Detroit’s Grit, Drake vs. Caleb, a Giannis Trade Idea, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Lions' comeback win vs. the Texans, the early AFC playoff picture, and the Chiefs sneaking by the Broncos to earn a 9-0 record (2:09). They have a Cowboys reassessment and discuss Commanders-Steelers, a rookie QB ranking, and Bears-Patriots (23:39). Then they talk about the latest "season from hell" candidates; whether to take the Eagles, Cardinals, and/or Chargers seriously; the Saints supporting the "new coach theory" by beating the Falcons; 49ers-Bucs; and Colts-Bills (47:02). Finally, they discuss some Week 10 gambling trends before guessing the lines for NFL Week 11 (1:08:18) and closing the show with Parent Corner (1:30:35). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What's happening? It's Todd McShay and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify, The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that'll include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction

• 0:43Speaker 00

  to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for The McShay Show on The Ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts.

• 1:01Speaker 01

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• 2:01Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on, flavor on, Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th. Order minimum before taxes and fees is required. See retailer's storefront for details. Taxes, fees and terms apply.

• 2:46Bill Simmons?

  Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new episode of The Rewatchables coming on Monday night. We did Meet the Parents, an absolute classic. It has really aged nicely. That will be up on Monday night and you can watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And Cousin Sal is coming up in one second to break down everything we saw in a really, really fun, action-packed Week 10 of the NFL season. We did this live on YouTube as we do every Sunday night.

• 3:27Bill Simmons?

  All you have to do is subscribe to the Bill Simmons channel and you can watch us do this podcast live or you could just listen to it the next day. You do whatever you want to do, but I'm going to bring in Pearl Jam right now because that's what I want to do. Pearl Jam.

• 3:59Bill Simmons?

  All right. It is 8:43 PM Sunday night. Just watched Texans Lions. I'm here with the 47th President of the United States, Cousin Sal. How are you?

• 4:10Speaker 03

  There's no way I won. I know who my family voted for and it wasn't me. It never is.

• 4:17Bill Simmons?

  We just watched an incredible game and I thought Collinsworth made the key point and he sniffed it out in the third quarter and said, he did the, Hal, I'm just telling you, if the Lions could figure this out, this is the kind of game that tells you what kind of, you know, he just did that whole thing and he was right. Cause I was thinking the same thing. If they, all the shit that happened, Goff throws five picks basically in the first two and a half quarters of the game. And if you can come back on the road and win that game, I think that means something more than the game, right? That was the takeaway.

• 4:50Speaker 03

  Oh, I thought the point he made that was valid was if there was just one more coat of paint on those goalposts, we're going overtime, Mike. You know, that's true. Come on. One more, one more back. No, they were, they ran against them, right? I mean, they have the fastest runners in the, what's interesting is it seemed like, and I think it was those red uniforms. Didn't it, didn't they seem faster, the Texans? Like, is there a little bit of like a flash thing? Like, oh wow, they're wearing the red uniforms. They're faster than us tonight. Let's give up. But you're right. If they had just gone to the running game for most of the game, it wouldn't have been close at the end.

• 5:24Bill Simmons?

  It was very similar to what was happening them really in the season. Like they had that one game where Goff threw the ball like almost 60 times and, and some people were out on the Detroit offense. I remember I was talking about it. I was like, I still feel like they just have to remember what kind of team they are. And then this game, it was the same thing. They're chucking the ball around. Goff didn't have it. And, uh, and I just kept, the running game wasn't great in the first two and a half quarters, but it's like just, they don't have Will Anderson. Just run the ball. Stick with it. Stick with it. Play action. And, uh, and they were able to turn around. But the bigger thing is Houston didn't score again in the second half. There's a bunch of bad advanced metrics with them in the second halves of these games. You know, Nico Collins got scratched pretty late. Seemed like he was playing. It was scratched late enough that I think a lot of people like

• 6:09Bill Simmons?

  me in one of my leagues started him in fantasy and then all of a sudden he was gone. But, uh, they gotta fix that. I still like that Houston team though.

• 6:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, here's the thing. No, first of all, yes, I say the Lions could have won and put it not put it away, but they could have been in this much earlier than just the final kick to take the lead. But man, if Stroud hits Dell, I mean, he's open for 17 seconds and he lofts it, it's intercepted by Carlton Davis. So that sucked. But yeah, I like this team too. And guess what? They could rest Stroud for a month. He could go whatever. He can go to France if he wants because he's up against Will Levis, Mac Jones, and Joe Flacco or Anthony Richardson. So yeah, I like that. Do I like him as a one seed? No, but they'll be fine in the playoffs, I think.

• 6:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, even you look at their losses, Minnesota killed them. Green Bay beat them by two, and that was an either or game. Jets beat them on a Thursday night, which was another one that it felt like they were going to win the game. Garrett Wilson made that crazy catch. And then in this game, they were in it and it just it felt a little self inflicted to me. You know, I know they didn't have Nico Collins, but the Stroud pass, it was just like he sailed it up there like there was nobody within 30 yards of Dell. And meanwhile, the safety comes flying over. But even if he had sailed it toward the corner of the end zone, it just when that happened, I was like, holy shit, the Lions might have a chance because I was

• 7:36Speaker 03

  nephew Kyle, six Pilsners in could have made that throw. I'm telling you right now. That was, I don't know what what happened there. And I think the game plan should be, hey, if we get 30, we win. Right? If you're D'Amico Ryans, but they hadn't figured out how to get those extra seven.

• 7:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'd like Stroud, but you know, he kind of needs one of these games. He needs one of these tight games against a really good team, make a couple plays moments. I was looking up some of the stuff from this game. And first of all,

• 8:09Bill Simmons?

  Has anyone ever thrown five interceptions in a game? And then won the Super Bowl? What do you think the answer is to that? Cause I actually researched this.

• 8:17Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Good for you.

• 8:19Bill Simmons?

  Same season. Yeah, I figured out a way to research this and I think I, I think I nailed it correctly.

• 8:25Speaker 03

  Uh, well, it wasn't Tony Romo, who was one of two guys who threw five interceptions and then won the game.

• 8:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 03

  Was it 1970 Colts or something?

• 8:35Bill Simmons?

  No. So the two I found, and maybe there are more than this, but Terry Bradshaw did it in the 79 Steelers. And then, uh, Jim Plunkett in 1980 Raiders.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 8:45Bill Simmons?

  So back to back years. In general, I was looking up, I, I went on this interception deep dive because, uh, when we were growing up, quarterbacks threw interceptions. It's like Steve Grogan had three, five interception games before I turned 10 years old. You know, and I was looking at like, uh, it, the 19, I think 77 season, Fran Tarkenton led the league with 32 picks, 1978. Stabler was second with 30 and eight other guys had at least 20. This is just what we grew up with. The ball would sail around. Like, uh,

• 9:18Speaker 03

  It's bizarre because they definitely, they definitely didn't pass as much, right?

• 9:21Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 9:22Speaker 03

  They weren't dropping back as much.

• 9:23Bill Simmons?

  But think about it, like receivers going over the middle, you could decapitate them. Quarterbacks, you could dive at their legs, you could close on them. So they, they're just flinging the ball up, trying to get rid of it. Joe Passarchik was 10, 12 TDs, 23 picks. Kenny Anderson was 10 TDs, 22 picks. Steve DeBerg was eight TDs, 22 picks, on and on and on. To throw five picks now, you really have to put some thought and time and some shitty energy into it. So, there was like, how many picks? The record's seven. Like Ty Detmer did it, only like two other. So, you know, there was a moment there where it was like, whoa, what happens if he gets to six?

• 9:59Speaker 03

  It's gonna get there.

• 9:59Bill Simmons?

  Do they pull him? But he righted the ship. Like he, he kind of persevered through it.

• 10:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, he had plenty of opportunities and yeah, he had what more than he had all of last year, right? So I'm not sure. That takes him a little bit out of the MVP running, but.

• 10:16Speaker 03

  We were making fun of PFF because they had them 22 out of 32 for quarterbacks. Like this guy never throws an incomplete pass.

• 10:23Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  Who are the 21 ahead of them? And then it's like, oh, boy. Interception after interception. Maybe they were going to save that for next week. So.

• 10:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 03

  But yeah, it could come back for the Lions. They, they, they may just have that swagger. It just might be their year, at least in the NFC.

• 10:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, in the AFC, Houston drops to six and four, but you know.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Who cares?

• 10:43Bill Simmons?

  They're going to be the four seed.

• 10:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 10:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't see any scenario where Indianapolis or Jacksonville or Tennessee even sniffs them. So they have time to figure it out. And I, I didn't change my opinion on where I thought Houston might be when they get Collins back. They get Will Anderson back. Like, I want to see this team in mid-December with like two, three weeks left in the season, like right around Christmas. Let's really take a look at them because I, I think they could hang with KC, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore. I think they could play with any of those teams. You know?

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, I agree.

• 11:14Bill Simmons?

  So we'll see.

• 11:15Speaker 03

  I, I just would, let's not do what we did last year. Like we fall in love with the six seed or whoever it was. Was it Cleveland last year? Did you have the Houston overclip? Did you have them?

• 11:24Bill Simmons?

  I, I had a pretty good playoffs last year and that was one of my huge regrets. Flacco against whoever when he got annihilated.

• 11:32Speaker 03

  Well, we won't have to worry about Flacco, but let's try to stay away from that.

• 11:35Bill Simmons?

  We won't have to worry about Flacco. There's some, the AFC playoff stuff, we talked about how Houston's probably the four seed, which is gonna, I think, put them against Pittsburgh or Buffalo or Baltimore. Whoever doesn't win that division, the way it's lining up now, where Pittsburgh's seven and two and Baltimore's seven and three and a, a good team.

• 11:55Bill Simmons?

  And probably the five seed, unless the Chargers just keep kicking everyone's ass. Chargers are six and three. So we basically, if KC beats Buffalo next week, they basically have the one seed locked up.

• 12:06Speaker 03

  Right.

• 12:06Bill Simmons?

  Cause they'll have a, a two game lead over, or a three game lead over Buffalo, plus they beat them. They'll have a two game lead over Pittsburgh and then a three game lead over Baltimore. If you do the rankings now or the matchups now, it'd be Buffalo two against seven seed Denver.

• 12:24Speaker 03

  There we get in. Yeah.

• 12:26Bill Simmons?

  I just, they're five and five. No way. That's the, there's seven teams that have a tie or winning record. Um, number three Pittsburgh against number six Chargers and then number four Houston, Baltimore. But AFC is kind of fun. I was looking at it. I was like, huh. Um, the big wild card would be.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  You bring up a good point with the, with the, the Chiefs though. If they beat Buffalo in Buffalo next week, a lot of these teams, I mean, how do you get up Houston for the last seven weeks with knowing like, we got this. Eight and nine could get us the four seed. I really feel like eight, nine wins that division at this point.

• 13:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think you could think maybe we could catch the AFC North team and get the three seed. Maybe Buffalo. I mean, Buffalo, this is another crazy thing that's happened through 10 weeks. Buffalo has a five game lead in the AFCs.

• 13:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I mean, that's like absurd. I've, I've never seen somebody lead by half as many games as the actual games played.

• 13:22Speaker 03

  Your team might've done it a couple of times, right?

• 13:25Bill Simmons?

  You think?

• 13:26Speaker 03

  By the middle of November? You don't think the Patriots had like a five game lead?

• 13:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, you mentioned Kansas City.

• 13:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what to make of this season anymore. He, they're, they're nine and O. Five of the wins was week one, the Ravens game where likely his foot's on the line.

• 13:45Bill Simmons?

  They beat the Bengals. Borough had the fumble TD. The Bengals had a chance to ice the game, didn't get a first down punted. Chiefs hit a field goal at the end. To have the Atlanta game where they got the fourth down stop when it seemed like Atlanta was going to drive and get them and they, and they got to stop. Last week, the Bucks and OT were, felt like if the Bucks went for two, they were probably going to win.

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:06Bill Simmons?

  Um, and then this week where it seems like it's done.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:11Bill Simmons?

  They blocked the field goal and they, and they beat the Broncos by two in a game that was dead even statistically. When you're watching it, uh, it felt like the Broncos were going to win. I thought the Broncos slightly outplayed them and now they're nine and O. And I, I, I don't feel like everybody's like. Oh yeah, Chiefs, look out. I think people are like, holy shit, how can they keep doing this?

• 14:32Speaker 03

  I think you're right. And you know, there's, it's one thing to do it like the Vikings did it like, oh, what did they have in 2022? They had like 11 one score wins or something. But when you went through the one after the other toe in the end zone barely like this is just a spectacular way to be undefeated in the second week in November. I mean, that kick, like if there were nobody, there were no blockers, it would have looked exactly the same. What the hell? What Denver did everything right. You're right. They bled the clock. They had the Chiefs use their timeouts. And you almost think there's just no beating this team.

• 15:08Bill Simmons?

  I was driving home from the airport last night, like about midnight and I was listening to Fox Sports Radio and there was some show and they had that guy Fezick, the handicapper was on.

• 15:18Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 15:18Bill Simmons?

  And I was like, this is great. I'm going like 95 miles an hour on the, on the, on the 10 and I'm listening to Fezick break down the schedule. And he was really bullish on the Broncos in this game. It's like Broncos coming off a loss. They beat the, and I felt the same way. Like I doubled on the Broncos in our picks league.

• 15:36Bill Simmons?

  I, the Broncos last week against Baltimore, when it was 1710 heading toward the end of the first half and they'd really played with them and Knicks had missed a couple touchdown throws. And then all of a sudden Lamar got the touchdown. They're down 14 and the game blew open. But I, I didn't think they were bad in that game. In this game, they're pretty good too. They might actually be a playoff team. Like I think the Bengals are going to have a hard time passing them because I think the Broncos are going to be able to get to nine wins.

