A Great Week 11, Burrow vs. Herbert, Allen vs. Mahomes, Rodgers vs. Father Time, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

The Ringer's Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal to discuss the Chargers surviving an incredible Bengals comeback, the Bills snapping the Chiefs' win streak in what turned out to be the game of the day, and the Lions making history while becoming the Super Bowl favorite (1:50). Then, they discuss a super physical Ravens-Steelers game, Jets-Colts, Bears-Packers, Patriots-Rams, Falcons-Broncos, Saints-Browns, and more (23:44). Finally, it's Guess the Lines for NFL Week 12 (1:02:55), before discussing Mike Tyson vs. Jake Paul, and closing the show with Parent Corner (1:21:48). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Cousin Sal Producer: Kyle Crichton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:02Bill Simmons?

  Coming up, probably the best football day of the year. We're going to talk about it next. This episode is brought to you by Expedia. You know how at the end of the season, your team goes to Cancun? Sometimes earlier than expected, sometimes after blowing a 3-1 series lead. But what if you went to Cancun with Expedia? Save up to 30% when you bundle and save. You can book the flight or the hotel now, then book the rest later. In all fairness, though, hopefully your team doesn't go to Cancun. 1-2-3 Cancun. Or if they do, you go with them. Expedia, the one place you go to go places. Sign in to save, savings vary. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right, it's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tip Off.

• 0:46Bill Simmons?

  Plus, as the official beer sponsor of the NBA, Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26-27. No purchase necessary. Open to U.S. residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry. Entry deadlines, prizes and details. We're also brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. New rewatch of us coming on Monday night. We did The Replacements, the Keanu Reeves football movie that has grown on me a lot over the last two and a half decades. Van Lathan joined me.

• 1:28Bill Simmons?

  And then afterwards, we taped something for the Ringer Movies channel as well. Because The Rock had a movie coming out, Red One, that we knew was going to bomb, which it did. But we did a whole thing about The Rock's movie career. And just what happened? How has his movie career not been better? And why are our expectations so low for every movie that The Rock is in? So you can find that on the Ringer Movies channel as well. You can find all the videos and clips from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. You can check out the ringer.com as well. Great website.

• 2:03Bill Simmons?

  Lot of good stuff going on at The Ringer lately. I hope you're checking out Todd McShay's new podcast too, which was going live on YouTube on Saturday nights, last couple of weeks, which during college football, as stuff was happening. So great to have Todd aboard. Great to have Jacoby and Goldsberry aboard as well. I hope you're listening to mismatch because Jacoby and Verno have been really, really funny together. So there you go. On this podcast, Cousin Sal is going to join us like he does every Sunday night. It was the best football day of the year. We broke it down live on YouTube. You're about to hear it first, our friends from Pearl Jam.

• 3:01Speaker 01

  Oh Mike.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Mike, oh Mike.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Justin Herbert is throwing such rockets. I thought Elon Musk was living inside his bicep. I really did. Mike, I got no fluids left in my body. I got no fluids left, Mike. If they show those commercials with someone making dirty tacos again, I don't know what I'm gonna do outside so far. I don't know what quarterback I like more, Mike. Oh Mike.

• 3:34Bill Simmons?

  What a game. Chargers Bengals. I tweeted this with like two minutes left. We've seen that exact Chargers game before. We've seen that exact Bengals game before. We're taping this at nine o'clock. The game just ended. And it was just, it was just who's gonna do what they do better? Are the Bengals just gonna blow a completely winnable game and kick themselves after? Are the Chargers just gonna have a massive choke in a game that seemed over at halftime? And I really didn't know until McPherson lined up for 51. I'm just like, he's not making this. It's not going, it's not going in. But then, Justin Herbert, much maligned, not a lot of clutch moments for Justin, made some big throws, won the game.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  You and he's lucky too, because you texted, you're like, I'm, I'm gonna torch this mother effort. He loses this game, something like that.

• 4:23Bill Simmons?

  I'm sad.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  I'm tired of this motherfucker.

• 4:25Bill Simmons?

  I say, what the fuck?

• 4:28Speaker 01

  But no, I went through my Justin Herbert progression too, as a fan. You know how quarterbacks go through their progression, tight end, slant, curl. Okay. I'll throw the screen. I went through the whole thing like, oh my God, look how great he is. And the first, this is, how did anyone ever compare him to Tua? He's the best. This is ridiculous. They're gonna upset somebody in the playoffs too. What the hell is he doing? How does he throw seven incomplete passes in a row? He's crushing us. He's overthrowing McConkey and, uh, and now he's back to being great, I guess.

• 4:55Bill Simmons?

  Well, huge fumble.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:57Bill Simmons?

  Uh, when he, he was, he was really running around like he used to a couple of years ago and enjoying the studio space. And then he had that fumble. When he fumbled, for anyone who says that momentum doesn't matter in a football game, that fumble was like, oh no, here we go. I mean, this game had five momentum swings as it was going, but, uh, so we had that fumble and then just sailed it over McConkey's head, who was wide open, but then he made up for it on that last drive with some big plays. Is that, is that a better win for the Chargers or a worse loss for the Bengals? I'm actually leaning toward worst loss, right?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  They're all like this though.

• 5:32Bill Simmons?

  They're four and seven now, the Bengals.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  I know. They're done. Like.

• 5:36Bill Simmons?

  Well, they're, but they're not done. They're like, they're AFC, they're not done.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  Nah, I know, but every game's like this, right? It's like, I, you know what? They're just like a great sparring partner. That, that's basically what they are at this point.

• 5:47Bill Simmons?

  Oh, I like this. They're like Razor Reddick.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, they are. Yeah. They're gonna give you their all and they're gonna come up short or they're gonna win and it's just, but they can't put together three games in a row, I don't think. Whether, when I haven't really, uh, scoured their schedule, but I guess I'll take a look here.

• 6:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, I'll do it right now.

• 6:03Speaker 01

  They're, they're gonna, they're gonna get tripped up somewhere.

• 6:06Bill Simmons?

  The question is whether it's 10 wins or nine. Because right now, right now, they're somehow four and seven, where they have terrible loss this week, tail end of the game, Baltimore, week 10, terrible, Baltimore, week five, terrible, Washington, week three, KC, week two. They've, they've had basically five either war games and they've lost their 0 for 5 in the either war games. But um.

• 6:27Speaker 01

  They have to sweep the Steelers as I look at it.

• 6:29Bill Simmons?

  Five week next week, two with the Steelers left. They have at Dallas, at Tennessee, home Cleveland, and home Denver, week 17.

• 6:36Speaker 01

  Well, that's it probably, right?

• 6:38Bill Simmons?

  So they, they could get to nine. I don't see 10. 10 means they run the slate the rest of the way.

• 6:44Speaker 01

  So the Broncos would be the seven, right? That's the one we're eyeing for the seven seed. So that might be for the seven seed, but I don't know. Are they really going to beat the Cowboys? Of course they are.

• 6:53Bill Simmons?

  AFC playoff picture. Yeah, they're four and seven. Miami's four and six. Indy's five and six. Denver's six and five. Chargers are now seven and three. Yeah, it's, it's going to be that Denver, Indy, Cincy, Miami. One of those four is going. And Cincy is the best team out of those four. It's not close.

• 7:12Speaker 01

  It's crazy how good they are. Like, how is this team not going to be in the top seven in that conference? And then I think like, I look at it from a fan's perspective, like, oh, we gotta get him as a football fan. But I also look like, oh, I want a shitty team as a seven seed I could bet against, right? And this, this wouldn't be them. Denver might be at some point.

• 7:30Bill Simmons?

  Hench has already locked down Pittsburgh, two seed, Denver, seven seed as the Shaky's Saturday first playoff game of round one game.

• 7:38Speaker 01

  Oh, you think?

• 7:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Russell Wilson, Bo Nix, Sean Payton, Mike Tomlin. I don't know if they'll be able to top that for the Shaky's game.

• 7:47Speaker 01

  Didn't the AFC South sign like a 12 year deal with Shaky's? Like they're, they're in, they're in till 2038 or something?

• 7:53Bill Simmons?

  Notre Dame with NBC?

• 7:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whoever wins AFC South and hosts that four, five.

• 7:58Bill Simmons?

  So that would have to be Tampa, like Washington? Or Tampa, Arizona? I guess Tampa, Arizona would be tough to beat.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  AFC South. I was thinking AFC South. I was thinking Houston and uh.

• 8:09Bill Simmons?

  Oh.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  I don't know. Yeah, no, no. Who would be the five? Houston, Baltimore, I guess.

• 8:13Bill Simmons?

  Houston's going to be a three seed, probably, right?

• 8:16Speaker 01

  Are they?

• 8:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. No, four seed? Oh, yeah, you're right. Buffalo, Pittsburgh, KC. Yeah, Houston's the four seed.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:24Bill Simmons?

  So it'd be Houston. So Houston Chargers or Pittsburgh, Denver for Shaky's. But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

• 8:30Speaker 01

  That's fine.

• 8:32Bill Simmons?

  This was the day we talked about the kicking was too good. What are we going to do? Should we move the uprights closer? And then today happened where it's just kickers all over the place, just murdering teams, including McPherson in this game with two long ones where a couple of years ago it looked like he was Justin Tucker in waiting.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  And then today. He still looks like Justin Tucker. Yeah.

• 8:52Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but that's not why they.

• 8:54Speaker 01

  Except the new version.

• 8:55Bill Simmons?

  Now he looks like Justin Tucker right now. But that's not why they lost. They lost because they fell behind 24 to six and and dug too big of a hole for themselves. It's funny though, when you watch them, when Higgins is playing and he's missed like four and a half games and they have Chase on one side and Higgins on the other side, it really is one and Chase Brown, who I think has been really good this season. And you watch and you go, man, this, how do you stop these guys? It just feels like it's eight yards to the side. Anytime they want, they can go deep. Even when they miss the deep throws, they like just miss them. And I don't know, they just seem like one of the best five offenses to me. I don't get it.

• 9:32Speaker 01

  And then the Chargers did too though, right? And then they, I don't know. Look, I'd suck as a coach, but you and I were like, why aren't they running the ball? Run the ball a little bit. Herbert obviously doesn't have it for this 20 minute segment of the game. Give it to Dobbins, who's like the fastest guy in Southern California and see what happens, you know? And we saw.

• 9:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they so Dobbins was 11 for 56 and Edwards was six for 27. And then Herbert ran five for 65. But yeah, that both of those guys, Dobbins and Edwards were four and a half a carry. Dobbins ripped off that last one for the winner. But I was thinking the same thing because as I know the receivers have overachieved for the Chargers, but it's still Will Disly, it's still rookie McConkey, it's still Quentin Johnston, it's still Josh Palmer had a huge drop on the second last drive. And one of the weird things, the Chargers were like dying to give this game away. They got the ball back with what 145 left after the missed field goal? And you have to run on first down to kill some clock. And they don't. They just threw it three straight times. They gave the ball back in like 13

• 10:36Bill Simmons?

  seconds to the Bengals and then the Bengals couldn't do anything either. But some of the clock management was bad. I usually think Harbaugh is pretty good at this stuff. Zach Taylor is not. I usually have confidence he's gonna do the wrong thing. And now we're gonna lose, uh, middle seat Doug tomorrow. And Zach Taylor is gonna move up the what the fuck are you doing rankings, I think.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Interesting. He's gotta keep middle seat Doug in a, in a job there. Yeah. Uh, that's gonna be fun. That's, that's done, right? That's done. I don't know where you want to jump around to, but that game, but, uh,

• 11:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I have a spot for them. We're, we'll get to them later. Do we?

• 11:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 11:08Bill Simmons?

  So best Collinsworth moments? Um, he had that one where Burrow scrambled out and like did the Houdini thing and then hit somebody. And Tirico finished his whole play by play for another eight seconds and Collinsworth can just hold the laugh now. It's, it's almost like Richard, who, who is the tantric sex guy? Sting?

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, that's him.

• 11:29Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it's almost like how tantric sex people can hold the orgasm. Collinsworth can just hold it. Tirico finishes and it is a, ah, Mike, Joe Burrow just made the greatest play I've ever seen. There is the greatest play I've ever seen, Mike. That's a spectacular play. Spectacular.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's good. I, I hate to brag on him because I really enjoy it.

• 11:51Bill Simmons?

  No, I love Collinsworth. This is all out of love. We love Collinsworth.

• 11:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, we love you, Chris. Yeah.

• 11:56Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, speaking of announcers that we've had fun with, I've had more fun than you, but I thought Romo was really good today, too.

• 12:03Speaker 01

  Excellent.

• 12:04Bill Simmons?

  Like he, he has stepped that, he had a couple rocky years there, but I thought he was excellent today. We had good announcers today.

• 12:09Speaker 01

  Just a lot of little things that people don't appreciate, but like when, you know, when Mahomes went to the line of scrimmage and was like definitely not gonna draw them off sides. And he's like, he's overacting. When a quarterback overacts, they're just, they're letting the clock run out. They're not gonna, it's like, yeah, you're right. That's, why didn't we pick that up? Yeah.

• 12:26Bill Simmons?

  So big picture with this Chargers team, because I think they needed one of these. Feeling good about themselves. They're only giving up 13 points a game. Like, how good is this team? They kind of needed, uh, a Nut Crunch game and they got it. That's for damn sure. But big picture, they're not gonna catch the Chiefs.

• 12:46Bill Simmons?

  They're in the hunt for the five seed. And I think you want the five seed this year because you go to, you get to go to at Houston.

• 12:53Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:54Bill Simmons?

  In, uh, in round one, which is I think way more palatable than going to Buffalo or, you know, going to Pittsburgh slash Baltimore. So I think they can get to the five seed, right? Did you see anything today that made you worried about them other than the fact that they almost choked away an 18-point lead?

