Transcript of The Pats Grow Up, Nobody Believes in the Jags, the Bears are a Sports Movie, and Guess the Lines With Cousin Sal

The Bill Simmons podcast brought to you by the Ringer podcast network, where we are still chugging along, even though the holidays are coming up. I even have a new rewatchable is coming for you on Monday, and we did a big movie. We did a big movie from the 2020s. That would be the hint. I'm not going to tell you what movie is because you've seen it. So that is coming on Monday. If you missed it last week we did the Sure thing on Wednesday, and we did high fidelity on Monday. So go check those out. This is the last movie we're doing this year, and then we have a special episode for the last rewatchables of the year. So you can check that out. You can check out all the movies we did in 2025. And then video is still available on Spotify as a video podcast, much like the Bill Simmons podcast. Or you can get it wherever you get your favorite way to listen to a podcast, which is hopefully on Spotify because it's a great place for podcasts. Coming up, Cousin Sal and I are going to talk about a very exciting Sunday night in the Simmons house, the New England Patriots coming back in Baltimore and winning and improving their record to 12 and 3.

And it was an unexpected delight We're going to break it all down. We're going to take a break. We're going to bring them Pearl Jam and then Cousin Sal. This episode of the Bill Simmons podcast is presented by State Farm. Having insurance isn't the same as having State Farm. It's like expecting a linebacker on the football field, but a line cook. Sure, they both can handle the pressure when it starts heating up, but only one is stopping a countdown. You wouldn't settle for just anything for your team, so don't settle for just any insurance. When it comes to getting help you need, State Farm is the real deal. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Hey, Sal. What's up? You're the Patriots. You made the playoffs. We did it.

Congratulations.

I don't know where to start, except for an hour ago, I felt like this was a loss. We were going to have to go back to the drawing board with some of the injury stuff.

Twenty-five minutes Not an hour.

Whatever it was. Jake May went to another level, put that one on the old resume. Collinsworth, I don't know if you heard the tail end was doing the... Mike, these are the second-year guys. I'm not talking in the league right now. I'm talking all time. I was like, Oh, Collinsworth. What a win, though, for the Pats, and what a loss for the Ravens. Where do you want to start?

I heard the Collinsworth. You just cannot scare Drake May. I've I tried it. I tossed plastic spiders at him. I threw a shark in his bed one night. I brought him to the top of Mount Vesuvius and tried to push him all. You can't do it, Bill. You can't do it.

Mike, I hid in his closet once, and I had a Michael He had his mask on. He was not faced. I jumped right out. He didn't even move. He didn't budge. Yeah, they tried everything. I mean, the biggest thing they didn't try was playing Derek Henry in the last seven minutes of the game. Yeah, they forgot all about that. I don't understand what happened. We couldn't tackle him. Well, he was just over on the bench with an overcoat on. And then after the path scored to go up four, he was still on the bench.

He didn't get a thing done. That was weird. Was he? They never said anything, right?

I don't know. There wasn't a ton of injury reporting going today. Like, Henderson was just gone. We didn't know for an hour what happened to him. Then like, yeah, he's gone. He's out with a head injury. Okay, thanks. But yeah, we didn't have a lot of reporting on this stuff. That's a big win.

That's a big win. I mean, you did text us. You were like, we got too many guys out. I was like, who's Who's that? Ron, or Katie?

The Bundo was getting a little feisty on the Sunday Ringer pregame thread about how we were the paper machete pats. I was like, Hey, we'll be there in January. We're going to get our guys back. We're missing All the offensive tackles, the run stopper, and then the home run hitter, Henderson. And it didn't matter because Drake may just said, Fuck it. And Diggs was the other one. Diggs hasn't done that in a month, maybe more than a month.

He thought he would do it against Buffalo or it didn't. No, I see. The football God said, Hey, these guys got beat up by a real quarterback last week. We got to go back to normal where they just beat up on shitty QBs. So, yeah, my heart bleeds for you. You That's how we got Ty Hunley again. Nice job.

I know, but from what Lamar has been the last five weeks, was it a massive drop off? Did you feel like, Oh, no. I mean, I thought Hunley was pretty good. It was good. Except for the last drive, he was okay. He moved the ball. It wasn't his fault. Say, flowers got stripped on an awesome play by Cheson.

Yeah. No, it was a good win. That's the win you want when it's cold and you're on the road and all that stuff. And now who knows? Maybe he won't even be on the road.

Well, so they're down 24 2014, he hits Kyle Williams on that bomb in the corner, which is the throw he's made at least 10 times this year for a countdown. And the guy is usually never open. Kyle Williams is the speed guy that we have drafted this entire century and have gone basically 0 for 12 in these guys. And this is the first one who's actually made plays for them in big moments. But that was an awesome throw by Bay. And then the next drive, they're on their own 11, hits Holland's for 20, and they're just moving down. And then the third really shaky call of the game was that long bomb to Boody that he got tackled. No call, even though Boody got an OPI on a pretty chintzy one earlier than that.

But we got a master class in OPIs and PIs today, just all the whole throughout the day. Everybody, everybody. I don't remember.

I mean, if I was a Alliance fan, I would be out of my mind. The Chiefs run that pick play, or at least they did during the Mahomes era. What did they run that play?

Ten times a game? Be careful. You would have to give back six Lombardi trophies if you're going to play this game. With the pick plays?

Yeah, of course. With the Amandola and Edelman?

It was exactly one yard or less than a yard, whatever it was supposed to be. Oh, yeah.

Well, the worst one was the Saint-Brown OPI. I just feel like guys do that all the time. They usually call the big tight ends on that, and that's it. So May ends up 31 for 44 for 380 with two touch downs. And I didn't look at the FanDuel MVP odds. But what do you think? Did that move him up or is it Stafford's to lose at this point?

Yeah, it moved them up because Stafford was minus 350. He's at minus 185 now and maybe is plus 160. And Josh Allen is 25 to one now.

Yeah, he wasn't good today. I think Allen was It was the right bet for a couple of weeks there, but he just didn't do enough in the Cleveland game. I think that ship has probably set on him. Yeah, May is plus 175.

Plus 175. It's moving as we're talking. It's very exciting.

Well, it's interesting because I have all my notes from when I thought they were going to lose. One of the first notes was, Drake May, really good, not quite good enough because he had the pick in the first half and he had the fumble. I like that. This is something we've talked about a bunch of times on this part about everything is there and the last is to get rid of those two dumb players a game and maybe knock them down to one or zero. But the best quarterbacks, they're at one or zero with the dumb players. He had the bad pick and he had the fumble in traffic, which he's had a couple of times in his career. Also, Brable wasn't good enough because the fake punt was terrible. I don't know why they did that. What was that? That was bad news. What was that? Fourth and 10? Yeah. It's like, if the one receiver is not going to be open over the middle, the play is just not going to work. We're going to have to eat it with our third string safety is going to have to try to take out nine guys.

I don't know what happened on that.

Let's read your notes as if they lost. Do you still have those notes? I think that'll be my first.

I had, did the Ravens lose anything going from hampered Lamar to Huntley? I had, the pats are missing all of their offensive tackles, their run stopper, and their home run hitting running back. Will they be okay in January? Then I wrote down, is the season just too long? Because we're just seeing injuries every week now. The lions today were like the fucking zombie lions. What was that team? They couldn't even run the ball anymore. They were calling running plays. But we have eight, nine teams. The Chiefs lost their backup quarterback to a torn ACL. They double torn ACL.

Same injury. Going for the trifecta next week. Yeah.

Maybe we don't need an 18-game season.

The lines went through. They were on their third center of the day today. Not like of the year, like of the day today. And it couldn't run the ball. I think they had 15 yards rushing. Everyone had Gibbs props over. Didn't happen. I'm sure we'll talk about that. But one more thing about May. I'll give you credit.

I love how begrudging you are with the May thing. We're going to talk about Trevor Lawrence later, and I'm going to have some apologies.

You should have lost today.

We should have won last week. We're up 21-nothing.

I know you said the defensive line is a mess. They weren't pressuring. That's the one guy in the league you can't not pressure. He will freaking torture you because he has such a good long ball. He does throw guys open from 45 yards, from 18 yards from all different distances. I don't know if there's another guy like that in the league where it's like, all right, you don't pressure him. He is just going to destroy you, much like number 12 back in the day for you in Foxborough. So I'll give you that.

But here's the issue with this. Go ahead. His numbers against the Blitz are among the best in the league. That's one of the things he's great at. And Collinsworth did a good job today, pointing out he holds the ball to the last possible second and gets rid of it, usually accurately. But I don't really know what the move What's the in between no pressure and the blitz that he does well against?

Because that's what teams need to do.

I mean, I hesitated like somebody's going to steal my secrets because they won't. But I would do the discussion thing that the teams used to do against Mahomes, where it was just a bunch of guys, and you never knew if they were coming or going. And it's like, Are eight people coming? Oh, they're all sinking back. I would just try to disguise as much stuff as possible. The problem is, well, I assume the Henderson is just a concussion, and he'll be back in January. But when it's just Ramondre, he's not really a pass catching back. If Henderson had been on that wheel route in the end zone, that was just over. Like, Henderson scores on that. That's a breakdown.

You cannot scare them. You can't scare Driesle May. What are you going to do?

No. Well, the Jaguars were feeling unbelievable there for about a half hour because they really had a chance there to steal the one seed with any chicanery. But now It's too confusing now. Denver is 12 and 3, New England is 12 and 3, and Jacksonville is 11 and 4. So I guess it's going to come down in the last couple of weeks. What's interesting is the Christmas games, four of the teams are eliminated now. We have three Christmas games. And somehow the NBA games, it's a win for the NBA. The NBA was like, oh, the NFL is taking our turf. And now we're in this situation where the NBA games are probably better.

It's one thing to be eliminated. But when When it's Josh Johnson versus Dak Prescott, when it's Max Brozmer versus Jared Goff, when it's Ronix against Chris OlaDoken, that's bad times. That's not really good. I don't know. I mean, maybe some of those starters come back or second string.

I see you follow college, and I don't. Chris OlaDoken, just a complete stump for me. Never heard of him, didn't know how old he was or where he went to college. Had to look it up.

He only played for three colleges. It wasn't that bad.

The end of South Dakota State, South Florida, Sanford, drafted by the Steelers three years ago.

And now he's the future of the Kansas City Chiefs and the Christmas game.

