Transcript of The Buffalo Curse, a Mega-Mailbag, QB Roulette, and Week 3 Picks With Joe House and Tom Pelissero

The Bill Simmons Podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network, where you can find the new episode of the Rewatchables. We did Law Abiding Citizen this week. Next week we are doing, uh, another rom-com. Yeah, 13 Going on 30. Jennifer Garner, a classic. Uh, it's on Netflix if you haven't seen it. Um, Or if you have seen it, or in the case of my wife and daughter, if you've been watching it really since 2004. Um, my daughter was watching it. She was minus one. She was somehow watching it, I think, in, in my wife's belly. Uh, a beloved rom-com though. So that's coming on Monday. Coming on this podcast, Joe House and I are gonna do, uh, a big listener mailbag. We're gonna take a break, bringing Tom Pelissero in. He's gonna give us the scoop on what's going on in the NFL heading into week 3. And then House and I are gonna do Ringer 107 Picks. It's all coming up next. We're gonna take a break, Pearl Jam, and then mailbag. The Bill Simmons Podcast is presented by FanDuel. The NFL is here and it's the most rewarding season ever on FanDuel with the all-time FanDuel Rewards Club.

Every eligible bet can earn you points. Win or lose, you still get points. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock. Head to fanduel.com/BS to start earning with FanDuel Rewards Club. 21+ select states or 18+ DC or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. Thursday, mid-afternoon, East Coast time. Joe House is here. We're gonna do picks in a little bit. I have a mailbag for you, House, and I didn't send you any of the questions ahead of time. Not one. No prep. But this is why you're one of the greats. You're just gonna roll with me. How are you, by the way?

I'm good. I'm phenomenal. I had a little midweek business trip, and at this stage of life, business trip means golf trip. So great time down in Richmond, Virginia, playing golf. Rained a little bit, but, you know, I'm back at it. Ready, ready to grind.

Are you excited for Jeselnik Book Club? You're a big English major.

Yeah. I have so many things to say about the Jeselnik Book Club. I just feel like Oh, all the best things, but none of which I'm gonna say on camera.

Oh, well, you were an English major in college. You're gonna have to come on.

And he's, he's, he's a deep thinker when it comes to the books.

I know. Well, it doesn't sound like you're that excited about it. Um, all right, mailbag question. These are mail, uh, mailbag questions from actual listeners, and the first one is from Joe from SoCal. Listening to your zombie Deshaun take And I think you should hereby refer to him as Deshaun of the Dead, like the early 2000s zombie parody movie. I love Deshaun of the Dead. I'm officially calling him that for the rest of my life.

It's a great name, and I wish I knew which version we were gonna get in the, in this game against the Panthers this weekend.

Well, spoiler alert, um, for our Ringer 107 picks coming later, is Tampa-Cleveland on your card?

It is not.

It's on my card. Not Tampa Bay. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Yeah, Cleveland. But Cleveland was— was—

that was last week.

A zombie apocalypse.

Yeah, that was the actual zombie apocalypse. The game stopped and everything. No, no, the, the Cleveland this week.

Yes.

Are they on your card?

They are not.

Against Carolina?

No, they are not.

Jeremy in Seattle wants to know, the Paul Pierce wheelchair GIF stood alone for decades. Unfair. He thought his knee popped. He panicked. Is the Caleb Williams carting off GIF the new gold standard? Congrats to Paul Pierce. You might finally be off the hook. What do you think?

First of all, the Paul Pierce GIF, definitely fair. He thought his knee popped, but he, they got him up off the court. He got into the chair. There's a, you, you, you know whether or not your knee popped.

He came back and he made some threes and we beat the Lakers in a finals game.

In the game. He came back in the game. He didn't sit out the rest of the game. I feel like it's entirely fair.

Caleb Williams made everyone think he blew out his Achilles and was really upset on the, on the cart. And then it turns out he might even be playing this weekend.

It's an astonishing performance by Caleb. Just, just magnificent. And the internet really has responded in kind. Not kind, but in kind. The internet has some opinions. of Caleb Williams and the way that that whole thing went down. My favorite was probably the side-by-side of Jaxson Dart walking off the field with torn ligaments in his knee and Caleb, you know, with a towel over his head. That one was a favorite.

Some people are just bad with pain. I mean, it's the reality.

It's the reality.

Like, my wife, my wife loves Instagram dog videos because she obviously clicks on all of them and then they get served to them and it's this never-ending cycle. There's this video, I think it's of a basset hound or a pit bull, I can't remember, who's getting his nails clipped. Have you seen it?

I saw it this week. I adored it. I'm not even on that, that algorithm, but I saw it.

Nothing's happening, and then all of a sudden the dog's nail gets clipped and he just goes, oh, for, for like 20 seconds. He does too.

He does a full one that goes 20 seconds and then he goes right back at it. It's only one nail clipping.

He's so upset. Doesn't like pain. He was on the injury cart. He's freaking out.

It's anticipatory pain for the dog. It doesn't hurt to have your nails clipped. He's just sure that they're gonna cut his paw. Poor guy.

Dogs don't like pain.

Poor girl.

Maybe some NFL players don't either. Speaking of the Browns, Ken from Cleveland said, as a lifelong Browns fan, before last weekend's game, I realized the most Browns thing that could happen was us beating the Bucs. Now we are stuck with Watson starting the home opener, coming off arguably his best start as a Brown. Which will lead to fans trying to talk themselves into him, all leading to the typical disappointment that fans feel watching the Browns losing another home opener 10-6 when Watson throws multiple interceptions in his boot throughout the game in the factory of sadness. Anyway, congrats on another week of betting against Deshaun Watson. No way the Browns scored 20 points in this game. You might even get 2 weeks because we play Pittsburgh the week after. These are all some really good points. We made a lot of fun of Deshaun last week, guys.

I'm not betting against him. I'm just not doing it.

Deshaun of the Dead, you're staying away?

He played better than Baker Mayfield. He had a better game than Baker Mayfield. Baker Mayfield's making $165 million over these next 3 years.

I sadly watched the entire game and said this on Sunday night. I thought Deshaun of the Dead was legitimately good in that game. Now, he wasn't throwing anything really deep. But it was all short stuff. He had a real rhythm. Tough offense was moving the ball.

Great.

And it seemed like his teammates were buying into him. I might get sucked in. You'll have to stay. Yo Cannon from South Florida, I hope I said that correctly, said, you always talk about coaches on the hot seat. Maybe we need a new category. We call it the crock pot slow cooker seat. This is a good one for you. When your wife's mom makes a delicious slow-cooked stew.

Mm.

What's better than that smell, by the way?

Mm.

We're in, we're in crockpot season now officially too.

You have to wait all night or 24 hours for the stew to be ready. You get up in the morning and the whole house smells good, but it's not ready to be eaten yet. You just keep thinking about it all day until finally about 24 hours later, you're ready to eat that delicious stew. How hungry are you right now?

Just, just over the top. It's amazing.

This is a perfect category for coaches that we just feel like the seat is warming up, but we still need to wait a little bit for the seat to be proper hot. So I guess the analogy here is Jim Harbaugh. Is it a crockpot seat or a hot seat for Jim Harbaugh right now? It might be a crockpot seat. I think we're taking the crockpot to Buffalo this weekend.

I think that's crazy. Harbaugh, he will bail before the seat gets hot enough.

Either.

It's, it's, it's, it's an eject seat for him. He's in an, in a fighter jet and he's like, I'm not gonna let these guys get— I'm gonna hit the eject button and float down to some, you know, soft landing. The guy—

who's the crockpot coach then? So you think Jim Harbaugh's in the Top Gun eject seat?

Bowles is for sure in a hotter seat.

Bowles is in a hot seat though. He's not a crockpot seat.

Okay. So it's not, it's, it's already hot. It's not, it's not warming up.

It's a coach that we have, we have some questions and concerns about, but it hasn't really got— here's, here's one. I, I wouldn't rule this one out, especially if, if they go 0-3 this weekend, but DeMeco Ryans.

Hmm.

Could that be cooking on the stove like a stew for a few weeks?

Well, I'm not sure because all 3 hard games and they started 0-3 last season. And he, you know, I don't even recall him being on, on any kind of—

I like Carboss, the crockpot guy.

All right.

Do you think Stews are underrated?

Yes. Yes. I'm so ready. It's, we're in the season. I saw my first white guy with the beard wearing the knit hat. You hear on the East Coast, you know, where we're fishing. I'm sure up in Boston they're all over the place.

Yeah.

Uh, and yeah, the first—

Was it Chris Ryan?

No, I mean, Chris, that is a look for Chris Ryan. That's true.

Yeah.

But I didn't see Chris Ryan.

With multiple layers.

Yeah.

The thing with the stew, there's never enough like broth in the stew. And where the stew's— my wife, when she's a little hit or miss with it, but when it hits, it's unbelievable. But if there's not enough stew, then it just becomes all the contents of the stew after like one day and it all, you know what I mean?

You can rebroth.

But then if it's too brothy—

You can rebroth.

If it's too brothy, then it's not stewy enough. There's like this real middle ground you have to hit.

It's really hard. There's a sweet spot there. This is a nice challenge. Let's pose this one to Dave Chang.

Maybe when you come to LA, maybe Dave Chang can make us a stew.

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Let's see.

The problem is it's not the same Dave Chang anymore. He's not the same cook.

Now let me ask this.

Is Dave Chang 15 years ago would have been like, I'm gonna make you the best stew ever. This Dave Chang now is like, I don't know, I'm flying with Amazon this week, can't do it. I don't know if I'm gonna have time.

He's got a CNN show.

Yeah, he's got a CNN thing. I don't know, all over this great nation of ours eating stews. Are one of those things, if at a restaurant, if they're like, one of our specials tonight is a delicious beef stew, it's like, okay, that sounds wonderful.

Yeah, more, more often you see like seafood stew, like a cioppino or something, like, uh, you know, look at all of the shellfish that are in here with like a rich tomato broth. But folks don't say, have some beef stew. I, I've seen shepherd's pie, I've seen chicken pot pie. But those are not stews. Those are, you know, they, they have a, a kind of a filling that has sort of a brothy soft that's very nice and nourishing and comforting. But somebody needs to just jump out and say, fuck it, I'm going full stew. Have some stew.

One great thing about this, well, 2 great things about the stews that you just don't get in other entrees. One are the really soft potatoes.

Amazing.

When the potatoes just kind of, yes, they almost like mashed potatoes, but they're still, right, have a hardness in them.

They have a tiny bit of a texture still.

And then the big-ass carrots that also get soft, I think, are my single favorite thing.

That's right.

Yes.

I love the big-ass carrots.

I don't mind a tiny little onion in there either. I don't mind the onion in the stew. I don't mind it.

I wonder if Dave Chang would make us stew.

Nice beef stew? Strong umami? Go ahead.

Speaking of cooks, so I was dubious of the Tony movie because it's A24, and I'm just— my body's just starting to reject the A24 overcampaigns for every movie they do. Like, settle down. A24, for real. Um, so I didn't see it in the theater, but I did rent it last week.

Okay.

And I loved it. I thought it was fantastic. I really loved it.

I wanted—

I really genuinely loved it. I was so impressed by how they did it and the angle they took, and I thought the actors were good. And I just— it's probably my favorite movie I've seen in 2026. I even— it's, it's that or Obsession.

The Ringer liked it. I think Greenwald and Chris Ryan gave it very high marks.

Everybody liked it. I just was, you know, I'm always a little dubious with them 'cause I think they promote stuff.

Putting this on my list.

It's really, really good. I like it.

All right, Tony.

Adam in DC.

Hey, what's up, Adam?

You better put on a bulletproof vest for this email. With all the talk about the 49ers substation this summer, I can't believe that no one has brought up the fact that the Commanders practice facility in Ashburn is surrounded by literally The biggest collection of hyperscale data centers on Earth. They're like robot fortresses, and they're all on all sides of the commie practice bubble. In fact, the team already has a contract to sell the land to build more data centers. This place is literally radioactive. The world needs to know. Currently, 14 of our 22 starters are out with injuries. I haven't heard a single word from anyone about the outcomes of spending training camp next to a 100X substation. Can't believe House hasn't brought this up. This man needs to get off the golf course and spend some time out in the DMV. Love the show. Adam in D.C. Wow. Just an attack on House.

Calm down. First of all, it's barely the DMV where the Ashburn and all that is too far out. I'm not going all the way out there. And those data centers have been cropping up. I, I will confess that I am unfamiliar with how many there are. And this notion that they're surrounding— I know that there's some in, in proximity. I've been out there, but I didn't— I'm— I was unaware of, of this idea that they're surrounding the practice facility. But I don't—

Maybe it's like the San Francisco thing with Les PR. Um, I took Adam's word for it, a complete stranger, and did no Googling whatsoever about it. So I'm just throwing it out there in the universe. I thought you were gonna know.

No, I don't know, because I'm— it's The Ashburn is—

Are there data centers in that Asheville area?

There are. There are Ashburn, and there are data centers in that direction.

Yes.

They're definitely there.

We're gonna have to watch this.

And they may have been sprouting up. I might be completely unaware of how many there are.

By the way, San Francisco's playing incredible.

Yeah.

And maybe the substation is now helping them. Maybe it's giving them superpowers.

I'm gonna knock on wood for that.

I want them to keep playing well.

Well, since that last email was mean to House, this next one— is an all-timer from Alex Gordon, and it's very favorable for House.

Oh, good.