• 13:11Speaker 01

  So you would say, well, they would get there. Wouldn't you think it's either Pittsburgh or Baltimore in the five?

• 13:17Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. They have the same record as Baltimore now.

• 13:20Speaker 01

  Same record. They both have four. They have four?

• 13:22Bill Simmons?

  Baltimore is four. Baltimore is eight and three. Chargers are seven and three.

• 13:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

• 13:28Bill Simmons?

  And I think Baltimore is a harder schedule down, uh, down the stretch.

• 13:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's all, it's all a mess there. I, I agree. And yeah, they're going to go on the road. But the biggest takeaway here is they had fans.

• 13:39Bill Simmons?

  We said last week, we were like, well, here's the one game where they're not going to have fans. That, that was about as loud of a fan base as we've had in LA, right?

• 13:48Speaker 01

  I, I feel like we should, uh, there's no way to quantify it, right? But I feel like their approval rating goes up each week at home.

• 13:55Bill Simmons?

  Impressed. Well, I was impressed by the, by the Bengals that, that they had that many fans. I don't really fully understand it.

• 14:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's true. That's true too. But yeah.

• 14:04Bill Simmons?

  The Chargers.

• 14:05Speaker 01

  They're coming here to see Harbaugh.

• 14:06Bill Simmons?

  But it's for the Chargers. It's kind of good to, you almost feel like you're tested because it really did feel like the crowd was loud in the, uh, second half. I like this Chargers team. Khalil Mack didn't play today.

• 14:19Bill Simmons?

  I like that they can run the ball and I, I think they'll, that's what they'll probably learn from big picture is maybe run the ball more. If I'm the Bengals, I don't know how Zach Taylor survives a season. This is, could be another job that's open. And I was thinking like, it's a pretty interesting Belichick job. He's going to get one of these jobs, right? It's an interesting Belichick job. It's a really interesting Brable job, but.

• 14:44Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Steelers are eight and two. The Ravens are seven and four. I fucked up. So the Chargers have a better record than.

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what I thought. Yeah. Um, yeah, well, he did Cleveland, right? He did. He did Cleveland before Belichick, right?

• 14:55Bill Simmons?

  He can't. He's not going back to Cleveland. Yeah.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  No, no, I'm just saying he could do. He loves Ohio clearly. No, I think this is definitely the best spot for him, but it's not. I don't know. It's not the, not the offense. It doesn't really matter, right? Like get rid of Luana Romo, who I don't know. It's been inconsistent for years now. Yeah. Don't know.

• 15:15Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, if you're going for wins, if you're Belichick, if you're, one of the reasons you're coming back is to break the record.

• 15:20Speaker 01

  No doubt.

• 15:21Bill Simmons?

  Burrow is the best quarterback available because otherwise you're looking at Trevor Lawrence. You're looking at whatever the Giants do. You're looking at whoever the hell the Raiders QB is going to be. So the big game of the day, this was an awesome football day. I would, I would say this was the best start to finish day we had, right?

• 15:38Speaker 01

  For sure, for sure. And it gets bad, gets a little lean next week, but uh, yeah, I love this. They were like six good matchups, I thought.

• 15:44Bill Simmons?

  What was great was no London game, no Germany game. So we just were able to start off hot with some really good games, but then Bills Chiefs became the best game of the day.

• 15:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:55Bill Simmons?

  And I was thinking, because the, the Bills pulled it out and it was a really good win for them. I think beating KC, is it, is it the most impressive thing you could do in a regular season in any sport right now? Where the fans are the most excited, like, ah, we beat blank. Scott, they have to be the mountain, right?

• 16:15Speaker 01

  I think so. I, I mean, it's so exciting. I, I read, I don't know if this is true, uh, like fans were jumping on through tables like before the game even, before it even started. Outside, yes, in the parking lot, this was happening. Yeah, but the problem is they beat them in the regular season before, right? Last year or maybe even like twice. And then they like, you know, Kansas City's just got that try it in January chip, but it's going to be a lot easier if they, you know, if they get the one seed and this brings them closer.

• 16:43Bill Simmons?

  I think it's a little more special because it was their first loss and it's week 11.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 16:47Bill Simmons?

  You know, you hang that one on, but I did write down, and I was texting with a Chiefs fan who predicted this early in the first quarter, not Nick Wright, another Chiefs fan.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 16:57Bill Simmons?

  Um, little Milton Berle-ish performance from the Chiefs today.

• 17:03Bill Simmons?

  Obviously, they want to win. They're trying to win, but I don't feel like they brought out the kitchen sink. Like Kelsey was two catches, eight yards, right? They really was trying to get Worthy involved to see what they have with him. They're trying to get Hopkins involved, trying to run the ball a little bit, but for the most part, like there's another gear for these guys and the gear is Kelsey. And it's not like the Bills were like, we've taken out Travis Kelsey. They just, there's games where they put him in the garage and we've talked about it the last couple of years where it's clearly a Travis is in the garage game. This is a Travis is in the garage game. Yeah, I think if this is in January, he has eight catches for 80 yards and a bunch of first downs.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  I was, I was looking at the box going, you're probably right because it really doesn't make sense. Cause I look at it aside from Allen, they had 49 yards rushing, right? And they still won time possession by eight minutes and the defense was very good. They allowed like 260 the whole game. So I don't know what to make of the, of the Chiefs. I was waiting for like a bad call towards the end there, but that was a ballsy, ballsy call by McDermott. Like they likely lose the game if they go up five and kick a field goal on the fourth and two, they went for it or even more.

• 18:11Bill Simmons?

  Fourth and two, they're up two. There, it's a little long for a field goal. And I don't think anyone watching the game or in the building thought Tyler Bass was making that field goal.

• 18:21Speaker 01

  No.

• 18:21Bill Simmons?

  So they go for it. And it turns out to be like a signature awesome Josh Allen play. But, you know, we make fun of coaches all the time. I thought it was clearly, you gotta go for it. Roma thought the same thing.

• 18:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:33Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and then you just put, he was, that's what Roma said, I think before the play, like you gotta put this in Josh's hands. You have to let Josh decide the game, which is what they did. And he ends up coming up with a signature play, but it was a tough one for everyone who had the Chiefs in a tease.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  I was gonna say, he didn't have to beat him by nine.

• 18:50Bill Simmons?

  It was just brutal. I had multiple teases in real life, million dollar picks. Sheil Kapadia, our guy tweeted after the game, 124 Mahomes games. How many times has he lost by more than eight points?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  I know it was 19 before the last loss by, uh,

• 19:11Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 19:11Speaker 01

  All right. Okay.

• 19:12Bill Simmons?

  No, no, no.

• 19:14Speaker 01

  More than eight, uh,

• 19:15Bill Simmons?

  More than eight points.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Fifteen.

• 19:20Bill Simmons?

  Five.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Jesus.

• 19:23Bill Simmons?

  Wow. That made me feel worse about my two teases.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Not even early.

• 19:25Bill Simmons?

  I had them with Pittsburgh. I had them with Denver, my Detroit minus three, two and a half. Like I was just, God.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  And we needed, of course, I had it too, but well, like 30, 24 will be all right. Casey needs two scores. It'll be a soft Buffalo defense, right? They'll come down, they'll kick a field goal. I don't know who was kicked, you know, Butker sat out, which is such a girly thing to do. Good thing he's super secure, but I don't know what they, I thought we were going to cut it to six and we were going to be all right, but we didn't get there.

• 19:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know, it happened. This is how you really know the game didn't matter for the Chiefs. Mahomes had that huge scramble to the 30 when they were down nine, where they could have like, you know, either tried to go for a TD or kick field goal, called back.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:07Bill Simmons?

  Flag on the play. Holding on the Chiefs. It was like, oh my God.

• 20:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:12Bill Simmons?

  Wow, they called a penalty and the Chiefs in a crunch time moment and pulled back a Mahomes play. We've made fucking history. And then Chiefs fans get mad when you bring this up, but it's just a fact. They, they, those things never get called for them ever. But for some reason that one got called and that was, that was it for our team.

• 20:28Speaker 01

  Both things could be true. They're, they're a great, great team.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  Great team that gets crazy calls.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Dynasty potentially, and they get calls at the end. Yeah.

• 20:36Bill Simmons?

  I mean, their whole, their whole dynasty started out with the D Ford penalty, where they lose to the Pats and then

• 20:42Speaker 01

  That was against them.

• 20:43Bill Simmons?

  Since then, that was against them and since then, they've, uh, they've had some good ones, but Buffalo, I mean, you mentioned it earlier, 19 carries for 49 yards.

• 20:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:54Bill Simmons?

  I thought, big picture, I said this last week to you and it's a weird point to make. Good loss for the Chiefs, as weird as that sounds. Like get that undefeated thing over with. Now you don't have to worry about it. Just, you know, just get through it. You don't have the pressure of it. I, I still feel like that 07 Pats, which I wanted them to go undefeated. I'm not saying I would take that back. That was so much fun. I loved that season. But they're better off if Baltimore beats them in that Monday night game. The whole season's different in a good way, and I think they probably win the Super Bowl if they lose that game. So for the Chiefs, it's fine. They're going to go 15 and two, 14 and three, whatever it is, they're going to win the AFC.

• 21:30Speaker 01

  You just don't want to lose that one seed, right? Like where do you think the one seed is more important? In the AFC or the NFC? I kind of think the AFC.

• 21:37Bill Simmons?

  Well, I think in the NFC, it's almost a wrap at this point with the trade schedule. I think they'd have to have like five more injuries.

• 21:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 21:45Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it matters much to the Chiefs because it feels like they could just go and win anywhere. Right. I think it would matter more for Pittsburgh.

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:52Bill Simmons?

  If Pittsburgh got it, like when you think like how, how, how kind of crummy Russ was today. And they, you know, were still able to pull one out. I, I kind of feel like home field is mandatory. I don't even, not even positive. We'll talk about that game later. I'm not even positive what they do for the quarterback situation going forward because Russ was not great, but Fields comes in.

• 22:13Speaker 01

  Keeps winning.

• 22:14Bill Simmons?

  Fields comes in and slides a yard before the marker in a game that would end it. Additional thoughts out of this. So are the Lions officially the best team now? I think they are, right?

• 22:27Speaker 01

  Well, according to FanDuel and the oddsmakers, they, this is the first, not, not only the first time this year, the first time ever they're favored to win the Super Bowl.

• 22:37Bill Simmons?

  Is that true?

• 22:38Speaker 01

  That is true. I would make something up.

• 22:39Bill Simmons?

  Was that one of our, was that one of our FanDuel people told us that?

• 22:43Speaker 01

  No, I'm just looking at, oh no, I saw it. I saw multiple people reported it on Twitter, but they're plus 420. KC plus 500, Ravens plus 650, Bills 7-1. First time ever. They've been playing for 309 years.

• 22:58Bill Simmons?

  We have, uh, not a small amount of Lions futures.

• 23:03Speaker 01

  No, right.

• 23:04Bill Simmons?

  With the one seed, with the NFC North, with the conference, Super Bowl matchup, best record. So the better they do with that. Yeah. So Detroit's plus 420, KC is 5-1. Baltimore plus 950 on FanDuel or 650.

• 23:20Speaker 01

  650, yeah.

• 23:21Bill Simmons?

  650, Buffalo 7-1, Eagles 9-1. And then the Niners are the sixth team right now, 14-1. I don't understand that at all.

• 23:29Speaker 01

  They're not even favored to win the division, but they're.

• 23:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I don't get that. Plus when you watch them, they're not passing the eye test either. So who's the MVP favorite then? Because?

• 23:40Bill Simmons?

  We'll get to Lamar after the break, but it wasn't like Lamar was lighting it on fire. So Josh Allen, now the MVP favorite, plus 150. Lamar's two to one because he sucked today. Mm hmm. He didn't suck. He didn't suck. Tucker missed two field goals. Lamar was fine. He didn't suck. Stop it. He didn't suck. We were talking about January Lamar is back. I asked, I asked you like, I was like, do you think like at halftime, the players have wished him a happy new year? Cause it is, it is January all over again for that guy. Is White Lotus starting? Yeah. Yeah, it was January and Lamar was rare for Mahomes is 12 to one to win the MVP at this point. Justin Herbert at 25 to one, not, not interesting.

• 24:24Bill Simmons?

  If, if like they ran the slate, I'm just thinking for like long shot bets. Got to be a top two seed, which is why I think like Jared Goff, he had that pitiful performance last week, but I think he went out and said, hey, I got five interceptions last week. Can you get me 14 touchdowns today? Can we score in our first seven drives? Yeah. Can I climb back in this race? Just, uh, everyone just be open and they were. We're taking a break for the podcast.

• 24:53Bill Simmons?

  This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Every football player brings something different to the field. Maybe they have a cannon arm, speed, power, maybe they have their own podcast. That being said, no two players are exactly alike. And the same is true off the field. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you. So they can help personalize coverage for your life and budget like a good neighbor. State Farm is there. This episode is brought to you by NBA 2K27. We just had one of the craziest off seasons we've had in the NBA, which is perfect for 2K because every 2K season can be one of the craziest off seasons. Uh, the whole league shifted in real life. It could shift to an NBA 2K27.

• 25:38Bill Simmons?

  The best place to compete with these new look rosters and also try to figure out who's on what roster. You can see how, uh, new teams and new dynamic duos match up. You can play Philly, feel what it's like to have all of their new guys with the old guys. And you can also take a struggling franchise. To the NBA Finals if you want, because it'll never happen in real life for a couple of the struggling franchises. You know who I'm talking about. Anyway, NBA 2K lets you experience every transaction and storyline right from your home. Pick up your copy of NBA 2K 27 right now.

• 26:17Bill Simmons?

