Transcript of A Rams Blame Game, Indy in Purgatory, the Pack’s Back, OJ’s Helper, Aikman Vs. Buck, the Slapper, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

All right, before we start the show, I wanted to mention we are going to the Pacific Northwest. I've talked about this. I told you we were going to do it. We are doing it. We are doing the Rewatchables live in Seattle at the Moore Theater on Tuesday, December 1st, and we're following it up with the Bill Simmons Podcast live at the Newmark Theater in Portland on Wednesday, December 2nd. Make it— Chuck Kolsterman, join us for that. Chris Ryan's going to be there for both. We'll see who else joins us. Tickets for both events will go on sale this coming Wednesday, October 21st, 10 AM Pacific time. theringer.com/events will have all the details very soon. I love the Pacific Northwest, and I really, really, really love going to Seattle. I haven't been to Portland in a while. I'm excited for both. Come see us, it's going to be great. 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. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Bill Simmons Podcast live on Netflix. Cousin Sal is here after a Cowboys loss. It's not fun.

It's not like fun anymore.

How are they doing? You have kidney stones. The Cowboys just rolled over. Wanted to mention, have a new rewatchables coming on Monday. We did It Follows. We've been doing horror movies this month. It Follows, a modern horror classic. Wanna thank all the people that emailed or sent tweets or whatever about us talking about Paul Kohers. Paul Cohurst, our, uh, our buddy who, uh, sadly passed away. Um, but the, the thing I think both of us were getting were people talking about the little— the, the picks, the toothpicks.

Yeah, the

dental floss picks.

Yeah.

Um, people were sending a bunch of them, like, pictures of different things, like, this made me think of your buddy. So it was really nice to hear from everybody. And also want to give a shout out to Bella from from Netflix who, um, is leaving the company but was a great advocate for us and a very good friend to The Ringer and a good person and a great boss and beloved by all. So, uh, best of luck to her. I know it's gonna be— I know it's gonna be great for her. Anyway, Week 6 recap. Dallas—

no, no, no, let's, let's keep naming people that, you know, it's maybe great things.

A couple more.

Yeah, yeah, it's okay. We get to skip the Cowboys.

Wish best to Dak Prescott. Cowboys-Packers. I wrote down I might try to emulate Dallas's offense during the pod. I'm gonna backpedal on every topic, dance around terrified, and then throw points up for grabs to you.

Wow.

'Cause that was basically what you did today. What happened? They don't have Parsons. They lost Hargrave. How is the Packer— you had all your offensive linemen, you had all your receivers. How does, how do the Packers, when you're on 10 days rest, just run over Dallas like that?

I don't have any effing answers. I don't know. It was just, it's a terrible 3-hour watch. Like if it was a movie, I would've walked out like 15 times. It's really like, you know, I don't know where to start. Are you talking the defense? I guess the defense is good. Like the giving the, let's give them credit first. I know we don't like to do that, but last 21 quarters they've given up, I don't know, almost no points, whatever. But I hate watching our defense. We could start with that because they never pressure the quarterback. The Packers could have scored 50. They were dropping touchdown passes all over the place.

Felt like that guy's just running around wide open.

Yeah. I don't think there's a scenario on 4th down where I would pass up going for it if I were the other team. Like, I really don't. Like 4th and 8 at midfield, like maybe like 4th and goal from your only one against your

team,

against our team.

Yeah.

And it's like, you know, Mike Pettine makes no difference. Joey Porter Jr.'s gonna make such a— that— no, he's not.

He's not, Chris. He's actually gonna shove receivers outta bounds.

Yeah, that's it.

For major penalties.

That's all he could do. And I know Jerry hates losing this one 'Cause like you said, Micah Parsons is laughing at him, like pointing, staring up at the luxury box in hysterics. But yeah, and then like you said, the offense, they can't protect Dak. They're slipping all over the place. Something looks off with him. They're just playing catch-up the whole time.

Yeah, maybe you need new sneakers, new cleats.

Is that what it is? Who can afford that in this economy? We can't get new sneakers.

It looks like you're wearing tennis sneakers out there.

I mean, we played a tiny bit better than we did last week against the now 1-5 Bucs, but I have nothing good to say otherwise.

They sped up Dak, which I didn't really understand. The only thing I can think of that's a silver lining for you is the NFC East now has 8 wins in 6 weeks. Your record is 8-14-2 heading into Washington tomorrow night against, uh, against San Francisco.

Mm-hmm.

Um, if Washington loses tomorrow night, you'd become the first division since the merger that played back-to-back weeks where nobody won a game.

Wow.

The merger happened in 1970.

1708.

Yeah. So again, I look, I look to you, our friend Sal, who has just been merciless with the NFC South. You picked everyone in the NFC South to go 7-10 this year. Still, you're so dismissive and arrogant about the incompetence of that division. Your division just made history. That hasn't happened since, since I was 1 year old.

I know, I know. And listen, maybe that's the key. Maybe I just don't watch the games and I'll come on with you and like, oh, we're favorite to win the division. We are favorite to win the division at +125. Like, and I'll come on with you like, you know, in December, I'm like, oh, we're 4-10, but we're still favorite to win the East. That's terrific.

Are you favorite to win the division right now? 'Cause I would actually believe this. I'm gonna look this up.

We are. Yeah. Who

else is it? Fando.

Yeah.

You're +130 to win the division. You guys were terrible tonight.

We were really—

oh my God. Giants are 3-1. Eagles +370, won't have Hurts for the next 3 weeks. And then the Commanders are +440. And honestly, that to me, it's a crapshoot between those 4. You might as well take the Commanders at +440.

Yeah.

Like 1-3-1. They could easily be 2-3. They lost Daniels for a couple games.

Commanders play defense sometimes. Sometimes that's, that's enough. That's better. And Jayden Daniels is definitely serviceable and maybe better than Dak at this point. So yeah, take the +440. But yeah, I'm not, I mean, that, that felt like giving like 10, passing 10 kidney stones, golf-sized kidney stones. I hated that game.

I was trying to think of Jerry's front office strategy of just constantly throwing picks and money and assets, you know, at splashy stuff. And I, it would have to be somebody who owns like some giant mansion, right? And then, but the roof is having issues and they're There's like a septic leak and there's all kinds of electricity issues and the, the, the back house has been condemned. But then you go over to his house, he's like, I just got a 130-inch plasma. You want to see it? It's amazing. It's an 8K HD. Check it out. Look how good this picture is.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, there's like sewage dripping on your head.

Right.

You're like, what about the sewage?

And the plasma hates your guts. And then all the plasmas around it hate your guts too.

The Joey Porter trade, like, what the hell was that? That was the last thing that team needed was the quarterback. You needed like 8 things.

Hey, we gotta win the division. It's mid-October and we're favored. That's all that matters.

Well, you flip it to the Packers, their pass rush. I don't know why it's back, but they, they, the blitzing, whatever they were doing. Jonathan Gannon, I think, has been great for them. He was the Cardinals coach last year. He's in DC now. So you have that. Their cornerbacks, I think, are actually good. I thought those guys over and over again were all over your receivers. They were jumping routes. I felt like they could have like 6 picks. They have 2 good receivers and Jacobs comes back next week.

Yeah.

So, you know, I was looking big picture at the NFC 'cause we're gonna talk about all the weird stuff that happened. But if you, if you did over-under NFC North playoff teams, would you do 2.5 or 3?

Well, I'm—

I, for the over-under, if you're trying to get betting action on each side, probably do 2.5, right?

I think

2.5, but I would go over immediately. I think it's like 2.5 with -140 juice or something.

So you think, I don't want to get into the diff— other games just yet.

No, let's, let's get into them.

But so you, you'll say like the, you'll say like the Lions are better than all the other NFC West teams other than the 49ers. Like that'll never even out.

Yeah. You have the Rams who are now 2-4 with some legitimate issues, which we'll talk about when we get to that game.

Yeah.

You have Seattle that has a running back slash quarterback, you know, conundrum going on right now. And then you have the NFC North where all 4 teams have a winning record. I, I've— Chicago looked awesome today. Green Bay looked awesome today.

Yeah.

You know, Minnesota's 5-0 and the worst of the 4 teams right now is Detroit, who completely killed Arizona last week, who beat the Rams today. So,

right,

I don't know, you could argue if you're, if you're saying like, who are the 6 best teams in the, in the NFC, I think you could make a case for 4 in the NFC North, right?

They keep saying it's a long year, and that's what I was going to say to you, but I'm like, oh no, please don't say it's a long year. I got the— what, I have 4, 12 more 3-hour games of this with the Cowboys? Don't, don't phrase it like that. I think the Packers are good. I picked them to win the division early on. We didn't know about Josh Jacobs. He should be back. That defense is solid. I feel like they throw up 50-50 balls that weren't caught today, but, you know, they got— it's, it's like Tyreek Hill, the Chiefs back in the, you know, the early 2020s or whenever he was there. They're gonna get— they're gonna score. They should have scored 40 today. I think they're gonna be good.

And Love is an MVP fringe candidate.

Yeah.

I was surprised by the MVP odds. I have another spot to talk about them.

Sure.

If you're looking at the playoffs for the NFC right now, the Giants, Minnesota, Carolina, San Francisco are leading the divisions. Chicago's 4-2, so is Green Bay. Detroit's 3-2, Seattle's 3-3. And then in the other division, other conference, Buffalo, Cleveland, Jacksonville, KC are leading. New England, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Denver are all 4-2. Mm-hmm. Pittsburgh, I just, we're just never gonna get rid of them apparently. But that leads to cross-offs.

Yeah.

Which for some reason we've been doing cross-offs forever, but for some reason it feels like we have a better PR campaign. Like we have A24 has picked up cross-offs at the festival. They're, they're putting on 800 screens and it's becoming a thing. So we crossed off Miami, Tennessee, Chargers, and Arizona. And before we figure out week 5, Chris in Nashville via Indianapolis Wants to know if Carly Irsay Gordon can become the official sponsor of the cross-off list.

Wow.

Especially after this week with the most embarrassing home loss of the season. He's wondering instead of she's writing down stuff in her notebook during the games, maybe she's doing her own cross-off list and trying to figure out who we're gonna do in week 5.

That's excellent. Or have her on as a cameo at the very end.

Yeah. So we could call it the Carly Cross-Off List if you want, but But this week's tough.

All right, so what are our choices? I know you went through the good teams. Our choices are—

I sent a, I sent our Netflix guys, I sent them, I sent them a possible cross-off list, which includes Indy at 2-4,

the

Jets at 2-4, Philly at 2-4. And you would think like, oh, it's gotta be Tampa. They're 1-5, but they're 2 wins out in the NFC South. And I'm not sure you can cross off Tampa, especially Mayfield's coming back. They haven't played anybody in the NFC South yet, I don't think. So, I

think it's the Jets. I think it's the Jets. I've seen enough. And you know what my biggest—

you've seen enough.

Well, what's weird is my biggest futures bet was the Jets to come in 3rd place in the AFC East, and I still feel good about that. Yeah. And they play Miami this week, so they, they might settle all hash on Sunday. I think it's the Jets, man. They, they can get this shit together. Aaron Glenn and that team, their offense, their defense is supposed to be really good. What, What do they do? They don't intercept the ball today. They didn't, they didn't, you know, they didn't sack. I don't think they had any sacks against you, right? I know that you got 2 fumbles, but I think it's the Jets.

All right, can I make a counter and then maybe we could have America decide? I think it's Indianapolis. I think they're awful. They play at Minnesota, at Jacksonville, their next 2. They're 2-4 for the year with a pretty lucky win against Houston in Week 3, and then they beat Washington's backup in Week 4. But this Tennessee loss today,

I hate it.

It was the game of the day. It was, I talked about on, on Thursday's pod with House and I said, if I hit the Titans, I had a fake Titans pick and I was like, if I hit this, I'm gonna start doing this every week. But gambling 30 years ago, my buddy Jeff and I, and we had this guy John Steinmetz who used to bet with us and he would call in a pick and it was always the weirdest pick on the board. And he would laugh and he'd be like, I kind of like the Titans +6.5. We'd be like, oh my God.

Yeah.

And then they would cover. Yeah. And the Titans were so clearly the Steimans pick this week and they did it, but they had that— they Colts got sacked 6 times. Jones had 2 picks and they had a fumble. They still outgained Tennessee 399 to 186.

186 is the number.

Tennessee had 11 first downs. Yeah. Cam Ward, if he completes 2 passes in a row, it feels like a fucking miracle. Like that guy has no idea where it's going. So, uh, I just don't see how it gets better. They're booing the entire game. Like, this is the angriest crowd you could possibly have. Indianapolis, normally pretty happy place. The Fever.

Yeah.

The Pacers, like Indy 500. I think it's a pleasant place to go. These people are fucking furious. They're chanting fire Ballard for the GM. They're just losing their minds. So I don't, how is it they're gonna be 2 and 6 in 2 weeks? How isn't that them?

Fired. Fire everyone, Carly Rae Jepsen, and smack 'em with your clipboard on the way out. I mean, that was abysmal. And, and I, I had a giant moneyline parlay with the Pats and Colts.

Oh no.

13-nothing when that interception came and that tip pass, like, oh, here we go, this is it.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I mean, you look at the stats, they had 24 to 11 first downs and all they needed to lose was that kick return that went pretty far, that interception. And that blocked kick and that was that. And Danny Dime just shot. I mean, really almost, almost everyone is better than him if he can't run. So I know I'm the straight shooter.

