The Annual AFC Over/Unders With Cousin Sal

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal for Part 1 of their annual NFL over/unders pod ahead of the new season. AFC East (4:56) AFC North (29:48) AFC South (47:53) AFC West (01:04:25) Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Cousin Sal Producers: Chia Hao Tat, Eduardo Ocampo, and Steve Ceruti Get anything delivered on Uber Eats. www.ubereats.com 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

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• 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?

  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/jointhetraids. Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by The Ringer Podcast Network. We're back.

• 2:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:07Bill Simmons?

  Right back. It's over under time. We are gonna have multiple parts. Wednesday night, Thursday morning, then Sunday, we're gonna guess the lines, our future stuff. And we're just in here, just banging out in the new studio, banging out all kinds of future bets. Real quick, before we dive into the over unders, shout out to FanDuel for something new. They launched a futures parlay feature, which means you can parlay player milestone bets with team futures.

• 2:35Speaker 04

  Are we gonna do this again? I thought we could just talk, we have to, we're gonna do the whole gambling thing?

• 2:40Bill Simmons?

  We're apparently gonna talk about gambling.

• 2:42Speaker 04

  Really?

• 2:42Bill Simmons?

  Oh, wait, I can't wait to talk about gambling. Yeah, so if you think like Borough can, is gonna have most passing yards, but the Bengals are gonna go under, parlay those babies together and you're good to go. Check out the Ringer specialist tab on FanDuel Sportsbook for more of our favorite picks. Shield, JJ, Raheem, the rest of the Ringer crew, they're all there. New rewatchable is coming on Monday. It's our, it's our 400th movie. I'm not gonna say what the movie is, but it's one you've probably seen.

• 3:09Bill Simmons?

  The Cuz and I, we've gone, this is our 19th year.

• 3:12Speaker 04

  19.

• 3:13Bill Simmons?

  We're gonna take a break, Pearl Jam, and then we're off with the AFC.

• 3:42Bill Simmons?

  All right, Cuz, we usually start with the AFC. What we do every year is we do, the over unders come out, we stare at them in April. You even came on my pod this year, we talked about it. Then we look at them and we keep looking at them. They change, the alt lines come out, we keep looking. People start banging certain teams, certain teams they don't like, and just the money lines change. We're debating yesterday about Buffalo, is like which over under do we use? 12 and a half or 11 and a half, because there's juice on both. I love it. I can't get enough of it.

• 4:12Speaker 04

  It's great. It's great, because we have like four months until we lose these bets. Not you, you were excellent last year. By the way, I feel like I'm staring, it's gonna take a minute, I feel like I'm staring into a kaleidoscope. It's all so colorful and pretty. You have uncut cards. It's like a, like a preteen opened to museum in 1976. NBA hole.

• 4:33Bill Simmons?

  I put some football uncut, so you wouldn't think I was an NBA hole.

• 4:36Speaker 04

  I'm gonna cut these in the middle of the night. I love it.

• 4:38Bill Simmons?

  That would be the angriest you ever made me with a prank, you cutting up the uncuts.

• 4:44Bill Simmons?

  So I did really well last year and it's funny because when we do this stuff and we talk about teams, we talk about regression. It's like, oh, Washington, all these things went right last year and this is such a classic regression season. I think I'm going to have a regression season.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  Really?

• 4:59Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I don't have a feel for this year at all.

• 5:01Speaker 04

  Should you have retired like marvelous Marvin Hagler?

• 5:03Bill Simmons?

  I thought about it. It would have been funny if I just, yeah, dropped the mic and that was it. I was done. I would take 20 and 12 this year right now.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:11Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  What is that? What percentage is that?

• 5:12Bill Simmons?

  I don't know. That's good. I would take it. It might even, you could talk me into 19 and 13.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 5:17Bill Simmons?

  So I was trying to figure out why it was so much harder this year. And I think it's because of reasons that we'll go into when we hit the specific teams. But teams that check a lot of the boxes, there's this one thing where I'm like, ah, like the Giants are a good example.

• 5:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:32Bill Simmons?

  A lot of boxes for the out of nowhere sleeper. And then you look at their schedule and you're like, oh, my Lord.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  I had them 90% then. We'll get to the NFC in like three and a half hours. But I had them 90% there and then I looked at the schedule like, where are these wins coming from?

• 5:46Bill Simmons?

  So there's that and I think we just have more good quarterbacks than we usually have. Cause we've had a couple of good classes of QBs come in. There's like the Drake May, Caleb Williams class is kind of ready to ascend. We have all these guys in their prime and you go through and there's really only two quote, two teams with like genuinely shitty quarterbacks plus Indianapolis, which

• 6:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:05Bill Simmons?

  I'm happy to shoehorn in as the third one.

• 6:07Speaker 04

  We have a good crop of 26 year old second year players. They figured it out. So.

• 6:13Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So I think that makes it harder because it's easy to be like, oh, that team's gonna suck. Like New Orleans, like, ah, they're gonna suck.

• 6:19Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:20Bill Simmons?

  But there's not enough of those this year. Uh, we're doing AFC first. We're gonna go team by team. And

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Explain the over under conundrum. I know you did in the, in the opening, but there's four or five lines where the 11 and a half over is minus 140, but the 10 and a half under is minus 140, right? So it's like,

• 6:40Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 6:41Speaker 04

  We didn't know which tight, some of these aren't tighter than the others. So we didn't know.

• 6:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, there's basically there's juice on both numbers. So Buffalo is a good example. They're 12 and a half. The under has the juice. You go 11 and a half, the over has the juice.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  Right.

• 6:53Bill Simmons?

  So we tried to look at the minus 140 range for all this. And what we do, Vegas puts out these over unders. We talk about each team and we decide they going over or they going under the bet. So we'll start with Buffalo. Uh, they're over. We settled on 12.5. That's got some juice. Plus 115 in their conference, plus 350 for that, 7-1 for the Super Bowl. Plus 250, if you think they can be the one seed and they were 13 and four last year. Almost 3-1 favorites to win the division. And, uh, here's my question for you. Josh Allen, 29 years old.

• 7:30Bill Simmons?

  I just said, I think he's the best. That, that part's true. I just said, I think he's the best quarterback in the league. Even though I know Mahomes has the championship belt, but I thought Allen start to finish was the best guy last year. Four top five MVP finishes, won the MVP last year. 61 and 22 is the starter in the 2020s. But he's basically Tommy Hearns.

• 7:50Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 7:51Bill Simmons?

  He's in all these great fights, but he, he never wins the fight.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  Where's that card?

• 7:57Bill Simmons?

  Oh, Tommy's ticket. There's a Tommy ticket behind you. Yeah. Terrence Leonard is behind you. But we've also seen Steve Young. A couple of MVP got over the hump. He won when he was, uh, in 1994. Peyton Manning, two MVPs, four top five, won the Super Bowl at age 30. I'm going all in on, uh, this is Josh Allen getting over the hump. I'm picking Buffalo to win the Super Bowl. I'm just going to do it now.

• 8:19Speaker 04

  Doing it like that.

• 8:19Bill Simmons?

  I'm just telling you now, I, I'm in, I'm riding Buffalo this year.

• 8:22Speaker 04

  Do I have to get my Super Bowl?

• 8:24Bill Simmons?

  No, you do not. No, save yours.

• 8:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 8:26Bill Simmons?

  I'm just saying, I'm in on the Bills this year.

• 8:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:28Bill Simmons?

  This is, uh, I'm just all in on the Josh Allen magical car ride year. This is it.

• 8:33Speaker 04

  This is the first team we do every year and I feel like both of us try to get cute. All right. How can Buffalo get upended and not even win the AFC East? Let's stop with that.

• 8:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 8:42Speaker 04

  As long as Josh Allen's healthy.

• 8:43Bill Simmons?

  I did it last year, it took Aaron Rodgers.

• 8:44Speaker 04

  Right, I know, so, oh god, shaking my head, but you, uh, if, yes, I think the only thing you figure out here is if they win 11, 12, or 13 games. I think that's the only thing, barring injury with Josh Allen, like you said, the best in the league. I mean, they won 12 playoff games in five years. It's on, it's, it's not right to blame him for the losses. I think in those playoff losses, they allowed 33 points a game, so he can only do so much. You could say the same for Lamar Jackson, we'll get to him, but, um, they signed, resigned everybody, they gave him 55 million, they signed Rousseau, Shakir, they, Joey Bosa, they bring in as an edge, they lose Von Miller, his best years behind them. I think it's fine, they traveled the fewest miles out of any team.

• 9:24Speaker 04

  I'm gonna, though, all that said, I'm gonna go 12 wins, six consecutive division title.

• 9:30Bill Simmons?

  You're going under.

• 9:30Speaker 04

  I guess that's under, yeah, if we're going 12 and a half.

• 9:32Bill Simmons?

  I wanted to go under and I went through the schedule, which was surprisingly light. They go, uh, so the, the AFC's plays the North and the South.

• 9:40Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:41Bill Simmons?

  Which is really important, because the South, I think, is probably the worst division, unless you want to make the AFC South case. Uh, and then AFC North, other than Baltimore, like I, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and then Cleveland, obviously. Uh, they played the first place schedule, so they have Philly, KC, and Houston. But here's what I thought, conspiracy bill, I don't, it's too hard for me to get out of this scene, put on the conspiracy bill outfit.

• 10:04Speaker 04

  I'll wait.

• 10:05Bill Simmons?

  It felt like the league stacked 2025 for Buffalo a little bit.

• 10:09Speaker 04

  You think so?

• 10:10Bill Simmons?

  Home games.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:12Bill Simmons?

  Baltimore, KC, Philly, Cincy, and Tampa.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  Right.

• 10:16Bill Simmons?

  All them home. Road games, they're playing five bad 2024 teams, plus Atlanta, they're at Houston, and they're at Pittsburgh. They might, other than at Houston, which I think will be tough, especially with Houston's defense, they might not play an above 500 team on the road. And then they have all these people coming to them, so that, that was one of the reasons.

• 10:35Speaker 04

  They officially have the easiest road schedule in the league, if you go by projected over-unders.

• 10:39Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 10:39Speaker 04

  Not, not by last year, and 21 and 2 at home, by the way, this is early 90s Bills we're talking about now, over the last three years, 21 and 2.

• 10:47Bill Simmons?

  So, I have them.

• 10:50Bill Simmons?

  Basically 12 and 4 going into that last game, week 18 at home against the Jets. And last year, they tanked this group of the Patriots. I think they just win that one, but I have them slightly over. So I think they're, I think they're the one seed, a bet that I really like actually at plus 250.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 11:06Bill Simmons?

  And, uh, and I think they're 13 and 4, 14 and 3, somewhere in there. That, that's where it ends.

• 11:11Speaker 04

  All right. That's good. All right. I say 12. I have to go slightly under. You go over.

• 11:15Bill Simmons?

  I did my crazy psychotic player rankings this year with the offense, defense, coaches, offensive line. And the Bills I had at 29. Ed Allen is the top QB. Their O-line is a top four offensive line. James Cook, he's in there. You could talk, maybe, I didn't give Shakir a point, but you could talk me into it.

• 11:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 11:34Bill Simmons?

  Uh, and then Russo, Jones, Milano, Benford, Johnson. They have five chippers on the D, and I think the coaching staff's at least top 10, right? And then home field advantage, you would have to say is probably a top four.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  That's 93% or whatever that is. Yeah.

• 11:51Bill Simmons?

  So, you know, they-

• 11:52Speaker 04

  The angriest you were at yourself this week is passing on Josh Allen as the one pick in our Ringer Fantasy League.

• 11:59Bill Simmons?

  No, the angriest I was was last year that I did the Jets to win Buffalo, not to make the, and if I had switched that, I would have gone 29 and 3 last year.

• 12:09Speaker 04

  That was the stupidest.

• 12:10Bill Simmons?

  Battling back and forth. Well, I get my revenge on Rogers in about five teams.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Go get it.

• 12:15Bill Simmons?

  All right. So you're under on Buffalo.

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I, 12 is like 12 and 5 is a good year for this team. I know they play the first play schedule every year, but I feel like teams are gunning for them a little more. Um, I do like that road schedule though. I really do.

• 12:28Bill Simmons?

  Well, let me ask you this. You don't have to say the team, but do you have a team finishing with a better record than that in the AFC?

• 12:33Speaker 04

  In the AFC? Uh, no, I do not. So that's one seed.

• 12:37Bill Simmons?

  So you think that could be the one seed?

• 12:38Speaker 04

  And I mean, then they could tank against the Jets there.

• 12:41Bill Simmons?

  Well, that was one other thing I was thinking with the Jets, because if it's like 12 and 4, and they have the one seed at stake, maybe they go for that game. So I'm going over for them. Uh, next up is going to be the New England Patriots. So we talk about this every year, the-

• 12:57Bill Simmons?

  Kinda can't believe they made the playoffs list, which is basically anybody with odds from I would say maybe plus 120 to plus 250.

• 13:07Bill Simmons?

  2024, two teams in this range that made the playoffs. Tampa was plus 144, Pittsburgh plus 194. The year before, Green Bay plus 138. Year before Miami plus 142 and the Giants with Danny Dimes plus 225. So we know we're getting at least one team, probably two from this list, which is, I won't read all the odds, but Arizona, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, New England's plus 160. We were about to talk about Seattle, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, Chicago, Dallas. Miami's plus 220, Carolina's plus 250. I'm guessing two to three teams from that list, right?

