32 years here. Now, when I come back and it's cold and windy, I'm just freezing the whole time. I really, I've incorporated this into some of my sports gambling, particularly with one game we're going to talk about later with Joe House. When you go from the warm weather to the cold, this is why I moved to Southern California. When I come back, I just feel like a wuss every time. Anyway, great to be back.

• 2:00Bill Simmons?

  First, Jay Kyle Mann, he's coming on to talk about rookies because we talked about a little in the over under podcast, but not enough. I feel like we needed a whole segment talking about how great this rookie class is. So that's first. Then Joe House comes on, we're doing our over unders postmortem. And then after that, Ringer 107, that includes our single favorite game of the 2025 slate so far. So that is all next. Let's take a break and then Pearl chip. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. If you're betting on the NFL, come on, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything, same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live your way, so you can set your own lines on just about anything.

• 2:40Bill Simmons?

  The app's fast, it's easy to use, and best of all, when you win, you get paid instantly. I've been in Boston, Massachusetts recently. Guess what I did? Used FanDuel, super fun. Download the FanDuel app or go to FanDuel.com/BS to get started. Must be 21 plus, present in select states, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky and Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com, call 888-79777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 3:35Bill Simmons?

  All right, taping this late Thursday afternoon, East Coast time. I'm on my second coffee today. Dunkin' Donuts, not a sponsor. I don't think they've ever, I don't know why, I don't know how much Dunkin' Donuts I need to drink before they sponsor something, but anyway, Dunkin' Donuts.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  You think by now, I mean, seriously, I mean, it makes sense.

• 3:51Bill Simmons?

  Honestly, those ungrateful jerks, they should, something, I should have the Dunkin' Donuts studio by now. Instead, I have the Aspiration Dome in my, in my back house now. Aspiration Studios. Jay Kyle, man. Nobody knows more about the, the draft classes and the rookies. And I mentioned this on Tuesday's pod, that I really love the rookies this year. And it's so different than last year. And we did a little Dylan Harper stuff, and we did some flag stuff, obviously, and some nip, but I really wanted to deep dive. I thought this was worth an entire segment. I want to start with Harper as the second pick. I talked about him Tuesday, that he just jumped out of the TV to me immediately, like, holy shit, this guy's ready to be something now.

• 4:34Bill Simmons?

  Size, he had the body, the lefty, real patience already. Seems like he could play off the ball or with the ball. And I was just blown away. And I don't know whether that was too small of a sample size, but what did you see with Dylan Harper?

• 4:50Speaker 01

  Well, watching him in this context, and we can get to Ace Bailey, I guess, in a little bit, too. It's a similar thing is that they they've just played in a crowded elevator offense last year at Rutgers. I didn't even I didn't blame the coach. I didn't blame any of those people. They had a they had major roster turnover that was super heavy and none of their teammates really drew any respect. So the thing that popped to me immediately when I'm watching Dylan in this first in these first few games is just he had a play where he had a he got a back cut for a wide open layup. And I was surprised they didn't call timeout and just be like, Dylan, that's what a wide open layup off of a cut feels like like. Right. Enjoy this. Savor this. He had to be because I you just didn't. I was looking back at his his synergy stats. I was like, he never got wide open cuts. And, you know, Ace was always playing in a

• 5:34Speaker 01

  crowd, too. So I think he's probably enjoying that. But there's a little bit of some of these guys who are like crazy, crazy downhill talents. You mentioned his poise in the paint. Number one, I don't think that I was thinking back about it. I was like, I don't think that I have watched a more talented scoring guard with like, like poise in the paint since probably Shay in 18. Like Shay was just a layup monster. And I think Dylan is Dylan's a little bit different in that Shay was a little more angular, slithery. He's added some of that physical stuff. You know, the big shoulder bumps. I don't want to piss off OKC fans, but you know, that stuff he's developed. But Dylan already kind of plays that way. He's really, really physical. And they already had some plays where he was he wasn't even

• 6:19Speaker 01

  cutting. He was almost catching it like he was on like a jet sweep and he'd get into the lane and he's so physical. And Wimby draws so many eyes that you can already just kind of see, you know, will he be able to knock down open jumpers? You know, that'll be a thing. But he's going to be able to roam and add a lot of value, even if he's not their like, primary, even if he doesn't get a whole lot of primary, you know, point guard reps for them.

• 6:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think the overthink for me this summer was just thinking about the right roster around Wemby. And all right, now you have Fox and Castle and Harper. None of those guys are knockdown shooters. And that was kind of the glass half empty. And then you watch all those guys with Wemby now and you're just like, holy shit. Athletes and just like blue chippers, right? And the thing, I think the thing I didn't really fully think about with Harper was how ready he was athletically. Cause we've seen guards come in and either they're skinny in their first year, even somebody like Cade. I thought Cade had, I know his teams were bad, but he also seemed pretty choppy. Like we had some actual questions about, huh, what is this?

• 7:26Bill Simmons?

  Is this somebody who can be an awesome lead ball handler? Harper, my questions were, can he shoot? Can he play up the ball? It's just clear he's going to be on the court for them. And I actually think they're going to have a pretty interesting numbers problem for them with Fox and with Castle and with Harper. They're going to be able to juggle those minutes, but they have more guys after that. So, uh, I, I think like ceiling wise, that's why we all went, oh, two of us went over on the Spurs. House went under, but I went way over. I, I really feel like if he's going to be able to give them 28 to 30 minutes a game, maybe that's too high. Maybe let's say 25, whatever, somewhere in that 25 to 30, but at a high level. That's like, they just didn't have anybody like that last year.

• 8:06Speaker 01

  Is there a decent chance that they're the best team in Texas this year? I mean, I don't remember what you guys.

• 8:11Bill Simmons?

  It's in play.

• 8:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:12Bill Simmons?

  We talked about the division odds for them and about how Houston is like up here at 52. Now we got to talk about Reed quickly because I watched some preseason with him two nights ago. And he's just firing now. He's like, Bambli, it's gone, I'm, I'm fucking firing. And the bench was really into it and there was a little different demeanor to him. And so that made me a little worried about my under, but, uh, but yeah, I think the, the ceiling of San Antonio with Wemby, if he's a top five guy. Houston is not going to have a top five guy, right? So if the pieces around him are good, I don't know. I think they're gonna be really hard to play. You have that many athletes, plus you have rim protection. Plus you have some size you can bring in with him now. They have a lot of answers.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  Wimby is just flat out distracting. When you're trying to, I was like trying to watch the rookie. Every, any game you watch with him on there, I, I sent you a clip of, he was like in a, in a ball or in a handoff again in that Jazz game. And he was on the other side of the screen defender, on the other side of Nurkic. And he just reached into the frame and stripped the ball off of, I guess it was Ace. And Ace had this look like, what, what just happened?

• 9:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 9:20Speaker 01

  He's just, yeah, he's just a ridiculous distraction. But yeah, I, I think it's very much in play that they're gonna be so athletic on the perimeter, man. Um, and in terms of, you know, thinking about their roster for, for Dylan, if you're in this position, and this was the argument that I made at the time was just, I'm, I'm just thinking of it simply like this. If I have a chance to get a player, a talent like Dylan, does he fit with Wimby? That was all, I was like, I'll figure out everything else later.

• 9:47Bill Simmons?

  Do I have these two guys? I can figure out the other 10 later.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:51Bill Simmons?

  So my answer is already, he fits in.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's just, I, I think the thing with guys who have the ball in their hands is, you always kind of have to start from this first. The square one is like, are you going to be hurried? You know, and I know you like Yakachon, I did too. Um, I'm sure we'll talk about him, but that was something at like summer league, you know, guys like, guys that come into the league who are very used to hitting first, you know, like Luca is like the all time example of, he came in and he was like, yeah, I'm going to punch everyone first.

• 10:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  Dylan is the same kind of thing. It's just like, he never seems hurried around the basket. Um, and he's just really angular and clever. I was noticing too, he has some of that. You see some of those guys shoot layups, like high glass layups off the wrong foot. Dylan does this thing where he'll go wrong footed and wrong handed. And he'll like get under and just kind of get away from guys. Um, he's just really sneaky and really crafty. Yeah. And the great thing for them is that they don't have to put a ton of pressure on him to like, they can really bring him along slowly and get all the value without getting the waste that might come with like dumping too much on him too early.

• 10:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the crafty because I think that's the thing that really resonated with me. They had one play, it was, I mean, granted, it's preseason, who cares? But he had one play where he was on the ball on the right side and he's a lefty, right? And he kind of went baseline and did this kind of herky jerky back and forth thing, got lower to the rim. They did more herky jerky and then finally got a shot off. And I was like, wow, this kid's like 19. Like that's, that seemed like a move you make when you're like 26. I feel like I probably underrated last June, how important it was that they got the number two pick. Because it was so weird with the Rutgers thing was, and I know you guys, you talked about, you and Tate talked about it nonstop. Like the Rutgers thing was so weird, it was almost like the ceiling in the basement.

• 11:37Bill Simmons?

  You couldn't even come up with what it was because it was like, that was just too weird. But clearly, like, when you talk about guards coming in the league and being good right away, who have the ball a lot, it's pretty unique. You know, and then the other thing is if Castle goes up a notch, now you're talking about, okay. And they have all these trade pieces, so I'm with you. To me, like them versus Houston, I think it's a lot closer than the odds. They had, they're eight wins lower with the over runners in Houston. I think it's way closer than that.

• 12:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, Houston, I mean, Houston has a little experience on them in a couple of spots, but I'm sure, you know, the Amen love. And I'm, I'm right along with everybody else. I mean, I love watching Amen Thompson, I mean, playing at center, that's why I'm thinking about it. But like he, I'm sure Steph Castle was over there thinking, I got something for this guy. You know, I'm sure he's like, I was the rookie of the year, you know? It's just been interesting how big of a gap there's been. And you know, like Castle brings a lot of the playmaking stuff too. It's, it's just interesting what the shadow of Wimby affords them on offense and defense. Like I was watching that Miami game and there was a play, there was a particular play where Wimby, he was doing his thing where he causes big guys to just like, you know, look up and go, no, I'm not going to do that.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  And you could just see all of the other guys on the perimeter just basically become free safeties who have like five steps on the ball. So like, there was one where I think it was like, it reminded me Kalil Ware was just stuck and Kalil Ware is gigantic. I don't know if you've ever seen him in person and he was like, I mean, I can't go up with this. So he turns and looks and you could just see that, uh, I can't remember who intercepted the pass for the Spurs, but he just had an easy run to go intercept it. So they just have a lot of, you know, having Wimby. Just changes the conversation in a lot of different ways. Yeah.

• 13:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a really good point because then the other piece of that is when you have Wemby behind you, you can gamble way more and be way more aggressive 25 feet from the basket because you have some sort of protection. They're down to plus 370 to win the division. I still think, I think that I Mavs six to one is probably a reach with how long Kyrie's out. But yeah, I think that division's a little more open. The other thing I'll say with Harper, and this is like,

• 13:48Bill Simmons?

  whatever. This is a classic Bill Simmons ridiculous point. He carries himself like a star and you just like, you kind of notice him immediately. There's certain guys like that where you just see him walking around and there's for a 19 year old, like he's handsome, he's filled out already. And it just, I felt the same way about, uh, about Thompson on Houston.

• 14:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:11Bill Simmons?

