Part 2: Eagles/C-Words Reax, Drake Maye Fever, the RB Boom and Million Dollar Picks With Joe House and Nate Tice

In Part 2 of a two-part podcast, The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to discuss the Eagles routing the Commanders on 'Thursday Night Football' (2:25). Then, Bill talks with Nate Tice of Yahoo Sports and NFL Network to discuss Drake Maye's impressive development, the 2024 NFL draft class, and projecting QB prospects (18:58), before Nate gives his five favorite things he's enjoying this NFL season, including surprisingly good defenses, the AFC juggernaut QBs, the Arizona Cardinals, and more (44:51). Finally, Bill and House run through their favorite games from the weekend slate (1:14:30), before making the Million-Dollar Picks for NFL Week 11 (1:44:38). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Nate Tice and Joe House Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Okay, this is a true story. I have a friend who once faked his own death so he could have more time to watch his favorite TV show. In my new podcast, Truthless, I'm talking to people about the lies they tell, from forging new identities to taking their love of Game of Thrones a little too far. From Spotify and the Ringer Podcast Network, I'm Brian Phillips. Listen to Truthless on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:36Bill Simmons?

  This episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by State Farm. Every football player brings something different to the field. Maybe they have a cannon arm, speed, power. Maybe they have their own podcast. That being said, no two players are exactly alike, and the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you, so they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. 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.

• 1:19Bill Simmons?

  In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. Put up a new rewatchables on Monday night with Meet the Parents. We have a sports movie coming next Monday night. Maybe I'll give some hints over the weekend on the rewatchables Twitter feed. Stay tuned for that. Hey, if you missed part one of today's podcast, me and Big Waz and then Van Lathan joined us. We talked basketball, we talked Knicks and Bulls, we talked about the NBA's popularity these days with why the ratings are going down and yet the interest seems to be up.

• 2:04Bill Simmons?

  And that conversation went in a whole bunch of directions, as it so often does when Van gets involved. But we also talked about Mike Tyson. And the big fight coming up this weekend in four decades of having Mike Tyson in our lives. So that was part one. Part two is a little simpler. Joe House is going to come on at the very top. We're going to be talking about the Washington Philadelphia Thursday night game, the biggest NFC East game involving Washington in a long, long time. And then House goes away. I bring in Nate Theis from Yahoo. We talk about Drake May because he's on Drake May Island with me. And then we talk about the five things he's been the most excited about over the course of the season. Really fun football convo. And then

• 2:46Bill Simmons?

  bringing House back in to do million dollar picks. And by the way, it's not Sober House tonight. I'm just, I'm just warning you guys now. So that is the plan for part two. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 3:21Bill Simmons?

  All right. Taping this first part of the podcast, it is almost 8:30 Pacific time. Joe House is here. His favorite team, the Washington C-words, was seven and two a mere five days ago. And it's now seven and four. After two losses in five days, I listened to you on a very good show called East Coast Bias on the Ringer Gambling Show today. And you were saying it felt a little early for Washington in a game like this. So make the same case you made 12 hours ago on that show.

• 3:52Speaker 02

  Well, I've had a couple of drinks, just to be blunt about it right from the top. So I'll be able to get half of it right.

• 4:00Bill Simmons?

  Is it drunk, is it drunk house or just slightly over served house? Buzz house? Okay.

• 4:05Speaker 02

  Buzz, yeah. I'll say this. This Washington team has now lost four games on the season.

• 4:13Speaker 02

  All of their losses are to playoff teams from last year. None of, none of their losses came to teams that they were forecasted to beat. They have against their three toughest competitors, all one score games. So it's, it, this whole season is a silver lining season. And Washington just isn't quite good enough yet. They don't have good enough players. They have good players and kudos to the front office and the coaching staff and everybody to put out the first competitive team that we've seen here in Washington. Now, we did make the playoffs a handful of years ago with Ron Rivera with the team that finished under 500.

• 4:52Bill Simmons?

  I don't remember that.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  Did make the playoffs in 2015.

• 4:56Bill Simmons?

  Did we bet against Ron Rivera when he made the playoffs with under 502? We must have.

• 5:00Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, it's lock of the century. We had to.

• 5:02Bill Simmons?

  I hope we did. Yeah.

• 5:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  But, you know, uh, for two and a half, three, three and a half quarters, Washington was in this game. Washington looked fine.

• 5:14Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know why he didn't win? Cause your quarterback's hurt.

• 5:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the other part of it. I said this on, on the show. One of my favorite bets for this evening was Jane Daniels under 43 and a half rushing yards. He can't run right now because he's hurt. He's, he's protecting his ribs. The team's protecting him. The point isn't to win in week 11. The point is to win enough games to make it to the playoffs. I think they need to win three more games. The schedule sets up nice. We have a nice rest.

• 5:45Bill Simmons?

  Let's go through it. Yeah. You're, uh, home Dallas, home Tennessee next two. You're favored by five, five and a half against Dallas, seven against Tennessee. You got a bye week at New Orleans, home Philly, home Atlanta, at Dallas again. You get Dallas twice when it looks like they're pumping on the season.

• 6:07Speaker 02

  Wonderful. Couldn't be.

• 6:08Bill Simmons?

  So you might get to 11 wins anyway.

• 6:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and I think in the NFC, you get to Ted's, great chance of, of, of getting in there. And this little mini buy can't be overrated, right? They go from this Thursday night game, which I hate. I hate a divisional game on a Thursday night, but now they, they have the, the rest. We're going to get Marshawn Latimer. We're going to get, you know, Jayden Daniels. Hopefully those eight days are, are meaningful to his recovery. The, the offensive line is a little dinged up. Cliff Kingsbury doesn't think so because he thinks that we should try the short yardage rushing plays that the Eagles, there were eight short yardage rushing plays. This is, I'll just do my Kingsbury bit for 10 seconds. Eight, eight short yardage rushing plays for Washington.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  They amassed a total of negative one rushing yards. Is it second half Cliff or do we have second half Cliff in our lives?

• 7:01Bill Simmons?

  Are you talking second half of the season or second half of a game or both?

• 7:04Speaker 02

  All of the above, all the above sadly.

• 7:07Bill Simmons?

  So Clint, if Cliff was a baseball pitcher, he'd be like, I don't want to see the lineup a third time guy.

• 7:13Speaker 02

  I'm tapping my right arm. I'm tapping.

• 7:15Bill Simmons?

  You're bringing, you're bringing in.

• 7:17Speaker 02

  Who's the real offensive coordinator relief? Yes, exactly.

• 7:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was the key part of the game was when it was what? Second and one. It felt like an either or game. I was sweating out an Eagles tease and an Eagles parlay.

• 7:31Bill Simmons?

  Second and one stuff, third and one stuff. Let's go for it on fourth and two. Fumbled handoff, Daniels tackled three yards away from the line of scrimmage. And, uh, and that flipped the game. I thought, you know, and maybe I had some PTSD from last year with Jalen Hurts, but I think it was the Giants last year. I can't remember that with that game, the Eagles murdered literally every tease on the planet. When Hertz threw that last interception into like five guys and it was like.

• 8:01Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I bet on the Eagles during the one game this year when Jalen Hurts is just looks terrible and like he has seven injuries. It felt like that today in the first half. It felt like he doesn't look right. What's going on here? Are they hiding an injury? His body language gets weird. You know, he starts getting a little hang doggish. You start, he's a little slow to get up after he gets knocked down. Your defense was flying around and I, I felt like maybe you could steal like a 13 to 10 type game. It was sitting there for a while and then Saquon Barkley took over.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  And, and that defense, you know, God, God bless them. It's all, you know, retreads and, and guys that are, you haven't established themselves with much in the way of pedigree yet. Frankie Louvoo is awesome. Bobby Wagner has pedigree. Doris Armstrong. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And there's like, you know, like five or six guys who've established, but you know, you still have St. Juice out on the corner. The kid from Michigan. Now that looks like the steal of, of the draft. Sandras still incredible. They went at him with both A.J. Brown and, and Smith. And he, he, he was with the same route and he was there for

• 9:19Speaker 02

  both of them. So knock on wood. It's a, it's good. It's a good team in progress.

• 9:24Bill Simmons?

  How did you feel about Dan Quinn's arms up in the air? We're up by seven on a Thursday night game with a chance to blow every parlay and teaser. Double fist pump scream reactions. Like at least from, from a character standpoint, he seems like he'd be a fun coach to have considering your last coach was basically, who is more dead? Him or Joe Biden in retrospect? Ron Rivera or Joe Biden?

• 9:47Speaker 02

  I mean respectfully, Ron Rivera did just beat cancer last season.

• 9:52Bill Simmons?

  Oh my, why, why, why did that have to be the retort?

• 9:55Speaker 02

  Respectfully.

• 9:56Bill Simmons?

  I was setting you up for a Biden joke and now you have to get all serious on me. Jesus.

• 10:01Speaker 02

  We're way by it. We're way past the.

• 10:03Bill Simmons?

  Is there video of Ron Rivera walking on the beach in Delaware like Biden or no?

• 10:08Speaker 02

  Maybe, maybe the two of them hand in hand together.

• 10:10Bill Simmons?

  Notice, notice Biden's wife didn't put her arm out. She. Maybe, maybe help the old man as he's trying to navigate some sand. Jesus.

• 10:18Speaker 02

  There isn't, there isn't a lot of physical contact between those two. Ever since it became clear that he wasn't gonna run for president again. You can't, you can't catch those two together in a single camera frame.

• 10:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's tough. Tough times. We'll see how it goes. Um, okay. So, big picture.

• 10:35Bill Simmons?

  I would have said Philly was maybe my number one draft pick for the other NFC title spot against Detroit.

• 10:43Bill Simmons?

  Something's missing and I don't know what it is. Now granted, their kicker today, they scored 26 points. Their kicker missed two field goals in a PAT. So really they could have been in the 30s. But I don't know what it is, but they, they have not won me over as the second team yet. The problem is I don't know who the second team is. Like, we could have the Green Bay conversation. Maybe we'll know more this week. Maybe this is the week San Francisco gets going. Maybe Minnesota will start looking again like they did in September, go on and on, but I just don't know who the team is.

• 11:13Speaker 02

  I still think it's Philly and I think that they remain a work in progress themselves. You have to remember like this is, and they made a point a bit on the, on the broadcast, Alan Kirk, you know, America's favorite Thursday night couple. They, um, you know, Fangio's defense takes a little while for guys to get, they have two outstanding guys in that secondary. Quinton Marshall and, and Dejean.

• 11:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 11:41Speaker 02

  And those guys are, are, are clearly, you know, getting it. Jalen Carter had a dominant game tonight against the Washington offensive line. It's been a revelation. So I think as they put it together, defensively, ultimately they won that game with, with, with their defense, right? That's what we would say. Um, and. I I I mean, I haven't seen anything out of San Francisco. If San Francisco keeps trotting out the 30th ranked special teams, get the F out of here. That what what they did last week.

• 12:13Bill Simmons?

  Isn't it worse than 30th? It was 30th before all the shenanigans last week.

• 12:17Speaker 02

  Well, there was a lot of.

• 12:18Bill Simmons?

  It dropped.

• 12:19Speaker 02

  There was a lot of bad special teams. I mean, Atlanta's kicker had three missed field goals. But in in in any event, as you go down the list on the NFC side,

• 12:31Speaker 02

  there there's it's a lot easier to poke holes than express confidence. I I I think on both sides of the ball, the Eagles are are are the second best.

• 12:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it probably by default, but I don't feel good about it.

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Okay, it is only week 11. Remember, we're this is.

• 12:49Bill Simmons?

  How many AFC teams would you take over the second NFC team?

• 12:55Speaker 02

  I would take the Bills.

• 12:57Bill Simmons?

  Would you take both of them? Yeah.

• 12:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. The probably the Ravens. I don't know.

• 13:01Bill Simmons?

  The Ravens?

• 13:02Speaker 02

  Ravens are close.

• 13:03Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather be the Chargers or the Eagles?

• 13:05Speaker 02

  Oh, definitely the Eagles. No, no, no, come on. We're not there yet. The Chargers just just discovered that they have two two receivers that they can use.

• 13:13Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather be the Steelers or the Eagles?

• 13:16Speaker 02

  Uh, Eagles.

• 13:19Speaker 02

  Those weapons on the outside.

• 13:21Bill Simmons?

  I think I'd rather be the Steelers because the the Sirianni factor, which did not rear its ugly head tonight, because maybe on Thursday nights, his medication's better.

• 13:31Bill Simmons?

  But.

• 13:32Speaker 02

  Fair enough.

• 13:32Bill Simmons?

  So your team's, I'm guessing, a playoff team still.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, well.

• 13:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't see a scenario where that doesn't happen unless unless Daniels is really hurt. But even now, you're seven and three.

• 13:44Speaker 02

  Seven and four.

• 13:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm sorry, you're seven and four. You have a one game lead over Green Bay, who's number three in the NFC North. Nobody in the NFC South's catching you. And then in the NFC West, Arizona's six and four, San Fran's five and four, and the Rams, who we touted a couple of weeks ago. Who now are in a must win spot against my guy Drake May and the Pats.

• 14:08Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 14:09Bill Simmons?

  So you're 10 wins feels like it gets into the playoffs, right?

• 14:12Speaker 02

  I agree. Yeah. I think it's 10 wins in the NFC and I, I liked our chances, you know, I think I'm cautiously optimistic.

• 14:19Bill Simmons?

  Has this been a good season for rehabilitating your Washington commander relationships in your life?

• 14:25Speaker 02

  I mean, look, I'm wearing the hat.

• 14:27Bill Simmons?

  What kind of text threads are you on? How many different Washington text threads are you on?

• 14:31Speaker 02

  A half dozen, uh, at, at, at least, and it's unbridled, uh, exuberance. Like, you know, we have a football team. Where, where everybody's, you know, in, in my conversations, it's around what the future might hold. And everything begins with this quarterback. We must keep this kid healthy. But if, if we have that foundational piece, then it's been demonstrated, especially in his rookie year, in his first 11 games in his rookie year. He's showing that he belongs in the upper echelon. You get that, then you have a window. And if you have a window, you better jump through it in this modern NFL, right?

• 15:11Bill Simmons?

  We have the next segment, I'm talking to Nate Tice about Drake May. It's the exact same situation.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:16Bill Simmons?

