Transcript of A Crazy 49ers Win, Baltimore’s Alive, Week 18 Stakes, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where I have a new rewatchable is coming for you on Monday night. It is a special episode. You're probably not going to expect what it is. Parts of it will probably confuse you, might make you mad. You're not going to know where it's going. That's all I'm going to say. But it's coming on Monday If you like the podcast, then if you've listened to at least a few episodes over the air, I'm pretty confident you will enjoy this episode. That is coming on the rewatchables on Monday, and then we're moving into our big 2026 slate, which was Actually, one of the things I was planning out over the little mini break there, trying to figure out the schedule for the first few months. So stay tuned on that one. Coming up on this podcast, Cousin Salas here. As always, we taped, recorded. I always say tape like it's 1990. We recorded like it was like we usually do right after the game, except we had to wait a couple of minutes because they were trying to release where the playoff matchups were. So we have that at the top.

We have all the playoff seedings, all the implications for week 18, all of our reactions to a crazy week of football, week 17, which went Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and now Monday. So the NFL, they know how to deal with us. We have a big action-pack parent corner here as well. So it's all coming up next. We're going to take a break. Pearl Jam, my cousin Sal and I, breaking down Week 17. Looking forward to Week 18 next. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting a linebacker on the football field, but getting a line cook. Sure, they both can handle the pressure when it starts heating up, but only one is stopping a countdown. You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so settle for just any insurance when it comes to getting help you need. State Farm is the real deal.

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All right, we're live Sunday night. Just watched an absolutely awesome Bear's 49ers game. Cousin Sal is here. We were a little late today because there were so many week 18 implications, Sal. Didn't even know where we were going to be on Saturday. They gave us two awesome games for ESPN. Holy shit. Two real high stakes games. Were you surprised? We got Carolina, Tampa for the NFC South, and then Seattle and the Rams the one seed and the NFC West Crown. That's Saturday and Saturday night. Now we have to tell our families, what are we going to do?

I'm not telling mine. I'm just going to have to fake it. I'll go to the hospital. I'll do something. I thought that Seattle game would go to Fox, and Carolina would be Saturday night, but ESPN gets both. I can launch into a Collins word, but football is the effing best.

Isn't it the best? Today was great.

Come on. Not today was great. Football is the best.

Are you defending it after football got its ass kicked on Christmas?

I don't think it did.

It got set right down the chimney. The NBA holes were esthetic on Sunday night or Thursday night.

The Knicks game was close. They were down by 60 most of it.

Denver, Minnesota was amazing.

Nobody was awake for that.

Got to watch LeBron jog around on defense. It was great.

This is a bad start. All right.

I'm going to try to stick to my script and we'll incorporate some of this other stuff. Here are the things that are still in play with one week to go in this bizarre NFL season. We might have an 8-9 division champion. I think that's locked down, right? Carolina or Tampa, or I guess if Tampa wins, they'd be an 8-9 division champion.

Yeah, right. Yeah, Carolina is 9-8 if they win.

Bo Nicks and Sam Darnold could be our number one seed quarterbacks.

Incredible.

Drake and Caleb Williams could be our number two seed quarterbacks after Jaden Daniels last year made the NFC title game. We could have three new coaches as top three seeds. We could have Josh in this situation of having to win four games in a row on the road to win a Super Bowl. We could have a scenario where Mac Jones beats the Patriots in the Super Bowl if Brock Perry got hurt in the Niners and Pats, but I just thought about that today. Oh, wow. Okay. We have Aaron Rodgers, who I think was four yards of pass and just looked to help us today against Houston's defense, which just if you don't like Aaron Rodgers, this is the playoff game for you, potentially. Week 18, six wins total right now for New York football, which I think is the lowest ever, and then both of them are going to lose next week. We could have Bryce Young hosting a Shakeys game in round one. Then most important, I think for this exercise, we could have San Francisco never leaving the Bay Area and playing in the Super Bowl, which I'm pretty sure has never happened, right?

Oh, never leaving? Yeah, a couple of teams have won Super Bowl in their own stadium, right? The Rams did it a few years ago.

But never- But never. No, Actually, just like, like Tariko said at one point, they don't even have to use their suitcases. It's like, oh, yeah, they really don't. They can just run it through.

Media day is probably like an hour and 20 minutes away. That might be the furthest they have to travel.

To Super Bowl being in Santa Claire. It's actually more traveling for them than maybe people would think. But the Niners, that was an awesome win for them. I don't know how they're doing it with this defense. Collins said the word pashrush, I think five times today. Forget it. They know pashrush. It didn't feel like they could ever get a stop. And then they finally got to stop at the end and stop Caleb Williams.

He was laughing so much, Collinsworth. I loved it. Whenever there's points, he laughs. I'm just laughing. He is cappoy. Any time it's a shutdown, I'm slapping my knee like a maniac. And you know, Bill, even a field goal gets a chuckle. But that play to Who's sick, I was losing it like a hyena at a Dave Chappelle one-man show. I really... That was so much fun.

Do you buy Halloween stuff for the front of your house that activates when people show up? Because I was thinking the Collinsworth tackling thing where you get near the door and he just starts laughing like he does 10 seconds after a play when Theriko sets him up.

It's like, Caleb Williams. I would buy that.

Anyway, we had Purtie versus Caleb in a Sunday shootout. We had the bears in yet another down to the wire comeback. This time it fell short. But are they the TV MVPs this year, the bears? Were they the most reliable, entertaining NFL team we had this year? I feel like they were.

I think so. I would have said maybe my stupid team or the Bengals. I talk about them maybe playing on Super Bowl Sunday in the morning, each other.

The bears had, what, eight games come down the wire or seven? They're also good.

Yeah, they're also very good. They don't really take up.

They're fun to watch. Caleb is a roller coaster ride, but he's really fun to watch. He can scramble and by himself 11 seconds and then miss a wide open guy in the same play. Or he could uncork that 50 yard Or like he did today, where it's just like it was a wrist flick and it's a boom. Or that rifle he threw to Lovelin. I think Drake may have a great arm. Caleb seems like he even has 2% more frozen ropey than Drake.

Rockets for sure.

I would say those are the Rockets right now.

And he could take off, right? He knows all the angles. He's Mahomes-esque with the angles and getting the first down just by a foot and all that stuff. And he's cutting down on mistakes. Not that he did a lot. I think that out of anyone's first thousand passes, he had the fewest interceptions out of anybody in football.

Until Drake make and get to a thousand passes.

That's right. Until he gets to a thousand. The Niners are just as good, man. They match him pretty, buzzing around the field, throws that pick six, and he was as cool as if he was up 17 points in the fourth. Like, really just, and with Trent Williams going out. They seem bulletproof. That might be the toughest test they have, like something like that coming down to the wire.

Yeah, it feels like whenever they want, they can go 75 yards. I had a lot of Niner stuff tonight. I had them tied to a bunch of different things, betting-wise, and they threw that pick six to start the game, basically. And normally, that is throwing the black cat on the TV or walking under a ladder. You're just like, Oh, here we go. I'm done. Cross this up. But I never felt that way with them because it's so easy for them to get first down. So what's weird is you look up, I was looking at their stats in the fourth quarter, and you just look at their receivers, and it's not like they have awesome receivers. It's just random dudes and dudes that got patched together and tight ends and backup tight ends and Mccaffry. And yet somehow, Pardy is throwing for 300 yards, and he's creating stuff with his legs. Today, he was 303, Three TDs, ran the ball twice for touch downs, got a prolonged Collinsworth cackle on that little playground play that he had. But he was great. And I don't know who he's throwing to. They're giving all this money to Ayuk.

He's gone. Jennings, I forgot, was even on the team and then made the biggest play of the game in the fourth quarter. But it's a very strange team, and it just seems like they move the ball.

Yeah. It doesn't seem like, I don't want to jinks them, but I guess McCafree would be worth one just looking through a gambling lens to the spread. But otherwise, Kittle goes out, they could have scored 50 points today. Just like you said, offense is good.

Yeah, I forgot to mention him. Kittle is almost like a bonus for them when he plays.

I don't know if the defense is making enough stops. That's the only thing we could talk about.

I was on multiple Patriot threads today, wondering whether we should be upset that Kean Waight, who the Patriots gave away during the season, who plays every snap for the Niners, it seems like. And it's like, Well, why do we give that guy away if he's playing all the time for the Niners? And then it's like, Well, they just gave up 38 points. We never saw the bear's punter. Maybe that's why they gave them up. You think like, Warner's out, Boes is out. They lost the first-round pick. They had D-backs hurt today. They had backups to the backups that were in there. It was pretty crazy that they were even in it.

Don't get us wrong, we're still cursing Robert Salah on various text chains, but it probably really isn't his fault. But they both know those teams. Very, very entertaining.

Yeah, I don't really understand how they're hanging around like this. Caleb is now over 3,700 yards. He's got 25 TDs and six picks this season, which are stats that- And you're on a first-name basis with him, which is even more important than all that stuff. Well, the other thing I noticed today, about three hours ago, he was number three in the Fandle MVP odds. Oh, really? What? I don't think it's the case anymore. Yeah, I think it probably dropped now. He was third. It was basically a two-horse race. Because Josh Allen, and we'll talk about him later, but Josh Allen's campaign was torpedoed. But so you have him, and then you have Luther Bird. And as this player, Monkey Wrench. And Collinsworth is like, I've been watching this guy. He was making it seem like I knew this was going to happen on them. And it's like, this guy's available in every fantasy league right now in the finals? What are you doing? He's 400 yards this year, but he looked awesome today.

I roomed with him at Missouri. It was a little weird because I'm 40 years older, but whatever. We got used to it.

I watched the meat eggs, Mike, and it was just great. Mccaffry. I think we talk about this every year on week 17. Who won everybody's fantasy league? Who was the guy? I think it was Mccaffry. They handed out that award in the NFL honors or whatever it's called. It's like, guy who won everyone in their fantasy league. It's Mccaffry. Our league, our front cohearse, the MOOC, he's about to win the league. And it was basically Mccaffry. He rode. Mccafree got hot at the perfect time, crested in the fantasy playoffs, and was not priced as a $60 guy. What was he like?

$45, I think.

Yeah, $45. He was 25% off, and he ended up doing it again. This is one of the great fantasy guys we've ever had.

When he took them, you could have McCafree. He'll get her week three, whatever. Check it out.

We've been playing fantasy since early '90s. What was your first year?

'92, I think.

Yeah, I think I was '90 or '91. Macafrey is now a first ballot fantasy Hall of Famer, I think. Oh, yeah. I don't know if he's past Tomlinson. I still feel like Tomlinson, that six-year run Tomlinson had, is just unapproachable. But McCafree, I think, is with Marshall Fawke and a couple of others, just generational great fantasy runningbacks, not to mention Somebody who could potentially be on the one seed. And somebody who I could identify with because it looked like he was dying from a bad back as the game was going. I thought he was going to be using the norm attack or something, the giant back brace vibrator thing to help him out.

The four-yard screen over the middle where he just gets pounded instantly or before in most cases, I could see him saying, Hey, can you cut me some slack? Can you throw us a who's check there? I don't need every one of these.

Can you not throw Show me the four-yarder when you could see the linebacker running full speed about to hit me. Can we take that out of the thing?

Linebacker is waving his hands. He's like, Okay, I'm ready. Go ahead.