  Pittsburgh Baltimore. You mentioned earlier, January Lamar is back. Chris Boswell, fantasy MVP today, six field goals. He had 25 points in our league prompting Hench, our buddy, to have a conniption about field goal kickers and should, should we just eliminate them from leagues and all that stuff? I gotta say, I actually kind of like having field goal kickers.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  Oh, you do?

• 26:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I do. I do. I like it.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  I like not having to worry about it. We, you know, but Hench, to be fair, when, when like Borough has 46 points, he wants to eliminate quarterbacks too. So he threw all over the place. But it's kind of lucky, but we also, we could have guessed that exact score, right? It was either going to be 1816, 1817, or 1918. Only three options, really. So perfectly scripted.

• 27:10Bill Simmons?

  All the Steelers scores are scores that sound like they were a world war or an American war from the 1700s or 1800s. I wrote down 2024 Steelers, the most likely team in NFL history to win 18 to 16. It just, it just, it's the most Steelersy score you can get. But so Russ threw a red zone pick that was among the worst passes of the year. That felt like it was going to flip the game and did not. He was two for nine in the red zone for seven yards.

• 27:40Speaker 01

  When he escaped that sack, he had to escape a crazy sack to get there. And I was like, wow, that's 2014 Rush and Russ. And then it's like, oh, that's 2022 Russ right there with that interception.

• 27:53Bill Simmons?

  That's post COVID Russ. So they're eight and two and yet, and their defense was really good today, even though they got some help with the field goal kicking, but.

• 28:05Bill Simmons?

  The Russ thing combined with only really having one receiver, I just worry about them in January. The fact that they're eight and two with all the Pittsburgh, like I have a bunch of futures for them. It seems like they have a really good chance to win the division now, but just big picture. It just feels like they're not going to be able to get to 20 points in a playoff game like this. It feels like 18, 19 is probably the limit for them, right?

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Well, is there any scenario where he's not the worst quarterback in the AFC playoffs?

• 28:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, now that Bo Nix is looking like he's coming out of a sports movie. This is a big one for you. You have a lot of Bo Nix stock.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  A lie. I think he tightened that offensive rookie of the year gap there. Yeah, I just, here's something interesting before we move on from Baltimore, Pittsburgh.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  Borough nine touchdowns against Baltimore combined in two games. Didn't walk away with a win. Steelers had no touchdowns today.

• 29:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  18-16.

• 29:05Bill Simmons?

  No touchdowns.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  It's a fun, it's a fun league.

• 29:08Bill Simmons?

  Russ was 23 for 36 for 205, but it's that second receiver thing. So Pickens was eight for 89 and made his, every week he makes just an unbelievable catch that you just can't believe.

• 29:22Bill Simmons?

  Number two receiver was Washington, two for 42. Friarmouth was two for 14. Calvin Austin was one for minus one. Skoronic was one for four. And that's it for their receivers.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:37Bill Simmons?

  And at some point that's going to come back to bite them, but their, you know, their defense was great. Then Queen got an awesome, awesome, awesome turnover for them that they really needed. And I hate to say phrases like this, but they kind of have Lamar's number. He's one and four against them now and it feels legit, right?

• 29:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know what like, I don't know. This is the team Lamar doesn't want to play in the playoffs. I think he's going to get his wish too, and he's going to have to do it on the road because they can't beat them. And, you know, but Henry didn't go for 115 either. That was another thing. Like this defense is damn good when they need to be, but they really do have to figure out the quarterback thing. I feel bad for Tomlin. When Fields is sliding, you mentioned it, like the thick white 40 stripe is the first down and he's sliding like two yards short. Like I don't know, it was like a Johnny Knoxville fail video or something.

• 30:29Bill Simmons?

  Their two running backs were 27 for 104. It felt worse watching it. It felt like they were having trouble getting unlocked, but you know, they moved the chains enough, I guess. Defense is great. They didn't get defense, field goal kicking, good special teams, home field advantage for a couple of rounds. They're going to be heard from them. I have a lot of questions about them winning on the road though, with what we've seen from us the last two weeks.

• 30:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:58Bill Simmons?

  And Fields isn't going to be any better than that. All right, next one. Oh, speaking of that game, R I P. Justin Tucker as the guy you're afraid of for big kicks. We already knew it was coming, but today it kind of cemented it.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  I'm afraid of him. If I bet the Ravens, I'm afraid of him. But yeah, this, uh, but I guess last year he was maybe not just as bad, but really bad from 50 plus. So they can see the writing on the wall with this guy.

• 31:25Bill Simmons?

  One other thing. So the, the Christmas game, one of them on Netflix is Pittsburgh, Kansas City, which we were talking about last week, maybe not mattering if Casey had this crazy record, but now it's probably going to matter. And that is suddenly an amazing Christmas game. If they're separated by one game, it's going to be like the opposite of Mike Tyson against Jake Paul.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  Oh, that was pretty good. I don't know. I don't know what you were watching.

• 31:50Bill Simmons?

  We're saving that. Just, just for people listening, Sal and I will be talking about that fight.

• 31:54Speaker 01

  We watched it together. Yes.

• 31:56Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, we did watch it together.

• 31:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a good one. Our families are going to hate us on Christmas. We're going to be glued to that one. It'll be good Steelers Chiefs.

• 32:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I felt like my family already didn't like me that much on Christmas, but I feel like this could be, uh, taking it to the next level. Uh, another game that really jumped out. That was awesome. San Francisco, Seattle.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  This is the one that killed me.

• 32:15Bill Simmons?

  What, you had San Francisco?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Of course, on a money line parlay all over the place. Yeah.

• 32:19Bill Simmons?

  What do you mean?

• 32:20Speaker 01

  No, no, they had it.

• 32:21Bill Simmons?

  Green Bay was my money line parlay that felt like it should have lost and miraculously won.

• 32:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:27Bill Simmons?

  Which we'll get to, but uh, yeah, Gino, seventh game winning drive in the fourth quarter OT since 2023.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Well, how did they do that? I know Bosa went, went off and they were helpless, right?

• 32:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  How about contain Gino a little bit? It's a, he shouldn't be running around like 2006 Michael Vick, right? But that.

• 32:47Bill Simmons?

  He was wide open on the runs too. Nobody's there.

• 32:49Speaker 01

  They only blitzed them once today. I don't know if they're gonna keep that up. If Shanahan's, yeah, they kept it up. And he just went whatever he wanted. Could have run through the end zone.

• 32:58Bill Simmons?

  I really respect Gino, the confidence he has after it goes right for him, how he behaves after.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, right. Yeah.

• 33:04Bill Simmons?

  He's like really, really lot of charisma about it. And it's like, but what about those 10 terrible throws you made earlier in the game? And that fumble or the, but it's like all of it gets wiped away in the crunch time.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:17Bill Simmons?

  Just does too, but and yet.

• 33:18Speaker 01

  That division's crazy, crazy.

• 33:21Bill Simmons?

  So we're, we have, uh, not only the year from hell for San Francisco, but we're now in a situation where Arizona's six and four. And the other three teams are five and five in the NFC West. And it feels like that division's sending two teams.

• 33:37Speaker 01

  You think so?

• 33:37Bill Simmons?

  Shocking. Yeah, I think so.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  So who, who's out then? Washington or Green Bay?

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  Detroit, Philly, Minnesota, Green Bay, Washington, Arizona, Atlanta. Oh shit, you're right.

• 33:50Speaker 01

  Come on.

• 33:51Bill Simmons?

  So somebody do have to take Washington's spot, but.

• 33:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:54Bill Simmons?

  I feel like somebody could take Washington's spot. I mean, they're seven and four and should be six and five and they're arrow pointing down.

• 34:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:00Bill Simmons?

  So.

• 34:01Speaker 01

  They do play the Cowboys.

• 34:03Bill Simmons?

  Do you feel any difference between Washington, Seattle, San Francisco and the Rams after watching football for the last four weeks?

• 34:09Speaker 01

  San Francisco is going to be the team that's maybe not that good that I'm going to hold on to and I'm going to keep betting. I'm going to figure out a way to bet them in the second round of the playoffs, even though they were eliminated like two weeks before.

• 34:19Bill Simmons?

  So there's no more dangerous football team than the team that you keep waiting for them to figure it out. Because you know how much talent they have and then it's weak. Week 19 and you're like, oh, they're not in the playoffs and they went five and 12 against the spread this year.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:36Bill Simmons?

  And I had them in nine of the 12 games they didn't cover.

• 34:39Speaker 01

  And you shake me in my sleep and I'm like, McCaffrey's back, McCaffrey's back. Like, yeah, it doesn't matter. They can't beat anybody. Arizona's favored now to win the division, plus 100, Niners 270, Seahawks 5 to 1, and the Rams 5 to 1.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  Wouldn't you think Arizona was favored to win the division the last time?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  Like, like. Oh, that's a good question.

• 34:57Bill Simmons?

  Carson Palmer, 2013, 14 range?

• 35:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. So after Warner.

• 35:02Bill Simmons?

  Earlier?

• 35:03Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah. Yeah. Right in there. That's a good question. They have the easiest schedule. I mean, San Francisco is like, what? You're about to read it, but six of the last seven are, are dogfights.

• 35:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, the, the bigger problem is they're one and three in the NFC West.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:21Bill Simmons?

  The worst record and they only have two games left, but they got at Green Bay, at Buffalo next to.

• 35:28Bill Simmons?

  Home Chicago, home Rams on a Thursday, at Miami, home Detroit, at Arizona.

• 35:35Speaker 01

  Those are all rough. I mean, I thought that last game would mean something, but it really might not, it might be wrapped by them for them.

• 35:43Bill Simmons?

  So they'd have to go five and two with all those games? I mean, you go through all the West, the NFC West teams and really the only team that seems to have a semi easy schedule is Arizona.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:56Bill Simmons?

  And their next two are at Seattle, at Minnesota, not exactly easy, but at least they have home Seattle, home Pats, at Carolina, at the Rams, home San Francisco. Like there's a path to go four and three for them and get to 10 wins, but.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  Yeah. The only ones with Panthers on their schedule, I think, right?

• 36:14Bill Simmons?

  I could see you texting me on Monday with some NFC West division bet that we'll probably do. And then a week later we'll have a different team.

• 36:21Speaker 01

  We'll be done.

• 36:21Bill Simmons?

  We'll just keep, keep betting that dumb division over and over again.

• 36:25Speaker 01

  Well, here's the thing that, so Seattle and the Rams are similar in that they're going to kick you in the gut if you, um, sleep on them, right? But then if you bet them, they're going to lose, right? They're just like, they're going to come back from the dead and you're, you're, you're just going to lose your mind trying to catch up to which, uh, zag they're on or zigging or not.

• 36:46Bill Simmons?

  I 90% agree with that. And yet. When I watch Seattle, sometimes I'm like, why aren't these guys better?

• 36:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:53Bill Simmons?

  I think Kenneth Walker is good. I think their receivers are excellent. I think Gino could move the ball. I feel like when they're down four with three minutes left, I feel like they can actually go down the field and score.

• 37:04Speaker 01

  I felt like that too.

• 37:04Bill Simmons?

  How many teams would you even say that about?

• 37:06Speaker 01

  Holding a 49ers parlay slip. I felt the same way. Yeah.

• 37:12Bill Simmons?

  Couple more games that really stood out in a delightful day. So Detroit Jacksonville was beautiful because there were eight games early and this one allowed Detroit to immediately come off a TV.

• 37:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:23Bill Simmons?

  I had the multi-view on the big TV. I had Green Bay, Chicago by itself. And then I had the other TV with the three games. Detroit Jacksonville just got to come up.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  I left it on because I wasn't sure if they were going to escort Coach Middle seat out or not. I didn't want to miss that, right?

• 37:40Bill Simmons?

  Like getting fired at halftime?

• 37:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just pull up in like some kind of, um, it's just like a hearse and just cart him away. My goodness.

• 37:50Bill Simmons?

  Here lies, here lies Coach Middle seat. He, he beat Belichick and Brady in the Super Bowl, Nick Foles, and then became one of the worst coaches of the last 10 years. There's no rhyme or reason to it. And then it's reported yesterday that this is probably his last game. So he's dead man walking and Jacksonville responds by giving up touchdowns on their first seven drives against them. And it was 52 to six.

• 38:16Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:17Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to say he's going to get fired tomorrow.

• 38:19Speaker 01

  The GM needs to see you. Bring your boarding pass, please.

• 38:23Bill Simmons?

  You're in Row 27B.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  On Greyhound, by the way. You have the middle seat on the bus back. But you know what they should do? Cause he has that statue outside of Philly, right? Outside the stadium. They should have to punish him. They should have the guy who did Dwyane Wade statue, redo his statue. Like that should be the F you for this miserable, miserable Jacksonville team.

• 38:46Bill Simmons?

  My God. Well, this could be Belichick's next team.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:51Bill Simmons?

  We've talked about a new stadium coming. I guess it depends how excited you are about Trevor Lawrence. We have learned that Mac Jones, maybe it wasn't just New England's situation.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 39:01Bill Simmons?

  He just might not be a starting quarterback. So what was the, what was the tweet we saw about all the, all the big spread Lions bets that hit?

• 39:12Speaker 01

  Oh, the escalator thing? I could find it.

• 39:17Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, sometimes I wonder if that's the thing that we're fucking up the most out of. We bet every year on football.

• 39:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:26Bill Simmons?

  And just like identifying who the best team in the league is. And they always win at least three games by 30 points. And why aren't we just playing that? Because you could have taken Lions over Jags plus 30 and a half, whatever. And all of a sudden that's 12 to one. And all you need to do is take one of those and it covers 12 weeks of bets.