On October 24th of this year on the BS Report, you were discussing how great the Red Sox turnaround was when the great Joe House unleashed this masterpiece, which came out of absolutely nowhere. Quote, yeah, I'd like to invite the Red Sox to eat a fat dick because I bet them consecutive games against the Athletic— Athletics. What was that? Once I finished howling with laughter, It wasn't on the Caleb Wilson cum room level, but it was still hilarious. I got to think about how House had inadvertently stumbled upon a great idea for the newest segment of the BS Report. He called it BS Podcast. The Invitation to Eat a Fat Dick segment. Sponsor TBD. Sponsor's gonna be tough for this.

Oh, wow.

Each week, you and/or the other host could pick a player, a team, or fan base that has displeased you. Really, the possibilities are endless. And invite said team, player, et cetera, to eat a fat dick. My invited guest to the inaugural Eat a Fat Dick segment on the BS Podcast would be Enes Kanter Freedom. Oh, maybe House can extend invites or others can vote on who gets the invite. Uh, there's a lot of irritating people, fan bases, teams. Just how irritating they are will be earned with an invitation from House to eat a fat dick. Thank you for this attention to this matter.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Wow. Sponsors are gonna be tough. I will, I'll talk to Spotify ad sales. Liz Kelly, maybe we'll be good on it.

find somebody that, that sells a food product that is like—

Like hot dogs?

Close enough. Yeah, that, that sounds great. Like a giant brat. Yeah, yeah, we could— we can do this. We can definitely make this. Johnsonville makes some delicious brats. We could find somebody that makes something that's big enough.

I would have done this for the Mariners last week, and I'm happy to do it this week too. George Kirby, Anthony Munoz, Josh Naylor.

I think he—

Welcome to the Eat a Fat Dick segment.

Hebrew National sells, sells jumbos. Yeah, first of all, I'm still stuck on the sponsor, but this is obviously genius. I obviously endorse this. My very first Eat a Fat Dick invitation would indeed go to Baker Mayfield and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for— I mean, they cost me $21 million. I was gonna win $21 million until last week. Sons of bitches. I might have to borrow that from you.

See, I think I think, uh, weather and lightning delays and all that stuff played as big of a factor. I still think they were gonna win that game.

They were gonna— yeah, they were driving, they were going right down the field, and then it's— and then they come back after 3 hours and it's an overthrow and it's a dirtball and it's a guy who drops a pass. Come on, man.

We'll workshop you to Fat Dick and I'll get back to you with sponsors. Nate from San Antonio said, on a Thursday pod I couldn't help but notice how the way you talked about the Bills was identical to the dialogue about the Knicks last season. Both fired the coach that built the program. Both teams in a conference described as wide open. No one would pick them to win the Super Bowl over the big boys in the West NFC except Max Kellerman. Can they win it all like the Knicks did?

The answer is yes. As we sit here today on September the 24th, uh, just Just in advance, who are they hosting this weekend? They're favored by a touchdown, full touchdown.

They're playing the Chargers.

The Chargers, favored by a full touchdown.

Well, let me give you this one. This is— that was a 1A email. This is a 1B from Trevor in LA. In 2012, LeBron was in his 9th year in the NBA, had won MVPs, was widely regarded as the best player in the league, had not won a championship, and was coming off his biggest playoff failure. 2026, Josh Allen in his 9th year in the NFL, He's won an MVP, driven winning elite level, widely regarded as the best player in the league. He's not won a championship coming off one of his biggest playoff failures. We know what LeBron did in 2012. Can Josh do that in 2026? I like that one.

I like that one.

Also, the Josh Allen thing makes people mad, which is funny. It's like great for the Sports Take universe. Some people are like, why are we talking about Josh Allen like this? I think it's ridiculous.

We, we do hold especially quarterbacks to what have you done in the playoffs standard. That's the standard. We murder Justin Herbert for it. Lamar has been—

I feel like we murdered Josh Allen last year. I thought you did.

I did.

And Sal did. And everyone I did a podcast with, he sucked in that playoff game. We gave it to him.

He, he, he gave it to them. He, he gave it to them. That play at the end of the half, that, that was a unforgivable. Yes. The only thing I'll observe, I would really like that this thing will pick up steam if Buffalo really handles their, their, its business against the Chargers this weekend. The, the line is, is kind of rich and you're supposed to take the Chargers in this circumstance, desperate Chargers. And you, the reminder is they should, the, the Bills should have lost game 1 against Houston. Lassiter had the ball in his hands, you know, that would've ended the—

Yeah.

the football game, and then they caught Detroit coming off of an overtime game on a short week.

Yeah, we have no idea if their defense is any good.

Right, that's it.

So there's a lot of— surprisingly, I do not have the Bills-Chargers game as in my— as a teaser leg.

Oh, um, I don't have them in anything.

Yeah, and it's more because of some of the stats with the 0-2 teams and desperation and the fact that I don't know if the Bills defense is any good.

We have no idea.

And they certainly can't say it looked good the first 2 games. Um, speaking of the Knicks, Andrew from Boston wanted to point out, since you did that mailbag question about New York having great sports karma post-Knicks for the first time in a generation, Aaron Judge got injured with no set return. Jets blew a 10-point lead because their coach didn't understand the overtime rules. Jackson Dart out for the year. Wasn't intentional. I don't— I try to obey all karma rules, but it was notable that it wasn't a great week for, for New York teams after all those things happened.

The high watermark of the season for the, for the Giants was beating Dallas on Sunday night.

Ethan from New York weighed in. Dude, the Yankees without Aaron Judge have all the makings for one of the all-time great Ewing Theory runs. Oh, best hitter in baseball, multi, multi-time MVP. It's gonna miss some of the postseason. And he said, best scenario is the Yankees make the World Series and then weak LA without him. Then he comes back and they lose to the Dodgers, and his Ewing Theory status is cemented.

Wow.

He does fit the— like, listen, the original definition of the Ewing Theory is superstar, incredible media hype, um, never actually won anything, team plays better without him. Yankees have really good starters. I like their bullpen. And I think they can generate offense with or without him.

Even elements are in place.

The elements are in place. Last week, Sal and I talked about the, um, masked backup for QBs that you just wouldn't know.

Incredible. Amazing.

Nathan Wise suggests that we call— Nathan Wise suggests we call it the masked slinger.

Oh, oh yeah.

I don't know how we didn't think of that.

Great job, Nathan.

The cuz would've thought of that last week, but I, I think he had taken like 7 Percocets and wasn't positive where he was 'cause of the kidney stones.

Is, is the— are the kidney stones done?

I think they're still going.

Oh, I'm sorry to hear it.

It's, it's really tough times for the cuz.

He deserves better. Did you, did you tell him to drink some hot water with lemon?

I did. I told him to drink a lot of hot water.

What a friend.

Jacob H. in rural Washington says, I don't understand Vegas having a much higher valuation for an NBA franchise than Seattle, which is true. The Vegas thing is that like mid-9s, allegedly edging toward 10. I just don't believe it. But now everybody thinks they're going to stagger it, just name the Vegas team first and hope that they can build up the bidding for Seattle with more suitors, but the people that don't get the Vegas team. Um, Jacob points out Seattle has a rabid and loyal fan base that will show out even if the Sonics suck. Look how we show up for the Mariners even though they always break our hearts. Vegas has no good fan base. Opposing fans will take over, blah, blah, blah. And he just doesn't understand how Vegas is more valuable. I've asked around on this, and I think it was the same thing that happened with the Seahawks. I think those super rich guys just are looking at convenience as much as anything. And Vegas is really easy for everybody to get to, whereas Seattle is in the Pacific Northwest and it's 3 hours beyond anything. And I, I think it's a convenience thing.

Does that make sense?

For sure. There's also unquestionably all of the collateral revenue streams that are just—

That come with Vegas.

That come with Vegas.

Like, you build the arena, you, you 365 days, basically.

Yeah, exactly right.

It's those 2 things. But I do think the convenience thing is a big piece of it too. Boy, Conspiracy Bill was summoned by MC from North Attleboro. Said he's always been fascinated by Tom Brady in retirement. Beside all the weird personal life stuff, no comment. I love Tom Brady. I can't get over his arrangements with the NFL and Fox. He becomes a part-time owner in a team that he has no connection to, and we're still not sure how he paid for it. Becomes a top comment— color commentary guy for the network covering games for teams in the largest media markets and seemingly circumvents all existing rules the league had to prevent those dueling arrangements. My question for Conspiracy Bill. Did the NFL do this for Brady as a makeup for Deflategate? Boom. That seems like you, you think the answer to that is yes. Conspiracy Bill is levitating like the Niners put an electro substation next to my podcast right now. What a great theory.

They also made it up to Kraft, didn't they?

How'd they make it up to Kraft?

Isn't he in some kind of— Isn't he in the Hall of Fame?

Did he get in? I thought he didn't get in.

Oh, well, whatever.

I don't think—

maybe he's gonna get in.

Yeah, at some point. Um, I really like this Deflategate idea because it's still like, if you actually go back and sift through the facts of that whole thing, that was one of the all-time railroading. And it's amazing he didn't sue the league and probably could have and gotten away with it.

Oh, come on, the fucking Patriots have been cheating for decades. We just hear story after story about—

I'll give that over there—

this cheating after that cheating after this cheating.

I know he got caught.

And so the league does step in on one, one element of it and, and punishes. And it was a very gentle punishment. I mean, let's be honest, all the evidence for this serial cheating— you give us enough evidence, doesn't matter. The league gets to make up the rules. That was a railroading I, I will fully admit cheating for 2 decades.

I'll fully admit maybe they did some other stuff.

Yeah, they did.

They sure did.

But in this case, I don't think he did it.

Who cares?

I think he liked the balls a little lighter.

Doesn't matter. You like the balls a little lighter. Doesn't matter. You like the balls lighter. Suck a fat one.

How about that? Eat a fat dick.

Eat a fat dick.

Uh, with the Manning cast, this is from Emory from Columbus, Ohio.

I'm nervous.

This is a really good one. All right. The Manning cast struggling.

Yeah.

Jason Kelce appearing in roughly every third commercial. Travis Kelce continuing to absorb the gravitational pull of Taylor Swift's fame.

Hmm.

It has to be asked, have the Kelce brothers market corrected the Manning brothers? At what point would this be a full undeniable market correction? He suggests Travis stars in a movie with Tom Cruise. I'm gonna say no. Jason Kelce runs for president. Donna Kelce gets her own cooking show. The brothers launch a drama on Peacock called Kelce. He goes on and on. I think it's already happened.

You beat me to it. We're there. There's no question. They're way beyond. Travis Kelce is married to Taylor fucking Swift. She is a worldwide phenomenon. Look at that. Respectfully, I'm a fan of the Mannings in general. I, I've enjoyed the Manningcast in the past. Not right now, but in the past. And they're not in the same category. The Kelces are next level.

Really tough to hold off the Kelces, especially when they're doing the Sunday Ticket ad with Jason Kelce and his wife, who also somehow has a podcast. Yeah, I think it's already happened.

I see that ad. I'm not gonna tell you right now. Every time I see it, I'm like, oh, can I, where's my invitation? I wanna go to that. The— I want to go see—

well, 'cause they have food.

Yeah, they have. It looks great.

It's a great spread.

Yeah. I think they're doing a great job with that fake hosting a party concept.

Mike from Farmingville wants to know, is Miles Garrett the greatest ever NFL good stats, bad team player? Oh wow. That's— and he says he's never played a meaningful game in the NFL. That's not true. He has played in a playoff game. They even won a playoff game. He's played in 3 playoff games.

Oh, he is.

But he said every other all-time great defensive player, Reggie White, Lawrence Taylor, Deion Sanders, name it. led teams to championships. He spent his career compiling great stats in games that didn't matter. Now he goes ring chasing with the Rams who already won a championship.

I'm gonna say names that feel disrespectful. Is—

did—

what was the most important game LaDainian Tomlinson ever played in? I'm not, I'm not suggesting— I don't wanna be disrespectful to LaDainian Tomlinson.

He did.

He was in the playoffs a few times.

Yeah.

And yeah, that's—

I mean, Myles Garrett was in the playoffs.

I just don't think football is like basketball except for quarterbacks.

It's too hard. Yeah.

You could be the greatest defensive end of all time, and if your offense sucks and your coach sucks, it's not gonna matter. And he's now in the position where on the Rams with a really good team, if he's healthy, we'll, we'll see how he can affect everything. Reggie White went to the Packers and that was the last piece of his career and all that stuff, and they ended up winning.

It feels like there should be a quarterback in this category.

That's how I felt.

You're not gonna find anybody that rivals the all-time great status that Garrett has, has rightfully kind of earned. We can't think of any quarterbacks like Dan Marino. Is that— but Dan Marino did play in a Super Bowl.

All the people who follow this shit say that the stuff Myles Garrett has been doing for the last 8, 9 years is out of control and just double-teamed all the time, teams running away on the other side of him. And I don't think it's fair. Like, the Patriots had a couple great football players when I was younger. Like, Andre Tippett was incredible, and we really only had one awesome season with him where he was at the forefront and they won the 3 straight playoff games in a row and went to the Super Bowl. But he was awesome, and nobody, nobody outside of New England barely even knew who he was. Um, because our team always sucked.

Yeah, somebody will listen to this and, and have a good answer and send it to you. And then we'll, we'll have some good, you know, it's a, it's an interesting question. I just, I think my instinct is the same as yours, which is you can't really do that to football players, can we?

No.

Maybe it's something we're not thinking of.

If we're talking about best defensive players in our lifetime, it's LT and then everybody else for me.

That's a fact. That's a fact.

I, I actually think like LT, his teams would've won no matter who, who the fuck was on it. He just would've figured it out.

Yeah.

I've never seen anybody like that dude.

Me either.

Like, to me, it's, it's him and Jerry Rice are the two that I just feel like are above everyone I've ever seen at their positions by far.

Yeah.

