The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by FanDuel Sportsbook. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network. Normally, I have a rewatchable. It's coming for you every Monday, but we pushed it to Tuesday this week. It is going to be What Lies Beneath with Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. We pushed it to Tuesday because I'm going to have another podcast on Monday night. Sal is coming up in a We're going to break down Wild Card Weekend, some crazy games, the Pats pulling it off for my sanity on a Sunday night. We're going to talk about all that stuff, but we have to come back tomorrow after Stealers Texans to break down that game and then do the last guest of the line. You'll see what happens later in the podcast, who's winning. So the schedule this week, Sunday night, Monday night, Wednesday, and then Thursday. So four podcasts this week. And it's a special week because this is the first week. This is the first podcast, actually, where our video is actually on Netflix as well as on Spotify. And you can get the podcast wherever you get it. But video stays on Spotify, but we moved the video over to Netflix.
We went live on Netflix. We were the first podcast that they launched with. They're launching a whole set of podcasts this week, including a bunch of Ringer podcasts, some of our sports podcasts. We have more pop culture and other stuff coming end of the month. But Sal and I launched it tonight. It was a really fun night because not only did the Patriots win, but Amy Poehler won a Golden Globe, the first ever podcast award that they handed out in the Golden Globes, our own Amy Poehler. We don't I hate to say that that often because she belongs to nobody because she's the best. But she does do a podcast with The Ringer, and we won a Golden Globe for best podcast. Beat Smartlist, and we beat some serious podcast, Mel Robbins. But It was a great one. I was very happy for her. It's an excellent podcast. We're proud to be associated with it, and she's been great to work with. Congratulations to her. Congratulations to the Patriots. Not congratulations to a lot of my bets. We're going to talk about that in a second. Cousin Sal, coming up next. We're going to take a break.
Pearl Jam, Cousin Sal. The Bill Simmons podcast is presented by Fanduel. Fanduel has got it all. Same game parlays, quick bets for jumping in live. They have your way. Go check out your way. You can build the bet that fits your play, your way. Plus, don't miss out on the NFL Playoffs, one of my favorite times of the year, all month long. Download the Fanduel app or head to fanduel. Com/bs to get started. Get ready for the play. Let's go. Must be 21 plus President Select States, 18 plus in DC, Kentucky, and Wyoming. Get in a promo call, win a hundred game, or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-789-777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat in Connecticut. All right. The first podcast ever on Netflix, and we're bringing it to you. I'm Bill Simmons. That's Cousin Sal. We wanted the Netflix fans to really understand what a podcast was. He's wearing a hat. I'm wearing a hoodie. I don't have makeup on. You could probably count my whiskers in 4K HD, and I'm deliriously happy because my Patriots just won, so we did it.
I don't think people understand what's about to happen, but everyone just buckle up for the most insufferable 90 minutes in Netflix history. I mean, did James Corden have a Netflix special? No, he I think we might be able to take the record.
How about this? I'm going to zag on you. I'm not going to start by talking about the Sunday Pats game because that was the worst of all the games.
Okay, maybe you'll forget about it.
Let me give you three story lines from the weekend, and you tell me which one mattered the most? That we're now moving forward into round two. Josh Allen against the World, Caleb and the Never Say, Die, Bears, or San Francisco going for the Nobody Believes in Us all decade title because Because literally, nobody believes in them. Out of those three, what do you care about the most?
The bears, I think, is the mediest. The bears?
Interesting. Okay, explain.
Well, it's just so improbable that it keeps happening the same freaking thing over and over and over. And this was highly improbable because they were dead. I mean, should we just get into it? Like the packers like great.
Yeah, let's do that first.
Let's do it. You want to set it up? 31, 27. I mean, first of all, people go after me because I talk about this rivalry. I'm like, this isn't a great rivalry. Cut out. But the last three packers, bears games were better than any of the previous 100. I mean, we could talk about this and told Stranger Things sixth season. It comes out. I don't know.
My kids think there's another Stranger Things episode dropping. Yeah. I hate to break it to them, but this was Stranger Things right here. You and I on a Sunday Night Live. Yeah, no kidding. So big picture, bears fans finally have a QB and a coach. I think no matter what happens going forward, you at least have those two things. And Caleb had some unbelievable throws. But the big one for me, though, is better win or worse loss. If you have to pick one or the other, was that a better bears win or was that a more devastating packers loss?
Wow. I'm going to say He had a devastating loss. I mean, it's hard to discount the win, but for God's sakes, 25 points. You want to give the guy 17 points in the fourth quarter, 820, 21, whatever. But 25 after you just... He just had them dead to rights. He had, what, three touch downs at half, 154 yards, love. He looked so smooth. Caleb looked like he was coming out of a coma. He's saying, F this job after the Lou with the burden, the pick, where he ran the role. I was like, wow, the bears just happened to be here, Mo. The crowd was dead. Al Michael's was freezing his ass. Herb Street's dog's tail got frostbite. We had it all. I don't know. You tell me what happened.
Herb Street was just focused on that one defensive back on the bears and how he He was playing hurt. That was his only point he had. This is where he was trying to process this. It was one of the best bears home playoff wins ever. They scored 25 fourth quarter points. I had the packers. Everyone had the packers. That was part of the problem. I remember not feeling safe, really, ever, especially with the floor. It was 21-3. They had the ball to start the second half. First, they missed the field goal at the end of the first half. Start slow the second half. The bears are hanging around, but they don't look good. The crowd's waiting to get into it. And then all of a sudden, it was 21: 16. But then the packers score, and they go up 27: 16, and the guy misses the extra point. And Michael's and Herb Street, it just bounces right off them. They're like, Oh, well, it's still a two possession game. I'm like, That was huge. Twelve points means two touch downs or you're not getting back. And it just felt like from that moment on, it became the game from hell for the packers.
Yeah. Look, Before that, there were four fumbles, and they didn't recover any of them. And that was their thing, the bears, right? All year, they were one for five on fourth down conversions before that crazy pass that we're going to talk about. I don't really get what the plan is. I know everyone wants to kill the floor, but if you're up five...
Me.
I know, but five and a half minutes left, you're up 11 on fourth down. At some point, you won the game. The team's got to come through there. I I just hated that. I hated the whole thing.
Well, you get four fourth down stops. You get two Caleb picks. You have at one point, how big was the lead? Eighteen, and you're up eleven.
Yeah.
And you still can't get it done. But let me take you to... Let me see. It was 21, 16.
I know you love this little stretch here.
Yeah, I got to go through this because this drove me crazy. Bears get the two-point right after Green gives up a fourth and 8 on the best throw of Caleb's career, which the all-22 of that throw is just the best. Love hits Dobbs for 34. Bears need a stop or the game's over. Packers are still up 3. Now it is first down on the bears 33 with 327 left, and the bears have to start using timeouts. Jacobs gets stuff, timeout. What happens next? They hit Golden for 12. Now we're resetting. Now we're on the bears 21. The bears have They already used the time out. There's 3: 11 left. If you just stop this, it's impossible basically to lose. You can run, you can kneel three straight times. You can take it to the two-minute warning and go up six. What do they do? Second down, They throw an incompletion in the end zone. They try to hit the tight end on this high-level play. You're up three. What are you doing that for? Green Bay time out at 3: 02 because they don't like the next play. And then they get to delay a game after the timeout.
And then they throw another end zone pass that's incomplete. And now they miss a field goal. And Chicago has one timeout left. And they have three minutes, and all they have to do is go 30 yards for a field goal. To me, that's like Matt Lafleur can't come back. That's it. You can't come back.
Yeah. There's a couple of reasons why he maybe can't come back because this is Ohio State, Michigan now, right? And so you lost it, and you lost two games that you should have won, right? So whether it's his fault or not, it's bad. Maybe he lost the team. I do want to give the bears defense credit because I know we like to crush people first and then praise afterwards, like 40 minutes into the podcast, get used to that everyone on Netflix. But their defense was phenomenal. I think the packers had one run over one yard in the second half. There was a lot of just kill the clock talk, but there was a way to kill it without throwing it over everyone's head in the end zone. That whole middle of the defense was open from the bears. That a linebacker get hurt.
For the whole game it was. Right. Edwards got hurt in the first half. He was their best linebacker. Yeah.
I'm screaming the whole time. I'm like, Love, just throw it to the dwarf with the giant head. We'll just find that guy and throw it to him. He's the one converting first downs. Then it was too late.
When they handed out, when they stopped Jacobs after the 34-year-old pass to Dobbs, I went back and I freeze-framed it because they knew the Green Bay was going to run on that. They just had nine guys in the box. If they had just play action and love rolled out, the game's over. So it was weird. They both weren't aggressive, and then they were stupidly aggressive. But in both pass plays that were first downs, the guy ended up going out of bounds anyway. So they did everything wrong. But I just feel like if that's my team and I'm down three and the other team has the ball on my 30 with three minutes left, I just feel like I'm going to lose. It's like a borderline miracle. And then you got to give credit to the bears, six-play drive to take the four-point lead. And somehow during that, Green Bay has to call time out because they only have 10 guys in the field right before the two-minute warning. It was just a comity of errors. We weren't there. We didn't know how good the crowd was, but it was a classic home field playoff game.
I was really happy for the bears fans. I mean, talk about a rough 40 years. I've been giving them for Super Bowl 20.
And it's lucky, if you want to say they're lucky as they were this year. It was completely the other way last year, right? With the Hell Mary and everything and that turned them all around. And listen, you called me. We spoke on Friday and we're like, All right, we got the square of picks. We have the packers and we have the jaguars, and we're not getting off of it. But damn it, we know it. I wish we would have known. We give these pics Thursday, whatever. I wish we would have known Friday, everyone's taking, because now it's like we're betting it without seeing the dealers hand at all. And yet I still don't think we're suckers. The packers should have won that game. I thought we had the right side, for God's sakes.
