Cincy Fails Burrow, the Boring Eagles, Guess the Lines, and Crawford’s Brilliance With Cousin Sal

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons and Cousin Sal react to Week 2 of the NFL season before getting into some “depressed fan base” rankings and playing a game of “I give up” (2:58). Then, they guess the lines for Week 3, discuss the Canelo vs. Crawford fight, and finally close with Parent Corner (01:09:06). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Steve Ceruti This episode is sponsored by State Farm®️. Don’t settle for just any insurance when there’s State Farm. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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

• 0:25Speaker 01

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

• 0:37Speaker 02

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

• 0:57Speaker 01

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

• 1:24Speaker 02

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

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network, where I have a new rewatchable that's coming for you on Monday night. We did a Kevin Costner movie. We did a movie people have been clamoring for for a while. It's a golf movie. It's a sports movie. It's Tin Cup. And that is coming on Monday night. I was also on the Prestige TV podcast because we're doing Task, the new HBO series. We're doing it every Sunday night, right after the episode ends on HBO. You can hear me and Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney breaking it down. So, there you go. I'm on the East Coast. I don't want to hear any snarky comments about how my eyes look red. My eyes look red because I have terrible eyesight. I have contacts in.

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  It's late at night on the East Coast. I've been up since God knows when, and my eyes are going to be red. Could I use Visine? Sure. Could I use eye drops? Maybe. But I didn't. I don't, I don't smoke pot anymore. I'm retired. I had an incident in the mid 2000s. After that, I really had to scale it back. Might have involved me hiding in a curtain because I thought somebody was stalking our house from the outside. Turned out it was the California marijuana. I'm good. I'm old. I'm completely non-pot. I just have blue eyes and they get red late at night. So don't blame me. Anyway, we're going to talk football with the Cuz next. Uh, we're going to take a break and, uh, and then we're going to bring in Pearl Jam and then football week two next.

• 2:57Bill Simmons?

  It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by Fanduel and the NFL is back and thank God. Fanduel has everything. They got an awesome app. They have SGPs. They have great futures. They have good prop bets, live betting, your way bets, clean app. It's great to use. Uh, been using it for a few years. Every time I go back to Boston or any place that has Fanduel and I get to use it, I'm always excited. I'm on an airplane runway. You done the airplane runway?

• 3:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:23Bill Simmons?

  How sweet.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  Everybody.

• 3:24Bill Simmons?

  Airplane runway.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  There should be a button, the runway.

• 3:27Bill Simmons?

  I'm on the airplane runway. I gotta get this in. Get your bets in, build something bold, make every game feel bigger. Download the Fanduel app or head to fanduel.com/BS to get started. The Ringer, committed to responsible gaming, please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-9777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut, paid endorsement.

• 4:28Bill Simmons?

  All right, live here on a Sunday night here with Cousins Al. Won the Emmy tonight for the, uh, the pit. You're in that show, right? You're not in the pit?

• 4:36Speaker 04

  I didn't win for the pit, but I did bet on the pit. So that was a nice little payout. Definitely better than pit, the team pit today. So, uh, yeah, always bet on the Emmys if you can. Makes it so, such a better show.

• 4:47Bill Simmons?

  People love the pit. The only person I was happier for the Noah Wiley was Julia Lippman, who was Noah Wiley's number one fan. Never gave up on him.

• 4:55Speaker 04

  Nice.

• 4:55Bill Simmons?

  Through the years, through all the made for cable movies and, and terrible straight to video movies he was in. Never gave up, never quit.

• 5:02Speaker 04

  I'm gonna sidetrack here. You know, our friend Fat Jake Lenz, who wrote on the show the first few years, right? Jimmy came alive. He is a consultant on the pit.

• 5:11Bill Simmons?

  Is he really?

• 5:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, he's one of the doctors. He left writing to become a doctor. Very, very, you know, it's a common career path. And he's now a consult, like he's like a full-time consultant on that. So, uh,

• 5:21Bill Simmons?

  So he's a consultant on the pit and he's a therapist for our friend Brad Mulcahy.

• 5:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, he does that.

• 5:25Bill Simmons?

  Those are his two jobs.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  He's in the Navy too, or something. He does a lot. Yeah.

• 5:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, speaking of therapy, JJ McCarthy might need one after, uh, after tonight. We'll do Falcons Vikings quick because it was, uh, it was pretty boring, but the Falcons look good. Uh, the Vikings only scored six points. JJ, so House and I took the Falcons in 107 and part of the reason was JJ had a kid on Thursday?

• 5:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:45Bill Simmons?

  Monday night comeback win. Kid on Thursday, thrown into the fire Sunday night. Just seemed like a lot. But, uh, what were you, what were you the most impressed or unimpressed by tonight?

• 5:56Speaker 04

  Well, I, it upsets me now that, to know that JJ McCarthy hates his kid, right? That's the only, what can we take from that? No, I'm mad. You and House played it perfectly. I took Atlanta and the over and they put the over on a teaser. Is there anything worse than like, you got all these points that you don't need and then you take the over. But I think that's gonna happen. I'm gonna look at MVP odds. I don't think McCarthy jumped up any.

• 6:20Bill Simmons?

  You think, you think it popped down?

• 6:21Speaker 04

  No, it's still Alan, uh, Jackson in Love. Um,

• 6:25Bill Simmons?

  I'm on the East Coast right now. I can do a live bet on FanDuel tonight if you're, if you, if you want me to.

• 6:30Speaker 04

  Oh, let's get it in. Yeah.

• 6:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm more gambling is legal.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  God bless you.

• 6:35Bill Simmons?

  I tied 47 different football bets to Terrence Crawford last night. It was really exciting. And sadly, only half of them won.

• 6:42Speaker 04

  That's what happens. I don't know. It's, uh, yeah, Atlanta's better. Maybe the NFC South in general is better than we give it credit for a little bit, maybe. I don't know. Um, and then, uh, yeah.

• 6:52Bill Simmons?

  Could the, so the Falcons should have won last week against Tampa. We both thought, right?

• 6:57Speaker 04

  Probably, yeah.

• 6:58Bill Simmons?

  They did not. They won convincingly today. And I was gonna ask you, the seven NFC playoff teams, if you just pencil in Green Bay and Philly right now.

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 7:10Bill Simmons?

  Maybe Detroit, Tampa Rams. We got two spots left and we have the Atlanta, Seattle, Washington, Minnesota group.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 7:18Bill Simmons?

  Which two would you, which two would you like? Cause I actually liked the way Atlanta played in those two games more than Seattle, Washington or Minnesota. I don't know what it means. It's gonna be a long season. But I didn't think they were gonna be in that conversation before this season, but now I do.

• 7:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, I didn't like Washington going in, right? I did like Arizona, but let's just laugh about that and put it to the side for a second.

• 7:37Bill Simmons?

  But I can't wait for that.

• 7:39Speaker 04

  Out of those teams, probably Atlanta and Seattle, I would say. I think Seattle could probably hang with a lot of these teams, right?

• 7:44Bill Simmons?

  That's what I had. And I think, so when we were trying to sketch it out before, well, I'll wait till we do the I give up. We have a section later called I give up. But there was a team I had in the Detroit spot that I do not think is gonna get there. Falcons defense today, six sacks, two picks, three fumbles forced, recovered one of them, zero TDs allowed and some playmakers. A slate, Kyle Pitts revival tonight, slate, like Collinsworth even got sucked in and it was like watching somebody date the girl that you don't, all your friends like, yeah, you gotta stay away. And Collins were like, ah, the Kyle Pitts, maybe he's putting together, say, no, Chris, no, don't fall for it. But he was, uh, he was pretty good today and the Falcons, they have some weapons, man.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  I have to be honest, I was, I had the Emmy audio on and I had the game underneath it. So I didn't hear Chris. I'm guessing it was all my J J McCarthy just doesn't have it tonight. But did you see that dress Sydney Sweeney was wearing as a presenter? I may need some time to myself. Let's go to commercial.

• 8:44Bill Simmons?

  So he didn't, he talked a lot about bottle feeding versus breastfeeding.

• 8:48Speaker 04

  Oh, did he?

• 8:49Bill Simmons?

  And yeah, you missed it. Yeah, it was all in the audio. It's gonna be a big.

• 8:52Speaker 04

  Listen, I don't love when, you know, guys take six months off for paternity. But maybe you get two days. Maybe your emotions are all over the place.

• 9:02Bill Simmons?

  Skip week two.

• 9:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe. It's okay. We'll get you. Yeah, you could have, a backup could have lost 27-6, whatever it was.

• 9:09Bill Simmons?

  After your first child, and we did nothing, by the way, we're just in the room.

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:14Bill Simmons?

  I remember even going to visit, visit you actually for, I think your second child and we're just like, we're useless.

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Podcast with you while my wife was in labor and I came back like, like 12 minutes before she started pushing. It was almost a disaster for me.

• 9:27Bill Simmons?

  We're there to be like, does anyone need a soda?

• 9:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, right, right.

• 9:30Bill Simmons?

  How you feeling, honey?

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:32Bill Simmons?

  Are you okay? Like we're there and meanwhile, we're like working the TV. We're doing nothing.

• 9:36Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 9:37Bill Simmons?

  But with that said, I was still felt frazzled for a couple of days. It's a, you know, pretty gigantic life experience. It's weird to think like you would then just go right onto a football field where everybody's trying to kill you.

• 9:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, emailing all the relatives. It's exhausting. Yeah, of course. Take the day off.

• 9:53Bill Simmons?

  Now, now you have group texts. Back then you could, it was a little different.

• 9:58Bill Simmons?

  All right. I'm done with the Falcons Vikings. Let's get to the biggest story of the weekend. Joe Burrow got hurt.

• 10:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:04Bill Simmons?

  Turf toe. I was watching when it happened. I thought it was like his knee or his Achilles. It was the rarely seen quarterback turf toe injury and it seems bad and it's going to be a big story tomorrow. Like what the diagnosis is. Was this a bigger National Football League injury for you or fantasy football injury?

• 10:26Speaker 04

  Well, I don't have them.

• 10:27Bill Simmons?

  If you had to pick one or the other.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  If I didn't have them, it's a, it's an NFL, right? That's an easy question.

• 10:32Bill Simmons?

  But just for ramifications, because it's not like the Bengals were gonna do anything dramatic this year.

• 10:37Speaker 04

  Right, right, right. Um, yeah, no, I still think it's NFL. I still think it's NFL. Because, you know, fantasy could get, well, you can get a lot of guys who, to replace Burrow and get the three points, four points less a week, whatever. But, yeah, when they brought him off, I was like, oh, my God, looks like he got his, his both knees shot off in Vietnam or something. What the hell's going on here? And then to find out it's turf toe, and I was like, what turf toe? He'll be back in the fourth quarter, because they didn't really rule him out until like, beginning of the fourth quarter. And then it's like, no, he's got torn ligaments in this from the turf toe. And so now tomorrow, he finds out if he wants to or has to have surgery and that, that would spell the end? I didn't get full details, was that it?

• 11:17Bill Simmons?

  It said, it sounded like it's three months.

• 11:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 11:20Bill Simmons?

  If he does the surgery, which basically takes you to mid-December. The good news is eight, nine might be the seventh seed in the AFC, the way we're going, so.

• 11:29Speaker 04

  Right.

• 11:29Bill Simmons?

  Could hang around. And they do have a backup. I know he had three picks today, but Jake Browning, we've been here with him a few times, and he can make throws, and he can get it to those guys, and he's feast or famine, and you never can feel comfortable whether you're up 10 or down 10 when he's in the game. But I think he's better than most backups. I think they can still put up stats with Chase and Higgins.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  Well, he's good. I mean, yeah, he was good today. That was a miraculous win and cover, right? They were laying three and a half, so to get it on the goal line and put it home. His problem is gonna be, um, I have to see now their next four games I saw. So even if he doesn't get the surgery, he's probably out a few weeks. At the Vikings, eh, all of a sudden, not as bad. At the Broncos, eh, all right. Wait a minute, this, earlier this looked, versus the Lions, at the Packers, and home against the Steelers. I don't know, I'd, this, this morning, this looked, uh, pretty daunting, but that's their five games.

• 12:22Bill Simmons?

  Well, and they somehow ended up winning, coming back from, uh, Jacksonville, so. I wrote down this before he got hurt because I had that game in the multi view. I'm back on the East Coast, had to pick the four games, had the iPad with four games on much smaller screens, but it was Cincy Jacksonville was one of the four because I had money on it. I had Jacksonville in the over. I had fantasy guys on both teams and I just thought it would be a really fun game. And I wrote down like 40 minutes in that that Borough was just getting crushed. Like, did you watch it? Every time he went back to pass, there were five guys back there. They weren't even coming. And this is Jacksonville. It wasn't like they were playing the, you know, 1991 Eagles.

• 13:05Bill Simmons?

  And he was under siege and I have him in our guillotine league. And I was watching it going, I wish I didn't have him. I like, I just, I'm really getting nervous. The hits he's taking. Then of course he gets hurt.

• 13:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:19Bill Simmons?

  Like 20 minutes later. Now I don't, do not have him.

• 13:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:24Bill Simmons?

  But.

• 13:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, that they never fixed that, right? For him? Like, hey, why can't we just ever see him be great? Can we see Joe Burrow? We put him in the top four. We think he could be interchangeable in the top three. Will we ever get to see him be great because he's given a decent offensive line or two guys who can block? It just seems from year to year, it's the same shit.

• 13:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's not even, I, I mean, he would probably take decent. This is, it's like awful every year. I wrote down, I was writing down a really dumb analogies. It's like being the biggest cocaine distributor in Colombia, but not having any security guards for the cocaine.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  Oh, good. Okay.

• 14:00Bill Simmons?

  Thank you. It's like buying a million dollar Maybach and just parking it outside your house with the doors open and the keys in it. Like, what's the point of paying Joe Burrow $50 million and then not giving him an offensive line? It's so fucking stupid. What are you guys doing?

• 14:15Speaker 04

  Do you want Alanis Morissette to record this for you? Maybe she, I don't know what she would call it. What could she call it? Isn't this coincidence? Isn't this, I don't know, it's something. It's like winning the Emmy, but your whole staff is fired in a few months.

• 14:31Bill Simmons?

  I thought you were gonna say, it's like being nominated for an Emmy, but campaigning for somebody else in the category.

• 14:36Speaker 04

  Or Colbert. All right. There you go. Let's get Alanis on the case.

• 14:42Bill Simmons?

  Who is the seventh AFC playoff team if it's not the Bengals? Because I'll give you, I'll give you some choices.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:48Bill Simmons?

  Buffalo and Baltimore, I think we can pencil in. We could pencil in an AFC South team. Could you pencil in everyone in the AFC West? All four teams? Would you put the Pats in there? Could you say two AFC South teams? Could we get Houston and Indianapolis as 2-0? Like, I, I don't know.

• 15:07Speaker 04

  I thought, you, you had the seven seed as nine and eight, right? I think we both did before the season.

• 15:12Bill Simmons?

  I had the Pats going nine and eight, which is maybe even conceivable. And I had Vegas going nine and eight. I had two nine and eights getting the six and seven seeds.

• 15:20Speaker 04

  That's going to be a scramble now. Like where we thought like maybe three teams are competing for that seven seed? Maybe there's six teams competing. And, you know, I know everybody wants to say the Chiefs suck, but would you say the Chiefs are better than New England right now? It's probably close.

• 15:35Bill Simmons?

  Well, the Chiefs, and we'll, we'll hit them later, but I, I want to see what they look like in week 14 when they get their guns back.

• 15:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 15:42Bill Simmons?

  You know, they just have no explosive plays right now. I guess the question for me, and we're going to find out tomorrow night. What are we getting from Houston this season? Because all of us wanted to pick anyone else in that division. And all of us kicked the tires on Tennessee. We tried that. I couldn't get there. We tried Indianapolis. They had that QB thing and it was Daniel Dimes or Richardson. I couldn't get there. And then Jacksonville, I just fundamentally can't get there.

• 16:08Speaker 04

  I got there. Yeah, I want to get somewhere else now, but I got there. Yeah.

• 16:11Bill Simmons?

  You, you got there.

• 16:12Speaker 04

  I'm looking to relocate. Yeah.

• 16:15Bill Simmons?

  Now, now you're calling for help. But, and maybe it's Indy, but I think Houston tomorrow night, there were these two games tomorrow night. And Houston is the team out of the four playing that, like the Chargers, I think are at least going to be pretty good. Whether they're as good as they looked in week one, we'll see. The Raiders are going to be able to throw the ball. They'll be a 500 team in a little bit dangerous game to game.

• 16:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:37Bill Simmons?

  Houston, either their defense might be really good and they can throw the ball, or they just might not be good this year. And I feel like we're going to know tomorrow.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  Tomorrow and then probably next Sunday. They go to Jacksonville on Sunday. So, and the next, um, is seven, eight days, whatever that is, uh, Sunday to Sunday? Seven days, I think we'll know for sure.

• 16:54Bill Simmons?

  Well, what'd you think of Jacksonville? Because, um, Lawrence, I, I was trying to think of a quarterback who's more terrifying inside the other team's 10 yard line for his own team.

• 17:08Bill Simmons?

  Where you just feel like, like anything's possible. Strip sack.

• 17:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:12Bill Simmons?

  Pick, tip pick, hospital ball, perfect throw into the corner. A great scramble, scramble where he stiff armed somebody. There's like 15 plays and, and, but it's probably going to be disappointing for Jacksonville is how it's going to end. And they had two of those today. He threw a pick inside the 10 and then that last, that fourth and five, they're up three. It's like under four minutes. The book said to, I guess, go for it.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:40Bill Simmons?

  I would have kicked the field goal and made Jake Browning, who already had three picks, go the length of the field to try to beat me. Maybe I'm nuts. I've watched a lot of football in my life. Maybe he had the backup QB with three picks, have to go the full field. And he had just thrown one. Didn't get it.

• 17:54Speaker 04

  He had just thrown an interception. Like they could have put the game away. I actually took my eye off the screen. I was like, wait a minute, how does Cincinnati still have, how'd they get the ball back? But I love to blame Trevor Lawrence. I believe me, he's been a disappointment for what I thought he would be coming in, but they dropped some, they dropped touchdown passes today on him too.

• 18:12Bill Simmons?

  They did.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  That whole team just might be, you know, from the owner up or down, they just, just might be incompetent. I'll use that word.

• 18:21Bill Simmons?

  There's a Brian Thomas Jr. controversy, which I'm following because he's on a couple of my fantasy teams. There was a, there was an alligator arms play over the middle.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 18:30Bill Simmons?

  He dropped the last play of the game. There was another one and, and on social media. I went to the Jaguars Reddit page to, to read what they were saying and they, they weren't happy with him.

• 18:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:42Bill Simmons?

  The coach was asked about him. This is how I found out about it. Somebody put the clip. They asked Liam Cohen about, what'd you think about the effort on Thomas? And he's like, I guess I'll have to look at it later. I don't really know yet. Like didn't defend him at all. It was just weird. So Lawrence threw him a hospital ball in the preseason. I really like BTJ. So I just, and it happened for whatever reason, I happened to be watching. It was a replay or something, but he and the reason it stuck out, I was like, it's their best guy. And it's a preseason game, right?

• 19:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 19:16Bill Simmons?

  And then in the in in the game today, I just didn't think he was impactful. This is a guy going for 40 plus in fantasy, right?

• 19:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, I had, I loved him today. I bet him to get a score a touchdown, scored 10 touchdowns last year, right? He was definitely a difference maker, you know, like sniffed around at the offensive rookie of the year last year. To me, it's like Travis Hunter. What are they gonna do? I mean, you pointed out last week, did he have nine offensive snaps? Was that it? Was that all he had? He couldn't have had a ton more this week.

• 19:47Bill Simmons?

  He had the big P I. today, which I didn't think was a P I.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 19:51Bill Simmons?

  Did you?

• 19:51Speaker 04

  No, I didn't. I just, I don't know if he's gonna be a force offensively. And if he isn't, that this, that doesn't change the trajectory of this team from last year.

• 20:00Bill Simmons?

  No, and I think when we were doing the pods before the season, we were like, this is one of the great X factors.

• 20:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:06Bill Simmons?

  You have multi view and Travis Hunter's on the screen and get to see. And he just hasn't really jumped out the first two weeks, which is fine. He's a rookie, but they traded a bunch of shit for him, including their first round pick next year. You know, and I don't, I hated the trade when it happened. I thought they gave up too much and you're giving up what they gave up. It either has to be for Abdul Carter or it has to be for, you know, a potential franchise QB. I don't think there's, I just don't think a two way guy when we haven't seen it for 35 years. I don't know. Just didn't like it.

• 20:40Speaker 04

  I think Otani, Otani ruined everything for all the sports. Everybody's looking for the next Otani and

• 20:46Bill Simmons?

  You're right.

• 20:46Speaker 04

  It's probably not Travis Hunter.

• 20:48Bill Simmons?

  Um, wait, I had one more thing from that. Um, Jake Browning, is there?

• 20:59Bill Simmons?

  Who's your number one backup QB right now? Coming, coming in cold in the league right now that you feel pretty good about? Is there anybody that tops Jake Browning? Is Jake Browning the ceiling?

• 21:12Speaker 04

  Let me see. I mean, he's pretty damn close to the ceiling.

• 21:15Bill Simmons?

  Just going through your head.

• 21:18Bill Simmons?

  Is there anyone?

• 21:18Speaker 04

  No, Giants, Cowboy, no. Not, I would have loved to have said Cowboys, Lions, Jimmy G.

• 21:25Bill Simmons?

  Jimmy G?

• 21:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, Jimmy G-ish, maybe. His ceiling might be, and no Trey Lance, just looking at these guys.

• 21:32Bill Simmons?

  It's not, I'm telling you, man, there's not a lot of good backup QBs this year.

• 21:35Speaker 04

  Cousins, I was thinking about like Cousins. How many teams he would make better at this point? But, um, yeah, because we know what he can do. But we also saw him, speaking of alligator arms, throwing 14 mile an hour spirals.

• 21:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, not great. Well, tough times for the Bengals, and I think it's time to do the depressed fan base rankings.

• 21:57Bill Simmons?

  So I think Bears are number one, and we're going to go into it. Panthers two.

• 22:05Bill Simmons?

  Jaguars three, Jets four. If I gave you that list, would you disagree with that order? Bears, Panthers, Jaguars, Jets.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  I, I guess you're saying the Browns are in a class of their own?

• 22:19Bill Simmons?

  Can they be depressed anymore? Like, can the Browns fans feel anything? Are they just dead inside?

• 22:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, they might be.

• 22:25Bill Simmons?

  They have no expectations for this year.

• 22:27Speaker 04

  Right.

• 22:28Bill Simmons?

  Can you be depressed when you expect to go two for 15, two and 15? I don't know.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  They're just zombies at this point. I think you're right. They probably should just take all the seats out of the stadium and let the zombie fans roam however they want throughout.

• 22:40Bill Simmons?

  They're zombies.

• 22:41Speaker 04

  That's all, yeah.

• 22:42Bill Simmons?

  They're like the two people at the end of Sinners, just kind of wandering the earth at night. Just trying to listen to jazz music and not see the sun.

• 22:51Bill Simmons?

  I think Bears are one because they were real expectations this year. They had this number one pick in the draft where they get the supposed franchise guy. And he's just been awful. And there's already been long pieces about how prepared he was during the season that big piece Tyler Dunroth two weekends ago. And he looks about as flustered as any QB we're watching.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  I'll give you Bears one. The Vikings are just for a different reason. I think you gotta get them in the conversation because they go so much, there's so much difference between what kind of team you're getting year to year. You get the 13 win team, then you get the rookie quarterback.

• 23:26Bill Simmons?

  I'm not bringing in the history though. I'm saying right now, people, fanbases that went into this season and either, yeah, yeah. And they were either like, they had their hopes up or they were optimistic for some reason. I would say right now Bears and Panthers. I mean, the Panthers are a little different than the Browns because deep down, they were hoping maybe it would be a little bit better and it's not. It's really bad. You're right though. I might be underrated in the Browns.

• 23:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, we can go by over under wins in terms of expectation and the, and I think the Bears had the highest, what were they? Seven and a half, eight and a half? What were they? Eight and a half, right? So I think it's, it's the Bears probably going away actually.

• 24:03Bill Simmons?

  Where are the Dolphins on this list for you?

• 24:05Speaker 04

  Oh man, I guess they're close too.

• 24:07Bill Simmons?

  They have to be tough. Actually, they should probably be higher because they were booing in the first quarter. Yeah. Like they had, they, they had a, a pick or they're, they missed the third down or something and, and it was like, they were loudly booing. It's 95 degrees at like, one o'clock on a Sunday in mid-September and they're fucking furious.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  They should. Their fans are like, hey, we got so many better things to do. We're in fucking Miami. We're gonna be at the beach. Did you feel like that? That was a weird game. It like had a lot of, a lot of ups and downs. I felt, felt at some point, I think it was late third quarter, that the Dolphins actually took control of it. And then your boy jumped in there. Good for you.

• 24:43Bill Simmons?

  I got to watch it with my dad. Nice. We were pretty disconsolate down the stretch there because it, this, I, if the Pats lose that game, the season's over.

• 24:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:55Bill Simmons?

  They're 0-2. That's a team that you had, you, if you come out of the gate and you lose to the Raiders and the Dolphins, you're, you're done. But the, the real problem is they played really well in the first half. Kicker missed two PATs. They drove, every time they had the ball, they had these nice drives. May I thought was terrific for him. Um, and they just, and you just look up and you're like, we're up by a point. What's going on? And then Tua seemed like he was gaining confidence as the game was going on. We lost another cornerback. So we were down on D backs.

• 25:25Speaker 04

  Right.

• 25:25Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and our linebackers in space against these fast Dolphins dudes. Like I like Spillane, but Spillane got caught with A chain a couple of times and it was like a nightmare. So it just felt like Miami was gonna win. Then they get that kick return. Or the punt return and it was like, you had to be fucking kidding me. We lost to this team? Like their fans were booing for an hour and a half.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 25:46Bill Simmons?

  And then Gibson returns to kick and then the Pats almost fucked the game up again, but uh, Tua just, he, he just doesn't have it. He's just not good enough. I've been saying this for three years, but he's just not good enough.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  Well, he's a tough watch, right? Obviously we have Dolphins fans, friends, JJ just lives and dies by it. I'm not ready to blame him completely this year. I don't like his style. I feel like he has to get that interception at the end is basically because I, I can't get hit. I can maybe throw a better ball if I took another quarter or second, but I can't afford that. So I'm going to let this go right now.

• 26:20Bill Simmons?

  I gotta dump this.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, but their defense is really bad at times, really, really bad. Like his numbers, he was 26 for 32, 315, two touchdowns, right? And that interception. So there's other places to place the blame, but um, yeah, I just.

• 26:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, he had three interceptions.

• 26:36Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 26:36Bill Simmons?

  He had three incompletions and three interceptions.

• 26:38Speaker 04

  Right. That's true. Yeah.

• 26:40Bill Simmons?

  That's what it was. 26 for 32. Yeah. But I mean, you know, their longest play, he threw a moon ball to Hill. He underthrew him by 12 yards.

• 26:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:48Bill Simmons?

  And our D back overran it and Hill ended up getting it. It felt like Hill was open constantly. He overthrew Hill in the fourth quarter and that was the play that went around on social media where Hill was just like, you had to be fu- he was open by 10 yards.

• 27:01Speaker 04

  Right.

• 27:01Bill Simmons?

  Um, but I, I thought the Pats, May made the best play of his career when they really needed it.

• 27:09Bill Simmons?

  Big pass rush on a third down.

• 27:11Speaker 04

  Roll right.

• 27:11Bill Simmons?

  Miami had all the momentum and he hit Remondre in that like delayed will route and just put it perfectly in stride.

• 27:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:18Bill Simmons?

  And uh, it was just like, that's, that's why the Drake May believers, like I had multiple people like Nate Tice texting me like, that's it, that may, he's here, here. I just thought he was really good today.

• 27:30Speaker 04

  I love this.

• 27:30Bill Simmons?

  And uh, in the left side of the line, according to the grades, Will Campbell and uh, Wilson, the other rookie were uh, were excellent. So. There's signs of life with this team. I think, you know, when they're getting Gonzalez back, if he's ever coming back and they're able to cover a little more. The D-line was good. They shut down the Miami run and I don't know, they might, they might be able to cheat, cheat, cheat their way to eight, nine, nine and eight, not cheating the Belichick way.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  This is exciting for me. This is, they'll probably get around to doing that too. But this is perfect. Like Drake May trades off week to week being great and horrific. It keeps the podcast fresh. You're not talking about Sacramento Kings making the playoffs.

• 28:10Bill Simmons?

  You know, I've never wavered. I've never wavered.

• 28:13Speaker 04

  You were depressed.

• 28:13Bill Simmons?

  I didn't think he was that good last week.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  Well, he wasn't, but you're like, we had Ted Williams and we had this and we had.

• 28:19Bill Simmons?

  He wasn't good last week.

• 28:20Speaker 04

  Yeah. All right. That's what I mean. Every other week. So be great.

• 28:24Bill Simmons?

  He was good. And I thought it was nice to have the McDaniel's. Somebody texted me, Ohio was like putting on a nice old jacket, the dopey McDaniel's offense with like these little screens on third down and you know, these little quick outs and all the little dopey stuff that he does. I thought, here's the thing, it was an incredibly entertaining game. And at the very least, they're entertaining this year. And I, by the way, the Jaguars are too. There's a couple of teams that like, they're not that good, but at least they're gonna be fun to watch. I think the Jaguars are fun to watch. Dolphins, um, we blew this last week. We were talking about nicknames for Mike McDaniel.

• 29:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, there were some good ones. Yeah.

• 29:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, we forgot, we Lombardi nicked in the DJ last year.

• 29:06Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 29:07Bill Simmons?

  DJ Mikey Mac. That was the nickname. He's spinning his hits.

• 29:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, he could have a couple of nicknames. I mean, Shaq has like six.

• 29:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that is true.

• 29:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:18Bill Simmons?

  So Dolphins are 0-2.

• 29:22Bill Simmons?

  And they play Buffalo on Thursday night.

• 29:23Speaker 04

  At Buffalo, yeah. Monster.

• 29:25Bill Simmons?

  And 0-3 is a death sentence. You're not making the playoffs after 0-3.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  That's our first cross off. Maybe we have a special podcast Friday morning to commemorate it. Big ceremony.

• 29:35Bill Simmons?

  I was gonna do this later. I'm ready to do it now though.

• 29:38Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 29:38Bill Simmons?

  Cause I thought.

• 29:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, so you think Miami? Cause I think Carolina has to be in there too.

• 29:45Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 29:47Bill Simmons?

  I would say Carolina and Miami are the two cross off leaders like even even the Saints I think have been relatively frisky both games like they easily could have stolen either overtime or maybe even a win even though they're not that good but Carolina.

• 30:03Speaker 04

  They're the same team like they'll screw up your cover and uh that's kind of it and then you know count on three to five wins otherwise.

• 30:13Bill Simmons?

  I would not cross off Miami yet just because of the nine and eighties. I would cross off Carolina. I think they're really bad. Arizona, that was classic. Arizona has, everybody and their brother has them in an eliminator or money line parlay or a tease or whatever. They go 27-3 and all of a sudden it's 27-15. I didn't even know it was happening. All of a sudden Carolina had the ball and it was 27-15. We put it back on the multi-view and there you know, my dad is still trying to figure out this whole multi-view universe. He's like, what happened? We had that game. I was like, well, I took it off.

• 30:47Speaker 04

  It's kind of elder abuse what we put our parents through when we start doing four boxes and switching shit on. Yeah.

• 30:53Bill Simmons?

  He, the thing he asked for was to put the audio on the Pats game because that helped him concentrate.

• 30:59Speaker 04

  That's fair.

• 30:59Bill Simmons?

  I can easily do that for you.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  I'll tell you what happened. Fourth and 16 happened. Frickin Bryce Young came back from the dead and converted fourth and 16. And then they score just with nonsense and then they get the onside kick and I'm like, oh, good. I'm like, you know what? Good. Now that they didn't cover. Cause we had him in Ringer 107, me and the bundle. I was like, I hope Arizona loses. And then I look at my losing ledger of bets. I'm like, shit, I have Arizona money line on like four things here.

• 31:25Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 31:25Speaker 04

  And then they get the onside kick and it was a miserable, miserable drive after that onside kick. Uh, really bad for Carolina. Yeah.

• 31:33Bill Simmons?

  I like McMillan. He's jumped out to me the first two weeks. I wasn't sure about that pick. It seemed pretty high for him and it, those big receivers, you never know, but he's been uh, it's a couple of times a day where he's jumped off the TV with some, with some plays. So, that team needs. A lot of work. Um, let's take a break for the podcast. We'll keep going on the, on the YouTube's. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Football fans, best way to game days on FanDuel. The FanDuel Sports app is your home for all your favorite NFL bets. I'm on the East Coast. I made a few of my favorite NFL bets today. Turned out okay. The Broncos could have treated me better, but from yards to touchdowns to who win with FanDuel,

• 32:14Bill Simmons?

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• 32:55Bill Simmons?

  That's the URL to bet the Buccaneers versus the Texans and the Chargers versus the Raiders with two 30% PBTs. Play your game with FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. You must be 21 plus, present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Opted-in required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting the leadership of a team captain on the football field,

• 33:40Bill Simmons?

  but getting a C captain? Sure, they're both captains, but who's going to run your offense? You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team. So don't settle for just any insurance.

• 33:52Bill Simmons?

  When it comes to getting the help you need, State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Let's play I Give Up. I told you to write down some things that you've just giving up on after two weeks. They could be a future bet, they could be a team, they could be a player.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  This is fun.

• 34:07Bill Simmons?

  They could be anything. So what was the first thing after two weeks? You've given up on?

• 34:13Speaker 04

  I've given up on trying to enjoy Chiefs games. They're not fun to watch unless you're enamored with the Taylor cutaways. They're, they're just way more exciting teams to watch, move the ball, including mine, including yours. I don't care how many wins we end up with. I think it's time to give them 1pm kickoff slots, you know? Take away the full dose of prime time games that they have, they have like six. That's the most you could have. It takes them 11 minutes to score. And you know, when it's a dozen play drives, some dumb shit happens like Kelsey did, like hits off his hand and interception the other way at the goal line. I mean, I was looking at this, three years ago, they averaged 29 points per game.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  And the five years before that, they were anywhere from 29 to 35, right? Since the three years, it's 21, 21 and 21 and a half. That's gigantic movement. Like I'm not saying that's all Tyree kill. I don't know what it is, but we could pick any team that scores 21 points. Mahomes is just good enough to figure out how to win these games. So I just don't, I'm done with it. I don't think I need to see him every time. Give them the 10am slot on the West Coast. They don't need to be one of three games and the featured game on a Sunday afternoon.

• 35:27Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs fatigue sounds like. Now I remember when the Patriots, when, when my team was taking all this shit that they took in the 2010s and everybody got really tired of them. I, the Chiefs have been way more in your face than the Patriots ever were with the tale, like Kelsey coming in today with the suit with the shorts on and all the wedding stuff and Mahomes. And they, they have this giant documentary series about them and meanwhile, they're still playing.

• 35:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 35:52Bill Simmons?

  Andy Reid, all this stuff like, I don't, the Pats. You know, we're winning and, and maybe some, some people felt like we're cheating, but they were never like just bombastically in your face like this.

• 36:04Speaker 04

  Well, I, that's part of it.

• 36:06Bill Simmons?

  From that standpoint.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  The other thing is that their, their point, they still scored. I'm, I'm a defensive guy too, but the Patriots put up points. Like you don't go an hour without seeing them score. When Randy Moss left the team, it wasn't like you went down from 35 to 25 points, right? Like Brady was still there. It was enjoyable to watch. I just can't watch these Chiefs try to move the ball up and down the field.

• 36:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, congratulations. That was a great way to start the game. I had them fourth in this exercise.

• 36:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 36:34Bill Simmons?

  My number one team, very similar to your case, is the Philadelphia Eagles.

• 36:40Bill Simmons?

  I, I just don't enjoy watching them play and it's a lot of the same stuff you said. I don't even think their fans enjoy them playing like Shiel Kapadia, uh, our friend who works at The Ringer.

• 36:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:51Bill Simmons?

  He even, he even thinks now like they're just trying to troll everybody by being intentionally entertaining. He had a tweet about that today. I fucking can't stand watching them. That game was like watching paint dry. I wanted to take it off the multi-view.

• 37:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:06Bill Simmons?

  But there were only three games. There was nothing, nothing to replace it. It would have to do WNBA playoffs or something.

• 37:11Speaker 04

  Your father's like, find more games. What are you doing?

• 37:14Bill Simmons?

  Like they threw, they threw deep to Devonta Smith once and it was like, oh, something happened.

• 37:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, right.

• 37:19Bill Simmons?

  Otherwise it's just like these swing passes to Barkley, these boring runs up the middle, every fourth and one, fourth and two, you know, now I'm watching Australian rugby for a play.

• 37:29Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 37:29Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, I, I just don't enjoy it at all. And I, I like a lot of the players in their team. I don't like watching them play football. These are two games in a row that I fucking snooze fest. I'm on my phone the whole time. As a football game's happening.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  I'm with you. Every team in that division is more entertaining than them. I'm going to give a two A to your one B and I give up trying to convince people that tush push sucks. You know, more specifically, it's not a football play. As you mentioned rugby, it's fat guys shoving a world-class athlete forward. Um, now it's worse than ever because everyone is so off sides, the refs have no idea what to do, right?

• 38:05Bill Simmons?

  What happened with that? We, we had the, the Broncos lost a game because of some ambiguous. Leverage rule on a field goal kick. I still don't even know what happened. And meanwhile, the Chiefs, every time, four guys are jumping forward before the ball snapped.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, the Eagles, right, yes.

• 38:21Bill Simmons?

  The Eagles.

• 38:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know. Everyone's, the refs have no idea. And the guys on both sides are jumping. It's like, well, eight guys moved early. Ah, fuck it, we'll let it go. But, and it's a bummer.

• 38:29Bill Simmons?

  Well, they can't see. There's 20 guys huddled together. I didn't even know what's happening.

• 38:33Speaker 04

  It's humanity. You can't see the ball at all. And they're, my, my team's division rivals, so I'm, I'm extra worked up about it. But you know what would be worse? If the, if, than just the Eagles being good at this? If everybody was good at the tush push. Think about how unwatchable football would be if only first and second down mattered. And the big guys on offense can push everybody around on defense on third and three and fourth and one. That would, just go back to this, not be, at one point, it was banned. Let's ban it again. Why do we have to wait for someone to get injured? Who cares about that part of it? It's important, but let's just get rid of it.

• 39:09Bill Simmons?

  That's the only way it's gonna be, is when, so stupid. There's gonna be some absolutely horrible injury, and it's then, then it'll be banned. I, I was trying to think of like another type of play that would be technically a football play, but would be as ludicrous to watch. Because it has no correlation with anything else we watch during the course of 10 hours. And I decided it was on a field goal kick. If on the defense, guys were allowed to climb on each other's shoulders, almost like college kids trying to climb over a fence. And you just had three guys climbed on shoulders and one guy had his hands up.

• 39:46Bill Simmons?

  And then they kept blocking kicks. And we were just like, what is this? This, this is, and now you had like the offensive line trying to knock the three guys standing on top of each other over. And somebody gets hurt, like, that's kind of what the tush push is. It's just not, it's not football. It's fucking stupid.

• 40:02Speaker 04

  It doesn't look like it. Yeah, I, I think I came up with an idea where imagine Christian McCaffrey sits on like two linemen's shoulders, right? And they carry him like playing chicken. And at the last second, he lunges over the goal line, right? From just like six feet up, like with that, is that a play? Is that a football play?

• 40:19Bill Simmons?

  Or, or, yeah, McCaffrey, he had two linemen and they flung him like a slingshot once he had the ball. And they just flung him over the line like he was like a boomerang.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. And technically, you could do that.

• 40:34Speaker 04

  But I'm telling you, if everybody got good at this, it would really ruin all, all football.

• 40:39Bill Simmons?

  Explain to me this, explain to me this, people who run football. So leverage, which the Broncos game now, if, if the Broncos game was fixed today, I apologize because it had all the elements. I don't think it was, but if it was, I apologize for what I'm about to say. Um, this leverage play.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  Set the scene. Colts try a field goal. They miss it.

• 40:59Bill Simmons?

  Colts try a 60 yard field goal. It's 10 yards short and it's wide right. It's like, it, it basically lands on the goal line. Um, and the Broncos win and then they're like, no, no, no, there was a leverage play. This is after the Broncos, they've thrown a pick inside, uh, you know, inside Colts territory and the 10 minutes left when it seems like they're going to put the game away. Then Dobbins runs all the way down to the 20 with under four minutes left, gets up and spikes the ball like a jerk. Delay a game. Next play, penalty face mask on the tight end. Now we're suddenly at the 40 yard line. Of course, Lutz has to hit the goalpost.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:35Bill Simmons?

  Um, right. So then we come down the other way and it all leads to the Colts with this fucking leverage play after the Broncos stopped them.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:43Bill Simmons?

  And so here's my question. Leverage, this is apparently unsafe for the center because one guy leaned him down. So the other guy could jump behind him.

• 41:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:55Bill Simmons?

  What's the tush push? But it's safe to have a running back and shove from behind by his teammates? That's not leverage?

• 42:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:03Bill Simmons?

  So leverage is good or bad? What is it? What do we do in NFL?

• 42:06Speaker 04

  Leverage is good. It's good in almost everything, right? You want leverage in contract negotiations. You want leverage in relationships. You want leverage in almost any situation. If you're looking for a raise, whatever. They need to call it something different. Call it like a cheat jumping or something, but, but whatever you call it, the guy didn't do it. He, he didn't, it didn't happen.

• 42:26Bill Simmons?

  Do you think they could protest that and just be like, we lost and this was the wrong call?

• 42:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. Those things don't usually hold up and you know, we can get into like how Steichen like really ruined that. But by the way, he's the favorite for coach of the year right now, um, because they're two and O, but uh, he didn't do him any favors kicking that 60 yard field goal. Unless he knew the leverage was coming, like you said, yeah.

• 42:50Bill Simmons?

  That could not have missed more dramatically.

• 42:53Speaker 04

  Awful.

• 42:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was my next I give up is I give up with NFL officiating. We had multiple games today. The tournament by it. There were flags everywhere. The Cardinals Panthers game. It as the Panthers were driving, it was just flag, flag, flag, flag. These, the Giants had like 14 penalties today that the, the Patriots had, I think 12 and still won. It's just where we've gone penalty crazy. I'm not really sure why, but I give up even getting mad about it.

• 43:22Speaker 04

  Isn't it like that at the beginning of the year until guys to figure out how not to hold and everything?

• 43:27Bill Simmons?

  The worst ones were the leverage play and the Hunter pass interference actually swung games.

• 43:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. The leverage one is something you don't really see a lot and they didn't need to call it on a 60 yard miss field goal.

• 43:37Bill Simmons?

  What do you have for your next I give up?

• 43:38Speaker 04

  Uh, what do I have? Um, uh, you know, I give up trying to figure out if Justin Fields is good. I, I thought I had a good grasp going into this year. Like, you know, it was like, you'll read it all the stats, 35th in expected yards, 32nd in red zone, 39th, 30 15th in this. And it's like, oh, wait, he's on the Jets. All right. He teamed up with his former wide receiver hookup from Ohio State, Garrett Wilson. They scored 32 points versus what we thought was like a vaunted, you know, Pittsburgh defense. And then a big fat nada versus the Bills who allowed 40 last Sunday night. So he has a concussion. I hope he's okay, but I am done judging Justin. Can't figure it out.

• 44:21Bill Simmons?

  Offense was awful and I actually thought they did a pretty good job for about a quarter against Allen. Then there was this weird moment in the game when he got hit and it looked like he got a concussion or something. He ran off and he took his helmet off.

• 44:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:35Bill Simmons?

  And if you had Jets money like me, I didn't already give it up the game. You're like, all right, Trubisky's coming in. I guess I have to leave it on the multi view now. But it turned out he just had like a bloody nose and then he came in and just completely crushed.

• 44:47Speaker 04

  Right.

• 44:48Bill Simmons?

  And I continue to think he's the best player in the league.

• 44:51Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 44:52Bill Simmons?

  I do. I, I continue to think he's the best quarterback.

• 44:55Speaker 04

  Okay. I thought you were talking about Justin Fields. I'm like, oh, I may have to change my thing here if you think.

• 44:59Bill Simmons?

  No, Josh Allen. But I mentioned all of this because today, first of all, House and I took the Jets plus six and a half. I put a little money in the Jets as well.

• 45:09Bill Simmons?

  And maybe you need, this is where you need like a betting conciliare or just need, you know, Fanduel will shoot those ads like you've been on the site for 52 minutes.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  Reality check or something?

• 45:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, maybe there should be an AI person that comes in and be like, we just wanted to remind you that you're betting on Justin Fields against Josh Allen. And it's like, oh shit, I am. Why am I doing that?

• 45:29Speaker 04

  I love it. I love it.

• 45:30Bill Simmons?

  That should be the AI, what the fuck are you doing guy from Fanduel?

• 45:34Speaker 04

  So you have to set it up. You have to set it up ahead of time, like slap me in the face if I bet on Justin Fields. Slap me in the face if I could cash out on this bet at 15 to one. And I'm instead waiting to see if this 48 yard field goal goes in.

• 45:48Bill Simmons?

  It's like a, don't be stupid. Like your computer or your iPad just starts vibrating.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's a reminder. It's gotta be worse than vibrating. I think you gotta, yeah.

• 45:56Bill Simmons?

  I needed it today because if anybody had said that to me, I would have been like, you're right. What am I doing? This is insane. This is like, oh, I'm taking the Jets because the Bills are banged up in their secondary. The Jets can't throw the ball.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Yeah. I don't think, well, here it is. We can't go on and on every week about how Josh Allen is number one. He's my MVP and this and that. And then just bet again. We just, as long as like the weather is okay and everything, they're gonna score. I know they only scored 30. They could have scored 45, 47 that game. They kind of let, took their foot off the gas. That's just where they are. So if you think the Jets are gonna score in the 30s, 40s, then fine, but no, not even close.

• 46:33Bill Simmons?

  Well, so how many points did the Bills end up with? They had 71 points in two games.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:39Bill Simmons?

  Pretty good. My next I give up.

• 46:48Bill Simmons?

  Travis Kelsey, I think I'm good.

• 46:51Bill Simmons?

  He seems like a nice guy. I, I know people who are friends with him. I, I, those shots fired. I'm just, I'm good. I'm good.

• 47:00Speaker 04

  I'm with it.

• 47:01Bill Simmons?

  Suit with the shorts today. He has the big drop and he makes two plays and he's doing like the WWE flexing. And then of course, the ball bounces off his hands for the interception for the biggest play of the game. He's one of the best tight ends I've ever seen. He's not the best. His wedding will be the, his wedding will be the biggest wedding we've had since Princess Di. I'm happy for them. I, I'm a big believer in true love. I'm just good. I need a break.

• 47:28Speaker 04

  All right. I think you were probably on the bubble for getting invited to that wedding, but now you can forget it. You're not going.

• 47:34Bill Simmons?

  I don't need to be invited. I need, I just need a break. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, I'm good.

• 47:38Speaker 04

  Like how he broke every bone in Xavier Worthy's body, like a break like that?

• 47:42Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing. He's, he's probably cost them two games. I'll say this too. He, he was one of the best guys in the league, but I, the tight end position is so loaded and great right now. I don't think he's one of the best eight or nine guys I'm watching week to week. Like the Colts have this dude Warren, who for some reason the Bears took a tight end 10th in the draft as the first tight end taken. And it wasn't Tyler Warren, who looks like a cross between Gronk and Bowers and Kelsey. Like he's just a fucking beast. But you watch like even like the, the Jags have that guy strange.

• 48:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:20Bill Simmons?

  You know, you go, you go on down and it feels like everybody has like a tight end who can catch balls down. What Kelsey does doesn't seem as special.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  I'll do you one better. Um, he's a podcaster. That's all he is. And there are probably three better podcasts, three podcasters who are better at football than him right now. Amy Poehler, Van Lathan. So let's.

• 48:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Van could get in there.

• 48:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course. Let's rank him as what he is. He's a podcaster. That's all.

• 48:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we'll see. Cause unfortunately they really need him these next 10 weeks.

• 48:52Speaker 04

  You're not kidding.

• 48:53Bill Simmons?

  I have a, that's another I give up actually. I just don't think it's going to happen for the Chiefs. I have Chiefs fans of my life who are like, we'll be fine. We'll be fine. Trust the infrastructure. Rice comes back week seven. We'll get, we're, we're going to get Worthy back. Like we're going to be explosive and I see the case, but uh, I think the pass rush is not there. And I don't know, like you can explain the wide receiver part to me, but you can't explain why you don't really have a pass rush anymore.

• 49:21Speaker 04

  Right.

• 49:22Bill Simmons?

  I, I just don't, I just don't think they have it. And Mahomes, at some point with these long balls, all the stats from the past 25 games, like there's something really wrong with him throwing deep balls at this point. He did connect to one with Thornton today, but he overthrows dudes three, four times a game, it feels like.

• 49:42Speaker 04

  Right. Well, I, I like it. At least he's letting it go at that time. Like, oh, good. It's been 40 minutes. And so we've seen you throw anything other than like a four yard slant or take off for a first down yourself. But so they're all in two. What do we think? They have to go nine and six to be in the, the mix at nine and eight to get like a seed like that or seven.

• 50:01Bill Simmons?

  Nine and eight gets them in. So they, I still would.

• 50:04Speaker 04

  They should beat the Giants this week, so we could, we could come back to this. They're not a cross off just yet.

• 50:10Bill Simmons?

  We don't, Fanduel doesn't have the playoff bets yet.

• 50:14Speaker 04

  They don't have playoffs yet. Yeah.

• 50:16Bill Simmons?

  They do have divisions.

• 50:16Speaker 04

  Divisions, right?

• 50:17Bill Simmons?

  The Chiefs are down a plus two, 10 in the AFC West now.

• 50:20Speaker 04

  Right. So they were minus one, 10 to start the season.

• 50:24Bill Simmons?

  They are plus 550 for the AFC.

• 50:28Bill Simmons?

  And Mahomes is 20 to one now for MVP.

• 50:32Speaker 04

  I mean, how is he even sixth at this point? Oh, that's weird. That's weird.

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, another Mahomes thing, you can't tell me this is good. Mahomes has 123 yards rushing this year. He's on pace for a thousand yards. That's, there's no way that's good. Why do I want him rushing for a thousand yards in a season? I don't want him getting hit ever.

• 50:52Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:53Bill Simmons?

  If I'm the Chiefs.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  He's definitely taking out, uh, taking off out of necessity for sure.

• 50:58Bill Simmons?

  Listen, you can only pay the piper for so long in the NFL with this cap and trying to get lucky on these picks over and over again. And it looks like the, all those rookie offensive linemen and these young guys, rookie and second year guys.

• 51:12Bill Simmons?

  They're okay. Not great. The defensive line, it's okay. It's not great. Running back, skill position guys. It's really like a lot of Sanjay on Rice comes back and Rice is really good.

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Yeah. Look, I said, this is, you know, we want to think of them as the, the Bills of the early nineties that scored a million points. So the Rams, you know, that scored a ton of points or any, so the Bills, this year's Bills are the only team like that. This is the Chiefs that can score 20 or 21 on average and they're either going to get a little help from the refs or Mahomes is going to pull them out of a ditch in the fourth quarter. Otherwise they're going to lose a lot of these games.

• 51:49Bill Simmons?

  You know, who sounded really happy today?

• 51:51Speaker 04

  Who's that?

• 51:52Bill Simmons?

  Tom Brady announcing that game.

• 51:53Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

• 51:55Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. He's like, assign me to more Chiefs games. This is fun. How many Super Bowls does Pat have? Oh, three. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I thought.

• 52:03Speaker 04

  Do you think he has an app where he checks his legacy? The, how much difference there is between these guys?

• 52:10Bill Simmons?

  He's like, oh yeah. Good throw by Pat. Nice job by him there. You know, like, kind of like slightly condescending with this.

• 52:18Speaker 04

  He's got a mute button where he's celebrating. He's like high fiving everyone.

• 52:22Bill Simmons?

  Another overthrow. I would hit that guy. 0-2 teams. So right now we have the Jets, Dolphins.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  Are we done with the game? I give up? We give up? We gave up on the game?

• 52:31Bill Simmons?

  We're coming back. Just on the Chiefs really quick.

• 52:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 52:34Bill Simmons?

  Jets, Dolphins, Browns, Tennessee, Kansas City, Giants, Bears, Carolina, New Orleans. We have nine 0-2 teams.

• 52:43Bill Simmons?

  This isn't a descendants, but it's never good. We talk about this every year when we're heading into week three. 0-4 Rams, the 24 Rams were 0-2. They made it. 23 Texans were 0-2. They made it. 22 Bengals were 0-2. They ended up making the AFC title game. So one of those teams, Jets, Dolphins, Browns, Tennessee, Chiefs, Giants, Bears, Panthers.

• 53:08Bill Simmons?

  Saints, one of those teams.

• 53:10Speaker 04

  The Chiefs are in so much better shape than A L S A game. They just because because they're the Chiefs.

• 53:15Bill Simmons?

  And Texans maybe. Yeah. So it's gonna be Chiefs or Texans if the Texans go.

• 53:21Speaker 04

  The Texans lose.

• 53:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, one of those two, right?

• 53:24Speaker 04

  It's easier now though, right? Because.

• 53:28Bill Simmons?

  No case for the Giants for you?

• 53:29Speaker 04

  There's more playoff teams. I don't know. If they play up my Cowboys every week, they'll get there. I'll have 10 wins. Good God.

• 53:36Bill Simmons?

  Major points. What do you have for I give up?

• 53:38Speaker 04

  I got one more. Yeah. Complaining about quarterbacks trying to draw defenses from the shotgun. Offsides from the shotgun. I'm done with it. These guys, it's fourth and a half a yard. And you'll see a guy line up in the shotgun and it's deafening roars from the crowd. You need like Superman-esque hearing, outer body hearing to be able to hear the cadence. Instead of being on the ball and trying to get these exhausted D linemen to jump offsides. Where like just a little head shake could do it. What's with the shotgun? Like, I don't know. I don't care because I'm done complaining about it. Just don't understand. And I'm 80 cookies. What's he saying? Yeah. But get up close. You would scare me. You're doing that on Zoom and I'm getting a little jittery.

• 54:22Speaker 04

  But if you were right in my ear, right? It'd be a little more effective.

• 54:26Bill Simmons?

  I don't know how you're not over center if you're trying to draw people off. So I completely agree with you. It's a great point. I have one more. I give up.

• 54:33Speaker 04

  Go ahead.

• 54:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, I actually have two, but we can talk about one of them later.

• 54:41Bill Simmons?

  Daniel Jones jokes.

• 54:44Speaker 04

  You're not done with those. You don't give up.

• 54:49Bill Simmons?

  He's pretty good in those two games.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:52Bill Simmons?

  He really was. I thought he I thought he made good plays. I thought he had a. I don't know. I thought he had good command of the offense. Taylor was great. Taylor really seems like he's 100% back. I mean, he's. Got to be one of the three best running backs right now.

• 55:09Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I thought he was all right. He definitely. You know, for a guy whose career seemed over last year, it did not seem over in these two games, including today.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Wait, wasn't he better than all right? Uh, Denver's defense is supposed to be good. It was top five or six last year.

• 55:23Bill Simmons?

  I know, that's what I'm saying. I'm trying to be calm about it, because it's Daniel Jones.

• 55:26Speaker 04

  No interceptions. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 55:28Bill Simmons?

  He was, he was legitimately good in that game.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  I don't want to give up the jokes just yet, but if he has a great running back, I know he did in Barkley also. I, I also wonder if Brian Dayball could get fired just based on Daniel Jones' performance on the Colts, like having nothing to do with what the Giants do this year. Like if the Colts go 12 and 5, and the Giants go 9 and 8.

• 55:48Bill Simmons?

  I mean, he got 400 and something yards out of Wilson though, who's half dead.

• 55:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know, I know, but that's not gonna continue.

• 55:54Bill Simmons?

  Seemed like a good breakup.

• 55:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:57Bill Simmons?

  I'm not ready to give up on Caleb Williams, was the only other guy I had in there, but I, I did want to ask you, right now, how many 2024 NFL Draft QBs would you take before you took him in a draft?

• 56:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, let's hear him.

• 56:13Bill Simmons?

  Well, you tell me.

• 56:14Speaker 04

  Oh, alright.

• 56:16Bill Simmons?

  Uh, well, I'll go with, uh, who was, who was the second guy in that draft? Hold on, I'm, I'm cuing it up.

• 56:25Bill Simmons?

  I should have had this.

• 56:26Speaker 04

  No, it's alright. It's Jaden Daniels.

• 56:28Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Jaden Daniels, you're taking over him. Would you rather have Drake May or Caleb Williams?

• 56:31Speaker 04

  Oh, man.

• 56:32Bill Simmons?

  Come on, come on.

• 56:33Speaker 04

  Let's go the other way.

• 56:34Bill Simmons?

  Who's taking Caleb Williams over Drake May? That's ridiculous.

• 56:37Speaker 04

  I say Pennix and Nix, both them.

• 56:41Bill Simmons?

  So you take Nix over Caleb Williams?

• 56:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think so.

• 56:44Bill Simmons?

  You would take Pennix over Caleb Williams?

• 56:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, I don't know about Drake May. You sure this kid's good?

• 56:50Bill Simmons?

  Why are you doing this to me?

• 56:54Speaker 04

  What's their record? It's probably the same. I don't know.

• 56:57Bill Simmons?

  He finally got protection today and he was excellent.

• 57:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 57:03Bill Simmons?

  Alright, so that's basically everybody in the draft?

• 57:05Speaker 04

  No, a lot of them, a lot of them, yeah.

• 57:06Bill Simmons?

  No, there's other quarterbacks in that draft.

• 57:08Speaker 04

  Well, I think it was just six, right? Oh, that's the first round. Yeah.

• 57:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, McCarthy?

• 57:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, McCar- McCarthy, not yet.

• 57:16Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather have Rattler or Caleb Williams?

• 57:19Speaker 04

  Uh, Caleb Williams.

• 57:20Bill Simmons?

  Okay.

• 57:21Speaker 04

  Although I want Rattler around. I do like betting against him, money line, at least.

• 57:25Bill Simmons?

  Would you rather have Florida State's Jordan Travis or Caleb Williams?

• 57:32Bill Simmons?

  Hopefully Caleb will be fine, but it's, it's pretty grim. That's why I didn't want to put it, and I give up, but it's, he has a couple of plays a game that just look like when you're watching like a bad college game. And Sean McDonough is like, oh no. Yeah. One of the, he has a couple of those passes.

• 57:49Speaker 04

  This has to be one of the more depressed evenings for Ben Johnson, right? Like, I'm annoyed I didn't, we didn't, I didn't convince you to us to bet the Lions over 27 and a half points, or whatever it was, because this was the F you Ben Johnson game, right? So if they were ever going to break out, it was going to be this one.

• 58:07Bill Simmons?

  I guess that would be an I give up because I give up on my Bears playoff prediction and the bet I have on them. Think out of the teams, I, I try to take a couple of swings with the picks and that's the only one that feels dead already.

• 58:23Bill Simmons?

  Cause I had Seattle, I feel, I thought Seattle was good today. We'll talk about them in a second. Pat's not giving up on that Vegas, but the Bears doesn't look great.

• 58:35Speaker 04

  The Lions aren't going away. I think I put them at a four when we did the panic meter thing last week. I think I put them at a four. They're still going to be solid. So now the Bears have to.

• 58:42Bill Simmons?

  Here's the thing.

• 58:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:43Bill Simmons?

  Green Bay might be fucking awesome. So that loss in week one doesn't look as horrible as it did in the moment. Cause Green Bay is the best team in the league, you know, and they're playing the Bears. It's a little.

• 58:54Speaker 04

  Listen, that Micah Parsons trade crushed the Cowboys and was not good for Caleb Williams. Those, those are the two entities that really suffered.

• 59:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, you wouldn't have been able to pay your cornerback who's already out now.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  That's true. Right, right. That's true.

• 59:06Bill Simmons?

  Been able to do that.

• 59:07Speaker 04

  We're not going to be able to pay our kicker. The kicker is the one we have to, Jerry's going to have to back the truck up for.

• 59:13Bill Simmons?

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

• 59:47Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you 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 gonna 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 gonna want WeatherTech for American-made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. Let's talk about your team. So I wrote down, you know, because you have the uniforms. And it was a high-scoring game and it was the icons on the screen where it's like Cowboys versus Giants. So it feels big, but it's like those, when you go on Amazon and it's like, it's a new movie with John Travolta and Bruce Willis.

• 1:00:32Bill Simmons?

  And you're like, oh, that's probably not going to be that good. Did that come out in 22 with their cops?

• 1:00:41Speaker 04

  That's so mean. So, so much meaner than what I said about Drake May.

• 1:00:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's like a straight to video movie. Cowboys, Giants. See, the Cowboys and the Giants.

• 1:00:50Speaker 04

  These are cover bands.

• 1:00:51Bill Simmons?

  Kevin Spacey is the bad guy.

• 1:00:53Speaker 04

  They're not the real band. It's just cover bands playing each other.

• 1:00:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's really depressing. I wish it had been a tie. The highlight of the game, though, was you have the ball. You're over midfield and there's nine seconds left and there's time to really try to get into field goal range. And Schottenheimer does a handoff left for three yards to set Aubrey up on the right, on the left hash mark from 64.

• 1:01:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:01:18Bill Simmons?

  He's like, no, no, we got, we got him. And then Aubrey fucking nails it. And I'm like, what am I watching? I've watched 19 people miss PATs today and the Cowboys are setting up 64-yard field goals and draining them.

• 1:01:30Speaker 04

  I love Greg Olson, but today he was like, when Javante Williams gets that carry, they have nine seconds left and a timeout. And he gets a carry and immediately trips forward. And there's like, well, when you know, when you get the ball like that, you don't know what nine seconds is like. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. You can get six yards and then like call timeout if you're on the ground. Yeah, exactly. It's like, I know everybody, oh, Brandon Aubrey is going to make any kick he tries. They, all they have to do is get to their own 30s. Like, no. Even the 64 yarder barely made it. Can we get to a decent spot? But yeah, that was a miserable. I, I mean, I just early on, I was like, okay, my team sucks. So when your team sucks, you just want to win certain games, right? You want to win home against the Giants. You have to win that.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  I'll take four and 13 if I can get out of this somehow with a win. I promise I will. And it was just a matter of what's going to happen first? Is Russ going to throw for 500 yards or are the Giants going to amass 500 yards in penalties? It was that sloppy game.

• 1:02:30Bill Simmons?

  14 penalties for the Giants. 54 first downs in the game.

• 1:02:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:35Bill Simmons?

  You had 31 or 32, almost 1,000 yards in offense. And some genuinely nice Russell Wilson throws.

• 1:02:43Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 1:02:44Bill Simmons?

  And neighbors was unstoppable. Now you don't have any defensive backs anymore, but uh, he was all running amok.

• 1:02:51Speaker 04

  That's a problem.

• 1:02:51Bill Simmons?

  I thought it was very entertaining. I enjoyed it. I thought the announcers were good. I thought uh, you know, but it was two teams that combined, how many wins Cowboys and Giants combined this year? 12? 10?

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  Oh yeah, that's 12, I think is generous. Yeah, well, they have to play each other again, so that's going to be one. Unless they could tie, they could tie that. It was close enough. Yeah, it's bad news. It really is. I don't know uh,

• 1:03:15Bill Simmons?

  I was happy for you. You didn't want to be 0-2, having like two.

• 1:03:19Speaker 04

  I was texting my buddies. I'm like, I take a tie right now. I like, I will take a tie. Probably four different times I said, I'll take a tie, but um.

• 1:03:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, it felt, you know what it felt like the last night, the Netflix, the undercard fight, Mobily against uh, Martinez?

• 1:03:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:03:36Bill Simmons?

  And these guys are just beating the shit out of each other for 10 rounds. It's like, they always call these like the rock'em, sock'em, robot fights.

• 1:03:42Speaker 04

  Gotti Ward, yeah.

• 1:03:43Bill Simmons?

  Just a thousand headshots and nobody's getting phased or, and then at some point it's like, this is going, just make it a draw. There should be no loser for this and it was a draw. That's how I felt about Cowboys Giants.

• 1:03:55Speaker 04

  It was like that if there were like 40 low blows in the fight. I mean, you said there were 14 penalties. There was one penalty, I don't think they even counted where the Giants had four penalties on the play and the Cowboys had one and it offset. So they really had like 80.

• 1:04:09Bill Simmons?

  Only one?

• 1:04:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, it counts for none. It's like, C D Lamb like taunted somebody and they're like, well, well, we have to disregard the other four penalties then, but.

• 1:04:18Bill Simmons?

  So the Pats won. They had 12 penalties, two missed PATs, roughly 500 missed tackles, and they give up a kick return TD and somehow, somehow they won.

• 1:04:30Bill Simmons?

  The Colts had 473 yards of offense, two touchdowns and five field goals. They had seven scoring drives. And.

• 1:04:40Speaker 04

  And leverage, then leverage.

• 1:04:41Bill Simmons?

  And leverage. I wrote this down. So I'm trying not to get too excited about them because if you remember 12 months ago.

• 1:04:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:48Bill Simmons?

  The New Orleans Saints and Derek Carr went 2-0 and had this, all this offense. And I think I came on for this podcast hitting into week three, wondering like, ah, they feel a little 99 Rams-ish.

• 1:05:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:05:05Bill Simmons?

  And it's one of the worst moments in the recent history of this podcast. I am not saying anything about the Colts, but they did win and they're 2-0 and I have no idea if it's going to last. But I will say Taylor and Warren are, might be top five to seven at their positions, right? Their receivers, that Pierce always gets open once a game deep.

• 1:05:26Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:05:27Bill Simmons?

  They have downs, they have Pittman. They have a little bit of a pass rush, like they could, their defense is okay. Good special teams.

• 1:05:36Speaker 04

  Their defense is definitely better than last year.

• 1:05:38Bill Simmons?

  Definitely better.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  AFC South, which is, you know, anyone's game always.

• 1:05:45Speaker 04

  But it begins and ends with the quarterback, right? And we've seen all of these, you said, right? Derek Carr, like these old guys or the, who were good, or some guys who were never good, between the Derek Carrs and the Zach Wilsons. But then there's a Sam Darnold who wins like 13 games. So you can't discount all of them, but you have to keep your eye, you gotta be, you gotta be level headed.

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I. I told you, I test drove the Colts for AFC South.

• 1:06:14Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  And I talked to a Giants friend of mine who watches every play of every Giants game. And I was like, how bad was Dimes last year? We talked about this in the over under spot. And he was just like, so bad, don't do it. Don't take, don't stay away. And it did sway me, but he does look better than last year. Couple more games. The Lions, Bears. Detroit had seven 20 plus yard plays in that game.

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:41Bill Simmons?

  The Bengal, the Bears, a friend of mine who's a Bears fan was sending all the draft picks they had, who like did nothing in this game. Cause they had a lot of firsts, seconds, they made some trades.

• 1:06:50Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 1:06:51Bill Simmons?

  And they might, especially if they don't hit on Caleb Peace.

• 1:06:55Bill Simmons?

  Just seems like a write off. I don't know if they're a cross off, but they would certainly be on the list. I would still have the Panthers over them. Could we officially make the Panthers our first cross off team?

• 1:07:04Speaker 04

  You want to do it now? Really?

• 1:07:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're the first one.

• 1:07:07Speaker 04

  The problem is.

• 1:07:07Bill Simmons?

  There's no way they make the playoffs.

• 1:07:08Speaker 04

  If Tampa loses, aren't they a game out?

• 1:07:11Bill Simmons?

  No, the Carolina is not making the playoffs.

• 1:07:14Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, no, okay.

• 1:07:15Bill Simmons?

  Let's cross them off.

• 1:07:15Speaker 04

  All right, they're not making it. I just, I feel weird doing it before the Saints. I don't know why you like Spencer Rattler over a backdoor Bryce.

• 1:07:25Bill Simmons?

  Backdoor Bryce, I had that written down. Tepper, 38 and 82 as an owner in 120 games.

• 1:07:31Speaker 04

  He's good.

• 1:07:31Bill Simmons?

  120 games, 38 wins for him.

• 1:07:35Bill Simmons?

  The Seahawks Steelers, we did not talk about.

• 1:07:39Bill Simmons?

  I think I was right about the Seahawks and I think they just fucked the game up last week. They were much better this week.

• 1:07:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:07:45Bill Simmons?

  Their defense is good. They did get a break of Caleb Johnson, just forgetting the new kickoff rules. But, you know, considering that at one point they had two picks on the road. Right? And it just feels like, oh, they're going to go on two, but they, they clamped down in the second half. They have a couple, JSN.

• 1:08:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:06Bill Simmons?

  They can run the ball.

• 1:08:07Speaker 04

  He made some plays. I was looking, did you see their, did you say their division odds? Or that was somebody else you said?

• 1:08:14Bill Simmons?

  No, but I can give them to you. Cause they gotta be a little better than they were with this, they're, they're still nine and one.

• 1:08:22Speaker 04

  What were they? Was that what they were? Were they 10 or something?

• 1:08:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they haven't budged.

• 1:08:26Speaker 04

  That's pretty good. That's pretty, I mean, what other 1-1 team do you think has a shot? And you get 9-1 odds?

• 1:08:33Bill Simmons?

  Might bet that right now.

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, cuz the Cardinals are 2-0 and the two games could not have been less inspiring. They barely held on against Spencer Rattler and Bryce Young, like barely held on down the stretch. Like, like they're holding on for dear life. They had some D-back injuries and, you know.

• 1:08:52Speaker 04

  I'm with you. I don't know why I had them win in 10, 11 games, but, uh,

• 1:08:57Bill Simmons?

  Well, you,

• 1:08:58Speaker 04

  Two, two might be it.

• 1:08:59Bill Simmons?

  They're 2-0.

• 1:08:59Speaker 04

  Two might be it.

• 1:09:01Bill Simmons?

  One thing on Pittsburgh and Rogers is, it's like last year, if you pressure him, he sucks. And there's now, there were stats coming out of today's game where it's like, just as long as you're making a move around, he's not good. I don't know what happened to their run defense.

• 1:09:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:15Bill Simmons?

  Cuz the Jets ran all over him and then Seattle was able to get whatever they wanted today. So I don't, I don't think Pittsburgh has it.

• 1:09:22Speaker 04

  Pittsburgh and Denver defenses are wildly underwhelming so far, right? In terms of teams you thought were gonna be good coming in.

• 1:09:30Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it's fixable either. Ravens killed the Browns. We need to talk about that.

• 1:09:34Speaker 04

  Hey, 23 and I had minus 23 and a half. We do need to talk about that.

• 1:09:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, congratulations.

• 1:09:39Speaker 04

  Thank you. 4-1 odds.

• 1:09:41Bill Simmons?

  That was got a little hairy there for a little while.

• 1:09:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was. I mean, that touchdown the Browns scored was hilarious. I mean, not for me, but, yeah.

• 1:09:49Bill Simmons?

  Niners, Saints. I wrote down this question for you. What's the opposite of a multi-view game? Is it an oh-no type view?

• 1:10:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Bill Simmons?

  Christopher Maltesante view? Like, I don't, There's gotta be some name for it, but I really didn't want to ever put this in my four. And then there were a couple of moments when we got near the end of the first early game hour, the ending where it's like, alright, fine.

• 1:10:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:18Bill Simmons?

  Now we're watching, my dad's like, whoa, this multi-view is crazy. Now we're watching Saints-Niners.

• 1:10:25Speaker 04

  We're watching college teams? Why? How'd you make that out? I thought that was yesterday.

• 1:10:29Bill Simmons?

  What's this guy's name? Spencer what? Spencer Rattler, Mac Jones, the oh no tie view? I don't know.

• 1:10:35Speaker 04

  I had to watch it. I thought I was smart by making the Niners my best bet because it went from seven and a half and then Purdy's out and Mac Jones is minus three. And I looked at Mac Jones's stats. He's like six and three against the spread as a starter. It's like, wow, how did, really? Is that good? And then Rattler was like, oh, six and one or something again. I was like, I'm gonna keep betting against the Saints until they give me a reason not to. Yeah.

• 1:10:57Bill Simmons?

  Great job. The mutilate view? Then Rams Titans, nothing really to say other than Tennessee's just not well coached.

• 1:11:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, that one play.

• 1:11:08Bill Simmons?

  Twenty-three penalties in two weeks.

• 1:11:09Speaker 04

  You see his touchdown pass, though?

• 1:11:10Bill Simmons?

  I watched it live. It was incredible.

• 1:11:12Speaker 04

  That was something else. That gives you hope, huh? It was like a 50-yard pass across the field.

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  They'll have a new coach next year. I mean, really, that's the type of quarterback Ben Johnson should have been aligning with. Instead, he went all in on Caleb.

• 1:11:28Bill Simmons?

  Okay, we'll take a break for the pod. 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 as a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association, Member, FTIC.

• 1:12:10Bill Simmons?

  Hey, I was lucky enough to get a son and a daughter through their early teens and their mid-teens in the social media era. And even though we were constantly monitoring it, there's still a whole bunch of stuff that can go wrong. And that's why Instagram teen accounts. Have automatic protections on by default. Built in content settings for the content teens can see. Contact limits for who can contact them and time management tools like daily time limits. And sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts. Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built in safety features to help create age appropriate experiences.

• 1:12:50Bill Simmons?

  Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. We're going to do Guess the Lines Thursday night. Bills Dolphins, it feels like this is the Thursday night, week two or week three game every year.

• 1:13:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:13:08Bill Simmons?

  I don't know why. And it's in Buffalo. You beat me the first two weeks in Guess the Lines.

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  Yes, I did.

• 1:13:17Bill Simmons?

  Dave Jacoby, the most excited.

• 1:13:19Speaker 04

  He really likes it.

• 1:13:20Bill Simmons?

  He really loves, he really roots for you.

• 1:13:22Speaker 04

  Wait for that text every Monday.

• 1:13:26Bill Simmons?

  I have the Bills favored by nine and a half over the Dolphins.

• 1:13:29Speaker 04

  You son of a bitch. I had nine. It's 12 and a half.

• 1:13:34Bill Simmons?

  Whoa.

• 1:13:35Speaker 04

  12 and a half. How many money line, everything are we putting that with?

• 1:13:42Bill Simmons?

  So if, if the Bills kill the Dolphins and the Dolphins are own three and there's 10 days until the next game. This is, this is where DJ Mikey Mack might meet his demise.

• 1:13:52Speaker 04

  Oh, right. I didn't even think of that. Yeah. If it's bad. Just throwing that out there.

• 1:14:00Bill Simmons?

  Sunday marquee game. I do not think this is the best game to watch next week for reasons we described earlier. But it is the Eagles and the Rams in Philadelphia because that's a rematch of an excellent playoff game last year. Kind of know how this game's going to go. I'm not going to enjoy it that much. The Eagles will probably lead for most of the game. The Rams will come back late. It'll be exciting for about 10 minutes. And I have the Eagles favored by three and a half.

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  Um, I guess we split it. I said five and a half. It's four and a half.

• 1:14:34Bill Simmons?

  Ooh, Vegas.

• 1:14:35Speaker 04

  Right there in the Vegas zone.

• 1:14:38Bill Simmons?

  Not sure about the Rams yet. The running back situation, I mean, what was Kyron Williams going for in fantasy leagues? Like 38, 40?

• 1:14:48Speaker 04

  Right. And then it's Blake Corum getting the goal line carries. Yeah.

• 1:14:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, split backfield situation. The two receivers are putting up yards.

• 1:14:58Speaker 04

  I don't know what it is for me. I don't get excited for their offense, right? I should. N'Kou is a dynamic player. Great. Now he's getting handoffs and everything. And it's just fun to see Stafford succeed, right? For as long as he can. But yeah, that's already bores me this game.

• 1:15:15Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It's like if I'm, if I'm, who is it going to be? Brady and Brady and Burkhart?

• 1:15:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, probably. Yep.

• 1:15:25Bill Simmons?

  I'd probably be like, yo, what are the other games?

• 1:15:29Speaker 04

  Can you get me a date with St. Seahawks?

• 1:15:34Bill Simmons?

  I only have two watchables. First one, Washington and the Raiders. I just think this will be a fun game. I'm looking forward to it.

• 1:15:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, Super Bowl rematch.

• 1:15:41Bill Simmons?

  Let's do it. Washington with a lot of rest, Raiders coming off, whatever happens in the Monday night game. And I have Washington favored by three and a half.

• 1:15:52Speaker 04

  That's what I had and it's five and a half.

• 1:15:55Bill Simmons?

  Ooh.

• 1:15:56Speaker 04

  So we split that. That's a little high.

• 1:15:57Bill Simmons?

  Two Vegas zones out of the first three. This is a let's be careful week three. The other one is Chargers Broncos, which I thought long and hard about putting in the Sunday marquee.

• 1:16:08Speaker 04

  Wait, you don't put your team as a watchable? This is watchables we're doing?

• 1:16:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm doing it for America. I can't be selfish.

• 1:16:16Speaker 04

  Oh, you're doing it for America. Okay.

• 1:16:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I mean, Steelers Pats is watchable for me, but I don't know for America, watching those two teams, two non-playoff teams playing, I wouldn't put them watchable category.

• 1:16:29Bill Simmons?

  Chargers Broncos. This is a good game.

• 1:16:33Speaker 04

  Ooh, this moved.

• 1:16:35Bill Simmons?

  Did it move? I had Chargers by two and a half.

• 1:16:39Speaker 04

  You'll get it either way. I had two. It was two and a half. It moved to three.

• 1:16:48Bill Simmons?

  There'll be a lot of Denver fans at this game, we should mention.

• 1:16:51Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:16:53Bill Simmons?

  Well, we're we'll know. We're gonna know tomorrow night with the Chargers if we have a real contender with them or not. Right?

• 1:16:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I'm on I'm on Vegas tomorrow. It's one of my 107, so you could root against that.

• 1:17:04Bill Simmons?

  But I I have money on Vegas.

• 1:17:06Speaker 04

  You do?

• 1:17:06Bill Simmons?

  I'm with you.

• 1:17:07Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:17:07Bill Simmons?

  All right. Bowers is playing.

• 1:17:09Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:17:11Bill Simmons?

  I think they I don't know. I wouldn't say they have a home field advantage, but they do have a good crowd.

• 1:17:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Bill Simmons?

  And we'll see. We're gonna find out a lot from the Chargers.

• 1:17:20Speaker 04

  It's just like neither of these two teams put together two good games in a row ever. So it's like, I'll take the points.

• 1:17:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, if the Chargers spank them tomorrow. They have a case for being the third best team in the conference.

• 1:17:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:34Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:34Speaker 04

  For sure. Well, I was I was predicting you and I talk about Pete Carroll as one of the coach of the year contenders if they win if they win that game. Right there.

• 1:17:44Bill Simmons?

  Fairly watchable is I have seven. Let's describe it as a fairly watchable week three. Packers Browns normally would go in the poopfecta. But it's in Cleveland. And I like watching the Packers. So I have Packers by nine and a half.

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  No, I was gonna say you better get it exactly because I did. Eight and a half.

• 1:18:07Bill Simmons?

  Ah. Right.

• 1:18:10Speaker 04

  They can't lose that, right? It's not cold. It's not anything.

• 1:18:15Bill Simmons?

  I mean, that is a the definition of a three team teaser slash eliminator pool. Just keep throwing it in things. I feel pretty good about that.

• 1:18:25Speaker 04

  Speaking of keep throwing, I mean, this is supposed to be like Flacco semi-retirement. He's thrown 90 passes in the last two weeks.

• 1:18:32Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:18:32Speaker 04

  He's like 56 for 90, I think. Poor bastard.

• 1:18:36Bill Simmons?

  Did you see that thing today about how Shador, the Ravens told him they're gonna take him in the fifth round and his team discouraged it? Because he didn't want to back up Lamar?

• 1:18:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, right. And now he's the fourth backup to Flacco? That can't be.

• 1:18:49Bill Simmons?

  You don't want to back up Lamar. Who is a better person to back up and learn like go to a great franchise and back up Lamar and and try to pick some shit up? You're not gonna be a starter for a couple of years anyway.

• 1:19:00Speaker 04

  Did he say this in the in the third round when no one had taken him? Did his teams was he still like trying to?

• 1:19:07Bill Simmons?

  I think they told him, according to the report, they're gonna take him in the fifth round and he didn't want them to.

• 1:19:12Speaker 04

  Like that day, that day?

• 1:19:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that day.

• 1:19:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, if I would have told them the day before the draft, they were like, go screw yourself.

• 1:19:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, he thought he was going to the first.

• 1:19:20Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:19:22Bill Simmons?

  Uh, Colts Titans.

• 1:19:25Bill Simmons?

  Wow, is this, this, this game is pulsating as a don't be careful. Uh, it's in Tennessee.

• 1:19:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:34Bill Simmons?

  It has the makings of like 92% of the people on whatever have picked the Colts.

• 1:19:39Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 1:19:42Bill Simmons?

  I have Colts by three and a half.

• 1:19:43Speaker 04

  Uh, we had, we hit that exactly.

• 1:19:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:47Speaker 04

  Yep, both of us. That's tough.

• 1:19:50Bill Simmons?

  That is a, that is a be careful.

• 1:19:53Speaker 04

  Yep. That's a leverage.

• 1:19:55Bill Simmons?

  All week, all week Colts 2-0. Daniel Dimes rejuvenated.

• 1:19:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:00Bill Simmons?

  Ursay's daughters, she's on the sidelines with a headset taking notes. There's a new energy around this team. Everything is so great Colts Colts Colts. And then it's like punt return Titans up 10-0.

• 1:20:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:20:12Bill Simmons?

  Ah.

• 1:20:13Speaker 04

  Leverage play against them.

• 1:20:15Bill Simmons?

  See it coming.

• 1:20:15Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:20:17Bill Simmons?

  Vikings Bengals in Minnesota. Jake Browning aboard. I, this has to go in the Vegas zone. I had, I had the Vikings by five and a half.

• 1:20:27Speaker 04

  Um. Did this move? Uh, I had.

• 1:20:32Bill Simmons?

  I'm sure a move so you can cheat.

• 1:20:33Speaker 04

  It's three and a half. No, I promise. No, I had five. It's only three and a half.

• 1:20:39Speaker 04

  I mean, we probably should have adjusted this after, I did this before the, before that miserable game we just saw.

• 1:20:47Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that line, that doesn't make sense to me because how many more points is Joe Burrow worth than Jake Browning?

• 1:20:55Bill Simmons?

  Like six, seven? So if Joe Burrow was playing, the Bengals would be three and a half point favorites in Minnesota?

• 1:21:02Speaker 04

  I think so. I mean, I think the better question is how many more points is J.J. McCarthy worth than, than Browning?

• 1:21:09Bill Simmons?

  That line's too low. That's going to go up. Next one is Steelers at the Pats. I think I hit this one exactly. I did not see it.

• 1:21:15Speaker 04

  Go ahead.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  Steelers minus two and a half.

• 1:21:18Speaker 04

  It's, yeah, you're gonna think I cheated. It's, I said two, it's one and a half.

• 1:21:23Bill Simmons?

  Oh, they Tic Tacked me?

• 1:21:24Speaker 04

  They Tic Tacked you. That could move though.

• 1:21:29Bill Simmons?

  Think we can win that game. We think we can run on that team.

• 1:21:32Speaker 04

  That's a fun one. I like that game.

• 1:21:34Bill Simmons?

  Really good. As you know, I love the locker room videos.

• 1:21:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:39Bill Simmons?

  Fantastic Vrabel locker room video. He's about to give his first game ball. Kraft wanders in, ah, hold on a second. And then he just grabs it and does a little speech for Vrabel. Gives him the game ball. And then Vrabel goes around and gives game balls to like Remandre and Milton Williams and

• 1:21:57Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:21:57Bill Simmons?

  All the, all the heroes of the game. And then the last game ball turns to the kicker. This motherfucker who missed his first two PATs and then field goal and made the 53 yarder to kind of pseudoize the game. He's coming in and we're like, they're gonna, this guy missed two PATs. They're gonna, he's gonna do a 50 and he nailed it.

• 1:22:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:17Bill Simmons?

  And Vrabel throws him the ball and he's like, hey, we believe in you. We sent you out there because I knew you were gonna make that kick and team cheered.

• 1:22:26Speaker 04

  They did, but they, that was a fake cheer. Like 48 guys are like, they're like, give me the ball. I, I worked my ass off and then missed extra points. What are you doing?

• 1:22:34Bill Simmons?

  It was like, we, we all had to work our asses off because this shithead missed two PATs. Now he gets a game ball?

• 1:22:38Speaker 04

  This is a participation trophy? What is this?

• 1:22:41Bill Simmons?

  I liked it. He was like, this is my kicker.

• 1:22:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:45Bill Simmons?

  Jaguars Texans in Jacksonville. And if I've ever seen a one and a half line, this is it. I have the Jaguars by one and a half.

• 1:22:53Speaker 04

  You nailed it. Good. I said one. You get that. It's a good game. That's, um.

• 1:23:00Bill Simmons?

  So the Texans are awesome tomorrow. Let's say they beat the Bucks.

• 1:23:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:23:05Bill Simmons?

  This line immediately flips to Texans minus one and a half, I think.

• 1:23:09Speaker 04

  I guess so. Yeah. They're counting the short week, uh, here, but they're not counting the long hair on Trevor Lawrence.

• 1:23:17Bill Simmons?

  What do you think the AFC South odds are right now? Did you look? Do you know this?

• 1:23:21Speaker 04

  I haven't looked.

• 1:23:22Bill Simmons?

  What do you think? Who do you think the favorite in the AFC South is right now?

• 1:23:27Speaker 04

  So Colts are 2-0, Jags are 1-1, Titans 0-2, Texans 1-1.

• 1:23:33Bill Simmons?

  And we're favored the whole preseason.

• 1:23:35Speaker 04

  Are the, are, I mean, God, did they make the Colts the favorite? The slight favorite?

• 1:23:40Bill Simmons?

  Slight favorite, plus 160. Texans plus 185. Jags plus 260. Titans down to 13-1.

• 1:23:49Speaker 04

  So the Texans win.

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  Plus one sixty is pretty enticing.

• 1:23:52Speaker 04

  They have a minus if the Texans win tomorrow. They'll have a minus.

• 1:23:56Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I forgot.

• 1:23:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:58Bill Simmons?

  We're legally prohibited from betting on the AFC South division.

• 1:24:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:24:03Bill Simmons?

  Trump signed that rule. He didn't allow anybody to do it.

• 1:24:07Speaker 04

  That I would abide by.

• 1:24:11Bill Simmons?

  What is a rare win for Trump?

• 1:24:12Speaker 04

  We have something like that.

• 1:24:14Bill Simmons?

  We have the NFC South that's going to win more games than the AFC South. And we have juice toward the NFC South. And then we also have under twenty-nine and a half wins for the AFC South. We have two AFC South bets.

• 1:24:27Speaker 04

  Oh, well, okay. What was Hench complaining about? I mean, that's a whole.

• 1:24:30Bill Simmons?

  Hench is complaining because the Colts won in that bump that's throwing to our AFC South.

• 1:24:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're all right. We're okay.

• 1:24:36Bill Simmons?

  The problem with doing these future bets with Hench is he talks about them every week. And at some point, you almost start mentally rooting against them. So you don't get the Texans anymore.

• 1:24:44Speaker 04

  Hench complaining about could be a whole nother segment on this podcast.

• 1:24:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, he did not like the Broncos. Hench had some thoughts on the leverage rule. Bears, Cowboys. This is a borderline loser leaves town match. And it's in Chicago.

• 1:25:01Bill Simmons?

  And there's going to be a week of Caleb Johnson, Caleb Williams, Ben Johnson, Ryan Poles. This is the referendum week.

• 1:25:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:25:11Bill Simmons?

  How did we get this so wrong? What's going on with this team? Nick Wright picked them to make the Super Bowl a year ago.

• 1:25:18Speaker 04

  He did that?

• 1:25:19Bill Simmons?

  Right. Yeah, he did.

• 1:25:22Bill Simmons?

  High hopes for two years with this team. I picked them to make the playoffs this year. Now it's a big referendum. And now they're playing your dumb team.

• 1:25:29Speaker 04

  I was off by a half a point. I'm warning you here, and I'm proud of myself for getting it even that close.

• 1:25:34Bill Simmons?

  I Tic Tacked it. I went Bears one and a half.

• 1:25:36Speaker 04

  Son of a bitch. That's exactly right.

• 1:25:40Bill Simmons?

  Am I winning?

• 1:25:41Speaker 04

  Two, three, four, five, six, seven, two, three, four. Seven to six, you're winning.

• 1:25:46Bill Simmons?

  Oh, great. Last one, Niners Cards with Mac Jones because Purdy's not going to play. And it's in San Francisco.

• 1:25:54Bill Simmons?

  And the Cards are the, one of the least impressive two and O's that we've seen. They can't believe they're two and O.

• 1:26:01Bill Simmons?

  I have the Niners one and a half.

• 1:26:04Speaker 04

  I mean, you're, you're closer than I was. I had the Niners by three. And it's Arizona by one and a half.

• 1:26:12Bill Simmons?

  Oh, my Lord.

• 1:26:14Speaker 04

  Let's that way. Let's look at that for a second.

• 1:26:16Bill Simmons?

  Really?

• 1:26:17Speaker 04

  Arizona Cardinals minus one and a half, minus 104. San Francisco 49ers plus one and a half, minus one idea.

• 1:26:23Bill Simmons?

  I really disagree with that.

• 1:26:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, I do too. That what like.

• 1:26:28Bill Simmons?

  Then again, you get to bet against Mac Jones. So why not?

• 1:26:31Speaker 04

  Mac Jones.

• 1:26:33Bill Simmons?

  Poop Fecta.

• 1:26:35Bill Simmons?

  Bucks Jets in Tampa.

• 1:26:40Bill Simmons?

  And I have the Bucks by six and a half.

• 1:26:43Speaker 04

  Oh, come on. Do you really? Let me see it.

• 1:26:45Bill Simmons?

  What is it?

• 1:26:46Speaker 04

  Let me see it.

• 1:26:49Speaker 04

  I can't see. It's six and a half. I said seven.

• 1:26:53Speaker 04

  You get it.

• 1:26:54Bill Simmons?

  Is that a tease for us?

• 1:26:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:26:56Bill Simmons?

  Old school?

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  The Testaverde Bowl?

• 1:27:00Bill Simmons?

  All the six and a half level teases parlays were hitting the first two weeks, which means we're due for one of them to.

• 1:27:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:07Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 1:27:07Speaker 04

  A lot of overs.

• 1:27:08Bill Simmons?

  Cardinals today was a great one. Falcons at Carolina. This is interesting. I had three and a half before the Falcons game today, and I bumped it to Vegas own afterwards. I have Falcons by four and a half.

• 1:27:21Speaker 04

  Um, it's three and a half. I said four. We split that, right?

• 1:27:26Bill Simmons?

  No, you win that then.

• 1:27:29Bill Simmons?

  Wait, you sure it's three and a half?

• 1:27:30Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, I do want it. Yep. Three and a half. I didn't write it because we, we didn't have it.

• 1:27:34Bill Simmons?

  Is it still three and a half?

• 1:27:36Speaker 04

  I'll keep staring at it. Yeah. Falcons, three and a half at Panthers. Yeah. I get that.

• 1:27:41Bill Simmons?

  Who's taking the Panthers plus three and a half?

• 1:27:44Speaker 04

  So somebody, we have to, you know, that thing you were talking about where the AI warns you not to bet it? That we can't bet this. Either the Panthers upsetting the Falcons, or like you said, the Titans are upsetting the Colts.

• 1:27:57Bill Simmons?

  Well, this is Falcons outdoors. Falcons as a road favorite.

• 1:28:00Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 1:28:01Bill Simmons?

  Falcons with positive momentum and good feelings and good vibes.

• 1:28:05Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:28:05Bill Simmons?

  And, uh. Yeah, it's a stat line.

• 1:28:09Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 1:28:10Bill Simmons?

  And if it drops to three or below, I'll be betting it. Seahawks in Seattle against the Saints. And this is either seven or seven and a half. And I went back and forth and I landed at seven and a half.

• 1:28:21Speaker 04

  Seattle was seven and I had nine and a half, so it doesn't matter. You get it. Yep.

• 1:28:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:28Speaker 04

  You'd like that better than any teaser.

• 1:28:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's pretty good. Spencer Rattler in Seattle. Defense is good. Get a nice win on the board, run the ball. Saints outdoors. That's, that's a pretty enticing part of the teaser.

• 1:28:45Speaker 04

  If they were coming off a loss, they always have the one fucked up home game, right?

• 1:28:50Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night. Chiefs at the Giants.

• 1:28:54Speaker 04

  I got this exact, I'm warning you.

• 1:28:56Bill Simmons?

  Okay, I Vegas owned it. I did Chiefs by four and a half.

• 1:29:00Speaker 04

  It's five and a half.

• 1:29:01Bill Simmons?

  Fuck. So I'm up one.

• 1:29:03Speaker 04

  Man, there's a lot of teaser games. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, two, three. Oh, you're up two. It's over? Oh, Jacoby, it's over.

• 1:29:13Bill Simmons?

  W for this guy. The good guys finally got one.

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  Jacob's.

• 1:29:17Bill Simmons?

  I rested my starters for the Monday night game. Ravens.

• 1:29:23Bill Simmons?

  Home for the Detroit Lions. A game that a week ago I wasn't that excited about and now I'm like pumped.

• 1:29:30Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:29:31Bill Simmons?

  A great game.

• 1:29:34Bill Simmons?

  I did Ravens minus three and a half.

• 1:29:35Speaker 04

  All right, I said four. Doesn't matter. It's five and a half. So you win 10 to nine.

• 1:29:43Bill Simmons?

  So we have, let me see.

• 1:29:45Speaker 04

  There's a lot of teaser Vegas owned games there.

• 1:29:48Bill Simmons?

  Three, four Vegas owned games. And then we have.

• 1:29:53Speaker 04

  Then you have Green Bay's a teaser game. Yep.

• 1:29:56Bill Simmons?

  And then Packers minus eight and a half for the teasers.

• 1:29:59Speaker 04

  In Seattle, right?

• 1:30:01Bill Simmons?

  In Seattle, in Seattle minus seven.

• 1:30:03Speaker 04

  We're gonna get crushed next week. This is bad.

• 1:30:07Bill Simmons?

  Bonus, there's no answer for this yet, but Crawford Canelo rematch.

• 1:30:13Bill Simmons?

  Who's favored?

• 1:30:14Speaker 04

  All right, so Canelo was what, like a minus 180 going into last night?

• 1:30:20Bill Simmons?

  Yep.

• 1:30:22Speaker 04

  Man, I think it's a toss up, like minus 120 each side even.

• 1:30:27Bill Simmons?

  There's no line yet. I looked because the rematch hasn't been announced yet. So I don't think they have lines. I think it would be Crawford by minus 125 to minus 130.

• 1:30:35Speaker 04

  Do you?

• 1:30:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:37Speaker 04

  Yeah, because people, I, I, I hope people appreciate what Bud Crawford did Saturday night, right? To go up two weight classes.

• 1:30:44Bill Simmons?

  Well, I want to talk about it. First of all, my sources, my, my sources say that, uh, there will be a rematch.

• 1:30:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, there should.

• 1:30:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that is happening.

• 1:30:55Bill Simmons?

  I, I, I rarely am like awe stricken by a sporting event, but I thought, been watching boxing my whole life, dating back to Ali in 1974 all the way through and, uh,

• 1:31:09Speaker 04

  You were, why? You were 18 months old then.

• 1:31:11Bill Simmons?

  Watching fucking Wide World of Sports, watching Ali fight whoever. Like that's when I, I've always loved boxing and Crawford's one of the best fighters I've ever seen. He's, if I'm making some list, he just has to be on it now.

• 1:31:23Speaker 04

  No question about it. And I feel like he falls victim to the fact that boxing hasn't been good in, I don't know, 15, 20 years. I don't even know what it is. So it hurts his legacy and Canelo's too, by the way, that there's no Sugar Ray, there's no De La Hoya, there's no Hearns. Like even like a Winky Wright, right? Like those guys were great, you know?

• 1:31:42Bill Simmons?

  Well, his best, his best biggest fight was Spence and he killed Spence to the point that it almost didn't seem like they were on the same level, which wasn't his fault.

• 1:31:50Speaker 04

  Yeah. He's 42 and 0 and Spence is the only one anyone cared about. And most people, like a lot of people only knew about Crawford like last night, but that doesn't happen going up two weight classes like that and winning as a 37 year old.

• 1:32:04Bill Simmons?

  It's just crazy, right? It's a crazy thing to do. He gained 21 pounds.

• 1:32:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:09Bill Simmons?

  And fought a dude who is naturally already one of the strongest people in the history of that division, who by the way, has one of the, Max said this last night. I thought Max was great.

• 1:32:18Speaker 04

  I love him. I miss him. I miss him.

• 1:32:19Bill Simmons?

  Max was so good on that fight, but, uh, but Max was saying he has one of the great shins of all time. And it's like, yeah, he actually does. Like there, there was that great social video that happened of, uh, when Crawford stunned him and, and Canelo did like almost a 180 and was like, whoa, I've never, I've never seen stars before from a punch like.

• 1:32:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:32:40Bill Simmons?

  But Crawford, like the chess match that was going on, it was just such a high level of boxing. It was so different than that Rock'em, Sock'em fight from the three fights earlier.

• 1:32:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:49Bill Simmons?

  It was just these guys feeling each other out and Crawford, right as Canelo was starting to feel like he had momentum, he just shifts, he gets inside in his body and starts using his athleticism. Then he moves back again, he's moving side to side and it was just a masterpiece, man.

• 1:33:04Speaker 04

  It really was. It was a clinic, like young, young boxers should learn from that. That, I mean, you know, Canelo's not in his prime either, but the fact that the game plan for a lighter guy is always hit and move, right? Just hit and move and don't get in the clinch. And somewhere early on, he must've realized like, I could take Canelo's best punch. I don't care. I'll fight inside against him. Or he just doesn't give a shit, right? Like, that's probably it. He's like, I'm so tough. It's all right. I have a good chin too. And, uh, listen, it was just great. It's a shame boxing only produces a, a fight that we care about that doesn't involve one of the Pauls every four years. So that better be a rematch.

• 1:33:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like when, when Sugar Ray came back and he moved up to fight Hagler, which was the same spring as Hogan versus Andre. I think it was like two weekends apart and it was, you know, for, for us, it was like these, one of the greatest stretches ever.

• 1:33:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:33:59Bill Simmons?

  I was so scared for Leonard moving up. Like, I really felt like he was getting, like, potentially gonna die. This is suicide mission that he's doing this.

• 1:34:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:34:06Bill Simmons?

  And what Crawford did was like five times crazier.

• 1:34:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:09Bill Simmons?

  Like to move up, jump two divisions like that. And even the first couple of rounds, Canelo's hitting him on the sides, right? He's hitting him on his hips and he's hitting him low. And it's just like, he, there's no way he's ever felt punches like that before, but he was just, they're bouncing off him.

• 1:34:24Speaker 04

  Really good.

• 1:34:24Bill Simmons?

  It's like Superman. He's so good.

• 1:34:26Speaker 04

  Were you nervous for Hogan when he went up in class to fight Andre? Is that what you're saying too?

• 1:34:31Bill Simmons?

  I was nervous the whole time. I did, Andre was unbeatable.

• 1:34:36Speaker 04

  He's going up anywhere from 250 pounds, maybe. We can't get a reading.

• 1:34:41Bill Simmons?

  When Leonard fought Hager, he was so surgical about how he would attack the rounds. And he would just kind of, he was on his, on his bicycle and then would come in, do little flurries, get out, and he would pick like these little 15. Crawford wasn't doing that at all. Crawford was like, I'm fighting this guy.

• 1:34:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:34:57Bill Simmons?

  And I'm not afraid of him. He can't hurt me. I'm faster than him. And I thought, especially in the later rounds, it felt like Canelo got really discouraged. Like there, I, I thought in the 10th or 11th round, it almost seemed like, not that he was quitting, but like he had kind of just lost.

• 1:35:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:35:14Bill Simmons?

  I don't know what. And, but then he, he came back, but then, of course, the cards were outrageous.

• 1:35:20Speaker 04

  Well, the two judges had a tie.

• 1:35:21Bill Simmons?

  Five, five.

• 1:35:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, going into the 11th, that's, that's terrible. I don't know what the answer is to that either, because I was like, maybe we just let AI score these. But the Netflix AI had it a draw. So I, I, I'm not sure what the deal. Thankfully, they didn't screw Crawford. And then I'm reading online, like, oh, he was, there were people describing it like you said, that it might've been like, oh, he really didn't, he only engaged with them in four rounds. Like, no way. He was taking it to Canelo. Like, he, he didn't care.

• 1:35:49Bill Simmons?

  No, he was in command of it. The command of the fight has to matter if you're scoring it. I, I just, I don't think we've ever totally figured out how to score these things. We should have more than three judges. It's crazy that we only have three. Right? Talk about small sample size. You just need two people to fuck up out of three and you have the wrong decision. It should be five. But, um, then you have these rounds, like the first round, where nobody wins the first round. And people are just like, oh, Champ gets that one.

• 1:36:15Speaker 04

  You should be able to give 10, 10. I, I think you, I think you're frowned, it's frowned upon if you're a professional judge and you give a 10, 10 round, but some, some rounds are the same.

• 1:36:25Bill Simmons?

  First round was a 10, 10 round. Nobody won in the first round.

• 1:36:27Speaker 04

  One guy lands six punches, the other lands five. What do you got, you gotta pick one? Oh, come on.

• 1:36:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:32Speaker 04

  But, but I thought. The ones that were won, were won by way more, were won by Crawford.

• 1:36:38Bill Simmons?

  I thought Canelo won three rounds and give him the first round, congratulations. But I thought for boxing, it was a great night. I mean, they're, they, I don't know what the official audience was, but it was probably like 60 million people watching that.

• 1:36:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:36:50Bill Simmons?

  Which, so it's the biggest boxing event ever. Most of those people have only tangentially heard of Crawford. And he has his, his greatest fight Spence. This was his most important fight.

• 1:37:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:37:03Bill Simmons?

  But took it to him. And I don't. I think if they fought 10 times, I think he would beat Canelo every time. Maybe one of the 10 times Canelo would maybe catch him once, but athletically, he just was never in danger ever. And I really thought he took it to him a few times, too. That's what was special about it.

• 1:37:21Speaker 04

  Canelo, it's funny we say that because Crawford's got three years on him, three years older. But Canelo, if you look at his last, what do you have? He's coming off seven unanimous decisions, right? And the volume just isn't there like it was like Cinco de Mayo 10 years ago. Yeah, I mean, yeah, and the, and the power I think has gone to, he does do that thing that you were talking about where he'll just like turn his head. Like, oh, did that hurt? Did that hurt you or did that miss completely? So he really does have a good chin, but he had to use it for sure.

• 1:37:52Bill Simmons?

  There was a little bit of a, this meant more to Crawford than Canelo. Not that it didn't mean something to Canelo, but even his quotes afterwards. And I was like minted, whatever happens. He's one of the most popular fighters of the last 30 years.

• 1:38:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:38:06Bill Simmons?

  And he's already won a shit, shitload of fights and he's made a shitload of money. And whether he won or lost this, I don't think really ultimately mattered. But for Crawford, it did because Crawford had to win this. Now he's on this completely different list. He's one of the two or three most important boxers of the first 25 years of boxing. And if you go back to the last 50 years since Ali, he's on that list, too. He just has to be on there with Mayweather and Hopkins and whoever else you want to put on.

• 1:38:37Bill Simmons?

  And that, that's what he needed it.

• 1:38:39Speaker 04

  But I mean, how many times have we seen a guy go up two-way class and it's like, ah, shame. We root for the little guy and it just doesn't happen. It just gets, it just gets, you know, engulfed, but it wasn't like that at all. So.

• 1:38:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, I wonder. He probably, he could probably go down to middleweight and win that one, too, if he wanted, because I don't think anybody there could beat him. He could also go up to 175 and try to fight B-ball, which would be fucking crazy. But imagine if he did that. He's like, all right, I'll just, I'll just now go to 175.

• 1:39:11Speaker 04

  That's gonna be his 40s. Yeah, that's what he's gonna do in his 40s.

• 1:39:13Bill Simmons?

  If he did that, but.

• 1:39:15Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:39:15Bill Simmons?

  You know?

• 1:39:17Speaker 04

  Well, Bernard Hopkins was doing that, right? Late in his career, he's just taking all the fights and making as much money as he can. And the weights were all over the place, but he's great. He's great. I'm glad a lot of people got to introduce to him yesterday.

• 1:39:31Bill Simmons?

  There's a charisma and a coolness to him, too, that I think is unusual. Like, people like Hopkins, Larry Holmes, like some of these guys who had these great records or streaks, but there was something slightly missing from a personality standpoint. Hopkins, and Hopkins knew it and was always trying to overcompensate for it, but Bud's just, he's just got it. There's something about him that, I don't know, there's just that charisma to him. I wish I had gone. I really regret not going, but I came back east and trying to be a good parent.

• 1:40:00Speaker 04

  You were in the wrong, you know, she doesn't want to transfer to UNLV. You can see a lot of the fights there.

• 1:40:08Bill Simmons?

  All right, we have to do, let's do a little parent corner.

• 1:40:11Speaker 04

  All right.

• 1:40:12Bill Simmons?

  Which, hold on. Oh, yeah. Parent corner brought to you by Workday. Are you a forward thinker? Then you need an HR and finance platform that thinks like you do. Workday is the AI platform that helps propel your organization, your workforce, and your entire industry into the future. Workday, moving business forever forward. What do you got, Seth?

• 1:40:35Speaker 04

  All right, so my 12-year-old now is on this travel baseball team, and they've been playing together for like three or four years. And this is the year at 12, you go to Cooperstown, right? Now, it used to be all only the best teams in the country go to Cooperstown. Now, you could just organize your own. There are so many tournaments up there, right? So you don't have to be great. And it's in July, and so as long as Harrison doesn't get cut between now and then, he's batting like 240 right now, so let's cross our fingers. But, so you go a week to Cooperstown in July. You're there, upstate New York's great, guaranteed like five games as a home run derby. It's beautiful. But the shit's expensive. It's like $2,600 per kid, and that includes like flight, boarding, they're

• 1:41:19Speaker 04

  all like bunk beds in a hotel in Cooperstown, like in the barracks, it's fun, and you get food. And that's just for the kids. The rest of the family pays for themselves. So we're trying to fundraise.

• 1:41:28Bill Simmons?

  Couldn't be harder to get to either.

• 1:41:30Speaker 04

  It's very hard. Yeah, you have to land. There is an airport in Albany, but you're probably gonna land in the city and drive.

• 1:41:36Bill Simmons?

  Connecting, there's buses, yeah.

• 1:41:38Speaker 04

  It's gonna be, it better be fun. Because it's a it's a trudge for sure. So we're trying to fundraise because at 2,600 a kid, I think we're trying to raise like 35,000 to get the just that the team part of it paid for. So we as a fundraiser, we have all these parent parties, right? That was your Broncos bet today? It's a good, believe me, it gets there. You have all these parties, right? And you sell tickets to these parties and it's raffles and everything's going on. And like, I'm going to help run the Super Bowl squares pool, but I'm going to buy like half the squares, right? And it's not like these kids do anything. They don't sell lemonade or like Christmas wrapping paper or something. It's all on the parents to get together for these fundraisers. So Friday night,

• 1:42:22Speaker 04

  Melissa's at the fundraiser. We already bought the tickets. I can't go because I am at Harrison's flag football game. So there's a family that's nice enough to host. She goes, I go to Harrison's football game. All the while I'm watching on my phone. I bet the Mets stupid dumb, just dumb. And I bet UCLA, which is even stupider, right? The coach has been fired since. So I'm bummed. We get home around the same time from the flag game and from the from the fundraiser. And I said, how was it? She says it was fun. And we love all the parents, like they're dynamite. So she had a good time. I get a little gossip from the party and then she mentions there's a 50 50 raffle, $1,000. And then she won. I was like, oh my God, this is great. I was like $1,000. She's

• 1:43:07Speaker 04

  like, well, I won 500 because it's 50 50 50% goes to the fundraiser. I'm like, okay, wow, 500. That's great. I'm like, I'm thinking about lost my UCLA and maybe I can get my money back here. The, you know, the, can I see it? Can I at least see the 500? Maybe I won't get any of it, but let me see it. She's like, oh, well, I gave it back. I mean, it's all for the fundraiser. I was like, you gave it back? What is the the fun? What? How? Why don't we just pay for our kids if this is what it's like? You gave it. I had UCLA and the Mets and she's like, but this is what you do. If you win, you give it back.

• 1:43:45Bill Simmons?

  So then it's a 100 zero fundraiser.

• 1:43:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's it. It's a Z. You gotta change it from 50 50 to 100 zero or zero 100. She's like, well, all the parents are doing this kind of thing. I'm like, yes, but all the parents aren't betting UCLA and the Mets. So it just weirded me out. And like I said, I love, and all these parents listen to this and they're gonna think I'm a nutcase here. But fundraising for kids is kind of a joke. It just is. You've done this, right? You had to have lacrosse, something soccer.

• 1:44:14Bill Simmons?

  I've never knew people pocketed the 50 50 part. I always thought that went back to the thing.

• 1:44:19Speaker 04

  Oh, so you're with her?

• 1:44:21Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:44:22Bill Simmons?

  I just thought it was like a Ponzi scheme for the, you just gave it back anyway. It's really 100 zero.

• 1:44:29Speaker 04

  But the fun, it's not a fundraiser if you're paying all the funds, if everybody, all the parents are paying, I don't know, they have to change it.

• 1:44:38Bill Simmons?

  It would have been funny if you won and you're like, yeah, and you're waving the $500. Yeah, can't wait to spend this in Cooperstown.

• 1:44:46Speaker 04

  I'm getting my kids some, some hats, some signed vintage hats. Oh shit. All right. Well, maybe I'm the idiot then. Whatever.

• 1:44:54Bill Simmons?

  I've missed out on Cooperstown because, because it was the year my son was 12. It was COVID.

• 1:45:01Speaker 04

  Oh, right.

• 1:45:02Bill Simmons?

  We had a whole Cooperstown thing. We were about to do all the same stuff and then,

• 1:45:07Speaker 04

  No tournament.

• 1:45:07Bill Simmons?

  Come with us in July. No trip.

• 1:45:08Speaker 04

  You should go next July. You know what? I'll fundraise for you. I can get $2,600 for you to go.

• 1:45:16Bill Simmons?

  My wife and my, you didn't have a daughter and you miss out on the daughter wife dynamics, which are just spectacular.

• 1:45:23Speaker 04

  I love hearing that.

• 1:45:24Bill Simmons?

  So I flew in Friday night and I was getting here in time to maybe go to dinner. My wife was already here. So my wife is here. I'm here. We're gonna go out to dinner with my daughter who's playing in a game the next day. And I'm just gonna read highlights from the text thread as I'm on the plane and we're trying to figure out the dinner and I'll, I'll redact the restaurants.

• 1:45:44Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:45:46Bill Simmons?

  So I said, blah, blah, blah. I suggested a restaurant. I'll drop my stuff off and meet you.

• 1:45:54Bill Simmons?

  Zoe says to my mom, "Did you see this?"

• 1:45:58Bill Simmons?

  Blah, blah, blah. It's too late.

• 1:46:01Bill Simmons?

  "Let's go to the second restaurant." "What time are we gonna eat?" That's now a bunch more texts. Now, I'm on the plane, I'm watching, I'm like, "Oh, boy." It's like watching the two hockey enforcers out that are skating around and they're about to like, get into it. Now Zoe goes, "I'd rather eat earlier because of the game. Is 8 o'clock possible anywhere?" I agree. "Do you want Italian?" Then she suggests a steak place. Zoe comes back, "What about American?" And then she says, "I want Italian." "Let's go to the north end." Then my wife now is getting mad. She's like, "Well, Dad's flying in, he's gonna land, he's gonna drop his stuff off." Like, that's gonna be too hard. Right. I suggest the place. Zoe shoots that down.

• 1:46:46Bill Simmons?

  She does this other place. It's supposed to be amazing. 8:15. Alright, in there. She can't get a reservation. We do another thing. We try another one. Now we're up to 10 restaurants we've tried, just on the text thread. And I'm like, "Now we're gonna get in a fight. It's gonna happen." Finally, my wife gets mad. "Change of plans." "We're just gonna order in." "Z, you can just come over." I like this idea. Now Zoe starts suggesting restaurants we should order from. Now we start arguing about that.

• 1:47:19Bill Simmons?

  Finally...

• 1:47:21Bill Simmons?

  Hold on, I'm scrolling through all the texts. Have you put your input at all at this point, or you're just watching it go? I've just chimed in a couple of times. Now we're on like our fifth Postmates thing. And I finally text, "It's too bad we couldn't have made this more complicated over the past few hours," joking. Zoe comes back, "All you've done is fly today. Chill." That was a text. And then I say, I'll do whatever. And she, and then Zoe does the, I can also do my own thing for dinner and hang out later.

• 1:47:52Speaker 04

  Oh, boy.

• 1:47:54Bill Simmons?

  Now Carrie comes back with the seriously exclamation point. Let's fucking get it from somewhere else. And I'm like, oh, now we've had enough bomb. Now Zoe goes, why are you guys being so crazy? It's not too complicated. It's dinner. Who cares? She suggested 15 restaurants and seven Postmates restaurants. And we keep going, we keep going. And then my wife does that. I've spent a lot of my day and a lot of energy talking about dinner and I'm being super rude as I spend all this time on a meal. Just call me and let's figure this out. Pick up the phone. And then Zoe goes, well, who cares? I didn't think this was such a big deal. And we keeps going and it keeps going and it keeps going.

• 1:48:33Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:48:35Bill Simmons?

  Zoe says, I don't understand how this is upsetting. It's dinner. Geez, fine. I don't even care where we eat. She's up to 17 restaurants. She says that's disappointing. I've had a super long week. More texts, more texts. This is honestly bumming me out. It keeps going. This is going to stress me out. And we just go. And then we finally just ended up getting Postmates somewhere. And it was.

• 1:48:57Speaker 04

  It's an American or Italian?

• 1:48:59Bill Simmons?

  No, this is when, whatever the version of the Iran contra hearings, when they confiscate the phones, people would just be studying to 700 texts that lead, that led to me having a chicken parm. That was like a B minus from someplace at 9:30 at night. You missed out on all of this though. And then they were mad at each other for like two hours.

• 1:49:20Speaker 04

  Oh, that's terrible. She shouldn't have picked up the, they should have called on the phone. It would have been fine, right? Or you make the decision.

• 1:49:27Bill Simmons?

  The last text on the thread is, no one says you can't come over and see us. It's just easier if we don't have to deal with winter because you can't seem to make up your mind. And then.

• 1:49:38Bill Simmons?

  It's really something.

• 1:49:40Speaker 04

  Do I have to have a girl?

• 1:49:41Bill Simmons?

  You missed out on all of this.

• 1:49:42Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:49:42Bill Simmons?

  You just have your wife just getting disappointed that your son doesn't show enough affection.

• 1:49:47Speaker 04

  Right, yeah.

• 1:49:48Bill Simmons?

  Meanwhile, I'm flying across country to see my daughter.

• 1:49:52Speaker 04

  You should get to pick dinner then. You absolutely should. I mean, I know you're not gonna be able to explain that to a kid.

• 1:50:00Bill Simmons?

  See, and here's the other thing. She's gonna be mad now that I even talked about this. How about this? We don't even have to go to dinner anymore.

• 1:50:07Speaker 04

  This is gonna be another 80 texts. I love it.

• 1:50:09Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I'll keep you posted.

• 1:50:11Speaker 04

  All right, keep me postmated.

• 1:50:13Bill Simmons?

  I'll keep you posted. That was today's parent corner, and it was brought to you by Workday. If you're a forward thinker, you need a HR or finance platform that thinks like you do, Workday, the AI platform that helps propel your organization, workforce, your entire industry into the future. Workday, moving business forever forward. Learn more at workday.com. How's it going at the Ringer Gambling Show?

• 1:50:34Speaker 04

  It's good. It's a lot of fun.

• 1:50:35Bill Simmons?

  Who's your favorite partner? You have Tate on Tuesdays. You have DeBundo and House on Wednesdays, DeBundo and Heifetz. Do you wanna power rank, or you wanna wait till October?

• 1:50:44Speaker 04

  I gotta wait a little bit. I think the shows are all really good. I'm closest with Joe House and Tate. I gotta, yeah, don't make me do this. Don't make me. This is like ordering dinner. I can't do this.

• 1:50:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:57Speaker 04

  It's a lot of fun.

• 1:50:58Bill Simmons?

  The new guys.

• 1:50:58Speaker 04

  Yes. If you're a forward thinker, Tuesday at noon with Tate, Wednesday with Joe House and DeBundo, live. This is on the Ringer gambling channel on YouTube. And Friday with my Ringer 107 partner, Anthony DeBundo, and Danny Heifetz. It's all a lot of fun. And then the Sunday pregame show. We gave out a bunch of winners, probably losers too, but uh...

• 1:51:17Bill Simmons?

  No, you had some winners today. There were some good ones today.

• 1:51:19Speaker 04

  Will you please tell Raheem, God bless him, he can't take the Chiefs as an underdog if they're minus 107? If Howie and Terry do it, whatever, it's fine. They don't know any better.

• 1:51:31Bill Simmons?

  That's, I think that's your number one pet peeve.

• 1:51:33Speaker 04

  I hate it. I hate it. And then I have to be salty the whole rest of the time. And when I give my underdog, I'm like, your head's gonna spin. Because I have a plus money underdog. You're not gonna understand this concept, Raheem. And he's like, what? Why are you getting so mad? Underdogs have a plus.

• 1:51:53Bill Simmons?

  So what was the best underdog that won today? It was Colts plus two and a half?

• 1:51:59Speaker 04

  Should've been the Giants, but uh...

• 1:52:01Bill Simmons?

  Should've been the Jaguars.

• 1:52:04Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Seahawks plus three, Patriots plus one and a half. Falcons plus three and a half. That was the biggest one.

• 1:52:12Speaker 04

  Falcons, yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Falcons plus three and a half. Yep.

• 1:52:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't know if, yeah, we did. We definitely didn't have like a plus 200 or higher money line.

• 1:52:20Speaker 04

  No, but you can't take minus. Stop. Come on. You can't take a minus as a, as an underdog.

• 1:52:26Bill Simmons?

  That's too bad. I apologize that you did that. You went on Crawford, right? You bet on that.

• 1:52:31Speaker 04

  I did. I loved it. I was a little nervous. I bet, you know what, though? To Raheem's credit, that's a nice hedge, the draw. If they don't feel like giving the challenger the win sometime, but there was already a draw on that card. So I was like, all right, well, there goes the draw. They're not gonna have two draws, but that's a good way to hedge a little bit.

• 1:52:47Bill Simmons?

  I didn't necessarily know who's gonna win. I just thought the odds were off.

• 1:52:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:52:52Bill Simmons?

  And I thought, I thought it meant a little more to Crawford, but I also would not have been surprised if Kano won. But I thought the plus 140 was a little insulting.

• 1:52:59Speaker 04

  And how rare is it that we're on the fun side of history on some of these, right?

• 1:53:03Bill Simmons?

  We won. We did it. It was great. Who was your favorite celebrity that was there?

• 1:53:08Speaker 04

  Um, I like that Saudi guy in the front row who wasn't watching. I assume he's famous. Yeah.

• 1:53:16Bill Simmons?

  He got booed.

• 1:53:18Speaker 04

  He did?

• 1:53:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:53:20Speaker 04

  He got booed. He's on the undercard of the rematch. I don't know. I wasn't, who, who, who'd you like? I mean, I like Tyson always.

• 1:53:28Bill Simmons?

  You know, they interviewed Mark Wahlberg at one point, and I've done, I've had him on, I had him on the pod when I was ESPN. I thought he was a good guest, but some of these celebrities don't feel like they have to try to be that entertaining when they're being interviewed. They're in that no man's land of they want to talk about the fight.

• 1:53:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:53:43Bill Simmons?

  And they, but they, like, if you go on a talk show, they, they come in with their stories. But when they get interviewed for things like this, they, they kind of don't know how to act. I think there should be a consultancy firm to help them out with some of this stuff. Yeah. They come in, they're like, they don't really have jokes, but they don't have expertise either. And they just kind of go, it's great to be here, man. I'm so excited to, you know, they, but they don't really have anything to say.

• 1:54:06Speaker 04

  That's a great idea. That's really a good idea.

• 1:54:07Bill Simmons?

  Just like, hey, Mark, tell a story about the time you met Lennox Lewis and you bought, like, they should have anecdotes.

• 1:54:14Speaker 04

  I was, because I was trying to think, like, the publicist isn't enough, right? Like, our, our dear friend Louis Kay could give some advice to someone, one of a client that's coming on for the first time. But yeah, you're right. As far as like structuring stories and stuff like this will work.

• 1:54:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just have like one anecdote.

• 1:54:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:54:30Bill Simmons?

  The time you met Muhammad Ali at the 2012 Olympics, or I've loved boxing since the day of whatever.

• 1:54:35Speaker 04

  Do your best three parent corners. And just read texts. Yeah.

• 1:54:39Bill Simmons?

  Has Chris Chan invited you to play at Bel Air yet?

• 1:54:42Speaker 04

  No, play what? Golf?

• 1:54:44Bill Simmons?

  Chris Chan, our friend, uh, belongs to Bel Air Country Club now. And he got upset last week because House and I talked about it.

• 1:54:51Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:54:51Bill Simmons?

  That, uh, because he was kind of trying to keep it quiet because he didn't want to have a lot of people know because then people want to play there.

• 1:54:58Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:54:59Bill Simmons?

  And then we talked about it and now, uh, he was upset because a lot of people had reached out to him. So I didn't know if he'd reached out to you about playing at Bel Air.

• 1:55:06Speaker 04

  I see. No, no, he hasn't. He hasn't. But we, we're off the air, right? Because then even more people.

• 1:55:12Bill Simmons?

  No, we're still on.

• 1:55:13Speaker 04

  Oh, we're still on. Oh, all right. Okay. So good for Chris Chan.

• 1:55:15Bill Simmons?

  Well, maybe he'll, maybe he'll invite you. You don't play golf, though.

• 1:55:17Speaker 04

  I don't, but I'm glad.

• 1:55:19Bill Simmons?

  Maybe he'll come invite you for a hang.

• 1:55:20Speaker 04

  I'm glad you mentioned it now. I'm definitely going to reach out to him. Yeah.

• 1:55:23Bill Simmons?

  Reach out to him. We're in a couple of.

• 1:55:24Speaker 04

  Bel Air Country Club's a good place to start for me. Yeah.

• 1:55:28Bill Simmons?

  All right. Uh, thanks to, uh, Gahal and Eduardo. Uh, don't forget, I have, uh, rewatchables coming Monday night, Tin Cup.

• 1:55:35Speaker 04

  Oh, nice.

• 1:55:36Bill Simmons?

  And Prestige TV, we've been covering, uh, we've been recapping Task, which is an excellent, excellent show on HBO. So, uh, have that too. Cuz, I'll see you in a week. Good job by you.

• 1:55:47Speaker 04

  Good job by you, buddy.

• 1:56:03Bill 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, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-897777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut, or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gambling helpline ma.org, or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY, or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes? Post-workout recovery is a big factor.

• 1:56:48Bill Simmons?

  Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout with high-quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate. It's all you need for your recovery in one bottle. Available in 26 and 42 gram protein options, pick what works best for you. Visit corepower.com to learn more. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller from Academy Award winner Martin McDonagh, writer-director of The Banshees of Inisherin and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, set in the 1970s, filmed on location on Easter Island. Malkovich and Rockwell play CIA agents Chris and Lee, who are caught in a dangerous game of secrets and survival.

• 1:57:32Bill Simmons?

  Also starring Steve Buscemi, another one of my guys, Parker Posey and Tom Waits. Wild Horse 9 is being hailed by critics as a revitalizing shot of pure entertainment, and easily one of the best films of the year. Don't miss Wild Horse 9, only in theaters Friday. Get tickets now.