• 13:42Speaker 04

  I was gonna say three to four total out, three to four in, but yeah, maybe three.

• 13:47Bill Simmons?

  So I have the Pats over and I actually have them in the playoffs.

• 13:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:51Bill Simmons?

  And you can't call me Homer because last year I was adamant they were gonna be the worst team in the league.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  No, it's fine.

• 13:56Bill Simmons?

  Somehow they were until the last week.

• 13:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:58Bill Simmons?

  Joe Milton had the game of his life.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  I spent all summer trying to figure out a way to take them under because well, this number is another one that stuck in between seven and a half and eight and a half, right?

• 14:07Bill Simmons?

  It was seven and a half for a while and then it kind of bumped and now it's like a legitimate eight and a half.

• 14:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I think they win nine games. I'm not gonna shit on them. It's so much more fun if you think they're gonna be great and then they just fail and you know. But better coach, upgraded in free agency, they drafted well on paper. And that schedule, seven of the first nine teams under 500 last year. Like, forget about tanking for picks. Like, some of these teams tanked for a better schedule and it worked. It really is spectacular. Number two easiest schedule versus number two toughest last year. And they're favored in 11 games. So if you're giving them nine wins, you're not being a homer. They're favored in 11 games.

• 14:42Bill Simmons?

  And that was the case from the, I bet on them pretty early. You know, AFC North, NFC South, and then the fourth place schedule. And you just go through. And you're like, all right, I think we can beat them. Yeah, I think we can beat them too. This is the team that checks the most boxes for new coach, easy schedule, basically what Washington had last year. You could count Drake May as a new quarterback, even though he played 10 games last year. They loaded up. I was higher on them about three weeks ago. They spent a lot of money on the defense and they, they have four guys that I gave points on defense. They had a great draft.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  That's what has to improve, right? They were dead last in pressures, so.

• 15:20Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're gonna have a better defense. I don't think it can get to be a top five defense, but I think it'd be top 10. There, there definitely is a depth issue with them because our Lord and Savior, Bill Belichick, the drafts were just an abomination during the, down the stretch there. And then Cole Strange ironically got waived.

• 15:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 15:39Bill Simmons?

  And that, you go to back to Cole Strange, and I think I have this right. They trade out of the pick to Kansas City that Kansas City used to take Trent McDuffie, who's awesome. Then they go to where they took Strange and they took him right in front of George Karloftis. So the Chiefs get these two guys who are like blue chip guys for them and Belichick took a guard. It was weird when it happened. It was kind of like, are you trying to sabotage the Patriots? This is Terry, McVeigh famously laughed. So anyway, all those drafts.

• 16:08Speaker 04

  Boo hoo, boo hoo is what I have to say to that. But also let's, let me give you this now. Before we move on, speaking of Drake May, remember?

• 16:14Bill Simmons?

  Is it a?

• 16:14Speaker 04

  Last year.

• 16:15Bill Simmons?

  Is it a log?

• 16:16Speaker 04

  Well, last year I got you, you remember what I got you? It was a signed.

• 16:19Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, signed pylon.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Pylon.

• 16:21Bill Simmons?

  Where is that, by the way? I need that for the studio.

• 16:23Speaker 04

  Drake May signed the pylon. And this year it's a signed Drake May pylon that I found in a fricking closet that they were gonna empty into a dumpster.

• 16:35Bill Simmons?

  It's the same gift.

• 16:36Speaker 04

  It's the same thing. I'm not letting you throw that out. I'm following that.

• 16:40Bill Simmons?

  I didn't want to throw that out.

• 16:41Speaker 04

  Bad mojo you would have had. The Patriots would have had five. Oh, it's great. It was about, I, I rescued a pylon. I mean, it was really.

• 16:47Bill Simmons?

  Well, we moved studios like 17 times.

• 16:50Speaker 04

  All right.

• 16:51Bill Simmons?

  Look how, this looks great there.

• 16:52Speaker 04

  Go ahead, guy. He's laughing. He knows it's not staying there. He knows it's not staying.

• 16:55Bill Simmons?

  Look how great this is.

• 16:56Speaker 04

  That had gone, you would have won four games this year if that went in trash.

• 17:00Bill Simmons?

  Can I give you the Pats first four?

• 17:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:03Bill Simmons?

  I know you know that already. Home Raiders, at the Dolphins, which the Pats don't have a great history yet. Home Steelers, home Panthers.

• 17:16Bill Simmons?

  Mild 4-0 possibilities. There's also, oh my God, I can't believe we're 1-3 and now we're playing Buffalo in Buffalo on Sunday night. I thought the season was gonna go better.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:25Bill Simmons?

  The case for the Pats, beyond all the stuff we mentioned, is that the AFC kinda sucks. And we're gonna have a weird 6 seed and we're gonna have a weird 7 seed. And you could talk yourself into 8 teams. You'd be like, I like the Bengals. Well, their defense is gonna be awful.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 17:39Bill Simmons?

  Right? So, alright, go take the Bengals. There's something wrong with every team.

• 17:43Speaker 04

  And a tougher schedule. Yeah. That 7 seed, I had like 4 teams, I think, at 9 and 8. And I did a weird tiebreaker and have the Patriots advancing to the playoffs.

• 17:52Bill Simmons?

  How many teams did you have in a 6 seed or 7 seed slot? Because I got to the point where I test drove Indianapolis.

• 17:59Speaker 04

  No.

• 17:59Bill Simmons?

  And, no, this is when they had Richardson.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  No.

• 18:03Bill Simmons?

  I test drove, I test drove them for a second. I'm like, ah, and Tyler Warren? And then I was like, oh my God, get me out of this car. What am I doing?

• 18:11Speaker 04

  You don't even wear a seatbelt. That is dangerous shit for test driving Richardson. Yeah.

• 18:15Bill Simmons?

  So, 2 other things, just quickly. I think the defense is gonna be actually pretty good. And maybe even really good.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  They get Landry as a Vrabel guy. Get him in free agency.

• 18:25Bill Simmons?

  Vrabel has made, the 2 coaches that seem, and I could maybe throw in Pete Carroll too, but have come in and feel like they've changed culture immediately are him and Ben Johnson. Like, you read the Ben Johnson stuff or hear the stories and it's just like, it's just like a different team. That Eberfluss last year.

• 18:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:40Bill Simmons?

  We had the worst coach in the league, which is saying something because Dennis Allen was there. I don't even think Mayo is gonna ever be in football again.

• 18:48Speaker 04

  Right.

• 18:48Bill Simmons?

  Right? And it was just a mess. The GM was a mess. A lot of the dumb contracts they gave out, they're already trying to get out of. So, Vrabel came in, he cleaned it up. But, um, look, I really believe in Drake May. We talked about him a bunch last year on the pod.

• 19:02Speaker 04

  Not his signed pile on, but him as a player, yeah.

• 19:04Bill Simmons?

  Like that, right here.

• 19:07Bill Simmons?

  I really believe he's talented. My one fear with him is just that him taking dumb hits because he kept doing that last year.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:13Bill Simmons?

  Can he stay in the field for 17 games? But I, I genuinely think this could be a breakout thing. I have them at 10 and 7.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  I think he'll be good. Why? He's as good, I think, as Bo Nix. I'll say that now. I'm sure I'll get shit for it. But you know, they're not going to lose because of him.

• 19:26Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 19:26Speaker 04

  Defending, it's a defense.

• 19:27Bill Simmons?

  I think he can be better than Bo Nix.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  You have 10 and 7. It's a lot to turn around, though. That defense was really rough. That's a four-win team. What did they have? And you could thank all those coaches for giving you a terrible schedule.

• 19:37Bill Simmons?

  But we talk about new coach bump is usually five wins. And then the, the schedule is super easy. Four, five wins, but then the schedule is crazy.

• 19:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:45Bill Simmons?

  I'll give you the wins. Raiders, Dolphins, one of two with Steelers, Panthers. I think they beat the Saints, Browns, Falcons, Jets, Giants home Monday night.

• 20:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, I have some more.

• 20:02Bill Simmons?

  Jets, Dolphins last week. I think that's 10.

• 20:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have nine. You have 10. You know what? That, you just don't want a dumb thing in Miami. Oh, they played them too early. It was 108 on the turf. They made them wear dark. They made them wear a color. They don't even have these jerseys they made them wear, so.

• 20:17Bill Simmons?

  Although you probably want to catch Miami while they're seeming super dysfunctional. 10 plus wins, plus 190, if you like the 10.

• 20:25Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 20:26Bill Simmons?

  But I think the playoffs is probably a better bet at plus 160. 98 is going to make the playoffs with one of those spots.

• 20:33Speaker 04

  That's how I have it. I couldn't get a lot of these teams to 10, but one of them was a 76.

• 20:37Bill Simmons?

  The Pats had four guys on defense that I gave points to, Williams, Spillane, Davis, and Gonzalez. And this Spillane is already called here. The only thing that hasn't been great is Roman Anthony has completely taken Drake May's corner in Boston. It's like the next Prince of Boston. Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 20:51Bill Simmons?

  So Drake May's got to pull that back.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  You want to take a win away, maybe?

• 20:55Bill Simmons?

  I was thinking about it. I was thinking like a Roman Anthony tax.

• 20:58Speaker 04

  There's a tariff going on between teams?

• 21:01Bill Simmons?

  Everybody loves Roman Anthony. Drake May's like, guys, I just got here. Get your Drake May jersey.

• 21:06Speaker 04

  We'll be done in late September. It'll be all right.

• 21:08Bill Simmons?

  Jets, six and a half. This was five and a half at one point. The over for six and a half is plus 120. They really wanted to do the under.

• 21:19Bill Simmons?

  Eight plus wins is plus 190. If you think they're a playoff team, if you believe in Justin Field, plus 470. They were five and 12 last year.

• 21:30Bill Simmons?

  That feels around where they're going to be again. I just, here's my big question. Is there any way to make Justin Fields a winning QB? I just don't see it. I just don't think he's accurate enough. And we saw it in Pittsburgh where he was in a great situation. And they kind of bailed on him after five games. He just wasn't good enough.

• 21:46Speaker 04

  He holds the ball too long and that is, almost could be the number one metric you look at for quarterbacks.

• 21:51Bill Simmons?

  That's a Shador thing now. Yeah.

• 21:53Speaker 04

  I know he runs better than any of those guys, but um, you know, he can luck into winning games, but I don't think he's going to be the reason. They win games. I know he, Garrett Wilson, they had the thing in Ohio State, but I think they're going to be a frisky team. That's going to win six games, but I don't, I don't see anything more than that. It's just kind of tough and I, you know, Aaron Glenn's good. Replaces Sala and Albrecht. Um, they have a new OC in there, the Lions pass coordinator. Hackett's gone. All that stuff is good. They re-signed Sauce Gardner. I'm looking at their um.

• 22:24Bill Simmons?

  The receivers are, the receiver room is tough.

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:27Bill Simmons?

  The Breece Hall, Braylon Allen thing. Braylon Allen's a big fantasy sleeper right now. The fact that they thought they had this really special running back in Breece Hall and now he's going to be a third down running back.

• 22:38Speaker 04

  Nothing. Yeah. I don't know. You know, they signed a couple of cheap secondary players, but I don't know. I, I don't, I don't see Fields taking them. We'll know week one, right? We'll kind of know. I mean, will we know against the Steelers? Like that's going to be huge and fun.

• 22:52Bill Simmons?

  That's the other thing I really did not like about the Jets. Steelers home, good defense they're going against.

• 22:58Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 22:59Bill Simmons?

  Bills home, at Bucks and then at Dolphins on a Monday night, but that, that feels a little O and F-ish. I'm just. Both of us were out on Fields last year. I guess that if you're going uh, anti-regression, they blew six fourth quarter leads last year.

• 23:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:14Bill Simmons?

  They had a bizarre coaching situation with uh, Akeed Sala got bounced.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  Is that why they have two prime time games this year versus six last year?

• 23:22Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:23Speaker 04

  Yes. I think that it might be better for them actually.

• 23:25Bill Simmons?

  They took that membo pretty high, the offensive lineman.

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:30Bill Simmons?

  What was he, seventh? Pretty rocky preseason. There were some tough videos with him. And it seems like the guy the Saints got, Kelvin Banks, was actually a little more reliable, but um.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  They lose Devonte Adams, DJ Reed, who's, you know.

• 23:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  Arguably better than Stevens. I don't know who they got. Kinlaw's gone. Hassan Reddick wasn't a good fit there, but. Yeah, the tackle's a good run and pass protector, but it might've, might've reached them.

• 23:57Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I'm around. I'm, I'm under here and I'm, I'm actually right at the number. I'm six and 11 for them.

• 24:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right. Six.

• 24:05Bill Simmons?

  So the new coaches, Vrabel, Glenn for the Jets, Cohen for the Jags.

• 24:13Bill Simmons?

  Pete Carroll replacing our guy Antonio Pierce. Ben Johnson for Eberfluss, uh, your team, which we'll talk about in part two and then uh, your guy Kellen Moore. So we only had seven new coaches. Usually it feels like we have like 10.

• 24:26Speaker 04

  Well, the next team we're about to talk about might have a new coach in like three weeks.