  Which I was like, I don't know about these guys. And then you kind of watch them in a court and it's like, oh yeah, that guy's got it. And you just kind of, sometimes there's just these guys. You're like, oh yeah, that guy's got it. And the way he carries himself, he's in this weird situation, right? He's not starting point guard. He's on Wemby's team. You would think he would be like a little, but he's not, he's not like that at all. He's cool. So, uh, that, and then we didn't even talk about flag yet when we're talking about rookies jumping like flag, flag as a, as this all purpose Swiss Army knife. What do we need guys? Oh, Davis isn't playing tonight. Fine. I'll play power forward. Oh, should I just play point guard tonight? Um, I don't even know how you could assign a dollar value to what he brings in as a guy on a rookie contract. But this is what

• 14:53Bill Simmons?

  he's doing. He's like a max contract guy, basically, but they got him for, you know, 1.8% odds in the lottery. Unbelievable.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  He's just ready to roll right off the, right off the assembly line. I mean, I, I got to the point around the draft where I reached this point where I was like thinking about this fall and I was like, well, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I was just like, what, what are you talking about? Like, I, you know, you just step out. I was just like, what? Like every single step of the way. And I've done a few shows with Mavs people and I, and I'm just trying to just give them an idea of maybe what's coming from, from having watched him in high school and stuff. And it's like, he just, he's not stagnant in any way, shape or form. Every single step of the way. And I was like, I'm just done underestimating him. And you know, you're talking about, He has a little ways to go in terms of like his setup moves and getting to the basket, but he's also very clever and crafty about the things that he does know how to do.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  If you watch him, he's really good at like giving a bump with his back and then turning and facing. He just doesn't dance a lot with the ball wastefully. His shot looks good. He came off of a couple.

• 15:55Bill Simmons?

  Shot looks really good.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, he came off a couple of like, I don't know, they were flex or whatever type of screen it was, but he was moving, you know, left or right and hit a great shot. But you just watch him, it's the same kind of thing too as Harper is. They played a lineup, their lineups are going to be really, really interesting. They played a lineup that was like Cooper, D-Lo, Klay, PJ and Lively. And it was there because the Hornets went ahead on their first unit, if I'm not mistaken. And they put in that lineup and they just surged back. And it was, it was just really fun for a minute, you know, and say what you want about D-Lo. If you control him, I loved all the stuff you said and I'm with you on it. But it's like, if you can kind of control what D-Lo is, Cooper is already mature enough to kind of guide an offense like that. Um, so yeah.

• 16:37Bill Simmons?

  It's a little like Zion, right? Where there's going to be situations where it's like, I guess we're playing him at center. Oh, I guess he's our point guard now. He's going to be all over the map. The one thing I've noticed from watching him at Duke last year, even in the preseason stuff, it feels like he's more sophisticated offensively. With some stuff like going, going to the basket, shooting, you know, like shooting off like the wrong foot. Some of the explosive stuff, like it just feels like he's added some stuff to his bag that I wasn't positively to have. He just, he felt way more closer to Tatum than I was expecting. I'm not talking about Tatum last year before the injury when he was one of the best four players in the league,

• 17:18Bill Simmons?

  but probably like year two, year three Tatum, when he was just starting to put together some off, off, you know, some dribbling dribble move to the basket stuff. First year he was like basically in the corner, just we're basically begging him to take the ball. Then he started adding stuff and flag offensively seems like he's like where year three Tatum was, which I was really surprised by, but did you notice that?

• 17:42Speaker 01

  I mean, he's, he's very. He and Tatum are in kind of on different paths with like, I think that, and I've thought this for a while, that Cooper is ahead of him in terms of his like spatial sense and his passing and things like that. But I do, I think that Tatum was a little wigglier with a live dribble at the same age. So it's just kind of like they're coming from different spots.

• 18:01Bill Simmons?

  More size, three more inches.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  And at 25 years old, you know, maybe they'll end up at a similar spot. But I just like, I like all the different ways they can use him. He gets a little, he did get a little, he got a, he did this at summer league too, where there were a couple of times where you could tell he was really enjoying the show. And I'd never seen him do that before. At summer league, he was kind of like looking around, you know, all the players are on the front row. He makes a couple risky passes and plays. He threw a couple behind the back passes in that preseason game. Granted preseason, summer league, they're both kind of unserious. You're experimenting, you're tinkering, things like that. But he made a couple of plays like that. I was like, what, what exactly is he doing there? But I don't know, man, I just don't put anything past him anymore. Like I think he's, he plays within himself. He's just a right play machine.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  He's also a really smart, you know, the defensive stuff has translated immediately too. So.

• 18:52Bill Simmons?

  And the competitiveness is almost crazed. Like he's trying in these preseason games where you're like, dude, settle down. Yeah. The reason I brought up Tatum, what do you think he averaged in year two for the Celtics playing 31.1 minutes a game?

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Oh, that's tough.

• 19:07Bill Simmons?

  How many points a game do you think he had?

• 19:09Speaker 01

  What, that would have been 17, 18?

• 19:12Bill Simmons?

  No, 18, 19, second year.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  God, I don't know, 15?

• 19:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, 15.7.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Good guess.

• 19:21Bill Simmons?

  And he was making one and a half threes a game, 45% field goal and 2.9 free throws a game. And then year three, that 2020 season that ended up getting stopped by COVID. But that was when all of a sudden the free throws are close to five, 23.4 points a game. Flag seems at least like a little ahead of year two Tatum, but not where year three Tatum is yet. And he's not going to have the same size, but he's a maniac. And as you said, he's like, Tatum always had a question of like the, is, when is he going to learn to make the right play? What's going to happen, what's he going to do? And then he finally started to unlock that as the 2020s went along. And then last year I thought he was really good with that stuff. Flag seems like he has it immediately.

• 20:07Speaker 01

  I think this Mavs roster, there's just some funny ironic stuff going on with the fact that they have this insane collection of like elite play finishers, you know, Gafford and AD and Lively are all elite or borderline elite lob threats. Clay's one of the best catch and shoot. I was thinking today, I was like, it's kind of like that episode of the Twilight Zone where the guy has all the books but no glasses. It's like they, they, they have, he has this insane like resources and assets at his disposal. And it's like they just, if they just had Kyrie, it's like, where are they going to bend and warp the defense with some of these bigger lineups? That's why they get popped so much when they had D-Lo in there. Cause it's, AD might have one of the bigger questions of just kind

• 20:47Speaker 01

  of like, how, it's not necessarily naturally implied, like the lively AD and Gafford thing. How's that going to balance out? Because they can put some lineups out there that could be pretty interesting.

• 20:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Ironically, AD feels like he's, could be trade bait to get something than they'd, and they'd probably be a little more interesting. But I like the way they are, they're such a weird team. I think they're going to be really hard to play. And then having Flag just be able to guard dudes on the perimeter and it's already like incredible to watch him on defense, fighting over screens, jumping through. Like he's already one of the, you know, one of the higher end defenders we have. Edge Com, neither of us have watched, right?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm catching up on him. Yeah.

• 21:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I think that, I think we're fine with that because it seems like he's going to be an energy guy the first year. Knipple.

• 21:36Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 21:37Bill Simmons?

  And the Hornets in general, because there's a couple of other rookies on that team too, including Kalkbrenner, who seems like he's going to play like real, what pick was he?

• 21:47Speaker 01

  Oh, did he? He was, I don't know what off the top of my head.

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  Was he like end of first round, early second round?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  I think so. He was real, yeah, he was, I think early second round.

• 21:56Bill Simmons?

  That dude's going to play actual minutes.

• 21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised by that. I mean, I do think that like in the, in a really competitive scenario, he's probably your like rotation big, but I mean,

• 22:08Bill Simmons?

  This team, he's a 40 minutes a game center because they don't have any centers.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Well, Rob and I were talking about this last night and I was like, they, they threw some lineups out there. They threw out a Bridges, LaMelo, Miller, Khan. And I think, I think Kalkbrenner might've been out there, but it was, the ball was humming. I mean, it was, LaMelo, I was joking about this on Twitter that like, well, first I would say, I was telling Rob, I was like, I think this is going to be one of my league pass teams because it's just, they're just absurd.

• 22:35Bill Simmons?

  I'm in.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  And, but, uh, Rob was like, well, that, he was just like, dude, that front court is just one of the worst. And it's true. It's going to be, they are going to hemorrhage easy points, like on the glass. They're not going to, they're going to have a heart. They're just going to give up a lot of easy points. But LaMelo, man, I mean, he just, I, I go back and forth between, you know, I've defended him a lot. And last night I was watching, I wrote down, I literally wrote in my notes, the Hornets should find a way to trade LaMelo. And then he just rattles off five plays that no one else can make. So it's just kind of that team. And it kind of makes you wonder if, if Khan, I would love to give a lie detector test to some of LaMelo's teammates because Khan's used to playing a very regimented, like right play, we do this, this is the sensible, this level of wildness.

• 23:20Bill Simmons?

  Right. He's in a freelance jazz band now.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  Basically.

• 23:24Bill Simmons?

  I agree with you. I think they're going to be an amazing league pass team. And I like their four. I don't really care who the fifth guy is. I think the four will be fun to watch. I have no idea if they'll get stops. And Knipple is who we thought he was. Like he's in the right spots. He can, he's a dangerous three-point shooter already. He rebounds. They're going to actually need him to rebound. So no surprises. We were all in on him. Ace Bailey was a surprise to me. And we talked about this a little on Tuesday, but the, uh, the size and the ease that he's getting his points. I don't know if he's going to be able to do anything else, but it seems like. Him and then Trey Johnson, ironically, who taken right after him, those guys are just going to be able to score immediately, which is no small, no small thing for rookies.

• 24:08Bill Simmons?

  Rookies don't just come in and throw up like 25 in their third game, like especially at the non-point guard or like the small forward, whatever Ace is, I don't even know. But, uh, any surprises with Ace, other than what you already said about the telephone booth thing?

• 24:24Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, I mean, it's just, he's coming in and this is the, these are the things we knew he could do. I mean, if he has space and you let him catch and shoot, this was the, this was, this was the case at, at Rutgers is he's going to score, man. I mean, like he just, he didn't have the space and he didn't have the scheme to do that. I mean, I'm sure that, uh, I'm sure that Will Hardy knew immediately what to do with him and that he comes out there and that, you know, the, the other thing for me too is, um, I mean, you were talking about comparing him like the early KD. I think that's everybody's temptation usually. I've heard people say like Rashard Lewis. I like that. I probably should have included that, but he's a little more like an MP, MPJ type of run something for him, let him be a shot maker. Granted, anytime he dribbles the ball, I think he had one play where he tried to attack a closeout. His just awareness of help and things like

• 25:09Speaker 01

  that. It's just a little ways away. He's, he's just not quite ready to do that kind of stuff.

• 25:14Bill Simmons?

  Can we agree this is the perfect team for him? Although I guess they don't have the right kind of point guard to set him up, but.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Are the Jazz a perfect team in any way?

• 25:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, just like he's going to play minutes and get, and get shots and make mistakes.

• 25:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. And then they have a lot to gain by him even being wacky and, you know, letting loose and being messy. And I was going to say another thing too, is that I think Walter Clayton Jr. might be better than Keonte George like right now. I'm sure, I was like, I bet he was watching summer league and being like, fuck. Uh, he's just, he just looks really smooth and steady out there.

• 25:45Bill Simmons?

  He's probably older. Is he older?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  He might be older than.

• 25:48Bill Simmons?

  He might be. I mean, he's like 23.

• 25:50Speaker 01

  But he's, you know, I like him. But yeah, with Ace, I mean, everything that he does is just, his superpower is the one step thing. And that's what I was saying going up to the draft. It's like, if he has a step to go after a chase down block, he'll do something incredible. If he has a step to go catch a lob, it's just, if he has the room to show off that athleticism, if you let him jump and get to a shot, he's gonna make it. So, yeah, he's gonna have some moments this year. I wouldn't surprise.

• 26:12Bill Simmons?

  Well, all we care about is whether somebody's a fun league pass team when they're a non-playoff team. And in that case, I will test them out multiple times and try it out. We'll see how it goes. Trey Johnson too, just house, house is all in already. He's just a professional scorer. So, Fears at number seven.

