Texas Toast, Fantasy Murderers, Drake Maybe Back, Guess the Lines and MLB Playoffs With Cousin Sal

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal after the Lion-Panthers game to react to the game and to recap the rest of Week 4. Then, they guess the lines for Week 5 before ending with Parent Corner. (0:00) Intro (1:08) Lions-Panthers and the NFC playoff picture (11:26) Dolphins-Vikings, Cardinals-Giants, Chargers-Seahawks (31:35) Patriots-Bills and Cowboys-Texans (44:34) Rams-Eagles and Chiefs-Raiders (54:40) Broncos-49ers and Jaguars-Bengals (01:02:12) Jets-Bears and Packers-Buccaneers (01:04:12) Colts-Commanders (01:07:24) Guess the Lines Week 5 (01:34:34) Parent Corner (01:47:43) MLB and WNBA playoffs Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers #ULTRACourtside could get you closer to the game! https://michelobultra.com/courtside MICHELOB ULTRA® COURTSIDE ’26 to ’27. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21+ Begins on 10/1/26 and ends on 6/30/27. Multiple entry periods. See Official Rules at https://michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season like eBay for collectibles, Fanatics for teen gear, Walmart for tech. Check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with Pay in Four with no interest, no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Paying for subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/payingfor. PayPal, Inc., NMLS 910457.

• 0:39Bill Simmons?

  This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would, earn points on eligible settled bets, win or lose, keep collecting points, level up and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever and it's with FanDuel. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Game probability 1-800-GAMBLER or call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.

• 1:42Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix with Cousin Sal and his kidney stones. Wanted to mention we have a new rewatch of those coming tomorrow night. Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which I guess could have doubled for Texans Cowboys today, but the 1974 one, not any of the remakes. So yeah, me and CR are breaking that one down. We made producer Craig watch it. It was super fun. All right. We just came off of probably the worst Sunday night football game in a while. And yet it was wildly entertaining and there were 900 yards and zero turnovers and lots of points, but it was kind of fun to watch Collinsworth and listen to him do a bad game. Right?

• 2:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. They, they kind of protected him a little bit with this Lions defense. I feel like they, they lucked into this schedule wise. Like the NFL, if they have to put a shitty NFC South team in prime time, tomorrow is the exception, but if they have to do that, the Lions defense is a fun option, right? So they're always going to be, they, they should always be the must play for the NFC South teams because the D is going to make you look magnificent. Their defense is a zep bound of the NFL. It makes everyone look great. It really does.

• 2:53Bill Simmons?

  They almost blew the game. There was a lot of weird strategy stuff going on. At various points, I was wondering which coach was good on both teams and what the hell was going on, but really weird. Near the end, Campbell, he's down 13. It's fourth and 10 inside the 15. Collinsworth not talking about it. Goff just takes a delay of game. Campbell doesn't call timeout for some reason, fourth and 15. Then they get a false start. Now it's fourth and 20. And then they just go for it on fourth and 20 from the 25, which I would say has like a 3% chance. You're basically hoping for a PI. They don't get it. They get the ball back, touchdown. They get the ball back again, but now they're, they need six instead of three. They need seven basically, instead of just being down three if they had kicked the field goal and they lose.

• 3:37Bill Simmons?

  And Collinsworth like didn't want to hear the argument for it. It was weird.

• 3:41Speaker 01

  I'm just so medicated, right? I can't believe they stuck me with the Panthers, Bill. I just, that's stuck in my craw there. No, you're, there was seven minutes, 10 seconds left. They were down 13. And like I said, they're getting pushed back. So in, in Campbell's mind, he's got to have, at some point, it's not worth it, right? If they take false starts all the way to midfield, he's not going to throw a hail mary, right? So to me and you, we were on this text chain, like fourth and 20, just kick it.

• 4:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, go down 10 with seven minutes left. That's fine.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  And Anthony DiBundo, who is my co-host, Fringe of Wise, guys like they're not getting the ball back twice again. Right now, between that and the, what the Raiders did with the point, I wouldn't hire DiBundo to coach my dog to his bowl to eat at this point, but, but guess what? They got the ball back twice. I don't know. I don't know that it would have made a difference, but there's nothing wrong with being down 10 with seven minutes left.

• 4:28Bill Simmons?

  No, it was, it was just a weird game in general. They ran out of Ted McMillan kind of stuff to do by the third quarter. He just kept catching passes. It seemed like he was the only guy on the team. Anytime they needed a play, he made it. Bryce was really good. Bryce, it's not like the NBA where it would be, we'd be going, oh my God, who's going to sign him? Seven teams need a quarterback because they can just franchise tag them, which I just think is less fun. It would be fun if he was just a restricted or unrestricted free agent at the end of the year, but he's been really good now since the last couple of games of last year. He didn't have Coker tonight. He didn't have Leggett, who they spent a high draft pick on. It was basically just McMillan and, and you know, Hubbard and, and a bunch of guys you've never heard of.

• 5:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm trying to look because I knew you would do this, but I stand, I stand by my, the Lions defense makes everyone look good thing, you know?

• 5:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, you might be right.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  I mean, I don't know. He wasn't that great against the Browns. His yards were up there. I guess he was good against Atlanta. It was better than the last year's version of Bryce Young for sure.

• 5:29Bill Simmons?

  Right? Like, like your guy today was great against Houston. He was just awesome.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  He has a name and it's Dak Prescott.

• 5:35Bill Simmons?

  Dak Prescott. Stafford in those last two drives when the, you know, Stafford was bad for two and a half hours and then those last two drives showed up. My guy showed up like that. There's like that high level. Then there's that middle level of like, they can do it every once in a while, depending on the situation, the defense. And I think Bryce is at least there.

• 5:55Speaker 01

  That's fine.

• 5:56Bill Simmons?

  And then there's that lower level of like that Jameis Jacoby Brissette, five interception masterpiece. We watched at Giants Stadium. Then there's a level below that, that I think has just came more to Malik Willis and the Rutgers guy that came in today.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Kalik Mack.

• 6:11Bill Simmons?

  Whatever that Rutgers guy was. But yeah, so Bryce Young is at least in that second level now, which I don't think we would have said halfway through last year.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  All right, I'll give you that. I mean, there's a lot, you, you put a lot of guys in that second level then. So you're going to put Bo Nix and Trevor Lawrence and.

• 6:27Bill Simmons?

  I think Trevor Lawrence is top level for me now.

• 6:29Speaker 01

  He's top. All right.

• 6:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think he's been really good. The question is where Herbert is now because he's definitely not in the top level. And he's probably in the middle level. And if you watch that game today, all his stats came in garbage time stuff. Big picture with Lions, Panthers. I don't know where we're going to get any competition for the seven NFC playoff teams. If you go with the three NFC West.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:59Bill Simmons?

  Probably your team in the NFC East would be the safe bet. The Bears, just because of Ben Johnson, it just seems like he's going to Scotch tape and duct tape them to 10 games. So there's five. The NFC South has to send a playoff. They, they still have that rule.

• 7:15Speaker 01

  They do.

• 7:16Bill Simmons?

  There's six. So then that seven spot comes down to Philly, Detroit, minute four and oh Minnesota, who, who scored one touchdown in the first half. Oh, is that, no, that's not the stat. What's that? The Denver scored one touchdown in the first half.

• 7:36Speaker 01

  Minnesota's like six all year.

• 7:37Bill Simmons?

  Other terrible offensive stats. So I guess it would be Minnesota, but I don't, I don't feel good about Minnesota.

• 7:44Speaker 01

  We don't have to pull the plug on Minnesota yet. I, I just, from my takeaway from this week and win or lose, I think we're, and you know, injuries could really screw this up. I think there's three NFC West teams in the playoffs. Again, we're going to see that, right? And then like you said.

• 7:59Bill Simmons?

  Injuries screw that up. Like San Francisco just loses guys every game. Their fullback today got his knee, it seemed like his knee blown out or hyperextended or whatever. And it was like their 15th injury. It just doesn't matter. They just keep plowing ahead. I don't, you know, Mike Evans was out there with what? Broken ribs or broken bone in his back, whatever he had today? It just doesn't matter.

• 8:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, it, it's true. It doesn't matter. It didn't really matter last year, I guess either. They had a shot to get the one seed in week 18, but yeah, I'm saying like if their quarterback doesn't go out, I would think NFC West is a lock for, for three teams. And I think the North will get two. And then I still think there's one in the East. I still think, and I'm not sure that it's my team. I know we'll talk about it.

• 8:39Bill Simmons?

  If the North gets two, that's either Minnesota or Detroit. Cause I think Green Bay is terrible, which we'll, we'll go into later. The interesting thing about the NFC is it feels like the three NFC West teams are the best teams. And then maybe your team is fourth just because of how you can move the ball. You know, you, not only do you have the best offense in the league through four games, you have statistically one of the best offenses of this century through the first four games. I don't know if it's going to last, but that's, and this is without getting really anything from pickings.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  It's points per drive, but if you watch the defense, it's, you know, the, the other side of the ball is magnificently bad. I mean, Joey Porter Jr. Kind of helps out because they, I don't even think they tested him today in terms of targets. So that's good.

• 9:22Bill Simmons?

  That's his back. Is he, is he using like Norma tech on his back? What was he doing?

• 9:26Speaker 01

  Listen, they've sat him, they purposely sat him too.

• 9:29Bill Simmons?

  Core power yoga to stretch out his back yesterday.

• 9:31Speaker 01

  I got some stuff for him if he needs. But yeah, I don't know. We'll get into my team, but I just, this Vikings team, I guess, I guess we're just going to have to get used to them going like 14 and three, and they're going to have like a dozen touchdowns on the year and that's going to be them.

• 9:47Bill Simmons?

  I have to go all the way down to my Vikings Miami notes. The Dolphins covered. Thanks to Hawkinson going down on the one yard line, which feels like it needs a name. Who was the first person to do that? Brian Westbrook? I forget who invented that when we were all, it absolutely blew everyone's brains.

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Might have been him.

• 10:09Bill Simmons?

  I think it was Brian Westbrook. Said it was like on a Monday night, it had fantasy implications. It had gambling implications, all kinds of shit was in play. And he went down and the announcers were talking about how smart it was. And everybody else was like, what just happened? I feel like I've been shot by a cannon.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. The Hawkinson, he should steal it though. If he does it like two or three more times, we could call it the Hawkinson. And then it becomes like a hundred years from now. No one's gonna know what the hell it is, but it's gonna sound like Parkinson, but or something like that. Well, they have a Parkinson to the ramps, but anyway, yeah, um, that would have been, I guess he made the right move there. I mean, first of all, if you would have sat with somebody for those four PM games and bet on every game. They would have been for the first time ever. If like you had like a cousin in from like Barcelona or something and they're like, oh, you never bet? Let's just bet these four, four PM games Eastern. They would be like, they would look at you after it's like, what the, you do this every week? Are you kidding me?

• 11:04Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 11:05Speaker 01

  This is ridiculous.

• 11:06Bill Simmons?

  You teased the Broncos and they gave up a George Kittle half field touchdown with two minutes left for no reason?

• 11:12Speaker 01

  And at least that guy scored. There were some guys trying not to score because they don't want to go up 12 with two minutes left. Like, yeah, I just, and your wife stays with you like through all this? Yeah, it was a, it was a tumultuous four PM ending.

• 11:27Bill Simmons?

  The funniest thing was it's not, I don't think Kyler Murray has a lot of touchdowns in him this year.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 11:32Bill Simmons?

  So Hawkinson sliding down and costing him one of the few touchdowns he's gonna have, he had to be bummed out. I also wrote down 20 million a year for Malik Willis. Now feels kinda hilarious. I've, I've unfortunately watched some Dolphins.

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Is that what he's getting? I guess he is getting that much.

• 11:51Bill Simmons?

  I thought he got 70 million for three years.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  They paid like two guys and he was one of them. Yeah.

• 11:56Bill Simmons?

  He's not that guy. I know he doesn't have a lot of weapons. Alex from Minneapolis sent us some email. He said, he's a lifelong Vikings fan. Couldn't be more thrilled about his 4-0 start. Um, heard a stat that since the most recent playoff expansion, no team that started out 4-0 has missed the playoffs.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 12:13Bill Simmons?

  But he asked, considering how putrid their offense is. Could the Vikings be you and Sal's first ever 4-0 cross off team?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 12:22Bill Simmons?

  Did you, did you think about crossing them off at 4-0?

• 12:24Speaker 01

  Really good.

• 12:26Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna say no. I value the four wins. But it did make me pause for a second because their offense is just abysmal. And I don't understand this blitzing thing, how the, how it's gonna work when they actually play.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:39Bill Simmons?

  A really good team. It's a gimmick. They're getting away with it, but I, I don't, I don't, do not take the Vikings seriously.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  Like a Brock Purdy. I'm looking at their schedule. The problem is everyone who I thought was good is now maybe not so good. So there's a stretch there for them where.

• 12:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  Couple of weeks they're at the Lions versus the Bills, at the Packers versus the 49ers. Let's see. Let's see if they, what they do. I mean, those are good quarterbacks, so. Let's see how they get out of that, but. Yeah, man, I don't know. I mean, the Dolphins, you can't learn anything from them. Do they have a game where they've scored more than 13 points?

• 13:09Bill Simmons?

  They do not.

• 13:10Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 13:10Bill Simmons?

  So Minnesota beats Green Bay, week one, 39 to 22 in the game that Green Bay's up 22 to 10. And the entire game completely craters on them. There's that weird drive that seemed like the, the game was fixed for Minnesota and.

• 13:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:25Bill Simmons?

  All kinds of dumb shit. They beat Chicago in week two in the game with the 20 mile an hour winds where Chicago scores three points and the weather, it was just a perfect game for Minnesota. Last week they beat Tampa barely in Baker Mayfield's last start, and now we know Tampa's terrible. And then they beat Miami by five today. So they're just gonna be the team. And we know who it is every year by usually November. And now we know what they're now, they're probably gonna go 13 and four. And we will not wait to, uh, we will not be able to wait to bet against them in round one.

• 13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:57Bill Simmons?

  Is how the, is where we're heading with the Minnesota Vikings. I like their fan base. God bless them. They've had a lot of agony and pain over the year, but. Kyler Murray is terrible. Like you're not, you're not doing anything if he's your quarterback. It's hard for me to believe they traded McCarthy. That, that means he must be awful.

• 14:12Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 14:13Bill Simmons?

  And I don't really know what they do.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  I don't know what they do either. I don't know if they're looking for like a Sam Darnold type resurgence out of Kyler Murray. You know, Jefferson's out too, so I don't know if you want to give him a little, little bit of a break there.

• 14:26Bill Simmons?

  I really don't.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Stats weren't awful, but again, it's against the Dolphins. I mean, I guess we should be happy. They finally had positive yards in a matchup that they've won. They're 4-0, but it is about the worst 4-0 team I've seen, I think.

• 14:39Bill Simmons?

  Kudos to them. Well, one of the weird things about this season so far. Is we have how many 4-0 teams? Like more than usual, right? Minnesota, San Francisco.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  Chiefs.

• 14:53Bill Simmons?

  And Kansas City. So we still have three 4-0s and then conversely, which is the part that gets super weird. We still have five 0-4 teams.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:04Bill Simmons?

  And all the stats and trends of like week three, 0-2 teams, watch out when they're underdogs and then. Week, week four, 0-3 teams, look out. None of them worked. The Texans are 0-4. They could have won three, maybe even four of those games. They had the lead. In three of the four, they had the lead today against your team. Stroud was, I thought, really good. They did everything you could have asked offensively from a team that can't run the ball at all. And then once again, I was texting you guys. They are the equivalent of Munoz on the Seattle Mariners.

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:36Bill Simmons?

  It's a great eight innings and then fucking Munoz comes in and walks the first guy and starts giving up rockets and you're like. This guy throws a hundred to one miles an hour. How is he not getting a save? And the Texans have all these all pros, all these dudes all over the place. And this is two weeks in a row where, and then you go back to week one, same thing where all they had to do was just close out a drive and they win the game. They weren't able to do it. They're on four and this is what's supposed to be the strength of their team.

• 16:04Speaker 01

  Right. Three out of the four games that, uh, their defense played horribly and they're, they still had a shot with the last drive and, and couldn't, couldn't put the hammer down.

• 16:12Bill Simmons?

  And their offense got the go ahead score to set up the defense to finish the game, which it then did not.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. I love that you're invoking this Munoz guy. I really hope this looks like through basketball, like you, he's just. Can't caniple. He's like Munoz. What? Let it go.