• 24:30Bill Simmons?

  Miami over seven and a half. I bet this immediately. Uh, I, I still can't believe the over is seven and a half. I thought it would drop to six by now. Uh, playoffs to make it there, plus two, 25. To finish fourth place in the AFC East, plus two, 20. Enticing. We might have a couple of fourth place bets with them. They were eight and nine last year. There's some alt bets. If you really like a season from hell for them. Can go like under four, under four and a half wins, plus four, 90, under five and a half wins, plus two, 60. That's, that's my first question to you. Will Mike McDaniel be our first coach fired? Is there anyone else you would, you'd pick as a bet?

• 25:11Speaker 04

  I mean, he's begging for it. I think Dayball last, I'm trying to look at, I saw it's Fand, we talked to.

• 25:16Bill Simmons?

  There's a lot of Giants, like good buzz though. I, I, Dayball would surprise me.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  They might give him another year just because of quarterback situation, but um, McDaniel. What was his thing? He talked about we're nearer to death, we're closer to, like, no one's begging to be fired more than Mike McDaniel. We're closer to death. Like, he's got a, I, I, I just don't like this team. The only time I like it is when Tyree Kill is at his healthiest. But if you leave the, look at the metrics, he does not fit on this team because Tua is so injury prone with the however many concussions, he's got to throw it quick. Your speedster means a lot less, right?

• 25:52Bill Simmons?

  Right. He should be on like the Falcons with Penix just gunning it to him.

• 25:55Speaker 04

  He should go somewhere else. Plus he has a 98 speed on Madden now and that's going to tear him up all year.

• 26:00Bill Simmons?

  Wow, they dropped him?

• 26:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 26:02Bill Simmons?

  Oh my God.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Yeah. So that, that makes me drop. I still gave them six wins because it wasn't, you gave them like four or something.

• 26:08Bill Simmons?

  I was five and 12 for them.

• 26:09Speaker 04

  Oh, you are? Okay. All right. I mean, McDaniel, I think is going to be fired by Halloween.

• 26:13Bill Simmons?

  The only case for them is so many people have talked about how much they didn't like, I mean, their defensive backs awful. Maybe the worst secondary in the league. Bad offensive line? Plus Tua, so he's just gonna be getting rid of the ball right away.

• 26:28Bill Simmons?

  They're not gonna be able to cover anybody. So if they're gonna fall behind and then it's just gonna be like everybody coming at Tua. And it seems like their schedule gets harder as the year gets along. So if they start out, even if they're three and four, they're in some trouble, but two and five would be not great. They have,

• 26:47Bill Simmons?

  they're playing the second place schedule. So they have Indy and the Chargers and Washington and that group, but.

• 26:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, six of the first eight are against teams that didn't make the playoffs, but I just don't like. I mean, I looked at, they had the most holding penalties in the league last year. How do you do that with a quarterback who's getting rid of the ball before he even has it?

• 27:03Bill Simmons?

  You're playing a speed offense. I thought they were really sloppy last year. The case for them would be healthy to a season. They got a left tackle. They like that guy, Patrick Paul. And then the pass rushes back. A lot of guys hurt last year.

• 27:16Speaker 04

  They went beefy.

• 27:17Bill Simmons?

  They were gonna throw the bomb and rush the passer. I don't see it.

• 27:21Speaker 04

  They drafted a lot of big guys. They actually drafted a guy, what's the guy? I gotta find his name here. Zeke Biggers was a guy they drafted, so.

• 27:30Bill Simmons?

  Sounds like a WWE wrestler.

• 27:35Bill Simmons?

  I wrote this down. I know JJ's talked about this a bunch of times. Sorry, JJ, but the Dolphins just fall through the cracks for the 21st NFL century, 21st century NFL train wrecks. Their last playoff win, I went back and I watched it. 23-17 overtime over the 2,000 Colts and Peyton Manning. And it's this crazy Lamar Smith game where he has like 40 carries and then he runs into the end zone for the win. They cut to some coach, I think it's Wannstat, I can't remember. That was their last playoff win. They've won one AFC's title this century. They have five playoff appearances and they've had 11 head coaches.

• 28:12Speaker 04

  If their owner was a little more of an asshole, they would be the Cowboys. Like people would be talking about them and not Dallas, but it's Serena Williams, right? Who's the owner? I don't know.

• 28:21Bill Simmons?

  Steven Ross?

• 28:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 28:23Bill Simmons?

  Anyway, they're terrible and I think they're gonna be so.

• 28:26Speaker 04

  So we both have six.

• 28:27Bill Simmons?

  Is there a, I think this is like six to one, a Buffalo, Pats, Jets, Dolphins, exact order? Did we bet this already?

• 28:35Speaker 04

  I think it's on there as a special.

• 28:37Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 04

  I think we're gonna do a few of those, but.

• 28:39Bill Simmons?

  Who screws that up?

• 28:40Speaker 04

  Well, this, that's what you want, right? You want to know the first place team and the second, and the last place team. Think we're both keyed in on who those are gonna be. And then you figure out.

• 28:49Bill Simmons?

  I feel like we know the first two and then it's like three or fours. A crap shoot. Uh, all right, we're gonna, uh, we're gonna take a break and then we're gonna hit the AFC Central. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Week one of college football is finally here and FanDuel is kicking things off with a no sweat bet just for you. That means you can place any bet on college football this weekend. If it doesn't hit, you get it back in bonus bets. Whether you're riding with your alma mater or backing a top 10 matchup. FanDuel has you covered with live betting, game props, alternate lines and more. So bet confidently because with no sweat bet, even your first miss comes with a second chance. Download the FanDuel app now or head to fanduel.com/BS, my initials, to get started.

• 29:32Bill Simmons?

  You must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Opt-in required. Refund issued as a non-redrawable bonus bet that expires seven days after receipt. Max refund $5 unless otherwise specified. Restrictions apply, including token expiration. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit rg-help.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/shat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by Uber Eats. Summer is here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats. What do I mean by almost? Well, you can't get a well groomed lawn delivered. But you can get chicken parmigiana delivered. I love chicken parm.

• 30:16Bill Simmons?

  A day in the sun? No. A bottle of rum? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. And now for a special part of today's show, it's called Forward Thinkers of the Game. It's brought to you by Workday, where we talk about the football players who we think are going to bring something fresh to the field when the season kicks off. Like Ashton Gentry, Ashton Gentry, I can barely speak on the Raiders. Small, but powerful, crazy running back, plays three downs. Might be the best fantasy football running back by the end of the year. He's one of them. Could Drake May?

• 31:01Bill Simmons?

  Could he be the next Josh Allen? Could he take Josh Allen and become Josh Allen 2.0? Might happen. Could Egbo on the Buccaneers eventually become the most reliable rookie receiver? Maybe one of the most reliable receivers in the league? You never know. That's why we play this season because we get to find this stuff out in real time. When you're a forward thinker, the only thing you're afraid of is business as usual. Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage people and money today. So you can transform tomorrow. Workday, moving business forever forward. Learn more at workday.com. Coming back, I had my first old guy mistake at the end of the last segment. I called it the AFC Central. Has it ever been the AFC Central?

• 31:41Speaker 04

  Well, Boomer, you call it whatever you want. Yeah, yeah, it was.

• 31:45Bill Simmons?

  Like way back, right? I'm not crazy.

• 31:46Speaker 04

  Houston Oilers.

• 31:47Bill Simmons?

  Sadly, it's now called the AFC North. Baltimore, 11 and a half is the over. They are minus 155 to win the division, a number that kind of doesn't seem risky enough. I almost feel like they should be like two to one. Plus 350 for the conference, plus 650 for the Super Bowl, plus 340 for the one seed. They were 12 and 5 last year. My question to you. Is this just the James Harden Rockets, this Ravens team?

• 32:16Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 32:17Bill Simmons?

  Great regular season every year. Lot of stats, super fun, very unique with Lamar, and then in the playoffs, something happens.

• 32:24Speaker 04

  It might be, but it was James Harden's fault, right? It's not Lamar's, I don't think, I mean, like, like Josh Allen, if you look, by the way, between 2020 and 2024, the best five-year run for any team without winning a Super Bowl, Buffalo.

• 32:38Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:38Speaker 04

  And Baltimore, and it's unfair to give him shit for the shortcomings. Forty-two touchdowns, four interceptions.

• 32:43Bill Simmons?

  Give him shit for two years ago when they, they absolutely crushed our, our bank accounts?

• 32:48Speaker 04

  We could do that, or when he took a shit. Uh, he left the game to take a shit, but the margin's so thin. It's always like a toe inbounds or.

• 32:55Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 32:55Speaker 04

  Andrews drops an easy ball, like, when, when is that gonna end, right? Maybe this is a year, but we're just talking over-unders here, right?

• 33:02Bill Simmons?

  Well, Mallory, somebody took them in our Ringer Fantasy Draft, Mallory Rubin, Giant Ravens fan.

• 33:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:07Bill Simmons?

  And she kinda winced, and she was like, ew, that's not.

• 33:11Speaker 04

  Really?

• 33:11Bill Simmons?

  That's somebody who's not following the offseason. They did draft Malachi Starks.

• 33:17Bill Simmons?

  Their pass rush still looks pretty weak.

• 33:21Bill Simmons?

  They did not lose really any games to injury last year. Did you see that one?

• 33:25Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 33:26Bill Simmons?

  They had by far the fewest in the league. And then the other thing, if you're gonna like worry about them, is just that Justin Tucker thing's officially over. That stability of, I mean, it was really ending last year.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  Right.

• 33:38Bill Simmons?

  The stability of having these awesome special teams, home field, moving into a slightly different.

• 33:42Speaker 04

  Oh, but he sucked last year.

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  He did.

• 33:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:44Bill Simmons?

  But it's just like, you have to factor that in now where the special teams rose lights out, now they're not.

• 33:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I think that's a good trade-off between injury luck and, uh, bad kicker luck, special teams.

• 33:54Bill Simmons?

  True.

• 33:54Speaker 04

  Luck, so I like Mike Green, their second-round pick from Marshall, he had seventeen sacks last year. Little, little troubled, um, that's probably why.

• 34:02Bill Simmons?

  That's why he fell.

• 34:02Speaker 04

  Second round, yeah, but, uh, he could be good. I mean, this, it's all like, you know, they have five playoff teams in the first six weeks before their bye, and that, that game against Buffalo, in Buffalo, that's Ohio State-Texas to start next Sunday, right? And that's, doesn't get better than that.

• 34:19Bill Simmons?

  It's incredible.

• 34:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:21Bill Simmons?

  I had them as at 30 for points of my weird wacky.

• 34:25Speaker 04

  What?

• 34:26Bill Simmons?

  My weird ranking.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  30 wins this year?

• 34:28Bill Simmons?

  My weird player coach draft system.

• 34:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:31Bill Simmons?

  That helped me do really well last year. So I had them even one point higher than the Bills. Um, and as you said, they, it looked like they hit their draft a little bit. So there, if you're gonna ding them. At some point there, Henry's getting old. I don't know. It's just like a LeBron thing. This just keeps going until he's 40, but uh, he looked awesome last year.

• 34:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:52Bill Simmons?

  I just don't see any scenario where they don't win this division.

• 34:55Speaker 04

  I'm with you. I have them at 11 wins. What'd you have them at?

• 34:59Bill Simmons?

  I have them at uh, 12 and 5.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 35:01Bill Simmons?

  And I have them as an over, and you could even talk me into 13 and 4. I think them or Buffalo finishes 13 and 4 and uh, I'm leaning toward uh, maybe Buffalo being the one that does that.

• 35:12Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 35:12Bill Simmons?

  So, one thing with their schedule, the uh, the AFC North plays the East and the NFC North. And then they also play KC Houston and the Rams.

• 35:22Speaker 04

  Tough.

• 35:23Bill Simmons?

  They have uh, they have the Thanksgiving game. They're home against uh, Cincinnati in Thanksgiving. There's a little easy stretch they have here where they go, week 12, Jets, home, Bengals home, Steelers home, at Bengals.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 35:39Bill Simmons?

  Pats home. And it comes like right when you would need it. And I think, I could see them doing the like, start out 2 and 2, like they're at Bills, home Lions week 3, at Chiefs week 4.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  Rough.

• 35:49Bill Simmons?

  I could see like a 2 and 2, oh, what's wrong? And then they win like their last 10.

• 35:53Speaker 04

  Throw the Bears in that stretch too. That's how, I wrote that down. That starts off that, that run of uh, where they can go 4, 5 and 0 there.

• 36:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Okay. Next team. The Bengals. So going back to our kinda can't believe they missed the playoffs list.

• 36:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:09Bill Simmons?

  Which um, oh wait, I didn't talk about that yet. So last year, if you put everybody from basically even odds to plus 160. Last year, we had four teams on this list that missed the playoffs with plus odds. Miami plus 128, the Jets plus 138, Atlanta plus 152, and Dallas plus 164. Where you're like, ah, I kinda can't believe they missed it. The year before, there were three teams, and the year before, there was one. I have a bunch of possibilities here, including Cincinnati, who is a plus 118. And I have them right around the seven seed, but not quite either eight, nine, nine and eight. Their over under is nine and a half. I'm under, Sal.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  I wanted to be under because I hate that everybody loves this team and it's kind of the same thing over and over. They lose that first week. Doesn't matter if they played, but they lost to the Patriots. They lost to the Browns, one, you know, inferior teams the first week. We got a whiff of their offensive line again. Remember that when it just disappears? We got that in preseason. I know you don't want to give that, you know, too much credit, but you know, last year, they scored 26 a game and allowed 26 a game. So it could be that other than the quarterback and receivers and Hendrickson, everything could be bad. It's absolutely a case that could happen.