  We were like, wow, we now have, I, I, even when this happened with Brady for the Pats and even with Bledsoe in the nineties, but I, I, I was way younger with having my, my history of football knowledge and just how important a quarterback was. You're like, oh, we'll get a quarterback. When you get older and you realize how rare it is, and then you get one of these guys. It's like the number one thing you'd want in any sport.

• 15:42Speaker 02

  Well, and in this iteration of the NFL, this version, because of the way the salary caps configured, getting the, the most important player on the team at the cheapest possible price and then trying to build around. It's why I admired what Houston did in the off season, this most recent off season and try, in terms of trying to add.

• 16:02Bill Simmons?

  He's got aggressive.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  You gotta go, you gotta go. The time is now. If you have a quarterback like this, so I expect Washington with Adam Peters.

• 16:09Bill Simmons?

  It's like what the, what the Wizards are going to do with Bob Carrington. Same thing.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Very similar.

• 16:15Bill Simmons?

  Now that you have your foundational piece.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  He's the guy.

• 16:18Bill Simmons?

  Now you gotta be in Jordan Poole. Now you have that one two.

• 16:21Speaker 02

  Oh, you had to do.

• 16:22Bill Simmons?

  Forty-two points last night.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Why, why did you have to say do that?

• 16:25Bill Simmons?

  He had forty-two points last night.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  All he did, you know what that man did? Delivered a cover. You know the line was ten and Washington lost by nine.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  Jesus. I think we're in the heyday of betting on.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Party, baby. It's a pool party.

• 16:40Bill Simmons?

  We're in the heyday of betting on huge underdogs in the NBA right now. You notice that? Like, the fucking, uh, what you call it Hawks were sixteen point underdogs and just went into Boston and beat them. I don't even, there might not even been a money line in the game. This three-point variance, it's like, it's insane to lay that many points with any team. All right. Anything else in this game? Cause we're gonna take a break and bring you back later for million dollar picks unless you have anything else.

• 17:08Speaker 02

  No, I'm pleased. This is, you know, they, they, they were competitive, good, happy. Let's move on. Let's get, let's get to ten wins.

• 17:16Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Um, House, before we send you packing and bring in Nate Theis, I love the NBA Cup. You also love the NBA Cup, correct?

• 17:26Speaker 02

  Oh, not only do I love it, I gave out a beautiful group C, C cup parlay on the FanDuel Sportsbook.

• 17:34Bill Simmons?

  I heard that.

• 17:34Speaker 02

  It's on the socials, baby.

• 17:36Bill Simmons?

  The C cup parlay.

• 17:37Speaker 02

  I love the cup. You kidding me?

• 17:39Bill Simmons?

  What was the C cup parlay?

• 17:40Speaker 02

  The, the Cavaliers to win group C in the East and the Warriors with group C in the West. Plus four eighty-five, baby.

• 17:48Bill Simmons?

  C cup. Well, you know what makes the NBA Cup even better than the C cup parlay? A ringer profit boost token on FanDuel, which you could throw that house bet on right now. We told FanDuel, we want to celebrate the NBA Cup. Give out some profit boosts. So what did we do? We created the thirty on thirty ringer profit boost token. Boost any thirty plus point scorer bet on the Friday NBA Cup slate. And that's any thirty plus point scorer that has minus two hundred odds or higher is eligible for a thirty percent profit boost. Is your team playing in this on Friday?

• 18:26Speaker 02

  I don't know. Are they?

• 18:30Bill Simmons?

  You can feel the excitement with the NBA Cup. Yeah, your team's playing Atlanta.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  Oh, congratulations.

• 18:35Bill Simmons?

  Do you have a 30-point scorer you want to do?

• 18:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the only team Washington has beat this year. Let's say Bilal Koulibaly drops a 30 piece.

• 18:43Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God, I can't even imagine what the odds on that would be.

• 18:45Speaker 02

  Koulibaly 30 piece, baby.

• 18:47Bill Simmons?

  Koulibaly, I wonder if FanDuel, do they even have the odds for that?

• 18:51Speaker 02

  Probably not because his career high is like 27.

• 18:54Bill Simmons?

  More wagers. Oh, look at this. Player points.

• 18:59Bill Simmons?

  Oh, they don't have Koulibaly.

• 19:02Speaker 02

  How dare they?

• 19:03Bill Simmons?

  How about Trey Young, Jordan Poole, Kyle Kuzma, or Jalen Johnson? Could Jordan Poole have 30 points against the Hawks? Plus 410?

• 19:10Speaker 02

  He's dying to have the chance. He's dying for that opportunity.

• 19:14Bill Simmons?

  No, we'll stick with, uh, we like, we like Cleveland for this.

• 19:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure.

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  So Cleveland has Donovan Mitchell, plus 195, 30 points. Against the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Cup.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  Great, let's do that.

• 19:29Bill Simmons?

  We'll recommend that one. There you go. Hope you like the Ringer Profit Boost. Again, any 30-plus scorer that is minus 200 odds or higher is eligible for the 30% profit boost. We are doing it each Friday during the NBA Cup. House, I'm gonna send you packing for a little bit, bring in Nate Theis, bring you back on the end. As Buzz House to do Million Dollar Pick. See you in a second.

• 19:52Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by ServiceNow. Look, I already have my dream job. I run the Ringer, argue with Chris Ryan, AKA CR. But even dream jobs have not so dreamy parts. You know, the work that slows you down never seems to go away. That's where ServiceNow's AI specialists come in. They're like digital teammates who actually do the job, start to finish. No handoffs, no homework. That means more time for the work that actually matters, which for me is talking about whether the 86 Celtics can beat the 96 Bulls, which they could. To learn how to put AI to work for people, visit servicenow.com. This episode is brought to you by my old friend Amtrak. Being a sports fan can take you pretty far, even across state lines for game day. But with Amtrak, the trip can be part of the fun.

• 20:35Bill Simmons?

  Skip the driving, settle into your own seat, connect with other fans and arrive ready for the action. The Amtrak Northeast Regional and the Acela connect major cities across the Northeast corridor, making the journey part of the experience. I've taken this train many, many times. Visit amtrak.com/spotify to plan your next trip.

• 20:56Bill Simmons?

  All right, Nate Tice is here. I'm taping this in a studio I've never been in before. This is really exciting. I feel like I'm in a futuristic year or something, talking NFL. You can read Nate, you can listen to Nate on Yahoo, in the Yahoo Sports Network. You were, we were just talking before we came on about this is the weirdest part of the NFL season. Explain your theory on this.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  It's that little lull before Thanksgiving hits and it happens every Thanksgiving, it happens every November. And it's kind of teams start getting chopped off, but we don't want to say it yet, just in case, you know? So like, all right, we gotta kind of talk about the Bengals a little bit. All right, just in case. Well, the Jets won a game, so we kind of have to talk about them still. Now we, until we can kind of get to Thanksgiving, I think everyone's a little too scared to just completely defeat them out of our discussions, completely wipe them out. So we have this little lull, always this little lull from like week nine, when we do the little mid-season awards to like week 13. And then we get to Thanksgiving and then December and then we're like, oh yeah, yeah, here we go. Playoffs are coming up. Here we go. What's rock?

• 21:59Bill Simmons?

  I like that chopped off. Sal and I call it the cross-offs where we, we cross teams off because we're still making picks and stuff. You never really know who can fully be crossed off. So there's almost two forms. One is, hey, do we not have to worry about these teams as playoffs anymore? Playoff teams anymore? And then the other is what you're saying, which is basically like, can we just not talk about these guys anymore? Can we just wait until 2025? I feel that way about, like I'm looking at the standings, Vegas.

• 22:27Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 22:27Bill Simmons?

  I'm good never talking about Tennessee again. Jacksonville, I'm right on the cusp. They're such a train wreck that, you know, maybe part of it. And then Carolina would be the other one. And then the Giants. So that's five. Is there anybody else you'd have?

• 22:42Speaker 02

  No, those are, those are really good. That's a good set right there. Cause even like the ones that we thought maybe were going to drop off are still, like I said, interesting. You know, like I like a good loser leaves town match at this stage of the year. Like starting in November, we can start getting those out there. You know, it's almost Survivor Series time, so we can do that. So I love a good loser leaves towns match. Like, okay, these two teams are playing. Whoever loses, yeah. You're not getting talked about for a few weeks until we start talking about draft order or a new head coach. So.

• 23:08Bill Simmons?

  What do we call what happened in Germany last week? What, what was, that was a two losers that should have left town?

• 23:16Speaker 02

  That was Sunday Night Heat or Saturday Morning Jack. That was the, the C shows, you know, from WWE used to have. That's what that was right there.

• 23:24Bill Simmons?

  Well.

• 23:25Speaker 02

  House show.

• 23:26Bill Simmons?

  I didn't just bring you on to talk football. I had selfish reasons because I'm an only child. You were, you planted your flag on Drake May Island about as violently and aggressively as anybody last February, March and April, which really prompted us to start texting and going back and forth a lot more because I'm like, I, I just, I, I like how this guy's thinking. I hope he's right and I think he's right, but there's not a lot of us. And then watching Drake May finally gets the job. He's got a D minus offensive line is generous. D minus receivers generous. D plus play calling generous.

• 24:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:06Bill Simmons?

  And I'm just so excited about what he's looked like. So you're, you're, you're, you don't care about the Patriots. You're an objective guy. What have you seen? What are you excited about?

• 24:17Speaker 02

  It, it is funny when I start kind of planting flags on quarterbacks. I kind of get involved via Twitter and the beats for those teams. So I've been introduced to more Patriots reporters and bloggers than I, I ever even knew about going into this year. And also maybe why Belichick told them, you know, never gave them anything because holy crap, the day to day stuff that was going on during training camp with the Patriots was a, it was pretty interesting, but this is me kind of raising that flag. I'm like the picture at Iwo Jima. Like the flag is just starting, it's starting to get raised up there, you know?

• 24:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 24:49Speaker 02

  I think you're down there, a couple of us are up there. We're all pushing it up. This is why I was excited about him. He, he's a walking, talking explosive play. He, he, and I think in the NFL right now, that is what you need at quarterback. You, you need guys, yes, to be smart and play the quarterback position. I mean, it's like operation and nickel and diming, getting the safe throws. I always thought May could do that better than people gave him credit for. But then you see the first completion against the Bears, Austin Hooper, throwing a guy open 25 yards down the field. Or the week before, a couple of weeks before, I should say, him just scrambling around when nothing was there, tucking around. Running against the Titans and against the Jets that didn't end as well, but tucking and running and getting those opportunities.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  And that's what he was in college with a bad supporting cast his second, his second year starting, his last year starting. So that's why I was kind of like, no matter what his situation was, I kind of thought he would be able to still show signs. Because of just his explosive playability and his use to D minusness around him.

• 25:50Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 25:50Speaker 02

  You know, so, but this is, this is, you know, it's not all perfect, but it is, there's so many just encouraging signs of the little things that they're doing. That completion that he had before the half against the Bears. When they, he hit, that was my favorite throw, probably he's made as a pro, which was just the, the in breaker to pop the, or no to booty.

• 26:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 02

  Booty and then it was right, they had clock ticking down, no timeouts, he runs up, they spike, they spike the ball. Beautiful operation with one second to go. That is so encouraging because that's not only just a cool throw that anyone can watch. It's also just the little things, the awareness of that situation. Again, this is why I was so excited about him with the intangible stuff that we talked about the last time I was on the show. Talking about being the little brother, being a good athlete, being competitive. You're already hearing stories about him having, you know, speaking to the team and requesting to do that. Pretty, it's pretty exciting. I, I, I'm sure Patriots fans are exciting, but I just think any good people, appreciator of good quarterback play should be excited about Drake May. Because he has, there's glimpses right now, special stuff that he's doing.

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  I've read all of those stories. There was a really, there was a whole day of media coverage about when Drake May spoke to the team last week. Because he didn't love the practice habits and the Wednesday practice. And asked to speak in front of everybody and they're like, okay, do your thing, Drake May. And he went up and gave a, like a, they said it was like a fun speech. Definitely kicked the team in the butt a little bit. It was a little awkward, but everybody was like, oh, he's doing, he's becoming a leader now. This is happening. I think he had been afraid to, you know, he's the rookie, he's young.

• 27:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:27Bill Simmons?

  But I think that was one of the things that when you read this stuff about him in college. That was pretty special about him, that he, he really did get it. He got like the whole, I'm the quarterback, this is my car, I'm the driver. I understand this piece of it. And you know, you look at some of the other guys that come in, it was notable with Caleb last week, watching that Bears Pats game and how distant he seemed, which I think was a product of they're playing like shit. The coaching situation was obviously debacle. Didn't seem like anyone was on the same page, but um, you know, would I, who would I rather have? Obviously I'm picking Drake May because he's on the Patriots, but I didn't think it was going to be this close, Nate. Like, I didn't think, I thought Drake might not play this year. I didn't expect this.

• 28:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, which I was pulling my hair out a little bit because I never thought the mental side for May was why he had to sit, which is why you usually sit a guy. Well, this guy's only been in an air raid offense. He's never had to handle this. He's never had to handle that. He's never had to be in a huddle. All those things. I watched May and the in-between stuff was a lot of encouraging mental aspects. I saw him changing protections. I saw him doing a lot of aspects that maybe encouraged that he could start right away. And I think the footwork stuff got overblown because footwork was like, that's coachable. That's what drove me nuts during that whole draft process where people acting like that's damning. It was, well, what if he cleans up the footwork that you guys are all worried about and he's doing these things with quote unquote bad footwork. And a lot of stuff is just people

• 28:54Speaker 02

  kind of talking out their ass. I think, you know, they're like, he, he, he bounces. You even see him now and even the quarterback coach talked about it. I'm blanking on his name right now, but he was talking about like, hey, you look and how he moves in the pocket. He, that's a good thing because he's keeping his eyes downfield because he's looking to attack the defense. And sometimes when another offensive lineman's losing, it can look like he's drifting into another pressure, but he's going away from the initial pressure, which is a good thing. That's exactly what you want. Um, the speech thing too, is just that mentality. He has that perfect level of golden retriever brain that I love. You know, Josh Allen's got that a little bit too, where it's like, it's confidence and everything, but they still have that little goofiness that's like, okay, you're not just a total robot, you know, that people can relate to this. Uh, he made the, he made the reporters

• 29:39Speaker 02

  clap for the defense. That was hilarious because it was just he it's just genuine like he's just going out.