Yeah, I called you Friday afternoon. I listened to the Ringer Gambling Show, and you and I had the same basically straight-up pics. And I felt like a lot of people were on the packers, the eagles, the jags. And I was like, oh, man, this is going to suck. I've seen this too many times. We're making these pics on Wednesday and Thursday, and you don't know where the general feel is going. House was on the show going, 64% of the public likes the bears. I'm like, listen, everybody I know who bets on football loves the packers, and that's not a good sign. But then at halftime, we I could have easily taken the bears plus 500 or whatever it was and not done it. I think in the running for biggest joke of the year, when you throw in that McManus, miss two field goals and two P-A-T's, either PAT that could get a field goal in the last draft. I hated the last draft, too. I hated everything. It did make me think, though, the packers who I don't think people would think with the Bills and the Browns and the Vikings and some of these NFL, the kicked in the balls club of fan bases.
You don't think of the packers, right? They won a Super Bowl with Favre. They won a Super Bowl with Rodgers. I didn't tell you I was going to do this. We got to go through their losses since they won that Fav Super Bowl because I'm in disbelief. I was doing it this morning. I had coffee and I'm like, Man, they've had... My buddy Chip was like, another time, my buddy Chip's from Milwaukee. It's like another awful packers loss. And I'm like, shut up. And then I'm thinking about it. I'm like, oh, yeah. I went through. So since the '96 Super Bowl win, their own five in overtime playoff games. They've lost five NFC title games, the one that one with Rodgers. But some of the losses from the last 30 years, '97, they're going for that back to back Super Bowl with Favre against the Broncos. They had the ball with five minutes left. Tie game, go four and out. And then Denver drives down and LA has the helicopter play. So they lose that. Next year against San Francisco, Terrell Owens, the miracle 25-yard countdown when he just gets nailed by two guys. Remember that?
Almost like a pseudo Hale Mary. They lose that with eight seconds left. '02, they get smoked in Lambo by Michael Vick, which was, I think, his only great playoff moment. Did he have another one?
No, that was probably it.
That was it, right? Other than video games. 2003, Philly, the fourth and 26 to Freddie Mitchell. Overtime, Favre throws the pick, and overtime, they lose. '07, Giants, Fav's last hurrah there. Ot loss at home when the Giants missed the field goal to win in regulation, and then Fav threw a pick in OT. Freezing. '09, Arizona. Ot loss at home. Arizona missed the field goal to win, and then they get a fumbled breakdown in overtime. That's how the packers lose that one. They win the Championship in 10. 2011, they go 15 and one. They get smoked at home by the Giants. Super embarrassing loss. 2012, Kaepernick murders them. That was the, is Kaepernick about to take over the league game? 181 rushing rates.
Kaepernick murdered? I mean, I thought he just knelt down.
No, he murdered them. 2013, San Francisco, they lose on a field goal at the buzzer. 2014, Seattle, NFC title game. They're up 197 with 11 minutes left. That's probably the worst. Seattle has an onsite kick with 2: 13 left, gets the ball back, and then the packers lose in an OT TD. I'm not done. 2015, Arizona. Hale Mary by Rodgers to tie the game, and then they lose in OT.
You may not be done, but everyone switched to Chapelle Well, like 40 seconds ago.
No, one more. Stay with me, Netflix. Okay, go ahead, keep on. Yeah. 2016, they lose the NFC title. 2020, Tampa, remember this one? They're down eight with 2: 15 left, fourth and eight. And Lafleur kicks the field goal to go down five, and then they lose. '21, Block Punt TD. They lose to San Francisco on a field goal at the buzzer. And then two years ago, up four, six minutes left, miss a field goal, Niners Drive win. And then this bears game. That's like 20 games.
So they're not Cleveland or Buffalo or the Raiders, but they're a little bit down.
It's a different class of like, I shouldn't feel tortured, but why do I get my nuts kicked in every year in January? I think that's enough now. And they haven't won since 2010, so it's 15 years. And they don't have the same case as the Vikings bills. But that's just bizarre that all that stuff happened in the same team.
I always look at them. They're the team that beat the Cowboys. They go to a cowboy, they can win on the road, and Jordan Love can do it on the road and all that. That's another reason I like them so much. So you fire Lafleur, no No questions asked.
Well, supposedly he wants an extension for a lot of money, right? I'd probably part ways at this point. I mean, you lose a game where your quarterback throws four TDs with no picks on the road, and you lose. You lose a game where you're up 18 heading in the second half and 11 heading into the last 12 minutes of the game. You're in the ball with three minutes left. You're an offensive coach.
Yeah, it was all bad. That last couple of drives were bad for sure for him. But you I have a good coach. Mccarthy was fine, whatever. It wasn't a good fit. But I think you hold on to these guys. At some point, it's like, all right, what are you going to... Have you seen some of these guys going for interviews for some of these teams? Bowen Yang, I I think interviewed with the Raiders the other day.
No, they had to cancel it because they got in trouble. They did? Yeah, he had to drop out.
All right. So the floor to the Raiders.
People got upset at him, so he's no longer a candidate.
That's so sad. I don't know. Just sometimes you look for a new house and it's got mold. Just stick with what you got.
If you're the packers, you had a bunch of injuries. Parsons is coming back. It might be one of those where you wait three days, you calm down, you take a deep breath, and you're like, Hey, we did a lot of stuff go wrong this year. We lost Tucker Kraft. We lost our center. We lost Parsons. We don't have a pick now. Maybe we wait one more year. But Lafleur in the playoffs has just been bad. At some point, you got to... You think of what Shana did that Niners game today, where he's basically playing seven-card stud with six cards and still trying to figure out how to out-poker everybody versus what Lafleur did.
And not to mention, Ben Johnson just beat him up. Just beat him up on the field. And after the game, the handshake was crazy.
Can we talk about that? Sure. I tried to do a lot of investigating today with anybody I know who knows anything, which is basically Peter Schrager. No, but I asked a bunch of people, what's the genesis of this? It seems like it's a lot of, I heard you said this in a press conference or you heard that. Then that first handshake they had, the first game, where the floor quick-shaked them. Yeah, right. And now that's it. Now it's like, now it's like, revolutionary war level hatred on both sides. It doesn't really seem like that was a bigger catalyst than that, though.
It's also stupid. If I'm Ben Johnson, I savor the moment. I don't just move from it fast. I follow the floor home. I'm like, Hey, what about that fourth down throw? What do you think? I ask them, Hey, where are you going to interview tomorrow? Where are you thinking it going? I wouldn't let it go. So that wouldn't be my tact.
Well, we can swear on Netflix. We can? We could already swear on Spotify because this is available on Spotify as well. But he started out, Fuck the Packers.
That was his speech.
He gave a great speech. Caleb turned it over to Caleb Williams, who got show. I watched all five minutes. This has been the year of they've taken locker room videos and turned them into something great. But Caleb Williams gave a nice speech about him. If you're a Bear fan, you just think of all the inept coaches and QBs. Our entire life, we've been watching football now for half a century. Most of our life, except for that one, Walter Payton year. That one year when everything came together, you never took the bear seriously ever. I don't think they were on TV for the first 15 years of my life on East Coast, right?
Yeah. Now they I love this coach. I got his cadence down for the speech. It's a smart thing. He repeats everything. Well, he's just like, That's the first one. That's the first one. That's one you'll never forget. That's one you'll never forget. All right, bring it on in. Bring it on in. So you double every line, and it's twice as effective.
Who is the Goodfellas character? Oh, yeah. Tommy Two-Times?
That's right. Was Tommy?
So he's Benny Two-Times?
It's Benny Two-Times.
It's a great win. That's a great win.
You have to double on that.
I love this. Benny, two times. He made it a nickname. Ben Johnson's a pretty annoying, pretty boring name. No kidding. All right. Well, there's a lot to discuss. That was the game in the weekend for you?
I think it had to be. Yeah, it was not only because I had marked it off as a win on everything on my ledger, and then I had to reconfigure.
I had the same as my quest to go undefeated against the spread in the playoffs every year, which I dream of doing. That would be my number one thing I would want to accomplish. I know. Get Get the first one with the Panthers cover. Then the packers. Now I'm already thinking about Sunday because the bears look like they've checked out. It's Caleb, the body language, everything looks bad. I'm like, Oh, man, if I get the Jags tomorrow, I'll be 3-0 heading. And then all of a sudden, it flips. It's stupid. We're going to take a break on Netflix here and then come back and hit the rest of the games. This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch. So how's that New New Year's resolution looking. You're going to crush the gym? You're going to inch into quitter's day territory. What's your plan? Because that's a real thing. The second Friday of January, it turns out most of us, we throw in the towel by then, but not this year. Not if you got an Apple Watch. Apple Watch keeps you locked in. You've got the daily movement and activity rings, achievement streaks, goal tracking.
It's like having a coach on your wrist. So if you're on the edge of giving up, don't. This is the year we quit quitting. Let's do this. Apple Watch made to motivate you. Find out more at apple. Com/applewatchseries11, iPhone 11 or later, required. All right, we had another NFC upset. And in fact, all we had were upsets until the Sunday night game when my pats beat the chargers. We had four straight underdogs because the Bill somehow became an underdog over the course of the week.
Well, they covered. Panthers didn't win, but yeah.
No, four straight covers. Then three out where it wins. The most shocking was Niners, Eagles. I spent five days trying to talk myself into the 49ers. On Wednesday, I thought I was going to pick them. Then you just keep looking at the injuries and you're like, All right, this is insane. They don't have anybody. They're a boaster, They pierced off with scratch. Kittle blows out his Achilles, it looked like, during the game. It's just this stupid Eagles team that seems like they hate each other, even though they won last year. I get the nobody, the most compelling nobody believes in us case in a while for the Niners who were really good and had a chance to actually win the division two weeks ago. We're just casting them aside this check, and I just couldn't do it. I was like, The Eagles will win one game, and then they'll let their fans down. I thought this was the most eaglesy playoff loss we've ever had. I can't think of a better one, right? Would you agree?
Yeah, I think so. I think so. But it wasn't surprising either, right?
Not at all. Not for one minute.
Not For one minute. The Super Bowl MVP played so poorly and couldn't move his team. Yeah, that makes sense. That really tracks with what we've seen. I mean, that offense is so lethargic. It really looks like they could do whatever they want whenever they want, right? And then it's fourth and one, and Hertz is just chucking it into the wind. He had 4. 6 yards per pass, and there's almost no rush coming his way. And the other thing is the play clock is either zero or one when he snaps it every time. And so you would think the games would seem to go fast. Each eagles game seems like it's six hours long.