• 39:44Speaker 01

  So yeah, minus 27 and a half was plus 520, minus 32 and a half, 10 to one, minus 38 and a half, 20 to one. If you bet the team total adjusted over 44 and a half, that was 850. Yeah, we, we missed out on a lot of free money. They're damn good.

• 40:01Bill Simmons?

  Colts, Jets.

• 40:04Bill Simmons?

  You know Rogers has a Netflix special coming out in December about like, it's like the last year with Aaron Rodgers.

• 40:11Speaker 01

  I'm waiting for the joke. Go ahead.

• 40:13Bill Simmons?

  I, that is the joke.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  Really?

• 40:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you think they were, they were thinking, uh.

• 40:18Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 40:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, this will be good. The Jets will be good. And then we'll drop this Rogers thing like, does anyone want to hear one minute of Rogers at this point? Like even, do you think McAfee wants to talk to him for an hour? Who wants to hear from him?

• 40:33Speaker 01

  If you're ever going to have buffering issues, that's the time Netflix. Go get it. Do it during the.

• 40:38Bill Simmons?

  Try to get the same buffer guy from the Jake Paul Tyson fight. Use it for your, uh, he, he just looks like he doesn't want to get hit anymore. And it's the final stage of QBs. We've seen it a lot of times with older, older, uh, guys who used to be good. And, and that last stage where they're just getting rid of the ball before somebody dings them. That's it. Doesn't come back. Right?

• 41:01Speaker 01

  He's

• 41:02Bill Simmons?

  I know you're like a pig in shit right now.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  I just let me, I won't do this every week, but just let me, or you can cut it out of the podcast. I don't care.

• 41:09Bill Simmons?

  No, we're not cutting it out and plus we're live on YouTube. Go do your thing.

• 41:12Speaker 01

  They have eight losses. They're not going to go over their win total, which is nine and a half, which I thought was preposterous anyway. Right? I mean, my team sucks, but I knew the Jets weren't going over nine and a half. They can't make the playoffs. So, um, a couple of numbers for you. Winning percentages, Jets starters, Zach Wilson, 364, Sam Darnold, 342, Aaron Rodgers, 273. Sit down, you phony. You led New York to believe you could lead them to the playoffs and you're the fraud of all frauds. You brought all your friends in, yeah, who couldn't catch a pass. You got the coach fired. Somehow the best defense in football isn't excited to play for you. Now they're middle of the pack or worse. There's gotta be some accountability. There's gotta be,

• 41:55Speaker 01

  you know, of course there's the personal stuff where he alluded to the idea that my cousin was on the Epstein Island flight log and the list comes out and he of course wasn't, but the guy Rodgers likely voted for was. So classic, classic douchebag. And now we're going to see a phantom injury in the next couple of weeks. So how's that for a conspiracy theory? You like that?

• 42:15Bill Simmons?

  Wow. What a rant.

• 42:17Speaker 01

  Sorry. Take it.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Take it, smart guy. He's so damn smart, so well read. He's got to tell us all about it all the time. What's he gonna do now?

• 42:29Bill Simmons?

  I'd be surprised if he played next year.

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Right? Next year. He's, he's gonna find something to sit out next week, I think.

• 42:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you think it'll be the, uh, the calf strain?

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:40Bill Simmons?

  They're worried it could be, come a torn Achilles if he steps on it wrong again? I don't even know who their backup is.

• 42:47Speaker 01

  They could blame, uh, they could blame the bad field there at MetLife. Whatever, whatever's next.

• 42:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, didn't they give up a third round pick for, for Adams?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  No, it was, was it third?

• 42:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think it was. That might be one of the like top six picks of the third round.

• 43:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, good.

• 43:04Bill Simmons?

  I like, I, as I've said many times, I have a kinship with the Jets fans because the Pats and the Jets were the two sad sacks of the entire AFC like for the most of 30 years of my life and, um, and I think we were wired the same way, DNA in a lot of ways. Then the Pats fans life changed, the Jets fans did not, but this was like, yeah, honestly, this two years of Rogers. It was almost cruel, starting with like him blowing out his Achilles immediately and then all the other stuff. And I just can't think of, it's one of the worst free agent act, or I guess it was a trade. It's one of the worst veteran acquisitions in the history of the NFL. Right?

• 43:46Speaker 01

  And they fell for it again, right?

• 43:48Bill Simmons?

  And they're, they're trading assets for, yeah, to help them and they're firing people and.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Everything. He had everything laid out for him. And Shane Steichen tried to blow that game today, like how many times?

• 43:58Bill Simmons?

  Can we talk about that? I asked Lombardi, Lombardi's the master of the nicknames.

• 44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:04Bill Simmons?

  He came up with the clapper. He came up with this jockey, Mike McCarthy. I was like, I was like, can you, what's the Shane Steichen nickname? And he's texted us back. He is like, he, he put, he coaches like he's playing somebody online in Thailand. So we were calling him Thailand Shane, like, uh oh. The guy, the guy I'm playing on Twitch, his stream went out in Thailand. So anyway, Thailand Shane, I think the key thing for him is that there seems to be, I was thinking like he's in a dark room, just shouting out plays and doesn't know the score, the downs or the situation. He's just like, ah, E ride 45. Has no idea what's going on.

• 44:47Bill Simmons?

  The best of all of them was the two point conversion with Richardson. They go up by one, they need the two points. Yeah, it's like, I wonder if Richardson can, I don't know, wait for a guy to cross the middle and then loft a beautiful touch pass. I'm like, I am positive Richardson can't do this.

• 45:03Speaker 01

  It's never happened in practice. No way.

• 45:06Bill Simmons?

  No way this whatever, but at the same time, Richardson, which is what makes him so interesting. He can't throw a four yard screen pass. He has no touch on a pass like that. And yet he'll rifle a 25 yarder perfectly, or he'll nail somebody down the sidelines. Or he'll run around and he looks like, you know, giant Cam Newton. And you're like, this guy is clearly something. He's not a bust.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, but how about you recognize that Shane Steichen, right? Like you're, you're with them all week. You don't just inherit them at 1pm Eastern on a Sunday, right? You see the, you know, the limitations and everything else. And it's like, fit them in where it's, but you like, I don't know. I don't love golf, but you wouldn't use a sand wedge to hit a ball that was 10 feet from the hole, right? Like just figure out where he works best. And they eventually did. It took a minute, but they won.

• 45:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Good win ultimately. Yeah.

• 45:57Bill Simmons?

  Lombardi's podcast is the GM shuffle. And I'm sure he's going to talk about this tomorrow. But one, one thing he said that I'm going to steal, but I'm giving him credit.

• 46:05Bill Simmons?

  He calls the game exactly the same, whether it's Flacco or Steichen. That's what Lombardi, I'm Flacco or Richardson. That's what Lombardi said. And I was like, that's such a great point. But you have Richardson, you have this massive guy that you would think you could run QB draws with. You could roll them out like almost like a, like a giant fullback, like he's Bronco Nogurski. And yet they're running these goofy plays. I don't, I don't get it. I, I support the benching from a couple of weeks ago because I really thought Richardson looked terrible. But obviously they worked his confidence back.

• 46:36Speaker 01

  Can I, um, what, what's their record now? Because they're, they're yes to make the playoffs.

• 46:42Bill Simmons?

  Five and six.

• 46:43Speaker 01

  They're only plus 148 to make the playoffs. Are they, they don't really scare me.

• 46:49Bill Simmons?

  They're five and six. Basically the case for them would be.

• 46:53Speaker 01

  They must have an easy schedule, but I don't even know what that would look like.

• 46:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, there's two pieces. One is their game behind Denver. Do you trust Denver? The other is they're only two games in the loss combine Houston. Who keeps losing guys and just seems like they can never get all their guys healthy at the same time. And haven't been that impressive to begin with. You know, Houston's six and four, they've scored 224 points. They've given up 226.

• 47:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:19Bill Simmons?

  So maybe the odds factor into that, but frustrating game.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  They, they, uh, yeah, I guess they have a couple of easy ones. They have. And they play at Denver. That's another one. Denver's gonna have an interesting way of controlling their own destiny here. They have the Colts and they have Cincinnati.

• 47:37Bill Simmons?

  Let's take one more break for the podcast.

• 47:42Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by PayPal. The holiday rush is coming and you can get ahead of it with PayPal. Shop your favorite online stores with PayPal this season like eBay for collectibles, Fanatics for team gear, Walmart for tech. Check out the flexibility to pay now or pay later and split your payments with Pay in Four with no interest, no late fees. Shop now with PayPal. Paying for is subject to approval. Learn more at paypal.com/payingfor. PayPal, Inc., NMLS 910457. This episode is brought to you by Viori. When it comes to clothes that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday performance joggers, oh yeah. They have the perfect, I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe.

• 48:27Bill Simmons?

  And the Meta pant, that's my number one, I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at viori.com/simmons and discover the versatility of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply. Visit the website for full terms and conditions. Couple more quick games, Bears Packers.

• 48:46Bill Simmons?

  So Caleb was good today.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:50Bill Simmons?

  And they changed a lot about him. He was getting the ball, getting rid of the ball a lot faster. I thought he was way more involved, just has like a quarterback and a leader and he just seemed like he had more energy. I thought they outplayed the Packers. I would be alarmed if I was a Packers fan because you should have lost and you didn't lose because the Bears drove down inside, what, the 30. Eberflus just decides to, I'm gonna, I want to be careful here. I'm gonna try to play for the outdoor 46 yard field goal. The Bears fans all hate Eberflus and this is why, because he does shit like this. He's just not a terrible game management coach. But I thought they should have won and I'll go further, Sal. Chicago's, they lost that Tennessee game in week one that I think you bet on.

• 49:35Speaker 01

  Yes, they did.

• 49:36Bill Simmons?

  Right? Oh no, they won that game.

• 49:38Speaker 01

  No, they won. They won. I won against Caleb Williams in his first game.

• 49:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So they lost that Hail Mary game. They lost someone today. So they, they could at least be six and five.

• 49:48Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 49:48Bill Simmons?

  So maybe, maybe it evens out with that they shouldn't have won the Tennessee game. I don't know, but whatever it is, their record should be at least one run better.

• 49:56Speaker 01

  That, yes. And, and I really think, I mean, that Hail Mary really spooked the hell out of, I don't know, but what do we call, like the, the haunted Hail Mary, the curse of Caleb, the Windy City Whisperer, like really, I don't know, the ghost of Shane Waldron, like that was, that really, they can't, and now nobody blocks on field goals, field goal attempts, like, hey, how about you guys block?

• 50:17Bill Simmons?

  The Hail Mary was almost like, like they, the whole team had a car accident. It was like a traumatic event.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  It's like, hey, get over it, guys. It was three weeks ago. But, um, but there's also the part of it where, what did they, lost 11 in a row to Green Bay? Like eventually they had to be like, all right, we gotta get, by the way, they shoved this rivalry down our throats, the league does. The greatest in football, even though you and I can't remember a good competitive game like that we cared about between these two in the last quarter century, but, um.

• 50:45Bill Simmons?

  Well, but I think the reason it's special is just because the teams have been around since like the 19,

• 50:51Speaker 01

  That's fine.

• 50:51Bill Simmons?

  or whatever the fuck. That's it.

• 50:52Speaker 01

  But, but.

• 50:53Bill Simmons?

  I'm not saying I agree.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  And we can't, we can't remember any good game from that, like, you know?

• 50:58Bill Simmons?

  So we had a great Matt LaFleur moment in this game too. This was not, uh, I wouldn't have called this a chess match today. They have first down and go from the eight. They're trying to score to take the lead late in the game. Subout ends up being fourth and six. There's still like, I don't know, 10, 11 minutes left. Kick the field goal, cut it to two, try to get a stop. Nope. He goes for it on fourth and six, doesn't get it, and traps the Bears at the one yard line, but, um,

• 51:25Bill Simmons?

  unless there's like two minutes left in the game,

• 51:29Bill Simmons?

  it's just idiotic. There's no other way to say it. That's just idiotic. It's so hard to get a fourth and two, much less a fourth and six. So many, you're basically hoping for like a pass interference or a defensive breakdown, or some sort of like gimmick play that the play broke down, your quarterback rolled out, created something. I, that, so it's, I just didn't think Green Bay deserved to win that game.

• 51:53Speaker 01

  For the most part, you gotta take points in these rivalry games, right? In the division games. Again, the rivalry, whatever. But in the division games, we saw the Steelers do it against Baltimore and, you know, you don't have to be super careful, but it would have helped the 49ers, a lot of these teams.

• 52:09Bill Simmons?

  I thought the Packers had a chance to be better than maybe they're gonna be.

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:14Bill Simmons?

  Kind of giving up on them a little bit as, but we have seen around Thanksgiving, somebody comes out of nowhere in a sense heading into the playoffs. Can't rule them out because of their talent, but I think it's been, it's a disappointing. I thought they had a chance to be the second best team in the NFC and I, from what I'm watching, I don't see it.

• 52:31Speaker 01

  Well, it's two, right? It's like, oh, they should be better, but also like, you know, if you live predicted their fate after like love went down and in Brazil.

• 52:42Bill Simmons?

  True, they're, they're.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  Well, how are they gonna be? They can't be seven and three and here they are.

• 52:47Bill Simmons?

  I texted Kyle Brandt in the first half because Caleb really did look good. I was like, Caleb exclamation point. And he's like, don't worry, we're gonna lose late. He's a Bears fan. There's just no question we're losing late and that's what happened. Speaking of coaching scared, uh, Gerard Mayo, the Pats yet again, lost a game that they probably could have won. The play calling was.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  You're upset about this?

• 53:16Bill Simmons?