• 16:28Bill Simmons?

  I'm just gonna compare Munoz to everything.

• 16:30Speaker 01

  Keeper league, you lost six months ago.

• 16:32Bill Simmons?

  Trump's new legislative act, it's like Munoz.

• 16:36Speaker 01

  These midterms. Yeah. Not voting for Munoz, tell you that much.

• 16:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, so that Lassiter who had, who dropped the game winning pick in the first game, so that just single handedly costed them a win. Then this game, he got torched. The stats were like unbelievable. I think, I think when they targeted him, he gave up 200 yards. Your guy, C.D. Lamb had 17 catches.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  Woo.

• 16:57Bill Simmons?

  And had one of the best receiver games of this decade. And dominated them and dominated them in the final drive when all Dak was doing was throwing to C.D. Lamb and it didn't matter. And he was just getting open and making plays and. I don't understand it. I don't know what happened to Pickens this year. If you have him on a fantasy team, you're not doing backflips. It's, it's very C.D. Lamb centric, but it's working.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  I love it. I mean, this is maybe how it should have been last year, but not just one of the greatest, 17 for 189. Is he the greatest wide receiver you've ever seen? I'll hang up and listen to your response off the air.

• 17:30Bill Simmons?

  No, but he throw, he's throwing his hat in the ring this year for receiver of the year, right?

• 17:35Speaker 01

  It's good. It's, you know, I'll, I'll take it. I'm not gonna overreact at all. I promise, but let's just split the heartbreaking results, right? We lost to the Ravens. We couldn't lose this one to the Texans too. And you know, you, like I said, Joe, we poured it as a positive. The defense still lets up. We have guys on the field that shouldn't be, but the fact that we had lost like four years worth of road games when we were down double digits in the second half. And we, we kicked that streak to the curb. That's nice. That's fine. I'll take that.

• 18:03Bill Simmons?

  What do you think your odds are to make the playoffs?

• 18:05Speaker 01

  I saw it already. It's the same as the Eagles. It's about even, right? Minus 110 or something?

• 18:10Bill Simmons?

  It jumped up because of that Detroit loss today. You're now minus 132 to make the playoffs. There's juice against you. Plus 112 to miss it on Fandel. Uh, the bet, the bet of the year was the Chargers a week ago.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:23Bill Simmons?

  When we did that, they were like minus 650 to miss it and just put those with two other terrible teams and you have the makings of a parlay. I might've actually done this when I was in Boston, but now they're like minus 1200.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  Uh, there are five 0-4 teams you said, and two of them are the Titans, two of them we crossed off already, the Titans and the Dolphins. The other three are the Texans, the, the Bucks, which we won't cross off because they're in the South divisions, right?

• 18:49Bill Simmons?

  Texans, Bucks and Chargers.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  Chargers. I think, I, I think we're closest to Chargers than any other team right now. I, I would might, you could convince me to do it right now this week.

• 18:59Bill Simmons?

  I have a different cross off team for this week.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  Really? That's not 0-4. All right.

• 19:04Bill Simmons?

  I think it's the Arizona Cardinals.

• 19:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 19:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. If the goal of the cross off, and so far we've crossed off Miami and Tennessee, and Eduardo is doing a really cool Instagram.

• 19:15Speaker 01

  I like it.

• 19:15Bill Simmons?

  Post of it where it's like a notebook and the teams are written. So we, so we need a third team. What are the odds Arizona is going to make the playoffs in that division? You would need, I think, two of the quarterbacks to get hurt. They have this crazy schedule coming up.

• 19:31Bill Simmons?

  They won that first game against the Chargers and we went, oh my God, Arizona. What, what did we miss? And then we talked that day, I think we talked on the pod. This could be one of the ones we look back at like around week 12 and go, oh, that was the crazy result.

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 19:47Bill Simmons?

  And it was a crazy result because we thought the Chargers were good and the Chargers suck. And the Cardinals threw us off their scent for a week and they've lost every game ever since.

• 19:56Speaker 01

  I'm fine with that. I mean, they had 270 total yards. Oh, I started this, we started talking about how the NFC West, it's almost a foregone conclusion. They're going to have three playoff teams. So they're not going to have four. You know, to me, it's like, they went to Trey McBride like 15 times in the red zone and couldn't get it done against the Giants. So, and the ref is telling them to F off multiple. I think they're telling, the ref's telling them to F off. Well, I think we could tell them to F off. We could cross them off if you want.

• 20:23Bill Simmons?

  I mean, we're on Netflix. We can say, he said fuck you twice to Trey McBride.

• 20:27Speaker 01

  He did.

• 20:28Bill Simmons?

  End zone judge.

• 20:29Speaker 01

  And he actually did, right?

• 20:31Bill Simmons?

  Incredible video. Like, does that guy get fired? What happens to him?

• 20:35Speaker 01

  He, he's got, I had a talking to Bill. You can't throw an F bomb.

• 20:39Bill Simmons?

  This guy thought he was in a Tarantino movie. What are you doing?

• 20:42Speaker 01

  Take it easy, Scarface. Come on. Just let us know when the quarter's over.

• 20:48Bill Simmons?

  He, uh, yeah, I would have the Cardinals. So you agree with that?

• 20:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it.

• 20:53Bill Simmons?

  Okay. They played the Giants today. And, uh,

• 20:57Speaker 01

  It is weird. We're taking them, even though they beat the Chargers, a team we won't cross off, but we're, we are, I'm, I'm game. That's fine.

• 21:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, here's why I don't want to cross off the Chargers and we should talk that, by the way, the Cardinals gave up a walk off pick six that if you teased the Cardinals.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  So sorry.

• 21:13Bill Simmons?

  It murdered all the teases. That seemed like one of the safest ones. A hilarious game in general, though. Jameis is just throwing it. He's just, it's almost like he's peaked past being where Jameis was when he was 30-30 Jameis.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:27Bill Simmons?

  And now he's a erratic, older version of the same Jameis. And you just don't know what's going to happen play to play. It's magnificent.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  I love the attitude. I love the, I think that's the best version we could ask for, for him. Like 18 for 29, three touchdowns, two interceptions. Press conference during the week, he's freaking out on the reporters saying that they're like, you're the backup. So as a backup, you're doing, and he's like, hey, I'm not the backup anymore. Stop calling me the backup.

• 21:50Bill Simmons?

  Right. He insulted me.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  As soon as Jackson Dart gets that knee fixed up. It's like Rosie O'Donnell saying, stop calling me a guest host on Jimmy Kimmel Live. I'm the host of this show.

• 22:00Bill Simmons?

  Hosting the show right now.

• 22:02Speaker 01

  Who knows if he'll ever stop fishing, but that's, uh, that's it. So that's Jameis in a nutshell. I like watching it.

• 22:08Bill Simmons?

  I asked Noah, who's been working with The Ringer for a while, who's a giant, diehard Giants fan. I was like, I know you watched this entire game. I had it on and as ATVs are going away, like, what were your takeaways? And he said, I don't understand how we've picked in the top 10 for an entire decade and Malik Neighbors is our only blue chip player.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:29Bill Simmons?

  It's a pretty good take. Everyone was talking about how awesome and loaded their defense is. Now, Burton's got hurt.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:36Bill Simmons?

  But all these guys they had that are allegedly like just a nightmare to go against and oh my God, their front seven. And their defense stinks. And, um, and then you look on the other side and it's basically just neighbors and it is a little weird that they've had all those.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  They got neighbors over 100 yards, which was nice, right? Cause you don't want your blue chipper, uh, you know, four for 38 every week, right? So Jameis was good enough to get him to that point. But yeah, you're right. Now the haters are going to be like, first place. Shut, uh, they're going to, you know, trade McBride us with the fuck yous, I think.

• 23:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, first place and they're over under, I think on Fando is still seven or less, right?

• 23:12Speaker 01

  Is it seven and a half? Yeah, yeah. I think that's what it was. Hold on. I could, I could look at it here for wins. Yeah. Their updated win total is seven and a half is the, I mean, they have, they have a million that you could bet, but yeah. Over plus 115.

• 23:25Bill Simmons?

  So I'm not willing to officially cross off the Cardinals yet until we talk about those Chargers. No, no, I'm 95% there, but let's talk about Seahawks Chargers really quick. Herbert, um, just got pounded for two straight hours. It was 27-6 at one point. He had 26 pass yards in the first half.

• 23:46Bill Simmons?

  They started garbage timing it up near the end and they did something really interesting. They were down 21. I had, I was on the treadmill watching four games at once. So I was really concentrating because treadmill makes everything go slower. And, uh, they had like an eight or nine minute drive down 21 where they're running the ball. You would have thought they were up three and they put this long drive together against an increasingly disinterested Seahawks defense. And Herbert actually did get his mojo going a tiny bit. And then they came back and got it in a situation where they lose by seven. And, you know, this game was seven in a lot of markets all week. So they got the push.

• 24:25Bill Simmons?

  I just think he looks like a complete mess. They, they showed him on the sideline a couple of times. And he, he just had a different look. He used to have kind of that kind of glazed. You know, I'm, I'm from Pacific Northwest. I kind of have this vibe to me. He just looked beaten down. And in general, when you looked at the sideline with them. That was the only team I saw the whole day that seemed disconnected, unhappy. Like where, where you watch these games, you're like, ah, there's something wrong with that team. It was the only one out of all of them. And it's not like everything was going great for everybody. But that team looks, I, I would say broken would be the word I would use.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  He looks like he's dating the, the Frankenstein version of Madison Beer. Like the, like she's got.

• 25:08Bill Simmons?

  He's in the bride part too?

• 25:10Speaker 01

  The skin burned off in a terrible accident. That game sucked.

• 25:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was awful.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  First of all, it, it seemed slow on the treadmill because there were 280 penalty yards. There were 30 penalties in that game. It's like 15 or 17 for one and 13 another.

• 25:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Seattle had 14 penalties and somehow didn't lead the team in penalties that they're playing.

• 25:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. Insane. And then now like our, the lineman who this was supposed to be last year's excuse, Joe Walter, Rashawn Slater are injured again.

• 25:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  And they're always injured. They're always injured together. It's like two seniors in high school calling sick. Like, oh, did they go to the beach again? Like, why do they always have to be injured together? So.

• 25:48Bill Simmons?

  In the middle of their line just collapses. Yeah. Seattle was just pushing through the middle, which was the thing I was worried about all year. Their receivers don't always make plays. It feels like they started to give up on the rookie running back. They started playing Mitchell more, especially in the second half.

• 26:07Bill Simmons?

  I said last week, it was, it felt 2000 bloodsuckery to me. Definitely feels that way. I wonder with Harbaugh.

• 26:15Bill Simmons?

  Cause we found out last week, we theorized, could he go to college? But he can't because of the NCAA rule violations.

• 26:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:23Bill Simmons?

  I, I just feel like his MO is to get out of this. I would, I could see him resigning or saying like, he's going through physical stuff or whatever. He, the way House has been calling him Grandpa Harbaugh and my pod and on Wise Guys. He just looks like he's out. He looks like the last two years of Biden, like the clips of Biden, just kind of wandering around like, huh, huh, huh.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:47Bill Simmons?

  He looks like he's out of it. DJ Mikey Mack is just prowling up the sidelines. He looks like he's, you know, in, wearing his John Holmes Boogie Nights outfit. And doesn't seem like anybody talks to him. They just seem like a mess. There was stuff after the game, like there's anonymous Chargers quotes coming out. So I have my eye on that. I, I, that's the only reason I wonder if they're not a cross off. Because what if they fire Harbaugh and have like a resurgence with the new interim coach or something?

• 27:13Speaker 01

  I mean, the schedule is still brutal. It's, uh, the next six weeks, it's Broncos, Chiefs, Rams, Texans, Ravens, your team. You know, the Niners are in there too. Did you see the press conference after the game with Harbaugh? They asked him.

• 27:26Bill Simmons?

  With the vote of confidence for Mike Bigdada?

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know if he heard the question or he's just so spacey at this. Maybe he's dreaming of college, going back to college, like you said. But they had to ask him a second time. He's like, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. We're just, we're going to do some things. We're going to figure, yeah, we'll do it. Okay. So his job is in jeopardy? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't say that. I didn't say that. It's, uh, it's an all around mess there.

• 27:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Cause the, the thing with him was always, he didn't do one side of the ball or the other. He was like a culture, motivation, um, you know, alpha dog type guy that would come in and these guy, he was just like a leader of men. And maybe he's just not anymore. Sometimes that just goes away. And if you don't have that other thing to fall back on. But, you know, everyone's going to make excuses for Herbert over and over again. He had two picks in a, in a strip sack today.

• 28:17Bill Simmons?

  He just looks terrible. And there was a lot of garbage time stuff, but, um, I don't know. I did my fantasy.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  Talk your team. I mean, you're, you know, the.

• 28:27Bill Simmons?

  No, we're going to do that after the break.

• 28:28Speaker 01

  I'm just saying, nobody has to, no, nobody has to be bad forever, right? And we saw that with your, your guy. So maybe.

• 28:34Bill Simmons?

  I know, but the difference with my team was that they could have and probably should have been in Seattle on week one and just torched the game in the fourth quarter and started throwing the ball away. They beat Pittsburgh in week two.

• 28:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:47Bill Simmons?

  Then they sucked last week. But, you know, they, they've at least shown something over the course of the season.

• 28:53Speaker 01

  Chargers were only good against the Bills for the first two and a half quarters.

• 28:56Bill Simmons?

  Right. And then turned the ball over a bunch. My fantasy murderer all-stars through four weeks.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:02Bill Simmons?

  Herbert, I think has to be the QB, right? Drake, Drake May was in there until today, but he was probably on everybody's bench. So he might still be murdering it.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:11Bill Simmons?

  I think Saquon's the running back.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Good.

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  Egbooka, Jefferson and Harrison, which two would you take?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  Well, you're not counting injuries. I mean, A.J. Brown is the killer.

• 29:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I can't count the, like, I can't blame, it's, to me, it's worse the guys that either are playing and not doing it, or are sort of playing, get hurt, come back, then they're hurt again. So maybe Egbooka and Harrison is fair?

• 29:39Speaker 01

  Jefferson went earliest out of those three, right?

• 29:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then, and then Loveland has to be the tight end.

• 29:47Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, I didn't even check. What did he do today?

• 29:50Bill Simmons?

  Nothing. I've given up on him completely. I didn't even look.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:55Bill Simmons?

  But that has to be, and then Texans defense, which was going, you know, in auctions, people were going three, four, five bucks for them.

• 30:05Bill Simmons?

  And then probably, I mean, really, everybody on Philly.

• 30:07Speaker 01

  That's good. I have all that. All, everyone you named, I have them somewhere sprinkled on my six or seven rosters I have, yeah.

• 30:15Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna take a break, and we're gonna talk about your team in a little more detail and my team, because it's rare that both of our teams win in the same week.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  We should have done this at four o'clock. Why are we making it hard on ourselves?

• 30:25Bill Simmons?

  I know. Well, we had to save it more.

• 30:27Speaker 01

  We had to wait to lose insane money on that 4:00 P.M. games, but, all right, you're right. It's better.

• 30:33Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna take a break. We'll be back.

• 30:35Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the NBA, and legitimately, my favorite beer. I was drinking them at Fenway Park, actually, recently. It's tip-off, and I can't wait to see in person. The best thing for me is when the new guys come in the league, and you get to go check them out for the first time, like when Wemby came in a couple of years ago. We have a great rookie class this year. I want to see Cam Boozer in person. I want to see DeBansa in person. I want to see Darren Peterson in person. I'm excited for all of these dudes, and I think that's my favorite thing about when the season starts, those first couple of months, when the newer guys start coming in, and then getting to see the old guys, too, your old friends, like Curry is a, is a can't miss.

• 31:18Speaker 01

  I gotta go see him in person every year, so I think it's reuniting with old people you loved watching, and then seeing the new blood, too. But when I'm at the game, nothing better than watching with a Michelob Ultra, a superior light beer with a distinctly smooth taste.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Gets nice and cold, just good times. Good news for fans. Michelob Ultra giving you a chance to watch the game you love this season in person, with courtside tickets and more. So enter now at michelobultra.com/courtside, and maybe, maybe you'll luck out.

• 31:52Bill Simmons?

  Michelob Ultra Courtside, 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21-plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details.

• 32:09Bill Simmons?

  All right, so during the break, Eduardo, our beloved social media slash producer,

• 32:15Bill Simmons?

