An NBA Six-Pack, Belichick to UNC, and Million-Dollar Picks

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons cracks open an NBA six-pack of topics, including possible Jimmy Butler trades, next year out-of-nowhere contenders, an NBA rules tweak, and more (2:58). Then Bill is joined by ESPN’s Seth Wickersham to discuss Bill Belichick becoming the next head football coach of the North Carolina Tar Heels, why Belichick didn’t wait around for an NFL opening, how his philosophy might translate to the college game, and more (25:02). Finally, Bill talks with Joe House about some NBA Cup odds and the NFL weekend slate (1:21:13), before making the Million Dollar Picks for NFL Week 15 (1:59:29). Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Seth Wickersham and Joe House Producers Kyle Crichton and Chia Hao Tat The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Bill Simmons?

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

• 0:45Bill Simmons?

  Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. 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. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where we put up a new rewatchables on Monday night. We did Disclosure, an absolutely bizarre movie from the 1990s with Michael Douglas and Demi Moore.

• 1:29Bill Simmons?

  Did that with Van and Big Wiz. Go check that out. You can watch that on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. We're also brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, where I gotta say, I've been costing them money lately and I'm not ashamed to brag about it. We've been doing these 30 on 30s during the NBA Cup rounds on Fridays. And then we carried it over to last week on Friday. And basically, it's a profit boost token. You could boost any 30-point scorer, 30-plus. All they have to do is get to 30, anything higher. On a 30 on 30, special bet on this Friday, slate. So FanDuel, listen to me. I told them, let's do this. Let's try to get some profit boosts. Let's try to win the people some money. We started doing it. I've been tweeting out my picks on Friday.

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  I look at the slate, start to get, I do like my favorite picks plus some long shots. I've been hitting the long shots. Just telling you, go check it out. I'll be tweeting those out on Fridays. Be sure to claim your PBT and place your 30 on 30 bet for Friday. Look for 30 on 30 in the FanDuel Sportsbook app. You can also look for the Ringer Sunday pregame show as well, which you do on FanDuel TV, on FanDuel's fast channel and on YouTube TV, most importantly, at 11 ET on Sunday. Sal has been absolutely out of his mind hot. I think he's 12 and 12 and 2 on best bets. And he's not shy about telling everybody that he talks to about how excited he is about that. So there you go.

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  So on this podcast, I'm going to do an NBA six pack at the top because I had some NBA thoughts, even though we did a bunch of them on Tuesday with Goldsberry and Jacoby. I have more NBA thoughts. So we're going to do a six pack at the top. I talked to Seth Wickersham from ESPN, who's been on here a few times to talk about NFL shenanigans and Bill Belichick craft stuff. So Belichick went to North Carolina. We had to deep dive that and we did it for almost an hour. It was really fun. And then last but not least, million dollar picks are just hot. I don't know. I was trying to think of another word that would sound less braggy, but hot is the word. Million dollar picks are hot. Joe House is going to be on at the end. We're going to try to keep it going. We're at almost $2 million profit of fake money and we're going to see if we can bump it over there.

• 3:42Bill Simmons?

  But we've been on a good streak and I really liked the slate this week. So that is the podcast. We're getting up early today before the Rams Niners game as well. First, our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 4:15Bill Simmons?

  All right, we're gonna kick things off with a special part of today's episode. It is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the NBA, my favorite league. The NBA Cup, not only is it underway, the semifinals are this weekend in Vegas. Michelob Ultra courtside, ready to get fans closer to the action. Sign up for Michelob Ultra for a chance to win courtside seats, a trip to the Paris Global game. That sounds fun. A trip to All-Star Weekend and other prizes. Check out michelobultra.com/courtside for your chance to get closer to the game than ever before. I'm gonna open a six pack. Six things I've noticed, six things I want to talk about. We hit a little bit with Jacoby and Goldsberry on Tuesday night's podcast.

• 4:57Bill Simmons?

  Specifically, we talked about Jimmy Butler and Golden State and how from a Golden State standpoint, you saw it last night, too. I think they have a two to three year window here with Curry and Draymond to compete for a title. Whether they're gonna win a title remains to be seen, but they need one more offensive player, somebody who can take the burden. You saw, you saw in the game last night, they're up six with two and a half minutes left and just some of the worst possessions you could possibly have. They become very easy to stop at the end of the game. So Jimmy Butler is somebody that makes sense for them and kind of fits in him, Draymond, and some role players. You can kind of see it. It's not nothing. So he makes 48.8 million this year and he's a player option. The player option's key because everybody thinks that he's either gonna opt out at

• 5:40Bill Simmons?

  the end of the year and become a free agent, or he'll want to do an extension with Miami, which Miami clearly doesn't want to do because they've had a year and have to do it. Okay, so we talked about some of the apron stuff on Tuesday and how hard it is to make trades in the NBA right now. And I was saying how, on the one hand, I kind of like it because it's a little more like the NFL. Guys are kind of stuck in their situations. You can't just decide you're unhappy in a month and be, I want to go somewhere else. You look at Brandon Ingram, you look at Zach Levine, these are guys that are actually, well Ingram just got hurt, but guys that were playing pretty well in situations that they weren't happy with because they didn't really have any other choice. And that could be how it plays out with Jimmy Butler. On the other hand, we've, we've already seen that he can get a little frisky if he's not happy.

• 6:24Bill Simmons?

  I think Miami's feeling that pressure too. And if you're Miami, where are you going? You're, you're light years away from the Boston, OKC, Cleveland group. You're not even really a second tier contender. You're probably a second and a half tier contender. And maybe you could use Butler's contract. You could put Rozier with it. You could try to create a new world for yourself where you're basically just paying Hero and Bam. And Duncan Robinson's last year, next year, and some other things. And you're under 110 million. Heading into free agency this summer with, with a lot of options. You might just want to blow it up and redo it. The problem is this apron stuff. And for Miami, it's not that bad because they are not hard capped. They're over the first apron.

• 7:05Bill Simmons?

  They're under the second apron, not hard cap, which means you can actually make four for twos, three for twos, four for threes, all those kinds of trades. But some of the teams that they'd be trading with. It's just not realistic with the apron. Like Shams reported, he had Dallas and Phoenix and some teams that I just don't think there's any way, shape or form that there's a trade to be had with either side because of the apron stuff and because of the lack of assets. But that did lead to Jimmy's agent Bernie Lee getting really mad at Shams, which I love. He's probably, he's one of my only agents that I actually like. Anyway, Golden State. So Golden State is hard capped at the first apron. I swear there's not going to be a test after this. And 1.7 million under the second apron, which is key.

• 7:47Bill Simmons?

  Because that means they can make three for ones, four for twos, stuff like that, as long as they don't pop over the second apron. I'm sorry, this is so much math. Here's the trade. It would be Wiggins at Kaminga and Melton, who's out for the year, right? So that's 46.6 million and Jimmy's making 48.8 million. Well, that doesn't work for Golden State. They also only have 14 guys. So if they do have four for one, they would have to then sign more guys to get to 14. Cause that's the rule. Well, that doesn't work either. So.

• 8:21Bill Simmons?

  I don't really know how it works with Golden State unless they dump one of their guys, Kyle Anderson, Gary Payton, Moses Moody, who they just signed to an extension. They'd have to dump somebody to a third team and I always get suspicious when that, when that, uh, when that becomes in play. This is why Houston just seems like such the logical team to me. And I know they're on a high right now. They just made the NBA Cup semifinals with some help from Bill Kennedy. Great call. Always want to call that loose ball foul of when guys dive on each other, which never gets called ever. You definitely want to decide a game no way. Great job by him.

• 8:58Bill Simmons?

  The problem for Houston right now is the end of the game stuff. And you saw it yesterday there. As I've said before, they're probably my favorite league passing team, but the end of the game stuff is where it gets a little dodgy with them. And a lot of that has to do with Fred VanVleet, who just has not been that good this year. 16 points a game, all shooting stats are down. And he's also a team option for next year at 42.9 million. So you could actually use VanVleet as part of a mega trade, right? So they have Steven Adams at 12.6, they have Green and Tate, uh, eight and seven and a half that are expiring. They have a lot of options too. They also have a ton of picks. They have a couple of Brooklyn picks, a couple of Phoenix picks. They own some of their own firsts. So they have a lot of flexibility and maneuverability.

• 9:41Bill Simmons?

  And the trade that I created, being the Picasso of the trade machine, if it's VanVleet and it's Adams is expiring and Tate's expiring and Cam Whitmore, who I actually like, who's just buried because he's got the terror twins in front of him, Jalen Green. And you get Butler and Rozier back and you put a pick in that trade and Miami is saving 7 million just on that deal. Plus they get a pick, they get to look at Whitmore, they get VanVleet, they get to kind of stay peripherally competitive this year. They could still move VanVleet in a one for one trade if they wanted to, if it was a salary close.

• 10:16Bill Simmons?

  That trade makes sense to me for both sides because it allows Miami to reboot. It allows Houston to end up with Butler, Brooks, Shangoon, Green, Rozier, Jabari, the Terror Twins and Landell. And I already had them third or fourth in the West anyway. And I like Van Vliet. Oh, I forgot Shepard too. I like Van Vliet, but I think they could get by without him. And you put Butler and Butler now becomes the end of the game guy. I think he'd have a chip on his shoulder. That's the trade I'm rooting for. I just think that's a fun trade for everybody. Plus, it would be yet another Miami situation where they're doing a reboot and it seems like it's bleak and they're done. And then all of a sudden they're a 55 win team again because they make two moves. Anyway, that

• 10:59Bill Simmons?

  is number one. Leading to number two, what the hell does Golden State do if they can't get Jimmy Butler? Because I don't, I think it's be really hard to pull off. You're gonna have to trade a pick in a Jimmy Butler trade. You have to trade another pick to get rid of the contract you need to make it happen or put Podzemski, send him somewhere else to create the thing. Like, is it worth it to trade Wiggins and Kaminga and Melton and a pick and then send Podzemski somewhere else to get another asset to get Jimmy Butler? I don't think it is. My advice for them, the Brooklyn Nets are in a bizarre situation right now where they're playing really well and they're overachieving because Jordi Fernandez

• 11:40Bill Simmons?

  has been a revelation as a coach. It really reminds me of Will Hardy that first year in Utah, Brad Stevens' first year in Boston. We see this happen from time to time where the coach is just too good for the tank. So Brooklyn's gonna have to start sabotaging their own team. And they have Cam Johnson, who's having the best year of his career. He's 19 a game, 45% three eye test, looks the best he's been. 28 years old, he's a little older than I think you think he is. But if I was Golden State, I would audible and go after Cam Johnson and Schroder and try to figure out, is there something we can do with Wiggins? Do we want to put Kaminga in that? If we don't want to pay Kaminga next year, could you turn Kaminga into Cam Johnson?

• 12:23Bill Simmons?

  Basically, could it be Kaminga and Melton for Cam Johnson? Is there some version of would you rather pay Cam Johnson 22 million than Kaminga for 30? Do you try to get Schroder in it? Could it be Wiggins, Melton and unprotected first for Johnson and Schroder? Does Kaminga even need that bit? It just feels like Brooklyn Golden State seems the matchup. Seems like the matchup for me. So keep an eye on that. I don't think Golden State is going to be able to get a second star. I don't see a scenario where they get LeBron and Bronny back. LeBron and Bronny making 50 million combined. They'd have all the same problems that they would have trying to get Jimmy Butler that I just laid out. On top of the fact that LeBron is at his 22nd season and doesn't play defense anymore. So Brooklyn seems like the spot for them. I'm still bullish on this Golden State team, but Curry needs some help.

• 13:07Bill Simmons?

  Next thing. So the Wilt 50 Club, which I just created one second ago, where you have to play 50 games and you have to average 50 points, rebounds and assists combined at least. And it is not as easy as you think, my friends. Just since, uh, since the merger, Kareem did it three times. Highest was 56 in 1971. Luca did it last year, 52.9. Russ did it in his MVP season, 52.7. Bob McAdoo, 50.8 in 1975. Giannis is doing it right now, 50.1. Harden did it in 2019, 50.3.

• 13:49Bill Simmons?

  And Jokic, 56.1 right now, which would be the single highest number anyone has done since Wilt and Russ were playing. So the reason it's the Wilt 50 Club, Wilt has the top six. Wilt has 10 in the top 11. Wilt averaged a 78.4 points, rebounds, assists combined in 1962. That's insane. Oscar Robertson did it five times. Pettit did it twice. Eldred did it twice. Walt Bellamy did it once. We don't count Walt Bellamy. Jordan's highest ever, 48.9. Shaq's highest ever, 47.1. Bird, 45.8. LeBron, 45.6. Kobe, 45.2. Just getting to 50 is really hard. I like the 50 Club. Let's create it. Jokic right now, 32, 14 and 10.

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  And he's shooting 56, 50 and 81%.

• 14:38Bill Simmons?

  33.2 PR. This season's just insane, but I don't know how high this goes because it's too high right now. It's not gonna like, he's not gonna be continuing to do the stuff that he's been doing. It's not realistic, but could he end up 31, 13 and 9? Could he end up 32, 13 and 10? I don't know. I'm prepared for anything because nobody on that team could score. So the 50 club.

• 15:07Bill Simmons?

  I think Jokic, Kareem is the highest ever 56.0. I think Jokic could potentially set the record. I'm in on the 50 club. All right, they wanted me to do a superior take and I have one, of course. I've been thinking a lot about the fouling at the end of the game stuff because there was a Celtics Cavaliers game, which has now become infamous. I think it was a week and a half ago. Celtics are down four with under 30 seconds left. There are 18 free throw attempts in the last 26 seconds. Both teams just were fouling each other. Everybody was like, nobody's gonna shoot a three. Well, I'll foul you too. And it just becomes a foul off. Final score was 115 to 111. There were 20 points scored in the last 26 seconds because of all the free throws. And I think I speak for everyone. This sucks.

• 15:52Bill Simmons?

  The free throw parade down the stretch is abominable and it feels like it's getting worse. So how do we fix it? Well, I have a regular season fix for this. If you foul somebody in the last minute of a game, no matter what the score is, whether you're leading or trailing, the first free throw counts for two points and that's it. And if you make it, you get basically the two points for the free throws. The game keeps going. You miss it, you still get to shoot a second free throw, but that only counts for one point. So when we have these foul offs at the end, Payton Pritchard gets fouled by Cleveland, even though they're up four. If Pritchard hits one, now it's a two point game. And that's how it goes. And I really think it would work.