We kind of, listen, we didn't do awesome on over-unders. I don't think this year we're probably 500, maybe a little better.

Is it over already? Yeah.

Well, I, I, there's some that I'm just like, wow, got that one wrong. Yeah. But one of the ones I definitely got right was this Colts thing.

Colts under.

Yeah. Thinking like Daniel Jones running quarterback coming off a torn Achilles surgery. I'm just dubious. I don't, I don't, that doesn't make sense to me. I went to Colts Reddit. As you know, I love going to Reddits of teams that are in complete turmoil. Yeah. And especially if they booed their GM.

Mm-hmm.

The leading post, it's, it's a coach with a clown face. I think that's Steichen. And the headline is Fire Them All.

Yeah.

That's the, that's the hottest post on Colts Reddit. Good. The next, the next one is DeForest Buckner's quote, I'm sick and tired of the same song and dance every year. They got— it just goes on and on. Here's one where there's a gravestone for Steichen and Ballard with a Colts saying. So they're in that mode. They're in like angry, let's go on the internet and come up with the meanest things possible.

I saw a good one where Carly's writing on her thing. So let me get this straight. Cam Ward beat us. Cam Ward. Cam Ward. And then the word becomes bigger and bigger, question marks and everything.

Yeah, I got a couple emails. One of them was from Quinton who says he's 24, diehard Colts fan. Is there a bleaker team outlook for the next decade? The Sauce Gardner trade was like a self-imposed aspiration punishment. They don't have their pick this, this year, right? They're gonna do the 2027 draft and they're, it's gonna be like the 8th pick in the draft and it's gonna go right to the Jets. And then DJ Cook emailed, how great would it be? Just stay with this joke 'cause there's a point where you'll be like, whoa, he's saying that, but it's gonna pay off. How great would it be if Carly Rae Jepsen sold her notebook at the end of the season and it was filled with 8 months of dick drawings like Jonah Hill's dick book from Superbad? How much would you pay to give this to House? Remember that? Superbad? Jonah Hill's— that one killed me. Then I was thinking of all, all the possible funny jokes for the notebook. But anyway, that's the Colts season so far. Yeah. Just a lot of laughter.

What is— yeah, really. What if she becomes like the next Amy Schumer? She's just writing down material in there.

She's doing a set.

Yeah.

She's doing Shane Steichen jokes. Listen. Yeah.

Oh God.

The GM, Chris Ballard.

Yeah.

Who I've been making fun of this guy, I feel, on the podcast for 10 years. They were writing long features about this guy.

Mm-hmm.

I remember pre-COVID about, oh, master plan, Chris Ballard. Every year there would be some sort of Flattering something. The guy's done jack shit. He's been their GM since 2017. How many playoff appearances for the Colts in that stretch?

2017 and up. Uh, so it's 9 years. Uh, 2.

2 is the answer.

Okay.

How many playoff wins you think?

Trying to think who they played. Did they win 1 or 0?

They won 1.

Good.

They also blew a 33-0, uh, game in the playoffs.

Yeah.

They've had 14 different starting QBs. They have the 3rd longest playoff drought and they have no AFC South titles.

Yeah.

And so Carly, who, you know, has been taking notes on the sidelines, she's trying to learn stuff. At some point she, she, what'd she say a few weeks ago? Like, this is, we're gonna look at everything, the coach, GM. So it, it feels like they're gonna clean house. I think that's what she's writing down. Clean house.

Yeah. Clean it. She draws the house. What did— and yet they could— the one thing they could do is beat the Titans. That was the one thing they were able— I think they won like 6 in a row. The Titans themselves had lost like, uh, 11 in a row, I think, in the division, which is really like 2 years' worth of AFC South losses. They could have been 3-3 and we would have been talking about them differently. I'm not gonna fight you on this. If you want to go Colts over Jets, we'll go—

I want to go Colts.

I mean, it's the Sauce Gardner Bowl right here, but we—

Oh, interesting. Netflix, the the listeners/watchers.

What do they want?

Bucs 13%.

Mm-hmm.

Eagles 19%. Colts 33%. Jets 36%. So they're split too. I, so here's my case for the Jets. I thought they outplayed the Pats today and they absolutely could have won. I think their coach is kind of, wow, a semi-bozo. They, they had 2 fourth down and shorts that the Pats stuffed them on.

Mm-hmm.

That I think if they get either of them, the game might be different. And in general, like their end of the half stuff, you were the one that sent me that. What was the stat on Aaron Glenn in the end of the first half?

Well, I know he thought he was getting the ball in the second half.

No, it was that too. But isn't he like, he's, he's -57 in the last 2 minutes of the half or something like that? Yeah. Maybe even worse.

Yeah, it was really bad. Yeah.

But the Pats lost half of their offensive line during the game. They had something happen that I don't really remember happening before. Some guy came in who I'd never heard of, like 6th round pick from 3 years ago. And they were like, this is their last lineman. If anyone else gets hurt, they're gonna have to use like tight ends or running backs on the offensive line. So that's how bad that got.

The PA announcer, public address announcer, like said, this is our last lineman.

This is it. If anyone else could play the offensive line,

any of you fatties jump on the field. Now's the time.

The guy who saved the game for them, Drake was great again. But

Drake was great again.

He, he was great. He was. Yeah, he was really good today. AJ, AJ had like 4 drops. Like every time they were about to get momentum, somebody would drop it. But the guy who saved them was Kiner,

right? Yeah.

Ralph Kiner or Kiner Falafel, the $6 million second baseman we had last year who hit like .195.

Yeah.

The, uh, Kiner, Corey Kiner was like the, it was like the first good running they've had all year. He was actually like creating playing stuff outta nothing and falling forward. And I think he was like 11 for 57. So I'll be picking him up in every fantasy league I'm in. I'll probably get waived in a week, but

good. Take him.

But yeah, no, I thought, I thought the Jets were legitimately—

I thought it was a lifeless Jets team, honestly. And I, I thought you had forever, maybe had forever to throw to Dobbs, which was his first good pass and only good pass like in the first hour and a half. You could have taken a sauna in the time it took him to find Dobbs. But I don't know. It's just that I, you know, all right, we'll wait till next— well, next week the Jets will probably beat the Dolphins and then, then we're gonna have a conundrum. But, um,

I never felt safe during that game.

Hmm.

The highlight was when Spiro Ditis— we got him today,

right?

He, uh, there was some play that happened and they cut to Aaron Glenn who looked confused as usual, and Spiro said, quote, Aaron Glenn looks bewildered at something. And I was like, that's open-ended. That could be about 30, 30 different things. But they offensively, they're 12 points behind the 2025 Jets team at the same— after 6 weeks.

Yeah.

The Fields Jets scored 12 more points than this version of the Jets. And if you watch them, they're like, we had a lot of trouble tackling Braylon Allen.

Right.

Wilson got open a bunch of times in the first half. Cooper was really good in that game and they were missing guys too, but they were hanging around, hanging around. And I was getting more nervous. It's so weird. More nervous.

Geno's numbers weren't Weren't even bad, right? That I didn't write 'em down, but weren't they?

No, he had like 2 terrible passes, but AJ kept them in the game. AJ had 3 absolutely murder drops.

I think he had 4. Yeah, 4 total, right?

But, and the onside kick, which, you know, bounced off his hands. I looked up, I was getting, if I don't know, this might've been an aberration, maybe he's rusty, but if he continues, if he's this bad all year, I think we have to call him by his full name, like a serial killer. Oh, you know how they use the 3 names for the serial killers? Yeah. I used to do this for Bernard Carmel Pollard.

Yeah.

His full name is Arthur Juan Brown. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna stay with AJ, but if it's another week like last week when we gave up a first rounder for him, mm-hmm, and he was the worst guy on the team today.

Right.

I, I think he has to become Arthur Juan Brown for a couple weeks.

Arthur Juan. I like that.

Yeah. Arthur, Arthur Juan Brown. This is funny.

You shouldn't call him Jay because AJ, because it, the J isn't even a, it makes a wa, uh, W sound.

Yeah.

Right. Yeah. I wouldn't do that. Yeah. AJ, what was AJ Soprano's middle name? Was it, was just Anthony Jr., right? The J was Junior. We never found out.

Anthony J. Soprano. Yeah. We never knew what the J was.

Yeah.

Drake was 18 for 32 for 235, 3 touchdowns, 0 picks. Was, had some of his better throws of his career in this game, including the one to Dobbs who, um, was such a good throw that Dobbs stretched out, caught it, caught a touchdown. And then, uh, we probably won't see him again for a while.

Yeah, we all stretched out. It took 40 seconds, uh, the Jets gave him to throw that pass.

It is true. Well, MVP odds.

Oh, here we go.

Well, you asked. No, you didn't ask. You were thinking at the— kind of asked.

Oh my God, he's 5th.

He is 5th. He's 5th at 14-1. Your guy, Drake Maye. Jake, maybe he's 5th for MVP right now. Trevor Lawrence 10-to-1, Mahomes 9-to-1. And really it's a 2-horse race now between Purdy at +210 and Josh Allen. Yeah, +185. And I, I'm actually surprised Purdy's not the favorite, but Josh had that crazy flick basketball pass for a touchdown today. That was— I've never, never seen that in my life. I don't know how he did that.

Do you feel like he is purposely doing stuff like that to upstage Mahomes. Like, Mahomes for years did that for us. He was the magician.

Yeah.

Every week we'd see something different. And he threw that ball, you know, he like shot-putted it. But

yeah,

and I was like, oh, you know what, I would be good at that. That's one thing I'd be— it went 23 yards. Like, how far do you think you could shot-putt a ball?

Over people's heads who could have, who could have picked it off. So obviously he's done it before. He knows how far it could be.

Yeah.

Yeah. With shoulder pads on. Doing it this way.

It's like the, the, the Dr Pepper challenge when the kids do that. I hate it, you know, when they like just throw it in there. But like Josh Allen's doing it from like 25 yards away.

So that was a winnable game too for Vegas. I thought they played well even at the end. They had a heroic cover at the end. Cousins had to hit Tucker big. So Cousins is, was 23 for 41 for 313. It's a pretty lousy Buffalo defense, but He's available. Yeah. Pelissero talked about it on my pod Thursday. Like, if you're, if you're there for, with an offer for him, he's available. They'll just start Mendoza. And

I, oh, you're not even talking fantasy. You're talking like real life. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm talking real life.

Like, yeah.

Eagles. Well, if Hurts is back by week 9 and I, if I'm the Eagles, I'm probably going the other way and selling. Yeah. But if you're the Eagles, would you sell or buy at this point?

Yeah. I don't know, man. It looks like, I don't know if they're 2-6 and still in contention for the division. It might not be bad

if you're them and you could trade Barkley for like Minnesota's 2nd or something. I don't know why you wouldn't do that. Yeah, it's not, it's not like anything's gonna happen.

How about this? Let's just see the Raiders be good, decent for a year, competitive, right? I, I don't mind seeing Cousins. I like it. And there's a lot of teams that fell apart here. It's, it's really bad. But

yeah, it's fair.

The Raiders are fun to watch. They're fun. They're just, for me, they're a fun watch.

They were 7-12 on 3rd down, scored 30 points, only 1 turnover. They had multiple 25+ plays that Question for them is Gente sucked again today.

Yeah,

he's on one of my fantasy teams that I care about. He's 10 for 22 for a touchdown today, but just, he, it was another game where he just seems small.

Yeah, he had 22 yards. Is that what it was? Is that what it was?

22 yards total.

Yeah. Yeah.

So it, it's not like they have awesome people behind 'em, but they can't really figure—

I think not, not to say that they're not gonna, they don't need a running back, but He works the tight end so well. He really does, Cousins. So that, that underneath game is spoken for a little. You need more catches like Tucker made at the end, you know?

Yeah.

A couple of 'em from the receivers.

It's a very strange team to watch. It really is. I think Tucker's pretty good. So they have one deep threat. They have these 2 tight ends who are both really good. They can't run the ball so that they're doing play action when the teams are way more terrified of the tight ends than they're actually fine if you run the ball. On the Bills side, CJ Gardner-Johnson, yet again, he just blatant spit at, at, at one of the Bills, at one of the Raiders.

Right.

Gets kicked out. And I think it's only 6 weeks, but I think he locked up the Vontaze Burfict Award.

Oh yeah.

For the craziest player of the year. I think Perfect Strangers. I think he locked it up. Who's gonna, who's gonna beat him? Every game it feels like he's gonna get kicked out, on the verge of getting kicked out, trying to get kicked out. I didn't— I don't know what's going on with him.

He is good. I don't like the spitting. I'm, I'm, I'm not like everybody. A lot of people who was announcing that game was like, that is— spitting is the most despicable, the most dishonorable thing. Like, all right, he could, he could pull his pants down and wave his thing around. Like, you know, I think there's, there's worse, but it's pretty

gross.

See, you're one of those guys.

No, it's like when Bret Hart, when Bret Hart hocked that loogie in Vince McMahon's face. Great. Probably the grossest thing that's ever happened in WWE. I don't know. I can't think of anything worse. This is where guys are cutting themselves with razor blades in this scene. What are you talking about?

Mae Young gave birth at a stadium.

That's true. To Mark Henry's baby. Yeah. I forgot about that.