• 26:33Bill Simmons?

  That one worried me a little. Like, he's definitely, they're definitely giving him the car keys and have him, you know, he's, who knows? It's early, but uh,

• 26:44Bill Simmons?

  that one, I don't know. That seemed pretty high for him at number seven. And especially, it does feel like there's like a distinct drop off between those first six guys in the seventh pick. And I don't know if he makes it or not, but did you see anything with him?

• 26:57Speaker 01

  Nothing that really like, I mean, for me, watching him in the first couple preseason games and watching him, you know, in summer league, it was like, you see all the positive. It's, it's just in a serious game. I mean, like, he can get to spots. He's very fast. He's, you know, has, he's a pretty good lob thrower. It's just, is he gonna be able to shoot pull up threes? Is he gonna get mercilessly picked on, on defense? Because, um, you know, that threshold is, is pretty, pretty cruel, no matter how good you are. And then, but I was going through, you know, early in the season, you do this thing where the, you try not to overreact to the first couple of returns, because Fears was somebody I was lower on. I think I had him in the twenties. And then, um, because of those things, and I'm just kinda going line by line. And I'm like, I had him kinda low, didn't I?

• 27:41Speaker 01

  But then you just look and you're like, all these guys are kinda showing signs that they're gonna be good. Yeah. And even, even Young Johnson for, for Portland, I would, that was one that I was lower on. It might ultimately be just like a lot of people got duped by the lack of information and Portland just had a crazy advantage with the tape. Because apparently the tape was just really hard to get on Young and it was really limited on synergy. So you kinda had to be a detective and go get that stuff. But, uh, yeah, this class is looking like it's gonna be, it's gonna be good. I mean, you don't wanna overreact, but it's looking good.

• 28:09Bill Simmons?

  The Fears problem.

• 28:12Bill Simmons?

  That's been a bust type of profile, right? Those guards that they don't have a ton of size, they're fast, but like, what's their, what's their calling card? So we'll see with him. Just zooming through, I saw Young, I call them Yang for the entire over runners podcast. I'll get it down, but he's, he's clearly something.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:32Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what he is, but he, it's like, I just signed me up for more. Clayton looks like he's going to play right away. And then, uh, this Behringer on, on Minnesota seems like he might actually play and fits the profile of somebody who succeeds on a winning team, right? Long, energy, athletic, rim runner, shot blocker. Don't ask him to do anything else, but they kind of needed a guy like that. So I feel like he's going to play. And he, and oh, and then we watched a little Malley Uch on, uh, Malleyak, Malleyatch?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Malawatch?

• 29:07Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna get this, Malawatch?

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:10Bill Simmons?

  We watched some of him on Tuesday night. And it was interesting because he was playing against Deandre Ayton.

• 29:18Bill Simmons?

  And they're kind of very similar bodies and just like he's, it was funny, like they got rid of Deandre Ayton. So they could basically take the next Andre, but he really tries and he can second jump, which I think when you look at somebody on, on that size, if you had that one jump and then kind of the play's over for you as other side, like he was able to get back up. So there's something there. I liked him in college, but I thought he fit in in an NBA game. Have you seen him?

• 29:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, my worries with him kind of started, I worried about some of these faster bigs, like jumping, getting to the ball quicker than him. I think for him, it's going to be a question of just learning how to like wager in a smart way. Whenever he's like in, you know, in space with a really fast player, like learning how to stay down and let his length just be his strength. Cause the more he like goes for things, um, I mean, Brook Lopez mastered that. There's a lot of guys who have it. He's a smart kid. I could see him doing that, but, uh, but yeah. He's, I mean, he's even bigger than Ayton, right? I mean, I think he's, uh, he's longer than Ayton. I'm pretty positive.

• 30:18Bill Simmons?

  Like kind of a little longer, but they're around the same size.

• 30:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:23Bill Simmons?

  The only other guys I wanted to mention, and then you tell me who your favorite random guy was.

• 30:29Bill Simmons?

  There might be something there with Jace Richardson.

• 30:33Bill Simmons?

  And I didn't have him on my bingo card, but I'm just, I'm kind of monitoring that one because he's unlike anybody they have in that roster, but I'm just intrigued to see if he plays. And then Gonzalez on the Celtics, you know, they keep throwing darts at the board of these athletic wings who can't really shoot, but really try hard, right? They kind of failed with Jordan Walsh. Gonzalez, I think they've been impressed by, and I think he's shooting a little better than they thought. And, and he's like an absolute maniac. I mean, he's, he's actually crazed. And, uh, and I'm wondering if he might play, but those were the two that jumped out. Who's jumped out for you at post lottery?

• 31:09Speaker 01

  I was going to say the Gonzalez thing. I was going to second that. Everything that I've heard from them is a lot of enthusiasm. Yeah. Like they're really, really loving him that, that they, I think they saw his upside as higher than, than consensus. And he is a maniac. He kind of reminds me of that, just like pesky, annoying, high motored guy that like OKC would take. And there's been some, I mean, we've talked about it before that like OKC and Boston have some overlap in the, in their personnel preferences that you've kind of been able to see. But, um, yeah, I mean, I really liked him a lot. Nick Clifford is a guy that I've gone to bat for and out on a, I mean, the, you know, I, if the Kings were gonna, if you were gonna just siphon any little positive thing for the Kings, it's that I really do like Clifford.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  And I think Keegan Murray's good, obviously. And I do think that Devin Carter is going to be worth keeping around. I think those three guys. I would, I was, I was joking about when, when Clifford was playing well, I was, it's going to be a shame when Sacramento punts him for like Kuminga in, in January, but let's hope they don't do that. But he just, he just looks like an adult out there. He, he can come at you from a lot of different ways. He can really pass the ball. Uh, he's a really good movement shooter. I just think he's going to be able to play for them really quickly. So.

• 32:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, now he gets to lose from, learn from Russell Westbrook.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  I could not believe that.

• 32:24Bill Simmons?

  Learn how to lead a team.

• 32:27Speaker 01

  Great mentorship in store here for him. Yeah.

• 32:30Bill Simmons?

  Um, and then, oh, that the Nets is the last thing. Have you watched them?

• 32:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 32:37Bill Simmons?

  The rookie smorgasbord. Did anybody jump out?

• 32:40Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, Wolf actually looked better in the, in the preseason games than he looked in, in summer league to me. You know, the, the impression that I've gotten is that they feel pretty good about the shooting upside of, of Demon when he comes back. And then, uh, but, but Wolf, Wolf looked really comfortable. He had one play, I think where he was attacking Drew Ubanks. I mean, I might as well stick with it. I had him pretty high. I had him higher than Malawatch. I think, I think I had him 13 and Malawatch 14, but, um, no, I mean, he, he attacked the basket at one point and, uh, to the right and came back to his left with it and then shot like a lefty soft left-handed shot in the lane.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  It's just all these Brooklyn guys, man. I mean, if you want to talk about like the shooting challenge of a lifetime, I mean, they drafted four guys who like to be on the ball and they all are, are questionable shooters. So I guess you, if you get maybe one or two out of the four, that can get to the point where they make a shot. But the team, I agreed with you all from the over under pod. I mean, it's just, it's just an abject disaster. So.

• 33:38Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's our preseason rookie blink test. I guess the big headlines are Harper, Harper and Flag specifically, like, really as a combo might be a, a pretty special twosome to get two guys in a draft who have a chance. I think, I think both of them have first team all NBA potential. Flag probably is safer bet. But Harper definitely, I mean, and you think like San Antonio putting him with Wemby together and just that being your foundation. Like you're pretty good if you can keep Wemby on the court. But in general, this draft seems like, really like a possible A plus draft, right?

• 34:16Speaker 01

  I think so, man.

• 34:16Bill Simmons?

  Talking about 21st century drafts, like this is, I think it's going to be one of the storylines of the year. So.

• 34:21Speaker 01

  Did you, what about Yakachonis though? That's, I thought for sure you would, uh, did you, did you have any kind of takeaways on him? I mean.

• 34:27Bill Simmons?

  I, I, I went all in. He had one bad summer league game and everybody made fun of me and guess what? I'll be vindicated because that guy went seven picks later than he should have, and it was fucking stupid. And I don't know how Miami pulled that one off, but yeah, he's, he is who he thought he was. He's fun to play with. He's going to be really devastating in pick and rolls, and I think he's going to play right away for them. I don't know with this hero being out for. 25 games, 30 games, they're actually, they, he might actually get real minutes for them. And we're going to find out almost right or he's going to get thrown in the fire. If you're talking about throwing in the fire, guys, he's probably one of the few that a team's actually going to need, I think, especially if Rozier, I guess, is just whatever the hell happened with him.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:12Bill Simmons?

  But.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  He looked like he had real chemistry with Ware when he was out there. It's just kind of like, it's, you know, you want to say the Pajimski thing because he's got the reddish blondish hair. You want to do like the aesthetic bias thing where you're like, oh, that looks like that.

• 35:24Bill Simmons?

  He's a better passer though. He's, he's.

• 35:27Speaker 01

  It's close. They're both pretty creative. I don't think it's a ding on either one of them to say like, you know, they're both kind of in the same. But he's going to be dared to shoot, but he's young. I don't, you know, if you're riding him really hard as your primary guy, I think you're going to come away frustrated. But if he's just kind of moving within the teeth of their offense and, and he's got good hands on defense too. I don't know. I, I think he's just going to be a nice rotation guy for them, you know, so.

• 35:51Bill Simmons?

  All right, before we go, give us 45 seconds on why Reed Shepard is the X factor of the 2025-26 season. Cause this was your guy. You were all in on him being good.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  You know, as another white guy who's six foot one and from Kentucky, I felt like I took a personal interest in Reed Shepard, shocker there, but.

• 36:10Bill Simmons?

  You threw the name Mark Price around, was thrown around at some point. You threw a couple of big names around with him last year.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  I did. I don't think he's as wiggly like as a pull-up shooter as Price. I think that was off, but I think he's more of a. I wrote something before the season started where I was just talking about how they might use him. People are just assuming he's just going to be pounding the ball all the way up there at the top. I think if they have him be super, super aggressive with his shot, just be that, start with that, that proposition. And then if he doesn't have a shot initially, he's running off screens and things like that, you just, I know they want him like three-point attempts is a great stat for them. They're not as obsessed with the makes. Like if he gets them up and establishes that audacity for their offense, that's something that they can use. And you've seen him. I mean, he's being hyper aggressive. He's not afraid. He's a really good connected passer.

• 36:59Speaker 01

  I just think it's going to take some time before they can like really lean on him. But man, yeah, he's, I mean, he did, he turned the ball over immediately twice in a row when I turned the game on the other night. But he kind of, he steadied the ship, but that's, yeah, man, I mean, as long as he's aggressive from three and not a liability on defense. I think that's, that's a good starting point for them with him. Yeah.

• 37:18Bill Simmons?

  One thing I noticed with them, they just put him in the right corner.

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  And you have Durant at the top and you have Thompson kind of floating around being Thompson. And then just Shepard, you just, he's just pulling the, you have to, you can't leave him.

• 37:33Speaker 01

  He'll, he'll stand up by the.

• 37:34Bill Simmons?

  Release.

• 37:35Speaker 01

  He'll stand up by the hash mark sometimes. They'll have him like post stand up there like 38 feet away. And it's like, you gotta take a step towards him, but yeah.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  He's got that rare thing where he, if he gets the pass right, he could just flick a three.

• 37:48Speaker 01

  The no dip.

• 37:48Bill Simmons?

