Eagles Spit Takes, Week 1 NFL Picks, and a Possible Clippers Scandal With Joe House

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Joe House to react to the Eagles-Cowboys 'TNF' game (3:19). Then, they talk about their Ringer 107 picks for the week (22:50), before discussing the Kawhi Leonard–Clippers scandal (1:22:29). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: Joe House Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Steve Ceruti Get up to 40% off Back to School Essentials on Uber Eats. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠ www.rg-help.com⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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

• 0:25Speaker 01

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

• 0:37Speaker 02

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

• 0:57Speaker 01

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

• 1:24Speaker 02

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

• 1:30Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel Sportsbook, where you should be doing all of your wagering as we head into football season. I'm so excited. We have a big football podcast coming for you in a second with House. Rewatchables went up on Monday. We did the 400ers movie. We did American Gangster. I also put up three BS podcasts already this week. The Sunday with Sal, Guess the Lines. Charles Barkley on Tuesday. Peter Schrager on Wednesday. So this is podcast number four. And we have a whole bunch of great podcast stuff going across the network right now. Football, Zach Lowe is back. Don't forget about him. A lot of pub culture. Sean Fennessey is back on the big picture. Chris Ryan is back on the watch.

• 2:14Bill Simmons?

  Prestige TV, that's coming back this weekend because me and Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney are going to be breaking down. An HBO show called Task, which is awesome. It is so good. I can't wait for you to watch it. We just love this show, so we're going to be talking about it every week. Find the Prestige TV podcast. And then the Wedding Scammer podcast that we did, there's an epilogue now because the star of that podcast, who didn't want to be the star, but he became the star, was arrested. So you can, if you like that podcast, go, go find the epilogue episode as well. Coming up on this podcast, Joe House and I, we're going to do something that you can only do with the magic of editing in 2025.

• 2:59Bill Simmons?

  We're going to react to Eagles Cowboys Thursday night in the first segment. And then we're going to travel back in time by four to five hours to break down the week one NFL slate. We may talk about this Kawhi Leonard story too. So it is all coming up. Going to take a break and then our friends from Pearl Jam. It's the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by Fanduel and the NFL is back and thank God. Fanduel has everything. They got an awesome app. They have SGPs. They have great futures. They have good prop bets, live betting, your way bets, clean app. It's great to use. Been using it for a few years. Every time I go back to Boston or any place that has Fanduel and I get to use it, I'm always excited. I'm on an airplane runway. You done the airplane runway?

• 3:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:44Bill Simmons?

  Everybody. Airplane runway.

• 3:46Speaker 04

  There should be a button, the runway.

• 3:48Bill Simmons?

  I'm on the airplane runway. I gotta get this in. Get your bets in, build something bold, make every game feel bigger. Download the Fanduel app or head to fanduel.com/BS to get started. The Ringer committed to responsible gaming. Please visit rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available and listen to the end of this episode for additional details. You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Get them, call 1-800-GAMBLER, visit rg-help.com, call 1-887-897-777 or visit ccpg.org/chat. Connecticut paid endorsement.

• 4:50Bill Simmons?

  All right, we are recording this part. It is 12:20 Eastern Time. We had a Cowboys Eagles game that went on forever because there was a lightning delay. I, I, I kinda lost track of everything. The game had no flow. All of a sudden it seemed like the Cowboys might win. Does Dallas win this game with Micah Parsons? I'm gonna start there. Not to do first takey, but their defense looked good.

• 5:13Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 5:14Bill Simmons?

  Their defense looked good.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  Well, it looked good in the third period. You know, we had a post play up and hockey game. Yeah.

• 5:21Bill Simmons?

  Post lightning. But they were flying around and hitting guys. The first half, they looked terrible.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:26Bill Simmons?

  But I was thinking like, they could have stolen this game and they were one guy short. And then C.D. Lamb, obviously, uh, big drop down the stretch. Too bad.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  Here's the one guy short, and this was the criticism of the team building in the offseason. They attempted to address the running back room and they got half of it right. But Miles Sanders put the mother effing ball on the carpet at the Eagles 10 yard line, and that was the difference in the football game. In the third quarter, when neither team had stopped the other, we hadn't seen any punts up to that point. Each team was scoring at will, and Miles Sanders put the ball on the field. That's a replacement level running back. And that's what happens team building wise, when you're not, you know, building with a serious eye. So that would be my criticism.

• 6:15Bill Simmons?

  Or when you're not paying an advertising company, it's a circumstantial salary cap. Not that anyone did that. Not that anyone did that.

• 6:21Speaker 04

  Oh, boy. Oh, boy.

• 6:23Bill Simmons?

  It's 24:20, third quarter. Dallas is kinda driving third and like 22, and there's a huge late hit on the Philadelphia safety, on the tight end, on a pass that's already incomplete. And it feels like Dallas is gonna take the lead. And there's real energy because the Eagles look a little lethargic on offense. Sanders fumbles the next play. Lightning delay. And then we have this NBC crew that we've poked some fun at on some various pods now forced to fill for like a solid hour. This was not on the agenda. Jack Collinsworth is like, wait, I have to, is this like a podcast? What's going on here? And had the other crew

• 7:06Bill Simmons?

  and it was just not great TV. I moved over to the US Open. What'd you do during the lightning delay? Just eat?

• 7:12Speaker 04

  No, I slept. I thought this was gonna take. Grab the quick shut eye. Puerto Rico slept also. He couldn't remember the name of the Eagles quarterback. He called Jalen Hurts, Prescott about six times after the rain delay.

• 7:28Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I mean, neither of us are in any position to really make fun of people for forgetting names or doing malpropisms. But after the sixth time he called Jalen Hurts, Prescott, even I was like, wow.

• 7:40Speaker 04

  We're not on TV.

• 7:41Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, this is tough.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  It was a very even game though. Like, look at the numbers.

• 7:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, it was like, you know what it was? It was a classic dumb week one game.

• 7:51Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 7:52Bill Simmons?

  I learned nothing. I don't know what was going on with the Eagles offensive line. Jalen Carter, we haven't even talked about that yet, gets, gets thrown out for spitting.

• 8:00Speaker 04

  We have, you know, defensive, you know, star defensive lineman from each team. He immediately evened the score in that, in that regard.

• 8:10Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe he felt bad for the Parsons trade. So he spits and Dak Prescott get, so they, they get a guy hurt on the opening kickoff and as they're carting the dude off, Jalen Carter spits on Prescott, gets thrown out. We don't see until halftime. This video, Prescott kind of spitting toward.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  The direction, yes.

• 8:30Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't know if that warranted the spit on the chest. That's just fucking gross.

• 8:35Speaker 04

  Clearly didn't. I mean, you know.

• 8:37Bill Simmons?

  I don't think Prescott was violated enough.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  One's a penalty and one is not. I mean, they're saying that, that Carter might face additional, you know, penalties.

• 8:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, on the, on the gross spit scale. On a scale of zero to Bret Hart hawking a loogie on Vince McMahon in the Montreal Screw Job match, which is the most disgusting spit anyone's ever spit at anyone else. This was, I think, about a four. I think if he'd aimed it a little higher and gotten some of the neck, that maybe gets that to like a six.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  I'm glad he didn't.

• 9:11Bill Simmons?

  He basically put it right here, but I would still, would you think about a jersey change at that point? I'm not sure.

• 9:16Speaker 04

  I did wonder, did somebody run out with wipes? I didn't see the, you know, the aftermath, but I'm surprised to hear you say that you didn't learn anything because to me, immediately what strikes the eye is how competent Dallas is on offense when Dak Prescott is the quarterback. Like, it's radical how competent their offense is. And Pickens and C.D., that's, that's a problem. I mean, you know, they'll figure out, holding on to the ball. You know, the Pickens is gonna have one dumb penalty a game, but they can get vertical and Dak is happy to throw the ball down the football field. I mean, I thought that Dallas offense, especially the, the script on the first drive, was magnificent. Now, they did get to take advantage of

• 10:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:01Speaker 04

  the offensive line, being able to push around the, the Eagle front without Carter, and they, they were able to establish the run with, with Williams, but I thought it was a pretty masterful script. Schottenheimer was in his bag, and Dak Prescott is, is a badass.

• 10:19Bill Simmons?

  I think that's fair. So I, maybe I was discounting it a little because the Eagles had already lost a few guys in free agency, and they lose, you know, one of the 12 or 13 best defensive players in the league. I don't know where he ranks, but Carter's certainly the best guy on the Eagles. And he's out before the game even starts. And it just felt like, it felt like it tilted the Eagles in the wrong direction. I wrote down, to, to your point, Dallas looked a little discount Cincinnati-ish to me.

• 10:50Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 10:51Bill Simmons?

  Not, not quite burrow Chase Higgins, but in the, in the vicinity of, of a reasonable impression of them. And I thought Dak was slinging it around, you know, there were a couple of good Pickens plays. They get a big pass interference with Pickens, too, so that doesn't count in the stats. And then Lamb's wide open on that, on that long pass. You know, of course, if you flip it around the other way, the Eagles dropped at least two interceptions.

• 11:15Speaker 04

  True.

• 11:17Bill Simmons?

  Did all that stuff. I also thought.

• 11:20Bill Simmons?

  Let's be honest, like that. How many hospital balls did Dak throw? At least five?

• 11:24Speaker 04

  All poor Ferguson.

• 11:25Bill Simmons?

  Holy macro. He's just leading people into death. It's like watching Steve Grogan in the seventies. But Dallas goes touchdown, touchdown, field goal, field goal, no punts in the first half and they're trailing. Not a good sign.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, it's kind of according to script. We anticipated that the Dallas defense was going to be vulnerable and it took the first two periods of the game for them to kind of figure it out. Third period, they were pretty good though, to your observation. They were flying around.

• 11:55Bill Simmons?

  Saying period. You're like doing hockey.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  We had three gay, three, three portions to the game.

• 12:00Bill Simmons?

  You say try best at this point.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  And then we had the, the, the third quarter and then we had the rain delay and then we had, you know, the fourth quarter calling the periods.

• 12:09Bill Simmons?

  I think the Eagles, um, they seemed a little thrown off, um, after the tragic death of A.J. Brown. Oh, wait, I'm being told he's, he was alive for four hours.

• 12:20Speaker 04

  I mean.

• 12:20Bill Simmons?

  Where was he? Did he play? Was he hurt? Where was he?

• 12:24Speaker 04

  They, they, it's, it's amazing. They, they, they stuck with the same script. I mean, they had one completion, uh, of eight yards or more until they finally got one down the field to Jahan Dotson, um, for, for a 50 yarder. But you know, look, look at the attempts, the completions and the total yardage for Hertz. Hertz threw the ball less than 25 times, completed less than 20 and ended up with about 150 yards of, of, of, of passing. The big.

• 12:53Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you a theory before you keep going? Can I give you a theory?

• 12:57Speaker 04

  I'm listening.

• 12:59Bill Simmons?

  I think they might have Milton burled this one.

• 13:01Speaker 04

  Okay, okay.

• 13:02Bill Simmons?

  They got at Kansas City in week two, Rams week three, at the Bucks in week four, Broncos week five, and then at Giants, at Vikings. So just good defenses across the board. This to me felt like, uh, how much can we pull out of the zipper and still get the pee in the urinal?

• 13:19Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 13:19Bill Simmons?

  Kind of a game.

• 13:20Speaker 04

  You can't lose. Week one, though, to a divisional opponent. I mean, I, I feel like-

• 13:26Bill Simmons?

  But do you think they were ever like really worried they're gonna lose? Cause the way they coached in that game, I thought was pretty strange.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Dallas had the ball with three minutes left and men were moving.

• 13:34Bill Simmons?

  Did you feel like there was urgency on offense for the Eagles? I did not.

• 13:38Speaker 04

  No.

• 13:38Bill Simmons?

  Did you feel like it was like, oh, let's run this cool play. Oh, here's this formation they won't be expecting. They were like the most missionary position offense I've ever seen.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  Especially in the fourth quarter.

• 13:47Bill Simmons?

  It was like just the most boring version of the Eagles you could possibly get.

• 13:50Speaker 04

  For sure. In the fourth quarter. That's absolutely accurate.

• 13:52Bill Simmons?

  The whole second half.

