Transcript of A Giants Revival, Browns Believers, a Jets Crash, J-Dub’s Brutal Injury, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

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This is the Bill Simmons Podcast presented by FanDuel. Make every NFL week more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You heard me. Just bet like you normally would, earn points on eligible settled bets, win or lose. Keep collecting points, level up, and unlock bigger rewards. So keep an eye on your Rewards Club progress and see what you can unlock. This is your most rewarding season ever, and it's with FanDuel. 21+ select states or 18+ DC or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. The Bill Simmons Podcast, live on Netflix. Cousin Sal is here after the rare fast Sunday Night Football game. We're going to talk about a bunch of football. Uh, there's some basketball. Sorry, I got to break out my NBA whole cape, Sal. Um, we're going to talk a little basketball later. There was a a really big, sad injury tonight that I didn't get to see.

Understandable.

Yeah. And then I wanted to mention a live rewatchables tomorrow, 5:00 PM Eastern, 2:00 Pacific. We are doing A Nightmare on Elm Street. Me, Chris Ryan, Van Lathan, live. A classic. Van's favorite horror movie franchise. Not my top 2, but my 3rd. It's one of my— what's your favorite horror movie?

Halloween, I think, right?

Yeah, my favorite's Halloween. And then probably Friday the 13th after that.

It's good.

But it's been fun to redo this movie, dive into it, the whole thing. Anyway, speaking of horror movies,

I was just gonna say, the Texans on a teaser, does that count as a horror movie genre?

So, all right, I didn't do well today from a betting or picking or handicapping or anything standpoint. And my question is, is it just one of these seasons now? Because we had a normal result tonight, Chiefs-Seahawks. Yeah. The Seahawks were supposed to win. They needed it. Perfect spot for them. Chiefs were 5-0, didn't totally need it. Offensive line injuries. It's in Seattle. The defense should show up. There are just all these signs. The line's 2.5, 3, 2.5, finally settles at 3. And it's just like, goddamn, year after year, this is just the Seahawks winning on a Sunday night. And yet my confidence was shaken going into it. Even though I had the Seahawks, I was like, I don't know anymore. I don't know. I don't know what to think. Wait, do you feel the same way or no?

Of course. Well, let me just start by saying I went 5-0 with my Ringer 107 picks. But you

did.

I have— listen, every day I'm hustling. That's just how it is. Sorry, I'm a little loopy here.

It's the kidney stones. Yes. And the prescription drugs.

And yet my ledger would tell you very much otherwise. today. It's all these dumb teams. But yeah, tonight was the— it seemed like back when we were in college, we're like, all right, this is gonna be— they're gonna— Mike McDonald's gonna step up, he's gonna have no big plays outta the Chiefs. I didn't know they wouldn't run one play in the red zone, but Chiefs don't need it. Seahawks need it. They put the smackdown on 'em. Good for

them. Well, Darnold throws the interception near the end of the first half.

Yeah.

Seems like they're about to go up 17-nothing or whatever. And it's like, oh, we're doing this again. We can't just have an easy one. I can't have an easy 3 hours. But then it didn't matter. Kansas City couldn't do it.

Donald is like, I feel like he just has to get it out of his system, right? I think he led the league last year in interceptions. And I was thinking, it's like when you invite your mother to dinner and she always has something derogatory to say about your house or how you're spending money or something, then you, then you shoot her a look. And it's over, right? But so she got it out of it. That, that's the Sam Darnold right there with the—

She's— he's the Italian mom.

That's— he's the Italian mom.

Just has to say the one thing.

Right, right, right.

So, so that's how you're gonna handle this Archie thing, huh? And you're like, why, why are you bringing that up?

Not stay out of this.

Stop meddling.

Exactly.

You made Melissa mad.

That's it. You've been listening.

Yeah. He, he can't help it. He's gotta have one. Uh, I was— I had a whole— 'cause I was at halftime, I didn't know if they're gonna blow this game. And I was looking back at Mark Rippon because that, that's the perfect analogy for what the, where this could go wrong for Donald this year. Rippon had that incredible season.

Oh, that's good.

17 wins. He was 17-2 on the '92 Reds or '91 Redskins, 32 touchdowns, lights out, deep balls connecting 'em all year.

Yep.

And then the next year, 14 TDs, 20 interceptions, including the playoffs. They go like 9-7. They lose in round 1 or round 2.

That's a great comp. I didn't even think of that.

It's just like a 1-year wonder. Yeah. And you kind of knew it as it was happening. Now in Darnold's case, he was also good in Minnesota, but then it collapsed the last couple weeks. But I don't know how much to blame him or how to blame the fact that they really only have one guy to throw to. It's like, it's like they're just these elaborate ways of just getting JSN open. He's in motion, cutting back in, he's trying to shed double teams and he has nobody, nowhere else to go. Right. Yeah.

I felt the same way. And like when he didn't score the one time he scored, it was close, right? He put the ball over the pylon, they gave it to him the second time he was out at the 2. And that's when Darnold threw, I'm like, he's gotta score. He's gotta start scoring.

Otherwise you have to get it in.

But it's a little better because that Wilson went for 100 yards today, right? Yeah. The Holloman, they, they ran the ball well, which was the, which was the big difference. So,

well, Collinsworth was all over the Chiefs in the 4th quarter, like feeling like their spirit was broken a little.

Yeah.

I don't think big picture this game really mattered one way or the other. You know, they have a weird situation with that Josh Simmons though, who's supposed to be their left tackle this year.

Right.

And just has not played. And there's been all kinds of scuttlebutt and what's going on here. And then this week they very suspiciously leaked out a, a story that made him look bad about him putting his feet up on the table and Mahomes and Reid were mad about it. They kicked him outta the meeting. And so it does seem like that situation's going well, but their right tackle was hurt today too. So if they don't have the tackles on top of, you know, they've had some wide receiver injuries, I don't know, maybe they don't, maybe they don't win the AFC West. I still think they make the playoffs, right?

Yeah, I think so. What, the previously undefeated Chiefs, we don't think might not make the playoffs? No, of course.

No, I'm not worried. That's my point. I'm not worried about them.

Yeah, I'm not either. I just think, you know, But

what's crazy is Denver's right behind them now.

Oh yeah.

Denver's a game back. Denver has, they basically have scored as many points as they've given up. I don't feel good when I watch them. Like they beat the Cardinals today. I didn't feel great about it. It was only one of the 3 games we had in the late afternoon window, but right. I didn't watch it going, oh, they've solved it. Here they come. Like, you know, they got this lucky Bo Nix 77-yard scramble and no, the Cardinals were moving the ball.

Yeah.

So I don't know. I, I guess the Chiefs will hold on.

Nobody else in that division's doing anything. Yeah. I mean, listen, just get that, you know, that pansy Butker back in the kitchen where he belongs and they, they should, you know, they can move on from there. But yeah, no, I feel like we're comparing those 2 teams. I think we've seen a lot more better games outta the Chiefs than Denver, but who the hell knows?

Well, you look at the AFC and you have 2 playoff teams, I think Buffalo and New England. We'll come back to the NFC North in a second. AFC South, it looks like it's gonna be Jacksonville only.

Yeah.

And then in the West, KC and, and I guess Denver, 'cause they have 5 wins, they, they only need to get 5 more. So then it, it, it gives you 2 spots up for grabs here with Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and Baltimore who have a combined 18 wins.

Right.

So if you had to keep 2 and get rid of 2, which 2 would you keep?

I can't believe I'm saying it, but I was looking at Cleveland's numbers and their schedule and everything else.

Schedule's amazing.

And they're a plus— what the hell are they? They're +180 to make the playoffs. And they have the Saints and they have the Steelers next week who they already beat. They have the Raiders in there. You know, there's—

I'll give it to you. What's Steve Mike and the Mad Dog?

Do it, do it.

Well, at Pittsburgh next week will be hard.

That is a loss only because they won already at Pittsburgh.

They beat them. Now I don't see them beating them twice.

Yeah.

At New Orleans, who I think is pretty bad, and they're, they're gonna come up later when we do cross-offs.

When

they probably split those, right? So that makes them 5 and 3. Home Houston.

Well, I mean, why couldn't they beat them?

Why not

score 20 points? You're good.

Home Vegas, home Cincinnati, and they have a bye week in there, so they're basically home for a month.

Yeah.

That feels like 3 or 4, 4 losses maybe at that point.

Right.

Home Atlanta, at Giants, at Baltimore, home Indianapolis.

Yeah. Giants Indianapolis.

That's Cincinnati. So you might get to 10 wins.

Cincinnati might not need that, you know, at that point too at the end. That, that would be my, that would be my like lean right there. I don't know, +188 I have for that.

So they had, Cleveland has a couple weird things going. I didn't expect to talk about them this early, but one, One of them is Deshaun. I wrote down, 'cause he had another game-winning drive.

Yeah.

And if you have it on the multi-view for the, for the 3 hours, he's just terrible at quarterbacking. Like, he's just not good. Like, but he somehow threw for 308 today. You never feel good about it.

Right.

But then when they has the ball with a chance to decide the game, I now have confidence in him. So I was thinking like, is he like a restaurant? where the appetizers are terrible and the entrees are terrible, but you're really going for the dessert.

Yeah.

It's like, oh no, no, no, just forget. Don't be— the dessert's amazing. He's got this carrot cake, he's got cannolis. He's basically dessert Deshaun.

I like it. Yeah. Order the chocolate soufflé. Make sure you order it 45 minutes before the entree. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're gonna be sorry. Yeah. I was watching, I actually had the audio on it towards the end and the CBS play-by-play guy, I think it's, I think it's Andrew Catalan said, yet again, Deshaun Watson sparkles in the 4th quarter. And, and he wasn't being sarcastic. No, he was, he was being dead serious. And I'm like, who is Deshaun? Who is Andrew Catalan? Who is Deshaun? Who is anybody? What's going on here?

You— there was another part of that. They came outta commercial and they showed the Deshaun Watson 4th quarter comeback montage.

Yeah, right.

And it was like a minute long. And they're like, week 3, week 4, week 6. They just kept going through 'em. It's like, what the fuck? We in the Twilight Zone? What's happening here?

It's ridiculous.

Listener Brian S pointed out Browns-Bengals, which that's going to be week 13, possible flex. They might be flexing a Browns-Bengals game into Sunday night.

Oh yeah.

Think about that. That, so that goes back to my original point, which is like this season, I don't know who the best team is. We could talk about the, the Super Bowl odds on FanDuel. Mm-hmm.

I have no idea who

I would bet. You don't either. No. I, I like, who's your favorite team right now? If you like, gun to the head, if you had to pick a team to win the Super Bowl, who would you pick?