  Like he doesn't, yeah, he, there's like five guys in the league, like Curry obviously, I think he probably invented it. But there's five guys in the league who could just do the quickies. So they got that. But anyway, I thought, I, it made me think like, I wonder if they're just going to use him as an, almost as an off the ball. You have to worry about this guy over here, guy to basically open up the rest of the space for them. I still don't understand how their offense is going to work with, with guys who just, I don't want to say ball stoppers, but also ball stoppers. I want to see how, who's the glue guy that, that kind of combines everything is a big question I have with them.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  I think they'll try to go get Dinwiddie. I feel like Ime would kill Dinwiddie. I can't, I can't imagine that relationship working, but. No, I mean, I think the, the last thing I'll say about the Rockets, if you were going to give one positive, and I said this in this piece is that I think the guys who are like making decisions off the catch. That is one area they upgraded. If you're talking about Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks and you're talking like, you get Durant, Durant's a better passer. I think Shepard's a better passer, just a little smaller. So I mean, that's one thing that you can work with. But I think that initial like on ball to off ball toggle thing is something that he can do now. So, yeah.

• 38:58Bill Simmons?

  All right. Comment. What's your next thing for the Ringer?

• 39:02Speaker 01

  We're starting up draft stuff, wrapping up a gigantic project that I'm hopefully going to be able to announce soon. And then, uh, yeah, so we're just going to start covering the college season and the rookies.

• 39:11Bill Simmons?

  Awesome. Good to see you. Thanks.

• 39:13Speaker 01

  You too.

• 39:14Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to by Uber Eats. Every football season, the same thing happens. The game somehow makes everybody really hungry. Quarterback scrambles clearly a sign for breakfast burritos. Yeah. Turnover suddenly deserted 2:00 P. M. Doesn't sound so crazy. Wing formations. Well, those can only mean buffalo wings as if they're ever not in play. Even the goalposts start looking suspiciously like french fries. It's almost like football is sending a message to eat more food. Yeah. The good news, Uber Eats makes those cravings easy to satisfy with game day deals all season long. From wings and pizza to chips, drinks, and even last minute grocery runs. Don't sleep on those. You'll find savings on all your favorites delivered straight to your door.

• 39:59Bill Simmons?

  Order now on Uber Eats. All right, Joe House is here. It's Thursday afternoon. I'm on the East Coast. We've already done like four and a half hours of content this week, but just in a normal week, if our picks had been going as badly as they had been, maybe I just bump you for the week. Oh, House was on the NBA over unders pod. I'll just get somebody else for this week, but we had a really good week, though. We were four and own. Verno was own one on our picks.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Poor Verno. Yeah, trial separation would have made sense, but buddy, when we fuck and it's good, we have to stick with it.

• 40:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we gotta stick together. Let's talk NBA over unders, the aftermath really fast.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 40:37Bill Simmons?

  Because FanDuel, I talked to them because they do the super boost every year.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:42Bill Simmons?

  And it looks like this is going to be the super boost and they're going to be pushing this starting on Friday. Here we go. The Milwaukee Bucks, a team that you, me and Zach all agreed on as locks at 42 and a half.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  Triple lock.

• 40:59Bill Simmons?

  Triple lock. 45 plus wins for the super boost because we needed to, we need something. Golden State 45 plus. We all were over on them at 47 and a half, so we're getting a little value there.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:11Bill Simmons?

  And then OKC, who's over under 62 and a half wins. We all love that. That's 60 plus. So Bucks 45 plus, that's gonna be the hardest one. Warriors 45 plus and OKC 60 plus. That's gonna be around plus 415, plus 420 range. And with the parlay boost token, gets bumped up into the plus five. 35, 40 range, however it nets out. So that's the boost and we need the Bucks is basically how this needs to go.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  So that the question is who's gonna fuck us? Do you think it's the answer would be the Bucks?

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's they, they would have to overachieve three wins beyond their or two and a half wins beyond their over under number.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  We, we, we think that that 45 is probably the right number, especially with some developments that we're going to see coming in the East.

• 41:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we had, we had them in the four to five to six range in the East. And, you know, I, I was thinking about some of the picks we had after and some of the arguments we had. And like, what would be your do over? Because for me, I think I, I'm not positive I was in the right spot with Orlando with the under. It was 50 and a half. And I think I just, I had too many overs. And now I'm looking at that going, why did I go under on those guys? Saying I didn't feel good about it to begin with.

• 42:28Speaker 02

  I'm, I'm queasy about Orlando. I feel like we, I, I'm not that concerned about that. It, it depends on a hundred percent health. Well, why did that team with all those young guys have bad injury luck last year? Like those guys, Franz Wagner is young, Paulo was young and Suggs is young and Suggs is not starting the season on the basketball team.

• 42:49Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, that's why I backed up.

• 42:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I, I just, I don't think that we were in the wrong direction in terms of Orlando. The one that I personally would do over is San Antonio, because the way that the West is shaping up, you and Zach both went over on San Antonio. I went under. I don't like going under based on a thesis that that depends on a little bit of injury, bad luck, but I did it. But that I would do, I would do that over because I'd like to be on the side of just rooting for the, the Spurs to be awesome and for Wemby to be awesome all season.

• 43:22Bill Simmons?

  I thought you were going to be a coward and actually flip your pick on that, which, by the way, Zach did. What did he do? He added a locker. Zach had one, he did his 180 on one of his picks, which I thought was pretty funny.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  It's okay. That's our first time together.

• 43:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, the, the biggest tragedy of our podcast, we were very, very, very, very, very. Very, very, very hard on the Sacramento Kings. Very hard.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  Zach.

• 43:50Bill Simmons?

  Very hard.

• 43:50Speaker 02

  Tremendous job by Zach Lowe.

• 43:52Bill Simmons?

  We just were carving them up and they got spiteful and mad and upset that we did that. And they signed Russell Westbrook the next day and they deprived us of the ability to talk about it. How, how fucking crazy of a signing that is. Four over hundred podcast. It's like, why are you doing that? That would have been five minutes of content. How dare they?

• 44:13Speaker 02

  Tremendous because they told us, just suck it. We're not giving you any, anything else to add to your, uh, highly, you know, inappropriate snark.

• 44:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then here's the other thing they did. Keegan Murray, who's starting out the season hurt. I mean, he'll come back. They gave him a hundred and forty million dollars for five years.

• 44:32Speaker 02

  Oh my God. How did we miss this? Can we do the worst contracts, the NBA worst contracts next week?

• 44:38Bill Simmons?

  We do it after the All-Star break every year. And I'll tell you something. Keegan, his resume for top 10.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Right off first week of the season, we got a resume in.

• 44:49Bill Simmons?

  Those are my least favorite contracts. When it's a guy who can't be an All-Star and you're paying him basically right under that thirty million dollar a year. Those are the ones like from Patrick Williams and the Bulls when they gave him ninety million for, for five.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:05Bill Simmons?

  That range basically from Patrick Williams to Keegan Murray is like the fucking graveyard of bad contracts.

• 45:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and you know, it's the team not, not having a firm conviction. So they, they kick the can with a shit contract.

• 45:19Bill Simmons?

  And he's one of those, he seems fine on paper guys.

• 45:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 45:23Bill Simmons?

  You watch him and you're like, oh, hypothetically, I like him. And there's some other people like this, like I, I probably liked Jabari Smith more than most, but Jabari Smith, for the most part, has been a hypothetical guy versus an actual guy.

• 45:38Speaker 02

  Well, this, this really.

• 45:39Bill Simmons?

  He has size and I can play him as a stretch five. Keegan, I, I, I can't.

• 45:43Speaker 02

  We should just call, give that category a name. I think it's the Emmanuel quickly, the annual Emmanuel quickly.

• 45:48Bill Simmons?

  That's another one.

• 45:49Speaker 02

  That, that's the one, like that's the contract.

• 45:51Bill Simmons?

  That's, yeah, the Raptors have like five of these contracts. They're like tweener contracts.

• 45:56Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 45:56Bill Simmons?

  They're, they're like a notch under an All-Star spot, but you could probably get somebody to make four million dollars a year, who could put together eighty-five percent of the same stats. That's where the issue is.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  That's where it comes in.

• 46:10Bill Simmons?

  That's why I didn't even like that Jovic contract, but anyway, uh, yeah. So other than as we head toward opening day, I think those are the biggest NBA stories that happened.

• 46:21Speaker 02

  Fun.

• 46:22Bill Simmons?

  Let's see.

• 46:22Speaker 02

  Good stuff.

• 46:23Bill Simmons?

  Let's talk NFL.

• 46:26Bill Simmons?

  We did well last week. We were four and O. I liked the slate this week. You said you only like three games. We have this new pact where we don't talk at all about the games beforehand. So I have no idea what games you like, and I was just gonna go through the stayaways first and stop me if any of these were your games.

• 46:43Speaker 02

  Okay, great.

• 46:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't want any part of that Lions five and a half over the Bucks.

• 46:49Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting. Why not?

• 46:52Bill Simmons?

  Because I don't know who's playing receiver for the Bucks.

• 46:56Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't know who's playing defense for the Lions. I don't want to bet against Baker Mayfield ever. The way the heater that he's on, but I also don't really want to bet on the Bucks when I don't know who's playing. The line is in the Vegas zone for a reason, and it just felt like a stayaway to me.

• 47:10Speaker 02

  So early in the week, I was plowing into the Lions. I have a ton of Lions exposure. They have a tremendous record off of a loss, the combination of Dan Campbell and Jared Goff. I lost some of my enthusiasm. I'm saying it right now. I'm not going to buy out of the position, but the Brian Branch suspension is bad. That's bad for a team with all of the injuries in the secondary. That dude is heavy lumber and for him to be out plus the secondary. Now, I do still think for, for the Buccaneers, this is the moment where it finally catches up with them, but it seems like Mike Evans, Mike Evans is practicing.

• 47:47Bill Simmons?

  I'm starting him in the fantasy league I care the most about. Also, there's cheap touchdown potential for them too. I, I, stop.

• 47:54Speaker 02

  It's fine. It's fine. I'm not. So I, it went from a love for me into like a like, and you know, I, I, again, the Brian Branch suspension was a, was a, I'm not going to use the word I was going to use, a bummer.

• 48:06Bill Simmons?

  Very fun game to watch and I look forward to belatedly doing a Bucks.

• 48:13Speaker 02

  Giant overs.

• 48:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I feel like on Sunday, I'm gonna do a Bucks tease with the over and probably just out of pure boredom. We'll see. I think.

• 48:22Speaker 02

  The thing that I love the best about when you are in Boston, it's really dangerous.

• 48:28Speaker 02

  The FanDuel.

• 48:30Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Flow. Oh, my, my, my.

• 48:32Bill Simmons?

  Is it dangerous or is it glorious? Why did you use the wrong O U S word?

• 48:37Speaker 02

  In the eye of the beholder. I mean, the text that I'm getting from you, you're just sitting there firing, firing, firing. How long are you in Boston for?

• 48:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm only here for a couple of days, but you know, the problem is I'm leaving, I'm leaving Saturday and there's gonna be some runway bets as well.

• 48:57Bill Simmons?

  Couple of those.

• 49:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, the funny thing is like, we're taping this before Pittsburgh Cincinnati today, which is just the definition of a just stay away. It's a Thursday night. It looks like a classic bad spot for the Steelers. I don't want to bet on the Bengals, but I'm sure I'll talk myself into something just out of pure boredom. Plus, there's baseball, a little interspersing.

• 49:19Speaker 02

  It's great.

• 49:21Bill Simmons?

  Washington and the Cowboys in Dallas, I think is a stay away for us.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  No, thank you. Please let's stay away. I think Dallas is gonna win.

• 49:28Bill Simmons?

  Game? Cause that's like one of those.

• 49:29Speaker 02

  Kidding me?

• 49:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're in trouble if you lose.

• 49:31Speaker 02

  Play quarterback.

• 49:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're in trouble if you lose that.

• 49:34Speaker 02

  Incredible. The Pats defense for Washington is not setting the world on fire. They let Caleb Williams go right down the goddamn field for the game winning field goal. I did not enjoy it.