All right, we're gonna take a break, come back, do a couple more. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Here's something to look forward to between kickoffs this Sunday with Sunday Spectacular. FanDuel Rewards Club members can unlock exclusive rewards throughout the day with offers tailored to their Rewards Club level. Depending on your level, you can unlock things like profit boosts, reward boxes, point boosts, challenges, choose your reward offers, choose your reward, much more. The best part, new rewards drop throughout Sunday's game, so there's always something new to discover as the day unfolds. Check out Sunday Spectacular in the FanDuel app, only on FanDuel Rewards Club. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. 21+ select states or 18+ DC or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Football has a play for just about everything, and whether it's a flea flicker or a tush push, you need a plan. that fits your unique situation. That's why State Farm takes the time to get to know you so they can help personalize coverage for your life and for your budget.

Now that's a solid game plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, a couple more mailbag questions. Steve from OKC said, you frequently talk about the 90/10 rule with star athletes, use Westbrook as the example. Is Baker the NFL Westbrook, an athlete who's great and could will victories without a great supporting cast, bad coaching, but is 10% is his decision-making, which is like getting hit by a truck in a crosswalk. I don't think Baker's a great athlete and I don't think it counts.

That's respectfully disrespectful to Russell Westbrook. Yeah.

Russell Westbrook is the top 60 player ever. Yes.

Yeah.

Not, yeah.

He averaged a triple-double for a season. He didn't, he won the MVP that season undeserved, but he did do that. He did do that.

There's a weird crossroads for Baker right now because he really was 2 quarterbacks last year. The guy from the first 6, 7, 8 games, whatever that was, and then he had all the injuries and he fell apart. And then the guy we've watched this year, which has just been incredibly sloppy with the basket, with the football. All of it. And the basketball.

Both football.

Any ball.

Any ball he's touching, he's sloppy with.

But even like in that, in that post-lightning drive, He had Ekubuka for the winning touchdown and he just overthrew it. Like, and he used to— last year he was making that play.

Yeah.

Jeff from Cincinnati said, one of your great underrated bits of the past was when you'd refer to Ryan Tannehill as Lauren Tannehill's husband. I gotta be honest, I didn't remember that. It's time to bring it back for Justin Herbert, who should now be called Madison Beer's fiancé.

Oh, are they engaged?

I don't even know. I just thought that was really mean. Alex from Hamilton, Ontario says, we're all collectively struggling to find historical comp for the Herbert experience. Why isn't it Kirk Cousins? He sends all the stats of their career stats per 17 games, career win percentage, completion percentage, yards per 7. Like, it's actually pretty crazy how similar it is. 29 TDs per 17 games for Cousins. 29 for Herbert. Like, it, it's pretty nuts. QB ratings almost the same. I was shocked. And then the playoff stuff is obviously bad. And then he decides maybe this is disrespectful to Kirk.

He's right.

He beats him in all this stuff. He has a playoff win.

Yeah.

He can always say he beat Justin when he was 38 and Herbert was 28. And then he suggests this nickname, Justin's Second Cousins.

A+. I love it.

Kirk Cousins. I love it.

Yeah.

Nobody can, can disrespect Kirk Cousins' career. Nobody can.

You like that?

I like that. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's an incredible career. All the money that he's made and going from place to place, and each time he leaves, the, the place takes a— like, look at Atlanta. Atlanta would be dying to have Kirk Cousins right now. Completely dysfunctional.

They just had to pay him $75 million next season, but they had him under contract.

They had him.

Alex S had a Herbert thing. He, he thinks he's Gen Z Jay Cutler. Big arm, Hollywood wife, girlfriend, limited success and excuses. Give this to the world. I like second cousins. I'm going with that.

Yeah.

And then, um, one more Herbert thing. I've been talking about the nerd kings all year and how Herbert lost it. Jordan Love gained it. Like, great timing for me with that whole, with that, that whole bit. Who is the opposite of that player in the NFL? The guy who doesn't grade well analytically, but the eye test tells a different story. NBA version was obviously Jaylen Brown. Who is in the NFL? It's clearly Jalen Hurts, right? Oh, is Jalen Hurts the Jaylen Brown of the NFL?

We watch him.

They both won a title.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

It's— it, it never feels great. But the, the results are there. His fans would rather have him than not have him. It doesn't really make sense conventionally with how we look at the stats for those positions.

Even the touchdown that he threw to beat the Titans at the end, that was a great play and a great pass, right? It was a great catch also, but okay.

So it's Jalen Hurts, I think, is our answer.

That's a good one.

I like that one. Anthony in Toms River wants to know, um, how I feel historically about Jalen Brunson hosting SNL.

Historically?

Which is happening on Saturday. And who are the best athletes ever to host the show?

Oh, okay. All right.

Does he have a chance to crack it? So I went through it. I think there's like 33, 34 athletes who've hosted the show in the last 50-plus years. People would have Jordan as one of the 4 best, and I actually don't think his was one of the 4 best. I don't, I don't even think that's a hot take. I'll go in reverse order for who I thought was the best.

Yeah.

Joe Montana.

Okay.

The famous sketch of when you could hear the person's inner monologue and, and, and Phil Hartman's on a date, I think with Jan Hooks, and they're like, would you like to get a glass of wine? And then it cuts to him and he's like, I'd like to jump your bones. And it's like everything in your head. And then Joe Montana's the roommate and he comes in. And they're like, hey Bob, where are you gonna go? And he's like, I'm gonna go upstairs and masturbate. And then the thought bubble was like, I'm gonna go upstairs and masturbate. It was just groundbreaking stuff. Remember, we were in college.

I do remember.

We were like, oh my God, Joe Montana. So he has to be 4th.

All right.

Uh, Peyton Manning was really good.

Peyton Manning is outstanding.

Yes, I have him, I have him 3rd.

Bill Russell.

Oh, second. I don't remember Bill Russell. They did like an 8-minute SNL sketch called The Black Shadow, which was a parody of The White Shadow with Bill Russell, and it was an absolute tour de force.

You need to send that around to the internet. The internet needs to see this.

I think it bounces around every once in a while.

I need to see it.

And he was on Miami Vice playing Bernard King's father, was another Bill Russell thing. And then that's the best one ever. It's almost not fair, but The Rock is the best athlete turned host ever. He was He did, uh, Barack Obama, The Rock Obama, whatever that one was. But he was just ridiculous as the host. So that would be my top 4. Any ones you would throw in, or is that a good 4 for you?

No, I'm fine with it. Uh, the MJ was more like—

it was more a moment.

Exactly. We felt like we were getting an inside look at a version of MJ that didn't exist because he was such a hero to us, and that, you know, the world was so different in terms of how we what was accessible to us in terms of consuming this person and persona. And he showed a real genuine sense of humor, and he showed— and it was like, oh, MJ! It just added to the hagiography. Put that man up. The sainthood of MJ.

Yeah.

All we had to digest MJ was the games, going to a game, the posters, and the ads. And then every once in a while, he'd go on a talk show, or he'd sit down with Iman Rashad.

And other than that, we had no idea what was going on with him. Right.

Pregame and postgame.

game interviews were all monotone, right to the point.

Yeah, you're right. That's a really good point. That was the first time SNL was the first time we're like, oh, I didn't know he did this too.

Right.

You know? Oh, he has a sense of humor. Like we just really didn't know. Hunter Price wants— I like that question.

I'm happy with that one. Thank you.

Hunter Price wants to know if the new Colts owner, Callie Gordon-Irsey, Callie Irsey Gordon.

I'm worried about where this is going. Go ahead.

New Colts owner has ever surfaced on my new owner syndrome radar.

Ooh, okay.

I mean, I have loved the new owner syndrome forever.

I'm glad you asked this in that manner.

I know Indianapolis is the kind of non-threatening friend in the group that nobody wants to rag on, but trading 2 first-round picks for Sauce Gardner last year was indefensible. Who trades a massive amount of draft capital for a player who has zero evidence of helping a team win? Also, the whole listening into the coach headset is ridiculous. Does she make the new owner syndrome list? He didn't even mention the taking notes on the sideline.

That, that's the most remarkable of all. How can we get access to those notes? That's, that's, that's the starting point.

Yeah, she should publish those on Instagram.

But the question that he proposed, the big dummy, um, that's the general manager of Jacksonville did that. He traded all, you know, for Travis Hunter. Yeah, he just, he did that, that guy. I can't, I can't pull his name up.

I would just never do trades like that in football. You want, in football, you just want as many bites on the apple as possible. Yeah. And if you're putting that much capital towards somebody, that person better be incredible.

It's why we gave the Browns credit for the Myles Garrett trade. Right. They got Garrett for—

First, second, third, and Jared Verse for a guy who's 30, who obviously wasn't 100% healthy.

Yeah. Good job by them.

I, my only thing with Callie Gore, I didn't like when she, was so candid about the coach and GM are done if this doesn't go well. I like, it's just—

The GM deserves to go. Chris Ballard's heart—

he's, he's been manipulating the press forever. Forever. There's a, there's like a feature about him every year and a half. But I didn't, I thought it was weird to put it that way because I thought it just brought undue pressure to a team that, you know, had a quarterback coming back from an Achilles that nobody had high hopes for anyway. And then a lot of the other stuff just looks, look at me to me. It's like, look at me taking notes. Here I am.

Look at me. This, this happens in the NFL though. They're the, they're, they're the dumbest. Like the owners in the NFL are, are by far, I, I feel like, I mean, the, the Haslams, the stuff that they do, how cheap, cheap they get. The, the people in Tennessee who drove out Vrabel so they could enjoy this half decade of a shit sandwich. It might, it'll probably be a full decade of a shit sandwich. Uh, James Gladstone, that's the general manager of the Jaguars.

That trade was horrible.

Covering himself in shit glory.

Speaking of, uh, the Eat a Fat Dick segment, Noah from Boise, Idaho said, my question is this. He's a, he's a Packer fan. I'm sorry, he's a Steelers fan. Why is the sad Aaron Rodgers retirement tour happening on the Steelers? He won the Packers the Super Bowl. They should be enduring this pain. I've been listening to McShay talk about how this is the best draft class in 10 years. Let's blow it up. Escape the Tomlin curse. Time is now. It is a good point. The retirement tour should not be like— this is like, this guy wasn't on our team during the, during the salad years. Why do we have to deal with this guy?

That's great.

I love it.

I agree with you. Brandon Draper. is upset because the Lions lost to the electric Jayden Daniels in his Rookie of the Year season, and now he's gonna have his second straight year where he doesn't play a year of meaningful football.

Oh, he's upset. I'm upset too.

Well, they lost a shot at the title because of a guy who had one good season. Is that even worse than the team like the '90s Knicks always losing to Jordan, or Allen falling short to Mahomes? It sucks to miss out on our title shot because of a one-hit Wonder, is that fair?

Sure. Yeah, it, it, it's fair. They should have planned better. They had a bye week. They got to watch all of Jayden Daniels. They got to watch Washington. Yeah. They had a home game. They game planned poorly and they executed it in the second half, especially every time Jahmyr Gibbs touched the ball, he gained like 11.5 yards.

It's really hard.

And they couldn't figure out how to get him the ball. And Goff threw 5 picks. Like, what do you, what do you play? Play better. What do you want me to say?

I knew you'd have a reaction like that, which is why I had the question. There's— here's another mean Jayden Daniels question. Um, he said, much like Mr. Joe House, I'm a long-suffering fan of the Washington Football Team. Um, he wonders if Jay Daniels is not built for the NFL. I know you have concerns about that too, but he's perfect for flag football. Oh, is the answer for Washington Draft a new QB, release Jayden Daniels, and he can become the face of USA flag football and get his soul back and gets to play backyard football without getting hit. We get our ideal QB. He asked Joe House, would you rather watch Jayden Daniels suffer through an injury-plagued career with the Commanders or be the face of Team USA as we dominate the world in Olympic football?

God, I hate this question.

I figured you would. You don't have to answer.

I thought—

I don't know what to do. I mean, I mean, this guy right here. Give it to this guy.

Isn't there a way to just not have him take huge hits all the time and have things happen?

The—

here's the thing. His injured elbow was because he fell down. He didn't, he didn't take a hit. He ran for almost 70 yards against Dallas, and he was being super smart about the way he looked really good. And there, that offense was humming. The offense was going to be this season formidable because, you know, they, they— that Antonio Williams is revealing himself as a guy who can get separation. Chig, the tight end, as soon as he gets over his latest hamstring issue, um, even with the offensive line compromise. But it's over now. Cosmi's in concussion protocol. It's the— it's Mariota time.

But that was tough.

I do wonder, he could come back if they can get You know, a modern brace on that elbow.

So second injury to that elbow, right?

Yeah, but it's just a dislocated elbow. It looks grotesque, and I'm not suggesting that it— but he can play. He can still play if they can protect that elbow and keep it from popping out. He's not— his legs aren't hurt, his throwing arm isn't hurt, and he was making good decisions this season in terms of, of how he scrambled and the hits he was willing to take. He wasn't putting himself in harm's way. He just fell down. He fell down on that. And it's clear that the internet doctors have said that's—

Wow, internet doctors.

That can happen. It can pop out again because at some point he'll get surgery to tighten the whole structure. But he doesn't have to do it this season because they have braces and people want to know why wasn't he wearing a brace in the first place so it didn't happen. And it feels like a fair question to me. I don't know. Maybe he wasn't comfortable with it. Maybe they didn't experiment with it. But I honestly think he will come back this season and, and play and be effective. That's what I think.

So the reason I wanted to do that question is I completely agree with you, and I think people overreacted to the injury if they felt like this was an injury-prone Jaylen— Jayden Daniels thing. Now, um, same, same thing twice with the elbow, fixable. And I thought he looked good in the games I watched. I thought he was effective in the second half of the first game, and then in the Dallas game, he was He was doing stuff like, to me, I would have much more concern about somebody like Penix having like his 3rd ACL surgery.

Multiple ACL repairs.

Or somebody like Tua who clearly can't play anymore. Like, right, I don't think there's enough evidence yet that you can't create an awesome offense around Daniels. And if anything, like, if I was another team, it's like, oh, you, you're worried about him long-term? We'll take him and then build an offensive line and some sort of infrastructure around him to protect him. But I, I thought he was really good before he got hurt.

The rebuttal to injury-prone is that he wasn't injured in his rookie, and he took shots his rookie season. Yeah. He took the shots and we've seen the shots in over his college career. And that was the big question mark. Will Washington take Drake Maye or, or Jayden? And you see the shots that Jayden took in his college career. You know, can he handle that in the NFL? He did, he missed 10 games last season with 3 different injuries. The elbow was, was, was twice, and now he's gonna miss some games because of the same elbow. But if he comes back in 3 to 4 weeks and plays the balance of the season out and shows, you know, that this offense, then I'm, I'm okay. 'Cause they have to make a decision with, with his extension. But this is probably more time than people care to hear on the Bills.

Well, I mean, there's a relevant question with Washington though. Do you wanna be a bottom 4 or worst team? And maybe that makes the Daniels decision easier.

It's too early to say. The problem is that—

They're gonna be bad.

Their, their, their defense is bad. They don't have the bodies. They don't have the talent in the secondary. We might be discussing that in a little while on this program.

I'm in Boston right now.

Yeah.

I made one bet on Fandle and one bet only.

Okay.

The Miami Dolphins to have the worst record in football. What do you think the odds were?

It has— you have to lay juice now. There's no way that it's plus money because, uh, it was plus money before the season. They and Arizona— I have the same bet. I bet both Arizona and Miami to have the worst record, and it was north of 2-to-1. Now is it -160? What is it?

It was +110.

Get outta here. What time of day? When?

An hour ago. Oh Lord.

I live in a place where FanDuel is legal and I'll just leave it there.

Well, when we go to, when we go to a break before we do football picks, you could put it in. Can I borrow?

I need $10,000. Can I borrow?

Plus 110.

What am I doing? Whatever the rules are in terms of legal gambling, I know I'm allowed to borrow money from you to make a gamble. Are we kidding? Plus 110? That is Outrageous.

What do you think the odds were for them to go 0-17?

Bet it. Who cares? What are, what are the odds? I mean, is it +210? I don't know.

No, it's better. Come on. +2. 0-17, not winning a game.

Yeah. Have you, has anybody watched this football team?

They don't have potential. It's 10-to-1 for them to go 0-17.

Better right now.

Better.

Like that means you're not paying attention. If you, if that price is out there, Go through their, the, the, their roster and the schedule and come up with a game that they're going to lose by, by less than a touchdown. Find the one.

It's hard to find a game where they're even gonna be +3.

They play the Jets twice. Guess what? The Jets are fucking good. They're, I mean, you know, wow. They're, they're kind of, they're, they're, they're talented. They should, they're talented. They have talent on both sides of the ball.

Not, not in the headsets.

Indeed.

This is a really long, ambitious question from a Bills fan named Drew who wants to know, why we don't talk about the Buffalo sports curse with the Clippers.

Oh.

Because they came from Buffalo and how Buffalo's escaped all blame here. And he mentions, this is the last 60 years. The Bills missed the first Super Bowl, lost to the Chiefs. Tim Horton died in a car crash after a game. Sabers lost the '75 Cup Final. Braves moved. Clint Marichal's throat slashed by a skate. Wide right to the Giants, lost an MLB expansion bid, 3 Super Bowl losses in a row. NHL— it was 4 in a row, but 3 in a row after wide right.

After wide right.

NHL Finals, the skate in the crease the whole game. Music City Miracle. Flyers phantom goal through the side of the net in the playoffs. That was a good one. 17-year playoff drought for the Bills. Traded Hasek in '01. Lose to Steelers backup Missed 2005 playoffs, lost Game 7 East Final, lost to Carolina. All kinds of terrible Sabers stuff, including guys leaving and 14-year playoff drought. They lost the Connor McDavid lottery. They lost the Chiefs to basically 3 years in a row, including the 13 seconds. Damar Hamlin. 4 Chiefs losses actually. The OT playoff loss last year, and then last year in hockey, the Game 7 OT loss. And he said, by the way, there's way more if you want some. And he wants to know if, uh, there's any way to shake the Buffalo bad luck, escape the ghost of President William McKinley. This makes a lot of sense with the Clippers. They were— they already had the Buffalo stink on them, and then they moved and like tripled the stink.

Yeah.

And I do, I do think there's something there.

I don't know.

This is, this is, this is the pressure for Josh Allen now. I don't think anyone has more curse removal potential in any sport than Josh Allen.

Well, I like that.

Even in Cleveland, like LeBron did win in '16. So if the Browns won the Super Bowl, you still at least had the LeBron title.

Buffalo getting to the Super Bowl, Buffalo getting to the NHL Finals. Like, I mean, are we really— that's not—

He's just saying nothing, nothing good ever happened to get us over the hump. They won anything.

You got Josh Allen as your quarterback.

There's no Buffalo title.

I understand that. I got it. But getting to the, to the, to the Super Bowl 4 straight years, that's, that's pretty good. That's pretty good.

Yeah.

My counters, my counters to Drew. A, Josh Allen was a gift.

A gift.

B, those Jim Kelly teams were awesome. Everybody loved those teams. They were super fun. They just happened to be in the worst possible pre-salary cap era against these different juggernauts. Right. But those were, Still memorable, awesome teams.

Yeah.

3, thank God the Clippers left. You want to deal with that team the last 60 years, 50 years? That was a drive to the airport, go eat a fat dick team. I think, yeah, I think you were the big winners. So it's not all bad.

Not all bad. That's what I would say.

Last email from Payton in Charlotte said, uh, love the pod. You've built an impressive podcast empire. Its foundations are shaky. Your and Sal's use of the term zag is incredible. The whole point of zig when everyone else zags is that zig is the contrarian move. Bill, you somehow zagged on the word zig, planted your flag on zag, and now zag has market-corrected zig. And you always talk about the zag, which feels historic adjacent. Is this the apex mountain of the Bill Simmons language issues? From Peyton and Charlotte. So he's saying I should have said zig.

Is he right?

I think he's right.

I think he's wrong. The zig isn't the contrarian move. The zag is the contrarian move.

I thought 'cause zag was second, zag is— Me too.

The zag. Zig is, is—

Zig is straight. The zag is the move.

I thought, I don't know. Now we have to look it up. Did you look it up? Do you know the answer to this?

I didn't look it up. I, I, I thought he was right. As usual, I took, I took a listener for, for the face value. Maybe I should have Googled this.

You know what we need?

We need a cunning linguist. We need a cunning linguist to come help us with this, Bill Simmons. Let's get one. Let's get— you get them on the pod or have a cunning linguist send us the correct— I, I think you're using it right.

I feel like zag is the right use, but what do I know?

Uh, but I definitely don't know.

Thanks to everybody who sent in those questions to, uh, BSPodcast33@gmail.com.

Great house.

You're gonna take a break. We're gonna— you're gonna go See if your wife will make a stew tonight. We're gonna talk to Pelissero and, uh, we're gonna come back and do picks. I'll see you in a second.

Yes.

And now it's time for a special part of today's episode brought to you by NFL Sunday Ticket. With NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV, you get every game every Sunday all in one place. This is my best friend in the world. And since YouTube has crowned me their CMO, Chief Multi-View Officer, it's my job to tell you which 4 games deserve a spot. In the multi-view this week. All right, so looking at the slate, we have a lot of early games on Sunday. Um, I think Chargers-Buffalo has to be in your multi-view. Let's see what's going on with the Chargers. Buffalo's gonna score some points, can't lose with that one. Pats-Jacksonville, really, really telling game from both teams. Um, I think Jacksonville needs a little more than the Pats, but I think that's gonna be a really good one.

Houston-Indy.

Is Houston really gonna go 0-3? Let's throw that in there. That's a great one. And then last but not least, Carolina-Cleveland has to be the most fascinating early game of week 1— of week 3. Is Deshaun— is this for real? Is Carolina's offense for real? What's gonna happen? It's in Cleveland. How are the fans gonna react? Can't wait to watch it. That's the beauty of MultiView. Instead of flipping channels every 2 minutes, you just get to build your own Sunday slate. New users can get NFL Sunday Ticket For 8 payments of just $30 a month, get every game every Sunday, all in one place with NFL Sunday Ticket and YouTube TV. New users pay $240 or 8, 8 non-cancelable payments of $30 a month, first charged at purchase. Availability varies with NFL Sunday Ticket for out-of-market games and YouTube TV for local and national games. YouTube TV required. Terms, restrictions, and embargoes apply. Commercial use excluded. No refunds. All right, Tom Pelissero's here. You can watch and listen to him on the Ringer NFL Show all the time, as well as Pop. When's the next Netflix game?

Thanksgiving Eve, a little break here. Packers-Rams in LA.

That's a don't-get-divorced game. My wife, my wife's not happy about that one at all. She can't believe it.

Imagine being my wife and finding out, hey, yeah, you got this new job, uh, you're gonna be gone for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Oof. Kids were not, not thrilled.

You're there for the other holidays, Arbor Day, I don't know, Valentine's Day.

Yeah, really important one.

We're gonna do a new gimmick where you're gonna open a— normally I open the 6-pack up on this podcast. You're gonna open a 6-pack. We're gonna do 6 things that you're fascinated in as we tape this Thursday late afternoon Eastern time. Jackson Dart, Giants, tell me what's going on. Do they feel like the season's over? How do they fix this? Can they fix it?

There's a lot of moving parts right now with the Giants. For right now, they paid Jameis Winston. he's going to be the starting quarterback. Jake Haener's in line to back him up this week, but I would not be surprised at all if we see them add a quarterback over the next few weeks here. Jameis's play and how things go for the Giants is going to determine what type of quarterback and what role that guy's in. If you look at their schedule, you couldn't ask for a better time to be figuring out, can we win a game with our backup quarterback? You got Tennessee at home, Arizona at home and Washington when Jayden Daniels is probably still not back. I mean, those are the best 3 games you could possibly have. You know, are they 3-2 at the end of that? Are they 1-4? How does that influence exactly what Joe Shane and John Harbaugh want to do? I would tell you they definitely want to add a quarterback, whether that's a younger guy, whether that's a veteran quarterback. There's obviously not a lot of like legit walk-in-the-door starters unless you're going to drag, you know, Derek Carr or Ryan Tannehill or somebody off the couch and hope for the best.

So you're probably realistically bringing in somebody to be behind Jameis, at least initially. But they are going to try to add another quarterback here. And again, the spot that they're in will probably kind of dictate exactly what quarterback that is.

And any guy they bring in probably isn't good. Well, it's not like there's good quarterbacks just sitting there in the grocery store waiting to get plucked out of the aisle, right?

Unless it's, you know, Joe Flacco a couple of years ago and he's sitting there, or it's Carson Wentz last year, and like You have a guy— like, there's circumstances right now, though. If you look on the street, Bill, it's like you have Russell Wilson, who looks very comfortable wearing a suit and looking dapper on TV talking about the game. Jimmy Garoppolo is out there. I don't know how much, you know, how desperate Jimmy is.

Why is Jimmy Garoppolo out there?

I don't know.

Did he just not want to get hit anymore? Like, what's the deal?

Because he's made a lot of money. He has made a lot of money. He's had a lot of injuries. And unless it's like the perfect situation, I don't think Jimmy just wants to come back and, you know, cash a $5 million check to go be a backup. Backup somewhere right now. Coming in and playing for the Giants, if they show that like the rest of the roster can stay healthy, I do think that that would be something that would intrigue him. But you don't— you already kind of have that player. Like, you've got Jameis. It's not the Jameis we saw Monday night. That's the worst Jameis we've ever seen. You know, Matt Nagy, I thought, did a good job in the game. It's like, just get him some easy passes. Oh, he one-hopped a ball into the flat. No, normally It's like 3 touchdowns, 3 interceptions. You can, you can live with that because you kind of know what you're getting. I think we'll see a better—

It was like the Chuck Knoblauch, Steve Sacks kind of—

Completely the yips where it's just like it looked like something cracked. Now he had one throw over the middle that was pretty good, but all the other ones, like, guys are open, you know, credit Nagy for it. Like, he got guys open and Jameis couldn't deliver. I think that they'll have a game plan that's built around him. He'll actually get reps this week. He'll play better. But I don't think that that discourages them from trying to get another quarterback in the room because right now, you know, Hayner was the only other guy. He's now year 2. He's on the practice squad at this point, barring them adding somebody before Sunday.

Yeah. The last level of when a quarterback is really bad in the game is when the receivers are just stopping their route because the ball has no chance and you just see the life leave their body. They're just even at the place, the ball's still bouncing and they're just like, oh my God, shoot me in the head.

And you get kind of the body language where the arms kind of go, ah. Yeah.

They're just so devastated by it.

Yeah.

This leads to my second one that you have that I want to hit about what do the Chargers do if this keeps falling apart? There's the, in the basketball side of me, football doesn't work this way. The basketball side of me would be like, yeah, could, could there be like Dart and 3 first-round picks? And do you get into the Herbert race if you're the Giants and try to just godfather off of them to save your season? 'Cause you like their team. I don't think they like their team that much, but it does make me wonder with the Chargers, Harbaugh will press the eject button, right? And because that's his history, if he doesn't like this team, they committed to Harbaugh, to Herbert. But what are, what are your moves if this, if they go 0-3 and this is just clearly not gonna work, what happens?

