Darnold Does It, Snow Game II: Mile High, Pats-Seahawks, and the Wild Taipei Climb With Cousin Sal

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal LIVE on Netflix right after Rams-Seahawks to recap the conference championship games (0:33). Then, they guess the lines for Super Bowl LX, answer a few questions from the listeners, and end with Parent Corner (54:58). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Chris Wohlers Order ALDI on Uber Eats: https://earn.sng.link/A99vk/i2fm/okid The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

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

• 1:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Oh, man.

• 1:16Bill Simmons?

  Super Bowl LX.

• 1:20Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna try to calm myself down. We are taping Cousin Sal's with me. We are taping 7:00 PM Pacific time. Just watching awesome Seahawks Rams game. My beloved Patriots won the AFC title in a blizzard. They did not give up a point for 55 minutes and won 10 to 7. And then we had a really fun football game. I'll let you pick. Sal, what do you want to start with?

• 1:43Speaker 01

  I mean, I, you know, they're saying me having to listen to you gloat is perhaps the most courageous. It's the most courageous 90 minutes ever aired on Netflix, calling me the greatest athlete ever. If I could put up with it, I would, uh...

• 2:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you enduring this versus the guy climbing a giant building in Taipei?

• 2:06Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 2:07Bill Simmons?

  So you're saying it's like 50/50?

• 2:09Speaker 01

  I think it's close. They'll both be about an hour and a half, right? By the way, I lost money on that. I parlayed Justin Gagey with the guy to, I bet him the fall, basically. But so anyway, I had to dig out. No, no, no.

• 2:22Speaker 01

  It hasn't gotten that bad, Bill.

• 2:26Bill Simmons?

  I can't, we gotta talk about that at the end. I can't wait to talk about that thing yesterday. Let's, let's go. We have a Seahawks Patriots Super Bowl.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:34Bill Simmons?

  Which I think America's gonna warm up to over the next two. First of all,

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:39Bill Simmons?

  The villainous Patriots are back, even though this is a precocious, overachieving team. Pat says the underdogs, flashbacks to 01. Sam Darnold redemption? This is one of the great underdog stories in the history of the NFL, I think. This is,

• 2:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 2:54Bill Simmons?

  If they win, he's up there with Jim Plunkett, all that stuff. Malcolm Butler revenge game, the worst Super Bowl loss. What was the worst Super Bowl loss in your opinion? That one or the Falcons 28 to 3?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  28-3 is so hard to beat. I mean, Bill, it's not like the Bills dominated the Giants, but that Norwood, why, just knowing what happened afterwards, the next three years is bad too. There've been some bad ones, but 28-3. Yeah, I mean, you're, you're part of.

• 3:19Bill Simmons?

  That was the worst collapse. The Butler one was, I think, the biggest holy shit, wait, we're not about to win the Super Bowl and we just lost?

• 3:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:28Bill Simmons?

  And then the Norwood was, I think, the, probably the hardest kick in the nuts.

• 3:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 3:33Bill Simmons?

  That's where I would land on those three.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, we have that. So it's a Malcolm Butler revenge game. And we have Vrabel basically becoming Belichick. I mean, this is like watching when Hulk Hogan left WWE and they were just trying to replace him. It would have been like if we had actually replaced Hulk Hogan. Maybe that wouldn't have been a great idea. And then Drake with a chance to position himself as the next guy, even though he wasn't good today, but to emerge. Josh Allen never made a Super Bowl. Borough made one. Mahomes won a few, but could he move into that past? So what are, what are the storylines that are in there for you?

• 4:06Speaker 01

  I don't know. I think you're dead on with, I was kind of thinking about it. I'm like, man, this is such a bummer with the Patriots. This is like 30 tuck rules in a row, which is 30 for 30 tuck rules, the way they got to this position here. But then I'm like, all right, maybe this is, you know, the, the football gods trying to build some heat for the Patriots, trying to make them hated again. Oh, they got there with the easy schedule. You know, Mac Hollins proving to be a, a pregame sociopath and Vrabel is unlikable. And I haven't even mentioned the alleged criminals on your team, but it's building heat. Like you just slammed Snook over the head with a coconut. Congratulations.

• 4:41Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's, I mean, Kraft interjected himself into the Vrabel postgame.

• 4:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:46Bill Simmons?

  You know, Vrabel's giving this great speech. He's calling them warriors. He's, you know, telling them, basically, we have one day off, then we're about the next game, trying to win it. And he's about to bring everybody in. And Kraft's like, if I could interject and comes in and does the game ball thing. But, you know, Kraft's on the team for 32 years. This is his, I think 11th AFC championship. Cause they won in 96, the AFC.

• 5:11Speaker 01

  I think it's, I think it's 13. Isn't it 13?

• 5:14Bill Simmons?

  I think for, for Kraft.

• 5:16Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 5:16Bill Simmons?

  I think he's won the, this is his 11th trip to the Super Bowl somehow.

• 5:20Speaker 01

  This is the team's 13th. Yeah, you're right.

• 5:22Bill Simmons?

  Amazing. Cause I remember when he bought the team, you know, we all thought, I was living in Boston. We all thought they were going to move to St. Louis. Then it seemed like he might buy them and move to Hartford. They were the black sheep. But I've talked about all this.

• 5:33Speaker 01

  It was a good purchase. It was probably a smart part.

• 5:35Bill Simmons?

  Really worked out for him. And it didn't seem as smart this decade after Belichick left and it looked like we were just gonna have a steady stream of Mac Joneses and those type of guys. It was gonna be disappointing. We were gonna stink. And that's not what happened. Why don't we talk about Seahawks Rams first? Because that just happened. And I have more in the moment thoughts. I'm more prepared for the other game.

• 5:58Speaker 01

  It really felt like two different, right? We were watching different sports, right? Between the early game and the, like, it was like our parents playing pickleball in the morning versus like the Aussie open semifinals at night. But, but.

• 6:11Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking like, and I, did we talk about this last, I remember talking about this in my podcast with somebody like this weather variable we have for football, which we were just used to. And it's kind of insane that a blizzard basically decided this Patriots Broncos game. And then you watch the next game. I don't know what the weather was like there, but at least the field was clear and people could see who they were throwing to. And it was like, oh yeah, this is a completely different sport.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. Why don't we add fire? Might as well add fire to the first game, too.

• 6:38Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah. Like put a moat at midfield or something.

• 6:41Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 6:42Bill Simmons?

  I watched this entire game.

• 6:45Bill Simmons?

  I had no idea who I wanted the Pats to play for most of the three hours. And I was texting, I was multiple Pats fan threads. I was texting with my dad. My dad was just confused. He's like, I don't know what to root for. You got bouncing back and forth. And I think, I think ultimately I'm a little happier that it's the Seahawks. Because I think all we've done is see them at home. Darnold was incredible today. Now it's gonna have two weeks of Sam Darnold puff and smoke up his butt, but um, I just thought the Rams were so scary. And honestly, that fourth and four was basically the game, right?

• 7:17Speaker 01

  Oh crap.

• 7:18Bill Simmons?

  Like, did they get that?

• 7:20Speaker 01

  Sorry. Did you see this? Just came in. Sam Darnold got his right arm caught in the door of the team bus. They have to.

• 7:26Bill Simmons?

  There's another one?

• 7:27Speaker 01

  They have to amputate, but he's willing to play left-handed.

• 7:30Bill Simmons?

  After the Bo Nix thing, I'd believe anything.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  It's another break for you guys. Good. Uh, the fourth and four. Yeah.

• 7:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's just, it felt like these two teams were even, but when you throw in the home field, maybe the Rams were like an inch better, but I honestly, both of these teams are better than the Patriots. For the Patriots, we haven't done guess the Lions. I've not seen the Lions. But there, it's at least gonna be over a field goal for, for the Seahawks. But I think it would have been either team. Do you think the line would have been any different depending on who won? Cause I think it probably would have been the same.

• 8:00Speaker 01

  Unless there was like a blowout in this game and it seemed like there wasn't going to be until, I mean, it could have been two scores. If not for that crazy taunting. I don't know in what order you wanna, wanna hit this, but um, but no. If you saw a, a close Seahawks Rams game, it was probably gonna be the same line against the Patriots.

• 8:18Bill Simmons?

  I had a couple of things I want to hit. We'll start with Darnold versus Stafford. So they had that 38-37 game, which was probably the best regular season game of the year. And ironically swung the home field for this with that crazy two-point play. I can't believe if, if I, if we had done this in August, when we were doing the preseason guest alliance and all the futures and stuff. What would the Fanduel odds have been for Sam Darnold versus Matthew Stafford? Will be our best quarterback rivalry in the 2025 season?

• 8:48Speaker 01

  Oh wow.

• 8:48Bill Simmons?

  Cause that's what ended up happening. Those two guys today and in week 16 played two of the most fun games we've seen all year. And really seemed like they were elevating each other. And I just, the odds of that, when they got Darnold, you know, over the spring, summer, it was like, ah, they, they turned Geno Smith into Darnold. Do you think this is, they're better or worse? Now who's going toe to toe with the guy's probably going to win the MVP?

• 9:12Speaker 01

  Well, don't sleep on Stidham against May because that could blossom into a great, great rivalry. We have no idea. We don't know how it's gonna go. But both teams were 60 to one to win the Super Bowl. Your Patriots and Seahawks, right around there going in. So for them meeting up, I didn't even figure out what it would be. But yeah, their over under was eight and a half wins, Seattle. And I wasn't like sold on Darnold. I said, you know what? He really didn't have to do anything last week. That game was over in two plays, which makes it, I think it was five weeks before he had a 200 yard game. The oblique, who knows? So he didn't really prove what he, it's not his fault. They, all they had to do was run and, and Kenneth Walker was amazing last week. But I was like, maybe he doesn't have it in him. He was great. I mean, JSN is terrific

• 9:56Speaker 01

  too. We can get to all those guys. But yeah, he did not disappoint at all, Darnold.

• 10:01Bill Simmons?

  Didn't turn the ball over. I thought had a couple of like superb throws. The throw to Shaheed in the first drive. Perfect. Even Brady was like, oh, you gotta hit that. And then they showed the replay and he was like, wow, that was a great throw. That was an, that was an A throw. Dropped it right over the shoulder. He had that. I thought the touchdown throw right after the, uh, right after the kick, kick fumble. When he, I think it was Bobo in the end zone, but he kind of threw it, a little across his body at pressure. Thought I stepped around. I, I didn't see the Sam Darnold panic stuff. I have a, a good friend of mine, Mark Semino, who's a diehard Jets fan and has been pissed that they got rid of Darnold ever since they got rid of him and actually roots for Darnold by proxy because he knows the Jets have no chance. And he's like the most vindicated of

• 10:46Bill Simmons?

  anyone. He was just like, Darnold was good. We destroyed him. We poisoned him. We, we had him swimming in our poison pool and he got poisoned and he got out and he learned to swim again. It was basically the Sam Darnold thing. But he was really good. So Jets fans bummed out by it, but also Vikings fans, obviously. That's gotta be the other team that's watching this going, wow.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Jets fans miserable Super Bowl, right? Cause you're not going to root for the Patriots either.

• 11:12Bill Simmons?

  No, this is awful.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Aside from your friend, I don't know how many are excited about Sam Darnold.

• 11:16Bill Simmons?

  This is the first time the Jets fans have felt awful during a Super Bowl.

• 11:19Speaker 01

  Oh, no. That's right.

• 11:21Bill Simmons?

  Oh, no, it's every, every time.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  You're not going to get there.

• 11:23Bill Simmons?

  So Darnold was 25 for 36, 346 yards, three TDs. And, uh, and Stafford was over 300 too with three TDs. But I, I just thought Darnold was great. And the other fascinating thing was McDonald's. So you remember week one? Cause I, I'd like, I had the Seahawks for the division. I had a bunch of Seahawks overs and they, they lost week one and he kind of coached scared in that game. Remember?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:49Bill Simmons?

  We came on the pod that night and I was bitching about it and I was like, he doesn't trust this team. Like you gotta be aggressive. They were really aggressive in that last drive. They got that fourth and four stop and they had the ball. And instead of like being just handing into the line and trying to chew clock, they did some play action. They ran him out, they completed some passes.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  They got the call, they got the holding call, but that helped.

