Transcript of Caleb Beats Drake, a Mega-Mailbag, Eagles Drama, NBA Surprises, and NFL Week 7 With Tom Pelissero and Joe House

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God waits in Germany.

The Bill Simmons Podcast. We are live on Netflix after Pats-Bears. It's a somber Bill Simmons. Uh, wanted to mention Rewatchables went up on Monday. We did It Follows, and we have a live Rewatchables on Netflix Monday at 5 PM ET, Nightmare on Elm Street. You a Nightmare on Elm Street guy, Tom Pelissero, or no?

I've never seen it.

Okay. Well, it was a nightmare in Chicago today for Patriots fans. A very winnable game, but a very, very fun, entertaining game. These Thursday night— what is up with the Thursday night games this year? Why are they entertaining? What's happened?

It helps to have good teams. I think that that's a, a huge part of it. You know, if this game had been a couple weeks ago and you'd been watching like Tyson Bagent against Drake Maye, Maybe not quite as—

yeah, that would've sucked—

as compelling. I, I think that Ben Johnson, anytime, like the, the big games, the national TV games especially, 'cause he's very aware environmentally of what's going on. And Ben's like on, he's on the very short list of coaches that even when he or his team does something stupid, like the handoff to Joe Tooney that gets flagged as being illegal, you're still like, That was the coolest illegal play I've ever seen. Knowing Ben, he knows the rules. Like something got messed up on that play, but I was like, I've never seen anybody attempt that before. So even with the flag, still impressive.

Well, the biggest attempt he made was this 58-yard field goal, 27-21. Caleb takes the Matt Ryan Memorial Falcons-Pats Super Bowl. We have the game won and I just knocked us out of Field goal position. A good play by the Pats defense, but becomes a 58-yard field goal in Chicago. It's 11 at night. There's no wind, but it's still 11 at night. Santos's, his career was 56, and I thought they were trying to draw the Pats offsides. They snap it and I'm like, oh, this is a fucking miracle. They're kicking this. And then he nailed it and the game ended. is basically over at that point. But I— could you believe that they actually kicked that?

I thought that entire ending sequence was really weird, from Frable clearly taking the intentional offsides rather than trying to get the stop on 3rd down.

Hurst had no idea.

To work the clock. And then, yeah, you get into that 3rd down. Like, I don't mind throwing there, but that play— like, it— here's the thing with Caleb is you never know. Is Ben designing it for it to be a longer drop back and wait for things to develop, or is it Caleb going, I'm gonna go Superman here? Well, he gets caught and, you know, running around in the backfield, and all of a sudden he goes down. Barmore tackles him and somehow hurts himself on the play. And you're just going like, there's so many different things that could have happened there. And that was like, outside of a fumble, the worst potential outcome. And good for Tyrod. Good for Cairo Santos coming back and hitting a field goal after he'd knocked the previous one off, off the upright.

And it hit the over as well. That was the other— there was a lot of excitement in gambling universe for, for some reason, a 58-yard field goal outta nowhere, 'cause it seemed like they were gonna run out the clock. All right, big storylines here. Number one, super fun QB. I, I'm licking my wounds as a Pats fan, but super fun QB battle. I mean, these are 2 of the best young QBs and probably 2 of the best QBs we have, period. But They went back and forth. I guess Drake made the one huge mistake when he throws the pick in the end zone. I gotta be honest, man, I thought he got his bell rung on the QB sneak touchdown the play before when he ran in, ran into the 1, and he took a hard helmet-to-helmet hit. And they replayed it and the announcers didn't even really mention it, but I, I didn't think he was right after that for a little while. I don't know what happened, but he really got nailed and I just thought that pass was weird. Like, what— he's trying to throw the tight end, but he's throwing like a straight hard pass that's just— you turn around, you pick it off.

There was no loft to it. It was unusual. But this is the Drake May issue. He makes, you know, the one killer mistake. In this case, that probably cost them the game.

I, I thought maybe there was a crossing route there that he could have gone to, but also like, he can hit the tight end there. Like, it is open. He's got to step on him. But for some reason, yeah, there's no, there's no air under the ball. He just throws a line drive. If you just kind of drop it in the bucket, you've got a chance on that play. But I thought overall Drake played really well in the game.

That was his big mistake.

That Bears defense is bafflingly good. Like, they are top 10 in a lot of key categories. And then you, like, you look at who they're playing with and you're like, how are they doing it? Because last year, like, statistically they weren't good other than they just turned the ball over so much. They they were able basically to get away with not being all that good. This year, like, they're a top 10 EPA defense, top 10 yards allowed defense. Like, it's pretty impressive.

Dennis Allen.

And yeah, our guy.

But the thing, the thing is, you watch these Flores disciple ripoff defenses and you wonder why everybody doesn't do it. Because you, you picture, especially when they have the All-22 behind the QB camera and there's 8 guys on the line and you don't know which 8 guys are going. It's like, hey, the tight end, can you come over and just stand here? 'Cause, you know, there might be a blitz up the middle. And then 2 guys jump back, 4 jump forward, these 2 drop back. I don't know how you figure out what's happening play to play. And if you don't have a good defense, this seems like the strategy to use, right? It's almost like a gimmick.

Unless you don't have—

It works.

Unless you don't have your shit together and then you give up a huge play.

Like, right, then you fuck up.

They blitz on the last play of the first half. And somehow there's the 2 guys at the goal line. Your whole job, you got— you're just watching them come. You know, you're 50 yards away and just watching them come. They didn't even come close. Rhamondre Stevenson walks in completely untouched. I mean, that's—

they're afraid of the lateral, right? Because there was 2 cornerbacks. There was one cornerback that could have run over and tried to tackle him, and then he veered the other way because I think he thought Stevenson was going to throw it across the field. And Stevenson's like, all right, I'll just keep running and runs it in. But before that you had, it was 3rd and 17 and the Pats are about to get a stop and get outta there, you know, reasonably close. And they give up a bubble screen for an easy touchdown. Right. And at that point it's like Drake interception in the end zone, disaster. 3rd and 17 bubble screen, easy touchdown, disaster. And then the Rhamondre touchdown like flipped all of it back. So we were Somehow dead even.

Forgotten in this game because I'm, I'm unconvinced he was even on the field in the second half. How about Luther Burden looking like Barry fucking Sanders in 1993,

right?

In the first, just like juking guys left through. He looked like the best player on the field, right? Had a couple of good games and then nothing in the second half because, you know, Ben's nothing if not an equal opportunity distributor of the football.

Well, we had Colston Loveland, who's alive again. If you had him in fantasy, really tough month. And now, uh, big drive with him, they go up 13. The Pats come back, AJ's involved all of a sudden. Still seems like he's kind of running on glass sneakers or something. I don't feel like he's like the full on this crazy athlete AJ yet. It still feels like he's feeling it out, but he makes a play. And then Raritan, my favorite guy in the Pats. They finally get him deep on a touchdown, which has been sitting there the whole season. The Pats crushed the draft just in general. Yakis, Raritan, Lomu, like they, they, they really nailed some of these. So Drake was 5 for 5 on that. It's 27-21. They get a stop. Now they have the ball back. And this makeshift offensive line, which I think is the real reason they lost this game, a couple killer penalties. They have to give the ball back to the Bears. Ellis misses that sack on Caleb right at the goal line of the Bears. They drive down, 53-yard field goal for Santos, doink. Now the Pats have another sign of life and they can't get it.

They have to turn it again. So this, this game was in the Pats' hands. I thought, you know, if you're, if you're the Bears, you're like, we're really good like that. Like we are in the mix in the NFC. And if you're the Pats, it's like, all right, we're 4-3. Yeah. We should have won that. We should have won the Seattle game. We could have won this game. You know, we really only got our ass kicked in Jacksonville, but I think both of these teams are contenders. What do you think on that?

I mean, the Patriots, just like the Bears, have the same issue, which is they got to get through their own division. Like, you've got a pretty— and in the case of the AFC East, you're trying to get through the Bills, who you already beat once this season. If you're the Bears, you're kind of fighting it off from all 3 angles against the other teams. that you're going up against. I would just say this, remember the Bears didn't have Caleb Williams for 3 games there. They just played 2 games in 5 days and they scored 30-plus in each one of those games. Like, that's for a guy coming off a hamstring injury to like come back 4 days later and play the way Caleb did. Like, that was the biggest sigh of relief. Like, you just had to get through these 2 games if you're the Bears, and now You know, in the 3 full games that Caleb has played, he has looked like a legit top 10 quarterback all day in the NFL. And they've got enough playmakers around him. They lost Cole Kmet. We'll see how bad that knee is. It didn't look good on the field based on people's reactions.

Cart's not a good sign.

The cart and the players praying. I— you never want to look up and see a teammate praying for you. But they've got—

We saw that with the ringer too. We had anytime anyone in the ringer was praying. Always. Monday at Seattle is the next Bears game, so they have 11 days for that one. But man, you look at the NFC North, your favorite division— Minnesota 5-0, Chicago 5-2, Green Bay 4-2, Detroit 3-2— they already have 17 wins. They're on pace for high 40s for the season, which is nuts. Usually I always keep track of this because it's good for gambling stuff. Usually it's like, especially in the 17-week season, 42 range is usually the high out of all the divisions, and this division is killing it. You have Minnesota has an easy game this week, right? They're playing the Colts, and Green Bay and Detroit play each other, so they could have 19 wins after, as we get through 7 weeks. But I, to me, Chicago is a legit contender because they can move the ball and they're well coached. And, you know, Caleb, Caleb's gonna be— what decides how far they go. That throw he made from his, basically his own end zone to, to Burden. I mean, I'm sorry, to, was it Burden or Dunze where it was 3rd and 11 and he just zipped it?

Dunze. Yeah, Dunze. And he just fucking zipped it and there was pressure and he had to get it over guys and he had to get it in the perfect spot. He had 2 defensive backs on him and it was the best play of the game. But that's what he can do. That's why he's Caleb Williams.

And him and Ben have this thing where, you know, that Ben could scheme this up for basically anybody. We saw him do it with Case Keenum. Like, he can scheme up a way to beat you with a guy who's got no arm talent and hasn't played in 5 years. And then he's got this other guy who's super talented in Caleb. But like, there are times you can tell he's doing things that are not on schedule. They're not within the structure of the play, which there's— Yeah. I guarantee there's times where Ben is just like, oh my God, dude, just throw it where the ball's supposed to go on this play. Yet Caleb can do those freaky things. He can elevate it. And so you got this push-pull of a really good quarterback, a really good play caller. And again, in the 3 games they've been together, they've looked awesome. Lions have the number 1 offense in the NFL. The Vikings have the number 1 defense. The Packers are 4-2 without their best offensive or defensive player. They get Jacob Bent this week. Still don't have Micah. And the Bears look really good when they're actually something resembling full strength.

I talked about this with Sal on Sunday. You— this could be a 4-playoff-team division, and it would depend on whether Seattle can get there or not, which I think they will. I think there's ultimately 3 from this division. I think Seattle would be the other one. And I talked about this with House later. I don't think the Rams are gonna make it, right? And even right now in FanDuel, they're basically even odds either way to make it, not make it. But I, I just think I think they had the stink on them and that too many things have happened, and by the time they get their shit together, I think it's gonna be too late. But in this division, Minnesota, Chicago, Green Bay, Detroit, if you had to bump one of these 4 teams, if I tell you 3 teams are gonna make it, who you bumping? Who would you say?

I'd say the biggest concern right now is just that Lions defense. Yeah. You know, the good news is Brian Branch should be back this week. That's probably the most important guy on the entire defense. Not the best player, but the most important guy on that defense. Kirby Joseph will be back at some point. Brad Holmes may or may not be able to swing a trade and get a corner. Like, offensively, they're so good and they got so many weapons. It's just the defense can't stop anybody. They cannot get a stop when they need one. So if I had to say, I'd probably say them. But also like they're capable of just scoring 50 too and just the defense not mattering. That's what makes it difficult. But I would say right now, just based on what we've seen, it's probably Detroit.

Well, we're gonna have our answer on Sunday 'cause they're playing each other. We also have another answer. The Netflix audience had the poll, which QB would you rather have? Caleb Williams, 85%. Drake Maye, 15%. That's just hurtful.

Little racist. That's a wrap.

Come on. That was a little racist. bias. That's stupid. One thing I'll say this about the Pats, I think they really did nail that draft and they got multiple guys, which has been, if you're a Pats fan, you know, there's been, there's been some dark years with the draft. There's certain drafts that happened this decade where nobody's left from the draft.

Yeah.

So I look at big picture, their edge rushers, which was gonna be the big question heading into the season with this team. You know, between Jones and Yachas and Ponder, they're, they're getting pressure on the sides. They have pressure in the middle. They have good defensive backs, especially when Carlton Davis is healthy again. And I actually think their defense has a chance to be pretty good. And the season is 100 weeks long, you know, so there's gonna be these ebbs and flows. And then AJ, I think so. I, I don't mind. The Pats are 4-3. I don't mind where they're at. It's right around where you would've guessed. You would've guessed 5-2 or 4-3, right? At this point after 7 weeks.

Yeah, I think that's fair. And, and you're right.

So they're fine.

They played AJ, they had AJ Brown for, what was it, 2 quarters in a series in the opener before he gets hurt. And you're right, like in terms of just how he's moving, he's not heavy, he's not overweight, but it just looks like everything he's doing is kind of heavy. He's not as fleet of foot right now. And I think that's just, he's come back from a high ankle sprain, you know, it takes some time to kind of get like the full conditioning and everything back yet. I, I don't know what it was on Sunday when he just couldn't catch the ball tonight. It just seemed like it was kind of, it was kind of a battle for him. He, he still had a couple of catches. He'll, he'll get himself going.

I don't feel like he has his legs watching him run. It feels like when you're like at the beach or something and you have to run on the parking lot and it's the cement's hot and you're like, ow. And you're doing like those quick runs. That's how it seems like he's running. I always felt like he, he just— I thought on the Eagles, if you go back and look at the way he ran on the Eagles, I just feel like he was— felt a little more athletic. So I'm sure he's gonna be good.

