An OKC-Houston Slugfest, MJ on NBC, and a Seven-Week NFL Awards Draft With Danny Kelly, Danny Heifetz, and Craig Horlbeck

Bill reacts to the start of the NBA season with OKC's defeat of the Rockets in a double-OT nail-biter (2:32). Then, Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly of The Ringer Fantasy Football Show join the pod to have a midseason check-in draft (22:17). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Danny Heifetz, Craig Horlbeck, and Danny Kelly Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is sponsored by State Farm®. Don’t settle for just any insurance when there’s State Farm. Presented by @MichelobULTRA #ULTRACourtside LDA 21 and over. Drink responsibly. 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  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 carried 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.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Paid partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Brian Dawkins has not prescribed Caplyta lumateperone.

• 0:37Speaker 02

  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.

• 0:57Speaker 01

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• 1:24Speaker 02

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

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. I put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. It was the last episode of Redford Month. We did Quiz Show, a movie that he directed. It was me and Brian Koppelman, so you can find that wherever you get your pods, preferably on Spotify. Also, Prestige TV, we broke down the last episode of Task. Is it the season? Is it the series? I guess it's just the season. We will find out. But it was me and Joanne Robinson and Rob Mahoney talking about that on the Ringer.com. We did a bunch of basketball stuff this week. We have a bunch of basketball podcasts and we were about to talk basketball at the top of this podcast. I had the shrewd idea, veteran experience, because we have a full podcast. We did a whole football thing.

• 2:13Bill Simmons?

  Me, Danny Kelly, Danny Hyphitz, Craig Corbeck. We handed out some after seven weeks awards. We came up with a dopey draft gimmick that was really fun, actually, and basically broke down the whole season. And it could have been its own podcast, but something in my head was like, OKC versus Houston. We should wait to see what happens in this game and maybe that could be the lead of my podcast. So my instincts were correct. The veteran, Bill Simmons, he's seen some things in his day. Anyway, we're going to talk about that at the top and then a big, big football. After seven weeks, I don't even know what the gimmick is that we did, that you would call it, but I had a really good time. It's all next. We'll take a break, then approach you. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel.

• 2:57Bill Simmons?

  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. 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.

• 4:02Bill Simmons?

  All right, OKC versus Houston was the first game tonight. It was on NBC, so was Warriors Lakers, which is happening right now as I'm recording this because I'm recording after the OKC Houston game. Listen, we've seen a million Warriors games. We've seen the Lakers without LeBron. We know what we're getting from that game. We did not know what we were getting from OKC Houston and what we got was an absolute masterpiece. Double overtime. Houston had chances in regulation. OKC tied it with two seconds left. SGA just went into MVP kick ass mode down the stretch there. OKC in OT had big leads, started missing threes, missed a crucial dunk. Houston comes back, tie game. KD does the Chris Webber timeout. They don't call it.

• 4:46Bill Simmons?

  We go into double OT and then SGA just kind of took over. And then all of a sudden he didn't because Shengun hit this runner and Houston was up. And then the last possession of the game, SGA on the side, KD guarding him. And he does like this triple spin thing, gets KD to foul and makes both free throws. And OKC wins the game and we're about to break it down on a very special segment. Look at this. I got some Michelob Ultra's next to me. We're going to open a six pack. This episode is brought to by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. And as the NBA season starts, one of the big questions I had was what's up with this Houston team?

• 5:27Bill Simmons?

  They don't have a point guard. They have all this size. They, who is going to be the guy they go to at the end of games? Well, this game, they lost. They lost in double OT, but it felt like a win for them. I went under for them on the 52 and a half. And the first thing I want to do out of my six pack. I felt like Houston, I know Jalen Williams wasn't in there. You have to mention that. There was no Jalen Williams. It was basically only SGA controlling the ball at the, in the fourth quarter in both overtimes. But what, the, the piece that I thought stood out to me, I was like, you know, I've gotten into the UFC the last seven, eight years. And sometimes it'll be two takedown artists going against each other.

• 6:08Bill Simmons?

  And it becomes a battle of who is actually better at this one thing, right? So you have OKC, you know, they want chaos, they want disorder, and they want everything to kind of run through SG at the end of games, but they just want this chaotic, they're pressing, they're all over the place, defense, athleticism. And then Houston's basically going, yeah, we like that too. But we're just going to field this giant team of guys. Their starting lineup averaged six foot 10. They had size, they had defense, they have power. And the rebounds, at one point they were like plus 12 in rebounds. But they were basically like, we're going to try to do what you guys do, except we're much bigger and we have some really goofy one-on-one stuff we can do beyond what you guys have with SGA and Jalen Williams when he comes back.

• 6:51Bill Simmons?

  So they're, they're, they have Amon Thompson at the top, just trying to beat people off the dribble. They have KD, obviously. Jabari Smith, who I thought looked really good. And then Shangoon, who was one of the big sleepers heading into the season with the Eurobasket, where he just was awesome. And it was a real question of where do we put this guy? Well, he was, he was toe-to-toe with everything. And I think, you know, I don't want to overreact after one game and I'm trying, I'm really trying hard not to, I've taken a lot of overreaction medication, just trying to chill out, watch these games and not think too much. But I really wanted to see, over everything else with this first batch of games, what is Houston going to look like without a point guard? Can they do this? Can they take turns just bringing the ball up?

• 7:36Bill Simmons?

  Can they get into their offense? And the answer is they could. I thought Thompson looked like he went up a level. Of course, he gave so much on offense and on defense, guarding Shay, running a lot of plays, getting to the basket. He was the crunch time guy at the end of regulation, over and over again, getting to the rim. And then his body gave out, he had cramps and they wisely sat him for the rest of the game, which I think was a good move. But he went up a level, Shangoon went up a level, Jabari went up a level. There's going to be games where, you know, teams just pressure them, try to put miles on them, try to make it hard for them to get in their offense. We saw it a bunch of times in this one, especially with Reed Shepard, who we'll go into in a second. But they convinced me tonight

• 8:21Bill Simmons?

  that they just bring so many things to the table that this one glaring flaw they have, I think guards matter. I don't think that's a hot take. We see this over and over again, especially on the road. Somebody has settled on offense, somebody were on pick and roll, somebody guarded the best guard on the other team. There's a million reasons why we are not going to have a championship team that just doesn't have a guard. You're always going to need one. But Houston's like, we're going to patch this together and, and this might just work for us. And tonight, I really thought, I thought their ceiling was a little higher than maybe I was anticipating. I think the over under was 52 and a half. After what I saw tonight, you know, it's a little bit, it's health dependent with KD, but man, with the Shingun and Thompson,

• 9:05Bill Simmons?

  both going up a level, which they clearly did. That was my first takeaway is like, I'm taking this team more seriously than I did 48 hours ago. And I think you look at the West, I had OKC and Denver at the top. I had Minnesota and the Clippers right underneath them. Then Houston, they're probably in that five spot, but then San Antonio is kind of lurking. And then you have Dallas and there's another West team. I'm just Golden State. So it was just a question of who's gonna, who's gonna actually go up a level. And I didn't think Houston could do it without Van Vliet, but maybe they can. So I'm, I'm at least like, I'm at least inviting the possibility

• 9:47Bill Simmons?

  that this might be a mid 50s win team. So that's, that's my first takeaway. I've just changed mentally where I had this team in my head. Second one, you had Chet, you had Amen Thompson, you had Shingun in this game today. And Chet had the big first quarter and of course fouled out, but looked like the healthy version of what we were seeing down the stretch last year. And I had him as a top 20 guy. So top nine Joker, SGA, Giannis, Luca, Wemby, Ant, and then Mitchell, Brunson, Curry. That's, that's gotta be your top nine in some order.

• 10:25Bill Simmons?

  The next group had Cade and J-Dub and A.D. and Palo and K.D. and Booker and Towns and Chet in, in some order, right? And the question for Chet is, and I probably have Chet high. I don't even think some people would have him 18, but the question for Chet is can he start climbing up that ladder? I had Thompson in the high twenties and I had Shengun in the hop twenties when we did our Ringer 100. The Shengun thing, I already am revising in my head because he looked like a top 20 guy tonight. Okay, so he was trying all kinds of different things, especially like they settled on just Caruso, just pointing himself right in his chest. And Shengun figured out all these different ways to exploit that. And on top of that, he had five threes.

• 11:07Bill Simmons?

  If he went up a level and Thompson went up a level, I just think they have to be considered a real contender regardless of the Van Vliet thing. And they can always fix that at the trade deadline. Chet, we'll see. Did some good stuff, but I, I thought the big winners of today, Thompson's two-way stuff, the stuff he did against SGA for three quarters was ridiculous. And then, uh, and the fact that he was getting his offense a little more, that started last year, him trying to get into the basket. But, uh, all right, that's enough nerdy basketball stuff for you. Next thing on the six pack, Reed Shepard. So we were thinking maybe this guy was going to be the next Mark Price.

• 11:44Bill Simmons?

  Look, it's one bad game and he's going against probably the worst possible team for him to play, right? He's the opening night, it's NBC, he's going against SGA, he's going against Dort and Caruso and Kason Wallace. Like this is a nightmare team with some pressure on him.

• 12:01Bill Simmons?

  And they need him because he's the only actual guard who can get them into their offense, who can run little pick and rolls for them, who can beat guys off the dribble and kick back out and things like that. He was awful and we were thinking that maybe he could be the next Mark Price. He looked like Brent Price today and I actually was texting House about how I can't wait to see Reed Shepard on the Wizards. And he's like, we had him, he was Brent Price.

• 12:24Bill Simmons?

  They need him to be, needless to say, way better than he was today because they actually need him. They need some sort of point guard and if it's not him, they're going to have to go trade for somebody and make some moves. But he was relentlessly targeted on defense. He just got, I thought, demolished by Wallace in a couple of points this game. He would get heat checky sometimes and it was inappropriate because it was both he was playing terrible, but also had a lot of confidence, which I didn't mind. But it just, it was really rough. He's the guy to watch on this team. I feel good about everything else that they have. We'll see with KD at age 37, how he ages over the course of the year, how many

• 13:06Bill Simmons?

  games he misses. But I think Shepard, these first 20 games, can they build him up? Can they shade him more toward Mark Price and less toward Brent Price? Would be the thing I want to watch. I can't imagine, the way he looked tonight, that can't be somebody you rely on in a playoff series, I don't think. So that is my third take for the six pack. The fourth one, the NBA and NBC. We were back. It was a great day around Ball Rock. It was a kindler, gentler, happier coverage of the NBA, of the National Basketball Association. Just pleasant, very reminiscent of their Sunday Night Football in America, which is just basically a big love letter to the NFL. And this is something that I think was very

• 13:50Bill Simmons?

  important to the NBA is they went into these media rights things where he had the, you know, the TNT guys really critical, which I support, but really critical of the league the last couple of years. And then the ESPN guys, you know, I don't, we don't have to talk about ESPN, the kind of first take-ization of how they treat the NBA. So the NBC was just like a pleasant hang with a song that we like. And what's interesting is,

• 14:19Bill Simmons?

  Roundball Rock was underrated, then it became properly rated. And then over the last year, when NBC got basketball, I was like, oh my God, we're gonna get Roundball Rock back. And it actually became overrated. It was like, all right, Roundball Rock's fine. It's not like this amazing. We don't have to talk about it all the time. And then it started and it was like, this is the best. I love it. I love Roundball Rock. It was great to have back. Good to have Mike Tirico back calling basketball. I thought Jamal Crawford was fine. Like, the thing I liked about him in a three man booth, you need somebody to kind of lay out and not try to get off too many shots. And I thought he found a nice little balance and actually had some decent points. And then Reggie Miller was Reggie Miller.

• 15:02Bill Simmons?

  He did have his first argument with himself in overtime. So that was the official start of the season. He thought Jabari Smith traveled and moved his pivot foot. And then they showed the replays, like he moved his pivot foot. And then they show it and he didn't. He's like, he didn't move his pivot foot. I think he invented that. The self-argument during a broadcast is a Reggie Miller staple. The weird thing though, it really struck me today that TNT doesn't have the NBA. Like, think about every opening night with this massive, the Barclay show for an hour beforehand, then the rings, and it just, it felt like our entire lives that was the opening. I know it's probably 22, 23 years, but it was really notable how different it was for the opening night. It almost didn't feel like opening night. And then the game started and it did.

• 15:47Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, RIP TNT and welcome aboard Roundball Rock. So we'll see how it goes this season. Speaking of NBC, fifth thing for the six pack, the six pack. So they had this Michael Jordan thing. They've been, they've been playing it up a lot and they called it like degrees of excellence or insights in excellence or something. And it basically just turned out to be an interview with Mike Tirico that they probably filmed for two hours and they're just gonna cut segments out of.

• 16:20Bill Simmons?

  I can't think of a single thing that happened during the halftime thing. But it's riveting to watch Michael Jordan. And I realized like, it doesn't really matter what he says. His insights, his observations, his thoughts about the league. It just doesn't matter because anything he says, I'm captivated. He was like, uh, he told some story about he rented a house and there was a basketball court. I don't even know what happened. And I was like nodding like, yeah, wow, this is great, Michael Jordan. I, I think the next one, he's going to come back and just be like, yeah, I went to dinner last night. I ordered a steak. I got it medium rare. I had two glasses of Pinot Noir and then I paid the check. And then they're like, that was insights of excellence from Michael Jordan. And I'm like, that was great. Could watch him talk about anything.

• 17:04Bill Simmons?

  So he might be the first person who's ever been on a pregame halftime show where I literally don't care what he says. I just like having him around. It's just nice to have MJ aboard. So congratulations, NBC. Last one, um, OKC, their fans booed Kevin Durant lustily again. He left nine years ago. Think about how long that was. That was like, if you take nine years and then add another seven, that was the last time the Yankees won the World Series. That's how long ago nine years ago is. Nine years ago, I had, did I still have a show on HBO? No, they might've canceled it by then. But yeah, nine years ago, really long time. The Ringer is 10 years old.

• 17:48Bill Simmons?

  And they're still booing him and they still hate his guts. And on the one hand, I love it because I love the real fans and that's just how they feel. And I would never tell them not to feel that way, but on the other hand, it's been nine years and they have a new team and they won the title last year. And SGA is now the best player in the history of the city. And at some point, this is starting to feel petty. There might be more things going on, quotes that KD said over the years that I've missed, but uh, It made me think like they're just never going to forgive him. And I totally get it because I felt the same way about Roger Clemens, which I think my second or third piece for page two on ESPN was called Roger Clemens is the Antichrist.

• 18:31Bill Simmons?

  And Roger Clemens was even in the booth last year for Nesson for a Red Sox game. It was either this year or last year, and I was just pissed off that they even let him in the booth. And this was a guy who left the Red Sox in 1996, only almost 30 years ago. And I'm still mad about it. So I get it. Listen, I'm not one to judge, but I just want to point out like, you know, he did have an awesome nine years there and they did win the title. And if there was ever a time they were going to be like, you know what, we're, you've had a great career. Let's let bygones be bygones. It would have been tonight, but it wasn't. So this is just the way it's going to be forever. I guess they're always going to hate him. And it made me think like, and I think I've talked about this before, but this really banged at home. I always thought he was going to work it out with OKC, like Cleveland forgave LeBron.

• 19:15Bill Simmons?

  LeBron's at a different level than KD, but for the most part, you always feel like it's, ah, eventually people get older. They forget. They don't remember why they're mad. And then, I mean, John Skipper was on this podcast once, like as time passes, you forget why you had animosity for things. But I don't think it's ever going to happen with this. So if OKC, if he's never going to be in good graces in OKC, and it's, I don't think it's going to happen with the Warriors either. Definitely not Brooklyn. No way in Phoenix.

• 19:45Bill Simmons?

  So you have this situation where he's, he might retire and just not belong to any team. And I really genuinely thought it would be like years later, be like, OKC would be like, all right, fine. We had nine great years. You win the MVP here. You were a great story. We'll take you back. But he might, might never happen. This happened with Clemens. I don't know what Clemens, all these years later, Clemens belonged to the Red Sox, the Astros, the Yankee, like Blue Jays, like kind of nothing. But he's a Hall of Famer. He's one of the best pitchers of the last 50 years and he made a ton of money. And maybe that's all that matters. KD signed this new extension and now he has the money record. He's made almost $600 million. That's the most money any basketball player has ever made. And I guess.

• 20:30Bill Simmons?

  I guess he's gonna have to settle for that, but he unless this Houston thing goes fantastic and he ends up being a guy in Houston, he's just not gonna have a place to go back to after he retires. And I do think that's mildly important. Like I see with the Celtics all the time, people like Antoine Walker come back and you know, are lustily cheered. Everybody that's ever had a meaningful moment with the Celtics that I can think of, they've been able to come back. And I don't think this was ever gonna happen with KD and OKC. So it just kinda struck me tonight like, wow, this is, this is forever.

• 21:09Bill Simmons?

  That's it for the six pack. That's all I got for you. Lot of observations from one game and we have 82 games for every team. This is the first game of the year, but lot of moments are worth playing for. The ones that taste best are served cold. And whatever happens this season, catch every moment with Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. They're getting fans close to the game and the chance to win courtside seats, a trip to All-Star Weekend, custom merch and much more. Michelob Ultra Superior is worth playing for. Enter now at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 2025 to 2026. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025. So it already began. Ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official

• 21:51Bill Simmons?

  rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. We'll have more basketball coming up on Thursday's pod. We're gonna take a break, come back and we're gonna talk a lot of big picture football angles with a little draft with the fantasy guys, Danny, Danny and Craig up next. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Basketball's back. FanDuel's putting you in control right from tip off. Every day to start the season, you get to choose your award. Play it safe. Go for it. Feeling bold. That's your move. Whatever your style, you're in control. So what kind of better are you? If you look at those Wednesday night games. I really like Charlotte at home against Brooklyn, parlayed with Milwaukee at home against Washington. Kind of like that Charlotte team is being a little frisky.

• 22:36Bill Simmons?

  I like Milwaukee as a playoff team. And I think Washington, Brooklyn are going to be two of the three worst teams in the league. So you parlay that together, it's almost even odds. Knock yourself out, have a great time. However, you play, FanDuel has given you the power to choose your award and own your game every single day to start the NBA season. Here's what you gotta do. Head to FanDuel.com/BS to make your choice. Must be 21 plus, present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt in required. Rewards are non-mudbarable. Restrictions apply, including bonus and token expiration, leg requirements and max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.FanDuel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. Call 1-888-789-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 23:20Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting the leadership of a team captain on the football field. But getting a C captain? Sure, they're both captains, but who's going to run your offense? You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team. So don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, we're taping this on a Tuesday afternoon. All the Ringer people are in town, including our fantasy football guys. So we get together before the season, we do the by guy fantasy draft. Some losers that we had in that one. Man, some winners too, Ibuka.

• 24:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, JSN.

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  JSN, who else did we have? What else do we feel good about?

• 24:05Speaker 04

  McCaffrey was good.

• 24:06Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. By, did we, anybody like Taylor? Who's been probably the best guy?

• 24:12Speaker 04

  I feel like we kind of whiffed on that one.

• 24:14Bill Simmons?

  I have a league where I have Bowers, Tyreek Hill and Mike Evans, who made this amazing catch yesterday, dropped the ball, rolled over and died for like five minutes.

• 24:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, the rare, the rare like broken shoulder and concussion in the same play.

• 24:29Bill Simmons?

  It was just like, is he gonna get up?

• 24:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:33Bill Simmons?

  All right, we're going to talk about the NFL season. We have a really dumb gimmick draft that we're going to do. But before we do that, Danny Kelly, your Seattle Seahawks, we were the only ones. I'm not, you don't want to talk.

• 24:44Speaker 05

  I thought you were gonna bring up the Mariners, yeah.

• 24:46Bill Simmons?

  How you were up 3-1 in the seventh inning to go to the World Series for the first time?

• 24:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, we don't need to talk about that.

• 24:53Bill Simmons?

  Third and second, you pitched to George Springer, who has 22 postseason home runs, now 23? I'm not gonna bring that up. What a magical ride for the Mariners.