I need your honest answer on something. This could be a social media clip. Get ready, Eduardo. Do you think the Patriots are good enough to make the Super Bowl? From what you've seen, you watch a lot of football every week. And the case for them, I think, to make it is that the AFC is wide open. They have a quarterback who potentially might have real greatness in them. They can run the ball just enough. They should be able to get enough of their offensive line back in time for January. Their defense is feisty. It's a tough team. It's a real together team. They have good chemistry. They're going to have at least one home game in the playoffs. I'm not allowing myself to think about it in a real way, but I thought that win today was a little different because Baltimore, that just seemed like a game Baltimore was going to win, and they took it from them.

I'll say it. Yes.

So you think it's conceivable?

Well, why wouldn't it be? You beat the Bills already, and they're ahead of you. They would have to do it on the road and all that like that. But you could at least play close with the Bills and January.

Because the Bills defense looked horrible today against Cleveland. I mean, really awful. It was shocking.

A lot of big plays. They give up big plays to nobodies, too. I think like, Trevianne Williams and I say a bond, they're eating you up. They give up 5, 15-yard plays. The only thing that's working for them is James Cook has more than 5, 15-yard plays. At the end of the day, they have more points. But yeah. That's the thing.

As you go through all the teams, everybody's got their couple of things to point to where we're like, We have this. And for Buffalo, it's Allen and Cooke. It's like, We have this. The Pats have Drake May and Vrabel. Jacksonville, I I can't wait to talk about them because I thought that was the most impressive performance today. But we got to save it for a little bit later. But you go through the AFC, and it feels like everybody you can make a case for, you could pooh-pooh. You know what I mean? You're just going down the line and be like, No, here's why this Denver, they They've been lucky for three months. It finally caught up to them today. This is closer to who they are. You could just deal with every team.

What are they going to do? The talking heads are going to say, How's this start? No way New England beats Jacksonville in January. No way New England beats Denver in January. That's just for clicks. That's not true.

Well, and then Houston, Everybody's Sleeper, which I had my fantasy season, died today because the CJ Stroud and Nico Collins. I can't overstate how bad CJ Stroud was today. I don't know how many throws he missed, but it was over 10. Throes he just missed. That he either sailed, he threw it, led the guy out of bounds, all kinds of things. I don't know what happened on that team today, but the Raiders, they came very close to beating them. They could have won. It It felt like the Texans just thought they could show up. I don't know if they knew it was Andrew Catalon's 200th game.

I didn't know that. It was?

Yeah, they met everybody. Even the officiating guy, he stepped in and congratulated him. Yeah, 200 games for Andrew. Wow. Then it was Chris Meyer's 132nd straight Carolina Panthers game today. That was the other thing. They stopped the game in the third quarter.

He commented on how he's never heard this play so loud. It's like, Yeah, well, you live here. You're here. Here more than your actual house.

Your apartment is a suite in the Panthers Stadium. I feel way better about the NFC than the AFC from a Super Bowl standpoint, I think.

What do you mean picking a winner, you mean?

I just think the Rams are...

I do, too.

I think the Rams are a class up. I'm not saying the Pats couldn't beat them. And by the way, we saw two games already this week come down to the dumbest two-point conversion I've ever seen in my life. And then whatever the fuck happened last night in that Bear's Packers game, which was the dumbest win of the year. The Nike games were great. Probably the last couple of years. It was awesome. Congratulations to the bears, but that was bonkers. The fourth down guy in the corner that nobody's ever heard of, making a shoestring, reaching up, catch. And then you get an onside kick. There's two onside kicks a year. And then Caleb has the best throw of the year to win the game. That was nuts.

That's what I don't understand about that Chicago team. And we could go through the 10 games they should have lost when they were losing by six or eight or 10, and with a few minutes left in the fourth quarter. But when it gets down to it, if they're there, he throws some great balls. He really does.

He gets away from sex. He really does. It could be second and 20 every time, and he always gets out of it somehow.

Yeah, but yes, you're right. The onsite kick is insanity. It's like Dobbs is treating it like it's covered in rhinoceros shit or something. Just bat that out of bounds. Get rid of it. If you don't want to catch it, it's fine. Just kick it out of bounds. I don't get that. I could do it. We do it in my living room. Me and the boys, we do it in the living room. We pretend we're recovering on side kick, and I guarantee all of us are better than what we saw the other day.

This is pretty bad. Well, we have... So Denver's got at KC, which is suddenly one of the easiest weeks in the league. Kc's terrible now. And then they're home for the Chargers who just keep winning as we keep trying to look for reasons not to think that they have any anything, and they just keep beating everybody. Pat's play at the Jets who are just awful. They are horrible. I mean, they fell back 9, 6. I was going against the Saints defense in fantasy, and it was any third down. It was just a sack. Then they're home for Miami, who looked like they quit today. They looked like they were done for the season.

They're fine.

Then Jacksonville is at Indy, who suddenly has to win tomorrow, basically, to stay alive, and then home for Tennessee. I don't know. Who would you bet on for the one seed? I can give you the odds, too.

Yeah, I have them here. So are you 6? No, you're 6: 50 for the one seed, or did that go down?

No, we're plus 180. Denver is minus 145. Jacksonville is plus 850.

What I'm looking for, yeah. I think it stays. I think it stays as it is.

Well, it would have to be the chargers winning in Denver.

Right. I think it's Denver because they're going to get an easy win next week. And then I think they maybe learned a little bit. I knew Nicks was slinging it like John Elway last week. I'm like, We're not going to get that again today, probably, are we? He's somewhere in between there. But yeah, Jacksonville just beat them up all over. Was he 14 touch downs, no interceptions in the last four games? Lawrence just doesn't turn the ball over anymore.

I want to dive into that game quickly on Houston, though, and the chargers. Chargers 11 and 4, but they play Houston this upcoming week. And then Houston is Ten and Five. They go Chargers, Indianapolis. There is a scenario where the Chargers could win this Houston game, and then week 18 means nothing when they play Denver.

If the Colts lose tomorrow, basically, right?

If the Colts lose tomorrow, that would be another way. So there's a bunch of scenarios where the Chargers don't care about week 18. They're like, Fuck it. Let's sit Herbert. He's hurt anyway. So I would... The Denver minus 145, I think, would be the safe move. That's the one. Because Casey's done. Put a fork in them.

That's the one for sure. And the league is in trouble trying to figure out important games for the next two weeks. And we went over Christmas. It doesn't get a lot better for the Saturday, Sunday, Slate Monday next week.

Well, you know what really hurt was this Baltimore last day. Yeah, for sure. Because now they're seven and eight.

Is that their record? Yeah. Seven and eight, Pittsburgh nine and six. So the magic number is one, basically.

How does this happen? Can we do Pittsburgh?

Minus 1100 to win that division.

Every time I think it's the dumbest dealers one I've ever seen, they just go hold my beer and they have a dumber win. And this one would have been a really terrible loss because it seemed like the game was over and then all of a sudden the lines are driving. There's a game-winning lateral to Jared Goff that gets called back by a PI that took them five minutes to figure out because I think they were afraid they were going to get jumped leaving the stadium. Then they're like, It was a shutdown. Hold on. But... The game's over.

Go home, everyone. Yeah.

Touchdown, but... We can't get rid of the Steelers. That's 19 straight, 500 or better Tom on Seasons. I think they had run out of stupid wins. So they were like, what if we got two OPIs inside the five-yard line with under 30 seconds left to win? Have we done that yet? They're looking at their big syllabus of shitty, stupid, ridiculous Steeler wins. They're like, Oh, man. No, we don't have an OPI. No, two. We've never done that. Boom. I hate this team.

Can I play devil's advocate for a second? The ending was stupid, obviously. That could have gone either way. It's stupid. But I thought the Steelers were very, very good today.

They really did. Yeah, they did.

It would have been a bad boss. I went into it. I was like, The Lions are going to score 35 because they need to win. They absolutely need to win. The Steelers are on a short week. Everything was leading towards the Steelers getting just bulldozer today. And then it's like three nothing for a while, right? And then so you look at it, the time possession was 34, 25. It seemed like 45, 15.

Yeah. The lines never had the ball. They didn't have the ball.

They didn't have a second half first down until 11 minutes left in the fourth. The Steelers ran all over them. They had gained well and Warren had two 45-yard touch downs. I mean, the players were shoving fans in the face. That's always No, that was bad. But the lines had 15 yards rushing. So I don't know. And again, we talked about how they went through three centers. That was bad. But that was a good performance. I don't like to compliment Rodgers, but it was like 9 to 10 down the stretch when it mattered.

The lines had 11 running back runs for 16 yards. Jesus. The lines are basically done. Yeah. Dan Campbell, over under 2027 for him being on the Sunday Fox pregame show.

Oh, wow.

Did you go over? What month? I'd go over. September, October? No, it would have to be before the season. Before the season. The Terry seat will be open at some point.

I'll go slightly over.

Slightly over. So in the 2020s, it happens.

Yeah. And it was a big Ben Johnson weekend. I know they're pulling the rabbits out of their asses and how they're getting that done in Chicago. But Detroit definitely missed them. Again, today, we could show them five, six games where this was the case.

Well, the bigger thing, they ran the ball down their throats. Rodgers had a good interview after the game, but he was like, We ran for over 200. They ran for 230. They passed for 251. I mean, the lions are missing half their team at this point, which is another issue with these 18-game seasons. But yeah, no lions. We talked about it a couple of weeks ago about how fast a window closes. The lions, they haven't even really had a window. It was slightly ajar for a year. And now, they're not even going to make the playoffs.

It doesn't look like- Under 10 and a half, right? Clinch. They're not getting there.

And then the stealers are in the playoffs, which seemed inconceivable for three months. And every time they won, it seemed dumb. But they do feel like they've stumbled into a little bit more of an identity as the year went along.

The identity without T. J. Watt? Is this a Ewen theory? It's a little bit of a Ewen theory.

Well, Rodgers has three throws he could make, and he somehow It's like Tecmo Bowl. When we were playing Tecmo Bowl in college, and there were only four plays. It was like two run plays and two pass plays. You had to guess which play the guy you were playing against was going to run. If he guessed wrong, it would be like, Fuck, I guess wrong again. And that's like Rodgers. It's like, I could do the other shoulder to mech-half throw. I could do the quick throw to the tight end, or I could do the quick screen pass, the bubble screen. These are my three Tecmo Bowl players, and you just have to guess Which one I'm going to do?