• 29:46Bill Simmons?

  No, it felt authentic. I'm with you. I agree.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Right. It wasn't like him going like, oh, this will be funny. He was like, hey, let's do it. Ah, and like one person clapped and he was in face. He was like, yeah, okay, that was fun. Like those little things really add up, especially when you're losing. Um, everything you can do anything when you're winning, everything's great when you're winning. But when you're losing those little things and guys are going like, oh, this guy's not like a total diva, or this guy's not a, a total, just, you know, homeschool kid, like some of these quarterbacks can act. Like this guy's just a player. You hear other receivers talk about him. I mean, they all rave about him in between complaining about not getting the ball. They all rave about him like, so, uh, like that's those, again, these are just the little things when you're not in the building that you kind of look at, look for and go like, oh, okay, these are the things I would bet on. And I mean, the bet's looking really good right now.

• 30:33Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel like I'm talking out of school with this story. I sat next to Christian Gonzalez at the Celtics Nets game on Friday night. So he went and apparently, uh, they were trying to get Drake May to go, the Celtics. And Drake May didn't want to go because he didn't feel like he was playing well enough yet to go to a Celtic game on a Friday night when they had to leave the next day. And I was like, oh, that's so adorable, Drake May. I'm so, I'm so glad you haven't lived up to your own standards yet as, as a QB. But I was like, super excited to see that. Um, he's checked every box for me, everything I've wanted to see. But it's interesting. Obviously they're using him terribly. I don't understand half of the plays they run for him and, and, um, one of the things I was saying to a friend of mine was,

• 31:18Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand why they just don't look at like the 57 most successful Josh Allen plays that Buffalo has run for Josh Allen since 2019 and just start running all of those plays. And I mentioned that to you and you said that wasn't the guy that he reminds you of. And you dropped the name that I did a double take. So say the name.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Oh God, this is even more of a lofty praise is that the high, high end comp I have for him, and this was going into the draft process was John Elway is, yeah, I know it's that big arm. Elway was, again, these are late memories. We remember the Broncos winning the Super Bowls with Mike Shanahan and him becoming more of a bootleg guy and more of an auxiliary guy to the run game, you know, being a Shanahan run game and he was moved on the move.

• 32:04Bill Simmons?

  Pretty beat up in the mid, late 90s too. He'd take some big hits.

• 32:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, but prime Elway was running around, throwing, you know, launching balls, trying to try all these aggressive throws. And again, this is the point 001% comparison for May, but that's the guy where I was trying to come up with some high end comp. And I was like, that's really who I think of because the looseness of the athlete, being able to throw a missile wherever he wants, that competitiveness, sometimes that, like, he's not a dummy. I call him a golden retriever, but Elway was a coach's kid, obviously, very smart, but he was still try stuff, you know, still trying, like, still and still push the ball. He honed it in as the years went along. You know, shoot, the Broncos drafted Tommy Maddox for a reason, but they, but really it was just that kind of loose athlete,

• 32:49Speaker 02

  that big arm. And that's where, like, I see the ideal version of him becoming where it is a guy that throws on the move. There is more polished as it comes along, but even the stuff like the mistakes he makes right now. John Hollinger, Hollinger always, when he used to write the stat write-ups for ESPN.

• 33:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 33:07Speaker 02

  This always kind of stuck with me that he would talk about young players and usage and turnover rate actually being a good sign down the road to star level play because it's those guys, they got, they have the trust to handle the ball and two, that they're trying stuff like that. That is the kind of the counter of what's happening with Caleb Williams right now is that he's really trying to be perfect from the pocket and it's limiting his creation ability. While May is playing just loose and fast and everything and yeah, he'll make a mistake. He'll try a ball. I mean, the interception against the Bears was just a lapse, you know, like just in my blood.

• 33:40Bill Simmons?

  Two of those a game is, and we've already come to grips. It's fine.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, but you take the other 48 good plays and you just deal with the, those. Overwhelming negatives because he's figuring it out. Even Mayo addressed this. He even said, he was like, yeah, I want him to try and figure this stuff out. You're learning what my ceilings are. Oh, I can't do that. That's time. Okay. And what's cool about May is you can tell he learns from those mistakes. Like he is so cognizant. It's him talking about not going to the Celtics game. That self-awareness, I think, is just really encouraging. You want that for any athlete, but especially your franchise quarterback. You take it number three and again, that's why it's encouraging.

• 34:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And the Josh Allen thing, which makes the most sense just because he's recent. But there's Josh Allen's huge. Drake's big, but he's not big like Josh Allen is. Josh Allen feels like he's winning collisions. Drake, I'm still nervous when, uh, in, in certain collision situations. But we've, we were talking about it last week. I've never had a quarterback, like we had Steve Grogan in the mid seventies. So I barely remember, but he, he ran for over 500 yards. Like he was a running QB before his knees went. I've never had a quarterback who makes some of the decisions that he makes during a game. Like he'll go back and then he'll run up the middle. And he'll run up the middle, like trying to get yards and trying to get like, it's not just like, I'm going to run seven and slide down.

• 35:02Bill Simmons?

  He's like, I'm running up the middle like I'm McCaffrey.

• 35:06Bill Simmons?

  He'll run, he'll go to the right and you see like this, I call it the Zach Wilson. The scramble to the right, nothing's there, I'll throw it out of bounds. He does the Josh Allen thing where until the very last split second, he's still looking even 40 yards downfield. So it's just really exciting to watch him. And I, to me, it's like, I'm positive he's going to be a franchise QB. The Elway thing is interesting though, because I, I still feel like Elway's the most talented QB I've ever seen. I don't think he was the best.

• 35:37Bill Simmons?

  I, I think Brady's, Brady's won the best.

• 35:41Bill Simmons?

  Cause he earned it. Montana, I always had the highest from that era. Cause he just felt like he, he always in the right hands with them. But I always thought Elway was just, Elway felt like he could just take the shittiest team and win like 10 games.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  And just that, just the size of those two, they're both 6'4", 225.

• 35:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:59Speaker 02

  They're both like, and that's, thank you for saying the Allen thing. That's why I never want to throw out the Allen comp. There's some play style comparisons, but that's like comparing, you know, a two guard with a power forward.

• 36:10Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 36:10Speaker 02

  You know, like it's, yes, they could play a little similar. They do some wonky or wacky things. The sideline throw is exactly a great example, but it's also just like a, yeah, Allen is 6'5 and change and a legitimate 240. And a guy like Justin Herbert, who also gets the Drake May comparisons, Herbert's 6'6 240. Like that, and 6'4 225 and 240, like that, that is a significant difference.

• 36:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know what that's like now? It's, it's like Cooper flag. Cause they're, Cooper flag's definitely special and they're comparing him. It's like, is it KG? And it's like, all right, there's pieces of KG, but KG was 7'1. Cooper flag's like 6'9 maybe. So you can't.

• 36:50Speaker 02

  You've done KG comps for him? That, that feels weird for me.

• 36:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, they were, well, they're just talking about like him and Duncan, how uh, these guys that just can affect the game in all these different ways. They just play the game the right way, that are in the right spots, don't care if they score. But ultimately he's, there's a size difference. The same with Allen. There's, I don't even know who you'd compare Allen to in the history of the league.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  No. Like Cam Newton, that can throw even better. Like, yeah, it's just, but again, that's, you're using different disclaimers with that. Flag was, I watched the Kentucky game.

• 37:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Flag's, flag's got it. Yeah. He's got something. So if.

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Just the body positioning.

• 37:27Bill Simmons?

  If we're doing this, this draft again, is it still the same order?

• 37:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I would say I Jane Daniels for me. Well, well, for me, yeah, because I may want and then kill two, but I would say Jane Daniels squeezed it closer than I gave him credit for. I had a like I had a half tier gap with Daniels, you know, still some of the stuff I've been very impressed with and I'm eating crow on Cliff Kingsbury. Trust me. And I just actually wrote about it today and just the offensive improvements, the cool stuff they're doing, a lot of tempo stuff. And I think Daniels has played to what I thought maybe his ceiling would be. There's just still some stuff I'm still wanting to see in the second half of the year. How much he doesn't, you know, really push the ball. It's very selected when he pushes the ball and he's, don't get me wrong.

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Talking out both sides of my mouth. He is excelling when he does it, but it's just, they haven't really faced the toughest slate of defenses that forced him to do it. They faced the Steelers who really took it to them and it's, you could see him just not be comfortable.

• 38:23Bill Simmons?

  And we're taping this before the Eagles game. So that might be another defense tonight.

• 38:27Speaker 02

  That's another one. And also my, my little shortlist I got, I'm talking a little Eagles and that too. So, but the, uh, but it's this, I just, and but the thing was, I thought Daniels was a half tier below those guys. And I would say now him and Caleb are more closer for me than I would have gave him credit for. I'm still worried about the skinniness. He has done a phenomenal job of avoiding hits. He is so, so fast. I like, he is incredibly fast. But the thing is, you know, it's a long season, you know, you just take a couple of wrong hits, a couple of big blows, those start to stack up, you know, body blows start to stack up. So, uh, I've still though, I think I still would have him one, two, three like that. But Daniels would be a true number three or more of a two B, two A kind of thing.

• 39:07Bill Simmons?

  Do you care about, well, obviously you're going to care about a little, but the ages of the different guys. Like Daniels is two and a half years older than May. Is that, how much of that is an advantage as you're factoring that in? Cause it's got to be somewhat of an advantage, but I, I never know how to calculate that.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Absolutely. And that's another thing why Daniel's a little bit lower. Like his two red alert, and I would say red alerts, but I guess I was about to say red flags, but two kind of red flags there were age, skinniness, throwing over the middle, and you know, the hits that he took. He seems to be able to mitigate throwing over the middle. You can do that if you win other ways. He wins with acceleration and speed. But the thing is, again, what else are we tapping into? This is exactly how he played in college.

• 39:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 39:50Speaker 02

  And it was good in college. He won the frickin' Heisman. But again, this does matter because he was an older prospect. Bo Nix is a super old prospect. Bo Nix was as old as the oldest quarterback since Brandon Weeden drafted in the first round. You know, that absolutely matters. Drake May was in true air raid offenses that had no detail and no structure. That's why I was bullish on him.

• 40:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 40:12Speaker 02

  Was that, okay, we haven't even tapped into what he's actually good, what he could actually become. Caleb Williams and kind of a Lincoln Riley offense that takes adjustment to the NFL. I just thought that he had some, you know, and I still do. I think he's actually pretty advanced mentally. But that, I thought he would actually transition a little better. But even for me, I was like, oh, maybe I was a little ahead of myself there. But yeah, they're gonna have more of a learning curve, especially than a guy that's 24, who has maybe seen 20 more games. Those reps add up. So yeah, no, absolutely. Age, especially at quarterback is a big thing because it's just reps that these guys have. Like Anthony Richardson's younger than all these guys. And so it's, you know, that's just another aspect of evaluating these guys.

• 40:53Bill Simmons?

  We talked about this the last time. It's so crazy that we are no better at this in 2024 than we were like 50 years ago. That we could have more and more data evidence of all these types of guys and we still have no idea who's gonna, like, I don't think Caleb's gonna be a bust, but if you told me he's going to be a bust, I wouldn't be like, there's no way, you know, whereas like there's NBA guys that I would, I was like, that guy's not gonna be a bust. There's no chance. This guy, unless he gets hurt. But with quarterbacks. We've just seen it too many times where the combination of maybe you weren't quite ready yet, your team's a disaster, you lost confidence, you took some hits, your eye level moved down, and it's just this chain of events that all of a sudden you're in a different spot.

• 41:38Bill Simmons?

  Even like watching Sam Darnold now in Minnesota versus the Sam Darnold I watched that, although Sam Darnold has been great lately, but.

• 41:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, you turn back into that.

• 41:47Bill Simmons?

  But you just think like, how much damage can you put on a rookie QB in a wrong situation where you've now unraveled this to the point you can't put it back in the bottle?

• 41:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, the scar tissue of it all. I think maybe this should be a great learning example for everybody about, you know, shoot, we're still discussing Trevor Lawrence and whether he's it or not, but it's like, how much situation matters for even the best quarterbacks? And, and I mean, there's 11 guys on offense, there's 22 starters.

• 42:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, we know it matters. The question is, is it 90% of this and not 25%? Like, is situation almost everything, basically? Yeah, you know what I mean?

• 42:27Speaker 02

  I'd say it's at least half. You know, it is. I mean, look at Jared Goff from rookie year to Jared Goff with Sean McVay the next year. Like that, it went from, this is the worst rookie quarterback I've ever seen, to, wow, oh, okay, we actually got something here, to almost an MVP candidate. And also another thing too, I want, because Caleb got, is getting, you get a lot of backlash, if you could describe this generational, and which is why that, that G word should be outlawed. It's, it's a, it's a bet that we're making on these prospects. Some bets like, you know, Wemby, the alien, Victor, like, yeah, 90% star here, you know, 8% starter, and probably a 1% bench bust. Why a guy like CJ Stroud?

• 43:09Speaker 02

  He was my quarterback one in that class. I thought his, I, I look at it as star starter, bench bust, you know, that's, it's a basketball one I take for it. But, but him, I thought his star was like 10%, but I thought his starter was gigantic.

• 43:24Bill Simmons?

  Like, almost like 65%.

• 43:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was like this guy, that guy to me felt so safe, even though he was younger and all the, and he had questions about, you know, creativity and all those things. But I was like, man, this guy like, I just don't see him failing. Like I just thought his, and a guy like Richardson in the same class, it was like, I see a 20% star, maybe 25%, but I also see a 30% bust. And, and same thing, Caleb, for me, had a huge starter, a good chunk start, a star. And then just, I just thought he had a small bust potential. Like it was just, again, but he still had it. All these guys have it. Even a guy like May, who I, is one of my highest graded quarterbacks I've ever had. They're gonna have that, but it's all for me chasing that percentage of star, because that's what you need to win.

• 44:08Bill Simmons?

  What'd you have for the, for the pie with, uh, Bo Nix? What was starter in the pie?

• 44:16Speaker 02

  Starter was like-

• 44:16Bill Simmons?

  You gotta name this pie, by the way. Is it like the? I don't know, like-

• 44:20Speaker 02

  I stole from a basketball blog.