Yeah. Come

on. Um, the other thing that, uh, By, by the way, yet another non-impressive Bills game, but with Allen and, and Cook, who was great today too. So you just have to take them seriously every game. But every— both teams are in the entire game. You never feel like they're gonna pull away. The most exciting thing that happened, I don't know if you were watching it when it happened, was the Jim Nantz punch.

I saw the highlights of it. Yeah.

When they're— JJ Watt's like, look, you got it. And Jim Nantz punches it. And immediately you could tell that he knew this, that something bad had happened. And he just like— it was one of the only times I've ever seen him fall out of Jim Nantz character. It was like our dads.

Yeah.

It's like, Dad, did that hurt? No, no, I'm all right. And you just see, like, their arm's broken. It was like one of those, no, no, I'm all right. And, you know, he broke, like, 4 bones in his hand. I really think he might have broken his wrist.

He came back and it was wrapped, right? What was that?

And it was like, is this a bit? But Jim Nantz doesn't do bits.

He doesn't really do bits. Yeah.

What was, what was like the funniest thing Jim Nantz has ever done? The answer is nothing. He's not funny at all. I like to think of one funny thing from him.

Well, I like when he spit on a production assistant. No, no, he didn't do that. He

didn't do that. No, he didn't

do that. No. Well, I'll, I'll say funny.

He's not a funny person. Like, great announcer, but I wouldn't say he— nicest guy.

Yeah. But he punched that thing. Like, we know footballs, right? They could be, they could be rock solid or they could be like loose. Like it'd be, Tom Brady deflated ball. He probably thought it was somewhere in the middle where he could just give it a good, you know, good college try. And they gave him the, the freaking cannonball version. And, uh, I think he might have broke his— what is he gonna do? They really— let me tell you something, all those years, no trips to the emergency when Romo was his right-hand man. That's all I'll say. Not, not one.

Jim Nantz is like Iron Mike Sharp. He's coming in with Giant cast on his arm. Yeah, it was crazy. I— they're trying so hard to make this JJ Watt-Jim Nantz thing have any sort of chemistry at all, and he breaks his wrist 3 weeks in.

He's gonna be in a body cast and be like, listen, JJ, I like you a lot, but, uh, you're gonna kind of have to take this zero.

It's like one of those where there's like the sticks, his arms are like this, right? It's like OJ. Did you see that OJ piece, by the way?

I read— I tweeted about it. Yeah, I mean, it's looking like he could be guilty now. I think he might have done it. Yeah.

I, for the record, I've always thought he had help.

Help.

I thought A.C. Cowling's was -150.

Oh,

I think there was a second person there. A.C. Cowling's -150.

Mm-hmm.

His son was +200, and then the field was, I think, +220. Now I think the field is even odds.

Yeah.

Well, but yeah, it made, made sense. Like O.J., by all counts, cocaine, crystal meth.

Mm-hmm.

Did different things. I think he was high as a kite that night and probably didn't even remember he did it. And was definitely with somebody who gave him drugs. Was my, has always been my take.

They should have talked about this during the Bills game.

This should just be my pod. Like, forget football. Just talking about the OJ. Yeah. OJ that day. Yeah. But that guy, he, it really seemed like he, he helped get rid of, of the, the murder weapon and there was a bag and allegedly put it in some dumpster in Doheny.

Mm-hmm.

Just incredible stuff.

I mean, if you're Fred Goldman and you're hearing this, I don't know, 32 years later, are you, are you relieved a little bit or are you like, yeah, no fucking shit. What's wrong with everybody? Like that? That's, I think that would be my reaction.

If you're Fred Goldman, are you in jail right now?

Oh, I think, yeah.

I'm saying you. Yeah. I'm not saying Fred.

Yeah, I think so. I would've, I would've freaked out.

I would've, I probably would've snapped by like 1990.

I would've done something stupid.

Yeah. Yeah. Or especially like we're in the courtroom together. It just feels like one day you could, Mm-hmm. At least figure out how to do those Twitter videos where the person leaps over the row.

Right, right, right.

You gotta get like, although the problem with OJ, it's like the football Jim Nantz punched. OJ had that big giant hard head.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah. To punch OJ, you'd probably like just break your— exactly. Yeah. Well, anyway, rest in peace, Juice. Um, we're, we're gonna take a break.

It's a good time to break.

Yeah. Good time to break. We're gonna take a break, come back, and then we have to talk about, uh, That the Chargers are 0-6. That sucks. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. The NBA's back. It's gonna be your most rewarding season ever on FanDuel. How rewarding are we talking? More rewarding than 15 half-court buzzer beaters in a row. This NBA season, which we've already done a lot of content on, that feeling will not stop on the court. Look out for FanDuel Rewards Club exclusive offers. surprises, and more. You can look out for me on the FanDuel page in the NBA. They have a tab with all of my favorite bets, and you could really, really, really go nuts with different profit boosts. You can bet on over-unders for wins. You can bet on how long will team go in the playoffs. Can they make it first round, second round, third round, conference title, division, finals matchups? You can bet on the points per game leader, whatever you want. Every week, check the FanDuel app to see what's waiting for you beyond NBA Futures, 'cause we're gonna have games soon. Be ready for those.

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That's why he was the number 2 quarterback. I propose changing his nickname to the Slapper.

I like it.

It's pretty good.

I try not to watch him. Yeah. Why can't he break his hand?

Tell us again, Mike.

Let him break his hand on some like hard granite from Europe or something.

Speaking of TV, Sean McVay, just go to Amazon already. Just do it now. Do it, do it in time for week 7. They have the Herb Street job waiting for you. Just go next week. Another fucking atrocious Cost me a 13-point tease I shouldn't have done.

Me too.

But I thought just 2 weeks in a row of atrocious coaching from him. So we can go, we can hit all the other parts of that game. They could have stolen it. Yeah. I actually thought the Cardinals outplayed them and deserved to win the game. And if anything, it shouldn't have even been close in the last couple minutes. The Cardinals did everything you needed to do. They slowed the game down. They got 4th down stops. They were able to move the ball. They made every field goal, but it still came down to terrible play calling. Even before they got the ball back for the go-ahead touchdown, what was it like 3rd and 8 or something? They ran like back-to-back bubble screens where the guy just got tackled behind the line. It was fucking awful. They give them great field position after they scored the touchdown. They give Arizona the ball on the 35 'cause their special teams are so bad. He doesn't care about that. So Arizona, one pass over the middle, penalty, all of a sudden they're in field goal range. But the biggest thing I thought, they scored too soon.

Of course.

And I don't understand how teams are still getting this wrong. Where, you know, it's 2nd and 3, they're inside the 5. Arizona's now outta timeouts 'cause LaFleur for some reason has fucked up the timeouts. And all they have to do is run one in the middle of the line. get the first down or set up 3rd and 1, whatever. But you just wanna run like 3, 4 more plays. You never want them to get the ball back. They call like the quick out to Parkinson, who then this dumbass reaches the ball over the goal line to score, 47 seconds left. It's like, well, we know how bad their special teams are. This is a gift. They're gonna need 2 passes. The Cardinals are gonna win the game. What were they doing, Sal?

You're begging them to get that wrong. And McVay is like a guy who can memorize, like, you know, when he played against the, the New Orleans in 2019, You know, in the third quarter, like he remembers like every play. Like, how do you not? Like, he's not like one of these other mooks that just like, oh, he was coaching at Arkansas State and now he's the— now he's the guy. 47 seconds left, second and 3 at the 6. The opposing team has no timeouts. That is a run. That's a run every single time. You kill some clock. You could even, especially when you could even get a first down. If it's second and goal, it's probably a run. But 2nd and 3 at the 6, it's still a run. I don't know. You're right. They were lucky to be in it. I mean, Arizona allowed 33 points a game and then went on the road against an angry Rams team that scored almost nothing and they were still in it. But I, I don't understand how this, this is now 3 games he's lost as a 12 or greater point favorite in his last like 7 years or so.

This was the biggest upset of the year, right? I think. Right? Yeah, definitely. And it might've even been the biggest upset of last year too. Well, we're gonna have— they're, they're 2-4 now, 10-1 for the Super Bowl. They'll be on their 3rd kicker next week because they started this game with their— They're not allowed to have a kicker. They're just not allowed to have a new kicker. Just decides to try to tackle somebody and gets— and breaks something.

On crutches. Yeah.

Myles Garrett heading into Week 7, don't know where he is. The Browns have their pick, which all of a sudden seems like a problem. And then, uh, I mean, there's a real Stafford conversation to be had, I think.

What, what's the conversation? I mean, he still throws the ball, he still zips it in and makes throws at a lot of guys.

Is he closer to the MVP year he had last year or just being completely washed? In the middle, in the middle of that, which, what is he closer to right now? 'Cause I think it's like 57-43 on the wash side. Like he, He had Puka, I think it was in the 3rd quarter, just wide open for a touchdown, right? Overthrow him. Like, he had— it feels like he has 2 or 3 of those a game. Feels like you can speed him up. It felt like the Cardinals were just blitzing him. They don't really have a deep threat, so I guess it's easy to do it that way where you just send everybody at him. But, uh, I just didn't think he was good today.

Do you want him to be our cross-off? Should we wait on the Colts? We could always do the Colts next week.

I didn't— listen, I would tell Ty Simpson, like, I'm not telling you to get ready, but Don't not get ready.

Yeah. Yeah. No, I get sort of ready. I don't know why I didn't, I didn't look at him as the problem there, but I guess, I guess, yeah, sure. He overthrew.

He was part of the problem. You scored 16 points against the Cardinals. They gave up 45 points last week.

For sure.

What changed? It's not like they added a bunch of guys back.

Yeah. I'm on a coach killing spree. I really am. I'm just so mad at all the coaches around the league starting in the morning, especially when you're mad and yelling at the TV at 6:30 in the morning on the West Coast. We'll talk about that too. But, and, and yet with all of this, the Rams are 4th. 4th Super Bowl favorite at 10 to 1.

I agree with that.

Will the Rams make the playoffs? Yes, 50%. No, 49%. And then there's a half in there somewhere.

That's what Netflix says.

That's what Netflix says.

Steel— what about, should we ask the net— let's ask the Netflix people. Steel cage match, Sean McVay versus Troy Aikman for Herbie's chair.

Oh, that's good.

Who wins that? Put that— can you guys put that in the, in the, uh, They could do anything. Yeah. Who's, who's favored in that? McVay? Like, McVay's shorter. I think Aikman has way more size than him, but Aikman's like 15 years older.

In like an actual cage match, you're saying?

Yeah, I think it's steel cage. I don't even think— I don't think we do the thing where it's like one match, right? It gets double countout. Now let's do Texas death. Oh my God, something happened. We're gonna have to put him in a cage and really— yeah, I think we go right to the cage.

I think McVay has endless energy, but I think Aikman's got a lot of anger. In him. And it depends.

He really does.

It depends. If like, if Iron Jim Nantz with this cast had your back, that's who the winner would be.

Iron Jim Nantz.

Yeah. Iron Jim Nantz.

He is the cast next week. I'm gonna fucking pee my pants in the morning if I see him with the fucking Iron Mike Sharp thing. I'm gonna die. Aikman, by the way, didn't he take a Miami Dolphins job?

Oh yeah.

Or try to?

The job. What do you mean? Like part ownership, right?

He got like a something with Miami, right?

Right. Did he have to turn that down? I can't even keep track of this.

I feel like the, this is one of those classic sports media things where we're only, whatever the version of the story that somebody wanted to get out got out first.

Mm-hmm.

But how do we, how do we know Aikman didn't ask ESPN for like $25, $30 million? Yeah. And they were like, yeah, we're not paying that. And then he, and now he's taken umbrage. Meanwhile, he did this Miami thing already. I, I'm just, I don't wanna hear the victim thing for Troy Aikman. Like he's got a pretty good life. You're calling 17 games. Yeah. You know, you're just flying around doing games and, and guess what? If you're not doing the games, they're gonna get the same rating for the games.

Oh shit.

You're just hating on the Cowboys today. I know. I'm just saying like, you're gonna get, they're gonna get the same rate rating regardless. At some point there's a point of no return. And by the way, if I was ESPN, I would dump the Manning cast. I would have Eli and Peyton do 8 games each.

Interesting.

But why not do that?

You also— don't you, uh, don't you champion like guys negotiating together and stuff? I mean, we're talking about Joe Buck.

They didn't do that.

I, I know, I know. Like, that's—

but how do— but everyone, the, the feeling of this is like Joe Buck was the one that didn't negotiate together. What if— what if—

It might be unfair. Yeah, you're right.

What if Aikman was the one that didn't negotiate? I don't know. I just don't— I'm only hearing one side of the story. Joe Buck hasn't said anything. Yeah. And for whatever reason, it tore their relationship apart. But yeah, I thought, do the Friends cast thing and do it together. But maybe Aikman thought he was more valuable than, than Buck. I just, I don't believe any of this stuff cuz I've been through it where people have written things about stuff I've been involved with or whatever. And it's always like, whatever the first narrative that comes out becomes the narrative. And in this case, I don't believe it.

Yeah, you're right. Well, Troy, if you're watching or listening right now, vote on Netflix. Whether it was you, whether you could beat Sean McVay, you beat Sean McVay. Iron Mike, Iron Jim.

Listen, he's just gonna go to Amazon.

