Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast The Voodoo Steelers, NFC South Comedy, an Eagles Theory, Guess the Lines Round 1, and Jaylen’s Crazy Year With Cousin Sal About this episode The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal right after the Ravens miss the game-winning field goal against the Steelers to recap Week 18 (2:26). Then, they guess the lines for Round 1 before ending with Parent Corner (01:02:42).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Cousin Sal
Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo
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Transcript 23,289 words · 2 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Bill Simmons? All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down ready to watch the game only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary.
0:28 Bill Simmons? The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We are also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. It's gonna be a mailbag. We have not recorded yet. We're actually recording it tomorrow. I want to do it as late to when we're actually putting up the podcast as possible. I hope you checked out the 50 most rewatchable movies of the 21st century that we did last week. Got a lot of commotion for it. It was pretty funny. It was, it played out exactly how I thought it was gonna play out. I had a great time doing that pod. I'm glad people enjoyed it. We might have two rewatchables this week. I think that's in play. We might have a movie coming up on Wednesday, too. I'm gonna have a podcast on
1:06 Bill Simmons? Tuesday this week, as well as on Thursday, and then Sunday, coming off of Pat's Chargers. Yikes. Round one, which will be available on Spotify as a video podcast, on all platforms as a podcast, and then the video will be on Netflix as well. So stay tuned for that in a week. Just wanted to remind you on that one. Coming up, Cousin Sal and I talk about just, I'm not gonna say bonkers, I'm not gonna say crazy, just a bizarre day of football. Bizarre two days. So it is on next. We're gonna take a break, bring Pearl Jam, and then Cousin Sal. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. FanDuel's got it all.
1:48 Bill Simmons? Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live. They have your way. Go check out your way. You can build the bet that fits your play your way. Plus, don't miss out on the NFL playoffs. One of my favorite times of the year, all month long. Download the FanDuel app or head to FanDuel.com/BS.
2:07 Bill Simmons? To get started, get ready for the playoffs. Let's go. Must be 21 plus, present in select states, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky and Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-79777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut.
2:50 Bill Simmons? All right. Sunday night, just watched the Steelers, the voodoo Steelers, the garbage Steelers, the what the fuck Steelers. What are they, Sal? I don't know how they do it. I honestly don't.
3:02 Speaker 01 The wait around for the top two safeties to butt heads and, you know, join the blue tent Steelers so you can complete a pass? I don't know what the hell that was.
3:11 Bill Simmons? The every time you have a big play in the first three quarters, it's going to get called back with some sort of penalty or we're going to get some sort of garbage something. And then it all comes down to they finally goes against them, they miss an extra point and it seems like the Ravens are going to knock them out. And then guess who misses the kick? The Ravens.
3:29 Speaker 01 Yeah. Tucker, they gotta, they gotta cut that Tucker dude. No, no.
3:33 Bill Simmons? I knew that Tucker was going to backfire.
3:35 Speaker 01 That was on pace for such a shitty game. That was going to be like a 14-12 game. And then like, I think like what happened with the safeties colliding, that opened up some, some pass opportunities for Rogers. And I think like Lamar and what? He had completed like four passes before the wide open Azay Flowers. I mean, Mike, you could throw a spaceship or run that through that zone. Is that secondary, get a hold of Aaron's biowaska? What was that?
4:01 Bill Simmons? Yeah, they had, I think Lamar, I wrote down Lamar had six passes in the first two hours of the game. It was like four for six. It was like 7:30 at night, Pacific time. Ends up Flowers finished with four for 138, both of which were in the fourth quarter. I had all these notes about January Lamar, cold weather Lamar. This is just him just haphazardly going back and throwing it off somebody's hand. And then he came to life like he always does. Only this time it actually mattered and it looked like he was gonna shed his whole thing. Rogers comes back down, leads one last great sports movie drive. It seems like he was gonna shed this whole washed up thing. And then the Ravens are gonna win and then they don't. Now with the Steelers in the playoffs, that's the worst part, Sal.
4:45 Speaker 01 What? This is for the playoffs? Oh my God.
4:48 Bill Simmons? We're in the Steelers in the playoffs now.
4:50 Speaker 01 We have to see them again? Yeah, I know. And I'm not sure I'm ready to bet against them. They might have some life in them. This is so nuts. Like I don't, I don't, you know, with those two safeties colliding, they both had a better opportunity at the ball than Rogers, than the Steelers did, right? So maybe that's, I don't know if that's by design or what, but yeah, man, he just kept throwing and throwing. And I'm not sure what the play of the game was like Lamar scrambling, getting away from Watt. The first touchdown to Flowers was remarkable. That pass to Lightly was insane.
5:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The, is it third or fourth down? It was third down.
5:25 Speaker 01 That was, that was, that was fourth. That was it. That was the play.
5:30 Bill Simmons? And of all the guys, Legley, who's always involved in some sort of Ravens plot, usually for the worse. It's usually his foot on the end line, him fumbling a pass, him dropping a pass. I don't know if he did this, but dropping it going over the end zone.
5:45 Bill Simmons? Texans at Steelers is our game now and we'll do guest lines later. So we have Rams at Carolina, Patriots Chargers, Texans Steelers, Bears Packers, Eagles Niners, Bills Jags, but the Steelers get Metcalf back.
6:00 Speaker 01 Right.
6:01 Bill Simmons? That was the crazy thing about you. Look at like Adam Thielen's out there and and Tareko or Collinsworth, one of them is doing the whole thing about well, Rogers, he wants guys at the line of scrimmage, smart guys who are ready to play off him and what he's gonna do. I'm like Thielen was completely washed up. Like if that's what he wants, like you're in trouble. Like this, this is not a good thing to want. And yet in the second half, it actually worked and they were moving the ball. It did help that he knocked out two of the Ravens guys at the same time.
6:31 Speaker 01 He wants guy, he doesn't want guys leaning into the crowd, picking fights with fans with like pom pom heads or something like, yeah, I thought for a while I was like, wow, the Ravens are only going to advance now because of the Metcalf thing. And they're going to owe that fan like crab cakes for life or whatever from Baltimore. So, I mean, that was a, that was just a, that was something else. Like it was, it was so boring for so long that they harped all the brotherly shove. The two brothers going at it. And then the mother gets involved like, oh my God, this game is so bad. We have to watch him. And then it really, I can't believe how it opened up.
7:04 Bill Simmons? Yeah. If you picked a quarterback to look like, uh, he was just throwing a turd sandwich for two hours. And then was going to pull three of the best plays of the year out of his ass. You would have said Lamar, if you're going to pick a guy who was going to throw a pass that wasn't near his receiver, that then got two, two safeties colliding and both having to get carried out of the game in a game stoppage. You would have picked Rogers. Everyone was online. Isaiah Likely, he had to be involved. Derrick Henry looked unstoppable and then didn't have the ball for an hour. You know, DeAndre Hopkins, that classic Lamar play where he lofted it to him and Hopkins didn't know he was supposed to move. And they're looking at each other. It's cold. The Steeler fans are going nuts. TJ Watts feeling the part where he'd been stabbed in the, in the chest.
7:48 Bill Simmons? It was really playing all the hits. And the best guy in the field was Gainwell.
7:52 Speaker 01 Yeah, right. He's unstoppable. But yeah, I mean, I wrote this down like TJ Watt, like two weeks removed from a collapsed, punctured, mutilated lung, playing professional football in 30 degree weather. It makes me feel like such a pussy. I rent my back leaning over to grab the Uber Eats bag of falafel left at my front door. And this guy's playing football. Like this is, this is what it's all about. My God. And the steel special hit for the second time this year.
8:17 Bill Simmons? Oh, it did.
8:18 Speaker 01 It only hit in week one and week 18. Opponent to win the first half Steelers to win the game.
8:23 Bill Simmons? I had for Ringer 107, just a typical day for me, where I had the Ravens money line tied to the under of 50 and a half. And it was what 10 to seven for two hours?
8:35 Speaker 01 Yeah.
8:35 Bill Simmons? And then all of a sudden, it turned into the Chargers Dolphins playoff game. So this is weirdly the worst possible outcome if you're the Ravens. I want to talk about the Steelers in a second. Lamar was just special enough down the stretch there that you can't be like, yep, can't win with them. We've, we've maxed out. We got to trade them. Like in basketball where Trey Young, Ja Morant, Lamela Ball, there are some of these guys that just feel like they've run their course with their teams. And I didn't know if Lamar was heading toward that. And I felt like if this was a stink bomb today, where we were texting third quarter on our thread about like, would you bring Huntley in?
9:13 Speaker 01 Sure.
9:13 Bill Simmons? Like if Lamar's not going to move around, if they're not going to throw with them, like what's the point of playing Lamar? So anyway, he's great in the fourth quarter. Now you have to rethink that. But maybe there's a Harbaugh decision to be made. Harbaugh was going in the last 30 seconds of this game. He had all three timeouts left.
9:27 Speaker 01 Right.
9:27 Bill Simmons? Did he think he was taking them in OT?
9:30 Speaker 01 Did the opposite of what Pittsburgh did, using them all within before eight minutes left.
9:35 Bill Simmons? Pittsburgh was just burning them left and right. But I, so I don't know for the Ravens, such a weird season. We kept waiting for it to come around, come around, come around. Then it finally seemed like it did. And now they're out of the playoffs. I'm watching it as a Pats fan going, man, if they win this, you know, they could absolutely knock out Houston, who I don't want to see. Get rid of them in round one because I want to play the Ravens. They don't have a pass rush. I feel like we can outthink these guys. And now they're out. And now the voodoo Steelers are in. If I'm Houston, who would you rather want to play? Baltimore, Pittsburgh? After watching that game?
10:03 Speaker 01 I think whoever had the momentum, honestly, to be honest with you, I mean, Pittsburgh could be a tough out. They really can. And we're not, we don't know that Houston's going to score a bunch of points next week. We'll talk about it, you know, later. But, uh, yeah, I mean, as far as Lamar goes, it's, it's a dumb comparison, maybe. It's not Kyler Murray. It's not like, all right, Arizona saw what, he was their franchise quarterback. Now he no longer is. They can move on from him. Not going to be a lot of, uh, bickering about that.
10:29 Bill Simmons? No, no, no tears shed.
10:30 Speaker 01 No, no, for sure. But Lamar was definitely headed that way. You, you're going to keep him around. There's, there's no, the problem is his parents named him January Lamar. And they did it sarcastically. And so he never really had a chance, uh, once the calendar turned.
10:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I did forget until the game was starting. I probably shouldn't incorporate this, but that it was January and that it was cold. Right. Two things you're thinking about in the third quarter, when it doesn't seem like he can complete a forward pass. Um, I do think this is one of those games that if they played it 20 times, I think the Ravens probably win 16 of the 20. Right? It felt like there, there's a version of this game where they're just up 20 to three in the second quarter. Where there's not, Henry has that first long run. There's a block in the back where the guy blocks him in the front. They call block in the back. Cause first time I've seen that call of the year. And it just felt like a bunch of those moments where they couldn't kind of get over the hump. And then Pittsburgh, as soon as the safety, as soon as Hamilton, who's the best guy in the defense goes out, Pittsburgh starts moving. You gotta give them credit though. They've
11:30 Bill Simmons? won a few of these and they've beaten some pretty good teams. You know, like they beat the Patriots in week three in a game that we turned the ball over five times, including one where the guy was about to run the end zone.
11:41 Speaker 01 They don't lay down. If they're around in the fourth quarter, it's a mess. They're a hard out for sure. But, uh, yeah, I, I, I do wonder about Derrick Henry. Again, his usage towards the end, not great.
11:51 Bill Simmons? What did he end up with? So he had 20 for 126?
11:55 Speaker 01 Yeah. He's got to get that magic number's 25. I know they had three gigantic plays in there. So you can't kill them too much. But, uh, and it's the kicker. It's the January, what's the kicker's name? He's got the January. It's a January loop. You can't, can't shake it.
12:11 Bill Simmons? Should we do the preemptive? Everybody's going to do this about one o'clock tomorrow on Twitter.
12:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:15 Bill Simmons? Of leave Tyler Loop alone.
12:19 Bill Simmons? If you're on social media shitting on some football player that you don't know, that says more about you than him.
12:25 Speaker 01 That's true.
12:26 Bill Simmons? Just do this now, get that over with.
12:28 Speaker 01 I mean, it does say more about me than than him, but I'm I'm gonna say it anyway. He choked.
12:32 Bill Simmons? It's a tough one. I, and listen, there are 12 seconds left. They had a timeout.
12:37 Speaker 01 Right.
12:37 Bill Simmons? I didn't feel comfortable with how long that field goal was.
12:40 Speaker 01 No.
12:40 Bill Simmons? Did you? That guy's this is his first year in the league. They're like, yeah, we got it. Just like, let's, let's bring him out. Pittsburgh is notoriously a scary place to kick, especially for opposing kickers. It's cold out, crowd's going nuts, incredible amount of pressure. There's a playoff spot on the line, one way or the other. I want to get closer. I can use my timeout. I'm getting 10 yards closer, but Harbaugh doesn't care.
13:01 Speaker 01 We're too spoiled. We see the the Jags kicker a little to kick like the blast of 67 yard. And it's like, oh, everyone should make 44, but that's not the case.
13:11 Bill Simmons? Gainwell, um, eight catches for 64 yards. Nobody else in the Steelers had three. So Ravens win. I'm sorry, Steelers win.
13:24 Speaker 01 You should watch again.
13:25 Bill Simmons? Yeah. The Ravens go home and the Steelers get to host the Texans, who,
13:31 Bill Simmons? I don't know, I felt a lot better about them three weeks ago.
13:34 Speaker 01 Definitely.
13:35 Bill Simmons? Why are they giving up so many big plays? I thought this defense was like, oh, my God, Houston's defense. It's like, really? We sure? I know, like, the game today, it didn't mean that much, but it didn't mean nothing either because you wanted to be the five seed. You wanted to play one of these teams.
13:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:50 Bill Simmons? And they were giving up big plays to Riley, Riley Leonard.
13:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, I know. I maybe I give them too much credit here, but I think they were scoreboard watching a little bit. So once Jacksonville was up early, 28-7. In fact, it's probably the only smart thing I did today. When Jacksonville went up 28-7, I live bet the Colts plus 14 and a half.
14:08 Bill Simmons? Interesting.
14:08 Speaker 01 They were down 10. So I don't, I guess that's how you're supposed to gamble and not take jackhole teams like the Bengals on money line parlays all the time, but.
14:17 Bill Simmons? We have it coming for them.
14:19 Speaker 01 But yeah, no, Houston was a, a, a much scarier, um, opponent a month ago.
14:25 Bill Simmons? Well, the other four seed. So we had, nobody really wanted the AFC North and Pittsburgh finally just took it. Nobody really wanted the NFC South either.
14:36 Bill Simmons? Literally, nobody wanted it. We had three eight, nine teams in some sort of weird tie. And of course, it had to end in the dumbest way possible where Tampa beats Carolina in the rain yesterday. Fairly convincing. It was 1910 garbage backdoor touchdown at the end. And then we have the Falcons today, holding off Tyler Shuck and nobody.
14:59 Bill Simmons? Literally, nobody. I don't know who was on the Saints. I had them on a smaller TV. I don't know who was catching the ball for them. Jawan Johnson caught a couple. I don't know who the other guys were. He's making plays over and over again. He keeps hanging around, hanging around. But the Falcons win and they celebrated by firing their coach and the GM right after the game.
15:16 Speaker 01 That was it. Yeah. I think the writing was-
15:18 Bill Simmons? And so Carolina's going to the playoffs is the point.
15:20 Speaker 01 Carolina's in the playoffs. Raheem Morris is out. And I think he was out when they lost to the Jets. I mean, had they won that Jet game, they would be in the playoffs and the Jets would have the number one pick.
15:32 Bill Simmons? What week was that? That was the 27-24 game?
15:35 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was, uh, might have been the Cousins blow had a shot at the end. It was in MetLife and-
15:40 Bill Simmons? I mean, they had like six of those. Coob missed the one in the week one. They, the Pats game, they missed an extra point. They had a bunch of those.
15:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
15:47 Bill Simmons? And they had terrible special teams and you could always count on them to do something stupid. So it looked like today would have been the classic.
15:54 Speaker 01 Monday night against the Rams. They looked so good. Then they beat Tampa in that crazy Thursday game. And then before the game, you hear they announced that Cousins has the flu. He's had the flu since 2021. I guess that's why he's so bad. No, but-
16:06 Bill Simmons? The flu was running through the Falcons.
16:08 Speaker 01 That was it. I, it was just so weird. I, I don't know. We talked about it on our thread. Like if you're the Bucks owner, can you give Tyler Shuck an incentive to win? Can you pay him 500 grand extra? All we did was talk about incentives all over. Hunter Henry gets over four and a half receptions. But they give him 500 grand. I like, and I, I get it's like shaky, but if you say, hey, do a voiceover for my foundation and win the game and I'll send you 500 grand. I think it's legit if you did that.
16:39 Speaker 01 Incentivize everybody.
16:40 Bill Simmons? Probably no part of that's legit.
16:41 Speaker 01 Really? No part?
16:42 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I don't think so. It feels like a gambling. I mean, there could be definitely in, in the Trump world, we could have like Bitcoin just getting transferred. Nobody knows. So you can do it that way.
16:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:52 Bill Simmons? I, we actually got an email from Mike from Mar Vista.
16:56 Speaker 01 Is this true?
16:57 Bill Simmons? You know, we really did. If I'm the NFL, I absolutely have Panthers division title hats and shirts ready for the Falcons for right after the game. Why would the Falcons say no? That's the only way the NFC South can get more ridiculous. So the Falcons win, they go into the locker room, they put on the Panthers T-shirts. Instead of pouring champagne on each other, they're pouring like ripple on each other. But they should have considered that at least.
17:21 Speaker 01 Yeah, that wouldn't have been bad. Yeah, that was such a weird, such a weird, I don't know. In Tampa, a lot of people didn't think they deserved to win Saturday anyway. I mean, I, I had them and they, that was a bad backdoor cover, but they got a lot of calls to, to get them even into.
17:35 Bill Simmons? Oh, my God. It really did feel like it was, that one was called in by the league. There was the rip off the helmet play. It was a, there was an offensive PI, which has become the hot call this year, I think.
17:47 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:47 Bill Simmons? For, for what the fuck texts for our thread.
17:50 Speaker 01 Right, right, right.
17:50 Bill Simmons? It's like, what was that? You're not, you're a tight end? You're not allowed to push off one, one yard off the line? Uh, so they finished with three, eight, nine teams. Chris Myers, who I felt bad for, cause he didn't get to partake in the Panthers, uh, do winner, winner allegedly gets that home game on Saturday. But they put him on Falcons Saints. So he's vicariously was, the Panthers were living through him. So I thought that was nice. Um, so Ted McMillan became the huge rookie of the year favorite after this game, even though he was even with Tyler Shuck, who was awesome today. Um, there's no award stuff left except for coach of the year, which is down to Vrabel versus Mike McDonald.
18:28 Speaker 01 What do you mean there's no award stuff left?
18:30 Bill Simmons? Well, I mean, all the other ones are decided except for MVP. MVP is gonna go down to the wire. But like offensive rookie of the year, defense, like all that shit's kind of wrapped up, except for MVP and coach.
18:40 Speaker 01 I was, I was looking at coach of the year, and I know your boy Vrabel, like, ta, take me, why, why is Ben Johnson 60 to one? He did the worst of first thing. They're a two seed like the Patriots. Uh, he not only brought his team far, but he destroyed the Lions. So I think he gets, he should get two votes. He did it with his shirt off, like.
19:02 Bill Simmons? The Lions case is good. Yeah, I like that. I think more people were convinced that the Bears were going to be a lot better this year than the Pats would be one of the things.
19:12 Speaker 01 What were the over unders? Were they, weren't they similar?
19:14 Bill Simmons? The Pats were four and 13 last year and they're 14 and three this year. So the 10 win leap is pretty good. I gotta say, like, I, I, we were texting about it all week. I, I just think May, him not winning MVP would be nuts. And we'll talk about that later.
19:27 Speaker 01 Good.
19:28 Bill Simmons? Vrabel, I could see the Mike McDonald case. That team was a one seed. That team beat everybody. That team was number one in DVOA. That team came through in big games down the stretch. They had a bunch of different small, but like really hurtful injuries that never seemed to bother them. So I, to me, it could be either of those guys. And honestly, Liam Cohen would be in there too for me. I, I don't know why Vrabel's the convincing favorite, but we don't understand a lot of these better markets.
19:53 Speaker 01 There were like five. I don't think there'll ever be as many candidates. Well, now Shanahan's out. Shanahan was out. I mean, we used to spend hours dissecting Shanahan's career. Maybe we should go back to that because it is spectacular how he's like, what, what, what's the big one? He's like one and 38, went down seven or more points.
20:11 Bill Simmons? He hasn't had a comeback since 2017. Was that it?
20:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:16 Bill Simmons? He's down more than seven. He's never come back. Hey, listen, everyone's talking about how great their offense was. They scored three points on Saturday night.
20:23 Speaker 01 Right.
20:24 Bill Simmons? They didn't have Trent Williams, but they, you know, they had basically everybody else. So Raheem Morris gets fired, which means we now get to live out, uh, Worm wins over Raheem Morris in real life next year with whoever the Falcons coach is.
20:40 Speaker 01 Oh.
20:40 Bill Simmons? Eight, nine. Now we literally get to live out, uh, Worm. Um, I thought yesterday that Panthers Bucks game was just awful.
20:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
20:50 Bill Simmons? It's, it was raining. Neither quarterback was good. They both threw picks. They had the three man booth. I just.
20:58 Bill Simmons? How many, it's 2026 and on Saturday, we had a three man booth and we started the second game with, I could feel it in the air tonight. Like, what year? Give me the year where I could have neither of these things. Neither a three man, three man booth, Orlovsky and Riddick are just in a death, death contest to see who can talk more. Is there a split second of silence? No, I got a point. I'm gonna say something. I, I've never heard, I, their usage rate was both Westbrook 2017, like both of them. It was like whoever was over half court got to shoot, but the announcing version of it, Chris Bowers doing play by play, I think he said 50 words the whole game. They were just diving in, jumping over him. Like, who wants that? And I like Orlovsky. I just don't understand that broadcast at all.
21:43 Speaker 01 I, I interview him every year, maybe twice a year, probably not at all after this, after this whole thing, but.
21:49 Bill Simmons? I blame the producers. I don't blame the people in the booth. Like, nobody wants to hear people talk during a game.
21:55 Speaker 01 They wouldn't shut up.
21:55 Bill Simmons? For 100% of the game.
21:57 Speaker 01 You don't have to do the Kirk Gibson homerun, Vince Scully thing where you're silent for two minutes, but Riddick and Orlovsky, they would not shut up. There was so much chatter. You might as well put a mic in the mezzanine and listen to 50 fans discuss the game. And I do, I like those guys. I do, but it really was like, it reminded me of like, twins, seven year olds coming home from trick or treating and trying to show you how much candy they got at the same time. It's like, all right, all right, I want another time. That's, that's fine. Like neither waiting for the other to keep quiet.
22:27 Bill Simmons? It's a good analogy.
22:28 Speaker 01 Thank you.
22:28 Bill Simmons? And it once again proves that the three man booth, so good example, this year Stan Van Gundy, who I thought was bad in the three man booth last year on TNT, because every three man booth is bad. There's been three exceptions in 60 years, right? Like literally three. The college guys, the Maguire.
22:45 Speaker 01 Dennis Miller.
22:46 Bill Simmons? Not Maguire, no, it was Billy Packer.
22:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
22:50 Bill Simmons? What was that booth? Billy Packer, Al McGuire and Dick Emberg?
22:53 Speaker 01 Rafford, oh, and Emberg, Emberg, right.
22:54 Bill Simmons? That was good. There was probably one good Monday night football booth over there at some point. And I can't even think of what the third one was.
23:02 Speaker 01 No, the old time booths.
23:03 Bill Simmons? You don't need three people to announce a game.
23:04 Speaker 01 Cosell and those guys, yeah, but that's, that was a million years ago.
23:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it was in 1970s. We didn't know any better.
23:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
23:09 Bill Simmons? But, and then it's like anytime anybody wants to get serious, they're like, we have Buck and Aikman. We have Collinsworth and Tirico. They put Van Gundy on Amazon this year with Iron Eagle and he's been great.
23:19 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
23:20 Bill Simmons? And guess what? Cause he's not, he's not fighting for air with the other guy during the course of these games. I just don't understand why they don't see this. They feel like if there's one more person, it feels like a bigger game and it just makes it more cluttered and it makes it worse. So.
23:34 Speaker 01 That game deserved no announcers, honestly. It really did.
23:37 Bill Simmons? It got silent. Remember the early eighties when they had the no announcers game?
23:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, that was great.
23:41 Bill Simmons? It was like Jets Dolphins. It was the perfect.
23:43 Speaker 01 And you know what they did? They, what they featured was graphics because before then you didn't see a score check. Like every 20 minutes, like every 20 real minutes. This time they had to, without the announcer, they had to put graphics up. And then they're like, hey, this isn't bad, letting the, the viewers know what the score is and how much time is left. So.
24:03 Bill Simmons? Most time the three man booth is like being at a coffee place, working on something and this loud table sits down next to you and everybody's talking and eventually you're like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna move to the other part of the, but this is football for three hours. Um, so anyway. Carolina makes the playoffs. They're hosting the Rams who were asleep for an hour and a half today and then finally got their shit together against the Cardinals. There was one point where the Cardinals were winning. Or then they lost the lead, then they completed yet another long pass. There was some bogus, I don't know, legal block penalty or something that called back a long play and then the Rams finally got their shit together and. That's it. But we saw that game and the Panthers beat the Rams in Carolina. I gotta be honest, I don't mind the Panthers.
24:48 Bill Simmons? Like, I think they can stop, like, their front, like, they can kind of stop the run. Like, you can't run the ball down their throats. Their games are always a little more low scoring and the problem is Bryce. And every time you talk themselves into them, Bryce does Bryce stuff and you're like, ah, fuck.
25:06 Speaker 01 Listen to me, this is not a good team. Don't bet the Panthers. You could say you don't mind them. Please don't bet them. They had the worst.
25:12 Bill Simmons? I'm not, I didn't say I was gonna bet them. I said I don't mind them.
25:15 Speaker 01 All right. Oh, you don't mind them being in the playoff? Yeah, I mean.
25:18 Bill Simmons? I think Tampa would have been a worse playoff team because I actually really felt like they were fraudulent.
25:23 Speaker 01 You know what's weird about them? But the September, October version of Tampa was better than most teams we're gonna see next weekend. Wasn't it? And they really didn't have a reason to fall off. Agbuka passed away, I think, in October. That was sad.
25:37 Bill Simmons? To the point when he was involved in a play and I forgot he was on the team. The guy looked like he was Jerry Rice in September.
25:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, but listen, Carolina had a worse point differential than the Giants. They don't, they don't belong either. And that spread's gonna be pretty high, but we won't give it away. But we need a freebie. We need a freebie for sure.
25:57 Bill Simmons? This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch. So how's that New Year's resolution looking? You gonna crush the gym? You gonna inch into quitters' day territory? What's your plan? Because that's a real thing. The second Friday of January, it turns out most of us, we throw in the towel by then, but not this year. Not if you got an Apple Watch. Apple Watch keeps you locked in. You've got the daily movement and activity rings, achievement streaks, goal tracking. It's like having a coach on your wrist. So if you're on the edge of giving up, don't. This is the year we quit quitting. Let's do this. Apple Watch, made to motivate you. Find out more at apple.com slash Apple Watch. Series 11, iPhone 11 or later required. Another nobody wanted, nobody wanted the two seed.
26:42 Bill Simmons? This was the weirdest subplot of the day in the NFC, where the Eagles were like, you can have it. We're not even gonna play Hertz and some of our guys. Like, we don't care. Playing Washington, they're going for a draft pick anyway. We're, we're just gonna show up and probably win anyway. And the Bears were like, well, we don't really want this either. We're, we're gonna play this Detroit team that's playing for nothing and they're gonna dominate us for two hours. And, uh, and there was this moment where Detroit was clearly about to lose and Philly had the ball. But Tanner McKee might've been the worst quarterback performance we've seen in the last four or five weeks.
27:20 Speaker 01 Yeah.
27:20 Bill Simmons? Like could not complete anything and just seemed completely out of sorts. And then Philly ends up losing.
27:25 Speaker 01 This was the day to do it for those garbage quarterbacks. Like, hey, you could get a nice bag here, a nice contract, just with one performance. We see backups every single week. We, you know, there's already talk about Malik Willis going to the Hall of Fame and stuff, or at least getting a big contract.
27:39 Bill Simmons? He's like a real asset now.
27:40 Speaker 01 No one really stepped up. Quinn Ewers did for a minute, but really no one, no one, uh, and it's, it's like then Josh Johnson's like, hey, you're like, hey, it's not that bad. And it's like, cause you're so used to crap all the time. And then Josh Johnson's out there. It's like, they gave you prison food, but they poured A1 on it. It's like, all right, it's a little bit, it's a little better. I don't mind that.
27:59 Bill Simmons? The worst version of this was Trey Lance.
28:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
28:02 Bill Simmons? Who, even if you were doing the Trey Lance is a problem Twitter video of like his best plays, I'm not sure you could get the 30 seconds. There was like two good scrambles and, uh, he might've completed one eight yard pass. He's just not accurate. I don't understand how he was the third pick in the draft.
28:19 Speaker 01 Well, also they traded.
28:20 Bill Simmons? Did he become inaccurate?
28:23 Speaker 01 It's interesting. They traded three first round. I'm willing, I know you gotta have to let these things breathe and develop, but I'm willing to say that was a bad trade. Three first rounders for Trey Lance. All right, maybe I'll wait.
28:36 Bill Simmons? 26.
28:37 Speaker 01 I'll wait a couple more years. He did have that preseason game where he threw five interceptions. So I'll, I'll wait a little bit.
28:42 Bill Simmons? You guys talked about this on the Ringer Gambling Show Friday, but I'm just throwing in my two cents. If Purdy doesn't happen for them, does that trade get everybody fired?
28:53 Speaker 01 It would have to, right?
28:55 Bill Simmons? Like, how do you come back from that? Or is like just Mac Jones is their quarterback for the last couple of years. So they're just always able to grab some mediocre guy and turn them into something decent.
29:05 Speaker 01 Yeah.
29:05 Bill Simmons? But.
29:05 Speaker 01 They wouldn't win double digit games in that tough division every year. That was miraculous. My team would have been set back. For sure. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know how they did it.
29:16 Bill Simmons? So I wrote down.
29:19 Bill Simmons? I'm trying to figure out what the Eagles were thinking. Is it possible they just don't want to play at home? Cause their fans hate them. They probably won the Super Bowl last year.
29:27 Speaker 01 Wow.
29:27 Bill Simmons? They're like, we're better off on the road. The energy when things don't go well for us in the first hour, like fuck it. Let's get out of Philadelphia. We're better off than any other stadium.
29:36 Speaker 01 Yeah, at least if our fans, if everyone's gonna hate us, we can get on a bus afterwards and leave and then have that, the comfort of that.
29:43 Bill Simmons? You know, the awkwardness of our family in the stands as people are chanting, you suck at different players.
29:49 Speaker 01 But honestly, what are, what they doing? There was a point with like a minute 43 left. The Lions are lining up for a field goal. They're clearly gonna beat Chicago. And so Philly gets the one seed if they win. So they're driving the tie. I'm like, you could put Hertz in there and Brown and everybody. No, like they could have been warming up on the sideline. Yeah, to get the two seeds. Like at some point, it's gotta, you don't want to go to Chicago. You don't want to do it. I'm pretty sure it's not 1963. Someone could tell Sirianni in the headset that the Lions are lining up for a winning field goal. It could give you the two seed.
30:21 Bill Simmons? Well, meanwhile, the Bears couldn't score 17 points at home against a dome team that was missing half of their team and had already packed it in. Not a great sign for them either.
