Pod Insights The Bill Simmons Podcast Detroit’s Grit, Drake vs. Caleb, a Giannis Trade Idea, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal About this episode The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Lions' comeback win vs. the Texans, the early AFC playoff picture, and the Chiefs sneaking by the Broncos to earn a 9-0 record (2:09). They have a Cowboys reassessment and discuss Commanders-Steelers, a rookie QB ranking, and Bears-Patriots (23:39). Then they talk about the latest "season from hell" candidates; whether to take the Eagles, Cardinals, and/or Chargers seriously; the Saints supporting the "new coach theory" by beating the Falcons; 49ers-Bucs; and Colts-Bills (47:02). Finally, they discuss some Week 10 gambling trends before guessing the lines for NFL Week 11 (1:08:18) and closing the show with Parent Corner (1:30:35).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Cousin Sal
Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti
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Transcript 21,084 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 What's happening? It's Todd McShay and I'm back with a new home and a new show at The Ringer and Spotify, The McShay Show. It's a video and audio podcast coming to you year round with all my NFL draft information, big boards, mock drafts and player movement. Plus, I'll be chatting with some of my best friends in football, including some of your favorite football analysts. During the week, we'll have episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays that'll include discussions about my player rankings, who's rising, who's falling, and who your NFL team should be keeping an eye on. Plus, we'll be reacting each week to the college football playoff polls and giving you previews and picks for each Saturday slate. In addition, I'll have episodes on Saturday nights with my immediate reaction
0:43 Speaker 00 to the full day in college football every week. So if you love the college game, the NFL, the draft, or all of it like me, make sure to like, follow, subscribe, and get ready for The McShay Show on The Ringer, Spotify, and wherever you watch or listen to podcasts.
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2:01 Bill Simmons? This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. It's football season. Uber Eats is delivering deals every game day. This week, get 10 free boneless wings from Wingstop on qualifying orders. Game on, flavor on, Wingstop is here. So if your fantasy league is coming over for some in-person smack talk, order Wingstop on Uber Eats and get 10 boneless wings free. It's the perfect way to keep everyone fed tonight so you can focus on the game. No matter who scores big tonight, you'll score a great deal. Order now and get 10 boneless wings free from Wingstop only on Uber Eats. Offer valid from September 14th to September 27th and from November 2nd to November 16th. Order minimum before taxes and fees is required. See retailer's storefront for details. Taxes, fees and terms apply.
2:46 Bill Simmons? Product availability varies by region. Exclusions may apply. See app for details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. I have a new episode of The Rewatchables coming on Monday night. We did Meet the Parents, an absolute classic. It has really aged nicely. That will be up on Monday night and you can watch it on The Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well. You can watch all the clips and videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. And Cousin Sal is coming up in one second to break down everything we saw in a really, really fun, action-packed Week 10 of the NFL season. We did this live on YouTube as we do every Sunday night.
3:27 Bill Simmons? All you have to do is subscribe to the Bill Simmons channel and you can watch us do this podcast live or you could just listen to it the next day. You do whatever you want to do, but I'm going to bring in Pearl Jam right now because that's what I want to do. Pearl Jam.
3:59 Bill Simmons? All right. It is 8:43 PM Sunday night. Just watched Texans Lions. I'm here with the 47th President of the United States, Cousin Sal. How are you?
4:10 Speaker 03 There's no way I won. I know who my family voted for and it wasn't me. It never is.
4:17 Bill Simmons? We just watched an incredible game and I thought Collinsworth made the key point and he sniffed it out in the third quarter and said, he did the, Hal, I'm just telling you, if the Lions could figure this out, this is the kind of game that tells you what kind of, you know, he just did that whole thing and he was right. Cause I was thinking the same thing. If they, all the shit that happened, Goff throws five picks basically in the first two and a half quarters of the game. And if you can come back on the road and win that game, I think that means something more than the game, right? That was the takeaway.
4:50 Speaker 03 Oh, I thought the point he made that was valid was if there was just one more coat of paint on those goalposts, we're going overtime, Mike. You know, that's true. Come on. One more, one more back. No, they were, they ran against them, right? I mean, they have the fastest runners in the, what's interesting is it seemed like, and I think it was those red uniforms. Didn't it, didn't they seem faster, the Texans? Like, is there a little bit of like a flash thing? Like, oh wow, they're wearing the red uniforms. They're faster than us tonight. Let's give up. But you're right. If they had just gone to the running game for most of the game, it wouldn't have been close at the end.
5:24 Bill Simmons? It was very similar to what was happening them really in the season. Like they had that one game where Goff threw the ball like almost 60 times and, and some people were out on the Detroit offense. I remember I was talking about it. I was like, I still feel like they just have to remember what kind of team they are. And then this game, it was the same thing. They're chucking the ball around. Goff didn't have it. And, uh, and I just kept, the running game wasn't great in the first two and a half quarters, but it's like just, they don't have Will Anderson. Just run the ball. Stick with it. Stick with it. Play action. And, uh, and they were able to turn around. But the bigger thing is Houston didn't score again in the second half. There's a bunch of bad advanced metrics with them in the second halves of these games. You know, Nico Collins got scratched pretty late. Seemed like he was playing. It was scratched late enough that I think a lot of people like
6:09 Bill Simmons? me in one of my leagues started him in fantasy and then all of a sudden he was gone. But, uh, they gotta fix that. I still like that Houston team though.
6:17 Speaker 03 Yeah, here's the thing. No, first of all, yes, I say the Lions could have won and put it not put it away, but they could have been in this much earlier than just the final kick to take the lead. But man, if Stroud hits Dell, I mean, he's open for 17 seconds and he lofts it, it's intercepted by Carlton Davis. So that sucked. But yeah, I like this team too. And guess what? They could rest Stroud for a month. He could go whatever. He can go to France if he wants because he's up against Will Levis, Mac Jones, and Joe Flacco or Anthony Richardson. So yeah, I like that. Do I like him as a one seed? No, but they'll be fine in the playoffs, I think.
6:57 Bill Simmons? Yeah, even you look at their losses, Minnesota killed them. Green Bay beat them by two, and that was an either or game. Jets beat them on a Thursday night, which was another one that it felt like they were going to win the game. Garrett Wilson made that crazy catch. And then in this game, they were in it and it just it felt a little self inflicted to me. You know, I know they didn't have Nico Collins, but the Stroud pass, it was just like he sailed it up there like there was nobody within 30 yards of Dell. And meanwhile, the safety comes flying over. But even if he had sailed it toward the corner of the end zone, it just when that happened, I was like, holy shit, the Lions might have a chance because I was
7:36 Speaker 03 nephew Kyle, six Pilsners in could have made that throw. I'm telling you right now. That was, I don't know what what happened there. And I think the game plan should be, hey, if we get 30, we win. Right? If you're D'Amico Ryans, but they hadn't figured out how to get those extra seven.
7:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I'd like Stroud, but you know, he kind of needs one of these games. He needs one of these tight games against a really good team, make a couple plays moments. I was looking up some of the stuff from this game. And first of all,
8:09 Bill Simmons? Has anyone ever thrown five interceptions in a game? And then won the Super Bowl? What do you think the answer is to that? Cause I actually researched this.
8:17 Speaker 03 Oh, wow. Good for you.
8:19 Bill Simmons? Same season. Yeah, I figured out a way to research this and I think I, I think I nailed it correctly.
8:25 Speaker 03 Uh, well, it wasn't Tony Romo, who was one of two guys who threw five interceptions and then won the game.
8:31 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
8:32 Speaker 03 Was it 1970 Colts or something?
8:35 Bill Simmons? No. So the two I found, and maybe there are more than this, but Terry Bradshaw did it in the 79 Steelers. And then, uh, Jim Plunkett in 1980 Raiders.
8:45 Speaker 03 Wow.
8:45 Bill Simmons? So back to back years. In general, I was looking up, I, I went on this interception deep dive because, uh, when we were growing up, quarterbacks threw interceptions. It's like Steve Grogan had three, five interception games before I turned 10 years old. You know, and I was looking at like, uh, it, the 19, I think 77 season, Fran Tarkenton led the league with 32 picks, 1978. Stabler was second with 30 and eight other guys had at least 20. This is just what we grew up with. The ball would sail around. Like, uh,
9:18 Speaker 03 It's bizarre because they definitely, they definitely didn't pass as much, right?
9:21 Bill Simmons? No.
9:22 Speaker 03 They weren't dropping back as much.
9:23 Bill Simmons? But think about it, like receivers going over the middle, you could decapitate them. Quarterbacks, you could dive at their legs, you could close on them. So they, they're just flinging the ball up, trying to get rid of it. Joe Passarchik was 10, 12 TDs, 23 picks. Kenny Anderson was 10 TDs, 22 picks. Steve DeBerg was eight TDs, 22 picks, on and on and on. To throw five picks now, you really have to put some thought and time and some shitty energy into it. So, there was like, how many picks? The record's seven. Like Ty Detmer did it, only like two other. So, you know, there was a moment there where it was like, whoa, what happens if he gets to six?
9:59 Speaker 03 It's gonna get there.
9:59 Bill Simmons? Do they pull him? But he righted the ship. Like he, he kind of persevered through it.
10:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, he had plenty of opportunities and yeah, he had what more than he had all of last year, right? So I'm not sure. That takes him a little bit out of the MVP running, but.
10:16 Speaker 03 We were making fun of PFF because they had them 22 out of 32 for quarterbacks. Like this guy never throws an incomplete pass.
10:23 Bill Simmons? Right.
10:23 Speaker 03 Who are the 21 ahead of them? And then it's like, oh, boy. Interception after interception. Maybe they were going to save that for next week. So.
10:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
10:30 Speaker 03 But yeah, it could come back for the Lions. They, they, they may just have that swagger. It just might be their year, at least in the NFC.
10:37 Bill Simmons? Well, in the AFC, Houston drops to six and four, but you know.
10:42 Speaker 03 Who cares?
10:43 Bill Simmons? They're going to be the four seed.
10:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
10:45 Bill Simmons? I don't see any scenario where Indianapolis or Jacksonville or Tennessee even sniffs them. So they have time to figure it out. And I, I didn't change my opinion on where I thought Houston might be when they get Collins back. They get Will Anderson back. Like, I want to see this team in mid-December with like two, three weeks left in the season, like right around Christmas. Let's really take a look at them because I, I think they could hang with KC, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Baltimore. I think they could play with any of those teams. You know?
11:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, I agree.
11:14 Bill Simmons? So we'll see.
11:15 Speaker 03 I, I just would, let's not do what we did last year. Like we fall in love with the six seed or whoever it was. Was it Cleveland last year? Did you have the Houston overclip? Did you have them?
11:24 Bill Simmons? I, I had a pretty good playoffs last year and that was one of my huge regrets. Flacco against whoever when he got annihilated.
11:32 Speaker 03 Well, we won't have to worry about Flacco, but let's try to stay away from that.
11:35 Bill Simmons? We won't have to worry about Flacco. There's some, the AFC playoff stuff, we talked about how Houston's probably the four seed, which is gonna, I think, put them against Pittsburgh or Buffalo or Baltimore. Whoever doesn't win that division, the way it's lining up now, where Pittsburgh's seven and two and Baltimore's seven and three and a, a good team.
11:55 Bill Simmons? And probably the five seed, unless the Chargers just keep kicking everyone's ass. Chargers are six and three. So we basically, if KC beats Buffalo next week, they basically have the one seed locked up.
12:06 Speaker 03 Right.
12:06 Bill Simmons? Cause they'll have a, a two game lead over, or a three game lead over Buffalo, plus they beat them. They'll have a two game lead over Pittsburgh and then a three game lead over Baltimore. If you do the rankings now or the matchups now, it'd be Buffalo two against seven seed Denver.
12:24 Speaker 03 There we get in. Yeah.
12:26 Bill Simmons? I just, they're five and five. No way. That's the, there's seven teams that have a tie or winning record. Um, number three Pittsburgh against number six Chargers and then number four Houston, Baltimore. But AFC is kind of fun. I was looking at it. I was like, huh. Um, the big wild card would be.
12:44 Speaker 03 You bring up a good point with the, with the, the Chiefs though. If they beat Buffalo in Buffalo next week, a lot of these teams, I mean, how do you get up Houston for the last seven weeks with knowing like, we got this. Eight and nine could get us the four seed. I really feel like eight, nine wins that division at this point.
13:02 Bill Simmons? Well, I think you could think maybe we could catch the AFC North team and get the three seed. Maybe Buffalo. I mean, Buffalo, this is another crazy thing that's happened through 10 weeks. Buffalo has a five game lead in the AFCs.
13:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
13:15 Bill Simmons? I don't, I mean, that's like absurd. I've, I've never seen somebody lead by half as many games as the actual games played.
13:22 Speaker 03 Your team might've done it a couple of times, right?
13:25 Bill Simmons? You think?
13:26 Speaker 03 By the middle of November? You don't think the Patriots had like a five game lead?
13:30 Bill Simmons? Well, you mentioned Kansas City.
13:34 Bill Simmons? I don't know what to make of this season anymore. He, they're, they're nine and O. Five of the wins was week one, the Ravens game where likely his foot's on the line.
13:45 Bill Simmons? They beat the Bengals. Borough had the fumble TD. The Bengals had a chance to ice the game, didn't get a first down punted. Chiefs hit a field goal at the end. To have the Atlanta game where they got the fourth down stop when it seemed like Atlanta was going to drive and get them and they, and they got to stop. Last week, the Bucks and OT were, felt like if the Bucks went for two, they were probably going to win.
14:06 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:06 Bill Simmons? Um, and then this week where it seems like it's done.
14:11 Speaker 03 Yeah.
14:11 Bill Simmons? They blocked the field goal and they, and they beat the Broncos by two in a game that was dead even statistically. When you're watching it, uh, it felt like the Broncos were going to win. I thought the Broncos slightly outplayed them and now they're nine and O. And I, I, I don't feel like everybody's like. Oh yeah, Chiefs, look out. I think people are like, holy shit, how can they keep doing this?
