Green Bay’s Statement, Drake’s Hot Streak, NFL Blowout Day, Flash Sales, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal right after the Sunday-night matchup between the Packers and the Steelers to recap Week 8 of the NFL season (2:29). Then, they guess the lines for Week 9 before reacting to the NBA gambling scandal and ending with Parent Corner (58:52). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo #ULTRACourtside could get you closer to the game! https://michelobultra.com/courtside ENJOY RESPONSIBLY © 2025 ANHEUSER-BUSCH, MICHELOB ULTRA® LIGHT BEER, ST. LOUIS, MO. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

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

• 0:42Bill Simmons?

  We are also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network where it is Halloween week, my favorite week of the year. I've always loved Halloween, really since the movies, but obviously as a little kid. But then, uh, Michael Myers, basketball, football, uh, just felt like when everything was happening. And then, of course, my son was born. We thought it was going to be on Halloween, but it ended up being on November 1st. Would we have called him Michael Myers Simmons? You'll never know because he was born on November 1st. Uh, we're doing Halloween 2 for the rewatchables. We've done Halloween 1, we've done Halloween 4 and 2, which I think is, is probably now a comedy, but we're going to tackle it and, uh, it's coming at some point late Monday night. So stay tuned for that one. You can get it wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:28Bill Simmons?

  Uh, coming up on this podcast, Cousins Al and I went live on YouTube right after Packers Steelers, uh, an entertaining game that wasn't, uh, as much of a thriller as we thought it was going to be. That didn't stop us. Uh, we dedicated the podcast to Chauncey Billups and Terry Rozier and David Jones and Pookie and Black Tony and Albanian Bruce. And who else?

• 1:51Bill Simmons?

  The whole crew. Shout out to those guys.

• 1:54Bill Simmons?

  It's all coming up. We're gonna take a break and then we're gonna bring in Pearl Jim and then Cousin Sal, Sunday night, football, next. This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. If you're betting on the NFL, come on, FanDuel is the place to do it. They've got everything. Same game parlays, quick bets for when you want to jump in live your way, so you can set your own lines on just about anything. 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 888-797-777, or visit

• 2:38Bill Simmons?

  ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 3:08Bill Simmons?

  We are here. I forgot to start recording. It is Sunday night. Cousin Sal is here. We're live on the YouTube's following Packers Steelers, a game that I thought would be a little more thrilling because it looked like the Steelers were gonna do all the stuff they normally do. They had, they were somehow plus 18 in field goals with their four, and then the Green Bay misses two. I was waiting for the fourth quarter fumble right when the Packers had momentum that all of a sudden the guy was just gonna bobble it. Steelers recovery, Steelers going, but it didn't happen. The Packers actually took care of business and that was that. Who'd you have in that game?

• 3:45Speaker 01

  I had Green Bay. I had them all over the place. I had them minus 13 and a half. So that would have been fun if they didn't give up that last touchdown, but I can't get greedy. What a nice week for favorites. Idiots like you and I putting money line parlays all over the place. I hope you don't have too much attached to Kansas City because that's where they're gonna get us, right? Tomorrow? But anyway.

• 4:04Bill Simmons?

  I do have some stuff with Kansas City. I was, I was smart enough to not attach anything to Kirk Cousins. Once we found out, we got bait and switch with the panic's cousins thing. We can talk about that later. Um, do you want to start with Steelers or Packers? Because I thought this game said a lot about both.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I mean, we could talk about either, you know? I mean, the only way to escape the shadow, Bill, is by beating the shadow. And that's what Jordan Love did tonight.

• 4:31Bill Simmons?

  Was, do people even really link Jordan Love and Aaron Rodgers together? I felt like the Rodgers Fav thing was a way bigger deal than Jordan Love and Rodgers, right?

• 4:40Speaker 01

  I didn't think so. And especially then they went on and talked about how, oh, they've, they've maintained the relationship throughout and watched for them to switch jerseys after the games. Like, all right, well, that's no fun. What do I care about that?

• 4:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'd rather have them eyeballing each other. So Steelers, we've been saying this for a while. We thought they were a little fraudulent, right? And they lose that Thursday night game to the Bengals. And then this game, um, I thought they got overpowered. I thought Collinsworth had a good point in the fourth quarter when he was, he was saying, one of the coaches was saying, watch the pile. If the pile is moving, you know, our way toward them and they're moving backwards, that's what we think is going to happen in this game. And that's actually what happened. I thought the Steelers got a little overpowered. Their defense got torched. And, uh, you know, they've been duct tape and Scotch tape for a few weeks here, but I think this is who they are. I think they're like a nine and 18. And by the way, that might be good enough to win the AFC North.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  That could be. Yeah, we'll look at those odds. But yeah, you're right. And I think, I think the key is, like you said, this Steelers defense is garbage. It really is like 31st in the league against the past. I think people don't want to admit it because they have TJ Watt. It's like, no, no, no, rough and tough Steelers. But they, you know, it just took a matter of time for Jordan Love to heat up. And by the way, the way he heated up was kind of weird, like these under thrown passes to Tucker Kraft and then another one. So, but whatever got him going. Then he put a string of, I don't know how many in a row he threw a complete. And, uh, yeah, they just, uh, they're not, they don't show up, the Steelers defense. And we talk about them against the Ravens. The Ravens were the bad defense, right? They're gonna give up 40 a game. We might see that with the Steelers.

• 6:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there was a moment. So if I'm a Steelers fan, I'm looking at that play where it looked like the Steelers were offsides. I mean, I'm sorry, the Packers.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Packers, yeah.

• 6:23Bill Simmons?

  And Rogers whipped one off, incomplete, but it seemed like he, he took a little bit of a chance because he thought it was an offside and it seemed like an offside. They didn't call it. And then the Packers come right back down. They get that crazy Jordan Love bloop pass to Kraft that easily could have been a pick too, but ended up being a great play. And, and it felt like the game flipped from that point on. But if I was a Steelers fan, I'd be looking at, oh, man, if they had called that offside, we had momentum, the Packers. But you know, the Packers, I've noticed this a few times. They're, they remind me a little of the Eagles where it, the pace of whatever they're doing, it takes a while for them to get going. And it's, you know, it's a three and out and it's slow and it's methodical. And you're like, you have all these weapons. Why aren't you guys just going, going, going? And then the second half, they kind of did that.

• 7:08Bill Simmons?

  I think they're pretty scary. Like I, House and I, we took them in Ringer 107, partly because we thought they haven't really played an awesome game in a while and we think it hasn't in them. I don't know if this was an awesome game, but it was a really good game. But I think they have the most pieces of anyone in the NFC other than the Eagles, right?

• 7:25Speaker 01

  I feel offensively, yeah. I mean, well, first of all, both. I mean, Micah Parsons again in everyone's grill. Gary, Gary's right there. Rashawn Gary and, uh, you know, and even like the one completion there, that pass interference, like Rogers, like had to let it go and that, that was a long pass downfield. But that's what the Packers do that's exciting. They throw downfield, right? So they're always going to be in it. They have eight or nine talented pass catchers now. Now that Christian Watson's back, it's kind of ridiculous. I don't even know how Jordan Love knows who to throw to, but yeah, they throw downfield, they get big plays. Tucker Kraft is insane. And, uh, yeah, they're, they're, that looked more like the week one team we saw against the Lions for sure.

• 8:05Bill Simmons?

  And they can run the ball. They can rush the passer. Like you said, they can defend the pass enough. Special teams is good, although even the field goal kicker cost them today.

• 8:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:15Bill Simmons?

  But you know, I, I always keep tally of like wins, losses, and then either or games. That was a legitimate win. So they have four legitimate wins, three either or games. They had, they don't have a loss yet where it was like, oh man, they got their, they lost. They got their butt kicked for three hours or they were never in that game. They don't have one of those yet. They're playing the Panthers.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  Cowboys tie should count as a loss. More we see of Dallas, but I know what you're saying.

• 8:42Bill Simmons?

  They play the Panthers next week at home Eagles home on a Monday night. They play the Giants who lost scat a boo and have nobody left Vikings week 12 who they're a mess and really their next tough game is week 13 at Lions for Thanksgiving. So they could go on a little, little run here. And if you're them, I think you think you might have a legitimate chance at, uh, could you get a one or a two seed? I think would be the goal.

• 9:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, at this point it has to be. It's funny. I look at these schedules. I remember thinking, oh, the Steelers have a really tough November and now you look at it like three weeks later. It's like, oh man, oh Viking, yeah, they could beat the Bears like this is no one's that good, right? So no one really stands out and therefore like, kind of everyone's in it, but those odds for the AFC North are just insane. I was Baltimore's now Baltimore's minus 110 Baltimore's two and five and they're minus 110 to win that division. The Steelers are plus 175. That was with like three minutes left. Maybe that changed. I don't know.

• 9:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, one of the, one of the things I wrote down in the second half was if so Baltimore plays Miami Thursday night, they could be one win behind Pittsburgh after Thursday night. Pittsburgh was feeling like everything was going in their favor. I, you know, I still don't know what I didn't really fully understand that Lamar Jackson story and why it was a big deal. Why do you think that was a big deal?

• 10:07Speaker 01

  Why do I think that people are making a big deal of it? That, well, there's a lot of money on the line to say, well, we have firsthand why it was a big deal. Like everybody bet them at six and a half thinking Lamar Jackson was playing. Everyone had fantasy implicated. I don't know. Other than that, you should just be honest with your injury report, right? Did he practice or did he not?

• 10:27Bill Simmons?

  They, well, but they never said he was officially playing yet on Sunday. It was a little leap of faith ish, right?

• 10:33Speaker 01

  I think it was a Thursday, Friday range. Did he practice or not? I think was the, the question.

• 10:39Bill Simmons?

  So the, the, cause I didn't follow this because there was so many stuff happening today. So is the theory that?

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Is the theory that they just blatantly lied about him practicing when he didn't? And that's affecting all this different stuff. And this is like the one no, no for the league. So that's, that's a conclusion you could jump to. And then people, of course, because they're crazy, have to jump to the next conclusion that they wanted people to bet the Ravens. And then, I don't know, Fandel split the money with the league because, uh, not that it mattered because they covered. I was like, everyone calm down.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  So this is the conspiracy corner. Yeah. I mean, for me, this is always the same thing. It's like, okay, what's to be gained? And, um, what happens if they find out you actually did this, right? Uh, what's to be gained? Nothing compared to the trillions of dollars that the, you know, the, the league makes. And what's to be lost? Well, you're already being accused of it. Like, that's terrible. And if you're found guilty, like it is, you know, it's got players like Rozier, it's going to happen to one-off players every now and then. Organizations and leagues are not going to cheat to get gambling money, people betting. I, I just don't understand.

• 11:47Bill Simmons?

  But that's why, that's why I was asking why this was a big deal. It's so absurd that the Ravens, you know, this is a franchise worth $7 billion. They're going to be like, yo, we might be able to make a couple hundred thousand here. If we can deceive the public and get some bets both ways. It's ludicrous.

• 12:02Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 12:03Bill Simmons?

  To me, the bigger, the bigger disgrace was the Falcons all week.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:08Bill Simmons?

  Whatever that number was, everyone thought Penix was playing and then they bring in the Kirk Cousins corpse for today. And it was like, you knew within, what, 25 minutes? I had, Houston, I had the Falcons, the Ringer 107, we thought Penix was playing. By 10:35 Pacific time, I was like, oh, this has no chance. Cousins just is, is done as a, it was so funny that he was in trade rumors this year. He was trading for him.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  I, nobody could, I mean, maybe it's just a joke. I mean, because he, they open the bag from wherever he goes. But I just, uh, yeah, the Atlanta games, I think we have to learn. I think we have to put a block on our YouTube four box to not let us put Atlanta in it. We have to put a parental control on our.

• 12:49Bill Simmons?

  Block all parts of them? Can we block gambling?

• 12:51Speaker 01

  Fandel account. I mean, you should be able to put a parental control. Like, I'm not betting it. Don't let me bet. Atlanta, don't let me bet Atlanta games because that's it. But yeah, Cousins was bad, but I don't know. I find myself trying to defend these bad, especially the 1pm window quarterbacks. And they just didn't have the ball at all in the first half. Like it was like a 20 to 10 time of possession. I think they had like 16 plays or something crazy Atlanta. But um, yeah, let's just stay away from them.

• 13:17Bill Simmons?

  When Cousins does the thing where he holds his head, like a little kid who has sensory disorder and there's like a loud alarm going off. And he starts hitting his head.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Something about Mary. Yeah.

• 13:28Bill Simmons?

  You don't want the quarterback who's just hitting their head and doing this. That's usually a sign that something is going horribly wrong.

• 13:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. When you have to send the quarterback to the blue tent because he's trying to hear.

• 13:40Bill Simmons?

  Trying to concuss himself.

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Jostled his brain too much because he's trying to hear the play. Not good.

• 13:44Bill Simmons?

  So Jordan Love today in that, to put a bow in that Steelers game, he finished with 360, three touchdowns. No picks, completed 20 straight at one point. Thought he needed it. Thought it'd been kind of an underwhelming Jordan Love year. And then on the flip side, I think this has been a gravy season for Rogers. I thought he was pretty good today. He was under duress the whole time. I thought. He was pretty creative and it's certainly a little better than we ever could have expected with him. I just don't think that's a very good team.

• 14:15Speaker 01

  This game was not his fault. The defense is going to be a problem. I don't know if he would have taken this gig if he knew the defense was going to be so lackluster, right? Give up between 35 and 40 a game. I will say though, Rogers mouthing effing cocksucker, losing his mind. You know, in the first half, like while wearing the bumblebee, half bumblebee, half of the traffic sign costume is kind of pretty funny. So.