And those are the plays. That's it. And then there's the other stuff. He schooled Campbell at the end of the first half with the timeout, rushing to the line of scrimage. They were running out of time. It's like, no, Detroit should be calling timeout here. He still snaps a ball when defense has 12 on the field. He's still the best at that. They're there.

We were texting when all the shenanigans at the end of the first half happened. Campbell called time out. It ends up buying the Steward It's time to get a ridiculous breakdown. All of a sudden, it's tied at halftime. There are these plays that happen when you're watching the football games. You're like, That team can't win now. Somebody will take a dumb intentional grounding safety or they're just certain or somebody fumbles as they're about to go in for a countdown, and it's like, Oh, touchback, then 20. You're like, They can't win now. It's just not. They're not destined to win. And that felt like one of those moments.

Who would you rather play right now, the Steelers or the Texans? Because if I asked-Fund the Pats? If I asked you last week, you wouldn't be no hesitation.

I think the Texans have... Well, Woody Marks didn't play today. I had Woody Marks on a couple of fantasy teams, and I think he's legitimately good, but always seems to have some injury. When they don't have him, they can't run the ball at all. Chubb's washed, sadly. He had a big first down. The Raiders who haven't won since mid-September, they were in the Texans run game, and they're pressuring Stroud, and they stink. So in the playoffs, if they're on the road, I feel like I was a believer in their offense after last week. They looked really good last week. That's why I wanted to start Stroud in a fantasy playoffs. But they had a lot of trouble. I'd probably rather play them than the voodoo stealers. Just the weird shit that goes on with them. Isn't that the right answer?

I think so, because I was thinking about it. You have two of maybe the favorites, the Super Bowl favorites as five seats. Sorry. The Rams. I know stuff can happen in the AFC, but I think the Rams will be a five seed. I think the Bills will be a five seat. And they might be two of the three favorites to win the Super Bowl when it shakes out, right? Even now, they're two of the three favorites. I love the Rams going to Carolina or Tampa and winning that game. We don't have to guess the line now, and I don't care that they lost to Carolina already. That's going to be a blowout. And I know Pittsburgh lost to Buffalo, but I don't know now. If Buffalo goes to Pittsburgh, is that possibly a game now?

The way Buffalo's defense has looked. Alan got banged up again today. He's had a lot of those where he's limping off. They show him on the sidelines. There's three people milling around him. I just feel like he's taking a lot of hits. Cook's really great, though. It was such a pleasure to have him on a fantasy team. Just lights out. It felt like every time he had the ball, it felt like he could break a 60-yarder. But they have no deep threats at all. All stuff is 10 yards and in. I thought the Browns did a good job against them today. Their quarterback wasn't good enough today. Shadora was just... He just could not rise to the occasion. You know how many times he got sacked? Which we saw in 10 games.

How many times you think he got sacked today?

It felt like at least five.

Yeah, it was two. But it always feels like five. It always feels like five or seven or something because he has to get rid of it. He threw the two interceptions. I don't know. He's lucky. He's such a good solid clubhouse guy.

They had one where it was the big drive to basically go for the field goal to tie the game. And in three plays, it was fourth and 32. That was it. Then I'm like, 32-yard line, it's like, okay.

Yeah, normally you go for it. I'm like, this is not a makeable down. They really do have to punt here. This is stupid with no time left.

So this time of thing, we did the over-unders for the year, which we had a pretty mediocre year this year.

You had mediocre. I was subpar. I think I was 9 and 14. I think you're 11 and 12 so far.

We're both going to be around 500. Last year, I was lights out. You were good, too. But we did the stealers, and I went under. Did you go under or over?

I think I went slightly under. This is one where the line was in between. I didn't have them make in the play-up, so I went under.

I just don't understand when it's two straight decades of them just having winning records, why you talk yourself out of that. I don't know why I did that. It's just the Rodgers was so bad last year. It's like, Well, this will be the year. But Rodgers has been okay.

He's not one of the best 15 quarterbacks, but he's not one of the worst 10. He was very good today. It doesn't look like the cold weather is crushing him or the longer season. But let's be fair. The first eight games, if you would have told us, well, Burrow is going to be out, Lamar is going to be out, and the Browns are the Browns. They'll settle on a quarterback who won't be good by week 10. I might have gone over eight and a half or whatever it was. But they're solid. They're solid. They're there every year.

The weird thing with him was he looked so bad. What was it? The Chargers game? Where he looked like he was 55 years old? Mm-hmm. And then lately, he looks good. But I was thinking, maybe this is just what happens when you hit your You're about to hit your mid-fourties because I know it's happened to me when I play. I played tennis a week ago. This is where I compare myself to a professional athlete. Good. I'm listening. Me and Howard Owens, we beat these two British guys. We defended America. We really like it. It was one of the best wins since the Boston tea party. Just a doubles tennis, straight sets. It was really great. I was moving awesome. Five days later, I hit with my wife and I couldn't move. And I couldn't move side to side. I felt like I was 100. And I was thinking to myself, I wonder if this is just what happens to somebody like Rodgers, where they're like, I was moving so well five days ago, and now I can't move side to side. And then you get a massage or something. You're like, I feel great. But maybe this is just a roller coaster ride we're going to be on with a 43-year-old quarterback.

Can I tell you what Roger's secret is? I'm surprised you didn't read this.

What?

Shirtless sauna. Try it.

Try it once. I got to do shirtless.

See what happens. I'll try it.

That's a good one. The Bill Simmons podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Tis the season to be boosting on FanDuel this year. You're getting seven straight days of holiday rewards, each one waiting in the app for you to unwrap every day, bringing a new way to play. Keep checking in and see what drops next. All that leads to the Christmas Day special, where you can get something extra special. I'm going to be doing my Ringer 107 pics for Christmas on Tuesday. Got to study the lines. We have four teams eliminated out of the six, so I got to take a look at it. Seven days of gifts, one big finale. Head to fanduel. Com/bs to get into the holiday spirit. Fanduel, play your game. You must be 21 plus President Select States or 18 plus in President DC, Kentucky, Wyoming. Optin Required Bonus, issued as non- withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wage or amount. See terms at sportsbook. Fanduel. Com. Game problem, call 100 Gamble or visit rg-help. Com. Call 789-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect. This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra, the official beer partner of the NBA.

We are a little past the quartermark of the NBA season. It's been some fun stuff has been going on. We have four really good teams in the West. The Knicks seem like they're good in the East. And then my Celtics is the thing I've been the most excited about. I thought they'd be a little better than 500. But what we've seen so far, they've been one of the underdog stories of the year. No Jason Tatum, Jalen Brown, putting it on his back. The guard's playing better. It's been really fun to watch. So if Tatum comes back, they might actually, who knows, be like a sleeper in the East. But it's been an unexpected delight for me. They went to game on Friday, game on Saturday. They'd be two good teams. Really fun to watch. There's a lot to look forward to this season, but the best moments are served cold. It's almost as good as a nice cold Michelobultra. It's a superior light beer, only 95 calories. Getting NBA fans closer to the game with exclusive prizes and a chance to win courtside seats. Michelobultra. Saperia is worth playing for. Enter now at Michelobultra. Com/courtside.

Michelobultra Courtside 25 to 26. No purchase necessary. Open US Residence 21 plus begins on October first, 2025, ends on June 30th, 2026. Multiple entry periods. See official rules at Michelobultra. Com/courtside for free entry, entry deadlines, prizes, and Details. We're going to talk about the Jaguars. So they put out a Nobody believes in a social media video that Kevin Wiles and I were both excerpted from. All the people who didn't think the Jaguars were for real, which included me this week. I didn't think they were for real. I wasn't buying what they were selling. I thought Lawrence was awesome today. That was easily the best game I've ever watched from him. The crowd was crazy loud. I thought Denver's defense, especially in the first half, was really flying. I thought he was as good as Drake May was in that Sunday night game, really pushing all the buttons. I've never seen him play like that. Did you see the same thing? Excellent.

Taking off for first downs, flying horizontal to the ground, all the stuff he needed to do. And you're right, it was really loud. Like twice the whistle blew. Remember, he got pounded. He just got destroyed from the back.

He took a huge hit in the back.

He took the camera off him. I wasn't expecting it. I'm like, he's going to be down for a while and he got right back up. I almost think he does better when he can't hear the when it's too loud. You play in Jacksonville and you can hear your parents making dinner plans in the crowd. Distracted by his dad's voice. Yeah, exactly. You play in Denver. First of all, they probably even shouldn't use whistles because they don't work. I don't know. Maybe you blow a horn that says, what's the Bono line for, Well, tonight I got it, Sam, instead of you. Something. Something other than the whistle.

Sing the rest of it.

No, that's enough. That's enough. But yeah, I said like... And what's weird about them is...

Yeah. I'm listening. I'm just turning the air on. I'm I'm getting hot. I'm getting sweaty from the past week. Oh, wow. Look at you. Keep going.

I took them over and I took them to win the division because I thought Travis Hunter would be really good. Because I thought Brian Thomas would be really good.

I forgot about Travis Hunter.

Isn't that crazy?

That's the first time I thought about him in a month.

And Brian Thomas has put up nothing, right? He'll have a decent first down every now and then. But if you would have said Brian Thomas is a non-factor and Travis Hunter is not even like... That's such a good point. He's on IR since week 4. That's such a good point. Why would you put Jacksonville then?

Well, the Myers trade It turned out to be the best deadline trade anybody made. They already extended him, and he's this reliable security blanket for Lawrence. But listen, I've watched a lot of Lawrence, and we've been stuck watching him in that 6: 30 AM Eastern Time twice a year where you can really watch. And he always just seemed frenetic to me. I'd given up on him. I talked about it in a pot. I just thought we'd seen enough. How many starts can somebody have where they are who they are? I don't know if it's a new coach. He seems more confident. There's a leadership aspect to him. I always thought he seemed overwhelmed, especially in a game like the atmosphere today. I think a year ago, he throws three picks, and he throws a red zone pick. I just think he would have stunk, and he was really good.

They did play like there was Bolton board material. I don't know if it was you and Wilds or if it was Sean Payton. No, Sean Payton. Sean Payton said the small market thing. The small market, and Liam Cohen talks about that after the game, and it It did look like they responded to that. I just don't want to get caught where we were with Bo Nicks last week. We're like, Oh, man, this guy's back. What did he throw? Four touch downs?