• 44:21Bill Simmons?

  Pigskin pie or something? I don't know.

• 44:24Speaker 02

  I stole from Candace Hoopis and a guy that now works for the Nuggets, actually. He's like an analytics guy there. And he, and I just always liked the terminology for it. And that's kind of what I applied.

• 44:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  But his, the one that stuck with me was, uh, Zach Levine. Was the guy did an analytics thing on him and he goes, hey, I gotta bring up the comparisons. And like number eight on the comparison chart was Michael Jordan. So he was talking about, he was like, it was all these busts. And then, but then the like, three of the comparisons of his like stat stuff was like, well, you gotta look at the athleticism and all that. And then that was the argument about Zach Levine. It was like, he might wash out of the league in two years. But he has that 20% chance or 10% chance of being a star and all-star, yada, yada. So that's the player that that stuck out for me. But like a guy like Nix, I, he was my quarterback, uh, five. And I viewed him more as a second-rounder. I, I thought, I still thought he, he got overdrafted.

• 45:18Speaker 02

  I, the argument with him, or maybe my argument against him was he had a ton of starts, but he still was so skittish. I thought his footwork was really bad. It's still kind of as if he, um, he takes, he just has wonky plays. He's a little too safe with the football. Down the field, his accuracy is not great, but I still saw a starter in there. Even my write-up with him was like, I view him as, I, I think I had like, so I did bench starter. Bench to me is like a Jacoby Brissette, you know, or Gardner Minshew, maybe a spot starter kind of type. I had him kind of in that tier, like where it was like, okay, there's a big chunk starter and bench, like 80%. And then like a 10%.

• 45:55Bill Simmons?

  So he's been better than that then?

• 45:57Speaker 02

  He's, I don't know, he's kind of been how he is. I, it's, Sean Payton's doing a lot of good work.

• 46:04Bill Simmons?

  He's pretty good last week. Yeah, you're right.

• 46:06Speaker 02

  He was. And Sean Payton's been in his bag. Like, he really has. The run game's good. The Broncos' defense is sick. I, I think he is, he has improved from what he looked like week one, which was like, oh my God, you can't play this guy. To, they chopped out play calls for him too. So they've stopped using motion so much. So again, that's good coaching. Hey, let's just, let's make sure you're on straight and narrow. But from week two, I thought he was not going to make it after a rookie year. I thought we had a, you know, just a Josh Rosen situation going on. Now I'm like, okay, you could be a tangible starter. So like, he's reaching that kind of maybe middle tier that I thought he could reach.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  Josh Rosen. We're going to take a break and then we're going to do five favorites.

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• 47:48Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K27. We just had one of the craziest off seasons we've had in the NBA, which is perfect for 2K because every 2K season can be one of the craziest off seasons. The whole league shifted in real life. It could shift to an NBA 2K27. The best place to compete with these new look rosters and also try to figure out who's on what roster. You can see how new teams and new dynamic duos match up. You can play Philly, feel what it's like to have all their new guys with the old guys. And you can also take a struggling franchise to the NBA finals if you want, because it'll never happen in real life for a couple of the struggling franchises.

• 48:31Bill Simmons?

  You know who I'm talking about. Anyway, NBA 2K lets you experience every transaction and storyline right from your home. Pick up your copy of NBA 2K27 right now.

• 48:46Bill Simmons?

  All right. So I asked you to make a list of five things relating to the NFL season. I did not want to know was on the list and you can count them down from one through five, or you could build suspense and go five through one. So what is the list?

• 48:58Speaker 02

  I'm going to build suspense and then, and I feel like, yeah, I went with, because I'm so boring sometimes. I just went with things I'm enjoying in this NFL season.

• 49:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're a positive guy.

• 49:09Speaker 02

  I try to be. I try to be. I keep my negativity to myself most of the time. But yes, I, I want, because there's a lot too much about how like sports are worse than they used to be and all that. And it's like, no, it's the opposite. We should enjoy what these freaks are doing every week.

• 49:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 49:23Speaker 02

  And so I want things that I enjoyed, enjoy watching this season. And I'm starting with number five, and this is actually kind of a negative one. This is telling the Cowboys, I told you so. That's something I've been enjoying this season going, you guys thought you can draft two offensive linemen and start them and not have a running back and not have a second pass catcher. And you thought you can not have a defensive tackle that can stop the run. You thought Eric Kendricks could still play linebacker and you thought you were contending and all in. And we told you so. And so that is something I've been enjoying because it's just, it's as glaring as the light through Jerry World right now. All the warts that they have have just been popping. I know, pimples pop, but you know, same thing. They just are just as shiny and as glossy as you can

• 50:06Speaker 02

  imagine. Even little things, not really a little thing. Dak Prescott gets hurt. Why aren't you playing Trey Lance? You traded a fourth for him. Just give him, give him some run. You guys aren't winning the Super Bowl this year. Figure out what you got. Like, you know, like this is why you trade for him. The Mingo trade, Jonathan Mingo, you know, like day late and dollar short, but also on top of that, Mingo, even if you look at his height, weight, speed stuff, he's like a gadget slot guy. You know who's best in the slot? C D Lamb. Like, why are you making that trade? Like, you're making it worse. That's not actually a trade that's actually going to have a tangible effect on your team. So, yeah, I guess.

• 50:43Bill Simmons?

  Well, we liked him in the draft seven years ago. We gotta get him.

• 50:46Speaker 02

  You know, that NFL tape doesn't matter. Hey, look at what he did. I'll miss that last year. I know. And guys like Maisy Smith, when he gets drafted, they're like, no, he's going to stop the run for us. It's like, he didn't do that in college. What makes you think he's going to get better at it in the NFL? They let a guy like Jonathan Hankins go. He's just a role playing nose tackle, but he was like their most significant player on the defense. And then they're just like, yeah, we don't need him actually. It was like, no, you do. You do need him on your defense. So I guess this is kind of a negative thing, but it is something I've been enjoying.

• 51:17Bill Simmons?

  No, I like it because the other thing you didn't mention was, and this never happens, but the over under for them during this, during the summer actually moved down and went from 10 half wins to nine half wins. And because everybody was like, this team sucks. Like, what are we doing? And, you know, I can't even find nine wins in their schedule. And then there, you know, then that cowboy infrastructure moves in and is like, no, no, actually, once they get C D signed and Dak signed, they stink.

• 51:47Bill Simmons?

  So that's a good one. I think that's a good start. It is fun to say, I told you so to Dallas Cowboys. What's number four?

• 51:52Speaker 02

  It is. Number four is surprising defenses, improved defenses. This is a way. So this was my Eagles one, one of them, but teams like the Eagles, the Chargers, the Broncos, the Lions, even teams like the Chiefs are, you know, who had a really good defense last year are even better this year. Um, the Bills, who were expected to have a little drop off on defense have actually. Yeah. And like they are just cooking, uh, and doing a great job there. So I'll start with the Eagles. And this is more Vic Fangio going like, oh yeah, this is why everyone wanted, used to want to hire Vic Fangio. And they have a lot, a lot of good young players and new faces really stepping up for them. And it's been really fun. Um, Quinian Mitchell, their first round pick, corner from Toledo has been great.

• 52:36Speaker 02

  Like as a rookie, rookie corner is really hard.

• 52:39Bill Simmons?

  Seems like we've had good rookie corners this year, just in general.

• 52:42Speaker 02

  We have. And just really the last like two, three years rookies, it used to be like year two, you expect a corner to be like even baseline. It's like a rookie in the NBA.

• 52:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:50Speaker 02

  Like even if they like average, you're like, hell yeah. Like that's good. Um, but with the Quinian, it's like, he's no, that's a good starter.

• 52:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  As a rookie and he takes it to guys, which is really fun. Like he can actually go against number ones. But then Cooper Dejean, um, who plays in the slot for them has been tremendous. Like both of these two guys are going to be on the shortlist for defensive rookie of the year at the end of the year. And then that was their first two picks and Dejean from the slot is a very important position in this defense. Um, how much they have to do in the run game, how much they have to blitz because of the soft kind of coverages they run. And he has been awesome. Some huge plays on fourth down, tackles Jamar Chase in space when they played the Bengals. Last week he tackled C D Lamb in space. No one really does that to those two guys. And there he is as a rookie acting like it's nothing.

• 53:35Speaker 02

  So those two rookies, um, I mean, even other guys, Milton Williams is a guy that was a role player for them is now a starting defensive lineman. He's in a contract year and he, he's, he's going to get paid. So like even a guy like that, Jalen Carter, a defensive tackle, looks like a future all pro. He, he's fantastic. And then Zach Bond, um, who's a linebacker retread that he's a former Wisconsin guy. And mostly he played as like an undersized pass rusher. And Vic Fangio is like, ah, we're going to try you off ball. And he looks like a pro bowler and, and I, it's like an inspired player.

• 54:07Bill Simmons?

  Vic Fangio is back.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  He's fully back, fully back and maybe how we, how we hit a little magic this year. How we, how we was getting a little like, okay, you know, like this is how we always nail it. And then this year it looks like he's just rejuvenated all of that. So, yeah.

• 54:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, you probably just jinxed them because we're taping this before they play tonight. They're definitely giving up 45 tonight.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  I mean, but even like stat wise, they're seven of the DVOA. And then there's, so I look at a thing, success rate and explosive play rate and I combine them. People want me to call it sex rate, but then someone today said, let's call it suplex rate. And I was like, oh yeah, there we go. Uh, but they're, they're second in that right now. And then like even the other defenses I mentioned, the Broncos defense is a lot of fun.

• 54:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, like out of the defenses you mentioned, I wasn't surprised by the Chargers because they, their coaching situation last year combined, they had real talent. Right?

• 54:57Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 54:58Bill Simmons?

  The Bills, the Bills have McDermott, they have the history at least. I didn't really understand how they were going to get all the players pulled off, but they did. The Broncos, I don't get it all. Like the, the advanced stats for the Broncos are nuts. They're top five all over the place in all these key categories and they passed the eye test too. Like I, I thought they did a great job against the Chiefs last week. It feels real to me. I don't get it.

• 55:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, they, it, it, they just have a lot of good, you know, like Patrick Surtan is, if he wasn't hurt, he'd be up there with defensive player of the year. Like we'd be talking about him. He, he's the best corner in the game. He's incredible. But then like their other corner, Riley Moss is good and it's not even just in the, the sense that he's, you know, the first white corner since Jason Sehorn. Like he's a legitimately good player. Um, so it went from a bit to like, oh no, no, he's just good. We don't have to make jokes anymore. But they like, so they have those guys and they just play press, man, take it to them. Vance Joseph is really aggressive. He's a lot like, he, he has some Wade Phillips to him. So it's a lot of like, okay, we're in man coverage. That guy's blocking blitz. Then they call green dogs and they are just so, they just, they don't let you breathe.

• 56:05Speaker 02

  But you have to really perform to beat them. Yeah, they're, they're outstanding. I mean, they gave up 70 points in a game last year. And now every metric, they're top five and it's legit. It's very legit. Zach Allen has had a good year, um, defensive lineman there, the fourth Watt brother. Uh, no, it's, they're, they're a very good unit. The Chargers too, has been very impressive.

• 56:24Bill Simmons?

  Chargers, yeah, not surprising at all that they would be good, but I think they're even a little better than I thought. I was pretty bullish on them.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:31Bill Simmons?

  We'll see with the Bills.

• 56:32Speaker 02

  They're DC, right.

• 56:33Bill Simmons?

  The, the Chiefs game is going to tell us a lot with the Bills because. You know, there's been a couple of games this year where it's like, oh, do they have a good defense? But then, you know, that might be like the good, bad team on defenses. And I want to see like, can they shut down the Chiefs? Cause I feel like the Chiefs, you know, we're getting into it with million dollar picks later, but uh, I just, it's Chiefs as an underdog. I'm just always buying every time. I'm just sorry.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Oh, my homes is plus money. Mahomes. Hell yeah. That's what you do. Uh, no. And the Chiefs said, I'm trying to find a better term than this, but natural answers to uh, the Bills play all this cover two. And then Mahomes now is like, okay, you know, he's just gonna nickel and dime. It might be a Juju Smith Schuster game as far as underneath throws. If he's healthy, it might be a Travis Kelsey decent game as well. Um, but the Chiefs are, their offense is just so brutally efficient this year. It's just, you know, it's just, they're going to take their five yard gains and you're going to like it. And that, I mean, that's no defense has stopped it so far. So the Bills playing cover two, they're not very aggressive. It's kind of like, well, you need to be aggressive. You need to like, take the fight to the Chiefs. Otherwise they're

• 57:42Speaker 02

  just gonna, they're fine taking these five, six yard gains and punching you in the face over and over.

• 57:46Bill Simmons?

  Little Hopkins, seven yarder. All right. What do you got for number three?

• 57:50Speaker 02

  Number three, and this is kind of tying, just even talking about the Bills, but kind of a cop out here. Cause I want to talk about a few things. AFC juggernaut quarterbacks. This is Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, the, the big five.

• 58:04Bill Simmons?

  And the big, the big thing with that is Herbert's back.

• 58:07Speaker 02

  So back.

• 58:08Bill Simmons?

  I was worried.

• 58:09Speaker 02

  Unbelievably back. Cause I was a little scared, especially since I have some dynasty shares in him that uh, maybe got a little worried about it. But the, how about the vibes with Harbaugh and Herbert? Like they, the buddy comedy with this is just amazing. It's genuine. And you could see Harbaugh really kind of, did you see any of the videos from this past week?

• 58:28Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I, I, I think that should be like its own chat. I think NFL network should just have like a three hour show of all the locker room speeches. And I, I love all that stuff. I think it's so, it's such a fascinating. Kind of window into what the locker room is actually like. Who's the leader? Who gives the speech at the end before they go, all right, everybody all in? Like, I just love that stuff.

• 58:52Speaker 02

  And how the game balls work?

• 58:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:55Speaker 02

  Oh, are they giving it to the owner? Boom, wop. All right. But, you know, it's, but it, no, that's a very real thing. And like, who speaks after the coach? Who, like, even that Harbaugh video, they, they, or the Chargers video? They're like, hey, Herbert. He's like, Justin, just talk to us. And then Herbert kind of gave the little like two second speech, which is perfect. But again, it's like a little, you know, microcosm of like what each locker room is. No, that's such a great point, but.

• 59:18Bill Simmons?