I thought he looked good in the opener though. I, I, before the injury, I thought he was moving well in the opener. I think it's just a product of, yeah, you miss some months and you're—

He's probably, he's probably still hurt. That's probably why he's running like that.

He wanted to get back.

I like where the pads are at. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We, we usually do the 6-pack with you. And we decided to change that because I also do the 6-pack for another segment on here. And we try to come up with—

You ripped yourself off?

I did. Well, I wanted to give you your own thing too.

Yeah.

And we— I asked you for a name. Yeah, I gotta be honest, I don't know what, what kind of coffee you had today, but within 2 minutes you mailed me back the answer, which we called the Pick 6. So it's still 6 things, Pick 6. And we got— The Ringer gave us a fancy graphic of 6 quarterbacks famous for throwing pick-sixes for the Pick Six. So I'm— I think we're off to a great start. I'm really excited.

I thought we had that— I thought when you sent me the graphic it was just gonna be 6 Andy Daltons, but he's only in there once.

He's a— it's— I think they might have stuck Nathan Peterman in there. Flacco's in there, Ryan Fitzpatrick, um, Jameis is in there. Obviously he has— you can't have a Pick Six graphic without him. All right, so you've talked about Jalen Hurts on Ringer NFL Show all week. I'm sure you're gonna talk about it on The Sweep. Um, fiasco, mega fiasco, what, what word are we using here? This is a situation unlike anything we've seen in recent NFL history. So what the hell happened?

I, I would start with this because everyone's got an opinion every fan, every columnist, every Twitter doctor, whether they're an actual doctor or not. And the only people who are on the same page are Jalen Hurts and the Eagles. They're fine. They put out a joint statement together. There's a lot of weird things about how everything rolled out, just kind of like the slow trickle of information. some kind of conflicting or reversed reports that came out last weekend. You know, and frankly, there were some things that weren't communicated in an ideal fashion, which led to myself included some things getting out there that were slightly misinterpreted and misexplained. Mm-hmm. So, you know, the shortest version I'd give you is he got spiked in the Rams game. He, you know, was feeling something there, but it wasn't a major concern. He's on the injury report 2 Fridays ago because of, you know, what they listed as a calf injury. So then they fly on Friday to London and what do you do when, like, when you fly overseas, they, everybody tells you like, don't, don't go to sleep.

Don't sleep.

You gotta, you gotta beat the jet lag. And so the doctors and everybody was telling the players, hey, don't go to sleep. So they stay up, Jalen and all his teammates, stay up all day. It's not—

So it wasn't just a Jalen thing.

It was, it wasn't a precaution. Yeah. With the blood clot, it was the whole team was staying up all day. So now the players are going to bed at 9 or 10 PM at night. That's right when Jalen realizes, hey, I've got more of an issue here. Yeah. So now they go to the hospital, Cleveland Clinic in London. They always, the NFL, anytime they go internationally, they've got, you know, a, a level 1 trauma center and they've got specialists. If any of this stuff comes up, they've got people they can go to. So they go, they run an ultrasound, they run tests, and it's all right. It's a superficial blood clot, which from everyone I've talked to, doctors and everyone else, based on what the Eagles say, it was the information they had. Everybody I've talked to has said we would've cleared him. He would've been good to play. So now though, it's 2, 3 in the morning when he is getting back to the hotel. He finally gets a chance to go to sleep after being up for a very, very long time. They get him a room at the stadium. So then when he gets to the stadium off the bus, like, he takes a little nap there for like another hour.

And there are all those videos that came out of him coming out like right before kickoff, basically. It was all part of this very weird sequence of events. He plays well. If you watch the game, other than not running a lot, like, you wouldn't know he had an issue. He throws for a couple hundred yards and a touchdown. And they were told based upon, you know, what that specialist had seen, all right, Don't do the follow-up ultrasound for 72 hours because any changes aren't really going to show up. Like, it may not manifest itself. You're not going to give him one every single day, so wait 3 days and do it. So he practices in full last Wednesday. They do the ultrasound that night. That's when they see the blood clot has moved. And at that point, it's all right, now we stop. He goes and sees another specialist in Boston. He consults different medical opinions. They find several blood clots that have made their way Into his lungs. And so now, so it had gotten into the vein. The superficial blood clot, you can think of it like a bruise. That's kind of what it looks and feels like.

But now once it gets into the vein and now parts of it break off and clogging your arteries and your lungs, that's where it becomes like a really dangerous situation. So he's on blood thinners for probably about 3 months, which means it's kind of like a Chris Bosh thing.

It's not like a thing where this is like you have to retire from the sport because you have this issue.

No. And the other you know, key, like, difference. Like, remember Christian Barmore had the blood clots a couple of years ago? Well, in that case, they didn't know what happened. Like, they didn't know why he had it. So you had to do, like, these batteries of tests and figure out what's going on in his body. With Hurts, they know.

This case, they know

he got cleated, and so he should be totally fine after he takes the blood thinners. He should be able to play next season, um, for everything I've been told, without issue. Again, everybody put out a statement together. I, I get where the NFLPA is coming from. Because you don't want a guy to develop a potential life-threatening illness on the job and you do nothing. That's literally the job of a union, you know, protect working conditions. So they're looking into it. But again, for all the criticism and all the speculation, I don't think that there's some revelation on the other side. It's just, it's a really shitty thing that happened. And the good news is Jalen Hurts is going to be okay.

Let's move to number 2 in the 6-pack related to the Eagles. Are they sellers now? What happens if they lose this Dallas game?

Well, I mean, Howie Roseman is always open to a good deal regardless of, you know, what that looks like. I guess what you have to ask yourself in terms of if they become sellers is of what? Like, who are you willing to trade? Are you willing to trade Saquon? What's that going to cost, you know, for Howie? He held out to get a first-round pick for AJ Brown. He got a second-round pick for Cam Jurgens. Like, Saquon Barkley's not gonna be cheap, and that's one of your, like, core guys within the organization. I mean—

What if Minnesota offers me a second for him?

I mean, I would sit there and say, how about a first? I would want to know how much I can possibly get for the player. I do think that people will come with offers if the Eagles, you know, begin losing here. I think there's players on that defense that they'll potentially get calls on as well. But other than guys who are like right now are not in the rotation or aren't active on, on game days, I, I don't get the sense that Howie's really pushing those things yet. Because let's face it, like, the NFC East is terrible. It is a really bad division. The Eagles have shown they still can be really good on defense. Jalen Carter, the way he played in London, was the best player on the field. Yeah, they still can be a handful on that side.

Then offensively— 8-9 takes it, especially with the ties.

I don't know how it doesn't. I mean, Dallas— I, I wonder, like, if Dallas loses this game on Monday to the Eagles, what do they do? I don't know that it's just Pickens is the first guy. That's the obvious one. It doesn't seem like it's working. Remember, the Steelers had no market for George Pickens whatsoever when they traded him in the offseason. you know, a year and a half ago or whatever that was. So

like,

right, is it worth it? Is Jerry really gonna go, okay, we'll trade Pickens for a 4th rather than let's keep competing and try to win a bad division? Everybody's in a weird, a weird spot in the NFC.

Jerry's the only guy like, like in your fantasy league, the guy who just loves trading. He just likes making moves. He's like, I made another trade, I did something.

And then gets offended when like you won't engage.

Like

they send you some shitty offer and you wake up to it at 6:00 AM and then you don't respond for an hour. It's like, what happened?

Okay, guess you're not gonna respond. Never mind.

mind.

Why didn't you want to trade me Colston Loveland for Drake Maye? Yeah, so maybe— so after this Eagles-Cowboys game, maybe we'll have— maybe we'll have an idea if one of those are sellers. Do you think there's a seller right now in the league?

There's not a true fire sale team, but I would keep my eye on the Colts. That's going to be the really interesting team. So Carly—

Did you look at Carly's notebook? What happened? You saw that—

Saw her briefly at the league meeting.

All 22 camera, like you zoomed in.

She's, she's been paying attention. The, the, the statement that she put out when she's like, this is a deliberate decision, that meant something. That was, all right, here it is, guys. I did something. Everybody in the building's on notice now. So what I anticipate is they're going to take the next week or two and see, do they find the spark? They got 2 hard games. I mean, they got Minnesota this week on the road.

What a nightmare.

And then they're at Jacksonville. That's their next 2 games. So if you're 2-6, then I would anticipate the Colts are gonna be listening. And they got some guys that would be prime trade candidates. You know, Quentin Nelson, who's in a contract year, 30 years old, like core dude. But like you can get a real, real draft pick.

Oh yeah.

For Quentin Nelson.

Cam Juergens went for a second.

And Quentin's still playing at a really high level. DeForest Buckner too. Now he had the, you know, the neck issues. And so I don't know how high the price would be. But you get a real, you know, pick for him. And then Jonathan Taylor's gonna be the fascinating one. They just signed him to an extension back in August. That's

your first-round pick guy from Minnesota.

And not to mention, if you're the Colts and you're trying to set this up for the new GM, you don't have a first-round pick in 2027.

You do not.

The Jets own it from the Sauce Gardner trade. So how do we like get more flexibility and give more draft assets in 2027? That's where I think it'd be negligent to not make some moves if they don't win one of these next 2 games. I, they're gonna, they're gonna fight. They want to see, she likes Shane Steichen. She wants to see what he can do, but it's crunch time. If they don't win these next couple, I think you'll see the Colts being active in the sell market.

I would argue that Daniel Jones extension coming off an Achilles tendon injury was negligent, but what do I know? Did you understand the Chris Bauer thing as it was happening? This was almost 10 years of the— 10 years of this. Some, some features, some profiles. There was that famous clip of him laughing his ass off 'cause they got Latu, the pass rusher, in the, in the first round. Everybody else is so stupid. Meanwhile, the next 2 guys in that draft turned out to be awesome. But what, how, how did he keep his job so long and why was the coverage of him so favorable for so long, in your opinion?

I mean, I like Chris a lot and I think that everybody who dealt with him liked him because he was honest, because he was, I mean, a constant fodder machine. Do you remember when they were trying to hire Josh McDaniels and he had agreed and then he no-showed?

Yeah.

And Ballard, Ballard stood up there. I was at that press conference. I flew into Indianapolis to cover it and Ballard like took every single question for 45 minutes and then at the end he just goes, the rivalry is back on. And that was how he went out. Like, he understood, like, you can give those, those soundbites in there. Like, he was a fun guy to cover and he was aggressive. Like, we all like covering people. We're like, you know what, we're gonna go for it. We're gonna trade for Sauce Gardner. You know, we're gonna trade for DeForest Buckner once upon a time. He, he had, you know, the Andrew Luck thing obviously turned everything sideways. It changed everything for the franchise.

For the whole franchise. Yeah.

If Luck, if Luck is playing, and he's in a good mindset and he's healthy, I mean, he could still be the quarterback now and they would've been a playoff contender every single year. They drafted pretty well overall when you look at, you know, finding guys like Jonathan Taylor.

Yeah.

You know, like they did make good draft picks. It just, it wasn't enough. And you had a constant churn at the quarterback position.

They somehow never won the AFC South during his entire tenure. I think he had 2 playoff appearances and they could never replace Andrew Luck. I mean, you could argue in the last 10 years that was probably the single most traumatic thing that happened to a franchise. Losing Andrew Luck when they lost him and not knowing they were gonna lose him. Just,

you know, having to trade for Jacoby Brissett.

Yeah. That'd be like if you lost Brett Favre in like 2001 or something. Or I don't, I don't know what's a better QB example, but they lost him at point of his career when he was still supposed to be ascending.

He was still young. And then that leads to a Jacoby Brissett trade, which leads to a Carson Wentz trade, which leads to a Matt Ryan trade.

Oh, you're doing the Rain Man thing. I like it.

Anthony Richardson, uh, draft pick, which leads to the Daniel Jones signing, which leads to— Did you mention Minshew extension?

There was some Minshew in there.

There was Minshew in there. There was Scott Tolzien in there. I skipped over a few things, but that's a lot of activity. I mean, it was just this every single year.

14 QBs.

trying to figure it out and they just, they didn't get there. But listen, Chris is like one of the only people who, when you get fired, is just like, yeah, that was probably it. That was probably gonna be the end. Like he knew he was in a contract year. He probably was gonna be done after this anyway. Yeah. And, and he's getting, they're chanting for him. Like he's not the one who's gonna like fight or be all, you know, pissed off. Yeah. Like I think he's, he's down about it, but also It, it's a pretty good run, man. You know, he kept swinging, kept taking shots. It just didn't work out.

You know, when you miss with a top 8 to 10 pick with a quarterback, really hard to keep your job after that. I think really the only one that was able to do it was San Francisco, Trey Lance, because they miraculously ended up with Purdy and it didn't matter. But same thing, right? You take a swing and you miss that, you can't come back from that. You know, and meanwhile it's 50/50 for a quarterback at any part of the first round. It's not, it's not like there's an exact science to this. You look at McCarthy, Anthony Richardson, like all, you know, you just don't know.

Yeah. You also have to go back to that draft and they had the number 4 pick. Everybody was looking to them, including ownership, of like, we gotta solidify the quarterback position. And really the only options that they had were Anthony Richardson or Will Levis. Like that's who was—

it's just a bad luck draft back

at him. And it's just like, okay, do we take the guy who's like tightly wound in the big arm? We've seen him. Or like this totally raw 6'6, 250-pound dude who started 13 college games. They took a swing. Richardson, he made some plays. Like, you remember his early starts? Like, he would make some ridiculous runs and throws. He just got hurt every time he did it. He's still there too. Speaking of guys who I mean, maybe somebody wants to take a swing.