They had 70 plays today. I'm with you. How do you run 40 seconds of play and you still run 70 plays somehow? Usually, it's like 55. Right. Yeah. They have the demeanor. Remember when we would play with our kids when they were younger, you played basketball with them, and it's like two on one against dad. The kids are like six and eight, and you're half-assing it. But then somebody intentionally punches you in the balls, and you get mad, and you start trying a little bit, and then you lay back again. The Eagles, they've acted the whole year like they're the dad playing their little kids, and that they're begrudgingly getting competitive. This is a football game. They play with no pace. They try no trick plays. They try no chicanery at all. They never seem like they're trying to outwit the other team. They have these two receivers that they're paying $60 million for. I think between the two of them, the longest catch they had was 15 yards. The longest catch I want to say was Godert. Somebody had a 20-yarder for them, and it wasn't either receiver. It's like, if you're going to pay that much for your receivers and your quarterback, but never throw the ball and never play with pace and never spread it out, never have fun, what's the point of having all of these guys?
What the F happened? What really happened? Because Barkley and Hertz were amazing. You couldn't stop them by the goal line. And this is now, are they just that much older? This is like a race horse turning from three years old to four. Like, All right, I have no use for these guys. They were so bad. They had to do so little to win. Like, Purdy gifted them two picks, right? At home, ran for three yards per carry, San Francisco, right? So it's not like McCaffrey crushing until he caught something. And it's like, Shana had Never wins after losing by six or more going into the fourth quarter. And they let like, DeMarcus Robinson and Kyle Huszscheck beat them.
Really, really bad. How many Americans found out today that DeMarcus Robinson was on the 49ers? Probably one-fourth of the audience. I wrote down, 12 minutes left, San Francisco was up one. And I wrote down, purdy, two picks, McAfree, 15 for 35, and just question marks. It was like, How are they winning? What are they doing well? But it all came down to the eagles. The crowd, I think, booed every quarter. So if that was a parlay on FanDuel, you would have won that one. Will the eagles fans boo every quarter?
I had that parlayed with pregame Aaron Andrews would be attacked by a herd of skunks. So that's what that was, right?
No, she was dressed like Carmela Soprano. I thought that was a Halloween outfit. Oh, that's what it was? Yeah. I thought you were getting attacked. I saw that on... I stole that on Twitter from the Soprano's World account.
That was great.
That was funny. So here was my favorite part of the game. Because I did have out of... I lost the parlay I had with the Pats and Eagles, but I had the Eagles and these big teases, so I actually survived with a couple of them. Braided announcing that Jalen Hertz game was riveting because I've heard braided talk enough, and he always tries to be diplomatic, especially with other quarterbacks. But they would show the all 22 view, and he'd be like, Yeah, I don't really know what he's seeing there, Kevin. But obviously, he saw something, and you could tell he was just dumbfounded. He just wanted to say, Kevin, I don't know what the fuck this guy's doing. What are these passes? What is his agenda here? But braided was so disappointed. We've heard that, too, with Romo sometimes when a quarterback is really bad and they don't want to breach. It's almost like Mafia. You don't want to go against somebody who's a made man. The quarterbacks are the made men, so you can only go so far. But I thought braided was disgusted by.
I think so. You're right. That's a bucket that we don't hear from advertisers, from the analyst that were former quarterbacks. You got the Josh Allen's where you could just... If it's Allen's against Mahomes, it's just a jerk fest for three hours. That's fine.
You're pulling your pants down at that point.
Exactly. So that's it. Then you got the young quarterbacks, Kam Ward. You could always find something nice with them, something like that. Or even we'll get to Trevor Lawrence and they're running for first downs, but something like this. It's just a shocker that this guy won Super Bowl MVP. And like that, he's not taking off more. There's no design runs. I don't know. This offensive coordinator has got to talk about guys. This Kevin Patulo, he's awful. I mean, he's interviewed. He should interview with the Jets. He's that bad. I don't really get it.
I wrote down the Gambling Manifesto, which even though my The pics weren't great. I thought, Hit some good ones today, including bad offensive lines, don't travel with the chargers. Possible manifesto ad I wrote down. If it seems like a team actively despises each other, no matter how good they are, you can't lay more than a field goal with them.
Oh, okay.
Did it seem all season like the Eagles didn't like each other? And that was the storyline. It was like, well, they won last year and Super Bowl hangover. And it's like, all right, but these guys also don't seem like they like each other. And then that play with Seriani runs over to yell at A. J. Brown. And Katie goes, they have a great relationship. They have a great relationship. It's like, they do?
Maybe it's not so great anymore.
I'm going to say it's not great. He just yelled at him on national TV.
People broken up for less, I think. Then he drops a big pass.
Drops a big pass and then doesn't get interviewed after the game.
Yeah.
He's been trying to probably get out of there for a year. But I think that was just an unhappy team, whereas this Niners team, even though they kept losing these dudes, they still kept their team together and the concept of pulling for each other and that you could feel it today. It was literally like one team really cared about each other more than the other team did. Felt like part of the game.
And yet I feel like if one guy wasn't on the field, and I'm not even saying he should have been replaced, if he just wasn't on the field, blank and ship, I think the Eagles win that game.
Was he the MVP of the weekend?
Disaster. Just a freaking disaster. I mean, The play that everyone's going to talk about is Juwan Jennings throwing that pass to McCafree, who Blankenship was supposed to blanket, and then the Willie Mays catch. I think that was the only way they were scoring that drive, honestly. There's two players who could hurt you on this team. One of them has the ball, he's ready to throw it. He's about to get attacked by four guys, and you're like, You're covering the other one. And you're like, All right, I'm going to join the other four guys, even though I'm 15 yards away. What the hell? And then just three other plays. It was just awful.
They So the heroes of the game, McAfree had a couple of big... Even though he didn't have the rushing stats, had a couple of big plays. Robinson, we mentioned. The fullback had a couple of awesome plays. It was Jack. And then we got to do it. Criticized him a few times on the BS part over the years, but nine kids, Bobby Salah. I mean, he might get hired now. He might get a head coaching job. For real. There's going to be nine jobs available, but he was What he did to the Eagles and what he did to the Eagles and what he did to their receivers, I thought was really impressive. The other way to look at it is Lane Johnson is the most valuable player since Tom braided retired. Because it just feels like they fall apart without him.
Yeah, but you know, Barkley had 100 yards They just did stupid things. They didn't convert when they should have. This ends up being like a... It ends up being like a fourth down fest, who can convert and who can't. I would say Shanahan deserves credit, too. When a guy like Kittle goes out, you already have injuries, and you have to really... He and Kubiak have to adjust, and the defense kept them in. We'll probably crush him next week, but good job by Shannon.
I think he's been awesome. I thought he would have been the coach of the year before he lost the last game. Vrabel or Liam Cohen probably gets out of the Liam Cohen loss today. Well, the big thing was, they get that purdy pick, they're down 17, 16. There's enough time left. There's nine minutes left. Philly's at home. It's like, All right, let's see some emergency guys. They start their drive, and it's like, Okay, I'm already in my head. They're going to score, go for the two-point. They'll be up seven. Now they're covering. You go through all that mental gymnastics. Then the drive stalled, and they kick the field goal, and they're up two. I thought that was it. At that point, I thought the Niners were going to win the game. It was one of those they had to get a countdown on that drive. They just couldn't. The I mean, we didn't talk about this yet. I don't know if a coach has ever been fired a year after they won the Super Bowl. It's probably been making history. Too crazy, yeah. I really thought Lafleur was what we saw from him in the second half was going to be the worst thing we saw a weekend.
It's fourth and eleven. There's 43 seconds left.
Right.
Eagles need to get a first down, and they're on, what, the 22 or something? They don't like something, and they call time out. They had three timeouts left. I thought braided was actually really good today. I thought that was the most I've enjoyed him doing. Braided and Burkard are fine with it. Braided is like, Well, if you don't like it, you got to call time out. It's a big play. Everyone else is watching this. Has ever played a video game. It's like, You just lost. If you don't get this, the game's over. You only have two timeouts. I couldn't believe they missed it. I couldn't believe they called a time out. I'd rather have a delay of a game.
Can I say something? I know I'm way in the minority here, and I'm usually with you the time.
Okay, zag on me.
Honestly, that was the game right there. That was the play. The offense looked so disheveled. Get a play. You make the timeout count. Don't throw it so that nobody's going to have a chance to convert or get it on fourth down. Or Don't call the time out and kick the field goal. Then you're talking about the same thing, basically, stopping them and no time comes off. Because, right? Because...
Oh, that's interesting. I didn't even think of that.
I just didn't think they were going to drive the field, even if they were going to get stop, stop, stop, and then punt. That play seemed to be the end for me.
It's the classic, why are we practicing all season if we're not prepared for this specific moment? It's like, Oh, fourth and eight. I need two more minutes to think about this. It's like, this is just, what's your best play? Is it AJ Brown one-on-one? Just throw it to him. He either gets a PI or catches it. Like, what is it? This is the time to call it. Is it Goddard over the middle?
It was really bad.
There was a crazy wind. We had the fight. We had Kittle getting hurt. We had a double reverse wide receiver pass, and we had the Niners somehow scoring on two straight drives. Trent Williams playing was a big part of this game, though. When we were trying to figure this out on Wednesday, Thursday, it was unclear with him and Lane Johnson which one of those was playing.
Fox, when they were promoting this game on Wednesday, wouldn't put Trent Williams' picture against Lane Johnson. That's not how they would do it on the graphic. You don't think that would work? It really came down to that, right? That one of them didn't play.
Other NFC game, and then we'll do the two NFC games after. Panthers, Seahawks. Seahawks by 10 and a half. It was the biggest road favorite line ever.
Panthers, Rams. Yeah.
I'm sorry, Panthers Ramps. I took the points. I didn't. It was the only one for our Ringer 107 contest. Somehow I'm two and three with this week and own four in the Ringer 107 contest. Ask yourself how you can pull that off because I did. I'm going the other way in Ringer 107 now. I'm going to end up with by far the worst record and then have the big comeback next year. I want to go 42. I'm not changing anything. I want to go 43 and 64. But Panthers Seahawks, the people that were around in our fantasy Why do you want to call them the Seahawks so much? The Panthers, Rams, because I'm screwing up here on Netflix. Panthers' Rams. Seven of us come together at Shakeys in Hollywood, which we do every year. Was this the most entertaining Shakeys game we ever had?