• 49:47Bill Simmons?

  It's kind of a must win because your next three are at Chiefs, Seattle, and then Detroit.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  I think we can get Seattle at home, but the other two, those are losses. Put them in the lost column now. I mean, Washington's, you know, this is, they're gonna have to battle hard to get to nine and eight and be in the playoff conversation.

• 50:07Bill Simmons?

  Are you, how worried are you on a scale of one to 10 about my bet that I have against you and every other person you know who likes Washington?

• 50:13Speaker 02

  I already took the 500 bucks and put it in a sock. Cause I was supposed to say the amount out loud.

• 50:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, we did. It was $500 a person.

• 50:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:22Bill Simmons?

  I got an extra two wins because the Pats were plus seven and a half or seven and a half over under Washington was nine and a half.

• 50:28Speaker 02

  Those were the totals. I mean, that was it. We played it that way.

• 50:31Bill Simmons?

  Where it could get lucrative is it's win by win against Chang. The Pats have the easiest schedule the rest of the way.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  It's outrageous. It's outrageous.

• 50:41Bill Simmons?

  The Pats could just stumble into like 11 and six out of nowhere. So.

• 50:44Speaker 02

  The funniest thing that would have, that could possibly happen is the Titans beating the Patriots this week, except for it's Vrabel's revenge game. So I think the right way to play it is Patriots by 55 points. I'm going to be in the alt spread market looking at that.

• 51:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, when you said the funniest thing that could happen, I thought you were going to tell the story of the dinner we had with Chang and Nathan.

• 51:07Speaker 02

  I'm not telling that story.

• 51:07Bill Simmons?

  At Capo on Saturday.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  No, because you can't say the restaurant's name if we tell the story.

• 51:11Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm not going back there. I'm happy to say it.

• 51:13Speaker 02

  I love that restaurant. I want to go back there.

• 51:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, they need to apologize to us.

• 51:18Speaker 02

  They, they, I think they apologized to Nathan already.

• 51:21Bill Simmons?

  Did they apologize?

• 51:22Speaker 02

  It was an all timer. He said they apologized. It was an all timer.

• 51:27Bill Simmons?

  They, they brought bottles of wine and didn't tell us the price and tried to jack the price out of us. Like, like we were like.

• 51:34Speaker 02

  I wouldn't.

• 51:35Bill Simmons?

  Zucked out basketball players.

• 51:37Speaker 02

  We just didn't do enough sort of inquiry.

• 51:39Bill Simmons?

  They didn't tell us. And then they brought a dessert wine that we didn't ask for and then charged us for that. I've never had, I've been going to restaurants my entire life. I've never seen that happen.

• 51:49Speaker 02

  Well, the dessert wine is like just completely unnecessary. It is not, you know, for us.

• 51:54Bill Simmons?

  They were like bringing us like dessert wine because Chang was there. No, they, they decided to bring us a bottle and charge it to us.

• 52:01Speaker 02

  The cherry on top.

• 52:02Bill Simmons?

  If I, if I said what the price of the bottle was, people would actually believe it. Yeah, I'm not going to.

• 52:07Speaker 02

  Don't say any prices.

• 52:08Bill Simmons?

  I'll never go back there. So I have no problem. We'll see if it's.

• 52:11Speaker 02

  I love, I'm going back. They, they have my business. I love that spot.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  I hate, you know, when I, when I used to work as a waiter and bartender, we had this one, one waiter we worked with. And it's like, you know, it's standard. If it's six people or more, it's a standard, like you add the tip, right? It was, I think it was 18% in the nineties.

• 52:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 52:31Bill Simmons?

  But you would tell the table. It's like the right thing to do. It's like the karma thing to do is to be like, hey, just so you know, the tip has been included.

• 52:40Bill Simmons?

  And this one waiter we worked with would never tell the tables, hoping he would get double tipped.

• 52:45Speaker 02

  Was it the J Bug?

• 52:47Bill Simmons?

  No, the J Bug would never have done that, ever.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  The J Bug is a man of integrity. I don't mean to-

• 52:52Bill Simmons?

  The J Bug would never in a million years have done that. He is-

• 52:55Speaker 02

  To the contrary.

• 52:55Bill Simmons?

  An all time karma guy. It was this other dude we had.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 52:59Bill Simmons?

  And he wouldn't tell the tables and it would, we would get so mad. It was like, this is fucking terrible that you did that. He's like, well, I got 36% instead of 18. So congratulations, fuckface. I just think when you do stuff like that, the karma comes back. So we'll see.

• 53:13Speaker 02

  That's fine.

• 53:14Bill Simmons?

  We'll see with that place. Anyway, back to the football game.

• 53:19Bill Simmons?

  Broncos, Giants, Broncos minus seven at home against the Giants. That is, uh, two crappy offenses.

• 53:27Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 53:28Bill Simmons?

  I don't want any part of this game and either way, I have no idea who's gonna win. I don't ever want to bet on Bo Nix again.

• 53:33Speaker 02

  Well, that's the problem.

• 53:34Bill Simmons?

  And I'm not putting them in a tease, anything.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  The problem is it's them at home. The funny thing is it's basically the same number as the beginning of the season. The Titans at the Broncos landed, it was, it was over the summer, seven and a half, it moved up to eight and a half. And then the Titans covered, but you know, it's another rookie quarterback on the road. And there is a lot of reason to be skeptical about the success the Giants have had.

• 53:58Bill Simmons?

  Quarterback against a great defense, like who takes unnecessary chances. I don't, I just, I'm just scarred from last week.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  We're staying away. It's good. It's fine.

• 54:06Bill Simmons?

  Last one that I looked at and I was intrigued by the 49ers minus one and a half against the Falcons.

• 54:12Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 54:13Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, especially Falcons coming off a Monday night game, great win. They're home, they're feeling great. Now they're on the road. Bosa's out, Warner's out. Who knows who's actually playing for the Niners? And it just felt like an awesome spot to be like, oh yeah, of course. And my shit detector is going off. It's a Sunday night game.

• 54:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't trust the Falcons. I, I, I just can't, I can't get there.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Definitely don't trust them on the road, under any circumstances.

• 54:41Bill Simmons?

  Just period. Their, their defense is first against the pass, it's fourth on third downs, it's seventh in sacks. Like, all the stat signs are like, you should probably bet the Falcons here, but I'm not. It needs to stay away.

• 54:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I agree with staying away. Um, I'm, I will end up playing this game as Sunday night rolls around and I will be,

• 54:59Bill Simmons?

  of course.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  I'm gonna play the Niners, um, just because we, we, we established the rule for ourselves, so we don't play the Brown, the, the Falcons on the road.

• 55:07Bill Simmons?

  I would probably do the Niners, or, yeah, or some tease that takes the Niners to four and a half or above, something, something goofy. We'll see. Like, by Sunday, Kittle might be playing.

• 55:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 55:18Bill Simmons?

  You know, like, they might have a couple receivers that we don't, right now, we don't know who's playing.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  Do we, is Purdy playing? We expect.

• 55:23Bill Simmons?

  We don't know. That's why, that's why they can't be in there. But I, I think that's worth monitoring. If that's, if line stays under three and they get some guys back, Falcons, outdoors, night game, California.

• 55:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:35Bill Simmons?

  Uh, it, that feels a little bit tasty. So, one other one, I didn't know if it was a stay away or not. Well, there's two, actually. One is, uh, Texans Seahawks.

• 55:47Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 55:48Bill Simmons?

  Houston, plus three and a half in Seattle. And initially, I was like, this looks like a, like a smash spot for Houston, because I really like their defense.

• 55:59Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  And I don't think the Seattle home field advantage has been there the last couple of years. I mean, the record backs it up. I don't know what happened to it. Um, Houston's defense, first in the league scoring, fifth passing, seventh rush. Seattle's offense has looked good the last couple of weeks, but maybe Houston can disrupt them. And then you look at the Seattle defense, but the stats, the stature, some of the stuff they're doing against Houston's, like, really shitty offensive line. As Lombardi always said, offensive lines don't travel. You're putting them in Seattle with a loud crowd. And Seattle, second against the run, third QB hits, second hurries, third sacks. Just feels like, oh, I have Houston, and then.

• 56:44Bill Simmons?

  A quarter and you're like, oh my God, they can't block Seattle. So I think it's a stay away unless you feel strongly.

• 56:49Speaker 02

  No, I don't. I, I have a little on the Texans already because the three and a half is just too rich for me. And you mentioned how bad Seattle's been at home. See that, that, the thing with Seattle that I can't forgive them is that loss against Baker Mayfield and the Bucks. Like that was a situation that, that Seattle, if you're a serious team, you need to take care of business. That's a, that's a, you know, seeding in the playoffs kind of game. The implications are there because Seattle already lost at home to the 49ers. So like, these are the teams that you have to beat if you're going to be, you know, in a serious place come playoff time. But you're, you're, you're right in terms of, you know, we, we can't bet on the Texans with that offensive line. We just can't do it.

• 57:34Bill Simmons?

  If we were 20 and 10 and Ringer 107 right now, I might've talked myself into it, but we, we need wins. There is one, one parlay that I didn't stare at for a while. If you take Houston to plus seven and a half

• 57:46Bill Simmons?

  and you take the under up to 47 and a half.

• 57:50Bill Simmons?

  I don't see 48 points in this game with the two defenses unless there was some weird turnover, special team shit. I just don't think.

• 57:56Speaker 02

  Just, just play it all the way up. Take, play it at full teaser. Texans up to nine and a half and whatever the total is for the full six.

• 58:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, the 47 half, you're getting like seven extra points for the over under. 47 half's a nice number because then.

• 58:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. Key numbers.

• 58:10Bill Simmons?

  That's a lot of points. Yeah, that's a lot of points. So anyway. And then the other one that I think is a stay away, but I'm willing to be talked out of it just because I probably overrate this team. Saints plus five and a half in Chicago.

• 58:25Bill Simmons?

  Is this one of your three?

• 58:26Speaker 02

  We're playing this one, buddy.

• 58:28Bill Simmons?

  Oh, okay.

• 58:28Speaker 02

  Let there be no doubt. Me and.

• 58:30Bill Simmons?

  Let me move that one up. Okay. The other one I was looking at from a T's standpoint, Jacksonville and the Rams, and sadly this is in London, which has become, we're 0-3 in London games. Jags are plus three. Ostensibly are going to have a home crowd. Who knows?

• 58:48Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 58:48Bill Simmons?

  Rams flying there. Puka is questionable and probably not playing. And if he plays, he's on one leg. That makes me nervous. The Jags are just goofballs, but the, the, the spot I was thinking that made me feel better about this is, is a parlay or a tease, taking the Jags up into the seven and a half, eight range, and making the Rams have to beat them by two scores late. Cause I'm not positive they can.

• 59:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:15Bill Simmons?

  But the London game scares me. So what do you think of that one?

• 59:18Speaker 02

  We're not playing it. It's, it's, it's, we have, there's a reason that we have a rule against playing the London games. There's a, I mean, we're, we're just not playing it.

• 59:26Bill Simmons?

  We've broken the rule for three straight weeks.

• 59:29Speaker 02

  Big, big dumb asses. Uh, so having said that, I do think the Jags are the correct side and directionally, you know, putting them in some, there's no reason that you can't sit on the runway Saturday afternoon and, and fire off whatever you want on that. We just can't put it into this contest under any circumstances.

• 59:48Bill Simmons?

  You wouldn't even put that Jags plus eight and a half?

• 59:50Speaker 02

  Fuck. No, no, no. They're playing in London on Sunday morning. There's a reason that we have a rule.

• 59:58Bill Simmons?

  So the Chiefs minus 11 and a half at the Raiders, they're minus 700. And I think for any parlay, they have to be in. Rice is back.

• 1:00:09Bill Simmons?