  I thought we were doing better. No, because Drake Bay is really special and I feel like if you had just switched quarterbacks, we would have the same result. Maybe he would have done better, but um, there's a thing on ESPN about all the coaching mistakes, like not going for them fourth and goal, um, doing a PAT instead of a two point when it was 28, 19, et cetera, et cetera. And then this is what the article says, "Such decisions are always easy to second guess, but none worked out for the Patriots. Mayo has said he's taking notes throughout his first season and plans to learn from his experience. This game presented multiple decisions from which he can learn."

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 53:55Bill Simmons?

  It's week 11.

• 53:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. This sounds like something you, um, if, if you get an F on your report card and you come home and tell your parents like, yeah, I'm taking notes though. I'm gonna, I'm gonna kill geometry next semester.

• 54:06Bill Simmons?

  I think my son said this last year when he was struggling in the 10th grade. Like, hey, I know my grades are bad, but I'm learning some good stuff.

• 54:13Speaker 01

  Mayo over here, Ben Simmons? Yeah, I think that's what happened.

• 54:17Bill Simmons?

  It's so funny. Like Kyle and I were going nuts because they just don't, I, I just. Here's my advice for the Patriots, if anyone from the Patriots is listening. No, I'm sure they aren't. Go and watch like the 50 most successful Josh Allen plays and the 50 most successful John Elway plays. Just study what those plays were and then run of them, run some of them for Jake May. Cause every time he rolls out to his right, he can throw it across his body of the middle of field. He can zing it down the sideline. He can throw it deep. He can take off and run. Any QB draw with him, he's dangerous. The teams are so terrified he's going to take off. They hand off on every first down. It's like that. We have to start out. So it's second and nine or second 11. Like that's a must.

• 55:02Bill Simmons?

  I just, the receivers, at one point he was 10 for 13 with three drops. All of his receivers suck. They spent a second round pick on a guy who all he does is get a false start whenever he's on the field. Meanwhile, McConkey went nuts again today. But it's just like they have this incredible asset. It's like watching a team that has a diamond and they're like fucking playing Thanksgiving catch with it outside.

• 55:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Wow. This is more biting than my Aaron Rodgers.

• 55:28Bill Simmons?

  That's frustrating. I think Jake May is really good.

• 55:32Speaker 01

  This isn't going to make you feel better, but at some point talent matters and not his, but the supporting cast. And that's why the Rams were so good. Puka Nakua almost broke both of his elbows making that crazy catch, that first touchdown. And they also, I don't really care because that was my best bet. The Rams minus four and a half.

• 55:49Bill Simmons?

  And you somehow fucking covered, you son of a bitch.

• 55:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, baby. Somehow. We have two touchdowns. Nine and two on the year. Best handicapper on TV, radio, podcast, YouTube.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  McVeigh said, he looks like a stud.

• 56:05Bill Simmons?

  Blah, blah, blah. You can just see the impact that he has on his teammates, the way people talk about him here. He looks like he's going to be a special player for a long time and he gave us fits today. Thanks, Sean McVay.

• 56:16Speaker 01

  You're in a good spot.

• 56:17Bill Simmons?

  We're in a great spot.

• 56:18Speaker 01

  You want to go seven and 10? You want to go eight, nine?

• 56:21Bill Simmons?

  No, it's the perfect, my dad said that today. It's perfect outcome. He, Jake did enough good stuff to make you feel great.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  Right.

• 56:29Bill Simmons?

  The team did enough terrible stuff to end up losing the game.

• 56:33Speaker 01

  Perfect.

• 56:33Bill Simmons?

  There you go. Broncos, Falcons, Bo Nix, it's beginning of October. Only two picks, 13 passing touchdowns, over 1600 yards passing. And he was awesome in that game today.

• 56:46Speaker 01

  Well, didn't it seem like some of these teams, they wear these uniforms and it's like, oh, man, they look so fast. Like Denver was getting, he was hitting these guys in stride. There was no doubt that they were open.

• 56:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 56:58Speaker 01

  Like, is Atlanta that bad? Like, we know, we, we know that's a junk, junk division, but my God.

• 57:04Bill Simmons?

  That was my, my favorite pick of the week.

• 57:07Speaker 01

  That was good.

• 57:08Bill Simmons?

  I just think the Falcons, whatever their record is, it could easily have been three wins worse. And I think the Broncos are, I've said this for weeks, that I think they're the good, bad team.

• 57:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:19Bill Simmons?

  If you put another like mediocre or worse team in front of them, they're probably going to win. That's a really nice bounce back for them after what happened last week. But here's, here was my takeaway after watching that game. Can you guess what Atlanta's odds are to win the NFC South?

• 57:36Speaker 01

  I think I might've seen him by accident.

• 57:37Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you saw this?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  Is it minus 400 or something like that?

• 57:41Bill Simmons?

  They're minus 550 to win the NFC South.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  Look at Tampa's schedule.

• 57:49Bill Simmons?

  Tampa's five to one.

• 57:53Bill Simmons?

  And their schedule's super easy down the stretch, right?

• 57:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, I saw that.

• 57:56Bill Simmons?

  And by the way, New Orleans somehow is four wins, two with the Clogger.

• 58:00Speaker 01

  Oh, the Clogger.

• 58:01Bill Simmons?

  Clogger's two and O.

• 58:02Speaker 01

  He's the best.

• 58:02Bill Simmons?

  Unclog and Cleveland all over the place. So Tampa's, Tampa's at the Giants, at Carolina, home Vegas, next three.

• 58:09Speaker 01

  Look at those three. Wow.

• 58:11Bill Simmons?

  So that could be, they could have seven wins in three weeks.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Keep going.

• 58:16Bill Simmons?

  At Chargers, at Dallas, home Carolina, home Saints. They could be six and one. We're betting this.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  All right, let's do it.

• 58:24Bill Simmons?

  We're, we're betting on Tampa five to one.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  I said I wouldn't bet the NFC South. I said I wouldn't do it, but I guess 12 weeks is long enough to hold out there.

• 58:34Speaker 01

  This is like Seinfeld, the contest. Like, how long can you last without betting the NFC South? I'm in.

• 58:41Bill Simmons?

  Penix came in and it was super exciting because Cousins looked like he was 130 years old. I thought that was the dumbest line of the week. So two weeks in a row, as we've done Guess the Lines, and there was a line and I was like, that's absolutely ionic. So I wonder if that happens again this week, I'm going to bet even more money.

• 58:56Speaker 01

  I think you're right, because two weeks ago, they had gotten blown out by the Ravens. It could have been easy for them to pack it in. And then they lose on that dumb field goal to the Chiefs and then they, they just light it up today. But, uh, yeah, they went over their, their win total of five and a half already.

• 59:11Bill Simmons?

  Two weeks ago, Cardinals Jets was the dumbest line. So we'll see if we have a dumb line this week. Saints Browns, I, so Jameis is 21 and 33 in his last 54 starts. Did you think that would be better or worse?

• 59:22Speaker 01

  I might've been wrong about him. I thought he would turn this franchise around.

• 59:27Bill Simmons?

  He might not be a winning QB.

• 59:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I got really excited about, um, this is a revenge game and the Saints should have started him nine weeks last year over Derek Carr. But, uh, no, that didn't really matter. You can't screw with the Clogger. Clogger, Clogger's 55, 31, uh, outscored his opponents. He's the only undefeated coach in the league this year.

• 59:48Bill Simmons?

  Clogger's got great energy on the bench, too.

• 59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 59:52Bill Simmons?

  Definitely better than, what did Lombardi call him? Thailand Shane?

• 59:56Speaker 01

  Thailand Shane, yeah.

• 59:58Bill Simmons?

  He's beating a 14-year-old and mad at tonight.

• 1:00:01Speaker 01

  The Clogger's mad. He wants to be called the Plunger, but no, we're sticking with the Clogger. Sorry.

• 1:00:08Bill Simmons?

  This Taysom Hill fantasy conundrum thing is weird.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  What's a conundrum? What, how many times have you picked up a year?

• 1:00:15Bill Simmons?

  He's eligible for a tight end and suiting up as quarterback. We've never really figured this out.

• 1:00:19Speaker 01

  Runs the ball, yeah.

• 1:00:20Bill Simmons?

  Uh, random stuff really quick. Why don't teams QB sneak anymore?

• 1:00:26Bill Simmons?

  What happened? The Chargers, Herbert's 6'6" and they won't QB sneak with them on first and goal from the one. He's 6'6". Brady, what did he not convert two QB sneaks out of 1,500 in his career?

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:41Bill Simmons?

  You're 6'6". It should be automatic. You should be able to get a yard.

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  I'm with it.

• 1:00:45Bill Simmons?

  What happened? Is it because Mahomes got hurt that time? Everyone's afraid now?

• 1:00:48Speaker 01

  So we know, well, we know why he does it and or doesn't do it, right? We know why Hertz does it because it's an automatic. He's going to get launched six yards. But yeah, you would think it'd be a Harbaugh thing. Like, hey, we're going to get our offensive line to be disciplined enough to get this giant forward half an inch.

• 1:01:08Bill Simmons?

  Tennessee, Minnesota, I watched zero plays of.

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking, what's the opposite of a multi-view game?

• 1:01:20Speaker 01

  Interesting.

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  It's like a, like a multi-view blackout. I didn't know what it is. A radio game.

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  I had it on a small screen, like, like, like a post-it, like a big post-it, like that size screen. That's basically what I had.

• 1:01:34Bill Simmons?

  I'm good with not watching Tennessee again this season.

• 1:01:37Speaker 01

  Well, even the Vikings are boring. Like, I don't know, we see Detroit kill these garbage teal AFC South teams like, you know, Jacksonville and Tennessee. Vikings don't feel like they're eight and two.

• 1:01:50Bill Simmons?

  Miami Dolphins, four and six. We talked about this scenario two weeks ago and now it's, now it's, or one week ago, because we did it before the Rams game on Monday night. And they won two games in six days. They play the Patriots this week and they could be five and six. They're at Green Bay on Thursday, home Jets, at Houston, home San Francisco, a game that suddenly seems a lot easier than it was on the schedule. And then at Cleveland at the Jets last two weeks.

• 1:02:21Bill Simmons?

  Could get to nine wins from four and six.

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  The fights for the seven seeds are gonna be good in both conferences, right? I don't know that they have a chance against the two seeds, but it's gonna be good. Well, I mean, that really could be five.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Sorry to jump.

• 1:02:36Bill Simmons?

  Good, but also not good, because then we have to watch them when we're all together for round one, and then it's a lot less good when we're watching the Dolphins in a playoff game.

• 1:02:44Speaker 01

  Right. Yeah, I'm just thinking of the NFC West division where everybody's five and five. I could see all three of those other teams going three and three the rest of the way. And then, right, and then it's all gonna come down to the next week.

• 1:02:56Bill Simmons?

  Well, I hope the Dolphins at least get a little more exciting because I think our friend John Jastrzemski, who hosts the Ringer Sunday pregame show, the king of the underdog. He did it today. I think you're number one. I've known you a long time. I moved, I did an Instagram thing. I'm 22 years in LA now, so we've known each other 22 years.

• 1:03:18Bill Simmons?

  Your number one thing you hate over really anything else, including cancer and pestilence, like name all the worst things in the world, is when people claim an underdog pick.

• 1:03:31Bill Simmons?

  And either they're not an underdog, which the Fox guys used to do, they're like, I like the Browns. Meanwhile, the Browns would be minus one and a half, and Bradshaw's taking them as an underdog. Or somebody who takes an underdog that's like a plus 105 or a plus 108, which is what JJ did today on the show.

• 1:03:47Speaker 01

  The Fox guys, the Fox guys are 80 years old, so you're teaching them how to, you know, you're teaching them how to text and their, their, their, the brains are spinning out of their heads. JJ does 17 podcasts a week on gambling, and he's very proud of his Bengals plus 108. By the way, good, I'm glad he lost. Now I'm thinking, I didn't care about that game. Now I'm glad.

• 1:04:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, like House is doing, House is Steelers plus 158. Like, people are doing real underdog picks.

• 1:04:14Speaker 01

  I have the Raiders, yeah.

• 1:04:16Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're the Raiders.

• 1:04:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. You want to take Jake Paul too, JJ? I'm so, I don't know. Is that an underdog? I'm like, come on.

• 1:04:23Bill Simmons?

  And then he gets defensive about it.

• 1:04:25Speaker 01

  He got upset, yeah.

• 1:04:26Bill Simmons?

  Jesus, JJ.

• 1:04:30Bill Simmons?

  Plus 108. Here's, here's my courageous underdog pick. I was sending him cowardly lying pictures.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  He didn't, he wasn't responding towards the M. Bro, that plus symbol, that plus symbol is all you need to see, bro.

• 1:04:44Bill Simmons?

  It's, it's a plus symbol. It counts as an underdog, bro.

• 1:04:47Speaker 01

  Good, good for you. It's a pick 'em.

• 1:04:50Bill Simmons?

  Just hell hath no fury if I get Juan Soto on the Red Sox, the amount of texts I'm gonna be sending JJ. That'll bring me right back with the Red Sox. The sabbatical be over. They won't get him.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  There you go.

• 1:05:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So playoff picture, KC, Detroit is the one seeds.

• 1:05:08Bill Simmons?

  Buffalo, Denver is one matchup, two, seven. Pittsburgh Chargers.

• 1:05:16Bill Simmons?

  Oh no, I'm sorry. Pittsburgh Baltimore would be the three, six. And then Houston Chargers would be the four, five, if it ended today.

• 1:05:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:05:26Bill Simmons?

  So that's probably the Shaky's game, Houston Chargers.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Houston Chargers. Yeah. AFC South is locked in.

• 1:05:32Bill Simmons?

  The, uh, the other one, we would have, let's see. I'm too confused by the NFC.

• 1:05:41Speaker 01

  You get it. Stick with it.

• 1:05:43Bill Simmons?