• 13:54Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 13:55Bill Simmons?

  And I thought if, if Hertz hadn't busted some plays with his legs, you know, so basically some broken plays that didn't work, you know?

• 14:05Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I, I, I just thought it was weird, but this is why, again, I'm trying not to say I learned anything from week one because we do this in week one every year. And these teams are going to be radically different. I do have a couple of questions for you, though. I had the Eagles over 11 and a half wins. Did you have them over or under?

• 14:24Speaker 04

  Over.

• 14:26Speaker 04

  Or right at it. Maybe I, I might have to pick them to win 11.

• 14:29Bill Simmons?

  I think we both had a whiff of it.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  It was either 11 or 12. I, I mean, I don't want to misrepresent.

• 14:34Bill Simmons?

  Well, I had over. I'm wavering a little after watching that because of, uh, I, I just didn't think their front seven looked as fierce as it used to. And I didn't think their offensive line looked that good.

• 14:46Speaker 04

  We can't possibly have an opinion on their front seven without Carter. I mean, you know, he's, he's too important.

• 14:52Bill Simmons?

  I get it. I just like watching that team today. I was like, man, 12 and five with the next six games they have, especially. I just, I don't know if I would go over after watching what I watched today. But again, it's a week one over.

• 15:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. The reason that, that you would say, you know, right around 11 ish and with some aggression from last season is because of, um, it takes time for, for new bodies on that defense to get the Fangio scheme. And that's just, you know, I try, we've seen it so many times everywhere he goes. It just takes a minute and they have tremendous turnover on defense. It's like six new starters.

• 15:26Bill Simmons?

  So as a Washington C words fan, you didn't watch that game and go, oh, doors open this season. I think we can catch these guys.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  I need to see the Washington defense first before I have an opinion on what Washington's capable of. I mean, I'm not worried about the offense.

• 15:39Bill Simmons?

  This is like a sober house. Maybe we should have thrown some shots in here. It's a reasonable, reasonable house.

• 15:45Speaker 04

  It's money making time. We are squarely in the mode of time to go try cashing tickets. I had Dallas tonight. I said Dallas on the show with Cousin Sal and the bundle. I'm happy. That was too many points. It played out just like the way you said, a dumb week one game. But these teams were close and Dallas showed us, this is one of my favorite bets of the entire preseason was Dallas over at seven and a half. That team is at least an eight win team with that offense. You kidding me? With that offense? Eight and nine?

• 16:21Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 16:22Bill Simmons?

  Somewhere between six and nine, but I would probably lean toward the six, seven range. I, I think that the very least, when they're getting a lot of points like that, they're a backdoor cover team waiting to happen.

• 16:34Speaker 04

  Sure. Okay.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  If they were up 11 in that game with five minutes left, I just would have assumed they were going to come down and score. But I do think they're very similar to the Bengals. That was one of my big things that I thought might be the case heading into the season, and that's definitely the case now.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  I'll say this, their offensive line might be better than the Bengals because Dak had time and they established the run. It's not, I mean, but you know, if you're going to compare into the bagels.

• 17:01Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Dak threw for, we're making it seem like Dak was Tom Brady in 2007, who's 188 yards for no touchdowns. But pass interference and a couple of drops, that probably could have been a little bit better. Next question for you. Do you think the Giants, after what you saw today, can, can the Giants have a chance to definitively have the best defense in the NFC East? I guess we'll find out on Sunday after we get a look at it.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  Find out. We had that in our threads. On paper, it's apparent. And the way that these two defenses played, again, the Eagles without Carter, so it's not really appropriate as a measure for what that defense is capable of.

• 17:43Bill Simmons?

  By the way, they might be without him in week two.

• 17:45Speaker 04

  Fair enough.

• 17:46Bill Simmons?

  The whole spitting, spitting fiasco. Dallas has their next.

• 17:52Bill Simmons?

  What they got? They have, oh, home Giants, at Bears, home Packers. It's their next three. That feels like a one and three.

• 18:00Speaker 04

  That's a tough start to the season.

• 18:02Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Um, next thing I have for you before we get to, uh, all of our picks and everything else we already did.

• 18:11Bill Simmons?

  The taunting thing. I just gotta get this off my chest.

• 18:16Bill Simmons?

  So every year they have to throw one dumb new wrinkle with how to affect the style of play. I almost feel like so it can be a conversation point for people like us. And for people watching the game on social media, they want to like tweak one thing and make it weird and make people go, wait, what just happened? And today it was the taunting. Where I think it was, uh, who's it? Nolan Smith. Good tackle. Did a, did like a bodybuilder pose after.

• 18:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, a little flex.

• 18:41Bill Simmons?

  And it was a huge play because I think it would have been like third and 12, third and 13. Gets the taunting. Nobody knows what's going on. And, uh, and about a half hour later, the Eagles get the fumble recovery. And, uh, I forget who got the fumble, but he leads everybody into the end zone so they can do a choreographed 15 second tush push celebration. And it's like, so on the one hand, I can't taunt anybody. I can't do elevate in any way, any sort of aggression. On the other hand, take 15, 20, 25, 30 seconds to taunt the entire team with some sort of goofy celebration. What, what are we trying to do here?

• 19:23Speaker 04

  You should.

• 19:24Bill Simmons?

  Which way are we going?

• 19:25Speaker 04

  Get somebody who knows what they're talking about on that's not me, but my instinct is that their taunting goal is to not have guys in the face of other guys. And then Nolan Smith was too close, too proximate to, uh, a Dallas guy because they're trying to, to lower the temperature. They don't want, you know, hand to hand combat. But I mean, that's just a dumb theory.

• 19:49Bill Simmons?

  That's just football? I, I, like, isn't that what's supposed to happen? You, you have a hit, you do something and then you kind of, you let it out?

• 19:57Speaker 04

  It's a rule for nobody. Like who is that? Who, what, what goal are we serving? With calling a penalty on the Nolan Smith play? Like who, in whose interest are we, are we asserting that this is outside the bounds of, of, of conduct that's desirable?

• 20:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. By the way, this was a game that had multiple big fights in it and a guy spitting on the quarterback of the other team. So I don't know, the ship might have sailed. I don't know what they're trying to do with this, but I feel like that taunting thing, it's going to swing a game at some point in these first three weeks and people are going to lose their fucking minds.

• 20:31Speaker 04

  Properly so.

• 20:32Bill Simmons?

  It's going to be like fourth down, two minutes left, big play, you know, some sort of dumb taunting thing. All of a sudden a second fourth down and they convert it.

• 20:41Speaker 04

  It's the worst kind of penalty because it is 1,000% in the judgment of the referee standing there to make a quick snap assessment as to whether or not it rises to the level of a foul. And that's the worst. There, there, because there is no bright line. Nobody watching the tonight's game would say, oh, he crossed the line. We don't even have to have a debate as to whether or not Nolan Smith crossed the line. He didn't. We've seen that football play 10 million times. It's perfectly within bounds. Nobody's upset. Good job by him with the tackle. Good job by him celebrating. Can we just play football? No, we're going to have these judgment calls by these guys who are, you know, coming from, from bad

• 21:25Speaker 04

  angles, bad, you know, trying to make a judgment and it's going to, like you say, it's going to tilt the outcome and it's going to make everybody lose their minds.

• 21:32Bill Simmons?

  He would have been better off leading his teammates over to the side and performing the Macarena with them. They would have been like, this is great. Hey, Macarena.

• 21:41Speaker 04

  That's a penalty. Penalty on you.

• 21:43Bill Simmons?

  It's a bad musical choice.

• 21:45Speaker 04

  Flag on you.

• 21:47Bill Simmons?

  All right. Well, we didn't learn that much today. Uh, we did learn though, that that was too many points and it's something maybe that we should consider going forward. We talked about a couple of the higher line games, but uh, just in general, week one, clumsy, weird, awkward, new guys in new places. Nobody's practiced enough and just uh, let's be careful out there. We are going to take a break and then uh, House and I are going to bang out. The week one slate in the first batch of Ringer 107 picks. I can't wait, House.

• 22:18Speaker 04

  Let's go. Let's go.

• 22:21Bill Simmons?

  The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel and football fans, the wait is finally over. The best place to kick off the season for the NFL, the National Football League, a league that House and I love very much. Kick it off on FanDuel every game day during week one. FanDuel giving all customers a no sweat NFL bet, money line, player props, same game parlays. What's your, what are you going to be this year? You're going to be more straight up goofy parlays? What are you, what are you doing? What's going to be in your, uh, what's your MO this year?

• 22:49Speaker 04

  Well, why do they have to be goofy parlays? The anchor parlay last year was, was wonderful.

• 22:54Bill Simmons?

  Anchor parlay. Yeah.

• 22:55Speaker 04

  Come on, buddy.

• 22:56Bill Simmons?

  We're going to do some anchor parlays. You're right.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  That's how we do it.

• 22:58Bill Simmons?

  And your no sweat bet can be used on any NFL wager type and it doesn't when you get bonus bets back. House and I are about to share, share, share our favorite bets as part of the Ringer 107. This season, make FanDuel your go-to app for any snap. Visit FanDuel.com/BS to kick off the NFL season with a no sweat bet every game day during week one. Play your game. FanDuel, an official sports betting partner of the NFL. Must be 21 plus, present in select states or 18 plus present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt-in required. Refund issued, non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire seven days after receipt. Max refund unless otherwise specified, $5. Restrictions apply, including token expiration. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem? Call

• 23:39Bill Simmons?

  1-800-GAMER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-887-97777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Parents, if there's one thing you deserve to make it easier on yourself, it's back to school season. I know that's how I feel as well. On Uber Eats, you can get up to 40% off back to school essentials like notebooks, pencils, calculators. You got lunch boxes to fill? Get discounts on fresh fruit, juice boxes, string cheese and more. Get everything you need for back to school delivered right to you. Just a tap away in the Uber Eats app. Offer ends September 16th. See app for details.

• 24:21Bill Simmons?

  House and I, we just talked about Eagles Cowboys. We have now traveled back in time. Marty McFly style to break down the rest of the week one slate. You were on the, uh, man, I loved you and the bundo and Sal on Ringer Gambling Show on Wednesday. I was power walking around LA. It was 130 degrees and little, little young the bundo. It was like watching a little kid at the Thanksgiving table with his, with his uncles, just being so excited. It was, the vibe was great. I just loved it, House.

• 24:50Speaker 04

  That's so nice of you to say. I'll say for me, it felt like the three of us have been pals for, you know, 30 years. Like then the bundle fit in seamlessly. It gave a nice energy to the old guys, me and Cuz. But yeah, man, uh, the, the thing that the three of us have in common, dirty gamblers. I mean, we are going to get filthy on these Wednesdays. You got it.

• 25:12Bill Simmons?

  The only idea I sent you guys was let's get weird. The last segment should just be the weirdest bet you're actually might make during the week. And we're going to talk about a ton of bets right now. So we're in this Ringer 107 contest. That it's going to be our show against the fantasy football show, the Thursday Ringer Gambling Show, the Friday Ringer Gambling Show, and then Shio Kapadia solo Unabomber style on Friday. It's just on his pod.

• 25:37Speaker 04

  I love that.

• 25:38Bill Simmons?

  And we're picking five games a week and then 17 games during the playoffs. It's 107 picks total. We are apparently favored on FanDuel to win this contest, House.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  With good reason. I mean, I'm giving a standing ovation to FanDuel. They understand.

• 25:54Bill Simmons?

  Old wise guys, just doing great. Um, we're going to go through the whole slate. And I want to initially go through the stay away bets because there are a few of them. What we did was House and I, you're going to have one, I'm going to have two, and we're going to agree on two. And that's going to be our five. One of those is going to be a parlay. But I really, this gives us a chance to go through the entire suite and there's some stayaways. But there's some, I, I'm really surprised how much I like the slate. Do you find as you look at it, and maybe we've just been staring at these teams for four, five months, but I feel like I have a really good handle this week. How about you?

• 26:30Speaker 04

  So I totally agree. One of the things I found myself doing this week was reconsidering some, I had strong conviction at the beginning of the week. The line started-

• 26:40Bill Simmons?

  Like too, like too strong?

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Well, this is the concern. Some of the lines started moving in the direction against the sides that I, that I, I like. You know, the price got, got more expensive. So-

• 26:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  I was like, damn it. I don't, if, if everybody is betting in the direction that I want to go, like the Ravens went from underdogs to, to, to favorites over the course of the week. There was a half point added to the Jags and the Panthers over the last couple of weeks. There's more, more examples. Everybody is on the Giants. That line is all the way down to five and a half. It was seven early in the season.

• 27:13Bill Simmons?

  That was gonna be one of my picks. I thought we were gonna be able to get Giants plus seven and a half. And now it's like basically under six.

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. It's, it's five and a half right now on the Fanduel Sportsbook. So I, I got nervous. Uh, and as a result, when, when we have this conversation about what we end up with, I just went back to some of the hits, man. I, I'm like, who can I trust? What quarterback and coach can I trust to get the job done in week one? Bill Simmons?

• 27:37Bill Simmons?

  I'm so excited that we're gonna be aligned this year. I did million dollar picks for a while. It was fun. The figures were confusing. I felt like at any time I could gain the system. This is just pure, we're doing 107 picks and we want to get to 60 wins.

• 27:50Speaker 04

  Were you right or were you wrong?

• 27:52Bill Simmons?

  1647. I would take 1647 right now.

• 27:56Speaker 04

  Would you? Really? It's an incredible outcome. What do you mean you would take that? Of course you would take that.

• 28:01Bill Simmons?

  I'd really take 65 and 42, but 1647.

• 28:05Speaker 04

  Buddy, that's, it's an amazing outcome, 1647.

• 28:08Bill Simmons?

  I'm, I'm shooting for the stars.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  All right. No reason not to.

• 28:12Bill Simmons?

  All right. Stayaways, I have six.

• 28:16Bill Simmons?

  Browns Bengals, the Browns are in Cleveland. That just made you like spasm and hit your mic. Browns are in Cleveland. Bengals notoriously suck in the first two weeks of the season. I'm not sold in their defense. Neither are you.

• 28:31Bill Simmons?

  Browns plus five and a half. There's a lot of good home underdog division that like you. You know all the bets, the home underdogs at home for week one are like 23 and seven. I'm not taking the Browns. I just crossed this one off because if I had to bet, I would take the Browns. I'm crossing it off. So you agree with that, correct?

• 28:48Speaker 04

  Totally fair. And I do agree. I think the one thing that especially counsel is in favor of caution is what if the Browns defense is like the defense that they had at home in 2023?

• 29:03Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 29:03Speaker 04

  Remember that? And the Browns know the Bengals, they give the Bengals a hard time. There are a lot of reasons to in favor of the Browns and yet we're not betting on the Browns in week one. Just not gonna do it.

• 29:14Bill Simmons?

  Not betting on the Browns. If there was a bet, I'm just not betting in the Browns. I'm not betting on Joe Flacco, nothing. If there was a bet I would do, I would do like an alt high Bengals, like Bengals winning by like 20 plus.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 29:29Bill Simmons?

  One of those.

• 29:29Speaker 04

  I get it.

• 29:31Bill Simmons?

  The Bengals just blowing them out and it's like 35 to seven. It's like, oh, the Bengals. Here they are, but I'm not, I'm not going near that game.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  It feels like if you're gonna do that, do that or bet the Browns on the money line.

• 29:40Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 29:43Bill Simmons?

  Stay away from the straight up. Next one is your team, the Washington Seawords. They're playing the Giants. They're home. The line has moved two points. I love the Giants. Now I'm scared. There's some, not positive. The Giants are a hundred percent healthy for this one either. And there's a lot of people in the bandwagon. It's one where I like the Giants going, being better than people think. I have Washington being worse than people think, but now it just feels, this feels silly now. I don't know how your team's giving less than six points.

• 30:13Speaker 04

  Right. And, and you know, I've said on this very podcast that I am very afraid of this particular matchup. Jane Daniels was good last year against the Giants, but Washington beat the Giants last year by three points and by five points. And the three points was in week two, when the Giants did not have a field goal kicker. And as a result, had to go for it on fourth down.

• 30:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that's the reason that Washington won that game.

• 30:42Bill Simmons?

  I would probably do money line plus 220 Giants in the under 45 and a half, some sort of parlay if I played this game, but I think it's an official stay away. I don't, I don't like how many people are on the Giants. Next one is Colts Dolphins, which is just automatic as a stay away. I don't want to bet on the Dolphins. I don't want to bet on Daniel Jones. The line's one and a half that the cousin I called the TikTok zone.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:06Bill Simmons?

  Tyree Kill, there's some bleak stuff with him where he's limited at practice. Again, I don't, I want to see, this is one of those where I want to see both teams. I want to know what's going on with the Dolphins D backs. I want to know what's going on with their offensive line. I want to see, is that Ollie Gordon going to be awesome for Miami? I want to see, how are they going to use Daniel Dimes? Is Tyler Warren just going to be awesome? Are they going to be able to throw the ball? I'm probably not going to see a lot of it because I don't know if this is making a multi-view for me. Maybe watching the highlights.

• 31:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, seems like a good one for the highlights.

• 31:40Bill Simmons?

  This is a stay away, correct?

• 31:41Speaker 04

  1,000% stay away. My, my lean would be Miami because I think that Schrager made a nice point, a nice observation. Not only that nobody believes in us, which is, you know, funny, but they're what they're returning on defense in terms of the, the front seven. Jalen Phillips and, and Chubb, whatever condition they're in, they're healthy this year at least, you know, whatever they have in the tank. I mean, that's formidable. So, uh, but I think you're right. Let's just stay the F away from that game.

• 32:10Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to bold all these leans and maybe we'll find out a couple of weeks from now that we should have done the leans instead of the actual picks. This next one almost made the cut for me. It's the Falcons plus one and a half against Tampa and Tampa's a team you and I both like, but Tampa's just really banged up.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  It's another one. It was two and a half all the way up until this week. And now everybody's looking at, at Atlanta getting points at home in that a divisional underdog kind of situation and it's down to one and a half. So I, I'm, I lost my enthusiasm for it. I like Atlanta in, in this game.

• 32:45Bill Simmons?

  I do too. Cousin and I talked a lot about how wait on Tampa, let them stumble a little bit in September with all the injuries they have, and then maybe bet on them for division.

• 32:56Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 32:57Bill Simmons?

  Columbus State weekend range. I just don't want to bet the Falcons and I kind of want to see them.

• 33:03Speaker 04

  We've, Penix has started four games and he didn't play in the preseason and Raheem Palmer's been all over the quarterbacks that didn't make any appearances in the preseason and what the historical numbers are in terms of that. And that lines up for another sort of basis for staying away from this game. I mean, they come out rusty. Those quarterbacks tend to come out rusty.

• 33:26Bill Simmons?

  No left tackle for the Bucks for this game. Wurfs is out, but I think he's come back for week two, unless something changes over the next couple of days. And then the right tackle for the Falcons gone for the year.

• 33:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:36Bill Simmons?

  Too many red flags all over the place. Plus, NFC South is just complete stay away. Rams, Texans. This is now Rams minus three. There's been some Rams money and I think it's because the Texans have had some, like Kirk looks like he's going to be out. Nobody knows with the Texans running backs. And it feels like Stafford's playing and it feels like the left tackle for the Rams is playing too. My lean would be the Texans and especially with the points because I think their defense is the best unit in the field. But I don't want to bet against McVeigh and another stay away.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Well, the reason to bet against McVeigh is, you know, historically, he and the Rams have had slow starts to the season. So if you wanted to talk yourself into the Texans, I was prepared to bet the Texans. I have bet the Texans already in a teaser. I had the Texans and the Broncos in a nice teaser. Of course, teasers are too expensive over the course of a season to make it worth your while, but I bet it, you know, over the, over the summer. And I prefer the Texans side, but this injury situation, too many unknowns. Let's just watch them play football.

• 34:49Bill Simmons?

  Stafford, I feel a lot of kinship with. An old guy with a bad back. Do you think you like seafood and spare ribs?

• 34:57Speaker 04

  We could invite him out. He's in LA. He can have a seafood tower with us.

• 35:01Bill Simmons?

  It just sounds like he should be sitting when Chris Chen finally invites you to play at Bel Air. Just Stafford just sitting there at four o'clock talking about how much his back hurts.

• 35:11Speaker 04

  I'm gonna bloody marry.

• 35:12Bill Simmons?

  The quarterback of the Rams. Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 04

  There we go.

• 35:15Bill Simmons?

  Stay away, but very interested in that game.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 35:18Bill Simmons?

  I think that's one of those where I really want to watch both sides, both units, because I think both teams have some upside as a possible contender, especially the Texans, because their defense. Every fantasy league I'm in, I have the Texans defense.

• 35:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, I love the Texans defense for sure.

• 35:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 04

  That one, also, look at the total. It's 43 and a half, and I'm still fine with under on that game.

• 35:41Bill Simmons?

  Me too. So you're leaning Texans or Rams in that game? What's your lean?

• 35:44Speaker 04

  Texans, Texans.

• 35:45Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, me too. Alright, so we have all the same leans. And then the last one is Jets Steelers. Not only is this a stay away, I don't even have a lean. You could walk me in any scenario. If I had to, actually, I wish there was a way to bet on this on FanDuel. The Steelers winning, but somehow not covering, I feel like is in play. I think the Cousins House special is in play. I don't know what to expect from Rogers at age 42. I don't trust Justin Fields at all. Veron Tucker's out for the Jets now.

• 36:15Bill Simmons?

  I don't even have a lean, House. Do you have a lean?

• 36:18Speaker 04

  I do, and I almost put this in the mix. And the reason for that is because I do feel like I have a good feel for what the best unit on the football field will be, and it's the Pittsburgh Steelers defense. And the Pittsburgh Steelers always arrive, Tomlin always arrives at the beginning of seasons, prepared. They don't, like, they, week one last year, they were getting points on the road at Atlanta. That was one of my favorite bets of the entire season, 2024, week one, Steelers getting points. And we made some money early in the season riding the Pittsburgh Steelers, because they show up, defense, their defensive unit was ahead of all of the other offenses that they faced in the early

• 36:59Speaker 04

  season, and that's what catapulted them to that 10-win total and put them in the playoffs. I like that unit against this Jets team, against a quarterback that they know, against a brand-new head coach. So those were the reasons why I was willing to do something with Pittsburgh, but the line moved. Like, why did the line, why did it go from three to two and a half? This Pittsburgh has been favored by three all summer long, all the way up until this week, and now it's two and a half? I don't like that. I want to know, somebody tell me why that line moved.

• 37:31Bill Simmons?

  It makes you nervous.

• 37:31Speaker 04

  Yeah. Why is the line moving? Just sit tight. Sit there. Anyway.

• 37:37Bill Simmons?

  I'm staying away.

• 37:38Speaker 04

  I understand.

• 37:40Bill Simmons?

  If there's a play, it's probably Steelers and under.

• 37:43Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 37:43Bill Simmons?

  Something like that. Steelers adjusted under where you bring it up to like, you know, 49 points or something crazy with the Steelers minus two and a half.

• 37:51Speaker 04

  I mean, literally, we might see 90 combined rushes in this game. We might, the two teams might combine for 90 rush attempts.

• 38:00Bill Simmons?

  The only thing that worries me, and this is why I barely even had a lean, was the Jets were so dysfunctional last year. Not only from a coaching standpoint, but the Rogers situation and, and I have like some of the stuff I've read about Aaron Glenn, and I just wonder, is this like coming out of the gates and they're just pounding the ball and they have some identity? So I don't want to find out.

• 38:20Speaker 04

  They're still talent on that defense. That's the reason why I feel like it's okay to stay away. JJ is all over the Steelers. So that, that's another reason.

• 38:28Bill Simmons?

  That's another reason to lean the Jets.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  Or stay away.

• 38:32Bill Simmons?

  That's a low bro, bro.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  I have to get out of.

• 38:37Bill Simmons?

  Four that almost made the cut.

• 38:40Bill Simmons?

  And still might make the cut for all we know. Packers Lions. Packers are minus two and a half against Detroit. That line bumped after the Parsons trade. There was a really interesting quote today, House, about, from Parsons. About how he was in the locker room getting treatment and almost the entire team was in the locker room. And he was really like thrilled and he's like, I've never been part of a team where you could have said that. Just seems energized. And then there was some other stuff about this is why they got him. They wanted to pull him out of a relatively dysfunctional situation, put him in this infrastructure around good people with a great coach. And, you know, just watch him blossom.

• 39:23Bill Simmons?

  I could see him going nuts in this game. You and I are both short on the Lions this year because of the coaching coordinator changes and the offensive line stuff and the fact that, you know, they had such a good year last year.

• 39:35Bill Simmons?

  Something's holding me back, House.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  Well.

• 39:38Bill Simmons?

  There's some wide receiver injuries with the Packers.

• 39:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's one thing.

• 39:41Bill Simmons?

  Parsons, the getting an injection made me a little nervous.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  That's another thing.

• 39:46Bill Simmons?

  And I don't know why the Lions not three. And I think that's the number one thing for me, that it's just two and a half. Um, I don't, I don't know why somebody would take the Detroit outdoors in Lambeau with bless of a line. I, I can't quite get there. And I thought I was gonna, I thought I was gonna have the Packers and ring a 107. I was, I was like really, really convicted on it for most of the summer. And now, uh, now, no.

• 40:10Speaker 04

  Well, here, here's a couple of things. In the first place, Dan Campbell has been excellent against Matt LaFleur and the Green Bay Packers. He's six, six and two.

• 40:20Bill Simmons?

  Ooh.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  The Detroit Lions have gone into Lambeau and beat the Green Bay Packers the last three years in a row.

• 40:28Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 40:28Speaker 04

  So that's how Dan Campbell is six and two against Matt LaFleur. Now, there are extraordinary numbers about the way that the Packers under LaFleur start the football season. He has a great record, one of the best records in the entire NFL, but here.

• 40:41Bill Simmons?

  Is he like 90% the last six years or something?

• 40:44Speaker 04

  It's, it's.

• 40:44Bill Simmons?

  It's really good, right?

• 40:45Speaker 04

  It's in that vicinity for sure. Here, here's why, uh, and, and by the way, the look ahead line on this was Detroit minus one and a half. The Detroit, well, let me say, no, no, that's wrong. I'm sorry. It was Green Bay minus one and a half. I'm sorry. I missed, I misstated that.

• 41:01Bill Simmons?

  It was more exciting when it was Detroit minus one.

• 41:03Speaker 04

  It was, it was Green Bay minus one and a half. It's gone up a point, a full point. Right? Um, I am concerned that this is Detroit trying to tell the world, don't make that mistake of forgetting about us. They still have a ton of talent on both sides of the ball.

• 41:21Bill Simmons?

  Borderline, nobody believes in this case?

• 41:23Speaker 04

  In this game, in this game, they're like, they see all of this chatter about Green Bay, people like us saying, we're happy to have our Green Bay futures, Green Bay to win the NFC North, Green Bay to make the playoffs, Green Bay to make a deep run, Green Bay with, with speculative tickets on the Super Bowl, speculative tickets to win the NFC conference.

• 41:43Bill Simmons?

  Fans go to the game and they're. Like this is it. The Super Bowl run starts here.

• 41:47Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:48Bill Simmons?

  And then all of a sudden Detroit's up 10 nothing.

• 41:50Speaker 04

  Exactly. Yeah.

• 41:51Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm with you. So we're both like, there's something about this game that just feels a little stay away ish.

• 41:56Speaker 04

  I I'm all the way convinced to stay the F away. I just want to really enjoy the game. I mean, the other thing to remember is that Detroit last year, its hallmark was its physical play. And if you look at like, especially the first eight games of the season, after teams played Detroit, their next games, they went out and got their asses blown off the football field. So we need to remember that going in, but for the, the, just that toughness factor, when Detroit has all of its defense, all those guys ready to play it. Let's just stay away from this one.

• 42:29Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Carhartt. We spend a lot of time talking about football, the players, the coaches, the big plays, but there's a whole other team we rarely think about, the people who make the game possible. The workers building stadiums, paving parking lots, growing the grass, welding the goalposts, even making the footballs. They're committed to their craft and they're doing the work long before kickoff. Carhartt is proud to outfit those crews. So next time you're watching a game, take a second to appreciate the people behind it. Learn more at carhartt.com/jointhetrades. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Whether it's a pumpkin spice coffee that goes splat in your seat or a weekend tailgate that leaves your trunk full of gear and who knows what. You're going to want WeatherTech in your vehicle, whether you call it fall, autumn, or spooky season.

• 43:12Bill Simmons?

  Whether the mess is your fault, the kids, the dogs, or the weather's fault, you're going to want WeatherTech for American made floor liners and a cargo liner that laugh in the face of fall weather. Visit weatherTech.com today. Raiders, Pats. This is falling to Raiders plus two and a half.

• 43:30Bill Simmons?

  Gonzalez isn't playing this weekend. I don't know if it's been officially announced yet, but he has not practiced. It's clear that something bad happened with that hamstring and he's going to be out at least for week one, I think.

• 43:41Speaker 04

  That sucks.

• 43:41Bill Simmons?

  And it's really changed how I feel about this Pats team because he's the best player in the defense. And I think if there was a case for them, especially early in the season, it was going to be centered around their defense doing stuff, Henderson playing right away, Diggs being able to play, which seems like it's going to happen. And I just, the Gonzalez thing scares me a little bit. Now, the Raiders don't really have like, a receiver you necessarily have to shut down. It's Bowers.

• 44:07Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 44:08Bill Simmons?

  And that's, wouldn't have been his job anyway, but.

• 44:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. I haven't liked some of the vibe and some of the stuff I've heard the last couple weeks about how the Pats have no depth. How they're a little younger than people realize, how having this much turnover is hard. I still have them in the playoffs, but I it's the one I feel the worst. Well, because I picked it a week ago.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  I know. You have to say it by it.

• 44:30Bill Simmons?

  It's the one I it's like I can change it now, but it's it's probably the one I'm the most nervous about.

• 44:35Speaker 04

  Hasn't started yet.

• 44:36Bill Simmons?

  No, I'm I'm gonna I'll ride with it because their schedule is so easy.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, they they used to be the team that was part of the easy schedule for other teams.

• 44:45Bill Simmons?

  It's weird to say this. I think whoever wins this game gets the seven seed. And I can't believe I'm saying that for week one, but I have one of these two teams definitely in the playoffs. And I like the spot for the Raiders. They're going to come in. They're going to move. I have no idea if their defense is going to be any good. I have no idea if the Pats are going to be able to block Max Crosby.

• 45:08Bill Simmons?

  But I think the line is around right, and I think ultimately it's a stay away. I think a month ago I would have said Pats, week one. I'm betting them.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  Well, I'm glad because you're not requiring me to try and talk you out of the the Pats in this game. And for all the reasons you just mentioned, I I think this is one where let's just sort of see how this shakes out. Because, you know, here's the thing. I don't know the answer to coach and quarterback. Which which coach and quarterback do you trust more? You know, in this week one.

• 45:40Bill Simmons?

  Well, here the thing with May, and I was watching him. It was interesting in the fantasy leagues I was in fantasy drafts, like basically a $1 guy. I don't think people are expecting a lot from him. I thought he was incredible last year for what his how bad his receivers were and how bad the line was, and he was running for his life.

• 45:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:57Bill Simmons?

  Every series and he was a rookie and he had the worst coaching staff. And I think I'm probably way higher on them that there's a chance he comes in this season and he's just incredible. If I had to do anything in this game, I would probably tease the Raiders to eight and a half. And That but I we're not doing that for Ringer 107 and I want to root for the Pats.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  So good.

• 46:18Bill Simmons?

  Okay, uh, this next one Cardinals Saints. You threw down as one that you had a lot of interest in. So make the case Cardinals minus six and a half at home against the Saints.

• 46:31Speaker 04

  It's the Cardinals are at New Orleans.

• 46:34Bill Simmons?

  Cardinals at New Orleans.

• 46:35Speaker 04

  And that's another one. I think the line is it five and a half. Oh, it's six and a half. It stayed at six and a half. Okay.

• 46:40Bill Simmons?

  Cardinals at the Saints, who everybody considers to be the worst team in the league.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  So this is, you know, for the Cardinals, their coming out party for everybody that's invested in the idea that there is a step up for them that Jonathan Gannon, this is the year that defense, especially with his acumen in terms of scheming, they didn't, they haven't had the personnel necessarily that fit the Gannon mold. They're supposed to have it this year and the offense was a top 10 offense by a lot of advanced metrics last season. Kyler, over the course of the season, they made, they had a legit chance to make the playoffs.

• 47:17Bill Simmons?

  Jeff, feel good about betting on them ever?

• 47:19Speaker 04

  Never. I try not to bet on the Cardinals, but in view of what we have all come to believe about the Saints. Now, here's the thing with the Saints and the reason why I'm glad you steered me away from them. They might have a decent defense. The defense was not an abject disaster last season and especially at the beginning of the season, but on the offensive side of the ball, they still have a bunch of dudes. It's still Rashid Shaheed. It's still Olave. It's still Kamara. It's still, you know, Taysom Hill in that combo.

• 47:53Bill Simmons?

  It's still a terrible quarterback. It seems like their offensive line is better because I I bet them six weeks ago to have the worst record or be under three wins or whatever. And it does seem like the new coach bump. The nobody believes in us factor, the fact that not one person has even considering them to do anything. And because they have the worst quarterback situation of the league, everybody's like, yeah, they're gonna suck. But they did seem like they hit on their left tackle.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. It does seem like they have a bunch of guys back and they got rid of Dennis Allen and that fucking terrible coaching staff.

• 48:29Speaker 04

  And the, the, um, the draft pick, that rookie has a, a multiple effect, a multiplying effect in moving, moving that, that the bum who was one of the worst left tackles in NFL over, over the guard where he has less impact. The thing with, with Rattler is like, he did, they, they only averaged 12 points with him at quarterback. The, the, but look, all those guys were, were hurt. Kellen Moore, you know, with, with his acumen. Now, Kubiak did his best, we would say, last season when they came out and went back to back games with 40 points. But it fell apart

• 49:09Speaker 04

  because of the injuries. They, nobody had like, uh, worse, um, luck injury wise than the Saints last season on the line, on the offensive line.

• 49:18Bill Simmons?

  So, week one, Saints home voodoo just looming, right? We've seen it a bunch of times. I think everybody is going to pick the cards or throw them in a tease or, uh, put them in a elimination pool. They're just, put them in a money parlay. Just throw the cards in, they're playing the Saints, it'll be fine. Meanwhile, the Saints are at home, which makes me nervous. Uh, and how many times has Kyler Murray completely fucked a parlay or a tease up? I can't think of maybe Trevor Lawrence?

• 49:54Speaker 04

  Kyler Murray corollary.

• 49:56Bill Simmons?

  Out of all the under 30 quarterbacks, who has destroyed more parlays and teases? Who's let you down more? Like, I wouldn't go near this game.

• 50:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:06Bill Simmons?

  If I did anything, I would bet Saints money line because I feel like, remember Bengals, Pats last year, week one?

• 50:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 50:11Bill Simmons?

  The Pats beat the Bengals 16-10. It's like, whoa, who saw that coming? There's going to be a who saw that coming this game. Or this week, and I think it's either this one or the next one we're going to talk about, which is Denver, a line that has climbed out of minus eight and a half at home. Everybody's on them, including me. I have a staggering amount of future bets on them. They're playing Tennessee rookie quarterback on the road. There's a million stats about a rookie QB first start. Uh, go against them straight up. The spread bets aren't great. Uh, Denver's defense, they run it up at home. They have 14 plus win. Uh, victories from last year. They had a bunch of them. There's all these signs. Just throw them in a tease. It'll be fine. I'm not as worried about this one because I really believe in Denver.

• 50:54Bill Simmons?

  Um, there's a spot when we do the ringer 107 that we could potentially put them in. But the line is so high, like House, did you think about Tennessee plus eight and a half?

• 51:04Speaker 04

  No, uh, I did not, but I would not bet Denver at eight and a half. It's, it's too many points. It's the point that we just made. It's way, way too high. There's not a 10 point difference between the, these two teams, especially the only thing that, that, you know, council's in favor of confidence in Denver is what if Callahan is the same moron that he was last year? Cause I, I can't.

• 51:30Bill Simmons?

  What if their special teams are off? Oh, what if the coaching's bad? Yeah.

• 51:32Speaker 04

  I've said it before, I know team was, was less prepared, worse prepared. Uh, week in and week out than the Titans, and that's how they went two and 15 against the spread. An all time historical low mark against the spread because they were just ill-prepared week in, week out.

• 51:49Bill Simmons?

  And I was dying to pick them as the seventh seed because of the schedule. Cause I, I really think Cam Ward is going to be potentially a special QB. I just, the coach, he's going to all of a sudden be a good coach. He was awful last year.

• 52:03Speaker 04

  Awful.

• 52:03Bill Simmons?

  The staff was awful. The game management was awful. The special teams was awful.

• 52:07Speaker 04

  Awful.

• 52:07Bill Simmons?

  It's just going to be better? I don't get it. Um, all right. Now it's time for a special part of today's episode brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket.

• 52:17Bill Simmons?

  On YouTube TV, our friend. If you're an NFL fan like me and House, you gotta subscribe to NFL Sunday Ticket. Get every game, every Sunday, all in one place. You can watch up to four games at once with Multi-View. Also, I would highly recommend just subscribing to YouTube TV because then you get your own local games. Like you get Washington, I get the LA games here and you can put that in the Multi-View. I have good news, House. Once again, YouTube has crowned me their CMO.

• 52:45Speaker 04

  Hey.

• 52:46Bill Simmons?

  Chief Multi-View Officer.

• 52:49Speaker 04

  You've earned it.

• 52:50Bill Simmons?

  And I'm gonna tell you what I think we should do. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only. Games and commercial use device and content restrictions apply. Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. All right, House, here's what we got. We're gonna do the, uh, the 1 o'clock games on the East Coast. So that's 10 o'clock Pacific time. We have eight games. We're gonna figure out a Multi-View. Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Cincy, Cleveland, Miami, Indianapolis, Carolina, Jacksonville, Vegas, Pats, Cards, Saints, Steelers, Jets, Giants, Washington. So I think our teams have to be in it. There's two. Giants, Washington's in. By the way, I can't wait to watch Giants, Washington. Home run, Vegas, Pats, home run.

• 53:34Bill Simmons?

  Those are two good ones. Carolina, Jacksonville, to see the points and the Travis Hunter piece?

• 53:42Speaker 04

  I'm literally shocked that that's the first game that I was, I thought I was gonna have to convince you that that's one for us to watch. That's one that's going to be.

• 53:51Bill Simmons?

  It's gonna be in Ringer 107 for us too, but yeah.

• 53:53Speaker 04

  It sure is.

• 53:54Bill Simmons?

  I wanna see the Travis Hunter piece.

• 53:56Speaker 04

  I wanna see, uh, your boy Trevor Lawrence with Liam Cohen. An actual, genuine article. A guy who understands modern NFL offense. He's not, the average depth of target for Trevor Lawrence was, uh, over nine yards last year. Nobody stood back there and took, just got blasted because they're running down the effing football field. They can't protect that man. And Liam Cohen turned around Baker Mayfield's career. Baker turned it around on his own.

• 54:27Bill Simmons?

  All right.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  But what Liam Cohen did for him.

• 54:28Bill Simmons?

  Save this for Ringer 107. Jacksonville, Carolina, three?

• 54:34Bill Simmons?

  What's your fourth one? Is it Tampa, Atlanta? Is it Steelers, Jets? Just a rock fight?

• 54:40Speaker 04

  We can't have both the AFC South and the NFC South.

• 54:44Bill Simmons?

  Is it Cincy, Cleveland?

• 54:46Speaker 04

  It might be Cincy, Cleveland for me because honest to God, I want to see those two.

• 54:51Bill Simmons?

  Fantasy bro. Okay.

• 54:52Speaker 04

  And I would want to see those defenses. I want to see those defenses, both of them, both the Browns defense and the Bengals defense.

• 54:58Bill Simmons?

  So we'll go Cincy, Carolina, but then keeping Arizona, New Orleans back pocket for.

• 55:02Speaker 04

  Back pocket.

• 55:03Bill Simmons?

  And let's go to New Orleans where it's 10 to three. The Saints are leading.

• 55:08Bill Simmons?

  Anyway, that is, uh, thanks again to YouTube for crowning me their chief multi-view officer with every game, every Sunday at your fingertips. Choosing the ones that deserve a spot on your multi-view screen is serious business. That's why they made me the CMO. Never miss a moment of the action with NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV. And for a limited time only, get $36 off NFL Sunday Ticket using code BS36. At checkout. New users only while supplies last, ends 9/22. Go to youtube.com/BS to sign up now. Local and national games on YouTube TV. NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games and commercial use. Device and content restrictions apply. Terms and embargoes apply. No refunds. Okay. Ringer 107.

• 55:53Bill Simmons?

  It's time. It is brought to you by FanDuel, our friends. We love FanDuel. And we're going to pick five games. And again, we're competing against all the other shows. FanDuel made us the favorites.

• 56:06Bill Simmons?

  You're, you have one pick. I have two picks. And we're going to agree on two. And I'm going to give you the first pick. And I think I know what it is. It's, it's involving the Chiefs Chargers game. What is it?

• 56:20Speaker 04

  It's a true story. I already tipped my hand in view of the slate and some of the considerations we've just gone through about games we decided were stayaways. Let me have the coach quarterback combination that I trust the most. This is a divisional matchup on a neutral field. The Kansas City Chiefs have owned the Chargers over the last handful of years, especially Mahomes.

• 56:43Speaker 04

  And Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid don't lose in week one. The only loss they that you can point to, they're five and two against the spread, six and one straight up in the seven seasons with Mahomes as a starter. They lost that Detroit game in 2023, but Chris Jones was out for that game. And I think

• 57:04Bill Simmons?

  Holding out.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, Chris Jones was holding out and Travis Kelsey was out as well. So what I'm really buying here, though, is this Chiefs team loaded up for this season. It is, I think, a good argument that this is the best receiver room that Patrick Mahomes is going to enjoy in what, three seasons, four seasons at least?

• 57:28Bill Simmons?

  I would say for week seven, it will be. He's got no rest.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  Right, I understand, but still Hollywood Brown and Xavier Worthy, that's better than than quite a bit of what they went through last season.

• 57:39Bill Simmons?

  Zombie Kelsey, Pacheco's back.

• 57:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:42Bill Simmons?

  Offensive line's better. Schrager talked about it when he was on the pod earlier this week. There's some, oh, wait, you don't think we're, you don't think we're the guys anymore? You don't think Mahomes is in the top spot? There's some little swagger and neither of us like the Chargers.

• 58:00Speaker 04

  Neither of us like the Chargers.

• 58:01Bill Simmons?

  I think we both have Chargers under bets and no playoff bets. I know I do. I think you do too as well. Losing their left tackle four weeks before this season. Probably the second best player on the team, not great. They said they're starting Hampton, which I thought was interesting. I thought they were going to split time, but maybe it seems like they're going to try to get, and they're probably going to try to run on the Chiefs, but.

• 58:24Speaker 04

  Best of luck. One of the best run defenses in the NFL.

• 58:28Bill Simmons?

  Here's, here's why I'm with you and I'm glad you picked this one. When we did guess the lines on Sunday, I picked Chiefs by six, even though it was a neutral field. And Sal laughed.

• 58:38Speaker 04

  That's a lot.

• 58:40Bill Simmons?

  Who's betting the Chargers in this game?

• 58:43Speaker 04

  Fair point, fair point.

• 58:44Bill Simmons?

  You take the Chargers, I, I, you couldn't get me to even sniff them until it gets to plus six. Chiefs minus three is a fucking miracle.

• 58:52Speaker 04

  I, you know, my.

• 58:53Bill Simmons?

  What a great first ringer 107.

• 58:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:55Bill Simmons?

  Let's back Patrick Mahomes. I was talking about how Josh Allen might have taken the conch from him this year as the most reliable QB in the league, but let's, uh, let's pack our guy. Is he, he's not chubby Pat, but he doughy Pat?

• 59:08Speaker 04

  I don't know. I wouldn't.

• 59:09Bill Simmons?

  He's a little doughy, right?

• 59:10Speaker 04

  Is he?

• 59:11Bill Simmons?

  Is he doughy?

• 59:12Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 59:13Bill Simmons?

  I thought he was taking shit for being doughy.

• 59:16Speaker 04

  Not for me.

• 59:16Bill Simmons?

  You know who that was? It wasn't him. It was your new wide receiver, Debo Samuel.

• 59:20Speaker 04

  How dare you?

• 59:21Bill Simmons?

  I forgot. I forgot.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  I'm gonna serve you.

• 59:24Bill Simmons?

  It was Debo Samuel.

• 59:24Speaker 04

  Debo's D's nuts is what we're gonna have. I'm gonna serve him right up on a platter.

• 59:28Bill Simmons?

  4940.

• 59:29Speaker 04

  Nuts is what you're gonna get on a platter.

• 59:32Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs.

• 59:33Speaker 04

  Do unnecessary shot at Debo, but yes, Chiefs minus.

• 59:36Bill Simmons?

  I set you up for it too. I was excited about it.

• 59:38Speaker 04

  You did.

• 59:39Bill Simmons?

  Chiefs minus three over the Chargers. That is our first ringer 107 pick. Congratulations for getting us on the board. Only 106 more to go. My first one should not be a surprise to anyone who heard all the pods during the, uh, month of August and beginning of September. The Seahawks are home. They're playing the 49ers.

• 59:59Bill Simmons?

  They're underdogs, which is fantastic. It's a team that I am really bullish on, that I have NFC West bets on because I thought the odds were out of whack. They're five to one. I have them as a playoff team. I am a huge Mike McDonald guy. I am not scared off by the fact that they seemingly went sideways at QB and probably a little backwards with receiver. I think with the, with Kubiak in there, this zone blocking offensive line with the two running backs. Zach Charbonne, I tried to get in every league that I had. I only got him in two. Uh, JSN, I think has a chance to be one of the best eight receivers in the league. And I really, really believe in their defense. I think they could have

• 1:00:40Bill Simmons?

  a top five defense, special teams. And then you have the Niners who already have some shakiness with the receivers.

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  True.

• 1:00:48Bill Simmons?

  Right? Uh, they, they have Kittle and McCaffrey healthy. They have a little chip on their shoulder, but they have a ton of turnover. They have a bunch of like rookies and guys have never been in this situation. I'm kind of stunned that the Seahawks aren't favored. And so I'm getting plus two and a half. I'll probably in real life, play the money line, but we're not doing money lines for a Ringer 107. I'm on the board with Seahawks plus two and a half and you're making faces and I don't feel aligned with you at all.

• 1:01:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, I hate this pick. I would prefer that this be a stay away that we sit back and watch. Nobody, there's nobody in any of the analytics community that has the Seahawks offensive line ranked any higher than 29th. You can't find somebody who takes that looks at that offensive line objectively, looks at their performance last year, looks at the duress that Geno Smith was under all season long and, and, and puts in the forecast ahead of time that this offensive line is capable of protecting Sam Donald. And the one thing-

• 1:01:50Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna give you four worst ones. The Houston, Cincinnati, Jacksonville, Miami.

• 1:01:54Speaker 04

  I don't think Houston's worse. I don't think Houston's worse and I don't think Miami is worse either. I don't think either one of those are worse.

• 1:02:00Bill Simmons?

  We will see.

• 1:02:01Speaker 04

  The one thing about Sam Donald that we know for sure is that he's bad under pressure. And if there's any possibility that he's, he had top of class time to throw the football. He, he had on early downs last year, three seconds on 47% of his drop, three seconds or more, which is why he threw the football 20 yards down the football field in that Minnesota Vikings offense and ranked at the very top of class for those deep passes. He not going to get any of that with, with this offense and they're, they're going to have to set up the run. So we're going to need that Seattle offensive line who was bottom three in the run.

• 1:02:42Bill Simmons?

  So you're violently against this.

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  I said, I hate the pick.

• 1:02:45Bill Simmons?

  Who would you sub it for then?

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  You mean in terms of what's on the slate?

• 1:02:49Bill Simmons?

  Was there another game?

• 1:02:50Speaker 04

  What's remaining?

• 1:02:52Bill Simmons?

  Like some of the ones we talked about, like, would you put Falcons plus one and a half against the Bucks in this spot?

• 1:02:58Speaker 04

  I like that way better than I like this Seattle, San Francisco situation.

• 1:03:02Bill Simmons?

  Okay, okay. I'm willing to be talked out of it.

• 1:03:04Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, okay.

• 1:03:05Bill Simmons?

  Cause here's the thing, now I can't lose because if the Seahawks win.

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  You can rub it right.

• 1:03:12Bill Simmons?

  I'm gonna fucking murder you.

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  I understand.

• 1:03:15Bill Simmons?

  All day on text.

• 1:03:16Speaker 04

  I accept it. I will accept it.

• 1:03:18Bill Simmons?

  The only thing that you're, you, that you got murdered on for more this summer than if Seattle wins this game is the Froze disaster when you were here with Jacko.

• 1:03:28Speaker 04

  Well, some would call it a disaster. Some would call it a gigantic success. That was an all time performance by me. How can you say anything to the contrary?

• 1:03:38Bill Simmons?

  Couple of weekends ago, you and Jacko come for the weekend and we, we did, we filmed the rewatchables. That's gonna run at some point this summer.

• 1:03:45Speaker 04

  True story.

• 1:03:47Bill Simmons?

  And we hung out the whole weekend and it was great. And we, we're making a concerted effort to see each other every year. Cause at any point, any of us could be dead at this point. Who knows? We're in our mid 50s. God only knows what's gonna happen to us.

• 1:03:59Bill Simmons?

  So my wife decides she's gonna have a dinner party on Friday night with 16 people. We blow it out and she, she's really excited about this Froze machine she bought. She's never made the Froze and we're sitting in the back and she's making the Froze and she's doctoring it. And she leaves and House is staring at the Froze machine and Jacko and I are like, no, House, don't do it. And he's like, I mean, it's right there. There's Froze in it. Why can't I have some?

• 1:04:28Speaker 04

  She wanted us to try it. She encouraged us to, to sample it. Now look, just set the stage properly. I came out on that same Friday. I was up at 5:30 on, in the morning on the East Coast, flew out so I could get there in time.

• 1:04:42Bill Simmons?

  Hear the excuses.

• 1:04:43Speaker 04

  For us to do the rewatchables, had a marvelous time. And then it's time to let our hair down. And we go out to the back bar. It's a great setting. The, the sun is, I mean, you know, it was perfect California weather and the Froze machine.

• 1:04:56Bill Simmons?

  The Red Sox beat the Yankees.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  Well, you enjoyed that part for sure. Poor Jacko. And the Froze. She's like, you guys go ahead and try a little because you know.

• 1:05:04Bill Simmons?

  No, she wasn't that forthcoming about the you guys go ahead and try. I think she was like.

• 1:05:09Speaker 04

  Sitting, she was encouraging. Yeah, she's like.

• 1:05:12Bill Simmons?

  I think it was like, if you want to try a taste, not drink all of the Froze.

• 1:05:16Speaker 04

  Don't tell everybody the story. The thing wasn't freezing to her liking. It wasn't getting frozen enough. So she was like tampering with the little Ben.

• 1:05:25Bill Simmons?

  And so she leaves to go get ready and do a whole bunch of things. And House goes over and takes this huge thing of Froze, takes a sip and goes, there's not enough alcohol.

• 1:05:34Speaker 04

  Frozen enough.

• 1:05:35Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's not enough alcohol in this. Goes grabs a bottle of vodka, pours a shot and half of vodka in the Froze.

• 1:05:42Speaker 04

  It's just a floater.

• 1:05:43Bill Simmons?

  Throws down the Froze. Jacko and I are just like taking it easy, having like a vodka soda or something. You love the Froze. You go back, have a second one. You pour more vodka in it.

• 1:05:55Bill Simmons?

  You throw that one down. Now some people have showed up. And I'm starting to get a little worried about you because, you know, whatever. I can tell when you're, I was like, is he tired? Is he tipsy? The food comes out at like eight, eight o'clock, eight 30. You're eating pork.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  Again, we were sitting outside at four 30 in the afternoon. That's when we sat down outside.

• 1:06:17Bill Simmons?

  All right. So you're eating food and you disappear for like 10 minutes. And I think you go to call your wife. Like this is like, we're 30% in in the dinner party at this point. And I say to Jacko, where's House? And Jacko goes, I don't think he's coming back.

• 1:06:37Bill Simmons?

  I was like, what do you mean? I don't think he's coming back.

• 1:06:40Speaker 04

  Johnny knows.

• 1:06:42Bill Simmons?

  So you went back and you went to make a call and somehow you just were like, I need to go lie down.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  I honestly went to make a gigantic ice water.

• 1:06:50Bill Simmons?

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:06:51Speaker 04

  I wanted like, you know, I was like, oh, the food was amazing. By the way, I don't remember all the chef's credentials, but the pork was effing secret though. The butcher made me a little secret though, which is like, a choice, you know.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  The secret bit, like a beautiful piece of wine. But I had to go get some, some ice water to refuel. I was enjoying the company, everybody's company. The friends were out, you know, I, I could tell them how good the Froze was.

• 1:07:20Bill Simmons?

  So you're going, you're going for an hour.

• 1:07:22Speaker 04

  Well, I go sit down is the problem. I sat down with the ice water and the next thing you know, I look up and you know, half hour's gone.

• 1:07:29Bill Simmons?

  And I'm talking to everybody and like, I don't know, like maybe 45 minutes, hour later, like, I don't think house is coming back and they're like, where's Joe? So now Carrie's like, what? He's gone. He, he was barely here and, and Jacko goes, well, he was drinking the Froze, which she knew and she got mad. She'd already yelled to you about how you had drank too much of the Froze.

• 1:07:49Speaker 04

  I drank the whole first batch.

• 1:07:50Bill Simmons?

  Well, you did.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  I didn't know that, that that was the, you know, it was, I thought there was a big supply.

• 1:07:57Bill Simmons?

  He was drinking the Froze and he was pouring like two shots of vodka in it.

• 1:08:02Speaker 04

  Floater, had a.

• 1:08:03Bill Simmons?

  And she goes, wait, what? I put so much booze in that, you just can't taste it. So you were having like quintuple Froze. So Froze House, now we're calling you Jose. Froze House just, uh, just was out.

• 1:08:18Speaker 04

  Bye.

• 1:08:19Bill Simmons?

  You threw like four innings. You didn't even, you didn't even get 15 outs to be official for a win or a loss.

• 1:08:24Speaker 04

  I think I had 11 strikeouts in those four innings though. They were quality innings.

• 1:08:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, legendary story, lot of Froze jokes. Um, anyway, as bad as Froze House was, you talked me out of the Seahawks. And now if we get fucked on this, I'm going to give you more shit than the Froze thing. So we're putting, we're putting Falcons Bucks in there. That's what we're doing.

• 1:08:46Speaker 04

  I'm fine. We both like the Falcons, right?

• 1:08:49Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I, you know, I just think it's a bad spot for the Bucks with, uh, with the receiver. You know, the, the new offensive coordinator, a couple of receivers missing. Egboka in his first game, even though we all love Egboka.

• 1:09:08Bill Simmons?

  Man, I'm gonna be really mad at you. Okay. So, second pick Falcons plus one and a half. Third one, we both like this one, the Bears. I love the Bears. Bears plus one and a half, Monday night. I'm in on them to be over on their win total. I'm in on them actually to be a playoff team. I'm in on Ben Johnson. I'm in on everything I've read. I love the moves they made this summer. I liked how they beefed up their weapons. And J.J. McCarthy on the road on a Monday night in Chicago. Shades of that Arch Manning, OSU situation. And I just, I'm surprised by the line. I gotta be honest. Bears plus one and a half was surprising to me, and I wonder if it's gonna flip on Monday. Do you see the Bears being minus one and a half on Monday?

• 1:09:52Speaker 04

  I do, because I think there's enough skepticism about, you know, Ben Johnson in his first game and his impact on Caleb. Like, there was a healthy skepticism built up against Caleb. And Caleb kind of earned it, but really it was a disaster of a situation. The thing that made me so bullish on Chicago was the bit, I'll confess it right now, on Hard Knocks. When the Bears and the Bills played each other and we saw Ben Johnson, you know, in kind of game mode, I was just so impressed. And honestly, it was the diametric opposite of the previous season when I knew to fade the Bears, because Aberfluss was a goddamn douche the entire Hard Knocks.

• 1:10:37Speaker 04

  I couldn't believe, like, who hired this guy to be a head coach of a football team with the number one draft pick rookie quarterback? So it went exactly as folks might anticipate, but I really like this Bears team. I think their defense especially. And the thing that we'll see out of O'Connell and Minnesota is they're gonna run. They're gonna try and run the ball. Like, get your Jordan Mason futures now. Get them all lined up, rush attempts, you know, yards.

• 1:11:04Bill Simmons?

  Vikings you're talking about.

• 1:11:05Speaker 04

  Vikings, yes, because the Vikings are gonna run the football. They're gonna try and run to protect that kid and have him not having to stand back there and throw the ball down the field. But I like the Bears' run defense under the circumstances where they get to anticipate that Vikings are gonna... Now, I don't mean that disrespectful to O'Connell, because O'Connell's gonna mix it up, but...

• 1:11:28Bill Simmons?

  By the way, no Jordan Addison in this game.

• 1:11:30Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:11:30Bill Simmons?

  Adam Thielen coming from Carolina. I just like the spot. I just like the Bears in a tease, which we're not going to do. But I thought the Bears as a tease was taste one. All right. The two we agree on. So we have Chiefs minus three Falcons plus one and a half, Bears plus one and a half.

• 1:11:46Bill Simmons?

  Ravens. At Buffalo, Buffalo, a team that I picked to make the Super Bowl. And yet.

• 1:11:55Bill Simmons?

  We both like the Ravens in this game. And there's a bunch of reasons for it. There's some revenge factor. Mark Andrews, the prop queen talked about this on where your gambling. Show today.

• 1:12:06Speaker 04

  Amazing show, amazing.

• 1:12:08Bill Simmons?

  By Monday, the Mark Andrews stuff, everyone's going to bet on him to catch a touchdown. Like it's just going to be almost like. The all time redemption story. I don't think it's gonna be like that. But. The Bill stuff, the secondary issues for them.

• 1:12:24Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 1:12:25Bill Simmons?

  Really makes me nervous.

• 1:12:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:12:27Bill Simmons?

  And you talked about it yesterday with the cuz about when they signed Jordan Poyer and it just feels like they're scrambling for bodies. And it's week one. I think it means maybe a little more to the Ravens to be able to go in there. This was one I had penciled down as a win for Buffalo for a while, but. If they win this one, I hate betting against Josh Allen. This would be a Josh Allen throwing everybody on his back game, but I just like, I like the spot for the Ravens.

• 1:12:53Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're in lockstep. I mean, the thing, the reason to be nervous is because the Bills have lost two home games in three years. Like the Buffalo Bills don't lose.

• 1:13:03Bill Simmons?

  What are we doing? Why are we doing this?

• 1:13:05Speaker 04

  We're doing this because I think the Baltimore Ravens have the most talent on both sides of the football of any team in the entire NFL. And the Ravens are my pick to win the Super Bowl this year. That's, but that's, we don't need all that hyperbole. They do have, even with the injuries and they're, here's the cautionary note. The way that the Ravens establish their offense and get Lamar free is they play all this, this heavy personnel, which is either two tight ends or more pointedly, Patrick Ricard, the fullback. So Isaiah Likely, their number one. Protecting tight end. He's out and Patrick. Or card is also out for this game. So they're not going to be able to play out of that heavy personnel.

• 1:13:47Speaker 04

  This is a shout out to to Warren Sharp, who did a nice job setting this up. I do think yet even they're in, even though they won't be able to run out of that comfortable personnel set, that formation that they like. I love their weapons across the board. I think Lamar showed us last season, especially in that playoff game, that they can get vertical. Like they, they, they lost that game by, uh, you know, they, they sabotaged themselves. It was self sabotage and it was Mark Andrews and it was the turnovers. They just, if you could, if they don't have the unforced errors, um, I don't like the Bills defense. I think that defense is, is going to be a real vulnerability all season long. The thing that saves the Bills and the reason why I think you're on the right path in terms of having them go far

• 1:14:31Speaker 04

  is their, their schedule is, is amazing. They're going to be able to manage their schedule. And if they get any health at all on defense, they can go on a run for sure. But this game, one week, one Baltimore, that's why the line went from Buffalo favorite to Baltimore favorite.

• 1:14:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So this is 4:46 Pacific time on a Thursday now. If you Google Buffalo injuries secondary, the AI overview is not flattering. And then you go to the news stories and the headlines are Bills injuries at cornerback pose problems. So what about the Bill secondary cornerback concerns mount? Bills injury riddled secondary faces tough test. Bills suffer another injury and already depleted secondary. It's a, it's, they have both starting quarterbacks, Benford and White. Look like they're out and they're having safety issues and it's just like, I, no, thanks.

• 1:15:24Speaker 04

  No, thank you. That's right.

• 1:15:25Bill Simmons?

  FYI, we were trying to be nice, but if you're going to bet on Lamar Jackson in a big game, you want to do it in September. Sorry, Mallory. It's true.

• 1:15:34Speaker 04

  Well, they did start off 0-2 last year, the Ravens.

• 1:15:37Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, it's, this is regular season Lamar. I wouldn't want to do this in the playoffs is my point.

• 1:15:42Speaker 04

  Yes, agreed.

• 1:15:44Bill Simmons?

  See now people are going to be.

• 1:15:45Speaker 04

  Lamar didn't have anything to do with them losing last year, but that's fine.

• 1:15:48Bill Simmons?

  The market.

• 1:15:49Speaker 04

  He was awesome. In fact, he was awesome. Lamar was awesome.

• 1:15:53Bill Simmons?

  Why so nervous about Lamar backlash?

• 1:15:56Speaker 04

  I'm not. I just had a, I was treated to an amazing crab feast with our buddy Warren Sharp at his house because Jimmy Seafood up there in Baltimore sent down all these crabs because of our respect for the Baltimore Ravens. I would never do anything that would get in the way of a crab cake. How about that?

• 1:16:12Bill Simmons?

  I'm in a guillotine league, not the one we're in, but another one with, with my friend Casey. We had the fourth pick.

• 1:16:21Bill Simmons?

  And we took Lamar Jackson.

• 1:16:23Speaker 04

  Awesome. Great job.

• 1:16:24Bill Simmons?

  Because I don't, and it was like 12 picks too early.

• 1:16:27Speaker 04

  I don't think so.

• 1:16:28Bill Simmons?

  But by the time it would have come back to us, I just don't think you can win a guillotine league unless you have Lamar, Josh, or Burrow. In the first couple of weeks, because those are the only three quarterbacks where you know what you're getting each week. I know I'm getting a big amount of points. Anyway, I'm excited to root for him in this game because I'll have gambling, I'll have fantasy interest, all that stuff. Last one. We agreed on this one too. And I don't know how we're going to play yet, but we both really like the Jaguars against the Panthers. The Panthers not only have, I think, the worst defense in the NFC. Not only has them, there been a very strange Bryce Young revisionist history. Like I was, I was driving to a haircut today

• 1:17:11Bill Simmons?

  and I was listening to Mad Dog Russo with Troy Aikman. And they were talking about, and by the way, I love Mad Dog. They were both talking about how good Bryce Young was in the second half of the season. I was like, am I missing something? I remember him being okay and having a couple of good games, but now we have reached Bryce Young was awesome in the second, like, I just feel like people get amnesia, as I keep saying with what happened last year. Bryce Young was definitely way better. We felt good about it. But he's in a situation now where his, they traded Thielen, Coker got hurt. Ted McMillan, his number one pick, has a hamstring thing. I don't even know, is he going to be, we're going to be in the, in the, in the heat potentially. I don't know how many downs he's going to

• 1:17:54Bill Simmons?

  be able to play. So I don't know if they're going to have the receivers. And then conversely, the Jags, I said this to Sal on Sunday, this feels like a classic, Jags look awesome. You laid out the Liam Cohen case earlier. The weapons and like, oh my God, the jet, whoa, what do we have? And I could see them just blowing out the Panthers. So how do we want to play this is my question because this is we in with the Ringer 107. We have wiggle room with one pick where we can do a tease, we can do a parlay. We can parlay and alt under, we can go all kinds of directions. So we can basically, the two things I mailed you, we can take the Jags money line because I don't like the hook. We can take them straight up.

• 1:18:34Speaker 04

  It was three and now it's three and a half. That's this is another one.

• 1:18:38Bill Simmons?

  So we could take the Jags money line and parlay it with the over of 37 and a half. And that's minus 117. The rules of Ringer 107 is it could be a parlay, it has to be minus 120 or better. The other one we could do is we could just parlay the Jags with with the Broncos. And do a money parlay Jags Broncos and uh and just hope the hope both teams win. And that is around the same. What is your preference? Or a third option would be just suck it up and go Jags minus three and a half.

• 1:19:11Speaker 04

  Right. My, out of those three choices, my preference would be to just ride the Jaguars minus the three and a half.

• 1:19:23Bill Simmons?

  Not worry about the backdoor touchdown at the end of the game.

• 1:19:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, like the the the um the the alt total down to 36, where was it 37? Is that where you? Yeah. So I mean, this is one of my favorite overs of the week, which is, you know, the the Jags unleashed with Cohen and Trevor Lawrence. They're trying to make a statement. Remember last season, they looked pretty damn good against Miami. And then Travis Etienne fumbled a goddamn football going into the end zone. And Miami, you know, took that game away, but the Jaguars were, I honestly think that that sabotaged their entire season. They became that team that, you know, fumbled the way opportunities to win games all season long through dumb, boneheaded kind of stuff.

• 1:20:09Speaker 04

  I don't think that the Carolina Panthers defense has improved enough. There are stories that say that say they've stabilized. They're not going to be as bad. I just don't think that they're they've improved enough. And those the Jaguars weapons, those are Cadillac weapons across the board. And I like that offensive line. I think if Cohen and Trevor Lawrence are on the same page about getting rid of the goddamn football within a couple of seconds after snap, that's a formidable offense. They have the skill guys there. Thomas is going to have a huge game, I think. So I'm not I'm not I'm not afraid of the three and a half, to be honest with you.

• 1:20:48Bill Simmons?

  Well, did you see that they're going to play Hunter a bunch at wide receiver? It looks like.

• 1:20:54Speaker 04

  That's the sound of a boner.

• 1:20:57Bill Simmons?

  Is that what it sounds like?

• 1:20:58Speaker 04

  That's what it sounds like.

• 1:21:01Bill Simmons?

  Our other option is, we can go straight up on this, and we can do for our parlay, Falcons plus three and a half with over 35 and a half points gets us under as our parlay bet. That would be minus minus 116. We could move the Falcons up to plus three and a half over 35 and a half.

• 1:21:22Speaker 04

  I don't want to bet a total with Michael Pennix. I don't want to have anything to do with the total in that Tampa game.

• 1:21:27Bill Simmons?

  So let's just do the so you want to do the straight up. So you're not worried about the hook?

• 1:21:31Speaker 04

  I think in week one, let's just be, you know, let's be bold. There's no reason to be like sniffing around. Oh, how can we find a combination that's going to protect? Let's let why are we? Why are we doing all that? We've done the hard work all season, all off season to get to this point where we're finally ready. We know what the priors are. We know what our our thoughts are. We've bet all the futures. You and the cousin Sal did futures for hours.

• 1:21:55Bill Simmons?

  Ask me. Is there any chance Tennessee is going to go in Denver and beat Denver?

• 1:22:01Speaker 04

  It would. The sports book would would make $2 billion. So that would be the reason why, because the books will make so much money if that happens. But what's the how do you get there? How does Sean Payton and Bo Nix?

• 1:22:15Bill Simmons?

  Jags money line, Denver money line. That could be our fifth pick.

• 1:22:21Bill Simmons?

  Jags money line, we don't have to worry about the hook. Denver just has to beat a rookie QB and, and a son of Brian Callahan, whatever his name is at home.

• 1:22:30Speaker 04

  I mean, they just signed Bonitti to an extension and everybody looks so happy. Everybody in that Denver situation.

• 1:22:37Bill Simmons?

  Is Denver really gonna lose in week one to Tennessee? Come on. What are we doing?

• 1:22:43Speaker 04

  I just want to be on the record. I am confident in the Jaguars laying the three and a half, but I, I'm fine with the idea of doing Jags Denver money line. That's fine. I don't have any problem with it.

• 1:22:53Bill Simmons?

  All right, here we go. Official Ringer 107 picks.

• 1:22:58Bill Simmons?

  We have no losses yet because season hasn't started. Chiefs minus three in Brazil against the Chargers. Back in Mahomes and Reid, we're back in the infrastructure. We're shorting the Chargers.

• 1:23:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:10Bill Simmons?

  Falcons plus one and a half.

• 1:23:14Bill Simmons?

  At home?

• 1:23:15Speaker 04

  At home.

• 1:23:16Bill Simmons?

  Against Tampa.

• 1:23:17Speaker 04

  We're investing in Michael Pennix.

• 1:23:20Bill Simmons?

  We are worried about the Bucks receiver issues, new offensive coordinator, and we want the Bucks. We want to back them starting in October to win that division. But right now have a little rockiness. House talked me out of the Seahawks. We went with the Falcons. Bears plus one and a half against the Vikings. We're all in on this Ben Johnson, revamped Bears roster. Eberflus, the Eberflus bump.

• 1:23:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:23:45Bill Simmons?

  To competent coach from Eberflus and J.J. McCarthy on the road has the March Manning parallels in Ohio State. Ravens minus one half against the Bills, really because of how banged up the Bills secondary is in early season Lamar. And then last but not least, after a lot of haggling, Jaguars money line against the Panthers. We think the Jaguars have a chance to blow out the Panthers, but we'll just grab their money line. And we're going to put it with the Denver money line against Tennessee. And that is under minus 120. So that fits for the Ringer 107 parameters. Good luck to us, House.

• 1:24:18Speaker 04

  Best of luck to us. I'm not going to forecast what I think is going to happen this week. I don't want it to be thrown up in my face by our competent competitors, but I like our slate, Bill Simmons.

• 1:24:29Bill Simmons?

  I like our slate more than I liked you against the Froze two Friday nights ago.

• 1:24:34Speaker 04

  I won. I tried with the whole batch. Your wife's mad at me.

• 1:24:37Bill Simmons?

  The Froze was saying they won.

• 1:24:38Speaker 04

  Your wife got mad at me.

• 1:24:40Bill Simmons?

  That's Ringer 107 brought to you by Fanduel Sportsbook and don't forget to check out Ringer NFL Fantasy Football, Thursday Ringer Gambling Show and Friday Ringer Gambling Show because that's who we're competing against. One more break and then I want to talk quickly about this Kawhi Leonard thing. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes, yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory. Banking, no different. While everyone else tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves and the financial wins just keep coming.

• 1:25:19Bill Simmons?

  PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865, brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group and corporate. PNC Bank, National Association Member, FTIC. Hey, I was lucky enough to get a son and a daughter through their early teens and their mid teens in the social media era. And even though we were constantly monitoring it, there's still a whole bunch of stuff that can go wrong. And that's why Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see. Contact limits for who can contact them and time management tools like daily time limits. And sleep mode, teens are automatically placed into teen accounts.

• 1:26:03Bill Simmons?

  Teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. All right, so House, a couple of days ago, I was talking to Zach Lowe because he had returned to the States and we were saying how boring this NBA summer was, that nothing had happened, that it was the driest NBA summer we had had this entire decade. We had really no international basketball. We had no Olympics. We had no bubble basketball. Just nothing. And then all of a sudden, the Ballmer thing happens.

• 1:26:46Bill Simmons?

  Pablo Torre, who's on this podcast a couple, a couple of weeks ago, I can't remember how many.