• 37:26Bill Simmons?

  I had this question for you.

• 37:29Bill Simmons?

  Did the Bengals achieve true perfection? As a perfect fantasy team guys team?

• 37:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:37Bill Simmons?

  With no chance of being a real life playoff threat?

• 37:39Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 37:40Bill Simmons?

  Like, like this team is destined to be eight or nine or nine and eight. Their defense can be terrible. We just know it's gonna be bad. They're gonna be in shootouts all the time. Burrow, if he stays healthy, will, will, I think be the best stats quarterback.

• 37:54Speaker 04

  He's top four, right? Nobody could get into that top four for, for years, I think. How many years has it been?

• 38:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, Daniels maybe. If Daniels goes 12 and 5 again this year, I think he enters the combo.

• 38:05Speaker 04

  Cause Hertz is right there. I don't think anyone breaks that anytime soon.

• 38:09Bill Simmons?

  So people were like, well, well, their D might be better this year. What's the evidence? They're 31st last year in defense, but they had a way easier schedule last year.

• 38:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:19Bill Simmons?

  They played the following quarterbacks last year. Jacoby Brissette, Danny Dimes, Jameis, Deshaun, Minshew, Ritter, Thompson Robinson, your guy Cooper Rush, Mason Rudolph, Will Levis, Andy Dalton and Russell Wilson. And they were 31st in defense.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:36Bill Simmons?

  And they're like, yeah, we drafted Shamar Stewart. It's gonna be a little bit better. Is it?

• 38:39Speaker 04

  I think I want to change my pick now.

• 38:41Bill Simmons?

  You can change it.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  I don't know. No, I gotta go.

• 38:43Bill Simmons?

  I want you to be right. I want us to do really well.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  No, I have to. See, what I did is what you don't do. I go through every, every single matchup.

• 38:49Bill Simmons?

  I did that this year because you made me feel bad.

• 38:50Speaker 04

  You did? Really?

• 38:51Bill Simmons?

  No, I didn't do that. I didn't go through every matchup.

• 38:52Speaker 04

  But your shit added up. Like, there's many.

• 38:54Bill Simmons?

  I think mine added up this year.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  I'm proud of you. Good. Because last year, you put like three teams in the Super Bowl or something.

• 38:58Bill Simmons?

  It worked. I was 27 and 5.

• 39:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's true.

• 39:00Bill Simmons?

  Maybe I should have not counted.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  Uh, they have a new DC. This guy Al Golden is a, is a DC for Notre Dame. So Anarumo, or Anarumo, I'm gonna say it wrong.

• 39:10Bill Simmons?

  Louis Anarumo.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Louis Anarumo, yeah. Who was good once, just, uh, I don't know.

• 39:14Bill Simmons?

  Remember Lombardi doing 15-minute monologues about how great Louis Anarumo was?

• 39:17Speaker 04

  He's got a job.

• 39:18Bill Simmons?

  31st seed, they fired him.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  They end easy at Miami, Arizona, and Cleveland. They, they better go 2-0 against Cleveland and, and Jacksonville. Otherwise, we know what we're getting there. But I'm reluctantly taking 10 wins.

• 39:31Bill Simmons?

  They got Slayton to beef up their run D a tiny bit, but it still looks like a team that, uh, can't stop the run.

• 39:38Bill Simmons?

  Their offensive line is bottom five in the rankings. It's like a legit bottom five offensive line, which is fine because Burrow's great, but there's real health things with him too. And that was the other thing, like, I, he's just gonna get the shit kicked out of him again. And I don't, I don't want to bank on them winning 10 games with the offensive line and the defense. I'm not doing it.

• 39:59Speaker 04

  Warren Sharp, let's give him a shout out because we do still a couple of those things. Worst run support, 30th success rate. Worst run support. Like, everyone's drafting Chase Brown in the third round. Like, interesting that they had the third, is it, are they counting the sacks as negative yards or something?

• 40:14Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, that's not great.

• 40:15Speaker 04

  30th defense, 32nd O-line pass block rate the last four years, what you mentioned.

• 40:20Bill Simmons?

  They're at Cleveland Week 1, home Jags Week 2.

• 40:23Speaker 04

  Gotta win both.

• 40:23Bill Simmons?

  Perfect.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:25Bill Simmons?

  Except they start out slow every year.

• 40:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 40:27Bill Simmons?

  So this is like the, you know, the two people staring at each other.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  I'll keep it at 10. I'm not, I want credit though if it goes under.

• 40:33Bill Simmons?

  I only had four guys. With points for them in my ranking system. Borough was an eight, Chase was a five, Higgins was a three and Hendrickson was a three.

• 40:44Speaker 04

  No.

• 40:45Bill Simmons?

  I had a minus one for the offensive line and they were in 18 with four people. The only one that was like almost as lopsided was the Niners where they just have like five good guys and a great coach and nothing else.

• 40:56Speaker 04

  Right, right.

• 40:57Bill Simmons?

  So it's like a classic stars and scrubs team.

• 40:59Speaker 04

  The only thing I'll say is they were four and seven in one score games last year. Maybe they could.

• 41:03Bill Simmons?

  They did lose a couple of dumb games, but you also lose dumb games when your defense sucks.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Dumb team, yeah.

• 41:08Bill Simmons?

  Pittsburgh, a team that every year I just blindly buy into the Tomlin thing. They are over eight and a half.

• 41:15Speaker 04

  It's eight and of course it's eight and a half. Can they just make that the Tomlin?

• 41:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:18Speaker 04

  Make it the Tomlin total. Like we have the Jeff Fisher eight and eight, he gets those numbers, the Tomlin total.

• 41:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 41:24Speaker 04

  Let's Fandel make it eight and a half next year too. Like that's it.

• 41:27Bill Simmons?

  Five to one for the division, plus 134 to make the playoffs. Under six and a half wins, plus 240. Just want to point that out. They were 10 and seven last year, but cratered down the stretch.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 41:40Bill Simmons?

  The big question, will Aaron Rodgers, not only just will he be good, but will he finish the season? Do we, is he playing football in mid-December for you?

• 41:50Speaker 04

  Uh, I think he does because he's annoying that way. And I kind of think he's the perfect quarterback for this team. Like I love that Pittsburgh, that Steelers special, right? Which is like, you bet they're losing at half and they win the game and it cashed five times last year.

• 42:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 42:06Speaker 04

  And it's like plus 600, plus 500, plus 600 every week. He's perfect for that. He gets off to such a slow start. He gets sacked. He had such garbage time numbers last year. So he's kind of like, he was 30th in sacks taken, first to third quarter, number 30 EPA, fourth quarter, number six EPA. This is your guy Steelers. It may, it may not have looked good in the rebuild, but that's what's going to happen, I think.

• 42:30Bill Simmons?

  Well. I wrote down, I think it'd be one of the great over 40 achievements.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 42:37Bill Simmons?

  In any sport, if this team goes like 10 and 7 and he's actually pretty good. I don't see it though. The offensive line, they got, I think, first year starters on both tackles.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:47Bill Simmons?

  The skill position guys, like we just did a fantasy draft. Nobody was like clamoring to get Steelers, right? Warren was like the tail end. People tried to talk to him. You even took Caleb Johnson.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  Maybe you got lucky with Caleb Johnson.

• 42:58Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they got the two tight ends. They Friarmouth and then they got Chinese Smith.

• 43:02Speaker 04

  Who, by the way, might be the best guy that the Dolphins had, but we'll see.

• 43:07Bill Simmons?

  You look at his stats and like the Patriots had him, he was awful. Like he had this crazy weird career year for the Dolphins. I don't know what's legitimate about it.

• 43:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:15Bill Simmons?

  And then Metcalf, who seems like just a bizarre fit with Rogers. The only case you could make for them to get to nine wins is the defense. If the defense is really good again, which I have a feeling it's going to take a little bit of a step back because it's older, but.

• 43:30Speaker 04

  How many you have?

• 43:32Bill Simmons?

  They play Cleveland twice. They play Indy, Fields, Sam Darnold, J.J. McCarthy, Drake May, Caleb and Tua.

• 43:43Bill Simmons?

  So they play two of the three bad quarterback teams three times.

• 43:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:46Bill Simmons?

  And they play a bunch of young quarterbacks and could their defense, could they get that a couple of those dumb wins? I'm leaning more toward, I just think the schedule's harder. The defense is going to be a little worse. And the way they finished the year last year, that to me, this feels like a, just kind of a, man, this is depressing blah Steelers season. Right?

• 44:08Speaker 04

  I just can't move them off that number. I think they're eight and eight going into that last week.

• 44:12Bill Simmons?

  So do you, are you going over or under?

• 44:13Speaker 04

  I'm going under. I think they lose.

• 44:15Bill Simmons?

  I went under.

• 44:16Speaker 04

  To Baltimore, week 18 or whatever it is. And, and that's that on January 4th. I mean, they really have to get out of the gates. They have to win that Jets game because their last four, I think they have Baltimore times two.

• 44:27Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  Buffalo, Detroit and Cleveland, whatever.

• 44:30Bill Simmons?

  Their second half of their season, they got a night game in week 10 against the Chargers, home Bengals, at Bears, home Bills, at Ravens, home Dolphins, Monday night, at Lions, at Browns, Ravens.

• 44:40Speaker 04

  Gets real tough. Yeah.

• 44:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. So there's two easy ones out of nine weeks there.

• 44:46Bill Simmons?

  From a, from a talent standpoint, I had five chippers for them, including Watt, who's still a four. People seem to like their draft a little bit, but I just don't see any weapons for them. It's gonna be another 16 to 13 type thing, but I don't think they're offensive. I just, I should have said this sooner. I just don't think Rogers wants to get hit anymore.

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:04Bill Simmons?

  That was the guy we watched last year, and we see this. You and I always bet this with boxing and UFC, when guys hit a certain point.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:10Bill Simmons?

  And they just, they don't want to take the risks the same way. And I don't know how you play quarterback.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  That O-line's gotta be good. He's not running for anything.

• 45:16Bill Simmons?

  I don't think it's gonna be good.

• 45:17Speaker 04

  You know, I mean, you know, they get Matt Caff and everything, but they lost, nobody loves them in fantasy, really. They lost Najee and Pickens. Those guys had 67 red zone targets, by far the best top of the team's positions last year, so.

• 45:30Bill Simmons?

  Well, if you talk to a Steelers fan, and thank God we don't know any Steelers fans.

• 45:34Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 45:34Bill Simmons?

  Thank God we don't know one of them.

• 45:35Speaker 04

  I don't know how we did it.

• 45:36Bill Simmons?

  They had the GM, from the 2019 to 22, their drafts are like really bad. It was like a meme going around on Twitter or somewhere where, and they took Pickett first, they took Najee Harris in the first round. They have like just swings. They traded their first round pick for Minka Fitzpatrick. He's gone.

• 45:54Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 45:54Bill Simmons?

  So, these are all the guys that would be like, you're, you know, the stars of your team now, and they don't really have those guys anymore. So they have these guys in their 30s and that's it.

• 46:02Speaker 04

  And yet, it's just like an experiment, because they're gonna be 8-8 going into that last round.

• 46:07Bill Simmons?

  I have them under. Okay. Last team, the Cleveland Browns, uh, over, under 4.5.

• 46:15Bill Simmons?

  He, uh, 4th, 4th place is minus 240. I think those are the best odds for 4th place, or the highest odds of anybody. Playoffs, plus 880. Last year, they're 3-14. Will this ever not be the dumbest team in the league? Like even the Travis Hunter trade, good trade.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:33Bill Simmons?

  Trade it, you move back three spots, you took Mason Graham, you got all these picks. And then they just fucking lose their minds. They take the wrong Ohio State running back, who that isn't even on the roster.

• 46:43Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:43Bill Simmons?

  They're taking Henderson, who's, I forgot to mention when we talked about the Patriots, but he looks like he's gonna be a star.

• 46:49Speaker 04

  A good kick returner, sure.

• 46:50Bill Simmons?

  No, he's gonna be a star. He's gonna be a 3-down back. The Pats have speed with Diggs and Henderson, and I think people don't really realize. Anyway, they could add Henderson. They, they opt into the Shador soap opera for reasons that remain unclear.

• 47:04Speaker 04

  After picking a quarterback.

• 47:05Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, after picking another quarterback. Um, I, it's just a bizarre team, and I don't, I don't understand. Stefanski, I think we all like.

• 47:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:16Bill Simmons?

  The media nerd seemed like Andrew Berry. How are you this stupid every year? It has to be the owner.

• 47:21Speaker 04

  I, you know, I was driving over here and I was like, damn it. How did I give them? I gave them five wins, which puts it over. But I was like, how the-

• 47:29Bill Simmons?

  Did you change your mind?

• 47:30Speaker 04

  This is a team, they signed Bailey Zappi today.