• 12:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  But, uh, but yeah, that was, uh, yeah, they weren't, they weren't laying back. That was for sure.

• 12:14Bill Simmons?

  Not at all.

• 12:14Speaker 01

  And like, they kind of came in spurts, right? Like Kenneth Walker was great in the beginning.

• 12:19Bill Simmons?

  He's great.

• 12:19Speaker 01

  It's like, and then he kind of got lost for a couple of quarters. And like, if you've had Kenneth Walker in fantasy, they're like, you had like eight weeks where he had like under 60 yards. It wasn't pretty.

• 12:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  And then, but then JSN steps in and like, I know we talk about QB ones all the time. Oh, is it Allen? Is it Mahomes? I think we settled on Allen being a QB two, two and no QB one. The receivers are really the fun rankings, right? Whether it's JSN or Puka, once in a while we'll throw Jamar Chase in there when he'll have like 15 catches. But JSN is a man and going over the, the middle, he got just slaughtered that one, that one shot, uh, that one, one long pass.

• 12:55Bill Simmons?

  When he jumped in the air. Yeah, yeah. And he also had a couple of catches that didn't count. He cut that ball under the goalpost that was seven yards out of bounds.

• 13:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:02Bill Simmons?

  He was. 10 for 153 with a TD and Puka was 9 for 165.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Incredible.

• 13:08Bill Simmons?

  And they're, they're just clearly the two best. And it's interesting because a year ago, you would have said Chase and Jefferson were clearly the two best. These two now, um, I thought they needed all the catches and all the yards. Puka had a couple, like he had played in the first half when he, he was like going out to his right, cutting in like he was gonna cut in almost to do like a button hook or something. And he had a step on the guy and then he veered in front of him. It was like a basketball move. It's like what you do in basketball when you're on a fast break. You have the big man behind you and you want to put him on your hip. He kind of did that with that guy and then went deep and Stafford hit him, but he does shit. No other wide receiver does. And then JSN, same thing, like he's doing stuff along the sidelines where you think he's going out of bounds

• 13:51Bill Simmons?

  and he's tiptoeing down for another eight yards. Catches over the middle, catches in the corners. He can go deep. Like those two guys just can do everything and they're reliable too.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  And they especially Puka, some, some D backs have come out and I think the other D backs are mad saying like, it's kind of not fair what he's able to do in space. Like it's, it's, it's unguardable. It's not fair. You know, it's like a Euro step or something, but he's getting open. And JSN, like you said, dragging his feet in the sidelines. He could come, go over the middle. Those are, but you know, I want to get into it, but Cooper Cup had a huge game. That third and three with five minutes left in the third, like you're, uh, you know, converting. Obviously that first down was huge. So they really brought it all. Yeah. All's over. It's came in.

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  Four for 36 and a TD and a really big third down catch. Looked like a little more explosive. It's funny because you know, they don't have a backup running back anymore. That guy Halani.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:47Bill Simmons?

  I watch football every week. I'm not positive I ever remember seeing him. I'm sure I did, but he certainly didn't jump out. And then, you know, they had the Bobo and Barner and these dudes, but it's one of those offenses that you never feel, you feel like they just shut down the one guy and you'll be fine. And then somehow Darwin's a 346. They also have an awesome punter. Who I thought had a couple of big ones and was single-handedly responsible for that guy muffing the punt.

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 15:13Bill Simmons?

  That thing just kept carrying and carrying and carrying backwards and he finally like just he like tripped.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  He tripped over his own. I do feel bad because I cut away to the new special teams coach and it's like, all right, what the F is that guy supposed to do? Tripped over his own feet. He can't like hold him up there. But yeah, that is a tough, that is a tough catch to make from your back. And, and you figured that was it, right?

• 15:34Bill Simmons?

  You have, when you fall, you just have to basically spasm forward and try to avoid it.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Oh, get out of the way if you can. But I think he was so, so cooked by then. It didn't matter what's gonna hit him.

• 15:44Bill Simmons?

  You know, it's funny. When I watch football, I'm always, I'm always thinking of all the things like you and I couldn't do when you watch these games, right? Or like how many times we would just be knocked out or how, how much certain hits could hurt. Like today, Remandre in the first game was running and he was pushing the pile and it kind of stopped. And then Hufanga came flying in from behind and just like nailed him in the back. I was like, I would still be down. Like they would have, I would be, pieces of me would be going on three different cards. And you watch this stuff and you're constantly marveling. The thing I'm always amazed by is that, or one of the things is that people don't muff these punts more.

• 16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:20Bill Simmons?

  When you think like these giant stadiums with the lights and how high it is.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:24Bill Simmons?

  And the ball's doing, there's wind and these guys make it look so easy. And then when somebody actually, and then plus there's gunners running at you, like trying to fuck with you, like they're gonna hit you and then cutting to the side. And it's weird. It doesn't happen more often, but the irony of the Rams special teams murdering them in a game. This was the problem with their whole season. And this is, I'd literally put them in the manifesto. This was rule number 13. Like beware of the bad special teams.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  It should be like, you know, you talk about this game all week, these two, these two games, right? And we did it on the pregame show. And it's like, we probably mentioned the special teams out of an hour and a half. We probably mentioned it for 40 seconds. And it was a huge, you know, like some things you can't, you can't like handicap, like miss field goals. Who's gonna miss? Who's got the day? You know, two weeks ago, miss field goals were bad. But the special teams with the Rams, you can almost guarantee it's gonna be one play that screws them or they overcome.

• 17:15Bill Simmons?

  It's so weird. McFay is like, I think everybody considers him one of the four best coaches in the league, right? How does he not fix this?

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:22Bill Simmons?

  This seems like one of those where you just, you do the Roadhouse move and you're like, I'm getting the best cooler in the South. I'm bringing Dalton in.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 17:30Bill Simmons?

  Name your price. I'll pay a thousand a week.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Or just take everyone off the field. Like, don't return punts anymore. Just everyone's gone.

• 17:38Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that would be interesting. Yeah, we're not, we're not trying to block punts or return them. We're just letting them bounce around. This game had, uh, great QBs, great receivers. We had multiple goats. Cause we had the Rams punt return, but then we had Woolen with the taunting penalty.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:53Bill Simmons?

  Um, which I want to talk about in one second. Um, and it felt like that might flip the game. I thought the announcers were excellent. I thought Brady is comeback player of the year. Is he eligible?

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Oh, really? Interesting.

• 18:03Bill Simmons?

  I think he's been really good. I, I really do. I think he's, last year, and he said it, there was an article written about him this week and he, he basically said what we talked about last year on the pod. It felt like he was so overprepared. He was trying to,

• 18:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 18:17Bill Simmons?

  work all this information that he learned all week and was just like doing, and now you feel like you're watching the game with him and he's weaving in like his experience when he played and the stuff he was doing about, like, I thought his best points today was the JSN, the shoulder pads.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:32Bill Simmons?

  And he was like, when, when somebody's running and their shoulder pads don't move, usually if their shoulder pads are going like this, you know, they're going deep. If they're lower, they're gonna stop. And he's like, nobody, yeah, nobody can read his shoulder pads, which makes them impossible to read. I was like, holy shit. I've never heard anyone say that before.

• 18:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:47Bill Simmons?

  I thought he did a really good job.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  Shut up, Tom. This is my secret. Don't, don't let that out. But yeah, no, he's good. He's better. He's growing on me. He doesn't get Botox during the games anymore, which I think helps that he could focus now.

• 18:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the halftime probably was starting out. He was as good announcing this year as he was bad at running the Raiders. So we'll see if he can pull out both of them next year. But I, I thought those guys, I thought they had good chemistry. So we had the cup revenge game, which you mentioned, and then we had, um, we had the, uh, the, the Darnolds coming out of it, outdoing the guy who's probably gonna win the MVP.

• 19:22Speaker 01

  Let me follow. Oh, yeah. Yes, probably.

• 19:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we had that as well.

• 19:27Bill Simmons?

  It'll be weird now if May, Stafford was gonna win it anyway, but May has been just shaky enough in the playoffs and Stafford was good enough that, um, I don't know.

• 19:37Speaker 01

  Speaking of shaky, how embarrassed you and Hench going off on Stafford, how he sucks and then, oh my God, amazing MVP. And the Carolina game. Yeah.

• 19:45Bill Simmons?

  You're just being good fans. That's all I remember. So Seattle threw for 201 yards in the first half, kept it going. Um, the, the, let's talk about the big. The big swing plays, the taunting penalty.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 20:00Bill Simmons?

  What's your take? Because I do feel like they were reffing a lot of this stuff differently in the playoffs than they do in week three. Right? Week three, they're calling that. We're now in the NFC title game. They just got this awesome stop. It's 31-20. They're about to punt. Guy runs over, talks to the bench. The, of course, the officiating guy they have in the booth, he's got to agree with it. I'd like, thank God we have those guys just to agree with everything. I, I think those guys were, um, trying to think of one useful moment. No, can't think of any today.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they had the one on the fourth and one, Drake may, may sneak. They go to whoever was there for it. Nothing, offered zero.

• 20:41Speaker 01

  They could be, they could be, they could be AI at this point. I mean, you know exactly what you're getting for that, but yeah. The, the taunting, my thing is who cares? Like, I don't care. The fans don't care. The people getting taunted don't care. There's no way the Seahawks were like insulted, like who, this is why they do training camp. That's why on Hard Knocks, they'll sing songs and embarrass themselves and everything, right? Like, so that they can get used to getting taunted because emotions are going to run high in a football game, let alone the NFC championship. So whatever, flags are going to go one way or the other. If you get a tug on the shirt, you can maybe call holding. But I don't, I don't like taunting at all to, to change a game.

• 21:20Bill Simmons?

  I don't know who it's for. I don't know if they're trying to teach sportsmanship to younger people. They felt like something was going out of line. Here's where it falls apart for them. It's the same sport with the same rule that after a turnover or a safety or whatever, all of the defenders can run into the other end zone and fucking do snow angels and stuff. So it's like, that's not taunting, but Will and getting excited that he just made a great stop and he's in front of the bench and he yells at a couple of people like, I just don't understand what, why do you have these two different outcomes for things that you just

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Because they're completely different. Yeah. You could instruct the bench to look away. Don't look at that end zone. There's some stuff going on that you may not like. It might, it might, might hurt your feelings. They're pretending they're bowling pins right now. You might not be able to get over it.

• 22:08Bill Simmons?

  If you're more than 20 yards away, you can taunt.

• 22:10Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Just look away.

• 22:11Bill Simmons?

  And then it's like, you can't take off your helmet on play, but yet we see it all the time as the guys are walking off the field. They'll take it off then. Okay. I've stopped trying to figure it out. Um, did you think the Seahawks were the best team in the NFC?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  I thought it was the Rams. I lived and died with them and I thought actually like, you know, it's like this team, maybe that Carolina road win wasn't great. Maybe the Bears road win wasn't great, but the fact that they're winning these games, you know, means that, I don't know. I just thought they were a smidge better than Seattle, but I have no problem with Seattle going to the Super Bowl. It's the other conference that's sort of messy.

• 22:49Bill Simmons?

  Seattle had three, I'm not gonna ignore that. Seattle had 396 total yards. The Rams had 479. And lost.

• 22:57Speaker 01

  And Stafford was like nifty too. Like he had that Fernando Mendoza type run, right? Like to get that first down. He like had a weird pass to Nakua when nothing was going on left. He was about to get sacked. So it was a different kind of Stafford that we saw.

• 23:12Bill Simmons?

  I was surprised that they were able to run on Seattle like they ended up doing as it felt like as the game went along. What did they go for? Quorum was nine for 55. Williams was 10 for 39. Quorum's longest was 19. Williams' longest was 11. It's not like they were like getting huge plays. It just felt like they were constantly getting four or five every play. I thought after last week, the reason I picked the Rams in this game, I mean, I'm sorry, the Seahawks. I just thought the Bears should have won last week. I didn't think the Rams were good enough. I thought the Bears left a ton on the table from a passing standpoint, which the Seahawks kind of bore out this week. It really feels like the Rams peaked in the first, I would say, three plus months of the season as an all

• 23:55Bill Simmons?

  around team. And then as, as the longer we went along, it just kind of became Stafford and the running game in these, in these two receivers. But that was kind of all they had. Everything else was sloppy. Special teams was bad. And I didn't feel like they could get stops. So that's why they lost.