Yeah.

Unless McVay beats him there. And if he doesn't go to Amazon, he'll go to CBS. Like, he'll be fine. I really like listening to Troy Aikman do games. I, I like Buck and Aikman together. But

listen, you know what I said? I said Aikman, Romo, Cowboys alt cast. They

only, Romo came, they only do Cowboys games.

I don't know, you know, whatever. It doesn't even have to be the network that has him.

I would love that. I, this makes, this bums me out though, 'cause I do like Buck and Aikman together and I thought they, yeah. I don't know. I thought we'd get them for another 5, 6 years. And if they, if they go apart, I guess Collinsworth and Tariko would be the best 2, right?

Yeah. We got Myers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, other than that, yeah, yeah. Myers is up there too. So the other one thing I wanted to mention about this Rams game, I've been on the wrong side of every single game where a backup kicker, backup snapper has become involved.

Oh yeah.

since 1990. If it ever happens, just assume I have money on the other team somehow. I've— it's never worked out in my favor where I'm like, I'm a little nervous about this Browns bet. And then the team they're playing all of a sudden has a backup kicker.

Right.

I, I don't know how it's worked, but I'm batting 1,000 the wrong way on this. Have you ever had it gone your way on that?

It doesn't seem like it. It seems like I'm always watching and the ball going through is, is a bad, bad thing, but it really didn't even It shouldn't have mattered, honestly. If they—

if it changes a little bit though, I think it changes when you're inside the 30 and the team knows that you have no field goal potential. Yeah, I think that can change a little bit how they play defense.

Sure. For the first 59 minutes. But they— right. McVay still screwed up that last 20 seconds. He did. We didn't talk, by the way, with the pass interference. Couldn't they— can't they pick that up? I thought something happened in the preseason where like you could pick up a flag.

Booth review. They should have picked it up. It was terrible.

They should, right?

It's the worst call of the day other than that first roughing the passer on Dak.

Yeah. Yeah.

What, what, that, that call was, that was, that call was awful.

Yeah. Real bad.

Okay. We're going to Texans-Jags and I'd like to congratulate the London games this year.

Yeah. Is it over?

I thought, yeah. Oh, London games. 3 good ones.

Yeah.

3 good ones. Today's game was fantastic. We had 842 yards of offense. We had a rollercoaster ride of a game. DeMeco Ryans, as always, I'm, I'm, your game management is always gonna leave me cold at all times. But yet somehow they finally won a dumb 50-50 game. So what stood out to you with this one?

They gotta, well, they gotta treat, you're right. Like you might as well give 'em no names scoring touchdowns. Who was it? It was like Noel, it was Jordan, Tuten, Moreau, and Burkitcher or something. So,

right.

And, but Yeah, I, I thought it went back and forth. It was nice. There were, it was even time of possession was even yardage turnovers were even coaching was pretty much even Liam Cohen's late decisions were a tiny bit more asinine than DeMeco Ryan's. And so they kicked that and we're on text and it's very early in the morning and they kicked that 60-yard field goal and we're like, all right, congratulations. There's over a minute left and they have timeouts. Like, what the hell are you doing? Like what? I, I, I was starting to think like, do the English fans know the coaching is bad all around for the league?

Like, I think they assume this is the coaching.

Really?

Yeah. So it's bad consistently, so then they just assume this is how it goes. It's like these blokes, they love to screw stuff up.

Yeah.

Every week they make a dumb decision.

Yeah. I

would— that was my English accent.

That was pretty good. I was gonna try to— I'm not gonna be as good either, but I mean, I feel like I could watch, and I watch EPL every Saturday, and for the rest of my life I not know what a bad substitution is, you know what I mean? But I guess it's less situational thing. But I would really think it would be like, what in the bloody hell has got into that bloke Liam Cohen's scrummy? Or something like that. We both use bloke. That's

all right. Bloke. And what's the other one they use? Bloody.

Bloody, bloody bloke. Yeah.

So Brian Thomas Jr., 15 plays total, benched in the second half.

The hell?

I guess his Jaguars career, maybe he's the next disgruntled or underachieving receiver to get traded. Flip side, Harrison, pretty good on Houston and he wasn't really involved. Yeah. I, I got up early. I watched this entire game 'cause I have a lot at stake with the Texans. I had them to ring around '07. Mm-hmm. Wasn't really involved in the first quarter. They went to him once in the second quarter on a big play and he got it and I was like, okay. And then by the end of the game, he was in there and, and they had him and Noel. and Nico, who I thought Travis Hunter did mostly a really good job on.

Right.

And, and Stroud was lights out. Like, to me, Stroud, you can't be the MVP if your team's 2-4.

Exactly.

But if we, yeah, but if they, if we had the under .500 awards for all the under .500 teams, he's the MVP.

Oh wow. They

should have that. Yeah. He's the best ever at all the under .500. He's the most important player in the league.

I feel like he had a conversation with himself. He says, who knows if this defense, our defense, which is normally very, very good, if not the best, is gonna travel well. So I'm just gonna match them point for point.

I'm just gonna carry and I'm gonna score

first. And their running game was good too. Marks and Juwal Jordan had 100 yards combined. So that, that's a little livelier. Yeah.

The weird thing, I mean, they lost Alshair at some point during the game. They lost Blankenship. The defense hasn't been good. They gave up 30-plus again today. They finally got a semblance of a stop, but it doesn't seem the same. It would be funny if Stroud gave some interview or press conference and was like, you know, it's tough to carry the other side of the ball like this, but this is what I have to do. Like after what happened in the playoffs last year.

Right, right.

It's like, you know, this is, I guess what God decided that I wasn't gonna get help this year. But I thought it was a huge win for them. I still think it's a playoff team. I still think it's one of the 5, the 7 best AFC teams. And they've, they're 2-4. They could easily be 5-1 or 6-0. And, and I think they'll be heard from.

They have Giants, Chargers at Browns and home for the shitty Colts. I think that's their next 4 or 4 outta the next 5. They're +280 for the division. I, I figure you're gonna pounce on that. That's what I thought.

I think we get 2 AFC South playoff teams. And I think we get 2 AFC Norths. I'm sorry, 1 AFC North, 2 AFC East.

1 AFC North.

Oh, 2 AFC North. Yeah. And then 1 AFC West. I think that's the one with the 1.

Wait a minute, what are you talking about? You— Bills, Bills, Patriots, right?

Right. 2 there. So 1 wild card from there.

Right.

1 wild card from the North.

Right.

I think 1 wild card from the South. 7.

Oh, okay.

And I, I think we get nobody from the West other than the Chiefs.

Interesting. Why did I forget that?

You know why? 'Cause Bo Nix died about 9 months ago.

I don't know what to make of that team.

But I know what to make of Bo Nix. He can't throw a football anymore and, and can't run or scramble or do anything.

He could throw it.

They're at the bench.

Just can't throw it forward. But yeah, he could throw it. Yeah.

He can throw it if the guy's 5 yards in front of him.

Yeah. He's like, who needs air yards? I don't, I don't care about this air yard thing.

Gus said it best. Our, our buddy Gus, Broncos fan. He watches every play. He's like, he doesn't have his burst anymore. Whatever happened to his ankle? He doesn't have his, his juice. So you have that combined with that he was an erratic QB to begin with and seems like he's lost his confidence. I actually think they have to go to Stidham, and you could talk me into Kirk Cousins for them too if the Raiders— Interesting. Wanted to trade. Wow. In division. Yeah, I think the— I think Knicks is a wrap. That game on— that game Thursday was a cry for help. Like, they were basically like, we just don't want to turn the ball over. We think we can win our defense. We're not letting Bo Do anything. We're putting the childproof aspirin lock on him. You're doing nothing in this game. And he's still, and he still almost killed him.

I think they have to go to every, every reiteration of, iteration of, you know, like he, Sean Payton calling 3rd down play. Like what, how many plays is Sean Payton calling now? 'Cause I'm not even sure. Like I know he gets to admit calling the, the ones that work.

If I was Sean Payton, I would say I wasn't calling any of these.

Yeah. Right.

Yeah, I would just put— I would blame everything on the other guy. What lasts longer, Bo Nix or your kidney stones?

You think? I hope Bo Nix. I mean, I don't, I'm never rooting against anyone.

Bo Nix as a starter or your kidney stones?

My kidney stones would probably put up like 6.5 air yards per attempt. I think, I think it would do better.

How many, how many listeners have texted, tweeted, or emailed you advice or weird things to do.

And you're forwarding me stuff and there's like, there's a lot of good stuff. There's that Power Blast or whatever, that kidney blast, that Stone Blaster, what a breaker it is. I'm taking that. I think it's getting easier, but I have no idea. I have to wait for results. This is the dumbest thing I've ever been through in my life.

I thought the craziest suggestion that people swear by is just rampant adultery. I don't know if you heard that.

Is that right?

Oh, wow. Yeah. You gotta tell your wife. Yeah. It's like, listen, this is, I have to just get

a load of this.

Apparently I just need to have as much sex as possible. That'll solve the kidney stone.

That's better than my mother calling up and saying, do you jump up and down a lot? Because I've read a lot of stuff where if you jump up and down, it'll loosen things. I'm like, I'm not jumping up and down.

It'll loosen things?

Yeah, it'll loosen things. You're loosening her brain. I'm not jumping up and down for this.

That's incredible. Maybe ride a couple roller coasters.

Yeah, that's perfect.

Yeah. Well, Texans-Jags, great game. worth staying up for or worth getting up for. Even though these, I mean, this Dallas game, this was another 14+ hour day today where we just went all the way through. We needed one more West Coast game. We still had the 3.

They did 7 in the morning. I like the 7 though. I do like the 7. I don't have to—

Well, we had, right, we had 3 for the lates and one of them was, was a piece of crap, which we're gonna talk about now. Chiefs-Chargers. I don't know. Mahomes looks fine. Walker looks great. Walker's averaging 106 yards a game. He's got 6 touchdowns. Chiefs are the Chiefs. Another 5-0 start for Mahomes. Not a lot to discuss there. We haven't— we— I want to see them really tested one of these weeks. It wasn't going to be this week. Meanwhile, the Chargers— Herbert is on a 6-game interception streak. Do you know this?

Oh yeah.

Started the year 6 starts, 6 picks. I like— has anyone ever just ripped through the year? Jameis must have done this.

Jameis had over 30, so yeah, he had to be right there, right?

Like doing just 17 games in a row of 1 pick.

Yeah, yeah, get it out of his system.

And then like, could— is like DiMaggio nervous? Does he get nervous at this point? The, uh, 256, 259 yards of offense. 6 points, bunch of key drops, a lot of dumb shit, weird plays. They just love the play where he pretends to throw left and then turns and throws to the guy right who's already getting tackled.

Mm-hmm.

It's a lot of hang dogs, a lot of receivers doing this, a lot of shots on the sideline of people like this. Mm-hmm. Uh, John Harbaugh Biden is just— he looks more confused than he's ever looked in his life.

Both of 'em. It's tough. I don't know which Harbaugh would you rather be at this point.

I'd rather be John.

You wanna be John?

Yeah. I'll talk— I'd talk myself into JJ McCarthy in 3 minutes. It's like, did you see him in the 4th quarter? He threw for 250 yards.

Listen, I wish I could laugh, but I bet the Chargers every single week. I bet 'em as my underdog special on Ringer Wise Guys. I'm like, this is gonna be the week they're gonna sneak up on everyone. That was a close one in Arrowhead Last year, they're gonna do it. I need an intervention. Like, you have to, you have to tell me, like, I can't bet the Chargers anymore.

I honestly—

every week.

Didn't know, didn't— I thought this was a bit. I didn't think it was real. No, they're the first, they're the first team since 2009, Tennessee, to start 0-6, average fewer than 15 points a game, and have 15+ giveaways in the first 6 weeks. So this has not happened for 17 years. It feels worse. They are the first team to have 10+ giveaways and 15+ sacks taken.

Mm-hmm.

That started 0-6 over the last 30 years. The only other one was Eli Manning, 2013 with the Giants. They had this week EPA, which I mostly understand. I can't, I can't say it's a stat I throw around. I think it confuses most people. The football nerds love it. Their offense was -31.6. Total EPA against the Chiefs, according to @Summersports, out of 5,460 performances since 2016, that was 5,404th. So it was in the bottom 60 of all performances in the last 10 years.

Yeah. Unwatchable.

So they, they were supposed to be better this week. Right. Not the other way. Fantasy murderers: Chargers, Miami, Tennessee. You just don't want anyone on any of those. Those teams,

right?

You're not starting anyone on any of those teams. No, you can't. You're— somebody got hurt or you fucked up your season.

Trying to think of a tight end or something. No, you can't do it. Wandale Robinson. Nah, I'm good. I'm good. Yeah. The good news is I checked, they're off this week, so I don't cancel the intervention.

I, I won't be betting on them. So somebody's getting fired tomorrow and it, it's probably McDaniel. I don't think he got— he didn't really get a vote of confidence from Grandpa Harbaugh.

Yeah. Right.

Like, what do you know about McDaniel? Ah, yeah, he froze. But I think McDaniel probably becomes the fall guy. They give it to somebody else. They do quotes about, we're gonna simplify the offense. We're gonna— it was too complicated. We think we have to slow things down for Justin. And, uh,

I'm trying to think if there's been a preseason predicted marriage between a coach and a player that worked out more poorly than this. McDaniel and, and Herbert here.