I think so. We saw Tebo, right? I think that would be the only... Oh, no. Wow. There were two that we thought of.
The Tebo over time. I should probably explain the Shakeys game to whatever new audience we have.
Just don't keep saying it's the Seahawks, but go ahead.
It's Panthers, Rams. Shakeys It's the first game of the weekend, round one. They always put the least appealing game. Our fantasy league gets together and we go to Shakeys because it was a pizza place in the late 2000s that was pretty run down on Santa Monica Boulevard. We thought it'd be funny to do our banquet there, the most run down pizza place in our area. It's become a tradition to go to Shakey's.
We could afford chicken Parmajian at a decent restaurant.
Yeah, we could go to Dantanas or something. We don't. We go to Shakey's, and it's usually an experience. Thibault versus Pittsburgh, 2011. Thibault's one great playoff moment happened in a Shaky's game, and then Beast Mode against the Saints. I think those were the two best ones.
That was good. You're not going to like this, but... Oh, no, it was Ravens, broncos, right?
Was that a Shaky's game?
Yeah, it was a Shaky's game. We might have stayed for the second game. That might have been the second game thing.
This one was great. The funny The nice thing was, our groups all together, including our friend Hent, who we've talked about many times, Dame Eshec, our friend Tony, who you and I used to share an office with on Jimmy Kim Alive. You have whatever college funds left you have. It's more.
Whatever you're guessing.
The members are involved. You come in pleasant and as the fourth quarter starts and it seems like there's a big Panthers upset, you're sinking backwards in your chair and you're just focused on the game. And Hansh and Damosheck and Tony just started talking about the American Revolution doc on CBS. Loudly?
Yes.
Talking about different wars, what was the best part? And they're just going on and on. I almost felt like it was a bit. I thought it was like a hidden camera bit. Yeah. And I'm like, Guys, three minutes left. This is a big upset here. And they're like, But here's the thing about Benedict Arnold. And they're just going crazy. And you're dying and I'm dying, and our friend Randy is dying. It was hilarious.
I don't want to say anything, but I'm like, This is the biggest upset in Shaky's history and in Wild Card history. It's about to happen. And you're freaking talking to Amishack and Hedget. You're like, A general Cornwall has had it coming. Who gives a fuck? This is not Netflix, right? It's PPS, this thing, this thing, this American Revolution thing? It's not Netflix.
They were like, and how about what they did to the Quakers? It's like, All right, fourth and three. It was amazing. So it was like watching you being honestly operated on.
Listen, this was a near disaster of a shakey's outing for me. You and Hinch killing Stafford. Stafford's auditioning for MVP every single pass. Like, Oh, Drake May would have completed that. He would have done... Yeah, he had his pook in the helmet from a 30 yards. He's like, he threw it too hard. I'm like, all right. Then the American Revolution talk. I'm about to get killed with this Ram's money line. Brad wasn't really fun. He fell asleep with his arms folded. Then he'd occasionally wake up to make Like fun of the diminutive elderly women in the booth behind them. But that was it. I was like, I may have to leave. I don't know what's going on here.
You missed Brad's most fun part when he reviewed Sinners for Us. That was a high. Oh, really? He thought it was overrated was his take. Oh, yeah.
Well, the best part, sorry. I know Brad is our crazy, crazy friend for many, many years. But before I even got there, you're like, Hey, hurry up. They only have the Rams game on on two of the eight screens, and Brad is yelling at the manager. I was like, Yep, that checks out. And then I didn't hear anything from you. So I was like, All right.
Yeah, they had a bears packers game on two of the TVs from NFL Network from two months ago. I've noticed this in different restaurants and establishments. Whoever's in charge of the TV, they're always put out.
Oh, yeah.
You have a place and you have TVs all over the place. I assume part of the attraction of coming to your place would be people are going to eat and watch games on TV. And then you don't care what games are on the TV. And it's like, we're in LA. It's a Rams playoff game. Every game should be... There was a corner TV show on NBA TV. They were showing the Packers-Bears game. They had Spectrum channel One, just a news channel was on one of them. It's like, But just go around and put channel 11 on all these.
I don't know. I try. I think there's a way to do it. You have to have a deaf touch. You go to the manager and it's like, Listen, I have this great talent. I can control any remote you hand to me. This won't take a second out of your time. You do this? I know what channel every game is on. Just go about, do your thing. Just cook up a new batch of Mojo potatoes. I'll do this for you. And they get put out by it most of the time. Sometimes they're like, Yeah, here, take it. I don't care. I don't want to do it.
But yeah. I thought you said you went up to them and said, Listen, if the Rams lose this game, I'm going to have to put my house on Redfin. Can I please have the remote control?
Grabbing all this leftover pizza and selling it in the parking lot. And then I'm selling my car along with it.
Well, Stafford, it was an MVP roller coaster. The lack of mobility, you could really feel with him a couple of times. But then every time it really started to look bad, he'd make a great play. I wrote down there was a happy feet drop pick after he had another pick and after he'd miss Adams for a bomb TD. And after the happy feet dropped, picked on third down. He was 11 for 26. But then he rallied. What was interesting was Panthers threw a pick. They had a filled fourth and one. They lost their left tackle. They're hanging around, hanging around. And they block a punt with 4: 30 left because the Ram special teams is just going to be their Achilles heel. Apologies to George Kittle. And the Panthers get the go ahead, touch down, but there's almost too much time left. It was like they almost would have been better at punt, 70-yard drive, end the game. But instead, they score fast and the Rams were able to put together a drive.
That's my second talent, working the remote and no one how to do the clock management. We talked about that. We said, Hey, quarterbacks need to play less video games, and coaches, head coaches need to play more in the form of Madden, knowing how much time is left in time management. Because I know their head gets scattered. But yeah, Stafford was good. I think it was 12 for 15 down the stretch.
He was good.
Everything you said before that is true, six for seven on that last drive. But again, it comes down to like, four downs. They were 0 for three, the Panthers on four down conversions, and that's a turnover.
Bryce was all over the place, which has been the experience all year. But it was weirdly like a... It was a moral victory win for them. But they didn't get embarrassed. They hung around. They almost won. There was some really bizarre coaching. Mcvay passed up, going up 27 before halftime. Could have been up 13, kick off, just take it, but decided to do the... There was a lot of fourth down hero ball that I'm sure the nerds have supported all the time. But I did feel like it was a tipping point of common sense in some of these.
Yeah. But what's funny is, we'll get to it in your game, but Arbol had the same decision to make twice. And once he made one and the other, he decided to kick. Right. He flipped. Well, it probably would have said green, go. If you looked at analytics for both. But at some point, yeah, you're like, Hey, let's get some points on the board. Enough.
Harbault was the guy at third base in Black Jack who hits on 13. Then the next time it comes to them, he stays. And you're like, Yeah, pick a lane, dude. It's not... You just got to go in one way or the other. What's the one you like doing more? Pretty bizarre last minute Carolina Drive, too, where they had enough time left maybe to seemingly do something. But listen, I was I was a suspect of the Rams. I didn't think they would be the team that came out of the NFC. I had Seattle, which Seattle didn't play and was probably one of the big winners of the weekend. But I just don't think the Rams defense is good enough. That's my big... I thought the Panthers proved yet again that I think you could move the ball on them. They have a pass rush. That's about it, right? What do you see from it?
No, that's it. They had Young in trouble a couple of times, a few times. They put them down. And they're also penalized, which is weird. They had 83 yards and penalties. That hurt them a lot. But yeah, you're going to get a couple of big plays now that they're going to see better quarterbacks, Caleb Williams. They have to go to his backyard. So this is tough. I have them on. I love those this is who's going to meet who in the Super Bowl things. I made a bunch of those, and the Rams are on them. Not feeling great about that right now. No.
We did have a good conversation about-American Revolution? Yeah. Well, we learned a lot about I learned a lot about the Revolution. I got to put in my two minutes about how how how Boston just saved everybody's ass. Some people should be a lot nicer to Boston.
That was it?
Yeah. You thought that could end the conversation. 1775, 1975 starts everything. We don't get enough credit for that. Unless I could live bet this American Revolution chat, cut it out.
Let's watch the game. That's what I do.
Well, we had a good talk because I'd watched the Marshawn I watched a beast run on Twitter on Wednesday. It was just randomly on. I was like, That has to be the greatest run of my life. We were talking about what were the best NFL runs we could ever remember. I do think that's a minus 420 favorite to be the answer. Wow.
It's been around a long time. What did we say? We had a couple that stacked up. Dorset's 99 Yarder. Maybe not as important, but it was a Monday night.
But it had the Monday night football crew. Marcus Allen in the Super Bowl, Riggins in the Super Bowl. Then I think the wild card or the two Bo Jackson ones, when he knocked over Bosworth. But then the one when he's going down the sidelines and he's on the 50 and the announcement is like, he's gone. And he just keeps going and runs into the tunnel.
That was good.
But I think when you watch the Lynch one, for what it meant to the game, it's an actual playoff game. They're like 10-point underdogs. I think eight guys either hit him or bounce off him. It's like a Benny Hill sketch.
Cameras shaking. Stadiums, rocking so much.
Yeah, I think that has to be the number one. But I don't know the answer. If we're going to go greatest reception ever, it gets a little harder.
What about when Lamar Jackson had the runs and had to take off to the Locker Room, like in the middle of the second quarter. You're not counting that.
I forgot about that one. Oh, and then we talked about Mendoza, too. What's going on with him? Because I've landed on Mendoza going to Vegas as would be the funniest 2026 storyline. Poor guy. The least Vegas-y guy who could ever go to Vegas, and that's just where he's going to be. Mendoza, you want to come get me with us? I can't. Have fun, guys. I'll say a prayer for you. This is pregame. This is the least fun Vegas hang ever?
This pregame meal is like dinosaur chicken nuggets and mac and cheese. I'm like, yeah, they're going to send them to the Crazy Horse 3. Like, yeah, no, sorry.