• 16:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't know who would be against it. And let's speed these games up because the other option is the Elon ending, which nobody really understands. Two points for your first free throw in the last minute of a game. Let's try it in the regular season. Let's see if it works and if it works, we do it for the playoffs. That's my superior take. All right. Two more things really quick. Who could be next year's out of nowhere young contender? So this would be a team playing right now that a year from now. Maybe it would look like the Rockets right now as one of the best four teams in the West. The Rockets were 41 and 41 last year. Maybe it looks like OKC last year when they won 57 games. The year before they were 40 and 42.

• 17:19Bill Simmons?

  Maybe it looks like Memphis in 2022 when they won 56 games. The year before they were 38 and 34. So a team that's around 500, maybe a little bit lower, but has some pedigree, at least one young star with a chance to be like really great. Need to be around 500, need to have some other fun pieces. And there's two candidates, one for each conference. The Pistons, this is a team where Sill has been very focused on. I always admire Russell's love for, for weirdly compelling East Coast teams. Detroit's 10 for 15. Played a pretty hard schedule. They lost to Boston twice, lost to Milwaukee twice, lost to Cleveland, lost to Houston, lost to Memphis, lost to Orlando, split with the Knicks.

• 18:03Bill Simmons?

  And they've been hanging around a lot of these games. And Russell's made this point in his pod, but these early afternoon, like four o'clock games, you're usually stuck with like whatever the 7 PM Eastern. So I've actually watched some Detroit and I've watched some Charlotte and I, I like what Detroit has going. Better than Monty Williams as a coach, which is the number one thing, but Cade's 24 points a game, seven rebounds, nine assists. He has hit every sort of ceiling you would have thought he was going to hit at this point. Shoot almost 40% from three. Like he's just really good. He's somebody that you could build a team around. Beasley and Harris were two pretty smart free agent signings. They're averaging 30 a game and shooting 40% from three. Jaden Ivey's been good. They have rebounding.

• 18:48Bill Simmons?

  And I wonder like, if I'm them, fuck it. Do I do a trade? Do I try to get, you know, Brandon Ingram's on a discount? Zach Levine's on a discount. CJ McCollum's on a discount. Do I think about Jimmy Butler? They don't have to worry about any of this apron stuff. This could be another Cam Johnson team. This is actually kind of a perfect Cam Johnson team. I wonder if Detroit is going to look at what happened with Orlando and OKC the last couple of years and what's happening with Houston this year and think like, hmm, I wonder if we make one move here. Could our ceiling increase, especially if Miami goes backwards? Indiana has already gone backwards. Could we be a top 16 potentially? So I'm watching them.

• 19:31Bill Simmons?

  The other team is obviously San Antonio, who's 12 and 12, which is surprising because I haven't really enjoyed watching them. Sohan Castle and Johnson, shoot, 27% for three combined. Chris Paul, better season than we expected, but he's old and who knows with him. But the foundation I like. They have Wemby and Castle and Harrison Barnes and Pauls. They have some good vets. They have a couple of heat check dudes and they have a lot of picks. They have a shitload of picks and I wonder, is that a Cam Johnson team? Probably not a Jimmy Butler team, but could it be like a CJ McCollum team? I'm watching them to see, are they just going to be happy to be a 500 team again? I don't know why they would be because they're going to be too good to tank. They're not going to be in the top five or top six.

• 20:16Bill Simmons?

  So maybe think about going for it. Which leads me to the sixth and last thing for the six pack. Atlanta, a team that I really liked before the season. You probably remember from the over under pod. House and I went all in on their over. A team that I mentioned last week, when House and I, after a million dollar picks, were talking about NBA futures, I doubled down when I was in Denver last week on FanDuel with the Atlanta over under stuff because it was 38 and a half. Right now they're 14 and 12. They upset the Knicks last night and it wasn't even really an upset. I thought they kind of dominated them in the second half. And I really do wonder if that was a playoff series. I would be super scared if I was the Knicks because they don't really have a way to,

• 20:56Bill Simmons?

  to control the Trey Young dribble slash dribble penetration, whatever we're calling it these days. Their wings kind of match up against the Knicks wings, the Atlanta wings. They have rebounding. It's just, I think that's a dangerous matchup for them. They're third in pace, which I like. And I wonder if Atlanta has a real chance to become this year's Pacers. The key for them, two things. One is the three point shooting. Daniels is only at 31%. Reese Shea is 28%. Trey's 31%, which is bad. Hunter's been overachieving, he's 45%. But can those swings start hitting more threes? Then secondly, What are we getting from Trey?

• 21:37Bill Simmons?

  I think, I think this is it. I think we've hit the let's figure this out once and for all moment with Trey, almost like a political candidate for an election. He's been dining off that conference finals thing for a few years now, which I think we all know happened because Embiid was super banged up. There were a couple fluky games and Ben Simmons basically had a basketball mental breakdown and just completely lost it for whatever reason. Trey this year, 21 and 12, 12 assists a game, solid. 38% shooting, 31% from three, which doesn't stop him from launching the 29 footers. Free throws are down to six a game. They used to be at nine. Turnovers, highest they've ever been, 4.6.

• 22:20Bill Simmons?

  And with all that said, this is the perfect team for him. He's got swings everywhere. He's got a bunch of guys to protect him on defense. Daniels, whatever, whoever the other team's point guard is, you saw it with the Knicks game with Brunson. Daniels can guard every team's point guard, small guard, whoever it is, Mitchell, Garland, name a guy, you can put, you can put Daniels on him. They're playing the Bucks. He can guard Dame Lillard. He can guard anybody in the league who's under 6'8". And Jalen Johnson, you know, if you're ranking the swings, Jalen Johnson, Daniels, OJ and Anoby and Bridges. I think I would take Jalen Johnson over the other three guys. And Daniels is going to be a first team all NBA defense guy. So

• 23:06Bill Simmons?

  perfect spot for Trey. He's got rebounding. He's got shot blocking. He's got lob guys. He's got tall interchangeable shooters all over the place. And I don't, I was thinking like, what would the trade be? Should maybe they go get Cam Johnson? It's like, I'm not even sure they need to do a trade, especially now that Bogdanovich is back and they have some six man scoring stuff. It really comes down to Trey Young. How good is he? Cause he is in the perfect race car for him right now. And maybe over the course of these next 20, 25 games, he's going to start figuring it out. He's a guy that you saw in the Knicks game in MSG. The bigger the stage, the more he seems to like it, whether he's missing 29 footers or not.

• 23:47Bill Simmons?

  He's one of the, him and LaMelo are the two irrational confidence superstars that we have right now. And if, if we're ever going to find out that Trey Young can be a real piece on a team that wins 50 games and actually competes in a real way. It should start happening right around now. So maybe we'll see it. Maybe we'll see it on Saturday against Milwaukee in the NBA Cup. Anyway, that was today's six major things. Remember, Michelob Ultra Courtside gets you closer to the game than ever before. Check out michelobultra.com/courtside to learn how you can get closer to the action. Enjoy responsibly. 2024 Anheuser-Busch Michelob Ultra Light Beer, St. Louis, Missouri, Michelob Ultra Superior

• 24:29Bill Simmons?

  Access Courtside 2425 Sweepstakes. No purchase necessary. Open U.S. Residence 21+ Begins on 10/1/24 and ends on 7/1/25. Multiple entry periods. Visit michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry. Entry deadlines and official rules. Message and data rates may apply. Avoid where prohibited. We will be back with Secwaker Sham talking Belichick right after this. Hey, sometimes in basketball, 30 points could be worth more than 30 points. Right now, you can get a 30% profit boost from The Ringer with FanDuel's 30 on 30 during Friday's NBA Action. We did this during the NBA Cup games. It was successful. We did it last week. It was

• 25:11Bill Simmons?

  successful. I've been tweeting out my picks on Friday. I've been doing really well. You can go back and check the receipts. The Ringer, teaming up with America's number one sportsbook to give you a 30% profit boost. We either pick a player to score more than 30 points or bet on the new exclusive 30 on 30 special markets like any game. Go nuts. You could have both teams score 30 plus points in the first quarter. That could be the bet. FanDuel hooked us up. I love this. I love trying to figure out who's going to score 30 points. I've been pretty good at it so far. Knock on wood. Hopefully it'll keep going. Look for 30 on 30 in the FanDuel Sportsbook app or head to fanduel.com/BS for your chance to score a bigger payout this Friday. Don't miss

• 25:54Bill Simmons?

  your chance to find out how much more 30 can be worth with FanDuel's 30 on 30. Must be 21+ and present in select states or 18+ and present in DC. Opt-in required. Bonus issued. That's non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com.

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off. Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry. Entry deadlines, prizes and details. All right, we're taping this on Thursday morning. Seth Wickersham is here from ESPN.

• 27:05Bill Simmons?

  He's popped on here a few times to talk about big picture NFL shenanigans at the coach-owner scale and other stuff and the Patriots. And Belichick, shockingly to a lot of people, goes back to college. You wrote about it for ESPN today. I don't really even know where to begin, but I guess I'll start here.

• 27:27Bill Simmons?

  People see this story, however they feel about Belichick, is my takeaway. And I'm just judging it from the people in my life who are emailing about it. The people who love Belichick, think he's a great coach, like, I can't believe there was another NFL job for him. The people who were done with his style of doing, thought he was a little overrated, are all like, see, nobody in the NFL wanted him. And the truth is, the story really hits both sides of that spectrum, right?

• 27:54Speaker 01

  There's no doubt. And I think that what makes that interesting is that like, that reflects a lot of the coach, GM and owner divide in the NFL. I mean, I think that like, rank and file coaches, ask Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan, Sean Payton, ask any of those guys if they think Bill Belichick should be coaching in the NFL. And you won't even be able to finish the sentence before they say yes. Whereas at the GM level though, and the ownership level, there's just so much concern. And I think that part of it is his record. Part of it is, you know, the last half of the dynasty, certainly.

• 28:36Speaker 01

  You know, Robert Kraft made it a secret that he could be impossible to work with at times, even as they were winning. But- I think that there's just a sense that even if Belichick is willing to be deferential to existing infrastructures and existing GMs, whoever they might be, there's a sense of like, if you hire this guy, you gotta kind of let him do it his way and give him the keys, even if he's not technically asking for it. And I think what changed, 2024 has been an interesting year for Belichick, and we should talk about that. But what changed, I think, was that I think that he began to think, maybe I don't really want this and I don't want to take the risk and wait in January, hoping that I might get one interview

• 29:17Speaker 01

  and might get one job, when I can go to a program that I've got a little bit of history with, have the space to win or lose on my terms and in my career that way.

• 29:30Bill Simmons?

  All right. So there's two major things to unpack there. One is, how do I even know if I'll get a job in January? And then the other piece is, how do I know I want the job? So we'll talk about the league dynamics, because I think that's such a big part of this. He had such a bad experience with the crafts the last five to seven years, really starting with the stuff you were writing about in the mid 2010s that I think, and I was one of them, a lot of the Patriot fans who had gone through Deflategate and Spygate, and then people were starting to write about the dissension between Kraft and Belichick and Brady, and all of us were like, fuck you, there's no dissension, we're fine. But

• 30:09Bill Simmons?

  then, as the years pass, clearly there was. But I think the crafts thing got so dysfunctional the last five years. And if you didn't believe it, you just had to watch the Apple doc, which was one of the most insane pieces of sports content anyone's ever released, where it was just an absolute hatchet job that tried to erase Belichick, especially from the first three Super Bowls, where, I don't care where you stand on the Belichick versus Brady thing, Belichick was the bigger reason they won the first three Super Bowls. It's a fact. The way he put the roster together, the defense he had, the game planning, and it was almost like they knew that, so they had to steer it toward everything that happened after that. And part of me wonders, was he just so disenchanted?

• 30:53Bill Simmons?

  With his experience with the crafts that as he looked around the available jobs and you see father-son duo incompetent franchise, father-son duo, and he's just looking around going, that looks awful. I was already in that situation. Maybe I could have control over my own situation. So just the NFL infrastructure, which you've written about a lot. Is it more dysfunctional than we even know about? Cause there's maybe seven franchises that are run smoothly and correctly. And then two thirds of the league at least are kind of a disaster?

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Totally. And I think that, yeah, it's first of all, to go back to like the early part of the dynasty, like, you know, you and I talked about it when my Patriots book came out. I mean, those were hugely formative years because Belichick finally had the, the, the people, the quarterback in place to do what he had had in his mind for so long in terms of like, being able to create an actual team. And, you know, that's where that ethos started. And I think that like, Van, uh, Ray Thompson and I and Van Natta reported on it a year ago or so, that, you know, Belichick really felt like the crafts had eroded what he had built in the past couple of years. Crafts, of course, were pissed off that he

• 32:07Speaker 01

  let Brady walk out and, you know, he told Kraft that Brady couldn't play anymore and he go, anymore and he goes wins a Super Bowl. But then, yeah, 2024, he gets fired by the crafts, even though they call it a mutual parting of ways, Kraft letter comes out and says that, you know, he was fired.

• 32:24Bill Simmons?

  Well, and he was also telling everyone in NFL circles, like, yeah, I fired him.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Exactly. And then you have seven openings and only one team shows any interest in him. He meets with the owner twice. And then the next thing you know, you know, he's voted off the island as we reported about and

• 32:42Bill Simmons?

  You're talking about Atlanta.

• 32:43Speaker 01

  Atlanta. And like, he was willing to work with GM Terry Fontenot. He was willing to work with Rich McKay, even though there's a lot of history there.

• 32:51Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 32:53Speaker 01

  But you know, at the end of the day, they not only went with Maurice Morris, but they made a decision against Belichick, like didn't finish in any of the decision makers, top three candidates.

• 33:04Bill Simmons?

  And they leaked it too, to make them look bad, which I thought was really interesting.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Well, it was our reporting. I mean, it's a little bit different than they leaked it. But yeah, we learned about it. Yes.

• 33:13Bill Simmons?

  But you're reporting it, you're finding out that they weren't in the top three. So they're telling somebody.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  Absolutely. So he gets shut out. Then you have the dynasty comes out, which just, you know, really roundly dismisses his influence, you know, in that team's historic run. So start this season, he's got his media gigs, but every week he and a lot of the old Patriots assistants who are also out of work would do these Zooms and they would get, go through every team, every game, every situation, these high level conversations. And I think the subtext of it all was like, what teams and organizations sound good for us if the, if the situation comes up. And there wasn't a lot of back channel communication with owners. I think that the Brian Flores lawsuit has impacted that greatly.

• 34:03Bill Simmons?

  Can you explain that? Cause that's such a crucial piece of this. So like five years ago, there's texting, there's, hey, what's going on over there? And you're just back channeling constantly and the Flores thing just completely ended that?