I mean, going into the season, you're looking at the schedule and going, okay, couple of games at home, you know, you got the Cardinals and the Raiders, like those are easy wins. All right. the meat of the schedule hits Week 3 when you go to Buffalo. Now they're 0-2. They didn't look good. Forget even losing the games to teams that weren't good last year. Like, they didn't look good. The offense is just—

Looks slow.

All over the place. It looks sloppy, and the pre-snap penalties and all these things. So now you're 0-2 staring down like the Murderer's Row of your schedule, starting out with the Bills, then they got the Seahawks. I mean, it's, it's brutal. And so, all right, if 0-2 becomes 0-3 and becomes 0-4, What, what are the moves left? Like, Jim already made his biggest move he could by firing the OC and the offensive line coach after last year. You bring in Mike McDaniel, who's supposed to fix everything. It doesn't look great right now. Jim's not the kind of guy— like, he has no familiarity with that offense. It's not like he's going to take a deep look at it and go, hey Mike, we got to tweak X, Y, and Z. Like, this is not his scheme. That's not what Jim is.

What's he good at at this point as a head coach? I'm not saying that he's a culture and like a people manager, right?

He's a CEO type of coach. He wants to manage just like, you know, he's not even a guy who stands in front of the team a great deal. You know, he's not addressing them every single day. It's more just setting, hey, we're the culture and we're going to be the tough team. Like, that's what he's about. And they just got punched in the face by the Cardinals and the Raiders on their home field. It's a tough spot because, all right, you're not going to change out the play caller at this point. I mean, you have, you know, Adam Gase is on staff. You could hand it to him, you could hand it to Shane Day, but you're probably more likely to go, it's a new scheme, everybody's learning it, and we know Mike can call plays. So it's not that. Well, you can't bench your tackles you actually like invested in, a high pick on Joe Alt, you know, a lot of money in Rashawn Slater. Like, those guys aren't playing great, you know, your interior offensive line's not good. It's like, it's all these moving parts. I would say this though, in terms of what they do, I don't think that there's any magic bullet out there for the Chargers because even if you start going, it's like, is Jim Harbaugh on the hot seat?

They owe him a ton of money for another 3 years. He signed through 2028 at a pretty high number. The Chargers are not a team that has a history, A, of paying coaches that much money, certainly B, of firing coaches.

Or paying for their arena.

When they own that much money.

They're not paying for anything.

What are they paying for? They're paying rent to Stan Kroenke. It's so bad.

Yeah.

That's just— that's not their history. So, all right, Herbert. Well, you can say, yeah, people are going to call them if they, you know, again, if it goes to 0-5, 1-5, whatever, like they're gonna get calls about Herbert. But I don't see the organization punting on a— what is he, 28-year-old quarterback in favor of a 65-year-old head coach? And on top of that, Herbert's got a no-trade clause. Do you really think he's eager to say, yeah, I'll get traded to Cleveland or Atlanta, and his fiancée's in LA? Like, why would he go with that. That's what I mean with like there's no magic bullet here. Like, I don't— there's not like a single move or a trigger of events. It's always felt like this was kind of the 2-year plan here. Bring in Mike, pair him with Justin, have Jim running the thing. They could turn it around. They could upset the Bills. We're having a totally different conversation next week. But if it continues to unravel, it's going to be a really long season in a building where, like everywhere Jim is, his whole philosophy is more is more. It's more work. More hours, more time.

Great when you're winning. When you start to lose, that stuff can really weigh on people's shoulders.

Yeah, we've talked a lot about Herbert on this podcast because he's, he's the most fun. He's the closest to an NBA player in terms of our people arguing both sides of him, right? Um, the one interesting thing I thought, like, any— because there was a lot of dialogue and discourse about him this week— was that he skipped the OTAs. because he was in France with Madison Beer, his girlfriend. And there was, like, the hint of ever since he's met his girlfriend, and he wants to be a celebrity as much as be the quarterback, and he's not in there doing the work. And that was kind of floating around there. Have you heard about that? Like, what's the word on him as, like, a leader?

I have asked people if that was a big deal, and the answer's been no. It's not like this was a locker room revolt. It wasn't— remember when Aaron Rodgers missed the minicamp and went to Egypt? and claimed it was because the schedule had changed, and everyone was like, this doesn't quite add up. And Robert Saleh was like, I gotta fine you for it. It was like this awkward thing. I didn't get that sense. Also, OTAs are voluntary. But you'd like to think, especially when you're wired like Jim Harbaugh, who's all football all the time, your quarterback's gonna be the guy, like, leading that culture. But I don't get the sense, coaches, players, that people were just like, oh, can't believe that he's not around. It wasn't portrayed like that. As a leader, you know, he's this—

Tom Brady wouldn't have done it. Tom Brady would've been there for 2 days.

He did in his late years. Late years he was in and out when he was trying to—

He was 45 at that point.

Family together, right? It was—

Yeah, that, that was, he was at a 7-hour work schedule. Yeah. But during the Patriots era, like famously, like it seems like the most famous, best quarterbacks are like, you get there at 5:30 in the morning, they're already there. It's like that kind of thing. And I, I don't know.

It's also like Tom's very, you know, type A in a lot of ways. Like Herbert was the whole knock on him, or one of the questions the teams had about him when he was coming out in the draft back in 2020. was he's this kind of quiet, almost shy kid from Oregon. He's never really left the state. He grew up right by Eugene. He went to Oregon for college. Like, is he going to come out of his shell? I don't think your personality changes a whole lot. That's not to say that he's a bad leader. It's just if you think that he's going to be the, you know, the guy who's going to start getting in your face and screaming at you— we saw some emotion from him last week.

True.

That's just not really him. And I think it's probably unfair to say, like, you gotta you know, when times get tough, change everything about yourself. No, you want to double down on being you. It's— there's a lot of other stuff going on around him, including the fact he's getting his ass kicked behind that offensive line right now.

What's his trade value, just out of curiosity?

If he were—

like, how many picks are we talking?

If he were willing to waive the no-trade clause, it's, it's got to be 3 first-round picks and more. I mean, the Russell Wilson trade, if I remember correctly, was 2 ones uh, 2, maybe 2 2s or 2 and a 3, and 3 players. And that was Russell Wilson in his early 30s, where he had already shown some like little signs of maybe he's not at his peak anymore. Where Herbert, I know what the numbers are, but he's still a really talented quarterback. And physically, he's ahead of where Russell is, just from— he's got the size and he's got the arm, he's got the toughness. He's a really tough dude. It would be the house. You would have to give up the house to go and get Justin Herbert.

I wouldn't do that. Would you do that? I wouldn't do that.

Look at the desperation around the league. Like, if you went back, if you read my story in The Sweep last week, the Deshaun Watson backstory, and remind yourself—

That was excellent.

Thank you. How many teams were trying actively to trade for Deshaun Watson while he was facing dozens of civil allegations of sexual misconduct and a suspension? and your fan base probably wasn't going to like him, and he hadn't played in a year. There were 5 teams lined up. They were all willing. I mean, the Dolphins were willing to do it in the heat of it. Then when the charges criminally— there were no charges filed— there were 4 teams that all agreed to like the general structure of a trade that the Texans wanted. The Panthers, the Falcons, the Saints, and the Browns were all willing to pay it. And think about that. That's for Deshaun Watson with everything going on, and he hadn't Played. Like, this guy and Justin Herbert, yeah, maybe the contract never happens again because it hasn't happened since the Watson trade, but he would have an unbelievable amount of leverage in terms of not just, hey, you got to give up all these picks, but also why wouldn't he be able to command a 5-year, $350 million contract out of it?

Right.

He's a really good player and at that position, and nobody ever becomes available.

So that leads to the 3rd thing in the 6-pack, the what are the traded quarterback options? If I'm looking for somebody to try to either elevate or replace a guy, is it— are we basically looking at Mac Jones and who else? Who are the guys that you could actually go get?

Mac is one, but that's gonna cost you. I, I don't think that they do that.

So what is that? Is that like a 2nd?

2nd or a 3rd. You know, there's not many 1st-round picks to get traded at the deadline. There's, there's rarely trades involved more, more than a 3 in season. But it's also a quarterback. If your guy goes down— and I don't know if that one would make sense for the Giants just because the scheme's different, but any of those teams that run the Kyle stuff, you'd probably be interested. But like, that's a, it's a pretty big price to pay for a quarterback who's in a contract year. JJ McCarthy is another, you know, there's not many dudes—

JJ McCarthy!

He is on his rookie contract. Wow. Winning record as a starter. All these teams did work on him a couple of years ago. They know the good and the bad of, of McCarthy. And right now, you know, that's one of the first calls you're gonna make if you lose a guy is to the Vikings, just being like, all right, like, what would it take? Who else are you gonna go get that's got still potential upside? I mean, Anthony Richardson, but I don't think the Colts even want to trade Anthony Richardson right now because he's in a contract here.

You're not gonna trade for Anthony Richardson. Come on.

Hey, if we get into the desperate mode here, we had how many quarterbacks got hurt last week? 3 guys, including one for the season. Like, these are the names you start to get to. The one that'll be really interesting will be Kirk Cousins. He's playing at a good level right now. He's on sort of a 1-year contract, but it actually has a tail on it where the Raiders have an exclusive window next March to either cut him or trade him or potentially pick up his option.

Yeah.

So they've got time to kind of play this thing out. What the Raiders have to decide is, are you willing to trade him if 2-0 becomes like 3-1 or 4-2? Now the schedule gets a lot harder from this point moving forward, but let's say they're still in it. And like Mark Davis is celebrating his sweep because he has a relevant football team for the first time in 5 years. Max Crosby's all fired up on the sideline. Like, do you really do it? Well, you've got Fernando Mendoza. And I don't anticipate, as long as they're in the playoff chase, that this isn't going to be the, the Kurt Warner-Eli Manning awkward handoff where you're 5-4 and it's like, we just, we need to put Eli in. They're going to ride with Kirk as long as they're alive or until his play takes a dip. But if you get that opportunity and someone offers you, let's say, a 3rd-round pick for Kirk Cousins— I don't know if you can get that, but somebody gets hurt and he's available for not a whole lot of money— like, that would make a, a ton of sense. So that'll be one that'll be dictated by, by circumstances, but I would absolutely not rule out the possibility of Kirk Cousins being traded during the season.

That seems like the right name. But the Giants obviously don't think that they're a Super Bowl contender because that would be the guy you'd go after. It would be interesting if he got traded after signing the cheapest contract possible while he's also getting paid a ton of money from a 3rd team. I don't know if we've seen that before.

More teams paying guys making minimum salaries somewhere because they're getting paid by somebody else. This has to be the, the NFL high that we've had.

Yeah, maybe Tua could be in the trade too. Yeah. Uh, next one for the 6-pack, the, the Joey Porter Jr. seems like the best holdout free agent who might get traded maybe. Pittsburgh certainly could have used him last week. I don't think Pittsburgh season is necessarily going in a great place to begin with, but where, how does this end defensively without their top corner?

They're pretty good in the offense.

Front 7 was excellent.

Rodgers got the shit kicked out of him last week, but like in terms of the defense, like they're, they're legit. Like they're going up against the Bengals this week. You know, they'd love to have Joey Porter Jr. out there against Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. He said he talked to the media for the first time today. It looked like he said kind of all the right things. They're not extending him like that. They negotiate up to week 1. That's their policy. It's over. He can't come back and like take that deal now. So really it's, he says he's going to play at some point when he's ready, or else you trade him. Like there is going to be trade interest because there's, there's nobody out there. To your point, there's no other of these kind of hold-in things. He does have a back issue. How big of a factor is it actually? We can certainly debate that, but he's the one guy, and there's a bunch of teams that don't have corners. Like when, when Jerry Jones is walking through the bowels of the stadium the other night saying nothing more dangerous than an old man with money, I'm like, he's gonna try to trade for Joey Porter Jr.

Wow. He's gonna try to add that extra piece to the defense. That to me is the most logical team if they're gonna—

So what is it, a second?

Second would be my, would be my best guess. If this were a different time, if this were March, you know, Trent McDuffie went for the number 31 overall pick. It'd probably be in there. you're a little bit later now, it's probably a 2. Remember, you also could, you know, he's in a contract year, but you could tag him. So you could justify to yourself, hey, even if we don't get a deal done with Porter now, we could always tag him and retain our rights, or tag and trade him. So, you know, and for the Steelers, they could also, they could tag him, or they could let him walk and get a comp pick. There's a lot of different things in terms of the value.

Seems like there's bad blood there though. That's like something, something shifted with it. I like the Cowboys idea though, because You know, the scenario would be they lose in Brazil to Baltimore, right? And Jerry's been awfully quiet. It's been a running joke for everybody, but they lose. And then that Monday it's like, we have now traded a conditional first-round pick that could be a second for Joey Porter. And here's this giant contract he shouldn't get. Or, or could be, and we're ready to go.

Or it could be you trade a, you do it after you win. It could be the, oh man, we're so close.

You know, Jerry, oh, that is a Jerry. Jerry would like that one too.

Yeah.

The cherry on the—

The cake.

And then you just go, this is the time we're going to strike. I could see it. Like, the bad blood thing is interesting because it seems like Joey Jr. is in a good place. Remember, Dad's also around. It's kind of an awkward situation. Like, what other team has a franchise legend's kid who they're in a contract standoff with? And Joey is around the team. You know, he used to be on staff there. That dynamic is a little bit odd, but it seems like it's in a fine spot in terms of, you know, Joey Jr. continuing to work his way back onto the field. It's just at some point, if you're getting legit offers for him, I, I'd be really tempted to take it.

