Transcript of The Annual NFC Over/Unders With Bill Simmons, Cousin Sal, and Joe House

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Yeah, baby!

Year 20 for us, cuz.

Wow.

Uh, we have been doing podcasts together about the NFL since the 2007 season. I did the math, that's 20 years this year.

Hold on a second.

I don't know if we did over-unders in '07, but this is our 20th season together. We brought some special guests. Farrah Fawcett is here, one of the people we had our first crushes on.

I think she likes me. She's a little—

Don Johnson's gonna have a couple cigarettes, and then Joe House in the Craig seat. Wow.

Wow. Amazing.

He looks so much more alive than Don and Farrah. How did you get that poster?

I wore my goat hat because I'm—

It's a Joe House poster.

To be here with the goats.

Is Don Johnson gonna be upset when we take the Dolphins under 2.5 wins?

Yeah, I think he's gonna be upset. Joe House is going to chime in after every division and then also be a tiebreaker for us every once in a while.

All right.

We're not, we don't want to mess with the format too much, but it's fine. House is here. We're doing a big Ringer fantasy football draft tomorrow. Fantasy's already quit the draft 5 times, but we're doing that live on Netflix tomorrow. And this is a 2-part podcast. This is the NFC win total over-unders. And then that's going to be live on Netflix and then AFC will be running on Sunday. We're doing it all at once today. And, uh, this is one of my favorite days of the year. We have some redemption stuff, Sal. I don't— neither of us did that well last year.

No, I know.

It was an off year for us.

A lot of red, a lot of red markings there.

What happened? Because the higher-end stuff, I feel like I did well, and it was like the middle class.

Well, that's the best day of the year because I'm— we're gonna go 32-0 after today. And then week 1, when Cincinnati like actually loses the whole first month, I'm like, oh, what the hell happened?

But well, so big picture Everyone has too much information now.

Yeah.

This is the hardest I've been. You guys have been doing it on Ringer Gambling Show, division by division. You've done a great job of not tipping your hand.

Thank you.

You and I, the whole summer, really the first year, we've really tried to not tell each other what we're thinking. Yeah.

It's like the bride and groom aren't supposed to see each other the day of the wedding, but ours is for like 60 days. Yeah.

House knows some of my stuff. We went over some stuff today as we, as we digested Bianco's pizza from last night. We had a lot of pizza. You don't, you haven't been, you've been healthier.

Cutting, cutting down on, uh, I, I, I presented my plate to you. I'm like, look, look what I've turned into. I've turned into Bill Simmons. So like, right.

With no crust.

Half the crust was, uh, was left.

But, uh, yeah. Meanwhile, I was eating pizza. I'm wearing a seatbelt now. I don't know what's happened to me.

I don't know if I believe that or not. I think that's just to get everyone off your case.

No, I've been wearing it.

You have? Yeah.

I've had bear witnesses.

How's that going?

It's confining.

That is true. That is the one thing they say about that.

confining.

Claustrophobic. You wear one on a plane?

I, I only if they yell at me.

Okay. So you need to be told.

I just feel like on a plane, it's nothing good's happening either way.

I agree.

It's not like, oh, that guy who wore a seatbelt got saved during the crash.

Right. What about in a submarine? Oh, forget it.

Okay. Let's not talk about crashes before we're about to do NFC over-unders. So every year, the cuz and I, we pick the over-under totals, which we're getting from FanDuel, FanDuel Sportsbook. They're getting better and better at the juice, at the totals. We're not gonna deal— we'll mention if the juice is bad, we can't do anything about the juice. No, there's some -135s, there's some -130s. We're gonna talk about some alt lines.

They've given us too many options. Years ago, in 2007, imagine if we had alt lines, like, oh my God, we lose our minds. But now it's like, oh, this is the Cheesecake Factory menu. What, what are we gonna do?

Well, you get to the point, you look at it, you, you, you form the opinions on the over-unders. And I would say about 3rd week of August, the alt lines start becoming really appealing. And I thought even on the Ring of Gambling Show, we're gonna do the NFC East first. I think it was the Bundo who was saying how this has a chance to be the 1 seed in this division because of the 2 weaker teams. And talking 1 seed, that, that stuff we couldn't have bet, I don't feel like 10 years ago.

1 seed for your best record.

Best record in the league.

Yeah.

Oh, that stuff.

We've come a long way.

I'm already losing my voice. We're only 3 minutes in.

I'm so excited. We sent the kid, like, the kids are like, oh, summer's over. My wife's like, yeah, they have to go to school. I'm like, get the fuck, get everybody go to school. Get outta here. I have 3-team teasers to lose. We have to talk football. Let's get to September. Enough of this. And now we're here.

One other wrinkle.

Yeah.

Both of our teams have a chance to be good. Your over-under's 9.5. Mine's 10.5. Uh-uh. Both of them have been thrown into arguments about who could win a conference. Your team, dare I say, is becoming kind of the hot, the hot popular pick.

Players no one knew about emerging. Everyone's talking about that.

It's the defense. So we're gonna talk about them in a second. We're gonna start with the NFC East.

Okay.

House's division as well.

Yes. Yeah.

House is just sad about the Redskins, now Commanders. But we'll talk about that too. We're gonna start with Philadelphia Eagles.

Let's see.

Over-under 10.5. there's juice on the under. Division +130, feels like that's stayed the same, but the Cowboys division odds have dropped.

Mm-hmm.

19-1 for Super Bowl, -162 for the playoffs. Under 8.5 wins, if you wanted to go for the everything goes wrong season, +210. Best record, 11-1. They were 11-6 last year. We have a little game we're gonna play this year. We had— I had readers suggest that we should do like a what-if thing. Um, like basically a what-if for every team. So it would be best case scenario.

You haven't written an article in 14 years.

I meant listeners. Yeah, conditionally I wanna say readers. Uh, listeners. Um, but I wanna do a what-if for each team.

Okay.

My what-if for this team, what if they don't miss AJ Brown at all? That would be the big reason not to take them, right?

Definitely. Yeah. I'm looking at, you know, when your offense is comically inefficient, what do you do? You fire the OC.

Yep.

And you get rid of your stud receiver, then that should fix everything. But yeah, you're right. How, what he was reading books on the sideline, they didn't use him anyway.

Didn't seem great for team chemistry. Yeah. I found the email. It was from Joe from Charlotte. Oh no, not Joe from Charlotte. Sean and Patrick. He said, my 11-year-old son Patrick and I are big fans. We fake this segment at home like we're a Ringer podcast host. We play what if, pick a player is good or bad. Um, I'm gonna extend that out to, to this, like what if they don't miss AJ Brown, I think is a good one. I, listen, I did my talent thing with the, with the Eagles.

Mm-hmm.

I think they have one of the 5 most stacked rosters in the league. I don't even think it's arguable. I had 6 guys in their defense that got points. Had 5 guys on their offense get points. They have a top 3 offensive line. They've been there. They win 10, 11 games every year, and the over-under is 10.5. And I just don't understand it. It seems like people are anxiously trying to push this team out of the double-digit win range and kind of ignoring how loaded the roster is. I don't—

do you—

you hate the Eagles, but do you understand this?

Well, I understand. I don't know why. What are you giving your offensive points based on? because it's much different from year to year now, right? You have Saquon Barkley at 2,000 yards rushing, went down to 1,100. So what, you're gonna put him right in the middle at 15? That would be a good year.

Yeah, have him like— I don't know, he's somewhere between the 5th and 9th best running back. That's not nothing.

We should probably lead with the tush push, which you won't hear me complain about as much this year because they went from like 81% conversion to 64%. Hurts runs a lot less, which I'm going to talk about this a lot, where quarterbacks turn like 28 years old. That seems like the sweet spot. They're running less. He's already running less. He averages like 6, 6.5.

House is also running less.

You're running less?

A little bit.

He had the runs, uh, more, but he's running less. Um, so I don't know what— where you put this offense. And Makai Lemon will have to step up to replace AJ Brown.

They're like a receiver short, it feels like.

Some. Yeah, exactly.

I actually thought they should have traded for Booty. Okay, Sean, I thought he was our— I, I really liked him last year. I didn't under— I get the Pats were kind of too loaded at receiver, but I thought the Texans kind of stole him. He made big plays for us last year. Yeah, they feel like a receiver short. Big Goedert year. I just, I love good offensive lines. There's so few of them now, right? Like Tampa has one, they have one, you know, Buffalo has one. And I just wonder if that's like almost a cheat code now, but their D, Carter, Davis, Bond, Greenard.

Yeah, 4 Pro Bowls.

DeJean, Mitchell.

Mm-hmm. It goes on and on. It's nice. And the GM, Roseman, it does, he does, you know, he picks up 2 guys a year that you're like, oh my God. Yeah, of course that worked out. But I feel like that offense, I don't know what their identity is anymore. It used to be grind and—

But can it be worse? They flipped the coordinator again.

Mm-hmm.

Like my, my argument would be you're kind of buying high on something that everybody's kind of given up on being a, but I always felt like they went too slow. Right. Like they were almost trying to protect Hurts and I, I just don't think they're gonna do that anymore. Yeah, for sure. They play the AFC South and the NFC West in a first-place schedule. They don't play a lot of good quarterbacks. They played Dak twice, Daniels twice, Stafford, Caleb, Darnold, and Purdy. Sal, I, I have them over. I, I, it's a slight over. It's an 11-6 for me.

Wow.

But I couldn't get to 7 wins when I went through it. I just think they have too much talent and I think it's, this is stupid.

Yeah. I mean, look, they have what, 1 of 2 teams to make the playoffs in each of the last 5 years. So that helps. I hate that they have back-to-back. They broke that streak of like 22 years for the NFC East. Try not to get them a 3rd division title. I have them at 9 wins. They had, they were 8-4 in one-score games. Yeah. I think they're 9-8. And then I'm gonna, Take the under, the adjusted under. I think you get +125 for under 9.5 if you wanna do that. Oh my God. No way. Yeah, I'm gonna shove those winnings right up Big Dumb's—

This feels personal.

Ass there. It is a little bit. And by the way, I still do this, still do this nonsense that I was told by many people, Al, that there are websites that'll do this for you. But I put the wins and losses. I'm like, oh, okay, I gave the Phillies a win over Arizona, so I gotta give Arizona a loss. I gotta go to that sheet. So I'm a maniac with this, but meticulously I said 9-8. Yeah.

It's more likely to happen if you're holding the paper. That's why you need the paper.

Right, exactly.

A big thing for me, and not to spoil the rest of the discussion about the division, but I think the other teams in this division other than Dallas are going to be bad. And I'm just operating like Dallas and Philly can both go 4-0 in their divisions. Now Philly always has the weird Washington game every year. Right. Where it, it, is it every year or every other year?

It's pretty much every year.

There's something weird and you're like, Philly's a big favorite. You have them in a 3-teamer or a 2-teamer. Yeah.

The 4-teamer.

Or some sort of parlay. And all of a sudden they're down 10, 10-7 in the 4th quarter. You don't know what happened. But here's one other thing, Sal, before we finish.

Yeah.

Well, first of all, new OC, better chemistry, added Jalen Phillips and Woolen. I don't know how they keep adding free agents every year, but I feel like this is like a last hurrah season for them 'cause they have these offensive linemen that are talking about retiring, right?

Lane Johnson.

This is almost definitely Lane Johnson's last year.

Yeah.

They have the Hurts contract, they've paid some guys.

Mm-hmm.

They have some younger guys that they hit some draft picks, but they're gonna have to pay those guys too. They have the Barkley money. Like, I, I don't think this is sustainable past this year. And I feel like during this season, if they need something, they're gonna go get it.

Kitchen sink game for, I think, a few teams in the NFC. It's weird to say kitchen sink for teams that have had success, but this team, the Rams in a way are all in. The Lions I think are all in. Like, this is their window, kind of closes. Yeah, after this, except for the fact that you're right, they play in the NFC East, of which I gave one over, and it's going to surprise you which over I gave, but, uh, it's not this team.

I'm gonna be a dick. Is that what you're supposed to do from the Craig chair? You said, uh, Jalen Phillips, he is now on Carolina. They added Greenard.

Oh, I had to go. I meant Greenard. Yeah, I already—

I know you meant—

I like, I like this though, the correction.

Okay, good, good, good.

My bad. Don't do it for me. Don't do it for me, House.

I don't, I don't appreciate it.

Um, yeah, no, I meant Greenard. I know I said Jalen Phillips.

You did. Phillips left.

That was really good, House. Thank you. I needed to be corrected.

I'm old.

It's okay. So am I.

Plus, House is awake in the mornings. That's one thing with House. Oh, way better in the mornings.

East Coast time. It is. It's midday on the East Coast. That's right.

Yeah, he's, he's really awake. Okay. So I'm over, you're under. They play on Thanksgiving. Could swing both of these. Dallas is 9.5 and pretty straight action. Did it start at 8.5?

Yeah.

And it bumped up. Last year was the opposite. You were up one and it dropped a win and it seemed like a red flag. +175 for the division, -120 for the playoffs, which I think is one of the single best bets. I just feel like they're one of the 7 best. Yeah, I think they're one of the 7 best NFC teams.

Wow.

12+ wins, +270. I would personally recommend the number 1 seed at 13-1 if you're gonna do the 12+, if you really like 'em. Best record, 16-1. Last year they were 7-9-1.

I hate this.

Well, let me ask you this first.

I hate how excited everyone is, including me.

What would you consider to be right now a successful Cowboys season?

This is a what if?

You're in mid-January. No, that— we're not even at the what if yet.

Oh, we're not doing that yet?

It's— let's say it's February 15th, the season's over.

Okay.

What's a successful Cowboys season for you? Now obviously you could— you can't say the Super Bowl, but what's like a realistic successful season?

Jerry Jones, not a stroke, but now what's underneath? What does he have, those mini—

yeah, like needs a defibrillator? What's palpitations?

I think— are we gonna give our division picks at the end of each thing? Okay. I think 9-8 and they don't embarrass themselves defensively is a good—

That's a success?

Yeah, I think so.

So you haven't even moved mentally to, we have to make the playoffs?

I think, I think that could be enough to make the playoffs in this division. I do say I am really— usually, you know how it is. You, you, if I fall outta favor with this team, you'll talk me back in. You're like, all right, let's see. Let's say they beat Carolina, they beat New Orleans, and like, we, we have to go through all the schedule, the whole schedule. I'm usually in and out on this team 4 times. I'm never usually in on them in August. I like everything they did in the offseason.

I do too. Like, I hate saying it, I literally liked every move.

George Pickens was gonna be a headache. They locked him up, franchise tagged him with a smile, right? Javonte Williams, a miracle 1,000-yard rusher last year for them. Good job. They got him. Defensively, I love it. Malachi Lawrence, Caleb Downs is looking like the best, the, the, the edge rusher from Michigan, the 3rd rounder. Everyone loves him.