  The most important one is, is right now would be Arizona hosting Minnesota in round one. Another possible Shaky's game.

• 1:05:51Speaker 01

  So that's the four, five? That would be the four, five?

• 1:05:54Bill Simmons?

  Four, five. Cause it looks like Minnesota's got the inside track on the, uh, on the five seed unless Green Bay or Washington.

• 1:06:00Speaker 01

  Well, but Atlanta's a worse division winner, right? At six and five. Wouldn't that be the four?

• 1:06:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you're right. Cause those teams are gonna go backwards. Oh yeah. So it could be, that could be Atlanta, Minnesota.

• 1:06:14Speaker 01

  That's a tough game to bet.

• 1:06:15Bill Simmons?

  This is why I didn't want to do the NFC. I knew it was gonna fuck it up.

• 1:06:17Speaker 01

  That's a tough one to bet though. I don't like that.

• 1:06:20Bill Simmons?

  Hmm. One more break for the podcast and then we'll do guest lines.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

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• 1:07:28Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. You know how we always talk about the little things that separate great athletes? Post-workout recovery is a big factor. Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout with high-quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate. It's all you need for your recovery in one bottle, available in 26 and 42 gram protein options to pick what works best for you. Visit corepower.com to learn more. Today's guest alliance is brought to you by Workday. Get the whole band together with Workday and pair finance and HR on one platform for an epic performance. With Workday AI at the core, you'll make confident decisions faster than ever and you'll drive flawless business and finance operations with an agile platform that constantly

• 1:08:12Bill Simmons?

  evolves to future-proof your organization. Be a finance and HR rock star with Workday. Visit workday.com to learn more. All right, guest alliance, Sal. What's our record for the year?

• 1:08:25Speaker 01

  All right, so I won last week, so it's

• 1:08:28Bill Simmons?

  Congrats.

• 1:08:29Speaker 01

  You're up 6-4-1 through 11 weeks.

• 1:08:33Bill Simmons?

  So you're like a plus 107 underdog? Could JJ bet you?

• 1:08:37Speaker 01

  JJ's all over it.

• 1:08:40Bill Simmons?

  And then Raheem, who's also on the show, who's been doing well lately and just can't, can't resist telling everybody about how well he's doing. He's in the dugout being like, hey, we're throwing a no hitter through five innings. No hits by the other team.

• 1:08:55Speaker 01

  I love it. We just brag.

• 1:08:56Bill Simmons?

  We had a bunch of characters.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Then Joe House. Joe House, you know, that pregame show is an hour and a half and he holds the microphone for an hour. It's a heavy ass, but it's not, you know, this is not, um, you're not hosting like, holding like a calendar here. It's a pretty hefty, uh, microphone. He has to get right in there.

• 1:09:16Bill Simmons?

  Raheem is a confidence player. Um, yeah, House did million dollar picks with me after the Washington game on Thursday night. And he's like, I might have a few drinks. I'm like, great. People love drunk house. He was actually pretty subdued. And as we're doing it, I'm like, this actually might be drunk house because he's not loud and, and like fun drunk house. He actually seems like he's had a few. So then today he's like, yeah, the Browns. I was probably a little drunk on Thursday night. I probably should have suggested that one because he gave me, he gave me the Browns.

• 1:09:43Speaker 01

  You're blaming him, but you're, you're betting a million dollars on these picks. They really should come from you. I don't know why you're so trusting.

• 1:09:50Bill Simmons?

  I know. Thursday night, Steelers, speaking of the Browns, Steelers in Cleveland.

• 1:10:00Bill Simmons?

  It's really rough for the Browns. Maybe we should have seen it coming when they traded one of their pass rushers right before the trade deadline. Um, and then they traded Mark Cooper, their best receiver and that, that should have been a red flag.

• 1:10:13Bill Simmons?

  Steelers at Cleveland on a Thursday night. And to me, this has to be Steelers by three and a half.

• 1:10:18Speaker 01

  Really? You're still gonna get it. I said six and a half. It's a four, it's four and a half. Hmm. Why is that even that low? Eight and two against two and eight?

• 1:10:30Bill Simmons?

  I just think that Thursday night, you gotta dock it for the road game, road team coming off an emotional, physical, I mean, that Baltimore Pittsburgh game, we didn't talk about how physical and how much shit talking there was in that game. That game was awesome.

• 1:10:43Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:10:43Bill Simmons?

  These games are awesome today. Pittsburgh, Baltimore, the, the Buffalo game was great. This Chargers game was great and this Steelers Browns game will not be great. Yeah.

• 1:10:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:54Bill Simmons?

  Sunday marquee game. I think it's Packers, Niners. Right?

• 1:11:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:11:02Bill Simmons?

  In Green Bay.

• 1:11:03Speaker 01

  Ones, but that's it. Yep.

• 1:11:06Bill Simmons?

  I had a lot of trouble with this one because the Niners seem like they're getting a lot of respect based on past performance, potential of what the performance is. And I really think this line should be at least Packers by one and a half. So I'm going to do that. Packers by one and a half.

• 1:11:24Speaker 01

  Well, you said at least. You want to go a little higher? You can go a little higher if you want. Motherfucker. I said two. It's one and a half.

• 1:11:30Bill Simmons?

  Hmm.

• 1:11:33Bill Simmons?

  You think that flips? Is that Niners minus one and a half? George Kittle's back.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Oh, they love flipping the one and a half.

• 1:11:41Bill Simmons?

  Healthy.

• 1:11:42Speaker 01

  They love the one and a half is so dangerous, right? And now we're going to add six and make a nice teaser and it's not going to make any sense.

• 1:11:50Bill Simmons?

  Did you see there was a thing going around today about?

• 1:11:55Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know if it accounts for today's games or not. Somebody sent this to me. Active NFL coach records in one score games.

• 1:12:03Speaker 01

  I didn't see.

• 1:12:03Bill Simmons?

  And the worst coaches, Eberflus at five and 17 in one score games. Zach, Zach Taylor's 21 for 32, 21 and 32. Peterson's 32 and 43 and Kyle Shanahan's 29 and 33 in one score games. Kind of feels that way, right?

• 1:12:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Shanahan feels that way because we, I think we examined this stat a couple, like a year ago with Shanahan. You're telling me Zach Taylor's won 21 one score games?

• 1:12:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Where, where were they?

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  No, no. College? What is like junior college?

• 1:12:36Bill Simmons?

  Tomlin's 107 and 68 in one score games.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  He's the man.

• 1:12:40Bill Simmons?

  Adds up.

• 1:12:41Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:12:42Bill Simmons?

  LaFleur's 33 and 21. And then, uh, your guy McCarthy's 73 and 60, 73 and 65. But he had Rogers before Rogers was washed.

• 1:12:54Speaker 01

  That's not fair. That's not fair.

• 1:12:56Bill Simmons?

  But yeah, the Eberflus thing jumped out to me and then Shanahan 29 and 33 with all the talent they've had. Thought that was, uh, that that was notable.

• 1:13:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. You think when you go for an extension, they, they show you that tweet or whatever you saw? It's not good.

• 1:13:12Bill Simmons?

  You know what else isn't good, Sal? I only have two watchable games after the marquee game. And one of them is the Lions, just because I think Lions Colts will be fun because I really enjoy watching Richardson. You just don't know what's gonna happen with Richardson.

• 1:13:27Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:13:28Bill Simmons?

  Every pass is exciting. He might sail it over somebody's head. He might bounce it. It might be like one of the best 20 yard in passes you've seen. Just don't know. I have the Lions favored by six and a half in Indianapolis.

• 1:13:41Speaker 01

  All right. Finally, I get this. I had seven and it's seven and a half.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  They're just crushing teams. They have to. They have to put it north of seven. Just can't go lower.

• 1:13:54Bill Simmons?

  Feels like a tease.

• 1:13:57Bill Simmons?

  Right?

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. They're not ready to lose yet, Detroit. There'll be a time. It's not yet.

• 1:14:04Bill Simmons?

  Campbell's Campbell's definitely got the Drago's trainer face going during these games. He just wants to like pour it on.

• 1:14:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:14:15Bill Simmons?

  Seahawks Cardinals in Seattle.

• 1:14:20Bill Simmons?

  And I was gonna go one and a half and I'm gonna say Seahawks minus two after today.

• 1:14:26Speaker 01

  You get it. It's one and a half. I said four. Why are?

• 1:14:31Bill Simmons?

  Cardinals Cardinals have had a really good month.

• 1:14:34Speaker 01

  I know. They're getting a little too much credit here. Little too much.

• 1:14:39Bill Simmons?

  Two fairly watchables. Vikings at Chicago is the first one.

• 1:14:45Bill Simmons?

  Something is not watchable about the Vikings that I can't put my finger on it. But I'm never like, oh, cool. The Vikings are on offense and they have guys I like watching. I just, something's missing.

• 1:14:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, we don't like when you have a big play guy, a top three fantasy guy, Justin Jefferson and

• 1:15:02Bill Simmons?

  who never seems to get the ball.

• 1:15:03Speaker 01

  Struggling to score. Like I think they averaged 30 over their first four games and the last two or three, they've averaged like 15 or something. So.

• 1:15:13Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna say Vikings by three in Chicago.

• 1:15:16Speaker 01

  You're gonna get this. I said four and a half. It's three and a half.

• 1:15:22Bill Simmons?

  I think that ends at three.

• 1:15:25Speaker 01

  Did they play yet? No, they play week 15. Think that goes down?

• 1:15:31Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think that gets to three. Dolphins home for the Pats is the other one and

• 1:15:38Bill Simmons?

  I swear the Pats aren't bad.

• 1:15:42Speaker 01

  You swear? You wouldn't lie to me?

• 1:15:45Bill Simmons?

  I swear they're not bad and you can't tell me you weren't fucking sweating out that Rams.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  No, I was. I was. Yeah. I'm glad they kicked.

• 1:15:52Bill Simmons?

  Pats lose to Seattle 23 to 20 in a game that they coached scared and they had Brissette instead of May. They lose week five to Miami when they should have started May. I think they would have won that. They lost that one 15 to 10. They lost that stupid Tennessee game in week nine by three and they lost this Rams game today.

• 1:16:13Bill Simmons?

  It's a three and eight team that could, like, they really could be six and seven. Couple plays. They're not bad.

• 1:16:20Speaker 01

  Whatever you say. I don't know how the three and eight gets to six and seven. Like, they really could have played two more games?

• 1:16:27Bill Simmons?

  I didn't, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't asked to do math.

• 1:16:31Speaker 01

  Well, the question is, do they have any, how many blowouts do they have? Like, I look at the Cowboys. I'm like, oh, we have at least three or four. You have none. You have no blowout. Like, receiving end of a blowout, I'm saying.

• 1:16:41Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, we got blown out a couple of times. Yeah.

• 1:16:43Speaker 01

  No, but, no, but coming up, like, are you gonna have two or three or, you know, you have what, seven games, right?

• 1:16:51Bill Simmons?

  Miami, Indy, Arizona, Buffalo, Chargers, Buffalo again.

• 1:16:55Speaker 01

  Six games left. Yeah.

• 1:16:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Well, I have that Pats over under four and a half and they have three wins.

• 1:17:03Speaker 01

  Oh. You're fighting that out end of December for sure.

• 1:17:07Bill Simmons?

  But, think about it. At Miami, home, Indy, at Arizona, at Buffalo, Chargers, Buffalo, like, probably only one win left with this coaching staff.

• 1:17:16Speaker 01

  You gotta hit this exact, I got this exactly.

• 1:17:19Bill Simmons?

  You did? I'm gonna say Miami by six and a half.

• 1:17:22Speaker 01

  Oh, you should have said seven. Very close.

• 1:17:27Bill Simmons?

  I would advise people not to tease that.

• 1:17:31Bill Simmons?

  I just don't. That seems like a classic Miami looking ahead game. Who does Miami play the week after this? They play.

• 1:17:38Speaker 01

  Well, that's Thanksgiving week, right?

• 1:17:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're at Green Bay on Thursday that next week. So this is a classic, hey, it's the Pats. Let's just, we'll get by this. We got Green Bay on Thursday and then all of a sudden we're up 10-0.

• 1:17:50Speaker 01

  You played tough with them last time, right? It was like 15-10. Is that what you said?

• 1:17:53Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think we can play with that team.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  Now, the reason these games are so shitty is because six teams are off, right?

• 1:17:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:59Speaker 01

  We forgot to mention that. Buffalo, Cincinnati.

• 1:18:01Bill Simmons?

  Huge fantasy implications. Yeah, there's some like teams with fantasy guys. So the poop facta is, is loaded. We might need the clogger to unclog it. Really some doozies. There's five Bucks Giants at, at, uh, in Jersey.

• 1:18:22Bill Simmons?

  Bucks minus four.

• 1:18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, you get it. I said five. It's three and a half. Stupid. That's dumb. Except that we, we're gonna bet Tampa to win the division. So they're definitely gonna lose to the Giants.

• 1:18:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So we kind of need to do that because I need, I need to be interested in week 12. So maybe that's the first way to do it.

• 1:18:41Speaker 01

  Let's do it.

• 1:18:42Bill Simmons?

  Bet the Bucks.

• 1:18:44Bill Simmons?

  Washington

• 1:18:47Bill Simmons?

  is home for the Cowboys.

• 1:18:50Speaker 01

  Watch out.

• 1:18:50Bill Simmons?

  God only knows how bad you're gonna look tomorrow.

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  Watch out.

• 1:18:55Bill Simmons?

  I have Washington by eight.

• 1:18:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, man, you're edging me out here. I had seven and a half. It's nine and a half.

• 1:19:03Bill Simmons?

  That's too many. Washington hasn't looked good in a month.

• 1:19:07Speaker 01

  Well, Cowboys haven't looked good six years in a month. So.