Because it's like one of those celebrity weddings where they, it gets annulled after 4 months.

Yeah. Right.

Or like after a year that, you know, like the stuff we grew up with, whether you're on the COVID of People magazine and then everyone's pointing fingers. Yeah. It's a really tough one.

Yeah. But a lot of those you don't think will work. Kenneth Walker, you brought up. First of all, favorite to win Offensive Player of the Year now, and I think that's right.

So much fun to watch. Yeah, I think that's right too.

Yeah.

So 3rd running back with 650+ yards, 6 yards per carry, 6+ rushing touchdowns in the first 5 games. One of the other 2, Orental James Simpson. Oh yeah, yeah.

I forget who the other one was, but the other one didn't murder anyone. I know that.

Does Kenneth Walker have an accomplice?

It looks like it.

He also passes DI test. There's been like 8 offensive, I don't know, 7, 8, 9 offensive players this year that jump out of the TV. He's just like play to play, series to series. He's just really, you're just watching like, wow, this guy's really good.

Excellent.

It's like he took everything from the playoffs last year and carried it over and it's clearly one of the 4 or 5 best guys now. Bucs-Steelers goes into overtime and it ends with the Steelers being 4-2. And, uh, a couple notes for this one. I, I'm really giving up on Tampa Bay as a sports city.

Well, not yet. They're gonna be in the World Series now.

This was a home game for the Steelers, right? Like, we already— this happened earlier in the year. I forget who was it. There was another team that went in there. It was the same thing. But yeah, you've 8— I'm gonna go look back. You have 8 NFL 8 or 9 NFL home games a year. How are you getting demolished? Like, how are you the Chargers?

Vegas was bad too today with the, with the Bills.

And of course the Chargers. Yeah. Like you said, every week.

Oh, they was either the Vikings or Green Bay. Green Bay, I think was— Oh,

Green Bay had a big crowd there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's funny, you were texting me, you were texting me, oh, good job McCarthy. Classic McCarthy. And I was like, I'm not sure who he is talking about. JJ? Mike, Melissa McCarthy, like they, they were all like sucked at the time you were talking about.

Like, oh, right. It was like, which McCarthy? Yeah. It was JJ ended up doing well, I guess. But no, it was McCarthy had a terrible timeout at one point.

Yeah.

Or, or didn't call a timeout or did the thing where you waited 20 seconds before you called the timeout. Right. You should have called 20 seconds before.

And gave them more time than they need— they

should have had. Yeah. This was an 11 punter. Tampa had 224 yards. Tampa had the game. Like I wrote down in my notes in the second quarter, like, don't hurry back Baker. And then Daniels just completely fell apart. Yeah. I think some of it, it was hot and it seemed like it had for some reason affected Tampa more than,

yeah,

more than, and it was hot and windy. It was just like the weather conditions were weird and Daniels just completely fell apart. Boswell made a 58-yard game-tying kick with the wind going sideways that I just think in 1978 would've been inconceivable.

Mm-hmm.

Right. Do we need to go back to barefoot kickers?

Oh, I like that. I like it a lot. There weren't too many, right?

Tony Franco. You have to wear the Tom Dempsey boot. Like there's got, there gotta be some sort of handicap. Well, that helped, right? I mean, that just, yeah, true. That, that helped. Yeah, I guess that would help.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I guess the Steelers, it's so funny with the Steelers and Browns. I mean, the Steelers were, you know, more highly touted than the Browns going in, but Pittsburgh has the Saints, the Browns, the Eagles, 3 of the next 4. So, wow, they could be around for a while.

I had them as a playoff team. It's gonna be one of the, one of the good ones for me in my .500 futures season. The McCarthy play, it was 16-16. He makes that crazy field goal. They get a pick. Daniels throws a pick.

Yeah.

It's first and goal from the 3 and they go 2 yards with 2 incompletions.

Mm-hmm.

And give them the ball back 19-16 with 1:21 left. And Tampa had 2 timeouts and it allowed them to whatever. But it was just every part of how they handled that was awful. I gotta hand it to Rodgers. I thought he, I thought he was awful for an hour and he got better as the game went along and it felt like he solved it. Now the Bucs, I thought, got tired as the game went along, but I thought Rodgers was really good down the stretch.

I thought he was too. It was, it was, I In the beginning he was like 2 of 6 with an interception and like, oh yeah, this is good. And he was getting sacked too. Like, this could be one where he just checks out. And like you said, it was hot and windy and all that stuff, but this was a great comeback. Is it 19-3 or 16-3 in the 4th?

He, yeah, it was 16-3.

Yeah.

And they had, I forget why it was 16-3. What, 16-6, 16-9? Yeah. 2 field goals and a touchdown. Yeah. But one other thing. Oh, Bernard. Bernard had a breakout game for them even though he fucked up the 4th down play.

Right.

He had the classic, the, the, all the football plays that would kill Hench. This is in the top 5. The guy catches the 1st down patch pass, but then runs backwards to try to get more yardage. Right. And then gets tackled on the other side and loses the 1st down. It's an all-timer. So the Bucs are 1-5 and they're 2 wins back in the NFC South.

I was all excited when the Bucs were beating the Steelers. I was like, maybe the Cowboys are the second best team. Maybe they just like, yeah, no, nothing like that. And now Baker has to rush back.

Well, you mentioned the Browns, classic Cleveland home win. This was a 14-punter. The rule in the show is if we get to 15 punts, we just move on. They were 11 for 32 on third down combined, and it was really awful. Tyler Huntley, was who we thought he was.

Yeah.

Deshaun was typically awful, but then Henry fumbles, they're up 10-3. Baltimore's in the zone. Like, as long as we don't turn the ball over, we're winning 10-3. Fumble, Cleveland scores. Yeah. And you know where it's going on yet. Deshaun Watson's speech after getting the game ball after the game. So

what'd he say?

His 4th game-winning drive this season, by the way, for Deshaun Watson. He said, it's been a long 22 months and this is what I did it for. I come back so I can win these games for all you boys. Love everybody. Party at my house.

Oh, what's that look like?

Yeah, let's just keep going. So let's keep moving.

That motherfucker's gonna get extended.

Party at my house. Uh-oh. Yeah. So they're 4-2.

They're 4-2. They have a -16 point differential. The Bucs have a -19 and they're 1-5. And look, I don't know, at halftime or close to halftime, I texted you. I said, the Browns have 46 yards, the Titans have 64 yards, the Steelers have 73, and all 3 won. How is that possible? Like, does anyone look as bad as Deshaun Watson does in the first hour only to come back? Like, I think he just might be that guy now. Like, yeah, we just have to expect that he's gonna, you know, throw the balls in the dirt for the first and second quarter, and then you're gonna see a crazy resurgence. As long as the other team has 10 or 16 or 17, he's gonna be in it to win it.

Well, it'd be like our friend Jeff Ross sent us a picture of him at a Springsteen concert last night. Yeah. It was like if Springsteen was like Deshaun Watson, he comes out for a 3-hour show, he's terrible for 2 and a half hours.

Right.

And everyone in the show's like, no, no, hold on. He's gonna get really good in this last half hour.

Yeah.

And then in the last half hour, he's like 1978 Bruce Springsteen. And you're just like, yeah, this is what he does. He just throws away the first 80% of the game.

It's funny, I feel that about Jeff and his standup act. I feel exactly the same way. First hour, eh, all right.

Can I steal that?

Get to the Bea Arthur stuff.

Poll results. Cage match for Herb Street's job.

Who's winning?

McVay won 51 to 49.

Oh, so close.

Another loss for Aikman.

Wow.

Tough, tough Hickman week. He couldn't even beat McVay in the steel cage. I think they just feel like McVay would have so much caffeine, it would almost be like watching a wild animal.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, he would eat through the cage. Yeah.

Yeah. Saints-Giants really quick. Gail Bettsen called out everybody this week and I guess it actually worked. They're 34-10 at one point and then JJ McCarthy came in and if you're a Giants/Michigan fan, Like Noah Malolay, who works for us. This was, this was the greatest half hour of your life. You still have your JJ stock. You need a quarterback 'cause the answer's not Jameis. And JJ comes in and is just winging it around. I didn't even have this game on the TV. I don't know what happened. All of a sudden it's 34-27, and I guess he starts next week, right?

I guess he has to start.

I mean, right?

I, I did something. I was forced to start Jameis Winston in a fantasy league. you don't know about. I was stuck. I guess I could have gone Huntley or something, whatever. But yeah, does it ever get to when your fantasy quarterback is so bad you, you're, you're like, please take him out, please bench him,

right? You don't want any more minus points.

These minus 2s, I'm getting crushed with the minus 2s. Jameis came out and, you know, New Orleans, that other genius Kellen Moore took out his starters with 8 minutes left. They're up like 24, whatever. I think they were up 24, right? They needed 3. Yes. And And, uh, well, you're not Mike Martz leading the '99 Rams, like, leave your guys in. So yeah, JJ has to start. I just— that, that Harbaugh interview was great too with Scatteboe. And like, Scatteboe with no catch, no touches today. Um, and they asked him—

In the running for worst fantasy pickup this year.

Yeah, no doubt.

He said— what'd he say? Nobody's taking the bull by the horns?

Well, he's like, no, he was in the rotation, he was on the field, he just didn't get the ball when he was on the field. It's like, just— you just didn't have carries. It just so happened It was bad luck. It was just bad luck. He'll probably get 30 or 35 touches next

week. And then somebody's like, well, do you, do you, can't you tell us more about, was it a benching? And he's like, I think I just told you in the answer I gave. I don't have any information at all beyond what I just told you.

These coaches are fascinating. It really is.

They love, well, they don't want to get clipped.

Yeah.

Falcons-Bears, Caleb was incredible. Caleb was 26 for 26 for 255 when he wasn't pressured.

Yeah.

And it felt better than that. Most important, Colston Loveland finally emerged from the depths of fantasy hell.

Yep.

And had a good game and also was wide open for another touchdown. And Caleb kind of threw it behind him and missed him, but he would've had 2 touchdowns. But they looked awesome for an hour and hung on. And I thought Penix looked terrible. If you watch Penix, what was the game when he lit up? Who did he light up? New Orleans? Yeah. Was that 2 weeks ago?

Yeah. Yeah. It was a Monday night game.

Yeah. If you watch that Penix and you watch the one today, you would think they were 2 different people. He must have broken ribs in there.

It's so weird. 'Cause he was 19 for 33. He had 225, 3 touchdowns, no interceptions. And you would think that was—

That was all garbage. That was such a weird game. 16 points in the 4th quarter.

When Kyle Pitts scores twice, like I knew this game was drunk. So—

No, he was bad the first 2 hours of that game. He was bad. Yeah. So according to your math, the 2-4 Falcons, 5 more wins, they win the NFC South.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay. So that's right.

Yeah, they're, they're in good shape.

And then Panthers-Eagles, Eagles just got dominated. Deceiving score for this. I thought the Panthers—

You're right.

I thought the Panthers could have easily won like what, 40 to 10, 45 to 3. It like they had the ball the whole game.

Yeah.

Couple stupid things happened. Chuba Hubbard was excellent. 222 yards for the Eagles and there's not a Tanner McKee controversy. And yet it's 4th and goal, 13-7, Panthers are going for it. And it really felt like the Eagles were gonna stop 'em and somebody jumped offsides on the Eagles. And then the Panthers end it and then the game falls away. But it felt like the Eagles were gonna stop them and somehow be winning with 6 minutes left or something.

They're undisciplined now, the Eagles, in addition to everything else. And yeah, I picked this wrong. I can admit now Tanner McKee might not be the answer to the Eagles' offensive woes. They were, you wrote You read that crazy stat last week where they, they go 3-and-out 45% of their offensive possessions? There were 5 3-and-outs today on 11 drives. It's exactly 45%. They did it again.

Oh my God.

So he's not better, he's not worse.

So, but yeah, if they're gonna have like 35 yards rushing, they're, they're in a lot of trouble. This should have been a bigger blowout. Like they, Carolina had 170 yards in penalties, probably would've won by 4 touchdowns.

I did something amazing with the Panthers.

Go ahead.

I had for Thursday with House, I was gonna take 'em at 3.5 and I decided to hold and keep my fingers crossed that it would drop to 3. And then it dropped to 3 and I took them today. Now they covered by more than 3, but I was like, wow, that actually worked out.

Mm-hmm.

And I was feeling really good about myself until the Rams somehow didn't beat the Cardinals. They're good.

That offense is decent. If I have to say something nice about it, an NFC South team. team. I'll, I'll do it. I'll start with—

Yeah, they're competent. They can run the ball and they can throw it a little bit, and McMillan's good. I wrote down take it easy, Eagles, no pun intended. I think, I think, I think it's over for them. I wouldn't cross them off yet, but they've lost 4 straight. Hurts is out for another 3. Everybody in the team's hurt. Like, what? This isn't turning around.

Interesting. And then DeVonta Smith comes back, right? But they don't, uh, that— I mean, I guess he had a good game, but I don't know. Yeah. You, you think this is a, I don't know if Roseman's like a tanking guy.

2-4, play your stupid team next week at Washington, home Giants, home Pittsburgh, at Dallas, at Arizona. Funny thing is the schedule. The last few games are the hardest. Seattle, Houston, at San Fran, at Giants. But 4 losses, 9-8 wins the division.