• 1:26:52Speaker 04

  The journalist Pablo Torre.

• 1:26:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, he journalist did it up.

• 1:26:55Speaker 04

  He sure did.

• 1:26:56Bill Simmons?

  This was a great story by him.

• 1:26:57Speaker 04

  Shit out of this. Great job.

• 1:26:59Bill Simmons?

  He really did. Good job by him.

• 1:27:02Bill Simmons?

  This crazy story about Steve Ballmer and this company that, what was it called? Aspiration? I didn't never even heard of this company. It was a big Clipper sponsor. Ballmer invested in it. There was money being spent on Kawhi Leonard services that he was not really rendering. And it was just a lot of.

• 1:27:20Speaker 04

  He had the option to render services. I guess he declined to render.

• 1:27:23Bill Simmons?

  It was a lot of breadcrumbs. It was a whole heaping cup of breadcrumbs. And it confirmed at least the story. We'll find out if it's true or not because the NBA is going to investigate. I'm not saying the reporting wasn't true. I'm saying the actual is there. Did Ballmer actually launder money through this thing to pay Kawhi Leonard? Which is what the NBA is going to investigate.

• 1:27:50Bill Simmons?

  It confirmed a lot of stuff that we've always felt was going on, both anecdotally.

• 1:27:56Bill Simmons?

  And whisper stuff and just, this is a whole world of the NBA that they would rather we didn't talk about. I've talked about it anecdotally on my podcast a few times about star players being allowed to use the team plane for their own purposes or being allowed to stay at, you know, an owner's beach place for two weeks with a bunch of their friends. Like, there's a lot of nooks and crannies in the CBAs and the league just does this. They're like, we don't want to know. We don't want to know.

• 1:28:25Speaker 04

  You and I won't name names because this podcast is too popular. I felt like I could get away with it in some other form, so I did name names. But things like, you know, a couple of big star players landing in a, in a city where you really have a hard time figuring out what the attraction was for those two players, but looks like there's some, might be some investment vehicles. Maybe outside of the United States of America where.

• 1:28:51Bill Simmons?

  There's some wink, wink investment stuff. You always hear that.

• 1:28:53Speaker 04

  And inside, you know, site line of sight on some investments in in foreign jurisdiction. Teams that that, you know, figure out a way. There's there's some star players with documentaries. And who knows, you know, where the where the economics go with with that kind of thing. It's just that kind of stuff.

• 1:29:11Bill Simmons?

  All kinds of businesses. There's a lot of ways to do this. And this was always like with Tom Brady and and Kraft with the Patriots for the last basically 10 years with TB 12 running. You know, and having a whole facility right next to Gillette Stadium. And there was always always people wondering.

• 1:29:31Bill Simmons?

  And look, I I think any league is going to be like, we kind of don't want to know unless you force us to try to have to find out what we should know. In this case, the the Clippers came out pretty aggressively saying, especially from a bomber standpoint, that that this was not true. And they, you know, I I I thought what Cuban said was interesting, and it it it backed up something that I thought. Because I read all this stuff and, you know, the way it was all laid out, it was pretty damning that there was more than a smoking gun here. This was so sloppy

• 1:30:09Bill Simmons?

  that it almost makes me think. I I I kind of just can't believe everything I know about bomber, how shrewd of a businessman he is, how thoughtful he is about everything, like even how they did the Intuit Dome, every every piece of that place, he put so much thought into. And I just think he's like a really on it guy. He's not like a cut corners, old billionaire who just fucking does whatever. He's really on it. And all of this that was laid out was the sloppiest shit I've ever seen. And I'm just like, I just can't believe he was this dumb. That's that's kind of where I've landed. And maybe maybe he was this dumb.

• 1:30:46Speaker 04

  So if we want to be.

• 1:30:47Bill Simmons?

  But I can't believe he was this dumb.

• 1:30:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. So the the the way to get to where we are right now and trying to answer the bomber question is, do you really think that the a 50? What was the investment that he made? Wasn't it? The investment in this business.

• 1:31:03Bill Simmons?

  I don't want to go, we don't need to go in the new degree.

• 1:31:05Speaker 04

  But it was enough money for it to necessarily be something that he, his own self is sitting down and looking at the investment thesis. Now, I'm not suggesting that he didn't do his diligence, but he entrusts quite a bit to a whole cadre of people in his support system. And this could be one where somebody in his support system said, I see a pathway for this investment here. And, you know, by the way, now, I'm not suggesting anything necessarily nefarious out of his investment team and in connecting the dot with Kawhi, that could have come later. But this thing was attracting celebrities. They were trying

• 1:31:47Speaker 04

  all kinds of celebrities. Other, look at the list of creditors. The Boston Red Sox are a creditor. Like whoever the the brain trust was behind this Ponzi scheme, those people had access to, you know, big swinging dicks. And I'm not suggesting anything about, you know, Ballmer himself missing here. I, to me, the plausible explanation is his investment team was swayed. They saw that the other investors were other teams, other celebrities, you know, that that kind of thing. Not that dissimilar from the crypto thing that would that that turned out to be a fraud with all of the.

• 1:32:27Bill Simmons?

  Well, and that's another thing. The crypto and the Bitcoin is another way to take care of people and you wouldn't even know it happened.

• 1:32:33Speaker 04

  Interesting. Interesting.

• 1:32:36Bill Simmons?

  It's a, it's, it's the, it's the sleazy side of the league and it's existed for a long time. And it's always been whispered about and talked about in all these different ways. And this is one of those where it's like, see, see, this shit does happen. But you really have to believe Ballmer, who is a super smart guy, just completely, completely fell asleep at the wheel. And maybe he did, but my reaction was like, wow, this is some of the dumbest shit I have ever seen. If this is true, like what, because what's gonna happen is they'll get, they'll, they'll probably, the contract will maybe be nullified. Who knows? But they'll be fined

• 1:33:18Bill Simmons?

  at least as much as the Joe Smith thing. They'll lose at least four or five first round picks. It may, maybe. They'll be fined. Maybe worse, right? Cause the other problem is the other owners are pissed. Right. Because they got him at, you know, a slight, slightly less than market value. Right. You know, it's just. Yeah. And then the other piece of this, this was kinda discussed at the time. I remember talking about it on my podcast, but everybody heard about Kawhi's uncle, Uncle Dennis. Oh, yeah. That had his hand out, that whole free agency and to every team that talked and was kinda unlike any other person that any team had to deal with. So, and then there was some, somebody reported about how the Toronto owner had said how this guy tried

• 1:33:59Bill Simmons?

  to make me arrange all this money. So it's just a mess. And I'm sure Adam Silver got through the summer. It was like, this has been great, man. We figured out this Euroleague thing. We squashed this. We have a hard salary cap. Saudi thing. We have a hard salary cap. We've put in a hard salary cap. Matt Esposito seems like he's threatening to be competent. I got 4.25 billion for freaking Portland. Like we're, we're, expansion's not happening anymore because we're all making so much money. We're doing great. What a great summer. I'm just gonna relax this week, but this next couple of weeks, I'm just gonna be somewhere tropical or in the sun or in some beach house. And then this comes down with Ballmer, an owner that everybody likes. Mm hmm. So I have no idea what's gonna happen.

• 1:34:44Bill Simmons?

  An innovator. Yeah. But Pablo's team, like, you know, because Pablo has a staff. Yeah. They, they broke this shit down. They found documents, like they, uh, they just did an awesome job. They did. And I don't know how it plays out. So if you had to bet.

• 1:35:03Bill Simmons?

  If you had to bet, does this lead to like a Joe Smith type situation? Or is there some sort of explanation? If I gave you those two choices, there's some sort of explanation that gets them out of this? Or it's going to be more like we are slapping your hand really, really hard with a bamboo stick?

• 1:35:21Speaker 04

  There's no explanation that gets them out of this. They are going to be punished. I think there is an explanation. I think that that Ballmer will be sufficiently distanced. I do think the most plausible explanation to me is somebody and his investment team found this thing was persuaded, let's put in the chunk of money that they put in. And then somebody said, oh, look, they're doing celebrities. Kawhi, hey, look, man, you could get in on this. This is going to be an easy gig for you. And Ballmer is going to have sufficient sort of prophylactic, there'll be layers, right? You won't find communication.

• 1:35:54Bill Simmons?

  A diaphragm?

• 1:35:56Speaker 04

  You won't find direct communications. People are, Ballmer's like, please tell Kawhi that he can get 30 million free dollars if he agrees to, to, you know, sign up with this dumb Ponzi scheme. Tree, tree farm, whatever nonsense.

• 1:36:10Bill Simmons?

  One of the weird things was this was two years after his initial deal.

• 1:36:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:36:13Bill Simmons?

  So it doesn't tie in the 2019 piece. And then the other thing that, like, if you're going to say that this actually did happen, it's so much money to give to Kawhi Leonard.

• 1:36:26Bill Simmons?

  If it was like 5 million, I'm like, all right, yeah, this is a Ponzi scheme. These guys are idiots. It was 28 million. And then there was a report today that it might've been even more than that in stock, like another 20 million. So then when you see that, you're like, man, this looks bleak for, for Ballmer. Like, I think he's going to have to come out pretty hard if this isn't true.

• 1:36:49Speaker 04

  Well, it's true. It happened. He definitely invested the money and Kawhi definitely got the contract and definitely got money from it. And I think that's enough for the league's perspective. Who cares what the explanation is? It happened. Ballmer put his money in it and Kawhi got money out of it.

• 1:37:04Bill Simmons?

  If he didn't know anything about this and this is there's some sort of accident or whatever.

• 1:37:08Speaker 04

  It's not an accident.

• 1:37:09Bill Simmons?

  He's got to come out really hard and be like, look, this was not an end around to give Kawhi Leonard more money. I swear on my kids' lives, like whatever.

• 1:37:18Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no.

• 1:37:19Bill Simmons?

  You have to go hard to, to try to prove that this is true because this is going to haunt him for the rest of his career as an owner. It is.

• 1:37:27Speaker 04

  Well, what was it? Who was it? Glenn Taylor? That he's the one that ran the Joe Smith thing?

• 1:37:32Bill Simmons?

  Terrible owner. This guy owns, owns the Clippers. He's trying to fight the Lakers in L.A. By the way, the Lakers can't stand the Clippers. They're, they couldn't be happier about this. So, uh, and the funniest thing of all this is guess where the All-Star game is going to be this year? The epicenter of the NBA.

• 1:37:47Speaker 04

  Holy cow. Wow. That's awesome.

• 1:37:51Bill Simmons?

  You coming? Should I get the Froze ready?

• 1:37:53Speaker 04

  Immediately. Yes, I'm in. I'm all the way in. We'll just be recovering from the Super Bowl.

• 1:37:58Bill Simmons?

  Hmm. Okay. Uh, all right, House. I'm glad we talked that one out. Uh, I'll see you next Thursday. Hopefully the Ringer one of seven went well. And if Seattle covers and the Bucks beat the Falcons, uh,

• 1:38:11Speaker 04

  You can blame me.

• 1:38:12Bill Simmons?

  No, just turn your, I would just put your phone on mute. I would turn your notifications off.

• 1:38:17Speaker 04

  On Sunday?

• 1:38:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:19Speaker 04

  Maybe I'll do that anyway. Maybe I'll just do that anyway.

• 1:38:22Bill Simmons?

  Thanks, House. Great to see you. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo as well. Don't forget about, uh, new rewatchables coming on Monday. It is a one for us with me and Chris Ryan, and you can check all the rewatchables we've done on Ringer Movies. You can check out House on Sunday on the Ringer pregame, which I think we moved to 11:30 this year. The cast is back. We're going to be doing it on our YouTube channel, on the Ringer Gambling Show, uh, Ringer Gambling YouTube channel, and I can't wait. I might even pop on. I might even have a pick.

• 1:38:51Speaker 04

  You're welcome. You're invited. Always.

• 1:38:53Bill Simmons?

  I might even have a, a pick for everybody. Uh, House, good job by you.

• 1:38:56Speaker 04

  Thank you. Good job by you.

• 1:39:12Bill Simmons?

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• 1:39:56Bill Simmons?

  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. 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?

• 1:40:40Bill Simmons?

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