It's going to be the Hangover 4 as they finally break Mendoza at a bachelor party, and he just loses his mind. He disappears. Yeah. That's it. Let's go to the AFC. We'll do my game. Fine.
Don't be ashamed. You did it. You won. It's great. Terrific. 19-3. Disgusting.
Two teams that couldn't block.
Oh, your guys couldn't block either?
We couldn't block. They really couldn't block. It was just a defensive battle. That was the best our defense has looked in a long time. But everyone's also healthy. They had a great game plan. They really took advantage of the fact that the chargers don't have a left or a right tackle who should be playing. Herbert has whatever's going on with this hand and got the crap kicked out of him. And by the end of the game, even though I wanted the pats to blow them out, 10% of me felt bad for Herbert.
Yeah, I didn't know which way to go with it.
I don't know what he's supposed to do in that game.
He's a tough bastard, right? So that's why he You can't really crap on him, right? But these are some bad losses now that he's been part of. Not that bad, like they should have won and lost, but the Jaguars won when they were up 30, didn't do anything in the fourth. That Texans game last January, he threw four interceptions. And now this one, I just don't know. That offensive line ought to be ashamed of themselves. I know there's injuries. They've used nine guys. But what were you guys, 26th in Sacks this year? They've blocked better teams, better runs. They just were not ready for this.
I think Milton Williams being back and healthy was a big part of that because he missed five, six games. That was the entire middle of the defense. But home crowd, Sunday night, West Coast, East Coast. But the big thing was I didn't feel like their receiver were ever open. Then a couple of times when they were open, they weren't making plays. But even Keenan Allen had a drop. Gonzales, before he got hurt, I thought that was the best Patriots game I've ever seen him have.
He was phenomenal.
He was all over the place. Collinsworth called it out a couple of times, but it was like nobody was doing anything on him. Then he got, hopefully not concussed, some possible something. It didn't even seem like a concussion play. Status could be in question for next week. I'm trying to think how the Boston media can get a little negative. No. Especially the radio shows. For this? A couple of radio. No, they do this There's a couple of Northeast cities that do this where they zag and they're like, They might have won, but they only won. And this was bad. And Drake May, that's why he's not going to win MVP. They're going to get super negative. I've watched every Snap of Drake May's career. That was not a good Drake May game for about two hours there. I thought he was off. He was okay.
What he did with his legs was more impressive than anything, honestly. And then you move the ball. I don't know. You do see how it's a little more difficult than when you play the Jets four times. But still, you handle it. You were so overconfident, and it worked. It worked.
How does this happen? I felt really good about the chargers online. I really felt like that was going to be me. I didn't think they were going to to run the ball, and I didn't think they were going to be able to protect Herbert. But I thought May was going to be better than that. He missed Hooper in the second half for a countdown. He hasn't missed that throw in three months. Yeah, he's a little off balance. He's nailed that all. I know, but he's nailed that throw all the time. He had a couple of great scrambles. I did the one thing, we should have talked about this on Ringer Gambling Show, remember that there was four or five playoff games when the Mahomes rushing over-unders were too low? Oh, right. They never factored in that he would just play differently in the The Patriots have had the fucking kids gloves with May with the scrambling all season. They don't want him to get hit. They don't want him to get concussed. He slides, he goes down. He didn't this game. He was really aggressive with it and trying to run around. I think that play off, Drake, I thought that was the difference.
Definitely. No doubt about it. I mean, that over must have hit in the first quarter, like with that first run. I mean, I know you're going to kneel down.
It's about the only over that hit.
Then it's like, I think it helped you that... I didn't see when they changed this rule, but Patriots are allowed to slap the... Use face mask penalties and it's not a penalty. You could slap the foot.
The hit in the head thing. That was great.
I love that. It happened on, I think, McConkey, too. I didn't know you were allowed to do that now. So that's a great benefit going forward, I think.
That was a penalty. It came right after a ridiculous spot, so I felt like it evened out.
Right. That's true.
That's all you ever wanted. I just did not believe in this Chargers team as a I thought they were lucky to get in, and I just thought they'd had too many injuries. This never works, by the way.
As a fan, when you call out the team you want to play, like three weeks ago, you said you wanted to play the Chargers, right?
Yeah, because they had no offensive line.
Let that be the 2-7. And then you talk up May and everything. Is this one of the top three days of your life? I wanted to ask. No. Patriots win. Hold on.
Patriots win? Top 25.
Netflix debut.
Netflix debut. People wondering why we don't have makeup on.
Right, right, right. Probably just me. But Amy Poehler wins, right? Let's talk about that.
Amy Poehler won the Golden Globe for Best Podcast.
Yeah.
And deserved it because the podcast is great. She's a great person and we love working with her. So yeah, that was exciting.
Good job by you. I mean, this has to be a top three. They doused Vrabel with hot water and lemon. I don't know if you saw that because we were just going live.
Did they do that and put honey in it?
They put honey in it.
Well, Vrabel hugged Milton Williams and got head buttered in the nose and mouth and was bleeding. He loved it. He was trying to make himself bleed more.
Coach is going in the blue tent after the game. It's weird. You don't see it that much.
I was hoping the Golden Globe thing would turn out well, and it was happening right during a Patriot drive. It was just a lot. I felt like I was overheating a car. I was like, this is too much. I've seen this happen to you a couple of times when there's too many games and you just get that deer in the headlights, getting an overwhelmed look.
Did Let me ask you this. Amy wins, but the Patriots lose, or you could have the opposite result.
Which one? You know what's funny? I said to my wife two hours ago that you were going to do this.
Okay, so you should have an answer prepared.
I'm definitely not answering.
Oh, come on.
For the new listeners, when Sal and I worked together on Kimmel Show, and we sat next to each other at a desk, that desk right next to each other, writing jokes and doing shit every day. And anytime I was trying to work and you were trying to mess with me, and you would be like, Simmons, you could only save one of your two parents. Which one do you pick? And you would just throw these crazy hypotheticals at me every day, basically. And you said you're that. I knew that Polar One was coming because I've known you now for 23 years.
What's the answer? You don't want to answer? Come on, I think it's nice for the Netflix.
I wanted both. I wasn't thinking either or. It was not a good situation.
All right.
But I was happy. I did. I started to get competitive when the Smartlist guys handed out an award, though.
Oh, right.
In the beginning. I Oh, is this rigged? I didn't know we were rigging this. The Smartlist guys, they hand out the award, they get to do it. But big picture for Herbert. You said it earlier, 0-3 in the playoffs now. The nerds love him. The nerds will defend him to death. Did you feel like he could have done more in that game, other than maybe be a little more protective of the ball? What was he missing?
When he was stepping up in the pocket and just before the line of scrimage and he lets it fly, I don't think he hit any of those passes. Passes. Those are the only 15 plus yard passes I thought he was able to complete. If he drops back in the pocket, he goes through his progressions as good as anyone else. But that wasn't working. So everything else is like a five-yard pass. But I really thought he'd be able to hit. Although I mean, you had great coverage. I don't know what to say. Again. Defense was good.
Defense was good. Well, can't we say the two worst playoff teams were the Panthers and the Chargers? Maybe tomorrow we'll feel that way about the Steelers or the Texans. I just felt like they weren't at that same level. Even Philly, who shit the bed. But you can't say that team wasn't talented. That team had dudes all over the place.
Yeah, those are the two for sure.
The May thing, a couple of other just deep-cut Pat stuff. They really miss Matt Collins, who the anunciors did not mention once in the game today. I like Tareka and Collinsworth. I thought they did a great job for the most part. Matt Collins, the blocking, he was like a Drake May security blanket. They would always get one deep with him, and he got hurt just randomly. He had some abdominal injury or something in the last two weeks of the season. But I just thought, I don't think they've looked the same since he left. Then May was too sloppy in the pocket with the ball. If they're going to play whoever next week, it's either going to be the Texan. If they play the Texans next week who have a good defense, you can't be that careless with the ball with all the people around you. This is the stuff he was doing as a rookie, and he wasn't doing it the last three months. He was way more careful He was not careful with the ball. He was not careful.
You're fine. You're going to get every single bounce from now until 2050. He fumbled. The offensive lineman, grabbed it, a whirling dervish, switched hands and recovered.
They recovered one of those, too, on the charger side. Vidal got one. His own, right. Yeah.
That was their biggest play for a while.
I do wonder, that first playoff game, there are some pretty convincing stats about a QB in their first playoff game, no matter who they are. We I have the Quincy Carter types from way back. But then even like, Peyton Manning, whoever, Braady, the snow game, he was terrible for two hours in that game and then finally got going. But I think we'll see next week because I know that I bet His standards are going to be a little higher and Vrabel will push them a little bit. Vrabel is doing awesome.
The Virgin quarterbacks were two and one. Virgin playoff quarterback's were two and one.
He had a similar game to Caleb, where it took him a while to warm up. Caleb finished with 361, and he didn't have the scrambling like Drake did. Oh, I know it. Drake finished with 17 for 29 for 268, but he was seven for 17 at one point. Usually, he's 75% of his passes. He was 10 for 66 rushing. The big thing now, and I mentioned this last week, and I just wanted to mention, again, quick, the Ramondre Stevenson renaissance, who was the best guy on the offense today. This was a guy the Pats fans were ready to wave after the Stealer's game. Brable stuck by him. It was one of the best things that he did. All right, the game I was the most wrong about. This was the only game I really loved. Jags Bills. I really thought the Jags were better. I didn't understand how the Bills were going to beat them. As it turns out, the blueprint for them beating them was basically what happened, a ridiculous game. Alan throws to nine receivers. Alan runs the ball 11 times. He runs the for two touch downs, including a 10-yard push-push. I think he had 14 injuries by the end of the game.
I couldn't even keep track anymore. His wife was pregnant at the Golden Globes, 3,000 miles away. It's just gamut of emotions day for him. He was there in a Shaquire, Brandon Coox, who wasn't playing for anyone, Gabe Davis, who they picked up, who got hurt again, Coleman, who they bench twice, the two white tight ends, couple of running backs.
Shavers, right?