All right, we're halfway through the Pick 6. I like this Pick 6 gimmick. Let's go with the Paris game for the 4th one. So Paris, just riots all week. Not going much better here in America because it feels like we're being cyberattacked left and right. I don't know if you've been following that.

It's pretty terrifying. I've been checking my bank accounts a lot. Yeah, just making sure.

But it's like, hey, your money might be gone. That's always scary. But, uh, Paris, it's continuing to go on. Was there ever a moment when they were like, ah, maybe we don't have the game in Paris?

It is— has been edgy enough that I know, like, the NFL and the NFLPA have had multiple calls a day. Um, the NFL's been in contact with the U.S. government and the French authorities. But really, we kind of— like, the show left town when the Saints traveled there right after their game on Sunday.

Like— Oh, man.

They've been there all week. The Steelers—

So they can't do London, they can't move it, it has to be— or they would have to postpone it?

What would happen Thursday night at this point? I mean, they always have contingencies for everything, but as far as I've been told, like, they've not really activated those contingencies. The Steelers flew in earlier today. Um, the actual, like, epicenter of this is not right by the stadium. The Steelers hotel apparently is like a half mile away from where a lot of this stuff is happening, so they are kind of close. The real concern, and this will be one of those things to like monitor, again, the league's confident it's going to be fine, but I know the players have some nerves about it. The teams have some nerves about it. There's a large-scale protest planned on Saturday, and the Parisian authorities just apologized a week ago for their lack of response to the last large-scale protest. Oh, wow. Now what happens if Saturday gets like totally out of control and the police are having to respond. Like, you're relying on local authorities for police escorts, security at the stadium. Like, what if they're like, hey, we gotta, we gotta put out a fire at the Eiffel Tower here. Like, we, we kind of need all hands on deck.

Those are the things. Again, the NFL is always in communication, but those are some of the things when I've talked to people that have come up. And it's, you know, it's worth monitoring just because this is such an unusual situation.

Maybe, maybe send Aaron Rodgers out there, kind of calm things down.

He'd have some—

Aaron Rodgers. My, my, my— I've calmed my family situation down. Now I'd like to take on Paris.

I've always— so the, the protests are about like the conditions of schools and like low wages and, you know, lack of future for young people, right? But like, I always— great. I'm always playing the game in my head. What side of this issue would Aaron take? And whatever I guess, I'm probably wrong.

It sounds like a good game show.

And he—

yeah. What side of this issue would Aaron Rodgers take?

I love it.

Here are 3 contestants. Here's Bob.

And then they play the video like Jeopardy video answers after.

Yeah. Should presidents have a 3rd term? Bob, you're first.

I have no idea. I have no idea where Aaron would come down. Zero clue.

2 more. I guess we can— do we care about JJ McCarthy? They're starting him, but he could get killed in this game and stink. I think we can skip. We could skip that one. Arch Manning. Seems like it's been a, a busty 2026 Texas campaign, and in general, we've been hearing about how great this QB class is. This is the league who geared up for this awesome QB class starting to panic that this might not be an awesome QB class.

I wouldn't say panic because like I was texting with one college scouting director today and I was just like, all right, like how would you rank Arch now knowing what you know? You know, there's a report that the backup's getting more first-team reps this week, which suggests maybe Arch is going to lose game reps, maybe even get benched. And what that scouting director who's been around a long time, and I trust him, he's got a really good eye for you. He just goes, I still rank him number 1 because it's 6 games. And like, so much is happening in college football that like, it's hard to sit there and lock in any one thing. Like, oh, this completely changed everything. Having said that, the quarterback class as a whole, and specifically Arch, like, yeah, there are a lot of people who are watching this right now and not only saying, man, this quarterback class might not be as good, this quarterback class might not exist. there's only a couple of them that are out of eligibility. Like Trinidad Chambliss has to come out because he's out of eligibility. But like Arch could transfer. I texted one person who's known Arch a long time earlier tonight and I said, where do you, where do you see Arch in 2027?

And his response was Ole Miss. That's No one would've thought that we'd be talking about, is Arch not gonna finish at Texas?

And listen, that would've been 100-to-1 odds.

Long way to go. A lot of things can happen. He's being advised by his family, you know, who knows where we end up. But like, the best quarterback right now playing is probably Mestemaker, but he's got, I think, 2 years of eligibility left. Yeah. If I'm getting paid $10 million to stay in college versus like, maybe I'm not a first-round pick, I'm probably staying in college longer. A lot of these guys could end up just transferring again. Dante Moore is another one who's been so good. He hasn't played since the concussion. It's just— Yeah. There's all these different factors going on. And so those NFL teams, whether it's the Jets sitting on 3 first-round picks, the Browns with 2 first-round picks, some of the other teams like the Dolphins and Cardinals who could be in that mix next year, nobody can feel super confident about where this is going to land just because some of those guys we thought were going to be good haven't played well, and therefore, can you take them that high, or are they even going to be there? Are they going to be in the class of 2028 or '29?

It's funny, McShay came on— I gotta have him on again. McShay came on, I think, July or August, and we talked about how great this QB class is, but then also how every year what you think is going to be the ranking and everything, July, August, and then you get to December and it's like, oh, Fernando Mendoza is now number 1, and You just don't know. These are 20, 21, 22, 23-year-old kids and the wild swings. But this feels even wilder than I think anyone could have anticipated.

And by the way, Brendan Sorsby not playing college football, training on his own, he could be QB1. Like, that, that's where we are.

That would be, that would be incredible. Last one, Seahawks-Chiefs Sunday night. House and I are going to talk about later in Ringer 107. The Kenneth Walker revenge game. Why didn't they keep him? Do we ever have a good— like, we're obviously— a bunch of people are gonna be talking about this game and him all week. They'll show him, it'll be a big storyline on Sunday. It wasn't like he got a crazy amount of money from Kansas City. And then you think about when, when Philly won with Saquon and then they took care of him. They just, you know, running backs, that's usually between $12, $15 million a year or something like that. In Seattle, they spend a first-round pick to try to replace him, Jaderion Price. They have Charbonnet coming back. They just feel like they can patch it together. And yet this has been the biggest issue with their team. Are there regrets on the Seattle side?

Not regrets. I, you know, there's probably a comparison to be made, albeit at different stages and different levels of success. But when the Giants let Saquon go and he goes to the Eagles and runs for 2,000 yards and wins the Super Bowl in the first year, Like everything. And of course, the Giants' thoughts on that were well documented in Hard Knocks. Like, they had all these reasons of just like, it's the injury history, it is the age, you know, here's all the reasons that we, we just can't justify paying him all that money. With Seattle and Kenneth Walker, it was some of those same factors. Like, they'd seen him be beat up for several years. Even last season, he wasn't playing great until they made a running back coach change, and then all of a sudden in December He became the best player on their team and he, you know, helped spur the Super Bowl run. They would've taken—

So you're saying it's like when you buy a car from somebody who's like, oh yeah, I hit that pothole that time, I got rear-ended that other time, I'm gonna sell the car right now. The, the next person will never know all the things that happen on this car. That's—

But they might love it. They might love it for the first year.

They might love it for a year. What's, what's Saquon been?

What's Saquon been since 2024? He's gone back to missing a lot of time and being banged up and not being as productive. So I mean, Kenneth Walker's— he's on pace to break the single-season record for yards from scrimmage. Like, this is a kind of like, boy, this is the worst-case scenario. And so the Seahawks are hearing all about that.

They would have had him this week. That pace will be ended when they're in Seattle this week

going against one of the best defenses, and you know they're not going to let that guy beat you. What I tell you is they would have taken him back at a certain price. Like there was a certain price point, but it would've been, I don't believe anywhere near what the Chiefs paid. It was, it was still, it was the biggest running back contract ever in free agency. It was, I think, 3 years, $45 with upside to $48. And the thing was, there was no one else in the market. It was really just the Chiefs. They were the one team that was willing to do it. Right. They had the vision. This guy's gonna totally transform our team, you know, through the first, whatever it's been for them, 5 games of the season. He really has, because they don't have, you know, a receiver really to speak of.

They don't really have an offensive line either. I mean, they've had a bunch of injuries and stuff there. Their schedule's been pretty easy. And that— now, now we're gonna find out how real this is, I think.

Yeah. And I'll just want to see, you know, Kenneth Walker— last year's the first time he played a full season. Can he do it again? If he can, I mean, good for him. It'll be the greatest investment of all time, you know. But for Seattle, they just weren't willing to put that type of money They should get Charbonnet back this week. They activated him today. I think he's gonna play. Price should be back next week. I could see them being in the running back market too, but if those 2 guys—

I think they're fine.

Get back.

Yeah, we'll talk about it later. They're 3-3 and that they easily could be 5-1 or 6-0. I think they're okay. I'll leave you with this. You talk to a bunch of people around the league. Who do you think is the alpha right now in the league that everybody else is looking at as the team they have to measure themselves against. Does that team exist yet?

I don't think so. I, I think—

I don't think it does either, because you would say San Francisco, but they've had so many injuries. I would look at San Francisco and be like, we can beat those guys. They're so beaten up.

That, that would be the team. And I had, you know, somebody with the Rams say after they played in the first game that that's probably the best team we're gonna see. I mean, when, when Kyle's got his guys, even with all the other injuries, but when he can play with McCaffrey and Purdy, and he's got Kittle. He just lost Deebo, but as long as those guys are there, you know, they've got a chance to be pretty good. By the way, they're playing without Bosa right now on defense. Like, they're— they lost all those defensive linemen. It's pretty remarkable how they do that every single year. I would've said the Bills, you know, over the first couple of weeks of the season, but then they turned over 5 times against the Chargers. Yeah. The Patriots beat 'em. Their defense, if you look at you know, the efficiency numbers, they're like dead last in the league. Yeah. So there's a lot that they have to clean up on that, that side of the ball. No, I don't, I don't think that you have a single team— It's weird. We should have a team by now. Yeah, because, because you can poke holes, right?

Minnesota hasn't done it offensively even though, you know, the last game they played was the best. The Chiefs are undefeated, but I think there's all sorts of reasons they're like, how sustainable is it? I think they're good team. I don't know if they're a great team right now. If, if you had to name one, it probably is San Francisco, but you just, every week you watch 'em and there's like 3 more names on the injury report and it's just like, we got a lot of season left to try to figure this out.

Well, it's funny, we have 3 undefeated teams and yet we don't have an alpha somehow. It reminds me of like those Colts seasons with Manning when they would be like 14-1, but they would be 30th in DVOA on defense. You'd be like, yeah, I don't know. And that's kind of where the Niners are now, where they're— the track record says they're the best team, but I don't trust it. We'll see. Maybe we'll have more answers this week. All right. You can subscribe and read to The Sweep, your excellent newsletter, and then see you on Ringer NFL Show as well. And then rumors the show is coming to LA for the trade deadline in November, which hopefully— do we have— what's the— what are the odds that will be a great trade deadline? What are we looking at, like 40%? Well, 4 out of 10 times it's a good trade deadline. What are, what are the percentages here?

I booked my flights today, Bill, so I'm gonna go high percentage change. Great. I do think there'll be some significant things, and, and here's why, very briefly.

Yeah.

Some teams that were supposed to be good and thought they were gonna be good and have veteran rosters are bad.

Ah,

that is the recipe you need because that means star players, older players who are the core guys that you're thinking they're gonna win a Super Bowl, and all of a sudden we're 4 games below .500. Those are exactly the guys that now you have to make the hard decisions and decide. Chargers, are we willing to move on from? The Chargers are on that list. Eagles, the Eagles could certainly be on that list.

Could be the Rams if they're 2-5.

Could be the Rams, could be the Cowboys that thought that they were gonna be really good and what exactly ends up happening with them. I mean, there's a, there's a lot of 'em, man. If you go top to bottom in the league, there's a bunch of teams right now that are looking at their roster and just looking at their, their record and just being like, holy shit, how did this happen? I mean, the Bucs are 1-5. They don't play— they haven't played a division game yet. They'll probably end up getting back into it if they can beat the Panthers. But like, that goes to 1-6, 1-7. Like, what are you doing? You got some older players on that roster. There's just— there's a lot of things.

1-year deal, basically.

There's a lot of teams are going to be really, really fascinated to see how these next Whatever we got, 19 days play out.

All right, Tom, thank you coming up. We're gonna take a break, come back with Joe House and the mailbag right after this. This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. In today's sports, everyone is constantly trying to outdo each other. Trick formations, infield shifts, constant rotation changes. And yet it's proven time and time again that strong fundamentals are the thing that will lead you to victory in banking. is no different. While everyone tries to outdo each other, PNC Bank just keeps going right down the middle with steady, calculated money moves. And the financial wins, they just keep coming. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group Incorporated. PNC Bank, National Association member, FDIC. All right, Joe House is here. We are recording this before Bears-Patriots, but we are gonna do a rollicking mailbag. We're gonna talk a little NBA and we're gonna do Ringer 107 picks for week 7. And most important, House's team is 1-0, the Washington Wizards. You did it. Anthony Davis looked the healthiest he's looked in 2 years and you're back, baby.

Yeah, one whole game without an injury to Anthony Davis. That's a wild success.

Congrats.

Yes. He dominated Kyle Kuzma. He was, that was his primary defender. Great job. The first time since 2022, I believe that this is the stat, that the Wizards are above .500 at any point in any season.

Did you have any, first of all, congrats on that. Did you have any overreactions from the first 2 days of games with our over-unders that you wished we had done differently. The one— the thing that jumped out to me was the Suns just getting annihilated by the Blazers. And we were like, the Blazers, who the hell knows? This is the weirdest roster in the league.

That was so hard.

The Suns fans are upset already.

I think they have reason to be.

Yeah.

Uh, I didn't watch any of that game. Did you watch any?

No, I— well, I was going to, and it was 19 to nothing.

So they got all the way up to 21-nothing. They were up by 3 touchdowns. It's like, well, I'm not gonna try and work hard to watch it. I, I don't understand why the Suns were unprepared defensively. I guess that's what I would say.

Well, the biggest thing to me is that Dame looked good. Wasn't expecting that.

Yeah. And, and Ja looked good too.

The most fun game was Indiana-New Orleans, and I think New Orleans is gonna be in a bunch of these where they'll, they'll lose a bunch 'cause they have Jamal Mosley as their coach and, you know, some, some questionable game management at the end. But they do have a lot of talent. That game was really fun. I saw the second half of that game. And then Toronto, not, not Toronto, Orlando

and

Atlanta, which was right in that vortex of what do we make of all of these teams? They all had around the same over-under, but that was a good battle too. So I'm not gonna overreact to anything other than basketball, other than to tell everybody who sent me Jayson Tatum texts and things, they can go eat a fat one.

I was one of 'em.

Mailbag. These are actual questions from actual listeners, you can send them to BSPodcast33@gmail.com. Chris from Hewitt, New Jersey. House hasn't seen any of this. Is the Jim Nantz devastating injury cut to commercial the most ironic thing ever now, considering he shattered his wrist hand on live TV punching a football? I wish he would have immediately punched the football and then said, we're not going to show you what just happened. We'll be back after this with tears in his eyes. Do you think he should have done that? And they could have played the quiet injury

music.

They should have.

That would've been incredible.

He's like, oh, we're not, we're not gonna show you guys again.

Have they said out loud, has anybody done any reporting on how injured he is? Is he gonna be in a sling this upcoming week?

So I haven't heard anything. I did Google it. So the question, if you're Jim Nantz, let's say you did break your wrist or hand, do you, do you tell anybody? Do you keep it a secret? Do you hide it? Do you do the game where you're in the booth And you, you basically take off your, your wrist or your carpal tunnel thing or whatever they have you, but when they show you in the booth, it seems like you're fine, but meanwhile you have 5 broken bones.

I, I mean, it's devastating for him because his primary outlet in terms of leisure activity and probably, you know, his own psychological well-being is golf. Like, this is by far the thing I'm most concerned with in terms of any uh, you know, risk that I undertake. I can't have anything get in the way of me playing golf a couple times a week. Just can't have it. And if he busted up his hand and wrist and he's on the shelf for 4 to 6 weeks at a minimum, that is brutal. That is—

Well, then CBS gave him the, the extra F-you after J.J. Watt crippled Jim Nantz. They announced that J.J. Watt's gonna be their number one analyst. They just plowed ahead. They took the CBS seat off the table. They were like, we don't want to be in this Trey Aikman stuff. Keep us out of it. Joshua Cohen wrote in, just listened to the Friday the 13th rewatchables. My cousin got married at the camp where they shot the movie, and it felt like a bad omen. Marriage lasted less than 2 years. Predictable. Would you get married at the Crystal Lake? You got married in Martha's Vineyard near Chappaquiddick, which was a total disaster.

Not near that. Not that close to Chappaquiddick.

That was in pictures. Puncher's distance.

There were funny stories about people driving around at night.

Oh, there were funny stories.

Things happening in the bus.

Yeah, I would not get married at Crystal Lake. Uh,

I would not either.

The Simmons fam, because we support all horror, um, excursions, we watched all of Crystal Lake on Peacock, the Linda Cardellini prequel.

From the beginning all the way through the end?

On my iPad scale, I was about a 38% looking up versus doing work and not paying attention.

But, uh, that's pretty good.

A lot of bloody people and some nudity and just kept my attention.

I'm interested.

Tommy from Lincoln, California. Sit down for this one. This one jolted me, and then I kind of sat with it for a while, and I was okay with it. Are we currently watching the NFL equivalent of Steph Curry's 2015 MVP season with Brock Purdy? He has a whole bunch of bullet points. Both undersized or physically limited for their positions, allegedly. Significant doubts about their ceilings. Impressive seasons before injuries derailed them. Fan bases that recognized their potential and defended them vehemently, not to mention Bay Area. Consistently viewed as products of their surroundings rather than driving forces behind their team's success. And then he said, neither fits the traditional mold of what we thought a championship-caliber superstar would be. Curry had 2015. He became an undeniable Superstar League MVP. Will this now be Brock Purdy? I— my instinct was like, that's ridiculous. Steph Curry changed the way we played basketball and started a revolution, and people were showing up with Steph Curry jerseys. But that's not what he's saying. He's not saying there's a thing that transcended the sport. He's just saying maybe he's that good and we just didn't realize it till this season. I, I'm not against this.

Take. What are you doing? You're typing? What are you doing?

Well, I, I'm in the, uh, Googleopolis machine, the look stuff up machine, to see—

Uh-oh, don't get worried, you're gonna get cyberattacked now.

What year Brock Purdy and Lamar Jackson— it was just 2 years ago that we had this, wasn't it? 2 years ago on Christmas Day, these 2 teams played each other, San Francisco and the Niners, and it was a referendum. Or that week there was a, a, an island game where the Niners played Baltimore And it was supposed to be a referendum on this MVP question. So my reaction, the reason I'm looking this up is because we've already been there with Purdy. Purdy was in the MVP discussion in the race for, you know, 3 quarters of a season, 4 fifths of a season, 80% of a season.

So Curry's version of this was '13 when things were really happening for them and nobody took it seriously. And everybody's like, you can't win playoff rounds by just shooting 3s. And then Who'd they beat? Denver. They beat that Iguodala, Ty Lawson, that weird 56-win George Karl team, then lost to the Spurs the next round. But that was kind of his moment, like what Purdy had. I don't think people took Purdy seriously as a major dude until this season.

I don't, I don't disagree with that. They had to— we had to have— it was, it was Christmas night 2023, a high-profile matchup that heavily shifted the NFL MVP race. In Jackson's favor because of how Lamar played. And people were in that situation, the dialogue was focused on the idea that Purdy, where he was drafted, how could a player come from that place all the way to MVP conversation? And it was, you know, all of the undermining of his case was built on the idea that he was a system quarterback just performing well inside that system. This feels different this year, I think. But here, here's the challenge, right? Yeah, we'll see, because Mike Evans is hurt. Mike Evans has been the secret sauce. He has been an incredible asset to this Niners offense. And we watched him—

He seems like a beloved teammate too. Everybody just fucking loves Mike Evans. Brady loved him too.

He was loved in, in loved and beloved in Tampa. But let's see how this Niners offense does without him.

Purdy's looking a little Mahomes-y. I have— I think he's unquestionably one of the top 4 or 5 quarterbacks now.

Okay.

I've seen enough. We've— we argued about this for years. People were down on him. Advanced stats were high on him in some things. The eye test— I'm done. Jesse from the Bay Area coincidentally asks, if you could give him truth serum, do you think Aaron Donald would say he regrets coming back? If he could do it all over again, would he have just waited until Week 10

and

joined Contender TBD? Wow. So I think it's a 2-part question. One, I don't think he would've played for anyone.

Totally agree.

I think it was Rams or bust.

You and I agree with that. Are we in agreement on that?

Yeah, maybe just wait till Week 6, especially like, didn't they know Myles Garrett's knee was hurt before they actually told us he was hurt? Like, he's friends with Myles Garrett. He didn't know. I would've wanted to see him on the knee for 4 weeks. He's gotta be so bummed out now.

Who, Myles Garrett or, or Aaron Donald?

Aaron Donald. The Rams suck.

They do, but there is light.

They're not gonna make the playoffs, House.

Oh, I don't, I wouldn't go that far. We're only a third of the way into the season.

I'm gonna go that far. I don't think they're gonna make the playoffs. Here are their next 4 games. I'm in Massachusetts this week and I might bet on them on FanDuel to not make the playoffs.

Their next 4 games are at Vegas this week. Yeah. Home against the Chargers.

They're gonna be coming up on Ringer 107 later.

Yeah. I'm, I'm, I understand your perspective. Home against the Chargers, at Washington, at Arizona. So if there's 6 straight—

Arizona just kicked their ass last week.

Yeah. Well, I think they'll get vengeance and, and you know, the, one of the remarkable things about that Arizona game Um, is that historically McVay had absolutely dominated Arizona over his career. So I think they're with that extra incentive. But if they're 6-4 through 10 weeks, they're still in the playoff hunt.

All right, so you just gave them 4 wins in a row and they're 2-4 and they just lost Davante Adams and Myles Garrett. We have no idea when he's coming back and they have offensive line issues and they're on their 3rd kicker. And McVay has blown 2 games and seems like he needs help.

Exactly the, the, the time to buy.

Well, you can buy because they— it's basically even odds for them to make the playoffs. They're -112 to make it, -104 not to make it. I don't see it. Andrew from Texas. I didn't know about this. I just saw a video clip of Joe Mazzulla's newest segment on Zolak and Bertrand. This is a Boston radio show.

Okay.

Where he takes calls directly from Boston fans. And it was hilarious. The first fan immediately informed Joe that when he was first hired, he did not care for the way he handled himself with the media.

My goodness.

And then launched into a tirade about late-game Tatum possessions and a lack of creativity on offense. Joe handled it well, but it got me thinking, would Boston go first overall in the worst fan bases to open the phone lines with draft? I think Philly's number one.

Yeah, Philly.

In fact, I think Philly fans are furious right now that this was even a question, but I think Boston might be second.

It's up there. Like, who, who else is in that Philly-Boston class?

Any, any cold weather place?

Yeah, right. Maniacal Buffalo. Although Buffalo's had a good run. They've been pretty happy. No, they're just sad.

I would say it's New York City, Philly.

Yeah.

Philly 1, Boston 2, New York City probably 3 would be my rankings. And then there's probably somewhere we're, we're forgetting, somewhere where it's maybe like Portland this year. Maybe teams would move up or down depending on how pissed off they are. It reminded me of SNL used to have this great sketch in the late '80s. They did once, I think, with John Goodman, the Referee Pittman Show. And it was like a talk show with a referee. It was like done like a morning show. And he came out and they applauded, and then people would be like, yeah, Referee Pittman, I just wanna know what, what it's like to officiate a game with your head completely up your ass.

I remember.

Just how do you handle that with just having your head that far up your rectum? But I, I gotta get my dad to call into this Joe Mazzulla thing though. Oh, he's already not happy. Unbelievable. Yeah. Oh, he doesn't understand why we're playing so many lineups. My dad's like, we've played 130 lineups.

It's a fair question.

Amok— oh, I should have done this after the Rams thing. He writes about the Rams. Are we back to square one when it comes to the how should you approach an Australia game decision? We thought the reason the 49ers beat up the Rams was because they flew there early, but maybe it was just because the Niners are significantly better.

That's a take.

It did make me rethink it after we saw the first 6 weeks. Like, the, the Niners are, are better than the than the Rams these first 6 weeks, like pretty convincingly. So maybe we need to re— maybe the Rams had the right strategy and just their players weren't good enough. You don't like this?

No, I, I, I, I'm gonna make that bet on the Rams to make the playoffs.

I feel like you're gonna lose a lot of money on the Rams.

Fine. No, I'm already protected because one of our best takes on, on across the board and over-unders was under 11.5 wins for the Rams. So I'm super covered, I feel like. Under 11.5 feels pretty decent right now.

One of my big bets that I did before this season for futures was the Rams under 13.5 wins.

My goodness.

With Seattle over 8.5 and New England over 8.5. Oh, you were— And I think it was like +112.

Yeah. Oh, that's a good one.

And I, I'm about to win the Rams side. They just need one more loss and they win that one. But I'm not bragging because I have multiple Tampa Bay Buccaneers bets that you can just set on fire and throw into

My word.

Diarrhea hell. I'm not gonna give up on Houston, but I'm gonna give up on Tampa.

Yeah.

Kel wants to know, is it possible the NFC East champ will be in the Shakey's Bowl? I wanna talk this out.

Mm.

Shakey's Bowl, worst game of the day, uh, early Saturday. It's usually the game they're most embarrassed by. The Texans were in it multiple years in a row. We called it the Shakey's Bowl 'cause for our fantasy draft, the one I'm in with Sal and those guys. we would go to Shakey's and watch the first game. Last year was Rams-Panthers, which was actually a pretty good game, but all the matchups were pretty good last year. But usually the NFC South's in here. So the, the NFC East champ, I think, will be a 4 seed this year. I think they're gonna have the worst record of all the divisions, right? If you had to say NFC South first, NFC East.

Yeah, not, not even close.

I think it's gonna be close. Who's winning? Nobody's winning 10 games in either.

The— right, the winner of the NFC East is the first team to get to 7 wins. That, that— and, and it might be—

That was Sal's prediction for the NFC South.

Well, I, I mean, I think it applies to the NFC East now.

So Shakey's Bowl, if it's Dallas, no way. That's a night game.

Right.

They won't care who— how good Dallas is. If it's the Giants, no way. I think they put the Giants in a higher profile game.

Wow. Even if they're— they only have 7 wins or 8 wins.

I, I just think they put 'em even— what was the year with Danny Dimes? They didn't put Danny Dimes in the shaky bowl that, that year.

I guess Minnesota.

I don't think that was shaky's bowl. Okay. Your team, definitely a possibility.

Yes.

And then I think Philly with no Jalen Hurts and Tanner McKee or whoever the hell else is gonna be QBing,

right,

would be the other one.

Jimmy Garoppolo.

I still think NFC South will, will be in there over the NFC East. Okay, my prediction. Jimmy Garoppolo, did you hear that name?

No, but he's available. I, I don't know why you wouldn't take a look at him.

Chris from Charleston, South Carolina. Love the show. I was making chicken salad and was adding Dijon mustard, opened a new bottle and promptly squeezed out mustard juice over everything. And I want to talk about this in a second. This got me thinking, which NBA team will be the mustard juice of the season? Big anticipation and then disappointment and horror. As a Wizards fan, I figure we're the leading candidate. What— wonder what you think. I don't— yeah, I don't agree with the Wizards. I think it might be Utah. I think Utah's the mustard juice team.

Yeah, that was phenomenal.

They shot mustard juice all over the place yesterday.

I'm sorry to do this on the pod at this point. I don't know where exactly this is going to show up. But aren't we just talking about pre-cum? I mean, isn't, isn't that what the mustard juice is?

No, the mustard juice is worse because you have, like, you have a turkey sandwich.

Yeah, it's worse.

No, but you have turkey sandwich or a hot dog, it's all exciting to be like, oh man, I can't wait to put mustard on this. And then the mustard juice goes everywhere, it soaks the bread. I fucking hate the mustard juice.

It's worse because you— we, we eat it. We're not eating the pre-cum. And that's, that's why the mustard juice. But I mean, this is, this is a—

Eduardo's cutting this out. I could feel it. No, I'm not. This is a social clip. I can feel it.

Oh, cutting it out.

Joe House thinks we're not needing to pre-cut. Social clip.

The mustard juice, here's the thing. It can be dealt with because if you observe, catch it quickly enough, Then you can—

How if it gets the bread?

Well, but you have, if you get the right, like you have to be quick. Like as soon as you see it, oh, oh, get that, get the container back up, get that nozzle squared away, give it a vigorous shake and then get yourself down. And then now give me some something solid.

You're talking about the pre-cum or the mustard?

Both, both, both. It works for both. Definitely. Give it a vigorous shake.

I never use the mustard without doing it over the sink. I understand. And making sure there's mustard juice and it drives my wife crazy. It's so— Well, you're a pro. Top 11 most annoying things I do for her. Oh good, thanks for the mustard juice in the sink. I'm like, sorry, I don't like mustard juice.

Yeah, would you rather I have it on my sandwich? Then I have to waste food.

I knew you'd like this question. I think it's Utah.

That's a great call.

I think everybody got excited to hold the Utah mustard bottle. Oh my God, there. And then, you know, you watched them last night, they can't rebound. Jaren Jackson's overrated and Peterson is 20 years old.

I mean, the worst thing is nobody on that team, not one person is like, I'm gonna take this Ty Jerome situation personally. Not one fucking guy on Utah is like, I'm gonna go try and stop Ty Jerome. Not one.

We talked about it when we did over-unders. It was like, who is gonna— who's their shutdown guy when somebody gets hot on the other team? How do they handle the 2 guards together? Who's gonna rebound? I just never got it.

Well, the Nurkic part, is, is the answer for the rebounding. He should, he should impact that when he comes back. But

certainly in a really important case, you just can't—

you can't no-show your first game of the season when, uh, you know, Cam Boozer had a bet. Did you look, by the way? The rookies all sucked last night. All the, all the top rookies. The only guy—

Boozer didn't though. Caleb Wilson had one of the worst, uh, Rookie of the Year things in a while.

Was not impressive. for, for 4/5 of that game. He didn't need to be—

Did he get rebounds though?

So what? That's not—

I didn't have time to watch that game.

Brayden Burries was pretty good last night. I will say that he, he showed something in the second half for Milwaukee.

Do you think Kuzma's new business podcast is affecting his basketball at all? He's gonna, he's gonna talk to people about business.

It's so—

I mean, I— It's the number one thing people pitched us at this point. Oh yeah. So it's gonna be, he's gonna have celebrities and they're gonna talk about how they became successful. There's like 7,000 of them. So did that change the Rookie of the Year yesterday?

Oh,

I, I, oh yeah, Boozer's +230 now. He's favorite.

Well, he was the, he was favored. He's been favored all along.

It was close. But they were all closer tonight. He was 3-to-1. Now it's, he was 3-to-1.

Okay.

Peterson moved back. Your guy, your guy could,

well, he didn't play. My guy didn't play. Let's, let's see him play.

You know what I really did enjoy was the Yaxel against Luka.

A plus, plus, plus, plus, plus.

I have a question about that coming up later, but I like, he went at him. There was good stats about him.

As he should. Yeah. He's not arriving. This is one of the, my favorite bets, by the way, that Golden State team is as bad as we imagined.

Oh, that was, I locked that as the under.

I don't know if I, I feel like I did as well. But what does he have to lose? He's not going to arrive and get punked. I mean, you know, put me on their best player and let me go at it and let me get my NBA seasoning in, in this way. I thought he handled himself Brilliantly.

I have a question about this from Britt Pierce. Full disclosure, I hate watching Luka play, but breaking down Yaxel's postgame comments, tell me where he was wrong. He said he didn't actually watch NBA games, so he thought Luka was great because he'd only watched his highlights. Then playing a full game against Luka, what he sees is bitching, whining, foul baiting, and pushoffs. Just curious what he got wrong. Nothing.

Nothing. Who asked that question? Who is this?

Brit Pierce.

Brit Pierce. Great, great question. I—

we're— yeah, he got nothing wrong.

We're in lockstep agreement.

No notes. By the way, Luka's great. He made a fuck you halftime bank shot and stared at Yaxel. I mean, it was,

it was

funny. And nobody should probably talk shit to Luka because it just seems like it, it fires him up. Kessler looked great. Yeah. They all, all my Laker fans are like, oh my God, you think he'll be the starting Team USA center? It's like, settle down. Let's see if he can play. 3 weeks in a row.

They don't get to play Golden State every night. How about that?

Yeah, Golden State's gonna be bad. And I, I— listen, we talked about during the over-under pod, I have no explanation for the Porzingis thing. One of the weirdest signings ever. They put him— Shams tweeted yesterday that they, they're exploring trade opportunities. Who the fuck's trading for him?

With China?

How do they sign this guy when they know he had issues already and they lived through it? They're like, here's $20 million.

The Greek team. They could go to Greece.

Well, the rumor was that they're gonna try to do like a take Myles Turner, something like that, where they take a—

oh,

they, they somehow get a contract back. And I don't even know how that would work.

I watched quite a bit of Myles Turner last night that, that he might be in Larry Holmes status. It's gonna be a very, it's gotta be a, a, a very narrow, you know, need for a team that acquires Myles Turner.

That might've been the rare trade that wasn't good for either team. The Giannis trade. That was my biggest regret from over-unders was going over on Miami. Yeah. The more I thought, like seeing some of the Klay stuff, like they just can't hit the— I don't think you can survive in the NBA and win 60% of your games or 55% of your games if you're not making 3s. And I don't know who's making 3s for Miami. I didn't, I didn't like what I, What I saw in that.

Tim Hardaway Jr. was 1 for 7. So there's your answer.

Robin W. listened to my Parent Corner where I talked about my dad when he came to visit last week, and we— he wanted to watch all 3 Chicago shows in a row when I was doing my podcast, so I had to set him up. Chicago PD, Fire, and Med. So Robin asks, are the 3 Chicago shows essentially Paw Patrol for the elderly?

Hey,

simple morality stories. of how our civil services could save us from various disasters and villains. And he says he's the father of a 2-year-old and also has a 70-year-old mother-in-law who lives with them part-time and noticed that his mother-in-law will keep watching Paw Patrol after his son has left the room. She is, of course, also an avid viewer of all the Chicago dramas, NCIS, and SVU. Time is a flat circle. We all return to Paw Patrol in the end. Does Dick House? Watch Chicago shows?

I don't believe so. I think he's moved into a phase— he's not into those dramas. He doesn't want to sit through— he likes sports still. He's still heavily involved in our sports stuff. He's not in those serial dramas.

I stopped by to visit my dad today in Boston, and he was watching Boston Blue or whatever that Mark Wahlberg show is. And he is like, I don't even really like this show, but I watch every episode.

Wait, Mark or Donnie? It's gotta be Donnie.

Donnie. Donnie Wahlberg.

Yeah. Not Mark.

Not Mark Wahlberg. Donnie. Boston Blue. Speaking of Dick House, your dad's name is actually Dick House. I didn't know.

Richard House has gone by Dick his whole life.

Yeah,

for sure.

Matt in Madison, Wisconsin said in my over-under preview pod for the NFC, I looked into a crystal ball. Clairvoyant Bill envisioned a world in mid-October where the Packers were struggling and the Brewers would be meekly bowing out to the Dodgers. Although the Packers still have room for improvement, they're doing better. I'd like to invite Clairvoyant Bill to accept the Eat a Fat Dick Award for Week 7.

Oh,

as the Brewers dominated the evil Dodgers and advanced to the World Series. Clairvoyant Bill, eat a fat dick.

My goodness.

So that's— now the, now the listeners are, are inviting

They have

nominees.

They have nominees for the—

Put some mustard juice on it. Mark Quadro, who are you rooting for in that World Series, by the way? Brewers, Rays?

Uh, I bet on the Rays. Brewers. I'm rooting for the Brewers. We have a Brewer fan in our life. Gotta give it up to Chipper. Yeah, the Chipper.

I think it's more fun if, if he loses in the World Series, personally.

Why is that more fun? I don't get it.

I think it'll be better for his, uh, character and wellbeing.

Baseball can't— it's, it's world champions gonna be a team where you can hit the ball and it hits the roof and, and it's like, oh well, it's an out for you. It's an out if you hit the roof. What?

I have 2 notes for baseball. Sorry, I'm chewing an ice cube. One is I think the home run shots are outta control and we need to go back. We just said we're in a beta society now. We need to go back to just when you act like an asshole after a home run, you just— the next guy just takes one right near his chin. and maybe even gets hit. I just thought we, we policed everything better that way. What's funny is hockey is the best it's ever been at policing. I don't know if you saw the Kachucks, the highlights of that game yesterday against Ottawa, but it was just like fucking Roadhouse for the entire game.

They just dropped the gloves immediately if there's been any misconduct.

Baseball, you know, Diaz or Caminaro, they're hitting homers, they're, they're stopping, they're turning, staring at their dugout. doing like little things.

You can still hit them. Take forever. I don't understand why not.

Then they get back in the— here's the other thing I don't like. They— everyone does it now where you put like the helmet on the heads, or the Red Sox had like a, you know, big stupid one, and some other ones they'll put like—

Right, the Green Monster one.

And let's just go back to hit a home run and go back in and fist bump guys. I don't mind. Out of control. Where— what's the next level of this? Pull your pants down?

I will say this, do that in the dugout and, and be careful of the mustard juice. In the dugout, I don't mind whatever celebration they want to do. The guys, I like that because the baseball season is so goddamn long. You have to have something to—

I get it.

To keep that. But the trot, I bring back the drill on the guy in the ribs. Why we have, especially in the postseason, the expanded rosters, bring a guy in from the bullpen, let him drill the guy. That's it. He's thrown his pitch, he's hit the guy, and off we go. Let's restore some justice.

My social media feeds me baseball fights and hockey fights. Thank you. Thank you to everybody in charge of that algorithm. They had one where the managers got in the fight 30 years ago. Phil Garner and— I forget the other guy, the White Sox guy— where they, they were arguing about something and Phil Garner ran out, was mad. The other guy was— and they just started fighting.

The managers were fighting.

The managers. I didn't remember this. It was 1995.

They both must have been ex-baseball guys, you know what I mean? I mean,

they were, they were former players.

I mean, Garner obviously, but his opponent must have mostly been—

and the other players didn't know whether to start fighting or separate them. And it was, it was hilarious.

Stand back like it's a hockey fight. You just wait and then you tap your bat, tap your stick, just like in a hockey fight.

From Mark Cuadro, he's curious if House is ready to induct Dan Quinn as the inaugural member of the Eat a Fat Dick Hall of Fame. 2 weeks in a row of boneheaded game management. First, end of the Giants. Than going for it on 4th down against the Niners, not knowing if it was 4th down or not, and his QB didn't either. Has he done enough yet?

So this might sound like a kind of an outlier take. He doesn't deserve to eat a fat dick. He's just stupid. And, you know, he is the, the overseer. He's not the architect because Kyle Shanahan was truly the architect. But he was the head coach in a Super Bowl where a team came back from 28 to 3.

He was.

And it was a delight.

I watch it all the time.

Making repeated mistakes in, in game management with, with this particular team. I mean, I'm at the point he's—

After the Julio Jones catch.

Yeah.

They could have kneeled 3 times and the game would've been basically over.

They could have done that.

And instead, Matt Ryan figured out a way to go backward by 12 yards. By the way, he's running a team now too. So this is great.

Well, I mean, again, to me that's Shanahan more than, than Coach Quinn. But I do like that Coach Quinn, he took the backward hat, he brought it around to the front. We've seen a lot more front hat, so I appreciate that gesture.

Good. He's giving good front hat.

Yeah. And by all accounts, he's a wonderful guy. The team loves him. The players— Wonderful guy.

We're doing that now. Okay.

Oh, that's— there's nothing to extol any virtue in terms of actual coaching game management. I don't know what he does. He, he bungles all of the game management calls in front of him. Culture

guy.

But I wish him—

He built the culture.

I wish him the best of luck. I don't intend for him to eat a fat dick. He didn't do anything in terms of—

Do you have somebody in mind for this week's eating contest?

Let's just go through it. Let's just keep moving. I might. We'll see how it goes.

Grant in Kansas City. Kansas City now hoping the Blazers thing falls apart so they can sneak in with El Cheapo. By the way, I'm going to Portland for, uh,

yeah, you are

for the pod.

I saw that. Go visit that restaurant. See if the phone booth is still there. You remember that?

I mean, look, you could always come.

Oh, is that an invite?

Oh, you could always come. I'm just saying.

It's BS Pod, right? You're doing the show.

BS Pod.

I, I mean, I'm on the BS pod.

We're making Klosterman join us.

Oh, that's amazing.

Thinking about calling it El Cheapo Palooza. Like very, getting very close. Like t-shirts, hats. It's, it's, it's a possibility.

What if they're 5-0 by the time you get out there? So like, what if they rip off a bunch of wins?

Are you following what this guy's doing to them?

I mean,

they have this thing about, they have to promise them a first-class facility or he's able to leave in 2030 with no punishment. And, and so they, they basically put the relocation fee, I think was a billion dollars or something if he left. And he got really mad at that. Like, he clearly is trying to leave. Grant in Kansas City wants to know, in the Over/Unders pod for the East, for the NBA, Joe House said the Nets had supposedly moved past tanking and turned the corner.

Wrong.

Well, I'm just reading the question.

Go ahead.

Prompting the entirely reasonable question. What the fuck corner did they turn? Was it the one in Goodfellas when Jimmy Conway kept waving Karen Hill down the alley toward the Dior, toward the stolen Dior dresses? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's over there. So then he says, that makes Sean Marks Jimmy Conway, Nets fans Karen Hill, and the rebuild is the Dior dress. Is this the ultimate Goodfellas team? It's Grant's question.

It's not a bad one, but, but Grant, Grant's missing a crucial distinction.

Yeah.

When I was talking about the Nets and going through that, I was reporting something that I had read. The research— amongst the research, somebody, I can't remember which, you know, punditry, which publication in there—

Said that about the Nets turning the corner. Yeah. Yes.

Characterized the Nets situation as a turn-the-corner situation.

So you're passing that along?

I had the exact same question as Grant. What fucking corner did they turn? I mean—

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What word? It's not a turn. No, no, no.

He wasn't wrong. Grant's not wrong.

No, no, no. We're gonna trade Michael Porter Jr. right there, right now. Go around.

They really should do that. And they have every— they're, they're still incented to tank. I mean, I, I think I said that they should do— they should, you know, just bite down super hard on the 2 balls. I would put 2 balls, dangling balls on under the nets. I, I mean, we went through this. Come on, Grant.

Okay. Sorry, Grant. We're taking a quick break, then finishing the mailbag and doing Ringer 107. And now it's time for Who's Delivering, presented by Uber Eats. You know who's delivering on game day? The rookie having a breakout, the player who's suddenly having a moment, the veteran turning back the clock. Uber Eats delivers more than just wings for the watch party. Might be a Bluetooth speaker for the pregame, beers and seltzers for the tailgate, cleaning supplies when somebody spills salsa in the second quarter. You can get almost, almost anything for game day. On Uber Eats. So on Sundays, I think of all the guys who showed up this year that I wasn't counting on and actually did, CJ Stroud might be my number one. He was the big question heading in with the, with the Texans. Somehow the Texans aren't doing as well as a team as we thought, but CJ Stroud has been lights out. I think he's played like one of the best 6 or 7 quarterbacks in the league through the first 6 weeks. So I would say he showed up. He had it in the bag. You could say as soon as he stepped on the field, he remembered that he was a high draft pick.

With Uber Eats, you can have almost, almost anything in your bag and at your doorstep. This week, buy a 4-piece signature chicken from Popeyes and get another one free on Uber Eats. Enjoy game day deals every week, all season long. For alcohol, you must be of legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. All right, couple more mailbag before we get to the picks. David Wong says, as a foodie, there's no words for what a mistake Anthony DeBlundo did in not eating David Chang's stew. His name should now become synonymous with any food-related mistake and be called the DeBlundo, like Steve Bartman and Bill Buckner. You just instantly know what it means. And you guys can do a lot better than calling him Stewie. He should be called Muff from this day forward. to both recognize his egregious error and the fact that he did it for a hotel muffin. Please make this right. So this is now day 11 of us making jokes about— DeBlundo was a pretty good ad. I don't know. It's a deblunder.

It's an all-time deblunder.

It's a deblunder.

So that's pretty— a deblundo as a food mistake, that would be like getting mustard juice all over your sandwich before you get— that's a deblunder.

Maybe we have Chang make him a mustard juice something. Is it— are you still making jokes about this on Ringer Wise Guys, or is it dying down?

No, I mean, we, we were calling him Stewie, so it still, it still comes up. I mean, there are— there's lots of opportunities still.

Okay. Corbin from Chesterfield, Michigan, one of the best emails of the year. I'm a Clippers fan. Anytime Kawhi was on the court for Raptors-Bulls tonight, I felt like seeing O.J. Simpson live a free life after being acquitted for double murder.

My word.

Everyone that paid attention to the cap circumventing scandal knows Leonard was not only a part of it, but had vivid knowledge of what was going on. I— this is a consensus opinion by the— from the Clipper fans. He just walked away scot-free and now he's on the Raptors, and the Raptors looked unbelievable last night.

I don't think you have to be—

everything's fine for him.

You, you don't have to be a Clippers fan to have that same take. He did. He walked away scot-free. I don't know.

So does that make Uncle Dennis A.C. Cowlings or who?

Oh boy.

I got Kauai in the car. You know who this is, goddamn it.

That is some analogy. O.J. living scot-free. My word. I will say, I want to proceed very cautiously here.

Yeah.

The odds aren't great. If you look at the last 8 years of Kawhi's career of back-to-back game seasons where he plays a sufficient number of games to really impact. Yeah.

So you're telling Clippers fans, be patient.

The basketball karma, the basketball gods, they have a way.

Speaking of the Bulls, Alec H says, my take on the likelihood of NBA commentators coining and using more than once the term booze cruise for either a Boozellus-led or Boozellus co-led Bulls win this season. He break down percentages. He had Mark Jones 97%, Richard Jefferson 88%, the field 28%, and nobody uses it, less than 1%. Well, I'm gonna use it 'cause I love booze cruise. I don't know what, where, what were we doing the last 2 years? Anytime Boozellus scores 25+ points, it's, we're, we're on a booze cruise. Okay.

That's a booze cruise. 'Cause it, it can't be tied to team success. It has to be his own individual success. He does something, buddy.

Booze cruise, like 25-10, 30-10. Yeah. I think we need booze cruise shirts. I'm all in on booze cruise and I'm even okay if Mark Jones says it.

But it's gotta be something like remarkable, an individual accomplishment by him.

For him.

'Cause that

team, like his first triple-double. We went on a booze cruise tonight in Chicago.

That's pretty good. I like that.

Booze cruise is great. Tom Eck writes in, from my beautiful and brilliant wife, Amanda Eck, this suggestion.

Okay.

How about a Red Zone multi-box equivalent for holiday movies? It's hard to get everyone together in your family and you only have so much time and attention spans are short. You just play 4 movies at the same time and you can just dip around with the audio in the multi-view. I laughed at this, and then I'm convinced my wife would watch this if it was like The Holiday, The Notebook, Devil Wears Prada, My Best Friend's Wedding, and it was just a 4-box and she could move the audio around. I swear to God she'd watch it.

But those are rom-coms. That's not holiday movies.

Well, but it made me— well, same thing for Holiday, whatever. Like, okay, rom-coms, Holiday, like basically multi-view for people like my wife. I think it's a home run idea. I'd like to see— I'd like to see Casey Bloys at HBO Max be the first one to try this, or Netflix, since we're on Netflix right now. How

about that?

I don't know if Netflix has multiview.

Do they have it?

I thought the NBA had the multiview going yesterday and it was delightful.

I enjoyed it. They did a great job.

Like, they got better at it. They figured out how to just keep the whole screen, which we argued, we were yelling about last year. Just have all the games.

The hard thing with the movies is for especially movies that you're familiar with, you can't have, you know, the, the key dialogue moments occur simultaneously. They need to be staggered in some manner. Because you, you know, you want your money shots. You want to be able to get—

But if it's the multi, multi-view for the movies and I'm watching 4 sports movies at the same time and maybe 2 great scenes are happening simultaneously, and then it becomes a Sophie's Choice trying to figure out which one I want to watch, but I can just bounce around with the audio, but I still get to see everything. I'm all in on this. I think it'd be great at bars. I think we just need more multi-view in general.

It definitely works at bars.

More multi-view.

The bars give you— that's one of my favorite things about the holiday season, when the bar has a TV dedicated to a great holiday movie. You can't hear it in the bar, but it does— it's a nostalgic thing. That, that's pretty good.

Even during the day at a bar, you could have— you have like First Things First is on, Get Back Up with Peter Schrager, ESPN News. We— the— just 4, 4 people yelling about sports at you simultaneously. I was—

I, I found myself, uh, I'm not gonna describe all of the circumstances, but I found myself in a bar on Tuesday. Oh no, yeah, Tuesday. That's when the Celtics—

Why are you not gonna describe all the circumstances? What was this, like a Tinder date? What did— I don't know, what are you hiding?

I'm not against it, but I was with my family and, um, we were in a neighborhood and my kid was hungry It was, it was middle of the day.

Yeah.

So we went to an Irish bar because he's like, you know, let's go.

I love Irish bars.

I mean, 3:45 in the afternoon. Yeah. Pissed and soaked, packed the bar.

Makes me so happy.

This is in Rockville, Maryland, right? This is, wow. And in a, in like a town center kind of place and a lot of regulars in there. A lot of people coming in. Everybody knows each other. Hey, you know, shaking the hands and everything. I felt like an outsider. I was thrilled. We had 2 giant screens with the game on. Yeah. And I was like, I had bet on the Celtics, so I was thrilled by what I'd seen the first half of that Celtics game. I'm sorry. I was enjoying it very much. The Paul George, you know, whatever. But it was just like I was reminded, this is what makes America great. America is great. It doesn't need to be great again. It's already great because it's fucking 3:45 on a Tuesday afternoon, October the 20th, and the fucking bar is packed and they weren't in there for the Pistons-Celtics game. I can assure you of that.

Yeah. Anything we do that is more like when you go to London and people are just drinking at a pub at 2 o'clock on a Tuesday for no reason, it's like, we just need more of that.

Right. Communal. It's community. People are telling stories with each other.

I forgot to finish this point when I did, I did my, my 6-pack Tuesday night after the 3 NBA games.

Yes.

And I started this thing about the early game, Pistons-Celtics, and I forgot to land the plane on it because I got sidetracked.

Sure.

I'm pro. I think they should have a Tuesday 3 o'clock game every week. And they do it because

that's—

they're showing it in, in Europe, right? It's primetime Europe. It's primetime in France. It's primetime in London, Germany. Pick a, pick a country. The, the game was packed. I'm just pro. I think you could do it with these different— and maybe, maybe it's a Friday, you can start it early because that makes it more realistic.

But I love that.

I'm pro. I like the weekday early game, especially on the West Coast. It was amazing.

Well, Thursday they already have a slate of games. Putting an early game on before the NFL game as your lead-in to Thursday Night Football, like, make— get a marquee NBA matchup at 4 o'clock East Coast time and, or 4:30 or 5, and feed me right into NFL Thursday Night Football. That's good. Can I give you a note on your, your 6-pack from Tuesday?

Yeah,

I'll speak for myself, but I think that America shares this point of view.

Okay,

you saving the Celtics for last, I know you did it on purpose. How could—

Well, they were the, they were the, the longest away from the opening game though.

So what?

I was coming off after OKC. I was on a high from Mera playing 10 minutes.

It was amazing. The OKC-San Antonio game was phenomenal. I, I, I, I was hoping, and I'll— let's see how it goes. There is a take, has the NBA figured out Wemby? Because, you know, the Knicks held Wemby to under— to like in the low 40% In terms of shooting efficiency. And he sucked again shooting-wise against the Thunder. I mean, how, how many more games are we gonna have to go?

I saw this on social and it was a former NBA player, and I'm really sorry that I can't say what player it was, but it was one of the 130 former NBA players that are on podcasts with fancy studios and the one white guy, but made the point of, does Wemby have a go-to move?

It's a great point.

And it was the first time I was like, Huh. 'Cause we talked about this in the playoffs last year, but he doesn't have his version of like the Kareem skyhook or a jump hook or anything. And it does seem at the end of these games, he's 25 feet from the basket trying to figure out stuff, and these teams are getting better at it. But I mean, the Mara thing was super exciting.

Yes.

That, you know, we'll see if it ever happens again. But I thought, I thought that was a significant— even I said it that night, but even 2 days later, I felt like that was a significant win for OKC. I think they're clearly the team to bet.

You know, the funny thing is it is time is a flat circle kind of moment. You will recall that San Antonio announced its arrival last season by deliberately circling all of the Oklahoma City Thunder games and coming in and trying to punch them in the face and all of that. That's why

they went

8-4 against the Thunder last season. Yeah. And so the Thunder are like, oh, we took notes. We have been sitting all offseason We are ready for you on game 1, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

OKC is +110 for the conference on FanDuel.

Okay.

And +200 for the title. And I still think— I, I think it's about another week before all of those odds have a minus in front of them. Title won't. The title will probably get into the hundreds, but the conference ones will get to like -140 and -130 range.

I'm not betting any of that. Did you—

did Minnesota suck you in at all last night?

No.

Yeah, that's what we know is going to happen.

It was a mismatch. And Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball combined for 30 3-point attempts. I loved it.

Is that what they're going to be? Is that what they're going to do?

33 points. Now, I don't know how many of those they walked on. They certainly walked on what felt like 4 or 5 of them. The LaMelo Ball where he took 7 steps, his gather step. I mean, it's a, it's a gather 6 steps. Okay. By all means, the league's gonna accommodate that now. Okay. But no, it's a, it's a very fun way to play. And Ant talking shit the whole game was very enjoyable as well.

I am, I said this after the trade and I still wouldn't have done the trade. I didn't like it for them, but I did think the number one reason they did this, other than to change the vibes, which you could feel last night, we haven't had a team like that in a while.

Yeah.

What was the last team that really swaggered it up like that?

Oh, that's a great question.

Like they're just like having fun together, talking shit to everybody. Like it, it's been a while. You probably go back to like early Ja Grizzlies.

Mm. That's pretty good.

Was the last team that was just like, we're here. The 3-point variance is the, is, I, I'm convinced Tim Connelly, this is number 1, number 2, number 3 reason. 'Cause in a 7-game series where you don't have as many good players as OKC or San Antonio, But 3 out of 7 times you can have a game like they had last night.

Yep.

And then you have one other, and then that's how you beat those teams. And I think that's why he did it. I don't think it's gonna work, but I think—

I don't think so either.

But Chad from Fresno says, I was just cooking dinner while my 1-year-old daughter was screaming at me in the background. I looked at her without thinking and said, you need a glass of settle down juice. I'm listening to the podcast too much. We're gonna have Chad, uh, the— yep, these are my listeners for this one. Last email. This is from, uh, Shane in Orange County, Raiders fan. I've been following along with Ringer 107. I couldn't help but notice a trend. You finished week 6 at 3-2, respectable. You're sitting at 15-15. Your weekly records have been 2-3, 3-2, 2-3, 3-2, 2-3, 3-2. Are you the Pittsburgh Steelers of Ringer 107?

Hey.

Dare I say the Pittsburgh Steelers? Never spectacular. You always end up back around even. I hope you break the trends in week 7.

Well, I'm proud of you. You improved. You're doing better than you and I did together as a team last year, so that's good. You're beating me by— I'm at least 3 games behind you.

I, I feel like I should be better than .500. Like, in our picks league, I'm 5-1 on Double Downs, the one that our buddy Gus runs.

Yes.

Um, I'm just— I don't know. I've had— I've had— I feel like I haven't had like a big week yet. I think this might be the week because I actually like some of these games. Uh, but before we do that, we have to give a shout out to our friends at FanDuel. You still like FanDuel, House?

I, I never stopped liking FanDuel.

Still a fan of their work?

You don't have to ask still. I've never stopped liking FanDuel.

Because they're bringing us Ringer 107 today. They're gonna make this our most rewarding season ever. Download the FanDuel app to check out all of our 107.5 picks and boosted teasers every week this season. I can't wait to do 1,700 UCLA bets, uh, while I'm here in Boston. Ringer 107, you have first pick this week because it's an odd week, so you tell us what you're doing.

Okay, okay. Um, I'm worried because I feel confident.

I feel confident too. I don't like it.

So it makes me uncomfortable to feel confident. Yeah. Um, and I had to like try and be judicious with which teams do I want in my teaser versus teams that I want to bet on outright. Because

some really good teaser options this week.

3 of my favorite games, um, are ones where I could easily play them outright, and I've already bet them in my— on my own card as outrights. But I'm, I'm gonna use—

It's so funny, we didn't talk about this at all, and I had the exact same thing. It's like, ah, do I use this as straight up or one of the 2 teaser spots?

Right. So I'm very straightforward. Gonna go ahead and lay it with Houston. Anything under 13 points is fine by me. Houston -10.5 at home against the Giants. This is JJ McCarthy's return, I guess you, what would you call it? He played last week. He had a great 4th quarter, an incredible

return. What's he returning from? Being terrible?

Well, yeah, I mean, he was, he was traded, he was dumped. So what is it? Don't call it a comeback. I don't want to call it a comeback. So that's why I, I said return.

I don't know what it is, but he threw for like 250 yards in a quarter coming off the bench.

Yep.

But he, now he's going into Houston who needs a win because they continue to need wins because they started out the season so badly.

Yeah.

And, uh, and Houston's laying -10.5 and you're not scared at all.

No, not, not in the least bit. There is— it is a combination of just a reminder to the world of how bad JJ McCarthy was last season in, in like some of the most important statistical categories. Completion percentage over expectation, he was bottom 3 out of 50-some quarterbacks that started, you know, a sufficient number of snaps. The same is true of like EPA per play. Like you can get into the numbers. Yeah. and find, you know, 8 or 10 things that, that all look and smell like shit. And I think that, you know, with this, this Giants offense can't run the ball. It's the worst run offense in the— Cam, Cam Scatabooboo played and somehow had zero fantasy points.

Yeah, they iced him.

They didn't— like, why did they do that to America? There are a bunch of fantasy fools out there. that have him on their roster, but they're like, we're putting this— is it— was it because of the fumble against Washington that they did that? Was that the problem?

Harbaugh squirted mustard juice all over everybody. He's like, I don't care that you started Cam Skyydaboo this week.

He didn't— he didn't say, we're, you know, DNP, coach's decision. He peed. He played, but he had no carries. That is very rude. Anyway, so I like this Houston offense with, with the weapons especially. CJ Stroud just continues to keep cooking.

Harrison was good for them.

He was good.

So they're, they're 14th. I have them in a tease, so I did some work on this one.

Okay.

I wrote down they're being served JJ McCarthy medium rare.

Hmm. My favorite.

It's like, do you want a little darker red on the inside? They're like, no, no, no, just medium rare is good.

Yeah.

Houston defense, 14th in DVOA, but they've already played Allen, Burrow, Dak, and Lawrence.

Right, exactly.

They played Dimes and they played Cam Ward, gave up 20 points total in those 2 games. They do have a couple injuries though. That, that's what worried me about the 10.5.

I get it.

The Alshair looks like he's not playing. He didn't practice today or, or yesterday. The Petre's hurt, Blankenship. So they might be missing 3 starters. So that's why I wanted to tease them down to -4.5, 'cause I had the same thing. I don't know how many chances we're gonna be able to have to bet against JJ McCarthy without a running game.

I just want the first chance. Great. I'll take the first chance right away.

Plus, as, as the Bundo always jokes, Houston just banking field goals.

Yes.

Like, we know they're not going to do anything stupid. They're just gonna be like, we're, we're happy to go up 9-nothing, we're happy to go up 13-3, we're happy to go up—

as long as CJ doesn't throw an interception in the end zone, you know, when they're driving.

I don't think he won't. I'm a believer in CJ. I think he's been really good.

He did that last week against Jacksonville. It was the dagger score that they were sitting on.

No, that's London game.

Okay. That's what you just—

London makes everybody crazy.

It makes people lose their minds. It was the dagger score that they were sitting on. That game was over as soon as Houston, you know, got the score that they should have had. I'm not worried about that against this Giants team. So I'm gonna lay all of the points. I don't mind it. Anything under 13, I'm in favor of.

I have that in a tease and I'll do it later 'cause I wanna talk the tease out with you, but I wanna see what else we take. My first pick, So one of the things with doing these on Thursday, where if you think the line's gonna shift, grabbing it on a Thursday versus like, oh, I think the line's gonna shift my way, I'll, I'll wait till Sunday and see if it changes.

Yeah.

Bengals +1.5 at Baltimore. Excuse me. It made me, made me burp. I was so excited. Bengals +1.5 at Baltimore. I think by the time we get to Sunday, the Bengals are gonna be favored in this game, and I think it's gonna swing 3 points 'cause I don't think Lamar Jackson's gonna play. He's, by all accounts, like, he left a practice, he was hobbling, and they have the Bills next week. I think they're 4-4 in 2 weeks, Baltimore. They're 4-2 right now.

Yep.

Meanwhile, you have Cincy coming off a bye.

Yes.

You have Baltimore flipping their offensive line all the way around again that they haven't settled on a combination yet. Hendrickson's already hurt and all the Cincinnati fans are all excited that Hendrickson is hurt 'cause this was the wrap on Hendrickson.

That's not nice, but I understand.

And Cincy was like, this fucking guy's already hurt. Oh, he's hurt. And, and Cincy really needs it. I, I thought they lost some mojo from the first couple weeks. I like their matchup of their run defense against, against Henry.

Yeah.

I don't think it matters if they're in Cincinnati or on the road. I think they're fine either way. I think they're gonna be able to move the ball. And if this is Huntley, there's too, there's too much tape on him now. Like he could barely do anything in Cleveland last week. So to me, I thought about them in a tease. I love the Bengals +7.5, but I'm gonna take it straight up 'cause I think the line moves. So Cincy +1.5.

Great. This is gonna help us expedite this segment because I also have Cincy +1.5.

Oh, interesting.

At Baltimore for all the reasons you just listed, plus the fact that, that I feel very confident the Baltimore insiders in this area are all like, there's no chance Lamar is playing. Yeah. And I, I—

And the line moved the last 2 days indicating that that's out there now.

There is no explosive possibility with Baltimore. Baltimore needs to get the ball down the field to, to, you know, really realize the, the, the best version of itself offensively. And Snoop just won't do it. So they will load the box. We— they just have tons of tape. I lost last week. This Baltimore team was up on Cleveland 10-nothing. I had Baltimore, um, in that game. That, that line got—

The fumble.

All the way down to 3. Yep. Derrick Henry fumbled Flips the whole—

4th one this year.

Goddamn game. And I ended up taking the L on that. So this is a little bit of pettiness out of me, but I am joining you on Cincinnati +1.5. Both receivers healthy also. I mean, this is your classic NFC North matchup. They have to, you know, both teams super— AFC North too.

I would say it's more classic for the AFC North.

What did I say? NFC?

Yeah. I'm just, I'm correcting you the way you correct me.

As, as you should. It's appropriate.

I, I really like this specific— I think the Bengals really lucked out coming off a bye. Lamar was supposed to play, didn't. Baltimore coming off a really bad loss. They— I'm not giving up on Baltimore by any means, but I think they're gonna be 4-4 after 8 weeks, and then they'll probably turn into the team we thought they were. I'm a little worried about Zach Taylor versus Minter.

Sure.

And just a whiff worried about Joe Burrow. Let's, let's, let's get going here. Are you one of the 6 or 7 best QBs in the NFL or not? That— I think this is a referendum game for the Bengals in a lot of different ways, including with that question.

Yeah.

Hey, Joe Burrow, let's see it. You're going against Tyler Huntley on the road. Like, come on, you're, you're +1.5? How are you not favored in this game? All right, so we both have Cincy. That puts me back up.

It does, man.

Well, this goes back to our discussion earlier. I think the Rams have the stink on them. I'm taking the Raiders at home +4.5. I think it's way too many points. And I get like the Vegas stats— they played New England, Buffalo, Kansas City last 3 games, so their DVOA is bad. They're 26. They haven't been able to run the ball, but I also think that maybe they have some tricks up their sleeve this week. I think this is a kitchen sink game for them. I don't think there's gonna be a ton of Rams fans there because I don't think there are a ton of Rams fans, so they'll have a good crowd. And honestly, really surprised by the line. I think this should be Rams by 1.5, Rams by 2. Okay. Yeah, I really do. I, I think the Rams are a mess. I don't trust the special teams at all for them, especially on the road. I don't think they had— they have no deep threat at all now. They don't have Adams, so just fucking triple-team Puka. What are they gonna do now? So they need their run game to just run the ball down Vegas's throat, which they might be able to do.

The run game's been pretty good this season. Yeah, as a—

as a— so maybe that's what they do. I haven't liked what I've seen from Stafford.

Yeah,

and I don't think they're Rams defense. I think you can move the ball on them, and I like what I've seen from Cousins. I like the 2 tight ends. I think Trey Tucker is actually pretty good.

Agree.

And I think this is a 3-point game, so I'm getting a point and a half. And I could see the Rams losing this. I think it— like, we don't do— I was thinking about for Ringer 107, maybe next year we have a parlay component to you. The 5 picks, plus you have to pick some sort of parlay that's +350 or higher.

You love it. You love to put— and

that's fine.

I'm taking— go ahead. What? No, we do on the Ringer Wise Guys program every week an underdog moneyline play for sure.

I get it. I'm saying a parlay, but it could be anything.

Yes.

That you could move up to. 'Cause one of the ones I liked, where is it? Oh, the Tennessee-Cleveland game.

Mm-hmm.

Which I don't have in Ringer 107.

Nor do I.

But one bet that I think would be fun is like Tennessee -9.5 in that game. If they're ever gonna blow somebody out, this would be the game. That crappy Browns team.

That's pretty good.

So you do a moneyline parlay with Tennessee -9.5 and then the Raiders moneyline, something like that. But everything you have to do would have to be +500 or higher. And then we just see if you hit one, you get a one, you know, you get a one basically.

Oh, okay. That's fun.

Anyway, I think the Raiders aren't bad. The Pats made them look bad. They caught the Pats on the wrong week.

Yeah.

They,

they had to fly cross-country after that. Yeah.

They hung with, with Buffalo legitimately.

Both. This is the one, my, my only question that I'll say out loud. Both the Rams and the Bills coming off that Monday night game that went into overtime, and that was a knockdown drag-out affair. They both look shitty on Sunday. And I think it's because of, of what that Monday night game took out of both of those teams. I mean, The, the Bills for Davante Adams. Well, it's a bummer for Davante. Um,

but you really think the Rams could move the ball in the same way with Puka and that's it? Like, they don't really have anybody else. I don't trust them at all. I, I've watched every Rams game. I think that— I think they're in a really weak spot right now.

I think they can run the ball. You're right, they are in a weak spot. They just lost to the Arizona fucking Cardinals that were supposed to win 3 games this season. Yes, they're in a bad spot.

I was alarmed by how hard it was for them to move the ball in the 4th quarter against a defense that had just given up 45 points. Like, even on their, on their drive when they took the lead, it basically happened because they threw— Puka was double-covered. They threw him a pass and 2 guys bounced off him. He basically just single-handedly created a 40-yard pass, but it was an 8-yard throw. They don't get any throws downfield.

You're right. It looked like a lack of preparation to me. They don't get the ball downfield because Stafford isn't comfortable enough. He's not standing back there.

He's not. I think the Raiders can get him. I think this is a big Max Crosby game. Okay, so I'm gonna take—

go

ahead, Raiders +4.5. Thank you for the extra points, Vegas.

Go ahead, do it.

Um, your last pick.

Uh, I kind of hate myself for this, but I just have to do it. I have to take this number. I'm gonna go ahead and lay the 2.5 with Seattle at home against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Goddamn it, I'm doing it too.

Yeah, we have— you have to do it. I mean,

yeah,

you know exactly what you're walking into, and nobody will be yelling F-U's, you know, F-U Sam Darnold. Sam Darnold will be invited to eat a fat dick if he throws another 2 interceptions this upcoming week against the Chiefs. I mean, I could just—

The fear with this pick— I, I went through all the emotions with it, and I landed in the same spot— but the fear with this pick is that he sucks early and the crowd gets restless, and that's where you don't want to be with this pick.

I couldn't agree more.

No. Sam just threw a pick. The crowd's groaning.

Yep.

They showed Drew Lock on the, on the bench. You know, it's a night game, so the TV crew is like, there's Drew Lock, looked really good in Week 2. So yeah, I went through all the emotions for this. Yes, go ahead, make your case.

Well, the case is, you know, who knows Kenneth Walker better than this team? Who knows Kenneth Walker better than Mike McDonald? I, I am really thrilled to have a Mike McDonald Mike McDonald, Andy Reid combo. And Mike McDonald has the benefit of the extra time. He's coming off a Thursday night game, Andy Reid off the bye. So both teams coming in with additional rest for sure.

Seahawks have a— it's an 11 days for the Seahawks going Thursday to Monday. So that's great.

That is great. But it's just so, so rich. The Seahawks rush defense is so extraordinary and it's been excellent for a couple years now. But the added layer of their ability to, you know, the way that the Chiefs have been deploying Walker is outside. We keep seeing him busting these. Well, nobody's better than Seattle at, you know, closing off that route for opposing runners. And it does seem like the Chiefs are going to be missing Jonathan Simmons once again. It's 50-50, I think. And then the other tackle, it seems like, might be out as well. But a lot of this is, to me, The NFL, great job. Congratulations. You did it. You got exactly what you wanted. You gave the Chiefs the easiest goddamn schedule in the entire NFL. Right. And the Chiefs did what they were supposed to do. Mahomes hasn't looked great. He hasn't like a great get in. Now, a lot of that has to do with the continuing injuries in that receiver room, but he's not, you know, his, his accuracy isn't, you know, up to the standard that he, him, his own self has created. He's not throwing the ball.

Walker's covered a lot of warts.

He's not throwing the ball down the field. They have been doing an enormous leap forward in terms of play action. Mahomes under center, like, like, you know, 20% higher in terms of the percentages of— they just renovated their offense with Kenneth Walker, this weapon that they have. And you gotta give it up to Andy Reid and the Chiefs for doing so. But now it's time. Now it's time to pay the piper. see it, and I'm willing to go ahead and lay the 2.5 for them to show me. It's a show-me game.

Well, it's the, it's the old Lombardi axiom: bad offensive lines don't travel. Chiefs offensive line looks bad. So you got that. You have wide receiver issues. Charbonnet's back for the Seahawks now. He's coming off a torn ACL, but their running back situation has been pretty bad. At least now he's somebody that can pound into the line. You mentioned it earlier with KC, they're 5-0. They're 5-0 against Bo Nix, Daniel Dimes, Malik Willis, Kirk Cousins, who's the best quarterback of all these 5 I'm gonna mention, and one-wish willow Justin Herbert. That's the 5 QBs they played, though, including last week the emotionally shattered Justin Herbert, who's just, just completely checked out. And then you have Seattle, it's 3-3, 11 days rest, They gave away the game against your stupid team. They blew the Niners game, all self-inflicted wounds, and gave up one drive. But that was one of the dumbest losses of the year. And then 4 days later, they have the stupid loss to Denver, which was one of the dumbest games of the year, not even really worth talking about. It was just stupid. Kitchen sink game for them, I think.

Agreed. They can't, they can't be 3-4 at this point.

And honestly, KC doesn't They need the game. It's a night game. But this is— there's a level of desperation. It's completely different for Seattle because they— you fall back, you're 3-4, you're so far back in the NFC West at that point. And, uh, but yeah, am I— are we first quarter, are we gonna be texting each other like, oh my God, this Sam Darnold thing has gone completely sideways? I don't know.

We did to ourselves— we might be. Look what we did to ourselves. It is a secondary with— for the— with the Chiefs that Seattle should be able to exploit. The problem for Seattle is their opposing defenses know what they're going to do. They're in passing situations so often because they can't establish anything with the run. They can't run play action. Nobody is biting on the idea that the run,

right,

is something that's going to be successful. So

I like taking the team that is 3-3, but all 3 losses were stupid and they probably could have won if a couple things had happened.

For sure.

So In their home.

Yep. They have to have it. It's a must-have.

It's a have-to-have.

2.5.

Also, like, for me, I didn't wanna wait till Sunday. I like the -2.5 'cause I think this goes to 3. I wanna get it now.

Okay. All right. I, I was gonna ask you that. Go ahead.

Who do you have for a teaser?

I'm doing the Vikings from 6.5 down to just a half.

I certainly looked at

it. They have to beat the Colts outright. That's the requirement. Certainly I understand the challenges. I don't want to lay 6.5 with Kyler Murray. I don't want to, you know, try and forecast the Vikings offense doing anything meaningful, even though the Colts defense is an abomination. I think Jordan Mason's coming back. Did I see that? But in any event, it doesn't really matter. I like the Vikings to win that game outright because the havoc of this defense against Daniel Dimes is by far the most convincing element of it.

And they've had Daniel Dimes. I do want to mention you are putting Kyler Murray in a tease.

I understand. I get it.

I just— that has to be mentioned. It's like a disclaimer. It's like putting a kid's toy where it has the stuff written on the side of it. Kyler Murray in a tease. You, you did just do that.

I'm overreacting to my own embarrassment, my, my self-debasement at putting the stupid-ass Saints into a tease when the Saints played the Vikings. 'Cause I

was like,

oh, there's no way that the Saints are gonna lose by double digits. This— the Saints can move the ball, uh, even against a great defense like, like Minnesota and Kyler Murray. How are they gonna score enough points? Well, that was stupid. So I'm not gonna make that kind of mistake again. And so I'm asking the Vikings to win this game outright. At home. It feels reasonable.

Just win with your defense. Don't do anything offensively that can threaten anything. Just kick field goals and win 13-3.

Yeah, exactly.

Seems reasonable. What's the other piece of your tease?

Uh, it's a little bit, you know, I don't love it, but I'm playing Green Bay getting 9. Took Green Bay from the 3 to the 9.

Holy crap.

Green Bay getting 3 on the road at Detroit. And there's lots of numbers that talk about Detroit with the extra rest, Detroit at home in the, you know, in, in this particular matchup. I just like what I've seen out of the Packers the last 2 weeks. I'm not prepared to play the Packers in this match. I think Detroit -3 is a fair number. Yeah. But the Packers defense, very quietly, what they did to the Dallas offense. Now, the, the hard thing to, to assess is, did it— was that an element of Jonathan Gannon and that defense scheming up something? against those, those Dallas weapons, or was Dallas self-sabotaging? Uh, and the answer is probably yes, because it was probably both.

Is there an answer that covers the wide receivers just seeming bummed out jogging through routes? Is that self-sabotage? That's

covered that, probably. Um, the other element to this, it's a, it's a huge division game. If Green Bay— see, Green Bay, the quiet thing, Josh Jacobs back, right? So, so that's a, that's a big deal. That's a big effing deal for Green. We've been skeptical of their offensive line. They changed some protection and they got Love some time and they immediately ripped off 2 good wins, a good win against the Bears, even though it was against Tyson Badgint and a good win against Dallas. I mean, you know, both of those were at home. I get that going into the dome in Green— in Detroit, you're walking into harm's way a little bit, but I like them to keep it under 2 scores. So that's the reason for the teaser leg.

Teasers. We brought them back on FanDuel. By the way, we had a screw-up last week with Ringer 107, but all of our picks will be on, uh, FanDuel this weekend, including our teasers with the -110 juice. So I already took Texans -4.5, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bet against JJ McCarthy on the road with a good defense, hopefully. So my other candidates for the tease, I had the Vikings down, and really stared long and hard at Kyler Murray. Falcons +8.5 against the 49ers. All the 49ers injuries.

Yeah,

look long and hard. I'm so tired of being wrong with the 49ers. I just, I, they're, I'm just staying away.

I can't do it. Well, part of it, the other side of that, fuck off Atlanta.

Well, let's say that. Is he not healthy?

The goddamn game barely started. They're down 21-nothing. Their defense didn't show. They're at home against the Bears. Just Fuck Caleb. Caleb sets his own personal record. He's been out for a month. He comes back and immediately rips off 12 straight completions. Caleb Williams does. And, and, you know, this, this deep, they're unprepared. They rush Bijan 9 fucking times. Atlanta can fuck off. I, I'm sorry.

I thought you were gonna cook something for Stefanski there.

He— Maybe. Okay, maybe.

Well, I'm not doing the Falcons.

Okay.

I don't trust them.

Yeah.

I don't think there's a worse sight in gambling than watching Tua warm up.

None worse.

I looked at the Titans long and hard, +7.5. That just seemed like a lot of points.

It would've been hilarious. I would've enjoyed it.

It seemed like a lot of points for a Titans-Browns game. You know, there's another piece we can do with the, with the teasers too. Which is the over-unders.

You can do it.

So you can take Titans-Browns, which I can't find on FanDuel because maybe the— oh, there it is. It has yellow police tape around it.

And a chalk outline of a body.

37.5. So you could take that up to 43.5. But then I was thinking with Watson, who knows, pick-sixes, like God only knows with these teams. Staying away from that.

Good job.

I did look at it though, and I, and I kept circling back sadly to Kyler Murray and the Vikings. Yeah, I can't believe it.

I'm doing it.

I'm doing it. The Vikings. So I went, I even went back and I looked through some of the Vikings-Colts matchups.

Sure. Over the years, they

shut— 2 years ago they shut down Jonathan Taylor. Flacco was the QB for the Colts, but that made me feel better.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's just betting on the Minnesota defense, just win by 1 point. I don't really—

Right. The only thing that—

just win by 1.

The only thing that gets us is, is Chris Ballard liberation. Like, you know, Carly will be on the sidelines.

I thought about that, but that's because—

Look guys, we got, we got rid of that, that bum.

That only works for coaches though.

Yeah,

it's not like, oh, our GM's not here anymore, I'm gonna play harder.

I agree, there isn't— yeah, I don't think there is a, a bounce for that. Isn't, uh, who's—

Also, here's the other thing with the Colts, and this is what made me feel good about taking Kyler Murray in Minnesota. It's really bad. Sal and I covered it Sunday night. This is the angriest fan base right now, the Colts. So they fired the GM But it's still the same owners and it's still a coach that might not actually be a competent head coach. And the quarterback situation got messed up. Sauce Gardner, they traded 2 picks for him. I don't think he's playing this week.

He's not playing.

Injuries. Alex Pierce, they gave all this money to, he's not playing.

Yeah, that's part of the handicap.

Yeah, yeah. And I just think it, I think it gets sadder and worse for Colts fans. So the only way you lose this game is Jonathan Taylor just goes nuts. He, he has like one of his 23 carries for 230 yards games. I'm not ruling it out

against the

Vikings.

That would be something,

but I'm gonna do it as well.

It would have to be, we have 2 Kyler turnovers. That's what, that's what would, would get us.

And with a tease, you like having, I am betting in a tease against JJ McCarthy and the Colts to lose are the 2 sides I need to hit. And you feel better about that.

I was gonna ask you if you thought that Philadelphia's fan base was madder than the Colts. But, uh,

God, I haven't even talked about that on the podcast. One of the most egregious medical handling of any sports thing, not since Tyrod Taylor got stabbed by the Chargers doctor. I think that was our leader for the decade until this happened.

Yeah, I, I mean, it's really awful.

This was like our kid, like your son or my son. I'd be so fucking mad,

right? Of course, of course.

Like, what, he had a blood clot? What, what's going on?

And he was in the hospital, and then he said, oh, well, look, he'll go play the game with the blood clot. And then the blood clots go from the leg to the lungs. Like, I haven't sat down and done— invested the time to properly go through the timeline and understand. Of course, the NFL stepped in, and their own medical folks are endorsing the way the Eagles approached it.

Of course.

That's a shock.

They did a great job.

Yeah, the best job.

They nailed it.

The guy's career might be over, but you know what? No mistakes were made.

I did think about that, but after with the Eagles putting Dallas in something, but after what Dallas did last week.

Yeah.

And the Eagles, maybe, who knows? I, I just, that's a stay away for me.

Yeah.

All right.

I mean, they, they won the Super Bowl 2 years ago. It's fine.

So Ringer 107 picks, we both have Seattle -2.5. We both have Cincinnati +1.5. I have the Raiders +4.5. You have Houston -10.5. I have Houston in a tease down to -4.5 with Minnesota just to win. You have a tease with Minnesota just to win and Green Bay +9. And what's gonna happen is on Sunday we will be able to add one more pick, and hopefully I can not be the Pittsburgh Steelers and, uh, and could actually,

um,

pour some mustard juice over my picks and go 4-1 or 5-0.

I am 0-6 on my Sunday picks thus far this season.

On your best bets, your wise wagers?

No, no, no, no. When we make our pick on Sunday, I have—

Oh, you're handing picks to Mikey Meatballs?

I haven't gotten one right. 0-6.

Oh no.

I had the Ravens last week. I felt pretty good about that number. Had gone from 3.5 down to 3. I mean, I don't want to— I will not subject America to the litany of missteps and mistakes. I will say I'm 4-2 in teases. So if you want to back me on anything, 4-2 on the teases. That

was today's Ringer 107, brought to you by FanDuel. Download the app now to find all our 107 picks. Make this your most rewarding season ever. FanDuel, play your game. Odds subject to change. Um, and by the way, just throw in any of those with the UCLA moneyline this week.

Pretty good.

I don't know what it's up to, and I don't think it really matters. Just throw them in. Um, House, a true pleasure as always.

Always.

I will see you next week for Ringer 107. Thanks. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Thanks to you, Palacero. Thanks to House. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris and Jack as well. Uh, don't forget, new rewatchable Monday, Nightmare on Elm Street, live on Netflix, 2 PM PT, 5 PM ET. The Boys and Freddy Krueger will be there waiting for you. And, uh, don't forget about the last rewatchables we did, by the way, It Follows. And I will see you on Sunday Night Live on Netflix with Sal. Have a good weekend. 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 877-888-HELP Hope NY, or text HOPE NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.