  One of the things I did with over unders this year, which I'm doing really well on this year is I just, I realized I wasn't putting enough thought into good coaches versus bad coaches. And even something like the Chargers situation where it's like, well, I don't know. Their over under is eight and a half, but Harbaugh, and maybe it's a little too high. And I'm like, they're going from Staley to Harbaugh. That's got to be worth five wins. It just has to. There's no way it's not. We've seen it happen over and over again. Same thing with Dan Quinn not being Ron Rivera. I don't know how many wins that's worth, but it's got to be worth a couple.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Like just, just having an energy sometimes works. Like just, or just being competent. Like with Harbaugh, it's not like they're doing anything crazy. They're just competent. You know, they don't get penalized. They don't turn the ball over. All their scheme stuff is sound. The defensive coordinator is a star, Jesse Minter.

• 1:00:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he's not going to be there. He's getting hired.

• 1:00:12Speaker 02

  He's gone very soon. Yeah, they get him for another year. It's a miracle. But, but again, it's, sometimes it's just having a high baseline. And when you have a dude at quarterback, that's kind of enough. Like even talking about the Broncos with Bo Nix, Bo Nix isn't making mistakes and the rest of the team is competent. So it's like, yeah, they, now they might be a playoff team because they're just not idiots. Like, that's, they're above the idiot line, the Mendoza line of coaching.

• 1:00:39Bill Simmons?

  Do you buy into the sideline stuff? Like, do you watch the sidelines when you watch games? Cause that's another thing I find myself doing more and more every year. And the Chargers. The Chargers have a really good sideline, like the reactions.

• 1:00:51Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:51Bill Simmons?

  You know what I mean? Like, somebody fights and they get, it's a third and nine and the guy fights and gets the extra half yard. And you'll see like 15 Chargers like jumping out in the field, getting fired up. And I'm like, ah, that's a good sign.

• 1:01:02Speaker 02

  That's real. That, well, that's what turned me on to, I was always kind of an optimist with them, but Dan Campbell's lines was his first year with them was even they're getting their faces battered in every week. That sideline was into it.

• 1:01:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Um, Shanahan's first year in with the 49ers in 2017, bad team. And defense is trying to tackle everyone. Everyone's going nuts about touchdown. You, you also, there's buy-in like, um, or, or just being locked in. Like you can see sometimes when someone scores and how other players react to that because they're aware that that call was happening. Like they're aware that that design was meant to do that. So again, it's just reading in between the lines of like, are they locked in? Are they not? I mean, you watch, you just watch the Bears. You can just tell like, oh, okay.

• 1:01:48Bill Simmons?

  It was like really dramatically noticeable. And on the flip side, Arizona, where you watch Arizona, you're like, whoa. This, this team have good chemistry? It's first time in 10 years.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  I was, I was, I could segue to my number two, the Cardinals.

• 1:02:03Bill Simmons?

  Let's hear it.

• 1:02:05Speaker 02

  Just they're, they're my number two thing for this list. The thing that I'm enjoying most is the, just the Cardinals in general. Every aspect of the Cardinals, I enjoy watching because they are exactly what we're talking about here. Everybody's locked in every, I mean, Marvin Harrison Jr.'s fist pumping after a run for a touchdown where he has to make a block.

• 1:02:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:25Speaker 02

  So we got, that's the number, uh, number four pick overall, who's probably been a star since he was 15. They're doing the dirty work and celebrating someone else scoring.

• 1:02:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Speaker 02

  And then I look over, no offense to the guy, uh, cause I really liked him, Roman Doonsey for the Bears. Something happens, he's like, all right. And which is not how Roman Doonsey was in college.

• 1:02:46Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:02:46Speaker 02

  It just kind of speaks to what the buy-in is for each of these teams and, or each of these players and their units. But yeah, thank you for segueing me to the Cardinals because on the last show I was on, it's pretty optimistic about them. And this, this hopefully was what I was talking about, but offense, like they're looking like a top five offense right now.

• 1:03:02Bill Simmons?

  Were you expecting them to be this physical? That's the thing that I was surprised by.

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  That's what they bought into. Last year, the offensive line played way above, punched way above their weight. Having James Connor kind of sets the tone too. But just they're buying with the tight ends. You know, they had Elijah Higgins last year and Trey McBride. And then they drafted Tip Ryman in the third round. And I was like, oh, okay. I see what you guys are leaning into. Like, we're not getting like finessey tight ends. We're actually getting like brawlers that can actually do stuff. And then they drafting Parrish Johnson, Jr., their left tackle from last year. They're all tone setter types. So even their other receiver, Michael Wilson, is he's big and will do dirty work. And that's why I was pretty optimistic about him was they're doing a lot of, everything was sound, like conceptually.

• 1:03:47Speaker 02

  And sound, but and very traditional in some senses, but just enough modernizations, you know? It's like watching Scream for the first time. It's like, oh, yeah, this, this is a slasher movie. Okay, but you're doing the meta thing. Okay, that's cool. Like, they just do a little bit of motion, a little bit of tweaks and inverting roles. They kind of their own, they do a little bit of everything in the run game, but it's really sound. They're not running against bad boxes. Kyler is playing fantastic right now.

• 1:04:15Bill Simmons?

  So our friend Mina kind of threw him into the MVP conversation. Like, she was like tipping a waiter. I was surprised. I wasn't ready to go there with Kyler because I've seen them win games where he didn't have to do that much. But did, where do you sit on that? Do you see that?

• 1:04:33Speaker 02

  I, oh, man, I mean, he's, he's got a better argument than most. I'll put it that way.

• 1:04:37Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 1:04:37Speaker 02

  I, I have those AFC, the five AFC quarterbacks that I just mentioned, basically as my top five. So I think Kyler would probably be the one, you know, next, next one in, you know, first four out. I mean, Kyler, QBR is just one stat, but Kyler's second in the NFL right now in QBR. Lamar Jackson's one, Kyler's two, and Joe Burrow's three. You know, like he, and this is the most he's like playing real quarterback. They give him. You know, this is, this is kind of continuing my Cliff Kingsbury offense stuff was that has a high floor, but the ceiling I think is lower because of what they can get to and what they ask of their players. With Kyler and Drew Petsing, their office coordinator, they said,

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  no, you're playing quarterback. Like, we're putting you under center. You are killing plays. You are pointing out who, who has who in protection. And if there's some rough stretches early in this year, even last year, even some of the quote unquote, good games. Now I'd say the last like three, four weeks, it's like, see it. Like, you can see the confidence really bubbling with him. He's been under center 30%, 30% of the time this year. The first four and a half years of his career, he was under center for 125 drop backs total in his first four and a half years. He's been under center for 55 drop backs this year. So almost, he's already, you know, almost getting to half. Yeah. So 125 in four and a half years under Cliff Kingsbury and half a year Drew Petsing,

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  55 just this year. That's real, that ties into the run game. That is tying into their play action games really good. And like when I mentioned their little tweaks they do, they're kind of modern. I wouldn't say modern, just understanding what to do. Like a bootleg, like just a normal bootleg that everyone runs. Usually you run it with zone where everybody steps the same way. You remember the old Texans, Gary Kubiak videos they would show? What they do, and it's not new, but they're one of the few teams that leans into it. They pull a guard when they run a bootleg. And most teams try to avoid doing that because it can get a little dicey up front and everything. But they're well coached. They do only against the right fronts and it ties in with to what their run game is because they pull so many guys. And once they pull that, it attracts the linebackers.

• 1:06:44Speaker 02

  You should watch against the Jets. It was comical. The Jets linebackers are sprinting with it because the guards pulling. So again, they're confident that they can do this little tweak. But again, it sets up everything because they're going under center, because they're running the ball well. They can get to that stuff and it turns into 15 yard gashes to Marvin Harrison or, or to Trey McBride, who Trey McBride is also playing like a top three tight end. So that also helps too. But it's just a, and then shoot, the defense is fun. Their defense is improved.

• 1:07:11Bill Simmons?

  I mean, they were underdogs at home against the Jets last week.

• 1:07:15Speaker 02

  Insane line.

• 1:07:15Bill Simmons?

  And I thought that was one of the weirdest lines of the year. And like when House and I were doing the picks, House was like afraid of it because it was like, what's going, like what's going on with this line? These, these two teams are not the same level.

• 1:07:28Speaker 02

  But and I know I looked at the injury report after that because I remember being like, am I, did I forget someone's hurt? Like, you know, like is Kyler out or something? But no, that was just, you know, no one watches the Cardinals and then we get updates about Jets warmups.

• 1:07:42Bill Simmons?

  We watch them because we're on the West Coast and there's three games in the, in the 125. What's your number one?

• 1:07:50Speaker 02

  Well, and this is tying into a little bit with the Cardinals are doing and the, and other teams I've kind of mentioned, but it's the run game and the running back renaissance.

• 1:07:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Speaker 02

  Going through this year. This is what has juiced me up about the NFL this year. The Cardinals are a part of this and their run game, but this is not only just the investment teams have made in running backs, which we have seen with Derrick Henry, Saquon Barkley, even other guys that were signed over the years. James Connor was a free agent addition for the, for the Cardinals. We go one after another, Josh Jacobs with the Packers, but also the first rounders teams have made on the running backs have been paying dividends. Bijon Robinson, Jameer Gibbs with the Lions, all these teams with.

• 1:08:30Bill Simmons?

  You gotta throw Najee in there. I would, I would throw him in. I think Najee's been pretty good.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Najee went from, he should, I actually, it was funny. I actually was like, he should not be getting the ball anymore. And it feels like as when I said on my podcast, after that, he is just run harder than he ever has in his.

• 1:08:44Bill Simmons?

  They inspired him.

• 1:08:46Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah. Just me, you know, football 301. Check it out. But, but the Steelers though, like they're part of this too. I've been always a Arthur Smith apologist and now with their, their offensive line, Zach Fraser, their center is legitimately one of the best rookies in the NFL, like at any position. And then they have another rookie right guard, Mason McCormick, who's playing well. Isaac Shumalo, their left guard has come back from injury. Like now you can feel that kind of that beef coming back with their run game, which has been a lot of fun, along with Russell Wilson moon balls. But the Bills run game is really good. They, they, I've been calling it spread bully because they'll spread people out or and then they'll just run it down your throat. The, and they, James Cook has, has done a lot better as being kind of more of a sound running back. Ray Davis is really punching people in the face

• 1:09:31Speaker 02

  and it's really just taking advantage of defenses are terrified of Josh Allen. So their Bills are just like, all right, we'll take six yards.

• 1:09:38Bill Simmons?

  Well, you're also seeing bad teams like Carolina last week were like, we suck. Let's just run Hubbard over and over and over again. Maybe this will work and it actually worked.

• 1:09:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're on my, they're on the shortlist here, but Ravens, I already mentioned them. The Eagles realizing, oh yeah, Saquon Barkley is good. Let's just get under center and hand him the ball. No, the Panthers is a great example. They invested in their guards and that was to help out Bryce Young and keep the pocket, the interior of the pocket clean. But then now it's paying dividends with the, you know, the Truba hover and then they can just pound the rock 20 times. I mean, this really, defenses are giving you this. So you have to invest.

• 1:10:11Bill Simmons?

  What does this mean for the drafts? Is this a running backs going to be the same kind of assets they were? Are we going to flip this?

• 1:10:20Speaker 02

  I think it's more, it's still going to be like, maybe, well, this class is of course is kind of a, you have Ashton Jeanty from Boise State, who I have number eight on my big board. I just did a podcast with Dan Bruegler, who from the Athletic, he has him at number six overall in his big board. He's incredible. I don't know if you've watched him yet, but he is one of the most fun watches in any sports. So yeah, Ashton Jeanty, running back from Boise State. But then there's a lot of day two backs. And you, it's just a difference now where these guys have to play all three downs. The only one that, only star running back that doesn't do pass protection is Derrick Henry. But that's Derrick Henry. He can get away with it because he's 6'5", 250 and we can give him the ball 40 times. So we're kind of getting to this new thing where it's like, yeah, you need, you can't

• 1:11:04Speaker 02

  just go, oh, running backs don't matter in the sense that, yeah, or I'm sorry, you can't say running backs don't matter. Don't take them in the first round, but you can't just ignore the position.

• 1:11:14Bill Simmons?

  Like Dallas did.

• 1:11:16Speaker 02

  Like Dallas did. You still have to invest. Look at the Vikings who like Sam Darnold's had a good year, you know, turning into pumpkin a little bit right now. Defense has got a lot of headlines with Brian Flores. They also took Aaron Jones, they signed Aaron Jones.

• 1:11:31Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:11:32Speaker 02

  Totally changed their run game because he's explosive and, and now they don't have to rely on another 20 yard Justin Jefferson play. Okay, Aaron Jones can maybe just give us a 15 yard gain that we didn't have before. So you have to invest in these positions that even it used to be kind of a throwaway, but now I think day two, it's going to turn into like, oh no, we got to take another guy. Even if we have one, we need two, if we're going to really invest in this game.

• 1:11:53Bill Simmons?

  It's why I haven't given up on the Dolphins yet. Just because nine and eight is going to be in the seven seed, but I, and they didn't even run the ball that well against the Rams because the Rams front has been pretty good. I think the Pats are going to have trouble with it this week, but I think they're going to be able to run the ball as it gets colder, which is unusual for our Miami team.

• 1:12:11Speaker 02

  Miami team, right?

• 1:12:12Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, they have a bunch of names.

• 1:12:14Speaker 02

  But no, that's a great.

• 1:12:16Bill Simmons?

  Wait, I have a question based off your thing.

• 1:12:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:12:19Bill Simmons?

  Do you have a favorite random non-star arrow pointing up running back as we head toward fantasy playoffs? Are you buying the guy in Denver? Big waiver wire guy this week. Yeah.

• 1:12:33Speaker 02

  Ojek Estime? Yeah, I am. I was pretty high on him in this draft. He was one of my more favorite backs. Non-standard. Oh, man. Now, well, Tyrone Tracy, everyone's got him now.

• 1:12:42Bill Simmons?

  No, he's already happened.

• 1:12:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, he's already swooped up by everybody. God, no.

• 1:12:47Bill Simmons?

  Are you a Braylon, are you a Braylon Allen stock buried in, like, your shoebox up in your attic?

• 1:12:52Speaker 02

  I do. I do. As, he's a Wisconsin guy. I've been hearing about how young he is for about five years now.