No, but here's the thing. Here's the difference. There was a lot of evidence that Jacksville might be good. There was a lot of advanced metric stuff in the last six weeks. The line was between three, three and a half. A lot of the sharps were on the jags. And I think people were wondering, but weren't convinced, could this be the in the second half make a jump team. So now they're going six straight. I think Lawrence has 16 passing TDs and two run TDs. Their defensive line can get pressure. Secondary is good enough. They still give up a couple of explosive plays of the game. Etn has been way better, and they're better at using him. They'll run those little quick screen passes to him. So there's been signs of this, but they put it all together today because I thought Denver hung around in that game and the crowd was in it, and they really wanted them to make run, and Jacksonville just slammed the door. It was impressive. Then I thought that Sean Payton, I thought it was... Every week, he does something where I wonder, where it's like, Are we sure Sean Payton's good?

You didn't like when he kicked the field goal down 17? No. You hated that?

There's what? 11 minutes left? But they need three scores. They're down 17. They're on the two.

Yeah. Was it the two?

The two or three? They're on the three. It's like you need two touch downs. You're not going to get much closer if you can't get it here. Even If you don't get it, they're stuck on the three. They got to play out of the end zone with a lot of noise. I don't know. I'm just...

I was a little biased because I- That's one where I'm like, You got to go for that. I had Denver on the 25. 5 points as my wisest wager, so I didn't mind that at all. That was a good one. Yeah, you're right. But in our defense, the AFC South has beaten us up over the last decade, bets-wise. We're thinking, All right, only one team is going to come out of it. And Daniel Jones was leading the way. It's like, All right, we'll root for that because they look unstoppable. It's like, Oh, it's Now three teams are in the running as of December 21st. That's insane. But Jacksonville is everything we didn't think they'd be.

Well, how about this? If Daniel Jones never gets hurt and Jacksonville is doing what they're doing, could we have had three AFC South playoff teams, two in the AFC? Now we have eight playoff teams. I don't know who gets bounced. I guess Houston. Maybe Houston doesn't make it at that point.

At that point, you're saying? Instead of Indianapolis.

Yeah, maybe they take Houston spot.

Yeah, that would be it.

Because Indianapolis was eight and one.

Right. Yeah. Yeah, it would be Houston. This comeback would be too late, I think.

Well, I don't want to overreact. I feel like we've overreacted a few times.

It's too late.

No, this was a different one just because of the crowd and the defense. Listen, Lawrence, his stats were a little bigger than maybe what the actual path... They broke two short passes. That was just terrible tackling by Denver. I was talking to our buddy Gus about it after. He was a huge Rock Rots fan. I was like, What happened to your team today? And he was like, We were just due. We were due for a shit game. And that happens. That's fair. Maybe if they play a month from now, maybe Denver is a little different. I thought R. J. Harvey was actually good today. But Jacksonville, if you talk about teams that can do everything, they could at least make a case like, Hey, I know, throw away the first half of the year. Just look at our last six weeks. Stop saying, Oh, it was against the Jets. They beat the Chargers 35 to 6, which we were like, Well, the Chargers lost all their heads. I don't think the Chargers have lost since then. No. I don't think so either. I don't know. Maybe we read this one wrong.

Listen, I'd still be surprised if they made it to the Super Bowl, but we can make a run here. They've won a playoff game with Lawrence. They beat the Chargers, right? And that crazy game a few years ago. So they can figure out how to do it. They're not going to embarrass themselves the rest of the year. They're going to get in, maybe not as a one seed, but they'll be good. What's their record? At Indy and then Tennessee?

Yeah.

It'll be 13 and 4.

The thing I don't understand, I've never seen somebody so blatantly acknowledge and embrace the nobody believes in us thing because usually that's more of a fight club thing. It comes out after. I've never seen somebody aggressively market the game as a nobody believes in us and then back it up. Because now I don't know if that can count as... I don't know what that. It's different than a nobody believes us.

If they back it up? Yeah.

Just like, pointing out before the game that nobody believes in you. Oh, I see. It's like a different... They might have created a new thing. I've never seen it before.

Joe and Amos guaranteeing the victory.

But everybody thought he was crazy when he did that. Yeah. The Jags were like, Here's a video we've made of all of our tractors, and we're going to shove it in their face. And they're talking shit about Sean Payton after. It's pretty interesting.

Should we change it?

You have a lot of confidence.

Only Shaky's believes in us?

It's shaking.

Because if they get the onesie, they won't. It's not them.

Well, so the Pats probably aren't going to see them in round one. The thing I don't like about them is the explosive plays, like going against them. They get big, like 20, 25, 30-yard plays, which I think in the playoffs can tilt games where you feel like, Oh, this is this team. They're on the road. It's like all of a sudden, they've just busted one.

That's why everyone's afraid of you.

That tie-in came on, too. Strange. Yeah, the pats have that, too. Although we'll see with Anderson coming back. Quickly on bears packers from Saturday night, because this is the other team that's come on like a freight train. The bears have now six wins after trailing in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter, which is the most since 1970.

That's ridiculous.

I read through those. Four of them were really ridiculous, and then Saturday night was the It's ridiculous. But I think they basically have to be either at San Francisco or home Detroit, and they win the division. Green Bay can only win it if they win their last two, and Chicago loses their last two. So they're basically looking great for the NFC North.

They had a number plus 550 for the one-seed at this point. It's gettable.

It's gettable. As great of a win as it was for Chicago, I thought it was a worst loss for Green Bay because on top of everything else, then Love gets hurt.

Yeah.

And they've had all these other injuries, too. But I don't know.

Well, kudos to both teams after I called them out for not providing a decent games for what's supposed to be the greatest rivalry ever. They gave us two. Maybe they gave us another one in a few weeks. But yeah, I watched with a couple of bears fans because we were between Little League games and they were going nuts. And it's funny, they get You get mad if you say you're full of shit. You could have enjoy your team's success and still admit they're full of shit, right? Because in your mind as a bears fan, you're not going to be shocked if they lose by 17 a playoff game, are you? Based on everything we've seen from the six games.

Yeah, because the case would be like, did you know who number 20 was five weeks ago?

Oh, I like that.

How many outside kicks can you name that have happened this year that have been recovered that you can remember from the 2025 season? By the way, what's the answer to that? Is it two?

It might just be two. I do remember another one. Is it my dumb team it was against?

It's a lot of feistiness, a lot of upset fan bases. Jaguar's fan base is mad. Bear's fan base is mad. It gets crazy. Art Ringer's fantasy league. Sean Fentany stormed out of the conversation today. He got mad. He didn't think the punishment had been discussed at that time. It was this whole group text that it said, Sean Fentany has left the conversation. Just left the text.

Unbelievable. I don't know who's side I'm on. Couldn't tell if it was a bit. I can't tell who's side I'm on with that. It's a long story. What is the argument? So the last place team is supposed to suffer a punishment. A punishment that you drafted. You could draft a punishment. We drafted in September. So you could forego your seventh round pick on a player and draft one of the 10 punishments. I drafted to get my ears pierced. I'm like, I'm not losing this league. Whatever. I'll take the hard one. You drafted to wear a jersey chosen by by everyone else. Not smart.

For three straight podcasts.

Exactly. Yeah. Fantasy drafted, wear a headband on a podcast, but you can never mention it. He comes in seventh, not 10th. To his credit, I thought that it was the last place in the regular season.

In Sean's defense, I did as well. Then they were like, No, we had this whole toilet ball playoff situation.

They communicated it. Now he's in the 7-10. He loses the 7-10 So now he's in the finals of the bad prize thing. I don't know.

It's going to be wearing a headband talking to Noah Bomback.

Yeah, right.

On the big picture.

That's funny.

I like that. He stormed out of the text thread. Meanwhile, Van wanted to finish last because it was like somebody else gets to tweet for you for a week.

That's what he wanted. But you're right. Tensions are high. You're right. The season is too long. Like, fantasy means so much now. And now, every single every call, every pass interference call, whether it's for your team or not, the The bets, I'm sorry, they get higher and higher as we run out of games. It's rough. It's rough out there, people.

I've only been in two so and so has left the conversation text threads this year. Fentasy and then our cousin Jimmy. Why would he do that? Because once a year, our friend Daniel makes him so mad, he just leaves the text conversation.

Is he back? He's gone.

Yeah, he came back. He came back four days later. Yeah, he's the only one. I thought that was his move, but fantasy- I thought the SEC suspended him from our text chain.

He left on his own?

That might have been it. I couldn't remember. Something happened. Panthers Bucks, which I lost for Ringer 107. I think I went one and three. For some reason, I'm winning bets on Sundays, but Ringer 107, I'm dying. I can't really figure it out, including the 13-point tease I sent into the show today.

That was nice.

The last piece of it was lines plus five and a half, and they lost by five.

That's insane. That's insane that you win Panthers Bucks, watched the entire game.

I have no idea how the Panthers won. The Bucks seemed like they could just move the ball and do whatever they wanted the whole game, and then they lost.

It's the most aggravating three hours of my week watching this putrid Bucks team that I have to win the NFC South. And they still might win. I don't get it. They're175 to win the division. They should have been out of it five weeks ago. But yeah, I watched it. I'm like, why is Baker, why is he 70 yards passing. It's two minutes left in the third quarter. And the Panthers do nothing. They had 275 total yards. Bryce Young escapes a third in impossible and throws a shutdown pass. And that's what they seem to win all the time. That's all they need.

I think the Bucks are one of the five worst coach teams I watch week to week.

Yeah, maybe.

Really bad. When you think Liam Cohen... Bulls was 50-50 to go last year, wasn't he? And they kept him. And Liam Cohen went to the Jags. And the shit today, it's...

It's tough when you keep winning the division. They have guys. Yeah, to fire somebody.

Well, they've lost six of seven.

Right.

And somehow still have a chance to win their division. They have guys like, Bucky Urban will just be gone for a half hour. You know what happened to him? Then he comes back and runs for eight yards. You're like, Where was he? Why were you just playing your third string running back? They have a Bucco who had 600 yards in the first month of the season, and he had a long pass in the second half today. I forgot he was on the team. I was like, Hey, it's a Buka. Where did he come from? They get around the goal line, they just throw the same goal line fade to Mike Evans over and over again. They know their first down.