  Chargers fan, San Diego guy, he begged us to just cross off the Chargers and put himself out of his misery. I'm happy to do that if we want to make Chargers our third cross-off.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  What does that do for Eduardo? Does he think maybe that gives this team hope? Because we're giving up on them?

• 32:31Bill Simmons?

  He can just concentrate on the Padres. He doesn't have to, we've crossed off his football team.

• 32:35Speaker 01

  Wow, he has a lot of faith in us. This has gone sideways, Eduardo, so maybe, um, look, they're not, they're not making it.

• 32:43Bill Simmons?

  Let's cross them off. I think symbolically, I think it's more fun to cross them off. Who knows with the Cardinals? The Niners keep getting guys hurt. The NFC, it might be nine wins. We'll keep them in. All right, we'll cross off the Chargers. So long. Bills-Patriots. Drake May be back? You like what I did there?

• 33:02Speaker 01

  I like it. Yeah, yeah.

• 33:05Bill Simmons?

  Drake may be having his mojo again?

• 33:09Speaker 01

  I like it all.

• 33:10Bill Simmons?

  Uh-oh.

• 33:12Speaker 01

  What, what? Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, don't do it.

• 33:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, listen, I had to buy the win today by putting the Bills not only in a Ringer 107 tease, but in all the teases I did, at least in the early games. I did not think the Patriots would win today. I thought today could potentially be rock bottom, and then they would turn it around next week. And what I did not count on is the guy who really got his mojo back was Vrabel.

• 33:41Bill Simmons?

  And I noticed it in the first quarter, not to sound like I saw this coming, but I did notice in the first quarter, you know, I love the sidelines when the guys are jumping off, and you could just see, like, the energy. It just felt like everybody was locked in. It was the first time I've felt this way all season. Every time they showed Vrabel, he looked like last year Vrabel. All the guys in the sidelines are just going up and down. They're going nuts. And they were really aggressive with the play calling. It was almost like, it was like they were trying to eject Drake May with testicular fortitude. Everything they were doing, all their decisions, the end of the game, where I think in the first three games of the year, when they have the lead at the end, you gotta, you know, basically keep the Bills from getting the ball back.

• 34:25Bill Simmons?

  I just think they would have run the ball and gotten tackled, and then they would have punted. And this time, they went for it. They went for it on second down. They didn't get it, stopped the clock. And then they did it again and got it with Hunter Henry and basically ended the game, and it was, it was just, it was a fuck you game from start to finish. And of course, at the end, they did the Patriots, the, on Patriots.com, where they have the locker room speech, and it was Vrabel, and it, it felt like last year. So now I'm thinking this was all bad dream, the offseason, everything that went happen, first three weeks, malaise. Everyone in the city's mad. They're wondering if Drake, whatever. Clearly not his shoulder, because he was firing it around today. He looked great. You know, he was a little sloppy with the ball a couple of times, but his shoulder seemed fine.

• 35:10Bill Simmons?

  He ran the ball, eight for 54. He was zinging it. And, and a couple of times, he aired it out, like 60 yards. So it wasn't his shoulder, it was his head. And I think this whole week was about building him back up. They didn't have Gonzalez, they didn't have Barmore, and I think they were just like, nobody believes in us. And it was like, the Pats are back. I don't know if it's gonna last, but I think that's what happened today. Thank you.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Are you done? Are you done?

• 35:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:34Speaker 01

  I'm done. I know how this works. This has to be the video breakout that we put on the Ringer tomorrow. So I let you go for two minutes, four minutes, whatever, whatever you need. But if you want to praise Sedona, Sensai, Vrabel, that's fine. But you didn't mention Efton Chisholm, who bailed you out.

• 35:50Bill Simmons?

  I had more material. I just, that was my opening salvo.

• 35:53Speaker 01

  Okay, all right. All right, here's, first of all, I spent, I was in New York, and everyone, people don't like Drake May there either, but I'm like, I would spend the whole week defending him. I'm like, he's not done.

• 36:04Bill Simmons?

  Thanks.

• 36:04Speaker 01

  I just know he's not done, unless it is like a shoulder injury, and he's afraid to say it, and which by now, he should say it. But yes, we saw a lot of great throws today. We saw a lot, a lot of, you know, bailout throws. This is why I was telling you, the Patriots are not a cross-off, but, but I feel like I'm kind of dialed in on him. And I think you may have, I think every snap is still an adventure with him. I really do.

• 36:29Bill Simmons?

  I don't disagree.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  I think you're going a little more towards Baker Mayfield. I don't want to call him Drake Mayfield, but you're going a little more towards.

• 36:38Bill Simmons?

  Drake Mayfield?

• 36:38Speaker 01

  It's a little bit of, you know, what's gonna happen now, kind of thing, you know? But you're back on track. That was a huge game for the franchise.

• 36:48Bill Simmons?

  Some texts with my dad today. When Dobbs did well, I texted him, Dobbs, always liked him. We've been bitching about Dobbs for a month. My dad said, was so happy we got him. But then Drake had that fumble, and my dad just texted, May is a roller coaster ride.

• 37:03Speaker 01

  That's it.

• 37:04Bill Simmons?

  And I said, you might be too old to, you might be too old to handle him anymore. He's like a playoff hockey game every quarter. And that's kind of where we are. You never feel 100% safe, because for some reason, he's a little sloppy. So it's like these playoff hockey games where you're just like,

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  and you're just doing that for three hours. But he looked like he, today, he looked like he did last year.

• 37:29Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 37:30Bill Simmons?

  So we know there's not a shoulder thing. And that was kind of the intel behind the scenes, not just from insiders with the NFL, but even like the team and the little birdies around the team. It was like, we just gotta get his head straight. Like, he got his ass kicked in the playoffs, and he sucked in the Super Bowl, and then, and obviously, it affected him.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Good for you.

• 37:49Bill Simmons?

  So I think they build him back.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  Good for me. You get to talk football for a little longer. Yeah.

• 37:54Bill Simmons?

  I'm back, baby.

• 37:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:55Bill Simmons?

  In the locker room speech, he gave out the four game balls, and then the last one was to Drake. And you could just tell by the way the team, like, the team was really trying to pull him back. Because I think he, I, I just think there's different types of athletes, and he's one of those, I internalize it when things aren't going well, which is weird when it's the leader of the team, right? He's, and you forget, he's still young. He hasn't had a lot of things, so.

• 38:20Speaker 01

  Oh, you are 100% back on. This is unbelievable.

• 38:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, I said to you last week.

• 38:25Speaker 01

  What did you say?

• 38:26Bill Simmons?

  No, we were talking about Trevor Lawrence, and I was like, think about the fucking dips and turns and ups and downs with that dude. How many times we wrote him off. And I really like Trevor Lawrence now. I think he's good. So I think this is part of the process. But the bigger issue is, or the bigger thing that helped today was, Josh Allen kind of sucked.

• 38:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:48Bill Simmons?

  The game was there for him to take.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:51Bill Simmons?

  They got, they scored the touchdown, they go up five, they have the two point. I would have bet my life the Bills were getting the two point, right?

• 38:57Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:58Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what happened that play, they don't get it. And you know, in 27, 22, whatever it was, they're up five and it's like, oh. This is, this, then the Pats go down. Uh, Drake makes a bunch of big plays and then Chisholm makes the, the play of the year for the Pats. Um, this is a guy who's been an August preseason hero, but never thought you'd see him in a game like this. And makes the best play of his life.

• 39:22Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 39:22Bill Simmons?

  Um, so Drake was 22 for 37.

• 39:27Bill Simmons?

  New England rushed the ball 36 times. And this is something Mike Lombardi always talks about, completions plus rushing attempts. It's 58, you get over 50, that means you, you've controlled the ball or you have a situation like, what was the Bears today, they had like 78 completions and runs or something?

• 39:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:44Bill Simmons?

  Um, but it looked a little more like what, what you would have wanted to look. And yet Buffalo got the ball back. I thought for sure Josh was going down and scoring.

• 39:53Speaker 01

  I did too. I don't know what it is with him. I thought last week was his weird, well, I'm like, you know, you get, you get really spoiled with Josh Allen, right? But now he has one touchdown and three interceptions in the last two weeks. I know he runs for touchdowns, he's gonna break like Earl Campbell's record, whatever. Um, but, uh, yeah, I just, I, it, it, something seems wrong and they're not running away with the division. And he's not running away with the MVP. Like you got, I was looking at it, I texted you and it was like, there were like 730 votes between Drake May and, uh, and, and Stafford that are not going to those two. And they might not go to Josh Allen, who's still favored according to FanDuel to win MVP at plus 230. And then Brock Purdy is plus 450, 15 to one, two weeks ago, that was when to get him.

• 40:39Speaker 01

  But, um,

• 40:39Bill Simmons?

  And meanwhile, the best two, the guys I would bet Lawrence at 10 to one or Prescott at 14 to one, I think are the best kind of odds, right? Cause well, and we'll talk about the Jags later, but I, I thought they were really good today and I think your guy's been excellent. So this two, and Purdy was not that good today. Um, now they had some offensive line stuff and he was missing weapons, but it was the first time he looked a little bit mortal. And yet I still think he's a top five quarterback in the league. I wrote down, does Josh Allen want to be the guy or not? Cause after that second game this year, we were all like, he's the best player in the league. There's nobody like this guy. And then last week, it kind of sucked. This week, let the Pats beat them at home, let the Pats off the hook.

• 41:24Bill Simmons?

  Where this AFC's competitor who's like reeling and, you know, missing dudes, missing Gonzalez, missing Barmore. And it was like, this is, missing AJ Brown. This is a fucking godsend to have these guys come in and you lose the game. I, as a Pats fan, I don't know how the Buffalo fans felt about this, but, um, we couldn't tackle James Cook.

• 41:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  And he only had 12 rushes for 75 yards, but my dad and I were texting like, why don't they just give Cook the ball all the time? Well, he's going for seven of 15 yards a pop.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Right.

• 41:55Bill Simmons?

  Um, but they just, they wouldn't do it.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  He just tries to do too much. I love this. I love how over your skis are you are now. This is just,

• 42:03Bill Simmons?

  I'm not. I, listen, they saved the season. Brable said that afterwards. This was a do or die game. If you think, if you want to be in the hunt, you had to win today. I didn't think they could.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  So you're betting $188,000 to win $100,000 that the Patriots make the playoffs. Good for you.

• 42:18Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm not.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  I like that.

• 42:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm not. I don't like the injuries and there's some things, um, I worry about. Brable said, uh, Brable, this is another thing with Brable that I think he's doing intentionally. He said, Josh, in the post-game press conference, Josh Allen is unbelievable, but I felt like Drake went toe to toe with him. This is what they've subtly done all week with him, where they're trying to build him up and be like, you're, you're one of the best guys in the league. Like, let's go. Like, you're our guy. Let's, let's, let's do it. And they're just, I think, doing everything they can to, to basically give him his confidence back. We'll see if it works.

• 42:51Speaker 01

  I think that's what's extra special about this game is not only because it was an AFC matchup that puts you right back in the thick of things, right? Not only is it against your rival, now the Bills, it's against the team that kind of started that cover six against Josh Allen. They kind of, maybe it was a team before them, but they, that when they beat them in the regular season last year, it was last year, right? They, uh, that's what they employed and that was like that, they were going around to the rest of the league and then everybody used it in the playoffs. It didn't work today. It really didn't work today because, uh, the guys open all over the place.

• 43:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, for the, if you're a Bills fan, you got an awesome Keon Coleman game. He made a couple of huge catches and you still lost at home. So I'd be bummed about that. And then, um, your team Texans Cowboys, we didn't talk about the Texans piece that, um, Nico came back and made a huge difference for them.

• 43:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:43Bill Simmons?

  And they still lost and they just can't run the ball. They're 19 for 64. I thought Montgomery, I had Montgomery in two fantasy leagues. I thought he was gonna make a huge difference.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  He's right up there too.

• 43:52Bill Simmons?

  He just hasn't. Um, and their defense, they had 13 penalties on both sides of the ball and they gave up 28 first downs to your guys. So. I don't know. And then your team, you got Tampa, at Green Bay, at Philly, Arizona and at Indy, next five.

• 44:11Bill Simmons?

  That feels like six and three.

• 44:13Speaker 01

  It's fine. I mean, I honestly still think nine and eight can win this division. I really don't think, we'll talk about Philly and how they blew that game to the Rams, but you know, the Cowboys are gonna just, um, they're gonna fold against some of these teams. The coaching's gonna be stupid. I, I think they depend on Aubrey and Dak too much. We have to get to a point where we don't depend on both those guys too much. When Aubrey's lining up for 65 yarder after getting a kick blocked and, you know, it's easy for you. I mean, that was a huge six point swing.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  It ended up not being huge because we won the game, but that easily could have been something. That's exactly the kind of thing that makes us lose games. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

• 44:52Bill Simmons?

  Over nine and a half wins for the Cowboys, minus 120.

• 44:55Speaker 01

  It's right there.

• 44:57Bill Simmons?

  For the division, plus 130, same odds as the Eagles.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:03Bill Simmons?

  And I don't understand how anybody could watch those two teams today and think they should have the same odds. I don't know what the Eagles do well.

• 45:11Bill Simmons?

  I really don't. And I, I look forward to the Philly special when Sheila and those guys really break it down in detail, but, you know, their pass rush was better today. I guess that was a bonus.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  That was it. Yep.

• 45:21Bill Simmons?

  Um, but offensively, like Saquon has just had trouble staying on the field. He left the game early today. They didn't have Devonta Smith, obviously. The guys, this Cooper guy was somehow important for them, but, um, it was so hard for them to move the ball. Um, and yet the way the Rams are playing, um, I wrote down Philly got every break for two hours and Stafford stunk. And yet the Rams stole the game. Basically with two drives, they just took the game. And, uh, and the, the anti-Seriani thing is the worst it's ever been.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, he deserves it too. And I got, I got a little scared because I, I love the Rams, one of my favorite bets. And then, you know, you hear Lane Johnson's out. I think we heard that early this morning, right? I love the bet even more, hate the Eagles anyway.

• 46:11Bill Simmons?

  It bumped up, right? Did it end at three and a half?

• 46:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It ended up three and a half. And then the game starts and you see the rain on the lens of the camera from the quarterback's perspective. You know, when they have the camera, like Fox will have the camera and you'll see like the raindrops on them like, oh crap. That's no good for Stafford because then he has happy feet. And it's like, and then what, the Eagles had like a hundred yards of offense, maybe 110 at half and they're up 10. And I said, God, they're, they're gonna lose this game. This is a typical Eagle game. This is how they're gonna do it. And somehow they didn't,

• 46:44Bill Simmons?

  Didn't happen.

• 46:45Speaker 01

  They didn't convert a third down in the, in a game and a half or something, right? This is spectacular what we're watching.

• 46:51Bill Simmons?

  I wrote down that they were 0 for six on third down in the first half. And then at the end of the game, they're 0 for 12. They just put two 0 for sixes.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:59Bill Simmons?

  Um, they were 68 yards net passing on 31 drop backs. And, uh, I just don't think they're good. And it might take the Lions two more weeks to adjust to it, but I don't see it. And then as, there's rumors now, Lane Johnson might just be done, who knows? Um, the Rams had a 98 yard drive that got it going. Puka was nine for 125.

• 47:23Bill Simmons?

  Williams, who was awesome, was 16 for 80 and 10 for 67 catching. So they had 28 touches. They had 26 first downs, Eagles had 12. They almost, they more than doubled their yardage. Another thing with the Rams that is gonna kill them unless they fix it is the special teams. They had two more things today that were bad. So, you know, there was a moment there was like, wow, this team's one and three. And then Stafford has like a broken pinky for two games. Like there's a path for them not to make the playoffs, but they raided the ship and they,

• 47:56Speaker 01

  I mean, just keep playing the Eagles. I mean, I love the, the, I love the stats. They're at 68 net passing yards for Hertz on 31 drop backs. Do you realize how bad that is? That, that's 172 total yards offense, lowest in a dozen years. Love it. Keep it coming.

• 48:10Bill Simmons?

  How mad were you? And were you as mad as I was in the, I think it was in the first half when the Rams had the pick in the end zone and the guy kind of mistimed his jump, whiffed it and then tipped it to the guy behind him who caught it for a touchdown.

• 48:23Speaker 01

  Was it Cooper who grabbed that?

• 48:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And it was like, oh, we're doing this with the Eagles? Okay.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:28Bill Simmons?