I just, I guess the Bills. I don't know. I guess the Bills. I would, I would stick with the Bills. Rams. I know. What are you gonna do? There's like flaws with all the, all these teams. I have to say the Chiefs. Who, who else in the AFC? The Ravens are underneath them. Who Lamar might not ever come back. We may not find out because apparently he doesn't have an agent. So You don't know until Saturday if he's playing or not, ever. Really weird.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I might say the Bears. Yeah, I was really impressed by them last week. I thought the Pats played pretty well, you know, and the Bears kind of just beat them. But there was a lot of stuff in the pregame shows and the Sunday Info Guys this week about the Bears are going to be really aggressive here at the trade deadline.

Yeah,

and if they add a couple things on top of what they have, I, I actually think they could be really good.

He's excellent.

He's excellent.

By the way, I, I think Pelissero could do the right thing and step aside and let me come on the BS pod after a Patriots loss. It's, it's just, you know, I know I should have

bumped him.

Yeah.

I'm sorry. So yeah, I'll tell him next time.

But he is, Caleb is excellent. I think when he avoids that first rush, that first level of rush and steps up and guns it, like I'm as confident in him as anyone else. And

rooting against that dude is really, it's, it really sticks it to you the way that Mahomes used to do earlier in his career. Are you worried about Mahomes? Do you feel like he's the same when you watch him? Does he seem like the same guy to you?

No, I feel like he is the same. I feel like the rolling right, throwing left over the middle, all that stuff, scrambling for first downs. It just wasn't, it just wasn't in the cards tonight. Just wasn't gonna happen.

They have the 3rd best odds on FanDuel right now. The odds are Buffalo 6-to-1, Niners +650. It looked like they were gonna lose McCaffrey for 10 minutes today in that game. Right. Then he emerged outta the blue tent. KC 10-to-1, Rams 11-to-1, Seattle 11-to-1, Baltimore 11-to-1, Jacksonville 12-to-1, Bears 15-to-1 are probably the realistic ones. Man, I, I, Seattle would be the other one. That I would think about because I think they could add a receiver before the trade deadline and they're gonna get their running backs back.

Mm-hmm.

They're gonna get Price back and Charbonnet back and they're 4-3 and really could be 6-1, 5-2. They could be 7-0 with a, you know, with a couple plays. So I think, I think that, and I think your, your instincts are right about Buffalo. It feels like the Niners have had too many injuries and the Chiefs just had a pretty easy schedule here until this game today. Yeah. So I need to see a little more from them too.

Do you, name you didn't read a little bit further down, the Bengals at 19-to-1, who, I mean, that was—

what happened to them in that first half?

Well, I think what happened, it was sort of like a tale of 2 games. One before I tweeted terrible things about Joe Burrow and then one right, right after I pressed send. Like that's kind of how it, it worked. I think we were texting about 'em too and it's like, what? But they didn't have the ball. They just didn't have the ball at all. And Snoop Huntley was great. He had like 3 3rd and long conversions in the first quarter and a half, you know what I mean? So

yeah,

then once I got the ball, they, they seemed like they weren't too panicked and that was that.

Yeah, I wrote in my notes, Burrow rope-a-doped everyone on Twitter.

Yeah.

Halftime came and it was like, Joe Burrow, what's going on? And it just was a Joe Burrow roast for 15 minutes.

Right.

And then in the second half he was 16 for 18 for 249 yards with 4 touchdowns. They had 5 touchdown drives. There was a weird— Baltimore was down 14-13, 4th quarter, 4th and 2 on the 12, and they didn't kick the field goal.

Yeah.

And got an incompletion. And I actually would've kicked the field goal 'cause I just thought they needed points and they needed to— now you say like, well, Cincinnati scored 5 times, what would the field goal mean? But it just felt like a momentum thing. They needed to grab something back. Moment they didn't get that, it felt like the game was over. Baltimore, 17 double-digit blown leads in the 2020s. Shil Kapadia had this. This year, they're +65 in the first half, which is first, and -70 in the second half, which is—

Wow.

32nd. Which leads to a listener named Mark Kapan. I think that's how you say it. Said they've led in 6 of the 7 halftimes, including all 3 losses. Asking you, you had the Steelers special, which doesn't really exist anymore.

Oh, the other way.

Is there a reverse? Yeah. Is there Ravens win the first half, lose the game, and then what do we call it?

I like that.

He suggests the Ravens regression, but that's not fun enough.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

You don't have to come up with it now. Maybe, maybe on—

Everything I'm thinking of is unspeakable now. I can't say. Yeah. But no, I think you're right. There is—

Ravens halftime fuck job. Yeah. Work on that. Work that.

I mean, there's another one. They're the 3rd team in the NFL, in NFL history to lose a game by 20+ after leading by 13+ at halftime. Did you say that or something? It happened in 1950 and 1941 were the last 2 times. The only 2 times.

I'm not that concerned about Baltimore. I mean, the bigger question to me is how many times can Lamar just disappear for like a month?

Yeah. Well, isn't that a concern? Like, that's crazy. Yeah.

But he is coming back. They're 4-3. They've got a lot of time left. They have Cleveland in front of them who I don't think anybody, even though, you know, we didn't talk about Cleveland a ton, but the, I think their defensive line is really good. They have some good skill guys. They were able to run the ball today. Judkins finally got going for them. You know, they have, they have kind of good players on both sides of the ball. When you need like somebody like Denzel Ward, you're like, oh, that guy's good.

Swesher. Yeah.

Swesher. He's good.

It's tough with the Titans 'cause that team should never win 2 games in a row. So, you know, you take it with a grain of salt, but they did stop 'em at first and goal from the 2. You know, those were, you know, that, that this defense is remarkably Capable without, you know, without Garrett and what, whatever's going on here. So I think they, they're doing a good job. But yeah, the Ravens, they're just not gonna win these games if Henry's putting up 45 yards. These Lamar-less games, they're just never gonna win 'em.

Have the Browns scored more points than they've given up this year?

Yes, but not by much. No,

they have not. They have not.

Really? Oh, is that important?

Usually a bad, usually a bad sign.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Not a great sign. But I do think they have a cold weather team, so when it gets cold, that's pretty good for them. Maybe they have a trade in them. I don't know if they'd get frisky, but they have a bunch of picks. So you have them, you have Pittsburgh who's 5-2.

Yeah.

Who won this stupid Paris game today that I didn't— did you wake up for this? I, I flew back from Boston last night. and set the alarm for 7:30. I, I missed the first hour and I, it was one of those, I don't feel like I'm gonna miss much here between New Orleans and the Steelers. It's part of my, I could probably catch up fast.

Yeah. You, you made the right move, but it's part of my parent corner. But yeah, that was a, a French, that was a French boar fest. Like, like Andre the Giant sitting on his opponent for 12 minutes while he took a nap after being drunk like that. Just, I don't know. It was a, it was a rough watch.

I think the London games were really good.

Mm-hmm.

And now we've shifted the terrible games to, I guess, to the French.

French. Yeah.

And then we had the same announcing crew we've had for a couple of these other overseas games. And I, I, I can't get there with Jason Kelce. I think he's good at other things, but I, I don't think as a game analyst, I'm not seeing it.

I think

this is my take. Maybe my coffee hadn't kicked in and I was less forgiving, but I, Did not— I did not think the 3-man booth was very good.

Well, there's only like 3 of them that renewed their passports, and so they keep sending the same people. Like, it just seems like such a weird clerical thing. But yeah, with our, like, I don't know, our Chuck buddy can only do so much if they're running the ball like 18 yards. Like, I think they have 1.1 rush per attempt, but he, he can't hand off because his left— his fingers on his left hand busted or something.

So yeah.

It was a rough one, but their defense is very good. The Steelers, like they had like big boy plays, pass deflections. Patrick Queen, that Payton Wilson had a great interception. So

it's a very good defense if they're playing a crappy offense.

Yeah, that's true.

The Saints were 17 rushes for 18 yards. This Jaylen Warren thing, he's, he's becoming a fantasy, not an MVP, but definitely first team All-NBA. He's 583 yards his last 6 weeks.

First-team NBA, really?

Well, I'm saying if we had a first-team All-NBA for fantasy guys. Oh, okay.

I mean, he just seems like he has such a burst in him that he maybe didn't have last year, or maybe I wasn't paying attention, but they're probably gonna be 6-2 heading into the bye unless they get swept by the Browns next week.

You know who I think should have done the Paris game from an announcing standpoint?

Go ahead.

Who? Buck and Aikman. I can't get enough of this. This is— Buck and Aikman is the most riveting thing I've ever seen. They did— I watched the Monday night when, when they go to them before the game and you're just trying to interpret every, every little, uh, thing going on. It's really, really something.

Yeah.

Haven't had that a lot. That Boomer Esiason and Al Michaels hated each other, but I don't think we found out about that till after.

No, this is a weird thing. They're not gonna make out anytime soon either, I don't think.

Doesn't sound like it. It sounds like Troy's on his way out. So we have, so those are the 2 5-2 teams, and then we have Cincinnati, and we have Baltimore. So I, it's weird. I would still, I would still bet on Cincinnati and Baltimore out of those 4. I'd bet on the pedigree, but Pittsburgh keeps putting, filing away these wins. And Rodgers, I gotta say, looks, looks okay.

Sure.

Like certainly better than I thought. He, you know, he scrambles around, he still has a good arm. He can whip it down when he has time to set his feet and actually uncork it. He can, throw it 50 yards.

So no doubt. And look, McCarthy's a good coach. Like, they could, you know, they're— if they're 6-2 after next week, they'll probably figure out a way to get 4. The problem is you look at these schedules and it's like, whoa, it's gonna get tough for them. Like, no, 'cause the Texans aren't a tough team. The Ravens are beatable. I'm looking at their schedule, right? So like, when they're +120 to make the playoffs, like, they can win 4 games the rest of the way.

I can't wait to talk about the Texans later. We have some hilarious records this year. The Vikings are 6-0.

Yeah.

Even their own fans aren't buying this 6-0 Viking thing.

Right.

Browns and Steelers both 5-2. 3-3 Carolina has 2 losses of 20+ points and they're also leading the NFC South even though they got torched today.

Yeah.

Houston, Philly, Dallas, and Tampa are all 2+ games under .500. The Rams are still under .500 and the Chargers are 0-6. They are our last winless team.

Wow.

That's just some of the stuff that's happening this year and we're only 7 weeks in. So listen, sometimes we have weird years and I just feel like we're in the middle of a weird year.

I'm trying to look at the positive. You and I always go through this and usually it doesn't hit till November or December, but there are like 5 or 6 playoff teams that I'm foaming at the mouth to bet against and they'll probably all play against each other and they'll, they'll get screwed up and we'll get stuck. Yeah. But the Vikings are high on that list for me.

Well, I had them in a tease today.

Yeah.