30:31 Speaker 01 Jared Goff was wearing oven mitts to throw the ball. Like, I don't know. He just did a good job.
30:36 Bill Simmons? There's a bunch of bullshit home teams in this round one that I don't think anybody's afraid to play. My team might even be one of them with the, with the schedule we played. But I don't think this is one of those, oh no, we gotta go there. I don't think anyone's feeling that way.
30:50 Speaker 01 Is this the least confident you are as a better going into the playoffs? Cause it sure as shit is for me. I mean, and I know it's, you might say, cause my Holmes isn't in there and a good version of Joe Burrow and everybody. But I really, I see major flaws in all of these teams.
31:05 Bill Simmons? Yeah, cause he would, we'll go into the, I don't know what the Rams line is yet. I somehow didn't see the Lions. I mailed you them four hours ago, cause I was worried I would see them, but I didn't see them. But you would figure Rams, Panthers, first game of the day. Everybody, their brother, their sister, their uncle, and all of their grandparents are gonna be teasing the Panthers or putting them in a money parlay.
31:24 Speaker 01 The Panthers?
31:24 Bill Simmons? I mean, I mean, the Rams.
31:26 Speaker 01 Yeah. I don't think so. Yeah.
31:28 Bill Simmons? That instantly gets my, gets my dander up. But playoff manifesto wise, you're taking Bryce Young against Matthew Stafford. It violates like three of the 17 playoff manifestos.
31:38 Speaker 01 I'm just saying like to win two games. Like who are you really confident in to win two games? Not really, there's no one team.
31:45 Bill Simmons? I feel good about the Chargers matchup for the Pats. I do feel like that was the best team for them to play.
31:51 Speaker 01 I know you do.
31:51 Bill Simmons? So they have them and then Jags playing the Bills. And the Jags are probably playing the best out of anyone in the AFC right now of teams that have actually, yeah, I think the Pats have played really well too, but they really haven't played anybody. But you've got Josh Allen playing the Jags. You have Josh Allen against Trevor Lawrence. That's a really tough one to be like, yep, it's Trevor Lawrence. I trust everything I've seen. I'm going to pick him against Josh Allen. But there's a scenario where they either get this pretty limited Bills team in round two, if they get past the Chargers, or they get a Jaguar team on the road.
32:22 Speaker 01 Right.
32:23 Bill Simmons? That I wouldn't trust either. So it lined up pretty nicely for the Pats. It probably lined up the worst for the Broncos as a one seed.
32:30 Speaker 01 It lined up nicely for everyone because the other team is fine, you know, not great. I think that's good.
32:37 Bill Simmons? With the Broncos, like you don't play in round one. That's great.
32:39 Speaker 01 Right.
32:40 Bill Simmons? But then round two, you play the worst team that's left, which is almost definitely going to be a five, six, seven team.
32:46 Speaker 01 Yeah.
32:46 Bill Simmons? And those are all teams that might be scarier than the two, three, four teams.
32:49 Speaker 01 Yep.
32:50 Bill Simmons? You know?
32:50 Speaker 01 Exactly.
32:51 Bill Simmons? Or at least the five, six teams.
32:52 Speaker 01 I'd be scared if anyone came to play me if I was Denver. I mean, you're, it's, uh, it's uncommon that they score north of 20. Just look at, look at the slate, whether the game matters or not.
33:06 Bill Simmons? The MVP battle.
33:08 Speaker 01 Let's do it.
33:08 Bill Simmons? I looked at the odds. Have the odds changed at all?
33:12 Bill Simmons? This was a big topic all week. Now it's going to become even a hotter topic. Stafford, oh, Stafford's up now. He's minus 150. Drake may, uh, plus 120.
33:23 Bill Simmons? I don't know what to say anymore. I mean, they're, they're playing the three win Cardinals. They're throwing it. They're throwing it on inside the five yard line. They're just trying to get Stafford touchdowns. And everybody likes Stafford and he's a great guy. And apparently that might be enough for him to win because, uh, he's a future Hall of Famer and this will help. I always thought we should just pick the person that deserved the award. You seem to think it's Stafford.
33:44 Speaker 01 I did too. And that's why I should be Stafford. By the way, shame on you for not betting over two and a half touchdowns for Stafford because of course that's what they were going to do today. Right? It was an embarrassing thing. They didn't want to lose three in a row going into the playoffs. So they were going to keep those guys in as much as they could. And there was the prospect of playing the Panthers. Or, uh, the Bucks, but we could go back and forth. I, I'm going to say this. I'm going to say, I think it's close.
34:07 Speaker 01 And now that I said that, we're gonna go at it like the other one like murdered the our sister, the other sister, but I don't know.
34:14 Bill Simmons? I think it's fine to have an opinion either way.
34:16 Speaker 01 Well, it's close, but that's why I thought it was crazy to crazy overreaction led by you and your Boston beanie cap last week when maybe went nuts on the Jets and you know, Stafford had a subpar game against Atlanta. It should be the whole year, shouldn't it? And that's why it's close.
34:36 Bill Simmons? Well, anytime, anytime you could lead somebody to a five seed, you gotta send them the hardware. If he got to the five seed, congratulations.
34:44 Speaker 01 A five seed on the Patriots? Or you think that he would have gone 16 and 1?
34:48 Bill Simmons? The strength of schedule thing has already been debunked.
34:51 Speaker 01 Has it?
34:51 Bill Simmons? Yeah, because the, the, there's all this stuff. If you go by EPA, may actually played harder defenses this year than Stafford did.
34:59 Speaker 01 Uh huh.
35:00 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
35:01 Speaker 01 What do you say? You, you have like top 16.
35:03 Bill Simmons? Well, they always talk about like strength of schedule. It's like you're, you're just playing the other team's defense.
35:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
35:09 Bill Simmons? Right? You may is not out there on, he's not playing linebacker too.
35:12 Speaker 01 Right.
35:13 Bill Simmons? The defenses that he played versus the defense Stafford's played was pretty even. And nobody seems to factor in the Puka Nakua part, or the fact that he has a better offensive line, or the fact that May actually can scramble and use his legs. Do you know he's fourth in rushing this year for QBs? He's rushed for 38 first downs.
35:33 Speaker 01 He's great.
35:33 Bill Simmons? He's led the league in completion percentage and yards per attempt. I just like, I would ask everybody, if you switch these guys, what are the records in the two teams? Like just go to that.
35:43 Speaker 01 Stafford's not worse than whatever your Patriots ended up. He's not. It's fine.
35:48 Bill Simmons? Is Stafford walking in week eight? Have you seen our offensive line?
35:51 Speaker 01 I don't know. I would ask people, if your guy lost to the Raiders, the worst team in football, should you be even eligible?
35:58 Bill Simmons? All right.
35:58 Speaker 01 Throw out week one.
35:59 Bill Simmons? These teams practiced three times.
36:01 Speaker 01 Count week 17 times five. That's what we should do.
36:05 Bill Simmons? How many teams have led the, the, how many quarterbacks have led the league in yards per attempt and completion of percentage in the same year? How many quarterbacks have done that?
36:12 Speaker 01 Is it just, I don't know. How many? Three?
36:14 Bill Simmons? It's two. It's 2001 Kurt Warner and 2007 Tom Brady. MVP, MVP.
36:20 Bill Simmons? So we're just gonna throw those out now.
36:21 Speaker 01 I mean, I, I think there's only one guy who's thrown for over 45 touchdown passes who hasn't won MVP. And it was like, it was Breeze, but in all of the history, but, and two weeks ago, Stafford threw for 457 and three touchdowns against that Seattle defense that you were jerking off to yesterday. So I don't, I don't get it. You had nine touchdowns versus the Jets and Dolphins.
36:41 Bill Simmons? I jerked off to the Seattle defense. I was trying, hoping that wasn't going to come out.
36:45 Speaker 01 They were gonna find out. So.
36:46 Bill Simmons? Drake was gonna win the MVP until this tweet. For me, Matt Stafford blew the MVP in the two games versus Seattle, especially the MNF disaster in Atlanta. I don't care how many TD passes he has thrown. Congrats, Drake May. That's from Skip Bayless. That was the moment Jake May lost the MVP. It's over. Damn it. Why did he have to get involved?
37:09 Speaker 01 He didn't give it to Shador? I'm shocked. Wow.
37:12 Bill Simmons? Shador threw for 111 yards today.
37:14 Speaker 01 Yeah. In your defense, I will say, playing on the road during the Shaky's game could be a strike against Stafford. That, that might be a disqualifying factor. Yeah.
37:25 Bill Simmons? I don't know if Vrabel is the coach of the year. And if you said it's Mike McDonald, I would be like, there's great arguments for him too. I don't feel the same way about MVP. I will say this about Vrabel. Beyond the 10 wins and the culture stuff and, you know, he brought in a lot of the players, which I don't think you should necessarily get credit for as the coach. Right? He's also the front office guy. I don't think that should count. Two things he did in the first part of the season that I think really mattered. I'm going to get emotional here talking about my guy Reeves.
37:55 Speaker 01 Let's do it.
37:56 Bill Simmons? Not really emotional, but, um, Remondre Stevenson had that game against the Steelers. Five turnovers in that game. Somehow the Steelers win 21-14 and all the Pats fans are like, let's waive Remondre Stevenson. Enough is enough with this. He's been fumbling this. It's never going to get solved.
38:13 Speaker 01 Right.
38:13 Bill Simmons? Give this guy a suitcase, get him the fuck out of here. And Vrabel went out of his way to be like,
38:20 Bill Simmons? This is our running back. Like, he's just gotta take care of that. He's gotta take better care of the ball. We're not quitting on him because he fumbled. That's ridiculous. Like, he's gonna do better. We believe in this guy. Same thing happened with the kicker, the rookie kicker they had who missed a kick in the Miami game. Vrabel brought him back out to make the game-winning kick because he was like, "This is my guy. I believe in you." Like, he, there's something about him that really makes the players believe that he believes in them. And they all talk about it. And I don't know, I think it's a really hard place to get to as a coach. So that, that would be my case for him.
38:54 Speaker 01 I think it does seem like he's caring and whatever. Like, you know, that's a good guy to have around and the players believe in him. But I also thought he looked at the schedule and said, "Oh, my God. You see who we have to play? Don't worry about it. You can miss seven kicks in the next two weeks. You could fumble five times in the next three games."
39:11 Bill Simmons? You're 11 and 6.
39:12 Speaker 01 We're okay. We play the Raiders four times.
39:14 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Will Campbell said, I interviewed him after the game today, and he was, he was talking about how great he was. And he was like, "I never want to play for anyone else."
39:21 Speaker 01 Wow.
39:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
39:23 Speaker 01 What a psychopath.
39:24 Bill Simmons? Did a great job. We went from having one of the worst coaches we've ever had on any Boston sports team last year to having a guy where the guys on the team were like, "I never want to play for another human being."
39:34 Speaker 01 Do you feel people are hating you guys a little more now? You think you're getting there?
39:38 Bill Simmons? No, I don't think anyone takes them seriously. We haven't beaten anybody.
39:40 Speaker 01 So you're gonna have to...
39:42 Bill Simmons? Who's the most hateable of all the seeds? It's not New England. Drake May hasn't pissed anyone off yet.
39:47 Speaker 01 I know. That's, that's something else we're really missing, you know? I don't know. I feel like your coach is arrogant and you're...
39:54 Bill Simmons? I mean, it's probably Philly because their own fans hate Philly. So that's, they probably have the most people that actually hate them.
40:00 Speaker 01 They won last year. Yeah.
40:01 Bill Simmons? And they won last year.
40:02 Speaker 01 Couple potential felons on your roster. But yeah, no, there isn't, there isn't, there isn't that one, yeah, the root against Mahomes, root against this one, root against, I mean Lamar would have been fun, too.
40:13 Bill Simmons? I gotta say, I genuinely hate the Steelers. They drive me nuts.
40:17 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. He's the...
40:18 Bill Simmons? Just the Steelers in general, the fucking way they win games drives me nuts. I can't wait to see somebody drive a steak in their heart, Michael Myers style.
40:25 Speaker 01 Wow.
40:26 Bill Simmons? Matthew Stafford, 13 one-yard passing touchdowns this year. Set the record.
40:31 Speaker 01 All right, fine. So take away the 13.
40:33 Bill Simmons? One year in passing touchdowns.
40:35 Speaker 01 Look, Tom Brady thrived on a one-yard pick from the, from the two for years and years. You, you didn't, never said a word. It's fine.
40:45 Bill Simmons? Pukunakua, 166 targets, 129 catches, 1,715 yards, 10 touchdowns, 666 yards after the catch. And it felt like 1,200.
40:57 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
40:58 Bill Simmons? Adams, 789 yards, 14 touchdowns.
41:02 Speaker 01 Right. I don't know what to say. Someone's got to catch these balls, right? So he's got good players.
41:08 Bill Simmons? Can I praise myself really quickly? Before the air, one of my worst takes was that I thought Trevion Henderson could be like rookie Jamar,
41:17 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah, yeah.
41:17 Bill Simmons? Jameer Gibbs.
41:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:19 Bill Simmons? And then he was terrible for five weeks and it was involved it into the pantheon of dumbest things I ever said.
41:23 Speaker 01 Do they compare statistically? Oh, no.
41:26 Bill Simmons? 945 yards for Gibbs rushing.
41:29 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:29 Bill Simmons? Henderson finished with 911. 10 rushing TDs for Gibbs, nine for Henderson. 52 for 316 receiving for Gibbs, 35 for 221 for Henderson.
41:40 Speaker 01 Really? It's that close?
41:41 Bill Simmons? It's pretty close.
41:42 Speaker 01 Yeah.
41:43 Bill Simmons? And he got, he got better every month and really was starting to work in traffic. But I don't think he's Jameer Gibbs, but at least I don't feel like needed anymore.
41:51 Speaker 01 Can we go back to real quick? Oh, what, what are you gonna do? This is more, I mean, I,
41:55 Bill Simmons? No.
41:55 Speaker 01 What are you gonna do? More Drake May stuff?
41:57 Bill Simmons? I just had some quick stats. Do you know who won the rushing title?
42:00 Speaker 01 Uh, who won the rushing title? This is, uh, it wasn't Derrick Henry. Oh, was it Bijon?
42:07 Bill Simmons? It was James Cook.
42:08 Speaker 01 Oh, Cook. Yeah. Okay.
42:10 Bill Simmons? 1621.
42:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
42:11 Bill Simmons? Do you know who won the receiving title?
42:15 Speaker 01 I don't know why it's, uh, was it JSN?
42:18 Bill Simmons? It was. I thought it was Puka. JSN had,
42:20 Speaker 01 They were very close last week.
42:21 Bill Simmons? 1793 was his winner. So who's our fantasy player of the year? It's McCaffrey still.
42:27 Speaker 01 I think it's still has to be McCaffrey. I think he won a lot of leagues, but I want to do, I do want to say something about Nakua. And I feel like all the catches he makes are like, if our fathers watched those in the seventies, they'd be like, this, this is the best thing I've ever seen. And I'd be like, Dad, he had 10 better than that this year. That catch you just saw. And he's like, and they would never believe me, but these guys, and especially Nakua, is now able to go up in the air. And just grab it with one hand and kinda, I'm not gonna say push off, but create enough separation with the other hand that it's an easy interception. It is spectacular to see. Like, so when people say, why do you love football? It's the same thing over and over.
43:11 Speaker 01 It's like, no, I could watch that a thousand times. I still don't know what I'm watching.
43:15 Bill Simmons? I feel like he's the best skill position player we watched this year.
43:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:19 Bill Simmons? And I thought, uh, JSN was awesome. But when you throw in his blocking and just, you always feel his presence in the game. And then he'll, he always has two holy shit plays every game. Like, it's kind of amazing. He doesn't have 150 yards a game. It feels like he should.
43:33 Speaker 01 The catches are insane. The way he, um, lunges for first downs, like extra yardage and stuff. I don't feel like JSN does that quite that much, but, uh, he's spectacular.
43:42 Bill Simmons? I like that he's a little, little kinda out there, too. I feel like we've been missing that lately with our NFL players.
43:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
43:49 Bill Simmons? Like, we, we, we, we didn't have enough weirdos there for a while.
43:52 Speaker 01 Especially with the wide receiver position.
43:52 Bill Simmons? Need the guys to go on the podcasts and just say really crazy stuff that starts a two-day news cycle. Um, quickly, some of the other games. Broncos, Chargers.
44:03 Bill Simmons? I, I, I just can't describe how bad Trey Lance was. I actually felt like that was a winnable game for the Chargers. I don't, did the Broncos offense have a touchdown drive?
44:13 Speaker 01 Did they have a touchdown drive?
44:14 Bill Simmons? I don't think they did.
44:16 Speaker 01 Oh, no, because it was a defensive score.
44:17 Bill Simmons? Or maybe until the very end of the game?
44:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. I, uh, I, I looked at that line. A Trey Lance minus 140 to throw an interception. Like, this isn't a guy that throws, you know, he comes, throws four times a game. If he has to throw 25, he's gonna toss one up. He should have had four today. He had one.
44:33 Bill Simmons? Right. Well, that was the bet. The Purdy, Bryce Young will both throw a pick was the bet of the weekend.
44:39 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
44:39 Bill Simmons? I don't think anyone was offering that. Giants, Dallas. Giants win again. What is it? They, in their last, in their last three years, they've won half of their games in week 17 or week 18? There's some stat that was going around today that they screwed up their pick. Um, your team got a better first round pick, but you don't have it.
44:57 Speaker 01 We don't have, we don't get it. I, I thought, I, I don't know who that's more embarrassing for that win. The Giants or the Cowboys, but also good for the Giants. I know you hate this, but that's the spirit of athleticism. Just go out there and win. Games played on the field, Simmons.
45:12 Bill Simmons? Really one of your worst takes.
45:13 Speaker 01 Spreadsheet. Why is this a bad take? You had, by the way, you had seven, the seven bottom teams, the bottom seven teams. Four of them won.
45:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
45:22 Speaker 01 One of them, the other ones, one of them was Arizona who hung for a while. One of them was, uh, who was the other? Oh, Cam Ward, who was up seven, nothing before he got hurt. And then one was the Jets. I'm proud of those seven. I'm proud of this league.
45:36 Bill Simmons? I think it's easier to do when there's no consensus number one pick and you don't really care where you land in the top seven. Probably.
45:43 Speaker 01 Okay.
45:44 Bill Simmons? My guess.
45:44 Speaker 01 Remember that for the NBA, cause I don't know who everyone's going nuts for this year.
45:48 Bill Simmons? What's your final grade for the Cowboys season? Probably don't do the Quinn and Williams trading over again if you're, redo on that one?
45:55 Speaker 01 I hated a lot of it. I really did. I don't know. I didn't enjoy maybe two or three games. C minus. I mean, imagine they could have, it's so hard to get to 500 with 17 games. And they could have been eight, by the way, they could have been five and one in the division had they beaten the Giants. Imagine we were five and one and didn't make the playoff. That would have been, so I'm glad they lost.
46:14 Bill Simmons? So you finished seven, nine and one.
46:16 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:17 Bill Simmons? What was the over under? That's, that went under.
46:19 Speaker 01 It was eight and a half. They were.
46:21 Bill Simmons? Oh, wow.
46:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:25 Bill Simmons? Then we have, what else? What other games there? Oh, Colts, Jags. They ran a double fake punt. Never saw that before. That was the highlight.
46:31 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:31 Bill Simmons? Did you see that?
46:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
46:32 Bill Simmons? Did a fake punt, it worked and then they lined up again to punt and the tech, the, the Jags had 12 guys in the field were completely confused. Had to call a timeout and they were like, yeah.
46:43 Speaker 01 I wish they would have put a camera on Riley Leonard. They were like, all right, well, I know that's where I come out, right?
46:49 Bill Simmons? Yeah. That was a strange game. Uh, Browns Bengals, we have to talk about.
46:54 Speaker 01 I really don't. This is just.
46:56 Bill Simmons? This was the one, I would have won everything today for the actual bets. And this was the one that I had tied to a one awesome tease that would have won, except for the fact that the Bengals, they're down 12 to six in the second quarter and the Browns have 27 total yards and we're just texting each other like, of course, why didn't we see this? Joe Burrow looks like he's not even bothered. Looks like he's about to go out brunch, like he's trying to figure out if he wants eggs Benedict or a waffle.
47:27 Bill Simmons? They, the whole team looks like they can't decide which one of them wants to quit on Zach Taylor the most. They have Higgins and Chase who are making 30 million combined. None of them run pass routes for more than five yards. They just run outs down the sidelines. Nobody's over middle, nobody's deep. It's like they don't want to get anyone hurt. And yet they're still winning the game and terrible kickoff as usual with them and the Browns have to go 30 yards. Shador finally puts together two plays, Browns get a field goal, Browns win the game. And during all this, Myles Garrett became our sack king.
47:59 Speaker 01 Yeah.
47:59 Bill Simmons? And it was just an egregious loss. And I thought he was going to be the first coach fired, but it turned out to be Raheem Morris.
48:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, maybe by a few hours. I mean, I was steaming mad for a long time after this game. This game killed because you're right, the body language was awful for both quarterbacks. Like Joe Burrow is like, Joe cool, Joe too cool to be playing this game, week 18, didn't care. And then you have Shador who like, you know, converts their third first down of the game, two and a half hours in and somehow finds the camera and is like mugging to the camera. What is going on with these guys? Yeah. But since he was happy to have like three possessions in the second half, there was no urgency. There was no nothing, so they were either going to go ahead at the end. You knew they weren't going to make the two point conversion. And I think you made the best point, where you have, you're paying these guys all this
48:47 Speaker 01 money and this guy has to get rid of the ball in two and a half seconds because he can't dodge a sack.
48:53 Bill Simmons? Cause they can't block anybody.
48:54 Speaker 01 Listen, I'm not trying to, I don't want to be emotional here because they lost me a lot of money. He's not in my top four anymore. I don't know who's in the top four.
49:01 Bill Simmons? I'm out as well.
49:02 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he's out for me as well. I thought he had a terrible year. I didn't understand any of the stuff he was doing as like the leader of the team. It was just very strange behavior. It was more NBA than NFL from him. This is like the kind of shit people do in the NBA when they're trying to get traded. I didn't get it. I mean, Cleveland wins the game. Sanders is 11 for 22 for 111. Their top rusher is 10 for 32. Their top receiver was one catch for 23 yards. They punted five times.
49:32 Speaker 01 Yeah.
49:33 Bill Simmons? And they got two defensive touchdowns, right?
49:36 Speaker 01 Somehow they had the ball the whole second half, but yeah. 12 QBR for Shador today. 18 on the year, which is the worst of any Browns quarterback ever. Can you imagine be having the worst QBR of any quarterback ever? So they're obviously, they're going to move on from him.
49:55 Bill Simmons? Pretty tough. They, I mean, if you're making the case for him, I guess he lost some weapons. He lost Judkins near the end of the year. And I'm done.
50:03 Speaker 01 Fannin was out. Sure, that's fine, but.
50:06 Bill Simmons? Garrett's our new sack king. I liked when he kind of complained about the direction of the team.
50:10 Speaker 01 Yeah.
50:11 Bill Simmons? After nine months ago, he signed the giant extension with that team or whatever he did it. It's like you, you, you knew, you knew what team you were on. This is a quarter century of just them being schmucks. What did you think was going to be different when you signed the extension? You took the money. You don't get to say anything. It's like when the NBA takes ESPN's money and then they complain about ESPN, the way they cover the week. It's like, you keep taking their money. You don't have to take their money. But Garrett, it's like, just shut up, dude. You took the money. You can't say anything now.
50:40 Speaker 01 I think he's, I think it's all lip service anyway. I mean, he was so happy. That sack record is basically, is the Super Bowl for him, honestly. And he got it and he knocked it out and his parents were there and everything. But they really probably should have let him get the record like in the first quarter and get it out of the way. And then maybe.
50:56 Bill Simmons? The Bengals, just to try to win the game.
50:58 Speaker 01 Yeah, maybe with a sad a little bit. I don't know. What a disaster.
51:01 Bill Simmons? He was a maniac in the fourth quarter. I mean, he was like, it looked like somebody in a video game turned off the off sides penalty or something.
51:08 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah. His lineup, middle linebacker was trying everything he could to get free. But no, I mean, with that 2.5 seconds and Burrow getting it out in less than that, you're going to throw interceptions. If you have to throw it that quickly, you're going to get balls tipped at the line of scrimmage and the fricking Browns are going to run it back and you're going to lose that way. So I don't know what happened to him.
51:28 Bill Simmons? Vegas Chiefs, I guess was the senior bowl. Looks like Pete Carroll's is going to be gone. That stuff's starting to leak out.
51:36 Speaker 01 Does it?
51:36 Bill Simmons? So once they were locked into their pick, they didn't care. Chiefs didn't care. I don't even know who won the game. Seahawks, Niners, Saturday night.
51:44 Bill Simmons? So I threaded the needle on this one. I went to the Celtics Clippers game.
51:49 Speaker 01 Yeah.
51:51 Bill Simmons? But that felt like the Seahawks had the game in hand when we were in the car.
51:55 Speaker 01 Right.
51:55 Bill Simmons? I was still watching it before the game, but it was a pretty dominant performance by Seattle. Like I was actually felt like there's, they played, that's another one. They played that game 20 times. Think they probably win convincingly like 15 of them, right?
52:13 Speaker 01 No doubt. And I don't know, like, I was nervous because you love Seattle. I love Seattle. Darnold had like a million and a half dollars in incentives to gain in this game. He went against like the team that was like 29th in pressures. They had no sacks, you know, last in sacks. I was like, oh my God, he's going to be able to do what he wants. Trent Williams is out. I was like, I'm too high on Seattle. I gotta check my blood sugar here. And it was like a miracle. It was 10-3 at half. Like they should have had like 30 points in there. So, I mean, 28 wins for Darnold is really, you can't really, we like to make fun of them. And if you looked at our text chain, it was probably unfair to Darnold, but.
52:49 Bill Simmons? Please don't, please don't look at any of our text chains.
52:52 Speaker 01 Is he outside the top three quarterbacks you trust in this playoffs? It can't be, right?
52:58 Bill Simmons? That I don't trust?
52:59 Speaker 01 That you trust. Like you'd say Josh Allen.
53:02 Bill Simmons? I don't trust Sam Darnold at all. Can, can you make a different list? I think the moment they play a good defense, I don't think the Seahawk fans trust him either.
53:10 Speaker 01 He's got 28 wins. He knows how to win.
53:13 Bill Simmons? When he's playing the Niners defense, it's one thing, but I do think there's a scenario where he's playing a good defense, where you're just not going to feel good if you bet on them or you're rooting for him. He's just shaky enough at all times. I get it. 28 and 6, but that, that was one of the reasons I loved the Seahawks so much in that game. Cause the Niners defense is so bad. And then they don't have Trent Williams. I actually think, so, and this might have changed, but this was the case five hours ago. The Niners are 22 to one to win the Super Bowl. And I don't necessarily think they're gonna win the Super Bowl. But I think those odds are a little out of whack just because of what happened the last two weeks. They're gonna get Trent Williams back. Their receivers are gonna get more healthy. McCaffrey's gonna get more healthy. And, you know.
53:58 Bill Simmons? I don't know.
54:00 Speaker 01 That defense is what scares me, right? Like we saw the Bears score on them, you know, only touchdowns. Like I said, Seattle should have scored as much as they wanted, really. That's what, you know, it was gonna be a nice little thing if they were gonna play all their games at home. But again, that's like not a team I would bet to win two games. So they play the Eagles.
54:19 Bill Simmons? Yeah, but they're playing the Eagles who, you know, can just go into a coma offensively for two hours. It's not like they're gonna be coming up with any tricks.
54:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
54:28 Bill Simmons? You know? That's another one where I wouldn't feel good about throwing. This episode is brought to you by Sony Pictures Classics. A perfect crime film, says the Daily Beast. John Tortore gives a career best performance. Don't miss the acclaimed new thriller, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Tortore stars as an aging master pickpocket whose latest score puts him in the crosshairs of a ruthless crime family. It's also starring Giancarlo Esposito, Tadiana Maslany, Will Price, and our guy, Steve Buscemi. See the film that the LA Times calls instantly classic, The Only Living Pickpocket in New York. Now playing in theaters nationwide. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right.
55:12 Bill Simmons? It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents, 21+. 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.
55:49 Bill Simmons? This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected? Sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead? But what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save, savings vary. Eagles and a tease. Before we do the playoff stuff, got an email from a guy named Kilton.
56:23 Speaker 01 You haven't read emails in like 24 years.
56:25 Bill Simmons? I know, I've been going through the thing. Well, it's good. It's, we're trying to spur up the pod. He said, "Not really a mailbag question. Pretty much just to thank you for giving guys something to make friendships over. One of my best friends from college became my friend because I told him to guess the line for a Giants Rams game while we were waiting in line for a bar. He called me Cousin Sal and we discussed your pod for hours rather than chasing women. We still keep in touch weekly, including me sending Joe Not House, this is his friend Joe, a picture of the Shaky's pizza mug I found in my fiance's grandparents' cabinet this Christmas.
56:59 Speaker 01 Nice.
56:59 Bill Simmons? For a mailbag question, "Could you give us some sort of time travel to what you thought of D-Rose after the 2011 playoffs? Thanks for bringing you guys together, BS. Go Bears." We like Derrick Rose, that's our answer. Anyway, thanks, Kilton.
57:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, thanks, Kilton.
57:12 Bill Simmons? I thought Derrick Rose was gonna be one of the best players of his generation.
57:16 Speaker 01 Of course, yeah. He was, in college, he was dominant in Memphis. Yeah, I mean, you'll speak more about Derrick Rose than I can. If someone called you Cousin Sal again, though, I think that deserves a punch right in the chin, right in the kisser. I wouldn't take that from anyone.
57:31 Bill Simmons? Playoff blueprint. Number one buys Denver and Seattle. They put out the schedule and we knew what the Shaky's game was gonna be. It was no surprise.
57:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
57:39 Bill Simmons? It was like knowing who's gonna win the Oscar two months ahead of time. It's like the lady from Hamnet. It's like, guess what? I'm announcing now she's gonna win Best Actress.
57:49 Speaker 01 But this is kind of an A-list team they're getting with the Rams, right? Like, cause it kinda had to be, it's weird that it's not an AFC South team, but I understand why it isn't. But they're getting like a blue chip team in the Rams. A lot of people think could win it.
58:02 Bill Simmons? Well, it's interesting.
58:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
58:04 Bill Simmons? Because Steelers Texans normally would be the Shaky's game.
58:08 Speaker 01 Right.
58:09 Bill Simmons? But I think when there's an eight, nine playoff team, you throw all the other rules out. I think that's just automatic Shakys. I don't know if they've ever deviated from that over the years.
58:18 Speaker 01 That's probably smart.
58:20 Bill Simmons? Shakys. It's just they go hand in hand. We've seen eight, nine teams win this. Right? What was your favorite of all the shaky games? I was thinking mine was the TiVo game when he threw the 80 yard overtime pass to win.
58:32 Speaker 01 That was a good one against Pittsburgh.
58:33 Bill Simmons? And then prayed in midfield for five minutes.
58:35 Speaker 01 Yeah. Eight, nine.
58:36 Bill Simmons? I think that was my favorite. We actually watched that at Shakys.
58:39 Speaker 01 Beast Mode was a Shakys game.
58:41 Bill Simmons? Beast Mode was a Shakys game. That was a really good one. That was probably the most entertaining Shakys game.
58:46 Speaker 01 Yeah. Otherwise it was a lot of Matt Schaub and a lot of, lot of bad stuff.
58:50 Bill Simmons? Wasn't, was Trevor Lawrence, Herbert, whatever that comeback was, was that a night game?
58:54 Speaker 01 That was a night game.
58:55 Bill Simmons? The Shakys game?
58:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, I was out, I was out to dinner that night.
58:57 Bill Simmons? Cause normally the key to the Shakys game is it's Matt Schaub and you can't remember one thing that happened.