There was also a hook and ladder in this game, which was the second one we saw today in a pivotal time on a drive that worked. You and I have both been on hook and ladder island for a long time. Always wondering why teams don't do this more. It always either works or at least it gets them first down. It worked today. But did you think the bears were going to win when they got that? When it was there on the four-yard line, basically, and they had one play. Yeah, I think I did. What did you think was... If you could have live bet it right there, who did you think was going to win?

I think I did. I didn't bet it, but I would have thought bears there. Just because I thought. But I thought Caleb was going to find an opening and run in. But on that last play, he was just too scattered and run back too much.

He missed a couple. What did he miss? I thought he was really good in that game, but he also missed four wide open guys, including, they pointed out that all-22 camera. He had, who was the guy, DuVernay, that he grounded it to. It actually seemed like it could have been a countdown. He should go up a level at some point. But I was thinking if they won that game, it was the first time I was ready to take them seriously as, could they actually make the Super Bowl? All these stupid wins they have. Maybe this is just team of Destiny shit, and maybe this is just where we're heading.

Yeah. Well, we went from a few weeks ago. So it's looking like We'll go over all this, but it looks like they'll play the packers, right? If they get the two seed.

It looks like bears, packers, two, seven, unless the lions have some crazy out of nowhere win in week 18.

So a month ago or five weeks ago, When the packers played them at home and beat them, we're like, Yeah, that's what should happen. Get lost, bears. Get out of the way. And then when they came back, the bears on that Saturday night, and they just like that crazy shutdown at the end, the outside kick and everything. They're like, Oh, man, well, That's stupid, too, but at least they're closer. Now, if they play, I'd be surprised if the packers stay within 9 or 10 points, honestly.

Oh, especially with all the injuries the packers have had. They're like an ambulance unit at this point. Yeah, the At halftime of that eagles-bills game, we're thinking like, this is it. Finally, somebody has arrived in the NFC to challenge one of these NFC West teams. Thank you. You're late to the party, but thank you. Then the second half, Hertz doesn't have completion, and they should have lost the game. And we're basically back to where we were, where we had this great eagles win, and their fans feel terrible. It's the classic eagles gamut of emotions where they win, they pulled it out. Nobody feels good about it. Not one person.

They won for a month like that, basically. Now they have two games where he didn't complete a pass in the second half, then they won the game. Just outrageous to me. I know the weather was bad, but they went up against Raiders, Giants. And if you were to just change the uniforms and said, Okay, which one of these teams is tanking? You're like, Oh, it's probably the team of the quarterback who can't complete a pass. That's it. They're getting the first pick no matter what. I I don't know how they're doing it. That defense is excellent, much better with Jalen Carter, obviously. But man, oh, man, put together something in the second half.

It's just like a lack of desperation and creativity when they have leads. I felt like I've watched that Eagles eight times this year, where they look good for about an hour, and then they hold on, and then you wonder what's happening. Why am I predicting every play they're running from the couch? And then they barely hold on and you feel awful.

Do you think Seriani is buying into the crap, or do you think he just has to be like-He's mountain burling it?

Like he's just pulling out just enough to win every week?

After the game, he's talking trash. He's going through the tunnels. Like, I told you, no one's saying He's not doing anything yet. He actually walks right by the lockerer. Everyone's rolling their eyes at him. But does he think this is the way to do it? That he's going to be able to knuckleball his way to the finals? Maybe he will because he's been there.

They did five straight punts in the second half. They blocked the PAT, which is the only reason the Bills wouldn't have just won on that second TD. Allen gacked the throw. You got to call it for what it is. If that's any other quarterback, we're talking about how the quarterback choked. Alan's been great. I know he's banged up. There's a lot of quarterbacks banged up, but it was just a gack. The guy was wide open. They didn't really give us the all 22 of the... They gave us a side view and then another thing. I know when the all 22 comes out tomorrow, it just feels like he just completely missed him. I don't know whether he was going to his left. They were trying to make excuses for him. They're like, Well, he was off balance. He was drifting. It's like, I don't know, man. This guy is supposed to be the best He's the quarterback in the league. He have to make that throw.

Tariko just unleashed all 22. We could watch now. That's the right thing. Yeah, it was a little bit off balance. It's a throw he makes probably 90 out of 100 times. It was bad. It was in the rain, but yeah, definitely his fault. But getting him down there was all Josh Allen, like running sideways for nine yards, just lunging on the floor down and scoring. I can't believe how many people thought it was the wrong move to go for two. I thought, Yeah, that's a no brain. Which way were you thinking on that?

Oh, 100% go for two. If it was week eight or if it was they actually could win the AFCs, if they win this game, maybe you're thinking different, but they didn't want to. Alan Allen's already hurt. It's pouring rain. The field's terrible. Your playoff seat is what it is to begin with. Why not go for it? The Eagles defense had been on the field for, it felt like an hour straight. You should be able to get it. By the way, the guy was wide open and they have the best quarterback in the league, and he's got to hit the throw. Drake may hit that throw. I'm sorry.

Eagles? Oh, that's what this is. That's what you wanted to get. Drake may hits the throw.

He does.

Why?

I think Purdy hits the throw. I could name 10 quarterbacks who hit that throw. I couldn't believe he missed it.

Josh Allen hits the throw. He doesn't... He's not going to typically miss that. Josh Allen hits the throw. What are you going to do?

He's the best QB in the league. It was terrible.

Right. But I don't think people should say they shouldn't have gone for two because he missed that. Like you said, small chance they were going to win the AFC East anyway. Allen, he is injured. That foot's a real injury. They want to probably sit him next week. They definitely don't want him to play in overtime. By the way, your kicker just shanked your kicker, your Bill's kicker, wearing number 32 in honor of OJ. Weird enough, slices it, blocked. I love that. That's it.

What the hell is going on? I love this paying homage to OJ. It's a costume party. If that's a playoff game, you kick the P-A-T, you take it to overtime. Fine. You trust that your defense has stopped them for an hour and a half and your offense has been moving the ball and you're at home and you're going to win the game. But week 18, when you're going to be... What are they? The six? They're going to end up being the sixth seed, I think, is how it's going to shake out. Do you think so?

How do they get the six, though? They're seven now.

How would they get them? Because the chargers would have to beat Denver to keep the sixth seed.

Oh, they do? Yeah. So if they both lose chargers and bills, the bills jump the charges?

The bills win next week and the chargers lose. The bills are the sixth seed and the chargers are the seventh seed.

But if the bills sit everyone, I know it's against them.

But why would they do that, though? Because their quarterback's injured and everything. Do you think they- If they're playing the Jets, they're going to be like two countdown favorites. You got to at least try to win that game for a half.

We'll talk about that. But do you think they want to definitely go to Jacksonville versus go to New England? Well, let me ask you.

The Pats are getting Milton Williams back, and they're getting Will Campbell back. They're 13 and three. They have May, who's playing the best of anyone in the league right now. Why would they want I would have played the Patriots over the Jaguars.

Well, because I think Josh Allen- I would have played the Jaguars a hundred times out of 100. Allen probably just heard you say, Jake May makes that throw, and now he's angry. Now he wants to go to Foxborough.

Jake May would have made the throw. He was hurt. It's pouring rain. I get it. But if you're the best quarterback in the league, you got to make the throw. But if that was Mahomes two years ago and he missed that throw, we'd be like, I can't believe Mahomes missed that throw.

More times than not, though, when these teams have a choice between a seven or a six seed, they'll air on the side of rest.

But they're playing the... The Jets don't want to... I watched the Jets for three hours today. Yeah, I know. They want no part of even being with it. They've lost, I think, they're the first team since 1967, since they've kept track of this, where there have been four December games. They're the first team who's lost all four December games by 23 points or more. They're going to beat the Bills next week. There's no way. All right.

So you're thinking Bills win, Chargers lose, said everybody, and that's the six.

Well, these are the Pats threads I'm on where we talk about why we don't still have Keon White and also how either way it's great for us because if Denver beats the chargers, fine. Denver is the one seed. Pats are the two seed. Pats then play the chargers who don't have either of their tackles, who have Herbert, who has this giant cast on his arm, and who really did not look good on Saturday. Or if the chargers beat Denver, the pats are the one seat if they beat Miami. So So either way, that's great for the pats. The thing that would suck is if Miami somehow beat them with Quin U and Switch.

Oh, you're looking too far ahead with these chargers.

Well, that's the thing. I already don't like that. It's going to be a late afternoon game. I don't like the late afternoon Sunday East Coast games. I think weird shit happens. It's getting dark. It's freezing cold. The fans are dead. I don't like those games. It makes me nervous.

I was looking because they have Fandil has stage of elimination. I saw that. And the chargers, you and I, when we did the Futures in August, I took Chargers first round. They lose. You could bet it in August. Right now it's minus 155. I think that's a good bet.

They're one and done. That's either them going to Jacksonville who housed them five weeks ago. Or the Pats. I mean, Herbert. I thought Herbert was awesome in that Houston game. They certainly didn't lose because of him.

No.

But they just don't have enough. I mean, the Shakeys game, can't believe they might not get the Chargers. They're like, What are we doing? He I mean, you check all of our boxes. You can't block.

The CEO of Shakeys is meeting with Goodell to see if they get to get the chargers.

We just want to get them in there. Stafford minus 250 for MVP. Is that changed?

It's 250. Yeah.

So it went down a little bit. Drake is plus 200. Everybody else is gone.

Right. That's it.

That's it. So the Rams are probably going to be a five or a six seed. I'm not I'm not even sure they care about tomorrow night now, which if you have the Rams and parlays, tomorrow, it's like, Now, what happens? We both do. Son of a bitch. I don't know why Stafford is favorite. I don't really understand that.

You're saying, because I know Patriots fans are all caught up in this. How could a five-seed, quarterback on a five-seed?

I thought we established it's the one or the two-seed usually presents the MVP. Plus, Drake has gotten better the whole season. I don't really care. I don't have money on it. I want to I want to congratulate Josh Allen and the Bills for five straight AFCs titles, which the streak ended today. But five straights is a good number. Good job by you. That was one less than Tom Brady's second longest streak of six.

There you go.

He had 11 and he had six. And then the Bills who were supposed to own the division like Tom braided and the Pats did for the next 20 years.

I think they are the only team to win a division five years in a row and not make or not win the Super Bowl.

I thought it was not make the Super Bowl.

Was it not make? Okay, they're all over it.

With all that said, that's the team I don't want to see in any part of the play. I don't want to see Josh Allen. I was talking to my dad about it today, and we were just going through all the teams, and we were like, yeah, and then it gets to the bills. I was like, yeah, don't want to see them. I don't want to go against Josh Allen for three hours, even though whatever happened today happened. That's still the guy.

Are you insulted, though, that they have the same odds as the Patriots to win the Super Bowl, 10 to 1?

I think it's fair because the Pats haven't done anything. And we've been down this road with them and the bears and these teams like this that once it gets to January, I think it flops a little bit. Pats have stayed healthy. Today was a Don't Get Hurt game in this Jets game. Drake had a 99. 8 QBR, which was the highest since they started recording QBR. The Jets were awful. I mean, it was a combo of Drake and the Pats were good, but the Jets were really awful. And then they had a rough in the passer. It was 28-3. Did you see this?

Yeah, I did.

And Vrabel got pissed, and the Pats went in an FU mood and drove down and scored. And then they called a time out, 11 seconds left. It felt like the Pats were back.