Which their side won. Had to root for Kyler Murray for 3 hours. Mm-hmm. You just never feel confident when he takes off. It's like, no, Kyler, no. When he throws deep, I don't think it's going to a receiver. You know, every once in a while he'll scamper around and you feel pretty good. But for the most part, it's, it's a pretty harrowing experience. And it's not like they don't have good receivers. Right. Like they have Jefferson, Hockenson. But it's, it's, he was sweating it out. Meanwhile, the Colts had Daniel Jones who finished 13 for 22 for 120, had the game-ending pick. And then Shane Steichen said afterwards, I still believe in Daniel Jones. So he's the, he's the one person because I don't think anybody else does.

He believes he exists. I believe in like, you know, you believe in Santa.

He believes he's still a human being, that he's alive. But, but they, Minnesota, 275 yards, 3 for 11 on first down. Murray threw for 150 yards. They still won. None of it mattered. And, but if you watch the game, it felt like the Colts had figured out the Flores thing in that first hour. It's like, we're just gonna run the ball, run the ball. We're gonna control the clock. Murray's one mistake will come and we're gonna win this game like 17-13. And had all the makings and they just couldn't pull it off. Did you think Minnesota was gonna win that game?

I had the Colts as my big upset special and which I, I, I haven't hit all year. I mean, it's probably, well, how many, 80 upsets this year? More? Yeah. And I can't, I can't get away. And he didn't need to, right? He, what did he need to do to win that game? He, he barely went over 100 yards passing, like you said, and that was fine. I, I felt like there were a couple sacks that a veteran like him, I, I know he's not taking off for 20 anymore, but he, he could have avoided those sacks and they were 100% his fault. Meanwhile, Brian Flores' defense basically asked Kyler Murray to, to throw for 150 yards and run like scamper for 20 and they're golden. Really amazing what's going on there.

Here's what I don't get, and I know this is gonna be a topic all week. So they had JJ McCarthy, they drafted him with a top 10 pick. They gave up on him basically during the start of this year. They telling us he's a sunk cost, right? Just to get his salary off to give him to the Giants and he's immediately resuscitated. And if you watch that game today, which I watched every play of 'cause I had Houston in everything.

Yeah.

JJ McCarthy was legitimately good, like the entire game. He was really good. He was creating extra time for himself. The ball was on time. He was scrambling at the right times. Like, I thought he had a really, really good game against a Houston defense that has been, you know, incredibly disappointing, but it was still on the road. He had, he just, he managed the game but also made plays. And I just don't understand the, the QB whisperer, Kevin O'Connell. I don't understand how this didn't work. And, and how does he still get that title? He's the QB whisperer,

right?

But he gave up this guy who now is immediately good on the Giants.

Yeah.

You lose the title in my opinion. That's got— the title's gone.

I think it looks for— honestly, if you think about it, I didn't until you brought it up. For an undefeated coach, is he getting the most crap and probably deservedly so for not being able to recruit JJ McCarthy, make him a top what he is with the Giants apparently. A and B, Brian Flores gets all the credit for this Vikings, uh, on the— Right.

He's got, he got cucked by his own team.

Yeah. It's unbelievable.

He's in the cuck chair wondering what happened.

Could he

be like, I'm the head coach, I'm 6-0. It's like, no, no, you fucked up the quarterback thing. This is all Flores.

It's gonna be first coach fired. They let him go Monday. What do they do? I don't know if he makes a trip back.

Controversial move by the Vikings. Kevin O'Connell, 7-0. But if I was the Vikings owner, I would be losing my mind.

Sure.

I'd be watching that Giants thing like, are you fucking kidding me?

Yeah,

you guys told me to draft this guy. We had— he got hurt his first year, you punted on him after he got hurt again last year. You were telling me he was a, he was a lemon, and now I just watched him win in Houston as 10-point underdogs. What are we doing?

Cut him. They were gonna cut him in the preseason or early in the year. Like, it was, it was, it was ridiculous. But also McCarthy had all the confidence he has now And, but none of the goods. So I, I know I, I don't understand the KOC part of it, but I am jealous of this team. I'm gonna say it. I mean, JJ slinging it with the way he does it, he does, you know, he does his thing just throwing over D-backs and everything, getting it to neighbors. Yeah. Then they have this nice thing on 3rd and 4th and 1 with Jameis coming in. The defense is playing well.

Touch, push.

God, I hate it. I hate it all.

What's up? We'll talk about the Giants. We're gonna take a break, come back, do a cross-off team, and we'll talk about that Giants game next. The Bill Simmons Podcast brought to you by FanDuel. Monday Night Football just got a lot more rewarding with FanDuel Rewards Club. You can unlock exclusive offers throughout the NFL season, including Monday Night Football. Talking profit boosts, promotions, more ways to get rewarded on the matchups you're already watching. Whether you're building a same-game parlay around the game or betting on your favorite player props, there's plenty to get in on. Sadly, they won't let you bet on icy silences between Troy Aikman and Joe Buck. But maybe you can do that on your own. On FanDuel, you can bet the Eagles who are gonna be like +160 or higher as a moneyline bet. You can take that moneyline and put it with a whole bunch of stuff, try to build a same-game parlay, whatever you wanna do. Before Monday Night Football kicks off, kick— head to the FanDuel app, check out what's available for your level. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. 21+ select states or 18+ DC or Wyoming.

Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer sponsor of the NBA and legitimately my favorite beer. I was drinking them at Fenway Park actually recently. It's tip-off and I can't wait to see in person. The best thing for me is when the new guys come in the league and you get to go check 'em out for the first time. Like when Wemby came in a couple years ago. We have a great rookie class this year. I wanna see Cam Boozer in person. I wanna see Dibansa in person. I wanna see Darren Peterson in person. I'm excited for all of these dudes. And I think that's my favorite thing about when the season starts, those first couple months when the newer guys start coming in and then getting to see the old guys too. Your old friends like Curry is a, is a can't miss. I gotta go see him in person every year. So I think it's reuniting with old people you loved watching and then Seeing the new blood too. But when I'm at the game, nothing better than watching one with a Michelob Ultra, uh, a superior light beer with a distinctly smooth taste.

Uh, gets nice and cold. Just good times. Good news for fans, Michelob Ultra giving you a chance to watch the game you love this season in person with courtside tickets and more. So enter now at michelobultra.com/courtside. And maybe, maybe you'll luck out. Mickalow Ultra Courtside 26 to 27, no purchase necessary, open to US residents 21+. Begins on October 1st, 2026, ends on June 30th, 2027. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at mickalowultra.com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and details. One last thing on the Colts, who we were talking about earlier against the Vikings. The fire sale is officially here with them since they're outta the playoffs. Jonathan Taylor, Quinnen Nelson, Buckner. We'll see, we'll see who ends up going for there. But we did cross the Colts off last week. This is becoming my favorite segment. We've been doing it for 12 years. For some reason I've enjoyed it the most this year.

We've crossed off— We made a graphic to see, but oh, like, oh, that's what that looks like. That's nice. Yeah.

We, we made our Carly, our Carly, whatever her name is graphic. Yeah. We have crossed off Miami, Tennessee, the Chargers, Arizona, and the Colts. We've already all crossed off.

Mm-hmm.

I think it's the Jets now. You wanna do the Jets last week?

Yeah.

And the Jets really made a strong case that it should have been last week, but even if it's a week late, it's the Jets.

Well, I was worried they were gonna win this week. That's why I wanted to cross 'em off last week. 'Cause I'm like, ah, it's gonna be hard to cross 'em off after a win against Miami. And guess what happened? They didn't effing beat Miami. About 156 rushing yards to the Dolphins and no interceptions again. And yeah, man, I agree. Listen, Aaron Glenn, can you smell the fumes from the Sharpie? Because we're about to cross you off. Should we have a, like, a sing-songy thing? We're about to cross you off.

Like Tom Jackson.

Yeah, that's it.

He was crossed off. Aaron Glenn is 0-8 against the AFC East. He's 5-19 overall as a starter. He said after the game he had a— he, he said he understood why the fans were upset.

Oh,

but he said, man, this program is going in the right direction. They're, they're showing the stat everywhere now about them in the last 2 minutes in the Aaron Glenn era where it's like

107-6.

Yeah. Tomlin talked about it in the pregame.

Yeah.

And he said, if that, if that was my team, we would just be doing 2-minute drill practices all day, every day until we fix this. I don't know if Aaron has thought of that, but

is he

even

on the field? Maybe he's going to the clubhouse early. Maybe he's taking an early halftime and leaving the team.

He runs, he's like my dad at a soccer game. He runs off to pee.

There's a bathroom break. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, anyway, the Jets have been crossed off. We, we did do a poll to see if everybody thought that was

What do they say?

The right call. Well, we'll— Gahal will tell us in a second. Okay. Giants. So the Giants are now 4-2-1.

Yeah.

We were worried we might not have an NFC East team get to 8 wins, but I, I'm trying not to overreact. I thought the Giants looked really good today.

It's very weird.

I was genuinely impressed. Like, it, this was not an upset. Like, first of all, them being 10.5-point underdogs, if you actually watched all 3 hours of that game, was absurd. They were dead even and probably even a little more talented. They rushed 4 and basically were able to get a pass rush with the 4 guys. Carter was incredible. They, they made Stroud, who has been awesome this year, look really bad the whole game.

Mm-hmm.

They shut down Nico Collins completely. Diontae Banks shut him down. Carter was all over the place. McCarthy was really good, like we mentioned. And then Nabers had his 4th straight 100-yard game. And Harbaugh, who we made fun of before the season a bunch of times, and I wasn't buying the whole thing, but man, his whole thing where he benched Scadaboo and didn't give him any carries last week, then Najee Harris sounded— they waived him this week. They had Tyrone Tracy in there. Scadaboo got the— got all of a sudden he's back and he's running like a maniac. He played this game perfectly. And I gotta hand it to 'em. That was like a real, real impressive win by them. I was impressed.

They beat, they beat 'em up. They had almost twice as much yardage. They had, they won time of possession by 10 minutes. They really got beaten up as double-digit favorites. And yeah, Skadaboo is nuts. I, I, I think I have a theory on Skadaboo though, on why he has these big gainers. I think the defenders feel bad for him because he's, you know, he's like,

he's slow.

He's special. Yeah.

Yeah.

So you see it all the time. Like you give the, special needs kid a free layup and stuff like that. I think that's what's going on with him. I don't feel like, I, I don't know that he knows he's playing a team sport, to be honest with you. But I, like I said, I'm jealous of all of them.

He does a backflip after he scores.

He pushed his own teammate out of the way so he could do a front flip. But

front flip.

Yeah. And then, but, and none of this involves Jackson Dart, who was gonna be their savior. Bizarre.