Well, especially when the— his peers all got extensions and he didn't, right? So if you're Porter, you're like, okay, I guess I know how you guys feel. You don't think I'm on that same level where other people do. And there you go. Um, 2 more in the 6-pack. Deshaun Watson. House and I are about to talk about this in Ringer 107. What if he's good again? What if he plays well this week against Carolina, who has a bad, bad defense in the game that everybody thought would just be a boo fest for 3 hours? What if last week, how he looked against Tampa was a sign of what's also gonna happen this week where he's kind of back? What happens then?

It's not too late for a 5-year, $230 million fully guaranteed extension. It's such a unique situation because go back to what, you know, 2022, all those teams were willing to do it. Yeah. And now he's, he's 4 years, 5 years older and he's had a bunch of injuries. Like the guy that played last week looked like a real NFL quarterback. Like he made some big-time throws in the game. So from that perspective, I thought he dominated the second half.

He was on it. He was whipping it around and the offense had real pace. I, I couldn't believe it watching it.

And by the way, those rookie receivers they got— the Browns draft class last year was really good. Those rookie receivers this year, you know, Casey Concepcion, even more so Denzel Boston, looks like, you know, he's the guy that they've lacked to like actually take a top off the defense. I don't know what the market would be if Deshaun played this out— now he's got a wonky thing in his contract where essentially for cap purposes, he won't just be a free agent. They'll have to release him after the start of the league year in March. His contract— he won't be on the same contract, but they set it up to keep his cap hits out into 2027 and '28. So there's a little bit of a ripple effect, but like, who's bidding on Deshaun Watson knowing everything? You know, even if you're comfortable with the background you do on him, you still got to be sitting around the room being like, are all our fans going to hate this guy? Like, are they going to give him a chance?

I don't think it happens.

But if he plays better, he's going to be on the short list of dudes you can at least bring in as a bridge quarterback.

I mean, I can't even—

Why wouldn't the Browns keep him at that point?

He's playing better.

It's not like they don't have a— you know, it's not like they have better options.

I, I can't even rule out that you keep him around if he plays like he did last week. It's one game. The whole offense was terrible in Week 1. But, you know, they flashed to the sideline after the game and, you know, everybody's soaking wet because of the 2-hour delay or whatever. And like, the first guy they cut to, Deshaun, and he's hugging, uh, J.W. Johnson, Jimmy Haslam's son-in-law, on the sideline, who's like very involved with the Browns organization. Like, the relationship internally is better than I think everybody realizes. You just have to do the calculus on, can you heal the external relationship. And if the Browns don't bring him back, he's not just your average quarterback you're bringing in on like a 1-year incentive-laden deal. Like, you're taking on all sorts of other stuff. It'll be absolutely unique. It is a one-of-one type of situation, and his play will dictate where it goes from here.

It's definitely the most fascinating Week 3 plot other than the 0-2 teams. And like, just if he's good again, as that's happening in real time, But he's going against Bryce Young, which is the last thing for our 6-pack. Bryce Young, Caleb Williams linked together forever for, for variety of reasons. You would've had Caleb would've been -1,000 heading into the season on who was gonna have a better season, him or Bryce Young. And yet Bryce Young was, was good again. We'll see on Cleveland on the road this week. But just where does it stand with these 2 guys? Not just against each other, but how they're going to look the rest of the way.

Well, with Caleb, you know, despite what it looked like on the field, he's going to be back soon. He didn't practice today. It's unlikely that he plays Monday night. I know some people took my initial tweet the wrong way. I said he's not— they're not ruling him out, meaning it's not a 0% chance.

You broke the story, we should mention.

I did break the story that it was— it showed no, you know, no major injury. And so they're not even ruling him out this week, meaning if he's feeling good enough by Monday, they'll put him out there. Now, if they get to the end of the week and the hamstring's still an issue, obviously they'll hold him back. But this is not a long-term injury, uh, for Caleb. And so—

But wait a second, if all the shit he took on social media this week, which he had to have seen because he's under 30 years old, so there's no way he's on social media.

Sure.

Um, or not on it. Um, would that make him want to come back to be like, I'll show you guys I am tough and And then he's back on Monday night. It's a— because they could beat Philly if he's saying—

Milk it for 3 weeks to make it clear that it was a more major injury.

Well, you could go that way too. Yeah, it could be like, yeah, but I actually was hurt. Look, I'm not playing again.

It comes down to— for the Bears, it'll come down to like, how functional can he be? Can he protect himself? Like, there's things you can do schematically just to like— yeah, he's not gonna scramble out of the pocket and make the crazy throws. Like, you may have to play in rhythm. If they don't feel like he can do that this week, they're not going to put him onto the field. But I expect him to be back in the next couple of weeks here on Monday night. If he doesn't go, then it's either Tyson Bagent or, or Case Keenum going up against the Eagles coming off a performance where from the highs of 59 points to the lows of playing in that terrible weather against the Vikings and scoring 6 points and fumbling on the goal line.

You weren't there, were you?

I wasn't at that game. No, but it looked horrible.

Yeah, I did not factor in with the bet. The under seemed like the craziest, easiest bet ever. It didn't just— it didn't seem like anybody could throw the ball. So then even when we did it, we talked about the game on Sunday night, me and Sal, but I always had that game on a smaller TV, so I wasn't hearing the announcers and I wasn't really fully aware of like how bad the weather was and how much it affected it. So we'll see. Like, 'cause the Bears to me, you know, they're gonna have Case Keenum this week probably, but they have all these weapons. Like Loveland's done nothing. They have this really good run game. They got like, I'll be interested to see if their offense is still pretty good even without Caleb, even for a week.

Well, and the whole, you know, Ben Johnson first start without a number 1 pick at quarterback thing, it's so overblown because it's not ridiculous. It's not like anyone was like, wow, Ben got Jared Goff, he's gonna be great. It's like, right, no one thought Jared Goff was great when they paid a first rounder to get rid of him. It was literally the throw-in. It was salary dump that required a first-round pick to take him in the Stafford trade. And then Caleb wasn't, you know, didn't play great his first year.

That's right.

There was a lot of stuff going on. Like, Ben has healed those guys. Like, I don't know how much you're, you're changing Case Keenum with all the football under his belt, but like, they'll have a plan. They'll be ready to go. It's a good matchup with Ben going up against Vic Fangio. With regard to Bryce, one of the things that I think is really interesting is if you, if you really watch it, and I went back through the, the Panthers' first couple of games here. They're getting to the line of scrimmage really early and snapping the ball pretty early.

Hmm.

And I don't see like a ton of Bryce making checks and stuff, which tells me they know how good of a processor he is. And they also know he's not a big quarterback who like once the ball is snapped is not going to have a great sight. So you're basically putting him in positions where you're making the call and just going, this call is going to be good enough against a lot of different stuff. Like use your processing ability walking to the line and getting there while everybody is still down. All right, now get the snap off. And it's worked. Like, they've really stressed the tempo and operate quickly. And they've put a bunch of— they put a basketball team around them. You know, it's a bunch of like physical athletes, uh, T-Mac and, and Legette, Coker. I know Coker and Legette did not practice today, which isn't a great sign. Oh no, Coker's my guy. Coker is— I mean, the guy was in a walking boot last Monday and played in the game. So it may be a maintenance thing.

Holy Cross. Holy Cross people are very tough.

Yeah.

You know, since Coker came back last year, Bryce has been a different guy from, you know, he didn't have him for, I forget how many games it was, but it was at least 9 to 10. But once Coker got going again, that kind of unleashed him. 'Cause McMillan, you know, he, he's not like on the Ja'Marr Chase level, but he's a difference maker.

Right.

And I don't know, when I watched him, I just feel like guys are open and he's getting the ball to the right spot. But you're right, they play with, they play with a little oomph. And I'll be interested to see if they can do that in Cleveland, 'cause I don't think that's a great spot for them.

Yeah, I mean, they still, they still use a ton of motion and stuff. It's not like they've like just totally dumbed down the offense or something, but they clearly are making the emphasis of like, we got an elite processor, let's put him in positions where he can actually do what he's best at. You know, the, the contract negotiations didn't really go anywhere in the offseason with the Panthers and Bryce. It was kind of like, all right, the market, we're all anticipating because of Caleb, because of Jayden Daniels, pending health. You know, those guys are gonna get huge deals, so why would we take a deal at the mark where the market is now? From Bryce's perspective, the Panthers probably wanted, you know, a little more information. Okay, the arrow's pointing up, but like, we got in the playoffs last year, we were still 8-9. You know, it wasn't perfect. Well, if Bryce does this all year, it's going to be— you're going to be under a ton of pressure not to pay him whatever he wants. It's like a, you know, bet on yourself type of a situation. They weren't going to be in the neighborhood of what Bryce would have wanted, it could end up working out, but Cleveland's defense will be harder.

Like that first game against Jacksonville, they were super passive and just like sitting back in zones. Last week looked a lot more like what we expect the Browns to be. And I bet that they just, you know, pressure the crap out of Bryce this week.

That one of the many differences between NFL and NBA is like, if this was NBA and Bryce was a free agent after the year, this would, this would be a pretty massive story, right? Like they, if he could just jump But in the NFL, you can just— if he's really good, they'll just franchise tag him for a year and figure it out. And I don't think we'll ever see the movement like that. I— do you like the franchise tag or no?

I mean, it's not— I don't think I'd say I like it or don't, but it's just a necessary evil, you know? It prevents certain things. I mean, the players would argue it shouldn't exist, but it's existed for over 30 years now. But team control is a big thing. It's not quite like baseball, but it does give you— I mean, you got first-round picks for 7 years. It's not 5, it's 4 years plus the option and 2 tags before the 3rd tag is so astronomical because of how it's calculated that you probably can't keep the guy. I mean, you can keep— if you draft a 22-year-old quarterback, you can keep him until he's damn near 30.

And can you imagine in the NBA, like, if Detroit could do this with Jalen Duren? Like, yeah, we couldn't agree, we're just gonna franchise tag you. You're gonna make the average salary of the top 5 centers or whatever it is.

And the NBA also—

The NBA would— all those players would fucking hate that. They would go crazy.

The flip side of it though is that in the NBA, you've got like the max and the supermax deals where it's like you can go up to a certain threshold. And you also have like the mid-level exception stuff. None of that exists in the NFL. Even like the veteran salary benefit deals. Every dollar you spend hits the cap eventually in the NFL. There's ways to like move it around and push the pain into the future, but like every dollar you spend Hits. And so if you're a top quarterback, you wouldn't probably like to see like, all right, the maximum you can get is 5 years for $250 million. And everybody from Patrick Mahomes to Baker Mayfield to Bryce Young is going to be making the exact same amount of money. Like you would have right now, 2 of them making the same amount of money as Patrick Mahomes. And we'd all be sitting there going— and they're not that far apart, by the way. They're like $8 million apart. But you'd be going like, this seems wrong. at least that part of the economics hasn't changed yet. But—

Yeah.

Who knows, man? There's a lot with the TV deals and the opt-out coming up in 2029 and the CBA up in 2031. The talks, which haven't started yet between the union and the league, there's gonna be really interesting things about cap percentage and potentially changing some of the things economically about how it works. I don't think any of those things are high priorities for players, but the NFL, definitely the owners, want to change some things. Economically here, and we'll see how long it takes them to sort of work through all the ancillary issues that lead up to the big thing, the one thing that ultimately matters, which is the money.

It almost feels like they need 2 different salary structures for quarterbacks and for teams, right? Because the, the top half of quarterbacks in the league are all basically NBA Max players.

It's—

and you kind of have to think of them that way, and they're just operating in a different stratosphere than any other position. It's not even close.

Those things have been proposed and bandied about, different things about quarterbacks kind of being set aside. There's been a bunch of different ideas that have been floated. But again, if you're the union— Yeah.

Why are you agreeing to that?

You represent all players. So the rank and file would be like, yeah, limit the quarterback money. But the quarterbacks, the guys who have the power and the money, don't want that. And the union's never going to want to limit wages. I mean, that's just kind of the nature of it. But again, like, there's— there have been agents that have proposed cap percentage deals for quarterbacks. Because if you look at, you know, even a deal done 4 years ago when the cap was like $100 million less, right now it's like, okay, that guy ranks 8th, but at the time, like, in terms of cap percentage, he ranks way lower. We got to redo this deal. That's where you see things like Josh Allen's deal getting ripped up and them adding a couple of years and giving him a huge raise. It's just all you're doing is bringing it back up to the top of the market. That's really changed in the last 10, 5 to 10 years, which is when guys have undervalued contracts, the agents don't wait. You could have 2, 3, 4 years left and you're coming to 'em going, hey, we need to bump this up.

And different teams have different policies.

Well, you can push the money years ahead, which you can't do in the NBA.

You can't.

The NBA, it's like, we've decided this and you, this is your contract until it's finished and that's how it's gonna go.

You can, you can reroute cap for a long time, which is why the Browns have paid all but like $800,000 of the $230 million in cash to Deshaun. And they still have— I don't even, I don't actually know the precise number because they have an insurance policy, but it's still like $80 million in cap that they gotta eat over 2027 and 2028 when he's probably not even on the team.

Tom Pelissero, you can hear him on Ringer NFL Show tomorrow. And then, uh, The Sweep. Please sign up for this newsletter. It's really good. It comes out, uh, Saturday mornings. Good to see you as always.

You too, Bill. Thanks.

Thanks. Remember, today's Ringer 107 is brought to you by FanDuel. Make this your most rewarding season ever. Download the FanDuel app to check out all of our Ringer 107 picks and boosted teasers. Boosted -110 juice. Go get 'em every single week this season. All right, week 3 picks. We are both 5-5 in Ringer 107. Uh, as usual, I'm complaining about some bad luck with some of those picks, including, um, Lassiter dropping the Josh Allen interception. That one hurt my feelings.

Week 1. Yeah.

Um, Baker Mayfield driving down to cover my tease against the Browns.

Sorry about that. Sorry.