It was 35-3. Yeah, Vrabel calls a time out. I mean, I guess he figures, what are the Jets going to make me pay for this in the year 2022? What's the downside? But actually, the downside is you could be a likable team now that you're good again, but you're choosing not to.

So that's Listen, today might have been the peak of the year for us. The chance to maybe get a one seed, we win the AFC, Josh Allen doesn't win. This might be as good as it gets, but 13 to three is pretty impressive. And then you get the thing that was being forwarded around today about how they beaten one team with a winning record.

Yeah, it's true.

I said, That's not true. And then I looked it up. I was like, That is true. We had one win against a two-winning record.

They just demolished some of these teams. I looked up, it was 22 to three in first down. So I was like, Oh, chips. Why are you even getting off the bus? This is just sickening. And the fact that they have no interception still through 17 games. As a quarterback, you're just foaming at the mouth. You have as free a game as you want.

Well, I had the New York football stuff that's in play right now, other than the 4 December games by 23 plus points, all losses, which Jets made history there. They were down 35 to three at halftime to a coach that they passed up on hiring two straight years. They could have fired Sal two years ago and hired him, Brable. They didn't. Last year, he tepidly went after him, and he was using them as leverage with the Pats. And then you have the Giants, Raiders, where we have this last 72 hours. It was hilarious with the injuries, scratches. Giants, Raiders going for the one seed. And you have a bunch of Giants fans in your life. And it was like, Oh, this is how it's going to play out. The Giants are going to be dumb enough to win this game convincingly. I actually ended up putting them in a parlay because I was like, they're definitely stupid enough to win this.

The Giants?

Yeah. I finally ended up today, ended up putting them in a parlay. But they love doing this. The Raiders now have an 80% chance of the first pick. Max Crosby is playing basketball and jumping on a trampoline in videos. And what a mess. Just a mess all the way around, so.

Well, you know how I hate this tanking stuff, right? I feel like- I know you do. December tanking should be reserved for the NBA, and the NBA only. I had my fun with it for sure on the pregame show. But the NFL really took a chance by isolating this game.

It was that- It could have nudged one more early game to late.

They should have sent this to Australia. They It should have been played at 3: 30 in the morning, and nobody should have seen it. But it's not like anyone's punting on first down or purposely doing whatever. Ashton Jenty played the whole game. I know everyone made a big deal out of the Max Crosby thing. He hit an off-balance three. He didn't look that good making that three-pointer. I think if you film our wives shooting off-balance threes for a half hour, they're going to make one.

It's a good point.

I just don't like the... I don't know. I think it's an arrogant stance by the front office of any team that's supposed to be tanking. Like, Oh, we're not good at hiring coaches. We're not good at signing free agents, but get us our draft pick because that's where we're going to turn it around. It's like, No, you're not. Cut it out. Just play the game. Play the win.

I was texting with McShay today, and it sounds like if the Oregon QB comes out, If you look at Fando Mendoza, who's supposed to be the number one pick, he's only minus 180 to be the first pick.

Right. Dante Morris.

Morris plus 250, I think because they don't know if he's coming out yet or not, but it might be a two-keeper. So it might have worked out for the Giants anyway. The funny thing though is- So the Jets are in trouble.

Yeah, the Jets are the ones.

The Jets are the ones that could be in trouble. But Gino threw his 17th pick today. If you thought they were tanking, you didn't see Gino the rest of the year because he was on brand. He didn't do anything differently.

I didn't see the box score. Did you mean 17th pick today or 17th pick? Today, he threw a 17th pick.

I think it's 17 picks and 29 dropped picks. That's where it landed. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Fanduel, changing the way that you bet live. They call it Live Bet. Bet Live, whatever you want to call it. They're changing the way you live bet football. It starts with next drive SGPs. Now, you can bet what's happening next drive. Could be a countdown, punt, a field goal. Stack player props, build your bet exactly how you want it. Just tie it to the one drive. Every NFL game day comes with a profit boost you can use on your next drive SGP. Visit Fandr. Com/bs. Download the app today and bet the next drive your way. You must be 21 plus President Slec States are 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Opt In Required Bonus issued as non-reliable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook. Fandr. Com. Game problem, call 100 Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. The best B2B marketing gets wasted on the wrong people. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads.

Linkedin has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals, including 130 million decision makers. And that's where it stands apart from the other ad buys. You could target your buyers by job title, industry, company, role, seniority skills, company, revenue. So you can stop wasting budget on the wrong audience. That's why LinkedIn ads generates the highest B2B return and ad spend on all online ad networks. Seriously, all of them. Spend $250 in your first campaign on LinkedIn ads and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Just go to linkedin. Com/simmonsbill. Terms and conditions apply. Jags Colts. Two more red zone turnovers for the Jags in this game. Old man Phil Rivers going for his first run. All these shots of his family celebrating in the luxury box to take an early lead. And it's like, here we go, same old Jags. I know where this is going. And they won. They pulled it off. They staved off old man Phil. They finally got him throw a pick. He was having the old guy look. They were dropping pics and stuff, and then finally they got a turnover off him. But did it change how you felt about the jacks at all?

Yeah, it did. I felt the same way about Lawrence as I did with Purdy throwing that early interception. We've seen them not bounce back.

You felt like it wasn't going to sink them.

Yeah, exactly. Well, I was surprised when it didn't. I was like, Well, we've seen this. Just put them behind the eight ball, and then they just couldn't come back from it. But we have a thing where we text the quarterback's name and an exclamation point after any interception. There's 70 of those throughout the day. But when that happened, I was like, I'm live vet I'm live betting Jacksonville here. They're just moving the ball too well, otherwise. They're doing good. Rivers, I know he owes us one. And also, you can't ask for a lot more than him, right? I think over three games, he has four shutdowns, three interceptions, about 550 yards. That's What are you going to get out of a guy you signed?

He was good last Monday. He was good. He was moving the ball. He wasn't the reason they lost in San Francisco.

He didn't really cost them. So, Reilly Leonard cost them one pass and an interception. No, then the Hale Mary. But no, that's a game the Jags have lost a hundred times in four years.

I felt the same way. It was the first time I've watched the Jags where they had adversity early and a couple of dumb things happened, and I didn't feel like, cross them off. I also did not put them in anything today other than a 13-point tease that I sent you guys in the pregame show. But I didn't trust them at all. I didn't know what they were capable of. On the one hand, they went for it this year in a bunch of different... They have a lot of They had a lot of high pics over the last couple of years. They traded for Jacobi Myers during the season. They went all in on that Travis Hunter trade and traded all these future assets. So it was a little like Atlanta where they were really trying to be good in 2025. On the other hand, a lot of it worked. When you look, Myers is over and over again, third and nine, third and seven. It just seems like that's become the guy. They got ETN going again. And I think they're a mildly frisky playoff team. They're probably going to be... It's a chance they're going to be a home underdog if it's Buffalo, if it's a three, six, right?

I wouldn't be opposed to taking them as a home dog in a playoff game, would you?

Me, too. I think I'm pretty brave about this right now, but maybe in a couple of weeks, I won't be. But I don't think the Bills have four in a row in them. So I don't know if it's the first one, if it's against Jacksonville or not. But they get stops. They do all the right things. They do all the teams. I just can't believe, is this Indianapolis the strangest of any other? Their coach dies. They have Daniel Jones. They're seven to one, then they're eight and two, and then Jones goes out, and they just free fall to the bottom, and they sign Phil.

They haven't went since, right?

Sauce Gardner. They trade all these assets for Sauce Garner, so their future is screwed here. It's the AFC South. Not only don't they make it at eight and two, but two other AFC South teams make it in the playoffs. They're not one of them. What a bizarre ass That first round pick they gave up for Sauce Garner, which feels like it was 10 years ago.

Oh, yeah. And it's like, oh, yeah. Well, they're going to be a one or a two seed, so that pick will be bottom of the first round. Now it's going to be 16. Right in the middle. So it's a great trade for the Jets. What do they care? I actually wrote down on my notes, is there an MVP case for Daniel Jones, even though he only played half of the year?

Interesting.

Like, gets hurt. They never win again. Maybe he was the MVP. That should be an NFL honors, the The award for, I didn't realize how important you were until something bad happened or whatever that's called.

It's so funny because I had in my notes, that's why I would pick Ben Johnson for Coach of the Year because he gets the double-FU. We saw with Detroit, can't get a first down for some reason. And all what he's doing with the bears, the worst to first deal.

Jags cults. Unbelievable turn of events for the Colts and the Bucks. And I was trying to think, is this unusual or what? And It's just the season is so fucking long. We talked about this last week. The season is just too long. It takes forever. Guys get injured. These big injuries, a cluster of injuries. You just your season flips. Dolphins Bucks, where I don't know if you saw this, but the Tampa players, they had a press conference about an hour ago. They announced they've run out of ways to quit on Ted Bulls. Oh, well. Yeah. They said, We've tried everything. We've lost seven of eight. We've tried to lose games at the We've tried to get killed during games. We've tried to seem unprepared. We've tried to have games where we have twelve penalties. We don't know what else to do other than not show up for the next game. We've exhausted our options.

Not only are they trying, the other teams are trying, too. We're going to give you Quin Ewer's on a platter. We're going to give you the 17-point lead, everything else, but I don't get it at all. And I have this team to win a division. I stupidly took them the- You might still win it. I guess. Them and the Lions. I look up and I see that they'll have 10 in the fourth quarter. I'm like, How does this happen? Who is calling these plays here? This is outrageous. I don't want to hear about Tristan Wirf. I get it, but I watched every single play. He had time to throw the ball, right? He had time to throw the ball downfield. He actually had that one scramble where he really should have been flattened in the pocket, and he rolled left, and he got a first down. And then he followed it with the worst interception you'll see if you lived to be 150 years old.

I don't get it with him. He has eight pics in the Last seven games. I was thinking that, well, two things, two awards for him. I think he took the season lead for hospital balls today. I think his receivers are now terrified when they're over the middle because his balls, you have no idea where they're going. But the Baker Mayfield Award for the guy who looked like an MVP for five weeks and then completely died. By the end of the year, you wondered if he was going to be on the team next year, which I think started with Russell Wilson that one year when... Remember Russell Wilson had that awesome September where he's never won the MVP How crazy is that? Is this going to be by the end of the year? He might be out of Seattle, but Baker became that guy this year. It's just a gamut of emotions.

When the Browns are like, Yeah, man, we did the right thing. Okay, that's what we might have done the right thing with the Baker.

They might have felt that way until Sanders through that pick. He threw the lob, heel, Mary- That's true. Interception. Then they were like, Maybe we did the right thing.

I think he has a different form of a hospital ball. He throws it to the sideline. He'll overthrow Mike Evans by the sideline, but Evans He has to die for it out of bounds.

He could get hurt.

He'll run into eight guys with jackets on and stuff. Sometimes it's his own guys, but he gets up.

That's not a hospital ball. It's like a collision ball.

Yeah, right.

Who's the guy? What's that Allstate? The guy from Oz who's always banged up on Allstate? Ryan O'Reilly.

Mayhem, right?

Yeah, whatever. But he was Ryan O'Reilly and Oz.

Oh, I see what you're saying.

Yeah, he throws the Allstate balls. It's like collision insurance. He gets the Allstate Award. Nobody saved. Cameraman, assistant coaches.

He should do a commercial for sure.