• 24:11Speaker 01

  It's so close, right? They lost that overtime, that game on the Thursday night. They win that, they're home. Maybe it's a different story. By the way, 30,000 tickets sold at SoFi today for people to just go in and watch on the, on the large screen. 75% Seahawks fans. No, I don't know. No, I don't know. I want to get that. I know. But would that be more disgusting than actual Seahawks fans showing up to a real game?

• 24:35Bill Simmons?

  More humiliating.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. I want to count on that if anyone was there. I would like to know.

• 24:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, if the Seahawks win, this will be the first time they've ever won the Super Bowl.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. I heard that last week. Good luck to them.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  How about a

• 24:51Bill Simmons?

  Or the second time. It'll be the second time they've won the Super Bowl because they beat the Broncos 4 to 8 in a game that we bet on and I forgot last week. Can you do it correctly?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  I know. I love Schrager, the suck up blaming me, throwing me under the bus. I started the segment saying three of the four outcomes are rematches of the Super Bowl. What am I supposed to do?

• 25:09Bill Simmons?

  Schrager, the suck up.

• 25:11Speaker 01

  He knows it.

• 25:14Speaker 01

  No, it's okay. Just, uh, just leave Tony Romo alone. These, these things happen, you know?

• 25:19Bill Simmons?

  I was excited. I was excited that I apologized last week, you know, heartfelt apology to Danny Kelly and the rest of the Seahawks fans because that really could have come back to haunt me these next two weeks.

• 25:30Speaker 01

  Definitely.

• 25:30Bill Simmons?

  You don't even remember we won a Super Bowl, motherfucker.

• 25:33Speaker 01

  I don't know. Some people, Mina Kimes is not accepting the apology. A lot of people, Joel McHale, a lot of Seahawks fans don't want anything to do with your apology.

• 25:40Bill Simmons?

  Tall John just doesn't like me either way. Yeah, he's unhappy regardless. Um, well, when they, when they played the Broncos, the Broncos were favored, right?

• 25:50Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's slight, but yes, they were, I'm pretty sure they were favored.

• 25:54Bill Simmons?

  When they played the Patriots, who was favored in that?

• 25:59Speaker 01

  I don't want to misspeak.

• 26:00Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna say we were favored.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  Oh, man. It was like three or three and a half, right?

• 26:07Bill Simmons?

  I think we were favored.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  They were gonna, they were gonna cover. I don't know.

• 26:12Bill Simmons?

  That was 2015? Yeah.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:17Speaker 01

  It was three, wasn't it?

• 26:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think we were favored. So this will be the first time they've ever been favored in the Super Bowl.

• 26:25Speaker 01

  I guess. I'm afraid to say anything anymore. Seattle was minus one against, um,

• 26:30Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that's right.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:32Bill Simmons?

  And I think it, I think it tic-tacked around a little bit and I think the Pats are favored at one point.

• 26:37Speaker 01

  And then the other one, Denver was favored by two and the, the one that Seattle, uh,

• 26:42Bill Simmons?

  We watched that Super Bowl in a group of people that will probably never gather again at our cousin Jimmy's house.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  The Seattle, the New England one?

• 26:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that was a, that was a really tough watch there. Yeah. Anyone, any asshole you can imagine with We had Affleck and Damon, Tony Kornheiser.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:59Bill Simmons?

  Dicky Barrett.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:00Bill Simmons?

  Who else was there? It was, it was just a hodgepodge. It was, it was basically the cast of Rip.

• 27:05Speaker 01

  I think Whitey, Whitey Bulgers.

• 27:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Whitey Bulger was still hiding.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  He left, he left at halftime.

• 27:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he was still hiding. I think Seattle's really good. I think they've been good all year and I haven't seen anybody kick their ass yet. I mean, even they have three losses and they It's not like the Pats sucked in week one against Vegas. They sucked in the second half of the second Buffalo game. They kind of sucked offensively for the entire game today. There are other reasons for that, which we'll get into, but Seattle's much sturdier team. That's why I was so surprised to see the Rams kind of go up and down the field on them.

• 27:37Speaker 01

  I think you, deep down, you can't say it now because now you have like a lot of negative mojo for Seattle. You, I think you're happy. I think you're happy that the Rams are out of this. I don't think you wanted to see Stafford. I'll tell you what, I think the Rams pass rush was a little better than Seattle's today. And that's, you know that too, and you like that, but, and you don't trust Sam Darnold as much as you do Stafford. So I'm just telling you things that you know.

• 28:04Bill Simmons?

  That's where I landed for most of today, that ultimately I would rather place Sam Darnold on a neutral field than Stafford and Puka and Devante Adams and then run again. So the Rams, you think like the McVay, the McVay stuff starts in 2017. They lose the wild card to Atlanta. The next year, they, they win the NFC title on that ridiculous Saints call, although it did go to OT and the Saints did choke. Lose to the Pats 13 to three in a game that nobody could remember four plays from. Can you remember four plays from that game? There was a big Gronk play. Jared Goff was bad enough that they had to trade him.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  I had the over, so I think I might have napped at halftime. I don't think I even saw the rest.

• 28:54Bill Simmons?

  2020, they, they lose to the Packers and they end up moving on from Goff. 2021, they win the Super Bowl and they win three straight three-point games against Tampa and Brady, San Francisco and Cincy. But then there was a couple, they, they didn't make it the next year. They lose the tough Lions wildcard game.

• 29:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that one in 23. And then the Eagles game last year, when it felt like they were coming on down the stretch and they had a chance to steal it. This has been almost a decade now. McVay's been pretty relevant.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:28Bill Simmons?

  But 1-1 in the Super Bowl.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  Maybe it's the home field. You know, sometimes home field doesn't matter. Didn't matter in the AFC game today, but you know, could have, if that game's not in Philly, maybe the Rams do win that. If that game's not in Seattle today, maybe they do win.

• 29:43Bill Simmons?

  Three road games in a row is pretty hard.

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:45Bill Simmons?

  So the, the big question, the reason I brought that up is Stafford's gonna be 38 next year. He allegedly had a bad back this year, although he seemed fine all year, but I just wonder how long, uh, how long he can keep this train together, right? Puka takes a million kajillion hits. I have no idea how long his career is gonna last, but I'm guessing it's not gonna be a 15-year, year career for him.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know, you know.

• 30:08Bill Simmons?

  30 giant hits a game?

• 30:09Speaker 01

  If he goes out for any substantial amount of time, this Rams team, even Stafford at his best is not a, not a 13, 14 win team for sure.

• 30:17Bill Simmons?

  Last thing I'll say before we throw to break, um, I do like the Seattle fan base in general. It's sort of probably my favorite non-Boston ones. I always hate, no, I don't, I like the, I think their basketball team got stolen. I like the Seahawks fans. Um, they go way back to that Zorn Largent poster with the, when they're wearing the terrible jeans. Did you have that one in your room?

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember that one.

• 30:38Bill Simmons?

  The pleated jeans.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:41Bill Simmons?

  But you know, checkered history, and then it all came together in the beginning of 2010s. And then, um, they were the afterthought for most of the season. Everybody was so focused on the Rams, then it was Rams or Niners. People are picking the Cardinals as a surprise team and.

• 30:55Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, you and I made a list of, uh, in, after that Caleb Williams crazy to Hail Mary, that didn't matter. Like, we made a list of like the most, in the greatest, most inconsequential plays of all time. Caleb Williams on, that's your main curse catch.

• 31:10Bill Simmons?

  We forgot about that one in the Super Bowl. Yeah.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  That was, I mean, that might be one and one A those two. So yeah, these, these poor fans, just let them win.

• 31:17Bill Simmons?

  There was also three minutes where it seemed like the helmet catch that was like an official curse.

• 31:23Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:23Bill Simmons?

  For the Pats. Like it was like, we're gonna lose in the helmet catch and that, we're never winning another Super Bowl in my lifetime. All right, we're gonna take a break. We'll come back, talk Pats.

• 31:31Speaker 01

  No!

• 31:34Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. Playoff mode is on. FanDuel's got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in lives, offers to boost your winnings every game day. You do not want to miss out on the playoff action, the remaining playoff action we have on FanDuel. Download the FanDuel app or head to FanDuel.com/BS to get started. 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game prompt, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-Help.com, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to by Uber Eats, which has become a good friend to me during the football season. Big news, Aldi is now on Uber Eats and you get 20% off your first

• 32:19Bill Simmons?

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• 32:48Bill Simmons?

  2001, maybe it was January or December, I can't remember. Tom Brady's first playoff win, round two, Raiders in the snow.

• 32:58Bill Simmons?

  The last home game in the old stadium, which had really had... Why do you want to take a talk? I'll just talk to the camera.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  You know what? Let me, let me say something because I want to let you have your fun.

• 33:09Bill Simmons?

  I just want to give the Blizzard's history.

• 33:10Speaker 01

  I want, I want, you could have your fun and you could gloat, but so that this isn't a, so that this isn't a completely miserable situation for me. I have brought in a prop here. I have a Rosa pizza pie from Bianco Pizza. Can you see that?

• 33:24Bill Simmons?

  Oh, that looks delicious.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Well, I know this is your favorite. Yes, you can't have pizza. My current diet allows for it. So, um, go ahead. You go, talk about your snow game, Vinatieri and everything. I'm going to eat some pizza while you do that.

• 33:37Bill Simmons?

  You got the Rosa?

• 33:38Speaker 01

  I got the Rosa, right? Your favorite.

• 33:40Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you're gonna have a slice? Yeah, eat a slice. I'll do the snow. That looks delicious.

• 33:43Speaker 01

  All right.

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  That looks really good. So. Snow game, come back from down, I think 10. Ugly like this one was where they couldn't get any offense going for a long time. John Gruden chokes on, I think, second and short, third and short, doesn't get it first time, punts it back. We get the field goal of Vinatieri and everything starts. This was snow game two, the Mile High Revenge. We've never won in Denver in the playoffs, we're own four. Rulon Jones, Jake Plummer, Champ Bailey, 2005, still mad about that one. Two Brady Manning losses in Mile High. And then it decides to be a giant blizzard today. And they go up 7-0.

• 34:25Bill Simmons?

  Jarrett Stidham makes his only good throw of, I think probably the entire day. Hits Mims in stride. They end up scoring, five minutes in the game, it's 7-0. And I'm just like, I can't believe this is yet another decade where we're going to get our ass kicked in Denver. And then Denver never scored again. And the Patriots won 10-7. I'll start with Rabel.

• 34:52Speaker 01

  You know, for-

• 34:53Bill Simmons?

  You didn't like this game. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go there-

• 34:56Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 34:57Bill Simmons?

  From an entertainment standpoint, you didn't like it.

• 34:59Speaker 01

  The gig's up, I didn't like this game.

• 35:00Bill Simmons?

  From an entertainment standpoint, you didn't like, a lot of people didn't like it. They talked about how bad it was. Let me defend it. If you go back and you look at like Pro Football Reference in the playoffs in the 60s and 70s. Football was, there were a lot of football games like this where it was like bad weather, field position, making some defensive stops, fourth and one plays, don't fuck up on special teams, like really hard field goals. A 45-yard field goal is not like an easy one anymore. And everything is about positioning and not turning the ball over. And it was a chess match and Vrabel won it. And Peyton not kicking a field goal to go up 10-0 was the biggest mistake of the day by, in either game. Take the points, we couldn't do anything.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Let me say this. First of all, the mix of pistachios and red onion and Parmesan Reggiano, virgin olive oil. I mean, you wouldn't think it's a great marriage, but it really is better than chocolate and peanut butter. And then the back is so charred and crispy. I should review pizza. Does anyone do that for Netflix? Um, I thought Peyton, I'm not going to say that he was happy with the Bo Nix injury. Of course, it was a big bummer, but I think eventually he convinced himself. He's like, this could be my game. This could be my game. I'm the hero. You know, there's only a certain amount of games. Maybe you know of more where the coach is remembered for the game more than the players. I think Parcells winning Super Bowl 25, the Giants beating the Bills. That was

• 36:22Speaker 01

  a great game plan. It's Parcells being carried off that Peyton himself when the Saints beat the Colts, right? Um, and this could have been another one.