Stopped by lightning. Game disappears for almost 3 hours, comes back. can't get it done. There's some— the Week 3 trends last year, the big trend last week, the big trends were all 4 teams that lost by 20-plus points in Week 1. Everyone's like, take those teams in Week 2. They all won and covered in Week 2. Cleveland, Carolina, Denver, and the Rams.

Yes, very good.

This week, the Week 3 trends, probably there's the most stuff that we have either going back to 2000 or 2010. For instance, Teams that start 0-2 against the, against the spread are 42-19-1 against the spread in Week 3 against 1-1 teams since 2010. So if you had an 0-2 team against a 1-1 team, almost a 70% chance that 0-2 team's gonna cover against the spread. We have 2 candidates this week, Tennessee +2.5 and Atlanta tonight. Oh no, no, no, no, no.

The, the Falcons are playing. Wait a minute.

Yeah, I had that right tonight. No, I'm saying 2 teams, Tennessee +2.5, and then the Falcons tonight start at 0-2 against spread.

Sorry.

And then Week 3 underdogs, 0-2 teams that are underdogs are 30-12 against the spread, which is almost 72%. That includes the Chargers, Atlanta tonight, Tampa, and Miami. And then last but not least, this is a weird one. I, I never know what to make of these, but NFL teams that are 1-1 against the spread In Week 3 are 14-24 if they're underdogs of +3.5 or higher. That would be Pittsburgh, Jets, and Arizona.

And so, well, Washington definitely fits that as well. Washington covered in Week 1, and now they're 7.5-point dogs to Seattle.

So we'll add them as well. Um, my favorite Week 3 trend is— has nothing to do with these spread records, but just the 0-2 desperate team. Yes, I take it seriously. I, I think sports goes like this, and at some point when you're way, way down, you know, so I'm looking at the Chargers, which that line has moved all the way to +7.5 on Buffalo. I'm not going to take the Chargers, but I'm also a little scared of the Bills because of the Chargers. But what's your favorite Week 3 trend? What do you like the most just in general?

Oh, You're the, the 0-2 teams, you know, look at the inflated spread that comes along with that. The, the first one that you read is right.

Yeah.

Okay.

You seem enthused.

I'm not playing it in, in, into any of those trends with my picks this week, so that's why I'm hesitating.

I think, do you go first this week or do I? Because we each do 3 Ringer 107 picks and a tease.

You were generous. You let me go first in week 1. Then you went first last week and I immediately—

What's your favorite game?

I immediately piggybacked you. I absolutely love the Baltimore Ravens laying—

In Brazil.

I don't—

You're going with the hockey rink field. Oh my God.

Well, yes. And that is part of the handicap for me because if the field sucks, then that definitely favors the offense over the defense. And so the Ravens have the best offense in the NFL by a whole slew of measures.

They're missing 2 receivers.

But especially Zay is, is still a possibility out there. They haven't completely eliminated him.

It's always a good idea to have a guy with an injured hamstring on a hockey rink field in Brazil.

That's—

let's bring him out.

That's not the basis for the play though. They are especially dominant on the— with the run. And yeah, I think that, you know, they, they're number 1 in the NFL run block win rate. They're number 1 in the NFL in, in success, like per EPA per rush, like, oh, you know, slice and dice it however you want. I think that they are going to go out and get up with some kind of margin and then Dallas won't be able to close it because the Ravens can run the ball the entirety of the second half. They can do what they didn't do against the Saints when they were—

When Derrick Henry had 5 runs in the second half.

Yes.

Yes.

I felt like I was watching John Harbaugh all over again. Yeah. So I really love the Ravens getting up. Madubuike is back. That's huge for the inside of their defense. Dallas can't establish the run anyhow. Dallas is one of the worst rushing teams in the NFL.

And I'm, I'm really regretting some of our Cowboys future stuff, or at least some of the stuff I had, because it looks like their defense, they shifted some deck chairs in the Titanic, but I don't really feel like it's any different.

And, and Washington was moving the ball just fine. They were all the way down to the 1-yard line with, you know, I was gonna bet you at halftime. Yeah, right. It would've. And then everything went to shit all at once. I just, I just think that this Ravens offense in a get-right kind of, of moment here, I have no problem with the idea of them winning by margin. So I have the Ravens laying the 3.5.

So I looked at it long and hard and it came down to I just don't want to bet games in weird locations. I remember that Eagles-Packers game on like a Friday night in Rio, wherever the fuck that— Mexico. I don't even remember where it was. And guys were falling down and the vibe was weird. I'm just like, I'm out. Like, I don't think there's any way to know what's going to happen in these games. But if I did do it, I would have the Ravens. I think it's the right side. My first one, I'm doing something I rarely do in Ringer 107, and just for the record, I picked the team I'm about to go against in Week 1 and Week 2 for Ringer 107. Oh, it's the New England Patriots. Wow.

This is great.

They are +2.5 in Jacksonville. I think that line will move. I think that's gonna move up. I think that would be 3 or 3.5 by Sunday in Florida, humid. I don't like that. Jags in Florida have been good, especially recently. Something like, they're like 8-1 or 9-0 in their last 9 home games. Pats are banged up now. AJ's gone probably till November. I'm just, I assume we're not gonna see him till around Halloween. They lost Nwenu, who was by all accounts probably their most reliable offensive lineman on a lineman that, on a line that was pretty mediocre. They ended last week's game with a bunch of defensive back injuries that are all up in the air before we tape this. But it didn't matter 'cause they're playing Aaron Rodgers and Drake Maye is a mess. He's a mess. And I said this Sunday night and I don't, I don't feel like it's an overreaction. Like I, I think he's going through something and they're gonna have to outscore the Jaguars as good as the Pats D were in those first 2 games. They played Drew Lock and they played Aaron Rodgers, and this is now a real quarterback and a real offense coming off a loss.

I don't know what happened to them in the second half in Denver, but I think that Jags offense is really good, and I think it's gonna— you're gonna need 27 to 30 points, I think, in this game to win. And I don't think the Pats without AJ Brown, with the way Drake Maye's playing, with some of the run block stuff and just the offensive line stuff in general, Um, and the McDaniels, whatever the offense they're running, which doesn't seem right, I couldn't believe this line stayed at 2.5. I think it should be 3.5 or 4. So I'm— I want to win Ringer 107. I hope I'm wrong. Uh, Jags -2.5 is my first pick.

I—

you started this off by saying, I'm playing the Patriots, and I was like, oh my God, you and I are going to be head-to-head for the first time. in the Ringer 107 this season.

You're taking the Jags too?

I am all over the Jags. You just made the case. You should see my— here are the notes. Injuries are all over the place for the Patriots. The Jaguars, 8-1 against the spread at home. The Jags have been good coming off of a loss as well. Liam Cohen, these weapons, he— we haven't really seen them exploit the middle of the field yet. We haven't seen Brenton Strange or Jacoby Myers really get unleashed. Well, that's where the softness to this Patriots defense is, is going to be exposed. And there's no reason— go ahead and take away Parker Washington. It's fine for the Jags and Cohen at home.

Yeah, they have all these different spots, whatever the thing is we call it.

Piggyback. No, no. So I have 2. That's my second pick. I mean, that's the Jags. It's, it's actually— I've circled it number 1 because the Ravens are here. And then I had that— I said I was saving that Patriots There's a way the Pats can win. Yeah.

And I, I think it would take at least 27 to 30, but I think it's at least— they— it's gonna have to be explosive plays. It's gonna have to be like a kick, a kick touchdown, a punt touchdown, some sort of return. It's gonna have to be a Henderson 60-yard bust. It's gonna have to be a Drake Maye scramble for 45. Like, they're gonna need like, I think at least 3 explosive plays.

Yeah, you're right. He has to stop turning the ball over. I mean, that's it. Jacksonville for sure is capable of creating—

He's a mess. Orlowski did a footwork thing that I saw on, on social this week where he was just talking about his feet moving as he's going back and like little Happy Feet thing. It just, he wasn't doing that last year. I don't know what's going on with him.

Well, I do. They, since the playoffs started, the Patriots have played a whole slew of good defenses.

Yeah. And I think they got all the way up till now. I think it rattled them a little bit.

Yeah, for sure. It's a different kind of football altogether.

Uh, I don't think this is a must-win for the Pats. I think they could be 1-2 and they're fine. Um, this is a game you were probably gonna circle as a potential loss for them anyway, and I don't think they're gonna have the team that they need until November.

Yeah, that makes— so they have Buffalo next week, so I don't really want to be 1-1.

And be 4-4, you know, 4-5, 5-4, somewhere in there heading into November, December, because I think they still make a run.

Jacksonville has to have this game. Their next 3, they have to have this game: the Bengals, the Eagles, and the Texans. And that, that's a tough, that's a tough road right there.

I'd be really surprised. I'd be really surprised if the Pats won this game.

So there you go.

Okay, so I guess I'm up again.

Yeah.

This is like partly, it's almost like a comedy pick. I'm taking the Bucs again. They beat me 2 weeks in a row. I have a bunch of futures with them. I'm betting on the following things. They're 0-11 against the spread in the last 11 games.

Yes.

Todd Bowles will probably get fired after this game if they lose.

Agreed.

Baker Mayfield almost seems like he's drunk in these games. I know he's not drunk, but that some of his decision-making and the carelessness with the ball is just unbelievable. Like he's playing, he's gonna play himself Out of the league. So if there's no lightning in that game last week, they're 1-1. I think they, they beat the Browns, and I think they're favored by 1.5. I think the fact that that lightning happened swung this game by 3 points. Hot in Florida in September, right? I still feel like we say that all the time, Florida and Carolina, this matters in the, in September when it's humid and weird. And Kyler Murray's coming back. Which makes me like them more.

I agree with this.

I, they're like trying to figure out how to even use him in. I'm not impressed by the Vikings. The Vikings scored 9 points last week.

Yeah.

I don't think they can run the ball at all. And, and like, like if the Bucs can't win this game, they're gonna go like 4-13. This is out of all the teams that are playing, and I would even include the Texans. This is the biggest game of the season for a team so far. Like, this is like, you lose this game, you might as well blow it up, start either trading pieces or trading for pieces. And I think the +1.5, I just— they have to win this game.

Yeah, I agree with, with what you're laying out here. And in fact, I have them as a teaser leg, so I'm teasing them from 1.5 up through the 7, into the 7.5, which I, I just need some, some wiggle room with this version of Baker. There is definitely a case to be made for Tampa to be 2-0 as opposed to the 0-2 that they are. They didn't, they didn't punt against the Cincinnati Bengals, right? They just—

4 fumbles.

They just gave them the ball a whole bunch of times.

Also, they were in control of that Cleveland game. It was 16-9.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden, well, that Denzel Boston play happened, right? I'm watching going, goddamn it, Cleveland's hanging around. They're hanging around. Denzel Boston, 5 guys are there. He somehow busts through all of them, scores 16-16, and now you gotta sweat it out. But Here's the other thing, from a Ponzi scheme standpoint, how many games in a row can you lose against the spread? Wait, what are they gonna go, 0-20? Like, at some point I might just pick them every week in Ringer 107 until they cover.

They are right now—

are they gonna go 0-15 against the spread?

They're tied right now for the all-time against the spread worst, worst streak. So if they lose to the, to the spread again, they will be the single, uh, title holder. They're tied. I heard this on the Action Network, Evan Abrams. Shout out Evan Abrams. So they're tied with the Houston Oilers.

Well, the, the, the, the Houston Oilers team, I think in the '70s. So the counter to this is the strategy I'm using here is the blackjack strategy of the dealer is killing me. I'm gonna double my bets 'cause my luck's about to change. I don't know if that's gonna happen here, but I, man, if you can't beat Kyler Murray in the fucking Tampa Heat and an offense that can't run the ball, And let's put it this way, Bowles gets fired if they lose this game, and maybe that's how this plays out, and I'll just bet— I'll pay— take them again next week. But I'm taking them, Bucs +1.5, home dog. A lot of favorable stats with home dogs, 0-2 and all that shit.

Yeah.

What do you—

so what's your other leg of your tease?

The other leg of my tease is the Tennessee Titans from 2.5 up to 8.5. New York Giants favored at home with Jameis Winston starting at quarterback. I'm not going to sit here and make a compelling case for the Titans. I'm not going into the X's and O's to explain to you why I think that the Titans are going to compete, be competitive in this game. I'm just going to say I don't have the Giants winning by more than a touchdown against anybody for the rest of this entire season. Maybe the Dolphins. I don't know if, I don't even know if they're on the schedule, but this version of, of the Giants with, with Jameis at quarterback, I'm just not, you know, that, that feels like a good teaser leg to me.

So you're taking 'em up to 8.5?

Yes. Tampa up to 7.5, Titans up to 8.5.

I haven't had a chance to talk about the dart injury on this podcast yet. Jameis, I think that was the worst I've ever seen a quarterback play in a game that I can remember. No, I'm sure there's been worse.

You watched Cooper Rush. Did you see any of Cooper Rush the 2 previous games?

I saw Cooper Rush. I feel like Jameis was worse. Oh, I couldn't— I honestly was stunned. It was like it had— he had no idea he was actually going to play in an NFL game this season. He seemed completely unprepared.

He was not planning on playing.

And he, he, the throws weren't near anybody. Like, I've never seen anything like that. The dart thing was such a bummer. The Giants fans were so upset. I was so psyched for that game too, and I think everybody was.

And then, uh, this moron took the, the, the Giants +7.5 in Ringer 107.

Yeah, I don't, I don't know what happened.

I thought they were gonna stick around. I thought they were gonna be within a touchdown. Yeah, that's why I went 3-2 last week. There were so many easy games I could have picked.

So I, I'm obviously staying away from the Titans for all the, all intents and purposes.