So this is my favorite stat. I did a lot of research during the late games because there were only two games to watch, and one of them was a complete abomination. So during the commercials. Bulls, Todd Bulls. This might be his second division title where the team went eight and nine. That's like Hall of Fame candidacy material. Nobody is ever doing that again. That's good. How How many losing record division champs have we ever had? He's going to do it twice.

Mike Tompins is like, Get off my back. You see what's going on in Tampa?

He's like, At least I go nine and eight. I was thinking they could win the title, go eight, nine, but they'd already planned on firing him after week 18. They might just do it anyway. Just bring in whoever, bring in Bruce Ariens to coach it. One last thing on that game. First of all, I don't feel like that's an easy Pats Dolphins game next week, even though we haven't guessed the line I don't know what it is, but I think that the offense have been reasonably frisky 80% of the time for two months here.

. Two weeks off of that, Pittsburgh game was an abomination on Monday. Who did they Last week, Cincinnati, who was left for dead. I don't know.

Yeah, but they look pretty well. I mean, Tampa needed the game.

I know. They look fine today.

Well, Tampa is still alive because the Panthers couldn't beat the Seahawks. I was texting with Danny Kelly and Mina Kimes about this, two Seahawks fans, asking them if the Seahawks have finally beaten out any confidence they had in January. Is there a small piece left? And I think it's gone. I don't think you can watch this team for three hours a week and think they're going to win a couple of straight playoff games and make the Super Bowl.

After today, you thought they're going to beat Carolina?

No, but just when you watch them for three hours, it's like, this is all cute. Right. There's just no way they're actually going to make the Super Bowl with this team. Darnold has 20 turnovers, which leads the NFL. Seattle has 28 turnovers, which is the second highest. Here's another staff for you. They've only gone for it on 13% of the first downs this year, which is the worst in the NFL. So the coach doesn't trust the offense. The offense still turns the ball over all the time. It just feels like it's ready for a January playoff tsunami for themselves.

So you trust them least out of the three NFC West teams?

I think out of all the good teams, I trust them the least. I just don't trust their offense. Their offense hasn't been good for two months. I don't see how it's going to change. Just take out JSN as much as you can. What else are they going to do? I guess. Like, screen past the Kenneth Walker? What else is left?

Sometimes that works all game, all three hours, and sometimes you don't see it at all. But I don't know what to do with this. I feel like I have to step aside. Sam Donald has 26 wins in two years. Twenty-six wins.

Well, their defense won the game today. Bryce Young had 54 yards passing total, which is the same number as times Panthers fans have switched their opinion on him. I think they're now glass half empty on Bryce. But a week ago, it's like, We might have a guy. It's almost like it needs to end. What would you do if you were a Panthers fan? Would you want him back next year?

He threw 24 times. You could have 54 passing yards on six or seven attempts, but not on 24.

Yeah, what was that? You mailed me that stat. Who was the guy, the last guy who did it?

David David Woodley.

David Woodley in 1980?

Yeah. Sorry, David Woodley. We don't bring you up that much.

But that's- Sadly, I'm old enough to remember David Woodley, and he was not good.

If I can get Malik Willis, I would do that over Bryce Young, I think. He's going to get paid now, Malik Willis, isn't he?

Would you take Mac Jones over Bryce Young? I don't know. Because I think I would.

I don't know. It's close. I just don't think this team should be anywhere near where they are anyway.

We just can't escape the crumminess of the NFC South. The funniest thing is the best QB in the conference now or the division now is Shuck.

No doubt. It's not even close, is it?

I mean, he was 22 for He gets the Titans, but he was 22 for 27 for 333 and 2 TDs. Name anyone he played with today. Who was on his team? It was unbelievable.

If you actually look, Alavi has nine breakdowns. That surprised I looked at his numbers and everything.

Yeah, Alavi has been his one guy, but he had Vele, who I had on my fantasy team for a week. He's out for the year, but they lost Kamara. They've lost all these guys. Shuck is now plus 120 for offensive rookie of the year on Finder. I saw that.

Why is he behind Ted McKmillet? I know you shouldn't get too excited about a win over the Titans, but this guy is solid. He's not going to really lose your games like this. Like you said, I know I'm being facetious, but I'm really not. I think he's better than solid.

I honestly think he's better than solid. I I think he's legitimately pretty good.

Well, he has more 300-yard passing games than Drake, maybe. So maybe.

And he's tough. We talked about him last week. I was texting with McShay about it because McShea was all in on him from the senior bowl.

What a name dropper you are. Mcshea and Nina, Danny Kelly.

I have more. I have more coming.

David Woodley.

But McShea was wondering, these older QBs, maybe this is an inefficiency now in the NFL. These guys who have just lived some life instead of just bringing these. Maybe think of that Oregon QB who's going to be like 21 next year. Maybe that's not a good idea to bring in the baby.

No, I know.

Versus this old guy has bounced around.

We've seen both, right? We saw Bo Nicks, a million starts, and a lot of these guys are going to have 60 starts, purdy. So we've seen it go both ways. But I might rather have an older one, except that when you sign him that I contract, then you have a big decision to make when he's 29 years old, the first time.

Right. So if the Seahawks win next week. They're playing the Rams. I'm sorry, they're playing the 49ers. Which number one seed would you feel worst about Denver or Seattle?

From the opposing team?

Just you in general, from a gambling standpoint, from a football fan standpoint. Just everything. Which one makes you queesier out of those two?

So you're going to say Seattle, but I think Denver.

I would say Denver. Because at least Seattle's defense, we've seen them really turn it up, whereas Denver's defense, I'm not even sure where we totally are with it at this point.

Denver, they beat the Jets by two. They beat the Giants by one. They beat Davis Mills by three. They beat the Raiders by three, and then they beat them by seven. That was a weird one.

The KC game was alarming. Kc almost beat them.

Chris Ola Doken by seven. The fuck was that?

Kelsie's wide open on these. The only receiver they had. Yeah.

We've seen them open up their offense and play great, but that's half their schedule I just read to you.

Well, I was thinking, I was looking back at the 2008 season because I was trying to think of the last crazy. I've mentioned this before, but the last really, truly crazy season. That was the year when Pittsburgh played Arizona in the Super Bowl. But I was looking at the first round where... So things that happened that year, Arizona was a nine and seven champion that then made the Super Bowl and just kept upsetting people. The Chargers were an eight and eight division champ. They, of course, won in round one. But if you look back at round one, I think all of them were upsets. The Chargers beat the Colts, the Eagles beat the Vikings, the Ravens beat the Dolphins. Each one, it felt like I think the Underdog maybe won outright three of the four, and it just kept going and was just one of those stupid years. And it ended up with a Pittsburgh, Arizona Which I think was the birth of the Gary Russell prop.

Oh, beautiful. What a beautiful day.

Looking at that first round made me wonder if that's what we're headed for this year with even more games, where we're going to have six games, round one, or we just got five upsets.

I texted you. I texted Bill Simmons. I'll drop a name. An hour ago, I was like, Man, it's going to be impossible to make money in the playoffs because who do you trust? I think your overall point is Denver and Seattle, you're not getting that trust factor because you're not getting that go-to quarterback, the one that's been there for so many years.

But I guess we're just got to deal with it. We always look at it like, who couldn't we put as the anchor of a tease or parlay who's a minus 250, minus 300, seven-point favorite, seven-and-a-half point favorite? I don't have the team. I don't trust the Niners. From what we saw today, their defense can't stop anybody. They're going to have to outscore somebody, which is what they did today for two hours. But then they finally had to punt and it felt like they were going to lose the game, not to mention if you have one turnover. A couple more games quickly. Browns Stealers, which we thought the league, this was the one you rig. If you're going to rig a game, not that the league's fixed, but if it was, this would It's really the game you fixed where the Browns win. Now, there's no DK Metcalf. That was the case for Browns Money Line. Who had that on the pregame show? Somebody must have had Browns Money Line, right?

A few of us had plus three and a half or plus three.

I thought without Metcalf. Rodgers was helpless. 39 attempts for 168. It looked like the classic bullshit Stewards game that they're going to somehow win. And they didn't win.

They lost. Deep exhale from Roger Goodell as Rodgers sailed that fourth down pass out of the end zone. He got his Sunday night matchup for 18. But yeah, man, I'll give Miles Garrett credit. It seemed right. They were just too worried about stopping me. They weren't about winning the game. They really didn't plan. They were moving him around, and he was a pain. And Rodgers didn't throw downfield until late in the game when they played prevent, which was driving us crazy. He got two or three first downs in a row. But it is the same old Pittsburgh team. They're either going to go nine and eight or they're going to be a first-round casualty. So that'll be that.

I wonder, in classic Pittsburgh fashion, will Metcaps somehow get exonerated? Because there was a story today about how when he played for Seattle, the fan mess with him. Will they review it and be like, No, actually, we can't suspend you for week 18. And then all of a sudden, he's back there playing Baltimore. Sanders had a couple of good throws, had one of the worst pics I've ever seen in my life. They did not score 14 points. There was a stat that they lead the league in the 2020s. They have six wins where they didn't score 14 points. So congrats to the Braves fans. You guys did it. The Stewards It looked awful, though. I've learned not to bet honor against them in these games. They're just a complete stay away now. I know.

What are we going to do next Sunday, though? I guess we are going to have to bet on that. Yeah, you know when Deion is hiding behind his cowboy hat, things are bad. You can't spend it anymore. That was tough.

Saturday football, we had the Derrick Henry Fuck You game, 2: 16 and 4 TDs. We had a ridiculous Texans win over the chargers that I still can't believe I lost. Kicker Dicker, Mr. P. A. T. In a field goal. Gazden dropped, which just sent an interception up in the air. Herbert was amazing. The Texans had two long passes and then did nothing else the entire game. They've somehow won eight straight. I don't know what to make of them. It was a weird day of football. Which game did you take more out of?

I mean, that Ravens-packers game. I would have thought under. I would have thought there wasn't going to be that much offense, at least from Baltimore. I don't I look at it, I'm like, Hardball blew it for this team. If they don't come away with a win Sunday night against the Steelers. So many times, you had a healthy Derrick Henry available to close out a game and just forgot about him. He had 2: 16 and four touch downs. He has almost 1,500 yards and 16 touch downs. And what do you have? 18 carries against you guys and 10 against Cincinnati?

He didn't play against us in the last seven minutes.

Why? Does he just forget? Set an alarm. The game starts at 1: 00. Set your alarm for 3: 15. And then your iPhone goes. It has all kinds of audio sounds like a radio and canopy and chirp and story. Just get the alarm you want and put him in. It's insane to me that they're this gross.

I hired a Derrick Henry advisor.

Yeah. That That was very weird. I tell you what, I don't mind Huntley in the playoffs if it comes to this.

Somebody will make this a story Tuesday, Wednesday. Would you rather have a healthy Huntley or a banged up Lamar?

I'm not saying that, but I don't mind him. I don't think he's not awful.

We'll see what we're saying. Would you rather have a healthy Huntley or a banged up Lamar?

Oh, shit. I don't know you're going to ask me that.

If Lamar can't really move around like he normally does, and he's hampered and he just doesn't seem right, it's at least a discussion. I know they'll go with Lamar because he's been in the big games, but I love the Ravens on Saturday night.

If he can't move like Hunt did yesterday, and the other team knows about that, then yeah, it's Hunt.

I love the Ravens on Saturday night. Had multiple real-life bets on them, and somehow Ringer 107 lost our Ravens bet because we moved it to four and a half, did the under of 55. And of course, what were the odds that game was going to have over 50 points, much less 60? It's a 65-point game.