• 36:32Bill Simmons?

  Belichick's first Super Bowl in 01 was a Belichick title.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Against the Rams for sure. So I think he thought he's like, I'm gonna do this. And I actually believed him when he said, I'm not worried about Stidham. I'm worried about everyone else. That's like a kind of a, a great way to give your quarterback confidence and not this off the rest of the team. Um, but I was, I didn't, boy, I had a lot of problems with his game plan, mainly that there was no trickery involved because you would need it with, with Stidham. But I, you thought that was like a 90-10 play, like going forward versus kicking? I thought it was like close. I thought it was 60-40.

• 37:06Bill Simmons?

  I could just tell you what my texts were. Yeah. Um, because I think that was a little bit of a break because they had to measure it first.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:13Bill Simmons?

  And I'm watching it going, I pray to everything that they go for this. And I have multiple texts to back it up because I thought if they went up 10-0, I didn't know if we were going to be able to come back because their defense, both sides, both tackles were already getting annihilated, right? May looked skittish. You know, he looked combination nervous and like he didn't think he had enough time. Booty was just, Patrick Surtan just took him out. First time they threw deep to him, he was running side by side of them. So it's like, all right, cross off that half of the field.

• 37:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  Um, and I just thought, and especially with the weather coming, it was like, man, I don't, if it's 10-0, I don't know if we can come back, but I think we can get a stop if it's fourth and one.

• 37:52Speaker 01

  But if it's 14-0, it's, it's lights out, right? Like, don't you think like,

• 37:56Bill Simmons?

  But it didn't guarantee that they were gonna-

• 37:58Speaker 01

  That takes all the air out of it. Yeah.

• 37:59Bill Simmons?

  Didn't guarantee they were gonna score a TD though.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Well, I know.

• 38:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I, listen, we talk about this all the time in the pod, these fourth and one, and it's like, situation says, it says, it's 72% of the time, whatever. I think you throw that shit out in a game when there's a fucking blizzard coming in the second half, and you have a chance to basically just, what, basically my thing is, what's the final score of the game? How many points do I need? If I'm the Broncos, it's like, I just need to get to 14 to 17, and I win the game. Give me the field goal.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  I can go the other way with it.

• 38:29Bill Simmons?

  Let me go 10-0.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:31Bill Simmons?

  Let me try to get a turnover. And so that was one mistake. And then the other one was, sit him on that third down, throwing the ball backwards. Why are, why are you putting him in the position to do anything like that? He's your backup quarterback.

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Well, that was just-

• 38:42Bill Simmons?

  He hasn't played quarterback all year.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  I mean, if a guy is, I mean, that's the punter falling, that punt return of falling down. Like, what are you gonna do? I mean, he should, he should know to get rid of that ball. By the way, can we talk about that one for a second? There's a couple plays, right? Uh, look, he probably deserves to turn it over because it was so awful, such an awful decision, such an awful play. But why aren't they stopping that to review it? They first called it an incomplete pass, arm going forward, and everybody has to stop. It should have been a, if it wasn't, the Patriots would have scored on a touchdown. I contend-

• 39:13Bill Simmons?

  Wait, can I hold you on that, by the way?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  I'm gonna take a bite.

• 39:15Bill Simmons?

  All year, all year, they've been letting the play roll and not calling it dead, and then deciding after whether it was a touchdown or not. That was one of the only times this year I remember them just calling it dead, when it was like, in the moment, it was like, I think you threw it backwards. Anyway, go ahead.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Right. Let it, let it go. That's fine.

• 39:31Bill Simmons?

  Let it go. We learned that lesson this year.

• 39:33Speaker 01

  Could they review it? Couldn't they review it? What, why is that a lot different? If a guy throws a pass and it's batted down behind the line of scrimmage, I know that's more, you know, that's more obvious, but couldn't this have been that? Couldn't the ball have been going forward and it had been deflected backwards? Should we have looked at it for like a minute? Can't we just look at it?

• 39:53Bill Simmons?

  I think they did though.

• 39:54Speaker 01

  This is the play of the game. Oh, come on. They barely-

• 39:56Bill Simmons?

  I thought they did though. I mean, it was clearly backwards.

• 39:59Speaker 01

  It was backwards because it was deflected though. If it's deflected backwards, it's incomplete, isn't it? Whatever.

• 40:05Bill Simmons?

  I didn't.

• 40:05Speaker 01

  It didn't deserve.

• 40:06Bill Simmons?

  Whatever. I thought he threw it backwards.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  He sucked.

• 40:10Bill Simmons?

  Well, it seemed like the Pats were going to get screwed. And then on second down, May does the QB draw that I was screaming for because you could see with the their their defensive line was loaded one way and it was sitting there.

• 40:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:21Bill Simmons?

  My son thought I was like had had a was like clairvoyant. I was like, run it, run it. And then he did the QB draw because you could see like Denver just didn't have a guy in the right spot. But those two plays cost them the game because once the second half started, they couldn't move the ball.

• 40:37Speaker 01

  They couldn't.

• 40:38Bill Simmons?

  If I had the lead and the Pats can't do anything, I'm just, I'm doing what the Patriots did in the second half. And this is why I wanted to talk about this because I thought Vrabel in the second half, um, he just managed the situation, right? We have a lead. We don't think that they can go 40 yards. They're not going to be able to kick a field goal. That's more than 37 and we don't think they can make plays. I'm not taking any chances. They had the third down. It was third and eight. And May just rolled out and threw it out of bounds. Like they didn't even go for it because he didn't want to commit a turnover. I thought that was so smart. I thought he did a great. I didn't think he did a great job in the first half, but I thought second half he was great.

• 41:13Speaker 01

  It's because he got the version of Jared Stidham that most of us thought he would get this time last week, right? Like I was talking about, we're talking on the pregame show. It's like when there's two games left, you could really convince yourself during the week by over analyzing, you know, analysis leads to paralysis that, oh, Stidham's not a, you know, the Stidham Knicks. It's the same thing. What was interesting though, is he had that 52 yard, 54 yard pass to Mims, whatever, right? And then they call timeout and then I think to give him a trophy or something. I don't know what they did, but then they.

• 41:42Bill Simmons?

  Participation trophy.

• 41:43Speaker 01

  Exactly. But then they score. So like in Peyton's defense, he must've thought, all right, this guy's got like more than one first down left him the rest of the game and not that horrible pass play, whatever, uh, drop forward that it was. So.

• 41:57Bill Simmons?

  He did. I wrote in my notes, Stidham kind of sucked them in a little bit thinking that maybe he could do a little more. I thought you made the key point on Peyton. This was a hero ball performance by him.

• 42:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:10Bill Simmons?

  Like if you're actually just trying to win the game, take the points, go up 10-0, don't have Stidham do anything that could put himself in harm's way for the rest of the game, until we have proven that we can do a long drive. Even the beginning of the third half, or the second half, third quarter, we have like a 10-minute drive.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:28Bill Simmons?

  To chew up the clock. I'm gonna say we like I'm on the team.

• 42:31Speaker 01

  You are.

• 42:32Bill Simmons?

  And we can't even get a touchdown out of it. We had the ball for 10 minutes. Like, we couldn't compete with complete 10-yard passes. I thought their defense was excellent, and we had a lot of trouble blocking them and...

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Really good. Yeah, but you're, look, the biggest asset either team had on offense was Drake May's legs in the second half, right? You're gonna scramble for first downs. It looked for a second that Stidham could do the same thing. But what bummed me out about Peyton is you guys had that flea flicker, which kinda got you in field, it's gonna get you in field goal range.

• 43:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we missed the field goal, but it's a good play.

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, who's the quarterback that hasn't taken a snap in two years versus who's the MVP caliber quarterback? I think you need some flea flickers in there if you're Denver. I think you need an end around for Mims or something. Something to, something to juice it up to create a missed tackle or something. Cause they had nothing at all in the second half.

• 43:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, they were missing two receivers, which hurt them. Cause Franklin was scratched for the game. Bryant got hurt during the game. So all of a sudden Humphrey's out there in big spots. I think I saw, was that Sky Moore out there? There was a Moore. Is that Sky Moore? It is, right?

• 43:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was Demi Moore. Yeah, they were really...

• 43:36Bill Simmons?

  It was Demi Moore, it was a Moore. I thought they ran out of guys. It was a good matchup. They couldn't run the ball. I mean, the big thing for us is the run defense has been awesome. The Patriots defense, I know they're gonna take shit for the next week, and that's fine.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Your defense is good. I like your defense.

• 43:54Bill Simmons?

  Defense has given up 26 points in three games.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  It's good.

• 43:56Bill Simmons?

  They've given up two touchdowns, one of which was this touchdown in the first five minutes of the game. The other was that one in Houston off the Drake May fumble or whatever it was, where they had to go 10 yards. Other than that, 26 points in three games and pretty... Close to dominant.

• 44:12Speaker 01

  I think they had three, two bad plays in the last three weeks, right? The one, the Mims play, the, uh, right?

• 44:18Bill Simmons?

  Mims play.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  The one last week, like you said, and I don't think any really against the Chargers. No, no big ones. So.

• 44:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, I thought Vrabel, it's funny because Belichick, when he flipped stuff around in the 2000s and a lot of it was like defense, game management, like just outthinking the other team, good game plan, strategy and Vrabel, ironically, the last game of Brady's career was that Tennessee game.

• 44:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 44:43Bill Simmons?

  When Vrabel like outwitted Belichick and it was like, oh my God, the pupil has become the teacher. It was one of those and now, now Vrabel's the coach and this flipped in a year. We Jared Mayo last year, who's one of the worst coaches we've ever had in any Boston team. And now we have this guy who I really felt like MacGyver this game.

• 45:01Speaker 01

  You know, I don't know.

• 45:02Bill Simmons?

  They had 10 points.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  It's a little bit much credit. I know. You beat Jared Stidham. He outwitted, you outwitted a five-year-old when you put a coin behind his ear and pull it out like, oh, look what I got.

• 45:13Bill Simmons?

  You're on the road in a blizzard and we didn't turn the ball over.

• 45:16Speaker 01

  That's the key, right? Like you, I think your first half, what'd you have 48 yards in the first half?

• 45:21Bill Simmons?

  It was terrible.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  They had about the same in the second half. The difference is you guys were locked at seven. You got the points and you didn't, he didn't.

• 45:28Bill Simmons?

  Then we got the field goal to start third quarter.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  But for God's sakes, 28 quarterbacks beat Drake maybe today. 28 beat him last week, maybe 20 the week before. What the, what the heck is going on?

• 45:39Bill Simmons?

  It was the worst throwing game he's had since the Vegas game in week one. I thought he missed seven open guys and throws that he's made all year. Certain broke up that one bomb that was perfect. He threw another bomb. That was a good one, but, um, he did have the naked bootleg to finish the game.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  And he called it himself, I guess, right?

• 45:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I sent it to you. I thought McDaniels called it. He didn't tell anyone on the team he was doing it. If you watch the clip, Hunter Henry's blocking his defensive end out to try to keep him from coming toward, you know, the line of scrimmage. And meanwhile, May's running toward the guy and Henry's blocking him toward May, but May just audible it. But for the, for the old school pass fans, the pre 2001, that was like the famous Grogan play.

• 46:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:25Bill Simmons?

  Which he used to do, he most famously did in the 85 season when they went to the Super Bowl against the Jets. He had like this old naked bootleg where he's like limping into the end zone. And it was always like the Grogan play. And then, so he does that. This team has pieces of that 85 team.

• 46:42Speaker 01

  Did Grogan also have 10 completions and a win? Did he also?

• 46:45Bill Simmons?

  I think he probably did. If you go back to Grogan's stats, they were not good.

• 46:49Speaker 01

  You like, I'm sorry, you like bringing up Kobe in game seven against the Celtics. What was he? Seven for 28 or six for 24? I hate to always bring it back to basketball. This, this is a, this had.