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Well, it's an ongoing discrimination lawsuit against the league and three teams. And I think that owners, you know, don't want to get wrapped up in that. They don't want to be part of that. They don't want to violate the Rooney Rule. And so I'm not convinced that Belichick wouldn't have ended up with an NFL job. I just think we're never going to know. And I think that the ones that he thought he might have a chance at just didn't seem appealing enough. And I think that like on those Zoom calls, midway through the season, all of a sudden the college game just seemed much more appealing to him. And he wanted to discuss certain programs, how it would work if they tried to implement some of the Patriot way at that level. And again, I was as shocked as anybody. I think you and I were texting about it when North Carolina, you know, came up.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  And you know, it's not Notre Dame exactly, but he felt like this is a good place to end his career, the way that he wants to end his career, which is, you know, working with people that he cares about, that he likes. And when you're losing on his terms.

• 35:17Bill Simmons?

  Well, and he has a little bit of a father legacy with them. It's a great place to live. It's a place that seems like they were willing to give him the car keys. I want to go through those NFL jobs though, because it's such, such a crucial piece of this. Because there's going to be a narrative like, ah, the league rejected him. And, and you know, even your piece tapped into that. Did Belichick reject the league first? Or did they already reject him? But if you go through the jobs, Las Vegas, assuming that becomes open after the year. I mean, they have two wins, but I'm just guessing. Well, Mark Davis fired McDaniel. He's a legacy kid. That's a franchise that's never, I would say been stable the last decade. So he's not going there.

• 36:01Bill Simmons?

  Jacksonville was the team I thought.

• 36:03Speaker 01

  I don't, I don't think he, I think consistently, he really didn't want to go out west.

• 36:08Bill Simmons?

  Well, and also they don't have a quarterback. There's so many variables. So cross them up. Jacksonville is the team I thought made the most sense. But what do they have? They have the father-son duo, who's been pretty incompetent over the last 10 years. Like he just dealt with that with the crafts. Now he's getting the more incompetent version of the crafts. Trevor Lawrence, you'd have to really talk yourself into. And it would have to be a situation where they just gave him everything. But they've already proven they don't really work that way. The son runs the analytics department. And it just seems like that wasn't a match. So cross them off. New Orleans, no quarterback. The Benson family, they're a mess. He's not going there. They're in cap hell. You can't succeed there. That makes no sense. Cross them up. The

• 36:50Bill Simmons?

  Jets, no quarterback and he can't stand Woody Johnson. Took shots at him constantly, all the way during the season in all his media places. So cross them off. The Giants were interesting because I thought that was another possibility. But it's pretty clear that he really likes day ball. And even in, in some of the reporting was like telling them like, you guys need a better front office, but you have a good coach. He just didn't want to shank day ball. So that's out. Plus they don't have a QB. Dallas, we won't know until January, right? That's another father-son duo, by the way, but won't know until January. And he didn't want, he couldn't wait that long because this North Carolina job was either going to be there or not. So let that one go.

• 37:32Bill Simmons?

  And then the only other one I can think of before the one that you talked about in your piece, Cincinnati. If this ended badly, they didn't make the playoffs and they fire Zach Taylor, who has not covered himself in glory this year. That's a really good job because you have Burrow, Ohio, I get, you know, but again, you can't wait till January. So the only one that really might have made sense was Chicago. And in your reporting, they seemed receptive to that one, right? But Chicago is just, they want one of those offensive whiz kid play out, play callers. Everybody has been Johnson linked to them already. So it just didn't seem like a fit. And that was the one team that seems like they've rejected him kind of.

• 38:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I mean, again, what, what are those situations is interesting? I mean, that Dallas is interesting to me because nobody can take a collection of talent and turn them into a team quite like Belichick. But again, you know, can the Jones share the spotlight with someone like Belichick? You know, I have no doubt that they could all get along, but I don't know if Jerry Jones values coaches enough to, you know, go after someone like Bill.

• 38:38Bill Simmons?

  And so he had Jason Garrett for eight years or nine years. So we know the answer to that already.

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so I think that like, again, you know, he, he saw the Giants as a rebuild, but he also believes that Brian Dayball has done a good job. And so it was like you take yourself out of the running for that if they were even considering it. And, um, you know, again, this is all just, I, I think that like, and even Cincinnati, I mean, remember when he would go on his podcast or on the McAfee show, I mean, he was really critical of Burrow. And usually when he does that publicly, you know that there's a lot more there in terms of his pragged scouting report of a certain player.

• 39:19Bill Simmons?

  So were you devouring some of the Belichick media stuff? Cause you know him so well and you know, the trying to just like the little breadcrumbs he was dropping one way or the other. Was that like a sport for you?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  I, I loved it, you know? It was, it was really fun. It was really fun. I mean, that's all we've wanted, right? Because what you, what you have is the. You know, for all these decades, you knew, you know, you had his, his, his public performance, which was, you know, very buttoned up. And then the things you would learn about what they were like behind the scenes and the way that they would really, you know, put so much thought into like all these decisions. It was just mind blowing. And so I loved like just getting a glimpse of that this year from him.

• 40:04Bill Simmons?

  And especially like his disdain for certain things was really funny.

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 40:09Bill Simmons?

  Like sloppy special teams, just like really, really cut into the, to the.

• 40:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, I interviewed, yeah, I interviewed, I, I, I was talking with Peyton Manning earlier this year, um, for my quarterbacks book and, you know, he was talking about how Belichick just loves coming on the Manning cast and, and loves watching punts.

• 40:28Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah, like Belichick, if there was a punt near the end zone and the guy screwed it up and fell into the end zone, it was like Belichick was being electroshocked on the sidelines. It was, it was.

• 40:41Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 40:41Bill Simmons?

  Worst thing that could happen to him is somebody screwing up a basic play.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  And then you watched him when, when we had an Atlanta game and I think he was on the Manning cast and, you know, he's just ripping them for sloppy tackling.

• 40:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 40:53Speaker 01

  And things like that. And, you know, that, that was a job, obviously they, they made a point of making sure everyone knew why they didn't hire him. And so, you know, I, I enjoyed that stuff quite a bit.

• 41:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he, he seemed like he had an axe to grind against Atlanta. The Jets, he couldn't take Witty Johnson shots enough. There, there are a couple others, but, you know, I'm torn on this because I really thought him trying to be the coach, GM, everything the last couple of years, which just wasn't sustainable anymore and he wasn't good at it. The free agent draft stuff, the last five years, he was just bad. And you could see the results in the roster. He just didn't do a very good job. And I, and that combined with, I think he had a lot of trouble replenishing, replenishing assistants. Once guys got plucked left and right, that becomes really hard to just keep replenishing these guys that you kind of taught your whole system to.

• 41:47Bill Simmons?

  You get older, you don't have the same kind of motor. So. You know, I, the way he did it in the 2000s, no chance he was going to be able to do that again. But I still feel like he was a pretty good, a pretty like top, maybe not top seven coach, but in the top 10. What was interesting about last year, the team got sloppy in ways that were really uncharacteristic for Belichick. And I do think people around the league probably noticed that. This wasn't like the same buttoned up, overachieving thing. Now their defense overachieved and finished like, I think, sixth in DVOA. Some of that had to do with the schedule. Some of that had to do with when you're playing a shit team, you're not necessarily throwing the kitchen sink at them. You're just trying

• 42:30Bill Simmons?

  to get through the game. A little, some of it was smoke and mirrors, but at the same time, the team did overachieve. They were awful offensively. They couldn't have been worse. And the reason I bring this up is the irony of all of this is the best job for him, I think, would have been the Patriots for 2025 with like some pieces desperately needed, like a stable hand, and they have an awesome quarterback, right? Which is the thing he didn't have for six years. And the funniest thing about all of this is that was the perfect job for him, but it never would have happened.

• 43:01Speaker 01

  Never would have happened. There was definitely no chance. And, you know, I think that-

• 43:07Bill Simmons?

  Although Ben and J Lo happened, so maybe, maybe there's, maybe no chance is too strong. There have been reunions that have been shut. The Eagles got back together, but that one would have been an all time shocker, I think.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  I know. I'm trying to think if there's, I mean, you just look at the toxicity of how that ended, and I don't know if there's a sports parallel where they could have like mended that again. I mean-

• 43:32Bill Simmons?

  Phil Jackson, Jerry Kraus-

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Phil Jackson, I was thinking, I was thinking about that, and that wasn't gonna, I mean, that, it was, it got pretty bad. I mean, you saw the body language at the press conference when they let Belichick go. You saw it at the Brady roast.

• 43:46Bill Simmons?

  The roast was the best. He, he just had complete disdain. You, he couldn't hide it.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Couldn't hide it. And, um-

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I'm with you like on paper in terms of like, if you're looking at the situation that's kind of best suited for him, where you're taking a team that, you know, again, needs to kind of like come together and play smarter, that might be, you know, the Patriots might be his forte. But yeah, that was never going to happen this year.

• 44:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, because he looked like Sean Payton. They give him the car keys in Denver, turns it around. Now he's younger than Belichick. Harbaugh with the Chargers this year, same, same thing. Like, there's probably seven, eight guys that could do that. But in those cases, those guys are also running a lot of the, the front office thinking. And I think Belichick with his last five years probably lost that. With the perfect job would have been, hey, we have a good team. We ran our course with our coach. Can you just come in? That's why Philly became super interesting in September for a couple of weeks there when it looked like Sirianni was going to go badly. And that was like, whoever's taking that one, that's like a hired gun job. Could he have just come in, hired gun, hey, just

• 44:54Bill Simmons?

  try to win as many games as possible, compete for titles. But then Philly turned it around. They won nine to 10 games. So it makes sense to me that he did this because I do think he just wants to coach and, and maybe he started to realize the NFL isn't for him. Now, on the other hand, could he do this for two years and then realize, oh, that job's open? And all of a sudden, he's hopping back? Do you think the Shula record's important to him? Because I've heard different, different takes on this.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  I think it is important, but it's not the thing. You know, it's not why he gets out of bed in the morning. It's not what really motivates him. And I think that like, probably given a year off, you know, he was able to reflect a little bit on like, what are the essential things that I enjoy about this job? And I, I think that like, you know, one of the things with the New York Giants, let's say he had gone there and he knows that it's going to take a year to get that team back. He would have been going through his third straight coaching year. So 22, 23, and then next year.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  With, you know, the media on him and whether he's lost his fastball, a daily, you know, piece of speculation and content. And I don't think he really wanted to deal with that. And I think that like, it's one of the, you know, college football media is a little different than the NFL. Um, and I think that like, even though it's intense in its own ways, like that's something that he won't really have to contend with, I think,

• 46:29Speaker 01

  when he's at North Carolina.

• 46:31Bill Simmons?

  So the things working against him, the crafts poisoned the well. GM performance last five to six years was just bad.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  A known curmudgeon, which he tried his hardest over this with the APD jobs he had to really try to prove that he wasn't. And I'm in the camp that he's probably more entertaining than a curmudgeon. But I think if, if, if he's working for you and you're just a rich guy who wants answers, he's going to be a curmudgeon. Um, brings a lot of like, people that come with him. Some would say they're castoffs. Some would say they're people that if it was for Belichick, would not be working in the league anymore. But he has a lot of those people, right? And the irony of it is, um, this is the same kind of thing he probably despises with owners. Like, why do I have to deal with your family? Why do I have to deal with your, you know, now your son's telling me what to do. But this North Carolina

• 47:25Bill Simmons?

  situation is gonna, he's gonna be in, he's gonna bring a lot of like his family with him, including actual family members.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 47:32Bill Simmons?

  So, and I, I, but it seems like to me that was probably a huge piece of this for him, just working with people that he trusts and likes, right?

• 47:42Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think that like, that was something that a year ago, when the Eagles, you know, were at, at, at the highest levels, were talking about, hey, look, you know, he's available. Do we, do we make a move here? You know, that was one of the things that was considered is that like,

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Even though those group of minds for the longest time were just like so desired in NFL circles, right? I mean, owners just could not wait to try to tap into his thinking until they realize, you know, that it's, it's so singular. His system is not a playbook like Bill Walsh's. It's literally his decision making in real time. Um, you know, he did, they, they thought, you know, he doesn't necessarily have the best record of, of developing coaches. And considering if he comes in, you have to kind of let him run it his way.

• 48:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:32Speaker 01

  Are you doing this again in two years? Are you blowing up the building again? Or do you give someone a third shot at being, you know, a head coach or, you know, one of the people out of that group, a second shot at being a head coach? And so those things were definitely on minds. I think that like with Belichick, just him having been in the NFL for half a century now and been in the public eye really for most of the last 30 or so years is that there's just enough material out there that if you want to lay out a convincing conversation as to why you don't want to hire him, it's there.

• 49:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 49:08Speaker 01

  But his record is also there. And I mean, just imagine him going through what he went through last January and February, and then having to go on his podcast and on the McAfee show and everything and explain to us and him trying to do it politely, just how stupid some of the coaching is in the NFL. I mean, when they have to, when they have to bring him on to explain what happened at the end of the Bears Lions game.

• 49:37Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 49:37Speaker 01

  And I mean, you know, this is stuff that he knows how to do in his sleep. I mean, he is the one who with the clock, you know, melting down against the Seahawks, saw confusion, saw personnel change, calls, you know, goal line three. I think that was the name of it. Butler goes in, all of that stuff comes together in a way that I can't ever see being replicated again. So much preparation and thought and execution and stones, for lack of a better word. And yet, you know, you're watching these coaches screw up game situations all the time and they bring him on to try to explain why. And these are the guys who have jobs right now.

• 50:16Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, this NBA has the same problem.

• 50:21Bill Simmons?

  Most, if you have between those two, there's 62 franchises, NBA, NFL.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 50:27Bill Simmons?

  Probably three fourths of them are terrible at hiring coaches. And in the NBA, coaches just change all the time. The NFL coaches change all the time. We see situations like last year where Eberfluss clearly, you know, that was going to be risky to bring him back with a new QB. That could have gone either way. Salah looked like he'd already run his course with the Jets. They talked themselves into bringing him back. But a lot of the times you can kind of see it just from not being attached, just from watching your TV being like, eh, that guy seems like a man. Like Brandon Staley last year. It's like, like this, there's no way, there's no path out of this. So I'm sure Belichick watches that too. And he's like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, really?

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And I think a year ago, I think it was a year ago, there was a, you know, they have owners meetings and then they have the privilege meeting, which is just owners. And, you know, maybe their family members, but it's not team executives. And I think that it was in a privileged session where the league presented some data as to the total amount of money that owners are paying coaches that are no longer working for them. And it was a staggering amount. And, you know, then it prompted all this discussion about the value of coaches. Are we paying these guys too much? All this stuff. But the bottom line is that like, most owners are not good at this. And even if you're invested in a GM, like, I don't want to pick on him, but let's just say Terry Fontenot or whatever it might be.