They're gonna be, they're gonna have a real issue if McCarthy looks like he did today for the rest of the season with the Jackson Dart piece. Because that's exactly for the kind of Harbaugh team. That's what, that was Michigan McCarthy. That's everything we heard about the guy and he was just doing it and he had some swagger to him too. The, the OT, I gotta mention the, the Texans come back, they scored near the end. Mm-hmm. Tie the game. We go to OT, the Texans get the ball first. These were the plays. This is how the Texans lost in overtime. Horrible run play. Thibodeaux drops, he drops a pick that CJ threw right to him. Yeah. And there's a Houston hold on the play, so they'll go backward. Next play, CJ throws it up for grabs. Punt. Nabers, 9-yard catch. Scadaboo, long run. Singletary, long touchdown run. Game's over. This was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, a 7-play overtime where both teams had the ball. It was an improbable embarrassing rollover by the Texans. Yeah. Really bad.

Yeah. I'm trying to think if, whatever, I'll never be able to recall it, but for a double-digit favorite getting the ball in overtime against a tired defense, you probably wouldn't have a more disappointing result in the way that overtime went.

Would you have gone for 2 when you scored if you were Houston?

I might. I don't wanna play No, probably not. Okay. I think you would've had—

I wouldn't have either. I thought they had the momentum. Yeah. And I thought it felt like, oh my God, the Giants blew this. Why did they let this happen? Yeah. But Marvin Harrison, 1 catch, 6 snaps. That's the other thing when you talk about like the Texans, they're own— who are 0-4 at home this year, by the way.

Mm-hmm.

2-5 overall. And they spend a 2nd round pick on Harrison with Tank Dell coming back.

Right.

Even though they had Noel and Collins and all these guys, they can't block.

Yeah.

They couldn't block the Giants the whole, the whole day. They, the running back was basically Woody Marks or bust.

Right.

I just don't under— I didn't really totally understand that trade when it happened, but then when you watched the game today, it was like, that's clearly not what they needed was one more receiver.

Yeah.

They can't block. I would've, I would've tried to get like an awesome tight end or even waited 2 weeks, but just really strange trade. Well, not as bad as the Chase Claypool trade, which is still—

oh yeah.

The worst, the worst wide receiver trade of all time, but bad.

Yeah, Clay J. Yeah. Well, but it begs the question, so they're gonna, they're 2-5, they have a bye. Have we ever crossed anyone off on their bye? What if we're just stuck next week? This team's not going anywhere. We don't have to decide now, but they have a defensive-minded coach.

Can 9-8 make the playoffs in the AFC or does it have to be 10 wins?

I just think with these dumb teams like the Steelers and Browns sticking around. I think you'd have to have a strong 9-8 to beat 'em. Well, and I'm trying to think who they've lost to already. Texas.

I think it has to be 10-7. So 10-7 means they have to go 8-2 down the stretch. But we do this every year. We have the stats. Yeah. There's always the second half team that goes,

all

right, 7-2, 8-1. I can't, I don't know. I wouldn't cross them off.

All right. I'm just saying not, not yet, but wait till they have their bye. be even less impressed.

Can I, I gotta tell you something that's gonna chill you to the very core.

Hmm.

You know, the Knicks win the title in June.

I knew that though. Yeah.

Most New York fans, I mean, I would say the majority are Knicks, Giants, Yankees.

Mm-hmm.

So you have the Knicks now leading into the Giants resurgence and then culminating in the Yankees. That's my fear. The Giants having this improbable run now. And that specific fan base, it— this is like a great run for them.

Oh, you know, really?

My sports cluster theory.

I know,

I'm just, I'm just worried the Knicks— now the Knicks are in a tailspin already, they're 0-3, and they're— it's been a bad title defense. But I'm a little—

yeah, I was thinking the other way when Dart went down. It's like, oh, this is what New York had to sacrifice to get the Knicks a title. But the sacrifice— I, I thought this was a just a way to, um, compliment me or or, uh, congratulate me on 40 years of the Mets on the Buckner play today, but apparently that's not what you're going for.

Was that today?

Yeah, 40 years. Yeah, our buddy Gus sent it this morning.

Didn't mean I clicked on it. I saw Buckner bent over. I wasn't— I didn't know what that was.

You hadn't seen it before?

All right. Yeah. So we have division leaders in the NFC: Giants, Minnesota, Carolina by default, and San Francisco. Then we have the Bears are 5-2, Detroit is 4-2, Green Bay and Seattle are 4-3 each. And there's basically, those are gonna be the 8 playoff teams. Yeah. With the NFC South representative in the Carolina spot. But I would say the Giants, I think that, I think that would be the team I would bet on in the NFC East now. Like, I think I would actually bet on this.

What's their win total? 'Cause they have that dumb tie in there, right?

So they're +160 right now. Do you like your team or their team more? Dallas is +150, Giants are +160.

No, I told you I'm jealous of this team. This team. Yeah. So their overall under is 7.5. So can they get to 8-1? Oh yeah. Right.

The Giants.

Yeah. At this point,

I thought one of the things, one of the reasons I was scared of them as a sleeper this year because they were the obvious worst, the first pick. But I, their schedule is really hard. But now you look at the schedule, like they haven't played Philly yet, but now Philly doesn't have Hurts. So you have 2 Philly games without Hurts right now. They go at Philly, home Washington as the next 2. So that could be 6-2-1. Home Jacksonville, at Indianapolis, which looked like a scary game but now isn't. Home San Francisco, at Seattle. Home Cleveland, which is a harder game than we thought, at Dallas, at Detroit, and home Philly. But they can—

But no one has an impossible schedule, right? Because everyone's got this bunched up with teams that just fell off, right?

But I think they'll at least get to 9-7-1.

Yeah, yeah. I'm looking at 8-8. That's gonna have to be a hedge for me. 8-8-1 is -130. I like that.

Can your team get to 9-7-1? Can your team get to 10-

This year,

your team can't get to 10-7 this year. I don't think—

I, I wouldn't— yeah, I wouldn't bet on that.

You could get to 9-8 maybe.

Oh, I hate this.

Giants.

Freaking Giants. My God.

Uh, Lions-Packers.

That was a bummer.

Smack missed a 26-yarder or a 35-yarder. There were 2 abominable roughing the passers. There was a penalty where the referee got— the guy continued to tackle and the referee got knocked over and threw the flag on his back. I have, uh, my Packer friend Chip Kane, my roommate, big Brewers fan. Brewers up 2-nothing. But, uh, he said he's claiming he's never gonna watch football again. This is the second time the Packers have been hosed.

Hmm.

What does the league have against the Packers? This, it is funny that the 2 worst officiated NFL games this year, the Packers were the team holding their ankles for both games.

Yeah.

I don't have an explanation for that, but Jacobs dropped a TD. Dan Campbell gave them that crazy 4th and 1 from my own 24 that then the nerds are like, no, no, no, that was the right move. It's like, ah, pretty sure that wasn't the right move.

I hate that. I hate it. Yeah.

It wasn't the right move cuz A, they didn't get it and B, they gave them the ball on the 24 and C, as they were doing it, I was like, what are you guys doing? Just punt.

Right.

But the, the Bundo who was on the side of, was like, no, no, no, it's good. 'Cause then you get the hammer. Whoever has the ball last wins. Listen, so then Green Bay, 'cause they won, it worked out.

Green Bay could have played that right where they wasted all the Lions timeouts and been up 7 with like a minute and a half left. And then does that count as you having the hammer back? Like they, they just, they screwed up. They had a kicker, by the way, smack is the opposite of getting the game ball. Like All right. The game,

the

game smack goes to our kicker who is laughable and it's gonna be cut first thing in the morning. Matt LaFleur says, Trey Smack, come on over here. Let me slap you around a little bit. So I think that's, that's it.

But yeah, smack of the day.

Yeah. Smack. I, I, I had high hopes for this game and it just on paper was the best on the board and it just sucked for all those reasons. You said Gibbs dancing around at the end, you know, not scoring that, almost spraining his ankle. Yeah. Like not even getting the first down the first time. You said like the officiating was all over the place. Like,

how about the Packers jump offsides on the biggest play of the game?

Yeah, right.

So we don't even get to see them try to, you know, get the ball back, something. They didn't even give us that.

I just think with, you know, with the Dan Campbell thing, like we don't have to rewind to 1958 where everyone punted on 4th and 2 from the +35, but maybe let's scale it back to 2006, like a couple decades ago when Every coach wasn't—

yeah, 2013.

Yeah. Wasn't lose— wasn't an absolute maniac passing on easy 3-pointers. Right. Lions could have gone up 6 at one point. They went for it, stepping on the gas on 4th and anything from anywhere. Like, let's just calm down a little bit. The hell?

I say, I feel like I say this 3 times a year and I've been saying it 3 times a year since probably 2008. I, I'm not 100% against going it going for it there. But I think that has to be like your best play.

Sure.

And the play they ran was this slow starting run from Gibbs way in the backfield, right? Where by the time he had the ball, 5 guys were in the backfield with him and the play had no chance from the get-go. And it's like, if that's your play, punt,

right?

Like you like that. That's super arrogant that you're gonna do that. But if you're gonna do the play action rollout or like, oh, the tight end, or the wide receiver in motion and the quick flip, but there was no ingenuity at all. So I, I just thought the whole thing was just—

Play before it was bad too, right? It was the high screen pass that almost like shouldn't have even been caught. But yeah.

Well, they still had 415 yards and 26 first downs and probably deserved to win, but the Packers could have stolen it. One thing to mention with the Lions, which I've been monitoring and I keep bringing up, Gibbs had 34 touches today for 143 rushing receiving.

I know you like this.

Yeah. He's at 166 now through 6 games. So Dan Campbell's basically like, this guy will never be the same after this year. And I don't really care. I'm just, he's basically taking the car. He's driving him 110 miles an hour cross-country because he's got a good radar detector. And he is like, I think I could get across country in 4 days and he's just gonna ruin his engine.

Yeah.

And that's what he's doing to Gibbs like that. Like To me, that's— if he's on pace for over 500 touches in a regular season, not to mention the playoffs, that's insanity. So it's a long season. He's gonna get hurt. He— and I think he got hurt at the end of the game today, but he will get hurt.

Yeah. And they had Montgomery last year so they could like split the, split the carry. But I was, I'm looking at these 2 teams and do you think Detroit's a lot better than Green Bay? 'Cause I was like, Green Bay's +118 to make the playoffs. Detroit is -290. I know they have a half game advantage,

but they're pretty even.

Should one be -290 and the other +118? I don't know.

Yeah, Parsons coming back soon.

Yeah. And Jacobs looks good, you know, like for a first game back, that wasn't bad at all.

Except for the drop. He dropped the drop.

Wasn't good. Yeah.

One thing with that game, Brady was great in that game.

Yeah.

I think Brady and Burkhardt are, they just have the title right now. They're the best announcing team.

They're good. He gets very mad about the, the roughing the passers. And he's a, he's a quarterback.