• 47:01Bill Simmons?

  You always do this.

• 47:02Speaker 01

  I know. Go ahead.

• 47:04Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't great. The defense carried him. His legs made a couple of good plays. And then the naked bootleg. But, you know, I said this last week, it feels like the 96 season, Parcells' last season when it was like, oh, I guess we're in the Super Bowl. I don't think anybody believed it. I think Vrabel believed it. But, uh, but when you look back at who they beat, they beat three top five defenses. Like, I think it's the first team ever in playoff history to beat three top five.

• 47:30Speaker 01

  He was terrible in the three games, though.

• 47:32Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't terrible.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  He had 15 sacks.

• 47:35Bill Simmons?

  He was good in the second half of the Chargers.

• 47:37Speaker 01

  Three interceptions. He had took 15 sacks.

• 47:39Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't terrible. I'm not gonna defend him.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Okay, but you're gonna go crazy about what he did against these three defenses. Six fumbles, 15 sacks.

• 47:45Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying they beat three, three top five defenses.

• 47:48Speaker 01

  I'm very, you can see.

• 47:49Bill Simmons?

  Now they're playing another one.

• 47:50Speaker 01

  18 points in a game.

• 47:51Bill Simmons?

  I didn't finish the first. The happiest you were when you were finishing the pizza.

• 47:58Bill Simmons?

  Do I think this is a Super Bowl team? It's hard for me to believe.

• 48:03Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 48:05Bill Simmons?

  We had some in the 80s and 90s where it was like, wow, they made it.

• 48:11Bill Simmons?

  I love that you're eating like the Titans Rams Super Bowl that year. It's like, ah, the Titans are in? This is weird, but we don't usually have these.

• 48:21Speaker 01

  Let's rank the worst Patriots Super Bowl teams. I'll, I'll, I'll make it quick. Uh, number one is this year's team. Uh, the 12 way tie for the number two. That's all I'm gonna say.

• 48:34Bill Simmons?

  The defense is really good.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  They are good.

• 48:37Bill Simmons?

  And they've been with Milton Williams. They've been really good this whole year. So I think the recipe would be a little like oh, one where you know, they won the Rams game in, in oh, one, I think 2017.

• 48:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:49Bill Simmons?

  It's probably a score like that. Keep it down. There's a really interesting Darnold element to this that I forgot to mention in the previous segment of the Patriots are basically the team that ended his Jets career. So he had that ghost game. He never recovered from the ghost game. Remember that when he said Belichick and he was like, I was seeing ghosts out there and it became a week long internet thing about how Sam Darnold was seeing ghosts. And, uh, I don't know. He gets revenge on that.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  So wait, hold on. This is no good. They're saying Kenneth Walker got run over by a snowmobile and he's listed as doubtful for the Super Bowl. I mean, that, that's all good news for the Patriots always. Not even snowing in Seattle.

• 49:27Bill Simmons?

  Henson, now we're trying to figure out the highlights for the Patriots in this game, like actual highlights. Fourth and goal stop. Stidham backward pass, may draw touchdown, the QB draw, flea flicker to Hollins resulted in no points. Leonard Taylor blocked the field goal. I guess he tipped it. A guy that I didn't know he was on the team because they just added him. Literally didn't know he was on the team.

• 49:52Bill Simmons?

  The Patriots punter who was terrible today, like really like he would have been the villain of the game if they lost.

• 49:57Speaker 01

  That's the guy that angles it out of bounds normally, right?

• 50:00Bill Simmons?

  He was terrible. I mean, he's, he, he skunked one. He was just so bad. His last punt, it was a 33 yard punt with no return when they're in the 40. And it was actually like, he came up a little bit big. So that was fun. Gonzo's interception and then the naked bootleg. It wasn't like a bevy of highlights, so.

• 50:17Speaker 01

  I do think, well, by the way, all those runs of the naked bootleg, all those, the fourth, the one that they converted, that he might not have converted, ended up being the biggest run, wasn't it? Like you kicked the field goal after that. So and they had the eye in the sky. We're never going to know what, what gets reviewed and what doesn't, but.

• 50:34Bill Simmons?

  Stadium sucked for the last two hours and if I'm a Bronco fan.

• 50:40Bill Simmons?

  I just feel like I would have won that game.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  He's not the franchise.

• 50:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm not like, we don't have a QB controversy in August. But I think I would have, I would have left that game thinking we win with Knicks. Like just, we win. Knicks gets us to, he uses his legs. He probably rushes 10 times. Like I think Drake was 10 for 65.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 51:00Bill Simmons?

  I think Knicks is probably like nine for 40, nine for 50, probably extends three drives with his legs and.

• 51:07Speaker 01

  And he's a fourth quarter comeback quarterback. You could say what you want about him. He might've been able, I did like, you know, you talk about what's cool about the weather, like Romo was two minutes left. Patriot, Patriot is like, better hurry up. You're going to lose the wind in the fourth quarter. Like I think they did, made, did a good job of figuring, even the sideline reporters were, were excellent today. I thought like just.

• 51:27Bill Simmons?

  I thought that was the best sideline reporter performance in a while. When Tracy Wolf said to the, watch the snow come into my face. Now watch when I turn. I was like, ah.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. By the way, they're going to isolate that as what you just said, for sure.

• 51:42Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean?

• 51:43Speaker 01

  No, you, I mean, they're going to make it filthy that people, the people will do that kind of thing.

• 51:47Bill Simmons?

  What's, oh, you think I'm in trouble now with social media?

• 51:50Speaker 01

  Watch the snow come in my face. It's fine. It's good.

• 51:54Bill Simmons?

  I just see what, now I see what you think. Oh man, somebody's going to film a winter porn with my face in it.

• 52:00Speaker 01

  You're cooked.

• 52:01Bill Simmons?

  Damn it.

• 52:05Speaker 01

  Blizzard Bill says, watch the snow.

• 52:08Bill Simmons?

  Come Blizzard.

• 52:11Bill Simmons?

  So the defense gave up zero points in the last 55 minutes of the game.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:16Bill Simmons?

  I thought I wrote that in my notes. The game was like Game of Thrones because they kept telling us the snow was coming and it was, I've been rewatching Thrones. It was like winter's coming, winter's coming. And that was another reason why I can't believe Peyton didn't take the field goal. Because they knew.

• 52:32Speaker 01

  First quarter. Yeah. Yeah.

• 52:33Bill Simmons?

  They knew around halftime, snow was coming in for real when they did that little stop thing. Anyway, uh, things I have left. I think Drake has to

• 52:47Bill Simmons?

  probably play two thirds of a good game in the Super Bowl for them to have a chance to win. Which in the regular season, he would play 75% of an awesome game, but he would always start out slow. I think they have to figure out how to start him faster and use his legs, get him involved in the, in the game with his legs. And then for some reason that opens things up for him.

• 53:09Bill Simmons?

  Stidham. Is that it? Do we ever see him start a playoff game again?

• 53:15Speaker 01

  More do you want to say?

• 53:16Bill Simmons?

  Or do you blame the Blizzard? Or do you say it's the Blizzard? It was really hard to throw?

• 53:19Speaker 01

  No, I Blizzard made it hard to throw for sure, but I, I don't, we, I don't think we've ever seen anything like that where a backup comes in and immediately like, like, like, how nervous were you? Like, oh my God, if we get to, if they do get to 10 or 14 to 17, we're kind of done. Like, I think the agreement with the defense would have been like, just let me get 23 points. Just stop them from getting 23. Like, no, you needed less than half of that. And still, and then just like nothing the rest of the way. It's, it was actually shocking. Went from this makes sense to this makes, I, I don't even know what I'm watching anymore.

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  So you don't think Stidham's

• 53:53Speaker 01

  No, I think that's it.

• 53:53Bill Simmons?

  A $25 million contract to.

• 53:55Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 53:58Bill Simmons?

  I think CBS needs to offer Tomlin like $50 million a year to join their halftime show.

• 54:03Speaker 01

  Really?

• 54:04Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if you saw the halftime show.

• 54:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's rough.

• 54:07Bill Simmons?

  I would, I would try to get Tomlin. Sir Tan, I think was the only Broncos winner out of that game. We checked, we tested him once and it was like, no more.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  He was great early on.

• 54:16Bill Simmons?

  No, thank you.

• 54:17Speaker 01

  You never see a D back have his head turned, running for 10 yards with his head turned, which almost definitely, you know, calls off the pass interference if you do that.

• 54:27Bill Simmons?

  Pats ran the ball, if you include the Drake May scrambles, thirty-eight for one forty-one. And I think the Rams unlocked a little bit of a running blueprint with the Seahawks. Cause I thought they were over and over again, able to gash them in the middle and move the ball. So we'll see if that's a thing. So we have two weeks now to think of the Super Bowl. Have you gotten sad yet that the NFL season's almost over or more sad that the Patriots are back?

• 54:52Speaker 01

  I don't know. It's very, very hard for me to separate those two, but you know, I don't like that. I can't make a two-team teaser anymore. I guess I could use the total and the line. And I don't really love the Super Bowl. You got, you know, you're stuck at someone's house. You watch, you got your wife's friends, dumb husband, asking you what the spread is every four minutes.

• 55:11Bill Simmons?

  Can you put a bet in for me?

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, can I bet one side?

• 55:13Bill Simmons?

  You guys want to bet this?

• 55:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know how this works. Can I bet the Rams? Can I bet the Seahawks and the Patriots? Then I won't lose, right? Oh geez, just killed me. So yeah, this isn't the best.

• 55:24Bill Simmons?

  We'll take a, we'll take a break for the podcast. We'll keep going here on Netflix.

• 55:28Speaker 02

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

• 55:54Speaker 03

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

• 56:06Speaker 04

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

• 56:26Speaker 03

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

• 56:53Speaker 04

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

• 56:59Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves, and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association Member, FDIC. All right, quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down, ready to watch the game,

• 57:43Bill Simmons?

  only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows you are 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. Let's guess the line. All right. I haven't seen it. I don't know what it is. I swear I haven't. Now, let me just, let me set, can I set the stage? Can I build, build some heat here? Build some drama. All right. So where are we? We, okay, so after 21 weeks, you're up 11 to 10. You have the lead. I have an opportunity to tie. Tiebreaker is Zoe Simmons takes penalty kicks on us

• 58:25Bill Simmons?

  for three and a half hours until one of us gets lucky and blocks one. Or you could win it right here. Even a tie wins it for you. Let's see what happens.

• 58:36Bill Simmons?

  I have the Seahawks favored in Super Bowl LX

• 58:44Bill Simmons?

  by four points.

• 58:49Speaker 01

  It's gonna be, it's gonna be hard for me to win now.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  What did you guess? You didn't even tell me. Did you guess four?

• 58:55Speaker 01

  I guess four.

• 58:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  You win. You're off the hook, Zoe. The actual line.

• 59:02Bill Simmons?

  I was either gonna, I almost won four and a half.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  Well, that would have won two. Seahawks minus four and a half, over under forty-six and a half.

• 59:10Bill Simmons?

  Vegas zone.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 59:13Bill Simmons?

  Wow, won another year. Now I get to hit you with a rose of pizza.

• 59:18Bill Simmons?

  A hard rose of pizza crust.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  It is damn good. I'm sending the rest to you.

• 59:22Bill Simmons?

  That looked really good. Well, um, I had some other stuff I wanted to hit with you before parent corner.

• 59:30Bill Simmons?

  A new coach got hired for the Pittsburgh Steelers and it was Mike McCarthy, who was your coach on the Cowboys for a few years.

• 59:38Speaker 01

  Right.

• 59:41Bill Simmons?

  Am I wrong thinking that's now he's an underrated hire, Mike McCarthy?

• 59:47Speaker 01

  No, I don't think you're wrong. Like, I think there's two ways to look at this, right? Like, compared to Mike Tomlin, maybe not better, you know, maybe weighs a little worse, but compared to the pool of coaches that was available, I think he's, I think he's good. I think he's solid. I think it's weird to take a, a chance on these thirty-five-year-olds, you know, and just like, you know, it's, it's, I know you don't want to sign old guys to five-year deals, but I think to get a steady guy in there, it's gonna be better than rolling the dice, which the Steelers don't do anyway.