  Like, this is the bullshit that's gonna happen.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:31Bill Simmons?

  But,

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Did you, were you over the Philly sports, um, in the last two weeks? Because it's, it's dismal.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  Flyers aren't good. Eagles lost two. Penn State lost. Philly's obviously bow out in three. It's pretty bad.

• 48:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, LeBron said he came to Philly to help Joel Embiid win a title.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  Okay. That's bad too.

• 48:52Bill Simmons?

  That was definitely his number one reason he went to Philly.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  He's bald too? Yeah.

• 48:57Bill Simmons?

  When he got, when he got together with Rich Paul Summers, what do you want to do? And they made the pro con. Number one was, I want to help Joel Embiid, a guy I barely know, win the NBA title.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  All right. Well, that's on the upswing again.

• 49:08Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs Raiders was awesome.

• 49:12Bill Simmons?

  The rare moral victory for the Raiders.

• 49:16Bill Simmons?

  Didn't win, but they kinda did win because the stadium was the most electric it's probably ever been. They hung with the team. It was an either or game, no question. They proved that they could hang with them. They, and they really had a chance to win and strangely it came down to that long bomb to Ty Thornton, who used to be on the Pats. We got rid of him and then he turned into this awesome speed threat. And right when the Raiders felt like they were gonna take control of the game, blitz on Mahomes, he makes an, Mahomes has been, I think, really fun to watch this year. Awesome long pass to Thornton who gets tackled and breaks his ankle. And they stopped the game for 10 minutes.

• 49:53Speaker 01

  Terrible.

• 49:53Bill Simmons?

  He comes out.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 49:55Bill Simmons?

  Chief score, fumble by the Raiders, chief score again and the game's over and like five, we went from, oh, they're gonna do this to, oh my God, that guy broke his ankle to, wow, they just scored twice in a minute. And that was it for the Raiders, but, uh, but I, I thought it was a win for them for the most part.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I feel bad for the agony anyone who bet this game went through, right? So like the chief score, they don't get the two, but then they get the turnover right away and they score, the Raiders score and then they do get the two and it's just like, uh, you know.

• 50:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, you should mention, it was Chiefs minus four and a half.

• 50:30Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 50:31Bill Simmons?

  And it's just, it's just dancing back and forth between five and three potentially for an hour and a half.

• 50:37Speaker 01

  Right, four, six, five, three, it's still, and you know, we had a problem with this, like with the Raiders not taking the points. They got a field goal and they took it off the board and then they didn't, you know, they end up getting nothing out of that. And then the second time around, Kubiak goes for the field goal, takes the points. Definitely don't mind him doing that the second time. I, I just, I don't know. I don't think this is the 2020 Chiefs that are gonna score 45 points. So if you're up on them with seven or eight minutes left, take it. Take the points.

• 51:08Bill Simmons?

  It's young coach stuff. I remember this was happening with McDonald in Seattle early on with this stuff too. I think they just have to slowly get a feel for what to do in those situations. The positives, the tight end combo is fantastic.

• 51:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 51:24Bill Simmons?

  Like they can go big with these, you know, I know a lot of the teams are doing the 12 now, but, they have the two guys to really do it. That Bowers is basically receiver and then Mayer too. And they can be physical. It's weird though. They don't run the ball like I thought they were gonna run the ball. Gentey's been kinda middling as a fantasy guy who was going, you know, the question was whether he's gonna be healthy or not.

• 51:46Bill Simmons?

  But they haven't run the ball like that. And then on the KC side, they haven't had a sack in the last three games.

• 51:53Bill Simmons?

  And then they just lost their deep threat. So they're heading into the bye week, but I, you know, I certainly wouldn't say they're like a juggernaut like we would have in the past. And do you feel the same, like when it was in the old days, you would always text me, Chiefs minus 120 when they're down four with fourth quarter. Do you feel like this is just a different era for them?

• 52:14Speaker 01

  I tried it a couple of weeks ago. No one bit. I don't know if you know it. I put it on our text chain and they ended up winning, obviously. I didn't think they were gonna lose that game today at any point, did you? I, I felt, I felt they had it. Like definitely not at the end.

• 52:27Bill Simmons?

  I did feel like, I did feel like with the Raiders with the lead in the fourth quarter, where we don't get to see Max Crosby in that situation a lot. I thought maybe he'd make a play and they could get a stop. I don't know. I didn't know what to expect. The crowd was way more, I know there were a lot of Chiefs fans too, but the crowd was loud for the Raiders. I really thought they had a home field advantage.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  That surprised me too. You're right about the tight ends. I think Cousins had 365. I do think he's gonna need to stretch the field. The tight end thing is great. And then most of those yards went to the tight end.

• 52:56Bill Simmons?

  But who are you stretching with? You know their receivers.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  It's like Trey Tucker and Cody White. Like he's gonna, Cousins is gonna need something to break up that, that mid-range stuff. But I can't say enough about this Kenneth Walker. Like I say this Kenneth Walker, like we haven't seen.

• 53:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I know.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  I felt like the Super Bowl confetti dropped from the sky covering him in the MVP trophy. And the other 31 teams said, yeah, I don't want that guy. And he's just perfect for this offense. At 179 yards combined and, and two touchdowns. So I think you have to start thinking like, who's gonna get the one seed if it's not a team like the Chiefs? Is it the Jaguars? Are those the two teams battling for the one at this point? I know we're a quarter of the way through the season.

• 53:35Bill Simmons?

  I know, but I thought the same thing. Like after four games, we usually have a favorite. And I don't know who the favorite is in the AFC.

• 53:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:42Bill Simmons?

  I would say that the team I probably feel the best about is Jacksonville. And I don't know if it's sustainable, but just for being able to do stuff on both sides of the ball, being able to run the ball, being able to throw the ball, multiple targets. If I'm down three late in the game, I, I might be able to move the ball. I can protect leads. Have a little bit of a home field advantage. That's probably the one, but I don't feel great about it, but I think that's the one I would probably trust the most.

• 54:11Speaker 01

  All right. Maybe it's too early. I mean, it could be a stupid discussion. Yeah.

• 54:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Chiefs are gonna have to figure out how to replace Thornton, cause I don't think he's coming back. They said he dislocated his ankle, but that's at least a couple of months, but I would assume that's probably the season.

• 54:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:26Bill Simmons?

  And then the Tyreek Hill stuff's already started. You know, which wouldn't be till November, but they could fit back in. He's the kinda character guy they love.

• 54:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:37Bill Simmons?

  And would replace them as a speed threat. So who knows? Yeah, I agree with you. Does anybody get to 12 wins in the AFC?

• 54:47Speaker 01

  I had to take my earbuds. I was losing you there. You can hear me, right?

• 54:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 54:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know. I, I don't, I don't think it's 12. I don't think it's, I don't think it's 12.

• 54:58Bill Simmons?

  So you think it's a lot of 10 and 7, 11 and 6?

• 55:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Right in there.

• 55:03Bill Simmons?

  Did you forget to charge your earbuds?

• 55:06Speaker 01

  No.

• 55:06Bill Simmons?

  It's like a Dan Campbell situation?

• 55:08Speaker 01

  88%. Maybe it's the medications taking effect and there's nothing wrong with the earbuds at all.

• 55:13Bill Simmons?

  I was steering us toward 49ers Broncos. And we thought the Broncos might be, you know, if it wasn't gonna be the Chargers, it would be the Broncos. I don't know if it's gonna be the Broncos. And they got, both of their cornerbacks got hurt during this game. I don't know how long Surtan's gonna be out. Their offense, they've scored 13 points total in the first half.

• 55:34Bill Simmons?

  You love Bo Nix. What's going on? Cause this doesn't feel sustainable.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  I don't know. I like the backdoor Bo. I like that they, you know, they're, they're behind in every game and 15 games or whatever. And then they come back, but um, you know what? I, I think that was a good old fashioned defensive game. Nobody was, it was a good chess match and nobody was gonna let anybody do anything and look good offensively. And there was good pressure on both sides. I had Denver plus two and a half. I know you had them in a teaser. So it was disgusting how that ended up, but um.

• 56:04Bill Simmons?

  I had the ketchup teaser to make, make up for the Buffalo thing and it just, nah.

• 56:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:09Bill Simmons?

  Wasn't, wasn't a good day for me. Might have to ask you for a loan.

• 56:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. I'll get it to you, but there's a, yeah, I, you know, you're gonna tell me they're, they're gonna win six games? I would say no way, but they're not, they're not 11, 12 win caliber team anymore, the Broncos.

• 56:27Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't feel like he has a feel for what his team is.

• 56:32Bill Simmons?

  Like even if you look at, what is their over under now? So their regular season wins.

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Nine and a half still?

• 56:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but the juice is on the under. So yeah, so people still feel like this team can win 10 games? I don't know if I see it, but I do wonder if it's all leading toward, he takes the play calling back from the guy they brought in, or the guy they promoted over the summer and, and um, I don't know, there's some sort of new, like they, they don't use Waddle like I thought. Sutton is mysteriously missing. And none of their running backs seem to be impactful in any way. And then Nix is all over the map.

• 57:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Waddle scored. That was his first one. So you think they would wake up a little bit there. They running, the running game is still a little iffy. It's very weird. There's no one to rely on and.

• 57:26Bill Simmons?

  I really want RJ, I really want RJ Harvey to be good. And I don't have him on any fantasy teams. I have no stakes in it. But you watch him sometimes, you're like, feels like there's something here. Why can't this, why can't he become a guy? And then it just never happens.

• 57:39Speaker 01

  It would be nice. It would be nice. There's, this is a good exercise. I think I'll do this with the ring of wise guys. There's like five teams that are, their over under is nine and a half, including your team, including my team, including Denver. There's another one, like who do you believe in out of these, uh, out of these, you know, double digit capable winners here?

• 57:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, then you have the Niners.

• 58:01Bill Simmons?

  Who I guess Shanahan just give it to him now. This coach of the year. How many guys are they gonna lose?

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:08Bill Simmons?

  This is unbelievable. It's not, it's not like McCaffrey's jumping out of the TV in these games. You know, this is like a different, it feels like a different version of him. They allegedly had no pass rush for this game. Cause they had so many injuries, a game that had crazy heat in Santa Clara. Right? So you think in the second half, they're gonna lose their pass rush. They didn't. They were still able to get some pressure and, and the Bo Nix situation was not great, but this, to be honest, this game came down, it was 3-3. Just felt like a slog forever and it became a who's gonna fuck up first game? And Denver's punt returner fumbled. Niners get it. All of a sudden it's 10-3 and it felt like the game was over.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:48Bill Simmons?

  It was like whoever was gonna make that first mistake was gonna be the one that, uh, that was gonna lose.

• 58:55Speaker 01

  I, I, you're right about Shanahan. McCaffrey's not even in on third and goal a lot of times. Like it's very strange the way they run their offense and yet it always seems to work. They're 4-0 and that, that was a double digit win.

• 59:07Bill Simmons?

  Bengals, Jags was the other one we have to talk about. Um, I mentioned before, I think the Jags are legit good. I watched this game closely. I had the Jags, um, that was my last second Sunday ringer 107 pick. Had some other interests, but, um, it felt like one of those games where the gods were against them. They had 10 first half penalties.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:27Bill Simmons?

  And it wasn't just first half penalties. They had shit like Hunter got a pick, got called back because of roughing the passer after Burrow threw the ball. They had that crazy face mask on Chase that actually probably helped them win the game because he had to leave. They had a 40 yard touchdown run that got called back. They had a first and goal inside the five and got a holding penalty and all of a sudden we're, so it was like, it just felt like one of those games. And then they had three TDs called back. And then they're up 13-3 anyway, and they were making Burrow do dumb stuff and, uh, and they can move the ball and do, and they can run or throw. It feels like they, if it's a third and nine, they can get it. If it's a third and one, they can get it. I think they're really good.

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  I thought they were good too. And I had a whole thing written up about how scary the Jags defense is and, and, and Hunter had one of the best defensive games you could have at that position.

• 1:00:17Bill Simmons?

  It was all over the TV, wasn't he?

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Nuts. Yeah.

• 1:00:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:20Speaker 01

  And then, uh, well, he's on my iPad because that, that was a separate game, but I know what you're saying. Yeah, I know. But, uh, I, I read, I wrote a whole thing up about how scary their defense is. And I'm like, wait a minute.

• 1:00:31Bill Simmons?

  They gave up 400 yards.

• 1:00:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. 428 yards for Burrow without Chase. Higgins and Brown, Chase Brown had 22 receptions. They did hold them to 23 yards rushing and I bet the under. So I was good with all of it. 22-17. But I don't know if, uh, I guess anytime you go in Cincinnati and went on the road, it's, it's a good one for AFC South team. So, uh, I don't know if I'm ready to like bet them to win the, make the, get the one seed though.

• 1:00:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm not either. I, they're ahead of, I had them, what was it? Eight and a half before the air. I was under on them. I, I didn't really feel like they added anybody. The biggest thing they added was that Hunter is now an impact guy on defense.

• 1:01:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:09Bill Simmons?

  But they're, they, uh, Cincy run was 17 carries for 23 yards. But then you have the Burrow piece of this. So he threw two picks. He threw that third one that got called back by the rough in the, the passer, but he'd already thrown the pick. So he lucked out on that. Um, and he lost Chase on the most egregious face mask of the season. It was like a nine out of, like the 10 out of 10 will always be when Warren Sapp did the face mask on Jerry Rice and blew out his ACL. That's the worst face mask of all time. This was like an eight and a half. It was really bad. Like he, he really like yanked his head sideways as he was getting hit. And, uh, and he got knocked out of the game.

• 1:01:50Speaker 01

  Bounced his head off the turf. Not good. Not, not something you want to see. Yeah.

• 1:01:55Bill Simmons?

  But man, so that they're up 22-10 Jacksonville. And I just don't think Burrow can come back. Like I wasn't worried. He just doesn't do it. It's not what he does. And that, I know he put the stats up, but my question for you is, is, is he starting to drift toward being a good stats, not that good of a team guy?

• 1:02:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:13Bill Simmons?

  Is that where we're going with him?

• 1:02:15Speaker 01

  Certainly. But again, I don't wanna chase. Yeah. They had a game plan, that whole thing around Chase being out, you know? So maybe they scored in the twenties if he's there. I mean, he's that impactful player. He's top three or four receivers. So, but I'm, I'm with you. I don't have any confidence. I mean, you talk about like a confidence meter. I might put the, your, your team above the Bengals. I put the Bills above them. I have to put the Jaguars above them. And, uh, the Chiefs and maybe another AFC team, maybe Denver at this point.

• 1:02:47Bill Simmons?

  Bears, Jets. The Bears ran, there were 30 plays in the first quarter and the Bears ran 26 of them. They had 34 first downs. They had the ball for 43 minutes. They had 54 rushes and 25 completions. The Jets had the ball for 17 minutes. So that's it for the Jets being good. I don't think we have to have that conversation anymore. The Bears, Ben Johnson's just, there's five, six great coaches in the league and he's just one of them. Doesn't seem to matter who his quarterback is. Packers, Bucks.

• 1:03:13Speaker 01

  Whoa, wait, we're only allowed to cross one team off a week? Is that how it goes?

• 1:03:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, one week. It's one week.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Hold on. We're not, are we gonna get there that way? 17?

• 1:03:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we'll get there.

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  Yeah. That, I mean, I don't know how you're, you have 15 pass attempts with, when you're down double digits almost the whole game. Uh, Aaron Glenn says they're gonna have to look at the tape, but to see what went wrong, but that was disgusting.

• 1:03:35Bill Simmons?

  Packers, Bucks, Tampa finally covered. Although today the line went down to two and a half. So technically they didn't cover.

• 1:03:40Speaker 01

  They didn't. 13 and around.

• 1:03:42Bill Simmons?

  They covered for the whole week. So I don't know how we litigate that. There were a million Green Bay fans in Tampa, which was depressing. And Jalen Daniels, there were flashes. I really wanted to happen for him. He kinda had it set up for him. He just wasn't quite good enough to, to pull it up. But my big takeaway was both of these teams suck.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think I was texting you some F bombs about the Packers. I'm like, are they really gonna blow this game? Like how?

• 1:04:08Bill Simmons?

  They tried. They did everything they could. They were dying to blow it.