  Bowers, I think the Raiders without Bowers is just, I'm just not afraid of them. I know there's some history with these two teams. The Raiders have beaten them weirdly, like maybe two times over the last four years. But, uh, this to me feels like they break where she rice out of the garage. They drive them around. They do little wheelies outside in the street. They zoom it down. They rev the engine a little. And they probably take their foot off the gas in the second half, but I feel very comfortable throwing them in some sort of parlay.

• 1:00:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:00:42Speaker 02

  On the money line?

• 1:00:42Bill Simmons?

  As a minus 700. Yeah. It's a, it's a, we, we do a three teamer.

• 1:00:45Speaker 02

  Great. Sure.

• 1:00:46Bill Simmons?

  I feel great about putting them in it.

• 1:00:48Speaker 02

  Great. No problem.

• 1:00:50Bill Simmons?

  No chance though. Gino and the Raiders, nothing? Anything scare you?

• 1:00:54Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 1:00:57Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs kind of quietly up to the number three offense in the league by EPA now.

• 1:01:01Speaker 02

  Catastrophe is the only thing that scares me with that.

• 1:01:04Bill Simmons?

  Pretty bad. They, uh, they barely beat Tennessee last week.

• 1:01:10Bill Simmons?

  Who then immediately fired their coach and the coach's dad. Callahan tire fires.

• 1:01:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, the Raiders kind of beat Tennessee's ass. Tennessee like tried to show some life in the fourth quarter.

• 1:01:18Bill Simmons?

  Twenty points.

• 1:01:19Speaker 02

  Tennessee is so bad.

• 1:01:20Bill Simmons?

  Callahan tire fires is no longer.

• 1:01:24Bill Simmons?

  Our guy Callahan finished four and 19 against the spread for his career. He's the number one worst against the spread in the history of football since they've been tracking spreads.

• 1:01:32Speaker 02

  It's amazing that. I think I only bet against him half the time.

• 1:01:36Bill Simmons?

  At what point in your life do you brag about that?

• 1:01:40Bill Simmons?

  Like when you're like 65 years old and someone's like, I heard you were a coach. Yeah, coached an NFL team. Really? What team? Tennessee. Coach there for a year and a half. Pause. You know, I have the worst record ever. It's spread. Nobody's ever done worse. There were 23 opportunities to bet for against me. And if you bet against me, you won 19 of the 23. It's a record.

• 1:02:05Bill Simmons?

  It's 80% of the time you bet against me, you won. It's never happened before.

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  He's a record holder. That's it. You know, I'm a record holder as a, as an NFL head coach.

• 1:02:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I hold the record. Really? What record? Well, it's a weird one.

• 1:02:21Bill Simmons?

  Also, like, how did Hugh Jackson not have the record?

• 1:02:24Speaker 02

  I, you put that question into one of the threads. I, did anybody answer it? There's no way that, that, that Hugh Jackson did very much better. A little bit better, maybe, but not very much better.

• 1:02:35Bill Simmons?

  Four and 19 is just incredible. I'm in awe of it.

• 1:02:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:39Bill Simmons?

  It's like when, like when we were growing up and they would show Bob Beaman's Mexico City jump.

• 1:02:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:02:44Bill Simmons?

  And you'd be like, oh my God, he jumped four feet further than everyone else. How did he do that? Four and 19. Really amazing. Great stuff.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  Outer limits of human achievement.

• 1:02:55Bill Simmons?

  That dumbass Tennessee owner group, they fire, they fire the GM, they fire Vrabel, they hire this guy, they, they, and Ryan Carthon, they fire him. They, they've had four firings in two years.

• 1:03:08Speaker 02

  What an amazing, I think we need to look up.

• 1:03:10Bill Simmons?

  They should have Vivek Ranadabey as their minority owner. Get him in there.

• 1:03:16Speaker 02

  Shots there.

• 1:03:17Bill Simmons?

  He could own a piece of the Titans.

• 1:03:18Speaker 02

  That's disrespectful because Sacramento, at least, they were lighting the beam just a couple of years ago. It wasn't that long ago.

• 1:03:23Bill Simmons?

  They lit the beam for like six months.

• 1:03:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, but that was a good team and they were, they took the, the Warriors to seven games. Like that, you know, when, when, when's the last, Tennessee was the last good one. Mike fucking Vrabel was the head coach.

• 1:03:34Bill Simmons?

  They went 12 and 5 with Mike Vrabel.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, good, good head coach. Yeah, this decade.

• 1:03:39Bill Simmons?

  Speaking of the Titans, Pats Titans, it's in Tennessee. It's the first game after a fired coach. And uh, it's, it's been Drake May National Appreciation Week.

• 1:03:52Speaker 02

  On the ringer for sure.

• 1:03:55Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean on the ringer? On everywhere. Watch ESPN. I, I had.

• 1:03:58Speaker 02

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:03:58Bill Simmons?

  I, I flew to Boston on Wednesday and there I had ESPN without the sound just on the TV. And it was like 17 Drake May segments. I mean, these advanced stats for him are unbelievable. Why are you so? Hey, listen, I'm sorry you got the wrong quarterback from the draft and then he's two years older and that he's not as good as Drake May. I'm sorry.

• 1:04:15Speaker 02

  Patriots in the AFC Championship game, then we can have that conversation.

• 1:04:18Bill Simmons?

  Fair enough. Thunderstorms and wins for this game, and yet I am not deterred. I think the Pats have to be in a, in a parlay with us.

• 1:04:26Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't want to do it. I wa, I don't want to do it. I want nothing to do with it. I'm, I'm literally in the alt spread market right now for that game on the idea that Vrabel would like to win by 20 or more points. And if you want to lay.

• 1:04:41Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you mean like a pour it on game?

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, pour it on game. Why wouldn't he pour it on? But here's the problem. It is the new coach situation, which is not favorable.

• 1:04:50Bill Simmons?

  That didn't work, didn't work last year.

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  I'm just saying in general.

• 1:04:54Bill Simmons?

  I think they've been 0-2 with the new coaches last year.

• 1:04:57Speaker 02

  Favorable situation, but the thing that, that.

• 1:04:59Bill Simmons?

  They're terrible. Tennessee's terrible. They're terrible.

• 1:05:04Speaker 02

  The New England Patriots put the fucking ball on the ground five times against the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Pitt, the New England Patriots beat the crap out of the Steelers up and down the field, but put the goddamn ball on the ground. I just am not there yet all together. I can't trust the team. I will put a small bet on.

• 1:05:22Bill Simmons?

  Fortunately for me, I have two picks that I get to make myself.

• 1:05:28Bill Simmons?

  I get two.

• 1:05:29Speaker 02

  This is true.

• 1:05:29Bill Simmons?

  We split two and you get one.

• 1:05:31Speaker 02

  You're right. You're right. You're right. You are the boss.

• 1:05:34Bill Simmons?

  I, you didn't even make a case against that. You're just like, ah, I don't know. They put the ball on the ground five times a month ago. Congrats.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  They did that.

• 1:05:43Bill Simmons?

  Did you feel like Packers Cardinals should be in any sort of parlay or T's Packers minus six and a half in Arizona?

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:05:49Bill Simmons?

  No Marvin Harrison, I'm assuming because he had a concussion. Third string running backs for Arizona, maybe Jacoby Brissette again.

• 1:05:56Speaker 02

  They showed some life against the Colts. Now, what that tells you is some more about the Colts, which we'll get to soon enough than, than, than about the Cardinals, but the Cardinals are playing. You know what I mean? Like I just with the Green Bay team is too schizophrenic for me. They left the back door open. I mean, we were almost in a situation where Joe Flacco was going to have the ball in the fourth quarter with a chance to either tie or take the lead. Come on, that's at home. That's a, that's a Lambo. I don't, I don't trust Green Bay yet. I'm telling you right now, just for you, I am going to play the New England Patriots minus 19 and a half, available on the Fanduel Sportsbook. This is why I'm playing it at plus 420. The kids know what that means. Plus 420.

• 1:06:39Bill Simmons?

  Can we start a new segment with Fanduel called Runway Bets? Airplane runway bets? That's one of those that I wouldn't do until the guys like, please shut down your phones. We were about to take off. Please make sure your belts are fast. They're like, oh my God, I gotta bet the Pats plus 420. Let me get this off. Hold on pilot. Let's take a break and then we'll talk about the games that we love.

• 1:07:02Speaker 02

  I'm pro football Hall of Famer Brian Dawkins, and I lived for a long time with something I did not know the name of, major depressive disorder. I carry sadness and anger because I thought I could handle it alone, but I couldn't. Now I want to make sure others know that that support is out there. If you're experiencing similar symptoms, talk to a healthcare professional. Visit MDDAllies.com to watch my story.

• 1:07:28Speaker 03

  Paid partnership with Johnson and Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Capletam, Lumateperone.

• 1:07:40Speaker 04

  I needed more from my antidepressant. So my doctor added Caplyta, lumateperone, proven to provide greater relief from depression symptoms than an antidepressant alone, building on my progress without starting over. Caplyta is for adults with major depressive disorder when used with an antidepressant and is available by prescription only. Individual results may vary. In clinical trials, weight gain was not common.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  Elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. Caplyta is not approved for dementia-related psychosis. Call your doctor about new or sudden mood changes, behaviors, or suicidal thoughts right away. Antidepressants may increase these risks. Report fever, confusion, stiff muscles, which may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. High cholesterol and weight gain may occur, as can high blood sugar, which may be fatal. Monitoring is recommended. Common side effects are sleepiness, dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, feeling tired, and diarrhea. These aren't all the side effects.

• 1:08:27Speaker 04

  Ask your doctor about Caplyta. Learn more at caplyta.com or call 888-252-4824.

• 1:08:33Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible, the workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetraes. All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching.

• 1:09:18Bill Simmons?

  Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. All right, this is interesting. So we didn't talk about beforehand which ones we liked. You said you liked three games. Have any of them come up with? Was Saints one of the games? Saints was one of them, yes. Okay, let's talk Saints then. Saints plus five and a half at Chicago. Saints outdoors, Bears overvalued. So those things cancel each other out. Bears defense, 32nd yards per play, 31st against the run. They have no pass rush whatsoever. And a pretty lucky win against your dumb team last week with your stupid turnovers.

• 1:09:56Speaker 02

  More than pretty lucky. The effing Washingtons fumbled the ball at midfield with three minutes left in the game on a third and short with a chance to just win the effing football game.

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:10:07Speaker 02

  The goddamn Bears have won two straight games by the score of 25 to 24, one point. And both of them have been these preposterous outcomes where the other team is like, would you like to win a game this season? So dumb. I'm so upset with it, but five and a half.

• 1:10:23Bill Simmons?

  Funny, you, it all, they always talk about turnover regression and regression on fourth down, all this stuff. And you had all these amazing stats last year.

• 1:10:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:10:32Bill Simmons?

  And we're watching in real time this season, the regression just flipped. Like last year, third and three from midfield with the chance to put the game away. You would've got, you would've taken two chances.

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  Run it.

• 1:10:44Bill Simmons?

  Put it away.

• 1:10:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:10:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what the difference is this year.

• 1:10:47Speaker 02

  The offensive line isn't as good. There's no receivers.

• 1:10:53Bill Simmons?

  No McLaurin.

• 1:10:54Speaker 02

  Right. So that's the difference. And Jaden had a bad game.

• 1:10:57Bill Simmons?

  All right. So what's your case for this Saints plus five and a half?