• 1:00:18Bill Simmons?

  Twenty coaches have ten-plus playoff wins.

• 1:00:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:21Bill Simmons?

  And only four of them started coaching this century. Mike McCarthy, Harbaugh, Sean Payton, Sean McVay.

• 1:00:29Speaker 01

  His numbers are very similar to Harbaugh. So there's a lot of people who love the Harbaugh, love the Harbaugh hired.

• 1:00:35Bill Simmons?

  So he, McCarthy was one seventy-four and one twelve, eleven, eleven in the playoffs and won a Super Bowl.

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:41Bill Simmons?

  Harbaugh was one eighty and one thirteen. It's almost exact. Thirteen and eleven in the playoffs and won a Super Bowl. Payton is now one eighty-four and one oh eight, eleven and ten in the playoffs, one and oh in the Super Bowl. And Tomlin's one ninety-three and one fourteen, eight and twelve in the playoffs, won a Super Bowl. So if you just covered those four guys up. You wouldn't know who is who.

• 1:01:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:01:01Bill Simmons?

  And yet, everyone's like, oh, John Harbaugh restoring giant. It's like, he was about to get fired before Lamar became Lamar. McCarthy was on the Packers kicking ass with Aaron Rodgers and then eventually it became, oh, it's only because he had Aaron Rodgers. Like, why isn't that what we say about John Harbaugh?

• 1:01:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:17Bill Simmons?

  I don't get it.

• 1:01:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that comparison's good. Yeah, it's Giants fans just getting excited, I think. I will say this, if he brings Rodgers in, not, not, no personal bias, I know that's impossible to think, but I don't think that's a step forward. Right? If he's guaranteed to have to bring Rodgers in, McCarthy, I think that's a couple more years of just nothingness.

• 1:01:37Bill Simmons?

  It's a tough one. Well, I think it seems like some of the assistants will get poached because there's still some jobs left.

• 1:01:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:42Bill Simmons?

  Hilariously, nobody wants the Browns job, which I thought was funny. Couple of mailbag questions. This came from Jack in Saskatchewan. He suggests a new manifesto rule. Can you picture the QB holding the trophy? The Malcolm Gladwell blink test for when you're picking the Super Bowl. Seattle has the best shot. Picture Sam Darnold holding a trophy with confetti coming down.

• 1:02:09Bill Simmons?

  Can you see it? Thought that was pretty interesting. Sam Darnold kind of looks like Theon Lovejoy.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Ooh. You really are watching this game.

• 1:02:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm really getting it on thrones. But I was trying to think of most unlikely guy who held the trophy. It was probably Dilfer, right?

• 1:02:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:02:26Bill Simmons?

  Dilfer. Wow, Dilfer won the Super Bowl, what just happened?

• 1:02:29Speaker 01

  Doug Williams. Yeah, those are some weird ones.

• 1:02:32Bill Simmons?

  I think Dilfer is probably number one for me, but yeah, so I don't know.

• 1:02:34Speaker 01

  I could see both of them holding it. I could see maybe his wife baking cookies the whole time, handing them out while the trophy's going around. I could see both.

• 1:02:43Bill Simmons?

  Seahawks fan named Chris was talking with his friend Ryan about signature celebration dances they would do if they're an NFL plan. Player that would be the funniest and they decided it would be the tuck dance that Buffalo Bill did in Silence of the Lambs. And then we're wondering if somebody could do that and would they get a penalty?

• 1:03:03Bill Simmons?

  So you'd have to like, kind of push, push your stuff in and do, and do this.

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:03:09Bill Simmons?

  Or maybe put the football in. I, I feel like it would be a 15 yarder.

• 1:03:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. You think that's taunting? You think that's something the sideline?

• 1:03:15Bill Simmons?

  I think that'd be taunting. Yeah, you do the tuck dance.

• 1:03:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, yeah. Joe Buck wouldn't like that.

• 1:03:20Bill Simmons?

  Simon in Australia said that I almost threw a no hitter with my OJ Simpson, Peyton Manning comp. But then when I said the what car would he be driving? I didn't make the white Bronco joke that was sitting there.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Denver. Yeah, yeah. With Peyton.

• 1:03:34Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  It's all right.

• 1:03:37Bill Simmons?

  He compared it to Andres Galarraga's perfect game. It was going great.

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  First base.

• 1:03:42Bill Simmons?

  Blake in Nebraska wants to know, is, is it time to discuss Josh Allen and the Ewing theory?

• 1:03:50Speaker 01

  Wait a minute. How so?

• 1:03:50Bill Simmons?

  He didn't.

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  That.

• 1:03:53Bill Simmons?

  He does fit all the parameters. Media loves him. He's considered to be one of the best guys in the league. He's never actually won anything. So what would have to happen is he would have to have some sort of injury next year. The backup would have to come in and then basically do Tom Brady in 2001.

• 1:04:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Bill Simmons?

  Listen, he is on the Ewing theory watch list, I think is fair to say.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, that's a big part of the Ewing theory, the actual doing it part of it. Yeah.

• 1:04:16Bill Simmons?

  The actually doing it, but I think he is definitely a candidate. Peter Kraus was saying how Rams, Pats, Super Bowl would be an uncanny 2001 kind of doppelganger thing where the Rams would be the favorite, but that didn't happen.

• 1:04:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:04:34Bill Simmons?

  So I don't know if the, I don't know if the Seahawks thing is the same way.

• 1:04:38Speaker 01

  I gotta tell you, I do think the Seahawks, I think, like, will break Netflix records if the Pats lose the Super Bowl to the Seahawks and we're on immediately afterwards. I think that's gonna be like.

• 1:04:50Bill Simmons?

  You think that'll beat Stranger Things?

• 1:04:51Speaker 01

  That'll be, that'll be like six Chappelle specials lined up back to back. Like, so if you love the ringer, ultimately it's good for the ringer. You should root for your team to lose, I think.

• 1:05:00Bill Simmons?

  How about I'll eat a roasted pizza if the Pats win?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  Oh, do it. Let's do it.

• 1:05:06Bill Simmons?

  Pour some extra gluten.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  February 9th is long enough.

• 1:05:08Bill Simmons?

  Seth Morgan sent me this email before the game today. He said he went to a strip mall dive bar in Littleton. Kind of place where only three guys are at the bar talking sports. Talked about the Broncos and somebody said, Stidham will be an even more potent threat than Knicks because there's no tape on him. The lack of tape will lead to a 25% Stidham advantage.

• 1:05:31Bill Simmons?

  And if he's 20% worse with the 25% advantage, that might actually give the Broncos an extra 5% chance to win the Super Bowl. Therefore, we are better off with them. Go Broncos. And then he said, shout out to the Littleton, Colorado, Colorado bar.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:05:44Bill Simmons?

  So, listen, that's the kind of thing that happens in a bar.

• 1:05:46Speaker 01

  God, I can imagine the Patriots defense like, he's throwing it forward or backwards. What are we supposed to do? There's no tape on this guy.

• 1:05:54Bill Simmons?

  He's right-handed?

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  What are we supposed to, come on, guys? We had no heads up here.

• 1:05:58Bill Simmons?

  He told me he was left-handed.

• 1:05:59Speaker 01

  Let's just let it go.

• 1:06:01Bill Simmons?

  Tim from Westfield, Massachusetts, wants to know if Stefan Diggs can be called the QB Whisperer because Kirk Cousins, Josh Allen, CJ Stroud, all of them blossomed when he was there. I guess today wasn't the day to ask that one. I like it. He's definitely a whisper of something because I think he's

• 1:06:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:19Bill Simmons?

  on pace for four kids in the last year.

• 1:06:20Speaker 01

  Called a lot of things, yeah.

• 1:06:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's whispering something.

• 1:06:23Speaker 01

  You think it's because of the easy schedule? I haven't seen the women, but being able to impregnate.

• 1:06:28Bill Simmons?

  If the schedule was harder, it would be tougher.

• 1:06:32Bill Simmons?

  Miles from Austin via Boston thinks the stars have aligned for the Pats to be a generational nobody believes in us team because, and this, he sent this before the game, bad schedule. Are we sure Drake May is good? They're so lucky. The Rams Seahawks Super Bowl just happened. I am saying there's a lot of nobody believes in us.

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  You didn't say it for Denver, though. That would have been a time to say. I thought you, I thought that was going to bite you in the ass for not labeling the Broncos a nobody believes in us team.

• 1:06:59Bill Simmons?

  I, the straight up pick was Broncos. I thought that line was too high, the plus four and a half, but I thought the Pats were not.

• 1:07:04Speaker 01

  Well, it's gonna be a similar thing here.

• 1:07:05Bill Simmons?

  Here's a question for you from Connor from Minneapolis.

• 1:07:09Speaker 01

  Hit it, Connor. What is it?

• 1:07:10Bill Simmons?

  Who was Sal rooting for in Super Bowl L2, AKA, Super Bowl 52? I imagine him being in a real bind, knowing that the, the plausible Eagles would win, or that he'd have to go on the pod and listen to you go on and on about the greatness of Brady. Which team was a bigger nightmare to win for you?

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  I gotta tell you, Connor, and thanks for the question. I really like eight out of the last 10, 15 out of the last 20 Super Bowls. I'm just a basket case. I don't know who to root for. Eagles, I had a problem with every play in the Eagles Patriots game. Same with Patriots Giants. I didn't want the Patriots to go undefeated. Definitely didn't want the Giants to win. Yeah, disgusting. They had knocked the Cowboys out in one of those years. So, yeah, I'm, uh, this is why this is kind of like the last good week of football for me.

• 1:07:57Bill Simmons?

  But you like Seattle, though. You'll just go all in on Seattle. You'll do some sort of parlay with Seattle money line with

• 1:08:04Speaker 01

  I'll see.

• 1:08:05Bill Simmons?

  Some sort of adjusted under or something.

• 1:08:09Bill Simmons?

  Ruben Silva said, in the Sunday night pod, we wondered what rule the NFL would change to help Josh Allen make or win the Super Bowl. We forgot the NFL has already changed a rule for Josh Allen overtime after the 13 seconds game.

• 1:08:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:24Bill Simmons?

  They changed the overtime rule. So that is fair.

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:08:29Bill Simmons?

  Last email I'll read from Bill. He said, listen to you and Cousin Sal discuss the generational disappointment being shared by Bill's fans and their children.

• 1:08:39Bill Simmons?

  As an Atlanta native, I'm 47, part of the first generation to grow up as an Atlanta sports fan and pass it down.

• 1:08:47Bill Simmons?

  He said, you mentioned age nine to 10 as being the critical age for sports disappointment. Consider the nine-year-old that grew up in Atlanta and experienced 28 to three. I have no idea how that will warp them. My nine-year-old cried for 45 minutes in his Matt Ryan jersey. While my youngest proclaimed he's not waking up. Obviously, I've saved the video for his wedding. That has to shape a child's character. And then he says, this small group of Falcons fans are now around 18 years old and will probably have to be studied and monitored.

• 1:09:18Bill Simmons?

  It's a really interesting one. See, they're just permanently damaged?

• 1:09:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, and these people going into the world, right? They've graduated high school at 18. They're gonna

• 1:09:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Probably, yeah, the September, maybe?

• 1:09:28Bill Simmons?

  They just don't trust anybody?

• 1:09:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a mess. It's not funny. It really isn't funny what we do to our kids. I mean, it's not, it's not fun what you do to them either. Just winner after winner. By the way, I'm looking at this. Mike McDonald arrested for public urination on a playground an hour ago. He was by a sandbox. He's sentenced to three weeks in County. Tough break again. Good for the Patriots.

• 1:09:50Bill Simmons?

  Listen, the night's not over. There was a rumor today on Twitter that got like 2 million retweets or something where the guy said that Bo Nix actually got hurt in the locker room.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  I saw that nonsense.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  That had to be fake, right?

• 1:10:02Speaker 01

  Well, we saw him limping around before, right? In the post-game interview and everything.

• 1:10:06Bill Simmons?

  So Seahawks minus four and a half. The over/under is 46 and a half.