Willis and Huntley, always a point burner.

Willis is... That's worth a gamble, I think, in the offseason. That could be the reclamation guy this year, right?

Yeah. We were talking about on the pregame show, and Matt Flynn got his bag, as you'll say.

That's the worst version of this.

But at least there were 25 good quarterbacks back then. Yeah, it was a stretch, but they were good quarterbacks. Malik Willis is a no-brainer at this point. He could start for probably six teams.

Mitchell and Matt Flynn, those were the two famous ones. Mitchell, right. Scott Mitchell was a classic. And then the Christmas was awful. Did you have fun, at least, with the Cowboys Washington?

That's great. That's it, man. We did our Netflix thing, and then we watched Josh Johnson. It looked like a playoff quarterback, but that was fine. Cowboys win.

Brozmer versus Goff was amazing, especially if you had the Vikings. And then Broncos, KC was abysmal. I have my parent corner is going to be about that, actually. Can I have one last thing for you?

I was going to say the Detroit thing. Let's just put another nail on Dan Campbell's golf. I think since he announced he's calling the plays, that offense has been a complete curiosity. I think that's the worst proclamation of 2025, him saying, Hey, look at me. I'm calling the plays. It just all went- Yeah, I've got this.

If I had a list- Dad's driving now. Give me the steering wheel.

I've got it. Kids, get out of the way. I think I wrote down top four worst proclamations of 2025. It's Dan Campbell announcing that he's calling the plays. It's Pam Bondi saying the files are on my desk. It's me announcing my nickname for the Pats QB. Or it's you.

Dreg maybe?

Dreg maybe, yeah. It follows me everywhere. Or you announcing your addiction to hot water with Lemon. So I think we should put that to a poll, those four. You have it? Look at you. No.

I got a new thing, actually. What is it? What's here? Well, I did something you're not going to like. What is this? But we had to tell you.

Is this in the top four? Is this a new entry in the top four? What's here?

You're not going to be happy at all. Christmas was my last day eating bread and dessert. Oh, fuck that. And really any sugar.

Oh, stop it.

I'm done. I'm done. And guess what? I feel great. I think I've been really good on the podcast so far. You can feel the difference.

Would someone give you a skirt for Christmas? No sugar in the morning on my coffee.

Just coffee and half and half. No dessert. I'm just done. I'm done. I realized sugar was just bad for me as we get older, and I'm just going to try life without sugar for a while. All right.

Of course, you're right, but don't do it.

The only thing I've allowed myself is hot water with a little honey in it, just a little, so I can taste it. And that's it. That's what's keeping me alive right now because I can't have dessert pizza No pasta anymore. I'm giving up a lot of stuff. You saw me do this. In the 2010s, you saw me do this for four years. I was pretty committed. You're always the same way. Bianco's out. Chris Bianco's gone. He's out of my life. That's terrible. Out of my life. Turns out I didn't really need him.

Congratulations Congratulations, Dan Campbell. You're bounced from the top four worst proclamations. I figured you would hate this.

I made a list to celebrate the end of 2025. My list of things during the typical NFL weekend that I've given up figuring out of seven things. Driving the QB into the ground on a sack being either a penalty or not a penalty, depending on how the linesman's feeling on this specific play. I've just given up. Sometimes it's like if you wrap your arms around, but it's for one 100th of a second too long, or you push, you have to tackle them, but you can't tackle them too hard. You have to pull your arms as he's landing. You have to pull your arms back But even then, it might be rough in the past or anyway. I'm just giving up.

You know what I say about that? I think that's fat-shaming. I think anyone who is bigger than the quarterback, if you weigh four more pounds than the quarterback, you can't drive into him and complete a tackle. I don't like that. I think that's fair. No pizza, no bread.

Taunting penalties. Just there's no rammeries in them anymore. I watched there was one in the Browns game today that was awful. There was other ones where the guy stands over a receiver and then nothing happens. That's arbitrary. When you can take your helmet off on the field has now we've gotten really flimsy with this. You see this a lot now as the guys are walking off, they just take the helmet. This used to be dating back to Dwyane Rudd. This was like, you can't take your helmet off to get to the sideline. Now it feels like maybe you can take your helmet off. I don't know what to think anymore. They don't call it. When was the last time you've seen them call that?

Yeah, you're right. They haven't called it. They're not consistent.

Caleb does it a lot. Caleb does it as like, he's not even on the sideline yet and it's off.

Good. They should have flagged him. Yeah, I know if you get it ripped off, you could basically... You get a free... You could do a chorus line on the field with your helmet off.

You could do whatever you want. You could do a podcast. Four more This was really important yesterday in the Chargers-Texans game. And it goes both ways. These pass interference bump clutsches after five yards, like six, seven yards, when the guys are tangled up. And then sometimes It's offensive pass interference because the guy pushed off. Other times, the guy held too long. It's just game to game. You have no idea how to interpret it. For some reason, it decides games left and right, and they've never decided on an explanation.

Whoever the rules analyst is, they take the side of the referee in that case. Every time. You can't do that. It's like you're getting scolded by the principal. Don't do it.

You can't push off and break away. And then offensive pass interference is the other one where we've seen, especially near the sideline now, they're calling the little shove offs when the guy's going for it, but they're not calling the opposite. When the guy's getting shoved, then it feels like they bent it against the receiver. Second and last one, tackles, the left and right tackles being able to jump backwards for the snap. We just don't call that anymore. I don't know why. I don't know. It's a false start every time. You're allowed to do false starts. And then last but not least, obviously, is continuation catches on TDs. Which one was that this week? On touch downs. It wasn't this week, but just it'll happen five times a year, and we've never landed on what's fair, not fair.

Oh, yeah. You have to do the Lambo leap and still have it in your possession for it to count. Yeah, it's stupid.

You can run four steps with it, flip it to the cheerleader. It's like, no, flipped it too soon. Didn't count. Not a catch. I don't know. Any more? Is there any other ones you can't figure out?

My thing always is trying to draw the guy offside. This is not a rules thing, but trying to draw the team offsides from the shotgun in a loud venue. You're never going to do it. I appreciate when you try to draw a team offsides and then punt it, but don't do it from the shotgun. I don't understand. If I'm screaming at you from six inches away, you're going to be more startled than if I'm seven yards away, right? And everybody else is drowning me out. So that's my big pet pee.

What's the other one? The new one people are trying is in the shotgun. They do this really fast, hoping somebody's going to jump. But everyone knows that trick now.

I could see that. If I hear something, I might jump, right? But if I see that... And we also laugh at the guys trying to down the punts now. Nine times out of 10, everyone should just run off the field if you're trying to down a punt inside the five because you're ultimately going to kick it into the end zone.

We always text about that with our friend Hinch because it's his favorite play in sports when the punt is about to land at the one and the punt defender guy steps on the goal line or fucks it up or goes to throw it back and ends up throwing it forward. The one today was epic, though, because the guy saved it on the eagles. Was it the eagles? It was the The next guy comes in to make sure the ball doesn't go to the goal line, but steps on the goal line. If I was to put it, I'd be so mad. But this is where we need Hanch as a special team's coordinator, just be like, There's eagles special teams coordinator, Kevin Hinch. He's just like, Why?

He's left the building. The Zambooney machine ran him over. He just stabbed the trader. Yeah. Any time you, me or Hinchin can make a better play something like that. It's not good.

The one I almost added, but I do think the refs have a handle on it, but it always takes them an extra 15 seconds. I have no idea why. Is intentional grounding when When the guy, when the QB throws it away and it's clearly intentional grounding, but they don't call it, and then 15 seconds pass and the refs look at each other, then they huddle up. Right. And they're like, yeah, that probably was intentional grounding. And then they throw it. I don't know why we need 15 seconds to wait on that.

Hopefully, in the next couple of years, replay assist will be broadened, then we could- Just immediately. Let that take care of a lot of these things, so we don't have to worry about.

Playoff matchups right now would be Denver with the one seed, Pat Buffalo, but as we discussed, it's going to end up either Pats Chargers or Pats with the one seed. Jacksonville Chargers, which we've already seen, which might end up morphing to Jacksonville Buffalo. Right. Pittsburgh, Houston. So let's be smart and we'll say Denver, Chargers, Pats, Buffalo, Jags, Pittsburgh, Houston. Or Baltimore.

And then in the- Or Baltimore. Yeah.

Yeah, Pittsburgh or Baltimore, it's Houston. Then Seattle in the NFC, bears, packers, eagles, ramps, Panthers, Niners. I just gave you six matchups. Panthers, Is it the Niners' Shakeys game to lose right now, minus 200. What is it?

Yeah, I think so.

That's pretty good. Do you think they'd put the Niners in the Shakeys game early start Saturday?

You don't think they'll go away FC South for one of these? Could Jags, Chargers, Can the Chargers make it?

Could be Jag's Chargers. I think that's the other final. Could be one of those. If it's Jag's Buffalo, they're not putting Josh in the first play. Because he's the most famous QB left at this point.

If we're getting Ram's Eagles in that first round, if we get Ram's Eagles, I know you don't want to think about it, and Pat's, Bills, that's a solid. I go back to my.

Pat's, Bills would be incredible. There's no question that would be who has the ball with two minutes left. Just prepare it, mostly. The Bills could be missing. Bills had fucking Brandon Cooke's today. Made four big catches for them. I don't even think he was on an NFL roster five weeks ago.

I said to my son, Did you know he was on the Bills? Because he's their best receiver right now. That's it.

He was the only guy who could get open And braided was like, Oh, Cookie. If you played with them, you like... I was like, You played with them a year. Settle down. Guess the lines. Week 18. What's our score? Nine to eight?

I mean, you're going to win because I don't even think this week should count. These lines move around so much throughout the week. Coaches lie about his plan.

Why are you already quitting?

Well, because I was off 40 points over 12 games, whatever, probably.

First game, Saturday. Nfc South on the line. Tampa home for the Panthers. I mailed you two games because we knew what we were getting in two games. So I actually had these. It's in Tampa. I don't like either of these teams. I'm going to be hard-pressed to wager on this game. I think it might have to be a 13-point tease, and that's it for me. Really?

Which way are you at?

I don't know. I just like that step, or maybe put both of them in it. Bucks minus three was my guess.

You got it exactly. I I said three and a half. I thought it was a little too much for Carolina to handle, but it is three. Little caveat here, doesn't necessarily get Tampa the division with a win.

If Atlanta wins- This is the craziest stat of all time.

Really nuts. Atlanta Atlanta who's been eliminated six weeks ago.

Atlanta has been done for a month.

I don't know. But if they were to beat the Rams and then beat the Saints next week, wouldn't matter if Carolina won or lost. They'd be the champs.

So Carolina gets the If Atlanta beats the Rams, who might not have anything to play for anymore and might just say, Fuck it with tomorrow's game, and then beats Tyler Shuck and the Saints.

And McVeigh has done that, by the way. He rested his guys last year, McVeigh. Did that line move? No.

I wrote down my guess, sorry. We'll get there.

Well, it's tomorrow. You're talking about tomorrow's line.

Did that line move? Still seven and a half?

Seven and a half, yeah.