• 51:56Speaker 01

  Why not tell, why not have an owner who says, look, I'm keeping you around. I want you to absorb as much as you can from this guy while we have two to three years with him so that we can take the best pieces going forward after he sets the record and, you know, rides off into the sunset. Like, that would be some really strategic thinking on an owner's part. And

• 52:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but Seth, you know how this works. These, the rich guys just call each other.

• 52:22Bill Simmons?

  And then, you know, they weirdly look out for each other, even though they're all competing against each other in this league. And there's no way that Arthur Blank didn't call Kraft to ask for his take on Belichick. I just refuse to believe he didn't. And there's no way Kraft didn't give him a bad review. So then if you're blank, yeah, you have this, if you're blank, you have a franchise that's worth $7 billion. And you're trying to think, do I want to give the car keys to the $7 billion franchise to this guy? And his last employer is just absolutely like smashing them. You're gonna hesitate and you're gonna go to the yes man. Cause this is the other thing Lombardi and I talked about this when he was on, I think in August, September. You have a lot of people in these organizations and I've dealt with this professionally too.

• 53:07Bill Simmons?

  Job protection people, that their job is just to keep their own job. And they're always gonna like push blame on other people and undermine other people because that's how they're gonna keep their seat. And that happens in so many of these football, we just saw it happen with the Falcons. The Cousins Penix thing is probably a disaster, right? Are there gonna be repercussions for it? They're just gonna blame other people. Well, Cousins, he didn't tell us he was helping. They'll figure out how to blame and keep going. Rob Pelinka is the master of this with the Lakers. They fire a coach every year. They trade, they've traded all their picks. They've done everything, but somehow everybody else gets blamed for it. So I just think that's such a big part of sports now. And I don't think the common person who just roots for football like sees it.

• 53:51Speaker 01

  And owners, you bring up two interesting points. I mean, number one is that a lot of them are kind of risk averse and conflict averse, which I think, you know, in, within that context, it makes you realize just, you know, how ballsy it was for Robert Kraft to trade a first round pick for Belichick back in 2000.

• 54:12Bill Simmons?

  Right. Which is his Hall of Fame case, by the way. It's like he not only hired Belichick, he traded a first round pick. He was that convinced in the guy.

• 54:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And then. The thing is though is that you're right. I mean, like group think takes over like even though these guys are, you know, in charge of these multi-billion dollar businesses and even though they're all bosses in their own right of whatever other businesses they might own, like when you see votes taken in the NFL, there's not a lot of close votes like they're almost always like 31 to one.

• 54:45Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 54:45Speaker 01

  Mike Brown never votes, you know, whatever it might be like group think does just take over. And I think that like, you know, like we said, they can, they can use whatever excuse they want for why they don't want to hire Belichick. But it doesn't look good for, for all of them. It doesn't look good that this guy left and went to college to a mid-level program while we're watching just like so much bad coaching every week.

• 55:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, I don't think it's a mid-level program anymore with the kind of money they're probably spending. I think that for North Carolina, you always have to look like, why would somebody do, why would somebody spend, I don't know how much it's, it's 30 for three. I saw 50 for five, whatever it is, plus all the other people in Belichick's life, plus a commitment to NIL. It's probably like a, I don't know, 40 to 50 million dollar commitment per year. But when was the last time anyone talked about North Carolina football? Like we just got Drake May from them. And all I read about leading up to Drake May is like, we have no idea how good he is because his team was such dog shit in this last year, right? That's who you're getting. So this writer named Ollie Conley, who's, I think

• 55:57Bill Simmons?

  does a good job. And he was on some of the reporting on this, but he wrote a piece today about, about when Bill Walsh went back to Stanford and how badly it went. And it went badly for a bunch of different reasons. College football was totally different back then. Walsh maybe didn't have the stamina or the motor that he thought he did. He tried to bring an NFL mindset and it just went badly. There was a book written about it. And, you know, I've been really like Stuart Mandella, The Athletic wrote a piece like, this is going to be a disaster. Like he was just like, mark my words, come back here in two years. This is going to be a disaster.

• 56:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't know whether I'm just like a Belichick junkie at this point or a Belichick apologist. I don't know. I just I watched him do so many great things. I just really find it hard to believe he's going to go to college and not be good. And yet the track record said he won't says that he won't be good. So where do you stand?

• 56:54Speaker 01

  My gut tells me he'll do pretty well there. Now, look, I don't know what that means. You know, does that mean they make the playoffs? I don't exactly know. But I think when you have a legend who still feels like he has something to prove. And, you know, is really sharp. I think history usually lends itself pretty, pretty well to those guys. And I think that clearly this was a space that in 2024 really just started to appeal to him. And like from the people I've talked to closest to him, again, in September, when they started these meetings and they're going through all these games. I don't think that they were thinking like, what, what college program might, you know, come open that would be cool.

• 57:38Speaker 01

  It was really as the season went on and he became more intrigued with the college game that he asked these guys to look into some of these programs a little bit more. Well, what would it look like if we took my methodologies and tried to adapt them to this? You know, how would that go? And, you know, is the ability to knowing that I'll be able to win or lose on my own terms worth the risk of not interviewing? Or, you know, yeah.

• 58:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:03Speaker 01

  Taking a job before any of these NFL jobs.

• 58:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Before any of those jobs come open and, and, you know, it was really kind of a resounding yes.

• 58:11Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what? You're going to want WeatherTech in your vehicle, whether you call it fall, autumn or spooky season. Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs or the weather's fault. You're going to want WeatherTech for American made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT. With a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails.

• 58:51Bill Simmons?

  So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new workday. There was one thing that I read in some of the stuff that's been written about this already is with the, with this college job, what he wants to do at North Carolina, I thought was fascinating where he basically wants to turn it into this football factory that trains people to go to the NFL. So this is something Calipari tried to do at Kentucky. Right? This was a big part of their mindset of like college sports is changing.

• 59:30Bill Simmons?

  The one and done era is coming. We are going to be this factory that sends people into the lottery, top five pick, whatever you want to be. We're going to train you to do that. And if you look at the success of the Kentucky guys that came in the NBA, like there's other reasons for that. There are other people that were involved in that, uh, that kind of chain, like people like Worldwide West is now one of the people on the mix. But a lot of those Kentucky people did come into the league, position to succeed and they did. And they've had the most success, I think of any college the last 15 years. So when I read that about Belichick, I was like, that's interesting that he's trying to reinvent himself basically as,

• 1:00:14Bill Simmons?

  you know, using North Carolina, awesome, awesome school, like one of the top 25 colleges probably. ACC, you have a natural rival in Duke. You get to play big games. You have a chance to make the playoffs, but big picture. Hey, if you want to play in the NFL, you're going to learn stuff here that maybe other places, it won't be the same. That makes sense to me. Now, whether he can sell that to some 17 year old kid and some, you know, and their parents in Memphis, Tennessee, or, you know, Pittsburgh, Penns, wherever he goes to recruit. I don't know if that's going to work, but it makes sense to me.

• 1:00:50Speaker 01

  I, it's a pretty good pitch. And I also think that it'll be interesting to see, you know, which NFL teams end up drafting out of that program most like, you know, when he had the first run with the Patriots, you know, when they win three out of four Super Bowls and then his system got raided around the NFL, he had some tough drafts there. And one of the reasons was because all of a sudden, what felt like half the league was looking for the type of player that only he was looking for before. And so all of a sudden there was a premium on those types of players. Now, who knows exactly? I mean, it would be interesting to see like if.

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  The Chargers, if the Ravens, if, um,

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  Oh, teams that he has connections with?

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Yes, it seems that he would have connections with, you know, the Giants, Denver, you know, with like those types of players, those types of teams end up really looking hard at North Carolina players and wanting them because they'll have a better sense that they're mentally equipped to handle the rigors of the NFL. Name another coach who can get you ready for it. I think that Jim Harbaugh, Michigan could probably do it pretty well, but name another coach who you can say, I will prepare you for what it's, for what life is like in this league. And it's, you know, as we all know, that goes way beyond schematics in doing your job. It is a complete lifestyle change. Everyone talks about it, how different it is when football ceases to be, you know, your quote unquote

• 1:02:19Speaker 01

  job and becomes your real job. And I think that he'll enjoy doing that. Like years ago, years ago, it was in 2006. It was around the time the Halberstam book came out. Bill wouldn't promote it during the year, but in the off season, he did a couple of events. He did one at Southern Connecticut and I, um, he'd received like a distinguished speaker award and I went to it and I was really curious on how it was going to go. And he was so at ease in that audience in front of those young minds. And, you know, he wasn't talking about football. He, he showed some clips. He kind of went to the film in kind of a funny way, but he wasn't like talking about football and using these kind of flat metaphors for how it prepares you for life and this type of thing. He was actually addressing these

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  kids in terms of their passion and what they want to do and how best to do it. And he was just on fire and he was inspiring. And I do think that like, that's probably a muscle that he hasn't had a chance to flex as much in the NFL. And I think that he'll really look forward to doing that because he'll know that the vast majority of even his players won't play in the pros, but I think that he'll enjoy preparing these people for life beyond football, which to be honest, it is, even though we know that he can do that, it is surprising for Belichick because he's someone who's like self-worth almost seems tied to, you know, the results of games.

• 1:03:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it made sense to me that he went to a school that actually is a strong academic school. Cause the, the other way this could have gone, that wouldn't have shocked me is if he just took over like, I don't know what jobs are open, but Amherst, Williams, Harvard, Yale, one of those, just like he went full div three. Now that would have been tougher for all the people he's bringing with him. And I don't, I don't know if they're the same amount of money, but, um, but the North Carolina Duke, that kind of level of really good schools that also have football at a pretty competitive level. It makes sense to me. Now, the thing he has to deal with here is if he's grumpy curmudgeon Belichick,

• 1:04:27Bill Simmons?

  every single person he's coaching is on a one-year deal with this new college system. And that balance, that's why we've seen a bunch of coaches get out. They didn't want to deal with it, right? He's, he's approaching it fresh, but, um, that, that's the biggest X factor to me, right? He's yelling at whoever and they're just like, okay, cool. I'm going to be at Ohio State next year.

• 1:04:49Speaker 01

  So college is kind of a combination and maybe it's unofficially always been this way of like raw NIL money and you know, how much am I getting and cult of personality? I mean, you see it with Deion Sanders. It is just such a cult of personality.

• 1:05:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:06Speaker 01

  Even Saban, you know, he had reached that level. And I think that like, it's, it's, it's kind of interesting to consider, but I mean, it's like, you know, Belichick has reached a higher cultural place than any football coach for the last two decades.

• 1:05:23Bill Simmons?

  I would hope so.

• 1:05:23Speaker 01

  And, and you know, for a, as a, as a cult of personality type of guy, I mean, you knew when, when Kraft started marketing the hoodies with the sleeves cut off, you know, that something had changed in, in the atmosphere. And, you know, a lot of the players that he'll be recruiting don't, won't know, you know, they wouldn't have been born when he was winning Super Bowls with the Patriots. But I think that like, the cult of personality will be strong with him. And I think that like, that affords you a lot of the things

• 1:05:55Speaker 01

  If you're a good coach at a good program, you know, makes this job so difficult because I don't think that he's going to be married to his phone all day texting every single position and making sure that they're not entering the portal after practice, metaphorically speaking.

• 1:06:11Bill Simmons?

  Right. Well, I'll tell you this, he's going to be going against certain coaches that he's going to be so overqualified competitively that it's going to be kind of hilarious. And I'm in the camp of, I think he's actually going to do really well because just like his attention to detail and the game management stuff he'll be able to do is going to be so far superior to some of these dudes that are in college. That's one of my frustrations when I watch colleges. I can't believe how sloppy and dumb and stupid some of the stuff is, especially late. But here's where we leave.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Just imagine like someone like Dabo Sweeney. I mean, just like, you know, you've, he's clearly an elite college coach.

• 1:06:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:54Speaker 01

  That doesn't run the most sophisticated offense. And, you know, I think that like when Deshaun Watson came into the NFL, I think Bill O'Brien did a great job with him. And Deshaun, for a while there was like on the verge of being one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL. I mean, they had to mesh a lot of what they did in Clemson with like the stuff, you know, pulling from like the Brady rookie playbook, right?

• 1:07:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:16Speaker 01

  Of the Patriots offense. And, you know, he will take that stuff is a huge challenge. I mean, you know, the fact that you essentially have, you know, great inflation in college with some of these quarterback numbers that are being put up. I mean,

• 1:07:31Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:07:31Speaker 01

  He will take that stuff personally. But there's also that aspect to you, you know, the fact that like he is who he is. And I mean, Brady on Fox the other day was asked about Belichick in college and he just like was, could not imagine him there. And it's a funny clip of him.

• 1:07:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:46Speaker 01

  Doing his impression of Bill giving his pitch, you know, well, we don't really want you, but if you want to come here, we'll see what you can do. I mean, that part of it is really kind of interesting because he's going to be the complete opposite of what every other kid hears.

• 1:08:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's basically he's Bobby Knight in the modern era.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:08:07Bill Simmons?

  If it's over, 302 wins for the NFL third all time.

• 1:08:13Bill Simmons?

  Thirty-one and thirteen in the playoffs, including, not including, thirteen buys. So thirty-one and thirteen plus the buys, he's basically forty-four and thirteen. Three hundred and thirty-three combined wins, only Don Shula had more, three forty-seven. Six and three in Super Bowls, three more as an assistant, so nine total. And really, the only person with a chance to catch him with any of this stuff seems to be Andy Reid, who is thirty-two wins behind him and five playoff wins behind him, and is probably gonna pass him.

• 1:08:45Bill Simmons?

  And I'm sure Belichick's probably okay with it.

• 1:08:49Speaker 01

  And I was wondering, I wondered if that factored into it, where he's like, even if I go to Jacksonville and I coach two years and get the record, am I gonna hold it for, remember like when, um, remember when Drew Brees was breaking all those records and you knew that he was only gonna have him until Brady, you know, another half season? I wonder if he, if that calculus went into things, you know, is that worth it for me?

• 1:09:10Bill Simmons?

  Probably not. I mean, that, if it was Philly, if Sirianni went sideways and he's moving in midseason, but, you know, I, I talked to, I talked to his people about him doing a podcast like with Ringer, Spotify, because he, you know, they talked to everybody last year. And one of the things they made very clear to everybody who was discussing any sort of media thing with him is Belichick will be coaching in February, right? It's like, keep it low, but this is a one-year thing, this is not a new career, he's doing this for one year. He will be coaching in February. And I, I always thought that was interesting that they're so honest about it and just like, this is, he clearly wanted to do all the media stuff because he wanted to make money.

• 1:09:56Bill Simmons?

  But he was also trying to shift some sort of perception about him. And I think for the most part, it worked. Because I think if you think about him in July, people just knew him as the all-time coach curmudgeon we've ever had.

• 1:10:12Bill Simmons?