• 1:04:12Speaker 01

  And Jalen Daniels, this, that's, that's what a rookie quarterback's gonna do in his first start, right? Like 19 for 20, 19 for 20 is actually a pretty good percentage, but 148, a touchdown, two interceptions. He had over 50 yards rushing. But yeah, that's, that's not a good win for the Packers at all. I also think it's a lot of Daniels. It's Jalen Daniels. It's Jaden Daniels. I don't know if there's.

• 1:04:32Bill Simmons?

  Too many Daniels. We need like a Daniels.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Jason Daniels or Jackson Dan. I don't know how many there are, but.

• 1:04:39Bill Simmons?

  Ravens, Tennessee Titans somehow covered. Cam Ward now 318 as the starter. We don't need to talk about that game. Colts, Washington was another fuck you London game. Just terrible. The, uh, Mariota goes out almost immediately. We get the Rutgers guy comes in. And yet Quinn is up 6-0. It's fourth and one near midfield.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:02Bill Simmons?

  Colts haven't done anything. It's in the, late in the second quarter. And he just says, he hurries up this run play, gets stuffed, swings the game. And, uh, the Colts end up scoring and they never look back. And, uh, it was really brutal.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  It was a perfect London game, right? It was two teams that are probably not gonna make the playoffs. One's gonna start with a backup and then that backup's backup's gonna come in and he's gonna have a name that most Americans can't pronounce because he's a 7th round pick. From Rutgers or, or Spel. And then the team with all the backups, like you said, is gonna have the lead momentarily until their coach does something dumb and the score will end up lopsided. Perfect, perfect London game.

• 1:05:41Bill Simmons?

  You forget when they show the fourth string quarterback. Who's usually the backup tight end and they have to go through his backstory where he's the thing.

• 1:05:51Bill Simmons?

  I'm not gonna tiptoe around this anymore. I, and I know it's been a topic the last couple of weeks. I think the owner on the sidelines taking notes is fucking nuts. I think it's nuts.

• 1:06:02Speaker 01

  I love, you wouldn't respond. I was pretending you had a crush on her, which I completely made it.

• 1:06:06Bill Simmons?

  I, I think it's bonkers. I can't believe she does this and I can't believe people in her life haven't talked her out of it. And now there's this push of like, oh, no, no, she's really into the, if, if a male owner was doing this, we would be ridiculing this guy. Till the cows came home. This would be like when Vivek was celebrating the summer league title in the NBA and we thought that was so funny. We would think it was so fucking funny if, if some, you know, rich guy male owner was on the sideline with a notebook, like hovering over and giving advice to the coach. We'd be like, this guy, even Jerry Jones wouldn't do that.

• 1:06:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:43Bill Simmons?

  And, and Ursay's daughter's doing it. We're like, oh yeah. Well, you know, she cares about the team. Why are we making excuses for how weird this is?

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  I don't know why we are. I'm not gonna make any excuses. I like, I prefer the, the, you know, you see the, you know, Jerry for years was on the sideline. Remember? No matter how cold it was, it was, uh, and oh, and Fox and CBS would love that shot of him after they lost a, a close game in the snow and he's, he's, you know, and, and now it's like, yeah, let it, put him in the luxury box. Let's just, uh, pretend we know how many scotches and sodas he's had. And, uh, that's how I like my owner. Not checking up on these coaches. That's, um, I don't think they knew.

• 1:07:19Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was weird when Cuban sat on the bench for the Mavericks. I always thought that way. I used to make fun of that when I had my column.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:25Bill Simmons?

  Like, why are you on the bench? You own the team.

• 1:07:28Speaker 01

  But he's not hovering over the coaches, right? Just the same.

• 1:07:30Bill Simmons?

  No, today should, there was some hovering from her today.

• 1:07:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of hovering.

• 1:07:34Bill Simmons?

  It's just very strange. I don't understand. There's nobody in her life that could be like, look, this is, this is not, not the move. Go in the luxury box like everybody else.

• 1:07:45Speaker 01

  I think we're in her life.

• 1:07:47Bill Simmons?

  Ridiculous.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Listen to us, Carly.

• 1:07:50Bill Simmons?

  That's her name, Carly?

• 1:07:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Carly Ray Jepson, right? Something like that. I don't know.

• 1:07:55Bill Simmons?

  Carly, go in the suite like everybody else does. Week five, guess the Lions. We have a bye week.

• 1:08:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, we do.

• 1:08:02Bill Simmons?

  You aware of this?

• 1:08:03Speaker 01

  Only two teams. Yeah.

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  We have the Chiefs are in a bye week. And then we have the Carolina Panthers. We don't have to worry about them. So from a fantasy standpoint, not the biggest disaster on the planet.

• 1:08:17Speaker 01

  This was created for the Chiefs, right? Mahomes, they didn't know how he was gonna feel coming back. They gave him a cupcake schedule for the first month. Oh, and you're gonna get a bye in week five. This is good for you Chiefs. And we have to put another team in there. So it's the Panthers.

• 1:08:29Bill Simmons?

  I mean, if you're saying there was a conspiracy to make this as cushy as possible for him. You would give him the Monday night game.

• 1:08:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:39Bill Simmons?

  Against a team that doesn't seem to care about the preseason and the Broncos. So that was a good start. Four games ending with a bye week, cutting into week five. Yeah. I would say this worked out pretty well for them.

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. Not bad. Not bad.

• 1:08:54Bill Simmons?

  Thursday night. Your team's playing.

• 1:08:57Speaker 01

  Let's go.

• 1:09:00Bill Simmons?

  Were you aware of this all week? Did you know you have to do this again on Thursday night?

• 1:09:05Speaker 01

  I was. And it's interesting because well, I'll get to it later in, in, uh, parent corner, but this is, this is gonna be a big night for me. This could be like, we'll have what you found out about Jalen Brown. This is, uh, right when I'm getting my stuff done.

• 1:09:20Speaker 01

  Thursday. Yeah, yeah. Under the knife for the Thursday night game.

• 1:09:25Bill Simmons?

  What time Thursday?

• 1:09:26Speaker 01

  Well, it's gonna be early, but I mean, I might be out of it. You know what I mean?

• 1:09:30Bill Simmons?

  On the meds?

• 1:09:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  So you don't want to pop on the pod with me at house on Thursday?

• 1:09:35Speaker 01

  Maybe I will. Maybe I'll.

• 1:09:36Bill Simmons?

  Drugged up south?

• 1:09:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, that's your drunk owner time.

• 1:09:41Bill Simmons?

  Thursday night, Cowboys home for Jalen Daniels and the own four Bucks. Congratulations. What a spot for you.

• 1:09:52Speaker 01

  Just, this is not when I want to play them, but okay. You wouldn't want to play them Thursday night, right? No, these Thursday night games are dumb.

• 1:10:01Bill Simmons?

  I went too low. I've beaten you the last two weeks. We're two, one, and I'm two, one and one for the season. I went too low. I don't know why I did this as a pick. I did Cowboys five and a half over the Bucks.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:10:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's too low. I don't know. I don't know why.

• 1:10:15Speaker 01

  I said eight and a half. It's nine and a half.

• 1:10:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I just, I almost feel like that was a typo. But that's, that's what I sent to Eduardo, who made us kill off his Chargers before.

• 1:10:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:25Bill Simmons?

  So, all right, you're up one, nothing. Cowboys Bucks, three teamer, 10 pointer.

• 1:10:30Speaker 01

  Looking good so far.

• 1:10:34Speaker 01

  You're gonna put it with UCLA plus 20 and a half?

• 1:10:37Bill Simmons?

  The Bucks don't have a pass rush anymore.

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Bill Simmons?

  And they don't really score anymore. But you score. What's the minimum points you're gonna score in this game? 27?

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, I would think so.

• 1:10:51Bill Simmons?

  So I guess there's like a backdoor cover for Daniels, but man, if you don't win this game. I'm glad you brought up UCLA because that's Saturday night. Our friends at FanDuel wanted us to preview Oregon, UCLA.

• 1:11:06Bill Simmons?

  UCLA going for five and O. There were two hard road games for them during this season. That before the air was like, wow, their over was like six and a half wins, 34 and O. It was like, ah, well, they are, they're gonna lose in Oregon, and they're gonna lose to Oregon, and they're gonna lose in Michigan. Now those teams both look super vulnerable.

• 1:11:24Bill Simmons?

  What is the line right now? It's, it's Oregon's favorite double digits, right?

• 1:11:28Speaker 01

  I saw 11 and a half, but the look ahead from like August was like 14 and a half. So you've already made some great strides and you've, you know, you're gonna win your bet. What was it? Over six and a half wins? Seven and a half?

• 1:11:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm gonna win that, but I, I think UCLA can win this game, especially with the, with the buy.

• 1:11:45Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:45Bill Simmons?

  I would, I like the over as well because they've scored crazy points in every game. So my, my dream scenario here would be UCLA, maybe even an adjusted, adjusted line of like four and a half, something like. UCLA plus four and a half was something with the over would be what I would do.

• 1:12:04Speaker 01

  Look at you.

• 1:12:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, Oregon really only had one good defensive game. They got the backup quarterback that throws a nice ball in there. So I, I could see it being high scoring, but I would not take them laying 11 and a half for sure.

• 1:12:15Bill Simmons?

  You know what you're gonna hear during the game? Lot of respect between the two coaches.

• 1:12:18Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, that's right.

• 1:12:19Bill Simmons?

  Lot of respect. Is their quarterback gonna be back, you think, for this more?

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

• 1:12:26Bill Simmons?

  That line's too high.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:12:28Bill Simmons?

  I think UCLA can win the game. What's the money line?

• 1:12:30Speaker 01

  You're a live, you're a live dog here. Plus 360.

• 1:12:33Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:12:34Speaker 01

  But that's a tough place to win. Don't think it. You should go. Let's go.

• 1:12:38Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  You gonna be in Boston?

• 1:12:40Bill Simmons?

  I'm not going to that game, but I do like UCLA and the over is plus 733. UCLA money line and the over plus 733.

• 1:12:49Speaker 01

  Wow. Okay.

• 1:12:51Bill Simmons?

  Um, you know what else those two, um, those two things have in common?

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  What's that?

• 1:12:55Bill Simmons?

  California and Oregon. FanDuel's available on both places.

• 1:12:59Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 1:13:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's what I heard. So FanDuel nationwide this football season. Get in on the action if you haven't already. All right, rest of guest lines.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Georgia, Alabama. Georgia getting one.

• 1:13:11Bill Simmons?

  Sunday. So I got Saturday, I got UCLA Saturday night. Got a London game on Sunday and it's actually a good game. Jags Eagles. This is a strong one.

• 1:13:23Bill Simmons?

  I have Jags minus three. I think I hit it exactly.

• 1:13:25Speaker 01

  Ooh, this one went up. Is there an injury? You're gonna, you're gonna get it anyway. I said two and a half. When I, when I looked before the pod, it was three and a half. It is now four and a half. Jaguars are favored.

• 1:13:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, man. That's one of those you bet the Jags or you're rooting for the Jags, but you oversleep the first 20 minutes and you wake up and it's Eagles 10, nothing.

• 1:13:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:46Bill Simmons?

  Trevor Lawrence having trouble getting going.

• 1:13:50Speaker 01

  That's a lot of points. My God.

• 1:13:53Bill Simmons?

  I think, so it's effectively a neutral field, but it's not because the Jags play there.

• 1:13:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:58Bill Simmons?

  I think they're four point, they should be four point favorites over the Eagles on a neutral field from what I've seen this season.

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:14:05Bill Simmons?

  You don't agree?

• 1:14:05Speaker 01

  No, I think you're right. It just looks weird, right? Like I, I, we, we combined read 18 terrible offensive trends for the Eagles. You're right. They did have a little bit of a pass rush today, but otherwise it's, it's kind of same old Philly. And, uh, more injuries. And now I don't know what, who's carrying the ball for them. Um, but yeah, you're right.

• 1:14:26Bill Simmons?

  Little Tank Bigsby action.

• 1:14:27Speaker 01

  It's Bigsby. Yeah. Shipley and Bigsby. I don't even know who's hurt anymore. Take care of business in front of your home fans, Jags. You owe them. Let's do it.

• 1:14:37Bill Simmons?

  Sunday marquee game is clearly Seattle home for the 49ers.

• 1:14:41Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 1:14:43Bill Simmons?

  Seahawks found something with Emmanuel Wilson today and hopefully you found him on your fantasy team if you had Jadarian Price. I have him in a, in our league and in my other league with my college buddies. I picked up Wilson. Who then had a way better game than Price has ever had, but I thought Wilson was good today and they threw in the ball out of the backfield. He, uh, he had a lot of touches and that was the one concern I had with them. Still feels like the Seahawks are like one receiver short. Very JSA independent, even more so than last year. And I didn't think Darnold looked

• 1:15:19Bill Simmons?

  like he did last year.

• 1:15:21Speaker 01

  He wasn't sharp early on.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  Was not sharp.

• 1:15:23Speaker 01

  For sure. And yeah, you're right. Unless JSN's getting like 175 yards, you need something else. So that, that running back, uh, comes in handy there.

• 1:15:31Bill Simmons?

  I thought, I thought it would be Barner or just, I thought they'd have a second guy that would emerge with Shaheed with a full offseason, but they just don't. They use Shaheed and like, uh, some running stuff that I thought was fun.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  27 yard run, yeah.

• 1:15:43Bill Simmons?

  So I have Seattle at home favored by two and a half.

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  That's what I had. It is three. So we split that.

• 1:15:51Bill Simmons?

  I like the Seahawks.

• 1:15:53Speaker 01

  It's where they make their move in the division?

• 1:15:56Bill Simmons?

  Aminori was all over the place today. Like they, with today, they felt a little Seahawks-y finally, their defense. Um, I know they gave up some stuff at the end, but it was garbage time. Watchables.

• 1:16:08Speaker 01

  Birdie's the MVP favorite if he pulls this off somehow.

• 1:16:11Bill Simmons?

  Definitely. Watchables. Pat's Raiders, I think is a watchable.

• 1:16:15Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:16:17Bill Simmons?

  It's in New England. Kirk Cousins coming to town.

• 1:16:21Bill Simmons?

  Gotta say Cousins had some really good plays today. They, he had some in traffic where last year and the year before he was turtling when there was pressure and this time he was kind of moving around and buying himself like an extra second or two seconds. I thought he was pretty good.

• 1:16:35Speaker 01

  Touchdown to cover the backdoor was a miracle. He was really just, I couldn't even see him in the fray and then, uh, he got out. Yeah. Yeah, he was good.

• 1:16:44Bill Simmons?

  I have the Patriots favored by two and a half.

• 1:16:48Speaker 01

  What's going on here?

• 1:16:50Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:16:50Speaker 01

  Why two and a half? You're gonna get it because I said five and a half. It's three and a half. What? Come on. Come on.

• 1:17:01Bill Simmons?

  Pat's come, I don't like the spot coming off the big win and everybody's like, we've righted the ship. And then, no, it's the Raiders. We'll be three and two after we beat the Raiders. And the Raiders are, I think, a good team. I don't think they're a great team, but I think they're good. They can rush the passer. You know, they could, they have, Bowers is uncoverable and he's gonna be a nightmare for the Patriots. We don't have anybody to cover him.

• 1:17:21Speaker 01

  Wow. Isn't there something still with West coming east and isn't there something still with the Raiders?

• 1:17:27Bill Simmons?

  I think that's done. Like the Rams went to Philly today and beat them.

• 1:17:30Speaker 01

  Well, the Rams are good. All right. I.

• 1:17:33Bill Simmons?

  In our picks poll, I put in, I doubled on the Rams today. And, and our buddy Gus was like, oof, West Coast going to East Coast in the early game. That's, that's risky. And I, I don't know if that's mattered in the same way the last couple of years.

• 1:17:46Speaker 01

  Maybe it's an old thing. Maybe it's an old.

• 1:17:48Bill Simmons?

  Planes are better or just matters when you go to Australia.

• 1:17:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, this is it. The vibes are good with the Pats. The vibes are good with the Raiders. Um, long storied history, 50 year anniversary. Uh, actually yesterday of when we beat them 48 to 17 in 1976, Steve Grogan ran a mock. I put the video on Twitter. It was the first really good Patriots team of my life.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:18:12Bill Simmons?

  And the Raiders were the big bad Raider. Like, you know, they were, no chance ever beating them. We killed them. And it was the first time everybody in Boston was like, holy shit, the Pats are, they're good. Like I vividly remember this being a kid, be like, oh my God, the Pats are good. And then they beat us in the playoffs on the, uh, Sugar Bear Hamilton.