The funniest thing about tomorrow So you have that weird Rams thing where now it's suddenly the NFC South is tied to it. But then you also have Kyle pits potentially swinging fantasy titles tomorrow night. This guy who everybody's had, everybody's gone a couple of rounds with and waved or hated it or hated the experience. And whoever landed him around week 12 just hit the lottery, basically. He'll probably have 40 points tomorrow.

Yeah.

I I think this is...

I have a bigger thing about fantasy later in parent corner, but I feel like this week should not be utilized. I mean, imagine having Pukha in your lineup and McVay says, Hey, we're sitting everybody. That just sucks. Week 16 is when I think fantasy should end for now on.

Cahal said the chat voted for Hot Water and Lemon as the worst proclamation of the year. Oh, really? Yeah. That's good.

Pam Bond is off the hook. All right.

Damn it. I can't believe she could have beat me. Bucks Panthers. I feel like, should FanDuel let us do some special bets for this? I'm going to ask them. Should we be like, Will this game have a pick six? Oh, I see. What were the odds on that? Plus 200?

A pick six?

Plus 300? What would be the odds for a pick six in a game that's clearly going to have a pick six?

Oh, I see.

Normal pick six odds are like 50 to one or 10 to one, whatever. This is like almost to lock somebody's throwing a pick six.

Right. Yeah, for sure.

Some- Over and took combined interceptions, two and a half?

That's good. I think so. Down, attempted down punts where the guy steps in the end zone seven and a half, I would say.

There's stuff you wouldn't be able to bet on. Number of times the fan base quit on their quarterback during this game.

Right.

I mean, if Tampa, think about this, they're minus three at home against Carolina to make the playoffs. If they can't win this, what the fuck? If we talked about this in September, here's Tampa season. They just have to be Carolina by three.

They've had so many bad losses. So many bad. I mean, imagine they lost that Thursday game to Atlanta. They're killing them.

Saturday night, NFC West on the line, one seat on the line. These two teams can't believe they're not playing on Sunday night. They don't know what else they needed to do. Niners home against the Seattle Seahawks. And I have the Niners favorite by two and a half. I feel like that's low.

I don't know why I went the other way. I thought it was tic-tac. I was right about that. But I had Seattle Adle is the favorite. It's San Francisco one and a half, so you get it.

That went too high. Wow. So they full tic-tac it.

Yeah, that's a good one, man. It's a good one.

I'm going apply all playoff manifesto lines to this game. And one of the number one rules of the playoff manifesto is please study the quarterbacks long and hard and think about who you'd feel good about having in this game. I would not feel good about having Sam Darnold. Just period. I just wouldn't.

How about McDonald on the road? That's good.

How about the team that doesn't ever want to go for it on fourth down in a big game? No, I get it. That sounds terrible.

Would they put week one? San Francisco beat them week one, right?

17, All these NFC West games have been close across the board. I like the Niners. I do think it's probably not awesome to have the six-day turnaround for this one.

Yeah.

All of a sudden, they're playing five days from now. They just had a pretty grueling bears game. Mccafree looked like he's going to have to fly to Italy or Germany or somewhere to get some stuff.

You got the LeBron juice.

The Marquee game Sunday night, AFC North on the line. Ravens at the Stealers. We assume no Lamar for this, probably?

I can't say anything.

I can't say? I assume no Lamar. I think the Ravens are favorite either way. I think Mike Tomlin is exactly where he wants to be as a home underdog in a must-win playoff game. He must be delighted. I have Ravens two and a half.

All right, you're going to get this. I said Ravens by one. I I thought that was fair. And it's Ravens by three. You're going to kill me. I mean, these are the ones I'm closing.

I like the Ravens.

That's what they want you to say.

Could I lose one more time on the Stealers this year? They said it couldn't be done. They said I couldn't lose a night time on them. If Metcalf doesn't play, I don't know how many people listening or watching all the games. You really had to watch that game, like how How fucking helpless they were. They just didn't have anybody open. They were trying to run their normal garbage stealer plays with back shoulder throws and little lob pass in the end zone. They're running them with their number nine receiver.

Sometimes their defense gets mad enough where it just doesn't matter. I mean, think of how surprised we were when they lost in first week in December in Baltimore.

Could this be a Ravens alt-line, like Ravens by 20. If they win, they're really going to win. It's almost like that packers game or alt-line 17 or something where they just run all over them.

If Harbaugh gives Henry the ball more than 12 times, they could actually... Yeah, it could be that. Well, think about the Ravens. I don't know. I'm scared. I'm scared to take the minus three here. I know they're better. I know all this stuff. It's all what you're saying, but there could be one more screw job in there for us.

There's no question. All right, next one. Afc number one seat on the line. There's two games. Broncos home for the Chargers. Really tough one to figure out from a Chargers standpoint what their motivations are. The Chargers lose They fall to a seven seed unless Buffalo also loses. Right. If the chargers win, they get the six seed. Do they care? And then the Broncos, do you feel good them getting a lot of points over anybody? I didn't know what to do. I did Broncos minus seven and a half in Denver.

You're going to be closer. Now, I said nine and a half. It's six and a half. But I think this will go to nine and a half. I think some Harbault, like I said, is going to lie, and he's going to say Herbert's not playing, and he's going to play one series or something. I think it'll go up. The right people will know about it, but I'm very much looking forward to putting that on a money line parlay and losing.

I think the Broncos are a must for a money line tease. Pencil them in as an anchor. I don't see... If it was the chargers going from a seven seed to the five seed, maybe. But you have the Texans playing the Colts, who it sounds like Phil Rivers is done. He talked about these three games. I think that's it. I don't think he's playing week 18. So that's Riley Leonard. So odds are Texans win that. So Texans are going to be the five seat, it looks like. So if you're the chargers. Yeah, I'd rather play Jacksonville, but would you rather just get the rest?

They don't care. Teams rarely care about that. Five, six, or seven.

Well, the Patriots are home for the Miami Dolphins. I think this line is going to be higher than it should be. They lock down the two-seat if they win. They could get the one-seed if they win and Denver loses. I the Patriots by twelve and a half.

I said eight and a half. It's nine and a half.

Okay.

That's good. So that's the second anchor for your money line parlay.

It is Quin Eumers on the road. I just want to point that out.

It's got to be.

Yeah.

Isn't that what we saw today? Yeah. When you were on the road. Yeah.

We saw that today against Tampa Bay. So that could be a...

That's. You're not going to blow that. You can't blow that. What did you beat them the first time? 33, 27? That was ages ago, though, right?

I think we got Milton Williams back for this game.

Yeah.

And then Will Campbell, not until round one, I don't think.

He's just throwing all over the place. I think it'll be similar to what it was, Burrow, that threw four touch downs against them last week, right? Against Miami.

It's also, odds are, cold weather, Miami and cold weather. There's some good signs for this.

I forgot about that.

The late East Coast start always makes me nervous, but As we discussed. All right, AFC seeding on the line. Three games. Texans, Colts in Houston. Houston gets the three seed with a win if Jacksonville loses. Houston gets a five seed if they win. And odds are it's Bradley Leonard. I think the Texans are a classic. Be careful when they're favored by more than X amount of points, and we're probably here. I have Texans by eight and a half.

You're going to get it. I said seven and a half. I don't know why I thought it was Rivers, and I'm not even sure. What do you think? There's a point difference from them. But anyway, it's ten and a half.

That's too high.

Is that three? That could be our three right there.

They can't really run the ball. They scored in the first two drives yesterday, and then for the next two and a half hours did nothing. I don't know. That's a lot of points.

See, I'm more I think it's more likely that a team playing for a draft pick screws up a teaser than the team, like the three teams we just mentioned. The Raiders, after all this, could beat the Chiefs, and then that'll be hilarious, right?

I don't think Pete Carroll would find it hilarious. They probably told him, We'll bring you back next year. Just make sure you lose the rest of this.

Oh, interesting.

And then they'll fire him. Jaguar is home for the Titans. Jaguar is locked down the three seed with a win. I didn't look. I think the Pats get the two seed either way, win or lose. I don't think the Jags flip over them, but I might be wrong. But there's a lot of moving pieces. But I think the Pats are locked in a two seed.

Wait, 12 and 4, 13. They'd both be 13 and 4. You say New England goes over Jacksonville.

I think they've been over them and all the weird tiebreaker stuff, but maybe I'm crazy.

Regardless, Jags, I have minus 14 over the Titans. I said 13 and a half, and it's only 10 and a half. Didn't they screw something up? Was it the Jags or the Colts? It was a few years ago on week 18?

It was the cold. No, it was the Jags?

It was the Colts. It was the Colts, wasn't it?

It was one of those AFC South teams.

I can't remember.

It was awful. No, it was Indianapolis. It was Carson Wentz. That's what it was.

And we all had them on every single Tuesday.

I'm not I will tell you right now, I'm not putting the Jags in a team. I still don't 100% trust them.

Do 2% trust Cam Ward?

Well, we know there's going to be a walk game. We know it. We know One of these games is going to be fucked up. And the thing that scares me is it could be the Dolphins. And then did we do Bill's Jets? We didn't. Bills Home for the Jets. Bills Stay the 7 Seed unless the chargers lose. You could make They might throw the game away and not give a shit and rest Josh Allen for a week. But I did not factor that on my line. They're in Buffalo. I said Bills by 14 and a half.

All right. It is Bills by 12 and a half, but you're going to get it because I said nine and a half.

Killing you this week.

I think it's Trubisky if it's not Josh Allen, even if it's a couple. The great thing about this is you don't have to worry about throwing interception against the Jets because it's just not going to happen.

Yeah, any turnover at all. Yeah. Trubisky's- He's all got his thousand yards. The Jets need to get a top three pick. They'll probably rest everybody.

Do you think the Jets and the Giants are now lumped in for every stat. Their home record, MetLife, is just extraordinarily bad. And they haven't had a winning team in however long. Do you think at this point they should be like, Hey, I want you guys to start including Buffalo when you talk about New York teams?

To boost our numbers.

Yeah, to boost our numbers. It'll take the attention away from us a little bit. I think that's a really good idea. They should make a statement. I like that.

I can't imagine the bills. I mean, this is a 10-point teaser. I'd feel good about the bills in there unless they were starting to arrest people and just throwing it away. But we'll find out as we get closer. All right. Nfc seeding on the line. Bear's Lion, mentioned that earlier. They get the two seed with a win, the bears, and it's in I don't know what's going on with Detroit. What would you put for odds on Dan Campbell on the Fox Studio show next year? I asked you before 2030, but what about next year?

No. Next year is what? '26?

Nine months from now. September? No. They get rid of Bradshaw, there's Dan Campbell. Or they get rid of Gronk.

One bite in kneecaps. No. I would say that's still plus 1,500. Okay. He needs another year.

I love Gronk. He's the best tight end I've ever seen in my life. One of my four favorite patriots. It's upsetting to me how Fox uses him, and it really makes me mad. Why? What do you mean? They use him like he's the village idiot. They came at halftime of the game today, which is the only game I've ever watched, and they go and he's standing on the second level and there's a table. And Kurt Meneffy is awkwardly sitting next to this table and Gronk's like, At halftime, am I going to jump through that table? And it's like, what is he, our drunk uncle at Christmas? It was like, Oh, Uncle Gronk is going to knock over the Christmas tree. Watch this. This is a football studio show. He's the best tight end of all time. Why are you making him a self-parody? I love Gronk.

Because it's- What are the producers doing What's he doing with this? His predecessor is Terry Bradshaw. He's got a pea brain.