59:02 Speaker 01 Right.
59:03 Bill Simmons? Somebody won 20 to 10.
59:05 Speaker 01 So there's gonna be a bad game. Yeah. You could, for the most part, this is gonna be a lousy game.
59:10 Bill Simmons? Probably gonna be a bad game.
59:11 Speaker 01 They, they put, also they wouldn't, if they can get Aaron Rodgers at night, they're gonna do that. I just still think it's a chase.
59:18 Bill Simmons? The surprise to me, I sent my guesses to you in the morning. The surprise to me was, I thought for sure Pat's Chargers was gonna be the Saturday night game.
59:25 Speaker 01 I did too.
59:25 Bill Simmons? The Pats have usually been Saturday night. I don't know if they have a deal with Kraft or whatever. They made Bears Packers Saturday night on Amazon. Then Sunday goes Jags Bills, Eagles Niners.
59:37 Speaker 01 CBS Fox. Yep.
59:39 Bill Simmons? And then Chargers at Patriots, Sunday night. And we're doing a live podcast, the first one we're doing on Netflix.
59:46 Speaker 01 Wow.
59:47 Bill Simmons? It's right after that game. It's like they're trying to kill me. So.
59:50 Speaker 01 Do you think that's fixed? Do you think the league fixed that?
59:54 Bill Simmons? I don't know who fixed it. Do I wish the Patriots were playing right before we did a live podcast? I don't.
59:59 Speaker 01 Oh, this could be great.
1:00:01 Bill Simmons? I was really looking forward to this Saturday. Should I just have like a therapist in the room, like sitting, sitting in the chair over there, like just kind of.
1:00:09 Speaker 01 I like it. Yeah, I have a lot of therapists. I don't think one's gonna do it.
1:00:12 Bill Simmons? I don't know if there's been a, I don't know if we've come on live, because we've only been doing this for a couple of years where we've been live podcasts where you could see us. I don't think we've had a huge Pats game. We had like the Bills Pats game in like week six, whenever that was.
1:00:25 Speaker 01 Right, right, right.
1:00:26 Bill Simmons? This is like an actual like real stakes game.
1:00:29 Speaker 01 Oh, and you're so, you're so, I'm not gonna say convinced they're gonna win, but this is the team you wanted to face a month ago.
1:00:36 Bill Simmons? I don't know if I, I don't know how much to trust this Pats team. But yeah, do I want to play the team that's missing their left and right tackle? I do. And as their quarterback who has his left hand in a cast, that sounds pretty good.
1:00:48 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:00:48 Bill Simmons? You know, who got waxed by Jacksonville five weeks ago, that like that would have been my pick, but I don't, I didn't feel comfortable against any of these teams. So I just don't want to end up on a chalkboard for the Chargers.
1:01:00 Speaker 01 I know. Oh, Netflix. It's gonna be good.
1:01:03 Bill Simmons? I will say, I don't ever remember the Pats losing to the Chargers. I know it's happened. I just feel like we've had their number over the years. It's been one of those teams we've consistently beat.
1:01:13 Speaker 01 Just set it up. Just set it up. I like it.
1:01:15 Bill Simmons? I'll put that on the chalkboard.
1:01:16 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
1:01:19 Bill Simmons? And then Monday night, Steelers Texans.
1:01:22 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:01:23 Bill Simmons? Just guaranteed that that's a weird game. You can just lock that down now.
1:01:28 Speaker 01 Yeah. I would, um, yeah, I mean, what about now? You would rather have Chargers than Texans?
1:01:38 Speaker 01 It's close.
1:01:39 Bill Simmons? I think I'd rather, if you think Chargers going west coast to east coast. Chargers with a pretty shaky offensive line.
1:01:49 Bill Simmons? I think their defense is good, though. They can run the ball. They have a couple of good receivers, you know, that it won't be an easy game, but it's a game the Patriots, a 14 and 3 team should take care of business at home.
1:01:59 Speaker 01 I love it. I'm so psyched for this. This is gonna be good.
1:02:03 Bill Simmons? But it's a young Patriots team.
1:02:05 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
1:02:07 Bill Simmons? Sunday night could be cold. I don't know who that helps. I don't think that helps the Chargers necessarily. If you're thinking about home field advantage, if you had, say, Patriots, Jags, Pittsburgh on a Monday night, Bears on a Saturday night, Eagles, Carolina on a Saturday afternoon, I would say Steelers would have the kind of the biggest home, home field advantage of all those, right?
1:02:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. I mean, it's not the Eagles. They didn't even want to play at home. And we saw what they did. Uh, it's not gonna be the Jags. Yeah. I was wondering, what do you think the desired Super Bowl matchup for the league is and for NBC who holds the game? I think there's only one answer.
1:02:45 Bill Simmons? Wouldn't it be Josh Allen versus the Rams? Or Josh Allen versus the Bears?
1:02:50 Speaker 01 I, I still think Bills Eagles. I think you get the defending champ in there. Think that's a number one.
1:02:56 Bill Simmons? Really? Does anyone like watching the Eagles?
1:02:59 Speaker 01 They're the champs.
1:02:59 Bill Simmons? I'm gonna ask everyone I meet this week if they enjoy watching the Eagles. Cause their own fans don't enjoy them.
1:03:05 Speaker 01 Yeah, but watching them get beat would be fun. So you think Rams Bills?
1:03:10 Bill Simmons? Playoff odds, Seattle and the Rams have the best odds, plus, plus, plus 440 and plus 490 to win the Super Bowl. Denver's three at plus 850, so is Philly at plus 850. This is on FanDuel. Buffalo's 10 to 1, New England's 11 to 1, Houston's 12 to 1. From a conference bet,
1:03:31 Bill Simmons? New England plus 460. I, I mean, they, they're so good at pricing these odds now. I don't think any of these are worth it. The only way it's worth it is if you're going nuts and you're doing like, you know, Niners 10 to 1 to win the conference or something.
1:03:43 Speaker 01 That's pretty crazy that the Rams are plus four. They're so close to the top there and they have to play the extra game. They're 490, Seattle's 440. And ideally they would play each other in the second round unless there was a further upset in there. That's, uh, that's giving the Rams a lot of credit or they're just giving them a win automatically.
1:04:01 Bill Simmons? Don't you feel like you can throw the ball on the Rams?
1:04:04 Speaker 01 Yeah, I feel like you could do a lot.
1:04:05 Bill Simmons? I think every, every playoff team in the NFC can throw that would be able to throw the ball on them, I think.
1:04:11 Speaker 01 Mm hmm.
1:04:12 Bill Simmons? So Denver's plus 280 to win the conference.
1:04:15 Speaker 01 Not worth it.
1:04:15 Bill Simmons? So two games. So that would be, let's say, first round, they're the one seed.
1:04:24 Bill Simmons? If, let's say all the favorites win, except for the four or five. So Houston at Denver is probably in the four to seven range.
1:04:35 Speaker 01 Well, they'd have to be a pick 'em for both games for plus 280 to be worth it, right?
1:04:40 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that's why they they figured these out. I feel like we had such better stuff here 10 years ago.
1:04:45 Speaker 01 I know. Need the Chiefs back.
1:04:48 Bill Simmons? AI just ruined gambling. All right, guess the lines, round one.
1:04:55 Speaker 01 All right.
1:04:56 Bill Simmons? Can I clinch the season tonight?
1:04:58 Speaker 01 Oh, I think you can.
1:04:59 Bill Simmons? I'd like to do that. I don't need enough tension. I have enough tension next week.
1:05:02 Speaker 01 All right, you're winning 10 to 8, and there's only, um, two or three more weeks after this. There's three. So you can clinch a tie at least.
1:05:13 Bill Simmons? Rams, Panthers in Carolina, the shaky's game.
1:05:20 Bill Simmons? I'm happy for the fans of Carolina. Not a lot of good times with Carolina the last 10 years.
1:05:25 Speaker 01 Right.
1:05:27 Bill Simmons? I have the Rams favored by seven and a half.
1:05:31 Speaker 01 All right. I haven't looked.
1:05:33 Bill Simmons? You haven't looked?
1:05:34 Speaker 01 I had plus eight. It is now 10 and a half. So I edge you out there.
1:05:40 Bill Simmons? Oh, my Lord.
1:05:41 Speaker 01 I guess they just can't make it. They're not letting you do the two-team teaser thing with them.
1:05:48 Speaker 01 It's a little bit high.
1:05:49 Bill Simmons? How many double-digit, uh, underdogs have we had in round one?
1:05:54 Speaker 01 This does feel like, was Seattle, New Orleans was nine, I think. Not too many others.
1:05:59 Bill Simmons? I thought that was higher. I thought that was like nine and a half.
1:06:01 Speaker 01 Oh, really? Yeah. I mean, it was nine and a half. It was right in there.
1:06:06 Bill Simmons? I'm telling you, I know I sound crazy. I don't mind this Panthers team.
1:06:11 Speaker 01 I still don't know what you mean by that. Like, you don't mind watching them, or you would you would actually take them in this bet?
1:06:16 Bill Simmons? I don't think they're as bad as like the eight, the typical eight, nine NFC South, like. I thought a lot of stuff went against them in that Tampa game. They kept fighting and coming back. Flicker was bad.
1:06:28 Speaker 01 They don't have a good flicker.
1:06:29 Bill Simmons? From the playbook. Couple their receivers get open. I don't mind that tremble. I think T Mac is like a legitimate stud now. You know, you always wonder why they just don't chuck it downfield, but the, the problem is Bryce could just completely shit the bed and you have no chance, but I don't think their defense is that bad.
1:06:46 Speaker 01 I mean, they beat them already, right? So they beat them by three and now they're getting 10 and a half. That is a big number when you're looking at it that way, but this is embarrassing.
1:06:55 Bill Simmons? Rams just fired their special teams coach couple, couple of weeks ago.
1:06:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:06:58 Bill Simmons? They still give up big plays that Wilson got open on them three times today, got wide open down the field.
1:07:05 Speaker 01 Yep. Look, I thought they looked a lot better these last few weeks. They haven't, but maybe the playoff Rams are different.
1:07:14 Bill Simmons? So you're putting the Rams in a three team.
1:07:17 Speaker 01 I'll figure something out with the.
1:07:18 Bill Simmons? Where we're going here.
1:07:19 Speaker 01 With the college stuff. Hopefully I'll need it to, to just win. That'll be that, but I doubt it.
1:07:26 Bill Simmons? All right. Next game.
1:07:29 Bill Simmons? Bears home for the Packers.
1:07:35 Bill Simmons? I think the Packers are going to get a lot of momentum as a popular underdog pick this week. Be my guess because I don't, I think everybody's appropriately scared of the Bears.
1:07:49 Bill Simmons? I don't think this line gets to three, even though it's in Chicago, even though the Packers are missing a few people. I had Bears minus two and a half.
1:07:57 Speaker 01 Okay. I said Bears minus one and a half. I think they're going to lean heavily into it's hard to beat a team three times.
1:08:06 Speaker 01 It's Packers minus one and a half. That's really dumb.
1:08:12 Bill Simmons? Wow.
1:08:13 Speaker 01 That's really stupid.
1:08:15 Bill Simmons? Oh my God. Oh, that changes everything. Now the Bears are eligible for nobody believes in us.
1:08:21 Speaker 01 What, what has anyone seen from the Packers? When was the last time they played a good game like a?
1:08:27 Bill Simmons? Holy shit.
1:08:30 Speaker 01 That's a lot.
1:08:32 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I'm looking at that right, right?
1:08:35 Bill Simmons? Wow. Well, we have, we have two, nobody believes in us teams already. As you know, that's the strongest force of round one.
1:08:44 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:08:44 Bill Simmons? And when you compare this season to 2008, which is a very smart thing to do because it's very similar in a lot of different ways, including that we don't seem to really have a dominant team. All hell broke loose in round one in 2008 and we had same situation. So we have two home, home dogs in a row. And I think there's another one coming with the Steelers and maybe with the Bills too.
1:09:04 Speaker 01 I mean, we're gonna see.
1:09:04 Bill Simmons? We have four home dogs here.
1:09:06 Speaker 01 It'll have been three weeks since he played or more? Three weeks?
1:09:10 Bill Simmons? Three weeks. What's the Jacobs, they rested, so he's probably mostly healthy.
1:09:17 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:09:17 Bill Simmons? No Parsons.
1:09:18 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:09:19 Bill Simmons? Watson is back. Is their safety gonna be back? McKinney or is he gone?
1:09:24 Speaker 01 I don't think he's back.
1:09:25 Bill Simmons? We have to watch the injury report.
1:09:27 Speaker 01 Yeah, I, I don't know why. I mean, is this like everything have to do with what, what the Bears did today?
1:09:33 Bill Simmons? Damn, I love the, I love the Packers as a dog, but now I don't, now I'm a little nervous.
1:09:40 Speaker 01 Well, now you have the Bears on a teaser. There's no doubt you're doing that.
1:09:45 Bill Simmons? I don't think the Bears are very good. And they're like the Steelers where they've had the horseshoe up the ass team, but they've, you know, you can play their schedule a few times and get some eight and nine results, I think.
1:09:56 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well, I think that's what they're looking at.
1:09:58 Bill Simmons? And I'm not sure about their defense at all. It's like that Niners game last week, all the yards and all the points they give up to the Niners who a week later scored three against the, against Seattle in a must win game.
1:10:08 Speaker 01 Right. I mean, they must be pissed though. I know you say don't, nobody believes in us, but, and I don't know how many players follow gambling. I'm sure they all do. They're all gonna know they're an underdog to a team they beat twice. That's gonna piss them off. So let's see how, how they react.
1:10:21 Bill Simmons? The players don't follow gambling, but they all know what an underdog is.
1:10:25 Speaker 01 Right.
1:10:25 Bill Simmons? And then that means, all they know is that means people don't believe they can, more people believe they can't win than can win. And then they grasp onto that. So, oof. By the way, Packers, Bears in a playoff game. How many times does that happen?
1:10:41 Speaker 01 Not a lot.
1:10:41 Bill Simmons? Since we've been alive? Does that happen less than five times?
1:10:45 Speaker 01 There was that NFC championship where Cutler was hurt, right? And that was a disaster. Like the Packers just rolled them. But um, yeah, it hasn't happened a lot. I, listen, I've proved, been proven wrong. This rivalry has come back to life. Both the regular season games were great. Now we have the Saturday night showdown.
1:11:03 Bill Simmons? Well, I couldn't have been more right with my question. How many times do you think they played in the playoffs?
1:11:11 Speaker 01 Oh, somebody jumped in?
1:11:13 Bill Simmons? I just went on Stat Muse, which normally redirects you to, you know, some sort of Turkish trafficking site.
1:11:20 Speaker 01 Since we've been born? Or is that what, uh?
1:11:23 Bill Simmons? How about ever? I'll give you ever.
1:11:26 Speaker 01 Well, the way you're saying it, six?
1:11:29 Bill Simmons? Two.
1:11:30 Speaker 01 Really?
1:11:31 Bill Simmons? 1941, the NFL divisional game.
1:11:34 Speaker 01 Don't remember it.
1:11:35 Bill Simmons? I'll give you, uh, is Green Bay at Bears? I'll give you the line of, um,
1:11:42 Bill Simmons? I'll give you,
1:11:45 Speaker 01 The Bears.
1:11:46 Bill Simmons? Bears minus five, so you have.
1:11:48 Speaker 01 The Bears win like 63 to 14 or something?
1:11:51 Bill Simmons? 33, 14.
1:11:51 Speaker 01 Yeah, okay.
1:11:52 Bill Simmons? And then, uh, 2011, the, uh, Rogers ends up.
1:11:56 Speaker 01 God damn, that was that long ago.
1:11:58 Bill Simmons? They've never played a playoff game in Green Bay. Both teams were in Chicago. That's nuts. These teams have been in the NFL for the entire time. They've played twice.
1:12:08 Speaker 01 Ducking each other. I mean, maybe that's why the Bears blew it today.
1:12:13 Bill Simmons? I was wondering if both the Bears and the Eagles were, um, afraid of playing the Packers and that's why they were doing their shenanigans. Whether they'd want to admit it or not. Were they more comfortable playing, uh, the six seed?