• 16:01Speaker 03

  Well, that's it, right? It's Bengals. Bengals have some interesting games. They have the Chargers this week. So I don't want to call it a loser leaves town for the Bengals, but they can't afford to lose like two. They still have a lot of their North games. Right. So that's a big one. But yeah, man, I, you know, I would even say I had Bo Nix as a solid fourth in terms of the four rookie quarterbacks. Is he second now? Is he right behind Daniels?

• 16:26Bill Simmons?

  I have a whole spot in the podcast for this. Yeah, no, I can't wait to talk about this.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  In this one? All right.

• 16:31Bill Simmons?

  Oh yeah. In this podcast. Denver, rest of the way. Home Atlanta, at Vegas, home Cleveland on a Monday night, home Indianapolis, at Chargers, and then week 17 at Cincinnati.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a big one.

• 16:50Bill Simmons?

  And then here's the big one, and this is one of the reasons when we did the over unders. One of the reasons I like the Denver over, they play Kansas City week 18 at home. And that is of everybody, that's one of those games where we guess the Lions would be stupid.

• 17:05Speaker 03

  Right.

• 17:05Bill Simmons?

  Like Denver favored by seven and a half or something because Kansas City won't play anybody. So is Denver going to get to nine wins? Probably. I, I, they're five and five right now, and I think there's four more in there. So the Bengals are going to have to beat them and they're going to have to beat the Chargers, I think, this week.

• 17:23Speaker 03

  They're having trouble to get in the six. If they get to six, they go over their projected win total, which was five and a half, but they've been stuck on five for a while. But yeah, the problem is as you go through those games and I think about those teams, they're not guaranteed to score 30, right? I don't know if anyone is in the NFL anymore, but Denver, it's always going to be a kind of game, game like this. But they did, what they did today is big plays against the Chiefs don't usually happen. And they pulled it off. I know you want to talk about Knicks later, but this is, they, they had some nice, like 20 plus yard gainers, so.

• 17:55Bill Simmons?

  I thought that was the best Knicks has looked. And even though they, I know they didn't put up like 30 points or anything, but he had some good plays. He had typical couple of overthrows, but I know you're invested in him because he's an Oregon guy and now you're an Oregon fan, but. One thing on the Chiefs. So I was trying to think, because I mentioned this to House on Thursday and I was like, I'm going to go back and actually look at this. The teams that start off undefeated for a while and all of us are kind of looking at them kind of side eyed like, eh, I don't know. So the three that really jumped out, 2010 Colts were 14 and 0. And remember that was the whole argument of should they go for it? And I think they ended up resting guys, but they lost the Super Bowl to New Orleans that year.

• 18:40Bill Simmons?

  But that whole year we were kind of like, ah, what is this? Like, is this, is this a schedule thing? Like what's going on there? Defense isn't that good? So they didn't win the Super Bowl. The next year, the Packers went 13 and 0. Go to the playoffs, get a bye, and then they get killed by the Giants at home in round two in the, the second Eli's Super Bowl season. And then the third one was the Panthers in 2015, 14-0 start, and then they end up losing the Super Bowl to Denver. So I guess my question is, is Kansas City just better losing now and getting, getting this over with than versus like just going, I know it sounds stupid, but them going 14 and not, and then you're

• 19:22Bill Simmons?

  basically not playing for anything for a month and you go to bye week and then you just kind of have to flip the switch on. We, we have real evidence that that's kind of a bad thing for a team.

• 19:31Speaker 03

  Yeah. And listen, I, I think we've got to give them the benefit of doubt in terms of how to approach this. Like Andy Reid, this isn't his first rodeo. By the way, his first rodeo, he killed a, a cat. Like he just like, it just, it was too much weight and they, they knew it was a bad idea from the start.

• 19:48Bill Simmons?

  All tapes have been destroyed.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Right. But, um, so work Hopkins in, right? Don't get injured. Pacheco comes back theoretically in a couple of weeks. I think that would probably be the plan. And if, if you could beat up on these teams, keep it going, I guess. I, I think it's, I, I know what you're saying. Like it's good to have a loss in there and that, and then you can, you could deal with it. But I feel like they've been down. They've made comebacks before, right? So they, they know how to be resilient.

• 20:16Bill Simmons?

  Well, this Buffalo game, it's at Buffalo. I can't wait to guess the line for that. And I, I don't know it. And I, I would have guessed Buffalo as a favorite, but now I'm wondering with the way Buffalo looked a little shaky, maybe it's going to flip. But Casey, I think would want to go into Buffalo and beat them again and just keep that over them. Like kind of, you can't beat us. We're on this. But then they're at Carolina the next week and that just like, like the classic Chiefs favored by nine and a half in Carolina, punt block, tipped interception, pick six, like just nine things go wrong. Everyone gets killed in their tees. This is, it's like the biggest upset of the year. I have that one flagged. They play Vegas at home on a Friday night. That seems fishy. Chargers on

• 21:01Bill Simmons?

  a Sunday. They're at Cleveland, home Houston, at Pittsburgh. And then home for Denver in week 18. So maybe they have that stretch where it's week 16 Houston on a Saturday, week 17, Christmas night, Pittsburgh, and they're gonna have everything clinched. And there's just no way they're gonna be playing their guys in both of those games, right? That's no way. They're gonna punt on one of those games.

• 21:24Speaker 03

  Do you know what the odds are? I have them here. Don't look to, to run the slate.

• 21:29Bill Simmons?

  Oh, House and I, we talked, it's like five to one, right? Higher than that?

• 21:34Speaker 03

  Plus 750, plus 750. But yeah, you go through that. There's still tough ones. Could they be looking ahead to the Panthers and, and blow this Bills game? I, I didn't realize that.

• 21:44Bill Simmons?

  I know. They, they saw Bryce Young today and got freaked out. I think with that Saturday, Wednesday thing, there's no way. There's, that, that would be insane to get people hurt.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  During, uh, during that crazy stretch. Um, the other thing with the, uh, with the AFC, other than Cincy at four and six, I don't see a single team that could make like a second half run out of nowhere, unless Miami wins tomorrow night. And I don't even really totally believe in Miami, but at least you could be like, all right, Tua's back. They're in the AFC East. They have some easy games.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:18Bill Simmons?

  Maybe. Um, but I don't, I don't see any out of nowhere teams. So to me, it's Denver and Cincinnati, and then it's a huge drop off.

• 22:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would, I would say Miami potentially because they could score points, but you were already, we don't even know if Tyreek's playing. Like, he's like, and what he said, something interesting like, and listen, if someone's injured, whatever, this is a crazy game that I could never play, but he's like, we'll see how my body feels if I'm gonna play or not. If you're Tua, you must be like, I don't even know my name right now. Get your ass in that game. We gotta play. We gotta win.

• 22:51Bill Simmons?

  Right. Our whole season's on the line.

• 22:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, really.

• 22:54Bill Simmons?

  Tyreek does this though. Like he even, remember that game last year when he was just coming in out of the game and then his helmet was off, then it was on, then he's playing, then he's not playing?

• 23:02Speaker 03

  He does it all the time still. He runs a long route on second down. Forget it. You won't see him for the rest of that, that drive.

• 23:09Bill Simmons?

  Hey, we're gonna do a who's delivering, presented by Uber Eats, where we break down the NFL players who have delivered so far this season from household names to out of nowhere surprises.

• 23:24Bill Simmons?

  So you have Bo Nix. Would be in this as it seemed crazy that they were counting on him the way they are, but now it actually seems pretty smart, especially when they're paying Russell Wilson to play for the Steelers and he's doing well.

• 23:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 23:39Bill Simmons?

  Bryce Young, not being like a disaster who's going to get traded for a seventh round pick, not that he was awesome today, but at least he wasn't a disaster. I was surprised by that, right? Like, whoa.

• 23:51Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 23:52Bill Simmons?

  Bryce Young, I can't believe you have this in you. Who else would you have as like a surprise?

• 23:56Speaker 03

  You look at that and like just why it's a surprise is the Panthers are just destined to lose by double digits. If you just look at their this year, right? Like if it doesn't happen one week, you could bounce back if it wasn't New Orleans. Let's see.

• 24:11Speaker 03

  Kyle Pitts is really good. No, um, let me see. Give me a minute. I wish you would tell me about these.

• 24:17Bill Simmons?

  How about K. Dot?

• 24:19Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's good. He's solid. Uh, let me find someone like this in here.

• 24:24Bill Simmons?

  Was there a fantasy? I probably shouldn't give you a heads up.

• 24:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:29Bill Simmons?

  Was there a fantasy running back or anybody that jumped out? I guess.

• 24:35Speaker 03

  I like Bucky Irving, but I think I gave him out to you a couple of weeks ago.

• 24:39Bill Simmons?

  How about this? How about McLaurin being an A plus list receiver now? Right? If we're doing fantasy drafts over again, I think he's one of the first five receivers.

• 24:48Speaker 03

  Looks so much faster now than he was, but yeah, that's a, that's a good one.

• 24:52Bill Simmons?

  Mac Jones, I think. Oh, no, wait. That's a different.

• 24:55Speaker 03

  I just concentrate on bad players because that's all I'm used to now.

• 24:58Bill Simmons?

  Different category. That's who's delivering. I guess Mahomes delivering wins despite having the worst statistical year again today. 260 yards, one TD, doesn't matter, keeps winning. Who's Delivering presented by Uber Eats where you get the best deal on game day food all season long. We deliberately left the Cowboys out of Who's Delivering. Uber Eats, the official hot demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now, we're going to take a break for the podcast.

• 25:28Speaker 03

  This episode is brought to you by TikTok. When you watch a football game, you follow the ball, right? Well, there's a video on TikTok where this guy says to watch the players without the ball. Watch the routes and the action away from the play. I'll change how you see the game. And guess what? He's not wrong. That's the thing about discovery on TikTok. One video can change the way you see the game. You can learn something new or see things in a completely different way. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Visit tiktok.com/discovermore. What happens to the Cowboys now?

• 25:57Bill Simmons?

  I just have some questions to throw you.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Go ahead.

• 26:00Bill Simmons?

  Cause your season's over.

• 26:03Bill Simmons?

  Has McCarthy finished the season?

• 26:04Speaker 03

  That's very rude.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 26:10Bill Simmons?

  Why pay for another coach at this point?

• 26:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, right. I, I, look, here's what I'll say. The thing about them is like this is, I didn't expect them to win. I really thought they would suck me back in. I thought they were done, but I didn't think they were done sucking me in. I thought Cooper Rush would be competitive, but this game killed me because besides a kicking game, you get to see the Cowboys incompetence on every level, right? Like tackling, the quarterback play was atrocious. Rush had like 24 yards at halftime and then they put Trey Lance and he comes in for like negative six yards with a penalty. Ezekiel Elliott back with a big fumble, which, you know,

• 26:47Bill Simmons?

  Huge fumble in the, in the other end zone.

• 26:49Speaker 03

  Jesus. It's like just that, and that's more ineptitude in the front office. And then like, and C D Lamb like yucking it up with the Eagles as the, as the gun sounds to end the game. And then we have the owner. It's like every, every little aspect of it. The owner blames the mysterious construction of his billion dollar stadium.

• 27:06Bill Simmons?

  And he built.

• 27:07Speaker 03

  He built it. Half the players are going blind.

• 27:10Bill Simmons?

  From someone else. He built it and was in charge of every aspect of the construction.

• 27:13Speaker 03

  Disgusting. He's pointing at like, they know where the sun is like, good Jerry, you go to the sun. Go to the light. See the sun? It's right there. It's right in the crack in the roof where you wouldn't, you know, everyone wants to put curtains.

• 27:26Bill Simmons?

  Until you go blind.

• 27:27Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 27:28Bill Simmons?

  It drives me nuts. Thing tomorrow is gonna be like, should we put curtains up there? It's like this thing, you and I went to the stadium 15 years ago. Like they couldn't figure out the fucking sunlight when it's after daylight savings.

• 27:39Speaker 03

  The, remember Dallas, the TV show? That was like in the opening, the light going through the stadium. Like, oh, wow, that's kind of cool. It's like, no, it's not that cool. I hate this team. I'm really mad and I feel like I get doubled. F tier because like they don't even change the cadence like Cooper Rush is like here we go. And that gets me angry and then I have to see the play and that gets me angry. So I'm getting angry like 160 times a game.

• 28:05Bill Simmons?

  Our Dak shit. My next Cowboys question, are Dak, Lamb and Parsons all on next year's team?

• 28:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. There's too much money. What was, what are they gonna do?

• 28:19Bill Simmons?

  Is Lawrence also on next year's team? Those four, those four guys next year?

• 28:26Speaker 03

  I do think so.

• 28:27Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. I just want Aubrey. I need the kicker to stay.

• 28:33Speaker 03

  Listen, if they're not on the team, if they're not, not on the team, that means Jerry is gonna trade him, right? And he has been, that, he's been awful. I mean, we got, we got Mingo who didn't even suit up for like a four, like you'll see what they got for Hopkins versus Mingo. And they do it year after year after year. It's getting bad.

• 28:52Bill Simmons?

  I like the, the philosophy of, yeah, we got Mingo. We really liked him coming out of the draft.

• 28:58Speaker 03

  Right.

• 28:59Bill Simmons?

  It was like, yep. Did you still like him when he couldn't play for Carolina for two years?

• 29:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 29:05Bill Simmons?

  It'd be like if we really liked somebody for the Ringer two years ago and then the person went somewhere and just handed in a bunch of columns late and did three podcasts that had to be aborted. We're like, wow, we really did like them two years ago. Let's go get them anyway. Maybe change the scenario.

• 29:20Speaker 03

  Record labels aren't signing Diddy anytime soon, even though he's went double platinum 15 years ago. Is that a bad analogy?

• 29:28Bill Simmons?

  I, listen, I'm, I'm here for all Diddy analogies. Um, here's my next question for you Cowboys related. I'm gonna go through every team in the NFC and you tell me which team you'd rather be then for the next three years.

• 29:41Speaker 03

  This is a dick move, but go ahead.

• 29:43Bill Simmons?