• 1:19:12Bill Simmons?

  Fair.

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Should be interesting.

• 1:19:14Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you don't think the schedule can get worse? Can I offer you Chiefs Panthers and Carolina?

• 1:19:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:21Speaker 01

  You could offer me a three team teaser.

• 1:19:23Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's why I'm jacking this up. Because they're gonna have, this will be in the tease range. So I'm gonna say Chiefs by 11 and a half in Carolina.

• 1:19:34Speaker 01

  I can't get one of these? I had 12. It's 10 and a half.

• 1:19:40Speaker 01

  They can't lose that. Put that on any teaser from now, whenever, however long you think you're going to be betting, 15, 20 more years, 40, just try to, try to get them on whatever FanDuel will allow.

• 1:19:53Bill Simmons?

  I had another 14 or 13 pointer, by the way.

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  Oh, I saw that. Wait.

• 1:19:58Bill Simmons?

  Chargers plus 11, Chiefs, Lions, and then, uh, the Eagles on Thursday night.

• 1:20:07Speaker 01

  Oh, you must have won. Oh, you sent me something else with, uh, with, uh,

• 1:20:11Bill Simmons?

  I think that was it.

• 1:20:12Speaker 01

  The UFC, uh, no, UFC, Green Bay. Look at you, hitting everything.

• 1:20:17Bill Simmons?

  Bo Nickle with John Jones, who could not have been more amazing in that fight.

• 1:20:23Speaker 01

  Too many.

• 1:20:23Bill Simmons?

  And then the Lions and the Packers was basically even odds. John Jones figured out how to do a liver punch as a spinning back kick.

• 1:20:31Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 1:20:31Bill Simmons?

  Like, I, I've never seen a UFC move that looked like it hurt more than that move.

• 1:20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:37Bill Simmons?

  If they did that to us, what would happen to us?

• 1:20:42Speaker 01

  I would still, I would, no, I would still be, I'd, I'd say I'd still be in the ring, but I think they would carry me to my grave. So I don't think I would still be in the ring. Yeah, no.

• 1:20:49Bill Simmons?

  It'd break like five ribs, right?

• 1:20:51Speaker 01

  It looked like it really, like he was going to have trouble getting his foot out of that sternum, right?

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  I thought he was so good. Stipe was terrible. Stipe looked like he was kind of washed. But John Jones was like, he played all the hits. Like he did the ground and pound in the first, first round. He's just like, he has this ways of just like, it's like 20 elbows and 19 of them land. He was so good.

• 1:21:12Speaker 01

  Someone gave Stipe a round, which was insane.

• 1:21:15Bill Simmons?

  Jesus.

• 1:21:16Speaker 01

  It's one of the judges.

• 1:21:17Bill Simmons?

  Two more terrible games. Texans, Titans. This is in Houston.

• 1:21:23Bill Simmons?

  And I really, I, I thought about getting this to nine because I don't, I know they're going to think everyone's going to tease it, but the Texans just haven't been good enough. So I'm going to say Texans eight and a half.

• 1:21:34Speaker 01

  I hate when you're, you're explaining it and I know I'm, you have me dead to rights, but I have to still have to listen to the whole thing.

• 1:21:41Bill Simmons?

  And keep a poker face?

• 1:21:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it is, it's, I had nine and it is eight and a half. This is disgraceful.

• 1:21:48Bill Simmons?

  That's a slightly dangerous game for Houston because Tennessee's defense isn't bad.

• 1:21:52Speaker 01

  Short week for Houston.

• 1:21:53Bill Simmons?

  Short week for Houston.

• 1:21:54Speaker 01

  Battle, that's going to be a battle against the Cowboys. Very physical.

• 1:21:59Bill Simmons?

  You know, this one might not be a poop fucked a game with the way Bo Nix is playing, but Broncos in Vegas playing the Raiders and Bobby Baccala, Antonio Pierce.

• 1:22:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I was saying to you and Lombardi that Bobby Bakla was Uncle Junior's driver for two years and then like somehow a couple of people died and he became a captain.

• 1:22:18Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  And it was like, how is this guy captain? He was like getting, getting the, uh, getting Uncle June, Uncle June and Baba Ghul. What did they call that? Gaba, what's that saying?

• 1:22:28Speaker 01

  Gaba Ghul.

• 1:22:29Bill Simmons?

  Gaba Ghul. What did they call Baba Ghul?

• 1:22:32Speaker 01

  That was, that was Karen's, Karen's Last lasagna, Junior.

• 1:22:36Bill Simmons?

  I'd never heard of Gaba Ghul before.

• 1:22:38Speaker 01

  You're not, you're not saying it right. It's okay.

• 1:22:43Bill Simmons?

  Gaba Ghul?

• 1:22:44Speaker 01

  Gaba Ghul. That's like your daughter's first words.

• 1:22:50Bill Simmons?

  That's a Jersey thing. That was not in, not in, uh, not in the Connecticut, Massachusetts area. Um, but yeah, it was like, like Antonio Pierce, they just cut to him on the sidelines and he just has this look like, what if I'm going to be able to do TV next year? I wonder if there's gonna be a college job. Broncos, I'm gonna say minus four in Vegas.

• 1:23:13Speaker 01

  All right. You get it either way, but, uh, this, I said three, it was three and a half. It went to four and a half. What kind of injury could there be on Vegas for them to move this a line? I know their running backs both got hurt, but it was like Amir Abdul or whatever, but why did this move within an hour?

• 1:23:32Bill Simmons?

  Well, did you see any of the Vegas game?

• 1:23:34Speaker 01

  Oh, I know. They're terrible. Yeah.

• 1:23:36Bill Simmons?

  Minshew had a play where in the fourth quarter, he rolled out and he threw a pass and I think it was Jalen Ramsey. He fell down. So he was on the ground and the guy was open and Minshew somehow threw it to Jalen Ramsey who caught it when he was lying on the ground for an interception. I didn't ever see that before.

• 1:23:53Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 1:23:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Tough times for Minshew.

• 1:23:57Speaker 01

  I love, I, I, I just want so badly to bet that team, but they gotta be a stay away for the rest of the year.

• 1:24:04Bill Simmons?

  Sunday night Eagles Rams in LA. Not a bad game.

• 1:24:10Bill Simmons?

  I have a crowd prediction for this. There's a lot of Philly fans that live here.

• 1:24:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:24:15Bill Simmons?

  You put a lot of Philly fans together. And if the game becomes frustrating or disappointing in the first or second quarter, the vibe slash energy in that arena or stadium completely changes and gets super weird. And I feel like that's gonna happen in this game. You put 50,000 Eagles fans who are furious because Sirianni went for it on fourth and three and Jalen Hurts got sacked and just that you can hear the grumbling all around the stadium. I'll never forget the Super Bowl Eagles Pats. Like it was the weirdest energy I've ever felt in a, in a game. It's just the Eagles fans are so mad. It was like in the second quarter. They're furious.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  But those are Eagles, Eagles fans. These are gonna be LA Eagles fans, right?

• 1:24:58Bill Simmons?

  You think they're gonna be more mellow because of the, because we have good weather?

• 1:25:01Speaker 01

  No, probably not.

• 1:25:03Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't think so either.

• 1:25:04Speaker 01

  That'll be bad. But this means more to the Rams for sure.

• 1:25:07Bill Simmons?

  I do not have the Rams favorite, Sal. I have Eagles minus one and a half.

• 1:25:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, I said two and it's three. Eagles are a full, full field goal.

• 1:25:15Bill Simmons?

  Wow, they're rarely seen three.

• 1:25:18Speaker 01

  I think they're counting on what you're talking about. A lot of, lot of Eagles fans showing up.

• 1:25:23Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of Bengals fans. We're gonna be a lot of Eagles fans. Am I, did I clinch yet or is this still up in the air?

• 1:25:27Speaker 01

  Why? You wanna quit?

• 1:25:29Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 1:25:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's like nine to three.

• 1:25:31Bill Simmons?

  Pull my starters.

• 1:25:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, pull them all. Nine to three, you're up.

• 1:25:35Bill Simmons?

  Last game, Monday night, we get to watch the, the Chargers again. Oh, oh, Mike.

• 1:25:42Bill Simmons?

  Ravens at Chargers. Ravens in LA. I wonder if Malley Rubin will be in the house. I bet she will. She doesn't leave her own house, but she might be in this house.

• 1:25:55Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna say Baltimore by one and a half.

• 1:25:58Speaker 01

  Uh, are they checking on an injury because it's not on fan? I pulled it up before and now it's not on. You you look there, but what'd you say? We both said one and a half anyway. It's a it's three. It's the last I saw. But is Herbert Herbert hurt or somebody? Herbert might Herbert might be.

• 1:26:18Bill Simmons?

  Maybe he got hurt when they ran that play when he just got that option play when he just got annihilated. And Collinsworth's like, please don't ever run that play again.

• 1:26:26Speaker 01

  Oh, his right arm is. He could throw left handed if he wants. We watch him step.

• 1:26:31Bill Simmons?

  Handsome either way, like.

• 1:26:32Speaker 01

  Of course. All right. You won. Seven, four, one after 12.

• 1:26:39Bill Simmons?

  Thanks again to Workday for sponsoring this segment. Be a finance and HR rock star with Workday. To learn more, visit workday.com. So we watched Tyson Paul together at our cousin Jimmy's.

• 1:26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:26:53Bill Simmons?

  One of the most depressing sporting events I can remember. You felt by the second round. Felt like it was over. I went back because I remember I'd remembered writing a column about some fight that felt like the end of Tyson's career. And it was the Lennox Lewis fight, which was in 2002.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 1:27:13Bill Simmons?

  And that was when I wrote a whole long column about it was so sad to watch. It's over. It's literally 2002. This Drake May was born in 2002.

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:27:22Bill Simmons?

  So I don't know why we were surprised.

• 1:27:24Speaker 01

  I got to see his ass, and that's all I really want. I told you before the night. I was like, I just, I just want to see his ass. I don't care who wins the fight, but it bums me out because you were smart. You were the only one in the room who didn't have money on Tyson. And yet, the way we broke it down on against all, I I almost called the exact one. Like, he's going to show. He'll have like a flurry in the first couple of rounds, and then these gloves are too big. And Paul's going to realize that Tyson can't hurt him, and so he's just going to jab jab him to death and out of it. It wasn't even that much, and I didn't even count on the knee brace. When your fighter goes in there looking like Bill Walton at like 46 years old.

• 1:28:00Bill Simmons?

  The knee brace is just.

• 1:28:01Speaker 01

  Oh, my God.

• 1:28:02Bill Simmons?

  Automatic. I wish I didn't bet on this guy thing.

• 1:28:06Speaker 01

  So what? How many years was I off by? I know you wrote that column, but does he beat him at 48? Does he beat him at?

• 1:28:13Speaker 01

  Thirty, uh, forty-four?

• 1:28:15Bill Simmons?

  I had, as we're watching the Chargers game today, I put on ESPN on the smaller TV because I thought SportsCenter was coming on and they were running Mike Tyson's Greatest Hits, Volume Two.

• 1:28:25Speaker 01

  The press.

• 1:28:25Bill Simmons?

  And it was just him destroying. The best one is the Donnie Long, I think is my favorite. He's fucking half, I think he might have killed Donnie Long.

• 1:28:33Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:28:33Bill Simmons?

  But it's just over and over. Did you just see how fast and crazy good he was back then? And then there's been this revisionist history since, like, oh, no, he was just, he was both, at the moment Douglas hit him, like, anyone could have, there's, no. My answer to that is no. Like, him really through the Spinks fight was the most unstoppable heavyweight I've ever seen.

• 1:28:57Speaker 01

  Ferocious. Nobody's getting this well.

• 1:28:59Bill Simmons?

  I just don't know how anybody beats that guy. He's a fucking maniac. He's throwing uppercuts, he's ducking, he's rounding both hands. He had seventeen different punches.

• 1:29:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, for sure. He could.

• 1:29:09Bill Simmons?

  And in the Jake Paul fight, he really only had like this weird lazy left hook. He never threw his right, never threw uppercuts, and had no legs. It was awful.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  And the Jake Paul fight, he had seventeen different punches too, but tho- those were over eight rounds. So, um, total, he had seventeen punches. But I feel like betting on it, like, I'm an asshole, like, it's dumb, uh, going into it, I knew, but it's, it's, we don't want to admit we're old, right? Like, this bet was basically like getting a facelift, right? Like, it's a risk, and I know what's gonna, gonna happen here, and the surgeon got paid either way, but I can't admit that I'm old. And, uh, oh, Mike, you just killed us. You just killed, it was so sad. Couldn't move forward.

• 1:29:54Bill Simmons?

  In the training videos.

• 1:29:55Speaker 01

  He has thirty-second spurts, like, it's nice, right?

• 1:29:58Bill Simmons?

  Well, he planted the seed after, about he, he got hurt, or whatever happened to him in June, and he had that blood transfusion, and he lost weight. So, I feel like they're paving the way for one more.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  Oh, one more. Well, we need one less. One more fight? Really?

• 1:30:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. He made like 20 million for this.

• 1:30:17Speaker 01

  I know. He got 20 million. That's when you really feel like it's fair.

• 1:30:20Bill Simmons?

  We're not gonna all get together if it's like him versus George Foreman?

• 1:30:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:25Bill Simmons?

  Or him versus Evander, Holyfield Tyson III?

• 1:30:28Speaker 01

  Yep. Jimmy Carter could get sanctioned. I think they could do this.

• 1:30:33Bill Simmons?

  It's all about like the, it's the walk up, it's the anticipation of it, and then the actual fight is like a bonus.

• 1:30:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. I had buzzed Adam Carolla in my ear saying, he's 58. What do you expect? I think I heard that about 25 times.