• 1:18:30Speaker 01

  I watched it. It was Musburger doing the call on the video, right? Yeah. And look at Steve Grogan. Now not only, look at it like, like he was, uh, this is the first time this happened. 287 yards passing, but watch this, watch this. He runs for a touchdown. He had like a four yard touchdown.

• 1:18:45Bill Simmons?

  He looked like Lamar when you're watching his clips. He's flying around. The guy who posted that, what's his name? Kevin Gallagher?

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  I think so, yeah.

• 1:18:52Bill Simmons?

  He's been posting that Cosell halftime highlights.

• 1:18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:56Bill Simmons?

  I feel like the NFL Network should just run these from like two to four every day.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:01Bill Simmons?

  He was so into it. He was having such a good time. Uh, just like, and then Billy White Shoes Johnson brings the Falcons within three.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  How about this? The Howard Cosell channel. You get the, you get the.

• 1:19:17Bill Simmons?

  Boxing?

• 1:19:17Speaker 01

  You got boxing?

• 1:19:18Bill Simmons?

  Football, baseball.

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Baseball, you get the, the superstars, right? The Battle Network stars?

• 1:19:23Bill Simmons?

  Battle Network stars. Yeah. All the wide world of sports. You get all the, yeah. The, that should at least be a fast channel. Just call it Cosell.

• 1:19:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. Buy the rights.

• 1:19:34Bill Simmons?

  We killed the Raiders. We should have won the Super Bowl that year. Oh, well.

• 1:19:38Speaker 01

  Well, this is also revenge for last year, right? This was the outlier game of the, of 2025?

• 1:19:44Bill Simmons?

  I, I feel like.

• 1:19:46Speaker 01

  This line's too low. This is dumb.

• 1:19:51Bill Simmons?

  Feel like their inability to run the ball this season. And the fact that they don't have a scary receiver other than Bowers, we should be able to game plan for it, but we'll see. Packers are home for the Bears. I put this as a watchable because um of the

• 1:20:07Bill Simmons?

  of the history of this matchup where neither team, we never seem to have both of these teams good at the same time. But I put it as a watchable because I feel like Caleb will be back for this game, right?

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  I can't say anything because uh, well, you put your guess in already, right?

• 1:20:23Bill Simmons?

  No, I, I bet, I made my guess assuming he's coming back. So I made the Packers as low of a favorite as possible. Packers minus one and a half.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  It's exactly what I had. And we should have gone lower because the Bears are favored by two and a half.

• 1:20:36Bill Simmons?

  Okay, so he must be coming back.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Completely counting on him coming back. Yeah.

• 1:20:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, if that's the case, I'm betting the uh, I can guarantee you I'm taking the Bears for ring one oh seven.

• 1:20:48Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:20:48Bill Simmons?

  Cause I think they're.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Three, yeah.

• 1:20:51Bill Simmons?

  I think they're just talent wise, just better than the Packers.

• 1:20:55Speaker 01

  They are right now. I don't like seeing this game this early. I want it to be miserably, brutally cold. They play again on Christmas. They should play two weeks before Christmas or something. It's too early.

• 1:21:06Bill Simmons?

  Lions, Lions are at Arizona.

• 1:21:11Bill Simmons?

  I had the, I put this in the Tic Tac Zone Lions minus one and a half in Arizona, which is probably too low.

• 1:21:17Speaker 01

  Oh, you went, you went way too low. Yeah. I said five and a half. It's four and a half.

• 1:21:23Bill Simmons?

  You know why I went too low? Cause I don't think the Lions are good. About that. I don't think their defense.

• 1:21:28Speaker 01

  We crossed off the Cardinals. Didn't we cross them off? Oh, no.

• 1:21:31Bill Simmons?

  I think the Lions defense sucks. Like the Cardinals should be able to move the ball up and down on that team.

• 1:21:37Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 1:21:37Bill Simmons?

  They should be able to run the ball. They should be able to throw the ball.

• 1:21:41Speaker 01

  This is where Brissette goes for four forty. No, nothing's easy with the Lions. Like we said this last week, like if you have an eliminator pick to use, like you're, you're gonna sweat out the Lions. Doesn't matter who they're playing, if they're home. I feel like Campbell gets flustered when it gets, when, when it's noisy, even when it's home and noisy, he needs.

• 1:21:58Bill Simmons?

  I like that theory.

• 1:21:59Speaker 01

  It's like he's uh, competing in the French Open or something. Needs it silent.

• 1:22:03Bill Simmons?

  Also notable, file this one away, Gibbs, who's fifteen for forty-six today. And four for thirty-one, but um, did not seem to have the same oomph that he normally has. They put a shitload of touches on him, right? He was on pace for like five hundred touches and he did not normally do that. I wonder if that wore him down a little. I like the cards in that game. I think that's, what do you call the underdog on the Wise Guys Show? The man's best bet?

• 1:22:30Speaker 01

  Man's best bet. Yeah. The dog.

• 1:22:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that, that would be, somebody would have the cards. Fairly watchables. Vikings at the Saints. The Vikings are prohibited from being anything higher than fairly watchables because their offense is an absolute clusterfuck to watch. I have them as minus one and a half point favorites in New Orleans.

• 1:22:49Speaker 01

  The Viking, I had the same thing and that's exactly what it is.

• 1:22:52Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:22:54Bill Simmons?

  Um, Tyler Shuck.

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  On pace to lead the, lead uh, everything in fantasy points this year, if he has a big game tomorrow.

• 1:23:04Speaker 01

  Again, right? Yeah.

• 1:23:06Bill Simmons?

  Just lighting it up. Jets Browns. In Jersey.

• 1:23:15Bill Simmons?

  I had the Jets favored by minus one and a half. I don't feel good about it.

• 1:23:19Speaker 01

  You should. That's what it is. I said two and a half. I don't know when I went so high. I wasn't buying this Browns thing, but it is one and a half. You get it.

• 1:23:26Bill Simmons?

  So why aren't you buying the Browns thing? You talked about it a lot on Friday.

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  I don't know why, you know?

• 1:23:32Speaker 01

  I don't know why. And they have the rest advantage and they have, they're, they're going to the Jets who miraculously have an interception now. I don't know. You tell me, why don't I like the Browns right now? I just think this is a, this is a clown show with Watson. He can't, this can't be happening, right?

• 1:23:47Bill Simmons?

  I know, but he's been competent for three weeks now. I think the thing with the NFL is if you hit two drafts in a row, you just have to throw out anything you think you thought or knew or anything. It's just so easy to vault up. If you have these nine to ten young guys that are above average at position, or in their case, like they nailed both of the receivers. You know, I don't know. There's some energy around them. I think they could beat the Jets.

• 1:24:12Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, they could. I mean.

• 1:24:13Bill Simmons?

  I think that line switches. I think that ends up being Browns favored in that game. Um, next one, this could have been a poop fact the game Steelers Colts in Pittsburgh. I really don't want to watch this. This will not make a TV for me.

• 1:24:28Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna be with House next Sunday.

• 1:24:30Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Where?

• 1:24:31Bill Simmons?

  House is, House is coming in. House is coming to LA.

• 1:24:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:24:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:36Speaker 01

  We're all gonna be with him. Don't you?

• 1:24:37Bill Simmons?

  And you know what?

• 1:24:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:39Bill Simmons?

  Steelers Colts will not be on the TV for House tonight and I won't have to convince him. I have Steelers minus two and a half.

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're gonna get it. I don't know why I was going, I was way, going way over on these. I said three and a half. Colts, another team I don't believe in. It's one and a half. So you get it. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven to one, two, three, four, five, seven to five, including ties.

• 1:25:02Bill Simmons?

  Do you think when it gets closer to uh, when it gets, starts to get really cold? And uh,

• 1:25:08Speaker 01

  Carly, yeah.

• 1:25:09Bill Simmons?

  If Carly's on the sideline, like probably bigger, like a parka at that point?

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  Leather jacket? What's, what's the wardrobe at that point?

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  I don't know. Can she write?

• 1:25:20Bill Simmons?

  Can you write with the mittens?

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Mittens? I don't know if she could scribble things down.

• 1:25:23Bill Simmons?

  Do you have to do voice text? She could be like my wife. When you, you walk with my wife and my wife's doing these voice texts. Tell Krista that I'll meet her at four forty-five. Cause my wife doesn't want to type anymore. Maybe, so maybe she goes to voice text.

• 1:25:36Speaker 01

  That'd be great. And then the coaches have to respond the same way. So there's a headset.

• 1:25:39Bill Simmons?

  The voice text her back.

• 1:25:40Speaker 01

  Carly headset too. Wow.

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  Somebody's gotta talk to her.

• 1:25:45Bill Simmons?

  It's like she really cares.

• 1:25:49Bill Simmons?

  Can you, I mean, can you imagine when Steichen, he must have like two drinks? And they're like, with, he's with his buddies. It's like a, it's like his day off.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:25:59Bill Simmons?

  What's the deal with your owner? Like, does she talk to you during the games?

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:03Bill Simmons?

  Ah, she's, she's got the team.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:07Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I, it's. Oh, you ran, you ran on third and nine. That, that's the old ball and chain. If I ever, I, I know what's going on here. She's like, she's like Shane, come over. I was just, I was looking at our tendencies on third down. He's like, trying to coach the game. My offensive coordinator is talking to me. Why do you think, do you think in the job interview, she told him like, I'm gonna be on your ass. He's like, yeah, no, I get it. No, we, we all want to win. It's like, no, no, I'm gonna be like bringing you pictures and stuff to look at. I wanted this to, can this happen in baseball? Can they just go in the dugout? And sit next to, sit next to the manager? What are we doing here? Are we hitting running?

• 1:26:47Bill Simmons?

  Um, okay, Broncos Chargers is in LA and this is gonna be a grim Chargers game because the Broncos fans travel well. I think there's gonna be thirty-five to forty thousand Bronco fans in this game. There's gonna be boo birds if it starts out slow. It's gonna be a bad week. I'm sure there will be trades and maybe even a firing before we get to this. I have Broncos minus two and a half.

• 1:27:11Speaker 01

  I don't know what's wrong with me. Of course it should be around.

• 1:27:13Bill Simmons?

  I know what's wrong with you. You have kidney stones and you're on heavy medication. I'm just cleaning up ever since you had the kidney stones.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  I had one and a half. Of course, everyone should give the Chargers, it's not even a home field. You're right. It's three and a half. So you get it.

• 1:27:27Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Three and a half.

• 1:27:29Speaker 01

  Sorry, Jacoby. I failed them again. Yep.

• 1:27:32Bill Simmons?

  I mean, think how embarrassing that is if you're the Chargers.

• 1:27:36Bill Simmons?

  The Broncos, who have thirteen, thirteen points in the first half this year? One first half touchdown?

• 1:27:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:47Bill Simmons?

  They're coming to your place. You need the game. Your season's, your season's over, but I guess it's technically in the line and you're not even like three point underdogs.

• 1:27:55Speaker 01

  I mean, this has to be a six point swing from like the look ahead in August. Yeah. And it's not even like Denver's great, right? Like this is a six point swing and it's all Charger based.

• 1:28:06Bill Simmons?

  Does anyone love the look ahead line more than Raheem?

• 1:28:09Speaker 01

  Oh, they love it. He and the bundle. Like if, if, if.

• 1:28:12Bill Simmons?

  In October, the look ahead line on this was Chargers minus four. And what's really happened since then?

• 1:28:19Speaker 01

  Well, they're on that third string quarterback.

• 1:28:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, the Chargers got hit by the plague.

• 1:28:26Bill Simmons?

  Poop facta, three games. First one is Texans Titans. Texans going for their first win. Here comes Cam Ward, three and eighteen for the year and uh, Robert Sala and Brian Dayball. Sala and Dayball. I have Texans, I couldn't go higher than seven and a half. I have Texans minus seven and a half.

• 1:28:49Speaker 01

  We, see, I don't even get that. We split it. I said five and a half. It is six and a half.

• 1:28:55Bill Simmons?

  That is humiliating if you're the Texans. You can't even be favored by a touchdown over the Titans. Did you see some of Cam Ward's plays to get today?

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:29:03Bill Simmons?

  Did you see the one when he was scrambling and tried to do the Paul Crew lateral to the side to the guy who had no idea he was being lateral to?

• 1:29:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:11Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. Everyone, yeah. And then the press conference, he was very mad because people weren't uh, punctual. So, but one of these teams is gonna be oh and five. If the Texans are oh and five, I don't have a good feeling about this game. I don't know.

• 1:29:26Bill Simmons?

  I'll tell you this, I'm not putting them in a tease. Yeah.

• 1:29:30Speaker 01

  Let's, let's, let's blood brothers do it. I mean, I don't, I'm not doing it.

• 1:29:35Bill Simmons?

  Is there a D'Amico Ryan's conversation to be had?

• 1:29:40Bill Simmons?

  The game management's been crappy. The defense is underperforming wildly and that was supposed to be, you know, the thing that he was good at.

• 1:29:50Bill Simmons?

  When I watch them, I never feel like they have their shit together. They have dumb penalties, penalties the whole game and the other team's QB always seems pretty comfortable.

• 1:30:01Bill Simmons?

  Like this was all the stuff he was supposed to be good at when he was at DC and the stuff he was good at even last year. I don't understand why they went backwards this much other than expectations.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  I don't either. I uh, you know, you just.

• 1:30:14Bill Simmons?

  I really don't get it.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  You, you don't wanna, you don't wanna pull the plug on him because right, he usually, he does make the playoffs. He's got a nice little record uh, for making the playoffs. If that's the uh, the goal in that junk division mostly, but some guys really need their specialty to shine, right? So if his defense is gonna be anything but, forget about elite, just don't give up, some twenty-seven, thirty points a game, thirty-one points a game and you know, three of the first four. It's not good.

• 1:30:45Bill Simmons?

  Bengals Dolphins in Miami. This has all the makings of a five touchdown Joe Burrow game.

• 1:30:53Bill Simmons?

  A pad the stats are.

• 1:30:57Bill Simmons?

  You do have my permission to put the Bengals in the tease.

• 1:31:00Speaker 01

  I think I will.

• 1:31:02Bill Simmons?

  I have Bengals minus seven and a half.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Damn it. Come on. Let me get one on you. That's what I had. That's what it is. Seven and a half.

• 1:31:12Bill Simmons?

  That's a teaser. I, you know, I realized when you and I both had Bill Seahawks today, that the, one of those teams was gonna fuck us.

• 1:31:19Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:31:19Bill Simmons?

  Um, I tweeted it. I texted you and of course it was the Bills.

• 1:31:23Speaker 01

  Your team. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:31:24Bill Simmons?

  Maybe we have to have a coin flip for the Bengals.

• 1:31:26Speaker 01

  Let's figure it out. They could be down like Higgins was, was banged up too, right? Are they gonna be down both those guys? Just gonna throw to Gosecki the whole game?

• 1:31:36Bill Simmons?

  I sadly watched both Dolphins games because I watched them last week against the Chiefs because we were Zoe's boyfriend. He was a Chiefs fan. And then I watched them today because it was one of the four games. They're not terrible. I mean, Willis is pretty terrible, but for the most part I, they're not like, they make stops. They run the ball like Ollie Gordon was pretty good today. They have wide receivers. You don't even know who they are, but they occasionally they'll make a play. They play hard. They seem like they're pulling for each other. It's not, it's not as awful of a team as I thought they'd be.

• 1:32:06Speaker 01

  Right. They're, you want to uncross them? No.

• 1:32:08Bill Simmons?

  No, they're awful. I'm just saying like, they're not.

• 1:32:11Speaker 01

  No, they'll, they'll, they'll break off like a 30 yard run somewhere and something like, oh, I can't, I can't turn that game off and put the baseball on a full screen. Yeah.

• 1:32:20Bill Simmons?

  It's a bunch of guys who have something to prove at least, who either have never done anything before, or they're getting a chance they might not normally get. And they, they do play hard. Like I, they were in that Minnesota game. They were really trying to take it.

• 1:32:33Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:32:33Bill Simmons?

  And Minnesota had to work for it and make a couple of plays in the fourth quarter, but they hung around.

• 1:32:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:32:39Bill Simmons?

  Washington's home for the Giants. This is another game that will not make it TV. And I have Washington favored by two and a half.

• 1:32:48Speaker 01

  Who do I get this? No, I don't. I said four and a half. It's three and a half. We tie.

• 1:32:53Bill Simmons?

  I factored in Daniels because I assume he's back next week.