  Not, not, not the same now, I don't think. Like he's inside the NFL, his humor came out a little bit. The Manning cast, I, you know, there were some pretty dreary moments in the Manning cast, but there were some also some fun clips too.

• 1:10:25Speaker 01

  And some edgy moments. So you get to see that edginess with him sometimes.

• 1:10:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he would did, he would do that Jim Gray podcast sometimes and he'd, he'd start throwing darts at coaches and stuff occasionally. So there was a little more, I think that most people thought, but for people like you and me who had been watching him forever, like, none of it was surprising. It backed up everything we had, uh, we'd already heard, but I always felt like his, his sense of what his place was in football history and how he could shape that a little bit. I always thought he was way more aware of that. You don't let Halberstam do a biography of you. You don't let the NFL film crew follow you around for a year. Like he did care about that stuff, I think. A little more than people realize, right? That was always my take.

• 1:11:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, legacy has always been important to him and not just his legacy, but the legacy of, of the things that he built. I mean, I always was told that like, you know, back when he thought he would always leave the Patriots on his terms, he would never leave it if they were down. Like he always wanted to hand over the team, a good team to his successor. So that like, no matter what you said about him, you could always say that he made decisions that he thought were best, in the best interest of the team, not himself, but the team and the franchise. And that was a lasting legacy beyond him, you know, on the sidelines. And watching him this year,

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  and even he was throttled, you know, you could tell there was moments where maybe he would have gone there a little bit more, but he had to restrain himself a little bit because he knows that he still wants to get back in and he's not quite done with this. And it's not quite his personality just to rip guys.

• 1:12:04Bill Simmons?

  That was my fear with him doing a podcast with us. Like, how far is he going to go? Is he going to hold back?

• 1:12:10Speaker 01

  But the gap between him and most of the league was just painfully obvious. And I get all the reasons that, I, I think there's a lot of people who thought that like, remember when Mike Shanahan sat out a year? And teams started to fire their coaches early so they could get the inside track on him. There was a sense that might happen with Belichick, but because of the rules that are in place, you know, that never really happened. And plus, I just don't think. I think owners just had, you know, like we've talked about all their reasons as valid or not as as they may be of why they would rather bring in someone else. And um,

• 1:12:51Speaker 01

  it's like, it's kind of hard not to be happy for Belichick and you know, that he's landed in a place that he seems legitimately stoked about.

• 1:12:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And even the crafts.

• 1:13:02Bill Simmons?

  They did end up with Drake May somehow. Right? They probably have one of the four worst coaches in the league. They have one of the, I think, one of the worst front offices in the league that just had a horrible draft and horrible free agency.

• 1:13:15Bill Simmons?

  But they do have this, this guy now who has a chance to be one of the five or six best QBs in the league and the whole fan base is completely in on him. And now it's become, I look at it and I'm just like Vrabel sitting there. Like, I don't understand. They, if you go back and you look at Vrabel's Tennessee career, in 2021, he was 12 and 5. And go look at that team. Like, it's kind of like about to be washed up. Maybe already was Tannehill. Dare can replace half the season. A.J. Brown is about to get traded for Traylon Burks, straight up. Trayvon Burks, whatever his name is. And they overachieved with that team and then they trade,

• 1:13:56Bill Simmons?

  they trade Brown. QB situation goes sideways. Vrabel starts, you know, battling the front office and he's, and he's gone. And now he's just sitting there. And to me, like what we were talking about earlier about Harbaugh, Peyton, there, there's just like seven, eight coaches, Tomlin, seven, eight coaches that really matter. I think Vrabel's one of the seven or eight. You have Drake May. I don't understand if these last four games for the Pats don't go badly. If they go badly, just admit the mistake and hire Vrabel. He's a Patriot Hall of Famer. I think he'd come. Why wouldn't they do it?

• 1:14:32Speaker 01

  Well, a couple of things. I think that like, first of all, Vrabel is suffering from a little bit of the same thing that Belichick has. Like, you know, this perception that you gotta give him the keys and let him do it his way. That guy's an excellent, excellent coach. I actually think that, I mean, it's obvious that Tennessee was better under him and they were tougher under him. I actually think that if you are trying to develop Will Levis, he was better for that because he knew how to protect quarterbacks.

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:14:57Speaker 01

  Like, he knew how to run an offense that didn't put everything on them and took some of the pressure off. And, you know, I think he's suffering from a little bit of the stuff you see from Belichick. Would the crafts move on from Gerard Mayo? I don't think so. I mean,

• 1:15:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't think so either.

• 1:15:13Speaker 01

  I think Kraft has said publicly that he decided in 18 or six,

• 1:15:18Bill Simmons?

  Five years ago, yeah.

• 1:15:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, somewhere around that time that, that he was going to succeed Belichick. And it's, unless there's something that's going on in the building that's so dysfunctional, that hasn't come out yet, that is just beyond intolerable, I would really have a hard time seeing Robert Kraft, you know, move on from, from a coach like that after one year.

• 1:15:40Bill Simmons?

  I agree. And yet, I do feel like this is one of those situations where it, from everything we've seen this first year, there's really no glimmer of hope so far with the coach and the coaching staff and really any piece of this. And now it's like, well, we're, so now we're gonna, and then a year from now, we'll change everything. That's why these,

• 1:16:04Bill Simmons?

  well, I was gonna say these next four games, well, these next four games are gonna be so important because, like, Arizona this weekend is a winnable game for them. Arizona, I think, has overachieved a little. They're not that talented. From a talent standpoint, not like crazy different than the Pats. And May might be able to just beat them by himself. But if they, they play Buffalo twice, I forget who the last game is, but I feel like if they go 0-4, and it's like a bad 0-4, I'm prepared for anything. Because Kraft's old. These, these owners get old and they're like, fuck it, I'm, it's, I'm in my 80s. Like, I don't want to go down this way.

• 1:16:39Speaker 01

  And plus with Vrabel, as prickly as he can be, they're used to that. Like they're like, whatever, like, you know, whatever, you know, Tennessee can't handle. They're like, it's fine with us. This is a beach. Like, we've been through worse.

• 1:16:53Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:16:53Speaker 01

  And, and he's, you know, and he's a good coach. He's a really good coach. It's a real.

• 1:16:59Bill Simmons?

  Well, the funniest thing to me is why Chicago wouldn't hire him. And it's like, they're enamored with Ben Johnson. He calls great plays. It's like, how much evidence do we need that that might not be the deciding reason to hire a coach? Like, in the last like 15 years, Kyle Shanahan is the only real whiz kid, new coach, even somebody like McBay, who I think gets credit for that. McBay's a football coach. He's, he's doing everything on all sides. He's a, he's a people manager. He's a strategist, you know, he's not just like, here are my, here's, here are my 50 plays I'm bringing in the game. Vrabel is like a culture changer. Chicago needs to, you know, they, they, they play in the worst weather probably in the league, other than maybe two other cities. Like they need to be like tougher on the Lions. They need to be able to protect Caleb.

• 1:17:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't understand how just hiring a play caller is going to be the answer for them, but what do I know?

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  Absolutely. It's a little bit like Belichick. I mean, you know, he's a total head coach. He can go cut, coach running backs if he needs to. And Vrabel is a very similar, he learned, you know, from him and others, but like Vrabel is a total head coach. I'll never forget, um, Belichick's last playoff game, I guess we're saying, oh, the last playoff game with Brady.

• 1:18:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:12Speaker 01

  When they lost to the Titans at home on that, on that rainy night. And, you know, the Patriots need the ball back. They get a stop and you keep thinking, you're thinking, this is when, you know, we've seen this.

• 1:18:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:18:24Speaker 01

  You know, all of a sudden they're going to turn it on and Vrabel deploys that clock management trick that Belichick had used against the Jets earlier that year. And Belichick's just going nuts on the sideline and melting down. And you can tell he is hot because. But but Vrabel had learned, like he had studied the guy and he knew in the exact situation when to use that. That is next level coaching. And when you watch like again, the end of like the Bears Lions game, which is just like a debacle on every front. It's just obvious that there are some of these guys out there that are fundamentally coaching and teaching a different sport and others are just kind of glorified play callers. And that would be my concern with Ben Johnson, even though he's an imaginative play caller.

• 1:19:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Sal and I talked about it a little on Sunday. I just think being a head football coach and being somebody who specializes on one side of the ball or the other, over and over again, I would just rather have the overall head coach who's like Kevin Clark wrote a really good piece for us on The Ringer. I think it was for the 23 season about Vrabel and all the stuff that he did for the Titans. And people can go back and read it, but just about how he would grab different time with different, you know, he'd just be like, oh, I'm going to spend a half hour with the left guard because I don't like the way that he's stepping back on just every aspect of the team. And I think for the Patriot fans, like the stuff we read and hear about mail, like we're it just doesn't seem like that's happening. Not to mention the media stuff's been

• 1:19:50Bill Simmons?

  bad, the game management stuff's been bad, the team is exceptionally sloppy. And I it's I'm waiting for a light at the end of the tunnel with him because it would be a hell of a lot easier for all of us if he was a good coach or had a chance to be a good coach. But these next four, these next four games are going to determine it. All right. So you announced you have a new book coming in September. It's called American King's Biography of the Quarterback available for preorder now. And you just used your massive media clout to just go get time with a bunch of famous quarterbacks and find out what's going on with that position.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Including Drake May. But yeah, you know, I wanted to write a book that, you know, takes the most encompassing look at this position I possibly could. You know, what's it like to do at every one of these levels? What does it build in you? What does it strip away? What is it like doing in high school, college as a rookie? How did this thing become cool? You know, the answer, as it turns out, goes back to 1885 and runs. Right through LA in the coming decades.

• 1:20:50Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:20:50Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, then what is it like to live with this the rest of your life and what ways it is it incompatible? With kind of future happiness. I, you know, that's, that's what I wanted to do. And yeah, I spent some time with your boy Drake May. Um, when he was at Carolina and his family and the coaching staff there at the time and, um, I really enjoyed, you know, spending time with him. And I do think that like part of the reason he was appealing to the Patriots, there's a Brady factor there. Where it's like, you had the youngest kid in a family of achievers who had to fight for attention.

• 1:21:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  And, you know, when he decided to go to North Carolina, he knew, you know, right then that like, it's not about whether you make it in the NFL or not. It's actually just whether you have something to say at Thanksgiving with your family around, you know, did you, did you do something that year? That, that lets you have be part of that conversation. And, um, anyway, I had a great time reporting it and, and working on it and, um, looking forward to September.

• 1:21:50Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I obviously was obsessed with that draft in April and reading everything, talking to as many people as I could talk to and, um, and I was so all in on, on May, I, but Manning ironically, I was at a thing with him and I was just picking his brain because he knew May a little bit and I was like, I really feel like May is the guy and, and Manning was like, oh yeah. That guy's the man, like that guy's going to be really good. I was like, really? Like, I was like a little kid, really? You think he's gonna be good? But I do think part of, and I'm sure your book taps into that, is how the guys who have done it can spot things with the next guys. Like, oh, like they just kind of know who has and who doesn't. And May's been, it's been the opposite of, uh,

• 1:22:34Bill Simmons?

  you know, some of the other people we've had in different sports over the years. May's just been, he's checked every box. It's crazy. Like he even knows what to say in the press conferences already. It's nuts.

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  He has. And I mean, I think like to take back what you said, I mean, I think there's an element of it where, you know, they think they can. And then sometimes they can't too. So like, you know, what makes this job in these weird responsibilities it has? So unique and so, um, hard, you know, so mythologized and so hard to predict baffles these guys. I mean, Steve Young loved Zach Wilson, mentored him.

• 1:23:09Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 1:23:09Speaker 01

  And, you know.

• 1:23:10Bill Simmons?

  What happened?

• 1:23:11Speaker 01

  What happened?

• 1:23:12Bill Simmons?

  What happened to Sam Darnold? How does he go from? That's the thing. I think situation so much of it, which is why the Drake May thing has been amazing because he's in a bad situation. He's got bad receivers and a bad offensive line. It doesn't seem like his coaching staff is that great, although Van Pelt might be all right, but um, but Darnold, holy shit. You look back at the situation he was in. It was like, of course he wasn't going to succeed, especially at the age he was at. Um, anyway.

• 1:23:37Speaker 01

  And to tie it all back, and to tie it all back, Belichick used Darnold to take another crack at the Jets.

• 1:23:42Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. He loved that. He's done that a few times.

• 1:23:45Speaker 01

  He loved mentioning that every team wanted, wanted to keep Darnold and liked him except for the Jets. So.

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  Right. All right. Well, I look forward to reading that book. It's a great idea. Seth, awesome to see you read his piece today. If you want even more information on this, but I hope all is well.

• 1:24:00Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. Good to see you.

• 1:24:02Bill Simmons?

  All right. Joe House is here. We're going to do some million dollar picks in a second. Brag about our record, do all that stuff, but NBA Cup is, uh, the semifinals are Saturday night. The odds on FanDuel, OKC's plus 115, Milwaukee's plus 270, Rockets four to one. Atlanta, a feel good, super fun bet at plus five 50. My instinct says just lay the plus 115 with OKC and call it a day.

• 1:24:31Bill Simmons?

  I kind of landed the exact same place as you. Um, what we saw in terms of how they handled Dallas. And I really enjoyed the breakdown. You, Jacoby, Kirk Goldsberry, I felt like it took you guys too long to get to the part where Luca sucked. He suck sucked. He just was a flat out no show. He couldn't go up and down the court. And then what was crazy to me was in the previous three games, he looked fine. He looked like he was all the way back, but I don't know if it was a setback. I don't know where his head was at. He was out of that game before it even really got going, BS. Yeah, it seemed like. That OKC team is kind of a bitch to go against with all those swings they have and all those

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  athletes and they just seem like they knocked them out of his rhythm in the first half and that was it. It shouldn't have been that easy though. But if I'm OKC, we talked about it Tuesday night. Like that's such a good outcome that that's the team. That's one of the hurdles you needed to get over in the West and now you just feel like you can go at those guys. So they're playing the Houston Pit Bulls on Saturday night, um, who are just the classic. I don't know why I love this team so much because their last few minutes of their offenses. So, you know, it's just, it's just a chore, which is why Jimmy Butler trade.

• 1:25:47Speaker 02

  Part of the eyes.

• 1:25:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I talked earlier about a Jimmy Butler trade, but they just desperately need somebody who can get a really good shot. Doesn't appear like it's going to be Jalen Green. But, um, I just like the, I think it's going to be an awesome back and forth game. We saw it two weeks ago. I loved it. The Atlanta game, Atlanta, Milwaukee with that weird goofy Milwaukee team. And I know Yanis can just have the 38 19 and just overpower them. But I can't, I talked about it earlier in the pod. I continue to be infatuated by this Atlanta team and you feel the same.