• 1:10:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:10:12Bill Simmons?

  That seems high. Um, and then futures, Darnold plus 130 for MVP, Drake May plus 230. And JSN is 5 to 1, which was one we talked about two weeks ago when he was like 18 to 1.

• 1:10:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:26Bill Simmons?

  For Super Bowl MVP. And if, by the way, who wins the MVP? That was the Super Bowl today, Seahawks Rams. Who would have won the MVP?

• 1:10:33Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:10:35Bill Simmons?

  I would argue JSN.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so. He had so many yards, too many big catches.

• 1:10:39Bill Simmons?

  Split vote, right?

• 1:10:40Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:10:41Bill Simmons?

  The fucking one-hand catch? He was amazing.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Maybe the guy who taunted. That was a pretty big play.

• 1:10:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, with the way the Patriots have been playing, if they won.

• 1:10:51Speaker 01

  No, it's gotta be maybe. He was 5 to 1 last Saturday.

• 1:10:54Bill Simmons?

  No, but it could honestly be like Christian Gonzalez at 201 getting two picks or something.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:59Bill Simmons?

  It might be one of those. Who was the guy who won in your last Dallas one? Larry Brown?

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Larry Brown. He got a big deal with the Raiders after that, yeah.

• 1:11:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And then, uh, not really a lot of stuff on. We'll have a lot of time to talk about this.

• 1:11:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:11:15Bill Simmons?

  Do you like Kenneth Walker? Wow, his rushing 80 plus rushing yards, Kenneth Walker is minus 102.

• 1:11:23Speaker 01

  They have those up already.

• 1:11:24Bill Simmons?

  I want to bet the under on that now. That's the alt line, I guess.

• 1:11:26Speaker 01

  Oh, wow.

• 1:11:28Bill Simmons?

  Maybe his, uh, I'm just doing that for you. 40 plus rushing yards, plus 174.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was so easy today. House was leaning on that. I'm like, yeah, that's such a sexy pick, Drake, man. He missed it last week, the, his over yardage total, but once he got like in the 60s, like, all right, no kneel downs, I'm gonna bring this under. He's good.

• 1:11:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was the old Mahomes thing we used to talk about every year.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:11:52Bill Simmons?

  That the, they use the legs more in the. This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT, with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tipoff. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences

• 1:12:37Bill Simmons?

  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 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details. Playoffs. All right, uh, parent corner, what do you got?

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  All right, so, um. My son, Jack, he's a junior in high school. He's gonna be 18 in a couple of weeks. And I told you, he loves the Steelers, basically because of Heinz ketchup. He loved Heinz ketchup when he was young. And then they played at Heinz Field for like a year before they changed it to AccuSure. And then anyway, he took, he's the, he's a Steelers fan. So I mentioned that there's a local bar slash restaurant that he goes. He wears his jerseys and his terrible towels. And he's become friends with these 50-year-old men and women. So when they lost to the Texans a couple of Mondays ago, he was bummed out. And, you know, he didn't come back with any stories. We were doing the podcast, right? We did an extra one that day. So I was like, hey, you okay?

• 1:13:51Speaker 01

  He's like, yeah, it sucks, it sucks, it sucks. So the other day, fast forward to like three days ago, we're on the phone with Archie. My oldest is in college and we put him on speakerphone and he's talking to the whole family. And Jack comes in and Archie's like, hey, I didn't talk to you. Sorry about the Steelers. And Jack, quirky kid, I'm gonna say it that way. He's a very quirky kid. And he says, oh, I have a story about that. Like, uh oh, here we go. Buckle in. He's like, there was a couple when I was over at the bar, sitting next to this table. And I sit with all these strangers who have become my friends. But then there was another table with Steelers fans that we haven't seen before. And someone delivered french fries to their table. And one guy at our table said, all right, the fries are here. Everybody go in. And I thought he was serious.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  And I grabbed the french fryer from this woman and I started eating it. And she's like, oh, you're nasty. Those are my fries. Though you're nasty. And then the guy was mad at me and he was like pointing at me. And I didn't know what to do. So I said, okay, I'll give you $20. $20. And then, you know, and they were still calling me nasty. And then my friend at the table, who's like 55-year-old guy, says, you don't know what you're talking about. And he ends up giving the guy the finger. And then the guy gives him the finger. And then the guy punched him in the face twice. And I took my ginger ale and threw it in the guy's face. And then they got thrown out. And I'm like, what the, what is this? Well, this is 10 days later. Where is this coming from? You got in a bar fight, kid? You're 17 years old? Throwing ginger ale on people? What's going on?

• 1:15:18Speaker 01

  And Archie's just dying, just dying laughing. And my wife is like, are you kidding me? This is what we're letting go on here? He can't go anymore at night. I was like, did you get thrown out of the bar? He's like, well, I don't know my status, but I think I'm gonna be all right. It was the last game of the year, so we're gonna see next year, so. This is lunacy though.

• 1:15:37Bill Simmons?

  That's the story of the year.

• 1:15:38Speaker 01

  That's it. He threw his ginger ale in the guy's face. His friend got punched in the face twice. Oh, my God.

• 1:15:46Bill Simmons?

  So Jack goes over to the table and just takes a french fry.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Just grabbed the fry. He thought it was a community fry for the, oh, we're fans, you're fans.

• 1:15:53Bill Simmons?

  And they took it that personally?

• 1:15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, the woman was like really pissed off. So, um, and they were like yelling at the fan. They were not from in town. They're like, don't come back. Don't come back here again. They said to the woman in her house. So, uh, yeah, we may need a new place for Jack to watch Steelers games next year. Probably the basement's safest.

• 1:16:10Bill Simmons?

  I can't believe that. And if everyone in your family were getting a bar fight, clearly I would have picked Harrison first.

• 1:16:16Speaker 01

  Harrison, it's coming for sure.

• 1:16:17Bill Simmons?

  He's gonna step it up. He would have come over and like punched the guy in the nuts. My parent corner, so my son's at that age where we're just rewatching all these great movies from the past.

• 1:16:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Bill Simmons?

  And we've done, like, we did seven earlier in the week and he watched Fight Club and he now he wants to watch Heat and he's just like, he's basically just ripping off the classics. And I get to relive the classics through him and all the swerves. Like he didn't know there's the quote unquote seven big turn that happens.

• 1:16:52Bill Simmons?

  So we haven't done the mafia ones yet. And that there's some pressure on some of the ones that are coming. Cause I feel like, and he's liked the right ones so far. And this is right around the age when you really get into movies, but there are a couple of that I'm going to get nervous that if he doesn't like them, I'm going to really be upset. About as upset as anything. Like if we watch The Godfather and he's like, ah, it was slow.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Bill Simmons?

  Or if he watches, or if he watches, if we watch Heat and he's like, man, why hasn't anything happened since the bank shootout? I'm just gonna be like, right. So I don't know. There's a lot of pressure here with reliving this.

• 1:17:28Speaker 01

  You shut your mouth and tell me your apex mountain right now.

• 1:17:32Bill Simmons?

  Who does Vincent Hader remind you of?

• 1:17:36Bill Simmons?

  But uh.

• 1:17:37Speaker 01

  So you got Goodfellas, you got Casino, you got the Departed, like what?

• 1:17:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're doing all of those. Like, we've done everything. He even watched Devil Wears Prada with my wife. Rounders, swingers, like all like the town, all the classics.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  But for the, for the mobster ones, I wondered what the sequence is. Do you show him Godfather first and then the more contemporary?

• 1:17:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, so I was thinking about that. So the sequence, I think, is one and two.

• 1:18:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03Bill Simmons?

  I think you move to Scarface, almost like a sorbet.

• 1:18:07Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:18:09Bill Simmons?

  Then Goodfellas, which he's seen, but we'll watch again, and then Casino.

• 1:18:14Bill Simmons?

  We, and he's seen, so he's seen Brock's Tale and he's seen Goodfellas.

• 1:18:17Speaker 01

  He loved those. He loved those?

• 1:18:19Bill Simmons?

  He loved those. Yeah, yeah. But I am worried there's gonna be one that he's gonna shit on and then I'm not, we're gonna have like some real tension. But, you know, every time I think I run out of reasons why it was great to have kids, then it's like you get to relive all the great movies with them and it's, you're just running it back.

• 1:18:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:35Bill Simmons?

  It's like, and you have amnesia for what you experienced the first time you watched it and you get to live through it through them. So that's been fun.

• 1:18:42Speaker 01

  There's nothing you can do about the slowness of some of these movies, though. There's just nothing you could do. We talked about Rocky II and like, it's like, and even Rocky, like, oh, man.

• 1:18:51Bill Simmons?

  Rocky I is a really hard one.

• 1:18:53Speaker 01

  Rocky's one's hard. Three is perfect because there's three fights, right? And they kind of get right into each one of them, you know? But then when you go two and one, cinematically, whatever, nicer, but if you got a 16, 17, 18 year old, they may not appreciate it.

• 1:19:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, my wife's been gone for.

• 1:19:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:19:11Bill Simmons?

  She went away, so it's me and Ben. So we're actually like hanging. It's, I'm starting to see the finish line because he's going to college next year and then, then that's it. You, you, you were the genius with having the extra kid.

• 1:19:23Speaker 01

  Not so fast.

• 1:19:24Bill Simmons?

  That was a great move. That was like, like signing Jared Stidham to the backup quarterback there, just in case.

• 1:19:29Speaker 01

  Wait a minute.

• 1:19:29Bill Simmons?

  Just in case you need a really good backup.

• 1:19:32Speaker 01

  Not gonna be a first down for the last four years.

• 1:19:34Bill Simmons?

  That was a great one. The other thing we did last night was we watched UFC at the same time as the Netflix building climb. And also Celtics Bulls was on, so I had the three TVs and it was like just randomly one of the, one of the more fun, like, oh my God, I can't believe these three things were all happening at the same time. The building thing, I actually think was underrated as one of the craziest. Things I've, I think it was the craziest thing I've watched that I didn't know was gonna be crazy since that David Blaine special.

• 1:20:06Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:20:06Bill Simmons?

  When he was fucking with all the celebrities, which remember how everybody went nuts when that happened? Then he never did it again. Yeah.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  Get out of my kitchen.

• 1:20:12Bill Simmons?

  Smith and his wife.

• 1:20:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:15Bill Simmons?

  But I couldn't believe it. And there was a couple, like, are you afraid of heights?

• 1:20:19Speaker 01

  Cause. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah, I'm, I got to lower this chair in like two minutes. Yeah.

• 1:20:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm afraid of heights. I didn't used to be, but uh, over the course of the century. And there was a couple where he's reaching back.

• 1:20:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:31Bill Simmons?

  Where it was like the overhang, so you have to reach back and then pull yourself up where you're just like, this guy's gonna die.

• 1:20:38Speaker 01

  Some weird stuff he had to step into, like, oh, that looks complicated to have to get your foot out of maybe if you, if you can't, but yeah.

• 1:20:46Bill Simmons?

  He was so comfortable, just like, I'm gonna take a break and sit on this ledge and it's, and it's like, there's wind.

• 1:20:52Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:20:53Bill Simmons?

  I just didn't understand what I was watching. I almost broke my brain.

• 1:20:57Speaker 01

  It's great because it's not, first of all, we had, we grew up with Evel Knievel, right? But there's a lot of buildup with that and then it's over in a couple of seconds, right? But, but it's, it's pretty cool. Well, if he makes it, if he almost doesn't make and he breaks every bone in his body. Short of that, they've had like trapeze artists walk across a tight rope, I think, for like 20 minutes or so. But that's the kind of the same thing over and over. I think scaling a building, you get to see different weird facade, like it's, it's, it was extra, extra gnarly, I thought for sure.

• 1:21:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, one of the crazy things was there was people on certain floors, like taking pictures and waving to them and.

• 1:21:36Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking, I was thinking if you were there, you're the same person who almost ended Jimmy's wedding. When the wedding cake was coming out, cause he saw this chance to push the cake and the baby doll. And I was thinking like that guy, he's climbing up and you just throw yourself into the window to see if you can rattle him.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  David Blaine.

• 1:21:55Bill Simmons?

  Wouldn't that be murder?