Yeah. Yeah. And like 8 and 8 going—

or 8 and 1 could win the division. Oh, that's true.

There's that tie on the, with the other 2. Yeah.

So this team needs 7 more wins, I think. So they, there's 11 games. They have to go 7 and 4, I think, to make the playoffs. I don't see it.

And the half those games are gonna be with Tanner McKay, right?

Yeah. I would trade Saquon if I was them. Last one. Nah, nah, that's it. Oh, there's one more thing. Uh, 2 more small things for guest lines. One is that Pro Football Talk today had an article about the 9:30 AM ET games are hurting the traditional pregame shows.

Saw that.

When the NFL expands to 16 international games, the morning window could kill them.

Hmm.

I, I can't say I'm shedding a lot of tears for this one. It's like, oh no, we're not gonna have the pregame shows. Oh, you mean I'm not going to be able to watch a 4-minute interview with the quarterback of a team shot by 13 cameras?

Yeah.

Be like, Sal, how good was that win last week? That must have been awesome.

Yeah,

you must, you must love playing with him. You guys, it just feels like the energy is so different this year, right? Like, who, what, who are, who is this for?

Coming-of-age interview with, with Sauce Gardner. Yeah, I know.

Then 5 guys on the desk, Russell Wilson doing this. Like, who's watching these? Yeah, I don't know.

I'm trying to, um, decide if I'm gonna get insulted by this or not because we had a pregame show and you basically said, who's watching this? And now—

Well, I said there's 6 international shows. Yeah, yeah. But now we're doing our show on Friday and you can have 2 days to listen to it.

I love it. I love it. I know. But you're right.

Well, this'll, this'll cheer you up. This email from Jay from Winter Springs. Yeah. I'm a big lover of the pod.

Mm-hmm.

This week while listening, my wife asked me, what is the big deal about Dubundo not eating the stew?

Oh, what?

So this was, I didn't talk about this with you on the pod last week. Yeah. 'Cause I wanted to save it for the gambling show, but love it. Chang cooked for us last Sunday, made a stew, and Dubundo never tried it because he had eaten in the morning. He had had, uh, like a muffin from the hotel. Chang made 2 different stews, one of the best chefs in the world. DeBando's like, yeah, I'm not hungry. So anyway, this guy's wife says, what's the big deal about DeBando not eating the stew? I replied, David Chang made it.

Right.

Her response, David Chang? Fuck that guy then. How can you not eat anything Chang makes? But he says, I don't think AD realizes how serious this is. This is fucking first paragraph of the obit level. Anthony DeBundo, beloved husband, devoted father, who famously refused to eat stew cooked by legendary chef David Chang, passed away. And then he said, it's impossible for this horse to be beaten to death. And good. Said, you guys can't make enough jokes about this. This is from Jay from Winter Springs.

I love that. I love that.

I wanna call him Stewie.

I wanna call him Stewie. I think Stewie fits for now.

Stewie tokens.

I think, and by the way, there's a, there's a little nugget in there that you didn't mention. He had multiple, multiple chances to either lie about eating the stew or actually eat the stew. First of all, I wasn't hungry. That's not an excuse. When Dave—

He was there for 7 hours and he ate when he showed up. So there's 7 hours where he didn't eat.

That drives me absolutely crazy. Since when do you have to be hungry to eat? Look at me, I'm a fat slob.

Maybe I should eat more. You can try like a small bowl, at least cross it off.

You wouldn't be paying attention if he took half a spoonful and ate it and that would be done, right? We never And then he could have

fed it to

Murph, right? And your wife approached him too and then said, hey, did you have the stew? This is what alerted you. Your wife said, did you have the stew? And even then he could have said, yeah, I had the stew. You wouldn't have cared. You were watching 15 games, right? He said, no, I wasn't hungry. I didn't have the stew. How many times?

He said, no, I didn't eat it. And she goes, why? Why didn't you try the stew? And he said, I wasn't hungry. And she kind of walked away. She was like, what's up with this guy?

Yeah. It's— I'm getting angry talking about it now. I really don't understand. Then we called Chang and he was upset about it. And, um, yeah.

Well, the funny thing is we can't really do anything with this from a Ringer standpoint where it's like it's all leading to Chang's gonna cook the Bundo because he's dead to Chang. Like, for real. Like, I don't, I don't think Chang will— Good. I don't know how it goes with that.

He doesn't deserve a second chance. He turned down the stew and it was great stew, right? Not that it matters. Of course.

Well, he made— there were 2 different stews. One was like a sweeter one. Yeah, and then there was one like more traditional Korean one. The sweeter one was one of the best things I've ever eaten.

What an asshole! Now forget Cal.

I forgot about Cal. Tomorrow on the show, go at him again.

Yeah, I can't. We're gonna reset this every morning.

Tell him to eat his wife's wise words.

Yeah.

Egal ob ihr gern flauschige Feste feiert, danach im Sonnenaufgang in Berlin die Baywatch und die Lage der Nation diskutiert, oder lieber zu Hause bleibt und euer gemischtes Hack mit scharfem Senf aus Hollywood verfeinert, bevor es

That's

right.

Guess the lines, week 7. It's 3, 2, and 1. I'm leading.

Yep. Yep.

People thought the kidney stones destroyed your season, but you did win last week. Speaking of seasons destroyed, somehow my dumb team is playing the Thursday night game. I like this. About 100 injuries.

Mm-hmm.

I have no idea who my offensive line is. AJ Brown. I guess the only benefit is it's not a full week of coverage about is AJ Brown a bust? And Drake stuck up for him. Drake's like, he's one of the best players in the league. I'm gonna keep throwing it to him over and over again if that's okay. Thursday night, Bears in Chicago coming off a big win against the Pets, and I went with Bears -1.5.

Yeah, that, that's what it should be, right?

Yeah.

It's Bears -3.

I had 1.5 also.

You think the injuries are factored in there?

They have to be. This is a 1.5. This is as 1.5 as it gets.

Anthony DeBundo, beloved husband and devoted father who famously refused to eat stew cooked by legendary chef David Chang. passed away.

Rest in peace, Stewie.

That killed me. The fake obit is always funny.

Yeah.

All right. So let's go next with Sunday's marquee game, which I had down as Ravens-Bengals. You agree with that?

Wait, you forgot? Did you not?

This happens once a year. So let's go.

No, you know why? Because I put it in the poop factor.

All right. I mean, it goes there too. Yeah.

It's— we, we have another overseas game and it's in Paris. Great, great, great time to be in Paris. Yeah. We have, uh, the Steelers playing the Saints in Paris, which I put in the poop factor, but I should have put in its own category. Uh, neutral field.

Mm-hmm.

I have the Steelers Favored by 3 points over the

Saints. I had 3.5. It's 2.5.

Oh, winner for me.

Well, they really, they really bought into that Saints performance today.

I would not.

I guess.

I don't think the Saints are good. Yeah. You know what's interesting? Like, uh, on the Ringer Wise Guys, Raheem has this thing, he, the Larry Holmes status when somebody's washed.

Yeah.

Larry Holmes was like the first washed athlete he'd ever seen. So he always brings him up.

I always tell him Larry Holmes was an excellent tight end.

Larry Holmes unbelievable. Yeah, like an unbelievable 10-year career. He's undefeated for,

right,

the majority of his career before he finally lost. Anyway, he always says Larry Holmes status. And, uh, there's a reason I was telling you this.

The Saints? What?

No, I'm blanking now. Oh, Aaron Rodgers? No, Kamara. See, I brought it around. It's 10 o'clock Pacific time. We've been up watching football for 14 hours. Kamara, who I thought it was— he's— I think Raheem said was Larry Holmes status, was pretty good today.

Really good.

Every time you count out Kamara, he comes back and looks like Kamara again.

Tiptoeing the sidelines, right? Yeah. I mean, it's never going to be that 45-point fantasy point Christmas performance, but yeah, it was good today.

How funny is it that it's like, hey Paris, heard you've had a lot of unrest. Here's Aaron Rodgers.

Right, right.

Meet Aaron. He's an American quarterback. He's not controversial at all.

They're good. Yeah.

You'll like 'em.

Quell the protest. Yeah. I would recommend not flying the team out anytime before Friday for this.

McVay would have 'em going there on Sunday morning. Exactly. Just off the plane into the game.

Halftime.

That's another thing. McVay talking about it, the bad season yet. So he throws away the first game of the year.

Mm-hmm.

Right. With the, his goofy travel plan that he allegedly spent 2 years researching and then throws away the game last week and then botches the game this week. It's 3 losses, like directly resulting in McVay. Yeah. Not to mention they drafted a quarterback with the 13th pick who probably could probably use somebody to help them. Right. In the game today. Yeah.

I'm disappointed in him. I expect it from all the others, not him.

Sunday marquee, Ravens against the Bengals, and it's in Baltimore. And I think Lamar's coming back, and they tried to do the thing with Lamar where they thought they could sneak out the win against a really, really, really flawed Browns team.

Mm-hmm.

And then they could save Lamar for this game. And guess what? Didn't work.

Didn't work officially. Yeah. That kick went in

and now they really need this game. I have Ravens at home -2.5 against the Bengals.

I'm too in love with these 1.5s. I don't know why. I should have thought it through. You're right. Or you're righter. It's -3. You're closer.

-3. Okay. Derrick Henry, 4 fumbles this year.

Yeah. Rough day.

The one today was a momentum killer. I, I really think the Browns would end up with 3 points in that

Yeah, I think it just demoralized the team. Like, hey, it's got to be him like carrying us, you know?

Yeah. Watchables, I only have 2 unfortunately. Niners at Atlanta, pretty good game, turf. We'll see who's left on the Niners. They play tomorrow night, but right now I have the Niners favored in Atlanta. Niners -3.5.

All right, you get it. I said 6.5. Um, I was really It's 4.5. It's right in the Vegas zone.

All right.

No teasers, thank God, so far.

Oh, interesting.

I mean, unless you wanna go dogs.

Yeah, you take somebody going the other way. Lions are home for the Packers. Packers with a lot of, gonna get a lot of love all week about how they've turned their season around. I think somebody will be on TV this week, Sal. with the hands.

What, man? Oh, what?

There is no more underrated coach than Matt LaFleur. This guy, year after year, people complain. All I know is this guy wins. He has a top 5 EPA offense. This guy is one of the best coaches in the National Football League. Somebody will do that tomorrow on the ESPN show. I like that.

It's not gonna be Jim Nantz because his, one of his hands is in a sling for the next 4 months. Yeah,

it's gonna be wheeled out like Hannibal Lecter. So I have Lions minus 2.5 over the Packers.

You might just kill me this week. Every time you go 2.5, I go 1.5. It's 3 again.

Oof. All right. Jacoby's turned off.

I know.

Sorry, Jacoby. He's turned off the podcast. Yep. Fairly Watchables, 4. And this really isn't a fairly watchable. It should be a poopfecta. But I think with everything going on with the Colts, we gotta put it in there. Vikings home for the Colts. I don't think there's a better time to catch the Colts than this week. There's gonna be a lot of turmoil and weird shit coming on, and the Vikings coming off a bye. And I think this is our first tease candidate, and yet I will never put Kyler Murray in a tease, so it will not be a tease candidate for me. I have Vikings -6.5. Oh,

all right, we tie.

I said 4.5, it's 5.5.

All right, you know, and this would've been a That goes up.

This would've been a watchable if the Colts had won that fricking stupid game today.

I don't like their chances blocking the Vikings. They suck. Next, fairly watchable Panthers home for the Bucs. The Bucs could be right back in the race with a win here. I assume Baker Mayfield will play. I have this under 3. It's in Carolina and I think it's Panthers -2.5.

Yeah, I had that too. It is -3. They're going with a lot of 3s here, FanDuel, early in the week. They don't usually do that.

If that stays 3, I'm gonna take the Bucs for, I think, the 6th time this year.

So that's gotta be a Baker start, right? If they're saying 3. Yeah.

Has to. Okay. Fairly watchables just 'cause JJ McCarthy's probably starting this game. Texans home for the Giants. Texans in a weird spot where they just can't You can't have them laying 6 and above to anybody, I don't think, with the how weird they've been. So I put this in the Vegas zone. I have Texans -4.5.

Oh wow. Whoa. This is gonna be the one you're off most on. I said 7.5. It's 8.5.

All right. Disagree with that. Love the Texans. Have picked them a bunch of times.

Well, if their defense is gonna step up, it's gonna be against the JJ McCarthy-James combination, right? Giants can't run the ball. Like, what are they gonna— how are they gonna move the ball?

Let me ask you a question about the Texans defense. Why do we think they're gonna step up?

I just think they're gonna shine 8 times a year.

They gave up 30 to 34 to Dallas. They gave up 31 to Jacksonville today. They gave up 20 to Cincinnati, 36 to Buffalo, and they lost— they gave up 19 Indianapolis, but including the 3-point drive at the end that beat them. I just don't think their defense has been good.

Yeah, I guess not. I mean, they have prime premier players though that I feel like are just—

I know, but this show does sometimes. Yeah, DVOA heading into the game today, they were 9th defense, which I'm sure it's not the same, but they're not a— I don't think they're a top 10 defense anymore. But this is the right team.

They'll get right here. Yeah, this is your teaser game. Good for you.

Cali's gonna have her super bad notebook going. Just doing all kinds of, all kinds of jobs.