14:32 Speaker 03 I think you're right. And you know, there's, it's one thing to do it like the Vikings did it like, oh, what did they have in 2022? They had like 11 one score wins or something. But when you went through the one after the other toe in the end zone barely like this is just a spectacular way to be undefeated in the second week in November. I mean, that kick, like if there were nobody, there were no blockers, it would have looked exactly the same. What the hell? What Denver did everything right. You're right. They bled the clock. They had the Chiefs use their timeouts. And you almost think there's just no beating this team.
15:08 Bill Simmons? I was driving home from the airport last night, like about midnight and I was listening to Fox Sports Radio and there was some show and they had that guy Fezick, the handicapper was on.
15:18 Speaker 03 Yep.
15:18 Bill Simmons? And I was like, this is great. I'm going like 95 miles an hour on the, on the, on the 10 and I'm listening to Fezick break down the schedule. And he was really bullish on the Broncos in this game. It's like Broncos coming off a loss. They beat the, and I felt the same way. Like I doubled on the Broncos in our picks league.
15:36 Bill Simmons? I, the Broncos last week against Baltimore, when it was 1710 heading toward the end of the first half and they'd really played with them and Knicks had missed a couple touchdown throws. And then all of a sudden Lamar got the touchdown. They're down 14 and the game blew open. But I, I didn't think they were bad in that game. In this game, they're pretty good too. They might actually be a playoff team. Like I think the Bengals are going to have a hard time passing them because I think the Broncos are going to be able to get to nine wins.
16:01 Speaker 03 Well, that's it, right? It's Bengals. Bengals have some interesting games. They have the Chargers this week. So I don't want to call it a loser leaves town for the Bengals, but they can't afford to lose like two. They still have a lot of their North games. Right. So that's a big one. But yeah, man, I, you know, I would even say I had Bo Nix as a solid fourth in terms of the four rookie quarterbacks. Is he second now? Is he right behind Daniels?
16:26 Bill Simmons? I have a whole spot in the podcast for this. Yeah, no, I can't wait to talk about this.
16:30 Speaker 03 In this one? All right.
16:31 Bill Simmons? Oh yeah. In this podcast. Denver, rest of the way. Home Atlanta, at Vegas, home Cleveland on a Monday night, home Indianapolis, at Chargers, and then week 17 at Cincinnati.
16:48 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's a big one.
16:50 Bill Simmons? And then here's the big one, and this is one of the reasons when we did the over unders. One of the reasons I like the Denver over, they play Kansas City week 18 at home. And that is of everybody, that's one of those games where we guess the Lions would be stupid.
17:05 Speaker 03 Right.
17:05 Bill Simmons? Like Denver favored by seven and a half or something because Kansas City won't play anybody. So is Denver going to get to nine wins? Probably. I, I, they're five and five right now, and I think there's four more in there. So the Bengals are going to have to beat them and they're going to have to beat the Chargers, I think, this week.
17:23 Speaker 03 They're having trouble to get in the six. If they get to six, they go over their projected win total, which was five and a half, but they've been stuck on five for a while. But yeah, the problem is as you go through those games and I think about those teams, they're not guaranteed to score 30, right? I don't know if anyone is in the NFL anymore, but Denver, it's always going to be a kind of game, game like this. But they did, what they did today is big plays against the Chiefs don't usually happen. And they pulled it off. I know you want to talk about Knicks later, but this is, they, they had some nice, like 20 plus yard gainers, so.
17:55 Bill Simmons? I thought that was the best Knicks has looked. And even though they, I know they didn't put up like 30 points or anything, but he had some good plays. He had typical couple of overthrows, but I know you're invested in him because he's an Oregon guy and now you're an Oregon fan, but. One thing on the Chiefs. So I was trying to think, because I mentioned this to House on Thursday and I was like, I'm going to go back and actually look at this. The teams that start off undefeated for a while and all of us are kind of looking at them kind of side eyed like, eh, I don't know. So the three that really jumped out, 2010 Colts were 14 and 0. And remember that was the whole argument of should they go for it? And I think they ended up resting guys, but they lost the Super Bowl to New Orleans that year.
18:40 Bill Simmons? But that whole year we were kind of like, ah, what is this? Like, is this, is this a schedule thing? Like what's going on there? Defense isn't that good? So they didn't win the Super Bowl. The next year, the Packers went 13 and 0. Go to the playoffs, get a bye, and then they get killed by the Giants at home in round two in the, the second Eli's Super Bowl season. And then the third one was the Panthers in 2015, 14-0 start, and then they end up losing the Super Bowl to Denver. So I guess my question is, is Kansas City just better losing now and getting, getting this over with than versus like just going, I know it sounds stupid, but them going 14 and not, and then you're
19:22 Bill Simmons? basically not playing for anything for a month and you go to bye week and then you just kind of have to flip the switch on. We, we have real evidence that that's kind of a bad thing for a team.
19:31 Speaker 03 Yeah. And listen, I, I think we've got to give them the benefit of doubt in terms of how to approach this. Like Andy Reid, this isn't his first rodeo. By the way, his first rodeo, he killed a, a cat. Like he just like, it just, it was too much weight and they, they knew it was a bad idea from the start.
19:48 Bill Simmons? All tapes have been destroyed.
19:49 Speaker 03 Right. But, um, so work Hopkins in, right? Don't get injured. Pacheco comes back theoretically in a couple of weeks. I think that would probably be the plan. And if, if you could beat up on these teams, keep it going, I guess. I, I think it's, I, I know what you're saying. Like it's good to have a loss in there and that, and then you can, you could deal with it. But I feel like they've been down. They've made comebacks before, right? So they, they know how to be resilient.
20:16 Bill Simmons? Well, this Buffalo game, it's at Buffalo. I can't wait to guess the line for that. And I, I don't know it. And I, I would have guessed Buffalo as a favorite, but now I'm wondering with the way Buffalo looked a little shaky, maybe it's going to flip. But Casey, I think would want to go into Buffalo and beat them again and just keep that over them. Like kind of, you can't beat us. We're on this. But then they're at Carolina the next week and that just like, like the classic Chiefs favored by nine and a half in Carolina, punt block, tipped interception, pick six, like just nine things go wrong. Everyone gets killed in their tees. This is, it's like the biggest upset of the year. I have that one flagged. They play Vegas at home on a Friday night. That seems fishy. Chargers on
21:01 Bill Simmons? a Sunday. They're at Cleveland, home Houston, at Pittsburgh. And then home for Denver in week 18. So maybe they have that stretch where it's week 16 Houston on a Saturday, week 17, Christmas night, Pittsburgh, and they're gonna have everything clinched. And there's just no way they're gonna be playing their guys in both of those games, right? That's no way. They're gonna punt on one of those games.
21:24 Speaker 03 Do you know what the odds are? I have them here. Don't look to, to run the slate.
21:29 Bill Simmons? Oh, House and I, we talked, it's like five to one, right? Higher than that?
21:34 Speaker 03 Plus 750, plus 750. But yeah, you go through that. There's still tough ones. Could they be looking ahead to the Panthers and, and blow this Bills game? I, I didn't realize that.
21:44 Bill Simmons? I know. They, they saw Bryce Young today and got freaked out. I think with that Saturday, Wednesday thing, there's no way. There's, that, that would be insane to get people hurt.
21:52 Speaker 03 Right.
21:52 Bill Simmons? During, uh, during that crazy stretch. Um, the other thing with the, uh, with the AFC, other than Cincy at four and six, I don't see a single team that could make like a second half run out of nowhere, unless Miami wins tomorrow night. And I don't even really totally believe in Miami, but at least you could be like, all right, Tua's back. They're in the AFC East. They have some easy games.
22:18 Speaker 03 Yeah.
22:18 Bill Simmons? Maybe. Um, but I don't, I don't see any out of nowhere teams. So to me, it's Denver and Cincinnati, and then it's a huge drop off.
22:25 Speaker 03 Yeah, I would, I would say Miami potentially because they could score points, but you were already, we don't even know if Tyreek's playing. Like, he's like, and what he said, something interesting like, and listen, if someone's injured, whatever, this is a crazy game that I could never play, but he's like, we'll see how my body feels if I'm gonna play or not. If you're Tua, you must be like, I don't even know my name right now. Get your ass in that game. We gotta play. We gotta win.
22:51 Bill Simmons? Right. Our whole season's on the line.
22:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, really.
22:54 Bill Simmons? Tyreek does this though. Like he even, remember that game last year when he was just coming in out of the game and then his helmet was off, then it was on, then he's playing, then he's not playing?
23:02 Speaker 03 He does it all the time still. He runs a long route on second down. Forget it. You won't see him for the rest of that, that drive.
23:09 Bill Simmons? Hey, we're gonna do a who's delivering, presented by Uber Eats, where we break down the NFL players who have delivered so far this season from household names to out of nowhere surprises.
23:24 Bill Simmons? So you have Bo Nix. Would be in this as it seemed crazy that they were counting on him the way they are, but now it actually seems pretty smart, especially when they're paying Russell Wilson to play for the Steelers and he's doing well.
23:38 Speaker 03 Right.
23:39 Bill Simmons? Bryce Young, not being like a disaster who's going to get traded for a seventh round pick, not that he was awesome today, but at least he wasn't a disaster. I was surprised by that, right? Like, whoa.
23:51 Speaker 03 Sure.
23:52 Bill Simmons? Bryce Young, I can't believe you have this in you. Who else would you have as like a surprise?
23:56 Speaker 03 You look at that and like just why it's a surprise is the Panthers are just destined to lose by double digits. If you just look at their this year, right? Like if it doesn't happen one week, you could bounce back if it wasn't New Orleans. Let's see.
24:11 Speaker 03 Kyle Pitts is really good. No, um, let me see. Give me a minute. I wish you would tell me about these.
24:17 Bill Simmons? How about K. Dot?
24:19 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. Yeah, he's good. He's solid. Uh, let me find someone like this in here.
24:24 Bill Simmons? Was there a fantasy? I probably shouldn't give you a heads up.
24:27 Speaker 03 Yeah.
24:29 Bill Simmons? Was there a fantasy running back or anybody that jumped out? I guess.
24:35 Speaker 03 I like Bucky Irving, but I think I gave him out to you a couple of weeks ago.
24:39 Bill Simmons? How about this? How about McLaurin being an A plus list receiver now? Right? If we're doing fantasy drafts over again, I think he's one of the first five receivers.
24:48 Speaker 03 Looks so much faster now than he was, but yeah, that's a, that's a good one.
24:52 Bill Simmons? Mac Jones, I think. Oh, no, wait. That's a different.
24:55 Speaker 03 I just concentrate on bad players because that's all I'm used to now.
24:58 Bill Simmons? Different category. That's who's delivering. I guess Mahomes delivering wins despite having the worst statistical year again today. 260 yards, one TD, doesn't matter, keeps winning. Who's Delivering presented by Uber Eats where you get the best deal on game day food all season long. We deliberately left the Cowboys out of Who's Delivering. Uber Eats, the official hot demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order now, we're going to take a break for the podcast.
25:28 Speaker 03 This episode is brought to you by TikTok. When you watch a football game, you follow the ball, right? Well, there's a video on TikTok where this guy says to watch the players without the ball. Watch the routes and the action away from the play. I'll change how you see the game. And guess what? He's not wrong. That's the thing about discovery on TikTok. One video can change the way you see the game. You can learn something new or see things in a completely different way. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Visit tiktok.com/discovermore. What happens to the Cowboys now?
25:57 Bill Simmons? I just have some questions to throw you.
25:59 Speaker 03 Go ahead.
26:00 Bill Simmons? Cause your season's over.
26:03 Bill Simmons? Has McCarthy finished the season?
26:04 Speaker 03 That's very rude.
26:09 Speaker 03 I think so.
26:10 Bill Simmons? Why pay for another coach at this point?
26:12 Speaker 03 Yeah, right. I, I, look, here's what I'll say. The thing about them is like this is, I didn't expect them to win. I really thought they would suck me back in. I thought they were done, but I didn't think they were done sucking me in. I thought Cooper Rush would be competitive, but this game killed me because besides a kicking game, you get to see the Cowboys incompetence on every level, right? Like tackling, the quarterback play was atrocious. Rush had like 24 yards at halftime and then they put Trey Lance and he comes in for like negative six yards with a penalty. Ezekiel Elliott back with a big fumble, which, you know,
26:47 Bill Simmons? Huge fumble in the, in the other end zone.
26:49 Speaker 03 Jesus. It's like just that, and that's more ineptitude in the front office. And then like, and C D Lamb like yucking it up with the Eagles as the, as the gun sounds to end the game. And then we have the owner. It's like every, every little aspect of it. The owner blames the mysterious construction of his billion dollar stadium.
27:06 Bill Simmons? And he built.
27:07 Speaker 03 He built it. Half the players are going blind.
27:10 Bill Simmons? From someone else. He built it and was in charge of every aspect of the construction.
27:13 Speaker 03 Disgusting. He's pointing at like, they know where the sun is like, good Jerry, you go to the sun. Go to the light. See the sun? It's right there. It's right in the crack in the roof where you wouldn't, you know, everyone wants to put curtains.
27:26 Bill Simmons? Until you go blind.
27:27 Speaker 03 Oh, man.
27:28 Bill Simmons? It drives me nuts. Thing tomorrow is gonna be like, should we put curtains up there? It's like this thing, you and I went to the stadium 15 years ago. Like they couldn't figure out the fucking sunlight when it's after daylight savings.
27:39 Speaker 03 The, remember Dallas, the TV show? That was like in the opening, the light going through the stadium. Like, oh, wow, that's kind of cool. It's like, no, it's not that cool. I hate this team. I'm really mad and I feel like I get doubled. F tier because like they don't even change the cadence like Cooper Rush is like here we go. And that gets me angry and then I have to see the play and that gets me angry. So I'm getting angry like 160 times a game.
28:05 Bill Simmons? Our Dak shit. My next Cowboys question, are Dak, Lamb and Parsons all on next year's team?
28:15 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think so. There's too much money. What was, what are they gonna do?
28:19 Bill Simmons? Is Lawrence also on next year's team? Those four, those four guys next year?
28:26 Speaker 03 I do think so.
28:27 Bill Simmons? Okay.
28:27 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. I just want Aubrey. I need the kicker to stay.