• 47:32Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 04

  Two weeks ago, they signed Snoop Huntley. And these guys have an excellent chance to start, like week five, right? Instead, it's Flacco, who like, you know, I, I have him-

• 47:43Bill Simmons?

  Did you see the Flacco, Dylan Gabriel photo?

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:45Bill Simmons?

  Where it looked like Dr. Evil and Mini Me?

• 47:47Speaker 04

  It's great.

• 47:48Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 47:48Speaker 04

  And by the way, they want Shador Sanders to be good. You pointed it out. This team has not made a good decision in decades. Of course, they want their, where they got Shador Sanders, all this nonsense that they're putting the shitty offensive lineman out there with them. They want to look foolish with the Shador thing too? No.

• 48:03Bill Simmons?

  No.

• 48:03Speaker 04

  Let's get crazy. So they start with Bengals, Ravens, Packers and Lions, and then they're off to London. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt and say, oh, and four.

• 48:12Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Bengals at Ravens, Packers at Lions, Vikings in London. Can we go 0-5?

• 48:17Speaker 04

  You really could.

• 48:18Bill Simmons?

  At Steelers week six? Can we just make it an 0-6 right there?

• 48:21Speaker 04

  What, five games?

• 48:22Bill Simmons?

  What game are they winning out of those?

• 48:23Speaker 04

  Why do I have them at five wins?

• 48:24Bill Simmons?

  They're not going to outscore the Bengals.

• 48:26Speaker 04

  I think they'll win something stupid, like at Vegas or something.

• 48:29Bill Simmons?

  I, you're crazy. I have, I'm hard under for them.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  All right. So you think they're in the running for worst team of the year?

• 48:36Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 04

  First pick.

• 48:37Bill Simmons?

  I think them or New Orleans. And that's the other thing with this is who's going to start tanking when we get-

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Right.

• 48:42Bill Simmons?

  Closer. I just think, wow.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  I don't know why I had five.

• 48:44Bill Simmons?

  I did like Mason Graham. I wouldn't have been upset if the Pats got him, but you know, him and Garrett, that's a little something. But to not, to not have your second round pick, to do this Hunter trade, but then not end up with the 36th pick, like, what are you doing?

• 48:57Speaker 04

  It's outrageous. And they're going to get dinged like $80 million next year or re-restructure Watson, who's never- Does Watson take another snap for this team?

• 49:05Bill Simmons?

  I don't think so. I gave them a minus two for quarterbacks.

• 49:09Speaker 04

  Wow.

• 49:10Bill Simmons?

  Judy, Njoku, Garrett and Ward.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  Did you know about the Bill Zappi signing when you did that? Or you maybe didn't know?

• 49:17Bill Simmons?

  Should I do a minus three?

• 49:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:20Bill Simmons?

  Vikings, Browns, London is a classic, we hate you, England game.

• 49:25Speaker 04

  Terrible.

• 49:25Bill Simmons?

  That might be the one of the worst ones. Where are the Jags? Do they not, are they not allowed in London anymore?

• 49:30Speaker 04

  No, they have one game.

• 49:30Bill Simmons?

  They must be going, right?

• 49:31Speaker 04

  Don't they? They have one game, they just don't have the back to back. I think Minnesota has.

• 49:34Bill Simmons?

  Oh, yeah, they're going week seven.

• 49:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:36Bill Simmons?

  London's like, can you just push it later?

• 49:38Speaker 04

  I really liked how they took it over. That was dumb, but I, I think, I think you can get under five and halves though, right?

• 49:45Speaker 04

  For almost the same.

• 49:46Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, with some juice. Well, I'm going under four and a half.

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 49:50Bill Simmons?

  All right. Let's take another break and then we'll do the AFC South.

• 49:53Speaker 04

  Let's do it.

• 49:55Bill Simmons?

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

• 50:37Bill Simmons?

  You ever sit down, ready to watch the game, only to search and scroll endlessly? If so, you need Fire TV. It shows you are live games from your favorite teams all in one place, right on the home screen. No more searching, just sit down and turn on Fire TV. Separate subscriptions may be required. Feature and content availability may vary. AFC South, everyone their brother has Houston winning this thing and yet their over under is only nine and a half wins.

• 51:02Speaker 04

  Mm hmm.

• 51:03Bill Simmons?

  The AFC South is not a good division. They are minus 150 for the playoffs, 13-1 be the one seed.

• 51:11Bill Simmons?

  12 to 1 if you want to get excited about CJ Stroud, plus their defense and maybe they get lucky with some.

• 51:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:17Bill Simmons?

  Some rookie receivers that they have. There's a Joe Mixon situation that everybody who plays fantasy has been on all summer. He's out for the first four games. Doesn't look like we're seeing him this year. It seems like he has a fucked up foot. Chubbs there, they just have a bunch of, they're basically like what your Dallas running back room last year.

• 51:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:33Bill Simmons?

  Sorry.

• 51:34Speaker 04

  That's true though, yeah.

• 51:34Bill Simmons?

  Here's my question. Can they have the best defense in the league? I took them in our Ringer Fantasy League. I took them in Philly as the two defenses. They played the AFC South six times. Just go 6-0 against the AFC South.

• 51:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:46Bill Simmons?

  Go 6-0, you just go 6-0, you go 4-7 against everyone else, you're 10-7.

• 51:51Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, they did a nice job with D'Amico Ryan's with the defense last year and then, you know, Danil Hunter now and Stingley. I think they're gonna be all right. Will Anderson and those are good bookends for edge rushers there. So they have a decent offensive line, but.

• 52:05Bill Simmons?

  Well, they traded Tunsil and they seemed like they were okay with trading Tunsil.

• 52:08Speaker 04

  Right.

• 52:09Bill Simmons?

  Which is weird.

• 52:09Speaker 04

  They lose Tunsil and Diggs, like those are the big ones, I guess. But here's the thing, I, they weren't very good last year. Their best game was that playoff game that they lost, right? And CJ Stroud, I mean, I don't, you don't have to believe me, they had, uh, how many, they moved down big time in primetime games. What was it like?

• 52:27Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 52:27Speaker 04

  They had five, now they have two or something like that. Their takeaway is, like you said, defense is what kept them in the games. So this offense was not smart. They have a new OC, a new lineman, and they have a new wide receiver in there that threw in there. I don't know, he was sacked 52 times. Second worst. So hopefully this offensive line thing works out, but I don't put them at 10.

• 52:48Bill Simmons?

  I have them over at 10 and 7, and really just because of the division, but I have them barely over. And I actually think the, I think that's good value that it's only nine and a half, because I think this, especially with the Indianapolis quarterback situation.

• 53:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 53:02Bill Simmons?

  I just don't know who else is gonna step up against them. Scatwell's a little sneaky hard. The AFC South plays the West and they play the NFC West. They play both Wests.

• 53:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:11Bill Simmons?

  Which technically there's no bad teams out of those eight, but then it's, it's, it's crossed off by the fact that they're in the AFC South.

• 53:18Speaker 04

  Rams and Bucks to start, those two division winners, and they have to go to Baltimore early on. Five of the last six are indoors, so that's, that's good for them, but. I think it's a stay away, but I'll go under and I'll give them nine wins.

• 53:31Bill Simmons?

  Going under?

• 53:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. Nine wins.

• 53:33Bill Simmons?

  Okay. Uh, I had them 21 for points.

• 53:37Speaker 04

  That's a lot.

• 53:37Bill Simmons?

  Including, uh,

• 53:40Bill Simmons?

  six guys on defense, Anderson, Hunter, Stingley, Lassiter, Bullock and Petre. Their secondary, if you're doing like best units, their secondary is the best secondary in either, in either conference. And they have the pass rush and Will Anderson still has one level to go. Like their defense might be awesome this year.

• 53:58Speaker 04

  There's about three or four teams we could do this for. You already did them for one. These are the quarterbacks they played.

• 54:04Bill Simmons?

  Last year.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  Rush. Yeah, last year. Rush, Rudolph, Levis, Richardson times two. Drink May, Caleb Williams, Mac Jones and Tua. So.

• 54:14Bill Simmons?

  Right.

• 54:14Speaker 04

  Your defense is gonna look pretty good after those.

• 54:16Bill Simmons?

  Right. This year, other than the AFC South, I mean,

• 54:21Bill Simmons?

  yeah, definitely a little bit harder this year. They have a couple of tough road games too, like at Seahawks on a Monday night, stuff like that, at the Ravens. I, uh, I'd be surprised if they didn't get to 10 wins, but if, if they, if they got to nine, I still probably would the division.

• 54:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:37Bill Simmons?

  I have Jacksonville as the second place team in this division.

• 54:42Bill Simmons?

  Until about two weeks ago.

• 54:43Speaker 04

  What happened?

• 54:44Bill Simmons?

  We'll get to the team that I, I actually have over them. Um, Jacksonville over seven and a half. That's the, uh, that's what you need to do. The division's plus 290. They were four and 13 last year, so.

• 54:57Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 54:57Bill Simmons?

  Plus one, 172 to make the playoffs this year.

• 55:01Bill Simmons?

  I wrote this down. They're paying Trevor Lawrence 55 million a year and they don't have their 20 and 26 first. Is this an NBA team?

• 55:10Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 55:11Bill Simmons?

  This is like they're, they might as well be owned by Matt Ishbia.

• 55:14Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm. Yeah.

• 55:16Bill Simmons?

  Completely overpaying somebody who's not in the top 20 at his position. And he's taking up a giant part. It's basically the Bradley Beal deal.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:23Bill Simmons?

  And then trading all this stuff for Hunter. And they're like, yeah, we don't know how many snaps he's gonna play. It's like, you didn't figure this out before you traded like a fucking entire draft to get this guy? He might, you be, we'll, we'll play it by year? Really?

• 55:36Speaker 04

  I think. I think this team does well for this owner that everybody hates. And it's hard to say that this is a prove it year for Lawrence. He's 26, which is about the age everybody comes to the league.

• 55:46Bill Simmons?

  Prove that he doesn't suck?

• 55:47Speaker 04

  Well, he's got his money already, so it's not, it's not like he's put up or shut up. They have new GM, new coaches, Liam Cohen. I mean, listen, for you, much as you hate this team, you're the only fantasy owner in the country who has three Jaguars on a squad.

• 56:00Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know how I love Thomas Jr.

• 56:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, alright.

• 56:02Bill Simmons?

  Bigsby was end of the draft and Lawrence was just whack a mole with, with $1 quarterbacks.

• 56:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, he had a lot of, lot of, and then look, he, he played 10 games last year. They weren't good. They were three and 10 and one score games under Peterson. They have the sixth easiest strength of schedule now. It's tough to start.

• 56:18Bill Simmons?

  Sounds like you're talking yourself in and over.

• 56:20Speaker 04

  They're winning the division. How about that? The last six are Colts times two, Titans times two.

• 56:24Bill Simmons?

  Plus 290.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  And the Jets. There you go. Take it Jags.

• 56:29Speaker 04

  You could turn things around this division fairly quickly. And don't forget, they, before last year, they had back to back nine win years, so.

• 56:37Bill Simmons?

  First of all, you break, first rule, don't trust the AFC South.

• 56:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:42Bill Simmons?

  Second rule, you hate the Jaguars. I don't know if anyone's complained about them more than you, except for maybe me.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  Right, yeah.

• 56:48Bill Simmons?

  Because I had Lawrence in fantasy, but I mean, how many times did we talk ourselves into bed in the stupid London game?

• 56:53Speaker 04

  This division, you made us make a bet. I was like, let's not pick any of the Souths until November. We're already like two AFC South bets in.

• 57:01Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 57:02Speaker 04

  But we'll see.

• 57:04Bill Simmons?

  From a talent standpoint, I only had Thomas, Heinz Allen, Ola Kuhn and Campbell. Plus like, you know, if anyone hits in their draft, but it's not exactly like.

• 57:14Speaker 04

  You have the Colts better than that? You have them.

• 57:17Bill Simmons?

  No, the Colts I have right there.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 57:19Bill Simmons?

  So the, the X factor obviously is Hunter. There's a, can Liam Cohen fix Lawrence? Who knows?

• 57:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 57:28Bill Simmons?

  What, all right, we'll do pie chart.

• 57:31Speaker 04

  Go ahead.

• 57:31Bill Simmons?

  What percent of the pie chart is Hunter's just incredible? And playing both sides and he's an awesome receiver and he's a lockdown cornerback. So like a 10%?

• 57:41Speaker 04

  No, I don't even think that much. I don't think that much. I don't, I don't think they draft. A defensive player. He's a good defensive player and has a couple of D on his wide receiver plays, but not.

• 57:51Bill Simmons?

  That trade was crazy.

• 57:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, probably.

• 57:53Bill Simmons?

  I don't like that trade, especially a team that doesn't have a lot of talent to do that. That's like, it's just a bonkers trade.

• 57:58Speaker 04

  I mean, we're doing over unders for this year though. It's probably a bad trade for 2026 and beyond.

• 58:03Bill Simmons?

  I feel safe going under with them. I have them at six and 11.

• 58:06Speaker 04

  10 and 7, baby.

• 58:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I went under. Um, okay. Indianapolis, a team that I was over until, you know, the way the quarterback situation was handled the last few weeks. I'm like, what am I doing? So, uh, they're over seven and a half, division plus 340, playoffs plus 198.

• 58:24Bill Simmons?

  And honestly, I wrote down, did the QB situation already ruin their season? I, I think that's very possible. Could Indy be ready for the reset button, triple crown in January? Coach QB, GM. Might be like the complete house cleaning. It feels like that's where we're heading.

• 58:41Speaker 04

  Interesting. Owner, too. Rest in peace.

• 58:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I guess that already happened.

• 58:46Speaker 04

  Was, I don't know, uh, they, they seem to be taking shit for naming Daniel Jones the starter for the season. Whereas they could have just said, we're starting week one with Daniel Jones, but it's clear that he's their starter.

• 58:57Bill Simmons?

  It's clear they've quit on Richardson.

• 58:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, look, he had 13 starts in a, in a era where these guys, Bo Nix and Dylan Gabriel have like 40, 50 starts before they come in. So that was tough. He took himself out of the game, which I think, you know, sealed his fate. Like, right? Like, well, does this guy want to play? Like, no, he just told you he doesn't want to play. He sat out. So.

• 59:17Bill Simmons?

  He's been a little injury prone.

• 59:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 59:19Bill Simmons?

  And then, uh,

• 59:22Bill Simmons?

  He's one of the most erratic passers.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  Shoulder, hip, concussions, all of it. Yeah.

• 59:26Bill Simmons?

  What's funny is I was, I was reading up on that draft because I was like, what was the team that was trying to trade up for him? I couldn't remember. It was Minnesota.

• 59:33Speaker 04

  Oh, right, right.

• 59:34Bill Simmons?

  They like Godfather offered them for, for four and, and they wouldn't do it.

• 59:41Bill Simmons?

  Think about that. Like sometimes the best move is the one that falls through in the end. The, the other thing that's weird about this team, the receivers and the weapons don't match who they've settled on a quarterback. But they had that Alex Pierce, who's like a great deep threat.

• 59:56Speaker 04

  Right.

• 59:56Bill Simmons?

  Downs and like, you want to like, kind of wing the ball with this team a little bit, but.

• 1:00:00Speaker 04

  It's Danny Dimes.

• 1:00:01Bill Simmons?

  Hey, you have Danny Dimes. Who, if he, so when I was.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  Well, they match Richardson. He would, that's the one thing he could do. He could sling it.

• 1:00:08Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:08Speaker 04

  But now it's, yeah, you're right. It's a whole different ballgame.

• 1:00:11Bill Simmons?

  During the 10 minutes, when I was thinking, trying to talk myself into picking them as a seven seed, I called a Giants fan friend of mine and I was like, how bad was Dimes last year? And he was like, completely different guy from 22, when he wasn't even awesome in 22. And he's like, he was so bad, we put in DeVito for him.

• 1:00:28Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:00:28Bill Simmons?

  DeVito just got waived.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:00:30Bill Simmons?

  He's on the Patriots now. He's probably our backup QB.

• 1:00:33Speaker 04

  Wait a minute, you're right. Oh my God, that's breaking news.

• 1:00:37Bill Simmons?

  What?

• 1:00:37Speaker 04

  DeVito on the Patriots.

• 1:00:39Bill Simmons?

  It was broke two hours ago.

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  Look at that ring. Look at those flowers.

• 1:00:44Speaker 04

  Your gym teacher's dating your butcher. I don't know. I'm trying to make it like it's a Taylor thing. It's okay.

• 1:00:53Bill Simmons?

  By the way, Josh Jobs was, was, the ball was sailing all over the place in the preseason and DeVito is actually probably better than him.

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  You're gonna see him a lot.

• 1:01:03Bill Simmons?

  So.

• 1:01:05Bill Simmons?

  Are you?

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  I'm going way under. I think they have a shot to be the worst team. Have four wins and, you know, in the running for, I mean, they end at Seattle, San Francisco, Jacksonville and at Houston. Nothing's going to be easy. They lost Freeze and Kelly on the offensive line. That's tough to replace.

• 1:01:22Bill Simmons?

  That's the thing is they used to have this awesome O-line.

• 1:01:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:24Bill Simmons?

  And they just don't anymore.

• 1:01:26Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:01:26Bill Simmons?

  So the one thing where we're like, well, at least I'll be able to block. They can't do that.

• 1:01:29Speaker 04

  They haven't won a season open in 11 years and they start with home against Miami and then play in Denver. This could be a disaster.

• 1:01:36Bill Simmons?

  Tyler Warren, I think we like.

• 1:01:37Speaker 04

  I do like him. Yeah.

• 1:01:38Bill Simmons?

  I also like the under five and a half wins at plus 250. I have them at five and 12.

• 1:01:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:01:46Bill Simmons?

  I don't see a situation where this team shocks us, but this does, this is a team that fits the profile.

• 1:01:52Speaker 04

  For whoa, nobody believed in this, Danny Dimes is back.

• 1:01:56Bill Simmons?

  It's just like, we saw him play last year.

• 1:01:58Speaker 04

  What are we gonna do with this coach, though?

• 1:02:00Bill Simmons?

  Steichen?

• 1:02:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, he's another one. I think he's top three for first fired.

• 1:02:05Bill Simmons?

  Oh, good point. I didn't even think of that.

• 1:02:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:07Bill Simmons?

  So how would you rank them?

• 1:02:08Speaker 04

  And he's got Luana Rumo there, too.

• 1:02:10Bill Simmons?

  Mike, we're all gonna die. McCarthy, number one.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  McDaniel, right?

• 1:02:14Bill Simmons?

  Mike McDaniel, number one.

• 1:02:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:16Bill Simmons?

  Mike McCarthy already got fired. Well, he didn't get fired. He just got not unrenewed.

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  They kept him around just long enough so they couldn't talk to Belichick or Vrabel or any of those guys. That was very smart.

• 1:02:26Bill Simmons?

  That career assistant, Brian Schottenheimer. So McDaniel, number one. Would you put Steichen two?

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  Uh, McDaniel one, maybe Steichen two.

• 1:02:37Bill Simmons?

  Cause that's a good move by the GM to be like, hey, Richardson was a good pick. This guy fucked it up.

• 1:02:41Speaker 04

  Right. Hold on.

• 1:02:43Bill Simmons?

  And then Zach Taylor? Would you put Zach Taylor in there?

• 1:02:45Speaker 04

  Well, you don't put, you don't have Dayball in there at all, huh?

• 1:02:48Bill Simmons?

  I like the Giants, but I guess he belongs just because the Giants fans actually have hope. So if they suck coming out of the gate, then he gets fired.

• 1:02:55Speaker 04

  Canalis and Taylor. I mean, Taylor, I don't think anyone benefits from their good quarterback as much as Zach Taylor.

• 1:03:00Bill Simmons?

  I know.

• 1:03:01Speaker 04

  That guy could be trash.

• 1:03:02Bill Simmons?

  Uh, last team in the division, Tennessee, over six and a half. So here's where I really struggled, Sal, and I almost picked Tennessee to make the playoffs. And spoiler alert, I did not. The, I absolutely cannot believe they made the playoffs list, which basically is three to one odds and up.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:03:21Bill Simmons?

  Last year, we had three teams that made the playoffs. Minnesota plus two eighty-five, Washington plus three ten, Denver plus five forty. Three teams. Year before, Rams plus two eighty-five, Indy plus three fifty, Tampa plus three sixty, Houston plus five twenty. Four. Year before, twenty-two. Jacksonville plus four fifty, Seattle five to one.

• 1:03:44Bill Simmons?

  That tells me we're gonna have at least two teams from the following list. Vegas, Tennessee, Jets, Giants, Saints, Browns. All of those have odds three to one or worse. And Tennessee is a candidate. Tennessee is plus 390. And here's how I try to talk myself into it. It is a classic, what if Cam Ward is just good right away? It's CJ Stroud, it's Jay Daniels. He's just immediately good. I don't know if you've read the stories about he getting a fight with Jeffrey Simmons. Like, he's showing up at five in the morning, everybody's in there, like, he's just like a leader of men. Uh, he's checking a lot of my boxes. The problem is, we watched them last year. We watched them go 2 and 15 against the spread. We watched one of the worst coached teams of the decade. Worst special teams, definitely in the decade.

• 1:04:29Bill Simmons?

  And I can't back the coach. And that's how, why I, why my train got off.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  And they play the AFC West and the NFC West, right? So you're not gonna get outside of your division, you're not gonna get too many freebies, but...

• 1:04:39Bill Simmons?

  Plus the Texans.

• 1:04:40Speaker 04

  Plus the Texans. And I'm with you, like, there's never once have we seen a guy so undervalued, a number one overall pick. Like, go through since, since we've been watching football forever. Caleb Bryce, Trevor, Kyler, Jared, Jameis, Andrew Luck, Cam Newton.

• 1:04:56Bill Simmons?

  Like, just like buzz about a guy.

• 1:04:57Speaker 04

  It's insane, like, he has the sneak up on you factor. He really does, is that. He doesn't, doesn't get sacked a lot. That's what you like out of a, I think he got sacked like three or four times, uh, at Miami last year in college. But, you know, they have no units in the top half, that's the thing, like, running back.

• 1:05:13Bill Simmons?

  It sounds like their offensive line might be better. And they feel like, I did a deep, deep, deep dive, and, and they're like, we figured out the offensive line. It's okay.

• 1:05:22Speaker 04

  All right, good for them.

• 1:05:23Bill Simmons?

  It might be pretty good.

• 1:05:24Speaker 04

  And they have what? They had Jefferson and Lockett, and they have Ridley. Ridley's like their blue chipper, so.

• 1:05:29Bill Simmons?

  So, the case against them, zero pass rush. They probably, other than Simmons, it's the worst front seven in the league. Bet no receivers beyond Ridley. And I guess you could say that the special teams can't be worse. I just can't get there with the coach. I really wanted to, I wanted to try it. It's like, why would this team, like, if they had Mike McDonald as their coach with Cam Ward? I would be like, I'm in nine and eight, seven seed. Let's go, let's bad division. Let's ride this, but uh, this is not a Dan Quinn, which Jaden Daniels situation. This is not like having variable with Drake May. Did you give them six wins? Did you give them six or seven? I did, I went, I went hard over. Yeah. Seven and 10, but I thought about nine and eight. Yeah.

• 1:06:11Bill Simmons?

  All right, well, I give them six and that's a, that's a pretty good improvement from three. Like these guys. But six is under. Oh, all right. I still, they're gonna double their wins. Like they were two and six and one score games. You're under for the Titans. Is it, was it six and a half? Yeah, that's, this one's in the middle, five and a half, six and a half. So whatever you want to call it. Yeah. I'm giving them six. All right, so you're under. All right. Cause I had over six and a half plus one 15. Want to do one last check? Let's do it. Just to make, this, this could be big. Cause if it's five and a half, that's good for both of us. Really exciting stuff right now. Going to the FanDuel site. No one can be watching. People watching? No, people are definitely, they love this. All right. Uh, going, FanDuel has the win totals. You can go right to Tennessee.

• 1:06:56Bill Simmons?

  So look, look what happens here. You have under what? Oh. Oh, we, it moved. We can do this. It's a five and a half. It's a five and a half. It's a five and a half now. This is great. I'm glad we did that. Over five and a half, so we're both over. Okay, we're both over. Over five and a half is minus 140. Uh, it changed? No, no, we're sticking with that. All right, so mark that at home. Sal, I'm glad, I'm glad we're aligned on this. Good, let's be on the same page. Yeah, all right. We're gonna, and that was so, such a riveting segment. We're gonna have to take a break. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Excitement is in the air. That's right. It's the start of NBA season. I can't wait to get together with friends, share some Michelob Ultras and watch Tipoff Plus

• 1:07:40Bill Simmons?

  as the official beer sponsor of the NBA. Michelob Ultra is getting you closer to the action with experiences that make you feel like you're courtside to actual courtside tickets. Enter now for a chance to win at michelobultra.com/courtside. Michelob Ultra Courtside 26 to 27. No purchase necessary. Opening US residents 21 plus. Begins on October 1st, 2026. Ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at michelobultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes and details.

• 1:08:09Bill Simmons?

  This episode is brought to you by Workday. Guessing is for game shows, not your business, especially when your margin for error is zero. Workday is the enterprise AI platform for HR, finance and IT, with a deep understanding of your organization's context and guardrails. So every AI action is permission aware, giving you accuracy 24/7 and the ability to not just get work done, but get it done right. It's a new Workday. The AFC West is here. Kansas City is here as usual. This one, I really struggled with when I saw my notes from this. The absolutely, I cannot believe they missed the playoffs list.

• 1:08:49Speaker 04

  Missed the playoffs? Oh, the list, yeah.

• 1:08:52Bill Simmons?

  Philadelphia plus 270, KC plus 285, Baltimore plus 390, and Buffalo plus 520. So why am I listing those teams? Because every year for at least the last three, somebody from a list like that missed the playoffs.

• 1:09:06Speaker 04

  San Francisco last year.

• 1:09:07Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, last year, San Francisco. Year before, Cincinnati plus 225. Year before, Green Bay plus 360. History tells us somebody's gonna miss the list. Or somebody from this list will miss the playoffs. I don't think it's gonna be Philadelphia. I don't think it's gonna be Buffalo. I don't think it's gonna be Baltimore. And I don't want to pick the Chiefs. So I think the streak ends.

• 1:09:29Speaker 04

  It's fine.

• 1:09:29Bill Simmons?

  But I just wanted to flag it.

• 1:09:30Speaker 04

  It's fine. Good.

• 1:09:32Bill Simmons?

  I just wanted to flag it. If, if one of those four missed the playoffs, I think it would be the Chiefs. But come on. Chiefs over/under 11 and a half. Division minus 105. Number one seed plus 380. And playoffs is minus 375. They're 8-1 to win the Super Bowl.

• 1:09:48Speaker 04

  If you look at every metric, this team should not have won 15 games. This team probably shouldn't have won 11 games. They...

• 1:09:54Bill Simmons?

  The nerds were outraged by this team.

• 1:09:56Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:09:57Bill Simmons?

  I think it was the biggest disparity between what the record should have been and what it was, ever.

• 1:10:02Speaker 04

  22nd and red zone offense. You know, it's a futile exercise, right? Because they're not the best team. They know how to close. I feel like, you know, I've had three kids already and I know how and that's gonna be it. But they, you know, when the doctor, the doctor, I was so surprised that the doctor would come in the very last minute. Like, where's the doctor? Like, they're just there.

• 1:10:22Bill Simmons?

  Oh, he comes in like Mahomes.

• 1:10:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's Mahomes. It really is. He's 11 and 0 in one score games.

• 1:10:27Bill Simmons?

  Comes in with Brady's snip stuff?

• 1:10:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, 15 wins going into week 18. Like, it's crazy.

• 1:10:32Bill Simmons?

  That is funny. The doctor is like Marion Rivera.

• 1:10:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:35Bill Simmons?

  Think they should have music?

• 1:10:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, they should. Oh, that's good. Entrance music? I remember being like, where is this guy or gal? I have no idea. So, yeah. So, I mean, yeah, they're, they're an enigma. They lose Tooney. You know, Taylor wasn't great. They had Jalen Moore on the offensive line and Josh Simmons in the, in the draft.

• 1:10:53Bill Simmons?

  Josh Simmons thing seems big.

• 1:10:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, so, um, I'm gonna put them at 11, man. I think that's under.

• 1:11:01Bill Simmons?

  My question for you with the Chiefs.

• 1:11:04Bill Simmons?

  Did Mahomes kinda need to be clubber land in that Super Bowl? Did he need it? Because he wasn't very good last year for him.

• 1:11:13Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:11:13Bill Simmons?

  I mean, yeah, I think he was sixth in MVP.

• 1:11:15Speaker 04

  Imagine that. 15 wins, sixth in MVP.

• 1:11:18Bill Simmons?

  And that's the thing. When I was struggling with who to put at the top of the QB pyramid and I, Mahomes is just blind in because he's had the Super Bowls. But I was like, he definitely wasn't one of the best QBs last year. And even like, if you look at the deep passing stats for him, he was terrible with deep ball. And you could say like, well, his receivers and Rice, and you make excuses for it.

• 1:11:36Speaker 04

  No explosive plays.

• 1:11:37Bill Simmons?

  But he just wasn't good last year.

• 1:11:38Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:11:39Bill Simmons?

  Um, for him.

• 1:11:40Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:11:41Bill Simmons?

  So, did he need to be clubber land?

• 1:11:43Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, there's that whole metric where the losing team in the Super Bowl, that's when you write them off for the next year. So, maybe that's why they fit in. But I just think they're so used to being in these games with two minutes left. They're so there every single time. They don't lose at home. Like I said, 8-0. Doesn't matter that they have the worst explosive play rate in the league and that they're, you know, I mean, I think you give the defense credit. That guy, he'll never get.

• 1:12:07Bill Simmons?

  Your guy Spagnolo.

• 1:12:08Speaker 04

  Spagnolo will never get enough credit. He just won't, you know?

• 1:12:11Bill Simmons?

  Well, you know what else isn't getting enough credit? How brutal their, uh, schedule is from a travel standpoint.

• 1:12:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:18Bill Simmons?

  The AFC West lucked out. They got the AFC South, they got the NFC East, right? Pretty good. That's the, they got the worst division in the AFC and the second worst in the NFC.

• 1:12:27Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:12:28Bill Simmons?

  But they're playing Buffalo, Baltimore, and Detroit. They have eight, I repeat, eight non-traditional weekly games. Night, Christmas, or Europe.

• 1:12:40Speaker 04

  One of them's Dallas, so don't worry about it.

• 1:12:42Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:12:42Speaker 04

  Thanksgiving.

• 1:12:43Bill Simmons?

  Start the season in San Paulo. They have a Sunday night game. They have a Monday night game. They have a Sunday night game. They have a Monday night game. They have a Thanksgiving game. They have a Sunday game. They have a Christmas game. And maybe even a Sunday night game. Who knows? But I, that always makes me nervous when the schedule's crazy like that.

• 1:12:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, does it?

• 1:13:00Bill Simmons?

  I don't like it.

• 1:13:00Speaker 04

  I, I almost feel like they're worse off, like when they went to Carolina last year and they won that game that they.

• 1:13:05Bill Simmons?

  When they're like a board.

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  When they're on Sunday at 1:00 PM Eastern, the one or two times a year, that's kind of when they, they have weird mojo, but you know.

• 1:13:12Bill Simmons?

  No Rice for the first six games. He took the suspension. So to your point, they only have two hard road games. But I think this is, I think it's a fascinating Allen season, but I also think it's a fascinating Mahomes season because.

• 1:13:25Speaker 04

  Definitely.

• 1:13:26Bill Simmons?

  This was like, he, he let control the steering wheel a little bit last year.

• 1:13:30Speaker 04

  I want to look into MVPs, plus 650, which is very high for, for Patrick Mahomes. I know it's probably not one of our top three picks, but we do have that KCD, that CD, that money we put aside, KC didn't win the Super Bowl, Mahomes MVP, that might be running out a little. But you're right, like they could be one and three to start. Chargers, Eagles, Giants, Ravens, then at Jacksonville, Monday night could be like a must win.

• 1:13:52Bill Simmons?

  Well, I was trying to think of other teams that, other guys that peaked in their twenties in a crazy way. And then as they hit their thirties, it just wasn't ever quite the same.

• 1:14:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:02Bill Simmons?

  And I thought of Pujols.

• 1:14:04Speaker 04

  Interesting.

• 1:14:04Bill Simmons?

  Remember Pujols? Where we were like, oh my God, this guy's Ted Williams, CrossFit, and then he hit his thirties and it just wasn't the same anymore? I don't know if that's going to happen to Mahomes, but.

• 1:14:15Speaker 04

  If the O-line's good, he'll figure it out. I know it's like a really simplistic way to analyze this team, but.

• 1:14:20Bill Simmons?

  Well, that's, that's a long way of me saying I'm going over. And I think this is a Mahomes. This is a Mahomes, people are talking to me about this on the streets, kind of comeback season for him. He has more weapons. It's Kelsey's farewell season, but I-

• 1:14:36Speaker 04

  They're 20 and 4 in divisional games over the last, how many years? I don't know.

• 1:14:40Bill Simmons?

  The big thing for them is just having that infrastructure of just, everything's the same every year.

• 1:14:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Bill Simmons?

  Which I think probably hurt them in the Super Bowl, because it's like, alright, we're back in the Super Bowl. You don't have that, oh my god, I want to give my life for this. But I don't know how they wouldn't go 12 and 5.

• 1:14:54Speaker 04

  You have 12, I have 11. Is it 11 and a half?

• 1:14:56Bill Simmons?

  It's 11 and a half.

• 1:14:57Speaker 04

  Alright, so I'm slightly under, but I still believe in this team to win the division.

• 1:15:01Bill Simmons?

  So I have them at 12.

• 1:15:04Bill Simmons?

  And I had them at 29 points in my point system, which ties them with Baltimore and one behind Buffalo. I have them at 12 wins. I do not have them winning the division.

• 1:15:17Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:15:18Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  Oh man. Well, so you must have a team doing-

• 1:15:21Bill Simmons?

  This is my big swing. Denver Broncos, over. 9 and 1/2. I've talked about them on five podcasts, so people aren't surprised. In fact, the question is, can you become the surprise contender?

• 1:15:35Bill Simmons?

  When so many people think you're the surprise contender. But I actually think that the surprise contender-

• 1:15:39Speaker 04

  If you would've said this last year, it would've gotten more-

• 1:15:41Bill Simmons?

  This is, might be the everybody believes in this team, but division, plus 290. That dropped. That was like, plus 350 at one point. Second place, plus 210. Playoffs, minus 130. That used to be even. And you can go 12 plus wins, which I think they're gonna get, plus 310. And I'm just all in, man. I like this team last year, and there was some schedule stuff with them. There was some Sean Payton. I finally have some of my guys, but they beefed up the defense. They got Greenlaw and Singleton, Fanga, better running backs. They beefed that up. They liked the receivers. Their defense last year, I know it was against some shaky teams, but they were first in defensive EPA, they were first in sacks.

• 1:16:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:16:24Bill Simmons?

  I have them on defense- Bonetto, Franklin Myers, Allen, Greenlaw, Surtan, Jones, and who, I got those seven guys who got points for me on their defense and they have one of the best offensive lines in the league.

• 1:16:37Speaker 04

  That's it.

• 1:16:37Bill Simmons?

  And you love Bo Nix.

• 1:16:39Speaker 04

  I love Bo Nix.

• 1:16:39Bill Simmons?

  And we both love Sean Payton.

• 1:16:40Speaker 04

  I think he's.

• 1:16:41Bill Simmons?

  It's like, why isn't this a 12 win team?

• 1:16:42Speaker 04

  This is how you build a team, right? Great offensive line, solidly built, great defense. They are exactly the opposite of the Chiefs, even though they're successful and maybe as you're predicting more successful.

• 1:16:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:54Speaker 04

  Nine wins by eight or more points. Chiefs don't do that. Seven wins by 14 or more points. They made the playoffs despite being one and six in one score games. That's insane.

• 1:17:03Bill Simmons?

  Wow.

• 1:17:04Speaker 04

  The luck is going to turn around even more. So I think you, you might be right.

• 1:17:08Bill Simmons?

  Home field advantage with the altitude. You got to factor that in.

• 1:17:11Speaker 04

  For sure. Yeah, unlike the Chargers, they have the biggest home field than they and the Chiefs.

• 1:17:15Bill Simmons?

  Schedules, it's okay. They got to go to London at one point. They're playing the Chiefs on Christmas.

• 1:17:20Speaker 04

  They should win those first two games, Titans and Colts, right?

• 1:17:23Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, just the schedules, it's not easy. So that's why normally I would have been like, because I really feel like this is going to be this year's Lions. I think it's like lined up for them to be really good. But the schedule is a little harder than, than I would want.

• 1:17:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, you want a stat that you're going to love?

• 1:17:43Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:43Speaker 04

  16 and one and three team teasers, 10 points. 16 and one. Oh, that's the best.

• 1:17:50Bill Simmons?

  Payton likes the team.

• 1:17:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Bill Simmons?

  He's telling everybody he likes it. He believes in his guy Nix.

• 1:17:54Speaker 04

  63 sacks. They're solid. I'm only going to give them 10, but that's good enough to go over, right?

• 1:18:00Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. Titans, week one.

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:18:03Bill Simmons?

  At Colts, week two, Danny Dimes, that's two and O. At Chargers, week three, with 55% Denver fans. Home Bengals, week four, and then at Eagles, week five. And I think that's four and O. I think they're four and O going into that game.

• 1:18:20Speaker 04

  It's a little tougher. Yeah, that's, that's, that's pretty good though.

• 1:18:23Bill Simmons?

  LA Chargers overs nine and a half. Three to one for the division. Plus 350 to finish last in the division. Uh, minus 120 for the playoffs. They were 11 and six last year against an even easier schedule than the Broncos. Against every good defense, they did not score points. I talked about this when I talked about Herbert a couple of weeks ago on the pod where they're just like, if they're against a good defense, it's between 10 and 14 points.

• 1:18:51Bill Simmons?

  Slater goes down.

• 1:18:53Speaker 04

  Terrible start. They extend them and then it goes down.

• 1:18:57Bill Simmons?

  We've seen enough of these seasons. When you lose a guy like that in August, I'm trying to remember when it's ever been good.

• 1:19:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Bill Simmons?

  It's like, oh, despite the loss of the best guy in our team.

• 1:19:07Speaker 04

  Right, right, right.

• 1:19:09Bill Simmons?

  It's just, you know, they moved Joe Walt over there. They'll be able to make do with that, I guess, but they, the one thing that was going to make them kind of special was this big nasty offensive line and now it's not big and nasty.

• 1:19:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, this is the most annoying team in football in the last decade out of the watchables, right? I'm not talking like Panthers, right? This is a team like, why the hell do you have 13 points with two minutes left in the third quarter? This is crazy. He's swinging the ball. Like you said, you know, but I think they're much better in 2023, but not as good as the world wants them. In fact, I think this year determines if Jim Harbaugh, if this was a good move, like in just in general, they were top two in penalties. Good coaching, you don't see that. Three of their 11 wins were against sub 500 teams, like you mentioned earlier.

• 1:19:52Bill Simmons?

  You think a little Jimmy Johnson at Miami, kind of?

• 1:19:55Speaker 04

  Yeah, maybe a little bit.

• 1:19:56Bill Simmons?

  Like, oh, this guy's gonna be the savior, but maybe he left his magic at the other team?

• 1:20:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, do we pencil them in and making the playoffs and then just getting slaughtered in the first round? Like, maybe, maybe that's their thing. I just, they never beat the Chiefs. They have to beat the Chiefs in Brazil. That's a home game. They have to win that. Otherwise, this is going to be stuck. I think I have them with nine wins. They have no true home games. You go down their schedule, it's like, oh, oh, well, they're definitely beating the Colts. Well, no, the Colts might have more fans, like, you can't give them a win.

• 1:20:23Bill Simmons?

  We do this every year on Guess the Lions on Sundays. Like, they play week four at, uh, oh, no, that's at the Giants. Week three, Broncos, week five, commanders. We know what's gonna happen in that commanders game. It's gonna be 60% Washington fans.

• 1:20:37Speaker 04

  And maybe it'll get there someday, but we're not there yet and I just can't pick on, I mean.

• 1:20:40Bill Simmons?

  Vikings, Steelers, those are home games for those teams.

• 1:20:43Speaker 04

  Look at those last five. Philly, KC, Dallas, whatever, Houston and Denver. I mean.

• 1:20:47Bill Simmons?

  Philly, every Philly fan we know is gonna be at that game.

• 1:20:50Speaker 04

  Right. And they travel. I know the Brazil thing where, makes it weird, but 37,000 miles, which is the most. I have them with nine. I can't get them, can't get them to 10.

• 1:20:59Bill Simmons?

  I had the Broncos at 30 points in my weird ranking system. I had the Chargers at 21. So this is the best score for a team that I'm not having the playoffs, but, uh.

• 1:21:10Bill Simmons?

  I have them at eight and nine. I think that's where it ends.

• 1:21:13Speaker 04

  The draft was good. Maybe Hampton's amazing and you know.

• 1:21:16Bill Simmons?

  So that would be the X factor. Hampton's amazing. They're just pounding the ball. Um, there's some sort of Herbert. Go up a level, but we just, you know, the, the, the football nerds, they're gonna, they're gonna stick with Herbert to the bitter end. And we just haven't seen it. Actually, that reminded me, I had a question for you. He is a

• 1:21:37Bill Simmons?

  forty one and thirty eight career.

• 1:21:39Speaker 04

  Is that what it is?

• 1:21:40Bill Simmons?

  Oh, and two in the playoffs.

• 1:21:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:42Bill Simmons?

  And now he has his built in excuse for this year because Slater got hurt. So the, the Herbert Kool-Aid drinkers can be like, well, you lost Slater.

• 1:21:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:21:49Bill Simmons?

  All right. Nobody wants to talk about the playoff game. We're just not allowed to talk about that anymore. That's over there. That's like when, you know, your, your uncle got hammered at Christmas and, you know, shit in the corner and you're like, let's never talk about.

• 1:22:03Speaker 04

  It's Jimmy's father. Yeah, that is true.

• 1:22:04Bill Simmons?

  Let's never talk about Uncle Jimmy again. Uh, we're just not allowed to talk about it.

• 1:22:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:22:09Bill Simmons?

  What happened to the playoffs? I don't remember.

• 1:22:11Speaker 04

  Yeah. I mean, even with a good offensive line, he had, you know, his interception rate was number twenty, his sack rate was twenty eight. And I still think he's good, but um.

• 1:22:19Bill Simmons?

  Well, I have a new nickname for him for you.

• 1:22:21Speaker 04

  What's that?

• 1:22:22Bill Simmons?

  Justin five hundred.

• 1:22:23Speaker 04

  Ooh.

• 1:22:24Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:24Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:22:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah. I'm going Justin five hundred for Justin Herbert. I think at the end of the season.

• 1:22:30Speaker 04

  Is that a shitty NASCAR race?

• 1:22:31Bill Simmons?

  Well, he's forty one and forty career. If you include the oh and two in the playoffs. I think at the end of the season, he's exactly five hundred.

• 1:22:37Speaker 04

  I like that.

• 1:22:37Bill Simmons?

  He's eight and nine.

• 1:22:38Speaker 04

  Who do we do this?

• 1:22:39Bill Simmons?

  Fifty and fifty. Oh no, he'll be, I'm sorry, forty nine and forty nine.

• 1:22:43Speaker 04

  Oh, that's great.

• 1:22:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah.

• 1:22:44Speaker 04

  I feel like we did this with someone once.

• 1:22:46Bill Simmons?

  Well, we did this with Shanahan for a while.

• 1:22:47Speaker 04

  Shanahan, this coach, yeah.

• 1:22:48Bill Simmons?

  Oh, every time like Shanahan passed some shitty coach in the rankings.

• 1:22:52Speaker 04

  Typically Fisher, but yeah, it's Shanahan. That's the one.

• 1:22:54Bill Simmons?

  I'll say this. I was under on the Chargers before the Slater injury.

• 1:22:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:22:59Bill Simmons?

  So, cause I had already decided on the Broncos. This next team, the Las Vegas Raiders, over six and a half,

• 1:23:07Bill Simmons?

  twelve to one for the division.

• 1:23:10Bill Simmons?

  Plus 330 for the playoffs, plus 440 to win 10 games. Last year they were 4 and 13. And they check a couple of the boxes. They went from Antonio Pierce. Worst coach in the league, second worst, third worst, in the top three worst. The worst quarterback situation probably of anyone other than the Browns. Now they have Gino, he's competent.

• 1:23:31Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:23:32Bill Simmons?

  Got Pete Carroll's pumped and jacked. Pete Carroll, 17 straight seasons, seven wins or better.

• 1:23:39Bill Simmons?

  They have Gentey.

• 1:23:40Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:23:41Bill Simmons?

  Who was going really high in drafts.

• 1:23:43Speaker 04

  Pierce to Carroll. Gentey from Madison, Gino from Minshew, and Brock Bowers should just get better.

• 1:23:50Bill Simmons?

  Brock Bowers, who was like the most amazing tight end since Gronk, the second half last year.

• 1:23:54Speaker 04

  Chip Kelly finally has what he wants.

• 1:23:57Bill Simmons?

  Chip Kelly is the OC, Pete Carroll, three-year deal. So they're like, we're pumped and jacked for coming in. They're playing the AFC South, they play the Browns, the Giants, the Bears, and the Cowboys. They play Casey in Week 18.

• 1:24:10Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:24:11Bill Simmons?

  That could matter if Casey's like, eh, fuck it.

• 1:24:13Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:24:15Bill Simmons?

  They were minus 16 in turnover differential last year, 31st overall. So they're better at QB, coach, and running back.

• 1:24:24Bill Simmons?

  Probably the worst secondary in the league if you're going to ding them on something. Defensive line's not great. The defense, but that's going to be a Pete Carroll moving guys in, pumped and jacked thing. I have them in the playoffs. I have them 9 and 8.

• 1:24:35Speaker 04

  Good for you. I have them with 9 also. I don't think I have, I don't have them in the playoffs, but I think they're a 9-win team. I have a lot of wins in that AFC West, but it all adds up. I, I promise. Yeah, I do worry though, that they're going to be feisty but lose a lot of games. Like, I think they're going to be like the S.D. Joneses, but they're going to be the L.V. Joneses. Yeah, like, alright, on TV, he's going to lose like 6 out of 7 wins.

• 1:24:57Bill Simmons?

  The Tony Atlas, when Tony Atlas and S.D. Jones were together?

• 1:25:01Speaker 04

  Maybe they'll team him up with Tony Atlas. Maybe he'll beat Iron Mike Sharp if nobody's looking.

• 1:25:05Bill Simmons?

  Where's the referee?

• 1:25:06Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:25:06Bill Simmons?

  He's been pitting him for 7 seconds.

• 1:25:08Speaker 04

  They've been screwed by the referees, so, you know, more against Palen with their highest-rated run defenders, but they have Malcolm Coons, so that's going to be tough. But I think they go against the weakest quarterbacks in the league. Number, number one easiest schedule of pass offenses, so.

• 1:25:24Bill Simmons?

  Notice that.

• 1:25:24Speaker 04

  That does, that does help in 7 of the final 8 are indoors. Gino's quarterback rating is 100-plus indoors.

• 1:25:31Bill Simmons?

  I mean, think about this. You go three and one against AFC South.

• 1:25:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:36Bill Simmons?

  You beat the Browns and you beat the Cowboys. That's six. Split Giants, Bears, there's seven.

• 1:25:44Bill Simmons?

  Beat the Chargers at least once, there's eight.

• 1:25:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:25:47Bill Simmons?

  You know, we, we can get to nine wins pretty easily.

• 1:25:49Speaker 04

  Beat New England, game one. Yeah.

• 1:25:51Bill Simmons?

  From a talent standpoint, I wouldn't say they're loaded. They're, they're top heavy in the same way the Niners are and the Bengals are.

• 1:25:56Speaker 04

  We're looking for a team like this. It definitely, definitely could be them. I want to bet, I wish we could bet that they'd cover over eight and a half games. Can we bet that they'll cover nine games? Who cares if teams win or lose?

• 1:26:08Bill Simmons?

  So from the absolutely cannot believe they made the playoffs list, Vegas, Tennessee, Jets, Giants, Saints, Cleveland. This is the first one I'm going with Vegas plus three 20.

• 1:26:17Speaker 04

  It is.

• 1:26:18Bill Simmons?

  And we know we're gonna have at least two.

• 1:26:19Speaker 04

  Do you have, so you have them with 10, so they have to be in.

• 1:26:22Bill Simmons?

  No, I have them nine wins and I think nine wins makes it.

• 1:26:25Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:26:25Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, I think the seven seed is nine wins.

• 1:26:27Speaker 04

  What other nine, because this is the last team in the AFC. So what other nine win teams do you have that don't make it?

• 1:26:31Bill Simmons?

  They're the only one. I put Pittsburgh and Cincinnati at eight and nine.

• 1:26:34Speaker 04

  Oh, that worked out nicely.

• 1:26:35Bill Simmons?

  And I put the Chargers at eight and nine. And if one of them gets to nine, I'll give Vegas the tiebreaker. So I have Buffalo, Baltimore, Houston, Denver as my division winners. New England, KC is the five seed, New England is the six seed and Vegas is the seven seed. And I'd like to welcome Vegas to the Shaky's game right now.

• 1:26:53Speaker 04

  Oh, really?

• 1:26:54Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, they're, they're already invited. We've already made reservations for the two, seven. Who would it be? The Denver Vegas.

• 1:27:02Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:27:03Bill Simmons?

  Shaky's game.

• 1:27:04Speaker 04

  Who's home in the AFC South?

• 1:27:06Bill Simmons?

  No, Denver, the two seed and Vegas, the seven seed.

• 1:27:09Speaker 04

  Well, yeah.

• 1:27:10Bill Simmons?

  Oh, you're saying Houston.

• 1:27:11Speaker 04

  The Texans or Jags would host.

• 1:27:13Bill Simmons?

  But that's Houston, KC. They're not gonna put that.

• 1:27:15Speaker 04

  Oh, right, right.

• 1:27:16Bill Simmons?

  Unless it was Houston, Denver, they would put that in Shaky's.

• 1:27:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, I have Bills, Chiefs, Ravens, Jags, division winners, Broncos, Bengals, Patriots.

• 1:27:24Bill Simmons?

  So I didn't do the three in, three out exercise because it didn't work last year and I didn't want to force it.

• 1:27:29Speaker 04

  What's the three in, three out?

• 1:27:29Bill Simmons?

  Three playoff teams out, three in.

• 1:27:31Speaker 04

  That always worked.

• 1:27:32Bill Simmons?

  I wondered, I was looking at it, does the 17 game schedule have less variance? 16 games was like three and three out. Like you could, you could set your watch.

• 1:27:42Speaker 04

  Now, if you're good, you're good.

• 1:27:44Bill Simmons?

  Yeah, you got that extra game to kind of right the ship.

• 1:27:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:27:47Bill Simmons?

  Even Cincinnati last year almost made the playoffs and they sucked.

• 1:27:50Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:27:50Bill Simmons?

  You know, all right, that's it for part one. Thanks to Gahav, thanks to Sarudy. We're putting this up as, as on Wednesday and then we're going to put up part two, which is coming probably Thursday lunch range of NFC. Yeah. And we're going to take a break. I'm going to get you a Coke.

• 1:28:07Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:28:07Bill Simmons?

  Coke Zero or Diet Coke?

• 1:28:09Speaker 04

  Coke Zero.

• 1:28:09Bill Simmons?

  Diet Coke I probably have.

• 1:28:10Speaker 04

  Sure, whatever.

• 1:28:11Bill Simmons?

  I'm going to have a coffee. We're going to take a break and we're going to do the NFC, including your team.

• 1:28:15Speaker 04

  Woo-hoo.

• 1:28:15Bill Simmons?

  Let's go.

• 1:28:16Speaker 04

  Let's go, Jay.

• 1:28:31Bill Simmons?

  Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit RG-help.com. Call 1-887-897777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here, visit gambling helpline MA.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. This episode is brought to you by Searchlight Pictures Wild Horse 9. John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell, I like those guys, star in the sharp-witted comedy thriller

• 1:29:16Bill Simmons?

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• 1:29:59Bill Simmons?

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