This is— Caleb Downs was the most predictable, everybody going nuts about him in August. Like you, you knew it in the draft. It's like this guy's gonna fall 4 spots too low.

Yeah.

And everybody's gonna love him and he is gonna be awesome immediately.

They extend Quinnen Williams. Jones is not gonna lose this Parsons trade. He, if it's the last thing he does, even more than making the playoffs, he has to be able to say, I won this Micah Parsons trade. So extend Quinnen Williams, they sign Rashawn Gary, they're doing good preseason.

Edvon Miller is like deep, deep, deep backup.

Great.

Just in case.

When House's team did it, I laughed last year, but then he had like 9.5 sacks, which would've led the team.

Bring him in a couple third downs in a big game.

And he is like a consultant too, like a pass rush consultant as well. Preseason, he kicked the crap outta the defending champ Seahawks. Yeah, they literally kicked the crap out of the Saints in a joint practice. Then another joint practice with the Rams, they say at the end of it, they're like, hey, we're running wind sprints, you want to join us? And they're like, kids, go ahead, go ahead, you do your thing.

And you like the coach too, he was good last year.

I do, he's not bad.

Wasn't like the easiest year last year, but, uh, it seems like the team likes him.

And, and Eberflus held them back a little, and defensively they were garbage, absolute garbage. Has to get better. And I feel like their defense has not been the same since I watched them with House and you against the Packers in the playoffs in the living room. They lost their home field edge and they lost any kind of defensive semblance, but they're—

New defensive coordinator.

He's like, he's 29 years old or something. Christian Parker.

My player rankings, I had them at 20 points, which isn't bad. 20 and up is usually around the playoffs.

Sorry.

Yeah.

I had the Eagles at 32, by the way.

Yeah.

quiet, drama-free Cowboys season for the most part of the offseason. Yeah, like, no, you don't have some weird contract holdout or Jerry being weird, nothing like that. My what-if for this team was, what if this is the team people seem to think the Bengals are going to be? Because I do think they're the NFC Bengals, but I think—

Okay.

Because everyone, it was like, oh, the Bengals, their defense is better. Cool. Um, you made your defense better, but you have a better offensive line and just a better offense. I think a more reliable offense in general. Yeah. I guess, I don't know. I just like, I like the spot.

I never really worry about the offense. I guess it is a good comparison, but when Dak plays, I think the number is like 11+ games, they're a top 8 offense always. So they don't have problems scoring points. It's keeping 'em off the board. They're moving to a 3-4 defense. They can move to a fricking 1-6. I don't give a crap. Just do something different here.

You got a good net rest Edge.

Yeah.

Third, get 12 games in a dome. The road games are rough. And you play some good defenses. You play Philly twice, Houston, Seattle, Baltimore, Rams, Green Bay. It's the Giants twice. If they're gonna be a good defense, who knows?

Yeah.

I, I'm a hard over.

Really? Yeah.

I'm a fully erect over.

My word.

9.5.

In front of Farah here. Come on.

I think, I think I have them for 11-6. I did stare at the 12+ wins at +270. I think some stuff would have to go right from a health standpoint. And you'd probably have to catch in that bad schedule, like 1 or 2 of those teams in a week where one of their guys are hurt or whatever. But I think it's either 11 or 12. And I, this is, we're doing locks this year. I didn't tell you. What do you mean? Slap a lockdown on a pick.

Oh really?

Yeah.

We do this in NBA. We never really did this for NFL.

Okay.

This is my first lock, over 9.5 Dallas lock.

Oh man, this is so scary. This is just, this is just so he could yell at me.

He's doing it to you when they're 1-3.

He could yell at me. He's like, this is your fault.

But well, they're not gonna be 1-3 'cause they open with Washington and New York.

I'm not spiteful like you. I wouldn't give your quarterback a derogatory nickname and then I thought it was really nice to say it on pods and interesting. Probably wear a t-shirt for week 1, Drake Maybe.

Oh, I gotta get that going.

You're right. No, I just, I like being right and winning money. And Dallas is gonna be good this year. Well, and I think there's 5 teams I like in the NFC and we just did 2 of 'em.

I have 9-8 and I have the Eagles at 9-8. So we won't pick our division yet, but we have to make a decision.

9-8. So that's an under?

That's an under. Unfortunately, that's an under.

It's better than they were last year. So it feels like an emotional hedge. Yeah.

7-10 to 9-8, always a tough schedule. You know, the defense has a lot of work to do, really a lot. You know, 511 points allowed, 30-plus in 8 games. Let's get that down to 26.

How did that feel like an emotional hedge to you?

1,000%.

Okay.

This is the Cousin Sal underselling his, his enthusiasm.

Ridiculous. Full Quinnen Williams season. You also have the Parsons not probably coming back to like week 8, and even when he comes back, won't be 100%. So there'll be a lot of like, whoa, Jerry did win that trade.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Um, okay, next one. The Washington C-words.

Uh-oh.

They're over 7.5 wins.

Hmm.

Under 6.5, all on FanDuel, +125. Under 5.5, +220. Worst record, if you wanted to get really crazy, 15-1.

That's so mean.

They were 5-12 last year, 6-1 for the division, by the way, 7-1 for the Super Bowl, +280 for the playoffs. They lost Tunsil for the season, and I didn't like their offensive line to begin with. And there's been, if you're actually reading like the day-to-day reports, the beat writers are going nuts. Really, really rough stuff with the offensive line, which normally like not everybody has a good offensive line. But their quarterback is £127. So the skinny quarterback who got hurt last year combined with nobody can block, right? I'm out, man.

I have them over. I like them. I think we've corrected— we're sad here.

3 in a row we've disagreed.

Yeah. A year ago we said this is the regression team. They had a ton of luck, right? The Hail Mary right at the house against the Bears and all that. Jayden Daniels, terrific. They're gonna get injury luck. They spent a ton of money on old players last year.

Yeah.

This year they spent a ton of money, I think top 3, $200 million. And it's a more balanced age-wise. They were 11 months older than the next oldest team, which is gigantic difference. It doesn't seem like it. Offensive line, that, that part sucks for sure. But they had 7 games with Jayden Daniels. I have them at 8 and 9. I think Owen, Sonny Styles, uh, Styles is a good pick, right? Owen's a nice pickup defensively.

Styles is a good pick, but it also might be we could have— we should have taken Caleb Downs by like week 5.

Yeah, they got confused.

That's looming.

Interesting. How about this? Wes Welker is their tight end coach. That, that should give you a, uh, tight end coach.

Why isn't he a receiver coach?

I don't know, he convinced them. +9 rest advantage. Zero opponents coming off a bye. I see like 8 wins here, 3 division wins plus Indy, Tennessee, and Arizona. They'll win a dumb one over Cincinnati or something. So I got 'em at 8.

Not only do I have them under 7.5, it's a lock for me. It's my second lock.

Really?

You haven't done a lock yet. I have 2 locks already.

Only in the first division, 2 locks outta you.

I have 2 locks already.

God, he can't keep it in his pants, cuz.

Only doing the outside.

He's looking at Vera Fawcett and locking down everything. schedule is it? I mean, they start out at Eagles, home at Cowboys, home Seahawks, and then they have to go to London and play the Colts. That could be 0-4 before we're even in October yet, or middle of October yet. But I don't see it at all. I, I was circling the Dan Quinn first coach fired. House was adamant this morning over coffee.

No way.

They'll keep him for the whole year. But I, I didn't think he did a good job last year either.

It could be a top 5 for— well, I mean, so many injuries. I think the 4th most injured team out there. So, yeah, healthy.

He's not building the roster. Like, they tried to run it back after 2024, so you can't fire him for, for 2 years. They, they tried. I mean, Sal made the point, they got, uh, they, they tried to run back that same oldest team in the NFL, that experienced veteran stuff. Of course they had injury regression. The other thing was they were horrific in terms of creating turnovers. 'Cause all those old guys are a step behind everybody. This defense is the big wild card. There's 7 new starters on the defense. So the whole season will come down to whether or not the defense, you know, is different.

See, House is representing 'cause he's a DC fan, doesn't wanna seem like a party pooper.

Yeah.

There's been private conversations with House where he hasn't been this optimistic.

Oh, that's true.

I acknowledge.

Do you wanna record those? Well, the problem is Tunsil. Like, what a punch in the cock.

How about this? Tunsil. Yeah. What skill guys do you like on the, on the Commanders?

I don't, it's like Terry McLaurin.

Is he the 30th best receiver in the league?

You didn't mind Diggs. They have that, what is he from Arkansas? You got Antonio Williams. God bless Diggs. Yeah.

Antonio Williams is good.

And God bless Diggs. Diggs played 35 plays a game.

He's a possession receiver. They didn't have one of those last year.

And that like was disappeared in the playoffs. I mean, that in the Super Bowl, they're running back goes by Bill.

And the tight end coach is Wes Welker. You should be in on this team.

I'm out.

It's a great point.

It's a hard out.

Jake, Jake, the tight end from Tennessee.

How, who did you have for this? Huh? How'd you have for the over for this for your own team?

I can't remember what we said on the NFC East show. 8 is a super hard number to get to 'cause this schedule is just a punch in, in the, in the dick.

You can't remember if you have over or under?

I can't.

Do you want some more coffee? It's on the, it's on the Ringer Wise Guys show. I bet I did the over and said 8 wins.

David Blough, the new offensive coordinator. You remember betting, betting him on that schedule?

We won some money on Blough.

All right.

I don't see it at all. And the other thing I don't like is near the end of the season, they, they have at Vikings, at Jaguars, and then the Cowboys. And I, I just think unless the Cowboys are like the 1 seed, like that game's gonna actually mean something for the Cowboys.

So, yeah, 4 of their last 5 are Houston, Minnesota, Jacksonville, and Dallas.

They have a stretch week 8, week 9, week 10. Home Eagles on the Sunday night, home Rams the next week, and then at Giants on a Thursday night game. Yeah, that's 3 in a row. And that's like, that's the one where—

It's funny 'cause I look at that 10 to 13 stretch, Giants, Cincy, Arizona, Tennessee. Like if they're anywhere near 4 wins at that point, they're an over.

Under, under for you, over lock for me. So I've done 2 locks.

No, other way. You went under, you are under.

I'm under, you're over. That's what I said.

Yep. That's what you said.

Second mistake of the podcast. Screwface for 20.

It's Netflix, you know. Chappelle makes mistakes all the time.

Netflix is like, what's going on? Where's the true crime stuff? When are these guys gonna try to kill each other? Uh, last one, the Giants. The over-under is 7.5. Pretty even juice on that. +550 for division. They're 4-13 last year. They are +265 to make the playoffs. +290 for 10+ wins. I'd probably recommend that. Under 5.5, +250. Worst record, 20-to-1. First what-if for me: what if Jaxson Dart plays 8 games or less?

Yeah.

Well, guess what? He's gonna play 8 games or less. So what's your, what's your pick knowing that Jaxson Dart will not make it to 10 games this season? Yeah, I mean, he gets hurt every other game.

How would we Analyze Tua like 3 years ago. It's like, well, he's not gonna make it, or right? Like he just—

Right. And then we were right. He didn't make it.

This, this'll be the same thing.

Yeah.

And I don't know, man, maybe you should pass me on this. I, I should pass because I just, I, I just hate this team so much, but I'm gonna go under. I just don't think they have offensive players who play defensive football. Like Scadabo took out like secondary guys yesterday. It's like, hey, this is a no-contact thing. And Dart can't stay on the field. He's going to the tent. He's complaining that they're sending him to the tent. Like he's been to the tent 43% of his games. Like, guess what? The league is not gonna go under because of Jaxson Dart. You have 2 concussions already. Yeah. They're gonna send you to the tent. Nabers at least plays like an offensive player and he can't stay on the field. Gimme an over-under for those 3 core offensive players playing together. I'd start at like 3.5.

So Nabers, Skadaboo, and Dart.

Yeah.

All playing a start-to-finish game together. Yeah. 5.5.

Oh man.

I go under. I'd go under. Yeah. You go under on 4.5?

Yeah. I think it's like 3, 3.5 is what I would say. Like, I don't know. I don't know. You know, and everybody, there's a lot of pressure on us media. We lose our media sports media card if we don't take a 4th place team to win the division. I don't think this is it at all.

As you know, I, I love nothing more than that.

Yeah.

It's what it's, and it's been really reliable over the years and every year there's been pretty pretty reliable picks for that. Last year was a little tougher, but the Patriots were a great example. It was like they added Vrabel, they spent some money, they finally had a good draft. It was just the easiest schedule possible.

Yeah.

You could see that coming and the odds kind of reflected it.

Right.

I just don't think there's necessarily the team this year. You're like, you're really jamming it, forcing it. I wanted it to be the Giants in like April 'cause they, they had blue chippers on defense. They, you know, they had 2 picks in the top 12 and some money to spend. But we didn't talk about the biggest reason I don't think it's gonna happen. I, I just, I'm not, I'm out on John Harbaugh.

Yeah.

I, and I think it's gonna tie into what I do in the AFC too. Like, I think he ran his course there. I'm not even sure he was good to begin with. And I don't think this is like Mike Vrabel going to the Pats or Jim Harbaugh going to the Chargers. I don't think he's gonna have an impact like that. And if anything, I think this season might expose maybe he wasn't as good as we thought because of what's happened with the Ravens and then the Giants. So they were bad and won 4 games last year, right?

They— that famously the Russell Wilson one they blew to the Cowboys, went to overtime and everything. And then John Harbaugh is going to fix that. No one blows 10-point leads like he does in the 4th quarter, right? So that's, that's what's going to be—

It's another— we talked about this on the Fantasy Pod too. It's a classic ask the team's fans what their opinion is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And, you know, like, I watch every Red Sox game. I literally, since the NBA draft, I think I've, I've seen 95% of the season. And like, we have a shortstop, Monasterio, who's like a feel-good story. He's terrible defensively. And if you watch it day to day, so like there was a game, a national game like 2 weeks ago, and Tom Verducci was the announcer and he's the national announcer. He doesn't know, but He's like, and Monasterio has been really good defensively. And we, on my Red Sox story, we're like, oh my God, that's the worst opinion of the year.

Right.

But you know, the fans know he's not watching. And if you talk to any Ravens fan, they were completely out on Harbaugh. They just thought he was bad.

Yeah. The canary in the coal mine there is how bad he's been on 4th down decisions and has been going on for a while. He's in the bottom quarter of the league and, and, and he's been overly unnecessarily conservative. And now he's paired with Matt Nagy. Right.