  It's not a dick move, right? It's an exercise.

• 29:45Speaker 03

  All right. I don't exercise.

• 29:46Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather be Dallas or Philadelphia next three years?

• 29:50Speaker 03

  Phila, that's easy. Philly.

• 29:52Bill Simmons?

  Washington?

• 29:54Speaker 03

  Washington, yes.

• 29:56Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather be Dallas or the Giants?

• 30:00Speaker 03

  I'm gonna say still Dallas and then I'm gonna get kicked in the teeth on Thanksgiving and that'll be fun.

• 30:04Bill Simmons?

  I think Dallas is the right answer for that. Okay. So you'd rather be, so the Giants, we have one.

• 30:09Speaker 03

  Are we, we're gonna really do this 16 time?

• 30:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, if you trade Minnesota, Green Bay, you'd rather be all those teams.

• 30:14Speaker 03

  Sure. Yeah.

• 30:15Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather be Dallas or Chicago?

• 30:18Speaker 03

  Um.

• 30:21Speaker 03

  I think their front office is just as effed up, kind of to be honest with you. I mean, we were, we were texting off to the side.

• 30:27Bill Simmons?

  Their coach is definitely worse.

• 30:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. So they, they have to make a coaching change. Not sold on the quarterback. I think that's a push, actually. Can I say push?

• 30:34Bill Simmons?

  Okay, we have a push.

• 30:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 30:36Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather be Dallas or Atlanta? I'd rather be Atlanta.

• 30:40Speaker 03

  Atlanta.

• 30:42Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather be Dallas or Tampa Bay?

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Uh, all right. So the first thing I'm thinking about is coach, quarterback. Shit, Tampa Bay.

• 30:53Bill Simmons?

  I think you'd rather have Baker Mayfield. See him today. He's a fucking hero today.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  I know.

• 30:57Bill Simmons?

  It's amazing. I think you'd rather be Tampa. You'd rather be Dallas than New Orleans. That's, that's easy. New Orleans is solid cap.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fine.

• 31:06Bill Simmons?

  You would want her for Derek.

• 31:07Speaker 03

  And the Panthers. I'd be rather than the Panthers. Yeah.

• 31:09Bill Simmons?

  All right. So there's three. You got the Giants, New Orleans, the Carolina.

• 31:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:13Bill Simmons?

  And I don't think anyone in the NFC West.

• 31:15Speaker 03

  I don't think anyone in the West. No.

• 31:17Bill Simmons?

  So there's three teams you'd rather be.

• 31:18Speaker 03

  That's good. Congratulations. What a jerk you are. Yeah. Cause should I do that with you?

• 31:24Bill Simmons?

  It's a weird podcast.

• 31:25Speaker 03

  With the AFC? What? Do you have more than three?

• 31:29Bill Simmons?

  All right. I'll play.

• 31:30Speaker 03

  Go ahead.

• 31:31Bill Simmons?

  Um. Buffalo, I'd rather be. I'd rather be us than the Jets. I mean, hands down.

• 31:40Speaker 03

  Hands down?

• 31:41Bill Simmons?

  We'd rather be us than the Jets. We have Drake May.

• 31:44Speaker 03

  Yeah. Okay. That's true. All right.

• 31:47Bill Simmons?

  I think I'd rather be us than Miami because we have Drake May.

• 31:52Speaker 03

  Well, that's, if that's going to be your answer for everything. I mean, what?

• 31:55Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna, we have Drake May, we have Gonzalez, we have Barmore coming back. We're gonna have a hundred million in cap space. We're gonna have like a top six pick.

• 32:02Speaker 03

  I feel good about next year. Gonzalez and Barmore.

• 32:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Speaker 03

  Listen to you.

• 32:07Bill Simmons?

  Take three.

• 32:07Speaker 03

  What are you talking about? This is like the 78 Steelers you're talking about?

• 32:12Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Pittsburgh, Baltimore. Cincy. I would rather be all of those teams. Definitely would rather be us than Cleveland.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Okay. So how many is that?

• 32:24Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland, Miami, and the Jets. There's already three. I'd rather be Houston.

• 32:31Bill Simmons?

  I'd rather be S than Indianapolis. What's so great about being in that? They just missed on that Richardson pick. It looks like he's unplayable.

• 32:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 32:39Bill Simmons?

  Um, I'd rather be S than Tennessee.

• 32:42Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 32:42Bill Simmons?

  I'd rather be S than Jacksonville.

• 32:44Speaker 03

  Uh, the league really sucks, doesn't it?

• 32:46Bill Simmons?

  KC Chargers, obviously those guys. Us versus Denver is probably a push. I'd rather have May than anyone at Denver, but I, Denver has Peyton.

• 32:56Speaker 03

  I'd rather have May than Knicks right now, huh?

• 32:58Bill Simmons?

  Oh, stop it. Knicks is like 26.

• 33:01Speaker 03

  What am I missing with May? What did he do? Well, hold on, I gotta go to these stats again.

• 33:05Bill Simmons?

  He has no receivers and no offensive line.

• 33:08Speaker 03

  He's been fine.

• 33:08Bill Simmons?

  Keeping them in these games, making plays. We love Drake May.

• 33:12Speaker 03

  Uh, what's his name? Nine times. That's why.

• 33:14Bill Simmons?

  We love Drake May. Come on.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  I know, I see it, but.

• 33:16Bill Simmons?

  You know what I love about Drake May? He has a bad play and he shakes it off and he goes right back out there and, and just, and does play it. I also.

• 33:24Speaker 03

  Dak does that too. Cooper Rush does that. Um, Trey Lance, all the greats.

• 33:29Bill Simmons?

  I'd rather be S than Vegas. So that's like six teams. Here's what I love about Drake May.

• 33:33Speaker 03

  That's depressing. You'd rather be, and you make a good point for all of them. Twice as many teams than Iowa in the NFC. Wow, that's bad.

• 33:42Speaker 03

  I'm so glad we did this.

• 33:43Bill Simmons?

  I'll talk about the Pats later. I have a different spot. Let's talk about Pittsburgh, Washington. Which felt like a real playoff game.

• 33:48Speaker 03

  That was the best game.

• 33:51Bill Simmons?

  I think it was an honorable loss for Washington. Even though, uh, I didn't think they played their best, but they definitely hung and were around the game. And that was by far the best defense they had played. Um, it was a great win for Pittsburgh because a lot of shit went wrong for them for two hours. It felt like they were almost trying to give the game away and then they said, fuck it. And they just took it. And then Russ made a fucking massive throw. At the end, like he hit Williams in stride. Fields never would have made that throw. So. Sal, nobody saw the seven and two Steelers coming. Oh wait, somebody did. This guy, right here.

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Who? Who are you pointing to?

• 34:27Bill Simmons?

  Me.

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 34:28Bill Simmons?

  This guy with two index fingers. Yeah.

• 34:30Speaker 03

  You called it.

• 34:31Bill Simmons?

  That's it. So when people do the thing tomorrow, who would have saw the Steelers seven and two? It was fucking me. I called it. I love the Steelers.

• 34:39Speaker 03

  All right. All right. Maybe you called it.

• 34:40Bill Simmons?

  By the way, if you go back and you watch our over unders podcast, we, we actually kind of killed the podcast, like. I have a chance to go like 25 and 7, 26 and 6 on those over unders.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  I saw that.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  All right, good job.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  But why then were all the announcers, the both announcers in that game talking about me, me, me, picking the Steeler special, the South Steeler special, which is Washington to win the first half.

• 35:04Bill Simmons?

  We're going to you because this is way more impressive. Go ahead. Set up the Cousins South special.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  Opponent to win the first half, Steelers to win the game. It takes the Steelers a minute to get going. More than any other team this happens. Eight to one. It's cashed three times this year. Plus 17 units. Good job by me. Good job by you. Whatever you said in the preseason, but uh, eight to one, three times. God bless.

• 35:27Bill Simmons?

  So it's hit three times and if you bet a hundred dollars on it each time, you would have just won like 23, $2,400 just on those three and lost a hundred on the other seven games. You'd be up $1,700. There's no better bet in sports. Fanduel, Fanduel gave us these ringer specials tab on their NFL page. The Cousins South special should just be its own tab. It should be next to games, futures, Cousins South special.

• 35:56Speaker 03

  You know why it won't be?

• 35:57Bill Simmons?

  You've invented this.

• 35:58Speaker 03

  They don't want to go bankrupt. I don't blame them for hiding it within like 34 other ringer specials, but uh, no, the Steelers are good. They're good. They're exciting and um, I'm not going to say sky's the limit for the playoffs, but they could, right now, like if you put a ceiling on them, AFC Championship, not that's gonna happen, but like, could they get that far or past it?

• 36:22Bill Simmons?

  So I had some friends at that Washington game today and that was like the most important home game Washington's had in 15 years where it was like a true sellout. Real fans coming back, like real energy in the building, people there two hours before the game. And the Steelers didn't play well and they still figured out a way to steal the game. And they got stops like that game was I think 27 to 21 halfway through the third quarter and the, they shut down Washington. They, Daniels missed a couple of throws. I think two years from now, he probably wins that game because he had, he had two big throws in the second half, but uh, but the fact that Wilson can make a couple of plays for them. They, it just wasn't gonna happen with Fields. Fields doesn't win that game.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 37:07Bill Simmons?

  He just doesn't. And I think, I was thinking, we were joking, watching the games, like, has anybody seemed less cool and more done and then rallied back and seems kinda cool again? It's like, I was thinking like Wayne Brady when he did the Chappelle Show.

• 37:23Speaker 03

  Interesting.

• 37:24Bill Simmons?

  And he had, and he had that Wayne Brady rejuvenation from the Chappelle Show. But the, Russ winning that game and doing like a dance and seeming like Russ again, I was like, holy shit, Russ is back.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Yes. I think he, people are dying to turn on him too, though, right? I feel like even that with Steelers fans, like, they were waiting for the one bad Russ game. But now, you're right, at 7-2, this is a whole different story. And Pickens is the most athletic player on that team. I'm sorry, but he comes up with a dazzling circus catch every week. I mean, football is great when you see like these wide receivers. My father's like, oh, it was always better in my day. These guys didn't sound, no injuries. Like, Dad, you don't have wide receivers toe tapping the sideline and, you know, like pellets kicking up because they know how to drag their feet.

• 38:16Bill Simmons?

  That catch in the corner, that was unbelievable.

• 38:18Speaker 03

  They know how to draw, whatever, I'm not making it, but you see a spectacular play three times a week now in the NFL. That's why it's the best.

• 38:28Bill Simmons?

  One thing I liked about Pittsburgh, they did the thing that Detroit kinda didn't do. They just kept running the ball and running the ball.

• 38:34Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:34Bill Simmons?

  They haven't run the ball that well. I think they were, um, 43 for, were they, 43 for like 140, something like that. They were like 3.3 again, but.

• 38:45Speaker 03

  Timely runs though.

• 38:46Bill Simmons?

  They stuck with it, they'd shoot it. It felt like they were always getting yardage on first down. They made a couple of big plays. They did this Mike Williams trade that the moment they did it, it was like, of course, this guy's gonna be decent for them. And they ended up scoring the same amount of points as the Jets today.

• 39:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:02Bill Simmons?

  And then there's the Tomlin piece, which, so where do you think Tomlin ranks for wins all time? Good to guess. All time coaches, where does he rank in wins? So he's been coaching 18 years.

• 39:14Speaker 03

  13.

• 39:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, so he's 12. I would have guessed like 30th.

• 39:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:19Bill Simmons?

  He's only been coaching, he hasn't been coaching two decades yet.

• 39:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, but they're never under 500. So you don't have like any five and elevens or five and 12s in there.

• 39:28Bill Simmons?

  He's 180 and 102.

• 39:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:31Bill Simmons?

  He's won a Super Bowl. He only has eight playoff wins, but I was thinking today, like, Belichick and Reid are the best two coaches of this century, right? During the quarter century, doing the all NFL teams.

• 39:43Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 39:43Bill Simmons?

  Tomlin's probably third. It's either him or Sean Payton, right? Maybe, maybe John Harbaugh's in there.

• 39:52Bill Simmons?

  Probably not Dungy because he retired pretty early.

• 39:55Speaker 03

  No respect for McCarthy. It's unbelievable.

• 39:58Bill Simmons?

  Definitely not McCarthy. There's like a, a mild Tom Coughlin case just because he won the two Super Bowls, but as a regular season coach wasn't great, but I think it's pretty unassailable. Tomlin's either third or fourth, depending on who you have versus Payton.

• 40:12Speaker 03

  Harbaugh has how many fewer wins, right? Like if you just go regular season, if you go like that.

• 40:18Bill Simmons?

  Tomlin's hit this point though, where you just feel like he's getting to nine or 10 wins and it doesn't matter who's on his team, but it's a specific type of player that he always seems to have. They've lucked out over and over again. I haven't lucked out. Like there's real ingenuity behind the receivers they take. And, uh, I don't know. It's, it's, this feels like one of his great seasons.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  They're very good. Um, he was the one that like, he almost didn't bring the, the offense out on fourth and two, right?

• 40:49Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 40:49Speaker 03

  And then he did. I was screaming Simmons. I didn't even, I just had this stupid Steelers special thing. But you gotta do that, coaches. You have to at least do the hard count on fourth and two. It's not gonna work every time. If you, if you get a false start, you're in, actually in a better position to punt it to the 10 or whatever. So. Yeah, it was great. I mean, they killed them. They killed them in time of possession too. Like they deserved that game.

• 41:12Bill Simmons?

  For Washington, now they're playing Philly Thursday night and they might be going from seven and two to seven and four in the span of five days, but they're, they're still a playoff team. I thought that was weirdly a good loss for them. Like they hung with a really good team and I thought those were two playoff teams.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:29Bill Simmons?

  All right. Next question.

• 41:33Bill Simmons?

  So I was gonna ask you, would you rather have Drake May or Caleb Williams? But you even want to introduce Bo Nix into this?