28:33 Speaker 03 Listen, if they're not on the team, if they're not, not on the team, that means Jerry is gonna trade him, right? And he has been, that, he's been awful. I mean, we got, we got Mingo who didn't even suit up for like a four, like you'll see what they got for Hopkins versus Mingo. And they do it year after year after year. It's getting bad.
28:52 Bill Simmons? I like the, the philosophy of, yeah, we got Mingo. We really liked him coming out of the draft.
28:58 Speaker 03 Right.
28:59 Bill Simmons? It was like, yep. Did you still like him when he couldn't play for Carolina for two years?
29:04 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:05 Bill Simmons? It'd be like if we really liked somebody for the Ringer two years ago and then the person went somewhere and just handed in a bunch of columns late and did three podcasts that had to be aborted. We're like, wow, we really did like them two years ago. Let's go get them anyway. Maybe change the scenario.
29:20 Speaker 03 Record labels aren't signing Diddy anytime soon, even though he's went double platinum 15 years ago. Is that a bad analogy?
29:28 Bill Simmons? I, listen, I'm, I'm here for all Diddy analogies. Um, here's my next question for you Cowboys related. I'm gonna go through every team in the NFC and you tell me which team you'd rather be then for the next three years.
29:41 Speaker 03 This is a dick move, but go ahead.
29:43 Bill Simmons? It's not a dick move, right? It's an exercise.
29:45 Speaker 03 All right. I don't exercise.
29:46 Bill Simmons? Would you rather be Dallas or Philadelphia next three years?
29:50 Speaker 03 Phila, that's easy. Philly.
29:52 Bill Simmons? Washington?
29:54 Speaker 03 Washington, yes.
29:56 Bill Simmons? Would you rather be Dallas or the Giants?
30:00 Speaker 03 I'm gonna say still Dallas and then I'm gonna get kicked in the teeth on Thanksgiving and that'll be fun.
30:04 Bill Simmons? I think Dallas is the right answer for that. Okay. So you'd rather be, so the Giants, we have one.
30:09 Speaker 03 Are we, we're gonna really do this 16 time?
30:11 Bill Simmons? Well, if you trade Minnesota, Green Bay, you'd rather be all those teams.
30:14 Speaker 03 Sure. Yeah.
30:15 Bill Simmons? Would you rather be Dallas or Chicago?
30:18 Speaker 03 Um.
30:21 Speaker 03 I think their front office is just as effed up, kind of to be honest with you. I mean, we were, we were texting off to the side.
30:27 Bill Simmons? Their coach is definitely worse.
30:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah. So they, they have to make a coaching change. Not sold on the quarterback. I think that's a push, actually. Can I say push?
30:34 Bill Simmons? Okay, we have a push.
30:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:36 Bill Simmons? Would you rather be Dallas or Atlanta? I'd rather be Atlanta.
30:40 Speaker 03 Atlanta.
30:42 Bill Simmons? Would you rather be Dallas or Tampa Bay?
30:45 Speaker 03 Uh, all right. So the first thing I'm thinking about is coach, quarterback. Shit, Tampa Bay.
30:53 Bill Simmons? I think you'd rather have Baker Mayfield. See him today. He's a fucking hero today.
30:57 Speaker 03 I know.
30:57 Bill Simmons? It's amazing. I think you'd rather be Tampa. You'd rather be Dallas than New Orleans. That's, that's easy. New Orleans is solid cap.
31:05 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's fine.
31:06 Bill Simmons? You would want her for Derek.
31:07 Speaker 03 And the Panthers. I'd be rather than the Panthers. Yeah.
31:09 Bill Simmons? All right. So there's three. You got the Giants, New Orleans, the Carolina.
31:12 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:13 Bill Simmons? And I don't think anyone in the NFC West.
31:15 Speaker 03 I don't think anyone in the West. No.
31:17 Bill Simmons? So there's three teams you'd rather be.
31:18 Speaker 03 That's good. Congratulations. What a jerk you are. Yeah. Cause should I do that with you?
31:24 Bill Simmons? It's a weird podcast.
31:25 Speaker 03 With the AFC? What? Do you have more than three?
31:29 Bill Simmons? All right. I'll play.
31:30 Speaker 03 Go ahead.
31:31 Bill Simmons? Um. Buffalo, I'd rather be. I'd rather be us than the Jets. I mean, hands down.
31:40 Speaker 03 Hands down?
31:41 Bill Simmons? We'd rather be us than the Jets. We have Drake May.
31:44 Speaker 03 Yeah. Okay. That's true. All right.
31:47 Bill Simmons? I think I'd rather be us than Miami because we have Drake May.
31:52 Speaker 03 Well, that's, if that's going to be your answer for everything. I mean, what?
31:55 Bill Simmons? We're gonna, we have Drake May, we have Gonzalez, we have Barmore coming back. We're gonna have a hundred million in cap space. We're gonna have like a top six pick.
32:02 Speaker 03 I feel good about next year. Gonzalez and Barmore.
32:06 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
32:06 Speaker 03 Listen to you.
32:07 Bill Simmons? Take three.
32:07 Speaker 03 What are you talking about? This is like the 78 Steelers you're talking about?
32:12 Bill Simmons? Uh, Pittsburgh, Baltimore. Cincy. I would rather be all of those teams. Definitely would rather be us than Cleveland.
32:22 Speaker 03 Okay. So how many is that?
32:24 Bill Simmons? Cleveland, Miami, and the Jets. There's already three. I'd rather be Houston.
32:31 Bill Simmons? I'd rather be S than Indianapolis. What's so great about being in that? They just missed on that Richardson pick. It looks like he's unplayable.
32:37 Speaker 03 Right.
32:39 Bill Simmons? Um, I'd rather be S than Tennessee.
32:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
32:42 Bill Simmons? I'd rather be S than Jacksonville.
32:44 Speaker 03 Uh, the league really sucks, doesn't it?
32:46 Bill Simmons? KC Chargers, obviously those guys. Us versus Denver is probably a push. I'd rather have May than anyone at Denver, but I, Denver has Peyton.
32:56 Speaker 03 I'd rather have May than Knicks right now, huh?
32:58 Bill Simmons? Oh, stop it. Knicks is like 26.
33:01 Speaker 03 What am I missing with May? What did he do? Well, hold on, I gotta go to these stats again.
33:05 Bill Simmons? He has no receivers and no offensive line.
33:08 Speaker 03 He's been fine.
33:08 Bill Simmons? Keeping them in these games, making plays. We love Drake May.
33:12 Speaker 03 Uh, what's his name? Nine times. That's why.
33:14 Bill Simmons? We love Drake May. Come on.
33:15 Speaker 03 I know, I see it, but.
33:16 Bill Simmons? You know what I love about Drake May? He has a bad play and he shakes it off and he goes right back out there and, and just, and does play it. I also.
33:24 Speaker 03 Dak does that too. Cooper Rush does that. Um, Trey Lance, all the greats.
33:29 Bill Simmons? I'd rather be S than Vegas. So that's like six teams. Here's what I love about Drake May.
33:33 Speaker 03 That's depressing. You'd rather be, and you make a good point for all of them. Twice as many teams than Iowa in the NFC. Wow, that's bad.
33:42 Speaker 03 I'm so glad we did this.
33:43 Bill Simmons? I'll talk about the Pats later. I have a different spot. Let's talk about Pittsburgh, Washington. Which felt like a real playoff game.
33:48 Speaker 03 That was the best game.
33:51 Bill Simmons? I think it was an honorable loss for Washington. Even though, uh, I didn't think they played their best, but they definitely hung and were around the game. And that was by far the best defense they had played. Um, it was a great win for Pittsburgh because a lot of shit went wrong for them for two hours. It felt like they were almost trying to give the game away and then they said, fuck it. And they just took it. And then Russ made a fucking massive throw. At the end, like he hit Williams in stride. Fields never would have made that throw. So. Sal, nobody saw the seven and two Steelers coming. Oh wait, somebody did. This guy, right here.
34:25 Speaker 03 Who? Who are you pointing to?
34:27 Bill Simmons? Me.
34:27 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:28 Bill Simmons? This guy with two index fingers. Yeah.
34:30 Speaker 03 You called it.
34:31 Bill Simmons? That's it. So when people do the thing tomorrow, who would have saw the Steelers seven and two? It was fucking me. I called it. I love the Steelers.
34:39 Speaker 03 All right. All right. Maybe you called it.
34:40 Bill Simmons? By the way, if you go back and you watch our over unders podcast, we, we actually kind of killed the podcast, like. I have a chance to go like 25 and 7, 26 and 6 on those over unders.
34:51 Speaker 03 I saw that.
34:52 Bill Simmons? All right, good job.
34:53 Speaker 03 But why then were all the announcers, the both announcers in that game talking about me, me, me, picking the Steeler special, the South Steeler special, which is Washington to win the first half.
35:04 Bill Simmons? We're going to you because this is way more impressive. Go ahead. Set up the Cousins South special.
35:08 Speaker 03 Opponent to win the first half, Steelers to win the game. It takes the Steelers a minute to get going. More than any other team this happens. Eight to one. It's cashed three times this year. Plus 17 units. Good job by me. Good job by you. Whatever you said in the preseason, but uh, eight to one, three times. God bless.
35:27 Bill Simmons? So it's hit three times and if you bet a hundred dollars on it each time, you would have just won like 23, $2,400 just on those three and lost a hundred on the other seven games. You'd be up $1,700. There's no better bet in sports. Fanduel, Fanduel gave us these ringer specials tab on their NFL page. The Cousins South special should just be its own tab. It should be next to games, futures, Cousins South special.
35:56 Speaker 03 You know why it won't be?
35:57 Bill Simmons? You've invented this.
35:58 Speaker 03 They don't want to go bankrupt. I don't blame them for hiding it within like 34 other ringer specials, but uh, no, the Steelers are good. They're good. They're exciting and um, I'm not going to say sky's the limit for the playoffs, but they could, right now, like if you put a ceiling on them, AFC Championship, not that's gonna happen, but like, could they get that far or past it?
36:22 Bill Simmons? So I had some friends at that Washington game today and that was like the most important home game Washington's had in 15 years where it was like a true sellout. Real fans coming back, like real energy in the building, people there two hours before the game. And the Steelers didn't play well and they still figured out a way to steal the game. And they got stops like that game was I think 27 to 21 halfway through the third quarter and the, they shut down Washington. They, Daniels missed a couple of throws. I think two years from now, he probably wins that game because he had, he had two big throws in the second half, but uh, but the fact that Wilson can make a couple of plays for them. They, it just wasn't gonna happen with Fields. Fields doesn't win that game.
37:07 Speaker 03 Hmm.
37:07 Bill Simmons? He just doesn't. And I think, I was thinking, we were joking, watching the games, like, has anybody seemed less cool and more done and then rallied back and seems kinda cool again? It's like, I was thinking like Wayne Brady when he did the Chappelle Show.
37:23 Speaker 03 Interesting.
37:24 Bill Simmons? And he had, and he had that Wayne Brady rejuvenation from the Chappelle Show. But the, Russ winning that game and doing like a dance and seeming like Russ again, I was like, holy shit, Russ is back.
37:35 Speaker 03 Yes. I think he, people are dying to turn on him too, though, right? I feel like even that with Steelers fans, like, they were waiting for the one bad Russ game. But now, you're right, at 7-2, this is a whole different story. And Pickens is the most athletic player on that team. I'm sorry, but he comes up with a dazzling circus catch every week. I mean, football is great when you see like these wide receivers. My father's like, oh, it was always better in my day. These guys didn't sound, no injuries. Like, Dad, you don't have wide receivers toe tapping the sideline and, you know, like pellets kicking up because they know how to drag their feet.
38:16 Bill Simmons? That catch in the corner, that was unbelievable.
38:18 Speaker 03 They know how to draw, whatever, I'm not making it, but you see a spectacular play three times a week now in the NFL. That's why it's the best.
38:28 Bill Simmons? One thing I liked about Pittsburgh, they did the thing that Detroit kinda didn't do. They just kept running the ball and running the ball.
38:34 Speaker 03 Yeah.
38:34 Bill Simmons? They haven't run the ball that well. I think they were, um, 43 for, were they, 43 for like 140, something like that. They were like 3.3 again, but.
38:45 Speaker 03 Timely runs though.
38:46 Bill Simmons? They stuck with it, they'd shoot it. It felt like they were always getting yardage on first down. They made a couple of big plays. They did this Mike Williams trade that the moment they did it, it was like, of course, this guy's gonna be decent for them. And they ended up scoring the same amount of points as the Jets today.
39:01 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:02 Bill Simmons? And then there's the Tomlin piece, which, so where do you think Tomlin ranks for wins all time? Good to guess. All time coaches, where does he rank in wins? So he's been coaching 18 years.
39:14 Speaker 03 13.
39:16 Bill Simmons? Yeah, so he's 12. I would have guessed like 30th.
39:19 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:19 Bill Simmons? He's only been coaching, he hasn't been coaching two decades yet.
39:23 Speaker 03 Yeah, but they're never under 500. So you don't have like any five and elevens or five and 12s in there.
39:28 Bill Simmons? He's 180 and 102.
39:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
39:31 Bill Simmons? He's won a Super Bowl. He only has eight playoff wins, but I was thinking today, like, Belichick and Reid are the best two coaches of this century, right? During the quarter century, doing the all NFL teams.
39:43 Speaker 03 Sure.
39:43 Bill Simmons? Tomlin's probably third. It's either him or Sean Payton, right? Maybe, maybe John Harbaugh's in there.
39:52 Bill Simmons? Probably not Dungy because he retired pretty early.
39:55 Speaker 03 No respect for McCarthy. It's unbelievable.
39:58 Bill Simmons? Definitely not McCarthy. There's like a, a mild Tom Coughlin case just because he won the two Super Bowls, but as a regular season coach wasn't great, but I think it's pretty unassailable. Tomlin's either third or fourth, depending on who you have versus Payton.
40:12 Speaker 03 Harbaugh has how many fewer wins, right? Like if you just go regular season, if you go like that.