We didn't talk about that. Matt Nagy. But, you know, if you go backwards, he's probably getting fired that year when he threw Lamar in and Lamar saved his job and gave him this second run. But I, I've always felt like he was a little overrated. I thought his last couple years, I don't, I just don't feel like he got enough shit for everything. And it really seemed like some of the players were out on him too. So yeah, this is, this is a You know what, big under for me.

Lock me in for that.

Nice.

Yeah, yeah, I don't wanna fall too far behind with the locks. The other thing is no one gave up more big plays than the Giants, 124 big plays. And Dexter Lawrence's productivity tailed off a little. He had like 5 sacks, I think, last year. It's 'cause he was double-teamed more than anybody else. Yeah, they've given up big plays and the guy who was double-teamed all year is gone now. So that's it. So that's what's gonna happen. Toughest road slate in the league. Rams, Commanders, Texans, Eagles, Colts, Seahawks, Lions, Cowboys.

That's another reason that this schedule's brutal.

Rough, rough. 5-12.

And then they end the season at Cowboys home Eagles. And I think both of those teams are gonna have something to play for too.

Yeah.

And then the other question, we haven't talked about this yet, but, and it's not, it didn't apply to Washington, but as these teams get into December, if they're out of it, how do they start handling that? We don't really have tanking in the NFL, but I, I feel like we're gonna have a form of it this year.

Well, we saw it with Jackson Dart. Right? When they were out of it, like, well, we're gonna keep 'em outta these meaningless games.

Yeah.

So yeah, that's the closest you'll get to that. And you're—

Or maybe you decide Jackson Dart's not sustainable as a starting QB. We gotta, right, maybe think of another one. Okay.

So for the division you have, I have 2 9-win teams in the Cowboys and Eagles, and Cowboys have a better plus number to win the division. So that's my team at 9-8 to take it.

I have both the Cowboys and Eagles going 11-6. So I'm gonna have to recommend the division for the Cowboys. I'm leaning that way for the +175.

Good for you. Don't get mad at me, please.

I have Cowboys over 9.5 lock, and I have Washington under 7.5 lock. You have Giants under 5.5 or 6.5? 5.5.

What do we go with?

No, it's bigger.

7.5.

7.5.

Yeah.

Oh, that's a lock for you.

Yeah. I'm doing a plus adjustment here.

Yeah, we're giving you 90 seconds for each division. Go.

I am super bullish on the Philadelphia Eagles this upcoming season. Um, it hurts me in my heart because I have too many Eagles fans in my life and I really detest it.

Terrible.

But the way this division is shaking out, the step backwards— Washington was poised to make a big jump forward after last season, and these injuries that we're seeing offensive line and especially Tunsil is just such a gut-wrench Gut punch. Bummer.

I think the Giants— Gut wrench, gut punch. Wow.

Is it wrenched and—

The Giants are gonna suck.

The Giants are gonna suck.

Absolutely.

This is it for, for Harbaugh.

You know, this could be like a Pete Carroll Vegas, like leaning more that way where it's like, oh, they got Pete Carroll credibility. And it's like, oh, I love that.

I love that. Yeah. And Dallas is gonna be better. I have 'em at exactly 9 wins 'cause with the question marks with whether or not that defense really will translate. But it's an Eagles division. I'm on Eagles overs and all the rest of Okay.

I guess, I guess I have to stick with Dallas for the division, but I do think the Eagles are going to be really good. Okay. That was the NFC East. We're in good pace. 35 minutes. We're gonna take a break.

We talked about Farron and other things.

We're gonna take a break. We're gonna come back and, uh, we're gonna do the NFC North. The Bill Simmons Podcast is brought to you by FanDuel. Before the football season begins, every team is undefeated. That's right. Even the Jets. Every fan believes this could be the year that the team makes the playoffs, maybe even lifts the trophy. FanDuel, they're right in there with it. You can bet on all of it. You can use your NFL Futures reward stack for an even bigger payout. FanDuel giving everyone 5 50% PBTs. That's right, 5. Can only be used from Thursday, 8/27 until end of the day, Monday, 8/31. So unlock and use them before it's too late. Take some advice from me and the cuz. Check out our favorite futures picks. Get your bets in today on FanDuel. Visit fanduel.com/BS to get started. 21+ select states or 18+ DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER, call 888-789-7777, or visit ccpg.org/chat in Connecticut. This episode is brought to you by one of my best friends in life, NFL Sunday Ticket. Man, I missed it. Kickoff's coming. Yeah, we're getting close. We're within a month.

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No refunds.

We, we were just staring at Farrah. during the break.

We're a little distracted. Yeah.

Can't tell if that's a shadow or a possible, like, slight cold sore, lower lip.

Looks like a cold sore.

Makes me like her more. Um, we took a—

and Don Johnson has gonorrhea for sure.

Just for being next to—

did he give her that cold sore?

Well, we took a smoke break for Don, and Don still just— he just continued to smoke.

Look how he's staring at me.

NFC North, hardest division of the, of the 8. Right.

It's tough.

You could really make a case for— there's people making cases for the Vikings.

There's a lot of people making cases for the Vikings.

We're gonna start with the Detroit Lions though. A sexy summer team.

Yeah.

People really excited for them. They're over-under shocking 10.5. I thought it was gonna be 9.5. I don't— did it start at 9.5 or no?

Yeah, it was for, for a little while. Bumped up.

Divisions +160, Super Bowl 8-1, playoffs -205. 13+ wins, +270. You're better off doing best record at +850. Uh, under 8.5 wins is 3-to-1. There's a couple of these that hit every year, and we've, uh, we like— if you had the Chiefs last year and you had them under even 8 wins, that was like +400 in November.

That, right?

Yep.

I have 2 what-ifs for you, and you pick which one you want to answer. What if this is the Jahmyr Gibbs holy shit 2006 Tomlinson season. What if this is the Dan Campbell farewell season? You can go either way. Pick one.

Interesting. I think this is the do or die for the Dan Campbell kneecap biting experiment. I really do. We talked about like 3 seasons in the NFC. I think this has to be due. I know the injury luck, this is completely opposite of what we're gonna talk about with the Bears because they were like 31, In injury luck, 32 or 30 or 32 in fumble luck. Like it's all that crazy stuff. And they have, I'll, I'll take both at once cuz Gibbs should be better dropping Montgomery, right? So should get a lot of those goal line carries. Good for you if you have the number 1 fantasy pick, but it's gonna be a reversal of fortune. Can they not be the number 2 injured team in the league? Like, it, it doesn't— that's what we have to get past.

It already started out bad 'cause they lost Arnold and they have a shaky secondary to begin with, which is the big flaw. Right. New offensive coordinator and hopefully better health. Mm-hmm. I, I, in my, in my roster rankings, I had them in the 30s at 31. Their offense is fucking loaded. 30, 31, 31 points.

A lot of points.

Oh, 31 points. Okay.

Yeah.

31. I know one of the 530 put Goff 5, Gibbs 3, could be a 4, St. Brown 4. Jameson Williams was like an 1,100-yard receiver last year.

Yeah.

Laporta hopefully healthy. Their O-line is above average, 2 points for that. And then defense, Hutchinson, Campbell, Joseph, and Branch. And the, the rub against them is, well, Joseph and Branch are gonna be hurt to start the season, right? Then you look at the schedule: Saints week 1, at Bills, Jets, at Panthers, at Cardinals, bye. only one of those teams are gonna be able to throw on them, which is the Bills. I think if they get outta that 4-1, that over becomes more realistic. I like the bounce back. You talked about this on the NFC North pod. They're underdogs in 3 games.

Yeah.

Against the spread. They get to play the AFC East and the NFC South. AFC East, Dolphins, Jets. NFC South, really probably 3 bad to almost bad teams. I'm a slight over. I'm 11-6.

Okay.

And I know it's popular, I know it's a sexy pick, but I think the schedule— they get to play Shuck, Geno, Bryce, Brissett, Willis, Penei Tua, Cam Ward, who's been a disaster in the preseason, Kyler Murray, Jackson Dart, or wherever his backup is.

Like, wow, when you put it that way, it's interesting. I mean, because I think they're going to be a good team, but gonna win 10 games, which puts them under, right? Yeah. 10-7 for me.

It's a tough one.

The only thing I disagree with you saying is like an above-average offensive line. They couldn't protect Goff. They were like 31st.

They had injuries last year though.

They had injuries.

It's a little better this year.

And they're still, they're moving Penny Sewell to the left side. Yeah. Miller, their, their first-round pick's gonna be on the right side.

So that's, they've at least spent money and assets trying to fix it.

Yeah.

And last year they couldn't.

Exactly. So they could get off to a strong start. You said it, Jets, Carolina, Arizona, New Orleans, and 4 of the first 5. We could be looking at like a 5-0 Lions team and then saying, oh my God, why didn't we dump more? The problem is they always lose one of those dumbass games, right? Like on the road, they'll have like 17 points with 4 minutes left against like Carolina. It's like, what the hell's going on here? I have Gibbs 2+ touchdowns in this game and it's not even close.

One of the reasons I really like the over, 'cause I do think they'll go 4-1 or 5-0, whatever. So now, yeah, that becomes easier if I have to get to 11 wins. Now I only need 7.

3 months to do it.

Yeah. You can also really zag against this at the end of the year because Week 17, Week 18 is Bears-Packers, both road games. So if they're 10-5 or 9-6, I feel like you can get out of that or you can hedge those games.

Right.

But, um, I think they're— I just think they're gonna be good. I think they have too much talent. And whether or not this is kind of the, the make or break Dan Campbell season, I think they have one more in them. Usually these windows are 4, right? they had 2 years ago was like, they're big, they almost made it. But this feels like a 4-year window to me. And Gibbs is spectacular. I mean, they had the skill positions when you compare them to the other teams we talked about, like they have, well, a top 5 wide receiver. They probably have the best running back, right? They have one of the 4 best tight ends and they have a quarterback who every year throws for 4,500 yards.

Protect Goff and they should be fine. And I think too much is made of, oh, Ben Johnson left and this offense can't do it. Well, they were +66 point differential for a 4th place team. That's insanity. And they beat Ben Johnson twice, right? So they'll be okay.

Um, how's you— are you pro or—

I'm very pro on Detroit. They went 9-8 last season with all of that injury.

Everything went wrong.

They went 9-8 and they had a top 10-ish, um, difficulty in terms of schedule. This schedule is the thing that sets it up for me because they— you mentioned the division they get If they can go 3-3 in their own division, you can go through that schedule and find the 8 wins to get you to 11. So it's a good over for me.

A lot of indoor games too. Miami's their outdoor game until like the Bears in January. Like that's, that's their only outdoor game.

So I would've locked it, but I do wonder with the injury juju with them makes me, makes me nervous. It just seems like they've had bad luck now for a couple years here. Packers over 9.5, division +260. Super Bowl 22-to-1. Playoffs about as even as we get here. They're -116 to make it, -102 not to make it. 12+ wins, +270. Under 7.5 wins is +260. There's a couple of these, a couple of the odd unders for this division. If you figure all 4 of these teams can't be good, who's gonna have like the year from hell or whatever? This is a 7-10 win candidate. They were 9-7-1 last year. Little fluky 'cause they, they knew they were in the playoffs with 2 games to go.

Yeah.

My what if for them is they lost their last 5 games last year post-Parsons injury. Right, right. He's not coming back till week 9. What if that's just who they are? A, a .500 team?

Yeah, I think they could be .500 till he gets— I mean, I like this team a lot, a lot more now. Really? Yeah.

I'm so interested.

Why? And we kill LaFleur and he's killed us on 3-team teasers and parlays and everything. So he's like, I've killed you too. Yeah, we've killed you. I feel like to blow those Bears games, that second one, that was like England-Argentina. Like, they just played on their heels. Like, that's just— that's perplexing if you go back and watch that game. You had the conversation with Mina. Jordan Love, I think, a lot better, not just statistically when you look. And I feel like they had 7 of the same receivers and they got like 5 of them. Became too confusing between the Wicks and the Dobbs. And now, so they settled on Jayden Reed. and Justin Watson. And those guys of course have to stay healthy, but I think that's the best of the bunch. Tucker Kraft.

So you think they weeded out—

Yeah, I think it just got too distracting. Like, I don't even know why the Wizards had 7 swingmen. Oh, here we go.

Christian Watson.

Christian Watson. What did I say?

I know.

Justin.

Justin. Okay.

That's what I'm here for. No, you're good.

Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. I did know that. Yeah.

I know.

Yeah.

So you think they picked the best 3? 'Cause I would argue Dobbs is the most reliable of all the guys that I just don't trust Christian Watson. You know why? Because I've had him in fantasy. So have you, right? And guess what? The red flag is next to him by week 3, or he's out, or he's coming back.

The challenge flags or the red? Every flag.

Every flag's next to him.

Yeah.

Listen, when the ball's in the air and he gets separation, there's probably no one better, right? I mean, Tyreek Hill's gone, so Christian Watson— I got that right, right?— is the one. I, I don't know, he might— they might not even be the best 2. I just think it got cluttered with all having like 5 different options. And now he could, he could zone.

So they're only down to Watson, Reed, and Golden, who I had last year on both fantasy teams. So they never ever threw to, right? Gannon's the DC, which I liked. LaFleur every year is a top 10 offense. So that's a positive. I really went back and forth on this and Tucker Kraft. I love, I assume he'll be 100%. I did like a better and worse for in my notes for how I thought the team was better than last year. I thought was worse. The worst, like, really made me lean under. They lost Dobbs, who I thought made big catches for them. Their offensive line and their defensive line in both trenches, they really lost. Like, they're about now below average on both sides.

Right.

That's just a fact. Parsons probably not back till week 8, week 9 range, maybe even for your Dallas game. They not only are— they only have 3 receivers left, it's a position they've spent a lot of assets on over the years. Yeah, like I think Watson was a first-round pick, Golden definitely was, um, but just in general they're always over and over again spending stuff. They only have 3 left.

It's okay to have 3 receivers.

No, I know, but I just feel like they've spent a lot of assets on it, not to mention the Parsons trade, right, which left them without a first-round pick. LaFleur, even though they gave him a contract, I still feel like he's in limbo. Jacobs got in trouble, had a thing in the offseason, not great. Their special teams always sucks. I had them at 22 points for their roster, which usually throws me toward the playoffs, but I couldn't get there. I'm under, I'm 9-8.

Wow.

I think they were 9-7-1 last year. I think they're 9-8. There's a team I like more in this division than them.

Okay.

And I did not want to have 3 playoff teams, so. they were the loser, 9-8. But I don't feel great about it.

I have 'em at 11-6. I think the Jacobs thing—

That feels like a lot.

Jacobs is troubling for sure. He's gonna miss time. But Marshawn Lynch is, uh, is not a bad— uh, Marshawn Lloyd, before, uh, you jump in there. Marshawn Lynch.