• 14:42Bill Simmons?

  He does have the mid 40s dad golf lock now. Like, you know, the passes, like somebody should have caught the interception. They drop it. It's like the dad hitting the ball down the. Hits the tree and bounces in the fairway. Basically all the breaks Dixon gets.

• 14:59Bill Simmons?

  Ravens, Bears was the other AFC North game. That's not fair, baby. I'm killing the ball right now.

• 15:05Bill Simmons?

  So Ravens had their first win in six weeks.

• 15:10Bill Simmons?

  This was a tough Caleb game and I don't feel like the stats properly reflected it. It was one of those, you actually had to watch the game, like some of the red zone stuff, the intentional grounding he took, the way he was missing some guys. And there's just a general lack of craftsmanship slash something with him. And I theorize, I had the fantasy guys on my podcast on Tuesday. We did one crazy prediction at the end of the pod, like the craziest thing you could think of. And I was like Tyson Bajin's the Bears quarterback in week 13. And we're like, whoa. But I was watching this game thinking like, if they had a better quarterback performance, I think they could have beaten Baltimore today. And he wasn't good enough.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  And you just got that from today because I think he's been.

• 15:58Bill Simmons?

  No, it's been every week.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, and he's benefited because Chicago's pulled more turnovers this year than they have through seven weeks than they had like all last year or something. So maybe mask the fact that, you know, Caleb Williams is not performing with some good receivers and a good running back and a good tight end and everything else that they set him up with. So I don't know. I would say if you gave Ben Johnson some truth serum right now, like he'd be like, I don't know. Bill, you're right. What'd you say, week 13? I think that's a good over under.

• 16:28Bill Simmons?

  The case I had for on Tuesday was just that they loved, they loved Bajin. They signed him to an extension during the off season and they went out of their way to talk about how great he is and what a, what an incredible teammate and all this stuff. And I don't think it would be a benching, but I just, I wonder like if he got dinged up or something. And I'm just, in the back of my head, I have this scenario where Bajin comes in and you just feel that flip with the new guy. But that Caleb, you know, it's Jada Daniels last year, it's Drake May this year from that draft. And Caleb's never really had his moment. And this was the guy that was supposed to be the franchise dude out of all these guys. But I thought, you know, this is a game, I know it was a kitchen sink game for the Ravens.

• 17:11Bill Simmons?

  I liked the Ravens today, but they, you know, they did have Huntley. And it's a game the Bears I think could have stolen. I thought they were pretty close in that game. They ended up losing by 14.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  We saw, we saw Captain Kirk. We saw Snoop Huntley. We saw the Red Rifle. All the greats really lined up. Yeah. I don't know. And then there's, well, listen, the league had to fix it, right, Bill? So that the Ravens covered that original Thursday spread that they had. Otherwise, it'd be too many complaints. Thirty sixteen.

• 17:38Bill Simmons?

  We had a big controversy in our Ringer 107 that you guys talked about in the Sunday pregame. The Ringer 107, one of the teams is the fantasy show and Craig wanted to redo the Ravens pick without Lamar. And we had to explain to him that picks lock in and that's it. And, uh, and we just basically ridiculed him for about an hour straight.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:59Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, it was kind of adorable.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Is that a millennial thing? I don't know.

• 18:02Bill Simmons?

  It was kind of adorable that he just thought he got a redo. And then, of course, they win the bet anyway. Cause the Bears, how many times were they inside like the 10 yard line in that game where they didn't get anything? Was it three different times?

• 18:14Speaker 01

  Looked like a bunch. And that last one was crazy where the offensive lineman was looking for an, like they, they wouldn't snap the ball. They just wouldn't snap it. And then they had to fire it through the end zone. But, um,

• 18:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think they had like first and goal. It was, it felt like it was like at the two or three and they somehow didn't, didn't score to, uh, to get it. So do we have, do you think our seven NFC playoff teams already? If I gave you Philadelphia, Tampa, Seattle and the Rams? And then Detroit and San Francisco and then Green Bay? As the seven?

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Wait, say it again. Philly is the only team in the East, right?

• 18:53Bill Simmons?

  Philly, Tampa. Let's give those to the divisions. We'll do three NFC West teams, uh, San Francisco, Seattle, the Rams. And two in the NFC North, Detroit and Green Bay. And that's just going to be the playoffs.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  So you've used, you're saying Minnesota and Atlanta have sufficiently fallen off. Like they don't, they're not getting.

• 19:12Bill Simmons?

  Like if you had to bet that right now and I gave you door A, these are the seven. Door B, anybody else could crash the party. I think I would pick those seven.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Interesting. I've been watching a lot of Price is Right AI things with Bob Barker giving ridiculous prizes. I think you're right. I'll send you a hundred of them and then you'll

• 19:30Bill Simmons?

  If there's AI Price is Right?

• 19:32Speaker 01

  You'll do nothing else like a

• 19:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't even understand what that is.

• 19:35Speaker 01

  It's like Bob Barker with a fat guy. Yeah, because I think you could take advantage of dead people more if you're AI. I don't know what they think now, but yeah, like a fat guy getting like an all you can eat buffet and going nuts. But anyway, I think that's the, I would say that's the seven. Washington not sneaking in. My terrible team's not sneaking in. I don't like Minnesota at all. We don't like Chicago. I mean, we just, you just run out of teams. And now watch Atlanta, screw us.

• 20:01Bill Simmons?

  So Green Bay, Tampa, Philly, Detroit. They don't have all the teams up yet. I was gonna try to figure out a good FanDuel. If that was a parlay, I think that's better than even odds. So if you had to pick a party crasher, who would you pick?

• 20:13Speaker 01

  I can't, I'm just trying to think. I don't like Washington. I don't like my team.

• 20:17Bill Simmons?

  I think the, there's a slate Chicago case if they could fit, because I feel like they're hanging around these games.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:26Bill Simmons?

  Minnesota, no. I think that too much has happened for them.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  It would have to be Chicago. It's not going to be Arizona in the West, right? It's not going to be any of the South teams. I think it's either Chicago or Atlanta just eats us up again like they always do.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  But I like the seven. I would take the seven. I would take that prize, the seven you picked up.

• 20:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, and then the 49ers lost to the Texans today. And I felt this was one of the ones I liked the most this week because I thought the Niners really smoking mirrors that last week and then you could do that for a week when you don't have any guys on defense. But then you can just look at the tape and see what they did and go, oh, they're doing this. Okay. Stroud looked really good. Was getting pressured off. Didn't have Nico Collins. There was a lot of Woody Marks. He had his young receivers, but he just looked like the Stroud from two years ago again.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:18Bill Simmons?

  And San Francisco's defense, I did not look salvageable to me. And yet I still think they're going to make the playoffs. They're five and three, and I think they can get probably four more wins, maybe five, but they'll, they'll be in the nine or 10 range. But

• 21:33Speaker 01

  Well, how many more injuries do they suffer, right? Like, I guess like if McCaffrey went out. Who's like, who's bulletproof at this point? Is it as long as McCaffrey doesn't go out? What are we looking at here with San Francisco?

• 21:47Bill Simmons?

  Is it McCaffrey is the only one? Yeah.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  Maybe.

• 21:50Speaker 01

  Defense with Huff out.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  Somebody on the offensive line?

• 21:54Speaker 01

  I mean, they allowed 475 yards and they gained 223. McCaffrey did almost nothing. I still would say they're a playoff team because the NFC is weak. But you're right. I mean, Stroud threw to nine guys and that really did look like rookie CJ Stroud.

• 22:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Jalen Noel I like. I think he's, I think they might have something in them. And I've liked Woody Marks. I've had him on all my fantasy teams for a couple of weeks, kind of waiting for the moment. It feels like there's five or six guys with the exact same body on different teams. And I have most of them, but it's Kamani Vidal, RJ Harvey, Woody Marks, Traviat Henderson. There's just a certain prototype running back.

• 22:34Speaker 01

  But you're looking at their bodies?

• 22:36Bill Simmons?

  No, they're like these 5'9", 510, like power.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:39Bill Simmons?

  Speed that can catch the ball out of the backfield. There's just all over the place now in the league. I think Harvey might be my favorite out of all of them. And Denver unleashed them a little bit today, but it just feels like.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  Not much today, but yeah, I could see why you might, you might be a fan.

• 22:54Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry about that. That was, that was tough for you. Yeah, anyway, Houston got back into it. Kitchen's in game for them. They're, they're not going to catch Indianapolis because I don't think anybody is, but I think they can still, you know.

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Well, I wonder what they are. They were minus 400 to make the playoffs.

• 23:11Bill Simmons?

  Houston was before the year?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  No, no, before, before this week. And now they are.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Wait, I'm sorry. Now they're.

• 23:22Bill Simmons?

  Houston was minus 400 to make it.

• 23:24Speaker 01

  To not make, to not make the playoffs. Sorry. Yeah. And now I can't even find them. Did they take, why would they take them off? Is there an injury?

• 23:31Bill Simmons?

  Probably because of the Pittsburgh.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  Plus 260 to make it. I don't know about that.

• 23:37Bill Simmons?

  So who are your seven in the AFC then? If you give me Buffalo and the Pats, one AFC North team, Indianapolis, Denver and KC, that's five. So then how you'd have the Chargers would be lurking.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  You don't want to give three to the West?

• 23:56Bill Simmons?

  That's, that would be the Chargers would be probably the number one pick.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  I think so.

• 24:01Bill Simmons?

  Maybe there's going to be a bad AFC team is, is what's actually how it's going to play out, I think. Right? It'll be like Jacksonville.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  Well, if it's three in the West and you get two in the East, then you just have the division champs from the north and south.

• 24:18Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, you're right.

• 24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're, you're always better at this thing.

• 24:21Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 24:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So the Chargers would be the seventh then.

• 24:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would think so. I mean, you should start thinking about who you want to play here. I tried to get you going last week, but you're like, no, we're getting a bye. I'm like, all right, whatever. But if you don't get a bye, you'd rather have the Chargers come to Foxborough than, um, than like Denver, right?

• 24:45Bill Simmons?

  I can't wait to talk about this. Let's take a break and then we're going to talk about blowout day. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Basketball's back. FanDuel is putting you in control right from tip off. Every day of start the season, choose your reward, play it safe, go for it, feel them bold, that's your move, whatever your style, you're in control. What kind of better are you? I like to basically ride teams that look way better than I thought they're going to be or way worse. In the first few weeks of the season, I'm all in on this Spurs team being a 50 win team if they can stay healthy. Conversely, very concerned about the Celtics and they're in New Orleans on Monday night. And it turns out not having Jason Tatum and not having centers and not being able to rebound is a bigger obstacle than I thought.

• 25:27Bill Simmons?

  So I would look at buying San Antonio, selling the Celtics. Anyway, however you play, FanDuel is giving you the power to choose your award, own your game every single day to start the NBA season. 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-mudorable. 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. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA.

• 26:10Bill Simmons?

  So the NBA season is starting. I'm excited about a bunch of different things. We have a lot of, a lot of teams up in the air. Boston, Milwaukee, Indiana, what are we getting from these teams? The Lakers, can they hang on and, and still be a top six team? I think I'm most excited for the Texas teams. I want to see Duran in Houston, Cooper flag in Dallas and Wemby and Dylan Harper in San Antonio. I feel like I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the state of Texas with my basketball choices. There are a lot of moments worth playing for. The ones that taste best are served cold, unlike in Texas where it's usually hot. Whatever happens this season, catch every moment with Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA. Getting fans closer to the game with a chance to win courtside seats.

• 26:54Bill Simmons?

  You heard me correctly, 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 US residents, 21 plus begins on October 1st, 2025, ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. Blowout day today. What were the favorites? What did the favorites end up today? 10 and?

• 27:30Speaker 01

  10 and 2.

• 27:31Bill Simmons?

  Including Thursday night, 10 and 2?

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Include Thursday, yeah, 10 and 2.

• 27:34Bill Simmons?

  And didn't last week the favorites crushed?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  It was the same. It was 9 and 2. I don't know where we're starting from.

• 27:40Bill Simmons?

  What is happening?

• 27:41Speaker 01

  What's going on? We're making money. Why are we questioning it?

• 27:46Bill Simmons?

  I don't trust this now. The favorites are basically 20 and 4 on Thursdays and Sundays?

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I don't want to say anything because they've, they've fixed it a little bit. As I guess the lines prematurely, not, not good. But yeah, it looks like, uh, looks like everyone's supposed to win this winning. And yet, I don't know. It's just probably because there's like nine bad quarterbacks out there.

• 28:09Bill Simmons?

  Well, we had seven blowouts and, um, the only one where the underdog blew out somebody was the Dolphins over the Falcons. Where we thought, we did the pod last week, we thought McDaniel was done.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:23Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't. They came back, they actually ran the ball. Tua was dying. I, it's another one. You had to see it like at one point to a pass gets tipped in the air. And it's up. It's like a, it's almost like a jump ball.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:39Bill Simmons?

  Two Falcons defenders. They're like arguing over who should intercept it and they crash into each other and they drop it. But it was just like one of those games. Then there was another one where Bijon Robinson's basically running the ball. Was it either into the end zone or inside the five? And his knee hits the ball as he's running and he causes his own fumble. So you had that one. It was just one of those games. But it does, it seemed like McDaniel's going to keep his job. Tua still looks, you know, like Tua, but anyway.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  McDaniel should keep his job past Halloween. I mean, it's his favorite. It's gotta be his favorite holiday, right? But so that's a poetic justice.

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  Glasses alone. He can try different glasses every day.

• 29:19Speaker 01

  Fake glasses.

• 29:19Bill Simmons?