• 41:39Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  So give me the rankings.

• 41:43Speaker 03

  Just of the four?

• 41:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:49Speaker 03

  I'm gonna drop Caleb Williams to four right now.

• 41:52Bill Simmons?

  I think you have to.

• 41:53Speaker 03

  I'm gonna do it. I'll put your guy third. I think Bo Nix is second. I know you would flip him. But this is just for this year, right?

• 42:00Bill Simmons?

  We're not looking. No, I think who'd you want to have going forward?

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. I'd be very confident in the top two, in Daniels and then Bo Nix and your guys third. I don't know what to make of Caleb Williams. I really don't. Cause they won some games they shouldn't have won and it's a very strange team. They really, they're not resilient at all. They were like one play away from being five and two. And now you don't see them in the playoffs at all, right?

• 42:27Bill Simmons?

  No, I think the Hail Mary probably murdered the team.

• 42:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:32Bill Simmons?

  Or murdered the season. It's weird. All the stuff you heard about him at USC that people were worried about are kind of on display with the Bears too, right? That there's, he just seems like, almost like a tennis player playing quarterback. Like he's like playing an individual sport, but also running a team at the same time. And he makes a lot of really, really amateurish mistakes. Like it was interesting reading the stories after the game. The Patriots did all this stuff. This was the first, I guess the Pats did okay last week too. But this was a actually very well coached game. I gotta hand it to Mayo and the crew. They really had a game plan. They wanted to pressure him. They brought in Schooler, who's the best special teams, you know, gunner in the league.

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  They brought him in as like a linebacker to basically spy on Caleb in certain spots. But they, they basically stuttered them and they were like, the guy holds the ball too long. And we felt like if we pressured him and we put a spy on him and we just kind of pushed him, that we could get to him. And they were right. And Caleb does hold the ball in too long and he's not accurate. Like apparently he's the, according to the stats, he's the second least accurate guy in the league. For just uncatchable passes. So they took advantage of all the stuff he wasn't good at. The team can't block. The crowd turned on them immediately. By the second quarter, you could already hear the boos. And I just felt like he checked out. So we'll see. We've seen rookie QBs fail, but we'll see.

• 43:59Speaker 03

  Eberflus is going to take the brunt of it though, right? Like everyone's like, oh, he doesn't last till tomorrow. You were the first one I heard that talked about Caleb Williams, like maybe not stepping up in this situation. But it's right now, it's squarely on the coach, losing the locker room, running wide receivers, walking off the field before the play is done. And shit like that.

• 44:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, I had the Pats in a bet today. I thought, I thought they really had a chance to win.

• 44:26Speaker 03

  Good call.

• 44:26Bill Simmons?

  It was interesting with Caleb. He had those three games in a row and it was against the Rams who were banged up on defense in week four. They scored 24. They won. They killed Carolina in week five. They 36 10. Everybody's like Caleb, Bears, here we go. And then they beat the Jaguars. I think that was abroad in week six, 35 16. And then they had a bye week. And there were two narratives. One was Caleb's, Caleb's figured it out. Here come the Bears. And then I was more in the camp of can we see them play like some good teams first before we have a parade? So they had the bye week. They lose that game to Washington where they only scored 15 and they really couldn't do anything the whole game.

• 45:07Bill Simmons?

  Arizona kills them last week. And then the Pats, sort of shitty defense, looked like the 85 Bears against them. So, you know, they can't block, but uh, the body language on the team is, is awful.

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Well, and it was also their defense had gone like 12 straight without allowing more than 20 points or something. Or once in 12 games or something like that. And so he was benefiting off of that.

• 45:27Bill Simmons?

  They didn't do it today. They allowed 19.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, he's like kind of Teflon because the defense was very good and Eberflus, when they lose, it's Eberflus's fault. And you could say the Hail Mary, they got rooked, but um, what about week one when Levis just handed them? They had like no offense. They had like 140 yards of offense. So I know it's week one. It's his very first game, but this game, this team is kind of where they should be.

• 45:51Bill Simmons?

  I'm sure there's going to be a lot of, I'm sure this is going to be a huge topic this week and there's going to be people defending him. And then there's going to be people really breaking down that, that he hasn't been good. Didn't he want to own the team, a piece of the team? When you say he was like running the team, that's what I thought of immediately. That would have been good. From what I saw today.

• 46:12Bill Simmons?

  I wasn't afraid of him when he was going back to pass. I don't know, that team might be really poorly coached and we've seen, like I went to the Celtics Nets game on um Friday night. See, I was able to bring basketball.

• 46:22Speaker 03

  There we go. Good job.

• 46:24Bill Simmons?

  And the Nets are really well coached and I felt that way watching them on TV, but I got to see it in person up close and that team was on the same page. They were bringing in bench guys who were playing hard, who were playing defense, who were picking up guys full, full court. They were rebounding. They were really, really trying. They're running good plays out of timeouts. And I was like, this team's well coached. You watched the Bears today and it's like, this team's fucking disaster.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  Like they, they clearly shouldn't have this coach anymore, but it's a franchise that is usually afraid to um make moves until after the season. From what I saw today, and I watched that game pretty closely, like they, that Hail Mary seems like that killed that Uber flu there.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, for sure. For sure. He might have lost the locker room before that, but yeah, it is tough to spot uh an okay or bad team who's well coached. Like I think we felt that about Tennessee when Vrabel was around. And you know, they've won some divisions too, but even when they were bad, you're like, all right, this team, they fight for them and they're good and they do the basics, right?

• 47:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Tomlin's been like that too.

• 47:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:24Bill Simmons?

  Where Tomlin can have these crappy offenses and still.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 47:28Bill Simmons?

  Figure out how to go nine and eight. This Bears team's a mess.

• 47:31Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 47:31Bill Simmons?

  Um, the Jaguars look like a mess. Like there's teams you watch and you're like, this team's a mess. Brandon Staley last year, Ron Rivera last year. We, you know who the teams are that are super sloppy.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  The Jaguars, by the way, I know we don't need to spend much time on that. 12-7 Minnesota.

• 47:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh God.

• 47:47Speaker 03

  It was 42 to 18 in time of possession for Minnesota.

• 47:51Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 47:52Speaker 03

  And I was like thinking like, I don't even want, I want to see time of possession, like Jags time possession versus progressive ads we saw in the three hours. Like Mac Jones or Flo? Who, who do we see on the screen more? I think it would be close. Boy, that is a real disaster.

• 48:08Bill Simmons?

  That should have been a great FanDuel bet of combine Darnold's uh Mac Jones, because they were zero touchdowns, five picks. I was in Boston over the weekend and I did a interception parlay. So great having legal gambling, like just being able to go on and make dumb Fanduel bets. It was Bryce Young, Mac Jones and Will Levis. And it was like three and a half to one. I was like, this is going to be so much fun. And then Carolina, I wake up, they're up seven, nothing. Bryce somehow doesn't throw a pick. The bet doesn't win. The other two guys did though.

• 48:41Speaker 03

  Oh, they did? The other two came in? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's the problem with the Giants. The Panthers like took a lead and it's like, oh shit, Bryce Young's only going to throw the ball like 10 more times in the second half.

• 48:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So big picture, like Caleb is obviously an asset. He's obviously talented. They have to figure out the coach thing now because you don't want this to go in a direction where, you know, he loses confidence, the chemistry goes completely sideways, whatever. Let's take one more break for the podcast and then we'll keep going.

• 49:17Bill Simmons?

  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 Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead. But what if you went to Cancun with Expedia? Save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later.

• 49:59Bill Simmons?

  In all fairness though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun, one, two, three Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary.

• 50:13Bill Simmons?

  Season from hell rankings. We had San Francisco in the lead.

• 50:19Bill Simmons?

  Until today, I think it's the Jets.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  San Francisco was in the league, season from hell.

• 50:24Bill Simmons?

  Cause all the injuries they had and you know, they they were 500 and yeah, it's just like, what else can go wrong? McCaffrey misses 10 weeks. Ayuk goes out for the year. They lose guys on defense. They blow a couple dumb games like they were kind of felt season from hellish, but now I think the Jets have locked it up.

• 50:43Speaker 03

  Well, it depends how you look at it. Like my quarterback's out for the year. Maybe you didn't think he was doing much anyway, but the Jets quarterback is still hobbling around. And you know, he's not the right guy, right? So, uh, that's the season from hell. I'm fine with the Jets being the season.

• 50:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, think about all the cat, all the trades they've done. They fire their coach. They think that's going to fix it. Then it's Devonte Adams is going to be the savior. That's going to fit it. If six points today for them. Some of the stats from this game, Tyler Murray completed 17 straight passes at one point.

• 51:15Bill Simmons?

  The Jets allowed four 70 plus yard drives in the same game. The Cardinals had 28 first downs on 57 plays. So that jumped out to me. I was like, that almost seems impossible. Like I gotta go and look at NFL history and see. So you could do it on that stat head thing.

• 51:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  Teams that had 57 or less plays and 28 or more. It only happened one other time in the history of the league. The 2023 Niners, 53 plays, 30 first downs. There were three teams that ran 58 plays and had 28 first downs or more, but like, that's how rare this is. That's how bad the Jets were. They were historically awful, giving up first downs on like first or second down.

• 51:59Speaker 03

  I think the defense, remember coming into this year, like whatever Rogers was always going to be a question mark. The Jets defense is elite. All you need is Rogers to be average. Well, Rogers is a little below average.

• 52:10Bill Simmons?

  Better than Zach Wilson. Yeah.

• 52:11Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. And he's not. If you look at how many points they have through week 10 this year and last.

• 52:17Bill Simmons?

  Do you want the exact number?

• 52:19Speaker 03

  Uh, points, total points? Yeah.

• 52:21Bill Simmons?

  Last year, they averaged 16.6 points per game. This year, they're averaging 18.3.

• 52:26Speaker 03

  Oh, that really?

• 52:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:28Speaker 03

  That's that much more?

• 52:29Bill Simmons?

  Rogers is worth 1.7 points more, but their defense is worse. And they lost Sala, who, you know, seven kids out, we made a lot of jokes, but their defense played better when he was head coach. So he's just a fact.

• 52:41Speaker 03

  You got, as a Patriots fan, you have to love this, right? You have to absolutely love this.

• 52:46Bill Simmons?

  I have, I have Jets fans in my life that I have real affection for, and they're, they're about as downtrodden about football as any fanbase I know. So I feel bad for that. But Rogers has just been such a prick the last few years. It's hard.

• 53:03Speaker 03

  I noticed that too.

• 53:04Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's hard not like, you know, even like the trading Mike Williams and making them trade for Devante Adams and all this stuff. And the coach getting fired.

• 53:13Speaker 03

  I love it. Ball goes right through Devante Adams' hands on third down and then a big sack on fourth. It was just all falling apart. I do feel bad for New York, just in general, New York teams are like five and 15. I know the Liberty one, that's fun, but uh, for God's sakes, uh, Jets, Jets over Giants for, for a year from hell? I guess so, only because of the expectations.

• 53:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I guess if you're making the case for the Giants fans, they have to watch Dana Jones.

• 53:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:41Bill Simmons?

  Who, that Panthers game today.

• 53:45Speaker 03

  Did you wake up? Be honest.

• 53:47Bill Simmons?

  I woke up, it was seven, nothing.

• 53:50Bill Simmons?

  Um, even though I flew in last night, I was still like, this game is to Germany. Eisen making beer garden jokes, I'm like, I gotta wake up. And uh, and the Panthers are just awful. It's unbelievable that they went two in a row. Like, I'm telling you, they're terrible. Like, Panthers fans, you'd be like, fuck you, we're getting better. It's like, you're not, you're not a good team.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  All right, I believe you, I believe you.

• 54:11Bill Simmons?

  You're really awful. You're terrible at football. You had no business winning the game, like, no missed a field goal. Jones had that interception he threw in the fourth, late in the fourth quarter.

• 54:24Bill Simmons?

  You know, and then like they run that flea flicker and he misses the two completely wide open guys and they're talking about how upset Dayball is. It's like, it was third and one and you're running a flea flicker with Daniel Jones. Like, just hand the ball off.

• 54:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:37Bill Simmons?

  Why are you, why are you making him do anything? It's like, if I took my dog outside without a leash, right? And he, and he ran across the street and ran up to the neighbor's yard and like, you know, trounced the flowers and then got in a fight with their dog. It's like, is that my dog's fault or is that my fault? Is it my fault for letting my dog out without a leash? Like, no, I'm just saying, like-

• 54:58Speaker 03

  Is this your parent calling her?

• 55:00Bill Simmons?

  No, of course, of course. It's like, you're being a Jones on your team. Don't do flea flickers with him. Don't have him throw in tight windows when you need a, a, a score inside the 20 yard line. Like, it's idiotic.

• 55:16Speaker 03

  That'd be a good nickname for a dog, Flea Flicker. But, no, you're right. That, that was awful. I'm sorry you had to wake up. I mean, they put those poor, that was a hostage situation, keeping them for overtime to see the frigging Panthers win 20 to 17.

• 55:30Bill Simmons?

  They all seem drunk. They seem drunk and happy. The Germans-

• 55:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, it doesn't matter. Can I, can I tell you, I want to pitch that, and this would be better than Hard Knocks. And we make jokes about the flight back from London. Like, I want to see the losing coach from checking into the airport, whether it's Heathrow or whatever, Munich, all the way through to flight, New York.

• 55:49Bill Simmons?

  Going abroad with blank?

• 55:50Speaker 03

  Yeah. I want to see the, the losing coach fly home, whatever it is, Munich-

• 55:55Bill Simmons?

  Going through customs, just being bummed out.

• 55:57Speaker 03

  I want to see what he orders and drinks on the plane and what he says, if he's mean to the flight attendants and hear him cursing in his sleep. I'd watch that five hour stream. That would do it.

• 56:07Bill Simmons?