• 25:02Speaker 05

  It was fun. I will say that. It was, it was a really fun playoff run. I mean, it's gonna be memorable in like the play, in the team lore and everything like that. Definitely brutal to end that way, but so many great memories. You know, the Suarez grand slam the other day. I went to that 15 inning game.

• 25:19Bill Simmons?

  He's still shaking.

• 25:21Speaker 05

  It's like, man. But yeah, I was like.

• 25:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was at the 15 inning game, which is awesome. They should have gone after Springer's other knee. That's, that was the problem, I think.

• 25:27Speaker 05

  I know, had to be Springer, didn't it?

• 25:29Speaker 06

  He was actually pissed about the Otani, the best baseball game ever played because he felt like it overshadowed the Mariners.

• 25:35Bill Simmons?

  Best baseball game, yeah, that makes sense.

• 25:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, I thought if you were, if it was gonna be a one-rem game in game seven, I thought Mariners every time with the Blue Jays bullpen, the whole thing, but somehow it didn't work out.

• 25:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:48Bill Simmons?

  Tough one. The two expansion teams. I'm old enough to remember when they joined the league.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 25:52Bill Simmons?

  In, in 1976. It's like, look at these two clowns, Toronto and Seattle. What, what the hell are they gonna do? But yeah, so that was the closest you've come.

• 26:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, the only team now in the majors have not been to the World Series.

• 26:04Bill Simmons?

  Unbelievable. I really thought you had a better team, but what do I know?

• 26:07Speaker 05

  Yeah, wow.

• 26:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, on the bright side, the Seattle Seahawks, a team that we were both high on heading into the season, I think. Even Mina, I don't feel like she gets to jump on the bandwagon for this.

• 26:18Speaker 05

  I feel like she was pretty positive, generally speaking.

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  Pretty positive.

• 26:21Speaker 05

  We were out on the, we were not as confident on the Darnold thing, I think, even though I thought the Seahawks' defense is gonna be really good.

• 26:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, they're 5-2 and somehow plus 270 odds for the division. That's our, is that our best division? NFC West? Cause the Cardinals are probably the best 2-5 or under team. They've been in a lot of these games.

• 26:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, I would say so. Let's see, the AFC West, maybe?

• 26:44Speaker 06

  If Brissette's playing, it's the best division in football.

• 26:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 06

  You know, Kyler.

• 26:47Bill Simmons?

  With Brissette?

• 26:48Speaker 06

  Three for, three for four is not bad.

• 26:50Bill Simmons?

  What's been the biggest surprise for seven weeks for your non-Giants related?

• 26:54Speaker 06

  I mean, non Giants related, still Giants related, Daniel Jones being six and one and just looking, I mean, the Giants released Daniel Jones 11 months ago and he just is six and one and I rooted for Daniel Jones for six seasons. Nobody said anything nice about him that wasn't a Giants fan for six years and I could keep waiting for just like a flood of public apologies from everybody, but Daniel Jones looks like a completely different player in some ways.

• 27:19Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand how he's so accurate now. Was he accurate on the Giants or like, how do you explain that?

• 27:25Speaker 06

  I'm a big believer that like, I think there's a certain group of quarterbacks that had injuries that weren't quite the same after the injury. We don't talk about them that way. Carson Wentz after the ACL and he had a bad concussion with the Eagles and then was never the same. Marcus Marota had a nerve injury to his throwing arm. No one talks about it that way. Jones had not just the knee injury, but a neck injury and his deep balls, arm strength, everything was totally sapped, combined with just bad production and all this stuff that I just, I used to joke that I worried about him like walking through Hoboken. I thought he'd get hit by a cab. He had no pocket awareness, couldn't see anything around him. But I think he's actually a lot like Darnold, where you look at Darnold and even four or five years ago, he's bouncing around the Vikings, the Niners, like the Panthers and Darnold couldn't, sometimes a guy like Jaden Daniels, it feels like the game has slowed down for him in two weeks. And I think Daniel Jones this year is like

• 28:10Speaker 06

  Darnold last year where it took six years, but the game is slower for him and you can tell that he just sees receivers later in the play and he's not losing track of what's happening on the field even four or five seconds into the play.

• 28:21Bill Simmons?

  That all sounds great Craig, but it's Daniel Jones. Like at some point this makes no sense whatsoever.

• 28:27Speaker 04

  We said that about Darnold and he's doing it again. I think at a certain point, if the fit is right, the fit is right. Also, these guys are wide open on the Colts. Tyler Warren, there's never anybody within five yards of him. Yes. What Steichen is doing? Steichen, there's a reason why he's the leading candidate for coach of the year. It's just all working. The line is working. Everyone's open and Daniel Jones is competent enough to do all that.

• 28:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was shocked. I said this to Sal Sunday night. It's second, you have them second and 10. You just feel like they're getting eight to nine yards. Like, it's just guaranteed that somebody's gonna be wide open or Taylor's gonna slash through.

• 28:55Speaker 04

  All their pieces work too. Like, they have their deep threat guy with Alec Pierce who's good. You have Tyler Warren, who's like this big tight end. Michael Pittman's good on the outside. Josh Downs is an overqualified slot wide receiver. Jonathan Taylor's the best running back in the league. The line is good.

• 29:07Speaker 06

  They could run, they could pass. It's an argument also for like stability and keeping the GM. I think Chris Ballard was one of the GMs that people were maybe gonna be out of. He wouldn't pick a quarterback. Richardson bombed out. Like, there's a world where Chris Ballard gets fired at the end of last season. They keep him and you're like, oh, all these players who are balling out are homegrown players. The Lions are homegrown, the players.

• 29:24Speaker 04

  The weirdest part is that it was reportedly like a tough QB competition in August between Richardson and Daniel Jones. Apparently it was tight. How is that possible?

• 29:34Speaker 05

  Weird stuff happens.

• 29:35Speaker 06

  I think they were lying.

• 29:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think they were lying. Cause they jumped on.

• 29:38Speaker 04

  Why? To make Richardson feel better? To make Daniel Jones work harder?

• 29:42Speaker 06

  I think the idea was Daniel Jones was like they were just supposed to like make Richardson jealous and they were just as shocked as anybody that it's working this well. I don't thi- I mean, I think that's one of the reasons the Titans fired Brian Callahan is I'm sure the Titans had on their list should we sign Daniel Jones and have him compete with Cam Ward. And the Titans, Brian Callahan probably said, no, he's no good. And now he's leading the Colts to six and one record. Like, all these teams could add him.

• 30:01Speaker 04

  Can you blame Callahan though? I feel like most teams would say that. The Colts are in a terrible situation.

• 30:06Bill Simmons?

  He was no good. He signed with the Vikings during last season and nobody was like, oh, savvy, smart move.

• 30:11Speaker 06

  Example, 7,691 in the NFL that's success in the NFL is really hard to explain. And even the Ravens took a tight end before Lamar Jackson in the draft. Like, even the teams themselves sometimes don't have any clue of how successful something will be.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  Well, the craziest thing to me about Daniel Jones is like, Heifetz was talking about, he was worried about him crossing the street because he just didn't have the pocket awareness. Daniel Jones has taken very few sacks. In fact, I think.

• 30:34Speaker 04

  At least in the league, I believe, percentage wise.

• 30:36Speaker 05

  And I want to say I saw a stat the other day that they haven't taken any sacks on third or fourth down this year. Which is incredible for a guy like Daniel Jones. I never would have guessed that for Daniel Jones.

• 30:46Speaker 06

  And I know we have a whole category thing to do here. The term deer in the headlights is overused, but it actually is applicable. Cause what actually happens to a deer is the eyes are really adjusted to the darkness and then the headlights are like the brightest thing possible. So the reason the deer freezes.

• 30:58Speaker 04

  Him having the scientific explanation behind that.

• 31:01Speaker 06

  It's just you in the bathroom at night. You wake up and you turn the lights on. You're like, oh, like you're a deer in the headlights. That's it.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:06Speaker 06

  And it takes, literally takes your eyes time to adjust to the light. That's kind of pressure in the NFL. Quarterbacks, like you see the pressure and everything just, it's that moment in the bathroom, two in the morning, like you just can't see anything. And when Darnold, it does feel like sometimes like the light comes on in their head. But really, they just aren't, their eyes are adjusting to pressure and they're able to see a pass rusher and they don't lose track of like, oh, there's Michael Pittman on a quarterback, four inches shorter than him, and he gets him the ball.

• 31:30Speaker 04

  That's why you don't turn the lights on when you pee in the middle of the night. You've got to just keep them off.

• 31:32Speaker 06

  He sits down while he pees.

• 31:34Speaker 04

  I do. In the middle of the night, you got to sit down and pee.

• 31:37Speaker 04

  Hundred percent.

• 31:37Bill Simmons?

  I've heard you talk about this on the pod. Is this a bit or you actually do this?

• 31:41Speaker 04

  Of course. You're standing and peeing at two in the morning?

• 31:44Speaker 05

  Sitzpinkler, is it? What's the German word for it?

• 31:46Speaker 04

  If we bring back the hottest take, though, I got a lot. I'm sitting on a lot.

• 31:49Bill Simmons?

  The Germans sit when they pee too.

• 31:51Speaker 05

  You're sitting on a lot.

• 31:52Bill Simmons?

  Pee sitters. That's your fantasy team, dude.

• 31:55Speaker 06

  Sitzpinklers?

• 31:56Bill Simmons?

  The, uh, my biggest surprise might be Craig's biggest pleasant surprise is that Aaron Rodgers is still good. I just, I completely wrote it off. It wasn't a bit. I just watched him last year and it was like, this guy doesn't have it. It's, he doesn't want to get hit anymore. This is a rap. He just wants to get rid of the ball in two seconds. Even when they played the Patriots, um, I didn't, didn't think he played that well. Like, I just thought he wanted to get rid of the ball. He could only make two throws. The way he played the last two weeks really looked like Rodgers. Like, I, I don't really have an explanation for it. Now, you could pick the stewards apart in all these different ways. Like, they're one of those teams that their record could be a lot different, one or two plays. Like, I still don't know how the Patriots didn't beat them.

• 32:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:36Bill Simmons?

  But Rodgers looks good, though.

• 32:38Speaker 04

  He looks great.

• 32:38Bill Simmons?

  You have to be delighted. You're a Steelers fan.

• 32:40Speaker 04

  Incredibly delighted. Everyone's coming around. Like, I feel like we're, what are we, seven weeks in and everyone's like, oh yeah, Rodgers isn't washed. Like, after all of the vitriol that came out of last year, it'll never work. He's terrible. He ruined all this stuff. And now we're just seven weeks in and everyone's like, oh yeah, he's, he's like one of the best five quarterbacks of all time. His arm is-

• 32:57Speaker 05

  You just have to count him out and then he'll be good again.

• 32:59Speaker 06

  He's like Baker.

• 32:59Speaker 04

  His arm is still, to me, like, he can make throws that only a few quarterbacks can make in the NFL still right now.

• 33:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 33:05Speaker 06

  The Hail Mary. I mean, throwing a ball 70 yards at 41. I mean- Honestly, he's played well enough that and it's what we always joke about, but we're not joking where it's the year after after the injury.

• 33:13Speaker 04

  That was the big thing we talked about in the offseason was like he he was coming off a torn Achilles.

• 33:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, you can't.

• 33:18Speaker 04

  He's coming off a torn Achilles. He's 40 years old.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  It's bad for Tatum, I guess.

• 33:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, uh, I, yeah, well, everyone's like, oh, my God, he's on a basketball court five months after. I'm like, what do you think he's doing? It's been five months. Like, Cam Akers played in the fucking Super Bowl.

• 33:29Bill Simmons?

  So Peterson's the only guy ever who came back under a year and still looked like himself that I can think of.

• 33:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, and that was ACL, though.

• 33:36Speaker 06

  I would not for your emotional health count on Jason Tatum returning to the court.

• 33:40Bill Simmons?

  I'm trying not to. I'll say Diggs, Diggs seems pretty close to where he was, but he's not playing, he's playing 30 snaps, 32 snaps a game.

• 33:48Speaker 04

  Rice looks good. Torres, was it LCL or ACL last year?

• 33:52Speaker 06

  It was the LCL.

• 33:53Bill Simmons?

  But the Rodgers thing's different because he's in his 40s and Brady was the only, there was, I saw on a social, there was some unbelievable stat. Brady has the second most, it's either rushing or receiving yards of anyone over 40. Did you guys see that?

• 34:08Speaker 04

  I think it's receiving yards.

• 34:11Bill Simmons?

  Tom Brady, number two receiver.

• 34:13Speaker 06

  40 and over. You gotta throw a flack on Rodgers a pass just to.

• 34:16Speaker 04

  I think Rodgers, what's helping as well is that he's willing to play Arthur Smith's game. Like, he's not just doing the, I'm gonna sit in shotgun, I'm on the Jets, I brought in, I brought in Alan Lazard and all my guys and I'm just gonna do that. He's actually like running play action, he's under center, he's like booting. He looks pretty mobile to me. And I just think we always underestimate what you can do the year after a terrible injury.

• 34:36Speaker 06

  He looks like what the Jets thought they were getting when they traded for him and frankly.

• 34:40Bill Simmons?

  They gotta be going nuts because Adams too, Adams has looked good on the Rams. They just have to be like, who years later? Had these guys.

• 34:46Speaker 04

  And Fields. I mean, the Steelers got rid of Fields. People thought they should have brought Fields back. Fields is terrible and Rodgers has been fantastic.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  That Sunday night game was the, that was the spotlight game for him where it's like this guy doesn't.

• 34:56Speaker 06

  Rodgers versus Green Bay this week, he's, is gonna be biblical. He's gonna have five touchdown passes.

• 35:01Speaker 05

  Speaking of teams not knowing what they're doing or getting is like, wasn't Rodgers was not their first option. He was not their first choice.

• 35:07Speaker 06

  No, they won Stafford.

• 35:08Speaker 04

  Stafford.

• 35:09Speaker 06

  But if you think Rodgers was mad to get Jets in week one, like, what do you think Rod, he had 10 days, he's had 10 days to prepare off a loss for the Packers.

• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  So Baltimore is plus 135 on Fanduel for the AFC North and Pittsburgh's plus 130. They're basically even.

• 35:23Speaker 06

  That's crazy.

• 35:24Speaker 04

  Which is remarkable, four and two versus one and five.

• 35:26Speaker 06

  One one and five team has ever won a division. It's happened one time ever.

• 35:30Bill Simmons?

  But it's a 17, so the extra game, I think, skews it a whiff, right?

• 35:35Speaker 04

  Also.

• 35:36Bill Simmons?

  But not like that much.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  Steelers' schedule gets super hard and the Bengals or and the Ravens' schedule's pretty easy.

• 35:40Speaker 06

  They also play each other twice, so.

• 35:42Bill Simmons?

  But the question for me is, can they go, can the Ravens go nine and eight?

• 35:45Speaker 04

  I think so.

• 35:46Bill Simmons?

  Starting on one and five, that's eight and three the rest of the way, which means then the Steelers, what are you, four and two or five and one?

• 35:52Speaker 04

  Four and two.

• 35:52Bill Simmons?

  Four and two. So you would have to go five and five, basically.

• 35:56Speaker 04

  Schedule gets tough. I do think it's going to come down to a Steelers Ravens game late in the year in the winter.

• 36:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, you have it. It's week 18.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, that that will be in, that game will matter.

• 36:04Bill Simmons?

  Good, I was like, let's rig that game so it means something. Ah, I don't know what voice that was.

• 36:10Speaker 06

  That was, I was, that was good. I'll do it again. That was good.

• 36:12Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna try not to.

• 36:14Speaker 04

  A little Dr. Evil or I don't know.

• 36:16Bill Simmons?

  Bengal Bengals plus 470? Hard in your nipples at all, Danny?

• 36:19Speaker 05

  A little bit.

• 36:20Bill Simmons?

  It's cold in here.

• 36:21Speaker 05

  A little bit. The Flacco thing.

• 36:22Bill Simmons?

  Flacco and the receivers?

• 36:24Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 36:25Bill Simmons?

  Kind of discount immobile Dak Prescott with his two guys, basically, the AFC version.

• 36:29Speaker 04

  Pathetic Steelers defensive performance. Maybe the worst I've ever seen in my life.

• 36:33Bill Simmons?

  Well, that, so that's the case against the Steelers, is your defense is not good. And I felt like against the Pats, we should have had 500 yards in that game. We just kept fumbling the ball.

• 36:44Speaker 04

  If somebody told me that week seven of the NFL, Rodgers is like fourth in touchdown passes and the Steelers, the most expensive defense in the NFL, got, gets shredded by Joe Flacco?

• 36:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 04

  I'd say I was on Mars.

• 36:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, what were the odds Rodgers was going to be starting for fantasy teams midway through the season? Because that's a thing that's happening now.

• 37:04Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 37:04Speaker 06

  Low. Craig, Craig actually wanted us to rate them higher and I personally vetoed it. And I was like, I absolutely refuse. I was like, there's absolutely no way we're ranking Rodgers as a top 20 quarterback.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  I just kept thinking back to like, the Steelers are not going to be worse with Aaron Rodgers versus Kenny Pickett or Mason Rudolph. Like, we, we were, had a winning record with those guys.

• 37:19Speaker 06

  You remember, watching Rodgers, you remember why we put up with him for the last like five years?

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  I just can't, with these old guys, I can't figure out how to gauge it anymore. And either prediction either way, like LeBron right now is Seattle, apparently, like.

• 37:33Bill Simmons?

  He might just play 20 games this year and this is it. Like he's like LeBron's body broke down. He played 6,000 minutes. This is what happened. It's usually what should happen. You just don't know what year it's gonna be. But it happened. I never thought it'd happen to Jerry Rice. You guys, were you old enough to remember Jerry?

• 37:47Speaker 05

  Yeah, a little bit. He was a Seahawks legend.

• 37:49Bill Simmons?

  Best receiver still I've ever seen. Yeah, he had that, he had that little Raiders Seahawks era, but I just, it felt like as long as he was gonna play, I was like, well, he's Jerry Rice. He'll figure it. And then at some point, he, you know, you, you hit late age and that it's over.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  Well, that's the reason they call it an age cliff, you know? It's like just all of a sudden, you don't got it anymore.

• 38:07Speaker 06

  And it is a cliff for a receiver especially. There's a lot of data on this of like, you kind of keep going and then when you fall off, you don't get back. Like, you know, and Mark Cooper just, or like deal, like DOA.

• 38:16Bill Simmons?

  Rice is so many of those.

• 38:18Speaker 05

  Rice is the only one where there wasn't a cliff.

• 38:19Speaker 06

  But that's the thing. The cliff was just at the end. The amazing thing is that with Rogers, what we're seeing is the, like, there's one thing for Brady to reset the age curve. Derek Henry, you set the age curve at running back, obviously tennis, Djokovic, all these, every sport, like, you're having the age reset by someone. What's amazing about the Rogers thing is to tear your Achilles at 40 and then still for 39 and still get back. That is like completely new. Like to have a back kind of injury.

• 38:41Bill Simmons?

  Rice had, Rice had one of the worst injuries I've ever witnessed in a game on Monday Night Football and Warren Sapp. I, I always had the joke, it should have been like a 100 yard penalty. It should have been an automatic touchdown. It was like a reverse or something and Sapp did this clothesline where his, he almost like exorcised headed him. And his knee just like blew out. And this was like Rice at the peak of his powers. And he came back from that and played.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Was that 97?

• 39:04Bill Simmons?

  Something. It was 96, 97 range.

• 39:07Speaker 04

  Jerry Rice was 35.

• 39:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 04

  And then, and then five years later, had 1,200 yards.

• 39:11Speaker 05

  That's the mid point of his career.

• 39:12Speaker 06

  That's crazy. 5,000 years is 40.

• 39:15Speaker 04

  If a receiver now, it's like Keenan Allen's like 33 and we're like, I don't know. Eight years later, Jerry Rice was still putting up 900 yards in a season.

• 39:22Bill Simmons?

  He's a classic, you need better PR guy.

• 39:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 39:26Bill Simmons?

  There's certain great athletes. Yeah, it's just like when people talk about goats and different things, like to me, Rice is clearly, Rice and LT are just clearly head over heels above anyone else ever.