• 1:26:19Speaker 02

  You know, I do because we bet heavily on them in the preseason.

• 1:26:23Bill Simmons?

  We did.

• 1:26:24Speaker 02

  We imagined this possibility with their size and their versatility. And low behold, you know, every once in a while we get a couple of things right. Um, and this was the team. We thought for sure that Dejounte Murray was, uh, an enormous addition by subtraction because what they got back in Dyson Daniels and Larry Nance Jr. Like it's a mindset. It wasn't just, you know, the sort of the player aspect of it, but they are long. They can, they defend from, from side to side. They defend full length and they, they are a team that can score late in games that I'm not worried are going to get good looks. The shot selection.

• 1:27:06Bill Simmons?

  No, you get, you get worried about the 29 footer from Trey. So I said earlier in the pod, Trey is at this really, really interesting inflection point where I feel like it's either going to happen or it's not, you know, like statistically, all these signs that he's going a little bit downhill as a scorer. And yet he's on the most fun Hawks team he's ever been on, the kind of team we would create. We're trying to create a team for him. Where he's got lobbers and lob, lob targets and shooters, all of these things, people are protecting him on defense. And now I want to see him elevate. And I think both of us are suspicious that it's in there.

• 1:27:38Speaker 02

  Well, I, I was going to ask you to clarify what you mean, whether it's going to happen or not, because my, my immediate response is it's happening. We are seeing it. This is-

• 1:27:51Bill Simmons?

  But not statistically for him though. I guess that's, the difference is, could he become with all these weapons? Could he turn into like a 24 and 12 guy and a 40% shooter and all the stuff we need?

• 1:28:02Speaker 02

  The only stat that matters is the assists. Like if he continues to lead the league or be right up there, top three in, in assists with this set of assets, then I would say, yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, this team has the composition of a team that can make some noise in the playoffs. They were so tough against the Knicks. That's always, you don't know whether a team's going to show up and be prepared to have that bully instinct. They bullied the Knicks. They, 10 more offensive rebounds. They kicked the Knicks right in the, in the, in the front and the back of the lower section there.

• 1:28:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I thought it was a moment, you know, and I think Trey is such an interesting guy to discuss and watch. And there's so many things I don't like about his game, like that Lakers game. He just a couple of horrible shots, but then he'll make a shot, right? But the thing I do like about him is the, the swagger and the competitiveness is there. Like you knew at the end of the game, he was going to be afraid of the moment. And the guys that he has around him, even that Reese Shay, and we watched him before the season in that Brooklyn exhibition game. And both of us, you were at my house and we were just watching going, what's up with this guy? We kind of like this guy.

• 1:29:08Speaker 02

  Maybe, yeah.

• 1:29:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And, you know, I, I, I just think it's a bunch of dudes that Bogdanovich comes in, he's not scared. It's a bunch of guys that aren't afraid. So I'm, I'm kind of leaning toward liking them in that Milwaukee matchup as an underdog. They are a plus 148, plus three and a half.

• 1:29:28Speaker 02

  I'm on record. I'm on record. I bought the gambling pot is already up. I played them on the money line and the points. I'll take them both ways. Yes, sir. Please.

• 1:29:38Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wow.

• 1:29:38Speaker 02

  Double, a double helping of Hawks. They're the Milwaukee team continues to be, you know, it's just everything they can extract from Giannis and they need a good game, good to great game from Dame just to be, they lost by 15 points a week ago. Now, no Middleton, but you know, okay. And Dame shot very well from three, had 25 points and Giannis did one of his 38 19s and they still got their ass handed to them. It's just a bad matchup, I think, for Milwaukee against this Hawks team.

• 1:30:13Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't agree more because Giannis could still have the 38 17 and they could still lose. They're gonna put Daniels, they're, they're gonna try, try to take out Dame with Daniels and some of the other swings. Somebody like Trey has always been a problem for this Bucks team with how to guard these shifty point guards. So if Trey plays well, they win. I, I almost feel like you could do the Hawks money line with some sort of Trey over bet. All right, let's talk, let's talk some, some football.

• 1:30:41Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 1:30:42Bill Simmons?

  We're, we're doing really well on million dollar picks.

• 1:30:45Speaker 02

  I'm not.

• 1:30:46Bill Simmons?

  We won $551,000 last week. We are up 1.764 million dollars.

• 1:30:54Speaker 02

  It's pretty good.

• 1:30:56Bill Simmons?

  This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. It almost scares me a little. There's just, it's playing all the hits for me. I love good to decent teams, three points or under. I love Mike Tomlin getting points. You could probably guess what my picks are gonna be. There's like an easy teaser. So we'll go through some of it. Steelers Eagles, Steelers plus five and a half. I'll let you take the floor because I heard what you said on the Ringer Gambling Show today, and you had a couple of points in this game that I just wholeheartedly agreed with. Do your what good defenses Philly played thing.

• 1:31:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I went through their list of wins and, and please don't misunderstand. A nine game winning streak is outstanding. It's excellent. But when you go through the teams that they've beat, I don't think you can get to a top 10 defense. I think you're hard pressed to get to a top 15 defense. Now, they

• 1:31:50Bill Simmons?

  Wait, can I give them quick?

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  Please, please.

• 1:31:52Bill Simmons?

  Cleveland, Cleveland, Giants, Cincy, Jaguars, Cowboys, Washington, Rams, Baltimore, Carolina. And it's not like they were throwing up 40 points a game either against those defenses. But that speaks to like, just nobody even remotely approaching what Pittsburgh has.

• 1:32:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I guess Cleveland would be the best out of, out of that group, but right. So the thing about Pittsburgh and why I think it's going to be a shock to the system is their ability to bring a pass rush that these Eagles have not seen this entire season. And the Steelers are really rounding into form in terms of, you know, their quick pressure rate, their ability to disrupt, and they have health at the linebacker position. Both Herbig and Alonzo Highsmith, healthy, and I just think, yeah, so we already know that this Eagles defense is one dimensional.

• 1:32:48Speaker 02

  They are the, the least passing team in the NFL, the fewest number of attempts and completions in the entire NFL, Jalen Hurts and this Eagles passing defense.

• 1:32:59Bill Simmons?

  31st in a passing league that has some horrible quarterbacks. They're 31st out of 32.

• 1:33:04Speaker 02

  So you want to, you want to give this Steelers defense a one dimensional look? Do you think that they'll load the box and, and, and say, please try and run on us? And, you know, I think this is finally a matchup where the Eagles, very excellent offensive line. Again, don't misunderstand me. They're, that, they're, they're going to meet their match in terms of what this Steelers defensive front seven can bring to the table.

• 1:33:30Bill Simmons?

  And Pittsburgh has a way better special teams.

• 1:33:33Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:33:33Bill Simmons?

  Like Pittsburgh has one of the preeminent special teams of this decade. The season Boswell's having, I think Boswell might be having the greatest fantasy football season by a kicker in the last 15 years. I had him on the vote out league that I'm in with Sal and Hench and those guys. And I didn't make the playoffs. My team sucked and I felt bad. I almost felt like sending Boswell a letter. I'm sorry I let you down. You did everything you could. This wasn't your fault, Boswell.

• 1:33:59Speaker 02

  You should have figured out a way to put him on a, on a contender. I mean, you know, I, I understand the dynamics that are at work, but like, is Jon Hamm still alive? He could have done something nice for you.

• 1:34:09Bill Simmons?

  He might have over 200 fantasy points this year.

• 1:34:12Speaker 02

  Just outrageous.

• 1:34:13Bill Simmons?

  But that's like, kickers don't do that. The top kicker is usually 160, 170. So they have him. The Tomlin factor. Tomlin has an underdog. Philly's first rushing offense. Pittsburgh's fourth against the run in the entire league.

• 1:34:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's great.

• 1:34:28Bill Simmons?

  And the only thing that worries me is the Pickens part. That's it. They're not going to have Pickens.

• 1:34:33Speaker 02

  That's a, that's a viable concern and you're, you're not imagining a game script here where Pittsburgh tries to get the ball way down the field, which has been, you know, that one of their pathways to success with Russell Wilson. He's been throwing a very nice deep ball. But that's not the way. The way that they win this game is field position, special teams, defense, long drives.

• 1:34:56Bill Simmons?

  Under, under, under. You're just laying out unders left and right.

• 1:34:59Speaker 02

  You're absolutely right.

• 1:35:00Bill Simmons?

  I think this has been a season about the general public underestimating things. And Pittsburgh is like the leader of the pack with that. People have underestimated them before the season. As the season was going, people kept looking for reasons. And then this is the most offensive line of them all. Like the Eagles could win and, and win by 14. I still think the line's offensive. I think it's a three point game. I can't believe it's five and a half. Especially with how the Eagles looked last week, barely beating Carolina, having some sniping after the game. And this is like where Pittsburgh loves to be. Like it's gonna be, the weather's not gonna be that bad, but it's a Pennsylvania game. So not, not long travel.

• 1:35:41Bill Simmons?

  And it, to me, it just feels like a 20 to 16, 19 to 16, 21 to 20. So I was looking at different bets, like the, the other thing is the Steelers are five and a half. So Vegas is like, we don't know, we're throwing this to Vegas. Steelers plus four and a half on Fanduel is, is even money.

• 1:35:59Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:36:00Bill Simmons?

  Steelers plus five and a half is like minus 113. If you do Steelers plus four and a half with an under of 45 and a half, that's plus 198. It's almost 2-1.

• 1:36:10Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:36:10Bill Simmons?

  And I guess my question to you is,

• 1:36:14Bill Simmons?

  so how many points become unrealistic for a game like this? Because we, we, if we don't think the Eagles are going to be able to run the ball, that might actually lead to more long passes. But I don't think the Steelers are going to be able to get the same explosive plays that they used to have. So the motto for them to win is just run the ball, run the ball, control it, try to wear the Eagles out. And then on defense, the Eagles stubbornly try to run against them for a half. It doesn't work and then maybe it opens up second half. But um, I was looking at that Steelers plus five and a half, under 47 and a half is plus 163.

• 1:36:46Speaker 02

  Another great one. As many of these as you want to do, I'm here for it.

• 1:36:51Bill Simmons?

  Steelers win the game outright with under 45 and a half is plus 328. So there's, there's some

• 1:36:55Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:36:56Bill Simmons?

  Good ones, but I, normally my instinct would be to pull the Steelers up over seven. I don't think, I think in this one, like this is, this feels like a three point game to me. And they've played these games all year and I think, I think they're going to have a chip on their shoulder. And this might be a team they see in the Super Bowl, FYI.

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  I, I couldn't agree more with any of, of your handicapper assessment there. I, I want to just add a couple of other layers. You mentioned the special teams thing. Tell me how many field goals Jake Elliott has made of 50 yards or longer this season?

• 1:37:27Bill Simmons?

  Oh God, probably like one.

• 1:37:29Speaker 02

  The answer is none.

• 1:37:31Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:37:32Speaker 02

  He is 0 for 5. So if we're talking about, if we imagine a game script where it's tight, it's, it's, you know, uh, field position kind of game. Those 50 yard field goals start to become important. And then the last sort of element of it is like, who do you trust more in a game like this? Nick Sirianni or Mike Tomlin? And you know, that, that for me matters.

• 1:37:55Bill Simmons?

  What's the best unit in the game? And I, I would say it's Pittsburgh's defense. Now, if, if Philly can run the ball on them. We'll know within a quarter and the game's probably over, but I think this, to me, this feels like a close game. It feels like a field position game. Special teams will factor it in and I just, I like some combination of, maybe it's all the way up to 47 and a half. Maybe it's Steelers plus five and a half with the under 47 and a half, something like that.

• 1:38:21Speaker 02

  Fine.

• 1:38:22Bill Simmons?

  Think that's the move.

• 1:38:23Speaker 02

  Fine.

• 1:38:25Bill Simmons?

  Next one, Lions Bills. So,

• 1:38:29Bill Simmons?

  this is Lions minus two and a half, which is just a complete F you to the Lions defense by everybody. People are like, you didn't fool us last week. Your team spent 38 seconds calling every play on offense and just doing everything they could to keep the defense off the field. And now you're going to play Josh Allen. We don't trust you. My counter is that the Rams showed what to do against Buffalo last week. They ran the ball. They ran the ball. Then they then play action or quick passes and they just got first downs, moved the ball. And Detroit has a better offense than the Rams do. They have a better offensive line. I don't know how Buffalo, I just feel like they're going to get pushed backwards the whole game. I think that's Buffalo's

• 1:39:13Bill Simmons?

  a team that needs the lead. And I think the Lions are just going to push them back, push them back. Maybe there's a scenario where Josh is chasing the cover late, but I, this defense looks like an awesome matchup for the Lions. So I'm more focused on their offense and less the defensive deficiencies. What are you looking at?

• 1:39:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. So this is again, kind of a razor thin, coin flip kind of game. And so you're trying to find the teeny tiny slices that might tip it one way or the other. And you know, if you were wanted, if you wanted to back the Bills and grab the points, you would talk about Detroit's secondary being susceptible to explosives and the Bills are getting back both Coleman and Kincaid this week. They're supposed to both be ready to play. And we saw it through, through, you know, the tremendous comeback against the Rams. Shakir was incredible. Allen is at the absolute peak of his powers. And if he is out of structure, you don't.

• 1:40:12Speaker 02

  You don't worry about Josh Allen out of structure, getting the ball down the field. He is the best quarterback that Detroit will have faced this whole season with a pretty healthy offense. And what I, one of the things I'm interested in, I'm looking at it right now. James cooked these nuts over, because I do think that they are going to try and establish a little run. We're going to go cook these nuts over 52 and a half rushing yards, but that's just a side play for me.

• 1:40:41Bill Simmons?

  So that would be the case for Buffalo. But if the Lions win this, would it think 30 points for them at least?

• 1:40:47Speaker 02

  Oh, I mean, the points are going to be abundant. I don't.

• 1:40:50Bill Simmons?

  And I don't want to do this, but I'm just saying like, if you, if you're taking the Lions, if you're like, I want to take the Lions plus two and a half, I would take Lions money line and do over 50 and a half, something like over 50 and a half Lions money line is plus 206. I would do something like that. This is not going to be a 24 to 16 type of game. I think there's going to be points, but I feel like there's been a few times this year where Detroit's offense got discounted a little bit.

• 1:41:15Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:41:16Bill Simmons?

  Even Green Bay last Thursday night, we all love Green Bay. We ended up, actually, I think we ended up winning that bet.

• 1:41:23Speaker 02

  We won our bet because it was a, you know, we got the three and a half.

• 1:41:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but Detroit, 34 points, probably could add more. I, to me, this is just a, just don't overthink it. Lions are home. They need the game. That's the other thing. It's not like they have a three game lead in the NFC. Minnesota is one game behind them. And their offense is just way better than Buffalo's, even though Buffalo's offense is really good, but like Detroit's plus 27 in touchdowns this year. Buffalo's plus 18. Detroit's net yards, they've scored almost a thousand more yards than the other team or gained a thousand more yards. Buffalo's at 300. Buffalo's had weeks where they. They just looks like they've they're like that Baltimore game, the game last week where it

• 1:42:10Bill Simmons?

  just feels like you can go up and down the field of them. And I like the matchup for Detroit.

• 1:42:15Speaker 02

  Here's the thing that really tips it for me. If it's a tight game, we're in the fourth quarter, and it's time to start doing some math about the most efficient way to produce an outcome. I don't, we just watched it. Sean McDermott just has too many unforced errors in this regard. And Dan Campbell never makes a mistake. It is like Dan Campbell and the Lions are at the same level as the Chiefs in terms of like, it's an end of game scenario, and I've got it mapped out, and I know the correct call to make. We might not execute, and we might lose the game because of a failure to execute, but I know the call I'm gonna make, and it's the right

• 1:42:57Speaker 02

  call, and that's how we're gonna win. McDermott just gets it wrong so many times, too often, and I don't want to be in that position of watching this great game back and forth, back and forth, and the Bills have the ball, and dumb dumb McDermott makes a dumb dumb call, and then they're like, god damn it, why did I invest in this team?

• 1:43:17Bill Simmons?

  Muscle not pot, like Detroit really needs the game. Buffalo, they're either gonna be the two or the three seed. There's urgency, but not like crazy nuts urgency. Why, you think they can drop to four?

• 1:43:28Speaker 02

  No, I don't think we're, I don't know if we're gonna get to the Chiefs, but I'm not, after what we watched in that game of

• 1:43:35Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you think they get to the one seed?

• 1:43:36Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah, I'm not ready to cross off that

• 1:43:41Bill Simmons?

  Bigger game for Detroit. Detroit has to win this game.

• 1:43:44Speaker 02

  Fine, fine, that's fine. Home game too. Campbell and golf at home. Last couple of seasons, incredible against the spread.

• 1:43:51Bill Simmons?

  With that said, I hate betting against Josh Allen.

• 1:43:53Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:43:54Bill Simmons?

  We uh, we'll take a break and then we'll hit the rest of the games. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FTIC.

• 1:44:37Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun, sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead, but what if you went to Cancun? With Expedia, save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully, your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save. Savings vary. All right, come back. More games that I like. Well, there's one I don't, that I stared at, that I wanted to throw in. Chargers minus 3 at home against the Bucks. And I had them written down all week. I kept looking at it, kept looking at the injury report, and

• 1:45:21Bill Simmons?

  this seems like a week to stay away with the Chargers. I just, there's something I don't like about it. The McCauley's not healthy, Dobbins is out, Herbert now has this sprained ankle situation again. And I feel like this line should be like Chargers by 4. And the books are trying to tell us something. The Bucks being a 3-point underdog, like, I, they didn't even look good last week. So, it's a stay away to me house.

• 1:45:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it is 100% the injury uncertainty. It was trending in a way that let me go ahead and get a little bit down on the Chargers minus 3, because I think it's a great number for the reason that you just laid out. I mean, the Bucks have a bunch of wins against nobody teams. They beat the Giants with Tommy DeVito. They beat Carolina in overtime.

• 1:46:12Bill Simmons?

  They play in the NFC South.

• 1:46:13Speaker 02

  Right. I mean, they, they, they handled the Raiders because Aiden O'Connell broke his leg. Like, you know, there's a bunch of wins. Now, again, you win, you got to play the games under in front of you on your schedule. Congrats to them, but brutal spot. Um, what's the status of Bucky Irving? That will, uh, uh, impact the handicap. And then what's the stat? McConkey was running drills on Wednesday. So I started saying, well, this is part of why I, I went ahead and get, got down a little bit on that Chargers minus three.

• 1:46:41Bill Simmons?

  We're staying away.

• 1:46:41Speaker 02

  You can't have Herbert under any circumstances impaired at all because the, the, what Tampa has been doing these last three weeks very successfully against bad teams is blitz, blitz, blitz. They've greatly increased their blitz rate and it's been successful.

• 1:46:57Bill Simmons?

  I know I'm coming on the Ringer Sunday pregame on Sunday. I could see being back in on the Chargers on Sunday. I'm not doing it now on a Thursday afternoon.

• 1:47:05Speaker 02

  Great.

• 1:47:06Bill Simmons?

  Here's a game I do love. Houston minus two and a half against Miami.

• 1:47:11Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 1:47:12Bill Simmons?

  Texans off a bye.

• 1:47:15Bill Simmons?

  Miami's pass defense kind of getting semi shredded by Aaron Rodgers, who's, who's been done for three years.

• 1:47:23Bill Simmons?

  D'Amico Ryan's versus Tua. Raheem talked about that on the Ringer gambling show today. There was a San Francisco game with Tua. That was not awesome for Tua.

• 1:47:33Bill Simmons?

  Houston's defense, seventh against the pass, second in sacks, second in tackles for a loss. Most importantly, house.

• 1:47:44Bill Simmons?

  We're kind of due for a good CJ Stroud game.

• 1:47:48Bill Simmons?

  We're just due.

• 1:47:49Speaker 02

  I would say overdue. We are like over overdue.

• 1:47:52Bill Simmons?

  But he's got his receivers back. Nico Collins is back. They're coming off a bye. It just feels like this is a first quarter where they come out swinging, make a couple of big plays. They hit two a couple of times. I don't think Miami's good. And I think if the, to me, this is a gift of a line. This line should be Texans by three and a half. People don't trust Houston. I get it. Not even sure Houston's that good. If they can't win this game, we might have to take their AFC South title house. Just give it to somebody else.

• 1:48:23Speaker 02

  Well, the Colts are, you know, sort of hovering around interesting matchup against the Broncos. But I understand your point with this Dolphins team. I just can't unsee what the Jets did to them. It looked like, you know, Devonte Adams was open on every play. It looked like Wilson was open on every play.

• 1:48:46Bill Simmons?

  Nine yard outs over and over again.

• 1:48:49Speaker 02

  I just, and it, the, uh,

• 1:48:52Bill Simmons?

  And Jalen Ramsey looked like shit in that game, didn't he?

• 1:48:55Speaker 02

  Right. Yes. Yes. They, they put them on an island and they're, they're just, they just cooked them.

• 1:49:01Speaker 02

  The Houston Texans do not deserve to be trusted, but I think we finally might be in a situation where you, you outlined it properly. We're not laying a ton of points. They're at home. It's off the buy. We're dying for a CJ Stroud game. And you know, we saw a version of Houston at the beginning of the season where Joe Mixon was super effective. Like, oh, look at this, this Houston team might be a, an 11 or 12 win team. They went through their injuries and stuff. Their offensive line is the issue. They can't really be trusted. But I like the spot for Houston. I'm, I'm in your direction on this.

• 1:49:36Bill Simmons?

  You know what I like the most about this game?

• 1:49:39Bill Simmons?

  So if the Jets just finished the game last week, that stupid game that they gave away. And the Dolphins lose to the Jets last week. What's the line on this game?

• 1:49:48Speaker 02

  Right. Exactly.

• 1:49:49Bill Simmons?

  It's at least three and a half. It might even be four.

• 1:49:51Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 1:49:52Bill Simmons?

  So instead we're at two and a half because the Jets just decided to actually have like a stroke on the field. They were so stupid.

• 1:50:01Bill Simmons?

  Houston's four and one. Here's another reason to be suspicious of Houston. They're four and one against the South, a terrible division. They've also beaten the, the Tex, the Bears, the Patriots and the Cowboys. So this might be the best win they have in a while.

• 1:50:17Speaker 02

  Well, let me put this to you because you'll go through the stats and you mentioned this them coming out fast. They are one of the top five teams in the NFL in terms of scoring in the first half.

• 1:50:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:28Speaker 02

  And they don't have to lay very much in the first. We can look at the Fanduel sportsbook to see what the first half spread is. They're one of the worst teams. They're one of the worst teams in the NFL in the second half.

• 1:50:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I saw the second half stuff is terrible with them.

• 1:50:43Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:50:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I hate doing those first half.

• 1:50:46Speaker 02

  You don't like the exotic.

• 1:50:48Bill Simmons?

  It's minus one and a half. We saved like a point, you know?

• 1:50:51Speaker 02

  Okay, all right.

• 1:50:54Bill Simmons?

  I listen, you made me, you did make me think.

• 1:50:58Bill Simmons?

  Do you think two is good?

• 1:50:59Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, I do. I do think.

• 1:51:01Bill Simmons?

  Really? I do. So you're in the pro two account?

• 1:51:03Speaker 02

  I am a pro two guy, yes.

• 1:51:05Bill Simmons?

  I just can't get there.

• 1:51:07Speaker 02

  Under the right circumstances, when he's playing either indoors or in Miami when it's 80 degrees, I think he's good. And I do think that the DJ has created a playlist for him. He's there spinning some, some, some smooth sounds down there where he can be super effective with those weapons. But like, under any kind of adverse conditions, as soon as they go outside, we watched it, forget about it.

• 1:51:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, well, or if he's getting pounded by the passers.

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:51:36Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Last, uh, last straight up game Seahawks Packers. Still the stupefying line to me of the week, the, the lack of respect for Seattle. Pittsburgh and Seattle were the two. I was like, wow, what do, why am I seeing this so differently? Seahawks are plus two and a half at home against the Packers.

• 1:51:57Bill Simmons?

  I, I just don't get it. The, now that, and you laid out the case on the gambling pod today, but I don't feel like the defense thing is a mirage. There was real reasons why they started to struggle defensively. All of their guys are back now. They're actually like playing really good defense. McDonald's been there for a while. They understand what he's trying to do. And then the other thing that jumped out, especially last week is they, the blocking for their offensive line went from. Horrific to pretty passable like they ran the ball down the throats Arizona last week. Their last four wins, they beat San Francisco and they won three road games last four week at San Francisco, home Arizona, at the Jets, at Arizona. The other thing I like House, their third, they basically the third best passing attack in the league

• 1:52:41Bill Simmons?

  and that's been a weakness for Green Bay. So I'm trying to think of how Green Bay goes in there and just waltzes and beat them. It would have to be a pretty extraordinary Jordan Love game and I, I think Seattle's defense can actually contain him.

• 1:52:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you went through those games that they won, including the road games. Those are all high leverage games. Those are all like season determining games. They lose like really any of those and they're probably out of, of the playoffs and it's a real testament to McDonald. And they did get healthy at the right time. The buy couldn't have come at a better time for them. So since the buy 50%, you know, disruption rate, we saw it against the Cardinals.

• 1:53:22Bill Simmons?

  You love that stat.

• 1:53:23Speaker 02

  I do because top five disruption, that means that they're going in and not letting the offense get itself set into a scheme that, that, you know, where they can execute what they have in mind. And that they're certainly not letting the quarterback get set up. But to me, you mentioned all the offensive side that, um, you know, they, they, they had a zone blocking scheme. We saw Zach Charbonne looked like the guy that, you know, like, hey, yeah, look at him run the ball. They, they, that was really effective. It takes so much pressure off of Gino if they can run that way. And look, Gino, uh, from a clean pocket, nine touchdowns, two picks. It's, it's like the diametric opposite under pressure, five touchdowns, 10 picks.

• 1:54:07Speaker 02

  But the Packers don't generate any, any pressure. They're 22nd in pressure rate and 26th in pass rush win rate.

• 1:54:17Bill Simmons?

  Pass, pass rush?

• 1:54:19Speaker 02

  You, you do it. You could do it.

• 1:54:21Bill Simmons?

  Well, they let, the last few games, they lost to Detroit twice. They came back and beat the Bears 20 to 19, Eberflus' last win. They killed the San Francisco, the game when, uh, which was a good win for them, but also San Francisco had a ton of injuries. And then they beat Miami on that Thursday night. And I like the Packers. I think they're, I think they're a good team, but, um, but I don't think they should be favored in Seattle. If it was the Seattle from five weeks ago, I get it, but not the Seattle we've watched last month. So to me, that's, I, I think Seattle should be favored. And the rule is if, if you, if you feel like you're getting so many more points than you thought you might be getting. Anyway, um, there's a couple of things we can do with this.

• 1:55:07Bill Simmons?

  I think Seahawks money line is the play.

• 1:55:09Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. Fine.

• 1:55:11Bill Simmons?

  But Seahawks in a teaser is kind of fun.

• 1:55:15Speaker 02

  That's one of my favorite legs of the week.

• 1:55:17Bill Simmons?

  Seahawks, Seahawks minus two and a half is plus 154.

• 1:55:23Speaker 02

  Sure. Great. In.

• 1:55:27Bill Simmons?

  So maybe that's the way to play it. Yeah. Maybe that, maybe play the money line and then put them in a teaser. So teaser possibilities, I'm just insisting on one. The Chiefs are minus four and a half against the Browns. So it's, it's more of a money parlay than a teaser, but, um, the Chiefs are only minus four and a half in Cleveland. Bad weather. It's the Chiefs. Nobody trusts them anymore to cover anything.

• 1:55:51Bill Simmons?

  The Browns are horrible. The Browns should be one, I went through their schedule. The Browns should be one and 12.

• 1:55:58Speaker 02

  They're not horrible.

• 1:56:00Bill Simmons?

  The Browns are 32nd in DVOA this year. They're last, they're dead last with DVOA. They're getting more and more injuries every week. Now Greg Newsom is out. They can't run the ball at all. They can't run the ball.

• 1:56:13Speaker 02

  Problem.

• 1:56:13Bill Simmons?

  At all.

• 1:56:14Speaker 02

  That's true.

• 1:56:15Bill Simmons?

  And to beat the Chiefs, it's just gonna have to be Jameis doing stuff every week.

• 1:56:19Speaker 02

  Well, you know who, who we didn't think could run the ball at all? The LA Chargers. Now, I'm not gonna say, say, sit here and say that Justin.

• 1:56:27Bill Simmons?

  You're not gonna make the case for the Browns, are you?

• 1:56:29Speaker 02

  I like the Browns. I like the Browns quite a bit.

• 1:56:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my God.

• 1:56:33Speaker 02

  I think this is the Browns' Super Bowl, and I think there's a decent chance.

• 1:56:37Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 1:56:37Speaker 02

  To validate their season. If they have a season where they beat the Ravens, they beat the Steelers, and they beat the Chiefs.

• 1:56:44Bill Simmons?

  They're terrible.

• 1:56:45Speaker 02

  They're not terrible. Their defense is finally.

• 1:56:48Bill Simmons?

  I watched them last week against Pittsburgh. They're terrible.

• 1:56:50Speaker 02

  That was, those were short field mistake-driven scores. Like, they held Russell Wilson to under 160 yards.

• 1:57:00Bill Simmons?

  He didn't have, he didn't have pickings.

• 1:57:02Speaker 02

  Short field. I understand, but this Chiefs situation is busted. And I said on one of our shows this week, I can't wait to find the opportunity to fade them in the playoffs because I promise you, I'm gonna fade them in the playoffs.

• 1:57:17Bill Simmons?

  How about them in Cleveland, just to win and beat Jameis Winston in a team that's missing a kajillion guys?

• 1:57:23Speaker 02

  I'm not doing it. I can't endorse it. I think that the variance with Jameis.

• 1:57:29Bill Simmons?

  You've been hanging out with JJ too much.

• 1:57:30Speaker 02

  No, I just, I just can't. That secondary for the Chiefs is, has no solution. You can't name the, like, five of the guys that the Chargers had on the field catching passes last week, and it just didn't matter. They were all open. They were open every time. It's why the Chiefs had to run the anaconda offense at the end of that game to win. They had to strangle the Chargers for five minutes and get to a field goal and kick that field goal. It was their only chance to win because the Chargers otherwise would have gone down the field and won.

• 1:58:04Bill Simmons?

  Maybe the Chargers are good.

• 1:58:06Speaker 02

  They could be, but you can't name the guys that were catching balls at tight end or receiver for the Chargers.

• 1:58:14Bill Simmons?

  I could name them. Josh Palmer, Quentin Johnston.

• 1:58:17Speaker 02

  Those guys stink. They're so bad. Disley got hurt. It was, it was stone, smart stone.

• 1:58:23Bill Simmons?

  You don't trust the Chiefs, and yet I heard you earlier today talk about how much you like the Cowboys in a fucking tease.

• 1:58:29Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:58:30Bill Simmons?

  The Cowboys are reprehensible.

• 1:58:32Speaker 02

  Look.

• 1:58:32Bill Simmons?

  So you trust the Cowboys?

• 1:58:35Speaker 02

  To getting eight and a half against the Carolina Panthers, yes.

• 1:58:37Bill Simmons?

  I just need the Chiefs to beat the Browns. They can win by half a point and I win the bet.

• 1:58:42Speaker 02

  I hate it. I hate it. You, you, you could say that about every team that the Chiefs, every bad team that the Chiefs have, have, have won by the tiniest, you know, hair on their ass in each of these last, they're, they're one and seven against the spread.

• 1:59:00Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 1:59:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I know all those stats, but in a weird way, you're proving my point.

• 1:59:05Bill Simmons?

  The Browns have Jedi mind.

• 1:59:07Speaker 02

  Sustainable.

• 1:59:07Bill Simmons?

  But the Browns have, the Browns have Jedi mind tricked people into thinking they're not terrible and they are.

• 1:59:13Speaker 02

  They're not.

• 1:59:14Bill Simmons?

  Thirty second in DVOA. They're, they have a worse DVOA than Carolina, New England, Tennessee, Las Vegas and the New York Giants. Worse than everybody.

• 1:59:23Speaker 02

  That number has so much Deshaun Watson spilled all over it.

• 1:59:28Bill Simmons?

  What about, did you see, what did Jameis do last week that you liked? Other than just sail the ball over people's heads and make terrible plays?

• 1:59:35Speaker 02

  They had the backdoor cover staring them in the face. It was right there.

• 1:59:39Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God. Uh, the other tease I like is the Vikings against the Bears. Just cause I'm tired of.

• 1:59:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Oh.

• 1:59:46Bill Simmons?

  I'm tired of, of passing on Sam Darnold.

• 1:59:49Speaker 02

  Now you're talking. Now you're talking. Yeah. And look, you know, if you wanted to go ahead and, and grab my team and, and go from seven and a half down to one and a half against Spencer Rattler.

• 2:00:00Bill Simmons?

  I don't trust your team.

• 2:00:01Speaker 02

  Spencer Rattler?

• 2:00:02Bill Simmons?

  I don't trust your team.

• 2:00:04Speaker 02

  The, the, the, the closest margin of victory.

• 2:00:07Bill Simmons?

  I don't trust your 27th run defense against the Saints, just running the ball like 200 times against you. Makes me nervous.

• 2:00:13Speaker 02

  All right, fine.

• 2:00:14Bill Simmons?

  I don't trust your team. I'm sorry.

• 2:00:16Speaker 02

  That's fine. I, I'm not, I, I just wanted to put it out there. I'm not going to try and make the case.

• 2:00:20Bill Simmons?

  Vikings minus seven against the Bears. Um, the Vikings weakness is you can kind of throw at them and the Bears are 30th pass.

• 2:00:30Speaker 02

  They're, they're, that's a dead man walking team. I, I very much like this.

• 2:00:34Bill Simmons?

  Fourth in sacks. Not to mention all the Flores split stuff, Chicago 32nd. The only case for the Bears is just that they played the Vikings pretty well a month ago. But now that Darnold, Jefferson, Addison, they're all humming again. Did you see that there was a, a long video of Kirk Cousins saying goodbye to everybody in Minnesota after the game? Did you see this? I think I sent this to you.

• 2:00:56Speaker 02

  You didn't, but I loved that. Yeah, I'm dying already.

• 2:00:59Bill Simmons?

  It's a four minute video. All the Vikings, all their players, coaches stuck around in the field to, to say goodbye to him after the game.

• 2:01:08Speaker 02

  Because his career is over?

• 2:01:09Bill Simmons?

  No, they loved him. They loved him so much that it was just guy after guy coming over, hugging him. Hey, man, it's great to see you. He just seems like he was the most beloved teammate ever.

• 2:01:20Speaker 02

  He's a gamer. I mean,

• 2:01:22Bill Simmons?

  People love Kirk Cousins.

• 2:01:23Speaker 02

  $200 million by being a gamer. Not very good, but a gamer.

• 2:01:28Bill Simmons?

  So you're down on Vikings minus seven?

• 2:01:31Speaker 02

  Oh, 100% down.

• 2:01:33Bill Simmons?

  And what if I talked you into Casey money, Minnesota?

• 2:01:39Speaker 02

  I'm not doing anything with Kansas City. I'm telling you right now.

• 2:01:41Bill Simmons?

  Casey money, Minnesota money, Seattle plus eight and a half is plus 150.

• 2:01:46Speaker 02

  You can do that on your own. I'm not endorsing anything with the Chiefs.

• 2:01:49Bill Simmons?

  You're really mad about it?

• 2:01:50Speaker 02

  I'm not mad. I,

• 2:01:52Bill Simmons?

  What is it about the Ringer gambling show that the shitty teams and the bad quarterbacks are like fucking catnip for you guys? I don't get it.

• 2:01:59Speaker 02

  I laid three and a half points with the Chiefs on Sunday night and they showed flaws that are unlike flaws that we've seen out of them. Yeah. So I'm not, I'm out on them. They are super beatable. They keep telling us who they are. Every single week, they're, they get down to a single moment, a single score, and they've been on the correct side of the outcome. I'm not betting on that. I'm not betting on that anymore. I'm done with the Chiefs.

• 2:02:30Bill Simmons?

  So there's a Minnesota tease possibility with Seattle.

• 2:02:33Speaker 02

  Okay, in.

• 2:02:35Bill Simmons?

  I still like that Seattle minus two, Seattle minus two and a half, plus 154.

• 2:02:40Speaker 02

  Great. Love it. No argument.

• 2:02:44Speaker 02

  I think that defense is super legit like uh Green Bay in Detroit got a version of a Detroit defense. We were like, oh, Detroit, they're really banged up. This is going to be a hard spot for them. And, you know, they, they, they were, they were gamers. It wasn't that, that, you know, Green Bay went out and flew all over them. But this, this Seattle defense is a different deal and we're outdoors. Now, I respect, uh, you know, Green Bay's outdoor acumen. I'm not suggesting that they're going to have a problem playing outdoors. It's just a different kind of situation, different speed.

• 2:03:22Bill Simmons?

  All right. I think I know what we want to do for million dollar picks. All right, it's time. Million Dollar Picks, week 15. We are staying away from Niners Rams tonight. As much as we usually like throwing a little something on the Thursday night if we can get the pot up in time. To me, it's just an abject stay away Rams Niners, staying away. So apologies to both of those teams. We did not want to wager on you tonight. Here's what we do want to do, and we're up 1.764 million dollars. We won $551,000 last week, House.

• 2:03:53Speaker 02

  Pretty good.

• 2:03:54Bill Simmons?

  First one, Steelers. We looked at this all different ways. We thought about money line with the under. We thought about Steelers plus four and a half on Fanduel, Zebon. It's like all kinds of machinations. Both of us feel like this line is two to two and a half points too high because the Steelers defense, how good it is?

• 2:04:12Speaker 02

  Such a good defense.

• 2:04:14Bill Simmons?

  Don't trust the Eagles passing offense?

• 2:04:16Speaker 02

  Do not.

• 2:04:17Bill Simmons?

  Love Mike Tomlin as an underdog?

• 2:04:19Speaker 02

  Love.

• 2:04:19Bill Simmons?

  The most, the most underappreciated discounted team of 2024, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Plus five and a half in Philly. We are putting $200,000 on that one, even though George, don't call me Carl Pickens, is not playing. So there you go. That's our first one. Second one, Lions minus two and a half at home against Josh Allen and the Bills. This is a straight backing of the Lions offense. We are going in eyes wide open. Could be a fun live head, live hedge house near the end. Bills down 14 late. Just jump on Josh. Try to middle it.

• 2:04:57Speaker 02

  You have to get Sean McDermott out of there, but yes.

• 2:05:00Bill Simmons?

  Who's your, who do you think is the best team right now? Just in general, is it still the Lions for you?

• 2:05:04Speaker 02

  Detroit, yes. Detroit, yes.

• 2:05:06Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's how I feel. All right. Well, we get them under a field goal at home in a big game.

• 2:05:09Speaker 02

  Great.

• 2:05:10Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, the Bills don't necessarily need the game. They're either going to be the two seed or the three seed unless Casey loses in Cleveland this week. If you missed the first part of the pod, House, would it let me put Casey in a teaser parlay? Even though Cleveland's 32nd DVOA, Cleveland sucks. They're terrible.

• 2:05:28Speaker 02

  I don't think they suck.

• 2:05:29Bill Simmons?

  This seemed like a layup and House threw his body in front of it. So I get to just send him MF or text if Casey's up by 20. Next bet Texans minus two and a half at home against the Miami Dolphins who came very close to losing Aaron Rodgers, who gave up a 300 point game or 300 yard game to Aaron Rodgers, which should get you kicked out of the league at this point. Texans minus two and a half coming off a bye. Winging the ball around.

• 2:05:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, we have to see whether Toronto Armstead's even able to go for Miami overtime game for Miami, all those extra plays. Houston off the bye rested and really ready to put their stamp on the back half of this season. They have a really tough schedule. They have to win a home game like this.

• 2:06:15Bill Simmons?

  We are banking on this being a, hey, CJ Stroud, welcome back to the season game combined with if the Jets had just taken care of business beating the Dolphins last week, there's no way this line would be minus two and a half. And we're grabbing Houston 200K on that. Now we're putting a little teaser.

• 2:06:34Bill Simmons?

  With Minnesota and Seattle. Minnesota's minus seven, Seattle is plus two and a half at home against Green Bay. So we'll, we'll nudge that up six points. We're putting 200K on that. We don't understand the Seattle line at all. Minnesota at home against Chicago. We believe in this Minnesota team. Still lingering, still hoping the Lions stumble and they can just hop up and grab the one seed. Sam Darnold, would you take him on the, on the commanders if you didn't have Daniels? I think he would.

• 2:07:03Speaker 02

  Oh, if we didn't have Daniels, sure. He, he would be immediately be one of the, the best quarterbacks the past 25 years in Washington.

• 2:07:10Bill Simmons?

  I would take him on the Pats if we didn't have Drake May, the future of the NFL on our team. I like him.

• 2:07:17Speaker 02

  It's a great bounce back season.

• 2:07:20Bill Simmons?

  And then we're going to do a little 50K parlay of the Pittsburgh money line. Combined with the Seahawks minus two and a half on FanDuel, which is plus 142. You put those two together. Plus 638.

• 2:07:35Speaker 02

  That's juicy, baby.

• 2:07:36Bill Simmons?

  Pittsburgh money line, Seahawks minus two and a half. We're going to put 50K on that. I really was trying to figure out a way to work Drake May in a million dollar picks in Arizona. Cause I think they actually may be dumb enough to beat Arizona this week, but we'll stay away. We don't need it.

• 2:07:52Speaker 02

  Good job.

• 2:07:52Bill Simmons?

  Those are the million dollar picks for week 15. House, we can see you on the Ringer Sunday pregame show. I might be stopping by.

• 2:08:01Speaker 02

  Can't wait.

• 2:08:02Bill Simmons?

  Have you thought about who's your underdog pick? It's just going to be Pittsburgh, right?

• 2:08:06Speaker 02

  It might be. I mean, I, I, one of the other guys might jump ahead of me, but there's a lot of great choices, including the Cleveland Browns.

• 2:08:15Bill Simmons?

  I hope you're dumb enough to take them.

• 2:08:18Speaker 02

  We'll see, we'll see.

• 2:08:20Bill Simmons?

  You know who I was looking at as a possible underdog? I would embed it, but just for, if you're forced to take an underdog for that segment, the Riddler and the Raiders.

• 2:08:30Bill Simmons?

  Going against Atlanta in Vegas? It doesn't feel like the Raiders have one more dumb win in them.

• 2:08:35Speaker 02

  It's the funniest outcome for sure. It would, it would be hilarious. And I do think, you know, the guys, the defense for, for the Raiders, will, will be playing because they know they're really auditioning for the next head coach.

• 2:08:50Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 2:08:51Speaker 02

  Of the Raiders. They're not playing for that guy any longer.

• 2:08:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but I thought that one jumped out to me. Seahawks are somehow an underdog. I'm sure JJ will take them. I don't mind that Pats as an underdog pick though. Anyway, House, great to see you. Enjoy the NBA cup this weekend. I will see you next week. So thanks to House. Thanks to Seth Wickersham. Thanks to Sarudy and Kyle and Gahal. Don't forget new rewatch was coming on Monday. Don't forget you can find all the clips from this podcast on my YouTube channel. And I think we're running video for this podcast as well. So if you're on Spotify, just flip your phone, just look. You might just see me and House right now. I will see you on Sunday. Enjoy the week.

• 2:09:53Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and 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 gamblinghelplineMA.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. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures, WildHorse9, John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. I like those guys. Star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner, Martin McDonagh.

• 2:10:40Bill Simmons?

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