• 1:11:00Speaker 02

  It's a ridiculous number. It's, it's the Bears. The Bears is the case, like five and a half. What are we talking about? If you wanted to say the Bears at home, you know, by, by two and a half or something, some reasonable number, less than a field goal. But this is based on priors that don't exist this season. The Saints are, are, uh, averaging nearly five yards per play on the road against good teams, against Seattle and, and, and Buffalo. They did it against, uh, New England. This is the easiest defense that the Saints will have confronted by far, by a long shot. And, you know, the Saints have, have better, uh, net yards per play. There's a whole bunch of stats that just support the idea, we're not saying that the Saints

• 1:11:45Speaker 02

  are good. They're competent though. They're playing hard and we're seeing in front of us Rattler growing more and more comfortable, even if they end up in a game script where the weather is gonna really mess with this. I'd much rather have the Saints offense in bad weather than the Bears offense in bad weather. Bears can't run the football. The Bears got lucky with a, with a, with a real route swing pass to goddamn Deandre Swift against my Washington team where Kwon Martin like thought he was playing two-hand touch. He two-hand touched him on the sideline and then won 55 yards for a touchdown. That was the game deciding goddamn touchdown. I am not a believer in this Bears team. Give me all the five and a half points and I'll probably play New Orleans on the money line as well.

• 1:12:30Bill Simmons?

  It's a great case. I'll add this. New Orleans, they lose 13 to 20, 20 to 13 in week one to Arizona. Right? First week, they actually were a little more competitive than I think people realized and Cardinals went up early and the Saints were like coming back trying to win.

• 1:12:47Speaker 02

  There was like wide receiver with the ball in his hands in the end zone with 13 seconds left for the Saints. It just didn't stay in his hands. The ball fell out of his hands, but we're about to tie that game up.

• 1:12:57Bill Simmons?

  49ers week two, lose by five, another respectable effort. They get killed by the Seahawks in Seattle in week three. That's a good defense game.

• 1:13:05Speaker 02

  Turnovers. They, they, that game was all turnovers. Their net yards were fine.

• 1:13:10Bill Simmons?

  At Buffalo, hung around the entire game.

• 1:13:13Speaker 02

  Whole game.

• 1:13:13Bill Simmons?

  And I, I watched that game and had that game on and was shocked how they were able to get first downs and just kind of hang around staying. They beat the Giants 26-14. Last week against my team, 25-19. We watched together. Some awful calls, some of the worst calls ever and multiple times, Pat's guys were wide open down the field, but they pressured May. Like they, they were around him the whole game. They moved the ball. Like I, Rattler was okay. Like they had a chance to win that game. So their schedule has been pretty good. Like they haven't played a shit team yet, unless you count the Giants. And I don't think the Giants are a shit team. They're not one of the five worst teams.

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  No, they're not.

• 1:13:54Bill Simmons?

  I agree with you. I think this line is too high. That's why I had it marked down.

• 1:13:58Speaker 02

  The other thing that I like and I'm tracking now that we're enough weeks in, I'm looking at the allocation of tickets because the public is getting annihilated. So I just want directionally to have some, some validation, some confirmation. Right now, 60% is on Chicago. That's on the FanDuel Sportsbook. If you go under their stats thing, 60% of tickets on Chicago. So directionally, that makes me feel good.

• 1:14:22Bill Simmons?

  One of the most fun is taking a team right after they looked awesome on a Monday night game.

• 1:14:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:14:28Bill Simmons?

  And also Aikman was really hard on Caleb Ames in that game and it turned into a story, but uh, I don't know. I stayed with Trey Aikman.

• 1:14:35Speaker 02

  And I mean, the Saints are going to play zone coverage and the weather's going to be bad. Let, let's see it. Let's see it, Caleb. I like, I mean, you know, I'm rooting for Caleb. Went to my high school.

• 1:14:44Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk Panthers, Jets? Was that one of your three?

• 1:14:46Speaker 02

  It was not.

• 1:14:49Bill Simmons?

  Panthers minus one and a half at the Jets. Tic Tac game.

• 1:14:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:53Bill Simmons?

  And I'll admit Bryce Young on the road has been admittedly rough. It hasn't been great. He's been, it's been a home away situation with them. At home, they've been good. Panthers finally with some skill position guys. Defense not terrible. Fourth against the run. Sixth, first downs allowed. Jets defense 32nd forced turnover. Something's got to give with them and Bryce Young on the road. Panthers defense, ninth against the run and their issue is pass defense. The Jets don't have Garrett Wilson and we're already 32nd out of all the teams in passing success. Every metric ever.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:15:33Bill Simmons?

  So there's two things. One would be you could say, well, if the Jets don't win this one, they might not win this year. Like this is a nice spot for them. The other one is like, maybe there's something here with Carolina. Like to get over the hump, they'd be four and three after this game. We could do the, whoa, oh my God, the Panthers are four and three.

• 1:15:54Bill Simmons?

  I think this is going to be Justin Fields' last start ever.

• 1:15:58Speaker 02

  Well, do we know for sure that he's starting? Have they announced?

• 1:16:00Bill Simmons?

  He might have already had his last start ever last week.

• 1:16:03Speaker 02

  There was, it was up in the air. I thought they were, the news reports were suggesting that Tyrod might be the starter.

• 1:16:09Bill Simmons?

  Great.

• 1:16:09Speaker 02

  There's some news out there that suggests that.

• 1:16:12Bill Simmons?

  The Jets are terrible. And I thought Denver, we watched that game together too. If Bo Nix slides in the first half over the, over the marker, I just think Denver wins by 30. This feels like it just boozed the whole thing. Anyway, I like the Panthers. So you're not as enthused.

• 1:16:31Speaker 02

  Just because I, I mean, let them show us, let them go win a game on the road. Just show us that you can do it.

• 1:16:36Bill Simmons?

  We need five picks.

• 1:16:37Speaker 02

  I don't care who, you know. It's, it's. I don't like going up against a team that hasn't won yet. Even in the completely depleted state that the Jets are in and that the coach, that head coach, he will soon enough again be a defensive coordinator.

• 1:16:57Bill Simmons?

  I like when he's, Aaron Glenn's already doing the, I've been, I watched this with Dan Campbell. It takes a while to build a house and doing that whole thing. It's like, you know what else would help build the house? Call timeouts for the end of the first half.

• 1:17:09Speaker 02

  A little foundation, you're using the right materials.

• 1:17:12Bill Simmons?

  Game management maybe helps a house.

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  Construction manager. Yeah. Some of those things could help.

• 1:17:17Bill Simmons?

  Was Vikings Eagles one of your, one of your games?

• 1:17:22Speaker 02

  I gave it a good, long, hard look.

• 1:17:25Bill Simmons?

  Let's give it a hard look now. Vikings plus two and a half. At home.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  Against the Eagles who don't have Mitchell at cornerback.

• 1:17:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:17:36Bill Simmons?

  Probably don't have Dickerson and they're off, there's like a million pieces you can find online about how different their offensive line is this year than last year. Carter playing hurt or not playing. Their best guy, their night and day when he's not out there. Zedarius Smith just retired?

• 1:17:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Bill Simmons?

  They have no pass rush anymore. This is their top three pass rushers are now out.

• 1:17:57Bill Simmons?

  And hurting a cornerback against Jefferson Addison. I don't love that. I assume it's Wentz. I don't mind Wentz against a, a really bad defense, but the Eagles.

• 1:18:09Bill Simmons?

  The real thing for me, I think that you could say the Eagles have a below below average defense so far this year. I think that's fair. They're somewhere in like the, if you have four, four tiers of defense, they're in the third tier. They're not bottom tier, but third. Their offensive stats are unbelievably bad. Like, and they back up what we've been watching, which has been a big shit sandwich. 29th gets passed, 25th gets a rush, 28th yards per play, 31st tackles for loss. And they're against this Minnesota defense, second versus pass, second on third down, third QB Harry's. They have Cashman and Van Ginkle coming back this week. They're home, they're underdogs. And I don't understand the line.

• 1:18:49Speaker 02

  What is the line now?

• 1:18:51Bill Simmons?

  The line is Vikings plus two and a half.

• 1:18:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, we would be playing it a Vikings plus two and a half. So here's the problem for me. This is why I was stuck on it. The Vikings haven't really done much in terms of like inside the numbers. They're 0.4 net yards per play better against Chicago.

• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  Who they came back late to win against Atlanta with Penix.

• 1:19:19Bill Simmons?

  You going full nerd on me right now?

• 1:19:20Speaker 02

  Well, I'm just like, like looking at this, like they, they, you know, they have Atlanta, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh on a neutral field and Cleveland. Right? This is, this is like these games, these teams that they played under these circumstances.

• 1:19:39Speaker 02

  Not really blowing me away with this Minnesota team. Now you would say, well, you know, Cashman and Van Kinkle missed a chunk of, of a significant chunk of those games.

• 1:19:49Bill Simmons?

  Yes, they did. They were missing the two linebackers who were the fuel to their team.

• 1:19:54Speaker 02

  And the reason to be bullish on the Vikings is Jalen Hurts has been horrific, horrific against two man and against zone defense. Absolutely terrible. And the Minnesota Vikings will blitz the hell out of him. But you know, the only thing you have to like, say to yourself is we're betting on Carson Wentz or they're, had they said for sure that it's Wentz?

• 1:20:24Bill Simmons?

  Can I offer you this? I just looked this up on FanDuel. Vikings up to plus three and a half. Chiefs money line minus 120, right at the cutoff of what we can do for a parlay.

• 1:20:38Bill Simmons?

  And now we're over the field goal hump with that.

• 1:20:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't hate that. I don't hate that because it still permits the idea that the Eagles win a close one. I don't like the defense, the matchup for the Eagles in any way, shape or form.

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs money with Vikes plus three and a half. Okay.

• 1:21:04Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:21:05Speaker 02

  We have two comebacks by Minnesota that kind of have saved their season. They came back against Chicago in that fourth quarter and they came back in the final like, you know, minute against Cleveland.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  But we didn't have Addison the first three games. Now they have the two receivers with Hawkinson.

• 1:21:21Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:21:22Bill Simmons?

  I think they can run on them. I actually like Jordan Mason. I think he's been good. I have him on one of my fantasy teams.

• 1:21:27Speaker 02

  We also like O'Connell off the bye, right? With the chance who's got a long look at this Philadelphia Eagles.

• 1:21:35Bill Simmons?

  The Eagles have been telling us who they are for six weeks and they really could be two and four.

• 1:21:39Speaker 02

  Okay, I kind of like it. I kind of like it.

• 1:21:41Bill Simmons?

  Vikes plus three and a half, Chiefs money minus 120.

• 1:21:44Speaker 02

  So that's one of our bets. Put that in the book.

• 1:21:46Bill Simmons?

  I marked it down.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:21:48Bill Simmons?

  Two more games. Chargers Colts? Did that one intrigue you?

• 1:21:53Speaker 02

  Oh, it sure did. Yes.

• 1:21:54Bill Simmons?

  Chargers minus one and a half favorites at home against the Colts. The Colts have major, major cornerback injury stuff. Like they're just like, they've been ravaged. So there's that. We watched them last week play Arizona. And Jacoby Brissette, who was not a playable quarterback last year for New England, I think he went 27 for 44. He threw for over 300 yards. There was like a quarterback controversy in Arizona after the game. And the reason he did so well was the Colts defense was awful. And if you look at it, they beat Brissette by four. They beat Geno, they beat Cam Ward, they beat Bo Nix in a game that they should have lost, that stupid leverage

• 1:22:36Bill Simmons?

  play, and they beat two in week one. The Chargers have, it seems like Joe Walt's coming back for left tackle.

• 1:22:42Speaker 02

  Oh.

• 1:22:42Bill Simmons?

  Seems like he did the limited practice, like might be back and then Khalil Mack might be back as well.

• 1:22:50Bill Simmons?

  And it's funny, I started the week really liking the Colts and thinking they were underrated, but these defensive injuries comes down to this for me, Joe House.

• 1:23:01Bill Simmons?