• 1:21:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it'd be attempted murder. Jimmy sent me to New York when David Blaine was in that tank. Remember he was in like in a tank for four days? And he's like, walk up to him with a hammer. And I'm like, all right, this kind of sucks. Like, you know, yeah, I will. I'm not gonna, I can't break it. I, I think that's a felony. That's bad.

• 1:22:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:13Speaker 01

  When I walked up to him, we kind of know Blaine a little to our crazy friend Brad somehow. And he's like, no.

• 1:22:20Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Like, that would have been it. But yeah, this climbing thing. I don't know that he's one of the greatest athletes. Everyone's got to make that that great jump now that he's the greatest athlete we've ever seen. You're gonna put, you're gonna throw him there?

• 1:22:32Bill Simmons?

  I I just had more questions than answers. Like, my son was like, what happens if he runs out of? He had that special powder, like that stickum powder.

• 1:22:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:41Bill Simmons?

  He had that little satchel in his back pocket.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  It's like, what happens if he's like, oh shit, I didn't bring enough powder?

• 1:22:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:48Bill Simmons?

  And now you're like only four fifths up the wall. And then when he got on the top, which was amazing, and he was just standing there and he was so comfortable.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:57Bill Simmons?

  Just like being like, hey, whoa, look at you. I was like having an absolute stroke.

• 1:23:02Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:23:02Bill Simmons?

  I couldn't handle it.

• 1:23:03Speaker 01

  It's a whole different.

• 1:23:04Bill Simmons?

  I was like, and they were doing these like, I I just couldn't handle it. And then it's like, how's he gonna get back down? Oh, this will be easy. He's just gonna rappel down.

• 1:23:12Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  That seemed terrifying. Every piece of it seemed terrifying.

• 1:23:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. We had a zip. Do you ever go ziplining?

• 1:23:19Bill Simmons?

  I have, yeah.

• 1:23:20Speaker 01

  I don't know why I did it. We went when the kids had a game in Hawaii. You know, it was in Hawaii and the ziplining sucks. That was bad for me. I was like, I'm never doing this again. But worse off, there was this bridge that kind of like shook back and forth when you walked past it.

• 1:23:35Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:23:35Speaker 01

  I laid on that bridge for 40 minutes because I could not move. Like, there's no way it's gonna break. But I'm like, I'm not moving. I'm not going forward. I'm not going back. I don't know how people do this.

• 1:23:46Bill Simmons?

  Insane. Did you think he was gonna have like a little backpack on that would have been a parachute if he fell?

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  You would think, right? You see all these like safety nets or safety something, but some harness, nothing.

• 1:23:58Bill Simmons?

  I I thought it was incredible. When we were kids, I remember somebody tried to climb the World Trade Center.

• 1:24:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:05Bill Simmons?

  Or or Empire State, one of those in New York on Wide World of Sports.

• 1:24:09Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:24:10Bill Simmons?

  And I don't remember watching it live, but when they would do the anniversary shows for Wide World of Sports, they would always show it was like George Willis or

• 1:24:16Speaker 01

  Right, right.

• 1:24:17Bill Simmons?

  Name like that. And he would, he climbed up the World Trade Center and like, this is crazy. He didn't have permits to do this. And that seemed nuts. I think all of this, I don't understand. I don't understand.

• 1:24:29Bill Simmons?

  Why somebody would want to do this?

• 1:24:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:24:31Bill Simmons?

  How somebody could be that calm? Like, it's almost like, is this the right use of this person? If this person is this calm with this much, like, how scary this is? Should they? It's almost like Good Will Hunting. And it's like, Will Hunting, you should actually work for NASA. You're too fucking smart.

• 1:24:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:24:47Bill Simmons?

  Like, this guy, should he be flying like the scariest planes we have? Or do we have to teach him to be a pilot? What skills could he add that would be better than just climbing a building?

• 1:24:56Speaker 01

  The parkour guys are especially insane. And I would think that you would have, you would be nervous that Ben was going to become one of them. He was on his way for a second.

• 1:25:06Bill Simmons?

  Well, yes. Ben was, I was relieved that Ben was scared watching this guy last night.

• 1:25:12Speaker 01

  Oh, good.

• 1:25:13Bill Simmons?

  I was kind of looking over. My worst nightmare would have been like, this looks so fucking cool. I'm so jealous of him. No, don't do this. So if he had just fallen,

• 1:25:24Bill Simmons?

  would they have cut the feed?

• 1:25:26Speaker 01

  I'm sure they had some kind of plan for it. Yeah, they couldn't just show that. That would be bad times. I think they'd have to, they'd have to cut it.

• 1:25:33Bill Simmons?

  I'm like getting queasy thinking about it now. I can't believe, so we had that and then UFC, we had Gagey going against Patty. And it just turned in, and you had the knockout, plus 170. But it was just an absolute slugfest that seemed like it was going to end every round. It didn't. And it reminded me a little of the first Leonard Duran fight where Patty was just trying to fight him. And was like, no, no, I can beat this guy standing up. And Gagey yet again, and like, I don't know how many years now we've been doing it with him.

• 1:26:03Speaker 01

  I think he's 38 now. I would love to, and we had this with like-

• 1:26:06Bill Simmons?

  He's like Matthew Stafford.

• 1:26:08Speaker 01

  Gotti, yeah, he is. So he's going to be a quarterback for the Rams next year. He, remember Gotti and Ward? And you're like, oh, I just wish we could watch these guys fight forever. I want them to protect Gagey's brain because he takes so many shots now. Like, I don't even want to know what that looks like now. But that's a guy I want to watch for the next decade because he just brings it every single time.

• 1:26:26Bill Simmons?

  Well, it was a little like Cesar Chavez near the end where he, it was almost like the blows- His brain wasn't even bouncing back and forth anymore when he took a blow.

• 1:26:35Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:26:36Bill Simmons?

  He never, it seemed like at the tail end, he got hurt.

• 1:26:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:40Bill Simmons?

  The other thing that was interesting was the heavyweight fight was bad. And just like what a bad situation the heavyweight division's in compared to where I felt like we were.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  That's another one.

• 1:26:48Bill Simmons?

  When I started watching it.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  Derrick Lewis just holding, I mean, is he still in that ring, holding himself like that? That was, that was scary shit too.

• 1:26:55Bill Simmons?

  Number five against number eight and it was awful. So I don't, I don't know if, if like giant people just aren't doing MMA anymore or what was going on. But it was, it was interesting Paramount weekend because they had the boxing on Friday.

• 1:27:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Bill Simmons?

  And they're clearly trying to like play the smackdown, but it was weird not to pay for UFC pay-per-view.

• 1:27:15Speaker 01

  I know, I know. They had a few more ads.

• 1:27:17Bill Simmons?

  On Paramount.

• 1:27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. It's not, the, the way they show the odds is different now. We don't have to get into it. But they've aligned with somebody differently is, is different. So, but anyway, uh, yeah, I, I love not paying. A lot of people said, this is the first time I'm gonna buy, I had, I'm legitimately watching a pay-per-view. Because everyone steals for years and years and years.

• 1:27:37Bill Simmons?

  And yet I thought the, uh, the climb in the building was more, was better.

• 1:27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:43Bill Simmons?

  Like the Celtics were fucking around with the Chicago Bulls game that kind of neat, would have been a nice back-to-back. I was just like watching the building guy have an heart attack.

• 1:27:53Speaker 01

  Do you think you could watch that? You think you could watch, like, keep watching? Like, I mean, could they do that once a month and the buildings just get taller and taller? Is there more than a?

• 1:28:03Bill Simmons?

  I think the next one would have to be not a building. I think it would have to be some sort of summit, right?

• 1:28:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:28:09Bill Simmons?

  Would have to be some, or some sort of mountain that you're not supposed to climb.

• 1:28:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:28:13Bill Simmons?

  Where you have to go like Sly Stallone.

• 1:28:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. Goes for hours.

• 1:28:17Bill Simmons?

  Anything else you want to hit?

• 1:28:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I did a couple. First of all, I loved you and Mad Dog. It's, it's the best one he's on. Yes. And, uh, can I give you my favorite exchange between the two of you? I'll attempt to, I'll attempt to do both voices.

• 1:28:30Bill Simmons?

  I could probably guess what it is.

• 1:28:31Speaker 01

  I've never done this before. I was like, all right, here we go. This, this first one's gonna be you. All right, man, dog, let's talk about the top 10 quarterbacks of all time. I think Elway's in there. Two Super Bowl wins, but he also had some stinker playoff games. What's your take on Elway? Well, first of all, that, that is an excellent, excellent job by you, Bill. You remembered that John Elway's playoff games weren't always great. And he, uh, listen, he wasn't always Johnny Neidus out there. So excellent job by you. You did your homework.

• 1:28:59Bill Simmons?

  And I was trying not to laugh.

• 1:29:02Speaker 01

  You, I could hear you laugh.

• 1:29:03Bill Simmons?

  We love, we love Bad Dog so much. He was great. We, we have him on and I didn't prep him for anything. And within a second, he's like, well, Otto Graham, 1955. And he just is like banging out. 1955 for reference. That was good.

• 1:29:18Speaker 01

  And I have, uh, well, yeah, that just have a plug here. Sal, Super Squares on Splash, giving out 25,000 in prizes. 10,000 to the winner of a grand prize, completely free to enter. Go to splashsports.com. And also I'm doing a, a new contest around bad beat. Send me a screenshot of your bad beat on Twitter.

• 1:29:36Bill Simmons?

  On Twitter.

• 1:29:36Speaker 01

  And that's it. Every bad beat gets a free play on Splash. There you go.

• 1:29:42Bill Simmons?

  And we didn't talk about the terrible, uh, murder of Alex Preddy in, in Minnesota, but I wanted to mention how awful that was. And we try it on this podcast, try to steer it towards sports and, uh, and be a place that, you know, is a little bit of a distraction area. If you want some of the other stuff, go there. I thought that was horrible. I remember when we were, uh, we were kids growing up, reading about like Kent State and things like that. You're like, man, how did they let that happen? And this felt like that. And I, I just don't know how we got to this spot. So I wanted to mention that. I thought I was horrified about what happened.

• 1:30:15Speaker 01

  I don't want to.

• 1:30:16Bill Simmons?

  Love type run of Minnesota.

• 1:30:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I, I'm going to shove pizza in my mouth. I don't say anything wrong. I did Charles Mark. We did a good job summing it up and, uh,

• 1:30:24Bill Simmons?

  That was terrible.

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Whatever he did. Yeah.

• 1:30:25Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what we're trying to accomplish in 2026, but I don't like it. That's it for the podcast. Sal, we are going live on Sunday night. We're going to be doing Super Bowl props live.

• 1:30:37Speaker 01

  Woo.

• 1:30:38Bill Simmons?

  On Sunday night, probably like seven, maybe like six o'clock Pacific time range.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Whatever you want. I'll have the pizza ready for both of us.

• 1:30:45Bill Simmons?

  Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris behind the scenes for helping us out. I'm going to be back on Tuesday on this podcast. Rewatchables launches tomorrow on Netflix. Still is on Spotify as well. We have Zodiac. What do you think was longer, the, the movie or the, uh, the podcast?

• 1:31:02Speaker 01

  The Rewatchables.

• 1:31:03Bill Simmons?

  157 minutes.

• 1:31:04Speaker 01

  Oh, man, you went past two and a half hours? I'll go, I'll go to movie. Was it close?

• 1:31:10Bill Simmons?

  Podcast was like 250. I think we went 20 minutes longer.

• 1:31:15Speaker 01

  Your, your apex is just.

• 1:31:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, we had to solve, we solved the Zodiac murder as well.

• 1:31:20Speaker 01

  Oh, you did?

• 1:31:20Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Yeah, that was another great thing. Yeah, we solved it. So that was good. Anyway, that's coming Monday. It will be on Netflix as well as Spotify as well. Sal, as always, good job by you.

• 1:31:29Speaker 01

  Good job by you, buddy.

• 1:31:31Bill Simmons?

  See you on Tuesday.

• 1:31:34Bill Simmons?

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• 1:32:08Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner 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 6th.

• 1:32:52Bill Simmons?

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