  I was mad because House and I have for million dollar picks. We did Giants to win by 14 plus and Niners to win by 14 plus. So they go down 7-0. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. But I also had the Giants in a money line. I did like a stupid parlay when I was in Boston. So I was like, all right, at least can the Giants just win this? And the Panthers are terrible.

• 56:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:29Bill Simmons?

  But they're really bad. Chuba Hubbard's good. And he was probably the reason they rung. But their team's just not good. They don't have any, they can't beat their downs. Like people are like, oh, Bryce Young looked better today. It's like, okay, I guess he looked better than somebody who shouldn't be in the league, but it wasn't like he was good. Like he was missing 39 throws all over the place. Doesn't really run.

• 56:52Speaker 03

  I think I was offered Chuba Hubbard in three fantasy trades this week and I was like, and I was like mad at the people who proposed it. And then I looked at his numbers. Oh my God, they're, they're pretty damn good. And I was like, I don't want to watch them or, and root for their offense. Right? Why would you ever want that unless you live in the state?

• 57:08Bill Simmons?

  See, I feel like this, maybe even though I lost a little money on this this week, I still feel like long-term we're in a good spot. Cause they're coming off a bye and then they have home games against Kansas City and Tampa.

• 57:22Speaker 03

  Who are you talking about? Carolina?

• 57:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it'll be like, oh, Carolina, two game winning streak. They've righted the ship. And it's like, I don't think they've righted any ship. I think they stink. So I guess we'll find out. Um, all right. What else did I have for you?

• 57:35Speaker 03

  Well, the problem is there's like nine teams that stink. We're gonna get like, we're gonna get like seven or eight teams with five, with six wins or fewer. It doesn't really happen. If you look back in the last five years, there's like two or three teams with four, you know? But to get like, you know, close to 10 teams with like six wins. It's gross.

• 57:57Bill Simmons?

  When do we start taking the following teams seriously heading into week 11? Are we there yet? The Eagles are seven and two. Do you take them seriously as an actual contender who could be in the NFC title game?

• 58:12Speaker 03

  I do. And I, it's not just coming off this Dallas game, but I feel like they hit their stride. They got the running back they need. The tush push works with their fricking backup. When, when stuff like that happens, like that's, that's good. I, I still have the Lions a big step ahead of them, but yeah, they could be deep into January.

• 58:33Bill Simmons?

  Not quite there yet.

• 58:35Speaker 03

  No.

• 58:35Bill Simmons?

  I want to see Thursday night. Yeah, their wins this year, Green Bay in that Brazil game. They beat the Saints, the Browns, the Giants. They beat the Bengals. That was a good win. No T. Higgins. Beat the Jaguars. They beat your team, which was.

• 58:48Speaker 03

  My team's good.

• 58:48Bill Simmons?

  A corpse.

• 58:49Speaker 03

  They're still not really health, fully healthy. I don't know if they'll get there, but.

• 58:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, let's, I'm gonna, I want to wait because they play Washington this week. They're at the Rams. They're at Baltimore. And I, you know, I know it's a cop out, but I want to wait for those three games. But they definitely look better than they did. Second half of last year started this year.

• 59:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, this is where they were last year, right? About seven and two or something. Then they just tanked the last six.

• 59:13Bill Simmons?

  I don't trust their coach. Do you trust the Cardinals yet?

• 59:16Speaker 03

  Um, I, I like, I like watching them. That's all I could really say. I like watching their offense, right? And, uh, and they don't embarrass themselves on defense and they have. What do you mean? You mean trust like for the playoffs?

• 59:28Bill Simmons?

  Are you taking them seriously yet?

• 59:30Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, I think I have to because of their schedule and, um, the fact that they're able to move the ball and don't seem afraid of any of these teams.

• 59:38Bill Simmons?

  They have the Pats in Carolina later.

• 59:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:41Bill Simmons?

  So that's probably two more wins. They play Seattle twice next three weeks.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Right.

• 59:46Bill Simmons?

  Play Minnesota. They play the Rams. They played the Niners last week of the season. I think it's a 10 win team.

• 59:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:52Bill Simmons?

  I think they're a 10 win team.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  Four division games. So that's the key, right? A lot of these teams haven't played anyone in the division. So that's, that's big.

• 1:00:00Bill Simmons?

  I like how they can run the ball like, and they're really fit. Like Connor is just, I, I remember when Pittsburgh let him go. I didn't think it was a big deal at all. Right? Did you?

• 1:00:08Speaker 03

  Sure. No.

• 1:00:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God, they can let James Connor go. Nobody said that. And I think he's been good in Arizona.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  McBride's good. They have some web. Like, yeah, I was surprised to know that that was Harrison's fifth touchdown. I was about to come on tonight and go on a rant about how they've.

• 1:00:21Bill Simmons?

  Where is he?

• 1:00:22Speaker 03

  Yeah. They've done well despite the fact that the, this generational receiver hasn't produced, but five touchdowns, pretty good.

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So playoff picker, if you got Detroit at eight and one, Minnesota seven and two, I'm still not positive as a playoff team because Darnold seems like he's arrow pointed down. Washington, Philly, Green Bay, and then you have Arizona, San Francisco Rams. Six and four Arizona, five and four San Francisco, four and four Rams. I think they're a playoff team. I think they're gonna make it. I thought today was a key one and I didn't, House and I talked about it Thursday. I didn't understand the line. I didn't know what I was missing. I didn't understand why people were overrating the Jets based off that Texans game on a Thursday night. I think people always overrate those Thursday night games. I didn't think the Jets were good. I thought Arizona was better.

• 1:01:11Bill Simmons?

  And to me, it was like an easy bet, but the line shifted. The Jets were favored heading into the game. It's like, what am I missing with this Jets team? They suck.

• 1:01:21Speaker 03

  Isn't that what happened against Houston? Like Houston's favored by one and a half when we did the pod and then the Jets were favored. And like, as soon as that one and a half, which is the mysterious number this year flips, I get in sprinter's position. I'm like, I'm staying away from this game. When you figure it out, that was good for you that the Arizona, Arizona is minus 110 both ways to make it or not make it.

• 1:01:43Bill Simmons?

  I like it.

• 1:01:44Speaker 03

  It's a fun one.

• 1:01:47Bill Simmons?

  The Chargers, I think I believe in them too. I think that's a five seed or a six seed. Excellent defense. Excellent QB. Herbert's been really good this year. Excellent coach. They can block. Their receivers, I think, are a little better than we were expecting. That Quinn Johnston, who anybody could add in a fantasy draft, nobody took him. They have a two game lead for the wild card. Here's the key though. Their next four is Cincy, Baltimore, at Atlanta, at KC. They probably have to go two and two out of those four. Three and one, they're golden, but two and two gets them to eight and five and they're cruising after that. But I think, I think that team knows who they are and they're really well coached.

• 1:02:26Speaker 03

  Two weeks ago, I agree. They were minus 150 to make the playoffs. Last week, minus 310, now minus 430 to make the playoffs. And I'm just not used to the Chargers winning games they're supposed to win, right? Like this is three weeks in a row, the Browns, the Saints and the Titans. So big test next week, as we said, with the Bengals. That's a fun game.

• 1:02:46Bill Simmons?

  I have some 2024 Dallas Cowboys silver linings for you.

• 1:02:50Speaker 03

  What? I thought we were off this like.

• 1:02:52Bill Simmons?

  No, I forgot I had this part too. Silver lining, number one, really good draft pick coming. You're gonna have like a top seven pick.

• 1:03:01Speaker 03

  Good.

• 1:03:01Bill Simmons?

  Now granted, Jerry's gonna probably trade up so he could take Travis Hunter and put it next to C.D. Lamb and be like, oh, look at our receivers.

• 1:03:08Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:03:10Bill Simmons?

  Travis Hunter and C.D. Lamb. Oh, my God. We have no, nobody who can block, but look at those two receivers.

• 1:03:16Speaker 03

  Good draft. He'll mortgage everything to get Travis Hunter, Shador Sanders and Deion to coach. That'll be, that's what I think I walk away. I think that's gotta be it.

• 1:03:25Bill Simmons?

  That's it?

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  I think that would have to be.

• 1:03:26Bill Simmons?

  When Larry David quit the Jets?

• 1:03:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, cuz then he's just screwing with everybody, right? Now it's like, oh, this was a practical joke. All right, Jerry, you're funny. You're the funniest owner.

• 1:03:37Bill Simmons?

  Silver lining, Belichick or Vrabel? Who would you pick? You got choice of one.

• 1:03:43Speaker 03

  I think Vrabel.

• 1:03:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think that's the right pick.

• 1:03:46Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:03:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:47Speaker 03

  Let's get into this. Why?

• 1:03:49Bill Simmons?

  I think Vrabel's a really good coach and he's like 25 years younger than Belichick.

• 1:03:54Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:03:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, but his girlfriend is not. She's only about four years old.

• 1:03:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, girlfriend's 20 years older than Belichick's.

• 1:04:01Speaker 03

  That's crazy.

• 1:04:03Bill Simmons?

  Uh, more silver linings. We don't have to watch TV segments about them anymore cuz I don't, I just don't think by, I don't know, week 15, there's nothing left on, no meat on the bone.

• 1:04:14Speaker 03

  NFL's in trouble a little bit with some of these night games and nothing they can do about Thanksgiving, but they, you know, one thing you could always say about the Cowboys, even if they were out of playoff contention, like, oh, everybody watches them cuz they have fantasy players. It's gonna be, it could be tough to start.

• 1:04:28Bill Simmons?

  They shut down C.D. Lamb.

• 1:04:30Speaker 03

  C.D. Lamb, but in like three weeks.

• 1:04:32Bill Simmons?

  City Dallas has Luke in the Mavs. That's silver lining.

• 1:04:35Speaker 03

  I don't care.

• 1:04:36Bill Simmons?

  And then even though you haven't made the Super Bowl since 95, there's a bunch of teams that have longer droughts than that.

• 1:04:43Speaker 03

  Oh, great.

• 1:04:44Bill Simmons?

  Detroit, Cleveland, the Jets, Minnesota, Miami hasn't made the Super Bowl since 1976.

• 1:04:51Speaker 03

  I know that. That's, oh, man, I feel so fucking good.

• 1:04:54Bill Simmons?

  I thought, I need, I need to feel better.

• 1:04:56Speaker 03

  Thanks, man.

• 1:04:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and curtains. You're gonna have curtains in the stadium, so the receivers will get blinded.

• 1:05:01Speaker 03

  Were we there? Was the last WrestleMania there when we were there? I think it was. They were showing like the curtains they put up to block the sun and everything. Like, yeah, it's this easy. They just use curtains.

• 1:05:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you have the curtains. Um, the new coach theory is back. House talked me out of it. That motherfucker on Monday, a million dollar picks. He was like, we can't bet on Derek Carr. He tried to murder his teammate last week. I was like, fine, we won't. And then new coach theory wins. Darren Rizzi, who sounds like somebody you would be buddies with. Yeah, the Farley kids coming and Brad and Darren Rizzi.

• 1:05:36Speaker 03

  Darren Rizzi, the Farley kid.

• 1:05:38Bill Simmons?

  Ken, he's in a fight with Ken. Harry had intervened because Ken got mad at Darren Rizzi.

• 1:05:45Speaker 03

  Oh, there's so much truth to that. I like this guy. He's fun. I, how am I not rooting for this team? He talked about a, the clog in the toilet this morning and his morning shit before the game. I was like, this should be my guy. And he has a player stretching out. He's like, one of my big things is, well, what, what's the, uh, what's the crazy commercial we see all the time with the Rizzi? Um, Sky Rizzi? It doesn't really make sense.

• 1:06:10Bill Simmons?

  He talked about clogging the toilet. We gotta call him the clogger.

• 1:06:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the clogger. Yeah.

• 1:06:17Speaker 03

  Clapper, meet the clogger.

• 1:06:18Bill Simmons?

  The clogger. Well, we had Pip Boss Rich who treated us really well that one year with the Raiders.

• 1:06:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:06:25Bill Simmons?

  We won on him a bunch of weeks. Now we got the clogger.

• 1:06:28Speaker 03

  Oh, I love the clogger.

• 1:06:29Bill Simmons?

  The clogger's in, man. Here we go.

• 1:06:30Speaker 03

  Is he gonna do that? Is that good luck? Like, is he gonna have to do that every Sunday now?

• 1:06:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's gonna have to have a lot of like Metamucil and cheese the night before a game.

• 1:06:39Speaker 03

  Bean burritos, yeah.

• 1:06:41Bill Simmons?

  Um, oh, I broke my rule and bet on the Germany game, which I swore I wasn't gonna do. I somehow, all my rules for the year, don't bet on the Germany game, don't bet on a game with two bad teams. I just, I come, I was sitting on a plane, um, before takeoff, which is, I think the single most dangerous time to be on FanDuel. And just like, ah, Giants, like, you know, just killing time. Um, next one. Was Debo Samuel right or wrong for getting mad at the kicker? The guy missed three field goals. Like, how many field goals did he have to miss?

• 1:07:14Speaker 03

  Right? Wasn't it?

• 1:07:15Bill Simmons?

  No, he was mad at the kicker and the long snapper intervened.

• 1:07:18Speaker 03

  Oh, he went after, he got his throat. Yeah, yeah.

• 1:07:22Bill Simmons?

  What an interesting.

• 1:07:22Speaker 03

  He's yelling at the kicker. I don't know what happened with Debo. There might be some medication issues. Did you see what he came in like dressed as like down the tunnel? And then like, yeah, he had like leather, a nice little leather number up top and then shorts. And then he's like going after his long snapper's throat, but I think he's right. He can't go missing all these kicks.

• 1:07:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, what's the right number of missed field goals before you're really allowed to get mad at the kicker without repercussions? Like, did he miss seven? Could you get mad at him?

• 1:07:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think so. We have a friend.

• 1:07:55Bill Simmons?

  Three feels like the right number. Three, like somebody in the team can at least side eye him.