Yeah. Proper reasons.

I was thinking how they got Saleh and they got Dayball, and it was like, and even I, like, I test drove it a couple times in my head, like, oh, Saleh's great on the defense. Now they get Dayball on the offense. But they basically did the equivalent of those, those movies you'll see on like Amazon. when it's like Nic Cage and John Travolta are in a movie again. You know, like these—

Yeah.

Actors that just are not in successful projects anymore, and they're thrown together, and you're like, oh, it's a movie. This was the equivalent of that, where it's like these 2 actors— oh, Ben Kingsley's in this too. And it's just— it's— it's— oh, and that's Aaron Eckhart. And, uh, it's just not gonna happen. And I think that's the same with this. You take 2 name coaches that have really not been successful And you put them together and guess what? They're not successful. And I, the Cam Ward, I haven't seen any identifiable tape with him this year that says that he's gonna be a productive QB.

Yeah.

I don't have a counterpoint. I just thought they looked lively against the Eagles, especially they were able to put some pressure up front. They got some pressure on Hurts and they can kind of run the ball a little bit, the Titans. Yeah. And, and you know, that, that Giants defense Burns is supposed to be out, I think. Just, you know, I'm just— the idea of—

Well, their secondary is the worst, probably. Uh, it's in the running for worst. Okay, so that's your tease. I'll do my tease then. And I, I really— I changed this 100 times. Um, the only thing I knew was that Seahawks-Washington was going to be one of my legs. Yeah, 6-point tease. On FanDuel, we have a deal every week, $50 bet, you get -110 juice. We've done okay on the teases. I, I almost went 2-0 except for the Baker thing, but I just feel like Seahawks, it's a free leg. Tease the Seahawks down to 1.5. I think they go on a bender this year. I, I'm a full believer. All the stuff I laid out might've been one of the few things I was right about before the season, but the nobody believes in us with them. I, I think they have a little edge to them. They're not even completely healthy yet. I don't really see a difference with Locke and Darnold from how it's affected them. They seem fine with Locke. I thought he was good last week. And then your team, Mariota, last 13 starts, which were basically in '22 and '25, he's 3-10.

And him against that Seattle defense, you could talk me into some alternate like Seattle -19.5, like some of those bets too, some blowout bets. But this just— I, I can't imagine Mariota is going to beat the Seahawks, so I'm putting him in a tease.

Washington fits a bunch of those trends in terms of 0-2 teams. Now Washington is 1-1 against the spread, so they're not, you know, the, the red lights flashing and, and the sirens blaring. in terms of that, that trend angle. But, um, they are supposed to, to cover this according to what history has told us. But I— you can't go against Seattle. They're 10-1 against the spread on the road.

Yeah.

Uh, with— under Mike McDonald, they have 9 straight, straight-up wins in the Eastern time zone. The Seattle— they are so well prepared, so well coached. And the issue is the Seattle defense against Mariota. That's one significant formative issue. The other issue is the Washington defense against JSN, and that's the only weapon that Seattle needs.

Yes.

It's a single weapon. You can't take him away. We watched, you know, Seattle twice, their opponents try and take JSN away. He's untakeawayable. So this Washington defense is going to do it. I don't think so.

They're just too good. They're not gonna lose games like this early in the season. Yep. And, uh, I thought what, what I saw from Washington— plus you lost Cosmi, brutal. But from what I saw from Washington, like, there was a little something with Daniels, but it was all built around all the skills Daniels have. And I just don't think Mariota has the same skills.

He does not. You are correct.

So I'm putting the Seahawks down to -1.5. And man, I test drove a bunch of different ones for the other leg, including I was looking at the Broncos +8.5 in that Rams game. Seemed enticing. Um, I looked at the Saints, the Raiders, the Raiders going all the way up to +9. That caught my interest. I'm going with an under for the first time.

Oh, okay. You're doing a total.

I'm doing a total.

Good for you.

Bengals-Steelers under 48.5.

Okay.

I was trying to think in my head how this game got to 49 points and what would need to happen, and it's basically defensive touchdowns and special team stuff.

Agreed.

The Steelers offense, they had 23 points in the first 2 games. Their quarterback's a fossil. Um, they can't run the ball at all. They have no run game whatsoever. Did you see the, the, the video of Lawrence just punking the Houston offensive line for like 4 minutes?

No, I didn't see that.

They mic'd him up. He's talking shit to them for 4 solid minutes about how he's whooping their ass. They're scared of him. I'm coming again. It is unbelievable. I thought they have a real identity with their front 7. I'm not sure about their secondary yet. Yeah, they're, listen, I, I was down on them before the season, but they can block better than I thought, and their front 7's better than I thought.

It's legit.

And they'll do at least as well as the Patriots did last week. So you have that. And then on the other side, the Steelers defense was really good against the Pats. I was really— I thought they did a bunch of good stuff. And the way Houston was hitting Burrow last week, they weren't really moving the ball. They basically got a couple long plays and they have really good receivers, but They only gave up 13 points on offense—

I mean, on defense to the Patriots offense.

So 49 points is either— that's 30-20 beats me, 27-23 beats me, 35—

No, I like this.

14 beats me. I don't, I don't see it. I don't see how they get there.

Yeah, I, I bet the under in this game just on the number.

Like, I, I—

it's an appropriate under game. And it just boils down to the complete ineptitude. I can't believe you—

you—

I'm glad that there isn't a camera in my living room capturing what I say to DK Metcalf, because I have DK Metcalf on my fantasy team.

He was awful.

I want him to go to Antarctica and find that city under Antarctica.

Is he going to be the guest on Eat a Fat Dick?

Oh, he— no, no, I want something worse for him than that.

I mean, he's not even allowed on the podcast.

The bravado matched with the ineptitude is just like that. That's what I have the least amount of patience for.

He's like the Seattle Mariners at receivers.

And, and, you know, Aaron Rodgers, my best friend on the team is DK Metcalf. Well, that certainly makes a lot of sense. Yeah, 2 pieces of, you know, 2 guys not capable of advancing the football down the field.

Pittsburgh's offense, 31st in EPA through 2 games. Cincinnati was 21st. Pittsburgh's defense was 2nd in EPA. Cincy's 4th.

It's a great underplay.

Good luck getting a 50. What's your, what's your last pick?

I have a very quick question for you. Why didn't you take San Francisco from 8.5 down to 2.5 against Arizona?

Something scares me about that game.

Okay. That's all.

That's it.

Yeah.

I, I don't think Arizona's as bad as they looked last week. I thought Seattle's defense is so fucking good. They just completely undressed them and clipped their wings and got in their heads. And I thought Arizona wilted, but I don't, I don't, San Francisco's lost a lot of receivers. They've looked really good the first 2 weeks. There's a lot of Purdy buzz.

Yep.

And it just felt like jumping on one bandwagon and getting off another. I don't know, I just didn't like it.

No problem, no problem.

Seemed too easy.

Just wanted to ask it, um, because I might end up playing San Francisco laying the 8.5.

I would rather do it that way and, and, uh, figure it out that way. All right, what's your last pick?

I, I'm torn because I have Seattle -7 written down here and it was, it opened -6. I bet it Sunday night as fast as I could with a, you know, amount of money that I'm uncomfortable with.

It's Seattle 7.5.

I know. This is why I'm describing what happened. It was 7 this morning as I was making my notes and everything. It's up to 7.5 because nobody in America is taking Washington. Like there are not gonna be, they have to, I mean, if it gets to—

People are teasing them, all kinds of stuff.

Right.

They have to get, it has to get to 8.5 before I would consider taking Washington. Right. So I'm going back to the well with something. This is a place where you're— you— I'm going against every single trend that's ever been trended in, in Week 3, and I'm taking the Chiefs to win by margin against the Miami Dolphins. I have to keep betting against the Dolphins.

I like it. I don't mind it.

Every week that the Dolphins are less than 2 touchdowns, I have to take it. It's, it's just a mandatory play for me. There's no evidence whatsoever That's a defense capable of stopping anybody and they have no interest in it. I mean, they were kind of feisty in the first half against the Niners. Then the Niners came out and scored on their first 2 drives in the second half and the football game was over. They should have mercy ruled the 4th quarter so that nobody got hurt on, on either team. Honestly, there's just no, no, no point.

They are in that college football, right? You're just basically betting a big college football spread knowing that that's exactly like not fair.

So it's 10.5, Kansas City minus 10.5. Sure, great, done. I mean, there's, there's just not no evidence of competent football coming out of that Miami team.

I looked at it for a while. It scared me that KC's coming off a fun win. It scared me that they're in an easy stretch right now, or it's at Miami, at Las Vegas, bye week.

Yep.

And you start like, oh, we're gonna go 4-0. And, and, and then the weather piece scared me and I couldn't get there with the double digits. 'Cause I don't get it. I didn't— their defense certainly was not great in week 2.

No, Casey, no. And Mahomes as a double-digit favorite is terrible.

Yeah.

Mahomes on the road as a double-digit favorite is terrible. Miami fits every single trend in terms of a team coming in 0-2 against the spread. They're just awesome.

I think it's a smart pick.

Yeah. But I, I don't care. I mean, it's, it's not a 100% trend. So I'll take the Chiefs and lay the points. I don't care.

For my last pick, I really wanted to do Browns +2.5 against the Panthers and was just thinking about how funny it would be to say one last chance to bet on Deshaun Watson against Deshaun Watson, now betting on him.

On him.

Deshaun, I do think they can win this game though, but I, I think it's just a stay away. And I— it's Browns +2.5, and if it was 3, I might be a little more interested.

Good call.

I looked long and hard at Raiders +3 over the Saints because the Saints were down 21-nothing in week 1, 14-3, 14-3 in week 2. They're down 7 and they're down 8 both fourth quarters and they can't run the ball. And I think the Raiders are well coached and they can block and I don't mind them, but I, I just couldn't get there.

Good job.

That seems like a last minute of the game game.

Yep.

So I'm going with another team that has burned me 2 weeks in a row, the Houston Texans.

Yeah, I almost did it.

They're playing in Indianapolis. The line has dropped. The line is now -1.5. It is— they're the probably the most desperate team in the— of Week 3 other than Tampa, who I also have. But, um, 2 things. They actually really shut down Cincy and then just gave up a couple bigger plays 'cause they have Ja'Marr Chase and they have Tee Higgins.

Just—

Indy doesn't have anybody like that. Pierce is out for the year, or most of the year. They basically have Downs. They don't have Pittman anymore. Tyler Warren, cover him and you're good. And I don't— and Daniel Jones can't move. And this just feels like we're giving up 112 total yards this week, that kind of game. Offensively, just, they're not good though. The— Indy's defense is terrible. They're gonna be able to run the ball finally, you know, after playing who they played last week. I think they'll have a little more success. And I don't know, CJ wasn't bad last week. I thought he had some really good throws. I think they can score. But I think they can shut down the Colts more importantly. I don't know, how are the Colts gonna move the ball without Pierce? Who are you afraid of on that offense other than Taylor? Just shut down Taylor, you win the game.

Yeah, I don't know. They did a great job getting Taylor free against the Chiefs.

I get it.

I don't love it. They ran the ball really well.

Yeah.

I don't love it, but I like it.

I decided to stay away from Houston this week. I went with them. I gave them out as my wise wager 2 consecutive weeks on the show. Guess what my record is? with Wise Wagers. I mean, I just believe in Houston. I think ultimately they are going to be—

That's the thing. It's like, am I gonna get scared off because of how week 1 went when they dropped the game-winning interception? And then last week, which was just a stupid clusterfuck, one of those dumb NFL games that happen all the time. And it's just— and they don't have Nico Collins, right? And am I gonna panic, or am I gonna really believe this is an 0-3 football team? I don't know. We'll see if the—

we'll see if Cali Or say Gordon had— What are her notes?

Had some good notes in her notebook.

We'll see what her notes are.

Yeah.

Keyshawn Booty. All right, House, here's what we have. Ringer 107. We're both 5-5, hoping for a big week here. You have Ravens -3.5 in Brazil. You have Jaguars -2.5 at home against the Patriots. And you have the Chiefs -11.5.

10.5.

10.5.

But 11.5 is fine. 12.5, whatever you want.

You pick them 13.5.

I would.

It's 10.5 under the premise that Miami just keep betting against them until these lines go into the 20s. And your tease is gonna be Titans up to 8.5 against the Giants and Jameis Winston, and the Bucs up to 7.5 at home trying to win their first game of the season against Minnesota. I have as my tease Seattle down to -1.5 and the under in the Cincy-Pittsburgh game, 48.5 under.

It's a good one.

49 beats me. I have the Jags -2.5 against my beloved Patriots. Have to do it. In Ring 107, you can't have favorite teams. You're just trying to make the best picks. I do not like the spots for the Patriots this week. Bucs +1.5 against Minnesota. And then last but not least, the Texans -1.5. So basically I'm applying the symbiotic strategy I, I'm still backing these Bucs-Texans teams, and if it, and if it fails me, so be it.

So be it.

We'll see.

That's right.

Happy gambling in Week 3, Haus.

Best of luck to both of us.

Today's Ringer 107 was brought to you by FanDuel. Download the app now to find all of our 107 picks. Make this your most rewarding season ever. FanDuel, play your game. Odds subject to change. All right, that's it for the podcast. Thanks to Haus and Pelissero. Thanks to Gahal and Eduardo and Chris as well. Don't forget, new rewatchables coming on Monday. We are doing 13 Going on 30. I'm going to be back on this podcast Sunday night with Cousin Sal, who's fighting through it, still fighting through those kidney stones. We'll see if he can make it to, uh, to Sunday night. Enjoy the weekend. See you Sunday night. Must be 21+ and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ and present in DC or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-888- Hope NY, or text HOPE NY in New York.

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