He had seven in completion, and nine guys caught passes from him. You should not have less incompletions than receivers. But he was just- Interesting. It was a face of the League game from our guy Josh, and I'm watching the whole game going, God damn it, why do I have Trevor Lawrence against Josh Allen. I know. That was it. I had the whole week to think about it, and I knew it, and I walked into it, and I was just like, Why did I do it?
But again, one stupid play. That's, I guess, the difference, right? In the end, one team had Josh Allen, and the other one did... Although they both Josh Allen. The other one didn't play quarterback, though.
The Jacksonville. The other one had a Heinz Allen.
So they have a Josh Allen.
I think the Mahomes-Philly game last year really screwed me up because I couldn't think of a single reason to pick KC other than Mahomes. I'm like, I'm just not going against Mahomes. So then you go in this game I'm not doing that again. We're the only reason I can think of picking one team is the quarterback. And yet that was the reason they won.
But didn't you think they were running? They were doing just what they needed to do. They had rushing yard. I know you were killing the sense of play calling because they didn't go as much to Etienne and Tootin as much as they should have. But it's one play. It's that fourth and one where Lawrence goes and he launches and his shin hits the ground or I don't know. His knee hits. I don't know how it happened. They score there. It's what? 14-3? Then Josh Allen's a little against the ropes. That's what you needed to happen.
Well, they had a terrible pick in the first half by Lawrence. Just an awful old-school, terrible Trevor Lawrence throw, red zone, September. Let's go to Jacksonville. Trevor Lawrence wants this one back. So we have that. We have the fourth and 2 inside the 10, which is there for some reason as he dives, he knees the ground. They get a fumble on a kickoff, and yet nothing was going right for them. I wrote down their running backs were eight for 99 in the first two hours rushing. Eight carries for 99 yards, and They were just force-beating Lawrence. It was to the point where it's like, do they want this guy to be the hero of the game or something? What's the game plan? Just run the Buffalo. Can't stop the run. What are you guys doing? Then the run will set up the play action. It took them too long to get going, Sal.
I think it's tough, Bill. But no, that's their offense, though. They mix it up. And don't forget, Lawrence, at that point, was averaging seven yards of carry himself, right? Yeah. And I'm all for like, Oh, he just threw an interception. Let's run the ball a little bit. But it was his late first quarter. You got to build that confidence back a little bit. I felt he... Look, it was their defense that needed to step up at the end, right? He got him ahead in the fourth quarter with a few minutes left. We all knew We all knew it was too much time.
No, it was the last two drives. Buffalo drove-The last two, right. Two shutdown drives in the fourth quarter to end the game on the road in Jacksonville.
Yeah, that was it.
Stop him. That's it. I thought Lawrence was bad.
And the kick missed. That was a bad miss from the guy who makes them from Boca Raton. Little. Yeah, a little Cam Little.
Oh, my God. Nance, really.
They were both jinks in it.
He's like, This guy can make it from 80. And then, of course, he comes out.
When they're at their own, 15, they're like, Oh, I got to bring them out for this.
Lawrence was 18 for 30 for 207 and two picks. I actually kept track the entire game of balls that he threw that hit Buffalo hands. How One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. No. Eight. What? Eight. I'm telling you, I marked all of them down. Eight times a Buffalo defender hit a Lawrence pass with their hand. And then the last play- The tip passes. Is it talking tip passes? Tip pass or the guy had a chance to pick it. The last play when they actually got the interception, two guys hit that. The guy tipped it, another guy caught it. But he was just throwing running around. And he reverted back to September Trevor Lawrence. I thought that guy was dead after the Denver game. I thought this was the new Trevor Lawrence.
Was that? Yeah.
I think- He wasn't good enough. Buffalo doesn't have a good defense. No, it's true.
But it was very good today. Hey, it really was. Rousseau and Shaq Thompson was excellent. I think they did have the eight or nine pass deflections. I did write that down. And the other thing that they turned around on the bills was time of possession. It was 34, 26 Buffalo. I was like, No, they're not going to win that game. That's not We knew they wouldn't win with that game plan.
Buffalo has a chance to go up three. They get that crazy push-push, or as Nance called it, the push-tush. Do you hear that one?
Yeah, push-tush. Push-tush?
No relation to Pash Rush from Chris Collins. And Allen gets tackled, basically, they decide he's down at the one. There's a minute, two left. Jacksonville has no timeouts. And the move is sneak, but don't do what Drake made it earlier this year where you don't try to score. Alan's like, Fuck it. He goes right in. There's a minute two left and they're up three. And it felt like a huge mistake. I'm always for ram it in. But in this case, a minute with that kicker who can kick 70 yarders, I'm killing the play. But what does the play look like?
Is it a kneel down? Because you don't want to start the second play from the three and then you get a false start.
No, he snaps it and he just sneaks, but he just goes down.
Because they were going to let him score anyway. So he probably could have just gone forward or right where he was.
They had 62 seconds left. They got the ball at the 25, and their kicker can kick a field goal from the 50. So they needed to go in 62 seconds, 25 yards. So what's the first play? Let's throw it right over the middle to a guy who's covered by two people. Even if he catches it, it's a 10-yard play. He gets tackled. 22 seconds come off the clock. How is that your first play? I just thought, Liam Cohen. Is there something about first-time coaches in a playoff game, again, with somebody who immediately is losing the QB matchup? Maybe that's some bad formula.
Let's ask our producer. I'll pull that up, and we're going to need that in 30 seconds.
Yeah, come back with us. I got an email from a reader, a listener, Pierre in Louisiana. After this game, he said, Think you're overthinking the pics. Fundamentally, hobbyist gambling should simply be about having fun. You agree with this?
Wait, what?
Hobbyist gambling should simply be about having fun when you gamble. He's saying it should be fun. He needed to see you yesterday during the Ravens game.
This has not been fun. I'm trying to think when was the last time it was fun? This is not where a lot of craps, a hot craps table. This is every man for himself.
I think the most fun I ever had was Ravens, Giants, Super Bowl. The January, February, 2001. We cleaned up. We didn't even know each other yet. We separately cleaned up. I hit everything in that game.
Super Bowl is weird for me. I don't have fun because I'm so upset the season's over. You have too many bets. Even if I win.
Pierre says, Betting against Josh Allen isn't fun. Betting on Trevor Lawrence isn't fun. Maybe add fun to the playoff gambling manifesto. So he sent this email, and then I watched the Eagles Niners game, and I'm like, I'm not having fun with my pick here either. I wish I had the Niners. It would have been more fun to have the Nobody believes us Niners. So round two, I might just go for fun.
Because Pierre said so?
Yeah, Pierre Louisiana thinks we should have more fun with gambling.
There's Well, then Pierre, thanks. But we know we got this, man. Don't ever email us again.
I have to find this picture I took of you. I hope this... Oh, no. This is Sal and Shakey's.
You son of a bitch.
As our three friends are talking about American history and the Rams are falling apart, and Sal is just sinking backwards into his chair. That was yesterday. See, that looks like gambling wasn't fun.
No, no, no. That was all the three hours that it wasn't fun.
It's 27: 24 with 2: 42 left. I think Hanch and Damosheck and Tony were in 1776 at that point, like breaking down post-tea party. What was happening then.
I'm glad you showed because I wasn't going to do this, but now that you did, I have a picture of you singing in excess to your wife here. No, I don't. I don't have. I don't have.
Surprise birthday party.
Surprise birthday party.
I was a karaoke surprise. I don't know if that's going to It's going to be a win or loss for me if that ever ends up on my- You're turning very red.
It looks like you have makeup now. This is good. This is all right. What you need. What was it? What did you sing to her?
I really thought you were going to have the video. I was terrified.
I should have. I knew. You've had too good a day.
You know what I do have, though, is I have video footage of me watching the Eagles game in the sauna. I got that one for you today. Oh, no. Yeah. I knew that would annoy you.
What does it matter with you? You wore a shirt also? Bill was a shirt in the sauna.
I wore a shirt in the sauna. I did second half Jags, Bill's on the treadmill, going three-nine walking in four-oh during commercials. And the game flew by because I just couldn't believe the Jags were blowing it. And then Sauna after. And then finish it off with some hot water and honey.
Yeah. What a guy.
Yeah. Things are off the rails in 2026. Yeah. Do you see me eating the pizza and pulling the cheese off? I know. I was proud of myself.
Most disgraceful patron of Shakey's. Good job.
So we had five games. Four of them were awesome. The Pats Chargers game was not awesome, although I had a great time and I was excited for my dad. And now we have Stealers, Texans tomorrow, which the line is settled at three, it seems like, right?
I've seen it at three, yeah. I don't think it's moving.
What's three and a half? What I watched this weekend made me even more convinced that the Stealers are the bet tomorrow.
Because the- I think it's the same thing as that chargers.
I don't think they're going to be able to block. Oh, interesting. The Texans. So as good as their defense is, I think it's worse when you have the offense that can't block and you're on the road in a crowd like that. I think that would be my takeaway.
I thought my thing was there are three fraudulent teams in the playoffs right now, in my opinion. All different levels are fraudulent. I said the Panthers, I thought the bears a little bit, and I thought the stealers. Yeah. And the two of them are played tough, and I think the Steelers also will. Oh, man. If Aaron Rodgers goes to New England, come on. It's another win for you.
So they beat the Pats in week three in a game where the Pats had five turnovers, including Ramondre fumbling as he's about to score. We also had the one yesterday in the bears game, the Christian Watson helicopter play where he fumbled on the half-inch line. Just feels like anything full speed at the half-yard line is going to go badly for somebody. You just don't know. I don't know what it is.
But they recovered it. They got it. They did. They got it back. That was a bad bears moment, too, because it didn't go out of somehow. And the packers recovered. They didn't score because they had to place it at the one. But eventually they did.
See, I know we led with that. I still can't get over that game. The packers were the right pick in that game. I know. They just were. That was a ridiculous bearsman. All right, so here's the plan for us. We're going to do guess the lines for the games that we have, which are three games.
Did you see the times? This is news to me.
Do we have a schedule? What is it? Can I make guesses? Can Can I guess the schedule?
Yeah.
Okay. I'm going to guess Bronco's Bills is the first game on Saturday?
If Fandil listed it correctly, you're right. Yes.
Okay. I'm going to guess Seahawks 49er, Saturday night?
Yeah. Are you looking at this?