The only time they throw on first down. I wonder what they're going to do.

It's the fade to Mike Evans in the corner again. But they're just really sloppy. They just do dumb shit. Then they let Bryce move down the field on them. Bryce Young is good every other week. I wouldn't even say He's good. He's decent. But McMillon was killing them. They never doubled them. They never tried to take them out of the game. I just thought it was very strange.

If he sticks around in the fourth quarter, like Bryce Young, now he's the guy that's going to beat you. And I don't know what's with Baker. I know he had injuries, slight injuries that he played for.

Don't you think he has a real... Some torn something?

If this was me and I went from the ninth best quarterback to the 39th best quarterback, I would say I'm playing through a horrific injury. I have a ruptured spleen, and I had it replaced three times during the year.

He was an MVP candidate. Yeah. I'm looking at the Tampa Bay Bucaneers reddit. One of the top posts is, Liam Cohen and Dave Knaill has both won today. And the guy who posted it, his screen name is Fire Todd Bowles. That's the third post. Another one is, Grizard on the Sideline, calling plays. There's a Scooby-Doo post. Todd's press conference after the game. This is fine. Burn it all down. Really bad. I think them and the bangles might be the two angriest fan bases right now because the Bucks actually have talent. For them not to win that division It should be. And they're all back.

Godwin back, Evans back, as you mentioned. Agbuka, they play good defense. So they're at Miami and then home. Then the Carolina game is where it's all at, right? At home.

One thing I'll say about the Panthers. Mcmillon is really good. Every game, you just feel him for three hours. Just either going deep, making little third and nine, sideline, big catches in traffic. That was a really good pick.

I'm looking at this, by the way. Sorry. Mcmillon is offensive rookie of the year, minus 290. The Shuck master, Tower Shuck, plus 430, and Igbuka, plus 1700. Those are the top three, all NFC South guys.

Well, Henderson, I think, could have been in the mix if he had a good game today. He's 19, he's four. He was working. Texan's Raiders, we discussed. Titans Chiefs. It's yet another rock bottom for the Chiefs. I felt bad. It was officially a feel bad for Kelsey. Guys, a Hall-Famer. He's getting married to Taylor Swift, having a kid with her, he probably flies everywhere. Has private security everywhere he goes, and he's just running around this fucking Titans game, trying not to get hurt.

It was just faking injury.

Yeah, fake an injury and the thing. Vikings Giants.

That was sick, man.

So the Giants, they had a red zone drive. I wrote this down in the first quarter, and it ended in a turnover on Our Downs. And they showed a graphic that it was the 10th time this year, they've been in the red zone and lost a ball in a turnover on downs, which is the most in this 21st century. Wow. So congratulations to them. I didn't even know that was people were keeping track of that. Jj got hurt in that game, and Jackson Dart might as well be hurt because they've completely neutered him. They don't let him do anything anymore. And what's left? If he's not going to run around and be a maniac, what's left?

Well, I'm on a text chain with Giants fans. I'm like, Hey, this is what you wanted. You wanted him not to run. So here's what your non-running quarterback looks like. They had 141 total yards of offense. I think he had seven yards and two rushes that he was forced to make. Nothing was designed. He had 33 yards passing. It was disgusting. And And McCarthy goes out, and they still can't win that game.

Can we hear more about your text thread with Giants fans?

No, that's as good as it gets.

Is Brad on it?

He's on and off. I think he left. He left the conversation.

He stormed out. Well, we have Giants Raiders next week is going to be the Mendoza Bowl.

Yeah.

That's it. Whoever wins that or ever loses that gets Mendoza, I think.

We can't pick a line for that, right? That's an exhibition game.

We're going to.

They can't have that.

We're doing it. Bill's Cleveland, we talked about, but we didn't mention Judkins broke his leg.

Yeah.

And they did the... They've done this really smartly this year. Come back from commercial and they're like, We're not going to show you the replay. And I think there should be a name for this when they do that. It's like a verb where they're just like, We're going to have to thuismen that replay, and we're just going to keep it going. But it needs to have some term so we just know.

It's interesting because we're going to date ourselves here. But when blackjack, mulligan, we'll put the claw on somebody. They would put the sense of the... The big X? Yeah. So maybe we're going to take a mulligan, even though that's a golf term.

That X used to make me so bad.

I know. It used to scare me. What's going on? They put the X on. Is there a murder? What happened? Spurning blood. Come back. There's yellow tape everywhere.

Yeah. For anyone listening, go on YouTube and search for Black Jack Mulligan, censored claw. Yeah, that's it. It'll just be all these clips of him. And they're like, Oh, no. And it'll just be like a giant X.

Yeah, the graphics were not great back then. It was basically the family feud X. They just borrowed that.

Bangles, dauphins, bangles rolled. We don't need to talk about that. It didn't matter, except for fantasy. Falcons, Cardinals. I think every single Cardinal is hurt now.

Yeah, right.

I think that by the end of the game, I think everyone who started this season is done. Then Saints Jets, Katie Cooke, probably not the answer. I'm not going to answer for that. Any other notes for today? How did you do in the gambling? I'm trying to think.

I did all right with the gambling. We can't hit our 107 picks. By the way, you fired House from the 107?

I didn't fire him.

Are you sure? I took a week off.

No.

House is- He's very upset.

He wasn't upset at all. He I wouldn't have been happier not to do the picks.

I don't know. You can't fire people before Christmas. You know better than that.

I didn't fire him. It's not like I did better without him. I just have the bad juju.

No, I'll say my dumb team, 4,000-yard pass. 4,000-yard Two 1,000-yard receivers, a 1,000-yard rusher, and officially out of the playoffs with three games to go, or two games to go down.

Oh, your dumb team.

That's it. Nice going, Jer. Good work, Shady. No show it again today. Not that it matters at all.

That was one that I threw into... That was a late... No, no. No, that's Chargers. I did the... Okay. By Sunday, I was like, Oh, Quinn and Williams not playing? Why are the Cowboys going to win this? It was one of those.

Right.

But did the Chargers What are their best wins this year? Just out of curiosity.

Denver. I guess the Stealers.

They beat Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

Right.

And they beat the Chiefs twice, which I don't even think counts as a best win anymore. They're 11 and 4. We've probably talked about them for three minutes total this entire season.

Right. And I think they're good, but they're not like... I'd be surprised if four other teams weren't better than them in the AFC playoff, at least, right? It could make run.

The physical, now Hampton's back. They can run the ball. They have a double attack. Johnson got going today. Herbert seems up and down.

Extends it. I want to see a funny jet stat. What is it? You've seen this. Fifteen straight games without an interception.

Without them getting an interception. Defensively, yeah.

They faced Tua twice. They faced Gabriel, Cousins, Flacko, Shuck, Shuckleberry, and now, Drake and Josh Allen. It must be nice for you to go there next week and be like, Yeah, we're just not going to turn the ball over. Isn't that nice? Through the air.

I mean, that is a don't get hurt game. If there's I've never been run. That's like, please, let's just leave without an injury. Tampa is minus 166 to make the playoffs in Carolina's plus 138. And that game is in Tampa.

Right.

So if you think Tampa At this point, I don't even know who I would pick. How would you pick Tampa when they've lost 6-7? What sign is there that they're going to turn it around?

I'm not going to chase good money with bad money. I already have so much on them. That's disgusting. That they're favored by so much.

And the Colts are now minus 4,500 to miss the playoffs. So are the Lions. The Ravens are minus 1,400 on FanDuel to miss the playoffs.

Do you think- Pretty high Rivers is better off with the extra week? We were talking about this on the pregame show. I heard it.

I watched the entire pregame show.

You don't have to.

I did. I watched the whole thing.

Yeah. But I think the... What do you What do you think, though? Or do you think now that there's tape on the second version of him, he's in trouble?

What is the tape? What did they learn? He couldn't move and he's old. So we're off the revelations?

Okay, so then he should be better then.

I think he should be better, yeah.

I think they're a live dog tomorrow. I like them tomorrow.

Yeah.

Beware, everybody.

Do some Guest Alliance, Christmas games. We got three. They all stink. Poor Amazon.

Amazon and Netflix, right?

Yeah, but Amazon just has one game, and it's Broncos at Chiefs.

Denver KC, yeah.

A game that they probably paid a pretty penny for thinking... Oh, yeah. We both thought the Broncos were going to be good. The Chiefs are the Chiefs. Like, oh, this would be an incredible Christmas game.

Probably for the division. Yeah.

Guess what? You're getting... What's the guy's name? South Dakota State Guard. I already forgot. Obedocan.

Yeah, it's not good. It's not good, but people will watch because it's finals. It's the final week for fantasy. Football always gets nice ratings. Dallas, Washington, do fine. Detroit, Minnesota, do well.

Who was the one... I'm stealing this from somebody, and I can't remember who it is, so I apologize. Somebody else came up with this idea with Flacko. That he should just always be available for teams in a pinch. Oh, right. He's not starting. That he should basically be the human fab. That for the Chiefs, he's available. Almost like that backup quarterback commercial with Tommy DeVito and the backup quarterbacks come in. All-time backup. And it should just be a pool of him and Jameis and Russell Wilson. And they should just not be on teams. And they can only sign for a week for situations like this Christmas game. I like We need you for this Christmas game. It's Amazon's first Christmas game. We can't have Chris Oluwaku, what a Bruce Davis. We need a recognizable QB.

You're the fat uncle on Thanksgiving when the kids are running around a turkey bowl, you can't run routes. So you're going to be going to quarterback for both teams.

Yeah. It's like that could be Russell Wilson for the next two years. He's just not in a team. He's just available.

Should that be an award with the MVP and everything else? Like every year it changes or it doesn't change? Yeah.

Who else would be other than those three guys?

I guess that would be Phil Rivers.

Rivers will be in the mix. Yeah, he's available every year.

Yeah, definitely.

I wonder, did braided ever really think about it. I guess because he has that Raider's Minority Steak, but there was always that story that I got confirmed two years ago that he was like, if anything happened to anyone on San Francisco, he was ready. Just made it clear, I'm working out. I'm ready if you end up needing me.

It's so funny because I heard that about Romo in San Francisco, too. So I wonder if that's just a thing with San Francisco.

I mean, Romo couldn't... His back was messed up six years ago. There's no way.

Right.

All right. Guest Alliance, three Christmas games.

Wait, what's the score in weeks? All right, nine, seven.

This is a good one. You came back a little.

Let's do it.

Cowboys at Washington. I thought Washington spirited effort against the Eagles, and then they just couldn't keep it going. I think if Marriott hadn't gotten hurt, I actually think they would have covered that game and could have been a problem.

Debundo makes us take bad quarterbacks. He's my Ringer 107 partner. I didn't know you could fire people. You didn't make that clear, so I might just have to let him go.

There's no firing.

He always makes us take bad quarterbacks. And the problem with having a bad quarterback in Mariota is When he gets hurt, it is an awful quarterback. And that's what the great JJ himself, Josh Johnson, has done.

When he came in, that was definitely, oh, I didn't realize you were still here. They said he hadn't played in four years. Right. Yeah. Cowboys at Washington. I'm going to say the Cowboys. It's in the TicTac zone. I'm going to say Cowboys minus one and a half.

Oh, that is not a good start, though.

What is it?

I said six. It's five and a half. Really? Not a good start. Yeah.

Why is the line so high? Is it Marriott are playing?

I thought it's just Josh Johnson, isn't it?

Is Josh Johnson actually starting? I just thought Mariotta left the game. He's not going to play this week?

No. Wasn't it a concussion? What was Mariotta's injury?

I don't know. I'm going to look this up. Probably should have been more prepared. Injury up. They hit his hand.

It was a hand injury, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I thought he may play, though.

Well, you throw the ball with your hand. Oh, shit. I forgot. Some quarterbacks still do.

They're going to shoot it up. They're like, Dude, I can't start Josh Johnson. Yeah, maybe not.

You got to play.

All right.

Well, I'm off for four points. The Netflix needle is coming for you.

Next one is lions at Vikings. So the lions, are they officially out or are they almost out?

They have to run it, and Green Bay has to lose both.

I'm going to check their odds. I think I have 15. Minus 4,500. So they're as good as out. And no JJ McCarthy. He really did seem like he got hurt.

Yes, he did. Yeah.

Brosmer came in. I had the Vikings in a multi-team tease today that I was feeling great about. And then all of a sudden, Brozmer was in. But Brozmer wasn't terrible.

No, he wasn't. I think he was like, Hey, I could throw an eight-yard out to the best receiver in football, and he'll go get it. I think that's what he did to extend that one drive.

I felt like he realized I should throw it to my own team. That was one of his revelations. Lions minus two and a half over the Vikings is my guess.

All right, I'm going to get this, too. I said three and a half. It's five and a half.

Wow.

They're going big. I'm a mess. They're not screwing around with these.

I like the Vikings. The Lyons, they couldn't stop anything today. You have a 230 yards rushing.

Is it a Brozmer thing? Did they shut JJ McCarthy down?

He has some of the worst TD celebrations we've seen it a while from a QB. He had one today. He's not used to it. He's doing his version of the discount double check Rogers thing, but I don't... It's like he's putting a gun back in a holster or something. I don't know what he's doing. Broncos at the Chiefs. I don't know who the Chiefs' quarterback is going to be. I don't know how high to do this, but let's go nine and a half just for fun.

Oh, wow. I said 10 and a half. It's twelve and a half. Merry Christmas to me.

I'm getting smoked.

You love it on a teaser. That's a 13 pointer for you right there.

Definitely.

That's a leg. Big star around that.

Schrager talked me out of the Titans in Ringer 107 because my philosophy just over the years is like, when you're out and Mahomes is out, usually the team, if it's a former contender, it's usually like a crater. It's like you're just going into the center of the Earth.

Right.

That turned out to be what happened, but we didn't take the Titans.

I was thinking of actually doing for the four awful teams, the Giants, Jets, Titans, and Raiders, money lining against them, 12 games. What do you go? 10 for 12, 11 for 12? That might have been the only one that wins the rest of the way.

Yeah, at least nine for 12.

Yeah. Nine for 12, 10 for 12. I might do it for the last eight.

Saturday. Chargers at home against the Houston Texans.

It's like a Shakeys preview on a Saturday at the same time. Everything.

What are the potatoes? The Mojo potatoes? Mojos, yeah. They serve a Mojo potatoes for this one? I think I would have said one and a half yesterday, but I'm going to say two and a half today. Chargers by two and a half.

You should have just stayed with it. I said two and a half. It is one and a half.

Oh, my God. I'm a mess. This is a self-worn. So they tic-tacked it.

I'm not touching this. I don't see a million things going to happen here.

The only case for Houston after watching every play of that game and being tortured by CJ strata today is that they were trying to go as vanilla as possible because they knew they needed the Chargers game. Yeah. They just wanted to get through this game and not do really anything. Sure. Packer's home for the Ravens. So no idea if Lamar is playing.

Well, Lamar or Love, right?

Right. So I'm just going to say- It's a short week.

Not exactly short week because they played Saturday night. But did they let him back on a Saturday to Saturday for concussion?

We've seen with concussions, it's usually 9 to 10 days, seems like. So that would mean he would miss it. I'm going to say packers minus two and a half.

You get that exactly. I said one and a half.

All right. So I'm down. It's one three one right now. Sunday Marquis, you think it's Bill's Eagles or Jag's Colts?

I think it's Bill's Eagles. Okay. Even though they're both in.

That's fine. I had Jag's Colts, but I'm doing it.

Do whatever you want.

No, I think you're right. I think I wanted it to be Jag's Colts because it would have been so much fun to have an AFC South Sunday marquee game in a week 17 right after Christmas. Bill's Eagles. I'm going to say Bill's minus two and a half. Shit.

I said three, it's two and a half. You get it. Are the Eagles all the way back? Were you impressed with them?

No, never impressed with them. I was watching with...

Yeah.

Carrie, my wife was, well, you know it's my wife, but for the audience, making Christmas cookies and having drinks yesterday with her friends. I went over and I was like, Is the Eagles game going to be on? Yeah, it's going to be on. I went over and one of our friends, their husband, Robin, big Eagles fan, wouldn't come over. I'm just texting, Just come over. You're going to win. Just come over. He came over. But these Eagles fans are just at another level of torture. They almost can't be around other people when there's an Eagles game. It's really a specific species. When they have people adopt wolves, you see on Instagram, I've adopted a wolf. It's domesticated. It's like, yeah, but it's still a wolf. It could still go wolf at any time. That's what the Eagles fans are like. Just not sure. You don't know if they're just going to flip out.

Well, they're all crazy, but I think there's two kinds of crazy, right? There's the ones that want to watch alone and trust themselves, don't trust themselves. Then there's the ones, the shirtless ones, or breathing fire who want to be around everybody and just want to kick everybody's ass. And if they happen to catch a glimpse of the game along the way, then fine.

But then there's the third one. It's like, I shouldn't be around other people, but I'll come over. All right. Then they're just raining it in, which I think is Robin. Robin did a good job. He stayed in, but they were also winning. But it's just sitting there. It was funny because we were with another Another friend of ours. Jeff is a long-time bears fan, forever. Just can't believe they have in this season where good things are happening, which is fun to be around. Somebody's like, I just can't believe this is happening for us.

Do that. Don't get mad at people like us that point out when they're down six with two minutes left, 14 out of 16 games.

What's the maddest you've ever been at a Cowboys game where you're around other people?

That's a good question. It's been a while. I've been sad more than mad, I think. I don't know. Obviously, I cried at the- You just get sad. You just get sad. Yeah.

I think the best thing I've ever seen was It must have been 20 plus years ago when we were at Jimmy's house. What was the terrible Giants' playoff loss? Would the guy miss the extra point or something?

Patrick Creighton didn't run the route. When Eli beat us? Yeah.

No, I'm talking '03. Something bad happened on a kick-in thing. It was in the play-off. Shocking.

It was a field goal. The snap was bad, but they ended up throwing it downfield and it was complete. But they called it incomplete. I didn't get mad at that. I got mad at that? No.

Brad left.

Oh, yeah.

But remember, he He left, and he didn't have a car, and he was just gone, and nobody knew where he went.

Yeah.

He was just gone.

Right. He didn't know how to get down the hill. I think Sarah Silverman found him like an hour later.

He was in Burbank, just wondering Burbank, screaming me about the giant sauce. That was one of the best ones. Yeah, that was good. All right, Bills minus two and a half. One wrinkle with that game. There's only two late games on Sunday.

Yeah, I saw that.

So we have- Why is that? We have Bills' Eagles, and then we have the Mendoza Bowl, Giants Vegas. Those are the only two games we have. Why can't they give us a third game? It's not even enough for a multi view.

Yeah, that is weird. There has to be a reason. Are those both... Does CBS have something else?

I think they wanted to blow out the Eagles Bills game.

Yeah. All right. Well, they blew it out, all right. And now we're going to have to bet the Giants, Vegas.

You know what we do have, though? Nba hole, Bill is going to point out that same day, Philadelphia, OKC.

On Sunday?

The Red Hot Celtics playing Portland. Yeah. Okay. So there'll be enough games for you.

I might actually watch. It's a little multi-view action there.

Watchables, two. Jags Colts. You said this wasn't a Sunday That's not my key.

It doesn't matter what I say.

I think this has to be over three now. Combined, Phil Rivers combined with how well the Jags are playing and then what the Niners line was today. So I'm going to say Jaguars by four.

Oh, Good. I said four and a half. It's six and a half.

Oh, wow.

They're not letting you have a free anything anymore.

They're just jacking everything up. Yeah. That's pretty high, I think, because there's a chance the Colts could be good tomorrow. And then you'll feel like, All right, Colts at home. Seahawks at the Panthers. I said Seahawks minus three.

Wow. I said four, and it's seven and a half.

I haven't been off like this all year. That's four games now where I've been off by four points.

Well, and it's not even the favorites dominated today, right? And everybody like the books lost money.

Why would that be seven and a half? It's Carolina, though. Right.

Yeah.

You agree with that? Is there- Is there Arnold laying seven and a half points in Carolina?

And it's not even like- That passes the sniff test to you? No, not really. This is a revenge game. I don't know what this is. But it's not even like if Tampa wins, they wouldn't have to play or anything like that. Yeah, that's strange. Is that still the land?

Seven and a half. Seven and a half. I just have no feel for this anymore. It's just one of those years. I got to rally for the playoffs. Can I tell you- With a Rocky Balboa, I got to go to a cabin and start lifting some sleds.

Start chasing some chickens or something. I know you talked about Seattle on your Friday pod, but can I tell you one thing that really The lateral two-point conversion, everybody hates it. The reps got it wrong and everything. That was awful. But the interceptor, was it Ernest Jones? Picks the ball off, but the tip of the ball hits the turf, right? I know. And he's like, Come on, guys, let's go celebrate.

Everybody runs for 60 yards.

Everyone runs for 60 yards. Of course, then they say it's not an interception. Two plays later, Puk is wide open for a countdown. And it's because the 325-pound idiot who had to run and celebrate at the end of the field is like, damn, I can't get a pass rush here. If you're going to run and bring your team to celebrate, make sure it's more than a 50-50 thing that you're going to get this interception.

They should put the camera on the defensive line guy. It's Should we wait? Hold on. We're just going to wait. We're going to wait two more seconds.

It's like the bullpen when there's a brawl, right? Yeah. Oh, boy. By the time we get the deep second base, the fighting is going to be over. We have to run out.

Is Wilson Contreras any good? I saw that.

That's not a bad...

I don't know anything about the National League. He's all right, right?

Yeah.

Fairly watchable. Three. Stealers-browns in Cleveland. I'm going to do the honor system and not change my picks because they've been jacked up beyond belief. I had Stealers minus 6, which is probably too low.

You're going to get it. I said seven and a half. It's four and a half. Could they blow this? Would it matter? I'm trying to think now because this is the team that can maybe make Rodgers uncomfortable a little bit.

Well, it goes back to my analogy earlier of just old guys playing sports. What happens if he just sleeps wrong on Wednesday night? It's like,. Right, right, right. Oh, man. I was watching below deck and my fucking necks got stuck.

Below deck.

I was thinking of this show where Aaron Rodgers would watch. I was catching up on somewhere I turned pretty and I fucking fell asleep and my pillow just... Bucks at Dolphins.

I mean...

I don't want to watch one of this game. I don't want to watch the Bucks anymore. I know. I think I'm good with the Bucks. I told you. I really empathize with their fan base.

I'm drawn to it on the Four box, and it's almost all bad shit always, if you're rooting for the Bucks, and I am with this big season-long bet.

I wonder if this could be Andrew Catalon's 201st game.

Oh, he didn't retire after 200? Is he going to keep going? Oh, wow. A trooper.

What's the proper anniversary number that you'd be impressed? We could say this is our... How many Guest Alliance have we done? We've done- How many years? 21 a year for 20 years. So we could be like, this is our 400 Guest Alliance. But I feel like 500 is a good number.

Yeah. When Collinsworth announced his- Or 250? Collinsworth announced his 500.

I don't remember.

I don't remember his 300th or 400, right? I feel like they kept that quiet until it got to the golden number, whatever it would Yeah, 500 feels good. Well, congratulations, Andrew. That's still good. I mean, you know.

It's still not as impressive as Chris Meyer's 132 Panthers games in a row. That's like the fucking Joe Demagia.

He's got a residency. He's like Mariah I carry, whatever stadium that is.

September to December every year. He's in Charlotte.

That's it. It's at the Sphere in Raleigh.

He's got to be so excited They're good.

Yeah, exactly. He's like, The Panthers are 8 and 7. This is amazing.

Bucks to offense. I don't want to watch this game, and I'm going to get the line wrong. I said minus three and a half.

I hit it exactly. Four and a half.

Vegas zone. Why didn't I guess?

Watch Miami win this easily. Just watch.

Achan might be the best running back of all time, and we'll never know. Every once in a while, he just busts a 55-yarder. He's got no quarterback. They have no receivers.

He wasn't when I needed him Monday night against the Steelers. We all fell for that.

Patriots at the Jets. I had this in double figures even before the line inflation for this week. I had Patriots minus ten and a half, which is too well.

You get me. No, it's nine and a half unless it changed. I said 11. Wait a minute. It changed. I'm being honest. What is it? It's twelve and a half now. I'm not screwing around.

That was shady.

I know. That was a little shady.

That was like the fucking pass interference call on booty.

I wouldn't have done it that way if I was going to cheat.

Twelve and a half. Why did it go up so much? Because the pats have a chance to get the one seed and they need to turn the Jets on.

All right. So we need a third team because Denver is going to win on the road. The Patriots are going to want to win on the road.

When they're at 10, I want them to take May out.

Really?

The giant stadium turf is terrifying. I mean, this is literally like going into an empty conjuring house when you go play there. What's a scarier stadium? Maybe Cincinnati.

Yeah, it's bad. It used to be Philly.

Philly used to be. Veterans way back when.

Whoever you put in, it doesn't matter. They don't get interceptions. You're fine.

True.

You should play.

Bring some Josh Get in the sauna and then go out to MetLife. Poopfecta. Bangles Cardinals. Does that one qualify? The Cardinals have no healthy starters left. Yeah, I think that's good. They have zero guys that started the year. I have Bingo's minus four and a half over the Cardinals.

I had six, and it's six and a half.

Wow. I'm just awful.

Come on, get with it. The holidays coming up. I don't get the bangles. There's like a dozen perplexing teams of bangles. Are they at the top of the list? Are the Falcons still at the top? Joe Burrow is doing a walking Phoenix every time he does an interview, just a press conference.

He had zero points last week. This week, he had 38 fantasy points.

Shutout and four touch downs today. Don't understand it at all.

Saints at Titans. The Saints are, I think, legitimately frisky. I'm going to say Saints minus two and a half.

You get this. I said one a half. It is three. How about that? Their favorite on the road.

Shuck. I would have been better off starting Shuck this week. Where C. J. Stroud. Shuck had like 20 points. Raiders Home for the Giants and the Mendoza Bowl. They were playing hard for Pete today. They showed on the sidelines that it was like that some turnover happened or something. And he was celebrating them with players. He turned around and Landon Roberts slapped him in the ass like a way to go. Pete He jumped. Pete's like 77.

Yeah.

You can't slap Pete in the ass. I know he looks like a young guy, but he shouldn't find that guy after.

No, don't slap... There should be a sign as you enter the stadium.

Don't touch Pete.

Don't slap Pete in the ass. No, they should have won. That's such a bummer that they didn't win that game.

I have Raiders minus 4.

Who? Raiders minus 4.

I said Giants. It's in Vegas, right?

Raiders are home. I said Giants minus 1. It's Giants minus 2 and a half.

What?

Well, the Raiders are the very worst, aren't they?

I'm just kidding. It's like I'm like the Chiefs. I've completely fallen apart. I used to be a dynasty.

I wouldn't get down on your sofa not getting this game. I really shouldn't even... This It was a Tyson exhibition fight. It shouldn't be on the board.

Yeah, but the Giants were terrible today. They couldn't even throw the ball. Dard had two yards at halftime.

Yeah.

All right. Sunday night. 49ers bears. This game actually might mean something. It's in San Francisco. I have the 49ers by three.

Yeah, you have it exactly. I said two. I was a little low there.

I really have to get back to the drawing board with these guest lines.

Yeah, I'm going to be one right up on you.

It's a terrible performance. Monday night, Ram's at Falcons. I have Ram's minus six and a half in Atlanta. That's what I said.

Eight and a half is the number.

They've inflated the lines this week. So is there something with the holidays or what's going on?

I guess so. People will be boozin it up. More bets than ever. But let's just focus on us here for a second. Denver, just to win. The Rams, just to win, and your Patriots, just to win. You love that.

Denver. Trying to think who I don't trust. Rams.

Patriots. That's pretty good. Yeah.

All three teams need the games.

Yeah, we're good. That's good. Let that be the only thing we do.

In real life, In real life, I hit a five-teamer.

You talk about no one does these 13-point tease.

It's like you might as well- No, this was a seven-point tease. Okay. All right. Philadelphia yesterday washed him up to plus 14 at both sides. Barely got that.

Yeah.

Bear's plus six. Had no business getting that.

That's fine.

Jacksonville plus ten and a half. And then Ravens plus four was pushed.

Oh.

So it ended up winning two to one instead of three and a half to one. But the Ravens pushed on the plus four. It was very exciting. That was a seven point? One of the dumbest bets I made all year. Yeah. It was when the Ravens were minus three.

When were they minus three? I guess it went all the way up. Yeah. All right, good. You're getting good at these. I don't know how many more weeks are going to let us win these.

Then I had a 14 to one parlay, Buffalo money, Minnesota money, Tennessee plus 155, Chargers money, Tampa money lost.

Scumbags.

I could have just bet all of them individually.

Just every touch down was a field goal.

Just jerks. Nonsense team. Jerks.. Anything else before we get to Parent Corner? That's it. Excited for the holidays?

What's going to happen? Excited for the holidays? We didn't talk about the Joshua Paul, right?

Oh, let's talk about that. Yeah. I had a good time. I enjoyed it.

That was good. Oh, you went? What do you mean? No, I had a good time watching.

Okay.

Got good time watching.

It seemed like a complete spectacle of a disgrace, but I was pretty riveted for the entire fight.

Well, but, Warren, I was getting very upset with the state of the world. We bet Josh were pretty big for us to win by knockout, right? I could tell people that.

I think we weren't alone on betting the minus 380 knockout.

Yeah. And he was hanging with him. I'm like, oh, shit, he's going to carry him for eight rounds. And this is what sucks about betting and it sucks about boxing. And we were sure he was going to knock him out. And then he walloped him in the fifth. And to Jake Paul's credit, he was 0 for 15 and take down attempts, but he was knocked down. He was behind Marab. Yeah, he Marab in trouble. He was knocked down four times. He didn't have to get up the first three. He was done for it.

I also thought he landed a legitimate right.

He did. Yeah.

That he can take that as he's recovering from his shattered jaw for the next six months. He could at least be like, I landed a right on that, dude. But Joshua, this is the problem with normal people, no matter how long they train, stepping in with somebody like that is that they actually connect with a flush rate. We're watching on Instagram, Boxing, Best Knockouts Ever. And it's like, Duran takes that from Ernst and his jaw doesn't shatter and he's fighting again in three months. Jake Paul takes that and his teeth go into basically his tongue.

Yeah, he's got a balloon head now for weeks. But I do. He is a tough bastard for hanging in there.

He's impressive.

Impressive. And he got 92 million and I got 92 million laughs watching him get busted up. So that was good.

Is that how much he got?