1:12:25 Speaker 01 This was such a terrifying, like, did you have a headache by the end of today? Like, we're trying to figure out which coaches are putting which players in and these line. I mean, we did that pregame show and like JJ's like, all right, this line opened at seven and this morning it was 10 and now it's 13. Rahim, what do you think? Why do you think that is? And he's like, ah, because people are losing their minds? I don't know. There's no like, and then Josh Allen plays for one play and then he's gone. It didn't matter because Travis, uh, like, I, I, uh, I just, I can't even believe I survived.
1:12:56 Bill Simmons? I forgot to mention that.
1:12:57 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:12:58 Bill Simmons? My least favorite move in sports, the person who keeps a consecutive game streak going by playing one play, which was started by AC Green when he broke his nose or something and he missed two weeks and he would just come in for a second and then come out to keep his streak going. That's not a streak.
1:13:11 Speaker 01 That wasn't even AC Green's most remarkable streak, but.
1:13:14 Bill Simmons? No, it was the second most remarkable streak. I don't like when people do this.
1:13:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's.
1:13:20 Bill Simmons? All right. Next one.
1:13:27 Bill Simmons? Bills Jags. Are we gonna have three straight road dogs here? This is in Jacksonville.
1:13:36 Bill Simmons? The Bills have to be favored as well as the Jags have been playing. I don't see a scenario where they're not favoring Josh Allen in a playoff game over Trevor Lawrence and the Jags. I think this is in the Tic Tac Zone. I have Bills minus one and a half.
1:13:50 Speaker 01 I'd do it to be Bills two and a half. I just don't think you would get people to bite on anything less.
1:13:57 Speaker 01 You were right. It's Bills by one and a half.
1:13:59 Bill Simmons? Oh, I got one.
1:14:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, you nailed it.
1:14:03 Bill Simmons? So you're up two to one on me.
1:14:04 Speaker 01 I like the Jags a little bit.
1:14:06 Bill Simmons? I like the Jags.
1:14:07 Speaker 01 I don't really want it. I would love a great quarterback to still be alive in the second round, but they're gonna be able to run on Buffalo.
1:14:16 Bill Simmons? The Jags have played well for real for like 10 weeks.
1:14:24 Bill Simmons? Tough spot for the Bills.
1:14:25 Speaker 01 I don't know that Lawrence has to do a ton.
1:14:28 Bill Simmons? Which, which out of these six games, which one do they rig for one of the teams?
1:14:34 Bill Simmons? I think this would be a candidate, Bills Jags.
1:14:36 Speaker 01 All of them. Yeah.
1:14:38 Bill Simmons? Let's get Josh to the next round.
1:14:40 Speaker 01 Maybe the Rams again.
1:14:41 Bill Simmons? This, then they would be play either the Patriots or the Broncos in round two.
1:14:44 Speaker 01 Yeah, they have, they have, they have to survive.
1:14:46 Bill Simmons? I'd be scared if I were the Jags. Start complaining about the whistles now. Just talk to the Panthers fans about that Bucks game yesterday.
1:14:53 Speaker 01 Right.
1:14:56 Bill Simmons? Man. That's just a bad line. Every sharp that we know is gonna think the Jags are, they probably, Raheem will be, Raheem on gambling show will be like, I have my formula. I have the Jags favored by two and a half on my model. Everyone's gonna have their model with the Jags favored, so.
1:15:14 Speaker 01 See, they could, I was half joking when I said at a protest, I'm gonna make every line a pick 'em because nobody deserves to be favored in these playoffs, but.
1:15:22 Bill Simmons? Well, we have two of them that are basically pick 'em.
1:15:24 Speaker 01 They threw a Tic Tac at us the last two games and you still can't get over it. Like Green Bay, Chicago's one and a half and Jacksonville Buffalo one and a half. Stymie.
1:15:32 Bill Simmons? I mean, this is all you need to know about the 2025 playoffs. We've done three games and they're all home underdogs. This is the fucking playoffs where the higher seed should have an advantage.
1:15:40 Speaker 01 Yep. No doubt.
1:15:42 Bill Simmons? Okay. I think we're finally gonna have a favorite here. It's the Eagles and the Niners. This was actually the one I had the most trouble with this. Cause you could have told me this was gonna be six and a half.
1:15:54 Bill Simmons? And with the way the Eagles have looked, I just couldn't get there, especially with the offense and the backdoor potential and Shanahan. And I just don't know what to make of this Eagles team. So I went with Eagles minus three and a half.
1:16:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, you nailed it. It's three and a half. I thought, I thought two and a half. I guess the Niners,
1:16:14 Speaker 01 I should have gone higher. I probably wouldn't have gone higher than three, though. But the Niners did not look good.
1:16:19 Bill Simmons? I think if you're the Niners defense, this would be the number one team you'd want to play in the playoffs other than the Panthers.
1:16:25 Speaker 01 Really?
1:16:26 Bill Simmons? A team that just does the same thing every drive, moves super slow. You know, just they'll probably shoot themselves in the foot. At some point, you might be able to get off the field and then you can get McCaffrey out there and try to have these big drives. Like, I'm really comfortable in this game if I'm the Niners. With that said, I could see them losing 40 to nothing.
1:16:45 Speaker 01 The coaching battle's similar. The, the quarterbacks are similar. You don't know what you're gonna get from Barkley. Barkley versus McCaffrey. It's, it's really kinda great on paper.
1:16:56 Bill Simmons? It almost is a gambling stay away, but I think putting the Eagles in a tease. You go Rams, 10-point tease with the Rams.
1:17:06 Speaker 01 There we go.
1:17:07 Bill Simmons? And the Eagles. And maybe our next game? Get the Eagles to plus six and a half?
1:17:15 Speaker 01 Not bad.
1:17:17 Bill Simmons? So out of the ones we've had Rams, Packers, Bills, Eagles, and Pats, what is the blowout game? Who wins by 25 points out of these six? If you had to say right now. By the way, you can change your mind in five days in the morning gambling, but just looking at it blind right now. Who's the blowout? Who's the 48 to 20, round one win?
1:17:36 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, the easy answer would be Rams because the spread is so high and the, the potential.
1:17:40 Bill Simmons? In Carolina, though, I wouldn't do that.
1:17:42 Speaker 01 It could be the, we're just happy to be there factor a little bit. I don't, I don't, I don't think so, though. I think you're right. I think Bills, Jags, and I could see it either way, honestly.
1:17:53 Bill Simmons? That was my pick. I could see Jags 44 to 28 or something.
1:17:58 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:17:58 Bill Simmons? That's just a lot of points.
1:17:59 Speaker 01 Right.
1:18:03 Bill Simmons? Okay. Two games left. Sunday night. I get Collinsworth for this, too.
1:18:09 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:18:11 Bill Simmons? Oh, Mike.
1:18:15 Bill Simmons? Patriots home for the Chargers. I almost put this in the Vegas zone, but I really don't think people respect the Pats that much against better teams. And I went with Patriots minus three and a half.
1:18:29 Speaker 01 I said Patriots minus three.
1:18:33 Speaker 01 You have now won three in a row, guessing exactly.
1:18:36 Bill Simmons? Oh.
1:18:38 Bill Simmons? Okay. Three and a half. If that line moved, which way would it move?
1:18:46 Speaker 01 I think towards Chargers. I already think it's rich. I don't know. Have you earned that yet?
1:18:51 Bill Simmons? I think it ends at three. I think it ends at three.
1:18:54 Speaker 01 What's your ideal weather for this one?
1:18:56 Bill Simmons? Freezing.
1:18:57 Speaker 01 Freezing cold, little bit of rain?
1:18:58 Bill Simmons? Herbert's not sure of his hands. He can't even feel his left hand so cold.
1:19:02 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:19:03 Bill Simmons? Yeah, really cold.
1:19:03 Speaker 01 Tiny bit of rain, yeah. You might get it.
1:19:06 Bill Simmons? Little wet, cold.
1:19:08 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:19:09 Bill Simmons? Although the Chargers have been living in it here in LA for the last week, getting ready for this Pats game.
1:19:13 Speaker 01 That's true.
1:19:14 Bill Simmons? Because the weather's been awful here.
1:19:17 Bill Simmons? Man, what a world. The Pats hosting a round one, Sunday night game as three and a half point favorites as a two seed. Can't believe it. Four and 13 last year.
1:19:26 Speaker 01 It's like 2004.
1:19:26 Bill Simmons? Just fucking up down the stretch when they could have gotten the number one pick and ended up with the number four and somehow it all worked out. Can't believe it.
1:19:33 Speaker 01 So happy for you, really.
1:19:34 Bill Simmons? Thanks. I knew you'd be really happy.
1:19:37 Bill Simmons? Plus, we have an MVP candidate in Jalen Brown.
1:19:43 Speaker 01 See, defensive end?
1:19:45 Bill Simmons? I can't. We, at the end, I gotta talk about Celtics Clippers.
1:19:48 Speaker 01 All right.
1:19:48 Bill Simmons? You just gotta give me like three minutes.
1:19:49 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:19:51 Bill Simmons? Texans at the Steelers.
1:19:54 Speaker 01 So I can only tie here. All right.
1:19:56 Bill Simmons? I just can't. I gotta look again to make sure the Steelers in the playoffs. Hold on, let me check the standings one more time. Did they really win the?
1:20:03 Speaker 01 You saw that kick at the end.
1:20:04 Bill Simmons? Just looking. No, I gotta check one more time.
1:20:06 Speaker 01 Zay Flowers, how did he do it?
1:20:09 Bill Simmons? Oh my God, they went 10 and 7.
1:20:13 Bill Simmons? They were plus 10. 397 points and 387 allowed.
1:20:22 Bill Simmons? Just unbelievable.
1:20:25 Bill Simmons? How is that team in the playoffs? How did they win 10 games?
1:20:29 Speaker 01 I don't know. They, they
1:20:30 Bill Simmons? I gotta go through their schedule.
1:20:31 Speaker 01 Laid down against the Browns. The Ravens were 1-5 and were favored to win the division. It's been the craziest roller coaster ride you can imagine for the AFC North.
1:20:41 Bill Simmons? They won week one, that ridiculous Jets game. 34-32. Week three, they beat the Patriots by seven with five turnovers, including one where the guy was running the end zone and fumbled. Week four in Dublin, they beat the, they beat the Vikings by three. That was stupid.
1:21:00 Speaker 01 Right.
1:21:02 Bill Simmons? They beat the Colts on November 2nd, 27-20. I have a vague memory of that one being stupid. We might have lost money in that game. They beat the Ravens earlier in the year, 27-22. Ridiculous. They won that crazy Lions game, 29-24. And then they won this game today. Like seven of those could have gone the other way.
1:21:27 Speaker 01 They beat the Ravens twice like that. You just never would have thought that with Lamar coming back, right? That was gonna be the be all and the, okay, how many, how much of the Ravens gonna beat Pittsburgh by 30? And they just hung and stayed and missed kicks and here we are.
1:21:41 Bill Simmons? I don't know. How, how can you bring Harbaugh back after that with what's happened the last like seven years? Like at what point do you just have to do something drastic?
1:21:50 Speaker 01 That was your hot take. Did you make that official or was that just on a text chain?
1:21:55 Bill Simmons? No, I had that like two, two, three months ago.
1:21:58 Speaker 01 Well, you said, what's the biggest Monday surprise?
1:22:01 Bill Simmons? Oh, Harbaugh. Yeah, yeah. I thought whoever lost this game was not going to be the coach of their team next year. I thought it was like a legitimate Ratty Roddy Piper, Greg the Hammer Valentine, dog collar, loser leaves town match.
1:22:12 Speaker 01 Right.
1:22:13 Bill Simmons? And it might be.
1:22:15 Speaker 01 Poor Roddy.
1:22:16 Bill Simmons? But the thing is, if they fired Harbaugh, the Giants hire him five minutes later, right?
1:22:20 Speaker 01 Well, I had this, I had a similar idea for Tomlin. This kind of screws it up a little bit, but my hot take for 2026, I had three. Tomlin goes to the Falcons. Raheem Morris getting fired was part A of that. And then I thought like, he got like, all right, he could win a division at seven, eight, nine, seven and 10. He wouldn't have to be crucified like he is in Pittsburgh and he probably wants out anyway. That was one. Number two was you will have pizza before February 9th. I know you're all no carb'd up. That was my second hot take in 26.
1:22:50 Bill Simmons? Be holding strong.
1:22:51 Speaker 01 The number three was that Baron Trump is going to fight on the UFC card on the White House lawn this summer.
1:22:58 Bill Simmons? Oh my God. That'd be amazing.
1:23:00 Speaker 01 Yeah, they're gonna get.
1:23:01 Bill Simmons? Is he old enough?
1:23:02 Speaker 01 He's seven foot four. They're gonna get him to fight against like a groundskeeper and that'll be that. Yeah, he'll win.
1:23:08 Bill Simmons? I actually, I was at the little club where the Clippers game is for the game, eating a hot dog without a bun with mustard on it. And I was like, I really hope somebody doesn't take a picture of this and send this to Sal. And he ended up upset.
1:23:20 Speaker 01 You gotta stop with this. Your weight hasn't fluctuated three pounds in two decades.
1:23:24 Bill Simmons? I feel, I feel better mentally.
1:23:26 Speaker 01 You do? You look terrible.
1:23:28 Bill Simmons? Thanks. Texans at Steelers.
1:23:33 Bill Simmons? There's just no scenario where the Steelers are going to be favored in this game. So I'm going to start there.
1:23:38 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:23:40 Bill Simmons? I forgot to guess this game, so I'm doing it on the fly.
1:23:44 Bill Simmons? It's not going to be over three. I think it's going to be Texans minus two and a half in Pittsburgh.
1:23:53 Speaker 01 What a comeback for you. What a comeback. You lose the first two. You're rattled. I said Pittsburgh minus one. Maybe I was, I don't know why I was.
1:24:03 Bill Simmons? You thought Pittsburgh was going to be favored? Oh, there's no way.
1:24:06 Speaker 01 I just didn't think you can make, you know, Houston, this is Houston's first playoff game on the road. All those shaky games they hosted. So this is the first, uh, yeah.
1:24:14 Bill Simmons? Like ever?
1:24:15 Speaker 01 This is the first wild card playoff game or what? Whatever. Yeah. It's, it's that, it's three and a half this line.
1:24:24 Speaker 01 Now you're scared.
1:24:26 Bill Simmons? Well, it's just, you're just setting the Steelers up to do what they do.
1:24:30 Speaker 01 I know.
1:24:31 Bill Simmons? This is like throwing meat over the cage to the lion. Like this is all they need. This is where they, this is how they live. It's how they breathe.
1:24:41 Bill Simmons? Today was the classic Steeler. I mean, they played all the hits today and so did the Ravens. Run up the middle, stuff for three yards, play action pass and second down tipped at the line of scrimmage. Terrible third down pass punt. That was like the entire Ravens season. Then all of a sudden they become this fun team and you're like, where was that team?
1:25:01 Speaker 01 Right.
1:25:01 Bill Simmons? The whole time. There's eight flowers running downfield. Anyway, uh, that line's too high. The Texans should not be favored by that many.
1:25:08 Speaker 01 The Texans are going to score. So their team total for 39 and a half is probably, uh, 21 18. This, I don't know, if they're supposed to score 21, 21 and a half points, wouldn't you like the Steelers at this? Plus three and a half.
1:25:23 Bill Simmons? Plus Metcalf comes back.
1:25:25 Speaker 01 Yeah. That's big.
1:25:28 Bill Simmons? The Steelers, do you think they have the plays in the playbook where they're like, all right, we're, we're going to run the Friarmouth play where he's in the back of the end zone and the guy is draped all over him and I'm going to throw it to him over his head. But it's going to flail up like James Harden and flail into the guy and the refs will be dumb enough to call this. On two.
1:25:48 Speaker 01 Right.
1:25:49 Bill Simmons? Break.
1:25:49 Speaker 01 Just run straight for the goalpost and throw your arms there.
1:25:53 Bill Simmons? Turn around and do the James Harden into five guys move and they'll throw a flag. Don't worry about it.