And Marshawn Lynch.

Forget it. No, he's not gonna do anything. Uh, he's a decent, uh, replacement. They have Zaire Franklin, who had over 640 tackles in 4 years.

And then— Dabundo said he couldn't cover like literally anybody in the NFL in pass. It's okay.

The numbers are there.

Yeah.

for tackles. The, you know, the other thing is the NFL has a way of course correcting here. So they know Parsons is gonna be out 2 months, a month and a half, whatever it is. 3 outta first 4 are Falcons, Jets, and Vikings. So we could have a similar situation to the Lions where this team is 4-1. Yeah. They don't have to do a lot, you know? And he was concussed.

I looked at that.

Down the, down the stretch there when they were like 9-4-1, he was concussed like the last in 3 weeks. Jordan Love.

I think there's a real 0-2 chance for this team.

Really?

At Vikings week 1, at Jets week 2, followed by 0-2, complete panic. Should we fire LaFleur?

Well, I'll go back to hating 'em if that's the case, 'cause I'll have, I'll have them win both those games.

It's weird. This Vikings game in week 1 at Minnesota, I feel like is gonna determine the over-under.

Hmm.

So if they win that, I think they get to 10.

If they don't win that, I'm dying to know who your team is. And there's only 2 left in the division.

I mean, now there's more. They added more NFL teams.

Oh, there's more. Goodell, he's never— he's always up to something.

So you're over 11 wins for them, huh?

Yeah. 11 and 6. They're favored in 13 games.

So you've had a complicated Packers relationship. What do you mean? There's been years where you've like really loved them.

Oh yeah. We made—

we bet on them to win the Super Bowl last year.

Yeah.

Yeah. During the season they came out the way they started off the season on both sides of the ball. They were incredible. They were definitely— I, I got some money down after they kicked Washington's ass. In Week 2 on Thursday night, they humiliated Washington. They were incredible on both sides of the ball. But the way the season ended, I feel like there's a hangover. You lose a playoff game the way that they did, when you manufacture a goddamn playoff loss the way that they did, you don't—

We all thought they were firing the coach after that.

Yeah, they should have.

They should have. Can I give you one of my favorite theories?

Sure.

It's a social media clip waiting to happen. Can't wait for Eduardo. put this thing on, Eduardo. Uh, sports city cluster theory. I mean, walk you into October. The Packers are 1-3 and everybody's panicking with the Bears game coming on October 11th. That feels make or break for them. Bucs season about to start. Everybody's like, what the fuck did we get in this Giannis trade? This is terrible. Brewers after a great season just getting bounced. Oh no, they didn't, they didn't even make it to October. So they're like, oh my God, our Brewers season's already over. And now Packers must win game. And it's just like all colliding. And maybe there's just a blizzard that day in October for the first time ever in Wisconsin. My old college roommate Chip Kane just sending me long incoherent texts about how bad it is. But I just, I just, I, I think all this stuff might be interesting. Might be the game.

Badgers 2-7. All right.

Yeah, the Badgers are going bad.

All right. I like 'em. I don't know what to say.

Okay. Chicago Bears over 9.5 is the over-under. Heavy juice on the over, +115 on FanDuel. Division +340. Super Bowl 31 playoffs dead even, basically +116 for the playoffs. 12 plus ones +360. Under 7.5, +210. They were 11-6 last year. People are just spooching regression all over this team. Regression, regression, regression, regression. That's it. Nobody can talk about the Bears rationally because—

That's your impression of me?

Regression.

45 seconds.

Yeah, it's just regression, regression, regression, regression. Here's another stat. Here's another stat. They did this. They did this. Counter.

Go ahead.

I'm all in on Ben Johnson. I think he's 10 wins every year. I don't care what's going on with this team. And I look at it this way. So they go 11-6 last year, make the playoffs, have a couple miraculous Caleb moments. They shouldn't have been a playoff team last year.

Mm-hmm.

Right? If they had just gone 8-9 or 7-10, but had a couple upsets and really showed like signs, and it was like, oh, this year, here come the Bears. Watch out for these guys. And instead they threw everyone off the scent because they had, they won like 3 or 4 weird games. I think this was supposed to be the Bears year.

I'm over.

I think they, I think they go 10-7 and I'm a fan.

They didn't have a couple comeback wins. They had 6 wins in the last 2 minutes where they were trailing.

That should mean something though.

It does. It does. I don't want to get on quarterbacks like Caleb Williams and Bo Nix who came from behind and won. That's a clutch gene that you should be very happy. Everyone in the Indiana area should be very happy that their team had— I'm sorry, Chicago area that has the Bears to win. Caleb Williams almost 4,000 yards, which is unheard of for any Bears quarterback. House thinks he's gonna go over this year, right?

Listen to the—

Sure. The weird wise guys. That's one of his big— but that is regression like no other. +22 turnover margin. Like that's, if you look at Warren Sharpe, how he outlines this, no one who wins the turnover margin at the top is anywhere close in the second year. Add to it, they weren't really great in the non-turnover drives. So Caleb Williams, this is nice. I appreciate his stretch routine. He doesn't get his black fingernails, really doesn't affect them at all when he's stretching. By the way, Antonio Brown had some choice words for him today.

That was, that was tough.

Usually—

Settle down, Antonio.

Usually holds to himself there. Yeah. I don't know. I got over an 8.5, but under 9.5 for the Bears. I have 'em at 9-8.

9-8.

Yeah.

So I have Chicago in this division and you have Green Bay. Green Bay is basically where we, where we differed. I just think that last year was year one Ben Johnson. I feel the same way about Vrabel. Now you have the staff, you bring it over, everybody's kind of learned the habits from last year. I think they have a lot of skill position talent, right? My big fear, if you're, if you're gonna pick them apart, I mean, the regression rate obviously is a nightmare, but the left tackle, they have the worst left tackle in the league.

Yeah. Right.

The defense is a little sketchy, but I do think they can win some shootouts. I had their roster at 24 points. I think Johnson's a top 5 QB. They have that net rest rank. They're number 1, they're +15. It's the 2nd highest for any team since 1990. Right. Putting in your hero Warren Sharpe. Sure. Who told us that Shedeur Sanders' 15-minute sideline interview was basically Frost-Nixon.

Listen, we steal enough of his stats.

We should give him a shout out. No, we do. No, we love Warren Sharpe. At Vikings, Week 18.

Yeah.

It's interesting. They go Packers Christmas. But that's home.

Yeah.

Lions home at Vikings week 18, and that's probably gonna decide this.

But that's a lot.

I'm, I'm zagging the other way against all the regression crap. And I think the Bears are gonna be, I think their offense is gonna be top 7, top 8. Wow. I think they have an awesome coach and I, I just— not betting against Ben Johnson. DJ Moore might've been, I mean, yeah, they could, they drove, that would, DJ Moore was a drive him to the airport.

Yeah. Down to the airport.

The, the entire fan base was ready to drive him to the airport. And I loved Loveland. I thought Loveland came on. Kraft looked like Gronk in the first 8 games of the year, first 4 or whatever. And then Loveland down the stretch, he looked like he was the best tight end in the league. I just think they have a lot of options.

I think people a little bit too in love with Luther Burden, who's like gonna start out questionable. Yeah. I just, you know, first place schedule now, 6th toughest schedule. You mentioned some of their, you know, Christmas Green Bay, Thanksgiving Detroit. To me, it's like, I really feel Ben Johnson's a good coach and he's gonna— they're gonna get better eventually. But he locked his door at the end of that season like, oh my God, that couldn't have gone better for me, especially with the things that I had nothing to do with. I mean, if they have 16 fumbles and lose only 4 of them, I get it.

That, that's— I get it. That's a red flag. But I wonder now if we're too obsessed with all these things and it's— and we're just making— turning it into baseball with like, yeah. Oh, his on-base is .300 and that just means this.

Oh, listen, I, I, I am definitely—

It's a pretty small sample size. 16 fumbles is not like 160. At Panthers week 1, home Vikings week 2. I think they're 2-0 after that. And after that I need to go 8-7. I get 10 wins.

They give the safety Kobe Bryant from Seattle a, a big deal. Tough, tough for Kobe.

The secondary's a little—

This is 4 months.

Yeah, the secondary worries me. But they might not play somebody who throws the ball on them until, right, week 7.

I'm not locking it in, but I just think it's gonna be a little tougher.

Last one's Minnesota. Their over is 8.5, +430 for the division, Super Bowl 41 playoffs +140. If you want to get nuts and go for them for 11+ wins, +240. They were 9-8 last year. Um, and it's just bizarre to me that people it seems like more people like the Vikings than the Bears.

Yeah.

I just think that's abjectly insane. I don't get it at all. I did my player rankings. They had one guy on defense who got points, Van Ginkel, one. O'Connell gets points, Jefferson, the slightly above average offensive line might give them 2 points there. But this all comes down to Kyler Murray. And my what-if for you is what if Kyler Murray kind of sucks?

Why wouldn't he? Why the hell wouldn't he?

Cardinals paid him to go away.

Yeah.

And then it's like, Kyler Murray, who knows? It's like, I thought we, we went through this already.

He signed for $1.3 million. Like half the Ringer employees are making that.

Here's the thing.

Had no other offers.

Even kind of sucky Kyler Murray is better than what they had at quarterback last season. They had arguably the worst quarterback group. Carson Wentz played professional football for—

And Brock Purdy.

And, and then Maxey Brosmer, uh, was out there.

And Michigan hero JJ McCarthy.

Yeah, I know, it was terrible.

That's the worst quarterback room.

Okay, but if you put— and you could analyze what metric you want in a quarterback, and I think his EPA is like right in the middle, like 16th or something.

That's the thing, he's like an advanced, advanced stat. It's like, it's better than you think. It's like, okay, so I, I guess I didn't watch any Cardinals games my whole life.

So he's right in the middle for EPA, but that, that's fine. He doesn't run at all. You're definitely not getting the 2021 version.

Can't throw over the middle.

He can't throw over the middle. He's not gonna get the best out of Justin Jefferson if all the stats hold up.

He's just a horrific fit for Justin Jefferson. Bad at throwing the deep ball.

Downfield is 10%. He's like 31st outta 33 qualified quarterbacks in, in downfield. So what are you getting? You're getting a guy that hopefully won't hurt you, even though he did hurt the Cardinals many, many times we saw last year.

So, can I read you some stats? Remember the 2021 playoffs when they played the Rams?

That was their only playoff game in—

I picked the Cardinals over the Rams and I think they lost like 44 to 10.

Yeah. Sunday night game.

And Kyler Murray completely fell apart.

Yeah.

Since then, next season, 3-8 as a starter. Year after that, 3-5. Year after that, 8-9. Year after that, 2-3. He's 16-26 in his last 42 games. Like, yeah, we have this in basketball. I'm sure the advanced stats are favorable. This is fucking Zach LaVine. This is Russell Westbrook in the 2020s. This is Bradley Beal on House's crappy Wizards teams. Like, I'm glad the advanced stats look good, but we all fucking watch the games and this guy's not a winning quarterback. And you can't tell me in this division, right, that you're gonna win 9 games with him. I don't believe it. And I don't think their defense is good either. It's like Flores, Flores, Flores. It's like that. No, they don't have enough talent.

Blitz-heavy Flores. They lose Hargrave, they lose Jonathan Allen, Jonathan Greenard gets traded. They're, you know, depending on this Caleb Banks, this defensive tackle who has like foot issues and stuff. They have a rough stretch I penciled in at Detroit, Buffalo, at Green Bay, at San Francisco. That's weeks 8 through 11. I don't think that— I think we're making Max Brosmer jokes around Thanksgiving again.

I honestly, I, it's weird 'cause in basketball it's the opposite. People remember everything and hold everybody, every playoff game against everybody.

Yeah.

And in football we just get amnesia, right? Like we're just looking forward and trying to figure out stuff and we just kind of forget what happened.

Yeah.

Kyler Murray, the Cardinals not only did not— they're paying him what, $40 million a year, $50 million a year, and paid him to go away.

Oh yeah.

And then it's like, oh, I don't know, KOC quarterback whisperer. He's the quarterback whisperer. He just had JJ McCarthy, who was a complete piece of crap last year. He was terrible.

He says he's elite, JJ McCarthy. I don't know if we can go by that.

So you can't be the quarterback whisperer if your last quarterback that you drafted in the top 10 of the NFL draft completely bombed, right? That means you're, you're whispering, but nobody's listening to the words. Yeah. So I'm, I'm under.

So you're way under. Is this a lock?

I'm under.

I have them at 7, so that's under. Well, what's this number? 8.5?

The, uh, number's 8.5. Yeah, I'm under. Um, I'm happy to lock it down if you want me to, but I, I—

I'm not gonna force you. Whatever you want.

There's other stuff.

Adams out. Yeah, I don't like this team. At all.

Yeah. So we're both under. Mm-hmm. 9-8 last year feels like they're a game where it's— the only reason I'm not a lock for this is what House said. Their quarterbacks were so bad last year. Yeah. That even if Murray can be just not a bottom 10 quarterback, it's impressive. Maybe that's fine.

They have to— they had to win what, the last 5 to go 9-8? Like, I, I still really don't understand how they did it.

And they did do it. I mean, that Detroit game, they kicked Detroit's ass.

Right.

Detroit needed that game.

Mm-hmm.

To, to have any shot at making the playoffs.

So they, they play the, they play the NFC South along with everyone else in this division, and they play the AFC East.

That helps a little bit.

And that means they get Dolphins, Jets, right? That means they get the 3 South teams.

Mm-hmm.

That's kind of maybe where you'd go with like how they could sneak to 9. It's just a great coaching performance.

Yeah.

Kyler Murray's history was always, Raheem talked about this on your NFC North pod, really good first 2 months of the season, falls apart. I just don't see it. I also don't think people even remember what Kyler Murray plays like, right? Like they think of him as this scrambling, exciting guy. That guy's been gone for 4 years.

Yeah, that whole, that whole, that session of his life. I don't think so. They're favored in 8 games, so I think they go under, under that.

It's a possible tank candidate too. I wanted to throw that out there. The under 6.5 is +290. But like, if it's just not going well in November, do you just, or do you throw McCarthy back in? Do you see what you have there?

Well, we saw it last year. They won their last 5 games. That's how they got to 9 wins. Yeah. They, they were a 10 candidate last year. That's, that, that's not in the DNA though.

He's a sneaky first coach fired too. Kevin O'Connell.

I totally agree.

I don't put him top 3, but he could, you know, they get off to a slow start and that middle of the schedule is rough.

'Cause he could do the whole thing of guys keep giving me these quarterbacks. Like, why don't we keep Sam Darnold? You fired the GM that made a lot of these decisions. Like, maybe look in the fucking mirror. All right. NFC North, you have 90 seconds, House.