• 1:08:00Speaker 03

  We have a buddy, Steven Green, who kicked and he was a great kicker in high school and then college and then quit. And then like he was, we made a push for him to be on an arena team and those goalposts were like, it's nothing. It's really like 18 inches away from each other. He missed, I think he was playing for like Gainesville, Florida or something. He missed the field goal and they were like screaming him at him on the bus the whole way back to wherever he was. They were in Alabama, he had to drive Florida. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of, there's a lot of that. And just kicking in general, what happened like in September, they were blasting like 57 yards.

• 1:08:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Gano missed like a 40 yarder today.

• 1:08:38Speaker 03

  And we saw what happened with the Lions too. That was crazy with the, with Fairbarn missing and Lions just turning it right around.

• 1:08:45Bill Simmons?

  This is a really bad omen for the Niners and it's something I've bet against over the years and it's been successful when it gets to playoff time. So before this game today, they were 30th in special teams DVOA. So they were one of the three worst teams.

• 1:08:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:08:59Bill Simmons?

  Today they had three missed field goals and they muffed a punt return. They might have the worst special teams in the entire league. There's no way that's going to turn out well for them in the playoffs. Like no way. It always rears its ugly head. Week 18, round one, something bad happens with it. So I'm just flagging that now.

• 1:09:18Speaker 03

  They don't even get to play the Cowboys. I know. I looked at that. Do you know how many yards, total yards? I know you said Baker was great today. The Tampa had 215 total yards. I said, how is that game close? How is that 23, 30?

• 1:09:30Bill Simmons?

  He was great because you had to watch it when they're like sacking him and he's just not going down. Even Brady was making noises with some of the Baker plays. Yeah, he's like aroused Brady. Woke him up.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  Do they have a meter? They should have a Brady noise meter.

• 1:09:47Speaker 00

  It's like, oh.

• 1:09:49Bill Simmons?

  Can Joe Flacco win the come down player of the year? He won comeback player of the year last year, come down? Or is Sam Darnold eligible just from the comeback and then the come down in the same year?

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  Could be comeback or should be go away? Should be come back and go away award? Go away player of the year?

• 1:10:07Bill Simmons?

  Just leave, use the back door?

• 1:10:08Speaker 03

  I don't, I'll tell you what, I was proud of myself. I live bet the Bills. I saw Flacco throw three passes. He definitely doesn't have that zip, right?

• 1:10:16Bill Simmons?

  Like, he doesn't look great. He looked bad last week, too.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, he did. The only thing, now it's all about it. What have, how dare they bench Anthony Richardson? Like, all right, it was two weeks ago, he was like two for 15 at halftime with 28 yards. How about they figure something out where they put them in packages and figure out how to use two quarterbacks? Is that the worst thing in the world?

• 1:10:37Bill Simmons?

  So glad you brought this up. I've been dying for a team to do this where it's like, one guy comes in, and then the next series, it's the other guy and we just, if I'm the other team, I would hate that. It's like, well, both of these guys kind of suck, but now that you're using both of them and I don't know what to do and what defenses to use, basically.

• 1:10:55Speaker 03

  Listen, you're not gonna raise the level of Anthony Richardson's confidence, putting him back there on third and 12, right? But if it's third and two and you're bringing him in, it's like, oh my God, now this guy's run for four first downs in a row. Or if he's even faked a run and thrown from, that's somebody to build it back up, I think.

• 1:11:15Bill Simmons?

  Seven turnovers combined for Joe Flacco and Sam Darnold today.

• 1:11:21Bill Simmons?

  Um, we're gonna take one more break for the podcast, then we're new guest alliance.

• 1:11:29Bill Simmons?

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

• 1:12:02Bill 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, FTIC.

• 1:12:42Bill Simmons?

  So before we do guess the lines, the underdogs made a little bit of a comeback today. But you know what else has quietly made a comeback? I almost don't want to say it, I'm going to knock on wood.

• 1:12:54Bill Simmons?

  The tees. Yeah. Has made a little bit of a resurgence. Eagles Chargers hit. I hit a four teamer in real life Eagles Chargers.

• 1:13:06Bill Simmons?

  Eagles Chargers. That's a two teamer.

• 1:13:11Bill Simmons?

  Ravens on Thursday night. And then what was the other obvious one today? Eagles Chargers. Did you have the Chiefs? No, it wasn't the Chiefs. What was the other one that was like a seven point game? Minnesota. No. San Francisco. No.

• 1:13:29Bill Simmons?

  Charge, oh Chargers, I said. Chargers Eagles. Oh, it was the, it was the Niners. Yeah. Yeah, that one hit. That was good. Yeah, I like the teasers.

• 1:13:41Bill Simmons?

  I did a deep dive on something with teasers and, and that, you know, you know, everybody always tells us we're playing it wrong. Like if a team's a five and a half point favorite and we tease it. And then like the snooty gamblers don't talk to us for like three weeks, they get mad. We crossed the line. Cause we crossed the zero. They said never do a teaser unless you're crossing the three key numbers, three, six and seven. So if it's on the plus side, you want to get it like plus one and a half, plus two. Seven and a half. Yeah. And if you want to bring it down, it's eight and a half, seven and a half. Yeah. Right there. I agree with that. Yeah, I know, I'm not going to do it. I just thought it was interesting. Well, on the other hand, you just could have teased the Bills today to like plus one and a half and you would have won because you had the Bills in the tease.

• 1:14:27Bill Simmons?

  Thursday night.

• 1:14:31Bill Simmons?

  Really good game Eagles Eagles Washington. I would I would say this is probably the most exciting Thursday night game we've had. There's real stakes. The vision's at stake. Washington could go from seven to two to seven and four in five days.

• 1:14:45Speaker 03

  Better hit it exactly because I did.

• 1:14:49Bill Simmons?

  I was vacillating between two and a half and three. And I went Eagles by two and a half.

• 1:14:55Speaker 03

  Good. It's three and a half.

• 1:14:58Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:14:58Speaker 03

  That's what I had.

• 1:15:00Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:15:02Speaker 03

  Not trusting.

• 1:15:03Bill Simmons?

  A little high.

• 1:15:05Bill Simmons?

  I guess they think maybe the Eagles can run on Washington.

• 1:15:09Speaker 03

  That's a tough spot for Jaden Daniels, right? Still on the road in division.

• 1:15:16Speaker 03

  You know, they they're not going to take the Eagles by surprise. That's for sure.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  Sunday marquee. It's a nice little seven point tease with Washington. Get them to 10 and a half. Sunday marquee game Chiefs Bills game of the year so far, probably, right?

• 1:15:33Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:15:34Bill Simmons?

  So been a better game since maybe Chiefs Ravens week one.

• 1:15:37Speaker 03

  Lots of fun.

• 1:15:39Bill Simmons?

  So as I said earlier, I would have had the Bills by one or one and a half, but I think after today, I just think the I I just think the Chiefs are going to be favored. I just have Chiefs minus one.

• 1:15:51Speaker 03

  Wait, what happened? I had Bills minus one and it's Bills minus one and a half. But what what I don't even understand that logic. What did you see out of the Chiefs that you love there?

• 1:16:01Bill Simmons?

  It was more what I saw from the Bills. I feel like with the receivers.

• 1:16:07Speaker 03

  What it was receivers being out? I mean, I feel like he's got so much to do.

• 1:16:10Bill Simmons?

  Coleman didn't play. I don't know if those guys are playing next Sunday.

• 1:16:14Speaker 03

  You know, they have tight ends that can catch the ball. They're that Ray Davis guy. I feel like Allen like gets it done. He figures it out eventually.

• 1:16:21Bill Simmons?

  Zero touchdowns and two picks today.

• 1:16:24Speaker 03

  Yeah, all right. And they still won.

• 1:16:26Bill Simmons?

  So you're telling me I get to bet on Patrick Mahomes as an underdog again is what you're telling me. Well, that's great news.

• 1:16:36Bill Simmons?

  Because there's no better bet in sports and I'll be making it.

• 1:16:39Speaker 03

  Well, you should make it soon because I'm also telling you that the one and a halves have swung almost every time this year. So they could easily be giving one and a half.

• 1:16:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, the move is to tease them tease them right now with at least one game.

• 1:16:53Speaker 03

  Yep. Do it with your beloved commanders.

• 1:16:58Bill Simmons?

  The watchables. Five watchables this week.

• 1:17:03Bill Simmons?

  Steelers home for the Baltimore Ravens.

• 1:17:11Bill Simmons?

  I think the Steelers are going to be favored by one and a half.

• 1:17:13Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Way off.

• 1:17:16Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean way off?

• 1:17:17Speaker 03

  You'll love this in a teaser. I had Ravens by three. It's Ravens by three and a half.

• 1:17:24Bill Simmons?

  Get the fuck out of here. I guarantee I'm right on that.

• 1:17:27Speaker 03

  I guarantee you're wrong.

• 1:17:29Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm saying I guarantee my instinct on what that line should be is the right instinct.

• 1:17:34Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:17:34Bill Simmons?

  That's stupid.

• 1:17:37Speaker 03

  See, I thought the Steelers should have been favored over Washington, but Washington was favored over the Steelers, right? Baltimore's got a very big power rating.

• 1:17:45Bill Simmons?

  Steelers are good. All their dudes are back. Now, we'll see with Highsmith whether he's out for, because he hurt his ankle in the fourth quarter.

• 1:17:50Speaker 03

  You kind of need all hands on deck to beat this Ravens.

• 1:17:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Steelers were healthy until that happened, but.

• 1:17:55Speaker 03

  Well, they'll score. I mean, that's one thing with this Ravens, man. Look out. There's no shortage of points when you play them.

• 1:18:02Bill Simmons?

  Their defense stinks.

• 1:18:03Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:18:05Bill Simmons?

  I should say their pass defense stinks. I think you can, if you're within seven points of them in the last 10 minutes of a game, you can go down the field and throw the ball on them over and over again, and they can't stop it.

• 1:18:17Speaker 03

  That was a great, that was a great Thursday game, too. That was a lot of fun. Yep. I just, and Zach Taylor, we, we kill him a lot, but go for two. Nice, nice. We need a different play, but that was a good decision, I thought.

• 1:18:30Bill Simmons?

  It's a good decision. I thought to put up that kind of offense without Higgins was really impressive. And Chase was obviously out of his mind, but um, no, they're good. And Chase Brown had that fumble, and I, I just felt like that was an either or game, and the Bengals have somehow lost three of those this year.

• 1:18:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:18:50Bill Simmons?

  I'm putting this in the watchables just because Drake May for me is now just in the watchables category. It's, it's, I'm in charge against the Lions. I can do whatever I want.

• 1:18:59Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:19:00Bill Simmons?

  I have the Rams at the Patriots. It had the Rams favored by three and a half.

• 1:19:06Speaker 03

  I said four and a half. It is five and a half. Just a little bit off here.

• 1:19:12Bill Simmons?

  Stop it, Vegas.

• 1:19:15Speaker 03

  Wait, what was the, what was the line today?

• 1:19:17Bill Simmons?

  That's stupid. The crowd's gonna be in on, the Pats fans are in on Drake May. Like that, this would be a good crowd on Sunday.

• 1:19:24Speaker 03

  I know, I'm seeing this.

• 1:19:25Bill Simmons?

  I think there's real excitement about him now. Um, yeah, that's too high. I think that drops.

• 1:19:33Speaker 03

  Maybe a little.

• 1:19:35Bill Simmons?

  Jets Colts, I think has to be a watchables because this is, the, the Jets are kind of train wreck TV now, right?

• 1:19:43Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:45Bill Simmons?

  It's like when my wife watches Below Deck Australia.

• 1:19:49Speaker 03

  Oh.

• 1:19:49Bill Simmons?

  It's not a good show, but weird shit's happening every episode. I feel like that's the Jets.

• 1:19:54Speaker 03

  What is that shit? What is that? Below Deck Australia?

• 1:19:57Bill Simmons?

  The Below Deck? Your wife doesn't watch Below Deck?

• 1:19:58Speaker 03

  No, I'm on the Penguin right now and I've, I block everything out.

• 1:20:01Bill Simmons?

  It's a reality show. It's like these people that work on yachts and these people rent the yachts for a week. So they have to, you know, work for the people, but it's all about like the under, underneath the boat, like all the, all the relationships. They're all hooking up, getting mad at each other, but then they have to deal with like these people that rented the boat for the week. My wife loves the show.

• 1:20:21Speaker 03

  That's fun. Are you buying another yacht? Is that what you're saying?

• 1:20:26Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean another yacht?

• 1:20:28Speaker 03

  Well, you, you have one and then this would be in it now.

• 1:20:30Bill Simmons?

  I don't have any yachts.

• 1:20:31Speaker 03

  All right.

• 1:20:34Speaker 03

  Come on, I'm just joshing.

• 1:20:36Bill Simmons?

  You're jashing?

• 1:20:38Speaker 03

  I'm just jashing, yeah.

• 1:20:42Speaker 03

  You're gonna get this one.

• 1:20:43Bill Simmons?

  Jets, home for the Colts. I have the Jets minus two.

• 1:20:46Speaker 03

  Oh, all right. I had two and a half. It's three and a half.

• 1:20:50Bill Simmons?

  Come on.

• 1:20:50Speaker 03

  This is good.

• 1:20:51Bill Simmons?

  I haven't gotten one right yet.

• 1:20:53Speaker 03

  This is good. No, I'm up five, nothing. This is insurmountable at this point.

• 1:20:58Bill Simmons?

  It's usually a bad sign for my betting when I'm off on the lines like this.

• 1:21:01Speaker 03

  Well, how long, how long are they gonna be in the Jets corner, these oddsmakers? Because this is a little bit silly. Yeah.

• 1:21:08Bill Simmons?

  I thought this would be the week when maybe they watched the Jets and saw that they gave up four 70 yard plus drives and 28 first downs and 57 plays. And we're like, maybe this team's not good. Broncos home for the Falcons. This is like a, an actual good game that I'm excited to watch. Who would have thought?

• 1:21:27Bill Simmons?

  Falcons by one and a half over the Broncos.

• 1:21:31Speaker 03

  This was Falcons one night. You're gonna think I'm screwing with you. It was Falcons one and a half. I said Denver minus one. It's Denver minus one and a half now. I promise that's how it went.

• 1:21:43Bill Simmons?

  And they should be favored. Denver should be favored. You don't think they're better than Atlanta right now?

• 1:21:48Speaker 03

  I mean, Atlanta could have three less wins and it would totally make sense.

• 1:21:53Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:21:56Bill Simmons?

  Last one, Niners Seahawks. It's in San Francisco. I think this just absolutely pulsates of the Vegas zone. Now I'm gonna say Niners by five.

• 1:22:07Speaker 03

  You get this one. I said four and a half. It's six and a half.

• 1:22:13Speaker 03

  That's high. I think they play two of the next three weeks. Is that possible?

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So if you look at Seattle right now.

• 1:22:23Speaker 03

  Which, oh no, they played already. Sorry. Yeah, good.

• 1:22:26Bill Simmons?

  Seattle's season isn't over. But it's not looking great. They're four and five. And they have at San Francisco, home Arizona, at Jets, at Arizona.

• 1:22:38Bill Simmons?

  And they have to go at least three and one in those four, I think, to even sniff the playoffs.

• 1:22:44Speaker 03

  I agree.

• 1:22:46Bill Simmons?

  Four and O ideally, but.

• 1:22:47Speaker 03

  I don't know. Is Metcalf gonna play like that?

• 1:22:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:50Speaker 03

  It's, it seems so important to them. Like AJ Brownish.

• 1:22:57Bill Simmons?

  Be fairly watchables. Packers at the Bears. The Bears are not watchable. I can attest to that today.

• 1:23:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna say Packers by three and a half for this.

• 1:23:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I said that too. And we're way off. Let's say six and a half. Oof.

• 1:23:14Bill Simmons?

  I guess that makes sense because the Bears look awful.

• 1:23:16Speaker 03

  Everyone's out on them. Why can't Vandal be out on the Jets like they are the Bears, but?

• 1:23:21Bill Simmons?

  I'll say this. If they fire their coach, I'll be betting the Bears in that game.

• 1:23:25Speaker 03

  Oh, interesting. Does he have to clog the toilet or you'll do it like?

• 1:23:29Bill Simmons?

  The clogger?

• 1:23:30Speaker 03

  Shit unseen. Yeah.

• 1:23:33Bill Simmons?

  I love the quagger. Came up with a new coach nickname today. This podcast was a success.

• 1:23:38Speaker 03

  You did, you did a good job.

• 1:23:40Bill Simmons?

  Lions are home for the Jaguars and you can't quite go to 10 for this. I'm going to say nine and a half.

• 1:23:47Speaker 03

  Oh, you can. I said 11 and a half. It's 12 and a half.

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  Oh, stop it. That's stupid.

• 1:23:52Speaker 03

  I mean, they're just going to kill some teams, right?

• 1:23:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that's stupid.

• 1:23:58Speaker 03

  I love that. Three team teaser.

• 1:23:59Bill Simmons?

  Coming off like an emotional win.

• 1:24:01Speaker 03

  We're doing it. Three teaser.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  So we could three team tease that still at 12 and a half.

• 1:24:04Speaker 03

  That's what I mean. Yeah, you could, you could get the Chiefs.

• 1:24:06Bill Simmons?

  Wait, can we take the Chiefs to 11 and a half?

• 1:24:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, you can.

• 1:24:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I'm doing that when we.

• 1:24:11Speaker 03

  And then the Jets to plus six. No, no.

• 1:24:13Bill Simmons?

  No, no, not touching that. Last one is Dolphins Raiders.

• 1:24:19Bill Simmons?

  In Miami.

• 1:24:21Bill Simmons?

  And I said Dolphins by six and a half.

• 1:24:23Speaker 03

  Got it. Exactly. Good job. I said five, six and a half it is.

• 1:24:29Bill Simmons?

  Poop facta. Vikings at Tennessee. I have Vikings by three and a half.

• 1:24:34Speaker 03

  Oh, no, you went low here. I said five and a half. It's six and a half.

• 1:24:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm putting that game on a upset watch.

• 1:24:44Speaker 03

  They're not screwing around with these lines. They're like, we're not, you know, even though I know the underdogs, you know, fired away today, they're making this high.

• 1:24:52Bill Simmons?

  The Vikings easily, easily, easily could have lost that game today to the Jaguars.

• 1:24:57Speaker 03

  I know, but look at the numbers. I know, I know what you're saying.

• 1:25:00Bill Simmons?

  It was sitting there as a loss and the Jaguars are just too stupid. Saints are home for the Browns. New coach theory.

• 1:25:08Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:25:09Bill Simmons?

  Still in existence for the second week. I got the Saints by one and a half.

• 1:25:14Speaker 03

  All right, you get this. I had, I don't know, why am I doing the pick 'em's? It's so stupid. Uh, it's two and a half.

• 1:25:23Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night. Chargers Bengals.

• 1:25:29Bill Simmons?

  Kind of a must win for the Bengals. I'm gonna say Chargers by one and a half.

• 1:25:33Speaker 03

  Oh, no. Are you making a comeback here? I said one. One and a half it is.

• 1:25:39Bill Simmons?

  That's in LA. I can't, I don't think there's gonna be a huge Cincinnati crack.

• 1:25:42Speaker 03

  Nine to five. Can we go to that? We should go to that and do the podcast right afterwards in the parking lot.

• 1:25:48Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night?

• 1:25:49Speaker 03

  No, we're not doing that.

• 1:25:52Bill Simmons?

  Monday night Texans Cowboys battle for Texas. Putting it in the, in the

• 1:25:56Speaker 03

  Oh, man.

• 1:25:58Bill Simmons?

  Cusp of the Vegas zone. Texans minus five and a half at Dallas.

• 1:26:03Speaker 03

  Oh, no. I said seven. It's six and a half.

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  I get it. That's a win.

• 1:26:08Bill Simmons?

  All right. You won the week.

• 1:26:09Speaker 03

  All right. Six, four, one overall. Well, I love it in weeks. Yeah, that, I, the league must be so pissed. They have to show the Cowboys in prime time. What a disaster.

• 1:26:21Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk basketball for one second?

• 1:26:23Speaker 03

  Sure. I'm gonna go clog the toilet.

• 1:26:28Speaker 03

  Go ahead.

• 1:26:33Bill Simmons?

  Actually, let's take one more break for the podcast because I have a basketball thing I want to bring up.

• 1:26:41Bill Simmons?

  All right. Quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down ready to watch the game only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. I have this basketball thing. I didn't want to wait till Tuesday because I think it's important. You know, Giannis, the Bucks lost again today. They're two and eight.

• 1:27:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, what's up?

• 1:27:12Bill Simmons?

  And I think the Giannis trade stuff is really gonna start. People making up fake trades. And so, as I said, I went to that Nets Celtic game on Friday. And the Nets are like pretty good. You know, they, they don't have like, they traded Bridges for all these picks. They were supposed to try to tank. They got their pick back. They have just a shitload of picks. They have Ken Thomas, who I was really impressed by, who's a very good scorer. They have, uh, Cam Johnson, they have Nick Claxton, they have Schroder's playing really well. They have like a bunch of good, not stars, but like, like enough of a team that the team makes sense when you watch it. Like they're good. They play defense.

• 1:27:52Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:27:54Bill Simmons?

  I like them. I think I actually think they're a playing team at least. I think they can just go all in for Giannis. Cause people are gonna ask this week, who's the team that makes the sense for Giannis? Like, what about Miami? What about? I actually think it's Brooklyn. I think Brooklyn's gonna be the team that trades for them because they can just overwhelm Milwaukee with all these picks. They own their own first in 2025. They own Phoenix's first. They own the Knicks first. They own Milwaukee's first, which is one through four protected. If it's five or after, they get it. So the Bucks can get their pick back. They own their own first in 26 and 29. In 27, they can swap with Houston, or Houston can swap with them. They own the Knicks first in 27.

• 1:28:38Bill Simmons?

  They have Philly one through protected in 27. They have their own, they have Knicks first in 29. They have another Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, worst pick in 29. They have all their own first. They have a Knicks first in 31. Like, they just can say, hey, Milwaukee, here's Ben Simmons' expiring contract. And here are all these picks. Just take all of them. Take as many as you want and give us Giannis and put Giannis in Brooklyn. I think it makes sense because I think Milwaukee needs to get out of this. This Dame Giannis thing. I just think they have to trade Dame and trade Giannis and just, they won the title, get out of this. And to me, it's either Brooklyn or Houston because Houston's the other team that could,

• 1:29:19Bill Simmons?

  they have picks and young players. It's just like, if I'm Giannis, would I rather go to Brooklyn or Houston? I don't know. So anyway, is it crazy to think Brooklyn could trade for Giannis?

• 1:29:27Speaker 03

  Why not? Well, could you go over their picks they have one more time?

• 1:29:32Bill Simmons?

  No, but I just wanted to make the point how many picks they had.

• 1:29:34Speaker 03

  How about this, though? Here's the only way I could be helpful. I'm looking at the Nets to make the playoffs, 22 to 1.

• 1:29:40Bill Simmons?

  So this is why I brought this up because to me, it's conceivable that out of nowhere, it'd be like, oh, my God, Brooklyn traded nine first round picks, Ben Simmons' contract and two swaps for you. This is the most picks anyone's ever given up for a player in the history of the NBA. But then you look at Brooklyn. So regular season wins right now. Their over is 21 and a half. You look for, to make the playoffs, yes, is 22 to 1.

• 1:30:09Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's the bet.

• 1:30:10Bill Simmons?

  To win in the conference.

• 1:30:14Bill Simmons?

  They don't have it for the East right now. But the point is, like, if you think Giannis is gonna get traded, play them, play Houston. I don't think Golden State has enough because Milwaukee's gonna want to picks and I think it's Houston or Brooklyn are the two teams that have all the picks.

• 1:30:31Speaker 03

  So if they had odds for where Yanis is traded to, I haven't seen them. If they do, I don't think they do. They wouldn't be 22 to one for the Nets, right?

• 1:30:39Bill Simmons?

  They would not.

• 1:30:40Speaker 03

  So this would be the bet. Like there would be like six to one for the Nets or something.

• 1:30:44Bill Simmons?

  Like Houston's minus, Houston's minus 128. Houston has, Houston made that trade. They have Brooklyn's 2026 first. They can swap Brooklyn in 27. They have a Phoenix first 27. They own all their own picks. They have a Phoenix or Dallas first 29. Like they have enough to put a Yanis thing together with some contracts. Give them a young player. The problem is they gave extensions to Green and Shangoon. So I don't think those guys could be in the trade. But, but they could patch stuff together. But I think those are the two teams. I think that, I don't think Miami has enough. Miami would have to put Atabio in it. And if you're Miami, you're trading Atabio and all of these picks to basically put Yanis on the same kind of team he's on now.

• 1:31:29Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:31:29Bill Simmons?

  If you're Brooklyn, you have all these role players you could put with them. Then you'll have the cap space maybe to get some other guys. You have shooting, you have, I don't know. Anyway, I just wanted to put that.

• 1:31:39Speaker 03

  My wife was saying all the same things today. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Yanis, if I would have told you second week in November, Yanis is 25 to one to win MVP. And he's not, not injured. What would you have thought happened? Like what the hell would you?

• 1:31:55Bill Simmons?

  I would have thought he got hurt.

• 1:31:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, but I'm telling you, he's not injured. Like this is, I guess you would just have, they'd have no wins, I guess is what you would have to think. 25 to one, he'll never be 25 to one again.

• 1:32:06Bill Simmons?

  No. But let's say he got traded to Houston and they became like a four seed.

• 1:32:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:11Bill Simmons?

  You know, those are the only two teams I can see. Cause if you go through everybody else.

• 1:32:16Speaker 03

  I'm gonna bet these.

• 1:32:20Bill Simmons?

  If you go through all the other teams, I just don't see another team. Cause some people have thrown Golden State around and I don't see how they could do a trade that could compete with Brooklyn. If I'm Brooklyn, I need to do, I need to do whatever I can to get Giannis because I'm completely irrelevant.

• 1:32:36Speaker 03

  But how much is this you drumming this up? Or like, there is a very big favorite that they hold.

• 1:32:42Bill Simmons?

  This up because I went to the game Friday and I was really impressed by the team they had.

• 1:32:47Speaker 03

  No, but would they, would they trade, they're likely not going to trade. Like what's the odds that they even trade?

• 1:32:52Bill Simmons?

  If, if like, let's say they made me a consultant to the franchise and they're like, what do we do? I would like trade Giannis and Dame right now.

• 1:32:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:33:00Bill Simmons?

  Like you have no chance to win a title with this team. Trade these guys now. You got the title from Giannis. You have no picks left. You have no path to ever be, ever be a title contender with the group you have now. Like cut the cord now. Try to trade for one of these teams before these picks go away to somebody else. Cause the only other team is Oklahoma City and they're not going to do anything.

• 1:33:22Speaker 03

  All right. I'll do 22 to one. I mean, I have to, it has to make sense that I lost the last seven minutes of my life. I have to do 22 to one here. I like it.

• 1:33:30Bill Simmons?

  Listen, this will be a YouTube clip that gets at least 80,000 views. Sarudy's so excited. Sarudy's sending tech, Sarudy, come in for a second. Are you there?

• 1:33:39Speaker 03

  No. I love Sarudy. What's he doing?

• 1:33:42Speaker 04

  Sarudy? What's up?

• 1:33:44Bill Simmons?

  Brooklyn or Houston? Is there anyone else?

• 1:33:47Speaker 04

  I.

• 1:33:49Speaker 04

  Why does Giannis want to go there? Why does he want to go to Brooklyn?

• 1:33:53Speaker 03

  Well, that's the other thing.

• 1:33:53Bill Simmons?

  Why does he want to stay in Milwaukee?