• 1:12:58Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:12:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, he, oh, Roshan Johnson, maybe for the Bears?

• 1:13:03Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 1:13:04Speaker 02

  As maybe just a flyer because I don't know, like, they invested in Deandre Swift, but it's kind of like Deandre Swift's making a lot of mistakes. So like in just other things and Roshan Johnson's a little safer. So maybe he kind of takes a few more touches there. So maybe that's one, you know, kind of looking on, you know, the kind of fifth tier running backs. Yeah. If you're throwing some dart throws. Ray Davis is the other one for the Bills, but he's already probably been swept by a lot of teams.

• 1:13:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. To me, running backs, it's like seeing like a good-looking actor or actress or like just hearing a good voice and you just know immediately. I feel like with running backs, you know right away. It's like, oh, that guy's good. Is that it?

• 1:13:38Speaker 02

  The easiest position to scout. It's like, it's, yeah, it's, it's the one where.

• 1:13:42Bill Simmons?

  Like Ray Davis, you'd be like, oh, that guy's good. Oh, yeah. He'll, he'll help the Bills. You just kind of know immediately.

• 1:13:46Speaker 02

  Oh, he keeps getting positive yards. This is good. Yeah. No. And, and in this class too, and next year's draft class, there's just a ton of day two guys like, and it's, so there's kind of a rejuvenation of that, that position that's happening right now.

• 1:13:59Bill Simmons?

  All right, Nate Tice, before we go, I'll give you 75 seconds.

• 1:14:07Bill Simmons?

  To not panic about the Timberwolves.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  Oh, no. Oh, I'm panicked. They need a players only meeting. They miss Kyle Anderson. You know, that they miss him so bad. My guy's slow mo. They they really miss him right now because he was such a glue guy for them as far as just the second unit defense. And and just also an auxiliary ball handler and all that. And I still I still have to I still have faith. But I was also wanting to make the fricking semis for the in season tournament. So I can watch them here in Vegas. Like, you know, can we keep the NBA cup? Can we like, can you guys focus on the NBA cup? So I can watch you here in Vegas. But no, I am a little worried because there there's a little bit too much of this kind of lackadaisicalness. Especially on the defensive end and Rudy Gobert has kind of said, oh, yeah, it's on me. But you know, that's Rudy.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  And it doesn't help when Karl Anthony Towns is dropping 40 something in New York, even though they lost. Still, you know, that that that doesn't help. But so I have a little bit more panic, even though I've been I'm still optimistic about this team because I just love Anthony Edwards so so much.

• 1:15:09Bill Simmons?

  I said this on Tuesday night's pod because we did a pod after NBA cup and I was saying with the Timberwolves.

• 1:15:16Bill Simmons?

  It's early. You don't want to panic. Edwards is obviously better than he was last year. So that's a bonus. With that said, I just liked the team from March, April, May more. I thought they were so unique. I didn't really know what the ceiling was. It was, but they were a one of one. There was nobody else like them in the league. And now I just feel like they're another team.

• 1:15:39Speaker 02

  Oh, that is, it's one of my biggest beliefs in sports is you got to zag when everyone else is zigging and going, we need swing. You know, we need all these swing guys. We need all these wings. And they're like, no, we're getting three centers.

• 1:15:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:51Speaker 02

  And we're going to just go down your throat because you're like a, you know, triple option team in college. Shoot, we only face this once a year. Like, oh, God, all right, how do we defend this? Oh, God, they're so unique. And yeah, in a playoff time, when you get the repeat matchups. But the thing is, who's still the, you know, well, other than the Thunder, the Nuggets? They had the best counter for the Nuggets. They could just keep throwing size at them. One, you know, one after guy. Jokic and all the guys.

• 1:16:16Bill Simmons?

  I think that Dallas series really, well, it's two things. One is financially, it's just so much harder to keep any team together. And it was clearly a financial move first, but I also think that Dallas beat them in a way that made them think like, all right, we solved Denver, but now we have Dallas and OKC to worry about for the rest of the decade. And maybe we should zag again. But I just, I, I, I don't like when you're doing something that, you know, you're being mentioned with some of the great teams in the last 35 years of the league at. And now you just seem like you're an ordinary team defensively. I know they're not ordinary because they have Gobert and they have Edwards.

• 1:16:54Bill Simmons?

  McDaniel's is playing better, but it feels different. I'm not going to panic until 30 games. I know you're an actual fan, so you're panicking now.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  No, I don't. Well, for me, my NBA fandom really starts after the All-Star game because that's when I'm like, it's perfect. Super Bowl happens, NBA All-Star game. Okay, now I can start paying attention to other things, but now they're on a lot more national TV games. And so I can't avoid them. And, and so, yeah, I, I, I do have some doubt, but I, I am an optimist overall. I do trust Edwards. I do trust Finch.

• 1:17:24Bill Simmons?

  So are you rooting against Towns like a scoring lover and he's on a new team? You're just like, I hope that guy goes two for 14 every night?

• 1:17:33Speaker 02

  I wouldn't say it's rooting against, but I would just say, you know, Knicks fans, get ready for some bad fouls at the worst times. And get ready for some frustrating. Get ready for some frustrating turnovers where you're like, weren't you a coach's kid?

• 1:17:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:48Speaker 02

  You know, get ready for those on top of the moments of brilliance where you watch one of the best offensive big men you'll ever see, most skilled guys.

• 1:17:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:56Speaker 02

  But yeah, he's, he's a very frustrating player. I, I'll tell you, Carl, I've, I've had some swear words for Carl Anthony Towns and myself while watching him.

• 1:18:05Bill Simmons?

  Nate Teis, great to see you. You can read and follow Nate through the whole Yahoo Sports Network. Great to see you. Thanks for, uh, thanks for being here on Drake May Island with me.

• 1:18:16Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me. I'll, I'll look over at your yard. Let me know if you ever need sugar.

• 1:18:24Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh. Writer-director of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival. Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys. Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now.

• 1:19:10Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the Metta pant, that's my number one, I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com/Simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. All right, we're bringing house back to do Million Dollar Picks. Before we do that, it's time for today's Player Bundle segment presented by our friends at State Farm House. Yeah. So it's tough to crown the best player in football history. No one can deny the magic when the right two players work together to pull off the unexpected.

• 1:19:54Bill Simmons?

  Like for me, Brady and Edelman during the comeback against the Seahawks that culminated in the Malcolm Butler game. Little Edelman Brady magic. What do you have for in Washington history? It's gotta be, it's gotta involve John Riggins, it's gotta involve Joe Theismann. Joe Theismann handing off to John Riggins, Super Bowl 17, 1983, the Beesel, the Hogs. There we go. That's the one. I remember as a kid, John Riggins, who everyone was saying was a character. And when we were kids, we didn't know what that meant, but it could have gone in a variety of directions. But one of the reasons he was a character was he got the Mohawk haircut once, remember? Well.

• 1:20:38Bill Simmons?

  Like years before on another team. He also told the Supreme.

• 1:20:43Speaker 04

  Justice to loosen up.

• 1:20:45Bill Simmons?

  He did. He also did that.

• 1:20:47Speaker 04

  Loosen up Sandy baby.

• 1:20:48Bill Simmons?

  He was a true Aiden's character and also had a little synergy with Joe Haseman. You know what else is better together? Building your home and auto insurance with the personal price plan from State Farm. The personal price plan, which you call the place so you can choose the right coverage at a price that's right for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state. Coverage options are selected by the customer. Availability, amount of discounts and savings eligibility vary by state. All right, we're going to talk some million dollar picks. I'm still upset about what happened last week. We basically split.

• 1:21:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:31Bill Simmons?

  Last week and one of the reasons we, even though I felt like we were all over the slate. And we couldn't figure out a good way to bet on the Lions. So we did the Lions first half Lions game, that loss.

• 1:21:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:44Bill Simmons?

  We really liked the Dolphins and we tried to get cute. We did Dolphins plus four and a half with the over 42 and a half. And of course they, they just figured out a way to not get to 40 points in that game.

• 1:21:57Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what the Rams are doing. So we lost those two, but we hit Eagles Chargers tees. We had Steelers, Washington. We had Cards, Jets. Like I feel like I have a nice feel for the slate and I like this week. And I don't know. Do you want to do Chiefs Bills last or first?

• 1:22:13Speaker 04

  Let's do it first. Let's go ahead and just, you know, sort of crush this because I'm having a hard time with this game. I'm going to confess to you right off the top.

• 1:22:24Speaker 04

  It feels like a Bill's spot to me. It feels like a great spot for the Bills at home. Coming off of the last two seasons, regular season wins against the Chiefs. You know, it, it, it matters. Now look, with where the Bills are with only two losses. It's kind of crucial in terms of the seeding for the AFC. So that would be the argument for the Chiefs going all out here. The Chiefs are not walking in here. Looking to concede anything to the Bills, but I don't know. It just feels like a Bill's spot to me.

• 1:23:05Bill Simmons?

  As in a Bills minus two and a half, you'd want to bet that spot and bet against Patrick Mahomes as an underdog, even though his, what is he 13, one and one as an underdog career?

• 1:23:15Speaker 04

  No, under no circumstances am I betting against.

• 1:23:18Bill Simmons?

  All right. I just wanted to make sure. I thought you, I didn't know if you're a buzz house or I just did heroin house because there's no way we're betting against Patrick Mahomes.

• 1:23:26Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no chance. Absolutely no chance.

• 1:23:29Bill Simmons?

  So I do think it's probably going to be a close game and I was looking at a couple of spots to bump that from a plus two and a half to either a plus three and a half or a plus four and a half. I think the Chiefs can also win.

• 1:23:42Speaker 04

  Of course.

• 1:23:43Bill Simmons?

  It's, I'm just like, I'm saying like, we could just bet the money line.

• 1:23:49Bill Simmons?

  But the Bills, it's a more important game for them for nine different reasons.

• 1:23:54Speaker 04

  That's what I think.

• 1:23:55Bill Simmons?

  And that part worries me. I wonder if the Chiefs a month from now, when they have all their weapons back will be a slightly different thing, but I just like the football matchup for them with the, the type of defense the Bills have versus what the Chiefs have just been good at are these long drives, third and fours, third and sevens, just moving the chains, moving the chains. And I think you can do that against the bet and then go deep on them. I think the fact that Baltimore looks so good against that Buffalo D that time, I don't think that's not nothing. Like when they went against a really good quarterback, they got kind of torched. So.

• 1:24:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. What scares me like inside the X's and the O's is how hurt Buffalo is at the receiver position. And if they try to establish the run, then you're, then you're in trouble because the Chiefs have a dominant.

• 1:24:45Bill Simmons?

  The Chiefs will swallow that. It looks like Kinkade, Dalton Kinkade might not play.

• 1:24:50Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:24:50Bill Simmons?

  And even if he plays, he's hurt. Amari Cooper's hurt. I don't know what's going to, we're taping this on a Thursday. I don't think this is the right version of the Bills team.

• 1:24:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:25:00Bill Simmons?

  To, because I think realistically you, you need to get to 27 points to beat this Chiefs team. Make them put up points back. But anyway, there's a couple of things I have with Chiefs plus three and a half or Chiefs plus four and a half tied to the Lions.

• 1:25:15Speaker 04

  Let me ask you this before you do it. Why aren't we just auto teasing the Chiefs? Taking the Chiefs from two and a half up to eight and a half?

• 1:25:24Bill Simmons?

  I looked at that. Couldn't really find the second team that I felt awesome about. Like you suggested the Dolphins. I don't trust the Dolphins. I don't trust this Jackie Mike McDaniel. I don't want to put him in a tease.

• 1:25:37Speaker 04

  I'll confess, I've had some misgivings my own self.

• 1:25:40Bill Simmons?

  I don't, I just, Tua, like when Tua trying to tackle that dude on the interception and it seems like he got hit in that. I just don't want any part of that. So one of the things I was thinking was you could take the Chiefs to plus four and a half. You could do the Detroit first half game bet against the Jaguars who they're favored by 13 and a half against Mac Jones. That's minus 102. You could do Chiefs plus three and a half, Lions minus two and a half against the Jags. That's minus 119 basically. Maybe that's the move. Buy that extra half point. Lions just have to win by three.

• 1:26:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. Okay.

• 1:26:14Bill Simmons?

  Is Mac Jones gonna win in Detroit?

• 1:26:17Speaker 04

  Nope. No, sir.

• 1:26:20Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:26:20Speaker 04

  No, he is not.

• 1:26:22Bill Simmons?

  He's not winning. Okay. So we'll mark that down. Next one, both of us like the Broncos are home for the Falcons and this line is under three and it's a gift from the gods.

• 1:26:32Bill Simmons?

  Denver's defense. First yards per play, second in sacks, third in QB hits. They're top 10 against the run and the pass.

• 1:26:44Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta's defense. 32nd in sacks, 31st in QB hits, 24th against the pass, 28th against third down. Here's my point. I think Denver's D can chase Kirk a little bit, make some plays, and I think Bo Nix is gonna have time to throw and he feels like he's getting a little bit better every week. Nate Tice talked about it. It's turned into like he's a serviceable starter. They can run the ball. I like this rookie that's gonna play for them that everybody's grabbing, including in our keeper league, I grabbed them.

• 1:27:19Bill Simmons?

  Estine, Estine, whatever his name is.

• 1:27:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, whatever.

• 1:27:21Bill Simmons?

  Seems like they're excited about him, but I think they can run the ball. I don't think the Falcons are good. How about that?

• 1:27:27Speaker 04

  Not only do I share this opinion, I think the Broncos, I'm going to be looking at some alt lines to lay.

• 1:27:33Bill Simmons?

  We did that last week.

• 1:27:34Speaker 04

  To lay for Denver.

• 1:27:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:36Speaker 04

  Well, no, I'm going to lay extras to get some juice on it for Denver because I think they might beat the hell out of Atlanta. It's Atlanta, uh, you know, to Denver, the altitude, it's outdoors. So the version of the Atlanta offense that has been successful, the wins that they've collected, that's not going to be, and I just think this Denver defense is going to be getting up the field and into Kirk Cousins and making him uncomfortable. And Bo Nix has shown us, you know, he's got a string of, uh, over 200 yard games and, and

• 1:28:11Bill Simmons?

  he's competent.