Yeah. So this division, every team finished with a winning record last season. I think we're gonna see the exact same thing this upcoming season. I'm slightly more bullish on—

You're going 9+ wins on every—

Yeah. Yep.

I wonder if we get Fanduel to do that as a parlay. Yeah, every team in the NFC North will win 9 games. I wonder.

Yeah, I'm, uh, I'm slightly more positive on Minnesota than you guys are.

Um, the fact is what we've been talking about, there's a floor to the number of wins out of this division because of who they play.

They—

every team should have sort of built in 6 wins. So when you talk about Minnesota, 6 wins because they get the Dolphins, and they get the Jets and they get the NFC South. And then like a team like Minnesota, they have Washington on their schedule towards the end of the season. Like you can go through and find 6 wins for every one.

They're winning every game.

And then you're pushing up. So if you're starting from a 6-win floor, getting to 9 wins is not that difficult. And we have good positive cases for all of these teams in terms of the skill, even if, you know, that Bears defense take a step back and this Vikings defense isn't gonna be as good. I still think that we're gonna get to 9 for every one of the teams.

Wow.

I think this is my number 1 pick for a division that will have a tie that will fuck with all of this.

Oh yeah. Well, they had one last year.

Vikings go like 8-8-1.

Yeah.

And, but they also knocked down the Packers and the Packers are 9-7-1.

Yeah.

But yeah, I, I'm predicting the thing. All right. So your division winner is who?

Green Bay Packers, 11-6. Wow.

I'm really surprised by this.

Yeah.

I have the Lions at 11-6. So you, you think the Packers, what were the odds on that? That is +260. You'd like for that. I have the Lions at +160. I can't remember a division in a while that had the, the favorite was +160.

What do you mean?

Like those are the, that's the best odds, +160 out of 4 teams.

You can't remember? Your Patriots did it forever. The Bills even before the Patriots got there.

No, I'm saying usually at least somebody's like -110 or Oh, I see. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's too, oh, plus.

Yeah. It shouldn't be a plus. Yeah.

We're all between like +160 and 3-to-1. Okay. That's it for the NFC North. Quite a division. I think the most action-packed, most arguments. I think it's the most fun to do the, do the place finishes. You can go in any direction. I would probably go Lions, Bears.

This is tough.

Packers, Vikes would be my 4.

I would let you pick. 4 division orders and I'll book them all because I think it's that, that hard.

Make it all you can eat buffet.

There you go.

Okay. All right. NFC South, the bane of our existence, just has brought us whatever the opposite of joy is. Unhappiness, despair, disbelief, year after year, and on pace again. We talked about how, uh, you could go over 9 on all 4 NFC North teams. You could go under 9 on all 4 of the NFC South teams and talk yourself into it. First one is Tampa over 8.5, +175 for the division, +140 for the playoffs. 10+ wins is +175 as well. 11+ wins, +340. Keep that in your back pocket. They were 8-9 last year in a year where I would argue most things went wrong. Baker Mayfield had 7 injuries. They lost their left tackle, wide receiver injuries across the board. Mike Evans got hurt at the worst possible time, came back. It was just a mess. Defense was weird. Weird season. Felt like Bowles was gonna get fired. They really collapsed.

Yeah.

Didn't fire Bowles. What if they fired Todd Bowles 8 months ago? Would you feel better about this team?

Wow. Well, can I backtrack a little? Because I have a little NFC South preamble here. Okay, I'm gonna blow my wad on the whole division. First of all, I, I, it's despicable and I hate it. And I hate that we have to do futures for it because I don't want to have a bet on— case in point, last year Bucs should have won a division. Yeah, I don't know how they did. Carolina backed into a division title losing Week 18. somehow and getting to 8-9.

And then Rahim bragged about how he had Carolina, but meanwhile he had 19 other bets over the course of the year.

Doing laps for this Carolina win. Ridiculous. This NFC South is— they should call it the NFC DMV because it's, it's, it is the DMV. It's visiting the DMV watching these games. It's tedious.

What does that do for your DMV house?

It's a different DMV. Okay.

Oh yeah, no, yeah, the one where you have to wait in line. Tedious, inefficient, It stinks like piss. It's, this is the NFC DMV. And why do we have to knock ourselves out trying to pick a winner when they don't even want to win outside of the division? They win 35% of their games over the last 5 years.

I saw that.

And I have to—

it's by far the worst, right?

The 3 of us have to pick a team to fricking win 8 or 9 or God forbid 10 games. I have all 4 teams at 7-10 and God bless me. Yeah. I figured out a way and it wasn't that hard to do. I did it game by game by game. So let's talk. I mean, there is many, many reasons to not give any of these teams more than 7 wins or less than 5. So you wanna start with Tampa Bay?

Yeah, let's start with Tampa.

All right. I think they're, first of all, maybe I'm a little harsh on them because they did win the division 4 years in a row before this. And Baker had, you talked about that, his injuries, bicep, shoulder, oblique. This is why they won't give him the extension.

We were talking about him for MVP on our Sunday night pods for 3 weeks in a row. And then by the end of the year, he was— body parts were falling off.

I loved it. People kept him outta their top 12, like quarterback rankings. I said, this is despicable. What are we doing? They have a new OC in Zach Robinson. That's a 5th OC in as many years. Like you said, they lose Mike Evans. I think it's a little better with Kenneth Gainwell, right? Bucky Irvin missed some time. I still like that offense. That Ruben Baines, a stud, uh, for Miami. He's a little, uh, banged up to start the year. They get Vita Vea, who threatened to hold out. They're favored in 9 games, but I still give them 7 wins. Like, they were 0-6 against the AFC North under Todd Bowles, and that's—

You didn't mention they lost Mike Evans.

And Mike Evans. Yeah. So that's—

I don't love the— I don't love the cornerbacks on this team, and I'm not a Todd Bowles guy, but Gainwell I thought was awesome last year for the Steelers. Their front 7, they nailed the draft. I think they— if I gave points in my player rankings for drafts, Bane is like that. That was a miracle he fell to them. Their front 7 is going to be really good. Like, it's going to be get after the passer, kind of dangerous good. And this, this Ted Hurst they took, um, is a receiver in the draft who seems like he's actually going to play. And I like their receivers before that, I like Tez Johnson. I thought he had some moments last year. Igboke, who got hurt halfway through the year. He was my offensive rookie of the year. I think they have firepower all over the place. I had their offensive line for 6 points. I had them as a top 3 offensive line. So they have that, uh, the running game with Irving and Gainwell together. There's guys I like on the defense. I had 4 guys on the defense with them. They— the problem is they play some good QBs.

Lamar, Burrow, Caleb Love, Goff, Dak, Stafford, Herbert. They also play some horrible QBs.

Mm-hmm.

2 Atlanta games, Brissett, a Cleveland game, Aaron Rodgers, Bryce Young twice, Shuck twice. I'm all in.

Really?

Not only do I have them over, ugh, over 8.5.

Don't be all in on any of these teams.

Plus 110.

Kidding me?

Over 8.5. I'm making it a lock.

Wow.

I think they can go 11-6. I have them 11+ wins is +340. I think this team is actually going to be good. I'm in on the Bucs. I think they nailed their draft and I think they're going to be healthy and they're in a shitty division.

You are a glutton. I know. Glutton for punishment. This is the—

I broke the news to House this morning and guess what? We started debating bets.

We started going through it.

They're the best team in the division, but it doesn't mean they have to win any more than 7 games because they're the toughest 3-hour watch in all of football. They're 4-12 in primetime games. I think they're 1 under bowls. They're 1-9 since Baker got there. It's despicable. Their red zone defense— the red zone defense is just awful. Anyone gets to the 10, just don't even run another play. You're in.

I don't know. I think their front 7 is going to be good. I think they're going to be good. Also, um, here's another thing. This is how much thought I've put into Tampa. So at Bengals week 1, we'll talk about Bengals and AFC, but you can probably guess I'm, I'm zagging on them. Okay, next 3 games all at home in September: Browns, Vikings, Packers. Let me, let me walk you through your memories of what happens in Florida in September. It's fucking hot.

Yeah.

This is like Lombardi always used to talk about this, these games in Carolina or Tampa. in the first 3 or 4 weeks of the season where it's like 95 degrees on a Sunday or it's 80 with like a ton of humidity. The Browns, they get the last Deshaun Watson game ever. That's a win. Kyler Murray the next week, and then the Packers. I, I actually think they could be 4-0 heading into week 5 against your Cowboys on Thursday night.

Talk to me about December. That's when they lose their games.

That's fine.

That's when they blow all their games.

So that's cool. Well, that they do And I, I, we're gonna talk about the Falcons in a second. I think the Falcons are gonna be bad. So that's 2 wins there. But I'm in, I really like this Tampa team.

They bit me hard last year.

I get it. I, I feel like Thursday night against Atlanta, if you could give yourself amnesia for last year.

Yeah.

I feel like you'd feel better about Tampa.

They're the best team. They have the best roster.

They definitely are better than they were last year.

Yeah, sure.

So the question for me is, is Baker, is he just a guy who gets hurt every year? Yeah, he's had a lot of injuries. He's been banged up a few different times.

Who is it back? Jake Browning? Yeah, I'm looking. They have the Kansas quarterback. Oh, Jaylen Daniels is fine.

They have Wurfs back. Everybody glosses over that. Like, we just made a big deal about Tunsil and Washington. Wurfs was one of the best left tackles in the league. They didn't have him last year.

That's true.

Saints over 7.5, +270 for the division, +198 if you like them for the playoffs. Under 5.5 wins, +250. They were 6-11 last year. Um, what if they played Shuck all last season? Did they win the division? I'd— we all love Shuck.

Yeah. What were they, 6-11 you said last year? Yeah. Uh, could they go 8-9 to win the division? Yes. I think that's the answer. I was gonna pencil them in for 8 wins, but then I thought 7-10 for everyone is funnier. Um, and also not great offseason, right? We got, you know, Kamara's banged up, Olave already—

Well, they paid, they paid for ETN.

Right at the end. I don't know if he's a $48 million running back, but, but he was improvement.

10th in our league in fantasy points last year.

Yeah. Jordan Tyson, that's not good. The wide receiver from Arizona State.

Hated that pick.

No good.

Yeah.

It's so funny when they take these receivers who couldn't stay healthy in college. Mm-hmm. And they take 'em 8, the, the Saints did in this case. But these guys are top 10 picks. Yeah. And the draft guys are like, if he could stay healthy, it's like, well, we have all track record. He can't. Then he gets to the training camp.

Guess what?

He gets— he gets hurt.

Right, right.

Was anyone shocked to see that Jordan Tyson is hurt?

No.

This guy, I think this could be a whole sports career.

It was fun to watch when he was on the field.

Yeah, he had like 2 of those, uh, training camp things where— I'm losing my voice.

You're getting emotional.

Yeah, I'm really upset about Jordan Tyson. But he had like 2 training camp moments where he'd be like, oh my God, whoa, look at this guy. Got hurt.

Right.

Um, I just want to say, because I have no other platform to do this other than probably this podcast, I love DeSean Bailey. He was my favorite random receiver last year. I had him in fantasy and he was like a god, and then he got hurt. But he was like, I just keep an eye on him. Um, Ken Tyson or Olave stay healthy is a big question mark with this team. My, my guess would be probably not. Um, Brandon Staley is still the DC. They just, they have no blue chippers on D at all. It's basically Chase Young's resuscitated body and that's it.

Yeah. I mean, he had 10 sacks in 12 games last year. I just, the, the, The trade-off, it was tough for me to reconcile, is number 3 dead cap money, which doesn't— that's really tough.

Oh, it's a bad sign.

Okay. Versus number 2 easiest schedule.

So, and they have 9 home games instead of 8, right? So 9 in the Superdome.

Yeah.

Falcons, who they, who I think are gonna stink, they play, so they're at Lions, at Ravens first 2. So they're gonna be 0-2.

This is, we've moved on to the Falcons.

No, no, this is the Saints.

He's going through the schedule. Oh, I'm sorry.

Raiders week 3, Falcons week 4.

You'll let me know what he's doing at all times, right?

I'm just giving you the Saints.

No, I got you. Go ahead.

Yeah. Week 4 Falcons is the Hurricane Katrina anniversary game. Yeah. They're not losing that.

Right.

Vikings week 5 at Giants week 6.

Mm-hmm.

That just feels like 3 and 3.

Mm-hmm.

Right. So at that point, the over-under is 7.5. Can I go 5-6 the rest of the way? Yeah, with the Saints. Shuck worries me because of, uh, I— he just took huge hits last year. He's like a little Jackson Doherty-ish, right? Less blue tent, but just completely fearless. I don't even know who their backup is.

Yeah, I think it's— I wonder if we're giving him too much credit because he went like 15-2 on teasers for us, but, but he's like 30th in the red zone. Oh, he's rookie, you know, it's hard.

I'm changing my pick. I had them as an 8.5. No, you can't go— no, I'm doing it. I'm doing unders.

Really?

I have them at 7 wins exactly, 7-10.

So that's under.

That's it. That's under 7-10.

I can't go 8. Everyone's at 7-10. Chef's probably gonna get hurt.

It's the easiest thing to do. Everyone's at 7-10.

Crazy thing with the Saints, their home schedule is incredible. They only play, uh, one team with a win total forecasted to be better than 8.5. They play, you know, Minnesota's sitting right there at 8.5 and Green Bay is at 9.5.

They play Tua or Penix twice. Brissett, Deshaun or Sanders, Dart or his backup, Kyler Murray, Cousins or Mendoza, Rodgers and Bryce Young twice.

Not bad.

I'm changing my pick back.

What?

I'm going over.

Oh my God.

Over 8.5.

I'm glad we didn't go under 5.

What's going on here?

Back over. Yeah.

Lord have mercy.

I changed my pick back.

If I tell you who the backups—

They're good rules.

I tell you when the backups are, you might change again. Spencer Rattler's Zach Wilson.

Spencer Rattler's still there.

Change back under. Go back under now.

Can I pick, can I pick the 7.5 exactly? What is, what are the odds for 7.5?

You said there'll be a tie. Doesn't count.

See, this is, but this is the thing, the end of the season when we're, when it's like we're doing the total, it's like, oh my God, I had the Saints over.

I hate this.

I almost might let you make the pick for me here. Are you over on them?

How's Cam?

We haven't done, uh, the NFC South yet.

We do it Monday.

Well, do it now.

Okay. I'm under. I, I like them at 7 and 10. All right, I'm back under.

7 and 10.

It's just too much open question with the defense. I'm not, I'm not there with the defense.

Defense is bad.

One more thing, and I meant to give this to you before you went on with the, uh, fantasy fellas there. Taysom Hill retired.