He does. He gets, he gets saucy. I like, he, he's really comfortable now. Like a DB dropped a pass and he's like, you know why they're DBs, Kev? 'Cause they couldn't play receiver.

Right, right.

You put 'em there. And then he is like, sorry, Logan Ryan. You know, it's true. But it was just funny. Like it, and it is true. That's probably how a lot of these guys end up being DBs. Rams-Raiders. Speaking of announcers, you knew the Raiders were in trouble as a live moneyline underdog. Chris Myers was there. They were like, oh, they gave Chris this one, we're in trouble.

The

Rams

had Caesars reward points or something and they're like, he's like, please, please let me go. Let me do this game.

He loves the buffet. The Rams had 38 carries for 199 yards. They're basically just Puka, 2 running backs and 17 white tight ends. I don't even, you can't even McDonald, Parkinson. I don't even, it's like an ABC sitcom show. And they just reinvented themselves and now they're a running team that throws to Puka and some tight ends.

This game hurt me 'cause I had lost so much with Houston, but I bounced back with the Rams and, and Denver. But, and it took a minute for Cousins to get rolling and it was too late. Yeah. You said they had 150 yards rushing. It felt like

they could do— No, 199.

Was it 199?

Yeah.

Oh, really? Wow. I felt like they could do whatever they wanted. Like Puka doesn't have a bad game. Like he could be like questionable on Saturday and maybe not playing, But if he plays, 8 catches and a touchdown is about his basement. You know what I mean? Like, he's— that's as bad as it gets for him, no matter how banged up he is. So, um, yeah,

he's definitely the hardest guy to tackle in the league. Like, somebody be coming straight on and he'll do like this weird stiff arm where he just kind of fends the guy off and keep— I don't know how he does it.

Yeah.

Or 2 guys will hit him and he just doesn't ever seem to go down.

The Raiders, speaking of, uh, Rams pass catchers, I guess. Thanks for starting Kay Mumpfield against me in fantasy. Good Lord.

I was— I would— I can't have a receiver.

You still didn't. Are you tagging in week 7? What is going on?

My other choice was Josh Downs, who had 2.8 points. I rolled the dice with Mumpfield. Okay, maybe he'd get the ball.

I saw that. I'm like, do I even put in a lineup? This is great. Thanks, Simmons.

I had guys on buys. I didn't know what to do. The Raiders are down 28-6. I have another pet peeve. So they score a touchdown. It's 28-12. A lot of time left. This is midway through the third quarter. Kick the PAT, make it 28-13. Score another touchdown, kick that PAT, make it 28-20. Keep it so that it's a 3-touchdown game. So that there's some pressure. If you get that last touchdown, now it's a 2-point for the tie. What do they do?

No,

no, kick the 2-point, or they go for the 2-point even though they don't have a running game. Gente in this game was 8 for 15.

Mm-hmm.

And he's basically a 3rd down back. I think we're realizing the kid's 61, uh,

he didn't catch

the ball. Yeah. Yeah. They, so they drafted a 3rd down back with the 6th pick in the draft. Yeah. Like it's just the reality of the situation. They don't get the 2-point.

So they're down 10.

Yeah. No, no. Now they're down 18 cuz they don't get 2 points.

Right. 28-10.

I'm sorry, 16. They're down 28-12.

All right, I'll trust you.

Yeah. It was 28-6 touchdown. Don't get 2 points. It's 28-12.

Mm-hmm.

They score again. Let's go for the 2-point. They, this time you have to, they don't get it. Right now it's 28-18. Now you still need 2 scores.

Mm-hmm.

Just kick 2 extra points. It would be 28-20. Now you'd need 1 score.

Oh,

we've overthought all of this.

The nerds are laughing.

No, no, no, the 2 points. You got it. How about this? Just need 3 touchdowns and 1 2-point. You tie the game. It's 22 points.

Oh, Bill, you're full. That's so foolish the way you do math.

No, no, no. The team that can't run the ball and has a slow quarterback that can't roll out should absolutely go for the 2-point,

right?

This is what the model says. Does the model have Kirk Cousins and Ashton, 5'6 Ashton Gentry? Does the model include those 2 things? Right. And Aaron Donald being on the other team? 'Cause all of those things were in play today. Really annoying.

And it's not like Smack is your kicker either, you know?

Right.

You could kick it.

Who's the guy in the, on the Browns? Smizzit? Schmick?

Oh yeah.

You got that.

Schmick. There's like one, that one. It's a Y. Yeah.

Yeah. Schmick. Raiders have lost 4 straight games and they've allowed 155 points. They suck at being— I took 'em today.

They're just fun to watch. It's okay.

I actually think there, there's versions of that game when they either win or come close, and it was just a stupid game. And the Rams were really smart with the way they ran the ball. Uh, Panthers-Bucs, that game was my Sunday Ringer 107 ad. I couldn't— I didn't like anything. And with the—

What'd you have, the Bucs?

I had the Panthers.

Oh,

that was over in 5 minutes.

Yeah, that was it.

17-6 Panthers score. going for the PAT, blocked kick, camera goes back to show the kick going through the end zone and stays there and the ball never goes through. And then like we frantically— and all, there's a guy running the other way for bringing back for the 2-point, which happens every 4 years. What happens more often, that or the Olympics?

Yeah, I don't, I don't think I see it. You can go years without seeing it for sure.

So I had a listener, Steve, Steve Fellon, thinks it should, it needs a nickname when this happens. 'Cause it's like the return 2-point. What do we even call this?

His name is Steve Fellon. He's a fellon. Okay. 2-point, 2,

it's like a defensive 2-point conversion or something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He says, 'cause it's a long 2, it should be called the DeRozan. Who? 'Cause DeMar DeRozan makes long 2s.

He shits.

Not against it.

Are you, his shitting habits you're talking about?

No, the long 2, like 20, he makes 22-foot jump shots. They're called long 2s in basketball.

I thought you're gonna call it the Rex Ryan. Yeah. The longest, biggest 2s and the number 2s.

Anyway, the DeRozan, I don't know if somebody can top that DeRozan, but something with a long 2, or we call it, I don't know what it is.

Straddling the line, shooting the 3. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Needs a name. Yeah. Bucs win this game.

Baker, 7. Yeah. God, I was gonna say the same thing. 7 completions, 43 points. Yeah. Ridiculous.

Yeah. 64 yards for Baker. Yeah. Bryce Young, 3 turnovers, 5 sacks. Panthers somehow still in the lead from the NFC South. If you watch this game, you'd, you'd think they were like 1 and 10.

Yeah. They ran for, the Bucs ran for what, 258? You had Buck the Duck. Yeah. Kenny Gainwell and, and Sean Tucker. it and Carolina was never in it. Bryce is back, baby.

There was a couple teams today that ran the ball really well that were teams that when you watched them earlier this year, you wondered why they didn't run the ball more.

Right.

And one of them was the Bucs.

Mm-hmm.

'Cause I really like Bucky Irving. I think he's good. And they, he was kind of like an afterthought for them this year, but they let him, let him loose today. Gainwell even played a little bit more.

Yep.

Niners-Falcons was another spot game. Where, uh, I guess the Niners were due for one of these. They had 26 first downs, 400 yards, and 4 turnovers and somehow lost.

Rat line. Rat line of the week. And I used that rat's tail, I flossed my teeth with it. I was all over the +2.5 against the undefeated Niners because it made no sense at all. Um, yeah, and I think Purdy, uh, I don't know if he played— did we talk about if Allen on his bye maybe clinched the MVP here? I think he's +150 and Purdy's +450 now. I think that's what it is.

Purdy drop. I'm gonna defend Purdy because I've, I've heard this MVP argument. Guys who caught balls from him today included Watkins, Cowing, Farrell, Cooks, and James. He doesn't have anybody to throw to. And then McCaffrey went in the blue 10 at one point. I don't know.

Yeah, well, that Kaylin Black was good, right? Like, uh, I mean, Kaylin Black was good. You could give like Atlanta credit. Like, Penix had 3 touchdowns, no picks. He had 9 different pass catchers. Bijan only ran for 63 yards, and that defense gets stops. Like, they, they blitz so much less and they're effective, and they forced 4 turnovers. So that Bates interception was superb.

Well, you also had the, the Niners got a touchdown and then they, they, they reversed it, and it didn't seem like there was enough evidence to reverse it, and they reversed it anyway.

Wait, which one was this?

Who was the one in the corner to, I think it was to Watkins.

Oh, right, right, right, right.

Yeah. And it was gonna be 26-21 with a lot of time left.

Yeah. They turned

it, they returned it.

Mm-hmm.

And then all of a sudden the Falcons had the ball and that felt like it swung the game.

Yeah. They'll be all right. The Niners.

Yeah. Yeah. To me that was like the Chiefs loss. It's like, you guys are fine. Don't worry about it. And then Broncos, Cards too. Yeah, we, we hit everything.

We got it all.

Yeah. Guess the lines.

Let's do it. We're here.

You beat me last week. I'm still up for the season. I think we have the worst slate of night games we've ever had.

Yeah. This is, you pointed this out. This is something else.

Although the Monday night's good.

The Monday night.

The Monday night's good.

Oh, Monday night's good. Yep. Yep.

Thursday, Sunday's awful.

Yep.

Thursday night, Green Bay home. for the Panthers team, who by the way lost one of their best offensive linemen today, Moten.

Right.

And, and got their asses kicked. Now have to play again in Lambeau.

You better get this exact.

Is there a World Series game that night?

Let's see. So it's, it goes Monday,

Tuesday, no World Series

game. Wednesday off. Thursday,

World Series might be over by then.

There's no World Series game Thursday.

No, it's Wednesday and Friday.

Okay. Right, right.

Well, I'm gonna get this exact. I have Packers by 4.5.

No, you didn't do it. I had 3.5. That's what it is.

That's too low.

I'm skipping this one. I'm not, I'm not betting this. I think our, our already our agenda is, oh, Panthers suck. Packers need this win and we're gonna get smacked around in this. We're gonna take the Packers.

You know who else is skipping it? Me on Thursday night. Yeah. You'll not see me live on Netflix after this game on Thursday. Like coming live right after Packers-Panthers.

No, no. But we're not, I mean, betting, we're not. I, I, I just don't wanna, I don't wanna touch it.

I could talk myself into it. I need to make some, some, some ground back. 2 watchables next week. Lions-Vikings. It's hard to put Kyler Murray in the watchables, but I think we have to, especially 'cause they're undefeated and this game's in Detroit. And I tic-tacked it. Lions -1.5.

I said 2.5. It's 3.

Ooh. Wow. 6-0 team.

Yep.

On the road getting 3

at 4-2. Yep.

Okay. You're beating me.

Let's go.

In Denver, KC will be traveling to atone for their bizarre, uh, Seattle performance tonight, and I think they're still going to be favored. I have Chiefs -1.5.

Can I— this is locked. Was there an injury?

What do you mean

it's locked on FanDuel? Because

there's no line.

Sorry. Okay, now, now they have it. I refreshed. Say it again.

I had Chiefs -1.5.

It is Chiefs minus— we both have 1.5. I promise that's what it was, and it is 1.5. Okay.

Yep. Did you see anything from Bo Nix today that would make you want to bet against him? You know, against Patrick Mahomes after a loss?

I, I, I think that's a great get-right spot. for Denver. I don't know what happened with the Rams and Cardinals last week, but before that, the Cardinals allowed like 33+ points a game. And so yeah, I think it's like sending your kid to the country during the, during the summer. Like, there's, here's 10 acres, run, run free, Bo Nix, go 60 yards, go whatever you want to do. But yeah, that, that team is junk, Arizona. But Denver knew what they had to do.

Fairly watchable. Speaking of the junky team, they're playing your team. Cowboys home for the Cardinals. I couldn't put this line higher than where I got it because I don't think your team deserves it. I have Cowboys -5.5.

Oh wow. Uh, all right, you still get it. I said 8.5 because I think the Cardinals are real garbage, even below us. It's 6.5.

One of my rules is you can't be favored by more than 7 points.

There we go.

If I, if I've watched both of your receivers jog through 100 routes in a season already. 100 routes combined. 5 weeks where I was like, did he stop running? What happened on that?

Is that combined or is that just Pickens?

Why did Pickens just— is— did he know the play? All right, next one. Jets-Raiders, the Heidi Bowl.

Yeah,

let's get Berman.

Oh yeah,

the Heidi Bowl. Darryl playing the harmonica.

He killed Kenny Stabler. No, no, that's too— no, it's too—

that's too modern.

Yeah,

rewrite that one. Jets-Raiders. I have the Jets favored and they're terrible. I have Jets -1.5 over the Raiders.

Yeah, you get it. It could tic-tac the other way and I could be right. I had Raiders -1.5. You got it. It's Jets -1.5.

I think we're nearing Kirk Cousins either gets traded or he's gonna have his last start soon range.

Really?

Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah. 'Cause I, I think they have some weapons on that team and you saw a couple teams now, the Pats did this to them too, where they're just trying to blitz him and make him kind of run around 'cause he's old and he has a, you know, recovered torn Achilles.

Right, right, right.

And at some point I think I, I don't think the Raiders are that bad. At some point you gotta put Mendoza in there, I think.

I guess. I, I think he's doing like, he's making Trey Tucker a superstar.

I know he's made good throws.

Tight end things.

That's what I think. They're gonna trade him.

Yeah.

If there's a team that needs, like maybe that's a Philly spot. He's better than Tanner McKee.

Yeah, that's true.

If Philly, like if Philly beats your team tomorrow, maybe they decide,

oh,

you know?

Yeah. But you're gonna throw Mendoza in there. It's the same thing. Like they don't have a running game, right? We're not, we're not in love with that either.

Or do they not have a running game? 'Cause Kirk can't move.

Oh, interesting.

Okay. It's probably 'cause Ashton Gentry's—

if he loses to the Jets, maybe you're right. That could be enough.

He had a game last year where I was like, I get the, I get it. Gentry. Oh yeah. He was awesome. I forget who it was against, but he was awesome. And it was like, oh, I get it. I get, I get who this guy's basically like a better running Maurice Jones-Drew type of I get this. And then he's never had it again.

You don't get it anymore?

I don't get it at all.

You lost it.

I don't. I lost it completely. Speaking of losing, I'm definitely gonna lose whoever I bet on in this game. Falcons-Bucs in Tampa.

Just stay away.

Tampa's basically, I just think you, you, everyone's lost. Who's won money on Tampa this year?

No, you can't. Yeah. And Bowles said they're done scoring points after 43 today. They're like, that's it. No,

I mean, Mercy World.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Yeah. Falcons in Tampa, and I have the Falcons favored by 1.5.

All right, I got this exactly. I did to you what you did to me with the Raiders. It's, uh, Bucs 1.5.

I don't agree.

It'll probably flip.

Yeah, I think that flips. Jaguars home for the Colts. It's going to be either 7 or 7.5. Jags coming off a bye. I went with Jags -7.

You get it either way. I said 5.5. I don't know why I went so low. It is 7.5.

Hmm.

4-4.

I am teasing that. Yeah. Speaking of teases, Rams home for the Chargers. Both, both these teams share the stadium.

That's true.

So it's a home game,

but No one's gonna root for anybody.

Right. Chargers get to, I don't know what, do they have their own locker room in that stadium? They must.

The crowd's just gonna be silent. They'll figure it out in the fourth quarter. It's a silent count game.

Yeah. Every, everyone will be able to hear all the plays. I have Rams -7.5.

We both had that and that's what it is. Ooh, we're nip and tuck here.

5-5. Last week when we did Gus the Lions, we thought maybe there would be a Chargers firing or something would happen or Nothing happened.

Yeah, nothing. Be fun if they waited for this week. I don't know. Do you trust that teaser? Here we go again. I might just take the Chargers as my upset again. 0-6.

I don't trust the Rams.

Hmm.

I don't think I would put them in a tease. I trust the Jags. I would put them in a tease. Poopfecta. Bengals home for the Titans. And I jacked this one up because I think they had to knock this outta teaser range. So normally I would've said 8 or 8.5, but I, I think this just starts at -9 and they see if anyone wants to bet the Titans. I have Cincy -9 at home against the Titans.

Good. I edged you out there. I said 9.5 and it's 10.5.

Oh, that's higher than I thought.

Yeah. They, they, they hate Tennessee. It's Vandal. Freddie Vandal hates Tennessee.

Steelers home for the Browns.

It's a good one.

We already saw this game and the Browns won.

Mm-hmm.

I put this in the Vegas zone. I have Steelers -5.5.

I got it exact, 3.5.

Oh wow. A lot of respect for the Browns.

Lots. I mean, Deshaun

in Pittsburgh,

he sparkles in the 4th quarter. Don't you understand?

Dessert Deshaun. I have a soufflé for you today. I have some cookies. Please don't eat the veal chop. We have a lobster bisque. It's terrible.

Yeah. You could wrap the Quinshon Judkins to go.

Our Caesar salad has too many anchovies in it. We have a scallop that is really fishy. But again, the carrot cake is unbelievable. Save some room.

We have a dry-aged scallop. It's been— we've dry-aged it since the Brian Sipe days.

Patriots in Miami. I don't know what our record is in Miami, but it's not over .500 career. I'll tell you that much.

This is a bad one for us, right? It's a dark issue, this, this game. What, tell the story. What was it?

Oh, 2004.

Yeah. It was a night game. Yeah.

Monday night game. Monday night.

Mm-hmm.

The year of teasers. Even wrote a piece about it.

We killed it.

You, week after week teasers. And then finally, Tom Brady Monday night blows a 10-point lead in Miami. Miami scores. Brady interception, fumble, something. Miami scores a touchdown. You could see it. And we lost.

I could see the uniforms. Yeah. I could see the orange.

We're too cocky. We learned a lot of valuable lessons.

Oh yeah, sure.

Too cocky.

I got this exactly. So

I think I got it exactly too. I put some thought into this.

Oh no, I didn't get it exact. Go ahead. Yep.

Pats and Miami. I don't think they're gonna jack this too high because of the history.

Mm-hmm.

And I don't think— I think they wanna push it over 7, but I think they started at Pats -6.5.

Oh wow. I said 7. It's 7.5.

Ugh. Oh, you beat me.

You'll get there. It'll get there at the 7.5. Come on, Jacoby.

I said 6.5.

Yeah.

What do you, are you one up on me or 2?

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 to 5.

You beat me.

Great.

We're tied for the year.

Let's do it. No, there's 3 left, right?

I only have the Sunday night and the Monday night.

Ravens-Bills. Did you do Ravens-Bills?

Oh. I don't have Ravens-Bills. Where's that? Oh, the Sunday marquee. I missed that one.

Yeah, you just skipped the marquee.

Kind of a big game. Ravens-Bills.

Well, I got this exact, so.

You did?

Yeah. You'll get this.

It's in Buffalo and I have Buffalo -3.5.

There you go. There you go. That's the way to do it.

Okay. Sunday night. And we'll have Lamar for that Buffalo game.

Yeah, I think that's what it's suggesting.

Can I predict that House is gonna put the Ravens in a tease?

That's his boy.

Yeah. Sunday night, Washington home for the Eagles, and I don't like it, but I'm gonna say Washington -2.5.

I said 3, and it is 3.5.

God, you're killing me.

And you're calling that— this is the worst This is the worst we'll have come off of, right?

Yeah. So next Sunday night, live on Netflix, we'll be coming to you right after Washington and Eagles.

Should we come on at halftime? Have we ever done that before?

Sure. Is there a basketball game we could come on after? Maybe we should just come on right after Now You See Everything or whatever the Fielder movie's called. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Monday night, Seahawks-Bears in Seattle. I mean, honestly, this could be an NFC title preview for real.

It's a fun one.

I have Seattle -2.5.

That's what I had it as, 3. It's currently 3.

Damn, I gotta go back to the drawing board.

Here we go, here we go.

Really tough.

Really, I'm mixing the correct, uh, pain medication, I think, now, and it's, uh, it's all working out.

So you're using, you're using performance-enhancing drugs to beat me.

So what's actually happening before the, the Guess the Line segment? Yeah, so how—

said the Cross Off team, America agreed with us. 68% was for the Jets.

Yeah, enough.

18% for the Saints, 8% Commanders, 7% for the Texans. So the Saints are looming for us next week.

I think Aaron Glenn should thank us for keeping him around as long as we did.

Seriously,

right?

I agree with you.

We didn't owe them anything.

Saints don't play next week, so they could— it could be the rare bye crossover for them.

That's what I'm saying. The Saints or the Texans. We have, we have some thinking to do.

Yeah. Basketball really quick. So I was in Boston and I was able to catch up on some basketball. I was there for some soccer games. I went to the Knicks game on Friday night and watched OKC and thought, Man, they, I thought they had the look like really like a 65 to 73 win team just killing everybody. And there was some FanDuel bets I had. I had one bet where I had them 65+ wins with the Warriors not to make the playoffs 'cause the Warriors are terrible.

Mm-hmm. And

that was like +235 on FanDuel. I was all excited about that one. And just in general, I thought the OKC numbers were off 'cause to me they looked like a 70 win team. So I'm watching the football game tonight and I have the Orlando game on the side TV, and then I have the OKC Clipper game on. And J Dub goes up, falls, and you could tell it's bad 'cause the ball boy came over and threw the towel over his ankle, which is like, oh no.

Right.

And, and J Dub, I guess, broke his— either broke or dislocated his ankle. It was something bad. It seemed like the Gordon Hayward play.

That's what I said.

Yeah. But I felt, A, felt so terrible for him 'cause he was hurt all last year too. Yeah. You know, and he was really playing well and looking great this year. The Thunder was like, that Shai was crying after the game.

Mm-hmm.

He

was crying during, during the whole thing, like when it went down. Yeah.

So I don't, if this is the Hayward injury, I don't think he comes back this year. But, but you know, it completely changes. This is the biggest thing that's happened in the first week of the season probably since the Hayward injury.

Yeah.

And as weird as this sounds, I don't, he wasn't the best player on their team, but I think he was the hardest guy to replace for them.

Hmm.

They had depth everywhere else, and this was the one spot where he was kind of the one-on-one for them. Like this swingman with size, Swiss Army knife, could play different positions, could play a little point guard for them. And I don't know how they're gonna replace him. So FanDuel, I even looking at the odds, like the odds shifted and San Antonio's now the favorite. The odds dropped, all the win totals dropped for them because that's how important he was. So. I don't know what they do. And I, I think they're gonna actually have to make a trade 'cause they have a real hole now for, well, what he did.

He missed what, 49 games last year?

I'm not, I don't wanna— Yeah, but they had Lou Dort last year.

I don't wanna minimize it. Yeah, they had Dort last year. Yeah. Fandals got it close. They have Spurs +300, OKC +310. But yeah, you hate seeing that shit. I mean, it was the, how the fact that the worst injury of the day didn't occur in the 12 NFL games we watched on the hardwood an hour before we went live is is preposterous. But, um, I may also, because I took him to get the 1 seed, that's, uh, you could blame me if you want.

Nah, you still might, you still might get it. But I don't know. So we're, you know, we're taping this, it's 9:30 at night on West Coast. So I don't know the exact— Hayward's thing was like, maybe he'd, 'cause it happened opening night, maybe he'll be able to come back for this, for the end of the season. He never came back. And I would assume that would be the case with this, that they would be careful. But They, they have some picks. They have a swap with the Clippers.

Mm-hmm.

That they could put in a trade. They have some contracts they could put together for, they don't really have any big contracts, but they have some smaller ones, or else they could put somebody like Hartenstein in a trade with other stuff. But I, I think they're gonna have to get a wing with size. I don't think either they try to wait till February to, and get a buyout guy, but they're gonna need somebody with size. Well, yeah, that's gonna be a huge hole for them right now.

I wouldn't give up Hartenstein. Isn't he like their kind of their savior when they play the Spurs? Like,

I wouldn't give him up either, but it's weird because they have all these big contracts and then all these little contracts, but like they don't have that. If they were like, fuck it, let's go all in, we'll try to get Trey Murphy, they don't have the salaries to match up for those guys like in the 20s,

right?

So the, the guy I would get if I was them is Herb Jones. Because he's barely playing for New Orleans. And I tweeted about this this morning. I, I watched, I was on the plane. The plane's unbelievable. I had NBA.

The plane's unbelievable.

They have wifi now. And the, I had, I was on JetBlue. I had the DirecTV, so I had the college football and the World Series. And then I had my iPad with the League Pass and I'm watching all these different games. Yeah. Including, including New Orleans blow this, you know, 19-point lead to Denver. because of how bad Jamal Moseley was. But the irony was Herb Jones wasn't even playing in that game as Jamal Murray was going nuts. And maybe that's somebody OKC can—

When you're in this, like, and you're— I'm guessing you're in the middle seat, right? And you got all these laptops and all everything going on.

I know the people on each side are really mad. Yeah.

What are they doing? They must be like, what the hell, man? Calm down. Just, you know.

I gotta say, it's really fun to travel these days. Yeah. The, the wifi's really good. It only goes out like briefly a couple times, but for the most part, Um, I was able to see just about everything. Then, then it seemed like Ole Miss was gonna come back.

Oh yeah.

And I'm a college football fan.

Yeah, look at you.

World Series was on, you know, we had, uh, we had a whole bunch of League Pass stuff. So it was, it was a lot of TV, but—

Great, great sports time. Really?

But yeah, Herb Jones got buried and maybe that's somebody OKC could get. But man, that was such a bummer. And then 5 minutes after he went down, It looked like Suggs blew out his ACL.

Yeah.

At the end of the Orlando game.

Orlando under.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that, that was also probably worse than any— Yeah.

How is that happening? I got— were there any bad NFL injuries today? I can't think.

Not that I remember in the game. Yeah.

So weird.

So then the Knicks lost today too, and they're 0-3. Now I saw them in person on Friday. The Knicks are fine. They won the title last year and you, you know, they're, They're not on cruise control, but they're definitely like, we're taking the other team's best shot every game. We kind of have an on-off switch. We think it's gonna come on. We're not, we're never gonna be too concerned. And like in that Celtic game, they just kind of assumed Brunson was gonna take over and win it. And the Celtics did a good job defending him. Tatum made some shots. I'm not worried about the Knicks.

Can I just say, I just, I'm proud of you for that because I think NBA holes are the worst in terms of overreactions in the first week. Like we could overreact to NFL games after one week, but after one week it's still, what is it, 6% of the regular season, right? You, you watch an NBA game and after like one game it's 1.2% and everyone's like, oh my God, I was so wrong about Phoenix. Like, shut up. Can we wait 2 weeks? Can we? You saw 2 quarters of, of missed threes. It's gonna be fine. You're not like that. Some people we know just, just go over the top. It doesn't make sense. if you're a numbers guy.

What people do we know?

Any names? I'm not gonna start all over our text chains, but everyone wants to make a like, oh my, I was so wrong about this. Like it's 2% of the regular season, which also doesn't matter.

There's even like a team like Minnesota, which again won today and people are gonna get carried away from them this week. I wanna see more of it. Yeah. Nice start for them. There's only 2 teams that I really feel like strongly one way or the other, a little bit differently than I did. And I, I was under on Golden State as one of my locks when we did the over-unders.

Mm-hmm.

Golden State's awful. And I think, I think that's a really bleak situation. I don't think that's an overreaction. I think they're in a lot of trouble. And Curry, what they're gonna need from Curry week after week at age 39 just to keep them as a .500 team is not realistic.

They can't get rid of him, right? There's just no, it's not happening.

No, no, no. I, I think, I think it's a gap year for them. I think they're fine with sucking this year and, and maybe looking at Butler coming back in February. They use the Porzingis thing and

right,

kind of pivot to next year. So I don't think, I don't think that's an overreaction. Actually, there's 3. Oh, I think Houston's really good and I, I thought that was gonna be the case heading into the season, but I'm really convinced that that's a good team. I, I like that Houston team. So I'm, I'm a believer in them.

You had them over anyway, right?

I had them way over. I think I had 'em as a lock. But

yeah,

you know, they went from Reed Shepard and a bunch of no-names last year to VanVleet and Smart. They've all been playing together now with Durant for an extra year, and I, I just like the way they look. And then it's a semi-overreaction, the Miami thing. I think they have fixes, the Heat. And I've watched a lot of the Heat. It's kind of, kind of a hate watch 'cause it's probably my least favorite team even though I respect them. But the Giannis-Bam thing has looked really bad.

Yeah.

They're playing too fast with them. They're playing Klay, who I think is washed. I think, I think eventually this will lead to, they're gonna slow down a little. They're gonna put Larson in for Klay. They're gonna stagger Giannis and Bam a little bit. It sh— it should get better, but it's an alarming start.

That's how I get— that's kind of, that's a sort of thing that You gotta let that play out, I think. But

I, it's way worse than I thought. Really? Like, this is a 1 out of 10 for where I thought it was gonna be. Wow. It's really bad. Giannis is like -54 in the 3 games when he's out there. Like, they don't know how to play with him.

Yeah. So I did, I did look what your Warriors thing, I was all over, I'm following on the text chain and everything. What, how many wins do you think they end up with?

It's tough because you had, you don't want to be in the bottom 3 anymore. If this was a normal tank year, I would say, oh, they're gonna be, they might have the worst, I was looking at them for worst record.

Yeah.

'Cause when I was flying home yesterday, and I think I might've even bet it, it was 33 to 1 for them to have the worst record. And if you put that with OKC to have the best record, it was like 65 to 1 or something.

Well, what do you think their over-under is? 'Cause I, I went under.

Well, I saw it yesterday.

Oh, you saw

it before the, before the year was 37.5, I think.

Yeah.

And now it's gotta be like 34.

34.5.

Yeah.

Yeah. I went under.

I hope you're right. I think it's an under all the way to 30.

Really? Okay. You can get good odds on 30. You can get like +250.

That is not a good team. That, that is not a team that has moves. I mean, they're paying Porzingis $20 mil, Butler $55, and Moody $12. So that's $90 million bucks. None of those guys play. That's 40% of their salary cap.

It's a lot.

And you watch night to night, like the league's good now. Like even if you watch a team like Memphis, like I'm not saying Memphis is a playoff team, but Memphis has good guys. Memphis had like Boozer's really good. Ty Jerome, when he's healthy, is good. They rebound, they can defend. And Golden State just doesn't have a lot of options. Did they lose today? I didn't even see. They were losing.

3% of the regular season. It's gonna be fine.

Golden State. Oh, they didn't play though. It was Memphis, Sacramento. Sacramento lost to Memphis.

Memphis won by 11.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Golden State plays tomorrow against Denver and they're gonna be 0-4.

Oh, and the Sixers aren't going undefeated. Yeah.

No, they're gonna do the thing where they stagger LeBron. They didn't play Embiid today.

Yeah.

The, don't, oh, Denver's only played 2 games, but this Brazil that they got, the second rounder or late first rounder, whenever they got him, he was, he was really, really, really impactful in this game last night. And was playing crunch time for them. And he's kind of like Aaron Gordon Jr. Like, but it's just unexpected that this guy is as good as he is. And then the best team for League Pass purposes is New Orleans 'cause they have a bunch of talent, they're fun to watch, and they're stupid as all hell.

Really?

They're just the dumbest team. Yeah. But every game they've been in has been really entertaining.

What's the bet you wish you had? I'm looking at Rookie of the Year real quick. It's, it's the same as it was.

Well, Sal, as you know, I'm not allowed to bet on it.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not allowed to bet. Yeah. That's bad. I try, I try to trick you.

Yes. The one I wish I had more money on was the Luka points per game. Over, which there were ones, it was 34 was I think even odds or somewhere around there. And then 36 was like +290. Mm-hmm. 36 a game. Wow. Which has only happened a couple times in the last, it was like Kobe did it, James Harden did it. But like he had 50 today. Their whole offense is geared toward him scoring.

Right.

I think he's gonna be between 36 and 38 after watching them. He just gets, he shoots like, feels like he's gonna shoot every time.

I think that's the way to do it. Pick 2 or 3 players like that. I did that with Ant Edwards. Yeah. Over 31. So that's, that's where I liked it.

Yeah. So Minnesota I think is the overreaction team. I wanna see it more. They're making 3s right now. You know, they've caught some teams by surprise. They're playing, they're really fun. They're having a lot of fun together, but I wanna watch 'em for a couple weeks. Are you ready for Paracorn or do you have any more NBA?

Let's do it. No, I think that's probably good for NBA. I just, I can't believe I was wrong about the Suns.

I mean, that was a lot of NBA for you just now.

It's all right. No, we did, we talk about it on the Ringer Wise Guys. Lots of fun.

What do you mean you were wrong about the Suns?

No, I'm just, someone in our text chain said, I can't believe how wrong I was. We watched one game. Calm down. It's fine. It's good. Let's do Para Corner.

Is there— do they have the worst record bets?

Um, they do,

right?

I've seen regular season wins.

No, they have 'em on the bottom of regular season wins. So worst record is Sacramento -110, Brooklyn +450, and Milwaukee +480. I would still take Milwaukee on that.

Oh yeah, 5 to 1.

Yeah.

Yeah, why not?

And I think Golden State being 33 to 1, I still think those odds are way out of whack and will go down.

All right.

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Good, good. Age-appropriate. Um, so I had the same plan as you— sleep in a little bit, you know, you could miss the first quarter of Saints-Steelers. Uh,

you sure can. Sacré bleu.

I had, I had a money on the Steelers. And I'm like, all right, it's, it's still gonna be there or not when I wake up. So I was gonna sleep in. Then I hear like the garage open at 5:25 AM and the game starts at 6:30. And I'm like, what the fuck? This is a home invasion. What's going on? And my wife's like, no, no, no, it's Jack, my middle son. He's leaving to go, he's taking his bike to the Steelers bar in town. I was like, all right, it's still an hour. It takes 6 minutes to bike down there. 3 minutes at 5:25 AM. And so like, like I'm, I'm like annoyed that I'm up and I'm annoyed that I was like, first of all, why doesn't he want to watch with me? Like, I'm, I'm, I'm great here. I get all the games. I go to breakfast sandwiches. It's nice. Yeah. He's not getting hammered at the bar. They only serve him ginger ale. We got ginger ale here. And then I see him like at halftime, like posting on Instagram. He's like whooping it up after he's got the French terrible towel after every Steelers touchdown, waving it around.

I'm like, what the fuck? And I, I bet the Steelers. I'm like getting annoyed. I'm like, why is he choosing these strangers over me? And then I'm thinking, I had to calm myself down. And I'm like, maybe this isn't the right way to think about it, but I was like, he's a football junkie and that's my doing. And I, I did, I did good by him. I taught him how to be a fan. Yeah. Like, who cares who he's rooting for?

This got really heartwarming. Well, it's like an episode of Everybody Loves Raymond. Well, 'cause then I'm thinking like, what really

Everyone hates Cousin Sal. No, they, uh, I just, I don't know, like I didn't give him a better option of who to root for, the fricking Cowboys. So go root for, it's not like he's going to root for Manchester United. He's watching football and I'm a football junkie, like I said. So good on you, Jack. Go watch the Steelers.

So he chip, he chip off the old block too.

That's it. Yeah, he did. He did.

But why did he get, have to get to the bar an hour early when he doesn't drink and the game didn't start till 6:30?

That I don't get. I never got that answer out of him. So, um, I don't know, maybe, maybe he's hitting a drug dealer on the way there. I'm not sure. I'll have to ask him about that. It's a good, good point.

Maybe he had some drug drop-offs like The Wire.

Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Drop off stuff for his quarters.

Yeah. So, congratulations.

The fact that he's a Steelers fan is— I know we've already covered this in Parent Corner.

Well, that's the other thing, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. I'm a New Yorker, grew up a Cowboys fan, lives in California. Not that makes sense.

I flew back for, uh, it was senior day for my daughter's team because she only has a couple of game, uh, days left. And it's been kind of, kind of like year from hell, like just a ton of injuries.

Yeah.

Um, she's not 100% healthy either, but, um, so they have this game, there's a big crowd there, they dominate the game, they have the ball all the time, bunch of chances, like in control. And it's a classic soccer game where it's just 0-0 forever. We kicked one over the net. We have point blank, like, just, it was like, oh my God, I've been watching her have games like this forever where I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop or something terrible's gonna happen.

Yeah.

And 2 minutes left, dubious call, long free kick, ball goes in the box, bounces out. Somebody, it hits one of our defenders in the face, which sucked. And she's bending over holding her face because it nailed her in the face. This girl shoots it, it ricochets off her as she's holding her face and goes to the net with a minute and a half left and we lose.

Oh, no.

And I was like, this is a microcosm of all the terrible losses she's had since I've been watching her play soccer when she was like 8 years old. Anyway, 1-nothing loss. But my actual parent corner—

Wait, what is she like after the game? Is she inconsolable?

Those are the ones where you're just mad and frustrated.

Right, right.

You're just like, I just— how did we not— what just happened? How did we not win that game? Like, um, you might remember last week it was my dog Murph's 6th birthday.

I do. Yeah, sure.

Which was on a Monday, and my wife decided to make him a cake. She made like a doggy cake. It's that— no, this is a good one for the dogs. But what it makes, like some carrot cake with like not a lot of sugar in it. No sugar in it. I don't know how she did it. The next day. So Murph's acting weird the whole day.

Yeah.

Not really sure what's going on with him. And I hadn't, hadn't gone to my office the whole day because I was doing podcasts. I was in the back where we have the studio.

I like where this is going.

My office is in the front. Murph's acting weird, and my wife's like, what's going on? What's going on with Murph? I'm like, I don't know. And we watched Nightmare on Elm Street that night because I had to— I watched Rewatchables twice. Murph's acting weird. He disappears a couple of times. She's like, what's up with Murph? She goes downstairs to get something, and I hear her going, oh no, oh no. Go. She goes into my office.

Nightmare in Bill's office.

It's, it's Nightmare on Poop Street. He— there's 4 different poops on the rug in my office, and one of them looked like they'd been there since the morning. And I think he must have thought after the first one, like, oh, I guess I'll just keep going in here. And there's 4 separate ones in the office, and she's going nuts, and she's like, happy fucking birthday, Murph! Who's nearby? And he knew the whole day he was waiting for us to find it. And, uh, anyway, Murph, Yeah, I don't think he'd done it in the house in like 2 years, but the birthday cake. So I was like, well, maybe the birthday cake. Why? Why do you have to say that? She's just going nuts. She has the poop vacuum out with the water. She's— and, uh, and it was Nightmare on Poop Street thanks to Murph.

I love it. Are you sure it wasn't like Con Knipple, something he left you, uh, last year?

No, we asked my son if it was him. Wow. But one of them was ice cold. There was one kind of almost cold one and then 2 warmer ones. So he was just going back in there.

And what did you stick a thermometer in all of them? What do you know? What do you mean?

Well, because you can tell they congeal.

Oh, okay. All right. This is great.

This parent corner was brought to you by Instagram. Instagram teen accounts come with automatic protections that limit who can contact teens, the content they can see, the time they spend on the app. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online. at instagram.com/teensaccounts. All right.

That's not a parent corner. It really isn't. The Zoe stuff was for sure.

But every time my wife's like, we got to get another dog, or like, it's these stories that we just say, no, we don't actually have to get another dog. Murph could be the last one.

You just have to get one less cake. Yeah.

Yeah. Maybe not give him cake next year. Dallas tomorrow night.

I'm rationally confident in this game. I don't know if we can't beat Tanner McKee, or is this just gonna be like Barkley goes for like 170? We see like the 2023 Shaq, the Saquon.

He's gonna be 100% tomorrow.

I don't know. I mean, he's got the question mark next to him and everything, but he's, I think he's playing.

I think it would be stupid. I really want the Buck Aikman situation to get to the point of that Will Ferrell sketch when they're the dysfunctional family dinner sketch where he starts screaming and then he drives a Dodge Stratus, but they're just eating angrily and it's like, can I have the stuffing? I thought you said I gave you the stuffing. They just start screaming at each other. I wanted— I just wanted to get angrier and angrier, but I know it won't. I know

that they have a lot of games together left.

I know

it's a lot. And this one's bad, so— or not the next week. Wait, is next— oh, next week's good. They don't have Sunday night. Yeah, this one's not that good.

Yeah, next week's a good one.

Yeah,

well, it seems like they're gonna get Greg Wilson. Yeah, down the road. Uh, all right, anything to plug?

That's it. Uh, I guess if you had a bad beat with a player going out early, take advantage of BetProtect on FanDuel. And if you're on a losing end on, uh, so many screwing endings like Texans and Packers You're eligible for $50 on bedaches.com. Gimme proof, I'll reimburse the best ones. Ring of Wise Guys, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, big preview show. And I have Mark Schlereth this week. Mark Schlereth is the one who claims that he knows this Mendoza, what, what's gonna happen. So I'm gonna ask him, I'm gonna ask him.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

Any chance of a World Series comeback?

I hope not. I got that 10-to-1 ticket on the Brewers over the Rays. So, and Peralta's no guarantee tomorrow, that's for sure.

I had the, I took the Rays for the series and really thought they were gonna win and the Brewers just spanked 'em. The more interesting one is WNBA. 'Cause that's, that's now tied 2-2 for the series. Golden State's +110, Atlanta's -130, and you can bet Angel, the queen of Atlanta, at +100 for MVP. But I think that's, I think that's tomorrow night too, isn't it?

Where is the game? Did you see they don't even know when, where the game is?

Well, tomorrow's Golden State.

Right. It's the next one.

And then game 6, they're gonna have to figure out. Yeah.

That's preposterous that they don't know where game 6 is. Game 6 is not 2 weeks from tonight.

You know what else was preposterous? When they sent everyone to the freaking FIBA for 4 weeks.

Yeah, that was dumb.

Stop the season so that it could come back.

Right.

And go against the World Series in college football and the NFL. That nothing in the NBA, nothing was dumber than that.

That's pretty bad. Well, it's to distract from the fact that Angel Reese is gonna win MVP after shooting 8%, but otherwise it's a good call.

Well, we also have the Equinox this week too, which there's gonna be some Fanduel stuff.

I think we're doing some on Fanduel. I think I'm doing like total points and runs and stuff. It's fun.

All right. Thanks to Kahal and Eduardo and Jack and Chris from the Spotify/Ringer side. Sal, as always, good job by you.

Good job by you, buddy.

And don't forget, live on Netflix tomorrow, Rewatchables. A Nightmare on Elm Street, 5 o'clock ET. Sal, I will see you on Sunday night after a really terrible Sunday Night Football.

Oh, I can't wait.

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