Wait, you have the wrong team. What? She's with Houston now?

Uh-huh.

Who'd you say is gonna have

it? Cali. No, I, I got mixed up. I thought Colts were playing the Texans. Cali's got her, she's got her super bad book for the Vikings game.

Yeah.

Texans, uh, -8.5 for the Giants. Last fairly watchable is Rams at the Raiders. Rams in Vegas. The rare game where Vegas will have most of the fans, I feel like.

Oh, interesting. Yeah, hadn't thought of that.

I couldn't have crammed this harder into the Vegas zone, so I went -4.5 Rams.

We split this too. It's, uh, I said 6.5, it's 5.5.

Hmm, interesting, because the Bills game ended at 5.5, and I thought because the Rams aren't as good as the Bills, I knocked the point off that, right? But apparently that was the wrong move. I like the Raiders. I think the Raiders in a tease would make sense.

I would not take the Rams in a teaser here. No way.

The other thing with the Rams, their left tackle was gone for the game today. The right tackle was getting his ass kicked. The running back, Kyren Williams, after the game was unhappy. Davante got hurt near the end of the game and it didn't look great. Just limped off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He had like the non-contact look back at his leg and then limped off.

Yep.

And then Puka took like 35 hits today.

Do you think Miles Garrett is like, how the hell?

Yeah. How am I on the Browns again?

I, I left the, I left the team. I left is in first place and I'm on a last place team. This is what I'm gonna fire my agent.

This would be a good Netflix poll. Do you think the Browns would trade verse a 1, a 2, and a 3 for Garrett? Just a complete undoing of the trade. Good. Goes the other way. Poopfecta. 3-1, 3 real poopy games. Browns at the Titans. Goddamn it, the Browns could be 5-2.

I got this exactly, and so will you, I'm sure.

I have Browns -2.5.

Ooh, it's 1.5.

Ooh,

I'm fighting back here. 6, 2, 3, 4, 8-6. You're still up.

Deshaun Watson versus Cam Ward.

Oh yeah.

Can you imagine like old school rules where you could only have the one game on your TV if you lived in the vicinity of the home game?

Oh man, that's—

you're like in Nashville and this is your one game. Jets, Dolphins, home for the Jets. Dolphins coming off a bye, and I have the Jets -6.

Uh, yeah, you got it. I said 4.5, it's 5.5. It's you. You have a 3-game lead with 3 left.

Dolphins looking like a Steimans pick.

They're looking like a Hyman pick.

I, they, I, you can't make a, what would be the case for the Dolphins? But this is, if they're gonna get a win, it's gotta be a stupid game like this.

You know how good they are off a rest? This, that's

Broncos at the Cardinals. Wow. Who's the QB for the Broncos in this game?

What do you mean? Why is Nick hurt? What do you mean?

Is it definitely gonna be Bo Nix?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah. He didn't take him out yet. They won that game. He's a winner.

I tic-tac this one. Broncos -1.5.

Oh wow. Oh wow. I went completely the other way. I said Broncos 6.5 and it's 4.5. Yeah. So I'm technically closer.

That's stupid.

Tease the Cardinals, I dare you.

I've watched every week of football this year and there's no difference to me between the Cardinals and the Broncos. They're just 2 non-playoff teams.

Their defense is bad. Before today, the Cardinals defense was really bad.

Yeah, but their offense, they can move the ball. The Broncos have a good defense and their offense can't move the ball at all. Yeah. And the advantage is a good matchup.

I think Vance is just gonna have to win these games. Some of these

Sunday night Chiefs-Seahawks in Seattle, Kenneth Walker's revenge game. I think the Chiefs are gonna be favored and it's either gonna be 1.5 or 2.5. And I said Chiefs -1.5.

Or you get it wrong. I said Seahawks -1.5 and it's Seahawks -2.5. So the score now,

I am stunned by that,

is 9-8, you.

Seahawks -2.5 against the Chiefs on a Monday night?

Yeah. All right, let me make sure. Yeah, Seahawks -2.5.

I have a few Seahawks futures. And I picked them to make the Super Bowl and I couldn't feel worse about it. Well, they stink, they stink at running back. They can't block like they did last year. And Darnold is a mess and they have one receiver and I don't think they can move the ball. I don't see it.

Kitchen sink home game at night.

I get it.

The first time the Chiefs actually have a matchup that you could, you know, you're a little nervous about.

I mean, this would be, 3 out of 4 if Seattle lost this.

Yeah. Well, Seattle's 3-3 right now.

Yeah.

I think that line's gonna go down. I would predict.

All right.

I think that line ends.

It's a good one.

With one of those teams being 1.5, and I would predict it would be the Chiefs, but who knows? Monday night, Cowboys at Eagles. Somehow we gotta watch your team on a Monday night again.

This is for the tie for me.

I have Cowboys -3.5.

Oh, I tied you. That's great. That's a good comeback. I said 4.5. It's 5.5.

5.5, your team?

Come on.

It's— oh my gosh. Tanner McKee. That's absurd. Tanner McKee, if we lose this one, you guys, I don't know who was the least interested in that game tonight other than me, but Pickens was up there.

Yeah, he was. He'll get into it.

Pickens thinks the franchise tag means that he's playing tag football and not actual football.

It's actually hanging off his jersey. That's what went outta bounds in that play.

So we're 3-2-2 for the season. Well, at least that's more exciting for the fans.

Yeah. All right, good. I needed—

And McVay is— McVay edged out Aikman. More importantly,

we had some close polls today.

Yeah. Okay. Anything else before we get to Parent Corner?

Yeah, let's hit some, well, baseball. I, 2 weeks ago I gave you Brewers over Rays at 10 to 1. You did. So that's looking good. Need, still need a little work there. I don't know if you're, you have takes on that.

It, it is tough. The, the Rays actually did it with like 4 pitchers today. I'm proud of them.

Do I have takes on the Brewers sweeping the Dodgers? What were, what were the odds on that?

20.

Wow. Would've been a fun bet.

Pretty good.

It's weird how the Dodgers, the Dodgers hit that kind of Krzyzewski, Leitner era Duke, mid-2000s Patriots, late '90s Yankees level where everybody was rooting against them except the Dodger fans.

Yeah.

Everybody else, people who don't normally care, were like, oh, I hope, fuck those guys. I hope they lose. And people really seem like they got a lot of enjoyment out of the Brewers just taking it to them. And if it's Brewers, Cleveland, that I personally think that's a really fun series. I'm less excited about Brewers.

The Rays. Yeah. You don't like Tampa as a sports city now? Yeah.

Well, I mean, come on, we, we play them every year. They have like 20,000 fans.

But you like them. You thought they were the best in the American League.

I thought they were the best American League team. It's weird that the 2 teams that seemed like they were the 2 best teams, right, could actually be the World Series. Yeah.

It doesn't usually happen like that.

Yeah. But I still feel like Cleveland, I, I, I wouldn't count them out yet. I had that game on today 'cause we only did 3 football games.

Right. There are people—

All those games have been close.

The Dodgers tanked this series. I don't know that they needed to get swept so that they, they could overpay, that there could be a season next year, small market wins out and they could overpay even more than ever.

Every time I hear a theory like this.

Yeah.

And I, and I like it. Obviously as Conspiracy Bill, I'm gonna entertain all of these types of things.

Mm-hmm.

Like, what, what do the players gain out of that? They're already getting paid. The players would be the ones that technically tank the series. What do they care? Yeah. How would that work? The future, whatever. Too, it wouldn't.

Yeah.

How about this? Ohtani, Ohtani just was not a playable baseball player for the last month.

Right.

They lost their mojo and the Brewers are really good. That's why they lost.

Yeah.

The Brewers had it. You could see it. You could see it with their dugout guys stepping up left and right. They had a couple clutch guys, they had good pitchers. It's that kind of team that makes it to the World Series.

Runners in scoring position. It's all, it's all it's about really in October. Getting to the—

I mean, best GM in the league. Tampa probably has the second best front office in the league.

Mm-hmm.

You know, so yeah, they probably didn't tank.

They threw Skubal, Yamamoto, and Snell at, at the, at the Brewers and couldn't win 'em one game. Those guys.

I mean, the only conspiracy I would entertain is did the, were they tipping pitches or did the Brewers have some sort of something?

Right.

'Cause those 2 homers in a row against Snell were unbelievable.

Right.

Like 2 fucking bombs against Snell. It's not like he was lefties.

Never happens.

That, that was crazy. Yeah. So you think, who do you think wins the—

So I got Brewers over Rays 10 to 1. Please let me win something.

You have that one.

Nice. That's what I have. Yeah. I don't, but what do we, I'll, I'll stick with it.

I mean, I might— when's the next game though?

Tomorrow they go right into it 'cause they had the rain out. So game 6 is tomorrow and then game 7 is Tuesday and then the series starts Friday.

It'd be funny if the World Series started before we played 2 WNBA Finals games. WNBA, they, they, they turned down just starting the Finals on a Wednesday and a Friday when nothing's going on, and then they started on a Saturday during all these awesome college football games. So like, we're over here, we're on NBC. By the way, the game was really good, and now the next one's tomorrow night.

But I mean, you're right about the Finals, but idiots, there's— what are they supposed to do. They're gonna lose to everything. I mean, I guess the finals shouldn't start.

It should have started last week. Sure. We should have had 2 games already.

That's fine. But you're not gonna use Saturday.

You're not gonna use Sunday.

You're not gonna use Monday.

Like, I guess— The first league in history where the Thursday, the opposing team in the finals has to intervene with the, the team that can't figure out how to play a game in front of more than 3,500 fans in the fucking finals.

Yeah. That was bad.

Other team's owner has to be like, hey, this isn't right. We gotta fix this.

That's not good.

Because they basically don't have a commissioner. That probably wouldn't happen in the NFL.

Yeah.

Banner start, start to finish. WM— they, it's awesome season. All they do is try to fuck it up behind the scenes.

Speaking of fucked up leagues, NBA real quick, 'cause I listened to 5 hours of you just to find out that your 4-star lock is Celtics over win total. Wow. What a fricking surprise that is.

But they're gonna be really good.

Jazz under, you got that right. Toronto over, you got that right. Orlando, I have under. 22-7 against tank teams last year.

Okay.

I think you gotta tax that a little bit. I don't know.

I didn't feel great about Orlando either way, so I'm— yeah, I, I would believe in you.

Couple more. SGA +400. I get it. Larry Bird's the only one who wins back to back to back, but 83 first place votes. Is this still the same people voting?

Yeah.

Only 10 went to— not even Wemby went to Jokic, right? And 5 went to Wemby. I think Wemby's gonna be one of the most hated players by, by April. Caleb Wilson, whoever you wanna call Caleb Williams, is gonna win Rookie of the Year. Edwards points per game, 15-to-1 if you like a long shot. Sabonis rebounds, +650 if you like a longer shot. And Khan, 20-to-1 for most threes per game, which—

Nick Khan.

Nick Khan. You're gonna drive him to pick up his trophy, whatever he gets for having most threes in a game.

Most threes for the season?

Most threes per game. Yeah.

Most threes per game. He is hurt right now. Celtics look really good. I'm really, really—

I can't believe that you made that.

I think they're gonna be really good.

That's your best.

I think the line's too low. I think the Rockets and the Celtics, the over-under is still too low for both those teams.

Yeah.

KD's ready for the season. He was feuding with Matt Ishbia and Dylan Brooks on Twitter this weekend. He's ready to go. Yeah, he was taking shots at both of them.

All right.

This Parent Corner is brought to you by Instagram. Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default, built-in content settings for the content teens can see, contact limits for who can contact them, and time management tools like daily time limits and sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed in teen accounts of teens under 16. We'll need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to create age-appropriate experiences. So there you go.

That's your Parent Corner?

Yeah, that's it. I'm done. Why? Uh, well, you have a teen under 16.

I do.

You don't even— he's not even a teen yet. He's 12.

He's 12. He's 13 in a couple of months. But I do have an 18-year-old in high school. Um, my son Jack.

Yeah,

big, big Steelers, big win today. He's whooping it up at the bar, puts it on Instagram. But anyway, Jack comes home, uh, from school, I think Wednesday, it was after school, and we asked him, how was your day? He's like, well, great until I got accused of shoplifting. Like, all right, here we go. Here it is.

So he goes to this grocery store sometimes after school, and I don't know what he gets. He gets like snacks or stuff and walks out. So this time he went, and the manager, some woman, as he's walking out, approaches him and accuses him of of, of stealing. Nothing specific. She didn't see it, but she accused him. And apparently, after some, uh, back and forth, he invites her to check his bag. He's like, I didn't steal anything, check my bag. And that's, that's when she backed off. So, okay, um, so what happened is he went in and didn't get anything. So he went in and walked around and then walked out, which is always suspicious.

And, you know, so they feel like he's like casing the place.

Yeah, I don't know what it is. So And I look at him and he's wearing a Hawaiian shirt and he's wearing crazy neon sunglasses and something around his neck that serves as a fan because it's hot out here. And he's got a giant school bag that I think has Steelers stickers on it. I don't know. And so my wife is outraged. She's like, we're going back there and we're going to talk to the manager. And he's like, good, good, because I don't feel good about this. So they go and they come back and the manager woman, she's not there, but the guy who relieved her is there and he apologized. And, and they get back and like, they're like taking like a victory lap. And I'm like, I think there's a lesson here. Like, I feel like, like you look, you look like a curious case, like someone who might walk off with something. You didn't even, you went in there, you didn't buy like a Twix bar or anything. Like you're walking in there, you're looking like Marty McFly's son.