• 1:33:55Speaker 04

  I mean, it just seems like he, if he actually does like pulling the plug on this and I want to get out. He's going to have more suit, I, he, I just feel like he's going to have the pull to be like, I don't want to go to Brooklyn, dude. This is like the worst place in the NBA for me to go.

• 1:34:07Bill Simmons?

  Wow. New York City.

• 1:34:09Speaker 04

  Is it though? Technically, yes.

• 1:34:13Speaker 03

  I know. Wow. He's right too.

• 1:34:15Bill Simmons?

  No state taxes?

• 1:34:16Speaker 04

  Houston, Houston's great. Yeah. I mean, they have the assets like I, I mean, that'd be a great spot for him, but I, I just, I don't know why anyone would want to go to Brooklyn.

• 1:34:25Speaker 03

  Damn it, Sarudy.

• 1:34:27Bill Simmons?

  Golden State would be the other one if, uh, but I just don't know what the trade is with that. Cause they don't have the same kind of picks. Kaminga, it's just, it's not even close to what the other teams could get.

• 1:34:39Speaker 04

  It has to be like, I want to be there, right? Have to be, hey, just trade me here. Like, but what, well, he just signed a contract essentially. What levers does he have? I don't know.

• 1:34:47Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking like, what if, what if it was Anthony Davis and all the rest of the Laker picks?

• 1:34:54Speaker 03

  Oh, wow.

• 1:34:55Speaker 04

  Man.

• 1:34:56Bill Simmons?

  What would they trade have to look like? But I didn't even, it was like this door I didn't even want to open. It's like the door in the attic that you don't want to open because there's some ghost that's going to come out.

• 1:35:05Speaker 03

  Does LeBron agree to it if they want Bronny? If Milwaukee says, we're only doing it if you throw Bronny?

• 1:35:11Bill Simmons?

  Bronny has to be, Bronny has to be in the trade to make the salaries work.

• 1:35:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's it. Those are the only ones. You go through all the teams. It's really hard. All right. Thanks, Rudy. Thanks for throwing my water on my Brooklyn idea.

• 1:35:24Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 1:35:25Bill Simmons?

  Let's, uh, let's do some parent corner. What do you got?

• 1:35:28Speaker 03

  Let's do it. Um, what do I have here? Oh, all right. So, well, first of all, like, you know, there's, there's a lot of traveling in these tournaments and we have friends in town. So I told my wife, I'm like, I can't go wherever the tournament is. It's in Santa Barbara, which is not close, right? So that's an overnight thing. My wife goes with my son. It's a baseball tournament. It's two days. They leave like Friday, right after school. First of all, the school thing is crazy. They had teacher conferences all week, so they're out at noon every day, five days in a row, out at noon, off Monday for, uh, for Vets Day tomorrow.

• 1:36:03Speaker 03

  Okay. So anyway, they go on this thing. Uh, you're not going to have a problem with this, but I promise it's relatable. I see on the parent text chain that, um, my wife paid for the dinner last night and it's like, hey, um, there's no way to tell how much, uh, everybody paid. So you could vend me here and Venmo me here. And there wasn't a lot of, uh, oh, thank you so much. Yes, I will Venmo you right away. And I'm looking at this bill right when I have a ton on the Chiefs money line. It looks like they're about to fucking blow it. I'm like, no, it's like the worst news I saw on my phone in months.

• 1:36:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, you had the Chiefs tied to a whole bunch of games yesterday, right?

• 1:36:45Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, exactly. I had a lot of from Saturday coming over. I'm like, shit, I'm going to get 30% of the money back. But anyway, that's no big deal. Whatever that ends up being, fine. My kid goes, um, they win, they come in second place. And there's a picture of the team with their second place rings and everybody's fun. It was happy. It was like, like five or six games and they during the weekend and they had their rings. And I'm scanning the picture and there's my kid with a sour puss face, not even showing his ring, purposely putting his hand behind his back because he is not, he's not okay with coming in second place. And I was like, and that, so he just came home before the podcast. They just made it home. I was like, dude, look

• 1:37:29Speaker 03

  at this. You look ridiculous here. This kid's laying on the dirt, like celebrating, waving, showing their rings. You, he's like, I don't like it. I don't even like the ring. I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna display it. It was like, it's like a kind of like a nice ring for a kid. I was like, you're a Cowboys fan and a Mets fan. You happen to be used to losing by now.

• 1:37:49Bill Simmons?

  Second place is great.

• 1:37:51Speaker 03

  Yes, exactly. Look at, look at how the country is reacting to second place.

• 1:37:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:58Speaker 03

  You should love it. So I don't know if I should push this more or where should I be? This is a delicate balance, right?

• 1:38:05Bill Simmons?

  Counter. I love it. I love, he just, he's a, he's a championship kid.

• 1:38:10Speaker 03

  Really?

• 1:38:10Bill Simmons?

  He just wants titles. That's it. Yeah.

• 1:38:12Speaker 03

  Like 8% of his team.

• 1:38:13Bill Simmons?

  He's all about the titles.

• 1:38:15Speaker 03

  It's just him. All right. That's it.

• 1:38:17Bill Simmons?

  He doesn't like this trophy generation we live in. He wants real ti- real titles.

• 1:38:21Speaker 03

  You know what?

• 1:38:22Bill Simmons?

  Doesn't want to pat him back for a finishing second.

• 1:38:24Speaker 03

  I do respect it, but I'm gonna take that ring and sell it and try to get some of that dinner money back from last night. My wife will never recoup.

• 1:38:34Bill Simmons?

  You don't think she's gonna be circling back a week from now? Like,

• 1:38:37Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:38:37Bill Simmons?

  Hey, just a heads up.

• 1:38:39Speaker 03

  No fucking way.

• 1:38:40Bill Simmons?

  Uh, some of you still owe me for dinner on Saturday.

• 1:38:43Speaker 03

  Cause it'll be like, well, Margaret owes me, but then I had a drink with her the other day. So it all evens out. It's all gonna even out somehow. Except there's gonna be no money coming our way.

• 1:38:53Speaker 03

  I do love the parents, though. I do. I have to say, most of them will listen to this podcast, but it just, the timing of it with the Chiefs and the field goal, it wasn't ideal.

• 1:39:04Bill Simmons?

  So I went back to Boston, cause you know, my daughter plays soccer for Emerson. And she got, she was hurt last year, which we talked about on the pod. And she had a hamstring and then a knee thing, and the knee thing didn't go away, didn't go away. And by February, it still wasn't going away. So we started going to doctors to see what was going wrong. I didn't talk about this, but I had these different opinions from people thinking what it was. One of the doctors thought she might have like a partially torn ACL and we were like, oh my God, like you get surgery out for a year. Another one was like, no, it's just banged up. You gotta rehab the muscles around it. It's gonna heal. It's bru- you have a really bad bruise. Basically, every doctor said something different. So we decided,

• 1:39:48Bill Simmons?

  all right, just rehab your legs, put real time and try to build everything up around, get in really good shape and see if you can come back. So she really was committed to it. The whole spring, the whole summer. She didn't play spring soccer. She didn't even really start practicing until August and just tried to work on her legs, getting back. And they put her on a minute schedule.

• 1:40:08Bill Simmons?

  Raises up, raises up, and we get to beginning of October, start league play. She scores in the first game. Two days later, somebody bangs her in the knee. She's a bruised knee, like what Paul George had. So now she's like limping around and we're just like, and she's like, I'm so tired of being injured.

• 1:40:26Bill Simmons?

  This sucks. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking like, this really might be it. Like I could see her. You know, like she's just so tired of being hurt. And so she was still playing, but not as much. And she was like 80, 90%, but not 100. And then the last week or so, she felt good again. And so they put, they gave her more minutes. So they were in the league playoffs and she played a lot of minutes in the Tuesday game. And they won and she scored. So they went, they had a round two game. So I was like, I'm fucking flying back. I was, I'm going back. That's it. So flew back. They had this game,

• 1:41:01Bill Simmons?

  which they lost 1-0. It was like your classic soccer game that they had most of the chances and whatever. But she played like 78 minutes and she looked like her. It was the first time she really looked,

• 1:41:10Speaker 03

  Great.

• 1:41:11Bill Simmons?

  You know, this last week where she's flying around and I was just thinking like, I was like, I thought it was gonna be over, you know, and now we got two years left, hopefully, and hopefully she could stay healthy. But I was thinking like with the stuff you talk about with your son, when you you go through all these little steps with them.

• 1:41:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:41:26Bill Simmons?

  Um, you know, from like AYSO in the beginning to when they're on club team and you kind of don't know when the journey's gonna end. And it was just really cool to watch her flying around a hundred percent. I was like, I didn't know if I was gonna see it again.

• 1:41:39Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 1:41:40Bill Simmons?

  So now she's got two years left. She's gonna hopefully keep the legs going and, you know, you gotta keep your fingers crossed you never get hurt. But but we were talking about after I was like, you have two years left and then that's it. Um, especially like people who play D3. You know, a lot of them are doing it because they, you know, they're not getting paid to play for the school. It's not like when you get a scholarship in D1, but you really, the people that stick with it like really love it and she really loves it. So.

• 1:42:07Speaker 03

  That's awesome. There are pro leagues though. What do you, what do you mean?

• 1:42:10Bill Simmons?

  No, there are, but I, you know. But you see, as, as your kids get older and you see all the teammates they had and people start dropping out, right? And they drop out for different reasons. They get hurt. They don't want to keep the commitment to it. And at some point, people hit some sort of thing where they're like, do I really love doing this and having a part of my life or I don't? And they can, that's when they, they kind of go sideways with it. And it might happen when they're 15, 16, maybe they get a boyfriend, like.

• 1:42:37Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:42:38Bill Simmons?

  And then some people stick with it. So she, you know, she's, she still really loves it. But it was, uh, it was super cool watching her fly around.

• 1:42:45Speaker 03

  That's great.

• 1:42:45Bill Simmons?

  Because it was like, I was thinking like, I've been watching her play soccer since I was, you know, since 2009.

• 1:42:51Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:42:52Bill Simmons?

  2008, whatever, whatever. Uh, but it was cool. I was glad I flew back. We got to hang out, went to the Celtic game on Friday. Um, good times.

• 1:43:00Speaker 03

  Well, listen, I'm proud of her to, for scoring a goal. I have the second place ring if she'd like, it might be a little small, but if she, I could ship it to her there in Anderson. But no, love, you don't, it's a great, it's fun and enjoy the next two years. But it gets me mad that. How did they, why are there four opinions on this knee? Like if you had had surgery, that dude would have been robbed of that.

• 1:43:22Bill Simmons?

  I know. Well, and who knows if we even made the right decision or not, you know? Now, I'm sure we're gonna look at it again, but it's, it's, the body's like a crazy thing. You have these different people look at it and it's like they're right or wrong. They see what they see, right?

• 1:43:35Speaker 03

  And, and they judge it a certain way, but um, you know, sometimes you start wondering, is somebody snake bit?

• 1:43:42Bill Simmons?

  You know, like, god damn, how do you, how does you bang, bang the same knee right after it was finally out?

• 1:43:49Speaker 03

  Right.

• 1:43:49Bill Simmons?

  Uh, anyway, she, she loves it. It was fun. It was, uh, you know, I think next year's team will be good. So it was a good experience.

• 1:43:56Speaker 03

  Nice. That's good. Um, that's good.

• 1:43:59Bill Simmons?

  I'm trying to think, I have one more parent corner thing for you I wanted to mention. Oh, I can't, see, I can't do any of the Ben Simmons ones.

• 1:44:07Bill Simmons?

  Can we do like a Patreon where it's just like, it's a subscription one?

• 1:44:13Speaker 03

  Well, I don't know. If the subscription, if it's worth, we'll pay for your medical expenses, I guess so, yeah.

• 1:44:19Bill Simmons?

  I just really wish I could do the Ben Simmons ones.

• 1:44:22Speaker 03

  If you asked him ahead of time, said, can I talk about this? He would absolutely say no.

• 1:44:27Bill Simmons?

  I should probably, we should probably be recording them and then 10 years from now I can run some of them. When he's like 27, seems like it would be the way to go.

• 1:44:37Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for parent corner. What else do you have? Anything?

• 1:44:39Speaker 03

  That's it. Uh, through the ringer with Tate against the odds a couple of times this week. Um, we did the ring of pregame show. I'm eight and two with my wisest wagers. That Texans, I was gonna be so mad if the Texans plus three and a half didn't cover. And, uh, Roy Jones Jr. On Cousin Sal's winning weekend, this, we're gonna talk about the Tyson fight. I don't, a lot of people now like Tyson.

• 1:45:01Bill Simmons?

  What are the odds on the Tyson fight?

• 1:45:03Speaker 03

  It's plus 230. It was plus 250. It's tightening up and I bet it's even tighter than, than that come like Friday. I don't know.

• 1:45:13Bill Simmons?

  You seem fond of that about the Tyson's fight. It's everything you like and everything you don't like all wrapped into one sporting event.

• 1:45:21Speaker 03

  What's the most, the most likely scenario? He just gets jabbed to death. They give Paul the decision because he's the more marketable fighter and Tyson doesn't care? Is that probably the most? Right. He wins by decision.

• 1:45:35Bill Simmons?

  Tyson's so old. I just don't understand how he would win a fight against anybody.

• 1:45:41Speaker 03

  Yeah. I watched Paul against Fury again, the, you know, the Tyson Fury's brother, who was the only real boxer.

• 1:45:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:48Speaker 03

  He was good. He's decent. He was decent against him. He lost, but he was decent. Yeah. We're betting Tyson. Who are we kidding?

• 1:45:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we're definitely betting Tyson. We were watching that fight together too.

• 1:45:58Speaker 03

  Yeah. Hell, yeah.

• 1:46:01Bill Simmons?

  All right, Cus. Good job by you as always.

• 1:46:03Speaker 03

  Good job by you, buddy.

• 1:46:30Bill Simmons?

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• 1:47:13Bill Simmons?

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