So that's it. They're grooming him to be the next person everyone makes fun of? I don't know. I think Gronk's podcast is good, the one with him and Edelman. There's a lot more there. And then on that show, they make him seem like the... It's like, oh, he's like the fucking wacky neighbor in an '80s sitcom that comes over. It's like, Oh, Gronk's here. Oh, he knocked over a plant. It's like, How did he end up with this role on the roll on the show.

I honestly think there's precedence in that he is... Bradshaw is grooming him. That's how... I mean, this is like... It's the best tight end of all time. You're getting upset that Sammy Hagar screams during his songs. Like, yeah, this is what family Hey, that's what they did. That's what they really wrote. It's fine.

It's upset. He means a lot to me, Grox. Just show Grox some respect. He'll be all right. Am I going to jump through this table?

That's coming up next.

What are we doing? It's a network television show. Ram's By the way, that'll be on a sports blog with a really angry headline. Oh, no doubt. Bill Simmons eviscerates Fox's use of Grunkowski.

You want to apologize now? You shouldn't be.

No, I'm not going to apologize at all. You're not going to do it? I'm good. Give the sports blogs their meat.

Okay.

Just treat gronk like he has an IQ over 80 because I'm pretty sure he does. His podcast is good. Are you sure he does? He's capable of conversations.

Because I think it rang in at 77.

Am I going to jump through this table? Ram's cards.

No, we didn't do bears.

Oh, we still didn't do bears. Well, grunk jumped through a table. I got distracted. I have the bears by eight and a half.

All right, so we're going to have to talk about this because I said six, and I'm staring at this line, and the bears are favorite by one and a half. Which means- So did they lock down number two? We must have misread something.

So we fucked up.

We must have, right?

They are. Wait a second.

What's their record?

Oh, I know what it is.

They did lock down, too. No. No?

Well, because they beat Philadelphia.

I don't think... So the lose...

But Philadelphia and Chicago have the same record. So if they win and Philadelphia wins, it doesn't matter. They get the two seed. They beat Philly. Yeah, they beat. But why wouldn't they want to win this game? They'd want to be the three seed?

No, if they lose and Philly wins, they have the same record.

Philly is the two seed.

We're going to go through this and say we used to be able to press pause.

Right now, Philly is 11 and five. Chicago is 11 and 5. Chicago beat Philly, so they have the tiebreaker over them. But if they lose and Philly wins, Philly is in the two-seed.

I guess they don't care about the two seed. I mean, they are still playing game.

That doesn't make sense. We got to be missing. Can people in the chat, if we're missing something with that bears game, please put that in the YouTube chat.

No, you've read it right. They're both 11 and 5. So if they lose a game in the Philly, they're going to be a three seed.

Yeah, but why wouldn't they want to win and be the two seed? And Detroit's season is over.

These teams just like to rest. It's just better to have a rest unless you have a shot at a one seed. That's just how it is.

So they'd rather be the three seed? So three- So that would mean they would play the Rams. I'd rather play Banged Up Green Bay than the Rams. A hundred times out of a hundred.

Tough to beat a team three times, but you're probably right.

Let's ask Rob Gronkowski, who's currently drinking Drano. Drano is our sponsor of The Half-Time Show. Gronk, how's the Drano taste? It's the best tight end of all time. Protect Grunt. Hire him away.

Hire him away. Put them on the Ringer's, you deal. Put them on with Kellerman and Rich Paul. Do something.

Anything's better. All right.

That's crazy, though. I would have thought it was six. I mean, that is what I guess.

Ram's Cardinals. It's in Los Angeles. The Rams are basically locked into the six seed. I still think they're going to be favored by seven and a half in this game.

All right, I get this. I said eight and a half. It is nine and a half. Am I coming back here? Not really. No. Six for you. Six for you.

You're not coming back. You're coming nowhere.

I mean, if they're going to maybe sit guys tomorrow, wouldn't they also maybe definitely sit guys week 18? That's high. I know Arizona sucks.

So if you were the Rams, would you sit Puka and Stafford for the last two games and just get them ready? And anybody else you have who's banged up and just get them ready for a round one? Because as you mentioned earlier, they've done this.

They have done it. They didn't do it two weeks before. They did it on week 18 last year. We saw Jimmy G out there. But I wouldn't do it because I would feel bad for everyone to put a teaser on them, Tuesday or Wednesday, and wasn't thinking this through. Like me.

I have the Rams tomorrow and a thing that all the other pieces hit thinking that they were a lock, and now they might not care.

It's not good.

Eagles home for Washington. Eagles locked in a three-seed could get the two-seed with a Chicago loss. And as I said earlier, I still feel like that two-seed matters because you get to play Green Bay, who's missing everybody. I have eagles by ten and a half.

I get this. I said It's six. It's seven and a half. See, we're all over the place here.

Why is it seven and a half? They think they're going to arrest people? This is Josh. Washington is Josh Johnson.

That's such a stupid guessing game. This is the hardest week.

So we have five games left. What's the score? You come back, you're up six five.

You're up six five. You roped me.

You said I was going to win. This is bad.

Well, I think you got all out of sorts with this gronk thing.

Gronk sent me in a tailspin. This game means absolutely nothing. Packers, Vikings, and yet Green Bay is the seventh seed either way.

I'm off by three points, so you could steal this one easily.

I went low. It's in Minnesota, and I did packers minus two and a half in Minnesota.

Packers minus two and a half?

Yeah.

I said Vikings minus two and a half. It's Vikings minus five and a half. Oh, you're going to lose your shit.

What the hell?

I mean, they're definitely sitting people, right? I mean, we're going to see guys who- I didn't factor that in. We're going to see some milk farmers or something from Wisconsin.

What do the Vikings have to play for?

Who backs Brosmer? I mean, think about what Brosmer and Jalen Hertz did. They had almost negative yards passing combined, and they both won.

Wow. Okay. Next category. Four games left. Top three draft pick on the line. First one, Chiefs at Raiders. Chiefs at Raiders. We just saw what the Raiders are capable of this week. It's in Las Vegas. I wanted to put this in the Vegas zone in honor of the Raiders, but I had to bump it up a point. I did Chiefs minus six and a half.

Well done. I had five and a half. It is six and a half, exactly. Not touching it.

You can't tease the Chiefs. No way. Because their quarterback is Michael Ola Candy, whatever his name is. Can't put him in there. It's a first-round pick.

He's number one pick. Yeah, I get that the The Raiders know the assignment, but is Chris Ola Doken going to play ball?

Next one's a little harder. Cowboys at the Giants. Giants won today, screwed up their chance at the number one pick, and now we'll be somewhere in the top five. Cowboys, you don't have your pick, right? You don't have your pick.

We're doing all right.

But you don't have your pick, but you have the packer's pick. Right. Yeah. You get the worst one of those two. That is what happens. I have Cowboys minus seven and a half as my guess for this. All right.

I get this. I said six and a half. It is currently five and a half.

Yeah, Vegas. Okay. Last one. Bangles, who are just peaking at the right time here. Home for the Browns. I have the Bangles by seven and a half.

We split it. I said six and a half. It is seven.

All right, so one game left.

What's the score? Hold on, hold on, hold on. Five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, four. Fucking rope it open. I think it's tied. 6, 7, 8. No.

God damn it.

7, I swear it's tied. But is there one game left? Yeah, there's one.

Falcon Saints.

I'm off by two points.

Falcon Saints in Atlanta.

You're going to steal it.

Falcon Saints in Atlanta.

Mm-hmm.

Saints showing signs of life lately. I have the Falcons by three.

Yeah. Congratulations. It's two and a half. What is it? I said it's two and a half. I said four and a half. Oh, that sucks. That's all It came back for nothing. We have a lot of money. Me, you, house, Hench bet the Saints to come in last place. We have to really give it like 20 minutes thoughts of how we're going to hedge out of this.

The Falcons, win one of the next two, we're good, right?

That is... Let's see. Wait, where are they?

Falcons are one ahead of the Saints.

No. So they're six and nine. So if they win their seven and nine tomorrow, Saints are six and 10. If they both end up seven and 10.

They have the same record. They both have six wins.

Six wins, yeah.

So we're going to have to hedge this. How is this even... We should have won this 40 times over.

They're going to have the number one pick.

Could he win Coach of the Year? So what did we have? We had Cleveland, Tennessee, and the Saints, right? Just those three.

Yeah, just those three. And the Jets, maybe?

The only thing that could stop us was Tyler Shuck in probably getting the job and then playing so well that he's now one of the favorites to win the offensive Rook of the Year. And that's exactly what happened.

He beat everyone in that division. It's sickening.

I lost some crazy... I thought I was going to win 75% of my futures that I made before the year. Today, I lost the Browns. I had three and a half wins under, which was plus 200. Lost that one. I had the Miami Dolphins under six and a half wins. That was plus 185. And what were they? One and eight? It seemed like that was a They just played a bunch of cupcakes, six in a row.

It was just stupid shit like that. What are you going to do? We were excited when it's August. Got to fire away.

Parent Corner presented by Greenland 2 Migration. Saw an ad for this during Football. If you love the disaster hit film in 2020, The End of the World was only the beginning, apparently. Gerard Butler, Monor of Baccarin. They're back for the sequel. Oh, no, I call it Morena Baccarin.

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Morena Baccarin.

You're dumber than grunk. You can't even say words.

Back for the sequel. More on that later about Greenland 2 migration. We're going to do Parent Corner, though. What do you got?

All right. So I mean, Christmas, great. Everyone's home together. At the tree going, the gifts. It's beautiful. It's fun. My son Jack, my middle son, gave me the best gift the father could ever receive. We were scheduled. He had a wrestling tournament Friday, December 26. Weyands were at 07: 00 AM in Upland, California, which is a good hour and a half drive. At 05: 30 in the morning, you could get there probably an hour and 20 minutes. So I was going to have to be up on December 26 at 05: 30, take him to a tournament. And then he was The tournament didn't even start till 11: 00, so I was going to have to sit in my car and bet English Premier, soccer. Christmas Eve, wrestling practice. He throws up in front of the coach and three other kids throw up.

This is like the fourth throw-up story with Jack we've had on Paracorner?

Oh, he's so good at vomiting. And the coach is like, See you on Monday. It's like, You did it, buddy. You did it. What do you want? Do you want a pony? Whatever you want for Christmas, I'll get it for you. God bless you.

And so the Poison Cheez-It you gave them that had the stuff, the Exlack stuff to make them throw up.

That was it. Yeah. And now he's not eating bread or pizza. No, that's you. So that was...

What aThank you, Jack. A miracle for you.

Really great.

Really was a Christmas miracle.

I can't thank him enough, honestly. I was so relieved to not have to get up at 5: 30 in the morning. I have another one. So fantasy football is just awful, right? I'm in a high-stakes league, and I'm in the finals. So second place is nice prize, but first place is a ridiculous haul.

You did some texting about this.

Yes. And I have a decision to make and going into Saturday, and it's basically Christian Watson or Alex pierce, right?

So have you checked the history of this whenever somebody has a 50/50 decision like this, they lose 100% of the time with who they picked? I researched this. Nobody ever has the positive story of they picked the right person. It's always the wrong person.

It didn't break the streak this time. So I'm thinking, all right, Malik Willis, Christian Watson. He also banged up.

What's the red flag.