1:25:58 Speaker 01 Meanwhile, that was the smartest thing the Ravens could do because then they went for it with two seconds left in the half and the,
1:26:03 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:26:04 Speaker 01 terrible play, flipped it left.
1:26:07 Bill Simmons? Texans minus three and a half. So we have four home underdogs out of six teams.
1:26:13 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:26:14 Bill Simmons? And the two teams that are favored are the two seed Patriots that haven't done anything and the Eagles who've been half asleep since January or February, whenever they won the Super Bowl.
1:26:25 Speaker 01 Yeah. When was the last time we didn't get a home team favored by four or more in this round?
1:26:32 Bill Simmons? I don't think ever.
1:26:33 Speaker 01 No.
1:26:34 Bill Simmons? I'd love to, our guy John Ewing's usually good at this. I'd love to know if we've ever had a playoffs where no home team was favored by four points.
1:26:41 Speaker 01 Let us know, John. Otherwise we're going to have to go to stat news and then that's going to be embarrassing.
1:26:44 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it might end up in Turkey.
1:26:46 Speaker 01 Yeah, right.
1:26:49 Bill Simmons? Unbelievable. God. I, do we bet next week? Maybe it's just a complete stay away next week.
1:26:57 Bill Simmons? No, we have to bet. I just, the Bengals really screwed me so much. I would have had a nice tidy something. You were very upset today. I was so mad. I couldn't even. You said some mean things about Joe Burrow. By the way, we, we, we didn't even talk about how we handled our great bet of like four teams to come in last place. And the Saints were the only one giving us trouble. And so we hedged. You didn't hedge it? No, I, I rode the Falcons. I didn't hedge. I went, I went, I went raw dog. Holy crap. Really? Kirk Cousins with the flu? You went, you knew when you heard that? I didn't. It wasn't phased. We had almost three to one on our bet. I was like, I'm raw dogging the Falcons. All right. But me, Hench and, and House went plus three and a half. I mean, when the hell is that gonna happen? We never middle anything.
1:27:42 Bill Simmons? Oh, you middleed it? That was perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was great. Oh, I didn't know you guys. But I was so incensed. Yeah, because I was so mad about the Bengals. Nothing mattered in life after that. Oh, you, cause normally you're more excited about a middle. I know. I couldn't look. I mean, we could talk money, but it was a big difference. I had, we, we did a bad job on over unders this year. Yeah. But I don't feel that bad about it because our best picks all did really well. Patriots. Yep. Broncos, Seahawks. Had the Jags winning the division. Yeah. You had the Jags. I had the Bears. Um, we were both shorting the Washington. Right. That was the big one.
1:28:21 Bill Simmons? But the one that killed me and prevented me from, I had it really well in the futures, especially on airplane runways in Boston, in Chicago and Indianapolis, when, which I'm convinced that they give you extra time. Um, but the Casey just. Who gives you extra time? The, the airline? The airports are working with FanDuel and everybody else. Yeah. They're like, can you just stay, just stay on the runway for 10 extra minutes? We look like we have a couple of live ones. Interesting. They could runway bets. Yeah. It's so funny. I have a whole bunch of runway FanDuel bets. But they won. The collector's convention in Chicago. Yeah. And I hit all of them. I had Bears over and all this stuff. But the one that killed me was the Chiefs. I had the Chiefs tied into a couple of awesome ones, like the Patriots and the Eagles to win their divisions with.
1:29:06 Bill Simmons? The Chiefs, like shit like that, and the Chiefs, the most reliable bet that we've had for the last seven years, just finally shit the bed.
1:29:13 Speaker 01 Well, because that's what we that we call what that we call that the K C D like a C D. Like, yeah, they're six to one, Mahomes is six to one or seven to one. Ride those in the next five or six years, it's going to cash. I think we have to walk away from that, though.
1:29:25 Bill Simmons? I had some other, I had some player prop stuff that was bad, like Burrow passing yards and some of the other ones, but the stuff that we did the best on was the last place stuff.
1:29:34 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:29:35 Bill Simmons? Like that, like we, we had all those teams pegged like Tennessee and the Saints and.
1:29:40 Speaker 01 Yeah, those were done, the Browns, right? Those were done like a month ago, although the Browns were ended up close with Cincinnati.
1:29:46 Bill Simmons? There, I just go figure, but the two South divisions just murdered me this year. I think I went like one and seven in the two South divisions.
1:29:53 Speaker 01 We had under.
1:29:54 Bill Simmons? I think I got every team wrong.
1:29:56 Speaker 01 What did we have, under thirty three wins?
1:29:58 Bill Simmons? We lost that bet. Yeah. I, I think I had the wrong over under on every team in the South. And I think I might have had. I had Houston over. I think I went one and three in the, in the AFC.
1:30:11 Speaker 01 I stand by the Bucks. I still think if there's a week nineteen, I think they're gonna, they're gonna sneak in somehow. Yeah.
1:30:18 Bill Simmons? What a weird thing for them. They celebrate the win, but they didn't win anything.
1:30:21 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:30:22 Bill Simmons? Then they have to watch flu ridden Kirk Cousins going against Taylor Shuck with no weapons. And then get dick teased for three hours and then end up.
1:30:31 Speaker 01 So that was a win for the league, right? Because they got the extra game that mattered. I mean, they're constantly searching for games that matter in week eighteen.
1:30:38 Bill Simmons? Total win for the league.
1:30:39 Speaker 01 They had to put the Tampa Carolina game, whether it was a clincher or not, in that early slot Saturday.
1:30:44 Bill Simmons? Well, that's why, that's why, uh, people were crying about the refs yesterday because it was in the league's interest.
1:30:51 Speaker 01 Right.
1:30:52 Bill Simmons? Tampa to win because it set up a better scenario.
1:30:54 Speaker 01 Speaking of, one thing we didn't hit, I know this is going far afield at this point.
1:30:58 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:30:58 Speaker 01 Did LaFleur, down sixteen, nothing with the spread at thirteen and a half? Call timeout with a second left to kick an F in field, a field goal? Did they get sixteen, three? Oh, my God. Oh, boy.
1:31:14 Bill Simmons? This is a weird thing we've seen head coaches do where they don't want to get shut out.
1:31:18 Speaker 01 Okay.
1:31:18 Bill Simmons? It's something about the shutout. Leaves them uneasy, but it was one of the three shakiest gambling moments of the year.
1:31:26 Speaker 01 You gotta go sixteen, eight there and then sixteen, sixteen. I know with one second left, you can't do that, but you, you have to score a touchdown. That's nuts.
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1:32:22 Bill Simmons? Look, today's parent corner presented by Greenland Tube Migration. If you loved this disaster hit film in 2020, well, the end of the world was only the beginning. Gerard Butler and Marina Bakarin are back for the sequel. And we're going to talk about that after we finish Parent Corner. Greenland Two, coming soon. My guy Gerard Butler.
1:32:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:32:44 Bill Simmons? Then the thieves had the most iconic Benihana scene in the history of Benihana. What do you have for parents corner?
1:32:50 Speaker 01 All right, don't have, um, do we change it to parents corner?
1:32:53 Bill Simmons? I just, I just stumbled.
1:32:55 Speaker 01 I don't know.
1:32:56 Bill Simmons? I'm already nervous about Pat's Chargers being live next week. Why are they doing that to us? Would you, could you have been live after the Romo game?
1:33:05 Speaker 01 I thought you were kidding, live? No, I was hiding in a movie theater.
1:33:11 Speaker 01 Just took in a microphone. I'm in the rows sobbing in a movie theater, AMC.
1:33:18 Speaker 01 Yeah, I have a couple of things that are not great. It was my son Harrison's birthday, like Tuesday, turned 12. And the kid loves fishing. He loves fishing. I don't know where he gets it. His friends love fishing. We have a pier not far from us. They go all the time. They went today in the rain. He blew off watching football with his old man to go fishing with his friends. Whatever, fine. And so there's this giant, um, like a bait shop. I can't even call it a bait shop. It's like a big five, but for, um, for fishing. But it's like five times the size of a big five. It's called Bass Pro Shop and it's in Irvine. And that's where he wanted to go. It's about 40 minutes away. So we take him on his birthday and.
1:33:59 Bill Simmons? I like Irvine by the way. Great, great used sports location. It's my number one used sports location.
1:34:05 Speaker 01 Great sports complex.
1:34:06 Bill Simmons? Weekend stuff. Always stuff to go. Good, good fields. They have that nice outdoor mall. Thumbs up for Irvine.
1:34:12 Speaker 01 The mall's awesome. Um, the Bass Pro Shop is fine, but not for an hour and a half. Not for someone like me. And I just, we get there and I'm like, all right, this place is huge. But like a lot of it's like hunting crap and boats that I know he's not going to buy and like giant knives and everything. We were there for 90 minutes and I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I can't, I just can't do it. And he's buying lures. Like you need like three lures and he like had a, he had a gift card to, uh, this place.
1:34:42 Bill Simmons? So he's really like exploring this.
1:34:44 Speaker 01 Right in there and talking to everybody and the guy, well, this is better for carp. And if you're going to hook a, you know, if, if you're going to hook, you know, just in case you hit a stingray, like they're talking about all this crazy stuff.
1:34:54 Bill Simmons? Oh, stop it.
1:34:55 Speaker 01 After an hour, I didn't, I'm, I'm like, I'm done. So I'm, they have these giant tents that they also sell. I zip myself up in the tent, lay down on the cot that was in the tent and watch whatever bowl game I was losing money on. And I was like, you let me know when you're done. And it was like 45 minutes after that, when he, uh, he finally was ready to, to cash out.
1:35:17 Bill Simmons? You just vegged out? They didn't say anything to you?
1:35:19 Speaker 01 No, I was like, let's see what happens here. It was not like sitting on a toilet in a Home Depot, but I was in like, like laying in a tent. So it was nice.
1:35:26 Bill Simmons? Did you get stink eyed by anybody or no?
1:35:28 Speaker 01 I, I did check, um, before I unzipped to, uh, to see if anybody was watching, but no, it wasn't too bad. So.
1:35:34 Bill Simmons? See, these are the kind of stories when people talk about how technology is ruining everything.
1:35:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:35:40 Bill Simmons? 20 years ago, you couldn't have done that. You just would have been wandering around the store like, like you were in a coma. Now you just pull your phone out and you'd be like, go ahead Harrison, take an extra 40 minutes. Your mistake though was not, um,
1:35:54 Speaker 01 Capping it?
1:35:55 Bill Simmons? No, having Cousin Jimmy go with you. I feel like he would have gone on that trip.
1:35:59 Speaker 01 He did want to go, but he couldn't, um, he couldn't make it there. Yeah. He actually, uh, yeah, you're right.
1:36:04 Bill Simmons? I actually think you just should, you should have just taken him or had him go. Paid for the Uber. Had them go just and have Jimmy do all of it.
1:36:13 Speaker 01 You're right.
1:36:13 Bill Simmons? He would have done it. He's that weird. I mean, he's a very strange guy.
1:36:16 Speaker 01 Yes.
1:36:17 Bill Simmons? You wouldn't think like a major celebrity would go spend the Saturday in an Irvine fish shop, but he would have.
1:36:23 Speaker 01 By the way, he's a Critics' Choice Award winner, Jimmy Kimmel Live. Congratulations.
1:36:27 Bill Simmons? Saw that.
1:36:27 Speaker 01 Tonight. Yeah, yeah. Critics can be very critical. So that was, that's the thing about that.
1:36:31 Bill Simmons? Was the Critics' Choice.
1:36:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, he was a great, he was the choice of all the critics. So, nice job. Aaron Rodgers won too. So I guess it's a, it's a give and take, but what are you gonna do?
1:36:40 Bill Simmons? Did Aaron Rodgers, oh, he won the football game. I was gonna say, he won the Critics' Choice for the Hiawasque documentary?
1:36:46 Speaker 01 No, no. So anyway, he ends up with forty, Laura. So that was that. Uh, the other thing real quick.
1:36:50 Bill Simmons? How much, can you tell us how much everything costs?
1:36:52 Speaker 01 It's like two hundred and seventy-five bucks and he had like a hundred, he had like a hundred and fifty in gift cards and stuff. Yeah. But, uh, we hit Korean barbecue afterwards, so it was fine. But anyway, my son.
1:37:02 Bill Simmons? You have to do this stuff because there's a whole Hermosa Beach teen, teen gang scene that's pretty crazy. You gotta make sure he doesn't get, get in with some rough hands.
1:37:11 Speaker 01 Yeah, you're right.
1:37:12 Bill Simmons? Gotta make sure you have, keep your father-son relationship.
1:37:14 Speaker 01 Should I move? What's, out of all the six places you live, what's the, um, what's the nicest neighborhood that I can go, like not have to worry about?
1:37:22 Bill Simmons? I think you're in a good spot. I think you're fine.
1:37:26 Speaker 01 Well, what, what it doesn't have where we are is a Steelers bar where my son Jack is just getting back, seventeen years old.
1:37:34 Bill Simmons? Oh, my God. Oh, yeah, that was a big win for Jack. I forgot about that. Congrats to Jack.
1:37:39 Speaker 01 I can hear him stomping around still, so, but anyway.
1:37:42 Bill Simmons? I'm surprised he hasn't crashed a pod.
1:37:43 Speaker 01 I know. I, I keep checking because it looks like it's gonna be close, but that was, that was gonna be a sad night for him. And now next Monday night, he'll be out on a school night. Very weird, but you know I'm stupid and every year I go through like my favorite new person I met in twenty twenty-five.
1:37:59 Bill Simmons? I do the same thing. I have a winner as well. Yeah. No, go.
1:38:03 Speaker 01 Well, no, I asked Jack and he rattled off like 30 names of these people in this bar that he goes to. So like 30, like 50 year olds, he's 17. So that was interesting.
1:38:12 Bill Simmons? So he counted down from 25 to one.
1:38:14 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:38:14 Bill Simmons? They're all over 35 years old.
1:38:16 Speaker 01 He knew it like I was about to ask him. He really said, are you ready to give yours? You want to give yours?
1:38:21 Bill Simmons? No, I'm not ready.
1:38:22 Speaker 01 Oh, you're not gonna do it?
1:38:23 Bill Simmons? I pretended I was. Do you have one?
1:38:24 Speaker 01 Oh.
1:38:25 Bill Simmons? I can do one. I feel like every year I made a friend that I like.
1:38:29 Speaker 01 Yeah, it's gotta be someone you met for the first time in 2025 and it can't be over Zoom.
1:38:33 Bill Simmons? Oh, it has to be somebody I actually literally met this year.
1:38:37 Speaker 01 Yes, yes.
1:38:37 Bill Simmons? I need more time to think about who that is.
1:38:40 Speaker 01 I would narrow it down from mine to the guy who both fixed and broke our stove three times before he was rounded up by ice, no joke, and didn't see it.
1:38:52 Bill Simmons? Oh, no.
1:38:53 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah, that's not great, but.
1:38:55 Bill Simmons? That's horrible.
1:38:56 Speaker 01 He was a nice guy. And then secondly, I would say Seth Meyers, who's a big fan of this podcast.
1:39:03 Bill Simmons? Did you not know Seth Meyers at all?
1:39:05 Speaker 01 Never met him. Never met.
1:39:06 Bill Simmons? Seth Meyers is a great guy.
1:39:07 Speaker 01 You've had him on the podcast.
1:39:09 Bill Simmons? Big win today for Seth Meyers.
1:39:10 Speaker 01 Yeah, yeah. Good job by him. Good job by you.
1:39:13 Bill Simmons? Oh, man, now I have to, I gotta think. I'll have an answer next week. I really want to think about this.
1:39:19 Speaker 01 Who's new with the ringer that you met?
1:39:24 Bill Simmons? I gotta think about this.
1:39:25 Speaker 01 I know.
1:39:25 Bill Simmons? I don't want to have the wrong answer. And there's a couple of people that I met, but that I thought was this year, but it was probably last year.
1:39:31 Speaker 01 Really? Okay. All right.
1:39:36 Bill Simmons? My parent corner.