Yeah, that's a win.

Poor Taysom Hill.

That'll be the extra win they don't get.

Okay, but Fantasy Hall of Famer? Like, really?

Like, I think so.

Incredible.

Most added drop player ever.

You think more conversations about his eligibility than maybe every player?

More fights.

More fights.

Feel like he swung, he swung weeks.

Yeah.

There was playoff games that he felt like, right?

True fantasy Hall of Famer.

Yeah.

All right. Atlanta Falcons, the over-under is 7.5, +290 for the division. Under 5.5 wins is +220.

Mm-hmm.

Last year they were 8-9. My what-if for you is, what if this is actually somehow a worse QB situation than Cleveland?

Wow.

What if this is our number one worst QB situation? Because here's the situation: Tua, who got paid to go away by Miami because he literally can't play football anymore, right, competing against Michael Penix on his third torn ACL. who hasn't even really started scrimmaging until this week, and Tua couldn't win the job. He was competing against nobody. It was like he was playing tennis against a big backboard and couldn't beat the backboard. Um, I don't— House asked this today, why didn't they just keep Cousins, who they're paying anyway?

Yeah.

Why not just keep Cousins instead of like, oh, we can get Tua for $1 million? Yeah, because he sucks. Um, this is gonna completely ruin them. I'll give you some Michael Penix stats. 4-8 as a starter career, 12 TDs, 6 INT, um, 22 for 80 rushing. Might be the least athletic quarterback in the league, right? And has a bad knee.

And they're dying for him to get back. Like, Stefanski's like, you're ready.

Yeah, can you play on crutches?

That's it.

Um, Stefanski is basically the only thing that's good about what they did.

Mm-hmm.

Here's what's bad. The QB situation. They took Pierce and Walker, their 2 big first-round picks a year ago. Pass rushers. We're gonna have speed on the edge. We're gonna be a different Falcons team.

Pierce was stupid. Dumb.

Well, he's— Pierce is out for the year.

Yeah.

Tore his ACL.

Yeah.

Walker got suspended through week 8. Those guys are gone. They lost all the other guys that they had. They have the worst front 7 in the league. They have no wide receiver past Drake London. Their offensive line, which was always top 5, is now no longer top 15. I think this team's a dumpster fire. This is— I have them going 4-13 this year. This is my biggest lock out of all the over-unders. Falcons, I couldn't be— it's a fully erect—

Wow.

Another one.

Sorry, Farrah.

Poor Farrah.

I, I just can't believe how bad I like, I can't believe it's 7.5. I think it should be 5.5. Like, how do they have not, don't have the worst thing in the, other than the Cardinals in the NFC?

'Cause it's the NFC South. They can't put anybody that low because they're, these are, there's wins all over the place. They could be the dumpster fire and still go 3-3 in the division. I agree with you.

Also, their schedule is weirdly hard. Here's who they play for quarterbacks: Love, Lamar, Burrow, Caleb, Purdy, Mahomes, Goff, Daniels, Baker twice with a shitty defense. They're gonna go to at Steelers week 1. I'm betting the Steelers now. I'm just telling you, home Panthers, at Packers, at Saints, home Ravens, home Bears, home 49ers, at Bucs.

Yeah.

And they're playing the Bengals in week 9 in Madrid. They might be 0-8.

Interesting. It gets easier towards the end. I think December, it's their Cleveland, Washington, Tampa, New Orleans, and Carolina. They have the division games and and plus Cleveland and Washington.

Week 10 Chiefs, they might be 0-10 heading into their bye week. I think they're gonna be awful.

Look, it's— this is tough for Stefanski, right? 2-time Coach of the Year.

Uh, that's the other thing. It's like, oh, Stefanski. Stefanski was terrible last year. Yeah, we were complaining about him the whole year. The Browns blew these games last year.

We were like, he was terrible.

He was a classic, are we sure he's good coach last year?

I mean, his best win was when he was coaching from home with COVID They beat the Steelers in the playoffs. But he also has these like shiny toys on the top shelf that I don't think either of the quarterbacks could reach with Bijan Robinson. And even Kyle Pitts like broke out a little bit and obviously Drake London.

So Kyle Pitts broke out a little bit, just enough to get him a contract.

That's right.

That now he's gonna go back to being Kyle Pitts.

Yeah.

House, can you name a single receiver other than Drake London on the Falcons?

No, 'cause I, I knew Darnell Mooney was on the team for a little while, but he plays for the Giants now.

Yeah. It's like Dotson or something, right? And that Zachariah—

Zacharias, uh, Drake London, just double team him. Yeah, he probably doesn't even make it through the year. I just—

Zachariah Branch is any Georgia receiver they like.

But also, here's another thing. Not only are they gonna suck, Week 3 Thursday Night Football, Week 4 Monday Night Football Saints, Week 5 Sunday Night Football Ravens. Why are they giving us the Falcons on night games?

That's stupid.

Fucking consult anybody on this.

Of all that Bijan— Bijan gave us— that's the most fascinating thing for fantasy. Where does Bijan go upcoming season.

Yeah, he's not on my team.

I agree, not on my team.

Please, number 3 tomorrow.

You're not gonna take—

is that right?

I don't want anybody in the Falcons. All right, so you just have blind 7 and 10.

It's fine. Uh, 7 is under, right? It's under 7.5, so I'll go under.

Wow, a violent—

violent—

Jahan Dotson is on this team. Olamide Zaccheaus. This is the 5th string wide receivers from Washington. All these dudes, I've seen both of these guys.

They, they did a nice thing.

They drafted the brother, the Terrell brothers are cornerbacks. This is fun. It's fun to watch.

They're gonna stink. I feel the strongest about this about any NFC team. Last one, Carolina over 6.5 division +340. So if you think the NFC South is gonna, everybody's gonna suck again, might as well grab the +340 from Carolina. +245 for the playoffs. Don't do that. Worst record is 15-1. Super Bowl is 80-1. The what-if for them, Sal, is what if they've had too many injuries already and this is shaping up as a bad juju season? They've already lost both tackles who I think will come back maybe October. They lost their 3rd receiver. They lost Nick Skorton.

Mm-hmm.

Who they paid money for. And it's just, it, this felt like the team when training camp starts and it's like, uh-oh, this happened. Uh-oh, this happened.

They weren't good. It's fine. You could say it. They weren't good. They had a, what, the -69 point differential for a division winner. And by the way, what's their— can you imagine they're a division winner? Not many changes. They're over-under 6.5. It's 'cause they were disgusting. They were 7-3 in one-score games. They have the 3rd toughest strength of schedule this year.

They don't know what to do with Bryce. They didn't even give him an extension or anything.

They didn't. Right. If, if, if anyone needed a 50-year guarantee to, to check out to see if he is good, And I don't think that he is. He's 31st in EPA. Yeah. What do you need to see? You know, I have 'em 7-10, but I felt like they're as lucky as you could get as a team was.

So, so I had them at 7-10 as well because I really liked the Rams playoff game they played.

I thought they had a couple games last year where they threw some punches. We watched that at Shakey's. That was at Shakey's.

They threw some punches against good teams.

Mm-hmm.

We also— House and I sat next to Jalen Coker. Yeah, at the Bob Cousy game.

Love Jalen Coker.

And he was talking about how he was really mad. He felt like they could have beaten the Rams, and he wasn't like saying it like he was serious, right? Um, so I, I'm slight over for this.

You talk about 3, 3— we have to watch them 3 primetime games too. 2 on the road at Philly and at Green Bay.

I wrote about this once back when my fingers worked, like 20 years ago, the backhanded compliment scale for starting QBs.

Mm-hmm.

From 1 to 10. 1.0 is shrugging helplessly. I think that's Cleveland and maybe Atlanta this year.

Right.

2.0 is, I mean, he's not a train wreck or anything. 3.0 is you could do worse. 4.0 is you could definitely do worse.

Mm-hmm.

5.0 is I'll tell you, he's not bad. 6.0 is throws a good deep ball. I will say that. 7.0 is say what you want about the guy, but he makes plays. Baker Mayfield. 8.0, it's not pretty, but he's pretty effective. Number 9.0 is you could make the playoffs with this guy. And 10.0 is, look, if the Ravens can win a Super Bowl with Trent Dilfer, dot, dot, dot.

Hit it, Paul.

My question for you is, where's Bryce Young in this? Is he, is he a you could do worse, or is he you could definitely do worse?

He's an 11.0. When the hell do we see Kenny Pickett? I would add one thing.

So you're at, you're at shrugging helplessly for Bryce Young. Yeah.

I mean, look, again, very lucky. Give him 7 wins. Let him fight it out week 18 with everyone else. I know I'm no fun with this division. I'm sorry, but you're not gonna convince me to bet a future on it.

Better and worse. Year 2 of McMillan is probably the one better. They have some, they had 5 guys on their defense that got points for me. Brown, Phillips, Horn, Jackson, and Moore. They have a great punter, Blackshear. Good, pretty good special teams in general. Good for him. So that feels like they'll steal a win or two. I like, I wouldn't do it as a lock, but I got a lock for them.

I like their, their second round pick. This guy Lee Hunter is from Texas Tech. They call him the Fridge. I'm excited to see him.

The Fridge?

The second Fridge?

Can't be the Fridge. We had a Fridge.

Hasn't eaten today. He just made one. Very sorry. 90 seconds on the NFC South.

Shouldn't have done that.

I would, Advise everyone, if you like the way that these guys have been talking, to get on the FanDuel Sportsbook where you can play division exact order. If you believe that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are gonna finish first and the Atlanta Falcons are gonna finish last, you just swap Carolina and New Orleans in the 2-3 position. Both ways are better than 10-to-1 odds. That's a nice way to make some money for America. Better than 10-to-1. Atlanta first, I mean, uh, Tampa first, Atlanta last. Bet both ways, Carolina and, and New Orleans. I'm trying to help America here.

I am sooner able to figure out the equation on the blackboard in Good Will Hunting than to fucking pick a 1 through 4. You gotta do it.

It's such a bummer because when I do the prep and there's like— I love the worst to first, as you talked about earlier. You can't force it. I tried to force it a couple times the last 2 pods. I'm not doing that anymore. And then the, oh, this division sucks. I'll talk myself into a team that has the worst odds and, and you just can't. Least wins by division last year. The NFC East was 27 wins.

Yeah.

That was the worst. 24, AFC South, 25 wins. 23 was NFC South, 27 wins. And then the AFC South at 22 with 23 wins. So that's the lowest we've had. So you think 28 wins for this division?

Yep. 7-10s across the board. I'll pick— you want my worst to first? I'll take New Orleans to win the division. That's fine.

Okay.

That's it. At 7-10, they win.

I have a hard, hard, hard lock on Tampa.

Okay.

And I think they win this easily to the point that week 17, 18, they got week 17 Rams, week 18 Saints. That might help the Saints over, right? If Tampa's just like, ah, we're the 3 seed, we're not doing anything. Okay, that's it for the NFC South. We made it, Sal. We got through it.

We did it. Never again. Well, next year.

Hey, quick, quick break for FanDuel.

Mm-hmm.

Our friends.

Let's do it.

NFL is so close to being back. FanDuel has you covered all season long. They have an NFL Futures reward stack. For the NFC. So backstory, I tried to get our friend Christian— happy birthday, Christian, by the way.

Yeah, yeah, this weekend.

Yeah, the, the CEO.

Great job.

Um, we love him. He's been a great friend to the, to the Ringer. Love everybody at FanDuel. We tried to get them to do like a Black Friday type thing for Friday, and this is so smart.

I wish I had thought of this.

Couldn't totally do it, but they're doing it anyway because they have an NFL Futures reward stack and it's for the NFC, and you can do 5 Profit Boost tokens, um, where you get a 50% PBT. So like, for instance—

Speak English. It's a nice discount. You get a nice little discount on the—

yeah, basically, like, if you like my Tampa case for +170, right, or whatever they are to win the division, put that in on the FanDuel with the PBT, they'll add 50% to it. Uh, any of the stuff we've talked about so far, which we'll go through the locks at the end of the podcast, And they have player milestones, they have regular season wins, make-miss playoffs, and 2 wildcard things. You get, you have up to 5.

Love it.

Player milestones. This is one you did on the NFC North Podhouse, the, the Caleb over for passing yards. Yeah. What was it like 3,700?

It's 3,575.5.

I couldn't recommend that more highly.

And it's, he beat that by like 400 yards last year.

Yeah. He almost threw for 4,000 last year.

Schedule's harder. They're gonna be in more games.

They're gonna, their defense isn't as good.

He's gonna I have to throw— I thought that was a great one. Receivers are better.

Good one.

Um, regular season wins, you can use either of the ones Sal and I did, right? Make or miss playoffs, I really like Dallas to make the playoffs. I think you do too. Um, but I would also do Tampa. And then, uh, you could do whatever you want with any of the other ones. Uh, FanDuel has you covered right now, all season long. Listen to all of our future picks. Make sure to get into the action yourself. The PBT 5-pack Expires end of the day, Monday, August 31st. You have 5 days, House. You'll be back in DC. You can jump on all of these. I'll get them all in.

You know I'm going to be on all of them.

A 5-pack.

Yep. All 5. 5 for 5.

Show us your 5-pack, House.

It's right here. After the pizza. 10 slices of Bianco going right into the 5-pack.

Nathan once again beat you.

Oh, he's a beast. Dominant pizza consumer.

We ordered—

Nathan Hubbard.

Too many pizzas. And Nathan always brags about how much pizza he can eat.

Yeah, with good reason.

There's one sad slice left after all these things, and Nathan's like, I'm done, I've tapped out. And the thing was there for 5 minutes. We're like, Nathan, really? This is just— they're gonna throw this out?

It's a long time.

Yeah.

And he just kind of sadly reached over and finished it off.

He's about to get on a flight too.

Yeah, he's probably destroying some airplane bathroom right now. The NFC West.

Okay. Wow. This is really— this is more like it.

This is good. Okay, let's go.

Come on.

Some good arguments here. Yeah. We'll start with the LA Rams, who are prohibitive Super Bowl favorites.

Yeah.

Plus 500. Nobody else is, is lower than 10-to-1. Mm-hmm. 11.5 wins, -145. 12.5 wins, Under is -145. So Fando has them pegged basically exactly at 12. Division's almost even odds, -115. Playoffs, -550, +410 for the Rams not to make the playoffs, House.

Yep.

Do you stare at that at all?

Yeah, I mean, at that price—

We'll talk about the case for that. Best record, +330. Under 9.5 wins, +360. They were 12-5 last year. I think they lost the 5 games by 11 points here and everything. And they're over-under again. They need to get basically to 12. My what if for you, what if, let's go big picture beyond the gambling. What if they don't make the Super Bowl this year?