• 1:30:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. That seemed to be his, his go-to point.

• 1:30:52Speaker 01

  He's right.

• 1:30:55Bill Simmons?

  It was brutal. The women's fight was great, though.

• 1:30:57Speaker 01

  That should have been the main event. That was tremendous. I, of course, lost money on that.

• 1:31:01Bill Simmons?

  I was, the most exciting moment for me, though, is Baby Doll. Jimmy had like this big fire pit with the fire going. Baby Doll sees it and it's just like, it's, it's just like a, like a cheetah seeing its prey. He just has to sit next to it and have at least two Marlboro Reds in a row while flicking it into the fire and then eventually throwing a cigarette in there. Even though it's not a fire, it's like one of those glass things shoot up. It's now there's cigarette butts in there, which I'm sure they didn't want.

• 1:31:30Speaker 01

  Trash in there. But he makes it like it's a carnival game.

• 1:31:33Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, but he, he, he was.

• 1:31:35Speaker 01

  Listen, I know what I'm doing, baby. I gotta get through these three packs before I open the other one.

• 1:31:42Bill Simmons?

  What do you got for parent corner?

• 1:31:43Speaker 01

  All right. I got a good one. Uh, so on Tuesday, this past Tuesday, my son Jack has a wrestling match, right? And it's a duel meet against another school. So he's on JV. And when you're on JV, like if you're on varsity, you pretty much feel the full lineup and you know, the opposing team is gonna have probably one guy at every weight class. So it'll match up. But if you're on JV, you never know. Like if the other team only has five extras and you have 20, you're not gonna get a match. So I have to go and I have to wait, whatever. So we get there. He comes in, he's like, I don't have a match. And my wife is working. Work in the concession stand and she's like, oh, well, then you should eat then I'm like, well, don't we want to wait?

• 1:32:24Speaker 01

  He's like, no, I don't have a match. So um, she's giving him like Costco pizza and like peanut M and M's. And I'm like, all right, well, I guess that's it. Well, we'll stay and watch anyway. 15 minutes later, he comes out. He's like, I have a match. I'm wrestling varsity. The regular varsity kid, um, he's out with ringworm. I was like, you gotta be kidding me.

• 1:32:45Bill Simmons?

  Ringworm, the only, the only thing you can get from wrestling. There, there, there's no other way to get ringworm. Unless you're wrestling for somebody.

• 1:32:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Guess what? He's also his partner. So he probably has it too. But anyway, officially he doesn't have it. Yes, we all have it now. So I have to talk to him now. So I'm like, all right, shit, this is crazy. You're wrestling varsity. Um, you know, so like if you're losing, you're probably going to be losing because you're a 10th grader on varsity and not much experience. You gotta save your team points. So if you're losing by five, don't give up, don't go to your back. Cause if you lose by 10, it, it costs a team more points than if you lose by six. So anyway, all right, whatever. So um, he goes out there and it's a wild first period. It's like 10 to eight. There's a takedown or reversal every 15 seconds. The gym is pumped. It's sloppy. The other school, probably not their regular varsity kid too. Like maybe their guy had scurvy.

• 1:33:36Speaker 01

  I don't know what it is, but anyway, this is a sloppy match. I have no idea. So it's actually nine to eight, right before the end of the first period. Jack's on bottom. And he throws up the Domino's pizza. He throws up on the.

• 1:33:48Bill Simmons?

  On the mat?

• 1:33:49Speaker 01

  Yes, because he overdid it because he didn't know he was gonna have a match. And then they come out and they clean it and they have to spray it. And it's like a five minute, um, you know, the, like intermission there. And that's supposed to be it. Like they're, they don't really, they, they probably figure you're sick, right? And then that you have to like leave the match, right? Not that you had too much Costco pizza. Doesn't get the boom, by the way. And uh.

• 1:34:11Bill Simmons?

  Is there video of him puking or no?

• 1:34:13Speaker 01

  I'll send it to you. Yeah.

• 1:34:14Bill Simmons?

  Is it better than when you puked or how seeds three or no?

• 1:34:17Speaker 01

  No, no, the kid's got some ways to go, but uh, but it was uh, it was interesting nonetheless, but I'll send it to you. Um. He convinces him to let it keep going. And so he goes and he actually escapes to make it 10 to 8. So now the second period, same thing, back and forth. They're exhausted. Jack's about to get thrown, but like leg trips the kid right onto his back and the kid's exhausted. He pins the kid and the gym goes bananas. And the team eventually wins by six points. So he made a difference. So

• 1:34:46Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:34:46Speaker 01

  That was it. That was it. And it was, uh, it was pretty fricking great. I have to say, it's like, uh, you know, I could lose like a lot of, like a lot of bets and, uh, this would make up for it for sure. I like it. Yeah.

• 1:35:00Bill Simmons?

  So when they make a movie, it'll be called like Vision Puke?

• 1:35:04Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 1:35:05Bill Simmons?

  Vomit Quest?

• 1:35:06Speaker 01

  Vision crust brought to you by Domino's.

• 1:35:11Bill Simmons?

  That's parent corners brought to you by Domino's pizza. Check out their app. Domino's has a great app.

• 1:35:16Speaker 01

  Yuck.

• 1:35:18Bill Simmons?

  My parent corner, um, my, uh, my daughter's boyfriend, Tommy, who's a great kid. She's been dating him for like a year. And he was playing like a touch football game and some kid fell into his leg and he hurt his leg. Like he hurt, broke like the top of his tibia. So he was like in a cast for four weeks. So he ends up moving in because my dad is like, like 12 minutes from where Zoe goes to school. So he moves in with my dad and my stepmom because it's too hard for him. He's like, has an apartment in Austin. It's too hard for him to go back and forth, you know, like, so it's just, and then my dad's excited because he is like a live body to watch sports with.

• 1:35:59Bill Simmons?

  So Tommy's been there for like a month, hanging, hanging with my dad, watching, watching games and stuff. Which of course led to, um, I insisted that he mailed me videos whenever my dad fell asleep during sporting events, which was every single night. So, so I'll be, I'll just be home and I'll just get this video from Tommy and it's just, it's some exciting like fourth quarter of like, you know, Lakers Warriors. And then the phone will cut to my dad and my dad's like, he's like, like he's dead next to him. So

• 1:36:32Speaker 01

  Well, it's probably one in the morning, fourth quarter, like, right?

• 1:36:35Bill Simmons?

  My dad will stay up for all this stuff though.

• 1:36:37Speaker 01

  Really?

• 1:36:39Bill Simmons?

  And then I'd put all these apps on, uh, on my dad's TV, including NBA leak pass.

• 1:36:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:36:45Bill Simmons?

  Which of course he has no idea. It's like, all you have to do is you press the Apple TV. The league pass will come up quick on that. The games will be there and it's like too much for him. All he wants to do is turn on the TV and go to cable and then the smart TV part has Netflix and that's all he's capable of. So Tommy's in there and he's telling me how they're watching NBA games. He's like, yeah, Tommy knows how to get to these NBA games. And I'm like, you mean the NBA games that I put on your TV and was telling you like you could click on this? And it's like, so he made it seem like Tommy's like Red and Shawshank. Like Tommy's a man who knows how to get things. It's like, you mean Tommy just knows how to press the Apple TV menu, the things comes up and he presses the thing?

• 1:37:30Bill Simmons?

  Why can't our parents, why don't they understand how to use remote controls? Like, why is this? Do your parents have trouble with this? Like getting to?

• 1:37:39Speaker 01

  The worst. My father's fingers are big, so he's, he's, he's breaking the shit out of whether it's a phone or a little Apple remote or something. So it's just not for him. But yeah, it seems like it should click. It's not, they couldn't make it easier.

• 1:37:54Bill Simmons?

  They can't get it. My, every time my mom goes to see, her mom lives here and every time she's over, the first 20 minutes are her fixing smart TV or something that happened. I was thinking, I said to Fantasy, I actually think The Ringer, we might have to launch a podcast where every episode is somebody telling stories about interactions with their parents and technology. If you have parents over 75 and it's just like, all right, here's my story of when I went over to help, help fix my mom's internet. And it just goes, my mom couldn't get on Spectrum for like two weeks and called the guys and the guys came like that. She thought there was a serious problem and all the guy did was just turn the box off and on and the Spectrum worked.

• 1:38:36Speaker 01

  Right, right, right.

• 1:38:37Bill Simmons?

  Like the guy was like a house call, came in and that, that was the solution was, have you tried turning the box on and off? My mom was like, what do you mean? And did it and all of a sudden it worked.

• 1:38:48Speaker 01

  It's uh, it scares the shit out of them.

• 1:38:50Bill Simmons?

  Cause it makes me think, what are we gonna be like 30 years from now? Like AI, are we gonna be just as idiotic?

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  Oh, we're gonna be fine. We're gonna be fine. We could navigate FanDuel. We're good. We're good. But no, these people, like my father, I had to take him to DMV and you have to fill out all the shit on the tablet. You don't write anything. I'm like, if I wasn't there, he would be, he would be there. There wouldn't be cars. There'd be flying cars by the time he got out of there. He wouldn't be, yeah, it's tough. But the bigger point is, you're jealous of Tommy, aren't you?

• 1:39:19Bill Simmons?

  I am a little jealous. It did make me think of when I lived in Boston and I could just hang out and watch games with my dad and then he would fall asleep in the fourth quarter or whatever we're watching. Now Tommy, now Tommy gets it.

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  With his grandfather-in-law.

• 1:39:32Bill Simmons?

  But here's the other thing, Tom is a huge Heat fan because my dad watches every Celtic game if he doesn't go. So he feels like he has to like, you know, kinda join the Celtics thing a little bit, but he's also a Heat fan. So what he does is he bets on the Celtics every game.

• 1:39:48Speaker 01

  Oh, interesting. All right.

• 1:39:49Bill Simmons?

  See, this is why this guy could be the one for my daughter. Like he's, that's kinda outside the box thinking.

• 1:39:55Speaker 01

  He's living, this is a crazy relationship setup here, isn't it?

• 1:40:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, it's only one more week. He's got, he'll be able to start moving around in a week.

• 1:40:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right.

• 1:40:05Bill Simmons?

  My dad's like, I'm bummed out. We love having him here. It's like, what's going on?

• 1:40:11Speaker 01

  He's paying for the wedding. That's great.

• 1:40:14Bill Simmons?

  Anyway, that's parent quarter. Uh, Sal, what do you got to plug?

• 1:40:17Speaker 01

  Uh, well, I just came off the Ringer pregame show where I'm nine and two.

• 1:40:21Bill Simmons?

  You've had a long day.

• 1:40:22Speaker 01

  Best bets.

• 1:40:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, nine and two on your best bets. Come on. Wow, you were plus one oh eight to be nine and two with your best bets.

• 1:40:29Speaker 01

  It was an upset. Who knew I could do it? Uh, through the Ringer with Tate against all odds. We had a nice same game parlay with the fellas Thursday night and Cousins House winning weekend with the great Jim Nance on Friday. What should I ask him?

• 1:40:42Bill Simmons?

  Hello, my friends.

• 1:40:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hello, friends.

• 1:40:46Bill Simmons?

  I think you have to make him rank his top three things he's ever caught. From three to one.

• 1:40:54Speaker 01

  All right.

• 1:40:54Bill Simmons?

  You gotta get bronze medal, silver medal, gold medal, greatest, greatest things he's called.

• 1:40:59Speaker 01

  I have to.

• 1:41:00Bill Simmons?

  You know, he has his top three.

• 1:41:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. I also want the top three most annoying things about Tony Romo. I want, I'm gonna get it out of him. What he finds annoying.

• 1:41:08Bill Simmons?

  Definitely say like, hey, three years ago, were you mad at Romo when he just wasn't memorizing the numbers of the guys on the day? Did you get, did you give him a pep talk?

• 1:41:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:41:17Bill Simmons?

  Did you yell at him? What happened?

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  I love it. It's very exciting.

• 1:41:21Bill Simmons?

  Those are, those are good guests.

• 1:41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. We do all right. We have.

• 1:41:25Bill Simmons?

  Ringer Sunday pregame show too.

• 1:41:26Speaker 01

  We have a great, let me, sorry, let me shout out Alison Turner, the terrific booker for the Ringer.

• 1:41:32Bill Simmons?

  Oh, we love Alison.

• 1:41:33Speaker 01

  Great job by her.

• 1:41:34Bill Simmons?

  She's great. I almost don't like that you shouted her out. Now I'm worried she's gonna try to hire away from us.

• 1:41:39Speaker 01

  What do you mean?

• 1:41:40Bill Simmons?

  She's one of our favorite employees. Yeah.

• 1:41:42Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Her name is.

• 1:41:43Bill Simmons?

  She's actually really bad.

• 1:41:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, she's not good.

• 1:41:47Bill Simmons?

  Had to yell at her a few times last few weeks.

• 1:41:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Joe House is the one you want to book your guest.

• 1:41:56Bill Simmons?

  Ringer Sunday pregame, we came up with this new idea, the, what do we call it? The hot fudge sundae with a Y? Where everybody has to do a parlay of plus or a pick of plus 200 or higher, put them all together. And today's was like 42 to one. How many legs did we hit?

• 1:42:13Speaker 01

  I think we hit two. No, one, one or two. I had the under 31 and a half with Tennessee, Minnesota. Yeah. Yeah. JJ freaks out. JJ breaks out in hives because he doesn't like anything over plus 200. He's like, what? Where can I even find this?

• 1:42:29Bill Simmons?

  He wanted to do it. It has to be plus 110 or higher.

• 1:42:34Bill Simmons?

  For the sundae. All right, Sal, we'll see you next week. Good job by you.

• 1:42:38Speaker 01

  Good job by you, buddy.

• 1:43:05Bill Simmons?

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