• 39:37Speaker 06

  I feel like Rice is respect the guy I always think about who doesn't have enough PR. I, I feel like is Barry Bonds where. I understand that there was a lot of controversy there, but he's like Avatar for movies where it's like the biggest thing that ever happened has no cultural imprint. No one ever talks about it or anything.

• 39:51Bill Simmons?

  He certainly of all the baseball players from like the last 35 years is like the first one that jumps into my head for seeing in person of the maybe Pedro. And now, now Shohei would be the third one, but these guys that you're just like, I remember going to see this person and sitting in the stands and watching how crazy they were. Is there a team? I don't think this question steps on the categories we're about to do. Is there a team that is highly ranked to win the Super Bowl? I'll give you the top seven odds. Kansas City, Detroit, Buffalo, Green Bay, Philly, Indianapolis, Rams, Denver and Baltimore, all the 20 to 100 teams. Is there a team you're just like, I don't see it?

• 40:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't see them putting it together in the next 12 weeks, Danny?

• 40:37Speaker 05

  I mean, in that group, I probably would circle the Broncos.

• 40:41Bill Simmons?

  Cause of Knicks?

• 40:42Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean, after three quarters of just this last Sunday, we were like Broncos are on fraud watch. And then of course they went and scored 33 points. Sorry.

• 40:53Speaker 06

  But that was probably. I forgot. So thanks. I completely forgot.

• 40:56Bill Simmons?

  Sorry, Danny.

• 40:57Speaker 05

  So I would probably circle them.

• 40:59Bill Simmons?

  What do you have, Craig?

• 40:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, Broncos is a good one. I don't know. I've been a little bit unimpressed with the Packers this year. I feel like the Micah Parsons trade, everybody said Packers, Super Bowl favorites. They start the year by beating the Lions and then since then I've been kind of unimpressed. I mean, they lost to the Browns, they tied the Cowboys, they barely beat Jacoby Brissette and the Cardinals. I don't know. I still think like the Jordan Love. I don't know if I'm there yet.

• 41:19Bill Simmons?

  Too. It's, it's like, it's like watching an NBA team where like, I like those guys. I like this guy. I like that guy. Why aren't they winning? Why are they down 10?

• 41:26Speaker 06

  Yeah. The Ravens are top 10 in Super Bowl odds and they're one and five.

• 41:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:31Speaker 06

  If they were five and one with the injuries they had, that would make sense.

• 41:34Bill Simmons?

  Good answer. All right, we'll take a break and then we're going to do, uh, I don't even know what to title this given. 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.

• 42:19Bill 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/jointhetrades. All right, so we did the my guy draft before the season and that was basically snake fashion. We do a title or a thing and we each had to draft one and we go in order. We're not going to do that this time.

• 43:01Bill Simmons?

  I sent you guys a bunch of categories. Most valuable player, coach of the year, offensive or defensive rookie of the year, next coach fired, breakout star, QB offseason hot seat guy. Can't wait for this one. Number one seed AFC or NFC. Team that will get the number one pick. Fantasy MVP and fantasy murderer of the year. So after seven weeks, we're going to predict what the outcomes will be for those categories. And the catch, so some, I mean, what are half of the podcast now, draft podcasts?

• 43:41Speaker 04

  Except ours, funnily enough.

• 43:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, you're the least draft.

• 43:44Speaker 04

  We don't really draft that much on our show.

• 43:46Bill Simmons?

  So some of them where you have to match with the categories, like big picture does that. We're going to try to match with the categories. And part of the art here is like if there's a category you don't like, maybe you grab it. Right away, because you're worried about the depth and the category.

• 44:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:00Bill Simmons?

  And then we'll see at the end of the year who won. It's probably the easiest just to have Heifetz go first and go this way.

• 44:07Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 44:07Speaker 06

  I get to go first.

• 44:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, who, you decide, Craig. Who had a harder loss between Kelly and Heifetz here on Sunday or Monday? What was more devastating?

• 44:17Speaker 04

  Well, this is funny because we were talking about context. With context, DK, because the Mariners could have made their first World Series ever. Without context, it's Heifetz, because if that game were in the playoffs, I think it'd be the worst collapse in sports history. But because it was like a random week seven game and the Giants suck, it doesn't matter.

• 44:32Bill Simmons?

  Fans who were like, I know we're not going to make the playoffs, but that was one of the worst losses I've ever had.

• 44:38Speaker 06

  I didn't know I could feel that bad about a team that's not going to make the playoffs. Like, I didn't, I feel like I've been so guarded in my heart for the last like eight years, nine years really for the Giants. I feel like the Eagles game, they won and I was like, man, I'm in on this team. I love them. I'm letting him, I'm gonna go all, I'm letting my.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  The Giants are better than the Eagles. Hell, yes.

• 44:56Speaker 06

  I'm being vulnerable again and then they did that.

• 44:58Speaker 04

  Heifetz called me drunk at midnight on Thursday after that Giants Eagles game. He was like, Craig, the Giants are better than the Eagles. And I was like, I think you might be right.

• 45:06Speaker 06

  I was drunk and I wanted to do a topper. I wanted to record the show and I was like, watched it at a bar and I was like, let's do the show. They were like, no.

• 45:12Bill Simmons?

  Did you think you were going to the playoffs after that game?

• 45:14Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 45:16Speaker 04

  Super Bowl.

• 45:17Speaker 06

  I got Charlie, I have, I bet in February, 500 to one, I have them on Fanduel, win the Super Bowl. I bet, I, I, wow. 500 times? Well, I thought they might get Stafford and I was like, that's, if they get Stafford, that, that will be an amazing ticket. But I just, I got Charlie Brown, man. The moment that I was like, oh, I'm in on this team, they had a 1 in 1600 collapse.

• 45:37Bill Simmons?

  So is that worse than what happened to Danny where he was up 3-1 in the seventh inning with a chance to play the Dodgers?

• 45:43Speaker 06

  Probably not.

• 45:44Speaker 04

  Probably not, but it is easier if we just start with.

• 45:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, all right. You go first, Heifetz.

• 45:48Speaker 06

  So I get to go from any of these categories.

• 45:50Bill Simmons?

  Category. You grab a guy and once you pick the guy, or the team.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  That category is checked off for you.

• 45:55Bill Simmons?

  You're done with that category and we can't touch that person.

• 45:58Speaker 06

  So there is like one category in this entire list that I think there is just an objectively correct answer.

• 46:06Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 46:06Speaker 06

  And it is the next coach fired will be Mike McDaniel for that.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Damn, damn, damn, damn. Yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 05

  There's not really a good number two on that one.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  No.

• 46:13Bill Simmons?

  The only zag for that is if. Well, first of all, it seems like he's trying to get fired with the glasses he wore and the weird press conference he gave and just blame whatever the kind of sort of blaming the players.

• 46:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if we executed because we didn't really play football today or whatever he said. Uh, the only thing I can think of is that they're trying to tank and you're putting him in almost as the mole.

• 46:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:38Bill Simmons?

  To ruin the team. That's a great first pick. I think he's got to be the heavy favorite. Craig, you're up.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  Man.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  Okay, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna go chalk here.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 46:51Speaker 04

  I'm going MVP Mahomes.

• 46:53Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 46:54Speaker 04

  I think Mahomes is playing the best season he's had since 2022. Looks like the old Chiefs are back. The last three years of the boring, ugly Chiefs offense is completely gone. Mahomes is playing incredibly. All the receivers are back. The offense looks fantastic. I think he's the one MVP.

• 47:10Bill Simmons?

  I thought heading into the season, Josh Allen was the best QB in the league. I'm still not gonna jump off that, but Mahomes has the most fantasy points, which I think is, is interesting. I will say with the Mahomes is back, it just kind of has to be casually mentioned. They were about to beat the Jaguars and then he threw a 99 yard pick on a pass that like most terrible quarterbacks in the league would throw. So it's just, just that caveat. He did cost them a game with a terrible thing, but I think he's, he has the best odds on Fandel.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  But in that game, I think he was throwing to like Ty Quan Thornton and Xavier Worthy on one leg, but yeah.

• 47:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's, at least they've branched out and then he's still, his deep ball stuff is still pretty erratic, but for the most part, he looks way more like Mahomes from three years ago. Dan, you're up.

• 47:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, just the vibes. I'm gonna go also chalk here. Shane Steichen, Coach of the Year.

• 47:57Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 47:58Speaker 05

  Feels like the runaway favorite.

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  I thought these would be the first three picks.

• 48:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. I mean,

• 48:03Speaker 05

  I'm going back and trying to remember what we were thinking at the beginning of the year. I remember laughing. I specifically laughed at the Colts for choosing Daniel Jones over Anthony Richardson just because the fact is they drafted this guy, I think it was number four overall, a couple of years ago with the, the knowledge in that they are going to have to give this guy some time and they just gave up with, gave up on him like so quickly for a guy like Daniel Jones who I just. Had zero confidence in and the fact that he not only made that really tough decision to go to Daniel Jones, face the ire from the media, um, but now he's turned this into legitimately one of the best often like through seven weeks, one of the best offenses we've ever seen. If you just look at the stats like through seven weeks of a season, they're up there with like the oh seven Patriots, the 2013 Broncos in terms of scoring points per drive.

• 48:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:48Speaker 05

  Yards.

• 48:49Speaker 04

  What's the worst record they could have where he still wins coach of the year? They go 10 and seven, can he win?

• 48:54Bill Simmons?

  I think variable would be the big competitor, right?

• 48:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 48:57Bill Simmons?

  So it's like basically whoever has a better record between those teams probably wins it unless there's somebody we're not thinking of.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  Well, if if the Bills win the division. And but the Pats still win 11, 12 games can variable win it?

• 49:08Bill Simmons?

  Win the division, they're gonna have to go through Foxborough to do it, motherfuckers. Come our way, come take it.

• 49:16Bill Simmons?

  That's the right pick.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:18Bill Simmons?

  I think he's done a great job. I also like when a coach makes an emphatic before the season decision.

• 49:23Speaker 04

  Right.

• 49:24Bill Simmons?

  That's kind of like if this doesn't work out, I'm getting fired anyway, fuck it. But in this case, it actually worked out. I thought this had to be one of the first four picks. We have a breakout star category. And there's some good choices, but I just think it has to be Drake May. Because, uh, first of all, very vindicated to the Pats fans. I've talked about him both of my podcasts. He's kind of sucked in week one against the Raiders and was probably the main reason they lost the game. He just wasn't good. He was throwing sailing balls and just. And then he's just gotten better every week and it hasn't been all cream puffs because they won in Buffalo and he was great in that game, but.

• 50:02Bill Simmons?

  Really looks like this like he's in like that Elway area for the athleticism combined with the arm strength and the way he throws. I don't think anybody's thrown a better deep ball than him this year.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  I'm in shock by his deep ball.

• 50:14Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe how well he moves around the pocket and some of these, there was like a three minute super mix of all his plays this year. And you're just watching him. He looks like a Jedi. It just looks like he's year five. He's, I think he's 22. It's ridiculous how good he's been and I think it's sustainable. I don't, I don't feel like there's anything fluky about it.

• 50:33Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 50:33Speaker 06

  He kills you from the pocket. He kills you when he scrambles. He can kill you with the deep ball. He kills you in the clutch, like when they actually need to score at the end of games. He can kill you off platform. Like it's not like a Jalen Hurts or Bo Nix where if he's not really set the right way, he can't make a throw. He can make any throw and obviously can run and but also the little stuff too. Like when he was at like this week, I think he broke the record for completion percentage by Patriots quarterback and he broke Brady's record for completion percentage. And they're like, what do you think of that? And they obviously wanted him to do something about, oh, Brady, it's an honor. He didn't do that at all. He was like, honestly, I scrambled a couple of times when I should have ran. Yeah. So I ran when I should have throw and I actually missed some reads and I didn't know what to do. So I ran. So I actually left some plays in the field and I'm like, that's the right answer. So he's, he's the whole package. And while we're here, can you stop complaining about the Joe Milton thing?

• 51:15Speaker 06

  Where like you're upset, you got cost Abdul Carter or whatever because Joe Milton, because I just see Drake May and I'm mad that Tommy DeVito was a meme for the Giants and he calls the Giants Jaden Daniels and Drake May. So that is a lot worse than the Joe Milton.

• 51:26Bill Simmons?

  Is Abdul Carter playing this year?

• 51:28Speaker 06

  He just got concussed.

• 51:29Bill Simmons?

  Cause I, what does he have? Like a half a sack, one sack?

• 51:32Speaker 06

  He's doing fine. But I mean,

• 51:33Bill Simmons?

  No, I, I like Abdul Carter. I was making a joke. No, it seemed like a catastrophe not to get him or her, him or, uh, Hunter basically was like, words first, these next two guys. And then it's like, Will Campbell, Tyler Warren, Mason Graham. And then you would redo the draft. Like Will Campbell's been really good. I think Mason Graham's a monster.

• 51:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, he's been good.

• 51:56Bill Simmons?

  Um, and then Tyler Warren, I'm sure he's going to come up at some point, but, uh, it did work out for the Pats.

• 52:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 52:02Bill Simmons?

  You know what didn't work out is the Trevion Henderson, uh, pick.

• 52:05Speaker 04

  He's coming up.

• 52:07Speaker 05

  We'll talk about him as well.

• 52:08Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 52:09Speaker 06

  He's on the list.

• 52:09Speaker 04

  He's on one, he's in one of these categories. Uh, are we snaking? How are we doing this? Are we going back to Hyvitz? Are we going back to DK?

• 52:17Bill Simmons?

  What's the protocol?

• 52:19Speaker 06

  Oh, I think I should pick next. Yeah. Yeah.

• 52:21Speaker 05

  I mean, I think we go opposite of what Hyvitz thinks.

• 52:24Bill Simmons?

  So snake.

• 52:25Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 52:25Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man. I'm up again.

• 52:29Bill Simmons?

  Wow. So I have my breakout guy. Ow, you know?

• 52:31Speaker 05

  All the favorites are gone now. I feel like now these are a little tougher.

• 52:35Bill Simmons?

  So there's a category we have pick a one seed in the AFC or NFC.

• 52:42Bill Simmons?

  And I'm going to take Indianapolis.

• 52:46Speaker 04

  One seed in the AFC?

• 52:47Bill Simmons?

  As a one seed, because I don't like the other choices. And I, they won me over in that Chargers game. I don't love their defense. I think you can throw on them. But offensively, they're just absolutely outrageous. I can't believe.

• 53:04Speaker 04

  It's weird.

• 53:05Bill Simmons?

  How efficient it is and how many weapons they have and how easy it is. There's been very few teams over the years where it just seems like it's just easy for them to get eight yards anytime they want. And they have so many options and the Warren thing has been like, that's the fact that the Bears passed him up. I'll never understand that. That should be like a 5,000 word feature from somebody like, how did you, how did this happen? How did everyone think Tyler Warren was the best tight end for 11 months? And then somebody was like, actually zag and actually zagged with the 10th pick.

• 53:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:37Bill Simmons?

  But the way they use him, he's like a combination of 11 tight ends I've loved in my life.

• 53:41Speaker 04

  I think the draft process is too long because by the time the draft comes, people talk themselves out of all of the right takes. Like if the draft was just like February 20th.

• 53:50Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 53:50Speaker 04

  I feel like we'd be way more accurate with all of our predictions.

• 53:52Bill Simmons?

  I think it's a really good idea.

• 53:53Speaker 04

  You know what I mean? It's just so much more fresh. It's like, oh, I watched Ibuka. He's good. Just draft him. But everyone's like, wow, the measurables. He's never been the best receiver on his Ohio State team.

• 54:02Bill Simmons?

  Will Campbell, his arms are a half inch too short. He's ready to fall out of the top 10.

• 54:06Speaker 06

  Did you ever notice that watching the games? No.

• 54:08Speaker 04

  No.

• 54:09Bill Simmons?

  You know, when he was in the SEC looking great. All right, Dan, you're up.

• 54:13Speaker 05

  This is tough. Um, let's see here.

• 54:15Bill Simmons?

  It gets hard running around them.

• 54:17Speaker 05

  I am going to go with.

• 54:20Speaker 05

  Hmm. I think I'm going to go fantasy MVP.

• 54:23Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 54:24Speaker 05

  And I'm going to take Jonathan Taylor, speaking of the Colts. He was the running back nine in average draft position before the year, 18th overall. You could have gotten him in the second round quite easily. We didn't really. We didn't know what to make of him because

• 54:38Speaker 04

  Nobody did.

• 54:38Speaker 05

  No one really knew what to make of the Colts offense in general because number one, we didn't really know who the quarterback was going to be for most of the preseason.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:44Speaker 05

  And so we were just, everybody on that team got pushed down.

• 54:47Speaker 04

  You could have probably drafted 10 teams. Everyone's like, oh, you gotta find the breakout team, right? That's the way to win in fantasy football.

• 54:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:53Speaker 04

  You know, it was like, oh, finding the Bengals from two years ago, we're finding, and it was like, who's going to be the, finding the Texans that first year with Shroud. We, I think you could have probably drafted 10 teams before you picked the Colts this year.

• 55:03Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 55:04Speaker 04

  It was the Bears, it was the Jags, it was, there were so many teams, nobody thought it was going to be.

• 55:08Speaker 05

  I mean, Seiken was kind of on the hot seat.

• 55:10Speaker 04

  For sure. 100%. Nobody thought he was a great coach.

• 55:13Bill Simmons?

  Really strange pro football reference page for Taylor.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:17Bill Simmons?

  Because first year he ran for 11, 6 to 9, 11 TDs. Then his next year was his great 18, 11, 18 TDs. Then he got hurt. Got hurt 11 games in 22. 23 was maybe a holdout. He only played seven.

• 55:32Speaker 06

  That was when the Jim Irsay was going to give the money to a whale.

• 55:36Speaker 05

  Whale across the country.

• 55:37Speaker 06

  And then the whale died, so Jonathan Taylor got paid.

• 55:38Bill Simmons?

  Then last year, just good enough.

• 55:40Speaker 05

  Jonathan Taylor killed, killed the whale.

• 55:43Bill Simmons?

  Last year, 14, 31 and 11 TDs, and yet, I don't think he was mentioned as a top three running back. There was always like this, ah, I don't know.

• 55:51Speaker 05

  Well, part of the reason is, he doesn't catch passes like the other guys. And so some of these like, you know, league winning type running backs, Christian McCaffrey, Dwan Achan. Forget the couple of other guys that, that are really involved in the passing game. Those guys just get pushed higher because it's like just more ways you can win. But Jonathan Taylor, he's just so head and shoulders above everyone and running this year. He's got three games with three touchdowns. He has three games of 30 plus points. He leads all skill players in points per game, and that's not even catching a ton of passes, so.

• 56:21Bill Simmons?

  So he's going first if you're redoing a fantasy draft right now.

• 56:24Speaker 06

  Oh yeah, probably. I, I also do think part of the reason he's not that famous is if Jonathan Taylor was named Saquon Barkley and played on a New York team. And Saquon Barkley was named Jonathan Taylor and played for the Indianapolis Colts.

• 56:35Speaker 04

  He's been on a shitty Colts team his whole career.

• 56:36Speaker 06

  And his name's, and he's a boring name. Boring names matter.

• 56:39Speaker 04

  He's having the third best fantasy running back season in the last 15 years.

• 56:43Bill Simmons?

  When you're on pace for 20 rush TDs.

• 56:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 56:46Bill Simmons?

  You might get more than that. What's the record? Saquon has it, right?

• 56:49Speaker 06

  28, no, the total or Tomlinson has both.

• 56:53Bill Simmons?

  What's the just rush TD record?

• 56:55Speaker 04

  Sean Alexander?

• 56:56Speaker 06

  No, it's the Damian Thomases, 28 and on the season he had 31, that was 2006, but.

• 57:01Bill Simmons?

  I think he's gonna have a game where he has like five.

• 57:03Speaker 06

  But no one's had 20 rushing touchdowns since 2006. Thomases set the record on both and then no one's had 20 since then, nevermind 28.

• 57:09Bill Simmons?