No, I'm guessing. Yes. Patriots, whoever on Sunday afternoon, early Sunday, because that has to be the Monday night team needs enough days, right?
Well, the Monday night team needs enough days, so the Patriots are definitely playing Sunday.
Patriots hosting somebody. And then Ram's Bear Sunday night.
They have Rams, Bear's day, which means we would do this again after your team.
No, please, no.
Really? Let me make sure.
Is it a Fox thing? Let me see. Must be a Fox thing. Fox must get the early game on Sunday, they must get their picks. They get Ram's Bear early.
I hope this isn't right. I mean, this is what's on a fan goal right now.
Another Pats game? I mean, I love Netflix. If it means we follow a Pats playoff game every week, this is a good streak for us. Yeah. No, this is a good streak for us. Yeah. No, this is a good streak for you. This is going to be fun. Bad for you. Good for me.
I think they would have put you Saturday night if they knew Rodgers was playing, for sure. I think they want Rodgers in a night game if they're able to do so. But there's no guarantee.
Pats Houston is almost like a Shakeies 2-2 game. It could be ugly like the one today. All right, so a quick backstory for any new watchers we have here. Sal and I have been playing Guest Alliance. It was first, who'd you start the game with?
My buddy Darren.
The Parley Kid.
The Parley kid. Yeah, He used to hide in a closet so his girlfriend, now wife, couldn't hear us guessing lines because it was frowned upon back then. Now we're on Netflix, don't it?
So we have the schedule. I start working for Jimmy Kim Alive. We start doing it. It's I show up mid-November 2002. The show hasn't started yet. We're sitting next to each other. Rest of 2002 through the play-ups, you're like, Let's play Guest Alliance. We start doing it. Then the next year, we do it at work. Then I leave JK We start doing it on the phone. We do it on the phone for three years. Then when I get a podcast at ESPN, it becomes the Monday pod, and we've been doing it ever since. This is, I think, our 19th year.
19th year.
Doing Guest Alliance. What happens is we guess the line, whoever's closer wins it. I've won all 19 years for the new people.
No, stop it. I won last year.
You're right. You're a jerk. You won last year.
I've done one more than last year.
I'm probably up like 10,7 lifetime. I know.
Well, when you're shooting, when you're allowed to swat the quarterback in the helmet, then what are we going to do?
All right, so we're going to get to the line. We're going to say the first game is Bronco's bills in Denver.
That's what it appears to be.
Okay. I've not seen the lines.
Okay.
I think the Broncos are going to be favored. And I think it's in the tic-tac zone, which we call for anything minus 1. 5. And I'm going to say Broncos- Tic-tac is one and a half calories.
Yeah, go ahead.
Broncos minus 1. 5 at home against Denver. All against Buffalo.
Oh, all right. So I get this one because I said Buffalo minus 1. 5, and it is Buffalo minus 1. 5.
Okay. Let's talk about this.
Well, they power rated them exactly the same as the Jaguars, right?
But aren't the Broncos better than the Jaguars? The Broncos are the one seed. Yeah, they're the one seed. They went 14 and three. They're home. They're the altitude. Josh Allen got the kick, and she kicked out of them this week.
Right. They also have trouble eclipsing 13 points a lot of times. So I think they're factoring that. And who's betting Denver, right?
I am going to make my first Netflix Hardcore Prediction. The This will be favored by next Saturday. Really? This will be Broncos by one and a half on Saturday. Okay.
All right.
I think this is exactly what happened that Jag's game. The line moved along, the line moved along, then it flipped. That's my prediction.
Interesting. Let me just make sure these are... No, I mean, these things flip all so much. And then we take a teaser, we add six points to whoever the underdog is getting one and a half. That doesn't seem to work all the time.
Well, the ones today in In real life that worked. We can't do these in Ringer 107, but all the 10 point, 13 point tease is hit. Basically, unless you had the chargers in one of them, any other version of any game that you wanted to tease. Even the Eagles. The Eagles, it ended at minus five and a half. Ten-point tease, which I did, brought it to plus four and a half, and it covered. They lost by four.
Missed extra point. Big. Very nice.
All right, so Saturday night is Seahawks 49ers? I had trouble with this one. I wanted to go lower, and then I was starting to think about where they would have to get it to to to make people bet on the 49ers, the Nobody Belives In Us team, two weeks in a row. And it's in Seattle, and Seattle's had the week off. I have Seahawks minus seven.
Okay. I had Seahawks minus six. I thought that was division rivalry. They'll chuck a point their way. It's seven and a half, so you got that.
Damn.
And you love Seattle.
I'm just telling you now, they'll be in a parlayer of these for me.
Really?
Yeah. I thought they should have won the last time they played by 25 points. That 13 to 3 game, that should have been like 30 to 3. Darnold wasn't good enough. This is the perfect team. If they can get by, they have three playoff games with Darnold potentially, right? So you get through this game where you're not playing a team that has a really defense. Then next round would be Rams versus bears. Potentially, they could play the bears. It would run a good defense either. Although they did stop the run in the second half. They might be able to get to the Super Bowl without ever seeing Darnold under distress in any way.
If you could guarantee me there's not going to be rust on this Seattle team having off a week, I would love them. I would love it because San Francisco's luck has to run All right.
So then Sunday, we can't guess Patriots.
According to the chapter, the times haven't been announced, but the days are right. Bill's Broncos and 49ers Seahawks.
Sunday, we can't guess the Pats game, but we do have good news. I'm going to do another podcast tomorrow on Monday night, and you're just going to be at the top of it. We're going to film 25 minutes at the top. That's going to be on my pod. I have another guest after, so we're going to guess the line for that. Talk about the Stealers Texan.
No make up again? Let me know now.
We're just going to all natural.
Okay.
All right. Yeah. Like John Mulaney, covered in make up. I saw his show. He is, right? Yeah. Some of the other podcasts that are coming in. We have a bunch of Ringer podcasts coming tomorrow that will also be available on Spotify as well on video. No makeup? Yeah. Some of the people we have will wear makeup. I'm trying to set the tone.
Yeah.
Yeah. Just be you. I love it. Don't worry about what you look like in 4K and people counting your whiskers. We can't guess Pats, but we can guess Rams, bears. I had two lines that are within a half point of each other, and I went back and forth, and I went back and forth, went back and forth. This game's in Chicago. You know the bears are going to be losing in halftime. Rams minus two and a half is my guess.
All right. I said four. I was like, Vegas, the books, fandles, I'm going to fall for this. It's three and a half. I was a little high, but I was closer.
So you won. I won for the week.
Two to one.
So you could tie tomorrow. I could tie tomorrow.
Big day to check in if you want.
Wait a second. So packers, bears, packers were one and a half. Rams, two points more in Chicago after a game that Chicago looked awesome and felt like there's some mojo going That's weird.
See, I looked at it as- That seems too high to me. They were ten and a half at Carolina. And obviously, they didn't cover that. They didn't come close to covering that. But I think they just took a countdown off of that and said, let's see what the Rams could I think that...
Don't you think that ends at three?
Yeah. I mean, the Rams are the perfect team to go up 25 points on the bears and blow it in the fourth quarter. Perfect.
Outdoors, night game, something goofy happening. It's funny. Caleb and Drake Bay are the same where I'm not really sure what to expect from them for the first hour and a half of the game because they're young. But you also feel like they're never out of any game and that at any point, they could just make an unbelievable play. That play that May made to Hunter Henry was similar to the Caleb play on that fourth and eight. The Caleb throw was crazier and he ended up up in the air after he threw it. But it was the same. They just saw it. The throw had to be perfect. You have to have a fucking great arm. You have to be able to throw on the move. And those guys are two of the best at it.
Yeah. Caleb did the Jordan jump man thing, too, right?
Yeah.
That was no accident.
Yeah. I think this will be when you think Mahomes goes down, Burro doesn't make the playoffs. Everyone's already talked about this, but it does feel like a little bit of a change in the guard, even though those guys aren't that old. It does feel like there's a new generation. May and Caleb, there's something happening. Then maybe Stroud tomorrow, if he can have a good game against Pittsburgh.
That was a great class. Yeah, it paid dividends.
After Daniel's last year.
Yeah. We watched so many bad quarterbacks in that 1: 00 PM slot from weeks 1 through 18.
We're going to have Mendoza and a Bender in Vegas. Maybe he'll be the next one. Goes to Vegas, gets completely corrupted within five minutes. I am not only in the fantasy league with you, but I'm in this league that I've been in with my high school buddies and their college buddies since 1990.
What is this? Playoff counts?
It goes all the way through. Get to protect up to six guys on your fantasy team. Then we have a draft. I had the first pick in the draft because I won. I protected Drake May and Parker Washington and Jake. I didn't really have good keepers, but I had the first pick, so I took Puka. Then I took Puka over Josh Allen. My thought was like, I have Parker Washington. I think the Jags are going to beat the bills. I'm hoping Trevor Lawrence is going to be there when it comes... There's four teams in the playoff draft. So one, two, three, four. I have five. I'm really hoping Trevor Lawrence is there at five. Trevor Lawrence is there at five. Now I take him. Then I got ETN in the nine. So now I have Three Jags. I have Drake May. I have it all set up. I had 195 points with all my guys today, but I lost six of them. I'm probably going to lose to our friend Steve, who still has Allen, Darnold, and Stafford.
Oh, boy.
And Cooke, and Harvey, and Kenneth Walker, and Diggs. But this league's great. I don't know why people don't do this idea. It's just more fantasy. I get five more weeks. I guess so. Why does fantasy have to end after 16 weeks? I'm going 22.
I should end after three weeks, to be honest with you. I don't know. Yeah. No, that's pretty cool. You know what's ironic about this, though? Remember when we did the Ringer draft, you hated the Jaguars. I'm not drafting a Jaguar.
I hated Trevor Lawrence, and now he's rekindled by hatred for him because he let me down today.
You made that proclamation. You're like, he's going to be my most hated player in the league if he loses this game.
I thought there was an onion thing today or this week about guy spends 3,000 hours on his fantasy team this year, wins $30 for second place. That was like, that hit close to home.
That's exactly it.
Okay, so we always do Parent Corner, which is how long have you been You're in Parent Corner. I can't remember. When did we start that?