40:18 Bill Simmons? Tomlin's hit this point though, where you just feel like he's getting to nine or 10 wins and it doesn't matter who's on his team, but it's a specific type of player that he always seems to have. They've lucked out over and over again. I haven't lucked out. Like there's real ingenuity behind the receivers they take. And, uh, I don't know. It's, it's, this feels like one of his great seasons.
40:40 Speaker 03 They're very good. Um, he was the one that like, he almost didn't bring the, the offense out on fourth and two, right?
40:49 Bill Simmons? Right.
40:49 Speaker 03 And then he did. I was screaming Simmons. I didn't even, I just had this stupid Steelers special thing. But you gotta do that, coaches. You have to at least do the hard count on fourth and two. It's not gonna work every time. If you, if you get a false start, you're in, actually in a better position to punt it to the 10 or whatever. So. Yeah, it was great. I mean, they killed them. They killed them in time of possession too. Like they deserved that game.
41:12 Bill Simmons? For Washington, now they're playing Philly Thursday night and they might be going from seven and two to seven and four in the span of five days, but they're, they're still a playoff team. I thought that was weirdly a good loss for them. Like they hung with a really good team and I thought those were two playoff teams.
41:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
41:29 Bill Simmons? All right. Next question.
41:33 Bill Simmons? So I was gonna ask you, would you rather have Drake May or Caleb Williams? But you even want to introduce Bo Nix into this?
41:39 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think.
41:40 Bill Simmons? So give me the rankings.
41:43 Speaker 03 Just of the four?
41:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
41:49 Speaker 03 I'm gonna drop Caleb Williams to four right now.
41:52 Bill Simmons? I think you have to.
41:53 Speaker 03 I'm gonna do it. I'll put your guy third. I think Bo Nix is second. I know you would flip him. But this is just for this year, right?
42:00 Bill Simmons? We're not looking. No, I think who'd you want to have going forward?
42:03 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah. I'd be very confident in the top two, in Daniels and then Bo Nix and your guys third. I don't know what to make of Caleb Williams. I really don't. Cause they won some games they shouldn't have won and it's a very strange team. They really, they're not resilient at all. They were like one play away from being five and two. And now you don't see them in the playoffs at all, right?
42:27 Bill Simmons? No, I think the Hail Mary probably murdered the team.
42:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
42:32 Bill Simmons? Or murdered the season. It's weird. All the stuff you heard about him at USC that people were worried about are kind of on display with the Bears too, right? That there's, he just seems like, almost like a tennis player playing quarterback. Like he's like playing an individual sport, but also running a team at the same time. And he makes a lot of really, really amateurish mistakes. Like it was interesting reading the stories after the game. The Patriots did all this stuff. This was the first, I guess the Pats did okay last week too. But this was a actually very well coached game. I gotta hand it to Mayo and the crew. They really had a game plan. They wanted to pressure him. They brought in Schooler, who's the best special teams, you know, gunner in the league.
43:15 Bill Simmons? They brought him in as like a linebacker to basically spy on Caleb in certain spots. But they, they basically stuttered them and they were like, the guy holds the ball too long. And we felt like if we pressured him and we put a spy on him and we just kind of pushed him, that we could get to him. And they were right. And Caleb does hold the ball in too long and he's not accurate. Like apparently he's the, according to the stats, he's the second least accurate guy in the league. For just uncatchable passes. So they took advantage of all the stuff he wasn't good at. The team can't block. The crowd turned on them immediately. By the second quarter, you could already hear the boos. And I just felt like he checked out. So we'll see. We've seen rookie QBs fail, but we'll see.
43:59 Speaker 03 Eberflus is going to take the brunt of it though, right? Like everyone's like, oh, he doesn't last till tomorrow. You were the first one I heard that talked about Caleb Williams, like maybe not stepping up in this situation. But it's right now, it's squarely on the coach, losing the locker room, running wide receivers, walking off the field before the play is done. And shit like that.
44:20 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I mean, I had the Pats in a bet today. I thought, I thought they really had a chance to win.
44:26 Speaker 03 Good call.
44:26 Bill Simmons? It was interesting with Caleb. He had those three games in a row and it was against the Rams who were banged up on defense in week four. They scored 24. They won. They killed Carolina in week five. They 36 10. Everybody's like Caleb, Bears, here we go. And then they beat the Jaguars. I think that was abroad in week six, 35 16. And then they had a bye week. And there were two narratives. One was Caleb's, Caleb's figured it out. Here come the Bears. And then I was more in the camp of can we see them play like some good teams first before we have a parade? So they had the bye week. They lose that game to Washington where they only scored 15 and they really couldn't do anything the whole game.
45:07 Bill Simmons? Arizona kills them last week. And then the Pats, sort of shitty defense, looked like the 85 Bears against them. So, you know, they can't block, but uh, the body language on the team is, is awful.
45:19 Speaker 03 Well, and it was also their defense had gone like 12 straight without allowing more than 20 points or something. Or once in 12 games or something like that. And so he was benefiting off of that.
45:27 Bill Simmons? They didn't do it today. They allowed 19.
45:29 Speaker 03 Yeah, he's like kind of Teflon because the defense was very good and Eberflus, when they lose, it's Eberflus's fault. And you could say the Hail Mary, they got rooked, but um, what about week one when Levis just handed them? They had like no offense. They had like 140 yards of offense. So I know it's week one. It's his very first game, but this game, this team is kind of where they should be.
45:51 Bill Simmons? I'm sure there's going to be a lot of, I'm sure this is going to be a huge topic this week and there's going to be people defending him. And then there's going to be people really breaking down that, that he hasn't been good. Didn't he want to own the team, a piece of the team? When you say he was like running the team, that's what I thought of immediately. That would have been good. From what I saw today.
46:12 Bill Simmons? I wasn't afraid of him when he was going back to pass. I don't know, that team might be really poorly coached and we've seen, like I went to the Celtics Nets game on um Friday night. See, I was able to bring basketball.
46:22 Speaker 03 There we go. Good job.
46:24 Bill Simmons? And the Nets are really well coached and I felt that way watching them on TV, but I got to see it in person up close and that team was on the same page. They were bringing in bench guys who were playing hard, who were playing defense, who were picking up guys full, full court. They were rebounding. They were really, really trying. They're running good plays out of timeouts. And I was like, this team's well coached. You watched the Bears today and it's like, this team's fucking disaster.
46:49 Speaker 03 Right.
46:50 Bill Simmons? Like they, they clearly shouldn't have this coach anymore, but it's a franchise that is usually afraid to um make moves until after the season. From what I saw today, and I watched that game pretty closely, like they, that Hail Mary seems like that killed that Uber flu there.
47:04 Speaker 03 Yeah, for sure. For sure. He might have lost the locker room before that, but yeah, it is tough to spot uh an okay or bad team who's well coached. Like I think we felt that about Tennessee when Vrabel was around. And you know, they've won some divisions too, but even when they were bad, you're like, all right, this team, they fight for them and they're good and they do the basics, right?
47:22 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Tomlin's been like that too.
47:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
47:24 Bill Simmons? Where Tomlin can have these crappy offenses and still.
47:27 Speaker 03 Sure.
47:28 Bill Simmons? Figure out how to go nine and eight. This Bears team's a mess.
47:31 Speaker 03 Yep.
47:31 Bill Simmons? Um, the Jaguars look like a mess. Like there's teams you watch and you're like, this team's a mess. Brandon Staley last year, Ron Rivera last year. We, you know who the teams are that are super sloppy.
47:42 Speaker 03 The Jaguars, by the way, I know we don't need to spend much time on that. 12-7 Minnesota.
47:46 Bill Simmons? Oh God.
47:47 Speaker 03 It was 42 to 18 in time of possession for Minnesota.
47:51 Bill Simmons? Wow.
47:52 Speaker 03 And I was like thinking like, I don't even want, I want to see time of possession, like Jags time possession versus progressive ads we saw in the three hours. Like Mac Jones or Flo? Who, who do we see on the screen more? I think it would be close. Boy, that is a real disaster.
48:08 Bill Simmons? That should have been a great FanDuel bet of combine Darnold's uh Mac Jones, because they were zero touchdowns, five picks. I was in Boston over the weekend and I did a interception parlay. So great having legal gambling, like just being able to go on and make dumb Fanduel bets. It was Bryce Young, Mac Jones and Will Levis. And it was like three and a half to one. I was like, this is going to be so much fun. And then Carolina, I wake up, they're up seven, nothing. Bryce somehow doesn't throw a pick. The bet doesn't win. The other two guys did though.
48:41 Speaker 03 Oh, they did? The other two came in? Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's the problem with the Giants. The Panthers like took a lead and it's like, oh shit, Bryce Young's only going to throw the ball like 10 more times in the second half.
48:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah. So big picture, like Caleb is obviously an asset. He's obviously talented. They have to figure out the coach thing now because you don't want this to go in a direction where, you know, he loses confidence, the chemistry goes completely sideways, whatever. Let's take one more break for the podcast and then we'll keep going.
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50:13 Bill Simmons? Season from hell rankings. We had San Francisco in the lead.
50:19 Bill Simmons? Until today, I think it's the Jets.
50:22 Speaker 03 San Francisco was in the league, season from hell.
50:24 Bill Simmons? Cause all the injuries they had and you know, they they were 500 and yeah, it's just like, what else can go wrong? McCaffrey misses 10 weeks. Ayuk goes out for the year. They lose guys on defense. They blow a couple dumb games like they were kind of felt season from hellish, but now I think the Jets have locked it up.
50:43 Speaker 03 Well, it depends how you look at it. Like my quarterback's out for the year. Maybe you didn't think he was doing much anyway, but the Jets quarterback is still hobbling around. And you know, he's not the right guy, right? So, uh, that's the season from hell. I'm fine with the Jets being the season.
50:58 Bill Simmons? Well, think about all the cat, all the trades they've done. They fire their coach. They think that's going to fix it. Then it's Devonte Adams is going to be the savior. That's going to fit it. If six points today for them. Some of the stats from this game, Tyler Murray completed 17 straight passes at one point.
51:15 Bill Simmons? The Jets allowed four 70 plus yard drives in the same game. The Cardinals had 28 first downs on 57 plays. So that jumped out to me. I was like, that almost seems impossible. Like I gotta go and look at NFL history and see. So you could do it on that stat head thing.
51:33 Speaker 03 Right.
51:34 Bill Simmons? Teams that had 57 or less plays and 28 or more. It only happened one other time in the history of the league. The 2023 Niners, 53 plays, 30 first downs. There were three teams that ran 58 plays and had 28 first downs or more, but like, that's how rare this is. That's how bad the Jets were. They were historically awful, giving up first downs on like first or second down.
51:59 Speaker 03 I think the defense, remember coming into this year, like whatever Rogers was always going to be a question mark. The Jets defense is elite. All you need is Rogers to be average. Well, Rogers is a little below average.
52:10 Bill Simmons? Better than Zach Wilson. Yeah.
52:11 Speaker 03 Yes, exactly. And he's not. If you look at how many points they have through week 10 this year and last.
52:17 Bill Simmons? Do you want the exact number?
52:19 Speaker 03 Uh, points, total points? Yeah.
52:21 Bill Simmons? Last year, they averaged 16.6 points per game. This year, they're averaging 18.3.
52:26 Speaker 03 Oh, that really?
52:27 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
52:28 Speaker 03 That's that much more?
52:29 Bill Simmons? Rogers is worth 1.7 points more, but their defense is worse. And they lost Sala, who, you know, seven kids out, we made a lot of jokes, but their defense played better when he was head coach. So he's just a fact.
52:41 Speaker 03 You got, as a Patriots fan, you have to love this, right? You have to absolutely love this.
52:46 Bill Simmons? I have, I have Jets fans in my life that I have real affection for, and they're, they're about as downtrodden about football as any fanbase I know. So I feel bad for that. But Rogers has just been such a prick the last few years. It's hard.
53:03 Speaker 03 I noticed that too.
53:04 Bill Simmons? Yeah. It's hard not like, you know, even like the trading Mike Williams and making them trade for Devante Adams and all this stuff. And the coach getting fired.
53:13 Speaker 03 I love it. Ball goes right through Devante Adams' hands on third down and then a big sack on fourth. It was just all falling apart. I do feel bad for New York, just in general, New York teams are like five and 15. I know the Liberty one, that's fun, but uh, for God's sakes, uh, Jets, Jets over Giants for, for a year from hell? I guess so, only because of the expectations.
53:35 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I guess if you're making the case for the Giants fans, they have to watch Dana Jones.
53:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
53:41 Bill Simmons? Who, that Panthers game today.
53:45 Speaker 03 Did you wake up? Be honest.
53:47 Bill Simmons? I woke up, it was seven, nothing.
53:50 Bill Simmons? Um, even though I flew in last night, I was still like, this game is to Germany. Eisen making beer garden jokes, I'm like, I gotta wake up. And uh, and the Panthers are just awful. It's unbelievable that they went two in a row. Like, I'm telling you, they're terrible. Like, Panthers fans, you'd be like, fuck you, we're getting better. It's like, you're not, you're not a good team.
54:10 Speaker 03 All right, I believe you, I believe you.
54:11 Bill Simmons? You're really awful. You're terrible at football. You had no business winning the game, like, no missed a field goal. Jones had that interception he threw in the fourth, late in the fourth quarter.
54:24 Bill Simmons? You know, and then like they run that flea flicker and he misses the two completely wide open guys and they're talking about how upset Dayball is. It's like, it was third and one and you're running a flea flicker with Daniel Jones. Like, just hand the ball off.
54:36 Speaker 03 Yeah.
54:37 Bill Simmons? Why are you, why are you making him do anything? It's like, if I took my dog outside without a leash, right? And he, and he ran across the street and ran up to the neighbor's yard and like, you know, trounced the flowers and then got in a fight with their dog. It's like, is that my dog's fault or is that my fault? Is it my fault for letting my dog out without a leash? Like, no, I'm just saying, like-
54:58 Speaker 03 Is this your parent calling her?
55:00 Bill Simmons? No, of course, of course. It's like, you're being a Jones on your team. Don't do flea flickers with him. Don't have him throw in tight windows when you need a, a, a score inside the 20 yard line. Like, it's idiotic.