• 1:28:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, a couple touchdowns. I, I mean, I, I think it's a, it's a great spot for Denver. Plus, Sean Payton's not going to lose three straight games. I mean, they, they lost to Baltimore, fair enough. They lost to the Chiefs in a game they had won until the last play of the game.

• 1:28:26Bill Simmons?

  Until the Chiefs cheated, let's be honest. What the hell was that? Have you seen some of the internet videos of that? Are you allowed to put 19 guys on one side of the line and just knock the left guard flying backwards with seven guys? Thought we outlawed that.

• 1:28:41Speaker 04

  That's the A-side team right there. That's the Chiefs, that's the A-side team.

• 1:28:45Bill Simmons?

  So.

• 1:28:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:28:47Bill Simmons?

  Atlanta on the road, they've had four road games so far. Week two Philly, game was over, Philly fucked it up and Atlanta scored at the end one by one. Um, Carolina, they killed. Tampa barely won, easily could have lost, then New Orleans, they lost. You go look at through their wins and it's just like, they easily could be three, they have six wins. They also easily could be like three and seven.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:29:16Bill Simmons?

  They're three plays away from being a three and seven team. I, I just don't think they're impressive. I thought that New Orleans loss was awful.

• 1:29:22Speaker 04

  I don't think there's any difference between, um, the, the, these two teams in terms of, uh, you know, power ranking and all the rest of it. I prefer Denver.

• 1:29:33Bill Simmons?

  Me too. I think Denver's like, oh, sorry, you lost to Baltimore and Kansas City. Like I, I still feel like they're.

• 1:29:40Speaker 04

  Back to back weeks.

• 1:29:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're the good, bad team. I'm in on Denver, so Denver minus two and a half, we'll mark that. I hesitate to bring this one up, but Colts plus three and a half against the Jets.

• 1:29:55Bill Simmons?

  It feels like a unique chance to bet against a downtrodden Jets team. That has sucked the soul and life and spirit

• 1:30:06Bill Simmons?

  out of the fans, out of the city, out of the players and the team. The Rogers thing, Tim Kean had a thing on ESPN. He had a whole story about the last four weeks of Rogers. You read that and it's like, this is bad. And it was not like, not a lot of smoking gun stories, but it's just like, this sucks. He's, this is gone. It couldn't have gone worse. Their season's over. I don't think they like playing with Rogers. They built the whole team around him and he's, he's banged up and probably broken. And then you have the Colts who are getting points, the Jets, um, they're 30th rushing. The Colts, that's the one way to beat them is to run on them. The Jets are bad at running the ball, as anyone who has Breece Hall knows.

• 1:30:52Bill Simmons?

  I just feel like the Colts can get on track, but Anthony Richardson is starting.

• 1:30:58Speaker 04

  So here, here's the thing, and I do want to, to, to lean into the Colts, but it, it would be with caution. There is a bet out there that I think is a tremendous bet, and it's Anthony Richardson over 38 and a half rushing yards. I think he might run for a hundred yards. Like I, I'm not, I'm not suggesting anybody wager on that. But I think that the commitment that Shane Steichen is, is going to make to getting Richardson's confidence back. The thing that he is best at is moving the football with his legs. They are going to give that man the green light.

• 1:31:38Speaker 04

  And the thing that we have seen with this Jets defense again and again and again, is they are not tough. That is not a tough defense. They don't like to, to, to take on, uh, big. What we saw in terms of the Cardinals running the ball right down the Jets throat, the, the 50 yard play, you know, right, right, right before halftime with the Cardinals against the Jets. That's, that's the identity of this Jets defense. I love the Anthony Richardson over 38 and a half rushing yards. That's my favorite, one of my favorite bets of the weekend.

• 1:32:13Bill Simmons?

  So they're plus three and a half. What if I offered you Colts minus two and a half? Parlayed with Anthony Richardson.

• 1:32:22Bill Simmons?

  Over thirty eight and a half rushing yards is plus three sixty six.

• 1:32:27Speaker 04

  I mean, are we, how am I allowed to say fuck yes on this podcast?

• 1:32:32Bill Simmons?

  You're, I mean, you know, the answer to that.

• 1:32:35Speaker 04

  Because.

• 1:32:35Bill Simmons?

  What are you talking about?

• 1:32:36Speaker 04

  I had, I love that one. I.

• 1:32:39Bill Simmons?

  The other way to do that is just do the Colts money line plus one seventy six. That's plus three oh nine.

• 1:32:46Speaker 04

  Where, where do you think, uh, Aaron Rodgers is gonna go in the Trump administration? Where, where, where, he's gonna be the ambassador. Where is he gonna be an ambassador? The ambassador to?

• 1:32:58Bill Simmons?

  He's gonna be the ambassador of Ascaloosa, Central.

• 1:33:01Speaker 04

  To Mexico? Is he going, is he going to South America?

• 1:33:05Bill Simmons?

  Turning into my dad. Ayahuasca?

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  Ayahuasca. Where?

• 1:33:09Bill Simmons?

  Ayahuasca, he's gonna be the ambassador of Ayahuasca.

• 1:33:11Speaker 04

  We could be the ambassador.

• 1:33:13Bill Simmons?

  And Ascaloosa.

• 1:33:16Speaker 04

  They could send him to, to, to Tahiti. Where's he wanna go? He's gonna, he's definitely gonna get a job in, in the administration.

• 1:33:25Bill Simmons?

  So Colts plus three and a half with Richardson over thirty eight and a half is plus two oh nine.

• 1:33:32Speaker 04

  Let's do that. That's fun.

• 1:33:33Bill Simmons?

  Plus three and a half. It's a field goal game. Okay.

• 1:33:35Speaker 04

  Don't you think that's fun?

• 1:33:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a good one. Plus every time Richardson, the fun thing about that is it is fun to watch him run. You sure you don't wanna do the plus three sixty six where they win by two and a half?

• 1:33:48Speaker 04

  Two and a small, you know, like we did last week, we did, we put ten grand on some ridiculous.

• 1:33:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:33:54Speaker 04

  Both the Giants and somebody else to win. Oh, San Francisco.

• 1:33:57Bill Simmons?

  That lost.

• 1:33:58Speaker 04

  Those, those two teams.

• 1:34:00Bill Simmons?

  All right. By the way, I don't feel like the Colts are that bad. I thought Flacco, and I, I thought it was the right move to start him. Flacco was terrible.

• 1:34:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:08Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's officially over. I don't know what happened to him and the Browns for those five, six weeks, but he's back to being the Joe Flacco we remembered and loved betting against.

• 1:34:17Speaker 04

  I tried to do my Ursay impression on Monday because I'm so on East Coast on our East Coast bias podcast. I'm 1,000% positive that Ursay after Richardson tapped out and said that in that press conference, he came downstairs and, and, and get this guy, this guy, I can't have this guy.

• 1:34:39Bill Simmons?

  He's a quitter. Yeah, he just got back.

• 1:34:41Speaker 04

  I can't have a quitter running my team, Shane. You gotta get this guy. And, and Shane's like, okay, okay, you, it's, it's your team. It's your team. It wasn't the right football decision. It wasn't the right franchise decision, but you know, they, they did what the owner wanted and now we're back to the football plan and Shane Steichen has the football plan. So we're doing the right thing here.

• 1:35:07Bill Simmons?

  Next one. I think we are in violent agreement. Chargers against the Bengals. Chargers laying minus one and a half. Bengals in a must win spot, a very popular public team. Explosive offense, fourth passing. Burrows been a fantasy god. And yet I love the Chargers. Shane, is this our argue pick?

• 1:35:33Speaker 04

  I don't know. Here, here, my, the concern is Burrow these nuts. We burrowed these nuts. He is on a heater. He's been incredible and those weapons are unlike any weapons that the Chargers have seen to this point.

• 1:35:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but we don't even know if Higgins is playing.

• 1:35:55Speaker 04

  It's still.

• 1:35:56Bill Simmons?

  He's got the red flag next to him. Believe me, I have him in fantasy. It's questionable.

• 1:36:01Speaker 04

  And they can't run the ball, the Bengals. They can't run the ball.

• 1:36:04Bill Simmons?

  Cannot run the ball.

• 1:36:06Speaker 04

  This is a, this, this is the Bengal season because they can't, they are behind both the Chargers and the Broncos. And if they lose to either one of these teams, that's it. Season's over. They can't climb back.

• 1:36:17Bill Simmons?

  Take. Season's not over.

• 1:36:19Speaker 04

  Why?

• 1:36:20Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it's over if they lose the game.

• 1:36:23Speaker 04

  Give me the, give me the, the rundown.

• 1:36:25Bill Simmons?

  I think nine wins is going to get the seven seed in the AFC.

• 1:36:30Bill Simmons?

  Right now, they have

• 1:36:35Bill Simmons?

  four wins. They lose this Chargers game. They have at home Pittsburgh, week 13, at Dallas, at Tennessee. Those are gonna be two wins. Now we're at six.

• 1:36:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:46Bill Simmons?

  Home Cleveland, that's seven. They get to play Denver, week 17. That's eight. And then they're at Pittsburgh, week 18. So it's not necessar- they just have to split the Pittsburgh games. Beat Dallas, Tennessee, Cleveland, Denver, and they get the nine wins.

• 1:37:02Speaker 04

  They need these teams, they need the Chargers and the Broncos both to fall off.

• 1:37:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but they could, they could take care of Denver by themselves in week 17. I, it, look, it wouldn't be great if they lost this game. I'm not saying it would be, but, um.

• 1:37:16Speaker 04

  The reason I like the Chargers is because very quietly, Herbert is healthy. He's throwing the ball downfield. They have vertical weapons. And Herbert is, speaking of being in, in his bag, there's a physicality to him. You forget that he's a tough SOB.

• 1:37:33Bill Simmons?

  He's 6'6".

• 1:37:34Speaker 04

  That big boy has, has played hurt a lot in his career. We've seen him take shots. And he's taken on the personality of Harbaugh a little bit. I, I, I like this uh, little bit of a swagger that I'm seeing uh, out of them. I, I, I like the idea of the Chargers here. I, I, I want to just be cautious, that's all.

• 1:37:56Bill Simmons?

  They have six wins. They're playing, but this is the hardest part of their schedule. Home Cincy, home Baltimore, at Atlanta, at KC. So realistically, they probably have to go two and two to really feel good about the playoffs, but I, this is, this is where I've landed. I think the line is two points off. I think they should be three and a half point favorites.

• 1:38:15Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 1:38:17Bill Simmons?

  What have the Bengals done to deserve anything? They're poorly coached. Their defense is awful.

• 1:38:23Speaker 04

  They have four.

• 1:38:24Bill Simmons?

  Their defense sucks.

• 1:38:24Speaker 04

  They have four wins against teams that if you add up all their victories.

• 1:38:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:29Speaker 04

  Are not, nine victories. Their, their four wins have come against teams with nine total wins.

• 1:38:34Bill Simmons?

  Their defense, 31st in the red zone, feels worse. 29th on third down, 27th on first down, giving them up. 23rd against the Pats. I just think, I think the Chargers are legit good. And then I'll throw this at you. On one sideline, Jim Harbaugh. On the other side, Zach Taylor. I just think they have the advantages and this is going to be a rare Chargers home game where there's not going to be 30,000 of the other teams fans in the building because it's not like there's going to be 30,000 Bengals fans there. I think people like this Chargers team. There's an energy around them right now. And, uh, and I think Herbert's playing great and they could run the ball. I trust their receivers. Their receivers are getting open on the third

• 1:39:18Bill Simmons?

  downs. I think, to me, this game reminds me of Arizona Jets last week where I just feel like the line's off. About last week, I thought that Cardinals line was, was idiotic and I think this line's idiotic.

• 1:39:30Speaker 04

  The Chargers also have, uh, Greg Roman, uh, in their mix who has all that experience from his time with, with Baltimore going up against this, this Bengals team, you know, going up against this Bengals defense. Yeah, I, I, I like the, I like the Chargers.

• 1:39:48Bill Simmons?

  This seems like a very public bet where people look at it and they go, well, the Bengals need the game and Burrows playing well, so they're going to get it. And I don't think that's a good reason. The Chargers are a really good football team.

• 1:39:59Speaker 04

  On both sides.

• 1:40:01Bill Simmons?

  I don't think they're on that Chiefs, Ravens, Bills level, but I think they're a notch below and I think they'd be a really dangerous seven point underdog in a round one playoff game.

• 1:40:10Speaker 04

  How about this? I was looking for a possible angle to tease the Bengals, but then you look at the Chargers wins, they're all by margin. All of the Chargers wins have been at least seven points.

• 1:40:21Bill Simmons?

  Their defense, yeah, their defense gets better as the game goes along.

• 1:40:24Speaker 04

  They choke the life out of you.

• 1:40:26Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:27Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:40:28Bill Simmons?

  All right. So here's the game I really want to dive into. Ravens Steelers, it's in Pittsburgh. Ravens are favored by three. Steelers are seven and two. Mike Tomlin is a home underdog. Whole bunch of reasons to be like, ah, of course, we've taken the Steelers all year. I think we've taken them six times at million dollar picks. We have a bunch of futures with them. The thing that worries me, House.

• 1:40:53Bill Simmons?

  This isn't the type of team that should succeed against Baltimore. Cause Baltimore 32nd against the pass, right? You want to throw on them. You want to do what Burrow did last week. Pittsburgh wants to win like they beat you guys in Washington last week. Where they want to run the ball, pound the ball, control the clock. Then every once in a while, throw deep down one of the sidelines, but win with defense. I, that's not how you beat Baltimore. You beat Baltimore by throwing the ball on them because they suck on pass defense. And yet Pittsburgh's 26th, but their passing offense, their defense, they're top five in a whole bunch of stuff. First down, run, red zone, hits, turnovers. But Baltimore's offense is first in basically anything, everything.

• 1:41:37Bill Simmons?

  And uh, it just feels to me like Baltimore is going to be able to control this game. And maybe they'll end up, Pittsburgh will end up splitting the series. But I don't like the spot for Pittsburgh. I think this is a bad matchup for them. So how do you see it?

• 1:41:53Speaker 04

  So we just need to understand what we're walking into, right? Because underdogs in this series, you know, which other team is the underdog? 10, 1-1 against the spread, 9-3 straight up in the last 12 matchups. So just that, each of the last five times that the Steelers have been underdogs, they have won outright. Uh, and over history, these two guys, Tomlin and Harbaugh, the underdog. They faced each other 32 times. The underdog is 23, 6 and 3 against the spread. It's, it's just insane.