• 1:32:57Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:32:58Bill Simmons?

  Think he is.

• 1:32:59Speaker 01

  I don't, yeah. If it's three and a half, you think they're, they're thinking he's back?

• 1:33:03Bill Simmons?

  Well, Washington's not good.

• 1:33:06Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if you saw him today.

• 1:33:07Speaker 01

  We're falling for the Giants thing again.

• 1:33:09Bill Simmons?

  Not falling for anything. I'm not betting on that game.

• 1:33:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:33:14Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night, Ravens at Atlanta.

• 1:33:19Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta can think about the seven times they had a chance to get Lamar Jackson and just didn't. Uh, I have Ravens by three and a half.

• 1:33:27Speaker 01

  All right. I get this one. Not going to matter. It's four and a half. That's what I had.

• 1:33:32Bill Simmons?

  I think this could go up if the Falcons suck tomorrow against Saints.

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  Their third, this is it, right? This is their third prime time game? Second one's tomorrow?

• 1:33:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Cause you think like the Falcons, we, we said to ourselves, this team is awful. Then they had a Thursday night game against the Packers who stink.

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:33:50Bill Simmons?

  They beat the Packers. Then we're like, the Falcons are back. Penix. I'm still gravitating toward the Falcons are terrible.

• 1:33:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:33:58Bill Simmons?

  So we'll see what happens tomorrow.

• 1:33:59Speaker 01

  He definitely plays, right? Lamar? I know he has an ankle thing, but he'll play.

• 1:34:05Bill Simmons?

  Monday night. If you notice the slate was a little late, it's because the Chiefs aren't a buy. And because this game is the Monday night game, Rams Bills.

• 1:34:16Speaker 01

  Breaking.

• 1:34:16Bill Simmons?

  It's in LA.

• 1:34:21Bill Simmons?

  I could be talked into going to this.

• 1:34:22Speaker 01

  That's true. Yeah. Why not?

• 1:34:25Bill Simmons?

  Not, not against going to it. Anyway, I have Rams by three.

• 1:34:29Speaker 01

  I said one and a half. It's two and a half. So you, uh, you complete the crushing here. Oh my God. I don't even want to add them up.

• 1:34:36Bill Simmons?

  Jacoby's gotta be.

• 1:34:37Speaker 01

  Sorry, Jacoby. Don't listen. If you haven't listened this far, Jacoby roots for me.

• 1:34:42Bill Simmons?

  I, I feel like this is, I'm basically beating the third string QB. Like I just beat the Rutgers QB. Cause you're on all these meds, you're in pain.

• 1:34:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34:52Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel like this is like, these are like real wins.

• 1:34:54Speaker 01

  I'll get with it. I gotta get rid of this thing though. You're right. It's enough. It's enough. Now you won. It's fair and square. So what is this? Three, one, one now through five?

• 1:35:03Bill Simmons?

  I'm three, one and one.

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  I can, I can come back. I gotta.

• 1:35:07Bill Simmons?

  Today's parent corner is presented by Workday. Part of parenting is setting the rules and guardrails. You create them. And then your kids immediately try to find the loophole. I know your kids do this, but when it comes to work, you can't afford to have loopholes. Workday's expertise in HR and finance means their Gentic systems are compliant, permission aware, and operate within enterprise controls, delivering 24/7 accuracy to not just get work done, but get it done right. So you were in Brooklyn.

• 1:35:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:35:38Bill Simmons?

  Not to step on your parent corner, but, uh, our cousin Jimmy had shows in Brooklyn all week.

• 1:35:43Speaker 01

  What a fun time.

• 1:35:43Bill Simmons?

  You went back and you were with a lot of family.

• 1:35:47Speaker 01

  Lot of family out there. Lot of people who claim to be family. And then you're just like, all right, I must be your cousin. That's fine. Lot of, lot of loud talking over music, uh, after the show and everything. I wasn't that, I'm not conditioned to that. So, but I came back. I haven't seen the kids, right? Cause I was there all week. And then I come back and, um, to add insult to whatever injury I have, it's 98 degrees here. And I have no air conditioning because we're told living a few blocks from the beach, you don't need it. Guess what? We need it. I'm done. I'm, I'm fighting the permits. I'm getting it done. So, um, I, I told the kids, I'm like, I'm putting a fan on myself. I had a fan on myself. Until like, from the third quarter of the London game, like all the way until now, basically. And I said, you guys fend for yourself.

• 1:36:30Speaker 01

  And so that's what they did. So I didn't really see them. So my kidney stone is my, um, which is like a kid and it's got the word kid in it. So that's, that's my parent corner because I'm carrying like a baby here. So it's too big to pass and they're gonna zap it, right?

• 1:36:44Bill Simmons?

  So when they say zap it, what does that mean?

• 1:36:46Speaker 01

  So they put some kind of, they put some kind of, um, I don't know what it is. I wouldn't even know what to call it, but they put it on my abdomen, which is where it is now. And they shoot as many as 2,000, um, for the lack of a better word, lasers into it to break it up. And if that doesn't.

• 1:37:02Bill Simmons?

  Through your abdomen?

• 1:37:04Speaker 01

  Yes, through the abdomen. And now I'm out for all this, which is good, I think. And if that doesn't work and they'll be able to tell right away, then they put something in my penis hole and then they zap it that way. And then I have to pass it. Then, then the, the fun stuff begins. Um, so that's it. So, uh, the pain, you know, right, right now, because I can't pass it, that's good, but the pain comes and goes because I still feel it and I'm heavily medicated right now. I can't even speak. So I'm basically a combo of like Brett Favre and, uh, Robert Downey Jr. In their prime. Um, so that's good. At least it's in their prime. But my favorite moment in Brooklyn is Friday after the show, I get to meet the Mets owner.

• 1:37:46Speaker 01

  Steve Cohen comes to the show. It's very exciting, you know? And it, but it's nerve wracking too, because I'm like, all right, I have to delete like 200 tweets just in case he, uh, looks up or his son looks up, uh, looks me up here. And I don't know what to say to him. So, but we hit it off. It's great. Met with him. Fixing the 2027 roster with them. We're talking memorabilia. And then all of a sudden, here it comes. Here comes the pain. Like motherfucker. I gotta, I gotta get out of here. I have to. I'm gonna pass this stone that they tell me I can't pass. It's gonna be embarrassing. Not like he's not used to embarrassing situations, but.

• 1:38:24Bill Simmons?

  Dying.

• 1:38:24Speaker 01

  He's gonna sign the kidney stone to play first base. I don't know what the hell is gonna go on. So, I half make up an excuse that I have a red eye to catch, which I did, but it was like four hours later. But I, uh, basically in the middle of him speaking, I'm like, very nice to meet you. I have a red eye to catch. And I get the hell out of there. And he must think I'm a basket case for ending the meeting there and, uh, and getting out.

• 1:38:48Bill Simmons?

  So you, you were right at the point where you were about to get all this Mets info from him.

• 1:38:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, of course.

• 1:38:54Bill Simmons?

  So how is this not happen on a podcast other than your earbuds didn't work and we had to go to the emergency break?

• 1:38:59Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 1:39:01Bill Simmons?

  Like the kidney stones, like why didn't you have pain like this as we're doing a pod?

• 1:39:05Speaker 01

  Cause I, I timed it perfectly. I timed the medicine now. Now I could time it pretty well. The other day I couldn't time it. I don't know why I didn't. But, uh, maybe it was the excitement of meeting him. I've met you a bunch of times. I'm not as excited, but that's it. Yeah. So, uh, yeah, so that's it. I had to get out of there. Uh, sorry, Steve Cohen and Josh, your son, but, um, it was a really nice meeting you.

• 1:39:24Bill Simmons?

  What were the other highlights from Brooklyn?

• 1:39:27Speaker 01

  Um, what did we do?

• 1:39:28Bill Simmons?

  So Baby Doll, Baby Doll for some reason went to Italy for.

• 1:39:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:32Bill Simmons?

  Even though everybody is there, he wasn't there until Wednesday night, but he claimed it wasn't his fault or something.

• 1:39:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:40Bill Simmons?

  Was it his fault?

• 1:39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:39:42Bill Simmons?

  Is that just negligence? Is Baby retired?

• 1:39:45Speaker 01

  I think he's retired. We had the staff party Thursday after the show and there's a long, like, you know, he's like paying people to get him drinks and, uh, you know, like this, uh, this, this assistant, Jimmy's assistant gets him an Aperol spritz and he's like, ah, who's better than you, baby? Aside from me. You know, he's always got, so there's a lot of that stuff. There's a lot of bragging about how much he paid for his trip, uh, to Italy.

• 1:40:11Bill Simmons?

  To Italy. Yeah.

• 1:40:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:40:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:13Speaker 01

  But it's, I didn't have to bend his arm at all really to get the $90,000 number out of him. So that's it.

• 1:40:20Speaker 01

  But, uh, yeah, there you go.

• 1:40:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. He, he told me that number as well. Well, we had a highlight with Baby Doll. There, we, there was this video on YouTube of the 1989 William Morris Christmas party that was an hour and a half long.

• 1:40:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:40:35Bill Simmons?

  And we got to see Baby Baby Doll in his office. He's like 27. I think he was smoking. His assistant was smoking. And he's just in there for a half hour and we, we just were like in disbelief.

• 1:40:48Speaker 01

  Unbelievable.

• 1:40:49Bill Simmons?

  There's footage of Baby Baby.

• 1:40:50Speaker 01

  They knew I was in the mailroom back then, but they knew I had superstar potential, baby. I mean, look at me. Look at that hand in the way.

• 1:40:57Bill Simmons?

  I was carrying. Uh, I couldn't believe that. The shocking thing to me was how much he hated R. Emanuel's book. He's really trashing it. Yeah.

• 1:41:05Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:41:06Bill Simmons?

  Did you hear that?

• 1:41:07Speaker 01

  I hope he doesn't get in trouble for that.

• 1:41:08Bill Simmons?

  He's like, why did he, he's like, why did he write this? What kind of ego trip is this guy on?

• 1:41:14Speaker 01

  He really should keep those things to himself.

• 1:41:16Bill Simmons?

  He said it was poorly written. He, he thought the stories were lame. He just didn't like any part of it.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  I wouldn't wipe my ass with this thing. Yeah, yeah. Very graphic.

• 1:41:25Bill Simmons?

  He said he read half of it. He left it on the plane. He insisted the stewardess take it away.

• 1:41:31Bill Simmons?

  He didn't really do this.

• 1:41:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. He doesn't care. You know what? Say what you want. What are they gonna do to me? Fuck them.

• 1:41:39Bill Simmons?

  I already did the deal.

• 1:41:42Bill Simmons?

  How much pizza was brought to the, uh, to the show for Jimmy? So every pizzeria in Brooklyn just gives him pizza?

• 1:41:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, because he'll like, he'll thank somebody on Instagram or something, then the floodgates open. So then it's like, just, uh, it's like 47 pizza boxes, all different kinds. It's good, man. I just, um, I'm like 80% black and white cookie right now. And, um, the rest is pain medication. But yeah, Thursday it gets done. I'm gonna do a, uh, a podcast with Tate. We're gonna go over UCLA, Oregon. We're gonna go over, we're gonna go over Georgia, Alabama. We're gonna do Cowboys, Bucks, and I'm gonna tag Raheman, and they're gonna finish up the rest of the podcast, then I get, go and get this done Thursday.

• 1:42:24Bill Simmons?

  I don't really have a parent corner this week, other than I've seen my daughter a couple of times, and, uh,

• 1:42:31Bill Simmons?

  I don't, do you, tell me if your wife does this. My, my daughter really loves going out to eat. She loves like lunch, dinner, anything, but she goes online and looks at the menu and decides, and basically goes through the whole process that you go and you sit down and the waiter's like, here's our menu. And you look at it and you're like, oh, I didn't realize you have buffalo chicken dip. And she does it all ahead of time and plans, almost like plant, like McVeigh, planning for what his first 15 plays are for the Eagles. She knows everything that's on the menu and she's like, I, I can't wait to try the fried pickles. I'm gonna do the Caesar. I'm gonna tell them, and she basically plans it out, and I can't decide how weird this is.

• 1:43:15Speaker 01

  I do that.

• 1:43:16Bill Simmons?

  You do it?

• 1:43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:18Bill Simmons?

  So you look and you think about it?

• 1:43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:43:20Bill Simmons?

  I like the element of surprise.

• 1:43:22Speaker 01

  I know. I used to be like that. I think this is only in the last decade or so, but because we have such access to pictures too, I'm always looking at pictures. And if it looks like sloppy or something, I'm like, yeah, no, I'm gonna pass on that. I really think it's like, it's, it's, it, I'm sad if I make the wrong choice. You know what I mean?

• 1:43:39Bill Simmons?

  So you wanted, so ahead of time, you wanna make sure you're covered, that you're gonna make the right choice?

• 1:43:45Speaker 01

  And I feel like I'm always led astray, asking the waiter or waitress what they, because you ask them and it's what they like. It's not what you like. So I gotta, I have to, I do my research ahead of time.

• 1:43:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, as a, as a veteran of the, of the, uh, food service industry, where I worked in a few different places.

• 1:44:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:03Bill Simmons?

  The move for the waiter, it can't be what you like, cuz everybody's different. It's, it's much better to tell people what's popular in the restaurant. Like, people really love, oh my God, they love these little chicken meatballs we have. I, I don't know why. It's the most popular thing on the menu. Everybody, they come in, they specifically, I wanna tell like that. I don't really care that you like the Branzino, you know, cuz you might just like Branzino. The worst is when they say they don't eat certain things, but still wanna give it, like, well, I'm a, I'm a vegetarian, but, uh, I really like the asparagus dip.

• 1:44:42Speaker 01

  My boyfriend likes this. Yeah, yeah, or something like that. Yeah, and then you also learn, sometimes they push what they have a lot of left. Like the manager will be like, hey, let's get rid of the Penney Owl vodka. We're loaded up, but we're, you know, backed up in the back.

• 1:44:56Bill Simmons?

  We got some 20 more Branzinos.

• 1:44:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Yeah, so that, I think that's her biggest food quirk, other than she really loves pickles.

• 1:45:07Speaker 01

  Pickles are good.

• 1:45:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, she has, so my, my mom sends her pickles and she just eats pickles, like all kinds. There's, there's a place in the Grove that sells pickles, like she's really like a pickles connoisseur with like the honey mustard one is her favorite. And my mom will send her stuff of pickles and different dips and, and then she'll be like, my stomach hurts. And it's like, well, you had, I just watched you have nine pickles, like, I wonder, I wonder, I wonder why it thinks, but.

• 1:45:34Speaker 01

  I think a lot of young girls, cuz they're not fattening, right? You could eat a ton of them. By the way, someone bought me a pickle of the month club. If you wanna, you know, Christmas is coming up. If you wanna hit Zoe with it, it was a, it was a great year.

• 1:45:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but here's the weird thing. When my wife was pregnant with Zoe, my, you know how the, when people are pregnant, they have like their food cravings? One of my wife's things was pickles.

• 1:45:58Bill Simmons?

  So do you think that because she craved pickles, that got transferred to Zoe? Or Zoe craved pickles in her stomach and was telepathically telling her to eat pickles? Cuz she, for her entire life, loved pickles. It's like a chicken or an egg thing.

• 1:46:13Speaker 01

  It might be the second. I mean, Ben doesn't eat pickles, right? He was, he was in that stomach, as you say?

• 1:46:19Bill Simmons?

  No, he does not eat pickles.

• 1:46:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I don't know. I don't think it's, uh, maybe the telepathic thing. Yeah, pickles are good.

• 1:46:27Bill Simmons?

  Ben has been, uh, working out for like four weeks and is the most jacked person I've ever seen in my life.

• 1:46:32Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:46:33Bill Simmons?

  You know these people that could just put on muscle like overnight?

• 1:46:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:46:37Bill Simmons?

  It's like, he, he looks like the, like Marky Mark when he was doing the, whatever that song Marky Mark sang, when he's wearing the jeans and he's, yo, yo, what, what was that song called? I'm blanking. The pod's officially getting a weird spot. Good Vibrations.

• 1:46:53Speaker 01

  Good Vibrations.

• 1:46:54Bill Simmons?

  No, Good Vibrations. Yeah, he's got like the Mark Wahlberg Good Vibrations body after like a week and a half, so I don't know.

• 1:47:02Speaker 01

  It's not pickles, right?

• 1:47:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:47:05Speaker 01

  Curls?