  This just to me feels like a Justin Herbert is awesome game. And that we're gonna find out if Johnson is playing, but I think he is. He's been limited practice, but if Brissette can do that against the Colts defense, this just feels like a Justin Herbert, just take us home. Let's, all we need to do is win by three, Justin Herbert. Just take us home.

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:19Bill Simmons?

  Add this to your MVP candidacy. I'll ride you. And also, should the Colts really be six and one? Like, that seems crazy.

• 1:23:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Good. We're on the same page here. Um, all the reasons you just listed, that, that Colts secondary without Shavarius Ward, who has been incredible.

• 1:23:38Bill Simmons?

  So he got concussed before the game.

• 1:23:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:23:41Bill Simmons?

  Yesterday. It's a week long injury anyway, but I think that, I mean, he's had multiple, multiple concussions.

• 1:23:47Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:23:48Bill Simmons?

  So I don't think we'll be seeing him. Yeah, they have no D backs.

• 1:23:52Speaker 02

  They have no D backs. The other thing I love is that the public is on the Colts. Right now, 59% on the Colts hitting this. Now, we wanted to get to 60%, so go ahead, public, please. Hey, the Colts, the Chargers barely beat the Dolphins last week, so let me have the Colts on the road. Okay, please, please do that. Let's get this nice 60% for the public.

• 1:24:13Bill Simmons?

  Chargers, the top six against the pass. So the, the thing that would worry me in this game is they run all over the Chargers. Taylor just goes nuts.

• 1:24:23Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:24:24Bill Simmons?

  By the way, they've played in LA already, weirdly. They played the Rams in LA. So this is, they did the SoFi double. I don't know if that's good or bad.

• 1:24:32Speaker 02

  And lost close.

• 1:24:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  Do we really believe that Indiana Jones is going to be?

• 1:24:40Bill Simmons?

  Six and one?

• 1:24:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, and as triumphant as he's been thus far.

• 1:24:45Bill Simmons?

  Awesome, like.

• 1:24:46Speaker 02

  Not one mistake.

• 1:24:47Bill Simmons?

  Let me ask you this. How many games in a row can Daniel Jones play before just having an awful game? Before just submitting a shit sandwich? Like, what's a realistic number? Even if we're like, the best case version of a Daniel Jones season?

• 1:25:02Speaker 02

  I mean, I have my right hand up. I'm ready to see it. This is the game.

• 1:25:06Bill Simmons?

  We've gone through six games where he hasn't been terrible in any of the games.

• 1:25:10Speaker 02

  He has not been. He's been very good.

• 1:25:12Bill Simmons?

  Where we haven't seen, oh, man, he's just walking off the sidelines with that weird look on his face.

• 1:25:17Speaker 02

  Chargers minus one and a half. Grab it.

• 1:25:19Bill Simmons?

  Chargers will be five and two if they win this.

• 1:25:23Speaker 02

  They will have earned it, too.

• 1:25:25Bill Simmons?

  I think if they win this, first of all, it completely changes the complexion of Texans Seahawks on Monday night because if the Texans can steal that one, all of a sudden they're back. Isn't that right? But I feel like we're going to be flipping our opinion on the AFC South all season.

• 1:25:41Speaker 02

  Probably.

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  All right, I saved the best for last. I knew this would be one of your games. There's just no doubt. We have the Cleveland Browns favored by two and a half against the Miami Dolphins.

• 1:25:53Bill Simmons?

  The weather report, I don't think ominous is a strong enough word. Here's what we know we have. Definite, definite rainstorm.

• 1:26:03Bill Simmons?

  The mile and hours for the winds, they said conservative 15 to 20, possibility of 50 to 60? The temperature is not going to be that low. So you, so with the Tua thing, it's like when Tua under, Tua and the Dolphins under 40 degrees, Dolphins in any state are under 40 degrees, like just an automatic smash. But, uh, but two in bad weather, and then on top of it, their defense is 32nd against the rush. So if this is just that it's bad weather, let's see who can run the ball. You have on the one hand, a defense can't stop the rush. On the other hand, you have a Cleveland defense that's third against the run and is, is, is good, even though they didn't look great last week against Pittsburgh.

• 1:26:44Speaker 02

  The most important thing by a long shot is that it's the Cleveland defense at home.

• 1:26:50Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:26:50Speaker 02

  The Cleveland defense at home is magnificent. And, you know, they took a season off last season, but the season before that, when they went into the playoffs with Joe Flacco as their quarterback, a dominant defense at home. We are right back in that saddle. Again, a dominant defense against the run in particular, and Tua not being able to throw the football in these weather conditions, oh.

• 1:27:16Speaker 02

  The fact that this stayed.

• 1:27:17Bill Simmons?

  Only their third, only their third Browns home game this year too. And you're right, they're a completely different team when they're home with the defense. Go ahead.

• 1:27:24Speaker 02

  Well, all I was gonna say is, is, um, I forgot what I was gonna say.

• 1:27:29Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:27:30Speaker 02

  The Gabriel part too, like remember, um, the situations that, that he was put into as a starting quarterback. He went up against Minnesota with the blitz defensive Flores. Welcome to the NFL. And then they, they lost a day. They traveled from Europe back to the United States to play Mike Tomlin at Pittsburgh. So, you know, I, I, I think this is his first like real week to be with his. Yeah, right, right.

• 1:27:56Bill Simmons?

  I don't think he's very good.

• 1:27:57Speaker 02

  I don't think so either. I'm not making a case for Gabriel.

• 1:28:00Bill Simmons?

  Very good, the Miami Dolphins. So how about this house? They have the 32nd rush defense, right? Last in the league and we have some bad rush defenses. They played Kamani Vidal last week from the Chargers. They played Rico Dowdell. They basically turned Rico Dowdell's career around. They played the fucking Jets.

• 1:28:21Bill Simmons?

  They played my team that rushed for 22 for 45 with their two starting running backs last week. We can't run the ball at all. I'm making up Derrick Henry and Alvin Kamara trades with my friends. And then they played James Cook and Taylor, who are two of the best. But i- if you're, if four of your six games against those four teams and you're 32nd against a rush, you can't stop the rush. So this could be the Judkins game of all time would be my guess.

• 1:28:46Speaker 02

  Let's go.

• 1:28:46Bill Simmons?

  This is it. This is the, you know.

• 1:28:51Bill Simmons?

  Browns minus two and a half feels like a miracle.

• 1:28:54Speaker 02

  And I just don't understand why it stayed at two and a half.

• 1:28:57Bill Simmons?

  I, this is my favorite game of the year.

• 1:29:00Speaker 02

  I feel the same way. And you know what?

• 1:29:01Bill Simmons?

  This game, I can't wait to watch Miami shivering cold with the wind. Tua and Myles Garrett coming after Tua, Tua in horrible weather. Like this just feels like a fucking godsend.

• 1:29:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. All over it. I wish we could bet this five times. Let's enter this into the contest. It says Browns, Browns, Browns, Browns, Browns. I wish we could do that.

• 1:29:22Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead, but what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails.

• 1:30:07Bill Simmons?

  So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. Today's Breaker 107 brought to you by FanDuel. We are 14 and 16 for the season, but we had a lot of momentum from last week. And we've had a lot of bad luck this year, and I feel like our luck is starting to shift. We have five picks. House has the first one. Saints plus 5.5 in Chicago. You thought this line was three points too high? You don't like the Bears? You think the Saints are maybe a 5.5 on the frisky scale? What else am I missing?

• 1:30:42Speaker 02

  It's time to pour some settle down juice on the Bears.

• 1:30:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, is there any bitterness that they beat your team last week?

• 1:30:48Speaker 02

  Yes, they definitely is.

• 1:30:50Bill Simmons?

  Turning the ball over and letting them hang around?

• 1:30:51Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes. There was a lot of bitterness.

• 1:30:54Bill Simmons?

  The Bears have won a couple dumb games. Anyway, I think this is a three-point game and maybe the Saints can win. I'm with you on that one. Next one, we both like Chargers-Colts. Chargers minus 1.5.

• 1:31:05Speaker 02

  Fine.

• 1:31:07Bill Simmons?

  The Justin Herbert MVP game. Let's see it. Colts defense ravaged with secondary injuries. Let's go, Justin Herbert. Show us why you should be in this conversation with Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes and my guy Drake May.

• 1:31:21Bill Simmons?

  Outrageous. Maybe Josh Allen. I forgot about him. Don't want to forget about Josh Allen. But yeah, the Colts, uh, this feels like a bad spot for them. Second LA trip for them already. We're waiting for the Daniel Jones. Don't forget that he's not a mortal lock to be good all the time guy. We are. Next one, Panthers minus one and a half against the Jets. This is my pick. Panthers minus one and a half. We're breaking the seal off of Bryce Young and the Panthers skill guys. Rico Dowdell, Ted McMillan, Jalen Coker from Holy Cross coming back. Think they can move the ball. Listen, we've said the Panthers, only bet on them at home. I think this is when we finally get some growth. We get some stories on Sunday night. Panthers finally

• 1:32:03Bill Simmons?

  won one on the road where they looked like maybe, uh, by the way, they could be four and three after this. And I think the Jets are just reprehensibly bad. They might be. No Garrett Wilson. The way to beat the Panthers, throw the ball on them. Jets 30 second pass offense. No Garrett Wilson. Sounds awesome. Next one is our parlay. Chiefs money line against the Raiders. Free to throw that one in. It's minus 700. Pat's money line against the Titans. Callahan tire fires no more. Pat's on the road. Rayball all time revenge game. House loves this for Pat's minus 19 and a half as an airplane runway bet. Plus 420. So minus 19 and a half, plus 420. Anyway, Chiefs money line, Pat's money line. We're

• 1:32:44Bill Simmons?

  gonna bring the Vikings against the, uh, the Smokey Mary's Eagles up to plus seven and a half at home. Love it. We think that can actually win the game. We sure do. But, uh, Chiefs money line, Pat's money line, Vikings plus seven and a half against a Vikings, uh, Eagles team that, uh, has not looked awesome. Right. And then last but not least, our favorite pick in seven weeks. Literally. Cleveland Browns minus two and a half at home against Dolphins. Thunderstorms?

• 1:33:15Bill Simmons?

  Wind estimated between worst case scenario 50 miles an hour, scariest scenario 60 miles an hour. And Tua and the Dolphins and DJ Mikey Mack.

• 1:33:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:33:29Bill Simmons?

  Just trying to dial it up with their 30 second run defense as the Browns run all over them, their defense goes nuts. And we like the Browns at home.

• 1:33:36Speaker 02

  We sure do. Quinshon Judkins breakout game, more breakout game in that defense against this.

• 1:33:42Bill Simmons?

  Sounds great.

• 1:33:42Speaker 02

  Let's go, man.

• 1:33:44Bill Simmons?

  That's today's Ringer 107. It's brought to you by FanDuel Odds. Subject to change. House, you did so well, I want to pour you a glass of dessert wine and then charge you $500 for it.

• 1:33:54Speaker 02

  Oh, well, that feels like a bargain. 500? You're only charging me 500?

• 1:33:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, maybe I went low. House?

• 1:34:03Speaker 02

  Hey, hey.

• 1:34:05Bill Simmons?

  I'll see you next week. Good luck in the Ringer 107.

• 1:34:07Speaker 02

  Good luck to both of us.

• 1:34:10Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Kyle Mann and House and Eduardo and Gahal. Enjoy the weekend. I'm going to be back on Sunday night with the Cuz talking NFL. See you then.

• 1:34:34Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-797777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes? Post-workout recovery is a big factor. Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout with high-quality

• 1:35:19Bill Simmons?

  protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate. It's all you need for your recovery in one bottle. Available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you. Visit corepower.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures WildHorse9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the Sharp Witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner. Martin McDonagh, writer-director of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. Set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island, Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys,

• 1:36:03Bill Simmons?

  Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters November 6. Get tickets now.