Like if, if I, if it was a good bet, I think for the woman to approach you.

Yeah. If you're, if you're dressed like Hannibal Lecter at the end of Silence of the Lambs, right? When he's in disguise. They're probably gonna be suspicious.

Yeah, he didn't understand. He's like, I didn't steal and that should be enough. And I was like, all right, but help yourself out. And I think he's mad. I think he's still mad at me.

And, uh, they clothes profiled him.

That was it.

Yeah, yeah,

that was it. So, you know, I'm proud of him.

It's that as long as he doesn't take up surfing out of nowhere, uh, I'd rather him steal than surf. But, uh, that's it. So anyway, just everybody help yourself out, I think. Don't go in there with a giant freaking bag.

Check

out America with nothing.

My parent— I have a quick parent corner because my dad came and visited for a few days.

Oh, nice.

And, uh, and I'm realizing as he gets older and the roles— we've talked about this before— the roles flipped where we're kind of the parents in some ways.

Yeah.

And I had to work the first, like, uh, first day he was— the first day he was here, I had a rewatchable, so I set him up on the TV. 'Cause he had to kill like a couple hours. And, um, oh no, this was— he came Thursday. Thursday. So I'm doing my football pod, which I do for 3 hours. So Thursday afternoon, I gotta set up the TV and, uh, I'm like, what do you want to watch? He's like, well, the Chicago shows. And I'm like, um, like a specific show? And he's like, no, all all of them. It's like, so it was like, well, so we go, we go to, uh, I think they're on Peacock or Hulu, I can't remember. It's the all-night Chicago lineup on NBC. It's PD, Fire, and Med, right? The 3. So I'm like, which one do you want to start with? And he's like, I want to start with PD. Like, okay, the police one. Let's put that on, show them how the remote works. and went and did my pod, and he banged out all 3 hours. Wow. All 3 in a row. So then later there was another, another one I had to do the rewatchables next time.

I was like, do you want me to put a thing on for you? And I think that baseball or something was on, but he was like, well, I do have a couple more. So I'm like, well, which one? So we start going through the shows. Let's just say FBI and CIA, he likes both of those. Uh, not sold on Cupertino yet. Hasn't, hasn't really decided whether he's in on that one. The NCIS, NCIS New York, and NCIS Origins, 3 for 3. That's Tuesday nights. Wow. He watches all those. Um, and then I'm looking at the CBS schedule because I want to make sure I didn't miss any. Doesn't watch Survivor and Amazing Race on Wednesday, so that's a free night. But that's the night I think all the Chicago shows are on. And then Thursday, nothing really. That's Elsbeth and Cupertino. But between the NCIS franchise, Law and Order: SVU, and the 3 Chicagos, like, he's doing really well.

They got everyone hooked.

They really do.

My parents too. Same kind of thing. Yeah.

What is it? So what is it? Is this going to happen to us? Right.

So I was just going to ask you that. So we know we're going to be— we know we're going to be forgetful. We know we're gonna forget names. We know we're gonna tell, you know, stories that we've told a million times. There's just no denying that. Are our viewing habits gonna change? Or TV or streaming, whatever the hell it is in 20 years?

When do you hit the point? Like, there's gotta be some demo you hit when the hour-long procedural just becomes the same way we feel about, like, a Sunday Night Football game.

Right. Well, let me ask you this.

It's like, oh my God, I can't wait. Her, her brother came back? Yeah, obviously he did it. Oh my God, it wasn't the brother, it was his cousin.

It's a soap opera. Yeah. Was he— what was he watching in 1992? Was he a hip viewer? Was he—

Yeah, we, we were— he was way more hip back then. He didn't like, like, the Fox shows, but—

That's bad for us then.

I know. Like, he loved NYPD Blue and ER.

Yeah.

Like, during the, you know, during L.A. Law, he used to love. So, yeah.

And he'd mix a Seinfeld in there and a, you know—

Oh, yeah.

King of Queens and stuff. Yeah, yeah,

yeah.

Yeah, we're in trouble. We're in trouble all around.

So it's just gonna be cops and fire. So he didn't really like The Pit.

Oh, really?

He thought it was too intense.

Wow.

Plus, he doesn't like the shows that it leads to next week. He likes things to finish within—

Yeah, it's gotta be kind of easy served up to you. Shit.

That's one thing. And then, um, the other thing is, uh, my dog Murph turns 6 tomorrow.

How do you know that? You don't know that.

I do, because that was the one we didn't— he wasn't a rescue dog. We actually got him in a litter.

Oh, you saw him come out and everything.

But it was— the litter came out on October 19th, and the only reason I remember that was the Dave Roberts steal. Same day. That was the day we turned things around against the Yankees. Why didn't you name him Davey? Murph was born. We probably should have.

Yeah, I named my dog Super Dave.

Your dog should have been Davey.

Murph Roberts, something like that. But, um, but yeah, he turns 6 tomorrow. He's mellowed out a lot.

Okay.

Still doesn't really like other dogs and doesn't like smaller people.

Mm-hmm.

So like, like a 9-year-old kid, very suspicious. I think he feels like they're like terrorist little people or something. He just wasn't— the first year we had him during COVID everyone had masks on, so he's just always kind of figuring people out.

Smaller people?

It was like smaller. He wasn't around kids like his first year. So we were always like, thank God we don't have like grandkids because Murph would be like fucking jumping on kids.

Have you had our friend Shifty at his house? At your house?

He's like suspicious of Shifty. The biggest thing that happened to him, uh, I was in Boston for this, but we had a coyote in the backyard because coyotes are around.

Scares me.

Yeah. So he came back to the backyard, saw the coyote, and it was like the greatest. He was like slow motion running at the coyote.

He ran at the coyote?

Oh yeah, Murph was gonna fight the coyote.

Really?

Yeah, Murph would have won too. Murph's a badass.

Wait a minute, I thought coyotes automatically win.

No, that coyote was out. Now Murph's like £80.

I know, but I thought it's just like an inherent— I don't know. All right, well, good for Murph then.

Yeah, yeah, Murph. That— and now every time he's out in the back, he's like, that fucking coyote better not be back here. Every time. Crazy. Is that coyote back here? I'm gonna fuck that guy up.

Holy shit, Murph, if you want to live to 7, don't chase the coyotes.

Listen, Murph making it to 6 is a fucking miracle. I can't believe he made it to 6 and that my wife didn't murder him.

They come in packs, these coyotes. I think there's some collar you could put on. I mean, if Murph's attacking them and they're running, that's one thing, but if they're like 3 of them, I think they have like these, um, these horn-type, uh, I don't know what the hell, like spiky collars you have to wear. I hate the coyotes around here.

I don't like coyotes, and I, I know we're As you know, I love dogs and I love animals, but I never really have seen the case for coyotes. Yeah, that doesn't seem like they bring a lot of joy to a lot of people, right? I'm gonna keep— I'm gonna stop talking before we get in trouble.

We're gonna get in trouble for talking, talking bad about coyotes.

So unfair what you said about coyotes. You don't understand what they go through.

They kill dogs. I see them.

They kill dogs and they attack little kids sometimes. Yeah. This Parent Corner is 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 at Teen Accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. Um, anything to plug? I have one thing to plug.

Yeah, bring your wise guys Monday, Tuesday, Thursday. Friday is a big preview show. The re— we recap, uh, our— Phil Simms is going to be on with me during the week. Um, if you had a bad beat with a player going out early, take advantage of BetProtect on FanDuel or go to betaches.com. I'll give you $50 back Reimbursed. Give me proof and a quick video showing your anguish. What was the worst beat today? Bills? Rams moneyline bad.

Rams moneyline, throwing the Rams moneyline in a parlay.

Jesus.

Just the worst. You know what the best beat was? UCLA fucking kicking ass. 6-0, baby.

Good for you.

6-0. They beat Wisconsin. People thought they couldn't do it. The third stringer. Lemme tell you something. He was, he wasn't bad. He was good. He's got little Brady, little Brady Bledsoe vibes. 6'6.

Big dude.

Dude.

Yeah. Didn't start playing quarterback till sophomore high school year. The UCLA thing's gotten to the point that I'm now where they gotta give Chesney an extension now. We're gonna lose Chesney.

How many years did he get?

How many NFL teams could he take over and just immediately be good with? Like, wouldn't you rather have him than half of the coaches we watch every week?

All of 'em that we saw today. Yeah. Anyone we ever watch in London, maybe just send 'em to London and coach all those teams.

They're 6-0. He's like pissed off after these games. He's like, we still got a lot of work left. I don't like, I don't like what's going on. But they Michigan State next week. Michigan State's 2-5. Yeah, they're gonna be 7-0. We gotta get people to the Rose Bowl. I know people can— I know people in LA, like the Dodger Stadium's packed. Yeah. And they, they play 81 games a year plus playoffs. And Dodger— I know we can pack stadiums in that area. So we gotta get people to the Rose Bowl. You're gonna get—

if you get a, a, a 5, 6, 7, or 8 seed, you'll be home. You'll have a home game in the playoffs.

What's their rank? What was their ranking today? I forgot to check.

I didn't even—

Were they like 8th or 9th?

They have a game this week.

Yeah, they play Michigan State.

Right, right.

They're home. But did they make top 10 this week?

I, I see 12 on, on FanDuel at the end of this week.

No, that was last week.

Did they not? No, I'm just kidding.

But they had like 6 teams lost in the top.

Right, right, right. Like 5 teams. Yeah.

They gotta be like 8th, 9th, or somewhere in 8-9 range.

Wait, let me see. We gotta—

where does that come out? I feel like it should be—

No, it was out, wasn't it?

Top 25 rankings, college football. This is riveting.

9. Yeah, right. 9, 10. Yep. 8.

Utah is 9th in the country. This team was dead a year ago. It's one of the great coaching jobs. He's only lost once in 2 years.

They're the only team in the Big Ten or the SEC that's, that's undefeated. Spectacular. You did it. You did it, Simmons.

This is all you.

I feel great, but now I feel like I, I helped out too much and now he's gonna like leave in like a year. He's gonna just take over like the Colts. Calvert-Lee Gordon's like, oh my God, who's this Chesney drawing pictures of her in her super bad book?

They gotta lose like 3 in a row.

Yeah, they're not losing to Michigan State, so that's gonna be 7-0. And the funny thing is, don't you think they could beat Michigan? Yeah, they have to go into Michigan, but that seemed like the scariest game ever. They have USC left. But like

at Michigan, I guess they'll be an underdog, but not by much. They'll, they'll be favored over USC. They'll be favored over Illinois and at Minnesota and home for Nevada. They have— why is that game in there? Yeah. Wow. On Halloween.

They have 6 games left. I'm gonna read 'em again even though you just did.

Go ahead.

They have Michigan State at home, Nevada at home, at Minnesota, Illinois at home, at Michigan, and home USC. Mm-hmm. Now the QB could just shit the bed one of those weeks, but for the most part, like,

Michigan State played Northwestern tough this week, which was barely ranked. But so, I mean, that should be a win.

The crazy thing to me, I know they're going against Oregon's backup QB, but they gave up 15 points to them in Oregon, and that they, they had 3 points in the 4th quarter. Then last week, 7 against Wisconsin. Yeah. And it was like that QB couldn't throw the ball, but he was a good athlete. And Chesney's like, okay, cool, you're not gonna run the ball on us, go throw it. And the guy couldn't throw it.

Their defense is very good. I watched back that Oregon game.

Really good. Sammy O. Are you a Sammy O fan?

Those guys are— the guys just aren't open. They just really cover.

Yeah. It's pretty—

what are you gonna do? Are you gonna get a ring? Are you gonna get— what— this is a— this is huge for you.

I'm just happy for Chesney because I, I feel like this should have happened for him 4 years ago. Yeah, like Syracuse had him 2 years ago and then dumbasses didn't want to hire him. Like, it's just crazy. He's living in LA.

Stupid. He made the right move.

Guys like literally can build a culture in 6 months and start a thing over. Uh, my one thing I wanted to plug, we mentioned at the top, but we're going to the Pacific Northwest for a couple podcasts at the beginning of December. Seattle Rewatchables, Portland, uh, for the BS Pod. I haven't done the live podcast in a while, so, uh, just for fun, we're going out there and hopefully, uh, Portland fans— I don't know if you've been following the Trail Blazers stuff, but we're gonna try to cheer them up. Yeah, a couple, couple ideas.

Interesting.

Are you going to Chicago to do the Chicago Fire, uh, podcast?

The Fire— should we do Fire, PD, and Ned?

All 3. Have your father there. Oh my God.

My dad's like, I can't leave the house. It's a special crossover episode. Police, fire, and med. It's just one thing that happens. It's a fire engine caught on fire, and there was an accident. It's a 3-hour episode. Um, all right, Sal, great job by you. Good job by you, buddy! Thanks to Eduardo and, uh, Gahal and Jack and Chris on our end as well. Uh, rewatchables tomorrow, It Follows, and I'll see you on this feed on Tuesday. Thanks, Netflix! Must be 21+ and present in select states. For Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ and present in DC or Wyoming. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-825-7577 877-770-7867. Or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.