Yeah.

Like, is to, to, to you, is this make or break, do or die? It has to be this year.

I kind of think, I feel like the Matt Stafford Why the hell isn't he put in a coffin debate? Like, how has this not happened already? And yes, in that regard, yeah, it's gotta be this year. How many years can we hear about back surgeries, spinal fusion? That sounds like an ugly term.

Yeah.

And it doesn't matter. Like they extend them for $55 million and now they have the offensive MVP. Yeah, you goddamn right. He won it over Drake maybe. And, and the defensive MVP for Myles Garrett. Like, I hate it because the last 6 weeks I put together a 157-page document just to tell you that the Rams are gonna be as good as everybody says.

So you think they will?

I do.

Yeah.

You're talking me 100% out of it.

Go ahead.

Last 30 years, only the Patriots have been big favorites like this and actually won the Super Bowl in 2018.

Mm-hmm.

Every other time the team fell short. Um, they added McDuffie and Watson. They added Garrett, obviously, and probably Aaron Donald, which I think has been overrated by everybody because if he plays, it's gonna be in the Diggs 30 plays a game type thing.

Right.

In the playoffs, it'll matter, I think, more than it does during the regular season. Here's what's worse about them. Offensive line is unquestionably, I think shaky is fair, right?

Okay.

Depth, they don't have it. Puka had— we talked about this on the Fantasy Pod I did on Tuesday— Puka had just the weirdest 9 to 10 months you can have, and then was like, no, no, I'm fine, I went to rehab, and then walked through a glass door at Michael Rubin's wife's party.

He's been fun.

I don't know what to make of what's going on with him. Stafford's 38. I did this when I, when I had Pelissero on 2 weeks ago about 38 and up. It's basically 10 seasons that somebody's really come through. Yeah, I don't like the Australia game to start the year. Makes me nervous. And then they had the 13th pick in the draft and took Ty Simpson, who's not going to play.

Don't love him.

Special teams, always bad. Always seems to cost them 2 games. Alaric Jackson, is he gonna get suspended? Not suspended. That's their left tackle. I had them at 32 points for their roster. They play AFC West, NFC East. They have the most brutal 5 weeks of anyone to start the season. 49ers in Australia, Giants on Monday night, at Broncos, at Eagles, home Bills just to kick off. I couldn't get to 12 wins with them. I'm under.

They lose the OC, right? Michael LaFleur.

Yes, they lost him too.

I just, I can't.

Davante Adams gonna be 34.

I just, there's blue chippers all over the place. The one thing that screwed them was the special teams. And I feel like that's the easiest thing to fix, right? If you had one unit and they bring this guy in, Bubba Ventrone is now their special teams coordinator, who sounds like an '80s jobber, right? It sounds like he's gonna lose.

Bubba Ventrone sounds like somebody—

Bubba Ventrone.

Well, it's like Tony Barbieri would bring to the draft. My friend Bubba Ventrone's in town.

Well, I, I don't wanna get too excited. He might be a jobber because he, he was the special teams coordinator for Cleveland. Guess what place Cleveland finished?

Oh my God.

They, they were terrible. Special teams.

Yes.

I'm not going under. They figure out this offense. Corum and Kyren Williams had 2,000 yards combined and 19 touchdowns. They do the 2+ tight end set better than everybody. Right. I, I just, you know, I know 5, top 5 hardest schedule, but I don't think I, I can't put this team under 12 wins. I got 'em at 13-4.

Okay.

You said blue-chippers everywhere. I would counter and zag the other way and say it's a top-heavy team with a couple guys that worry me. Adams is right at the range when wide receivers do this. Puka, we talked about Stafford at age 38.

He gets rid of the ball so fast. I know, like it doesn't seem to matter.

I was between 11 and 12. I just thought I like the, I like the juice better for Under on FanDuel is +125 for the under 11.5. And I like another team more in this division is really what it came down to.

Really?

But this seems to me, we've seen this happen in football before when there's this much smoke being blown up the asses of a team and one bad thing happens or somebody gets injured or they lose some game they shouldn't lose. And that's all anyone talks about. It becomes the biggest story. And I, I just feel like there's such a big spotlight on this team. I still have them in the playoffs. I still think they're gonna be one of the 7 best teams.

But weren't they the scariest team last year? Like, weren't they the team you didn't wanna play forever, right? Even with Seattle got lucky in the, in the regular season game and that could have gone either way. You look at Byron Young, he had, he's the other edge. He had 12.5 sacks, he had 29 quarterback hits, and now he's gonna have free run at these quarterbacks with Myles Garrett probably would be double teamed. And I think the secondary will be better because Myles Garrett This double team schedule's really rough. Are they still favored?

And like, by the way, this division plays the AFC West and the NFC East, right? So you get the 3 good AFC West teams and the Eagles and the Cowboys. So that could be 5 tough games, not to mention all the other stuff we, we said.

That O-line allowed 23 sacks, I think, which is still, it was the least.

So somehow they do protect 'Cause he gets rid of the ball.

Yeah.

And then there's McVay. Um, I— the Ty Simpson pick was just so weird.

Yeah.

I'll never understand it. If you've like, on the one hand you're going all in for Garrett, and then the other hand you're like, ah, we gotta think about the future. You just traded all your picks for Myles Garrett.

It's also totally fine to have that mindset. Why would you use a 13th pick on a guy that everybody projected to be— was 3rd round at best?

That's the part I don't like.

They could have had Reuben Baines.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah. And Stetson Bennett's the backup, by the way. If you look at the depth chart, he's number 2 right now.

I thought that was so weird. So you're over. Okay.

I'm going over. I can't put this under.

Seattle Seahawks is over 10.5 for the defending champs, +220 for the division. Please mark that one. One of my favorite bets. I don't understand how, um, they are 2-to-1 odds to win the division and the Rams are dead even. Go figure. Playoffs -215, number 1 seed +650, best record 8-1, 12+ wins I have in bold +155, 13+ wins is +280. Um, okay, I haven't done this the whole podcast. What are we, hour 48?

6 hours, 12 minutes.

I haven't talked about the New England Patriots yet.

Oh, you did talk about the Red Sox.

Yeah. And something about the Wizards.

That was your first interjection I didn't like. Um, New England Patriots, we win the Super Bowl the second time they beat the Panthers, right? Uh-huh. '03, end up winning the Super Bowl in '04 as well. And between '03 and '04, what happened? Everybody's like, eh, Colts, it's Colts year, here it comes, Colts, Colts, Colts, Colts, Colts. What happened? The Pats, I think they won 21 straight over the, over the 2 years, which was a record. Um, they put together the back-to-back, like 14-2, 15-1. I can't even remember, it was so long ago. Um, they went in and put the smackdown on the Colts again. I love that. It's a very rare occasion where somebody won the Super Bowl and is also the nobody believes in us team. Wow. Just an amazing spot for them to be in. They win the Super Bowl, everyone's like, eh, Rams, Rams, Rams, Rams. These guys brought everybody back. Everybody.

Not everybody.

Well, they lost Woolen.

How about the Super Bowl MVP?

They lost Walker, but they drafted Price from Notre Dame to be whatever. But when I did my roster, they had the most roster rankings, most points, 38. I had 7 guys on their defense that got points, which is by far the most. Not to mention their special teams are awesome.

Yeah.

Dixon and Shaheed both got points for me on that. They have one of the best receivers in the league, if not the best. I think the price thing we talked about in the fantasy, I think he's gonna be good. I don't think they're gonna lose anything. And then McDonald was the best coach in the league last year. I'll give you that. This is a team that should have gone 19-0. The games they lost, they easily could have won. They kind of blew. And I think they're better than the Rams. I really— I've thought— I felt this the whole summer. It's not a zag. I genuinely think they're better. And I love that everybody's saying the Rams are better. I think this is perfect.

I think there's a real back-to-back case for Maybe I'm just bored with Hard Knocks 'cause they put, spent like 20 minutes on Sam Darnold's spiral.

Yeah.

The other day. And I was like, all right, enough. But I, my counter is how the F did this team win the Super Bowl? Sam Darnold went from 12 interceptions to 14 interceptions. He was the most turned over player.

Yeah.

In the NFL last year. Their over-under was 7.5. This is remarkable what they did. Here's who has an over-under of 7.5 wins. The Steelers, Bucs, Saints, Colts. Would you bet any of those to make it past the divisional round?

Like, I mean, that, that was one of my big bets last year. We won all kinds of Seahawks futures.

I just don't know, you know, that second most giveaways, first team to have zero turnovers in the playoffs. It was a miracle that they had all these giveaways. They were awesome. And didn't do it. I think McDonald's great. I really do. I think that's the difference.

I think he's the best coach in the league.

Top 3 offense, top 3 defense. You could say whatever you want. You could explain it away. He is great. 15-2 on the road in the last 2 years. They don't take any games off. They play hard for him.

Never real home field advantage.

I just think it's tough to do. They lose the Super Bowl MVP. All the quarterback coordinators left with Kubiak, which is kind of a big thing. I don't know that—

Kubiak thing is the one piece that worries me.

Biggest.

Yeah. But I would argue he created this template that they're gonna continue to use.

No, he took that with him. No.

Okay.

All right. Yeah. They lost 3 starring defenders too.

So here's another thing. Yeah. So their schedule, which is hard but not quite as hard as you would think it would be, one of the best things to happen to them, they're playing the Patriots in the first game. The Patriots aren't gonna win that. I, I love the Patriots. We're not winning that game.

Button your shirt.

We're not winning that game. Who cares? It's a Super Bowl loser going back playing the Super Bowl winner. Like, we're, we're not winning that game. But later in the season, maybe we can go in there, but that's just like such a bad spot for the Pats. Um, they play the Chargers at home, they play the Cowboys, that's a Monday night at home. They play the Eagles in mid-December, right around when the Eagles start doing weird shit. And then they're at the Rams, but it's Week 18. They might not even need the game, right? Or they might really need to find time and 5 are at home.

So that definitely, that definitely helps.

There's some shit teams on this schedule too. Um, but I just—

so you don't think 14-11, like, that's where I have them. I have them 11-6. still good too.

Well, the over's 10.5, so.

Right. Okay. I mean, it's an over, so there you go.

It's good over.

I have them at 13-4.

Mm-hmm.

And I like the 13+ wins at +280. I like the 1 seed at +650. I like all, I like, I'm bullish on all of these. How about, I think it's gonna be surprising every time they lose. Sure.

What about Terry and Arnold karma?

I didn't love that.

I don't get it.

But how that didn't stop the Chiefs as they had 14 weird things happen over 5 years.

I mean, no, I get it.

I just don't know. I don't believe in football karma anymore because the Chiefs like defied it.

Well, why?

I guess kind of the Patriots did too since we had a double murderer on our team. Oh yeah, yeah, I didn't.

And we're gonna see with the Ravens with the Max Crosby thing because that was ridiculous too. But, um, why do you do— why do the Lions have to cut them and then another team could just get them and it's fine?

I just think there's no honor in football. Okay. The, they lost their 2nd rounder Bud Clark, who wasn't supposed to start, but was like important for their backup stuff. It really, if Price can be 95% what Walker was, and the Seahawks fans, I think all really liked Walker, but also didn't 100% trust him because he was never, he'd always have some weird banged up in some way.

Charbonnet's a little hurt too, right?

Charbonnet's a little hurt. So if Price is a bust, I don't think he's gonna be.

So I mean, I'm just saying, how Darnold wasn't all that. It was a remarkable run, but statistically it was improbable.

And yet they, they did it.

Yeah.

That's the—

I'm gonna walk you through this really quick.

Mm-hmm.

There's a world where they're 10-0 after 10 weeks.

Wow.

I think you can make a case they're favored in every one of these games.

Let's find this.

Pats week 1, at Cards, at Commanders. I think that's 3-0. Chargers, 49ers at home, they're gonna be favored in both of those. At Broncos on a Thursday night, might not be favored on that. That's week 6. Chiefs, Bears home, Cardinals home, at Raiders week 10.

Then the bye.

And the bye. Yeah, I think that, that— I think they're gonna be 9-1 or 10-0. I have them 8-2, but I feel like I'm taking crazy pills with the Seahawks. I— their roster is so fucking loaded. And the only thing you can say is, oh, they won last year, they're gonna— it's the year after. It's like nobody's picking them or talking about them and everyone's moved on to the Rams. I think they'd see it and notice it.

Good team. We more or less agree. It's, it's an over, right?

Yeah. But you like the Rams more?

I do.

There you go. See, put that on your bulletin board, Mike McDonald. Cousin Sal, year 20. San Francisco 49ers over 9.5. Division +340. I would not recommend that. Super Bowl 17-1. 12+ wins +230. Playoffs -134. Not to make it +114, House. Under 8.5 wins +190 if you're really banking on the year from hell. Last year they were 12-5 and nobody understood it as it was happening. What if? We already know this is the year from hell team.

You can argue they were the year from hell team last year. There's no preseason.

Let me give you some stuff.

Go ahead.

Kyle Shanahan, terrible car accident covered up. We still don't know what happened and got a severe concussion, right? Bad start. Big little scandal over there. Jed York, owner, sitting in a trailer park in Ohio.

Say it without laughing.

Allegedly paying for a prostitute. Had that happen. Ricky Pearsall, they lost for the year. George Kittle tore his Achilles in 2026 in January. He's just gonna come back and be George Kittle again. He's in his early 30s now. Uh, Fred Warner coming off a really bad, uh, knee injury. Is it knee injury or ankle?

It was knee, I thought.

McCaffrey, they struck oil with him last year. There's a lot of advanced stats against him. They, they're rolling the dice with Evans and Deebo together.

Mm-hmm.

2 guys that they didn't wanna sign Deebo.

They're like, well, please, what do we have to do?

Please don't. Please. We can't do this.

Everybody's hurt.

And they have an electrical substation that might be fucking up all their players next to the thing. Yeah. I'm out.

Let's go. Let's talk about that electrical substation.

Yeah.

Why can't they move? It's a practice facility, right? Just let's see what happens. Maybe everybody's wrong, but move for a year. It can't cost too much money to move those players.

If I own the team, I would move the practice facility.

Just, just move it.

Yeah.

Move it to a trailer park in whatever, whatever you have to do. Buy a mobile home.

Maybe that's why, maybe he was scouting locations.

Exactly. That's what I would've said if he was smart enough.

I was looking at him. Ohio, it's not that far from San Francisco.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Short flight.

Here's my counter. I think they're bulletproof with these injuries.

Oh, it's, it's very fair.

They had 74 player injuries before week 1 last year.

Yeah.

And they were still, they could've won the division. They were playing Seattle. What was it? Week 17. Like they were up right to win that division. So they would've been in the mix. It's very weird.

Very weird what, what happened. I, I didn't, listen, this is not a lock for me. I would, I did a very tiny under at, at 9-8. It's +115 on FanDuel, so there's a little juice on it. But they're either gonna be 10-7 or 9-8.

I had 'em at 11. I have 'em 11-6.

Oh wow.

Yeah.

I would not do that.

Miami, Arizona, home for Denver, I think could be 3 wins be outside of that Rams game. They go third. They've, they travel more than anyone else. I'll say that like 38,000 miles. Which has never been seen before.

I had the roster at 26 points, which says they're gonna be a playoff team, but doesn't account for the fact that they're in a division with probably the 2 best teams in the conference. O-line's a little above average. Defense should be okay. Shanahan, assuming he's recovered from his mysterious car accident, is still a top 5 or 6 coach. I guess the question for me, can they be 3-2 after 5 weeks at Rams in Australia? Dolphins, Cardinals, Broncos, all at home, right? At Seahawks. Feels like that should be 3-2.

3-2.

You're not—

you're 3-2 at that point. Now I need to go 8-5 the rest of the way to get there. I still get to play the Falcons. I get the Raiders, get the Giants. I get the Cardinals in Week 18. Minnesota.

We're home against Washington.

Minnesota.

Minnesota.

Yeah. Yeah, winnable games for sure.

Yeah, it's— I'm probably wrong, but I, I just— when there's this much bad juju before we're not even 2 weeks away from the season, what else is gonna happen? And then everybody's like, Stribling looks great, he's gonna be an impact guy right away. When are rookie receivers impact guys? When does that happen?

Well, would you say Ted McMillan was a—

Yeah, as the year went along. All right, but it took a while, and it was really like down the stretch. They need him like in week 1 to be 7 catches, 100 yards. Yeah, like somebody's getting paid $20 for him in our—

You guys talked about it fantasy yesterday, the day before, Purdy quietly like top 10 whenever he's—

He's really good, you know.

So they have like 70% pre-snap motion plays, and it's still, to give Shanahan credit, has not been solved by these defenses.

I might change my pick.

Well, you don't want to give up all these top-heavy wins, but we get to Arizona next and we could just bombs away on them.

What do you think, House? House might swing my pick here.

I like the San Francisco 49ers for 10 wins. I'd like them over this upcoming season. That schedule has too many built in. Them getting Washington and the Giants, I think I'm gonna change my pick. 2 Arizonas, you're gonna change. And then, and Shanahan always, I mean, what Shanahan did to the Eagles in the first round of the playoffs, that's like a reminder that, you know, he can come in and scheme against excellent teams.

Mac Jones won.

I really wanted to hold strong here and I just can't.

It's okay.

10 wins for them.

We'll tee off on the Cardinals and it'll, it'll all make sense.

Right.

Can I figure out how to pick them for 10 wins but not make the playoffs? Maybe I'm gonna try to do that.

Hold on.

Can I do that? 79 Rams. Oh, I can do that. Okay. I had them 10 wins but missed the playoffs. Yeah.

I love this. I was up to like 2 in the morning the other night meticulously going, then you're like, ah, I'm gonna change my pick here.

What am I doing?

Hey, listen, you can do it.

It's America.

Playoffs plus 114 to miss. So I'm gonna go over, but they're 10 and 7 and they're in a tiebreaker with somebody that I don't know.

The tiebreaker will be with Dallas. Dallas.

I was just gonna say that.

There you go.

Yeah.

Yeah. So if they lose at Cowboys week 10, ooh, that's gonna cause them—

that's the playoff spot.

There we go.

Favorite in 12 games.

Shanahan's beat the hell outta Dallas.

I have under—

shut up, pal.

Last year, last year I lost.

Go eat something.

The money I lost last year on futures was multiple Niners bets on the under. They went over. And then the Chiefs, which killed all of us.

Right.

The Chiefs like that. Talk about Netflix true crime. That could have been like the Idaho Killers, the, the 2025 Chiefs. Just murdering everybody who loves division. I will do no division parlays this year. I only made one parlay to win the division.

Oh really? But you'll do this 1st to 4th bullshit?

But that— those are like big odds. I'm saying like in the past you would— yeah, you would call me like on August 20th and be like, hey Simmons, doing a Cousins—

I don't like this at all.

Hey Simmons, if we do Bills-Chiefs Rams, all for the playoffs, +112.

Who fucks us?

That's—

what is that?

That's, that's you committing a burglary.

Yeah, it was very breathy.

But we would do these 3-teamers to make the playoffs.

We're always in.

And the Chiefs were like, we'll throw them in, they're gonna make it every year for the rest of our lives.

Yeah, right.

And then they went 6-11.

Yeah, we called it the KCD, right? Like a CD, like you save for the future.

The reason I brought that up, I think Houston and Seattle both to make the playoffs is my favorite one of those. That's like +120 on FanDuel, something like that. Just Houston and Seattle will make the playoffs. Put your Profit Boost token 50% add on that. I just don't see how that gets fucked up. Like CJ Stroud would really like have to turn into a Deshaun Watson level collapse.

You have 30 wins between those teams. Yeah.

Yeah.

It would take a lot.

Yeah. I think House is nodding.

Well, it's because we talked about this some on our gambling show, the direction the league is going where defense is becoming much more sticky than year over year. And you just named 2 of the best defenses in the entire NFL.

And that's been a recurring theme for me with these futures is defenses and offensive lines. And If, if you have a really good version of one or both, I'm in. And in this case, Seattle has an above-average offensive line and I think the best defense in the NFC. I think Houston has the best defense. All right, last one. Arizona Cardinals over 3.5. These are really tough historically when teams are just supposed to be bad. Yeah. Division, they're 100-to-1. Playoffs, they're 20-to-1. If you wanna bet them not to make the playoffs, it's 71. So don't do that.

70. So I have to borrow $7,000 from you to win $100,000? Yeah. Yeah.

I'll give it to you when you leave.

All right. Thank you.

Worst record, +250. Last year they were 3-14.

Yeah.

This year, if you're picking them to go under, you're gonna say they go 3-14 again. And my question for you is, what if they start out 0-11? Do you still feel good about the under 3.5? It's great because 'Cause they're gonna start at 0-11. Yeah.

There, there's an 0-5 thing on FanDuel, a number for that, for them to start 0-5. And I love that.

And now I can't remember— Does FanDuel have the bet where it's like, who's gonna be the last team that has a win? To win?

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Can you find that for us, Alex?

Yeah, Alex, please.

That's a good one.

I think that's Arizona 'cause they go at Chargers, Seahawks, at Niners, at Giants, home Lions, at Rams, Broncos, at Cowboys, at Seattle, Rams, at Chiefs.

I have them 1-10. Yeah.

Are they gonna be disgusting getting less than 7 points in any game other than the Giants game? No, the Giants will probably be like +4.5 or—

They're, they're not favoring any games, right? Zero games. Look, this is a stupid, stupid franchise. Not, not billionaire seeking out a hooker for $140 stupid. Yeah. But I mean, to, to draft a running back who was already banged up with a draft cap, first round draft capital when you don't even have a quarterback. First of all, that running back is gonna be wasted for at least 2 years.

They ran him 14 fucking times.

Awful.

In, in the first preseason game. And he looked awesome, by the way.

And you don't—

now he's fucking hurt.

But you don't have a quarterback. Like, you have to at least have a quarterback signed. Instead, you have Jacoby Brissett who holds this team hostage for most of the summer. He's like, hey, I'm 1-11 with you guys. You definitely need me back. You see what I could do in garbage time, right? That's why my stats aren't completely miserable. You know what it is with Brissett. I can't believe—

Brissett was so bad with us 2 years ago, but he was pretty good in garbage time last year.

That's all it is.

It's fine. They had all those games lost before he did it. They were 0-6 against the NFC West. This sounds like a lock for you. I, you can't lock a 3 though, because you have to be, you have to give them 2 wins then.

But here's the thing.

I went 3-14.

I did as well. Yeah. But you're not gonna lock that?

Killer division. I'll lock it. Yeah. Zero games, played the toughest schedule. I don't see how any of this works out for Michael LaFleur. Oh, and by the way, Nate, Nate Hackett, Private Eye, is the OC, our guy.

We should have mentioned that sooner. Um, the Love pick was just malpractice, even though I know everybody likes him, but I—

That's fine.

They're like super deep at running back because they also signed Tyler Allgeier for some reason, right? So it's like, hey, we have some awesome running backs, it's cool. Every other position is below average.

Yeah. The coach didn't believe it. What was it? It was the OC who said, yeah, he's a rookie. What'd he say about Love? Yeah, he's a rookie. And, oh, I'm excited to see James Conner and Allgeier compete. Like, he doesn't even get it.

I had them for roster rankings. I had them for 6 points and McBride was 3 of them. Baker, I gave a 2 and I gave Marvin Harrison a 1. I'm not, it's, or Probably him or Wilson is a 1 combined maybe.

Right.

But I just think they're gonna get smoked. I mean, Sharp, Sharp did these—

Oh, pretty colors.

Sharp did these graphs for some of the teams and it's the win total projections and they're just all at the top for 11 weeks.

Like, it's the hardest schedule in the league.

Yeah, because they don't have to play them. They can't—

they don't get to play themselves.

Yeah, yeah. That's why this has been a hard, I think, summer to figure out all this stuff, because sometimes the hardest schedule in the league you want to a team, like, it gets— give it to like San Francisco, and then it's like, oh yeah, now, right?

But they're gonna go 0-6 again because they can't go 0-8. Yeah. And in the division, I, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't know what it— I mean, the best thing you could hope for is like Carson Beck steps up and looks good for, for next year or something.

I'm gonna make my annual plea. Maybe gonna look at my camera for a second, but then look back at Sal and then go back.

You have your own camera. Where is it?

My camera's there. Your camera's there.

Okay.

We're just gonna get fucked 3 Sundays this year where there's 2 games in the afternoon window. One's a blowout and the other's the Cardinals losing by 38 points in the second quarter.

Mm-hmm.

It makes me so mad. They should never, there should not be one situation this year where the Cardinals are one of 2 games in the late window. Right. We have to at least have 3. Protect us. Protect us, NFL. Don't, don't just leave us hanging in the toilet with no toilet paper with the Cardinals. Wow. Just wondering, hey, can you give me some toilet paper?

Right.

Like, like, think about us. Think about the fans.

Yeah. Spare a square.

How about this? I'm gonna use your camera too.

No, use your camera. Your camera's right here.

Yeah. Yeah. Goodell, petition the Cardinals to move to like Arkansas. So they could play the 10:00 AM Pacific time.

Oh yeah. Move to the East Coast.

Yeah. So put 'em with the garbage games there.

Can they switch with an AFC team that we like in the East Coast?

Yeah. The, the Bills. Yeah.

Or put the Bills on the West Coast. That'd be amazing.

Yeah.

How's 90 seconds on the NFC West?

I have the Seattle Seahawks winning the division at 12 wins. Right behind them, the LA Rams. Right behind them, San Francisco at 10 wins. And Arizona to win worst record, that's the correct play for sure. It's between them and Miami. You'll be able to hedge it out at the very end.

'Cause we're gonna have the tanking stuff too.

Yeah.

There's been like 3 quarterbacks everybody's gonna want.

That's exactly right.

Right.

So other than, than Arizona, good division. We're gonna see great games in between those 2 teams, those 3 teams. They always, you know, round robin it between the 3 of them.

So you're just not scared of the San Francisco bad juju at all?

I mean, 10 wins. That's, that's a step backwards from last season.

You have more wins for the NFC North or the NFC West?

I think, I think I'm dead even, although I might have added a win with San Francisco. Screwed up on my math.

Oh yeah, come on. Okay.

So our locks—

That's a fun thing for FanDuel. You could do the one division more than the other. And West is—

I was trying to get them to do NFC, like biggest The parlay, most wins in one division, least wins in the other division. But you, do you think the NFC West has the most wins?

I think I did. I lost that one of 60 sheets here that I can't find. But yeah, well, I have the 3 double-digit.

Well, 'cause the most wins, I had this, I had this somewhere. The most wins.

I have 39 for the NFC West and yeah, 37.

So I had trouble getting to 40 wins in any division in my laying it all out. Last year, the winner was the NFC West with 41. That was the most wins, right? In '24, the NFC North had 45 wins.

Wow.

2023, the AFC North had 43. And then in 2022, the NFC East had 43. So history tells us we're between 41 and 43, basically. And I couldn't get to 40 anywhere. So maybe it's this one. Who knows? Okay, to recap, Let's recap the locks. So you only had 2 locks?

I think I had 2, right?

Yep. You had Arizona.

Cardinals under and Giants under.

Those were your 2.

To me, I think if we were gonna do a playoff parlay, let's do a not make the playoff parlay. Every year we do a to make the playoff parlay and then it seems like 2 and 4 and we're out.

We can work on that for part 2. Yes. I have Dallas over 9.5, Washington under 7.5, Tampa over 8.5, Atlanta under 7.5, Seattle over 10.5. I'm calling it right now. That's gonna be 5 and 0. Wow.

Yeah. Okay.

Vandal, put that, put that on your, on your site. My 5, 5-team parlay of win total overs and unders.

Say it to my camera now.

Vandal. Okay. And we think the NFC champion is going to be the LA Rams. I have the Seattle Seahawks. I will say I thought long and hard about picking your team, but I felt like you were gonna walk out and not do part 2.

It's so funny.

If I had taken Dallas, I think you would've left.

I have Dallas.

You'd be like, you motherfucker, how can you do this to me?

Dallas is a 3 seed over Seattle is my first round pick. And I have the Rams beating the Packers in the NFC Championship. Hmm.

The only thing we know for sure is Tampa will be the 4 seed ready to play either Seattle or the Rams. Tampa already is getting 5 points in the wildcard game even though they haven't played yet.

It's the only line they have, playoff line there.

House, what was your favorite lock?

Uh, the Atlanta. I'm so super out on Atlanta.

Okay, that's it for part 1, which we were happy to do live here on Netflix. Um, on Sunday we're going to have part 2, which is going to be the AFC. Same format, same strategy. We're gonna take a break, um, maybe get some drinks Thanks to Kahal. Thanks to Eduardo. Thanks to Fanduel. Thanks to everybody behind the scenes at The Ringer. Thanks to Farah. Thanks to Don Johnson, still smoking the same cigarette. Thanks to Farah. Um, and I will see you for the AFC. Can't wait. Must be 21+ and present in select states. For Kansas, in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino, or 18+ and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Opt-in required bonus issued as non-withdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration, max wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Game problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Call 888-789-7777 or visit ccgambler.com. org/chat in Connecticut or mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelpline.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts, or call 877-HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York. For Louisiana, call 877-770-7867.