He had the red flag. Everything's pointing against it. Alex pierce had two touch downs last Monday. Crazy. You figure Philip Rivers loves him. He's in sync. So I ask you and Hinch. I ask my buddies Brian and Darren. I ask my buddy Alex. It was named Alec and still didn't say. So I said, Everybody says Watson. And my son Archie, I'm like, Archie, I'm going to let you be the deciding factor. And he's like, actually everyone said pierce. I'm sorry. So I said, I'm going to let you be the deciding factor. He's like, Start pierce. Pick up Barner. He's looking through the things. Like, Pick up the tight end in Seattle in case something happens to pierce in the morning. I'm like, All right, that's a good So I take Watson out, freaking goes nuts immediately. Their first touch down, Malik Willis throwing to him like they were college roommates. It was so in tune. It's insane. He puts up 23 points and I'm losing my mind. I come downstairs and I'm pacing and everything. And Archie's like, Watson, huh? I was like, yes, motherfriar. Curse on my back. And then Watson will catch the pass and he goes to high five me.

I'm like, what the fuck are you doing?

He's talking to you.

I was like, well, this is not You're going to stay in your used Carola Turcell. If he's like, what? You put Watson in the lineup? I'm like, no, I didn't. Because of you, I said, pierce. And we picked up Barna, remember all that? He's like, oh, yeah, I didn't. Okay, I didn't hear you right. I was like, Yeah, you certainly didn't. He's like, Oh, calm down. Now you're fighting. Now we're arguing over this. So I'm getting mad. I'm like, Whatever. I end up losing by 60, so that's good. I'm not going to lose any sleep over this. But I don't think anyone should ever play fantasy for anything more than pride. Because now Archie and I will never be the same.

It just ruined the relationship. You can't come back from that.

It just ruined the relationship. That was it. We're never going to be the same. Because of Sister Christian Watson. Meath Therapy. That's it. So I don't even know what the moral is, but fantasy can really- Don't play fantasy? Don't play fantasy.

I had that last week with C. J. Stroud, just single-handedly murder in my season. And then I'm watching the Chargers game yesterday, and he just immediately Immediately two 70-yard bombs to start the game or whatever happened. I'm like, of course, why do we do this?

But you're right. There should be sharp and square pics. What everybody would go with is the square pick. So I should have started Watson. Just zag. Yeah, he's got the red flag.

Well, in our knockout League. It looks like our friend co-hearse, the MOOC, is going to win the League with McCafree, as we mentioned earlier. This will be his fourth title since I won my last title in 2007. And we still use this dumb CBS site, and it has all the champs dating back to whenever you started the League, even before I was in it, before I moved to LA. And this is how sad it's become for fantasy for me. And by the way, I won our guillotine League. I've won the league. I'm in with my college and high school buddies. I've hit that, but somehow I can't get over the home. I went back and I looked at my 2017. I was looking through an old photo album. I went through it and I'm like, Oh, man, Tomponson, Peterson. Oh, Carson Palmer was so good. They had Romo was on the team, Wes Walker. I'm just going through. I'm like, Oh, that was such a great year.

You should have a reunion. 19 years coming up.

18 years. Eighteen years. Eighteen years ago. They're on the fucking site. Anyway, congrats to the mook.

He's won four times since my last. This is a 10-team league, Simmons. You should win it once in a while.

You'd think I would win once in a while. I'm good in all the other league.

I know.

My parent corner. Christmas night, my kids are excited. And by the way, my kids are barely kids anymore. My daughter's going to be 21 in May and my son's 18. All that Christmas, they just want to race through it because Netflix is releasing the next three episodes of Stranger Things. That's all they care about.

I love that you're on TV, Chris Christmas, but they're- They never even came over the TV for that.

No, they could have cared less. Stranger Things is coming. So we set the dinner so that we can finish and everybody can get out of the house by I don't know, 6: 00, and then they're going to watch Stranger Things. It's going head to head against the NBA. It's like the end of the second to last game, and then Denver, Minnesota, which I was excited about. But I have the set up where we have the big TV, and then I have the two side TVs, so I could watch Denver, Minnesota. I'm like, It's Christmas. I'm going to hang out with my kids. I'll watch Stranger Things with them, which I think was almost four hours because the episodes were longer than an hour. So It's episode 5, 6, 7, but somehow not the eighth. I've never seen the show other than the first episode, 6 years. I have no idea what's going on with any of it. I'm just completely out. I don't know anything. I'm just watching the show, but I'm really watching the basketball, which turns out to be this incredible game. Jokuj has a 55, 15, 16. It goes into overtime. Edwards is a crazy shot.

And they're watching Stranger Things. This just seems like the dumbest show. I can't believe this is a phenomenon. But the reason it seemed dumb to was because I didn't understand any of it. They're so far advanced and their kids are explaining it to me like, no, no, only 11 and the other person, they're the only two people that can go back and forth between the worlds. And this person can't, but they think they can. There's an upside down. And then there was the end of the fifth episode, they're going nuts because something... And I'm just watching it and I didn't know anything that was happening. I was like, this must be what happened when people watch sports with us and they don't know anything that's going on. We're watching football and we're going nuts on every play and oh my God. And whoever's sitting there, they don't care about the NFL. And they're annoyed that wear that into it. So it flipped on me on Christmas. I was just annoyed by Stranger Things. I was excited I didn't see Winona Ryder. She meant a lot to us once upon a time. Linda Hamilton came in at some point from Terminator.

She was playing a bad person. Other than that, if you quiz me on what happened, I don't think I'd be able to answer three questions.

You can't jump into something like that. That's not like Landman or something. There's so many twists and turns and stuff like that. But that, specifically, yeah.

It is so far down the rabbit hole for people who watch the show. It is completely inaccessible to people like us. Oh, right. I had no idea what was happening. No, I had a quick- But I'll tell you this, my kids were fired up and excited for four hours.

They thought it panned out? It played out?

They were mad at the end of the seventh episode that it was... That obviously there's one more coming on New Year's I see. Okay. But they were like, Now we have to wait. It was like one of those.

What are you going to do on New Year's Eve? You're going to have to watch Ohio State play. What was it? It's Ohio State, Miami, while watching the finale.

There's a couple and probably some good basketball Well, too. They decided to get sucked in. I feel like now I know what happens for the most part. I don't want to spoil it. Oh, really? People haven't seen it yet. It hurt my head.

I had to quit because first of all, it was very long. To knock through season 4, or three, whatever it was, it was very long. But people do love it.

The big winner of the show seems to be Kate Bush because they keep playing that song she has.

Yeah.

And they actually weave it into the plot. So she must be delighted that that happened. But anyway, Parent Corner. I tried. I tried to get into it for my kids. It just didn't work. Today's Parent Corner, presented by Greenland to Migration. Where were we? That's right. The sequel. Five years after a comet strike, devastated most of Earth, the Garriety family leaving the safety of their bunker in Greenland in search of a new home. We'll see. We'll see what happens to them. A disaster film. And my guy, Gerard freaking Butler, my guy from Den of Thiefs. What else do you need? Greenland to Migration. In Theater is January ninth rated PG 13. I have a quick NBA thing for you.

Go ahead. And just so people know, this is where I just sit and I nod, and I can't contribute more.

And I furiously look for- Yeah, but you're on our gambling show. You follow the NBA. Of I love it.

I'm not- The Warriors had a really bad...

Warriors had a bad loss today in Toronto. Like a bad one. They controlled the whole game. I actually had it on because we only had two NFL games, so I was watching it, and they just couldn't close, and they just look broken. I don't know what the fix is. No matter how good Steph is, they can't fix it. Toronto wins an OT. They just seem like they've taken whatever iteration is as far as they can go. Then you see the Lakers. I think they're three and six since LeBron came back. He's screwed up their team. Nobody wants to admit it, but it has. Now they have these... Now Reeves is out for a month. The team just got red dick. It seems like he's not handling things great. And I was I was just thinking, how do you make the league more fun? You have a team that nobody's excited about with the Lakers and a team that feels dead with the Warriors. Lebron for Jimmy Butler.

Oh, okay.

That's it. I looked it up because Bronnie probably has to be in it, too, and the Warriors can throw in Will Richard. I sent this to a couple of people, including Zack, who got excited about it, Zack Lo. But it feels like for the good of the sport trade, it's just more fun. The Warriors are not fun. I don't see a scenario where they come from. But now you put LeBron on the team with Curry, LeBron reinvigorated, and who knows? And then Butler is probably a better fit with LeBron and Reeves anyway. I Luca and Reeves anyway.

Who's more likely to say no to Golden State?

I don't know. That's why... Oh, I think Golden State would probably do that. You think so? Because LeBron is an expirant contract in the year. Maybe they throw him one more year. It's a good who says no, though. Because if you're the Lakers, you can lock in the Butler contract for an extra year because all they care about is two years from now. But maybe Butler is a better fit with what they have anyway. Because LeBron doesn't really seem like he wants to be on the Lakers. This is my take.

And then Bronnie has to come over. Does Jimmy Butler's son have to? They do like this. Timmy Butler? He also has to be involved.

If Jimmy Butler has any sons, they also have to be in the trade. Okay.

I think that works.

That was my idea.

I like that. That's all I got for you. Why couldn't you tell me not to bounce back with the Spurs, not bounce back because they had beaten the Thunder on Christmas. But I stupidly took them on a money line parlay against what was it? Jazz.

That was the most obvious loss possible.

Oh, shut up. That was ridiculous.

You know what was another one? I would never bet against the Celtics. But this road trip where it's like, They're only playing under 500 teams. It was like the Portland spot was so dangerous tonight. Of course, they lost in the last two minutes. I'm hearing- Now they're playing the Clippers who are coming on.

They're like four bad teams that are playing well now, right? The Clippers, the Jazz, the Wizards one, the House's Wizards one back to back. Wizards are playing well. The Nets are playing well.

The Nets.

The stupid Hornets.

Porter is playing so well for the Nets that they're going to have to emergency trade him, it looks like. They're going to have to move in the next two weeks before he completely screws up their chance to get a top three pick. There's a lot of teams that are not happy about their team right now, including the Warriors and the Wakers, which is why I thought of it. Anything else before we go?

That's it. We're going to be on with Tate Tuesday, and then Friday. We got a lot of college football to talk, and it's a good time of year. Lots of fun.

All right. Well, we're on our last live show on YouTube. It's going to be next week.

All right.

After week 18, after the NFC West One Seed Showdown, we'll be live. And then starting on the January 11th, Sunday, coming off three NFL games, we'll be live on Netflix for that one. And then- And you'll also be able to get it on Spotify, by the way. It's not exclusively on Netflix. You also have to watch on Spotify.

Yeah, you have to say that.

We're on Netflix and Spotify.

They cut the biggest check. Don't be stupid here. And then in three weeks from then, we're on Tubi I don't know how this works out.

This is going to be good. To be... Those are the classic episodes with us from years past where we're flipping out about terrible best we made.

You'll get to see Simmons' 2007 fantasy team highlight it. Yeah. Video yearbook.

It's like one week I'm eating gluten and the next week I'm not. I'm drinking water and honey. What the hell? What happened? Well, I'm psyched that I beat Pam Bondi because it was a very strange year for a lot of different reasons. But in a lot of ways, I'm glad we're at the end of it. I'm excited for As always, good job at you. Good job at you, buddy. Thanks to Gehow. Thanks to Eduardo as well. I'm going to see you on Tuesday on this feed, and then a special episode of the Rewatchables tomorrow as well. Bye, Sal.

See you, bud.

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