  Kind of a running back resurgence this year, cause Bijon and McCaffrey, they kind of built the whole game around that. And then, uh, yeah, I think Gibbs has been electric this year. He's been really fun.

• 57:20Speaker 04

  And the receivers are so deep. It's like, it's kind of going back to old school where it's like, you should just take a running back in the first round, get a good quarterback and then figure it out later.

• 57:28Bill Simmons?

  Finishing last, Trivion Henderson.

• 57:30Speaker 04

  That leads me to my next category. Fantasy murder of the year. I will be drafting Trivion Henderson.

• 57:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I can't argue with it. I paid $30 for him.

• 57:39Speaker 04

  An unmitigated disaster. Um, I mean, this guy was going like top 40 in drafts.

• 57:44Bill Simmons?

  I'm in multiple conversations with Pats fans trying to piece, piece together what happened.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. What do you have? Do you have inside info? What's going on?

• 57:51Bill Simmons?

  Preseason game.

• 57:53Speaker 06

  First touch of his career.

• 57:54Bill Simmons?

  He broke a kick return and then had all these electric plays. Anytime they put him in.

• 58:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:00Bill Simmons?

  He decked a dude and basically knocked a guy out. Um, and then the season started and we, I was on one thread. We were trying to remember one good play he's had all year and we couldn't remember a good play. He just kind of runs into the line and falls down. So now we're like, is he hurt? Did he like lose his confidence? Is he going through something?

• 58:18Speaker 04

  I just.

• 58:19Bill Simmons?

  He got passed by the number three guy who.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, Terrell Jennings.

• 58:22Bill Simmons?

  Terrell Jennings. I didn't know he was on the team.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  Undrafted free agent.

• 58:25Speaker 06

  Never heard of this guy.

• 58:26Speaker 04

  I've been starting Trivion Henderson every week. I have amnesia.

• 58:29Bill Simmons?

  He's a cut. He's an absolute has, cannot be on a fantasy team anymore.

• 58:32Speaker 04

  I'm terrified that the second I drop him, someone's gonna add him and then Vrabel's gonna start mixing him in and he'll be good.

• 58:36Speaker 06

  Fear is the mind killer.

• 58:37Bill Simmons?

  The only, so my dad came up with this as we all were trying to figure out, like, maybe they're saving him for the second half of the season because he's little. That's the best I got. Him being little is the best excuse I have.

• 58:48Speaker 06

  I think him being little is related. I think him being little is related. I think Vrabel likes big people.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  They don't throw to him. Why? Why aren't they throwing screens to him? He's fast.

• 58:55Speaker 05

  Drake May's too busy throwing 20 yard touchdowns.

• 58:58Speaker 06

  He's listed at 202. When small people are listed at 202, it's like six feet tall. It's like he's probably plays at 190 something and Vrabel just thinks he's small. Remandre's big.

• 59:05Speaker 04

  Why'd they draft him?

• 59:07Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's my worst call of the year.

• 59:09Speaker 04

  They drafted him.

• 59:09Bill Simmons?

  I was, I was like bragging about how Cleveland took Judkins over him.

• 59:13Speaker 05

  Judkins was amazing.

• 59:14Bill Simmons?

  And now it's like eight weeks later. It's like, oh my God, I wish we had Judkins.

• 59:17Speaker 06

  I'd like to go on record. This season he'll suck. Henderson will be fine. Long-term.

• 59:21Bill Simmons?

  He'll be Kevin Fok eventually for us. But it seemed in the preseason, it really seemed like this was Jameer Gibbs.

• 59:26Speaker 04

  I'm not cutting him. I refuse.

• 59:28Speaker 06

  It used to be super adorable for running backs not taken in the first round to need a full year to acclimate to the NFL. It's normal.

• 59:33Speaker 05

  Also, the reason, one of the big talking points around him coming into the league was he doesn't fumble and he's really good in pass pro.

• 59:42Bill Simmons?

  And he's been terrible in pass pro.

• 59:43Speaker 05

  He's missed like huge plays in pass pro and the fumbling thing apparently does not matter to Vrabel because, you know, Remandre Stevenson is leading the NFL in fumbles and he doesn't care.

• 59:53Bill Simmons?

  Hi Fitz, you're up.

• 59:55Speaker 06

  Uh, I am, I will take if, well, speaking of the Patriots, this one, I'm surprised this one fell to me. In terms of scarcity here, I'm going to go coach of the year, Mike Vrabel.

• 1:00:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I should take that.

• 1:00:04Speaker 06

  I'm surprised that that fell to me. I mean, this is really simple. Like the Patriots, what do you guys, five and two?

• 1:00:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:10Speaker 06

  And coach of the year, I mean, if, I mean, you guys win the division, coach of the year, you guys have the easiest remaining schedule. So not only you're five and two now, but the Patriots have the easiest remaining schedule. So if the Patriots win 11, 12 games, you have the tiebreaker against the Bills. Yep, already. I'm kind of like.

• 1:00:25Bill Simmons?

  He's three to one on Fanduel.

• 1:00:27Speaker 06

  And that's the, you were talking about, once you've mentioned Steichen, what happens? How does Steichen lose? Well, the Colts are six and one. So what record do they need to finish? But if they finish the stretch with like three or four losses down the stretch, that's the part that weighs heavier in people's minds. The beginning fades.

• 1:00:41Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:00:42Speaker 06

  The Patriots. I hate to say it, and I hate the Patriots, and this is not me sucking up. Actually, as you know, I really, really hate the Patriots.

• 1:00:49Bill Simmons?

  I hate the Giants as well, and we're celebrating when you lost.

• 1:00:51Speaker 06

  The best moment of me working at this company, bar none, was you talking about how

• 1:00:56Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna make me mad.

• 1:00:57Speaker 06

  how much pain

• 1:00:58Speaker 04

  Corrie's just getting started here.

• 1:01:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, sorry, we have five days left. How much pain the second Giants Super Bowl caused you, and you didn't know I was like in the room, and you thought it was just like Mallory and Sean, and you were like, we lived it for five minutes.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  You just felt care, so we're listening?

• 1:01:10Speaker 06

  I was just like an intern listening, and I was, and you just were like, gals, when you turned around, you're like, oh shit, Hyphens hurt, all that. And it was the best thing.

• 1:01:15Bill Simmons?

  Hyphens was stroking a cat.

• 1:01:17Speaker 04

  I was gonna say stroking something else.

• 1:01:20Speaker 06

  But having said that, so with that said, I kind of think the Patriots could win 12 or 13 games, because I think Vrabel's such a good coach, and May is playing so well. The coach and/or quarterback advantage they have in so many of these remaining games.

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  All right, now you are sucking up. Now you are sucking up.

• 1:01:33Speaker 06

  I hate them.

• 1:01:33Bill Simmons?

  No, he's right. Our schedule is just, it almost seems like a rounding error accident. You just can't believe there's no hard teams. It's like at Tampa, I think is one of the hard ones. They play Buffalo and New England, and then maybe there's an at Baltimore, Baltimore. There's basically three playoff teams left on the schedule.

• 1:01:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:51Bill Simmons?

  Right now on Fanduel, they're plus 175 to win 12-plus games, which they're 5-2 now, so that's 7-3. And they're gonna be favored, and I think every game except maybe two.

• 1:02:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:05Bill Simmons?

  So I think it's the right pick. I think it's stake in our variable for the, stake in our variable for the coach of the year. What do you have, Craig?

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  No, Hyphens gets another one, right?

• 1:02:14Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Oh, wow, I do. Good point, Craig.

• 1:02:16Speaker 05

  Craig, you don't have to point that out.

• 1:02:18Speaker 04

  Teacher, teacher.

• 1:02:18Speaker 06

  Good point, Craig. In that note, on that similarly, I will take

• 1:02:26Speaker 06

  for MVP, it's tough, Craig took Mahomes, which was smart.

• 1:02:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:32Speaker 06

  There's not a lot of awesome options left, but for that reason, I'm gonna take Matt Stafford for the Rams.

• 1:02:36Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:02:37Speaker 06

  For a very simple reason.

• 1:02:39Speaker 04

  Bad pick.

• 1:02:40Speaker 06

  You have to win 12 games to win the MVP. There has been in the last 20 years, one MVP quarterback has not won 12 games.

• 1:02:48Speaker 05

  This is why Dak can't win.

• 1:02:49Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:02:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:02:50Speaker 06

  And you like, oh, you won nine games and 10 games and threw for a lot of yards. Like it does not happen. And even the quarterbacks who did win 12 games and win MVP, they all got a first round bye.

• 1:03:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:01Speaker 06

  When they were the two by era, like you cut now in the 17 game season, you kind of need 13 wins. So I'm looking around like Josh Allen for the Bills has better odds than Stafford. The Bills are way too injured, I think, to win 13 games. But I look at the Rams and the Rams are five and two. Stafford has 17 touchdowns and two interceptions. And he's playing so well. And I Rams are another team where I'm like, if the Rams win 13 games and Stafford is 35 touchdowns.

• 1:03:24Speaker 05

  It's smart. I like it.

• 1:03:25Speaker 04

  I can't tell. I think the guy I'm about to take applies to multiple categories.

• 1:03:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  I'm going to go fantasy MVP, Jackson Smith and Jigba.

• 1:03:34Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:03:34Speaker 04

  Who is the wide receiver one in fantasy.

• 1:03:36Speaker 05

  How dare you?

• 1:03:37Speaker 04

  And has immediately become, he's on pace for nine, 1,989 yards this year. Uh, and.

• 1:03:44Speaker 05

  So more, more, just almost 2,000.

• 1:03:46Speaker 04

  Almost 2,000. And he's just like, I don't know, the fifth best receiver in the league now, and he's only going up.

• 1:03:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:03:52Speaker 04

  He's always open.

• 1:03:53Speaker 05

  I was going to have him as one of the breakout players too, maybe.

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  I was going to as well, but break, there's been a lot of breakouts this year. I feel like fantasy MVP.

• 1:04:00Speaker 05

  I'm with you.

• 1:04:01Speaker 04

  So in terms of where he was drafted and how you feel about him now, he's like the most untradable player in the league.

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  He was drafted as a wide receiver 14.

• 1:04:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Speaker 05

  Um, and he is number one receiver in terms of total points this year. He is on pace for, like you said, for almost 2,000 yards. No signs of slowing down. He's number one overall in target rate. He's the Seahawks offense, their passing offense.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  He's been their leading receiver in all seven games.

• 1:04:24Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I, and I would say just like.

• 1:04:25Bill Simmons?

  And he's a peaceful man. When it seemed like there might be an altercation yesterday, he sat on the bench and held his hands.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  The ref, the ref like guarded him.

• 1:04:33Speaker 06

  Like that meme of the guy taking all the arrows for everybody.

• 1:04:36Bill Simmons?

  He's peaceful dude.

• 1:04:38Speaker 05

  Uh, he just moves differently. That's like the thing that always comes to mind when I watch him play. I'm just like, he has incredible body control, incredible acceleration, great hands, tracks the ball expertly. I is like just all the superlatives you could, you could throw out. He's just really, really good natural receiver.

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  He's a great roster fit for the squad I'm building today.

• 1:04:57Bill Simmons?

  There's, there's just, some guys are just open.

• 1:05:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Bill Simmons?

  And that's it. And that's why, you know, my Travion Henderson thing will probably live on video wise and infamy before the year comparing him to Jameer Gibbs.

• 1:05:11Speaker 04

  But.

• 1:05:11Bill Simmons?

  You know what won't live on is me talking about how awesome JSN was to Danny Kelly.

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  In this, at this very table.

• 1:05:17Bill Simmons?

  This was, yeah.

• 1:05:18Speaker 04

  You picked, he was your guy this year.

• 1:05:19Bill Simmons?

  And how there was a four game stretch last year when he was open for four straight games. And then the offensive line fell apart. That video won't live on. Cause that's how social media works, Danny. It's, it's a cruel beast.

• 1:05:31Speaker 05

  They like it when you're wrong.

• 1:05:32Bill Simmons?

  It's only the losers that live on. What do you have, Danny Kelly?

• 1:05:36Speaker 05

  Let's see here. Okay.

• 1:05:38Speaker 04

  We should start a Twitter account called Great Takes Exposed.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. That's good. How about the good takes?

• 1:05:43Speaker 04

  Some positivity.

• 1:05:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  I was right. Rogers is decent.

• 1:05:48Speaker 05

  Rogers is decent. What a, what a take.

• 1:05:52Bill Simmons?

  You were, you did plant your flag on, I think we're fine island, but there Rogers.

• 1:05:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:57Bill Simmons?

  It was good.

• 1:05:57Speaker 05

  So I don't know if this is too obvious to even count, but the QB offseason hot seat guy. Tua.

• 1:06:05Speaker 06

  I really regret not grabbing that when I just went, that was, I didn't, I forgot I was going snake.

• 1:06:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. Can we talk this out?

• 1:06:11Speaker 04

  I couldn't stomach the idea of seeing Tua on a roster of mine in any fashion.

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I guess he.

• 1:06:16Speaker 05

  We're not building fantasy teams here. We're trying to be right.

• 1:06:18Bill Simmons?

  No, that's, that's the right pick because.

• 1:06:21Speaker 05

  I wrote duh next to that.

• 1:06:23Speaker 04

  I actually also have, look, I have Tua too obvious.

• 1:06:26Speaker 05

  Too obvious.

• 1:06:27Speaker 04

  Too obvious.

• 1:06:27Bill Simmons?

  Too obvious. Well, he's got, he's what 50 million bucks on the books for 26.

• 1:06:32Speaker 04

  That's the only problem is they're going to have to eat a ridiculous amount of money to get rid of him.

• 1:06:37Speaker 06

  But then eventually they will. I mean, he's, the truth is he will have that one season as the Patsy. And then he's a, Tua's a backup quarterback. That is what he will be.

• 1:06:44Bill Simmons?

  That video of the Browns guy saying, throw it to me through, Tua, throw it to me, Tua. The Browns safety, it's, it's before the snap. He's like, throw it to me, Tua, throw it to me, Tua. And then Tua throws it to him. And he's running and he's going, Tua.

• 1:07:00Speaker 06

  And then he like gets up and running with the ball. And I thought he was going to freak out. And he's just, he just repeats it like he did before the play. Throw it to me, Tua, throw it to me, Tua.

• 1:07:07Bill Simmons?

  It was unbelievable. How could you come back from a quarterback with that after that happens?

• 1:07:11Speaker 06

  I.

• 1:07:12Bill Simmons?

  That's like, you have to leave the team at that point.

• 1:07:14Speaker 06

  You know, I, I almost wished Tua had gone to the press conference after and been like, you know.

• 1:07:19Speaker 06

  Starts with the leadership, guys are late to players only meetings.

• 1:07:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:07:23Speaker 06

  I just, you know, just keep saying it every week.

• 1:07:27Speaker 05

  I think they have like, if they cut him post June 1, they have like a $67 million dead hit. So they're just gonna have to eat that.

• 1:07:34Bill Simmons?

  What's funny is throw it, throw it to me blank is something that I say when I'm watching the games, when it's a bad QB and you have the other team and like from a betting standpoint. And I think I was saying it at the same time as this guy. It might, might not have been the same scenario, but when two was in his own end zone, basically, and he threw that pick to Cleveland in the 10, like when he went back to pass, it was like throw it to me, throw it, throw it. Like he's just, I think he's the throw it to me all stars.

• 1:07:59Speaker 06

  It's an incantation. It's like what Van did this week or whatever the hell he was doing with trying to jinx LSU or whatever. Like I think maybe, I think that that was the same vibe.

• 1:08:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, the, the Manning, Arch Manning is another throw it to me guy.

• 1:08:09Speaker 05

  Man.

• 1:08:10Bill Simmons?

  Throw it to me, Arch. Come on. All right. I am a.

• 1:08:14Speaker 05

  Two to you, Bill. Two out to you.

• 1:08:17Bill Simmons?

  I have to grab a hot seat guy and there's only two left for the QBs that I really focused on.

• 1:08:25Bill Simmons?

  I wish I could take them both.

• 1:08:27Speaker 05

  You can't? Oh, I guess you can't.

• 1:08:30Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna take Trevor Lawrence here. It's just great value.

• 1:08:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:08:34Bill Simmons?

  I, uh, I just can't believe some of the, some of the games he's had. And then the, uh, I used to have a joke about the Portland Trailblazers soccer moms when I was writing way back when, about how protective they were of their own players. And I think the Jaguars fan base is like this with Trevor Lawrence. It's everyone else's fault. It's Brian Thomas Jr. Cause he won't catch balls over the middle and they're calling the wrong plays and the offensive line isn't good enough. And meanwhile, this dude just sails balls over people's heads and makes terrible decisions and runs around aimlessly.

• 1:09:08Speaker 05

  Runs past the line of scrimmage and then chucks a ball.

• 1:09:11Bill Simmons?

  And if they had lost that Chiefs game, which they should have, like this season would already be a wrap for them, but unfortunately it's not. Anyway.

• 1:09:18Speaker 06

  You know, the, remember the Lombardi rule, just like every NFL quarterback has to throw through the door. And then the good ones can hit the doorknob and the, you know, the elite ones can hit the keyhole.

• 1:09:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Speaker 06

  Trevor Lawrence, every quarter misses the door and breaks the window.

• 1:09:31Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:09:32Speaker 04

  It's kind of that simple. He just like is not accurate. And, and his receivers can't catch. So it's just like a double whammy. He's inaccurate and his receivers can't catch.

• 1:09:40Bill Simmons?

  When he is accurate, they, yeah. I would have paid, I don't know how much for video of the rest of the Jaguars team watching that commercial with him and Travis Hunter for Adidas, the Footloose parody.

• 1:09:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:09:51Bill Simmons?

  What was that? How did nobody stop that? What is that commercial? And then it runs all the time and you're like, how did nobody in either of these guys' life just throw their bodies in front of this? Like, have you even seen Footloose?

• 1:10:04Speaker 04

  Uh, I think a long time ago, but yeah.

• 1:10:06Bill Simmons?

  Like, that is a deep cut. That's a movie that came out in 1984. It's like, let's parody Footloose.

• 1:10:11Speaker 04

  There needs to be some rule, like you need to be an all pro before you can be in a commercial. They're, they're just shoving too many guys in commercials. Travis Hunter being a commercial.

• 1:10:18Bill Simmons?

  He's in multiple commercials. Uh, we'll take a break. We'll finish the draft.

• 1:10:22Speaker 04

  Remember Baker was in the commercials.

• 1:10:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, progressive a lot. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what? You're gonna want WeatherTech in your vehicle, whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything. And whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget. Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.

• 1:11:09Bill Simmons?

  All right, come back with the draft. I am gonna tackle the team that will get the number one pick overall in 2026 category.

• 1:11:19Bill Simmons?

  And with apologies to Dolphins, Titans, and Saints, I am going to take the 0-7 New York Jets.

• 1:11:27Speaker 04

  Fair.

• 1:11:28Bill Simmons?

  Because I don't know what the move is.

• 1:11:33Bill Simmons?

  Like, they could play Tyrod Taylor. He had two interceptions in a half. Wilson's out for a little while.

• 1:11:42Bill Simmons?

  It doesn't seem like the coach is good, which is a problem.

• 1:11:45Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:11:46Bill Simmons?

  And they're in a division with Buffalo and the Patriots.

• 1:11:52Bill Simmons?

  They just seem like the most reliable bet to me.

• 1:11:54Speaker 04

  And you could nicely stack that with Aaron Glenn, first coach fire.

• 1:11:58Bill Simmons?

  Right, right.

• 1:11:58Speaker 04

  That'd be a nice stack for you and your team.

• 1:12:00Bill Simmons?

  I could definitely do that. DK, you're up.

• 1:12:03Speaker 05

  Okay, let's see here. I just need to, I want to take this guy off the board.

• 1:12:12Speaker 05

  So I'm gonna do, actually no, I need to own something because I was in favor of Brock Bowers.

• 1:12:21Speaker 05

  This offseason, and he is the fantasy murderer of the year. It's not all his fault because he got hurt.

• 1:12:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's a question with murderers, whether an injury is their fault.

• 1:12:30Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:12:30Bill Simmons?

  But I think this was different because he was hurt and playing.

• 1:12:32Speaker 04

  It's involuntary manslaughter if they get hurt.

• 1:12:35Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 1:12:35Speaker 04

  But Trevon Henderson like literally stabbed me to death.

• 1:12:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, the problem with Brock Bowers is he was hurt for four extra weeks. Where you had to start him, but he wasn't healthy. And then they're finally like, he's hurt.

• 1:12:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, our friend is hurt. We'll do points per game. Brock Bowers has fewer points per game than Jake Tonjes.

• 1:12:50Speaker 04

  It was brutal having to play him. Like he was limping around like Sean Penn at the end of one battle after another, just like for three weeks. While you're still starting him, so.

• 1:12:59Bill Simmons?

  I paid $36 for him in my knockout week. I thought I was like, he's a $40 receiver. I'm getting a discount at a position where there's no good people.

• 1:13:07Speaker 06

  You pay $36, he has under 36 points, and believe it or not, Darren Waller matched it in like 36 snaps out of retirement.

• 1:13:14Speaker 05

  I don't like these stats. It just makes me feel terrible inside.

• 1:13:18Bill Simmons?

  By the way, he had one good game, and it was that week one Pats game, which is gonna be in the running for weirdest result of the year. If the Raiders are like 3 and 14 and the Pats are like 13 and 4, I'll be like, wait, what happened in week one?

• 1:13:28Speaker 05

  I think part of the reason too that I wanted to highlight him, even though obviously like the injury is the big reason here. But the Raiders have been so much worse than I expected their offense to be like they are. Uncompetitive on offense. What was it? They had 30 plays in this last game?

• 1:13:43Speaker 04

  Chiefs had 31 points, Raiders had 30 plays.

• 1:13:45Bill Simmons?

  Under 100 yards. It's funny because you and me, we're complaining about Pete Carroll for the last couple of years there.

• 1:13:51Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 1:13:52Bill Simmons?

  And then he took, then he took time off.

• 1:13:54Speaker 05

  And then he.

• 1:13:54Bill Simmons?

  And came back and seems just as incompetent.

• 1:13:57Speaker 05

  Here's the deal.

• 1:13:58Speaker 04

  He, he got older weirdly.

• 1:13:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, weird that he's in his mid 70s.

• 1:14:02Speaker 05

  We were complaining about him, but then when he got fired or whatever that was that happened, uh, it was like, you have this emotional connection to him and then you're kind of mad about it because they fired him.

• 1:14:12Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:14:12Speaker 05

  Um, but I, yeah, I thought he, I thought he was going to be, I thought he was going to turn this Raiders team around more, much more quickly than this is happening.

• 1:14:20Bill Simmons?

  I picked them to make the playoffs. I, I was battling Colts versus Raiders versus Jags for that last spot in the AFC and I, I couldn't get there with Danny Jones. Carroll might not be done in this draft. He might be popping up again for all we know. Craig's up.

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm going with QB offseason hot seat guy. I think this is the last guy in his tier and I had him second. I'm taking Kyler Murray.

• 1:14:42Speaker 05

  Oh, I had him too.

• 1:14:43Bill Simmons?

  Had him as well.

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  Who?

• 1:14:44Speaker 05

  Craig, it's in red.

• 1:14:46Speaker 04

  I mean, I, the worst place to be in the NFL is giving the big contract to a quarterback that you know can't do it. And, and it's Tua, it's Trevor Lawrence.

• 1:14:55Bill Simmons?

  It's Bradley Beal in the NBA. It's like, ah, we gotta, ah.

• 1:14:59Speaker 04

  Trevor, Kyler, but the, the Cardinals have the 27th most wins since Kyler was drafted. That's just like, they have zero playoff wins.

• 1:15:06Speaker 05

  And they're way more competitive with Brissette.

• 1:15:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Anytime there's a backup, the team seems fired up.

• 1:15:11Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:15:12Bill Simmons?

  What's great about this, so we had the QB hot seat guy, Lawrence, I have Lawrence, Craig took Murray, Danny has Tua. And there's still great value in the board for Heifetz.

• 1:15:22Speaker 05

  I'm blown away.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  He played this perfectly.

• 1:15:23Speaker 05

  I was going to take someone right now, but then I'm like, I'm waiting, I'm waiting. I don't need to. Wow, I gotta put it off. Wow, I'm shocked. Okay. In that case, I'll take fantasy MVP. I'm going to go with, uh, there are a lot of good options here too, but I'm going to just.

• 1:15:37Speaker 06

  I'm gonna just take a moment to talk about Christian McCaffrey from the 49ers.

• 1:15:41Speaker 05

  Yeah, this one's good.

• 1:15:41Speaker 06

  And you could argue that maybe there's other guys because, you know, McCaffrey probably took in the first round and maybe there's other values. But it's funny because all we talk about this year is Jonathan Taylor, Jonathan Taylor, Jonathan Taylor. In full PPR leagues, Jonathan Taylor is not the number one running back. Christian McCaffrey is the number one running back in full PPR leagues, and I feel like it's likely to be getting discussed like McCaffrey's on pace.

• 1:16:00Bill Simmons?

  Playing with Mac Jones.

• 1:16:01Speaker 06

  He is on pace for over 1,000 receiving yards.

• 1:16:04Speaker 05

  He's third in the league in receptions.

• 1:16:06Speaker 06

  He is, and he is 11.

• 1:16:07Speaker 05

  Including receivers.

• 1:16:08Speaker 06

  He's 11 fewer receiving yards than Justin Jefferson.

• 1:16:11Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:11Bill Simmons?

  He's so good that when, he's been so good this year, when it's like third and six, you're like, just run the play where you, where you split McCaffrey out as a slot receiver. Nobody's guarded him all year.

• 1:16:21Speaker 04

  The craziest thing about it is as good as McCaffrey's been this year, and I feel like everybody thinks about the 2023 Niner season when McCaffrey went crazy. He's having a better fantasy year this year than that year.

• 1:16:30Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 1:16:30Speaker 05

  23 points per game.

• 1:16:31Speaker 06

  He won Offensive Player of the Year in the 2023 season, and I think he had like 590 receiving yards, 580. He might pass that this week.

• 1:16:39Speaker 04

  The only reason why I think like somebody like Taylor's better is because McCaffrey was taken like sixth overall. So you are, you are, this is what he's kind of supposed to be doing as opposed to guys like.

• 1:16:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I guess the fantasy MVP thing is it like just who's been the most awesome or the value versus.

• 1:16:54Speaker 04

  Like JSN and Jonathan Taylor, you could have had him and McCaffrey.

• 1:16:58Speaker 06

  Well, not to get too meta here, but by your logic, Jonathan Taylor went in this draft like three rounds ago, so.

• 1:17:03Speaker 04

  Okay. Interesting.

• 1:17:06Speaker 05

  True.

• 1:17:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because Taylor, you guys did not have him in the top five.

• 1:17:10Speaker 04

  No way. He was like a third-rounder.

• 1:17:12Speaker 06

  He's like top 20 guy.

• 1:17:13Speaker 04

  Second round or third round?

• 1:17:14Speaker 06

  I got him in the rear draft to quarterback league, but like the fourth round.

• 1:17:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:18Bill Simmons?

  I have to have one more.

• 1:17:19Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, I do. I can't believe I get to just cherry pick later.

• 1:17:22Bill Simmons?

  I just want to point out, nobody has picked an offensive or defensive Rookie of the Year yet.

• 1:17:27Speaker 06

  That's, that's.

• 1:17:28Bill Simmons?

  That category is wide open.

• 1:17:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:17:30Speaker 04

  It's because I think it's deep and I don't feel confident about who's gonna win it. Yeah.

• 1:17:33Speaker 06

  It's, it is deep. I agree with that. I will, in that case, I guess I might just dive in there and just, or actually, no, no, no. I'm going to.

• 1:17:40Bill Simmons?

  Tried to buoy him and then take.

• 1:17:41Speaker 06

  I know you did. In that case, all right, we need to have a conversation for a second. Breakout star, what does that mean? Of all these categories you sent, I kind of just didn't know what that meant.

• 1:17:50Bill Simmons?

  All right.

• 1:17:51Speaker 06

  Fairly. Cause I will, in that case, I'm just gonna throw someone out.

• 1:17:54Speaker 05

  Interpretation, just give us your pick.

• 1:17:55Speaker 06

  It's Cam Scataboo for the New York Giants.

• 1:17:58Bill Simmons?

  I think that's fair. Like, like, it's somebody that wasn't being discussed before the season as somebody who there would be lots of conversations about. And now it's week seven and people are talking.

• 1:18:08Speaker 06

  I think Scataboo's rocketed to fame more than anyone, like, including Drake. Drake May is like a better player and joining a higher category of quarterback, but Cam Scataboo is honestly one of the like, you, you, Bill, you always, we're talking about like the conversations around the game. I don't know if online, a player has actually been talked about more this season than Cam Scataboo, the photos, every, he's like, I, again, my favorite thing about him, when he was a kid, he'd put on his older brother's shoulder pads and he would run into telephone poles.

• 1:18:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:36Speaker 06

  And you hear that story and you're like, yeah, that totally makes sense. He's just.

• 1:18:39Bill Simmons?

  I didn't understand it.

• 1:18:41Speaker 05

  White running back.

• 1:18:41Bill Simmons?

  I was texting you guys when, cause I wanted the Pats to take him in the third round. And he just kept falling in the fourth round and nobody could explain it because everybody liked him.

• 1:18:50Speaker 06

  It's cause he's slow.

• 1:18:51Bill Simmons?

  And thought he was gonna translate it. But he's not slow though, when you watch him, like, he's.

• 1:18:54Speaker 05

  He's got, he's got short area.

• 1:18:56Speaker 04

  Once, once again, if the draft were on February 20th, Scataboo, it's like, you watch him play at 1,900 yards in college, he's good.

• 1:19:01Speaker 06

  He doesn't win with speed, he wins with power and he has enough acceleration to make the power work, but I mean.

• 1:19:06Bill Simmons?

  People don't want to tackle him. And these are NFL players and they're like, ah, he's a psychopath.

• 1:19:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's a maniac, he's a pit bull.

• 1:19:12Bill Simmons?

  He's awesome. I'm so not surprised by it.

• 1:19:14Speaker 05

  Lowering his head like a few yards into the end zone to like take a guy out.

• 1:19:18Speaker 06

  He's crazy. I, oh God, wow, I can't believe I got Scataboo.

• 1:19:22Bill Simmons?

  That's a really good pick. Craig, you're up.

• 1:19:23Speaker 04

  Uh, next coach fired, Aaron Glenn.

• 1:19:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:28Speaker 04

  Kind of surprised that he was still there.

• 1:19:31Speaker 04

  I think it gets tricky after him.

• 1:19:32Speaker 05

  It does.

• 1:19:33Bill Simmons?

  It definitely does.

• 1:19:34Speaker 06

  I'll let DK figure out his pick here. I'll just say it's funny that the Jets were like, yeah, we hope Aaron Glenn learns something from Dan Campbell. And now it's like, you know, the other coach you started 0-7, Dan Campbell, 0-11.

• 1:19:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, we did, I did this on Sunday's pod because I looked this up and somehow it's harder to look up stuff now, now that everybody had, puts AI in the Google, like, just it spits out weird stuff. But Cam Cameron's 0-13, I had forgotten about. It was in the mid 2000s, on the Dolphins, 0-13 start.

• 1:20:02Speaker 06

  The Dolphins quietly have had some of, I mean, that, Nick Saban, like, I mean, man.

• 1:20:07Bill Simmons?

  Um.

• 1:20:08Speaker 05

  Let's see here. So there's some good options in this one, but I'm just gonna go with it. I'm gonna go with the team that will get the number one pick, the Titans. They have pretty, pretty comfortably the hardest schedule of the zero and one win teams right now. They have to face the Colts, Chargers, Texans, Seahawks, Jags, Browns, 49ers, Chiefs, Saints, and then the Jags again. I could maybe find like two wins in there.

• 1:20:34Bill Simmons?

  I looked at them too. It is crazy because everyone, everyone thought like the AFC South was probably gonna be bad.

• 1:20:41Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:20:42Bill Simmons?

  Now it might have a 14 win team. The Jags are frisky. He's got a killer defense.

• 1:20:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly. So I think this is also a team with an interim coach that nobody really believes in. A rookie quarterback. There's no skilled player talent right now.

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  I like when teams are like, listen, Jeffrey Simmons, no way we're trading him. It's like, why not? He's in his late twenties. Like, why wouldn't you trade him for, you get some like a first and a third for him? I'd do that in five seconds.

• 1:21:10Speaker 05

  Dude, this all the time. I mean, Max Crosby, Bill Barnwell.

• 1:21:12Bill Simmons?

  Max Crosby is another one.

• 1:21:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, like years ago, like Max Crosby, I'm like, you could have got two firsts for Max Crosby if they traded him two years ago and, and they, they, the teams don't want to get rid of guys competitively, but like, they never want to do it.

• 1:21:24Bill Simmons?

  I have my hand Simmons for the Pats.

• 1:21:29Bill Simmons?

  Brable connection. I don't think they traded with Brable, but I think he's potentially the best guy that could be.

• 1:21:34Speaker 05

  For Jeff Simmons?

• 1:21:35Speaker 04

  Or Crosby.

• 1:21:36Bill Simmons?

  But even in the one quarter, he played against the Pats. He was like disrupting us. And then he went out and he became a lot easier.

• 1:21:42Speaker 05

  Wow, he is 28 already. That's crazy. Yeah.

• 1:21:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I just like, when are you gonna be good again, Tennessee?

• 1:21:47Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 1:21:47Bill Simmons?

  You know? DK, was that your pick?

• 1:21:51Speaker 05

  That was my pick. Yeah, you're right.

• 1:21:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh, so I have two.

• 1:21:54Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:21:57Bill Simmons?

  Let's do.

• 1:22:02Bill Simmons?

  Do I have to? No, you know what? I'm gonna bang out an offensive or defensive Rookie of the Year.

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  And the odds are pretty high for everybody because there's no favorite. There's so much, um, so much consensus. I mean, so much lack of consensus.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna take Tyler Warren.

• 1:22:20Speaker 05

  Nice.

• 1:22:22Bill Simmons?

  Even though Egbo has been awesome and Dart will have some sexiness because he's a QB in a New York market. But I just think Tyler Warren's like honestly, one of the best football players. Like, could he be the first team all pro as a tight end?

• 1:22:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. It's so clearly obvious that he's good immediately upon getting on the field. Yeah.

• 1:22:41Bill Simmons?

  Nobody can tackle him. They can line him up everywhere. I love when tight ends can be used as like a running back every once in a while or a slot receiver. We had that with early Gronk where you could kind of just put him around the field and, and you could just see the defense like, oh, fuck. They they spread him out wide.

• 1:22:57Speaker 04

  And I don't think a tight end has ever won Offensive Rookie of the Year.

• 1:22:59Speaker 06

  No, I mean, he bowers had the most catches, like the second most catches ever for any rookie. It didn't even win Rookie of the Year last year.

• 1:23:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:07Bill Simmons?

  All right. So then I'm going Coach of the Year. Heifetz already has Raible and DK already has Steichen. I think the only guy left who can win this is Kyle Shanahan and I'm gonna grab him. I think he's seven to one on FanDuel. Five and two. He's, he's turned Mac Jones into somebody that is probably gonna get like a $20 million a year contract from somebody at some point and be terrible when he gets it.

• 1:23:33Bill Simmons?

  All the injuries, the fact, the way they showed up for this last game with nobody on defense. And just dudes I've never, ever heard of in my life.

• 1:23:40Speaker 04

  Shanahan does this shit every year. Shanahan's so good. So Kendrick Bourne and Mac Jones. I, I think the craziest Shanahan stat is the Nick Mullens stat.

• 1:23:49Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, my favorite.

• 1:23:51Speaker 04

  The most yards in the first 16 games of your career. It's Mahomes and then Nick Mullens.

• 1:23:56Speaker 06

  And then it's like Andrew Luck, Kurt Warner and Tony Romo.

• 1:23:58Speaker 04

  The most yards in the first 16 games of your career. Patrick Mahomes and then fucking Nick Mullens because of Kyle Shanahan. That's unbelievable.

• 1:24:04Bill Simmons?

  That's crazy.

• 1:24:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:05Bill Simmons?

  DK, you're up.

• 1:24:07Speaker 05

  Okay, this is the guy I wanted to get off the board here. So I'm gonna go breakout star.

• 1:24:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:14Speaker 05

  Igbooka.

• 1:24:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:15Speaker 05

  Amika Igbooka, who is only, his case is probably only going to get stronger going forward here, obviously, because.

• 1:24:23Bill Simmons?

  He seems like the greatest guy, too.

• 1:24:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:25Bill Simmons?

  Like, I think I'd vote for him for president in 28 if he decided to get the right partner. Everybody loves him. How do you, how are you a captain as a rookie? That's like impossible. Be like if, when Heifetz joined as an intern, we were like, Heifetz, you're now a captain.

• 1:24:38Speaker 05

  He's got it.

• 1:24:39Bill Simmons?

  This kid's got something.

• 1:24:40Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:24:41Bill Simmons?

  He's a leader.

• 1:24:44Speaker 05

  So, and also, by the way, with Mike Evans likely missing most of the season, Igbooka is going to be there, you know, pretty clear cut number one. It's only going up for him, so, and obviously, I trust Mayfield to feed him the rest of the season.

• 1:24:56Bill Simmons?

  I really like Tez, too.

• 1:24:57Speaker 05

  I know, I do, too.

• 1:24:58Bill Simmons?

  And his story is, the whole thing with him and Bo Nix's family, that's like the, the kind of the story that hasn't gotten enough play.

• 1:25:04Speaker 06

  It's really cool.

• 1:25:05Bill Simmons?

  Really, really cool, but that guy, I thought Mayfield was awful on Monday night. I thought he missed a lot of throws. He missed Tez in the end zone at one point, but I thought Tez was open most of that game.

• 1:25:14Speaker 06

  Tez also thinking the MVP chants were for him a couple of weeks ago is one of the one of the things to play a set all year.

• 1:25:18Bill Simmons?

  He's good.

• 1:25:19Speaker 05

  Just genuinely awesome.

• 1:25:19Bill Simmons?

  Igbooka's lights out. He's been lights out. I remember when we talked into my guy stuff and you guys were saying, like, can Guillotine be careful with young guys, rookies? It takes a while. Igbooka came in, he had two touchdowns in his first game. He's immediately awesome.

• 1:25:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:31Bill Simmons?

  Craig, you're up.

• 1:25:32Speaker 04

  I think I'm just going to take Jackson Dart for offensive rookie of the year.

• 1:25:35Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's the right pick because I'm shocked, DK, you went break out of the year for Igbooka and not rookie of the year, because.

• 1:25:41Speaker 05

  No, just because I was, because I think Dart's going to win it.

• 1:25:45Speaker 06

  Okay, well, he has Dart now.

• 1:25:46Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Speaker 06

  I, so Dart, the reason I left Dart this long is my only, obviously Dart's the favorite. My concern is the Giants, the hardest schedule remaining in the NFL, and I feel like they'll lose a lot of games, and I also kind of wonder if Dart's going to just.

• 1:25:58Bill Simmons?

  Get hurt.

• 1:25:58Speaker 06

  I just, I just.

• 1:25:59Bill Simmons?

  I was going to say, the bigger concern to me is he's, he's a fucking maniac. Like, they need to run PSAs for him and show him all quarterbacks have taken dumb hits. He's going to get hurt like eight yards past the line of scrimmage, trying to juke three guys if some linebacker hits him from behind. He just doesn't care.

• 1:26:15Speaker 06

  This is Dable's toxic trait as a coach, is that Josh Allen had no sense of self-preservation early in his career when he played for Brian Dable. Daniel Jones, we kept, we kept joking that we thought Dable was trying to get Daniel Jones hurt because Daniel Jones took so many hits, and that's why Giants fans have no bad blood with Daniel Jones, is he put his body on the line for the Giants. Like, he would always take hits, and now it's Dart, and it's like, it, goal line? Important third downs, you can't take hits getting the extra yard on its first and ten and you're going for three yards and you're taking it to your four.

• 1:26:44Bill Simmons?

  Drake may have figured it out this year. They might, I, I'm convinced.

• 1:26:47Speaker 04

  Also, Drake may have the body for it. Dart is a little bit slight.

• 1:26:50Speaker 06

  He's a good runner, but he just go down.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:26:53Speaker 06

  But he just, he's, he's friends, you know, I don't think, maybe it's, maybe it's, you know, that Cam Scataboo, maybe he can.

• 1:26:58Speaker 04

  He's rubbing off on him.

• 1:26:58Speaker 06

  Maybe Scataboo will tell, literally with his face.

• 1:27:00Speaker 04

  They're human smelling salts.

• 1:27:02Speaker 06

  Yeah, rubbing their faces at each other.

• 1:27:03Bill Simmons?

  What's your other pick?

• 1:27:05Speaker 04

  No, it's two to I have it's now.

• 1:27:06Speaker 06

  Oh, it's two to me.

• 1:27:06Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I thought you took Jackson Dart.

• 1:27:08Speaker 06

  I wish.

• 1:27:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you took Jackson Dart.

• 1:27:12Speaker 04

  Good pick.

• 1:27:13Speaker 06

  I, yeah, I really, I was definitely gonna make that pick if you didn't do that.

• 1:27:16Bill Simmons?

  Like Pete Carroll, I forgot who took a pick. Like, like put in Napoleon McCallum. No, no, we have Gentil now.

• 1:27:25Speaker 06

  Damn, so the rookie of the year now, now that's, that's, we're getting a little thin.

• 1:27:27Speaker 04

  Well, Trevion Henderson is still there. He's a hundred and fifty to one.

• 1:27:31Speaker 06

  I, I can go defense. That is true. Um.

• 1:27:34Bill Simmons?

  The defensive rookie of the year list was really grim.

• 1:27:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:37Speaker 06

  It's, it is, I'm not gonna go defensive rookie of the year because I think everyone voting is gonna be like, wow, I don't know. I think everyone looks that up. The voters looked that up in like December twentieth.

• 1:27:45Speaker 05

  They're reading like PFF stats.

• 1:27:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, they just sort by, yeah, great. Uh, I, man, so you got Dart, Abuka and Warner gone.

• 1:27:54Speaker 06

  Part of me, I guess the only answer left here is, it's crazy to say this, but I mean, Quinshon Judkins, I honestly have no idea if he'll win the award because of the off-field stuff. But the other rookies.

• 1:28:05Speaker 05

  It's the Browns.

• 1:28:06Speaker 06

  It's the Browns. They have an easy schedule remaining, but I mean, he's pretty, pretty.

• 1:28:09Speaker 05

  He looks good.

• 1:28:10Speaker 06

  I don't feel great about this pick. It's probably my, I'm sure, oh, Henderson's gone. That's too bad. You're right.

• 1:28:15Speaker 04

  No, no, you can still take him in a different category, right?

• 1:28:17Speaker 06

  No, that's how it works.

• 1:28:18Speaker 04

  Oh, if I took Henderson in one category, can no one take him in another?

• 1:28:21Bill Simmons?

  No, it's just for that category. We can double up.

• 1:28:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:24Speaker 05

  Oh, okay, okay.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  So like, like Jackson Smith and Jacob could be fantasy MVP and breakout star on different teams.

• 1:28:29Speaker 06

  Oh, then I'll take Emeka Abuka for rookie of the year. Oh, my God.

• 1:28:33Speaker 05

  See, that's, yeah, that's what I was saying when I wanna take him off the board.

• 1:28:36Speaker 06

  Well, glad I clarified that. Thanks. Wow, that's, then that's definitely, yeah, I mean, he's, everything DK said, yeah, Mike Evans is like, it's just if Abuka is banged up, so Dart's favorite.

• 1:28:46Bill Simmons?

  He should be eligible for two categories.

• 1:28:47Speaker 04

  I think so too.

• 1:28:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Speaker 06

  Perfect. Then, yeah, then I think, I think I kinda screwed you there.

• 1:28:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, I haven't told me that. It's his fault.

• 1:28:52Speaker 06

  I was wrong. But, yeah, I mean, Abuka's amazing.

• 1:28:54Speaker 04

  So you got a second one now?

• 1:28:56Speaker 06

  Uh, the second one, I will. I think I, I think I gotta dive into fantasy murderer here. And man, there's some, there's some great picks here. There's two guys left that I'm perfectly happy with.

• 1:29:11Speaker 06

  But.

• 1:29:13Speaker 06

  I think I have to take Brian Thomas Jr. From the Jaguars.

• 1:29:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man.

• 1:29:17Speaker 05

  He's been brutal.

• 1:29:18Bill Simmons?

  He's, I thought I was gonna get him.

• 1:29:20Speaker 06

  And it's because A G Brown, you know, has been bad too, but A G Brown said a great game. Here's the difference. Brian Thomas, you took him in the second round. If you didn't know anything about the Jaguars. And Bill, if I, if I told you there was a receiver on the Jacksonville Jaguars. Who also plays cornerback and doesn't really practice with the offense that much.

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:29:40Speaker 06

  You'd, you'd think it was Brian Thomas.

• 1:29:42Speaker 04

  Also, like if somebody just told you, oh, the, the Jags are four and three this year. They beat the Chiefs. You'd be like, oh, my God, Brian Thomas would be going crazy.

• 1:29:49Speaker 06

  He must be doing great.

• 1:29:51Bill Simmons?

  It's, I feel like I've watched too much of the Jags, but I also have him on multiple fantasy teams. And it's, it's not just that he's not, it's not a situation where the quarterback screwing him over. Like he's just dropping balls too. It's a combo of when he is open, he's overthrown or he drops it. The scenario is always bad. And last year it just felt like he was just beating guys downfield over and over again and getting wide open. And I don't know what happened to that guy.

• 1:30:15Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:30:16Bill Simmons?

  Really weird. I don't understand it all. You got one more pick?

• 1:30:20Speaker 06

  Uh, no, I, I, cause I took a book.

• 1:30:22Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, you got to.

• 1:30:22Speaker 06

  Ricky.

• 1:30:22Bill Simmons?

  All right, Craig's up.

• 1:30:23Speaker 04

  Um, I'm gonna go with.

• 1:30:27Speaker 04

  God.

• 1:30:30Speaker 04

  I'm gonna go with team that'll get the number one pick in the draft and I'm gonna take the Miami Dolphins.

• 1:30:36Speaker 05

  There you go.

• 1:30:37Speaker 04

  I.

• 1:30:38Speaker 05

  But they're so hot right now.

• 1:30:41Speaker 04

  They only have three easy games left, Saints, Jets and Bengals. If you even count the Bengals at this point, I'm like, I think the Saints are better. I think the Bengals are better.

• 1:30:49Speaker 04

  It's, it's brutal. I, the two, I don't know if he's gonna be playing the rest of the year. They might fire Mike McDaniel, like this team might just completely quit.

• 1:30:56Bill Simmons?

  I think it's the right pick. So we have, I took the Jets, you have Miami and DK has Tennessee. So really the Saints.

• 1:31:05Speaker 05

  Saints and.

• 1:31:05Bill Simmons?

  Or Vegas are just sitting there. Yeah. Okay. What do you got Danny?

• 1:31:09Speaker 05

  All right, I'm gonna go with MVP, Josh Allen.

• 1:31:12Speaker 06

  It's pretty good value this one I drafted.

• 1:31:14Bill Simmons?

  Josh Allen?

• 1:31:15Speaker 05

  You guys forgot about Josh Allen.

• 1:31:16Speaker 06

  I'm really upset I took Stafford like five rounds ago. I was surprised by that. Yeah, I. You don't get the odds. I panicked because I forgot I was doing two picks in a row.

• 1:31:25Speaker 05

  In addition to being.

• 1:31:27Bill Simmons?

  Which leaves Drake May for Bill.

• 1:31:28Speaker 05

  Absolute alien. The Bills have a pretty easy schedule down the line. So, you know, and again, he's, he's this alien quarterback who can run around and do all the most insane physical things, but he also doesn't have the benefit, or I think narratively, he doesn't have like a number one receiver, you know, he doesn't have a superstar running back.

• 1:31:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:31:49Speaker 05

  He doesn't have an elite defense. And so it does feel like the team, he's just putting the team on his shoulder, even though I think they're solid across the board. You know what I mean? It just feels like he is elevating them.

• 1:32:01Bill Simmons?

  I really wanted him. And if you look at his next few games, like they're, I mean, they just have some cream puffs left. Both the AFC East really like that. At least they have to play Philadelphia in week 17 and they're at Houston. But yeah, I think Josh Allen's kind of been under the radar this year, all these other stories. And it does feel like we're, we're due. Plus he's got the Oscars coming up. Maybe his wife gets nominated. Okay.

• 1:32:29Speaker 06

  That's a good pick, DK.

• 1:32:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was a good pick.

• 1:32:31Speaker 06

  Thank you.

• 1:32:32Bill Simmons?

  So I only have a couple of ones left here. Oh yeah. So I need to do my fantasy MVP. So Craig took JSN, Hyphitz took McCaffrey. Danny took Taylor.

• 1:32:50Bill Simmons?

  Man, this is tough because I was between Mahomes and Dak.

• 1:32:55Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:32:57Bill Simmons?

  I think it's Dak.

• 1:32:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:32:59Speaker 05

  Okay, you can make the argument, he's been one of the most valuable picks because of where you could get him.

• 1:33:05Speaker 04

  I think in general, if you could pick a team, you should just say Dallas. I mean, the fact that Pickens, Javonte Williams, out of nowhere at Dak, they've all been so, uh, Ferguson, Jake Ferguson's like the number one tight end fantasy, everybody's cleaning up.

• 1:33:16Speaker 06

  Dak, if you extend the grace of what he's done for them overall, is probably the correct answer. Kind of breaking the rules, but yeah.

• 1:33:22Bill Simmons?

  I still think he's also been awesome.

• 1:33:24Speaker 05

  He's been incredibly nice, yeah.

• 1:33:26Bill Simmons?

  I think him and May are playing consistently the best on throws, like just their guys are in stride all the time, the deep balls, everything.

• 1:33:34Speaker 05

  Big time throws.

• 1:33:35Bill Simmons?

  Big time throws. That game he had against Green Bay, I thought it was the best quarterback game I've seen this year.

• 1:33:40Speaker 04

  We, the three of us couldn't watch that, it was at 5 a.m. in Dublin, so we actually like literally had to go to bed.

• 1:33:45Speaker 06

  Hard to watch internet, like when you're out of the country, the geolocating, they got good at that, so we just follow in the box score live.

• 1:33:51Speaker 04

  We're like, wow, everyone's playing great in this game.

• 1:33:54Bill Simmons?

  So, I'm the only one who didn't have most valuable player, Craig took Mahomes, Iffits took Stafford, Danny took Allen.

• 1:34:00Speaker 04

  I mean, come on, it's sitting right there for you.

• 1:34:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, a week ago, I would have taken Mayfield, but Evans is gone for, I think that's a mountain too high for them.

• 1:34:08Speaker 06

  You're not gonna do it?

• 1:34:09Speaker 04

  It's a different, not Mayfield.

• 1:34:12Speaker 06

  Just do it.

• 1:34:12Speaker 04

  A different man.

• 1:34:13Bill Simmons?

  I looked at Jonathan Taylor, but running backs never win.

• 1:34:15Speaker 06

  Oh, my God. Running backs dragging us out, come on.

• 1:34:17Bill Simmons?

  Running backs never win.

• 1:34:18Speaker 04

  Why are you just trying to? What are we, you're trying to show that you did the work for this?

• 1:34:21Speaker 06

  This is plausible deniability, come on.

• 1:34:23Bill Simmons?

  Jared got, Jared got 18 to 1.

• 1:34:25Speaker 06

  Get the fuck out of here.

• 1:34:26Bill Simmons?

  He's not winning, stop.

• 1:34:27Speaker 05

  Tell us about Jackson Smith and Jigma.

• 1:34:29Bill Simmons?

  Dak Prescott, they're gonna win nine games.

• 1:34:31Speaker 06

  I feel like the game of throws, the guys on fires, like, kill me.

• 1:34:35Bill Simmons?

  Daniel Jones, 22 to 1, he's not winning.

• 1:34:38Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:34:38Bill Simmons?

  Jordan Love has even played that well?

• 1:34:40Speaker 06

  Anyway, yeah, next pick, DK.

• 1:34:43Bill Simmons?

  Lamar, 33 to 1?

• 1:34:45Speaker 04

  That's not bad.

• 1:34:46Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Drake May, third best odds, 7 to 1, and uh, does fit that top two seed thing if they can beat Buffalo again.

• 1:34:53Speaker 06

  I hate to say it, he does.

• 1:34:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:55Speaker 04

  That's funny.

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  Fourth best odds, I wanted Allen, but I think that's still right.

• 1:34:58Speaker 06

  You sure, you could go back to Daniel Jones or Jonathan Taylor, I don't know, toss up, you know, Colts, you picked Colts for one seed, so by that logic, you know?

• 1:35:06Bill Simmons?

  Uh, and then, I think I have fantasy murderer left, is my last category, right?

• 1:35:13Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, Traveon, Brian Thomas, and Brock Bowers have been taken.

• 1:35:20Bill Simmons?

  This is really tough because I wanted to take Garrett Wilson, but his stats actually aren't that bad.

• 1:35:24Speaker 04

  Started really well, yeah.

• 1:35:25Bill Simmons?

  It just feels philosophically like it should be him.

• 1:35:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:28Bill Simmons?

  More because he was a murderer last year, so he's like a double murderer, but it's not his fault.

• 1:35:32Speaker 06

  He's like a murder victim. He's just been with the worst.

• 1:35:35Speaker 04

  You can take Fields. Fields has been super up and down, ruined a lot of people's seasons.

• 1:35:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but anyone who is like, I'm devoting my fantasy season to Justin Fields, like...

• 1:35:44Speaker 06

  You have to spend a certain amount of a high pick on a player. That's why I think Henderson's as low as you can go, that still is a murderer because you reach for this fourth round guy and he's the only high, but it has to be a high pick.

• 1:35:54Speaker 05

  Did we mention Saquon?

• 1:35:55Speaker 04

  Saquon, I think. Saquon and Derrick Henry are eligible, I think. Henry got dinged because of Lamar getting hurt.

• 1:36:02Speaker 05

  Saquon's literally...

• 1:36:03Speaker 04

  Saquon has literally done almost exactly half of what he did last year. He's the RB 18.

• 1:36:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, so I think Saquon is my pick. I did look at Nico Collins, too, because I paid $50 for him. He is not but a $50 guy, but he is scoring touchdowns in some of the games. That's not really awful. And then the only other one I was thinking was Gentey, just because he was being treated like a top-five guy.

• 1:36:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:27Bill Simmons?

  But I think it has to be Barkley. I mean, Barkley was...

• 1:36:29Speaker 04

  You took him first overall.

• 1:36:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And he was supposed to be a sure thing. There's no doubt about this guy.

• 1:36:36Speaker 06

  It's funny that the person that's actually made people the angriest this season that we've heard about is probably A.J. Brown, and a different Eagle got picked. And A.J. Brown didn't even get picked.

• 1:36:44Speaker 04

  That's because the last, A.J. Brown has been kind of on the upswing.

• 1:36:46Bill Simmons?

  But are people mad at A.J. Brown or are they mad that they don't throw A.J.

• 1:36:50Speaker 04

  They're mad at the Eagles.

• 1:36:51Bill Simmons?

  Right. Okay. Danny, you're up, and it looks like...

• 1:36:55Speaker 05

  So I've got, I still have to do offensive, defensive Rookie of the Year. I kind of fucked myself on this one because now the good players are taken. I'm going to go off the board here. I'm going to take like a sleeper, and I'm going to say Travis Hunter, who is trending in the right direction. He plays on both sides of the ball. If he finishes strong, like so last week, he had eight catches for 101 yards.

• 1:37:21Bill Simmons?

  The game was over for two hours and he started lighting it up.

• 1:37:24Speaker 05

  I know, but if you combine like the Brian Thomas stuff, him trending in the exact wrong direction. Travis Hunter, they're playing him more and more on offense now. He had, if you look at kind of some of like his snaps and target rates on offense, they're all going in the right direction. So... This is more like a prediction of what's going to happen and a narrative pick because he's, you know, the number two pick. He plays both sides of the football. Obviously it looks terrible right now, but if in 10 weeks from now or whatever, we're talking about Travis Hunter, you know, having 80 to 100 yards a game and is emerging as their number one receiver. That narratively, I think will pay off, but obviously I don't feel great about it right now.

• 1:38:04Bill Simmons?

  Gladstone's texting Liam Cohen like, we're getting fucking killed. Throw some screens to Hunter. Boost the stats. Craig, you're up.

• 1:38:11Speaker 04

  I'm gonna take,

• 1:38:14Speaker 04

  I'm gonna take the Patriots as the one seed in the AFC.

• 1:38:19Speaker 04

  They're five and two. They have the easiest schedule in the league. I think 12 wins minimum.

• 1:38:25Bill Simmons?

  I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 1:38:28Speaker 06

  I guess I'll just be the, um, I'll do a deep cut here. I'll do this is, I don't know if you guys have heard of this team, I'm gonna take the Kansas City Chiefs to be the one seed in the AFC, the best team in football.

• 1:38:38Speaker 04

  That's totally, I think that's, I thought about it, but they already have three losses. They can basically only lose two games to have a shot.

• 1:38:46Speaker 06

  And I think they will. The Chiefs are gonna, I think that, look, I, the Mahomes thing for MVP, I'm jealous. Mahomes is 11 touchdowns and one pick in last month. They're gonna go on a warpath. They're also the healthiest good team. They play the Colts. So if they win that game, they make that up right there. And I just,

• 1:39:01Speaker 04

  They play the Colts, they play the Bills, they play the Broncos twice still. They have Houston, the Chargers.

• 1:39:05Speaker 06

  I'm not worried about them playing the Broncos.

• 1:39:06Speaker 04

  Cowboys.

• 1:39:07Speaker 06

  The Chiefs, eight teams in the AFC are between six and four wins. And the Chiefs to me are clearly the best of the eight.

• 1:39:13Bill Simmons?

  I think it's the right pick.

• 1:39:15Speaker 05

  You have one more.

• 1:39:15Speaker 06

  I have one more here. And so I guess now I double dip. I have to dip into the categories that you guys just left to me.

• 1:39:22Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:39:22Speaker 06

  The, there's one boring one left and one, the quarterback offseason hot seat or teams that get the one pick. Bill, what do you want to? You don't care?

• 1:39:29Bill Simmons?

  You do whatever you want to do.

• 1:39:30Speaker 06

  I have to, I am so thrilled that you guys left me J.J. McCarthy for the Vikings as the quarterback offseason hot seat.

• 1:39:38Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:39:38Speaker 06

  This guy.

• 1:39:41Speaker 06

  Like, the Vikings had a very difficult situation to decision, where do you pay Darnold thirty, forty million dollars a year, or do you go with McCarthy? And that's a hard decision. So it's not back Monday morning quarterbacking, but they clearly made the wrong decision.

• 1:39:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:54Speaker 06

  Because Darnold is playing, I mean, last time was tough, but Darnold's playing overall, totally, really well for Seattle.

• 1:40:00Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:40:01Speaker 06

  And then on the other hand, McCarthy, I agree with what you were saying on Sunday, Bill. We all, we all wonder if the McCarthy ankle thing was a shadow benching, there's probably some kind of injury there, but I'm like, they are hiding this guy. And also, the Vikings, to this point in the season, had the easiest schedule in the NFL. The Vikings going forward have the hardest schedule in the NFL. So McCarthy comes back, he's gonna get rocked. He's clearly not ready for the NFL, and the Vikings are a win-now team. The timelines are totally mismanaged, he's not gonna play well, and if he doesn't, the whole offseason's gonna be, what did the Vikings do? Are they gonna go with just J.J. McCarthy again? They had Daniel Jones last year, let him go. They had Sam Darnold, they let him go. And like, he has more pressure on him than any quarterback going into next year.

• 1:40:40Bill Simmons?

  It's the longest high ankle sprain, I think, in recorded American history. It's like, six weeks now? It's like, ah, yeah. I mean, we have so much good technology. It basically means you would have to have a stress fracture in your ankle to not be playing.

• 1:40:52Speaker 05

  Well, they're in just clearly in no rush.

• 1:40:54Speaker 06

  But he also looked horrible and unprepared on that Sunday night football game. It was the same night as the Emmys, and it was like, you know, the, he just looks not ready, but the Vikings are ready.

• 1:41:04Bill Simmons?

  Funny that he's basically 1-0.

• 1:41:05Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:41:07Bill Simmons?

  Well, also, you have that post-game locker room speech with, uh, O'Connell. It's like, this guy, we never came up on him, and McCarthy's like, ah! But also, he has the highlight of his year.

• 1:41:18Speaker 06

  Do you ever have any friends who had a girlfriend, but like, they were never there? They were never around? Like, you never met them? Like, there's always some reason.

• 1:41:22Speaker 05

  Goes to a different school.

• 1:41:23Speaker 06

  Yeah, goes to a different school. She's in Canada, it's like, oh, yeah, last year, whatever, rookie, yeah, you know, like, this meniscus thing, he was the only rookie. And it's like, oh, where is he now? He's got like a high ankle sprain, like, he's never there! When are we gonna meet him?

• 1:41:31Speaker 05

  I know.

• 1:41:33Speaker 04

  I'm gonna take coach of the year.

• 1:41:35Bill Simmons?

  Wait, can I interrupt on the hyphens thing for a second?

• 1:41:39Bill Simmons?

  I'd like to apologize to CJ Stroud for not getting drafted for QB offseason.

• 1:41:43Speaker 04

  I certainly thought about it.

• 1:41:45Bill Simmons?

  I almost took him over Lawrence. That's, are we sure he shouldn't take the blame?

• 1:41:49Speaker 06

  Well, I'm not saying he shouldn't.

• 1:41:50Bill Simmons?

  Did you like anything he did in that game history? Like, how many times can you blame the offensive line?

• 1:41:55Speaker 04

  He hasn't been good since his rookie year. Like, the last two seasons, he's been genuinely bad. The Trevor Lawrence point that you made about everyone's creating excuses around Trevor Lawrence, it's kind of the same for Stroud. The offensive line is a disaster. It's like, maybe this play caller is also bad.

• 1:42:07Bill Simmons?

  I thought their defense was awesome. And the only times the Seahawks moved the ball was like JSN was incredible, or they had that crazy field position. But Texans were like, there was like 10 guys hats on the ball in some of those plays.

• 1:42:21Speaker 06

  There were three defenses that are actually good at all three levels, and those were two of them.

• 1:42:25Bill Simmons?

  Like, they have to be so mad at the offense. Like, what the fuck?

• 1:42:28Speaker 04

  He might just be so gun shy now and just scared in the pocket because he just, I mean, he just gets drilled on every single play.

• 1:42:34Speaker 06

  The Texans offensive line was so bad last year that they actually just swapped in like five guys and changed everything. Like, I've never seen a headline that was like the head coach being like, I deny that there's a toxic culture in our offensive line room. Like, I'm like, I don't.

• 1:42:48Speaker 04

  Who said that?

• 1:42:50Speaker 06

  Yeah. But it's just, it doesn't, it's Occam's razor. Like, the line sucks.

• 1:42:54Bill Simmons?

  Yep. So, sorry, Craig, you're up.

• 1:42:57Speaker 04

  All good. I'm taking coach of the year fell to me. I really like these odds. Mike McDonald, Seattle Seahawks.

• 1:43:03Speaker 06

  I love that.

• 1:43:04Speaker 04

  If they, if they win the division with Sam Darnold, year one,

• 1:43:09Speaker 04

  12 wins or something like that, absolutely Mike McDonald could win coach of the year.

• 1:43:12Speaker 06

  That's, that's.

• 1:43:13Bill Simmons?

  I had him as my fourth spot. He could give a speech about, I'm sorry I was such a puss in week one. And then later that other game.

• 1:43:22Speaker 06

  I don't think he'll use that word.

• 1:43:23Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:43:23Speaker 06

  He seems a little bit too, you know, straight laced.

• 1:43:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, now he believes in the team. When he went from fourth and two, it was a turning point.

• 1:43:30Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:30Bill Simmons?

  It's like, I believe in you guys.

• 1:43:31Speaker 06

  They should be seven and out, Seattle. They're really good.

• 1:43:34Speaker 05

  Well, the only thing holding him back, and I agree that like he's done a really good job and the offseason decisions, that's something we talked about with Steichen. You're making these really momentous offseason decisions that are going, they're trading away DK, they're trading away Gino.

• 1:43:46Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:47Speaker 05

  And all those decisions look really smart.

• 1:43:49Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:49Speaker 05

  So that is gonna help him, but the only thing holding him back is Seahawks won 10 games last year. So that's generally the coach of the year is like you're bad and then good.

• 1:43:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:59Speaker 05

  But I like that.

• 1:44:00Speaker 06

  It's also coach of the year is the stupidest award there is.

• 1:44:02Speaker 05

  It's a narrative award.

• 1:44:04Speaker 06

  It's the coach of the year's award is called the Lombardi Trophy. Sure. The dumbest thing ever, like a regular season coach of the year award.

• 1:44:10Speaker 05

  Um, I'm only down to, I got a few left.

• 1:44:12Speaker 06

  We have one more, I think, right?

• 1:44:13Speaker 05

  So I got, I have to go with the one seed. I'm going with the Bills. Seventh easiest training schedule, according to Warren Sharp.

• 1:44:20Speaker 06

  Very smart.

• 1:44:21Speaker 05

  And obviously I'm doubling, I'm like stacking here with Josh Allen MVP, so yeah.

• 1:44:25Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:44:28Bill Simmons?

  And then I'm up.

• 1:44:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:44:30Bill Simmons?

  Why do I have pauses for one second?

• 1:44:33Speaker 06

  I have one more.

• 1:44:34Bill Simmons?

  Right? I feel it. Maybe I went like three times in a row.

• 1:44:38Speaker 06

  Are you done?

• 1:44:39Bill Simmons?

  Hmm. I have picks for every pick.

• 1:44:42Speaker 06

  You, who, did you pick next coach fired?

• 1:44:46Speaker 05

  Oh, I wrote one in the wrong one.

• 1:44:48Speaker 06

  Yeah, okay. Neither does DK.

• 1:44:51Speaker 05

  Yep, I think that's my last one.

• 1:44:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54Bill Simmons?

  But.

• 1:44:54Speaker 06

  But he should have two, Bill should have two.

• 1:44:55Bill Simmons?

  I should have two, I must have doubled that.

• 1:44:57Speaker 05

  You don't have breakout star.

• 1:44:58Speaker 06

  Fantasy MVP, Bill. Who did you pick for fantasy MVP?

• 1:45:00Bill Simmons?

  I took Dak.

• 1:45:01Speaker 06

  Dak, right? And then.

• 1:45:04Bill Simmons?

  Somehow I went twice.

• 1:45:05Speaker 05

  Heifetz only has team that will get the number one pick.

• 1:45:08Speaker 06

  Bill did, uh, yeah, some, yeah, maybe Bill went three times around.

• 1:45:11Speaker 04

  So just go once then, Bill.

• 1:45:13Speaker 05

  No, because we all have, well, I don't know, whatever.

• 1:45:15Speaker 06

  I do have Bill, I do have, oh wait, no, no, no, Bill, you don't have coach, coach of the year. He took Shanahan, right?

• 1:45:20Speaker 04

  No, he took.

• 1:45:21Speaker 06

  Oh, you, you took Shanahan? Okay.

• 1:45:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:22Speaker 04

  Bill took Shanahan.

• 1:45:23Bill Simmons?

  All right. So.

• 1:45:26Speaker 06

  How did we?

• 1:45:27Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what we did.

• 1:45:28Speaker 04

  You just gotta go once and then we'll swing back.

• 1:45:29Bill Simmons?

  Pretty exciting. Uh, so I have next coach fired is my last one.

• 1:45:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:33Bill Simmons?

  Okay. And I will do, okay.

• 1:45:40Bill Simmons?

  All right, coming back, we, we, oh, I'll do it differently. All right, I'm up with next coach fired, and somehow this is my last pick. So we think maybe I did three picks in a row at some point. I'm making fun of Pete Carroll and I've somehow tripled up on my spot.

• 1:45:54Speaker 06

  I mean, you remember the 1976 Mariners being introduced, but I will say the first, in Ringer 107, you changed the lines of the Broncos game and in like, there's cheating allegations.

• 1:46:03Bill Simmons?

  There's no cheating.

• 1:46:03Speaker 06

  There's an active investigation into the week.

• 1:46:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, I thought we lost the pick anyway.

• 1:46:07Speaker 04

  How do you feel about us three?

• 1:46:09Speaker 05

  How do you feel about us three in first place, Ringer 107?

• 1:46:11Bill Simmons?

  Won't last for much longer.

• 1:46:12Speaker 06

  What is, wait, what is the name you said this morning? We're with the gambling contest, we're tied for first, and you said we would come in last.

• 1:46:18Speaker 04

  The Happy Gilmore, when he's like, the pathetic thing is, you've been doing this your whole life.

• 1:46:24Bill Simmons?

  I thought you'd come in last. I didn't know Shiel was gonna get bit by a Black Widow spider this season.

• 1:46:29Speaker 04

  What's great about it is we legitimately spend like, three minutes a week.

• 1:46:33Bill Simmons?

  That's the way to do it.

• 1:46:34Speaker 04

  It's like, it's going on.

• 1:46:35Speaker 06

  We're like the people who draft our teams in February and the other teams.

• 1:46:39Bill Simmons?

  Every week we're like, should we just take the Colts again? We're like, yeah.

• 1:46:44Bill Simmons?

  Smart. Uh, next coach fired.

• 1:46:49Bill Simmons?

  I gotta do it. John Harbaugh.

• 1:46:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:53Speaker 06

  I like it.

• 1:46:54Speaker 04

  John Harbaugh?

• 1:46:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:55Speaker 04

  Lamar's been hurt.

• 1:46:56Speaker 06

  Okay, okay.

• 1:46:57Bill Simmons?

  I think if this goes badly this year, Lamar comes back and is like, oh, they're gonna be fine, they're gonna make it. And if it goes badly the next five weeks.

• 1:47:04Speaker 06

  I agree that John Harbaugh has at various times been closer to getting fired than you would think.

• 1:47:10Bill Simmons?

  Yes.

• 1:47:10Speaker 06

  But, and there might, and there actually hasn't been a coach quarterback pairing that's won a Super Bowl that took longer than five years. Having said that, firing John Harbaugh after the most injured season the Ravens have had in 10 years, and they've had two bad seasons in 17 years under Harbaugh. He would then probably get his salary doubled to be replaced, like, the Browns or Bengals would just fire their coach.

• 1:47:33Bill Simmons?

  We live in a world where Andy Reid got fired after one 6-10 Eagles season. And people are like, he's done, can't coach anymore. I'm just, I think it's on the table. They've never won, they've never made the Super Bowl with him and Lamar. They're having a bad season. If you're ever gonna press the eject button, this would be it. And I couldn't come up with a better coach idea.

• 1:47:53Speaker 06

  It is hard, actually.

• 1:47:55Bill Simmons?

  After Danny goes, we'll have to go through who didn't get picked.

• 1:47:57Speaker 05

  So, yeah, and I also have a problem. I have like... I probably messed myself up by not picking this earlier, but I think the reason I didn't is because I'm kind of going out of left field too. I'll put Jonathan Gannon for the Cardinals.

• 1:48:08Bill Simmons?

  So he was the other guy I was looking at.

• 1:48:11Speaker 05

  And I just, I, I think it's more of just like a vibes and lack of

• 1:48:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:14Speaker 05

  progress thing. That would be the reason. Uh, I don't feel strongly that he's like, deserves to get fired, but I think just.

• 1:48:21Speaker 04

  I had him on the list.

• 1:48:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:48:22Bill Simmons?

  I had him on the list. I do feel like that team has played reasonably hard for him. It just seems like they, they're uh, like a 50 minute team and they seem to run out of gas.

• 1:48:31Speaker 04

  I don't think it's a Jonathan Gannon problem.

• 1:48:33Speaker 05

  No, I agree, but I think just.

• 1:48:35Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing. There's not a lot of next coach fired candidates. So.

• 1:48:37Speaker 06

  No.

• 1:48:38Speaker 04

  I mean, the only other one I was thinking about.

• 1:48:39Bill Simmons?

  Glenn or McDaniel.

• 1:48:40Speaker 06

  That's why I took McDaniel with the first pick in this whole thing.

• 1:48:42Speaker 04

  Part of me thought if the Giants were really bad, they could fire Dable.

• 1:48:44Speaker 06

  I'm shocked nobody took Dable.

• 1:48:46Speaker 05

  I think Dable bought himself time, which is exactly what you do when you take.

• 1:48:50Bill Simmons?

  He's, he's tied in with Dart. They got something going. I'd be surprised if they fired him.

• 1:48:53Speaker 06

  You'd be more surprised if the Giants fired Brian Dable at the end of the season than the Ravens firing John Harbaugh?

• 1:48:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:49:01Bill Simmons?

  I think it's like even for me.

• 1:49:03Speaker 06

  The thing I.

• 1:49:03Bill Simmons?

  I think this Ravens season could go really badly where they're just like, we've got to figure out something new here. You know what I mean? If it's ever going to happen, it's a year like this where it's like the year from now. And then there's got to be a fall guy. Cause the other, that's the other thing that happens with this stuff is people start. There's like the political stuff and it's like, well, somebody's going to get blamed. Maybe it's this guy's fault and you, that's when the finger pointing starts.

• 1:49:26Speaker 05

  Isn't there, there's an impression among some people in the NFL that like, if you've been there a certain amount of years, like the message just doesn't come through anymore. Right? I don't know what the Ravens feel about that, but that was part of the reason like the, the Pete Carroll thing ended in Seattle is just like. Some point we, we don't.

• 1:49:42Bill Simmons?

  You've taken us as far as you can go.

• 1:49:44Speaker 05

  We don't listen to the, all the stuff that you, you know, profess every practice or whatever. It's like, it just kind of like gets.

• 1:49:52Speaker 05

  You just get numb to it.

• 1:49:52Speaker 06

  You guys are right. John Harbaugh should have got a medical degree in the last six weeks and just fixed everyone on the.

• 1:49:57Bill Simmons?

  I didn't realize Hyphens was this passionate about John Harbaugh.

• 1:50:00Speaker 04

  Teams get hurt.

• 1:50:00Bill Simmons?

  It's my 39th pick in the draft.

• 1:50:03Speaker 06

  Fair enough.

• 1:50:04Speaker 04

  Welcome to my life.

• 1:50:05Bill Simmons?

  Jonathan Gannon.

• 1:50:06Speaker 06

  Fair enough.

• 1:50:07Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't even come up with another idea.

• 1:50:10Speaker 05

  I have to deal with this four times a week.

• 1:50:11Speaker 06

  It's true. The fact that Dickson killed me by now.

• 1:50:13Bill Simmons?

  I feel like the Dart Dayball thing really bought Dayball another year.

• 1:50:17Speaker 05

  I did too.

• 1:50:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, we'll see, but we could, they're winning, but now they had the worst, they were allowed 33 points in the fourth quarter. Shane Bowen, the defensive coordinator is going to be sacrificed in the next month.

• 1:50:26Bill Simmons?

  Who Craig you're up.

• 1:50:27Speaker 04

  My last category is breakout star. I'm happy to just fall back on Jackson Dart.

• 1:50:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, smart. Did no one put Daniel Jones? Does that not count?

• 1:50:37Speaker 04

  I thought about it.

• 1:50:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:50:38Speaker 04

  Didn't know it was qualified. I just think Dart.

• 1:50:41Speaker 06

  He's a character.

• 1:50:42Speaker 04

  Well, I also compared to what everybody thought about him coming in. I mean.

• 1:50:45Speaker 05

  Sure, that's true, yeah.

• 1:50:46Speaker 04

  1% of people thought he was going to be a starter in the NFL. And not only is he going to be a starter, but he, I mean, he looks great for having played six games, five games.

• 1:50:55Speaker 06

  Thrilling.

• 1:50:56Bill Simmons?

  So Heifetz has the last pick and it's team that will get the number one pick and Jets, Miami and Tennessee off the board.

• 1:51:02Speaker 06

  My cup runneth over getting to pick between the Raiders and the Saints. This is unbelievable.

• 1:51:06Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty nice.

• 1:51:07Speaker 06

  I mean, I.

• 1:51:08Speaker 04

  Cup runneth over. I mean, they're all good. I mean, there's like five terrible teams. Everyone was gonna get a good one.

• 1:51:13Speaker 06

  Uh, I have many thoughts here.

• 1:51:16Speaker 04

  I think the Saints are kind of competent.

• 1:51:17Speaker 06

  I, for that reason.

• 1:51:18Speaker 05

  I agree, Craig.

• 1:51:19Speaker 06

  I'm taking the Raiders because I can't get over the fact that they had allowed more points than had ran plays.

• 1:51:25Speaker 05

  I know, that's really brutal.

• 1:51:27Bill Simmons?

  I feel like they threw that game away, though. Like, they knew Bowers wasn't playing. They knew they were gonna lose to the Chiefs. It felt like a rollover.

• 1:51:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're going on by.

• 1:51:35Speaker 06

  Well, it's really early to roll over. It's not even Halloween.

• 1:51:37Speaker 05

  I don't think the Raiders are gonna have the first pick.

• 1:51:39Speaker 06

  I think, well, I mean, Kamal Harris maybe will come in and just take over in the middle of the season to be Carol. Yeah, you're right.

• 1:51:45Bill Simmons?

  What was the other option?

• 1:51:46Speaker 06

  The Saints.

• 1:51:49Speaker 05

  What?

• 1:51:49Speaker 04

  So you didn't support that decision by the Democratic Party?

• 1:51:52Speaker 06

  You know, sometimes the timing, you know?

• 1:51:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:51:55Bill Simmons?

  She had 100 days.

• 1:51:58Speaker 06

  Sal was saying that she named the Ringer 107.

• 1:52:00Speaker 04

  Oh, right. She had 107 days.

• 1:52:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:52:02Bill Simmons?

  People have asked why it's 107 instead of 103 because the correct number is 103 for five.

• 1:52:07Speaker 04

  Is that right?

• 1:52:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, because we're putting props in. The extra games are, when we get to the playoffs, it's gonna be props plus the game.

• 1:52:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, I don't know why everyone just doesn't know that immediately.

• 1:52:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know why they didn't ask. Right here, they could have asked me.

• 1:52:20Speaker 05

  Stand right here.

• 1:52:21Bill Simmons?

  Here's the case for the Saints. It seems like they might want the number one pick.

• 1:52:27Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:52:28Bill Simmons?

  I don't think Rattler is that bad. He was bad in Chicago, outdoors, whatever. The Bears defense is actually like pretty good, but for the most part, he's not bad.

• 1:52:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:52:36Bill Simmons?

  If they replace him with Shuck, my shit detector is going off. That could be one of those, oh, I see what you guys are up to.

• 1:52:43Speaker 06

  I think the same, the same reason they roll the cap over every year, they don't do that. They're, they're, they're, Mickey Loomis, who runs the team, who's for reasons we don't have to get into quietly, as entrenched as anybody in the league.

• 1:52:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:55Speaker 06

  They just, the deal is that they'll be competitive for Gail Benson, who owns the team, and the deal is we're competitive.

• 1:53:00Bill Simmons?

  So your case is they're not competent enough to even plan a tanking strategy?

• 1:53:04Speaker 06

  No, the Dolphins can.

• 1:53:05Speaker 05

  They don't think that way.

• 1:53:05Bill Simmons?

  So I'm going to recap the draft. I'm not going to say everybody's name before each pick, but I'll just, I went first. No. Danny went first.

• 1:53:15Speaker 04

  Me second.

• 1:53:16Bill Simmons?

  Wait, why did I do it this way?

• 1:53:17Speaker 06

  This is how you got three picks.

• 1:53:18Bill Simmons?

  This way, yeah. Um, I'll go me, Craig, Hyphitz, Kelly, in these orders, right? So I'm first, Craig second, Hyphitz third, Danny fourth. Most valuable player, May, Mahomes, Stafford, Allen. Coach of the year, Shanahan, McDonald, Vrabel, Steichen. Offensive, defensive rookie of the year, Warren, Dart, Egbooka, Travis Hunter.

• 1:53:41Speaker 06

  Oh, why not?

• 1:53:42Bill Simmons?

  Very exciting pick. Next coach fired, Harbaugh, Glenn, McDaniel, Gannon. Breakout star, Drake May, picked twice by me. That was great. I love how that worked out.

• 1:53:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:53:54Bill Simmons?

  Dart, Scataboo, Egbooka. Who wasn't picked in that category?

• 1:54:00Speaker 04

  For which one?

• 1:54:00Bill Simmons?

  Breakout star.

• 1:54:01Speaker 04

  Daniel Jones. Warren wasn't?

• 1:54:03Bill Simmons?

  Warren probably had a case. He's probably upset.

• 1:54:05Speaker 05

  What about Dowdell?

• 1:54:07Speaker 06

  Dowdell.

• 1:54:08Bill Simmons?

  QB offseason hot seat guy. Rogers, a re-breakout QB offseason hot seat, Lawrence, Murray, McCarthy, Tua.

• 1:54:17Bill Simmons?

  Apologies to Stroud. He can't believe he didn't get drafted.

• 1:54:20Speaker 05

  Honorable mention, Stroud.

• 1:54:22Bill Simmons?

  One seed AFC or NFC. I took Indy. Craig had the Pats. Hyphens had the Chiefs and Danny had Buffalo. I think those are four good picks.

• 1:54:29Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:29Bill Simmons?

  What's interesting is no NFC teams.

• 1:54:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:31Bill Simmons?

  We all passed on Philly.

• 1:54:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:33Speaker 04

  Well, because it's like Detroit's there, Green Bay's there. There's a lot.

• 1:54:36Speaker 05

  Eagles have the third hardest remaining schedule also.

• 1:54:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I think we also have the same way. It's like, eh.

• 1:54:40Speaker 06

  I also thought Dan Campbell would get a coach of the year pick because of the Lions without

• 1:54:44Speaker 04

  I thought about that too.

• 1:54:45Speaker 06

  Ben Johnson and Aaron Glenn and then all the injuries and they get the one seed anyway.

• 1:54:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, he's the, I think he has the fourth best. I gotta say for one seed, I did have Seattle as my fifth backup.

• 1:54:54Speaker 06

  Ooh.

• 1:54:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:54:54Bill Simmons?

  Just because I, you know, team that will get the number one pick, Jets, Miami, Vegas, Tennessee, no surprise there. Fantasy MVP, I had Dak, Craig had JSN, Hyphens had McCaffrey and Danny had Taylor. And then the most important, the best picture award nominee for this, for this thing. Fantasy murderer of the year, Barkley, Henderson, Thomas Jr. And Bowers were the big four. Bowers is the only one I feel kind of bad about because he did get hurt, but they also didn't tell us he was hurt for five weeks. All right, we're going to go after we do one crazy prediction. Hyphens, what's your craziest prediction for the rest of the year?

• 1:55:30Speaker 06

  I, I feel like Joe Flacco is going to play so well for the Bengals that they're actually, we're going to have a debate whether Joe Burrow should even go back.

• 1:55:37Bill Simmons?

  Stop. This is getting, it was crazy.

• 1:55:40Speaker 06

  Hold on.

• 1:55:42Speaker 06

  Obviously like healthy Joe Burrow is better. I'm just saying like, you said craziest prediction.

• 1:55:47Bill Simmons?

  No, this is crazy.

• 1:55:49Speaker 05

  I will say there is online discourse that now Burrow is a system quarterback. Flacco dice him up.

• 1:55:55Speaker 06

  Flacco's like, wait, just throw it to Chase. This is so easy.

• 1:55:58Speaker 05

  23 targets, did you not take?

• 1:56:00Speaker 06

  Obviously Joe Burrow healthy is like one of the best players in the entire league and would be a question. I think if Joe, I actually kind of wonder, obviously maybe the Steelers are just idiots and couldn't like cover Jamar Chase for some reason.

• 1:56:10Bill Simmons?

  That's correct.

• 1:56:11Speaker 06

  23rd target, but if Flacco keeps this up and they, the whole idea is if you just get a good enough record to get to Burrow's returning in December, then he can finish out the season Bengals can make the playoffs. If Flacco does that, if they go like eight and three or whatever in the next 11 weeks or whatever, who's going to be better? Joe Flacco having won seven of his last nine games? Or Joe Burrow rushing back from an injury with three months of rust? And imagine if Burrow comes back and then like doesn't play well because he's hurt and rusty and everyone's going to be like, damn, should Flacco play next week? I kind of think this will happen.

• 1:56:45Bill Simmons?

  It's pretty good.

• 1:56:45Speaker 04

  It definitely won't, but it's a good take.

• 1:56:48Speaker 05

  It's a good hot take.

• 1:56:49Bill Simmons?

  Craig was jealous of it.

• 1:56:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. I know. Mine's not as hot as that.

• 1:56:52Bill Simmons?

  What do you got, Craig?

• 1:56:52Speaker 04

  Mine is more offseason, but I think the Steelers are gonna re-sign Aaron Rodgers. I think they're gonna extend him.

• 1:56:58Speaker 05

  Oh, he's not done. Cause he said that he's retiring.

• 1:57:00Speaker 04

  No, I think they're gonna go like 11 and 6.

• 1:57:03Speaker 05

  No, they're gonna draft a player in the first round and then he's gonna be like, I want, I'm back.

• 1:57:07Speaker 04

  They're gonna win a playoff game and he's gonna come back because the quarterback class this year is bad. They're gonna have a bad pick. Their team is old. Their defense is old. They are in win now mode. It seems like it's working and the locker room likes Aaron Rodgers. He mixes well with Arthur Smith and Tomlin. I think they're just gonna bring him back and extend him.

• 1:57:23Speaker 06

  My thing's dumb, but that's gonna happen.

• 1:57:26Speaker 05

  He's got, he's got that second wind, the third wind. It does remind me a lot of the time when the Packers were like, he's kinda cooked. We're gonna draft Jordan Love and then he won two straight MVPs.

• 1:57:35Bill Simmons?

  When do, when does the Brady played until he was 45? When is that?

• 1:57:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, Rodgers is only 41. That's spring chicken compared to Brady.

• 1:57:43Speaker 06

  Oh my God, this dude's gonna have five more years of Rodgers.

• 1:57:45Speaker 05

  Think about all the anti-aging stuff he's probably doing.

• 1:57:48Speaker 04

  The herbal tea he's drinking, we can't even imagine what he's having.

• 1:57:50Speaker 05

  Who's the guy who wants to live forever? What's his name?

• 1:57:52Speaker 04

  Oh, Brian Johnson?

• 1:57:54Speaker 05

  Brian Johnson.

• 1:57:55Speaker 04

  You know that guy that lives in Venice? Brian Johnson?

• 1:57:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I've read about that guy.

• 1:57:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:57:58Speaker 05

  He's like, he measures like his morning wood.

• 1:58:01Speaker 04

  Every night. He like, he like takes his, his son's blood every day.

• 1:58:04Speaker 05

  The vampire.

• 1:58:06Speaker 04

  The funny thing about him is like, I believe he is like 45 years old and if you see him, he like looks 45.

• 1:58:11Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:58:12Speaker 04

  You're like, I don't know.

• 1:58:13Speaker 05

  He says he has, he's the biologically youngest 45-year-old in the world.

• 1:58:17Bill Simmons?

  When you do all that stuff, it's like, you're gonna die being like electrocuted during golf or some sort of like hit by lightning.

• 1:58:23Speaker 04

  Or like, I tell.

• 1:58:24Bill Simmons?

  One in a million odds.

• 1:58:25Speaker 04

  Also, you live in LA, like the worst air pollution city and you're just breathing that in every day.

• 1:58:30Bill Simmons?

  DK, what do you have?

• 1:58:31Speaker 05

  I'm stealing this from the online discourse, but JJ McCarthy will never start another game for the Vikings.

• 1:58:39Speaker 05

  I don't actually believe this, but I'm starting to maybe think it's true. They're like, it feels like they are, you know, why don't you just go get some work on your ankle? Just keep working on it, you know? They watch them in practice.

• 1:58:53Speaker 04

  Daddy's taking the dog to the farm. He'll be back, the dog will be back, don't worry.

• 1:58:57Bill Simmons?

  Amazing take.

• 1:58:58Speaker 05

  Well, so, and I think it's also funny because.

• 1:59:01Bill Simmons?

  It's like on TV, if somebody just is off the show for a couple of weeks and they never come back. What happened?

• 1:59:06Speaker 05

  Totally.

• 1:59:06Bill Simmons?

  Weren't they in the credits?

• 1:59:07Speaker 04

  They killed somebody off of Grey's Anatomy.

• 1:59:10Speaker 05

  And then, and then McCarthy sues the Vikings in like two years.

• 1:59:15Speaker 05

  The Vikings quarterback room last year, Sam Darnold, Daniel Jones, J.J. McCarthy's on IR. I think they had, I think Daniel Jones was actually on the practice squad for most of the time. But it is crazy that they let Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones go and they are like two of the best quarterbacks in the NFL this year. And now they're playing Carson Wentz.

• 1:59:31Speaker 04

  I know, if, if the Vikings were smart, like they get rid of McCarthy and then they should trade for like Trevor Lawrence and, and O'Connell just fixes Trevor Lawrence.

• 1:59:39Speaker 05

  You know, speaking of online discourse, you know, who's the hot topic right now? Anthony Richardson.

• 1:59:43Speaker 04

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:59:44Speaker 05

  Let's do this. Let's do this. Solak was tweeting about it today.

• 1:59:47Speaker 04

  Richardson to the Vikings.

• 1:59:49Bill Simmons?

  To the Viking? Oh, because they wanted him at number four.

• 1:59:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, and there, and there's like a NFL Films behind the scenes thing where, uh, KOC was like hugging Richardson and talking to him.

• 2:00:00Speaker 04

  That's O'Connell getting way too cocky, being like, I can fix anything.

• 2:00:03Speaker 05

  He's like, I can, I can fix him.

• 2:00:05Speaker 06

  Well, O'Connell, I mean, he, he, Darnold, Daniel Jones, he really helps guys, you know, with what's going on in their head. And Anthony Richardson, you know, just broke his face with band work pregame, so.

• 2:00:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:14Speaker 06

  Maybe KOC.

• 2:00:15Speaker 04

  A lot of pain going on in his head.

• 2:00:16Speaker 05

  Bad vibes happening there with, with Richardson. He needs to go find a new home.

• 2:00:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:00:20Bill Simmons?

  I'm so excited to unleash mine. I'm glad I'm going last.

• 2:00:25Bill Simmons?

  I'm even gonna give you the week. It's gonna be in this range between week 11 and week 13.

• 2:00:31Bill Simmons?

  Ben Johnson will bench Caleb Williams and start Tyson Bajin.

• 2:00:34Speaker 06

  Ooh.

• 2:00:35Bill Simmons?

  He will be the starter. Tyson Bajin will be the starter in time for week 13, week 14.

• 2:00:40Speaker 06

  My god.

• 2:00:41Bill Simmons?

  Packers. This is my crazy prediction.

• 2:00:42Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 2:00:44Bill Simmons?

  Because I think the Bears are pretty good and I think Caleb is holding them back and Ben Johnson is just gonna be like, fuck it. And he loves Tyson Bajin.

• 2:00:51Speaker 04

  They're 4-2. They've won four straight.

• 2:00:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. They're, they're like a playoff team and Caleb has not been good for them.

• 2:00:57Speaker 04

  You must have been talking to Troy Aikman a little bit too much. Troy Aikman.

• 2:01:00Speaker 06

  Was Caleb supposed to call you and missed it? Is that what happened?

• 2:01:03Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what, I don't know what the impetus will be, but I, there were a lot of breadcrumbs being dropped Tyson Bajin's way before the year about what an unbelievable teammate he is. I think at some point, their team's pretty good. They just need somebody to drive the car and they could go like 11 and 6.

• 2:01:17Speaker 04

  So do you think Caleb is not on the Bears next year?

• 2:01:21Bill Simmons?

  I think, here's how I played it on my head. Some sort of minor injury where they're just like, we're gonna sit him this week and play Tyson and Ben Johnson is gonna be like, please god, have him be fucking awesome.

• 2:01:31Speaker 06

  To make up something hypothetical, like a high ankle sprain or something.

• 2:01:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like, yeah, maybe it's a low ankles. Some, some sort of, or like a pulled groin, some, or he took a hit.

• 2:01:39Speaker 05

  The, the thing I hate about this is how much, it makes me nervous because it could be like, real. Ringer, former Ringer colleague Ryan O'Hamlin has started texting me with the hashtag BajinBoys because he just thinks.

• 2:01:53Speaker 05

  He's like, I think they think Bajin's better than Caleb.

• 2:01:55Speaker 04

  They extended Bajin this offseason.

• 2:01:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:01:57Bill Simmons?

  They have a huge contract.

• 2:01:58Speaker 06

  His work ethic, but.

• 2:02:00Bill Simmons?

  They talked about how much they love him and he's one of the best people I've ever been around. They did all this stuff.

• 2:02:05Speaker 06

  But the old coaching staff or the new coaching staff?

• 2:02:07Bill Simmons?

  New coaching staff.

• 2:02:07Speaker 06

  The old coaching staff really threw Caleb under the bus.

• 2:02:10Bill Simmons?

  New coaching staff. I don't know if you guys watched the Saints game. We had it in Ringer 107. Caleb was bad in that game. Caleb's kind of been bad every game except for the Dallas game.

• 2:02:19Speaker 05

  Inaccurate. That's the problem. It's like, and Ben Johnson, you can see, you can see an offensive coach doing this. It's kind of like the Shanahan thing. It's like, I don't care who he is. I don't care if it's Trey Lance. We drafted him third overall or whatever it was. Like, our third guy is running the offense the most clean.

• 2:02:35Speaker 06

  It's a little, the entire Patriots thing happened because they gave Bledsoe a hundred million dollar contract and Belichick still kept Brady in.

• 2:02:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:02:41Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:02:42Speaker 04

  It's a little Trevor Lawrence-y with Caleb Williams where you can see the physical tools. Like, there are moments where you're like, Jesus, like Caleb's making throws two people in the league can make. But just normal downs where a guy's open, he just sails a guy.

• 2:02:53Speaker 06

  He's, here's the thing though. I'm torn with Caleb because on one hand, I wonder if there's smoke with fire with all these. I guess the word is unsubstantiated rumors about like all the stuff that was said by the previous staff anonymously. But the flip side is, I also am just a radical about really talented quarterbacks needing time. And I just, I don't know, you remember the Mariners in 76? Like, remember when quarterbacks weren't supposed to play for, I just couldn't believe you said you remembered 1976, but like-

• 2:03:19Bill Simmons?

  It's a big deal. We had two new American League teams. It's like, who are these guys?

• 2:03:23Speaker 06

  It's just a funny thing to say. But I, I just, your whole life, wasn't the deal quarterbacks kind of had to sit for a long time? And I just, Caleb Williams, to me, the con from the whole time was, everyone said Mahomes, but it's like, it's Aaron Rodgers. And that's not even the size, the way he plays off platform, a little personality wise. And then-

• 2:03:39Bill Simmons?

  How dare you?

• 2:03:40Speaker 06

  I'm just saying though, but it's not just me. Caleb Williams himself, if you ask him, he's like, I based my game off Aaron Rodgers, everything he does. And so how did Aaron Rodgers do a year and a half into his career? He didn't play.

• 2:03:49Bill Simmons?

  What was Hyphitz's crazy prediction?

• 2:03:52Speaker 06

  Uh-

• 2:03:53Bill Simmons?

  What did you just have four minutes ago for your crazy prediction?

• 2:03:56Speaker 06

  I had you would take Drake May in two different categories.

• 2:03:58Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 2:03:58Speaker 06

  No, I had Joe Flacco would go to the Bengals.

• 2:04:00Speaker 04

  Oh, right. He like-

• 2:04:01Bill Simmons?

  So Hyphitz said Joe Flacco was gonna nudge a healthy Joe Burrow out of the last two weeks of the season. And now he's giving a passion discourse for why my crazy prediction was too crazy.

• 2:04:12Speaker 06

  I actually forgot it was the craziest prediction because I actually kind of the last three, I was like, damn, that's actually gonna happen. I kind of, I feel like they got more realistic as they went through.

• 2:04:20Bill Simmons?

  Interesting. It was so non-crazy, you forgot it was the crazy prediction category. Cause it is crazy. Them, them benching Caleb Williams would be crazy. But I also wouldn't be like, oh my God, they benched Caleb Williams.

• 2:04:31Speaker 06

  Yeah. Mine's not, yours is believable. Like, that could happen.

• 2:04:34Bill Simmons?

  If they- Well, yours is believable if Burrow's hurt, though. If it's like, Burrow can kind of limp around, but we're gonna throw him back in. And Burrow, and Flacco's playing well, they're not gonna change it.

• 2:04:44Speaker 06

  They said December for Burrow, but they meant January. They're like being optimistic. But no, are you right about the Caleb thing?

• 2:04:48Speaker 04

  Yeah. If Caleb blows some game to like the Bengals against Flacco, throws four picks, and it's a disaster, and it like moves the, the Bears to under 500, maybe Ben Johnson gets a little fed up.

• 2:05:00Bill Simmons?

  See, I think-

• 2:05:02Bill Simmons?

  He does it if he thinks they have a chance to actually be good. Cause Swift has never run like this.

• 2:05:08Speaker 05

  I mean, yeah.

• 2:05:09Bill Simmons?

  I think he's the best he's ever looked.

• 2:05:10Speaker 05

  Game looked really good. Yeah.

• 2:05:12Bill Simmons?

  But Dunze is like a real number one, like legitimate guy. I like their team.

• 2:05:16Speaker 06

  All their pieces are really good.

• 2:05:18Bill Simmons?

  I thought their defense was kinda awesome on Sunday. Now, I know they're playing against the Saints, but they were, it was hats on the ball.

• 2:05:23Speaker 05

  They make a lot of takeaways. Yeah.

• 2:05:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I know. Like their team. And then the, uh, the emotional Dennis Allen game ball after?

• 2:05:30Speaker 06

  The speech and everything was good. I think Dennis Allen, knowing Rattler's, the whole roster strength and weaknesses. But also that was a weird game because Rattler, Rattler got displaced by Caleb at Oklahoma. And so the whole ego death that Rattler's gone through started with Caleb just came in and just immediately was electric. And Rattler had to leave like tail between his legs to go to South Carolina. But I think that's relatedly the combo of, I think Rattler was pushing the ball a little bit because I do think subconsciously he was trying to prove something. And also Dennis Allen was just weirdly equipped to take advantage of all the holes in that team.

• 2:05:59Bill Simmons?

  All right. We're wrapping that up. So what do we call that draft?

• 2:06:03Bill Simmons?

  Know if we'll do it again.

• 2:06:03Speaker 06

  I don't know. The midway draft? I don't know. Midseason draft?

• 2:06:08Bill Simmons?

  My guy was such an easier title. That was like a, you know, midseason check-in draft.

• 2:06:14Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:06:15Bill Simmons?

  Danny, Danny Craig. Great to see you guys. You can listen to them on the fantasy football show, the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on, uh, on all of our platforms. Good to see you all.

• 2:06:24Speaker 06

  Thanks for having us.

• 2:06:25Speaker 05

  Thanks.

• 2:06:26Bill Simmons?

  That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Danny and Danny and Craig. Thanks to Eduardo and Gahow as well. Uh, I will be back on this podcast on Thursday with some basketball and some football. Looking forward to it. See you then.

• 2:06:53Bill Simmons?

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• 2:08:19Bill Simmons?

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