• 1:47:05Bill Simmons?

  I really need to adopt another kid or get another dog to beef up my parent corner. My kids are too old.

• 1:47:11Speaker 01

  They're good. It's fine.

• 1:47:12Bill Simmons?

  You still have Harrison. He's got, you got a nice little run with him coming up.

• 1:47:16Speaker 01

  Have a kidney stone. It's just as good.

• 1:47:19Bill Simmons?

  Just like parenting work works better when you have rules, guardrails and controls in place. Workday is the enterprise platform for HR, finance and IT that gets work done right. It's a new Workday. Yeah, so.

• 1:47:31Speaker 01

  Next Gen Stats brought to by Workday.

• 1:47:34Bill Simmons?

  So, so apparently don't get Ari's book cuz baby really hated it.

• 1:47:39Speaker 01

  You have to have him on to explain himself. How can one person hate a book so much?

• 1:47:43Bill Simmons?

  He said he didn't even finish it though. Maybe it got better in the second half. In all seriousness, Bellany interviewed Ari on The Town.

• 1:47:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:47:51Bill Simmons?

  And it's one of the best podcasts we've had on The Ringer in like five years. They're just, they're just going at it for the entire time, but it's like, it's almost like professional wrestling. They're not actually mad, but it sounds like they're mad the whole time, but it's like watching Ric Flair against Shawn Michaels, just like doing falls all over the place and beating the hell out of each other.

• 1:48:10Speaker 01

  And Baby Doll's not mentioned though?

• 1:48:12Bill Simmons?

  Baby Doll was not mentioned. Yeah, well, cuz Baby Doll retired.

• 1:48:16Bill Simmons?

  Okay, what do you got to plug? Anything?

• 1:48:17Speaker 01

  Well, we wanna talk baseball real quick? I mean, you were right about the Red, you were right about the Red Sox.

• 1:48:22Bill Simmons?

  I tried to tell you and you didn't believe me.

• 1:48:24Speaker 01

  I know. It's just, uh,

• 1:48:25Bill Simmons?

  We can't score runs.

• 1:48:26Speaker 01

  It's very weird. I mean, the Cubs were the same way. You, you, you had two teams, gigantic fanbases, and I think you scored, you both scored three runs in two days, but.

• 1:48:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, we had, the biggest thing that happened this whole week was the go-ahead homer, tying homer, whatever it was, hitting the roof and becoming it out.

• 1:48:42Speaker 01

  It would have been over, uh, yes, it would have been a go-ahead homer. Now, I don't wanna, I don't usually like piling on to obvious narrative, but what the fuck? It's the dumbest shit in the world that there's a guardrail up there. I mean, when the punter would almost hit the Cowboys scoreboard, that was like a big thing. This is really stupid. It's probably stupid that the roof was closed anyway in Milwaukee. It was 61 degrees. And the best part of playoff baseball for me is the directing, like pitchers blowing on their hands and fans with smoke coming out of their mouths, and it builds so much drama. And although I guess you couldn't get more drama than the ball hitting the top of a guardrail and no one knowing what the hell it is.

• 1:49:21Bill Simmons?

  And the guy catching it, just like.

• 1:49:23Speaker 01

  The guy catching it, yeah.

• 1:49:24Bill Simmons?

  Adjusting. But I mean, this happens in Tampa all the time. The Red Sox lost a game last month when this happened. When, uh, the, the Rays hit a thing and it bounced down and the guy got a second chance and then we ended up losing 1-0. So it's just kinda, to me, it's like part of the park, but.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, obviously, but then they have to find out.

• 1:49:48Bill Simmons?

  You hit a homerun, that's clearly gonna be a homerun, and it hits the side of the thing and, um, it can't have happened that many times though, right?

• 1:49:57Speaker 01

  I don't think it has. And they say, you know, they're like, well, that would have been out at Fenway and in Houston, or they had like two parks where it would have been out. I'm like, you don't know what the, I mean, the thing's still rising forever. That, that was a shot, right? I think like, really, you might be off by four feet the way you're, any metric we have, uh, looking at this. And then you have to figure out if it was gonna be fair or foul. Like, that's what the umpires are talking about. I'm like, all right, yeah, good luck. Yeah, you got, cuz if it's foul, it's a dead ball. Yeah.

• 1:50:23Bill Simmons?

  Here's my question. We have ABS and all this other stuff. Why don't we have the technology that they could just figure out from the trajectory and the miles per hour if it would have been out if it didn't hit the roof? Like, they could easily figure that out, right? Figure out everything else.

• 1:50:36Speaker 01

  They claim they did afterwards and that it wouldn't have been out, but what does that mean?

• 1:50:39Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:50:40Speaker 01

  Maybe it hits the wall. Like, maybe it hits the top of the wall or something. Maybe the game's still being played.

• 1:50:45Bill Simmons?

  Gus and I were texting about, I've been friends with Gus since 1982, and we've had baseball the whole time. We were texting about how fucking weird playoff baseball is now. With these, how it just has to be a bullpen game.

• 1:50:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:59Bill Simmons?

  And it's getting to the point where we take Sonny Gray out when he's had 14 outs and he's like one of the five best pitchers in the American League.

• 1:51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:51:06Bill Simmons?

  And we take him out so we can bring in the lefty that blew the game the game before. Because somehow that's a better option versus leaving Sonny Gray in, cuz God forbid, it's gotta be the third time around in the lineup. And it just feels like everybody's overthinking it. Oh, it's only missing, uh, Carly Erce, just with notes next to the manager, telling them what to do.

• 1:51:27Speaker 01

  Where is she? Oh my God. She'd bring out the lineup card every, every, uh, there'd be a change every two outs.

• 1:51:33Bill Simmons?

  I think Sonny Gray's had 14 outs. By my notes, this is enough.

• 1:51:38Speaker 01

  All right, you bring up a great point. And last, so last week you asked me my World Series pick. I'm going Brewers over the Rays, and that pays 10 to 1 on Fandel. But your point is taken, like, it's ridiculous. Tonight, the Braves beat the Dodgers 3 to 2. That's a low-scoring game. How many pitchers do you think were used?

• 1:51:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God, it was, it was at least eight, right?

• 1:52:01Speaker 01

  Combined?

• 1:52:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:02Speaker 01

  13. Six for the Braves, seven for the Dodgers. The Dodger starter is Blake Snell. So you hear, oh, Blake Snell, Blake Snell, Blake Snell. He doesn't get out of the fourth, even though he's not even really in trouble. They take him out. There's 13 pitchers. So how are we supposed to pick a winner? That, that's my winner, but if there's gonna be 13 pitchers a night, who the hell knows how this works out?

• 1:52:25Bill Simmons?

  I just don't like it. I really liked having starting pitchers. It feels like we zagged too hard.

• 1:52:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52:30Bill Simmons?

  You know, and it's never gonna be like Jack Morris putting the Twins on his back in the game seven and throwing 700 pitches, whatever he did, but,

• 1:52:39Bill Simmons?

  I definitely don't, I don't love it. I mean.

• 1:52:43Bill Simmons?

  Other than that, I think the baseball's been really good. The pitch clock's been fun.

• 1:52:47Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 1:52:48Bill Simmons?

  The matchups are good. The, the one thing that's amazing to me is how fast everyone throws and just how fucking hard it is to hit baseballs. And you watch, like, I'm sure you follow a couple of these Twitter accounts too, but you watch like even somebody like Seaver, who is probably the best nationally pitcher of the seventies. He's not throwing 101 miles an hour, you know? He's on these different pitches. He's out there for 140, 150 pitches, some starts. And part of the art of starting pitching was trying to hold on when you didn't have your best stuff anymore. And now it's just gone. And then the next guy comes in who's throwing 99.

• 1:53:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:26Bill Simmons?

  And I, I don't know. It's, I guess it's the equivalent of in basketball, the three pointers, but.

• 1:53:31Speaker 01

  It's very different. It slows the game down. It's not, there's nothing like it because it's not like, like we see in the regular season, right? Where is there such a departure in the regular season to the postseason in any other sport? There's nothing even close to how they manage pitching staff.

• 1:53:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, could they make a rule like you could only use five pitchers for the first nine innings or something?

• 1:53:51Speaker 01

  That'd be great.

• 1:53:52Bill Simmons?

  Unless there's an injury?

• 1:53:53Speaker 01

  That'd be great. I don't know.

• 1:53:55Bill Simmons?

  They tweaked it so that it had to be at least three batters before you could switch. Like, maybe there's more they can do. I don't, I, the Red Sox, first of all, the stats seem to think it is good to just keep throwing new looks and new pitchers and different, you know, different arms.

• 1:54:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:13Bill Simmons?

  Over the course of three hours at the other team because it's harder for them to get in a groove. But it's just less fun for fans.

• 1:54:20Speaker 01

  It's less fun. And like you said, with Jack Morris and the workhorses going to the 10th inning. The best now you could hope for is like a Yamamoto pitches the 10th inning on two days rest. You know what I mean? But just that inning. And so it just, how you watch it, it just changes how you view the sport.

• 1:54:37Bill Simmons?

  So you had Tampa and Milwaukee?

• 1:54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, Milwaukee to beat Tampa is 10 to 1. I like, I think Milwaukee's like the best in, in baseball and has been for a while. And the Rays are gonna have 100 wins probably after tomorrow. And they're, they're really the only team with a home field advantage of 56 wins at home.

• 1:54:52Bill Simmons?

  I like that because Tampa is the best team I watched all year in the American League.

• 1:54:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:57Bill Simmons?

  You know, they, if it's a 1-0, 3-2, 2-1, they're just winning. They do all the right things and Cam and Arrow is terrifying. And then they have these other guys, you're like, this guy's good? And then he'll just get a single or a double. But, um.

• 1:55:10Speaker 01

  Gondy Diaz.

• 1:55:12Bill Simmons?

  They were in an interesting situation with Rasmussen yesterday where it felt like he was gonna take a no hitter into the ninth, but he was over 100 pitches. So that's only happened twice, right?

• 1:55:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:55:25Bill Simmons?

  The, the no hitter in the postseason.

• 1:55:26Speaker 01

  The playoffs, yeah.

• 1:55:28Bill Simmons?

  And I, it's a weird conundrum of it's better for the team probably to take him out and for him for the rest of the playoffs.

• 1:55:38Bill Simmons?

  But this is twice ever in the history of baseball, like you kind of have to go for it. So I don't, I bet they would have gone for it.

• 1:55:44Speaker 01

  It's a great moment. How many did he have? So was, they got a hit in the eighth?

• 1:55:48Bill Simmons?

  He was at like 104.

• 1:55:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:55:50Bill Simmons?

  But he still had one more out to go.

• 1:55:52Speaker 01

  Oh, in the night, yeah.

• 1:55:53Bill Simmons?

  You know, this fucking Austin Wells, by the way. As you know, I'm in this ale keeper league where we're third second. This guy was hitting 150 for like two thirds of the year. And now all of a sudden his rope in line drives.

• 1:56:04Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:56:05Bill Simmons?

  Makes me mad.

• 1:56:06Speaker 01

  Doesn't know how to run the bases, but, uh.

• 1:56:07Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't know how to run the bases.

• 1:56:08Speaker 01

  Definitely helped him out. Yeah, and then also the Rays have Freddie Peralta, who's a Met. And, um, is now sticking it up our keisters. And when I say hour, I mean my, me and Steve Cohen, because we're kind of run the team now.

• 1:56:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, when they traded for him, it was like, eh.

• 1:56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:24Bill Simmons?

  He's, he's sucked this year, but then people go to the Rays and they get miraculously rejuvenated.

• 1:56:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:31Bill Simmons?

  WNBA, I have a, I bet on the Aces to win the title after, after round one.

• 1:56:39Bill Simmons?

  Golden State beat them.

• 1:56:42Bill Simmons?

  I didn't watch the game because football was on because WNBA hates casual fans and they just want to schedule all the games. They easily.

• 1:56:49Speaker 01

  What are they gonna do though? Every, every, every day is.

• 1:56:52Bill Simmons?

  No, you know what they could have done? They easily could have scheduled one of the two games for nighttime. So that at least you're only going against one NFL game and the rest of the baseball game. But you're in the, you're in the mix as one of the three games. No, they just put them back to back against 14 NFL games.

• 1:57:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:57:09Bill Simmons?

  That's just idiotic. So.

• 1:57:12Speaker 01

  I'm with you. Maybe send these games to Europe and then have them on at like two in the morning for us. And then it's really not up against anything.

• 1:57:20Bill Simmons?

  This Golden State thing, they're an expansion team like two years ago. They're the best defensive team in WNBA. They're going against Asia, who's the best player in the history of the league and is just on a heater. And they win in game one and they still have, you know, it's a longer series in round two, but it's pretty.

• 1:57:36Speaker 01

  I lost a lot of money betting them based on the, oh, they're an expansion team. So I think, uh, for, for a couple of years, the first couple of years, but yeah. Solid.

• 1:57:45Bill Simmons?

  All right, any plugs?

• 1:57:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh, Ring of Wise guys, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday is a big preview show.

• 1:57:52Bill Simmons?

  The Friday show's been fantastic.

• 1:57:54Speaker 01

  It's a lot of fun.

• 1:57:55Bill Simmons?

  It's really great. I listened to it at 1.25 speed.

• 1:57:58Speaker 01

  Nice.

• 1:57:58Bill Simmons?

  The one this week was two hours. It was a good hour and a half of my walk around 100 degree LA.

• 1:58:04Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:58:04Bill Simmons?

  Um, I had a great time.

• 1:58:06Speaker 01

  We try to speed it up and then I'm like, all right, guys, if we don't want this to be an hour and 50 minutes, we have to do like five minutes a game. And they're like, we don't have to. I'm like, great, that's fine. Okay, we'll try to go, we'll go fast, but otherwise if it's a two hour show, that's just how it is.

• 1:58:21Bill Simmons?

  Every time you think it's speeding up, Raheem goes, you know, the look ahead line for this game in August is minus three.

• 1:58:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. We do a lot of looking back before we look ahead.

• 1:58:32Bill Simmons?

  Lot of reflection.

• 1:58:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. Lots of bad beats this week. Go take advantage of the bet protect on Fandel. And don't forget, if you're on the losing end of Iowa under or any of those 4 PM endings in NFL, the picks six by the Giants that Simmons talked about, you'd be eligible for $50 reimbursement and reimbursements. Betaches.com, B E T A C H E S.

• 1:58:55Bill Simmons?

  House sent us some bet, Bears, the exact order for NFC North, Bears, Vikings, Detroit, Green Bay.

• 1:59:03Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 1:59:04Bill Simmons?

  Is nine to one.

• 1:59:07Speaker 01

  Bears.

• 1:59:08Bill Simmons?

  Is that the bets, is that now? That's pretty good.

• 1:59:11Speaker 01

  Did he just send us this?

• 1:59:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't know whether he made that a while ago or that's a bet he wants to do now, but that was pretty good.

• 1:59:18Speaker 01

  What chain, what chain, well, hold on. This Maria Taylor outfit is not allowed within 500 feet of this. Oh no, that's not a, that's, that's hatch. Okay, no, I gotta.

• 1:59:27Bill Simmons?

  He said, yeah, all right. So that, that would be, let me see what this is now. Bears. What was the second team, Vikings?

• 1:59:37Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:59:39Bill Simmons?

  Lions?

• 1:59:40Speaker 01

  Bears, Vikings, Lions, Packers.

• 1:59:43Bill Simmons?

  Okay. And that would be.

• 1:59:45Speaker 01

  Nine to one.

• 1:59:47Bill Simmons?

  Nine to one. Jesus.

• 1:59:50Speaker 01

  Not bad.

• 1:59:53Bill Simmons?

  Plus 883, that's pretty good.

• 1:59:54Speaker 01

  So bummed about the Packers. What a dumb ass team.

• 1:59:58Bill Simmons?

  I think that's the right order.

• 2:00:00Speaker 01

  You did it, House. You got it.

• 2:00:02Bill Simmons?

  Great job, House. You helped America. All right, thanks to, uh, Gahow and Eduardo and, uh, Chris and Jack Wilson on our end. Sal, good luck on Thursday. America's rooting for you.

• 2:00:14Speaker 01

  Thanks, buddy.

• 2:00:15Bill Simmons?

  Hopefully, we'll see you in a week.

• 2:00:16Speaker 01

  Good job by you, buddy. Good job by you.

• 2:00:18Bill Simmons?

  Thanks, Netflix.

• 2:00:39Bill Simmons?

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