1:39:40 Bill Simmons? So I have some parent stuff for you about when is it time to let go? So like Ben's 18 now. And it's been break and he's always going away, like driving away. He's going, I'm going bowling with my friends, going to see my girlfriend. It's 12:30, you know, but don't know when he's coming back. And my wife is just like, well, I can't go to bed until Ben comes back.
1:40:05 Bill Simmons? I'm like, really? You can't? Like, he's 18 now. Like, he could legally just leave. He doesn't even, he's not even legally required to live with us.
1:40:15 Speaker 01 Right.
1:40:16 Bill Simmons? What is the right age?
1:40:19 Bill Simmons? To basically be like, I'm just going to bed. I hope he's, I hope he's here the next morning. Because I was thinking about when I was in like after high school, college range and I just went out and they would always annoy me when my parents like, when are you gonna be back? Or my mom would be waiting up in the kitchen. I'm like, the fuck? I'm 20. Why are you up? And that's, and Zoe like can do whatever. And you know, Zoe's almost 21, but Ben is 18. It's like, he's right in that zone of should I still be worried when he's out?
1:40:46 Speaker 01 Right. It absolutely depends on the kid. Like we have friends whose kids, if they went out, they should be sitting on the porch all night long and waiting and making sure that.
1:40:58 Bill Simmons? That is, that is true.
1:40:59 Speaker 01 Or she got back.
1:41:00 Bill Simmons? Ben is not one of those kids.
1:41:00 Speaker 01 Ben, I don't think is one of those kids. Do they wake you up when they get home anyway? Not, not tap you on the shoulder and wake you up, but them coming through the door, does that wake you up?
1:41:09 Bill Simmons? Murph usually makes a point of pretending that he's guarding the house for five seconds. So that kind of wakes you up.
1:41:14 Speaker 01 I see.
1:41:15 Bill Simmons? I'll roll over and go back to bed. My wife will then be up watching heated Barbara or whatever else she watches.
1:41:20 Speaker 01 Right, right, right.
1:41:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:41:21 Speaker 01 I think you're good with Ben. I think until he gives you a reason not to be.
1:41:24 Bill Simmons? That's been my case, but my wife's still very hands on and.
1:41:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:41:29 Bill Simmons? I don't, it's hard for me to tell and she's checking on life 360 to see where he is.
1:41:33 Speaker 01 Oh, yeah.
1:41:33 Bill Simmons? This is crazy.
1:41:34 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah. My, my son is now 20, went back up to Oregon and we were watching, he has a 14 hour drive and it was like, you know, the conditions aren't great. And she's watching like a video game, just like watching him on, we do find mine, not life three, life 360. I'm like, all right, you gotta let him be. He's just, he's like, oh, he's 66 miles an hour. You think that's too fast? I'm like, just please, just let him get there.
1:41:58 Bill Simmons? Three times.
1:41:58 Speaker 01 Exactly. He passed the Costco. What do you think that's about? He loves the hot dogs there. So.
1:42:04 Bill Simmons? It is, it is definitely the start of some pay-per-view movie that I'd probably rent. Where somebody's watching their kid on life 360 and they're just doing a straight drive and then all of a sudden the car goes right and just keeps going right. And then they were like, oh my God, where, where's he going? And also he's in like Nevada.
1:42:24 Speaker 01 Right.
1:42:25 Bill Simmons? Or Sacramento or something. Yeah, that's, there's, that's a kernel of something.
1:42:29 Speaker 01 I had a similar thing with the game changer where you could watch your kid, you could watch like a cartoon version of your kid like playing baseball.
1:42:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah, hoping he gets a hit and you find out after.
1:42:39 Speaker 01 Harrison got hit by, hit by a pitch and it says batter hit by pitch. And so I'm like, all right. And I'm waiting and I, I'm like one minute, two minutes.
1:42:47 Bill Simmons? Like five minutes passes.
1:42:48 Speaker 01 Five minutes past. I can't get a hold of Melissa. I'm like, I don't know if there's like a cartoon ambulance about to come on the screen and like pick him. I'm like, fucking throw the next pitch, please, please. I'm like, finally some of the next pitch was, and he was okay. But yeah, that's a similar thing.
1:43:02 Bill Simmons? Cartoon ambulance, they gotta add that. So yeah, so, so Ben's out. We never see him. So we went back to college and, and uh, it's my wife and I, we went to, so the Clippers last night, we had a great time. She's watching heated rivalry. She banged out all six episodes this weekend. I guess this is just what happens. I'm just glad we still like hanging out with each other. She watched all six episodes of heated rivalry in like 20 hours. And was sobbing at the end of the sixth one.
1:43:29 Speaker 01 Wow.
1:43:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah. Do you know this show?
1:43:32 Speaker 01 No, I don't. I don't know. I, I.
1:43:33 Bill Simmons? You have, you literally haven't heard of heated rivalry?
1:43:36 Speaker 01 I've heard of it, but I don't know. She's sobbing. I, I should like this. You should like this. I mean, you picked Devil Wears Prada as your number one. What the hell?
1:43:44 Bill Simmons? I don't know. We're not the audience for heated rivalry. It's my wife and her friends who have all devoured this and they've been talking about it for a week and uh, and it's a phenomenon on HBO Max. Does your wife know about this?
1:43:56 Speaker 01 Yeah, she does. She was talking to friends, but I didn't think, um, you know, I got a lot of, now that the bowl games have settled down, maybe I'll watch some of this stuff.
1:44:04 Bill Simmons? Oh, from a TV standpoint,
1:44:08 Bill Simmons? it's, it, this is like the worst time for us to jump at anything. There's too much football.
1:44:13 Speaker 01 Yeah, I know.
1:44:13 Bill Simmons? And there's basketball. There's going to be all kinds of trades. Today's parent's corner. Again. Parents in the coffee. Well, cause they missed, they did a typo. Today's parent corner presented by Greenland to migration. Where were we? That's right. The sequel. Five years after a comet strike devastated most of Earth. Not unrealistic right now. The Garrity family is leaving the safety of their bunker in Greenland in search of a new home. And it's a disaster film. That's my guy Gerard freaking Butler. What else do you need? Green Lane 2 Migration in theaters January 9th, rated PG 13. This sort of the other thing I would have done for parents corner. It's not really apparent, but I went. So I went to Celtics Clippers last night. This has been, I don't think I've missed a Celtics Clipper game
1:44:56 Bill Simmons? since I moved here. I think this was like my 23rd or 24th game. And the Clippers have been playing well, right? They Kawhi Leonard, they've, they've kind of climbed back and it's actually I've been sending you the Pacific Division odds because I, I do feel like there's a chance they could get back into it. And the Celtics have been playing really well. They're three and one on the road trip. And it would have been a nice one. It was gonna be a hard game. I think they were one and a half point underdogs. Jalen Brown didn't get player of the month last month. He's been awesome. He's like 30 points a game. I, I said on Tuesday, I think he's the first team NBA guy. Kawhi's playing great. So we first play of the game. I said to my wife, like, Jalen's got like the fricking
1:45:40 Bill Simmons? like Uset kind of look on his face. Like this is like, he's going to battle. Like this is going to be really fun. He's gonna, he's gonna go at Kawhi. He guards Kawhi the whole game. Shuts him down. He scores 50 points. He's, he's goes nuts in the second half. He's like, he's become other than Shay, probably the most reliable mid-range scorer in the league. Like he's really in year 10, it's gone up a level. And, um, and kind of breaks the Clipper spirit. There's probably 7,000 Boston fans there, maybe 6,000. They've designed this arena for Clipper fans. It's Clippers, Clippers, Clippers. There's a wall. It's like Bombers creation. There's all these Boston fans and they're chanting, let's go Celtics. Bomber was so fucking pissed.
1:46:23 Speaker 01 Really?
1:46:24 Bill Simmons? He was, he was like doing this, like looking around, like he was watching little kids play on his lawn who weren't supposed to be on the lawn. He was just doing this and Jalen's just romping on them, trying to get to 50 points and gets it. And it was honestly one of the best road games I've seen a Celtic play in person. He was unbelievable and it's, it's a really weird situation because Tatum hasn't played this whole year. And Jalen somehow went up a level and I don't really know what happens when Tatum comes back. Cause Jalen's averaging 30 a game. He's been like awesome. He's been there a half a game out of the two seed. And then Tatum's gonna come back. So the good version of this is he just comes back and you give him the Sam Hauser minutes and
1:47:08 Bill Simmons? he's on minutes limit and he's just gonna shoot threes and rebound and play defense and be completely additive. But he's kinda coming back to somebody else's team and I don't know how it's gonna play out.
1:47:18 Speaker 01 Do you think this is a Snoop Huntley uh situation here? Like maybe Tatum, maybe January Tatum sits. Maybe we don't need to see him.
1:47:25 Bill Simmons? January Tatum. Well, then we did win a title with the old, the old way of doing it.
1:47:29 Speaker 01 That was so long ago.
1:47:30 Bill Simmons? Like, like obviously Pippen was the, was the comparison of this when Jordan went to play baseball and Pippen was great. He took the Bills to, Bulls to 55 wins. Jalen's been better than Pippen was that season. Like he's every night, he's 30 plus points.
1:47:45 Bill Simmons? I think he's probably, I saw his FanDuel odds.
1:47:49 Speaker 01 What is it?
1:47:49 Bill Simmons? I thought, I couldn't believe that they were as high as they were because I would have him, I think Maxey's the other one. I'm not allowed to bet on this.
1:47:59 Speaker 01 He's 80, Jalen's 80, Maxey's 200.
1:48:02 Bill Simmons? Yeah, so that's, and Luca's plus 450.
1:48:06 Speaker 01 Right.
1:48:07 Bill Simmons? Like to me, Cade, Brown, Maxey in some order and out at Brunson 5th. And SGA 1st and I wouldn't have Luca in the top 5. Like that's crazy to me.
1:48:19 Speaker 01 Yeah, but don't do this. Don't, don't give these out and then you're gonna vote for Shay anyway. Don't, you shouldn't do that.
1:48:24 Bill Simmons? No, I, I'm just saying the public perception of what's happening and maybe it'll become a story this week about how good Jalen's been because you know, they have a pretty easy schedule, next 5 games. They play Denver, no Jokic. They play the Spurs, no Wemby. Everything's at home. And there's a chance they could be like 27 and 12, 26, 13 with no Tatum. And they traded Drew Holiday. They have no Porzingis, they have no Horford. Like this is fucking crazy what's happening. They started out on 3. This is a nut story, but I don't think Jalen's got enough credit for how great he's been.
1:48:55 Speaker 01 But it's baked, that number's baked into the fact that Tatum's coming back and then they're gonna have to share the team. If, if Tatum was out.
1:49:01 Bill Simmons? If he comes back.
1:49:02 Speaker 01 Out, out.
1:49:02 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:49:03 Speaker 01 That's true.
1:49:03 Bill Simmons? I mean, part of the thing about how well they've been playing is they have the luxury now of.
1:49:08 Speaker 01 Keeping them out.
1:49:09 Bill Simmons? Really being careful when Tatum comes back. Like even when he comes back, like you're in a minutes limit, you're gonna play seven minutes a half. Like, we're gonna ease you back.
1:49:16 Speaker 01 Like Otani didn't have to pitch until he had to pitch.
1:49:18 Bill Simmons? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just be like, hey, come in and be like the most awesome version of Sam Hauser from, uh, then you kind of get your sea legs. But, uh, I, to watch somebody go up a level in year 10, I haven't seen this before.
1:49:30 Speaker 01 Yeah.
1:49:30 Bill Simmons? At least for basketball, it's really unusual. Like to, for somebody who was already really good to then now be one of the best seven, eight, nine players in the league. Like, did not expect this.
1:49:39 Speaker 01 I like that Ballmer thing. I mean, that, that, uh, people, I don't know, people know what that arena is like, that into it. He's got it all tricked out. It's a weird place anyway. You have to basically like, you have to live through your phone and that thing. And he might've, he might've locked it up on you guys. He presses one button, you guys will be like.
1:49:56 Bill Simmons? No, he definitely had a meeting afterwards, trying to figure out how this could never happen again.
1:50:00 Speaker 01 Really?
1:50:00 Bill Simmons? He's so crazy in a good way about having everybody focused on the Clippers in the game. Like even when you go in the, you know, wherever to go piss or go get food, there's, there's no TVs, like there's no TVs.
1:50:12 Speaker 01 You gotta get back to your seat, yeah.
1:50:13 Bill Simmons? They, he, everything is driving people back into the seats because he wants as much noise as possible. But the Celtics, like, we're just really, really good. It's a really, really tough team. I don't know, I wa, I wasn't, between this and the Pats, this is about as good as it's been for two teams in, at the same time in a while.
1:50:32 Speaker 01 And your Red Sox are right there, it's all looking good.
1:50:35 Bill Simmons? Red Sox not right there. How you feeling about the Mets?
1:50:38 Speaker 01 I don't, right now, I don't, it's, it's, it's not good. We're not, we're not the Dodgers, that's how I feel about the Mets.
1:50:45 Bill Simmons? My God, it's 10:25, we gotta wrap this up.
1:50:48 Speaker 01 Hell yeah, let's get out of here.
1:50:49 Bill Simmons? We were talking about fishing and the Celtics and the Clippers. What do you got to plug this week?
1:50:54 Speaker 01 Nothing, I don't have time. No, Ringer Gambling Show, check it out all week long, it's a lot of fun. It's right here on YouTube. We are not abandoning YouTube altogether. We got all that Ringer Gambling content on there and it's, uh, it's gonna be fun, good times.
1:51:06 Bill Simmons? And we have a big week next week. We got two Ringer Sunday pregame shows on Saturday and Sunday before the games. And then we're going live on Netflix next week.
1:51:15 Speaker 01 Beautiful.
1:51:16 Bill Simmons? This'll be our last journey on YouTube. I don't really have any fond farewells or anything for YouTube. We'll still gonna be putting up shorts and clips on my channel, but the live video. And by the way, and still watch us on Spotify. If you don't want to watch us on YouTube, we will be on video on Spotify. Please don't forget that part. You'll be able to watch us in one of two places.
1:51:35 Speaker 01 That's right.
1:51:36 Bill Simmons? But if you want to watch us on Netflix, we'll be there as well.
1:51:38 Speaker 01 They are putting your head up there. I went to watch the Ricky Gervais thing and I see a silhouette of you.
1:51:43 Bill Simmons? I got suggested?
1:51:45 Speaker 01 You're looking like, uh, the, uh, like Ellen DeGeneres circa 2008. But, uh, whatever. It's a plug. It's good.
1:51:55 Bill Simmons? DeGeneres. They should give me a, like, something where I look like, like I'm an erotic thriller from Columbia, where it's like me and some secretary and she's got like, yeah, I'm gonna tell them to sexy my thing up. Make it, make it seem like it's a more provocative show.
1:52:09 Speaker 01 I want you're gonna go all Chappelle, Dave Chappelle on the, on sports, right?
1:52:13 Bill Simmons? Next week? Yeah, I'm gonna try to lose my mind. Um, all right, cuz I'll see you in a week. As always.
1:52:20 Speaker 01 Good job by you. Good job by you, buddy.
1:52:23 Bill Simmons? Thanks to Gahan Eduardo as well. Uh, thanks, everybody for, for, um, listening, watching, and I have new rewatchables coming on Monday. We got a mailbag coming tomorrow, so stay tuned for that. I will see you in a couple of days.
1:52:49 Bill Simmons? Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com, call 888-797777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplineMA.org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-8HOPESNY, or text HOPENY. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures, WildHorse9, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner.
1:53:31 Bill Simmons? Martin McDonagh, writer-director of The Banshees of Minnehoshan and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters November 6. Get tickets now. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods Market. Fall is here and Whole Foods Market has everything you need for cozy meals, seasonal treats and easy entertaining.
1:54:14 Bill Simmons? Elevate your hearty dishes with tasty bone-in beef short ribs or New York strip steaks with no added growth hormones or antibiotics. And as the fall evenings draw in, why not get ahead of cold season with immunity shots, herbal teas, lasages and supplements? Make sure you look for sales throughout the month. Shop fall flavors with higher standards at Whole Foods Market in New York.
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