They said they both got around 92 million. That's what I saw. What? I know. This is insane. It seems high. What's Netflix going to do?

It seems high. That seems like a high number. I don't know.

I don't know why it was reported. It seems pretty exact, though.

92. Well, it seems more believable than if they had said 90.

Yeah, I guess so.

92. So you got 92 million. 92.

7.

Well, so does he fight again? That was it. He cashed in because people are like, why is he doing this? He's like, he's doing this because he's cashing in. He's making an incredible amount of money.

I think he'll be smarter about it, line up three more YouTubers and then fight someone who he could maybe beat who's 44 or something.

This sets up Furry Joshua in England, would be my guess. That'll be the next one.

That'll be good.

Then we have there's wrestling in January. There's Big Card.

Oh, yeah.

Big, what is it? Royal Rumbal?

Mm-hmm.

Did you see Shalame on Cody roads?

No. What did he do?

Chalamet went on the Cody roads podcast as a guest and was a legitimate wrestling fan.

Really?

Like, legitimate. Just made me wonder. It just got my interest as he's in Oscar promotion time.

Just run him in with a mask, man.

Do we see him run in with a mask on? Everyone thinks of Seth Ron. It's like, Oh, my God! It's Timothée Chalame. Why are they supremac here? He's sitting people with a ping-pong paddle.

I like it.

That'd be a good promotion.

It's Bob Dylan from the Dead.

Who would you want him feudinging with? Tom?

That's a good one.

Dominic? The problem is Chalme is a pretty skinny dude. He probably weighs like 155.

He gets tossed around. Could he play a heel, though? He really hasn't.

Maybe he's a manager. He does the Cindy Lopper thing. Right. Attaches himself to somebody.

Start them off like that. Yeah.

Yeah. I think that's a good move. That's the stuff he should be doing to try to win an Oscar. Definitely. Coming in the Royal Rumble. I think that's the credibility you need.

Fight Jake Paul, maybe for 95 million.

So you think Jake Paul fights again? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, why not? There's another 30 million somewhere for him.

I don't want to get punched in the face.

He did look bad, man. I can't believe those pictures. I mean, I really... Now with AI, you don't trust anything, but There are some crazy hospital pictures circulating.

I don't think those are real because I saw one of those, too, and I was like, but yeah, I don't know if that's real. All right, Parent Corner?

Let's do it. So I told you, I meant to send this to you before. So when I watch games during the day, like Archie's on Sunday, Archie's home now. My oldest, he'll come by in the studio, and it's right after the pregame show, and I just like, We go out and watch, and we order food. My middle guy, Jack, the youngest one had a baseball tournament, so I wasn't around for that. But Jack goes to a bar with strangers. I told you, the Stealers bar, right? A local Stealers bar. And now he's friends with people my age. And it was just weird to me that he's like, now he's ditched me, but he's hanging with people my age. It's one thing if he has a girlfriend, his friend's his age, but he's hanging and he's posting pictures of it and posting reels and and they're singing songs. I'm like, he likes these strangers better than me. Someone bought him a Christmas gift. It was like a Steeler's mug. I'm like, what the hell? What is going on here? So I guess I just need a little therapy to be okay with this. But his new friends are not of his age, but of my age, and they're complete strangers.

That's it?

I don't know. And then I'm like, Do you feel you have to do a background check of everybody? I feel like I do. And then the other thing is this is being selfish, but the day after Christmas, December 26, Friday, I have to take him to weigh in for his wrestling tournament in Upland, California, which is, I think, 90 minutes away. Wey-ins are 07: 00 AM. There are no busses. The team doesn't have a bus. I have to bring him. We have to wake up at 05: 30 the day after Christmas to get to weigh in. Oh, my God. And I'm Why don't your middle-aged dealers' pals drive you, buddy? Yeah, get one of those guys. Yeah, exactly.

He show up in a Cam Hayward Jersey.

Yeah, get the Cam Hayward, get the sprinter van, and he takes you. I don't know. I got to get over it. I just think it's a little weird. I'll send you the video.

I don't have a parent corner this week. It's been a good week for the fam because just my kids are home and my daughter's home for the holidays. Christmas is during the I've turned into the lightning rod of the family. They call me the Shitster and the Potster. Why? It teams up on me. I don't know. They always like, Oh, you started this because you brought up whatever. So they all team up. I think they all like having a three-on-one against me. That's a parents' corner. But it's good to have the family dynamic back.

Yeah, it really is. Yeah.

Well, it's weird because your family is the same way, right? We just make sarcastic comments. That's what we do. That's how we grew up. But now you I have this generation of the Under-25s where every sarcastic comment needs to be...

Addressed.

Yeah, addressed. Why'd you say that? You're trying to start something with me. I'm like, I'm just doing what I always do. But yeah, it just seems like I'm getting tag-teamed up a lot, which I'm fine with. That's my role in the house.

Do they threaten to leave you and go watch football with middle-aged men that they don't know? No, they haven't done that yet. That's coming.

But it's a lot of like, We're just going to go out and get food. You won't come because there's basketball on. I'm trying to figure out my footing in the house.

Do you find while we're talking about footing in the house, I recognize less and less or fewer and fewer Christmas cards. We might have talked about this last year, but I'm at 40% of people. I open it up, I'm like, who?

That would be a good thing to keep track of.

I'm like, who is this? Sometimes my wife Melissa is like, you know them? We met them at that party three years ago, and they have the son who plays the tuba. I don't know. No. But then there are some people who nobody knows. I feel like people are getting my address and just sending it. You must have a few of those. Do you look at the cards at all?

We definitely do.

Yeah.

Well, my wife has that because she plays tennis six times a week, and there's all these people from the club that I have no idea who they are. And I think she barely does either. Yeah. And then those people send the cards.

Like we've been divorced, and she let me back in the house after five years. And I'm looking at these cards. I'm like, Oh, who are all these new friends? Except we're not divorced and I live here.

I did have another parent corner topic. Having gone through All the stages of when you have kids, like in nursery school, pre-k, elementary school, and then junior high, high school, and the parent dynamic. Having people that I'm friends with or that I work with, people like Fentacy and Jeff Chou who have little kids or smaller kids, and they're now going into it, like in the elementary part. Listen to them talk about the parents and how you become friends with the people your wife made friends with because they had a play date. It's like, you would love her husband. Then you have to go in these dates, these double dates with these guys you never met. It's always easier for the girls to get along than the guys. It's funny being the Mr. Miyagi for these situations. Where it's like, just find out who likes sports and just go that way. Exactly. That's it, right? When we get shoved in these situations, it's like, please, God, let this person like sports. Yeah.

Just tell them. It's like, there's three kinds of Eagles fans. Well, that could go the other way. That could go the other way, too. Because if they know it all about sports and you know- Oh, that could get it. I don't want to seem pompous, but it's like, I don't want to talk to you. I want to talk to Simmons about this. My son.

The worst part is, though, like, oh, the NFL playoff run this week. You get those guys.

Oh, this game's on Saturday? This game's on Saturday.

Yeah, I don't really follow sports. All right. There's going to be a lot to work with here. I feel like we lucked out with our elementary school parent-friends, though. We had a good crew. I don't think that is always the case for people when you get stuck in the playdate circle of friends, when people start getting together. But anyway, it was fun to be older than that, watching other people to go through it. I was like, Oh, yeah, I remember those days. So relieved that somebody knew there was two wild card games that night. Right. Like, Oh, this guy. I like this guy. Or somebody mentions they have us up early watching Premier League. I was like, Oh, this might be a good one.

Yeah, right. Until your wife pulls you aside. It's like, he cheats on his wife. Don't talk to him. He slept with the third grade teacher. He's the only one I like here. I don't care who he slept with.

Oh, my God. Can you imagine having Daniel in your parent group?

Why did you make that leap from what I said that?

This guy in our day, his name's Daniel. He bet $2,500 on the Red Sox to win the World Series in December.

He brought Lemon Shots to the PTA meeting. You got to meet him.

Oh, God. All right, that's it for Parent Corner. That's it. Anything else?

No, we're on. Merry Christmas.

Happy holidays.

All that. But are you going to say what we're going to be on Thursday?

We're popping on the Netflix pregame show. We're shooting a little- Hell, yeah, we are. A little short segment for them.

That's going to be fun.

It'll be good. Then what are you doing for Bring Her a Gambling? Tuesday, Wednesday?

Tuesday. Just Tuesday. Just Tuesday with Tate. Then with you on Thursday on Netflix. I have to lose weight before Thursday. I want to look really good for that. How are you going to take It's not going to make sense. I'm going to go run now. I'm going to go run to that Steeler's bar downtown.

How bad are our Ringer 107 pick is going to be when we're making them on Tuesday for the Sunday game?

Jesus, I didn't think of that.

We could have had one of the five shows do well.

I'll say this because the Super Contest, which we're trying to copy because they copied us, we fueled that one. If you look at that, the medium score or the mean score is also bad. So it's rotten. 29 teams have given up. It's not our fault.

Well, did we talk about this last week, the ZFL, the thing we do with Gus every week?

Oh, yeah. No. What was it?

The ZFL, the Picks League. Yeah. He's had since 1990. He said, This is by far the worst Picks records we've ever had across the board. It's the worst. So I don't really know the reasons for it other than I feel like it's 2008. That was the last really weird football this year that ended up being Stealers Cardinals in the Super Bowl. The year, braided blew out his ACL. It's the whole bunch of weird shit happened. It was really hard to figure out all year what was happening. Maybe that's what this year is. If we have the bears are going to be the one seed. No, that's it. Having set the record for most comeback wins in the last two minutes of the game. Obviously, this is a weird year. Mahomes blows out his ACL. Drake maybe comes an elite quarterback out of nowhere. Trevor Lawrence figures it out in year six. Maybe it's just one of those Right.

And Mahomes was losing every one-score game before that, right? Right.

Who knows? All right. I'll see you on Netflix.

Yeah.

Let's do it. Good job by you, Sal.

Good job by you, buddy.

Thanks to Geha and Eduardo as well. And I'm going to be back with another podcast on Tuesday. We have a big rewatchable is coming on Monday, too. So stay tuned for that big movie that came out this decade.

Really?

Yeah. I'm not even going to say what it is, but it's the last movie we're doing this year. Then we have a special show at the end of the year. It's a show. I'll see See you in a couple of days. All right.

You got it.

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