55:16 Speaker 03 That'd be a good nickname for a dog, Flea Flicker. But, no, you're right. That, that was awful. I'm sorry you had to wake up. I mean, they put those poor, that was a hostage situation, keeping them for overtime to see the frigging Panthers win 20 to 17.
55:30 Bill Simmons? They all seem drunk. They seem drunk and happy. The Germans-
55:32 Speaker 03 Yeah, it doesn't matter. Can I, can I tell you, I want to pitch that, and this would be better than Hard Knocks. And we make jokes about the flight back from London. Like, I want to see the losing coach from checking into the airport, whether it's Heathrow or whatever, Munich, all the way through to flight, New York.
55:49 Bill Simmons? Going abroad with blank?
55:50 Speaker 03 Yeah. I want to see the, the losing coach fly home, whatever it is, Munich-
55:55 Bill Simmons? Going through customs, just being bummed out.
55:57 Speaker 03 I want to see what he orders and drinks on the plane and what he says, if he's mean to the flight attendants and hear him cursing in his sleep. I'd watch that five hour stream. That would do it.
56:07 Bill Simmons? I was mad because House and I have for million dollar picks. We did Giants to win by 14 plus and Niners to win by 14 plus. So they go down 7-0. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. But I also had the Giants in a money line. I did like a stupid parlay when I was in Boston. So I was like, all right, at least can the Giants just win this? And the Panthers are terrible.
56:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
56:29 Bill Simmons? But they're really bad. Chuba Hubbard's good. And he was probably the reason they rung. But their team's just not good. They don't have any, they can't beat their downs. Like people are like, oh, Bryce Young looked better today. It's like, okay, I guess he looked better than somebody who shouldn't be in the league, but it wasn't like he was good. Like he was missing 39 throws all over the place. Doesn't really run.
56:52 Speaker 03 I think I was offered Chuba Hubbard in three fantasy trades this week and I was like, and I was like mad at the people who proposed it. And then I looked at his numbers. Oh my God, they're, they're pretty damn good. And I was like, I don't want to watch them or, and root for their offense. Right? Why would you ever want that unless you live in the state?
57:08 Bill Simmons? See, I feel like this, maybe even though I lost a little money on this this week, I still feel like long-term we're in a good spot. Cause they're coming off a bye and then they have home games against Kansas City and Tampa.
57:22 Speaker 03 Who are you talking about? Carolina?
57:23 Bill Simmons? Yeah, it'll be like, oh, Carolina, two game winning streak. They've righted the ship. And it's like, I don't think they've righted any ship. I think they stink. So I guess we'll find out. Um, all right. What else did I have for you?
57:35 Speaker 03 Well, the problem is there's like nine teams that stink. We're gonna get like, we're gonna get like seven or eight teams with five, with six wins or fewer. It doesn't really happen. If you look back in the last five years, there's like two or three teams with four, you know? But to get like, you know, close to 10 teams with like six wins. It's gross.
57:57 Bill Simmons? When do we start taking the following teams seriously heading into week 11? Are we there yet? The Eagles are seven and two. Do you take them seriously as an actual contender who could be in the NFC title game?
58:12 Speaker 03 I do. And I, it's not just coming off this Dallas game, but I feel like they hit their stride. They got the running back they need. The tush push works with their fricking backup. When, when stuff like that happens, like that's, that's good. I, I still have the Lions a big step ahead of them, but yeah, they could be deep into January.
58:33 Bill Simmons? Not quite there yet.
58:35 Speaker 03 No.
58:35 Bill Simmons? I want to see Thursday night. Yeah, their wins this year, Green Bay in that Brazil game. They beat the Saints, the Browns, the Giants. They beat the Bengals. That was a good win. No T. Higgins. Beat the Jaguars. They beat your team, which was.
58:48 Speaker 03 My team's good.
58:48 Bill Simmons? A corpse.
58:49 Speaker 03 They're still not really health, fully healthy. I don't know if they'll get there, but.
58:54 Bill Simmons? Well, let's, I'm gonna, I want to wait because they play Washington this week. They're at the Rams. They're at Baltimore. And I, you know, I know it's a cop out, but I want to wait for those three games. But they definitely look better than they did. Second half of last year started this year.
59:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, this is where they were last year, right? About seven and two or something. Then they just tanked the last six.
59:13 Bill Simmons? I don't trust their coach. Do you trust the Cardinals yet?
59:16 Speaker 03 Um, I, I like, I like watching them. That's all I could really say. I like watching their offense, right? And, uh, and they don't embarrass themselves on defense and they have. What do you mean? You mean trust like for the playoffs?
59:28 Bill Simmons? Are you taking them seriously yet?
59:30 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah, I think I have to because of their schedule and, um, the fact that they're able to move the ball and don't seem afraid of any of these teams.
59:38 Bill Simmons? They have the Pats in Carolina later.
59:40 Speaker 03 Yeah.
59:41 Bill Simmons? So that's probably two more wins. They play Seattle twice next three weeks.
59:46 Speaker 03 Right.
59:46 Bill Simmons? Play Minnesota. They play the Rams. They played the Niners last week of the season. I think it's a 10 win team.
59:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
59:52 Bill Simmons? I think they're a 10 win team.
59:53 Speaker 03 Four division games. So that's the key, right? A lot of these teams haven't played anyone in the division. So that's, that's big.
1:00:00 Bill Simmons? I like how they can run the ball like, and they're really fit. Like Connor is just, I, I remember when Pittsburgh let him go. I didn't think it was a big deal at all. Right? Did you?
1:00:08 Speaker 03 Sure. No.
1:00:09 Bill Simmons? Oh my God, they can let James Connor go. Nobody said that. And I think he's been good in Arizona.
1:00:13 Speaker 03 McBride's good. They have some web. Like, yeah, I was surprised to know that that was Harrison's fifth touchdown. I was about to come on tonight and go on a rant about how they've.
1:00:21 Bill Simmons? Where is he?
1:00:22 Speaker 03 Yeah. They've done well despite the fact that the, this generational receiver hasn't produced, but five touchdowns, pretty good.
1:00:30 Bill Simmons? Yeah. So playoff picker, if you got Detroit at eight and one, Minnesota seven and two, I'm still not positive as a playoff team because Darnold seems like he's arrow pointed down. Washington, Philly, Green Bay, and then you have Arizona, San Francisco Rams. Six and four Arizona, five and four San Francisco, four and four Rams. I think they're a playoff team. I think they're gonna make it. I thought today was a key one and I didn't, House and I talked about it Thursday. I didn't understand the line. I didn't know what I was missing. I didn't understand why people were overrating the Jets based off that Texans game on a Thursday night. I think people always overrate those Thursday night games. I didn't think the Jets were good. I thought Arizona was better.
1:01:11 Bill Simmons? And to me, it was like an easy bet, but the line shifted. The Jets were favored heading into the game. It's like, what am I missing with this Jets team? They suck.
1:01:21 Speaker 03 Isn't that what happened against Houston? Like Houston's favored by one and a half when we did the pod and then the Jets were favored. And like, as soon as that one and a half, which is the mysterious number this year flips, I get in sprinter's position. I'm like, I'm staying away from this game. When you figure it out, that was good for you that the Arizona, Arizona is minus 110 both ways to make it or not make it.
1:01:43 Bill Simmons? I like it.
1:01:44 Speaker 03 It's a fun one.
1:01:47 Bill Simmons? The Chargers, I think I believe in them too. I think that's a five seed or a six seed. Excellent defense. Excellent QB. Herbert's been really good this year. Excellent coach. They can block. Their receivers, I think, are a little better than we were expecting. That Quinn Johnston, who anybody could add in a fantasy draft, nobody took him. They have a two game lead for the wild card. Here's the key though. Their next four is Cincy, Baltimore, at Atlanta, at KC. They probably have to go two and two out of those four. Three and one, they're golden, but two and two gets them to eight and five and they're cruising after that. But I think, I think that team knows who they are and they're really well coached.
1:02:26 Speaker 03 Two weeks ago, I agree. They were minus 150 to make the playoffs. Last week, minus 310, now minus 430 to make the playoffs. And I'm just not used to the Chargers winning games they're supposed to win, right? Like this is three weeks in a row, the Browns, the Saints and the Titans. So big test next week, as we said, with the Bengals. That's a fun game.
1:02:46 Bill Simmons? I have some 2024 Dallas Cowboys silver linings for you.
1:02:50 Speaker 03 What? I thought we were off this like.
1:02:52 Bill Simmons? No, I forgot I had this part too. Silver lining, number one, really good draft pick coming. You're gonna have like a top seven pick.
1:03:01 Speaker 03 Good.
1:03:01 Bill Simmons? Now granted, Jerry's gonna probably trade up so he could take Travis Hunter and put it next to C.D. Lamb and be like, oh, look at our receivers.
1:03:08 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah.
1:03:10 Bill Simmons? Travis Hunter and C.D. Lamb. Oh, my God. We have no, nobody who can block, but look at those two receivers.
1:03:16 Speaker 03 Good draft. He'll mortgage everything to get Travis Hunter, Shador Sanders and Deion to coach. That'll be, that's what I think I walk away. I think that's gotta be it.
1:03:25 Bill Simmons? That's it?
1:03:26 Speaker 03 I think that would have to be.
1:03:26 Bill Simmons? When Larry David quit the Jets?
1:03:28 Speaker 03 Yeah, cuz then he's just screwing with everybody, right? Now it's like, oh, this was a practical joke. All right, Jerry, you're funny. You're the funniest owner.
1:03:37 Bill Simmons? Silver lining, Belichick or Vrabel? Who would you pick? You got choice of one.
1:03:43 Speaker 03 I think Vrabel.
1:03:45 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I think that's the right pick.
1:03:46 Speaker 03 Really?
1:03:47 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:03:47 Speaker 03 Let's get into this. Why?
1:03:49 Bill Simmons? I think Vrabel's a really good coach and he's like 25 years younger than Belichick.
1:03:54 Speaker 03 Right.
1:03:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, but his girlfriend is not. She's only about four years old.
1:03:59 Bill Simmons? Yeah, girlfriend's 20 years older than Belichick's.
1:04:01 Speaker 03 That's crazy.
1:04:03 Bill Simmons? Uh, more silver linings. We don't have to watch TV segments about them anymore cuz I don't, I just don't think by, I don't know, week 15, there's nothing left on, no meat on the bone.
1:04:14 Speaker 03 NFL's in trouble a little bit with some of these night games and nothing they can do about Thanksgiving, but they, you know, one thing you could always say about the Cowboys, even if they were out of playoff contention, like, oh, everybody watches them cuz they have fantasy players. It's gonna be, it could be tough to start.
1:04:28 Bill Simmons? They shut down C.D. Lamb.
1:04:30 Speaker 03 C.D. Lamb, but in like three weeks.
1:04:32 Bill Simmons? City Dallas has Luke in the Mavs. That's silver lining.
1:04:35 Speaker 03 I don't care.
1:04:36 Bill Simmons? And then even though you haven't made the Super Bowl since 95, there's a bunch of teams that have longer droughts than that.
1:04:43 Speaker 03 Oh, great.
1:04:44 Bill Simmons? Detroit, Cleveland, the Jets, Minnesota, Miami hasn't made the Super Bowl since 1976.
1:04:51 Speaker 03 I know that. That's, oh, man, I feel so fucking good.
1:04:54 Bill Simmons? I thought, I need, I need to feel better.
1:04:56 Speaker 03 Thanks, man.
1:04:57 Bill Simmons? Oh, and curtains. You're gonna have curtains in the stadium, so the receivers will get blinded.
1:05:01 Speaker 03 Were we there? Was the last WrestleMania there when we were there? I think it was. They were showing like the curtains they put up to block the sun and everything. Like, yeah, it's this easy. They just use curtains.
1:05:12 Bill Simmons? Yeah, you have the curtains. Um, the new coach theory is back. House talked me out of it. That motherfucker on Monday, a million dollar picks. He was like, we can't bet on Derek Carr. He tried to murder his teammate last week. I was like, fine, we won't. And then new coach theory wins. Darren Rizzi, who sounds like somebody you would be buddies with. Yeah, the Farley kids coming and Brad and Darren Rizzi.
1:05:36 Speaker 03 Darren Rizzi, the Farley kid.
1:05:38 Bill Simmons? Ken, he's in a fight with Ken. Harry had intervened because Ken got mad at Darren Rizzi.
1:05:45 Speaker 03 Oh, there's so much truth to that. I like this guy. He's fun. I, how am I not rooting for this team? He talked about a, the clog in the toilet this morning and his morning shit before the game. I was like, this should be my guy. And he has a player stretching out. He's like, one of my big things is, well, what, what's the, uh, what's the crazy commercial we see all the time with the Rizzi? Um, Sky Rizzi? It doesn't really make sense.
1:06:10 Bill Simmons? He talked about clogging the toilet. We gotta call him the clogger.
1:06:13 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, the clogger. Yeah.
1:06:17 Speaker 03 Clapper, meet the clogger.
1:06:18 Bill Simmons? The clogger. Well, we had Pip Boss Rich who treated us really well that one year with the Raiders.
1:06:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:06:25 Bill Simmons? We won on him a bunch of weeks. Now we got the clogger.
1:06:28 Speaker 03 Oh, I love the clogger.
1:06:29 Bill Simmons? The clogger's in, man. Here we go.
1:06:30 Speaker 03 Is he gonna do that? Is that good luck? Like, is he gonna have to do that every Sunday now?
1:06:34 Bill Simmons? Yeah, he's gonna have to have a lot of like Metamucil and cheese the night before a game.
1:06:39 Speaker 03 Bean burritos, yeah.
1:06:41 Bill Simmons? Um, oh, I broke my rule and bet on the Germany game, which I swore I wasn't gonna do. I somehow, all my rules for the year, don't bet on the Germany game, don't bet on a game with two bad teams. I just, I come, I was sitting on a plane, um, before takeoff, which is, I think the single most dangerous time to be on FanDuel. And just like, ah, Giants, like, you know, just killing time. Um, next one. Was Debo Samuel right or wrong for getting mad at the kicker? The guy missed three field goals. Like, how many field goals did he have to miss?
1:07:14 Speaker 03 Right? Wasn't it?
1:07:15 Bill Simmons? No, he was mad at the kicker and the long snapper intervened.
1:07:18 Speaker 03 Oh, he went after, he got his throat. Yeah, yeah.
1:07:22 Bill Simmons? What an interesting.
1:07:22 Speaker 03 He's yelling at the kicker. I don't know what happened with Debo. There might be some medication issues. Did you see what he came in like dressed as like down the tunnel? And then like, yeah, he had like leather, a nice little leather number up top and then shorts. And then he's like going after his long snapper's throat, but I think he's right. He can't go missing all these kicks.
1:07:43 Bill Simmons? Well, what's the right number of missed field goals before you're really allowed to get mad at the kicker without repercussions? Like, did he miss seven? Could you get mad at him?
1:07:53 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think so. We have a friend.
1:07:55 Bill Simmons? Three feels like the right number. Three, like somebody in the team can at least side eye him.
1:08:00 Speaker 03 We have a buddy, Steven Green, who kicked and he was a great kicker in high school and then college and then quit. And then like he was, we made a push for him to be on an arena team and those goalposts were like, it's nothing. It's really like 18 inches away from each other. He missed, I think he was playing for like Gainesville, Florida or something. He missed the field goal and they were like screaming him at him on the bus the whole way back to wherever he was. They were in Alabama, he had to drive Florida. Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of, there's a lot of that. And just kicking in general, what happened like in September, they were blasting like 57 yards.
1:08:36 Bill Simmons? Yeah, Gano missed like a 40 yarder today.
1:08:38 Speaker 03 And we saw what happened with the Lions too. That was crazy with the, with Fairbarn missing and Lions just turning it right around.
1:08:45 Bill Simmons? This is a really bad omen for the Niners and it's something I've bet against over the years and it's been successful when it gets to playoff time. So before this game today, they were 30th in special teams DVOA. So they were one of the three worst teams.
1:08:59 Speaker 03 Right.
1:08:59 Bill Simmons? Today they had three missed field goals and they muffed a punt return. They might have the worst special teams in the entire league. There's no way that's going to turn out well for them in the playoffs. Like no way. It always rears its ugly head. Week 18, round one, something bad happens with it. So I'm just flagging that now.
1:09:18 Speaker 03 They don't even get to play the Cowboys. I know. I looked at that. Do you know how many yards, total yards? I know you said Baker was great today. The Tampa had 215 total yards. I said, how is that game close? How is that 23, 30?
1:09:30 Bill Simmons? He was great because you had to watch it when they're like sacking him and he's just not going down. Even Brady was making noises with some of the Baker plays. Yeah, he's like aroused Brady. Woke him up.
1:09:44 Speaker 03 Do they have a meter? They should have a Brady noise meter.
1:09:47 Speaker 00 It's like, oh.
1:09:49 Bill Simmons? Can Joe Flacco win the come down player of the year? He won comeback player of the year last year, come down? Or is Sam Darnold eligible just from the comeback and then the come down in the same year?
1:10:01 Speaker 03 Could be comeback or should be go away? Should be come back and go away award? Go away player of the year?
1:10:07 Bill Simmons? Just leave, use the back door?
1:10:08 Speaker 03 I don't, I'll tell you what, I was proud of myself. I live bet the Bills. I saw Flacco throw three passes. He definitely doesn't have that zip, right?
1:10:16 Bill Simmons? Like, he doesn't look great. He looked bad last week, too.
1:10:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, he did. The only thing, now it's all about it. What have, how dare they bench Anthony Richardson? Like, all right, it was two weeks ago, he was like two for 15 at halftime with 28 yards. How about they figure something out where they put them in packages and figure out how to use two quarterbacks? Is that the worst thing in the world?
1:10:37 Bill Simmons? So glad you brought this up. I've been dying for a team to do this where it's like, one guy comes in, and then the next series, it's the other guy and we just, if I'm the other team, I would hate that. It's like, well, both of these guys kind of suck, but now that you're using both of them and I don't know what to do and what defenses to use, basically.
1:10:55 Speaker 03 Listen, you're not gonna raise the level of Anthony Richardson's confidence, putting him back there on third and 12, right? But if it's third and two and you're bringing him in, it's like, oh my God, now this guy's run for four first downs in a row. Or if he's even faked a run and thrown from, that's somebody to build it back up, I think.
1:11:15 Bill Simmons? Seven turnovers combined for Joe Flacco and Sam Darnold today.
1:11:21 Bill Simmons? Um, we're gonna take one more break for the podcast, then we're new guest alliance.
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1:12:42 Bill Simmons? So before we do guess the lines, the underdogs made a little bit of a comeback today. But you know what else has quietly made a comeback? I almost don't want to say it, I'm going to knock on wood.
1:12:54 Bill Simmons? The tees. Yeah. Has made a little bit of a resurgence. Eagles Chargers hit. I hit a four teamer in real life Eagles Chargers.
1:13:06 Bill Simmons? Eagles Chargers. That's a two teamer.
1:13:11 Bill Simmons? Ravens on Thursday night. And then what was the other obvious one today? Eagles Chargers. Did you have the Chiefs? No, it wasn't the Chiefs. What was the other one that was like a seven point game? Minnesota. No. San Francisco. No.
1:13:29 Bill Simmons? Charge, oh Chargers, I said. Chargers Eagles. Oh, it was the, it was the Niners. Yeah. Yeah, that one hit. That was good. Yeah, I like the teasers.
1:13:41 Bill Simmons? I did a deep dive on something with teasers and, and that, you know, you know, everybody always tells us we're playing it wrong. Like if a team's a five and a half point favorite and we tease it. And then like the snooty gamblers don't talk to us for like three weeks, they get mad. We crossed the line. Cause we crossed the zero. They said never do a teaser unless you're crossing the three key numbers, three, six and seven. So if it's on the plus side, you want to get it like plus one and a half, plus two. Seven and a half. Yeah. And if you want to bring it down, it's eight and a half, seven and a half. Yeah. Right there. I agree with that. Yeah, I know, I'm not going to do it. I just thought it was interesting. Well, on the other hand, you just could have teased the Bills today to like plus one and a half and you would have won because you had the Bills in the tease.
1:14:27 Bill Simmons? Thursday night.
1:14:31 Bill Simmons? Really good game Eagles Eagles Washington. I would I would say this is probably the most exciting Thursday night game we've had. There's real stakes. The vision's at stake. Washington could go from seven to two to seven and four in five days.
1:14:45 Speaker 03 Better hit it exactly because I did.
1:14:49 Bill Simmons? I was vacillating between two and a half and three. And I went Eagles by two and a half.
1:14:55 Speaker 03 Good. It's three and a half.
1:14:58 Bill Simmons? Oh.
1:14:58 Speaker 03 That's what I had.
1:15:00 Bill Simmons? Okay.
1:15:02 Speaker 03 Not trusting.
1:15:03 Bill Simmons? A little high.
1:15:05 Bill Simmons? I guess they think maybe the Eagles can run on Washington.
1:15:09 Speaker 03 That's a tough spot for Jaden Daniels, right? Still on the road in division.
1:15:16 Speaker 03 You know, they they're not going to take the Eagles by surprise. That's for sure.
1:15:22 Bill Simmons? Sunday marquee. It's a nice little seven point tease with Washington. Get them to 10 and a half. Sunday marquee game Chiefs Bills game of the year so far, probably, right?
1:15:33 Speaker 03 Yes.
1:15:34 Bill Simmons? So been a better game since maybe Chiefs Ravens week one.
1:15:37 Speaker 03 Lots of fun.
1:15:39 Bill Simmons? So as I said earlier, I would have had the Bills by one or one and a half, but I think after today, I just think the I I just think the Chiefs are going to be favored. I just have Chiefs minus one.
1:15:51 Speaker 03 Wait, what happened? I had Bills minus one and it's Bills minus one and a half. But what what I don't even understand that logic. What did you see out of the Chiefs that you love there?
1:16:01 Bill Simmons? It was more what I saw from the Bills. I feel like with the receivers.
1:16:07 Speaker 03 What it was receivers being out? I mean, I feel like he's got so much to do.
1:16:10 Bill Simmons? Coleman didn't play. I don't know if those guys are playing next Sunday.
1:16:14 Speaker 03 You know, they have tight ends that can catch the ball. They're that Ray Davis guy. I feel like Allen like gets it done. He figures it out eventually.
1:16:21 Bill Simmons? Zero touchdowns and two picks today.
1:16:24 Speaker 03 Yeah, all right. And they still won.
1:16:26 Bill Simmons? So you're telling me I get to bet on Patrick Mahomes as an underdog again is what you're telling me. Well, that's great news.
1:16:36 Bill Simmons? Because there's no better bet in sports and I'll be making it.
1:16:39 Speaker 03 Well, you should make it soon because I'm also telling you that the one and a halves have swung almost every time this year. So they could easily be giving one and a half.
1:16:47 Bill Simmons? Well, the move is to tease them tease them right now with at least one game.
1:16:53 Speaker 03 Yep. Do it with your beloved commanders.
1:16:58 Bill Simmons? The watchables. Five watchables this week.
1:17:03 Bill Simmons? Steelers home for the Baltimore Ravens.
1:17:11 Bill Simmons? I think the Steelers are going to be favored by one and a half.
1:17:13 Speaker 03 Oh, wow. Way off.
1:17:16 Bill Simmons? What do you mean way off?
1:17:17 Speaker 03 You'll love this in a teaser. I had Ravens by three. It's Ravens by three and a half.
1:17:24 Bill Simmons? Get the fuck out of here. I guarantee I'm right on that.
1:17:27 Speaker 03 I guarantee you're wrong.
1:17:29 Bill Simmons? No, I'm saying I guarantee my instinct on what that line should be is the right instinct.
1:17:34 Speaker 03 Oh.
1:17:34 Bill Simmons? That's stupid.
1:17:37 Speaker 03 See, I thought the Steelers should have been favored over Washington, but Washington was favored over the Steelers, right? Baltimore's got a very big power rating.
1:17:45 Bill Simmons? Steelers are good. All their dudes are back. Now, we'll see with Highsmith whether he's out for, because he hurt his ankle in the fourth quarter.
1:17:50 Speaker 03 You kind of need all hands on deck to beat this Ravens.
1:17:52 Bill Simmons? Yeah, the Steelers were healthy until that happened, but.
1:17:55 Speaker 03 Well, they'll score. I mean, that's one thing with this Ravens, man. Look out. There's no shortage of points when you play them.
1:18:02 Bill Simmons? Their defense stinks.
1:18:03 Speaker 03 Yep.
1:18:05 Bill Simmons? I should say their pass defense stinks. I think you can, if you're within seven points of them in the last 10 minutes of a game, you can go down the field and throw the ball on them over and over again, and they can't stop it.
1:18:17 Speaker 03 That was a great, that was a great Thursday game, too. That was a lot of fun. Yep. I just, and Zach Taylor, we, we kill him a lot, but go for two. Nice, nice. We need a different play, but that was a good decision, I thought.
1:18:30 Bill Simmons? It's a good decision. I thought to put up that kind of offense without Higgins was really impressive. And Chase was obviously out of his mind, but um, no, they're good. And Chase Brown had that fumble, and I, I just felt like that was an either or game, and the Bengals have somehow lost three of those this year.
1:18:48 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:18:50 Bill Simmons? I'm putting this in the watchables just because Drake May for me is now just in the watchables category. It's, it's, I'm in charge against the Lions. I can do whatever I want.
1:18:59 Speaker 03 That's true.
1:19:00 Bill Simmons? I have the Rams at the Patriots. It had the Rams favored by three and a half.
1:19:06 Speaker 03 I said four and a half. It is five and a half. Just a little bit off here.
1:19:12 Bill Simmons? Stop it, Vegas.
1:19:15 Speaker 03 Wait, what was the, what was the line today?
1:19:17 Bill Simmons? That's stupid. The crowd's gonna be in on, the Pats fans are in on Drake May. Like that, this would be a good crowd on Sunday.
1:19:24 Speaker 03 I know, I'm seeing this.
1:19:25 Bill Simmons? I think there's real excitement about him now. Um, yeah, that's too high. I think that drops.
1:19:33 Speaker 03 Maybe a little.
1:19:35 Bill Simmons? Jets Colts, I think has to be a watchables because this is, the, the Jets are kind of train wreck TV now, right?
1:19:43 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
1:19:45 Bill Simmons? It's like when my wife watches Below Deck Australia.
1:19:49 Speaker 03 Oh.
1:19:49 Bill Simmons? It's not a good show, but weird shit's happening every episode. I feel like that's the Jets.
1:19:54 Speaker 03 What is that shit? What is that? Below Deck Australia?
1:19:57 Bill Simmons? The Below Deck? Your wife doesn't watch Below Deck?
1:19:58 Speaker 03 No, I'm on the Penguin right now and I've, I block everything out.
1:20:01 Bill Simmons? It's a reality show. It's like these people that work on yachts and these people rent the yachts for a week. So they have to, you know, work for the people, but it's all about like the under, underneath the boat, like all the, all the relationships. They're all hooking up, getting mad at each other, but then they have to deal with like these people that rented the boat for the week. My wife loves the show.
1:20:21 Speaker 03 That's fun. Are you buying another yacht? Is that what you're saying?
1:20:26 Bill Simmons? What do you mean another yacht?
1:20:28 Speaker 03 Well, you, you have one and then this would be in it now.
1:20:30 Bill Simmons? I don't have any yachts.
1:20:31 Speaker 03 All right.
1:20:34 Speaker 03 Come on, I'm just joshing.
1:20:36 Bill Simmons? You're jashing?
1:20:38 Speaker 03 I'm just jashing, yeah.
1:20:42 Speaker 03 You're gonna get this one.
1:20:43 Bill Simmons? Jets, home for the Colts. I have the Jets minus two.
1:20:46 Speaker 03 Oh, all right. I had two and a half. It's three and a half.
1:20:50 Bill Simmons? Come on.
1:20:50 Speaker 03 This is good.
1:20:51 Bill Simmons? I haven't gotten one right yet.
1:20:53 Speaker 03 This is good. No, I'm up five, nothing. This is insurmountable at this point.
1:20:58 Bill Simmons? It's usually a bad sign for my betting when I'm off on the lines like this.
1:21:01 Speaker 03 Well, how long, how long are they gonna be in the Jets corner, these oddsmakers? Because this is a little bit silly. Yeah.
1:21:08 Bill Simmons? I thought this would be the week when maybe they watched the Jets and saw that they gave up four 70 yard plus drives and 28 first downs and 57 plays. And we're like, maybe this team's not good. Broncos home for the Falcons. This is like a, an actual good game that I'm excited to watch. Who would have thought?
1:21:27 Bill Simmons? Falcons by one and a half over the Broncos.
1:21:31 Speaker 03 This was Falcons one night. You're gonna think I'm screwing with you. It was Falcons one and a half. I said Denver minus one. It's Denver minus one and a half now. I promise that's how it went.
1:21:43 Bill Simmons? And they should be favored. Denver should be favored. You don't think they're better than Atlanta right now?
1:21:48 Speaker 03 I mean, Atlanta could have three less wins and it would totally make sense.
1:21:53 Bill Simmons? Right.
1:21:56 Bill Simmons? Last one, Niners Seahawks. It's in San Francisco. I think this just absolutely pulsates of the Vegas zone. Now I'm gonna say Niners by five.
1:22:07 Speaker 03 You get this one. I said four and a half. It's six and a half.
1:22:13 Speaker 03 That's high. I think they play two of the next three weeks. Is that possible?
1:22:19 Bill Simmons? Yeah. So if you look at Seattle right now.
1:22:23 Speaker 03 Which, oh no, they played already. Sorry. Yeah, good.
1:22:26 Bill Simmons? Seattle's season isn't over. But it's not looking great. They're four and five. And they have at San Francisco, home Arizona, at Jets, at Arizona.
1:22:38 Bill Simmons? And they have to go at least three and one in those four, I think, to even sniff the playoffs.
1:22:44 Speaker 03 I agree.
1:22:46 Bill Simmons? Four and O ideally, but.
1:22:47 Speaker 03 I don't know. Is Metcalf gonna play like that?
1:22:50 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:22:50 Speaker 03 It's, it seems so important to them. Like AJ Brownish.
1:22:57 Bill Simmons? Be fairly watchables. Packers at the Bears. The Bears are not watchable. I can attest to that today.
1:23:05 Bill Simmons? I'm gonna say Packers by three and a half for this.
1:23:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, I said that too. And we're way off. Let's say six and a half. Oof.
1:23:14 Bill Simmons? I guess that makes sense because the Bears look awful.
1:23:16 Speaker 03 Everyone's out on them. Why can't Vandal be out on the Jets like they are the Bears, but?
1:23:21 Bill Simmons? I'll say this. If they fire their coach, I'll be betting the Bears in that game.
1:23:25 Speaker 03 Oh, interesting. Does he have to clog the toilet or you'll do it like?
1:23:29 Bill Simmons? The clogger?
1:23:30 Speaker 03 Shit unseen. Yeah.
1:23:33 Bill Simmons? I love the quagger. Came up with a new coach nickname today. This podcast was a success.
1:23:38 Speaker 03 You did, you did a good job.
1:23:40 Bill Simmons? Lions are home for the Jaguars and you can't quite go to 10 for this. I'm going to say nine and a half.
1:23:47 Speaker 03 Oh, you can. I said 11 and a half. It's 12 and a half.
1:23:50 Bill Simmons? Oh, stop it. That's stupid.
1:23:52 Speaker 03 I mean, they're just going to kill some teams, right?
1:23:54 Bill Simmons? Yeah, but that's stupid.
1:23:58 Speaker 03 I love that. Three team teaser.
1:23:59 Bill Simmons? Coming off like an emotional win.
1:24:01 Speaker 03 We're doing it. Three teaser.
1:24:02 Bill Simmons? So we could three team tease that still at 12 and a half.
1:24:04 Speaker 03 That's what I mean. Yeah, you could, you could get the Chiefs.
1:24:06 Bill Simmons? Wait, can we take the Chiefs to 11 and a half?
1:24:08 Speaker 03 Yeah, you can.
1:24:10 Bill Simmons? Oh, I'm doing that when we.
1:24:11 Speaker 03 And then the Jets to plus six. No, no.
1:24:13 Bill Simmons? No, no, not touching that. Last one is Dolphins Raiders.
1:24:19 Bill Simmons? In Miami.
1:24:21 Bill Simmons? And I said Dolphins by six and a half.
1:24:23 Speaker 03 Got it. Exactly. Good job. I said five, six and a half it is.
1:24:29 Bill Simmons? Poop facta. Vikings at Tennessee. I have Vikings by three and a half.
1:24:34 Speaker 03 Oh, no, you went low here. I said five and a half. It's six and a half.
1:24:40 Bill Simmons? Yeah, I'm putting that game on a upset watch.
1:24:44 Speaker 03 They're not screwing around with these lines. They're like, we're not, you know, even though I know the underdogs, you know, fired away today, they're making this high.
1:24:52 Bill Simmons? The Vikings easily, easily, easily could have lost that game today to the Jaguars.
1:24:57 Speaker 03 I know, but look at the numbers. I know, I know what you're saying.
1:25:00 Bill Simmons? It was sitting there as a loss and the Jaguars are just too stupid. Saints are home for the Browns. New coach theory.
1:25:08 Speaker 03 Hmm.
1:25:09 Bill Simmons? Still in existence for the second week. I got the Saints by one and a half.
1:25:14 Speaker 03 All right, you get this. I had, I don't know, why am I doing the pick 'em's? It's so stupid. Uh, it's two and a half.
1:25:23 Bill Simmons? Sunday night. Chargers Bengals.
1:25:29 Bill Simmons? Kind of a must win for the Bengals. I'm gonna say Chargers by one and a half.
1:25:33 Speaker 03 Oh, no. Are you making a comeback here? I said one. One and a half it is.
1:25:39 Bill Simmons? That's in LA. I can't, I don't think there's gonna be a huge Cincinnati crack.
1:25:42 Speaker 03 Nine to five. Can we go to that? We should go to that and do the podcast right afterwards in the parking lot.
1:25:48 Bill Simmons? Sunday night?
1:25:49 Speaker 03 No, we're not doing that.
1:25:52 Bill Simmons? Monday night Texans Cowboys battle for Texas. Putting it in the, in the
1:25:56 Speaker 03 Oh, man.
1:25:58 Bill Simmons? Cusp of the Vegas zone. Texans minus five and a half at Dallas.
1:26:03 Speaker 03 Oh, no. I said seven. It's six and a half.
1:26:07 Speaker 03 I get it. That's a win.
1:26:08 Bill Simmons? All right. You won the week.
1:26:09 Speaker 03 All right. Six, four, one overall. Well, I love it in weeks. Yeah, that, I, the league must be so pissed. They have to show the Cowboys in prime time. What a disaster.
1:26:21 Bill Simmons? Can we talk basketball for one second?
1:26:23 Speaker 03 Sure. I'm gonna go clog the toilet.
1:26:28 Speaker 03 Go ahead.
1:26:33 Bill Simmons? Actually, let's take one more break for the podcast because I have a basketball thing I want to bring up.
1:26:41 Bill Simmons? All right. Quick break. This episode is brought to you by Fire TV. You ever sit down ready to watch the game only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows your live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching. Just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. I have this basketball thing. I didn't want to wait till Tuesday because I think it's important. You know, Giannis, the Bucks lost again today. They're two and eight.
1:27:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, what's up?
1:27:12 Bill Simmons? And I think the Giannis trade stuff is really gonna start. People making up fake trades. And so, as I said, I went to that Nets Celtic game on Friday. And the Nets are like pretty good. You know, they, they don't have like, they traded Bridges for all these picks. They were supposed to try to tank. They got their pick back. They have just a shitload of picks. They have Ken Thomas, who I was really impressed by, who's a very good scorer. They have, uh, Cam Johnson, they have Nick Claxton, they have Schroder's playing really well. They have like a bunch of good, not stars, but like, like enough of a team that the team makes sense when you watch it. Like they're good. They play defense.
1:27:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:27:54 Bill Simmons? I like them. I think I actually think they're a playing team at least. I think they can just go all in for Giannis. Cause people are gonna ask this week, who's the team that makes the sense for Giannis? Like, what about Miami? What about? I actually think it's Brooklyn. I think Brooklyn's gonna be the team that trades for them because they can just overwhelm Milwaukee with all these picks. They own their own first in 2025. They own Phoenix's first. They own the Knicks first. They own Milwaukee's first, which is one through four protected. If it's five or after, they get it. So the Bucks can get their pick back. They own their own first in 26 and 29. In 27, they can swap with Houston, or Houston can swap with them. They own the Knicks first in 27.
1:28:38 Bill Simmons? They have Philly one through protected in 27. They have their own, they have Knicks first in 29. They have another Dallas, Phoenix, Houston, worst pick in 29. They have all their own first. They have a Knicks first in 31. Like, they just can say, hey, Milwaukee, here's Ben Simmons' expiring contract. And here are all these picks. Just take all of them. Take as many as you want and give us Giannis and put Giannis in Brooklyn. I think it makes sense because I think Milwaukee needs to get out of this. This Dame Giannis thing. I just think they have to trade Dame and trade Giannis and just, they won the title, get out of this. And to me, it's either Brooklyn or Houston because Houston's the other team that could,
1:29:19 Bill Simmons? they have picks and young players. It's just like, if I'm Giannis, would I rather go to Brooklyn or Houston? I don't know. So anyway, is it crazy to think Brooklyn could trade for Giannis?
1:29:27 Speaker 03 Why not? Well, could you go over their picks they have one more time?
1:29:32 Bill Simmons? No, but I just wanted to make the point how many picks they had.
1:29:34 Speaker 03 How about this, though? Here's the only way I could be helpful. I'm looking at the Nets to make the playoffs, 22 to 1.
1:29:40 Bill Simmons? So this is why I brought this up because to me, it's conceivable that out of nowhere, it'd be like, oh, my God, Brooklyn traded nine first round picks, Ben Simmons' contract and two swaps for you. This is the most picks anyone's ever given up for a player in the history of the NBA. But then you look at Brooklyn. So regular season wins right now. Their over is 21 and a half. You look for, to make the playoffs, yes, is 22 to 1.
1:30:09 Speaker 03 Yeah, that's the bet.
1:30:10 Bill Simmons? To win in the conference.
1:30:14 Bill Simmons? They don't have it for the East right now. But the point is, like, if you think Giannis is gonna get traded, play them, play Houston. I don't think Golden State has enough because Milwaukee's gonna want to picks and I think it's Houston or Brooklyn are the two teams that have all the picks.
1:30:31 Speaker 03 So if they had odds for where Yanis is traded to, I haven't seen them. If they do, I don't think they do. They wouldn't be 22 to one for the Nets, right?
1:30:39 Bill Simmons? They would not.
1:30:40 Speaker 03 So this would be the bet. Like there would be like six to one for the Nets or something.
1:30:44 Bill Simmons? Like Houston's minus, Houston's minus 128. Houston has, Houston made that trade. They have Brooklyn's 2026 first. They can swap Brooklyn in 27. They have a Phoenix first 27. They own all their own picks. They have a Phoenix or Dallas first 29. Like they have enough to put a Yanis thing together with some contracts. Give them a young player. The problem is they gave extensions to Green and Shangoon. So I don't think those guys could be in the trade. But, but they could patch stuff together. But I think those are the two teams. I think that, I don't think Miami has enough. Miami would have to put Atabio in it. And if you're Miami, you're trading Atabio and all of these picks to basically put Yanis on the same kind of team he's on now.
1:31:29 Speaker 03 Right.
1:31:29 Bill Simmons? If you're Brooklyn, you have all these role players you could put with them. Then you'll have the cap space maybe to get some other guys. You have shooting, you have, I don't know. Anyway, I just wanted to put that.
1:31:39 Speaker 03 My wife was saying all the same things today. Yeah. Let me ask you this. Yanis, if I would have told you second week in November, Yanis is 25 to one to win MVP. And he's not, not injured. What would you have thought happened? Like what the hell would you?
1:31:55 Bill Simmons? I would have thought he got hurt.
1:31:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, but I'm telling you, he's not injured. Like this is, I guess you would just have, they'd have no wins, I guess is what you would have to think. 25 to one, he'll never be 25 to one again.
1:32:06 Bill Simmons? No. But let's say he got traded to Houston and they became like a four seed.
1:32:10 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:32:11 Bill Simmons? You know, those are the only two teams I can see. Cause if you go through everybody else.
1:32:16 Speaker 03 I'm gonna bet these.
1:32:20 Bill Simmons? If you go through all the other teams, I just don't see another team. Cause some people have thrown Golden State around and I don't see how they could do a trade that could compete with Brooklyn. If I'm Brooklyn, I need to do, I need to do whatever I can to get Giannis because I'm completely irrelevant.
1:32:36 Speaker 03 But how much is this you drumming this up? Or like, there is a very big favorite that they hold.
1:32:42 Bill Simmons? This up because I went to the game Friday and I was really impressed by the team they had.
1:32:47 Speaker 03 No, but would they, would they trade, they're likely not going to trade. Like what's the odds that they even trade?
1:32:52 Bill Simmons? If, if like, let's say they made me a consultant to the franchise and they're like, what do we do? I would like trade Giannis and Dame right now.
1:32:59 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:33:00 Bill Simmons? Like you have no chance to win a title with this team. Trade these guys now. You got the title from Giannis. You have no picks left. You have no path to ever be, ever be a title contender with the group you have now. Like cut the cord now. Try to trade for one of these teams before these picks go away to somebody else. Cause the only other team is Oklahoma City and they're not going to do anything.
1:33:22 Speaker 03 All right. I'll do 22 to one. I mean, I have to, it has to make sense that I lost the last seven minutes of my life. I have to do 22 to one here. I like it.
1:33:30 Bill Simmons? Listen, this will be a YouTube clip that gets at least 80,000 views. Sarudy's so excited. Sarudy's sending tech, Sarudy, come in for a second. Are you there?
1:33:39 Speaker 03 No. I love Sarudy. What's he doing?
1:33:42 Speaker 04 Sarudy? What's up?
1:33:44 Bill Simmons? Brooklyn or Houston? Is there anyone else?
1:33:47 Speaker 04 I.
1:33:49 Speaker 04 Why does Giannis want to go there? Why does he want to go to Brooklyn?
1:33:53 Speaker 03 Well, that's the other thing.
1:33:53 Bill Simmons? Why does he want to stay in Milwaukee?
1:33:55 Speaker 04 I mean, it just seems like he, if he actually does like pulling the plug on this and I want to get out. He's going to have more suit, I, he, I just feel like he's going to have the pull to be like, I don't want to go to Brooklyn, dude. This is like the worst place in the NBA for me to go.
1:34:07 Bill Simmons? Wow. New York City.
1:34:09 Speaker 04 Is it though? Technically, yes.
1:34:13 Speaker 03 I know. Wow. He's right too.
1:34:15 Bill Simmons? No state taxes?
1:34:16 Speaker 04 Houston, Houston's great. Yeah. I mean, they have the assets like I, I mean, that'd be a great spot for him, but I, I just, I don't know why anyone would want to go to Brooklyn.
1:34:25 Speaker 03 Damn it, Sarudy.
1:34:27 Bill Simmons? Golden State would be the other one if, uh, but I just don't know what the trade is with that. Cause they don't have the same kind of picks. Kaminga, it's just, it's not even close to what the other teams could get.
1:34:39 Speaker 04 It has to be like, I want to be there, right? Have to be, hey, just trade me here. Like, but what, well, he just signed a contract essentially. What levers does he have? I don't know.
1:34:47 Bill Simmons? I was thinking like, what if, what if it was Anthony Davis and all the rest of the Laker picks?
1:34:54 Speaker 03 Oh, wow.
1:34:55 Speaker 04 Man.
1:34:56 Bill Simmons? What would they trade have to look like? But I didn't even, it was like this door I didn't even want to open. It's like the door in the attic that you don't want to open because there's some ghost that's going to come out.
1:35:05 Speaker 03 Does LeBron agree to it if they want Bronny? If Milwaukee says, we're only doing it if you throw Bronny?
1:35:11 Bill Simmons? Bronny has to be, Bronny has to be in the trade to make the salaries work.
1:35:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:35:17 Bill Simmons? Yeah, that's it. Those are the only ones. You go through all the teams. It's really hard. All right. Thanks, Rudy. Thanks for throwing my water on my Brooklyn idea.
1:35:24 Speaker 04 Sorry.
1:35:25 Bill Simmons? Let's, uh, let's do some parent corner. What do you got?
1:35:28 Speaker 03 Let's do it. Um, what do I have here? Oh, all right. So, well, first of all, like, you know, there's, there's a lot of traveling in these tournaments and we have friends in town. So I told my wife, I'm like, I can't go wherever the tournament is. It's in Santa Barbara, which is not close, right? So that's an overnight thing. My wife goes with my son. It's a baseball tournament. It's two days. They leave like Friday, right after school. First of all, the school thing is crazy. They had teacher conferences all week, so they're out at noon every day, five days in a row, out at noon, off Monday for, uh, for Vets Day tomorrow.
1:36:03 Speaker 03 Okay. So anyway, they go on this thing. Uh, you're not going to have a problem with this, but I promise it's relatable. I see on the parent text chain that, um, my wife paid for the dinner last night and it's like, hey, um, there's no way to tell how much, uh, everybody paid. So you could vend me here and Venmo me here. And there wasn't a lot of, uh, oh, thank you so much. Yes, I will Venmo you right away. And I'm looking at this bill right when I have a ton on the Chiefs money line. It looks like they're about to fucking blow it. I'm like, no, it's like the worst news I saw on my phone in months.
1:36:42 Bill Simmons? Well, you had the Chiefs tied to a whole bunch of games yesterday, right?
1:36:45 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, exactly. I had a lot of from Saturday coming over. I'm like, shit, I'm going to get 30% of the money back. But anyway, that's no big deal. Whatever that ends up being, fine. My kid goes, um, they win, they come in second place. And there's a picture of the team with their second place rings and everybody's fun. It was happy. It was like, like five or six games and they during the weekend and they had their rings. And I'm scanning the picture and there's my kid with a sour puss face, not even showing his ring, purposely putting his hand behind his back because he is not, he's not okay with coming in second place. And I was like, and that, so he just came home before the podcast. They just made it home. I was like, dude, look
1:37:29 Speaker 03 at this. You look ridiculous here. This kid's laying on the dirt, like celebrating, waving, showing their rings. You, he's like, I don't like it. I don't even like the ring. I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna display it. It was like, it's like a kind of like a nice ring for a kid. I was like, you're a Cowboys fan and a Mets fan. You happen to be used to losing by now.
1:37:49 Bill Simmons? Second place is great.
1:37:51 Speaker 03 Yes, exactly. Look at, look at how the country is reacting to second place.
1:37:57 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:37:58 Speaker 03 You should love it. So I don't know if I should push this more or where should I be? This is a delicate balance, right?
1:38:05 Bill Simmons? Counter. I love it. I love, he just, he's a, he's a championship kid.
1:38:10 Speaker 03 Really?
1:38:10 Bill Simmons? He just wants titles. That's it. Yeah.
1:38:12 Speaker 03 Like 8% of his team.
1:38:13 Bill Simmons? He's all about the titles.
1:38:15 Speaker 03 It's just him. All right. That's it.
1:38:17 Bill Simmons? He doesn't like this trophy generation we live in. He wants real ti- real titles.
1:38:21 Speaker 03 You know what?
1:38:22 Bill Simmons? Doesn't want to pat him back for a finishing second.
1:38:24 Speaker 03 I do respect it, but I'm gonna take that ring and sell it and try to get some of that dinner money back from last night. My wife will never recoup.
1:38:34 Bill Simmons? You don't think she's gonna be circling back a week from now? Like,
1:38:37 Speaker 03 No.
1:38:37 Bill Simmons? Hey, just a heads up.
1:38:39 Speaker 03 No fucking way.
1:38:40 Bill Simmons? Uh, some of you still owe me for dinner on Saturday.
1:38:43 Speaker 03 Cause it'll be like, well, Margaret owes me, but then I had a drink with her the other day. So it all evens out. It's all gonna even out somehow. Except there's gonna be no money coming our way.
1:38:53 Speaker 03 I do love the parents, though. I do. I have to say, most of them will listen to this podcast, but it just, the timing of it with the Chiefs and the field goal, it wasn't ideal.
1:39:04 Bill Simmons? So I went back to Boston, cause you know, my daughter plays soccer for Emerson. And she got, she was hurt last year, which we talked about on the pod. And she had a hamstring and then a knee thing, and the knee thing didn't go away, didn't go away. And by February, it still wasn't going away. So we started going to doctors to see what was going wrong. I didn't talk about this, but I had these different opinions from people thinking what it was. One of the doctors thought she might have like a partially torn ACL and we were like, oh my God, like you get surgery out for a year. Another one was like, no, it's just banged up. You gotta rehab the muscles around it. It's gonna heal. It's bru- you have a really bad bruise. Basically, every doctor said something different. So we decided,
1:39:48 Bill Simmons? all right, just rehab your legs, put real time and try to build everything up around, get in really good shape and see if you can come back. So she really was committed to it. The whole spring, the whole summer. She didn't play spring soccer. She didn't even really start practicing until August and just tried to work on her legs, getting back. And they put her on a minute schedule.
1:40:08 Bill Simmons? Raises up, raises up, and we get to beginning of October, start league play. She scores in the first game. Two days later, somebody bangs her in the knee. She's a bruised knee, like what Paul George had. So now she's like limping around and we're just like, and she's like, I'm so tired of being injured.
1:40:26 Bill Simmons? This sucks. And I'm thinking, I'm thinking like, this really might be it. Like I could see her. You know, like she's just so tired of being hurt. And so she was still playing, but not as much. And she was like 80, 90%, but not 100. And then the last week or so, she felt good again. And so they put, they gave her more minutes. So they were in the league playoffs and she played a lot of minutes in the Tuesday game. And they won and she scored. So they went, they had a round two game. So I was like, I'm fucking flying back. I was, I'm going back. That's it. So flew back. They had this game,
1:41:01 Bill Simmons? which they lost 1-0. It was like your classic soccer game that they had most of the chances and whatever. But she played like 78 minutes and she looked like her. It was the first time she really looked,
1:41:10 Speaker 03 Great.
1:41:11 Bill Simmons? You know, this last week where she's flying around and I was just thinking like, I was like, I thought it was gonna be over, you know, and now we got two years left, hopefully, and hopefully she could stay healthy. But I was thinking like with the stuff you talk about with your son, when you you go through all these little steps with them.
1:41:26 Speaker 03 Yeah.
1:41:26 Bill Simmons? Um, you know, from like AYSO in the beginning to when they're on club team and you kind of don't know when the journey's gonna end. And it was just really cool to watch her flying around a hundred percent. I was like, I didn't know if I was gonna see it again.
1:41:39 Speaker 03 That's great.
1:41:40 Bill Simmons? So now she's got two years left. She's gonna hopefully keep the legs going and, you know, you gotta keep your fingers crossed you never get hurt. But but we were talking about after I was like, you have two years left and then that's it. Um, especially like people who play D3. You know, a lot of them are doing it because they, you know, they're not getting paid to play for the school. It's not like when you get a scholarship in D1, but you really, the people that stick with it like really love it and she really loves it. So.
1:42:07 Speaker 03 That's awesome. There are pro leagues though. What do you, what do you mean?
1:42:10 Bill Simmons? No, there are, but I, you know. But you see, as, as your kids get older and you see all the teammates they had and people start dropping out, right? And they drop out for different reasons. They get hurt. They don't want to keep the commitment to it. And at some point, people hit some sort of thing where they're like, do I really love doing this and having a part of my life or I don't? And they can, that's when they, they kind of go sideways with it. And it might happen when they're 15, 16, maybe they get a boyfriend, like.
1:42:37 Speaker 03 Right.
1:42:38 Bill Simmons? And then some people stick with it. So she, you know, she's, she still really loves it. But it was, uh, it was super cool watching her fly around.
1:42:45 Speaker 03 That's great.
1:42:45 Bill Simmons? Because it was like, I was thinking like, I've been watching her play soccer since I was, you know, since 2009.
1:42:51 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
1:42:52 Bill Simmons? 2008, whatever, whatever. Uh, but it was cool. I was glad I flew back. We got to hang out, went to the Celtic game on Friday. Um, good times.
1:43:00 Speaker 03 Well, listen, I'm proud of her to, for scoring a goal. I have the second place ring if she'd like, it might be a little small, but if she, I could ship it to her there in Anderson. But no, love, you don't, it's a great, it's fun and enjoy the next two years. But it gets me mad that. How did they, why are there four opinions on this knee? Like if you had had surgery, that dude would have been robbed of that.
1:43:22 Bill Simmons? I know. Well, and who knows if we even made the right decision or not, you know? Now, I'm sure we're gonna look at it again, but it's, it's, the body's like a crazy thing. You have these different people look at it and it's like they're right or wrong. They see what they see, right?
1:43:35 Speaker 03 And, and they judge it a certain way, but um, you know, sometimes you start wondering, is somebody snake bit?
1:43:42 Bill Simmons? You know, like, god damn, how do you, how does you bang, bang the same knee right after it was finally out?
1:43:49 Speaker 03 Right.
1:43:49 Bill Simmons? Uh, anyway, she, she loves it. It was fun. It was, uh, you know, I think next year's team will be good. So it was a good experience.
1:43:56 Speaker 03 Nice. That's good. Um, that's good.
1:43:59 Bill Simmons? I'm trying to think, I have one more parent corner thing for you I wanted to mention. Oh, I can't, see, I can't do any of the Ben Simmons ones.
1:44:07 Bill Simmons? Can we do like a Patreon where it's just like, it's a subscription one?
1:44:13 Speaker 03 Well, I don't know. If the subscription, if it's worth, we'll pay for your medical expenses, I guess so, yeah.
1:44:19 Bill Simmons? I just really wish I could do the Ben Simmons ones.
1:44:22 Speaker 03 If you asked him ahead of time, said, can I talk about this? He would absolutely say no.
1:44:27 Bill Simmons? I should probably, we should probably be recording them and then 10 years from now I can run some of them. When he's like 27, seems like it would be the way to go.
1:44:37 Bill Simmons? All right. That's it for parent corner. What else do you have? Anything?
1:44:39 Speaker 03 That's it. Uh, through the ringer with Tate against the odds a couple of times this week. Um, we did the ring of pregame show. I'm eight and two with my wisest wagers. That Texans, I was gonna be so mad if the Texans plus three and a half didn't cover. And, uh, Roy Jones Jr. On Cousin Sal's winning weekend, this, we're gonna talk about the Tyson fight. I don't, a lot of people now like Tyson.
1:45:01 Bill Simmons? What are the odds on the Tyson fight?
1:45:03 Speaker 03 It's plus 230. It was plus 250. It's tightening up and I bet it's even tighter than, than that come like Friday. I don't know.
1:45:13 Bill Simmons? You seem fond of that about the Tyson's fight. It's everything you like and everything you don't like all wrapped into one sporting event.
1:45:21 Speaker 03 What's the most, the most likely scenario? He just gets jabbed to death. They give Paul the decision because he's the more marketable fighter and Tyson doesn't care? Is that probably the most? Right. He wins by decision.
1:45:35 Bill Simmons? Tyson's so old. I just don't understand how he would win a fight against anybody.
1:45:41 Speaker 03 Yeah. I watched Paul against Fury again, the, you know, the Tyson Fury's brother, who was the only real boxer.
1:45:48 Bill Simmons? Yeah.
1:45:48 Speaker 03 He was good. He's decent. He was decent against him. He lost, but he was decent. Yeah. We're betting Tyson. Who are we kidding?
1:45:55 Bill Simmons? Yeah, we're definitely betting Tyson. We were watching that fight together too.
1:45:58 Speaker 03 Yeah. Hell, yeah.
1:46:01 Bill Simmons? All right, Cus. Good job by you as always.
1:46:03 Speaker 03 Good job by you, buddy.
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