  So blowout day, the Broncos killed your team. Bo Nix, who threw for four touchdowns, but also had his typical two overthrows of wide open guys on bombs. I don't know what he's batting on those bombs, but he's gotta be like two for 55 this year. Your defense just looked awful, but what was interesting? Dak wasn't good.

• 29:40Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:40Bill Simmons?

  That was the first kind of rocky Dak game of the year, right? You've watched all of them.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  He was kind of due for that, something like that. Every, every facet of this team was bad, like the defense, the play calling Schottenheimer. Who's that? Big John Stud?

• 29:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Big John Stud.

• 29:55Speaker 01

  Ah, rest in peace.

• 29:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, legend.

• 29:59Speaker 01

  Would you slam him? Could you slam him? Would you take that $15,000 check?

• 30:02Bill Simmons?

  I could slam Small John Stud. Yeah, not Big John Stud.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 30:06Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, Dak sucked.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  He was bad and I don't know why a few of my Cowboy fan friends like loved them this week. I was like, guys, you know how this goes, right? Rahim was one of them. I had some other buddies that I was like, they're like, no, we're going to win this plus three and a half. That's a steal. It's like, have you seen our defense? Did you see it two weeks ago against the, against the Panthers? And I, I think like people misinterpreted that Denver game against the Giants. Like to me, I came out of that like, well, Denver was lucky, but also they scored 33 fucking points in the fourth quarter.

• 30:36Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  And now they have to go up against my defense, right? So whether Bo Nix figures it out in the first quarter, second or third, and then they just ran over everything. I mean, you saw your RJ Harvey guy. So the one, you don't have a run defense. That's always fun. But yeah, they were, they were bad.

• 30:52Bill Simmons?

  I had a lot of Denver stuff, as you know, for the futures with overs and number one seed stuff and alt overs and to win the division. Today was the first day I thought they might actually get to like 12 wins, right? When like they're six and two, which is kind of hard to believe because I, I don't even think they've been really that, that happy with how consistent they've been, especially on defense. But right now I have them with four legitimate wins, zero legitimate losses and four either or games. And they're going at Texans, home Raiders, home Chiefs, at commanders on a Sunday night, which might

• 31:33Bill Simmons?

  be like a shit game now, right? Because Washington might be thrown away this season by then. At the Raiders in week 14, home Packers, home Jags, at Chiefs, home Chargers, a schedule that just looked a lot harder than I think it does now. You know, they're at the Texans next week, maybe no Nico Collins, maybe he comes back. That's not going to be an easy game. But, um, but yeah, I think 12 wins is conceivable for them, like a 12 and five.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I'd be very surprised if they didn't make the play. That'd be much more surprised if they didn't make it than if the Chargers didn't make it. Both teams blew out their opponents this week. So I think we could compare them equally, but they're minus 355 to make the playoffs. They're too good. I think that defense is one of, I don't know if there's a scarier defense, right? Like people were against them. They had 15 sacks in three games before today. They constantly pressure the quarterback, right? And that's why Dak was rattled and had to take off more than he needed to. And that's gonna, that's gonna screw with some of the bad quarterbacks they have coming up. And everybody does. Everybody's going to play like between three, your team play like all 18 bad quarterbacks, but, um, but yeah, everybody's gonna play between three and five.

• 32:41Bill Simmons?

  That was the case for them.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  I know. I know.

• 32:44Bill Simmons?

  You know, the Pats, we've played, we have seven cross off teams, if you include Cleveland, which I think is the new cross off team.

• 32:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:52Bill Simmons?

  So the cross off teams are the Jets, Browns, Tennessee, Miami, New Orleans, Vegas, and Cleveland. None of those teams are making the playoffs.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  We didn't have Cleveland last week?

• 32:59Bill Simmons?

  No, we're at, we've added them right now.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  That's good. That's seven. Yeah, that's fine.

• 33:03Bill Simmons?

  The Pats have played six of the seven. And we're five and one against the seven cross off teams.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  I just, I was thinking about it today, like, would you trade the Pat schedule? If someone else could play the Pat schedule, would somebody trade it for a second round pick? Like coming into this year, like, and I know people like, what the schedules are made years in advance. Like, yes, except for seven games. Like, you don't know if you're playing the fourth place team and, you know, and, and the three AFC divisions or the, the NFC outside of it. So, uh, they, uh, but they're good. I'll, I'll give you everything. I kickstarted, uh, maybe again today by tweeting something stupid.

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  What did you tweet? I missed it.

• 33:46Speaker 01

  When he threw the interception, I posted the video and wrote, the B is back, B E. And then, uh, then he made, made me P A Y big time.

• 33:56Bill Simmons?

  He, uh, that Browns defense is good and he was under siege and it was a really impressive Drake May game, especially in third quarter. Garrett was running him off. Garrett had five sacks.

• 34:08Speaker 01

  I know.

• 34:09Bill Simmons?

  May had the worst pass he's had since probably week three, um, when he got picked early. And just, he just went into that mode. I've never seen a quarterback throw the deep ball better than this. He doesn't miss ever. He hit, like, Booty today, he had, he had a step on the guy. But when we have a guy down the field and he's got a step, like, May hits him in stride. It feels like 90% of the time, not to mention all the other stuff, not to mention the running. And he's been so smart about not taking hits anymore and sliding and sliding two yards too early now. Instead of like putting his head down, he's just trying to stay on the field and making plays. And, uh, I think I watch all the social media stuff after the game, as you know.

• 34:54Bill Simmons?

  I like to have the, this has been the best part of the season. They show Frabel stands in the runway and he, and he high fives and hugs every guy coming off and they show all of it. And for some reason it's riveting. Then the post game speech stuff and then the press conference stuff. They really believe in Drake as like a special guy like they're starting to talk about it pretty openly like they're like this guy's the MVP. This guy's amazing. If we have him, we got a chance. So I don't know. I don't know where this goes.

• 35:20Speaker 01

  I don't know what to say either. You're right about all of it. When they show the stats where he has like more 20 plus yard passes in a game than the other team has points like it's uh, it's depressing. This shouldn't be happening for you. You should have a Cleveland Brown situation.

• 35:33Bill Simmons?

  We served our six year pennants.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Worse than middling quarterbacks for like 25 years. It's crazy. You get right back on the horse.

• 35:40Bill Simmons?

  I think it's crazier that there was such like adamant debate about him heading into that draft.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. So now, yeah, I know.

• 35:47Bill Simmons?

  Some people.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  Redrafting.

• 35:50Bill Simmons?

  No, but some people heading into that draft. Some people are like this guy's gonna be a bust. This guy's like Mitch Trubisky. He has the tools. He's not gonna be able to put it together. And I, I was all in. I really, uh, I was all in on him, but he's way better than I thought. To be this good at this age with this few games and to be this dramatically better than you were a year ago when you had no coach, no weapons, no blocking. You know, they don't have the greatest blocking, but it's okay. The weapons are better and he's just way smarter about everything.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  What can I say? He would have had 700 yards against the.

• 36:24Bill Simmons?

  I hope you won money on him today at least.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  No, I did because they were the second half bet. They were definitely that. That was the way to play it, I thought. And, uh, yeah, they were, they were rock solid and he's great. I don't, I don't even know, you know, the fact that you moved on from Mac Jones, like other teams would have stayed with him another seven years and he's fine, but that's what you would have had. You would, you would have had five.

• 36:44Bill Simmons?

  He's, he was sacked six times and he had a bad pick and it just didn't matter. Um,

• 36:51Bill Simmons?

  he's third for MVP. Now it's like a three man race for MVP. There's no Jonathan Taylor momentum. Um, although I think this week it'll be the talking point because it was a pretty boring week for the most part. So the next 48 hours will be about, why can't Jonathan Taylor be the MVP? I'm telling you guys, Jonathan Taylor. And it's just not happening. Running backs don't win the MVP and he's not going to win the MVP and he could have two touchdowns every game, which is basically what he's doing. It's not gonna happen. He's not winning MVP.

• 37:21Speaker 01

  He's got the Barkley buzz from last year, right?

• 37:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 37:24Speaker 01

  In terms of like the running back that's.

• 37:26Bill Simmons?

  In some years, you and I have fallen for it and we've done the segment, but I'm not doing it anymore. They don't win.

• 37:30Speaker 01

  No, I don't think they'll win. I will say this, when they kept showing that stat, like this is the first time a running back has had three consecutive games with three plus touchdowns against the same team. I would be like, shut up. I don't want people to know that I'm just beating up on the Titans here.

• 37:46Bill Simmons?

  Right, right.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  I'm doing good things otherwise, but to your point about Drake May, could this be like a Russell Westbrook year where they give it to not a top two seed? I mean, we're kind of due for that, aren't we? And the same guys win over and over. We saw Mahomes at 15 wins last year and didn't, didn't get any votes, you know? I know his stats weren't good, but I think we could do, I think the Bills can win the division and Drake May can win MVP. I really do. I think that's in the cards right now.

• 38:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, the question for me is, why couldn't they be a one or two seed with their schedule?

• 38:20Speaker 01

  And.

• 38:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. They're six and two, so could they go seven and two the rest of the way? Or six and three gets them to 12 and five?

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, with that, yeah, sure.

• 38:33Bill Simmons?

  It's conceivable. I'll be interested, when's the trade deadline? It's coming up, right?

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it's, was it the week after Halloween or is that that? Yeah, it's right around there.

• 38:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't, I'll be interested to see if they mess with the team because I think the chemistry is great. All of them are talking about like they play for each other. We love each other. It's one of those teams and I think it's legit. A lot of it has to do with the guys Ray Bull went after in the offseason. He went after like all these character dudes like Spillane and Matt Collins and just these guys that, and they draft Will Campbell, all of these like just teammate guys. And I don't know if they're gonna mess with that, but I still feel like that, like the offensive line, that would be the thing that I think sinks them ultimately. Cause they, they just have these stretches where they just feel like they're under siege. And May has been so good. He's been hiding some of it, but that would be my biggest fear.

• 39:24Speaker 01

  If you get a veteran lineman in there, I don't think it's gonna crush team chemistry. I think you'll, you'll be fine. Okay, we talk about somebody else now.

• 39:30Bill Simmons?

  Let's talk about your team.

• 39:32Speaker 01

  Wait, we did. What are you talking about? We did.

• 39:36Bill Simmons?

  No, so blowout number three was Eagles Giants.

• 39:39Speaker 01

  Okay, good.

• 39:41Bill Simmons?

  Poor Scataboo. Can't the Giants fans have nice things? Do they have to pay for the sins of the two Super Bowls they never should have won for the rest of their lives? This is just how it goes for them now? It's not their fault that their team won one Super Bowl because of a helmet catch and the other because of intentional grounding in the end zone that's never been called before since and 19 other terrible calls. And then Eli makes his one throw to Manningham that's somehow going to get him in the Hall of Fame. And we had Gronk playing with, you know, whatever his injury was and yeah. I don't, even I feel bad for the Giants fans now.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't, um, do we have them as a cross off? We didn't have them last week, did we?

• 40:20Bill Simmons?

  They're a cross off. We have seven cross offs. We have Jets, both New York teams.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:26Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I don't have them as a cross off yet.

• 40:29Speaker 01

  We did. We didn't have them because they, we thought they had some juice. Yeah. And it's not their fault.

• 40:34Bill Simmons?

  No more.

• 40:35Speaker 01

  Like, things would be different. They'll be good next year, right? But Scataboo, neighbors, if, you know, Jackson Dart doesn't kill himself, I think they'll be good. But, um, you know, they, I'm not going to complain about the tush push. It was 180 yard difference in the game and Eagles had 10 more first downs, but for God's sakes, are they just going to wait until everyone outside of Philly throws a remote through their television to get rid of this dumb thing? It's not, it's not pleasurable. What are they doing? It's gotta go. It's gotta go.

• 41:05Bill Simmons?

  I hate it.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  No one can win the division otherwise.

• 41:07Bill Simmons?

  I gotta push back on your Giants thing a little bit.

• 41:10Speaker 01

  What is it?

• 41:10Bill Simmons?

  Cause I think it's been a fun story. People like Dart, people like Scataboo, neighbors comes back next year. They have good pass rush. They have one of the worst run defenses in the recent history of the league. They were giving up five two a game before the game today. And today they gave up, I don't know, like seven. But for all this money and capital and draft pick stuff that they've spent on this front four, um, you can just ram it down their throats. Now their linebackers are terrible. And I was thinking like, It's almost like you hire the best chef ever for your restaurant and then you just get cheap with the waiters and the busboys.

• 41:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:47Bill Simmons?

  And that's kind of what they've done with the linebackers and the D backs. It's like, cool, you have an awesome chef. Your, your servers are just dropping the food every time they bring the food out to the table. So, uh, congrats.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  Well, they're not geniuses. We saw the Hard Knocks or whatever that was called, the inner workings of the GM and stuff. So, yeah, they kind of maybe even lucked into how good or talented they are right now. But right now, the, it's the only thing Giants fans, the only saving grace is you could watch Brian Dayball, who's just hilarious on the sidelines. I mean, he is, every time they go to him, he's pulling a Costanza, just getting freaked out, pissed off, like, they can't fire me, look how mad I am. Uh, and it gets better and better and better. Fighting the headset.

• 42:29Bill Simmons?