Before we even had kids, which people thought it was weird at the time. No, I guess more than a decade, right?
At least. Well, at one point, my young son was the star of Parent Corner. Yeah. For three, four years in a row, just was killing it. That was untouchable. Well, now he's 18. He's like, I will kill you in your sleep if you do any Parent Corner about me. Do not mention my girlfriend. I will put a home on a moment's notice. He's just really terrified me.
A dozen years ago, you were talking about how he did all the finishing moves on his pillow and everything. Then he's like, You know what, pops, I'm going to do those for real on you if you mention me once now.
When he was a kid, we would do the once about When he would have the diaper and he would try to do the stink face on my wife when he had a gross diaper, when he was like, Two. Now, he's like, He doesn't still do that?
No, he doesn't do that.
Now, he's like, Leave me out of parent corner. He's a responsible kid. He's going to college next year. He's got a car. He's got a girlfriend. He's a nice kid. He doesn't want to be in parent corner anymore. But you have, fortunately for us, younger kids that could still be in parent corner. So you go first.
I have a 12-year-old. I have a junior in high school and a junior in college as as you do. Well, so about an hour ago, my son, Harrison, snagged a fly ball to end the game, and the South Bay Blue defeated OC Crush to win another fake gold ring. So we'll take it. I think they're coming on now. Nice. Congrats. Yeah. I mean, I'm very- Were you watching that on your your own or during the podcast? A little bit. Yeah, no, no, no. That was Golden Globes. That was Patriots, and it was South Bay Blue watching that. But my other son goes to Oregon. Big game came up against Indiana. And as he left for school, he went to drive back up to Oregon last week. I grabbed his shoulders and I said, Dude, bring us back a championship. And then he informed me that he doesn't play for the team. He just watches on TV.
That's what you wanted in a room for a championship. Yeah.
But I said to him, I was like, Look, if they beat Indiana, we'll figure something out. Because you have to send the kid, right? If they make the championship. So now they're losing by 700 points in the third quarter. And I text him. And I figured for sure he would think this is a joke. I was like, this is such a bummer. I got two tickets on the 50-yard line, 20 yards up for you and Cookie. I had you at Fontainebleau, and I got somehow there's a jet going there, and I was able to get you on there. And he was like, son of a bee. He's so upset. I was like, now, what do I do here? Do I tell him I'm joking around or let him think I'm father of the year or decade or the century. But there's a risk in it, too, because if Oregon comes back, I have to now come through on this. So now I'm looking at the Oregon Live line. I'm like, All right, I can get 70 to one. So if I I'll get $500 on Oregon, I'll get 35 grand, and I'll be covered for this thing that I promised him.
Let me just tell him I was kidding. I told him I was kidding. How'd that go? Not very good. So now I'm like the worst father. I went from best to worst. But anyway, don't promise things. Don't joke with your kids, I think is the moral.
Does your wife still cry when he goes back to college?
I think she goes in a different room and cries. She knows not to do it in front of me because I'm not a father.
She sneak cries? Yeah.
But she was the one who said, go away. She's like, you have to go away. He could have gone local. It's plenty of Cal schools out here.
Plenty of California to drive away.
She's like, you have to go. You have to live your life. You have to see what it's like to be away and regret it. I don't think he was the the asphalt was kicking back when he drove away, and she was upset.
My parent corner is about my mom, who I needed my mom. I had a surprise birthday party for my wife, that ironically, your wife was there. That's right. Not a lot of people, but had to get my wife out of my house because we had to set up the house, and her friends wanted to do this Mafia theme, and they wanted to dress up. It was like a Mob Lives theme, and they were all dressing like Gumars and all. Your wife did a very good Goodfellas, by the way. Yeah. I think it had been practicing.
She had a great time.
But I had to get my wife out of the house 5: 00 on Friday. So we had to go to my mom's. I had to get my mom involved. So I came up with this whole thing about... My friend Dave is one of the producers on JuryDuty, and it was like, we're going to... It's in a JuryDuty season 2 premiere, and it's a mafia theme. So we have to dress up like we're Mafia people. And we're going and we got to bring my mom because she's 100% Italian. So we're going to bring... We have to go to my mom's house. We'll have a glass of wine with her, then we'll drive back. And it's at Paramount. And My wife just falls for a hook, line, and sinker. I have a couple of my friends texting us. Like, are you going this week? I heard it's going to be really fun. So now the whole day, she's dressing, getting what she's going to wear, her outfit, all that. She goes to buy something on Friday, stops at my mom's house on the way home, and it's two o'clock. My mom, who like, anytime anyone comes over, she's just ready to...
The wine comes out. I noticed, I I check on Life 360, and it's 2: 35, and my wife is at my mom's, and I'm like, Oh, no. Because this is a surprise party, a lot of boozing. You definitely don't want to start early.
Everyone's arriving what time?
6: 30.
Okay.
You got a couple of few hours. I FaceTime my wife. She doesn't answer. I call my mom. She's like, Oh, yeah, we're here. We're just having some wine. I'm like, So I text my mom. I'm like, What are you doing? You're supposed to be like the decoy. So finally get her out. She comes back. We end up, we're on time. We go five o'clock, go to my mom's. My mom is nervous. She's going to screw it up. Come back, pretend that I forgot my key because I use my phone for my car. We got to stop by the house to get my key. We go in. Surprise, it works. How long do you think my mom stayed?
I was going to ask you this, but I thought it would sound insensitive.
It's 14 of my wife's friends. My mom's already had... We had a glass of wine. All these people are there. It's going to be food, whole thing. How long did she stay? Over, under, I'll give you over under 29. 5 minutes.
I'm going to say she's still there. No, I'm going to... Well, I mean, the way you're phrasing this, it has to be over. The wait, right? I mean...
Nine minutes.
Oh, wow.
Hugs everybody, says, and then she's like, I got to go. And she's calling an Uber. No kidding. I'm like, Why are you going to stay? We're having food. No, no, no. She said, No, no, no. You guys. And does the you guys thing and is gone. It was just like, what? Our parents just get weird. There's some... I don't know what the year is, but it's definitely going to happen to us, right?
Well, all right.
I hope we're still on Netflix at that point.
Yeah, we will be. Let me We defend her here, though. You just called her and told her, Don't forget, you're a decoy. Just be a decoy, lady.
No, I wanted her to come, though.
Get out of my house, decoy. I don't know. It's a little bit... No?
I don't know. She said the whole week, she kept thinking she was going to screw it up.
Have you talked to her about her since or you just didn't follow her?
Well, I texted her tonight because I told her about the Golden Gloves thing, which she knew is on. She said, I didn't watch. I refuse to watch CBS. Maybe I'll see it online. Cbs is canceled in my house. She's at that age.
She hates Romo. She's one of the people that hates Romo for no reason.
She might not like the Romo-Nance combo. But anyway, so that's it. Our parents are going, I'm sure you have 20 stories about it. I just can't figure them out anymore. It's like when they were talking about the cover three defense, the Panthers, when it was like, are they going to blitz? Are they going to go back? And Stafford has to read. That's how I feel about my mom all the time. Is she blitzing? Is she going back and cover three? What is she going to do? I just can't get a handle on it.
That's good. Listen, everyone's approaching 80. I think you just wander a little. My father's big thing is dry runs. So if there's a party in March, and he's like, what's the address? He'll go there tomorrow and dry, even if it's an hour, Just to get the lay of the land.
He's like a Whitehouse bodyguard. Yeah, exactly.
There's this assassination angle. I scoped it out. It's like, all right, you're not a scout on Jimmy Kimmer Live. You're just scouting locations in camera. What are you doing? Oh, my God.
What are you doing? I can't wait for a I'm going to get this nuts. I feel like we're still going to be gambling on football. I don't know what else is going to happen.
Listen, you're wearing a shirt in the sauna and you swore off pizza. You're there.
We're in a hoodie on Netflix. First ever Netflix pod. So every Sunday night, we're going to be live during football season. And then after that, you go away. You always come back on my pod. You're still on the Ringer Gambling Show. And then I'm going to keep going on Sunday Nets Live here. And if you want to see more of Sal, you can see him on the Ringer Gambling podcast, which how did we do on the show this week? Like, okay, happy to see.
We did good. On the pregame show, we had one Saturday and Sunday. We had one next Saturday and Sunday. I did all right. Pukin Naku, by the way. I don't even think we mentioned them that much, except for getting hit by... I mean, it's a freebie breakdown, and then you just wait for the I got plus 600 on two touch downs. And Boody, your guy Boody, is my favorite Patriot of all time. Plus 50, yeah. Plus 240 on 50 plus yards. I don't know if you saw, he pented this article about how he was a gambler. He mentioned his fan and everything. I was like, great. This is one of us, and he's going to be on the Ringer pregame show with us for three years.
One of the things I liked about that article was he talked for a long time about how special Drake may was.
He did?
And I read all content where people talk about how special Drake may is. I must not have gotten that far. Hopefully, he can bounce back next week. All right, that's it. First Netflix podcast in the book. A bunch of Ringer podcast coming on here tomorrow, along with some other ones. But I will be back with you tomorrow night, right after... We're not going live tomorrow night, but with the next podcast you'll see with us, we'll be talking about Stealers Texans. What's your final prediction for that one?
Stealers win the game. More nonsense from the ayahuasca God. One more week of him.
That's it. I think you're probably right on that. Thanks to Geha, thanks to Jack Wilson, thanks to Eduardo, thanks to Chris. Yeah. Thanks to everybody at Netflix who wanted to have us bring our video over here. It's been a true pleasure. Good to see you, Sal. Good job by you.
Good job by you, buddy.
Must be 21 plus in President Select States for a Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-100 Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. Call 888-79-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-n-kneticat or md-gamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelp-line-ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 877-8 Hope, N-Y or text Hope, N-Y in New York.
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons is joined by Cousin Sal LIVE on Netflix after the Patriots' win over the Chargers to recap the wild-card round of the NFL playoffs (3:25). Then, they guess the lines for the divisional round before ending with Parent Corner (01:11:46).
Host: Bill Simmons
Guest: Cousin Sal
Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo
This episode is brought to you by Apple Watch. Find out more at apple.com/apple-watch-series-11
The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices