Transcript of Philly Ruins the Chiefs and Mahomes Craps the Bed With Cousin Sal

Coming up, I went to Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans, and I talked to Sal about it, and it's next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I have new rewatchables coming for you on Monday night. It is a very big movie from the '80s, at least it's an important movie to me. You can watch it as well on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel. You can listen to it wherever you get your podcast. You can watch all the clips of videos from this podcast on the Bill Simmons YouTube channel. Speaking of the Ringer, big announcement coming from us this week. Very, very, very excited about it. Keep an eye out for it early in the week. We are making an addition to the Ringer Podcast Network. Went to Spotify, and I'm pumped. Keep your eyes out. Anyway, coming up on this podcast, I went to Super Bowl 59 in New Orleans. Cousin Sal watched it from home in LA. It was a disappointing game, but it had a lot of subpots. We're going to talk about all them next. First, our friends from Proja. All right, we're recording I'm about 20 minutes after Super Bowl 59.

A true dud, Cousin Sal is here. I was shellacked. My bets were shellacked. Million dollar picks were shellacked. I can't wait to talk about something that happened at the end of the game. Mahomes was terrible.

Talk slow, Bill. I don't want it to end. The season ends after this hour. I know, you're right. Just talk very slowly. Let's savor the conversation.

I'm going to talk slow, as slow as that eagles when they had the interception, breakdown on the offsides when the guy just should have basically run back and forth on the one-yard line like you were doing Madden and make one of the chiefs have to run 70 yards to tackle him. He could have run off like a minute of the clock.

You're right. He could have killed the last seven minutes, but it didn't matter.

Well, so let's go positive because there's so many Chiefs angles, but let's go positive. The Eagles who had an awesome season, who had three losses that if three plays went different in the three losses, they were like an undefeated level team. Nobody kicked their ass. Then the last two games of the season, they kick Washington's ass. They kicked the Chief's ass. How good was this team for you?

I think they were excellent, and they peaked at the right time. I don't want to take a damn thing away from them. I mean, I'm a Cowboys fan, so this is a nightmare. I mean, just being a Cowboys fan is a nightmare, that part. But when did you put them in your top three? Because I don't think it's... In the last two weeks, maybe, the three weeks, it's just weird. We should remember this. The best team we It may not even be on our radar until week 21. But kudos to them. They deserve it. Both sides of the ball dominant. Good for them.

Well, we always felt like Baltimore and Philly were the best on paper teams, but we didn't know what that meant. Then when you think like, Baltimore has got to be just absolutely kicking themselves so hard where it's like, oh, man, we probably could have done what Philly did to the Chiefs, and we just weren't able to get to the game. But we knew the defense was there. I remember doing the million dollar pick scenario on Thursday, and it was like there was Two games, I felt like this could be. It could be to be like that awesome past Seattle game back and forth, Chiefs win in the end, or it could end up being like that Bucks Chiefs game, the 31 to nine game, when they couldn't block anybody, when they were off the whole game. We talked on a bunch of different pods about, If you like the Eagles, just take them minus nine and a half. Take them minus 19 and a half. Just take them in some blowout situation, because if it was a close game, the Chief's history was there going to win. You were on Ringer Sunday pregame talking about all the same stats everyone else was, 17 and 0 in the one-score games for Mahomes, 17 and 3 in the playoffs.

The recipe to beat him was to basically beat the shit out of him and blow him out, which is easier said than done. The Eagles did it. It was great.

Mahomes actually may have been smart. He purposely got blown out so that he could still say he's 117 straight one-score game.

He's streaked alive.

He's like, Guys- I got the streak going. Yes, you're right. This was the recipe. And they drafted all these SEC guys, the defensive linemen, all these Georgia guys. And it's like, maybe the first year or two, they weren't great. A couple of them were, J. O. And Carter, you could tell, it was going to be great. But it's almost like they had to go to college a second time in the pros to get great for two or three years. And now they're spectacular. I mean, that had to remind you in a bad way of... I mean, it's great because you could brag on braided now in the Patriots dynasty.

Oh, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to be way classier than that.

No, I'm not sure you don't have a segment for that. But on the other hand, this is how the Giants beat the Patriots. This is how the Giants beat Jim Kelly in the Bills, right? This is how Tampa beat the Chiefs a couple of years ago. Four-man rush. So I mean, that's six attacks with no blitzes. It's insane. You're toast if that's the case.

It was the worst fear if you're a Chiefs fan because you were already nervous about your line. You already felt like you were sneaking by a game after game. You have a left guard playing left tackle, which we saw Jeff Saturday on Friday night, and we were asking him about it. Just like, How hard is that to go from guard to tackle? He's basically saying, well, when you're a guard, you're a guard for a reason. Your arms are too short. You're not tall enough. You're not quite strong enough. Your footwork's not quite good enough. That's how you end up being a guard instead of a tackle. It's like when you're playing a guard as a tackle, it's usually a little bit of a dangerous sign.

He meant to say it's as hard as going from NFL analyst to head coach. I did not need to beat that up. He was a good fellow.

But so if you're the chiefs are going in the game and you're going, Well, we've gotten pretty lucky in some of these close games. Everyone's taking us. We do have some holes that the right team could maybe get. But the recipe of this game wasn't what I thought, even though it was the blowout part. Mahomes was awful. Hertz was really good. Hertz didn't just outplay Mahomes. He badly, badly outclassed Mahomes, which I thought was was pretty nuts. Sorry, my computer's doing some weird stuff. I'm in a hotel room.

But you don't have to go into the detail. Oh, weird stuff.

I see what you're saying. My hands up on the YouTube.

The whole time, I got nervous.

Yeah. It hurts how plays Mahomes. Everybody was saying all week, The Eagles have a better team. But QB and coach, late game stuff, I got to take the Chiefs. Then the QB coach said, And they didn't get either of them.

No, they certainly didn't. Now there's a lot of love and probably deservedly so for Siriani, right? He only doesn't make the play off. He only goes to Championship games and won the Super Bowl and lost one. But yeah, I mean, I don't know what to say.

He looked like he was going to be fired in September. He looked like he was going to make it to Halloween.

It's really, really weird what goes on. And Mahomes is like, I don't want to blame him fully because he's been great, and that offensive line just got manhandled. But early on, he didn't help himself out trying to get those passes into Kelsey, who couldn't bend over to catch him. There were bad throws anyway. Then those interceptions were just abysmal.

We saw about three of the worst jobs. Hertz was great. Even Hertz had that on the first drive. He had a perfect throw down the sideline to E. J. Brown. They got called back for a pretty shaky pass interference, and then everybody had the same reaction. Here we go.

Yeah, I have all that written down, and that is the one good thing about this. It didn't come down to that. I was like, okay, they called the PI on Brown, but the Eagles got it back on that dumb call that even worse call on God. So thank God we're not talking about the refs. We're not leading with them. I don't even know why I'm talking about them now, but that's the one good thing about a blowout like this. But I wasn't sure that Hertz was going to get MVP until the second half. Until he started running, he ran for two first downs. He was really good. Cooper Dujine could maybe sneak in, but yeah, they had to give it to him by the end.

Yeah, he was... I thought... I mean, he only had five incompletions. He was 11 for 72 running. He had some pretty back-breaking runs at the perfect times. He had some really nice throws. I didn't feel like... Other than that pick, which it was a pick, but it also wasn't the worst thing in the world. The guy got tackled at the two.

It was a nice play, and they went three and out. I mean, they could not get a first down early on.

Yeah, but you think that Barkley was 25 for 57. The Chiefs were saying, You're not beating us with Barkley. That didn't matter because Hertz was getting these plays, and then Mahomes was just awful. I'm looking big picture for the for the Eagle side of this. Incredible drafting for a couple of years in a row, which is the key to everything. And this was, as obviously, it was so focused on that 20-year Pats run, and it always ebbed and flowed with the draughts. They always had Bradley and Belichick, and it always came down to, could they get two or three good drafts in a row? If they didn't, that's when the team started to fall apart. The eagles had the opposite. They just nailed draughts. They had some luck. Like Jalen Carter, falls to nine because he had a pretty terrible car crash incident with one of his teammates, and he falls seven spots lower than he should have. Even our guy Coup, he fell to 39. He was the third best defensive back in the draft. The pats passed on him, traded back, passed on him again. It's just over and over again. They're nailing these dudes.

Then Barkley was one of the best signings of the decade.

Yeah, it really has been just a master class for the last two, two and a half years.

It's killing you. I could see the pain in your eyes. I know. I hate It's really been a master class. Fuck this shit.

What could be worse for a Cowboys fan? I don't want to make it about me, but now, Jaden Daniels- That's what we do in this pod.

We make it about us. What do you mean?

Could be around for a decade in the division. Oh, and the Eagles are great after losing the same last six, inexplicably last year, and my team has gone to shit. But yeah, I can't say enough about this Eagles's team. I don't know. But then again, if you look at... If you saw 25 for 57 for Barkley, how much more would we have put on the Chiefs?

I know. You think even with the playoffs for the Eagles, right? First round, they played Green Bay. Solid game. 22-10. Shut Green way down. Offense wasn't great. Some Hertz questions remained. The Rams game, they're up comfortably the whole game. Then at the end, defense gets tired, and it felt like the Rams were going to steal the game, and there were some signs, and it's like Just couldn't put them away. I was like, What's that? But then those last two games, the Washington and the Casey games, are about as scary. We've been on the other side of this where we've ridden teams over the years. The 2000 Ravens was one of my favorite. That Bucks team with braided. That was another one. This was another one of those teams that just got better over the four rounds. Had this defense. Just felt like they peaked at the perfect time, unlike the Chiefs.

Yeah, and we did the opposite of peaking. Because all those games you mentioned, the Eagles won the turnover battle, right? And the Chiefs pretty much won the turnover battle except against Buffalo. But you always thought, all right, it's not going to be the case that the Chiefs are going to get crushed in turnovers, right? It was three to one as a crushing, and 37, 23 for time of possession is even worse. Mahomes ends up with decent numbers, but you can't say enough about how bad this was.

We're saving that for next segment. A couple of things with the Eagles that we should just remember from a playoff manifesto standpoint. Casey was negotiating for that three-peat. That story came out during the week. They were negotiating with Pat Reilly about the three-peat and how to pay. That's going in the manifesto. I'm putting it in next year in the playoff manifesto. If one team is negotiating for what's going to happen after they win the title, that's immediately a fuck you. I can't believe I didn't factor that in to anything. You put that right in the This team's already negotiating after they think they're going to win. I don't know. That seemed like not nothing. You don't think?

Did Pat Reilly bet the Eagles? I mean, that would have been a nice hedge because he lost a lot of money on T-shirts and everything else now for this three.

Pat I really had $5 million under Carly. Jimmy Butler's first game with the Warriors.

Yeah, I guess it is. I guess they wore a bunch of red flags.

There's a revenge thing, too, right? Because they lost to the Chiefs a couple of years ago, so that was in there. But the lesson for me, and this was the single worst game to talk about ever since we've been doing this because almost the analysis didn't matter because it all came down to, Well, the Eagles are better really everywhere, but you can't go against the Chiefs. That was literally including me and including you. It was like that. So now I feel like we're back. Now we can analyze football games correctly again, and now we can actually have takes because the Chiefs have ruined it. The fucking Look at Trade, took over the Super Bowl discourse all week because it wasn't even fun to talk about this equals game.

Well, now AD is out a month. And so now it looks like Dallas didn't get a steal. Everybody was clamoring that they really won that trade. Now, though. Yeah, you're right. Yes, you're right. We can go back to, I just don't think that... I don't know. Well, yeah, I know we spend hours talking about, should this be one? Should this be one and a half? Is the number going to flip? It never matters. And you're right. We don't have to go Because I felt like anybody that was just at a Super Bowl party who didn't know a thing about football can come in not watching and be like, oh, it's just tough to pick against the Chiefs. I'm like, shit, that's what I've been saying with Simmons for the last two weeks.

That's what everyone was saying. Should we just lose our jobs? I've been in the world since Friday. That was everybody's analysis. Was, Well, you can't go against the Chiefs.

Nothing else to add. The Chiefs are good. They win the coach, quarterback, and they win close games. It's a long offseason. I'll feel okay betting the Chief. I didn't want to lose this way, though, where Mahomes doesn't show up at all and the line gets... There were no signs that the line was going to get overpowered. Was it like this? I didn't think that was the case.

Why didn't this happen to the Rams? Even Washington, last week, Daniels moved the ball really well against the Eagles. When you look back at the mistakes that they made, it was nothing that had to do with him. He was moving around. He felt like he was in control of the game, and then his supporting cast screwed the game up. But on the other hand, they had two weeks to prepare. They obviously came in thinking, if we can get a lead, we're going to be able to dominate this game. That's what I did. I watched the game, I was in the Fandle Suite, our friends at Fandle. Look at you. Yeah, it was great. It was actually really fun getting some of the insights of where people had too much money, not enough money, some of the props like that. Everybody, the Barkley, Barkley was under on everything. He didn't score a countdown. So all those hit. The Kelsey stuff was way under. Mahomes was under for a while. But the big thing they were saying was the line never moved. And even though everybody that we saw all weekend in New Orleans was like, KC, KC, KC, KC, the betting was pretty even.

And a lot of the sharp money was on Philly. So the line stayed the same, which is usually a red flag. So the public all thinks the chiefs are going to win, but yet the line's not moving.

Yeah. And adjusted lines, one, right? If they did take your advice and take the minus nine and a half and stuff like that. And the over, which wasn't looking good for a while, ended up coming in a big way. But there are some crazy things. I don't know, Hertz first breakdown. You said they got feet on that, right?

Let's talk about that. Dotson catches a long breakdown. Dotson was 5 to 1. Incredible. To be the first TD. They're celebrating. It seemed like a TD. Watch him from the stance, unquestionably a TD, and then they reviewed. It's like, not a TD. All of a sudden, we're push-pushing. They had Hertz anytime, TD. Hertz first TD was one of the most popular bets, so that was a loss. No question. I had both of those.

I had under one and a half for shortest TD, so it was either going to come from Hertz or Barkley or Kareem Hunt or something like that. That was either going to come from Hertz or Barkley or Kareem Hunt or something like that. The only thing I won. But 85 to one, I know they give money back sometimes. If a guy gets hurt on the first snap, you should get a little money back if you had Dotson at 85 to one.

It's just some pity, but it's an eight-inch line.

Yeah.

Well, I had one of that because Gamblewicks legal Louisiana. I did a bunch of Super Bowl bets. You're not going to believe it, but I didn't do great. But one of the ones I had was Hertz first breakdown with Chiefs to win the game, and it was 15 to one. So Hertz scored, and then you go in the app and you can be like, You can get out of this right now. I'm like, Do I get out of this? I don't really like the way the Chiefs like,. It's the chief's. It's Mahomes. To the bitter end. Even when it was, what, 17, nothing after the pick six, you're going, This is 28, 3. He's going to come back, and he just never did.

It jumps up on the app like, Bill, this is a wellness check. You could get out now. We're going to give you three more warnings.

Bill, please log off. Let's take a break and we'll come back and we'll talk about Mahomes. All right. With Mahomes, it was feeling at some point, if you were pro Mahomes, pro this is the guy on par with braided, all that stuff. It was like, could this be his 28 to three game? Including when Coup got the pick six. It's like, oh, we're now following the recipe for the 28-3 Falcons game. Then it gets to, what was it, 24-0. It was the same thing. It's like, oh, okay, this would be it. Maybe we're joking in the suite like, Oh, maybe he's doing this intentionally. Maybe he wanted to add this degree of difficulty comeback thing to the whole Mahomes GOAT legacy that he ends up with the 3P with a huge comeback. That was not what happened. It was not even close to what happened. I got to say, he was terrible. He was terrible from the first drive. He had that second down pass to Kelsey. They were moving the ball. They got a first down. They seemed like they had a little momentum. Kelsey over the middle and throws away behind him. I swear he must have 10 terrible passes.

I'm not counting what happened in the fourth quarter, the game was over. The game mattered. He was the worst he's ever played by far.

I don't know if you could bet on something like this, but do we hear Tuesday that he had rotator cuff tear or something? Because the throws were so off.

Or like a torn labrum Yeah, or like a hip flexor. I don't know. Because there was a couple of places where he was scrambling around and it looked like he seemed physically 100%.

Right. Then that's where it usually hurts you. But yeah, he could not get it. I didn't know what I was looking at. I was like, Is it raining in there? It looked like a bad weather game, too. I just hadn't seen him like that. I don't know. I don't count that Tampa Bay game. When they lost in the Super Bowl to Tampa Bay, you were like, Oh, well.

That game was ugly for a couple of quarters. They had the Andy Reid thing that happened a couple of days before with his family, and it's just the whole vibe of that game was off. This was different. He was specifically missing guys. There was that one when he rolled out and he had Hopkins on the third down. It felt like he could have scramble for 20 yards or just thrown Hopkins a good pass, and he did neither, and Hopkins dropped it. But it was over and over again. He just sucked. It was bizarre. It was like people were incredulous in the stadium. Everyone was like, What's going on? Is he sick? What's happening?

Your boy was kidding, too. I think he went three minutes without talking, braided. He was just giggling in the corner.

Good for him. Well, that's the thing. If it had been on Mahomes, his version of 28 to 3 with braided announcing, that would have been great. Instead, this is probably the best moment of Brady's career since he retired because it was a lot of Mahomes, Mahomes, Mahomes. Is he the GOad? I don't know. If he gets his 3P, Brady's never done that. Now he goes down with two Super Bowl blowout losses. Braided said zero. Braided lost three times in the Super Bowl, all one-score games where he had the ball on the last drive with a chance to steal the game. Never got blown out. Then he beat Mahomes twice. That's it. Two and 0 in the buy And it's like, can we fucking settle down now for five years with the Mahomes code stuff, please? Thank you.

I think you did by yourself at least three years.

Five might be a lot.

Yes. Because I thought, if he wins four next year, you could make a case for it, but you're not going to like this. I still think his best Super Bowl in terms of grading this legacy versus Mahomes is the one where he beat Mahomes. Now, that wasn't what the Patriots, I'm sorry to say, but I feel like that's his greatest claim. That's his greatest claim to him being better than Mahomes. Is him crushing Mahomes?

Of course it is. His best Super Bowl were the Seahawks one and the Falcons. Those were the ones. The comeback. But then that Seahawks game, being down 10, those two drives that he had against Seattle, that was outrageous.

Well, I'm saying in terms of comparing them to Mahomes, I think you have to do the head-to-head. But I know he's beat him in the championship.

But the 3P was the only thing Mahomes could have done that surpassed anything braided did. Now Mahomes is about to hit his 30s. He's 3-2 in the Super Bowl. The thing about the Super Bowl is it's really hard to actually win the Super Bowl. Braided made it 10 times. He went 7-3. He easily could have been 3-7. He easily could have been 10-0. But Mahomes, 3, so we'll see. Because Kelsey, I think if they had won the Super Bowl, would Kelsey have retired? I would have bet yes.

Yeah.

I don't know what happens with that now. Chris Jones getting older. When we talked about hitting the drafts, they hit that McDuffie, Carlaffy, Half this draft. Looks like they had the worthy pick, but the offensive line is really rough. There's other teams coming. The Chargers are going to be better. We saw Tyreek Hill on Friday. I was trying to get him to come to the pats. Wasn't happening, but There was a team.

Are you going to tell him what he said afterwards?

What did he say after?

I said, Come to the Cowboys, and then he did the eyes thing like, I'm looking at you. I said, You may have to be our running back, too. He's like, That's all right. I'm ready. So here we go. That is good news for Dallas.

Then somebody that was with them was like, Watch out for the chargers, and walked off. I was like, What do you mean? Can we bet this?

I will say, though, but everyone's going, All the coaches, the coaches are so great in the division in the AFC West. Look out. There's still four games better than any of those teams. They're still a month better than the Chargers. They're not going away anytime soon, I don't think the Chiefs. As far as braided goes, if you were in a coma for a year and you came out of it and you said, How is braided? And I would have told you, Oh, my God, he had his best year ever. He took a gigantic leap ahead of Patrick Mahomes. You're like, What do you mean his best year ever? By doing nothing. Yeah, he was a C plus in the booth, but this was his best year ever.

He somehow bought a majority stake Vegas for $10 million.

He owns a team.

He's the goat again. The goat almost got taken to him, now he's back. I thank you for calling him a C plus in the booth, by the way.

Is that generous? Yeah. That'd be a good teacher.

Tell me about this broadcast and braided and how he was talking about Mahomes? Was there anything interesting? Because I was- He was just laughing the whole time.

I thought it was embarrassing. It was like, pointing and laughing. They cut away to him. No, I thought he was just fine. I I'm not one to watch a lot, but during I have 44 bets. I'm not kidding. I have 44 bets, and I'm constantly checking on them throughout. But he was fine, and he was like, Oh, sometimes this happens. It seemed like he blamed the line and praised the eaglesals, which he should have defensively more than getting on the Holmes' case.

Their defense was their D-backs were great. They broke up that fourth and three. That guy broke on him perfectly. I was thinking about it from a Pat's perspective because They're just trying to figure out because they almost have this blank slate for how to put together a team now. Because they have the coach and the QB, they have basically nothing else except Christian Gonzales and Barmore comes back. It's like, How would you build this team? It really feels like you just spend everything on the Giants. You can figure out everything else after. There's that Mason Graham, the Michigan defensive tackle. It's like, let's just get that guy. Maybe he can be Jalen Carter and just push the line like that. But it would seem like the sweet spot would just be having these four guys that can just push the pocket, and then you don't have to blitz. You don't have to do any of this gimmick shit, and then you can patch together everything else. How about the other part of the line?

The one that Saquon ran for over 2,000 yards. It couldn't get it going with the Giants. It makes a world of difference if you could figure it out. You don't turn the ball over as much when you own both lines. You win time of possession by 14 minutes in the Super Bowl. It's a pretty good thing.

That's why when the Dolphins, they spend half of their salary cap on Tua and the two receivers. It's like, How is this going to play out? I thought the Chief's fan base, I got to be honest, and I'm sure... I say this knowing this will immediately be thrown back in my face because the Patriot fans did the same thing. Just needed maybe a 16oz cup of settled down juice. Oh, really? The Chess were out. The Chess were out this weekend. There was a lot of confidence, rightly so, because they had the best guy in the league, and they win every one of these games down the stretch. It It was a fan base that maybe needed their version of what happened in the Pats in '07 and what happened to the Pats and the nick Folls, Doug Peterson Super Bowl, and some other great teams where sometimes- Why don't you tell John, you should have told him to calm down. He was introducing the starters before the game.

That's what I'm saying. It's like, relax. He'll never do that again. They can't have him back.

Wasn't him a Rams fan for like 40 years?

He hasn't figured out that St. Louis, Kansas, anything.

No, he was with the Rams. When they moved, he jumped to the Chiefs. Yeah. Have we litigated that? Do we need to have him on the podcast? I really like what's going on here?

I'm sure. Come on, you'll get lost in his eyes and you'll be like, all right, that's good. Good enough excuse.

He's so handsome. Can we talk about Have you ever seen anything like how bad Mahomes was in this game from a great player standpoint? I was racking my brain because there was so much dead time during this game. I was taking notes. I wasn't expecting to take this many notes, but I was Magic in the 1984 NBA final. Sorry, I had to work the NBA in. There we go. But Magic just sucked in the finals. He caused them a couple of games. He wasn't quite Magic yet, though. They had won the '80 and '82 titles, but he wasn't like, he's the best player in the league. Pate Manning had that New Orleans Super Bowl where he threw the pick six, and he was either the best player in the league or one of the best players. But I can't really remember somebody who was like, this guy, everyone agrees, is the best player in the league, and he's in his prime. He was not sucking this badly. It was almost like a Greg Norman golf major type of performance. The amount of throws that he missed and how frazzled he seemed. Then they're doing the stats at halftime, and this is one of the 10 worst EPAs of the last 50, all that shit.

It's like, Oh, my God, this is the best guy in the league. This doesn't happen ever.

I'm trying to think. You can go Clayton Kershaw and everything, but I'm not sure about the one game.

He was never the best guy in the league. I was thinking Kobe 6 by 24, the first three quarters of that Celtic game when it just seemed like he couldn't hit anything. They won that, though, right? They won. He came back.

You want to tell everybody they won? Yeah. They did win. Cam Newton won MVP that year. Denver, 124-10.

We never thought Cam Newton was the best guy. He was MVP. I know, but nobody was like, Cam Newton is the road goes through Cam Newton. It was like, he had a great season. No, I get it.

I don't know what to say.

I guess Montana against the Giants year when they knocked him out, but he got knocked out.

If you count it as Super Bowl, I think this is the best case. I mean, in the '70s, everyone threw it for 125 yards, either one or lost. Elway had some bad ones right before he won.

He did, but it always felt like his teams were so overmatched. This was one where I felt like the plays were there. I know their pass rush was good, but he was also missing everything he did. He was missing open guys. It was one of those things that almost became like the Luka trade, where you start texting people in the second quarter like, Is he hurt? What's going on with Mahomes? Is there something wrong? Is he sick? What does he have? I've never seen anything like this.

I'm looking at all of them now. I really don't think. Or Carolina scored 10. Wouldn't you say Manning against Seattle? Is that what you're saying?

No, Manning against... Pate Manning against New Orleans when he threw the pick six to lose the game. But it wasn't like he was horrific the entire game. Right. You know? Yeah. But, yeah, I know. He had some bad playoff losses. We had a bad loss to the Ravens. There was a weird Denver Broncos game after the third Super Bowl they won when he wasn't great, but never anything like this where it was just in the bomb.

Yeah, if you go play off, you can maybe pick some off. But Super Bowl is like the big game. If it's down to one game, this is tough. I mean, Jim Kelly was great and had some bad ones, but this was a class by itself. I'm shocked at this. I really am. Me too. I know we were due for a bad one. We had three three-point games in a row. Is that right? Yeah. And then the Tampa, Kansas City was the last bad one four years ago. But it just makes me sadder because the season's ending and when it ends on a dud like that. I know. It's harder to take.

Well, I'm sure there's going to be a bunch of pieces the next two days trying to put this performance in perspective, historically. Yeah. At least from a football standpoint. They'll have stats. What he did in the last two drives will fuck it up a little bit because it'll make it seem like it was better than it is. You almost have to do the first three quarters. Guys, what is the equivalent in other sports of somebody who's fallen behind 46? Tom braided?

You're going to compare him to Tom braided? You start calling, compare him to Marsha braided. How about that? How about we start there? Hands-flying. I don't want to hear about Patrick Bones again. I don't want to hear about it again. That's it. We're done with the goal argument.

That's it. I don't want to hear it. I'm done. Get it out.

It's time to go. Okay, Steven A, we're done.

I'm sorry. I wasn't even doing Steven A. I was doing Generic Network ex-athlete guy. All right. I was doing Steven A. I could pick 20 of them. No, I'm sure Steven A would not be tied to my homes. I have some silver linings for the Chiefs now.

Hey, real quick, what was it when I left New Orleans, when I left on Saturday?

We were sad to see you go.

Felt like 70, 30 Eagles fans. What was it in the building?

Half and half. Really? A lot of Chiefs fans. Yeah, a lot.

Oh, it didn't sound that way.

Yeah, the Eagles fans were just louder. Silver Linings for the Chiefs. I think Kelsi comes back now. I don't think he retires on that game. One more year for him.

Another dumb narrative that we got killed on. What did he have? Two for 24?

I think he might have a third catch in there. Another silver lining. We could talk about them normally again. They're not Michael Myers anymore. You can't do it anymore. We can't do the... I know there's 17 reasons to pick this other team, but it's the Chiefs. That's done. We can now talk about football games rationally, normally without these fucking weird fear of this team. Pat Reilly doesn't make any money. I think that's great. Terrible 2025 for Pat Reilly. Braided wasn't that popular as an announcement. I think that was a win for the Chiefs.

Wait, what? Why?

I don't know. I'm just throwing that in there. These are Silver Linings.

Okay.

They didn't trade Luka Donchik in the last 10 days. They didn't trade Mahomes for Anthony Davis at a number one and then have Davis get in his first game right after they gave an interview about how smart they were because they want guys who are in shape. But then mentioned Shaq as one of the guys, the great guys historically who stayed in shape. Shaq, like famously never in shape ever at any point in his career. That was hilarious. I have no more Silver Linings unless you can think of any.

I don't think there are any for the Chiefs. Yeah, Not too many, except that maybe they could stun us again. It wasn't even this year. It was last year when they did it all on the road that we were like, oh, crap. They're back and they're a beast and they're better than ever. I don't know if you want to look at next year's lines yet, or if we save that to the end.

No, I want to do that next segment. I know. If I'm the Chief, if I'm the PR, if I'm the Louis K of the Chiefs, and in my spare time when I'm not just focused on my three clients that I care about and I spend barely any time with the other ones.

Wait, if you're the Louis K, that means the chiefs are going to get canceled in three weeks.

No, if I'm the Louis K of the chiefs. Jimmy would be the chiefs in this scenario because that'd be a client he would actually care about unlike some of the others. I'm spinning it. We were never that good the whole time. It was amazing we got there. Look at our record. You saw us in the Super Bowl When we played an awesome team, we couldn't hold up. We had no offensive line. We had no explosive playmakers. Our coaching staff is old. It's a fucking miracle we made the Super Bowl. We should be getting kudos for that. Interesting. That would be my spin.

That's what a public is supposed to say. My client actually sucks.

That's what Louis would say. No, it's just be like, No, maybe you should spin it the other way. We were pretty good. We're proud of the season we had. Just making the Super Bowl was an achievement. We made five Super Bowls.

You're Patriots won the first three Super Bowl by a field goal, right?

Yeah.

I think so. That's what we were thinking.

Tom Braiden showed up for Super Bowl, unlike Patrick Mahomes. I know. He wasn't showing up for two. We are fucking back. You love it. Jake Bay, Mike Brable, Tom Braiden is the goat. We're back. Fuck you, Chiefs.

Don't you dare call Mahomes the goat.

He's not the goat. Take it back. Get off Goat Island. We are going to take a break, and then I want to talk about some of the gambling stuff. All right, so some gambling stuff from this game. We mentioned the Hertz anytime TD first breakdown score. We had a... Coop had a pick six.

Yeah.

What were the odds on the pick six? Did we know? That had to be like 30 to one, right?

I was 15 for... I saw 15 that there was a pick six, and then it was like 30 or 35 for the Eagles. I think I saw that. Yeah, that was amazing. Although we I saw a few in the playoffs.

Was that the greatest moment ever for a white defensive back? Or do we have to go to the '60s? We were talking about that. Do we have to go to Paul Kraus of the Minnesota Vikings? Did he do anything? Yeah.

Cowboys had a guy named Charlie Waters who did well.

Charlie Waters.

Yeah, I think that's it, though. I think that really is.

Don't worry about comparing Mahomes to their bad performance as ever. We would need the white defensive back.

The white guys in Black History Month.

That's very sad. Did Jason Seehore never do No.

He was in that good team, right? That got blown up by the Ravens.

Yeah, that was it. At one point in this game, Mahomes was... This was with 4 49 left in the second quarter, and it's 17-nothing. The Chiefs go two terrible runs, Mahomes sacked, and now they're giving the ball back to the Eagles again. Mahomes was 5 for 10 for 24 yards, a pick six, and three sacks. This is 25 minutes into the game. It was just shocking. Yeah. Because we were looking, how many over the years, how many times when the Chiefs are losing, we text each other, the Chiefs' live line, right? Stays there dead.

We needed them to get a first down in the end of the second quarter. We got to see some life out of them before we even consider it. Thank God they didn't give us that opportunity.

Well, so 5 for 10 for 24 yards, then we get to halftime, and it's not much better. He misses Hopkins on that third and 11. Sal, he ended 21 for 32 for 257 with three touchstones. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. He hit every over. And I'm sitting there, so this is my bad beat gambling story. So a million dollar pitch, my biggest bet was Chief minus one and a half. That was for 500 fake. Then the second bet was Parley. Oh, it's fake. Well, it's fake.

I don't even know. Okay.

Second bet was this 250K parlay, Eagles to eight and a half, Mahomes 200 plus passing yards, and there's a third leg that I'll get to. The 200 plus passing yards seemed inconceivable. Then they start having these garbage time drives. When they scored the second countdown, and he had 187, 193, they're inside the 15-yard line. I'm going nuts in the suite. I'm like, Oh, he's going to get it. He's going to get it. He gets it. The Eagles go three and out, and the Chiefs, and now I'm hustling back to the pod. The Chiefs get the all-time garbage time, TD to worthy, and it gets to 62. The third leg of my parlay was under 60 and a half, and the final score was 40 and 22. They scored two touch downs in the last four minutes. So I lost that one, too. I think I had a losing year for a million dollar pics because of that last touch down. So the chief is just stick it to me every way.

I love that you're with these Fandle executives. They're watching through their fingers because the Hertz touch down. They're losing tens of millions of dollars. I'm losing 500,000 fake dollars.

Get me out of here. Well, you know, House took a shot because a Christian, one of the Fandle execs who loves House, and we're talking about the bets on the Ringer Sunday pregame, and he's like, Well, House, he did his usual House move of he took the Eagles in a tease with the over. Classic house. Kind of getting in, but not totally being in halfway. I was like, Yeah, that's house.

I have a Great story. Great house story. I guess we'll talk about Vegas later, right?

We're going to do all that. New Orleans, yeah.

It seemed like Vegas because we were in a casino. Yeah. I have a house. Should I tell this house story now?

Do it now. Let's hear it.

That typifies it. House, we're in the casino. He goes to the ATM because we had a bad run at Blackjack, and I'm proud of you for making us get out. I've known you to sit at the same Blackjack table, win or lose, till five in the morning when they're vacuuming on your feet.

The vibe wasn't there. This Friday night. Oh, my God. The three of us. I think I was three out of 15. House lost almost every hand. I don't know how he did it.

I was like, You're letting us leave. This is great. A lot of times I would go to the ATM. I'm like, How many times I have to go to the ATM? Am I going to lose this friendship if I don't sit and lose more money with him? But anyway, so we leave the blackjack table. House goes to the ATM. He's got a new card or something. It doesn't let him take money out, so he has to cash advance. So he's not getting the 12 Vig that you would normally get on $300.

It would be $30 to take out cash.

It was $344 he had to take out, and he had to wait on the long cashier line to get that money out now. He had to show his slip, and then he doesn't even gamble with us. He didn't gamble.

We ended up at a craps table with the fantasy football guys. Wait a minute. He got vicked out.

He got vicked out. He said no. After he lost to the ATM, he said no. That's responsible gambling. I can't even beat the ATM. I'm out.

I'm not But for some reason paid them $40 extra not to gamble. We ended up at a craps table with Craig and Danny Daney from the Ringer fantasy football show, who were having a great time playing craps. And JJ is there. J. J. J. J. Skrebski, host of New York, New York, who's had a couple and is dialed at the 10. He was locked in. He's yelling at dealers. He's hitting points Pay it, pay it.

Screaming, screaming.

Then Rahim comes in, also from the Ringer Sunday pregame. He's not really doing anything. Then all of a sudden, he just bets on the don't come line for the shooter across the table because he thinks the guy looks like a bad bet. We're all on the come line, which is like in the poker table for the craps table for people listening. You all want the craps table to be a line, betting on the shooter, rooting for them. There's this weird dynamic that develops. Rahim's just recording it, basically. The guy hits and JJ just gets mad at Rahim, which he should have. He's like, Don't take sides against the family, Rahim.

This is indefensible. Indefensible, Rahim.

He's yelling at him. I was like, It is. It's indefensible. So Rahim is up not doing it. Anyway, Rahim became the don't come guy. But we were there. House is there. Van is behind us. We're all pooling bets together because it's a $50 craps table, which is absurd. We were there till almost 4: 00 in the We were there.

We were down to... We started at like, 600, right? We were down to 40 bucks in the 10, right?

Yeah, we just couldn't get momentum.

Built it back up to 1400. So that was nice for us. And that's like a million dollar. That's real money. Yeah.

Craig had a nice little run. Then at the end of the night, I just got on a heater and I just wasn't throwing a seven for like 30 minutes. It was great. But what happens is when you start doing one like that and more and more people come over the table and people start betting and everyone's betting points, and it's like three minutes between throws.

I know. That's what's up.

And he was like, I'm hot. Get me the dice back. And this guy's like, Give me a hard 10, give me a hard 6, give me two on this. By the time, so I blame the guy at the other side of the table.

You know what? I think it's intentional. I think they slow play it because we were pretty conservative. We were playing the pass line, then we were put the lunch behind it.

Yeah, we were just having fun.

And we were playing the come. But if you get bored and they take forever, that's when you're like, Shit, If I have to wait three minutes between each roll, I'm going to play the field, I'm going to play a couple more numbers. I think that's where they break out. You were getting mad because there was a guy on the other end of the table who was pumping his fist because you were hitting every number except ours, right? Right.

This guy probably made 15 grand off of me.

It was getting crazy.

See, motherfucker, you're icing me and making money for me at the same time. Then we finally hit the number. Then the best part was there's some bet that the fantasy guys were doing, which is you can bet 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Somebody has to hit all five of those numbers before they throw a seven, and it's 30 to 1 odds. It seems inconceivable. I was throwing it for so long. Only the 11 was left. Then I finally hit the 11. I've never seen those guys happier. They were like, You're First of all, they were arm and arm.

You should post that picture.

They were a lot. I should post that picture on Instagram.

For like 40 minutes whenever they weren't rolling, they were like, Come on, we could do this. They were locked arms together.

I love those for you guys. They were like, When the defensive line is watching somebody about to attempt a game-winning field goal. They had their arms around each other, but literally for an hour.

Yeah, I love it. It was a Danny Kelly, right? They had a bet. I don't know what the bet was, but between the three of them, whoever lost, I think it was like a season long bed. Whoever lost had to sit in the middle seat coming home, and they were on my flight and couldn't be entertained, couldn't listen to music, couldn't watch TV, couldn't read a book the whole time. If they fell asleep, they would just wake them up. Danny was in the middle. They let him watch the map. They let I'm going to watch the map on the dope of flight. I was like, these guys are good. This is it.

That's hilarious. Yeah, it was great. It was a good hang. Everybody was in rare form, including Rahim, who was trying to short the table for some reason. I'm going to talk to HR about Rahim. I might have been an HR violation.

Yeah, it might have been a little bit.

Jj was the MVP, though, and he blew out my right eardrum, and I was covered in spit by the end of the day, but I loved it. It was great.

When he showed up, you turned around to greet him, and you were about to roll. And so you took the dice over the table a little bit.

I know. Because I got excited.

I didn't know he was there. That's a dice violation. I'm like, Oh, and then I'm calling it like an announcement, he's got one more dice violation, then he's out of here. He's going to have to go back to the urban street.

He's like a flagrant foul.

Yeah, exactly. But then when you roll it and would kick off the table, JJ would yell, same dice, same dice. He'd yell at the dealer, and the dealer was like, you're not even rolling. Shut up. He had this superstition about same dice.

I got to say, he really did get the energy going. Screaming, Pay it at the dealer. You're not going to believe it, but the dealers, they don't love it. Scream, Pay it. It's a good job. Pay It. Pay It.

And a dollar for you, bro. Do what you want with this. This is a dollar.

That casino used to be called Harris, and I guess technically still is, but now it's the Caesars. But I've had, I think, of the most fun gambling moments of my life. For some reason, at least five or six of them have been. It's just my favorite place to probably play Blackjack or craps. The dealers are all nice. They're all from here. They seem like they are, and they move at a pace so you feel like they're not just trying to rush you out. It seems like they're rooting for you. When you bet for them, they really appreciate it. I always really enjoy it. It's right in the middle of downtown.

I don't understand why- So you can leave and just walk to where you're going. I thought it would be packed, by the way. I was there the night before. We could have sat any Blackjack table on Thursday night. Well, they check for prices.

Friday It's up.

Yeah, but $50 in Vegas, that's any Saturday night, right? I guess.

But it seemed like everything was 50, 100. So I think it was scaring off people a little bit. Any other gambling stuff? Jake Elliott was way over on all his total points.

I thought he had a shot at MVP for a minute. He had four extra points and four field goals. He actually had to kick seven field goals, but with all the false starts and everything.

Hertz MVP was what? Plus 280?

Yeah, plus 280. But Hertz most rushing yards was like 6 to 1, I think, right?

Oh, did that hit?

Yeah, he had 72. Barkley had 57. And then Mahomes at 25. That was the highest on the Chiefs.

That triple crown bet that I stayed away from because it seemed like just a trap. It seemed like impossible to hit all three. It ended up being Mahomes passing, Xavier They're worthy receiving.

And Hertz rushing.

And Hertz rushing. I don't even know what that paid. So I wonder what that must have been like 20 to one.

I have no idea.

What are the odds of that?

Yeah, at least.

Yeah. Worthy had probably the sixth or seventh best thoughts. Triple Crown bet. That was bizarre. I can't recommend it.

We both had Hertz' Touchdown, right? I mean, I guess that's good that we did that.

I don't want to talk out of school, but I wouldn't call the FanDuel guys elated that the game went over. No. I wouldn't say there I was high-fiving in the suite. And the Mahomes Yardage props going up. I wouldn't say that was a high-five special either.

No way.

The Kelsey and Barkley stuff. They told me, and I said this on Million Dollar Picks, that the most one-sided bet of the week from a prop standpoint was Barkley to score a countdown. Oh, really? All right. It was like 99. 9% of the bets were on it, and the no TD was plus 150. It was like zero dollars on it or like seven dollars or something. So Barclays ended up not getting it.

It's his birthday on Sunday thing, picked up steam somewhere around Friday. I was like, I don't think that matters. I really don't. I think if he scores three touch downs, I don't think we have to say it's because he turned 28 today. There's nothing to do with it.

I think that's fair, especially it's not like it's a major birthday. It's like, Oh, cool, 28. That's right. How do we feel about any other betting stuff that you wanted to hit? What was going on at the Super Bowl party you went to?

Yellow was plus 280.

Tails for the For the Coin Toss.

Tals for the coin toss. Let's get rid of the Anthem betting because it went over, but they're grading it under, I think. Why? Because he said he repeated a line three times, just for flair, just to show off.

He said the land of the free because he bet the over, I think.

And the land, the land, the land, the...

Whatever it was, he did it three times. Why didn't that count? That was his performance. I don't know.

You can't do that. You can't sing song than Ad where you can't launch into American pie halfway through the song.

It's how long the performance is. It was two hours, two minutes and whatever.

You can't pay. Then, of course, it was close and they cut to the fighter jets and you never know when the word brave ends because it's loud.

I don't want to hear ever again that John Batiste is the National Anthem GOAT. Get that shit out of here.

Was Mahomes listening to the Anthem? I don't know. I don't think so.

Was he thrown up by the Anthem? Because there's no other excuse.

John Piste held the ball, would hold a note longer than Mahomes could hold the ball.

Patrick Mahomes, get out of here. Just get out. You got to leave the nightclub. You're out.

Oh, shit.

Well, Mahomes hit all the overs. He hit his shutdown over. Did he hit? How many rushes did he have? Because that was another one. He had four. He needed five and a half, right? Shit. So he didn't hit any of the rushing stuff.

I know. We were counting on the nail downs. That's an underrated aspect of the game that we didn't talk about. We could kill Mahomes, but they had 24 yards rushing outside of what he did. You could get him a running back at some point.

Hunt, three for nine, Pacheco, three for seven. That was one of the reasons I loved all the Mahomes overs when I was playing in the game out of my head was I didn't think the Chiefs are going to be able to run the ball. It turned out they didn't think so either because they started the game and they basically threw the ball every down, it seemed like, and they were trying to keep the eagles off pace.

That's seven carries outside of Mahomes.

It didn't work. Did you have Matt Ariza punting for over 310 yards?

No, I did not.

Was that even a bet? Did you bet on the total number of punting there?

Yeah, I think they did.

That's a pretty good one.

Wait, how many did he have? He had six punts. Yeah, 311.

Six punts for 311.

Yeah, what a weird game, man.

What did we watch? Elliott's 50-yard field goal. Oh, you had people in the suite were congratulating me on your behalf that the Devante Smith, that long pass. That was one of your favorite props.

Twenty and a half. Yeah. He had killed this defense, Spagnola's defense. I mean, that's another thing. Spagnola's got to take a hit, too. But yeah, his last three games were average like 95 yards against K It's tough, though, when your offense is such dog shit, I think it has to start affecting the defense at some point because the defense did get a couple of stops, and they got the interception when it seemed like the Eagles might be going up 14-nothing.

They got the ball back, and then just over and over again, they were just getting kicked in the nuts by the offense. It was unusual. We'll take one more break, and then we'll talk about your week in New Orleans, plus some look ahead bets for next season. Well, it's the saddest time of the season. There's no football. There's no Guest Alliance for next week. You are our Guest Alliance champion. Two Two legends fell this season, me and Guess the Alliance.

That's right.

It was always like, Well, Simmons, when it gets to the big moments, he'll win and Sal's going to lose again. You beat me. Then Mahomes, he got kicked off God Island, and the Chiefs are now mortal, and now we can actually talk about them rationally again.

We could talk about the refereing. It was really getting me mad. You saw me and Hinch going at it. I'm like, these people- Yeah, you got mad at Hinch. I know, but everybody's got to go crazy with the calls. And it was like, He got Brown- The A.

J. Brown pass interference to start the game.

He hit the guy in the face mess three times. Everyone's like, When the booth says, Oh, man, I don't know if I call that there. That doesn't mean it was a terrible call. Why do we have to make that leap from, That could have gone either way, to, Oh, my God, that was the worst call. Oh, it's fixed. Calm the hell down, everybody. But at least we don't have to worry about that for a minute, I hope. I don't know. It's nice to not have to talk about the referees.

We have NFL next year. I'm going on FanDuel right now. Do you have the ads?

I do.

Okay.

I'm going to see if I can find it. Eagles and Chiefs, favorite. Wow.

That never happens. What? Anything surprise you on those odds?

I'm seeing 6: 50 plus 6: 50 for Chiefs and Eagles, Ravens, 7: 1, Bills, 8: 1, Lions, 9.

Lions, 9: 1 And Niners 14 to one. I'll book those bets from people if they want.

Really?

Those two? Yeah. I think those are... So we should talk about this with the Chiefs, too. I don't think the Chiefs have missed their long term window, but I wonder how much rehab repair they have to do with this nucleus they have because they have a lot of stuff to fix, but they have money going out in all these different directions. It's not like, Oh, we need a left tackle. Cool. Fucking 12 teams need a left tackle. You're not the only one. You drafted a left tackle last year at the end of the second round. If you missed on that pick, that's what gets into what we talked about earlier with if you start missing these drafts or missing picks, it starts to have this cumulative effect. So the stuff that they need, it's not like you just go to the store and buy it. Everyone wants a left tackle.

But we talk about, what do we call it, the KCD? It's a CD plus 650. You keep pounding it. They'll win once in the next six and a half years. That should be okay. But I also think these other numbers are fair, too. The Ravens have to be licking their chops a little, too. The Bills at eight to one. I got scared. I thought my team and your team were the same. Cowboys, 55. You want to guess the Patriots? Don't look.

I just looked, but tell us, anyway.

150. Fourth from the bottom. Is that fair?

Ridiculous. I promise you we won't be the fourth worst team.

I love this. I love it.

We're going to go 10 and 7 next year.

Wow.

Yeah, we're going 10 and 7 next year. I don't know for a fact.

If we hit the draft- Just because braided is better than Mahomes conclusively, it doesn't mean the 2026 Patriots are going to be good.

It's not just that braided is better than Mahomes. Mahomes has to leave God Island. Get off. Take a hike. Get your suitcase to leave. Take your wife with you. Take your dad. Take everybody. You're out.

You could take a ferry. You could swim back. You could jump on a raft. I don't care. Get off the island.

You're off God Island. You could take down a Kelsey. Take her, too. But just looking at these blindly, chargers 29 to 1 jumped out of me. Commanders 23 to 1 have to be taken seriously because they laid a nice foundation have a good QB and a good coaching staff and have some stuff that they could do in the offseason.

What about the Rams at 30? I know it would a lot of them.

It seems like they're selling off guys, though. They're trading Cooper Cup.

How did he do? He wasn't key to their success. They played the Eagles better than anybody, though.

Is Minnesota 33 to one nuts? What if JJ McCarthy is good next year?

I was going to say, what if I told you Sam Darnold sat in an aisle seat and coached me on the way back? Is that true? Does that affect your odds anymore?

Did that happen? It did. Really? Yeah. He's going to sign a 50... Well, maybe he couldn't find a It was a tough flight to book if you weren't- You're trying to leave New Orleans on a Saturday.

You're trying to leave Saturday.

Baltimore 7: 01. I wish those ads were better because that's a team I would think, too. They were in the 10: 01 to 12th-tour in range. I'd be excited about it. Green Bay, 8, 2, 1 will be a sexy pick. I'm not doing it. Houston, 27: 01 with some receivers coming back and a couple more draft picks, maybe. Bad division.

I don't know. I like the Rams, and I like the Bills again. The Bills also, we didn't talk about them. How pissed must they be that they couldn't beat this Chief's team, get the Super Bowl?

Or that they couldn't do anything against the offensive line like what the Eagles did. He watched the offensive line this week. You could tell pretty quickly because they were doing those designed rollout plays that gave me PTSD to braided against the Giants, that first Super Bowl. When he was under such siege, he had to do the quick rollouts with extra blockers, plant your feet, and then chuck it. They were running those in the first quarter. I was saying to Tommy, who I went to the game with, I was like, This is not good if they're running that it. That means they think they can't block these guys at all. Then we could watch. Tommy Burns. They hit me in. Tommy Burns was the thing. But you could see it. I don't know what I was picking up during the game, whether the TV was, but you could just watch the four guys pushing the line and all the other guys coming back, and the Chief's receivers weren't really good enough to get open. It's the greatest advantage in sports being able to rush a quarterback without blitzing. Yeah, so Homes was bad because he missed guys, but there were other plays where he just didn't have guys.

There was nobody to throw to.

You don't want to throw interceptions. Real quick, MVP, don't look. Who do you think is favorite?

I just looked. Well, We would have said Lamar or Josh.

Yeah. Lamar plus 450, Allen, 500.

It's Drake May.

Homes, 700.

Oh, Drake May, 60 to 1.

He's not on there, is he?

Yeah, he sure is. He's right in there with Sam Darnal and Michael Pennax. Sam Darnal, 14 games. Just a whiff ahead of Gino Smith. By the way, Bryce Young is on there, too. I went to a party yesterday that Shaq was at and Bryce Young, and they were talking to each other, and it was amazing. It was like Mr. Work and Tattoo. I was fascinated. He was a foot and a half smaller than Shaq.

Does he? Is he smaller because he's smaller? I mean, everyone's smaller than Shaq, but he looked especially small.

But he's, he's literally... Bryce Young is 5'8, and Shaq is 7'1. It was just amazing to see them next to each other and be like, Which guy is the professional athlete right now? Shaq is always at any party, is just riveting. He's the best. Because it's Shaq. He's the best guy. He's the nicest guy. He's the coolest guy to everybody. He's just really a genuinely nice guy, but he's also gigantic. He looks like Shaq. You just see him moving through. You can't not see him. Everybody's looking at him. He handles it great. He's just a nice guy.

He's got to be the greatest on Bourbon Street. You could sit on his shoulders. You don't have to deal with the slop and everything. He's a practical joker. He'll slap guys in the ass with beads and look the other way. He's the best athlete to party with.

Barkley is the best celebrity I've ever seen in public just with how he navigates all the people around him because he's big. He's obviously 6'6, so you notice him right away, but he just loves everything. People just gravitate to him. Shaq's a little like that, too. We have any other future ads? I guess they have who's getting traded wherever.

Just trying to look at this MVP.

Give me some of the New Orleans highlights. You were here doing a bunch of great Ringer stuff, including getting hit in the face with a slim gym.

Yeah, Paige. I was doing a prop challenge with a bunch of celebrities and sports personalities, and we put a video together and you can catch it. It's all up on the Ringer. One of them, we had Paige come over, and she's an influencer. I don't know if people know who she is, right? We had a bunch of challenges. We were like, Oh, you could hit this golf ball. I know she's into golf. You could catch this roll a toilet paper. We could do a slim gym slap fight. She's like, I want to do that. We each hit each other with a slim gym, and I hit her lightly as a gentleman. Then she stands up and smacks the crap out of me in the neck with a slim Jim. I had a wealth on my neck for the next... I'm interviewing Marshall Faulk with this giant wealth on my neck.

And I'm like, When did the wealth go away?

When you saw me, it was still dark, so you probably couldn't tell, but it was staring at me at the craps table. But yeah, so I was like, wow, it's got over a million. How does I make this the biggest thing I've ever done and my wife not find out about it? Anyway, that was a lot of fun. It was a lot of great stuff on a radio.

Jj is like, Don't put makeup on that well, bro. Roll the dice. Same dice. Same wealth.

Don't go against a family. Don't ever watch same wealth.

Can we do a Fandle show where just people play crafts with JJ after he's had three drinks? I feel like that would be an amazing show.

How does he gain steam at four in the morning? It's so crazy. Oh, man.

He's like, when you turn the TV up, the volume up, and it's just going, and that's just the volume. There was no sign at all of him being tired. I think he'd still be there if we didn't want to leave.

The Fandel Ringer Party was great. Friday night, we had Megan D. Stalian and Blink 182. I guess they insist on touring together. I don't know.

I couldn't believe they played all those songs together, too. We talked to some fun people. I'd never talked to Diana Rossini before. She's a delight. We talked to her for a half hour, and she's seven of your cousins. Yeah, she is. It's an honorary member of your family, almost.

The good ones. Yeah. She was great. I thought the Ricky Hill announcing he's playing for the Cowboys was going to be the highlight, but she was up there, too.

That was a fun one. Yeah, we talked to some fun people. I've been to a bunch of different Super Bowl. I hadn't come in a while. There was the one in LA that doesn't count. The last Super Bowl that was in LA that I went to was, ironically, Ravens Niners. I just thought I'd gone.

Is it really?

Yeah, I hadn't gone. I hadn't gone forever. Liked watching the game. I liked doing the pod with you after the game, and I just never went. Never wanted to go for the pats after the second Giants game because it was just so emotionally... It's so bad to be there when your team... I was feeling for the Chiefs fans. When you're limping out of the stadium, it's the worst. Half of the people are the happiest, and you're just in fucking sports hell. It's the worst.

The last time it was in New Orleans, you remember, I had to do a bit.

You had to do the bit, yeah.

For Grant. Yeah, it was a Sal hugs fans of the losing team. I wasn't quite sure who the losing team was because we had to leave and set up in a good spot before the last drive. It was Ravens. Who was it?

Ravens 49. Ravens' Diners. That was the blackout game. That was Kaepernick. First down and goal from the four, and they don't score the go ahead, touched down. That game was awesome.

People were just zombies walking out of there. A lot of people are like, Get the fuck away from me. I'm not hugging you. I don't know who you are. It's a big risk going down there if your team's playing. I mean, Chiefs fans must be demoralized tonight.

Well, the other... So I saw Pats Rams was the first Super Bowl I ever went to, which was honestly one of the 25 best moments of my life, probably that whole day. It was amazing. Then the second game was the Blackout game. When I had a chance to go to this one, I was like, This is going to be an amazing game. It's a super dumb. This is just going to be magical. Everything was great except for the game. But New Orleans is... The funny thing about New Orleans is it just never changes. You go to... I mean that in a good way. It just feels exactly like it did 23 years ago. All the streets are the same. A lot of the hotels are the same. They don't really... It's not one of those places where there's 17 crazy new things that are up. They just really keep the soul of the place intact. It's really a special It's a special place.

I love it. It was especially like, I don't want to bum everyone out, but there was a National Guard presence in the streets because of that asshole last month, that attack. That was a bummer, With the spirit of the city. I mean, it's one of... Would you keep it if they said, Bill, three or four cities rotating, or do you just do New Orleans? Do you Vegas?

I said this for 20 years? No. To me, it's Miami, New Orleans, Vegas. That's it? And I think you can make a case for LA because of... But it's a little spread out. I think if you're just looking for- I was watching the Rose Bowl highlight.

I mean, that's my favorite game of all time anyway, 52-17, Cowboys Over Bills, but it just looked beautiful with the sun setting and everything. It's nice to have an outdoor option, too.

I would say New Orleans, Miami, and Vegas for the way the city blends in with the game. They love to have it in Glendale, but Glendale, people are staying in Phoenix, they're staying in Scottsdale. It's all over the map. It seems like they're getting out of the habit of putting it in cities just because they built the stadium. When they were in that with Jacksman- Yeah, no Atlanta.

We don't need Atlanta. I would go New Orleans 10 times over Atlanta.

Well, the other thing with New Orleans is it's really hard to get hotel rooms here. So the ticket demand, it's almost easier to get tickets than it is a hotel room anywhere near where the game is.

So a lot of people- Tickets were down, lower than face value. Tickets dropped big time. Face value, right?

Yeah. Tickets dropped, and you could get it on the market today for face value or lower. What we couldn't get was a hotel room because there was none, and it's really hard to get in and out, obviously.

But that's why they dropped, right? Because if you're not going to get in a hotel, then the tickets drop. It's a fascinating market.

Super Bowl in Dallas, did we do that? Yeah, we did. I went to that one. I thought that was a pretty good one. The weather was terrible, but that was okay. But yeah, wouldn't you say Vegas, New Orleans, and Miami?

I would add LA back into it. I really love watching those Rose Bowl games. But yeah, if you have to go three, I think those are the three.

Because San Diego is out because they don't have team.

Right.

So they can't have it anymore.

Yeah. So they try Atlanta. I'm just trying to think of the Southern, the hotter cities that we don't need to see in that anymore.

Well, one of my things, I really didn't want to... This is a bad city for me, and you've seen it in action, especially like the Super Bowl 12 years ago and NBA All-Star. It's a lot of bad choices here in New Orleans. I'm not unproud of the decisions. It's just like you lose. It's got food It's good that you probably shouldn't keep eating, but you can't help it. It's got the best dessert. It's got the casino. It's got a bunch of other stuff. It never closes down, and you can really make some mistakes. I try to be on my good behavior. I was so proud of myself. Didn't have a drunk cigarette.

No cigarettes? I bet over one and a half cigarettes.

No, you lost. That was a hell.

I lost all my prop bets.

You lost on that and you lost on Mahomes. Being a good island. You can forget about going to Santa Clara next year for the Super Bowl, the 29th worst city to have a Super Bowl, by the way. That's the other thing we were talking about is next year's Santa Clara, which is like, We did the Russellmania in Santa Clara. It was a mess. That was Russellmania. Super Bowl is a way bigger event. It's really hard to move around. That's right out. Yeah. I know. Yeah. New Orleans. Great job. As a great city, great food. Love being here. It's a one of a kind.

I said Wednesday, I was like, I have to mix a blackened chicken salad into this one and set this rotation because I'm just going to die with these roasted oysters with parmesan. This is the best thing I've ever had. Never got it. Never got it. So I can kill over any day.

Never happened. Yeah, they're frying just... And they'll fry anything here.

Yeah.

They just don't care. Anything's possible. Anything else you want to hear from the week?

That's it. I mean, I have a parent corner thing, but I don't know.

Is that another break Do it. Yeah, no, do a parent corner. We're good.

Well, first of all, I went to a small party. Before that, what's the age where you stop buying your kids anything at the airport when you come home from a city or a game?

Or thinking about bringing them home a gift or anything? Yes. I'm going to say probably age seven or eight.

Thank you. Okay, good. All right, I win that argument. I'm going to quote you as the gospel. I don't know why I have to hear from everybody. I didn't bring a gift back.

These kids are bigger than me. The people who make you feel bad?

Who made you feel bad? Yeah, of course. The people in this house. The second thing is I've been down on squares and pools and stuff for Super Bowl, but when I see how excited the kids get and it's like their first dip in their toe into gambling, I like the Super Bowl Squares pools at parties now. I really do. Even though it's me collecting at the last second and drawing the numbers while they're kicking off and everything, it's terrific. I hate putting it together. Then I see kids like, No, I have two-one. But, Oh, no, all the while, why? They're going for It's two-point conversions. Eight-year-old screaming at each other, whether they should go for two points or one.

So I'm back in on the square. Well, this one, the zero, zero two is the final. Could not have been on a lot of cards.

Zero two are not good. Yes, that's not something you would buy in a family. Randall. Yes.

Yes, seriously.

But my oldest kid who's in Oregon won because I put his name in and he's like, You know what? Just give it to all the little kids at the party. I was like, Well, you're no son of mine. I would never do that. But sure, I'll do So that's that. That's really the paraclin. I'm back in on Squares. But also, is this the biggest Venmo day of the year?

Oh, that's interesting. That would be a good Venmo ad. That should be a Venmo Super Bowl ad. The biggest day of the year. We won't tell anyone if you don't tell anyone.

It's what happens. Oh, what happens in Venmo stays in Venmo.

That should be their strategy. We forgot to talk about the halftime show, by the way. The Kendrick thing where I knew he was playing not like us because I was tipped off, but they teased it so that it was like, Am I going to do it? Am I going to do it? And then they did it. The whole crowd, at least part of the crowd, was singing the chorus, and it was pretty great. He had already decisively won the beef, and then this was almost like going for two and running the Philly Special when you're up 52 to seven with two minutes left. Just the all time FU exclamation point. It was pretty great.

Did people love it? I feel like on social, it's getting killed a little bit.

It was exactly as polarizing as I think he wanted it to be. He didn't play all of like, Here are my five best songs. He didn't do the usual thing, and it was all leading. Something else that- Visually, it was pretty cool.

Wasn't as polarizing. Kanye had a freaking commercial on Fox. What? I'm not joking. What was the commercial? I don't even know what the hell it was. We were all staring at each other like, What is going on? He seemed to be in a dentist chair. He was just saying gibberish, and this is after an insane week on Twitter. We don't have to get into it, but we live in a really messed-up time.

He went after everybody. He's probably going to go after us. Yeah.

I was like, And Fox let him buy a spot?

Kick him off the island.

Unbelievable. Yeah, I kick him off the island, too. But that was the biggest shocker. That and the Chiefs losing by 35 points, whatever it was.

You know, That wasn't a great year so far for the gambling. Didn't do well on any of the Chiefs' bets. Million dollar pics got killed in the playoffs. Just not great. But my mom's text about what the hell is going on in the halftime show made up for 90% of it. She didn't know what was happening. It should almost be like its own social media channel of old people trying to understand the Super Bowl Halftime Show Act, which I think is part of the point of the Halftime Show Act, right?

Yeah. To just make at least one-third of the country go like, What's going on?

What's he saying?

Yeah, that should be the ratings. That should be like, Hey, how many mom texts were sent? What the hell is going on?

Or dad texts.

This is terrible.

I don't think anyone over 60 enjoyed it. I don't necessarily have a parent corner. I have a wife corner. You know this story, but I'm going to tell it again just for the pot. You guys are all here and House is here. House posts a picture of him and Paige Sparenack on his Instagram. It's him and Van and Page Sparanek. I took it. Arms around them. You took the picture. My wife that night is like, Hey, what's going on with House? I'm like, What do you mean? She's like, Did you see his Instagram? I'm like, No, I didn't. What happened? She shows me. I'm like, This is crazy. His wife's going to I'm like, put all this stuff outside. How do you do this? If you did this, I would fucking kill you. Really? I'm like, that's Paige Sparen. Now I have to walk her through the whole, this isn't just like I took a picture with an attractive blonde. This is actually somebody in the golf community. She's got four million followers on Instagram.

You showed her the Instagram pictures?

I brought her on Instagram. I'm like, this is who it is. It's a celebrity. It's actually a very smart move by house for social media to take a picture with her. This will probably be the most looked at Instagram post, Joe House, a man in his mid-50s, is probably going to have this year. So he has to do the post. So now I'm explaining to her this whole cottage industry of what would Paige, leveraging social media.

I wouldn't think leading your wife to Paige's Instagram page would be the move. But this worked?

No, she was pro-Page. She was like, Oh, I it now. I see it. Yeah, more power to her. She didn't understand why House was doing that. She thought it was like some midlife crisis, my marriage is in the tank thing. I had to walk her through it and then also introduce her into the world of social media and sports and how it takes some twists and turns. It was very exciting. When you said later that your wife might not have been thrilled about the slim gym, you know what? We're all just trying to stay It's irrelevant here in the old sports media world.

It's all about clicks. I'm not going to end up probably with that woman. I'm not interested in her. It's fine.

But Joe House, not a polarizing guy. I've never had a fight with him in 37 years. Of course. One of the highest approval rating people of anybody who I'm friends with and beloved by my wife. It was the first time she's ever been mad at Joe House. It didn't last, but it was shocking.

She should have been mad for taking money out of an ATM and not gambling. That to me is a worse offense than any other page.

She knocked him out of Go to Island.

My wife today, the chiefs are down. I don't even know what the health score was. She comes up to me, and I obviously have a lot of money on the chiefs. She says, Boy, chiefs are getting deep bad. This is not what I expected. Is this what you expected? I'm fucking hemorrhaging money at this point. I think I ran to the bathroom and cried.

You have no belt for your pants anymore. You've lost everything.

It's still there.

Yeah, it's weird. Dead wrong about the game. Don't even feel that bad about it. What are we going to do? The Chiefs did this over and over again. It was idiotic to go against them. I just didn't want to do it again. After that Ravens game last year, I just don't. I just didn't want it. Now we can treat a football season normally. Now we can just bet against them. Now we don't have to talk about this mystical thing, whatever. Just have some opinions.

Now there's I'm on the island.

Now the island is back. The penthouse suite has opened up on God Island. Tom Brady's back. That's it. All right, Sal. This is it for yet another football season for us. This is season '07 to '16. I think this is season 19 for us.

I'm like, Shriani with the anthem.

Next year is our 20th season for Guess the Lens. Oh, it is.

I think so. We got to do something.

Yeah. Yeah, because we started in '07, and next year is... Oh, no, is it? No, it's our 18th. I can't count.

Maybe '19.

This is 2024 season heading into the '25.

We're going to do like an SNL thing. Do like a retrospective. Have all the great music that's played, everything.

Well, this is about as bad as I can remember doing in the playoffs in a while. Just never had a feel for it this year.

The play, oh, yeah.

The playoffs in general. But we're going to do some basketball stuff. You still got against all odds, and you still have the- Against All Odds through the Ringer. Yeah. But you're going to come on a couple of times. And then we're doing Masters. We're bringing Baby doll to the masters this year. That's the most important sports moment of the year for everybody. We got basketball coming. You got the NBA. Now you can watch NBA. Now you can care about The A?

I'm excited. I can't believe the A/D didn't work out.

We can bet on the draft. We got draft props.

Yeah, we'll be right there.

Yeah. Shador Sanders over Under's?

Pro day. In a few days, we'll find out who won the next Gen Stat prop on FanDuel, the fastest player.

Wouldn't that be worthy? Worthy had to have gotten the fastest, right?

Oh, I guess so. Yeah, with that. I don't know. Yes. That's got down the field pretty quickly, too. Anyway. Yeah. Well, I'm going to miss you. This is always It's bittersweet for me. I would like to have gone out on a win. The good thing is we can always just call each other on the phone.

Oh, yeah, we'll do that. Or just see each other in person. There's that. All right. Thanks to Steve Cerruti, Kyle Creighton and Kehow as well for producing this all the way through, we did not do YouTube Live this week because I'm in New Orleans, but we had a lot of fun doing that, too. Thanks to everybody for spreading the word for us. I got a new rewatchable that's coming tomorrow night, too. It's a big movie. Big movie from the '80s. Any guesses? Really? Big famous '80s movie.

I'm going to guess wrong.

Haven't done it yet. Well, I want to. You've done all of them. Now, there's a couple left. This is a big one. Give me a hand. Very excited about it. Give me a hand. It's SNL-related.

Coneheads.

It's not Cone heads.

Forget it.

Blues Brothers. We did the Blues brothers. Oh, that was close. Yeah, it was time. Anyway, that's coming on Monday night. Sal, last time of the year. Good job on you.

Good job on you, buddy.

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