  He should start stress eating during the games. They just cut to him and he's just like fucking eating french fries and bright red, going nuts. The Saquon roller coaster for fantasy owners breaks off the long touchdown. You feel like he's headed for the 300 yard game, then gets the groin injury in the third quarter, so that happened. Um, but anyway, you, I mean, they played two weeks ago, the Giants, and probably beat them in a dumb, another dumb Thursday night game, which we've just had a slew of. So, seemed pretty, pretty realistic that the Eagles were going to, uh, get their revenge.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of people like taking the seven and a half today, but I'm like, all right, you believe in the revenge factor for Aaron Rodgers for, you know, leaving a team he threatened to leave 25 times, but you don't, you don't believe in Philadelphia two weeks later, the better team. But I think the thing is Philly, if we want to talk about Philly for a second, like they, their differential is plus five going in, right? And now they're six and two. Like, so that's, as far as the six and two and five and three teams, I don't put them at the top of the list of teams I trust, I'll say that.

• 43:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so we have Indy seven and one, we have New England, Denver, Philly, Tampa, um, Seattle and the Rams as our six and two teams.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  What's Green Bay? You said Green Bay?

• 43:46Bill Simmons?

  Or the Rams are, I guess are five and two. I think I screwed that up. Oh, and then, uh, Green Bay's five, one and one, because they tied your stupid team.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 43:54Bill Simmons?

  So, um, it's interesting, Denver, Seattle and New England are my three favorite overs.

• 44:02Speaker 01

  You're gonna get there.

• 44:03Bill Simmons?

  I could get there with all of them.

• 44:04Speaker 01

  Get there by Christmas.

• 44:05Bill Simmons?

  You mentioned the defenses before. Seattle, I think, has a defense that stands out.

• 44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:10Bill Simmons?

  Houston.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 44:12Bill Simmons?

  Denver.

• 44:15Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland at home. I don't think they can do it on the road. Is there any other defense you like? It's kind of it, right? Houston's defense is really good. I thought they were good Monday night. I thought they were really good today.

• 44:26Speaker 01

  Cowboys are pretty good.

• 44:28Bill Simmons?

  No, that's it. I mean, Jacksonville, it might have been a lot of bells and whistles, right?

• 44:32Speaker 01

  I mean, another team that just forced turnovers, but it might be catching up to them now.

• 44:37Bill Simmons?

  Maybe the Chiefs, we'll see when they get a, as the, as the season goes along, they always go. Another blowout, Bills Panthers. Look, Buffalo hadn't kicked anyone's ass in seven weeks and this was due. I actually liked the Panthers for Ringer 107. House talked me out of it, pointed out how the Buffalo was coming off two losses in a bye week. We talked it out. It was good conciliatory stuff from House. The, the legacy of this game. Somehow Andy Dalton was worse than Kirk Cousins and Kirk Cousins was bad. Andy, Andy Dalton was worse. That might have been it. That, I could see him, that could be the last star for him.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  The only thing he can't do here is take a sack. Oh, and he takes a sack.

• 45:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's it. Two fumbles. He had a really bad pick. He just was bad. They were hanging around in this game for about an hour.

• 45:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 45:27Bill Simmons?

  And it just wasn't going to happen, but.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was a, we should have made all our money off this game, right? Like, you know, there's not a better spot for a playoff team having lost twice, coming off a bye, and here's Andy Dalton for them.

• 45:42Bill Simmons?

  Bucks Saints was a blowout because of nothing that the Bucks offense did. Baker finally had a bad fantasy game. I think his MVP run, it's not dead, it's in a coma. But somehow they're 6-2 with a bye coming. Rattler, so he was awful again. Six turnovers in his final three halves as Saints QB. And they finally turned it over to Shuck.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  I was gonna say final three half. That's, it probably is. It's final three halves.

• 46:09Bill Simmons?

  Final three halves. I don't think we see him again unless there's an injury, but. But yeah, that was another one. Like just stay away. Don't bet this game.

• 46:18Speaker 01

  I was hoping Tyler Shuck would have do something there. Throw a touchdown at the end. There's just so we could like just have something with New Orleans. Have some fun with their name. Who like, who's the group that roots for Tyler Shuck? Is it the Shuck heads or the, the mother shuckers or the, the shuck buddies? Yeah. Yeah.

• 46:36Bill Simmons?

  I like the shuck heads.

• 46:37Speaker 01

  Shuck. It'll see if he's even around.

• 46:39Bill Simmons?

  It was a really awful early slate.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Because it was late afternoon, right?

• 46:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, yeah, yeah. I'm saying, but there was a really awful early slate. And I was like, well, maybe the late slate would be better. And then the late slate was bad too. Early slate, I had, there were seven games. I had the six, the multi-view and two other TVs. So I had six. I didn't want to watch. I didn't care about Jets, Bengals. I'm like, that's a sacrifice.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  The one I took off. Yep.

• 47:05Bill Simmons?

  And that turned out to be the best game.

• 47:06Speaker 01

  You had to get it back on, right?

• 47:08Bill Simmons?

  That was the best one.

• 47:10Speaker 01

  And then Indy, Tennessee somehow ended up as a four o'clock game. Like they, that snuck in, should have been a London game. Not even London, were they? Like, what's a terrible city and like Coventry or something?

• 47:22Bill Simmons?

  Like the first Scotland game ever.

• 47:24Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. It would have been good. Terrible.

• 47:27Bill Simmons?

  Let's talk about that Colts game. Cause that's their fifth blowout win. Like real blowouts, like where the game is like done in the third quarter kind of blowouts. And it just feels like they, they're answering every challenge you would have for, can you actually be the one seed? Every, they have the long balls. I didn't even think Jones played that well for the first part of the game today, but Taylor was great. Pierce had his one long play.

• 47:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 47:57Bill Simmons?

  Pierce, Pierce is the most interesting deep threat. We're talking about today, watching the games where it's almost like in basketball when like a basket, like a point guard gets into the paint, has somebody in their hip, and then they lean in and they use their body. They use that step they have on the guy to kind of, to keep the momentum and they'll either get a foul and an end one. Pierce will, will do that on a 45 yard pass. He'll get a step on a guy. He'll veer into the guy's path. He'll slow up a little bit. He'll also make the catch, but he's kind of the most unconventional deep threat in the league. They have, and then Warren on top of everything else. They just have a lot of weapons. I'm sold on them as a one seed.

• 48:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like them a lot, too. There's not. And you know what? We shouldn't put too much praise on any team that just beat up on the Titans, but.

• 48:43Bill Simmons?

  They took care of business.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  No, they did. And Jonathan Taylor should have been minus 600 to score today. He's just excellent. I wanted to say something about the Titans coach. They're down 17-7.

• 48:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my.

• 48:54Speaker 01

  And they punt on fourth and four.

• 48:56Bill Simmons?

  Mike McCoy.

• 48:57Speaker 01

  From the 44. Mike McCoy. Now, even if you want to punt there. What is the downside of going for it? If you want to keep this job, don't you want like a three or four plays the way you, yeah, I converted the fourth to four. They show them on the sideline. So what if you don't convert? You're not going to be there and getting, you know, calling plays next year. Take a chance. It's not even a chance, fourth and four from the 44. Draw them off sides.

• 49:22Bill Simmons?

  It was awful. Kim Ward was mad about it.

• 49:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:25Bill Simmons?

  So they play at the Steelers next week. Home Falcons.

• 49:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:30Bill Simmons?

  This is the Colts. Home Falcons. Bye week at the Chiefs. Home Texans.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 49:38Bill Simmons?

  And that Falcons game is in Berlin, just FYI.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:41Bill Simmons?

  I like the Steelers game as a test for them. At Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh doing all their dumb tricks. Pittsburgh needs the game.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:48Bill Simmons?

  You know, you figure Baltimore is going to win. There's going to be a little pressure finally on Pittsburgh. They're going to be playing all the hits. Boswell will be hitting his 59-yard field goals. There'll be some stupid Aaron Rodgers tip pass that'll go for 40 yards. Taylor or somebody will have some sort of fumble and it'll be all the check marks you need. And I want to see how they respond. I want to see what Daniel Jones looks like in that game.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  I think so, too, but I won't count them out, even if they lose this, right? Like you read their schedule.

• 50:14Bill Simmons?

  It's a nice test.

• 50:15Speaker 01

  There's not one team they should be scared of at this point.

• 50:18Bill Simmons?

  Well, are they favored every game the rest of the year except for at Chiefs, week 12?

• 50:22Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not going to give you a freebie. I'm not going to give you a freebie this week and tell you if they're favored or not.

• 50:28Bill Simmons?

  All right, that's fair.

• 50:28Speaker 01

  You tell me.

• 50:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's fine. I think they could be favored. By the way, they could even be favored in that Chiefs game. Stranger things have happened. So anyway, they took care of business and then, uh. And then we talked about Dolphin. Oh, and then the last one was Jets Bengals, just, uh.

• 50:46Bill Simmons?

  A lot had probably had the most storylines of all the games. The Jets owner takes a shot at Justin Fields. He played pretty well. From what I read, because I refused to watch this until the last four minutes. Aaron Glenn got off the schneid.

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 50:59Bill Simmons?

  Zach Taylor.

• 51:02Bill Simmons?

  Maybe threw in his hat and the next coach fired ring?

• 51:05Speaker 01

  I mean, that was as bad a call as any with 38 seconds left. They still need what 18, 20 yards to get in field goal range at the end. That first down calls right up the middle. Yeah. Like for a no game. And I think they didn't have three touchdowns. They had two timeouts, I think. So, yeah, he's always in the ring. I just think like Borough kind of saves this guy every time.

• 51:25Bill Simmons?

  And that one run they had, I think people just look back and point to.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:30Bill Simmons?

  Which I don't know how long he gets to ride on that one, but. Yeah, look, we say this all the time. That could have been one where if you're a Jets fan, maybe. Maybe you wish he didn't win that game. January. You're like, why are we three and 14 and we don't have the number one pick? Oh.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  Well, that's you gotta get that. You gotta get it for Aaron Glenn. You gotta have to get a win before Thanksgiving. It's crazy. And the fact that he went for it down, what was it? It was like 38. It was 38, 24 and he went for two, right? And he got it to get it there and barely got it. By the way, like I still haven't seen a replay where he definitively got it, but that was a great fields play. And even like fields, like very emotional after the, in the press conference afterwards. So good for the Jets. Now they can go back to being the Jets.

• 52:21Bill Simmons?

  Really good post game speech from a comedy standpoint by Glenn. Which of course I watched. He started out and he's like. First of all, how about that defense? It's like, ah, with that big stop. It was like, really? Give up 38 points.

• 52:36Speaker 01

  39, 38.

• 52:37Bill Simmons?

  And then he's like, in our offense, 500 yards. They're like, ah, and he's like, this is who we are. This is our identity. What you saw today. It's like, I don't know. Maybe, maybe also should have lost by 10. I really, I really like those. How about our defense? Yeah, you did get a stop. You got one, one stop. It's rough.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  I mean, what's the converse? He goes in there. I was like, man, we are so lucky. We should be Owen 15. How do we pull this one out?

• 53:07Bill Simmons?

  We're so terrible. I think you should have to. It should be like when you have a, you're on a bad AYSO team or a bad Little League team. It's like, everyone's getting ice cream.

• 53:18Bill Simmons?

  He's got 11 year olds.

• 53:20Speaker 01

  So proud of you guys. Poker tournament when like you're beat 98 to 2%, but you, you like pull a flush on the last three cards and the guy who wins is like, sorry, you know, like, sorry about that. Like, yeah, like apologizes for the win. A tennis player, like it hits the net and barely goes over like.

• 53:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they hit the racket.

• 53:40Speaker 01

  We're good. We're good. Yeah.

• 53:42Bill Simmons?

  What'd you learn from that Chargers Vikings Thursday night game? Anything?

• 53:46Speaker 01

  Uh, I like, I love the Chargers in that spot. I don't know. I learned that the Vikings, so I think they're plus 770 to make the playoffs now. And they really have nowhere to go because now you're looking at J J McCarthy and you covered it last week. What kind of injury is this anyway? And, uh, you don't have anything to look forward to after wins really, right?

• 54:06Bill Simmons?

  Pretty tough.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:08Bill Simmons?

  Regular season MVP, Mahomes, plus 150, Allen, plus 350, Drake May now plus 450. Everybody else is 12 to one or higher. And then, uh, Super Bowl odds, Chiefs, still the favorites, Lions, Bills, Packers, Eagles, Colts down to 11 to one, but still have not gone into single digits yet.

• 54:28Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 54:28Bill Simmons?

  Which I thought was, uh, strange. From a value standpoint,

• 54:36Bill Simmons?

  I mean, the Pats are 33 to one and really have a chance to be a two seed. It just that, that seems too high. I don't think they're going to win the Super Bowl, but I think if you can get anybody who can possibly be a two seed.

• 54:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 54:47Bill Simmons?

  At 33 to one, it has to be considered. And then Seattle at 25 to one was the other one that jumped out to me.

• 54:53Speaker 01

  What's Baltimore now? 22?

• 54:55Bill Simmons?

  22.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  Baltimore was 25. They're 22 now after the, after the win. That's interesting too. But maybe if they're actually favored to win the division, get their shit together. But I think as far as, far as those odds and MVP, your guy, your team and your guy is the only ones that are going to shrink considerably.

• 55:14Bill Simmons?

  Because the case for it is. And I don't want to jinx it. I'm obeying all jinxing laws.

• 55:20Speaker 01

  The case is people haven't looked at your frickin' schedule and now and then they're just gonna see the winds rack up.

• 55:25Bill Simmons?

  It's the schedule, but it's also the history of the league with young QBs. Where we've seen this happen. Right? And if he's really special, like if there's something really, really special there, we've seen that translate into, oh my God, I can't believe they're here this fast. It happened with Burrow, it happened with Mahomes recently. And if he's on that level, it's realistic that they could at least get to the AFC title game because he's that good. I don't know if he's that good, but he certainly checked every box.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  You put him number five. You put him number five right now, best quarterback.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  And you don't even want to put Burrow ahead of him at this point.

• 56:01Bill Simmons?

  I think he's playing the best of anyone at that position right now. I don't know if that means he's the best quarterback, but I've just watched it for five straight weeks. He completes 75 to 80% of his passes. He runs for first downs, whatever he wants, and he completes every deep ball. I don't know what else you can do as the quarterback. Like he, he doesn't miss throws really ever. When he misses a throw, you're surprised. His teammates love him. I don't know. I, I don't know what's going on. I, it doesn't make a lot of sense because even week one, that Vegas game, he was not good. And it was like, fuck, did we go backwards? What's going on here? And now in week eight, he looks like, this is like, he looks like a finished product. But I know he's not. He's 23, 22?

• 56:45Speaker 01

  Discounting the past, right?

• 56:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:48Speaker 01

  Would you rather have Daniel Jones or Drake May? Forget about what you know about Daniel Jones before the, before this year, before, if you forget about it, what, what you knew, the Giants, Daniel Jones. Cause you can make the same case of everything you said about Drake May, Daniel Jones is doing it too. Maybe not as good a deep throw.

• 57:04Bill Simmons?

  Daniel Jones looks great.

• 57:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, May, uh, it just, it looks a lot like some of those other great guys when, that when it just happens early. I mean, going way back to when we were kids. Elway. Like, what was that, year three or year four? All of a sudden, they were in the AFC title game and it was like, Jesus, we're here already. Marino got there as a rookie in Miami. Like, if a really great quarterback, if it happens early, it's not unusual.

• 57:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, always weird. Take a look at Elway's stats this first few years, even though, even when everyone thought he was great. It's always like, it was like 22 touchdowns, 17 interceptions. You're not, you're not going to see that as, at a Drake. I shouldn't have engaged you in this.

• 57:45Bill Simmons?

  No, but here's the thing about those stats, because I've looked at those. It's so unfair to compare them versus now, because you could beat the shit out of those guys. Well, you beat their shit in the receivers, but you could also, you could kill the quarterback after they threw it. You could dive at their legs, like they're like navigating their livelihood at the same time as they're trying to win games. And now these guys, even saw today, there was, what was that time? Who got hit? Love was in Sunday night game, like Love got kind of hit a little bit on the head as he threw. And he was like looking at the ref like this, like that.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Oh, right, right, yeah.

• 58:18Bill Simmons?

  The football we grew up with, these guys were getting annihilated.

• 58:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, you couldn't come, you, you can't come near the head anymore.

• 58:25Bill Simmons?

  You couldn't throw over the middle. You had to fear for your life. Guys were trying to pile drive you into the ground. I just, so I look at those Elway stats, I'm like, that's amazing that he even was able to play 16 games a year, or whatever it was.

• 58:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Can we, before we go on, because you, you mentioned Love and it made me think of this. The replay assist thing?

• 58:47Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't buy it. I don't think it's even a real thing.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  I don't think it's a real thing. I think the refs get together and they be like, we fucked up this call. Let's pretend some ominous voice came in and told us that they don't even have to go to replay. And, uh, and then that doesn't make us look bad. It doesn't make us look good. We'll just move on immediately. I think that's what it is. Doesn't exist. They just call it something else.

• 59:12Bill Simmons?

  Interesting. It's just, it's like they're just doing a little mini podcast.

• 59:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of the refs rolled his eyes to the other ref and he was like, okay, that's all right. You're right. That wasn't bad.

• 59:21Bill Simmons?

  When they, that offsides play, when they gather together after that?

• 59:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, that would have been bad. Yeah.

• 59:26Bill Simmons?

  And who is it? Pereira was like, yeah, I've never seen this before. They called belated offsides. There's no way.

• 59:32Speaker 02

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• 59:57Speaker 03

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• 1:00:56Speaker 04

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

• 1:01:02Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible. The workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetraes. Guess the lines, week eight. I am up. Four to three?

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Don't worry about it. Five, three. It's week nine. Yeah.

• 1:01:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh, week nine, five, three. Thursday night, Ravens at Miami.

• 1:01:46Speaker 01

  Hey, can I say something? You did that well. People are complaining, like important people that listen to this show, that you're not saying who, where, who's the home team is and who the road team is. That time you did it. Good job by you.

• 1:01:58Bill Simmons?

  That's bullshit. I say it all the time. These people can fuck off. Yeah.

• 1:02:01Speaker 01

  Oh, my God. Yeah. If I would have told you who, is former President Obama actually put in the complaint and you're telling him to fuck off? No, it wasn't. It's not him. It's not. But, okay. You know, you did good there. That's it. That's how you do it.

• 1:02:14Bill Simmons?

  If it was Gavin Newsom, he could fuck off again.

• 1:02:21Bill Simmons?

  Ravens, Miami, at Miami.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't have crammed this harder, more violently into the Vegas zone. I have Ravens minus five and a half.

• 1:02:33Speaker 01

  All right. You're gonna get, you're gonna win this week. I'm telling you right now. I was so off on these. I said five, it's seven and a half.

• 1:02:40Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's too high.

• 1:02:42Speaker 01

  Well, too many favorites are covering, so they have to.

• 1:02:45Bill Simmons?

  It's a Thursday night game, though.

• 1:02:46Speaker 01

  Have to cover themselves. Yeah, that's true.

• 1:02:48Bill Simmons?

  That's too high for a Thursday night. Lamar's just gonna waltz back in after, during a whole, whatever scandal, injury report scandal. I still don't understand the scandal. Sunday marquee, we finally have a Sunday marquee game. Bills, Chiefs, it's in Buffalo.

• 1:03:03Speaker 01

  Good one.

• 1:03:06Bill Simmons?

  Tic Tac? Bills minus one and a half? How's that sound?

• 1:03:10Speaker 01

  Sounded good to me. It's exactly what I said. It's Chiefs minus one and a half.

• 1:03:15Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  It's Tic Tac, all right? But that's gonna flip, right? Six times between now and when we, next talk?

• 1:03:23Bill Simmons?

  The Bills had their D lineman all back finally, and they were actually having an impact against the Panthers running backs. And then Ed Oliver got hurt. It lasted like an hour and a half. And then Ed Oliver got hurt. Um, I'm trying to think, what would be the best overreactions coming out of this Chiefs-Bills game? Chiefs win, overreaction is Mahomes is back. It's been Mahomes' league all along. Anyone who said Allen was the best QB, you must feel fucking stupid.

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:53Bill Simmons?

  Why do we doubt the Chiefs' overall? Let's never do that again.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:03:58Bill Simmons?

  Bills, Bills win. This is Josh Allen's league.

• 1:04:03Bill Simmons?

  He's outplayed Mahomes for the last two years.

• 1:04:10Bill Simmons?

  This rivalry's flipping. It's like the Patriots Colts in the mid 2000s when all of a sudden the Colts started being the Patriots. What else?

• 1:04:16Speaker 01

  Chiefs have trouble scoring. I imagine if they lost, it would be like 23 20 or something. Take too long to score, all that shit. These receivers didn't actually pan out, the ones that came back, everything.

• 1:04:26Bill Simmons?

  Chris Jones getting old.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:28Bill Simmons?

  He's not the impact guy that he was two years ago. Yeah, this will be good. There'd be some good overreactions coming up.

• 1:04:33Speaker 01

  Taylor, bad voodoo. Yeah, all of it.

• 1:04:35Bill Simmons?

  The watchables. Would you put Pats in New England against the Falcons? A watchable or a fairly watchable?

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  Are we done with, um, see, I would have put Indy Pittsburgh as a, what's that before fairly watchable? I think that's.

• 1:04:49Bill Simmons?

  No, I mean, I had three watchables, including Pats Falcons, but I didn't know if that was a watchable just for me.

• 1:04:55Speaker 01

  I think just for you. You could, you could watch it if you want.

• 1:04:57Bill Simmons?

  Um, you know what? I'm going to move it to fairly watchables. Trying to obey. Uh, you know, it is watchable. Colts at Pittsburgh.

• 1:05:07Bill Simmons?

  Which would have been the Sunday marquee game in a lot of other weeks.

• 1:05:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's in, it's in the early slate, too.

• 1:05:13Bill Simmons?

  So Packers, Packers are favored by three in Pittsburgh this week. I think the Colts are a point better than the Packers. I'm going to go Colts minus four.

• 1:05:21Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. Uh, I thought they were a point worse power rating wise. I said two and it's two and a half.

• 1:05:31Speaker 01

  Let me see if that's changed. Oh, it's three now. Shit. I can't, I can't catch a break.

• 1:05:36Bill Simmons?

  So we pushed?

• 1:05:37Speaker 01

  We pushed. Yeah. I could have lied there.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  I think that's fair. That's right. Cause.

• 1:05:45Bill Simmons?

  I like the Colts.

• 1:05:48Bill Simmons?

  Unless, we haven't had it yet, the Daniel Jones, oh no, game. It's lurking in there.

• 1:05:56Bill Simmons?

  You know, it's, it's, it's, it's deep down in the recesses of his, uh, of his cells and his DNA. You know, it's somewhere in there.

• 1:06:05Speaker 01

  Well, I'll tell you what the Steelers need. They need some weather and they kind of need it fast, right? If, uh, it's gonna be like clean pockets and just like brisk air at the end of October. Like, I don't know if they could. Daniel Jones should have a good game. They need some of those 18 16 games to come back.

• 1:06:22Bill Simmons?

  Broncos home, oh no, Broncos at Houston.

• 1:06:27Bill Simmons?

  And as we said, probably two of the three best defenses, two of the best four defenses. And I have the Broncos favored. And I think it's in the tic tac zone. I'm gonna go Broncos minus one and a half.

• 1:06:44Speaker 01

  I said Broncos minus two. It is Broncos minus one and a half.

• 1:06:49Bill Simmons?

  I thought that was a pretty easy one.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  Good call.

• 1:06:52Bill Simmons?

  Does that go to two and a half by Sunday?

• 1:06:55Speaker 01

  I think if anything moves it to the over under, which is thirty nine and a half, which in this day and age. Yeah, I think it's one of the few that'll go down after, by the way, a lot of the overs hit today too, right? What was that also nine, nine and two? Yeah.

• 1:07:08Bill Simmons?

  That's a really good game. I mean, that's. That could be the two, seven. Shaky's game.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Two, seven, Denver.

• 1:07:18Bill Simmons?

  That could be our two, seven, Denver.

• 1:07:20Speaker 01

  If Houston sneaks in.

• 1:07:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:22Speaker 01

  Right, right. Uh, let's just see a good version of Houston. Could we do that? Can we see that two weeks in a row?

• 1:07:29Bill Simmons?

  Fairly watchable. Patriots home for the Falcons. And no idea if Penix is playing. I think this has to go. Past the minus four into the Vegas zone and I have Pat's minus four and a half.

• 1:07:42Speaker 01

  All right, that's what I had and it's five and a half.

• 1:07:45Bill Simmons?

  Oh, still in the Vegas zone. Okay.

• 1:07:49Speaker 01

  You should be a seven point favorite, probably. Really, if you think about it. Kicking the crap out of everyone.

• 1:07:55Bill Simmons?

  Pat's money line was something in the seven range.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:07:59Bill Simmons?

  Call it a day.

• 1:08:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. You know, you could use the Chiefs again, just because it's Monday. Just because it's a different week technically.

• 1:08:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, do the, the look at it. Yeah.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  Who, so who were the teaser teams that killed people today? It was the.

• 1:08:14Bill Simmons?

  Just the Falcons.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  And the, and the Bengals, right? If you had the.

• 1:08:19Bill Simmons?

  Anyone putting the Bengals in a tease, you need your head examined. That's insane behavior.

• 1:08:23Speaker 01

  Didn't have a lot of wins before today.

• 1:08:25Bill Simmons?

  I know, but you can't put the Bengals in a tease. That's nuts.

• 1:08:28Speaker 01

  But those are the only two, I think. Yeah.

• 1:08:31Bill Simmons?

  So there's a really interesting Pat stat.

• 1:08:36Bill Simmons?

  Their run defense hasn't given up over 50 yards rushing yet in the first eight weeks. And it hasn't happened since 1950.

• 1:08:45Speaker 01

  Wait a minute.

• 1:08:46Bill Simmons?

  Nobody can run on them.

• 1:08:47Speaker 01

  A 50 yard rusher, you're saying?

• 1:08:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

• 1:08:50Bill Simmons?

  Since 1950.

• 1:08:52Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:08:53Bill Simmons?

  And I mentioned that because Bijon's coming in. Week nine, coming off a bad game that he was pissed off about. And the quotes afterward were like, that one's on me.

• 1:09:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:09:04Bill Simmons?

  Baba, I gotta do better. So it's just, it'll be an interesting, uh, rock and a hard place kind of battle because the Pats defense has been awesome against the run. The way to beat them is to throw in their linebackers, put Spillane in open space, try to get running backs or tight ends over the middle. Or running backs leaking out of the back. That's been the weakness, but you can't run on them.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  No, you just jinxed the, the bejesus out of them, the Bijanis out of them, I think. So I'm going over here. What we have. Well, I wonder what his total will be.

• 1:09:33Bill Simmons?

  Any wheel route with him, one on one against Spillane is going to end badly. And I'll just tell you, our crazy friend Hench.

• 1:09:42Bill Simmons?

  Eight weeks, probably 135 texts about Robert Spillane and pass coverage.

• 1:09:47Speaker 01

  What?

• 1:09:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Basically anytime he's in pass coverage, it's three, it's a three text barrage from Hench. It's hard when you have a bodybuilder, you're trying to guard third down running back.

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Just enjoy it, Hench. For God's sakes, this is as good as it gets for a NFL team.

• 1:10:06Bill Simmons?

  This is about as zen-like as he's been. Like we went from not having a QB or a coach to having a QB and a coach. The only two things that matter in the NFL is having a QB and a coach. You can find everything else.

• 1:10:17Speaker 01

  Does this move Cousins, if Cousins plays, could this go to seven?

• 1:10:23Bill Simmons?

  I mean, it should.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  They don't have a chance. They don't have a chance.

• 1:10:26Bill Simmons?

  No Drake London today, but I bet he plays next week, right?

• 1:10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true.

• 1:10:31Bill Simmons?

  Lions home, Detroit against the Minnesota Vikings. Either Carson Wentz, who's been pounded like a piece of veal the last couple of weeks, or the immortal J.J. McCarthy, who's recovering from the longest high ankle sprain in recorded history. I, uh, this could be our teaser game with the Pats. I have Lions minus eight.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, they went, they're not gonna let us tease it the way we want to do it. I said seven and a half. It's nine and a half.

• 1:11:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's dumb.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Win that one, too. You're up six, three.

• 1:11:04Bill Simmons?

  That's too high. And yet I wouldn't take Minnesota.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  No, I know, but first of all, this is the only division game. Isn't that weird? Like, when was the last time we had one division game in a week?

• 1:11:15Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:11:16Speaker 01

  In a whole week, four teams off, but anyway. And for that reason, I thought they give them the division discount, like where everybody plays, everybody else. Well, so this is, this is pretty damn high. Fandel's giving up on Minnesota here.

• 1:11:29Bill Simmons?

  You know, House and I, we did Ringer 107 last week, or Thursday, and we're talking about that Jets line, the Jets-Bengals line, which was just stupid. It was, the Bengals should have been favored by three and a half, and it was six and a half because it was the Jets, right?

• 1:11:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:43Bill Simmons?

  So if you take the Jets, you're just getting three free points. And I was thinking, that's a good just concept in general. What's the, what's the three free points bet? Where they're just like, just, this is on a discount today. It's a flash sale. The Vikings normally at six and a half, we're giving them today at plus nine and a half for the next 24 hours.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  First hundred customers.

• 1:12:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, damn, I was a hundred and one.

• 1:12:06Speaker 01

  Free points. Take a different line?

• 1:12:09Bill Simmons?

  Vikings plus nine and a half is a three free points bet. That's a flash sale. Like, they shouldn't be getting that many points.

• 1:12:16Speaker 01

  So the problem with the three free points thing is I get what you're saying, but now, now you're back in a shitty quarterback every single time. That's where the free points are gonna go.

• 1:12:24Bill Simmons?

  But that's why we had the flash sale. It's like with the Criterion Collection. It's like, 50% off our entire collection right now.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  Carson Wentz is in the clearance bin right now. You wanna grab him now?

• 1:12:35Bill Simmons?

  It's Robert Altman's unknown movie.

• 1:12:39Bill Simmons?

  Packers, Panthers in Green Bay. Oh, I'm gonna change my pick on this. I had minus nine. I'm gonna bump this because they looked at a good Sunday night game to nine and a half.

• 1:12:50Speaker 01

  No bumping, no bumping allowed.

• 1:12:52Bill Simmons?

  I bumped it by a half point. Packers nine and a half.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  You win anyway. I had eight and a half. It's 10 and a half.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  There's a good old fashioned Bill and Sal go to college three teamer.

• 1:13:04Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking about that.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, there's some, there's one.

• 1:13:07Bill Simmons?

  I was trying to think who would screw up Lions Packers with the third team. The glory years of 2004.

• 1:13:13Speaker 01

  Ah, so nice.

• 1:13:15Bill Simmons?

  The best 12 weeks of our lives.

• 1:13:17Speaker 01

  We'll get them back.

• 1:13:18Bill Simmons?

  You, me, Pookie, Black Tony, Albanian Bruce. We were just all cleaning up.

• 1:13:26Speaker 01

  We had our glasses on.

• 1:13:28Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah, we were just going nuts.

• 1:13:30Speaker 01

  By the way, I want to congratulate us, you and I, for really not falling into, just not becoming true degenerates, right? Like we.

• 1:13:38Bill Simmons?

  To be like in one of those things. Yeah.

• 1:13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we bet and it hurts when we lose. We have enough money on it where it sucks when we lose and we come on and we're distraught and everything, but we never fell down that hole. And, you know, we, we had opportunities to align ourselves with some interesting people. And I'm sure Pablo Torre will reveal this like Wednesday that we fixed a preseason Clippers game or something. But, uh, good job by us for keeping our heads above water.

• 1:14:04Bill Simmons?

  Well, Thursday, 7:40 a.m. Text from my mom. I hope you and Sal aren't involved in this NBA betting scheme. Exclamation point.

• 1:14:14Speaker 01

  Did you screw with her a little bit? Say we need bail money?

• 1:14:17Bill Simmons?

  I should have, I should have texted her back. I can't talk about this right now. Or just something ominous. Mom, I, we have to take this to a phone.

• 1:14:25Speaker 01

  Right. Call my friend Pookie right now at this number.

• 1:14:30Bill Simmons?

  Mom, I'm with Black Tony. Let me get back to you. Albanian Bruce is gonna drive me over.

• 1:14:35Speaker 01

  There were two Bruces, right? It was Albanian Bruce and there was another, what was the other?

• 1:14:39Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't get enough of it. Yeah, there were two. There was a Flappy.

• 1:14:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:44Bill Simmons?

  That I just couldn't get enough of the names.

• 1:14:45Speaker 01

  The week the Bruce Springsteen movie comes out. What a week for Bruces. They really cleaned up.

• 1:14:51Bill Simmons?

  He couldn't just be Bruce.

• 1:14:55Bill Simmons?

  49ers Giants in New York.

• 1:14:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:14:59Bill Simmons?

  Yikes. Maybe Brock Purdy for this?

• 1:15:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you would think at some point.

• 1:15:07Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I don't, I don't think I hit this. Forty Niners, I had minus three and a half.

• 1:15:12Speaker 01

  Um, I get this. I said three, it is two and a half.

• 1:15:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I couldn't figure that one out.

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  Tough one.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  Boy, the Giants just aren't very good. I, I'm probably leaning toward Niners in that one.

• 1:15:28Speaker 01

  Well, we crossed them off. So whenever we have a playoff team, we thought, we think the Niners are making the playoffs, right? And we crossed the Giants off. So just based on that, four nights can't keep losing.

• 1:15:40Bill Simmons?

  Last one is Rams, Saints. I think this is going to be another flash sale.

• 1:15:45Speaker 01

  Oh, all right.

• 1:15:45Bill Simmons?

  I think this is a seven and a half, but I think we get three free points. I think it's Rams minus 10 and a half flash sale.

• 1:15:51Speaker 01

  Oh, it is a sale even beyond your wildest dreams.

• 1:15:54Bill Simmons?

  Oh, what is it?

• 1:15:56Speaker 01

  So wait, so what, what's your official thing?

• 1:15:58Bill Simmons?

  Minus 10 and a half.

• 1:15:58Speaker 01

  Okay. So you got, I said nine and a half, 13 and a half.

• 1:16:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow. 50% off.

• 1:16:06Speaker 01

  We can't keep it on the shelves.

• 1:16:09Bill Simmons?

  This is great. Do you want to combine that with a Blu-ray? Wow. 13 and a half.

• 1:16:17Speaker 01

  The shock wagon's coming to town. What are you gonna do? Come to SoFi.

• 1:16:22Bill Simmons?

  Do you think there would be Saints fans there? There's some New Orleans transplants here, right?

• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I think the, you might get a, a, a rare reprieve here in LA when the Rams have more fans.

• 1:16:35Bill Simmons?

  Poop Fecta, three games. First one is Bears at Cincinnati, which is lining up as Joe Flacco against the embattled Caleb Williams. And I, somebody's favored by one and a half. I went with the Bears. It might be the Bengals. It's a one and a half for somebody.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  Well, I'm not gonna let you say, do that.

• 1:16:59Bill Simmons?

  I had Bears minus one and a half.

• 1:17:00Speaker 01

  Oh, Bears minus one and a half. Okay. I had Cincinnati minus one. You're gonna get it. It's Bears minus two and a half.

• 1:17:07Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:17:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't agree with that.

• 1:17:10Speaker 01

  What were the Bears today?

• 1:17:13Bill Simmons?

  Plus six and a half in Baltimore.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  No, but no, no.

• 1:17:18Bill Simmons?

  It was plus two and a half.

• 1:17:20Speaker 01

  Plus two and a half. This is a similar thing, I guess, right? But they were plus. I don't know. This is tough. I'm, I'm, I'm out on the Bears, I think, for a while.

• 1:17:29Bill Simmons?

  Chargers at Tennessee.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  It has to be a touchdown. I think the Pats were minus six in Tennessee.

• 1:17:38Bill Simmons?

  Chargers have to be minus seven. That's my pick. Chargers minus seven in Tennessee.

• 1:17:43Speaker 01

  Another flash sale here. I get this. I said nine. It's 10 and a half.

• 1:17:47Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow. You can get a free, free, uh, free, what's, what are those little cards you put?

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Toaster.

• 1:17:55Bill Simmons?

  What do we, what are the cards we put?

• 1:17:57Speaker 01

  Flash card?

• 1:17:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the flash cards.

• 1:18:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, with this thing.

• 1:18:01Bill Simmons?

  I could have landed that joke a lot better.

• 1:18:03Speaker 01

  That's all right. Oh, shit, we're live.

• 1:18:05Bill Simmons?

  No, we're live. Fucking A.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Hey, why don't, who screws that up then? Green Bay over Carolina, Chargers over Tennessee. Oh, come on. If Harbaugh loses to this shit team.

• 1:18:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't like those double digits on the road games.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  No, it's fine. Double digits. We're, we're taking 10 points off. We're good.

• 1:18:22Bill Simmons?

  I went to the Lakers game on Friday against Minnesota. Herbert was there sitting under the basket with Madison Beer.

• 1:18:29Speaker 01

  Oh, nice.

• 1:18:30Bill Simmons?

  And it was the day after, uh, they beat the Vikings. They showed him on the Jumbotron, like mild applause. I just don't think the Chargers are resonating in LA yet. This guy's the star quarterback. He's one of the 10 best quarterbacks in the league and he plays for an LA team. They're like, there's Justin Herbert. People are like.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  They still think he's a college quarterback.

• 1:18:52Bill Simmons?

  But if they, if they had showed like Flea, the place would have gone nuts.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:18:56Bill Simmons?

  It's just, it was just interesting.

• 1:18:57Speaker 01

  Did you see his Halloween photo?

• 1:19:00Bill Simmons?

  Who?

• 1:19:01Speaker 01

  Justin Herbert?

• 1:19:02Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:19:03Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know. It's like a, it's like a photo booth thing. Look it up. Justin Herbert Halloween. And, uh, shit, I forget who the receiver is that he's with and he's with a woman. It's interesting. Take a look. You'll get a nice little laugh. Yeah.

• 1:19:15Bill Simmons?

  Can't wait.

• 1:19:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:19:17Bill Simmons?

  One more game in the poop fact, uh, Jags at Vegas.

• 1:19:23Bill Simmons?

  And I think the Jags are going to be favored in this one, which would give us all three home underdogs in the PUPFECTA. I have Jags minus two and a half.

• 1:19:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, good call. I said five. Why was anyone giving the Raiders two and a half? But it's, uh, it's three. You're closer. Man, you smoked me. You smoked me this week.

• 1:19:44Bill Simmons?

  Raiders coming off a bye. Bowers back. Um, a little bit of a kitchen sink game for Vegas.

• 1:19:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:53Bill Simmons?

  That's all I can think of.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  I mean, if that, if the only thing Jacksonville does right is force turnovers, should be an easy one.

• 1:20:00Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night is, uh, Seattle at Washington. No Jaden Daniels. House very bleak on the Ringer Sunday pregame today, talking about how

• 1:20:10Speaker 01

  Very upset.

• 1:20:11Bill Simmons?

  First of all, he's, he's, he's quit our bet. He's already conceded the Patriots, Washington bet. He was saying the Washington's three and, what was he, three and four? We're going to be three and seven in three weeks. They should think about trading people, bench, sit Daniels for a year, get him healthy. They shot their wild.

• 1:20:29Speaker 01

  Big time, under six and a half. Just today, he bet him under six and a half. Yeah.

• 1:20:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was tough. It was tough to hear him just bailing, uh,

• 1:20:36Speaker 01

  He should have just listened to us pre, preseason when we went against Washington with everything.

• 1:20:41Bill Simmons?

  He did listen to us and he bet me on Washington versus the Pats.

• 1:20:44Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  I have Seattle minus four at Washington.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Uh, let me see if this moved. It is still three and I had three and a half, so we split it.

• 1:20:53Bill Simmons?

  Oh no, you win it.

• 1:20:54Speaker 01

  I get it. Okay. Yeah. I gotta take the wins I actually got. You're up, uh, 10 to six. Doesn't matter.

• 1:21:00Bill Simmons?

  Monday night, Dallas home. For Arizona, the Rod Tidwell Bowl. I love when Dallas and Arizona plays. Great times. Uh, another tic tac. I went with Dallas favored in this one, minus one and a half.

• 1:21:15Speaker 01

  Wow. You know, I hate my team, but I also think they, um, deserve a little more praise than one and a half. I said four and a half and it's three. So we split it, right? Yeah.

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:21:29Speaker 01

  And you're gonna hear all week about how Kyler Murray has never lost at AT&T Stadium. He played like in college there. He played, I don't know, he snuck on there as like a six year old and won some kind of game. He's never lost there.

• 1:21:42Bill Simmons?

  I want to flag something. So we talked about all the favorites winning covering this week and last week. Favorites are on a heater. I am counting home underdogs this week. Dolphins, Bills, Steelers, Texans, Giants, Bengals, Titans, Raiders, Washington. Nine home dogs. I think this is an official, let's be careful week.

• 1:22:04Speaker 01

  Oh, really?

• 1:22:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Favorites just crushing. Everybody's confidence is up. All these home dogs. All stuff like Chargers minus 10 and a half at Tennessee. Yeah, throw them in a three teamer. Like, I don't know, my shit detector is going off.

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  Well, you were better than me today, but even you were light on everything. Like, they're juicing everything up. So it would make sense that it would come back.

• 1:22:30Bill Simmons?

  Flash sale for Halloween.

• 1:22:31Speaker 01

  So many. Yeah. Halloween havoc.

• 1:22:34Bill Simmons?

  How many people brought up, brought up the big NBA scandal to you over the last 72 hours?

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  Everyone I know. Like, needed it explained to me. I had explained it to them.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  It really did pass the, how many people are texting me that don't normally text me about sports?

• 1:22:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:51Bill Simmons?

  It really did cross the threshold. It was pretty funny.

• 1:22:54Speaker 01

  I, I feel bad for you because you and House did like a seven hour, you know, preseason over under podcast and the season didn't even last that long. Now they have to cancel the season and it's all over. Lucas goes a billion points in two games and here you are. But yeah, I don't, obviously this is bigger than anything we've dealt with in the past, but what are the ramifications? Like, get rid of all player props?

• 1:23:18Bill Simmons?

  I feel like it's not as big as it felt like in the moment, the way it was presented, where they combined these two different stories. I think it's just starting dialogue that probably should have been happening anyway. Like, some of the stuff House and I talked about Thursday night was the.

• 1:23:34Bill Simmons?

  Just how careful these players have to be with information about themselves and their teams, giving it to the people around them. And just, just people making stupid decisions that are attached peripherally to these guys. And I don't know how you police that necessarily, but we certainly hear stuff all the time from all kinds of people, right? And you can act on it, you can not act on it, whatever. But when you're directly tied to a player and you're using information and selling it, leveraging that, I think this is a real issue for the league. I was talking to people over the weekend about it and it's, you know, it's going to take years to kind of play out. But the thing that is fascinating is how quickly all the books can sniff it out.

• 1:24:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:19Bill Simmons?

  Where they know, oh, what, wait, what's going on with this under? Like, they just know almost immediately that something's wrong, which I think is a good thing.

• 1:24:27Speaker 01

  I think so too. Hopefully it acts as a deterrent and people are like, no, the books have us, whether they're using AI or whatever, they're going to be able to snuff this out in a minute. But I also, and I think you've said this before, like, this has probably been going on for a while, right? But we just test for it now. It's like anything else, like, more kids probably had ADHD 30 years ago too, but now we're all over that stuff. We're all over like taking out and looking for player props. But the problem is like, there's always going to be one or two or five guys who are going to do it, like gambling's a real addiction. It might be guys like, I get it, they do scratch off tickets even though they've made $40 million, you know, just because they have the itch. The other thing is-

• 1:25:09Bill Simmons?

  They competitively want to game the system.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  That's all, right? The other part is, guys get in trouble with some bad dudes, right? So if you made $40 or 40 million, if you're a million in the hole and you owe the wrong guys and all your money's in like cars and houses and jewelry and you can't come up with like a million liquid, they're going to ask you to, you know, play an under, they're going to ask you to miss some shots. It just, it's kind of how it is and it sucks and you might see some props go away as a result. And if that's what it is, so be it. I don't know.

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we talked about that Thursday night. How many of these unders we need? Like, do you need to have the under for longest Matthew Golden catch? Right? Matthew Golden, longest catch, under 15 and a half yards. Like, maybe those just go away.

• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:58Bill Simmons?

  And maybe it steers more toward the overs and Jordan Love, passing yards and, you know, the big, the big players in each game, whether it's football, basketball, whatever.

• 1:26:09Bill Simmons?

  I've never understood the pitch by pitch baseball stuff.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Oh, that's insanity. Right.

• 1:26:14Bill Simmons?

  Even you don't do that.

• 1:26:16Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:26:16Bill Simmons?

  Even you're not like, oh, the top of the eighth, I'm gonna bet on a ball. Like, that's like the height of insanity. I can't think of a single scenario where I would do that.

• 1:26:24Speaker 01

  I would do it if there was no way I was gonna get caught and I knew my buddy was gonna bounce the first pitch into the dirt. And that's when I would do it, but.

• 1:26:33Bill Simmons?

  It's brother Brian was on the mound for the Dodgers. He's like, I'm gonna ball, top of the eighth.

• 1:26:38Speaker 01

  This one's hitting the backstop, but I don't. But you have to be smart about it. I'm not gonna tell criminals how to do their job. Don't not bet anything else and then just bet $7,000 that the first pitch is gonna be a ball in the third inning, you know? You're gonna get busted.

• 1:26:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, what you said about people being able to have pressure put on them because of losses, I think is something that's happened since the 50s and 60s. And it's, this is why the illegal poker game thing, to me, is gonna be a much bigger story than a couple of this betting, the couple betting things versus like, how deep the poker stuff, because we both heard so many stories about these games. And they have athletes and actors and musicians.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Hall of Famers now.

• 1:27:23Bill Simmons?

  Billionaires and they're all competitive. The games are all arranged. They always try to have the one person who's got money, who's famous, who thinks he can beat these guys, and the game's rigged against them. And that's where I think things go sideways. And there's no way to police that. But I promise you, this has been going on since the 90s with some of these games. And this is, by the way, how Jordan got in trouble in the 90s.

• 1:27:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:27:47Bill Simmons?

  With some of the golf betting, when he fell behind by millions with, allegedly with that Richard Eskenis, whatever his name was, who wrote the book. And, uh, you know, this is just, these guys are super competitive.

• 1:27:58Speaker 01

  No doubt about it. And so what did Terry Rozier should be forced to play baseball? I mean, what's the, that's what they did to Jordan. I don't know. Send them out. I don't know.

• 1:28:06Bill Simmons?

  I still don't know what happened with that one. Cause because to me, like they like the league checked the MRI and he, he was hurt.

• 1:28:16Bill Simmons?

  Right? And, and yet all there was so much action on that under and he just left the game after nine minutes. And there's that video of him grabbing his foot and like, could you rig that? I guess you could. He's making $26 million a year though. Like I, I just don't understand the upside of that.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was just a one-two punch that and knowing that LeBron was going to be out and it was like, you know, that wasn't. It's just, it's just so much to hit everybody with and release right when the season starts too.

• 1:28:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, the bummer, and a lot of people have made this point, but it was an awesome first week for the NBA. It was, you know, the, the Wemby storyline was, was awesome. Some of the games were great. All the televised games, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday were really good. And then, uh, I thought Amazon on Friday like that, I thought it was really cool. You know, it's going to be work in progress. You, you have a five man show. That's going to be tough for basketball, but the set, the fact that they were going a little more hardcore basketball and it was more celebrated in the game, which is what I think people want. To an NBC and Amazon, the way they're presenting the game is what people have been asking for, for 10 years. Like, we don't want the hot take shit. Like teach us about basketball. Give us guys we like and try to be a little more positive. So I don't know.

• 1:29:30Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was a really good week. It was a really good week, except for the story that became the story that dominated everything.

• 1:29:37Speaker 01

  Uh, did you see this though? That just came in?

• 1:29:39Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 1:29:40Speaker 01

  You're making this up. No, now they're saying Wemby is one of the guys who robbed the Louvre. So I don't know. He probably has to sit like two weeks or something.

• 1:29:50Bill Simmons?

  They didn't use a crane. It was just Wemby.

• 1:29:51Speaker 01

  It was him. Dunk, grab, out.

• 1:29:57Bill Simmons?

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• 1:30:41Bill Simmons?

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• 1:31:39Speaker 01

  All right. So wrestling season, even though it's not really here, is here. We had, yes, we had a preseason tournament in Cerritos. By the way, you remember Super Dave and the Cerritos commercials? I don't know if you were here yet, but Super Dave would do Cerritos Auto Square. Come to Cerritos Auto Square. We're giving these cars away. It was kind of like your... So we had to go to Cerritos. We drive there. The weigh-ins are Friday night at a satellite location and then the wrestling is Saturday. It starts from like 12:30 and goes till double elimination. So I take Jack out there. We're driving to Cerritos, not to the Auto Square, but to the college. And so, and he's starting in the drive. He is breathing very heavily.

• 1:32:23Speaker 01

  He's like, yeah, he's like starting to, but he won't say like anything's wrong. So I try to ignore it. I like make the, the radio louder and like finally I like listen to this. I'm like,

• 1:32:32Bill Simmons?

  Like he's getting nervous breathing?

• 1:32:34Speaker 01

  Getting nervous breathing. Yeah. And I feel bad for him. And I'm like, this sucks. This is really, you know, and wrestling is like, it's, it's so much harder now. They have like four, four hour practices a week and it's not even wrestling season yet. Wrestling season starts like mid-November. Anyway, so this is a preseason tournament. He's breathing heavy and I've been there before. I've had all like the anxiety and I don't know what to say to him because I know like if no one, nothing anyone said to me would work. And so I'm like, hey, man, I know you're probably nervous, but uh, you know, in a few hours, we're going to be in this car. I want to go back and your life's going to be the same, no matter what happens on the mat, you know? And that didn't seem to faze him. The breathing kept consistently, it was constant and it kept going. And I'm like-

• 1:33:16Bill Simmons?

  You should have said, last year you threw up on the mat, they cleaned it up and you got the win.

• 1:33:20Speaker 01

  And you got the win.

• 1:33:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this would be fine.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  I ran through everything I could in my head, like try to calm this poor boy down. And then I thought like the day before Harrison, my youngest, had a flag football game and my father came and I walk up like I'm, you know, I'm keeping score actually on the game changer. And then I left my father for a minute and I come back like 20 minutes later and his entire ass crack is exposed. I don't know what happened. Like he's sitting down, but his pants still, so I have to tell him about it. But first I have to take a picture of him talking to the coaches with his ass out and then talking to like a grandmother of one of the players with his ass out. And I send this to Archie and Jack and I'm like, well, you guys are really missing out today, you know? And, uh, and so I say to Jack, I'm like, hey,

• 1:34:06Speaker 01

  Uh, listen, before you go on the mat, you can't bring your phone to the mat, but before you get ready to go on the mat to be on deck, on double deck, just look at that picture, you know, it'll loosen you up a little bit, you know? And he said, oh, uh, well, but yeah, but isn't that gonna just like make me laugh? Like, aren't I supposed to be serious going into these things? I'm like, yeah, I mean, I'd rather you listen to ACDC to get pumped for this, but I also don't want you getting a heart attack, like, you know, worrying about it.

• 1:34:33Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:34:34Speaker 01

  So he did it. So like, I'm sitting on the other side of bleachers. I see him, he takes it, he looks at the phone, like, kinda laughs. This is now, he's going on to the mat, he gets on there and he loses 16 to one. And so I think it really worked, you know, like, I think tech fall first period, but it got rid of the butterflies and that's what coaches look for.

• 1:34:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:56Speaker 01

  Not to clean up vomit on the mat.

• 1:34:58Bill Simmons?

  So no, so no ass crack next time?

• 1:35:00Speaker 01

  No ass crack, no. I'm gonna have to step it up. But he did better in the second match, but, uh, anyway, I don't know what that says about me as a father, but wrestling.

• 1:35:10Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:35:11Speaker 01

  The worst.

• 1:35:13Bill Simmons?

  Um, my, we were talking about parent corner this week and my wife's like, what's the parent corner gonna be this week? And Ben said, I'm not, I haven't been in a parent corner all year. I used to carry parent corner and now I'm never in it. And I'm like, whoa, I don't know, you're a pretty mellow kid. Like, you got a girlfriend, you're just applying to college. And he's like, why don't you do a thing about how I've been working on all my college stuff? And I've just been a complete asshole to you and mom all the time.

• 1:35:42Bill Simmons?

  And I'm like, I mean, I could relay the message. He's like, yeah, I mean, I don't know, there's gotta be some story in there, right? And I'm like, about how you're a huge asshole and you leave the house every day? And, and, and your mom says stuff like, I can't believe I spent all that time passing him out of my body. And then he just grunts as he leaves in the morning and doesn't say goodbye. And, and then goes up to his room and barely talks to us. He's like, yeah, you could do something like that.

• 1:36:09Speaker 01

  Well, don't do that. You're not gonna do that, are you?

• 1:36:11Bill Simmons?

  I'm still workshopping it. He's been occasionally friendly lately, more friendly. But anyway, that was his, that was his suggestion. I wanted to actually steer this to friend corner for my side. Our friend, Daniel,

• 1:36:31Bill Simmons?

  who was in Boston last week and texted, we have a group text that we really enjoy with a bunch of us. And sends a text, Bill, I'm at an Italian restaurant in Boston called El Banyo now. Do you know it? And I said, I do not. And he said, my buddy said it was Brady's favorite. It was pretty good. So then James Baby Doll Dixon chimes in, El Banyo means the bathroom in Italian. And Daniel texts back, haha, you're right. The restaurant is Lamora. It said El Banyo in the door. As I walked out, I thought that was the name of the restaurant. He thought the name of the restaurant was El Banyo, the bathroom. And I think we got two straight days of jokes about this.

• 1:37:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, we did.

• 1:37:13Bill Simmons?

  About El Banyo. My dad got a reservation at El Banyo today. Should I tell him to cancel? It just like, it just went on and on. Were you in trouble when you were ordering from a Caesar salad from the bathroom attendant? It just never, it never ended. And it made me wonder, like, we're hitting that age where our friends are gonna just start having moments like this. And I think it's gonna be great for all of us.

• 1:37:36Speaker 01

  It was, we should read some of these, like, well, I think Rob Mills said, why is this bathroom attendant handing me lifesavers? Give me the lasagna already. What are we doing? Did I order too much shit on a shingle?

• 1:37:50Bill Simmons?

  Stop trying to offer me a mint.

• 1:37:54Bill Simmons?

  It just kept going and going. And so anyway, Daniel said, El Mora, not El Banyo. I think we might have to change parent corner to Daniel corner.

• 1:38:03Speaker 01

  Daniel corner would be great.

• 1:38:04Bill Simmons?

  Daniel corner, there's one every week. Has he been on the Red Sox for the 26th World Series yet?

• 1:38:09Speaker 01

  I don't know.

• 1:38:10Bill Simmons?

  Not just yet. I mean, there must be somebody you're looking to get that he's waiting to, to jump on yet. Oh, that would be great if it had gotten out that Brady's favorite restaurant is called El Banyo in Boston. It created some kind of.

• 1:38:22Speaker 01

  We should leak that. People, you can't get a reservation at this place because it's a bathroom.

• 1:38:27Bill Simmons?

  In the north end.

• 1:38:28Speaker 01

  Don't bother washing your hands.

• 1:38:31Bill Simmons?

  Once again, today's parent corner brought to you by Scout Motors. Join the waitlist for the Scout Terran Scout traveler at scoutmotors.com. Concept vehicle is not available for sale. Features, performance specifications are preliminary, subject to change. Joining the waitlist does not guarantee purchase. Visit scoutmotors.com for details. How much NBA have you been betting?

• 1:38:50Speaker 01

  A lot. I'm doing it. You know, I'm going money line favorites for now. It hasn't, it hasn't killed me, except for that first night. Was that what House with the Wizards? That sucked, but about bounced back. How about you?

• 1:39:03Bill Simmons?

  I've been pretty careful. Just a couple, couple of teams that I liked heading into the season, like the Spurs and the Bucks. But the only betting revelation, it's a weird one because it's my team, but I, my team just, I don't think is good. The Celtics.

• 1:39:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:39:21Bill Simmons?

  Like I actually thought they were going to be a little, oh, people are discounting them. They still have some good players. They have an infrastructure. They're going to shoot a ton of threes. It turns out rebounding and defense is also important.

• 1:39:35Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:39:36Bill Simmons?

  That's one of the things we're learning through these games. Yeah. They, they, Detroit killed them on the boards today. They don't get stops in the last couple of minutes. They're just, and it's, it's not just all the guys they lost. It's really Tatum and Cornet have been the two major losses because those are big rebound guys for them. And I'm starting to wonder if they're just not going to be good. Like, are they going to throw away the season I think is in play? I don't know what their over under is now. It was 42 and out before the season. And right now it is off. They don't even have it.

• 1:40:09Speaker 01

  That means zero. They're not going to win a game after this.

• 1:40:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. For the division, they're nine to one, but I, I think, I, this team's in a lot of trouble.

• 1:40:19Speaker 01

  So are they, is it three point thing at least true? Is that what you thought would happen? Were they going to be spiteful with the three or?

• 1:40:25Bill Simmons?

  They're not. They, I mean, they're shooting about where they were last year. But, so they're 0-3 right now. They're playing at New Orleans, fourth game in five nights tomorrow. Home for Cleveland on Wednesday, and then at Philly on Halloween.

• 1:40:43Bill Simmons?

  And then they play Houston the day after at home on November 1st. Like 0-7 is legitimately in play for them.

• 1:40:51Speaker 01

  Wow, well, that'd be fun.

• 1:40:53Bill Simmons?

  As you know, I'm usually more glass half full on my teams. I'm, I'm very concerned. I think, and there's been some Celtic fans who are like, this is how, we knew this was going to happen. We knew their work could be good. We lost too many guys. But I think, I don't know why, but I just thought, I thought they would be able to patch it together. And I don't think it's going to happen. There's a very interesting moment right now for this team. Cause they have their own first round pick. Whether they just, do you just toss away the season? Like Philly tossed away last season. They got VJ Edgecombe. It was fucking awesome. You know, and they might, if Tatum's not coming back till February, March. So I just wonder like, that's a team I would probably bet against these next couple of games. If that wasn't my team.

• 1:41:34Speaker 01

  What does that mean toss away the season? You're not going to, you're not going to be bottom three or four, right? Are you just like banking on like what Dallas did, like miracle in the lottery and uh?

• 1:41:44Bill Simmons?

  No, I think this is, I think this might be a bottom five team in the East.

• 1:41:47Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:41:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:50Speaker 01

  Hmm, okay.

• 1:41:51Bill Simmons?

  Really? They don't know who to play at the end of these games. They don't know, like Detroit just destroyed them on, on the boards tonight. Like they couldn't get a rebound. And in the Philly game, they couldn't, they just couldn't get a stop. So I, I'm concerned because like Jalen played, Jalen had 41 today and they still lost in Detroit. They couldn't get a stop.

• 1:42:13Bill Simmons?

  I think I just, I misread this one. I had some good ones with the over runners. I think I missed on this Celtics. And then Indiana is the other one. They lost Nembhard. I think Indiana actually was the right play to think they were still going to be pretty good. But no Nembhard now. It's like, I think they're in major trouble too. Yeah. So I think those two are going to be in real trouble.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  Can I make you feel better about your team? I'll, we could, we could talk about this off air, but uh, Pookie and Albanian Bruce told me about a Peyton Pritchard, uh, player prop that is just out of this world.

• 1:42:43Bill Simmons?

  Under? Is it an under?

• 1:42:44Speaker 01

  I don't want to say it in front of everybody because then we'll get Pablo and get us.

• 1:42:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we can't, we can't have Pablo come after us. The, uh, the other one was Dallas. I've been watching just because of the, I've watched all the Dallas stuff, including tonight because of flag and seeing how they're using him with the point card thing.

• 1:43:05Speaker 01

  He's a great dunker. He's a pretty good dunker.

• 1:43:06Bill Simmons?

  The flag's really good, but I thought maybe there was going to be a chance to kind of zag against them because this flag point card thing is, is kind of a disaster. But today they looked a lot better. So there, I just think they have a lot of talent.

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  I listened to you a lot on that. So I hope that they make the playoffs. They get over 44, you know, all that stuff.

• 1:43:25Bill Simmons?

  Well, I hope you listen to me on San Antonio because that's the one that if,

• 1:43:28Speaker 01

  I did.

• 1:43:29Bill Simmons?

  If, if Wemby's going to be healthy, that's going to be a monster team, I think. And then I really like Milwaukee. I think Milwaukee's legitimately good.

• 1:43:38Bill Simmons?

  They had a tough loss today to Cleveland, but they were in that game and came down in the last minute. But I think Milwaukee's for real and they can shoot.

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  Is there, oh, you can't talk awards really, but I wonder if there's.

• 1:43:48Bill Simmons?

  I can talk awards. I just can't bet on them.

• 1:43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm trying to think if anyone moved a lot.

• 1:43:54Bill Simmons?

  Wemby. Wemby was 12 to one before the season. He's plus 360 now. Yeah.

• 1:43:59Speaker 01

  So are we still with the top two, top three seed thing? Or we think they can get there for him?

• 1:44:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, Wemby could have the, this season was so spectacular.

• 1:44:08Speaker 01

  Doesn't matter.

• 1:44:09Bill Simmons?

  We have to commemorate it.

• 1:44:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:11Bill Simmons?

  I just think Jokic is four to one now and anytime he's like Mahomes where there's some sort of early season over. I don't know if you've seen him, but he looks like he's playing himself in his shape this year.

• 1:44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Bill Simmons?

  He's definitely the chunkiest he's been in a while.

• 1:44:25Bill Simmons?

  But, uh, but yeah, the Wemby I think was the biggest flip and there's the Luca. Luca's six to one. What's his seat? The points per game leader? Luca's plus 340 to be the points per game leader this year. I don't know how he's not going to lead the league in points.

• 1:44:43Speaker 01

  What's the threshold for that? It's different from like how to qualify for MVP and those things.

• 1:44:48Bill Simmons?

  Points per game. And I think it's like 60 games.

• 1:44:50Speaker 01

  So 65 for awards, 60 for these things?

• 1:44:53Bill Simmons?

  Something like that. Yeah.

• 1:44:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right. At 340 is pretty good.

• 1:44:56Bill Simmons?

  I would, I would bet Luca. I can actually bet on that one, but I would bet Luca plus 340.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  I'm doing that. As long as we don't hear he's out like three weeks and stuff like this.

• 1:45:04Bill Simmons?

  That would be the issue. You know, it was interesting going to the game on Friday. First of all, he's, he's in good shape. Like it was the best shape I've seen in a couple of years, but, uh, The Laker crowd just loves him. They really do. They really, it's, they're just really into it. And he's had such disdain for his opponents. He's talking shit the whole time. He's mad at the refs. Like, it's a whole, it really feels like a performance and it just kind of makes sense in LA. So, you know, they're not going to win the title or anything this year, but I think long-term, it's a great fit for him.

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  Well, they love him because he's their Ozempic dealer, half these fans, or they have to.

• 1:45:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, it was weird because LeBron is on the bench and it's like, you know, he's the second best player of all time, one of the most famous basketball players ever. And it's kind of not his team anymore.

• 1:45:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:45:53Bill Simmons?

  And he's sitting there and he's very polite and he, you know, good energy, it seemed like, or okay energy. But it's just some weird situation. I don't remember anything like this.

• 1:46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:46:02Bill Simmons?

  Hey, I can't imagine Kobe just being on the bench as this became somebody else's team, you know?

• 1:46:07Speaker 01

  Right, right. Well, that was a big issue, but that's why one of them had to go. Hey, we, real quick, before I go, big, big disparity in opinion here. Bronny and LeBron, plus Giannis and his two brothers, they're the starters. You get an average bench, right? Let's say an average, whatever the 16th best bench is. How many games does that team win?

• 1:46:32Bill Simmons?

  So I'm starting Bronny and the two Giannis brothers. But I have Giannis and LeBron. How many minutes do I have to play the three, the two brothers in this son?

• 1:46:43Speaker 01

  Like, you know, most, whatever a starting lineup would mostly play.

• 1:46:47Bill Simmons?

  So like 30 to 35 minutes?

• 1:46:49Speaker 01

  Right, and the bench is average.

• 1:46:52Bill Simmons?

  But I have Giannis.

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  Giannis and LeBron, yeah.

• 1:46:55Bill Simmons?

  But I don't have any shooting with those five, other than LeBron.

• 1:47:00Bill Simmons?

  I think that's like a 20-win team.

• 1:47:01Speaker 01

  That's what I think, yeah. Tate said 45, How said like 37, 38. No, it's, we gotta see this to believe it.

• 1:47:11Bill Simmons?

  I mean, Tate.

• 1:47:12Speaker 01

  It's probably not gonna happen.

• 1:47:13Bill Simmons?

  Come on, Tate.

• 1:47:15Speaker 01

  He's positive. He's a very, very positive guy.

• 1:47:18Bill Simmons?

  I actually like though, that they signed the other brother, the Bucks.

• 1:47:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:47:23Bill Simmons?

  I think they should sign more family members because you really only play 10 guys. Right? Like what, what would be? How shady could you get with it? Like if you just sign his cousin who's like never, let's say he had like a 5'9" cousin. Who was like a wrestler who never played basketball and he's like, he's our 15th man.

• 1:47:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:42Bill Simmons?

  And he just never played, but he was one of the 15 guys. Like technically that's legal.

• 1:47:47Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. If you're signing Albanian Bruce and Pookie to 10 day contracts, like yeah, I think that's, that's when you have to, it's a red flag.

• 1:47:55Bill Simmons?

  I can't get enough Albanian Bruce and everybody.

• 1:47:59Speaker 01

  Let's have him on.

• 1:48:00Bill Simmons?

  One of my favorites.

• 1:48:01Speaker 01

  He's gonna be fine. Let's have him on next week.

• 1:48:03Bill Simmons?

  All right, cuz um, we're gonna be back next Sunday. What's the Sunday night game next week? It's a good one, right?

• 1:48:10Speaker 01

  Seattle at Washington?

• 1:48:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, not a good one.

• 1:48:13Speaker 01

  Nope.

• 1:48:14Bill Simmons?

  We're probably not going live after that one next week.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  I never know why or when we go live, but you'll, you'll be surprised.

• 1:48:19Bill Simmons?

  It's usually when, it's usually when it's a good game, we want to go live. We'll see if the Pats, the Pats play next week? Yeah. They play in Atlanta. Okay. We'll see if the Pats can be 7-2. Cuz, as always, a pleasure. Good job by you.

• 1:48:32Speaker 01

  Good job by you, buddy.

• 1:48:34Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Sal. Thanks to Gahad. Thanks to Eduardo. I will be back on this feed on Tuesday. And don't forget about rewatchables, late Monday night, Halloween 2. So now I've done one, two, and four. Uh, I guess H2O would be the only one left that we'd, who knows if we'll ever do H2O. My H12 might be in the, uh, in the tail end, maybe around when we're, when we've done like 750 movies. Anyway, I will see you on this feed on Tuesday.

• 1:49:14Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com, call 888-797-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8HOPENY, or text HOPE NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy

• 1:49:55Bill Simmons?

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• 1:50:40Bill Simmons?

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