• 1:42:33Speaker 04

  Pittsburgh, uh, the, the underdog, when it, when it, the, the line is three points or more. 18, 2 and 3 between these two guys. So that's what you're up against when you're walking into this. But look, here's the thing, I'm not going to make the whole handicap about one guy. It's just a big deal for Pittsburgh to not have Alex Heisman. Because the, what he brings to them pass rush wise, I got it out.

• 1:43:05Bill Simmons?

  A pass, pass rush.

• 1:43:07Speaker 04

  I got it out.

• 1:43:08Bill Simmons?

  Collinsworth? Yeah, he brought a balance.

• 1:43:12Bill Simmons?

  Now that balance, because we've seen it where we've, there's been guys missing help. It was missing for a couple of games.

• 1:43:19Bill Simmons?

  And it felt like they were back and now all of a sudden they're not back anymore.

• 1:43:22Speaker 04

  There is not a defense on earth that can slow down this Ravens team. It, it, it seems so. You have to believe that there's a significant advantage, which is crazy for the Steelers at, in special teams. We, we, you know, it's a rarity to talk about Baltimore being behind anybody else in special teams, but they are highly mediocre, highly average because Justin Tucker's fallen off a little bit. Their punters shank the punt against the Raiders and that is how the Raiders came back in week two.

• 1:43:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:56Speaker 04

  And the Steelers are doing what they, they do. I mean, they're, they're third DVOA on.

• 1:44:03Bill Simmons?

  So maybe it's a stay away.

• 1:44:06Speaker 04

  I'd like a teaser leg.

• 1:44:08Bill Simmons?

  Oh, come on.

• 1:44:09Speaker 04

  To me, I would tease the Steelers up to nine and tease the Chiefs up to eight and a half. And to, and just have these, these classic fist fight, almost like Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. Bro, a classic heavyweight brawl and make sure you're getting enough points on, on both side of it. And then just let those, these teams do what they do, which is play close games and, and rest peacefully with your winnings.

• 1:44:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:39Speaker 04

  It's dumb. Okay.

• 1:44:40Bill Simmons?

  I don't feel great about it. Maybe it's a stay away.

• 1:44:43Speaker 04

  Okay. It, it's probably a stay away because we're trying to talk ourselves into the Ravens and every single piece of data over 20 years.

• 1:44:52Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:44:52Speaker 04

  Says, don't do it.

• 1:44:53Bill Simmons?

  Steelers plus three at home is exactly the type of bet that I would do without blinking.

• 1:44:59Speaker 04

  Right. Right.

• 1:45:00Bill Simmons?

  I don't think they're going to be able to run the ball on the Ravens at all. So now we're just putting the game in Russ's hands.

• 1:45:06Speaker 04

  You know what the thing to do?

• 1:45:07Bill Simmons?

  Crappy pass defense.

• 1:45:10Speaker 04

  If you really, really, really want to bet the Ravens, make sure that Kyle Hamilton, check on a daily basis. How's Kyle Hamilton doing?

• 1:45:17Bill Simmons?

  Right. You're right. He might not play either.

• 1:45:20Speaker 04

  What are the reports about how he's feeling, how he's doing, how does he look? Is he, is he a go? Is he not a go? If you have to bet the Ravens, that's the key.

• 1:45:28Bill Simmons?

  So you really like Browns plus one and a half against the Saints?

• 1:45:33Speaker 04

  I love it. I it's it's the Jameis return game. Jameis back to New Orleans, going right to Commander's Palace and getting to sit down with two dozen oysters. It's the Browns off the bye week. Here's here's the distinguishing factor. Look at the Browns injury report.

• 1:45:51Speaker 04

  I'll tell you quickly, there are no names on it. The Browns, it's the healthiest this Browns team has been all season long. And, you know, coming into the season, there was reasonable optimism for the Browns. I think their win total was eight and a half. And so that's a team and the strength is supposed to be in the trenches for this Browns team. Their defensive front seven, their offensive line. Well, their offensive line was basically hurt all the way up until this last, you know, two weeks. And they, because of the way the season has gone, they traded Zedarius Smith in the last handful of weeks. But I think it's just that the Saints team, they got the the the new

• 1:46:34Speaker 04

  coach bounce. They got rid of Dennis Allen.

• 1:46:37Bill Simmons?

  They won one for the Clogger.

• 1:46:39Speaker 04

  That's the best. It's an amazing run for.

• 1:46:43Bill Simmons?

  The Clogger's one to know.

• 1:46:45Speaker 04

  The Sunday night Bill Simmons podcast with Cousin Sal between middle middle coach.

• 1:46:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we've had a good run of Coach Dick Dams. Yeah, so the Clogger got his win.

• 1:46:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:46:56Bill Simmons?

  I think the Saints are terrible.

• 1:46:58Speaker 04

  They are terrible. Are they going to be able to throw three bombs to Marques Valdez-Scantling? I can't even say the names. Again, I don't think so. I like.

• 1:47:08Bill Simmons?

  Can I read you some really fun Cleveland offense versus New Orleans defense matchups for this game?

• 1:47:14Speaker 04

  It's gonna be hilarious.

• 1:47:15Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland's offense 32nd in yards per play. New Orleans defense 32nd in yards per play.

• 1:47:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:23Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland's offense 28th pass. New Orleans defense 29th pass.

• 1:47:27Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 1:47:28Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland's offense 28th with the run. New Orleans defense 27. And then Cleveland's offense 32nd hits to the quarterback.

• 1:47:37Bill Simmons?

  So last, they've given up the most quarterback hits. New Orleans 27th in hitting the quarterback. So this is like the worst possible offense against the worst possible defense, basically.

• 1:47:48Speaker 04

  What a matchup.

• 1:47:50Bill Simmons?

  Browns are healthier. Nick Chubb, who had a bye week last week, who was finally starting, maybe this is like the Nick Chubb game. Jameis going to New Orleans. I kind of like the Browns. I'm with you.

• 1:48:01Speaker 04

  Isn't that fun? Let's do it. Plus the line is so crazy.

• 1:48:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, the Saints being favored, the Cloggers favored.

• 1:48:10Speaker 04

  Look at the price. It's like even money to, to, to take the, the favored team. And you have to lay crazy juice if you want to take the, the, the Browns. It's like minus 125 to get the one and a half points.

• 1:48:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, why is that? The, the Brown, yeah, they're minus 122 plus one. So. So this is a money line bet then?

• 1:48:37Speaker 04

  Yes, yes, clearly.

• 1:48:39Bill Simmons?

  Minus Browns minus 108. Okay. That sounds good. All right, I think we have our, was there anything else you liked or no?

• 1:48:49Speaker 04

  That was it. That's probably my favorite bet, the Browns, because it's, it's so dumb and hilarious.

• 1:48:54Bill Simmons?

  I think the Rams Pats line is like a point and a half too high toward the Rams. It's Rams minus four and a half, but I, I don't want to bet it. And I also don't know why we don't have money on the Packers. Minus five and a half against Chicago, but it almost looks like a, looks like a trap game. All right, that's good. So million dollar picks. All right, I have a handle on it. Let me ask you this. If I told you we could do Chiefs plus three and a half, parlayed with Lions minus two and a half, minus 119. And we do Chiefs plus eight and a half, Steelers plus nine, T's.

• 1:49:37Bill Simmons?

  Would you want to do both of those or just pick one?

• 1:49:41Speaker 04

  Let's do both. We don't have to do enormous amounts.

• 1:49:45Bill Simmons?

  All right, it's time. Million dollar picks. Week 11.

• 1:49:52Bill Simmons?

  Last week, we lost $10,000, House. I don't know how we did it. It felt like we were all over the slate. We're still up $768,000 for the year. First bet, Broncos home against the wildly overrated Falcons. This is only a minus two and a half. We think this gets to three by Sunday, right? Broncos by three on Sunday?

• 1:50:14Speaker 04

  For sure, for sure, but we're, we're positive. Uh, expected. We, we beat the closing line value here on million dollar picks.

• 1:50:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we do it on Thursday nights. We're grabbing it early. We love the Broncos defense. Not sold on the Falcons at all. They could easily be a three win team. And, uh, Sean Payton. I just, them at home, Bo Nix showing some signs of life. They got three running backs going. Broncos minus two nap. That's our first one. Second one is one that House liked. Colts plus three and a half against the Jets. Just cause if we can bet against the Jets every week, we're just gonna do it until Rogers gets shut down.

• 1:50:53Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:50:54Bill Simmons?

  Anthony Richardson's in this game. House, you had a theory about what Steichen's gonna do with Richardson.

• 1:51:00Speaker 04

  I really think that they're gonna put the ball in his hands and let him have the green light to, to, to run early, to run often, and just like reestablish himself, reestablish the team's confidence in him. He's a tough guy. He's gonna show them that he's a tough guy. He's gonna get the job done. And Ambassador Rogers can't wait to go off to his exotic destination.

• 1:51:25Bill Simmons?

  So we, uh, that was plus 209. Colts plus three and a half with Richardson over 38 and a half rushing yards.

• 1:51:36Speaker 04

  It's a great bet.

• 1:51:37Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna put 100K on that one.

• 1:51:40Bill Simmons?

  Chargers minus one and a half against the Bengals. I love this bet. I think the line should be Chargers minus three and a half. The Bengals, people are just like, oh, the Bengals, they need the game. They can throw the ball. I, I am in on the Chargers. I think they are a really good, complete, well-coached team that can run it. They can throw it. They have a top five or six defense. And, uh, and I think the Bengals are really one dimensional. They make dumb turnovers. They, they do stupid fourth and two and they go for it. They get stuffed. Their defense is awful. And I think the Chargers win this game outright. So we're putting 200K on them and the Broncos minus two and a half as well. And then we're going to put 200K in the Browns minus 108 against the Clogger and the New Orleans Saints. Make the case really fast.

• 1:52:26Speaker 04

  Tough spot for the Saints with the injuries that they have. The Browns are coming off a bye with the clean bill of health. Jameis Winston back to the scene of many crimes, none of which have been reported, but he gets to get back to Commander Palace. We love the Browns. Offensive line, defensive front seven, they're going to put pressure on Derek Carr. No receivers left except for MBS. Good luck to the Saints.

• 1:52:52Bill Simmons?

  Lot of pick six misdemeanors and a lot of picks and crossing route misdemeanors by Jameis. Last but not least, we're going to do something a little different. Put a little more on this Chiefs game because it's Chiefs Bills, Chiefs getting two and a half, and we're going to tweak this in two different ways for 150,000 each. First, Chiefs up to plus three and a half. We're going to buy a point and combine it with the Lions minus two and a half against the Jaguars and Mac Jones. The Lions are huge favorites in Detroit, so we're going to use that. That's minus 119. Then we're going to tease the Chiefs to plus eight and a half with the Steelers where we went back and forth. We have to put money on this game somehow. We've decided this is a touchdown game

• 1:53:35Bill Simmons?

  one way or the other because we argued about it for so long. We realized, oh, it's in Pittsburgh. Steelers are underdogs. It's a great spot for them. Let's just tease them to plus nine and enjoy it. So we're going to put 150,000 on both of those bets. And the case is, it's the Chiefs. Their record is what? 27 and one and one as underdogs with Mahomes. 127. I don't know how many times he's covered it. He's only lost once in the Bills, home of the 13 seconds game. Bills are a little banged up. I just think the Chiefs have a better team. I think the Lions insulting. I think Mahomes should be insulted. So we're putting bets on both of those. So to recap, 200K on Broncos minus two and a half, Browns minus 108 to win outright, Chargers minus one

• 1:54:20Bill Simmons?

  and a half. Then we're doing the Joe House parlay Colts plus three and a half with Richardson, 38.5 rush, 100K to win, plus 209 on that. And then 250K bets, Chiefs plus three and a half, parlayed with the Lions minus two and a half.

• 1:54:38Bill Simmons?

  And then the Chiefs plus eight and a half Steelers plus nine as a tease. But before we go, I have to ask you this Joe House. Do we do the Cousin Sal special with Steelers? Ravens win first half Steelers win game nine to one on FanDuel.

• 1:54:54Speaker 04

  How could we not?

• 1:54:54Bill Simmons?

  It's hit three times this year already.

• 1:54:56Speaker 04

  How could we not?

• 1:54:57Bill Simmons?

  It's hit three times already.

• 1:54:59Speaker 04

  Criminal negligence for us to sit here with this opportunity, this marquee game and not get in on this Cousin Sal special. It's a must have here on the million dollar.

• 1:55:08Bill Simmons?

  Little 25K sprinkling?

• 1:55:10Speaker 04

  Yes, have to do it. Required. Mandatory.

• 1:55:14Bill Simmons?

  25K on the Cousin Sal Steelers parlay Steelers special. What's he calling it?

• 1:55:21Speaker 04

  He gotta come up with a great name for it. I mean, Brad, he's a, he's a master of branding.

• 1:55:26Bill Simmons?

  The Cousin Sal Steelers special.

• 1:55:28Speaker 04

  Fine. Great.

• 1:55:29Bill Simmons?

  The CSSS.

• 1:55:30Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 1:55:31Bill Simmons?

  25K on that is nine to one on FanDuel. It's hit three times already this year. It would be hilarious if it hit again. Those are the million dollar picks for week 11. House, buzzed house, semi drunk house. Thanks for staying up late with us. Thanks for not offending us. Good luck with your C cup parlay. Would you call it the C cup booster?

• 1:55:50Speaker 04

  Well, you didn't get the C cup profit booster, but I'll, I'll live with the C cup parlay. I'm going to go to bed now and dream about where Ambassador Rogers is going to land.

• 1:56:00Bill Simmons?

  Good to see you, House.

• 1:56:03Bill Simmons?

  All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Joe House. Thanks to Nate Tice. Thanks to Kyle Crichton and Steve Sarudy. As always, don't forget you can watch clips and videos from this podcast. On the Bill Simmons channel on YouTube and I will be back on Sunday night with the Cuz. We'll be going live on YouTube as well. You can watch it as we do it if you want, or you can just wait to listen to it later that night or the next day. Enjoy the weekend. I will see you Sunday night.

• 1:56:56Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states. For Kansas, an affiliation with Kansas Star Casino. Or 18 plus and present in DC. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York.